Oriphiel

It's apparent to me that I've kept the plot to a bare minimum so far, revealing only a few details about the aliens and their backstory. Today, I'll shed a little more light on their history, which may very well show them to be far less brave and heroic than they initially made themselves out to be, depending on your point of view. This entry turned out to be much longer than I expected, exceeding the max character limit, so I split it up into two parts. For the background music, I chose a song by Hi-NRG/Disco legend Patrick Cowley, known for his hit "Megatron Man" (featured in entry twelve), as well as his collaboration with fellow musician Sylvester which resulted in popular songs like "Do You Wanna Funk?" (which, if you remember, was the first song to be featured in this journal). Patrick made his name by crafting synthesizer based Hi-NRG music catering to the club scene, however he also made a good amount of music on the side for movie soundtracks. These songs, while still rooted in his Synth Pop/Hi-NRG foundation, were much more slow and atmospheric than his other work. Of course, if you don't want to find these songs by hunting down the obscure original movies and their soundtracks, they were compiled for the 2013 "School Daze" LP.

Chapter Seventeen: Part One



It took a little convincing, but John and Cleo were able to persuade the Red Sleeve scout who was watching Luke's apartment to let them join him. The scout knew that John had been ordered to take a break from Red Sleeve matters, and he certainly didn't believe that John had given his wounds enough time to heal, however he had grown quite bored being alone for the past few hours and was glad to have the company. Together, the three of them watched Luke's apartment building intently, with Cleo making the occasional joke to help pass the time. The nights in the city had become very dark recently, and tonight was no exception, leaving the three of them somewhat blind to most anything outside of the range of the various streetlights scattered about the area, however the darkness also had the benefit of providing the scouts with a shroud that kept them from being detected. Meanwhile, inside Luke's apartment, most everyone had fallen asleep, including the aliens (who, even though they had an unforgiving work schedule, needed rest as much as anyone else). Retix found herself unable to sleep, and decided to put on a disguise and step outside for a walk under the moonlight, something that had become somewhat of a tradition for her these past few nights. Unfortunately, one of the Boss' lieutenants had remained awake. "Where are you going?" he asked, taking a drag from his cigarette. Retix turned to face him, calm yet somewhat surprised, and replied "Nowhere. Just out for a walk." "I'm supposed to watch all of you. Protect you," said the Blue Shirt as he stood up, throwing his spent cigarette to the ground and stepping on it. Retix folded her arms, saying "You've seen what we can do. Do you really think that we need your protection?"

The Blue Shirt shrugged, and said "Maybe not. But I'll tag along anyway, just in case. Don't worry, I'll be as quiet as a corpse." Before Retix could reply, Luke looked up towards her and the Blue Shirt from the couch he was sleeping on, and interjected "I'll go." The Blue Shirt looked at Luke and smiled, saying "That's generous of you. But, as the safety of these new friends of ours is of the utmost importance, I think this matter ought to be handled by a lieutenant." Luke wiped his eyes and stood up, replying "Don't forget, I am a lieutenant. I was one before all of this shit started, and I haven't been demoted yet." The Blue Shirt cleared his nose and looked to the side, saying "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you are." Luke nodded to Retix and began to walk towards the apartment's door, saying "Don't worry. If anything happens to her, it'll be my ass on the line." The Blue Shirt walked over to a chair and sat down, pulling out another cigarette as he said "Be careful. After what happened to Jason, it's clear that the Red Sleeves or some other gang are taking an interest in this apartment. I'm sure that they've got at least one scout out there now." "I've got it covered," said Retix, pulling up the lapel of her trenchcoat and tapping the edge of her hat. "Do you really think that'll fool them?" asked the Blue Shirt. Retix shrugged, and replied "It has so far." Luke put on a hat and sunglasses, and he followed Retix into the hallway outside of his apartment.

