by Jim Miesner
“In a sense.”
He reached out to her with his shaking hand and Sam could see the thick black veins just under his skin. He saw her staring, hesitated and brought his hand back.
“My body isn’t adjusting as well as yours.”
“We’ll get you to a doctor. We’ll figure this out.”
Sam stumbled forward and wrapped her arms around him as she felt the tears stream down her cheeks. She pulled her face away.
“They got Jenny and another boy. I came back here to rescue her, but there’s something else you should know. There’s a virus. They’re going to use it against them. It will kill millions. We need your help.”
Dr. Tesla stepped back and coughed into his hand. “It’s time to face reality, Samantha.”
“What?”
He closed his eyes as if he was too tired to keep them open. “I should have foreseen the lengths they would go to.”
He opened his eyes again. “I can’t lose you, not like this.”
“Then help me stop them. Does the rest of the council know what they're doing? Maybe if-”
“Dead. They killed them. Saunders, Wexler and Card couldn’t risk any opposition.” He looked up at the sky again. “We can’t stop them.”
“How can you say that? We’re so close. We can stop them.”
He coughed harder into his hand. “Samantha, there’s something else that I need to tell you.”
“What?”
He brushed his hand through his sweaty, greasy hair.
“I had to tell them.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The boy.”
She stepped back. “I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t believe it existed. Imagine it, a virus that could destroy the pathogens that made living beyond the Shell impossible? We used to joke they might as well be looking for the holy grail. I never thought… It’s why I worked so hard to find a girl like Jenny. If I had known…”
Sam took another step back. “You’re with them?”
He wiped his eyes and Sam shook her head. “They need that bacteria to survive. You do this and you kill millions of people. You’d be sentencing them to death.”
“It wasn’t an easy decision to come to, Samantha, but think about it. It would open the outside world to us. Allow us to grow more than enough source to survive. We would never have to worry about running out again. I couldn’t pin our hopes to one girl. Not when I’m like this. I couldn’t die knowing I hadn’t done everything possible for our people.” He held out his dark wrists toward her. “I can’t take this chance with others’ lives.”
“You’re talking about genocide.”
“It’s genocide, if we don’t!” He put his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m not myself.”
Sweat dripped down his forehead as his body trembled.
“How did you know about Daniel?”
Tesla stared at the necklace that hung from her neck. Sam touched it and pulled it from her shirt. Getting her nails between the clasp, she pried it open to see the picture of her and Dr. Tesla. She looked up at him then back at the necklace before she dropped it to the ground and raised her foot over it.
“Sam, no!”
She stomped down and when she lifted her foot two tiny wires and a computer chip peeked out of the sides of the crushed pendant.
“You were spying on me? Listening?”
He reached out his hand again. “It was given to you a long time ago to monitor your adjustment to the Sacrament. We needed to know how it would affect you. I didn’t even think to use it at first until a day ago. I didn’t even think it would still work, but I had to see if you were okay, Samantha. That was when I heard your conversation with the boy. I knew Rachel and that it was probable the blueprints for her research could still be within the necklace. I couldn’t ignore that possibility. I had to tell them.”
He coughed into his hand again.
“You never cared about Jenny. You were just worried about your own skin. You’re just like the rest of them.”
His face grew red, and he stumbled forward.
“You’re acting like a child. I am talking about saving our civilization. It’s not an easy decision to make but when it comes down to it, it’s us or them. We’ll give as many of them a chance as we can. Those that survive will never starve again or worry about sickness. They’ll live much longer, healthier lives. In the short term, yes, many will have to make a great sacrifice, but think of all the generations to come.”
“A great sacrifice? A great sacrifice? Is that what you call it? Does that ease your conscience?”
“Samantha.”
The sky flickered white, and the drones twitched on the ground like flies doused in ether. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes since the crash. Reynolds had told them they had at least twenty.
“I know you care about these people, Samantha. I understand that but put the whole picture in perspective. Please. They gave me the opportunity to talk to you first. Don’t fight this. I can’t help you if you fight.”
Sam retreated. “You don’t care about me.”
Dr. Tesla held out his hand again. “Sam. Please.”
She shook her head. “No. Get away from me.”
“Sam, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
She heard the footsteps signal his presence, like an actor in a play waiting just off-stage for the perfect moment to appear. When she turned, she saw him coming toward them in a red bio suit. His sadistic signature smile was somewhere in the middle of contempt and amusement. Every few steps he kicked another drone out of the way. In his hand was a miniature red wand.
“You should have listened to the old man,” Card said.
CHAPTER FORTY
“Please, Card. She’s been through a lot. I just need a little more time to convince her.”
Card laughed. “You think a few minutes will change her mind? Haven’t you figured it out yet, old man? She’s not one of us. She’s never been one of us. You’re trying to teach a rabid dog new tricks.”
"Don’t hurt her," yelled Tesla.
Card turned toward Sam. “I owe her a thank you. After the great extinction, my job will be a lot easier.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“Oh gosh, Sam. Is that the language you picked up out there?” He shook his head. “I would have thought better of you.”
