“Normal. . .” Jamie said. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Lucy said. “I meant. . . Oh, I don’t know what I meant.”
“We’re all special,” Jamie said. “That’s what the preacher always says.”
“If everyone is special, that means no one is, right?” Lucy said.
“No,” Jamie said. “It means everyone is.”
He grinned. Lucy reflected it back at him and shook her head.
“And think about the perks of being made in a tube,” Jamie said.
“Like what?” Lucy said.
Jamie had to give it some serious thought.
“You can choose your own birthday,” he said.
“If you could choose your own birthday, when would you pick?” Lucy said.
“Definitely not Christmas or New Year,” Jamie said. “Everyone would get lazy and put them together. You’d only get half the presents everyone else does. So, I’ll go for the middle of the year. Gives me something to look forward to.”
“I’m sure I have a production date or something,” Lucy said.
“There you go!” Jamie said. “Looking on the bright side already.”
Lucy giggled. That same cute sound from the day she’d decided to speak and trust him.
“You’re really not freaked out?” Lucy said.
“Why would I be?” Jamie said. “I think it’s cool.”
“Cool that you have a friend made in a tube?” Lucy said.
“The way I see it, we were all made in a tube,” Jamie said. “The only difference is, our tubes were inside our mums.”
“And mine was in a lab,” Lucy said, sad again.
“You seem normal to me,” Jamie said.
“But I’m not normal,” Lucy said.
“There’s nothing worse than being completely normal,” Jamie said. “That means you’re automatically more interesting.”
“Because I was born with a purpose,” Lucy said.
“We all were,” Jamie said. “To survive. To live. I don’t think you’re much different from the rest of us.”
“I’ve got an extra one,” Lucy said. “To save the human race. I think it’s safe to say there is something a bit unusual with that.”
“Hm,” Jamie said. “You might be right there. If I could choose a purpose, it would be something like that. To save the world. Best to have something big to aim for.”
“You don’t think it’s a bit nuts?” Lucy said.
“Sure it’s nuts,” Jamie said. “It’s crazy. But here we are. In this place. Thanks to you.”
“The rocket that was supposed to take me already fired,” Lucy said. “I can’t get up there now.”
“Even if you could, would you really want to?” Jamie said.
Lucy shrugged and pursed her lips as if she were really considering it.
“No gravity,” she said. “Could be fun.”
“You’re a sadist,” Jamie said. “No thanks. I like to keep my feet firmly on the ground if you don’t mind.”
Lucy smiled. She looked over her arms straddling her knees.
“Thank you, Jamie,” she said.
“For what?” Jamie said.
“For being my friend,” Lucy said. “I don’t know what it would be like, dealing with this if I had to do it by myself.”
Jamie put his hand on hers.
“You’re not by yourself,” he said. “You never will be so long as I’m around.”
Lucy lifted her hand and let Jamie’s fingers interweave with hers.
“Will you always be around?” she said.
“Always,” Jamie said.
They shared that special moment together, looking at each other, smiling. It was the best feeling in the world.
The door banged open and Donny and Fatty entered, raucous and loud. Jamie hastily slipped his hand from Lucy’s. He got up to join the others.
Lucy sat looking at her hand. Empty and alone again. She hugged her legs tighter.
20.
“NO CHANGE,” Donny said, looking down at their father’s emotionless face.
They’d both been certain he would wake up after a few days. In the commune, any ailment that couldn’t be healed in that time meant nothing could be done. After that window had passed, the best they could hope for was a miracle. Now, they were already beginning to pass that milestone. Could it really take weeks for their father to wake up?
“He hasn’t gotten any worse,” Jamie said.
“He hasn’t gotten any better either,” Donny said. “He would hate being a vegetable.”
“He’s not a vegetable,” Jamie said, voice stern.
How could Donny talk about their father this way? Had he already lost hope? That their father might never wake up?
“He’s still fighting,” Jamie said. “He’ll get through this. He will.”
“There’s no evidence of that,” Donny said. “We have to be realistic. If he was like this in the commune, he would have died already.”
“We’re not in the commune,” Jamie said.
“Maybe it would have been better that way,” Donny said. “At least there wouldn’t be all this waiting.”
“And no hope,” Jamie said.
Things were cut and dry in the commune, especially when it came to matters of health. You were either dead or alive. There was no in-between.
“You want to turn the machines off?” Jamie said. “They’re the only things keeping him alive.”
“So maybe he shouldn’t be alive,” Donny said. “You heard the doctor. He’s infected with something, some kind of poison from the Bugs. We have no idea what it’ll do to him.”
“That’s why we have to be patient, to wait and find out,” Jamie said.
He could see what Donny was really thinking. He was afraid their father might not wake up. He was desperate—as Jamie himself was—for him to open his eyes, to speak, to be okay. To be their father again. There was nothing either of them wouldn’t give for that to happen.
