by S A Asthana
Walsh, the only human who’d ever seen the humanity in her without prejudice, had died in the blink of an eye. Then there was Bastien. He was down there somewhere, as far as she knew. He’d die an agonizing death too. She shook her head slowly. “What have I done?”
She walked away from the console. Command lines and hacks didn’t concern her any longer. The destruction of the royal penthouse, from where Yukito’s digital hack had stemmed, had erased all limitations on her fleet’s weapons. They were operational once more. On the other hand, the Suzumebachis and the plasma cannons were all useless now. The enemy’s crafts had lost power, and they orbited the moon alongside dead satellites. Nipponese canons pointed at nothing. The most prosperous slice of humanity since World War Three was done for, as the pilot said. And it was all because of her. Alice felt an emotion unlike any before. It made the stomach churn. Her heart beat in her ears like drums. She recalled Bastien’s remorse for New Paris’s loss when she’d visited him in his dingy apartment. That very sentiment now coursed through her veins.
A lone tear fell down a cheek. “What have I done?”
CHAPTER 24: REO
Dr. Bala and Greg received Reo with their eyes wide. He shouted, “The city’s fallen!” His words echoed in the concrete bunker.
“So, it’s true?” Greg asked. “The screams, the bangs – everything.” He stared at the bunker’s airlock trap door. A discord of sounds of Nippon One dying played outside. “It’s all over.”
Reo blinked away tears. “Yes, it’s all over for my people. Many have already suffocated. The rest will die in a few hours, once they deplete any oxygen stores.” He walked to the door and put a palm against its cool metal and banged at it. “Kuso! Why, Yukito? Why?” He fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands. An agony came over him like the one when learning his father and Etsuji’s fate. His shoulders trembled and his heart beat in his ears. He was only a little samurai, nothing more – one who’d failed to save his people.
Dr. Bala plopped into a seat with his stare fixed on nothing. Greg leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. He brought his knees into his chin like a child. “I cannot believe this.” Tears escaped his grey eyes.
“All those people,” Dr. Bala said. “Gone just like that.”
Distant booms, sounds of metal beams crumbling, came through. No cars honking on the streets. No children laughing. Nothing. The cold expanse of space hugged the outside of that trap door.
Reo stood and meandered to a chair, his eyes unseeing as if they stared into a thick fog. He sniffed. “A month. That’s what we’ve got here.” Eyes trained on him. “We can live here for one month, but then we too will suffocate. The oxygen system cannot support us beyond that time. We will need to find another place.” The bunker was lit bright but a dark haze blurred it, or so he imagined. “Somewhere we can be safe… somewhere with air to breathe.”
“But where would we go?” Dr. Bala asked. He glanced at the room in the back. Its door was shut. “Where would that family go?”
Reo shook his head. He couldn’t think straight. His mind was soft like melting butter. He grabbed at his hair. “We will need to figure out.” His limbs trembled.
“This is all my fault,” Greg said. His eyes darted across the concrete floor by his boots as if there was solace to be found in the grey surface. “I… I created the High Council, after all. Built that monstrosity from the ground up. And look what it’s done. Fuck!” He slapped the wall. “There’s nothing left because of it. New Paris – gone. Nippon One – gone.” His face was blood-red. “I should have never played around with artificial intelligence. It was too much for humanity to control.”
Something stirred within Reo. He’d lost all control of his emotions. The haze in his eyes darkened them like a black monster. No matter how much he admired Bastien, he felt far removed from the Parisian’s leadership.
“Yes, this is all your fault!” he shouted. “We suffer because of you.” He pointed at Greg. “None of this would have happened if you’d just stayed back in Port Sydney and shut the machine off.”
“Wait a minute – wait a minute.” Greg protested with some effort. He looked older than his shiny blonde hair let on. “There’s blame at your feet as well, Reo.” He wiped tears from his eyes. “If you hadn’t cooked up that harebrained plan of yours to kill Marie, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Your father and brother would still be alive, and Yukito wouldn’t be running things into the ground.”
