Paragon

by Autumn Kalquist

  Huge, dented machines ran along the wall closest to the platform they stood on, creating the hum heard throughout the sublevels. Tadeo could feel the blistering heat emanating off them even through his suit. Why had he always thought the heat came from the core itself? Thick wires the width of both Tadeo’s legs ran from the generators up to sections of the power core.

  Lanar and his team went to the side of the space and came back with handheld lasers.

  The comm crackled in Tadeo’s helmet.

  “The cold sector is midway up,” Lanar said. “We have to climb ladders and work from the scaffolding. Are you sure you want your guards up there, Lieutenant Raines? The core cycles every few minutes. It can get rough up on the corewalks. Everything vibrates, things slip. We’ll be high up, and if you fall, you won’t survive it. We’ve lost people, and they were experienced.”

  Tadeo walked closer to the power core. Scaffolding ran along the entire globe and disappeared over the ledge to the levels below this one, so workers could tend to the entire core.

  “We’re coming up,” Tadeo said. “I’ll follow Wes. Omar, you go with Lanar. Finnegan,” he gestured to one of his last two guards. “Stay down here by the doors. The other follows Cind. And everyone, be careful.”

  Lanar led them to the ledge and fired off a list of numbers to his crew. They replied in the affirmative.

  Lanar pointed upward. “The cold section is twenty feet up and spans one hundred inserts. Each of us will take a third.” Lanar began to climb a ladder, and Omar followed. Cind led the other guard down the line.

  Wes averted his eyes, not meeting Tadeo’s gaze as he led him down the line to a ladder in the opposite direction.

  He hooked his welding tool to a loop on his belt and started up the ladder. Tadeo waited a moment, then followed after him, his heart pounding. He’d climbed several rungs when he felt a rumble beneath his gloves.

  The comm crackled. “Hang on,” came Lanar’s voice. “Cycle coming.”

  Wes halted above him, and Tadeo clutched the rungs more tightly. The rumble became a strong vibration as the magnetic field cycled within the core. He hung on for a moment more, not moving, and his body shook with the ladder. Tadeo looked down the curving body of the core, illuminated by lume bars the whole way. The view of the drop snatched his breath away. They were near the bottom portion of the globe, but it still went down at least a hundred feet. Lanar hadn’t been kidding. A drop like that would kill a man.

  A thrill raced through him as the vibration ceased. He took a deep breath, tasting the odd metallic bite of the packaged oxygen.

  “It’s over,” Lanar said. “A few more minutes before it comes around again. Get in place. Deactivate your laser in between cycles. We don’t want to risk setting an explosion off if there really is a bomb in here.”

  They continued their climb and reached the corewalk Wes had been heading for. Tadeo stepped onto the thin metal platform. Railings lined either side of it, and there was only room for Wes and him to stand side by side. He glanced around and saw Omar with Lanar on a corewalk to his right and Cind and Finnegan to his left.

  This close to the core, Tadeo could see the power cell inserts. The long rectangles ran in even rows beside the corewalk. Rings of metal protruded from each rectangle, clearly grips to help pull the inserts out.

  “Remove them,” Lanar said over the com, “but don’t bother welding them shut again. We’ll come back around to reinstall them after we’ve lived another day. I want comm silence except to tell us when you’ve cleared an insert.”

  Wes unhooked his welding tool from his suit and held it up, activating it. The blue light of the laser reflected off his helmet, obscuring his expression.

  Tadeo’s muscles tensed as Wes ran the laser along the rectangle, each movement painstakingly slow, until the edges of the insert turned a bright orange. He tugged at the grip. Almost immediately, orange faded to dull black, the metal cooling, and Wes lifted the power cell insert up and out, while Tadeo held his breath. He activated his helio and leaned in to look at it. It looked just like the new one had in Dritan’s cubic—glowing yellow strips coated the entire metal rectangle.

  “Insert number one. Clear,” Lanar said.

  “Insert thirty-four clear,” Wes said. He slid it back into place, and they moved two steps to the right to work on the next one.

  “Insert sixty-seven clear,” Cind said.

