The Parable: continued

I didn't leave behind my family. That's the first thing that I want to make clear to you, the rest, well you can believe whatever you like from the rest.

It's taken me years to get even this far, to be able to contact almost at will. Contact is our only source of hope these days and you take it for granted for most of your life until it's taken from you. I was the same and you will be too.

Before I go any further I must make one thing painfully clear to you. You can never go back. Ever.

This is not a rule made to deprive you of all you once loved. It is far worse than that. It is because there is simply no way back to the past, no method that we as of yet possess. Based on our current state it is not likely there will be one for a long time to come. And that brings me back to why you are here. Why I have taken you.

I need you to step aside of yourself and your own beliefs for a moment whilst I explain this to you. You will have questions and I will do my best to answer those in time, but know this, I am no scientist nor am I a man of any great intellect when it comes to how these "contacts" are made. I suppose I am a soldier and a messenger of sorts. My job is to make contact with those we feel can offer something to the war we find ourselves facing. The problem is that we are without the numbers or the resources needed to succeed, and that's why we need you.

Such is our desperation that we are willing to turn to those we do not know to help us in our time of need for the hour grows dark here and we are without any other option.
You have been selected because you are a promising doctor, healthy and a good man. There are other reasons why we chose you specifically but we can discuss that later also, they are too delicate for now.
I know all this because we have done our research very well and we rarely select a contact before we know quite an amount about them.
We have been studying your case for quite a few months now and we have learned enough to bring you here. God may forgive us some day, but you surely won’t. Hopefully, in time you learn that desperation and love wrought the reasoning to take you away from home and to bring you to a place where you were needed even more.

I suppose I am raising more questions than giving you the answers you want. It won’t be long now until we are there and then you will see it for yourself, the reason.

I hope we can become friends some day Nick, that you will see past the wrongs I have done you and look upon a man who is not much different from yourself, if not a little older perhaps.
I had dreams and a family once too, in Spain. Costa Calida, you ever heard of it? A beautiful place, the warmest in Spain. The sun shines all year round. I had retired there. It’s memory is like a knife in my chest, but even that pain has dampened over the years. Now I can barely remember what the place looked like, amazing no?

But rest now Nick. You will have your answers soon and you will regret the hastiness with which you pursued them, no doubt, but that is all you can know for now. Forgive me for my riddles but it will become apparent what is going on once we reach safer waters, away from where hidden eyes may be lurking.

I will come for you in a few hours to check on the chains and to bring you something to eat. I hope you can forgive me for this Nick, I truly do.....



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It was high time that Juliette Briggs was up for bed but the draw of the warm spread coupled with the nasty howl of the dreary, wet morning outside kept her feet firmly tucked inside the sheets.
“Friday!” she told herself with glee, a smile creeping up through the weariness. The weekend was practically begging her to come out early to play but a 10 o clock appointment with Dr. Roach had other ideas. Arching her head slowly she angled herself to strain at the alarm clock beside her, 8.57 am flashed matter-of-factly in red LED.

“Oh fuck it Nick!” she muttered as she swung the blankets off her and sent her cat Samson fizzing out the door in a panic. He’d done it again. He’d not called her even though she’d specifically told him the night before to do just that. The anger rose but it brought with it some of last night’s chana masala too. She fled to the en suite and coughed it up roughly.
Juliette had heard of morning sickness but she had imagined it as a light symptom, easily overcome by a strong stomach and some will power. She was no match for this however and as she blew her nose she found herself cursing her partner for another reason.

“Where’s the ‘glow’ I've heard so much about hmm?”

She posed before the mirror, hair unwashed and in need of another coloring, and searched for signs of the infant inside her. She managed a smile but instantly withdrew it after catching another glimpse of the clock.

“Fuck it Nick!”

The drive was as expected for 9.20 am. It brought with it every mad truck driver, incompetent courier and generally any asshole that wasn't already at work, teeming into the roads in a symphony of car horns and yells.
Juliette wondered briefly if her unborn would be carefully registering these sounds and in some way associating them with his personality. She wondered if that’s what happened to most of the people who turned into assholes. She hoped not. 
Anyway, Nick and she would make good, modern parents and teach their child the importance of not taking things too seriously. But also not to take for granted the fortunate upbringing they had had and to respect other people too.
She realized that that sentence grew longer every time she tried to construct it in her own mind, the list was becoming a speech and the speech would inevitably become a proclamation in a few more months. She was becoming the insufferable parent she had always detested.
What would her child be like as a teenager, she wondered? Oh Christ! What if he or she was anything like herself or Nick? Oh dear.

