Millennium Zero G

by Jack Vantage

  “So, what do you think?” Hammed said. He smiled like he’d accomplished the greatest task ever.

  “Are you fucking kidding me,” Leon said. “Outside the building with that.”

  “Either that or nothing. I was in two minds whether to just let God take me here, if it is his will, but then I thought why not try. That way I’d know if it was his will. If we tie it firm and lower one another, it can’t be that hard,” Hammed said “I’m glad you're here to help. I wasn’t looking forward to going by myself.”

  Lecodia looked at Dylan in horror. She didn’t like height’s, and this was not a good idea. It was either take the hand of chance or hand her life to the palm of death.

  Dylan inspected the wire and said, “Okay, okay this could work.”

  Lecodia handled the thick transparent wire, which held a clear gel like substance inside. Dylan stretched the rubbery texture, then he wrapped it a few times around his arm. “Guys, I assure you the strength of the wire is more than ample for us. I ran an experiment myself,” Hammed said.

  “Okay. This will work.” Dylan said. He pulled hard on it. “We need to find a window and break it. By the way Hammed, did you, you know get to leave with that beauty.”

  “She, we,” Hammed said. He fluttered his eye lids. “Had sex.”

  “Yee ha Hammed. Good isn't it,” Leon said. He dropped the wire and patted Hammed like he was his proud dad.

  Lecodia said, “Our love lives are not the priority here.”

  Suddenly a massive thud thumped closer, punching through floors above. It was loud. All Lecodia remembered, before losing consciousness, was a deafening crash and bang, then the whining whistle that screamed. The entire office exploded, as did the floors above and below.

  A tiny asteroid blew through the ceiling diagonally. It charged like it was unstoppable and vaporised everything. The entire ceiling opened like a tin can, and so did the floor that bounced then obliterated in a fiery explosion. It lifted from down force. The front windows shattered as it exited outward, opening the building up like it had received a gash from the sharpest of tools.

  Lecodia felt herself flying through the air and deafen from sound. The power and shock wave concussed her backward. She didn’t see the others, but she did glimpse the outside world as darkness took hold. The asteroid had opened the building like it was a surgeon. Outside, it was snowing, and its dust settled over a thousand buildings as the land dimmed from the dying sun. The city’s skyline was battered and set alight by the falling asteroids.

  The office looked like it was a shuttle wreck, and the fragmented devastated edges burned bright orange with heat. She felt the ground behind her wind and steal her breath, then raining debris sprinkled around her. The asteroid left a rough jagged tunnel through the office which took the entire front end, windows and all. She thought she was dead.

  Chapter 31

  The Cold-Hearted Universe

  Helena Reeves had seen many things in her career of presenting, but nothing could have prepared her for what lay behind the elevator door. She was told it had been breached, that there would be no survivors. But what they hadn't explain to her was the disturbing state of death that waited.

  As the panelled ceramic door slid open, she clasped her hand to her mouth and gasped. She quickly averted her eyes from the sight. She nearly vomited. The lift was decorated with blood in a horrific spray. The lift was cracked open, top left and bottom, from an asteroid hit. Multitudes of limbs were piled and scattered. All were frozen stiff and frosted a sugary coat. Her eyes caught a lifeless woman’s head, whose neck was a fleshy severance. Her eyes were open in terror and her hair a glazy hard.

  Helena turned and ran from the sight, down the crowded corridor full of victims and lost survivors. She felt herself screaming inside with trauma and cried with unexpected disbelief. She needed to find somewhere to let it all out before she exploded.

  As she ran the glossy stations corridors the passing people looked her. She saw many stories in their eyes. One man’s spoke to her, which said how he’d lost all faith and lost all family. He held a blanket with feeble will, like a homeless person would when huddled on a cold winter night. His droopy checks and tired distant eyes bore evidence of a tortured soul.

  A woman’s eyes spoke with dismay and sadness, like she no longer wanted to live an enforced depression. Her weak body limped, with her blonde beautiful hair scraggly and messed like she’d never cleaned.

