Doomsday Minus One

by Andrew Dorn

  “Found you,” Roy sneered.

  “Screw you,” Anna barked back.

  She felt something sharp on the floor, rubbing against her thigh and underneath her left hand. The t-bar. She shifted her position slightly and masked the bar with her elbow.

  “You thought you could change the future just like that!” Roy roared.

  She jerked back from the man’s outburst, the t-bar rolling away from her. Roy watched the bar stop right in front of him, the metal glowing blue from the moonlight passing through the hole.

  “Damn you!”

  He lunged at her with sudden speed, the movement swift despite his bulk.

  But Anna was faster.

  She rolled on her side, snatched the bar and lifted it like a spear, putting all her weight in jamming it into place. There was a sound like air venting from a balloon and a muffled grunt. In the semi-darkness of the cockpit, Anna saw Roy put his hands to his chest. She crawled out of his way as he wheeled about like a madman.

  “You bitch!” Roy raged. “What did you do to me?”

  Cradling her broken arm, Anna made her way out of the wreckage, got to her feet and sprinted away. She heard Roy scream in fury and after a beat, the sound of footsteps pursuing her.

  The man was still after her.

  She darted between the remains of the spire, her sense of orientation out of whack. She had lost her bearing on where she was, of where Declan was. The pain in her arm was astounding, a black hole swallowing her whole. She glanced at her wristwatch. The arrow indicated she was following a Southern direction. Not good, she thought. She knew she should be heading in an easterly direction to get back to Declan. There was no question of leaving him behind. She turned around and lumbered forward.

  Her breath came out as small puffs of smoke as she trotted over the dead ground.

  If only I could lay down for a few minutes and let someone else take the pain.

  Maybe he has given up the chase.

  There had been no other sounds but her own rapid breath for minutes now. She must have lost him.

  Or he’s dead.

  The thought had scarcely registered in her mind when she was hit from behind. Roy crashed into her with enormous force, sending her sailing in the air. She hit the ground with a splat, her broken arm absorbing most of the shock. There was a tsunami of pain and Anna’s world was reduced to a whirlpool of spinning black spots. Barely conscious, she could only gasp in fear as Roy pinned her down with his muddy boot.

  “Who’s laughing now?” Roy wheezed, the sharp smell of blood discernible in the air. “Do you think you could really stop this grandiose event from happening?” He coughed throatily, bubbles of blood spurting down his chin. “You and your friend.”

  Roy took a step backward, leaving Anna sprawled on the ground. His head swam, and he fought to remain upright. The t-bar had punctured his lung, collapsing it, and he was now fighting for his life.

  It had all gone so terribly wrong and so incredibly fast it made his head spin. The new future was supposed to be his, yet here he was bleeding from the mouth, coughing his life out. Again, it was all their fault. Didn’t they understand the new future would erase the wrongs of the past? Didn’t they realize that by not submitting to the new way of things, they were sending humanity to its doom?

  We were so close.

  So close to the end.

  So close to doomsday for the old, rotten, ways.

  Humanity had its chance. But had squandered it away. It had polluted without restraint and killed the planet in a matter of a few lifetimes. It was accountable for its own demise. Those involved in the global control of Earth would at last get what they deserved.

  “You are crazy,” Anna said, her voice quivering with rage and pain. “It’s not a grandiose event. It’s an extermination. Do you really think that thing out there would have brought us good fortunes? It was a killing machine, plain and simple. It wanted to wipe out our environment... and us with it.”

  “Is that a fact?” Roy croaked, spitting blood. “I don’t see it that way. It was bringing about a new future for those smart enough to see it.” He spat out more blood. “For those smart enough to prepare for it.”

  “But it wasn’t our future,” Anna said. “Don’t you see?”

  Roy started to laugh, a deep out-of-control roar punctuated by racking coughs.

  Not our future!

  It was the most inept thing he’d ever heard.

  Of course it wasn’t our future. If it had been, we’d all be screwed. How could she not see that?

  Roy’s legs buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, an arm’s length away from Anna. He sat, unmoving, head bent low, bubbles of blood trickling out a hole in his chest. The lower part of his face was a dark reddish mass and his remaining eye was half-closed, a dim window into his tortured soul.

  Anna strove to remain conscious, her heart hammering in her chest. The pain in her arm was the first and last thing keeping her from slipping into oblivion. Roy’s tirade bounced around her head, as she dipped in and out of consciousness. The man was without a doubt a sociopath but what if he had been right? Could some of what he said be true? She was too exhausted to think straight. The man was a lunatic, plain and simple. Just one of the many we, as a society, produced out of our own callousness.

  Civilization is like a thin layer of ice upon a bottomless ocean of chaos and darkness.

  “What’s your name?” Roy asked, in a ragged whisper.

  Anna jumped out her skin. She had thought him unconscious but obviously he still had some living to do.

  “Anna.”

  She watched him nod once.

  “I’m dying, Anna.”

  It was her turn to nod.

  “I know.” She hesitated for an instant. “I’m sorry.”