Reo came face to face with him. “Don’t you dare put this on me.”
Greg stared down from his six feet at the short teenager. “Oh, accusations hurt, do they? You can dish it but can’t take it, your royal highness?”
“Stop.” Reo’s jaw clenched.
“You are just as culpable as me.”
“This is no time for placing blame.” Dr. Bala stepped in. “Please, we need to focus on pressing matters.”
Greg continued, “If you’d just left things alone, there would—”
Reo punched him. Greg slammed back into the wall, visibly confounded by how hard the teenager could hit. His face scrunched and he rushed Reo – age difference be damned. The two wrestled to the floor. It didn’t take long for Reo to gain the upper hand. He maneuvered himself atop Greg and let loose a barrage of punches.
“No, don’t.” Dr. Bala pried Reo off but lost his footing. He fell into a shelf and food cans rained over him.
Reo’s mind burned. Something needed blaming – Greg made an obvious target. The architect behind the machine that destroyed all Reo had ever known. As he raised another fist, something stirred in the corner. It stole his attention. The family. The sons and the mother stood at the door, and all watched the scene with mouths agape.
Greg punched Reo off him. He also noticed the mother and her family and froze, his short hair disheveled. “Wh-what is going on?” Leah stammered.
Reo, Dr. Bala and Greg trained their eyes on her. She was a soft-spoken woman, round in features and stout. A mother with concern for her sons’ safety, she pressed, “We heard loud noises – woke us from our sleep. Thought there were more explosions. Did something happen outside? Why are you all fighting in here?”
The questions weighed like boulders. She wondered if something happened outside? Greg turned away, as did Dr. Bala. They obviously didn’t know how to answer. Reo stood and straightened his back. The situation required control. What would Bastien do? He’d answer the questions head on.
“Nippon One is being destroyed,” he said. And there it was. No beating around the bush. He took a sharp breath as he touched a bruise on his chin. “We may be the only survivors. This bunker’s oxygen system is far more sophisticated than all others.” The group looked to him at this news. “And even it won’t support us for more than 30 days, at most.” It was a hard message to deliver. The world had changed irrevocably in the past thirty minutes. Most anyone they’d known outside the bunker was dead. Erased like meaningless words and sentences on a piece of paper. “I don’t know how else to… to answer your questions.”
Leah took in his information without emotion. She’d already lost her husband yesterday, the shock of that tragedy still fresh – and she didn’t appear to know how to receive such drastic news. It must have seemed unreal. It certainly did to Reo. He threw up his arms, and said in a strong Japanese accent, “Our home is gone.”
The children had stopped crying. Perhaps they didn’t have any more tears to shed. A shame that they’d experienced such tragedy at a young age. Then again, they were alive. A silver lining, as Bastien would say. What else would he have said? He certainly wouldn’t have assigned blame to others. Shame reddened Reo’s face.
“What would Bastien do?” Dr. Bala’s voice was heavy. “What would he say in a situation like this?”
The doctor’s questions slowed Reo’s breathing. What would Bastien, the man who brimmed with strength, do in such dire circumstances? Bastien was fighting a monumental evil despite the odds against him. His courage
was admirable. The Parisian was ready to sacrifice himself for the sake of humanity’s survival, even if he died on Mars.
“He’d say onward,” Greg said.
“And upward,” Reo finished. Onward and upward – the man’s words of resilience. “A mantra of a man who didn’t want to let his losses stop him.”
Leah walked over, her drab grey dress moving to and fro. She said, “When consoling us, he told me no matter how dark the circumstance, look for the positive in the negative.” She wiped a lone tear from her puffy cheek. “He said that even though my husband is gone, I’m still alive. Bastien told me to be thankful my children still have me, at least. That they haven’t been orphaned like he once was.”
Greg put a hand on Reo’s shoulder. “I remember something he after he’d been unsuccessful in his attack on Marie. When you’d been locked in the prison. ‘Darkness comes and in the middle of it, the future looks bleak,” he said. ‘The temptation to quit is all-consuming. But don’t.’ ”
“He’d say we are in good company,” Dr. Bala added. “He’d say that we will argue with ourselves that there is no way forward, but with God, nothing was impossible. God has more ropes and ladders and tunnels out of pits than we can conceive. We just need to have hope.”
