Tomorrow We Rise

by Daniel P. Wilde

  “Anta,” he said. Anta’s body jumped. The men had a difficult time holding her. Her eyes lost focus and became black.

  “Let us in,” Cain whispered, with incredible intensity.

  Anta’s body jumped again. This time, her left arm broke free of Steve’s grasp and she swung it across her body. Her clenched fist hit Shift on the brow above his nose. He let go of her other arm, but immediately grabbed it again. Those that hadn’t been holding Anta down before rushed over to help hold her.

  “Don’t let her up,” Shift said tensely. “If she gets free, we may not be able to catch her again.”

  “What’s happening?” Neirioui cried out.

  Suvan immediately rushed over to her mother, who had crumpled to the floor in fear. Suvan, crying softly, held tightly to her mother while the others, breathless and through clenched teeth, discussed what to do next.

  “How does he know her name?” Andrew Jones asked. Nobody answered. Nobody knew the answer.

  “Time to go guys,” Street said over the intercom. “They’re headed toward the vents.”

  On the screen, Cain was clearly seen directing an ever-larger force of Skins in different directions. Mike hit a button and the cameras he had installed on the three ventilator shafts all lit up, splitting the monitor in thirds. Skins came into view at each location. The group fell into a hushed silence, except for the heavy breathing of Anta and those holding her down.

  “John, we’ve got to sedate her—now,” Shift said.

  “Okay, I’m letting go.” John let go as others filled his spot. Within moments, John returned with a large needle. He squeezed it and a drop of clear liquid shot out of the end. Then he turned toward Anta, knelt, wiped a small white pad across her upper arm, and plunged the needle into her flesh. 20 seconds later, Anta was still.

  “Let’s go!” Shift said. Mike, John, Shift and Carón each grabbed a leg or arm and stood Anta up. She was light, and Shift, with John’s help, lifted Anta over his shoulder. She would be easy to carry. But that left a greater burden on the others. Each member of the group began to carry out his or her part of the plan. It was time to get to the island.

  August 10, 1:54 PM—Cabo Rojo, Mexico

  The Chosen had found the ventilator shafts, all three of them. They had been in this position before, Cain knew. It was only a matter of time before they worked the fittings loose and began to file in. They were struggling though. Cain didn’t understand. His mind was as strong as ever, but his body, and the bodies of his soldiers were struggling with simple tasks. They fought with one another as they attempted to shake the fittings loose. Their enormous strength was not the benefit it had been on all prior occasions.

  Cain could feel Anta slipping away. She had seen him. She had tried to come to him. She would have let them in, but the perversions stopped her. Now, his grasp on her mind was fading. Within moments, it could be gone. But she was in there. This hole in the ground was no different than the others. But this time, Cain’s army was thousands strong.

  The perversions, with their guns and their bombs, could not defeat an army this size. They would be reduced to extinction. Then Cain would rule. The perversions would pay for what they had done to him. Shevchuk had already become his slave. The others would too, or die resisting, and this time, Cain would be there to see it.

  It had been over six months since those foul creatures had sent him from the bunker at Boston. Sent him out to die. They thought he was dangerous. They thought he was too angry. They thought his theories were the ramblings of a crazy man. Now they would regret that decision. The only thing that had kept them alive this long was the fact that they held Anta captive.

  Cain stretched his hand to the sky, again commanding his army to breach the hull. Why they hadn’t done it yet was confusing. They were trying, but failing. The perversions were being given precious time to escape, if they had any way to do so. Soon, if his army continued to fail, he would tear this structure down with his bare hands. He would not let them escape again.

  August 10, 2093, 2:17 PM—Cabo Rojo, Mexico

  “Is everyone in place?” Shift asked John through his MEHD.

  “Yes, everyone is through the tunnel but you and Street.”

  “How is Anta? Still knocked out?”

  “Yeah, she’s out cold,” John replied. “And we’ve got her tied up on one of the boats, just in case. Steve and Mike are with her, also just in case.”

