by Alfred Wurr
Marcus removed his parka, laying it across the folding chair next to him. “Am I imagining it or is the entire chamber heating up?”
“The AC can’t keep up,” Andreas said, tossing his own coat onto an empty chair. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his shirt. “The sphere and crystal pillars are giving off too much heat.”
Harriet’s jaw dropped and she pointed. “Look, the crystals, they’re—”
“The gazebo!” Andreas shouted, bursting from his chair.
The crystal pillars—now columns of sunlight—and other structures flickered in and out of existence, one moment there, the next gone, then back again. The entire chamber wavered and warped, as if reflected by a funhouse mirror. The white orb transformed into a roiling ball of flame in an instant, burning away the fog around the dais as it expanded outwards to several feet in diameter.
“That’s it; this is getting too dangerous,” Harriet said, shaking her head and waving a hand at the door. “Everyone out. Quickly!”
“We can’t miss this,” Marcus said, stepping toward her. “This is incredible.”
“The instruments will keep recording. We can observe the footage from the command centre,” she countered as Andreas and the guard raced for the exit.
“Until the heat melts them,” he replied.
“You’ll be dead before that happens.” Her shoes pounded against the wooden walkway as she moved to leave. “Come on, Marcus,” she said, beckoning to him from the exit.
A flash of electric light crashed against the polycarbonate barrier.
Blocking the glare with his hand, he nodded. His shoes tapped a rapid drumbeat toward the tunnel, and he slipped through the plastic doorway after his colleague.
Now sweltering, the room was a deathtrap for me, with only one way out. Whatever the scientists had set in motion, it seemed to be getting worse, and I hadn’t found the answers for which I’d come looking. Far from it—I now had more questions than I’d had before arriving. My origin and my identity remained mysteries to me.
I’ve got to stop whatever they started.
I jumped onto the wooden platform and grabbed one of the discarded parkas from a nearby chair. I pulled it on, after shrugging off my backpack, like an astronaut getting into a spacesuit in an airlock that was about to be opened to the vacuum of space.
I cursed as the zipper caught halfway up. Taking a deep breath, I backed it up, freeing it, and tried again, then drew it up to my neck before tugging the hood over my head. Protected from the heat, I loosened my backpack’s straps as far as they could go, so I could slip it over the thick coat, before snugging them tightly against my shoulders.
Fiery wraiths, translucent, as if only partly in this world, materialized near the sphere, solidifying like a TV tuning in to the right signal as I looked on. Some floated up into the ceiling like sparks from a fire, disappearing into the rock. Others rocketed across the room and disappeared into the walls.
Cooling the energy sphere had failed, but maybe it was too little, too late. My hands flew over the keyboard. Fortunately, the technician, Andreas, hadn’t locked his terminal and had left the nitrogen dispenser control program running. Entering a question mark brought up the help menu, allowing me to locate the right command. I typed it, and the liquid nitrogen hissed, fogging the platform once more.
I left it activated and jumped the side railing, heading for the spot where the tholos used to be, before it had faded from existence. I kept low, dodging fiery will-o’-the-wisps as I moved. I didn’t want to find out what getting hit by one of them felt like—maybe nothing, or maybe they’d rematerialize inside of me. I took an indirect path, using the deeper fog to try to reduce the risk of being caught on camera. If I survived, I didn’t want the Bodhi Group to know I’d been here.
The cryogenic applicator sputtered and stopped as I re-entered the pool of water—which was all that remained to mark the tholos’s former location. The ball of fire appeared nearly quenched but swelled again moments later.
With no time to lose, I moved deeper into the pond. The bottom edge of my new coat brushed lightly against the no-longer-icy surface as I neared the centre. Still cool, the water contrasted sharply with the scorching air. It soothed my flesh, but I felt queasy again from the excess water soaking through my outer shell of ice.
Time to use it, I thought.
I swirled my hands in a circle, materializing a ball of frost out of thin air. Born of the Underfrost, it crackled with power, engulfed in a nimbus of churning white vapour. I bounced it back and forth from hand to hand, then launched it at the ball of fire that still floated, impossibly, above the platform.
