Fall of Venus

by Daelynn Quinn

  My heart explodes and my eyes jolt open at the roaring echo of a gunshot. I’m still here so he must have shot Marcus first. Surely they wouldn’t touch Evie, being an innocent child. I can’t bear to look at Marcus so I stare straight ahead at the feet of the Enforcer. A few seconds pass before he drops face first into the floor, inches from my knees, with a bloody hollow in the back of his head. Behind him, holding a smoking rifle, is Glenn.

  Chapter 22

  “Come with me,” says Glenn, reaching his hand out to help me up off the floor.

  In the time span of a heartbeat I have to decide whether I can trust him or not. On one hand he’s turned on me, abandoned me, took Evie from me. On the other hand, he’s told me secrets that could get him imprisoned or killed if they found out. And he just killed one of his own. For me. For us. How can I not trust him now? There’s no way we could get out on our own. We’ve already been captured once. Glenn is our final hope of escaping.

  My legs feel like jelly as I try to gain my bearings, with Marcus at my side. Glenn picks up Evie and leads us through the corridors with such precision I find myself wondering how he knows this floor so well. After a few quick turns he leads us down a darkened corridor. Marcus hesitates, fingering the gun in his holster. I can’t blame him for not trusting Glenn. After all, Glenn has been at odds with him from the beginning. But there’s no time for second thoughts now.

  I grab Marcus’s jumpsuit and pull him into the blackness. Although it is dark, there’s just enough dim light from the corridor behind us to see what lies ahead. Glenn is standing next to a large four-inch thick steel, open door. Inside is a pitch-black tunnel. The Web.

  “Go,” says Glenn. “I’ll cover you.” I take Evie’s hand and start to enter, but Marcus stops me.

  “Pollen don’t. If we go, we’ll die in there. There’s nowhere to go. All the doors are padlocked,” he says, eying Glenn suspiciously.

  I turn my gaze to Glenn, questioning his motives. “Polly, go to your house. I unlocked the padlock before I left, just in case,” he says. My eyes narrow, “How do I know can I believe you, after all you’ve done?”

  Before he has a chance to respond, two Enforcers appear at the entrance to the dark corridor and advance towards us, guns drawn.

  “Get down!” Glenn commands, and as we do, he lifts his rifle and fires twice. The two men collapse to the floor, one on top of the other. He’s now shot three Enforcers to help us escape. If that’s not proof enough that I can trust him, I don’t know what is. “Go now!” he shouts, and shoves us into the tenebrous void.

  Marcus sprints into the Web, carrying Evie at his side, and I follow, keeping pace. I glance back once more to say goodbye and thank you to Glenn, but it is too late. He has shut the door, enclosing us in blackness. I can only hope he hasn’t deceived me again.

  It takes a moment to adjust to the darkness, but there are small emergency lights on the floor of the domed tunnels that will help us find our way. Our footsteps and heavy panting echo throughout the tunnel. Marcus and I run for about a mile into the Web before he has to stop and put Evie down. Since there’s no indication of anybody pursuing us we slow down to a steady walk. It’s even quieter here than it was in the woods, where there was at least a breeze to rustle the tree limbs.

  The Web looks so different now. I’ve never seen it so dark. In the summer, when it is used, there are overhead lights that emit a manmade light similar to the sun’s spectrum. It’s kind of like walking under a canopy of trees in the daylight. Everything is illuminated. In some places I even need sunglasses to block out the glare. And in the evening, it has that sparkling streetlamp luminescence. But now, it’s almost total darkness, except for the dim yellow emergency lights. They produce just enough light to ensure we don’t run into any walls.

  Once we reach a gated intersection we sit down on the floor to catch our breath and figure out where we are. There are small emergency lights just above some street signs, which illuminate the words. We’ve reached the intersection of route 92 and Crimson Pen. Way. Route 92 is a high-speed terminal, usually reserved for train-like vehicles.

