Awake (22 page)

“Did it work?” Tom was crouched on the floor
by Kevin’s body.

Helios checked Kevin’s eyes, which seemed to
be moving. “He’s not really looking at me when I pry his eyes
open.”

The computer speakers spoke. “Put him on the
table. I’ll run a quick scan.”

Tom heaved Kevin over his shoulder and
placed him on the high metal table. A large mechanical eye extended
from a hole in the ceiling and gazed down upon Kevin.

“Move aside,” said the computer, “I need to
put a barrier up during the scan.”

Tom nodded and stepped back. Four thick
sheets of a glassy material shot up from the floor and surrounded
Kevin like a box, completely blocking him from view. Tom noticed a
fleeting flash of light inside. Then the glass retracted.

“How is he?” asked Tom.

The computer replied, “His brain waves are
strange. It almost gives off the impression that he is half awake
and half asleep.”

Helios said, “That’s not good, is it? Is the
device not working?”

“The NSI is perfect,” the computer snapped,
sounding insulted by Helios’s remark. “I’m not sure what could be
the problem, but I’m definitely sure that it has nothing to do with
the quality of my work.”

Tom fell silent, contemplating over the
problem.

“Tom…” A quiet voice broke the silence.

Tom turned to Helios. “Did you say
something?” Helios shook his head.

The computer said, “That is Kevin’s
voice.”

“Kevin?” Tom walked over to Kevin’s comatose
body. “Kevin? Are you awake?”

“Tom…” Kevin’s lips moved slightly as he
uttered words. “Not awake...”

Tom swallowed. “Are you trying to freak me
out here? Because it’s really working well.”

“I…tell you…thing…”

“What? What are you saying?” Tom bent over,
putting his ear to Kevin’s lips, so he can hear the mouthed words
more clearly.

Tom heard Kevin whisper, “I understand now.
The people are trapped here. Even if we tell them that they can
wake up, they won’t listen. They lack the will to come back to
reality. I’m going to try to cause a ripple effect. This device is
perfect for what I need to do. I now have some control over the
dream. All I ask is that you give me more time. I’m going to
explore this dream world and see if I can convince everyone to try
to wake up. If they all try together, we might be able to get
somewhere.”

Tom said to Kevin’s ear, “Okay. I got your
message.”

“Tom,” said the computer, “take a look at
this.” The computer screen turned on and showed thousands of red
dots moving toward a central green dot. “A swarm of animals is
approaching our position. They are most likely hostile. You can
confirm it yourself, if you like.” The screen changed into a camera
view showing hundreds of wolves, bears, and cougars racing down the
street.

Tom scratched his chin. “They’re here. Do
you have anything that will hold the Forest Army back? We have to
protect Kevin for as long as possible.”

“This research facility doesn’t have much
that can help you in that endeavor.”

Helios said, “We’ll just have to do this the
hard way. There are only two ways in and out of this place. If we
direct our remaining forces to these bottlenecks and barricade it,
we should have no problem keeping them out for a while.”

Tom nodded and looked at Kevin. “I just hope
we can hold them off long enough.”

- No Future -

Kevin floated in a suffocating darkness,
drifting inside the massive tree trunk. His body was no longer a
body. He gazed at his hands. All he could see was nothing more than
an outline of soft light.

“Whoa,” he said. “This is some seriously
trippy stuff.”

As his eyes adjusted, he noticed strange
white strings all around him. He hadn’t noticed it before because
it was too dark, but there were millions of them drifting about.
These long strings twisted and spun like squirmy worms. Frightened,
Kevin flailed his arms and legs. His panic vanished when he finally
understood that the strings were harmless.

“What are they?” Bewildered, Kevin stretched
out his hand and touched one of the strings. As he did so, hundreds
of thoughts flooded into his mind. Flinching, he pulled his hand
back. “It’s like a connection…to someone’s mind.”

