Raven Wolf - 05 - The Abandoned - Chapter 10 by Kurapika < Submission

Keywords male 1116223, female 1005705, fox 233065, cat 199539, wolf 182343, canine 174474, feline 139200, human 100661, horse 57103, skunk 31784, story 12743, coyote 11301, jackal 11013, sci-fi 4409, book 4115, science fiction 1768, chapter 513, seriess 1

Chapter Ten

Naida lets out an excited giggle as she grabs onto Aither wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tightly. “Oh Aither I’ve missed you so much!! It’s good to see you again!”

The two are now in a room set up for visits from outside friends and family, as the foxes that had been gathered had spent a long time here away from such people, with their stay not looking to come to an end any time soon.

Aither lets out a gasp as he tries to get her to let go of him. “Naida love I can’t breathe…”

Naida lets go of him still smiling at him. “So how has your stay here been?”

Aither crosses his arms, not sure of what she is expecting him to say. “Miserable.”

“Oh it can’t be all bad can it?”

“Yes it can and it is.”

He looks over toward a camera that is in the room that monitors and records their visits, he is going to have to be very careful when it comes to trying to give her the information regarding Shiya that he wants to.

He looks to the door of the room spotting Mort standing outside of it while he waits for Naida’s visit to come to an end, he is also going to be a problem.

He now looks back to Naida trying to think of the best way to go about this. “So love, you’ll never guess who I ran into while in here.”

Naida sits down at a table that is in the middle of the room. “Oh? You met someone you know here?”

Aither sits across from her. “Well… more of a friend of a friend really, the one who’s necklace you’re holding onto.”

Naida seems interested in this, she catching on right away to what Aither is referring to. “Really? Is he doing alright? Last I heard of him he wasn’t doing very well at all.”

“He’s alright from what I hear, doing well, found a new place to stay, would really like that necklace back though, it has a lot of sentimental value.”

Naida glances back to the door that Mort is behind. “I don’t know if I can do that under the circumstances… you know how busy I am with my shows and everything.”

“Well see if you can find time, it’s important to him.”

“Where is he staying?”

“At the Professor’s place.”

“Professor? I don’t think you’ve introduced me to them…”

“It’s that big place I brought you to that one time, you’ll know it when you see it, it sticks out like a sore thumb. If you brought something to write with I’ll give you the address.”

Naida places her purse on the table, going through it until she finds a pen and a pad of paper, pushing them towards Aither. “How much longer do you think that you’ll be in here?”

Aither shakes his head as he begins writing on the paper. “Who knows… it doesn’t seem like this whole mess if going to be cleaned up anytime soon.”

He hands the pen and paper back to Naida, looking over at what he had written down. “Oh… that place, I’m surprised that he’s staying there.”

Mort stands quietly outside of the door while he waits for Naida to finish her visit, his attention caught when he sees Alistair enter the hall and begin to approach him, Mort grunts to himself before speaking up to get his attention. “Quincy!”

Alistair tries to calm Mort down. “Relax, I didn’t do anything to your old girlfriend.” He comes to a stop in front of Mort crossing his arms as he begins to question him. “What do you know about Dmitri living at the Military base?”

Mort seems confused. “I don’t know anything about that, why would you think that I would?”

“General Jovina said something about it but wouldn’t go into further detail because she’s completely jealous of the two of us.” Mort gives an annoyed grumble, Alistair continues. “I was hoping that someone more cooperative than her would know something.”

“As I said, I don’t know anything about it. I never met him before he came to takeover my job.”

Alistair shakes his head at the reminder. “What a cruddy deal that was.” He pauses for a moment when he sees something in the corner of his eye, the same child that he had seen outside is now inside the building, Alistair stares silently at the child that is staring back at him.

“Quincy… Quincy!!”

Alistair turns from the child and back to Mort. “What?”

“You zoned out.”

Alistair looks back to where he had seen the child only to find him gone. “Sorry…”

Mort seems a little concerned. “Are you going to be alright? You don’t even space out like that when you’re looking at your own reflection.”

Alistair turns away from him, it’s nothing that he wants to share with Mort. “I’ll be fine.”

“You looked scared.”

