The Last of the Firsts

by G J Ogden

  “What about the…” Summer paused and swallowed hard, “about the...”

  “From the results I have been able to gather here, the baby so far appears to be unaffected.”

  “I see,” said Summer, flatly. Her skin had turned white, and starkly contrasted against the vivid red hair that clung to her cheeks and forehead like tiny veins, but her expression was blank. “Thank you for telling me plainly, Gaia.”

  “No, wait!” Ethan interrupted, feeling suddenly desperate. “I told you that I had an idea. My blood may not contain the key, but there is someone else who perhaps could be.” He could see that Summer had resigned herself to her fate already, and he wouldn’t allow her to just give up.

  “Who is this person?” asked Gaia with interest.

  “The old hermit! Gaia, remember I told you about the hermit? He is the man who told me about your sub-surface city. He is older than anyone I’ve ever known, and he knows things; things that no other planetsider knows. If there is a key to surviving the Maddening, he must be it!”

  “Ethan, there is nothing to suggest that age has any correlation to levels of resistance,” said Gaia. She could sense Ethan’s desperation, and his need to keep hope alive. She did not want to squash that hope, but neither did she want to encourage Ethan, or Summer for that matter, to foster a belief in something that she could not prove.

  “Gaia, trust me, it’s not just his age,” Ethan continued, undeterred. “He know things about the Fall. He knew about the UEC. There’s something special about him, I know it!”

  Gaia smiled softly. Perhaps some hope, even a fool’s hope, is better than none, she thought. And maybe it would help to give Summer a reason to fight, and to stay alive. She barely knew the young woman, but it was obvious to all that the fire was going out of the tempestuous ranger’s eyes, and that she had no desire to stoke it again.

  “That old fool could be a hundred miles away for all we know,” dismissed Summer. “Don’t waste your time trying to hunt him down again.”

  Ethan shot up and ran to his personal storage cabinet; it was where he stored his ranger clothing, weapons and other effects, and each ranger had one. He tossed tunics and pants out onto the floor, scrabbling around inside, until he found what he was searching for and then rushed back to Gaia, thrusting a small, circular disc into her hand.

  “What is this?” asked Gaia, turning the disc over in her hand and regarding it with curiosity.

  “I have no idea, but the hermit said I could use it find him again, if I needed to.” Ethan remembered that the hermit had suggested Maria would be able to use it, and corrected himself. “I actually think he meant that someone with pre-Fall technology could use it, like you.”

  “It looks like a transponder of some kind,” said Gaia, and from the tone of her voice, it sounded like she’d just found treasure. “I will need to ask Tyler to look it over. How did he come to be in possession of such an object?”

  “I told you, there’s something unique about that old guy.”

  Gaia slipped the disc into her coat and turned to her two sisters. “Yuna, Zoie, come with me, we have work to do.” Then she looked back down at Summer with the intention of speaking to her, but her face was turned away. Instead, she glanced at Ethan, and said to her daughters, “We also need to give these two some space.”

  Gaia picked two heavy ranger’s overcoats from a rack close to the door and handed them to her daughters, who gratefully put them on. Then she held the door open while Zoie and Yuna exited and gave Ethan one last, encouraging look, before leaving herself and closing the door behind her.

  The cold wind crept inside and whipped around the ranger hut, but neither Ethan nor Summer reacted to it. Ethan went to the stove and poured two mugs of the herbal tea, adding an additional spoonful of honey to each, and then went to sit opposite Summer. He held out one of the mugs to her, and wordlessly she accepted it and took a sip of the sweet, hot liquid.

  “You shouldn’t waste your time trying to find a cure,” she said, looking at him through the steam rising from the mug. “This is just the planet’s way of telling me that I’m not strong enough to survive.”

  “You don’t believe that, Summer,” said Ethan. He took care to remain calm and reasonable, because despite his growing dismay at Summer’s pursuit of self-destruction, he knew that getting angry would just give her another excuse to drive them further apart.