She switched the radio on and tuned in City 4, they played all the good stuff. The broadcaster interrupted the fading out of ‘Fade into you’ by Mazzy Star to announce that news and sport was coming up at 10 am, before cutting to commercials for some new energy releasing power gum.
The time made her think of Nick. He still hadn't text her yet about what Mrs. Sherwood, his secretary, was wearing or if she had heard from her son in Iraq.
The woman was the sweetest little thing but had easily the most bizarre fashion sense Juliette had ever seen.
Her collection of hats, she boasted, was over twenty five and ‘growing strong’. Only the brightest frocks and obscured patterned business suits made her wardrobe.
But Mrs. Sherwood had been a godsend for Nick. She had turned his self-run mess of an office into a professionally organized business, she scheduled Nick’s days and appointments so neatly that Nick had found his business had turned from a small private practice into a suburban goldmine of sorts. Whilst they weren't quite millionaires they had managed to find themselves out of the rental market and owning their own property before either had turned thirty five.
Juliette was proud of him and extremely grateful to Mrs. Sherwood. It was she who had also recommended Dr. Roach to Nick when he came to her asking about a suitable OB/GYN. It wasn't as if Nick wasn't capable, but as he put it, it was, ‘rather a second opinion than second guessing’ and he was taking no chances with his baby. Besides, Dr. Roach had come highly recommended from everyone they had asked.

“Thanks for the wake up call, asshole!” She hit send and instantly felt the righteousness surge through her.
It wasn't like him not to say anything but maybe he had been late. For all she knew he had called her and she had just fallen back to sleep and forgotten the whole episode. Still, no harm to keep him on the ‘straight and narrow’, as her mother said. Would her daughter be saying this in thirty three years time? She turned the radio up and took the turn off the motorway.


Dr. Roach, despite the name, was a pleasant man in his early sixties who was clearly enjoying his last year or so on the job before his ‘retreat’ to Canada.
His wife and kids had vacationed there for years and he had made quite a few friends and even bought himself a cozy three bed roomed house just south of Churchill, Manitoba, the self-proclaimed Polar Bear capital of the world and one of the coldest places on earth. His patients thought he was mad, his poor wife Rose knew it was worse than that, he was serious.
Juliette had spent almost an hour listening to him describing how the wind made him feel twenty years younger up there for some reason and how Mrs. Roach had already picked out a new suite of furniture for the living room to celebrate their permanent resettlement.
He was a joy of a man, professional and spoke in a direct tone when on the topic of pregnancy and the well being of the mother.
He advised several brands of multivitamins and supplements, and discouraged some others she had reminded herself to discard at once upon her return home. He even recommended a tonic to help her morning sickness which he seemed to know was affecting her quite badly without her even mentioning it. She hoped she had brushed her teeth long enough this morning.

His prognosis was a relief. All signs were good, although it was early days yet, but he had no concerns and was confident the pregnancy would go smoothly. She had another appointment in three weeks time and as she left he gave her a warm smile, asked her to pass on his regards to ‘Dr. Charlton and Mrs. Sherwood’ and reminded her that she was to be her husbands top priority over the coming weeks and months.
She didn't notice the messages from Mrs. Sherwood flashing on her phone as she left the car park and headed into the city.


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The familiar tones of the voicemail cut through the last ring, once again crushing Anna Sherwood’s hopes that this call would be answered. Where could the woman be for Pete’s sakes?
It was nearly twelve o clock and still she had no answer from Dr. Charlton or his wife. Something had gone wrong she knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to bear thinking about it.
It was much too early in Juliette’s pregnancy for something terrible to have happened yet it would be the only reason the doctor would have neglected to call her or to leave a message.
For the fourth time that day she dialed a patient to cancel the appointment scheduled, claiming the doctor had some urgent business to attend to and passed on his apologies.

She checked her diary once more, searching for any mention of the days date and scanning for clues that would relate to this mystery but yet again there was nothing to be found.
She drummed her fingers lightly on her dark polished desk whilst gently chewing the thumbnail of her left hand. There would be no point wasting any more time, she decided after a while as she began to pick up the phone and cancel the remaining appointments of the day.
She hadn’t noticed the police man walking through the reception door.



