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Jonathan could only look up at the cyborg standing at the foot on his bed, whose face
showed no expression whatsoever, a blank stare, like a feral animal surveying its surroundings.
He could not utter a single word as his jaw shook and the blood in his body ran cold as he looked
at the machine above him, whose body ran with electricity, but no real life of its own. Not the life
it was supposed to have, anyway. They both stayed like that for 5 minutes or so, staring at each
other, not moving an inch until it finally spoke.
“Hhhh…. Hello..” its metallic voice whispered, bouncing off of the walls ever so gently.
Jonathan had to take a moment to recollect his voice before he could respond.
“H..Hello..” He pipped, abruptly sitting up in his cot, his body shuddering from the combination
of fear and the frigid wind that was leaking from the crudly covered broken window.
“...What happened? I don’t feel good.” She continued to whisper, speaking simply and with no
influction in her voice, unlike Ivan, who had quite the personality and brain, considering he had
been dead for 3 days or more.
“You…. Well, you- Well, you see, You… You died, and Fredrick and I-”
“Who’s that?”
“Oh, Fredrick’s my.. He’s my friend. He’s the main brains of this whole little project-”
“Project?”
“Er, Yes Ma’am.”, He began as his eyes darted from side to side. “He’s doing experiments to see
if you can bring back dead people using robotic- er, excuse me, cybernetic parts. Turns out you
can, in fact, and you are living proof.”
“I see.. Am I the first?” she asked once more, raising a single eyebrow, her face maintaining that
still, blank expression.
“No, You’d be the second. Ivan Malenkov was the first.” Jonathan stated rather plainly as he
looked over at Fredrick, who was laying on his side asleep, his face moving not even an inch,
with one hand under his pillow and the other one dangling off of his cot.
“Is that him?”
“No, thats not Ivan, Thats Fredrick. He’s a little… Well, he’s sleeping right now, but in a little
while, he should be with us. I hope.” he mumbled before looking back at the woman. “Do you
know your name, Ma’am?” Jonathan asked. despite the fact that he already knew her name, he
felt it would only be right to ask her. Besides, Fredrick gave her a new name, so testing to make
sure she knew it would be a good idea. She did not speak for quite some time, as if she was
struggling to remember. Only silence could be heard for a while before she finally answered.
“.....Eva. Eva Moore… At least I think it is..” she stuttered. Jonathan slowly nodded, taking a
mental note.
“Thats a nice name for you. It fits you well.” Jonathan complimented as he rubbed the sleep out
of his eyes. “You know, it might be good for you to get a little more rest. You sound like you
need it.”
“....Okay.” She whispered back before her eyes closed.
“N…No, not there, I mean, that table you were on, Eva.”
“Oh.” She droned before looking around confusedly. Jonathan silently groaned to himself before
getting up from his cot and taking her by the hand.
“In here, Eva…” he whispered as he guided her back into the operation room, where the table
stood still, alongside everything else.
“...Its cold in here.” Eva stated before sitting down on the table, her face contorting with
discomfort. Something new, Jonathan observed.
“Theres a broken window in the lobby. I guess a draft keeps creeping in through that board that
me and Fredrick put up.” Jonathan thought out loud, while Eva looked over at him, that same
expession plastered on her pale white face.
“.....What?”
“...I said, ‘its cold in here.’” She repeated.
“Well what do you want me to do about it? I fix people, not windows!” Jonathan retorted, his
brow furrrowing at Eva’s sudden demanding behavior and change of personality. Another note to
write down.
“I don’t know! Don’t you have some blankets or something? You and that man have some- why
can’t I?”
“That man’s name is Dr. Fredrick Johanneson, Ms. Moore.”
“...Still cold, darling!”
“Fine, I’ll get you your blankets..” He sighed through barred teeth as he went out the door to find
the supply closet, afterwards, he opened the door and took 2 folded black blankets off of their
shelves, gripping them tightly as he marched back into the operation room.
“There, here’s your damn blankets!” Jonathan groaned as he handed them to Eva, who unfolded
them with a smile of satisfaction.
“Thank you, Darling! Thank you very much.”
“Yeah, You’re welcome…” Jonathan droned as he wiped his glasses off on his shirt, trying his
best to not pass out on the floor. “...Im going back in here.”
And with that, Jonathan left the room and wrote down his findings on Eva on a sheet of paper
before laying back down in his cot, once again falling asleep until the early morning.
…
Clang! Crash! Bang!
“F….Fredrick?” Jonathan croaked as he turned over to find that Fredrick was not in his cot. As
the loud beating and banging continued, he slowly crept from his bed, taking care not to make
the slightest creak or whine as he got up.
Ping! Boom! Pop!
“Fredrick, what are you doing in there..?”
He did not recieve an answer, and instead only heard him muttering to himself as the noise
continued.
“Fredrick!”
“Wh- Jonathan!” he blurted out as he zipped out of the operation room to find Jonathan standing
in front of him, arms crossed to keep himself warm.
“Fredrick, what are you doing?” he questioned once again. Fredrick sighed as he tried to come
up with a believable excuse.
“Well, I thought I’d try to organize the parts! You know I can’t work efficiantly when everything
is everywhere!”
“We already did that before we got Eva, though. What were you really doing, Fredrick?” He
asked, raising one eyebrow. “I’m not gonna do anything, I just wanna know.”
“...I was preparing to make another one.” he admitted with a sigh. “I was just getting the parts
ready, and-”
“Fredrick! Your hand is still injured from you punching that wall!” Jonathan blurted out as he
gestured to Fredrick’s bandaged hand. “You told me you’d let it heal before you did anymore
experiments!”