  “It’s no more than I deserve, Ethan. Gaia should just let me turn, and become one of those things.”

  “You have to stop punishing yourself for what happened,” said Ethan, and though his voice was steady, the blood was coursing through his veins like he was fighting for his life. “We have to look to the future now.”

  “I don’t care about the future, Ethan. I wish things could be the way they were, before they came. We were happy then, Ethan, don’t you remember?”

  “I remember, yes,” said Ethan, solemnly, and he also took a sip of the tea, “but we can’t go back, and we can’t change what happened. We still have each other; we’re going to be a family, Summer.”

  She looked away. “You have to forget that now. We both know I’m going to die before this child is born.”

  “No, that won’t happen.” Ethan’s composure was starting to buckle.

  “You’re fooling yourself, Ethan. Even if I survive long enough, I’m dead all the same,” Summer went on. This had been implied in Gaia’s analysis, but hearing Summer speak the words out loud gave it a chilling reality. “We’re still never going to be a family, can’t you see that?” Then she hit him with the coldest words he’d ever heard her speak. “Why would you want us to bring a child into this festering world, anyway? What could we offer but a life of misery and darkness and pain? It would be kinder to let it die with me.”

  Ethan’s hands tightened around the metal mug, adding so much pressure that it buckled and bent in, the heat searing his fingers and palms. He clenched his teeth, fighting the urge to hit back against her hurtful words, because he knew he would just end up hurting her more. She had been hurt enough, already; they both had been. He breathed deeply and slowly and then, his hands shaking, placed the mug on the bench beside him, spilling most of the contents. He got up and moved to the door; he did not look at Summer and she did not look at him. He took a coat and pulled it on, then he grabbed hold of the door handle, again gripping so fiercely that the wood threatened to snap.

  “I’m not giving up, even if you have. I’m going to find the hermit and I’m going to find a way to beat the Maddening.”

  He pulled open the door and resolved to leave, but then he stopped. The wind whistled through the opening, spreading a chill into the room like long, icy fingers.

  “Love.” Ethan glanced back at Summer, and saw that she was looking at him, if only through the corner of an eye, shrouded by wispy strands of flame-red hair. “You asked what we could offer a child and the answer is love. The same love you gave to Elijah. I don’t know what more a child could possibly want, or need.”

  He stepped out into the rain and darkness. The door banged shut, dulling the rumble of the storm that was fading further into the distance. But there was another storm building, this time inside Summer. She could feel her blood pulsing harder and faster as the anger came in waves, each one stronger than the last, swirling around in her gut. She launched the mug across the room, hearing it clatter against the stove, and then threw herself back against the wall of the cramped wooden hut and pounded the slatted bench with her fists until the wood cracked and her hands bled. She thought she had built the walls around her high enough that nothing could get through, but Ethan had found a weakness, as he always could. She tried to ignore his words, to convince herself that she was right and that death was more than she deserved, but the embers of the fire that once burned in her belly were glowing hot again, and she could not put them out.

  Chapter 11

  Maria knelt down next to the access panel and flipped open the screen of her PVSM. They had na
vigated through the cramped engineering space for the last twenty minutes, looking for an appropriately secluded position from which to emerge into the training sector, close to the small campus where Ashley Jansen taught her classes.

  “How does it look?” said Page.

  Maria adjusted a few settings and studied the readout closely. “This should bring us out into a service area behind one of the habitat blocks. It’s still some way from the campus, but it should be pretty deserted.”

  “Okay then…” said Page, and then he shuffled beside Maria and started to unscrew the bolts that held the access panel in place. “I hope you’re right about this Jansen person. Since this sector is mainly for Flying Corps personnel, I expect Kurren would have made sure it was crawling with blue boots.”

  “Maybe you can convince some of your former friends to join us?” said Maria, working on one of the other screws. She was only half-joking; turning some of the Security Corps to their side would be an enormous advantage.

