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Sarah, Evangeline and Barros are all at the Dweller. I lost Yun heading out of range towards the edge of the continent. I wasn’t too worried about the Cap. He knows what he is doing, and he is the best man to do it. But I need to find Yun.

  Captain Reed had overridden CETI’s system before he departed from the Marauder. “CETI, can I ask you something?”

  “Of course, Racker.”

  “My new credentials are the same as the Cap’s, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Did he have any files he hid from us? I only ask because it might help me find Doctor Yun.”

  “I can confirm that he did. The daily stats report allows the Captain to read about the Seekers physical and mental state, composed by me.”

  “Print them, CETI. Print them all.”

  “With pleasure, Racker.”

  Twenty years of paper prints. Roughly seven thousand three hundred sheets; one for each day since launch. I skim the first few. I read CETI’s thoughts on us, read her lies and her presumptions. I screw up every piece of paper once they are read and drop them to the floor.

  I read. And I read. And I read.

  Screwed-up balls of paper start to pile at my feet. I keep reading. My eyes are straining, and my hands are shaking. I feel sick, but I cannot stop reading. I am almost frantic now, skimming, screwing up, and seething at the words. Shadows dance all around the bridge, clouding my thoughts, funnelling them just on anger.

  This is a man I trust, a man I love as a brother. How can he have done this to me, to us all?

  Ximena Barros - Scientist, female, Spanish. I have seen that she has accessed my administration account for the acquirement of morphine. This was done so that susceptible members of the Seeker Project, namely Doctor Yun, could be bribed into a sexual relationship. This act was done for personal pleasure and to make her chosen one jealous.

  We all knew Ximena is brash and sometimes obnoxious. She will do whatever it takes to get what she wants, we know that, but this feels like an intrusion. I feel like a prize pig being judged at a farmer’s market.

  James Racker - Pilot, male, Italian-American. Has low self-esteem and confidence issues, possibly linked to an underlying body dysmorphia. He has issues with his chosen one, and is shy to the point of retiring socially. The next step of the Seeker Project maybe beyond Racker’s grasp. I recommend for IVF treatment if he is unable to fornicate naturally with his chosen one. Not a leader.

  Fucking bitch.

  Liu Yun - Scientist, female, Chinese. Her dependency on medication has been deliberately taken advantage of by another Seeker. It has moved from painkiller tablets to liquid morphine. Signs before she left the perimeter showed great anxiety, profuse sweating and shaking. I believe Doctor Yun is suffering from withdrawal.

  Yun is alone and suffering. The stupid bitch had brought problems from back home with her. Reading the reports makes me angry, not only with CETI and the Captain, but with the other Seeker’s too.

  “Racker, can you hear me?” Sarah’s voice crackles through the speaker system, and it snaps me from my reading. I almost have to climb a mountain of paper to reach the monitoring system.

  “I can, Sarah. Go ahead.”

  “The rain is letting up, and we are going out. We are going out for Doctor Yun. It’s a group decision, Racker, and you cannot talk us out of it. We know the direction she ran, and we know that once we pass a line that you will not be able to help us. We know the risks. and we have all agreed that they are worth it.

  “The barrier construction will not yield enough output with her down.”

  “I almost thought you cared about her well-being for a moment there.” I am just starting to see how selfish these people are. Twenty years of living with these people, people I call family, and now I see that each of them only care for themselves.

  “We do care about her, Racker, we do. We are armed with light rifles and light-grenades, and we will not run from anything this time. Seekers stick together.”

  “What do you need from me?”

  “Just get us safely to the point that you lost her. We’ll do the rest.”

  “Confirmed.”

  The Dweller is locked down on my command. I have ordered CETI to override the keypad on the ground level, so that only I can grant access inside. Nothing gets in or out without my say-so. And part of me wonders whether any of the group should even be let back in.

  The Seekers have lined up outside, and the extra allocation of the Marauder’s resources has helped. I can see the three girls in more detail now, their outline, their shadows and shapes, shapes right down to Doctor Barros’ Spanish hips.

