She smiled, turning to her computers. “Five days, yes.”
“Clear.”
A small suitcase and one carry-on bag waited by the front door. Waiting there for the final batch of toiletries to arrive from Yasmeen.
It had taken her far too long, but she’d assembled forty-eight toiletry containers using the solid-state distribution mechanism developed by Devid combined with the virus she’d reconfigured using Stephanie’s recipe. Tracking showed five packages out for delivery, and Levi kept an eye on the street waiting for the truck with his package. Or refreshing the webpage with the tracking information. Or pacing.
M waited. He’d waited for years now, not remembering any longer what he waited for. He supposed whatever Levi waited for. He was Levi. Levi was him. Some trauma must have happened, separating him from his twin.
Surely Levi knew, but no matter how often M had asked, Levi never answered. He’d stopped asking long ago. Stopped caring, or trying, or doing much at all, really. He basically kept quiet and let himself drift in the strange twilight of Levi. Sometimes he thought Levi was his god. He sort of remembered religion. Rites and rituals, someone powerless worshipping someone powerful. Levi was powerful. All powerful. Levi talked. Moved. Did things.
M was powerless. Mute. Paralyzed.
M wasn’t even M any longer. He was Levi. M nothing but a distant memory, more dream than reality. There was no M, just a forgotten part of Levi, trying to return to life. To be reborn.
M supposed he should care about the eight billion people Levi planned to kill. But, really, it didn’t much matter. He’d already died.
Hadn’t he?
The doorbell rang. Levi jumped up, stopped and took a couple deep breaths to calm his heart. The driver held a clipboard out. Levi signed, taking possession of the rather small, insignificant box.
Standing in the doorway, he watched the driver get into her truck. Waved when she drove down the street.
He sent a group text, verifying delivery to everyone. Waited until everyone responded.
Then, he sent another, with one word.
Inoculate.
Levi pulled out the package that had arrived from Amy the day before, checked the needle. It burned for a moment when he injected it into his thigh, the ache dulling out until it disappeared completely.
In the kitchen, he cut through the tape on the package from Yasmeen. Packing peanuts bubbled over, and he reached through them until he found the small cardboard box within. Another slice of the blade gave him room to lift out the top of the foam cushioning.
Eight items of various TSA-approved non-aerosol toiletries nestled in individual foam holes. Two deodorants; one for extreme perspiration. Four bars of soap, masculine scents of forest, ocean, island, and ice. Whatever scent ‘ice’ was. And two half-size tubes of toothpaste.
Levi placed them carefully into a TSA-approved plastic zippered bag before he finished packing his carry-on.
T-minus two days.
L spat out blood and opened her eyes, the sour tang filling her mouth. The side of her head hurt where it rested oddly against the padded side of the medpod.
An alarm sounded. “Medical emergency, please respond.”
Her jaw clicked when she tried to speak, tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth and her teeth felt swollen and fuzzy. “I’m here,” she said, the words soft and broken until she swallowed blood to coat her throat. “Status?”
“Elevated blood pressure and heart rate. Preparing emergency medication regimen.”
“What’s the point?”
“Please repeat your request.”
She inserted a food pouch and grabbed a handful of yellow vials to wait in her lap.
“How is he?”
“All systems operating within recommended stasis parameters.”
“Any signs of life?”
“Negative. No radio or wireless signals indicative of human habitation. Sensors detect no biosignatures above the microbial level.”
“Have anything you can give me for a headache?”
The sensor array burned where the tiny needles pricked her flesh.
“Didn’t help much.” She removed the empty food pouch and tossed it on the floor with the others.
“Standard alleviation results realized within thirty minutes.”
“I don’t think I have thirty minutes.”
L waited for the medication to kick in. “Access secure databases.”
“DNA authorization required.”
“So they tell me.” She ran twitching fingers through her hair to keep it out of her face. “Time?”
“Twenty-seven minutes.”
“Told you,” she said, and then died.
Billy stood in line, shuffling forward every so often. Right behind him a small sign informed everyone, in Japanese and English, that they had an estimated one-hour wait time from their position.
L surveyed all the people. So many people. Stretching out in front of her. Behind her.
All around. Everywhere. The airport buzzed and teemed and bubbled with life. With humanity in all its messy, glorious wonder.
In all its terrible, onrushing holocaust.
Apocalypse.
Armageddon.
Billy shuffled forward.
The crowds waited, tired and hungry and sore and bored and upset and patient. But mostly polite. A few laughed, made friends with people around them, played videos of cats or kids or something else on their phones. They smiled, breathed, lived.
Billy shuffled forward, placing his shoes, wallet, and carry-on into a bin. A conveyor belt whisked it away and he walked through the metal detector to wait for his belongings.
Leaning against the wall, he put on his shoes, shouldering his bag and continuing into the concourse of Tokyo Narita International Airport. In the bathroom, he removed the small zippered TSA-approved plastic pouch.
He unwrapped a bar of soap, exposing it to the air before leaving it on the counter next to the sink.
