by Brett Bam
The world had shaken, and grumbled. He had watched cracks appear in the stone and dust had fallen from them. He was covered in it and struggling to breath. He waited in the dusty dark for ages, coughing gently all the while. Nothing happened. He grew thirsty and hungry but would not go down the stairs. He sat there for the longest time. Eventually he had relieved himself a few steps down. The experience was terrifying, he would go down as far as he could but the stairwell was black and dark and it stank.
Suddenly, the door opened a crack, spilling light and air and blowing some of the dust from his eyes. He peered through it, lifting his head and craning to see who it was. Dust fell from his head and from his eyes.
It was his mother and she was crying.
Her head was gashed, and her face was bleeding, but it was his mother! She cried out in relief and swept him into her arms. Behind her, with a smile on his face and a light in his hand, stood a man dressed in black with eyes shining all the colours of the rainbow. The little boy smiled back at him, and for the first time he felt that everything was going to be alright. He hugged his mother tightly.
Jeremiah Comfort ran unheedingly into a cobbled crossroads. It was dark, and tall houses loomed on all four corners. The cobbles gleamed in the orange light of a fire far above. The crossroads fell away around the chamber’s curve, four avenues of random direction dwindling away beneath the staring windows of a million apartments. He was barefoot and bleeding. His mouth was covered in blood, and a wide swath of it ran down his neck and stained his robes, a truly scarlet collar. Jeremiah had bitten the flesh from a man’s face, eating the lips and eyes and tongue in full sight of his horrified family. He had killed and rampaged his way through the asteroid, an avenging angel in the midst of an apocalypse. His people, seeing him, supplicated themselves and begged for his blessing. He came upon them in the midst of their panic and despair and he slew them. He killed children and wounded parents. He slew officers of the peace without qualm. The monster was unleashed, and they were all going to die. And the people seemed to understand this. They knew, he could see it in their eyes. They took this blessing of a clean death. They regarded their murder as a blessing to save them from the horrors to come, because it gave them a clear path to righteousness and they believed that immortality lay beneath his knife and between his teeth. Better such a fate than the long slow death in the dark which they all faced. The chosen few slain by his hand were the lucky, the blessed.
There was a man in the crossroads, and as Jeremiah stood and looked at him he saw who it was. The man in black, of course. He was everywhere, always in front somehow, always guiding and prompting. Opening doors and closing doors.
“Oh, Jeremiah. Look at you. Revealed in all your gory glory. You truly are the most evil thing in this place.” Comfort stood transfixed. He simply stared at the man, unable to speak or move. “You think I am helping you? Far from it. I am punishing you, Jeremiah. I have swept back the cloth which hid your true nature and displayed it to the people you were meant to serve. They see you now. Whatever you may think you are doing, the people know you as a horror among them. The time has come Jeremiah. Your luck has run out and your fate awaits. Your very life is forfeit. I send you to your death! Come now Jeremiah. Do not slow. Your path lies dead ahead. Go to the water Comfort. Look up.” The man in black was beside him, with his hand in the small of Jeremiah’s back. The touch was electric, it seemed to be skin on skin, in spite of the torn and bloody robes he wore. The dark man lifted his arm and pointed. Jeremiah looked up the curvature of the asteroid to the circling sea which flowed over the endcap. It looked like a vertical wall of water, foamy and turbulent, from the land below to the land above. There was one place, a large spur of rock, a finger of cliff which poked out into the current. A light shone there, bright and hard.
“That's where he is Jeremiah. That's where you have to go to find him.”
The man pushed and a surge of energy pulsed into Jeremiah. He felt a flowering of strength and speed. All the pain faded away. He raged and screamed and sprinted down the long dark cobbles towards the turbulent sea.
Something amazing was happening to the Ribbontail. The ship’s movements were growing more receptive to Dalys’ touch. The data was flowing faster and had more detail. Several scars on the viewing ports had vanished. Even the lights in the cabin seemed a little brighter.