  “Good.”

  For some reason, the Skins had not come in yet. They were still outside. The monitors on the walls of the tunnel and on the island showed the Skins trying to rip apart the top of the ventilator shafts, but Mike’s alarm system was not yet relaying a breach.

  Street and Shift sat in a small control room about mid-way through the tunnel. The others were all on the island. Both groups watched the monitors, frightened, but not panicked.

  The arms and chests of the Skins, both men and women, and even children, showed immense muscle mass, rippling and bulging as the Skins tried, in vain so far, to breach the outer walls of the bunker. It looked like the Skins were having trouble with coordination. It was like their minds were having difficulty relaying messages to their bodies. At least that’s what Shift thought.

  “Maybe Cain is losing his control over them,” Shift said.

  “Well, he’s certainly still trying,” John said through the MEHD. “Look at that freakishly large arm up in the air like that.”

  “But his face is all screwed up,” Street said.

  “Yeah, like he’s having trouble concentrating; or maybe the others are mentally at war with him,” Shift said.

  “Or maybe that’s his normal look . . . all screwed up,” Street added sarcastically.

  “But they’re still trying to get in,” John said. “They’re still doing what he wants, or at least, they’re trying to.”

  “All I know is that once they get in, and I’m sure they will, we could have thousands crawling around in here within minutes,” Shift said. “It won’t take them long to figure out where we are.”

  “But we’ll be at the other end of the tunnel before they get here,” Street added. “And I can’t wait to blow the hell out of ‘em! I just hope that bastard Cain is in the lead.”

  “Why does that guy look so familiar?” John asked.

  “We’ve had this conversation before John,” Shift replied. “I don’t know the guy.”

  “Hey Andrew, Angel, Mike, come here!” John yelled out. His shout nearly deafened Shift and Street at the other end of the com. “You guys know who this Cain is?”

  “Yes,” Angel replied bitterly, “he’s the guy who’s tried to kill us a couple times and now has Anta under some kind of mind control.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” John said. “I mean, do you know him from anywhere else?”

  “I don’t think so,” Mike replied.

  “I don’t know him either,” Andrew replied seconds later. “Wait, can we zoom in on him while he’s standing still like that?”

  “Hold on,” John said.

  “Actually, he does look familiar,” Andrew said. “Doesn’t he kind of look like that guy that was at the bunker with us in the early days, before Anta and Shift showed up? Or maybe he left just after they showed up.”

  “Hmmm, yeah, a little,” John replied. “But Cain looks older, a few more wrinkles in his face. That other guy was pretty young, wasn’t he?”

  “Anta seemed to recognize him too,” Shift added.

  “Actually,” Mike said, reconsidering, “he does look like that guy. Was his name Canton? Dr. Canton maybe?”

  “Canton?” John asked quietly. “That name sounds right. He was a viral specialist of some kind, wasn’t he? Why did he get kicked out again?”

  “He was a hothead,” Andrew replied. “Plus, every time he talked about AE, he would go off on tangents about man’s ability to make themselves what they wanted to be. Like, men could transform themselves into something else. It was all gibberish, not science.�
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  “Well, if that’s him, he certainly made something of himself,” Shift said.

  “AE, from Toronto, made him that way Shift,” John said.

  “AE didn’t make him six and a half feet tall, handsome, and full of muscle, John,” Angel said.

  “Well, if that’s him, like I said, he’s something now,” Shift said. “He’s leading an army. What makes him so special though, I wonder? Have we seen any other Skins control others the way he does?”

  “Not to this extent,” Mike replied through the com. “He’s the only one that seems to control thousands. But there are a few others who appear to have control over smaller groups in other places. Like maybe they’re his generals or something.”

  “And I think he has a bit to gripe about,” John said. “We kicked him out of the bunker. Basically, we sent him out to die—but before we knew how bad it was going to get, of course.”

  “So you think he has a little vengeance on his mind?” Street asked.

  “I think that may be accurate,” John replied.

