The Footsteps of Cain

by Derek Kohlhagen

  He kept on going, following the declination of the mound, toward the menace of the white specks.

  STOP!

  The voice was all desperation, now. All sadistic self-assurance had melted away. Still, he walked on. He exulted in the power he had suddenly found, the freedom he hadn’t tasted in twenty millennia. The landscape around him may have been dead, but inside he felt more alive than he had since before the start of his devil’s errand. He didn’t know if he truly was going to sacrifice himself to the abyssal chasms, and at the moment he didn’t care; he just wanted to savor the moment for as long as—

  EJELANO, STOP!

  He skidded to a halt. The name hit his head like a wrecking ball. It broke into his conscious mind from a place that he’d thought had become useless to him…a patch of darkness that had once been host to living memories of a past life.

  Did you—is that my name? Did you just say my name?

  The voice said nothing, and now all he could feel from it was...regret.

  You did! That is my name!

  It had sunk far enough into his mind that he’d thought it was lost forever to the seas of his frozen synapses. He’d had no use for it for so long; as he’d only had the spirit as a companion across the eons, he’d only ever had one other to talk to, and so his name had become a useless thing, a vestigial organ of his identity. He hadn’t consciously known it was lost to him until long after it had fled his memory, long after it had been eroded by the time’s grindstone.

  The name had a meaning, in the tongue of the old people…something special. It was something that he’d been given at birth, and had left him long after his transformation into the killer he was now.

  He opened his mouth.

  “E—”

  His body shook with a sudden, violent coughing fit. He hadn’t tried to use his voice, his real voice, in so long that the muscles had atrophied and his vocal cords felt like they were caked in dust. He bent over and hacked, until he felt an oily mass come up this throat and enter the back of his mouth. He fought to expel the vile thing from his body, working it farther and farther up, until he was able to spit it out. A clump of black mucus dropped from his lips and fell to the ground, splashing into the gray soil. He wiped his chin in disgust as he looked at the thing, reminded of all the other things inside himself he would choose to be rid of.

  He readied his jaw, and tried again.

  “Ej...e...lano.”

  His voice was not as he remembered it, but of course that was saying very little. It was wheezy and sickly, but still, he had said the word. He felt it was good...more human...to speak out loud. He felt an urge to continue doing it.

  “Ejelano,” he said, stronger now.

  YOU DON’T HAVE TO SPEAK OUT LOUD. YOU KNOW I CAN HEAR YOU FINE.

  The timbre of the voice was diminished, beaten.

  “From here...on...I speak,” he said...Ejelano said. “I have been silent...too long.”

  He found his mind was sluggish when it came to choosing the right words. His thoughts had been interpreted directly before; now he was doing more work than he was used to, translating them into sound. Yet, slow as he was, he felt it was as it was supposed to be.

  The voice sulked.

  SUIT YOURSELF. DOESN’T MATTER TO ME.

  Memories flooded in. They were unassisted by the spirit, brought forth by his effort, alone, long dormant but showing uncharacteristic sensitivity to his will.

  Ejelano. The moniker his father had given him in the naming ceremony. “From the trees”, it meant.

  His father! And she, his mother! Incredibly he could bring forth their faces also, from his cerebral trenches! He wept and fell to his knees, marveling at every contour of their faces, both strong and proud. They had hunter’s eyes, and strong cheek bones, and skin weathered by the elements. Unbidden, a scene bubbled up, like a mental snapshot...the three of them were sitting around the cooking fire. Ejelano, the boy, the one who would grow up and kill the world, could feel the flame on his face and taste the meat of the kill his father had brought from the forest. The faces were lively, and the company warm, and there was love between them, the kind which true families know of. He clutched at the memory like a drowning man, trying to cement it in his head while the details were still crisp and vibrant, and he felt the deepest sadness that he could not go back there and stay nestled in that single slice of his life, where time stood still and the evil of the world held no sway.

  YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING. INSUFFERABLE. I SWEAR, NONE OF THE OTHER ONES EVER GAVE ME ONE IOTA OF THE TROUBLE YOU HAVE.

  The fire, the faces...they blew away on the wind as Ejelano’s reverie dissipated.

