His hip buzzed. It would be her. Gen. He grabbed his scrollpad and clicked open the messages. Her name was there so fresh and alive. He exhaled a lifetime full of emotion in a single breath. He hunched over and tried to calm his breathing. She was alive.
He opened her message. It was a single line that sobered him completely. They know about the reactor.
Adam forwarded the message to Sylvia and Maya and returned his scrollpad to its holster. He took off running as fast as he could through the dark passageways.
-25-
Tuna found a place to eat in peace. A room full of games and comfortable couches. He lifted his girl up and tossed her on a pool table. She scurried off the table and crawled underneath it. The girl never stopped annoying him. Eating her would put an end to that.
“Girl,” he said, “just let me eat you. Let’s not waste each other’s time. Not after all we’ve been through.”
“I don’t want to be eaten,” Lexi yelled from beneath the table.
He jumped over the table in a flash and grabbed her by the ankle. He pulled her out and lifted her easily. He craned his neck to look down into her eyes. He giggled and swung her a little back-and-forth to sweep the floor with her hair.
“Why are you doing that?” Lexi asked.
“I’m sweeping the floor with you,” Tuna giggled and dropped her head first onto the ground.
Lexi held the side of her face in pain. “You’re sick.”
“That’s a matter of perspective, I should think,” Tuna said.
She tried to run and it made him laugh. He took two leaps, threw her on the ground and pounced on top of her. The girl screamed and cried. Water fell from her eyes. He covered her mouth because her crying made him feel weird.
He put his hand on her chest and felt her heart racing like a panicked rabbit inside her. She stopped crying, terrified.
“You don’t want to do this, Tuna,” Lexi pleaded.
“It is already done,” he said staring into her frightened eyes. He tore her gown off her shoulder and bit her viciously. She screamed so loud he sat up with her blood dripping from his mouth.
“I can make it stop,” she moaned in agony.
He shook his head wildly as he savored her fresh blood. “I don’t want it to stop. It’s wonderful,” he said.
“The itching and the hunger will destroy every day of your life,” she said. “I know. I was infected once too, remember?”
This confused him. He moved off of her and sat on the ground. She covered her shoulder. Blood from the bite mark soaked immediately through her white gown.
“You can eat me if I am wrong,” she said.
While he considered her offer, she reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the covered needle. He reacted as if by instinct. He grabbed her hand that held the needle and then her skinny leg. He jumped to his feet holding her above his head. He angrily threw the stupid girl across the room into the wall.
He sighed and walked over to the girl who quivered for a moment on the ground before she died. He touched her neck with his hand, feeling for structural damage. It was as he thought, her neck was broken.
His appetite had been spoiled by all this. He stared down at the dead girl sadly. He felt something stir deep inside. He wished she was alive. Tuna grabbed the needle, pulled off its cover and stabbed it into his own neck.
It’s what she would have wanted, he thought.
* * *
THE BEASTS CRAWLED OUT of the reactor one at a time. Adam had made it back too late. He climbed up into the overhanging beams and moved into a dark corner. The beasts passed below him after they left the reactor core. The final beast he knew well. Zeke.
Adam sat back deeper in the shadows. Zeke stopped and croaked. He sniffed the air above. Adam held his breath and did not move. Zeke sniffed some more, sensing something. The beast grunted and followed the other beasts out of engineering.
A moment passed before Adam let out his breath. He quickly descended from his perch to the floor. He did not want to crawl through the pipe into the reactor, but felt it his duty as Commander to make sure the species had truly come to an end.
The dark tunnel closed in on him as he began to realize the world was ending. He was left alone to wander in the final graveyard. There was no light inside the reactor. He jumped down into total darkness. He turned on his flashlight and started to search the floor systematically.
There should be blood, but he found none. The message he sent would have been too late. Gen must have sent a message to the others and saved them. He smiled in the darkness.
