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An alarm clock no longer woke Albert up in the morning. It would be silent without Z3, either way. It had been three years since the computer refused to stay as their assistant, and left with his plans. Big plans. Plans that were impossible to stall or stop.
However, the clone of Einstein still got up at the same time every morning. He rubbed the seeds from the corners of his eyes as he registered the underground tunnels that his team had been forced to reside in. He stood, and stretched, and headed down one of the ever-stretching caverns for breakfast.
When he was younger, he was usually greeted by the scent of eggs, or scones, or beans. But he'd almost forgotten what that smelled like after the days, weeks, months, and years blended together of sustaining solely on war rations. Rip the top off. Pour in hot water. Wait. Eat straight from the packet. That was what he saw his team doing while they were circled around a small fire.
He sat down next to Churchill, who looked up from his meal to see him, then chuckled. The breach of silence caught everyone's attention. Albert looked at him with an expression that served the purpose of asking him to speak.
“My word, you look more like a soldier than I ever did.”
Albert’s hand, which was reaching for a packet offered to him by Tesla, froze.
“Huh?”
“I was decorated, sure, but I never had the muscles like you.”
The teenager's face reddened, and was only worsened by everyone around him donning a humored smile. It was at this point he remembered that he habitually slept shirtless.
He stood and pardoned himself to go get dressed.
“Oh, come back, son, I was just thinking out loud,” Churchill protested, turning on his seat. However, his voice was too facetious to make Albert return.
Every day, they prepared themselves to sneak around Z3’s conquered domain silently. Sometimes they forgot what they were searching for. It was clues. The only reason this team was still together was to find some sort of way to traverse the annals of history and prevent Z3 from rewriting it in his image.
They split up today.
It was almost comical.
Tesla, Darwin, you go this way… Curie, Tapputi, that way… Albert, Freud… I'll stay here…
You can't stay here by yourself.
I've got a rifle. That's all I need.
Z3’s army is stronger than a goddamned rifle.
Then I'll die. All I've been doing is eating the rations, anywho.
Stubborn old man.
They found nothing. The sun set behind them, and they all returned to the makeshift base with empty hands.
We'll get something tomorrow.
Of course.
Then we can be done with it. We'll all go home.
…
Would our homes still want us?
They all crawled down different stone paths of the tunnels and pursued whatever of their hobbies could be salvaged through war.
Albert got bored plucking the strings of the half-broken guitar he once found in the rubble. It couldn't be tuned, and it was missing two strings, too. Maybe he only kept it because it reminded him of the guitar he used to have… The red one. He got it at his Bar Mitzvah; Freud insisted that he have one. He could still remember the Hebrew he memorized.
He set it down and decided to go bother someone else.
He spotted Darwin sitting at what could barely be called a desk. He was writing.
“What’re’ya working on?” The teen inquired. He picked up one of the knick-knacks that Darwin saved. A jar of sandy water. In the water was a rock covered in dead barnacles.
He set the jar down. What the hell did he keep that for? He could have kept one of those kick-ass monkey skulls with the giant gnarly fangs.
“A new essay.”
“What's it about?”
“The re-... Er… Ah, yes, the reproductive habits of various species of barnacles.”
He said it almost as if it were rehearsed and the words no longer meant anything to him. He held the pen in his hand like he knew only a vague sense of obligation to write.
Albert looked at the paper. It was illegible.
“Maybe you should take a break. It looks like you have writer's block.”
“Good idea.”
Darwin stood, pushing the broken chair away from him, and made it create a noise like a sigh of relief from no longer having to carry his weight. He swiveled his neck, set his hands on his waist to crack his back, but when he lifted his arms over him to stretch them, the resulting event made him freeze.
With a heavy sound of fabric ripping, the sleeves of his brown coat came loose. He relaxed his position to look at them hanging off of his shoulders.
“Embarrassing,” Darwin stated bluntly. Then his head quickly turned to Albert. The boy’s mind clawed for something to say.