“I know I did, Jonathan, but what is one going to hurt? Besides, I’ll be wearing gloves-”
“No, you’re going to let that hand heal up. Im not going to let you put your hand in a body when
you have wounds!” Jonathan asserted. Fredrick huffed and rolled his eyes before turning away.
“Hey, you were the one who punched the wall, not me.” Jonathan attempted to joke, But fredrick
only shook his head as he crossed his arms.
“Yeah, you’re right.. But I don’t want to be sitting about when there’s work to be done! I need as
much practice with this as possible! I-I even wrote down how to go about doing it just in case
you wanna try your hand at it!”
“Yeah, I’m good for now, Fredrick… Wait, that reminds me.. Eva actually woke up while you
were sleeping.”
“She did?! Why didn’t you tell me!”
“You were out cold, and you need that rest more than ever if you wanna keep doing these
experiments. Besides, she’s kinda of a…. Well, she’s a bit snippy.”
“Could you elaborate on that, Jonathan?” Fredrick asked as he sat down in a chair beside a table,
his deep green eyes following Jonathan as he went to grab his notes. Jonathan nodded.
“I wrote down my findings. I don’t know how long she had been awake for, as I actually woke
up with her at the foot of my cot. Creepy as hell, I’ll tell you! In the beginning of our
conversation, she could only speak very simply, showing little to no emotion both in her face and
her voice. However, she was able to ask questions.”
“Questions? What kind of questions, Jonathan?” Fredrick asked as he wrote down what Jonathan
was saying into a red spiral notebook, with the title “Project Red-Tide” written on the cover
using a black permanent marker.
“Well, I told her about how she died-”
“You told her how she died!?” He snapped.
“Wh- No! Not like that, Fredrick! What the hell?” He squeaked as he jolted away from Fredrick.
“I was telling her that she died and that she was brought back!”
Fredrick clutched his chest and closed his eyes as he let out a heavy sigh. “Oh thank god..”
“You gotta let me finish my sentences, man!”
“I know, I know, i’m sorry!” Fredrick apoligized. “Please, continue.”
“I was telling her about how she died and that she was brought back as part of a project.”
“Did she ask about it?”
“As a matter of fact, I did, and so I told her plainly that it was to see if you could bring back the
dead. I didn’t mention Ol-” He paused, realizing he was about to mention Olivia. “..Thats all i
told her. She then asked if she was the first, and I told her “No, Ivan Malenkov was the first.”
“Hm..” Fredrick hummed as he wrote down Jonathan’s findings into the notebook once more.
“She had anything to say about him?”
“No, She actually asked if you were him, and I told her that you were the Fredrick I was talking
about.” Jonathan responded as he sat down in a chair beside fredrick.
“Alright, so what i’m gathering is that at first, Eva’s memory wasn’t the greatest, considering she
thought I was Ivan of all people. She was also emotionless and expressionless. Based on this
information, I can say her brain wasn’t fully running at that time. Did her condition improve any
after this?” Fredrick questioned more as he sat his right leg on top of his thigh as he leaned back.
Jonathan’s brow furrowed as he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Oh, did It! While I was bringing her back into the operation room to let her rest some more, she
started complaining about the cold, so I tell her about the broken window and how it must’ve
been the cold just getting in, you know, just abanoned building things! She then gives me this
look and goes ‘I said i’m cold!’” he snapped, imitating a grouchy woman’s voice. Fredrick held
down a chuckle as he wrote all of this down onto paper. “So she’s a bit of a demander, huh?”
“Yeah, she is! I ask her what she wanted me to do and goes “Oh I don’t know, don’t you have
some blankets or something? You and that man have blankets! Oh, I can’t have any?” So I end
up giving her her damn blankets and then she starts going ‘Oh thank you so so much!’”, He
mimicked as he fluttered his eyes. “acting all sweet with me after she snaps at me, demanding
that I fetch her a blanket like i’m her endentured servant!”
Fredrick tried his best to keep his composure at Jonathan’s anecdote, but he couldn’t help it as
the pressure rose in his chest. Finally he gave in and let out a snicker that sounded like a record
scratch before becoming a full-on cackle that rang through the room.
“What? W-whats so funny? She was being rude!” Jonathan stuttered as one eyebrow rose from
behind his lapis-blue framed glasses.
“You’re-” He tried to speak before another laugh overtook him. “You’re quite the Ladies’ Man,
ain’t cha, Johnny?! ‘Here, heres your damn blankets, woman! Now lemme go back to sleep!’ He
imitated while holding back another guffaw before letting that one out too.
“Oh, S-Shut up, Fredrick! You had to be there!”
“I’m messing with you, Jon!” he giggled as he wrote his notes down before setting down the
notebook on the table. “Well, theres that down. Oh, did she know her name?”
“Yes, I had to ask her, and she knows only the one you gave her. Eva Moore, right?”
“Correct.” He nodded while smiling. He then got up out of his chair and dusted off his clothes
and lab-coat. “So, if we’re not going to be making anymore robots for now, what are we going to
be doing?”
“Uh.. why not go back to our houses and gather some supplies? Like… Clothes. We’ve been
wearing these clothes for how long now? Since new years? And we haven’t showered like we’ve
been needing too.”
“Geez, you make it sound longer than it really is. Yeah, it would probably be best to go back
there, especially with your car in the drive-way!”
“My car! Yeah- thats right! I hope to god no-one broke in there- that car was my dads!”
“Its probably okay, my neighbor Cecilia and her husband have that neighborhood watch thing
going on, I bet she’d run off anyone who’d try to break in to anything, your car included!”
