He came back

   Trekking the archipelago was an adventure, there’s no other way to describe it. They had always been there, available for everyone to go and just take the challenge. Technically, they were a national park but getting the permission to walk through the islands and sail was not impossible to get. The only condition that could annoy people would be the fact that a guide sent by the government office in charge of national parks would have to get a seat in the group that would be crossing the islands.

 Amak was the name of our guide and he was only the third member in our small party. I was one of the others. The second member would be my husband, the person that had initially thought of the trip. He had been dreaming about it for many years, as he had been trekking the world with his parents since he was a little kid. They were ecologists; so travelling around the planet was a common thing for him. He had a birthday on Mount Everest and his parents wedding had taken place in the Australian desert.

 Somehow, he had ended up marrying to a person like me, someone that rarely travelled more than a hundred kilometers away from his birthplace. I had only flown on a plane three times in my life and they had all been moments of a certain character, like birthdays and special occasions for my family. I had met him in college and, to be honest, I had never really liked him. He had the attention of every single person at every moment, he was the one all girls fell in love with and all guys admired.

 It was just like that until the very last semester; when we were almost forced to interact do to the impending arrival of that dreaded moment when you have to make a final paper to sum it all up at the end of the career. The problem, which I now see as a blessing, was that we had similar projects and we were convinced to do the work together and surrender it as a duo, instead of doing it all by ourselves. So we had to start seeing each other often and it was then when everything changed.

 We started seeing each other differently and I discovered he had an image of me, as I had formed a picture of him. Of course, both ideas were not complete or accurate, so it was kind of interesting to uncover that slowly. We became friends after the first few months and then we really got to working on our thesis. We came up with a lot of things together and, by the end of all that process, we discovered we had something very precious between each other, something that was much more special than a newfound friendship. It was the time we knew more feelings were involved.

 After college we separated for a while though, because he needed to go back to his parents who were living in Nepal in that time. I was sure that he wasn’t coming back to the city, so I decided to just be a nice friend before he left. He didn’t say much during those days, preferring to be silent and a little bit distant. When he left, I caught myself crying sometimes, in the most strange places and moments. I just dried the tears and pretended nothing was going on, lying to myself because it was easier that way.

 To my surprise, he appeared in my life again six months later, after a long time without communicating to me. We agreed on talking on a bar and the moment I saw him I felt everything again, as if he had never left. It was strange, so I decided not to act on any feeling and just enjoy the moment. And we did. He told me new stories about his parents and also some of his own, helping people in remote areas and enjoying nature and life at tits fullest. He seemed to have had a great time there and it was obvious he wanted to be there.

 So I asked him why had he came back? It was obvious that he had everything he wanted back with his parents, traveling the globe and enjoying life near nature. And he now had a career to help himself and his family, so it did not make any sense to come back to a place he didn’t like or appreciate it beyond some friendships and the career he had gotten. I turned a bit angry as I said that, but I tried to control myself as much as I could. My voice trembled and my hands were shaking visibly.

 He did the worst thing he could have done in that moment: instead of talking, of explaining himself, he put his hand on mine. I jumped from my seat, almost knocking over my glass full of beer. Everyone turned around to look at me and I was too embarrassed, so I left him there on his own. I walked back to my house, not that far away from the place we had been drinking in. I was enraged and on the verge of crying, my fists tightly closed and my jaw closing violently as if I wanted to destroy my own teeth.

 However, he ran to get to me. Again, he grabbed me by the wrist and stopped me. Instinctively, I launched a punch towards him but he dodged it and made me get closer to him, in a weird hug that he forced at first but then I corresponded slowly. I finally cried and asked him again why he had come back to that place, to me. Again, he answered with no words, something I’ve learned that he likes to do quite often. He kissed me right then and there, in the middle of the street and of the night. It didn’t last long but it was enough for me to let my defenses down and finally get calm.

 And now, year later, he convinced me to travel like he once did. I had no commitment with nay kind of work or with anyone, so he convinced me to work with him and his parents and sometimes only with him. He was the kind of person that helped remote communities stand on their own two feet. He helped them communicate with the world and get access to everything they needed to survive. He convinced me to go with him and I accepted, feeling maybe I needed to change my life decisively.

 That trip crossing the islands was just part of the fun, something to do before and after helping people. The first night, we hugged tightly and Amak slept as if he had never done that before. I realized it couldn’t be that bad to be in the middle of the wilderness with the one person that came back to me, looking precisely for me. He loved me and I felt that every day I was with him, even if he made me do things I didn’t particularly liked doing. I guess he felt I was able to do all that and he wanted me to dare a bit.

