43 Days to Oblivion

by J. D. Oppenheim

  1 day left

  Jolo slipped down through the humid Duval air, his heart pounding, his mind gripped with fear and panic. I’m going to die. But that soon passed. He remembered. I am not that Jolo. And that’s okay. He had time for one good breath of air and he braced for impact, dust flying up around him when his feet hit the ground. His mind told him he was fine, but parts of him still doubted. He looked up and the Argossy was already streaking off towards Jaxxon.

  He took a few tentative steps to make sure his legs were good and then he broke into a dead run. The ground was hot. Hotter than usual. And when he stopped he looked back towards the lip of the ravine and could see heat ripples in the air--the core was heating up. Was he too late? he wondered.

  Marco had padlocked the big, clear atrium cover, but fortunately Jolo had a key. He pointed Betsy at the flat side of the old lock and blew it apart. He lifted the cover and there was the metal shaft that brought light and air down to Marco’s prized plants.

  He swung his feet over the edge and sat there for a moment wondering if the shaft would hold his weight. And then he thought of Katy, down there, held by the black bastards, and he slid down.

  The first 10 meters or so were at a slight angle, then it dropped straight down, his body again weightless. He couldn’t tell when he was going to touch down but right before he slammed down into the atrium he felt the leaves of Marco’s plants slapping against his legs. He came down on a table and it broke and he hit the floor surrounded by dried leaves and pieces of wooden table.

  He stood up, the Colt in his right hand and Besty in his left. The plants were mostly brown and dead, except for a few Duval species that lived in the desert areas. The place smelled like Marco’s house, plants and wood and leather chairs, real things. But there were new smells too: smoke and ruin. The BG. Marco came to this place every day to take care of his plants. But standing there in the heat, amongst the wilted, brown tomato plants, the air dry and stale, Jolo knew Marco hadn’t been here for days.

  Koba said his scans had the human heat sigs in a storage bay connected to the main hangar next to the BG transport. Jolo went down the stairs into a large open room, his eyes scanning for any hint of movement, but it was quiet. In some other time maybe this space would have been used as a meeting place, but until recently had been for food storage. The floor in the center of the room was wet, and there were scorch marks on the ceiling above, black gashes, but no blood and no bodies. In the corner a few Fed ration boxes remained, the rest now black and ruined in the burning transport topside.

  Jolo edged closer to the food stash and noticed a foot sticking out from behind one of the Fed containers. He eased around to the back of the boxes and there on the floor was a human shape wrapped in a thin cover the Duvalites used to keep the sun and sand off of them in the desert. Jolo kicked the man’s boot but he did not move. At least it wasn’t a Jaylen, he thought. The man was as still as death and Jolo couldn’t hear him breathing, couldn’t hear his heartbeat. A tinge of fear swept through Jolo and he scanned the area but the big room was still quiet. Suddenly a strong hand had Jolo’s leg and he was on his back. Instinctively Jolo brought the Colt down and trained it on the man’s head. He was about to pull the trigger when the cover fell off the man’s face and Jolo recognized him. George.

  The synthetic humanoid sat up and stared at Jolo, tilted his head. “If you are quiet and still you can hear their breathing,” George said. “Two levels down in storage bay #7. Surrounded by two mechs, at least ten of my blond sisters, and one of the clever brown-haired variety, missing an arm.” His face was calm and serene, like they were safely hidden away on some oxygen rich rock with all the people they loved and a cargo hauler full of Fed meal packs, instead of the current reality: about to be killed by a BG energy blade.

  “It’s good to see you,” said Jolo. “Let’s go.” Jolo stood and held out his hand and George just looked at it.

  “I am sorry. I do not think I will be of use. Though I have thinned their ranks a bit—uh, some of the blonds are here,” he tapped the big food container next to him, “and some are stuck in an air vent one level down. But there are many more below.” Jolo peered into the big container and inside was a horror show of Jaylen parts, blond hair and angry eyes and hands still clutching unlit energy blades, all mixed-up arms and legs and torsos at odd angles, though no blood and no smell.

