The Dark and Shining Future

by P. F. White

As you wish, came the reply in his head.

  # # #

  “Holy shit!” said Hank. He pointed but he didn't need to. Both Allyn and John were already looking to where a woman wearing a bikini had just thrown herself off the roof and was now rappelling down on a harness and line.

  “I believe that is Adriana Fletcher,” said Allyn calmly. He looked over at Hank. “She really shouldn't do that.”

  “No shit,” growled Hank. He looked back at the man. His blood turned to ice. Times like these were always so easy for him, he realized. When things got bad enough: he always knew what to do, what to say. It was a symptom of his mental condition, someone had once told him. You have the ability to commit totally and without thought. Unlike the rest of us, you can simply act and no one can stop you. It was scary to others but, to Hank, it was just how life was. He calmly said to Allyn:

  “If you fry her, or let her die, I swear by everything that matters, I will dedicate the remainder of my life to bringing you and everyone in this place down. If she dies: then everyone dies.”

  He held his gaze on Allyn for awhile. It seemed like an eternity. Finally Allyn turned away to look at John. John just nodded and shrugged.

  “He would too,” said John, “So we had better just let them be.”

  Hank felt the tiniest bit of tension release from him.

  Somehow, against all odds, he had just won. He smiled in satisfaction.

  Now to make sure his wife wasn't about to be killed by a giant monster...

  # # #

  The giant monster kicked aside one of the machine-gun trucks. It stomped on a second one, and a casual swipe of his claw brought a handful of fleeing people into his hand. It lifted them up towards its' face, some were still spraying gunfire even in their terror.

  It looked at them a moment. Adriana, dangling from the roof, could hear their distant screams.

  Then the monster closed its' hand completely and the people within were reduced to nothing but gore that poured out onto the pavement.

  The remaining men fighting didn't stop: they just kept right on firing. Some of them ran around to the monster's sides or got closer to throw grenades at it. Nothing seemed to harm the creature. Close up they could see the bullets sink deep into the creature, but they simply weren't doing enough damage for it to matter. The creature was just absorbing the punishment...but they didn't have any choice but to keep trying.

  The creature made another swipe at them as Adriana marshaled her fear and began to climb down towards the lines. She felt ridiculous, but to such an extent that she wasn't really that afraid anymore. What she was doing was so dangerous that it didn't even seem real. She just concentrated on doing it. It was amazing how old skills could sometimes return in a crisis.

  “Is that a lady in a bikini?” shouted someone from the lines below. Someone else laughed. The noise sounded wrong amongst the screams and gunfire.

  “You're crazy Earl!” said someone else. There was more laughter. Adriana twisted to look down at them. She felt sick, seeing just how far down it was to the ground, but she ignored it. She could be sick later, she decided.

  “There are people coming to get you!” she shouted at them, “They have ropes and a winch!”

  “Fucking swell!” called back someone. Another person shouted: “Please tell me they are all wearing bikini's up there!”

  “Shut the fuck up Earl!” called someone else. There was more laughter and Adriana started to grin herself. This is ridiculous, she thought, there is simply no way this is going to work! Yet sometimes all you can do is make dumb jokes and try to carry on. Life is funny that way.

  Then someone impacted about twenty feet above her. The sudden impact made her almost let go of the rope, almost but not quite. She looked up. It was the first other person in a harness, and the same black man she had seen earlier. He obviously was the sort that liked to lead from the front.

  “Are you okay?!” he called out to her. She shouted back: “I'm fine! Give me a line!”

  “Heads up!” he shouted back. He held two lines with hooks attached in his hand. He held one out and let it fall towards Adriana. She snatched it out of the air barely and began to rappel one handed. There were more people jumping down now, their harnesses secured and their movements far more co-ordinated than Adriana's had been. She watched them descending rapidly as she tried to control her own descent.

  “You! Crazy Lady!” the voice was coming from below. Adriana tried to swivel to look down at the climbers. One of them was grinning at her.

  “You do realize you coulda just thrown down the ropes right? You didn't fuckin haveta hand them to us. We ain't climbin fer fun!”

  Adriana didn't respond. In her mind she thought a few simple thoughts: Oh. I guess that's why they always tell you to look before you leap...or THINK before jumping off a building. Wow, I must seem crazy.

  The black man was by her side and shouting at her now. She tried to focus on him.

  “I'm sorry?” she shouted back.

  “You damn well should be!” he responded. Then he laughed: “Good god woman! You got a death wish or something? I admit that this building is nice to climb, but...shit.”

  The man trailed off. Then Adriana had a terrible feeling. The air was suddenly cold. A shadow had fallen across her. As if in a dream: she turned slowly to look out from the building. There, taking up her entire field of vision and seeming to stretch for an eternity, was a giant eye watching her.

