The Birth of Second Humanity

[Harakiri]

Prologue: Reaching to the Stars

 

 

 

Ready? The voice crackled over the radio inside the cockpit.

 

Ready. The man replied, bracing himself for his partner to activate the ship.

 

NASA's computers are online and ready for all observations of the ship's takeoff. A woman said into the radio.

 

The pilot of the long, sleek space ship adjusted various knobs and flicked switches as the computer in between the two pilots lit up, telling the current status.

 

We are no-go for two minutes HQ. Please send a report on weather. I see the trees out beside the airstrip and I have to guess there are twenty five mile gusts.

 

The radio crackled again. Twenty-three to be precise. Adjust the ship accordingly.

 

Roger. The pilot continued flicking switches, smiling.

 

Its finally happening. He said, adjusting a knob.

 

Its been ten years of hard work to make this. The co-pilot smacked the control panel in front of him.

 

Can't wait to see if this enviro-shield will work.

 

Hopefully it does or we're dead.

 

The pilot laughed. Our bodies will be floating there in space forever. Not a great burial.

 

The co-pilot grabbed the radio and gave HQ an update. Thirty seconds till we start this puppy up.

 

Great! The people in HQ were biting their nails and the co-pilot swore he could hear it.

 

Ten seconds.

 

The pilot started pushing buttons and screamed. You all ready back there?

 

The people behind them nodded. Eight scientists of different backgrounds sat there, waiting for their takeoff into space.

 

 

 

Thirty seconds till we start this puppy up. The radio cackled.

 

Everyone in HQ was sweating profusely, staring intently at their computers, making sure absolutely nothing would interfere with the take off of this ship.

 

NASA's director stood before everyone, staring at a large television screen on the wall, flanked on both sides by smaller ones.

 

Come on... He wanted to scream at them, tell the pilot of the ship to get it over with.

 

The large television screen had a live video broadcast of the silver ship. It was shaped like a bullet, and stood up like a normal spaceship. It also lifted off like a normal ship. The only special thing was that it was so fast, the scientists aboard would get to Mars in six days.

 

Fire started to burn from the back of the ship. It blew out and the ships supports started to push off as the ship lifted ever so slightly, preparing for that last blast that would send it to space.

 

Suddenly, HQ got a message. We're going...

 

The ship slowly lifted into the air.

 

Going...

 

The ship suddenly sped up until it was nearly out of sight. The camera panned up and showed that the ship was nothing but a dot in the sky now.

 

Gone. The director whispered.

 

There were ten seconds of silence, and then HQ abandoned their computers to instead scream.

 

YES! They yelled out, throwing paper in the air like confetti. People hugged each other and the director felt inclined to join the festivities. He hugged one of the designers of the ship, and then ran out of the room toward his office where bottles of champagne were being cooled.

 

Never in history had there been a better reason to crack open a bottle of champagne, he thought.

[Harakiri]

Act I: Men as Gods

 

Chapter 1: One Month Later

 

 

 

What the hell is going on? Jack Reacher screamed as his computer screen blanked.

 

We're entering an electric storm. Susan Kolt answered, standing from her cubicle and walking over to the window in the side of the building.

 

She stared out at the red planet's terrain and stared toward the sky, where the stars twinkled.

 

How the hell're the lights working? Jack asked, going to stand beside Susan.

 

Back up generator. You really are new to this aren't you? She turned to him and stared into his pretty hazel eyes. They twinkled like those of a young boy. His chin was covered in stubble and his hair was all over his head. He looked like hell.

 

I just joined the team two months ago. He turned his back on her. And to think that the first major assignment I get is to come to Mars to help the scientists here search for other forms of life.

 

That's not the only reason we're here. Susan looked at Jack's back. Her gaze then went to his muscular arms that he so prominently displayed. How old are you? She couldn't not ask.

 

Twenty-six. He said without so much as a seconds hesitation.

 

Thats still pretty young for a scientist being shipped to another planet.

 

You'd think. He started toward the door of the building.

 

Where you going? Susan chased him, her white scientist coat billowing out behind her.

 

No point hanging around here while the comps are out. I'm going back to my quarters. I need some rest.

 

Susan stopped about three feet from him and let him leave without any other words.

 

The door to the offices slammed in front of her, and she went back to her spot in front of the window.

 

 

 

The [cabbage] has hit the fan people. Coleen said, pacing back and forth on the stage.

 

Everyone that was living and working at Mars Station sat in the hard aluminum chairs that surrounded the raised wooden platform. Atop it was a podium and different screens hooked up to computers beneath it.

