by David Beers
“What do we do?” she asked, standing up.
Rhett looked at the panel.
ETA - 57 min.
He looked back to David. “We keep going. There’s nothing else we can do.”
David had done his best to hide everything from his followers. In the end, though, he hadn’t been strong enough. The girl was too powerful, and David now knew why the Unformed had wanted her dead. He should have never sent Rhett after her; he should have gone himself, sacrificing the entire compound if necessary.
Errors upon errors, and David only saw them now.
He’d known the moment the girl returned, and then again when she started using the gray.
It wasn’t only her, though—the strains on him were growing great from all directions. The Globe was becoming almost unmanageable, yet still David allowed them to feed off his energy.
They’re close, he told himself. And if nothing else, they’re keeping the Ministers at bay. Keeping them focused on their own lives instead of what is happening outside.
He could handle one or the other—the Globe or the woman—but both were proving too much. David had felt when she’d accessed the gray, and that’s when he decided to go to her again. He needed to understand what was happening, whether she planned on challenging him or not.
So, still letting his power flow to a portion of his followers, he closed his eyes and accessed his own gray static. He went to Nicki Sesam.
She knew he was there, of course. David could no more hide from her than she him, but he didn’t care. He didn’t have a choice.
He didn’t need to stay long, though—he only needed one look to understand everything.
Had he been in charge of his physical capacities, and not leaning back in his seat with sweat dripping from his face, he would have shook his head.
In exasperation at himself.
David hovered outside Sesam’s transport, but he saw inside clearly. Three women, all of whom should be dead, were plotting his death. Rebecca sat next to the girl, talking. David could hear her voice, could hear everything happening inside.
“He’s here,” Sesam said.
“David?”
She nodded and then turned her head toward him. Her eyes were alight, static filled orbs and David finally understood what other people saw when they looked at him. She looked like a terror, an angel of death that could sweep through the world.
“Right there,” she said, looking through the window at him. The transport was flying at speeds far too fast for him to keep up with, or to hear her, but he did both all the same. “He’s right outside the window.”
Rebecca turned then, her own face filled with fear.
You did this, David thought. You let her end up here because you didn’t have the heart to do what was necessary.
“Can he hear us?” Rebecca asked.
Sesam only nodded.
Rebecca didn’t look away, though David knew she couldn’t see him. She didn’t say they should quit talking, because Rebecca wasn’t stupid. It didn’t matter what they said now, David knew the truth. Rebecca wasn’t quitting, even though he’d let her live. She was coming for him, to stop him and everything they had spent their lives building.
Rage grew in David, a rage he had perhaps never known. Inside the transport, his eyelids half-shut, sparks still sprung from them. Gray static jumping out like grease on a hot skillet.
Come then, he thought. Come and die, Rebecca, and bring your two friends with you. You can all die together if you won’t wait for the Unformed to come.
If there were other forces at work, things not thought of or outright denied, David did not care in the slightest. He would kill them all. Anything coming for him would feel his wrath, because this time, the Prophet would not be denied.
It’s not only me you three are concerned about, is it? he thought. No, there’s another, and you can’t hide him from me.
David saw him clearly, knowing what most scared the girl. Not David, floating outside her transport, nor what Rebecca was telling her.
The girl was scared for her father’s life, because David was about to snatch it from him.
David didn’t need to say anything for Sesam to understand what he was thinking. She knew the same as he did. If it was him they wanted, fine. He would kill them soon, but before that happened, he would have the single person this girl loved.
David left the three women, and he went to his mad followers in the Globe.
They were draining him, but perhaps they only needed a bit more juice.
The Pope stood over the fallen man, Jackson Carriage, thinking that he was possessed. The Pope knew of the ancient customs regarding exorcisms, as well as how such beliefs had gone out of fashion long, long ago. But as he looked at Jackson, it was the only idea his mind provided.
He’s possessed. The Devil himself is inside of him.
The man’s head had turned and was looking up at the glass displays, his face appearing like the skin across it might stretch so far it would simply rip off the skull beneath.
“What’s happening to him?” Trinant asked from his left.
Yule looked to Daniel, but the man only stared down and said nothing.
He won’t say anything, Yule thought. Not to anyone in this room, not as long as it has something to do with his daughter. And this does. This is directly related to Nicki Sesam.
“Daniel,” he said. “Daniel, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered, though not sparing a glance for the Pope.
Benten knelt down next to Jackson. He didn’t put hands on him, though—Yule noticed that. He only got closer to the fallen man.
“Daniel,” Yule said harder. “What’s happening? We need to know.”
Finally, Daniel looked over to him. “I don’t know.”
Jackson’s eyes were still looking up at the glass, bulging from their sockets, and his mouth was slowly opening … almost creaking.
Yule knelt down beside Benton, though he did touch Jackson. He was careful, but he put his hands on either side of the man’s face. He didn’t turn him, but wanted to see if his touch would switch his attention. It didn’t. He gave no notice at all that anyone was near him.
