Chapter 4
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The industrial revolution had brought great changes to the British Isles, it had produced canals, industry (and the buildings that came with it) and of course, the workers. What it left behind was exactly the same; the once essential canals had now become nothing more than obstacles for the motorways that soon became the arteries of the small stormy island. They also nowadays provided a handful of people with enough money a way to travel to country without having to endure the endless traffic jams and eventual rage that came with the roads.

The buildings had mostly fallen victim to the ravages of time. The huge rooms that had once been alive with the hustle and bustle of the workers and the crashing and whirring of machines were now silent and empty, save for a few that had been used to host Weight Watchers meetings and other seedy goings on. Most were nothing more than huge bedrooms for pigeons at night.

And it was often the case that the families of the tough hardy workers were left behind by the 19th century’s very own renaissance. As was the way of things in Victorian England most of these Industrial towns were situated far away from the capital, so as to keep the rotten gases and fumes that were as inevitable as the workers themselves as far away from the ‘noble’ and ‘pure’.


One of these towns was a small place called Leigh. Now that there was no longer a need for wool and coal the town had slipped into obscurity, its only place in history was that it once produced a cheese that was name-dropped in Treasure Island. And also the writer of ‘Goodbye Mr. Chips’ took up residence there. The town was insignificant in the ‘grand scheme’ of things, it was often left behind by Government think tanks and any resources it was supposed to receive were nine times out of ten given away at the eleventh hour to neighbouring towns.

It was yet another tragic irony that it would one day get itself on the map and become the talk of the country, but not in the way its proud residents -known as Leythers, a word that often went hand in hand with ‘inbred’, ‘teenage pregnancy’ and ‘low intellect’- would have liked.

In a town rife with unemployment and petty crime Matthew had spent most of his life (when he hadn’t been escaping in his Grandfathers caravan in Scotland), his mother had got herself a job as a special needs teacher in the towns only high school, Westleigh. It had always had a reputation as a rough place whose only purpose was to give the local children at least a fighting chance of making it in the wide world (and keeping them off the streets for a few extra hours, detentions included). This was his destination in just one days time, not that he had ever intended on going there, he had decided soon after the papers and been signed and delivered that there would be no new beginning, no second chance, just peace.

The last place he imagined himself to be was heading back home, in a space ship with a clone of himself (who had a northern accent Christopher Eccleston would be proud of). But life was full of little surprises. He could tell they had finally reached Leigh; a thick smoke obscured his view from the window. He was home. Re-entering the atmosphere had been scary, just moments before they hit it Stryka had announced that he wasn’t used to flying in Earths atmosphere yet, so he was pretty much making it up as he went along. A loud bang, a flash of light and the Predator being thrown around like a kitten in a washing machine had followed this announcement.

*
Stryka steered the craft as best he could, trying to follow the co-ordinates as best he could, while trying not to crash into this strange human settlement.
“That’s my house” came the familiar squeaky voice behind him. Stryka had neither the time nor the interest to look for the human’s home. He had slowed the ship down considerably, but still it was going too fast for him to remember what Ravaak had taught him and apply it to the situation. He looked down at the control panel; he couldn’t even remember what he was looking for. When he looked up the distinctive form of a tree was just a fingers length away from the window. “Sl…”. He didn’t even get to finish his favourite word, the ship collided with the tree, and the sound of the branches scraping against the body of the ship hurt his sharp hearing.

The craft powered through the tree like a hot knife through butter, except in this case the knife had wings and could be damaged by particularly hard pieces of butter if the pilot wasn’t careful, and Stryka wasn’t a careful pilot. Within seconds the ship was on the other side of the tree and heading towards another larger and thicker one. He didn’t think there would be a mid air stop button here somewhere so he did what came naturally. He grabbed the nearest lever and wrenched it hard. By a small amount of luck it was one of the two turning levers, by pulling the left one back he had stopped the left engine and so the ship was suddenly pulling left. He had avoided the tree, he felt slightly happy with himself (though embarrassed that he had hit the tree in the first place) but his small victory was soon snatched from him –as most small victories tend to be- when he heard Dephchare shout “Wall!!”


