Authors: J.T. Savage
Rob returns the wolf to the cryogenic center unit 5. Right before Rob freezes Zoth in the cryogenic freezer, Zoth turns and gives Rob a curious look. Rob usually just shrugs off the wolf when he dares to look him in the eye knowing that it
’s a weaker species, unknowing that Zoth is planning his death at this moment. But not this time. This time Zoth looks meaner. More angry. Bloodthirsty almost to Rob. Even though he obviously knows he cant touch me. He can try all he wants, he would just float through me. Silly creature. Have a nice freeze bitch.
“
Now back to my manipulations.” Rob says to himself. One wolf man left. A Devils dozen of dogs. As Rob goes to the energy pod to get him a snack, it dawns on him he can get Scott to help if he tells him the whole plan and Scott can become a wolf too. Brilliant. “Now, if I can just get him to buy it, its all set. I gotta go talk to him.” As his hand lets go of the wall he goes towards the door. Rob goes to Scott’s unit. “Scott Scott” Let go of the wall !! He just happened to be getting him a snack too of energy. As the background noise of American Rivils plays on the screen of his TV, Steven Fire is fighting with Randy about how you are not supposed to be that fat and wear a cut off shrt. Rob quickly ignores it. “Scott, what if I told you that you wouldn’t have to die. “
“
What are you talking about, Rob? Our numbers up and we even know it to the second.”
“
The wolves. I’m thinking about transforming my light unit tag into their DNA. If I splice it just right, our light tags can manipulate it just enough to take over their bodies and we can live on earth next time we light down. What ya think? Wanna help me?”
“
Are you fuckin’ mad? And become one of them stinky, hairy beasts? You wouldn’t even know what to do with a body like that. I mean, oh my god, you’d be a dog. A dog man! Nothing like that really exists. You’d be shot dead in a matter of minutes.”
“
Well, not if we hide in the mountains. There’s still plenty of places to hide on earth. I’m sure we could find somewhere.”
“
I don’t know, . That’s pretty damn nuts, Rob. You’re supposed to be enjoying your last days. Not trying to turn into a dog to live longer. It’s unheard of. Look. We are here for a limited time. Face it. It’s just the way it is.”
“
Yea, but we can already hologram to earth. Don’t you want more than that? I mean, its more than a way of entertainment and education of another planet. It’s ANOTHER PLANET.
“
Yea the moon might be dormant and getting its energy when the sun hits it and we can manipulate ourselves there, but we can’t stay. Its never been done.”
“
But we’ve never tried it with a species before. Not with actual flesh.”
“
Look, if I had time to try a trial run with just the wolves, I would, but this is it, bud. This is all I got. I’m counting down the seconds as we speak and so are you. You’re close to. You know you are. You gotta good point. Oh what the hell. I’ll help ya. But I’ll tell you one thing. If I turn in to one of them and I’m completely miserable, you are gonna know it until my last dying breath, buddy. And don’t think I can’t kick your ass. I’ve done it before, fucker.”
“
Look, I’m not tryin to trick you or nothing . If we can get there and it works, we can live the rest of our days outside L-6 and on an actual planet with animals and species and everything else that goes with it. The good, the bad and the ugly. Come on, bro. Trust me. Besides what you wanna do ? You really wanna sit your last days sittin here in this little unit watching reruns of American whatever? What is that shit anyway?”
“
It’s a TV show that shows talented people doing talented things and there are all ranges of different categories with interesting prologues and singing units. It’s the most wonderful thing I ever saw.”
Rob says
“Loser.”
“
Well I’ll be in the lab and meet me before the first cycle begins and I’ll get ya all set up.”
Rob turns for the door, mumbling be on time Scott I need to do plenty already .
4
As Frank drags his heavy ass on down the road, that he finally finds after coming out of the woods three miles later, he starts to walk down the path to see what this planet has to offer. Its an old gravel road. Couple fishing holes on each side, as the locals like to call them. Frank could never imagine how rocky and slopey the terrain would feel on his feet, not having a physical body before, as he stumbles down the gravel road tripping on the big white gravel rocks on the road mumbling to himself, cussing, while he trips from left to right on the big clods of rock that he’s not walked on before just happy as shit to get out of them there woods. But it don’t sink like the woods did, with its mossy grass and its murky soft substances. Dirt yea dirt. That’s what humans call it. “Yep, I’m on earth getting dirty.” Frank laughs . Moving his mouth around, looking and tasting it’s a whole new feeling for Frank. Sinking it all in is overwhelming. But he keeps walking. Pretty soon an old chevy truck comes plowing down the gravel road with the license plates “Old Blue” on it and suddenly slams on the brake right as it gets in front of Frank. Dust gets all over him as Frank spit’s out rock dust and coughs. Frank shakes it off him. As the dust slowly evaporates into the sky, the door to the truck creeks open and a girl driver with cut off shorts, a flannel shirt with cutout sleeves the bottum of it tied above her belly button and on her head a cowboy hat,She smiles at Frank and says, “Howdy. You look like you need a ride. I’m Patty. What’s your name?”
This catches Frank totally off guard because this is the first time any one has ever actual saw him. Frank just stares with his mouth wide open and speechless now.
“Look honey, do ya need a ride or not?”
“
Oh. Yea, yea.”
Frank jumps in to the truck.
“Honey, you might wanna put on your seatbelt . My brakes don’t work that great and I like to drive fast.”
“
Oh, sure”, Frank says.
“
You ain’t exactly from around here”, Patty says. “Are you special or something?”
“
No, why you say that?’’