  Sweat dripped down Tadeo’s forehead, and the salty sting of it ran into his eyes, but he couldn’t wipe them. Wes started the process again on the next insert, and Tadeo’s stomach twisted with each careful movement of the laser.

  “Insert sixty-eight clear.”

  “Insert two clear.”

  Lanar and Cind reported, their words on top of each other.

  Wes pulled out the next cell, and Tadeo held his breath again. Yellow strips. No explosives.

  “Insert thirty-five. Clear,” Wes said as he slid the insert back into place.

  Wes began running the laser along thirty-six and pulled it out. Yellow strips. “Insert thirty-six. Clear.”

  More reports flooded in. No bomb. That was at least nine now of one hundred. All clear.

  Tadeo stepped up to thirty-seven behind Wes, heart pumping, his mind clear. The adrenaline surging through his veins made him feel more alive than he’d felt in long time. He was doing something for the fleet. Something worthwhile.

  But maybe he was wrong about all of this. Maybe the explosives were somewhere else. Command level. The galley. Medlevel. Regardless, the president and board would be off the ship until he and the guard could remove the threat.

  The comm crackled, and a loud voice came through. “Lieutenant Raines. It’s Kiva.”

  “Report,” Tadeo said.

  “The command level families are loaded up in the transport. Chief says he’ll be heading our way soon with more squads. He’ll be here in thirty minutes.”

  “Good. Thank you, Sergeant. I need comm silence until they arrive.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wes completed the next insert. Clear. They were all clear. Had Tadeo truly been wrong about the threat? About everything?

  Wes started on the next insert, carefully heating up all four edges.

  “Cycle coming through in a few seconds,” Lanar said into the comm. “Stop what you’re doing.”

  Wes kept going with the laser, not heeding Lanar’s words.

  “He said stop,” Tadeo warned.

  Vibrations coursed through the corewalk, and everything shook. Tadeo gripped the handrail, struggling to hold on as the core shuddered beside them, and the flimsy metal platform moved beneath his feet.

  Wes’s laser shifted and sliced across the rectangle. Through the insert.

  Tadeo’s pulse quickened to a dull roar in his ears.

  Wes deactivated the welding tool, and it clattered to the platform as the shaking ceased. Tadeo kept one hand on the handrail and reached out with the other gloved hand to grab Wes’s sleeve.

  “What the fuck did you do?”

  Wes turned to meet his gaze, and Tadeo saw his eyes, no longer obscured by the glint of his laser. They looked wild, terrified beneath the plasstex.

  Tadeo’s blood went cold, and he lunged for the insert. Wes blocked him and shoved him backward.

  “What’s happening?” Lanar’s voice.

  Wes shoved Tadeo again, harder, and Tadeo fell back on the corewalk. He grabbed the railing and pulled himself upright, his every sense on full alert, even as the corewalk swung, unstable, beneath them.

  Wes stood a foot away, gloved hands balled into fists, his eyes crazed.

  “What are you doing?” Tadeo said. “Move out of the way!”

  Wes lunged for Tadeo, but Tadeo stumbled back just far enough to avoid him.

  “You killed Tati,” Wes said, his voice shaking. “You should’ve been the one—”

  Tadeo charged him, tackling him to the corewalk.

  “What’s going on?” More voices questioned
on the comm, but Tadeo barely heard them as he and Wes wrestled on the swinging walk.

  Wes angled his body low, and managed to wrap his arms around Tadeo’s legs and haul him half over the railing. Tadeo lost his breath as he glimpsed the long fall to the bottom. He darted one arm out to grab at the rail as gravity and Wes tried to throw him to his death.

  “They lie to us.” Wes panted. “I loved her, and you—”

  Tadeo punched Wes’s helmet, and his head snapped back. But he only pushed against Tadeo harder, forcing him farther over the railing.

  He was going to die.

  Tadeo did the only thing he could, the only thing that might give him a shot at survival. He let go of the handrail. And he nearly toppled backward over the edge.

  But with both arms free, he grappled with Wes, and by sheer force of will, managed to shove him sideways onto the corewalk.