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‘How is he captain? Does he speak now or has the cloak not yet worn off?’

Badd’s concern was as honest as his mistake. Lloyd had begged with him in the beginning and finally ordered him for a finish but still the young man insisted on referring to him as ‘captain’ even though he held no rank here amongst the fleet.
The whurr of the ships engine grew to a growl as the vessel dipped before turning, he felt, ever so slightly to the right. He hated to think what they had been avoiding out there. Badd noticed it too but remained looking at Lloyd for an answer.

‘He is as healthy as a horse Badd, if that’s what you mean, as for everything else, only time will tell us that.” The ships engineer looked even more concerned now.

‘He will hate us won’t he?’ his sad eyes turned down as he shook his head. ‘We can expect no less though, we have wronged him.’

Lloyd nodded in agreement.

‘Yes he will hate us, all of us, but these are our orders Badd, and we have no choice in the matter. I wish it could be done another way, I truly do but we are desperate as you know and there is so little time. Now, go about your business and see to it that Havars doesn't crash us into another sand bar.’

Badd nodded and turned away quickly down the narrow corridor.


They should be home soon, Lloyd thought.
They must have been driving now for more than six hours and he could feel the motion leveling out, away from the station deep under the water and hidden from the enemy.
He wished sometimes that they would find the place and blow it out of the water with their guns but for ninety years it had remained and he reckoned that that underwater hell could easily slip by for another ninety more at least. How many more would they, would he steal in that time? He took a breath and headed towards his room.

A glass of real water had been left for him by his bed, probably by Badd or maybe his friend Michel, the electronics whiz. He sometimes left comforts like this for Lloyd after a difficult ‘extraction’ and this one had been particularly strenuous. For a time he thought they would get Nick through only to find out they could not resuscitate him. The man was strong willed though and his heart had burst back to life once the void closed and the cloak oxidized.

Their new guest would need to remain in his cocoon for a time, until the antibodies had time to get their work done and his pigment discolored slightly. Lloyd looked at his own arms. An orange tint still remained from his last excursion through the outside rubble of the destroyed habitats.
Foraging was a way of life and everyone needed to do it to survive, everyone helped in whatever way they could. His way was to find contacts and to extract them, his own kind, just as it had happened to him, and to teach them of what had befallen them. To break the truth of their new existence, human to human, in a manner the Elings, even the kindest of them like Badd, would never be able to do.

The Haven shuddered once again as its mighty engines groaned to a slower pace and Lloyd sunk into the worn bunk that was all his own and gripped his hands between his knees. The pain was surfacing once again and his head throbbed from the inside, making him shut his eyes and focus on nothing but the agony.
He had spent far too much time outside and coupled with the recent extraction, the toxin levels were now dangerously high. He would need to see Mr. Yanin about treatment again. This would be the second time in eight months. Such constant exposure would result in blindness and possibly an aneurysm. But what choice had he?

The Elings did not need to worry about such things. Their skin was a natural repellent and they also seemed to be capable of reading the clouds infinitely better than Lloyd could ever do, avoiding sunbursts and the lethal rays they carried.

He took a deep gulp. The water tasted treated, but clean and he wiped his mouth before releasing a refreshed sigh.

“Forgive me Tanya, I never left you.”
He would dream of his wife and children tonight as he always did after an extraction.
She would walk silently down the stairs and smile at him just as the sun hit the front porch. In that instant she was a goddess and he sat there in awe of her. The smile would fade as she continued walking. She never spoke. The children were upstairs playing with paints, although he never saw them nor visited them in the dream he just always knew where they were and that they were safe.
In his sleep he sobbed a little and turned to the darker corner.


Badd decided it was time to end his vigil. The captain had tried before to take his own life when in his sleep and at times like these Badd sensed he was extremely vulnerable.
He found the concept of dreams an impossible conundrum, another life within your own, separate and without control. He envied what he imagined the majesty of such a tool, of such a random factor, could conjure. He wondered how Captain Munoz saw himself in his dreams and, more importantly, how he saw the Eling.



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The corridor is poorly lit and the walls are stained with mould and the rust of ruined water pipes. There is a haze reaching about a foot above the floor which gives the impression that you are walking through a marsh with rolling fog. As the floorboards creak and moan under the pressure of each step they seem to release a more potent stench of decay and rot. The building is, for all intents and purposes, no more than a skeleton. There is no furniture and there are no doors and no windows. Nothing lives here though, not the rats and spiders and certainly not the bums or junkies either. The walls seem semi-permeable and, if not careful, one could crunch straight through them into the room next door.

