“I’m starving,” He muttered, eventually, “Where did you get this from?”
She shrugged gently, tilting her head to one side on her long swan like neck.
“I like picnics,” She said, “They make me happy.”
There was a moment then. Something new. Something different. Another mystery within the wonder within the confused nonsense of Megyn Alexander’s whole being. Sloane saw her eyes cloud over. She was far away, for a moment, thinking of something. But the moment passed quickly. The fog lifted. The brilliant green eyes penetrated Jack Sloane’s.
“I like picnics.”
“This bread is fresh. Do they… do they eat French loaf here? These… what did you call them? The Real Ones?”
“Enrileans,” Megyn’s smile didn’t falter, but she blinked slightly, “The Enrileans. No, they don’t eat French bread. They don’t eat very much bread at all. I baked this, not long ago.”
“So you’re a baker as well?”
“I’m not a baker. I like to make bread, sometimes. Not very often. How is it?”
“It’s good,” He had opened a screw top bottle of orange juice that he’d found in the basket too. He drank it quickly, washing down the bread.
“I can put some cheese on it for you,” Alexander said, “I have Cheshire cheese. That’s your favourite.”
He frowned, but continued to eat. He’d opened a jar of Branston pickle and was fishing inside it with a knife.
“Never heard of Cheshire cheese,” He grunted, “But yes, please make me something up if you like.”
She seemed confused. Another mist in her eyes. More thoughts. Trying to remember. Trying to work things out. Failing. Shrugging resignedly and opening the crumbly, delicious Cheshire cheese.
“You never went to Oxford,” She said, cutting slices of the cheese with a tiny laser in her hand., “That explains the cheese.”
“I’ve never been to Oxford,” Sloane nodded, “So, it seems that you don’t know everything about me – about everything.”
She smiled and this time the smile looked genuine. But, of course, it really wasn’t. The smile was a well-practiced act. It was the right thing to do, so she did it.
“I don’t know very much about anything,” Megyn Alexander stated, “Not really.”
He stopped talking to eat for a while. He failed to notice the Enrilean flyer landing about three hundred metres to the right. It swooped in towards the rainbow Megyn Alexander had made and landed quietly in the middle of an unrecognizably barren and fossilized village green that had been deserted for millennia. Megyn Alexander did not notice it either, but she knew that it was coming. She remembered what was going to happen next. Or some of it. Sloane continued to eat noisily, without words, as she turned to look where the shuttle had touched down. She couldn’t see it. Thirty thousand years ago, a school house and recreation centre had stood where a sandy, rocky hillock now occluded her view.
“They’re coming,” She said.
He was trying to get into the wine with one of the smaller knives. She couldn’t remember packing a bottle opener. She the index finger of her right hand ever so slightly. Sloane didn’t notice the cork moving up the neck of the bottle very slightly. He hooked it with the sharp edge of the knife and started to work it out a millimetre at a time.
“Who’s coming?” he almost had all of the cork out, “Someone’s coming?”
“I think so,” She said, “Here, try the cheese.”
The cork came apart only slightly, but it didn’t worry him. He spat away the pieces of wine saturated bark and then took a deep swig from the bottle.
“I have glasses, you know,” She chided him, “Please, try the cheese.”
She’d put a slab of the crumbly, strong smelling cheese into a piece of the French stick that she’d somehow buttered without him seeing. He took the small offering from her. She frowned on one side of her face as he offered the dripping bottle of wine.
“You’re so… primitive.”
“I resent that. I’m fucking starving and I haven’t had a drink in…” he couldn’t find the words and waved his arms angrily instead, “A long fucking time. Primitive, am I?” he laughed.
“You last had a drink four days ago - usually,” She said, adding the last word after a little intense thought. “Please, try the cheese. I think you’ll really like it. I can remember a time when it’s all you could talk about.”
“Whatever.”
He chomped down on the bread. The butter was delicious. Salty, creamy. He was no longer ravenously hungry, but his stomach still ached for sustenance. The dense, slightly moist cheese crumbled in his mouth as it broken apart. He gave Megyn Alexander a thumbs up with his right hand, almost spilling the wine as he did so.
