by Mark Kraver
Unable to feel emotions, Numen scanned the environment and sensed that the room next door was protected. He turned and fired a blast into the nearby wall, opening a hole large enough to crawl through as more explosions rang out throughout the building. Yahweh fell next to Zenith’s body in shock. “My daughter,” he sobbed. “what have I done?”
“Master, it is not time to mourn,” Numen said, grabbing him by the shoulder and forcing him through the opening in the wall. Yahweh’s family, Reeze, Flora, and then Zenn followed.
Reeze, overwhelmed with sadness, looked into Zenn’s tired eyes; the young girl sensed the headmaster’s comforting thoughts and fell, weeping, into her protective arms.
“How?” his mother asked, not understanding why her son was still on the planet.
“It's a long story,” Yahweh responded. “Numen report.”
“We are surrounded. They appear to be the same species we encountered in the blue universe.”
“Blue universe?” his dad asked.
“Really long story,” Yahweh said, bumping up against Zenn holding Reeze in her arms. They looked at each other closely, but telepathic communication was blocked by the seraphim station’s dampening field. Numen laid down a wide crackling stream of lightning, blasting every zombie and Z-pod in sight to smithereens, before erecting a force field around the hole in the wall. But still more were coming. One Z-pod tentacle dangled out of a ventilation vent overhead, and Numen blasted it to the ground, opening a wider hole in the ceiling. Flipping tentacles slapped around at everyone’s legs, arms and faces, leaving an uncomfortable stinking black slime everywhere. Reeze regained her composure and aimed her blaster at the ceiling, waiting for the next intruder to dare enter after Numen gestured with his golden finger for her to watch his back.
“Where did Numen get all his firepower? It not a standard option,” Flora asked, bewildered.
“Gotta love those special orders,” Yahweh said with a wink.
“Good to have you back, son,” said his father. “Even considering—”
“But the mission?” asked his mother.
“Another long story,” he said, his tone clearly asking his mother to accept what she didn’t know for a little while longer.
“Master. I am picking up several detonations.” The building rocked with vibrations. “This compartment may be breached soon.”
“How soon?”
The explosions sounded closer.
“Unknown.”
“I told you I hated that answer.”
Numen shot more Z-pod through the hole in the wall before erecting another force field.
“I thought you said we'd never see you again?” Nina shouted, burying her face in her older brother’s arms.
“I used to believe in the word ‘never,’ but now I’m not sure what it means.”
“Master, my power supplies are running critically low.”
“Are we going to die?” Nina cried.
Yahweh smiled his bravest face to his parents who already recognized the inevitable consequence of Numen's diminished power supply.
“Numen conserve your power cells, and direct all of your systems to the field.”
“That will deplete my power supply almost as fast.”
Yahweh nodded his head for Flora to look after Numen who was standing like a statue projecting a field from the palm of his extended left hand over the hole in the wall.
“He's still functioning. The only system operating seems to be this beam, whatever that is,” she said examining him closer. “He needs a new spark charge.” Flora nervously indicated where the spark charges were, pointing through the hole in the wall to the next room that was filling with a consortium of hungry Z-pod.
“Why are so many of them focusing on this building?” Yahweh shouted, seeing more coming into the room next door.
“To stop you and Numen,” Zenn said.
“Me? Why me?”
“Because you are our Creator, and he is your seraph,” Zenn revealed.
“Creator?” Nina gasped out loud what was splashed across her parents’ faces.
“I thought you were a pioneer,” Flora said.
“Long story? We need to get that spark charge…” he said, trying to mask all seriousness in his voice. He frowned momentarily at Zenn, trying to figure out how she knew he was a Creator; then he took a deep breath, looked at each person huddled around him in their vulnerable sanctuary and committed to the new plan of attack by saying, “I’ll go.”
“No, I’ll go,” Zenn shouted, jumping to her feet.
“No, you won’t. I am Creator, and I will go.”
“No, you won’t. I am headmaster, and what I say is law!” she said with authority looking down at her adolescent former student.
