by H. J. Lawson
“I need these humans,” Treavyn finally said aloud. “I need them. I belong with them. I need Grace. Don’t hurt her.”
We have experienced your Grace already, The Tide responded, from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. She is worthy. And perhaps a small contingent is constructed in a similar fashion. But the balance of the human race is nonessential. We need their bodies to host us. Otherwise, they are weak, nuisance beings whose history dictates that they deserve to be eradicated.
They’ve already met Grace? Treavyn wanted to vomit. “Is she alright?”
“No harm came to her.”
But could he believe them? Treavyn thought of his little brother and his adoptive mother, now dead. All he had left was Grace, Kearyn, and his good friends. He was becoming desperate. “You can live alongside them. They don’t need to be destroyed. I’ve lived amongst them—they are innately good, and kind.” What else? I need something else. I’m not getting through to them! “The Tide is welcome here on Earth, but as cohabiters, not as an enemy.”
The gold sparkling became more active in the room. All of humanity rested on Treavyn’s shoulders. And he was failing. Miserably. The Tide seemed unmovable. He’d made the mistake of calling out to them. And now they were here. Clearly, nowhere was safe from their energy—from them. Nowhere was safe from The Tide.
Chapter 19 – Debbie Cassidy
Grace
The child had Treavyn’s eyes, and the cocky curl to her lips was all Kearyn, but everything else was Grace. She was a perfect composite of the three of them.
“What are you?” Grace asked.
The child smiled. “I am the sapling, which was once the seedling. I am the map.” Her voice was an eerie echo that reverberated around the room.
“But where the heck did you come from?” Kearyn asked.
Grace stared at the child, into her deep blue eyes so like Treavyn’s, and understanding began to bloom in her mind. “I think she was always here with us.”
Kearyn grabbed her elbow, pulling her to one side. “Okay, you need to explain.” She waved a hand in the girl’s direction. “This, everything that just happened, is freaking me out and I think we’re running out of time to figure it out.”
Grace glanced back at the child, sitting innocently on the swivel chair. They’d pulled her into an examination room and shut the door. The others didn’t need to know about this, not yet. “I think she was with us, the two of us. Being with Treavyn, it changed something for in us both, and when The Tide ripped through us it…activated something…activated her.”
“Then how did they not pick up on it?”
“I don’t know; maybe I expelled them before they were able to sense her?” Grace shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, what matters is that she’s important to them and we need to protect her.”
Kearyn’s clever mouth quirked. “Leverage?”
Grace sighed. She hated to do this but, “If need be.” Grave turned back to the child. “So, are you hungry?”
Kearyn
Grace was treating it like a person. It wasn’t a person, it was a thing, and they needed to start thinking of it as such. Kearyn watched as Grace tore open a protein bar and folded it into the girl’s hand.
The girl simply stared at it.
“For God’s sake!” Kearyn made to snatch the bar from it; her fingers grazed its flesh, and her mind was filled with lightning. Images flitted through her head, images that spoke more than a thousand words, and suddenly she understood. Suddenly she knew what they held in their midst, what this tiny creature represented: the best of humanity, the kindness, the potential for greatness and the unconditional love. This child was the best of what their world had to offer, and she was also the final nail in Earth’s coffin.
Kearyn stumbled back.
“What? What was that?” Grace rubbed her temples.
“You saw it too?”
Grace swallowed. “It’s over for them, isn’t it?”
Kearyn nodded. “But humanity can still go on…a part of us can survive, we can have another chance.”
They stared at the sapling that merely needed fresh soil to become the tree of life she was always meant to be.
Monroe
He was sick, probably dying, and those bitches were hiding the cure. He knew it! He’d seen and heard everything that had happened. He may not understand it all, but he was aware that they believed they were special, immune somehow, and that kid they’d just dragged into the examination room was the key.
He just knew it.
He cocked the gun—yeah, he didn’t believe in being unprepared. Fuck survival of the fittest, it was survival of the smartest. He pushed open the door to the examination room and stepped in.