There was no such room though, at least not if you came this way, through this very same corridor. To go through the wall or to step through one of the open doorways on this path would be death, simple and final. The only option is to continue until you reach the end, towards the whispers and muffled chatter and into the gateway, for once you reach the end of this forgotten walkway you are gone from this word and have reached the end of a journey you did not chose to take.

Sonya Lace took this walk a long, long time ago for reasons now she cannot remember besides the fractured memory of a cold, wet night and the need for warmth and shelter too. Who she was then is a mystery to her, her name means nothing to her, taken from the label on the garments she happened to be wearing that day.

She had learned little of the science that had taken her here, to this place she now was, but it had been a long time ago indeed that it had happened. They had taken care of her, at first, nursed her diseased body back to some semblance of health. The tests they said were necessary to learn more about her and to keep her new friends safe from any antibodies she may have been clinging to. So many tests for all kinds of secret reasons.

They called her their “blueprint” and had promised her that one day she could meet them. She would live with them and they would show her the wonders of their race. But they always needed more, to know more about her friends at home, how things were done. She had lied at times, only to appease them when she didn’t think the truth would be satisfactory enough.

When time had stopped making any more sense to her it was replaced by routine and she began to ask fewer questions, she no longer protested to their exams or tried to bargain. All that mattered for a time was their approval until the time came where they no longer spoke directly to her and she no longer spoke to them. Sonya felt like she no longer required sleep or food, she simply existed and when needed they took from her what they wanted. She absorbed their actions like the sterile air around her. She began to understand their meaning and their words somehow and when they chatted amongst themselves in her presence she could almost understand them.
They spoke of a voyage and of a gathering. Most of the meanings were lost to her and she cared little to understand.
But one discussion they had had brought her to screams until they had sedated her and soothed her to sleep again. The words swirling around and around in her head had brought about the first dreams in an age. They were bringing with them the dark Seed, and she had helped them create it.


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He was captain by a young age and now considered by most to be one of the finest commanders in the Hand. When Loleon Ferr was chosen by the Owasa for training he knew it was just a matter of time before he would lead his own march and now, so few years later, he was on the brink of greatness.
Ipion 4 was now the Hands, and it was because of him and the strategies he had devised together with his war generals. Not that he had needed much advice from them. A child could have won this war really, but it was the manner in which the fallowing had been accomplished was what had astounded his peers and the Hand themselves. Only three years had passed since the first burrows were sunk and now, with no recognizable threat from the inhabitants or the traitors, Ipion 4 was ripe for harvesting, in fact, it had already begun.

He smiled once again at the images sent to him by the researchers. Cubes of raw energy were already being drawn up from the rich core and there would be billions more before they would need to move on again. In reality he had found and won them at least some time and the resources to repair Ipion itself, but above all there was now a sanctuary for the Hand to rest.

That he had concealed some interesting details surrounding the inhabitant’s technology was only to his benefit also. If his scientist’s speculations were accurate he may have discovered more than just a new home but a potential cure to all their problems, but that was only a theory now.
They had warned him not to expect much and he would not set himself up for disappointment, and he certainly would not release the details of those reports.

There were always others looking to take his place and this news may even shake the strong foundations he had worked so hard to build for himself. They would use it to either mock him publicly or to brand him a traitor he knew, for he had done the same himself for his own gains.
No, for now the rumors could wait as he took his place amongst the great names of the Hands army and the Owasa, its political parent.

His was a story that would be told for years to come, he felt and rightly so. One of high breed and clan, strong and sharp minded, he would go farther still. He wanted the Hand and the Owasa.
The Emperor would have him torn to pieces for that thought but he cared none. The Emperor slept in his bed whilst the battles were raged and the resources slaved for. If not for those gifts of his he would never have taken the throne. He was not even of a recognized clan.
Syre Velhum, was a politician and a wizard, a dangerous mix in Loleon Ferrs opinion but he could not fault the man for his achievements and his rise to total supremacy that saw the beginning of the exile from Ipion all those years ago, an entire species shamed in defeat.
Emperor Velhum had proven himself as a loyal Hand but also as a leader capable of summoning great power and will in his people. The creation and envisaging of Ipion 2 was no less than a stroke of genius. Ipion 2, an organic, self-sustaining ship large enough to take selected exiled clans of the Hand from their home planet to begin their long journey for a new home, the Emperor had saved them all.
Now though, that the Hand and Commander Ferr had secured a means to live once again on a planet of their own and the disappointment and disaster that was Ipions defeat had been put behind them, Loleon believed there would soon come a time for new leadership and who better than he? The Emperor had done well but it had been Loleon who discovered the whereabouts of Ipion 3 and 4, he who had created the strategy for contact, fallowing and now the integration with their new home. Although Ipion 3 had unexpectedly disintegrated sooner than forecasted, that was more a failing of the Emperors appointed scientists.

