Millennium Zero G

by Jack Vantage

  “It’s really you,” he said as the tears subsided.

  She nodded, smiling. “Yes.”

  He wanted to never let her go. The thought of losing her again was overpowering.

  But Michael stepped up. “David, sorry to break up the reunion but we need to get work. We don’t have long.”

  David looked at him for a moment, then said, “No problem. Michael, meet my wife Jasmine.”

  He greeted her with a handshake. “Nice to meet you. You are a lucky lady. Your man here has saved the race.”

  “How long do we have?” David asked.

  They were standing at a T in the corridor. On the wall to their left, bold capital letters read Station 6 followed by an arrow. Below that, arrows next to Station 11 and Station Fifteen pointed in other directions.

  Groups of survivors were being ushered past, all huddled close and moving towards their freedom. People groaned like a wars medical tent, and people shouted orders like a war was on going. It was a mix of chaos and order.

  Quietly, so only David could hear, Michael said, “Not long. Within two hours we’ll get hit by a shower of asteroids.” He eyed the passing people, then added, “The moon will be hit at the same time. It will probably be destroyed. The last four lifts full of people will be arriving soon. We need to move them quickly. The two last ships are nearly full.”

  “Where do you want me?” he asked, then looked at his wife.

  Her eyes spoke a thousand words of concern.

  Michael said, “You and I will be moving them from lift ten, two stations over, to here, Station 4.” He turned to Helena and Jasmine. “Ladies, could you be our hosts at the galactic ships? Any sign of trouble and you’d get to leave.”

  Helena frowned. “What exactly do you need us to do?”

  Michael said, “Help people into the ships, show them where to go, help the guards, things like that. You’ll be safe.” He turned to David again. “David, sorry, but we need to move now. The last lifts will be on their way soon.”

  David nodded, then pulled his wife to one side as Michael and Helena began discussing the details of the mission. He looked into her eyes and wanted to be at home, snuggled in their seating area, their bodies touching, a hot drink in hand. “This will take only a little time. Then we get to leave together. I promise.”

  She smiled, her eyes tearing again, and lightly touched his cheek. “Just be sure you make it back here. Now go do what you need to do.” She patted him on the chest.

  “Nothing is going to stop us leaving together. All I need to do is usher a few more people, baby.”

  As he turned away, she said, “David?”

  He turned back to her.

  “You are my hero.”

  He smiled and turned away again to join Michael. David had her safe, and he was overjoyed inside at the knowing of her safety. He could continue his role without worry, without the labour of death digging in his subconscious. He no longer needed to bury the possibility; he could continue his rescue with a clear mind.

  “Hey guys, look,” Helena said, startled. She was standing next to a window, pointing.

  To the right, a million miles away, the sun was vanishing. Its size had reduced dramatically. Where once glowed the ball of fusion now shone a dance of particles waving like heavenly fire. The holes horizon eyed them, its black void surrounded by the radiating orange and blue matter of the sun that flayed like ribbon in the wind. The black hole was full, spewing lucky matter from its vortex and accretion disc. The sight was more than the mind could take, its biblical implications would imprint the books of history for eternity.

  “My God!” Jasmine said, placing her hand into David’s.

  “Guys, Quazar,” Michael said with cold realisation.

  The tectonically fractured planet smoked in the shade of the black hole. Half of planet hid under the dust cloud of the asteroid impact. On the visible eastern side, the rivers of lava that outlined each tectonic plate simmered with a sombre glow. The once intricately illuminated world was switching off. Areas of the globe were in darkness, while others still shone with a pale-yellow hue of city lights.

  Then, at the north pole of the planet, the final act began. The icy white frost of space started with a spot at the north pole, then spread down and around the globe. The ice grew like roots over the planet, freezing everything in its path. It was like someone poured nitrogen over the world, who stood over it with absolute power. The lava-filled tectonic outlines lost their hot red colour and froze over blue. Quazar was turning into a giant ice cube. People didn’t have long left, but David was ready for the final push home.

