He shrugged.
“What I see, now.”
This wasn’t what Samuel expected. There wasn’t any guilt, no remorse, even if only due to being caught. There was only deep, gnawing sorrow.
“Ronny,” he said. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I came to find out, and boy, did I find out. And when I finally saw the big picture, I realized that I’d been staring at it the whole time. I didn’t figure it out as much as I discovered what had always been there.”
Samuel felt the slivers of doubt prickling him. This didn’t feel right. He eyed the active computer screens, trying to discern what Ronny had been doing before he arrived.
“Ronny...what is going on?” he asked the ailing man.
“I dug it up...what George tried to hide. I understand why he did it,” he said, motioning to his hemorrhaging nose. “I feel like I’m on fire.”
Samuel’s suspicions fell to the floor. This wasn’t a man who had helped wreak destruction and death upon the Dome. This was a man who desperately needed answers, explanations for a loss that he suffered...that he was still suffering. He was no saboteur. Ronny had needed to know so badly that he’d put himself in the way of a freight train.
“That’s what you’ve been doing. You...you found them. George’s files.”
“File. There’s just one, as far as I can tell. He deleted it, but it looks like there’s a fail-safe measure built in to the system for file retrieval. I found a log...got lucky, I guess...and it pointed me to the location of the deleted content. All the files and folders are organized intuitively so that you can find anything you want. It’s pretty amazing...there’s so much information in here.”
He wiped his nose, coughed, and went on.
“Anyway, most of these files are easily understood. There are these little, archaic differences in the language, which makes sense when you think about it. They’re really old...probably a couple hundred years or more. But the one I found, the one George thought he was deleting for good? At first, I thought it was a mistake. It was total gibberish to me. Just a long sequence of letters, numbers, and symbols...some I recognized and some I didn’t. But, the more I stared at it, the more sense it started to make. I can’t explain why. It was like....”
His face contorted as he tried to find the right words.
“...like...if you were looking at a painting, where someone had just splashed paint randomly over the canvas, with no discernible pattern or purpose. At first, it’s confusing...there’s no picture there at all, just chaos. And then suddenly you figured out that it wasn’t the painting that was flawed, or disordered. It was you...your perspective. And once you knew that, consciously or unconsciously, you could suddenly see the whole picture in all its original intent.”
Samuel listened, transfixed. He’d never heard Ronny express himself like this before. There was obviously far more to the man than he had thought.
“It’s beautiful,” Ronny said. “Really beautiful. I don’t think I should tell you exactly what it looks like; I don’t want you to end up like me, if I haven’t contaminated you already. I don’t even think it’s supposed to exist. The file, I mean. But, somewhere in these stacks of machines,” he swept a hand behind him at the rows of servers, “I think something manifested, bled over from some physical source and made an electronic copy of itself, like two live wires that aren’t ever supposed to touch connecting for a split-second. It was like, for a blink, reality forgot how it was supposed to work, and the file that George found is a relic of that defect.”
Ronny looked up and saw the look on Samuel’s face. He snickered.
“I know. I know what this sounds like. Crazy talk. If I hadn’t seen it, I’d think the same thing.”
Samuel didn’t know what was stronger, his disappointment that he hadn’t caught the saboteur, or his fascination in what Ronny had found out. He blinked, and shook his head.
“Ronny, you’re telling me what you saw,” Samuel said. “Not what it means. So, what does it mean? Did this...thing...you saw explain why we’re losing people?”
“Oh, yeah. I know why it’s happening. And that’s why I’ll go, too, soon enough. I think what George was trying to tell us is that it’s what we know that matters...what we believe. And once you see it, you can’t help but believe it, and then there’s no going back. That’s what gets the ball rolling.” He shrugged in a passive, surrendering kind of way. “Sorry to say, but you’re talking to a dead man.”
“No,” Samuel said, walking forward. “Ronny, if what you’re telling me is true...if you’ve figured out what is causing all of this...maybe we can fight it. Stop it. We can take a look at this thing you found, whatever it is, and we can use it. Let me help you.”
Ronny put a hand up, palm out, and stopped Samuel.
“No. I’m sorry, Samuel, but it doesn’t...work that way.” He now seemed to be speaking only with great effort. “There’s no ‘curing’ this. Hell, it might not even matter...if I tell you now or...you find out later, which I believe you will. You, and everyone else. But I’m not...going to be the one that...puts this,” he put an index and middle finger to either side of his head, “into you. It’s not going to be me. I know it’s probably...moot in the...bigger picture, but I’m going to keep that small heroism...to mysel-.”
Samuel blinked. He’d seen it. He’d been looking directly at Ronny when it happened. If his attention had been on anything else when Ronny spoke his last word, “myself”, he would have missed it...would have thought that it was just a trick of his ears or that Ronny had mispronounced the word and forgot to verbalize the “f”.
But no...Ronny had said the word correctly. He just hadn’t been present for Samuel to hear it.
