Burn

by G E Hathaway

  “Your only salvation now is to bring back the Grid and neutralize all our natural forces.”

  “You understand what that means, right? Noah told you himself. You’ll die.”

  She had the grace to look sad. “But it will bring peace. Until then, I can perhaps bring you peace, if you like.”

  He blinked in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “There’s a way you can see her one last time. In the world beyond, where we all resided until the Grid finally fell.”

  Liam hesitated. He had heard stories about mortals going to visit the land of the dead. He remembered that a lot of them didn’t really end well.

  “I can send you there for only a short amount of time,” she offered. “It won’t hurt you.”

  “Can she be brought back?” Liam asked, daring to look hopeful. She gave him piteous look, and he flushed.

  “I do not advise you try.”

  She didn’t explain why, but there was foreboding in her voice and Liam suddenly shivered. The temperature in the room had dropped significantly in the last few minutes.

  “Do you wish to go?” she asked.

  Liam had told Talisa that the world would be a better place if she was gone. He hadn’t realized how much he hadn’t meant it, and now her human form was gone. Perhaps forever.

  “Yes,” he said. “I want to go.”

  Winter stepped forward, and he felt a draft of wind. He realized that the dropping temperature had come from her. She held out her hand, the skin as white as snow.

  “The world beyond does not look the same for everyone,” she warned, “but it will be safe for you.”

  She touched his forehead, and he was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The roof of the Circle K floated in suspended animation over its buckling walls, windows shattered outward, debris forever frozen in mid-demolition. An impermeable brown wall clouded the air, a slow-moving cyclone of sand and dust that blocked the city from view. The temperature was warm, just like how he remembered.

  The silence was deafening.

  Liam stood in the parking lot for a minute, trying to find his bearings. He couldn’t see anything past the sandstorm. He turned around to face the street and saw his Grid car parked beside the sidewalk. He had forgotten how clean it looked before the desert romps, rainstorms, and house explosion.

  He looked down. He was still wearing the battered clothes from Elysian Field 5, damp with sweat and caked blood.

  This wasn’t the real past, then.

  He startled at a noise coming from the edge of the building, and he turned to see a coyote picking carefully through the rubble. He watched it for a moment as it raised its head and looked calmly back at him. Its fur coat was a lustrous color, a stark contrast to the matted and bloodied coat he had seen in Talisa’s arms. Its eyes were a vivid shade of amber.

  Liam tensed.

  The coyote considered him, then moved swiftly along the side of the building, its feet padding softly on the pavement. Liam walked slowly across the parking lot, tracking the animal as it made its way through a break in the wall and into the convenience store. If it was concerned about the the floating roof overhead, it didn’t show it.

  Then Liam saw her, and he forgot about the roof.

  Talisa stood in the middle of the wreckage, her back to him, wet hair pressed against her neck and shoulders. She wore the same rags she had been wearing when he first met her. Her feet were bare, her arms dangling limply at her side. The coyote licked its lips and sat down next to her.

  Liam approached slowly. His feet slipped on the loose debris, sending rocks rolling into the store, and he saw her flinch.

  “Talisa,” he said.

  The coyote stared at him, unblinking.

  “I… I’ve been thinking about what I said to you in the car,” Liam continued. “It wasn’t right. None of this is your fault. You needed my help, and I failed you.”

  He stepped into the convenience store and felt solid linoleum beneath his feet. He took in the shelves and produce stocks, noting the fruits and vegetables strewn across the floor. It was hard to believe none of it was real.

  Still, Talisa did not move. The coyote took her unresponsiveness as a sign of hostility, and it bared its teeth at Liam.

  “Please,” he said quickly. “I don’t know how much longer I can stay here.”

  If she chose never to talk to him again, he wouldn’t blame her. He looked up at the roof, struck by its impossible weightlessness. If it fell on him, would he die in this world?

  “You shouldn’t be here,” she said suddenly.

  His heart leapt. “Come back with me,” he blurted out.

  “I cannot.”

  “We can try.”

  She slowly turned around, and he recoiled.

  Talisa may have been wearing the same clothes from the time they first met, but now she had a gaping bloody wound in the center of chest, staining the fabric and dripping onto the floor. Her eyes were red, her skin pale. The coyote looked up at her and licked its lips.

  “I can’t go back,” she said.

  “H-how are you still-?”

  She smiled sadly. “It’s too late for me, Liam. It’s not my time anymore. I have to stay.”

  The sandstorm continued to swirl slowly around the building. Liam’s eyes stung and he blinked rapidly. “If the sun god could break out of his chains, so can you.”

  Talisa shook her head. “But I realize now that he never did break out of his chains. Purifying the earth is what he has done since the beginning of time. And you were right. You musn’t be fooled by my form. In our human forms, we have done terrible things. I have punished earlier societies. I have accepted blood sacrifices. I sent the great flood to cover the earth.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “You musn’t protect me. You must protect yourself.”

  Liam felt queasy. “Noah is going to turn the Grid back on,” he said. “Winter says it’s the only way to neutralize him now.”

  “The Grid will protect you from us. You were right. This is an endless battle, and life would be better for you if none of us were in our human forms. In our human forms, we cause destruction beyond intended.”

