The Colony

by RMGilmour

  “Come on,” he whispered, taking my hand, but I pulled him back, sure there was an easier way.

  “Why can’t the Central Unit help us? Why can’t you will us to the center?” I asked him, not sure if this was even possible.

  “I’ve been trying since we stepped into the city. It’s under attack, and there are still a lot of people here that have no clue why. They aren’t even aware of what’s happening outside. As far as they’re concerned, we are the invaders the Guardian was built to protect against.”

  It occurred to me then, what our invasion must have looked like to those that had lived here for hundreds or thousands of years, and of course they would be using all of their will to stop us, most likely they were feeding the Guardians needs.

  He pulled me back out into the street. Ahead of us wards appeared out of nowhere. Some looked like regular people, neither trained nor combat ready, but amongst them stumbled those that had been taken. Both Rathe and Heart, now reproduced and forced to fight against their friends.

  At first their expressions were shocked, confused, but the Guardian’s commands within them took over and their faces turned to us in recognition of the enemy, and they lunged forward, their own weapons held out before them. I remembered the paralyzing feeling of their weapons and hoped a repeat of that experience was not ahead of me.

  The colonists paused for only a moment, stunned to see their comrades returned, but their faces quickly solidified into masks of determination before they also resumed their course.

  It was startling to watch the hunters take down their own, one by one sending them back to the Spire. But as quickly as they were eliminated, more appeared in their place. The warriors picked the wards off from above, but it seemed there weren’t enough of us to keep up with their numbers and how quickly they repopulated. They were an army of endless supply; as they were defeated they were then reproduced to fight again.

  Though it was clear why the warriors had failed in their past attempt, the Guardian had their imprint. It knew their strengths and weaknesses, and I could see the fearless warrior movements in the wards as they fought. It was the warrior suits that protected the Heart from the ward’s attacks, and gave them their aerial abilities that could not be matched.

  Ahead of us, Castor had joined a group of warriors as they fought hand to hand against the onslaught, no weapons. Instead, they tore through the wards with only their brute strength and extraordinary speed. The sounds of crunching bones twisted my stomach, and I tried not to watch the blood that splattered the white walkways. Two warriors held one ward down, one staking him to the ground, as the other held him in a headlock pulling with all his might. Jordan wrapped his arm around me and pulled my face into his chest as we passed them.

  “Don’t look,” he whispered, pulling me ahead of the slaughter, but he couldn’t stop the tearing sound that followed.

  “Why are they staking him?”

  “So he can’t return to the Spire.”

  He pulled me out of the center of the street, moving us forward while keeping watch behind us. I ran with my gloved hand held before me, as we attempted to move past the worst of the hand to hand fighting and catch up to a group of hunters.

  “Lydia,” Jordan growled, his hand in mine yanked me backward, his free arm swung to my chest, pushing me behind him.

  And then he froze.

  A barrier I hadn’t seen, flashed green as it surrounded him in its cross-wire cage, before dissolving into him. His body stiffened and his hand strangled mine as he slumped forward, pulling me down with him.

  I felt nothing. The barrier had lasted long enough to effect only him, and then it was gone. Its power absorbed into his body.

  “Jordan,” I cried, but he only groaned, stunned by the current that coursed through him.

  I looked up to see others falling as well. The Rathe blindly running into the invisible barriers that flashed green as they also were caught. The warriors were pulled from the sky, and tumbled to the ground.

  As Jordan had predicted, they’d found a weakness in our headlong movement, and the colonists paused their attack, to analyze the barrier. But their hesitation was brief, and they continued onward with a greater determination. With their sheathed hands before them, they disrupted the Guardian’s power, its wards and its barriers.

  We weren’t yet close enough to the center, and more wards had already begun to appear ahead of us. I had to move Jordan before they could take him, and I bent down to try to lift him, but his size was too much for me.

  “Help me,” I urged him. “You need to stand. We have to move.”

  “Run, Lydia,” he groaned. “You have to go.”

  “I’ll not leave you.”

  I wrapped his arm around my neck, and pulled as hard as I could.

  “Help me,” I begged him.

  With his free arm, he shakily pushed himself up, and then leaned on me as I pulled him out of the street.

  “Which way?” I croaked under the strain.

  “Left.”

  I stumbled down a narrow lane, trying to keep him upright. His steps were small and we fell too many times, but he did what he could to keep us moving. Keeping my left arm raised, I squeezed my gloved hand together every few feet. No wards appeared around us, but I hadn’t seen the initial barrier either, and I couldn’t take any chances that another would suddenly take us both down. I doubted he would survive a second shock.

  “Where?” I huffed. We’d come to the end of a lane. A long building, pale blue with a red tile roof, and surrounded by flowers, blocked the way. I wanted to smile at its presence, but that feeling was fleeting as I struggled to hold him up.

  “Right. Then left as far as it goes,” he murmured, and we stumbled down a cobblestone pathway.

