Marilik: Chapter One- Alexa

Alexa Pankiridous sat next to her father’s hospital bed. The heart monitor on his BioData display sounded off at a regular interval. His vitals had been steadily declining since he was admitted to the hospital. He was out on a yacht when his BioData started sending an endangered mortality alert to the paramedics. When they arrived, he was in the middle of slapping his lower body into some Australian whore’s mouth. The bastard didn’t even realize he was having a heart attack.

The same Australian whore was now sitting uncomfortably on the opposite side of the bed. Her tan made her look as orange as a Martian sunrise.

Just the kind he liked, Alexa thought. Fake as an android and dumb as a rock. They’d already become at odds with one another when Alexa had tried explaining that the Supervaccine didn’t protect against heart attacks and given that he was almost 216, a heart attack was to be expected. In addition, the methods usually employed to temporarily suspend a heart attack victim’s animation would have been more of a shock to his system than the heart attack itself. The bitch had argued that she’d learned about all of the ways to stop a heart attack in maturity school, as if she knew more than the star student of the Athenian Medical Secondary School.

Alexa also explained that the Supervaccine didn’t fix sluttiness and general idiocy either, as to explain the Australian’s predicament. The bitch didn’t take too kindly to the remark. It took a hospital security guard to restrain her. This was after Alexa had kicked a chair into her leg, though. She figured she’d at least sprained her ankle. The rest was just opening the door wide enough for the guards to hear the harpy shriek. When she’d turned back to her father, the corner of mouth had elevated slightly.

Alexa started at the bitch coldly. She was now adjusting the CoolPak the guards had given her for her ankle.

“You probably shouldn’t do that,” Alexa said in an attempt to show sympathy.

“I’ll do whatever I damn well please,” the bitch replied.

“I mean, what would I know, right?” Alexa said sarcastically.

“Not a fucking thing,” the bitch replied.

“Get the fuck out,” a voice said between them. They looked at each other, then to Alexa’s father. His eyes were wide open, looking straight at the bitch.

“What did you say, sweetie?” she asked.

“I’m not your sweetie,” Alexa’s father said. “Nobody talks to my daughter that way. Now get the fuck out.” The bitch looked confused, exchanging glances with Alexa.

“You heard him,” Alexa said. “Hop along, Thumper.” The same hospital guard that had restrained the bitch lifted her back out of her chair. She protested loudly, and shrilly, as he dragged her out of the room.

“Finally we have silence,” Alexa’s father said. “Good job with the chair, by the way.” Alexa smirked. She looked down at her feet.

“I do all that work to get my eyes open and you look away from them?” he said.

“You’re dying, dad,” Alexa said. Her eyes were getting misty.

“And here I was thinking you’d be excited about it,” he replied.

“I never got to know you as a father.”

“I never gave you the chance.” A tear rolled down her cheek.

“You may not realize it- my god you may never realize it- but I did it for a reason, you know. Your mother called you a mistake but… you meant so much to me.”

“You were never there!”

“I know, Alex. I know,” his eyes were wet as well.

“It was so hard on me. So very hard. But since I wasn’t there, you were given such wondrous opportunities. Look where you are now! You’ll be Surgeon General in a few years at this rate.”

“That doesn’t matter. I could’ve done it with you there!”

“No you couldn’t have. You would have lived the same life as your brothers and sisters. You would’ve been a spoilt brat like Nikos and Melina.”

Alexa had started to sob.

“I’m sorry Alexa. It had to be this way.”

Alexa stood up from her chair and hugged her father. The remained motionless for a few minutes.

“I’m so proud of you,” he said. The BioData next to the bed turned yellow.

Imminent Fatality.

A cavalcade of doctors and nurses rushed into the rooms seconds later as if they were waiting in a clown car just outside. Alexa felt her father slip something into her hand as a nurse gently pulled her away from him. They crowded around him, checking all of the wires he was hooked up to.

Then he put his hand on one of the doctor’s chests just as he was about to administer a drug of some kind. His head moved from side to side slowly. The doctors looked at each other. After a few moments, they backed away. The monitor turned red.

Confirmed Fatality.

Alexa stood motionless at the foot of the bed. She looked down at the object her father had given her. It was a quite heavy silver ball. There was a laser inscribed word beneath it in all capital letters: PANKIRIDOUS. Alexa turned the ball in her hand. On the opposite side of her family name was a symbol, five interlocking rings.