  “Would we ever see you again?”

  The coyote nuzzled her arm and she rubbed its ears affectionately. “I cannot exist like this when the Grid is on. Perhaps I will live again in a different form. I remember when I was only the rain and the clouds, and I liked it then. I can like it again.”

  Liam suddenly longed to touch her. Feel her skin and hair and all the things that made her a human before she no longer was one. His eyes stopped on her gaping wound.

  “Does it hurt?” He swallowed hard, feeling a lump in his throat.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.” His eyes stung, and this time it wasn’t from the sand.

  “You confirmed for me why life has always been worth fighting for, and I’m glad to have fought that battle all these years. Now, Winter resumes the fight.”

  “Noah shouldn’t have separated you and Ellie from us,” he said between gritted teeth. “We shouldn’t have split up like that.”

  “Noah did what he thought was right, he was trying to get us to safety.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “And Noah needs you now more than ever. He does not yet know the role he plays in all this. Nor the role you will also play.”

  “What roles?”

  “To bring balance.”

  “To the weather?”

  She smiled at him. It was first real smile he had ever seen on her, and he was struck by her beauty.

  “I don’t understand,” he stammered.

  Her smile slowly faded away. “Good-bye, Liam.”

  She reached out with her hand, and he eagerly moved forward. Her fingers rested against his own, and before he could begin to pull her out of the building, time suddenly resumed around them. The sounds of twisting metal and crumbling brick filled the air, assaulting his senses. The w
alls fell away and the sandstorm closed in. He felt the sudden gush of air as the roof fell on them, saw the hair blow across Talisa’s face and he opened his mouth to scream-

  He stood in front of Winter again. He stared at her with wide eyes, his heart hammering inside his chest.

  “The roof is falling-”

  “She’s fine,” Winter said, “the connection fell apart when she touched you. You couldn’t possibly have brought her back.”

  No time seemed to have passed. The storm still raged outside the glass windows. How long had Noah been gone?

  “I hope you found peace there,” Winter said.

  Liam did not feel at peace at all. “She said Noah and I will bring balance,” he said.

  Winter looked quizzically at him, but before she could respond they heard a deafening crash. The whole building shook. Liam looked up at the ceiling.

  “That came from above,” he said. “Noah!”

  “Summer has come,” Winter said. And before Liam could protest, she disappeared in a flurry of snowflakes, leaving an icy void where she had been standing.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Snow filtered into the building, instantly chilling Noah to the bone in his tattered, sweat-soaked clothes. The storm raged angrily above as beams of light cut through the clouds. He looked around desperately for his GridLight. It rested twenty feet away from him, inches from the glass wall.

  The sun god studied him with his fiery eyes, unimpressed. He walked forward, dragging the tip of his sword against the stone floor. Noah felt the ground verberate with each step, and he crawled backwards to keep distance between them.

  “I remember when I first woke up,” the sun god said, his voice deep, rumbling painfully against Noah’s ears. “It was like I had come out of a dream I didn’t know I was in, back in a reality I didn’t realize I had been missing. Your Grid fell for a reason, because it’s unnatural. Because you mortals were doing something you shouldn’t be doing. Tampering with the laws of nature. Know your true place as a servant to the gods, and you will receive our mercy.”

  The sunlight was starting to pierce the clouds directly overhead. Golden light radiated down through the glass ceiling, and Noah felt its burning heat. “Death is not mercy!”

  The sun god lifted his sword into the air and rested it casually on his armored shoulder. “My purity is mercy. As the Great Flood rid the early world of sin, I will burn this world of its cancer.”

  “Then who will be left to worship you?” Noah spat, getting to his feet. “This isn’t the dark ages, people know better. They know the scientific reasons for why things happen. You lost power because the people realized you were a scam! Horror stories to keep society in line by those who were power-hungry and manipulative!”

  “Then why am I here now?” Fire flared from the sun god’s eyes. “You built your Grid to protect yourselves from the forces of nature, yet the Grid is now gone, and I am still here. You believe you can live in a world without us. You are nothing but fools chasing utopia.”

  “Yes we are,” Noah clenched his teeth. “Because anything is better than putting up with you and your delusional visions of grandeur.”

  The sun god’s eyes narrowed as he lifted his sword into the air. Noah ran across the room. A terrible roar filled the air, and all the windows burst at once. Shards of glass rained down on top of them. Snow and rain filled his vision. The air was so cold that he couldn’t breathe. His fingers closed around the GridLight, and he whipped around, ready to turn it on-

  Intense heat exploded around his body and he screamed.

  A beam of sunlight shone down on him, burning into his skin. He felt like he was on fire.

  Then the beam disappeared.

  He lay face down on the ground, the GridLight still in one hand. His body hair had singed and was now smoking slightly. Black dots danced before his eyes.

  The sunbeams were gone, and Winter now stood in the middle of the room. Snow clouds swirled overhead, filling the building until Noah thought the wind would push right over the edge and into the open air.

  Even in the chaos, he heard the sun god laugh.

  Noah looked at the desk in the middle of the room, vulnerable and exposed to the elements.