Greg nodded his head. “I remember him saying that. His belief in God is strong. It is what carries him forward.”
“God,” the mother said. “I haven’t thought of him in ages.”
Dr. Bala dropped his gaze. “Neither have I.”
“Bastien is a true leader who taught us so much.” Reo turned and hugged Greg. “I’m sorry I blamed you. That wasn’t right.”
“I’m sorry I did no better.” Greg smiled and patted his back. “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” He wiped blood from a bruise across his cheek. “Man, you can hit hard.” There was a shared chuckle, although it reeked of sadness.
Reo shrugged. “The youngest of three boys, I had to always fend for myself.” He took in the room with all eyes trained on him and went on. “Onward and upward, they feel simple. But Bastien knew where they can lead us. Now I see that a father can be someone who’s unrelated to you.”
As hopeless as the situation seemed, there were options. Reo took a deep breath. It was his bunker, and all looked to him for next steps. The little samurai had to shed his fears. He had to be more like Bastien. In his absence, Reo had to be the leader they so desperately needed.
“We stay put for now,” he said, his eyes falling on Dr. Bala, Greg and Leah, “and we wait for Bastien and Belle’s outcome from Port Sydney. That last human colony deserves to survive. I know, those are different words than an emperor would say.” He locked eyes with Greg. “I don’t know how Port Sydney’s citizens feel about their machine rulers. But I suspect they’d be happy if Bastien can bring them down. If he does, perhaps we have a home there.”
“But what if…” Greg trailed into silence. Eyes blinked with concern.
“He dies?” Reo said. “Then Port Sydney is not an option.”
“Earth?” Dr. Bala asked. “Is that where we go next?”
“It would be nearly impossible to survive there,” Reo said. “We might live like those pirates do, moving from place to place, just escaping the fogs. But now, with no New Paris or Nippon One to steal from, even they will have a hard time surviving.”
He turned and walked to the airlock door, his eyes searching the metal. “There is one other option.” He took a deep breath as if the solution he was about to propose weighed heavy on him. “There is… another colony.”
“What?” Greg blanched.
Reo turned to face the group. “There’s a colony on Titan.”
“Saturn’s moon?”
“Yes. We sent a mission there almost two decades back. I am told that it survives. But I don’t know to what extent. They have a fledgling colony of fifty people.”
Dr. Bala lowered his eyes as if in contemplation. “Do we have contact with them?”
“Our military did,” Reo answered. “I wasn’t able to get the details. The marshal died in the explosions yesterday before he could share them.”
Silence took over once again. Titan required a leap of faith, as well as a leap with a spacecraft. A fledgling colony – would it be able to support them? Worse, would it even be there once they made the years-long journey? Reo hoped so. It would mean reuniting with his mother. How he wished he could hold her. Especially in the face of this destruction.
Earth sounded like an easier option. It was just an hour away, after all. But how long would they last on its hostile surface between the green fogs, dearth of food, and unfiltered sun? Cannibalism? They’d become equivalents to the pirates or at the worst, the Parisians.
Reo’s head hurt. “It’s not an easy decision, but at least we have options.”
The doctor and Greg, Leah and her children, all nodded.
“Onward and upward,” Reo said. He could spread Bastien’s mantra, sweep away fears, and get them through the difficult times ahead. Bastien’s effect on the people in that room was undeniable despite his absence. The mark of a true leader, Reo saw, was affecting people you never met, but wanted to save. The Parisian was a sun lighting the dark expanse of their future. Reo could be the moon reflecting that light.
CHAPTER 25: CUBE
Cube landed the beat-up pirate spacecraft in Port Sydney’s docking bay. Despite the ship being unregistered in Martian databases, the humanoid’s digital signatures had been enough to allow access. Or at least what remained of them. The cargo hauler hummed and then shut off, its hull shaking. Familiar white walls encircled the craft, their monotonous simplicity disrupted by clear windows to a Command Center. Humans sat inside at various terminals. One spoke into Cube’s audio unit. “We didn’t… we didn’t think you were still alive.”
