by Mark Lingane
Sebastian gave her a smile as images of the old @summer came flooding back.
The two spoke awkwardly, discussing how annoying parents and teachers were, and other teenage-related dramas, until she stopped mid-sentence.
“I’m receiving an instruction.” Her hand moved toward the pummel of the sword. She hesitated and turned to him. “I have to leave. Fast.fast.”
“Where are going?”
“Away. That’s all. I am sad.sad. Talking to you is fun, even though your words are strange.strange.”
“You know the instruction you’re hearing, your tinyIris, you don’t have to do what it says.”
She looked at him hesitantly.
“You can stay.” He held out his hand but she stared at it, unmoving.
“I must do what tinyIris says,” she replied. “It’s an instruction.”
He sighed and placed his hand in his pocket. “If you ever think otherwise, come look for me.”
She took a couple of steps away, paused, then looked back over her shoulder at him, taking in his sad face. “Okay.” She smiled. She leaped up the stairs and was gone.
It was an absolute one-in-a-million chance, Sebastian thought, but at least it was a chance.
59
“I’M MAKING GREAT progress—why are you wet?” Michael said, as Sebastian appeared beside him.
Oliver was slumped forward in his chair, staring at the bubbling chemicals. Michael decanted a red liquid from one beaker into another containing a milky substance. The room filled with a sickly sweet smell.
“I slipped,” Sebastian said.
Michael gave him a sideways glance. “You don’t look happy.”
Sebastian sighed and looked glum. “I think I lost more than my footing.”
“Cheer up. We’ll be out of here in no time. As long as we keep safe, I’ll be able to make up a gallon of this stuff.”
“Oh, I met @bioMass. It turned out he was more infected than a cyborg.”
“Are you all right? He didn’t injure you?”
“No, not him. Down in the lowest level, there’s some weird glowing thing, a bit octopus-like.”
Michael stopped what he was doing. “It’s a biomechanical energy. That must be what’s powering this place. I’ve heard about that, but I thought they never got the funding for it. At least not from the government. I wonder how long it’s been there.”
“It had lots of fungus growing off it, in these long arms.” Sebastian waved his arms around to demonstrate. “That voice I spoke about earlier, I think it might’ve been the energy thing. What is it exactly?”
“I’d guess it’s biomass electrolysis, energy created from biological material derived from living, or recently living, organisms, like plants or similar. I doubt what you fell into was water.”
“You mean something down there is living in the water—or liquid—and it’s constantly generating power?”
“Could be. Right, Oliver?”
There was no response.
Sebastian waved his hand in front of Oliver’s eyes. He checked his pulse. There was nothing. “Poor Mr. Stephenson,” he sighed.
“At least he didn’t die buried under a pile of rubble, but doing something he loved. He was getting quite excited by the end. Pity he didn’t see it through.” Michael ran his hand over Oliver’s eyes, closing them for the last time. “We need to go,” he said.
“I want to bury him. He was my teacher; he taught me everything and made learning exciting. I owe it to him. And, at one point, he was my friend.”
They struggled with Oliver up the stairs and out through the building’s foyer.
“Should I be worried about the fresh set of tracks in here and that the door’s been smashed open?” Michael asked.
“No.” Sebastian felt every step, etched into the heavy dust, was pulling something he cared deeply about farther away. And the farther it went, the less chance there was of it coming back.
He dug the grave while Michael stood watch, jumping at any unexpected sound, which was all of them. When he was finished, he stood back from the mound of sand and tried to think of something to say.
“A good teacher can inspire hope, ignite the imagination, and instill a love of learning,” Michael said.
“He once was a friend as well as my teacher. Friends can help each other. A true friend and a great teacher is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself—and especially to feel free. He opened my mind and I can think of no higher praise.” Sebastian wiped away a tear. “I don’t like this place,” he said to Michael. “It’s just a bunch of memories of what could have been.”
They rolled the steambikes out of the train carriage and ignited the boilers. Sebastian sat by himself for a while on the hill housing the ’Siro. Even in the darkness, it had a view over the plains below. He threw small stones toward it, and stared at a solitary line of footprints heading off in the direction of the valley below.
Once the bikes were ready, they roared off in the direction they had come from to meet up with their friends.
The ’Siro went quiet, glowing softly from within. @summer appeared from behind the building. She cocked her head and looked out at the bikes making their way through the sparse vegetation. She sat down next to where Sebastian had sat, and stroked the ground. She looked back up at the bikes, and watched them until they disappeared from her view. Then got to her feet and ran off in a different direction.
60
THE MILES ROLLED by and the stars whirled their eternal dance across the night sky. Sebastian felt his senses go numb as the hours wound on. His head had started to sag when they finally pulled over to make camp for what remained of the night. Michael got a small fire burning, and they were soon sitting side by side, gazing into it, unmoving, captivated by the dancing flames.
“There’s a tesla nearby,” Sebastian said. “Whoever it is has been tracking us for a while.”
“You tell me this to worry or comfort me?”
“That’s something we’ll find out. But I’d worry until further notice.”