  In the pale light of the moon, she saw his chest sag.

  He stopped breathing.

  Elijah Roy’s empty eye looked up to the pinpoints of light in the night sky, oblivious to all that had been and all that would come.

  48 Limbo

  THE VOICE IN his head was removed, almost indistinguishable; an afterthought over the constant background noise.

  “Simon?”

  There was an inkling of recognition. He recognized that voice. Even though most of his mind was engaged with something else, part of his memory reconnected the right fragments to provide an answer.

  Victoria.

  “Yes.”

  He strove to associate the name with a specific memory, a meaningful connection.

  I know you.

  “Yes, you do.”

  Flashes of disjointed memories erupted forth, choking his mind with a jumble of emotions, each vying for recognition, and attention. Overwhelmed, his mind grabbed onto an individual frame from the deluge rushing in his head.

  A beautiful woman in a hospital bed, peering up at him, her face bathed in golden light.

  You died.

  “Yes.”

  The image, so pure yet so remote, wavered then dissolved. Another burst of images rotated in a spinning whirlpool of thoughts and emotions, and another frame fell into focus.

  A cliff, whipped by wind, the sky gray; and far below, waves crashing into the jagged shore.

  I wanted to be with you.

  “Yes.”

  A shuffling of more images, like a carousel gone astray.

  A letter, manuscript, with neat calligraphy.

  But I didn’t.

  “No.” The voice said with renewed clarity. “I didn’t want you to.”

  You were sick.

  “Yes.”

  I helped you.

  The voice became quiet, withdrawn, as if it apprehended the subsequent words. The ones it knew would follow.

  To die.

  The carousel started up again. The images were crisp now, in focus and full of long-forgotten details. A hospital. A concerned doctor. An IV line sticking into a thin, frail arm. An ashen veil over pale green eyes.

  Simon’s memo
ries, his entire catalogue of recollections, of minutia, of souvenirs, collected over the length of a lifetime, rushed back into his mind. It was as if he had been reborn.

  He woke up.

  Like a patient coming out of a prolonged coma, he scooped up the sensations and impressions like so much treasures. Though he still could sense a secret cloud lurking within, he began to decipher the clues of what had happened... and of where he was.

  He was confined inside a bubble.

  At least that’s what it seemed to be.

  The bubble, for that’s what his brain had come up with to make sense of, was like a womb. He was floating inside it, the top of his head and the bottom of his soles a hair’s breadth away from the inner, transparent, surface. He held up his hand and poked the bubble with his finger. It indented outward in a dramatic fashion, extending way beyond what seemed possible.

  But it didn’t burst.

  He dug harder, pushing hard with his fist, and still the envelope did not give. He clawed at the soft tissue-like material with both hands, seeking to rip it apart. But the bubble bounced back, pristine, with no blemish to mar its perfect surface. If was as if his efforts did not register at all, as if his physicality did not exist.

  Have I become just a memory?

  Am I even still alive?

  He pinched the skin of his left hand. The triggers of pain wired into his nerves fired, proving he was still alive. His mind recorded the sensation as one being in accordance with being alive. ‘Proof’, his internal dictionary dictated at once. He was alive since he had proof, physical confirmation his body was behaving the way it should.

  Since he couldn’t get out of the bubble, what else could he do? He could hear, but there was nothing to listen to. The silence was absolute, save for his own breathing. ‘Interesting’. Another sign he was indeed alive: ‘breathing’ meant his respiratory system was working, along with the circulatory one, powered by the ‘heart’. The intricate workings of his body were coming back to him along with other crucial information.

  Information from ‘outside’.

  The bubble had not always been his entire universe. He could recall walking down a tunnel composed of elastic walls. There had also been someone behind him but that specific memory was still out of range.

  I have touched, and I have listened. What else can I do?

  ‘Talk’.

  “Ahem. Hello?”

  Was that his voice? It sounded so inadequate, so insignificant. Perhaps he should try again but with more ‘authority’.

  “My name is Simon Macomber.”

  Why did he say that? His mind offered dozens of explanations in a fraction of a second.

  To assert yourself. To acknowledge to everyone you are still yourself, and still alive.

  The limbo.

  That’s where he had been. In a profound and impenetrable limbo. He had been away from his true self, away from the real Simon Macomber. The limbo had cheated him of his soul.

  But why?

  If only he could understand.

  ‘Think’.

  The bubble was a construct. He had touched it with his finger and it was real. But was it an artifact, a side effect of the limbo?

  There must be a clue. There has to be.

  Since he couldn’t leave the bubble, then maybe the clue wasn’t outside... and if it wasn’t outside... it had to be...

  Inside.

  His brain struggled with the concept. The more he mulled it over, the more certain he became. The ‘Outside’ was forbidden, a world he couldn’t attain. The only one which remained, the inner world, was the obvious alternative. Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the right one.

  I have to go back into the limbo.

  It was an easy decision to make when one had no other choices. This time however, he could slip into the nether with the conviction he could break free.

