“Colin?” Seven narrowly looked over at his son, avoiding direct eye contact with him
“You’re not my father.” He boldly stated, “My father’s dead. I don’t know who you are but you’re not him.”
Seven decided to take him up on the challenge. He looked straight into the eyes of Colin – “Least you’re right about one thing, you should probably just call me ‘Red’.”
“Colin! Put the gun down!” Gabriel shouted. MDSU and EDF security poured in from both directions at the sides of both men, guns drawn.
“You’re a liar.” Colin’s face was stern and his fingers – ready.
Seven kept silent, unaffected by Colin’s growing fury. Colin knew something was too off about this whole thing. From the hair color to the facial expressions, bit by bit he started identifying more differences about this ‘Seven’ to his real father.
“Drop the weapon!” One of the EDF guards demanded
“You drop your weapons!” MDSU protested at the EDF, backing up Colin. Tension in the room started stripping away the layers of the bottled cold war.
Aggravated but outwardly calm, Colin armed his weapon so Seven would see – “I’m giving you to the count of five to tell me where my son is, otherwise I’m blasting your ‘ass’ unconscious.” Colin used an earth line he knew his father would know.
Seven smirked at the threat.
Then everything froze.
Nobody could really tell what it was but they knew something came. A loud, deathly female shriek penetrated the air.
Everyone instantly fell to the ground.
Except Seven.
Some were convulsing, others screaming in pain, trying to block away the horrifying screams. Colin rolled around trying to keep himself conscious. The sound was utterly disturbing; cries, shrieks and laughter of women they could not see. Yet Seven stood there smirking as if he enjoyed psychic disturbance.
Cracks formed around the ceiling, as if it were being ripped open. A gust of wind escaped the building then the roof was violently tossed away into the sky by a vehement telekinetic force.
Three armor-suited war maidens flew into the room and landed on the right, left and back of Seven. Their suits were highly advanced, featuring armor-form-fitting layers with differences in their helmets, colors, weapons and propulsion systems. One maiden, the one in red and grey had a long dark cape that flowed as if gravity didn’t exist and she carried a long spear-like weapon. The other Maiden had a blue and silver color and carried glorious mechanical wings with no visible weapons while the last Maiden’s suit carried a black color scheme, sporting two jet boosters and an assault rifle in hand.
The shrieking had stopped, only because they didn’t have to do it anymore since their victims were all floored. Yes, the shrieking came from these Armored War-Maidens. Seven held two of his fingers to his neck and a breathing visor appeared around his face.
“Behold!” He announced to the room – “Look upon those who will be your only salvation. The Crimson Spear is coming! They will not show mercy like we have here today!”
Light shined around the War Maidens and Seven. They walked into each other’s arms and were engulfed in pure light, before abruptly vanishing into thin air with a violent energy signature left behind, flooring whoever decided to get up.
Colin struggled to regain himself. Through sheer will and pure determination, he conquered his palsy state, rose to his feet and limped to the door Seven initially entered from. There were these indistinct screams. Not the ones from the War Maidens, it was different. It sounded local, like people nearby – outside, discovering something horrific. When he got to the door and peered outside, he shook his head twice to make sure what he hadn’t been dreaming.
“Son of a…” Colin grumbled when he realized Seven didn’t lie. In the sky, the sun shined brightly and with it, a new, glittering companion welcomed itself into the picture – The Asteroid.
The Offspring is taken
Smoke clears from the blood soaked hallway. The place is strangely silent. Only bodies of the ‘workers’ remain. Seven’s corpse still laid there, cold and departed. Then something strange started happening. Life came to The Guest’s fingers. A force of energy invigorated his battered, bullet-holed body and this newfound second wind drove him to stand on his two feet. He opened his eyes, or you could say, he opened one of his real eyes. The other eye seemed artificial. It shun a deep blue. The cuts on his face slightly revealed bits of a hyper alloy endoskeleton. He peered around the room, observing the damage, taking mental notes then proceeded down the hallway.
As he walked past the bodies of the other shot-up workers, life started coming to them too. The Guest continued down a series of hallway mazes, venturing deeper into the vast complex of this artificial lair with more and more other ‘guests’ at his side. At last, they arrived at their destination. A giant automated slide door opened and they walked into a dark room as big as a stadium. Lines of cyan neon light guided a path for them. Bit by bit, smaller spotlights carried them to the apex terminal.
The Guest Josh identified as his grandfather, Seven, looked up with a dim smile on his face and said – “It is done. They have her, just as we planned.”
“Then it is time for the new Zero Sphere.” An ancient voice sounded within the room, giving energy to the light itself as it spoke.
--
--
‘Hey, there you are. I was wondering when I was going to see you again. Thought you didn’t make it out. Thought he didn’t make it out either. I guess you’re the start, so we’ll find him later. Wait, where are you going? Stop a sec, ok? There’s a lot I still have to tell you. Heather I won’t lie to you any longer. I love you.’
A splash of water smacks his face lazily like a wet towel
“Oy!” A harsh voice wakes him up, “Rise and shine kid. You got some answers to give.”
‘What on Mars! Who? Wha… a dream. She’s still not here.’
