Fuck.
She moved carefully over the slick catwalk, checking out each cylinder, moving down from level to level. From time to time, she touched one of them, and could feel its emanating cold even through her thick gloves. Luckily, the digital readout on most of them showed that the patients were indeed alive and well. There would be a salvage operation, repairs and a delay, but the people would survive after all.
Not all of them though. Lisa stripped off a glove and lowered herself to a squat beside one of the dead patients, using flashlight, fingertips, and eyes to examine the encased tubing around the cylinder. The tubing’s purpose was to regulate the flow of liquid nitrogen to the cylinder; hence, it was crucial to the survival of the patient. Instinctively, she reached around the casing until her hand rested between the cylinder and the tube, running her fingertips over a startlingly hot, split metal surface.
“Shit!” Startled, she dropped the flashlight and snatched her hand away, falling onto her rump against the catwalk. Her fingers were already blistered. Both the casing and the tube should have been cold, stone cold - so they must have been directly struck by a ricochet from the rockfall, causing the systems to go haywire, killing the patient within.
Dead…
In a blurry, feverish haze, overwhelmed with horror, Lisa found herself crawling on the gently swaying first-level catwalk, pausing twice to stop and retch – so violently it left her gasping and her back and abdominal muscles torn. The nausea was so fierce, so disabling, so outright painful that it displaced all previous thoughts. After a moment, she rose to her feet, clutching the railing with all that remained of her strength. The world spun dizzyingly again, but she gritted her teeth and took one step, then another.
Two levels above her, the emergency door rumbled open. She stared myopically up at the entrance with pure horror. Two blurred figures stepped onto the upper catwalk, women, both of them dressed strangely. They entered and moved toward the cylinders on the top level.
The older one lifted a small, dark device and pointed it at one of the cylinders, then consulted its readout and said, in a strained voice, “There is no damage. He’s alive in there.”
She squinted up at the two, struggling to focus, to decide in her confusion what should be done. The intruder had a bizarre accent she couldn’t place. Was she enemy or friend? How did she get here so quickly, and where had she gotten that amazing chitin-like device?
“Hey!” Lisa called. “Who are you?”
Silence followed. Then, the intruder leaned over the railing and opened fire without warning. Bullets zinged off the metal scaffolding; Lisa at once dove for cover behind the railings, but it was too late. More bullets slammed into her, cutting her down. Her head erupted in a blast of blood and brain tissue. Her body fell forward, slapping down violently onto the catwalk, coating the grilled metal a deep, crimson red.
Kimberley Stefánsson peered over the railing to see if the woman was dead. When she saw the body, she turned away, her right hand cupped over her mouth. “I’m hallucinating now,” she moaned. “This isn’t happening. Oh, my God. Lora! What have you done?”
At last, Lorelei Chen lowered the pistol and blinked, thunderstruck, at what had just happened. She stared down at the bloody, gory corpse with a shocked, remorseful expression which slowly changed into perfect impassivity, then looked up at Kim. “She would have tried to stop us,” she said coldly. “I’m sorry, Kimberley, but… we must not fail.” She turned back to Cris’ cylinder, and began punching buttons on the control panel.
“No,” Kim said. “Lora, wait. I can’t let you do this. I can’t let you kill my father.”
Chen paused, then turned to look at her. “We’ve talked about this, Kimberley. There is no other way.”
“Are you sure?” Kim said. Tears started in her eyes. Gritting her teeth against them, she took a deep breath. Cry later, she thought. Getting through to Lora is more important. “If you do this, Lora, what makes you any better than the enemy you are trying to defeat? Look at the woman you just murdered! At what cost do you expect to achieve your ‘victory’? Think of the death and destruction you are sowing everywhere you go!” The tears flowed freely now, and Kim fell to her knees, sobbing profusely. “Please.”
Chen’s eyes widened, then dropped. “You’re right,” she whispered. She looked down at the pistol in her hand. “What am I becoming? It’s all my fault. I could have stopped it before, Kim, and none of this would have happened. I could have stopped him from ever entering that wormhole and everybody would still be alive. Everybody I’ve killed.” Tears streamed down her face, and for a second Kim was happy she was crying, satisfied she finally saw how stupid she had been. She wanted to agree with her.
Is it worth it?
Grinding her teeth, Chen quickly slid the pistol into the vertical slit on her combat suit, then walked away.
She didn’t go far, but leaned against the wall, breathing heavily, composing herself. Then, when she thought she could do it, she went back to the cylinder, where Kimberley Stefánsson sat, still crying.
Chen wiped her tears. “That was wrong of me,” she said quietly. “Killing that innocent woman.”
“I’m sorry,” Kim said again.
“You are not to blame,” Chen said. “The Eidolon is to blame. The Combine are to blame. You are not. Feeling guilty isn’t going to help us right now. There must be another way to stop them. We just need to figure out how.”
Kim vented a bitter laugh. “No,” she said simply.
“What?”
“No, Lora. I’m… I’m tired of this running, this hiding. I… I can’t do it anymore.” Her words dissolved into emotion. Fear, grief, hope. Wordlessly, she reached for Chen, to give her the equivalent of a squeeze on the hand, and found herself instead in a tight, desperate embrace. “If you choose to continue this journey, you will have to do it alone.”