The fiery globe sizzled angrily as the frost bolt struck it and exploded on impact, intense heat meeting absolute cold. Three more balls of frost energy chased the first. The ball of flame continued to hiss and buzz and shrink slightly with each collision, a stubborn spike thrust into stone by a hammer of frost. A barrage of dozens of frost balls later, the pool of water dwindled at my feet. The fireball was half of its former self, perhaps five feet across, but still radiating heat like an old steam boiler.
Chest heaving, I slumped over, resting my hands on my hips. Getting there, but not fast enough.
Narrowing my eyes, I conjured more frost and rolled it across the floor. Waves of cryogenic energy rippled outward from it as it travelled, slicing holes in the barrier between this world and the Underfrost, raising a trail of snow as wide as a pickup truck. I did this a dozen more times. I sent most in the direction of the orb of fire, with a few others in a ninety-degree arc to either side of it. A minute later, a blanket of snow buried the entire area, and the pool was just a thin layer of ice at my feet.
While I’d been rolling snowballs, the molten sphere had grown to eight feet in diameter. A thick, soupy fog clouded everything except the sphere’s bright red-hot glow, which burned off the vapour in its vicinity, creating a void of clear air around itself. Before it could grow larger still, I stepped onto the thick snow and advanced, pelting the fire with a hail of frost and stepping closer with each salvo. It shrank with each impact, even as the snow melted around me, and water dripped from my face, and another fiery will-o’-the-wisp swept past me to my left.
I cowered and grabbed my face as the blaze ballooned in size in an instant, flash-melting my exposed flesh like I’d just opened the Ark of the Covenant. Peeking between my fingers, I watched it shrink back to its former volume a moment later. I rubbed my nose, then moved forward again, windmilling frost at fire as fast as I could.
Hissing and spitting, the ball shrank again to a few feet in diameter. Unfortunately, my throwing arm felt like dead weight hanging from my shoulder, giving me serious doubts about my ability to maintain the assault. Growing desperate, I scrunched my eyes and turned my face into my shoulder as I ran up to the orb’s side, screaming at the scalding heat. As my exposed flesh melted, I thrust both of my hands out as if to warm them at a campfire and channelled frost energy from my fingertips like fire retardant onto a grease fire. The globe hissed, raging against the onslaught, and the earth quaked, nearly knocking me off my feet. Then, mercifully, the fire shrivelled to the size of a golf ball and went silent. For several seconds after, I kept up my attack, then lowered my hands, sagging into the melting snow.
The sphere was gone. The cameras, floodlights and equipment surrounding the dais sagged toward the floor, blackened and melted by the intense heat, but I could still hear the hum of the air conditioning, and lights still glowed somewhere in the haze. Between the AC and the cooling effect of the snow, the room was returning to its former self, minus the tholos.
I raised my hands to my face. My nose felt a few inches shorter and my left eye seemed to bulge as if the socket’s depth were diminished. I tried to close my eyes, but my left eyelid wasn’t there anymore. I moaned, feeling a rush of nausea, as my fingers probed a hole in my face where my cheek should be. Huge chunks of my lower half, that not protected by the burnt and blackened parka
, were missing too.
A noise to my left drew my eye. I flinched as a ball of fire rocketed through the air in my direction. The warmth from it singed my already-ruined face as it flew past.
I sank to my waist in the snow. The winter jacket bunched up under my arms, slowing my descent, as a vaguely humanoid creature of molten rock and fire emerged from the mist. Broad-shouldered, thin-waisted, it floated over the ground on a carpet of flame. Fire elemental, I thought, the name coming to mind unbidden.
Its left hand blurred, sending another globe of fire in my direction. With half my body buried in snow, I dodged to the right, then rose to the surface and hurled frost in return. It sailed through the mist as if thrown by a toddler playing catch with his dad, falling short of its target. I shook feeling back into my arm as two more of the creatures emerged from the vapour. The leader shrieked and shrank back, its gaze snapping to the snow at its feet.