This time before he could react, the ship hit a small structure like, well, a small metal ship hitting a small brick wall. The wall exploded in a melee of dust and rock, the ship nosedived down the few feet that remained between it and Earth. The cracked front window was illuminated by sparks, as the metal nose grazed against the cement floor. Soon the ship was completely on the ground, its own considerable inertia being the only driving force. The noise within the ship was enough to make Stryka’s ears bleed, there was the scraping of metal on rock, the screaming of two prepubescent boys and his own sense of embarrassment, which was perhaps the loudest out of them all. Eventually everything stopped. The scraping, the screaming, the sparks it was now just an eerie silence. Stryka raised his head to look out of the window, he couldn’t see anything, the dust was yet to settle.
*
‘Typical aint it? The only building in a half a mile radius and he flies right into it’. Matthew didn’t see the humour in the situation, the crash had hurt his neck and his arm had collided with the steep hull of the ship the thing that hurt the most was that it was the arm that had been sliced, a part of the cheap Woolworth’s craft knife remained in his arm, lodged in his muscles, he had never plucked up the courage to remove it. Even a trickle of sweat over the spot hurt like hell. He hoped that the roof opened soon, he didn’t like being cramped up in here, and then there was the added insult of Dephchare sat on his knee like a large proud lap dog, it made him uncomfortable.

Sure enough there was a low hissing sound that belonged in the corridors of the S.S. Enterprise and the roof above them swung forward. Stryka seemed apprehensive about getting out of the ship, like a wild animal that had been hand reared and was now about to be released in the wild. His head swung from side to side like he was checking whatever building they had landed in for potential threats. When he had decided that there were none he scrambled out of the ship in an incredibly ungainly manner. It seemed that he too wanted to escape the metal shell that had very nearly become their coffin.
*
Dephchare on the other hand wasn’t in a rush he had never been to earth, and he had planned on making a Neil Armstrong style deal of it. But he sensed Faram’s willingness to escape the ship, so he went half the speed he had planned on doing. His first breath of natural air, it wasn’t as good as Roozeana had made it out to be, it seemed rather musty and felt as though it was full of many things. Much unlike the clean sanitised air he was used to on the ship. He raised his head out of the ship to observe his surroundings. It was a lot darker than he’d imagined. He could see they were in a room the end of which was obscured by the dust that their arrival had thrown up.

From what he could see he knew it was old, old enough to have been forgotten for at least two decades. He hoisted himself up with his powerful arms, Faram’s flabby legs had made for a perfect set of cushions so he hadn’t really suffered during their journey. And so here it was, his first step on terrestrial soil, or in this case straw. The floor was littered with it; he followed its obscure trail with his eyes eventually he saw a very old machine, it was a fading red and was obviously more rust than metal a bale of hay was still sitting on a conveyor belt waiting to be fed into the machine which had fallen silent decades ago. It felt amazing to be touching genuinely solid ground instead of the usual metal floor that was always humming with machinery hidden beneath it. Soon his other foot was there too.

He inhaled deeply. He was home. Faram was now trying to get out, it sounded more like he was trying to run a marathon with the amount of wheezing and gasping he was doing. He was really going to be the other son of the Black Land? He had a physicality to match a woman more than a man and his inability to take pain like a Phori troubled him, he hadn’t even tried out his Vambraces yet, sure they hurt but they served a purpose… he didn’t quite know what the purpose was but he knew they have one (besides being an awesome party piece obviously).

He looked around for Stryka, that temperamental Saurian had disappeared again. Why was it that he always seemed to be the one keeping things together? He could see light streaming in from a large gap in the wall and beyond that and through the dust that was escaping from the building he could see Stryka’s unmistakeable silhouette. “Hurry up” he called back to Faram as he left the building and took his place at Stryka’s right hand side.
*

Upon escaping that terrible place Stryka’s natural instinct had kicked in and he had bolted for the wilderness, and his senses had led him here. In the dust and gloom it had looked like a forest. But now that he had reached it he realised he had been deceived. Rather than the large expanse of comforting leaves and foliage with perhaps a sprinkling of dead leaves on the ground (he was unaware that it was summer) he had hoped for he found it to be very different. Within seconds of hitting the trees he had realised his mistake, his foot had collided with something sharp, he had looked down to investigate this and found his foot to be bleeding. Next to it was a smashed piece of glass, some of its vicious shards were lodged in his flesh. Glass didn’t come from the forests at least not as long when he had last been on earth. Also if the glass did grow on trees he highly doubted that it came with a label saying “Budweiser” and have an overpowering stench of fermented vegetables.

