Sunspots and Forever Dark Omnibus

by Gary Martin

  “Straight ahead, run at full speed. That will be the safest way. There is an eighty six percent chance you will make it without being caught in any crossfire. I will cover you and then follow.”

  Flick and I look at each other, I nod at her, and we get up onto our haunches ready to sprint as fast as humanly possible. But, before we have a chance to run, the doors open and around thirty troops storm in, all wearing black with face protecting helmets. They start firing indiscriminately.

  “Your chances are now down to two percent,” Amanda says matter of factly.

  “Thanks for that. Do you really think?!” Flick shouts.

  The troops start spreading out and head deeper into the room. They seem to have missed us behind the bagel stand. Finally, the last one is out of sight leaving the entrance clear.

  “Run,” I say and grab Flick’s hand and pull it. She stands up and we run, hunched over, towards the exit. Amanda follows us and we’re out of the war zone and into the corridor.

  “Amanda, can you take us to the closest AG shaft?”

  “I can. Follow me.”

  We head through the rusting corridors of red deck, dodging panicking soldiers, guards, and service workers. I’m not sure anyone out here knows what’s going on, but running away from gunfire is always the safest option. The first shaft we come to is surrounded by a crowd. Not the best place to pull out an eye from your top pocket and look inconspicuous.

  “Not this one,” I say and point to my top pocket. Flick nods and we head down the corridor until the crowds thin out. Finally, we come to an AG shaft that’s not being used.

  “Moment of truth, John. See if the eye does the trick,” Flick says.

  I go to pull the eye out of my pocket but, before I can, Amanda puts her fist through the control panel next to the AG shaft and proceeds to pull out wires. I look at Flick. She looks back at me and bursts out laughing.

  “Really? I’ve been carrying this around in my pocket for no reason? You mean I pulled out a dead man’s eye for nothing? Oh fuck,” I say, exasperated, feeling a little sick.

  “They’ve shut down the AG shafts. We are going to have to find another way up,” Amanda says. She looks at the wall, then the ceiling, then forcefully pulls a vent hatch from the wall. She throws it to the floor and peers inside.

  “What’s in there?” Flick asks.

  “Maintenance shaft. This should get us to where we need to go. It will be a very long climb,” Amanda says.

  I stick my head into the hole where the vent hatch was and look up. It’s a thin, badly lit tube with a ladder running up one side that seems to go up forever. I then look down, and I can’t see the bottom.

  “I’m not going in there. There has to be another way,” I say.

  “What do you mean you’re not going in there? There isn’t another way. You want to rescue your friends. This is it. Or we could just go straight to your ship and fuck the rest of them. I’m pretty fucking happy with the latter,” Flick shouts and then looks at Amanda.

  “How many decks down is the docking bay?”

  “Ten decks.”

  “How many decks up to the medi-bay?”

  “Sixteen.”

  Flick looks at me. “Your choice, John. But we don’t have time to argue. Up or down?”

  Fucking hell, fucking hell, fucking hell.

  All I can think about are the inspection tubes on Sunspot Two. How Robert played a prank and scared the hell out of me when I was forced to go in there to attempt fixing the fuel line. It was horrible. I really hate tight spaces and a tight space in which you can fall to your death is almost too much for me.

  “John, say something,” Flick says and hits my shoulder, knocking me a little way out of my panic. I’d almost forgotten about much of a prick Robert was back then. It almost makes me want to leave him behind. I definitely want to leave Rupert behind. But if he can reignite the sun like he claims, it would be very selfish of me to ignore that.

  “I have to try. We have to go up,” I say.

  “John, you’re a fucking idiot. But at least we’ll die doing a good thing.”

  I can hear the echoey sound of boots hitting the deck down the corridor and they are getting louder. Flick and Amanda look in the direction of the sound.

  “Shit. Amanda, I think it makes sense for you to go up first. You will at least know when to stop and get out,” Flick says.