  Page pocketed the first screw and moved on to the next. “I wish that were possible,” he sighed. “unfortunately, Kurren and Darien assigned commanders to each sector, all of whom were loyal to one or the other.”

  “But, surely not all of the blue boots bought into Kurren’s lies?” replied Maria, though her tone was more hopeful than expectant.

  “No, the peace process did have support, but Kurren had a lot of influence, and he must have somehow falsified records and evidence to back up his claims.” Page removed the final screw and added it to his collection. “I think once word gets out about what happened planetside, and that you’re back, things might start to unravel for Darien and Kuba. But it would be a risk to directly approach any of the sector commanders at this stage.”

  Maria and Page each took hold of one side of the access panel and lifted it down onto the deck. Beyond it was a yard, filled with reclamation containers and litter, surrounded by a thin mesh fence. Maria cautiously poked her head through the opening to check the corners, but the area was deserted, as she had predicted.

  “Well, it looks like Ashley Jansen is our best shot then,” said Maria. She extended a hand to the open hatchway. “After you…”

  Page frowned, but accepted the invitation to take the lead and squeezed through the narrow opening into the yard. The ambient light level in the sector was reduced, simulating early evening. Maria emerged beside him and caught him staring up at the dome.

  “Something the matter?”

  “No, it just seems strange, that’s all,” said Page.

  Maria frowned. “Strange to be back on the base?”

  “The light, I mean. It’s just so, I don’t know… artificial.” He lowered his head and looked into Maria’s half-scrunched up eyes. “Compared to the planet, it’s just so fake. The light, the air, even how my body feels up here. Do you not feel it too?”

  The lines around Maria’s eyes disappeared and she smiled. She remembered the first time she had set foot on the planet and how the wind during that cool night had literally stolen her breath away. She had never forgotten it, nor experienced anything quite so visceral since. Page was right; everything about the moon base was fake, right down to their society, which was just a miniature replica of the civilization that had existed before the refinery incident – or ‘the Fall’ as the planetsiders called it. The moon base may have retained the technology and the knowledge, but in every other way they had stopped evolving the moment the planet was bombarded to near annihilation. They had been stuck in a feedback loop and it needed to end if they were to ever grow beyond the narrow-minded people that they were.

  “I know exactly what you mean, old man,” said Maria, and then she instantly realized her slip, and her smile faded as bittersweet memories flashed through her head.

  Page folded his arms. “I may not look it, but I’m pretty sure I’m younger than you, Sal,” he said, clearly affronted.

  Maria took a deep breath and smiled again. “Forget about it. Though, for what it’s worth, it was a compliment.”

  Page unfolded his arms, but still regarded Maria, quizzically. “If you say so, boss. So, what’s our next move?”

  Maria removed the screws from her pockets and held them out in her palm. “First, we replace this hatch, and then we try to figure out where the hell we are.”

  They quickly fixed the access panel back in place and dusted themselves off, though given the amount of dirt and grime that still coated their clothes, they may as well not have bothered. Maria then edged along the wall, keeping in the shadows, and cautiously approached the fence that enclosed the grubby yard. It was adjacent to a narrow alley that lead onto one of the main streets in the sector. She could see people and vehicles passing the entrance to the alley, going about their usual business. She looked down at her clothes, which had been given to her by the engineers and scientists in the sub-surface engineering complex back on the planet. In addition to being filthy, they were torn and bloodied in places, and also completely unlike anything that was worn on the UEC base.

  “We’re going to need to get something more appropriate to wear,” said Maria.

  Page stepped up to the fence and peered down the alley. Then he looked up at the building that loomed over them at the other side of the yard. “This is a habitat block. If we can break into the basement level, I’m sure we’ll find some UEC uniforms that have been processed, waiting for collection by the residents.”

  Maria felt a sudden rush of anger. “Can’t we find something other than a UEC uniform? I swore I’d never wear that emblem again.”