One moment Ronny had been sitting there in the chair, seemingly pushing his words out like boulders. Then, in an infinitesimally brief speck of time, he simply...wasn’t. His coveralls and his boots, yes, but the body inside was gone...like it had never been. And then, as quickly as it had vanished, it sprouted back into being, right where it should be. It was like someone had flipped the “Ronny” switch off and then back on, as fast as they could.
Ronny had noticed it, too. His eyes were wide with surprise.
“Did...did I...?” he asked. “Did you hear anything?”
“Hear anything?” he asked, enraptured. “No, Ronny...I didn’t.”
“It was...like a high pitched...whine. Then everything went...white.”
Samuel was rooted to the spot. “White? What do you mean?”
Then, it happened again, just as fast as the last time. For a sliver of time, only his clothing sat in the chair. “Ronny” off, “Ronny” on.
“Agh...it’s...it’s so loud,” Ronny said. He put his hands to his ears. “So...bright! The...the White! I think it’s...happening! And I think I...know how! I think the White is -aking them!”
Samuel didn’t know what to do. He felt utterly powerless against this thing, this force of nature that he didn’t understand. Nevertheless, he took another step toward Ronny, who violently shook his head.
“No! It’s -oo late...just watch, Samuel! Don’t -ouch me...just...watch! And remem-er!”
Ronny’s voice had changed. It was going all tinny and distorted, like Samuel was hearing him through a defective hand radio. He sounded like he was speaking from another place entirely...like his voice had to pierce many layers of whatever ethereal fabric had wrapped around him for Samuel to hear his words.
Then, it started happening with increased regularity. Every five seconds. Three. One. Ronny became a flip-book version of himself as he rocked back and forth, an animated puppet that only came close to emulating the mechanics of normal human movement, but not close enough to be convincing. He still had his hands clasped to the sides of his head, but now he was clutching at himself, pushing hard enough that Samuel could see the tendons straining in his hands. He looked like he was trying to seal himself off from whatever he was hearing, and losing the battle.
The technician’s face was contorting, his mouth open in a silent scream. Horrified, Samuel watched him stand up and stagger away a few steps from the chair, hunching over and then collapsing to his knees. He was flashing in and out so quickly now that, for a hopeful moment, Samuel thought he was becoming solid again. But then the gaps started to dominate him, and to Samuel it looked like frames were being plucked from the sequence of his movements. As the seconds ticked by, Ronny became more “not here” than “here”, and his cries came to Samuel as if through a metal tube of increasing length as more of his substance was stolen away.
During the final seconds of his life, Ronny flared back into existence and his eyes popped open. Crouching on the floor, he looked at Samuel, who could see his naked terror.
“Samuel...?” Ronny whimpered.
Then, Ronny winked away and did not reappear. Samuel would never see him again.
His clothing remained, just as it did with the others, but all other evidence of him was erased, including, Samuel noticed, the bloodstains on his coveralls. The work garments looked clean, like they’d just been laundered. They looked like they were ready to be folded up and put into a drawer.
Samuel could only stand there and breathe. He could feel his mind trying to process what he had just witnessed and failing, choking on the planet-sized, illogical lump that it had been forced into its gullet. To know that people were being taken was enough to spook anyone, but to see it happen? It froze him to his core. Ronny had implored him to stand and watch as he vanished from existence, in the hopes that Samuel would gain some insight into the phenomenon as a witness, but Samuel felt he had lost far more from the experience than he had gained.
He forced himself to think through his shock, to approach what seemed so irrational, rationally. What did he know?
He had the testimony of George, and now Ronny as well. They both professed that they had learned something from a file that had somehow made its way into the servers. Ronny didn’t think that it had been created by human means. He thought it had been a mistake. Like...an existential defect.
Come on...think.
There had to be a reason. All he needed to do was what he’d always done: Take a step back. Look at the whole thing. Incorporate what he already knew to figure out what he didn’t. Find the angles. Solve the problem. That was something he was good at.
There was a common thread in the data. It was something he’d heard from everyone who’d lost someone. Gorman had said it about Diana Horgrove. Ronny had confessed it about himself. Each one had experienced a profound metamorphosis, and it had led them to understand something that had been right in front of their faces the whole time.
But, then, didn’t Samuel have thoughts along the same lines? Didn’t he strive to understand his own mysterious suspicion...the one he’d carried for as long as he could remember? Didn’t he see the same thing in everyone’s eyes? Didn’t they all struggle with understanding something they felt they already knew?
And then, he understood. The solution virtually exploded into his head.
Was it that crazy?
Was it that...simple?
He felt a tickle at his nose. Unconsciously he wiped a hand across it to relieve the itch, and when he dropped his hand he was surprised to feel a coolness, a slickness there. He looked down, and broke out in goose flesh over every square inch of his skin.
There was blood on his fingers.
* * *
Chapter 18 – Samuel
Samuel’s head swam as he stared down at the crimson smear.
Oh, no. Oh no...now it’s in me, too. And now I think I know why.
His emotions were pulled in two opposite directions.
On one hand, he was horrified; it now seemed that he’d been infected by the same realization that had wiped the others away, and by all indications he would soon be suffering the same fate, now as real as the blood on his fingers. The infection was of the worst kind...it actively targeted those who knew of its true nature. The closer anyone came to understanding the cause, the closer they were to falling victim to it. It had a near-perfect survival mechanism, and Samuel couldn’t help but admire its method.