  “Agreed,” Amanda replies and climbs into the shaft and starts her way up. Flick quickly follows. I grab the broken vent cover and reluctantly climb in. Holding on to the ladder with one hand, I attempt to put the cover back in place before the guards arrive. It doesn’t stay on and falls back out into the corridor. I lean out to grab it again but see the first guard come around the corner. Fuck it. I pull myself back in the tube and start climbing as quickly as I can. I look up and can just make out Amanda and Flick way above me, getting further away. I try to catch up with them but, after less than two decks of climbing, my arms and calf muscles are already burning with the effort. The further up I go the less this rescue seems anywhere close to a good idea. All I want to do now is escape. But mainly from this tube. Sweat is getting in my eyes, so I stop to wipe it with left hand. My right hand then slips from the rung, and I start to fall back. This is it. My end. What a pathetic way to go. Having my throat slit by Rupert as he attempted to end all life would have been the way to go. Heroically dying while attempting to save the world. Falling to my death in a tube because I’m a bit sweaty is, quite frankly, a bit shit.

  My back hits the back wall of the tube and I stop moving. I quickly grab hold of the rung and pull myself back. Suddenly, I’m quite glad I’m in a tight space.

  “John, you coming or what?” Flick’s echoey voice shouts down to me.

  I look up and about three decks above me I can see red flickering reflecting on the inside wall of the tube. Not quite as far away as I was expecting.

  “I’ll be with you soon. I’m very weak, sorry.”

  Below me I hear something hit the metal of the tube. I quickly glance down and see someone crawling into the open vent hatch. Suddenly, climbing doesn’t seem to be much of an issue for me anymore, and I quickly catch up with Flick. She now seems to be struggling as Amanda is now about a deck ahead.

  “Hurry up, Flick,” I whisper, “someone’s following us.”

  She tries to look down.

  “I can’t see. Your fat arse is in the way.”

  “Trust me. We want to go faster.”

  And faster we go.

  I try not to think about the pain my muscles are going through. Bile is constantly burning my throat, causing me to keep spitting. That’s going to make whoever’s following us want to kill us more. After what feels like forever, I hear a thud and realise Amanda has kicked out the grate. We’re almost there. Flick gets pulled through and, as I get to the hole, arms grab me by the shirt and I’m pulled out. I look around. We’re now in a pristinely clean corridor, one that I’ve been through before. Thankfully, it’s empty. The soldiers and guards must be dealing with the situation on the recreation deck.

  Flick looks at Amanda and then to me.

  “Which way?” she asks.

  “That way and around the bend,” I reply.

  Amanda walks to the vent.

  “They are close now,” she says.

  “Let’s go, don’t worry about them. We’ll be gone before they even know what direction we went in,” I say.

  Before anyone has time to reply, Amanda sticks the top half of her body into the vent hole, violently pulls out our stalker and throws him hard against the opposite wall knocking him out cold. She grabs hold of her rifle which is strapped to her back and clicks it on. I realise who it is and quickly barge her, a shot goes off, hitting the wall above his head. Amanda stares at me with what looks like rage, then aims her rifle again. I move between her and the stalker.

  “What are you doing, John?” Flick asks.

  “It’s Robert. One of the two guys we’re supposed
to be rescuing,” I say.

  Amanda lowers her rifle. “How was I supposed to know that?” she says.

  I bend down and gently slap Robert round the face a few times. His eyes open and I can see he’s about to scream, so I cover his mouth. He bites me, I pull my hand away and move back. He then quickly stands up.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he shouts.

  “We’re here to rescue you,” Flick says and laughs.

  “Sorry, we thought you were a guard or a soldier or something. One of the bad guys, anyway,” I say.

  “Talk and move,” Amanda says and starts walking quickly away.

  I offer Robert my hand, he takes it, I pull him up and we follow Amanda down the corridor.

  “How the hell did you end up following us?” I ask him.

  “The ship went to red alert for some reason and they sent all the workers back to their quarters until the situation was resolved. I followed a group of soldiers through part of red deck, and I saw what I thought was you crawling into a vent. I decided to follow.”

