Prologue

 

Hierarchy 5 was a cool, peaceful planet from space, all blues and greens. The labs and training areas were below surface, protected from every kind of emergency and danger known to the director, Dr. Farnham, at the time they were built. Genetic engineering was done there. It was a place where cells were altered and chemicals given to fetuses grown in artificial wombs, producing special children. As the children grew, they were trained . . . and given more biological chemicals to enhance what they had been given prior to birth.

They were all super strong, had exceptional intelligence, enhanced speed, eyesight and hearing, to the point that nothing was beyond their vision and detection. They were the soldiers that would be sent out throughout the worlds to serve kings and rulers. Among these forces, two were given extra special care. They were the elite. The price for them would be very high. Even the wealthiest would have trouble affording them.

The genetic alteration was not a new idea. It had been tried before but nothing on such an extensive scale as Hierarchy 5. Dr. Farnham bought, stole, and traded for eggs and sperm from, what he considered, exceptional donors. Through careful manipulations of genetic cell structures, with supplemental chemicals, both biological and man-made, he was able to experiment with making the fetuses both athletic and more intellectual. He poked, subtracted, added, altered, subjected the growing cells to different forms of radiation. The beginning creations were failures. Many died within days of the first alterations.

And then one lived. It was strong but it had the fatal flaw of arrested development. The doctor destroyed it. He went back to the DNA blueprint. Of course, in time, a true genetic successor was born, healthy, strong, intelligent. What happened to the first successful ones, he had no idea. They simply vanished on him. He assumed they went out into space on the ships that brought him supplies. He was not sorry to see them go for they would not obey him.

He continued his work.

The female embryos were more fragile to the changes Dr. Farnham produced on Hierarchy 5. For every female surviving the process, forty males were produced and thrived.

The doctor did not want fights produced by procreative tension, like with the first batch; he most certainly did not want naturally produced babies. All children born on this world must be reproduced by his means and kept totally under his control until they left his world. The doctor took care of the problem long before it could become one. They would all mature physically, though slower than normals; they would age mentally at a rapid rate, but they would all have arrested development in their gender development. One of the things he took from the developing fetuses was any chemical, any biological function, that would lead to sexual maturity. Because of the first deserters, he knew he?d have to come up with an idea that would keep them under his thumb until they were purchased. Thus he created the special brain- washing techniques he used from day one to the very hour they left his world. From start to finish, they were totally his.

Lukkasi?s father may have been the donor sperm and the machines and chemicals Dr. Farnham used, his mother may have been the donated eggs and the embryo tank, Lukkasi may have been a conception synthesis, but he was also a human being.

Something more than one person forgot.

Lukkasi had a soul.

Something they also forgot.

 

 

Chapter ONE

Hierarchy 5 - The Main lands

-The Beginning-

 

 

Lukkasi had often observed the doctor leaving the underground compound. He wondered why, and where the doctor went when he did leave. That day, he decided he?d find out once and for all. After all, it was a mystery and mysteries should be solved. And, he was very good at solving them. He hid behind a corridor wall, peeping out, watching Dr. Farnham?s every movement. It was not hard for him to hide, for he was small, and Farnham was very huge and very sure of his privacy and never thought to look backwards.

The doctor went to the elevator at the end of a hall that was off-limits to the children. The doctor hit five different numbers on the little panel beside the door. It opened and he went into a small room. The door closed, the doctor inside. Lukkasi heard the whine, the shifting of gears, the sound of upward movement. He went to the panel, and stood on tiptoe, but couldn?t reach it. He was too short. He stood staring at the little box of numbers, pondering on possible solutions, then decided to go back into the underground complex for a chair.

Though Lukkasi had just turned two, his intelligence level was higher than any ever recorded. He was shorter than the normal child his age, slim of frame. He was also stronger than the other children, though they were taller and more muscular in appearance.

One of the girls, a child called Ni-Sarah, saw him dragging the chair out of the room. She asked, "What are you doing?" Her hair, the color of chocolate milk, danced in thousands of spiraling curls when she moved. Her eyes, like Lukkasi?s, were the beautiful green of springtime. She, also was two years old, and had an intelligence level too high to record. She was stronger than everyone but Lukkasi.

"Getting a chair."

"Why?"

"To stand on."

"Why?"

"I need to reach the panel."

"What panel?"

Lukkasi stopped, stood quiet and dignified, staring at her. How dare she question him! "The panel by the door," he explained, regally.

"Which door?"

"The one at the end of the blue corridor."

"The one for the elevator?" she inquired.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I want to see where the doctor went. Perhaps it leads to another floor, or a different compound. Maybe it goes outside."

"Why do you care?"

"I am curious."

"We're not supposed to be there."

"I know."

"Then why are you going?

"Because I am curious."

"Can I come?"

"Okay."

The two of them finished dragging the chair to the door. Lukkasi stood on the seat, pushed the buttons in the exact same pattern the doctor had. The door swished open.

"It?s just an elevator," Ni-Sarah announced dryly.

He looked at her. "I told you."

She gave him one of her looks, but it did not faze him. "The doctor becomes enraged when we do something he does not want."

"I know."

She waited but he said nothing further. "I?m going back,"

"Okay."

Ni-Sarah left. Lukkasi didn?t care one way or another. His mind was on the mystery. He went in and the door closed. He pressed the button marked up. Once more, he heard the grinding of pulleys, the shifting of gears, felt an upward motion. Within moments, the doors opened.

A breeze came in, bringing the scent of nature to his nostrils. Lukkasi saw trees and grass on the other side of the doorway. He knew what they were for he had seen them in a vid. Curiously, eagerly, the two-year-old stepped out. The feeling of grass on his naked feet felt cool. It tickled. The sunlight on his bare skin felt warm. The breeze ruffled his long, light brown hair. He walked away from the elevator. New experiences flooded his brain. He was so busy cataloguing them, he didn?t hear the two men come up behind him. Hands grabbed him. He struggled.

"Hey, squirt, whatcha doing?" a strange man inquired, sitting him down.

Lukkasi looked at him and saw a tall, heavyset man with pale blue eyes and lots of hair beneath his nose. He didn't know this man, but the other, the plump man with two chins, was Dr. Farnham.

"Exploring," Lukkasi said. "Who are you?"

"Child!" Dr. Farnham growled. He was already getting plump, he most definitely had two chins. Irritation hung heavy in his steel grey eyes.

But the other man only laughed. His moustache wiggled with each bark of laughter. "I?m called Simon. Who are you?"

"Lukkasi."

"Lukkasi, huh?

"Yes."

"Well, Lukkasi, how old are you?

"I am seven hundred forty-five days."

"Exactly or precisely?" the stranger teased.

"I cannot be more accurate than that. I am unable to ascertain the actual number of hours and minutes from the time of my birth."

He smiled hugely. "Oh, I see."

Dr. Farnham snapped angrily, "You shouldn?t be out here, Lukkasi! Now you get back inside right now."

The little boy looked at the doctor. "Why?"

"Because you?re not safe out here."

But Lukkasi had not sensed any danger. He tilted his head in question.

The doctor sighed. "All right, all right. I want you back inside. Understood? You?re the soldier. I?m your general. You should never question me. A soldier always obeys this commanding officer."

That Lukkasi could understand. "Okay." He marched in silence back to the elevator, his back ramrod stiff. Still, even as he left them, he could hear the words of the two men as they talked about him.