She wondered what Lucinda would’ve done and screwed her face up as she realised something. She realised exactly what Lucinda had gone through over the years, having the power to choose when either decision was going to disrupt. Now Marion had been put in the very same position, similar power, similar decisions to be made, daughter’s life on the line.
She remembered back to when she’d touched the thread earlier and she’d felt all those lives, all the people who were connected to the thread. If she restored Sera then …
So many people.
So many deaths.
So what was more important, humans like her and her daughter? Or the Earth and its true inhabitants? She could be selfish or she could be selfless, be like Lucinda or not.
For some reason she thought back to her incarceration, the brief period when Lucinda had her removed from duty and forced into detention.
She remembered something that had been written there, on the walls.
She screwed her face up in defiance, “Can’t beat ‘em … ha! … Screw ‘em!”
- -
Samuel
Samuel, in the meantime, had given up trying to talk his way into Marion’s concealed doorway and returned to the main floor of Destiny, where a hive of activity was already taking place at his behest.
In the short time Samuel had after being sent away by Fahwad, he’d accomplished a great deal more than he thought possible. Initially he’d feared having to return to the government like a whelp, having to apologise and appear weak before the world’s leaders, convincing them of his apparent innocence.
He was also not as certain as Fahwad that he’d be received back with open arms, thinking it more likely he’d be arrested and jailed for the rest of his life. But he stuck to the story as discussed with Fahwad and had got through to them, years of planning had paid off and he got Destiny back. The world had co-operated.
Initially he’d told the Australian Government he wanted to make a deal. He would give them access into the Destiny facility via a secret passageway, in exchange for the ability to speak at the United Nations.
He’d pleaded with the United Nations, claiming innocence by saying he was setup by Lucinda and had been under the control of her the whole time, his daughter as blackmail. He also threatened them about the likelihood of an event occurring again and pleaded for their assistance to help prevent it.
But it had failed.
The United Nations council refused his request, the matter being decided against his recommendations later that day. Consequently, Samuel was on his way to a detention facility to be incarcerated when the second event occurred. Another Day of Darkness to plague to world, this time the damage was centred around Europe and more than twice the death toll of the original.
The timing could not have been more perfect for Samuel.
In a state of panic, the remaining U.N council had almost handed him the metaphorical keys to the world, they’d no idea what was causing the deaths, much less what to do to stop it occurring again. Most of the council saw his threats of a recurrence as baseless, so when they proved to be true they swiftly changed positions.
Samuel was released immediately and appointed as the chief expert on the subject. Fahwad had been right all along, the world had capitulated to him.
With no other person in the country, much less the globe, able to fathom the reason and the solution, the U.N had relented to Samuel’s demands and Samuel became powerful in his own right.
As an expert in the field where nobody else knew anything, he was given the task of finding and protecting further threads from being restored. He returned to the Destiny installation and re-established it as a command centre.
From there, plans were laid to locate the missing threads.
It was a situation Samuel relished. Initially he thought he was surrendering, but he fully understood why Fahwad had sent him off, for now he had unlimited resources at his disposal, the resources of the entire planet.
All his to share with Fahwad.
His first task was to rebuild the Destiny installation and get it back up and operational, Fahwad claiming the coffin of major importance to their ultimate goal. What Samuel hadn’t expected when he returned was to run into Lucinda and Marion, but now they came as a bonus.
He was however, slightly perturbed that a passageway had been secreted in the facility without his knowledge and in the back of his mind pondered what may lay behind the steel trapdoor.
For the moment though he’d many other tasks to accomplish, so began delegating responsibilities.
He quickly brought in a team of former Destiny employees to get systems back online, both in the upstairs and downstairs facilities.
Within an hour of entering there was a hive of activity, the facility seemingly returning to its former state.
Samuel then turned his attention to the excavation of the main shaft, so they’d have easier access to the facility. But rather than a small tunnel like entrance he commanded the construction team to make it a more open entrance, as there was no longer a need to conceal. Diggers thumped away at the hole from above, the machinations reverberating down in the facility.
During this Fahwad returned, arriving via a helicopter Samuel had sent to collect him. Samuel raced up from downstairs as soon as the helicopter landed, but was pushed away hastily by Fahwad, who had an angry look on his face.
“Piss off!” he screamed, heading downstairs, in the direction of the office, where he promptly placed himself inside the coffin and closed the lid.
Samuel wasn’t too concerned, he knew what Fahwad wanted, he knew he needed the coffin. He wasn’t sure why he was so angry though.
His concern did grow though, when Catlin Conley and the Viper stepped out of the helicopter, with the black man, Smith, in chains.
“What the hell are you guys doing here?”
“What do you mean, we came with Fahwad you idiot.” Sousa rebutted Samuel’s presumption of leadership.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise you came with him,” he cowered instinctively.