A light. Adam saw it there, coming from the pipe. He turned off his flashlight and readied his gun. He moved slowly to the far wall. The keeper of the light jumped down into the reactor and waived the light around until it found Adam.
The light stayed fixed on him. He turned his light on and lifted it to shine on the intruder. They stayed like that until realizing both were wearing suits, until realizing both were uninfected, until realizing the different numbering on their helmets.
They took one step and then another toward each other. Then Adam started running. He dropped his flashlight. She braced for his attack and held onto her flashlight. He picked her up into his arms desperately squeezing her by the hips. He pressed his face against her chest and belly tightly as her flashlight fell and she hugged his neck.
He let her down and picked up her flashlight. Tears streamed down Gen’s cheeks. Adam smiled back to her dumbly. He wanted to kiss her, to take off his helmet. Like Artie. She stopped him.
“Are there others?” she asked.
He remembered the others. They had made it out of the reactor, but now they were out there with the beasts. Sylvia and Maya and baby Eli.
“We have to find them,” he said.
She reached out to touch his shield tenderly. “It’s so good to see your face again.”
Her voice alone could calm him. He took her into his arms again, more gently, and held her head against his heart.
* * *
SYLVIA TOOK THE LEAD and Max brought up the rear of the group of terrified kids. Eli’s crying put them all in jeopardy. The beasts had good ears. The virus made the senses of the infected sharper. The baby’s crying would eventually bring the beasts down on them.
“Hush little baby, don’t say a word,” Maya sang into Eli’s helmet. “Mama’s going to buy you a mockingbird.” She had a beautiful voice and it not only soothed Eli but the others as well.
Sylvia, Maya and Max all felt a buzzing on their hips.
Max and Sylvia pulled out their scrollpads and read the message.
All well? Confirm, Adam wrote.
Sylvia typed a short response. Yes.
She waited. Get to the Rover, Adam wrote back.
Confirm, Sylvia wrote. She slid the scrollpad back in its holster.
“What did he say?” Maya asked.
“We need to get to the rover port,” Sylvia said. “We need to leave the ship.”
“We can’t get there from within these walls,” Leo pointed out. “It’s way on the other side of the ship.”
The kids quietly considered their options. Even Eli remained quiet.
“When we get to the lower deck, we’ll travel the rest of the way in the corridors,” Max said.
Nadia offered to take the baby to let Maya rest her arms. Maya refused, but Leo stepped in and forced Maya to let go of the baby.
“Thank you,” Maya said rubbing her right shoulder.
Max led the way to their new destination.
* * *
THEY HAD NOT SPOKEN in almost two years. They thought about each other every night since then, but now they could not find any words for each other. Gen led Adam through the walls quietly. She told him she had lived within the walls of her ship for most of the past year, moving in and out of the dark like a bat.
“The baby’s name is Eli?” Gen asked.
“It is,” Adam said disappointed the exchange ended so quickly.
&nb
sp; They walked for nearly five minutes to a point where they had to climb up through a narrow hole almost too small for Adam to squeeze through. Gen pulled him by the hand and he finally found a contortion that would allow his body to get him up to the next level.
When he stood, he towered over her.
She grabbed his biceps. “You’ve matured,” she said immediately embarrassed.
He grabbed her skinny arms. She could see the alarm on his face.
“Yeah,” she said dismissingly, “I’ve missed a few meals lately.”
Gen walked on ahead. Adam followed closely.
“He looks just like Ozzie,” Adam said enthusiastically.
“Oh, that’s perfect,” Gen said.
Their conversation was painfully polite and impossible to sustain. They would leave the walls soon and might never speak again. There was no time to be polite.
“So is Sylvia a good kisser?” she blurted out.
Adam laughed from shock. “Sylvia is lovely.”
She smiled. This was better. A real communication. “Lovely? Hmm, sounds like you’ve done it.”
“What a mouth you’ve developed,” he said.
She smiled. “Forgive me, I haven’t been in polite society for a while.” She turned to look into his eyes. She felt the electricity again. “You used to like my mouth.”