  A stewardess eyed Helena as she comforted a young child with thermal blanket. The steward’s eyes held strong from behind her shock that restrained. The child’s eyes were flooded with confusion. Her little body shivered with clenched panic. Her mousy face looked like a cat was upon her.

  Helena had seen and reported on many stories, the odd death here, accident there, but this was a sight that would never leave her.

  She ducked out of the corridor, and turned into a silent, dark, waiting room. The door slid closed behind

  Brown padded sofas ran along the edges of the room and a glass coffee table sat centre, strewn with digi-papers. Beaded blinds covered the top half of the room, letting only thin shards of light enter through the windows behind.

  She sat and sobbed her heart out, with head down, and saliva dripping from her mouth. Her hands clasped her knees, and her body shook. The thought of dying made her cry harder.

  After a long moment, from within the shadowy room, in a soft fragile voice, someone said, “It took me an hour to stop.”

  Helena looked up. Through her tears, the person leaned forward from the adjacent sofa where the thin light beads flicked at her face and unmasked her presence. She was young, around thirty, but her voice seemed aged, worn out.

  “I feel numb now. Emotionally empty. Drained,” the mysterious lady said.

  Helena nodded, then said quietly, “I keep asking myself why. Why is all this happened.” She wiped her eyes and snivelled, then looked at the woman.

  A beautiful person sat before her, albeit worn and tired from the endurance of survival. Her dark hair ran smoothly over her shoulders, and her face was a small delicious site. She looked soft and fragile. Her long dress hung low. Its two straps overreached her skin-tight shoulder bones. Her eyes were dark from tears, a bruise among her beauty.

  “Who knows,” she said. “Some sick test by God maybe. We had it coming I suppose.”

  “Did you come from the ground?” Helena said, sitting back against the sofa.

  She nodded. “It’s why I came in here as soon as I got here. Too many people have died. I watched families and children all suffer at the hands of an unstoppable force in ways that shouldn’t exist.” She shrugged. “This entire event is an unnatural occurrence. A sad, unlucky time.”

  She took a deep breath, then said, “I watched the planet begin to crumble, the entire world break and fall. Fate has a sick way of reminding you there is no such thing as control.”

  “No one should have witnessed the events of the past few days. I remember reading about Earth’s wars millennia ago and reading the accounts of the people who participated. They were hard times, times like now, times when people got a wakeup call. We have become so comfortable, taking everything for granted.”

  “Now the universe has slapped us across the face, dared us to be so complacent again.” She took another deep breath. “I taught numerical understanding, I had a lot of access to history books. We’re nothing compared to the universe.”

  Helena said, “I used to present for a news channel, let the people know what was going on, tell them the truth. But this, this just makes a mockery out of justice, freedom, and democracy.” Helena looked at the woman. “Like the universe has turned dictator.”

  “That’s something my husband would say. He looked at the sky for a living. He’s somewhere on here. I was told he discovered the black hole, saved humanity. I’ve been distraught trying to get here to him.”

  Helena sat forward with realisation. “What’s your name?”

  “Jasmine
Bell.”

  “David Bell, he’s your husband?”

  Jasmine sat forward, her eyes wide. “He’s alive, right? He’s got to be! He must be one of the guys assessing everything!”

  “Yes. Yes, he’s alive, or at least he was a few hours ago. I met him on the space station. He’s over at the other docking bay, loading a ship. Come on let’s go see him, let him know you’re here.”

  Jasmine sat back into the sofa with relief. Her beaming smile rejuvenated Helena, a story of success among the horror of the moment. “Really?”

  “Really.” Helena smiled and stood, then moved around the coffee table and hugged Jasmine. Jasmine’s joy and good news recharged Helena like she was a battery. She stepped back. “Come on. Let’s go find him.”

  “Yes,” Jasmine shouted. She poked upward to the heavens and clenching her fists. She also stamped her feet.

