Avrio (science fiction)

Genre: Science Fiction/fantasy

Age Restriction: Parental Discretion

Editor’s Note:

This story features a dark theme, and contains imagery that may be psychologically disturbing for some audiences. This particular story was intended for all ages to enjoy, though it may require a level of parental discretion concerning some elements presented by the author whose primary audience are of a mature age: 

18 and older.

Happy Autumn (FALL AND ENJOY!)

Avrio

By Jeffrey Arce 

aka 

Jarce ArtThor

She was walking in the shadow of death, but she wasn’t afraid. Here, she was quite comfortable.

The docent prated solemnly on, but Avrio could barely listen. He expounded some drivel about how their excessive output of greenhouse gasses will have ultimately short-circuited their environment, thus searing a path for the inevitable rise of The Sentients. What once devastated the world—paralyzing her organic ecosystems—was eventually recycled into an essential resource for continued sustenance. And from death sprang life. It was funny how some things evolved. 

The panoply before them was so strange, yet so intriguing. Inside the writhing electromagnetic barrier were items from that extraordinary world long before, carefully arranged. Avrio melted in with the crowd, wanting to have a better look. The ethereal group closed around her in the exhibit hall of the museum, coalescing densely at the display window. It always tickled her how the swell of wonder could quicken in the minds of even her most stringent of peers. They scrutinized the curious items with bewildered astonishment. Together they imagined a primitive world where complex life still needed to kill lesser organisms for their nourishment, pulling stores of solar energy forged deep within the threading of immanent proteins. The elders named it a barbaric ritual, denigrating them as blood lusting savages, but Avrio thought they were fascinating, gorgeous creatures.  

Their tools were so far removed from the modern mind it was hard to accept the raw truth that they were made from this world at all. They had crafted such things as ladles, knives, bowls, chalices, and weaponry—terribly dreamed and abundantly supplied. They made things from flesh, bone, and wood, from rock and ore. They designed tools to make other tools. It was by these special instruments they would establish a power to grow their race exponentially. But such vain self-preservation to this degree by which they had achieved would prove in time quite fatal. Their sins enervated the ecosystem, and drove their people toward a swift and complete extermination. Tools gave them life and took it all away. 

Sentients did not require any of these things. They drew energy from the carbon dioxide and methane that was in the air. They manifested power from the fierce winds, which gusted vigorously across the plains. They constructed subterranean hives to avoid conflict with the wicked jet propulsions naturally produced by a recovering planet. They had no need for towering edifices, save for the fields of massive windmills they had erected from salvaged material. There was no good reason for war, or for monetary trade, or government. They lived only for knowledge. They built communities on all corners of the globe to feed their study, and advance their race. A Sentient could explore the acidy oceans, and the starry abyss of space without a vessel to take them there. Beyond the firmament of their carbon rich environment, their cells were made to create fusion by pulling from the sun’s eternal radiance. There was no reach that a Sentient could not explore—no boundaries. They could manifest anything that was requisite for their survival, and they could adapt to even the most virulent of conditions. They did not need carnal faculties for reproduction, though, at times two Sentients could become one, and one could become many. They snowballed from motes and particles and transmuted like living molds of clay. They were formless and beautiful.

A mysterious river of consciousness had seeded their race—an enigmatic nursery, burgeoning out from a cavernous chasm like a great womb of blue fire. No scholar could agree on the make of its origin. Most have simply placed it as a kind of nursery with divine roots, though, none of them truly believed in a higher entity forged by way of intelligent design. Hypocrisy might one day prove to be the eternal plague destined to doom all forms of intellectual life. Sentients were an ascetic culture—stolid, analytical, and meticulous. They eschewed overindulgence of emotion almost to the point of overindulging in apathy, but they did lust for some things, such as learning.

Avrio was different. She was compassionate, and she loved the past, where most only anguished for the future. She frequented all of the geological institutes established throughout the solar system, trying to decipher how and why The Ones Before lived as they did. There were fragments of them spread out everywhere, as if they had exploded like some fertile flower attempting to seed the heavens. But they did not go too far. They could not even pierce the threshold of their own system with all their impressive technology.

