Young stood up and straightened his tie, then smirked. “She came back to me, didn’t she? I have you and your little world to thank for that. You might want to think about that before you depart from the living. What’s Concordia’s motto, again? Oh, that’s right. Unity and Honor. Cute, but meaningless. Look where it got Darius. Look where it got you.”
Cal launched a string of vile curses and expletives at Young as he left the pod. He didn’t stop until his throat burned, his voice faltered, and his lungs were left gasping and choking for air.
Gov Darius Owens
22 July, 6 yal, 14:51
Lost in the wilderness west of Concordia
Get up, he told himself. Get up, you need to move.
Darius’s lips twitched, releasing a long, incoherent groan. Words meant to give himself encouragement could not make their way past his leaden, parched lips. His arm flopped heavily on the ground as he rolled over. His fingers curled around a gnarled fingerling root of the towering Demeter pine, but the rest of his muscles would not respond to his will.
Come on, damn you.
His heavy eyelids fluttered closed for a moment.
No, God damn it.
They opened at once. Limbs high above danced and swayed in a breeze that he could not feel. Brown and green bled into a blurred white cloud that drifted past. Blinking his eyes only barely helped bring things into focus. His lungs heaved out a couple weak coughs. His wounds only throbbed slightly in protest. For a moment, Darius was convinced that his arm was dead, the last connections to the mauled limb finally severed by fever and infection. But he felt a gentle tickle on his hand, and managed to raise his head enough to see a beetle crawling across his skin.
He slurred an expletive and closed his eyes again. His diet of tarverberries and water was no match for the sickness that overwhelmed him. There was no warmth anywhere to be found. Even when he managed to find a patch of sun burning through the trees, Bravo’s rays were not enough to stave of the icy chills that wracked his body constantly.
Get up.
“I’m dead,” he finally managed to croak.
No you’re not. You survived your own assassination. Now move!
Almost unconsciously, Darius heaved, straining all the muscles in his chest and left arm at once. His first attempt to right himself fell short. The second time he sat up, though the exertion left his head spinning. His stomach churned and heaved. Spasms sent him into the dry heaves; he had already thrown up what little water was left a few minutes earlier. When the convulsions subsided, he collapsed onto his back once again, panting.
To pass the time, Darius reflected on the brief history of Concordia. The power grab by the nearly mad Colonel Eriksen had ended in the death of several crew members, and led to the formation of Concordia and Darius’s eventual election as governor. The first winter, huddled inside Gabriel with the rest of its colonists and crew, eating almost exclusively ration packs. The drought of the first summer and the harsh, bitter second winter with not enough to eat. Fifteen more dead. Almost seventeen, as the McLaughlins both nearly perished.
“Why didn’t we all die then?”
Because everyone got back up, the voice from within him affirmed, stronger than ever.
He tensed his muscles again, this time righting himself steadily. The next reflection was that of the labor strike. His own people revolted against his plans for the colony, shutting down the reactors of the ships and bringing all progress to a halt. That was followed by a sick game of paperwork designed to throw him off and slow him down.
“I should have quit while I was ahead.”
And then what? There were so many groups, and they all wanted different things. If you had walked away, then what?
If Darius could have, he would have laughed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s all gone now,” he whispered hoarsely. “Doc was so worried about the Chinese. And he couldn’t see the enemy at his side.”
To say that Darius’s image of Dr. Benedict had been tarnished over the past week would be a mild understatement. His abandonment in the wilderness, much of it spent immobile and fevered, had given him more than enough time to contemplate the merits of Benedict’s second betrayal: the one that allowed Young and his crew to escape Earth. The idea of nobility in Benedict’s actions had worn off, and Darius had begun to view him with contempt. At best, the doctor’s actions were incompetent and naïve. At worst, he was corrupt. Possibly as corrupt as the politicians that Dr. Kimura claimed Benedict was protecting the Project from.