 I spent all of those days holding his hands, sometimes for some minutes, sometimes for much longer. I realized I really loved that man and I loved the way he did things and how he trusted in me much more than I did myself. He made me feel better than special. He made me feel I was worth it.

Vigilante

   A skin tight suit might have been her best choice for the work she had ahead of her, but it wasn’t the kind of clothing she would use in her daily life. God knows that Clementine Avery would never wear such a scandalous piece of clothing and that’s not even considering the fabric! It was a kind of leather that molded itself to her body, which made her very self conscious but, again, it came in handy for situations that involved a lot of physical activity and the like. It was just what she needed, even if it wasn’t really her.

 Walking around in alleys and rooftops, Clementine eventually grew accustomed to her new skin and also to her newfound sexuality. She would hide her body before, but the suit had granted her an unexpected weapon and that was her own body and what she could do with it. Men would look at her ass and boobs for a bit too long, and she would take that time to tackle them, put them on a headlock and submit them, to ask a few questions or maybe to make them see who was in charge at that moment.

 However, and mostly during the day, she would still be Clemmy for her grandma and grandpa, the people who had helped raised her. Her parents had died in a plane crash years ago, and Clementine had been the only survivor. She was still called a “miracle baby” by some and she hated it. From a very early age, she understood that it was best to go unnoticed, and that’s why her sexuality was not something she explored until she was an adult and realized that she needed to do something to help people.

 When she first donned her uniform, Clementine was investigating the lawyer firm that wanted to take her grandparents house from them. True, they weren’t as liquid with money as they were in the past, but her grandfather had always paid the mortgage. She knew about this because she helped pay every single month, with the various jobs she head during her teenage years and then when she went to college. Her parents had saved for her education and wellbeing but her grandparents refused to use that money to pay anything for them.

 There were always long discussions about that subject with them and would always end up in hugs and kisses and possibly some ice cream, without them really acknowledging how much they actually needed that help. So Clementine worked hard, in part for them but also to have some money for herself and start saving for the unforeseeable future. She had no idea what to do in the future but she was aware that her parent’s money would not last forever. And problems always arose for people like her, so it was a good idea to work. And after that, it was a good idea to do more.

 Of course, the whole suit thing didn’t happen overnight. It was an idea she ultimately had after watching one of those vigilantes save some people from a fire on the news. Some people were not really into them but their grandparents were absolutely thrilled that some people had taken it upon themselves to help others, even if it was when wearing a mask and some other ridiculous attire. All of that gave her the idea that she could sneak in places and talk to people in order to really know what was happening with her grandparent’s house.

 At first, she only used clothes that hid her identity, but after a while it felt a little bit too silly to wear a hoodie and sunglasses. Eventually, people would find out who she was, if they had a brain. So she decided to wear a mask she had personalized herself and then came the first uniform and eventually she got to put on the skintight suit, which wasn’t her idea. Actually, it wasn’t her idea either when one her best friends discovered what she was doing.

 Adele worked with her and they had always been closed, or as close as you can be when you’re working and doing things at all times. Nevertheless, it wasn’t too hard for her to decipher Clementine’s secret identity. Clem was scared of her reaction but her friend just wanted in an all of the “nighttime fun”. She explained that it wasn’t something funny or enjoyable, but her friend was too over the moon to listen to anything she said. So Clementine told her everything about her first, and so far, only mission.

 It was Adele’s idea to change the outfit, to make Clementine more agile when encountering foes and also much more effective when avoiding people. The costume was completely designed by her friend, who had realized what Clem was doing precisely because she saw the same clothes her friend wore one day on the news the following night. She could be a little bit distracted and dense, but Adele understood the position her friend was in and swore to help her in whatever way she could. She felt very excited.

 Clementine had gotten a lot of paperwork that revealed something was wrong but she didn’t understand all of the terminology. Adele tried to help, but neither of them was a lawyer or anything close to it. It was Adele’s father, a retired public official, that checked the papers without them knowing and just asked his daughter about them. He explained that those papers basically gave properties away to that law firm by bypassing several laws with a special close that had not been revealed to the mortgage payers in the first place, as the law firm had bought the contracts illegally. It was surprising for the girls to hear it all in such a simple way.