  “Why didn’t you shout and let us know who you were?” I ask.

  “I didn’t think I’d been spotted. And I was only about seventy percent sure it was you. Didn’t want to shout in case you tried to shoot me. Which is kinda what you did anyway.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “What’s the plan?” he asks.

  “Use Sunspot Two’s escape pods. Head to the Utopia project.”

  “Really? Didn’t we have this conversation? It’s a fairy tale.”

  Flick looks up at Robert. “It does exist. It has to. And even if it doesn’t, anywhere is better than here,” she says.

  “I guess made up space hippies are better than whatever this is. Then why are we on the medical level? Sunspot Two is right down on the lowest level.”

  “To rescue Rupert … I mean Tim,” I say.

  Flick throws me a confused look but says nothing.

  “Fuck him. That bastard did this. Let him die here,” Robert says.

  “He said he might be able to fix the sun. If he can, then everything can go back to the way it was.”

  “It’s not time travel, John. Everything will stay like this. Skylark is now in control. Getting the sun back would be the cherry on top.”

  “We’re here,” Amanda says and walks through the door to the medi-bay.

  The room is filled with doctors and nurses hurriedly preparing to receive the wounded from the recreation deck. A nurse stops what he’s doing and walks up to Amanda.

  “What do you want, we’re very busy ...” His face changes to terror as he notices Amanda’s perforated face.

  “Sound the alarm! We have a ...” Amanda punches him in the face, knocking him out cold. She then raises her rifle and shoots it in the air. Everyone stops what they’re doing and are now looking at us. Amanda looks at me. “Go and get your friend,” she says.

  I run to the side room Rupert was in last time I saw him and open the door. It’s empty. Shit. I leave the room and one by one check the others, in case I’ve mis-remembered, but he’s not in any of them. I head back to the group.

  “He’s not here. Maybe it’s too late,” I say.

  “Good. Can we go now?” Robert says.

  I look around the room at the terrified doctors and nurses.

  “Do any of you know where the man in that room went?” I ask them.

  No answer.

  Amanda moves towards the closest doctor and points the rifle at her forehead.

  “Answer him,” she says.

  I can see the fear in her eyes and I feel terrible. This is a new low, even by my new low standards.

  “Captain Baseheart and an important looking man from the QE7 took him,” she says with an audible tremor in her voice`

  Ez.

  “The QE7, it’s here?” I ask, stunned.

  “Yes. It docked here about an hour ago.”

  Robert moves closer to me.

  “John, you do realise that means we’re saved. My father will be on that ship. Maybe even Ez,” he whispers.

  Flick then moves to my other side.

  “What’s going on, John? We haven’t got time for this. We have to go.”

  I just stare at her. I don’t have an answer.

  “John?” she says and pokes me in the arm.

  I look around the room at the scared medical team, Amanda pointing her rifle at any of them that move; I look at Robert, his red, burned, but newly hopeful smiling face, and, finally, at Flick, with her confused but pleading red eyes.

  “I can’t go,” I finally say.

  “What do you mean you can’t go?” Flick asks.

  “You heard what the doctor said. The QE7 is here.”

  “So what? Why does that matter?”

  “Because if there’s one place in the universe Ez will be, it’s there. I have to stay. I have to find out.”

  Flick takes a step back.

  “No, John. You’re not abandoning me. You can’t. Please. Not after everything we’ve been through,” she says, her eyes beginning to well up.

  “Go with Amanda to Sunspot Two, you can still escape,” I say.

  “There’s no escape without you. I don’t want to escape without you. You’re my one hope. You’re all I have, John. I won’t stay here and get forced to being a whore again. I’d rather die.”

  Flick then pulls out the pistol from the back of her trousers and points it at me.

  “Flick, please ...” I say.

  “If you do this, John, you’re sentencing us both to death. You’ll be killed by the guards before you even get close to finding her.”