“Jackson,” Yule said. “Can you hear me?”
The man’s mouth opened wider, his jaw almost completely unhinged at this point. He looked like some serpent trying to eat a huge beast in one swallow.
“Jackson,” the Pope said louder.
Seconds passed with no one saying anything, all staring at this strange looking man incapable of reacting to them.
Finally, he blinked, and when Jackson Carriage’s eyes opened, whatever had possessed him was gone. No argument on Earth or Heaven could have changed Yule’s mind on that. Something had been there. Jackson blinked, and it was no more.
Jackson’s mouth slowly closed and his face turned so that he stared up at the Pope. Yule’s hands still held his face. Jackson was breathing heavily in large, steady breaths.
“What happened?” Yule asked.
“She saw it,” Jackson said. “She saw what’s happening here.”
“Who?” Trinant asked from above Yule.
Carriage didn’t break eye contact with the Pope. “Her. God, or the closest thing to Him.”
Yule released the man and stood up, turning from the blasphemy but unable to shake it from his ears.
God, or the closest thing to Him.
His back to the group, Yule understood nothing of what was happening. He was lost in this sea of confusion, without either stars to guide him or a boat to keep him above the churning water.
“Your Grace,” the general called from the other side of the room. Yule didn’t turn to look at her, though the emotion in her voice nearly made him. “Something is changing.”
Yule listened as Trinant’s steps echoed across the room, heading to her general.
God, this is in your hands. Not mine, nor any man’s, he prayed. What can we do in the face of all this? What can
I possibly do except for put my faith in you?
Yule turned, his eyes blank.
God, or the closest thing to Him.
What had they created? And more, what was she doing? Possessing God’s creations, bending them to her will when she was nowhere to be seen.
Daniel was looking at him, Jackson still lying on the ground, his eyes closed now. His chest still moving up and down in deep breaths.
Yule turned to Trinant, Benten having already joined her. The two were staring at the screen on Trinant’s desk.
“What is it?” Yule called.
Trinant looked up, and then to the large windows.
Yule followed her gaze.
The insane soldiers still filled the glass screens, though they had changed. Yule didn’t know when, let alone how. The last time he looked at them, most had carried gray strands on their hands, with many having nothing at all.
Yule’s mouth opened as he saw the change.
The strands had crept up their arms, were writhing up their shoulders. The static seemed to be climbing up and down their bodies, attaching itself to more and more of them. Those things alone were terrifying, but that wasn’t what turned Yule’s heart to ice.
Their eyes did that.
Their eyes all burned gray, each one of those mad people looking like a replica of the weapon.
“Yule, get over here,” Trinant called.
For a second, he didn’t move, remembering his prayer from moments before. Hadn’t he just asked God to save them? Said it was beyond his hands, beyond anyone on Earth’s hands?
Had God forsaken them? Had He judged Earth the same as He had Sodom and Gomorrah? Because what the Pope now saw, it froze him to the ground he stood on. Rows and rows of gray eyed evil staring straight ahead as if blind, though Yule knew they weren’t. None moved, though that didn’t mean they were blind. They stared straight ahead, all still, but Yule thought he knew why.
“They’re soldiers,” he said, uncaring whether anyone heard him or not. “They’re soldiers and their general is speaking to them now. Giving them instructions.”
The Pope was about as close to the truth as anyone could have guessed.
Tidus, of course, wasn’t thinking in such terms. All Tidus knew was that for a while, his focus had slipped, and now he understood that was actually impossible because nothing could slip when the Prophet was in charge.
He didn’t know what was happening to his body, the gray strands climbing up his arms or the static alive in his eyes.
The Prophet was speaking, and Tidus listened.
You are close now, he said. Let nothing stop you. Do not stop, do not slow, do not pause. Whatever is in your way, destroy it or kill it. Before nightfall, the Globe is to be no more, only a burning wreck in the sky for all to see, and realize the Unformed is almighty.
There was a pause in the Prophet’s voice, though Tidus didn’t move at all. He knew the Prophet wasn’t finished speaking, and he wanted to hear nothing besides his instructions.
An image flashed in Tidus’s mind, just as it surely did amongst the thousands beside and beneath him. Tidus saw a man in a large room, standing and staring up at large glass displays.
Kill this man, the Prophet said. Whatever else happens, he is to die.
Tidus understood and the man’s image solidified in his mind.
The Prophet left and the group around Tidus started moving again. Had they lost their purpose for a while? Tidus couldn’t remember. It no longer mattered, though, because they were unified now.
Tidus moved to the front of the group, next to a man whose gray strands were gripping the closed door in front of them. Tidus looked at him, curiously seeing that his eyes were burning gray just like the static flowing from his hands. In fact, the gray seemed to be wrapping around his whole body, and Tidus giggled at that—having absolutely no idea that the exact same thing was happening to him.
“How much longer?” he asked, the mission clear in everyone’s mind. They didn’t need to discuss anything besides how to accomplish it.
“An hour,” the man said. “Maybe two.”