He looked up to see if there were any more of these strange objects ahead, within seconds he had identified a small ring of rubber with various indentations in it, “Must be tribal symbols” he mused to himself. There was also a strange metal cage on wheels that had been tipped on its side and had a variety of strange plants he had never seen before growing through the gaps; he figured it was part of their hunting ceremonies. When he looked ahead he could see light, it must’ve been a clearing. He walked towards it and soon found himself on the other side of the ‘forest’ and overlooking the land. Between him and the settlement was at least a miles worth of wild land. It looked like a large scraggy heath-land; it lacked any real shape or form to it. But it wasn’t the ordered chaos of nature the random hills and troughs just didn’t look right to him, it was in fact what was left over from the coal mining era some decades ago. And before the time of ‘eco-guilt’ once the land had been dug up and ruined beyond all recognition it was left to mother nature again. In the middle of it all was the flash, this pond had long been left stagnant. Bits of iron from the various rusting vehicles and shopping trolleys that had filtered into that water had left it with an unmistakeable orange look.


“This is a dead land”, he announced. Dephchare looked up, squinting at him in the warm sunlight.
“This isn’t home, it’s a poisoned shadow” continued the clearly depressed Phori.
“There are nicer places than this” Faram said trying to defend his home as best he could “like Dobs linn, that’s the place you found me, I love it, it’s so quiet and empty”. Stryka wasn’t listening, he turned around and walked back through the trees towards the building his head low in mourning for the world he had once known.

“So this is your village?” he heard Dephchare ask.
Faram pointed “That is”. Dephchare followed his finger towards what lay beyond the poisoned land. He could see almost endless rows of small red bricked buildings. There was no steady transition between the town and the scrubland, the coarse grass merely stopped and the tarmac instantly began. Far in the distance he could see 3 church steeples which nowadays served more as land marks than places of worship, no one wanted to bow and pray in a cold uncomfortable building to a piece of wood anymore. There was a new much more powerful religion in charge of peoples hearts and souls in the 21st century, the religion of celebrity. The fires of hell were a minor inconvenience when compared to the shame of not knowing the latest gossip from Beckingham palace or being unaware of how many guys Jordon had in her bed last night.

“Me mums never in, we could go to my house” Faram offered lightly, trying to get Dephchare to at least give him a chance. But from behind him a vicious voice cut him in his tracks “I have no desire to look at or even step in one of those…monstrosities”
Faram felt his cheeks flush as Stryka snuffed what plans he had of getting to know the rest of this apparent team. “I will find a place in the wild to sleep and rest, Dephchare may do what he pleases”. Stryka then plodded off to the building.

“’E’s miserable aint he?” Dephchare offered to Faram, trying to cheer him up. “I’d like t’ see your house in real life”. Faram smiled at his apparent friend, “Me mum will freak if there’s two of us though, so I don’t think ya can sleep”.
“Don’t worry about it man, I’m trained to live rough”. It was at that moment that Faram felt a great deal of warmth for his clone, he was obviously friendlier and more considerate than Stryka who so far had shown nothing but contempt and lack of care for his two apprentices, he realised that the two of them needed to stick together, and show the stuck up Phori that they were capable of their mission…whatever it was.      
           
Stryka plodded back to the building that he had crashed into, he was getting the hang of his new leg, he could now walk at a considerable pace, it had taken him 2 months to get this far. He looked at the place that Venotarian had suggested they use as a base, and what a sorry sight it was.

HMS Gosling had been a naval training camp during WW2 however since 1947 it had fallen silent and had slowly become dilapidated by the sands of time, its only use had been to store equipment and supplies from a nearby farm, which itself had been abandoned and left to the elements. No one ever came here; it was too far out for the average Leyther to be bothered walking and far too close to nature for the modern urbanite. Stryka re-entered the building and looked around, to his left was an old stage which overlooked the room which had been the mess-hall, it had been used to host various performances to keep the troops moral up however the ladders and platforms for the lighting and curtains had long since been rusted into oblivion. The area under the stage, which had once been a resting place for nervous drag artists waiting for their chance at humiliation, had long since been filled in by stagnant rain water.

