She paused. “Goodbye.”
She hung up the phone.
She’d been unable to say the three words that mattered to the man she’d married in her final moments. She wasn’t certain in this time of clarity if she’d ever loved him or simply been drawn in by that overwhelming charisma. Not that he’d really loved her. Her lie of a life, fittingly, contained a loveless marriage of people using each other. And in recognizing that truth, she’d refused to utter the words “I love you.”
Instead, she’d simply said goodbye to a man who was, in effect, a stranger to her.
She let the phone drop from her fingers, listening to the audible thump as it struck the floor of her car. She watched the water pass over the top of the car and nodded once, accepting her fate as the great lake swallowed her whole.
seventeen
Wesley Cardinal
With his life on the line, Wesley found that he could compartmentalize the pain in his left leg. He rolled to his stomach and pressed himself up to his knees, shifting his weight to the relatively undamaged right leg, and looked up at the charging beast.
The creature had four legs terminating in padded paws with sharp claws. The prominent snout included a nose rumored to provide an excellent sense of smell along with a mouth full of sharp teeth, highlighted by four longer fangs in the front on the upper and lower jaws. The long tail pointed straight back as the creature bounded at him, pointy ears back, saliva dripping from its jowls.
Then it jumped.
Instinct took over. Wesley felt an almost otherworldly presence take over his body. The pain left him. He saw the creature moving in slow motion. He leaned into his shoulder—wondering, deep in his mind, if it was the injured shoulder or the really injured shoulder—tucked, and rolled, letting the creature fly by overhead. As he came out of the roll, he jerked his arm straight up, realizing only after he felt the ichor sliding down his arm, only after realizing his elevated arm had jerked back when the sharp point of the knife slid through the hair and skin and muscle of the beast’s belly.
It crashed into the scooter. Wesley looked down, only just realizing he’d been on both knees, and snapped out of his super warrior mode. His left leg, exposed through shredded fabric looked horrific, but he had little choice. Survive first. Treat wounds and feel pain later. He gritted his teeth and watch as his left knee rose from the ground, higher and higher, until his boot scraped the ground. He leaned forward, putting weight on the damaged leg. It hurt. But he figured the leg proved it could withstand… well, standing.
Running… probably not.
A low, guttural growl snapped his attention back to his predator, the sound indicative that the beast had every intent of making lunch of Wesley. The sharp teeth glinted, reflecting in the scant beams of sunlight slithering through the tree canopy. If the creature had been human, the look would be reminiscent of one worn by a hired killer who’d suffered some insult and now took the job personally.
His damaged leg wobbled. Great. His body was at its weakest point in years, and he was facing down a rabid beast ready to pounce with its pack ready to join in the feast.
Sometimes, his timing just sucked.
The creature bounded at him again, and again leaped directly at Wesley’s head, jaws opening wide. Wesley could almost feel its hot breath beating down on him, could smell the scent of rotting meat stuck in its teeth.
He ducked down once more as the creature flew at him, but this time, Wesley focused his energy into the blade, thrusting the blade straight up. When he felt the blade pierce matted hair and sinew, he ripped it backward with every bit of strength available from his battered body. The creature’s flight halted in mid-air, and it pivoted over the impaled blade and dropped to the ground, the heavy body pulled Wesley with it via the knife.
It landed with a resounding thud that seemed to echo throughout the tree-lined path.
Wesley yanked the knife out and rolled away, back toward the scooter. He came up in a defensive crouch, his left leg bent up at the knee and held the knife before him defensively, watching.
The beast whimpered. Wesley leaned back, startled. The sound reminded him of a child crying. The look in its eyes, the one Wesley had equated with the torturous glance of a hired killer, remained. It tried to roll over and get to its feet, seeking by instinct to charge its prey once more, but the effort proved taxing. The baleful eyes fell upon Wesley, the maniacal look gone, replaced by one of defeat. It couldn’t stand. Wesley experienced a strange feeling.
Sympathy.
The creature was suffering, slowing bleeding to death, internal organs spilled out on the dirt road. Wesley looked at the other creatures gathered around, and noticed the change in their posture. He’d thought the injury or death of the leader of the pack would send the rest scurrying away from the alpha’s conqueror. But the animals looked too scrawny, too hungry to let the death of their most powerful discourage their efforts to feed. The looks of hunger remained, but they’d found a new target.
They stared, not at Wesley, but at their dying comrade.
Wesley knew they’d leave him alone, prepared to cannibalize one of their own, to take the easy meal before them.
His sympathy kept him from leaving. Wesley instead moved back to the fallen predator. The beast tried to snarl, to show its fangs, but it was too weak. Wesley set his right hand on the creature’s head, and he felt the animal tremble at his touch.
“You fought well. You don’t deserve to suffer.” Wesley’s voice was a soothing whisper, and the beast’s quivering stopped at the sound of his voice.
Then Wesley raised the knife and drove it deep into the creature’s brain. He saw death instantly in the beast’s vacant eyes and in the cessation of the jagged breathing.
He pushed down on the head and pulled the knife out. After wiping the ichor off the blade into the dead creature’s matted hair, he crawled away toward the scooter, risking only a quick glance back at the pack.
