Freefall

by Joshua David Bellin

  “I’m sorry, man,” I say. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”

  Griff’s eyes widen, and for a second I see my old friend, the goofy kid who made so much fun of himself none of the rest of us noticed how much anger and grief he was carrying around. He stands and reaches out as if he’s about to take my hand, but he lets just the tips of his fingers rest for a second on my head, like a blessing or, more likely, a good-bye.

  Yes, that’s it. A good-bye.

  “I’m sorry too, Cam.” He holsters the gun, shoves the flare in his belt. “I wish it didn’t have to be you.”

  He’s on his way out when I call after him.

  “What’s going to happen to Sofie?”

  He stops and half turns, refusing to look me in the eye. “I told you. She’s coming with me to the Executor. And she’s going to prove to me she meant what she said.”

  “Don’t hurt her, Griff,” I say. “I’m asking you as a friend. Please.”

  I see the tension in his face before he speaks. Anger and love fighting for the upper hand. And I see which one wins.

  “She’ll return to the true path, or she’ll suffer like the others,” he says. “Don’t try to follow me.”

  Then he disappears down one of the stone tunnels, vanishing in a pool of light as red as blood.

  As soon as he’s gone, I stand, thankful my legs will hold me. In the utter darkness, I quickly review my options. There are exactly two, and they both lead to the same outcome. I could follow Griff, but he’d zap me again and leave me for his Terra Tanks to finish. Or I could stay right here and try to fight them off, but without light and without weapons, I don’t stand a chance.

  I’m alone. I can hear them clacking and rattling toward me. And there’s nowhere to hide.

  Otherworld

  Earth Year 3151

  Night

  I see their eyes first.

  Yellow disks suspended two meters above the cavern floor, glowing too weakly to reveal the creatures they belong to. Six eyes total. They swivel back and forth as the Centurions approach.

  Tracking me. Hunting me.

  It’s too dark to see anything except the eyes, but I feel along the wall, searching for some means of escape, finding none. Not that it would do me any good. Where would I go? Running from them in their lair would only make me more lost. And reaching the surface would only make me a sitting duck for the light of the planetary day.

  Griff had all the time in the world to plan my death. He wasn’t about to screw it up.

  These thoughts pass through my mind with a strange unreality, as if I’m watching the impending death and dismemberment of someone else. On the worldlink, maybe. As if the real me is somewhere else.

  And, in a sense, it is.

  I’m with Sofie. In the Maverick, the last time I saw her, the last time I ever will. I see her face, hear her voice speaking my name. I guess impending death and dismemberment make you a philosopher, because I’ve forgiven her everything. How can I blame her for being afraid? My only regret is that I wasted so much time finding out the truth. An eternity without her yawns ahead, and I wish I’d known earlier that she did dream of loving me, even if she couldn’t bring herself to let her dream grow. I could have lived in that knowledge. I could have died in it too.

  In fact, I’m about to.

  But another thought snaps me out of my reverie. Griff’s heading back to wherever he left her. In the Maverick, probably. Or, worse, down here, somewhere in the labyrinth of tunnels, surrounded by his mechanical pets. He’ll free her only when she agrees to preach his message of hate. If she submits, his tanks will tear the Executor apart. If she refuses, they’ll do the same to the Freefall. Now that I think of it, even if she does what he asks, will Griff allow the Freefall to survive? If the Executor’s as bad off as Conroy said, the Lowerworld ship is the only hope for the human race. Leaving it intact would deny Griff what he seems to want, what he’s wanted since he discovered the truth about his mom’s death: the death of everyone, Sofie included.

  I might not survive another day, another hour, another minute. But I’ve got to try to survive long enough to stop him.

  The yellow eyes are a few meters away. I hear the knife sound of their limbs scraping against the rock. My fingers find an opening in the cavern wall, one of the tunnels I saw in the red light of Griff’s flare. It’s much narrower than the cavern I’m standing in, almost too tight for me to squeeze into. I don’t know if it leads anywhere. But it’s the only escape route I’ve got.

