The air above was clotted with that mysterious cloud, keeping the drones on the outskirts of the battle. A few managed to pick off the augmented, but for every shot fired at one of Saah’s, the host turned en mass, launching bolts, pistol shots, and short-range missiles. The result was a rapidly dwindling air force that, once fallen, would signal the end of the inhabitants for good.
“We need to get across,” Robinson shouted. Scout cheeped from the opposite tower, two levels below. “I don’t think we can use the rises though. Not with that cloud still in the air.”
“There is no other way,” Friday said as she leaped onto the rise and leaned away. Robinson shouted her name, but it was no use. The mute sister looked at her.
“Well? Go. I’ll cover you from here.”
The mute sister also leaped onto one of the rises, following Friday.
Pastor shook his head. “Two centuries, and women haven’t changed a bit.”
Robinson grunted. After the women reached Scout’s platform, the mute sister slipped a bolt into her bow and signaled. Pastor was already halfway across when Robinson stepped onto his rise and it surged out into the open air. He felt a stiff breeze carrying smoke and something else. He was trying to avoid the cloud when he heard a shout below.
Saah had seen him. Robinson felt his stomach tighten as Saah raised his pipes and blew. Immediately, a half dozen augmented began targeting him from below. Bolts zipped by as did a great plume of fire from a flamethrower. Robinson veered to avoid the column while returning fire with the pistol’s green button. The sonic blast struck the augmented with the fuel tank, and he exploded into flames, taking out a handful of companions. Unfortunately, the recoil sent Robinson staggering back. He heard Friday shout and felt a moment of vertigo, but the rise miraculously righted beneath him.
Saah watched Crusoe’s acrobatics from below with his usual chagrin. He still chaffed over the decision not to kill the boy when he was in his possession. He would not make that mistake twice. He again slipped the pipes between his lips and blew two notes. The first activated stimulant injections in every member of his army. He heard the beasts gasp as their systems flooded with adrenaline while simultaneously numbing them to pain. Most would die later from the dose, but by then, his objective would have either been won or lost. His second note activated the berserker response Viktor had created. Immediately snarls and screams ran through the throng as rage consumed them. Now, they would kill indiscriminately until they were killed or the last of their energy was exhausted.
Robinson saw the transformation come over Saah’s army and knew it was bad. Then, movement came from his left as two augmented with mechanical pistons fused into their legs squatted and leaped two stories in the air, straight at him. The first held a bloody chain with razor wire whipping from the end. He was about to swing it at Robinson when an arrow struck the creature in the chest and sent him tumbling back to the ground.
The second grasped onto the balcony edge moments after Robinson had landed. He stepped on the creature’s fingers and watched him fall.
In the streets, the city inhabitants continued running for the main Adytum. Saah blew his pipes and pointed after them. “The feast awaits, my children! Finish them! Finish them all!”
The augmented horde bellowed as they charged the building together. Saah turned to his last two men. “You two, come with me.”
In the northern tower of glass, Scout led a dizzying path through several winding corridors.
“I know where she’s going,” Pastor gasped at the rear. “Lysa’s quarters are down here.”
They spilled into a lavish suite. One small lamp battled shadows with a holographic image that flashed warnings on the wall. The silence in the room cut into Robinson’s marrow. Then he saw Friday go still near the back of the room, her head tilted down over a bassinette.
“Friday?” he called, his voice low and tremulous.
On opposite sides of the room, Pastor and the mute sister turned.
Slowly, Friday reached down and picked something up. Robinson’s life swung on a pendulum waiting for the rise or fall. Then Friday turned with a bundle of cloth in her arms. Her eyes welled. Robinson stepped toward her, unable to stop as she peeled back the blanket, revealing two brilliant gray eyes and the pinkest of lips. Their daughter cooed, and something resembling a laugh spilled out of Robinson along with hot tears running down his cheeks.
“Your daughter,” Friday said.
Robinson’s lips parted, but he was too choked up to manage any words. Instead, he stepped forward to embrace his family.
Pastor sighed deeply. And even though the proximity to so much happiness hurt her, the mute sister smiled. How could she not?
A disembodied voice purged the darkness. Five minutes until Peacekeeper launch.
Robinson turned to Pastor. “How do we stop the launch?”
The lines on Pastor’s forehead darkened. “I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
The question hurt Pastor as much as anything in his life. Still, he couldn’t look away from his young friend.
“Where is the missile housed?”
Pastor opened his mouth only to wince. He was shaking his head when a shadow broke for the door. The mute sister moved quickly and grabbed a trembling woman, pulling her into the light. She must have been caring for the baby. She looked terrified.
“I can take you to the missile if you promise not to hurt me,” she said.
“Lead the way,” Robinson said.
Chapter Fifty
The Oath
Gesta was shouting for the crowd to stay as the masters flooded the Hall of History, trying to reach the only entrance to the Exodus Vault. The giant titanium doors had been peeled back, but the crowd had grown too frenzied. The entrance was bottlenecked, the horde now pushing and shoving to get inside.