“Well, I hope you’re right… should we go now, or should we have some soup first?” Jonathan
asked. Fredrick thought about this for a while, before finally speaking, looking over to him once
again.
“I’m getting pretty sick of soup, how about you, Jon?”
“A little, but I can handle it.”
Fredrick then grinned at his best friend. A warm, oddly comforting smile that hadn’t been seen
since death took his daughter away. “How about we get ourselves some sausage biscuits for a
change? We haven’t done that in years! Oooh, maybe some bacon too! Big Jimmy’s sells bacon
on the breakfast menu, huh?”
“Last time we went there, they did! They never really were big on changing their menus, were
they?”
“Only if they needed to, Johnny. Thats what I like about them!” He chuckled as he grabbed his
truck keys from out of his pocket. “Lets pick us up some along the way, huh?”
“Yeah, that would be great. Oh, we should probably check up on those two, also!”
“We’re in Here, Doctors!” Ivan called out from another room, an office once belonging to a
Darnell H. Caroll. They went inside, and there sat Ivan and Eva at an office desk, smiling and
chatting.
“Well, looks like you’ve made yourself a new pal, Eh Ivan?” Jonathan attempted to joke.
“It seems I have! This woman- Eva, was it? She has many stories! Quite an interesting specimin,
if I may say so.”
“Well, Aren’t you a gentleman! ” she smiled as she waved one pearl-white hand playfully.
“Oh, so her memories finally kicked in?”
“It seems they have! That’s always good!” Fredrick grinned. “Phil DID say she was dead longer
than Ivan though, didn’t he?”
“I.. I think so.”
“Hm. I’ll have to add that to the notes. Well Ivan, Jonathan and I were about to head out for a
while, so I must ask you to guard the lab once again.”
“I’m on it, Dr. Johanneson. Say, the last time I was on guard, I noticed some houses off in the
distance. Would it be alright if we were to explore them? Perhaps they could serve as housing for
us and any future subjects you may create.” Ivan suggested.
“Uh, Ivan, i don’t think thats a-”
“Go on ahead, Thats a good idea you have there! But be on the lookout for Spikers. We found 2
of them in here when we first arrived, so be ready to fight any. You have a weapon on you?”
“Yes, I have my baton, Ivanka. I stole it off of a police officer I had slain him and his partner
with my bare hands.” he bragged as he pulled it out of his belt loop-- a black, matte
run-of-the-mill police baton with the name “IVANKA” etched into it in Cryllic alphabet, with a
mysterious reddish-brown residue stuck in the etchings. “She’s very beautiful, No? But this is
only a baton. I know a woman who’s about as powerful as this baton.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. a woman by the name of Bridget Konner. Night woman, Very lovely personality. Shall I
tell you more about her?”
“Oh- Uh, W-Well, We’re running out of time, Ivan. Perhaps when we come back?” Fredrick
stuttered, worried that this would provoke the man. But he only nodded with a gentle grin on his
face.
“That is okay. I can wait.”
“Come now, Dr. Min. Do you really think I would attack Dr. Johanneson for not being able to
listen to a story? Your countries propaganda may have painted me to be an animal, but I am not
THAT Barbaric! At least, not as barbaric as your army’s Ted Conrad-”
“We don’t talk about Conrad.” Fredrick cringed. “Anyway, we need to get going. Please guard
the lab and look in those houses if you wish.”
“Understood, Dr. Johanneson.”
And with that, they exited Ivan and Eva’s Office and made way out of the door, getting into
Fredrick’s truck once again after filling it up with a jerry-can of gas and revving the engine.
“Alright, and Jimmy’s in New Arabi, right?”
“Yep, just off the exit!”
“Well that’ll be good, we can just grab our food, get our clothes, and come right back!... I’ve
forgotten so much about the Pre-war, New arabi isn’t just Arabi, is it?”
“So you know about how Gonzales got their water poisoned, and they had to pack up and move?
Well, something like that happened to Arabi, I believe. but instead of just traveling a couple
miles away from where they used to be, they moved further up near Baton rouge and took up
residence there. See, Arabi was near New Orleans before the war.” he explained. “..At least I
think it is- I was never all that great at geography and maps. I always used a GPS until it broke
on me and they started charging you up the you-know-what to buy one.”
“Ahh, okay!”
“Besides, one time i got stopped by one of those “Common-law officers” and they stole one of
mine while they were ‘Searching my car for illegal drugs’. Sir, you do realize that the
government is no more, America is in anarchy, russian immigrants are being pulverized by the
Achtung 86 until they’re unrecognizable but you stop me on suspicion of drugs? And you aren’t
even a real cop?” he begins as his eyes squint and his jaw clenched.
“Yeah! They’re just a bunch of larping wanna-be punks!”
“Exactly! They don’t even train or anything, they think just because they have the uniforms, they
think “Oh, I’m a cop now!” Even the Sheffield family are better peace-keepers, and they’re a
bunch of kids with loud hair and even louder music!”
“Heck, I’ll take the Sheffield’s over Common-law anyday! They managed to keep the Achtung
86 away from our neck of the woods for a good long while now- what have the cops done? Not a
damn thing.”
“Thats the thing about living in a post-war world though, Johnny. Especically one with no-one to
keep things in check. It’s like those movies and video games we’d watch and play as young’uns.
Except this is the real deal, and it’s no game where you can just try again...” Fredrick
monologued as he gripped the wheel. “Wish we could, but ain’t that life?”