They were running silently, with everything ready for a hot start. There were several objects between them and the asteroid, and they stayed hidden in shadow. Oscar had deployed a drone which was beaming images to them, it showed them the shining thing which had enveloped the docking bay endcap. It was far brighter than the sun and the displays had to run the footage with several filters in place. Then, suddenly, the light at the mouth of the asteroid vanished.
“Oh shit. It's gone,” exclaimed Oscar. “It went out, the light went out.”
“No, it didn't.” said Dalys. “It went inside.”
The asteroid was coal black, and difficult to see. They knew it was there because of the dark patch in space. Behind the asteroid, the star field was spectacular. There was a tremendous amount of detail and light which came from distant stars once the eyes adjusted to the darkness.
Something changed, and Oscar noticed it first. “What's that?” He gestured and Dalys looked. A light had come on. From this distance it was a single white spot on the black mass. It meant that there was power there. They watched as a long line of small lights drew itself over the longitudinal axis of the asteroid. It happened slowly over a couple of hours, but there was definitely signs of life and activity. Machines were starting again, factories coming to life, installations whirring with activity.
“It's Kulen,” said Dalys. “It's working.”
“At this rate it'll only take him a few months. Ja, this is working just great.”
“He needs to get something big going.”
“Um, Dalys? I think I have some more bad news.”
“What is it Oscar?”
“Watch this star,” he squirted an image onto the main screen. Information graphics flowed over the footage. It was the northern horizon of the endcap, where the light had been. Dalys watched as the star dropped below the asteroid and was occluded.
“What am I looking at Oscar?”
“Wait for it.”
The footage seemed to reverse and the star rose again, back to an apogee.
“I'll speed it up a little.”
The image started to roll faster. The star on the horizon bounced up and down, the information graphics tagging its apogee every time. The star was travelling further each time, and taking longer to come back.
Dalys cringed. “It's wobbling. The whole asteroid is wobbling off its axis. And it's getting worse.”
Dalys thought about the chamber, and what it had looked like. The round landscape filled with farms and factories, the bracelet of city in the centre, the residences and recreational land, and finally, the endcap sea. She remembered something a boy in a bar had told her. He was boasting about his home, obviously proud of the setup. He had been tall and wiry, with swimmer’s muscles. His job was interesting, he was a lifeguard on the coast. He spent his time in the water and on the beaches, patrolling for safety against drowning. It was a unique occupation in Dalys’ experience and it had drawn her to him. His passion for the body of water was absolute, and he could speak of it with knowledge. He had told her…
“The sea is the life of this place. It's everything. It's our wealth, it's our air, it's our crops. It keeps everything here well hydrated enough to grow. It's even responsible for our gravity.”
The asteroid spun because they swirled the water at the base. There were huge turbines which pushed the water. They worked constantly. The boy had been discussing it because apparently when the turbines operated at 58 percent efficiency, the water spun hard enough to create a “sick break”, whatever that was. Some sort of large wave she thought.
“I know where they're going.”
Chapter 28
Gamaridia
The Ribbontail hovered metres from the outer hull of the asteroid. They were precariously perched between an antenna array and some kind of piping which threaded its way across the rock. Behind them was a wild maze of pipes, conduits, towers, radar dishes and antennas. The flight in through this maze was harrowing, and Dalys had tensely manoeuvred her way through, boosting softly with the ion drive. Twice she had used the grappler platform to fend off approaching structures. Once she had braced and pivoted, and the move had been easy and fluid, as if the ship was flying itself. Now, Dalys was working carefully with the grappling arms. She had a torch lit and was cutting metal. The tear she made in the asteroid’s skin vented air but the ship compensated for the shift easily enough. The vent expired and the metal cooled slowly. When she withdrew the arms, Oscar came sliding into view. He waved at her as he went by. Then he stopped and applied an aerosol to the glowing steel. It hissed and cooled rapidly. He was towing a long hose which he was careful to keep away from the rapidly cooling metal as he entered he asteroid. Dalys reapplied the arm to the vent and injected a sealing fluid. It expanded rapidly, sealing the vent with a series of bulbous blisters which swelled and settled quickly. Once she was satisfied, she triggered a switch and sent clean air pouring into the line Oscar had towed.