“Hey! I’m talking to you runt. Wake that dizzy ass up, oy?”
An orange-flavored haired man spoke in a strange, aggressive accent toward Josh. He couldn’t have been that much older than him. His face was fine-cut, scarred and stern with a wiry-capable body, dressed in an older aged soldier’s harness. The assault rifle in his hand meant no joke. This guy had to be a guard or something of that sort.
“What…” Josh barely pulled a word together.
He noticed himself in a makeshift cell. Iron bars surrounded him and his hands were tied.
“What’s going on?” Josh asked.
The guard ignored the question. Instead he just walked in, untied him and dared Josh to make a run for it. But Josh was in no shape to do anything like that. He was battered and hungry, confused and dazed. The prisoner of whoever decided to spare his sorry life for the sake of, who knows what at this point.
“Where are you taking me?” Josh asked humbly while the orange haired young man escorted him out. No response came. Josh figured this guy was a hard ass.
‘If I say the wrong thing, I’ll probably wake up another two days later.’
Down the hallway, Josh figured he wasn’t in the same place from before. Instead of the high-tech, sleek, albeit mysterious setting he departed from, this place was run-down, makeshift, scrapped into place with tech from here and there. He saw other soldiers – taking orders, giving commands, working together. Their uniforms seemed so out of time. They appeared ragtag and deeply paranoid.
‘How’ve I never heard of these people or seen them before?’
Josh shook his head. He thought this whole thing seemingly appeared as some underground terrorist organization, but then he saw two little kids, hiding in one of the many rooms he walked by. They didn’t seem like prisoners. They looked like survivors. Then he saw more of them. More civilians, in other rooms. This couldn’t have been just a military faction. This… was another home, to another people…
“Stop!” The escort halted him.
He went over to a sealed door a
nd shun his wrist gadget over the computer terminal. The door responded by giving them access to enter in. Josh was pushed in, stumbling a little when his feet made contact with the cold floor within.
“Can you please tell me what’s going on?” Frustration grew in Josh, “Why don’t you just kill me and get it over with it.”
“Kill you?” His escort scoffed, “You have no idea what’s going on here – do you?”
Josh peered at him furiously silent.
Those willful eyes demanding more.
“You should.” Another man called out in the room. An older half-greyed haired white man, probably in his middle ages, “Joshua Sphere.”
Josh felt completely neutral by hearing his name called out without giving it. At this point, he knew he was at the mercy of his captors. They could have all the information beforehand by means he can only guess about.
“Can you tell me what’s going on?” Josh thought he’d have some success with the older man. Maybe he’d be more mature.
This older man appeared to be in a position of authority. He nodded once at the younger man that escorted Josh in, and he backed up.
“I can, but you might not like what I’m about to say. So I’ll ask you once and never again. Do you want to hear the truth, or do you wanna’ back to the lie you came from?”
The rebel fire sparked and begun its ignition in Josh. No matter how bruised he may have been, he wasn’t about to back down.
“I want the truth.” He growled.
The older man’s face didn’t flutter an inch – “Your whole life’s been nothing but a lie. An artificial cover up to block the war that’s been happening out here for decades. That signal your friend Nick picked up? It was us. We called you out here Josh. We brought you out here to face the truth. An ancient AI’s been fondling with every major event here on Mars since its inception, changing it where it sees fit. The EDF, the MDSU, The Martian Council? All of it – nothing but pawns to the one we call Zero.”
“Zero?” The severity of the man’s words did not stop Josh from paying absolute attention. It may have been serious, world-crushing, and yet, so undeniably exciting.
“It’s the only name we know it by. For years we tried to stop it. Tried to warn humanity about it. Nothing we did ever worked. Zero was always ready for us. Always two steps ahead. It kept you and others wrapped in a bubble of ignorance. If we went near your colonies, we were instantly killed. For years we’ve been trying to make something happen. Years.”
Josh stayed silent. All along he knew something was wrong. This? He couldn’t dream in his wildest imaginations.
“But now we’re here. Now we can finally say that one day, we’ll smash that metal-fucker to junk.”
“Why me?” Josh had to ask.
The old man nodded to Josh’s escort.
“Move.” He shoved Josh forward to walk toward another quadrant of the room. When Josh arrived at the edge he looked out in amazement. The room they were in was a part of a bigger lab on another floor below.
The older man came to Josh’s left side with the guard on the right, “Look over there.” He pointed to the obvious spectacle in the room. There were people in there with hazard suits, but not like the ones from the previous place, rather ragtag, underdeveloped versions in comparison. They were working on something in the middle of the room. The spectacle, if you will. A glass-encased chamber where a naked, pale skin, dark-haired woman laid in a clear, green liquid with her arms and legs crossed in a hug to herself, seemingly dormant.
“Do you know what they call that woman?” The man asked.
Josh squinted his eyes as he tried naturally narrowing his scope to the sleeping beauty. Josh an idea but not certainty. In the back of his head, he couldn’t deny it. Yet he couldn’t believe it. How could it be? Josh stayed quiet. He didn’t know if answering wrongly would involve a punishment of some sort.
“That’s the woman who started this resistance. The one they once called, ‘Valkyrie’.” The man stated proudly.
