The Cloud

by Daniel Boshoff

  She gave him a blank look.

  He shrugged and continued, “The Mind it does taking one member from each family. They are the Taken. The Taken they do belong to the Mind, and it does controlling them. The Mind does using the Taken to watching the People, to making sure they do not breaking the rules or trying to making new things or leaving the Colony. If one of the People does doing any of those things the Taken will putting them inside the Tall Hut and we will never seeing them again!”

  “The Tall Hut?”

  “It is being a hut, but very tall, in the middle of the Colony. The Mind does living in there, and it can always watching every people in the Colony from up in the Tall Hut.”

  “And the people who break the rules, who go into this tall hut, what happens to them?”

  Bob shrugged. “Nobody does knowing.”

  Evelyn pondered what he had told her with a frown. She was finding that the more she learned about this place, the less she understood what was going on. “Those people at the river, the ones who shot my friends. They were the Taken?”

  Bob nodded grimly. “It is being bad to be Taken. Very bad … Ah, here are your very clever friends!” He led her into the clearing, and in the light of the moon Evelyn could immediately tell something was not right.

  Her companions were all huddled around something on the floor. They turned when they heard Bob's unfamiliar voice and Matthew whipped around with his blaster at the ready.

  “What the …?”

  “It's okay,” Evelyn said, holding up her hands. “He's friendly.”

  “Looks like an 'it' to me ...” Kenji mumbled.

  Without taking his eyes or his weapon off of Bob Matthew demanded, rather harshly,“Where were you? You've been gone for ages.”

  “What happened here?” Evelyn asked, not yet ready to talk about her experience with Holly.

  “It's Nelson.” Clove said, her voice shaky. “He's dead.”

  Matthew finally lowered his blaster and turned to Evelyn. “She killed him.” He said. “The AI killed him.”

  “No!” Evelyn rushed to where Nelson lay on the ground. His face had turned a sickly purple color and his tongue was swollen. He'd been strangled. “No …” she repeated, hanging her head. “I-I thought I … I tried to ...”

  She felt a hand on her back, and turned to find Clove looking down at her. Evelyn could see she'd been crying. “Don't blame yourself, Evelyn. If it wasn't for you she'd have gotten me too.”

  Evelyn's eyes went to Clove's neck, where finger-shaped bruises were already blooming on her caramel skin. Clove squeezed her shoulder gratefully and gave a weak smile.

  Evelyn couldn't take it. She didn't deserve this reassurance. She wasn't the one who'd been attacked. She should be the one offering comfort.

  She stood up and walked away, staring into the trees.

  “Evelyn,” Matthew's voice followed her. “You said you were going after Holly. Was she here? Did she leave the shuttle?”

  She could only nod.

  “And? Did you find her?”

  Again a nod. She clenched her jaw against the tears that were threatening to come, knowing the question he would ask next, and knowing she wouldn't be able to hold back the flood.

  She heard his footsteps beside her. “She's dead, too, isn't she?”

  The tears started falling as she nodded a third time.

  Matthew stood beside her and didn't say anything.

  Grateful for his patience, Evelyn tried to get herself under control.

  “Tell me what happened,” he asked, after she had drawn a steadying breath.

  “You remember the elephant? How that weird black stuff came out of it? And those people at the river when they … when we ...”

  “Yeah, yeah I remember.”

  “It got to her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It got into Holly. It got into her head.”

  He looked at her, frowning. “What did it do?”

  “It made her do things she didn't want to do. She was trying to make me follow her somewhere, and then, when I wouldn't, she tried to stab herself.”

  “Huh? That's crazy.”

  “It wasn't her.”

  “So you think this black mist stuff was controlling her?”

  “I don't think. I know.”

  “How? I mean, how do you know it wasn't just her?”

  “I saw it, when she died. It came out of her. And I could see it in her eyes, before. They were the same as the elephant's: completely black.”