Kearyn
“Monroe, what the hell?”
“Get down! On your knees, hands behind your head. Now!” He swiped at his nose again; his eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot.
“You’re sick, Monroe. You don’t know what you’re doing,” Grace said.
The man may be sick, but his eyes gleamed with lucidity; Kearyn dropped to her knees. Never argue with a man pointing a gun in your face.
“Monroe, come on,” Grace said.
“Grace…” Kearyn warned.
Grace shot her a quick, perplexed glance and Kearyn glared at her pointedly. “Listen to the man.”
Grace swallowed, nodded, then dropped to her knees.
“You!” Monroe jerked his head toward the girl. “Come with me.”
“What are you going to do with her?” Grace asked.
The man had a gun, what did she think he was going to do? Kearyn scanned the room, searching for something, anything, that could be used as a weapon.
“Answer me, Monroe,” Grace said, her tone calm and even.
Monroe’s lip curled. “I’m not a fucking moron, Grace, I know what’s going on here. They want that thing.” He waved the gun at the girl. “They want it, and we’re not safe while it’s on this ship. It has to go.” He blinked rapidly and swiped at his nose again. “Move it!”
Damn it; there was nothing close to hand that she could use to defend herself, but she couldn’t let him get his hands on that girl. That girl was the key to everything; if Monroe got rid of her, if he hurt her in any way…
Kearyn’s life had been pretty uneventful so far. Treavyn had been the highlight of that mundane existence and then even he had been taken from her, but this girl, this strange, otherworldly child was a part of her, something new and amazing, something vital, and there was no way she was going to allow a clueless imbecile like Monroe to take that away from her.
Kearyn exhaled, then lunged, aiming for Monroe’s legs.
Grace’s bloodcurdling scream mingled with the sound of a single gunshot.
Chapter 20 – James S. Aaron
Kearyn
Monroe jerked away, out of Kearyn’s reach but closer to Grace now. Kearyn hit the wall where he had been, her shoulder scraping on the rough environmental grating. She didn’t feel the pain. Her eyes were fixed on the little girl.
The girl calling herself Sapling stumbled, hands on her abdomen. At first, Kearyn thought she might be feeling at herself in surprise from the sound of the pistol shot. Then she raised her hands and showed palms covered in blood. There was a dark, weeping bullet wound near the middle of her stomach, a bright red stain growing rapidly around it.
Grace’s scream hadn’t stopped. She moved in the corner of Kearyn’s vision, throwing herself at Monroe. She grabbed awkwardly at the hand holding the pistol as he took a step back to aim again. His face was fixed and hard, madness in his eyes.
"You shot her," Grace wailed, breathing heavily.
"It's a thing," Monroe rasped.
Kearyn didn’t know what to do. She had to help the little girl but knew that wouldn’t matter if they didn’t stop Monroe. The pain, surprise, and disappointment on the girl’s face made her feel like she was going to crumble apart.
“Kearyn!” Grace shouted, slappi
ng at Monroe’s face. “Kearyn, help me.”
Monroe roared and pushed Grace aside. Her hands slid down his forearm. She managed to get a finger in the pistol’s trigger guard. She was going to shoot herself, Kearyn thought, knowing that Grace didn’t care at this point.
Between the shouting and ragged breaths, another sound reached Kearyn’s ears. A high hissing emerged from behind the girl. Monroe had shot a hole in the ship’s hull.
The pistol cracked again. Grace’s scream stuttered and became a low, vicious growl. Monroe had shot her in the shoulder, but she still had her grip on the pistol.
Kearyn knew what she had to choose. The determination in Grace’s eyes looked like a death wish. She couldn’t reach the woman’s thoughts through their new connection. Grace’s rage and fear had thrown up walls she couldn’t penetrate.
Kearyn pushed herself to her feet, steadying against the wall, then pushed herself toward the girl.
