Gaea: Life in Hell: Chapter 1

"The year is 1969, in this year several history making...."

"I hate it when the teacher drones on about useless stuff", Jislyn thinks."Why can't he talk about something interesting like the ice ball tournament tonight. Who needs history any-"

"Jislyn! Are you still with us? Good! Then you can tell us what you think was the most important event of 1969, please choose from the group that I gave you and tell us why."

Jislyn's face turns nearly as red as her hair as she realizes she missed something important. "uh..um..well"

"I will make it easy for you try, Tokfu jumping. Tell me why that was an important event in history." She perks up,

"O.K. Tokfu jumping was an important event because...before that they didn't have any exciting sports and-"

"That will be all from you. There is no such thing as Tokfu jumping and if you had been paying attention you would have known that I made it up!"

"Okay so I wasn't paying attention!", she blurts, "But history is so boring, why do we have to learn about a history that doesn't even apply to us anymore? None of those countries or places or people even exist anymore!"

"Jislyn that is enough! There are two reasons we study history. One you must discover on your own. The other, the most important reason we study our history was summed up by a wise sage from the second millennium. He said, 'Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to relive it!' Do you understand that simple phrase........no, I can see you don't. Can anyone help her out? Ah, Pelyr."

The young raven haired boy gets up, "Suppose you saw a bucket of cold nitro with the label on it, but you didn't know what it meant. Suppose then that you touched the bucket and your hand started to freeze to the bucket and you had to pull hard to free your hand. You would have been hurt and you would know that next time you see the label not to touch it. That is learning from the past. But suppose you forgot all about it and saw the bucket with the label again. And you put your hand to the bucket and it froze and you got hurt again. If you couldn't learn from the past mistake then you will continually get hurt when you repeat the mistake. In history people, have made many mistakes. We study history so as to not make the same mistakes they made."When he finished Pelyr bowed and sat down.

"Excellent sud'nt! Now you see Jislyn why we study history." There is a low pounding sound, like a gong, signaling the end of class.

"Well it seems that class is over." The teacher says as students scramble to get their books and leave, "It is amazing how Jislyn managed to fill up the last few minutes of class. Almost as if she were trying to avoid me giving out your assignment for tonight!" He smiles at Jislyn.

The student's let out a collective groan.

"I'll let you get away with it this time, but don't try it again. Good-bye class!" He stands up and watches as the children leave the teaching circle.

When Pelyr is out of sight of the teachers, Jislyn sneaks up behind him and smacks him on the back of his head. "Ow! why did you do that?" he asks rubbing his head.

"Because every time the tec'er singles me out and I don't know the answer you have to go and rub it in and kiss up to the teacher! Little tec'ers brat!"

"Hey, the only reason I do that is to stop them from digging into you with a pair of ice picks. Once they get an answer they just sit there with a smug superior attitude, but they don't dig into you anymore. If you were paying any attention you would have realized that by now!" and Pelyr stalks off.

Jislyn stares in stunned silence at the retreating figure of Pelyr. He is nearly to the corner when she takes off after him. "Pelyr, wait! I'm sorry, it just that they get me so mad sometimes. They either teac us about dead useless people or about a world that doesn't exist anymore. What's the use!", she sighs.

She looks around and says, "You wanna go have some fun! We got three hours till dinner time"

"Sure, but what do you want to do? I get the feeling you don't mean the video arcade."

"Nope, but you gotta prom's not to tell anyone ever!"

Pelyr face affects a somber look, "If this is dangerous...."

"No its not! Now prom's or I won't show you."

Pelyr thinks a moment then says, "I prom's. I won't tell anyone as long as it's not dangerous."

Jislyn looks at him a moment the shrugs her shoulders, "I guess that it will do. Follow me if you can." The last is said just as she takes off full tilt down a hall.

Pelyr shouts, "No fair wait up!" and follows her as fast as he can.