The area above the stage was naturally tall and formed a tower high above the rest of the building, but even this was obscured by the tree line meaning it was well hidden away from the descendents of the brave poor souls who had camped out in the surrounding land during their time there. This red brick tower had once been the home of large rigging, but its only occupant nowadays was a family of barn owls who roosted there each year.

On the other end of the room from the stage was the Predator ship; it had come to rest against a wall. Behind it were two doors, one led to a corridor which was lined with various asbestos packed doors, their green military paint was surprisingly still visible, if slightly flaky. At the end of this corridor was the main entrance, the compartment that had once hosted an obnoxious secretary in charge of who stayed and who left was now filled with various junk that the farmer hadn’t wanted, including a bath, a few tyres and a sink. The other door had once led to the kitchens but the roof had now collapsed destroying what had remained, the only room that was still accessible was what had once been the walk in freezer, the meat hooks still hung from the ceiling ominously.

The entrance Stryka had used to try and escape to mother natures warm embrace had once been a large set of double doors which led from outside to the mess-hall, however the doors had long since vanished, whoever would want to steal two large navy double doors would remain a mystery, but considering the local population it wasn’t exactly a surprise. The base was a maze and incredibly dangerous, its integrity was more questionable than the word of Jeffery Archer, Dephchare unwittingly voiced Stryka’s opinion; “You know, properly defended this would make a good strong hold”, he had just walked in through the large side entrance and was looking around much like Stryka. Faram merely stood by the wall, he was worried about the ceiling, the tiles that had made the bland uniform ceiling had disappeared, exposing the ancient ventilation system, metal girders and corrugated iron roof which curved high above his head like a dirty rusty sky, surprisingly it had no holes.

“Yes I suppose it would” Stryka replied thoughtfully, he hadn’t finished looking around the place, but he like what he’d seen, sure it was dilapidated and had a few holes in the walls that could possibly be a problem if there was a siege.
“I’ve lived here all my life and didn’t even know this place existed” said a shocked Faram.

“In that case then its perfect” Dephchare said confidently, proud that Stryka had actually accepted his statement and that Faram had unwittingly supported him through his ignorance of his own hometown. Of course they would need to make a few repairs here and there but otherwise it was perfect. His voice echoed ominously as he spoke his mind. Faram clearly wasn’t listening; he was eying a couch against a nearby wall obviously with the intent of parking his substantial rear end on it. Stryka had again disappeared; he had climbed up onto the stage and disappeared into the area behind it. “Can we go to yours now?”

Dephchare was anxious to be in the house that he had seen in his head for the best part of 10 years (the mental link had only activated when he was 2) and perhaps sneak a glance at the mother he had never met. But he knew from Faram’s memories the chance of meeting his mother were very slim, when she wasn’t at work she was at her boyfriends who had leapt into the void that had been left by Faram’s fathers with a vigour that he hadn’t been seen to use since. And when she wasn’t working or at Joe’s she would drink herself into a stupor and would remain in the chair until 4 O’ clock dead to the world.          

“We’d have to ask Stryka wouldn’t we?” replied Faram, desperate not to be responsible for the Phori being in any worse a mood than he was at the moment.
“S’pose” Dephchare said simply. At that second Stryka returned from his investigating muttering to himself in Tondish when he saw the two boys stood in the middle of the hall looking at him expectantly he figured they wanted something from the way they watched him and the way Dephchare went to speak but at the last second decided against it and tried (and failed) to disguise this as a half hearted yawn. Faram merely looked from Stryka to Dephchare, back to Stryka nervously, he didn’t want to have any part in the process of asking Stryka for a favour, or anything at all for that matter.

“What?” barked the irascible Phori, his voice echoed ominously in the empty hall.
“Faram was wondering if ‘e could show me where ‘e lives”.
Although it was hard for Faram to read Stryka’s facial expressions (much like and for the same reason that its hard to know what expressions chimps are using) but he could tell at the moment that Stryka was mulling it over.
“You might as well” he replied after a long pause, “neither of you could of any use here right now”. Dephchare turned to Faram and smiled cheekily.

As the two boys left Gosling chatting and trying to get to know each other but in the subtle way that avoided emotional contact which only two teenage boys could achieve.  Stryka watched them with an invisible cloud of irritation hovering over his head but he was also secretly glad that they had left him to be in peace, although he had made it clear that he wanted them to return later, he wasn’t going to be responsible for them disappearing or getting hurt, for the simple reason that the council wouldn’t be too pleased and would probably end the deal.