It was a rare chink in Donny’s armour. Even when he wasn’t afraid, he always pretended to be. He was so used to being the strong one, of taking care of his younger brother, but now it was Jamie’s strengths that came to the fore. Jamie was fully developed emotionally—far beyond his years as Theresa was fond of saying—and ascribed this to him losing his mother at a young age. He also took after his mother. She had been the same, by all accounts. Jamie didn’t know. He’d never met her.
“He’s going to be okay,” Jamie said. “You’ll see. We’ll take care of him. And if, one day, the doctor thinks he won’t wake up, we’ll make that decision when we come to it.”
Donny nodded. Goals and targets. Those were what he needed. Structure. He could put it off to a later date when they could make a better, more informed decision. Donny ran his hands through his hair and got to his feet. Moved for the door.
“Where are you going?” Jamie said.
“I can’t sit here and do nothing,” Donny said. “I’m going to go find some way to kick these Bugs’ asses for what they did to Dad.”
“You’ll need a mighty long leg to reach space,” Jamie said, but Donny was already gone.
21.
DR. BECK sat at his desk in his room looking through some files that Donny couldn’t see well from his angle at the doorway.
“So, what happens now?” Donny said to Dr. Beck. “We sit here and twiddle our thumbs? Wait for the Bugs to come destroy us?”
“We don’t have a rocket,” Dr. Beck said. “If you happen to have one tucked in your pocket, please let me know.”
“Even if we could get into space, to this warship you say the other Cities have co-built, what was the plan going to be?” Donny said.
“That’s the easy part,” Dr. Beck said. “Destroy the Bugs and their vessel. Destroy their command center, and they will tumble like a house of cards.”
“There must be something we can still do,” Donny said. “You must have had a backup plan.”
“A
ll our efforts were focused on developing the ship,” Dr. Beck said.
He pursed his lips and pinched them between his steepled forefingers. In deep thought.
“That’s great,” Donny said. “No Plan B? Even in our commune, we had a Plan B. Often a Plan C and D too. And we’re nowhere near as well-developed as you.”
He turned and marched away in disgust.
“Although, there might be another way. . .” Dr. Beck said, calling after him.
Donny appeared back in the doorway.
“What did you say?” he said.
Dr. Beck rested his hands on the desk and, with some considerable effort, pushed himself up onto his feet.
“Follow me,” he said.
22.
DR. BECK threw up an image. It was infrared and showed the coldness of space, black, with the distant flecks of distant stars as small pinpricks of light. And right there, huge as the mass of the moon, was a large fuzzy red ball.
“What is that?” Donny said.
“That, my friend, is the Bug ship,” Dr. Beck said.
“That’s only one?” Donny said.
“So far as we can tell,” Dr. Beck said. “It docked in our orbit five years after the Fall, after the Rage virus had done most of its damage.”
“They’re waiting for us to die out,” Donny said. “So they can take our planet.”
“They won’t wait,” Dr. Beck said. “They’ll do whatever is necessary to ensure we all die out. So far as we can tell, they seem to want it to look like a natural disaster. Then they’ll sweep in and harvest our planet’s natural resources.”
“You said this was the easy part?” Donny said, not seeing anything easy about it in the slightest.
“Easy goal,” Dr. Beck said. “Not so easy to achieve. We have to destroy it. Destroy that mother ship.”
“Destroy it?” Donny said. “But it’s massive!”
“Denver City were certain they could design a weapon that could wipe it out,” Dr. Beck said. “With a single hit, no less. We doubted they would get another shot off before the Bugs would sweep down on them.”
“Denver City?” Donny said. “Where’s that?”
“Not too far from where we are now,” Dr. Beck said. “They were in charge of all weapons systems.”
Donny turned his head to one side, taking in the sheer size of the Bug ship.
“A single shot,” he said. “Do you have any idea of what kind of weapon they might have developed?”
“We don’t only know,” Dr. Beck said. “We built our own version of it. Much smaller, you understand.”
“Do you still have it?” Donny said.
“Of course,” Dr. Beck said. “Part of our little back engineered gift. It was a reasonably simple project. All they had to do was build a scaled up version of the one we already had.”
“How big would it need to be?” Donny said.
“Oh, about a hundred stories,” Dr. Beck said. “At least.”
“One hundred stories?” Donny said, incredulous.
“At least,” Dr. Beck said with a smile.
“Can I see the one you have?” Donny said.
“Sure,” Dr. Beck said. “It’s in the weapons’ department.”
23.
“THE SYSTEM itself was not particularly complicated,” Dr. Beck said, leading Donny down the corridor. “The most difficult part was replicating the energy source. The Bugs had found a way to harness anti-matter. They used it to power not only their weapons but their engines. Armed with this new tech, we were able to send Mother into orbit with extra protection.”
“Why does this help us?” Donny said.
“Because another City was also working on the technology,” Dr. Beck said. “To build a giant version of the weapon and target the Bug ship. They would likely have only managed to get one shot off before the Bugs identified the discharge’s origin. If they survived the attack, they would destroy the weapon immediately. It’s conceivable they already have. There’s simply no way to know.”
“What happened?” Donny said. “Why haven’t they fired it yet?”