“Alright, this cheese is pretty nice. But, lady, you’ve got a broom handle up your back end or something. Here, I’ll use one of the glasses if it’ll make you feel better. I don’t want to drink alone. Now, why don’t you tell me who’s coming?”
She did as he asked. The glasses were only about a hundred years old. Matt’s favourite glass hadn’t survived as long as the wicker basket had. She took the wine from him and filled one glass, which she handed over.
“Use this. It’s much more civilized.”
With a mouth full of bread and cheese, Sloane bowed lightly. He took the offered glass. Megyn poured one for herself. He waited until she was ready before offering his glass to her.
“A toast?” she asked.
“That’s right. Lady’s privilege,” When she frowned he added, “You make the toast, darling.”
“I don’t like it when you call me that.”
“Here’s to...?” he wiggled his glass from side to side, spilling just a little of the 2185 Cabernet Sauvignon, “Come on, here’s to what?”
“The future,” She touched the glasses together with the utmost delicateness, “The spirit of the future.”
Hearing the name of the cruise ship jarred a little, but Megyn was prone to nonsense talk so he smiled simply and touched his glass back a little harder than she had. The glasses clinked together with a ting Then they both drank together, silently. The sun was setting behind Megyn’s back. The five Enrileans were getting closer to the rainbow’s end. In a few minutes it would be invisible in the fading light, but by then they would have arrived.
“That’s not a moon, is it? Or a star?” Sloane gestured to a shining disc high above them. It was much brighter and larger than the stars.
“That’s the throne world. A planet called Enrilea. It’s orbit brings it closer than this, usually. In three or four years it would appear to be almost the size of Earth’s moon. That’s when things get interesting on Enrilea.”
“How so?”
“Well, they don’t want their astronomers getting too close a look at this planet. Not that they’re permitted to. So they have a yearlong festival of... respect. During this year, gazing at the forbidden planet is punishable by death.”
“Punishable by who?”
“The Enrilean Empire.”
“I guess this Enrilean Empire are the guys who gave me my new scar?” he touched his hand to his forehead to probe the injury, but he couldn’t find it, “Those guys?” he kept searching with his fingers, but he wouldn’t find the wound.
“We have to get out of here.”
“It’s alright,” She smiled sadly, “We have a few more minutes. Usually. Finish your cheese. It really is your favourite, and I picked it special for you. This is going to be the last chance you get to taste it.”
Jaxx felt like his heart was going to give out at any moment. His pulse was at least 185, he was couldn’t get his breath. Sweat saturated his almost non-existent grey white hair. Despite his disability, he somehow found himself able to stay within sight of his three companions. The last surviving members of the Justice Six elite special forces unit known as the Spellerans..
They’d barely escaped the dying Justice Six. Unable to escape Crantarr’s gravitational pull, the
shuttle had fallen steadily towards the ground. Minutes from landing, Jaxx had pointed out the rainbow as Muffa had struggled to keep the malfunctioning shuttle space borne. In order to convince Muffa to navigate to the rainbow, Jaxx had to expose some of the ancient lies. Now, three more Enrileans knew the truth behind a thirty thousand year old lie. It was a burden they wouldn't have to carry for long.
They'd abandoned the shuttle. Muffa had assured Admiral Jaxx that it wouldn't fly again unless the engine had a chance to cool down. Supreme Leader Gapp had recommended that they stay with the shuttle. Jaxx had declined. He had to find out what was waiting at the end of the rainbow. Gapp knew better than to argue. So they'd walked two miles in near silence, making the best pace that Jaxx could muster. The three elite soldiers had expected Jaxx to be much slower, but they were surprised.
