by S. T. Boston
“And were there others like you who felt the same?”
“I don't know. No one would ever dare voice such an opinion, it would have led to execution, no questions asked.” Maya sped through the small coastal town of Shoreham On Sea and guided the Mazda left onto the A27. “What are the curfew laws around here?” she asked, noticing that they were one of the very few vehicles on the road.
“Major cities are still holding a one AM rule,” Adam replied, making no attempt to hide the contempt in his voice. “We will be clear of Portsmouth and Southampton before it comes into play. Once we hit more rural areas we should be fine. They tend to let people in those less populated districts go about their business as usual. Unless we have any real issues we should be in Wiltshire way before it comes in.”
“This is good,” said Maya, trying to sound upbeat. “Your sister should be calling soon.”
“Let's hope so,” he sighed, feeling a little sick. “So how did things play out for you – during and after that week?”
“Soon after the virus had been released things started to go wrong, very wrong. I never got told the whole story to begin with, I was aware that an Arkkadian vessel had reached Earth and that a hunt was on to locate an Elder who had survived the crash.” She looked away from the road once again and regarded Adam intently. “I have read your account of events, I know about your involvement with her, Oriyanna.” The mention of her name caused another pang of longing in Adam. “Just before the EMP we received information back that our team had reached the Pyramid, shortly after that all the electrical systems went down. For over a day we had no way of knowing if we'd been successful or not. It was then we received information from a craft we had in orbit around Earth. Some of our more sophisticated technologies still worked, they were not susceptible to the pulse that fried the planet. It soon became clear that they could pick up no trace of Buer or anyone in Egypt. The craft had detected a trace of a sizeable explosion beneath the Plateau. The more senior Earth-Breeds feared that we – they – had failed. A transmission was sent to Sheol from the orbital craft; however Sheol is another one hundred and fifty light years further away than Arkkadia, the signal never reached them in time. It was soon after that we lost all contact with the vessel, and then the rains began and we knew. Fearing some kind of backlash from Arkkadia, or even Sheol for our failure we scattered.”
“Just as the Arkkadian people thought you would,” Adam cut in. “They had no idea how many of you were here, but they were determined to try and track down as many of you as possible.”
“I know,” replied Maya as Adam's phone suddenly lit up with a text message. “With the ones who died during the incident on the lead up to The Reaper and the ones which Sam has killed, well there are not many higher intellect, senior Earth-Breed left.” She watched him anxiously as his eyes scanned the phone's screen before he let out a long relieved breath. “Is that your sister?”
“Yes, she can't get a connection to call, it just says, 'I'm safe, have things to tell you, see you soon.' Thank god.” Adam checked his watch, “How are we for fuel?” He craned his neck over to read the small gauge.
“We should be fine,” replied Maya flicking her dark eyes down and looking at the dimly lit dash. The hulk of a crashed passenger jet passed by, abandoned in a field to their right, its bulbous front end silhouetted against the sky like some manmade mountain. Every time Adam saw such a thing it reminded him of how lucky they'd been to escape from the Egypt Air flight with barely a scratch, there were many grim reminders like that scattered around all over the globe. There just weren't enough resources to clear everything up. One day, hopefully in the not too distant future, macabre monuments such as the wrecked 747 they had just passed would be gone. “After we fled I was on my own for many months. Living as best I could, like many of the Earth-Humans were. As society gradually started to get back on its feet I was contacted by another Earth-Breed, Benjamin Hawker, he was a former US Government employee.” She looked at him a little forlornly. “He was directly involved in the hunt for you and Sam when you were – on the run. He informed me that one of our kind had been killed in an execution style murder here in England. He feared that the Arkkadian people were once again here on Earth, looking to track us all down. At the time we had no idea that it was Sam Becker. We now know that the Arkkadians were the ones selecting the targets, they were just using him to carry out their work.”
“How the hell have you managed to learn so much?” Asked Adam, turning the heater down a little. It had started to become more than a little stuffy in the small cab of the Mazda.
“That's not important right now,” replied Maya curtly.
“I think it's very important, if I'm to trust you. How do I know that you're not still working for them? How do I know that this is not some clever ploy to take me easily?” Maya fired him a look that showed she was a little hurt at his last statement. “I'm not being funny, but it would be a very easy way to do things cleanly.”
“I see your point,” she conceded sounding glum. “Do you know anything of what the Arkkadian people have done after your return to Earth?”