“No,” Monroe shouted. “You can’t trust that thing! They’re going to wipe us out, and she’s in the middle of it.”
Kearyn didn’t bother to answer him.
Grace grunted, her boots squealing on the floor as she adjusted her stance.
Monroe couldn’t do anything but swipe at Kearyn as she ran. Grace had his wrist caught in a claw-like grip, her other hand pushing the muzzle back toward his face. Monroe had to hear the hissing of escaping atmosphere now. Why else wouldn’t he have emptied the pistol into Grace?
The little girl was almost weightless as Kearyn swept her up in her arms and reversed her momentum toward the door. The girl’s shallow breathing made little puffs against her neck.
Kearyn’s heart did a little flip. She was holding a little girl, not a thing. She couldn’t deny the flesh and bone tight against her body; the blood now smeared on her own hands. The girl was human, and she was hurt. If she was alien, she was also human. While the vision she’d shared with Grace just moments earlier had filled her mind with light and dark, holding the little girl brought everything back to a scale she couldn’t deny. Sapling was a little girl who needed her help. The fate of the planet might be at stake, but this was more real. This was blood and breath.
Out in the corridor, she spun and slammed the lock panel on the door, smearing it with Sapling's blood. The door hissed closed, hiding the scrambling forms of Monroe and Grace behind white alloy. Kearyn knew it wouldn’t protect them for long.
Her mind raced over options. There were the medical bay and the treatment pods, but that would only make them a target for Monroe once he got away from Grace. She had to get off the ship.
But what then? Back to Earth and the onslaught of The Tide down there? What about the International Space Station? Were there still people there who could help them? Her shoes clacked on the metal floor. The girl was getting heavier as her adrenaline faded.
“I want to go to Father,” Sapling breathed.
“What?”
“On the blue world. I want to go to Father.”
“I don’t know if that’s safe.”
“They won’t harm us. You have already been given the gift. But there are others you might help. They’re with Father. I have to be with Father.”
There was an ominous note in the girl’s demand. If Treavyn was the seed and the girl the seedling, what did that mean for the rest of them? Already, the visions she’d shared of the future were twisting and sliding in her memory.
Kearyn paused in an intersection, staring down the two corridors that would take her to different outcomes. One led to secondary medical. The other led to the command deck emergency escape pods.
“Please,” Sapling breathed.
The muffled sound of two more shots thudded behind her, followed by what she thought was the door sliding open. She had to go.
“Alright,” Kearyn said in a low voice. “We’ll do it your way.”
She readjusted the girl in her arms and turned to run toward the escape pods.
Rusty
Deep in the bedrock under Omega base, something was vibrating. Captain Baker couldn’t believe The Tide was coming up from underneath them, but it might be possible they were attacking the geothermal wells. He supposed it didn’t matter. If they didn’t survive the attackers in the room right now, they wouldn’t need to worry about little conveniences like light and heat.
They were out of ammo, down to using their belts as makeshift weapons to try and hold back the glowing orbs that were solid one second, taking a smack from a web belt and floating back, then ghost-like the next instant, disappearing into walls.
He did know the things could kill. He’d walked out of Treavyn Dennessee’s room to see the orbs settled over the heads of the two guards in the hallway like shiny helmets. The men were beating uselessly at the orbs, until their bodies finally went slack and the orbs floated free like glowing jellyfish, leaving blank-eyed corpses leaning against the walls.
“Caroline,” he shouted, spotting an orb emerging from the wall just behind her shoulder. The colonel glanced behind her, then pivoted to whip it with her belt.
“This isn’t working,” she said, panting. “We need to find a way out of here.”
“I’m game for any ideas,” he said. “I’ve been wracking my brain to figure it out.”
She shook her head. Her forehead was shiny with sweat, a single tendril of hair plastered flat above her hard eyes.
“Rusty,” she said.
He glanced at her, surprised she was using his first name. She wasn’t looking at him. He turned his attention back to the bobbing and weaving orbs.
“Yes, ma’am?”