It has been estimated that their global population peaked at an astronomical rate of ten billion souls before at last came a definitive purge. How anything could survive so many ravenous mouths was far beyond Avrio’s understanding, as clever as she was in nature. Yet still, she admired them, even at their worst.

Researchers studying samples from orbital debris have reconstructed their final decline. They have surmised that fifteen hundred thousand divisive sovereigns had abandoned their kingdoms, leaving an inundated civilization to implode behind. They stole refuge onboard a secret vessel with a callow space colony for a time. But like a cell separated from its host, these impetuous refugees and their under-prepared bodies rejected the malign effects of an artificial environment, and they deteriorated. None were immune to extinction.    

Theirs was a story of poignant demise. Avrio often wept for them when she learned more. Is it so fair this erudite species could be reduced to the moldering scraps excavated from their vast landfills of waste, which had failed to dissolve? She couldn’t know for certain. Scholars had only conjecture beyond what could be studied from their leavings. Nothing they had ever wrought in their time was indelible. The earth took it all back, but for plastic—an exceptionally perennial artifact. Everything else was erased.

Once a lush and verdant world brimming with life, the Sentients have come to know it as a sweltering, toxic wasteland, though it was still home for them. The planet could spare only a meager palette of tenuous biology as she convalesced from her geological wounds. But Sentients were an auspicious people. They have transcended the archaic fauna and flora feeding rituals, providing much needed respite for an exhausted environment.

Avrio followed their guide absently, wishing she could know more, and why they destroyed themselves. They were warned, but they persisted with their rotten habits nevertheless. It was so strange.

They were her favorite obsession. She even tried to form her walk in a way to imitate how experts have determined they might have ambulated. According to Avrio, they were the most inspiring creatures to ever have lived on the planet, and they were all gone. A wistfully tragic end to a great species.

As her group sauntered on with equanimity, they descended toward the final exhibit on the tour. She made sure to put herself in front of the crowd before they got there. The underground museum was one that she adored most. It was special. Here, every tour ended with a grand finale. It was here, deep beneath the surface where The Ones Before had retreated in their final hour.

The light opened brilliantly in the capacious hall, and a pitted rocky sepulcher materialized. Through the electric transparent veil they found a mass grave. Primitive skeletons were clambering at an ancient device that still loomed from rigid, centuries-old stone. Hollowed, dejected eyes gazed up at it, reaching for it with arachnid fingers. The fossils depicted a vast mural of bones vying to gain passage. Some were tangled together, caught in an eternal struggle for refuge, and others were folded over their knees, frozen forever in prayer. Their faces were melded into the dirt, and their arching spinal columns were suffused with igneous clay.

Avrio was ensorcelled by it, her translucent crown churning with incandescent azure like stirring embers as she marveled at the exhibit. Transfixed on the spectacle, she wondered what they were fighting for. In this place where the last of their species would recede from existence, after all they had achieved, what great mystery could have drawn them down like an inescapable eddy whirling over the drain of annihilation. At an axis in the protruding relic of stone there were two intersecting arms, outstretched like a man poised to enfold a lover into his final embrace. It was a massive cross, and it marked ground zero, where the former world past away.

Afterward, they were bustled out through the lobby, each one of them receiving a customary souvenir to enjoy as they went. Avrio glowed upon taking hers: an artificial replica of a Human skull. She stared lovingly at the gift for a time that felt like an eternity. Avrio envied their mortality, but Avrio was a Sentient, and Sentients could not die so easily.

Cradling the skull in her amorphous grasp, she cherished her prize with grateful bliss. She ensconced herself inside the empty chamber of its brain cavity. There she would study and sleep, wanting to peer through its eyes, and feel with its hands, and sample flavors with its tongue. She wanted to be human… She wanted to know how they knew, how simple and poetic they made all things that they did not know. But most of all, she wanted to taste mortality. She wanted to know death. There wasn’t anything in the world Avrio wanted more. 