“
Well you’re just different. Why are ya out here in the middle of no where, all muddy and wet? I mean, I never saw a car back there and you’re walking the same direction I’m going. So what ya doing out here in the middle of no where? There ain’t a town for five miles.”
Think Frank, think
…think. What are you going to tell this woman? What are you going to tell her.
“
Oh uh…my girl frend and I got in to a fight and she kicked me out of the car.” said Frank.
“
I see.” Patty replied.
“
Yea, I’m kinda on my own.” Frank replied.
Patty sighs and thinks to herself that maybe Frank could help her out around the ranch. Things had been hard for her to do alone since her mother passed away.
“You know what? If you need a place to stay and a little work, I gotta ranch about 2 miles down. Interested?”
“
Sure!” Frank exclaimed.
“
Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You ain’t a serial killer or anything are ya?”
Frank laughs,
“No, I’m not anything like that.”
“
Well, you wouldn’t exactly tell me if you were, would you?”
“
Well, I guess not.”
Patty was a pretty good judge of character and Frank had a good face.
As they drive down the road, Frank is still and looking out the window at all the beautiful scenery. Patty turns and hit’s the blacktop and guns the truck. The truck moves faster and faster. Fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty. “Oh you’re gonna love this.” Patty says, as they crest a hill and ramp off it flying almost 60 feet in the air. The truck plumetts back down on the street. “You have to excuse me for that. I do that every time I see that one hill. I love to fly. We will be at the ranch here in about 10 minutes. It’s right down the road.”
Frank thinks to himself,
“These humans are crazy.”
About that time, Patty turns on to another gravel road while gunning and fishtailing up and down the gravel from left to right. She slows for a touch and guns it again, down the road. She turns at a corner mailbox going thirty and guns it again down a dirt road. Everything
’s a blur to Frank’s eyes, as he stares out the window in amazement. Quickly approaching the ranch, Patty starts to slow the truck down. She skids in the gravel drive, does a 180 and puts the truck into park. Patty gets out. Frank just as quickly gets out of the truck feeling lucky to step on solid ground.
Patty says,
“Well, this is it. Mom calls the ranch the “Retro Ranch. As you can see it’s not a really big operation. We got twelve steer, eight cows, five dogs and one cat. You know, if you wanna clean up and get out of them dirty wet clothes, you look about the same size as my dad. He left a few things here before he just took off. You’re welcome to em.”
Frank replies,
“Really? That’s wonderful. I sure would like to clean up.”
“
Yea you can take what you want out of the closet upstairs. Lemme show ya. Come on in.”
Patty opens the door and lets Frank in. The screen door slams as they both enter the ranch house. Patty says,
“You’re gonna have to excuse the mess. It’s lived in, . You go ahead and make yourself at home. The bathroom is upstairs to the left and all my dads clothes are in the old bedroom. It’s a junk room really. Has a lot of miscellaneous things up there like packed goods and junk stuff. It’ll be the first room on the right.”
As Frank strolls toward the staircase, he looks at all the pictures on the mantel.
“Is this your family?”
“
Oh yea, yea. That’s my mom, dad and cousins.”
“
Is this your mom right here?”
“
Yea.”
“
She’s a very beautiful woman. You look a lot like her. Quite the resemblance.”
“
Yea, she died unexpectedly three years back. It was terrible.”
“
So you run this ranch all by yourself?”
“
It’s not really much of a ranch, but my cousins were helping me for quite awhile. That’s them there.” Patty says as she points to another picture on the mantel. “But they moved back to Des Moines. So I kinda been left on my own. Been tryin’ the best I can, but with the price for the feed and everything, it’s getting outta hand. I been thinking about finding a second job. Just getting to hard to make ends meet. I can’t really pay ya anything, but I can give you a place to stay if you wanna help.”
“
Well, I’m not doing nothing else right now.”
Frank thinks to himself. She really thinks I
’m human. Maybe I can just lay low here for awhile and check things out to see what opportunities this new world might have.
Patty says,
“Go on now and take a shower. You’re filthy! Grab one of those baskets outta that room to put your clothes in. I just did the laundry and there isn’t one in there.
“
You got er”, Frank replies and ascends the stairs. As Frank gets to the top of the stairs, he starts to go in the first room on the left. About that time a pitbull charges at him and he quickly shuts the door and runs back down the stairs. Hearing the feinted mumbling of the growls and barks from the pitbull that was in the room, Patty runs out of the kitchen up to the stairs as Frank quickly progresses down them.
“
Souning like a little girl.” Patty throws her hands on her knees and laughs out loud. “Oh you must have met Jaws.”
“
Jaws?”
“
Oh, yea. That’s one of my little babies. Here, he needs to go outside anyway. Let me go get him and take him out.”
Patty runs up the stairs and opens the door. Frank could hear her mumbling sweet, loving puppy talk to Jaws.
“Good boy, good boy. Its alright. Come on now.” Patty grabs Jaws by the collar and walks him down the stairs. Jaws is still barking at Frank as Patty turns from the stairwell to the front door. “Come on now. Come on.”
Patty opens the door and pushes Jaws outside and quickly closes the door so he doesn
’t run back inside and bite Frank in the ass. As Patty walks away from the door, you can still hear the muffled growls of the dog wanting back in, just to get a taste of Frank.
“
I don’t know what it is about the dog, but he really hates you. You better watch your butt. It might become a couple pounds lighter ”
“
I’m gonna really try not to disappoint you, Patty.” Frank replies. “I like my ass as is, thank you. Is there anymore surprises before I go up the stairs?”