Millennium Zero G

by Jack Vantage

  “I never meant any of it, this planet is good. I just wanted what was best for everyone, for me, it’s not a prison, I’m not bad.”

  The cane slowly shortened and closed his body in on the lava.

  He screamed before igniting in a blaze of fire.

  Within seconds he’d melted away, the old bastard. Lecodia never thought it possible, but for the first time in her life she was relieved at the sight of death. Dylan pulled her in and hugged her tight. Their hair blew in the hot breeze.

  The incline was nearing sixty degrees, the surrounding environment the harshest imaginable, and the eroding cliff face continued crumbling. The lush Orange river flowed, the air above darkened, and the sound was devastating. Creak and twist went the building beneath their feet as it slipped upward stepper. A hot breeze began sapping the liquid from Lecodia’s internal body. She thought she would start boiling any second.

  The canyon they stood in was a grand sight, a place where nature and the universe reiterated its position as dominating force. She looked out over the area with hard acceptance, she knew a fiery end was coming. Lecodia knew she’d go to heaven, even if the surrounding furnace of hell was to take her there. Holding Dylan, she felt ready for the end. She looked to him.

  “Don’t think about it okay, when we go, don’t think,” Dylan said. Tears streamed his eyes.

  They climbed the last few glass paned windows and reached the damaged peak, where many windows had shattered. Its roof had completely torn away. It offered many holding points and Dylan hugged Lecodia close and firmly to an exposed window frame.

  Slowly the building tipped vertical, the drop down a vertigo three hundred meters. Looking down, Lecodia viewed streams and waterfalls of lava pouring out of the building’s windows, like hydra slides at a water park. The heat was sweltering, the air a blur.

  “I want you to know, I wanted to go to the end with you, spend my life with you,” Lecodia said into Dylan’s eyes.

  “We have, just a little earlier than planned. I want you to know I love you. They say only the good die young. We’ll spend an eternity together when we get to the other side,” replied Dylan.

  Both placed their heads together and smoothed each other in loving affection. Lecodia wondered if she’d see him on the other side, if he’d be with her. She’d only just found him, the one, discovered her soul mate. So soon he was taken away. The time they’d spent had been exhilarating, certainly more so than the confinement of the ship. As short as it was, an eternity of gratitude was owed.

  Large segments of erosion faced them and invited the end.

  “I’m glad I met you Dylan Ajax,” Lecodia said. Tears streamed.

  “Me to Lecodia Ale.”

  Lecodia thought she was dreaming. The site of the sky-mobile didn’t appear to exist in reality. She recognised it from the show room back at Hammed’s building. It was the paper-thin silver machine, Sonic she remembered. Its door slid up and Leon appeared.

  “Get the fuck in here, now,” he said. He shouted loud over the environment.

  “How are you here?” Dylan asked. The mobile gently moved closer and closer toward them.

  “The station we were supposed to leave on, well I could see on the horizon that it was gone, so I followed you guys, lucky I spotted you, now get in.”

  “Hurry Dylan.” Hammed said from the mobiles rear.

  Lecodia still thought death was about to take her, she was stunned by the rescue.

  “Baby you first,” Dylan said. He beamed with happiness. He almost pushed her off the building with eagerness.

  The sky-mobile was close enough to touch and she jumped, landing on Leon.

  “Sorry,” she said, as she shuffled behind next to Hammed.

  “Come on,” Leon said to Dylan.

  Dylan jumped. She couldn’t believe Leon had done it again for them. Dylan sat in the passenger seat and the door closed. She watched the canyon drop away as Leon climbed altitude, and she would never forget the emotion of deaths acceptance, or the Grand Canyon that nature had crafted.

  Chapter 36

  Survival

  Dylan, Lecodia, Hammed, and Leon looked out from the space station’s lift as it kicked into action. They were packed like sardines at the windowed door, with barely enough room to breathe, let alone move. They nearly hadn’t made it, being the last to board.

