Apocalypse Machine

by Robinson, Jeremy

  She’s going to tell them. And when she does…

  Graham grasps her shoulder. She spins around, drawing her weapon and leveling it at his face.

  He doesn’t even flinch. The two warriors glare at each other for a moment, and then Graham breaks the silence. “No borders, remember?”

  “They’ll all die,” she says.

  “They’ll all die, either way.”

  She sneers, her finger wrapping around the weapon’s trigger. “What makes your life more valuable than theirs?”

  “Not my life,” Graham says, and then he pokes my shoulder. “His.”

  Mayer’s eyes snap to mine while the gun remains pointed at Graham’s gut. Agent Zingel looks back at us, but doesn’t move. I think he’s in shock, but Mayer has also positioned herself so that no one else in the room can see the gun. Given the circumstances, anyone looking on would probably think she was grilling us about the wave, not debating whether or not to tell them it will soon be crashing through the building’s walls.

  “Since the very first moment that thing emerged from Iceland, he has been one step ahead of it. He’s survived multiple encounters, while millions have died. He stood on its back and took a sample. He understands it, and the ramifications of its actions. He might not agree with me, but I’m certain that if anyone is going to figure out how to stop this thing, it’s him.”

  He’s right, I don’t agree, but at the moment, I’m not going to argue, either. The only way I might ever see my family again—assuming they’re able to escape Washington, D.C before it’s decimated—is if we leave this place in the next few minutes.

  She glances back at the room full of people, many of whom she likely knows, as colleagues, maybe even as friends—all of whom have families. Her body language shifts, becoming rigid. Stoic. She might care about a lot of these people, but she’s also a Mossad agent, trained to make life-and-death choices without flinching. She looks back at the big screen. The U.K. is submerged. Water eats its way across Europe, sliding over Spain, toward the Mediterranean. In New England, the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont have been consumed.

  When she turns back to us, her face is transformed. The friendly woman who freed me from the interrogation room has been replaced by someone I have no doubt could get the most hardened enemy to talk. “Turn around. Second door on your right. I will be right behind you.” Even her voice sounds different. Tight. Sharp. Lethal.

  Graham nods and heads for the door, walking casually, like nothing important is happening. He stops by the door and waits for Mayer.

  She presses her hand against a print reader mounted beside the door. A light shines green, and the lock snaps open. She pushes the door inward, motions to a flight of stairs and offers a smile that looks genuine. “Head on up.” The killer is gone once more, but this time, I know it’s an act.

  Graham starts up the steps, his pace casual. I have a hard time not prodding him to move faster. My imagination is continuing the satellite feed in my head. The water will be nearing Gibraltar. It won’t be long before everyone else in the control room knows they’re doomed. And when that happens…

  The door behind us closes. I look back expecting to see Mayer at the door, but she’s already surged up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. She passes me in seconds. When I follow her passage around me and turn forward, Graham is already gone, sprinting upwards a flight above me.

  “Shit,” I whisper, and I charge up the stairs, my legs once again reminding me that they have been severely abused. But I don’t waver. Charging up ten flights of stairs isn’t easy, but I’ve gone through and survived worse. My legs are stronger for it, but so is my will. By the seventh flight, I catch up with Mayer and pace her all the way to the top.

  We exit onto the roof where there are two landing pads, both occupied by olive colored Black Hawk transport helicopters. Graham wrenches the door open and slides into the cockpit. Mayer walks to the far side of the chopper and does the same, leaving me to open the side hatch and climb in the back.

  While the rotor starts to whine and spin, Mayer takes out her phone, taps the screen a few times and places it against her ear. After waiting for a moment, she says, “Get out of there,” and hangs up. I’m about to ask her who she called, when the rotor chop grows too loud to be heard. I put on one of the headsets, sit back in the seat and buckle myself in. When a powerful wind slaps up against me, I realize I never closed the side door. The chopper can fly just fine with it open, so I stay in my seat, white knuckle-clutching the straps over my chest.