He walked over to the Predator, it had just occurred to him that he hadn’t looked at the sack of items Venotarian had forced him to bring along with him, he guessed that it was more than weapons and armour as the ever practical Roozeana hadn’t been too keen on letting them have it. With it slung over his left shoulder he walked over to a canteen table; which had been left during the great looting that the base had suffered when it had been shut down, partially because it looked like if it received just one more layer of dust it would collapse and disintegrate into a pile of sawdust. As the contents cascaded onto the rotten wood Stryka’s eyes lit up and his mind flooded with rage as he saw the extent of Venotarian’s madness and recklessness.
*
With the rusted military gates far behind them Dephchare and Faram were deep in conversation about nothing in particular. It was a strange sort of question time with them both asking each other about their childhood years. Faram had already established that apart from floating in the tank and seeing Faram’s memories Dephchare hadn’t had much of a childhood outside of the regular exercise and physical training that he had done. And from what Dephchare had seen in Faram’s mind he knew that ‘childhood’ for him mainly consisted of being dragged between Grandparents when his mum was ‘busy’ and spending a lot of his time in his Grandma Kath’s bedroom playing with coat hangers and jumping on the bed. The result was two being of equal isolation, Faram was the first human Dephchare had actual contact with and Dephchare was the first person Faram had actually ‘bonded’ with. True he had friends, but the depth of their relationship involved sitting on a wall and discussing the latest Playstation games that they couldn’t afford.

They had soon cleared the trees that surrounded the base and made it invisible, the old concrete path had worn out and they soon found themselves walking in a coarse field, full of cunningly hidden ruts and furrows which hurt the ankle and made the victim’s heart skip a beat.
“I can’t wait t’ see people at last” Dephchare said laughing, genuinely happy, it would be nice to speak to something without a snout or scales.
“Yeah but you can’t walk around with me” Faram pointed out bluntly.
“Why not?” Dephchare’s blood boiled slightly, how dare he say that he wasn’t good enough to be seen in his presence.
“Well cause people are gonna get a tad suspicious if they see me walking around with someone who looks just like me” Faram said wisely.
Dephchare calmed down when he heard this, he knew he was speaking the truth.
“Well I presumed you’d have something I could wear, ya know? Like one of those Groucho Marx thingy’s?”
“Not very subtle” Faram responded, the sarcasm from Dephchare was obviously above him “I do have some sunglasses though, and some hats”
“Marvellous (!)” Dephchare replied with a roll of the eyes.

After twenty minutes they had traversed the treacherous area known as ‘Firs flash’ and now entered a much more dangerous place, Leigh itself. The entrance for Firs flash was little more than a gap in a fence, it led them out onto a housing estate, one of the few ‘posh’ ones in the town, they even had front gardens with grass, a rare commodity in this part of England, although in Leigh one was considered ‘posh’ if they had a front gate. Matthew and his mother had had one until it had been stolen. There was the obligatory horde of young children enjoying their last few hours of freedom before the new uniform was taken out of the wardrobe, the lunches packed and this years new ‘hip’ pencil case was handed to them with the only purpose of being an object to graffiti. The kids were kicking the ball pointlessly, as though the rules and object of football was lost, the only goal seemed to be how many cars or passers by could be hit. As Faram and Dephchare walked through the street the games stopped and all eyes turned to them; “Twenee points fer fat un” came a shout and lots of high pitched laughter followed.

“Int in strange how when you turn your back little shits get much braver” Dephchare said with a sly smile, a way of showing that he was aware of the many times Faram had been attacked from behind. Faram hadn’t been listening to them, he had long since been able to block out the random insults from strangers about his weight, it had made junior school much easier to bear.
“Someone should do something about them,” Dephchare announced as they turned the corner.
“What do you mean?”
“Well those little pieces of shit think they can get away with calling people like us, we should show them that they can’t”. Faram rolled his eyes when he realised what Dephchare was getting at. The phrase ‘people like us’ was a hollow one, neither of them had addressed the obvious, mainly because neither of them knew truly what their ‘purpose’ was in this grand scheme of the Phori’s. They were both aware they would be needed to fight in a war, but the more Faram thought about it the more it didn’t make sense. The only war that was happening at that time was the ‘War of Terror’ due to 9/11. And he doubted that the Phori’s great enemy was neither the Taliban nor the Bush administration. Dephchare was no doubt unaware of the worlds events as Matthew tended not to dwell on global events as he knew they were nothing to do with him.