#avrio

 

Human

When I lived, I could never die. 
From the deep abyss to the heavens above, there was no realm I could not claim. 
I shaped mountains into my image, I built spires to challenge the gods, and I subdued even the fiercest of beasts. 
When I lived, everything was mine. 
I bled the earth. 
I despoiled her. 
I told her that my gluttonous intrigues were sacrosanct. 
I told her that I was divine. 
She did not listen. 
I could not cozen her. 
When I lived, my hubris deceived me. 
But that was when I lived, long before my decline.

Jurassic Caricature (a fanfiction)

(((The following is a fanfiction not meant for reproduction. It is simply made as to honor a franchise that I love very much, and for free fanboy entertainment. The story features mention of iconic characters created by Michael Crichton, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, and brought to life by legendary directors Stephen Spielberg, Colin Trevorrow, and J.A. Bayona. Enjoy!)))

#fanfic

#dinosaurs

#raptor

Even the helicopter ride there felt exotic to Jared.

Since the spectral silhouette of the island began to materialize across the hazy horizon he had his face pressed eagerly against the passenger window and never dared to miss a single moment of this very special moment. The dense forest that threaded over the island came to him like the opening of clouds toward the gates of heaven. He always dreamed of having the chance to work there. As a kid, paleontology was an obsession for him. He drank up every book he could on the subject, especially the ones that focused on the Cretaceous period, but he never dreamt in sixty five million years that he might actually get paid to perform only moments away from any of those ethereal creatures. 

Jared was an artist with big dreams. Those thirsty ambitions led him to a comfortable career drawing as a caricature artist in the carnival circuit. For years he has spread his talent across the country, earning for himself quite a respectable reputation along the way. But OtherWorld caricatures... they say OtherWorld caricatures was impossible to break into. They were the leading contracting company in his profession, serving the art Shoppes at some of the most high profile locations across the planet for many years. And though they began as a small seed, pushing their roots in the same industry that Jared had come up in, they have grown prominent to enjoy such a powerful position in the industry that he just knew applying for this particular park, with his meager status was a dreamers fantasy. But apparently it was enough.

He got the return letter in the mail in surprisingly expedient timing. Seeing the celebrated logo of OtherWorld, and the ever more iconic brand of the most famous Park in the universe emblazoned on the heading of the letter, he was certain it would be a rejection. But it was not. He unfolded the letter and read. It simply asked: “Is this your work?” And then there was a photograph of an artfully exaggerated caricature drawing. He was pretty proud of that one and knew it well. Indeed it was his: a Cartoon illustration of the late and great John Hammond. So he wrote back simply, “Yes it is.”

His invitation came with an emphatic phone call from the manager of operations at the OtherWorld Art Shoppes, who asked him quite dramatically, “we like your stuff, and we are very interested in having your talent with our team. So this said, I must ask you: How soon can we welcome you to Jurassic World?”

The answer was “Immediately!” And the flight was the next day, all expenses paid. 

Jared wasn’t really sure what he was getting himself into. All he knew for certain was the acclaim OtherWorld got in his line of work, and that the park was the notorious home of living, breathing dinosaurs. That was all he needed to know. 

He never flew in a helicopter before, but it was no more dangerous of an experience than half of the things he naturally ran into in his business as a transient artist. OtherWorld was offering gracious accommodations. They provided him fancy dining and housing for free just to have his slightly famous sketch at their park, and he was quite flattered by their generosity. They did let him know that it would only be for a few weeks until he was on his feet without assistance, but it was all so much more than he could have dreamed to ask for. 

The helicopter ride was long and grueling at times, but the reward was far too big to pass. There was so much to earn and nothing to lose. He bragged about the opportunity with his peers, and knew with an ounce of over-confident certainty that none of it would ever turn around to bite him in the ass. At least he hoped for that. God forbid if any of those things stepped out from their cage to run amuck. 