  I wedge myself inside. My head bumps the ceiling, forcing me to crouch to back up any farther. I can’t see anything, can’t tell if the tunnel’s about to come to an end. I wriggle backward, rock tightening around me, adding claustrophobia to the list of things that make my head hurt. I’m sure the creatures know where I’ve gone. All I can do is hope they won’t be able to follow.

  The tunnel bends, and I barely squeeze through by sucking in my stomach and turning my face sideways. But not before I see the first pair of yellow eyes hovering outside.

  There’s the scraping sound. The shriek of metal against stone. The tunnel shudders, dust and flakes of rock falling from the ceiling. I’m crammed inside so tightly, my whole body vibrates as the creature hammers against the rock, determining if it can break through. There’s a pause when it must realize it can’t.

  Then something else.

  A whistling sound reaches me, followed by an explosion of light and noise. I’m thrown backward, my head slamming the floor. I can’t see anything, but I can hear the tunnel collapsing, rock scraping and squealing against rock, fragments flying loose to strike my face. I crab-walk away from the falling debris, so afraid of being crushed it doesn’t instantly register that I’m no longer squeezed between narrow walls. When the floor stops shaking and the noise subsides, I stand and find myself free to move.

  I still can’t see anything. But I must have made my way through to a larger cavern or tunnel. Just in time. Just before the Centurions under Griff’s command decided to save energy and expensive biomechanical appendages by bringing the tunnel down on my head.

  I touch the wall of collapsed stone in front of me. It’ll take them forever to force their way through. If their human leader even thinks I’m alive. Which, if he was watching the cave-in through their optic lenses, he’d have to be a fool to.

  For now, I’m safe.

  But I still have no idea where I am.

  And I have no idea how to find Sofie.

  Otherworld

  Earth Year 3151

  Night

  I stumble through the tunnels in utter darkness. That’s pretty much the state of my soul, too.

  How Griff learned so much about this planet is one more thing I’ll never know about my former second-best friend. He didn’t know everything, didn’t expect the high level of radiation to affect his Terra Tanks. But he knew enough. He knew about the tunnels that snake beneath the unstable crust, knew the route to walk me down here, knew the way out. And he must also have known I’d never find Sofie without him.

  The place is a maze. I walk with my fingers against the spongy rock, but without any source of light, I can’t tell where I’m going. And without any weapon, I’ve got nothing to fight with if another of the creatures happens to find me.

  Which it does.

  I hear its rattle before I feel its presence. Its yellow eyes blink into being out of darkness. I have no clue if this is one of the creatures I thought I escaped or a new one. But it makes no difference. I can’t determine the tunnel’s circumference at this point, but with my luck, the thing will be able to follow wherever I go.

  I run anyway.

  The tunnel’s apparently not quite wide enough for my pursuer to move with its unearthly surface speed, which is all that saves me from being instant lunch meat. But it’s right behind me, rattling in my ear. I can’t risk a look back, not that there’s anything to see. I’m running blind, in danger of slamming into a wall or cracking my head on the ce
iling. But I keep running, because Sofie’s somewhere up ahead and the beast is behind. If I slow for a second, the death of the human race is about to begin, starting with me and her.

  All at once the pitch-black tunnel explodes with white light, and the creature behind me screams. In the momentary brightness I see one of its six arms flailing toward a startled face, a face covered with freckles, topped by a helmet like a giant gray mushroom. A face I’ve known all my life.

  Griff’s face.

  Our tunnels must have intersected, but in the darkness and confusion he didn’t realize how close we were. When he fired at me, he hit his own creature instead. And the last time he used the gun, it was set to stun a human being, not kill a metal monster.

  From the sounds it’s making, it’s none too happy to be fired at anyway.

  The Centurion’s metallic claws scrabble against stone. It’s on its feet. But it doesn’t go for me.