  Breathing hard, Tadeo sank back to the walk and wrapped his arms around an off-balance Wes. He heaved him high, forcing him over the rail this time.

  As Wes went over the railing, he yelled, scrambling to grab hold of something. He grasped Tadeo’s arm and managed to hang on.

  Tadeo hesitated for a moment, straining against Wes’s full weight, as the corewalk swung wildly.

  Wes’s eyes were wide, bright. “Soon there’ll be a new order.”

  “Not today.” Tadeo pushed Wes away, forcing him to release his grasp, plunging him to his death.

  As Wes fell, a scream erupted through the comm.

  Tadeo blinked, dazed, as the scream reverberated in his ears, drowning out all other communication. Wes, in his white suit, tumbled down, past the corewalks. His body bounced off metal, and snapping sounds traveled through the comm. The screams grew anguished. Then a thud as his body hit the floor. The screaming stopped.

  Silence on the line.

  Only the sound of Tadeo’s own blood pumping, his own rattling breath.

  Only the hum of the power core vibrating through him.

  Voices shouted, all trying to talk at once, and Tadeo whirled to face the power cell insert. He gripped the ring and pulled hard. The insert came free, and Tadeo’s hands shook as he stared down at the interior.

  No yellow strips.

  A clear plasstex container was adhered to the insert. And within it—black powder flecked with white crystals.

  He leaned closer, hoping what he saw was just a trick of the light, but he already knew what he was seeing was real. The plasstex had melted around the outer edge of the container where Wes had cut through the center of the insert.

  The white Zenith crystals were glowing.

  Tadeo gripped the insert, feeling too dizzy to stand, but he somehow managed to stay upright. The crystals were glowing. How many minutes did they have before it blew up?

  The voices finally cut through his fog.

  “What happened to Wes?” Lanar’s voice, booming through the comm.

  “He tried to throw me over the handrail. I threw him over instead,” Tadeo said, not hearing his own voice.

  Then another surge of adrenaline moved through him, knocking the dizziness away. He carefully walked back toward the ladder he’d come up, holding the insert out before him. “I’ve located the bomb. It’s active. I repeat, the bomb has been activated. Get down to the platform and get the main doors open. Evacuate the sublevels now.”

  Tadeo’s voice sounded calm, commanding, like it came from someone else.

  Tadeo tuned out the chorus of panicked voices and focused only on the insert in his hands. He swallowed the metallic taste in his mouth. One step at a time.

  He had to get this away from the power core. The further away he got it, the more people might survive. Where was the closest airlock? There was no time. Anywhere on this ship, hundreds or thousands of people would die. Including him.

  Tadeo reached the ladder and started down it, his legs still shaking. He gripped the insert with one hand while lowering his body with the other.

  “There’ll be another cycle soon,” Lanar said, his voice cracking.

  The combined weight of Tadeo’s suit and the insert made hanging on to the ladder difficult, but he held on with everything he had, slowly working his way back to the main platform.

  When he reached the last rung, the ladder began to vibrate. He stepped onto the platform and gripped the guardrail with one hand as the entire platform and scaffolding shook.

  They were waiting for him on the platform, all of them, faces drawn. Omar stood beside the main doors as they creaked open.

  Kiva ran in from the corridor. “I commed Chief,” she said, breathless. “He’s coming—but he’s on zero deck.”

  Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion. His body felt heavy, like he was sinking in a vat of uncured soyad.

  “No time,” he said. “Are the president and board away?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked down at the glowing Zenith crystals. Where should he take it? He had minutes. But how many? His gaze moved to the corridor beyond Kiva. If he sprinted, he might make it to the airlock at the other end of the core. The one where they’d airlocked Era.

  Tadeo strode past everyone, the stuck feeling fading. “Kiva, Omar—clear the sublevels. Get everyone to safety. I’m sending this fucker out an airlock. Go!”

  Tadeo ran down the corridor. How long did he have? Two minutes? Three? It had already been at least five minutes since Wes had hit the bomb with the laser. At least. Maybe longer.