He was settled in to his suite quickly. Every day between the hours of 9:am and 7:pm was prime time at Jurassic World, and they rushed him to work almost instantly. It was strange how easily Jared had slipped back into his work mode. He was in a foreign, unforgivingly oppressive climate, drawing in harsh, humid weather, on an island housing genetically reproduced extinct creatures as it’s primary attraction, yet he drew his guests as deftly, and comfortably as if he was back home in his own preferred environment. Everyone loved his work. His superiors loved having him. However, all that Jared could focus on was: just get through the day, and soon you’ll get paid, and you’ll get to see these things you’ve read in wonder about all through childhood. 

The Jurassic Park fiasco was an infamous story that began as an urban legend, which turned out to be a horrible truth. InGen had tried to cover it up, and that only made things worse for them. The mad-scientist genetics Mega Corporation would have since fell into darker works, focusing mostly on weaponry and other controversial intrigues. But as a bright shining star in the future of science, turned super evil villain deserving public scorn, they at least knew how to accept their new role with pride and success. The Ill-fated story of the fall of Jurassic Park was soon promulgated as a way to deter further advancements in the fertile field of genetics; also to keep people away from the islands. But instead, it only proved the opposite: genetic science boomed more fiercely than life had sprung from the Cambrian Explosion, and rambunctious paleontologists, and would-be explorers seeking a precipitous new high sought out the forsaken island resorts. After some time, and passionately fought legal wars, the corner stones for Jurassic World were at last set again, and the greatest enigma on earth was finally opened to the public. It has become the most profitable amusement part on the planet since those archaic days before, and now Jared has become a part of their growing legacy, even in his very small capacity. He was excited. 

His first shift went fast, but it felt like an eternity, anxiously waiting to reap the spectacular benefits. He must have drawn a hundred guests. The register read two thousand, fifty-three dollars in sales on his behalf, and his manager was quite pleased with his outstanding performance. Jared clocked out at 3:30 and saw that the market circle where his caricature station was located was still packed with giggling, querulous children wanting their cartoon image riding the backs of their favorite dinosaurs. Jared felt a pang of guilt he would leave all that potential money to his colleagues, but that was just hard-woven into his nature from years in the carnival business. Besides, he had monsters to see.

There was some wild rumor going around of a potential new dinosaur attraction being conjured up in the laboratories. Signs were plastered everywhere hinting at some clandestine beast that Verizon Wireless would soon unleash upon the world. “Something Is Coming,” the advertisement read, red demon eyes smoldering in the dark womb of a gripping green forest. “Something Of Nightmares will be unleashed from Verizon Wireless...” Everyone was wowing over its mystery on the monorail into the heart of the resort. He didn’t care, he was slipping his way through the crowded car to get to the nearest window so he could catch a glimpse at the most iconic gates built by modern Man. The massive doors were painted to look like weathered, and splintered wood. They flung open with a fabricated clamor. The soundtrack clashed from the speakers inside the train, imitating farcically the crash of castle doors banging open. Than an orchestra ran their intense strings, and a tribal drum line enraptured its new guests. 

One animal was on his mind most prominently: their genetically enhanced Velociraptors! As a kid he had fallen in love with the creature’s more famous fossil, as it was forever captured ensnared in battle with the horned Protoceratops. That was before anybody really knew much about what happened at the Jurassic Park facility. Then, the Raptor was known only to be about the size of a turkey, and experts were only beginning to suspect it to have been covered with feathers. But the geneticists at InGen changed all that. Their obnoxious DNA mascot at the visitors’ center claimed that the absence of some well established characteristics was the unfortunate side effect of splicing genomes in order to thread the missing parts in their genetic code. But that would soon be revealed as an embellished lie. They did not like the feathers, and their size didn’t seem menacing enough. They were looking to attract a new audience to dinosaurs, and so, they only wanted the biggest and the baddest, but the Raptor was too well loved to ignore. Some speculation arose to argue that the animal’s fossils were incomplete, and perhaps these creatures were in fact more robust in their size. Jared read an article adding fire to this debate, using the famed paleontologist Dr. Grant’s earth shattering discovery of a velociraptor skeleton that was almost eight feet in length to support their argument. But after careful scrutiny even this would be debugged, as the species he had discovered turned out to be some new beast more closely related to the Tyrannosaur than the Raptor. With a hefty reign of near two hundred million years, the genus of Tyrannosaurids was a big family that varied in size, shape, and weight. The bottom line was, Dr. Grant did not find evidence of a freakishly large Raptor, and the Jurassic World creatures were just man-made monsters with synthetic DNA flowing in their veins. Still, Jared wanted to see them. 