Jaxx was eighty years old. The inside of his jaw had been burned away by the poison that had failed to kill him. His left eye was a sightless, milky orb that he should have had removed decades ago. His left arm was withered. Almost useless. The nerves in his spine had been damaged. On good days he could feel and control his right ankle and foot. Other days, like now, he needed the exoskeletal ankle and shoe brace. The kidney that the Relathon surgeons had removed meant that he needed to piss more often. But he could wait until later. He had medicine that helped with the damage to his liver. The reduced function in his left lung made it difficult for his heart to command more oxygen from it. But twenty five percent of his heart muscle had died after his the three heart attacks he had suffered. He thought that his heart was burst, but he kept going. The air was thinner than he remembered. It felt like he was climbing a mountain. Even keeping alongside the special forces soldiers felt like he was running a marathon. But he kept moving.
The terrain was rough. The ancient river they followed was almost unrecognisable as a pathway of any kind. The four men followed it with the quiet belief that they were travelling some ancient roadway. Elegant, swan-like yachts with thin, glass sails had once sailed the clear purple waters. But the water was gone - the yachts turned to dust and sand. Near transparent skyscrapers that had reached into space had toppled within the first few minutes of the cataclysm. The people inside and around them had died quickly. The others had not been so fortunate.
Jaxx felt the thirty thousand year old ghosts now as he struggled up the hill. Just for a moment, the evening seemed alive with them. Or was it the sudden warm breeze that blew in from behind him. He was starting to suffer from mild hypoxia. Each tiny movement of the air around him now seemed like the slight touch of long dead men, women and children. All of them dead because of a single, unforgivable act of cowardice.
Nothing remained of the city. Nothing remained of the fourteen million Crantarrians who had worked, played, lived and loved peacefully within the massive city. Nothing remained of the massive safari park to the north of the city, containing thousands of animals transported from all three habitable planets in the Enrilean solar system. The world spanning high speed transit system had long since decayed, the ultrafast magnetic trains powder amongst the dust amongst the rubble. The beautiful public gardens to the east and south of the city – gone. The massive pleasure liners parked in a harbour that no longer receded were long since disintegrated, rusted and decayed. Almost the entire ocean had vanished during the cataclysm, and thirty thousand years later the coastlines made by the gradually returning ocean were radically different.
“Admiral, we’re almost there.”
“Leave them to me,” Jaxx managed to gasp, “I don’t want any shooting. Provide covering fire, if necessary. I will take the lead.”
“Admiral, what are you expecting to find? The Gods left this world thousands of years ago.”
Jaxx didn’t look at the young soldier. He breathed noisily, roughly. They had reached the top of the hill. He’d recognized the strange, flame coloured vehicle when the shuttle’s sensors had zoomed in on it during their landing. It was there now, one hundred metres below. The light was fading, but he thought that he could see the woman. Perhaps there was a second figure. He couldn’t be sure.
“Not all of the Gods are gone,” He whispered, “Follow me. Remember – don’t fire until I give the order. But be ready for anything.”
Sloane picked himself up for the third time. He was winded, but otherwise unharmed.
“You need to stop this,” Megyn said calmly, “I can’t let you take the car. You wouldn’t even know how to drive it. It’s an antique, you know.”
“You crazy… bitch! I’m not trying to take the car. I want to take us the fuck away from here. We’ve got transport. We can’t just sit around waiting for… for…”
“My death,” She smiled so sweetly, “I believe that’s what happens next.”
“God damn it! You really are out of your mind. If you think you’re going to die here then shouldn’t we at least try to get away?”
“Oh, you’ll be fine.”
“Damn it, that’s not the point! Look, let’s just talk about this like rational adults, alright? If something bad’s going to happen, the appropriate course of action would be to avoid it. Isn’t that right?”
He started towards Megyn Alexander again, ready to feint to the left and then slam his whole bodyweight into her. This time, he intended to slam her into the little orange car hard enough to knock her senseless.
“Sometimes, that’s correct. But sometimes that’s not correct. I’m sorry. I know this is difficult, but this is as far as I go.”
