Sylvia decided not to be hurt by Adam’s obvious heartache about Gen’s sad demise. She loved Gen, too. It was all so sad. She decided to make Gen’s famous dish, potato casserole, for the crew of the ES1. They made the decision not to ask Jax who was dead or alive over there as it would only spark painful memories in their final hours.
Sylvia knew if Gen lived, she would have contacted them by now. Sylvia knew Gen’s fate. They all did. There was no need to ask anyone.
Adam walked in with a smile on his face to support the efforts of his crew to let the survivors on ES1 know how much they were loved. He considered every single kid in the Eden Project a sibling. Without any father figures, he became a father to them all. He felt proud watching the kids work so passionately preparing gifts for the less fortunate kids on the other ship.
“One day we will build a monument to them,” Maya said to Adam. “The brave pioneers who died on the doorstep of New Earth.”
Adam opened an arm and let Maya hug him. She kissed him on the cheek. Nadia walked over with baby Eli and handed him to Adam.
“You know,” Maya whispered, “that Max kid is a little more impressive than I once thought.”
This surprised Adam. He looked down at Maya who still had her arm around him as they both played with Eli.
“So you think he’s a good mate?” Adam asked.
“Don’t push it, Thirdborn,” Maya said taking Eli from Adam. “It’s still really gross.” She winked at Adam as she walked away with Eli.
Adam smiled back as he glanced across the dock at Sylvia who was working so hard a few strands of sweaty hair stuck to her forehead. His intended had such a beautiful spirit. The young ones lit up around her. She was a born nurturer and protector.
Sylvia noticed him watching. It pleased her as she handed airtight trays of food to the loaders of the transport.
* * *
THE ONLY NEVER IS a perpetual collaboration of void and absence. He sat on the floor contemplating those words for hours while the annoying girl became ever more frightened. It happened faster this time, but it always happened and then eventually the virus would kill the serum, the girl would become wholly infected again and he would have to start over in his lab.
The ship slowed down or stopped. He knew why. Something was going to happen. Something good. A blood bath for the itchies, but it would not be permanent. The itching would come back. Only he could make it go away forever or never. Void and absence. The pinwheel goes forever around and the itching and the hunger hold on tight.
The annoying girl had advanced beyond terror. That was a first. The more human the more afraid, he thought, but now what? The little girl just stared at him, recognizing him. So annoying.
“Tuna?” Lexi whispered. “Is that you?”
He croaked and tilted his head to observe her.
“Why don’t you eat me?” she asked.
Good question and a great idea, he thought. He leapt across the room and landed almost on top of her to sniff her face and neck. She trembled, but did not whimper like before. Her spirit can control the fear. Interesting. New so new, he thought.
“I cannot eat you until I know for sure,” he grunted.
“Know what?” she asked resigned to her fate.
“If your blood will stay pure forever,” he answered. He jumped to his feet and grabbed a needle. He spun back and stabbed it into her shoulder.
“Hey, that hurt,” she said.
He opened his eyes wide and laughed wildly with a hoarse bellow. “The little needle hurts you?”
She watched him jumping in place laughing. “If you want to know if my blood will stay pure forever, you can never eat me.”
Outwitted by a weak human. He grunted her logic away.
“Why don’t you try it on yourself?” she suggested.
“I cannot. It will damage my work. My brain will become feeble,” Tuna explained. “And this ship is no place to be human.”
A new thought suddenly occurred to Tuna. He grabbed Lexi by the hair and pulled her painfully up to her feet. He grabbed keys from his pocket and unlocked her.
He ran to his lab counter, opened lab devices and pulled out tubes. He filled his pockets with his work. “We must go or we will die,” he said, taking her hand and dragging her to the door.
* * *
ADAM RETURNED TO FLIGHT DECK to watch the transport move slowly away from the ES3 on its way to the ES1. All was quiet and peaceful. His hip buzzed with an incoming scroll mail. The transport reminded Adam of a kid’s sailboat floating gently across the play pond back in the Dome.
