Awakening

by Hayden Pearton

  *

  “Alza... it's time to go.” Kingston's voice was still heavy with sleep, but he had forced himself awake. Stifling a yawn with the back of his hand, he began to pack up his things. Alza was already up by the time he was done, her face a blank slate that he could not decipher. For a moment, it looked as though she had been angry, but the supposed emotion had disappeared too fast to tell. They readied themselves in silence, with Kingston checking on Barsch's condition and Alza eliminating any traces that might alert Raigan to their presence. It was a futile thing, since they were trying to hide from what basically amounted to a god, but it gave her something to do.

  “Last night, in the dream, Barsch was aware of what was happening. And when he was forced to remember his injury, he forced us away. I am able to do what I did because of the power lurking within me, but he is just an ordinary human... so how was he able to banish me from his dream?”

  Despite the blood transfusion the night before, Barsch showed very few signs of improvement, and his burns were still blood-red and tender. His face was drenched in sweat, which spoke of an unrelenting fever. Despite being practically comatose, words still escaped from his cracked lips, as he repeated, over and over, “Mother... I'm coming...” It was an eerie chant that spurred Kingston into action, as he forced his blood-deficient body to move. Kingston had seen men during the war who spoke of their deceased loved ones in their final moments, and he had no desire to watch as Barsch did the same.

  “Barsch... I don't know if this will reach you, but please hang on. Soon, very soon, we'll make you all better... so just hang on until then,” Kingston whispered as he helped Barsch onto the handmade litter. With it lying between Maloch and Kingston, they were able to move Barsch with little difficulty.

  It was still dark when they left the forest clearing, with only a faint glimmer of light on the horizon to let them know that dawn was approaching. The cold from the city had largely disappeared, replaced by a cool morning breeze that refreshed and revitalized their spirits. In their haste to escape the night before, they had neglected to scout out the area before settling in, so what they saw as it became lighter was a surprise to all.

  Thick forest lay in all directions but one, nature having made a path to the west out of a dried up stream. A thin rivulet of relatively pure water still wound its way through the hardened earth, which would provide a modest yet satisfying drink. The riverbed was made of soft clay, with small pebbles and larger rocks carelessly strewn about. Every step was hard, sinking into the soft earth before being yanked out to repeat the process. Carrying Barsch in the litter would have been impossible, his weight acting like an anchor in the sludge, so Kingston reluctantly allowed Maloch to carry him. The re-mech handled the wounded boy with more care than would have been thought possible, given his massive fingers and titanic strength. Maloch adopted what had once been known as a fireman's carry, slinging Barsch over his shoulders, a spare blanket cushioning his stomach against the re-mech's rough back.

  Although everyone struggled in the sticky sludge, Kingston found the path particularly difficult. He could feel the weakness in his legs and arms, which had come from weeks of half-starvation and his recent loss of blood. His vision swam and his thoughts crawled, making it hard to concentrate on the path below. More than once, he failed to see a half-submerged rock and fell forward. After the first time, he stopped crying out when he tripped.

  His legs felt numb from trudging through the clay, and his back ached from the combined weight of his and Barsch's pack. Mercifully, the packs were made from a light material, and the food and supplies inside were almost gone.

  “This is nothing compared to what he went through… for you.” He told himself, every time he was forced to his knees.. After an hour of tripping, he brought out Lanista and used it as a crutch. It's wide, crescent head prevented it from sliding into the soft ground, and it's solidity allowed him to lean heavily on the hilt without fear of breaking it.

  The dead river eventually began turning to the north, towards a series of small mountains in the distance. Kingston knew that the cryogenic station would be found there, hidden from sight by the peaks and sheltered from natural disasters by walls of ice and rock. The stations had always been built into mountains, hills or large caverns, which would protect the precious cargo sleeping peacefully within.

  In that regard, Genesis Station 13 had been something of an oddity, with the majority of the station lying deep underground in a man-made bunker. It made sense when Kingston remembered that it had been one of the first stations built after the cryogenesis plan had been approved. Looking at it from a technological angle, it was almost primitive when compared to the stations that came later. It had been built to hold a maximum of 10 000 humans, while later stations had been able to hold hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Furthermore, the Warden A.I. System used in the station had very little ability to adapt, and would merely depose of any sub-systems that were malfunctioning as long as the core systems were left intact.