by Drew Cordell
The Biogel sealing the wound through my chest seemed to be doing its job, reversing the damage and stopping the bleeding. It hurt like hell and there was a tightness in my chest, but it didn’t feel like I was in immediate danger of bleeding out. I reasoned the wetness I felt on my chest was sweat considering I felt it everywhere else on my body as well. Biogel couldn’t substitute surgeries in most cases, and it certainly didn’t seem like it would permanently replace surgery for a considerable bullet wound.
“Hello?” I cried out. There was no response, even after shouting for several minutes. I was alone. A deep panic began to form, snaking its sinister, chilling roots deeper into my mind. They wouldn’t know to look for me. I would die here. It wouldn’t be a quick death either.
I tried to move my legs instead, pressing down on the platform below my feet as much as I could with the ankle restraints, but the pain was unbearable as the needle shifted. I could feel it scraping against bone, and if I moved too much, I could lose nerve function or damage something irreversibly. I laughed then, a meek, miserable laugh at the helplessness of my situation. Evelyn Aeoxous’ petty revenge for the destruction of Olympus and the Omniscience Engine would be leaving me to die a slow, painful death here in the unforgiving darkness, even after we had presumably won.
I thought about pressing as hard as I could with my legs, one forceful movement to try breaking the needle off at the base. The pain would be excruciating, but if it didn’t break my spine or paralyze me, maybe I would have a shot of escaping the pod. It was too risky, and I wasn’t that desperate yet. Instead, I focused on my breathing, trying to calm myself. I had to hold out as long as possible, had to hope someone would come for me.
Sleep found me again, but it wasn’t restful. By the time I woke up, my body was more than uncomfortable. Deep aches worked their way through my muscles, presenting new pain and discomfort. The air was even hotter now, stagnant and stuffy in the pod. My mouth was dry, and despite the sweat, my lips were starting to crack. More sweat dripped into my eyes and stung, so I closed them. It didn’t make a difference whether they were open or not in the unwavering darkness.
More time passed and my misery grew. Pain was all I knew now. The metal binds were cutting into my skin, blistering and bleeding as I fruitlessly struggled. I didn’t have any luck with my now-useless cybernetic arm either, despite the fact pulling on that restraint didn’t bring any pain. I was beginning to feel hunger. The initial adrenaline of the situation was long gone, but somehow the Biogel had done its job and was keeping me alive for the time being. It still hurt, but it didn’t seem like the wound was going to kill me… not yet at least. My stomach knotted and contorted, rumbling and demanding sustenance.
I would have even settled for the Guild’s protein cubes right then. I could imagine the foul, gritty texture which actually seemed enticing. That and a tall glass of ice water. I could picture it, cool drops of condensation sliding down the sides of the glass, hitting the table and forming a cold puddle. I picked up the imaginary glass, ice cubes clinking against the sides, and drank deeply. Thinking about food and water only seemed to make my situation worse. I approximated I had slept for at least eight hours from the time I’d been locked in this pod, but time was beginning to feel irrelevant. I was still sweating, and the heat of my pod was going to accelerate the dehydration process further.
Cold, cruel logic followed. The bomb had gone off, and it was realistic and reasonable to believe it had taken out most of Olympus. The Champions were probably looking for things of interest, maybe even for me, but how much rubble was on top of the room I was in? Even if they were looking for me, chances were they wouldn’t be able to find me. Chances were also high that the ceiling above me could collapse at any moment now, that millions of tons of rubble would swallow me whole. I wasn’t going to be found. None of my electronics worked, and everything in Olympus was probably fried from the EMP blast. If I was going to get out of this, it would be from my own initiative. At least until I could get to a position where I could be found. Staying here was no longer an option, and I had to make a tough choice if I was going to get out—one that could kill me.