“Nothing.” Adam had often wondered how things had played out in the months after he and Sam had been sent home. Almost every fibre of his body had wanted to stay on that peaceful planet; had it not been for Lucie he would have never returned home. Oriyanna had told him that she would likely be sent to Sheol to oversee the war effort, and it had crossed his mind more than once that something could have happened to her. It was fair to say that returning home was a gamble, a gamble that had paid off. Without the benefit of The Tabut, or Ark as he preferred to think of it, it had taken them full seven days to get back aboard one of the Arkkadian scout vessels. Despite his never ceasing wonder at the technological marvel which was the spacecraft, the seven day trip had seemed to take an age. Not a waking minute of the trip had gone by without him thinking of his sister and whether or not he'd find her alive at the family home. His brain momentarily sent him back to that day. He and Sam had returned to London in the early hours of a Sunday morning. The rains which had washed the virus from the planet had since stopped. That day the sun was just starting to peek its head over the tops of the terrace houses, and the air had been pleasantly warm with the promise of an unusually hot May day. Despite the pleasant warmth there had been something far more sinister in the air. The smell of decay. His back garden, which had once been his father's pride and joy, now resembled nothing more than a muddy quagmire. Small trails of evaporating water reached up from the ground like long, spindly snakes being charmed out of the sodden grass as they reached for a sun that worked feverishly to take the vast amounts of water from the ground. At first Adam had been relieved to see that every window of the house was covered with opaque plastic sheeting. Thank god, she listened and took my advice, had been his first thought. Finding the backdoor locked he'd spent a good few minutes with Sam banging on it inanely, hoping to see Lucie making her way through the kitchen to see what all the fuss was about. After getting no reply he'd gone to the shed and found a pickaxe that hadn't been used since his parents were alive. His father, who'd been a stickler for his tools, had sharpened the blade on a regular basis. The handle, now a mixture of flaking red paint and clear lacquer, would lead most to believe the tool was useless, however the axe was still as sharp as the day it had left the store. With the help of Sam they'd used it to hack away at the door until the lock had finally been smashed to pieces, and with a satisfying, loose metallic clang it had fallen to the floor. Part of him hadn't wanted the door to give, part of him felt sure that once inside he'd be faced with the grim task of searching from room to room, wondering with the opening of each door if he'd find his sister there, dead. Stepping into the kitchen he'd called, 'Lucie! Lucie!' but gotten no reply. Visibly shaking and with Sam in silence by his side they'd made their way through to the lounge. Hidden in a huddle behind the large brown leather sofa that Sam had been sleeping on the night before they'd left, clutching a base
ball bat in one hand and Jinx the cat in the other, was his sister. For a few long seconds she'd just remained there, looking at him through wide, frightened eyes, not quite able to believe the sight before her. A tearfully relieved reunion had soon ensued, followed by the long and protracted job of telling her everything that had happened. As painful as it had been for him to leave Oriyanna and her promise of a life together, he knew the moment he saw his sister behind that sofa that he'd made the right choice.
“In the months after the virus,” began Maya, snapping him from the memory, “the Arkkadians hit Sheol, and the attack was far greater than the one after the Great War. This time they didn't just want to destroy their craft and maroon them on that remote rock, they wanted to take control. After many, many air attacks they sent ground troops in. Sheol was a mining planet; long before the Great War it was a hive of activity, it has vast series of nine underground levels, and each has separate structures and caverns. Airstrikes were not enough to flush out those responsible, the Arkkadian troops knew that they would have to take the fight deep into the planet itself, to the lowest level of the old mines. Their mission was to capture the Elders who remained there, they wanted to ensure that something like that could never happen again. Whilst they wanted to take as many of their leaders as possible, their primary mission was to capture him.”
“Asmodeous? Questioned Adam with a little foreboding in his voice.
“Yes,” replied Maya seriously. “All of the non-Elders on Sheol had been born there, like me they could not help what they were a part of. They are currently being held on Sheol under Arkkadian rule. Those who are not willing to be repatriated are facing execution. I fear that many of them will die; their hatred for the Arkkadians has been built up over many generations.”
“Just how many are there living there?” Adam was painting a picture in his head of the hellish place, imagining the Elders and civilian population living within the planet like a massive, evil army of ants.
“Due to the size of the planet and its inability to sustain crops and fresh water without the use of technology, just a few hundred million. They have very strict birth control laws to stop the planet becoming over populated.”
“They deserve whatever is coming,” said Adam bitterly, feeling his own hatred burning hot inside his gut. “I take it the Elders will face execution?”
“The ones they captured, yes.”
“What do you mean, the ones they captured?”
“Before the first attack a single craft, Arkus 2, made its escape from the planet. She used to be an Arkkadian vessel, hijacked by Asmodeous and stolen during the Great War. Aboard were three Elders and Asmodeous himself.”
“Do you know where they went?” asked Adam, feeling as if he didn't want to know the answer. There was only one way that Maya could know so much about the events of the last few years.
“Where else did they have to go? Here. Earth. They spent many months on the craft, and they didn't come here directly. Only when they had no food or supplies left did they risk it.”
“How long ago?” asked Adam sternly.
“Six months.”
“And you know where he is?” Adam rubbed his tired eyes and wondered just how much more there was that he didn't know.
“Yes, it's where I came from to reach you today. He is in a place that he once ruled during the ancient times on Earth, before the Great War. Thousands of years ago there was a city there. However, now there is no trace of it, other than some massive etchings in the ground which Earth-Humans have been puzzling about since their discovery.