  Then I look through the open door.

  My mental calculations were off.

  The wave is here. And it’s bigger and faster than I thought.

  “Lift off!” I scream.

  There’re a few seconds of raw terror-filled stagnation that seem to draw out in slow motion, the wall of water growing steadily closer, and higher. And then we’re airborne, lifting up and away from the rooftop, ascending fast enough to crush me into my seat, while at the same time moving inland, away from the wave.

  But not nearly fast enough to outrun it.

  I watch the water’s approach through the open side door. High above Tel Aviv, I see the water slide away from the coast, gather into the wave, arc up and then return with a vengeance, sliding not just through the city, but over it, rising higher as it climbs up onto dry land, and crests a thousand feet up.

  The rotor whines.

  The pressure on my body increases as my blood pressure spikes. I feel like a cooked sausage, ready to burst.

  I try to scream, but fail.

  The water races at us, a wall of gray-blue.

  We rise steadily higher as the Black Hawk tilts at a steeper angle, turning my view upward to the sky, and the frothing white crest of a nation-devouring wave.

  The water arcs high, blots out the sun and then crashes downward, rushing toward the chopper, the open side door and my shrieking form. And in that moment of abject horror, of knowing that my life has come to an end, I find myself back in that foxhole mindset, begging an all-powerful being I don’t believe in to spare my life. My silent plight rises up, no doubt mingling with a chorus of others around the world, all crying out to be heard, to be spared.

  But there is no one listening.

  The roar of water and screaming voices, the scent of salt rushing past on the tsunami-propelled wind, the sight of civilization’s eradication; that is the only response forthcoming, and it’s not God speaking.

  It’s the Apocalypse Machine.

  Crashing water snuffs out my voice, and moments later, my soul.

  FIFTEEN YEARS LATER

  27

  Ayers

  The Great Inland Eyre Sea provided life, and took it away. That was the first lesson the children of Uluru were taught. Over the years, the lesson had been retaught, again and again, as each fishing venture returned either food or death. Often both. And while that was the framework that guided daily life, it was not the only instruction passed on by the elders, the last of whom had perished more than a year previously.

  The eldest child of Uluru, Jon Ayers, was a descendent of the ancient, who had once renamed the island upon which they eked out a living. Like the elders before him, he remembered the calamity that had reshaped the world. Their land had been larger then. A continent. A country. Australia. A desert then, humanity settled along the coast, where most perished when the waves rolled in and the waters surged up. Entire cities, unimaginable to the children of Uluru, now resided under the vast ocean. Eighteen million people had drowned in those days. Five million more had starved in the deserts. And the last million had become food for the Moyh-ma Lamang, the wild animals who rose up in the Destroyer’s wake. While the deadly energy that exploded out from the crushed nuclear power plants along the coast added to humanity’s suffering, it had spurred the Moyh-ma’s growth.

  That was the theory passed on from one of Uluru’s founding members. A scientist. In his time, Uluru had risen up from the barren earth
, glowing red in the setting sun’s light, a marvel to behold that attracted visitors from around the world. Now, it was an island, providing refuge to the last of Australia’s human residents.

  Ayers stood on the shore, dressed only in a pair of cargo shorts passed down from the elders who had come and gone. They were torn and frayed, but the pockets and belt loops still functioned well enough to hold some of the tools of his trade: pliers, two knives—one for defense, one for filleting—spare line, bandages, a magnifying glass and a pair of binoculars.

  His dark skin warmed in the morning sun. It was, he thought, the only true pleasure left in the world, aside from his wife, Adina. At sixteen, she was young enough to have no memory of the world before. Uluru and the one hundred twenty-one people residing on the island, were all she had ever known of the world.

  At twenty years old, Ayers remembered his parents, his house in Port Augusta, cartoons, fast food and the waters that rushed in to take it all away. His faint childhood memories served no purpose in the world remade, though. They brought him pain. Nothing more. So he squelched thoughts of the past and spoke of them only when Adina asked.