People were trampled, others fought their fellow inhabitants to get inside. Gesta had climbed atop a platform near the wall to address the crowd, but his calls for order had fallen on deaf ears. The masters had spent two hundred years in harmonious safety. Now that the barbarians had purged the gates, they didn’t know how else to act.
For a brief second, it looked like order might be restored when a chorus of shrieks sounded at the back of the room and a wave of augmented broke through the outer hall, vaulting into the air, using blunt and projectile weapons to cut masters down.
The crowd surged forward, once again screaming in terror as the clamor of battle overtook them. A detonation sent people and body parts flying. Snarls of the augmented echoed through the chamber as, one by one, the guards fell.
Gesta tried to maintain order, but as the body count rose, he knew it was too late. The end of the city was at hand. He estimated a thousand masters had made it into the Exodus Vault. A third of their numbers. Too little, but more than enough. It now fell to him to ensure the true purpose of the Exodus Vault, and the second generation they fashioned there, endured.
Gesta nodded to the master manning the other side of the gate. The man plucked a shimmering ball from his belt and tossed it into the crowd. A second later, it detonated, sending out a wave of kinetic energy that cleared the entranceway. Then Gesta and the man leaped down and activated the doors. Standing at the threshold, they watched as those toppled souls realized what was happening and surged forward once again. They were too late. The last thing Gesta heard before the darkness closed in was the shouts of agony from those about to die.
The governess led them through the empty streets. Robinson recognized where they were headed. The entrance to the Genesi remained hidden, yet active. Once inside, Robinson saw the staggered tiers were now protected by shimmering barriers to safeguard them from the object at the building’s core. Two concentric doors in the floor had opened, and a colossal rocket had risen a dozen feet upward, gas steaming from various vents as lights strobed in time with the countdown. Four minutes remaining.
“This is the Peacekeeper?” Robinson asked.
“Do it,” Robinson said, but Pastor refused to move.
“He can’t,” a voice said.
Lysa stepped from the shadows, an old pistol, no doubt claimed from one of the dead augmented, in her hands.
“I tried to tell you, the oath is more than a verbal pledge. It’s been hardwired into his very DNA. Impossible to defy or even speak about. One of our more brilliant achievements.”
The mute sister reached for her bow, but before she could free it, Lysa fired. A crimson stain blotted the mute sister’s stomach as she was propelled to the floor with a grunt.
“I’d prefer witnesses over martyrs for this, but ultimately it won’t much difference, will it?”
“Why are you doing this?” Robinson asked.
“I thought we’ve been over that.”
“You can’t honestly believe destroying the human race is the answer to solving the world’s woes.”
“No species has a greater or more calamitous effect on this planet than us. This, despite our presence here, representing a mere wink in the expanse of time. We’ve poisoned the soil, the oceans, and the very air we breathe. We’ve driven untold numbers of species to extinction with millions more on the precipice. All for our own hunger and insatiable greed. Those of us lucky enough to have survived the pandemic had hoped it might cleanse us of these instincts, but look out that door, and you will say they have not only survived—they have also worsened. We can no longer risk our fate or the fate of this planet on our fickle nature.
Robinson saw Friday glance at the mute sister’s bow, which had slid to her feet, an arrow still nocked. Robinson shook his head subtly. Would she dare attempt that with their baby in her arms?
“Beneath our very feet lies the Exodus Vault. An indestructible structure capable of housing and sustaining the populous of this city in omne tempus. Contained within its walls is ten thousand variants of a new human DNA, culled from our very own. Wholly perfect and without the instinct for chaos and destruction. It is humanity 2.0, you might say. And whether they rise today or in a thousand tomorrows, they will realize what we could not—a paradise worthy of our conception.”
“There’s still no guarantee the variants will succeed,” Pastor said. “The same instinct that causes strife is what drove us from the muck.”
Lysa smiled. “I don’t expect you to understand, William.”
“It’s you who’s confused. You remember what we used to say about glass houses?”
You’ve always loved the old days more, and that love blinded you to the possibility of a better future.”
The disembodied voice echoed, “Three minutes until Peacekeeper launch.”
“A possibility,” Robinson repeated. “Then you admit there’s a chance this could fail. And you’re still willing to kill all of us on some vague probability?”
“I am. Unlike you, I am willing to sacrifice my life for what I know to be right.”
Robinson paled.
“Did you think I couldn’t hear you out there in the forest? My birds are everywhere. Twice before you said you’ve had a choice like this one. And twice you chose to preserve yourself and the thing you loved the most. I’ll give you a third choice now.” She turned the gun on Friday and their child. “Your life and the lives of those you love for the abort code.”
Robinson looked at Friday. She nodded without hesitation, but as Robinson looked at their child, he found himself struggling to make the same call.
Lysa shook her head, reveling in his shame. “And that is why you fail.”
She pointed the pistol at him, finger tickling the trigger. Then Scout screeched a warning a fraction of a second before a bolt burst through Lysa’s chest.
Saah screamed as he and his two men swarmed the room. “No one kills the boy but me!”
Robinson immediately pulled his pistol and fired three green rounds. One of Saah’s men crumbled to the floor. Friday fell to the ground as Pastor leaped for the mute sister’s bow, firing the nocked bolt at Saah, narrowly missing him by inches.