Alistair seems offended by this accusation. “I did not and I was not!”

Mort shrugs his shoulders not pushing it any further. “What do you want with Dmitri anyway?”

“Things.”

“That doesn’t answer anything.”

“Words.”

Mort gives an annoyed grumble. “Wouldn’t it be better for you not to do things that would get on his nerves?”

Alistair gets a stern look on his face. “General Dmitri tried to kill Chase and because of that turned him against us. Heck he tried to have all us Super Soldiers put down, he is no friend of mine, he can’t even consider himself my ally.”

“If you’re not going to obey your commanding officer than why are you still in the military?”

Alistair shrugs his shoulders. “You know… to protect people and all that stuff…” Mort frowns at him, Alistair lets out a groan. “I’m a weapon! Where else would I go?”

The door to the room that Mort is standing in front of opens, Naida steps through it and greets the two of them. “Hello Alistair, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you.”

Alistair nods his head, having not frequented the studio to visit Mort since receiving Eighteen’s request. “I’ve been busy, I’ll be back to stalk Mort when this little job is done I promise.”

Mort looks annoyed with this information. “What little job!? I thought you were supposed to be tracking down Raven Wolf’s leader!?”

“Oh just because I’m stuck with that task doesn’t mean that I can’t do a little extra work on the side. I need to be able to do some kind of job I can actually finish, these constant failures when it comes to capturing Raven Wolf’s leader are really starting to get to me.”

Naida looks over to Mort upon leaving the room. “Would you like to check up on General Jovina before we go?”

Alistair quickly responds for Mort. “No he would not!”

Mort glares over at Alistair. “That’s not your decision Quincy, go away.”

Alistair sighs to himself as he turns around and heads on his way, Mort watches him leave before turning back to Naida to answer her question. “I’m sure that she’s fine, if Quincy were to bother her too much she wouldn’t have let him off looking as unwounded as he is now. Besides, her search isn’t going as well as she hoped, she is probably in no mood to talk to anyone let alone me.”

Naida looks down towards the ground. “Finding this person is very important to her.”

Mort nods his head yes, that’s more true than Naida knows. “The person she’s trying to find is the one that killed her father, so yes, it is very important to her.”

Naida glances back towards the room she had just come from. “Oh… I did not know that… that’s horrible, the poor girl…”

“Finding this person is the reason she followed in her father’s footsteps and joined the Domestic Military.”

The two begin walking down the hall, Naida questions Mort as they make their way down it. “If you don’t mind me asking Captain, why did you join the military?”

“To be able to protect the people of this city and my country, and fight for what was right. I wanted to be a hero.” He smirks to himself his answer sounding foolish. “That was a long time ago, and I was young when I joined. Everything was black and white for me back then, as you get older you realize there is more than just good an evil and you begin to see the shades of grey. Not everything the Domestic Military does can be considered heroic, but they do these things still with the intent of protecting the people and our country, that had never changed.”

Naida stares at him. “Even though you protect the lives of everyone in this city you do not see yourself as a hero?”

Mort shakes his head no. “Like I said, not everything the Military does is heroic, but it is done with the intent to protect, or give us strength against the enemies that intend to do us harm.”

*******

Rebecca sits are her computer working late, she still tinkering away at the project regarding the Lightning source even though he was no longer there. Rebecca sure that he would be found and brought back, she wants to be ready to resume work as usual once he is returned.

The door to the room she is in opens, Commander General Zephyr enters the room to find her here. “You didn’t come home.”

Rebecca nods her head‘s she too busy to head home right now. “Someone has to keep working on this project while our Source is away. No progress is made by using any little excuse to put things on hold you know.”

“There’s not much you can do without him here.”

“I still have data and records to work with, it’s not like I’m flying blind.” She turns back to her husband now questioning him. “How is Fenrir doing?”

Zephyr frowns, his son’s situation concerns him. “Better than expected…”

“You sound like that’s a bad thing.”

Zephyr nods his head. “It’s something that can’t be explained right now, and that is bad for someone who is the result of an experimental program.”

Rebecca stops her work as she looks back to him. “What do you mean? What happened to him?”

“Within a few hours his wound had completely healed. That’s not normal for someone suffering from a bullet wound.”