  The water was calm, but looked a little higher than the previous day. Each year, the tides rose higher, climbing the steep island shoreline. Before dying in the jaws of a Moyh-ma shark, the thirty-two year old elder had calculated that if the waters continued to rise steadily—as the world’s ice caps melted—Uluru would sink beneath the waves within fifty years. But he also said the waters would never reach that high. Uluru was safe. The rest of Australia…was not.

  Ayers had set foot on the mainland only twice, the first on a quest to find supplies, including soil, and the second to gauge the possibility of establishing a beachhead from which the children of Uluru could colonize the mainland. Both ventures had resulted in several deaths at the hands of the Moyh-ma, some at sea, and many more on land.

  The countryside had been overrun by new life, both animal and plant. While the former elders had recognized some of the creatures as ‘mutations’ of what had existed in the Old World, many of them were new, and hostile. While there was prey in abundance, feeding on new plant life, predators lurked in every shadow. Some of the Moyh-ma posed little threat, but the ones that did were larger than twenty men and had insatiable appetites.

  If one of them managed to cross the open sea without becoming a meal in the process, Uluru would be lost. Ayers knew he would have to lead his people across the Eyre Sea and stake a claim on the mainland. The survival of humanity depended on it. But to do that, he needed strong warriors, and to build that strength he needed food. So for now, they remained fishermen.

  “How are the winds today?” Adina asked.

  “Gentle.” Ayers slid his hand around her back and pulled her close. The canvas tunic she wore was rough against his arm, and it hid her body, but Adina’s light skin burned on cloudless days. When the rains came, she would shed her clothing, like most of the darker-skinned residents of Uluru, who had once been known as Aborigines. Ayers knew even less about his ancient ancestors than he did of the world he’d been born into, but he understood that they had mastered the dangerous bushlands of Australia, and he hoped that he could lead people to do so again.

  “I wasn’t asking about you,” she said, snuggling against his broad chest. Adina was a strong woman, a master fisher and a warrior, but she would not be joining today’s hunt, because she was also with child. When her stomach swelled and a sickness had overcome her, Payu, who at nineteen was Uluru’s eldest woman, had recognized the symptoms. She had helped with births before, but Adina’s would be the first she oversaw.

  Two years ago, during the Destroyer’s last passing, detectable only as a repeating earthquake, the air had become hard to breathe. Those born long before the calamity had grown ill and perished. Twenty three elders in six months. Ayers was the oldest child of the Old World to survive. Those born after the calamity never fell ill, their bodies already acclimated to the New World’s shifting atmosphere.

  Ayers pointed at the placid water. “The sea is far more gentle than me. I will need the oar team for today’s hunt.” The children of Uluru had six seaworthy vessels, two of them pillaged from the Old World, and four built by Uluru’s founders. The pillaged boats had towering sails and carried a large number of crew, or supplies. They were also safer, because of their size. They were crewed by two, five-man teams, who knew every knot and rigging, what the sound of a snapping sail indicated and how to predict the wind itself. The other four boats—long, slender craft—also required five-man teams. But those were comprised of four thickly muscled men to row and one woman, to hunt fish or defend against predators. With Adina pregnant, Ayers had taken her position as a hunter.

  “You will be careful,” Adina said.

  “When am I not?”

  She smiled up at him. “Every time your feet leave Uluru.”

  “I take risks,” he said. “But I’m not reckless. I will live to see our child born, and the children of Uluru return to the mainland.”

  “Unless the Destroyer returns.”

  He looked down at Adina, whose gaze had fallen to the ground. “There is little left for it to destroy.”

  “There is you,” she said. “The last change nearly killed you.”

  “My strength sustained me,” he said, squeezing her tightly. “It will continue to do so. During the hunt. Against the Moyh-ma. And in the Destroyer’s wake. Now…” He kissed her forehead and removed his arm from her canvas-wrapped waist. “Fetch the others. Two teams. The sun rises.”

