by Jack Vantage
“Dylan, it clicked me.” Lecodia said.
“I know. We must hurry. The Authoritarians will pick up the signal and trace it here. Come on.”
He began jogging again, guiding Lecodia. They had reached the halfway point of the promenade, when a gang of five AIs walked the promenade and neared. Dylan’s fear intensified as he spotted two Authoritarians through the crowds of public, jogging towards them. One held a chip locator, which was a small GPS square screen.
The law had found them, and their Gamma cannons were in their hands. Dylan had never seen the weapon in a real environment, just on the news channels he loved to watch, but this was real. He was the criminal, and his heart skipped a beat as the two bulky dressed guards stopped, looked him, and readied their assault cannons. They hit the weapons charge buttons, which whined, locked, and beeped active within seconds. Their round, twenty-inch- wide, barrels spun into action, and a furnace glow ignited inside. On their helmets, small microphones slid to their mouths, and their assault vests brimmed with weapons and tools.
The announcement came. “Dylan Ajax, this is Quazar Authoritarian 4567345. Stop where you are or face the penalty.” His voice travelled far from the vest’s speakers. Everyone heard it, including the AIs just to the right of him and Lecodia.
Dylan saw the fear in her eyes. They were cornered. He took Lecodia’s hand.
“Put your hands in the air and turn around. This is a gamma ray cannon. You could die if you try to run,” the guard said. His chubby body’s weight was more than ample for the guns power.
“You’ve got the wrong people. It’s not us you’re after. We’re running from the people you need to find,” Dylan replied, but his words were drowned out by a coaster that thundered overhead. It was the only sound that sounded.
Dylan watched parents pull their children in close, as their eyes stabbed at him. The group of AI’s standing beside genuinely looked scared. Their internal glow turned a despondent grey, as both guards stepped forward, with their two handed, chunky cannons aimed for action.
The surrounding excitement had turned to shock. People looked at Dylan in disgust, like a criminal, a fugitive. He wanted to turn and run, he had to think, to think quick.
He took a step back, pulling Lecodia with him.
The guards firmly held their stance. There was no backing down in their eyes.
Dylan had to make a quick decision. He couldn’t be blamed for the murders of the evil dealers.
Slowly the guards edged forward. “Stop right there, hands in the air,” the second guard said, harder and louder as the public murmured with panic. His toned body was ready for the fight.
Dylan tugged Lecodia hard, pulling her behind the group of AIs, jumping for cover. Both hit the ground hard as the Authoritarians opened fire, sending the rainbow coloured balls of particles at them.
The particles struck the AIs, knocking them hard ten metres backward, and scattering their bodies like bowling pins. The gamma blasts dust rippled outward, like a stone displaced water. Its rainbow colour died as it dispersed wider.
Families screamed and ran for cover.
Dylan grabbed Lecodia and dashed as hard as possible for cover into a small, tight alley way that led behind a building near the promenade.
Behind him, the Gamma cannons charged, beeped, and fired at them again. As he ducked into the alleyway, the gamma blasts struck the wall behind them, warping the air.
“Don’t stop!” he yelled. “Follow me!”
“Just hold onto me,” Lecodia replied, pleading.
They exited the alleyway into a condensed public area of small game stalls, which were roofed with richly coloured UFOs.
Stall staff shouted enticements over the bustling public. “Come have a go. Blast ten aliens and win a console game. Even a top of the range console. It’s easy. Two credits a go.”
Dylan knew his way around the park. Leon’s ride would take them into another arena. He could lose the guards if he made it there. Blood circled his body like it was an energy drink.
As they dodged through the crowd, he looked back and pulled Lecodia close to him. The guards were still there, chasing from fifty metres back, rucking their way through the public.
The amusement building was close ahead, with thousands of arcade machines, simulators, and Virtual Reality sets. It could offer cover. He knew a few corners and places he might lose the guards. The building’s name scribed above the large open entrance in a retro old fashion grid of led’s, that flickered and waved across its length with colour. It spelled, ‘Invader’s Must Die.’
