No voices carried down the desolate hallways and corridors. Other than the hum of the light drive and the crashing of the gravity cranes, the carrier sounded dead. The feeling that all life had left the ship passed over him like a winter breeze, impossible to ignore. He felt abandoned.
Stellan turned and found an open, empty cargo bay replaced the confined tunnels of the London Underground. The gravity cranes churned; otherwise, the bay was empty.
"Hello!?" he called. Only his echoing voice answered.
So he did the only thing he could do. He continued to walk, wary of the openness, as if the top had been torn off the ship and millions of eyes gazed upon him.
He peered around a corner into a long corridor, which led up and around onto the ramp to a tram station. A section of the hallway flickered, the walls themselves winking at Stellan, as if to tell him something in jest.
"Hello!?" he called again, his voice reverberating in the blank, empty corridors.
Stellan walked up the ramp, and that section of the hallway behind him flickered again and then went dark. The rest behind it toward the cargo bay fell into blackness like dominoes, and he didn't notice the spreading darkness.
He found a completely deserted tram station. No news displayed on the monitor, but a clock reported the time was nearing a shift change. The station should have been bustling with personnel, but it was only filled with empty space. Standing in that abandoned place, it felt wrong, like he was seeing behind the curtain of a magic act, like he shouldn't have been there.
Then the magnetic bed rumbled and hummed, and he realized he was holding his breath. The tram hovered into the station, whirring down like nothing was wrong or out of place, and the pads from the magnetic bed slammed onto its underbelly, locking it in place.
A moment passed.
Stellan looked toward the front of the tram for the operator to stick his head out the window so he could watch the platform edge as he opened the doors, but no one opened the window to the operator's cab. The tram simply idled for a moment as if it was waiting for Stellan to do or say something.
Then, the doors parted. Bloodied and broken bodies lay crumpled on the floor of the tram, and above them, a mob loomed, torn flesh hanging from their bloody lips, bloodstains on their clothing. Terror and madness filled their eyes. They stared menacingly, swaying back and forth like they were struggling to stay upright, overcorrecting with every shift in weight.
The gaping holes of their eyes gazed into some abyss beyond him, ahead of him, all around him, not seeing him at all.
"What have you done!?" Stellan cried.
And then Bill McGuire, a portly, balding man who worked in the water processing plant, lazily fixed his gaze on Stellan. Another focused on him, as if Stellan's words had pulled him away from the edge of oblivion like a magnet.
"You know what you have to do, Stellan," a boy's voice said. "Do you have the stomach for it?"
The boy he'd killed in London shuffled into sight and peered at Stellan, the color in his skin completely sapped, the red rose hole in his chest still oozing. With gray lips, he smiled, and then his face cracked into a raging scream that punctured Stellan's ears. The sound filled the room like static, bouncing off every wall in a circus of echoes.
It was a war cry. On the boy's command, the mob flowed from the car, lurching like a symphony of bodies, an unseen conductor ushering them along. They moved together sluggishly, an amassing horde becoming a wave of savagery.
Stellan pulled his rifle to his shoulder, a conditioned, systematic response, a slingshot into readiness. He peered down the scope, feeling himself come to that edge where only one step remained before taking a life.
"Stay back!" he yelled. They continued their lurching and grasping, and he knew what he had to do.
He stood firm and solid, like a mountain rising from the earth. He supported his weapon as if bracing a friend from behind, helping it find its target. Breathing was critical. If he lost his cool, he would hyperventilate. If he hyperventilated, his hands would shake, and his rounds would not land their mark.
Confidently, he squeezed the trigger, prioritizing his targets by distance, taking the closest one down first. His first shot carved a canyon in Bill McGuire's head, splitting it down the center like a banana peel. He hoped one shot would break the trance that enchanted the others, that it might shock them into realizing he would kill every one of them if they forced him to with their continuing advance.
It didn't work. They lurched forward without even noticing their fallen comrade, reaching toward Stellan with a lust that drove them harder as they drew nearer, a psychotic excitement glazing their faces.
Stellan drove his second shot through the chest of Morgan Thurgood, and the round exited and pierced the neck of Abby Schindler, spraying a red mist into the air like a thin veil over the others.
He unloaded every round in his magazine, dropping body after body. When his rifle was empty, he discarded it and drew his sidearm. An impossible number of them continued to spill from the tramcars.
The horror his mind did not have time to register was he knew all of these people, their names and faces. He'd sworn to protect them, yet they continued lurching and grasping.
There were too many of them. He did not have enough ammunition. He turned to run, but the corridor behind him had become as black as space without a star in sight, a universe completely devoid of life.
He stood at the edge of nothingness with nowhere to retreat. He stood at the edge of oblivion.
And then they enveloped him, taking him to the platform floor, tearing and clawing, biting and scratching, until his own blood and tears obscured his vision, and he heard his own screaming fall into a moan and then an uncontrollable exhale and then, finally, silence, nothingness, the perfect vacuum of the black.
Three
For the moment after Stellan woke, something from his dream lingered. It wasn't pain or fear. Unlike past times, the screams immediately silenced. There was no mistaking that it had only been a dream and that he lay in the safety and comfort of his own bed.