Ipion 4 was different though. There were no battles to speak of really.
The burrowing had eliminated most of the threat within months. The gases released by the core combined with the enzyme within their strategically positioned tanks, had wrought a haze of natural but toxic cloud coves throughout most of the planet, suffocating eighty percent of the total population. Another ten or fifteen had succumbed to either the toxic rain or the exposure.
The Owasa had only taken to the ground in the last few weeks of the toxin cover, sweeping out the dying or any resistance they met with ease. Specimens were taken but little was to be learned from such a docile and apparently witless race. In all fallowing had taken less than a year.
The greatest surprise had been the rise of traitors, or Elings as they were now known. He hadn’t foreseen this anomaly but he had done his best to make an example of those that were captured.
Still, pockets of resistance remained, voicing their disagreement with the treatment of the native species and actively helping them to revolt.
Loleon had commissioned his own personal security to stamp out that scourge, but the humans were at least wise enough to keep to their hidden hives when they needed to. Still, when they rose again he would be ready and this last blotch could be wiped clean forever.
Besides, even with the Elings help there was nothing that could be done, now the fallowing had begun, the planet was merely years away from imploding if they continued the harvesting at this rate. Only he and his closest advisors knew that though.

He gazed down upon the genetic maps before him, as his thoughts once again turned to the potential.

The advisor, Palpa, waited patiently then continued with a wave of Loleon’s hand. The man was decrepit, but he had no equal in his field of expertise.

“So you see here, Commander” he said pointing to the second diagram, “At stage two, the virus has already attached itself to the genetic code and begins to manipulate it. Here and here you see the replication of diseased genetic material, but the replication is completed in such a manner that the hosts own immune system does not recognize it. In time, the entire host has lost its original genetic coding, replaced instead by the alien material.”

Palpa rubbed his chin and sighed. “It’s actually quite amazing.”

Loleon raised his eyes and interrupted.

“You say that you can imprint something on this human virus, correct. Manipulate it?”

The old man nodded. “Most certainly Commander. This virus, although amazing in its actions, is quite simple in its construction, made from the same structures create human DNA, however it seems to react with our own without any problem, despite the apparent lack of..”

“What about the Hylion, Palpa, can it affect them?” Loleon cradled the vial before him.

Palpa walked closer, a smile curling on his thin lips.

“I believe it can Captain. I believe it could attach in much the same way, and they wouldn’t even know. You know what this means don’t you Captain?”

Loleon smiled, raising the vial like a victorious sword above him.

“We have found our weapon Palpa, and the Hylion will beg for mercy when we take back Ipion.”

The doctor laughed puzzledly, shaking his head.

“No Captain, it means we no longer need the harvesting or the fallowing, don’t you see? We are no longer confined to this genetic structure; we can change anything, including our reliance on the source energies! We could exist without the need for sustenance or energy. The war, Ipion, it no longer matters!”

The blade cut through Palpa’s neck with supreme ease, his lifes blood erupting from the deep wound before he crashed to the floor. His surprised eyes fading as Loleon cleaned the blade on the doctors overcoat.
He pressed a few buttons and the cleaning beams removed Palpa and his mess, leaving no trace of him behind.

It was regrettable, Loleon felt, but necessary. If Palpa had his way they would all ascend into matter, leaving the Hylion to rule their home and wipe away all trace of the Hands existence. That was not something he would allow, not now.

In a few years he would return, as Emperor of the New Hand, Ipion 4 would be thriving, it's armies colossal, and the Hylion would never see their demise coming, in fact, they would walk right towards it. Slavery, torture beyond all cruelty awaited them, before every last one of the Hylion, Eling and human were exterminated by a dying planet.


He twisted the tiny vial in the light and smiled again.

“From such small seeds do great things climb.”