He tapped the weapon in his hand on his leg.
“You should have listened to the doctor. Then again, he should have just let you die in that mess. It would have been more fitting.”
He raised his weapon toward her. “Not to be cliché, but I have other business to attend to.”
“No!” screamed Tesla.
A bolt of lightning shot through Sam's side and rocketed through every cell as she crashed onto the walkway. For several seconds she only knew the pain. That was her entire existence. Everything else was gone. It hurt to even breathe. It was a few seconds before her clouded mind cleared and she saw Dr. Tesla on his knees where she had been standing. Blood covered his hands and he collapsed to the ground.
Sam twisted her face up as she crawled toward him. Her rib throbbed.
“No,” she said and turned him over.
She felt the warm blood on her palms as she did her best to hold him opposite her broken rib. A drop of blood stained the corner of his mouth.
“I’m sorry,” he wheezed out. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes closed and his head came to a rest on her lap as he continued to wheeze out his nose. The sky flickered white again and Card kicked more of the trembling drones out of the way.
“I’m sorry, too. Sorry to bust up your little family moment,” he said. “I really have other things to take care of, though.”
He raised the weapon and pressed it into her temple.
“They’re not the monsters,” she said. “We’re the monsters. You can pretend you’re civilized but you’re nothing more than the same old thugs that have always
existed. The same murderers that brought this world about.”
Card smiled wider and pulled the weapon away.
“Is that what you think I am? Some kind of baseless killer? Is that what they call it out there when they slaughter a pig to eat, or crack open the egg of an unborn chicken fetus? When a gardener plucks a weed from the ground so that his tomatoes have room to grow, do they call it murder? I prefer to think of myself as a gardener, Samantha. It’s a necessary evil. Taking one life so that another life can thrive. If it wasn’t for people like me, then it would all be one big jumbled mess of weeds choking each other out. Is that the world you want? Pain, suffering, filth?
“Of course it’s not. I’m doing you a favor. I’m doing them all a favor. Soon your miserable existence will be over and you won’t have to struggle anymore. You can finally be at rest.”
The flickering sky settled on white and Card looked up at it and smiled. In the distance weapons fire peppered the silence.
“Your time is over,” he said.
She grunted and got to one foot and then the other before she rose up. Once she was on her feet, the pain subsided again somewhat. She felt the cold metal press into her temple again and she stared him straight in his eyes. She wanted to leave him with that last haunting image in his mind if he was a man that could be haunted. He swallowed and the wand began to pulse white just before she heard the clunk. The weapon slid from his hand and blasted away a piece of the walkway as Card crumpled to the ground. Where he had been standing, stood Emmanuel holding a drone with a rather large dent.
He kicked the weapon away and dropped the drone to the ground.
“You’re alive?” he said. He reached out and rubbed her cheek before he touched his forehead to hers and took a breath.
Sam could still smell the faint smell of ash mixed with lake water and sweat on him. She let him hold her for a moment before she pulled back. Where they had touched Dr. Tesla’s blood now stained his chest too.
“It will be okay,” he said.
She looked back at Dr. Tesla. “He was in on it.”
“Rachel’s research?”
She nodded. “He spied on me through the necklace. That’s how they found out about it. It is all my fault.”
He turned her chin toward him. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known.”
Then he cried out as his hand went to his thigh where a knife was embedded. Blood poured down Emmanuel's leg in a little stream as he winced. Card laughed and rose back up behind him. He rubbed the back of his head and sucked air through his teeth.
“That wasn’t wise,” Card said.
Sam rushed at him and he stepped aside, pushing her toward the railing in one fluid motion. A few drones in her way skittered over the edge. She barely had time to brace herself against the railing and grab it before Card lifted her up and tossed her over. Holding tight to it, her feet kicked out into space as she struggled to find a foothold.
He turned back to Emmanuel. Emmanuel had managed to pull the knife out of his thigh just as Card smashed a drone across his face and he fell onto his back. The knife clattered to the ground and went over the edge. Card looked down at him as he lay there and kicked him in the stomach again and again.
“Stop!” Sam yelled.
She had both arms wrapped around the railing pole as she tried to swing her foot up onto the ledge again but it was no use. There was no way she could bend that far. When Emmanuel stopped moving, Card turned back to her and pressed his boot against her forearm. The wisps of smoke curled up behind and highlighted him standing there in his red bio suit, like some kind of maniacal devil of old.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe we are monsters, Samantha. Monsters you created.”
Emmanuel inched toward her now, blood dripping from his face but Card seemed to pay no attention or didn’t see him as a threat just yet. Then Sam saw it. The knife had gone over the lip of the walkway but had landed on a second, smaller ledge. Could she reach it? She pulled one of her arms out from under his boot and swung toward it. Her fingertips barely touched the knife, and she only managed to spin it so the blade hung out over the edge.
“You chewers never learn. Resolve is great, but there comes a time when it turns into stupidity. You need to know when to count your losses and give up. Your stupid friend on the beach, Dr. Tesla and those other idiots, they could all still be alive if they learned that lesson.”
