by H. J. Lawson
The orb flickered and floated free, brushing his face as it rose in the air, then went to join the others at the wall. He wanted to keep watching it, thinking of it as Caroline’s orb, but he lost it as soon as it mixed in with the others.
With the orb off her, Rusty felt for a pulse at Caroline’s neck. Nothing.
“Caroline!” he shouted. “Caroline, answer me!”
The colonel didn’t respond. Her body was limp in his grasp. All the strength, the command, the humor and warmth, the woman he had known, respected and loved—she was gone.
Rusty squeezed his eyes closed. A wave of rage and helplessness rose up in him, and he thought he was going to explode. He wanted to rage at the room. Another part of his mind understood the uselessness of attacking the orbs. He was like a swimmer caught in the center of a school of deadly jellyfish, surrounded by dumb killing machines.
Adjusting his hold on Caroline’s shoulders, Rusty used his free arm to sweep the floor beside him free of glass. Carefully, he laid her down on the stone floor and closed her eyes.
Rusty stood. He took a deep breath to get his rage under control, clenching and releasing his fists. He held out a hand to help Treavyn to his feet.
Treavyn brushed crumbled glass off his knees. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you— At least, it seemed like you were close.”
Rusty nodded woodenly. He gave himself a quick pat-down, checking for any wounds he might have missed, brushing off stray pieces of glass. The lump of the data module was secure in his chest pocket.
Taking his web belt in both hands, he wrapped it around his right fist like a boxer prepping for a fight. The material grew harder as he wrapped. It almost felt like armor.
“We’ve got a mission, Treavyn,” he said. “We need to get to the communications section.”
“Why,” Treavyn asked.
“We’ve got one last weapon against The Tide. I plan to use it. The colonel ordered me to use it.” Rusty turned to face Treavyn. “Are you going to help me?”
“I— I think there’s another way. I think I figured it out. The seedling—”
Rusty grabbed Treavyn by the throat and lifted him off his feet. Treavyn felt as thin and weak as a noodle. Rusty wanted to tear him apart. But the other part of his mind, the cool part, knew that wouldn’t resolve anything.
As he held Treavyn in the air, he noticed the orbs moving away slightly. They wouldn’t come near the scientist. That was it then. They were leaving together.
“You going to help me?” he repeated.
Treavyn gulped with effort, his Adam’s apple moving against Rusty’s palm.
“Yes,” he managed. “Yes, I’ll help.”
Rusty set him down. He took one last look at Caroline lying on the floor, saying a silent goodbye and readying himself to do what must be done, then moved his gaze to Treavyn.
“Let’s go,” Rusty said.
Kearyn
Kearyn let Sapling cling to her throughout the long ride down. The pod had no windows and only the most basic visual display indicating their airspeed and altitude. She watched the numbers and tried to imagine where the little capsule might be in relation to the ground, whether they were falling through clouds or clear sky. She tried not to think about landing in a burned city to find themselves surrounded by hordes of infected. She wondered where Caroline was and if she would ever see her again. She hoped, somehow, that Grace might be alright.
The girl whimpered a few times. The wound hadn’t gotten any better—so much for alien super-healing—but it didn’t seem to have gotten worse. She hadn’t had time to do much more than grab bandages from the pod’s first aid kit and hold them against the girl’s thin abdomen. Maybe she’d gotten lucky, and the bullet hadn’t hit any organs on its way through.
When the display flashed red, and the braking thrusters came on, Kearyn nearly screamed from the weight suddenly crushing her shoulders. She hadn’t realized they were falling headfirst. She had no frame of reference in the pod. Now she felt like she was being turned inside out, pulled through her feet, metal bands wrapped around her skull squeezing her into jelly.
Kearyn found herself thinking back over her life, forcing herself at first to remember the good times. It became easier as she recalled Caroline, her parents, school, and later Treavyn. She did her best to hang onto moments, to hold them like pictures, turning them in her mind. Tears threatened her vision, and then she was sobbing openly.
