Human Again: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Novel (Cryonemesis Book 1)

by Chaim, Moran

  “Go stand next to the main gate.”

  People started to move. There were whispers and quiet crying.

  “SILENCE!”

  He raised his hand again and the teenage boy fell to his death along with two other men that were kneeling next to him.

  “They need the people who'll maintain the systems for them,” Shanta said.

  “So what if there were no functional systems left?” I said.

  “If we destroy the systems no one will survive.”

  “So then we need to kill the Purists first.”

  “How many are they?”

  “A lot.”

  I paused to think because something in the picture before my eyes was wrong.

  “If we can split them up somehow,” I said “maybe the rest could help us. We are out-gunned but not out-numbered.” There were thousands of scared people being held by maybe a couple hundred gunmen.

  “Look at them, how can THEY help us?”

  “It’s our only chance. Let’s release the food,” I said with a grin.

  We snuck back inside, walking as fast as we could without making a sound. We jumped over bodies so we didn’t slide on the blood. All lights were off except the emergency lights. With no AC the smell and heat were horrible. Flies now circled the bodies.

  We finally got down to the room full of bug containers. The control panel showed near-maximum capacity.

  “So, what do we expect should happen?” Shanta asked.

  “The cockroaches need to follow the light and swamp the crowd.”

  “And then we charge the Purists and hope the people will follow.”

  “Simple.”

  She turned to me and held my hand. Her hand was dirty with dry blood.

  “I’m sorry I got you into this, I had no other option.”

  “Ahh, I do this all the time,” I smiled.

  “I’m also not sorry because without you everything would be shitball soup.”

  “It’s a shitball soup anyway.”

  “We might die.”

  “We might.”

  “Anyway, it was nice knowing you.”

  “You too.”

  We faced each other for a beat and then looked at the container.

  “How do we break this open?” She asked.

  I saw a pipe wrench lying on a tool rack and brought it to the container. I opened a sliding door and saw the disgusting festival inside though a square glass window. It looked like the right place to plant my wrench.

  “Let’s hope they follow the light.”

  “Ok, on the count of three, and then we run to the hatch.”

  “Sounds like a suicide plan.”

  “Do we have enough ammo?

  “Probably not.”

  “Ok,” I said, and took a deep breath. I lifted the wrench: “One…two…three…”

  I swung the wrench into the glass and it shattered inwards. It took less than a millisecond for the roaches to realize there was an opening. They poured out like a river of sewage overflowing the street. We ran like crazy. The bugs clung to our clothes, crawling inside our sleeves. It was the worst sensation I have ever experienced. I wanted to puke out of every pour in my skin. We ran and shook our bodies until we reached the hatch. We put on the cactus suits and climbed up as fast as we could and closed the hatch. We were still scratching our bodies and picking out bugs. The hatch was far enough from the people. No one had noticed us. We started crawling on our stomachs toward the crowd. In a normal day we would get shot in a millisecond but the security system was down and the cameras were broken. Our cactus suits quickly filled with the sand we were crawling on. We hid behind a rock and watched as the Purist leader raised his hand and shot another group of people. He was sorting out the ones he needed, making the others more and more submissive. By Bahomi’s stories, he might order them to kill each other to sort out the fittest to convert.

  “Come on. Where are they?” I whispered.

  “Any second now.”

  And then we saw it, like a stain of oil spreading on a yellow ocean. Millions of bugs poured out of the main gate in any direction possible. The Purists were surprised. People started to shout.

  “STOP THE LEAK!” the Purist leader yelled. He ordered five soldiers to go inside. They hesitated so he shot one of them. The rest ran inside. The crowd started to back away from the main gate.

  “STOP!” the leader yelled, shooting at the crowd. People fell down.

  As the bugs came closer and closer the Purist soldiers began to look nervous.

  “They’re not splitting up,” Shanta said.

  “It's too late.”

  I was afraid, and my body was filled with adrenaline. I’d lost it all any way, and had nothing else to lose.

  We waited just a few more seconds until the four Purists vanished inside the city’s mouth. And then we stood up and cocked our guns and started to run into the crowd. The Purist didn’t see us until we started to fire. We took out three of them. We continued running.

  “STOMP THEM! WE ARE THOUSANDS! PICK UP A ROCK AND KILL THE PURISTS FOR YOUR FAMILIES! FOR PRESIDENT PADMA!” I yelled.

  We shot more at the Purists before the crowd devoured them. The first rows of people got hit by the Purist’s shots but in a few seconds the guns were torn off their hands. The Purists were pushed to the ground and stomped by the thousands of furious legs of the united numb army. They bashed their heads with rocks. They shot them with their own guns. They cracked their bones and tore their flesh. The people of Knaan felt the power of the mass for the first time ever. I saw the Purist leader running away and I shot at him but I missed. I tore the cactus suit off myself and started to run after him up the hill, to the same place Bahomi took me to watch over the Purist city. I shot three more times, all missed during my run. As soon as he was across the hill I realized this time I wasn’t going to have mercy. With my last strength I ran up the hill and planted myself on the ground like a sniper. I shot him while he was running down towards the Purist camp, yet missed again. I threw the gun to the ground the tossed my body off the ridge. I started spinning and spinning like a barrel down the hill. My head hit the rocks and my back felt like it was about to break. I rolled and rolled until I crashed into him at the foot of the hill. He screamed in pain. I put my thumbs in his eyes and clung to his head while thrusting it into the ground. He screamed like a wounded animal. He screamed until his skull cracked and he stopped moving. I pulled my fingers from his bloody eye sockets and didn’t look back.