“Well, uh, I won't tell anyone if you don't,” He replied sheepishly. That made Darwin laugh. The noise coming from his throat sounded more like a stressed wheeze.
Albert blinked and let the blocks stack themselves in his head. He saw white fur poking out through the torn seams of the old man's jacket. Below his thinning hairline was a thick, sloping brow.
The illegible writing. The muscled arms outgrowing his clothes. The devolving speech. Devolving.
“You're going backwards…” Was heard, very quietly, under his breath.
“Huh?” Darwin grunted. He stopped pulling the brown rags off of him to look at the other teammate.
“You're going backwards.” Was said again, more defiantly.
“... Explain.”
“You're evolving backwards.”
“That can't happen. The tree of life only grows up.”
“Then tell me why I'm seeing Homo Neanderthalensis instead of Sapiens.”
The beast - that's what he was now, Albert thought, - blinked as he tried to understand the words his brain could no longer comprehend.
“I… I don't-...”
Something in Albert’s brain snapped.
There was no way to get back the better life he had when he was younger. Seeing Darwin’s mind rot away in front of him… Was the straw that broke the camel's back.
“You're a goddamn ape now!”
He immediately regretted saying that, but it echoed ten times over down the tunnels, rubbing salt in the wound.
Darwin flinched. His eyes bared fear.
“... Sorry. I'm sorry.” Albert replied instinctively.
“... No, no. I understood that.”
They were interrupted by the echoes of plodding footsteps. Tapputi’s face greeted them when they turned.
“Guys, come on! We're eating good tonight!”
Laid out on the their broken-down table was a large elk. Marie was using one of Tapputi's carving knives to pull thick slabs of meat from its shoulder, and tossing each one onto a rusty grill laid over the fire.
Tesla opted to eat from one of the ration packets. A look of disgust rested on his chewing face.
“Where’d you see that? Nothing can live out here,” Albert asked.
“Nature finds a way,” Curie replied. She set the knife down to throw salt over the steaks.
Freud scrambled from wherever he was hiding and took his seat next to Albert. The proximity made visions of lingerie appear in the clone’s mind, but a sudden epiphany made the thought go away.
He looked around at the Super Science Friends; the title they hadn't called themselves since the war ended, and a different one began.
As Marie worked, the bangs and clunks of her metal gauntlets rang in everyone's ears. It was a temporary solution to her growing problem. She would have to get better protection soon, when they could find enough scrap metal for Tesla to work with. Ignore the problem for too long, and she would hurt the people around her. She had no control over it.
Tesla's hair flowed slowly, surging with electricity, as if it were underwater. His hands had the power to kill. He'd never say it, but it was his fault the deer was in front of them now. It bolted into his view, and startled him, and from his fingertips came the voltage to stop its heart. As he thought about his murder, static hummed in the air. He had no control over it.
Tapputi was the only person who enjoyed Freud’s company anymore. Their perversion knew no boundaries, their powers founded on the uncontrollable sexual urges of mankind. Everyone Freud came into contact became victim to their most primitive desires. He had no control over it. Tapputi didn't mind.
Churchill stared at the fire with heavy eyes. His shoulders slumped with the burden of knowing he'd failed his country… And the world. Nobody knew where he was getting his cigars, but he somehow always had one in his mouth, gathering a heavy cloud of smoke over his head like the thoughts that burdened him. He carried on with the intent of redeeming himself, but he had no control over it.
Albert watched the tendons in his arm rise and fall as he stressed his muscles. He changed, too. His world was seen through an instinctually squinted eye, covered by a deep, red scar. He was seventeen, but never had time to think about how he was forced to mature past what his mind and body were capable of.
Unlike the people around him, however, there was the light of hope in him that the core years of his life wouldn't have to be saddled by the fear of dictatorship. His teammates had all past their prime. They wouldn't be able to savor liberation.
He could, and he vowed that he would.