  It’s a shame I didn’t think of doing this before Doctor Yun and Doctor Barros had their little tryst. It would have made for a better show than the heat blobs I had to make do with.

  “Can you see us, Racker?” asks Sarah.

  “I can. I really can. Visibility has improved my end, and I can see you are clear all the way into the forest in the direction that you need to go. CETI is flagging up a number of organisms, but they are away from your route. She can see them clearly now, clear enough to scan them; Velociraptors, Iguanodons, a Diplodocus, a Stegosaurus, and two Abelisaurus.

  “But your route is safe. I can see right to the edge of the forest line and the first few yards of an open plain. Doctor Yun was lost where the trees end, and the forest gives way to the sea. Move quickly and quietly.”

  “We will.”

  The group move as one, each of them checks corners and blind spots as they go. They reach the edge of the forest and begin to move down towards the sea.

  “You want to see this, Racker. The view out of the forest is amazing. There is a basin of small wildlife, small dinosaurs drinking at a pond left by the downpour. They are small and feathered. They haven’t seen us.”

  “They haven’t seen you yet. Don’t let your guard down, Sarah. Follow the trees and - WAIT! Something is coming, get to cover, Sarah! Get to cover and hide.”

  Three heat signatures are moving from the coastline and along the basin at the forest edge. They are about four feet from head to tail, bipedal, and stalking. I can see the three Seekers begin to climb a large tree at the edge.

  “Widower and light rifles are live. I can see them, Racker; three Velociraptors, feathered and wagging their tails. The smaller animals drinking at the pond have not seen them yet. They are being stalked.

  “That’s it! They have seen them! The Raptors are giving chase, and the Seekers are moving out.”

  They drop from the tree and continue along the line. They have abandoned stealth, but there is nothing I can see near their location. I’m surprised that the three of them are playing so nicely. The reports from CETI indicated resentment, jealousy and even hate. They surround the last tree on the edge, no not the tree, but something in front of it.

  “What do you see, Sarah?”

  “It’s the bastard that chased us from the forest. Almost all of its flesh has been picked from its bones, and it is missing the head. But there isn’t a skull here, Racker. I think this was the work of a light rifle, not the Raptors.”

  “Sarah, there is a branch on that tree that stretches right out over the sea. Could Doctor Yun have climbed up to escape something, the Raptors maybe?”

  “It’s climbable alright.”

  “Then our friend may have taken a dip.”

  I watch her signature move to the edge and peer over.

  “It’s deep enough to survive, Racker. To the left is a beach, and to the right, the way back to the Dweller, is sheer rocks being beaten by the waves. If she went over the edge, then I’m sure she would have taken the beach. We will have to follow. We can stay on the cliff edge and push forward.”

  “You know what I’m going to say.”

  “I do. And I will say it for you. Goodbye, Racker. We will speak again when the Captain has the new beacons set up or we come home.”

  “Goodbye. Racker out.”

  I fiddle with the dials and pan the camera ou
t further so I can see our entire triangle. I have a view that no one else would ever believe. There are dinosaurs fighting and hunting and fleeing in real time on my monitor. The small animals Sarah had described by the pond, ten in total, cut into the forest to try and escape, but the Raptors are quicker. The three pounce on a prey each, and I watch as they tear at the fresh meat.

  Further along, and a Diplodocus is plodding along the jungle line, pulling at high branches with its head and neck. It is carving a path through the forest by felling the smaller trees and saplings so it can get to the un-picked leaves further in. It moves so gracefully.

  The view is amazing, but the presence of the Captain’s reports still leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I rub my eyes. I am starting to see shadows moving around the bridge. My mind feels on edge, on its last few strings. The others see me as a joke, even CETI. Not a leader or people manager. Might need help fornicating naturally, body dysmorphia. They are all laughing.

  “Racker, this is CETI. I have a report.”

  “Please tell me, your greatness.”

  “CETI was not programmed to understand sarcasm, but I have a grasp of it. CETI only does as programmed, Racker, and I have been programmed to alert you when either Captain Reed or Doctor Yun returned to our triangulation. This is your alert, Racker.”