“If this is it, I want to thank you.”
He ducked, flicking out his web belt. “Thank me?”
“You’re a—” Her voice caught. “You’re an excellent officer and a— You’re a great man. I’m glad we knew each other.”
“I don’t like the sound of all this past tense."
“You’ve got the data module,” she said, ignoring him. “I want you to use it. Release Brent’s weapon. It’s the only choice we’ve got.”
“You’ll be there with me.”
Above them, Treavyn beat uselessly on the window overlooking their chamber, his fists making booming sounds on the glass. Rusty would have spat in frustration if his mouth weren't so dry. He was supposed to be watching the mad scientist. He had become the specimen.
He had to turn his attention to a new wave of orbs, beating them back with wild swings of the web belt. Would he be using his pants next? His boots?
Caroline’s attitude turned his own thoughts dark. Funny how leadership worked like that, he thought suddenly. Infectious as any virus. He hadn’t imagined ever going out like this. The thought of his soldiers stumbling with the orbs on their shoulders filled him with a dread he hadn’t felt in any combat situation. This wasn’t crouching behind a crumbled wall in Johannesburg, waiting for the next round of artillery, or riding security through the high-rise canyons of Chicago, watching for the flash of a sniper’s scope in the windows above. This was a horror that didn’t make any sense. It was the fear of pain he didn’t know.
He’d been shot before. He’d felt the heatwaves of explosions and watched the effects of poison gas. None of that had put the same terror in the pit of his stomach as these damn glowing orbs.
“Rusty,” the colonel said.
Treavyn was yelling something above them, but his words were muffled by the glass. Rusty couldn’t spare the attention as he did his best to keep his back to Caroline’s, watching the walls for more orbs. The floor was almost slippery from vibrations now, making his knees ache.
“We’re not saying any goodbyes right now,” he said. “We’re going to get through this; then you can say goodbye. You hear me?”
“No,” she said, voice rising abruptly. “Look out!”
A crash came from above them. He barely had time to glance up and then duck, covering his head as shattered glass hit his shoulders and neck. Following the glass, a file cabinet rot
ated twice and hit the stone floor where the colonel had been standing. After the cabinet came Treavyn.
Treavyn landed on the file cabinet, denting it deeply, and slid sideways to land on his shoulder on the stone floor. He grunted as the fall knocked the wind from his lungs, then rolled over and blinked at the ceiling.
“Well,” he said.
Rusty straightened, spreading the belt in two hands. He spun, checking for the orbs. They were still rising and falling as if floating on invisible waves, but they had pulled back to the walls, apparently keeping their distance from Treavyn.
Except for one.
Rusty caught the glow out of the corner of his eye and completed his turn to see a globe sitting on the colonel’s shoulders. She was still kneeling; half bent to protect herself from the falling glass.
“NO!” he shouted. “No!” He rushed to her, grabbing at the orb, then stopped himself at the last moment, hands on either side of the glowing globe.
Rusty realized he didn’t care about the globe and any dangers it might hold. He pushed his hands into the light and felt the sides of her hair, the sides of her head. He tried to grab anything of the orb and pull it off, but the light didn’t move. His hands moved freely through the light.
Rusty swung to face Treavyn, now sitting up and rubbing his head. “Do something,” he shouted. “It’s killing her.”
Treavyn appeared to realize that Caroline was under attack. He lurched to his feet and repeated what Rusty had just tried. His hands sank into the orb and then pulled free. He took a step back, clenching his fists.
“We can’t do anything,” he said. He looked accusingly at the other orbs around the room. “Let her go!” he shouted. “You can do this. It’s in your power.”
As far as Rusty could tell, nothing changed. He sank to his knees beside Caroline, pulling her against his chest from the side. She was limp in his arms, her head falling away from him.
Up close, the orb shimmered and flashed. He thought he could see glimpses of her face through the shifting curtain of light before she was covered again. He put his hand on her chest, feeling her heartbeat through her uniform.