 Eventually, Clementine got more evidence and she was able to put the law firm in very big legal troubles. They were forced by a court to give up all the contracts they had acquired illegally and an investigation was started to clarify how it all had happened. Her grandparents were beside themselves with happiness, and so were so many others of their neighbors. Of course, none of them ever knew what had really happened behind the scenes or how the evidence had really appeared in the judge’s private office.

 Some people did associate the vigilante they had seen in the news a couple of times with the case of the law firm, but that was it. Clementine felt really stupid for that because her other persona was not supposed to be known at all, but she had felt, at times, the need to help others and that’s why she had gotten to the news. It was kind of fun for her when, at the start, only drawings from the witnesses could be done and she looked like a very sexualized superhero. She thought it was fun and also good they were way off.

 In time, someone actually came up with a recording of her saving some people from getting mugged and there were even some pictures from security cameras of her entering the law firm’s building, and that’s how everything got tied up. After her grandparents’ problem ended, she decided not to wear the mantle ever again, which Adele thought was a mistake. She didn’t understand that it was something dangerous and potentially deadly. Clementine could get killed or someone could get killed because of her.

 For Adele, it was all just fun and interesting. She explained to her friend that she was now someone important in the community, someone that looked after the ones that no one cares about and that’s way she was such a key part of what was going on in the city. But Clementine decided not to pay attention because she knew that not much was required for her to become addicted to what she had done before. She had felt the rush going through her body and just knew that it could be something too attractive.

 Trying to get away form all of it, she went back to her studies and her work but something always bothered her. It was as if she had a fly or a bee inside her skull and it wouldn’t stop annoying her unless she thought about how exhilarating it all felt when she uncovered the truth and she fought injustice.

 When you’re hooked, you just are. So when a young woman was about to get raped near Clementine’s house, she put on her costume and kicked that man’s ass like there was no tomorrow. She saved the girl, who asked who or what she was. Clem then realized she had never decided on a name for her other self.

Chernobyl

   Chernobyl orchid. That was the name chosen for the first plant ever discovered outside our planet. Some thought it was a very distasteful thing to name the first living plant outside of the Earth, but the astronaut that made the discovery was not a botanist and couldn’t really think of anything better to name it. After all, it suited the flower perfectly, as well as its surroundings. Even those who weren’t thrilled by the name would concede that, overlooking the obvious, the name was pretty much accurate.

 The plant was found living in the Saturn’s moon Titan. It was once thought that no living organisms could live there, as the place looked more like the grimiest factory on Earth than like a the paradise one would associate with space travel. There were several lakes there made entirely with gasoline and kerosene and the air seemed thick, even through the spacesuits. The astronauts didn’t like to be wandering around there at all but they had to in order to take pictures and collect rock samples.

 It was just as they did that when they discovered the Chernobyl, almost hiding beneath a big mound of rocks that had formed something like a cave. Inside, the flower seemed to be trying to live, making an effort not to die in such a horrible environment. It was an impressive plant, as its leaves reminded astronauts of orchids but it lacked the beauty of those flowers. It didn’t have any bright colors, except for small yellow pustules beneath the leaves. The rest was black, black as night. And its most impressive characteristic was that it glowed in the darkness of its cave.

 That’s how they discovered it. Someone was using the special goggles to analyze rocks and when they turned their head, they were able to register the glow of the plant. So every single astronaut there, five in total, almost ran to the spot and started taking pictures. After a while, they just stared because they realized how important that discovery was. No one in the history of humanity had ever made such a discovery and, it was likely, than another of that kind would take many years to happen.

 Even looking so grim, even sickly, the Chernobyl was a bright new light in their investigation around the cosmos. It was delicate enough to look like a flower, to have developed like one. But it was strong enough to live in an environment where oxygen was almost non-existent and were fuel was the prime composition of the surroundings. After the shock, everyone took pictures with the plant, some smiling and some pretending they were just discovering it. It was their moment to be silly for a while.

 That ended when they heard the first explosion. Once they were all outside, they saw the second one. The rovers they had sent had burst into flames, collapsing under the components of the atmosphere. It wasn’t like normal explosions but more like something getting caught on fire. It was scary and it reminded them that they had just the time to get back to their lander and return to their ship, which was probably over them right that moment. They doubted for a bit, wanting to stay a little bit more.