Fatigue from my desert trek and struggle with the orb of fire threatened to overwhelm me. Fighting these things was a boxing match, after a wrestling match, after a marathon. I needed to escape or take them out fast. Taking three of them down, in my condition, wasn’t likely, but my options were limited. I needed to punch through them, so I spazzed a few more frost balls their way, then stormed at them. As one moved to meet me, I deked right, then to the left, like a quarterback avoiding a sack. With my speed enhanced by the snow, I managed to slip by, though the one on the right got in a hot slap to the back of my head that blossomed stars in my eyes.
I tossed a few frost balls over my shoulder as parting gifts. They missed but discouraged pursuit long enough for me to get a bit of a lead.
Fireballs whizzed past my ears as I barrelled for the tunnel. I flew over the ground until I reached the snow’s edge and leaped onto the stairs, pulling myself along by the wooden railing. Fire pummelled my back as I left the steps. The thick winter coat took the brunt of it, but I stumbled and fell, banging my face and palms on the hard rock before pushing myself upright.
Another ball of flame caught me in the head as I stood. Heat radiated through the hood of my jacket, but the thick material insulated my head like an oven mitt. I reached up to brush away the residue as I slipped through the plastic curtain and entered the passageway.
I dashed down the corridor twenty feet, then whirled a hundred and eighty degrees and walked backwards. As the first fire elemental pushed through the flap, the material melted beneath its touch but did not ignite.
My recovering throwing arm blurred, sending frost at the thing as it came through. The ball sailed to the left and crashed against the curtain. I’d already conjured a second one, though, and sent it after its predecessor. I pumped my fist as it hit the monster in the chest. It wailed and retreated behind the curtain, giving me the stink eye.
Balls of fire pounded the curtain from the far side moments later, melting away large sections.
I turned and ran.
They still hadn’t turned off the tunnel lights after the emergency evacuation. The lights were spaced far apart, so it wasn’t exactly bright, but I could see my way, more or less. Even so, I stumbled and bumped into the sides of the walls in my hurry to escape, muttering curses.
When I got to the narrowest section, I rolled frost along the path in front of me, ran over the resulting snow bloom, then turned and did the same back the way I came, creating a thick layer of snow. Let’s see you cross that, freaks, I thought.
“Hey, you,” said a man’s voice from behind me. “Why didn’t you evacuate with the others?”
I froze in place, watching my last frost ball roll across the snow, which was now a few feet deep. Someone must have been sent in to check on the situation in the cavern, I realized. In the dim light, backlit, with the winter coat I’d stolen, I must have looked like another researcher.
“Hello? You deaf?” he said in a southern accent when I didn’t turn around. “Identify yourself.”
“Sorry, just give me a second,” I said. “Having trouble with my zipper.” I quietly readied a frost ball and swung around, keeping the swirling mass behind me. As I turned, the lights went out, plunging the tunnel into darkness. Only the glow of the frost behind my back provided any light with which to see.
“Ah, damn it to hell,” said the voice. “Generator quit again.”
I heard him fumbling with his hands before something clicked. A beam of light illuminated the tunnel floor at the newcomer’s feet. The guard I’d seen before, Larry, stood about fifteen feet down the tunnel, flashlight in one hand, assault rifle—hanging from a strap over his shoulder—in the other.
I held my free hand in front of my face, blocking the light of his torch as he raised it. As I expected, his expression changed from annoyed to puzzled, then his eyes widened as he looked over my shoulder.
“Watch your six,” he said, raising his weapon and waving me to the side.
I hugged the wall and turned as a fireball streaked past me, catching Larry in the midsection. Bullets whizzed by as he fell, firing down the tunnel at the approaching enemy. The noise was deafening in the confined space.
I threw the frost that I conjured for the soldier at them instead. It struck home, and I followed it up with more. The lead elemental went down, but his pals moved up to the snow’s edge and the tunnel flashed with firelight. I yelped and patted out flames as one hit my shoulder, setting the winter jacket alight. I threw myself against the wall, hiding in its curve, just out of my enemies’ sightline. An angry howl followed an instant later. I poked my head out to see one of the fire elementals backing away from the snow trail that I’d laid down as a cloud of vapour rose from the floor.