They finally reached the road which Matthew’s street came off of, this was Wigan Road, a place were the laws of time and space didn’t seem to apply and common sense was a privilege that few were privy to. Dephchare had never seen traffic before, considering it was 5 o clock in the afternoon, it was quite a surprise to him. He was so transfixed by all the irate people trapped in little metal boxes each blaming the person in front for making them having to wait that he didn’t notice the two boys riding up behind him and Faram on bicycles.
“Oi! Ney ya dick ‘ed” came the shout that Faram had grown accustomed to. Dephchare turned in time to see the two boys, both of whom wore the typical uniform of the modern ‘rebel’, a Burberry cap (which was about as genuine as a kids TV show presenters smile) and a permanent drug addled frown. The lead boy rode up onto the pavement and stopped in front of Dephchare, making sure he couldn’t get past.
“Give us a cig before I bang yer!” Dephchare cocked his head, he wasn’t accustomed to being insulted, and he wasn’t quite sure what a ‘cig’ was, and he was sure that to ‘bang’ someone was to have violent sex with them. But he knew how to reply to such a bizarre request and threat. “Don’t have one…dick ‘ed”.

There was a sudden change in the two boys, as if they had been possessed “smack ‘im Bucky” said the other one. Bucky looked at Dephchare and then to Faram and smiled slyly, “that’s what yer mam said to me last night” he squawked. Again Dephchare cocked his head as the two Chavs seemed to take part in a ritual, the other one said “Ooh you’ve bin ripped mate!” then they both proceeded to shake their hands as if their index finger was on fire producing a rather strange sound which was accompanied by a high pitch squeal by the two of them like a rusty gate having a rather satisfying orgasm. Faram realised it was time to get out of here before Dephchare did something he would regret, but by the time he had thought of this it was too late. Bucky was now lying on the floor in a heap with his bike, his nose bleeding profusely and he was now groaning slightly. His accomplice was now speeding off due to the inherent cowardice which ran in his (in)breeding, it was only when he was some two hundred yards away that he yelled “we is gonna bang you out!” before turning into the nearby council estate. Dephchare looked at ‘Bucky’ and simply whispered, “No body rips me”.

There was a long pause before Dephchare turned to Faram and finally asked, “What does ‘rip’ mean?” Faram merely rolled his eyes and stepped around the unconscious boys body, “not much further to my house” he said back to Dephchare, who smugly kicked Bucky in the side before stepping over him clumsily and following Faram.

Within two minutes they had reached Matthew’s street. It had been built shortly before World War Two, each house was semi detached and had the same bay window and pebbledash on the front. Naturally over the years each house had been changed and adapted to its owners individual tastes and spare time. Except one, one of the houses hadn’t seen a lick of paint in the past 14 years and its garden hadn’t seen a lawn mower in the past 12 months. This was Matthew’s house, 16 Hilda Street. The most recent change to the garden was that most of it had been converted into a drive by dropping some flag stones onto the uneven earth and knocking out a bit of the wall, this essentially gave the house the image of a war zone. Dephchare stood on the curb outside it taking in all of this, it would be a lie to say he wasn’t slightly disappointed, after all this was the 21st century and squalor was only supposed to rear its ugly head in England in places such as Salford and Birmingham.

“It’s a shit-hole, but its home” Matthew announced as he fumbled in his pockets for his keys. It was strange to be here again, when he’d set out early this morning he had never expected to stand on the dirty uneven flags or trip over the step like he always did. Dephchare eyed the small wooden door with considerable distaste, the doors in Gosling seemed more modern than this one, what Faram was doing using a key he didn’t understand, it looked like one swift kick would have the door open, or make it explode in a cloud of dust. Finally the door swung open and Faram tumbled in due to him catching his feet on the step (as per usual).

Dephchare soon followed, and found himself in a dark hallway, with nothing of any interest in it apart from a line of coat hooks laden with a variety of anoraks, fleeces and jackets which looked like they’d not been worn for the best part of a decade, Matthew placed his grey tatty fleece on one of the free pegs and invited Dephchare to do the same, but he was happy keeping the ship issue clothes on, the dark blue training uniform was rather comfortable although he knew that it would probably make a few heads turn if he walked through town, that’s why he’d intended to ‘borrow’ some of Faram’s clothes.