“F-fredrick.. Are you alright?-”
“If I had everything I wanted, Adam and Irene would be back home and not in Moscow, I
would’ve enjoyed barbaques with the neighbors during my retirement, I would’ve gotten to see
Olivia grow up and become her own woman, she wouldn’t be in a cryogenic pod when she
should be 6 feet under!!” He half-heartedly yelled through tear-filled cords as he turned to
Jonathan. “...But we can’t have everything we want, can we?”
Jonathan had nothing to say. He couldn’t say anything as he looked at his friend, broken and
empty, an Olivia-shaped hole in his heart. She was the only thing keeping him centered in a
world of chaos, as collegues he once considered friends began to d1e or become deranged shells
of their former selves, as the job of peacekeeping fell into the hands of leather-donning madmen
with masks and helmets, as what was left of two of the world’s superpowers continued to eat
from each other’s mauled and irradiated corpses, as if Man’s abomination and nuclear fire
weren’t enough.
In a world of war, his daughter was his peace.
“...I’m so tired, Jonathan. I just want her back.”
Jonathan then tightly hugged Fredrick.
“I want her back too, Fredrick. But You’ll get her back! You brought Ivan and Eva back, I-I
know you can bring her back too!” He crackled as he looked into Fredrick’s reddened eyes,
holding his head with his hands.
“I’m not giving up on you just yet, godd4mnit, don’t you give up either!” He attempted to sound
assertive once again, but his voice only crackled again. “P-Please don’t give up..”
“...I ain’t giving up, Johnny. I can’t.”
“Good.. You’re the greatest friend a man could ever have, you know that?” Jonathan sniffled.
“You are too, Johnny. I feel like I can tell you just about anything.” Fredrick smiled as he wiped
the tears from his eyes.
“Thats because you can, Fred. I still remember how you told me about the time you tried to woo
a girl by perfectly pronouncing IKEA product names.”
“You STILL rememeber that? I forgot all about it!” he snickered as he got on the exit toward’s
Big Jimmys, where they then began to talk about miscellanious childhood memories.
…
When they had finally arrived, all that was there was the building for Big Jimmy’s, with a
sign beneath it showing a cartoony portly man with brown hair and a shirt and tie, holding a
burger to eat it while smiling and winking. Fredrick smiled at the sign, taking a moment to think
of his teenager days, where he’d come here to eat with his punk-rocker friends and Jonathan,
who at the time fancied himself a rapper.
“They still have Big Jimmy up there too, See Johnny?”
“Oh, really? Well, I kinda wish it would already.”
“Oh come on, you don’t like Big Jimmy? Whats Big Jimmy done to you?”
“Nah, he’s okay! Its just that he’s so dang creepy looking! Like after he’s done with that there
burger, he’s coming for you next!”
“Pff- Well aren’t you picking up the southern twang?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“‘Whaddya mean?’,’That there burger’! You’re starting to turn into me, Johnny!”
“Oh come on, I learned it from you and everyone else around these parts!”
“‘Round These parts’! There it is again!” he teased. “Look out for Ol’ Johnny Min! He’ll give
you a real whoopin, I tell you what!” He continued while putting on the most country accent he
could muster.
“Fredriiick…” He groaned while his face turned a bright red.
“Oh come on, its funny and you know it!”
“...Okay, you got me!” Jonathan chortled while wiping the condensation from his glasses.
After a bit, they had finally reached the drive-thru speaker, and fredrick cleared his throat to
prepare to order before rolling down his window.
“Hi, Welcome to Big Jimmy’s, home of the Jimmyrino Burger! Order when you’re ready!” A
woman’s voice rang out through the subpar speaker.
“Yeah, Let me get four sausage buiscuit with two large bacon boxes, Please!”
“Alrighty sir, what kind of drink?”
“Jonathan, what drink do you want?” he whispered.
“Uh, I’ll take an Orange juice.”
“Alright, let me get two large orange juices, please!”
“Alrighty, that’ll be 21.50!”
After they had placed their order, the two scientists paid the person at the window, and proceeded
to wait for whoever would bring out their food in the parking lot. They waited like this for quite
a while until a ginger girl, probably about 20, with fluffy hair, eyeliner and piercings walked out
carrying the order.
“Alright sir, here’s your…. Order.” She mumbled until she locked eyes with Fredrick.
“No. flipping. Way! A-Are you THE Dr. Fredrick Dell Johanneson?! The one from the
documentary about Project Prometheus?”
“Hehe, I am! I was the leader of it too!”
“Oh my gosh, theres Dr. Jonathan Min too, Hiiii! Uh- H-Heres your order, Sirs!” She nervously
handed the order to them as gently as she could. “U-Uh, i-its okay if you don’t want to, but
c-could I have y’alls autographs?”
Fredrick smiled, suprised at the fact that people still remembered Project Prometheus and his
multiple appearances in interviews, movies, TV shows, and the like.
“Well, I sure can! Its been a hot minute since someone remembered both Me and Dr. Min!” He
chortles as he pulled out a red pen out of his pocket. The girl then got a spiral mini-notebook out
of her apron pocket and handed it to him, where they both wrote their names. Afterwards, they
agreed to a picture.
“T-thank you so much, sirs! I-I always wanted to be a s-scientist like you when I was little, but
s-so much for that now that everything’s gone under.”
“Who says you can’t be one now, Young lady? It doesn’t matter about no wars or not- You just
gotta buckle down and learn what you can and you’ll get there, believe me! I was like you once!”
“R-really?”
“I sure was! I was working at a donut shop like this place here, and I used the money I got from
working there to fund towards going to college! Also used it to buy my own parts and manuals.
Of course, I also used it towards other responsibilities.”
“S-so you mean..”
