by Kyle West
As the women watched, Elias frowned in thought. After a while, he turned, motioning me forward.
“We can speak of this in my office.”
It was the last place I wanted to go, but at least I had touched on something. If Elias had been in a Blight, it could explain why he had the ability to prophesy. Askala could have infected him with the virus, directly or indirectly. It would explain why he believed such crazy things – not that people had to be infected with the xenovirus to believe crazy things. But it would explain how he knew about Askala. If all that were true, it didn’t bode well for my future. As long as I could keep Elias talking, though, I might be able to buy enough time to find a solution.
Again, I looked at the woman who was alone in the corner. I was sure of it now, by her eyes. The eyes of the others were dull, hollow. Hers...
...still had a soul.
I wondered: could all of these women also be infected with the xenovirus? Howlers were easy to spot by their completely white eyes, but these people seemed to be something in between.
I felt the woman was trying to say something. I wanted to know what, but that would have to come later.
If there was a later.
***
Connected to the commons was a door leading to a small office. Elias walked inside, flipping on the lights. I followed him inside, sick to my stomach. A pale bulb hung over a cluttered, dusty desk. The walls were covered with grime. The sickly smell of sweat hung in the stuffy air.
Elias turned, regarding me as he sat in a simple wooden chair. The computer that had been in this office was long gone. Wires spilled from a hole in the wall like a mass of tentacles. The copper of the wiring glinted in the light.
I turned my attention back to Elias, who weighed me with intense brown eyes. He steepled his fingers. He wore a coy smile, revealing several yellowed teeth.
“Are you afraid, Alex? Do not lie to me; I can tell.”
The door to the room was still open, allowing me to hear the women whispering.
“No.”
“Yes, you are. I can see it in your eyes.”
Elias’s voice was silken, yet deadly.
“I have no idea what will happen,” I said. “But I’m not afraid.”
Elias waited for me to continue. When I didn’t, he gestured. “Go on.”
“I am afraid of what might happen to my friends.”
“You do not want to fail them. Do you?”
I said nothing. I felt as if this were already over. Elias held all of the cards and none of us were leaving this place. We were all dead. It was the not knowing how we were to die that was the most horrible part.
“Why did you kill all of the men?” I asked.
“We men, Alex – we are darkness.” Elias shuddered upon saying this. “Men do not obey the call of the Voice, so it is men that must be killed. Only I answered the call – along with the women you see here today. Some were just children when the Uprising started. And not even all women obey the call. I cannot say why this is – perhaps some genetic difference between the sexes is the root cause. Maybe the Voice herself does not like men.”
“Why would the Voice choose you?”
Elias shook his head. “I cannot answer that. Perhaps she saw a means to use me, to further her ends – to hasten the Ascension. I cannot dare to know her purpose outside what she reveals to me. All I have to go on is the Prophecy of the Five, which ushers in the Ascent.”
Elias’s mentioning of the prophecy reminded me that Elias had only captured five of us. I only wondered who escaped his net – and what they were doing to rescue the rest of us.
“When does the Voice speak to you?” I asked.
“At night, when I dream. It’s not even that I understand the words. I never do. I only understand – the intent. It first happened when I was sixteen, the night after my first recon.”
“It came as a result of going outside,” I said.
“Yes,” Elias said. “We left by the bottom entrance at the base of the mountain. You cannot go out that way anymore; it was collapsed during the Realization. Nonetheless, my team and I were visiting neighbor Bunker 83, about fifty miles to the east. They needed extra men for a mission they were going to undertake. A mission to Ragnarok Crater itself.”
I started. “Wait. You went to Ragnarok Crater?”
Perhaps he was infected with...something. This would have been fifteen years ago – Bunker 84 fell in 2045. Only I didn’t know if the xenovirus would have been evolved enough by 2045 to infect Elias and make him a pawn of Askala. I guessed it was possible. Bunker One fell in 2048, three years after that, to a swarm of mutated animals and crawlers. Maybe the xenovirus was starting to become more advanced by 2045, at least in the immediate area surrounding the Crater. It had taken it a while to spread to the Mojave.
“Did anything strange happen while you were at the Crater?” I asked.
“It was a sight,” Elias said. “I don’t think the Bunker authorities planned on me going. But I sort of got caught up in it.” He smiled. “I still remember the airplane ride there, watching the clouds sail by as we got there in mere hours. We landed vertically near the rim, and the scientists we were guarding took samples. We returned not thirty minutes later.”
“Nothing happened besides that?”
Elias shrugged. “Not that I could see. But...I just remember it being so beautiful, Alex. So majestic. An entire field of fungus, red and pink and every color imaginable. I’d never seen anything like it, a boy who had grown in a cold gray world of metal. It was as if the very ground were afire. I felt something awaken in me at just the sight. I wanted to go down into the Crater itself, but I was forced back onto the plane. I remember feeling an emptiness, leaving that place behind. A sadness I could not explain.”