  When they first designed the Web there were already underground railroad terminals to transport people around cities quickly. They used the same concept to extend the Web. The major roadways were made into high-speed terminals, some going up to three hundred miles per hour, with specific depots for boarding. Those intersections without depots were barricaded by walls and provided stairways to travel underneath the terminal. Other extensions of the web, such as residential and business areas, were mandated for pedestrian and bike travel only. It took longer to travel by pedestrian terminals, but time was often made up by using the high-speed terminals.

  Marcus and I decide to walk down route 92. That should take us to Highway 78, and since it is off-season (and most of the population is dead) there won’t be any trains running. After walking a few feet Marcus holds out his hand to stop me.

  “Pollen?” he says.

  “Yes?”

  “What do you remember?” he asks.

  Amidst the frenzy of our escape, I haven’t had the chance to talk to him about all the memories that came back to me while I was in solitary confinement. I turn to look into his eyes and say, “I remember everything.”

  Marcus leans over, pressing his body against mine, pushing my back into the cold, concrete wall of the terminal. Even in the blinding darkness I can feel him gaze longingly into my eyes before he brushes his velvety lips against mine. Evie is giggling again, but we don’t let that stop us. I savor the moment never knowing if it will be our last. When he pulls away he reminds me of a harsh reality.

  “We’re going to lose each other again,” he says, caressing the tattoo on my temple. What’s left of the homemade makeup is cracked and crusted over. My eyes start to well up with the thought of losing Marcus again, but I try to hold back the tears. Only a single one falls down my cheek. I fall into his arms, pressing my face into his shoulder. There’s got to be a way. Somehow we need to find a way to keep our memories so this doesn’t happen again.

  “No,” I say, pulling back, roughly wiping my cheek dry. “We’re not.” I remember the pen I put in my pocket after I knocked out the two Enforcers. I take it out, pull up my sleeve and begin to write on my arm:

  Virus killed population. Mom and Dad dead. Evie and I escaped from Crimson. Stay with Marcus. Find COPS.

  I hesitate for a moment while I consider writing something about Glenn. He did just help us escape. But does that mean I can trust him in the future? What will they do to him at Crimson, now that he’s helped us? Torture him? Kill him? I’m sure at the very least they’ll take away his status and imprison him. I figure it’s better to be safe, and I complete my arm with Don’t trust Glenn.

  I hand the pen to Marcus. He pulls his sleeve up revealing some round scars I’d never noticed before. He writes:

  Virus. Find COPS. Protect Pollen and Evie.

  “What about Evie?” asks Marcus, handing the pen back to me.

  “I think she’d be better off without the memories,” I say sadly. Marcus nods in agreement.

  With the disturbing thoughts of lost memories allayed, we move on. Marcus and I discuss what we remember, stirring up old emotions, giving us a chance to loosen our guard. Evie gets tired of walking every now and then and Marcus and I take turns carrying her or holding her hand.

  By the time we reach Highway 78, I’m surprised to find that I can still remember everything. We had to have gone at least ten miles already, if not further. I assumed the electromagnetic perimeter, the third perimeter, would have been closer to Crimson. Either way, we’ve gone pretty far, it’s getting late, and after the events of today, I’m exhausted.

  Evie has fallen asleep on Marcus’s shoulder. Her arms are still wrapped around his neck, her tiny fingers tangled in his hair. Her light brown locks are draped over his back. Her curled eyelashes flutter as she dreams what I hope are blissful dreams. Her perfect, pale skin, pink lips, and b
lushed cheeks have got nothing on a porcelain baby doll. I still find myself amazed at how tender Marcus is with her, even if he is struggling to hold her up. Although he is trying to appear strong, I can see he is weak, enervated. He just doesn’t have the stamina he did before, when we were lost in the woods.

  “Marcus, what happened to you after they brought us back?” I ask nervously, fearing his response. We continue to walk at a steady pace, our footsteps landing at the same time.

  “I woke up on a table, all kinds of tubes stuck in me, with a killer headache” he starts.

  “Where they tagged you?” I interrupted.

  “Yeah. As soon as I regained consciousness, they took me to an interrogation room. Left me there, strapped to a table for god knows how long. I wasn’t completely lucid at the time so it could have been hours or minutes for all I know. When the Enforcers finally came, they asked a lot of questions.”

  “Like what?” I asked, slowing my pace.

