Overture (Earth Song)

by Mark Wandrey

  The first sign that something was wrong came as a pair of newly arrived helicopters blossomed into miniature mushroom clouds. Stealthy black attack copters swooped in and began raining death on the rich and powerful. Their hired soldiers fought back but they were in turn engaged as a US Marine air mobile assault team arrived. Shouts were exchanged for recognition and when no answer was received the guns on both sides began to roar.

  As Mindy watched her shadow split and crawl across the floor, all the fighting stopped as eyes turned toward the sky. The bright circle of LM-245 became an unbelievably bright ball of light that crept across the sky to the west moving ever faster. The smart ones turned away or shielded their eyes from the glaring light more intense than the sun; those that didn’t saw only a white circle burned into their retinas for the rest of their short lives. Once the fireball streaked below the horizon and then lit the sky, there was a pregnant pause between the two forces. Then hostilities resumed with a new urgency.

  Mark Volant glanced at the strangely illuminated skies for a moment and tried to understand what it meant. He knew the asteroid must have hit somewhere, but why hadn’t they felt anything?

  “What do we do sir?” asked one of his men.

  “Re-secure the Portal Dome,” he said and checked his weapon, “just like the plan says.” And hope Hipstitch gets here in time, he thought to himself. He stood from behind where they had taken cover and headed for his vehicle. Eleven men from his former contingent of almost a hundred, that was all he had left. Many with minor wounds, a few were seriously injured, and they were more than a mile from the Portal Dome. And he was not completely recovered from his wounds of the first assault on the Portal Dome by the fanatic Followers of the Avatar cult. To make it even more fun, he’d sustained a new pair of wounds as they fought to throw off the unknown forces that were fighting around the park. One grazing wound to his stomach caused little trouble but a more serious head wound gouged out bone from his forehead and refused to stop bleeding. Many of his men looked at him in fear and horror, their leader’s face awash with his own blood like some ancient Viking berserker.

  When the battle began, Volant moved out into the compound, linking up with all the extra agents he put on, and tried to secure the facilities. There were just too many aggressors fighting on too many sides. He’d found himself in a dozen brief firefights and eventually retreated outside the compound entirely. It reminded him of those online shooter video games where hundreds would all just jump in and start killing each other.

  The arrival of the loyal US forces gave him the distraction he needed to penetrate back inside to where they were now. The Portal Dome a distant bump through a mile of the park’s carefully manicured forest paths. As the frightening lights in the sky faded, leaving the normal morning gloom, they climbed into the four unmarked cars and made a run for the dome.

  Several soldiers of different allegiance attempted to impede them and were quickly dealt with. Resistance was too disorganized to slow them down and in a short time they were almost to their objective. The man driving Volant’s car cut him a wide grin and Volant clapped him on the shoulder. “Almost there, son. We’ll figure things out once we’re more in control-”

  Out of nowhere, a young emaciated woman stepped out in front of them. “Don’t swerve,” Volant was about to say but the young man driving had the instincts of any other well trained motorist. He’d slammed on the brakes and jerked the wheel even before he knew what he was doing.

  They’d only been doing about thirty but on the loose gravel it was enough. The car fishtailed and the front wheels caught in the gravel. The rear end spun around violently and they hit a tree rear first. The impact flipped the car and landed them upside down in the center of the path. The next car behind them locked up its breaks as well but didn’t stop before sliding into the side of Volant’s car with a shuddering bang. Volant heard a snap and felt intense pain from his left arm before the car came to a rest.

  “Well that was fun,” he said through gritted teeth. The car was on its side with him facing the ground. His driver wasn’t moving and by the amount of blood pooling up on the lower window he was quite dead as well. Volant stuffed his left hand into his waistband, the pain so intense he bit his lip and tasted blood. The broken limb dealt with, he began extricating himself.

  All four of their vehicles were piled up as a result of the chain reaction accident. The last two looked okay but his own car was lying across the entire narrow road, they would have to backtrack almost a half mile to get around the obstruction. His men were asking him what to do as he slid down from his ruined car onto the trail. The Portal Dome was just a quarter mile away. As he looked that way, he caught a momentary view of the emaciated woman slouching down the trail toward the Portal Dome.

  He was about to tell them they were going to proceed on foot when powerful floodlights illuminated them. “You are under arrest,” boomed a voice over a loudspeaker from above, “place your hands on your heads and lie down face first on the ground!”

  Volant chuckled and gave a painful shrug as he pulled out his pistol. “Make a run for the dome!” he yelled to his men and opened fire on the glaring light. An instant later a torrent of lead began roaring down on their heads.

  “We’re it,” Billy said to Mindy as they threw crates after the last police officer who went through. The final case soared after him and was caught on the other side just as the Portal swirled and closed. He looked over at the stack of equipment nearby and rubbed his chin, his arms aflame with fatigue and so tired he could barely stand.

  “Come on, let’s start getting that crap on you,” Mindy said as she wiped sweat from her face.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said, “It makes more sense for me to go through last.”

  “We’re not going over this again. I’m the only one that knows how to work the Portal, if something goes wrong there’s no way for you to fix it. Now get your sexy ass through that Portal, mister!”