“What I mean is, You don’t gotta be born with some natural gift to become a scientist. You just
gotta do what you love, and love what you do. I did robotics, Dr. Min did medicine and surgery.
One of my old friends Jaques Baroque studied memories! You find what you love, and I bet your
bottom dollar you’ll go far. Whats something you like?
“I.. I really like moths…”
“You’re in luck, scientists that study moths are called Lepidopterists! You find yourself some
specimins all over the place here! No doubt you’ll be one of the best damn lepido- lepidopter..”
“Lepidopterist!” Jonathan laughed.
“Yeah, those! You’ll be a great one around here! What’s your name.. er..” He mumbled as he
squinted to read her name tag, which read “Riley”.
“Riley! Well Riley, You can do whatever you want to do, you just gotta have a little faith in
yourself!”
She smiled from ear to ear. “T-thank you so much, sir! Y-You enjoy your meal now, Y’hear? I-I
have to get back to work!”
“Haha, Alright now, you take care, Young lady! You remember what ! said!”
“Oh I will, Sir! Thank you so much!”
And with that, the ginger girl skipped back inside.
“...What is it, Jon?”
Jonathan had a smile on his face just like the server girl as he gave him a hard pat on the back.
“You still got it, Freddy. Thats the doctor I know!” He laughed and laughed.
They then proceeded to eat their sausage biscuits and bacon and drink their orange juice while
talking about that experience and of past projects and media they were in.
“I’m suprised she didn’t mention the bloopers part of the documentary where you went ‘People
are ALWAYS asking me what its like to be a man of science-’ before you knocked the table you
were kneeling on over and hitting your head on it.”
“Pfff- I’m glad she didn’t, that was just awful! Humiliatin’, even!”
“It did get you more popular though.”
“Yeah, that it did..” Fredrick grinned as he began to check everything and hand out the food
before settling down to eat.
“Lets see if they still taste the same.”
As he bit down into his breakfast, his senses were flooded by the flakey and buttery biscuit and
the savory yet sweet flavor of the sausage patty. Indeed, they had not changed the recipe at all,
maybe even perfected it.
“Well how do you like that! Its just how I remember them..”
He looked over to Jonathan, who was actually half-finished with his first one while guzzling
down his orange juice like there was no tommorow. Fredrick held in a laugh, watching this
skinny twig of a man wolf down a sausage biscuit as if he was a scrawny starved spiker tearing
apart a deer carcass, his glasses falling to the tip of his nose every now and then.
“Careful now, Johnny! You don’t wanna choke!” he warned as he patted Jonathan’s back, to
which he jumped and swallowed, Accidentally making a food particle go down the wrong pipe.
Leaving him coughing and beating on his chest with one fist in a struggle to get it out. His spine
curled inwards as he hacked and sputtered, leaving him a watery-eyed, red-faced mess of a man.
“Oh sh- Jonathan!”
“I- chk! I-Im F-chk! Fine, Fredrick!”
“Oh Hell- Jon, I’m sorry! I didn’t think t-that’d happen! H-Here, drink something!” He stuttered
as he grabbed Jonathan’s drink from out of the cup-holder and put the straw to Jonathan’s mouth,
using one hand to stabilize his head. Jonathan jolted ever-so-slightly when he felt his hand on the
side of his head, and his face glowed with that familiar warmth once again when he realized what
was going on.
“Fredrick, W-w-what are you-”
“Just take a swig, Johnny. that’ll help wash it down.” He said calmly, with a bit of an
“I-know-what-im-talking-about” attitude. Jonathan stayed in that position for a little longer
before finally giving in and taking a big sip from the drink that fredrick held in his hand for him,
his subtly wrinkled hand on his face.
“There, that’d help any?” He asked him, raising one white eyebrow as he took his hand away
from the position it was in. Jonathan straightened his back out from the shrimp-like position he
was previously in and deeply inhaled before looking into the door’s mirror to find that his face
was as maroon as the paint on Fredrick’s truck.
“Y-chk! Yeah, it did. Thanks a lot, man.” he hacked as he finished off his biscuit, albeit slower
this time, trying to forget what had happened.
“Geez, you were coughing an awful lot- look at your face!”
“Y-Yeah, I saw it when I got back up.”
“..You alright there, Bud?”
“Of course I a-am! Just still recovering from me nearly choking to death, is all.” he stuttered as
he took another sip from his drink, this time without Fredrick’s help.
“Well if you say so,” Fredrick said as he started up the truck once again. “I think we can finish
the rest going down the road, what do you think?”
“Yeah, we should be able to.” Jonathan replied as he crumpled up his wrapper. “What about you?
You gonna finish yours?”
“Of course-mmph! Of course i am,” He said as he pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the
road towards New Arabi. “These things are just as good as I remember them being, if not better!
It might be good for you to eat your other one now, thats what I’m gonna do after i finish this one
off! Although you might wanna take it slowly with that second one, or I might have to help you
out again, and I don’t think i can do that and drive at the same time!”
It didn’t take that long to reach the little town of New Arabi, a rural town that had a population of
roughly 220 people living in houses in what were originally suburban neighborhoods, with little
mom-and-pop stores that had just about anything you needed. A simple town for a simple family,
one might say. They drove past these houses in rows, with spouses spending their time together
on the chairs or swings that sat and hung outside on their porches while children, if they had any,
played on the lawn, playing with their little toys and with eachother, fancying sticks as samurai
swords, sometimes their dogs or cats or sometimes but rarely even tiny, tiny domesticated spiker
pups would be with them.