“Who else then, hey?” he snarled. “We just came in that chopper you halfwit!”
“Sorry Sousa,” he apologised, even bowing a little.
“Now, have you secured accommodation for our new guests hey?” Sousa grunted, holding tightly onto a rope that was secured to a chain, which in turn was secured around Smith’s neck.
“Ummm …” he hesitated, looking awkwardly at Smith. “I guess we can just use the holding cell downstairs?”
“Holding cell.” Sousa pointed, not even deigning to look at Samuel. Sousa grunted and moved on, not even stopping to give a response, he too was clearly not happy about something, this left Samuel and Catlin standing together.
“Samuel,” Catlin nodded curtly, standing opposite him as Sousa moved on.
“Ms Conley.” He looked her up and down, wandering why her clothes looked in tatters. “Been in a spot of bother then have we?”
She looked herself over, frowning as she observed her unblemished skin. “It would appear not.”
“And what are you doing here?” Samuel questioned.
“I see you’ve been busy with my installation” She looked around, observing the swarm of activity that was taking place around them.
“It is not yours, nor was it ever young girl.”
“I am no young girl, old man. I am a woman.” She stood tall and defiant, just as Sousa had done. “And when you abandoned this place, it became mine.”
“He will not be happy that you are here.” He backed away a little, unsure of her.
“If not for me, he would not be here, so perhaps rethink your opinion and replace it with a fact.”
“What fact?”
“I captured the black man, saved Sousa and Fahwad. I’m here because I have earnt it, that’s your fact.”
“My name is Catlin, asshole,” she spat at him.
“Excuse me!”
“No, excuse you … leaving me to rot alone in the facility!”
“Yes, apologies.”
“Damn right!”
“Well Catlin … I have a little surprise for you.”
“What now?”
“I said I have a surprise for you.”
“You surprised me enough when you ditched me inside that facility,” she glanced at him surreptitiously.
“Ah, ha,” he bowed his head. “Yes, very sorry for that. Was under orders from Fahwad.”
“Well it matters little now, I’ve found my own way.”
“That you did, well done!” he congratulated. “Now please, if you would, follow me.”
He took her down into the facility, into the staff quarters to a small secreted door inside Lucinda’s room. He pointed to it with a big smile.
“What?” she stared at him.
“Open it would you,” Samuel asked.
“With what?”
“You have the key right?”
“No, I don’t have any damn key.”
“Well Marion is in there, how about you call to her then.”
Intrigued, Catlin remembered the spot where they’d left Marion and wondered what’d become of her. Was it true she was down here in this secret tunnel. Catlin wondered if Marion had faked the heart attack, just to get her away from the facility and be here alone. Is that why she was so forceful on the subject? Why was she in there? What was she doing?
When Marion didn’t respond to her calls Catlin got even more suspicious, she thought about using Ursula as a means of baiting her, but changed her mind, deciding instead to leave her be.
“Is this what you brought me down here for? Hardly a surprise Samuel.”
“Ah, but this is not the surprise,” he clicked his heels and winked at her.
“What then?”
Samuel muttered a few more words to Marion in an attempt to gain access. But he was unable to get through, so huffed and made off, beckoning for Catlin to follow.
It was a short walk to the medical bay, a room Catlin remembered visiting Dr Paul in, but this time there was a patient on the hospital bed. She couldn’t tell who it was as the medical staff blocked her view, but whoever it was seemed to be struggling on life support as staff worked on her.
“You!” she stammered as she entered, recognising Dr Paul working alongside two others on the patient.
The doctor turned and smiled briefly but was too engrossed in his work to stop and talk with Catlin, instead he worked determinedly on the patient.
The patient, whom she observed, had clearly been shot, several times in fact. She spied several wounds on the body, blood oozing from them.
“Catlin, I need your help,” Samuel asked her.
“And what makes you think I would want to help you?” She tried to leer over the doctor’s shoulder to get a view of the patient’s face.
“Catlin, you are here, you would not have come if you did not want to be a part of it. And you say you saved Fahwad and Sousa?”
“Yes. I killed the black man …” she paused. “But then he came back to life, it seems he cannot die.”
“Yes, yes, of course not.”
“And yes, I saved the other two.”
“What happened out there? Why was Fahwad so angry?”
“Really? Are you a bloody gossip or what man?”
“Please Catlin, tell me what happened.”
“Ok, I’ll give it to you real short … Rigged a net, killed my friend and the pretty boy. Then some big guy comes along, gets shot, Fahwad comes to claim the body but then Smith arrives on the street and everyone gets covered in glass somehow. Some other kid comes along and rescues the pretty one and the big one, they leave and go somewhere. Only the black man remained, so I picked up the spear and used it on him, rescued the other two and here I am.”
“Who was the kid?”