“There are signs of heat!” Artie yelled.
By the time Adam resurfaced from thoughts of toy sailboats, six star fighters fell from the ES1 and looped up toward the ES3.
“Our shields are down,” Max screamed.
Adam’s face burned with the hot blood that rushed to his head. He flipped open two handheld controls, located star fighters with three fingers on each control and fired six quick shots.
“Holy shit, Commander,” Artie said. “They’re all hit.”
Just like simulation, Adam thought. Zeke would have been proud.
Another star fighter suddenly fell from the ES1 and looped up to take Adam’s seventh missile right in its beak.
Max went from shocked to a joyous bout of laughter. The three crewmates took one last look at the ES1. Adam felt grateful no one else had been there to watch.
“They would have already eaten the little ones,” Adam said, “Artie, break ‘em up. We have a new world to build.”
The Commander stood when the first ballistic hit near the center of the Eden Sphere 1, splintering off a chunk of its hull. When he saw the second missile strike, he decided he would let Artie and Max finish it off.
He did not want to watch. A horrible pang of loss twisted his stomach and stopped his lungs. He did not want to take another breath in a world without her.
Entering the corridor, he remembered the scroll mail. When he pulled out his scrollpad and saw who had sent it, he stopped cold. He quickly clicked open the message Gen had sent just five minutes ago.
It’s a trap, her scroll mail read.
He dropped his pad to the ground, grabbed his forehead with his right hand and collapsed to his knees in agony.
-22-
They ran through the corridor in total darkness. A fire raged ahead. They had no choice. They had to run through it. Their suits would protect them, Gen hoped. She helped Trinh along, but they had to run.
When Trinh stumbled, Gen yanked on her arm to lift her back up to her feet. There was no time for nice. Another missile strike blew up the corridor behind them and threw the girls forward twenty feet in the air.
They crashed down near the entrance to a transport dock. They limped into a viewing area to see that the huge hangar was completely empty and on fire. The dock was open wide to the starry skies.
The Eden Sphere was coming apart. Gravity failed. Gen crawled and pushed herself off the walls of a narrow storage corridor to find what she needed. She lifted and strapped a huge pack onto her back as the ship rocked and collapsed and burned all around her.
She found a thick supply belt. She clipped one end to her and the other to Trinh. She fought the weightlessness and kicked open the door at the end of the corridor that led to the open transport dock.
As soon as the door opened it ripped away from its hinges and disappeared. A violent vacuum of open space sucked them suddenly through the door with all the other loose supplies. Trinh’s helmet banged hard against the door frame on the way into the open hangar.
They were pulled through the air of the hangar at break-neck speeds and then wildly spun out into quiet, dark, unforgiving space.
Trinh was unconscious. Gen floated backward into the ice cold void of the universe. Hyperventilating and disorientated, she watched the devastatingly spectacular sight of the Eden Sphere 1 breaking into a million lonely pieces of blue-burning flames.
Every bit of her wanted
to let go. Their suits were not prepared for the frigid temperatures. Trinh would freeze to death before she woke.
They could fall asleep together in absolute silence. They could dream of blue crystal waters and float away on the quiet stream of the cosmos.
She turned her head and saw the Eden Sphere 3. The ship had all its lights on. They were warm and happy and well-fed inside. Friends she loved. The boy that lived inside her soul. They would be mourning her death and the deaths of all the other kids on ES1. They had no idea what evil was flying onto their ship through the open dock doors.
Gen gripped the utility belt so she could get her hands on Trinh. She put her left arm around her friend and then found the cord hanging down from the huge pack on her back. She plugged the cord into her belt. A green readout appeared on the inside of her face shield.
“Activate pack,” she said.
The pack lit up on command. Green lights appeared on all four corners. A thin rod emerged and slid under Gen’s right arm. Gen grabbed the small controller at the end of the rod.