He kept his pace slow and casual, but he could see her grinning like she could read his mind. Even as he started to fake his dodge he realized what was coming next. She moved faster than he could see. Her strength was incredible – like she wasn’t human at all. Again he tumbled through the air and landed, harder this time, on his back. The fall took his breath away and stunned him. He lay there, eyes closed, groaning softly. After what seemed like a few seconds he was aware of her standing beside him.
“Sorry,” She reached a hand down to him, “Here, let me help you up.”
He couldn’t resist the chance and grabbed her wrist as hard as he could. He started to strike at her with his other hand, but she avoided him easily and sent him spinning like a cartwheel back to the sandy ground.
“Are we finished yet?” she said, “As far as I can remember, you never manage to get the upper hand. You didn’t find the handgun this time round, I assume, but even then it isn’t enough. I’m just too fast for you, Jack Sloane.”
He picked himself up again. This time, when she offered her hand, he took it without trying to make a move.
“There’s something not right about you,” He said, “You’re one of them? You’re an Enrilean fifth columnist or something?”
“Nope, but I suppose you're right in saying that I'm not like you. I never have been and, no matter how hard I tried, I never could be,” she held out her right hand and flexed each finger, “I did a great job of myself, though, this time round.”
“What?”
Megyn moved her head a little to the right. There was a sound that Sloane did not and could not hear. But Megyn Alexander's ears were far more precise than any ordinary persons could ever be. It was Commander Gapp, crushing a small bounder of compressed sand under his boot. The sound might have frightened a nearby rabbit, or a long extinct Crantarrian jumpmouse. But no human being could have possibly heard it.
“Don't move!” Gapp shouted, locking eyes with the tall blonde, “Keep your hands where I can see them!”
Another man had appeared. He was on her right, closer than Gapp. She turned her head slowly, but he shouted at her again to stop moving. He looked like he was going to shoot her, but he didn't. Another man appeared. Three men were converging on her. Then, clambering over the top of the hill, she saw Jaxx appear.
“Don't do it, Jack.”
The words came out even before he moved. She was often surprised by such things, but had gotten used to it since her fifth reincarnation. But she di
dn’t have any memories of this hill beyond arriving here and sending the robot nurse off to the crashed Bullet, thirty eight miles south of the dead city. The robot nurse carried all of Megyn Alexander’s memories, which she’d transferred to a coin-sized, fourth dimensional memory store contained within a thin but almost impenetrable crystal boundary.
Sloane was moving. She thought, for a moment, that he was trying to reach the Enrilean Commander, but he wasn’t. He’d seen Jaxx raise his pistol. He was protecting her from…
“No!”
The gun fired even as she said the words. A distant memory triggered in her consciousness. Her mind, again, working faster than her body could. Even this new and improved body. Another bullet coming in. Another unavoidable death. She wanted to tell Sloane that this was wrong. This was where she died. This wasn’t the end of the line for him. This was his beginning. But there wasn’t time to move. Only to think. And that just made it all the more painful to know that he was about to be killed.
Sloane was looking right at her when the bullet hit him. His expression was one of anger and abrupt confusion. There was a reflex action. The spasm of a muscle. His eyes started to look towards the approaching bullet. But he'd never see it. A neat hole appeared in his forehead. The eyes froze. Forever confused. His mouth twitched as the back of his head erupted like a volcano of grey matter, bright red blood and white fragments of bone with flesh, skin and hair attached.
“Oh,” Megyn said, “But...”
The second bullet exploded Sloane's left eye a second later. It exited through the massive, gaping hole left by Hazer Jaxx's first explosive bullet. Blood splashed Megyn's face. She gasped in surprise. Sloane's body remained upright. It hadn't realised that he was dead. A second later, Alexander was still looking into Sloane's remaining eye when the third and final bullet impacted dead centre in the bridge of his nose. The explosive within the bullet detonated at the perfect moment, turning Jack Sloane's face into a pulped mess. This was enough to give his body the message that it had so far failed to receive. He fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, his disintegrating head slapping wetly into the hard rocks.
Beyond the Starport Adventure (Bullet Book 1) Page 51