“But I’m supposed to protect you,” Chen said heavily.
“And you have,” Kim reassured her. “I’m grateful for everything you’ve done. But… the time has come for you to let me go now. I can no longer be a part of this. The world I came from, and everybody I knew and loved there, is gone. I… If you want to protect me, you will let me stay here with my dad. He’s all I have left.”
“But what about the Combine? If I leave you here, they will find you.”
“Then let them find me,” Kim said. “If what you say is true, Lora, and you can find a way to stop all this, then I have faith that you will succeed. Sometimes, a little faith is all we need.”
Chen forced a smile. “Right.” Her emotions were mixed. She didn’t know how she really felt, about the idea of leaving Kim here or about what might happen in the future. Everything seemed grey and clouded, but she knew how she felt about having faith. Whatever happened, she had to do the right thing; that was just how things were. And the right thing here was simple, if not easy.
She was unable to speak for a long moment.
“Goodbye, Kim,” she said finally.
15
The world went dark.
Not just a darkened sky – no mere nightfall could produce such utter darkness. No, this was the dark of captivity, confinement, blindness. Nothing visible, no light, no shadow, only a smothering visual shroud. A stark contrast to the blinding lights and sudden bursts of colour from just before.
I struggle to make sense of my surroundings. Where am I?
Nothing but blankness answers, and an instant later a far larger question looms up, erasing the first. Who am I?
A wave of panic rises deep within, bile carried along its edge, threatening to drown me as I realise I cannot remember. I do not know who I am!
Calm, I tell myself. Calm. I force the panic down, pushing it back by sheer will, refusing to let it envelop me. What do you remember, then?
Nothing. No, brief flashes. A battle. An invasion. Horrid, horrible foes, great monstrous beings surrounding me, dwarfing me. Desperation, a last frenzied struggle. The feel of sinewy flesh p
inning me, choking me, killing me. The light fading around me as the numbness creeps in.
And now this.
Where am I? I stretch my senses to their limit, probing my surroundings. The results, though hazy and disjointed, form a single conclusion.
I am being carried.
I can feel the movement, the gentle rocking motion. Not directly – something cushions me, envelops me, holds me all around. But that cushioning is moving, and me with it.
I try lashing out, but my limbs will not cooperate. I feel sluggish, drained – drugged. Senses dulled, body leaden, but nerves oddly on fire. I am burning from within! My flesh crawls, creeps, melts, morphs – I have no control over my own form anymore. I am changing.
Metamorphosing.
Around me I can feel others shifting. They are not confined as I am – they are free to move, though their minds are oddly blunted. They are my captors, conveying me in my confinement.
I can hear their thoughts, slithering across me, through me. A part of me recoils but another part – a newer part – welcomes their intrusion. Vibrates in tune with their gibbering, allowing the patterns to resonate through me. Changing me further, bringing me closer to those waiting just beyond.
The part that is still me, the old me, recoils in horror.
I cannot, I will not become one of these! I must escape!
I must be free! My body is captive but my mind soars, reaching out for help, any help. I scream, desperate for anyone to hear.
Yet, I know that my pleas have not been heard.
Help me!
Rubble lay everywhere, evidence of a city in flames, a world in demise. Buildings had fallen, vehicles were crashed and crushed, bodies littered the ground. A sign still stood near the edge of the destruction, its scorched surface reading “Welcome to” – the name Clinton Township only a jagged hole with blackened edges. All manner of bodies scattered the ground. Men, women, children. People, those not yet dead and unable to evacuate, ran screaming, wailing for help. Some brandished weapons, crazed beyond rational thought, desperate to defend themselves and their families. Others cowered, weeping, unable to face the end of their world. A few hid or ran, hoping to escape their fate.
The Combine ignored them. It had a higher agenda.
The battle had not gone as expected. The Terrans had put up a strong fight but with fewer soldiers than anticipated. The Asterites, sent ahead of the Combine as a scout force, had done a marvellous destructive job as always, gleaming and glowing in their alien arrogance, but had rapidly lost focus, dividing their attentions as if pursuing their own bizarre interests.
In some places the Combine had sighted Terrans attempting to battle the Asterites, a strange but amusing sight. Yes, it had been a strange battlefield, the fortunes of the humans constantly shifting as the forces of different nation-states entered the fray. But that was for the Overmind to consider and digest. For now, the conflict was over, the battle won. The remaining Terrans posed little threat and the Asterites had been rounded up and sent away. As commanded, they had not razed the entire planet, a fact which had allowed the Combine Swarm to discover and claim their elusive prize.
Now, their linked minds already turned from this conflict to those stretching out before them, the Combine marshalled their forces and prepared for their victorious departure.
One brood of golems cleared a path, removing any obstructions, whether flesh or stone or metal. A second brood followed close behind, its ranks protectively closed around its prize. Near the centre several of the golems moved in close formation, thick arms linked to support the large oblong they held.
Through its rough, sticky shell the cocoon pulsed with light, though its faint glow was lost amid the fires and flares and explosions that had once been this city.