  George reached down and held up his left leg, which wasn’t attached, but the ends had resealed so he wasn’t leaking.

  “How’d you do that?” said Jolo, jabbing his thumb towards the box of Jaylens.

  “I don’t, uh, remember, but I used this,” he said, holding up half of a BG mech’s staff. He twisted the end and the long, energy blade slid out hot and red.

  “How’s your power level?” said Jolo.

  “Adequate, though I’m willing to fight until I have no power remaining. Currently I only have the use of one leg and one arm. He held up his good arm, the other hanging limply at his side.”

  “Can you fire a gun?” said Jolo. George nodded, yes. “Good, let’s go. Stand and lean on me.” George stood up with Jolo’s help, both of them staring down at his disconnected leg still on the floor.

  “My diagnostic routine is non-functional and I fear I have lost a considerable amount of processing power,” said George. The synth was heavier than he looked and did a few hops to steady himself, his arm around Jolo and his head right next to Jolo’s. The synth scanned the room and Jolo got a good look at the back of George’s head. There was a black gash a few inches deep. The ugly wound had cauterized, melted bits of plastic and metal and logic chips.”

  Jolo stopped for a moment, the synth’s arm around him, and looked into George’s glass eyes. “Who am I?” Jolo said.

  George paused, his face still calm. “A friend,” he said finally.

  “And who are we going to rescue?”

  “The woman you love, brown hair, thin. The others say she is pretty. And other friends.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Is she pretty?”

  “Love and humor and beauty are difficult for me. But her features: high cheekbones, large eyes, and the shape of her body, all fit within the parameters of what humans consider beautiful.”

  Jolo nodded. “Who is the enemy?”

  “The black mechs with the worms inside and the synthetic girls with the energy blades.”

  By now they were limping and hopping towards the small elevator Marco used to move food and other heavy items between levels.

  “What are the odds, one human and a broken synth against a mech and the remaining Jaylens?”

  “I have no idea. Though I fear that I should know. Data loss. Computational functions offline.”

  “My name’s Jolo Vargas by the way. The girl is Katy. You and I are friends.”

  “Nice to meet you again, Jolo Vargas.”

  “Can you use this?” Jolo said, handing him Betsy. George analyzed the sawed-off shotgun.

  “1972 Smith and Wesson, pump-action, modified, shortened barrel for larger blast pattern, from old Earth.” He looked at Jolo with his calm eyes. “Some databases remain,” he explained. “And yes, I can use this.”

  “Do not fire on any humans.”

  “Of course. I have forgotten only names, not friend or foe recognition.”

  “I need you to go down to the main hangar in exactly five minutes, make some noise and shoot mechs and Jaylens.”

  “Current time and date functionality, plus most floating point subroutines are unavailable.”

  Jolo paused for a moment. If George couldn’t tell time anymore then he might miss the fight, and having him there would be a big help. If he went down too early then he’d get killed, and that wouldn’t do either. “Okay, how about this. Can you sing a song?”

  The synth paused to search his remaining data, and then smiled. “Yes, I found one song.”

  “How long is it?”

 
“2:36.”

  “Okay, sing it twice, then go down to the main hangar and kick some ass.” He looked at one-legged George, cramped into the tiny elevator, the bad arm hanging down like a limp noodle, staring up at him, unblinking. “Thanks.” George nodded. “Okay, start singing.”

  “Wait,” said George. “What is my name?”

  “Your name is George and I want you to come out of this in one piece. A lot of people here care about you and depend on you. I’ll see you in the hangar.”

  Jolo turned for the stairs and set his internal countdown alarm to go off in 4 minutes. George started singing. “Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun. Roll out the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run…”

  Jolo made it topside and the heat nearly knocked him off his feet. He steadied himself and ran towards the dead kid in the yellow jacket. He grabbed the end of the charge hose, the metal adapter hot and sandy, and started pulling it to the edge of the cliff. This wasn’t plan A, but he didn’t know George would be there to help. And assuming George was functional enough, the new plan B might be the best way. He was sure fully-functional George would have said he had about a 3.5% chance of survival, but Jolo would have gone for it anyway. There were more BG, but he and George had superior firepower and the element of surprise. He grabbed the black cable and pulled as much as he could right up to the edge, the thick, black charge line sticky from being in the heat. Marco would have yelled if he’d seen it out baking in the sun. He kept pulling, the internal clock in his head at 2:13.