He reached for Daelen, as he always did when he woke, and found her still and breathing quietly. Normally a light sleeper, she didn't stir. His link reported that it was hours before their cycle would begin, but he knew without even trying he would not be able to return to sleep. That illusive thought taunted him like a buzzing fly, compelling him to get out of bed. He needed to focus. He needed to shoot something. He needed to know he still could.
Standing with the intention of going to the firing range on the security deck, he hesitated with the guilt of hiding something from Daelen, of sneaking off in the middle of the night, only because, if she woke, she would not let him leave. She would convince him to talk or hold him until he slept. Something told him that was the wrong treatment.
He dressed quietly and, after watching Daelen sleep for another moment, left their cabin. He thought of nothing on the way to the security deck. His mind was clear, as if he were still in combat, in that space that was reserved for instinct. When life hung in the balance, and he knew beyond all doubt that he would die, the clarity was unmistakable. They had called it the understanding and acceptance that they were already dead. He hadn't felt it in years.
The tram platform was as empty as in his dream, but the news streamed across the display in the back. The quiet felt all right. It felt nice, actually.
When the tram whispered into the station, he marveled at the persistence of his dream, how it stood out in his mind like his subconscious had passed a message to his consciousness, something dreams normally didn't do. The stabilizer paddles slammed the tram's belly, and it startled him from his thoughts. Nathan Philips leaned out of the operator's cab window, pressing the button to open the doors.
"Evening, Chief," Nathan said. "Can't sleep?"
Stellan smiled, boarded without answering Nathan, and sat in silence for the entire ride, staring at the empty tramcar and perfectly clean floor.
When he arr
ived on the security deck, it was as if long hands had stretched around it in a shield of warmth. It wasn't quite excitement as much as it was a sense of anticipation. Something in Stellan's core, whatever part of his being that went beyond the physical world, shimmered beneath his skin. The hair on the back of his neck rose as if a hidden mouth blew across it, but when he turned, nothing was there. Just empty space.
At the rear of the security deck, there was a locked door only he had the authority to open. Behind that door, dead things. Stellan knew, if he opened that door, they would come for him; his monsters would bite him on the neck and tear out his throat, and his dreams would become reality.
He waved his link over the access holopanel that stretched over the door, turning it from red to green. The band of light disappeared, and the door hissed. A breeze of cold air brushed his hair. The door dilated like cat irises. After half a century, its rails were still fresh with grease. He appreciated the design and engineering that made such a device last so long, awaiting the time when it would need to fulfill its purpose. It was inevitability, and Stellan understood something was expected of everything. Purpose was intrinsic. All a man could do was understand his purpose and be ready when the time came. Birth was like an event horizon, the point of no return, and life was the black hole, a contest to see who could hold on the longest.
The black hole always won. Nothing escaped it, not even light. After the horizon, only crushing darkness awaited.
Stellan stood at the opening and wondered, for a moment, if something would lurch from that space, enraged by the years of neglect and looking to lay its wrath upon the sorry soul that released it.
The walls began to warm. Illumination initiated subtly, red hues rose into oranges, reminding him of the way dawn gently rolled over New Earth's horizon, and then clearing into yellows and brilliant white. No gangly monstrosities waited to pounce and slash his throat. It was a storeroom for security supplies. More specifically, it was a weapons cache.
Stellan was already intimate with the handguns and rifles that lined the walls. He traced their barrels and triggers with his fingertips, remembering the sounds they made, like beating war drums. The syncopated rhythms of war were written in his mind like sheet music. If there were monsters here, he would kill them.
These models were old but proven. He favored the rail-fired, bullpup MK7C Kruger assault rifle, the carbine variant designed for close quarters. The Kruger line of rifles shed all non-essential parts for decreased weight and increased maneuverability. It was a no-nonsense weapon, forgoing a flashy appearance for precision and power that would change the mind of anyone who spoke ill of it. Its style was in its performance.
Stellan picked up one of the MK7Cs and immediately recognized its deceivingly light weight, which resulted from a special aerospace-grade titanium alloy construction that only Kruger could do right. He wondered briefly how he had been able to put it down. Holding it felt good, like its grips had been molded just for his hands. It felt right.
He grabbed some spare magazines on his way out of the storeroom and closed the door. Turning down a side corridor, a storm of excitement swirled in his chest. He couldn't remember when he last had the chance to fire a Kruger rifle. He would have to go back to the basics.
The firing range had only two lanes. His men rarely used it anymore. When they got a new officer, he or she would train there. That fire would rekindle some of the spirit of the others, and for a time, the firing range would see some use. It had been a long time, however, since they received a new officer.
Stellan set the rifle down on the bench top in front of him and examined it. He wasn't quite ready for it, so he pulled his sidearm from his holster. He found the right position, cradling the grip in the web of his right hand. His index finger pointed down the barrel, and he lined up the sight at the floor. They were just getting reacquainted.
His left hand completed the circle around the grip. His thumbs lay together, pointing at the target at the far end of the range, a holograph that would count hits digitally.