Yahweh looked at his family, Reeze, and Flora all nodding their heads in agreement. He frowned, finding it hard to argue with both his family and the formidable headmaster of the academy at the same time.
“Numen go through the hole, and lay down as much fire as you can before you shutdown,” she ordered.
Numen looked at Zenn, confused about who was ordering him; before him stood Headmaster Zenn, and yet the voice print matched that of Zenith. But he didn’t have enough energy to do a detailed analysis of the different sound waves to reach a conclusion.
“I’ll get the spark and ignite a new charge before you know it,” Zenn informed.
Flora pointed to the charger through the tentacle-tangled hole.
“Looks simple enough. On my mark. Three, two, one—fire!”
Numen dropped the force field and climbed through the hole, blasting and destroying everything in sight. His power supply flickered off, and his face turned blank. With no more energy to function, the biomechanical seraph known as Numen went completely off-line and became little more than a sitting circuit board. Zenn jumped into action. She ran to the workstation as Flora yelled, “And the attachment!”
Unwinding the transfer cable, Zenn turned and saw several Z-pod slinking through the door. Backing towards the paralyzed seraph to attach the spark charge, another armed zombie entered the room. Reeze aimed to fire, but Numen’s body was blocking her shot. The zombie focused on the powered-down seraph and opened fire. Numen was blown apart, completely destroyed in a barrage of exploding parts and pieces. Zenn turned and jumped through the hole in the wall after Reeze dispatched the zombie with a single shot to the head.
Zenn, in a final act of utter selflessness, braced her back against the hole, using her body to block anything from coming through. “I’m sorry, father,” Zenn cried out, waiting for the inevitable. Within seconds, her blood-curdling screams erupted as Z-pod began to feed on her spinal tissue through the hole in the wall.
Explosions blasted through the door. Zenn fell to her knees and hit the ground with her conscious face, eaten in half by hungry, bloated Z-pod. Reeze opened fire trying to keep the hole clear as one angry Z-pod after another tried to enter their cramped room. Yahweh knelt to comfort Zenn lying on the ground, her guts hanging out through her torn-open back.
One lone cherub with fiery bright red eyes materialized and tended to Zenn’s wounds by projecting a brilliant red beam from the palm of its little hand, cauterizing the blood pouring from her mangled gaping wound.
“What’s this?” Flora flinched, not recognizing the type of cherub. “It’s not one of ours.”
Yahweh frowned as Reeze blasted more hungry Z-pod in the ceiling.
The lonely baby looked up at Yahweh, and made a disapproving tick, ticking sound with its tongue, shaking its head.
Yahweh gasped, struck by the realization she was dying. “My daughter,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “Why?”
“Your daughter?” Nina asked shocked, not understanding what he meant.
Yahweh bent his head forward and put his lips close to Headmaster Zenn’s ear, the unmistakable smell of Z-pod curling up his nose as he said softly, “My dear Zenith.”
Zenn coughed up a large coagulated b
lood clot across her chest from her severed lungs. “Sent to protect—,” she managed to say, her voice raspy and weak, just barely a whisper. “Th—this has all happened before.”
“To protect who?” Nina cried, confusion with fear audible in her words. “Us?”
Yahweh looked into his daughter’s aged eyes and nodded with sorrowful understanding. “And me,” over the near constant pistol blasts.
Zenn nodded, tightening her grip on his arm. Fighting unconsciousness, she slowly closed her eyes.
Nina fell on her weeping, “Auntie Zenn, I love you. Please don’t die.”
Loud explosions and zipping sounds came from the adjacent room, and then everything went still. Reeze stopped her near-constant weapons fire through the hole in the wall and ceiling to listen to the unsettling calm. Everyone remained still for several second listening. Yahweh built up enough courage to move his tensed gut muscles. He looked at everyone’s paralyzed faces, and then dared to eye through the hole.
Flashing centimeters from his face, a serpent flicked a bright red forked tongue through sharp smiling teeth and hissed with a flared cobra neck.
“What?” Yahweh exclaimed, falling backward onto Reeze before he recognized who it was.