Son of Mars’ Mission
“Seven days.” Gabriel declared to the secret meeting. A hint of sadness and agitation followed his voice as he pointed to the hologram in the center of the room, at the center of the vertically-long table where figures of the EDF and MDSU sat at opposite ends with two of the Martian council present. They had no choice but to put aside their differences.
Unfortunately, Seven didn’t lie and it wasn’t any optical illusion either. It’s coming and only the people in this room are the only hope of stopping it. The hologram changed to a theoretical diagram of what would happen on impact.
“The damage will be catastrophic. The orbit of the planet might see a disturbing change. It’ll set back the colonization efforts by decades, or, probably end up destroying everything entirely. We have to begin Operation Orbiter.”
“Will it be able to stop the asteroid in less than seven days?” Edward asked
“The outcomes aren’t favorable but we’ve tested the asteroid-turner since the early 2000s. It’s better than nothing.”
“And if this fails?”
“Then we evacuate Mars.” Gabriel said defeated.
Edward couldn’t bring himself to accept Mars’ fate if that were the case. All that they had worked for, all they had accomplished – would soon be wiped away, “We won’t be able to evacuate everyone in time! There has to be a way to save our people if it comes to that!”
“There is.” Colin finally spoke.
The rest of the room zeroed in on him. They were eager to hear. He merely glanced at them, his focus still leaning toward what he, personally, needed to do.
“The Pyramids. It’s the only way.” He said
“The Crimson Zone Pyramids.” John found it necessary to correct him sternly
“That’s right.” Colin fired back at him, “It’s the only shelter here on Mars capable of withstanding the incoming blast. If we want to save our people; we get them there.”
No one knew quite what to say. The only one that could submit some of his expertise had to have been John. After all, he had more experience with the Crimson Zone than anyone else in the room.
“You know getting in there is nothing short of impossible, don’t you?” John grew more challenging in his posture
“Not impossible. Impractical.” Colin replied like a man with a trick up his sleeve
“You act like you have a way in there.”
“I do.”
Born into the eyes of a world that would scorn him at the slightest mishap. Born into a forced designation; to become the perfect child. To become, essentially, the perfect man. All eyes on the son of Mars – his parents, the rebels who fought for a new freedom, did not walk in ignorance of the life Colin would have to endure. He would become their legacy.
Upon a late arrival to his home, Colin decided to take a renegade option. The garage doors opened up, he walked in, sliced a password into his wrist computer and suddenly the area revealed a new secret. A confiscated Raven. The one his mother rode, a long time ago. On the handles contained another ancient trinket. His father’s coat. Colin moved carefully to the handles of the speeder. Memories surged through his head.
He finds the courage to hold his father’s coat and only a few seconds later, he finds himself slipping into it and feels an old protection. He grips the handles and gets lost in thought. He feels her. The vigor, the fire. His mother.
Colin sits on the bike meditatively. As he boots up the old vehicle, everything comes at him in a split second.
His missing son.
His lost parents.
The fate of Mars.
His wife long gone.
And not a tear is shed. Only determination. Only the will to do what must be done.
“Open the gate.” He tells the computer, ‘I have a mission to complete.’ He thinks.
--
--
Out in the distant sands, a lone wolf rides the desert fearlessly as his coat flows all high in the night’s wi
nd. He could be followed, he could be traced, and yet none of it troubles a man with nothing to lose. That unwanted sparkling in the sky is all the fuel he needs. He’s the only one that can stop it and he knows it.
The horizon draws closer and closer. Soon he might as well be driving off the coming cliff, but Colin knows better. He hits the brake and drifts to the edge. This is his destination. He grabs a gadget from his father’s coat and points it around. The gadget shoots a red, thin-needle-like laser. It’s a scout tool. He’s searching for something. Something he knows he has to find. He walks around for a bit. Looking high, looking low. No success initially, until a low beeping goes off and the laser turns green. It leads him further to the edge.
“There.” He whispers.
Whatever he’s tracking, it’s about to take him over no ground. Colin seems like he’s expecting this.
He knows what’s about to happen. So he takes the step off the cliff, but there’s no fall. He moves his other leg to join him a step closer to his destination. It looks like he’s out there, floating midair, but Colin knows better. Realizing he’s arrived at his target, he puts away the laser gadget and gets to accessing his wrist computer. Then he points it toward the horizon.
Bit by bit, the mirage of nothingness fades away and before The Son of Mars; a small, old white dwelling materializes. Even the invisible ground beneath Colin becomes a bridge that connects to the abode ahead. The wind guides him along. He walks to the front door. It opens, as if he were the native to it. Colin slowly pushes the door ajar. He sets a foot into the dark house and takes a careful, almost paranoid glance at its inner surroundings.
“Welcome home.” He tells himself.
A time in Colin Sphere’s mind
Time is a different kettle of fish. To some it stands still, others, it flows to its streams all too steadily. For me, I see it all happening at once. As I walk into the pitch night of a place I once thought of as my home, the thick clog in the air reminds me no one has been here. A distant shade returns to my mind’s eyes.
Zero Sphere: A Space Opera Thriller Page 12