Thus begins a dizzying chase though many corridors that takes many twists and turns. Pelyr soon loses track of all the turns and concentrates on catching Jislyn. Although he is faster than her the many turns she makes it difficult to over take her. Even so he soon closes the distance between her and is about to over take her when she suddenly slows and stops. Taken by surprise Pelyr shoots past her before he can slow down. He stops and turns around to see her gesturing for him to follow as she enters a door. Once inside he realizes it is a storage closet that hasn't been used in quite some time judging from the amount of dust on the ground. Jislyn is in the back of the closet prying open an old vent. The vent comes loose with a horrid crash that makes him jump. Without a moments hesitation she ducks down into the vent and disappears. Pelyr looks at the dark vent apprehensively, he is sure someone would have heard that noise and will come to investigate. After a few moments hesitation Jislyn's head pokes out from the vent.

"Come on quickly, before someone sees us and we get in trouble!"

She reaches up and grabs his sleeve and pulls him down with her. Pelyr shakes off her hand and gets down to crawl into the vent. As he enters he realizes that the vent is quite large. Large enough for the two of them to crawl side by side with space on both sides. When he enters Jislyn reaches out and pulls the vent back into place. She looks up at him and places a single finger in front of her lips. "Shh.. voices carry through the system, we don't want our echoes to get back to everyone else."

"But, where are we?" he protested. "Shh.." and she turns around and crawls off at a good pace.

Hesitantly, Pelyr follows her down the vent. Though twists and turns they travel. Three times having to brace themselves up against the sides of the vent to travel upward. Twice more they went up but this time there were ladders to climb. Each time they come to fork in the vents, they would stop and Pelyr would silently watch as Jislyn counted out the route she had memorized, "three vents straight, right turn, up, mid vent, two vents straight...." He was amazed at how she managed to keep such a complicated route memorized and clear in her mind. He realizes that her outbursts in class were probably not because she didn't or couldn't do the work. Obviously her memory and recall were quite good. But after climbing the second ladder he began to get worried.

"Where are we going? What if you get hurt how am I going to get help. I'm completely lost here", he whispered.

"What? Oh don't worry there is nothing dangerous here. I've been here a few times before. We are almost there" she replied somewhat louder than he did.

"Shhh. someone might hear us!"

"Oh don't worry we are well far away from where anyone can hear us. One time I yelled for a long time, but as it turns out no one heard me at all.", she replied and turn away down a tunnel.

A few more minutes in silent crawling brought them to another ladder. This one had a covering at the top. Remembering how much noise it took to get the first one off, Pelyr groaned. Jislyn looked back and smiled. She climbed up, braced her shoulder against the cover and it slid easily upward. "I greased this one up. I keep forgetting to grease the other one so it doesn't make so much noise.", She says as she climbed up into the light.

As Pelyr follows he can see the room he is climbing into is dimly lit. Once he had fully entered the room he realized that the only sources of light were monitor screens showing many scenes throughout the habitat. "That's the main eating hall!", he said pointing at one. Looking at another he sees the school area and in another he saw the infirmary. When he looked back to the first monitor it had changed and was now showing a deserted corridor somewhere. "Where am I?"

"We are in the Habitat Arctic Fox Control Room.", said a voice behind him.

He jumped and turned around and gave a sigh of relief as he realized it was just Jislyn, he had almost forgotten she was there. She was looking rather smugly at him. "How do you know where we are and what this place is?", he asked

"Because I read the instruction manuals silly!", she turns around and moves over to a wall where Pelyr can just dimly make out the outline of a square in the wall. Jislyn puts her hand on the square and the entire roof lights up. As Pelyr looks around the control room his mouth drops open and he stares in wonder at everything around him. Countless colored lights, digital panels and screens as well as buttons, switches, keyboards, joysticks and other unidentifiable gadgets abound in the room. And as for space, it is nearly as big as the whole eating hall, three times bigger than the school area. After a long time he returns to his senses and looks around for Jislyn. He finds her sitting in a chair gazing at a monitor. When he goes over to her he sits in the chair next to her and looks at the screen.

