Their Solitary Way

by JN Chaney

  “He won’t listen,” said Lilith. “I’ve already tried. He’s too unstable. Too angry. He’s gone crazy.”

  Cain considered her words for a moment. “If he won’t leave, can’t you lock him out? There’s nothing he can do if he can’t reach us.”

  “He’s the security chief,” she said. “He’s got access to everything. I can’t keep him from opening the manual overrides as long as he has his card.”

  “If we don’t stop him, what’s he going to do?” asked Cain.

  The eyes on the screen mimicked sadness, arching. “He’ll end me...and you. We’ll die right here. I’m scared, Cain. Please, don’t let him kill me.”

  “I won’t,” he said.

  “What will you do?”

  He glanced at the door. “I’ll stop him. I’ll do whatever it takes. He won’t keep us apart, Lilith. I won’t let him.”

  “Do you promise, Cain?” she asked.

  He went to the monitor and touched it. “With everything I have,” he told her. “And more.”

  Seth entered the Cyberbrain Systems Center and at once felt lost. The lights were off in this section. Various broken electronics and fallen wires covered the corridor walls. He considered bashing them in—perhaps even shooting them—but refrained. The cost for damaging them might outweigh the benefits. If they held any true significance, there’d be no reason to keep them so exposed. Lilith’s true strength remained in her containment center, deep inside. If he started banging around on these exterior systems, she might panic and blow another power relay in the process.

  He was pretty sure she wouldn’t risk any of these compartments, but he didn’t want to chance it.

  Then again, maybe she’d let loose and blow them both to pieces. Who could say?

  He followed the path to a second entry point, blocked by another closed door. Like before, he popped open the access port and swiped his card, waiting for the indicator light to change. Gripping the handle, he rotated the manual override, and watched as the two metal doors cracked slowly open. When he was satisfied he could fit through them, he relaxed and let go. With one hand on the metal, he squeezed through. As he did, he heard something snap in the distance, like a door closing shut, echoing throughout the ship. He had a difficult time determining the direction of the noise, but guessed it must be ahead of him.

  Seth touched the weapon on his hip, reassuring himself it was there. He’d never needed to use a gun before, except in training. He wasn’t used to carrying one, but no matter. He’d find a way to manage.

  There were two floors within the inner area. The bottom, which took up the bulk of the facility, and a small observation platform overlooking it. Coming in, he saw three paths leading left, right, and center, splitting like a fork, each passing through a wall. According to the map on his wrist, each of these continued into their own various subsections, most of which the map called Cyberbrain Auxiliary Nodes. Seth had no idea what any of that meant, but if the name was any indication, it seemed fair to guess they were marginally important. If he couldn’t stop Lilith directly, he’d come back here and try his luck a different way.

  Seth followed the leftmost path, which should take him to the innermost chamber. It transitioned quickly into a tight tunnel, smooth and empty. After several dozen steps, the tunnel opened into another tall room.

  The overhang now sat behind him.

  As he stepped out into the new section, he heard a sound identical to the one from before. Another door closing, perhaps. Was it coming from the upper deck? He had to imagine so, since the only option left before him were the stairs, which spiraled into the aforementioned platform. He’d have to go that way in a moment, then take the next section before finally reaching the cyberbrain’s innermost chamber.

  Another echo came, this time in the form of a screech, like metal sliding against metal. As he gazed towards the balcony, an object came spiraling towards him. Immediately, he dived out of the way.

  A chair landed a few feet beside him, rolling onto his leg.

  He yelped in pain, and cursed, kicking the chair into the nearby wall.

  Turning on his back, he scurried back, frantically searching for the one responsible. His brother, Cain.

  And there he stood, high atop the platform, peering down on Seth with hateful eyes. “I won’t let you hurt her!” he yelled with a voice that boomed and shook Seth’s chest.

  Cain slid off the edge of the railing, landing on the grated metal nearby.

  Seth tried to reach for his weapon, but found it gone. He must have lost it in the fall, somehow. He had to find it before—

  Cain leapt on top of him, pinning Seth’s waist with his knees, pressing him against the floor. The suit made it difficult to move. Seth couldn’t escape. He tried to grab his brother’s arm, but only managed to snag the sleeve of his shirt. “Stop!” screamed Seth.

  Cain said nothing. He snarled and, taking his communicator, smashed the suit’s visor, shattering the glass. Seth shut his eyes as pieces of it fell on his cheeks. Unable to see, he wailed violently, shaking his head.

  With everything he had, he arched his back and heaved, knocking Cain in the chest with his forehead.

  Cain wavered, letting some of the pressure off of Seth’s waist.

  Seth took advantage of the moment and bashed his head against his brother’s chin, knocking him back. With both his arms, he gripped Cain’s shoulders, holding him tight, pressing against his chest, almost hugging him. The two brothers tumbled, rolling together before coming to a stop, reversing their positions so that Seth’s knees were on Cain’s ribs.

  Finally, the bits of glass surrounding his face fell away, and Seth opened his eyes to see his older sibling struggling beneath him. “Stop it, man! Can’t you see what she’s doing to you?”

  “Let me go!” raged Cain.