 However, their two fellow astronauts in the ship warned them about the time they had and how the atmosphere was getting a bit crazy because the sun was starting to get brighter in the region where they had landed. So they needed to be fast and careful not to disturb their surroundings more than the necessary amount. They carried the rock samples to the lander, as well as various test tubes filled with gasoline from at least five of the nearby lakes. They would leave only one probe, the one attached to a balloon.

 When almost all of them made it to the lander, someone asked about the Chernobyl. That question made everyone freeze on the spot. They hadn’t really thought about taking the plant to their ship, as it was something that was explicitly forbidden by their rules. However, they had all seen that the plant was not going to survive for much longer in that cave and taking it could be the only way to save a species from extinction. It was a moral dilemma they had no time to think about in those moments.

 So as it often happens, someone made the choice before the rest. One of the astronauts, who felt able to run back to the cave in a jiffy, turned around and pulled away from the lander as fast as he could. No other astronaut even tried to stop him. They were all thinking the same thing and, even if they weren’t sure about letting an unknown species into their ship, they felt it was the right thing to try and save something that could not be saved in any other way. So they watched and waited for a while.

 The atmosphere was getting worse, all of their outfits warning about the possibility of intoxication if they didn’t protect themselves properly by getting into a room that could shield them from danger. The only room like that was the lander itself but they couldn’t takeoff without one of their own. They waited and waited until they couldn’t do it anymore without endangering everyone’s lives. Just as they prepared to close the hatch, they saw the shape of the astronaut running back to his team, with something resembling a glass case between his hands. He was almost out of breath.

 They were all very happy to see their workmate. He even stopped running and tried to walk fast, seeing how happy everyone was with his return. He was smiling and showing them the glass box he had put the plant in. Everyone was so happy and smiley. No one saw the next explosion coming and they wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it, as it was the nearest pond that had spilt its content on the ground, burning the astronaut alive. His screams field their radio frequency and their eyesight.

 They saw him extends his arms and then his body disintegrated into Titan’s soil. The glass box fell to the ground, but it wasn’t consumed like the organic body of the astronaut. Everyone in the lander was horrified and, for one second, they forgot in how much danger they were. But then the pilot decided to abandon her post and run outside the ship. She grabbed the glass box and returned to the lander as fast as she could. She gave the flower to the others and then lifted the machine in order to get to a safer place.

 As the lander pierced through the skies of Titan, the astronauts that hadn’t taken off their clothes stared directly at the Chernobyl. One of their own had been killed trying to get it to safety, saving it from its own extinction. It was ironic how one death happened trying to prevent another. Being human, they couldn’t avoid blaming the flower, at least for a while. On their way to the main ship, they hated on that thing, wanting to dropped in space and have the same fate that their fellow astronaut.

 But once they got to the ship, someone else grabbed the flower and immediately put it in quarantine. Hours later, no one remembered who had been fast enough to do that. But even after dinner they all gathered in the quarantine room and just stared at the flower. It looked even darker than before, its pustules apparently disappearing, as they seemed to be less than when they had discovered it in the cave. Somehow, the plant looked even worse than in Titan, as it taking it away from there had made it worse.

 Sure enough, after only one day, the biologist onboard notified the crew that the plant had perished. There were no signs of life and the leaves were slowly dropping to the ground and then turning white. Even so, they were going to analyze it all to have a better understanding of its qualities.

 But the other astronauts were appalled and felt guilty. They could have helped the guy run faster by cheering him on or going out with him. They could have done something to prevent him from dying in such a horrible and futile way. Though it wasn’t really a futile death. They didn’t really know anything about the Chernobyl just yet.

The elevator

   The elevator on Kartan IV had been abandoned almost a century ago. By the time human explorers had arrived to that part of the galaxy, the civilization that had built the elevator had already been destroyed. There were many traces on the planet of their former glory and power but the only real proof of their quest for knowledge was the elevator. It was ten kilometres high, made with the toughest metals and plastics, making it a very strange feature of the planet and a technological advancement the human race had not yet reached.

 The first group of humans to get there were part of a scientific mission aboard the vessel called Leviathan. It had such a name because it was massive in size, taking care of many scientific missions at the same time. Leviathan was the centre of all science being done on other systems, far away from Earth. People that worked there had never being to Earth and most had no desire of going there. They were curious, of course, but the secrets of the universe were a lot more interesting to their wandering minds.