Dylan and Lecodia rushed through the entrance, then slowed and blended into the buzzing crowds that walked the pathways between the labyrinths of retro arcade machines. The heavenly sound of game consoles rang Dylan’s ears, momentarily soothing with their flamboyant beeping, whining, blasting, roaring, revving, music, and a million other electronic sounds that all amalgamated to a chaotic bleeping orchestra. The odd ‘Game Over’ caught his ears too.
He looked back and was relieved to see no guards in sight. He took Lecodia’s hand.
“Lecodia we’re going to hide for a minute. They’ll shut this place down if they clock us in the security booth. There’s cameras everywhere, unless we— Hold on!”
Dylan spotted the two guards who looked flustered. The chubby officer looked idly around as his fitness showed, but the lean one, he looked as sharp as a blaster. His short hair, and bony angular face, was a picture of pissed. His body moved with his head as he lowered and looked closely at the passing teens around his feet. The chubby guard flipped open his communicator. Dylan knew he was contacting the security booth. Dylan said quietly, “Here, we have to go around VR.”
“What’s VR?”
“Game machines. They take you somewhere else. We need to sneak around.”
Dylan quickly pulled her forward, passing a fruit machine that a lucky Quazarian had just hit Jackpot on. The machine shook with excitement and the lights nearly exploded from its curved body. The clarion sound deafened, as small holographic fruits showered from above the machine like sparklers, then enveloped the winning guy in a tornado of dance with its annoying tune chanting the air.
Dylan moved forward, then spotted two licence guards sat at the dark red virtual bar that overlooked the VR pool. They were watching eagerly for any underage citizen attempting to play. One answered his communicator and began looking around, alert.
Dylan slowed, holding Lecodia close, and manoeuvred past the VR pool where dozens of people sat with headsets on. They passed unnoticed. He checked the guards again and entered back into the maze of arcade machines, then led Lecodia behind the final row.
They were sandwiched between the rear of the machines and the back, white-carbon wall. The pathway ahead was laden with miles of wire and thick cable, like a graveyard of worms.
“Okay, Lecodia, here’s the plan. When we get to Leon, we’re going to tell him what happened. After that we leave, and we lay low somewhere until he gives us notice. Hopefully he can get it through to the Authoritarians that we’re innocent.”
Lecodia nodded and Dylan stopped. He held her in front of him and looked into her eyes. “Listen, I’m really sorry about all of this. I really like you. I wish we could go back and change this, and I wish I had asked you out on the millennium’s eve.”
“Dylan when this is over you may ask me out,” she said.
They trotted quickly from the cover of the machines and towards the arcades back exit, where people walked in and out. They walked through and into the fresh air, and there it was, finally, Leon’s Viper ride.
The queue ran long, snaking the ground beyond its archway entrance, where people shuffled in anticipation. The queue raised the waiting public up to the ride. Above the archway read a digital timer stating the ride’s queue time. It said forty minutes.
“This way,” he said and led Lecodia left of the queue. “I know where the ride operators get in.”
They moved around a hedge, whi
ch was a collection of technological plants. A small entrance, reading Staff Only, stood beside.
Dylan entered the park’s code, unlocked the door, and moved through. They walked a thin path that was enclosed with bushes on each side, then went up the steps to a changing office. They entered.
Inside, the small walls were made of lockers. Digital name tags rested on doors, and at the corner desk sat the man himself, in his portable VR machine, of course. Wires plugged his ears, an attached microphone floated his mouth, and his hands held an invisible gun with his skeletal styled game gloves.
The VR sets blue slender shape ensured immersive seclusion. Dylan could see his own reflection in the head sets visor. He tapped Leon’s shoulder.