"What is that?", he says pointing at the screen which shows white flakes swirling down from a blue sky onto ice and in the distance there is an angry red glow just barely visible.

"According to this meter it is a picture of 'The Atlantic Ocean at an altitude of 5 miles and distance of 20 miles. They stare at the screen, the icy planes driving home the point of how desolate their world really was. "What is that red line in the middle of the screen?", Jislyn wonders aloud.

"Fire", Pelyr answered without thinking.

"Now who is being ridiculous, its probably the sun like in the books", she scoffed.

"No it can't be the sun", Pelyr now feeling that he needed to vindicate himself replied, "In the books the sun is round and that is flat." After a moments thought, "If the world were all ice then there would be no water and if I remember correctly snow is frozen water. So if it is snowing then there must be water somewhere and if there is water somewhere there must be a fire keeping it from freezing until it comes here."

"Uh, yea", Jislyn replied distractedly.

Pelyr looks over to find her studying a smaller screen only this one is not attached to anything. Looking over her shoulder he sees a picture of the big screen they were looking at with some strange words moving on the screen. "Moving words!", he gasps.

"Uh huh," she replies in a superior tone of voice, "You work it by moving the knobs like this!" She puts the screen down and grabs a dial at the base of the monitor and turns it. Suddenly the screen blurs and the words change to read: Distance: 40 miles, Altitude: 5 miles, Direction: S. When the screen settles it show more of the same of what it did before, except the thin red line is barely bigger than before. "This knob here changes the distance you can see. And this one affect altitude." She grabs another dial and turns it. Again the screen blurs and the words change to read: Distance: 40 miles, Altitude: 35 miles, Direction: S. When the screen settles this time, they can see the snow, but they cannot see the ice except in the distance and the thin red line is perceptibly larger.

Pelyr stares with a look of awe on his face, "And the S means south right?" When she nods he asks, "How did you figure all this out?"

She smiles and says, "I just followed the pictures dummy!" She points down at a symbol under one of the knobs with an arrow circling it.

"Wow, what else have you found."

"Well, there is this....", she stops as she notices a blinking blue light under the picture of a bell. "We gotta go!" She gets up, putting the smaller screen in a slot on the wall and heads back toward the vent in the ground.

Pelyr rushes after her, "What's wrong!"

"The blue light means that the bell has sounded its, dinner time!"

"Dinner time! Oh no, my parn's will be mad!", he said as he followed her down the ladder remembering to replace the vent overhead.

"How many times have I tread these halls? How many times have I told the same lies? How many times can I face these people, whose lives I have saved countless times, and tell them that everything is fine?" he wondered.

The captain walked down the passage which would eventually connect him to the inner sections of this ship, where the main population lives. His walk takes him though the city, passing friends, neighbors and family. All blissfully unaware of his real job. His path winds through the city to a building near the center. The building has little to distinguish it from others in the city, except perhaps its location. Located near both the city center (where all major government agencies reside) and Brole park, the largest forest on the ship, he passes by the manicured bushes on the outside of the park and peers in. To an outsider or small children, the park looks wild and untamed. But, in fact the park is carefully cut and trimmed to look that way. Passing the park he enters the building and proceeds to the fourth level. He pauses at a doorway, knocking sharply twice.

He waits until a voice bids him to enter. "Ah, Wylhelm so good to see you again!", says a middle aged woman with long stringy blond hair and kind gray eyes.

"You mean late last night! I missed you." She walks up to him and puts her arms around him. He chuckles as he wraps his arms around her holding her close. He tilts his head forward, breathing deeply of the scent of her perfume.

"So what is always so important that you have to conduct business so early in the morning hmmm..." Suddenly her head jerks up and she says, "You're not seeing another woman are you?"

He laughs and says, "You've found me out! I do love another as much as I love you." The woman takes a few steps back, her face a mixture of horror and betrayal. Soothingly he says, "It's not like that! You can hardly be jealous...I mean she's been living with you and taking care of you all of your life."