  “Just have to do things your own way, don’t you?”

  “That’s right, you should have thought of that before you married me.”

  “Too late to reconsider, I guess,” he said as he slipped the straps for a pair of cumbersome crates over his shoulders. “Don’t keep me waiting,” he said and strained to lift the load. Once it was suspended, Billy duckwalked through the portal. Mindy quickly rolled a pair of crates through the Portal after him but the third one wouldn’t go. Her husband had managed to get through with almost his entire allotment. He managed to turn around on the other side and wave just as the Portal closed.

  “Just me now,” she said to the empty room. The oval of the Portal ring was alight now with one hundred-forty two glowing lights. There would only be one extra after she went through. Mindy went to the huge stack of crates with the rope attached. There was still a stunning amount of equipment that she desperately wanted to bring through and only her few hundred kilos of allotment remained.

  She double-checked that the ropes were correctly looped through all the handles of each crate and then tied it around her midriff. With a silent prayer that the rope would remain intact, she turned toward the glowing Portal.

  “Time to take the dive,” she said. It was strange, but even after watching all those people go through before her she still felt a prickling fear rising in her chest. No backing out now. She exhaled with a whistling sound and moved toward the Portal.

  “Don’t do that,” a voice said from the doorway. She turned and saw Mark Volant standing with a gun in one hand. He looked like a refugee from a slaughter house as he stood there bleeding from several bullet wounds and supporting himself on the door frame. Despite the wounds, his eyes were bright and his intentions obvious. “You’ve caused more trouble than any one person deserves,” he said and coughed blood, “but I aim to put an end to that right now.” He raised the weapon to eye level and took aim at Mindy.

  For a fleeting instant, she considered diving backwards through the Portal, then s
he remembered she was still tethered to all those crates. If she attempt to jump backwards the movement would be arrested by the stack of equipment. With sick resignation, she watched his finger tighten on the trigger.

  The roar of a gun shock echoed in the small dome. A small scream escaped Mindy’s lips and she jumped slightly, waiting to feel the searing pain in her chest but nothing happened. Volant had a confused look on his face as he realized he'd been shot, again. Volant turned his head, almost falling over from the simple motion, and saw the same emaciated woman pointing a smoking gun at his back just outside the doorway. She held the huge weapon unfamiliarly, but the look on her face was unmistakable.

  “She deserves to live,” Kadru growled and pulled the trigger again. The second shot hit him in the shoulder and spun him partially around as she fired a third time and missed.

  “Women,” Volant spat and fired his own gun, “I can’t seem to get away from them.” Kadru was hit squarely in the stomach. The impact pitched her backwards onto the floor. She quickly sat back up and laughed at her attacker.

  “I thought it would hurt worse to get shot,” she said, “it’s not so bad.” Her gun spoke a fourth time, missing again. Volant returned the shot and hit her in the neck. Bright red blood sprayed from the wound and Kadru fumbled to hold onto her gun. Volant pulled the trigger again, but the slide was locked open and the gun was empty.

  He slumped to the floor against the door frame, his strength beginning to ebb. From a pocket, he produced a magazine for the pistol. His hands were slick with blood and they quivered with the effort of ejecting the empty magazine. He tried several times before he got the fresh magazine in place.

  Meanwhile Kadru was whispering a prayer. “Vishnu, guide my hand,” she said and tried to raise the gun. She didn’t seem to have the strength to bring it up and aim so she just did her best to line it up on target. Mindy was frantically trying to untie the rope around her waist and help the mortally wounded woman, but the knots were confounding her efforts.

  “Time to die,” Volant said victoriously as he flipped the slide release and loaded his gun.

  “Please,” Kadru whispered and pulled the trigger. Volant’s gun fell from his hand and he fell over backwards with a bloody hole between his eyes.

  “Thank you, Vishnu,” she said and let her own gun fall into her lap. Mindy finally freed herself from the rope and ran to her.

  “Good God,” she said to the horribly wounded woman. She grabbed a discarded lab coat nearby and pressed it to the most grievous wound, the one spewing blood from her neck. “I don’t know who you are, but thanks!”

  “If you see Detective Harper in Heaven, tell him thank you for everything he did for us,” she said and closed her eyes. The flow of blood had stopped. Mindy let her gently slip to the metal floor and stood back up. A clipboard fell from a counter nearby making her jump to her feet in surprise. Then a table a few feet away gave a rattle and jump. “What-” she started to ask when the floor gave a hard bump. On the dais her stack of crates teetered dangerously.

  Mindy looked at her watch and screamed. The shock wave was there. She ran for the dais. The Earth gave a great shuddering groan. She took the steps two at a time, grabbing the rope as she passed and looping it over an arm; she dove through the Portal just as the rolling mega quake slammed into the dome.

  The rope went taut and jerked her to a stop, almost dislocating her shoulder. She could see the rope running from her arm through to Portal to Earth where it was still tied to the crates but it had come no farther through than the end of her arm.