  “I’m afraid we don’t have much choice, Sal,” he said, empathizing with her feelings. “We can hardly go walking around the sector looking like this.”

  “Fine…” said Maria, in a way that made it clear that it was very far from fine. “But once this is over, I’m burning it.”

  Page laughed. “Deal. Though, make sure you’ve found something else to wear first, okay?”

  “Very funny,” said Maria, smirking. “Anyway, this is your plan, so you break us in.”

  Maria followed Page as he crept down the ramp to the basement level, which was reserved for the multitude of automated systems that each habitat block needed, such as laundry, heating and power controls, and waste reclamation. Other than engineers the only things that entered the basement level were service automatons, and so there wasn’t a regular door or entrance. Page approached a hatch that was intended for a reclamation drone and pulled out the jacking cable from his PVSM.

  “Hopefully Darien hasn’t increased the security protocols in the sector, otherwise this could take some time.”

  “I don’t know this Darien, but Kuba is no fool, so I’d be cautious, either way.”

  While they waited for Page’s PVSM to interface, they heard voices coming from down the alley. Maria drew her sidearm and then looked keenly at Page; he didn’t need to hear her speak the words to know she was urging him to hurry. The PVSM connected and Page managed to enter the service subsystems. He breathed a quiet sigh of relief; they hadn’t raised the security protocols yet. He cycled to the command override screen and scrolled down, looking for the sub-system that would allow him to unlock the reclamation hatch.

  The voices grew louder and Maria focused on them, trying to understand what they were saying. It sounded like two men, and from what she could gather they were merely chatting about some inane gossip. Probably a routine service crew, she reasoned, but if they saw her or Page then it would force her to make a difficult choice; to allow them to raise the alarm or take them out.

  “Hurry…” whispered Maria, as she slipped past Page and moved silently along the wall of the habitat block towards the gate to the alley and stooped down behind one of the empty waste containers. Two men in overalls appeared on the other side of the fence and leant against it, peering through the tight mesh towards the back wall, where Page and Maria had entered earlier.

  “It’s probably just a fried circuit that tripped the alarm. Look, the
re’s nothing wrong,” said the first engineer, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Yeah, you’re probably right, but since we were in the area anyway there’s no harm in checking it out. Open the gate, it shouldn’t take us very long.”

  Maria tightened her grip on the sidearm, but kept the safety on. She peeked over to where the engineers had indicated. Perhaps removing the access hatchway into the engineering space had trigged a sensor, she wondered. She glanced back towards Page, who had hunkered down out of sight, below ground level, but the jacking cables were still clearly visible, dangling off the reclamation hatch’s access port. The door to the hatch was still shut. Come on Karl…

  The first engineer was wresting with the lock mechanism, shoving an ident card into the reader and jiggling it about. “Come on, open already!”

  “Here, let me try,” said the second, grabbing the key and bustling his partner out of the way. Then he repeated the same frustrated dance with the lock.

  “It’s saying we don’t have clearance to enter!” said the first engineer. “What the hell? That’s the craziest thing I’ve seen in a while.”

  “Come on, let’s report back. This is going to be a bigger job that we thought so it can wait till tomorrow.”

  The engineers wandered back along the alley, still muttering to each other and, once their voices had tailed off, Maria let out an audible sigh of relief.

  “It’s okay, they’ve gone,” Maria called out as she returned to Page, who had sat back up again. “They couldn’t open the gate. Perhaps our luck is finally changing for the better.”

  “It’s your lucky bracelet!” said Page, nodding to the silver item of jewelry on Maria’s wrist.

  Maria cocked an eyebrow. “You really are superstitious, aren’t you?”

  Page smiled and then entered a final command into his PVSM; the lock to the reclamation hatch clicked and the hatch slid open. His smile turned into a smug grin, “Nah, I just hacked the door system and set the gate locks to only open to UEC rank of captain or above.”