  Matthew rubbed his chin and thought for a minute. “So, back at the river, when that black stuff rushed at you, do you think any of it … you know, went into you?” He looked at her suspiciously.

  “What? No! It can't get into our suits.”

  “Right. I wonder how it got to Holly ...”

  Evelyn had been wondering the same thing. “It must have been when the elephant had her. She wasn't wearing a suit. Maybe it hid out in her body until it was ready to … use her.”

  “And she was alone on the shuttle with Brenner ...” Their eyes met, and Evelyn saw her worry reflected in his.

  “We have to go back.”

  He nodded, and together they turned and walked to where Clove and Kenji were gawking at Bob, who stood awkwardly to one side.

  “Who's the crazy dude?” Matthew whispered.

  “His name's Bob.”

  He shook his head and sighed. “Of course it is. This place … man.”

  “He knows about the black mist. He told me about the people who live here. I think he can help us.”

  Matthew looked doubtful. “Help us? With what? I mean, what are we supposed to do now? Nelson … and Holly. God, this whole thing has turned into a nightmare.”

  “We just need to try to stay alive for now.” Evelyn replied, looking around at Clove and Kenji. They looked miserable. She could see that they were close to giving up. She couldn't let that happen. They needed a plan, something to work towards. “Bob, he lives out here, he can help us find food. We need to eat, and we need to get back to the shuttle and check on Brenner.”

  “Food ...” Kenji said dreamily, nodding his head as though in a trance.

  “That freaking AI is still out there,” Matthew pointed out. “We can't stay at the shuttle … What was Reyner thinking, sending that thing with us? It's obviously programmed wrong or something. It's been out to get us since we got here, tossing our food, messing with the wiring … I knew there was something off about Seren, right from the start!”

  Evelyn could see that the ranting was helping him vent his panic. She waited until he was finished. “Okay,” she said when he seemed done. “So we'll go to the shuttle, get Brenner, and then ask Bob to take us somewhere safe. Can you do that, Bob?”

  Bob smiled shyly and came forward. “Yes! I do having a very safe place. Very very safe.” He looked around nervously, as though suspicious of being watched from the trees. “But we must being quick. Quick quick quick. The Mind will be looking, looking for us.”

  “Great, but first we need to go back to our … big hut, to get our friend. Can you take us?”

  Bob seemed excited by this. “Yes yes yes! Another very clever friend you do having? Very good!”

  Kenji gave Evelyn a look that said ‘this guy's crazy’.

  “What about Nelson?” Clove said, looking over to where the South African lay.

  “We can't do anything for him, Clove,” Evelyn answered.

  She glared at her. “You want to just leave him there?”

  Suddenly Evelyn felt angry. “Holly's also lying dead just through those trees. I've already had to leave her there. We don't have time to do anything for Nelson. Right now we need to worry about ourselves, or we'll end up the same way.”

  Clove's lip quivered. She turned away and went to sit by Nelson's body.

  “Clove ...” Matthew said softly, glancing at Evelyn. “We need to go.”

  “Shut up, I'm saying a prayer.” She bent her head over Nel
son, placing her hands together, and began speaking in a low voice.

  The others looked at each other, and one by one they went to join her. Clove raised her head and met each of their eyes gratefully. When she was finished she took a deep breath.

  “Okay, let's go.”

  Matthew nodded.

  Feeling guilty for her quick words a moment ago, Evelyn thought to herself that Clove was somebody very special. With one last look at Nelson, she followed Bob and the others into the trees, wondering if Seren was watching them.

  15

  Bob set a quick pace through the woods, which were beginning to come alive with birdsong as somewhere out there the shy morning sun peaked over the horizon, still wary of the receding night. Tendrils of mist hung here and there among the tree trunks, and fireflies flitted in and out of the forest canopy above. It was like a scene from a dream, Evelyn though – though perhaps that was only due to her lack of sleep. She looked around at the others, taking in the shadows beneath their eyes and their faraway expressions. They needed rest, all of them, just as badly as they needed food.