  “Anyone there?” came a voice from a different channel on the com.

  “Oh, Hasani, sorry. Thanks for calling back. We have a situation here,” Shift replied. “The skins are outside, trying to get in.”

  “Then they’ve found your hideout.”

  “Appears so. We’re going to evac. We’ll have audio only from here on. Got anything for us?”

  “Working on it.”

  Just then, the alarms beeped three times. Street jumped on the four-wheeler next to him as Shift shut down the com.

  “Gotta go, Hasani. We’ll call again after the situation settles some.”

  Shift jumped on the other four-wheeler and they plunged down the tunnel at full speed. The Skins were coming in.

  August 10, 3:01 PM—Cabo Rojo, Mexico

  “Wait until the tunnel’s full,” Shift ordered as he and Street rushed up the stairs from the underwater cave at the end of the tunnel. After they had entered the main cave, John swiped the switch on the monitor in front of him and the heavy metal doors shut and sealed. He had closed and locked the doors from the tunnel to the underwater portion of the cave moments earlier.

  “They took so long getting in the bunker,” Shift continued, trying to catch his breath, “they’ll probably have a hard time getting through the doors too. The more we can pack in there while they’re trying to get through, the better.”

  “What if the doors don’t hold that long?” Street asked. “Or what if the bomb doesn’t work?”

  “Let’s not risk that happening. Let’s get everyone on the boats right now. Then, if they somehow get through the tunnel doors before we blast them to pieces, all we have to do is climb on board and shove off before they get through this second set,” Shift said, pointing to the doors he and Street had just run through.

  “Question?” commented John. “Didn’t you say that the explosion could breach the outer wall of the tunnel?”

  “Yes . . .” replied Shift.

  “Well, if sea water enters the tunnel, we should be able to tell if salt water affects the Skins.”

  “Excellent!” shouted Street.

  “Maybe, once the water clears, and if the monitors still work.”

  Shift gave the orders to the group huddled behind him peering at the large monitors on the wall. They didn’t hesitate. Within minutes, everyone but Shift and Street were on one of the three motor boats.

  Two days earlier, they had taken the submarine, the sailboat, the iron ship and all but two of the jet skis far out into the cave’s harbor and anchored them. If the Skins got into the cave, and the humans had to flee, there weren’t going to be any boats conveniently tied to the pier for the Skins to use, assuming they even could. Instead, the Skins would be forced to stay put or risk the salt of the sea. Of course, there was still the risk that the Skins could jump 300 meters and land safely on the boats. But that risk seemed small. And, in any event, the boats and jet skis anchored in the harbor were much slower than the motor boats the humans would use.

  Now, the small group untied the remaining craft and were floating near the pier in the cave. Two jet skis had been left for Street and Shift. If the Skins got through, the whole procession would retreat through the holographic wall at the far end of the tunnel and wait out in the Gulf to see what the Skins were capable of.

  “Here they come,” Shift said.

  “That didn’t take them long,” Street said.

  “Yeah, they may be having a tough time with their bodies, but their minds look sharp as a tack.”

  “Where’s Cain?” Street growled through clenched teeth as a large body of Skins came into view on the monitor. He hadn’t entered the tunnel.

  The crowd of Skins began the long walk down the tunnel toward the closed doors at the far end, beneath the island.

  “Sheesh, at this rate, we’ll be sitting here for three hours,” Shift said. It had taken him and Street about 20 minutes, at full speed on the ATVs, to reach the island end of the tunnel from the mid-point. The Skins were just walking.

  Suddenly, the Skins at the front of the group leapt forward, their legs barely touching the ground, or so it seemed, and their heads narrowly missing the tunnel’s ceiling. They quickly reached a speed which made it impossible for the cameras to track. Within three minutes, the leaders were at the double doors closing off the tunnel from the underwater cave under the island.

  “Holy crap,” Street said.

  “Yeah,” Shift said.