In a high-pitched nagging voice, the smiling face said, “Bet you didn’t expect to see me, master.” It was Gouldian, the red universe horned throne. He was equipped with laser cannons on each arm. “Don’t worry,” he added quickly, “These aren’t for you. I’m programmed to kill Z-pod and zombies.” He noticed a wounded Z-pod trying to slink out of the room and spun around, blasting it into pieces.
Yahweh and Reeze crawled out of the hole in the wall not completely trusting the infamous Throne. Yahweh looked down at Numen blown into pieces among the mounds of dead zombies and twitching Z-pod, then glanced quickly at Zenith before settling his eyes on Gouldian.
“How did you get here?” he asked the Throne. Terror was settling over the young teenage Creator’s face. His primitive gut-brain began to loosen its grip on his bowels as the gravity of their loss hit him.
“Ah yeah, that would be me,” said a stunningly beautiful woman who levitated through the door with multicolored humming butterfly wings, armed to the teeth, wearing cannons on both arms and an expanded ‘butt’ power pack. Her gravity suit’s wide-open neckline plunged to below her navel with transparent web mesh supporting her circular breast control shields. She was adorned in red tiger stripes, red facial paint from ear to ear, and a long-braided ponytail that glowed when she moved her head back and forth. She flipped-up her clear tracking visor and flashed the stunned onlookers her familiar crooked smile.
Both Yahweh and Reeze stood with their mouths agape.
“What happened here?” the older Reeze asked, looking down at Numen blasted into pieces on the floor. “Yeah, he thought that might happen.” Then she looked at Zenith framed in crimson, mangled on the floor, lifeless. The older Reeze shed the cannons off her arms, folded her wings away, grounded her knees to the floor next to her aunt, and began to cry.
The younger Reeze fell to her knees next to her older self, still not fully understanding and yet utterly overwhelmed with grief, sobbed as well. Tears fill the young Creator’s eyes as he wept over the death of his daughter, and then for his best friend, Numen. It was all over except for the sorrow.
“Numen,” he cried, shaking his head in sadness with a snort of nasal mucus. He cleared his eyes with the back of his hand. “Protecting me to the very end.”
“Boy, you can say that again,” Numen said, levitating through the door in his souped-up ‘Angel of War’ exoskeleton, fortified arm cannons, and two indefinite power supply backpacks modeled after starship engines.
“Numen?” the younger Reeze shouted with surprise.
Yahweh stood, stupefied.
“Where’s Zenith?” Numen asked, disregarding his destroyed self and the hopelessly-dead other Zenith smeared on the floor. “The older Zenith,” he clarified.
Yahweh pointed a trembling finger through the hole in the wall. Numen moved to the hole and saw her lying on the floor in a bloody mess being comforted by Nina. Without a word, he shed his arm cannons onto the floor and stepped out of his battle-enhanced exoskeleton. With his golden hands he ripped more space into the hole in the wall and slipped into the next room. He came out moments later with Zenn cradled in his arms and floated her over to the large hibernation pod in the corner of the room.
Numen nodded to Flora and she swiftly opened the pod door with a loud hissing pop, making everyone in room jump. Numen saw it was occupied by a fully assembled, deactivated seraph. He pulled it out and threw it to the ground, muttering, “Thanks for the help buddy.”
He gently placed the disemboweled body of Zenn inside the hibernation pod and closed the lid. Flora reactivated the unit and silence filled the air.
“Numen report,” the younger Reeze said, seeing the shock still plastered across Yahweh’s face.
Numen turned and looked around the room, assessing the results of his planned operation. He looked at the younger Reeze, and then the older Reeze, lingering on each long enough to make a comprehensive assessment. His expressionless eyes passed over Zenith’s mutilated body and fixed onto his master’s contorted, confused face.
“Master,” Numen began, “the first time we entered this universe’s timeline we were defeated by the Z-pod invasion. Zenith, Reeze and I escaped back to the red universe.”
“Because I was dead,” Yahweh said, the shock still evident in his monotone voice.
