the second project

8/6/2019 The Second Project

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THE SECOND PROJECT

For all the times you’ve sat and stared out the window aimlessly. For the hours that you’vewasted staring at your pc/ a blank piece of paper/ the wall. For all those idea’s you’ve

binned, you’ve started but never nished or you never got around to even trying. This project

is for them. For all the sci- lovers, hardcore gamers, late night movie enthusiasts. For all the

writer’s, artists, designers, creator’s and illustrators. This is for you. The Second Project: A

unique community creativity experiment with the purpose of creating a new kind of novel.

The idea is simple. I began to write a sci- novel a few months back. It started out as an

idea and then grew into a back story. But before I got ahead of myself I had some in-

spiration. Why not share the story with everyone else out there and see what oth-

er people can come up with. In effect let everyone have the chance to write a part

of this book. So that is what I’ve decided to do with a little help from Scribd.com.

On the next few pages I have uploaded the beginning of the book. This is how I envision

it starting. It has only a few clues to what might lie ahead but opens up many possibili-

ties. That’s the part where you come in. I’m inviting you to help make this book. Word-press is a pretty amazing platform that it allows ash, video, music, images and much

more to be uploaded. So the content of whatever you choose to create is entirely up to

you. Maybe you want to make the rst paragraph into a short ash animation? Maybe

you like the idea of creating a sketch of one of the characters? Or maybe you think you

have a brilliant idea for the next part of the book. Whatever it is, I say do it! Hopefully we

can all inspire each other to do new things, and the book will develop as time goes on.

The story, as with most creative things, must be edited in some way (maybe you have editing

experience and you want to participate in that!?) but for now I’m just going to say, get crea -

tive, send me an email and maybe I can help. But should enough people participate, I eventu-

ally intend to create a site entirely dedicated to this project, so that the book would become

a new kind of experience and whatever you guys send in could be viewed and linked to it.

Which really would be an awesome collection of everyone’s different perceptions of this book

and where they see it going. For now though just feel free to get thinking and drop me a line.

Siany =^_^=

[email protected]



Sian Wadsworth

The Second

A Community Written Experience



1

The Journey to the new colony was to take 14 years. I’d never seen a ship so large or grand

as The 2nd. We boarded in twos; the girl besides me quivering with fear, but resolute all the

same. We had been chosen, of all those who wished to go and we would be the beginning

of the new colony. Once aboard they helped us into the stasis pods, the crew working quickly

and silently to get the job done. I looked around intrigued at the size of the interior. We were

in an enormous cargo bay to the rear of the ship. It had thousands upon thousands of pods,

but these took up only a quarter of the room. The rest were I assumed, supplies for once we

arrived. I turned around but could no longer see the girl who I’d been paired with. I musthave wandered off whilst taking in the scale of the project. A guard saw me and stopped,

“Name.” He asked, matter of factly.

“Barker,” I replied. “Samuel Barker.”

He looked at the ships manifest. The screen of the small B-180 was ashing, he looked

puzzled for a moment and then alert. He waved me off to the left “Over there.” He mutteredunder his breath pointing to a pod in the corner, then rushed off in the opposite direction,

rounding the corner at speed. I looked around, and made my way over to the pod, another

guard who was posted there moments before had rushed off too, but I’d used pods before.

Climbing in, I lay down on the sterile white sheets on the oor of the pod. It was big enough

to sit up in but still very cramped, but then I’d be asleep anyway, I thought, so really it didn’t

matter what the pod was like. It was only for appearances. The 2nd Project was a huge deal

for the Governors and the media were all over it. Everyone on the planet knew what the ship

looked like, inside and out. I shut the door and pressed the clamp release, to engage the sys-

tem. The door sealed and then the pod-drive took over. There was an integrated Panel on the

left hand side that showed the pod system booting up. It waited for me to strap myself in, and

lay down, knowing by the weight distribution when I was ready. The last thing I remember was

hearing a faint banging noise and then I was fast asleep. On the outside, the cryo-gas could

be seen lling my pod, freezing in mid-air, the cracks of the ice forming all over the window.