On the other hand, he felt a strange satisfaction, even if he was damned. It was like placing a final piece into a jig-saw puzzle, stepping back, and admiring the scenery.
Just as he was contemplating the shape of the new thing he’d found in his head, and how much time exactly he might have left before he suffered the same fate Ronny had, his hand radio chirped.
Kelly’s voice came through. She sounded like she was fighting a growing panic. There was a real tremor in her words and Samuel was reminded that, despite his impending fate, there were still things in the world that mattered.
“Sam? Are you there? Come on...pick up. Please.”
He brought up the radio and depressed the transmit button. He found that his voice was shaking, as well.
“I’m here, Kelly,” he said.
“I needed to check in with you. I...needed to make sure you were safe.”
He grimaced. “Safe”...not exactly the word he would use.
“I’m alright,” he lied. “I’m in the server room. It’s...complicated. I’ll tell you later.”
Hopefully.
“Okay....” Samuel could tell that she was fighting an urge to press him on it. “Well...whatever is going on down there...I think we’ve got bigger problems.”
The wrinkles between his eyes deepened.
“What is it, now?”
“I...I’m not sure where to start. I’m not sure how to describe it,” she said.
Just then, something caught his eye. Over at the computer console, he saw something flashing red on the screen. He forgot his own problems for a moment, crossed over to the terminal, and scrutinized it. On the top right corner, there was a row of three icons. The first was a solid, white circle, and the last was a star with six points, also white.
It was the icon in the middle that had jumped out at him. It was an image of an eye, and it was pulsing a bright crimson. An alarm? A warning?
“Hang on, Kelly.”
“No, wait...Sam, you have to hear this. There’s something to the west. Something...in the sky.”
He considered his options, and then reached down and touched the eye icon with a fingertip, following an intuition he hoped the system’s architects had in mind when they built it.
“Sam! Are you listening to me?!”
The screen immediately responded to his command. The eye icon expanded rapidly, opened wider until it filled the entire screen, and then the opaque image faded, becoming transparent. Samuel was suddenly seeing a view of the Wastes. The perspective was from high up, maybe hundreds of feet. He knew that there were cameras mounted on the main drill scaffolding, but his team had never figured out how they functioned or where they sent their footage. It seemed that he had stumbled onto the answer.
It wasn’t the foreboding western cliffs that froze him. It wasn’t the dead expanse of land in between; no, he was used to seeing that, and so it held no extra menace for him.
No, the thing that was pouring the ice water over his brain was the sky above, the thing that hovered over the cliffs. It moved and seethed like a sentient, shapeless mold that ate away the gray skies...an acidic, ebony shroud. It smothered all things before it; hope, safety...love. It was the very antithesis of these things, the antimatter of them, and so when it came into contact it annihilated them utterly. All who saw it were cursed, and almost none had ever escaped the living death that it brought with it.
Worse still was the thing standing at the lip of the cliffs, only a speck to the current zoom of the telescopic camera. Samuel knew it for what it was, for he had seen it before and was very well the only living thing that had escaped it, all those years ago. He’d seen it tear apart his family and friends before him as a child, and endured its presence in his dreams ever since.
Almost unbidden by his will, his hand reached out toward the screen, to
the handful of pixels that formed the speck. When his outstretched finger was only a few millimeters away he encountered a repulsion, like a thickening of the air that resisted him, although whether it was because of some sinister supernatural force or his own personal reluctance, he couldn’t tell.
His finger made contact with the screen. At once the camera shifted its view and he was beset by an abrupt dizziness as it zoomed, crisply, to the cliffs. The speck grew in size and sprouted limbs...assumed the shape of a man. Even through the artificial lens of the camera, Samuel felt his gut turn to jelly.
There it was before him, in all its naked evil, covered in the filth of however many godless years it had traveled through the world. The white light in its chest blazed with murderous intention, its unholy gleam reflected in the thing’s eyes. It had its black gaze locked in the Spire’s direction. Even though Samuel was looking at it through the artificial eye of the lens, he still had the distinct feeling that the thing was looking directly at him, like it could see the man behind the camera. Helplessness coursed through him, confronted him with a near-certainty that no matter where he went...no matter what hole he crawled into and how many obstacles he threw in the way...this thing would find him. It would find him, and kill him. It would kill them all.
The Reclaimer had come.
“Sam!”
He’d been so enthralled by the camera view that he’d forgotten about the radio barking in his hand.
“I’m...sorry, Kelly...I think I figured out the cameras down here. I can see what’s going on outside. I...I can see it.”
“I guess Tristan wasn’t crazy, after all,” she said, her voice soft.
“No, he’s definitely crazy. But, he was right about this.”
“What can we do?” He hated the heaviness in her voice.
“Gorman needs to know, if he doesn’t already. The Council should issue an order to start getting people inside. The habmods aren’t going to be enough...he needs to pack as many people as he can into the Dome.”
The Footsteps of Cain Page 17