Kevin reached out his hand into the thick
bundles of thin strings. As he ran his hands through them, he could
probe through the minds of many. He pushed them aside like rolling
curtains, searching for a mind that contained thoughts of him.
After digging through the strings for a while, he found one. Kevin
wasn’t sure whose it was, but there was only one way to find out.
He grabbed the string, held on tightly and tugged on it. The one
string started reeling upwards, pulling Kevin through the sea of
strings. It was going so fast that Kevin’s natural reaction was to
scream. Soaring up the inside of the tree, he was dangling around
the darkness like a fish on a hook.

Where is this thing taking me?
Kevin
wondered. Then he started to see weird things above him. There were
desks and chairs and cars and houses, all of them just floating in
midair. Kevin kicked his feet to sway and dodge the dangerous
objects. Even if it weren’t real, there was the possibility of
getting knocked off the string.

After seeing more flashes of light, he came
to a sudden stop—or at least that was what he wished for at the
moment. In truth though, he was still moving after the darkness was
long gone. Kevin was now plummeting from the sunny sky toward the
green earth. He decided to call it skydiving without a parachute,
hoping it would at least evoke a happier image. However, if
skydiving without a parachute doesn’t sound fun, it certainly
didn’t feel fun to Kevin, no matter what he called it. Kevin was
already tired of screaming his lungs out. Now, his mouth agape, he
simply stared at the rapidly enlarging plot of land below him.
Kevin took this time, during his mental state of shock, to recall
what he had learned in art class all those years ago. Perspective.
It was a simple enough concept. The land wasn’t getting larger—it
was simply getting closer.

Boom!
Kevin slammed into the earth at
full force. His vision went entirely black for a few seconds.
Grunting, Kevin got to his feet. He looked to his left and right
and saw that he had ended up forming a large crater. The landscape
as far as he could see was completely decimated. Did he do that? He
wasn’t sure.

Dusting himself off, Kevin glanced curiously
around. “That’s weird. This doesn’t look like the inside of the
tree anymore. Where am I?”

Someone shouted out to him, “Hey, over
here!”

Kevin turned around and saw a person, the
upper half of his body sticking out from the dirt. Kevin met up
with the man. It was a young man and looked about a few years older
than him. He was dressed in rags and stood out of a large hole
carved out of the surface.

“Get inside,” the man said. “It’s not safe
out there.” The man invited Kevin into his underground home.

It was quite an amazing underground shelter,
Kevin thought. It was well furnished, full of beautiful paintings
and extravagant sculptures and seemed to have everything a person
would ever need or want.

“What’s going on here?” said Kevin. “Where
am I?”

The man replied, “You don’t know? This
placed used to be called Korgen. I still call it Korgen. But it
used to be a large city, full of many people.”

“This is Korgen?” Kevin looked shocked. “It
wasn’t a fire that burned everything down, was it?” Kevin suddenly
remembered the fire he had let loose on the streets of Korgen.

“No,” said the man, “it was the war that did
this place in.”

“The war?” Kevin scratched his chin. “The
war between the Forest Army and the HPC?”

“What? Forest Army? I’m talking about the
war against the aliens! You know—the one that destroyed half of the
Earth! The one that mankind lost.”

“Aliens?” Kevin raised a brow. “When was the
last time you saw a doctor?”

“I don’t remember. We have no more doctors.
All of them were taken by the aliens.”

“Okaaay,” said Kevin skeptically. “Well
then, I really have to go now. I’ve got people to see and things to
do.”

“No!” The man took hold of Kevin’s leg.
“Don’t be stupid! If you go out there, the aliens will find you!
You don’t stand a chance!”

“I’d rather take my chances with imaginary
aliens than sit here with a psycho!” Kevin kicked the man aside and
climbed the ladder out of the hole. “Aliens,” he muttered. “That
guy’s insane.”

Kevin took a few steps outside. Looking at
the ground, he froze. Massive shadows were cast along the ground,
covering the land far and wide in darkness. Kevin’s sight slowly
rose to the sky. That was when he saw it. There were numerous
rectangular objects hovering in the sky. Each of these enormous
objects had bright glowing lights that acted like spotlights,
throwing their lights upon the ground in brilliant green beams. It
looked as though these flying objects were looking for
something.

In a panic, Kevin ran back toward the
underground shelter. A bright red ball of light fell from the sky
and landed inside the shelter before Kevin could get to it. The
whole shelter burst in one bright explosion of heat and fire.