  “Other...ones?”

  DAMN IT! I REALLY NEED TO STOP DOING THAT. OKAY, LISTEN, YOU ALREADY KNOW WAY MORE THAN YOU SHOULD...THIS ISN’T THE RIGHT TIME FOR FULL EXPLANATIONS. THE ONLY THING YOU NEED TO KNOW FOR RIGHT NOW IS THAT, IF YOU DON’T COMPLETE THIS...IF YOU JUST SIT THERE ON YOUR ASS AND IGNORE YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES...THEN THIS WHOLE THING WILL HAVE BEEN FOR NOTHING. THERE IS SO MUCH MORE AT STAKE THAN YOU CAN IMAGINE. IF I TELL YOU ANY MORE, I’LL RUIN EVERYTHING, AND MY TRACK RECORD IS TOO GOOD TO DO THAT TO EITHER ONE OF US.

  Ejelano wanted to ask more. He wanted to press the voice harder for more information, but somewhere between the feeling in his gut, and the newfound faltering of the voice’s normal, prickling badinage, he felt it would be best to play along. For now.

  “Will you release her...when this is done?” he asked.

  I WILL.

  “If you don’t...if I suspect you’re lying...I will cast myself into the white. You know my mind, so you know the level of...my conviction.”

  I DO.

  “And if so much as a wisp of her hair feels the flames again, I turn around. No more. Understand?”

  The voice gave a heavy sigh.

  YES. SO LONG AS YOU UNDERSTAND THAT I CANNOT RELEASE HER UNTIL YOU’RE FINISHED.

  Ejelano nodded.

  OK, FINE THEN. ARE WE DONE? IS THIS LITTLE REBELLION OVER? BECAUSE YOU NEED TO START HOOFING IT. THAT...WHAT DID YOU CALL IT...THAT EROSION OF REALITY BEHIND YOU? IT’S NOT GONNA STOP. IT’S ALREADY EATEN UP MOST OF...WELL...FUCKING EVERYTHING, AND IF YOU CAN’T OUTPACE IT, IT’LL GET YOU, TOO, AND THEN IT’LL BE TOO LATE. YOU NEED TO MOVE. NOW.

  Ejelano started up the hill again, his strides long and his thoughts disturbed by the intensity of the spirit’s urgings. Across the vast span of their time together, he had never known it to behave like it was now, and the very fact that something so seemingly omnipotent as it could fear something...anything...well, Ejelano didn’t want to find out what that could mean. He fought the urge to glance over his shoulder.

  “One last question,” he said. Speaking was getting easier now, like his gears were oiling up. “Why am I so important? Why not just let me end it for myself in the pits? Surely that would be easier, for you.”

  The voice paused, and then answered with iron-gutted determination.

  BECAUSE MY JOB IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE THERE IS, AND, LIKE I SAID BEFORE, I’M DAMNED GOOD AT WHAT I DO.

  * * *

  Chapter 13 – Samuel

  Samuel opened his eyes, and the ceiling of his habmod quarters came into view. He blinked, and then gasped as a sharp, throbbing pain on his forehead registered. He quickly shut his eyes again.

  “Mmmph,” he groaned.

  There was a hum by his bedside, and a regular electronic beeping that flicked at his eardrums in a persistent, unpleasant way. He turned his head to the side, where he saw a monitor that was rolling through sets of numbers; by the presence of wires that ran from it to the adhesive patches on his arms, chest, and head, he assumed they were his vital statistics. He absently noted that his filthy work overalls had been peeled off of him; now he was only wearing a pair of undershorts, under the bedding.

  Everything hurt. His muscles were harboring a pretty substantial grudge against him for earlier exertions. Every time he moved, they reprimanded him severely, and he quickl
y decided to use them as little as possible. Against the overlay of his stiff muscles, he also suffered an array of more specific points of pain, one of which being the one on his forehead, but also on his chest, back, and legs. Those exhibited the telltale soreness of healing cuts and bruises, no doubt results of his confrontation with Cameron atop the wall.

  Cameron! The wall!