  Tears of joy out poured the tears of sadness. Both women, who’d never met before, were suddenly closer than they’d ever been to anyone. It was like an invisible connection had drawn them together. The moment had stamped an eternal friendship on their meeting. Nothing would stand in their way, and nothing would break the only joy that existed within their realm of humanity. The hug of Jasmine gave her hope, gave her purpose. She would reunite her with David. That way another pointless death would be averted, another changed soul by its hands stopped. Helena wanted to stop the tides of time damaging humanity any further. It was impossible she knew, but subtle differences like this would help.

  “Come on let’s find him,” Helena said. A reason to survive surged her veins.

  Chapter 32

  Almost There

  “Dylan! Dylan! Dylan!”

  It felt like he was dreaming, like someone was calling him from another world muffled by dimensions. He was aware of it, aware of his existence, but couldn't put his finger on it.

  Darkness subsided, and a blurred light emerged. A figure stood ten feet away, upside down. Dylan’s sight cleared, and it was Lecodia screaming his name. His bearings returned, and he twisted his hanging body, trying to straighten his disorientation and look around.

  “What’s going on?” Dylan said. He was still dazed and confused with a sluggish voice.

  “Be careful. Your leg. Look at your leg,” she said. Her hands were skimming her mouth with concern.

  Dylan checked his leg. It was tied at the ankle via the wire they’d intended to use to climb from the building. The wire in turn was wrapped around a girder that was red in colour and thick with support. It poked from the wrecked open floor of Hammed’s office level. He could see Lecodia standing above him, around ten meters away, on the intact office level. She looked down to him over the edge of the office floor.

  Dylan's predicament dawned. He looked down and viewed the carnage left by the asteroid that blitzed the office floors and building.

  “This is not good, this is not good,” he said. “My head is throbbing.”

  The asteroid had burrowed its way, with raging force, through the building and exited at their floor. Dylan could see the three lower levels wrecked by the edge of asteroid. They too were opened to the outside world, turned inside out by the powerful blow. Dylan was dangling a hundred feet above the wrecked lower floors that spiked with contorted metal and material. He hung dangerously close to death. He turned his head and viewed the asteroids trajectory through the outside world. It had slammed from their building and into the lower neighbouring glass structure. It left a clean entry hole through its dark glass shell, like a bullet to the body. The snow still dusted the world, which cushioned the carnage.

  Smoke and fire leaked from within the neighbouring buildings hole, like it did all around the floor he dangled from. He looked back up to Lecodia, where the offices floor had exposed its level. He could see the piping, wiring, and ducting all tucked beneath her feet. The level where she stood upon, carved a nastily damaged circular shape left by the asteroid. It was slopping to and creaked like it would collapse at any moment.

  The air from outside was cold, it was getting cold. Dylan knew they had little time left. He had to act quick. “Where’s Leon and Hammed?” he said.

  “I can’t reach them. Hammed’s awake, but Leon is out cold. He’s in trouble, we can’t wake him. Are you ok?” she said. Panic flirted her voice.

  “Hang on I need to get a grip.”

  Dylan’s firm stomach arched upward, and he caught the wire with both hands. He grunted and strained.

  “Careful,” Lecodia said. She began panicking like she walked a death-defying plank.

  Dylan held firm and lifted himself upward. He pulled himself up to the girder that offered a walkway back to Lecodia. His reached the girder, grabbed it, and lifted himself on top of it. He sat up with a huff of relief.

  “Baby don’t fall, don’t fall.”

  Dylan unwound the wire from his leg and unwound it swiftly from the girder. He knew it was their only means of escape. He crouched up and balanced. Bent at the knees, he looked out over Quazar. Hammed’s office positioned at the back end of the building, as the condensed high-rise blocks that overlooked them when they entered the underground car park, were not visible. What Dylan viewed, as he stood up straight, was a spectacular landscape of destruction as far as the eye could see. The raining wrath of God trailed orange hues over the land. The blows of their impacts were felt and heard. The city moaned.

