Burn

by G E Hathaway

  “Can you get to the cloud?”

  Noah looked at his laptop. “That’s my next goal. I may not be able to access the Grid cloud, but I might be able to create something as an alternative.”

  She studied him. He was still determinedly avoiding eye contact, so she took the moment to observe the shape of his nose, the curl of his lashes, the curve of his lips. He was surprisingly vulnerable-looking, a stark contrast from the man who had chased her in the cave.

  She had heard the voices too, the urge to hurt herself, to hurt others. She had sat in the cavern, waiting for him to wake up while fighting off the terrible thoughts in her own head. She felt she had gone mad, and she recognized that madness in Noah’s eyes when he had started to turn.

  She would have killed him if it hadn’t been for Talisa.

  Ellie had been so scared seeing Noah dying on the ground outside the cave. The goddess had healed him somehow. Placed her hands on him and turned the rain into medicine. She had healed all of them.

  Ellie wanted to talk to Noah about what happened in the cave. Tell him how sorry she was for hurting him.

  Instead she said, “show me.”

  * * *

  The garage was full of items stored neatly away by the previous owners, slowly collecting dust and cobwebs from years of neglect. Noah pulled open the garage door and cloud-filtered sunlight streamed in. He led Ellie toward the back, weaving through bicycles, auto supplies, and packing boxes to get to the server room.

  Every Grid house came equipped with its own room that served as the control for all the technology built into the infrastructure. This one was built into the back of the garage. Noah pulled open the door, revealing a small closet. A blank digital screen covered the wall.

  Ellie watched as he felt along the edges of the screen and yanked. The screen came forward, revealing a mass of wires and circuit boards behind it.

  “Chips, please,” he said.

  She handed him the microchips he had given her prior to coming into the garage. Their fingers touched, and she remembered how they had held on to each other in the desert and the cave. It had seemed so necessary then. Now, the slightest touch felt like fire against her skin. The thought of holding his hand suddenly seemed overwhelming.

  She couldn’t tell if Noah felt the same way.

  She watched as he worked, the muscles in his back moving against the thin fabric of his shirt. She blushed and turned away.

  “This might take a while,” he warned her, his voice muffled from inside the room.

  “That’s fine,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

  She looked around the room for ways to busy herself. She found an opened box of supplies sitting on the ground and carefully started sifting through it. She was surprised to see an impressive notebook collection. Rare in Grid times. She pulled out a dust-covered issue, the cover cracked with age and heat.

  The previous owner had been an artist, each page meticulously filled with surprisingly colorful paintings and sketches of people. Young children playing underneath a dining table. An older woman wearing a serious expression. A young man with tousled blond hair. A small dog. Dinner plates. Desserts. The man came up frequently, a recurring subject for the artist. Ellie couldn’t help thinking he had an uncanny resemblance to Noah.

  She looked up at him thoughtfully, watching as he sat down beside the open server room with his laptop in front of him. She looked at the book again, then back at him.

  “This is your house,” she said.

  Noah didn’t answer, but she saw his eyes flicker up at her briefly.

  “That’s why you wanted to come up to Marana. This house specifically, you know this house. Does Liam know? Where is your family?”

  “They left,” he grunted.

  “Without you?”

  “I told them to.”

  She looked sympathetically at him. He saw her expression and quickly stood up to go back into the server room.

  “Who was the artist?” she ventured to ask.

  “My little sister.”

  “She does beautiful work. She captured you perfectly.”

  “She was always the talented one.”

  Ellie carefully approached him from behind, still clutching the notebook in her hands. “I’m sorry you had to separate from your family.”

  He didn’t answer. She turned to put the book back in the box. “I’m surprised that she still painted on paper. It’s refreshing to see-”

  Noah grunted loudly and she heard a loud click. Suddenly the garage was bathed in overhead light.

  Ellie gasped.

