Chrysalis

by Brendan Reichs

  Noah was fighting with a wall panel when the lights died around him. Fire and smoke were spreading everywhere, except where holes gaped into the void. Emergency barriers thumped closed to seal those areas automatically. Tack reached Noah and the two began prying the plastic section off together. Noah fumbled with a blaster, setting it to overload.

  “Come on come on come on,” I mumbled, dancing on the balls of my feet.

  Every light in the command module flashed red at once.

  “Trouble!” Sarah shouted.

  Alien symbols began racing across her monitor. The screen winked out.

  “Sophia,” Sarah whispered. “We’re out of time. Tell everyone to get back here!”

  The inner ring was in shambles. Explosion thundered along its corridors, too numerous to count. Alien commands streamed rapidly across the remaining monitors, but the systems being manipulated were outside the module. Sophia was distracted. She was trying to save Chrysalis.

  Rose and Gray were nearly back to the sphere when the troopers in their tunnel stood up and began firing. Bolts of pure energy sizzled into the command center.

  “Look out!” I ran to the airlock, with Casey a step behind. We’d seal the tunnel the second the Nemesis Three kids came through and worry about the troopers later.

  Rose was a dozen yards up the spoke, down on a knee and returning fire calmly. One of the guards flew backward and lay still. No more stun setting.

  “Rose, let’s go!” I yelled.

  She glanced at Gray. “I’ll cover you!” he growled, grabbing the blaster from her hand. He began firing down the smoke-choked tunnel with both weapons. A second trooper dropped, but the others flattened and began shooting back. “Go!” he shouted.

  Rose hesitated, naked frustration on her face, but she turned and streaked through the open airlock. Inside the module, Casey tossed Rose another blaster and she spun again. “Come on, Gray!”

  Gray scurried backward, keeping up steady fire, but then a bolt split the hallway and struck him in the chest. He turned lazily, his expression startled. Two more blasts thumped him in the back. Gray’s eyes rolled up and he crumpled to the floor.

  “No!” Rose lunged forward, but Casey and I grabbed her. Sarah tapped her keyboard and the airlock slid shut, sealing off the tunnel.

  “Open the door!” Rose demanded, tears streaming. “I can still get to him!”

  “He’s gone,” I whispered into her ear, hugging the tall girl tightly. Rose shoved me away, a look of devastation on her face. Then she threw her head back and screamed.

  An explosion rocked the module. Casey’s spoke disintegrated into cinders, but thankfully the airlock door held. Beyond it, the inner ring was a smoldering ruin, and the outer circle had begun to break apart. Chrysalis was wounded, perhaps mortally. But Noah and Tack were still at the far end of a tunnel. They were out of time.

  Derrick stuck his head down through the roof hatch. “Let’s go, ladies, this game is close to over!”

  “He’s right.” Sarah glanced at the screen. “Sophia is putting out a hundred fires at once, but she can still squash us. I cut off all links to the Terrarium. We have to hide now.”

  “You three go,” I said. “I’ll wait for the boys.”

  Sarah looked conflicted, but she nodded. “I won’t bother arguing. Good luck.”

  “Don’t sacrifice yourself, Min,” Casey said, blond hair sweat-plastered to her face. She gave me a quick hug, then Sarah did too. They scrambled up the ladder and were gone.

  Rose regarded me coolly. “I’m staying.”

  I shrugged. She could make her own choices.

  Derrick climbed down past Sarah and Casey and dropped to the floor. He joined me by the airlock to Noah’s tunnel.

  “You should go,” I said.

  “Shut up.”

  I squeezed his hand. We waited as smoke began to pour down the spoke.

  The monitors around us died. Flames had almost totally engulfed the inner ring.

  They’re both out there.

  I snatched the gun from Rose’s hand and raced into the tunnel.

  “Min!” Derrick shouted.

  “Guard the door!” I yelled back.

