Dust, carried by the winds, burrowed into my hair; I woke up, spitting out the bitter taste that filled my mouth. The wind seemed to blow, yet it felt as if it were gathering all the surrounding heat, trying to suffocate me even more. The sun gnawed at my eyelids.
I tried to pry my eyes open, but the dust hitting my face wouldn't let me. I swished the sand trapped between my teeth and spat it onto the ground. I tried to bow my head, but the chair, to which I was bound in many places, wouldn't allow it.
I heard the sound of a few gunshots, followed by the coughing, cancerous-lung-like explosions of engines. If only the damned wind and dust weren't preventing me from opening my eyes, I might have understood what was going on.
I tried to stand up, but to no avail… I could feel the fabric of the chair I was tied to sweating all the way to my ass. I could even feel spider-like insect legs crawling on my back, inside my clothes. Laughter erupted, then suddenly, the clang of metal. As a shadow fell over my eyelids, I finally managed to open my eyes.
The spaceship, Hawk, was a wreck, buried in the sands. Holes riddled its every side, and sand continued to pour into its interior. A man, dressed like a dystopian-era biker, stared at me through his round, nautical goggles. He must have been the one who pulled the metal piece, sealing the hole in the ship's hull and casting my face into shadow.
From the shadows, he extended his hands to me and mumbled something in a language I didn't understand.
"Who are you, and why am I here!" I shouted.
He, in his own language, whose sounds resembled frog croaks, tried to say something.
Since I wasn't wearing my helmet, I couldn't understand a single thing he was saying.
Just then, I saw shadows passing through the metal gashes of the wrecked ship, one after another. These shadows made engine noises like coughs and screamed wildly as they circled us.
The stranger was still trying to tell me something. He looked as if he was pleading.
"What do you want?"
He pointed with his hand at the gun tucked into my pants. I hadn't noticed the gun until the stranger pointed it out.
"You want my gun?"
The gun had been placed close to my hand. It was as if someone had carefully taped it there. The gun resembled a revolver with a pointed, cone-like barrel.
"Sir, if you wake up before I return and wish to be free, shoot the metal belt on your shoulder." A piece of paper taped to it read. I took the gun and first aimed it at the stranger. When the stranger knelt and began to beg, I started to understand everything.
This man was probably escaping from that biker gang. He had sought refuge here while fleeing and had stumbled upon me by chance. If I hadn't woken up to the noise, he probably would have taken my gun and even shot me. The moment I shot the belt on my shoulder with the gun, I toppled face down onto the sands. But I didn't bat an eye. After flailing in the sand for a bit, I straightened up and aimed the gun at the stranger.
"Are they after you?"
The creature mumbled something. Realizing I couldn't communicate with him, I poked my head through one of the holes in the metal wall and looked outside. There were semi-naked people in biker outfits, but these people looked like mutants. Some had three arms, some two heads, and some had another leg protruding from their chest.
"I didn't expect so many human-like creatures here," I muttered to myself. All the while, I kept the gun pointed at the stranger. The bikers were pouring a liquid into their mouths, and this liquid was coming out of their eyes as colored smoke. They continued to circle us, trailing colorful fumes.
Just to distract and scare them, I poked the gun through one of the metal holes and fired into the air. Hearing the gunshot, the bikers slowed down, lined up side by side, and dismounted their vehicles.
The stranger grew even more agitated and started to cry out.
A three-headed man, who could be considered the leader of the bikers, stepped forward three paces with a megaphone in his hand. Two of this man's heads protruded from his neck, and one from his shoulder. He was two meters tall. A red cape, torn and reaching his feet, was draped over his back. He wore metal bracelets on his wrists and a spiked shoulder pad.
He took the megaphone and shouted something.
Our stranger also hid behind me and shouted something.
The man with the megaphone shouted something else.
Our stranger trembled uncontrollably before shouting again.
Then another biker whispered something into his master's ear. I hadn't heard the whispering, only seen it.
Then another biker said something else.
The stranger said something else.
I pressed the gun against my chin. I didn't not think about pulling the trigger.
Then the stranger said something else. One could even say he showed off, pointing at me and my gun.
The bikers' leader angrily threw the megaphone to the ground. One of the bikers pulled out a rifle and fired at the ship's hull. The ship's hull treated the bullet like a fly bite. The bikers' surprise certainly flattered my ego.
"That's the kind of ship I have, you sons of bitches! Retreat!"
The stranger, too, must have been surprised that the bullet did nothing to the ship's hull, as he started to wander aimlessly throughout the room. He finally found a notebook buried under the sand and began to examine it.
"You can't read that! That language is the language of humans!"
"Human?"
I frowned. "You know that word?"
The stranger pointed at me with his hand. "Human?"