  “It’s a risk I have to take. But I’m not sentencing you to death,” I say.

  “Yes, you are.”

  Flick stops pointing the pistol at me and shakily moves it to her own head.

  “I love you, John. I only wish you could love me back.”

  I see Amanda quietly move behind Flick and she attempts to grab the pistol from Flick’s hand. There’s a very brief struggle but Flick isn’t letting go. Amanda bends Flick’s arm back at an alarming angle but the pistol goes off.

  Amanda’s head explodes in a shower of sparks, and her writhing body falls to the deck with a metallic bang. Her limbs continue flailing around for a few seconds and then, with a shrill screech, she’s still. The medical staff take the opportunity to run.

  “What have I done?” Flick says, tears flowing down her cheeks. She takes a few steps back and hits the wall. She then drops the pistol and slides down into a crumpled heap.

  The doors to the medi-bay are suddenly kicked open and six or seven guards file through, pointing their weapons at me and Robert.

  We both instantly put our hands up.

  “The silent alarm was pressed. What’s happening here?” says the guard, pointing his weapon at me,

  “They attempted to take the patient Captain Baseheart was interested in,” says a female voice behind me. I glance round and see it’s the doctor who we forced to talk at gunpoint.

  “Trying to escape in the carnage, were you? Nice try, but futile. All you’ve done is shorten your lives,” the guard says.

  Robert barges in front of me. “My father is head engineer on the QE7,” he says to the guard, “I’m sure if you contact him, he’ll straighten this all out.”

  The guard gives him a perplexed look. “You’re not John Farrow, are you?” he asks.

  “Um, no. He is,” Robert says and points at me.

  The guard turns to the man on his left. “Take the tall beardy one and the blue haired girl to the brig.”

  “Wait a fucking minute. I asked you to contact my father on the QE7. I told you he’d sort this out.” Robert says to the apparent head guard.

  The guard looks him up and down, then swiftly, and without a sound, hits Robert in the stomach with the butt of his rifle. Robert doubles up, struggling to breathe.

  “Take them to the brig now,” he shouts.

  He then turns to the m
an on his right. “Dispose of that fuck-bot.” He then looks at me. “John Farrow. This way, the captain wants to see you.”

  I say nothing and follow him through the door, getting a final glimpse of Flick as two guards are attempting to pick her up. She gives me a last look of sadness and desperation, and it breaks my heart in two.

  What have I done? I’ve completely betrayed her. For what? A dream that somehow I could see Ez again. A long shot at best. At least with Flick, I felt more alive than I had in what seems like forever. I’m living in a world where almost everyone is dead, and the one person who shows me genuine feelings and affection I fuck over on a whim. What sort of person does that make me? An awful one. I’m only trying to keep a promise to myself. The promise I made to Flick was the one I should have kept. At least that was real. Escape or die trying. I have no idea what’s going to happen to her now, and no idea where I’m going.

  I numbly follow the guard through the brushed aluminium corridors, looking down at the deck, defeated. I vaguely notice a lump in my shirt pocket in my peripheral vision but don’t think about it and continue looking at the deck. A cold chill slowly makes its way down my spine as it dawns on me what it is. I’m suddenly very aware that I still have a severed eye in my pocket.

  The guard stops and opens a blue door.

  “In there. Someone will be with you shortly.”

  He pushes me into the room and shuts the door behind me. I turn around and attempt opening it, but it seems that I’m locked in.

  The room itself is a fairly big rectangle with white walls and, every now and then, a red light flashes in a thin line where the wall hits the ceiling. In the centre is a round table with eight chairs around it. I pull out a chair, sit down and look at the screen which makes up most of the far wall. All that’s on the screen are the words: source required in flashing green text.

  I have a quick scan of the room to see if there’s anywhere I can hide the eye but the door opens before I have a chance. In walks Captain Baseheart.

  “Hello, John. It turns out you’ve been lying to me,” she says as she enters.

  My body tenses up. I just stare at her and say nothing.