13 years, 22 days, 3 hours and 26 seconds later I awoke, alone.



* * *

The tiny circular light ashed once, red. A few seconds later it lit up again,

this time an amber shade and it stayed on for what seemed like more than a sec-

ond. Then nally the light ashed green and steadied until it was permanently on.

Kayla could not even remember who or where she was, let alone fathom why this small light

was ickering at her. Yet she knew it was important; that it meant she needed to do something.

Awake. That had been her rst thought. I’m awake. She’d opened her eyes, squinting as hervision blurring in front of her. Her eyes ached from the light as she tried to open them further.

As she gradually began to focus she saw a huge black screen in front of her, and it was next

to this that she’d seen the light. Now that she was starting to see more clearly she was notic-

ing more. The black screen in front of her, wasn’t black after all. At the top in blue letters read

the words ‘System On: Waiting for Validation.’ It was the last thing she saw before she felt her

sight beginning to blur again. She felt so sleepy, she thought to herself, maybe she should just

rest for a while. She let herself drift off, her head drooping to one side in the chair in which

she sat. She didn’t notice the dark crimson stain that was spreading across her shoulder.

* * *

The ship was deathly silent and pitch black. Not a thing stirred, not a breathe of air moved,

the ship was stagnant and stale and still. It took a moment for me to realise where I was. Con-

fusion set in quickly; where were the guards? Shouldn’t someone be here to help me out of

the pod? For that matter why couldn’t I hear anything, anyone? I tried to sit up but felt dizzy;

the after effects of the gas I supposed. I felt around for the panel to release the door. It should

have been lit up, I thought. My ngers slowly probed along the wall until they touched the semi

glossy plastic of the touch panel which controlled the pod. One of the rst things we learnt in

training for this mission was that in the pod, the top right button was for use in emergencies only.



Despite outwardly seeming very calm and quiet, on the inside I was panicking badly. None

of this felt right at all, none of it was what I’d been trained for. If this wasn’t an emergency I

didn’t know what was. Five years it had taken, once selected. Five years of vigorous, non-stop

training irrespective of age or ability. For those under the age of 12 it was the basics: survival,

defence, tness and education. For those over it also included combat, technical, mechanicaland medical knowledge and leadership and teaching skills. Everyone was required to play

their part on this mission and you had to be ready to take responsibility at any one time.

Nothing was happening. I pushed the button over and over but the panel was dead.

My eyes had adjusted to the darkness now. Flipping myself over onto my stomach I peered

out of the pod’s window. The ship was completely silent; there was no light or movement

out there. The overwhelming urge to scream came over me but I knew it would do no use. I

had to try to stay calm. I began to talk to myself, the sound of my voice cut sharply through

the silence. It scared me more than anything but was oddly comforting at the same time.

“Come on Sam, there has to be a way out of this. Think. What would the commander do?”

* * *

In a more remote part of the ship, down a long dark corridor, there stood a large, steel door

barred, locked, bolted and wired. On the front of the door where two letters inscribed into

the metal: K.I. Inside lay the heart of the ship, its core systems and wiring. The wires ran off in

all directions from the room connecting systems throughout the ship. And it was down one of

these particular wires that a current now ran from a small pod in one of the ve cargo baysdotted around the ship. The current reached the control room and ran into a large terminal

which promptly reacted and made a short ‘bleep’, whilst switching on a small red ashing light.

It was this faint noise that awoke Kayla once again from her short sleep. She peered at the

screen, her head still foggy. The main system panel was still waiting for her I.D code but in ad-

dition a new red light winked at her from one of the other terminals on her right. It was the secu-

rity panel and it showed up either sound or movement in certain areas that might be restricted.

Kayla peered at the panel more closely; it looked like it was coming from the Captains pod.