  It goes for the one who shot it.

  The gun flashes again, and I see Griff’s face illuminated in the brief glow, his eyes wide in terror, his mouth open in a scream. Spit glistens inside his oxygen mask, but the helmet that controls his creatures must have been knocked loose. I catch a glimpse of red hair before the monster slams into him, its body invisible as a gust of wind in the blackness. Griff screams again, and I think he’s calling my name.

  If I could find him, put my hands on his gun, would I save him? Would the gun let me use it, or is it another of the toys Griff programmed to serve only him?

  I think I’d save him, if I could.

  But I can’t. There’s a final, choked scream and a wet ripping sound, and then silence except for the heavy rattle of the victor. A wave of nausea washes over me, replaced by an unspeakable sadness at the loss of a friend I knew for over a thousand years. I can still remember the day I met Griff, practically the first memory I have.

  Come to think of it, it might also be the last.

  The creature wheels to face me. Yellow eyes glow. There’s the sound of knives scraping. The chatter of the machinery that drives it.

  I’ve nearly used up all my prayers, but I send out a quick one for Sofie’s life. Maybe she can find a way out. With Griff dead, maybe the Centurions won’t be able to attack. If she can make it to the Freefall, she’ll live as long as anyone can on this planet—long enough, I hope, to figure out a way to deal with whoever takes Conroy’s place. She’ll never know what I tried to do—she’ll never find my body if she looks for it—but I’ll know. For the last few seconds of my life, I’ll know.

  “What are you waiting for?” I say to the thing.

  Bad question.

  It leans in close, rattling. My eyes burn from whatever drips from its syringe.

  They burn so bad they play tricks on me.

  A red light appears in the absolute darkness behind the optic disks, a concentrated dot hovering a meter and a half above the floor. It’s not a flare, not strong enough to illuminate anything around it. It’s more like the point of a laser scope on its target. With one exception: It pulses slowly, as if responding to the beat of a heart.

  The creature’s optic disks swivel toward the red light. Its rattle softens, lowering into something like a purr. I can tell it’s about to spring.

  Then white light envelops it, showing me its poised claws, its pale humanoid innards. It shrieks and spins to escape the beam, but there’s not enough room for it to get away. The light hits it again, and it staggers, one of its legs collapsing under it. Another shot and I can see the creature inside the metal shell bubbling with the power of the beam. The Centurion lurches to its feet, tries to lunge at its attacker, falls again. This time, it doesn’t rise. The heat of the ion discharge pervades the icy darkness of the chamber.

  I stare into the gloom, trying to see. The after-effects of the light make shadows jump unnaturally before my eyes, and I can’t tell if I’m seeing anything real or only the visions in my own head. Then hands touch my shoulders, and the red light shines right in front of me. I’m surrounded by the fragrance of incense and roses.

  Soft lips press against my cheek, and the hum of her voice sounds in my ear.

  “Cam,” Sofie whispers. “Let us leave this place of death.”

  Otherworld

  Earth Year 3151

  Day

  Hours pass without a glimpse of light. But Sofie’s hand never leaves mine, so I’m not complaining.

  There’s no sign of Griff’s Terra Tanks as we make our way through the underground lair. Either the surviving ones can’t find their way around now that their operator’s dead, or they got buried in the cave-in they caused. Whatever, we’re alone, which I’m thankful for. I was really starting to get tired of my best friends trying to kill me.

  Sofie has one major advantage over me down here in the dark: Her biofeedback techniques prevented the gas from muddying her mind, so she remained fully alert when Griff walked her into his trap. But he doesn’t seem to have known that, because he used a flashlight to guide himself and made no effort to disguise his trail by doubling back or anything. Her memory’s sharp enough that she can remember the paces and turns she took from the Maverick to the place Griff left her, the place Griff died.

  I let her guide me. That feels as natural now as it did on Earth.