The only difference he could find now were war vets from the neighboorhood were standing on
almost every corner to keep watch. some who were very obviously subjects from Project
Prometheus, with arms and/or legs of metal and wire, cybernetic eyes that seemed to glow even
with the morning sun shining upon them, some vets having metal platelets around their nets to
protect them. one even had a steel jaw. And yet with these parts placed upon them, they seemed
to be healthy. Physically, anyhow. Their reflexes were quick as they looked around, and their
skin was flush with life, greatly differing to the amalgamations that Fredrick had created a couple
of days ago. Fredrick gripped the wheel as he continued to drive, trying his best to push any
thought he had out of his mind. This was not a time to think about whether his project was
morally correct. Why would he even question it? Science isn’t always moral or ethically correct,
so why should he care? Its not like he’s hurting anything, and this is for a nobel cause!
“You okay, Fredrick? You haven’t spoke in a while!” Jonathan asked worriedly as he finished his
second sausage biscuit and crumpled the wrapper into the first one.
“Wha-? O-Oh! I’m fine.” He mumbled blankly as he turned onto the road where fredrick’s house
was located. “We should be there here in a little bit.”
“You sure? You don’t sound alri-”
“I assure you Jonathan, I am alright. Just… focused, is all.” he interrupted. He then pulled into
the curb next to his house, painted a pale green with white baseboards and a porch made of stone,
with some daffodils that Olivia had planted some years ago.
“How’s your car looking, Jon?”
Jonathan’s dark brown car sat in the driveway, as if it were untouched. He carefully exited the
truck and crept towards it, in fear of some robber hiding behind it.
“You see anything?”
“No, but i’m checking it!” he called back as he made his way around the car before checking
under it. He then examined the windows and handles, and suprisingly, it looked as if no attempts
had been made to break into it. He did not trust this, however, and pulled on the driver’s side
door to find that it was locked, just how he had left it.
“Well whaddya know! No one broke in!”
“Good deal!” Fredrick called back as he hopped out of the truck and approached his house’s
door. “Lets hope no-one ransacked this place.”
He fit his key into the lock of the door and unlocked it.
Chkk-chhk! Whirrr…
When he made it inside, the lights were off, and so was the television, and everything was
exactly the same as the night Fredrick had left. The same night he lost the only light in his life.
Dead silence rung through the once happy home.
“How does everything look, Fredrick…?” Jonathan whispered as he looked around.
“...It looks. It just looks.” Fredrick sighed. He then turned on the switch to the living room,
illuminating the house. “Lets just get my clothes and grab yours next.”
“Aren’t you gonna shower here?”
“Theres no way in hell I’m doing anything here after what happened, lets just leave it at that.” he
muttered as he immediately went into his bedroom. “Get yourself a drink out of the fridge if you
want.”
Jonathan did not grab a drink. Instead, he followed him into the bedroom to find him grabbing a
suitcase from underneath his bed and unzipping it before walking over to his wooden closet and
grabbing some shirts and pants and other nessecities from off of the hangers and out of the
drawers. He walked inside the room, purposefully sniffling to let Fredrick know he was in there,
and looked at the walls and shelves, taking note of the portrait of his family, a photo of him,
Jonathan and the rest of his scientist collegues, a portrait of him and an 8 year-old Olivia sitting
upon his lap in his favorite chair, and a shelf that had little knick-knacks that portrayed himself
along with posters of him in a documentary.
But one photo had caught his eye, and it was a photo of him in between scientists Chester
Boswell, who popularized the use of robotics in house-assistants and entertainment, and Rosa
Chadwick, who created the first line of plasma-weaponry for the U.S army. “The Big Three” as
they were known across the world. Fans wrote letters everyday, he was invited onto many shows,
and was even given an award for his contributions to science and to America. But all of this
meant nothing to him. At least not now.
“You still have these? I forgot all about them!” Jonathan attempted to converse. Fredrick looked
up to the shelf and only sighed before he looked back down.
“Yeah, I kept all of those little doo-dads and what-not. It makes the walls less barren.” He
mumbled as he folded his clothes and set them into the case, checking the pockets to make sure
he had soap and hair-wash in there. Afterwards, he picked up the suitcase by its handle and toted
it out of his room, with Jonathan following right behind him. He then looked over to the door to
Olivia’s room, adorned with those familiar flowers and bunnies, only now there was a slight
blanket of dust over both them and the door itself.
“...Was that her room?”
“.....Yep.”
He then opened the door to her room and stepped inside to get one last look, not even bothering
to turn on the lights and instead letting the sun shine through the sheer white lacy curtains. The
walls were a lollipop-pink color, and the baseboards were white. In fact, a lot of things in there
were pink and white, two of her favorite colors. He remembered how in the days before she
arrived at the house, he stayed up 3 nights in a row to make sure that room was the perfect place
for a little girl like her to feel safe in. He looked over to her bed, neatly made with some stuffed
animals she had gotten herself and from one of her best friends, and on the wall her bed was up
against, some photos of her and her friends hung along a string of lights, held onto by tiny little
clothespins. One of them was Fredrick meeting her “bestest friend”, a girl with fluffy
peach-colored hair and heavy eyeliner that contrasted greatly against her pale skin, wearing a
black tank-top with some brightly colored kandi-bracelets adorning her wrists, and written on the
white border of the photo was “Pa meeting Alexis, 2039”.
“....do you remember Alexis, Jonathan..? Alexis Bright?” Fredrick mumbled as he used one hand
against the bed’s footrest to balance himself.
“Yeah, I remember her. She was the one that rescued Olivia from some Actung 86 scumbags
after they cornered her. I remember they used to hang out all the time from then on.”