  When I came down the hill on Knaan’s side I saw the Purists were flattened on the ground and were covered in dirt. People screamed of excitement. People cried of sadness and joy. Many of us had died but thousands would live on.

  The last rays of sun painted the sky with yellow, green and blue. Darkness was taking over. The bugs had dispersed. We had no food and no security. Shanta climbed onto the boulder on which the Purist leader stood just a moment ago.

  “I am Shanta, daughter of President Padma. We have a lot to do. Care for our wounded. Bury our dead. Clean our city and restore its systems. Whoever has a technical job, please take care of your post. The others should take care of their rooms and surrounding corridors.”

  She looked at me and extended her hand. I reached out and got on the boulder.

  “This is Roy. The GTA. Without him we’d all be dead.”

  They cheered for us from the top of their lungs, and people hugged and cried and screamed with joy.

  I smiled at her, and she smiled back. We stepped down from the boulder and went back inside. Every senior technician gathered their staff and went inside to fix the systems. People worked all night to restore the city to normality. Shanta eventually found her brothers.

  We were safe at last.

  Chapter 18- EPILOGUE

  I thought I’d have nightmares but I slept like a baby that night. Maybe I was just suppressing everything because my body was so tired and weak from fighting. A lot of people had gotten dehydrated during the s
tay outside. They portioned the algae so everyone could eat something, and started collecting bugs to reinsert into the container. Also, I'd found out that there was a smaller reserve container just for situations like this.

  It was a new day of freedom but for the first time I didn't know what to do. There was no training. No plans to plot. So I just went to the gunroom and helped the former gun technicians fix the broken guns as fast as possible. Some had taken direct hits and exploded into pieces. Isaac came by and introduced me to his wife. After everything that happened he decided that she was going to stay with him outside the simulation. Shanta's brothers were not harmed, and she was their sole caretaker at this point. Toya and Dev were dead. Knaan made the chief security officer president, and Dr. Manu was in charge of the whole restoration process. No one knew about the resistance. Only three of us remained to tell about how we wanted to save the city, yet had to destroy it first. I guess that summed it up. Bahomi got his glory after all by guarding the hatch and dying for the cause. Yet, in the city he'd always remain the one who destroyed it. Isaac had a new story to tell the children, a story with the moral of always being prepared and not counting on the systems.

  While walking in the city I could hear people talking about going to the northern city. They thought Knaan wasn't safe anymore and that they'll never be able to fix everything fast enough. And that the remaining Purists would retaliate. I could stay and help rebuild the city; everyone respected me because I’d earned my place. On the other hand if I reached the northern city I might be able to find out more about my parents. This would be the best time to leave because the Purists suffered a massive blow and would take long to recover. I told Shanta about my idea, but she came up with a third option. During the attack our security team sent a distress call for the northern city, but Monish from the Floating City picked up on it and they were on their way to help.

  “Why would they want to help us?” I asked.

  “They are willing to take us north to Scandinavia where you can still walk outside without melting.”

  “Are you sure it's safe there? What about Purists over there? What about their resources? Who says we can trust these rich folks?”

  “The way I see it you have two options,” Shanta said, “because staying here is suicide. The last thing I'll do is stay in this place or one like it. If yesterday didn't make that point clear.”

  She got close to me and held both of my hands.

  “If you stay here you will continue to fix guns for the rest of your life. Then one day you'll retire and choose to assimilate because that's what everybody does eventually. Or you can go on a dangerous road to the northern city. Your job will be to protect a large group of people that never lived above ground. Once you reach there, you'll have to start over just like you did here. Plus the chance of finding your parents is below zero.”

  “I know that,” I said after taking a deep sigh.

  “But you have another option. You can come with me and the people you trust to a place that actually has a future to offer you. What will it be?”

  “Leave it all behind after we almost died to protect it?”

  “It's was never my intention to stay. Ask yourself if you would have.”

  “How do you know this floating city isn't just another techno-prison you'll live to hate? How different is it from this place?”

  “I don't know. But I know that the northern city is just the same as Knaan and I'm staying in neither.”

  “At least we know what we're dealing with, though.”

  “Your parents are dead! Face it. I'm sorry, but you're going to kill yourself and you won't find them. We just stopped a Purist attack, but there will be more. Nothing has actually changed. But we can change our future if we go away to a place where there's hope. My mom trusted these people and so do I.”

  “Just say you want me to come with you.”

  “I want you to come with me.”

  We hugged deeply, breathing into each other. Like our hearts melted and welded together. We were alone in the world, but we had each other now.

  I chose to come with her to the Floating City. I chose the unknown hope over known false stability.

  Oh, I was so wrong.

  Thank you for reading my debut novel!

  I hope it stirred something up in you.

  If you like this book please let me know by leaving a review on

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  P.S.S you can ask me anything on: moranchaimbooks@gmail.com