  It all came flooding back. The chase. Cameron’s body hurtling out into nothingness, falling to the earth, so far below. And then...what? Did he black out? He had no memory of what happened after the confrontation, so it seemed possible. He kept groping about for an answer, without even knowing if there was one.

  His brain felt slower than usual, like someone had opened his head and cruelly packed it with pillow stuffing. At first, he was afraid he’d sustained some brain damage from his knock to the head, and then felt the muted, stinging presence of the needle in his arm, and deduced that he was probably feeling the aftereffects of whatever cocktail the IV was spitting into his veins.

  “Hello?” he croaked. “Anyone there?”

  There was a shuffle outside the door, which quickly opened, revealing a concerned Kelly Prince poking her head in.

  “Sam?” she ventured. When she saw him, awake and aware, her face broadened with a grin. “Thank God.”

  He raised his eyebrows. He’d never heard her use the strange phrase before.

  “What?”

  She dismissed it with a wave. “It’s something my mother says, sometimes. I guess I’m so used to it that I never asked her where she got it from. How are you feeling?”

  “Like somebody put me under the drill and turned it on. What’s going on?”

  “Do you remember anything?”

  “Cameron. He and I...we fought. That’s about it.”

  She nodded.

  “They found you up on the wall, unconscious. You’d taken that nasty hit to your head, and you were bleeding like a ruptured oil barrel. You lost so much blood that you passed out.”

  He unconsciously reached up and felt his forehead, which he’d bashed against the step when Cameron attacked him. There he felt the rough gauze of a bandage, wrapped around his head.

  “That would explain it,” he said, wincing. “How long ago?”

  “A day and a half. It’s morning. You had me...all of us...really worried.” Her brow grew cloudy. “Sam, about Cameron...he...didn’t make it.”

  Samuel’s face grew grim. “No, I don’t expect that he did. That bastard. You have to believe me, Kelly...if it wasn’t him, it would have been me.”

  “What happened up there?” Kelly asked, cocking her head.

  “I caught him with Tristan, after the explosions. I caught them together. He tried to deny it, but Tristan named him as an accomplice. He ran, and I chased him to the top of the wall, where he tried to kill me. You know the rest.”

  Kelly crossed her arms, thoughtful. “Tristan’s locked in one of the habmods, now...the closest one to the church. We interrogated him about Cameron’s role in the attacks, and...Sam...now he’s denying that Cameron had anything to do with it.”

  “That’s impossible. They were together, Kelly.”

  “I know. Still, it’s what he’s saying.”

  “But, why would he be protecting Cameron now, after we know everything? After his death?” He was speaking more to himself than to her. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Kelly looked at the floor, and he sensed her discomfort, sensed she was avoiding looking at him.

  “Unless...unless Tristan’s telling the truth,” she said.

  “No, that can’t be. They….”

  He trailed off, and then felt a cold chill, like someone had injected his spine with ice water. The implications of what she was suggesting...if Cameron had been innocent....

  He thought back to the confrontation at the church, when he and Henry had arrived and found the two of them there. Tristan had been reveling in the destruction, and Cameron...what had Cameron been doing? Samuel remembered the look of consternation on his face, a look that Samuel assumed had stemmed from his guilt, or anxiety from being caught.

  But...what had they been saying to one another, before he and Henry arrived?

  He winced, again...and realized that he didn’t know.

  Cameron had been seen poking around the mining level, where the explosives were stored. It fit the story so conveniently that he’d been the one who took them! But, again, where was the proof? Despite everything he wanted to believe, could Samuel have been wrong about him?

  Cameron, the one who was always so independent...who always worked alone.

  Samuel imagined Cameron on the ground floor of the Dome, discovering that the explosives and detonators had already gone missing. He saw Cameron at the church, not conspiring, but rightly confronting Tristan with what he’d done. Fleeing into the guard tower, away from a man to whom he’d professed his innocence, but who, in a cruel cloud of circumstance and assumption, refused to hear him.

  And now, he was dead. Dead, by Samuel’s own hands.

  Of course Tristan had lied to him. How could he have been so woefully unthorough?

  “Oh...no. What have I done?” he said.

  She walked over to the bed, and sat at the edge. She seemed to hesitate a short moment, and then resolutely...but tenderly...rested a warm hand on his chest.