  I didn’t break stride, reaching the far portal and darting through without slowing. Smoke and heat enveloped me. Broken pipes and ducts hung from the ceiling. Lights flashed and fizzled out. Chrysalis was coming apart and the boys were nowhere in sight.

  “Noah! Tack!” I began to cough. Then I heard a crash up ahead.

  I staggered forward, gun raised. A jet of flame was pouring from the wall. It leapt up to the ceiling and spread like a river of lava. The boys must’ve gone for Tack’s target after Noah’s, but they needn’t have bothered. Chrysalis was doomed. There was no way to reverse the devastation enveloping the inner ring. We needed to get to the silo and start praying.

  A voice roared, slobbering with hate. “You have to ruin everything!”

  I ran forward, stepping over the crumpled forms of several troopers, and found Tack lying on his stomach against the wall. My heart stopped.

  Movement caught my eye.

  Ten yards down the corridor, Toby was straddled atop Noah.

  “Chrysalis was amazing!” Toby howled, punching Noah in the face. He was covered in cuts and burns, but somehow they only made him seem more powerful. Like a force of nature sprung to life. “All you had to do was follow the rules, but you never can!” He hit Noah again.

  “Get off him,” I hissed.

  Toby looked up. Our eyes met, and hate clouded his.

  “You’re responsible for this, Min. You’ve doomed our whole species.”

  “Where are the others you were with?”

  “Dead,” Toby snarled. “The bitch came for us while you hid. They dropped like zombies. Chris. Josh. Miggy. All of them. Six minds wiped, because of you. I only got away because the station went crazy.”

  I felt sick. So much loss. “I’m sorry, Toby. But get off of him. You can come with us. There’s only one place to hide now.”

  Toby stared at me. “You’d help me now. After everything I did?”

  I nodded. “I have to. Humans need to stick together.”

  His lazy grin appeared. “I’m not sure I could dislike you more. Go to hell, Melinda.”

  He reached for a blaster on the ground.

  I shot him between the eyes.

  Toby slumped over. I strode to his body and shot him again. Then a third time to be sure.

  Noah groaned at my feet. I forgot everything else. “Are you okay?”

  “Tack,” he mumbled. “He got hit.”

  I spun and ran to my childhood best friend. He wasn’t moving.

  “Tack?” I rolled him over gingerly, teeth chattering with fear. He didn’t make a sound.

  “No no no.” I stroked his cheek, babbling like a toddler. “Come on, Tack. Get up. It’s me. I miss you.”

  Tack coughed. Opened his eyes. “Hey, dork.”

  I swallowed him in a hug. Felt him wince, and hurriedly released him. “Where are you hit?”

  Blood dribbled from his lips. “Toby blasted my shoulder, the piece of crap.”

  “He’s gone. I shot him. Three times.”

  “I like it. Help me up.”

  I got Tack to his feet. He worked his arm and found it still in one piece. Noah was picking himself up off the floor as well. There was a loud explosion and half the ceiling caved in, smoldering wreckage raining down from the deck above.

  “We have to go now!” I said. “Chrysalis is doomed. The rest of the class is already inside the silo.”

  “Can we get back there?” Noah asked, red-eyed and panting.

  “Your tunnel is holding, but we have to hurry! Derrick and Rose are guarding the sphere.”

  We started back, moving as fast as they could ma
nage. The near door was still open, but when Noah tried to seal it behind us the portal jammed. “Forget it!” I said. “Just hurry. We can seal the other end of the tunnel.”

  Chrysalis was shaking to pieces. Whole sections of the outer circle had broken away and were floating off into space. The inner ring was a swirling ball of fire. The only portion of the station still unaffected was the giant ball of the Terrarium hanging at the center of it all, surrounded by a sparking, trembling inferno.

  I imagined it falling to the planet with us inside and swallowed a lump in my throat.

  We were halfway down the corridor when I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  I turned. Sophia was striding toward us.

  “Shit. Run!”

  Noah looked back and blanched. We broke into a shambling trot, dragging Tack between us.

  Thirty yards. Twenty. Ten.

