Fallen Metropolis (Omnibus Edition)

by Matthew J. Barbeler

  They came to the green exit arrow and followed the hallway it pointed down. At the end of the hallway was a junction with an info display panel on the wall. The panel had a floor plan with a red arrow flowing through an evacuation diagram. It showed that the emergency stairwell could be accessed from directly behind the lunch room.

  Aloysius stopped next to the display and interfaced with it. He downloaded the entire schematic for Metro Tower.

  “Captain, I believe I’ve found the most direct route to the bridge,” Aloysius said and opened his hand. A light shone out of his palm and displayed the tower from their current floor and above. A red arrow showed a path up the tower.

  “So we go up the stairs for five levels, then cross over to the upper elevator shaft?” Draco asked.

  “Yes,” Aloysius answered.

  “How do we know that the route is safe?”

  “We don’t, unfortunately Captain. But this is the most direct route to the top of the tower.”

  “Very well. Al, you lead the way.”

  Aloysius led them around a hallway, turned left, then headed towards an open lunch room full of tables and chairs. There were no lunches left on any of the tables. All the chairs were pushed neatly into the tables. Nothing was out of place.

  “Captain, wait,” Raze said. Aloysius and Draco stopped and turned to look at Raze. He continued, “There was no panic here. There was no spontaneous evacuation. I think these people were warned about the infection before it spread.”

  “I think Raze may be right,” Aloysius said.

  “Once we get to the top of this tower, then we’ll get our answers. There’s no point in speculating just yet,” Draco said.

  “Very well,” Aloysius said and continued on.

  He led the crew past the lunch room and empty offices towards the stairwell. Aloysius pushed on the bar across the front of the emergency exit and it opened without resistance. In six flights of stairs, they could then cross to the elevator shaft to the higher levels.

  They climbed four levels without problem. The fluttering sound grew louder the higher they climbed. Draco was starting to think that they may have been able to climb the staircases without encountering a problem, but his heart sank when he saw the first piece of rubble.

  Aloysius stopped when he could go no further. Pieces of the walls had broken away from the higher levels and completely blocked the stairwell.

  “Al, can you work out another route to get us higher?” Draco asked.

  “I believe so. One moment, Captain.”

  Aloysius opened the palm of his right hand again and brought up the holomap of the complex. He routed the arrow from the blockage at the stairwell and tracked it back down to the floor below. He zoomed into the floor they were currently on and looked for ways they could ascend.

  “Aha! Captain! There are some ducts we may be able to climb to reach the next floor.”

  “Excellent,” Draco said.

  They backtracked down the stairs. Draco came to the emergency exit and pushed it open. The floor in front of them was an exact copy of the floor they had entered from.

  “It boggles the mind that so much office space is needed on a ship,” Draco said.

  “Think of it more as a city. In between dockings this ship needs just as much management as a small city. This building would have been equivalent to the chamber of commerce, the local and provincial councils, law enforcement, and anything else you can think of,” Raze said.

  “Of course. Al, you take point. Lead us to the ducts,” Draco said.

  Aloysius led them past the offices, towards a storeroom and shouldered the door open. The shelves of the storeroom were lined with stationery, immaculately stored and undisturbed. On the ceiling in the corner of the room was a grate covering the opening to an air-conditioning duct. Raze reached up and tore the grate from its housing.

  Aloysius looked up into the duct. “This duct should allow us access to two floors above us. Your grapnel launchers should come in handy here, Captain. Shall I go first?”

  “No, I’ll go,” said Draco.

  If anyone was going to step headfirst into unknown danger, it would be him.

  “Tight squeeze,” Draco said and aimed the grapnel launcher up into the duct. There was no telling whether there would be a metallic surface for the magnetic head to attach to. Draco flicked the switch on the side of the grapnel launcher and three sharp barbs flicked out of the sides of the head. Draco took aim, one finger on the firing trigger, and one finger on the second trigger. He fired the launcher up into the duct and felt the satisfying impact of the head burying into something solid.

  Draco pulled the second trigger gently to see if the head had caught fast on anything. The rope grew taut. Draco pulled the trigger with more force and flew up the dark air duct. It was an incredibly close fit, and Draco wondered whether Raze’s wide frame would even let him fit up the duct with the flamethrower tanks on his back.

  The grapnel reached the end of its rope. There was no grate covering the top of the vent. Draco put his hand up and tried to find something to grab onto. His hand found something soft and fleshy. He looked up over the cusp and saw that he had grabbed onto something that looked like an intestine that seemed to be growing out of the muck on the floor.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Veck stood on the deck of the engineering bay and watched the Metropolis Seven shrink into the distance. The ship which had loomed so large and threatened to destroy the Icarus only minutes before was nothing more than a watermelon sized grey and blue shape in the distance.

  Rhken desperately tried to think of some way that she could stop Veck from commandeering the ship. If they left now, Captain Goldwing and the rest of the crew would be trapped on the Metropolis Seven. She hadn’t heard Draco’s voice since they landed on the ship. Now there was no telling whether they were even still in comm range. She cradled Reban in her arms.