“Do you want anything to eat?” Matthew asked politely. Dephchare simply shook his head, he rarely needed to eat and human food disgusted him anyway, it was too artificial for his Phorusrichian tastes. “Wanna see my room?” Matthew asked, desperate to break the uneasy silence that had sudden befallen the two of them. Again a shake of the head, Dephchare was thinking, he closed his eyes and remembered what he’d seen during his time in the tank. With his eyes still closed he walked past Faram and into the living room, with them still closed he avoided all the obstacles that littered the path such as shoes and the large leather chair that was too large for the room. Faram followed him up to the doorway where he stood and watched. Dephchare stood in the middle of the room his eyes closed, not moving. Until finally he turned to the large wooden coffee table under the window and looked at the picture in the middle of it, placed proudly in the middle so it could project an image of a happy family to any visitors, it showed Matthew, his mother and Joe on a cliff in Ibiza. The 4-year-old Matthew smiling cheekily to the camera in his mothers embrace struck Dephchare hard.

“Mother” he whispered so quietly that he barely heard it himself, that should’ve been him, he had never even had a family, why could Faram have been the one in the tank? He knew that they had lied to Faram and had attempted to lie to him, but he refused to buy it. There had always been something in the back of his head nagging him and he could never place his finger on it, until last year. During the times Matthew had spent time in the library avoiding P.E. –it wasn’t the lesson itself that he hated, it was the fact that he had to take his shirt off and reveal the flabby man boobs which were a source of constant amusement for the other boys- he had read a section of a book on cloning and when Dephchare had received this information through the mental link it cemented his theory. The passage suggested that human clones wouldn’t have nipples or belly buttons.

“This is the home I never knew” Dephchare said to Faram flatly, he closed his eyes in an attempt to hold back the tears, “never bring me here again unless I really need to”. Faram nodded, shocked that the seemingly tough emotionless clone was now about to burst into tears. Dephchare’s eyes moved to the new and ironed maroon blazer that was hung on a coat hanger on the door complete with white shirt, tie and pants. He would never have a normal life, his education would come from Faram, when he went to school and learned so would Dephchare, if he didn’t neither would he. “Also your going to school tomorrow no matter what” Faram nodded, understandingly.
“We should head back before Stryka gets annoyed” and with that they ended their short visit and set off to the Gosling, with Faram confused about what was going on and Dephchare now silent. They didn’t speak at all on this journey.

By the time they had reached their destination it was nearly 7 o’ clock and Stryka was sat on the edge of the stage meditating, for a few minutes he seemed to be ignoring them and they stood in the large hall shuffling awkwardly and glancing at each other daring the other to cough or speak but neither of them did. Dephchare was trying to keep his mental turmoil under control and Faram was simply too spineless. Eventually Stryka looked up, his large eyes focused on Dephchare and then Faram, finally he snorted “there are something’s over there for you both”, he then returned to his meditation as though nothing had happened.

Dephchare followed Stryka’s gaze to the large wooden table that was now pushed up against the wall in front of a door that like so many others in the base were impossible to get past unless they were removed. The two humans walked towards it with due sense of trepidation. Naturally Dephchare was the first to reach it. “Whoa our own scimitars?” he asked Stryka who merely nodded, refusing to break his concentration for such a mundane question. Dephchare knew that the scimitar was the weapon of choice for most Phori warriors, they were a reminder of the days when the Phori had their infamous sickle shaped claw on their feet which had long since been lost due to their evolution and the fact that most of their population were vegetarians and so had no need for such an offensive body part. Although secretly Dephchare felt it was a pointless exercise getting Stryka to teach them how to use a scimitar seeing as he had been from the forest division, a faction within the Ghallan army who preferred bows and (relatively) small knives to fight in the cramped conditions.

Faram looked at the table of items, it seemed to have been separated with the precision of an OCD sufferer into two halves, one for him and one for Dephchare. Thanks to his partner’s enthusiasm he naturally focused on the scimitars first, they had both been scaled down to account for the humans smaller size but they still retained the elegance of the blades he had seen being carried by the guards on board the Phori ships. Their long curved blades were golden and appeared to have various markings etched into them and the grip was just right for his hand size and appeared to be made out of wood that had been treated and sanded to optimum efficiency and comfort.