When she squeezed the controller, the jet pack’s thrusters ignited and fought against the rapid momentum of their fall. They slowly rose through the icy darkness that separated them from the open transport dock of the Eden Sphere 3.
* * *
ADAM CLIMBED BACK TO his feet. He collected himself and reluctantly walked back to the flight deck. Being absent from the one he loved had numbed him, but to know she no longer breathed, to see the empty space up on the flight screen where her beautiful eyes existed only moments before, deadened his heart into a hard-edged box that cut deeply into his nervous system.
Each breath squeezed poison into his shrunken lungs.
“The ES1 is no more, Commander,” Artie sadly informed him.
The remains of the destroyed ship spread apart and slipped into oblivion. The last of the blue flames lit the darkness like candles floating away on a black sea.
Adam managed to put one foot in front of the other and fall down into his chair. Sylvia ran onto flight deck followed by Maya and Leo. Adam felt his intended’s arms around him but his skin felt like a plastic shield. Nothing could touch him.
“What happened?” Maya said.
Max shook his head signaling her to leave Adam alone. Tears streamed down Maya’s face and she accepted Max’s comfort. She hugged her intended for the first time.
“We won’t forget them,” Sylvia said.
It took all Adam had to nod for her. The only voice he wanted to hear had been quieted forever.
Leo walked to the flight screen to watch the debris and blue flames disappearing. “They were lying to us?” Leo asked.
They all turned to the screen to watch what Leo watched.
“Our friends never lied to us,” Artie said. “The virus lied to them.”
Artie’s words were barely heard in the echo chamber of Adam’s empty existence. Meaning, people, intent, lies, purpose, truths all raced from him. He wanted to be hollowed out of everything human.
The others waited for their Commander to speak. He had nothing more to say about anything. He would not lie to them anymore and speaking to them would be a lie.
“This was really stupid,” Adam said. Suddenly, something began to form in the refuse of his mind. “Wasn’t it?”
The others did not understand. His words unsettled them.
“I thought the stinkies were supposed to grow smarter with the virus,” Adam said.
A sick feeling started to flow through Artie’s veins as Adam looked him straight in the eyes. “Their plan did kind of suck,” Artie said.
“They never fired a bullet,” Max said.
Maya and Sylvia started to feel their blood turning cold.
“They would have had a better plan than that,” Adam said. “It would all be a lie. They would have anticipated everything.”
“I thought it strange,” Artie said, “that the star fighters were bunched together,” Artie said, “easier for us to handle.”
“And they never fired a shot,” Max repeated.
Panic swept over their faces. Adam stood up and turned quickly to the doors of flight deck.
“What is it?” Sylvia asked reaching out to grab his arm.
“We need to get to the weapons locker,” Adam commanded. “They’re here.”
* * *
THE TRANSPORT DOCK DOORS clanged to an air-tight close as Gen flew up the right side of the hangar. With the doors shut she landed carefully behind a huge charging port. She laid Trinh gently on the ground. Gen trembled from the extreme cold they had just flown through. Her hands trembled so much she struggled to get the huge jet pack off her back.
She caught her breath and peeked around the charging port. No sign of the beasts. They must have moved onto the ship.
Gen shifted her attention to Trinh. She turned Trinh’s helmet to examine her face. Lifeless and pale, but her purple lips quivered. Her breath momentarily fogged the ice-cold shield.
Trinh the immortal.
A hot jolt of happiness warmed Gen’s blood which instantly made the rest of her shiver. She had to wake Trinh, get her to a warmer place before hypothermia took hold and would not let go.
Taking a moment to think, Gen noticed her reflection on the silver charging station. A gash in her suit. The beast had hit her there. Gen felt around her chest and found the tear. She slid the tip of her fingers into the rip and stepped closer to her reflection in the metal.
She would find a way to kill herself if she was infected. She would not let herself turn into one of them. She would not eat her friends. First, she would get Trinh to Adam or any of the ES3 survivors and then she would kill herself.