I grew quiet at Elias’s story. A lot of what he’d said reminded me of my own vision given by the Wanderer, when the sleeping spores were released by the Xenolith. There, everything had made sense, and I felt a sense of connection with the Elekai. Maybe the same thing had happened for Elias only with the Radaskim. I thought of how easily our positions could have been reversed. Elias was just a tool of Askala – could he fight against her will even if wanted to? Could I fight against the Wanderer, even if I wanted to? I had agreed to help fight Askala. The Wanderer had given me that choice, at least.
Something told me that Elias hadn’t had that choice. It was in the nature of the Radaskim to conquer. To control.
“I began having the dreams the night I returned,” Elias said. “Dreams about the Crater. Dreams about a Voice, speaking to me...”
Elias paused. I waited for him to continue. But he didn’t. It was as if something...stopped him from going on.
“I will say this much,” Elias said. “The Voice is the reason for all of this. The Community. The Realization. And it will be the reason for the Ascension.”
“So the Voice is trying to use you to take over the world?”
Elias shrugged. “I do not pretend to know her will. No mortal can. But yes – she has chosen the Community for this purpose. The reason why is a mystery. We of the Community also go by the name of ‘the Chosen,’ but informally we are the Community. We are the Chosen of the Voice, and we do her bidding. The fact that the five of you are here confirms that the prophecy she gave me is true.”
I remembered Elias saying that he had received this prophecy two days ago – about the same time Ashton had tried transmitting to Bunker 84.
“You would have heard our transmissions,” I said. “You didn’t prophesy anything.”
Elias shook his head. “I know there is nothing I can say to prove it to you. Askala spoke to me in a dream and let me know of your arrival. How do you think we knew to come up to meet you?”
“And by meet you mean attack?”
“I must safeguard the Community. None of you have been harmed, but I take safety very seriously.”
For some reason, I believed Elias. Maybe he hadn’t heard any radio transmissions,
and Askala had known we were coming. The question was how. Then, I realized.
“The dragon.”
Elias looked at me questioningly.
“We were attacked by a dragon. The dragon could have let Ask...” I stopped myself, remembering not to say her name. “The dragon could have let the Voice know that we were coming.”
“Yes, it very well could have,” Elias admitted. “Indeed, the dragon, Chaos, was part of my vision, and that attack did happen two days ago. Whatever the case, I am right, in that the Ascension will begin soon.”
“You can do your Ascension without us,” I said. “I want me and my friends to be released.”
Elias regarded me with cold eyes for a moment before answering. “Let me tell you something, Alex. I’m not going to kill you. I’m not going to kill any of you. I believe you’ve come here for a purpose. And nothing shall be done until the Voice commands it. I sense that she has some purpose for you – something beyond what even I can speak or know.”
Elias’s eyes gleamed, filled with some sort of maniacal passion. He believed fully in what he was doing. It was not an act. I wasn’t sure whether Elias was merely a madman or if he was truly an agent of Askala.
“Let me ask you another question, Alex,” Elias said. “Have you been inside a Blight?”
I nodded, after a moment. “Yes.”
“And what did you find inside that Blight? Darkness? Light? Can you, who haven’t been marked, know the difference between the two?”
“Of course I know the difference.”
“And how do you know that what you have found is good? A feeling? Feelings are nothing more than chemicals in the brain. You must be marked by the truth, or you do not know the difference between good and evil.”
“Did the Voice tell you that as well?”
Elias nodded. “The Voice is truth. I am the mouth of the Voice. Therefore, whatever I speak is true.”
“And men cannot be marked by the Voice.”
“I tried to save them. But they only went insane. There can only be one Prophet. Nevertheless, they had to be killed so that they couldn’t pose a danger to the others.”
“What about me, then?”
“I have already said. I have no intent of killing you. I...sense something within you that I hadn’t in the others. Not that you are marked but...something similar. Something...dangerous. Yet it is not darkness. At least, not any darkness that I know.”
I had no idea what Elias was talking about. The only thing I did know was that he had mentioned my friends.
“You’ve spoken with them?”
Elias did not answer that, and I realized he had not meant to say so much. I focused on what Elias had been referring to. I was infected with my own version of the xenovirus – the Elekai version. Elekai. Radaskim. Could it be that two pieces of the Xenominds’ cosmic chess game were staring each other in the eyes this very moment? Did Elias know that? What would happen when he, or Askala, realized this?
“If men are so bad, as you say, then why are you still alive?”
“I am Chosen,” Elias said. “I do not deny my evil. And evil, sometimes, is even useful. Any time something evil must be done, I do so that the women may remain pure.”
I said nothing. I was so creeped out about this that there was nothing I could say. Besides, how could I argue with madness?
“Will you let us go free?” I asked.
Elias paused, as if considering that. “Not until all is accomplished. The Community’s time to leave Bunker 84 is drawing near. But we cannot do anything until every part of the Ascension is enacted. In time, the darkness will be conquered. I will see to that.”
“How do you plan on leaving the Bunker? You said the entrance below was caved in.”
“How indeed,” Elias said, with a smile. “We have our ways, as you soon shall see.”
Suddenly, Elias stood. “Come. I have more to show you. Maybe you will begin to see that what I say isn’t madness.”