Next to each scimitar was a neatly folded stack of clothes this was the first difference between his and Depchare’s equipment that he spotted. The side of the table that Dephchare appeared to have claimed had black clothes while Faram’s side’s garments were brown. Dephchare had already demolished his clothes pile and was holding the various pieces up to his body like a woman in Next. The clothes seemed quite ordinary, just a thick shirt, long trousers with various pockets and gloves, all in one colour and tailored to fit either of the pupils. The only strange part of the uniform was that each one had a strange head piece reminiscent of a balaclava Dephchare had naturally thrown it on his head lob sided and Faram saw that the only place on the face that it left in view was the nose chin and mouth, the eyes were covered by two one way lenses which were circular and just big enough to see through.
Next to the pile of clothes had been some strange wooden objects which when Dephchare had started to play with them revealed themselves to be chest armour made up of many smooth cylindrical pieces of wood that seemed to be attached to each other by short pieces of metal. Underneath the armour was a pair of gauntlets that from what Faram could see were merely ornamental and adorned with many silver symbols, a belt and a scabbard for the scimitar.
“What’s this?” Dephchare asked suddenly turning to Stryka. He was holding a small brown book. Stryka opened one eye, looked at the item in question and replied “it’s a hand book for Faram, its about trivial things that I don’t have the time to explain”. Dephchare handed Faram the book and smiled “’e means the things he can’t be bothered tellin’ ya” Faram smiled, not sure what to say just in case Stryka could hear them. Again Dephchare suddenly broke the silence by asking a question “hey! What’s in these boxes?” this time instead of slowly opening his eye and half heartedly giving him a reply Stryka leapt from the stage and hobbled towards them as quick as he could manage “those are not for you!” he lied. When he reached the table he snapped up the two small wooden boxes -that Faram hadn’t spotted until now- in one arm and took them away from the table. “Venotarian is a fool if he thinks I will allow you to have these” these statements merely made Dephchare’s interest heighten and Faram’s curiosity rear its usually lazy head.

Stryka’s knowledge of the human psyche seemed to have slipped slightly for in that instant there was nothing more that neither Faram or Dephchare wanted than whatever was in the box, through their mental link Dephchare said ‘I bet there’s something powerful in there, I’ve heard things, their race is more powerful than mankind ever will be’. Faram merely nodded, he wasn’t quite sure how to respond using the mental link and a few seconds prior he had looked at his watch and realised it was time he went home, his mothers rules were strict on the time he had to be in by, he was aware that a lot of the time she ignored this rule herself and would be out till the early hours of the morning, but he liked to avoid getting in trouble and mothers had a way of telling if something was amiss. “I have to go” he said loudly, Dephchare looked at him like a wounded puppy, “you can’t leave, we’ve only just got started”. Faram merely shook his head and began walking, with the book in his hand. He passed Stryka who had just returned from hiding the boxes, he gave him a slight nod, “I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon as soon as I can” Faram said in a sincere voice, Stryka’s thin lips curled into what was unmistakeable as a smile “we’ll wait for you”.

Matthew left with butterflies in his stomach it was the end of the strangest day in his life, part of him was sure he would wake up in any minute and find himself in his room as just another boy, with no significance in the universe rather than being a ‘chosen one’. He was amazed at just how calm and levelheaded he’d been about the whole ordeal. But now he had something else to look forward to, tomorrow was his first day at Westleigh. A new beginning for him, and for the first time in months, he felt hope for the future, Dephchare had made him feel good about himself for the first time in a year. He didn’t analyse the clone aspect of it all, it hurt his head and confused him, all he knew was that for the first time in years he had a friend who he could identify with and who wasn’t using him for an opinion or a shoulder to cry on when someone’s latest crush turned them down. He left the base and vowed that the next day would be spent making new friends and establishing himself as someone who wasn’t a doormat. He smiled to himself as he imagined the new cool and respectable Matthew Bourton, strutting through the corridors without getting shoulder barged, he hoped that Stryka’s training regime would help him shed a few pounds, within a few months he would be a new person. He wasn’t used to hope and like some sort of hallucinogenic drug it flooded his body and filled his mind with false delusions of future grandeur.