 

Coleen was the only one on the stage. As the leader of the scientists, she had all authority over the facilities. If she wanted someone to kill themselves than have another person eat his guts (the exact thing she had said at the first meeting) she would get it.

 

Everyone knows that we are in an electric storm. Its taking a piss on our machinery, and everyone knows there is one machine we need to keep up and running.

 

The atmospheric stabilizers. Someone yelled out from the back of the room.

 

Bingo. To put it kindly, we're screwed if it goes out. We'll all be floating corpses in space if it goes out. Lovely picture, isn't it?

 

Jack sat in the front row, trying to keep his heavy eyelids up. He was more tired than he had ever been in his life. He had gotten but twenty-four hours of sleep in the past two weeks of his stay on the red planet. No one seemed to care though. Other than Susan, who took a liking to him from the very start. She wasn't a bad looking girl. She was thirty years old, had long black hair and had the face of a goddess. She wore a short skirt whenever he was going to be in the computer center for the day.

 

He smiled at the thought of the woman. He would end up getting her in the end. He just knew it.

 

She sat next to him at the moment, and whispered in his ear, I can read your thoughts.

 

Part of his body froze over while the other half tried to make up an excuse.

 

That's just silly though, he thought as he regained himself.

 

What am I thinking? He asked. This would prove if she was a liar or a real Silvia Brown (who he knew was also a liar, but she probably hit one or two nails on the head).

 

Sex. Like all boys your age. She whispered seductively. He barely heard her over the screams of Coleen.

 

She gripped the podium as if a vortex were trying to suck her in.

 

LISTEN TO ME! We need all the help we can to keep everything running! The generators won't last long if we are stuck in this storm for the next month, as is predicted!

 

Jack tried to listen to both of the women, but Coleen was a fifty year old lady who's legs were saggy, unlike the perfect woman beside him. Screw the job, he thought. If I get a girl to take with me to Earth, what the hell would I care?

 

She started to lick his ear. Jack then stood up, Susan losing balance and falling onto his chair.

 

What is it Reacher? Coleen asked, her little tirade put at a pause.

 

I gotta leave. He said. Susan looked up at him and slit her eyes.

 

What are you doing? She mouthed.

 

Meet me at my room. Jack mouthed in return.

 

 

 

Jack and Susan rolled in the sheets, sweat pouring down them in torrents.

 

That felt...great. Susan gasped, lifting her face to the ceiling.

 

Yes. Jack responded, clasping his lips on hers.

 

As their tongues wrestled, Jack's lights started to blink.

 

Jack brought his tongue back into his mouth and rolled off of Susan and onto his back.

 

I think the generators are dying.

 

Not good. Susan said, getting out of the bed and finding her clothes. She pulled on a pair of Levi's and a blouse. I'm sorry. That was very unprofessional of me.

 

I'm an amateur though. He smirked as he pulled on his own pair of jeans, leaving his bare chest open for everyone to see.

 

He has great muscles Susan thought as she exchanged one last kiss with Jack.

 

Your not married are you? She asked afterwards.

 

No. You?

 

No.

 

Good. His rooms lights continued to flicker.

 

See you in the morning Mr. Reacher?

 

Of course Ms. Kolt.

 

With that, she left. Jack shut the door behind her before falling to the floor.

 

 

 

 

COLEEN

 

Coleen awoke with a start. Her computer screen had lit up. She slowly went to it. She sat on her leather swivel chair and quickly typed on her keyboard:

 

HELLO SIR.

 

NICE TO KNOW YOUR STILL ALIVE.

 

ITS HARD TO LIE TO A WHOLE CREW SIR.

 

WE NEED TO HAVE ALL THE POWER THOUGH TO OPERATE THE TRANSPORTER MACHINE. THEY CAN LIVE OFF THE GENERATORS FOR A COUPLE MORE DAYS.

 

BOB DURESS FOUND TWO MORE FOSSILS JUST THREE MILES NORTHWEST OF THE FACILITY.

 

GOOD. KEEP THEM. OUR SCIENTISTS OUR WORKING ON A DNA SCANNER. IT SHOULD BE HELPFUL IN RECREATING THESE CREATURES. WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO GIVE YOU HUNDREDS OF SLAVES WHO CAN SURVIVE THIS PLANET'S CLIMATE AND HELP YOU BUILD CITIES AND FIND MORE FOSSILS.

 

I WON'T BE ABLE TO LIE FOREVER.