At some point in the long fall, Sapling’s fingers found the side of her face. The girl said nothing. Her touch didn’t bring the same crazed vision of the future this time. Kearyn saw her memories more brightly for a few heartbeats. She felt the swell of love and the vertigo of loss. She found peace in-between as Sapling pressed her palm against her tear-wet cheek.
The braking maneuvers came and went, jerking them and releasing them like a fish on a line, ending with a final hard burn as the altimeter fell to triple digits, then double, and then they hit.
“Kearyn?” Sapling asked.
She blinked, realizing she had blacked out. She felt cool outside air on her face, followed by a spray of what she realized was snow. The top of the pod was gone, leaving its interior open like a split chrysalis. She blinked as she looked around and the world resolved into the black trunks of trees against white snow drifts.
Sapling was standing over her, her long hair blowing in a hard wind. Her white smock was still stained with blood. The girl offered a hand to help her up, and Kearyn took it. She stepped out of the steaming escape pod into the snow.
The pod sat at the end of a long burn scar that cut back through the forest. About fifty meters away, Kearyn made out the form of an air transport sitting on a flat place between trees. It had to be a landing pad, but it was hard to tell under the snow drifts.
“Father is there,” Sapling said, pointing up the hill toward the craft.
Her feet were already growing numb from the cold, ready to get moving. Kearyn said, “Lead the way.”
Chapter 21 – H.J. Lawson
Kearyn
Kearyn followed the trail of crimson blood dripping from Sapling’s wound, soaking her white smock, into the forest that had been split down the middle just like Moses had parted the Red Sea. Instead of Moses, Kearyn had Sapling, or was Sapling a new version of Moses and Kearyn was God? The escape pod made the gap in the forest, not some magical power.
Sapling’s pace slowed, and she stumbled, grabbing hold of one of the trees. “Are you okay? Can you continue?” Kearyn asked.
Sapling’s breathing was faint, barely even there, and her skin was as white as snow beneath their feet. Sapling extended her finger; Kearyn looked in the direction in which she was pointing, and she saw lights glowing through the mist of swirling snowflakes.
“He’s there…Father’s there,” Sapling muttered, as if with her last breath.
Kearyn took Sapling in her arms; the child was weightless. Lighter than when she carried her after Monroe shot her. Kearyn wondered how she could possibly have got so light in such a quick time. She was the weight of a newborn baby, her baby.
Kearyn looked down into Sapling’s large blue eyes, the eyes she got from her father. Sapling’s lips curl up in the same way as Kearyn’s. “Who is your mother?” Kearyn asked.
“Grace…” Sapling said as her hand rose to Kearyn’s cheek, which was surprisingly warm considering it was freezing where they were. “You are my mother,” Sapling said with a weak smile. “You’re my mother,” she repeated.
“How can I be?” Kearyn asked.
“When The Tide washed through yours and Grace’s bodies, it felt the connection with Treavyn. The love needed to create a sapling, me,” Sapling said.
“But it doesn’t work that way,” Kearyn questioned as she walked with Sapling in her arms. Color had completely gone from Sapling’s face. The girl she and Grace first saw swinging on the chair on the shuttle was fading away from her, and now she was saying she was Kearyn’s daughter.
“
On Earth, it doesn’t. Treavyn’s not from Earth, and once The Tide washed over you, you became part of the new world,” Sapling said, wise beyond her years.
“How old are you?” The question sprung into Kearyn’s head.
“Seven. The number of years you and Treavyn have loved one another,” Sapling said.
“I don’t love him anymore; he’s with Grace now.” Kearyn defended her relationship, then felt stupid that she was even talking about it when there were bigger problems at the moment.
“Did Treavyn know he wasn’t from Earth?”
“Do you…?”
Treavyn
“Rusty, what is the last weapon?” Treavyn asked as they made their way through Omega base.
“Doctor Brent found that ionizer or something that could be put out into the atmosphere, and with the wind farms they could spread it across the world and wipe out The Tide.”
“Rusty, it’s not a good idea,” Treavyn said.
“Yeah, yeah I know, it’s not going to be good for those people with asthma. The ionizer could affect their breathing. That’s part of war: only the strong survive.” Rusty shrugged his shoulders. “Today has taught me that.”