  Dylan looked out as it rose from the ground. He could see the compound and its fortification barrier that created a wall around the lift. It stood erect at around five hundred meters in diameter and twenty meters in height. The wall was a collection of concrete like stoppers that were joined, a mobile barrier. Centre stood steel doors, large solid fortress like doors, that were secured shut at present. Inside, and around the top of the compound walls, positioned artillery. Large cannon shaped guns opened fire with jack hammering laser missiles, which lit the night air with fierce offence. Each long-nosed cannon was manned by an authoritarian guard at its base, who controlled its movement, swivel, and tilt. They fired at incoming sky-mobiles that tried to enter above the wall. Dozens at a go exploded and dropped from the sky. One sky-mobile crashed over the barrier and exploded inside the compound, blowing barrels and supplies skyward in a dangerous breach. Bodies dived and were thrown from the explosion. An army of guards stood across the top of the barrier, blasting down at the ill-fated citizens that obscured behind. Some guards were shot by the crowds outside the walls and dropped dead over the edge.

  The only reason they were alive and standing in the lift was due to Leon again. He had tuned into the military's radio frequency and re-laid their lottery numbers to them. The guards had cleared a path for them and allowed them to land in the fortification. They stood in the last lift to the space station.

  The lift rose above the compound’s barrier, Dylan gasped at the sight. Beyond the walls of defence swam a sea of bodies, a condensed crowd of hell as far as the eye could see. There were millions, like the worlds’ largest festival gathering, all moving like an ocean to the horizon across the lands length. Smoke and fires leaked from pockets within the crowd. Sections of bodies grouped and shifted to avoid the raining sky-mobiles that were blasted from the sky, while some were just crushed and squashed by them. It was war against humanities insanity, its terminal disease, its end.

  Then the horizon glistened with frost. It neared quickly, like a rush of water, stilling the crowd, freezing them solid as it advanced. Lecodia turned away, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I can’t watch.”

  The inertia of frost solidified the sea of souls that reached the dimming horizon. It was like time had stopped, everything had stopped. A million souls were frozen in time. Its glaze twinkled what light was left across its surface. Dylan couldn’t look away. Amid the despair was also hope.

  To the right, four neighbouring lifts travelled upward, each from its own compound, each surrounded by hordes of freezing souls.

  The saucer like lifts, sped upward on the chunky nano tubes that attached to the space stations with geosynchronous orbit. That was until a kamikaze sky-mobile struck the furthest one. It was a direct hit, and the lifts thick Nano-tube flexed and wobbled. Dylan felt sorry for the people who were on board, so close yet so far. The lift exploded and rained down on the frozen land. A hundred people lost. The Nano tube was severed from the station as it fell from above, and it coiled downward like a falling rope scaled to a giant size.

  He looked over the frozen land again. It was more death than Dylan cared to comprehend, but the universe had displayed its icy temper. In the dimming world glinted a sea of morbid frost, humanity had received its bite.

  “We’re almost there,” Leon said beside him. “Thank God we made it. I don’t like the freezer.”

  Hammed said, “Leon, you are the man.”

  “Everybody still, please, we don’t want to break the lift now do we,” said a distressed male. Murmurs and groans of anxiety sounded the thickly filled lift.

  Slowly, the icy world disappeared below as the lift approa
ched the nearing complex of the photovoltaic space station. Their spherical design was laden with a hundred levels and a thousand windows. Bridge walkways connected each globe shaped stations, thirty in all. Dylan was taught about their architectural significance during intake, which was the unmistakable representation of the human cellular activity, the core of the species.

  “We’re almost home,” Dylan said quietly, holding Lecodia’s hand.

  She peered upward at the space station’s lights, their sanctuary inviting, and smiled at Dylan. Suddenly a giant flash ignited the sky. It was a blinding white light, a painful flash. Dylan could still see day with eyes closed.

  A hundred voices from within the lift screamed in panic.

  “We’re going to die, we’re going to die,” said others.

  When the flash dimmed, and the elevator stilled from the shock wave, Dylan looked at the collision. The moon Eclipse had withstood one blow in the past, but this was bigger. An asteroid impact had split in two. It was hidden by clouds of moon dust thrown out by the impact. Dylan watched the hemispherical peak of one-half poke out as it spun, then watched the other half poke another area of the cloud, all masked by its dark blood dust.