“Please tell me I'm not going to have to head back to Egypt,” groaned Adam, “I mean, I'd always wanted to visit the Pyramids but last time I got a little more of the ancient Egypt experience than your average holidaymaker.”
Maya laughed nervously, “No, the empires held by the Arkkadian people in the old days were vast and spread across the globe. He is in an area known as Nazca, in Peru, and he isn't just hiding there, he wants revenge. The craft he is in, although ancient, is still far more advanced than any Earth tech. He is planning to use it, and a select number of Earth-Breed, against you.”
“Impossible,” said Adam defiantly, although he didn't even believe his own statement. “If there is a massive spacecraft out in the Nazca desert, I'm sure someone would have seen it.”
“Adam, you have been to Arkkadia, you know the technology that is at hand. Even when his craft was built, many, many years ago, what you would call a cloaking device was pretty old tech. I promise you that his craft is out there in that desert. Those impressive lines in the ground, those were created for him by slaves that he bred to make the massive monuments in his honour. He truly believed he was a god among the men that he and his people had created. His vanity wouldn't have taken him anywhere else on this planet. Despite the city that once lay there being long since gone, the ground monuments remained. The Nazca people called him Viracocha; they saw him as a creator but he was far from that. He has had many names throughout Earth's religions but I think you know only too well what name you would know him by.” Adam didn't need to speak it, the very thought of it made his hairs stand on end. “His hatred for the human race is so powerful, Sheol is lost, and Earth is lost to him and his people. If he can't have it, no one can. He is planning a last stand that will leave this planet as dead as Mars!”
Chapter 7
Rico Farez felt sure that he'd seen that particular lampshade before, and as he lay there in the grainy darkness that feeling turned to certainty. Swallowing back a little phlegm that seemed stuck in his otherwise parched throat, his confused and pounding brain tried to think where. Ikea, the answer finally came to him. Whoever that lampshade belonged to must have once shopped at the furniture giant. He wasn't quite sure just why his head had been tackling such a pointless and inane question since he came round a few minutes ago, however he felt some satisfaction that he had managed to solve the pressing issue. The next problem on his otherwise free agenda was, what the hell was he doing here staring at a lampshade in the first place? Rolling his head to the right slightly he felt hard tiles beneath his shaven head. Straining to see through the dimly lit room he could just make out the tangled mess that was a pair of legs, sticking oddly out from behind a breakfast bar which stood in the middle of the modestly sized kitchen. Surrounding the legs there appeared to be some kind of thin rug that broke the otherwise neatly tiled floor. As his brain worked on who the hell the legs might belong to he realised that the owner of the legs wasn't in fact laying on a rug at all, no, they were laying in a pool of blood that looked almost black in the darkness. The thick viscous liquid had spread out from the body a good few feet, marooning it on its own little island.
With more than a little trepidation Rico slid his hand from his stomach and felt blindly to his left side, searching for any signs of his own little blood island. His fears were confirmed as his hand dropped into the thick, sticky liquid that had turned cold on the tiled floor. In a blind moment of confusion and panic he tried to sit up, the attempt was futile as he realised with a new horror that he couldn't feel his legs. Not only that, but his whole body felt numb, like old rubber. Turning his head to the left he could just make out a light shining brightly in a hallway on the other side of the adjoining lounge. The sound of a gull cawing outside the house suddenly gave him a moment of recall and the events that led up to his unusual situation came flooding back, “Fisher,” he croaked, his dry throat protesting at the attempt. Rico swallowed, wincing at the pain that flared up like fire in his gut, “Adam Fisher?” The name left his lips in what almost seemed like a question, he knew the name was important, more than likely the reason he was in this particular predicament. Like a un-tied boat on rough sea his mind bobbed and pitched from thought to thought quickly and unevenly. Next he was cursing the Elders for not granting the front line agents The Gift, situations like this were avoidable. The Gift had to be earned, the only trouble was you often died trying to earn it. The irony of the fact
was not lost on Rico, even in his painfully bleak situation. A thought wave washed over his brain and that name was back, Adam Fisher, however this time the name of a town also slipped in beside it, Brighton.
Rico cranked his neck to the side. It felt like it needed a good oiling, and he felt the bones creek under his skin as if they were a set of rusty old hinges on an unkempt garden gate. His eyes focused on the legs that still stuck bizarrely out from behind the breakfast bar, he felt sure he must know the owner of those legs, not that it would do him much good, he felt certain that those legs were attached to a body that was well and truly dead. In that moment a tidal wave of memory rushed him, flooding his mind with the night's events, however it brought him no comfort, Rico was a dead man, if he didn't die here he couldn't help feeling that he'd regret it. He closed his eyes and began to play the events back in his mind's eye like a movie, hoping to remember one scrap of information that might spare him, should he ever manage to un-maroon himself from this small island of sticky cold blood.
* * *
Rico glanced up at the darkened windows of the bungalow on Wilson Avenue, the road sloped gently downhill toward the sea. He felt certain that in daylight the majority of these modest homes would have stunning, yet expensive a view out over the coast.