BOOK 1 - CHAPTER 11

Chapter 11

Johnny sat by a soft crackling campfire. The night was cool, quiet and dark. The light of his fire was all that existed beyond the out of reach celestial bodies and he was the only sentient being anywhere to be seen. The fire crackled, spitting slag as Johnny spun a stick in its fiery waves. His gaze and attention so soaked in the bright orange he almost didn’t notice the ground trembling.

“Albert?” He shot to his feet; the stick became a torch and the oasis he lounged by was suddenly littered with dead bodies. Devil horned rabbits lay aplenty, their stained white fur catching a flame as the world continued to tremble.

Twisted in their pile were the armor-hide deer, their dead, beady eyes following his every move, the darkness creeping as their corpses fell among others now circled by the monstrous hyenas. They gathered, boxing Johnny on all sides all while the earth beneath his feet began to give away. He floated ethereally into the air as dark blood and blackened acids seeped from the corrupted hyenas and the myriads of animal corpses.

Heart pounding in his chest Johnny gulped hard as the darkness of their fluids quenched the campfire, leaving him floating in an abyss with a dim burning torch in his hand. He waved it frantically and cried out, “Cole!?”

There was no one but a whisper.

Johnny’s head whipped back as an oppressive wave glanced at him. The pool of darkness beneath him bugled, bubbles rippled at the sides— outlining a black circle that began to sink into itself, revealing an intense, purple aura from its rift. And then, not seconds after, a clawed hand punched through.

Panic filled his blood, “Brandon…that can’t be you, can it?”

Another claw lurched from the black-purple abyss opening beneath his feet. A head, full torso and then, leaping out of the portal was a wolf-like creature growling a promised violence and hatred up at Johnny. Its fur was matte black and oozed off its thick body like slime, only to sizzle against what was left of the earth in the abyss.

The earth came up to his feet once again, still trembling, fissures running through it and hot gases spewed out he touched upon it. None of it stung, none of it hurt and if nothing else that fact allowed Johnny to realize he’s been dreaming.

And yet…the growling acidic wolf…thing is realer than I feel. It was. He’d learned the lucid dreaming technique as past time when he toured as a Sargeant during the Convar invasion of Earth, he never thought it would come in handy besides fooling around.

Now conscious of his dream state, Johnny tried to clear his panicking mind, reconstruct his reality so the monster from the dark rift stopped stalking closer. But nothing would shift or bend to his will, he could barely even make himself levitate— one of the simplest lucid dreaming skills.

But the hot approach of the monster remained vivid and startling. Conscious yet out of control, Johnny watched helplessly as more of the wolf-like monsters stepped out of the inky purple portal. Their eyes gleamed a dark and murderous sheen to them, each mouth watering at the sight of Johnny.

He watched on in terror, unable to wake himself up, transform the dream or escape its horror-filled clutches. Hundreds of such monsters assembled from the portal, their presence poisoned the land itself. Trees, bushes and shrubs wilted in seconds, the oasis corrupted— its waters turned to slick, black sludge, the corpses of animals, men and Convar soaked in.

“No!” Belting out an ear deafening scream Johnny finally felt his limbs under his control again. Without wasting another second, he turned around and ran, aimlessly in panic as the earth shook violently.

He tripped on his own foot, falling face first onto the vibrating earth. He hopped back on his feet, hastened by fear and immediately paralyzed by a greater dose of it the moment he stood upright. A howl carried through the bloody void, sending a chill down Johnny’s spine as he came face to face with the largest of the pack of monsters, it was a giant beast with waving fur, eyes yellow with madness and maw slobbering with an insatiable appetite.

An appetite for Johnny.

Before he could even lift his hands up the beast towering above him locked its jaws around him. A warmth like never before surrounded him, wet, slimy and as the scent of blood filled his nostrils Johnny knew he had been devoured.

***

Johnny woke up with a start. He kicked out of the Voyager, his stomach lurching another liter of barely digested food up to his throat. Scrambling out as fast as he could, Johnny fell on his knees as he vomited for the third time that night.

He spat, groaned and cursed. He dusted some dirt over the soaking bile he’d thrown up, the colors said nothing good for his gut health. “Just had to get food poisoning…”

“Johnny? Are you alright there? I can’t see you.” Cole’s voice came from the Voyager, a little panic seeping into it.

Johnny gasped, panting for air, fresh air. His throat was sore, and his mouth tasted like nothing he wanted to do with. Taking a moment to center himself amongst the dizziness and creeping lethargy that came with the fever he woke up with hours ago, Johnny noted once again the sky was still dark and its green moon was just now barely setting.

It was dawn-dark, as in, the first rays of Magmasphere’s angry red sun were beginning to pierce the haunting dark of the night. Johnny felt grateful, even if he could already feel the heat the sun rose with on his back; it had been a very long night.

Cole checking in was the second thing to wake him up that night, it was still dark out then. It was obvious then that the Magmasphere had far longer days and nights than on earth, it was already noon over on earth now and it was just beginning to dawn on the hostile planet. Shaking his head at his predicament, Johnny spat out the taste of puke and unsteadily walked back to the Voyager.

It too had changed over the night. When Johnny first woke— at the start of his fever— he’d also been visited by those monsters in a nightmare, except unlike the one he just had, there weren’t hundreds of them leaping out of an inky purple portal. Regardless, his nightmare inspired a sense of caution and further appreciation for how dangerous it was out here on Magmasphere.

Two dual spinning machine guns mounted atop the Wrangler’s wide roof, one still under construction through the Creation Core but well on its way to completion. He stumbled against the door, panting. He said, “I’m fine, Cole, just another nightmare.”

“Oh, sorry. Did you win?”

“What?”

“Last time you said you were wrestling a flood of bunnies, did you win?”