  He knew the distance from the lip of the cliff to the top of the main hangar was about 60 meters and the standard Fed charge cable for larger boats was about 45 meters, but Marco had spliced two together so he could keep the charging station down a level and still have plenty of length to route the cable topside. So with any luck, taking into consideration the distance from the station to the edge of the cliff, Jolo figured he’d swing right into the main hangar about ten meters from the ceiling. He’d be able to case the hangar out as he flew in and maybe even take a few BG out on the way down. He’d briefly considered just taking the stairs on the other end but that would have put him and George on the same side of the room and he wanted to hit them from two opposite angles.

  The other consideration was that the hallways leading to the main hangar from the inside were long and narrow. The prospect of dueling with a Jaylen, or God forbid, a mech, in close quarters, trapped on one end of a hallway, those red energy blades cutting everything to shreds, did not appeal to him at all.

  So fly in he would, and have the entire floor of the main hangar to move about. The killing floor, he thought. His internal counter read 0:23. He took a deep breath, both hands gripping the end of the charge cable, then he took a running start and leapt off the edge of the cliff.

  The heat rising up from the ravine hit him like he’d jumped into a fire. The cable fed out like it was supposed to and his body turned and he could see the mouth of the main hangar, a dark rectangle against the orange cliff face. The line fed down and started to tighten and Jolo clutched the cable, his hands slipping down to the metal coupling. When the line finally went taught and he started to swing towards the cliff he knew instantly that he was coming in lower than he thought. He tried to pull himself up a little but the weight of his body was pulling him down. He got a quick glimpse of the inside and spotted two Jaylen near the a shiny, black BG transport. They hadn’t noticed him.

  Jolo crashed into the cliff face about five meters below the lip. The impact shook him and it took a moment to recover. His body bounced back off the wall and he started scurrying up the sticky black cable, his hands slipping a few centimeters each time he pulled himself up. The heat made it difficult to breathe, difficult to think. When he’d climbed up one handhold away from the edge he heard the girls coming, one high-pitched scream to alert the others and then a series of rapid, light footfalls. He reached a hand up to the lip of the hangar and a Jaylen came down with a boot on his fingers as another peered down over the edge at him.

  He pulled his hand down, throbbing with pain and pushed back against the cliff with his feet and started running to the side. He wrapped his leg around the cable and reached for the Colt. A Jaylen popped her head over the edge again and suddenly there was a small dark hole in her forehead and she fell down into the ravine. The other Jaylen screamed and stepped back, and Jolo started to swing back and forth along the wall hoping to vault himself onto the deck of the hangar. He almost made it on the Jaylen’s left side and as he rose up he could see her reaching out with her knife trying to cut the cable and send him down into the ravine to meet her sister.

  Jolo countered by kicking off the edge of the wall so the cable extended out further than the red blade, the synth’s blond hair flying around her head, caught in the wind and the updraft of heat. Jolo came up with the Colt again but the Jaylen was too quick and darted back out of range. But when he swung over to the right side he had enough lift to bring him up to the level of the hangar floor. He scrambled up on one side and the Jaylen was on him instantly.

  He kicked at the girl, bought a split second of time and leveled the Colt at her. She went limp and fell, her arm dangling in the air off the edge of the hangar, the red blade, still lit, skittered across the floor. Three more descended on him, two from the hangar bays on the right and one coming down from the rear hatch of the black transport.

  Suddenly Jolo had three red blades flashing, cutting, angling towards his neck. One he took down with the Colt, at the same moment kicking at another and reaching out for the third to prevent the blade from finding his throat. One Jaylen fell, but not before a blade cut into his thigh. He could feel the warm blood dripping down into his boot.