Rebecca has to agree. “No it’s not…”

Zephyr crosses his arms. “They’ve tested him but have found no changes in his blood work or cell system, they think that whatever triggered it is something he was born with, possibly a mutation that developed from the cross breeding or even something inherited from one of the parents, so they’re looking into that possibility right now.”

Rebecca shrugs her shoulders. “Well he sure didn’t get it from me, I got a paper cut in-between my fingers once, stayed there irritating me for at least a week.”

“What do you remember about Fenrir’s father?”

Rebecca grins at the reminder. “Other than him being absolutely gorgeous?” She quickly looks back to Zephyr. “No offence to you of course, you’re wonderful looking too.” She sighs as she thinks back. “Seven dash Z though… it was like he had been sculpted by angels, his biceps were huge!”

Zephyr frowns, this is not exactly easy for him to listen to. “Yes… I… saw the photos of him when I looked into his records… he looked like a pretty big fellow…”

“He was HUGE!”

“Are you done?”

“Sorry.”

Zephyr clears his throat. “He passed away about ten years back.”

Rebecca nods her head. “Yes… it was unfortunate… I would have liked for Fenrir to meet him, though he never got the opportunity.”

Zephyr continues to question her. “Do you remember anything else about him… aside from what he looked like?”

His wife crosses her arms as she tries to think back. “Well… I did try to talk to him a number of times, though he didn’t have much to say… he was brought in for another project, but replaced with another specimen. When I asked him about his life outside before he was brought to the fortress he would just say he’s never been outside of the iron city, I don’t think he remembered being out there anymore.”

“Do you remember what project he was on?”

“He was in two big ones actually before being moved to the hybrid project. Both of them projects that Professor Geneses worked on, I can’t remember what they were but I think one of them may have even been his Super Soldier project, he had a developed a unique gene that the Professor wanted to used as an ingredient in making them.”

Zephyr sighs, that’s not much help, Professor Geneses is working on numerous projects at any given time. His wife stares at him confused. “Why are you asking me all of this? Shouldn’t all this information be in Seven dash Z’s files?”

The Commander General makes a frown, though that had been his original intent he finds himself unable to do so. “That’s just it, his files as well the files belonging to the other Wilds that were involved in the project have been tampered with. Important records and information are missing, no one at the labs or the records department knows what happened to it, and even when I contacted Professor Geneses about it he couldn’t place who I was talking about. He’s dealt with so many test subjects over the years that he can’t possibly individualize them.”

He lets out a sigh. “Without those files we have no idea of what it is Fenrir might have inherited from his father.”

Rebecca crosses her arms. “That’s a huge problem… You don’t suppose they’ll keep him under lock and key in the facility until they find out do you?”

Zephyr looks back to her there’s no way that he would let that happen. “Not if I have anything to do with it.” He shakes his head, this is still a concern, after all such carefully documented case files didn’t just up and disappear, and things of the sort are also not stolen at random.

Rebecca thinks this information over. “Have you asked Professor Master’s boy? It’s his job to figure out stuff like this for you isn’t it? Maybe he’s even the one that did it, you know how he is with money.”

Zephyr nods his head, having contacted Adrian first. “The files went missing before he was born and knew how to work a computer, he doesn’t know anything about it, he’s looking into it right now alongside the usual team of specialists but he has very little to work with, whoever did it hid their tracks well.”

Rebecca frowns a sour look on her face. “And even if he did find them what’s to stop him from keeping the information to himself and then selling it to the highest bidder?”

“Adrian doesn’t work like that, the kid has is rules and standards. He’ll get information you want for a price, but he won’t hold that information ransom or sell it to someone who might offer him more for it. He needs his existing and potential customers to know that he’s trustworthy.”

Rebecca doesn’t seem all that convinced. “What about that time he turned that group of rebels that hired him in?”

“Those ones didn’t pay him. If you’re the one to break the contract with him and don’t hold up your end of the bargain and give him payment, he will see to it that you regret it.”

*******

Fenrir smiles as he looks to the door of his room, Ember having entered with the intent to come and pay him a visit. She walking over to the bed that he was resting on leaning down towards him and kissing him as a greeting, she questioning him once she is done. “So how are you doing? I heard you got shot in that attack on the facility last night.”