She swung out again and only moved the knife closer toward the abyss as the blade tottered back and forth on the edge.
“It’s time to let go,” Card said.
He dug his boot harder into her arm and Sam swung out one last time. It was her last chance. She watched it as the delicate balance slid the knife out over the edge. Every molecule of her focused on that handle as her fingers wrapped around it and pulled it back in toward her. Card turned in surprise but it was too late as she plunged it into his boot.
“Argh!” he screamed and hobbled backward, tripping over Emmanuel and falling to the ground.
Emmanuel clamored forward in his wake and reached out to Sam as her arm slid off the post. She fell out into space just as a hand on her wrist jerked her back.
Behind him, she watched as Card pulled the knife from his shoe and winced. “You filthy animals. How dare you mix your germ riddled blood with mine?.”
Emmanuel pulled her up enough that she could wrap both arms around the post again. “Duck,” she screamed. Emmanuel jumped out of the way just as Card ran toward him and smacked into the post. The whole post shook and Sam swayed out into space from the force.
Card turned on his feet and hobbled toward Emmanuel again. He thrust the knife at his neck as Emmanuel pushed his arm aside, kneed him in the gut and then twisted his arm until his hand opened and the knife dropped to the ground. Card’s face only grew redder and his strength seemed to increase as he head-butted Emmanuel and then threw him to the ground. He jumped on top of him and grabbed his neck with both hands.
Sam struggled to pull herself up. She tried to get her foot on the bridge again as Emmanuel gasped for air and fought to loosen Card’s grip from his throat. His feet kicked in a little dance and Card’s eyes dazzled with that same fire they had on the beach.
“I will take care of your son,” Card said. “After his memories are gone, I’ll raise him like he’s my own. After all, without him the virus would have been lost.”
Emmanuel’s nose wrinkled as he gagged and pried Card’s fingers from around his neck. Card looked down at him with surprise. He squeezed harder with all of his strength until he suddenly stopped. He looked down to see a large hole in the middle of his chest before his eyes rolled up and he collapsed.
Emmanuel pushed his body off him and rushed back to Sam. He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her back up onto the deck of the bridge. They each took a breath as they heard the coughing. Tesla smiled at them with his eyelids half closed, breathing shallow breaths, clutching the weapon in his hand. A streak of blood behind him. He had crawled a good twenty feet to get to it. Sam ran to him and put a hand on his cheek. He was as cold and white as snow.
“Not bad for a lab rat,” he said.
“No,” Sam said.
Tesla coughed again, and she wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. He looked past her at Emmanuel as he hovered over them.
“I’m sorry,” Tesla said to him.
“Help me. Help me stop this,” Sam said. “Don’t let the virus be your legacy. Millions will die. That’s not how our world survives.”
“Our people will die,” he said.
“Have faith,” she said and stroked his cheek. “Just this once. Have faith in me. This is not the way it has to end. Tell me where it is. How do we stop them?”
He glanced at Sam and then at Emmanuel. Tears dripped from the corners of his eyes and he reached out for the smashed pendant on the ground.
Emmanuel picked it up and put it in his hands. The doctor smiled as he looked at the picture of him and Sam tog
ether. He hacked several seconds and wheezed before he pushed it closed and stared at the decoration of the twelve stars and the eclipse that was etched on the outside. His lips curled at the corners as he rubbed his thumb over it.
“The power,” he said. “The power is… behind…"
“Slow down. It’s okay,” Sam said. “It’s okay.”
"Water…"
"There isn't any," Emmanuel said.
"No," he said as his eyes bugged out.
He clutched Sam’s shoulder as whatever words he was trying to get out caught in his throat. He moved his lips but nothing came out but a low wheeze, and then the wheeze turned into a slight gurgle before it stopped altogether. Tesla’s hand fell from her shoulder and the back of his head clunked against the tile. His eyes stared up at her and Sam felt hot tears run from her own. This time it wasn’t the smoke.
“Sam,” Emmanuel said, as he grabbed her shoulder now.
She looked up to see the drones twitching on the ground, unable to fly but some still spun in place while others flopped around like dead fish.
“We have to go,” he said. "We have to go now."
There was a metallic click as a dart shot past them, followed by another and another.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
They could hear the darts pepper the walkway behind them as they ran. Somehow, by nothing more than mere luck, they managed to get off the walkway without getting stuck. Once they made their way to an enclosed glass corridor, they began to slow down.
On one side, a glass barrier allowed them to look out on the city below, on the other side were apartments. People in red bio-suits with wide eyes took one look through their windows and jerked their curtains closed. Sam glanced down at her blood-soaked shirt and at Emmanuel as he carried the weapon in his hands. A week ago, she would have jerked her curtains closed too.
Shots rang out below, followed by an explosion and screams; her focus shifted to the ground where a small fire crawled up the corner of a building. Pinned behind their buggies a group of men and women shouted at each other. On the other side of the corner, a group of Covenant guards also shouted at each other.