His illustrated map was hard to follow, but he found a tour guide that was leading the way he wanted to go, so Jared jumped in with her group. She was pretty, tall, smart, and a loquacious docent. She didn’t just know her Park, she knew dinosaurs, and she adored her raptors. Her eyes were a deep green, and her hair was thick, brown, and turning goldenrod along the edges from the sun. She spoke perfect English, sweetened with only a touch of her native Spanish accent. Jared was in love, but he kept that to himself. As a nomad artist he has lost his touch for social engagement. Outside of his comfort zone behind his easel he was shy and taciturn, fearing saying the wrong thing and making a fool of himself. But she saw it; he could tell by the way flush colored her cheeks ever darker. She flashed him a flattered grin, but continued their tour. He had questions about the animals, but locked them up behind tight lips, waiting for her to answer them naturally as she went on with her routine presentation. Most all answers will unveil themselves to those who are patient, and paying close attention. 

The paddock was a fortress, and perhaps the most uninviting exhibit in the whole park. But these animals were dangerous, intelligent, and required the highest security money could buy to contain them.  Watchtowers guarded all corners of the walled facility, and the personnel mounting those stations were armed with high-powered tranquilizer rifles. It seemed more of a maximum-security state prison than a tourist attraction. Jared was impressed. 

In the guest lobby, Laura—the pretty tour guide—first introduced them to the brave team that helped to keep the raptors healthy and happy throughout their young lives. The top man on the acknowledgment board was a rugged, handsome gentleman named Owen Grady. In his photo he had this kind of amused Mona-Lisa-knowing grin turning at the corner of his mouth; it somehow alluded to a potent charm rather than haughty arrogance, though Jared suspected he had some of that in him too. But what grabbed his attention was the man’s job title: Chief Specialist/Raptor Trainer.

They have a raptor trainer? He couldn’t help but to wonder what that could entail. Fetch, heel, don’t claw my guts out? Seemed a bit brazen to think a human could tame a quintessential killing machine. But of course anything was possible when animals that have been dead for sixty five million years walked the earth again. 

Laura brought them next to the nursery where the infant raptors had been raised to trust their captivity. All of them have been moved to the maturing stable, and all that was left there was some scattered straws of hay, and gnawed dog toys behind very thick viewing glass. There were pictures of the baby dinosaurs. They had big heads, bright and wide snake-like yellow eyes, and tiny, agile serpent bodies. They were strangely adorable, and hauntingly terrible at the same time. 

The primal stink of rotting decay was strong, venting through the walls to pervade their senses. It made all of them in attendance to wrinkle their noses. But that was a small price to pay to see the master-class of flesh-eaters in true beautifully brutal reality. 

Jared thought it odd how many kids were surrounding him at the exhibit. There were warning signs posted everywhere about what horrible things they might witness, but somehow when it came to animals, the imminent carnage waiting on the horizon was made a surreal experience, and parents practically pushed their kids in to learn a cruel lesson about humility. But these kids were smiling, and anxious to see, with a sort of sickening bloodlust. They were like snot-nosed pro-wrestling fans, cheering, and hooting for violence. No matter how civilized we think we are, Ancient Rome was never too far from our hardwired instincts. Jared couldn’t help them though, he was just as sick with gleeful anticipation. 

Genetic manipulation in some small way was sort of like caricaturing. An artist had to think fast to solve big problems. He has to capture very complicated shapes in a matter of only seconds, in order to finish a face in fewer than five minutes. The Cartoon is supposed to be exaggerated, but it also has to resemble his subject in some recognizable way. Jurassic World scientists with their gene splicing, and biology mashing have worked that same concept in to creating their prized beasts. But their raptors were something of a masterpiece, outshining what God had originally made in a few bold strokes that could melt Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. The revered chaos theorist Dr. Ian Malcolm would probably designate it as the art of forcing order from entropy, and then he would go on to argue how such an approach is destined to collapse in extraordinary fashion. But that guy was a nihilist in Jared’s opinion: a rotten egg who just like to role in to spoil everyone’s fun. 