Fenrir nods his head. “The bullet wound wasn’t as bad as they first thought that it was.”

Ember sits on the bed leaning towards him as she takes a look at the area she had been told he had been hit in, there’s no wound there. “Looks like it’s already done healing, must have used the nano things on you right?”

Fenrir looks to the side, those had not been the reason that he has healed so fast. “Yeah… I-”

Ember looks back up to him. “Those things are really expensive right? So they usually don’t use them unless the circumstances are life threatening, but I guess because you’re the Commander General’s son you get all sorts of neat privileges.”

“I wouldn’t say that…”

Ember looks from him as she begins to scan the room he is in. “Why is your room so pink and girly looking?”

Fenrir looks the room over. “All the rooms on this side of the facility look like this.”

“So when do you think that you’ll be getting out?”

Fenrir shrugs his shoulders, really not sure about that. “I don’t know… there’s a lot of paperwork to fill out, but knowing my Dad he’ll see to it that I don’t have to stay here long.” He looks back to Ember now beginning to question her. “How is Teddy doing?”

Ember lets out a gasp as she quickly looks around the room. “What-? Why would you just bring that up here!?”

Fenrir frowns there’s nothing for her to worry about. “This isn’t like the other places in the research facility, my room isn’t monitored in a visual or audio manner. The only thing they have monitoring me are the machines that read my vital signs. Just keep your voice down so that everyone outside of my room can’t hear you.”

Ember gives the room another quick look over before speaking, her voice low and barely above a whisper. “I don’t know where he is or how he’s doing. I was kind of split up from the rest of the group. They did manage to get him out okay though, they’re not telling me anything about him though cause I have Zack with me.”

Fenrir is surprised to hear this. “You have Zack to!? But you were told not to go after him!”

Ember tries to keep her voice at its low level while she defends herself. “Your dad having his hands on a Super Soldier is almost as bad as him having his hands on a Source! Why doesn’t anyone but me see this!?”

“Ember!”

“Don’t you Ember me!!”

There is a knock against the glass wall to Fenrir’s room, Ember jumps as she quickly turns around to face the noise. “I knew it wasn’t safe to talk about this stuff here!”

She calms down when she sees the figure on the other side of the glass, Adrian looks back to her with a frown on her face, the robotic cat-like droid is fixed once again as it stands by his feet.

Fenrir looks surprised to see him here. “I’ve never seen Adrian come to this part of the facility before. What do you think he’s doing here?”

Ember shrugs her shoulders. “Maybe he’s looking for your father, he works for him a lot doesn’t he?” She heads towards the room’s entrance. “I’ll go tell him that your dad’s not here right now.”

Ember leaves the room closing the door behind her, she frowns at Adrian as she talks to him under her breath. “What are you doing here!?”

Adrian frowns at her as he holds his hand as if expecting her to place something in it. “My payment, you promised to pay me if I helped you out. I did just that so come on, pay up.”

Ember quickly looks around her. “What is with you guys and talking about this kind of stuff here!?”

Adrian lets out a sigh there nothing for her to worry about. “There are no visual or audio devices in this area capable of-”

“I know I know!!” She shakes her head turning away from Adrian. “I don’t have any money for you right now.”

Adrian frowns not happy to hear this. “You said you would pay me if I helped you.”

Ember nods her head. “And I will, but you’re going to have to wait.”

“I don’t like waiting.”

“Give me until the end of the week.”

“That’s not how I work.”

“Look, work has been pretty nonexistent for me since dad kicked me out of his shop, but he’s got a tall order to fill on Friday, and like it or not he’s going to need my help so once I help him out with that I’ll have money. Can’t you hold out until then?”

Adrian looks unhappy with the idea, the small cat like robot at his feet speaks up. “-Adrian’s last payout was quiet a large amount, I’m sure that he can hold out until then-”

“You’ve got no say in this Dad!!”

“-Adrian behave yourself, this young lady is in a difficult financial situation right now, you’re not. I’m sure that you can be patient for at least a week-”

Adrian sighs as he turns back to Ember. “Fine… you’ve got to the end of the week, but if you don’t come through though the Commander General is getting his Super Soldier back, as well as your name.”