Whilst she was peering at the panel, a tiny drop of blood had been making its way

down the side of her cheek and, stopping at her chin for only the briefest of moments it

dripped onto the surface in front of her. Kayla saw it and froze. She reached her hand up

slowly to her forehead and felt a warm, sticky mess there amongst her hair and the wires.

The shock of it brought her out of the foggy state she’d been in and she began to real-ise that she was in trouble, they were all in trouble. She was on The 2nd and something

had gone terribly wrong. Why was she bleeding, why were the ships systems all on stand-

by, why was the security light showing a breech in the Captains pod and...she paused

noticing the silence of the ship. No engines, she thought, Where in the HECK are we?

First things rst, she had to activate the system before she could nd out what was

wrong. If someone was awake down in the pod system then she had to get them out

now. If she didn’t activate the system within the next a certain amount of time after the

sensor was triggered, the panel would automatically shut down that section; effective-

ly sealing the pod and in no uncertain terms, killing whoever or whatever was inside.

She quickly keyed in her pass-code unlocking the terminal and began to boot the sys-

tem; a process that could take up ve minutes, she only hoped she had enough time.

* * *

I had almost given up. No-one was out there, I was completely alone on a large spaceship

which could be absolutely anywhere in the galaxy. I had to get out of this pod before the real-

ity of it all made me go crazy. I turned myself round again and tried kicking the door with myfeet. I pushed against the walls, using them as leverage but it was no use. The door was sealed

tight. My chest started to hurt; an odd burning sensation in my lungs. Was it my imagination or

was the air getting thin? I’m going to die in this pod, I thought and I can’t even see the stars.

* * *



Three minutes later and the system had nished booting up, or at least it had done all that it

could. It was obvious that parts of the ship were damaged in some way but Kayla couldn’t tell

how. The one thing she could see however was that the monitors showed only one other life-sign

apart from hers. That didn’t mean necessarily that anything had happened to the crew, but it did

mean that as of now, only one of them was awake. That it should be the Captain’s pod seemed

like a stroke of luck at rst, but Kayla’s memory of before was still foggy and she had an old

feeling in her stomach about that particular pod. Something wasn’t quite right but she couldn’t

put her nger on it. Unfortunately Kayla couldn’t always follow her instincts; she was in part at-

tached to the ships mainframe and together her mind and the ships forged an intelligence system

called K.I. Without any evidence to support her gut feelings, Kayla’s nger pressed the sequence

of buttons needed to open the pod. She only hoped that whatever was in there was friendly.

* * *

I was suffocating, I knew that much, very slowly suffocating. I didn’t want my last view to be

of this small, bare, impersonal stasis pod, so I heave myself over to the window and rested my

head against it. Everything was getting heavy: my body, my head, my eyes. I heard a faint,

far off click come from somewhere nearby and in my nal thoughts I hoped against it all that

someone might be coming to rescue me.

As I drifted off and my mind went slowly blank, I could feeling my body falling; or was it my

soul rising away from its anchor in this life? I wondered. How very philosophical of me. Then

out of no where, pain and darkness.

If I was dead, I shouldn’t feel pain, my brain thought logically. What if I were in hell? I

asked myself and then promptly dismissed the notion as too frightening to bare thinking about.

I opened my eyes or at least I tried; everything was still black, so it was hard to tell at rst. I

felt around me, my limbs still not responding properly. I was denitely still breathing; my lungs

ached as my body fed them the oxygen they had so desperately desired just moments before.

I didn’t think I was still in my pod; my cell. The ground felt different, harder and gritty. My eyes

were adjusting again now, I was on the oor I knew that much. Pushing myself up and onto my

hands and knees I looked up. The hanger bay, that’s where I was, the door to my pod stood

ajar above my head. I’d fallen out onto the oor below and from the pain in my temple I knew



I’d had a rough landing.