Numen nodded. “We entered the red universe on a timeline that preceded the Jerusalem arriving through the Halo with the planet Earth.”
“Wait a minute. You were the ones on the solar platform…” Reeze interrupted, remembering the confusing moment.
“…who blasted the throne bubbles. Had to test out my new guns,” the older Reeze said, completing her younger counterpart’s question.
“And it was you,” Yahweh said, pointing to the new Numen, “who told the Throne not to deactivate—” He pointed to the destroyed seraph on the ground. “—that Numen, when we first arrived on the sphere with our planet.” Yahweh crossed his arms, momentarily feeling the satisfaction of putting two and two together, before a new question occurred to him: “But who put Armilus back together again?”
Numen had only a partial working hypothesis on Armilus’ re-assemblement, so he refrained from answering that particular question and continued with what he knew for certain.
“I knew the only way my plan would work was to get to Magog first—before you arrived on the Jerusalem. Knocking on the door to the pod chamber, Zenith, Reeze and I,” Numen said, nodding at the older Reeze as he said her name, “entered and were immediately confronted by Chad, who was not very hospitable. That is until I presented him with his master’s red Deed Crystal. He was still skeptical until I presented him with incontrovertible proof my story was true—the blue Deed Crystal. After informing him of my plan, hope against hope, he wisely chose to play along with your encounter with Gog and Magog so not to contaminate the red universe timeline more than we had already done by coming back in time to rescue you.”
Numen paused and eyed his master, seeking confirmation that what he’d said so far had made sense. Yahweh made an impatient gesture with his hand that Numen filed away into a subfolder labeled ‘Regret’ filed under the name ‘Sorrow’ for further analysis during down time.
“Of course, master. And when you were talking to Gog inside Armilus, I—or actually we—were being upgraded and programmed not to succumb to your order to protect your family when we first saw them, here in this seraphim station,” he said, pointing to his destroyed self on the ground. “It would have meant abandoning you to save them, and that was unforgivable.”
“Because that’s when I was killed by zombies,” Yahweh said.
Numen nodded, only then terminating the unrelenting, infinitely-looping file labeled ‘Failure’ that had etched a permanent scar through his mit
ochondrial-core memory processor. He had clearly become too comfortable with ‘winging it’ in the past, if he had been willing to discard his prime directive—to protect his master—the first time.
“So, what have you been doing all of this time?” Yahweh recovered enough to ask. “And Headmaster Zenn?”
“Zenith insisted on going back even deeper into the green universe’s timeline, to—”
“Protect me,” Yahweh interrupted, knowing the answer, bowing his head and covering his eyes in sorrow.
Numen nodded. “We had no reference point as to where on the green universe’s timeline Zaar had brought the Z-pod,” he said. “During her long vigil on Omega Prime, she waited for you to be born.” He glanced at the hibernation pod in the corner of the room and added, almost wistfully, “She must have found a way to become headmaster at the academy.”
“Timing. Timing is everything,” winked the older Reeze to the younger. Younger Reeze gave a half smile back, knowing her counterpart was trying to lighten the moment, but they both felt the heartache passing between them.
Yahweh looked at the older Reeze and realized their plan must have taken years to complete. She was now a grown woman, almost twenty he guessed.
“We had to perfect the programming of our killer Throne army,” the older Reeze said. “I wanted to fix that damn tongue, but it ended-up being a pretty good sensor for sniffing out those slimy devils.” She pointed to Gouldian who was nervously flicking his tongue at a squirming tentacle on the ground, still looking around the room itching to kill more Z-pod.
“We arrived in this timeline right after you,” Numen continued to report. “Not bothering to land, the Throne army jumped to the surface in gravity bubbles with a multitude of red cherubim to begin the eradication of Helifonus zombnapod from the green universe.”
“Popping those bubble-headed Z-pod on the way down,” the older Reeze said, with cruel satisfaction.
“I see your plan didn’t succeed as well as you wanted,” Yahweh said, nodding first to Zenith lying dead on the ground, then to Zenn barely alive inside the hibernation pod.