Michael lay down and let the warmth seep into his body. The temperature on the plain was dropping, and he rolled closer to the fire. Eventually, Sebastian heard light snoring.
Sebastian poked the fire with a long stick, then placed some extra wood on the burning heap. “You can come out now,” he called softly. “It’s just you and me.”
A hesitant Isaac stepped out from behind the bushes. His hair stuck out in all directions; his clothes were torn and covered in bloodstains, and the dark rings under his eyes made it look like he hadn’t slept for a week. He had a sword in his hand. It wasn’t very big. The battle was already over.
“I think I’m getting the hang of this,” Sebastian said.
He blinked.
The world went white. The white faded to a deep gray. It felt alien, and he didn’t belong.
“Maybe not,” he said.
Shadows crawled along the ground and twisted up around him.
Sebastian sighed. “Come out. We can’t sort this out if I can’t see you.”
There was a sudden pain in his head. It started gently and built in intensity. His eyes started to blink as the pain forced tears from his eyes. The color continued to change, blending to a deep fuzzy purple. Everything felt out of focus. Images flashed before him, all the thoughtless and mean things he had inflicted on Isaac over the years.
He held his head. “What’s going on?”
“Welcome to the ultraviolet energy band, the place no one can see. It’s the only place left where I have power.” There was a flash of deep red. Isaac disappeared, lost among the dark colors.
Realization dawned on Sebastian. Light was an energy wave. Changing the waves changed the color. But this was different: the energy was sucking at him.
“I was a tesla, and now you’ve taken that from me,” Isaac said. “Now I can only lurk around the darkest of the electromagnetic worlds.”
“You are a tesla, you always were. It does
n’t matter what kind. Some people are long-distance runners, and some are sprinters. One isn’t better than the other.”
“I don’t know what I am,” Isaac said. “Everyone’s been lying to me. I thought I had a family, but it was a lie. I have a past that’s a lie. I thought I had some powers, but that was another lie. I thought I had friends. That was the biggest lie of all.”
“They lied to all of us,” Sebastian shot back. “None us are who we think we are. We’re just a bunch of mutant outcasts and we always have been. Look at what they made us do. We were kids and we were sent off to war. That’s how little they cared about us. They found us and made us into weapons. The fighting’s been going on so long, I don’t know if we’re on the side of good or bad. All I know is, we’re at war, and we can’t seem to stop it.”
Sebastian ran out of steam and dropped his head. “I’m so tired of it. I’m tired of the pain it brings. Every time I control some EM force it hurts, like I’m being stabbed. The pain never stops, and it never gets less. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.” He looked up. “I’m sorry you can’t become a mega-tesla too, Isaac, but trust me, the cost is pretty unbearable.”
Isaac walked around Sebastian, the dark shadows following him. Sebastian heard the sound of Isaac’s disembodied voice.
“Do you know what they did to me?” Isaac said. “Do you want to know about unbearable? They flipped the ionization of my blood. Without power, I’m falling. @summer was balancing me. She’s gone. My electron bonds are breaking. I’m literally falling apart. At the molecular level. You want to know about pain?”
The purple light flowed down, wrapping around Sebastian in a grinding vortex surrounded by an infinite void of choking blackness. The pain ripped through him, reminding him of the time he summoned power from the nuclear reactors under the cyborg Hive. The pain was so intense, he expected blood to seep from his skin.
“But it won’t kill me. You know what it’ll make me?” Isaac’s voice continued. “A ghost. Nothing more than a bunch of memories wrapped up in pain.”
The purple cocoon diminished, returning Sebastian to ultraviolet.
Isaac was standing in front of him.
The ultraviolet light came roaring in like giant fists. Sebastian cleared his mind and intensified the waves, turning them white. They burst harmlessly against him. The pain of the summoning shot through him. Each time Isaac brought forward waves of the dark light, the defense hurt him more and more, until it drove him to his knees.
Sebastian stood up. He held up his hands. “No more fighting. I’ve really had enough. If it means that much to you, then you win.”
Isaac charged at him.
He closed his eyes, felt the energy, dissipated it, and Isaac reappeared on one side—because in an infinite universe, anything is possible.
“How did you do that?”
“I wished I was somewhere else,” Sebastian said. “It’s all in the flow. And it’s given me an idea.”
“Even here you’re too powerful. I really hate you.”
Sebastian closed his eyes and searched for power. The bands of energy were faint and dirty. He spread his arms wide and sent the power into the waves. The color started to change. The shadows faded away as the colors brightened.
“Fine,” Sebastian said. “You can be like that. Everything is a choice, good and bad.”
“Choice? What does the future hold for me?”
“I don’t know. Every day brings things I wish I didn’t have to remember. But this is something I will.”
Sebastian inhaled deeply. The landscape changed, ripping through the colors until the light was a brilliant white. Isaac remained still, shaded purple. Light coiled around Sebastian’s hands and arced between them. It’s all in the electrical flow, he thought. And this is going to really hurt. Everyone.
