THE CURE: Chapter Three-History 101
“Earths government started changing in the mid 21st century.
Society was dividing into to two separate classes, First Class Citizens, who had
money, and Second Class Citizens, who didn’t have enough. By 2200 the entire
population was separated. That’s when the 2nds, as they were also
known, started to get sick. Unusual cases started coming into the hospitals;
People coughing up blood, unable to breath, and in the end dying of respiratory
failure. After about two years they gave it a name, Laricell, named after the
very first one of the First Class to die from it. They didn’t start trying to
cure it until a few more First Class Citizens began getting infected. Finally a
vaccine was discovered. This saved a lot of First Class lives, but very few
Secondary Citizens benefited. That’s when THE CURE was formed; by then so many
Second Class Citizens had been infected only a cure would cleanse the Earth of
Laricell. The problem is they refuse to share the vaccine with us. We know their
close to a cure. If we could just get it before they do, we’d have a chance.
If they find that cure first, they’ll simply kill off the Second Class. They
already take those of the Second Class who are infected to labs, and “research
centers” to test cures for their own kind. I snuck Jackie out of one of their
‘research centers’ in the middle of the night, and took her to THE CURE home
base.”, Riddick are you listening? Sam nudged him with her hand.
He was sleeping. They were in Sam’s Nebular Cruiser 468. Sam never
liked taking the cruiser, but she didn’t dare bring the Lunar77, her ship, out
into this territory. The Cruiser was an older model, but still very useful.
Covered in dents, and its brown peeling paint, it still had its uses, especially
for trips into the not so nice regions of the universe. It was coated with a
layer of red dirt from being left outside the saloon. They were headed to THE
CURE home base on Earths satellite, the Moon. Riddick and Sam had left that
morning. After Sam had stepped out and realized it was the cellar of the saloon
she’d been locked up in all night she began laughing. Here she was thinking
she was another planet, and all the time she hadn’t even left that filthy
little salon in the Raiber Quadrant, in the middle of nowhere.
It
was along trip back to Earth’s Moon about seven hours. Sam nearly fell asleep
herself. While she was piloting she wondered what was Riddick dreaming about?
Did he dream? Was he even asleep? She didn’t like playing this game of his.
Finally,
the Moon. Sam landed on a small plateau in the left quadrant. A small video
screen popped up in the cabin of the cruiser. A thin rather gaunt man wearing
large round yellow goggles and a white battered helmet was pictured.
“Password?”,
he asked.
“The moon is made of cheese.”, answered Sam. She hated this password.
One of the older members of THE CURE had suggested it. He’d read it in a
myth’s and legends book he’d found written in the 21st Century.
The ship began to lower down a wide metal tube. It looked like they were going
down the winding gullet of a steel armored snake. They set down in a large
docking bay with hundreds of other ships; Most of them beat up and old. THE CURE
didn’t have enough money for newer ships.
“Riddick,
wake up! We’re here.”, Sam gave him a good hard shove this time.
“Who
said I was sleeping?”, Riddick tilted his head ever so slightly towards Sam,
and smiled as he said this. They locked up the cruiser and headed towards a
large circular opening in the wall, through it was a security station. Sitting
behind the desk was the man they’d seen on the video screen, still wearing his
yellow goggle. Again Sam confirmed the password. Then he took out from behind
the desk a long slender gold pen with a red glass top he held this up to Sam’s
eye; It flashed.
“Retinal
Decoder”, said Riddick. “Very clever, unless you were too…”
“Don’t!”,
Sam said stopping him before he could say another word. The wall behind the
security desk slid open with a rumbling sound. Sam and Riddick stepped behind
the desk and through it into what looked like a communications center. Vid
phones, Com-Links, Radar screens, and mountainous walls of other pieces of high
tech equipment filled the room with noise and blinking buttons. People running
back and forth from each of noisy blinking station tracking ships, speaking with
other hidden bases, and checking on shipments.
“I’ll
introduce you to them all and you give you the grand tour later.”, Sam said in
a hushed tone not wanting to disturb a member who was speaking with the Pluto
Base on Vid Link. They made they’re way through the communications center to a
glass and steel door labeled infirmary. All was quiet behind the infirmary door.
They now walked thru a sterile white hallway to a door not unlike the infirmary
door, labeled West Wing. The room behind the door had three circular levels. One
might describe it as three doughnuts laid on top of each other with an elevator
running thru the middle. Everything had either the sterile white of the hall, or
a silver color to it. Each bed had a pillow, a sheet, and a blanket. No empty
beds here. Sam led Riddick thru the first level over to one of the beds at the
far end. They stopped at the end of the bed. Sam walked over to the lump of
covers and gave it a light nudge.
“Wake
up.”, she said in a soft tone. The mound of covers stirred, and the head of a
young girl rose out. Suddenly, the look of sleepiness left her and a smile
spread across her face.
“You
found him! You Found!”, she said. Quickly she threw the covers off of herself,
jumped out of the bed and wrapped her arms around Riddick as tears of joy fell
from her now sparkling eyes. A
smile crept upon his face.
“Hello
Jackie.”