  “He’s dead, Rhken. Dad’s dead. What are we going to do?” she cried.

  “Whatever we have to do to stay alive,” she said.

  Arak’s arm throbbed and ached. Veck refused to let him see to it until they were well away from the giant ship. Veck’s words had turned sweet after Arak became submissive. But Arak knew that Veck’s friendship would only extend to him as long as he was useful and obedient. Arak was not proud of himself, but he could not bring himself to act against Veck. He knew that he would kill him without a second thought. As long as his actions would not directly lead to the Captain’s death then Arak managed to justify his compliance to himself.

  But he knew deep down that he was betraying the Captain through his inaction. If he did anything in his current state, Veck would kill him. He was sure of that. The longer he stayed alive, the more chances he had to set things right.

  “Well, children, I believe it’s time we made our move. Arak, will you accompany me to the bridge?” Veck asked.

  Rhken turned to look at Veck. His smile chilled her to the core. He turned and beckoned Arak to follow him into the ship. He stopped at the threshold of the engineering bay and turned back to the two girls.

  “You’re both coming too. Get your sister to her feet and bring her with you, little mouse.”

  Rhken obeyed. She pulled her sister to her feet and ushered her along.

  “Reban, honey, we need to go with them,” Rhken said. “We need to. Can you do that?”

  “I just want to stay here,” Reban said meekly.

  “You can’t, honey. You need to come with us, or Veck is going to kill you.”

  “I want him to. Just let him kill me and get it over with.”

  Rhken looked into Reban’s eyes and shook her. Hard.

  “Don’t you ever say that,” Rhken said.

  Reban tried to look away from Rhken’s gaze, but Rhken grabbed her head and forced her to look her in the eyes. “Don’t you ever say that. You’re the only person I have left in the entire galaxy. It’s just you and me now, and I need you, okay?”

  She bu
ried her face into Rhken’s shoulder and said, “Okay.”

  Rhken lead Reban down the stairs from the viewing platform and back up into the corridor to the bridge. Veck smiled as Rhken approached with her sister in tow.

  When they reached the bridge, Veck reclined back in the Captain’s chair. Anger rose in Rhken at the sight of that murderer in the Captain’s chair. She refused to let herself look over into the corner where her father’s body lay cloven in two. She positioned her body in between Reban and her father’s body to try and block her sister’s line of sight. She led Reban over to the co-pilot’s chair and sat her down. The chair faced her away from where he father had come to rest.

  Nook used to be the co-pilot, but now that he was gone, either of the girls could take over in his stead. Rhken squeezed Reban on the shoulder and went to the supply closet at the back of the bridge.

  She opened it and found an emergency blanket. It was normally used for when someone had gone into shock, but she had another use for it in mind. She took it out of its plastic package and unfolded the blanket. It was thin, but heavy. It was large enough to cover the remains of her father until they could bury him.

  The top half of Nook had landed away from his bottom half. Rhken took her father’s hand and dragged his top half over to his bottom half. She lingered. This would be the last time she would ever hold his hand, and she never wanted that moment to end.

  But it did. She covered her father with the blanket. There was still blood on the ground, but there was nothing that could be done to get rid of it until they were safe again. Until Veck was taken care of.

  In the Captain’s chair, Veck beckoned Arak over to him. Arak held his broken elbow with his other hand and shuffled over to the Captain’s chair.

  “So tell me Nara-ka, how is it that you were able to set off an electromagnetic pulse?” Veck asked.

  “It’s an inbuilt countermeasure in the ship’s artificial intelligence. It sensed that the crew was in danger and reacted. That’s all.”

  “You’re lying Nara-ka. You engaged the EMP.”

  “No, I was hiding in the supply closest,” he said. He looked ashamed.

  Veck laughed out loud and said, “In the supply closet? What a warrior you are, Arak Nara! However, there is one small detail which you may have overlooked in your cover story. Perhaps you should have thought it over before you spoke.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Arak said nervously.

  “I can wirelessly interface with almost any system. I’ve been a part of the ship’s systems since I broke free of my bonds. I’ve seen the security subroutines that are part of the artificial intelligence’s programming. I’ve circumvented them and deleted them. They were set to overload my neurotech implant and wipe my brain. It was supposed to turn me into a vegetable, but I deleted those subroutines. There’s no mention of an EMP in the artificial intelligence’s core, which means that it was initiated by a member of the crew from a system that the artificial intelligence had no connection to.”

  Arak was silent, but the color fled from his face.

  “I know that you initiated the EMP, because you’re the only crew member who wasn’t accounted for. All you need to do is tell me how you did it. I won’t hold it against you, of course. If you tell me how you did it, all will be forgiven” Veck said with a smile.

  That damned smiled.

  Arak knew that it was all just a ploy. The moment he told Veck how and where he triggered the EMP from, Veck would have access to the EMP, the self-destruct mechanism and the gateway drive. Veck couldn’t do much with the EMP now, and there’s no way Veck would ever blow the ship while he was on it. But if Veck had access to the gateway drive then he could get to the other side of the galaxy. He also wouldn’t need Arak anymore, and Veck would surely kill him.