  Dylan stood up on girder and watched the world get beaten. He viewed the tips of buildings explode. Large works of architecture, crumbled, fell, and were wiped clean.

  The distant building, of the religious movement Christianity, was hit by a succession of universal pebbles. The sands of time for their belief were hit and battered.

  Where was their Christ now? Dylan thought.

  The Christians low built structure, that was shaped like a golden cross, was hit by three successive asteroids. The building exploded into minute pieces of religious ash. Each arm of the structures cross mirrored each other as a large dome sat central to the arms. The dome blew upward in an act of religious aggression.

  Dylan’s eyes glanced over the volcanic ash cover land, where broken buildings stood all partially damaged, like a line of war-ravaged soldiers at a make shift medical centre.

  Dylan could see the massive, domed, glass bubble of the nature reserve. The only place on Quazar where animals roamed, bread, and lived in a jungle, desert, and sea of artificially maintained life. He watched the two-hundred-foot-high structure pelted by the asteroids and levelled flat in a moral shattering explosion.

  The structures of time were ending, the glossy buildings that looked so strong, so new, so perfect were scarring. The city, that was erected by the hands of evolution, was now taken by the hands of evolution.

  The image before Dylan was bigger than God, it was bigger than anything explainable. He touched the force of the universe, touched the course of history, and touched the hand of existence. The air was dimming. Dylan couldn’t see the black hole from his view, but he could see Eclipse. The wounded moon weakly radiated light.

  He turned to Lecodia, where the office floor was smashed to smithereens. The equipment and computers that occupied were overturned and crashed about.

  “Careful,” Lecodia said. She held her hands out like she could reach him.

  “It’s ok I got good balance.”

  The sloping floor that Lecodia stood on collapse a foot and bounced. For a second Dylan thought that was it as he bounced and nearly lost balance. He bounced with the threatening movement. Lecodia nearly went too. The creaking collapse stopped at a foot. A few desks nearly took Lecodia with them as they slipped over the edge and crash, bang, walloped their way down.

  “Don’t move,” Dylan said.

  Lecodia panicked.

  “Lecodia, get back ten meters. The floors safer there, where it is not snapped,” Dylan said. He motioned with hands as well. The office floor was stable, flat, and strong ten meters back. She stood upon a fractured area that leaned
toward death.

  “Okay,” she said, and tread backward carefully.

  Dylan took a deep breath and ran for it. He perfectly run the girder on toes, then he felt the collapsing floor give. He gritted his teeth and jumped from the girder. He landed on the falling ground. He didn’t think he would make it, but he pushed hard as the fractured area completely detached from the building and fell in a fragmented pile of rubble. Like a triple jumper, he pushed against the falling floor. The spring was taken away, but he lunged and caught hold of the intact floor with both arms gripping firm. Momentum saved him.

  He screamed.

  Lecodia grabbed at his arms and helped him up. He rolled and sighed with relief as the detached floor crashed to the lower levels.

  “Where are they,” he said.

  “This way, come on.”

  Dylan stood and ran with her around the edge of the destroyed office floor. The drop beside was a twisted mess of destruction. As he travelled its circumference he could see Hammed.

  Hammed stood on a collapsed section of office. The floor had snapped and broken away from the main chunk that remained, where Dylan and Lecodia stood. It was bad; Hammed couldn’t move as it swayed with flimsy support. A bowled area had collapsed in, and was severed from the office. Little support held it up.

  The bowled area, that Hammed stood on, was held by a jammed girder beneath, which bent like the letter u around the bowled chunks of floor. Three chunks of floor had folded in and rested against each other which formed coned like shape. Hammed's hands were outstretched and he balanced. He was ten meters below Dylan’s clutches.

  “I cannot move Dylan, I cannot. It will go if I do,” Hammed said. Nervous beads of sweat dampened his body.

  Dylan spotted Leon. His unconscious body lay against a desk three meters from Hammed. If he was to move, he’d roll limply to the centre of the bowling floor, probably collapsing the area.