“The kid, I can’t quite remember. I’ve seen him before but I can’t remember where. Anyway, he and the big guy, I saw them take off with the body of the pretty one.”
“No wonder Fahwad’s so angry.”
“Angry is a word for it,” she replied. “You should’ve seen what he did back in the city after I took the spear out of him, no more apartment buildings in Melbourne anymore, I can tell you that!”
“Yes, he has a temper.”
Catlin was still trying to sneak a look at the patient whilst she spoke to Samuel, but frustrated, instead tried to push past one of them. Suddenly though, as if the three were playing a game she didn’t know about, the three of them dropped to the ground.
Dropped where they stood.
Motionless on the floor.
She quickly reached down, checking the pulse of the nearest doctor.
“Dead.” She levelled a cold stare at Samuel, knowing where she’d seen this type of thing happen before. She remembered the night she was first captured and the policemen who’d dropped dead in the middle of the road.
“What the hell?” Samuel cried out in alarm.
Samuel too went to check a nearby body, no pulse.
He checked the second, dead.
“What the …” he turned, left the room and ran towards the main operations room, leaving Catlin behind with the three dead medical staff.
“Hey,” she screamed after him. “Where are you …”
“Samuel!” the voice of Fahwad boomed inside the facility, the voice thundering as if he’d spoken through a P.A speaker.
Samuel flinched involuntarily at the voice as he raced down the hallway. “Fahwad ... I don’t know what …”
“There is another.”
“Another what?” he yelled back, hurdling more fallen bodies as he traversed the hallway, his eyes wide with fear.
“Thread, there’s another thread!”
“Where?” He looked around him, fearful that something was going to drop him to the floor, just as it had to everyone else around him.
“Here.”
“Here?” he asked, leaping over another dead body in the hallway.
“I said here, another thread. And it’s just been restored.”
“What the hell?”
“Sera,” Fahwad gasped. “Sera is back.”
“What are you talking about?” he replied as he finally stepped back onto the main operations floor.
Fahwad showed himself on the balcony above and looked over the facility, noticing all the bodies that had fallen to the floor. “I said there is another thread, here. And somebody has just restored it.”
“Wow.” Samuel stood amazed, glaring at the previously busy operations floor. Everyone on the main operations floor had done exactly as the three in the medical room had done, all had dropped to the floor, not a soul moved.
Another thread restored, another mass wave of deaths.
“That’s not all.”
“More threads?”
“Yes, another has been revived elsewhere, Enoch, just now also.”
“Enoch?” Samuel asked.
“Yes … a woman called Alison Benchley has made it happen. Now they are four strong, Yonas, Iegar, Enoch and Sera … they will be coming for me.”
“How do you know?”
“I can feel them, they are my people Samuel.”
“Four threads, alive and walking,” Samuel marvelled, still amazed at all the dead bodies strewn over the floor. “And Fahwad too.”
“Destiny, it seems, is where this will all end.”
“Why?”
“They will come for me.” He gripped the railing on the mezzanine tightly, so much so that it snapped under his grip. Samuel flinched
involuntarily at the loud crash. “I will be ready for them.”
“Fahwad …”
“What?”
“There’s a tunnel.”
“What tunnel?”
“Marion … I think she’s responsible for it.”
“The second thread …” he mused aloud.
“I don’t know what’s down there.”
“Well then …” he stood tall. “Let’s go take a peek then shall we?”
- -
Catlin
A sickening back of the throat noise emanated throughout the small medical bay room and Catlin jumped back in shock as the body on the bed convulsed, seeming to fight to breathe.
Not only that, the patient had regained consciousness and was now pulling at the tubes which had been plunged into the mouth, a strange mucous substance spewed out as the tubes were removed.
Only moments before Catlin had witnessed three doctors simply drop dead to the floor, the last time she’d witnessed something similar she’d been on a dark road in the mountains. Several people had died that night, she wondered how many had died today.
She overheard Samuel and Fahwad talking about more threads being restored. Something about a Sera and an Enoch and the fact they were coming for Fahwad.
“What the hell?” The Viper’s head suddenly appeared in the door to the medical room. “Here too?”
“Huh, what?” She looked around, dazed, as Sousa entered the room.
“Ja, he’s dead, right?” He pointed to a body on the floor.
“What?”
“The doctor? Is he dead or what man?”
“He’s dead, yes, why?”
“People everywhere man, back down the staff quarters people just lying around on the ground. All of them, dead. I put the black fella in the cell and was coming back and I see all these dead people over the place, what the hell hey?”
“I don’t know what happened, Samuel’s down the corridor though, maybe you can ask him.”
“Maybe you should ask the doctor,” he said, chuckling to himself as he checked the other bodies in the room.
Catlin rolled her eyes at him. “People don’t just drop dead Sousa, something’s going on here.”
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