  “Sam,” she said softly, quick to comfort as always, “he did try to kill you. You said it yourself; it was either you, or him. You two had years of disagreement between you, and he was an egomaniac. He could never deal with you being in charge.”

  “Maybe he was right. Maybe I shouldn’t be.”

  “Don’t you do that. Don’t you doubt yourself. You’ve been keeping us heading in the right direction since the beginning, and we still need you. What happened up on that wall can’t change that, okay? Nobody blames you for what happened.”

  The warmth in her hand was spreading into his chest. She had been brave to put it there...braver than he could have been, had their positions been reversed. He looked at her, his eyes drawn to the ocean blue of her eyes and the delicate curve of her jawline...the lithe, pink flower petals of her lips....

  There was a knock at the door, and they both jumped. The ache in his body returned, and Kelly abruptly stood up and took a furtive step away from the bed. She brushed her hair over her ears and evaded his eyes, now that the moment was over.

  “Yes?” Samuel called, surprised to find that he was a little annoyed.

  “Samuel? Hey, are you awake?” Henry’s voice said from the other side of the door. “Come on...open up. I hear you guys talking.”

  Kelly looked up, her eyebrows raised. He nodded. She went over and opened the door.

  Henry was in tough shape. He looked to be wearing the same clothes Samuel had seen him in a couple days ago, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Henry looked surprised to see Kelly there, and gave them both a playful, suspicious appraisal.

  “You look terrible,” Samuel commented, quickly.

  “Hey, sorry, some of us are a little too busy to catch up on their beauty rest,” he said, gesturing to the bed. “I wish somebody would conk me on the head so I could spend a day sleeping. How are you doing?”

  “I’m knocked around a little, maybe, but I’m breathing. You?”

  “It is what it is,” Henry sighed, like he’d been rolling a boulder up a hill all night. He raised his eyebrows. “Kelly...is he...? Can I...?”

  “I’m fine enough,” Samuel interrupted as Kelly started to open her mouth. “Tell me.”

  Kelly gave them both a disapproving glance, but stayed silent. Henry turned to him again.

  “The Dome’s busted up, bad,” he said. “I was hoping that whoever did this was a novice, but I’m sad to say that it looks like they knew what they were doing. The damage is...serious. The bombs were placed in almost every vital spot: Water plant, environmental...there was even one on the main drill supports, like they were trying to send the damned thing cr
ashing down on us. Luckily...somehow...the tower stayed up. That’s our most pressing issue; we’re working like hell to stabilize the thing before it gives. I wish I could say that was the worst of it, but....”

  Henry rubbed his bald head with a palm, and looked up at the ceiling. He looked like he was reluctant to say whatever he was thinking.

  “Come on, spit it out,” Samuel urged. “What?”

  “It’s the farms,” he said, gravely. “They took a direct hit. There’s so much wreckage, I haven’t been able to figure out how we’re gonna to get them working, again. I just...I have no idea where to start.”

  Samuel’s stomach dropped. It was the worst news. The hydroponic farms were their only source of food. The soil of the Wastes had grown too barren, too hostile to nurture any new plant growth. It had been that way for years. Their automated food production had kept a steady supply of fresh crops growing. If what Henry was saying was true—if the farms had been targeted and possibly destroyed—the Spire would have no means of producing sustenance for the people. They didn’t need starvation added to their already-lengthy list of adversity.

  “Shit,” Samuel swore. “What about the storage bins? How much do we have left?”

  “There’s enough there for...a week? Maybe two if we stretched it out? After that, we’ll have to figure out how to digest dirt.”

  “Anybody over there?”

  “Yeah...Nicole and Ethan. They’re trying to come up with a plan. All the others are too busy welding the drill back together so it won’t fall down.”

  “Okay.”

  Samuel took a deep breath and slowly blew it out, taking a moment to gather himself.

  One thing at a time. One thing at a time.

  Even with the mountain of bad news that he’d been told, his thoughts turned to another, even darker matter…one that he’d been thinking about, in the back of his head, since his revelation about Cameron’s possible, newfound innocence. His stomach turned, and his dark thoughts bubbled to the surface. He gave them a voice.