 

TELL THEM IT WAS A TEST TO SEE HOW WELL THEY WORK UNDER STRESS OR SOME OTHER LIE LIKE THAT. WILL THEY BE AMAZED WHEN THEY FIND THAT THEY HELPED IN THE RECREATION OF A CIVILIZATION. THEY WILL BE HAILED AS HEROES BY BOTH EARTH, AND MARS.

 

THIS IS JUST TOO HARD TO BELIEVE...AFTER SO MANY YEARS OF SEARCHING AND WONDERING, WE FINALLY WILL BE ABLE TO SEE WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE.

 

HOW IRONIC IT IS THOUGH. SOME THINK HUMANS WERE CREATED BY THEM. BUT WE ARE RECREATING THEM. WE CAN LEARN WHY THEY HAD FALLEN. WE CAN LEARN THEIR TECHNOLOGIES!

 

SIR, I HEAR SOMEONE COMING DOWN THE HALL. I HAVE TO GO.

 

GOODBYE COLEEN.

[Zonorhc]

Is this going to be another one of your two chapter throwaway stories?

[Harakiri]

Is this going to be another one of your two chapter throwaway stories?

 

 

 

No cuz I've worked on this one for a long time...Plus, I think its much better than half the [cabbage] I throw onto this site.

[Harakiri]

Chapter 2: All for Science

 

 

 

Coleen smirked as she typed numbers into her computer.

 

The atmospheric stabilizers were holding up just fine, and they were easily projecting the fake electric storm. The crew were too stupid to notice how fake it was though.

 

She quickly typed in a ten number sequence. She heard a low buzzing in her closet. She shut off her computer, and opened the wooden door.

 

The closet did not contain clothes anymore. A cylindrical elevator stood in the pile of clothes place. She got in, her shoes making hollow echoes on the thin sheet of steel keeping her from falling three hundred feet.

 

During the building of the facility on Mars, the workers built an underground hangar. For what, they didn't know. It took a while for this place to be built, but thanks to depleted reservoirs of water under the surface of the planet, there was no need to dig much. Stick in an atmospheric stabilizer, a couple tables, a load of computers and other things, and you had yourself a secret lab.

 

The elevator stopped in the middle of the reservoir, and Coleen exited. She walked towards a large cylindrical machine, like the elevator. It was connected to fourteen generators, all running at their highest output.

 

She opened a laptop connected to the machine, and checked a few graphs and charts before staring at the slab of rock next to her. Embedded in it were small bones belonging to a cat-like creature.

 

A messager popped up on the left side of her computer screen, and she quickly typed:

 

READY WHEN YOU ARE.

 

 

 

Jack Reacher slowly awoke. His back ached and his head throbbed.

 

He then noticed he was lying on the floor. He got to his feet and rubbed his temple slowly.

 

"Goddam." He murmered, opening the rooms door.

 

Outside of the hall, Bob Duress stood, his fist in the air, about to knock.

 

He brought his arm to his side. "Guess what I found last night?"

 

"What?" Jack muttered, rubbing his eyes.

 

"Two sets of alien fossils. Awesome huh?" Bob was giddy as a school girl and Jack was too sleepy to care about anything.

 

"Where's Susan?" He asked, grabbing a shirt from his dresser and putting it on.

 

Bob stared at the shirt. "Planet Hollywood, Orlando? I went there once."

 

Jack pushed Bob out of the way and exited the building, heading for the comp center. Above, he saw lightning streak across the sky. The storm was getting stronger and stronger. He just had an odd feeling about it though. Why did the lightning never hit the half sphere that protected the scientists from the vaccuum outside? They always came close, but never directly made contact with the sphere.

 

Jack didn't want to worry about it at the moment. He would ask Coleen that night at the assembly.

 

He pushed open the doors to the comp center, and then walked straight forward to the window.

 

Susan stood at it, and watched the lightning. She turned around and kissed Jack.

 

Her lips were like a vaccuum and it took Jack a couple seconds to pull himself away from their suction.

 

"Have you noticed something about the lightning?" He asked her.

 

"It never hits the stabilizer shield? Everyones noticed that."

 

"Is it normal?"

 

"No."

 

 

 

Coleen screamed out loud in the reservoir.

 

"IT WORKS!" She jumped up and down.

 

 

 

A man in a suit and dark sun glasses stood before a cylindrical device that looked exactly like the one Coleen had in the reservoir. A slab of rock had appeared in it, and he slowly took it, and placed it on the desk next to the machine.

 

CAN I GIVE POWER BACK TO THE FACILITY? His computer popped up.

 

WHEN EVERYONES ASLEEP, he answered back.

 

He looked the slab over and then laughed.

 

"Gentlemen." He turned to the ten men in lab coats and grinned. "We're going to go places with this."