  She gave it an experimental tug then let it go where it hovered in space. Billy came up behind her and looked at her bloody hands. “Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes wide. “It’s been several minutes, I was getting worried.” She could see that a half-dozen men surrounded her on the dais, all watching the swaying crates on the other side of the Portal.

  “I’m fine,” she said, “but the rope gag is a bust.” He just nodded his head and put his arms around her, the relief etched into his face.

  “I was so afraid we'd lost you. We can make it without that stuff,” he said. She sighed and reluctantly nodded her head. They all watched the other side as the crates suddenly jumped as if they were being bounced on a trampoline.

  “The shock wave is hitting,” she said simply. The crates were hit by the violent ground tremors yet again and tipped toward the Portal. Everyone backed up, hoping they were about to get lucky and that they would tumble through the Portal. An instant later they began to fall in the other direction. “Damn,” Mindy moaned.

  Then crates suddenly stopped their fall and reversed. Caught by some invisible force they began spilling through the Portal until it suddenly swirled and closed. The time limit was up.

  “What the hell was that?” Billy gawked.

  The answer stumbled through the Portal a moment later. Leo Skinner waddled through carrying a surprising number of crates. Mindy gasped, she'd completely forgotten about him after he'd given her the gun. He fell to his knees as soon as he crossed over, gasping with the effort. “I hope this helps a little,” he said as he gulped the strange tasting alien air.

  “Some,” Mindy admitted, “I guess you got to go after all.”

  “I hope I can eventually earn that.” She nodded and held out a hand to help him up.

  Back on Earth the dome was shattered by an incredibly violent shock wave. The dome disintegrated and the crowd cried out as the concrete pieces fell to reveal the outside morning. There was a quick vista of the New York City skyline being heaved into the air at a wild angle, buildings tumbling and colliding like dominoes before the Portal on the other side hit something.

  Chunks of concrete and other debris flew through the still functioning Portal, making everyone yell and jump off the dais. A garbage can sailed over Mindy’s head and Mark Volant's dead body cartwheeled past the view.

  “Get back!” yelled the military commander as the now wildly spinning Portal encountered even more debris. Several more chunks of concrete flew through the Portal, and miraculously an equipment crate marked with Mindy's green tag, before the weight limit was exceeded and the things started bouncing off the other side. A second later, a fire truck slammed headlong into the Portal. The impact sent the Portal soaring high into the sky. There was one more brief view, the Portal now a thousand feet in the air looking down toward the Earth. A vast jagged canyon was visible, spreading across the landscape and devouring Manhattan. The rivers themselves were being thrown up into the air as the continental shelf was propelled upwards, spewing red hot lava from the Earth’s depths.

  Then it was over. The Portal swirled and shut down to show only the view of their new world. Mindy looked around her realizing for the first time there were tears in her eyes. Many of those around her were crying as well, some on their knees praying or just sobbing in grief at their lost world. Many of the younger children were asking questions while the older ones were shaking their heads and crying. No one said anything for a great long time. What was there to say after watching the death of five billion people?

  “Well,” Lt. Col. Dan Wilson finally spoke, “I guess that’s it.” He made his way to Mindy and held out his hand. “I’m Lieutenant Colonel- no, that’s not right. I’m Dan Wilson, and I guess I should welcome you to Ft. Eden. You're not the kind of colonists we were expecting.”

  “The plans were changed,” Mindy said with a twinkle in her eye.

  “I can see that.”

  Leo Skinner stepped forward and shook the Colonel’s hand. “It’s just the way it worked out,” he said and shrugged.

  Wilson nodded his head. “Okay, not much else to be said, I guess. We’ve been doing our best to get things ready for you. Unfortunately, due to the local animal life we’re a tad behind schedule.” On cue, there was a distant roar from a pair of fighting Komodo sloths. Many of the new arrivals gasped and began asking excited questions. “Nothing to worry about at the moment, please remain calm. I know you must a
ll have a million questions to ask but right now I have to put as many of you to work as possible.” There were military medics helping the wounded police already and still more soldiers were piling up the vast number of crates that made it through.

  He looked around at Leo and scratched his head. “Which one of you is in charge?”

  “She is,” Billy said and pointed to Mindy. Leo nodded and before she could say a word there was a gathering wave of head nods quickly followed by applause. In moments, all the adults and many of the children were applauding as well.

  “No, no, I’m just an astronomer, I’m no president, or mayor!” she complained.

  “They say you’re in charge,” Wilson said and came closer.

  “You don’t understand,” she complained, “leadership is not my cup of tea.”

  “What you don’t understand is that leadership is no one’s cup of tea until they practice.” He leaned close to her and spoke quietly. “These people have just been through a traumatic situation. They’ve chosen you to be their leader. You can say no, there’s nothing I can do about that. But if the civilians don’t have a leader, I’ll be forced to run things, and I’ll run it like a military unit. I know from experience that is a disaster waiting to happen. So unless we want to sit here playing good democrats and vote for a new leader, you’re it until further notice. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  “Crystal,” she said as she stood up tall and steeled her resolve. Looks like a nap would have to wait. “First chance I get we’re having an election so I can get out of the way.”