Treavyn gripped Rusty’s arm; Rusty’s muscles flexed under the grip, and Treavyn knew he was no competition for Rusty. “It’s not just those with asthma that will be affected; it’s the whole planet. I’ve heard about these types of things before. Trust me; I know my numbers, I’m a scientist. The type of ionizer which Doctor Brent wants to use will create a giant hole over the Earth; nothing will be there to protect us from the sun’s.”
Rusty pulled his arm away from Treavyn’s grip. “Sapling is the key; she can stop The Tide,” Treavyn protested. Treavyn paused as he referred to Sapling as a she. He didn’t know how he knew she was female, he just did.
“What is this sapling?”
“My daughter.”
“How can your daughter stop The Tide?”
“Mmm…she just can because she...” Treavyn stopped mid-sentence.
“She what, Treavyn? What is she? What are you?” Rusty said.
“She, we are The Tide.” The words tumbled from Treavyn’s lips before he could stop them.
Rusty strode toward Treavyn. “You’re the reason the world is coming to an end. Your people, things or whatever you have killed everyone I love! I’m going to do the same to you as you have to me!”
Rusty pushed Treavyn to the side, knocking him into the wall. “It’s already happening, see?” Rusty said as he pointed down at the monitor in the control room. Red dots had started to appear over the map of the world. “That’s the different locations where the wind farms are. Everyone was instructed to release the ionizer at the same time, for the mass effect. And you made me late. I will deal with you once I wipe out the rest of your kind!” With that Rusty ran out of the control room, leaving Treavyn alone.
“What have I done?” Treavyn said out loud with his hands over his face, unable to watch the new lights flicking on the screen as a wave of red washed over it. The Tide wasn’t going to kill them, humans were.
Treavyn looked out of the large window and saw a screen of white in front of him. He hoped that whatever Rusty released would be somehow watered down by the snow, but he knew that would not be the case. If he can stop him, maybe, just perhaps, this location would be saved from the scorching sun. Treavyn realized he had to stop Rusty.
There was a brief moment when the blizzard died down, and he saw a dark object in the snow. He wiped his hand across the window, removing the steam from his breath for a clearer look. He wondered how Rusty got out of Omega base so quickly; he remembered how they had to crawl into the base to get in.
It can’t be Rusty, Treavyn realized.
“It can’t be,” Treavyn muttered to himself. “It’s Kearyn.”
Kearyn
“Stay with me, Sapling,” Kearyn said to Sapling as her body lay limp in Kearyn’s arms. The snow swirled around them as Kearyn fought her way to Omega base, then it died down for a brief moment, just enough for Kearyn to see a figure in the snow.
“Help us,” Kearyn yelled; the wind captured her cries for help and suffocated them. She carried on yelling, hoping the person would help her. It had to be Treavyn; Sapling said he would be here. Kearyn prayed it was him.
“Treavyn, help us, Sapling has been shot; she needs you,” Kearyn begged.
The wind beat against Kearyn, pushing her sideways; she stumbled on the uneven, snowy ground. They landed on the ground, luckily cushioned by the freezing snow. Kearyn’s hands were numb as she tried to get up off the ground.
A dark shadow appeared through the snow: Treavyn had come for them. The sign of help drained all the energy out of Kearyn, and she stayed lying in the snow.
“Treavyn!” Kearyn screamed in pain as she was dragged to her feet by her hair. “Sapling,” she added as Sapling rolled out of her grip.
“Sapling!” Rusty repeated through gritted teeth.
“Kearyn,” Sapling pleaded as she was also pulled upward.
Rusty held them up by their hair.
“You’ll do,” Rusty said, pulling them both forward. They stumbled to their feet and tried to keep their balance as Rusty dragged them through the snow.
“Get off us!”
Rusty didn’t let go of them; he just lugged them toward the windmill. He dropped them at the foot of the windmill.
“Get up.”
Rusty didn’t wait for Kearyn to get to her feet, he did it for her.
“Climb up there and chip off the ice.” Kearyn looked up to where Rusty was pointing. It was a windmill as high as a three-story building, and the windmill wasn’t moving.
“No!”