  Victoria.

  His memories of her were the lifeline anchoring his soul from the limbo’s perils. The inner world was a deep lake full of mystery, its waters filled with unknown dangers. There was nothing he could do but sink into it and hope his sense of self would prevail.

  There was only one sure way to find out if the limbo was the way out.

  He shut his eyes, closed down his brain... and the waters opened up.

  49 Anna's Path

  ANNA STIRRED AWAKE with a jolt. The pain in her arm throbbed with stubborn intensity, bouncing between excruciating and intolerable. She had fallen asleep despite her best effort to stay conscious, probably from exhaustion and shock. Slouched in front of her, Elijah Roy’s body lay as she remembered it, his bloodstained face shrouded in the shadows. She had to get away from him, from the memory of what he’d done to her.

  Pushing unsteadily to her feet, she made her way out into the tormented landscape. Every step was an exercise in bearing the unendurable. Her arm was killing her. She had never experienced that amount of pain before. It was surreal. She thought a broken heart was bad, but it was nothing to a broken arm, not physically, at least.

  Cradling her arm, she went around the ruin of the spire. Her mind flashed back to Roy. The man had been delusional, yet she could understand the reasons governing his actions. It was easy to succumb to ideas of renewal, of being first in the grand scheme of life. There was something powerfully attractive about being endowed with a mission which could fundamentally change how things are. The world was a place of inequity and of considerable extremes, prime conditions for people to be angry, scared... and ready for something new. To Roy, the future promised by the thing in the sinkhole, meant he had a chance for making a difference, of being one who mattered, of having a voice. In the end, it all came down to power. If one had the belief that a different way of life was what was required to right all the wrongs, then having the power to provoke that change was a necessity borne of the situation, not a dream of fancy.

  She shuffled across the debris field, picking her way between the twisted remains of the Starwind. She flashed back to the shadow in the pilot’s seat. She realized now it had only been a play of light, a vision, fuelled by fear and terror. Phil Ballard had doubtless died when his ship blew up.

  She missed him.

  I am so exhausted. Perhaps I should lie down and wait.

  There was a familiar formation in the distance, a white blob dancing in her vision. Like an automaton, she shuffled onward, her head spinning both from dehydration and shock. The white thing came into view. It was set behind a rough ridge of upturned dirt studded with fragments of the airship’s white hull.

  Even here, it seemed to Anna that the Starwind was showing her the way. Wavering on her feet, she saw the white blob quiver before transforming into a solid shape again.

  It was the crew compartment.

  How long had it been now since she had last seen it?

  Hours or days?

  It was difficult to keep track of time when pain made every thought a chore, a drudgery without end.

  There was someone inside waiting for her.

  Declan Penney, her friend. They had gone through a lot, had suffered horribly. But they had also shared a strong, vibrant bond even as everything around them was falling apart. A bond which had rekindled the hope in her grieving soul.

  Her father loved to say accidents were merely a succession of bad luck which occurred at the right moment. But the same could also be said for survival: that it was a string of events bound together by luck, instinct and determination. Declan had helped her live through an ordeal, unlike anything she had come across, and it was a chance meeting that had brought them together.

  That’s what fate was.

  The progress of events beyond a person’s control.

  She took a step forward... and never caught sight of the strip of metal barring her way half-buried into the ground. Her foot struck the object, throwing her off-balance, and with a cry of despair, she hit the ground. There was a wave of agony and the world began to break down, carried away by the pain.<
br />
  Funny, that.

  Pain made one see curious things. As she lay folded up in the dirt, a body-length away from where Declan was lying, alone, in the compartment, she caught sight of two other blobs entering her field of view. Contrary to the one before, which had remained somewhat stationery, these new blobs seemed to get closer with each heartbeat. They were indistinct, crude approximations of humanoid shapes but they nevertheless held that indelible quality that made them human.

  The shapes came closer still and Anna examined them for what they were. There was a man and a woman. They looked to be holding unto each other as if they needed each person’s support to trudge across the plain. One shape limped while the other went about with difficulty, a hand fastened to its side.

  There was something familiar with how that particular shape walked, by the way it held its head up, chin thrust forward as if to navigate iceberg-filled seas.

  Gray bubbles crept across Anna’s view of the world, turning everything vague and indistinct. The bubbles became denser, engulfing all and leaving but a single tiny window of clarity to the external world. A window in which the shape dropped to its knees in front of her.

  It must have been a hallucination but a nanosecond before blacking out, she realized the shape was familiar for an understandable reason.

  Dad?!

  50 The Construct

  SIMON WAS SUSPENDED in thought, floating in limbo. Adrift in an endless sea of nothingness, carried about by the ebbing tides of oblivion. The mind was a powerful generator of imagery when it wanted, he mused. The surrounding void could have been anything: a jungle, a city, another planet, anything his psyche could pull up and present as real. But it was a barren and desolate space.

  Why is it so empty?

  It was a question without an answer.

  If there is nothing to look at, is there something I can sense?