Singing Parasite [On Hold]

2.2

Clarine slumped down beside Tyce. Her brow was still wrinkled which meant that she was still thinking about the stuff Konner had just said.

"I'll explain everything," Konner said. "Easter."

Easter floated into the room and Rod accompanied him. Rod walked up to Konner and stood by his wheelchair while Easter hovered over their heads. Rod Viken was a tall and muscular guy, and now, seeing him standing beside Konner, who sat wrinkled in his chair, was like seeing a giant stomping beside a gnome.

"Play the video," Konner said. "And don't you dare play any Justin's song. I'll dismantle you right here and now. We don't have time for jokes."

"Alright, sir," Easter said and a white screen slid down from the ceiling and the hall went dark, making Tyce feel as if he were in a movie theater.

"Hello," Konner's recorded voice boomed from every corner of the room.

With Clarine sitting by his side and Konner's nerve-wracking noise shaking in his eardrums, the illusion of this being a cinema hall was strong. And this illusion would have stayed had Konner's drawings hadn't made their appearance on the screen. They were so bad and crude that they made Jane's paintings look like works of Vermeer. Tyce remembered when Jane had shown him her first watercolor.

Tyce had taken it and had marveled over it. "That's one nice fish," he had said.

"That's not a fish," Jane said and looked at him as if he were stupid and blind. "That's a gorilla."

Tyce had looked at her and then at her painting and had internally choked.

"This is our island," Konner's amplified voice said, bringing Tyce back to the present. What he called an island looked like a battered piece of dough to Tyce. "And this is us." Ten crude-looking people popped on the island, three in blue color, other seven in red color "As you know by now that we can't stay at this place forever. We need to reach that basecamp which is deep in the mainland. But there is no way we all can go there together. It will be too risky. But we can do one thing." Three grey rings appeared on the screen. "These are the three teleportation machines that we currently have on this island. The bigger one is Hermes V01. The smaller one is Hermes P27. And the one in the middle is Hermes M100. My idea is very simple. We will have our three volunteers take Hermes P27 with them to the mainland." The three blue color men grabbed one of the grey rings and took it away from the island. The video showed them and a grey ring crossing a sea on a paper boat. Then it showed them landing on a strange land, presented them while they ran away from giant earthworms ("Those are snakes if you can't tell," Konner said to his audience) with the grey ring on their backs. The screen went full black and then faded into a scene which showed the three brave, blue men reaching Second Sepro, the last frontier, the only remaining human settlement, and after arriving at their final destination, the blue figures started the ring-like machine. On the island, the red people got the signal, and one by one they started stepping into Hermes V01 and then began popping out of Hermes P27. Soon, everyone had left the island and had safely reached Second Sepro. The video ended with the red people lifting up the blue people and throwing them in the air.

The screen went blank, and the lights overhead went back on.

"See," Konner said, "Plain and simple."

No one said anything. It was as if they were shocked by the bizarre images they had just seen.

"We will need three people for this task," Konner said, "A doctor who will do things which doctors usually do. An engineer who will look after Hermes. And a strong guy who will protect the other two. Rod has already volunteered to be the protector. He is a local and he thinks he knows where Second Spero is. I was going to be the engineer for this trip. But now as you all know, I can't make this journey, so someone else will have to take my place." His eyes again scanned their faces. "I need two volunteers."