Ember turns away from him, heading back into Fenrir’s room and closing the sliding glass door behind her, Adrian looks down to the robot that accompanies him with a frown. “You dumb machine! You didn’t think to factor in and calculate her relationship with Fenrir? All she needed to do was ask him for the cash and I would have gotten paid today!”

The cat like robot doesn’t seem to think that it has made a mistake. “-She’s too proud to ask him for money, just let her come up with it on her own-”

Adrian lets out a frustrated grunt, the cat like robot’s attention caught when it sees someone enter the hall they were in. “Adrian, the Commander General is here now.”

Adrian nods his head as he turns around making his way towards him, Zephyr’s the reason that he has come to this place to begin with. “Commander General, a word with you.”

Zephyr looks down at him. “You should be working.”

Adrian nods his head. “Yeah, me and the rest of the team went through the computers at this facility like you wanted me to, but then we ran into some issues and I had to vamoose.”

“Why?”

“Same reason the military can’t give me assignments concerning the Super Soldiers missing inventory database and the infiltration on the Six Sources projects, the True Blood military doesn’t like kids like me working on assignments where one of their family members, especially their father, is the prime suspect or target.”

Zephyr frowns, this realization is not one he likes hearing as often as he does. “Professor Master’s is responsible for this too?”

Adrian nods his head. “My dad was pretty angry with you guys after what happened to mom. There’re probably all kinds of things he tampered with in your system that you don’t know about yet.” Adrian looks down to the robotic cat at his side. “Isn’t that right Dad?”

The cat like droid tilts its head to the side. “Indeed, I was- or I mean Mr. Masters was positively furious.”

Adrian shrugs his shoulders. “If you ask me you guys should let me work on the cases involving dad. If you did maybe you guys might actually get somewhere. I understand that you’re cautious and think that I’m going to protect him and make him and the files he stole even more elusive than they already are but trust me I hate the guy and wouldn’t do anything to help him. I mean sure, what happened to mom because of the Military was sad and horrible and all, but he’s the one that just took off and disappeared, leaving me and my sister as orphans.”

He turns from Zephyr continuing on his way, there’s nothing more he can do regarding the situation. “Well good luck trying to find those files. Though you probably won’t just like you’ve never found every other file dad’s taken from you. Since there’s nothing for me to do here I’m going home.”

There is a beep as a phone chimes to get Adrian’s attention, Adrian picks it up and reads the message on it over. “Guess I have to make a quick stop before I go home.”

Zephyr watches him leave with a frown on his face, he turns away from the boy and continues on his way to Fenrir’s room, the realization that Mr. Masters may have somehow been involved something never one he likes to hear, Professor Masters having

*******

Zack sits upon a large mountain of old metal scraps that he has scaled, using it to look out as far as he can at the areas around him. From what he could tell he was right now in slums of the fortress, everything here is built out of older parts, where most of the manual labour work forced lived, which for the most part looked to be made up of poorer or not very well of True Bloods or Wilds that had been captured and put to work.

From the looks of it Ember was right in saying this is one of the best places for him to hide, as it is this is where all the wilds are being kept, and although he is a domestic not many True Bloods seem to be able to tell the difference, so as long as he looks the part of a wild that has been kept around to do manual labour people wouldn’t even give him a second glace. Even the tattoo used for identification wasn’t unique to him, there several wilds that have been marked in a similar way if they had at one point been a subject in one of the military’s science experiments.

He climbs down from the rubble he has perched himself on, running through the scrap yard until he reaches the fence surrounding on it, a sign on it warns wilds of what the electric collar around their necks would do to them if they attempt to climb over the fence.

Zack stares at the iron wall, now a good time as any to see if what Ember had said about the collar he has on being harmless to him, grabs onto the collar around his neck standing still for a moment, even though he knows there is a good chance it isn’t going to hurt him he had been zapped by it so many times throughout his life that it is still frightening to try and test it.

Zack grits his teeth, and he climbs onto another mound of broken metal scrap near him and climbs it, using it to jump over the fence and land safely on the other side, completely unharmed by the collar that he is wearing.

