Darkman Rises

They marched through the streets, shouting and protesting against the actions of their Ruler. Enforcers rushed towards them to attempt to subdue the riot.

Darkman watched through the window of his residence. He had no quarrel with The Ruler like they did. It was a chance for those who were different, the Alpha Puramen as they were called, to finally have some power. But the council overlooked one thing: with emotions and truly independent thoughts, a want for something becomes a need for that person. The Ruler was no exception. He had attempted to replace members of the council, make changes in or create new laws that were unnecessary, and had tried to take things away from the people in order to keep them for himself.

The Scientist, The Ruler's trusted friend and advisor, was another Alpha. He was currently working on a project to help the engineers, Darkman included, to build more powerful battlecruisers to help in their universal domination. Their first battleship was almost complete; only a few days and they would be done.

Eventually, the riot died down as the Enforcers subdued every last one of the rioters. Darkman left the window and sat on his resting table. Sure, The Ruler seemed to be doing things that were more beneficial to him than to the entirety of the Puramen. But that didn't seem to matter much to Darkman and many others. He wondered why the crowd disliked The Ruler's actions, as not only were most of the changes he attempted to make denied by the council, Darkman could not see how the changes could possibly have a detriment to the Empire.

Darkman checked the time. It was almost time for him to get to his workplace, but he had a few minutes.

He went outside where the last remaining rioters were being hauled off. Darkman headed down the street, eventually seeing nobody around except for the occasional guard. It appeared that the rioters had already been taken away. However, Darkman decided to keep walking anyways, as he was “bored”; wishing to do something when there really was nothing to do.

After walking for a while, he came upon what looked like a circle drawn into the ground. It was barely noticeable, and Darkman wondered what it was. Then, he saw what looked like a small handle on it.

It was a hidden trapdoor.

Darkman wondered why it was hidden like that, and why it was not inside one of the many  buildings in the area. It did not appear to have a lock, so he opened it up and took a look at what was underneath.

Underneath the trapdoor was a ladder, leading down into a darkened room. It appeared that nobody was inside, which seemed strange because normally there were always Puramen occupying a room unless it was a residence. He climbed down the ladder into the room. Despite the lack of light, he could still see pretty well, as all Puramen could sense any obstacles regardless of the lighting in their current environment. Darkman could see a panel in front of a wall to his right, which seemed to have been turned off. He approached it and touched the screen, and the controls, sensing his hand, turned on. The lights turned on in the room, illuminating it and revealing a window above the controls. On the other side was a small space filled with a seemingly clear but also bluish and reflective liquid. Darkman could see shapes inside, none of which he had seen before, and it looked like one of the shapes was moving, albeit only slightly.

Suddenly, he remembered that it was almost time for him to report to the workshop. Quickly, Darkman turned off the controls, looked around to make sure nothing appeared to have been disturbed, and then climbed up the ladder and quietly shut the trapdoor. He got up and ran in the direction of the workshop.

Upon arrival, Darkman realized that he was almost a minute late. The other engineers were grouped around the head engineer, who was giving out instructions. Darkman blended in with the group but he knew that the head engineer saw him. "Darkman," he said. "You will meet me in my office after work."

"Yes, sir," Darkman replied.

Darkman helped finish putting together much of the battlecruiser, still a metal framework filled with machinery as the hull was fused onto it.

After his shift was done, Darkman went to the head engineer's office.

"You have been arriving to your workplace late multiple times. Tell me why that is," said the head engineer.

Darkman knew why. Other than today, he had been late for various reasons, mainly because of other riots or that he "forgot", something which only plagued Alpha Puramen. He knew that he would get in trouble if someone found out that he went to the room under the hidden trapdoor, so he went with the normal excuse he used in cases like this.

"I was too focused on thinking what would happen after the battleship was finished that I had forgotten that I was part of one of the groups finishing it." It was a terrible excuse, he knew, but he could never think up of a better one. Hopefully, the head engineer would, as always, just disregard it and tell him to make sure to remind himself next time.

"That just means that I will have to send someone to remind you about your shift," the head engineer said. "You should be able to remember by now. I was instructed to have another engineer sent to remind you to come to your shift the next time you were late, so I will have Jakar meet you at the start of your shift to remind you about what you are supposed to do. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Darkman then left the office and headed back to his residence. He considered himself fortunate that the head engineer that he worked for was not another Alpha like he was. If he was, then Darkman could be subject to shouts, insults, and even beatings before guards calmed him down. Beatings weren't that bad, thought Darkman. He, like all Puramen, could easily ignore any pain, but he worried that those beatings could be severe enough to injure him, and that was bad since no Puramen could truly heal. That, combined with the shouts and insults, could upset him enough to fight back with almost as much brutality and cause even more trouble, and Darkman knew it.