They’d not attacked because in their social system, the alpha and the one striking the killing blow received the choicest bits of meat. They’d recognized he wasn’t one of their kind, but in their own way honored that rule, seeing his approach to the injured alpha as his right. Once they realized he’d left the carcass untouched, they moved. The padding feet reverberated on the grass and dirt as they moved up the road and from behind the roadside brush. They set upon the body and Wesley, though horrified, was unable to look away. The beasts snapped and clawed at each other, fighting for both food and pack prominence in the aftermath of the alpha’s death.
Wesley reached the scooter, pushed himself to his knees, and lifted the bike from the ground. He pushed the kickstand down and rested the bike upright. He used the bike for leverage as he rose unsteadily to his feet. He put his hands on the handlebars, gritted his teeth, and threw his right leg over the seat, begging his left to hold up long enough for him sit. The leg buckled slightly as it bore the full weight of his body, but he managed to get himself on the scooter before the damaged limb gave way. He kicked down on the starter with his right leg and winced at the extra weight once more on the weaker leg. As the engine purred to life, he shifted his weight to his right leg and used momentum to get his left boot moving quickly enough to lift the kickstand. He looked back at the Hinterlands beasts. Their snouts were covered in blood and gore as they feasted upon the remains of their fallen leader.
One glanced up, a chunk of muscle hanging from its jaws, and saw him.
A low growl sounded.
The pack, having torn most of the meat from the fallen alpha, saw their original target of pursuit, and their growls rose again in unison.
Wesley kicked off the ground and throttled to full speed, leaving a cloud of dust behind him. He listened to the sounds of padded feet hitting the dirt road behind him, and the hairs stood up on the back of his neck once more.
The pack had eaten dinner.
Now they wanted dessert.
eighteen
Deirdre Silver-Ligh
t
The sensation of weightlessness had the potential to be quite pleasant.
Deirdre closed her eyes and imagined a friendly breeze feathering her hair out behind her, imagined that some machine controlled her fall so that she need not worry about imminent death, and could merely enjoy the adrenaline rush and thrill of the fall.
Her eyes snapped open. That wasn’t meant to be. Nothing pleasant began with being pitched out the window of a thirty-five story building.
The lengthy fall gave her too much time to think. No one would kill her instantly and prevent the mental anguish already in place, or the physical agony to come on impact.
She shivered briefly at the memory of the conversation that set this entire sequence in motion, one held with her father years earlier, when he’d bemoaned the great problem vexing humanity as they’d rapidly rebuilt population over the preceding few centuries, building out infrastructure for the support of that population.
And she’d offered a solution to that problem, one based upon a technology revealed in the time capsule—but hidden from the bulk of the population—that left Oswald’s eyes bright with an excitement she’d rarely seen from him. He’d put her in charge of the research and development department at Diasteel soon after, telling her that her ability to marry technology and problem solving was one he couldn’t ignore. She’d proved him right in that appointment.
Given the carnage she’d already witnessed, she’d proved regrettably astute in her recommended course of action as well.
Her fall stopped.
Deirdre slammed into the side of the building across the street, crashing through a window and landing on a floor already swooning with the embrace of a thin sheen of Ravagers. She tried to stand but found it difficult with her arms still wrapped around Stephen’s suit. The floor pitched down toward the center of the structure, and she fell again, aware of the debris falling and dissolving around her, before she crashed to a stop once more.
She’d barely caught her breath when the new debris pile plunged beneath her. She dropped, saved again from certain death by the inch-thick Diasteel contraption surrounding her.
In her mind, she kept track of her progress to ground level. It was the only thing keeping her sane, the only thing keeping her body and mind from succumbing to the shock of the repeated falls and collisions, the horror at knowing this was what she’d wanted and envisioned for the lesser people of the planet.
Twenty-fifth floor. Collapse. Twenty-third floor. Tipped back toward the exterior of the building. Twentieth floor. Two collapses, occurring more quickly now. Fifteenth floor. They’d gotten into the interior skeleton of the building now, and the pancaking collapses accelerated, the Ravager swarm now so thick that anything remaining above her dissolved to Ravager dust before impacting her. Tenth. Eighth. Fifth. Third.
It stopped. Deirdre looked up. Had she counted wrong?
The debris pile beneath her legs gave way. She landed on her stomach and began sliding backwards until her boots hit something solid. Her momentum flipped her over the obstruction and onto her back.
She still clutched the empty suit to her chest, her Diasteel-enhanced arms refusing to surrender the suit to the mayhem.
The surface beneath her now was different. She couldn’t feel the texture of the material, but there was something different. She turned her head to the side. She wasn’t on a debris pile this time. She was lying on dirt, the dirt that remained after the Ravagers had devoured the concrete mixture transforming the planet’s surface into streets and sidewalks.
She pushed the suit aside and rolled to her stomach, then pushed herself to her knees and finally back to her feet. She took deep, calming breaths, forcing herself to fight back the nausea, the desire to tear the helmet off her head and vomit on the ground undulating beneath her like an ocean wave. The Ravagers weren’t coded to ignore dirt, but apparently found little of use there. Their actions did little more than till the soil by her feet.