  The houses along the way, once more resembled neighborhoods I’d lived in, or seen, or imagined at some point during my life. The familiarity was both calming and devastating; things were so much simpler back on Earth. But I couldn’t let those thoughts take hold, for it was simpler, too simple, without life, without any reason to breathe other than I must. In this plane, I needed only one reason, and for him I would willingly stop altogether.

  At the end of the pathway was a wide, ranch-style house with porches wrapped around its sides. A brown, wooden fence surrounded a small garden that flourished on either side of a stone walkway.

  We shuffled down the walkway, lumbered up two small, wooden steps, and he exhaled a word that sounded like ‘enter’. The front door divided into two and then disappeared, allowing us in. I pulled him inside and once in, the doorway closed behind us.

  “Turn,” he moaned, clutching at his chest.

  But I wasn’t sure what he meant, or where he wanted me to turn to. He moved me around with a slight twist of his body, to face where the doorway had been, and then fell to his knees.

  “Jordan,” I whispered, falling with him, but I had no idea what was wrong with him, or how to fix him.

  “Mason,” he breathed, and a window appeared in the wall containing his friend.

  Mason began to speak, but then noticed the condition his friend was in. “I’ll be right there. Get him to his room.”

  I assumed he was speaking to me, though I had no idea where his room was, and then it hit me that this was his house.

  “Welcome home,” he whispered, and collapsed upon me, sending us both to the ground.

  “Jordan!”

  Pulling myself out from under him, I rolled him over and placed my cheek next to his mouth. His breath was shallow, but still there.

  I hooked my arms under both of his and inched him away from the doorway and down the hall, though I didn’t know which door to take next. It was absurd of Mason to assume I would know this! I bent over him once more, relieved to feel his breath upon my cheek.

  I had no knowledge of their technology, nor how Mason planned to help him, and so I looked up and about, searching for some clue as to the right directio
n. And I saw painted upon his walls were pictures of me. My face. My eyes. My hair running down my bare back. And another half-finished portrait of me lying in the grass and smiling, I remembered, up at him. That day was forever impressed upon my soul.

  But it was another portrait that caught my gaze. Unfinished as well, but I knew who it was. The outline of his face, eyes I knew well. A missing part of me, I’d never get back. He was recreating the same portrait that had hung above my TV in my apartment on Earth, and I clearly remembered the softness in his tone, when he’d questioned me about it.

  “Sam,” I whispered.

  I stretched my hand out to the picture and caressed my brother’s face. It seemed nothing I’d ever said had been lost upon Jordan.

  Crouching beside him once more, I placed my cheek near his mouth again. Still breathing, but barely.

  “Mason, hurry,” I whispered, and gently kissed the corner of his lips. “Stay with me,” I pleaded.

  The doorway made no sound. It was his footsteps running down the hallway that alerted me to his presence, and I looked up, relieved to finally see him.

  “Help him.”

  “What happened?” he asked, bending down to his friend.

  “It was a barrier. Something the wards had put up to stop us. He saved me from it. I didn’t see it. I don’t know how he did.”

  Mason placed a hand upon Jordan’s chest and then glanced up at me, quickly scanning my face. But he didn’t respond to my unasked question, instead he returned his focus to Jordan.

  “Move back,” he told me, and unrolled a grey sheet, similar to the ones I’d seen in the Arena. It shimmered as it straightened, and he guided it toward Jordan’s body. It quickly liquefied and slid itself beneath him, not moving him, and once it was completely under him the sheeting solidified once more. It then lifted Jordan off the floor, and Mason pulled him into a room.

  I followed him in, running to Jordan’s bedside, and wrapped one arm about him as much as I could. I caressed his face, his lips and his brow, and stroked his temple.

  “Is he still breathing?” I whispered, no longer trusting myself to tell for sure if he was or not.

  “For now,” he responded, moving to a cubed table beside the bed.

  I didn’t like his answer. He was supposed to say yes.

  “You’re going to be ok,” I whispered to him. I didn’t know if he could hear me, but I didn’t care. Final or not, I needed to say it. “Come back to me. I love you.”

  I gently kissed his eyes, his cheeks, his chin. But he didn’t respond. I closed my eyes to reach him with my soul and I wrapped my warmth around him. I lay my cheek against his forehead, impressing the feel of his skin into my memory, until Mason told me I needed to let him go.

  Taking several steps away from his bed, I gulped back shallow breaths. He’ll be ok, he’ll be ok, I told myself, but I could feel my faith slipping away.

  Mason placed his hand upon a panel on the table, and a small portion of the ceiling lowered, and then hovered above the bed. A green light emitted from the ceiling block. It scanned Jordan’s body from head to toe, and then encased him in its light.

  Digits appeared on the side of the green, lighted wall, directly in front of Mason; white-green lights, brighter than the wall itself.

  Unsure if it was my own weakness or his, I could no longer feel him wrapped within me. I tried to reach out to him again, but I couldn’t focus.

  “Ok,” Mason sighed.

  “Ok, what?” I asked, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know.

  “His heart has stopped beating.”