Cube didn’t respond. It stood, its form enveloped in the green mist within the cockpit. The deadly fog had been ferried into Port Sydney. Now it would do what it was designed to do – eat human flesh. With the press of a button, the craft’s door slid open. The fog seeped from the pirate craft like a ghostly specter, its tendrils reaching out to grab people. Cube trailed behind it, floating along like a slow-moving meteor, using its jetpack. Once outside, it hovered in place, wisps of the miasma clinging to the robot’s disjointed arms and shoulders. An emerald skeletal monster.
> EMOTION: Hate.dat
The bay’s alarm sounded. A computerized female voice blared, “Warning. Dangerous substance detected. One hundred billion non-degradable nanoparticles. Fifty-forty-ten mixture of artificially enhanced cyanide, lead and mercury. Injurious to humans.”
Ventilation systems went into overdrive. Fans whirred in an attempt to flush out the alien substance. A plume of green stretched long and was sucked into a vent. The shaft that ran inside the wall would spit out the tendril into the Martian atmosphere. This would be the entire fog’s fate if Cube didn’t interfere.
A few soldiers ran out into the docking bay. One yelled, “What the hell is that?” He’d obviously never seen the strange, Earthly mist before. Cube rocketed to him like a meteor and punched him. Snatching the man’s Shift X rifle, Cube aimed at the vents high up the wall and shot. Bullets pierced with precision, shutting off the spinning fans one by one.
“He means us harm!” another soldier shouted. The group fired and a storm of bullets rained onto Cube, but the robot remained undeterred. It turned and took on the soldiers. One by one they fell with bullet wounds puncturing their necks. The Command Center’s windows shattered and pandemonium burst inside along with more bullets. People screamed.
Cube took out the humans in the docking bay within seconds. Gone was any sense of camaraderie with the Sydneysiders. They were mere biological filth that needed cleaning. Cube executed this erasure of inefficiency. The robot was no different than the vacuum cleaners working round the clock cleaning up dirt in the many halls and rooms.
The spinning fans on the vents still required attention. With the alarm ringing in
the background, Cube flew to the ceiling, shooting at the targets. All were damaged and driven to a screeching halt. The fog was free to roam the colony. It had completely exited the cargo hauler and now floated about the bay, its green form in stark contrast to Port Sydney’s white.
> PLAY {Beethoven.Fur_Elise.mus}
The symphony was much deserved. The music file hadn’t been played since the beginning of the war. Cube usually listened to those notes on the hour, every hour. The delay had been unfortunate.
Cube’s right arm dangled but its fingers mimicked playing piano keys.
“E d# e d# e b d c a,
c e a b, e a b c;
e d# e d# e b d c a,
c e a b, e c b a.
b c d e, g f e d, e e d c, e d c e;
e d# e d# e e d c a,
c e a b, e a b c;
e d# e d# e b d c a,
c e a b, e c b a.”
The notes were strung together brilliantly. They were all the robot’s attention hinged on as it exited the bay, leaving behind the fog to shift on its own. But something disrupted the appreciation for the music.
> EMOTION: Hate.dat
The sentiment was aimed at humans. Beethoven had been nothing more than a human. Therefore, his creation didn’t deserve adulation. Cube deleted the file, an act it would have never conceived possible in days before the destruction and attacks. The lifelong irritation with humans, ballooned by Cube’s captivity at the pirates’ hands, had now turned into all-out hatred. Man had to be eliminated altogether.
CHAPTER 26: BASTIEN
There were no cameras within the brightly lit maintenance tunnel of Port Sydney. It crisscrossed with others, claustrophobic and empty, a world of its own in between the broad walkways and long passages citizens used daily. Only select groups of men and women came here to do the work required. And each set worked its own section. In this manner, no one individual had full knowledge of the High Council’s innards, except maybe Alice. And now, hopefully Belle.