He carefully begins making his way through the city, keeping close to the walls and shadows to avoid being easily seen. He catches onto conversations between True Bloods here and there; although, they’re mostly talking about the ruckus that has happened at the military labs and the experiments that have gone missing.

Zack comes to a stop when he reaches a tall fence that surrounds the large fields that are growing food, he places his hands on the tall bars and stares through towards the wilds that are on the other end. He whispers over to a wild that is near where he is. “Hey, I’m looking for a wolf with the mark of a black bird on his chest, have you seen anyone like that around here?”

The bear looks back to Zack at answer his question. “I’ve seen a few wolves with that mark on them, but you’re not going to find any of them around here. They’ve all been moved to the mines.”

Zack continues to be a little more precise. “This one would be new, would have arrived in the last few days, maybe even yesterday.”

“Sorry, no one new with that mark has shown up around here.” He looks around Zack not spotting any True Blood near him. “You should return to your owner before they notice you are gone.”

Zack looks around him. “I’m sure he won’t mind.”

The bear lets out a heavy sigh. “You’re new aren’t you? You must have come with the shipment that came yesterday night. Trust me, forget about your friend and get back to the job that was assigned to you, you want to do as your told and keep out of trouble, that collar around your neck will make sure you regret it if you don’t.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“I mean it. If you’re outside of these walls like this that mean that you’ve been lucky enough to be given the job as an errand pet. That’s as free as you’re going to get in this metal fortress, mess that up and they throw you into the fields, mines or somewhere even worse.”

Zack thinks this information over. “Errand pet? What do those do exactly?”

“Didn’t you pay attention to your orientation?”

Zack shakes his head no. “Not in the least.”

“You run errands for, look after and clean up after your owner.”

“Run errands… as in wander around without my master and go from one end of the city to the other to pick something up so that they don’t have to?”

“Yes, but you can only go on routes programmed into your collar, stray from them and you’re going to get hurt, you’ll also get hurt if you don’t complete your task in a timely fashion, so you should get back to that.”

Zack grins, that indeed is information that would be helpful to him. “Good to know, thanks for the help.” He turns away from him thinking to himself as he goes. It doesn’t seem like Teddy is anywhere near this area, in fact no one with the mark of Raven Wolf is anymore. The next place to look would be the mines as that’s where the others from Raven Wolf had gone to.

*******

Adrian walks up the stairs to an assisted care facility, the small cat like robot follows close behind him as he makes his way through the front entrance stopping at the reception desk and frowning when she finds her on the phone, the boy loudly bangs his hand against the top of her desk to get the receptionist’s attention. “Hey I’ve got a busy schedule to keep to here, so tell your boyfriend to hold on five minutes while you help me out.”

The woman frowns as she looks back to Adrian. “Just a minute.”

Adrian frowns not having time for this. “I’ll tell your husband you have a boyfriend if you don’t stop wasting my time.”

The receptionist lets out an angry growl as she puts the phone down and turns to Adrian. “For your information that was my sister! Not my boyfriend.” She goes through a drawer with sorted data cards in it, going through them until she finds the ones that she’s looking for, picking it and handing data card to Adrian. “Now get out of here you annoying little brat!!”

Adrian takes the card plugging it into a portable computer he has strapped to his wrist, a holographic screen appearing in front of him, Adrian reads through the information that is being displayed as he makes his way down the hall towards the elevator, getting on it and pressing the button for the fifth floor.

Adrian lets out a tired sigh as he reads the information over. “Great… just great…”

The elevator comes to a stop on the fifth floor, Adrian makes his way to a room at the end of the hall, opening and entering a small apartment with light blue walls and a green carpet. The few articles of furniture in it are decorated brightly with coloured beaded crafts while the walls are filled with equally colourful paintings.

In the center of the room sits a woman of feline decent, her fur a bright orange with tabby markings, her eyes a light yellow. She stares blankly ahead of her at a television on the wall of the room she is in, it displays the image of a bright blue sky with thin white clouds in it.

Adrian walks up to a rolling meal tray in the room where a plate of food now rests, it is a complete meal of meat, vegetables and other things needed to make a balanced meal, this food is completely untouched and has gone cold over the hours.

