After Earth

Chapter 2: Breakfast And Broken Promises

          I almost thought that Rentie would be there when I woke up, her hair cascading over her shoulders as she yawned in my direction. Almost. The other side of the bed was empty, and the rising sun was taking it over. I stood up out of the blankets and started making my bed with my mind on start up mode. I was hungry, and I was almost certain that my last meal was at the prison. Everything there was a blur.
           I walked down the stairs. Nashi was snoring in her room, and I peaked in to see her buried under her sheets. She was... just a giant human ball all scrunched up in one piece. I shut her door as I searched the kitchen for food to make for breakfast. The place... was packed with edibles, which was saying a lot since we had food shortages everywhere in remaining America. I took my chances with the pancakes and bacon.
            As much as Rentie bragged about it, I was the better chef. Acki always told me that he preferred me to cook, and I smiled at the thought as I cracked an egg open into the mix. i wasn't sure if Nashi cared for breakfast food, but I wasn't going to make her wait for it. I made two pancakes and four strips of bacon just for her.
           And I sat at the bar with butter and syrup at the read. Slowly, footsteps creaked down the hall. A yawn. A face. Nashi immediately sniffed the air only to scowl as she saw me. I assumed I wasn't a pretty sight, but I didn't care. I began to eat into my pancake.
           She sat down next to me despite the scowl. Her body was a whole slump of flesh not wanting to move all that much. Her eyes were slits as she slathered butter and syrup haphazardly onto her plate. She reminded me of Acki. He hated waking up, hated even moving a limb before going off to school. But, I was a patient father, so I left him to his devices before taking him to school. But Nashi wasn't my son. I couldn't coddle her to school, so I just turned to my plate with a frigid body.
           "You woke me up with this smell," Nashi grunted. "I thank you for that."
           "Um, you're welcome?" I giggled for a second. "I didn't know what you would like, so I made pancakes and bacon."
            "I appreciate it." She stared at the open cabinets of food for a second. "My husband had made me breakfast almost all the time. I used to joke about taking him to base just so he could make me breakfast."
            "Oh yeah? Acki joked about that with school. He always said I needed to make the food there so he wouldn't be so disgusted."
             We laughed for a second before falling into silence again. Soon, our breakfast was finished, and we placed our dishes in the sink. We had a few minutes to get ready until they signaled for us to leave. I hadn't taken a shower, but Nashi said that we would after they set us on trials. Again, I was still trying to figure out why Nolam wanted me. Didn't you have to be physically fit for this kind of stuff? I was as thin as a rail, and I barely at since the food shortages five years ago. I also wasn't... trained in anyway. Nashi just shrugged her shoulders and zoomed into her room to get dressed. I went to mine to find a closet full of jumpsuit-like uniforms with my name embroidered over my heart. VOTIPAE. It seemed to be a little much, but what did I know?
            The car came to our house. I expected a self-driving car, but someone was driving it. It surprised me, really. I hadn't driven a car since I was nineteen, and that was when cars were in abundance. Driving yourself was once mandatory, but I guess I just got accustomed to forgetting. The driver said nothing as he dropped us off at ASR. Aloven. Mostly everyone had already been rallied, and Nolam stood stock still as he watched Nashi and I approach the group. Nashi broke away from me. Naturally, she started talking to some people. NETTLES and ATTS were what their name tags revealed.
            Nolam eyed me. With a sudden move of his finger, he was calling me to approach him. I... did, and he took me into his embrace with one arm. He turned from the crowd.
             "How was your first night?" he whispered, his voice so low that I had to process it.
             "Fine," I whispered back.
             "Good. After the presentation, I would like to talk to you personally."
             "Is it bad?"
             "No. It's about other things."
               I hated being vague. I hated not knowing the truth. And maybe that's why I acted so rashly with Rentie. Not knowing and then suddenly knowing everything... It all hurt in my head. Nolam pushed me back into the crowd, and I fell behind everyone. Nolam began guiding us to an auditorium with a slideshow already being displayed. PROJECT ATTAS was displayed in a block-like font on some expensive holographic projector. No one was gaping their mouths as they saw it, but I was in amazement. Back in District 72, the best we had were holographic ads with a grainy filter. This... was something else.
               Everyone sat in their own kind of groups, but I sat far away. The screen was large and interact-able with a hand's touch. Nolam cleared his throat.
               "Today is your first day into Project Attas," Nolam started. "After today, I will merely become a shadow in your vision, a spectator to reality's finest. But this isn't about me. It's about you."
               There was no one to object Nolam's strange way of speaking.
               "Our planet is on the brink of extinction," Nolam continued. "The disease has taken the world by its throat and it is suffocating. The United States is in patches, and the strings can only hold us for so long."
               The picture changed to the planet. Attas. Attas was so livable, it was crazy that it even existed. And maybe we could have done it to any of the planets here in our Milky Way Galaxy, but that would take too much time. We could breathe there, we could live there. I... wanted to.
               "His name was Alaxier Ornerve. He was a part of the first installment of the Attas Project, and he was a part of a dozen like you." Nolam seemed deterred by that fact. "We didn't plan for the differences in the human body to react to things differently. Eleven soldiers... died. Their names are to remind us of that failure, but Alaxier survived. He thrives on Attas now, and we've researched genetic mutation much more. The first thing you must understand is that you won't all live through this. A human body, though made similar, is never and exact copy of itself. We've all grown with different experiences. So when I tell you that the end is near, do not believe that you are what it takes to get to Attas."
                A younger man with a line of freckles raised his hand. KAESSEH. "Doctor Nolam, I gotta ask. Why'd you bring a murderer on this team? Someone with that kind of aggression will surely fail."
             "Tayas Votipae is none of your concern, Backin. That goes for all of you. I don't want any discrimination against your team. They'll rely on you, and you'll rely on them," Nolam spat.            "Now, I need all of you to separate and find a nurse. They'll lead you to what will be your first shot."
              Nolam stared right at me. There were eleven nurses in the room, so it wasn't like I was going to find one for me anyway. Nolam wanted me. I exited my seat, gracefully walking up to the stage. He began to lead me down a hall covered in lights bright enough as the sun until he pulled me into a room of vials and papers scattered everywhere. His... office? A single monitor lied open on a tab with files of things I couldn't say without trouble. Nolam sat down with a syringe in his hand. We were to be injected with all kinds of things, I knew, but it was fluorescent purple. I found a chair and sat across from him as he messes around with his syringe.
                "Everyone else has their own supervisor. I took it upon myself to be yours," Nolam said.
                I blinked. "Why?"
               "You will not be administered the same shots or same training. That's why."
                My eyes focused on the syringe. "That sounds... illegal. I never agreed to being singled-out like this."
              "I understand that. I do. However, you're not the only one. There are others being randomly selected by their supervisors with this same treatment of character. They won't know, however."
              "And why would I?"
              "I decided that you should. No one will notice the changes. No one but the supervisors."
             A villain is the one that singles out the hero just to hinder the job that the villain created.
             I watched a show, and that line was sticking out to me right now. I had no choice but to give in. No choice but to let my arm be injected by whatever the fuck was in that tube. And Nolam approached with a carefulness that I kept feeling singled-out with. Nolam wanted only me to succeed. I saw that in his eyes as the purple liquid went into my system. Maybe I should have been afraid of that. No, instead I had felt anger brewing in my stomach.
             The truth was out of my reach, and I knew that it was going to take a while to grasp it.