“They’re following protocol,” Dr. Beck said. “We launched our rocket on schedule. They expect Mother to connect to the other projects, including their own. Plan A was always the warship. Eventually, if there’s no sign Mother is active, they’ll switch to Plan B and fire their cannon. But there’s always the chance what happened here happened there too. Rages could have broken in and destroyed everything.”
“The cannon is still intact?” Donny said.
“Yes,” Dr. Beck said. “So far as I can tell.”
“How do you know?” Donny said.
“Because I’ve seen it,” Dr. Beck said. “The satellites pass overhead there as often as they do everywhere else. Every few days I see it. There’s never any change.”
“I’d love to see the big cannon,” Donny said.
“You can’t see it from here,” Dr. Beck said. “But you’ll see the shot it fires off all right.”
“It’s close?” Donny said.
“Yes,” Dr. Beck said. “The closest of any two Cities. In fact, they were in the process of building a hyperloop between Denver and Las Vegas when the Rage hit. It’s deep beneath the earth’s surface. They got almost half the distance before shutting it down. As you can imagine, they had other concerns to deal with at the time. After the Rage swept across the globe, we drilled down to meet the tunnel. To use as an emergency exit should the need arise. We even constructed our own pod to zip along the line.”
“Why didn’t you use it when the Rages hit here?” Donny said.
“The Rages came from the base of the mountain,” Dr. Beck said. “That’s where the tunnel entry is. There was no way to reach it through the wave of undead.”
“Did you contact the other City?” Donny said.
“No,” Dr. Beck said. “It’s against the rules. Far too dangerous to make contact. The Bugs might be watching. They could see us and destroy both our Cities. Of course, that probably already happened, so perhaps we should have reached out to them. The benefit of hindsight.”
He turned to a door with ‘WEAPONS UNIT’ written above it in tall letters. He flashed his keycard at the security system. A red light blinked green. He pushed the door open.
Another lab. That was all this place consisted of, so far as Donny could tell. One modern lab after another. The people there had done one thing: work, work, and then work some more. In truth, was it any different from their commune? These people were working to survive, as they did. When luck was out of your hands, you had best work hard to prepare for the worst.
Humans were hardworking survival machines. They followed their impulses and got on with the job in hand. But unknown to the commune all along, hanging above their heads, was a hostile alien sword ready to bear down and destroy them all.
Ancient weapons, chipped and damaged, hung suspended in glass containers. Swords, longbows, shields, lances. . . Weapons Donny had no name for. Unusual for these modern labs. They were there to serve as inspiration, acknoweldgment of the history of what they were attempting to build on. It made Donny a little embarrassed to admit they still used these weapons at the commune to defend themselves.
They came to a weapon Donny had always admired. A broad sword. He came to a stop.
“Wow,” he said. “It’s much bigger than I imagined.”
“A bludgeoning weapon,” Dr. Beck said. “No particular skill is required to wield it. Save exceptionally strong arms.”
They continued walking.
“The good thing about old weapons like this is how simple they are,” Dr. Beck said. “Easy to maintain. The simplest options are often the best, I find. They’re also extremely effective when dealing with adversaries like Rages and Reavers. Easy to use, with no specialist knowledge necessary. Just swing away. Unless you become a blade master. That takes years of training.”
They came to another room. Dr. Beck waved his keycard again. The doors hissed open.
/>
“In here, we have more advanced weaponry,” Dr. Beck said.
More glass cases, this time containing guns. All manner of shapes and sizes. They had the complete history of weapons in this place. Donny could only dream of having them at the commune. With one grenade launcher, they could have stopped the last Reaver attack in its tracks. One rocket launcher and the Reavers would never have gotten close enough to fire a single shot. It made Donny both angry and excited to think he now had access to these weapons. There was no way he would leave here without them when he returned to the commune.
Return to the commune.
Was that what he really wanted to do? Go back to medieval days after seeing what they had here in the City? No. He couldn’t see himself doing that. Neither should he have to. Nor any of the other commune dwellers. They had found a new, safer place. It wasn’t even that far away.
Then they could sit back and countdown to the end of the world. At least they could do it in relative luxury.
24.
THE NEXT secure room was the final one. No weapons in cabinets here. Instead, there were drawings and blueprints for futuristic weapons, like miniature pieces of art. They looked much like the guns Donny was used to but with a heavy futuristic component to them.
“Wow,” Donny said.
At the head of the room, resting upon a dais, was a Bug weapon. It glowed with green light, the canister on top filled with some kind of viscous liquid.
“That looks awesome,” Donny said.
“We expect Denver City will have developed a system much like this for the space module,” Dr. Beck said. “Only larger of course. And each drone unit will be fitted with one when sent to attack.”
“Sorry, drones?” Donny said.
“Small, independent robots,” Dr. Beck said. “We neither had the time nor the resources to send humans up to the ship. We manufactured simple robots instead. They’re a multi-purpose unit active in all modules, as well as serving as attacking units themselves.”
Donny didn’t understand a word of what Dr. Beck had said. He was mesmerised by the rifle.
After The Fall (Book 2): The City Page 6