  Chapter 35

  The Grand Canyon

  The Birds holo-screen ignited with Regan’s weasel face speaking in his evil arrogant tone.

  “Missing the parent’s, I see. I knew you would,” he said. “And before you ask, it’s the red tooth, the close quarter communicator I’m using. I guess you guys made the lottery, but I didn't. I have decided to drag you down with me.”

  “Regan how’s Nexuses balls?” Dylan replied.

  “I didn’t like the way left you him. The perv didn’t deserve that. I will take yours in return.”

  “Tell that thug next to you that I’m ready. You’ll never drag us down,” Dylan said.

  Dylan’s masculinity took Lecodia by surprise. He flicked the holo-screen off and turned to Lecodia as he dipped The Bird’s nose and sped forward.

  “Lecodia type in the destination coordinates for the station now, I need to know the quickest route?”

  Lecodia looked behind and watched the damaged authoritarian vehicle speeding along with them, tailing close and aggressively. She quickly typed the coordinates and they appeared.

  “Baby, this is going to be harder than we thought, look.” Dylan said.

  A few miles ahead Lecodia viewed the changing landscape dominate, it really was mocking humanity. The high-rise grid to her right had passed, it was distancing in the background, but frontal where the sky-nav was leading them, stood a tectonic shift. She could see the ground they hovered, lower than the earths split facing. It was like a never-ending cliff face ran in both directions. The size of the tectonic canyon before the cliff was enormous, at least two miles in width, where the orange tint of lava cast outward like it was an oven, hazing the dimming world from its immense river of magma.

  “Oh boy Dylan, can you get up there?” Lecodia said.

  “Yes, but it's going to be hairy.”

  Along the length of the cliffs edge, that spanned the horizon, the city was eroding, like back at the medical centres site. From large high rise sky-scrapers to small low set buildings, they were all collapsing in along the cliffs edge, subsiding into the river of heat that simmered within the grounds split. The tectonic canyon was widening fast with a monstrous rumble. The plates of the earth were pulling apart in the most spectacular vision of Lecodia’s life.

  “Lecodia, look down,” Dylan said.

  The ground below had fractured and developed tiny streams of lava, like the earth had popped veins. Heated acidic veins randomly criss-crossed in all directions, like the land was a giant puzzle board. They led to the tectonic shift. The terrain all around was a flattened land of devastation, like a nuclear bomb had detonated. The volcanic eruption and tectonic activity had levelled everything for as far as the eye could see. It was a land of death, a no man’s land, a terrain of terror.

  A few miles rightward Lecodia could see the opened ground, the area of volcanic eruption, the bowl of God. It smoked with thick spewing bleed, and the cliff drew her attention back as they neared. Its vertical drop crumbled inward with accelerated erosion. The layers of earth’s history were revealed by a differentiation in its colour. The buildings that stood atop of the cliff were all intact but crumbled like sand when the earth gave beneath.

  They were closing in on the massive tectonic river, where a flowing, boiling, churning orange heat waited. The lava bubbled along its length. It moved like lethargic water and ste
amed with hate. Lecodia watched goblets of thick magma beads pop upward from the river, like cool spherical fireworks.

  Bang!

  The bird rocked hard as the front end of Regan’s vehicle grinded their behind.

  “Lecodia hold on I need to get into the canyon, I need to get heat under them. This is quicker than them, we can get out of there when their vehicle starts melting,” he said

  She nodded.

  Lecodia felt the bird yaw about and dodge the attacks by Regan and Timmy. Dylan was driving well, avoiding the meditated charges. The rotor propellers within the wings tilted, moved, and whined. Then below her, through the glass floor of The Bird, the fractured destroyed terrain vanished, replaced by the burning luscious colour of lava. Its crust cooled, darkened, and slowed. Exposed areas of fast flowing lava appeared beneath the slower moving crusty surface.