  “They wanted to know how much I knew about Crimson. About the virus. About the Trinity. I told them I didn’t know anything but they didn’t buy it. Or maybe he just wanted to see me suffer anyway.”

  “Who?” I asked. I don’t know why I asked. Somehow I already knew the answer when I saw the ire in his eyes earlier today.

  “Glenn. He was one of the interrogators. There were three of them. Man, they really got their kicks out of torturing me,” said Marcus.

  I shudder at the thought of what sort of pain he must have endured, the agonizing horrors that Glenn must have afflicted upon him in his anger and jealousy. Once again, I ask for something I really do not want to know. “What did they do?”

  “They hit me a few times. Bruised me up pretty good,” he says. Marcus scrunches his sleeves up to show me his arms. “They burned me with cigarettes.” That explains those unusual scars. I rub my arms as I imagine the red-hot end of a smoldering cigarette, blistering through his flesh. I can almost smell burning skin. And, of course, I blame myself.

  “And,” he starts, “never mind.”

  “What?” I plead.

  “Pollen, I can see you’re already getting yourself worked up over this. What happened, happened. There was nothing you could have done to stop it. Just let it go.”

  But I can’t. It was because of me that Marcus escaped from Crimson. It was because of me he got recaptured. And it was because of his relationship with me that Glenn did this to him. No. I can’t let it go.

  “Show me,” I say.

  “Pollen—“

  “Show me,” I demand, the desperation in my voice echoing into the depths of the terminal, causing Evie to stir.

  Marcus gently cradles Evie and lays her on the floor. She curls up into a ball, a kitten in a cozy nook. Marcus unzips the jumpsuit and pulls his shirt over his head to reveal a web of scars across his back. I find myself surprised that with all the technological advances we have, the Enforcers would use something as primitive as a whip as a torture device. Perhaps that was the point.

  “When they were done with me, they put me in solitary. I just got out yesterday,” Marcus says as I trace the lines across his back with my fingertips. I pull his shirt back down and turn him around to face me.

  “Why did you come with me?” I demand. “After all that I put you through.” My eyes swell up with tears, which blur my already limited vision.

  Marcus lifts the hat off my head, allowing my hair to cascade down my shoulders. He gently combs some wisps out of my eye, traces my scar with his index finger and caresses my cheek with the backs of his knuckles.

  “Pollen, I—“ Marcus pauses, staring into my eyes. Then he smirks, “Are you really going to make me say it?” The darkness of the Web masks the flushing of my cheeks. I know what he is going to say. It’s crazy. We’ve only known each other for a month or two, but we both seem to know we belong together. I grasp his hand and hold it against my cheek, relishing the moment.

  “No, you don’t have to say it. I just needed to know,” I say. Marcus wraps his arms around me and we embrace. My arms squeeze him so tight he flinches, and I think about the trails of scars over his back.

  “I’m sorry, does that hurt?” I ask, releasing him and pulling back.

  “Not anymore,” he replies, kissing me gently on the forehead.

  We stop for the night and I lay by the tracks, next to Evie. I wrap my arms around her tiny form, intending to never let her go. She sleeps so peacefully. I hope with all of my heart that when all this is over, she won’t remember. We will start a new life. Marcus, Evie and me. We’ll get away from all of this and be a family.

  Marcus sits up against the wall next to Evie and me, determined to stay awake and keep watch, just in case anybody follows us. He strokes my hair as I drift off to sleep.

  It is a short slumber, and I wake up abruptly, startled by an ominous vibration in the floor. My eyes shoot open. How long have I been out? Evie is still sleeping next to me. Marcus is sitting up against the wall, but his head has slumped over. Fatigue must have set in and he’s drifted off to sleep. The vibrations beneath us and the rumbling sound in the distance can only mean one thing. A train is coming.

  Chapter 23

  I leap to my feet and shake Marcus awake. It only takes him a second to grasp the situation. He jolts forward, grabs Evie and we take off running, urgent to reach the next intersection or side street.

  All the exhaustion I felt previously is long gone, as a second wind of energy pushes me forward over the tracks. I can see Marcus struggling with Evie, who is now awake and screaming. He didn’t get enough sleep and now he’s losing wind.