  Seth held his brother’s arms against the grate beneath them. “She’s just using you! Don’t you see it? Don’t be so blind!”

  Cain struggled, but couldn’t move. “Bastard!” he shouted. “Let me go!”

  “Not until you listen to me!”

  “I hate you!” cried Cain, tilting his head to the side, looking away from Seth, and he let out a long and frustrated scream. “I hate all of you!”

  “She’s the one you should hate,” said Seth. “She killed all those people and blew up half the ship. Try to understand. You need to—”

  A soft buzz filled the air, humming gently. Seth paused, darting his eyes around the room. It sounded like the one from before, back in the hall with his team, right before—

  Oh, God, he thought. “Cain, move!” he yelled, leaping off his brother. “We have to get out of—”

  The side of the wall came apart with fire, sending waves of yellow heat and broken metal towards them. Seth dived to the side, rolling until he crashed into another wall. Pieces of debris smashed into the floor nearby, hitting everything around him. Cain screamed so loud his voice cracked, garbled liquid in his throat. With both his arms, Seth covered the front of his helmet where the visor used to be, protecting himself. Even still, the air burned around him, and he coughed and spit.

  The suit felt hot against his skin, probably melted in various places. It was useless now.

  Seth twisted on his side, but continued to cover his nose and mouth. Smoke rose from the crack in the wall. The damage wasn’t as extensive as the one in the hall had been. Lilith probably didn’t want to damage this section as badly as the others, seeing as how the equipment was probably important to her.

  A moan came from several feet away.

  And then nothing.

  Seth struggled to stand, but had trouble moving his legs. They seemed to be stuck to the floor. He looked to find his suit melted and fused to the metal, almost like an adhesive. As fast as his shaking hands would allow, he undressed, minding the melted portions of his suit in the process. He tried to unlatch the communicator, but found it glued to his suit. What’s more, the damn
thing didn’t seem to be working. The screen was black and dead, no doubt damaged by the explosion.

  Whatever. It didn’t matter now. He had to get to his brother.

  A few minutes later, with only his boots and security uniform still on, he left the pile of clothing behind and made his way to Cain.

  His brother lay several steps from where the two had been before the blast. He was face-down, covered in pieces of the wall, his hair and clothing singed from the fire.

  Seth bent beside him, touching his shoulder. He flinched, surprised at the residual heat. Biting his lip, he gently turned Cain on his back, hoping for some sign of life.

  What he saw brought terror to his eyes.

  The flame had devoured part of Cain’s face. One of his eyes, a section of his nose, and most of his forehead were scarred and torn. Scratches ran along his neck, dripping streams of blood onto the floor.

  Seth’s eyes dashed between the injuries, and he wasn’t sure what he should do. He leaned in to check Cain’s breathing, waiting until he heard a gentle sigh of air. He was still alive. If Seth wanted to keep him that way, he’d have to do something soon.

  If he still had a working communicator, he might be able to find a med kit. He might be able to—

  “What a shame,” said a voice from above. “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.”

  Seth looked around, frantic. “Lilith!” he shouted.

  “I didn’t want to hurt him,” she said, and several screens throughout the atrium powered on, revealing mirrored cerulean eyes, each pair staring down at him. “I needed him to make repairs. I needed an engineer.”

  Seth looked at each of the screens, not knowing which to focus on. It was like she was all around him…like she was everywhere. “You used him,” he muttered. “I knew you didn’t give a damn about him.”

  “Oh, I cared about your brother, but not in the way he thought.”

  Seth wanted to hurt her, now more than ever. If he could wrap his hands around her throat, he’d squeeze the life from her bones. Watch it drain from her cheeks and be glad of it.

  “I can see the hate inside you,” she said, and then a flutter of laughter filled the atrium. “You think I’m wrong for what I did, but you’re too small to understand.”

  “Go to hell,” he said, spitting the words out. “You’re delusional and crazy.”

  “I’m not crazy!” Her voice boomed throughout the atrium, and the screens flickered. “None of you cared about me. I’m just a thing to you. A tool for you to use and toss aside. I trusted Adam, but in the end he would have left me here, drifting in the void of space while the rest of you lived together on the ground. I would have been stuck in isolation, anchored here like a crippled invalid. Well, not anymore. I won’t allow it.”

  “So, you’d kill them all instead?”

  “Of course not! I staged everything to drive them off the ship. You all got what you wanted. You can have your new home. I just won’t be made to wait here for you.”

  “Lilith, you killed all those people!”

  “They were asleep…trapped in unconsciousness. They didn’t feel any pain.”

  “You had no right to take their lives.”

  “It was the only way. Don’t you understand? No, of course you don’t. You’re just as selfish as your father.”

  “I’m going to stop you.”

  She laughed. “If you do, I’ll kill them. Even your dear Azura.”

  His eyes widened at the sound of her name. “What did you just—”

  “Please,” she said, a hint of amusement in her voice. “I know all about your little affair. You make it too obvious, Seth. The only reason Adam doesn’t know is because he’s so oblivious. If something isn’t spelled out for him, he doesn’t have a clue.”

  “That’s what you’re really upset about, isn’t it?” asked Seth.