I had my doubts about that. All the same, Elias walked past me and there was nothing I could do but follow him out the door.
Chapter 14
We passed the women in the commons. Their whispers hushed as Elias strode toward an open doorway. Our path brought us next to the blue-eyed woman – the one who did not seem to be completely on board with Elias. Elias barely gave her a glance as he passed. I got the sense that this woman was low on the social hierarchy here. Now more than ever, I felt that she might be a potential ally. But I could not speak to her here – if ever.
I followed Elias out of the commons. We were now in a tunnel, walking onward toward a pool of light cast from a light bulb above. These light bulbs were spaced at even intervals along the tunnel, but the dimness was hard to get used to. I tried to follow Elias’s tracks since he obviously knew where he was going.
We entered a large, open space filled with row upon row of plants. It was the Hydroponics Lab. It was far larger than the one in Bunker 108. We stood above on a tier. The plants gave a greenish glow from the grow lights above. The space was so large that I couldn’t see the far corners. All of the lanes were empty.
“Everyone will be gathering soon for the Ascension Feast,” Elias said.
We continued to walk until Elias led me back into another tunnel. The layout of Bunker 84 was much different from any other Bunker I had been in. There were lots of tunnels, and any time there was a space, it was massive and bewildering.
The tunnel widened, forking with, on the right side, steps leading downward, while the tunnel continued on the left side. Elias led me down these steps. I wondered where we were going until we stood before a door at the bottom of the three flights we had taken. Painted in faded yellow letters across the double metal doors was the word “Hangar.”
“You guys have an airplane?”
Elias gave a crooked smile. “Soon, you will see how our vision will be enacted.”
He pressed the red button, and the door hissed open, revealing a cavernous space – in the middle of which stood a spaceship that was at least twice the size of Gilgamesh.
***
“Whoa.”
I had to restrain myself from running ahead. Elias calmly led me forward, pausing after a few steps.
“Go ahead,” he said. “You can go inside. It’s where we live.”
“Does it fly?” I asked.
“Of course,” Elias said. “Only we have never tested it. We reroute power from its fusion drive to power the Bunker. We use that power to pump water, which in turn provides fuel to create more power. Not to mention that the accommodations on Aeneas are far more hospitable than those of this Bunker.”
I was still walking forward, Elias’s voice echoing in the chamber. I then heard other voices – women from above returning to the ship. They had entered by a different direction. As more women filed into the hangar, talking and laughing, I turned back to Elias.
“Where are my friends being kept?”
“They are aboard Aeneas already. Secured, of course. You are the only one who got the grand tour.”
I had no idea why Elias was keeping us all alive, but I supposed I would find out as soon as I went aboard Aeneas. According to Ashton, there were only four spaceships constructed during the Dark Decade by the United States military. Obviously, he had been wrong. There were at least five, perhaps even more.
“Bunker 84 was designed to be independent of Bunker One,” Elias said. “It had complete autonomy. It was believed that if Bunker One made any important decision, they needed a check in case it was the wrong choice. Bunker 144 was also part of this process, though of course, 144 was one of the first to go offline.” Elias chuckled. “I don’t know what they were thinking, constructing a Bunker in the Arctic.”
“Three Bunkers making sure each one didn’t get too strong – sounds like checks and balances.”
Elias raised an eyebrow. “I am surprised you know about that.”
I didn’t bother to tell Elias about how we learned about the Ol
d World government in my time at Bunker 108. As we continued to look at the Aeneas, it powered on. The lights from its dozen or so ports glowed and filled the hangar with an iridescent glow. The craft was long and angular. It clearly had more than one deck – perhaps as many as three. It appeared to have the same amount of thrusters as Gilgamesh, only they were larger.
I stared upward to see a large exit tunnel rising ever upward.
“So this ship has stayed docked here ever since Dark Day?”
Elias nodded. “We haven’t flown it, not even as a test.” He gave a crooked smile. “We have had no need to. That is – until now. The Voice was clear about the prophecy – as soon as you all came, it was time to being the Ascension.”
“Do you even know how to fly it?”
Elias nodded. “Lyn and I both do. What we know is by the book, but I am confident that I know what I’m doing.”
Before I could protest that, Elias strode forward. I followed after him.
***
We entered the Aeneas by way of the boarding ramp. It was longer and wider than the ones Odin and Gilgamesh had. I wondered what Ashton’s reaction had been to this massive ship.
We stood before the blast door. I noticed an indentation around its edges where it could connect with an airlock.
The door slid open, revealing Lyn, the woman who had spoken to Elias earlier.
“Is everything ready?” Elias asked.
“Everything,” Lyn said. “The feast is near ready, and all will be gathered to hear your proclamation.”
“Good,” Elias said. “Prepare the rest of the Five and keep them under guard.”
Lyn nodded, glancing at me askance before turning on her heels and retreating into the light of the ship.
“She is skeptical of you,” Elias said. “But you cannot be anyone other than who I foretold about just yesterday.” He sighed. “I think Lyn just expected the Voice to give us more time to prepare. But the time is now, because it has been commanded.”