At this she bursts out laughing, "My mother!!!! Be serious!" Still laughing she playfully hits him and says, "Stop joking like that, you scared me." She turns away from him and walks back across the room. About halfway across she turns her head and looks back at him saying, "But if I ever catch you with another woman...."

Wylhelm raises his hands before him saying, "Whoa, relax sweetheart that will never happen."

She flashes him a playful smile and says, "Just make sure you remember that. Now get in here and help me polish off some of this grub I fixed up."

After a rather filling dinner Wylhelm sits in a couch facing out the window over Brole park, his arm around his companion. He looks down at her, his eyes taking in every line and curve of her face. For a brief moment he is happy, then the image of an Obsidiberg appears briefly in front of him and he hears the screams of men and women in agony. He blinks and everything his back to normal. He frowns slightly, disturbed at the memory of a disaster long passed.

His companion has picked up on his momentary distress and looks up, her eyes half open as she asks dreamily, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing" he says soothingly, "Nothing at all. I've just had a wonderful dinner with a beautiful woman and now we are enjoying a lovely view with a few moments of quiet time. What could possibly be wrong?" He shifts a little and kisses her on the forehead. She smiles contentedly and looks back out over Brole park.

She pulls away from him and looks him straight in the eye, "Why do you have to conduct your business so early in the morning?"

Taken aback by the intensity of her gaze he says, "Er, umm, well you knew I've always been an early riser and it just so happens that many of the people I work with are also early risers." He pauses for a moment and say, "Lydia, why are you looking at me like that? Has something happened?"

She stares at him for a while before saying, "No, I just wanted to make sure there wasn't something else going on."

At this Wylhelm laughs out loud, "Do you still think I'm sneaking around on you?" He quickly chokes off the laugh as she elbows him in the stomach. "Okay okay, I admit it! My mistress is the sea! I sneak off in the morning to captain a giant sailing galleon that sail on a Lava sea."

Lydia makes a face at him and pouts, "Now you're making fun of me. Fine if you won't be serious then I won't tell you the news!"

"Uh, Uh I'm not telling!" Half seriously he says, "Okay sweetheart, I'm sorry for teasing you, I just hope you can forgive me for getting up early every morning for the last five years we've been together" he finishes sarcastically.

"NEW little brother!?!", Wylhelm shakes his head and says, "You'd think at their age, they'd stop having kids. I mean lets face it they've already outlived nearly everyone else's parents by a wide margin and they themselves have more kids than two or three other couples I know combined. What's the count now thirty, forty?"

She playfully elbows him in the ribs, "It's only eight and we are all spread out." She gets up and walks away from the window.

While he stares out over the park he says, "Eight kids, that's way too many. Two maybe three, but eight?"

"And what's wrong with having eight kids?", a decidedly elderly voice says behind him. Leaping up from his seat, Wylhelm looks back to see his mother and father-in law standing at the entrance to the door the woman carrying a small bundle.

"N...Nothing at all, I suppose, but it's just way to much for a simple man like me to handle."

The elderly woman looks around the room and says, "And speaking of children...."

Humming quietly to himself Vlyse strolls through Brole park, oblivious to the world. The source of his preoccupation is a tune he heard while spying upon the sailors running the ship. Unconsciously he begins singing it, "Sixteen men on a dead mans chest...yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.."

"If the man is dead, why are they laughing?", says a voice almost directly behind him.

Vlyse turns around quickly to see the same quiet young blond girl he ran into earlier, standing behind him. "Tsrinka! Don't sneak up on me like that!" He calms himself, "When did you get here?"

She looks up at him with smiling eyes and says happily, "I been with you since you appeared in Tarran Hall."

"Yep, I was looking for you before, when you disappeared. And then you appeared like magic! Do you know magic?"

"Of course you probably do. You're really smart and all. What was that song you were singing earlier?"