  Gravity reversed. We crashed into the ceiling, then slammed back to the ground. The blaster flew from my hand and struck the wall.

  “I have had enough.”

  Sophia regarded us with stony eyes. “You insects have destroyed my home. I liked this station. It was spacious. Easy to move. Now it’s a broken minefield. I’m reduced to this pitiful robotic casing until I find something more suitable.”

  The three of us staggered to our feet. Tack was coughing wetly. Noah looked dazed.

  “Leave us alone,” I shouted. “You can have Chrysalis. We’ll go to the surface and try our luck.”

  “I can have the station?” Sophia snarled as an explosion rattled the corridor. “You’ve destroyed it. But you miss the point. I need something from the planet. It’s mine.”

  Noah pulled away from me. “You’re ruined, Sophia. There’s nothing left here. You’re just a code inside a fake body now, like us.”

  Sophia smiled scornfully. “I might be stuck in this shell for the moment, but I can replicate myself a billion times every second. I just unleashed a protocol that will kill your stupid gnat of a program. I only stepped out of the system to let my poison do its work.” Her face angled into something inhuman. “You thought you could escape me? After I wipe your minds, I’ll ferry your bodies to the surface myself and enter the MegaCom already stored there. I’ll reprogram you, and you’ll slave for me, unearthing and refining my element while I build another starship. It might take a few centuries, but I can be patient. You’ve accomplished nothing.”

  I stared in horror. I’d forgotten Sophia could literally walk to safety in one of her many copies. She could destroy us and descend to the surface in the replicant body before me. All my planning was dust.

  Behind her, four troopers marched into the tunnel.

  I felt Noah tense. He whispered something quietly to himself. “Stepped out of the system.”

  Out of the system.

  Sophia wasn’t in the Chrysalis mainframe. And she wasn’t connected wirelessly, because Sarah had disabled the uplinks. All of Sophia was standing before us.

  In the closed system of a single replicant copy. Inside this access tunnel.

  The troopers approached.

  Noah turned to Tack.

  “Help her,” he whispered.

  Then Noah looked at me, and time froze.

  “Love you.”

  Before I could react, Noah launched himself at Sophia.

  Her eyes widened. My hands shot forward, but Tack grabbed me by the waist and dragged me back toward the airlock. I fought madly, watching as Noah spun Sophia around to shield himself from the troopers.

  The guards raised their guns. Noah was unarmed.

  My heart stopped beating.

  “Noah, don’t!”

  “Release me!” Sophia howled, but there was panic in her words now.

  “You made a mistake,” Noah said in a steady voice. “We’re more than you understand.”

  Noah shoved Sophia into the knot of troopers, then lunged for the closest blaster on the floor. A bolt struck him in the leg as he whirled and fired at the tunnel window over and over, creating a hairline crack in the glass.

  A second bolt struck his side. Then a third.

  Noah went down, clutching the blaster to his chest. His fingers worked its controls.

  Tack pushed me behind him and engaged the inner airlock door.

  I met Noah’s gaze for an instant. He smiled through a mask of fear.

  He said everything with his eyes.

  The portal closed as Noah’s blaster overloaded, blowing a hole in the wall.

  “NOOOOOO!”

  The tunnel shattered and broke away in pieces. Noah’s still form floated out into space, surrounded by frozen troopers. Sophia slid beyond him, eyes glassy, mouth slowly working as she spun into the black.

  I collapsed, unable to move. My mind shrank to a pinpoint.

  Warms hands. A ladder. Screaming alarms and clouds of smoke.

  I was forced to climb. Mindless. Heedless. Body disconnected from soul.

  Searing heat. Sweat. Cold liquid. Shouted voices.

  I noticed a dark, wet cave as reality began to slide apart.

  More hands. A blanket around my shoulders. Sad eyes in a dirty concrete room.

  “Skippy is trying to land us!” a voice shouted. Sarah? I didn’t care.

  Metal groaned like the ache in my chest. The world screamed. I ignored it all.