  Before long, the whole tunnel was full of Skins. At the doors, they were heaving and pushing—a mass of naked flesh pulsating and rippling as they attempted to push through the doors. Cain was not among them as his army tried, in vain, to open the blast doors that held them at bay. They looked confused.

  “Look at their faces,” Street said. “They look constipated.”

  Shift laughed, but only for a moment. Just then, a loud crack could be heard all the way through the blast doors at the end of the tunnel, through the underground cave, and up through the second set of blast doors separating the island from the cave beneath.

  “Blow it!” Shift yelled.

  Street hit the switch.

  The eruption caused the boats in the hidden marina to shift violently as the water around them danced and moved. Shift and Street both fell to the ground. The large monitor above them on the wall fell from its mounting, narrowly missing Street’s outstretched legs as it crashed to the ground. As Street pulled his legs back, he shifted his body to the right. In one motion, he was up on his knees peering at the smaller screen they had been looking at before the blast. Shift was right behind him. Two of the four quadrants of the screen were still on.

  “It worked!” Street yelled. “It worked!”

  “Look at them,” Shift said, more subdued.

  As the debris from the underwater blast cleared below them in the cave, the damage became apparent. Only two cameras from the lower cave remained intact: one dangling from the ceiling by a flimsy piece of metal, submerged in the salt water that had flooded the lower cave; the other, slowly spinning as it sank to the bottom of the channel along with the bodies and rubble that failed to survive the explosion.

  These two cameras revealed an incredible scene. The tunnel was in ruins, with concrete fragments of all sizes plummeting into the depths of the channel. The sinking camera, miraculously still broadcasting scenes to the surface, revealed the bloody remains of bodies that had been ripped apart in the explosion. Heads, legs, feet, arms, fingers and other body parts, too mangled to distinguish from the general carnage, tumbled into the depths, swept to and fro on the currents created by the blast.

  Several Skins, or portions of the bodies of Skins were trapped below, or tangled within the rapidly-sinking remains of the wreckage. Others who had survived the initial detonation, who at first appeared to be trying to swim to the surface, were losing strength. The surface was too far away. They were drowning. The slowly-spinning camera, on each of it
s revolutions through the murky water, caught the terror-stricken faces of Skins who were running out of air. The men in the cave shuddered as they watched the bodies of these Skins violently shake and thrash as they took final gulps of saltwater in a last attempt to maintain life.

  A few of the stronger Skins finally reached the surface of the turbulent sea. Those who made it had kicked and pushed others out of the way to finally reach fresh air. But once on the surface, most had no more strength to begin the swim to land. Having nothing with which, or on which to float, even these stronger Skins began to struggle, their arms flailing, reaching, and grabbing onto others who had made it to the surface. Even with their great strength, the Skins who had survived the destruction below could not keep their heads above water; but it didn’t matter.

  After three or four minutes, every Skin who had been in the tunnel was dead. Hundreds of them. Those that had not died in the blast or subsequent drowning, were deteriorating from the outside in, their flesh sizzling and boiling from the salt.

  August 10, 2093, 4:38 PM—Cabo Rojo, Mexico

  “So, now what?” Mike called out as he climbed off the boat onto the pier. He knelt down and tied the rope to its anchor so the others could step off. The waves caused by the explosion continued to ripple through the cavern. The other boats followed suit. Eventually, everyone but Anta and Angel were on the pier, rushing over to Street and Shift.

  Angel was the last to leave a boat, having first checked on Anta. Once her feet hit the pier, she ran to Street. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

  “You should have seen it,” Street said to nobody in particular, sorrow lacing his words as Angel squeezed him around the middle. “Those poor bastards.”

  “Are you actually sympathizing with the Skins,” Dr. Andrew Jones asked as he walked up to the monitors to view the aftermath.

  “Dude, it was awful,” Shift replied as Street lifted his eyes to meet Andrew’s. “Skins or not, we were watching people drown. Oh man, I think I’m going to puke.”

  Shift moved away from the crowd quickly, arriving at the edge of the pier moments later. Everyone watched as he vomited into the water.