"You goddamn son of a bitch! Is this your first time seeing a human?"
At that moment, I noticed the stranger clenching his fist. He yelled something at the bikers outside. As soon as the bikers heard what the stranger said, they scurried back to their bikes in alarm. They hopped on their bikes, laughing, and sped away, leaving a dust storm of sand in their wake. The stranger opened his mouth beneath his mask and spat on the ground. Then he bent a metal cover and tried to get out, to escape from me. But just then, his head suddenly exploded, and his brains splattered at my feet.
I pulled my head out and threw myself out of the ship's shattered window.
"Sir, I'm coming right away," a voice said.
"Jose?"
Jose was drifting in the sand with his massive wheel. He had stirred up dust and was chasing after the bikers who were trying to escape at high speed. The metal broom in his hand still looked like a spear.
Seeing Jose, the cleaning robot, coming after them, the bikers sped up even more. Jose plunged into the sandstorm, the jets behind him adding to his speed.
The bikers yelled at each other. The passengers on the back of the bikes hurled their spears at Jose, who was sliding on his wheel across the sand. The spears caused large explosions where they landed, while Jose, like an ice skater, dodged the spears and their blasts.
Jose hurled the broom in his hand like a spear. The broom impaled the wheel of one of the bikers, and the motorcycle flipped, throwing its riders onto the sand. Jose detonated the rockets on his back once more, flying over the sand dune so casually that his wheels crushed the head of a motorcycle rider. Only their leader remained, and his bike was faster than the others. Jose picked up the rifle on his shoulder and paused where he was.
He aimed the rifle at the three-headed creature. One, two, three… Three seconds later, a bullet fired from the barrel and struck one of the creature's heads. With the exploding head, the motorcycle crashed to the ground. Jose looked around; there were still survivors thrashing in the sand. As he shot them one by one with the rifle in his hand, the sands turned blood red.
I saw Jose walking slowly towards me on the sand dune, the sun hitting him from behind, casting his face into shadow. His laser arm was still detached, but he had placed it on the belt around his waist. That belt was also tied to his shoulder with a rope. He leaned the rifle on his shoulder and rolled his wheel towards me.
"Sir… How are you?"
I straightened up on the sands and looked at Jose. "I'm fine, but…" I brushed off my sweat-soaked collar. I took off my sand-filled T-shirt and hung it over my head. The sweaty T-shirt cooled my sun-baked head a little. "…I'm fine, but how are you?"
"Sir, I needed some adaptations to survive. We landed in a very wrong part of the planet."
"Where's my helmet?"
"If I hadn't taken your helmet off, you could have died from the heat. I put it behind your chair. Didn't you see the note?"
"Which note?"
At that moment, Jose pointed to my right arm. There really was tape on my right arm. The piece of paper attached to the tape read: "Sir, please put on your helmet when you wake up. No one should know you're human. I put it behind your chair."
"Very good," I muttered. "…I wish I had seen that earlier." At that moment, I was going back inside the ship.
"All the creatures on this planet hate humans because they were created by humans and then abandoned to their extinction. Your being human will remind them of the Unify company."
I threw myself through the metal cut and, after thrashing around in the sand-lake for a bit, took off the T-shirt from my head and put on the helmet from behind the chair. As soon as I put on the helmet, I almost couldn't breathe. The heat was that intense.
"So what happened?"
"Sir, first of all, you were shot. When the bullet broke one of your armor's oxygen channels, you couldn't get oxygen for a while and fainted. You also had a panic attack…"
"How effective was the panic attack in my fainting?"
"A lot…"
"Okay, continue."
"Then I took the initiative to land the ship on this planet."
"You've been taking a lot of initiative lately, Jose."
"The pleasure is mine, sir."
"What kind of initiative did you take, then?"
"I thought I could fly the ship through those clouds. We were making a perfect transit when…"
"What happened?"
"The brother of the owner of the trade post we blew up appeared with his spaceship and a fleet of 5. We killed them all, but we took heavy damage. So we crashed into the sands."
"Where were you, then? Why did you leave me?"
"I was trying to ride a giant worm, to domesticate it. I read in a book that it could help with our journey…"
"So what was the result?"
"I got on the worm's back to domesticate it, but even though I could steer the worm, I couldn't stop it. I threw myself to the ground about 50 kilometers away. Some circuits might have gotten sand in them. Then I returned to this location."
"What were those bikers you shot, then?"
"Them? They're just a classic biker gang… I don't know if there's any need to explain punk-style bikers."
"They have overly human-like bodies."
"Yes… Which means Unify sometimes experimented on humans too."
"Can we make that inference so easily?"