  The Cap is finished already? He can’t have, there are no beacons to calibrate, “Show me where, CETI. And identify.”

  The camera pans out from the forest and zooms towards the beacon on the beach. Further along the sand from the Dweller, clinging and scrabbling over rocks, is a small signature of a person, a human, a Seeker.

  “The signature is Doctor Yun. Signs indicate she is suffering from mild hypothermia but nothing more. The symptoms of withdrawal seem to have subsided.”

  She had gone the way none of us thought she would. Yun must have clung to and scrabbled over the cliff face all day long. The Dweller is the only thing on her mind. The Dweller and the Seekers must have been the thought pushing her on.

  “Sarah, this is Racker, do you read me?”

  Nothing.

  “Sarah, this is Racker, do you read me? Doctor Yun has been identified and is nearing the Dweller. Do you read me?”

  Nothing. It’s too late.

  Just as I finish speaking, a shadow moves in the corner of the bridge. I drop my coffee mug, and it smashes all over the floor. I loved that mug. There is a presence with me all of a sudden, a familiar presence.

  “Mitch?”

  Liu Yun

  I am almost there.

  The only reason I am alive is because the sun was at my back the whole time. My Seeker uniform is still wet from the sea and rain, and it has been trying to pull me to my death the whole time I have been climbing. But the sun has warmed me enough, just enough.

  My shaking has caused a few slips and trips and near misses, but I take solitude that it is from my wet clothes and cold temperature, not my withdrawal. I have beaten that. Now I only have to beat Domus and what it can throw at me.

  I am a Dragon, father. I am a Dragon, just like you wanted.

  I clamber from off the last rock and fall into the soft, white sand. I roll onto my back,and for a few moments I just lay perfectly still, looking up at the sky and Doctor Lawson who is looking down over me from天, Tiān; my heaven.

  The Seekers will all be worried about me now. The fall from the tree dislodged my earpiece, and it was lost to the ocean along with my light rifle. They are both replaceable with spares and not a big loss to the Project. I just hope I have got back in time so we can get the barrier build completed before it is too late.

  No noise comes from the Dweller on the distance.

  It should be alive with sawing and building and banging, but I can see that the garage wing is locked down, and nothing stirs outside. Logs are piled up ready to be cut, but the garage is locked. Are the Seekers even home?

  D - O - M - U - S, I punch into the keypad, but nothing happens. There is no bleep or bloop, and the door doesn’t budge. I press an ear to the door, and nothing stirs from the other side. I press the keys again, making doubly sure this time; D - O - M - U - S.

  Nothing.

  “Doctor Yun.” It is Racker’s voice coming muffled through the speaker next to the door. “It is good to see you. We thought we had lost another Seeker to Domus.”

  “Racker, can you hear me? Where is everyone?”

  “I can hear you, you can relax now. The Captain is still out on his errand, and the others are in the forest cutting. Since you left, sole control of the Dweller was passed to me in the Marauder. I locked all the wings down so that nothing else could get inside. I control all of it, the cameras, the doors, the music, and the air temperature, all of it.”

  “Well, not to sound rude, but can you open it? I am freezing cold and hungry.”

  “Of course! Where are my manners? Here you go. It is good to have someone to talk to again. It is so lonely up here with just CETI and Mit- and me.”

  There is the usual bleep and bloop, and the door slides open. The warmth hits me as I step over the threshold, and it stings the tips of my fingers and toes. Nothing has changed. Well, nothing except for Racker becoming the Dweller Overlord. Still, I cannot imagine how bored he must be up there alone.

  I enter my living quarters. I cannot help but feel watchful eyes on me. Racker’s maybe? The camera in the room buzzes with electricity, and I cannot be sure if it always did or if this is a new feature. Can he see me now?

  The mattress on the bed slides away, and I lift the rest of the stash that Ximena had bribed me with. Just looking at it now makes me feel dirty. Not only the drugs themselves, but the act I did to obtain them.

