A new fictional short story 🙂

In the Mountain

How could we have known what they would do? It seemed like another invention and part of our progress. Little did we know, they would be taking us back, to a time before.

It was to be the first project of its kind, a way to develop and grow human babies, without the need for a ‘mother’ or human carrier. They would be developed to a certain specification, helping to eliminate disabilities, illnesses and what society had started to deem disadvantages to being a ‘productive and worthy citizen’.

A vision of the future was put forward, of smiling people with children, living in pollution free ‘zones’, with your selected living quarters and work placement being where you live. And you will be able to select the children you want to have with you in that ordered new society they believed everyone should be part of.

And on the face of it, it did seem as though that was the case. The world was appearing to become a perilous place, and many believed shutting off cities and towns to ‘outsiders’ might be a good thing. To try and get back to a system of community, and stability. But that was because they didn’t know. Didn’t know what had been found in Antarctica and at various sites around the world decades before, because if people did, it would have changed everything.

That there was a time long before what we know now, or think we know, where the Giants Of the Dome ruled over their domain, called the Nephilim. Where great trees nearly touched the sky, huge animals roamed and the biodome name ‘E-Dome’ was theirs to command over and maintain. But that’s where they were contained, not allowed to stray or adventure, but confined to their biodome.

And just as they ruled over their domain, they were also ruled over by the above, their creator, their keeper. The one who has the power to cause Life or Death, so they called it LORD.

But such as it was, the giants didn’t like being captive very much, and grew bored and listless with their domain, wanting to climb the great trees to the top to see what was up there. But they were so big and bulky, not all the tall trees could support them climbing, and they didn’t hide well and stood out, as you might imagine a giant would. Finding themselves either struck by lightning, or a great wind would start and sway the tree so much they would fall to the ground. A warning to not get too close.

One day while walking through the mountains, one of the giants, Genesis, happens upon an area that looks vaguely familiar, but from a long-lost memory. It seems that they were designed to be that way, as bad memory is a trait amongst giants. Yet something worked its way to the surface, and stayed, no longer lost, but not quite making sense. He followed his feet towards a mountainside, and came upon a door, large enough for giants as with the other structures of their realm, so decided it was meant for him.

It was terrifying and fascinating all at once and a lot to take in. A great hall like a giant cathedral hidden in the mountain, with rows and rows of cocoon pods for growing giants. It was their spawning site, where the creator grew the giants, starting small and programming their height, weight, hair colour, maximum age, intelligence and all the other things you would need from a race put there to serve. And it gave Genesis an idea. What if they could have their own slave race too, something for the giants to create and rule over.

So, in secret, he began to test with the machine, and started to learn how to create small giants. Putting in a new set of dimensions each time, hoping for something that would be adequate for purpose. And each time it didn’t quite work out how he had wanted, the failed small giant would be cast out onto the land giving rise to various type of altered small giant. Some short and squat, some tall and slender and others that either perished and were left to rot on the hillside, or were deformed and slunk away to live in the darkness of caves. Until finally, after what seemed like an age had passed, he was happy with it, putting the best of the giants into something that would be a help to them.

And although they were meant to be there to serve, as the giants were, Genesis couldn’t help wanting more for his creation. And wondered if imposing the life they did not desire on something else, was really the right thing to do. 

But now it was finished the Giants Of the Dome themselves would be entering a new era, no longer would it be the age of the GODs. The dawn of the Miniature Augmented Nephilim was upon them, the age of Man had begun.

Yet this creation was not without a heavy punishment, it was discovered that there was a new race. Genesis was told he had doomed them all, and the dome would face near destruction. All of his creations would be killed and probably most of the giants too, with fire and water, land creatures great and small would suffer the consequences.

Faced with his own end, and with the end of the giants, he wondered if he could reprogram the pods, to create a self-replicating creation. That if it could manage to survive the coming doom, would be able to continue, secretly on the land, being small and hidden. So, he did. Spending his last days in the mountain, setting one last program to run, creating the last man, and something new meaning it could go on.

The rumbles in the ground told him the end was coming, and with the programs complete he took the pods from the cave to hide them. Surely the mountain would be destroyed and all his work lost, so he hid them in a valley, far away, surrounded on all sides with lush forest and streams. There they could be safe from the coming doom he hoped.

And while the tallest trees were cut from touching the sky, the seas rose and flames fell to the earth, scorching and clearing, with the waters washing away the new breed, and the old with it. Giant and man alike were gone, giant beast, giant trees, all gone. All traces of them buried deep beneath the layers of mud or taken to the bottom of the oceans lost to the layers of time. Well, almost all traces. Because it seems, that not all the men were indeed lost, some of the men survived, and one giant. Aesop. Also managed to avoid the deluge and fire, hiding out in the Patagonian mountains.

And so it was that the landscape changed forever, with small pockets of men and the other creations scattered throughout the land, and two new people emerged into the new ravaged world far from all that was. Where the time that came before quickly was forgotten, hidden and buried. The new man and what would become known as woman did what they were programmed for, and self-replication was a success. Allowing the new species of breeders to find their way and keep the creation alive. All that had come before became myth and legend, told as stories by the wise folk and the Elders who would dwell in the mountains. Living lifetimes over and over again, as was their programming, to be overseers, to be Watchers. Warning of a day, when the men of old would return to claim their place as rulers of this land, and to go back to the days of the Arc machine in the mountain.

And when that day came, a darkness that had been lurking stepped out of the shadows, bringing back the stories of old. But they had been twisted and rewritten, to keep it all hidden and secret. The grail of eternal life, the pods in the mountain. A way to replicate what you are but with extra time, sought after for generations by all the other creations while they slowly withered as they were meant to. No way to continue their line and destined to watch their kind all die, while seeing the new creation live on, self-replicating over and over.

Until it was found, in a vast icy region far away from the inhabited lands, deep in the mountain and saved from the past destructions. And those that found it agreed, that it would be the time for a new age, and there was to be a stealth war, of the Breeders and the Podders. And over the decades they worked hard, growing an army of replicants, recreating themselves with new parameters. Infiltrating the population slowly but surely, replacing breeders with a podder version, encouraging them to stop breeding themselves, finding ways to halt or disrupt their development. Knowing that if they could remove women from the species, they wouldn’t be able to reproduce without them and they would fail. It was a silent war for the absolute power to create and give life, which many didn’t even know was happening. But where the stakes were higher than they had ever been…

(c) K Wicks

Other short stories by K Wicks can be found here – Short Stories MKW Publishing

And books are available as below