I knew what I had to do, and I did it before there was time to think otherwise. There wasn’t a better solution. Time would kill me. Maybe this would too. I pressed with all the strength I had left in my legs, forcing my body up at a steep, unforgiving angle by lifting myself onto my toes. I cried out as the needle bent and cut deeper into my neck. Raising myself as high off the platform as possible, I shifted laterally against the needle, feeling it lock into bone. Satisfied with the needle’s positioning, I lifted my feet and let my body fall. The seemingly immovable needle lost its stubborn rigidness, bending like a flimsy rod before snapping, hopefully at the base. The pain was excruciating as something in my spine popped and tore.
It took several minutes for me to recover to the point where I could move again without feeling like I was about to pass out. With care I moved my body, catching the back of the needle and wriggling it free. Finally it fell out behind me, clinking on its way down to the bottom of the pod. Praying that it worked, I pressed my back against the metal board behind me to see if the break was clean. I sighed in relief as there was no pain, just a flat surface which was surprisingly comfortable now.
I took a moment to rest, to collect myself and recover from the strain of freeing myself from the cruel needle. It was a painful step to escaping this prison. Exhaustion hit me like a wave, trying to pull me back into sleep. I fought it, concentrating and thinking through my next steps. There were still restraints, but now that the needle was no longer in my back, I could feel they weren’t as sturdy as I had initially thought. I could move them more easily now. Metal that had felt solid before felt more pliable.
Twisting my body, I tried to yank free of the left restraint without putting too much strain on my chest, fearful of tearing the Biogel patch open. I groaned as I pulled with my cybernetic limb, struggling to angle it correctly. I cursed as I tried to use the Nanotech module in my cybernetic limb, remembering the fact that our EMP had gone off, that it was the reason I was trapped here.
With the EMP, I no longer had motor control over the limb and the powerful pistons within weren’t functioning. I stopped pulling, taking a moment to collect myself before trying the other arm. This time, there was pain. The metal restraint cut into my wrist, slicing through skin and slicking it with blood as the metal caught on the bone underneath. I screamed as it tore my flesh, applying more pressure and pulling with all my might. It was no use. I wouldn’t get out.
I screamed in anger and frustration as the dread of the situation settled in. Despite everything, this would be my death. I cried then, laughing at the irony of my grim fate. Time passed, losing meaning and becoming formless. Sleep came and went as did hunger, thirst, and agonizing pain. All grew distant as my will to fight eroded.
A beam of light awoke me from my sleep, shining against my closed eyelids, now soaked in sweat. When I opened my eyes, the light was gone. The delusions were starting. Hysteria was taking root.
“You aren’t real!” I screamed at what must have been imagined. My lips split with the words, stinging as thick blood formed in the breaks. “Why this?” I asked nothing in particular. I just wished it would end. I wasn’t sure why I was still alive, but I had no way to accelerate my death. I had no idea how long I had been here, how long I had been suffering, but it was only getting worse and the smell was almost unbearable. I desperately wished that the glass of the pod was broken. It would have been a cleaner, more tolerable death that way.
“It won’t matter. You chose this,” I told myself. My voice sounded strange to me, like it had changed. It was thin and dry from my dehydration, yes, but it sounded nothing like I remembered and I couldn’t place why. “You chose this. You—” My voice broke then. “But Mary will live,” I finished, wishing for sleep but finding myself unable to accelerate time and escape the deep aches and pulsing pain in my muscles.
&nbs
p; The light returned. It was real, and there were voices.
24 EVER AFTER
∆∆∆
“Close your eyes!” a voice boomed from outside.
I couldn’t see the face behind it. The light was too bright, glaring against the condensation and fogging of the glass from the inside. The light moved away from the pod, making it a little easier to see what was happening.
A robot rolled forward, one of the Builder’s Spinners by the looks of it. It reached out with four arms, gripping the frame of my prison at four separate points and bringing a fifth arm back and slamming it into the face of the glass. I closed my eyes, hearing a crunching crack rather than a shower of broken glass. I kept my eyes closed as the hits continued to ring out. Finally, the glass shattered and I sucked in a breath of blissful clean air, cold and sweet.