He decided not to go back to the room with the strange liquid-filled storage space that day. Instead, Darkman lay down onto his resting table and went to sleep. Alpha Puramen needed enough sleep to properly function.

When Darkman awoke the next day, he realized that he had slept through almost all 12 hours of his break. That was rather unfortunate, since Darkman had planned to investigate the room of liquid again.

He heard the buzzer at his door go off, and Darkman remembered that Jakar would be meeting with him a while before the shift started to make sure that he came on time. So he went to the door and opened it. Jakar was waiting patiently behind it.

"Darkman," she said. "It's time for our shift."

"Very well then, I will go then."

Darkman decided that the room with the liquid could wait until after the shift, and he went with her to the hangar where the battlecruiser was being finished. It was another normal day at the workplace, and they finished up placing the last of the hull and machinery into the ship. Once the ship had been properly prepared for flight, The Scientist himself came in.

"It appears that our great battlecruiser is finally ready to be tested. Have you made sure that there are absolutely no faults in the systems?" The Scientist said.

"No, sir, the ship is ready for launch," the head engineer stated.

"Very well then. I and my crew will test this ship and see what a remarkable job you have done."

And with that, The Scientist climbed aboard the battlecruiser with his crew of 11 right behind him. Darkman wondered why a Puraman of such high ranking would be allowed to be one of the first to test the ship, but if there was something wrong with that, either The Ruler, The Council, or even both would have objected.

All of the engineers stood back, and Darkman went with them. The Battleship that they spent months creating took off, the hangar ceiling opening to allow the massive ship to leave.

As the ceiling closed, video feed of multiple target drones in orbit around the planet were visible from another drone. Soon, the Battlecruiser came into view, and it fired upon the target drones, destroying them completely. "The Ruler and The Council agreed that I would lead an expedition to capture some more planets for our empire and set up more bases, using this battlecruiser. Farewell, I shall be back in 100 years."

The battlecruiser then turned and took off at lightspeed, out into space.

Darkman headed back towards his residence, thinking about what will happen next. He knew that The Scientist would still be able to communicate with The Ruler, The Council, and his colleagues who remain in Puramen space. Then what was there to worry about? Tomorrow he and the rest of the engineers would begin work on another battlecruiser, but this would be faster due to the battleships now being top priority, and many more people would be working on the project. The parts were starting to be mass produced, speeding up the building process further.

He sat on his resting table for a while, before he remembered something. Darkman had planned to investigate the liquid further that day after his shift.

So then he got up and went out of his residence, and walked quickly towards the direction of the pool.

Once again, Darkman lifted the trapdoor, and looked inside, and after making sure the lights were still off and nobody was inside, he climbed in. Once more, he turned on the controls, and there the liquid still resided. This time, Darkman noticed a hatch at the top of the space containing the liquid, and he wondered where it led to. Perhaps it is a way to get in? It had to be sealed off like this for a reason, though if this place was a secret he would’ve had to get through some kind of security system first. Darkman walked around the room to see if there was a way in, and indeed, there was a space at the far end of the room where another ladder led to a space above the part of the room that contained the liquid. He climbed up, and when he found the hatch, he opened it up and looked inside.

The water rippled gently, distorting the shapes of whatever objects were inside. Cautiously, he submerged a foot into the liquid. The liquid did not seem to have any affect on it other than getting it wet, and so Darkman climbed inside and closed the hatch, knowing that he could not drown and the trapdoor had no lock.

The object that he had seen moving the previous time he came here shifted its position slightly, and then floated upwards in the liquid until it was at the same level as his head.

In front of him was an organism that Darkman had never seen before.

In fact, it was the first that he had seen that was not another Puraman.

The organism was about the size of his hand, with its head protruding from the horizontal body without a neck, and the small mouth was at the tip. Small, thin, organic appendages were on its sides, and another was at the end of the body instead of legs. There was a round, moving organ on each side of its head, and they each had a small spot in the middle, both of which were pointing towards him.

Then, Darkman heard a voice in his head.

You are not like the others. What have you come to do? said the voice.