  They flew a hundred meters from the heat, she prayed The Bird would take it, and to her left the eroding city was falling. She watched another erect sky-scraper drop. Its shape warped, creaked, moaned, and slammed into the lava a distance away. The lava splash was frightening. A giant wave of orange splurge was thrown up and outward like a blue whale had surfaced and breached. Then the broken building sat intact and began sinking like a liner would the ocean. Ripples of magma disturbance capillary waved away from its melting body.

  Lecodia looked back up and viewed a glazy glass sky-scraper standing at the edge of the eroding cliff. A massive cut had severed it horizontally, and from it cascaded a waterfall of lava.

  Bang! Another hit. This time Dylan lost hold of his sticks and The Bird banked leftward and down. They were closing in on the cliff and falling erosion. Round and round they spun, a giddy sensation took hold, and the beeping of danger sounded the birds cab.

  Lecodia screamed as Dylan regained control.

  Magma goblets began popping from the river of lava below. The bubbled goblets skimmed close, hissing upward past, and smaller droplets rained from them. Dylan yawed and banked The Bird like an insect. He dodged and avoided the burning goblets. She watched the rotor blades smoking from heat and looked behind in distress as a goblet of lava hit the chasing madmen. It gunked the underside of their vehicle.

  “Yes, they’re hit,” Lecodia said. She screamed emphatically of joy, but it was diminished quicker than it came as the authoritarian vehicle slammed into them.

  Lecodia was rocked by the hit.

  “Hold tight honey,” Dylan said. He was unable to do anything. The cab’s beeping starting again.

  Lecodia could see Regan grinning like a psychopath through his windscreen. Their wing was caught over the roof of their authoritarian vehicle that was on fire.

  She looked away from the madmen and watched a nearing collapsed sky-scraper, that was sinking in the lava, get closer and closer. Massive areas of its body still held a floor of glass, while other areas were opened and smashed, which created a dangerous fall into its structure. It mildly tilted, like the start of a sinking ship. They were going to crash on it at any moment.

  Bang! They did.

  ###

  It was a hard knock. Hard enough for her to lose consciousness for a few seconds then come around dazed. Her body was twisted about uncomfortably inside the glass body of the bird. Reality returned, and she heard the voices of evil outside, then Dylan’s. They were fighting. His life was in danger.

  “Hold him, hold him,” Regan’s said. His evil croak was sinister.

  Lecodia freed herself from The Bird’s wreck and stepped out into Grand Canyon. The eroding cliff was taller than life from her position. It stood around four hundred meters away and two hundred up. Chunks of earth, tons in weight, dropped all over. Jets of lava spurts ejected along its face, and the falling city rained. At its base the splashing lava crashed and soared like oceanic surf. The sound was deafening, a rumbling wave. Her hair blew from the soaring breeze that travelled the canyon, and heat vapour hazed the air all around.

  The skyscraper she stood on laid horizontally, its glass window panes offering a walkway like a reflective mirror that had been in the sun all day. The glass steamed as she walked it. They didn’t have long before the lava set the building alight.

  She could see Dylan, fifty meters away, held down by Timmy. Regan stood above them shouting his sick orders.

  She knew she had to get him. A ten-degree pitch angled the skyscraper, she could see its base sinking into the lava a hundred meters away to her left, the cliff hovering over. Fire blazed the entry point where the river of lava slowly crept up, closing in on her, Dylan, and the madmen. Their authoritarian mobile was gently ingested by the rivers soaring degrees at the dead zone, ablaze like it had combusted. The Bird she realised was a wrecked right off. They were stuck, this was it.

  Lecodia braved forward toward the overpowered Dylan, her love, her life. He was struck hard by the ugly beast that was Timmy, and pathetically prodded by the decrepit body and cane of Regan.

  “Don’t let him get up, don’t let him,” Regan said.

  “He’s about to be my mushy friend. Would you test the water for me?” Timmy said, as he hit and hit Dylan.