  No. No. No. The word crashed upon me, over and over. I backed out of the room. Tiny unsure steps. My knees shaking. My vision blurred to the point where I could no longer see.

  “He can’t be gone,” I whispered to no one.

  Mason didn’t follow me out.

  Another one gone! I screamed in my head. My old self making one last appearance. You killed him!

  I turned and stumbled back down the hallway, not seeing where I was going. Though I knew there was only one place to go. Only one thing left to do.

  I clawed at the wall, not knowing how to open it, sliding my hands every which way, but nothing worked.

  “Open,” I cried, and it did.

  I ambled out of the doorway and down the path. Then turning toward the Spire, I stumbled blindly down street after street, swiping my arms across my eyes, attempting to keep them clear. But my shoulders shook with every thought of Jordan that entered my mind, sending fresh waves of emotion rolling down my face.

  I attempted to appear somewhat composed when I reached the Spire building. It was the grandest building in the city. Tall, pure white walls, reaching high into the sky, and wider than their city blocks. The ground around it was level and plain except for the bodies that lay fallen near its base. I stepped around the fallen, not sure if they were still alive or not, and not stopping to check, though I did see the stakes holding them down. They had to be wards, trapped, unable to be recalled, and I realized I’d been stepping over and around scattered bodies for some time.

  I hadn’t given a thought to the colonists since Jordan had gone through the barrier. I wondered how many had made it, and if they’d succeeded in their task, and I realized it was possible that they had. But they would still need me to stop the Guardian.

  Upon entering through the open doorway, no one was about and so I continued on down one long, white corridor after another, and finally through two silver doors at the end. The room on the other side was quiet. A square room with another long corridor opposite me. There were several people sorting their way through information that appeared and disappeared upon the white walls, and I guessed they worked there. All I needed was to get to the technician that worked the insertion room.

  They turned together and smiled at me as though they had no knowledge of what may have occurred beyond their environment.

  “I’m here to be inserted,” I told them.

  27

  Reprisal

  “Sure,” smiled a tall thin woman.

  She was dressed in so much white, and the same color white as the walls that she could have disappeared into the room. And considering what I was there to do, the pleasant tone with which she’d responded, silenced my desperate need to ask her further questions about the coming process. I was sure I could have dealt with her answers without a problem, but the manner in which she would deliver those answers, may have caused an issue.

  She began walking down the long corridor, looking back only once and I assumed she meant for me to follow. At the end of the corridor, she led me through a set of double doors that disappeared as she approached them, and then down another empty miscellaneous hallway. The place was a white-washed maze.

  I followed her without a word, without any further thought for anything but what I needed to do. If I succeeded I would die with them, most likely without the possibility of returning. But without Jordan, I wouldn’t want to return anyway. So that was a moot point. Though if I was not successful… But if not, was not an option. I refused to let Jordan’s death be for nothing.

  She led me into yet another white room. I was so tired of the white. I longed for Jordan’s colors to surround me and as though the Central Unit heard my need, the walls and ceiling changed to the golden hues of sunset. Seeing it sent my sanity reeling. Nothing was real, nothing was solid. Everything was interchangeable.

  I didn’t want to alarm the woman or anyone else there, in case they should think I was not fit for insertion, and so I mashed my lips together, keeping safe within me the laughter that tried to tear its way out.

  The room was bare, except for one long, silver table and she indicated with her hand that it was for me.

  “Will anyone else be present?” her smooth voice asked me. “Normally, there are family or friends to attend the initial passing.”

  What kind of city was this? I wanted to yell at her. But thank you, I sur
e needed to remember my dead family right about now.

  Instead, I said nothing; locked it all away in my head, and only smiled at her as I lay back upon the table. Let nothing go wrong.

  “She’s here for insertion and reprocessing,” the woman said to the technician who’d entered the room. He was tall, lithe beneath his clothing, and he looked stern, almost cruel. But I guessed he would have to be to do what he did.

  “Thank you. You may go,” he responded, scowling. And as she disappeared through the doorway I watched it seal behind her.

  I wanted to let him know that Mason had sent me, but I stopped myself. The Guardian would no doubt be listening, and I was sure he would figure it out as soon as he analyzed me, if he didn’t already know.

  Before he made it to my table, he stopped, and glared up and about the room, and a moment later the walls and ceiling were white once more. He glanced my way, sizing me up, the action sending a shiver down my body. I didn’t want this man to touch me. I didn’t want him anywhere near me.

  “Are there many technicians that work here,” I asked, needing to be sure that this was the person Mason had spoken of.

  “No. I’ve been the only insertion technician for more centuries than I can count,” he tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. “There isn’t a lot of call for insertion, mostly monitoring those already here, and bringing them out when they choose.”

  What he said made no sense. He couldn’t have been the only technician, for if he was, then he was the one inserting the Rathe and the Heart. Surely, Mason knew this. Either he was lying to me, or Mason was. And I couldn’t believe the deceit would lie with Mason.

  I glanced toward the door, but like all buildings in this place, there was only a smooth wall where the door once was, and I could not specifically pinpoint its location.