She recognized the object. It was her father’s Olympic Relic, given only to people who climbed the Great Olympic Mountain, a man-made behemoth of a structure a mile off of the Athenian coast. She looked at her father’s newly deceased body, confused. The Relics were to be returned to the summit of the Great Mountain in the event of a recipients’ death. Alexa imagined he’d have his assistant hovercopter it to its resting place as soon as he’d drawn his last breath.

She looked at the Relic, then out of the hospital room window, the one Alexa’s father had reserved for himself when the AMSS Hospital was built a hundred years earlier. Standing tall, just off of the coast, was the mountain. She tried imagining her father saying he wanted her to take the relic back to its rightful place, but she couldn’t. It was too important to him, the source of his pride.

No, she thought. No way.

“I know what you’re thinking,” a voice said from beside her, “and you’re absolutely wrong.” She turned to see her father’s assistance looking at her father’s body. He turned to her after a few moments.

“You know what has to be done,” her father’s assistant said, talking off his glasses and wiping the lenses. “At least I hope you do, because I don’t feel like explaining it to you.” Alexa looked back at her father. She stood still for a few moments before feeling a tap on her shoulder. She turned to see her mentor and head of the hospital, Marco Eliopoulos standing in the hallway. He motioned for her to follow him.

She wiped her eyes dry as she left the room. After a bit of walking, they ended up in Eliopoulos’ office. He took a seat behind a large wooden desk. Alexa stood next to a chair on the opposite side.

“Have a seat, Alexa,” he said. She sat down. Eliopoulos anxiously looked at her, tapping his pen against the desk.

“I wish this could come at a better time…” he started.

“A better time!?” Alexa exclaimed. “A better time!? My father just died you fucking prick!”

Eliopoulos stared at Alexa, slightly annoyed. The pen tapping had stopped. Alexa regretted the outburst.

“I wish this could come at a better time, but you’re not our problem anymore,” Eliopoulos said. Alexa looked at him, confused. “The GeoCons voted to open a mass military academy in the wake of the attack on Luna. Every kid from 14 to 18 has to report to Port Horizon for transport.”

Alexa had heard about the move a few hours before her father hit Imminent Fatality. Though she was surprised that secondary students were being included in the draft, she had more of a concern that she was the only AMSS student in the room.

“Every kid, Marco?” she asked.

“Modesty? We were told not to expect that, Eliopoulos,” someone said from the left of Alexa. There was an older man in full Navy uniform in the one corner of the room Alexa hadn’t seen as she’d entered.

“Subjects usually show character fluctuations in times of grief, Admiral,” Eliopoulos said. Alexa looked at the man, apparently an Admiral, investigatively.

“Alexa this is Rear Admiral Zachary Cole. I think he’ll be able to tell you a bit more than I can.” He nodded to the Admiral.

“You’re extraordinarily unique, Alexa,” Cole said. “187 on the GeoConfederate Standard, a laundry list of academic and medicinal achievements, and a track record for physical prowess. You’re just what we need.”

“What exactly do you need, Admiral?” Alexa asked.

“I’m going to assume you saw what happened on Luna, what kind of enemy we’re all up against?” Alexa nodded. “All the soldiers in the Universe couldn’t defend against something like that. Not because it’s not possible, but because you can’t ask a bunch of run of the mill soldiers to fight and think. It’s one or the other, and they’re usually already fighting, so we wouldn’t want to waste resources trying to make them think.”

Alexa didn’t understand. Her facial expression relayed that message to Cole.

“There are thirty kids in GeoConfederate space that we think have the potential to do both, to go above and beyond what the other several billion can. You’re one of them,” Cole said.

“Thirty?” Alexa asked.

“Yes, thirty. It will all be explained to you at Port Horizon,” Cole said. “My ship, the State of Mind, leaves in an hour. Pack a duffel bag with any personal belongings you might have and follow your Marine escort to the landing pad. Get moving.” Cole stood up and left soon after finishing. Alexa stayed seated for a few moments.

“It was an honor having you at this school, Alexa,” Eliopoulos said. Alexa nodded appreciatively. She stood up and left the office. As she was walking through the hallway, it felt as if she was floating through some kind of dream world. She desperately wanted to wake up and continue life at its former pace, but, try as she might to change it, she was stuck in this nightmare.

She reached the student dormitory area. There was a bit of a ruckus outside the entrance, where a GeoConfederate Marine stood outside the door, stopping a few of her peers from entering. The Marine looked up and saw Alexa coming.