Who are you? Darkman thought.

My name is Farson. I am trapped here, with very little sustenance for me to live on. Who may you be?

I am called Darkman.

Darkman? And may I ask why you are called that instead of your original name?

I do not know the answer to that question. How do you know that it is not my real name?

I can sense that you are not telling me the truth. You do know the truth, though it is deep down, buried within your mind.

Why are you trapped here? I should know about these things, us Puramen are supposed to be born with the knowledge of all those before them.

I do not know. All I know about the Puramen is that a vast majority of them, perhaps even all of them, are conquerors, and many of them seemed to have absolutely no emotion. They slaughtered almost all members of my species, but they kept me, a small hatchling then, for study. I lived in a vast ocean world, but now I am trapped within a small, dark chamber.

We were born to conquer, unless, of course, that is a lie passed down to every Puramen. We were told to eradicate all inferior beings.

But why would you do that? Wouldn't helping others thrive be more beneficial? asked Farson.

Darkman pondered this. Would this really be more beneficial?

Such a thing could have been beneficial; what if they had something that the Puramen needed? And what if they needed to survive in order for it to work?

What really happened to your species? Darkman asked.

Then, scenes appeared to Darkman, of Puramen underwater fighting large groups of organisms not much different from Farson. They fought hard, but the superior Puramen gained the upper hand and mercilessly slaughtered them all. The buildings that presumably housed the organisms crumbled to dust, and all that was left was devastation, nearly an entire species of life nearly extinct. A few of the hatchlings were taken, the rest were destroyed.

Darkman was appalled by what he had seen. He knew full well that the goal of the Puramen were to conquer all inferior beings, but this seemed a bit too much. They had come, destroyed everything, and left the only trace of their existence as hatchlings that were put into study. And of course, the vast majority of these Puramen did not have a true brain or feel emotions like the Alpha Puramen did, so they had no remorse for what they had done.

But there was something else he wondered about the vision.

How are you able to speak in my mind and show me this?

It is complicated. I can send electrical signals from my mind to yours, tricking your brain into thinking what I want to show you, and hearing what I want to say to you. And when you think, I can listen to you by copying those signals from your mind. It is very effective underwater, though I do not know how well it does outside of it. Don't worry, I do my best to ignore whatever isn't related to the conversation.

That day, Darkman had learned about the evils the Puramen, and with The Scientist and his crew going out to cause more chaos and destruction, Darkman had to act.

He had brought with him a transparent bag, and he scooped Farson into it along with as much of the liquid as he could fit in. Then, he quickly and quietly opened the trapdoor and came out of the pool, closing the trapdoor underneath him. Darkman managed to dry himself off enough as to not leave a trail of the liquid by placing the bag containing Farson on the ground and shaking off what little there was of it that stayed on him.

Darkman then picked up the bag containing Farson, and snuck back to his residence, hiding the bag underneath his cape, and shut the door behind him.

What will we do now? Farson asked. His voice seemed much quieter, but Darkman guessed that it was because they were no longer both submerged in water.

You will have to stay here for another week, unfortunately, until I can acquire a means of transportation. I will hide you as best as I can.

Okay, don't forget to leave the bag slightly open, I still need air to breathe through the water. Just be careful not to spill.

Darkman did what he asked, and lay back down on his resting table, exhausted.

One week later, the construction of another battlecruiser was completed, much faster than the time it took to complete the first one. Darkman had devised a plan; right after the battlecruiser was finished being prepared for launch, he and Farson would sneak onboard. Then, he will remotely open the hangar ceiling via a stolen remote control while transitioning between shifts. Once he left the atmosphere of the planet, he could fly off and the other Puramen would be almost helpless to stop them.

The plan went along as expected, though he was almost caught with Farson as he approached the battlecruiser. Darkman, with Farson in his hand, reached the bridge, where he activated the controls and prepared to launch the ship as he activated the ceiling doors. Some of the engineers on the shift ran out, having realized what he was doing, but it was too late to stop them.

The Battlecruiser roared to life and flew upwards, out into space. When he exited the atmosphere, he looked around. As expected, there were no other ships around in sight that could stop him or even pursue him.

Farson watched outside of the window in amazement. He had never seen what space looked like, since he had always been underwater.

So this is outer space? Farson asked.

Yes, it is. replied Darkman.

Darkman then activated lightspeed, and the battlecruiser sped off into the unknown.