Laura’s voice was suddenly drowned out by his elevated heartbeat. He had expected the pack to tool with the guest some as they entered the main viewing chamber. But they didn’t. They weren’t hiding, or sneaking. They were right there in plain sight, waiting for them. They lined up, stalking the glass. Laura assured her group that they could not see them. But Jared could tell that they knew. The one with the blue stripes marking her hide crept in, sniffing with a wet snout, her sharp tail erect in attention. Flies buzzed over and around it’s blood stained jaws. Its serrated razor teeth curved inward, designed to hook in deep into leathery flesh so she could easily tear away at her meat. Her signature curled foot claw twitched, and she held low to the ground, like a wrestler coming in for a clinch. She slunk in, and bobbed her head. The others flanked her dutifully. The audience gasped. The palm trees and dense foliage swayed, and sang under a gentle breeze behind them. The group was mesmerizing. The way their tendons stretched and tightened in their long necks, the way their sinuous muscles moved beneath tough tubercle spotted skin, they were poetically graceful and brimming with alacrity. Their eyes shifted, inquisitively, calculating. It challenged the human spirit. Nature grew their roots, and stemmed their powerful brains, but human hands planted the seed. This intelligent monster understood more than we can possibly comprehend, and they were with a mind that was weighing its place in the world. Jared could see it thinking. It was painting a picture of her own what the creature she smelled through the glass was thinking. She could taste his fear. Slaver fell from her lips as she rolled them back to show those feral teeth again. As though entranced Jared drifted closer, staring wide-eyed. Perhaps it was their dangerous beauty that killed their prey. The Raptor suddenly lashed at the glass, snapping its teeth, smearing the transparent barrier with slaver. He jumped back. The kids erupted with laughter, and the beast’s dinosaur companions began bobbing up and down, trilling excitedly, like birds jeering at him. Jared got the impression they were toying with him after all.

Laura smiled ruefully at Jared and said, “ I think Blue likes you.” She winked at him, playfully. 

He blushed, and tried on a frantic smile even though his heart was screaming in his chest. 

Still, it was the most exhilarating thing he had ever experienced. The raptors went about their tribal animal business, hunting and coordinating. 

In private hearing with Laura, Jared remarked, “They need feathers.”

Laura fell in close beside him. She showed him an all-knowing grin and whispered, “yes, and they should be smaller... I know... you can ask me any time now.”

The group sprawled out to study some of the pieces of information hanging on the walls everywhere. 

Jared was nervous. “Ask what?”

She nudged him, that smile of hers never fading. “How about what time I get off tonight.”

He definitely wanted to ask just that, but his inquiry broke apart in his throat, “I...I”

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m off at the end of this last tour. Meet me an hour after. Be dressed nice.” 

Then she went back to treat her guests. 

The tour moved on. Jared met with Laura for lunch and made a new friend. He was having the night of his life. He couldn’t wait to see the T.Rex after his shift tomorrow. 

Fall

In the brutal age of information we wage a culture war. We are trying desperately to define ourselves. because after thousands of years convincing our race that we were something special, we know now with boundless evidence and certainty that we are not. And it makes us afraid. And that makes us dangerous. We reach out in a mad, blind dash for purpose. We cling to primitive, tribal knowledge. And we regress. And we destroy what we do not want to believe.  We hunt for a savior. We find only an idol: loud, biased, outlandish, perhaps charismatic, but no savior. Only human. He is as broken as his disciples. And we open our throats, and gulp down the madness, until we are drunk. With our pride heavy on our shoulders we sink to the bottom of inundated misery, and we drown there. Forgotten by a hundred million uncaring years, we are turned to limestone, we are turned to oil, and we become the very thing we so insouciantly died for.