Rusty pulled a gun out and pointed it at Sapling. “Will it survive another gunshot? Get up there!” Rusty threw a crowbar at Kearyn. “Use this to chip off the ice.”
Kearyn looked at the crowbar, and then Rusty’s gun. She knew a crowbar would be no defense against a speeding bullet.
“Now!”
Sapling lay lifeless in the snow; Kearyn wondered if she was already dead. She couldn’t take the risk that she wasn’t—she wouldn’t let her daughter take a bullet for her.
“Don’t harm her,” Kearyn pleaded to Rusty.
“It’s the reason the virus is here. Why do you even care if it lives or dies?”
“She’s not the reason for the virus. She wasn’t even on Earth when this all happened.”
“I don’t care. Get up there.”
Kearyn’s legs felt weak as she gripped hold of the metal frame. Her hands stuck to the frame, sealed there by the cold. The windmill shook as gusts of wind slammed against its unsteady frame.
“It’s not safe,” Kearyn yelled down to Rusty.
“Get up there!”
Treavyn
Treavyn watched as Kearyn climbed the old windmill. He was afraid she was not going to make it to the top, and if she did she would be helping to kill the survivors on Earth. Sapling lay lifeless in the snow, with a crimson patch of blood spreading over her stomach. That was his Sapling, his child. Treavyn realized he’s father to this girl that he’s never met, and if he didn’t do something soon, she would die.
He wondered what other powers The Tide had given him. Surely there must be something. Treavyn edged around a rock for a better look at the situation. Maybe he could grab Sapling while Rusty wasn’t looking.
Rusty was closely watching Kearyn, and at the foot of the windmill was a metal tin—that’s where the ionizer must be. He would take care of that once Sapling and Kearyn were safe.
“I can’t do it!” Kearyn yelled down.
“Get up there! We’re running out of time.”
“I can’t.”
“Should have done it myself,” Rusty spat, and a gunshot echoed in the open.
A bloodcurdling scream came from Sapling, not Kearyn at first, then Kearyn’s screams carried along with the wind. Mother and child screamed together as Kearyn’s body plummeted
to the ground. A white cloud of snow exploded as Kearyn’s body hit the ground.
“No,” Treavyn yelled as he ran at Rusty, knocking him off his feet before he could react. Treavyn’s body turned as hard as steel as The Tide’s atoms raced through his veins.
Treavyn pounded his fists into Rusty’s face one after the other, although there was no need: the first one had ended Rusty’s life.
“Father,” Sapling muttered. The anger which raged in Treavyn’s mind faded as he heard her voice.
Treavyn scrambled to Sapling. Her skin was as white as snow, on the edge of death.
“Father, take me to Mother,” Sapling said weakly.
He did as asked, picking Sapling up, cradling her tiny body in his arms. The snow crunched beneath Treavyn’s boots as he walked toward Kearyn, the woman he always regretted leaving.
Treavyn lowered Sapling to the ground next to Kearyn, who lay peacefully in the snow. No breath was escaping from her lips; a drop of blood started to form inside of her nose. Just like those with the virus, except this wasn’t from the virus, it was from the fall. Kearyn was dead.
He crumpled to his knees as it all hit him at once: the woman he loved was dead, and their daughter was moments from death.
Sapling crawled toward Kearyn, resting her head on her shoulder. “I’m cold,” said Sapling.
Treavyn took off his jacket and wrapped it around Sapling, then rested his own head on top.
“I’m sorry. This is all my fault. If I hadn’t called out for The Tide, they wouldn’t have come.” Tears welled in Treavyn’s eyes as he realized just what he’d done. “I’m sorry, Kearyn, I should never have let you go. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
“I love you too, Father,” Sapling said, then her chest stopped moving. Mother and daughter were once again reunited.
Heavy tears filled Treavyn’s eyes, like the weight of the world dragging him down. He never knew his daughter, and now she was dead.
Tears, no, something else streamed from Treavyn’s eyes—tiny black atoms, like metal filings, which merged together and flowed over Sapling’s body. Treavyn flung his hands over his face, trying to understand what was going on and to stop it. The atoms poured through his fingers and over Sapling’s body, onto Kearyn’s.