  The one who cut him tried to come at him again but a bullet found her chest and she fell back, then another in the forehead. The third girl, who had brown hair and one arm, the one Merthon caught, started running back toward the other end of the hangar. She was the one who’d just come out of the transport. Jolo limped after her, a smear of red trailing behind his leg, his eyes darting back and forth. The girl leapt up on to a large container and was angling towards another, trying to get back to the black transport, when Jolo stopped and took aim. He caught her in mid-air between two Fed boxes. She hit the far one and slid down onto the deck and for a moment everything was quiet.

  Jolo stood in the center of the big hangar, the BG ship to his left and several rooms to his right. A door opened on the back wall and he heard a shuffling sound as George hopped out of the elevator.

  “The elevator got stuck one level up. What’d I miss?”

  “Not much,” said Jolo, a pool of blood forming around his right foot.

  “We’ve got to stop the bleeding,” said George, hopping towards Jolo.

  “Where’s Katy?” said Jolo.

  “There,” said the synth, pointing with the gun at one of Marco’s side bays. Jolo started limping towards the door, George hot on his heels. It was thirty meters off and after a few steps Jolo started to feel lightheaded. He stopped and swayed for a moment. George sat down and promptly fell over, not used to having only one leg. We’re too close to fail, thought Jolo. But he could feel his body starting to get cold. A shot of pain in his leg brought him back as George tied a piece of thin cable around his upper thigh. Soon the blood flowing down his leg slowed to a trickle, little warm rivulets, his pants leg wet. He focused on the one thing: Katy.

  He took a few tentative steps with the Colt out, George hopping alongside with Betsy.

  “Sad rescue team we turned out to be,” said Jolo.

  Twenty meters from the room the big door burst open and a mech stepped into the hangar. Its staff was lit and it had taken several steps before it even realized the rescuers were standing between it and the space ship. Jolo watched as it stopped and spun the staff around, the ends glowing red. It took a step forward, scanning the room, and then crouched, its movements amazingly fluid and natural for a mechanical beast. Jolo laughed, “Y
our little blond assassins are dead.”

  “And your time is up, Jolo Vargas. As we speak the galaxite is starting down towards the planet’s core. Can you feel the heat?”

  Jolo stepped forward, fired two shots at the BG’s chestplate, both bullets bouncing off. The mech, unfazed, leapt towards them with the energy blade high and ready to strike. This was an overlord, thought Jolo, with reinforced armor. “Aim for the head,” yelled Jolo, jumping to the side as best he could. He got another two shots off and the BG’s head rocked to the side, then a shot from Betsy and the lights in its ocular receptor went dark. Jolo and George continued the barrage, the mech swinging the staff in a wide arc trying to take one of them down even though it was relying on its heat sensors instead of sight. It jumped again, this time towards the ship. It was far faster than Jolo and made it to the rear of the ship, reaching out with its metal tri-grip hands to feel its way into the rear hatch. It was nearly inside by the time Jolo made it there. He fired a few more shots but by then the hatch was closing and the ship’s engines were winding up. It was leaving. Jolo looked out towards the big opening and the bright Duval sky had turned orange, heat waves rippling upwards.

  He shuffled back, his leg throbbing, towards the hangar door as the BG ship made its way out. He could hear screams as he got closer and feared the worst. He reached for the door knob and it was locked. He yelled for everyone inside to stand back and he shot the knob off and pushed the door open. Merthon and a bloody-faced Marco stepped out into the hangar. “Where’s Katy?” said Jolo.

  “She’s fine,” said Merthon. Jolo ran inside and there she was. Her head was wrapped in someone’s old shirt and her left eye was swollen shut but she smiled when she saw him.

  “We look like shit,” she said.

  “I know. But we’re gonna make it.”

  “I need to tell you something,” she said.

  “Yeah, me too,” said Jolo. And then he paused for a second. He brushed her hair away from her eyes. “I love you.”