Wheyek

Those in Hiding

I am an Intellect. After the war between the Energies and the Kings/Fires, I was one of the men charged to find any remaining Energies and report their position. The Intellects and the Producers are the fastest and the most agile, therefore they were sent to look. After the war, several Energies escaped with supplies that were going to be used to make W.A.L.P.s. Of course, I was the one to find them.

I was running. Jumping over logs, ducking under branches, and avoid sinking sand. The Kings gathered that they were in the forest. The obvious choice. I thought I had been seen. If I had been seen, I was dead. That much I knew.

I stopped running, realizing I didn't know where I was, and then I heard voices. This was bad. I ducked down into a bush and listened to the distressed conversation the people were having.

"...not working! Nothing's working!" said a female voice.

"There's not much we can do about that Ariania." said a clearly level-headed male. "We've tried everything we can. We're not Intellects. There's no way we can get this to work."

"We have to!" said the first voice, Ariania was her name. "We have all the pieces in place. Our W.A.P.S. should work!"

"Calm down. The fact is that they don't." said the second voice.

A third voice joined in saying "Nothing's going to work, nothing will ever work! We're all going to die!" The third voice broke off at the last word, and succumbed to violent sobs. I marked where I was, a simple pile of twigs that served as a signal to others, and began to make my way back to whence I came using stars. I learned to read them years ago, and used them as a map.

I didn't get far before I heard an infant's wailing. A child. A baby. A baby who was going to die if I brought back news of where these Energies were. I could kill a man. I couldn't kill a child. I knew that in the near future the Energies would run out of rations and die anyway. I had to help them.

I turned around and started to slowly make my way back to their small encampment. All conversation had ceased, as though they were assessing the current situation. I kicked over the twig marker, took a deep breath, and walked in.

There were five of them. One holding the child, making six.

"Shh, Elizavet." said Ariania, not yet realizing that I was there. She was holding the baby, whom I could only assume was a girl by the name of Elizavet, as Ariania had said. I cleared my throat to get their attention, and they all whipped around to face me.

"Who are you?" One of the men hissed. There were three men, two women, and the child. One of the women was still crying. There was a second man kneeling beside her. The first man, who hissed at me, stepped forward and pushed a third man behind his back. The third man was younger, maybe his brother or son.

"I'm here to help." I said.

I finalized their machines. They had called them W.A.P.S., or Wheyek Armed Protective Servants. I left them to their own devices, after showing them how to make other W.A.P.S. themselves, and returned home a traitor. At the time, I didn't know what I had done, or that I should have left the child to die. I didn't know at the time that Elizavet was going to utilize the machines that I created against the world.

The story we are going to follow occurred 50 years after this, after I was long dead.