Her fingers moved up and down the tear. The inner lining remained intact. It was a cosmetic tear only. Gen exhaled and fell to the ground overwhelmed by the madness of it all.
Gen tried to fill her mind with positive thoughts. Adam would not fail this ship. Zeke could never best him in simulation. He would fail to best him here on Adam’s own ship. When Trinh woke she would be weak, but with a gun in her hand Trinh would never be weak.
Trinh moved her leg, startling Gen when it touched her.
“Trinh,” Gen said as she looked down into Trinh’s helmet.
Her eyes were still closed.
Gen decided to shake her. Slowly at first and then rougher. “Trinh,” Gen whispered as loud as she could, “Trinh, wake up.”
Giving up, Gen sat back against the charging station. After all she had been through, she could not go on. She felt resignation settling into her bones. Tears welled in her eyes.
She would not leave Trinh alone to die. They would stay here together until the end. The pressure she began to feel on her frozen hand confused her. Slowly, she recognized the feeling.
It was Trinh’s hand seeking her out.
-23-
MAYA TIED THE FLIGHT SUIT around Eli’s legs. The terrified baby’s big eyes looked out through the face shield of the helmet.
“We are going to play a game, Eli,” Maya tried to say pleasantly. “It’s a fun game. Don’t be a sad little bunny.”
Sylvia raced into the room to find mother and son secure in their suits. The way Maya had fastened Eli’s suit around his waist made him appear like he was a caterpillar wearing a huge helmet.
The screeching siren began to wail frightening Eli.
“We have to go,” Sylvia yelled.
Maya put her arms around the little bundle of Eli. She clutched her crying son to her shoulder. The girls raced out into the corridor.
Nadia and Max were in suits and waiting for them. Max held their only gun.
“Where are they?” Maya said through tears of her own.
“They’ll be here,” Max said.
Somewhere within the deafening siren, they could hear a distant scream. Max gripped his gun and stepped in front of Maya and the baby. Their eyes darted around the corridor checking all directions.
Artie burst into the corridor running madly. He ca
rried a long blade and a long-barreled gun.
“Run!” he screamed when he saw his friends waiting for him.
The beast turned the corner at lightning speed just as Artie tripped. Artie’s knife and gun flew out of his hands as he fell face first. The beast stopped above him and croaked blissfully. The fiend spun two jagged tooth knives expertly in its hands.
When the beast dropped to its knees to cut Artie open, a long blade suddenly appeared from within the beast’s chest. The beast was lifted off its knees magically by the blade in his chest and tossed aside.
Adam pulled the blade out of the discarded beast’s back and quickly swung it down with two hands to behead the fiend.
Leo ran up behind Adam covered in blood. All three boys had their suits safely on and they were loaded with weapons. Adam waived to the others, who were petrified in place, to join them.
Adam snatched Artie up off the ground with one hand and set him down on his feet as easily as if he were a kitten.
“Where is everyone?” Artie asked. “Where’s Hanna?”
“We’ll find her, Artie,” Adam promised. “She’s smart. She’ll find a place to hide.”
Adam met Max as he approached and grabbed him sternly by his gun hand. “You have to be quick to shoot,” Adam instructed. “The beasts will not hesitate. Do you understand?”
The kids gathered around Adam. Weapons were handed out to all. Even Maya holding her baby was handed a short-nosed pulse gun.
Sylvia stood up straighter as she received her gun. She reached out to Artie to get a long blade for her other hand. Her elegance seemed to slip away as she toughened for a battle.
“I will not hesitate,” Sylvia said.
Adam’s love for her was never stronger than at that moment. He smiled into her face shield and she felt the warmth in his soul again. She thought it had been lost to her forever.
“We fight until the end,” Adam said. “If they tear your suit, if you become infected, you fight on. You fight for the uninfected. You fight for the billions who came before and the billions who come after.”
The Eden Project (Books One & Two) Page 27