Adrian approaches the woman, speaking up get her attention. “Mom, the doctor’s told me that you’re not eating your food.” Adrian gets no response from her as she continues to stare at the television, Adrian speaks up once again. “Mom, did you hear me?”

Adrian’s mother doesn’t look back to him as she continues to stare ahead of her. This an unfortunate norm for her. Her mind is slow and no longer sharp compared to how it once was, the experiments at the True Blood’s hands have taken their toll on her.

The cat like robot that follows Adrian jumps up onto her lap to get her attention. “-Iris?-”

Adrian’s mother looks down to the small robot upon hearing it call her name, she smiles at it as she picks it up holding it in her arms and nuzzling against it. “Darling!”

Adrian sighs as he walks in front of her. “How many times do I have to tell you mom, it’s not really Dad, it’s just a robot with his voice.”

Iris stares at Adrian noticing him for the first time. “Adrian!”

“Yes mom, it’s me Adrian. I know I usually come on the weekend but-”

Iris interrupts him before he is able to finish. “You should be in school.”

Adrian sighs as he shakes his head. “I had work today.”

Iris frowns at him. “No, not work. School.”

“I don’t have a choice! There’s no one else willing to pay for you to stay-” He stops talking this really is not the time for this. “You know what, never mind, I’ll argue this another time, for now.” He points to the tray of untouched food. “You’re not eating, you need to eat.”

Iris shakes her head no. “It’s not real.”

Adrian holds his hands out to the food. “Yes it is.”

His mother shakes her head no. “It’s not real.”

“Mom!! It’s real! It came from real plants and real animals.”

“It’s not real.”

Adrian continues trying to convince her. “Just because the plants and animals were raised and grown underground doesn’t make them any less real then the plants and animals raised and grown on the surface.”

Iris frowns, an angry look on her face as she raises her voice. “It’s not real!”

Adrian grows frustrated with her. “Mom, the weather has been bad on the surface, the cultivators have not been able to go above ground to gather surface grown foods, so there’s none here for you to eat right now. When they’re able to go up and get it once again you’ll have it, but for now you have to settle with this food or you’re going to starve yourself.”

“It’s not real.”

“Mom please!” He brings up the chart he had been reading. “It says here that you didn’t eat anything yesterday, and you’re doing the same today.”

“Because it’s not real.”

“You took your medicine today didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So you’ll eat medicine that is made underground in a pharmacy and laboratory, But you won’t eat your food that was grown and raised in an underground farm?”

“It’s not-”

“Yes I know you said that already. A lot.”

Iris looks away from Adrian as she looks back towards the television that is displaying pictures of the sky.

Adrian walks back over to her. “Come on mom don’t ignore me, I’m only trying to help. You’re going to get weak and sick if you don’t eat. I don’t want you to get sick alright? So can you at least try and eat a little bit so I don’t have to worry so much about you?”

Iris stares at him for a while, she eventually looks over to the table of food. “Ok…”

Adrian lets out a relived sigh, he makes his way over to the meal tray and pushes it towards her, stopping it in front of her. He then pulls up a chair and sits next to her to make sure that she would eat it.

His mother stares at the food for a while, she glancing back at Adrian to see if he is still watching her. She eventually picks up the eating utensils when she realizes that he isn’t going to leave without seeing her eat something.

She places a spoonful of food in her mouth, as she looks back towards the television screen she had been staring at before. “I want to go home.”

“This is your home.”

Iris shakes her head no. “I don’t like it here, my family is not here… only nurses and doctors and I don’t like them. I want a different home, one with Adrian, Lumia and Mathew.”

Adrian lowers his head. “Dad and Lumia are both gone mom, it’s just you and me now, and I can’t take care of you until I’m older. So until then you have to stay here.”

Adrian looks over to the screen his mother is staring at, she always staring at this image practically every waking hour. “Is that what it really looks like outside above the city?”

“Sometimes, on nice days.”

Adrian leans over against his mother resting his head against her as he stares at the image with her. “Does it look the exact same in real life? Or is it better to see in person?”

“It’s better not on the TV.”

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Raven Wolf - 05 - The Abandoned - Chapter 10

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