Kevin tripped over his own feet as he walked
backwards and fell. A green light came over him. Kevin looked down
and saw that his legs and feet were leaving the ground. He was
steadily being pulled up into the sky!

Kevin gulped loudly and said, “Okay. All
right. I have to get my thoughts together. Think logically.
Logically. I’m logical.” He smacked himself in the forehead.
“That’s right! I forgot! I was dreaming. Now everything makes
sense. This isn’t time travel. This isn’t an alien invasion. This
is just a dream!” He started laughing nervously. “That’s right…this
should be okay…I think.”

Then Kevin looked up and trembled at the
sight of the massive spacecraft. Though he tried to assure himself
with words that everything would be okay, the image was still real
enough to him to cause fear in his heart. All his assurance seemed
to melt away as he stared into the light above.

“Hold it right there!” said a bellowing
voice.

Kevin swung around in the air. In the
distance Kevin saw something headed right for him. It was hard for
him to tell what the object was, but Kevin did not want to stick
around to find out. He moved his body back and forth, attempting to
fall out of the beam that was pulling him up. Nothing he did
helped. He was waving his arms and kicking his legs as hard as he
could, but he couldn’t break free.

Kevin stared as the flying object drew
nearer and nearer. When it was about to hit him, he winced and
curled up. At the last second, Kevin closed his eyes. Everything
went dark. There was only silence. Nothing happened. Kevin waited
for a moment and then opened his eyes. A man hovered before him
with his arms crossed. It was a super hero as far as Kevin could
tell. The hero had on a cape and tights. His huge muscles were
constantly bulging, as though the hero had no control over it. Very
stereotypical and weird, thought Kevin. But something bugged Kevin.
The face seemed familiar. It was definitely someone he knew.

“Here, let me help you,” said the super hero
with his deep, masculine voice.

Then the hero flew up to the spacecraft and
punched it. Like a delayed reaction, a second later the spacecraft
was launched away by the hero’s fist and it crash-landed far into
the horizon, forming a massive mushroom cloud that loomed in the
distance. It all happened so fast that Kevin thought his vision was
fast-forwarding. However, because the spaceship was no longer
around to pull him up, Kevin started to fall. The super hero
grabbed hold of Kevin and put him on the ground.

“Are you okay?” the hero asked.

Looking confused, Kevin nodded slowly.

“Good.”

The hero then flew up to the clouds. He
glared at the remaining spacecraft. The hero opened his mouth and
sucked up copious amounts of air, his mouth acting as a powerful
vacuum. He sucked up so much air that the spaceships were being
rapidly sucked to him. Then, when a ship was near, he would punch
it down to the ground, causing an explosion. The super hero did
this for nearly twenty minutes until all of the spacecraft were
knocked out of the sky and the earth was completely riddled with
craters.

Kevin watched the whole battle. Scratching
his cheek, he wondered why the hero wasted so much time. Kevin was
sure that, with his speed, the hero could simply fly around and
knock all of the ships out of the sky in seconds.

The super hero dove and landed in front of
Kevin.

“Who are you supposed to be?” asked
Kevin.

The super hero stuck out his massive chest,
put his hands on his hips, and said proudly, “I am Super Andrew, at
your service.”

At his words, Kevin began laughing
uncontrollably. He stopped for a moment to say, “S-Super A-Andrew?”
And then he continued his fit of laughter. He laughed heavily for a
long time. He was laughing so hard that he fell to the ground and
rolled around, trying hard to catch his breath because he couldn’t
breathe.

“What’s so funny?” said Super Andrew.

After Kevin finally managed to stop his
laughter, he stood back up, wiping the tears from his eyes, and
said, “Andrew! That costume is horrible!”

“It appears you are mistaken, sir,” said
Super Andrew. “My name is not Andrew. I am Super Andrew.”

“What?” Kevin snapped, “Stop playing around!
We’ve got enough trouble as it is!”

Super Andrew blinked. “You act as though you
know me.”

“That’s because I do know you!” Kevin
gestured to himself. “Are you kidding? After all we’ve been
through, you can’t even remember me? I’m Kevin!”