“Gen, we’ve kissed. Sylvia and I. That’s it.”
“It’s none of my business.”
“And what of Zeke?”
“His kisses were nice,” she said remembering what Zeke had become. “He protected us all after the infected came.” She turned away and looked painfully into the past. “He threw himself onto a horde to help Tuna and Jax get away. He saved them.”
Adam could see the agony of her memories. The last year must have been a prolonged nightmare for her that even now he could not begin to understand. “Zeke was a true warrior,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said, “he was. And now he’s a super warrior.”
Conversation is not always a good idea. They walked on silently thinking about a dozen disconnected things trying to keep their minds focused on what was to come.
They both heard the pulse gun blast in the wall behind them. Adam ran back to find the narrow passage that led to the vent. More guns blasted. Adam and Gen knew it could only be their friends.
Adam sprinted into a feet-first slide and exploded out through the vent into the corridor. He popped up in the middle of a fire fight. To his left, Leo and Nadia created a shield protecting Maya and the baby. To his right, Max and Sylvia clung to the wall and exchanged fire with a single beast.
Adam helped Gen to her feet and then he took off running to help Maya and the baby. A beast ran up a wall and dove suddenly onto Nadia who dropped her gun to the floor. Leo charged at them and knocked the beast off of her.
Fighting hand to hand with a beast at Leo’s size didn’t last long. The beast impaled him with a knife thrust through his throat. Adam made it in time to kill the beast with a quick face-melting blast.
Nadia was badly wounded. Maya clutched the baby and stood behind Adam. Another beast peeked into the hallway but took one look at the fierce bearing of Adam and disappeared.
“Leo,” Nadia cried as she fell forward onto her intended. She bled freely from a stomach wound.
Maya handed Eli to Adam and crouched down to comfort Nadia while the dying girl slowly fell asleep from blood loss.
Adam watched down the corridor as Gen moved up in support of Max and Sylvia. “Fall back,” Adam yelled.
Gen stepped between Sylvia and Max and started firing at the concealed beast. “We need to fall back.”
Sylvia’s jaw dropped. “Gen, what the hell?”
“Does this mean we’re all dead?” Max asked as he blasted another shot off.
“Not just yet,” Gen said.
Max covered for the girls as they fell back. When they neared Adam the two friends hugged. Sylvia and Gen. Maya stood up with tears in her eyes after Nadia had finally slipped away.
“Gen!” Maya yelled and hugged her.
Adam handed Eli to Sylvia and ran down to dig Max out of the firefight. Adam rolled a flash grenade down the corridor which chased off the single beast with a loud explosion.
The five survivors and baby Eli could no longer hide. Beasts on either side of them were running to report their presence. They stood together alive and pure-blooded, but running out of options.
“What’s the plan, Commander?” Max said.
Adam surveyed both directions while everyone looked to him. None of them wanted to think of the next step for fear there was no next step. Their commander visualized the path in every direction. He considered the likely resistance and when to expect it.
A plan slowly formed in his head. He stared seriously into the eyes of each of his friends and gave them one final command.
He hoped it would be the right one. “Run!” he said. “Run!”
-26-
They ran through the smoke of the flash grenade. They ran at Maya’s pace. Despite carrying Eli, she could move fast. A mother’s ability to protect her young could not be underestimated.
Adam took the lead. Max guarded the back. They knew resistance would come and no one would stop or turn back. Anyone unable to continue would be left behind.
Names did not matter any longer. Personalities and the merit of one’s morality and capabilities were meaningless. One boy and one girl needed to get on that Rover and launch. Even if the boy was baby Eli.
Adam ran past an intersecting corridor and spotted an odd vision. He stopped and stepped back, but the vision had disappeared. He must have imagined it. A man carrying a girl in a white gown.
“I saw him, too,” Gen said. “Tuna.”