“It's coming through nicely Skipper. Pressure equalising, standby.”
Oscar took a wire from a pack at his belt and applied two small sticky pads to either side of the air lock’s mechanism.
“I have no power, I'm going to try and charge the emergency batteries, they may have survived the pulse.” He turned a dial and looked at his chronometer. The air poured in and the switch at the airlock beeped, turned green and cycled open.
“I'm in!”
Dalys felt a tremendous sense of relief. She had a way out for her crew, now she just needed to somehow let them know she was here.
“Okay Oscar, time for phase two.”
“Aye skipper! What's next”
“I want you to go in and get word to the rest that we’re here.”
There was a short heavy silence. “You want me to what?”
“You heard me kid. You need to get through to the chamber and set up a relay so we can talk to the team. I can't leave the ship here, you are the only option. It's all up to you.”
“Oh, great. It's up to me. All I have to do to save the day and be a hero, is climb through a couple of kilometres of dark tunnels, after a disaster, into a flooded city in space, with some sort of giant firefly predator crawling around, probably eating everything in sight.” Oscar was standing contemplating a long dark corridor, shining his torch into it aimlessly.
“Romeo that,” said Dalys grimly.
“Right. Here I go then.”
“Keep in contact, I want to be with you every step of the way.”
“Aye, Skipper,” bravely, he walked into the dark.
It took ages, and he was puffing and exhausted by the time he reached the final hatch. Behind him lay a maze of corridors and dead elevator shafts and escalators. He had used stairwells frequented by maintenance units, and gangs of young hooligans who sprayed everything with graffiti. He had hidden from people three times. He twisted the wheel and released pressure. He heard a hiss and a clunk and the door came loose in his hands. It swung easily open and Oscar stepped carefully up a short flight of stairs. He came out into the chamber in the residential district, halfway between the city and the sea. The destruction was awful.
He set the relay up and flicked it on. The antenna powered up and Dalys broadcast for the crew.
“Jack Mac, Jack Mac, Jack Mac. This is Ribbontail. Come back.”
“Oh my gods! Dalys! This is Jack Mac. How…?”
Dalys laughed with relief. “I'm just outside, Oscar ran a relay, he's in the chamber near the endcap sea. He has a secure exit. I repeat. He has a secure exit.”
“Hi Jack Mac,” said Oscar, but he was ignored.
“Dalys, the situation is bad. We're on the run.”
“Sound off.”
“It's just Kulen and I. Curtis is helping at a hospital. Captain, Moabi is dead.”
Dalys’ expression flattened.
“He was killed by the intruder, by the man in black. That light at the docks, it was a ship from the Protocol, a man came out of it. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. He looked like he was burning, but he wasn’t hurt at all. He decapitated Moabi with his bare hand.”
Dalys let that sink in, none of it made sense. She let the news slide over her, she would grieve later.
“What are you doing?”
“The intruder is chasing us. We keep seeing him but he hasn't caught up yet. We're trying to make it to a turbine station on the shore of the water. If Kulen restarts the turbines and settles the endcap sea, we can stabilise this rock and get the hell out of here.”
“Curtis?”
“I'm here Dalys.”
“Are you okay?”
“I'm fine. I'm at the hospital. There are a lot of doctors here, but they still need my help. I'm saving a lot of lives today Dalys.”
“I need you to work on an extraction plan. If there are doctors they can handle it, get your ass out here. We’ve got to go.”
“No Dalys,” there was a silence. Dalys did not fill it.
“I can't go anywhere, I'm right where I can do the most good. I'll get out if I can, but otherwise I think this is goodbye.”
“Curtis! Wait, wait…”
“In the time we've been talking a little girl has died in her mother’s arms. I'll contact you when I'm done here. Until then you guys will have to handle yourselves.”
“Okay doc. I'll send you my location and Oscar can mock up a map for you on how to get here. I'll start looking for exit strategies for you. I won't leave you behind. I swear it.”