Eight seconds later, the soap began to dissolve, releasing a fine mist into the air.
“Clear.”
L blinked her eyes open. The room spun around, and the ceiling was nothing but a white blur far above. It hurt to focus. It hurt to breathe. To think. She closed her eyes, took deep breaths until she felt strong enough to open them.
“How is he?”
“All systems operating within recommended stasis parameters.”
She clutched one of the vials in her twitching fingers.
“Time?”
“Twenty-four minutes.”
“No more. Please, no more.”
L looked around the room. The familiar white metal ceiling and walls and floor. Stephanie sat in the corner holding a bloody bandage to the back of her head.
“Is it supposed to hurt this much?”
Yasmeen approached, bending to peel the bandage off the shaved spot on Stephanie’s skull.
“I can give you something for the pain.”
Her fingers poked and prodded at Stephanie’s stitches.
“Does it hurt here?” Yasmeen touched the skin above the future scar. “Or inside, like a headache?”
Stephanie tried to move but Yasmeen held her still, examining the needlework. “Inside, like you’re sticking a knife in my brain.”
“Okay,” Yasmeen said. “That’ll pass in an hour or so. I told you it would hurt.”
“You told us it wouldn’t kill us, there’s a difference.”
“Well, it won’t hurt too much.”
“Little late for that, don’t you think?”
Yasmeen turned around and sat on the floor next to Stephanie. “I can give you something for the pain.”
“It’ll get better soon?”
“I promise,” Yasmeen said. “Amy barely knew what she was doing when she supervised the surgical pod operating on me and it didn’t hurt long.”
“That doesn’t help much.”
Yasmeen pointed at the tray of injectors on the other side of
the room.
“Fine,” Stephanie said, “just get it over with.”
“You really hate needles, don’t you?”
“I really hate everything.”
With a bitter laugh, Yasmeen stood and walked to the supplies. She opened drawers until she found a bottle. “Here.” She took two pills out. “No needles.”
“What happens next?”
“Well, you’re the last one. Amy and Devid volunteered to initiate the memory block to make sure everything’s working properly.”
“Why aren’t you doing it?”
Yasmeen fell to her knees next to Stephanie. “I—” The word faded into a cough. “You heard Levi, right? You know what it means. What I did.”
“What we did.”
She slammed her palms into the floor. “I killed the planet. My virus. All I can do is forget. I need to forget. I have to.”
“It’s not your fault. If anyone, it’s mine. I designed it, you just followed my recipe.”
Yasmeen stayed silent, sobs twisting her shoulders inward. “I want to die, and Levi will never let me die.”
“Clear.”
L kept her eyes closed. Already twitching, it felt like a long thin knife pierced her skull with every beat of her heart. Pain radiated out in waves, throbbing through her sinuses and deep into her bones.
She grabbed a vial.
Breathing hurt, the rough sensation of air flowing into her lungs, pressing on the inside of her rib cage.
“Let me die.”
“Please repeat your request.”
L took a deep breath, held it against the pain, crying until the yellow liquid entered her vein.
Dozens of passengers, weary after the long flight, stood between her and Devid but Amy paid no attention to anyone but him. Everyone else would be dead within a week anyway.
Only Devid mattered.
L studied him, his smile, and the way his eyes lit up when he noticed her approach. She wanted to cry. Wanted to take him in her arms. Wanted to tell him so much.
People surrounded them, but the rush of their humanity drowned beneath the raw passion of Amy’s emotions, burning this moment into her memory. L reveled in it, in the reality of this moment that somehow, she’d completely forgotten. Now, she remembered.
She remembered the stale airport smell, the beige plastic seats, and the constantly repeating announcements. Levi and Stephanie and Yasmeen and Billy around somewhere. They’d caught them, or would, in just a few minutes.
Amy pushed through the crowd, pressing against strangers with reckless abandon. Let them complain, what did it matter?
Finally, he was there, and he smiled, and everything was right with the world that had treated them so cruelly for so long.
L found memories of kindness in his touch. In his voice. She tried to respond. To tell him she loved him, but no words came out. She wanted to warn them but not at the risk of interrupting the memory burning into her. Needed to tell them to hide, that Levi was about to appear, but Amy couldn’t hear her. Instead, she just reveled in reliving this one perfect moment.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered, his voice soft in her ear, lips brushing against her skin.
Amy smiled, never stopped smiling since she’d first seen him standing there, waiting for her. Always waiting for her.
He leaned back, far enough to stare into her eyes, not so far that he’d have to let her go.
She leaned in.
“Clear.”
L killed herself.
Thousands of yellow vials surrounded her.
“Elizabeth, what’s the final inventory count?”
“146,231 doses in storage.”
“Is that enough?” Devid asked, walking into the vault.
“It’s just the two of us now, assuming we survive this. Besides, it’s the best I can do with our limited manufacturing base just to fill a few rooms with this shit.” She spread her arms, encompassing the thousands of vials. “If the tech works like it should we’ve enough so we’ll never have to remember what we did. I planned for extra in case we need to reboot more often.”