  Alone once more, Ayers walked down the steep path that used to lead to the desert floor, but now stopped a hundred feet down, where they tied off the boats. He stopped at a tall shack that would eventually have to be moved higher up the path. He took eight oars and two long spears, each tipped with the sharpened bones of slain Moyh-ma. He then distributed the gear between two of the boats and stepped into the water. The scent of salt water had once invigorated people, connecting them to something primal. That was the way the elders had described it. But for Ayers, it reminded him that they lived on an island prison.

  We will be free, he thought, looking to the northeast, where land could be found, beyond the horizon, now glowing orange in the morning’s sun. But first, we must eat.

  Eight groggy men and one woman walked down the winding path, their bare feet slapping against the warm stone. Each of them was a seasoned hunter, but would have been considered children in the Old World. Now they were Uluru’s best hope of survival, of expansion and of freedom.

  Without words shared, they took their position in two boats and shoved off, paddling into the deep, dark blue, where food and monsters lurked. Ayers stood at the front of his long vessel, spear in hand, but not yet at the ready. His counterpart, Yindi, whose dark skin and hair matched his, stood at her bow, eyeing him. “You do intend to catch a meal today, I hope.”

  The men rowing behind her chuckled. The two teams had developed a friendly rivalry since Ayers had taken over for Adina. She and Yindi were close friends, and neither believed Ayers could do the job. He had done well enough, but he never brought home quite as much food as Yindi. Luckily, the sea was bountiful. There was food to spare. But the sea was also dangerous.

  “And live long enough to eat it.” Ayers hefted his spear into position and raised his chin to the water ahead. “There.”

  Yindi looked forward and frowned.

  A portion of ocean, eight feet across, was smoother than the rest. The ‘footprint’ could have been left by a whale, which would benefit them greatly, or it could have come from a Moyh-ma shark—a mutated shark still recognizable from the Old World—or from something worse. Ayers preferred hunting seals or large fish, as they were easier to haul back inside the boats, which left less blood in the water. Larger prey were considered worth the risk, but they usually had to fight for them, first against the prey animal, and then against creatures drawn by its blood.

  “A second,” Yindi said, point
ing with her spear and shouting, “Yiyah!”

  The men behind her dug their oars into the water, chasing a creature they had yet to identify.

  Ayers felt unsure, but ordered his men to follow. The hunt was on, and it would require both ships to complete. His fears faded as the wind whipped through his long hair. He held his ten-foot-long spear in his left hand, and cupped the bottom of it with his right.

  A turquoise glow slid past beneath the hull, white flesh reflecting the morning sun.

  “Beneath us!” he shouted, turning to watch the massive form pass by, hoping to identify it. The creature’s shape proved elusive, broken up by bands of darker color. All he knew was that he had never seen anything like it, and that was bad.

  Very bad.

  They had books on Uluru. Through study and experience, he could identify most creatures of the Old World, even those that had mutated. But something new…that meant they were dealing with a pure-blood Moyh-ma. The greatest danger from a new Moyh-ma was that no one knew how it would behave. Was it docile? Was it hunting them? Unpredictability made the Destroyer’s spawn lethal, even when they weren’t predatory.

  As the boat turned to follow the creature, he saw its footprint swirl to the surface ahead of them. And then again to the side of Yindi’s boat.

  “It’s circling!” he shouted, and they all knew what that meant. Prey moved in a straight line, away from them; predators circled. Luminous water surged up on the far side of Yindi’s boat. The beast was charging. “Yindi! To your side!”

  The four men holding oars did their jobs well, tipping away from the creature, plunging their bodies into the water, and flinging Yindi away. The reinforced hull would protect the oarsmen, but Yindi, the more valuable crew member, would need to be retrieved.

  A set of jaws, lined with human-like teeth, emerged from the water, a thick purple lip peeling back. A loud crack filled the air, as the jaws clamped down on the hull and squeezed. Wood cracked and splintered, but held, protecting the men still inside. Yindi hit the water and started swimming toward Ayers’s boat, which surged through the water, straight for the floundering craft.