  Suddenly a goblet of magma burst through a glass pane to her right, ten meters rightward, with a smash. It rose with sizzling sound, like an oil filled frying pan, and tiny droplets sprinkled the ground from its base as it rose. Then it splattered down smoking and melted the buildings shell. Dozens of goblets appeared, like a display of beautiful horror, all flying through the glass panes of the building, raining, sizzling, and splattering. They created pools of dangerous melting pots. She continued and neared the scuffling bodies.

  Regan didn’t see her coming, thankfully, as she lunged in hysterics onto Timmy like a raving lunatic. Her legs and arms frantically hit and kicked. Lecodia realised what she’d grabbed as his muscles were solid, like iron, he was stronger than strong. With one swift move he reached around and grabbed her off his back. She kicked and screamed harder.

  Lecodia screamed. She scratched at Timmy with vicious female claws.

  Dylan scurried away on his bum and rose to help, until Regan pulled a blaster and held him at ransom.

  “Not so fast,” he said.

  Lecodia felt her back slam against the glass floor, cracking it. Timmy gripped firmly around her throat.

  “This is what you get for messing with me you little whore, you little fuck. I’m going to snap you in two, rip your boys heart out, make him watch you die.” Timmy’s eyes were crazed, they almost popped out of their sockets with madness.

  The world was slipping from her, the blackness of death was closing in as she choked, when a goblet of magma rose closely above and behind him. A sprinkling shower of sizzling droplets fell from beneath its tail.

  As darkness took hold, she felt his grip loosen. She could hear the patter and hissing of the droplets burning the building, before light returned to her vision. The look on Timmy’s face was that of pure shock, traumatism.

  He began choking and convulsing, unable to move face to face with her. His eyes were blank, straining like he was enduring a bout of constipation. Smoke smouldered up behind his head and his eyes began glowing of lava, an orange hue. It was like hell had forced a way out, a hellish ghoul formed Lecodia’s vision. Then lava began oozing from his mouth like acidic dribble that burnt into his chin in thin trickles. His eyes burnt away, and his head boiled. Lava began dripping and she kicked herself away from his melting head, which glopped and gunked into a gooey mess. She wanted to vomit, but instead what came out was “Always was hot headed. Every dog has it’s day.”

  His body dropped limp, decapitated by the lava sludge.

  “No, no, no,” Regan said. He sounded hurt. “Timmy, Timmy my boy.”

  A loud creaking and twisting sound drew all’s attention. Five hundred meters away a skyscraper collapsed above a massive section of earth, a giant moment of erosion. Its rectangular shape broke into pieces and split apart. Its squamate, green glassed, outer shell shattered as it dropped with a c
rying groan. Then a large segment of the cliff face gave, which slumped millions of tones crashing in a tidal of subsidence.

  Lecodia watched the lava displacement ripple, swell, and ring toward them upon the sinking skyscraper, like a tsunami would a coast line. She could see it would engulf where they stood, so could Regan, and so could Dylan who’d snuck quickly up on him. Dylan yanked the blaster from his hand and run to her, grabbing hers like he always did heroically.

  “Just run baby,” he said. She did like the wind.

  They dodged festering patches of magma and leapt over the odd broken glass window. Inside the building she viewed the river of lava filling it, tilting it stepper and stepper. Over her shoulder she viewed the heat wave lethargically closing in as Regan whimpered scared like the old man he was.

  He screamed in terror as he tried to run. He walked his cane with futile reaches, his stride withered and dated by age.

  The lava wave swelled over the lip of the skyscraper’s base, folded up, and rolled slowly. Lecodia looked forward and watched the buildings peak near fifty meters ahead.

  “I think we’ve made it, I think we’ve made it,” she said, as Dylan pulled on her arm.

  Both stopped and turned to watch Regan’s scramble. He almost made it. The lava wave slowed and trickled hot on his heels. It stagnated, but the increasing incline was all too much for him. His legs buckled, and he fell backward, only stopping his fall by the cane he held dear. It would have supported him if it wasn’t for the fact it poked into the lip of the lava.

  He screamed. “Help me, help me, I want to stay here, I want to stay here.”

  Lecodia watched the evil old man croak and grouch at the imminent act of death.