Friday crawled backward, cradling her baby as she pulled the mute sister into a small lee. Though weak, the girl lifted her hand. Even as she lay dying, the mute sister was offering to protect their child. Friday gently settled the baby into her arms before scrambling across the floor for Lysa’s pistol.
Robinson’s sonic blast rebounded off the invisible barrier, striking a ventilation pipe that exploded and sent hot steam belching forward, scorching Saah’s face. At the same time, Friday moved with the speed and surety that only one of the Aserra could. She wove through the gunfire of Saah’s last man, slipping under another vent of gas before sighting the man with the pistol, pulling the trigger, and watching him fall.
“Force him out of the ring!” Pastor screamed, as he struggled to approach the Peacekeeper controls. Each step felt as if he was being torn apart from the inside.
Robinson and Saah continued to trade fire. Robinson ran around the venting gas, hoping to get behind Saah, when he tripped and landed hard on the floor. He looked up to find Saah’s bolt trained on him. Saah beamed, revealing in the moment. He pulled the trigger only to watch the bolt bounce off the barrier Pastor had managed to raise between them.
“No!” Saah screamed as he pounded the barrier to no avail. Robinson stood and locked eyes with him before turning away.
Two minutes until Peacekeeper launch, the voice said.
Robinson ran back to Friday, who held their daughter once again.
“We’re fine,” Friday said. “Destroy it, and let us go from this place.”
Robinson toggled the red button on his pistol and turned to shoot the control module, but he stopped when he saw Pastor standing there pointing Lysa’s gun at him.
“I’m s-sorry,” Pastor said. “I can’t help myself—”
“Pastor, this is me. Your friend. We have to stop the countdown.”
“I know,” Pastor growled, as his hand shook, but the gun wouldn’t lower. “But I can’t fight it!”
The building rumbled as mounting mechanisms released from the missile, and the floor started to vibrate.
“The oath. It’s too strong!” Pastor said. “You have to run!”
“I can’t,” Robinson said. “Not anymore. Pastor, look at me. Can you see me? Can you see your friend? Just a few years ago I was a spoiled boy living a life of luxury in a home I didn’t appreciate with a love I hadn’t earned. I was oblivious to everything but the comforts around me. And yet I was safe and happy. And I could have lived that way forever. But life had other plans. Since then, I’ve gone through a thousand kinds of misery—misery that would destroy most people. But I wouldn’t change it. Because I know who I am. As do you. Please, put the gun down.”
Pastor tried to fight the voice in his head, but it was impossible. The harder he pushed, the harder it pushed back. He felt blood run from his nose. His hands shook.
“I-I can’t,” he pleaded. “It’s too strong!”
“I know,” Robinson said. “Lysa was right about one thing. There’s too much pain in this world. And we’ve had more than our fair share. But we’ve also shared in the beauty of the road and our friendship. We are more than trees in the forest. We’re the canopy that gives everything else life. It took me a long time to understand that.” He looked to Friday and saw the tears splashing down her stoic face. She knew it had to come to this. “I love this woman more than I have ever loved anything in my life, but, I’m willing to die by her side if it means others will live.”
One minutes until Peacekeeper launch, the voice echoed.
“Put down the leash, my friend. You can choose.”
Pastor’s finger tickled the trigger, and he grimaced. It was all too much. In a flash, he turned the gun toward his chest and pulled the trigger.
Robinson cried out and ran to his friend as he fell. He lifted his head into his chest as his life blood spilled across the floor.
“Forgive me,” Pastor said.
“There is nothing to forgive. How do I stop the launch?”
“Lysa’s hand,” Pastor mumbled.
Robinson turned to Friday. “Drag her over here.”
Friday grabbed Robinson’s axe and cut off Lysa’s hand instead. She set it atop the control module, and the countdown halted. Friday closed her eyes and hugged her daughter tight.
“The trees I showed you,” Pastor said.
“The sequoias. I remember.”
“Did you know they are dependent on fire? It clears out the soil, allows the cones to open and the seeds to germinate. That is why fire is important to the forest. Its job is not to destroy but to cleanse.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” Robinson said.
Pastor smiled as his eyes grew heavy. “We aren’t the trees or the seeds. We are the fire that helps the forest live.”
And finally, Robinson understood.
“Then I’m proud to have done so by your side.”
Pastor coughed, blood trickling from his mouth. He struggled to raise his voice. “Self-destruction sequence—initiate.”
The disembodied voice answered, Two minutes until Peacekeeper self-destruct.
Robinson started to rise, but Pastor grabbed his arm again.
“Have one last surprise for you. A gift from someone you love. Made during my DC exploration. Scout will take you there.”
Robinson wanted to say more, but he didn’t have the time. Instead, he simply said, “Goodbye, my friend.”
Pastor’s eyes fluttered, and then he was gone.
When Robinson stood, he saw Friday kneeling next to the mute sister. From the black bile pooling from her belly, he knew she had scant time to live.
“She wants to stay,” Friday said.
Robinson Crusoe 2246: (Book 3) Page 32