  The house hummed to life. Noah closed the digital screen, and she was shocked to see that it now showed an options menu. The light from the screen was dazzlingly bright. Ellie blinked. It had been so long since she had seen something like it. The glow felt unnatural.

  “You fixed it!”

  Noah stepped out of the closet. “Don’t speak too soon, and it’s only just this house.”

  He led the way back inside. The interior had changed entirely, the walls and floor now omitting a blinding white light. He brandished his laptop and began typing.

  The room was so bright that Ellie lost her sense of place. She grabbed onto the kitchen countertop to keep from falling over and squeezed her eyes shut.

  “I’m sorry,” Noah said, “ I wasn’t prepared-”

  A moment later, the lights dimmed and she could see the furniture again. After a few more moments, the light changed.

  Noah had assigned jungle leaves to the floor, the amazon forest to one set of walls, and bricks to the other. They each took on a strikingly realistic texture, and for a split second she couldn’t tell she was in his house anymore. She looked at him and saw that he was grinning.

  “I can take control,” he said, “I created my own cloud right here.” He typed again, and the walls and floors returned to normal painted drywall and tile. A few more keys, and the kitchen came to life. The refrigerator door lit up, showing a menu of the contents inside and the online market where they could order more food.

  “Let me see if this works,” Noah said, “it was an update we had just rolled out right before the Fall. Let’s see…”

  They waited. Ellie followed his gaze to the kitchen counter. At first nothing happened. Then something appeared.

  Slowly at first, pixel by pixel, then entire pieces until she could make out tiny wheels and a tiny car frame. Three-dimensionally printed out of thin air.

  Ellie’s mouth dropped open. “How did you-?”

  Noah couldn’t stop grinning. “This was just the first step at Utopian Industries, using matter from the air. It’s not just radio waves and signals we can transfer, we can now move molecules. Small things for now, but the plan was to make something bigger. Change the world of manufacturing entirely. Change transportation.”

  Ellie plucked the car off the counter and inspected it closely. “You’re doing magic now, Noah.”

  He came over to her and looked over her shoulder. His breath tickled her neck as he spoke.

  “Do you see the design? Exactly like the real thing. The trick was to replicate the mechanisms, so we can eventually move on to printing the real thing.”

  Ellie turned to look at him. “This is amazing! You were able to bring back the Grid, this means so many things, we could turn on the rest of this neighborhood, transport people up here so they could get out of the heat. We can reactivate the grocery stores, begin building our food supplies, we can-”

  He kissed her hungrily on the mouth.

  She felt his lips crushing against her own, his hands cupped gently around her face and neck, and her mind reeled. His body felt firm and warm, and he smelled like sandalwood and mint.

  He pulled away.

  “I am so sorry,” he said breathlessly. “I didn’t really think that through, I shouldn’t have-”

  “No,” she corrected him, “I want it.”

  This time she
kissed him, and they melted against each other. Insecurities and memories from the cave faded away until they only thought of this moment, and their burning desire, and nothing else.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The wind howled. Liam considered driving back the way they came, breaking through the sand barrier and driving back to Marana.

  “I’m going inside,” Talisa said. She opened her car door. Fragments of sand blew into the compartment, and Liam shielded his eyes with his hands. He opened his door and stood up, the wind whipping at his hair and clothes.

  “How is he doing this?” he shouted. “I thought you controlled the wind?”

  “The dust devils work for him,” she yelled back.

  He looked at the swirling brown wall, imagining another spiritual being turning the cyclone on its axis, bending it to its every will.

  Sand sliced his face. He reached up and pulled away blood-spotted hands. He tried to duck back into the car, but the vehicle doors stayed open, pinned against the wind. Sand filled his vision and he cried out in pain.

  Warm fingers suddenly wrapped around his hand and pulled. He stumbled blindly through the desert, feet tripping over rocks and pavestone until they reached the mission entrance. The smell of rain filled his nostrils as Talisa released a gust wind against the sand and a small whirlwind erupted on the stoop. The heavy wooden doors groaned and she pulled him inside.