“....Yeah. Yeah they did, didn’t they? Those two- those two kids were like two peas in a pod,”
Fredrick attempted to speak as sorrow overloaded his vocal cords. “Kinda like us when we were
kids!”
He gripped the ball of the footrest with a grip of iron as he gritted his teeth, trying not to display
any sort of weakness. “They hung out almost everyday, she talked about her so much! I-I was
glad to see her going out more and having a normal damn childhood- I-...”
“Fredrick..?”
“And I had to go screw it up by letting her go to that party!”
“Fredrick,” He gripped his shoulder tightly, looking him in his eyes. “You listen to me. You
didn’t cause this. You didn’t fail her. Did you know that was going to happen?”
“...No.”
“Then you didn’t cause it. Don’t fool yourself into thinking this is your fault, because it’s not.
You hear me? Its not!”
“I know its not, but I can’t help it.” he sighed. “...Lets just get out of here.”
Jonathan did not object to this, and the two left the house and locked the door back, not saying
anything. Jonathan then got into his car and cranked it up to make sure no one had stole gasoline,
and to his surprise, it looked like the gas had not been touched either.
“This thing hasn’t been touched at all!”
“Well good! Now, we just have to go to your house so we can get your clothes!”
“Okay, I’m thinking you can just follow me there in your truck, huh?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I can do that.”
Afterwards, Fredrick began to follow Jonathan, the only sound he heard was the sound of his
own breathing, the engine running, and the subtle rumble of the tires rolling, rolling, rolling
against the concrete roads for about an hour and a half, leaving him with only his thoughts that
stirred within his head like leaves desperately hanging on to its branches in a hurricane. When
the two had finally reached Jonathans house, it looked just the same as how it looked the last
time Fredrick had seen it, only now the flowers upon Jonathan’s flowerbeds had seen better days.
“Welp, there goes my daffodils..” Jonathan sighed as he rose out of his car and closed the door.
“Now, last time i ever touched my suitcase, I think it was somewhere in my garage..”
“The same one that you had a hard time finding the ice chest in,” Fredrick chortled as he jumped
out of his truck. “That one?”
“...Yeah, that one.” He huffed. Fredrick smiled at Jonathan before walking up to the garage door,
which was one of those sheet-metal ones that you could simply raise up on without any fancy
electronics. He grabbed upon the handle and lifted up on it, opening up to reveal plastic boxes
upon plastic boxes of odds and ends lined up against the wall along with the odor of sawdust.
“Jeez, is this your garage or your shed?” He hacked. “Smells like a woodshop in here!”
“Well, its a little bit of both.” Jonathan sighed before opening each box and searching through it.
Box after box, he searched, meticulously scaling every corner of those plastic crates until he was
for certain that his suitcases were not inside. All the while, Fredrick looked at his surroundings,
from the light dangling above him, to the concrete floors underneath his feet. He did like this for
a while until he noticed an axe sitting in the corner of the garage, with a wooden handle and a big
metal blade colored red from paint.
“Hey, you think we’ll need this axe for anything? Like chopping wood or some spikers?” he
asked curiously as he picked it up and felt the weight of the dangerous tool in his arms. “We
could have ourselves a little campfire outside, Buy us some marshmallows or heat us up some
soup underneath those stars. What do you think?”
“You know, I’d actually like that!” Jonathan smiled as he opened up the last box, where he had
finally recovered his suitcase, entrenched in a fine layer of dust that was quickly swept away
with his hand. “We haven’t done that in a long time, not since college!”
“Ha, no we haven’t! You remember how you set your favorite pair of jeans ‘cause you stood to
close to the fire like an idiot?” Fredrick sneered and jeered. Jonathan could only exhale through
his nose and shake his head as he reached into his lab-coat pocket for his keys to open up his
home.
When they finally entered Jonathan’s house, Jonathan flipped on the light-switch, and the first
thing Fredrick noticed was the wallpaper that layed upon his walls, green as an arsenic dress.
Pictures of him with his parents and his little sister hung upon the wall in a little cluster near the
corner of the door, and a large glass-windowed cabinet-shelf full of fine china that used to belong
to his paternal grandmother layed in a part of the room where the kitchen and living-room met,
along with other little trinkets and things upon another shelf that was right next to it.
“Well, you’ve certainly made yourself at home here, Eh Johnny? Last time i was over this way,
you still had boxes of stuff you had to go through!”
“Well, when you’re retired, you got time to do things! And you gotta remember, last time you
were over here was in 2030! Almost.. What was it, eleven years ago?”
“Yeah, i think so..” Fredrick mumbled as he took a closer look at the trinket shelf. Little
souviners from a trip to South Korea to visit his grandmother, pictures of him and Fredrick when
they were teenagers, and a collection of tiny porcelain cats sat upon the wooden shelves, pushed
to the back in fear of them falling. “You certainly like your porcelain cats!”
“Hah, got those from my sister. She said that they were left at the house she had moved into after
the spiker invasion. I’m suprised she didn’t want them, as cute as they are! I mean, look at this
one!” he beamed as he gently picked up one, an itty-bitty calico cat dressed up as a clown,
complete with a white face and nose and a little hat.
“Isn’t he adorable? Its a clown cat! A cat clown!”
“Yep, he sure is a cute one, thats for sure. Now why don’t you get your clothes and stuff you
need, before we become too focused on your cats?”
“O-Oh, yes- of course! U-uh, feel free to get a drink or something, I have plenty of drinks in the
fridge, a-and some cookies i baked just the other day should still be good, I hope!” Jonathan
stuttered as he climbed up the wooden stairs up to the second floor.