“Everybody back away from the door!” he shouted, pushing the students back physically. “Ms. Pankiridous, pack your things quickly.”

Alexa nodded slowly, moving past a crowd of increasingly angry students and the marine to get into the dormitory area. She opened her room door with a key and went inside. There was a duffel bag with the GeoConfederate symbol laying on her bed. She picked it up, fanning it out to see how much space she had to work with. There wasn’t much.

She looked around the room, trying to find things to put into the bag. Nothing special caught her eye. She’d lost the need for possessions when she’d entered the Medical school. She went to her dresser, taking out a white shirt and a khaki skirt. It was a nice day in Athens, probably the last one she’d experience. She was going to enjoy it. She took off the scrubs she’d been wearing for rotations that day, throwing them lazily into the corner of the room. She put on the outfit she’d chosen, slipping on a pair of sandals. She looked into the small square mirror next to the dresser. She took the hair tie keeping her hair in a pony tail out, letting her wavy blonde hair fall down to her shoulders. She stuffed the duffel bag with toiletries and a few extra outfits. She threw the bag over her shoulder.

Before leaving the room, she looked back into the mirror. She brushed the hair out of her eyes, sighing deeply. She left the room, putting a pair of sunglasses on before reaching the door. She pushed her way passed the students the Marine had kept from the dormitory entrance. The Marine caught up to her eventually after realizing Alexa had left the area.

“I’m to escort you to the hospital landing pad so you can board the skiff to take us to the State of Mind,” the Marine said. He hadn’t realized it at the time, but when she had brushed past him into her room, she’d scanned his BioData with a concealed ring scanner her father had given her as a present a few years earlier. It hadn’t made much sense at the time, but it had become more and more useful since. The Marine’s name was Jonathan Benson. He had a girlfriend on Royal Orbit who was listed as his primary emergency contact. His wife and two children lived in San Francisco.

“I have something to take care of first,” Alexa said.

“That’s too bad,” Benson replied. “I have orders. I don’t default on my orders.”

He’d rehearsed that line, Alexa thought. She quickly discovered that Benson was the kind of soldier that joined the army just because he was too mind-numbingly stupid to do anything else. He tried hiding it by creating an ultra-macho illusion of absolute loyalty. She realized there was nothing she could say that would change his mind about letting her ‘take care of something’. She would have to make her own opportunity.

Benson stopped outside of elevator doors, summoning the transport on a panel next to the doors. They opened shortly after. Benson started stepping through the doors. Alexa, feigning clumsiness, stepped forward onto the back of his heel. He stumbled forward as she fell to the ground inside the elevator.

“Ow! You dumb bitch!” he exclaimed. “What where you’re walking!” She’d been called names before. She’d never been too fond of ‘bitch’.

“Sorry. Something caught my eye,” Alexa said apathetically. She noticed Benson was slightly favoring the heel she’d stepped on. If she had to run away from him, she’d have about a two second lead.

“Yeah, I bet it was nice and shiny and made of diamonds,” Benson said, pressing the ‘roof’ option on the elevator’s controls.

Typical douchebag, Alexa thought. He’d pay for it soon enough.

The elevator eased its way up the shaft. It came to a stop at the roof. The doors opened, revealing a hired, open-air skiff, the kind tourists used to ferry back and forth to their starlines parked above the Mediterranean, sitting on the landing pad. It was perfect. Benson walked slightly ahead of Alexa, subtly limping. Alexa smiled. She took off her sunglasses, putting them into her duffel bag. She slipped off her sandals and did the same. She then reached into her pocket and produced a hair tie. She pulled all of her hair back into a pony tail.

She stepped onto the skiff, pulling her father’s Olympic Relic from the bag. She took a strap for it out as well, placing the silver ball inside a pouch attached to the middle. The skiff took off soon after Benson had detached it from the landing pad. It rose to about a thousand feet over the bay, slowly increasing its altitude.

“Last time you’ll ever see this place,” Benson said venomously.

“Like hell,” Alexa said.

They were halfway to the State of Mind. Ahead of them, the Olympic Mountain was in sight. She took a deep breath. She pulled her shirt over her head, revealing only a bra beneath it. She then pulled down her skirt, revealing a matching pair of panties. She looked up to see Benson staring at her chest.

“Hey Benson!” she shouted over the whine of the skiff’s engines. He looked up, shocked that she knew his name. She cocked her fist back, launching it into Benson’s stomach. He doubled over, collapsing to the ground.