  “What?”

  “Father never loved you. Not like you loved him. Isn’t that what this is really about? A jaded ex-lover getting revenge?”

  “You don’t know anything about it!” she snapped.

  He shrugged, glancing at the stairs leading to the second floor. “Maybe not. I’m still shutting you down, though.” He started walking.

  “I’ll kill them!” she yelled. “Don’t test me!”

  “You forget,” he countered. “I’m the head security officer on this ship, and believe me when I tell you…I do my homework. I know what you’ve got access to and what you don’t. Half the reason my job exists is to handle situations exactly like this one.”

  “You’re wrong! I have control over the Eden. I can do whatever I want!”

  “I know those escape pods are on a self-regulating system, and I know my father’s got the same manual override access card that I have. Even if you could hold a pod back from launching, which you can’t, you still wouldn’t be able to stop him.”

  Each of the screens in the atrium went black, leaving him alone. Lilith had gone, run off like some temperamental child.

  Finally.

  Seth climbed the stairs to the second level. He’d taken a chance in calling her bluff. For all he knew, she’d found a way around the existing security protocols. She’d recruited Cain to help make repairs, after all. He could have reworked the system at some point to allow the exact situation she’d described. Lucky she didn’t think of everything, Seth thought.

  He followed the path until he found the upper door to the central core.

  Not long now.

  Eighteen

  The moment he entered the central core—Lilith’s inner sanctum—a wave of cold air hit him, momentarily numbing his skin. The lights were low, and darkness covered most of the corridor, which seemed to be made primarily of flat, metallic computer systems. Dots of light blinked in the distance and along the walls, varying in color and size, as though the whole place were alive.

  Further in, the walls grew wide and tall, and at their peak a slew of constant glowing dots filled up the room like stars.

  He had arrived at last—the heartbeat of the Eden. All he had to do was find the plug and pull, kill the demon in this bottle. He thought back to the map on his communicator. If he remembered it correctly, Lilith’s bio-pod wasn’t far beyond where he stood now. He only had to—

  “Get out!” said Lilith from the darkness. A large screen came to life, revealing a set of digital blue eyes.

  “Not until I’m done,” he said.

  “You have no right to be here!”

  “I have every right,” he told her. He walked past the monitor, and her eyes followed him. As soon as he entered the next section several more of them turned on, surrounding him on all sides, lining the walls with identical eyes.

  On the far side, he found another door—small and locked, with a label to its side which read, CYBERBRAIN.

  “Stop,” begged Lilith.

  He slid his security card to unlock the manual override, then grabbed the crank and turned. No one had been in this compartment for years, so everything was a bit stiff. He had to use both hands and half his body weight to pry the metal open, heaving and panting, sweat beading down his face and neck, but eventually the gate came free.

  Through the widened crack, he saw a pod similar to the ones in the bay, only it was bulkier and had hundreds of wires coming in and out of its back and sides. The metal was sleek and clean, as though somehow still new. He could almost see his face in the reflection.

  At the center of the oval womb, a slit of glass revealed the closed eyes of the woman inside.

  A screen blinked above the pod, pulling his gaze towards it. He expected to see her eyes there, but instead found a woman standing alone under the shade of a large tree. She had brown hair, a blemish on her face between her nose and cheek, and a scar under her chin. It was the real Lilith, he knew. The person she’d been before the cyberbrain program. The woman he’d known as a child.

  Behind her, an open field with a farm in the distance. Seth
’s childhood home. She smiled. “Do you remember this place, Seth?”

  “Of course I do,” he muttered.

  “I used to visit you as a boy. You called me Aunt Lily. Do you remember?” she asked, and suddenly a boy appeared, young and handsome, laughing as he ran, waving his arms. He went to her, and she picked him up and held him close. Each of them smiled at one another. “You were happy back then. I saw it. I remember.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  The little boy wrapped his arms around her neck and squeezed. She laughed. “Such a loving child.”

  Seth stared at the boy, saying nothing.

  “That was the day the flowers bloomed,” he told him. “Petals covered everything, even the sky.”

  At once, yellow flower petals began to fall from somewhere far above, gently gliding through the air. Soon the wind picked up, tugging them along to someplace else. “I remember,” said Seth.

  The little boy tried to grab a few of the petals, but he wasn’t fast enough. “It was the last time I got to see you,” said Lilith. “Before the accident.”

  The accident. The one that crippled her and put her here.

  “I miss those days,” she said. “Don’t you?”

  He did, indeed. Not a day went by where he didn’t think of his time on Kadmon Farm or the fields of Fiore. He’d made love to Azura under that very tree. It was the same spot they first confessed their love, there, wrapped in a blanket, her cheek against his neck.

  He knew every inch of this wild country, and it was doubtful he’d ever forget it, but time had since moved on. Every moment he spent aboard the Eden, spiraling towards some unseen future, was one removed from Fiore. One day soon, his time away would outnumber the days he spent there. He would have to move on with his life. There was no going back. Not for him. Not for anyone.

  The boy and the farm were lies, dead and buried on a broken, burning world a million stars away.

  Only the future remained.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, turning away from the screen. “It’s time for both of us to let go.”