  Adriana couldn't even scream. Her head hurt. She felt sick. She nearly let go as it seemed her world closed all around her. She felt too weak to go on. She couldn't hold on, she just couldn't-

  Then a bolt of lightning, impossibly bright, arched from a floor several under her and struck the creature somewhere in the upper chest. The creature reeled back and let loose a roar that shook the entire world. Somehow, Adriana found the strength to hold on.

  # # #

  “That's a hit,” said Allyn calmly, “But it wasn't a very good location. Somewhere in the upper chest I think.”

  “Aim higher,” suggested John.

  “On it,” said Allyn.

  Hank could only watch as the man moved the tiny little joystick and started to flip the switches again. The creature was already recovering. It moved one hand towards Adriana, looking to grab her off the side of the building where she hung suspended and in obvious terror.

  Hank bolted forward and pressed the “fire” button before Allyn could set up the shot completely. The lightning bolt lanced out and struck the creature in the shoulder, making it turn and stagger backwards. It roared again and the whole building shook.

  “Please don't do that,” said Allyn, “I want to get a good shot.”

  Hank frowned, but didn't say anything. He could only watch. The creature steadied itself by putting it's left hand on the building. There was a minor tremor as the claw rested on a floor somewhat near where his own apartment was. It was a strange thing to realize. It seemed to stick out as particularly odd right now and, for some reason, that made him laugh. No one paid him any mind. He felt like he would need a good long smoke after this.

  The creature's other hand was slowly reaching back to grasp Adriana again. It seemed to be moving quite carefully, like it was trying to catch a moth without hurting it. From below the machine-gunners were mostly all dead now. A quick glance at the monitors showed that, in addition to the giant creature, they were now attempting to fight off an attack by half a dozen of the giant spider-like creatures. They were not doing well. Blood had stained the pavement in great washes.

  Hank's eyes flickered back to the giant creature. It's hand was edging closer, even now. Then, all of a sudden, it staggered back as if struck. It shook its' left hand free of the building and appeared to be looking at it. The gesture was almost human. Something had hurt it's hand...but what?

  “Lined up,” said Allyn calmly.

  “Then take the shot,” said John.

  Allyn pressed the button. The switches all flipped, but
nothing happened.

  “Oh,” said Allyn, “Probably a short. Hold on a second, I'm going to switch the breakers and try again.”

  Hank didn't even hear him. He was watching something far more intense right now...something he simply couldn't believe...

  # # #

  The cartoons swarmed from the building the moment the monster placed its' hand on it. There were hundreds of them now- maybe even thousands. They moved far too fast to keep track of. They were a swirl of angry color. They looked like bees or the dust cloud that represented when people fought on Looney Tunes.

  The baby grinned at that and clapped.

  The giant reeled back in obvious pain. Already you could see the results of the cartoon's work. They had started at the hand and were working up the arm. The baby didn't know if they were biting the creature or doing something else, but as they swarmed- an endless stream of color moving almost too fast to see- the layers of flesh and meat and bone on the giant were being stripped away. Tiny particles fell from the wounds, showering the ground below like wood-chips from a buzz-saw.

  The creature's massive hand fell, severed completely, to the ground below. The cartoons moved on at an even quicker pace. They were tearing great gouges in the creature's arm, they were burrowing somehow. A great jet of something like blood squirted out like a geyser, and soaked the side of the building.

  Then a blast of lightning shot out and struck the creature right in its' massive eye. There was an explosion of gore and then, slowly, the creature began to fall backwards. The cartoons kept right on chewing.

  They didn't stop till the monster was in tiny broken pieces. Then they returned to the building.

  # # #

  Exhausted, Adriana half climbed and was half hauled up to the top of the building again. She shivered and shook. She had a dozen little scrapes and bruises from the harness and whatever else. She didn't say anything. Her mind felt broken, beaten up, and it hurt. When she got there though, she couldn't help but smile.

  Men and women were hugging openly. People were laughing. Almost everyone was collapsed somewhere. There was a lot of conversation, a lot of smiles and greetings. Some people were crying of course, or in too much shock to speak, but for the most part everyone seemed okay. Babies were screaming, but for some reason no one seemed to mind.

  Adriana couldn't count how many newcomers had made it. It didn't appear to be that many really (later the count would come in at only twenty six, with nine of those being infants.) The people from the tower were welcoming them, pouring drinks, tending to wounds and generally greeting the strangers like long lost friends.

  No one seemed to dwell on the ordeal they had just endured. No one was hating each other, fighting, or even angry. Everyone who had survived was simply happy for the opportunity to keep on living. The beautiful garden probably helped a little though. Weirdly: Adriana felt a lot of pride in that right now.

  She put on a weary smile. It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt. This, she knew, was the best that humanity had yet achieved. It was so simple, this sort of acceptance and care. Yet she also knew it was rare. She basked in it for almost a minute, no one paying her much mind (though a few were still sneaking looks at her body in the bikini.)