Darius even questioned Dr. Kimura’s motives. It seemed unlikely to him that the elder Kimura could have worked so closely with Benedict for so long and not known about his duplicitous nature. Ultimately, there was no proof that Kimura was anything but a fool. That, at least, was something that had been proven repeatedly.
Young was something different entirely. He should not exist on Demeter. And Darius had proven himself as foolish as Dr. Kimura by welcoming the survivors of Mercy into his colony. His payment for his hospitality was an attempt on his life.
If you give up now, Young wins.
“No,” Darius muttered.
He strained again, leaning on his left arm. He winced in pain as the wound on his left hip throbbed, but his legs responded to his determination; a moment later, he was standing. Darius limped a few feet to the creek, kneeling beside it and drawing as long of a drink as his stomach could handle.
“I’m coming for you, you son of a bitch.”
Calvin McLaughlin
22 July, 6 yal, 16:06
Mercy
“Something wrong there, Prince?” Alan asked sarcastically.
Cal looked up at his captor, taking a moment’s pause from stirring the red-and-white sludge in the packet that passed for pasta. He shook his head, then took another bite of the bland mixture, chewing it with utter absence of thought.
Having the company of Alan was only marginally better than solitude. Alan brought light, and the presence of another human being, even if a repugnant one. Without him, Cal would be festering in a corner of the cargo pod. It was his own personal hell, but not one that he was certain he wanted to leave. At least, not unless he somehow managed to escape. Harcourt Young had made it explicitly clear that Cal was not going to live, and that Andrea’s future as an orphan was inconsequential.
Still, Cal was certain that escape would not be possible. He was only released from bondage long enough to eat, and even then only under the watchful eye of Alan. The man’s witless banter was just the fetid icing on the rotting cake. He finished the ration, packed the waste inside the pouch, and folded it neatly. He then took a seated position on the floor, ankles together, wrists resting on his knees, waiting for Alan to tie him back up.
Instead, the man pulled out a clear bottle with a golden brown liquid that had been concealed behind a crate near the door. He took a seat on another empty crate in front of Cal, popping open the swing top. Cal recognized it instantly as his own product. Alan took a deep swig, wiping his mouth as he offered the bottle to Cal. Cal refused with a silent shake of his head.
“You sure? Might take the edge off your nerves there,” Alan said.
“Don’t think it’ll help with that.”
Alan shrugged and took another drink of the whiskey. “Suit yourself. I know you don’t want to be here with me, but I figured you might want someone to talk to so you don’t go crazy.”
That’s rich, Jerk chimed in. You. Going crazy.
Cal drew his knees to his chest. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I know. I’m not asking you to confess your life story. Besides, I’ve heard most of it from Britt. Sorry about that, by the way. But what can you do?” Alan’s customary wicked grin crossed his lips. “Women, right?”
Cal looked up at him blankly. He would have loved nothing more than to wipe the smirk off of his pocked face with his fist, but he knew the effort would be pointless. Cal wasn’t a fighter, but Alan was, if Brittany was to be believed. The man’s cock
iness suggested that he wasn’t the slightest bit afraid of Cal.
“Right,” Cal replied flatly. “You know how it goes. One day you’re making them dinner, the next they hand you over to a sociopathic prick.”
Alan tsked disapprovingly. “That’s not a nice thing to say. If I was a sociopath, I’d be doing this for fun.”
“Looks like you’re having plenty.”
“And it looked like your little girlfriend was helping you. See how well that worked out for you. Guess you’re not the best judge of things, are you?”
Cal tucked his chin into his arms. There were many things he wanted to say in response, most of which he was sure would result in his violent end. His mind began to wander as silence crept back in. He thought about how he could have treated Brittany better, how he might have avoided her betrayal. As the threads in his mind turned dark, he wondered if Andrea would ever know the truth about his death, or if Young would somehow manipulate that as well.
Alan interrupted his reflection after a couple minutes. “You know, I think you’re the quiet, planning sort of guy.”
“Huh?” he replied, confused by the seemingly random comment.