Fredrick, now alone but not quite, decided to go into the kitchen, which much like his own, had
wooden cabinets and a granite bar and counterspace. He opened up the fridge gently, and found 3
12-pack boxes of soda, and up on the top shelf were the cookies that Jonathan had told him
about. Actually, there were two freezer bags just full of them, the zipper’s struggling to keep the
bag closed. In one bag was the classic chocolate-chip cookies that one’s grandmother would
make, and another bag held some that were a peculiar pink color with white chocolate chips.
Fredrick, being quite curious when it comes to baked goods especially nowdays, decided to get
two chocolate chip cookies and two of the mystery cookies. He bit into the pink ones first, and
was hit with a light, pleasent strawberry taste, with a hint of white chocolate which was only
amplified by the chill. He took another bite of it, intrigued by what he was experiencing. Normal
cookies don’t taste like this, he thought to himself. He took a paper towel off of the rack that
hung on the underside of one of the shelfs and wrapped up the rest while finishing off the one he
was eating before making his way upstairs, trying his best not to disturb the rug which lay upon
it.
Upstairs, the walls were still that vibrant green color, and even more little portaits, paintings, and
pictures hung upon the walls, with brown polished wooden doors that led to different rooms. At
the end of this hall, one door hung open, and Fredrick could hear Jonathan folding clothes and
muttering to himself about whatever. Fredrick raised one eyebrow as he entered through the door
before rapping his knuckles upon the threshold. Jonathan, who was just putting his last stack of
folded laundry into the case, jumped and let out a high-pitched shriek as his one neatly-folded
shirts flew.
“F-Fredrick!” he hissed as he held his heart through this chest. “Was that really nessacary?”
“Hell, I didn’t think that’d scare you! Sorry!” he apoligized as his eyes darted around, taking
notice of his room which unlike the rest of what he had seen of the house so far, had blue
wallpaper this time, a pale aquamarine blue. His bed was in the middle with the footrest pointing
towards the door, and two mohagany nightstands sat at each end of the headrest. And a chest of
drawers sat next to the left nightstand.
“Nice little house you have going on here! Wouldn’t mind having a big house like this myself!”
“Well thank you! I tried to make this place look nice and feel nice!”
“You’ve certainly accomplished that. Because i feel like i’m at my Grandma’s house.” Fredrick
joked.
“And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“It looks like a grandma lives here!” He laughed.
“Well, is Johanneson on the mailbox, or is Min on the mailbox?”
“Min’s on the mailbox.” He replied, stifling a laugh.
“That means its my house!” Jonathan began as he picked up his now zipped-up suitcase that was
now full of what he needed, and lifted it over his head as if he were some video game’s main
character picking up an important item.
“Its my house and I get to choose the aesthetic!”
“Well geez, alright! …Say, those pink cookies in there, they’re really good! How’d you make
em?” He asked while taking out the second strawberry cookie and taking a bite.
“Well actually, I found that recipe on the internet! ‘Jello pudding cookies’ I think was the name
of them! They seemed easy enough to make and so I thought it’d be fun to make them!”
“Well they’re pretty damn good, and I normally don’t eat fruit-cookies like this.” He chuckled.
“You wouldn’t mind me getting some more, huh?”
“Oh, t-take all the strawberry ones and chocolate ones you want, I don’t want them going to
waste!”
“In that case we’re taking all of ‘em with us!” Fredrick laughed. The two men then left the room
with Jonathan carrying the case in one hand. As they walked down the stairs, the floorboards
creaked ever so subtly under them.
“After this, we’re going back to the lab, right?” Jonathan asked as he looked up at his friend,
holding the case with an iron grip.
“Yeah, unless theres something we need to do in town. Think of anything we need?”
“No, I think we still have plenty of soup at the lab!”
“Well good deal, because I don’t feel like going in nowhere just to grab an unholy amount of
soup- can you imagine the look on the people’s faces when I come to the checkout line with a
cart full of barley soup?” he rambled on as he grabbed the bags of cookies from out of Jonathan’s
refridgerator. Afterwards, he turned out the lights, leaving them in darkness except for the
sun-light that was leaking in from the windows, dust dancing through the air like little stars
waltzing across a clear night’s sky.
“Well I’ll be! It actually looks kinda pretty like that, don’t it? With the light shining in?” Fredrick
mused. “Like one of those scenes in a TV show, kind of.”
“Yeah, like those scenes where they’re looking at a house for the last time before they move out.
Haha, thats kinda what I’m doing, ain’t it?” Jonathan joked as he looked at his porcelain cat
collection one last time, taking 3 cats with him: a cat in a lab coat and safety goggles, a cat with
reading glasses holding a book, and his favorite clown cat.
“Nah, you’re coming back here, and I’m going back to my house after Olivia comes back,”
Fredrick began. He then looked over to Jonathan, who had put the cats into the pocket of the
suitcase so that they would not break.
“You didn’t think we’d be living in the lab forever, did you?”
“I-Its not that, just… I don’t know, I’ve just lived in this house for a long time now, and it just..
Feels weird not being in it for a while, y’know? Like you get homesick or something.” he sighed.
“All i know is that I’ll miss this place.”
“Oh, don’t be like that, Jonathan. You’ll be back here before you know it!”
“I hope you’re right..”
And with that, they exited the house and locked it up before shutting the garage door.
Afterwards, they got into their vehicles, but before Fredrick got back into his truck, he turned to
Jonathan.
“You’re following me back, right?”
“O-Of course!” Jonathan stuttered. “You know the way better than I do!”
“Alright, just making sure!” Fredrick called back as he hopped back into his truck, and the two
began to make their way back to Baton rouge.
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