Perhaps that was intentional. She hadn’t heard all the details of the coding requirements.
The waves of nausea passed. Deirdre focused. Forget the past. Forget her mistakes. Forget Roddy, forget Stephen, forget all the others who were either dead or complicit in this whole mess. Find innocent people. Save them using Stephen’s suit and the enhanced strength provided by her own.
That was her mission.
She watched the oozing mass of Ravagers roll over the suit, seeking raw material inside and out, before they rolled away, leaving the suit empty and unblemished. She moved to the arms and zipped up the body, which she’d not had time to do before her tumultuous slide through two collapsing buildings. That would prevent new patches of Ravagers from entering and testing the suit, keeping the interior pristine for whomever she might find. The problem was that when she did find someone, she’d have to open it up again to get someone inside. Given the incredible rate of destruction and replication, if she took the helmet off for even a few seconds, they’d swarm inside, dooming those she’d try to save from ever donning the protective material.
Unless…
She oriented herself south. There was a river there. To her left, to the east, was the great Lake bordering the cityplex. Those were the two closest major sources of water. She’d have to find a person, get them to the Lake or river without harm, and push the suit into the water with the living person, where they’d need to don the armor. And then they’d have to get the excess water back out of the suit somehow, and then…
She hung her head, feeling the despair return. They’d drown in the deep water before they could get the suit on, pulled under by the excess weight of the water they’d need inside to ensure the interior remained Ravager free.
Don’t give up. Find them first. Then look for a solution.
She steeled herself and started walking, listening for any noises indicative of someone still alive through the suit’s sound amplification system. She tried to think of other options. Perhaps she’d saturate the shoreline first so the Ravagers would stay back, giving her target the chance to don the suit in safety. Maybe she could curl around them on the ground, forming a U-shaped “wall” barring entry through the Ravagers’ coding about damaging Diasteel. No, that wouldn’t work. They’d just slide over her—leaving her unharmed—and attack the person she’d tried to protect.
Deirdre stopped walking, and the slight whirring sound generated by the muscle enhancers fell silent. She listened again. Was that… a voice?
She paused, focusing on the sound.
“Stay away, demons!”
It was unquestionably a man’s voice. The voice sounded strong, suggesting that he’d thus far avoided major injury. It also sounded oddly familiar. Where had she heard it before?
She oriented on the voice and began marching along, her speed enhanced by the suit that protected her while enabling her to haul along a second suit she hoped would save someone’s life.
What if the suit didn’t fit the man she marched toward? What if he tried to put the suit on... and it was too small? The doubts never stopped.
She steeled herself and kept moving. She’d figure it out. Somehow. For all she knew, the voice she heard belonged to the only person remaining alive on this part of the planet. And she knew nobody was coming to save her. This person might be the only living creature she’d encounter the rest of her life.
She didn’t want to think about what she’d do if she failed.
A new sound emerged as she neared the voice. Water. Running water. Her pulse quickened. If the man had managed to find water, he had a chance to live long enough for her to figure out a more permanent solution if the suit didn’t fit. And they’d not need to run to the river or lake, wasting time and giving the Ravagers a chance to overtake them.
She rounded the corner.
A ruptured water main below the surface triggered a geyser, spraying water everywhere and drenching the surroundings. The man stood well inside the ring of safety provided by the falling water, standing upon the surf
ace area still wet from the artificial rainstorm. His eyes were wild but determined. He stared down the oozing mass of Ravagers surrounding the waterlogged surface and human as if he were the prey surrounded by Hinterlands beasts.
He was definitely prey.
She accelerated her pace. “Hey!” she shouted.
The man’s head snapped around, his eyes widening in shock. He seemed genuinely surprised to find another living soul amidst the carnage and devastation. His eyes fell upon the suit, and he gestured to her frantically, motioning her forward.
Deirdre moved into the watery area and put the suit down. “I’m so glad to find—”
He held up his hand. “You’ve got to rinse that thing off, inside and out! I can’t touch it until I’m sure the oozing stuff is gone. Water’s the only thing that keeps it at bay.”
She nodded, somewhat surprised at the commanding tone. She hauled the suit toward a different part of the spray zone. If there were Ravagers on or in the suit, she wanted to ensure that they had no opportunity to destroy and replicate near him. The farther away, the better the chance they’d all be destroyed first.
She cleaned the suit in the water spray, then popped the helmet off. She let the falling water fill the helmet and then dumped it out before setting it aside. She realized it would take a significant amount of time to fill the suit as she’d filled the helmet. She hoisted the suit into the air—a feat she’d never accomplish without the assist from the muscle enhancers—and flipped it upside down, and moved closer to the water pipe itself. The spray would move directly into the suit drenching the inside, and—
“Stop!” The man’s voice took on a frantic nature. “Just let it fill up like you did with the helmet!”
“But it’ll take—”
“We don’t want any Ravagers that might be in the suit falling on the burst water main! If they hit the pipe, they’d have a chance to destroy it. If no more water comes up, I’m dead as soon as the water around here evaporates.”
Detonate (The Ravagers - Episode 2) Page 10