More Spinners entered the room, lighting it so I could see the faces of those around me. Edgar, Marwin, and Mary were there, and despite the filth of the pod and my nakedness, they helped me. Mary and I were sobbing as I struggled to control the torrent of emotion as my friends gave me water and food, placing me on a stretcher, covering me with a blanket and taking me out of that horrible room. I realized I would live.
“I’m so sorry,” I told Mary. “I had to do it. I couldn’t let the Omniscience Engine win,” I said. “Please forgive me.” I struggled for the words between my sobs.
“This isn’t your fault.” She held my hand, still crying as we moved through the facility.
Eventually we came to a landing outside, cold air blowing over me. I pulled the blanket tighter against my skin and saw one of the smaller scout ships from the ODIN II parked on a flight pad many feet away from the door. The upper layer of Olympus was gone, flattened downward in heaping piles of ruin. The houses of Olympus, in all their beauty and opulence, were erased from the skyline.
“How did you find me?” I asked, squinting against the sunlight.
“We were all combing the wreckage for survivors. We did it. We won,” Marwin said.
“Evelyn Aeoxous? The other Ascendants?” I asked, accepting more water from Mary and forcing myself to drink slowly to avoid stomach aches.
Marwin frowned. “Gone. We’ll keep looking. We’re going to prepare our forces and remount an attack on River’s Port with the Builder’s assault drones to support us. After that, we’ll clean the streets of the Slums and the Undercity of the remaining HKs and rebuild our city. We did it, though. New York is ours.”
I coughed, nearly choking on my water. “What about the Mids? Are there survivors?”
Edgar shook his head, a grim expression on his face. “Some, not many, but we’re hoping to find more in the coming weeks who may have been holed up somewhere else. We have to believe there are still people living in the Mids—that it isn’t as bad as the Slums.”
“Do you know what happened to Leroy?” Mary asked. “We haven’t been able to find him, and he is the only one unaccounted for.”
I recalled what had happened with great pain. “He died at the Docks. This Leroy was an Ascendant the whole time, an infiltrator probably designed to be an insurance policy for the Omniscience Engine or a spy. It terrifies me that his eyes weren’t golden. I couldn’t tell it wasn’t him.”
“Wow,” Edgar commented, the severity of the situation hitting him. “We have to stay vigilant and look for signs from the others, but I don’t think the Ascendants can cause as much harm now that the Omniscience Engine is gone. I think it’s safe to say we can trust the Builder now. He proved himself a great ally, and I think he’ll be an even bigger help in rebuilding our society. Best of all, he even agreed to work with Aarlen and other system architects to integrate his narrow AI network into Artemis. All of the Spinners will be running under our non-corruptible code. Nothing like the Omniscience Engine can ever happen again.”
Marwin broke into a smile. “I imagine Jake will be racking in the big bucks with all of the work he needs to do. Once he gets out of surgery and recovers, he’ll be buying us a round of drinks.”
Edgar laughed. “I sure could go for a beer right now, but I owe Jake and Mary a few drinks before he picks up my bar tab. But yes, the three of us will have a lot of work to do as we expand Artemis and build new systems to sustain our new society. Who knows? There may even be other survivors who have an affinity for this line of work.”
I still had more questions as we loaded into the scout ship. “And the rest of the Harvesters? What about them?”
“The Undercity wasn’t affected by the EMP. While Violet hasn’t reached out to us, we don’t think they will be a problem. I think we will prepare some kind of peace offering once she has time to cope with the loss of her father,” Marwin said.
“The reactors?” I asked.
Edgar answered. “They’re still running in the Undercity. Power shouldn’t be an issue. We’re working on restoring them in Olympus, though. The nuclear matter is still there for us to use; we’re just going to need to replace all the electronics with materials the Builder has. Once we finish converting the ODIN II into a workable manufacturing and industry center, we should be able to start recycling a lot of the junk that is on hand for parts to make new equipment. While that happens, we’ll work on maintaining our infrastructure in the Undercity until it’s safe to move everyone up to Olympus.”