“You fixed the software?”
“Maybe? I programmed it to reboot every twelve months in order to maintain the memory block, piggybacking the wireless capabilities of their CPUs to mitigate the stress placed on ours. Hell if I know if it’ll work, but, well, part of the revised process requires us to be dead.”
“Dead, as in dead, dead?”
“In order for the software to reset the defaults, there can’t be any brain activity. We’ll need to be dead.”
“How dead?”
“Just a few minutes, I think. Then the medpod’s defibrillator wakes us up good as new.”
“And if doesn’t work?”
“We’re already dead, right?”
Devid kissed her, holding her far too tightly. “Right.”
“Is Elizabeth ready?” she asked.
He nodded. “As soon as you initiate the block, she’ll reboot with the new operating system.”
“Billy should really be the one to kill her.” She tightened her grip on him.
“I know,” Devid said. “Would have saved me a lot of work hacking into her. But he’s in stasis with the others and they’d all want us to finish the job.”
She kissed him.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
He kissed her.
“Elizabeth,” Amy said. “Initiate memory block.”
“Clear.”
An alarm sounded. “Medical emergency, please respond.”
L tossed the remaining vials in her lap against the wall. Glass shattered, flying everywhere, and yellow liquid bled down the wall.
“How is he?” she asked through chattering teeth.
“All systems operating within recommended stasis parameters.”
“Access secure databases.”
“DNA authorization required.”
She pulled off the sensor array and staggered against the sensor in the wall.
“Access denied.”
She walked to M’s medpod, struggling to stay upright. L kissed the glass, gazing through the fog at him.
“Replay him telling me something.”
“Please repeat your request.”
L fell to the floor, holding on to M’s base for support.
“You record everything. I want to hear his voice.”
“‘It’s beautiful, like you,’” M said through the speakers.
She smiled. “Now, just let me die.”
“Please repeat your request.”
She lay on the cold metal floor, closing her eyes and resting her head on the thick wires powering his medpod.
Her fingers twitched.
“Time?”
“Six minutes.”
Tears fell onto her pillow of bundled cables. She ran a trembling palm over them. Opened her eyes. “How much power for a stasis unit?”
“42.163 watts.”
L pushed against the floor until she managed to brace herself on her hands and knees, her entire body shaking.
“Are there any other outlets in the habitat pulling that exact amount?”
She kept pushing, holding on to M’s medpod until she finally stood.
“Negative.”
The computer chimed.
“Analysis shows two outlets using exactly 84.326 watts.”
“Where?”
“Operating Room Storage, Level D.”
L turned around, staring at the door next to M’s pod. A seizure tore through her and she collapsed to the floor.
“Time?”
“Eight minutes.”
L twitched, pushing off the base of M’s medpod, crawling to the Operating Room door. It opened with her approach.
Small electrical shocks stabbed into her head and each one brought an increased level to the agony and the tremors. Every few breaths, muscles seized, too tight to continue before she found the strength to fight through the pain. Foot by foo
t, she made her way into the storage room.
“Where are they?”
“Please repeat your request.”
L glanced around. She’d searched it once already. Dismissed it after realizing it held no closets, no bathrooms, and no other place to hide four bodies.
“Where are the outlets?”
“Drawers M through Z are designated morgue storage. N, O, P, and Q are active.”
“Open them.” L crawled across the room.
“DNA authorization required.”
She pulled herself up using the handles on the drawers, leaning against the wall when her legs quivered too much to support her weight. “Time?”
“Eleven minutes.”
She pulled on the handle beneath the small metal N. Nothing happened. “Manual override?”
“Morgue storage manual override instructions,” the computer said. “Turn the handle to the right, then push.”
It took two tries before the drawer opened on silent hydraulics.
L slipped to the floor. Her head banged against the lip of the counter and the room turned blurry. Pain drove her the rest of the way down until she curled into a ball.
An alarm sounded. “Medical emergency, please respond.”
“How—” She coughed, bright red blood spraying across the floor in front of her. “I need DNA.”
The drawer opened farther.
“Withdrawing diagnostic sample.” Something inside the pod moved. A glass vial appeared in one of the side ports.
L slid through her own blood, fighting her way to the vial. Every muscle tensed, bowing her backward with a shockwave of pain. She screamed, the sound little more than a howl forced through clenched teeth.
Everything hurt, burned like fire and knives and every death she’d ever died. Still, she reached further, forced herself to her elbows, coughed more blood until she finally sat against the wall beneath the open drawer.
She stretched for the port, fingers twitching. Tried and failed. Tried again. Failed, breath hitching and hurting. Blood ran from her nose into her mouth, threatening to drown her.
Each cough sprayed red. She lunged upwards, using the twitches in her legs to propel her closer to the drawer. Shaking fingers clutched onto the lip of the port with desperate energy, scrambling for the vial before she lost her grip and fell to the floor, the back of her head landing with a thud that echoed through her skull.
Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds Page 14