His captor wagged a finger at him and squinted. “You remind me of this one guy back in Illinois. Gary Collins. He and a few of his friends showed up at the shipyard to help out. He convinced us all that they were there to help out and earn a place on the ship. Damn smooth talker. That is, when he did talk, which wasn’t that much.” He placed his hands on his lap, craning his neck slightly toward the ceiling. “He was a smart son of a bitch. Gary waited until he had our trust and we put him and a couple of his crew on night watch. A few weeks later, I woke up to hell breaking loose. Turns out that Gary had a couple hundred friends that wanted to hitch a ride on Mercy. He and his pals took out most of my detail before we could stop them.”
“I’m sorry he didn’t succeed.”
“I bet,” Alan retorted dismissively. “His little inside job did so much collateral damage to the shipyard that it set us back about three months. It actually hurt to have to put him down afterward, Cal. He knew what it took to survive in that world, let me tell you. If it wasn’t for the fact that I couldn’t trust him as far as I could piss, I’d love to have him here.”
“So he could what, fuck up this world?” Cal spat back.
Alan considered this for a moment, his head cocking from side to side. “That could have happened. He sure could have figured out how to manipulate your governor a lot faster.” He sighed heavily and took another drink. “I don’t know, man. I might actually miss it.”
“Miss what?” Cal asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“The excitement. The tension. The adrenaline of battle.”
Okay, this guy is definitely…
Cal interrupted Jerk’s thought. “You’re sick. You got off on slaughtering desperate people?”
“You weren’t there.”
“I’m glad. I don’t know if I would have shot you or killed myself.”
Alan grinned again. “Well, let’s all be thankful that you don’t have to make that choice.” He paused for a moment. “Speaking of thankful, Mr. Young wanted me to convey his thanks again.”
Cal’s stomach churned and his skin crawled. “Thanks for what?”
“Something about driving Britt back into his bed. He thought he had lost her when we landed.”
“How romantic,” Cal muttered.
“I guess. Bed wasn’t the word he used, but I don’t want to get all mushy on you. Let’s just say that he’s a happy man once again. The flowers are in bloom for him. Birds are singing. All that disgusting fuzzy crap.”
Cal shook his head, resting it on his arm. He knew he had screwed up, and Alan rubbing it in was just pure cruelty on the part of his captor.
Just go away and turn the lights off, he thought.
I don’t want to be left alone in the dark with you again, Jerk complained.
The feeling’s mutual. But right now you’re better than him.
After a minute, Alan stood up and took another drink. As he capped the bottle, he solemnly said, “Look, I know it’s all gone to shit for you. I may have protected Mercy against people like Gary, but this is different. I got on board that ship back on Earth thinking that Young wouldn’t need me any more when we got here. Have you ever drunk yourself stupid when you found out a stranger died, Cal?” Cal barely regarded him, not responding. “I did. When I found out Doctor Benedict didn’t make it here. I saw what was coming. You’re not the only one that’s had a bad run lately.”
“Why should I care?” Cal asked, growling.
Alan shrugged. “You shouldn’t. Might just be the whiskey making me pour out my soul. Or maybe because you can’t hurt me if I tell you.”
“Why should I listen then?”
The pock-faced man ignored him. “It could have just been taking the servers back. If only your governor hadn’t been there. I had to take care of him. A job that had to be done, a job I’m paid well to perform. And I did it.” He swirled the bottle in his hand. “But then you got involved. Now I have to make an orphan. I’ve never done that before. At least as far as I know. And to top it all off, the man I have to kill is the man who makes what I need to drown out the voices from my past.”
Cal looked up at him, seething with hatred. “So your big issue is that you won’t be able to get wasted after you kill Andrea’s last parent?”
Shut up, Jerk protested. He’s saying he has a heart.
Black and shriveled.
Alan’s brow furrowed. “I don’t want any of this shit. But it can’t be stopped, because it’s what my employer wants. If I stood in his way, he’d just have someone else do it.”