  Then Hank burst onto the scene, his eyes immediately seeking her out. He ran to her and swept her up in a giant hug.

  “You stubborn stubborn woman!” he said. He was crying and hugging her so hard it hurt. He was kissing her and she laughed too hard to kiss him back.

  “I'm okay, I'm fine!” she said through her tears. He just kept right on hugging her anyway.

  After a minute or two they calmed down enough for her to ask the first question that had popped into her mind:

  “What's going to happen with all these-”

  “It's taken care of,” he said with certainty, “I have a- oh fuck it. It doesn't matter right now.”

  Adriana shook her head, she opened her mouth to ask more, but at this moment she realizes she just didn't care. Adriana kissed her husband, and everything was right with the world for one solitary moment in time.

  Chapter Fifteen:

  There was a lot of work to do after the newcomers were admitted onto the roof. John, Allyn, and the others in the security department brought drinks, food, and medical supplies. Several people were drafted to interview those present to see if they were actually “on the list” and others conducted more informal interviews to see what sort of people they were.

  This was also presented the tower dwellers with the first real information about life outside of their enclosure. What they heard wasn't pretty. The monsters now operated everywhere, had killed nearly everyone. It wasn't surprising really, but it was still hard to hear. Many of the survivors would need counseling and rehabilitation for years. The psychologists within the tower claimed they thought they really could help them...but the going wouldn't be easy.

  Some others were already talking about how it wasn't right to take them in the first place. Being as how everyone who had stayed to fight in the parking-lot was now dead (and the giant spiders camped out alongside their bodies, waiting for more prey to fall into their collective jaws,) there didn't seem to be a very viable alternative to letting them stay. Like it or not: they were here now.

  But what came next? Many were already asking that all important question. Many more were debating it. Hank and Adriana spent nearly ten hours helping the newcomers get adjusted and processed to the best of their ability. Nearly all of them turned out to be either “on the list” or related to someone who was. That made things at least a little bit easier, but not by much.

  Eventually, when the strangers had all been tucked away in the seventy forth floor (the floor with the lowest population that wasn't reserved for the executives use,) Hank and Adriana decided to call it a day. The sun was setting, they were exhausted, and the newcomers weren't about to go anywhere.

  They were here to stay. That was good enough for now.

  # # #

  The clock went off rather unexpectedly. The man jumped a little, put down his pen, stretched his weary body, and patted the clock softly.

  “Okay,” he said, “I get it. Settle down. Time for a break.”

  The man looked toward the door. He had no concept of how long he had been here. He had no concept of time at all, at least quantitatively. He did have a concept of linear events at least. Things still moved in a straight line here. It was marvelously good for getting things done. Still, other factors could complicate it if he let them. He knew, for example, that when he took his rare breaks that he was also currently still sitting at the desk and getting his work done. Early on in his career: he had experimented with simply staying outside the painting, but found that eventually whoever was inside would decide to leave as well and that led to complications. The man didn't like complications. He liked to keep things as simple as he was able.

  At one point his sister had chided him on that. He could still remember it clearly. She claimed that when he was much younger he had a more adventurous spirit. There was no time for that now though, there was always so much to be done. Sometimes the man felt that he spent his whole life inside the little room, his artifacts and little friends for company. It wasn't so bad though. It was still an important life, even if it wasn't glamorous.

  “Excuse me?” he said politely. There was now a smiling little cartoon on the wall. They were always around when he needed them. Even now, after so long, he wasn't sure why that was. He had learned to simply accept it.

  “Would you mind terribly...”

  He smiled at the cartoon as it responded. Of course it wouldn't mind. What a silly thing to even ask. He never stopped being polite though, it was simply his nature.

  The man got his hat and coat from the stand. He stretched again, feeling himself being expressed in oil and two dimensional lines. It was strange how used to such a feeling a person could get. Sometimes he felt more at home here than anywhere in the supposedly real world. He looked around his of
fice one last time. Every time he left: he always felt like he was closing the door on an entire universe. He knew that a part of him would stay, would keep working at the codes, keep this little microcosm operating...but he also knew that that part wasn't him. Not really. Still: a man needed something in his life aside from work. It had been so long since he had seen his family...the man absently wondered about that. The thought was a little daunting.

  He took one last look around, took a deep breath, and then stepped out of the painting.

  Inside the room was dark. He felt the weight of this reality hit him again like a heavy blow across his entire body. He staggered a bit, eventually leaning against the wall to combat the feeling. His muscles weren't atrophied. Physically he was still in perfect shape. It was simply the mind that recoiled from the transition between states of being. Eventually he, or perhaps one of the others, would be able to fix that. For now they simply had to deal with it. The man felt for the door and found it exactly where it was supposed to be. He unlocked it and stepped into the opulent surroundings of the seventy-seventh floor.