  Moments later, the lift slowed and gently hissed to a stop. There were two figures the other side of the door, two men. They waited with eager anticipation, with their bodies shaped ready for the crowd, like runners at the start of a long distant race. Finally, the doors slid up.

  “Hello. My name is David Bell, and this is Michael Lewis. We will be your guides. Please don’t panic. You are the last to arrive and we have a distance to travel. Stay calm and follow us.”

  “Come on, come on. Slowly guys.” Michael said beside him.

  Everyone spilled out of the elevator calmly, with just a murmur of worry escaping the odd survivor. Michael and David walked ahead of them.

  Dylan said, “Hey, are we also the last to leave for the ships? It seems quiet,”

  David looked back. “Yes. Only a few people are left walking the stations. We have two to walk, so stay close. The other lifts are being guided to both ships.”

  “You know the way yes?” Hammed said.

  “Of course they do Hammed,” said Leon.

  Dylan didn’t want to jump for joy yet. He had a gut feeling something bad was coming. Something was about to turn the final stretch into a marathon of survival.

  He let it go for four or five turns of the long corridors, but finally he gave in. “Guys, there’s something wrong. I can hear explosions way ahead.” He stopped in his tracks.

  The entire crowd of people stopped behind, listening. Michael and David stopped and listened too.

  “Hey, quit the scare mongering!” someone from the back of the crowd shouted.

  “Get a move on!” another shouted.

  The crowd bustled irately. Patience was absent with the panicked. Still, the distant thumping beat at his ear drums, and was getting closer and closer, more frequent and faster.

  “He’s right,” Michael said with alarm. “Everyone, we need to move quickly.”

  The crowded group began running.

  Dylan held Lecodia’s hand tightly and jogged with David and Michael. The group’s uneasy murmuring was constant. Then, a nearing thump intensified the group’s groans to screams of anxiety.

  “Keep hold of my hand,” Dylan said, looking at Lecodia.

  Suddenly a massive explosion tore through the corridor. The backend of the group was sent to oblivion, as a tiny asteroid ploughed through the station, vaporising people. Its whistle deafened, even though it was no bigger than a fifty-calibre bullet.

  Dylan couldn’t hear anything as he was thrown forward. Somehow, he held on to Lecodia.

  Everything sank into darkness as the lights failed. Then the emergency lights ignited the corridor a horror red. Dylan stood with Lecodia. Michael and David were helping each other, as we’re Hammed and Leon. The asteroid had forced a rough tunnel through the station’s gut. It had exposed wires, pipes, and a mangled, twisted metal trajectory. Sparks and arcs of electricity frazzled the devastation.

  A dozen survivors stood up, covered in dust and rubble. They moaned with fear. Blood spatters covered the intact corridor walls.

  Michael yelled, “Emergency pressure doors will seal off damaged areas, but we will be trapped if they seal our path off. So, move now.”

  Everyone began jogging again.

  Fake windows lined the corridors. They offered glimpses over video landscapes, a mind trick for the long-term station workers. The windows in this corridor provided views of a sweltering desert. Their light cast a warm glow over the hard red of the emergency lights that dampened along the corridor’s length. Dylan looked back to the surviving group who jogged behind, when a hundred pebble like stones gunned through the station with dazzling tracer streaks. They shredded the remaining group as they whistle through and lit the darkness. The bodies of the survivors were blitzed by the attack, their limbs dismembering in violent hits. Dylan watched one man’s leg dismember at the knee. No sooner could he scream a tiny stone had dismembered his left shoulder then head. It was barbaric, like they’d stood in a grinding machine, in the path of an artillery gun blasting laser shells of horrendous size.

  “Run, run, run.” David and Michael shouted.

  Dylan grabbed Lecodia and sprinted the corridor. He could hear the asteroids chasing behind, slamming through the station with drum thumping base. He looked behind and watched three space stones, basketball in size, trail through. They exploded the stations corridor, and wreaked havoc. Each one moved closer toward them. It felt like the universe was pushing them in the direction it wanted them to go. A pressure door began closing ahead.