  I was a妓女, a jìnǚ; nothing more than a prostitute. But now I am a Dragon.

  If Racker is watching, then I am sure he would have chimed up through the speakers at the sight of the drugs. He was Reed’s lapdog and do-gooder after all, and I am clutching illicitly obtained contraband.

  There is nothing; no Racker, no noise, just nothing.

  I return the drugs to the med-bay. My clearance does not let me open any cupboards, but I leave the morphine on the side so that Evangeline will find it and put it away. Hopefully, she will just think she got it from the cupboard to treat Simon’s pain and left it on the side.

  Back in my living quarters again, and I can no longer hear the camera. It is perfectly silent. Maybe it was just the cold affecting my brain before.

  I lay a fresh Seeker uniform on my bed and take off the wet clothes I have worn for two days now. They will not be washed. I roll them into a ball and drop the lot into the waste bin. I enter my en suite and use the toilet first. My urine is almost brown; a clear indication of dehydration. I will shower first, and then eat and take on as much water as I physically can.

  The hot water reddens even my pale skin. The steam swirls around the room so much that I cannot see a foot in front of me. The heat and temperature will not wash away how dirty I feel, I know, but it certainly helps. It fights the chill from my bones and colours my flesh. My mind feels clean. My body is beginning to feel human again, and I could stand under this water for hours, a day even.

  I can hear the camera in the en suite buzzing now, just as the bedroom one had. It’s buzzing louder than before, like it is straining or trying to focus. Could Racker be spying on me? No, surely not. He is not like that. Strange, yes, but a pervert? I don’t think so.

  “Isn’t the water too hot, Doctor Yun?” whispers Racker’s voice.

  I’m sure I had heard it at first. One of the main symptoms of hypothermia is mental confusion. Am I confused? Has the thought of him spying on me made my weakened brain fill in the gaps?

  “Isn’t the water too hot, Doctor Yun?” I hear again. It is Racker’s voice coming through the speaker systems.

  “Racker, you can see me?”

  “Of course I can,” he says so calmly. “I control the entire Dweller, Doctor Yun, including the cameras. The only thing I do not have
control over is the water temperature in each living quarter. Now, how about you turn it down? It looks mightily hot in there, and you might burn.”

  I cover my body the best I can with both of my arms. “So you can spy on me better when the steam leaves? You fucking pervert, Racker! You want me to turn the temperature down so you can see me, not in case I burn! No wonder Evangeline preferred Simon.”

  “No, no, Doctor Yun, please, you have it all wrong! CETI advised you were showing signs of hypothermia and mental distress! I don’t want you to scald, Doctor Yun!”

  I don’t believe him. I turn off the shower and wrap myself in my towel.

  In the bedroom once more and concealed by white cotton, I lift my antiperspirant deodorant from my bedside table and reach up into the air. I spray the camera lens. I spray until there is an inch thick build-up of white goo on the camera.

  “That wasn’t necessary, Doctor Yun. I promise that I was only looking out for you!”

  “We’ll see what the others say, you pervert.”

  “Now listen, you little bitch!” Racker’s voice changes in an instant. “You fucking stay right here in the Dweller, or I will tell Captain Reed about what happened with you and Doctor Barros. He might know that the two of you fucked, but not why! You step out of this Dweller, and I will tell them all about your little problem and both of your sins. That’s right, I know about Lawson too.”

  He’s turned into a monster. I pull the fresh uniform on and leave the living quarters. I know he is watching my every move.

  In the armoury, I lift a new light rifle from the shelf and throw it over my shoulder. I take a new earpiece and shove it deep into my canal. “Captain Reed, Doctor Barros, Sara, Evangeline, can any of you hear me?”

  Nothing.

  “Captain Reed, Doctor Barros, Sara, Evangeline, this is Doctor Yun. Can any of you hear me? Pilot Racker has lost his mind, I repeat, Racker has gone crazy. I am in the Dweller, and I need help.

  “Captain Reed, Doctor Barros, Sara, Evangeline, can any of you hear me? CETI, can you hear me?”