“Tuna?” Adam asked shocked. He moved to chase after Tuna.
Gen grabbed his arm. “No, he’s one of them now.”
Adam bent his face at her. “Then why hasn’t he eaten the girl? Why would he walk around with her like a ghost?”
Gen shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. Tuna’s always been an odd duck.”
Max pushed them along. Adam nodded and started to run again.
* * *
TUNA HAD A SPLITTING headache. He carried Lexi’s body and dragged his tired feet to the sanitation deck. The scars on his gums itched still, but not in the way they once had.
He felt a chill from the refuse chute as he cranked on the long handle to slide it open. Even though there were a series of chute gates that had to be opened from the console behind him, a draft still managed to climb its way up through the winding chute that covered nearly sixty feet between where Tuna now stood and the final gate that released the refuse out into cold, dark space.
He loaded the refuse chute with Lexi’s body. He kissed her forehead and let her slide down to the first gate which stopped her slide.
Tuna walked back to the console. Since moments after stabbing the serum into his jugular vein, he no longer wanted to eat her. He also did not want her eaten by anyone. She would freeze instantly in space and be preserved a thousand years. That’s better, he thought.
He opened the first chute and then when she arrived at the second chute, he opened that, too. The console screen showed only the final chute where he would watch as she jettisoned away from the ship of nightmares into the quiet hand of eternity.
There she goes, he thought as the last chute opened. As quick as a heart attack she was gone. Tuna kept watching the stars roll by outside long after she had disappeared.
* * *
IT HAD ALL BEEN too easy. They could see the transport door at the end of the corridor and there had been no sign of the beasts. Adam slowed to a walk. The others followed behind him nervously.
“What is it?” Max said, walking sideways and looking back.
“Something’s not right,” Adam said studying every detail of the final stretch between them and the port that contained the Terra Rover. “Keep your weapons readied.”
&nb
sp; They passed a series of supply doors cautiously. When Sylvia passed the final door, she saw it sliding open. Before she could speak, something tightened around her neck. A noose made of cord pulled her suddenly to the ground.
Gen heard her friend spitting and choking. She turned back to see Sylvia on the ground being pulled into the dark, open door.
“Sylvia,” Gen yelled and dove into the dark with her knife. She swung the blade wildly and managed to cut the cord freeing Sylvia.
Adam pulled Sylvia out of the door and turned back for Gen. He grabbed her arms as a fiend grabbed her legs in the darkness. Something sharp cut deep into Gen’s calf. She screamed from the pain.
Max blasted a blue pulse into the darkness which suddenly lit up the hidden supply closet and killed the beast.
Adam pulled Gen quickly out of the dark. When he set her on her feet, she had trouble standing. Pain shot through her leg.
She winced and moaned. “Go,” she commanded. “Leave me. My suit’s been compromised.”
Adam threw Gen over his shoulder as more beasts appeared sticking their heads out from the supply rooms behind them. Max held two guns up and blasted one shot left and one shot right to keep the beasts in the door frames.
Adam ran behind Maya and Sylvia in a manic sprint to the transport dock. Max provided cover fire and eventually pushed through the door to the transport dock to find his friends standing in the cavernous hangar staring at the Terra Rover in the distance.
Max kept his guns on the door they had entered through.
“Let’s get to the Rover,” Adam said.
“I can’t come with you,” Gen said through her pain. “Let me go and get the others to safety.”
Adam set her down on the ground and examined the back of her leg. The fabric of the suit was blood-stained. Adam flipped open the fabric to find her skin cut and exposed. Her blood was already working to turn her pure heart into a vicious one.
“No,” Adam pleaded. “This can’t be.”
Sylvia and Maya reached their hands out to touch Gen.
“We love you, Gen,” Sylvia said.
Maya smiled with tear-filled eyes. “You will be in our hearts forever.” Maya sobbed as she turned to walk with Sylvia and Eli to the Terra Rover.
The Eden Project (Books One & Two) Page 29