  Evie’s eyes drown in pure terror as she points behind us, and shrieks. I turn to see the blinding white light of the train storming towards us. My thighs scream as I attempt to speed up. I see a side street up ahead to the left. We’ve got to push harder if we are to make it there in time. The train closes in with rumbling tenacity. I put my hand on Marcus’s back and push, keeping him from slowing down. With the train only a few feet away I push Marcus and Evie off to the side and dive behind them. The train catches my heel and I feel a crashing lightening bolt of pain strike my ankle and shoot up my calf.

  I bellow like a feral cat, unable to suppress the pain. Marcus pulls me back from the train and against a wall to safety. Evie curls up next to me and holds my hand. He removes my shoe and sock and examines my ankle, which has already begun to swell. “It might be broken,” he says, “but I’m not a doctor.”

  “No kidding,” I mutter, recalling the day in the forest when I stitched up his wound.

  Sweat is trickling down my face and my body is sweltering like a hot spring. Marcus helps me take my jumpsuit off. I’m so glad to be out of that thing, I don’t know why I didn’t take it off earlier. Underneath, my clothing is a drippy, sweaty mess. Marcus tears the jumpsuit into long strips. He uses them to wrap up my leg and foot with my baton as a splint, to keep it immobilized.

  “They know we’re down here,” I say, breathlessly. Marcus doesn’t look up. He continues wrapping my leg, but I can see by the defeat in his eyes that he understands.

  “We’re not going to your house,” he says. “They’ll know that’s where we’re headed, and you can’t walk that far in this condition anyway.”

  “So what do we do?” I ask. He raises my ankle over his thigh to keep it elevated and lies back on his elbow, lifting his hand to his brow. “I don’t know. Let’s just get some rest for now.” Evie curls up in the crook between us and I stroke her copper curls as she and Marcus fall asleep.

  The Web is eerily quiet again. The distant echoing of the train has subsided and I’m reminded of the ominous silence in the woods where I woke up weeks ago. The sound of Marcus and Evie’s rhythmic breathing helps me keep time, much more soothing than the ticking of my imaginary mental clock.

  I couldn’t sleep even if I wanted to. Between the adrenaline rush and the throbbing in my leg my brain will not allow me to rest. So instead I just lie here as the hours pass, anal
yze what happened, and try to come up with some options.

  There’s no reason for any train to be running this time of year. It must have been sent to destroy us. Did Glenn sell us out? No. Surely Glenn has been apprehended for what he did to the Enforcers. He’s probably been tortured already for his abetting our escape. Part of me quivers at the thought of the whips and burns. But another deeper, more sinister part of me is spitefully pleased. After what he did to Marcus, that’s the least he deserves. But he did help us. And he risked himself for it. I have to give him that. In my heart, Glenn and I are even.

  Marcus is probably right about my house. It’s the most obvious place we would go to upon escaping. Even if we could make it there with my crippled ankle, there’d be guards waiting for us when we arrive.

  I try to think of any bunkers that could possibly be unlocked. Churches, perhaps? Maybe the homeless shelters? Unlikely. If authorities discovered an unlocked bunker, the church would lose its tax exemption. No religious leader would risk that. And a homeless shelter would be shut down. Our outlook is looking exceedingly hopeless the more I think about it. We may end up dying a slow, agonizing death down here by starvation. Great. Now I just reminded myself how thirsty I am.

  Despite the pain, I pull my leg back and slide away from Evie, who is now laying her head on Marcus’s stomach, being sure not to wake either of them. They need the rest. I struggle to lift myself up to my feet, then I take one last look at Marcus and Evie. They look so peaceful and serene in their slumber. Marcus will make a great father one day, even if he can’t have children of his own. Certainly a much better father than those who spread their seed around so freely. It’s a shame life works out that way. So unfair.

  I limp down the side tunnel we are in, Phoenix Landing. The name sounds vaguely familiar, but it’s not in my town. Some streets have public restrooms, since travel time is much slower down here. Fortunately, I don’t have to walk far to find one. And since it’s not connected to the outside world, the door is unlocked.