"Let's see what your helmet says…"
I hopped onto Jose's back, and Jose carried me across the sands to the bikers. As we navigated through the exploded, dismembered bodies, my helmet began to analyze them. A semi-naked man in a high-tech astronaut helmet, riding on the back of a cleaning robot.
"How much more charge does this helmet have?" I asked Jose.
"Its charge never runs out, sir. It's a device designed to charge itself with almost anything."
At that moment, my helmet began to analyze. The helmet scanned the bodies for a while, and when it zoomed in on one of them, it noticed "Unify" written on the skin. I jumped off Jose's back and looked closely at the part with the writing on the body, which resembled a female form.
There was a barcode on it.
"Jose, didn't Unify withdraw from this planet centuries ago? Why do these creatures still have barcodes on them? Haven't they reproduced and multiplied at all?"
"Unify wanted their creations to multiply. These energy-producing creatures would reproduce, thus generating more energy. That's why they embedded a tracking barcode into their DNA, to be inscribed on their skin. This way, they could track which two DNAs would combine to produce which new DNA. You can understand if you allow your helmet to analyze it," he said, pointing to the barcode.
My armor zoomed in on the barcode. It read "741-991AA797235." The helmet analyzed the barcode by comparing it with the skin of previous bodies.
The helmet's barcode analysis results were displayed on the screen as follows:
"235 - Zygote Determinant: This segment is a genetic marker indicating that the individual was formed through sexual reproduction (mating). It's used to distinguish from different reproduction methods like asexual reproduction or cloning.
797 - Phylogenetic Classification Code: This code represents the taxonomic classification of the specific species or subspecies to which the individual belongs. This allows Unify to differentiate various life forms in its ecosystem. 797 is created from the genetic combination of human and 'Encrypted Data'.
AA - Energetic Metabolism Genomic Indicator: This alphanumeric code indicates the presence or activation status of specific gene regions associated with the individual's capacity to produce energy. The 'AA' combination may represent a specific genetic locus pointing to high energy efficiency or the potential for a particular energy production pathway. For example, this could correspond to features like enhanced ATP synthase activity or specialized photosynthetic pigment genes.
741 - Paternal Genomic Signature Code (Last Three Digits): This numerical sequence is a microsatellite or SNP (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism) signature derived from the last three digits of the individual's father's genomic barcode. This provides a summary of specific genetic markers passed down from the paternal line.
991 - Maternal Genomic Signature Code (Last Three Digits): Similarly, this sequence represents a microsatellite or SNP signature derived from the last three digits of the individual's mother's genomic barcode. It indicates the genetic contribution from the maternal line."
As information flooded my mind, I stared at the screen, bewildered, not understanding what to do with so much data. "Jose, something's happening, but I don't understand a damn thing! What do I do!"
"Tell it to analyze."
"Helmet, analyze."
"Analysis initiating… Analysis complete… Analysis results transferred to the computer."
"What, the computer? There's no computer here!" I yelled, slapping the helmet. "You idiot! I want the data right here."
"Sir, don't damage the helmet, that thing is very valuable."
"Okay, Jose, can you analyze these?"
"Sir, only superior database systems can interpret such a barcoding system."
"So my helmet is connected to a superior database system?"
"Considering that helmet is Arthur Vale's helmet, in short, John Crowrift's old helmet… One can't even guess what kind of databases that helmet is connected to. It's likely the database is stored somewhere inside the helmet and hasn't been updated in a very long time. Even so, it must be a really good database."
"I was honestly wondering how this son-of-a-bitch John Crowrift became such a ballsy guy."
"If this helmet can analyze even Unify's barcode tracking system, then John Crowrift has delved into very deep places."
"So what do we do?"
"Change your clothes…" he said, pointing to one of the corpses.
"What? I'm going to wear that rotten, blood-soaked outfit of this creature?"
"The smell will help you hide."
"Please don't, Jose…"
"And if you don't take off your helmet, we won't draw attention. Especially in the city, we don't want to stand out. There's a reason these mutants are in the desert outside the city, and I think it must be related to their resemblance to humans. You must understand that on this planet, they show no mercy not just to humans, but even to human-like beings."
"Damn it!" I said, grabbing the exploded corpse by its feet and dragging it for a while through the desert. The creature's head, severed from its neck, remained on the sand. "At least I won't have to pull the clothes over its head when I take them off," I joked. Despite having my helmet on, despite not smelling anything, I felt nauseous.
"Holy shit!" Jose yelled.
"Holy shit? You've really started swearing!" I looked at Jose, who was standing on the sand dune, pointing into the distance with his intact left arm. I climbed the sand dune and went over to him.
The mutants' leader and his motorcycle were gone. The leader's detached skull was stuck to the ground.
"Were all three of his heads connected to different bodies?" Jose asked. "Even I couldn't have predicted that."