"Who's that?" asked John, nodding towards a person stepping out of the apartment complex, draped in a large trenchcoat. Not long after, another person stepped out of the building. Cleo and the scout had been playing cards to pass the time while John stayed focused on the apartment, and they both looked up in curiosity. "Oh," said the scout, "the trenchcoat. I've seen 'em before. They've come out the past few nights, usually alone." "Have you followed them before?" asked John. The scout nodded, and replied "Yeah, once. Right now i'm all alone, and I can't really tail people since I have to stay here and watch the apartment building, but back when I was first posted here, there were four of us. We noticed the trenchcoat, but we just dismissed them at first; it's a busy complex, and people are coming and going at all hours. But almost every night, the trenchcoat would step outside, and eventually we got curious. I tailed 'em, but nothing came of it." "What happened?" asked John. The scout shrugged, and replied "Seriously, nothing. They just walked over to the park and sat at a bench. After an hour or so, they got up and walked back to the building." After thinking for a moment, John said "I'm gonna follow them, see for myself. You stay here and keep an eye on things. Cleo, do you want to come with me, or stay here and watch the building?" Without responding, Cleo smiled and lifted up an arm. John grabbed her hand and helped her to her feet. The two of them followed the mysterious people in trenchcoats, and tried to eavesdrop on their quiet conversation.

For the majority of their walk, John had been asking Retix various questions about how she and the others were adjusting to Earth. However, as they continued on, he noticed that she was growing quieter with each step. He began to suspect that something was on her mind. "Are you alright?" he asked. Retix nodded, gazing towards the ground as she replied "I'm fine." "Are you sure? I don't want to pry, it's just... it seems like there's something that's bothering you." "Really, i'm fi-" began Retix, before she stopped and quickly put a hand to her forehead. Obviously in pain from one of her migraines, she nursed her head for a moment, before throwing her hand down and letting out a yell of frustration. "Are they getting worse?" asked Luke, who was not so careless that he hadn't noticed her previous headaches. "No, they're..." started Retix, before stopping and sighing. "It's not just them. It's everything. I just... I need some time to think." "I understand," said Luke. "Really, I get it. It must be stressful. The same aliens that destroyed your planet are coming for Earth, and you're the only ones who can stop them." Retix narrowed her eyes and let out a small laugh, saying "Right," in a sarcastic tone. "What?" asked Luke, wondering if he had said something that warranted her tone of voice. Retix was about to say something, before she shook her head and looked down in thought. After a moment, she said "The Threx didn't destroy our planet. Not really. We did. And I have to live with what I've done. I have to, or... or they'll have all died for nothing." "What are you talking about?" asked Luke, who was legitimately confused. Retix put a hand to her forehead, and said "We... weren't completely honest with you when we first met. We didn't exactly lie to you, but we certainly didn't tell you the truth. I..." she stopped and thought for a moment, before continuing "I don't really know where to start." She sat down on a park bench, thinking of what to say as Luke sat down beside her.

"Our world was falling apart. We were an advanced civilization with a rich history, as well as a wide array of incredible scientific advancements, and a cultural emphasis on building innovative technology. However, even we weren't immune to the basic faults of greed and pride. While the people sank further down into a devastating economic depression, the nobility became more wealthy and powerful than ever before." "Wait," said Luke, "didn't Heyt say that you all came from the ruling caste?" Retix looked down. She sighed and nodded her head, before saying "We... I didn't... I was raised in a palace, and lived in it my whole life. I didn't realize what was happening to the world around me until it was too late." By her expression, Luke could tell that she didn't truly believe that. In time, Retix continued. "The people eventually rose up in rebellion. Almost the entirety of the massive population of our planet fell into a frenzy. At first, the rebels targeted the nobility, executing as many as they could find. But they eventually turned to banditry to sustain their armies, killing innocent people and losing sight of their ideals, and our world became a place of death and chaos. We... we were desperate. The rebellion had to end, before our whole world was destroyed. And so we did what our civilization does best; faced with a problem, we built a device that would help us to overcome it."

