SOAR - Book One: DEAD HEROES

CHAPTER 4: MARS, DINOSAURS, AND ZOMBIES

4

MARS, DINOSAURS, AND ZOMBIES

Iris was sitting in her blue swivel chair wondering what she should do. Moments ago, a loud siren began to wail causing Flynn, Wire, Korwyn, and Locke to jet out of the room. She didn’t know what the siren meant and thus was left confused as to what actions she should take. She was in a completely alien land – as far as she understood, another dimension – and was alone.

The patter of footsteps and the whir of the door made her look up. Flynn was standing there with his red tie loosened, panting. “Raine… Aren’t you coming?!”

Iris’ mouth broke into a smile and she jumped out of the swivel chair and ran to Flynn.

The two of them ran through the white room that produced memories of fish, roses, and annoyance from Iris. They reached the door and it slid open for them soundlessly, revealing the clear corridor. Iris tried to make her steps lighter, but at the speed Flynn was going at, her sneaker-clad feet were slapping at the floor carelessly in order to keep up. They reached the door and Flynn pushed it open, exposing the dirty staircase. They both rushed down the stairs and reached its base, finding Wire, Locke, and Korwyn waiting.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to run down the stairs?” Locke asked in a cheeky voice.

Iris was tired and in no mood for his attitude so she replied dully, “No, I’ve never met my mother.”

It shut him up.

Wire ignored Iris and Locke’s little exchange and instead turned upon the subject of the current situation, walking towards the teleport chamber as he did so.

“As you had asked before we were interrupted by the siren, we are SOAR. If you are wondering what it means, it doesn’t mean anything. A certain idiot in our group just thought that it would sound cool.”

At that, everyone glanced at Flynn.

“Anyways, we are what outer Earthians would call a special operations team, sanctioned by the Core’s government. Our job is to take care of all of those little problems Time was unable to fix, for example, that shadow on your wall. Since the Core and all of its citizens are people who exist out of Time’s grasp, we become the perfect people to re-create disasters and make them a little less tragic or if we’re lucky, stop them completely. Considering the government can’t just start sending civilians out into space, untrained and clueless, they created SOAR. Luckily, we get to decide who we hire and the government doesn’t go poking about in our business that often.”

“Wait a second… You’re special ops… aren’t those people supposed to be, like, shrouded in mystery and classified?” Iris asked.

Wire nodded, “Yes.”

Iris quirked an eyebrow, “Then where are you guys taking me?”

Flynn began to laugh, “Where do you think we’re taking you, Raine?”

Iris shrugged her shoulders, “Don’t I know too much? If special ops down here are the same as the ones on outer Earth, then that would mean that I know too much, I might start talking.”

Flynn grabbed her shoulders and looked her in her in the eyes with a grim look set on his face. “You can, but you won’t, right?”

Iris averted her eyes from Flynn’s piercing glare and instead looked at the ground, “No…”

Flynn let go of her shoulders and smiled, “Great! So then,” The group had arrived at the teleport chamber’s doors. Flynn reached in front of all of them and pushed the door open, “What do you think about time travel?”