by Kira Wilson
The group separated, tapping keys at random and staring with frustration as the same error message displayed each time. Clyde began to feel the icy grip of despair crawling through him when David gave a shout. "I think I've got something here!"
Everyone rushed to his console, and Clyde saw what looked like a command prompt. Analara squinted at the screen. "External… Security Controls. Emergency Override… Enabled."
David cracked his knuckles. "I don't entirely know what I'm doing, but let's see what happens." He punched several keys, and strange characters typed out on screen. An odd sequence of chimes sounded.
Suddenly, a flash of light emanated from the screen, blinding Clyde. He blinked, and the world slowly came back into view.
David was gone.
Chapter 39
Protect.
The thought pervaded David's mind. He opened his eyes and stared at a horizon of tiny hills and pinpricks of light. A field of miniscule, gray objects swarmed across his field of vision.
Protect.
That single notion surrounded and encompassed him, and David struggled to wrest his thoughts from its grip. He focused on the memory of his own identity, blocking out the alien thoughts and images that tried to sweep him away in a flood.
Fighting back panic, David looked around. His friends were gone, along with the strange control chamber. The only thing he could see was the landscape stretching on beneath him. In the distance, a glowing dome arced high into the sky. A glowing dome…
The dome of New Mercury.
Oh hell. I'm inside one of the robots.
VERA's Talan squadrons opened fire on him, their projectiles bouncing off of his massive armor plating. From the corner of his vision, David could see another war mech blasting entire divisions apart. The battle was not going well for VERA. Swarms of broken bots littered the sand, along with many of her aerial Harrian soldiers. Even the energy cannons carried by the Coldor heavy assault troopers had no effect against the awesome power of the Analath mechs. The battle inched inexorably toward the city's borders.
Nothing on Phoenix is powerful enough to stop these things.
Protect.
The command tore through David's mind again, and the alien presence launched a renewed assault on his consciousness. The single-minded purpose of the presence nearly swept him away. Madly, he scrambled about in his memory, grasping for anything to hold on to who he was.
Analara.
Memories of their first meeting, their time in the woods, their first kiss… Slowly, David fought back against the rising tide, and the attack receded. As he regained control of himself, he could feel another mind within the confines of the machine.
I've somehow displaced the mech's AI… if I can take contr—
Protect.
David focused his thoughts, holding the image of Analara firmly in his mind as the attack washed over him. Deliberately, he projected his will outward toward the source of the alien presence.
Protect.
Yes, protect. Protect my planet.
Protect.
Protect Phoenix! David fixed the image of the other war mech in his mind, focusing on feelings of hostility and danger.
Protect Phoe… Protect Analath…
Every emotion he'd felt over the last several hours came flooding into him. The image of the war machines tearing through New Mercury, blasting his friends into nothingness, the terror that preceded the thought of total annihilation.
Prot—
The presence wavered, then faded, and a new world opened before David. Streams of information replaced the overpowering directive, and control of the mech became his.
Weapons status: 45% charged, primary cannon online. Defense status: armor plating at 98% of capacity, energy shielding charged and ready for deployment.
David began to move.
Pivoting to face the other war mech, David focused. Enable: plasma launcher. The titan's right fist retracted into the arm, and he could feel the weapon system charging.
The enemy mech turned as it sensed the power buildup, but it was too late to halt the attack. A massive blast of blazing energy leapt from David's arm cannon and tore into the enemy's right shoulder. Large electrical arcs crackled from a widening gap as the mech stumbled backward. Vainly, it tried to raise a defensive shield, but David had followed the targeting guidance and crippled the shield generator with his attack.
Before the mech could regain its balance, David opened the panels covering his beam arrays. Diverting power to the new weapon system, he launched a blistering salvo of energy at his target. The beams lanced into the enemy armor, slicing away chunks of metal plate and cutting farther into the smoldering remains of its shoulder.
Enable: energy spike. The arm socket narrowed to a small gap, and a stream of focused power leapt to life. David crossed the distance to his foe and thrust the glowing column directly into its head, slowly melting through the facial armor. The mech staggered under the assault, feebly pushing at David's arm. Implacably he held his weapon on target, and the enemy titan collapsed.
Alert. Security unit deactivated. Alert. Initializing replacement unit.
In response to the warning, David scanned the horizon. Within the dig site, he could detect a larger mech powering up. His scanners indicated that it was at least three times the size of his own robot.
He lumbered back toward the excavation. If this new behemoth became operational, it was unlikely that he would win against such a foe. He raised his left arm, and a panel opened, a heavy railgun rising from inside his wrist. He locked onto his opponent's powering energy cells and fired a salvo of bullets.
The projectiles crossed the intervening mile in a fraction of a second, penetrating the exposed power cells in a shower of sparks.
Perhaps this won't be so bad.