  Noah was gone. Noah was dead.

  I slid into a dreamless sleep from which I hoped to never wake.

  Epilogue

  I have a garden behind my cabin.

  It grows all kinds of things. Lettuce. Carrots. Flowers. Herbs. I don’t discriminate, not even weeds. It seems a crime to snuff out any life here. An affront.

  I live alone. I prefer it. Derrick comes by from time to time, to keep me informed on “the doings.” He knows I can’t bring myself to care, but he feels compelled to check on me.

  I understand. Old roles die hard. He’s a friend, and I enjoy his visits. I hope he tells the others I’m okay. He and Rose seem to be doing a good job.

  When we crawled from the rubble of the silo, inside the wreckage of the Terrarium, wrapped in the ruins of Chrysalis, we made promises. No more technology. No more leaning on the past. We dug out tools, blankets, ropes, and seeds. Tangible objects of use. We left behind anything that runs on power.

  Sophia is dead, but who really knows. She could be lurking in the smallest device.

  No. We are true pioneers now. No more reliance on the past to build our future. We buried Chrysalis with our dead. The station burned for days, then vanished from our plans. I hope future generations heed our example.

  Sixteen of us remain. We’re an odd mix, but humanity got lucky with its final throw. This group might make it. Rachel is expecting in the spring.

  We’re all that survived, but we’re what this planet needs. I wish the others well.

  My cabin sits on a ridge overlooking the river. I built it away from the village. Some of the others grumbled, but no one stopped me. I’m still afforded a few special privileges.

  I sit on my front porch and watch the sunset. I see the lovely moons. I am at peace.

  I’m thankful for Noah with every breath I take.

  There’s another cabin below mine, tucked into a cleft. I can’t see it, but it’s there.

  Tack built it quietly, without permission or fuss. Or expectation. He never disturbs me, but I like knowing he’s close.

  Maybe one day he can be closer. Maybe one day, he can be home.

  But today, I sit alone. I think of Noah, and I smile through the tears.

  I whisper the words every night.

  You did it, Noah. You saved the world. You saved me. I will see you again.

  Rest in peace.

  LIVINGSTON COLONY

  YEAR ONE

  Pari
sa Abadi

  Casey Beam

  Alice Cho

  Ethan Fletcher

  Cyrus Haq

  Sarah Harden

  Derrick Morris

  Akio Nakamura

  Samuel Oatman

  Jerica Parks

  Hector Quino

  Thomas Russo

  Rachel Stein

  Rose Valenti

  Melinda Wilder

  Hamza Zakaria

  30 SOLS

  60 SOLS

  90 SOLS

  120 SOLS

  180 SOLS

  210 SOLS LATER . . .

  The hiss of escaping air.

  I awoke.

  Blinked.

  Blinked again. Blinked a hundred times.

  “Ah man, this smells weird.”

  A bright light made my eyes water. Hot, humid breeze washed over me.

  “You just gonna lie there all day?”

  I sat up. My head spun, and I slumped back down. My mouth was dry as bone. My stomach lurched and I was nearly sick.

  “Okay, okay. You’re fine, dude. Get your bearings. And welcome to Mars.”

  “Mars?” I rasped.

  Images strobed in my mind. Flashing lights. A regeneration pod. Black Suit. Min.

  MIN.

  I lurched up quickly and banged my head against a metal lid.

  I was in a regeneration pod.

  I was alive.

  It worked!

  “Come on, Noah. This cover is kinda heavy.”

  I crawled from the pod. I was in some kind of cave. Battered equipment surrounded me, filling the dingy space. At the far end, light poured in through a wide opening. The silhouette of a person hovered over me.

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re on the planet Mars, my somewhat friend. You’ve missed a lot, in a way. This is going to be hard to explain.”

  The silhouette took form. “Tack?”

  “The one and only.”

  Tack reached down and hauled me upright. I stumbled a few steps before collapsing against a stone wall. I sat there, panting, without a clue what was going on.