  “I’m waiting,” Veck said testily.

  “I didn’t set the EMP off. It was part of the artificial intelligence’s defense systems, I swear it.”

  “You disappoint me,” Veck said and got up from the Captain’s chair. He strode over to Rhken, who was busy trying to cover her father’s body, and grabbed her by the hair. She yelped with pain and terror as Veck held her off the ground.

  He walked back towards Arak. Rhken screamed. Her eyes were wide, searching and pleading.

  “I’ll start with this one, and you two will watch. For every moment that you look away, I will make her scream louder. Shall I begin?”

  Arak looked away and Veck made good on his threat. He lifted Rhken by the hair and tore her overalls off. She screamed. Her modesty was protected by a black tank top.

  Arak looked back and motioned for Veck to stop with his good hand.

  “You’re ready to cooperate, then?” Veck asked.

  Arak nodded.

  He didn’t want to reveal the secret heart of the Icarus to this madman, but he had no other choice. He couldn’t allow the girls to be tortured through his inaction. If Arak lived to survive this ordeal, he hardly thought that Captain Goldwing could ever forgive him if he allowed any harm to come to them. Save the ship at the expense of Reban and Rhken? No. That was not how things were done.

  Arak had spent his entire life cowering in fear of men like this. It didn’t matter what drove a man to do the things that Veck and his kind have done. It all came down to selfishness. In the mercenary crew Arak used to run with it was all about the galactic credits or gathering power. It was the manifestation of how far one man would go to satisfy his own personal desires. Whatever pseudo-altruistic pro-human propaganda Veck used to justify his means, he was still just an asshole on a power trip.

  “Put the girl down, and I’ll show you,” Arak said.

  Veck let go of Rhken’s hair and she fell into a sobbing heap on the floor.

  “Done. Now show me,” Veck commanded.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Jaxon walked through the tightly packed crowd in the medical center. He had excused himself from Ava and Vynce under the pretense that he needed to use the facilities, but that was not the case. As Vynce had talked about what they would need to do to escape, memories came flooding back to Jaxon of his first time on the ship.

  His instinct began to tug him away from Ava and Vynce. It pulled on him and urged him to do what needed to be done. He knew exactly where he needed to be, what he needed to do, and the words he needed to say. He had already heard himself say them, but he hadn’t realized it at the time. Jaxon’s head began to hurt when he thought about exactly what his actions would mean, not only in his own timeline, but in the flow of time in the universe. He was about to create a paradox, but at the same time and twenty years previous, the paradox had already been created. He was simply following the events that already had been, will be, and were, set in motion.

  Nothing had imploded. All of those things they told him about the Sentinels and the creation of paradoxes might be bullshit after all.

  He found his younger self exactly where he knew he would. He was in the men’s toilets, locked in a stall, sobbing quietly to himself. The only thing that betrayed him was his ragged breathing and the occasional sob that he couldn’t silence.

  Jaxon knocked on the door. His voice modulator was engaged. “You okay in there, kid?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine, leave me alone, okay?” Young Jaxon answered.

  “It’s all right to be scared. Hell, if you weren’t, I’d think you were fucking insane.”

  Young Jaxon laughed, and then blew his nose.

  “Can you come out? There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Old Jaxon said.

  “I’m not sure I can help at all.”

  “To the contrary Jaxon, I know you’re the only one who can help me.”

  There was silence for a moment, then Young Jaxon unlocked the cubicle and stepped out. He walked over to the sink and washed his face. From his red puffy eyes, it was plain that he had been crying.

  “What’s your deal, anyway? I mean you say you’ve come here to rescue us, but you’re trapped here jus
t like the rest of us. You know that, right?” Young Jaxon said as he looked at himself in the mirror.

  “That may be so, but there’s something that I need you to do for me. And I need your guarantee that you’re not going to mention this to anyone. Not ever.”

  Young Jaxon turned and said, “I need to know a little bit about what you’re going to ask me, first.”

  “It’s very important. The existence of humanity hinges on you doing what I’m going to ask you to do. I can’t tell you any more unless you’re on board.”

  “Why don’t you ever take your helmet off? Are you a robot or something?”

  Old Jaxon laughed and said, “No. But it’s for your protection, believe it or not.”

  “You must be an ugly fucker, then. Ugly enough to cause heart failure?”

  Old Jaxon laughed again at the surreal nature of being a part of events that he had already lived through. It was as though his body, his mind, and his words were living simultaneously as part of his memories and part of his present. His head began to ache. He thought back on how much trouble that smart mouth of his would get him in but didn’t say anything to his younger self.

  He didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

  There were lessons that needed to be learned the hard way.

  “When you get off the ship,” Old Jaxon began, and Young Jaxon cut him off.

  “There you go again. You don’t realize what’s going on here, do you? We’re all trapped. All of us. We’re all going to die on this ship. There is no escape.”

  “You will escape. I know it. Captain Dracovic Goldwing is one of the best men I’ve ever met, and right now he’s working on a plan to get us all out of here. He’ll do it, too. That man is a legend. There’s nothing he can’t do when he’s put into a corner.”