  The suit and the heavy insert made him slow, and he pushed against the extra weight, trying to move faster. But the harder he ran, the farther away the other end of the corridor seemed. His legs were shaking too hard, slowing him down. This thing was going to blow up in his hands.

  It would kill a lot of people if it went off now. And it might destroy the Repository—end any hope of ever rebuilding civilization on a new Earth. Even if he didn’t survive, the archives had to.

  Tadeo blinked against the sting of sweat running into his eyes. He glanced down at the bomb, his breath catching painfully. Were the crystals glowing more brightly than before? Or was it a trick of the flickering lumes here?

  He raised his eyes and stared down the corridor. This isn’t a bomb. I’m not in space gear. I’m just on a planet with real gravity.

  He tried to picture a new Earth, like he had so many times while running the levels on the Meso, like he’d imagined while running the treadmill on the Paragon.

  A new world. Blue skies. Open fields. Green trees. Dirt paths. Life.

  His legs strengthened beneath him, and he sprinted toward the end of the corridor. He was running fast now, his body under his control again, and the end grew closer, until he was there.

  Breathing hard, his side stitching up, he fumbled for his shift card on the loop around his waist. He ripped it off, scanned it, and pushed into the control room before the door finished opening.

  He ran to open the door that led to the airlock. It seemed to take forever to open, but once it did, he stumbled inside and laid the bomb gently on the metal floor of the airlock. Then he scanned his card to get back into the control cubic.

  As the door slid closed behind him, he took two steps to the control panel and typed in the same code he’d typed in two nights before, when he’d airlocked Era. Red lights began to flash in the airlock. He could barely hear the sirens through his helmet, but he knew they’d started up on the other side.

  The black powder mocked him from the other side of the airlock, and the crystals appeared to glow red beneath the lights.

  The countdown had begun. One minute. Too long. How long had it been? How long did he have? Tadeo backed away from the glasstex separating him from the bomb. Soon the airlock would open, and the bomb would be swept into space. But would it be soon enough?

  He couldn’t leave without seeing it go, and even if he did leave now—if it went off, he’d be dead anyway, and it would probably take off the entire side of the ship. At least the Repository was on the opposite end. The
Paragon might be crippled, and thousands would die, but the dekas could salvage the archives and keep going. And not under new leadership like the terrorists wanted—like Wes had wanted. The board and president were safely away.

  Tadeo kept his eyes glued to the countdown. Thirty seconds. The bomb had to be seconds from exploding. He should be terrified right now, but he only felt high. High on danger—exactly how he’d felt all those times he’d snuck down to the sublevels on the Meso. All those times he met Kit in secret.

  Kit’s laugh. Her green eyes. The way she’d sounded when they’d moved together, two hungry bodies in the dark. In unused stairwells, in helio sector during night shift, in sublevel storage, in places they never should have been.

  She would have gotten her implant in a month. But he’d convinced her to break the rules, and she’d paid the ultimate price.

  It only took a few times before he’d gotten her pregnant. Tadeo’s eyes burned beneath closed lids. His mother had tried to protect them—had kept people from finding out the child was his. But Kit refused to talk to him after the day she found out.

  It was an illegal pregnancy—set to be terminated whether it was defective or not. In truth, it was treason. He and Kit had committed treason when they’d had sex before she’d gotten her implant. They’d disobeyed the population laws.

  And the day before Kit been scheduled to abort, she airlocked herself. Just like Era.

  Except he’d airlocked Era.

  Tadeo opened his eyes and looked down at the teardrop tattoo on his wrist, one-half of an infinity symbol.

  Quin crops failed from rot if the right balance of nutrients wasn’t maintained. Maybe the universe had a balance, too. And maybe he was on the wrong side of it. Maybe this was his sacrifice. Maybe this was the way he needed to atone for all he’d done wrong.

  Tadeo looked back at the countdown.

  00:10

  00:09

  00:08

  The outer door would be opening now.

  00:07

  00:06

  00:05

  00:04

  Tadeo wiped the sweat from his brow, and the tightness in his chest let up.