I nodded as the scout ship landed. We were on one of the big landing platforms on the east side of Olympus, and it appeared to be unaffected structurally by the EMP’s blast. The ODIN II was centered on the platform, massive and undamaged from the assault. Despite everything the Omniscience Engine threw at it, we had survived and the ODIN II had held on long enough for the EMP to be detonated.
There were Champions all over the ship working on things alongside the Builder’s Spinners. Some stopped what they were doing to greet me as I was rolled in on the stretcher, but most gave me space as I was taken to the ship’s medical area.
“I’ll see you soon,” I told Mary, squeezing her hand. “Maybe we can talk then? We both have stuff to say, right?”
“Right. I would like that. Don’t leave me for too long,” she said, looking at me with those beautiful eyes.
“I couldn’t if I tried. I’ll kiss you later. I’m not at my best right now and don’t want to put you through that,” I said, laughing and wincing as pain shot through my chest.
“You’d better kiss me later,” she said, squeezing my hand again. “But yes, you do stink and have very chapped lips.” She smiled at me one last time before going to wait with Edgar and Marwin.
A Spinner rolled me the rest of the way, taking me to where the Builder would perform my surgery, taking out the Biogel patch and repairing the gunshot through my chest. I was lucky I had been wearing my armor, and I was even luckier that the high-caliber bullet hadn’t hit anything important. Leroy’s Biogel had saved my life, and the EMP had prevented me from being uploaded into the Omniscience Engine right before it had been destroyed. For some reason, I was still alive and felt like I had dodged death for what felt like too many times. It was time I found a new line of work.
“Hello, Jake,” the Builder said as I was moved to the surgical bed. The Ascendant who I had grown to trust stood over a tray of medical instruments, ready to get to work and patch me up. “I wanted to wait to do this surgery until you had a chance to eat and rehydrate completely, but I just cannot justify the risk of complications if I do not fix this up correctly now.”
“It’s good to see you, too,” I said.
He smiled. “You did it. Olympus is ours.”
“We did it,” I corrected.
“Sure. You never did tell me how you found that map to Vermont,” he said.
“You’re right. I can’t tell you now; I can’t tell anyone.”
“Even now? If not it is okay, I will respect your conviction. I am just trying to understand how our paths crossed in the first place—how we were able to work together and put aside our differences to build something new. Either way, we mu
st be vigilant in establishing formidable defenses for this new society. Since we have done something without precedence, I fear the Omniscience Engine might not take it well and might decide to try to invade our country.”
“I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right. Maybe I can tell you where I got the map later, but not yet. After everything though, I am glad to call you my friend,” I said.
My heart sunk as I considered the thought of another Omniscience Engine invading us. Vermont had taught us that there was only one true Omniscience Engine, but its scope extended much further than we could ever hope to understand. In reality, we had only destroyed once piece of it. I could only pray it would leave us alone, that we would be able to build a new and peaceful society permanently free from its influence. I still had more letters waiting for me in my father’s box which was safely stored in the hangar of the ODIN II. I would wait to open it; I would trust in my father’s continued guidance, no matter what was in store for us.
“Fix me up, will you?” I asked. “Mary wants a kiss, and I’d be a poor excuse for a boyfriend to keep it from her for too long.”
“That you would, and I would be a terrible friend to keep you from her. You will be back to normal in no time,” he said, placing a mask over my face.
My head swam as I breathed in the gas and everything faded away.
I woke up in a different bed, lying on a comfortable mattress and taking in my surroundings. My mind and body felt clouded, and my tongue was dry and cottony. I was pleased to see the Builder had repaired my cybernetic hand to working order during or shortly after my surgery as well. Mary’s was already restored before I had been rescued. Mary had procured a spare cot from the ship and placed it against the wall of my room. She was sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake her. The triple-layered window above my head revealed it was dark outside. Olympus, normally bright and full of life at night, was dark and silent.
As I searched my bed, I found a call button and pressed it. Seconds later, the Builder came in and smiled when he saw me.