“Okay Dalys.” And there was a smile in her voice.
Oscar was comfortable. He had the relay set up at the top of an apartment building on the edge of a park. The entire area was abandoned. There were no people and signs of the flood were everywhere. He picked the tallest building and climbed stairs to the top floor, it was 46 storeys high. He found a well-stocked penthouse with large glass windows looking out onto a balcony with a terrific bird’s eye view of the entire seaward hemisphere. There was beer in the fridge, and now he was looking at the view, monitoring the relay while sipping the cold liquid occasionally. He had the relay all set up and was now waiting. He walked to the doors and out onto the balcony beyond. It was triangular, with a point which leaned out over a great drop to parkland below. He walked to the point and leaned on the railing. The view was awesome. He finished the beer and contemplated dropping it off the balcony, one more broken thing amongst all the rest.
There was a noise in the house behind him. He turned. The tinted glass walls of the apartment glared back at him. He was looking at a giant mirror and his own reflection, with the asteroid behind him. A fascinating image, but he could not see inside. Feeling suddenly vulnerable he walked quickly to the door. It was locked. That was the sound he'd heard, the latch dropping. Someone had locked him out here.
“Um, hello?” He knocked on the one-way mirror, feeling like an idiot. The person could be standing right there watching him. Suddenly the eyes on him felt heavy. He could feel the gaze like a weight. It emanated from a specific point in the reflection, half a foot above his own. With his hair standing on end he stared at the spot, and then saw movement. A glimmer in the glass, a flicker of light streaked across the reflection and he followed it with his eyes. Two tiny pinpricks of glowing light stared back at him. There was something standing just there, staring at him. And its eyes were glowing. He looked around, but there was no way off the balcony. It was a triangle of tiled concrete hanging onto a wall of glass high above the ground. He had nowhere to go.
The interior lights clicked on, rendering the apartment suddenly visible. There was a man standing on the other side of the glass, watching him
. He was huge, but his eyes were not glowing.
“Who are you? What do you want? Man, dressed in black.” He realised who it might be,
“Uh-oh.”
The stranger stepped to the door and opened it. He came out and closed the door behind him. He was a very large and intimidating in such close quarters. He had a gravitas, a charisma that changed the atmosphere and the temperature of the balcony. Oscar was completely awestruck and knew he was completely at the mercy of this man.
“Hello Oscar.” His voice was the deepest sound Oscar had ever heard.
“Hello,” said Oscar. “Sir.”
The dark man laughed at that, and it was alluring enough to make Oscar smile. “Sir? That's very funny. Give me your glasses.”
Oscar took his most prized possession from his face, the device which contained all his personal details, all his work, all his tools of life, and all his dirty little secrets. Oscar handed it over without even thinking about it.
The man took them with his silver coated right hand, just like Kulen’s. He looked down at them, into the lenses from a foot away, and they flickered, information displaying at impossible speed.
“Tut, tut. Naughty boy Oscar. That’s a lot of pornography.” Oscar blushed crimson.
The man’s fingers started to glow. The point of contact with the glasses began to glow. It spread across the frames and onto the lenses, which suddenly looked like a rainbow. The glove and the glasses shone brightly together for more than a minute, then the light faded and the man handed Oscar his glasses back.
“You'll never have to clean the lenses again, I sorted it for you.” He actually winked and smiled. Oscar slid them onto his face, and was immersed. The flood of information was almost overwhelming. The detail was spectacular. He swept his gaze around the apartment and graphics sprang up, giving him details on about everything he looked at. He could tell where the couch was manufactured, its name, the fabricator, the designer, the purchasing cost, even a facsimile of the receipt. He followed the string and found details of purchase and delivery. He saw details of payments to accounts, and then suddenly had access to those accounts. Oscar could freely withdraw the money at will. These glasses simply gave him access. He was absorbed. A flashing icon drew him in to the centre of his vision. He toggled the holographic interface with his finger and the stranger appeared in a floating screen in front of him.