An alarm rang out an instant before a massive energy wave hurled him to the ground, melting the outer layer of his armor. Warning: armor plating at 32% capacity, evasive action recommended. David shook his head and struggled to his feet. Scratch the previous thought. His sensors detected another power surge, and he hastily erected his defensive barrier. The shockwave flooded over the shield, but most of the force was deflected outward.
Enable: primary cannon.
Another warning blared in David's mind. His power supply had been depleted by the shield, and the cannon was likely to overload the internal containment fields.
I have no other choice. I have to disable it before it grows any stronger.
The charge built up inside of him. It took all of his concentration to maintain the barrier that prevented the weapon from destroying him. He could feel the strain in every part of his body, the painful burn that stood between him and obliteration.
I can't hold on much longer…
A tone sounded, and David released the charge. A beam of raw energy fired from his chest, slicing deeply into the wakening behemoth. It fell backward into the chasm, and he breathed a mental sigh of relief.
Warning. Corruption of sentinel detected. Commence global activation sequence.
Lines of force flowed out from the damaged machine, and David suddenly became aware of hundreds, thousands of waiting destroyers scattered underneath the surface of the planet.
All of them are waking up…
David activated his signal jammer, silencing the transmission before it could complete. In desperation, he charged back toward the dig site.
If that message finishes, everyone will die.
He accessed the mech's internal functions and found what he needed. The self-destruct sequence. There was no way his broken machine could stop an entire army. This was the only way.
If the enemy robot was destroyed, along with his own, there would no longer be a threat. The other mechs should power down.
He didn't want to think what would happen if the titan detonated with his mind still lodged inside, but he could not allow these war machines to march unopposed across Phoenix.
David set the timer. He ha
d sixty seconds to find the way back to the control room, his friends, and Analara.
Analara. Even with the alarms pounding his mind, he could almost hear her calling for him. David reached out, trying to grasp the sound with his fingers. Maybe she could help guide him home.
=Analara…=
Thirty seconds.
=Can you hear me? I need to come back. Help me.=
Twenty seconds.
The sound of her voice caressed his fingers like mist. David strained to hold onto it.
Ten seconds.
=Analara, help!=
=David!=
David leapt into the pit, driving his fist into the face of the rising behemoth and pressing himself close.
An unseen hand grabbed him by the wrist and pulled. Something roared behind him, and fire engulfed his world.
"David!"
He gasped sharply, his body arcing off the floor and then collapsing again as the aching void in his chest filled. Hands gripped his shoulders, pulling him up part way, arms curling around him. Still panting, David opened his eyes. Analara stared down at him, terror warring with relief on her face.
Thomas, Clyde and Lucas all crowded around him. He didn't have to guess what had happened; he remembered the explosion, and Analara's voice calling for him. He almost hadn't made it back.
David tried to speak, but his body ignored him and continued gasping for air. Analara hugged him fiercely. "Don't you ever frighten me like that again," she growled in his ear.
Weakly he lifted one arm and curled it around her waist. "Tell me that they stopped," he rasped. "Tell me that they didn't activate."
Thomas pressed his hand against David's back, helping to quiet his breathing. "We think it worked. The console indicated that the global initialization command was interrupted, shortly before the controls deactivated and went back into lockdown."
"Bloody hell, David," Clyde exclaimed. "And people call me crazy?"
Analara released her grip to let Thomas and Lucas help David back to his feet. "We thought we'd lost you for a moment," Thomas said gravely.
"You okay, bro? What happened in there?" Lucas asked.
David leaned against Analara for support and shook his head. "I'll say this. I hurt worse out here than I did in there."
"Well, whatever you did, and it was really stupid, it worked." Clyde frowned over his shoulder at the ring of computer terminals. "The system is still locked down, but the battle on Phoenix is over."
David was already feeling better, but Analara refused to let him go. Under the circumstances, he wasn't about to argue. Instead he hugged her around the shoulders and stepped closer to the terminals.
They approached the center platform, and a musical voice spoke in a foreign language. Analara looked confused. "Programmer descendant? Recent file?"
The dais suddenly glimmered with light. The pointed device above moved, aiming a beam of light at the middle of the platform. The figure of a man appeared. His dark hair was long and streaked with gray, and he wore a black robe. His image, from the purple hue of his eyes to his tired smile, was so finely detailed that it took David a moment to realize it was a hologram. The man spoke, and the room filled with the sound of lyrical, but unintelligible, words.
"Is that Anrathian?" David asked. "I can't understand any of it."
"Hang on a second, VERA finished the translator," Clyde said, and touched his shoulder.
David felt a small jolt, and the words began to make sense.
"…86th of Harvestfall, 3471 AF. Yesterday, the final integrity checks were completed. Everything performed impeccably. All of the support structures are protected, and will be covered soon by the servitors. At nightpeak, the populace transfer was initiated. There were no errors, and we maintained a 100% retention rate during the entire transfer. The process was undetected. My team will stay to observe for an additional week… to ensure that everyone is safe…"
The man wheezed, and a fit of coughing wracked him. When he straightened, his face had paled, but the smile returned. "I have chosen not to transfer. Olna is… understandably despondent, but I made my decision clear. Someone must stay behind for as long as possible. The season of death that grips our world was ours to prevent. Someone must pay the price for our sins."