  “Get him out of here!” he yelled. The wind swallowed up his voice, but he saw Winter look over her shoulder at him and give a tiny nod.

  Then she turned into water vapor and cloud. He watched as she flew at the sun god, and then Noah’s vision filled with water and smoke.

  “Noah, get up!”

  The voice was faint. Something was shaking him now.

  When had he lost consciousness?

  Liam’s face hovered over him, brows furrowed. “Are you okay?”

  “What happened?”

  Liam pulled him to a sitting position. The room was empty, metal and glass littered the floor from the crumbled ceiling. The wind howled, his teeth were chattering. He looked at Liam, whose lips were turning blue. The sky churned above, and he realized where the gods had gone.

  Then he looked at the desk. It sat there amidst the rubble, a seemingly harmless piece of furniture in the middle of a battlefield.

  Noah grabbed his GridLight and got to his feet.

  “We won’t have much time,” Liam said. Noah nodded. Glass crunched beneath his shoes. Liam followed behind. The desk was covered in debris.

  “Help me,” he said, and together they worked quickly to clear the polished black surface of the glass shards.

  “I saw Talisa,” Liam said. “She knows what we’re doing.”

  Noah didn’t respond. He picked up his GridLight again and aimed it down on the desk. He flipped the switch and waited.

  At first nothing happened. They stood in silence, shivering against the winter storm. Noah didn’t dare to breathe.

  Then the lights turned on and something appeared above the desk. A single projection asking for a password.

  Liam sucked in air. “Can you…?”

  “Hold this,” Noah handed him the GridLight, and Liam held it over head. Noah swiped his hand over the desk. He heard the familiar tone of the activated keyboard. As he typed in the air, keys appeared as he made contact with his fingertips, glowing briefly before fading back into nothingness.

  They waited for a moment, then the projection was replaced by a much larger screen. Noah recognized the Utopian Industries filing software.

  “My employee key still works,” he whispered. “The cloud...it’s still on. It’s sending a feed.”

  He started typing again, falling easily back into the rhythm he knew so intimately from his life before. “Hal,” he called out, “Hal are you there?”

  He nearly fainted when he heard the familiar sound of his old office assistant coming out of the desk speakers.

  “Hello Mister Parker, long time no see.”

  Noah’s vision was blurry and he blinked back tears. “Hal, you’re still here.”

  “Who is that?” Liam asked.

  “Hal worked with me at Utopian Industries, he’s a real smartass.”

  “Better a smartass than a dumbass,” Hal retorted, and Noah grinned. Even in the most dire of situations, Hal always knew how to cheer him up.

  “Hal, find the satellite configurations, let’s figure out why it’s not turned on.”

  The projection showed a spinning wheel while Hal searched the network. Noah felt something cold land on his head and he looked up. It was starting to hail. Tiny white balls of ice bounced off the desk and scattered across the floor.

  “Winter is losing temperature,” Liam said. “It’s not cold enough for snow anymore.”

  “Hurry, Hal,” Noah said.

  “I’m going as fast as I can, here,” Hal said, and under different circumstances Liam would have been amused to hear the irritability dripping from the disembodied computer voice.

  The projection changed, and now they stared at a 3D rendering of a cylindrical satellite, its solar panels
stretched out on all sides.

  “The panels,” Noah pointed. “They’ve been closed.”

  “Why?” Liam demanded.

  “Hell if I know. Hal, redirect the panels twenty degrees west!”

  Before Noah could hear Hal’s response, something large dropped down onto the desk with incredible force, and both he and Liam were propelled backwards.

  Noah rolled over to find himself lying just inches away from the edge of the building. The wind seemed to blow even harder, threatening to drag him over and down one-hundred and twenty floors to his death. His head spun. He rolled back away and looked around for Liam. He was only a few feet away from him, unresponsive.

  The wind whistled loudly in his ears. The clouds were breaking up overhead, allowing the sun rays to stream towards the earth.

  The sun god stood in the middle of the room on top of the smoldering remains of the desk.

  Noah’s heart sank. Hal was gone. Winter was gone. They had lost.

  He felt a jolt go through his body like a spark of electricity, and he closed his eyes. The clouds evened out and broke apart into giant fluffy cotton balls. The icy wind died down, forming a pleasantly cool breeze that brushed gently against his skin. He closed his eyes and savored the moment. It was a surprisingly beautiful afternoon.

  He wanted to be at peace before he died.

  He thought of Liam and how hard Liam had fought for what he believed in, even if it meant taking a strange woman into their care. He thought of his mother and sister, living somewhere far away. He thought of Talisa and the way she had looked at him with such fright back in his home.

  He thought of Ellie, and his heart ached at the possibility of never seeing her again, of how he unknowingly sent her out to her death. He remembered the way she felt against his skin and the way she smelled and her smile.

  He could feel the warm sun on his face now. If she was still alive, he hoped that she would remember him fondly as well.

  Then he opened his eyes.

  The sun on his face. The sun-

  He wasn’t burning.

  He sat up.

  The sun god stood in the center of the room, but his sword was gone and he wasn’t smiling. He looked down at his hands, turning them over as if puzzled by them.