Yule had walked across the room to Trinant and Benten. His back was to the windows because he didn’t want to see any more of what was happening.
General Spyden looked at him as he approached, and Yule vaguely recognized that she saw his despondency.
The general looked to Trinant, waiting for her permission. Trinant nodded.
“Here, here, and here,” she said, pointing out three different numbers on Trinant’s desk. “These changed over the past five minutes. The rate at which the attackers were hacking had been dropping steadily over the past few hours, meaning that their upward climb was slowing. It’s rebounded, and then some. Touch points have increased 500% in the past five minutes, and look ….”
Yule’s eyes followed her finger, and watched a number he didn’t understand climb higher—rapidly so.
“Those are actual touch points. Where the attackers are hacking our system.” The general looked up at Trinant. “It changes our plan of action. We were basing everything on that continual decrease.”
“No contingencies if it reversed?” Benten asked.
Yule looked to him, slowly. He understood what was being said, but was having a tough time believing anyone was taking the general seriously. What did it matter what she said? Contingencies, plans, strategies … these were all just words, and none of them made a whit’s difference to the people on that screen behind Yule.
It wasn’t that the Pope was losing faith, rather, the opposite was happening. He was beginning to understand with complete clarity that humanity wouldn’t save themselves this time.
“Of course we have contingencies,” the general said. “They’re just less appealing. Your Grace, I recommend option one.”
“What is that?” Benten asked.
Trinant was staring up at the screens that Yule wanted no more part of. “You saw what happened to the First Priest? We do that, but with the entirety of the lower levels. We increase the air pressure inside the Globe, and then the ships that now surround us fire. The air pressure will rip the attackers out the same as it did the First Priest.”
“Can we do that without harming ourselves?” Benten asked.
“No,” Trinant whispered, “Of course not.”
“What will happen?”
Trinant waved her hand toward Spyden, telling her to explain it.
“The Globe isn’t designed for such structural damage. It will fall.”
“How quickly?” Benten asked.
“It’ll progress, growing faster with each minute. Within ten minutes, we’ll hit terminal velocity.”
The group was quiet for a few moments. No questions came to Yule, because he thought this all futile.
“Can we escape within ten minutes?” Benten finally asked.
“Us in here?” Trinant said, still only staring at the horror behind. “Yes, probably. We’ll have to decrease pressure, hope and pray we can safely get a ship inside this room and then exit again, but most likely—yes … It’s the rest of the Globe. You can’t evacuate them.”
Yule’s eyes flashed to Trinant, taking his first real interest in the entire conversation.
“How many people are still alive?” she asked.
“Last count put us over 100,000,” the general said.
“So,” Trinant whispered. “We survive and those who follow us die, or we all die together.” Trinant turned to Spyden. “Can you please escort them to another room? I need a few minutes alone to think.”
Yule’s eyes widened some, but still he remained silent. He glanced to Benten and saw surprise on his face as well, but the Minister kept quiet. What could either of them actually say? They were effectively under Martial Law, whether or not anyone would spell it out. Trinant ruled here, and the head of her military would do exactly as she said.
“Daniel,” Yule said. “Get Jackson. We’re stepping out for a moment.”
He spoke calmly, an
d as he did, his eyes found Trinant’s.
She was looking at him, too, and the weight he saw inside her … he wouldn’t want to bear it for anything in this world. He nodded, knowing that she might ask his thoughts on the matter, but in the end they weren’t important. It wasn’t his people that would fall.
Daniel made his way over, Jackson in tow.
The three of them left, leaving Trinant to consider a simple choice.
Save herself, or die with her people.
Yule found himself in a much smaller room across the hall, Daniel, Jackson, and Benten with him.
Yule and Benten sat at a table, Jackson against the back wall, and Daniel leaned against the door, looking down at the floor.
“What do you think she’s going to do?” Benten asked.
The Two Ministers had effectively controlled half the world between the two of them, but now neither could really give a single command to anyone.
“I don’t know,” Yule said.
“I keep asking myself what I would do,” Benten said, looking down at the table. “And it’s always the same answer, no matter how many ways I look at it. Some people living is better than none at all.”
Yule nodded, though he stared at Daniel. “I’m just glad none of the True Faith’s Priests are here to give us their opinion,” he said almost absently. He didn’t know what Trinant would choose, and anything he guessed here didn’t matter.
He looked over at Jackson. The man sat in a chair, his elbows on his knees, and stared at the floor.
“I think we should talk her through this,” Benten said.
Yule ignored him, slowly realizing that too much had been happening for his mind to adequately keep up. The Pope was known as highly—if not hyper—intelligent. Yet, the past few minutes, his brain had been shirking its duties.
Man might not be enough to deal with all of this, but that didn’t mean God wasn’t here with them.
“What happened in there?” Yule asked, his voice directing toward Jackson Carriage—the man who everyone had overlooked, except perhaps Daniel.
Yule took on the tone he carried with his Cardinals when they were challenging him, or otherwise doing something he didn’t like.