A hint of tears glimmered in the man's eyes, and his smile widened. "Now innocents will no longer suffer from the foolishness of the 'wise'. The warring cities will now be at peace, and the creations of strife that scarred the planet will now act as guardians for the new world. This catastrophe has brought us together in a way not seen in a thousand years. I only hope that the children born within can learn from our many mistakes."
The man paused, his breath becoming raspy, but he cleared his throat and continued. "This will be the final entry of my journal. I shall continue to monitor Analath's physical deterioration, and the new world's stability, for as long as my body functions. I close these remembrances knowing with peace in my heart that our efforts have not been in vain. Analath will live on. The spirit of our people will endure, free from the poison that consumes our world. It has been my honor and privilege to serve, and I will depart with no remorse. Let my actions be testament to virtue, that my people may know peace."
A chill touched David's heart. He had heard those words before, murmured by Shalaron just before he struck the blow that had killed Jessica.
"My research and data files will be stored within the master level," the man continued. "They should prove invaluable to maintaining the new world, for whoever my successors will be. Protect our people. This I charge you. I am High Observer Siath, head of the 3rd Division of Sciences, creator of the Salvation Program, and I bid you farewell."
Analara's breath hitched. She stared into the face of the hologram. "Siath… t-this can't be!"
Siath. The Anrathian god. He was a man?
What the hell is all of this?
The image of Siath faded away and was replaced with a globe display. Columns of data filled the margins, all written in extremely complex code patterns. It looked like the specs for the most detailed program ever created.
"David…" Clyde's gaze was glued to the image. "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"
It was Phoenix. Every mountain range and sea was in its proper place; David recognized the locations where the nine city domes should have been, but nothing was there. Realization dawned on him…
This isn't Phoenix. This is Analath.
The two planets were one and the same.
Chapter 40
A faint chiming held the deafening silence at bay as information continued to scroll down the display. David's mind staggered away from the brink of the impossibility before him. Phoenix and Analath were the same planet.
At the same time, they couldn't be. He recalled idle days spent watching the video feeds from observer satellites scattered across Phoenix. Even though VERA had been seeding the surface of the world with Earth based vegetation for hundreds of years, there was nothing like the lush landscapes he had seen on Analath. No green skies, no feranals, roanan trees, none of that. People on his world couldn't shape reality with their thoughts. They couldn't be the same, could they?
The globe flickered and letters appeared above it. David stared at them while the translator deciphered their meaning. Realsphere Activity Record. A time indicator advanced in the corner of the image as the green blanket covering the planet slowly receded. The last traces of green disappeared from the world, and red letters flashed across the display. Total Cessation of Biological Life - 3473 AF. Total Atmospheric Destabilization - 3477 AF.
What had he just witnessed? Was that the death of Analath?
"Clyde," David called. He looked up and saw his friend watching the display, a look of rapture on his face. "Clyde!"
Clyde jumped and tore his gaze away. "What? You don't have to yell, Dave."
David frowned. "You were a little preoccupied. Can you access any of the information being displayed here, or is this terminal locked down as well?
"
Studying the image, Clyde tentatively tapped a portion of the interface, and the display shifted to a new set of data. "Looks like this is a separate part of the system."
"See if you can pull up anything relating to the planet's decay that Siath mentioned."
Clyde's gaze roamed around the display until he found what he was looking for. He accessed the command, and a new picture flared to life.
The image looked like the molecular structure of a pair of compounds. David scanned the text underneath, hoping that it would be something understandable. Forced pollutant shift? Thought field overload? Atmospheric degeneration?
"Correct me if I'm wrong with any of this," Thomas said. "But this seems to show that the presence of some sort of energy generators, combined with aerial pollution, caused their atmosphere to break down."
Clyde grunted. "This isn't my field of expertise, but that sounds plausible. How the hell do you know stuff like that, Lancelot? Special ed courses for jocks?"
Thomas smiled pensively. "My father worked at an atmospheric stabilizer before he got promoted. He taught me a lot of what he learned to help broaden my horizons." Thomas shook his head and focused on the display. "I'm not sure what the original compound is, but this second one is very similar to Phoenix's atmosphere. Large amounts of nitrogen, oxygen, a few trace elements. The sort of stuff we need to live."
… free from the poison that consumes our world…
David stared at the formula in horror as he grappled with understanding. Was this a past or future calamity for Analath? "Clyde, can you access any information on the data transfer Siath referred to?"
Clyde tapped another portion of the display, and a new set of data appeared. It looked like personnel listings. Names, ages, physical information, personal data. Row after row of records scrolled by.
"How many files are there?" David asked.