  Suddenly they entered a bog, and as they squelched through the mud Kenji groaned. “Whatever Reyner was planning to do to everyone back on Earth, it can't have been much worse than this.”

  Finally they cleared the trees and came to the grassy field where InDi had come to earth. The sky above them was pink, streaked with purple clouds. The shuttle seemed undisturbed, and the large butterflies and birds swooping among the long grass made it seem like nothing sinister could possibly happen here. Evelyn knew this was just an illusion. She'd spent part of the walk thinking about Brenner: Holly had been possessed by this Mind thing while she was in the shuttle alone with Brenner, and she remembered only too well what she had said about not allowing any of the others to live.

  As they neared the shuttle she felt the dread mounting in her chest, and knew the others felt it too.

  They stopped outside the door.

  “I'll go,” Matthew volunteered.

  “No, let me come with you.” Evelyn knew that whatever they found in there, it would be easier to face it with company.

  He nodded and pressed the button for the airlock. The door hummed open, and they climbed inside.

  Evelyn found herself tapping her foot nervously as she waited for the chamber to pressurize.

  The inner door opened.

  “Brenner?” She called hopefully. There was no answer.

  They both stepped into the chamber and looked around. Brenner wasn't in the room.

  “Hello?” Matthew called loudly. “Brenner, are you here?”

  “I'll go look upstairs,” Evelyn said when there was no response.

  “Right. I'll, um, I'll check down here.” He indicated the other rooms.

  “Yeah, okay,” Evelyn nodded, not moving.

  Both of them understood that they were looking for a body. Neither of them seemed eager to move from the elevator.

  Matthew turned to her. “Listen, Evelyn, about just now, in the clearing, when I … I was kind of ranting.”

  “You're just tired. I am too.”

  “Well, look, I just wanted you to know that I'm grateful. You're the only one keeping us all together and I wasn't helping by going off like that.”

  Evelyn put a hand on his arm. “Matthew, it's okay.”

  He nodded. “Okay.” He looked at her hand and cleared his throat. “Well … um, better take a look around.” He moved away from her, breaking the contact, and Evelyn's hand fell back to her side.

  As she walked to the ladder leading to the upper section of InDi's interior, she found herself thinking about the color of Matthew's eyes. They were the exact same color as dark chocolate. She shook the thought from her mind and climbed the ladder. The upper deck appeared as deserted as down below. She checked each of the pods. There was no sign of Brenner, so she returned down the ladder, frowning.

  “Anything?”

  Matthew shook his head. “Her suit's still here.”

  “Maybe she didn't have a chance to get it. Maybe Holly tried to ...”She left the sentence unfinished

  “Look, if she got out then at least there's a chance she might still be alive.”

  “She won't know where to find us.”

  “Then we'll leave a note in case she comes back. I'm sure there's paper or something in here.” Matthew went back into the storage room and began rummaging around.

  “Okay ...” Evelyn wanted to go and look for Brenner, search the woods, but she knew she had to get the others to safety first.

  “Here, I found a marker. We can write on the floor. What should we say?”

  “Tell her … Tell her to wait here, that we'll be back soon.”

  Matthew wrote down her instructions.

  “Let's get going,” Evelyn said when he was done, “the others will be getting worried.” Despite her lack of sleep and food, the constant anxious energy coursing through her body was making her feel restless. She wanted to get the others to Bob's 'very very safe place' and return to InDi as soon as possible. Seren was still out there; she wanted to find Brenner before the AI did. She could only hope it wasn't already too late.

  They exited the shuttle and found the others clustered tensely around the door. Clove and Kenji looked at them expectantly as they hopped down to the grass.

  “No sign of her,” Matthew said.

  Clove shivered, though the morning was already beginning to warm up. “Do you think she's …?”

  “We think she's alive.” Matthew smiled encouragingly. “We left her a message saying we'll be back soon and to wait here for us.”