Disgruntled, Leon pulled the tinted VR visor off. “Hey, I thought I told you I have an hour…” He recognised Dylan. “What the fuck are you doing here? Hey, Lecodia, you’re not still with him, are you? And why have you got the same fucking clothes on from the party, you hobo?” Leon smiled. “Why isn’t your communicator on, you ignorant prick. I tried—”
“Listen, Leon, we’ve been set up. We need your help. It’s a long story.”
Chapter 21
The Pattern of the End
The president looked in horror at David.
David and Michael had laid the results of their calculations on the table for the president to see. It played over and over. Their simulation of the solar system’s destruction could be the most disturbing short film ever created. Its visceral horror hit the mind like a hammer to the head. David couldn’t believe it was happening. He had found it hard to concentrate and make the calculations that were required of him.
The giant 3D sun was a wired frame graphic, positioned against the blackness of space. The planets orbited it, and their moons orbited them. All was tranquil, a work of 3D celestial mechanics, until the hole appeared at the opposite side of the sun.
David glanced up to where it played on the wafer thin holo-screen, which slipped from the tables centre like a letter would a letter box. The room sat silently around the long, glaring, black conference table, where the nightmare was first disclosed to David. Everyone in the room looked at the screen with mortified shock.
The sun’s orbit stopped, and the sun was gripped. A giant plume of matter sucked from its surface, and within seconds the black hole’s accretion disk gained matter to the point of instability. It released bursts of x rays and ultra-violet radiation towards Quazar.
The structure of the solar system’s planetary orbit saved Quazar momentarily, as it aligned behind the first four worlds. The destructive burst, which was represented on the simulation by waved white lines, was absorbed and blocked by the inner planets.
Michael said, “Only at the equator, either side of Quazar, would the radiation hit and fry the atmosphere, strip it down and burn the edges of the planet.”
Next, as the sun began its orbit around the now-visible black hole, ten large asteroids, none smaller than a mile in diameter, were hurled from their orbit and into the system. The first hit the inner-most planet, Hector. Hector was a ball of sulphur. The explosion was immense and frightening, but the planet remained intact.
The next three foreign bodies struck Quazar’s neighbouring inner planet, a desolate red giant rock named Sarm. The third impact cracked the planet in two with a flash of power that would blind Quazar when it happened.
The fourth asteroid was the killer blow to the morale of everyone in the room. It struck Quazar at the top of the northern hemisphere, impacting with the power of a hundred hydrogen bombs or two anti-matter blasts.
Michael said, “This explosion will destroy a hundred radius miles of Quazar with the initial blast, killing roughly a billion people within seconds. Much of Quazar’s land mass will lift into the atmosphere, covering half the planet in darkness. Smaller stones will also be hitting Quazar, but we are unable to see them or guess how many. The hole has dragged parts of the asteroid belt with it. We will get showers storms of dangerous asteroids.”
In the simulation, the next asteroid struck Quazar’s moon, Eclipse. It obliterated into fragments of rock that fell inward to the darkened area of Quazar. The remaining asteroids continue past the planet and headed for the gas giants of the outer system, creating the greatest fireworks display imaginable.
David and Michael took turns explaining the events in detail, minute by minute. David explained the effects that the system’s gravitational shift would have on the planet. “Six super volcanoes will erupt at specific locations, as the planet’s core heats from the impact of the asteroid and the planet’s orbital shift. Gravity will spark Armageddon.”
The world would crumble under powerful quakes that would shake the planet’s crust like a disturbed mother would its infant. Finally, if anyone survived those catastrophes, the big freeze would hit the world as the galactic executioner devoured the sun.
Michael said, “The sun will not go supernova. It will hold strong against the hole. Its internal fusion would not collapse, just quickly fall into the hole before its heavier elements could begin fusing to cause a collapse.”
Gracefully the sun would succumb to the hole’s will, like a child would to a killer, and no longer control the system.