Johnny could only respond with an exhausted groan, “Albert, we’re going to need more weapons. Once the Creation Core is done with that gun, I want gatling rifles attached to the rear windows.

Albert chimed, a wave of lights running through the dashboard as he processed the request, “Did you perhaps mean to have them retract in and out of the rear windows?” Or do you wish them to be attached to the rear windows.”

Again, Johnny groaned, his stomach gurgling yet again even though he’d emptied it twice now. Cole answered for him, “That’ll be retractable gatling rifles, Albert, make them small, compact but powerful enough to give Johnny’s oppressors a run.”

“Understood.”

“You know Johnny, if you’re so nervous about getting attacked again you should just have a weapon on you, something lighter than a hunting rifle obviously.” Cole said.

“Personal carry…” Johnny muttered, he swallowed hard and shook his head, “I’m more worried about what happens when I can’t reach for a weapon than when I don’t have one. If I don’t have one, then I wouldn’t even let myself stay long to fight. At the same time, what’s annoying or maybe scary, is the thought of getting disarmed and then…killed because of it.”

Cole chuckled lightly on the other side, “I think I get it, you’re a step more paranoid than I am but I suppose anyone with your military background would be. I know what could help.”

“What?”

“You’re outfitting the Voyager with weapons, but you should really outfit yourself, you’re not always going to be with it after all. So, how about you store a bit of the Creation Core’s nanites and when you need a weapon you can order one up with your VoyWatch.”

Johnny lifted his wrist and stared at the VoyWatch. He’d gotten far too distracted by hunger and survival to do anything other than wear it but now it had a purpose again, he smiled and sat up straight in the passenger side, “How do we do that?”

“First, we need to code the nanites to you and the VoyWatch, then we’ll need—”

A raucous erupted in the background of their connection as Cole’s words cut off. Agent Nadim’s corporate voice was easy to pick out among them, he was loud, authoritative and a bit defensive.

“Cole? What’s going on?” Johnny asked.

Nadim’s yelling continued, “Helene you have no right! Your client, wherever he is had—”

“Wherever he is? You’d better find him while this company is still afloat, Banzai Bangers isn’t going to sit idly by and let one of their best assets be l—”

“Spare me the bull! You’re in here hounding me but we both know how this ends.”

“Do we?”

“Settlement.” Agent Nadim sounded confident but in the silence that followed Johnny could almost hear Helene’s arrogance as she retorted.

“Goodluck living that fantasy, I’ll tell you now, the Regime and its elites are taking an interest in what you lot have been cooking up here. What DRIFTERS have been up to they ask me. Hahaha, you’d better prepare for the worst, Nadim and get me Brandon!”

Silence reigned for a short, still moment before it was filled with a slew of curses and damnations from Nadim. Gulping at what could only be more bad news, Johnny voiced his presence, “Hey Nadim…everything okay there?”

A growl of frustration and the mic being ruffled came before anything coherent, “No. No, Johnny, things are not okay. Damn racers are going to be the death of me. Look here, this will probably be the last you hear from me or Cole, there’s far too much mess to clean up here to deal with yours in tandem.”

“I’m sick, starving over here and there are monsters, Nadim! You can’t just leave me to die here.”

“Hey, hey hey! Who said anything about that? We are not abandoning you, Johnny, don’t even joke. That’ll be another lawsuit for sure. But make no mistake, we can’t babysit you either so make good choices or keep a lookout for Brandon…if he isn’t monster poop by now, I’ll appreciate it if you brought him back with you.”

Baffled, Johnny yelled, “He’s the one who left!”

“Great, thank you Johnny, you’re a star. I’ll get your updates ASAP!”

“Nadim! Nadim? Nadim!”

“He’s gone Johnny.” Cole finally spoke, his voice rife with exhaustion, “But you heard probably most of that. It’s going to be a busy day here so let’s finish up quickly now, okay?”

Nothing to do but accept his fate and sigh, Johnny nodded and tried to calm himself down before he aggravated his fever, “Alright, where were we? Oh, yeah, coding nanites, personal carry.”

“I’ve already written the code, had to do something while that shouting match was happening.” Cole said with an exasperated sigh, “I’ve sent it over to Albert and your VoyWatch, accept the code’s applications.”

Johnny hummed, looking through several hundred lines of code across the VoyWatch’s screen. He hit apply and asked, “What about the nanites?”

“Albert is working on that. He’ll gather a significant amount but…the issue comes in storage. We don’t exactly have anything safe or compact to store the nanites outside of the Creation Core itself.”

A frown quickly found Johnny’s lips, his stomach gurgled some more, forcing him to sit up straight and moan out his question, “So what then? I thought you said—”

“I know what I said. The nanites can be stored in you, it's not exactly the best storage; a human being, but it's possible. They’re medical nanites as well so they won’t hurt so much when flowing in and out of your bloodstream.”

Johnny managed a laugh, “Wait, you want to pump me full of nanites? How is the creation going to work then?”

“Just…it will work, just give Albert an input area, could be an open wound or a scar or you could tear yourself a new hole if you like.” Cole said.

“Very funny,” He rolled his eyes but thought of a place to have the nanites enter. His body was covered in bruises, and he’d gotten a few new wounds from the hunting experience too but none of them seemed appropriate.

Johnny caught sight of himself in the rearview mirror, the sun had risen up significantly but there was no excuse for how profuse he was sweating. He wiped it off with his thumb, slicked it away and looked back at his forehead— there was a scar he’d gotten from Brandon not too long ago now.

He inhaled deeply and said, “I think I found a spot. Now how do the nanites— oh no.”

Albert controlled a translucent, thin tube, almost as tiny as a syringe but its opening was wider. It snaked out of a port on the dashboard up to Johnny’s face, “I am sorry, Johnny, this will only hurt for a moment.”