“So stand up to him,” Cal snarled. “If you’ve got such a problem, do something about it. Even if he has you killed, at least you’ll die knowing you’ve done the right thing.”
Alan popped the cork again and took a deep draw, coughing and wiping his lips as he finished. “I don’t want to die. Fuck it if my life is miserable. It already is. But at least it’s a life. And maybe, just maybe, when Young is done taking over this pathetic colony of yours, I’ll get to retire. For good.”
The bottle was put aside in exchange for the familiar ropes Alan used to bind Cal. In a matter of minutes, Cal’s ankles and wrists were immobilized, and he was once again helpless. As Alan left the pod, he paused at the doorway to give the final word.
“We leave before dawn tomorrow. I’d say get some sleep, but I don’t think you will.”
The words were true. Despite the all-consuming darkness after Alan shut off the lights Cal knew he could not sleep. Death had set a date with him, and he was helpless to do anything about it.
Gabrielle Serrano
23 July, 6 yal, dusk
Approximately 130 miles southeast of wreck site
Aidan paused for a moment to readjust his pack. The sweat that glistened on his forehead and the short, dragging steps that he took showed how fatigued he was. His toil under the combined weight of gear and flesh was great. Gabi shared that burden; Marya stumbled along between them, her arms draped over their shoulders.
“Stop, Aidan,” Marya whispered hoarsely. “I need a break.”
“We’re almost there, Mar,” he huffed. “Can’t stop now.”
“No,” she rasped. Her legs faltered, dragging Gabi and Aidan to the ground.
Gabi cursed, her legs burning as she struggled to lift her stricken companion back to her feet. Diego bounded ahead of them, seemingly oblivious to their struggle.
“Diego,” she snapped. “Get back here!” He froze in place, rigid as a board and eyes wide in fear. “I told you to stay close to us.”
His lips curled downward and quivered. A pitiful moan rose from his throat. “But I want to see the city!”
“You can’t go running off without us.”
They got a few steps closer to where Diego had stopped before the load became too much. Gabi’s legs buckled, and Marya col
lapsed on top of her. Gabi winced as she rolled the extra weight off of her and sat up. Both she and Aidan panted heavily. The muscles that she could still feel screamed with searing pain. Others had gone numb altogether, making even the simple task of opening her canteen a challenge.
Diego returned to them and helped Marya sit upright. Aidan sloughed the pack from his shoulders and drank his canteen dry. His hair was a sweaty, tangled mess. His sister coughed and wheezed. Her pallor had changed little over the past two days. Marya’s strength and will to press on had diminished, however. For much of the day they had to resort to carrying her between them. Marya protested, insisting that they rest, but Gabi wouldn’t allow it.
Gabi could smell the smoke of the settlement’s fires. It’s what spurred her on, despite Marya’s complaints. What at first was a teasing odor that carried on the wind and dissipated after a moment was now nearly constant. Along with the smoke came the smells of roasting meat. They were close, but still had not seen any signs of the city. And each whiff of fresh food left Gabi’s stomach grumbling and aching, adding to her fervor.
She took the party’s empty canteens to the creek’s edge, refilling them with cold, crystal-clear water. She splashed some on her face. At once she felt more alert, and the burning in her cheeks and forehead began to fade. Gabi distributed the water vessels as soon as she got back and checked her supplies out of habit.
One more arrow, she thought.
Next to Marya’s health, this was her biggest concern with their situation. Her supply of ammunition had been dwindling the entire trip, but ever since she lost half of her arrows saving Diego at the mountain pass, she had to make every strum of her bowstring count. She lost two arrows in a single day through unfortunate hunting mistakes. It had cost them meat for the past two days. Gabi drew the arrow from her pack-quiver, turning it over in her hand.
If I hunt tonight, that might be it.
A cool breeze kicked up, bringing with it the smell of meat and fresh bread. Her hands went to her growling stomach, trying to soothe it.
Project Columbus: Omnibus Page 126