“Eyes up.”

She picked up the strap the Relic was attached to, slinging it around her neck. She took a look over the edge of the skiff.

She dove off of it.

The swim to the base of the mountain was the easy part. She’d entered the water at just the right angle, shooting about fifty feet under the surface. The climb was probing to be worthy of the lore it had gathered. She’d made it 98% of the way up in only two hours, well on pace to break the record held by her father. It had started wearing her down halfway up.

Every step upwards was a struggle. Every hand hold she grabbed felt like it was slipping away. The force of gravity seemed to be pulling her harder than ever. She could see the summit. It was there, maybe fifty feet above her, taunting her. She pulled herself up another thirty feet. She went to grab another handhold. Her hand brushed by it. She recovered quickly enough to maintain her balance, retrying the hand hold and succeeding.

Ten feet to go.

The next hand hold was further than the others were. She let go of the hold she had in her right hand, swinging it at her side. She coiled back her legs, pushing upwards as her right hand grabbed the hold. She struggled to pull herself up. The jump gave her another two feet.

Just a few more to go.

She could feel her muscles tighten, almost to the brink of ripping. She grimaced as she went up another four feet. She breathed heavily, groaning and panting as she stared up at the summit. She hung where she was for about a minute in the hope she’d regain an ounce of strength. She didn’t. The climb had taken an extraordinary toll on her.

Thoughts raced through her head. She could just end everything right then and there, let go of all the holds and go crashing into the famously craggy sides of the Mountain. Nothing would matter anymore; not her father, not her, not the GeoConfederacy and their suicide missions.

No, she thought.

She threw her arm up, catching the next hold. She pulled herself up slowly. Every inch was a battle. Her other arm reached for a hold. There wasn’t one. There wasn’t any rock. Just air.

She opened her eyes, closed during the final push. There was only the blue sky above her. A wave of strength rushed through her. Her free arm grabbed the edge of the mountain. Her legs pushed her over the edge. She threw herself onto the flat surface of the summit, laying on her back and looking up at the sky, breathless.

She wasn’t done.

She slowly got to her feet, looking at the rest of the flat summit. At its center, there was a cube building with a grand metal door. She staggered towards it, massaging the Relic to make sure it was still attached to her. She reached the doors, leaning against them with what strength she had left. They were surprisingly easy to open. So easy that the effort she gave sent her falling forward. The building was alight with flames, torches surrounding other Olympic relics.

Alexa got to her feet, slowly walking past the metallic balls. The names were impressive: Celios, Iatridis, Ziakas. All legends in their own right. She couldn’t find any a shrine along the side of the building bearing her family name, however.

“It’s the big one, Alexa,” a voice said from the far side of the room. There was an old man in a suit standing by a particularly large shrine, his hands folded behind his back.

“Both you and your father achieved such incredibly feats, yet still you maintain this ineffable air of modesty,” the man said. Alexa couldn’t have responded even if she wanted to. She was too tired to speak.

“Alexa Pankiridous, you have just done the impossible,” the man began. “You have scaled the Great Olympic Mountain through athletic prowess and an indestructible will. You have blown past the records of old. You have solidified your family’s name at the top of this, the world’s greatest challenge. You are to place your father’s Relic in its final resting place in his shrine and accept your own. Take it with you wherever you go. It will remind you what great things you are capable of achieving.”

Alexa staggered forward, removing her father’s Relic from its pouch on the strap. It had felt quite heavy when she first picked it up. It was now weightless. She rested it on a small plate between two unlit torches. As soon as it had settled, the flames lit up. She turned to the man. In his hand, he had a smaller silver ball on a necklace. He handed it to Alexa. She looked down at it.

Five interlocking rings, smaller than her father’s. On the other side: PANKIRIDOUS.

“Your father would be so proud of you, Alexa,” the man said, out of his previously official tone.

“He is,” she answered weakly. She felt like crying. No tears came out. She draped the necklace around her neck, kissing the Relic attached to it. She smiled and nodded slightly at the man, staggering back towards the door. She swung them open.

Rear Admiral Cole was standing twenty feet away, another skiff behind him.

“And you’re supposed to be a doctor?” he said, throwing her a towel.

A lot longer than I'd expected it to be. Sorry about that. CRITICISMS ARE GREATLY APPRECIATED. I'd like to consider this my masterpiece someday, believe it or not.