He stepped forward and placed his hands on either side of Isaac’s immobile shoulders. The purple was slowly stripped away from him, flowing past like waves. Isaac started to transform. Deep, rich blood flowed out of his mouth and eyes. It coursed around his body, wrapping him in a reddish-black blanket. Sebastian kept the power roaring through his hands. His own hands started to bleed. Isaac’s blood started to changed color, lightening to a normal shade. Then, in one motion, the blood sank back into Isaac’s body; there was a huge explosion, and the scene disappeared.
“Oh my god!” Michael shouted. “What was that?”
“What?” Sebastian said. He was lying on his back on damp ground, looking up at the sky.
“There was a huge flash of light, and you’re now lying in a pool of blood.”
“It worked.”
Michael stared at him.
“I had to save a friend,” Sebastian said. He tried to sit up, but his limbs ached beyond the point of use. “I used your suggestion about changing the electromagnetic radiation of the subatomic particles.”
“I was talking about magnetism. You used it for ionized radiation, changing the spin.” He paused, taking in the scene. “It looks like it’s taken its toll. Is that your blood? You didn’t secretly go out and kill an animal?”
“No. It’s mine.”
“Oh my god.”
“I’ll recover. I always do.” He shifted away from the blood and went back to staring up into the stars.
Michael scribbled in the dust with a burned stick. “I’m not sure if we can stay. I’ve worked out that the others will be arriving at New Toowoomba tomorrow. We need to get there quickly.”
“Can I have a couple of hours?”
Michael thought for a moment. He looked into the boy’s face. “How important is your friend?”
That was all he needed to say. Sebastian staggered to his feet. “We only stop for emergencies, okay?”
Michael nodded.
Within minutes, they had mounted their steambikes and roared off into the night.
61
ANGEL THREW HER arms wide as she floated slowly through the air. Power and electricity flowed around her in a whirlpool of energy. She breathed in deeply, sensing the power, teasing it. She clutched it, and then prepared to slam it down into the compound.
A large sheet of metal appeared on her left side. Three more appeared and positioned themselves around her, momentarily distracting her. They formed into a square that surrounded her. Another appeared above, and one below, creating a metallic cube that enclosed her.
The watchers heard screams from inside the metal walls. The thrashing and wailing raged. Then the walls slammed together, throwing dust into the air. The deafening clang forced the audience to their knees, clapping their hands over their ears. The walls crushed together like the interior was a vacuum.
There was silence. The metal slabs lay crumpled together on the ground.
Out of the rain and sparks strode Sebastian. He released his control over the molecules and the metal crumbled to rust. Angel’s twisted body lay in the wreckage, still and lifeless.
He blinked.
The two reappeared in a quiet field, facing one another. He stalked toward her, testing her power with random jabs of electricity.
“I am a faraday. You cannot hurt me. You cannot defeat me. I am raw power.”
She ripped power out of the sky, smashing it down upon him in a rain of fire and energy.
The ball of destruction exploded into him, blackening the surrounding area. He stepped through and smiled at her.
“I am a tesla. I don’t need to defeat you, because I am the truth. I only need to contain you in a cage of your own greed.”
He blinked.
She found herself in a spinning ball of energy. Her skin started to blacken as flames crawled up over her body. She screamed. The more she screamed, the more intense the fire became, until she was a charred figure boiling within a brilliant white globe. She fell to her knees and sobbed.
“We have power. We use it for good or not at all.”
Her cracking eyes surrounded by burned skin stared at him. “I’m sorry,” she cried.
�
��So you should be. Now fix it.”
“Never. I am Kerry. Remember me and fear me.”
An electrical wind blew through, and her body started to dissolve. Within moments, there was nothing left but the scarring of the ground beneath her.
He blinked.
Michael was frantic. His bike was resting on its side, the rear wheel spinning aimlessly. He injected Melanie and enlisted someone to hold a bandage against her arm. He ran to Peter and injected the last of the antidote into his arm. Then he sat back, and for the first time, took in their surroundings.
“I think things would’ve gone better if we hadn’t stopped for lunch,” Sebastian said with a smile.
He went to Melanie and kneeled down next to her. “Michael’s given you enough to cure an army. You’re going to be okay.”
“Peter?” she whispered.
Sebastian looked over at Michael, who nodded.
“He’s going to be okay too. The poison wasn’t in either of you for long enough to harm you permanently.”
“Have you killed her?”
“Only her body.”
“I’m not sure if I can understand that.” Her voice was barely audible.
There was a shout. Sebastian looked up. A guard was carrying Albert into the quadrant. His heart sank.
He looked down at Melanie. “Angel now exists in one moment where she can think about things. She thought being different was bad, the same way Oliver did. After all this time, I’ve learned that being different is a gift. It’s how you deal with it, how you use it. We should wear our differences on our sleeves.”
Melanie, Peter and Albert were transported to the medical bay and the guards started to clean up the area.
Nikola looked at the remains of the metal plates. “It looks like you’ve been learning new tricks while you’ve been away.”
Sebastian smiled. “Wait’ll I tell you.”
“She’s fading,” Michael said, when Sebastian entered the room.
The doctor was examining Peter, testing his reflexes for any response from his nervous system. Albert had recovered, having only received a moderate dose of the poison. Sebastian sat and fretted, much to the annoyance of the doctor.