  It was silent, a heavy stillness that contrasted sharply with the dampened roar of the storm now lingering outside the walls. Liam’s eyes burned. He could make out the soft glow of candles hanging from the walls and the ceilings. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision.

  An acrid smell filled the inside of the mission, of burning fibers and…

  His vision cleared.

  Bodies littered the floor and draped over pews in various stages of cremation, their skin blackened and crumbling to ash. Bodies of the mission staff, of spiritual pilgrims seeking shelter. One lay stretched on the floor, arms outreached as if to crawl away. Deep scratches marked the hard wood.

  He looked at Talisa for help, but she only looked around the room with resigned dolefulness. She had seen this before.

  “Help!” a voice shrieked from the back of the chancel, where a small group of people huddled in a corner. They clutched each other, tears streaking their ash-covered cheeks. Some were children.

  Something moved behind the altar, and Liam recognized the sun god as he stood up from the priest’s chair. He wore a crisp, tan suit and a trilby hat, a stark juxtaposition from the surrounding massacre.

  Liam didn’t hesitate. He raised his gun and marched down the aisle, firing squarely into the god’s chest. The gun shots echoed loudly off the mission walls, drowning out the terrified screams coming from the back of the room. He didn’t stop until he stood before the altar steps.

  The sun god was still on his feet, but he wavered slightly and looked down at his chest. Bright crimson spots appeared on his bleach white dress shirt, seeping into the fabric and spreading until his entire front turned red.

  “Liam!” Talisa warned from the back of the room.

  Liam trained his gun on the sun god’s face. “Stand down!”

  The sun god blinked and looked back at Talisa. His lips quirked in amusement. “Is this mortal your protector now?” he asked.

  “Stand down!” Liam repeated. The group behind the god was now huddled tightly on the floor, covering their eyes and ears. Sobs pierced the air.

  The sun god looked at him for a long moment, hunched over from his wounds. Blood dripped down his shoes and pooled onto the floor. Liam held his breath, waiting for the slightest movement to give him permission to place a bullet right into his brain.

  The sun god smiled, his teeth stained red. “You foolish boy.”

  Then he changed.

  They all watched in horror as the sun god grew taller and larger, his clothes fading away to be replaced with shining gold armor. The trilby became a monstrance-shaped crown atop his head. His hair and skin gleamed as if he were made from sunlight himself. His amber eyes pierced into Liam’s as he straightened up, no longer bending under the weight of the gunshot wounds.

  The sun god marched down the steps. Liam fired the remaining bullets at his head, but he didn’t stop. Strong hands lifted Liam off the ground.

  Liam sailed through the air. His back hit the edge of the last pew and he landed on the limestone floor, gun sliding out of reach. His writhed in pain as spots danced across his vision.

  “No!” Talisa shouted. Liam heard her moccasins pad quietly across the floor as she ran down the aisle. The smell of rain returned. Wind whipped at his hair and she thrust out her hands. A microburst exploded down the aisle, sending the sun god backwards into the altar.

  Liam sat up, eyes wide.

  The storm was inside the building now, but it wasn’t the sun god’s. Talisa’s eyes sparked with electricty as a dark cloud materialized beneath the rafters. Liam felt the static in the air, his body hair standing on end. Injuries momentarily forgotten, he sprang to his feet and ran along the side of the room to the back of the chancel, dodging blackened bodies along the way.

  Talisa advanced on the altar.

  “You’ll never learn,” the sun god bellowed at her.

  She raised her arms, and lightning struck the towers outside with a deafening crack. The ceiling shook and dust rained down upon them.

  The sun god smiled. “Threatening this house won’t do anything against me.”

  The building ripped apart above them.

  Sand filled the room, and Talisa pushed the wind back to keep from getting buried. Noah looked up to see pieces of the roof vanish from sight, crashing to the earth outside and shaking the ground. Lightning arched across the sky.