  “Run,” said Michael.

  All sprinted, with all their might. Michael and David dived under the metallic pressure door, then Leon and Hammed. Dylan pulled Lecodia and they slid on their bums. Luckily their momentum carried them, and they slid under the door. No one else made it. Dylan heard a few screams as the door sealed shut and blocked the path back. Quiet thuds pounded at the door.

  Michael and David talked with hands on hips.

  To David, Michael said, “We have a while longer to go. Let’s go through the food hall. That’ll cut a good distance off our path.

  David nodded, and Michael looked back to address the group. “Okay, follow us. We must get to the ships quickly. They’ll be leaving ASAP with those asteroids closing in. Let’s go.”

  “What about the people back there?” Hammed said.

  “We can't help them now,” replied Michael.

  “Guys what’s your names?” David said, as they walked a corridor.

  Dylan gave them their names. They were unknown people, yet they offered to risk their lives. He was in the hands of hero’s, two men who’d saved more lives than could possibly be surmounted. He could see the tiredness behind their eyes, eyes that had seen much turmoil, much horror, and much death. Eyes of heroes.

  They reached the massive food hall and entered via the electronic door. The hall was much like Dylan’s data intake’s, he was surprised by the similarity. Long running silver chrome desks positioned wide in rows of ten. Each desk could probably fit thirty people, fifty if condensed. Lower, long running chrome benches sat as seats on both sides of the tables. It looked like recess had just finished. The place must have been used as a holding area for the lottery winning survivors. Food packets, clothes, blankets, water containers, and a hundred other items of junk lay scattered and strewn over the tables and floor, like a data class had rioted with a food fight.

  “Just like intake, de ja vu,” Leon said. He was impassive as they walked the silent, desolate room.

  “More like your bedroom,” Dylan replied.

  “Quick! Quick, in here!” a strong female voice said, from one of the many doors that lead out of the food hall. She stood twenty meters away, unaware of their presence.

  Two people entered the room, following her shouts.

  “Thank G
od!” the leading woman said, as she spotted Dylan and crew.

  She wore jeans and the station’s steward’s shirt, like David’s and Michael’s. Her hair was a short bushy black, her body tall and thin. Her demure was tom boyish, she owned a masculine edge, but also a giftedly toned athletic body.

  “The route to the Noah vessel is cut off. Please tell me we can reach Migration?” she said. Her accent was Sothern English. “My names Fox.”

  “We hope so. It will leave anytime now. We need to keep moving,” replied David.

  “No shit. Well, what are you waiting for, let’s go,” she said, like she elected herself in charge.

  The two other survivors introduced themselves as they moved through the food hall. The first, Calvin, was a fit, lean, tall man. His hair was short and brown, his face angular and handsome. He wore a sports t-shirt that clung to his muscular physic and denim like trousers. He would fare well in this fight for survival.

  The second was Derik, who was a ginger-haired man. His face was flat, his nose small, his eye sockets shallow. His haircut displayed a large forehead. He was thin on top with large recedes. He looked like a geek and sounded like one with a feminine undertone as he gave his name. His clothes were plain, a white shirt and corded blue trousers. He looked like the most harmless person in the world, but the most dangerous to be with in this treacherous situation.

  The station began crying and aching with hurt. It sounded a terrible twist that echoed and reverbed the room.

  “I think its struggling to stay up after the asteroids,” David said. He solicitously eyed the room for the invisible invader.

  “This just keeps getting worse,” replied Michael.

  “Let’s get the hell ‘outta here,” Fox said.

  As they jogged the food hall, the station began tilting steeply. The room lob sided leftward in a jerk of gravity, like a ship that capsized.

  “Fuck, grab something,” Michael said. He shouted desperately, but too late.

  The world turned topsy-turvy, raining junk, papers, tables, and food. The group were all sliding down the thirty-metre room. Rubbish and tables crashed along with them.