 The group that entered the elevator had the task of retrieving samples of the metals and other materials that had been used in the structure, in order to analyse them and see if they would be viable for use in space stations all around the Milky Way. Humans had mastered space travel but they wanted to put a foot everywhere they could, even in places were life had been detected.  Of course, those were the really interesting scientific missions but they were very secretive and exclusive to those with more experience.

 The Leviathan was the next best thing and all of those inside it knew that perfectly. However, they all wanted to work with the governments that were building space stations in key systems. That’s why those who entered the elevator on Kartak IV for the first time in a millennia, were eager to find lots of new information for humanity to use in their colonization of the galaxy. They could be instrumental in the development of their civilization and some of the first to interact with new and unseen forms of life.

 The elevator, however, was very much deserted. They spent days inside, extracting pieces and information from the very old computers. It took a long time to get the elevator actually working again and a team of xenolinguists had to come aboard to decipher the ancient language of the aliens that had built the structure. It was the only way humanity could effectively replicate such a piece of engineering in other parts of the galaxy, even of Earth. However, their first discovery was not the one they were looking for but something much more sombre and dangerous. Earth was called at once.

   Leviathan was asked to stand down. They had no authorization to land on the planet or to enter the elevator again. Everyone was ordered to stand down and wait for a special team of envoys to assess the situation. They arrived in a couple of days, with their dark suits and their unwillingness to share any information about what their own team. They were given a big room to examine everything and no one was allowed to enter that space, unless they were cleared after many security screenings and had a special letter.

 They were very difficult times in the ship, as it was the first time ever that they felt they had done something wrong and that their own government, the one that had send them hurling around the galaxy, did not trust them. Many were openly hostile to their visitors, giving them nasty looks and even saying what they thought without even thinking. But the visitors remaining uninterested in the personnel of the ship. They soon declared that their revisions would take a lot longer that expected, so Leviathan would not move from where it was.

 That decision made even more people furious. They demanded to know what it was those men were doing. They wanted to know because their lives, their profession, depended on them moving on to other missions. If the Leviathan stayed in one place for a long time, the government would not pay those that were simply not working at present time. And with so many people inside. It was obvious that not every single person was working at the same time, on the same thing. It was just how things worked.

 But that rotation system was of no interest to the visitors. They spent almost every single hour of the day checking information in their private room, sometimes calling in those who had clearance in order to ask a few questions and then sending them out again. People inside Leviathan grew rapidly fed up by that and they soon began plotting something that could be interpreted as a revolution. When humans are trapped like that in a finite space for too long, it is not a surprise that they do the craziest things.

 The first one of those crazy things was stealing one of the landing pods and travel exactly where they had been banned: the planet Kartak IV. A group of two, a woman and a man, stole the small vehicle and travelled at night towards the region of the planet from where the elevator was constructed. It was a desert and it resembled a lot like Mars, or at least what Mars had looked like in the past. There was a lot of red dust and the sun hit the ground with its full power, heating up the surface from the moment night ended. It was a beautiful place but it could also be seen as a horrible example of what could happen.

 The couple was ordered to return to Leviathan in order to be arrested but they obviously had no intention of going back, at least not until the visitors declared their true intentions in the ship. Many believed they were only there to take a look at the workers and then start firing them from their jobs. Others actually thought that Leviathan as a whole was going to be dismantled and that they would all be sent to different parts of the galaxy to accomplish menial jobs that had nothing to do with what they worked on there.

 But that wasn’t it. The visitors had come because of what the team that had penetrated the elevator had found there. The ancient language was not an unknown one and the central government of Earth had recognized with the help of their computers and artificial intelligence. The agents dispatched to Kartak IV had the responsibility to find out if the language was indeed the same that humans had already found in another corner of the galaxy and what that really meant for humanity as a whole.

 Sadly, they found out too late. The couple on the planet entered the elevator on its ground floor and discovered the truth. They didn’t have to know how to read it all: the elevator was not only that but also a weapon and an antenna. The creatures that had lived there had built it in order to transmit messages, probably to those they would obliterate shortly after. There were recordings of the weapon being deployed. But the couple was not able to see them all. They disappeared inside the elevator, leaving no trace.

 The following day, Leviathan was ordered to leave the system and, for the first time ever, travel to Earth at once. As they travelled to the centre of their universe, the inhabitants of the ship were told by the visitors that a new enemy had appeared and that they needed everyone to be on the same page to fight them off and defend what being human meant.

 The crew of the Leviathan was puzzled but they had always been a strong people, with tough to change convictions and minds that could create solutions for almost anything. They were ready to help their kind.