"What kind of device?" asked Luke. Retix spent a few seconds watching ripples dance across a nearby pond, before answering "One that could stop the chaos. After the riots started, all of the surviving nobles gathered together, and we discussed how we could survive the coming days. We each had our own plan; Heyt wanted us to leave our world, using what resources we had left to start new lives in a place where the rebels would never find us. Since there were rebel pirates all around our world, taking off in a spaceship was out of the question, and his plan was to build a teleportation device with enough range to reach a far away planet that was compatible with our biology. Gor wanted us to fight rather than leave our ancestral home, to go down in an honorable blaze of glory. His plan, if you can believe it, was to use our resources to build an army of robots to fight alongside us. Valk wanted to appease the rebels, and his plan was to 'redistribute the planet's wealth', a plan that essentially boiled down to buying the rebels off in exchange for mercy. There was also a noble with us named Merrus, one of the few that tried to fix the economy before the riots started, and he wanted to negotiate with the rebels to establish a new government. He considered the noble caste to be outdated, and believed that forming some sort of system of elected representatives would destroy corruption and greed." Luke, thinking of how the elected representatives of own his planet were stereotyped as being the personification of greed and corruption, held back a laugh, and Retix continued. "Regardless, we all continued to fight with each other, until eventually one of our plans was approved by the majority. My plan."

"It was actually a very simple idea. We would use our accumulated resources to develop a machine, based off of an old form of technology that had been used for years to quell small groups of protesters. It's purpose was roughly the same, only we needed our device to have much more power and range than the old tech. We devoted all of our time to building it, and it was surprisingly difficult to create. Heyt, Valk, and Tyl were the ones who designed the majority of the machine, eventually overcoming every issue of power usage, range, and so on. In time, we had a prototype. Using it would be risky, since we had absolutely no time to test it or think about the ramifications of using it, but we were running out of time. We had no choice but to turn it on, and use it on the population." "It seems pretty obvious that it was some kind of pacification device, but what did it actually do? I mean, did it force everyone to be happy, or put everyone to sleep, or..." asked Luke, and Retix cut him off by answering "Mind control. The function of the device was to take away their free will." "Oh," responded Luke. Retix looked down, and continued her story. "It could, at a range, replace someone's higher cognitive functions and behavior with our own set of desired orders and actions. Of course, Merrus was vehemently opposed to creating it, however he honored the decision of the majority and assisted us in creating it. In time, the device was turned on, and everyone within a certain radius of our position was put under our control. We continued to improve the machine, increasing it's power and spreading the range of it's influence, until the majority of the planet was under our command."

"Of course, we wanted to leave ourselves and any other surviving nobles unchanged, and so we designed the machine to be nullified by these..." she said as she swept back her bangs, revealing a small metallic band around her head, and Luke remembered seeing the other aliens wearing them. "It's a circlet made of copper, and almost every noble proudly wore one on our planet." "Copper?" asked Luke incredulously. "Weren't you basically royalty? Why not gold or silver?" Retix shrugged, and replied "It's a tradition, dating back thousands of years. Regardless, we formatted the waves of the device to react sporadically when in contact with copper, creating a small field of interference that would repel the waves away from the wearer's mind. By doing this, we spared most of the surviving nobles from the grip of the device." "What happened next?" asked Luke. "Like I said," continued Retix, "we increased the power of the device, and gained control of the majority of the planet. There were still areas beyond our reach, such as off-world colonies, but they were conquered easily enough; with most of the population following our orders, we were able to quickly build more mind control devices, placing them in the far corners of our civilization. The rebels were defeated, and order was restored to our world. We celebrated for a time, and then set about rebuilding some semblance of a society... truly, we thought that we had accomplished some grand and magnificent task, but in reality, our people were doomed."

"What happened to your people? Did you eventually release them from the device's control?" asked Luke. Retix massaged her forehead, and replied "We had originally planned to free our people from the machine's control, however... plans change. After defeating the rebels, we discussed the matter, and we agreed that we should first release a small handful of people, studying them to see if there were any side effects before we freed the majority of the population. The people that we released quickly reverted to their previous inclinations, thinking that the rebellion was still in effect. Realizing that freeing our people would only cause a repetition of the past violence, we decided to leave them under our control until we could find a solution. Our best hope was to study them, to find a way of somehow rewriting their memories, making them forget about the rebellion, while still retaining their free will and personalities. In the meantime, every person was assigned a job, and our society was rebuilt. At first, it seemed like we had made the right choice, and maybe we had, initially... but as time passed, we once again gave in to our greed. While we were studying our people, we began to notice an effect of long-term exposure to the device's waves; loss of memories. At first, we were happy, as it meant that we would soon be able to release our people without them trying to kill us. However, as more time passed, they would begin to lose more than just memories; their minds would eventually grow weaker and weaker until even the most basic of independent functions would elude them without our guidance."