I glanced back to where Larry lay holding his blackened and smoking midsection, groaning. “Oh, damn, it hurts,” he wheezed, pulling himself awkwardly back down the tunnel with his other arm. “The hell’s going on?”
Steeling myself, I burst from cover and dashed over to the fallen soldier. He leaned against the wall, holding his stomach, wincing. I held out a hand for him to take and pulled him upright.
“The fuck are those things?” he asked as he regained his feet. His eyes widened as he met my gaze. “What are you?”
“No time,” I said, looking back at our mutual enemies as they bombed the snow trail with fireballs. “The snow won’t keep them much longer.” I grabbed his arm and began pulling him down the tunnel.
“Hold up,” he said, tugging free of my grasp. He took a few steps and stooped, snatching his still-lit flashlight from where it had fallen. “Going to need this.”
As we left the fire creatures behind, the tunnel grew dark, and we relied on the soldier’s hand torch to guide our way. I was glad for it; I could forego fluorescing to generate light and avoid freaking him out more.
The young soldier groaned, nearly dropping his light as we reached the security door leading to the camp.
I grabbed his elbow to support him. “Hey, easy, Larry. Take a seat.”
He sank to the ground, wincing. “How’d you know my name, sir?” He looked up, shining the flashlight at my chest. “You’re him, aren’t you? Subject Winterboy?”
“My friends call me Shivurr,” I said, checking his wound. “How are you doing?”
“Jacket caught the worst of it,” he replied, pulling the material taut to reveal the impact point. The fireball had burned through the outer shell, insulation and military jacket he wore beneath it, leaving red and blistered skin exposed in places. “Knocked the wind out of me. Skin’s burning like a sumbitch.” He let the jacket fall. “Think I’ll be all right after a spell.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Why’d you come here, sir?” he asked, patting his jacket with his free hand.
“Trying to get home,” I replied, watching his hand, expecting him to pull a gun.
“Oh, shit,” he said, scanning the ground around him. “My smokes! I must have dropped ’em. Now I’m pissed! Fuck it.”
Satisfied he was okay and apparently not about to shoot me, I tri
ed pushing on the door. It didn’t budge. “What’s the code?”
The soldier pulled himself to his feet, grimacing, and punched in the numbers. As the door opened, a roar from one of the pursuing infernos goaded us through. I pulled the door shut behind us and ran down the tube to join Larry at the second door. He pushed the bar that latched it from our side and shoved the door wide, and we burst through into the wider tunnel beyond.
The lights were out on this side, too, but faint illumination beckoned to us from the camp outside.
“Powerful warm out here,” Larry said as a blast of warm air washed over us. He shrugged off his coat and tossed it aside as I made for the nearby lockers.
Finding what I was looking for, I dropped my burned and blackened parka onto the ground and pulled on an undamaged one. Slipping my arms through the straps of my backpack, I turned to find the young soldier had waited, though he looked near ready to bolt. Seeing me geared up, he did just that, and we ran toward the light and open air.
The camp was a shambles, like a grassy plain after a brushfire. Several trailers, vehicles, and a few electrical generators burned, throwing black smoke high into the sky. Flames from spilled gasoline drums sputtered and died as their fuel sources burned and dwindled. A strong wind blew over the carnage, fanning the fires, and the sounds of gunfire chattered softly somewhere in the distance.
As we moved onto the battleground, a light rain began to fall from thick clouds that raced and roiled overhead, blocking out the moon and stars, as the lightning flashed and the thunder rumbled.
“Je-sus,” Larry hissed. “It’s an invasion.” He raised his weapon, eyes wide, pointing it into the camp, scanning for targets.
I followed, glad he wasn’t pointing it at me—at least not yet. Saving him in the tunnel, I felt obliged to keep an eye on him. Seeing no immediate targets, he crossed to the trailer where I’d first encountered him. The door stood ajar; no one was inside.
“Sounds like gunfire,” he said, emerging from within. He walked to the side of the trailer and looked east out over the desert. Vortices of fire swirled near the horizon, soaring to heights of more than sixty feet, among which smaller flickers of flame could be seen. Flashes of gunfire and streaks of flame appeared intermittently in the distance. “Boys must be in the shit over there.”