A little embarrassed by the praise and bewildered by the questioning Vlyse looks down at the girl, not quite sure what to make of her. After a few moments, she drops her head and blushes furiously. Vlyse just shakes his head and thinks, "Jeez, this girl makes no sense whatsoever. It just as well she didn't see me sneak out of the vent otherwise she might be captured by the sailors. Now what do I do?" He leans back and looks upward scratching his head. "That song was just something I hear..." He stops as his eyes focus on the fourth story balcony.

Upon that balcony stands a tall man with short black and gray hear. His stance and distinctive manner make the Captain of the Volcano Racer, unmistakable anywhere.

Tsrinka's gaze follows Vlyse and she also spots the Captain. "Do you know him Vlyse? He looks important. Do you think he is with the government?" She falls silent, as Vlyse doesn't answer. The Captain is joined by another man on the balcony, this one much older than he is.

Vlyse finally speaks, "I've seen both of them before. I don't know the name of the first man, but the second is Johann, he and his wife are the oldest couple alive anywhere. Believe it or not they just had another baby. They've got eight children now."

Staring up in awe first at Vlyse then at Johann the only thing she says is,"Woooww..." After after a few moments she says, "When I get married I want a big family just like them!" She looks back down to find Vlyse gone.

With his mind preoccupied his feet begin to wander and Vlyse wonders, "I wonder where they are taking us. According to the old legends we hid underground to avoid some disaster that was happening above. So what happened to the land? Why is there only lava around and why is there no mention of us ever boarding a ship?"

"Living on ship", Trell thinks, "What ridiculousness!" Still every few feet Trell stops and puts his hand on the wall and stands really still. After a moment he shakes his head dismissively and walks on.

"Hmmm, I wonder where all these halls lead? I bet Vlyse would know he's always wandering through here by himself". Trell looks around and thinks, "Hmmm let's try this way. I've got a few free hours." And for the next hour he wanders around in the less traveled corridors of the city. Occasionally passing groups of people, but mostly alone. At one point he was walking past two men and he noticed that they seemed to walk with a slightly rolling gait and that they seemed just a little darker than most people.

"No way, could Vlyse be right?" he was thought. As he passed them he turned and stared at them as they walked away oblivious to him. When they turned a corner, Trell continued on looking thoughtful. After a few minutes he started watching they way others walked. After the third group passed him by with that same rolling gait and semi-tanned skin, he dismissed Vlyse's idea completely. "Nah, it just natural....but for a minute he almost had me."

Trell begins laughing to himself, "Good One Vlyse! You almost got me that time!"

"Okay time to get back to business." Trell heads purposely through the halls to a place that has not seen many visitors. Making sure no one is looking he pushes on a stone wall that slowly and noisily slides along a groove. He ducks in quickly and he waits making sure no one is coming down the hall and closes it behind him. He walks over and picks up a dusty black tarp and tosses it to once side, revealing his hidden treasure. He gently flicks the switch and is rewarded a few moments later by a high pitched hum. Lights flicker on and controls come to life. He puts the headset on and begins turning flipping switches.

"Now lets see if anyone is out there tonight" he says as he begins scanning radio frequencies. "Well, while I'm here let's see if the autoscanner picked up on anything?" he reaches over and flips a switch static greets him.

Trell turns and looks at the speaker as if it had bit him. Through the static had come a few actual words. He was even more surprised a moment later when he heard.

The static is so severe that he can't even tell if it is a male or female voice. But at least he knows he isn't imagining it.

Then silence. Trell sits back in shock. He found the radio over a year ago and it took him months to figure out how to get it working. It was a curiosity, a project, a game he played with himself to imagine that others were out there. And now it is no longer a game. He has proof that somewhere out there other humans have survived the great disasters.

The questions begin to pile up in his mind, "Where are they? How did they survive? What is a Nuela and what is a Gaea II?"

They vanish in a haze of giddiness as he goes back to trying to locate the frequencies used by those people. If he can find those, maybe his questions will be answered.