  Clove nodded. Evelyn could tell she didn't really believe Matthew's words of comfort. Clove knew just as well as the rest of them that if Brenner was alone out in the woods somewhere she probably wouldn't survive long.

  “Let's go,” she said.

  “Yo, Mr Wolf Skin Dude, I hope you've got some food at this very safe place of yours,” Kenji said to Bob as they headed for the woods.

  “Oh yes, yes very good food I am having, you will seeing.”

  As she walked Evelyn finally began to realize just how tired she was. Her protective suit seemed to be getting heavier with every step. “How far is it, Bob?”

  “Not far. Not far.”

  “And you're sure this Mind thing won't find us there?”

  “Yes, too far away from the Tall Hut, the Mind cannot seeing us there! Even the Taken cannot going that far.”

  Matthew gave Evelyn a curious look. “The Mind? The Tall Hut?”

  “The Mind is what he calls that black stuff. The Tall Hut is apparently some kind of a tower in the middle of a place he calls the Colony, somewhere near that mountain.”

  Matthew nodded. “Huh. Man, I bet Reyner never expected Janus to be like this.”

  “Reyner lied to us. Who knows what he expected?”

  “Yeah ...” They walked on in silence for several minutes, glancing sharply into the trees every now and then when some startled creature dashed off in fear. Evelyn saw something that resembled a deer, but with a longer, droopier nose, almost like a shortened elephant's trunk. It watched the group silently for a moment, then turned and bolted when they drew too near. Her eyes followed it through the greenery, and fell on something completely out-of-place. “Guys, what the hell is that?”

  The others stopped and turned to follow her gaze to where a strange dome rose up from the ground like a massive boulder. It was covered in moss and creepers, but beneath the foliage it's surface was still discernible as something synthetic.

  “I dunno what it is,” Kenji replied unhelpfully, “but what it ain't is a chicken dinner … let's keep going.”

  Bob, noticing Evelyn's curiosity, walked back down the line. “Ah, this is another big hut just like your big hut, but very very bigger! I did not myself seeing this one falling from the sky, but I always did knowing you would coming to looking for your friends ever since I did finding it.”

  “Huh? What friends?
”

  “Come, come and seeing.” Bob beckoned them after him as he hurried towards the strange structure. Even Kenji was curious enough now to follow him.

  When they neared it, Evelyn realized the part she had first seen was only a tiny section of the structure. It lay in an area about the size of a football field, in various bits and pieces.

  “What is it?” Clove asked. “That doesn't look like any space shuttle I've seen ...”

  “Whatever it is, it's been here a while.” Evelyn eyed the large trees that grew between fissures in the structure. They weren't as large as those that made up the surrounding forest that this machine had evidently crashed into, but they had to be at least a few decades old.

  “Maybe it's an alien spacecraft,” Kenji suggested. “Did you ever watch Star Trek? This looks like a Vulcan design, if you ask me.”

  Clove rolled her eyes at him.

  “This way,” Bob ducked into a man-sized opening that had been blasted into the side of the structure at some point or other by something or other, and, after a moment's hesitation, Evelyn and the others followed.

  It was dark inside the structure, but by the rays of light that broke through the cracks and holes in the hull, it became evident that this was indeed some kind of spacecraft, and they were in the bridge. Control and navigation panels covered in dust and moss lined the room they had entered, and several seats were fixed to the floor before them.

  The seats were not empty.

  “Oh my God … are they …?” Clove left the question hanging.

  “If you were going to say 'rotten skeletons' then I think the answer is 'yes',” Kenji replied, then began coughing as Bob started to sweep aside the dust on the floor with his hands.

  “What are you doing, Bob?” Evelyn asked.

  “Come and seeing!” He said excitedly. “This is how I did knowing you would one day coming in your big hut from the stars to looking for your friends.”

  “Guys?” Evelyn said, looking at floor. “Is that what I think it is?”