The ship was still quiet, I was still quite alone. Putting my hand to my head I felt for blood

but found only a hard, round lump forming underneath the skin. I rubbed it hard in the vain

hope that it might feel better: an action which my mother had instilled into me from a young

age. Moving still hurt but I pushed myself up onto my feet anyway. How did I get out? I asked

myself, my mind trying to comprehend what seemed utterly incomprehensible. If the ship were

dead, as it seemed to be and no-one else was either alive or awake, then how did the power

come on? I had to nd what was going on, if only to know what options I had.

* * *

Ten minutes later and Kayla had managed to get the core systems online. Without them she

was blind. The life support system had thankfully been running on the backup drive which was

used as a fail-safe. If it hadn’t kicked in they would all be dead by now. As a repercussion

of this though, the fail-safe had also put the ship into lock down and it was going to take at

least two hours for Kayla to over-ride and reboot each master system due to the damage the

ship had obviously taken. She had on-board sensors working however and control of a limited

number of doors, corridors and rooms scattered about the ship.

As a result she could clearly see one red dot in hangar bay one which represented a living

entity. For now she couldn’t tell what it was, only that it was alive and on the move. It was mak-

ing its way towards the exit doors at the end of the hanger. It moved slowly, pausing now and

again; to check on the other pods perhaps? If this was the Captain, she could certainly usewhatever intelligence he might pick up en-route about the state of the ship. With that thought

she released the door in the hanger. They might be roaming freely but if she could direct them

along the ship, guiding them through and around the damaged sections, they might have a

better chance. As much as she was frightened by who or what they might be, she also needed

them, more than she would like to admit. The pain in her head was getting worse and she

knew she was bleeding badly from somewhere. She just needed to hang on for a bit longer.



* * *

The noise of the hanger bay door rising suddenly in front of me seemed to echoed around

the room even after the door had stopped moving. The ship was so deathly quiet that any

noise, any movement was almost painful to my ears. Adrenaline pumped rapidly through my

body readying me for what might be on the other side. Were there others on board? Had we

encountered some other race? Had we been attacked? There were so many questions in my

mind, but I had the only answer I needed. There was no one else there, the door had opened

but not from the other side. Whether it was a sensor or a malfunction, I didn’t know but I still

stood in the hangar bay entirely alone.

Without realising what I was doing, I walked over to the door and slid up against the wall

on the right hand side. Peering around the corner carefully I checked both directions, nothing.

It was a comfort to be using the skills we’d been taught, it felt like I was more in control. I real-

ised at that point that should anyone else be on board and be hostile, I didn’t have anything

to defend myself with. I needed to nd a weapons locker; that should be my rst priority. Re -

membering the schematics of the ship in my mind, I knew that at the end of each main corridor

there should be two lockers side by side: one was medical supplies, the other weaponry.

The cylindrical form of the corridors was a relief after the vastness of the open hangar bay. I

crept along the metal walkway in the centre of the corridor as quietly as possible, still on guard

against any intruders. Reaching the doorway at the end of the hallway I found the lockers and

pried them both open; I didn’t know what to expect on this ship so needed to be as prepared

as possible. Along with a few food packs, drink sachets, a handful of medi-pens and a blan-

ket, I also found a small pulse gun and pocket knife which I promptly stored in my right boot.

It wasn’t much but it made me feel better just knowing I had it all.

I looked above the lockers where a info panel was integrated into the curved wall. For a

moment I thought it was working, then I realised that the movement had been my own body

reected in the liquid black glass. I reached up to touch it, hopeful that it was in sleep mode,

but it didn’t react. If the power wasn’t getting to this part of the ship then I didn’t know how I

was supposed to open the door in front of me. I started back in the other direction, from what I

could remember the right corridor I had originally taken would lead me straight up to the Hub;the central space in which the whole ship could be controlled and directed. The left corridor,

which I was now going down would lead me further into the ship itself, passing the rest of the



hangar bays, the engine rooms and the core systems areas which were protected. I needed to

nd another way to the hub.

the second project

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