  “We need to get out!” Liam crouched down beside the group. A baby wailed in the arms of a shaking woman as she clutched her two children against her. A man wrapped his arms around all of them. “Follow me!”

  He didn’t have a chance to guide them out. The sun god heard him and turned his attention away from Talisa and toward them.

  “No!” the sun god roared, and pushed out his hand.

  A great energy expelled from him and filled the room with blinding light. Liam fell back and hit his head against the wall. He only had time to see the sun god turn on Talisa, then all went black.

  * * *

  When Liam regained consciousness, the room was quiet again. He was now lying on the altar floor close to the priest’s chair, looking up at the expanse of sky swirling through the open ceiling. The wind whistled against his ears. His head throbbed.

  “You awaken.”

  The sun god sat in the chair and looked at him from an impressive height, his armored body gleaming in the candlelight. Liam glanced up at the ceiling. The cloud was gone. Where was Talisa?

  He heard whimpering from beside him. He turned his head just enough to see that he was a part of a row of people stationed along the front of the altar. A man sat to his right, crouched in a tight ball directly in front of the sun god. On his left sat the woman, the child clinging tightly to her as she cradled the baby in her arms. He looked around the room. Talisa was nowhere to be seen.

  The sun god saw him. “She’s not here. She abandoned you.”

  “She wouldn’t do that.” Liam’s voice was hoarse.

  “Then where is she?”

  Liam didn’t have an answer. He sat up slowly and looked around for his gun. It was still under the last pew, but it didn’t matter. The bullets were spent.

  The sun god stood up, and the woman to his left started to cry.

  “Throughout the years all the way to the days of creation, humans have come up with the most delightful stories,” the sun god said. “Would you like to hear my favorite?” He looked down at Liam.

  No one answered.

  “You may be familiar with it. It’s a new one, maybe only a couple of centuries old. One blustery day,
Cloud was shining in the sky and noticed a man walking down the street wearing a particularly heavy overcoat. Feeling competitive, Cloud turned to Sun and said ‘I bet I can get that man to remove his coat faster than you can.’ Sun looked at the man, considered the challenge, and accepted.

  “Feeling confident, Cloud blew and blew, bringing up a mighty storm and sending it down against the man. Cloud thought the coat would fly right off, but the man did something Cloud did not expect. He pulled the overcoat even closer around him, zipped it up and pulled on the hood. No matter how hard Cloud blew, the overcoat was not coming off. Finally Cloud gave up, and it was Sun’s turn to try.

  “Sun was more patient than Cloud. Sun shone and shone, sending waves of warmth onto the man. Sweat appeared on the man’s forehead and he took off his hood. Then he unzipped the front. Finally, when the warmth was too much for him, he removed his overcoat entirely and held it over his arm. Sun had won the challenge.”

  The sun god stopped in front of Liam. “So you see,” he said, “even now, humans acknowledge the superior strength of the sun over the storm. Talisa- is that the name she has given herself? Talisa may think she can stop me, but she never will. She has always failed.”

  Liam snorted rudely. “That wasn’t the point of the story.”

  The sun god ignored him. He paced across the altar, stopping in front of the man curled up on the floor. The man was trembling, his arms covering his head.

  “Please don’t,” he whimpered, his voice muffled against the floor. “Please don’t hurt me.”

  Liam looked back at the charred bodies scattered around the room, then looked at the sun god in alarm.

  “You humans are finally starting to get it,” the sun god continued. “Once upon a time, your civilizations feared me. You gave sacrifices and fought wars in my name. Then you forgot about me. You didn’t appreciate my love. Do I not keep you alive? Does my light not protect you from the dark? Do I not keep you warm, and feed your crops so you can eat? Ungrateful subjects, you are, and over time I lost my influence over you. But now I am back. And as you grow to fear me once again, I only grow in power.” His skin radiated light.