David stated to the room what would happen afterwards. The hole would become the solar system’s engine, each cold desolate planet orbiting it, slowly but surely closing in on it. Within a century the hole would have pulled each planet into its horizon and consumed them, due to the galaxy’s movement. But first it would play with them, like a cat would a mouse, until it could grab them and end them. By the time Quazar reached the hole it would be a solid rock of ice, a fractured unrecognisable planet to the people who stood its surface now.
David didn’t feel like he was standing in realty. It felt like an alternate state had taken over him. All the destruction would take only eight hours to complete before Quazar would turn uninhabitable.
Humanity was doomed. He could feel a billion prayers approaching. If God existed, he would not be able to ignore the cry for help.
With hope fading from his voice, the president said, “The volcanoes—we have mined them for a millennia. Each has been stabilized and contained. They have been a free source of energy for us since the beginning of time. Surely we can contain them from erupting for a few hours longer.”
Each of the six volcanic vents could be seen from the space stations. There, people marvelled at the sight of their sixty-mile radius of fractured pale landscape that cratered into the earth. Walls circled their perimeter, a hundred-meter-tall, and surrounded their hundred- and twenty-mile diameter. Their hollowed centres smoked and flumed the earth like Quazar was peering space with giant fuming eyes. The people of Quazar had mined and controlled the volcanic mountains, in the early days of its growth. It was a free source of immense energy to get things going. All was contained by chemistry beneath ground.
“Mr. President,” David said, “there will be nothing you can do about the volcanic eruptions. There is no way of holding back the planet’s wrath. They could erupt before the asteroid strikes or after, but either way they will go. I think we just need to concentrate on the rescue mission.”
The President eyed David silently. Everybody in the room sat like a skulk of foxes in approaching headlights.
Upon assessing the new information, Ed Ryan said, “I think we should change our roundup of people. We have, thus far, got one galactic ship on its way to Earth with seventy thousand on board. In another hour another three more will be on their way. Due to the impending asteroid impact, I think we should shift all rescue operations to the safe half of the planet. If we only have eight hours, we need to act fast. With your permission I will undergo the operation and send the information to my people.’
General Lincoln calmly addressed the room. “We will shift the collection points together, me and Ed. The less time we have the less the lottery system will work. It will be a free for all after the end begins. If the public can get on
the crafts, they will be let on. Also Mr. President, I suggest an evacuation from around the volcanic sites. Michael and David, do you have any idea how big each eruption will be?’ The general was the only person that stayed composed, his voice never lost its power. His hard-angled face was beating the pressure.
“Enormous,” Michael stated factually. “For years we have been containing the release. Recent confidential studies showed that there was an immense building of activity at the Earth’s core. We were, behind closed doors, thinking up a solution before things got out of hand or one of them broke containment.”
“That’s just great,” the president said with disgust. “When was someone going to tell me?”
Michael said, “We had it under control.”
The president said, “Ed, continue the evac with the general. David and Michael, thank you for the information. We now have a solid account of events to work with. The two of you have saved lives and the race. I believe there is another ship ready to go in an hour, leaving from here.” The president looked to Ed who nodded. “The two of you may leave on board. I think the race needs both of you in the long run.”
The president’s position touched David, who could see the man’s value of life changing. There was no longer a care for each human being that walked the planet. People had just become objects, no longer all equal but a collection of animals, insects. David’s thoughts often explored the purpose of life and consciousness during his years as a scientist, they tended to when you studied the atomic fabric of life, but he never viewed another human as a lesser being, or even a collection of atoms that were just another collection amidst the universe of wonder.
The universe was warping the president’s thinking, warping all their thinking. Everyone was admitting themselves to be miniscule amalgamations of atomic substances that were too small to survive the universe. David could see it in their eyes, could see reason absent from their rationality.
The president continued. “Lastly, we need to tell the people what is going to happen. When do we do this? When do I let the secret out, give people a warning, time to experience their last moments?”