  Light eventually appears, glowing faintly from a great distance. We’ve been belowground all night. We pick up the pace now that both of us can see where we’re going. Sofie’s anxious to get to the ship, to see if anyone’s woken up or if Griff’s army has acted in its leader’s absence. I’m with her, though without radiation suits, I’m not sure how we’re going to make the hike to the Freefall in daylight.

  As usual, I’m worried about the wrong thing.

  We reach the end of the tunnel to discover that the exit sits directly beneath the Freefall’s prow, blanketing us in shadow. That makes sense: Why would Griff waste time driving or walking us to another of his creatures’ hiding places if he had one nearby? The problem is, the Freefall’s not the only thing at the end of the tunnel.

  The Centurions are there too.

  Fifty of them at least, all but the few that went into the tunnels with us. If I was wondering whether they could function without Griff, I have my answer: They crawl across the ship, moving in a rigid pattern of straight lines and sharp turns that makes me think they’re on some kind of auto-program. Whether that program includes the command to shoot anything that moves, I can’t say. The one in the tunnel was about to attack me and Sofie before she used Griff’s gun against it, so it seems they can respond to threats without a human operator. But the gun won’t work against fifty of them. And the only way I have of finding out the limits of their programming doesn’t exactly thrill me.

  Still, it is the only way.

  I face Sofie. In the half-light beneath the ship, I can see what a toll the night has taken on her. Her robe’s torn and dirtied, her cheeks grimed, her eyes red with exhaustion. She’s wearing the oxygen mask Griff supplied to keep her alive belowground, and through the fogged plastic, I see her smile.

  Maybe it’s her smile that makes time freeze, then reverse. I’m back in the Lowerworld, listening to her tell her stories. I hear the murmur of the audience, see the flicker of the lamplight. The girl beside me might not be everything I thought she was, but she’s still the girl who showed me what it means to live.

  And I think I understand the part of the story I didn’t get then. Not the great god. Not his bride. Not the flower.

  The wise man.

  I know what I have to do.

  “I’m going out there,” I say. “If the Centurions attack, you stay put. I’ll try to draw some of them off so you can make it to the ship.”

  “Much has changed in the past thousand years,” she says, “if I must hide in the shadows while others risk their lives for the cause.”

  She’s still smiling. But I decide to go for broke.

  “Some things haven’t changed in the past thousand years,” I say. “I lo
ve you, Sofie. I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you. You have to let me do this.”

  “Cam.” Her voice is husky, a whisper. A single tear brightens in the corner of her eye, but she makes no move to wipe it away. “You would do this for me? After everything I told you?”

  “I would do anything for you,” I say. I remember saying it before, that drunken night in her helicar, and I don’t know if I meant it then, but I know I mean it now. “The revolution needs you, Sofie. More than ever. If you die, who’ll lead them?”

  “Cam,” she says again. Her hand rises to touch my cheek. I assume it’s a parting gesture, and I’m about to say something to acknowledge my appreciation, though I’m not sure what. Maybe only her name. But then her fingers gently pull my mask down, and before I can ask her what in the world(s) she’s doing, she tilts her face upward, and her mask is gone too and her lips melt into mine.

  We haven’t kissed in a millennium, but it feels as if no time at all has passed since the first time, as if everything that’s brought us closer or driven us apart in the eons that stand between then and now doesn’t matter anymore. Never mattered to begin with. The kiss lasts approximately another millennium, and I’m thinking this is one hell of a parting gesture and trying to figure out whether I should be the one to end it when she pulls me closer, pressing herself against me as if she could fuse our two bodies into one. I’m starving for oxygen but deciding that no matter how long this lasts, the warmth of her breath is much better than breathing, and I’ve resigned myself to never taking another breath in my life when I realize she’s crying for real, the taste of her tears tangy on my lips. I pull back to see her golden eyes, fixed on me with the look I remember so well. She can’t have any breath left either, but she smiles at me and speaks.