Stellan started a little high, letting his sights fall as he exhaled. His breath quivered, and he had to remind himself to pull the trigger with the tip of his index finger, not the first joint, else he risked inadvertently jerking the barrel of his weapon.
Seconds marched by, and his window of accuracy was closing. If he didn't fire soon, his arms would sway and his aim would suffer. For a moment, he considered lowering his weapon, but something compelled him to squeeze, and when the trigger broke the threshold and fired a round, the blast and kick surprised him.
The display at the end of the range calculated his accuracy at ninety-three percent, which meant he was only centimeters off from the bull’s-eye at twenty meters. Though it wasn't bad, he could do better.
He fired again and again, and his accuracy hung around ninety-three. He couldn't hit the bull’s-eye.
When his sidearm clicked empty, he replaced the magazine and returned the weapon to its holster. The rifle called to him.
Looking downrange through its holographic scope, he recalled his dream. Most of his shots hit their marks, and he wondered if the pressure or the dream had made him more lethal. Hitting a stationary target didn't prove anything anyway. Hitting multiple moving targets was another statement altogether.
Stellan’s fingers danced on the control panel beside him, activating the crowd program. Five targets appeared downrange, moving slowly forward. He took aim and waited, biding his time. One of them jumped ahead. The rifle kicked, and the target shattered. Another replaced it at the back. The accuracy display calculated ninety-four percent. Another jumped ahead, so he took that one out, too. His accuracy rating edged up to ninety-five.
That was good. It was coming back quickly. He looked at the targets with his rifle lowered and tried to imagine they were people. He saw their heads bob and weave, saw their arms swing. He could almost hear their shuffling feet.
He took aim and fired, slowly and methodically. He dropped one and then paused before the next as he had been trained. A rushed shot that missed would only cost time. Consistency and control produced speed.
As he gained confidence, his pace quickened. One after another, he moved so fast he lost count of the rounds in his magazine. He fired until he pulled the trigger as rapidly as he could, and it didn't feel fast enough.
So he flipped the fire mode selector to automatic and unleashed the remainder of his ammunition. The firing range had trouble keeping up with him. It couldn't populate the targets quickly enough.
His rifle clicked empty, and without missing a beat in his war song, he dropped it on the table and pulled his sidearm from its holster, the grip in the web of his right hand, trigger finger and thumbs pointing downrange. The mechanism of his hand worked on its own, just like it had years ago, just like in his dream. London. The boy. Blood running into the tunnels below.
It felt good to fire round after round. All those bullets carried his rage and disappointment in catharsis.
With the targets continuing to populate and march slowly toward him, Stellan thought about the boy, the innocence lost. The boy's death granted Stellan life in a manner most would never understand. In a way, he had walked the Earth as an undead ghoul, fighting for the wrong beliefs, which he had wholeheartedly accepted. The boy's death showed him how far he'd fallen, and it gave him back his life, even if it was only wreckage.
He hated the Council for leaving him with that. In their campaign for the perfect world, they stepped on anyone who stood in the way, and he'd been the tread on their boots. More maddening to him was the fact that, now that he had awakened, he could not shake them. They would never know what he knew, that humanity could not be made better through inhumane acts. They were driven by an idea, and an idea could never be diverted by individual human compassion. It only left scars on their collectively marred face, people to mourn the past, present, and future; people to resent what they'd become; and people to stand against it.
It had taken
him a while to understand he had been part of the cause of the war, not the solution.
When he ran out of ammunition, he could taste the burning metal of his rifle barrel. He could smell the combustion as the rounds hit the air at such velocities they created explosions. And he wanted more.
"I know what you did," a voice said. Startled, Stellan spun around and found Agent Adelynn Skinner leaning against the doorframe.
Stellan didn't respond. He was surprised but careful. He knew very little about this woman, but in a way, he knew her well enough. She worked with her eyes always searching for something she could use, a way to gain leverage. While Stellan and the other Unity Corps soldiers bludgeoned targets from where everyone could see, agents sidled up from invisible places, took what the Council needed, and vanished without a trace. He was vulnerable here, and she wasn't a monster he could just shoot.
"Most people would have just let Edward go. Not you. You're a hero, aren't you? A big, selfless savior. Jesus Christ. That's it, you're like Jesus fucking Christ," Adelynn said with a playful smile. "I don't understand. It just doesn't add up for me. On one hand, you have a guy who's worthless and hell bent on killing himself and doing a pretty good job at that, and on the other hand, you have a guy who's got a loving wife he willingly abandons for the slim chance of saving this one man. One man dies, or two men die? It seems like such an obvious choice to cut your losses, yet you try for the third option, the one most wouldn't even consider. Why is that?"
"I don't know," Stellan said. "Maybe too many good people have died for no reason."
"Indeed," Adelynn said. "What would be the reason if you had died for him?"
"I didn't."
"No, you didn't. You're a survivor, and that's part of why I like you. When your chips are down and your cards stacked against you, you'll do what you have to do to live." She extended a slender, accusatory finger at Stellan. "You're one of those people who's searching for a purpose, aren't you?"
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