“Carefully,” warned the golem overlord, observing their progress. “The Chrysalis must not be harmed!”
Obedient to its will, the other golems shifted slightly closer and slowed their pace, allowing more time for the brood before them to open the way. Their heavy feet crushed bone and metal and wood without thought or pause as they lumbered on, shielding the Chrysalis from attack.
“We have it, Master,” the golem overlord announced in the depths of its own mind. “We have your prize.”
“Good.” The reply echoed from within, rising from the deep well of the Combine hive-mind. “You must watch over the Chrysalis, and ensure that no harm comes to the creature within it. Go now and keep safe my prize.”
Accepting the Overmind’s orders as always, the golem overlord redoubled its efforts, making sure its brood’s defences were secure. The Chrysalis would be protected at all costs.
On the Combine golems marched, the city burning around them. At last the Swarm had gathered itself within a vast crater where once the city’s vaunted lake had stretched. Now the surface was glass-smooth, seared by the force of the Combine’s landing ships and unmarred by the heavy feet that had trekked across toward the city under siege.
“We are ready, Master,” the golem overlord declared, arraying its brood around the Chrysalis.
“I am well pleased,” the Overmind answered, the warm glow of its benediction washing over the overlord and through it all the members of its Swarm. “And so long as my prize remains intact, I shall remain pleased. Thus, its life and yours shall be made as one. As it prospers, so shall you. For you are part of the Swarm. If ever your flesh should fail, that flesh shall be made anew. That is my covenant with all golems.”
As the golem overlord swelled with pride, a great darkness descended upon the crater, a shadow of the mass that drifted into view high above them. Beyond the upper reaches of the planet’s dying atmosphere hung a massive storm, a swirl of orange and violet gases that spun around strange flickering lights. They moved faster and faster, the colours merging in their fury, until the centre of the storm collapsed in upon itself, light and colour giving way to a shadowy circle far darker than even the space hovering beyond.
“Now we shall make our exit from this blasted world,” the Overmind stated, its words sending a thrum of power through the Swarm, “and secure the Chrysalis within the Hive Cluster upon the planet Erebos, universe AA:24:I:1.”
As one the first brood rose, soaring high above the ruined city. They broke free of the planet’s weak, fading grasp and approached the storm above, pulled into that yawning, beckoning darkness at its centre, and vanished. The golem overlord felt their dimensional transit through the hive-mind link all Combine shared and allowed a spark of contentment to linger within its own mind. Then the Overmind summoned it as well, and the overlord called its brood together, linking them tightly for travel through the gateway. They rose from the crater, letting the power of the Swarm fill them as they ascended, and soon the darkness had drowned out all thought, all sense, as it carried them across the vastness of the multiverse to their destination.
And within the Chrysalis, faintly visible through its thick skin and viscous contents, a body writhed in pain. Though not conscious the figure within shifted, stirred, unable to lie still as the Combine virus penetrated every cell, changing DNA to match their own. Soon the Chrysalis would open and a new creature would emerge. All the Swarm exulted with the Overmind.
And, as they departed and Earth died behind them, the mind trapped within the Chrysalis screamed.
It was New Year’s Eve; through the cold haze that hung in the air, revellers could be seen, shuffling slowly in a crowd towards the centre of the Silver City. Even from a distance, it was clear that anticipation ran hot through the morass of bodies. Each reveller seemed eager to put the year behind them – a year which had seen one of the most brutal civil wars in recent memory, the Bellum Civile – and to seize the next with cheerful optimism. Of course, few would actually see their personal resolutions through, as was often the case.
Whatever our goal, Lorelei Chen told herself, the message we tell ourselves so ardently is that tomorrow, everything will be better, as if the difference of a day will change our
life forever…
High above the holographic signs and countdowns that surrounded the city’s Central Plaza square, the holowall flickered dimly, broadcasting the spectacle inside Chen’s apartment. The joyful sentiment was wasted, though, among the emptied bottles of vodka that littered the sitting room. An ice bucket lay on its side, its contents drunkenly scattered across the fine carpet. No resolutions had been made here.
Instead, Lora Chen pressed her .32 pistol to her own temple, her hand trembling from the internal conflict playing out in her mind.
If you asked her for her story several years ago, she would have explained that her goal was clear: the extermination of Cristian Stefánsson before he had a chance to transmogrify into the genocidal monster that was Lord Damarus. All she had to do was find him at a certain point in time, before the transformation happened, and kill him. Simple as that. Once she’d achieved this goal, history would be changed for the better, just like her future self had promised. Damarus would never have existed, the Sirkharins and their revered Majka would still be thriving on their homeworld… and the Earth itself would have been a different, and undoubtedly better place without the iron hand of his tyrannical regime, the New Dominion.
Now, after killing the man she loved so desperately, she had achieved nothing more than a messy fragmentation of the timeline, a jumble in the space-time continuum which had now grown exponentially worse since encountering the Combine. She had played a game of cat-and-mouse with them for three years, destroying entire planets and billions of innocent people in parallel, alternate universes, just to stay one step ahead of them and their Asterites, and to continue pursuing her distantly unravelling dream.
The Complete New Dominion Trilogy Page 67