“How do you know all this?” Donny said.
“Because I’ve seen it,” Dr. Beck said.
The image shifted to a commune. Not theirs. Somewhere else.
“A commune grows to a certain size,” Dr. Beck said. “Then the signal is given, something that attracts the Rages. They swarm like a kicked beehive, sweeping over the commune and wiping out or turning the population into more Rages.
“Unfortunately, it’s impossible for me to alter the trajectory of the satellites without the Bugs knowing I’m here. But I can access the same information feed they see. Speaking of which. . .”
He checked his watch.
“I have a special surprise for you,” he said.
Dr. Beck pressed another button. The image was nothing special. It showed a live feed from one of the satellites.
“Let me see if I can zoom in,” Dr. Beck said.
The image got closer to something on the ground. Jamie’s stomach lurched again. The image became blurrier as it got closer. Then it snapped into focus in Jamie’s mind. He recognized the four corners of the lookout posts, the huge hole that had been blasted into one of the sides.
Fatty gasped, hissing through his teeth, hands coming over his mouth. One tub of popcorn slipped from his lap and spilled across the floor. He didn’t even flinch at the waste.
“It’s. . . It’s. . .” he mumbled.
“Home,” Jamie said.
9.
JAMIE SHIVERED. It felt strange to think that while they were wishing upon those blinking green dots, someone else was looking down on them. A Bug species, using it as a weapon to destroy them.
If Jamie hadn’t seen the lead up to this with his own eyes he would have thought it was magic. That the great wizard Beck had compelled a crow to his whim, and he was witnessing the world through its eyes.
“Can you zoom in closer?” Donny said.
“Let me try,” Dr. Beck said.
He pressed a few buttons. The image moved closer. They could see the individual people moving around inside. They couldn’t make out their faces, but it was good to see home again. It felt like they’d left it so long ago. Hard to believe it had only been a few days. Jamie felt a real sense of loss when the satellite passed the commune and continued on its merry journey.
They saw the desert flats and the mountain where they’d constructed the Crow’s Nest. Then the forest they passed through during their escape from the Reavers and the Bug. Then the mountains and the valleys that wound between them. It was such a small part of the world. A pinprick on its surface. And yet it had been everything they had ever known.
Now, after their little adventure, they had been educated about a great many things—most they would never fully understand or grasp—but their eyes had been opened nonetheless. It was always better to know than to live in ignorance. Or was it?
Jamie could have lived out his entire life without knowing the truth behind the Rage virus and the Bugs who’d planted it inside them. Except whether he knew about it or not, the Bugs were intent on wiping him and everyone he ever knew off the face of the planet. Better to know your enemies. At least then you had a chance to defend yourself.
The lights in the sconces on the walls faded up again. Jamie blinked against it.
“I think that’s enough for today,” Dr. Beck said. “You’ve taken in a great deal of information. Best to let you process it.”
“What else is there to know?” Donny said.
“Far more than it’s possible for me to show you,” Dr. Beck said. “But I can sketch out the important details. This information needs to survive me.”
“Is that it?” Fatty said. “Are we going to die?”
Dr. Beck was silent a moment. He looked up.
“Probably,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go eat. More tomorrow.”
Jamie felt stiff after having sat for so many hours. An average day in the commune, he’d never sat for more than ten minutes. He walked like an old man.
Everything everyone knew about the Fall had only been half true. There was so much more underneath it all. Worst, Jamie wasn’t sure he was happier knowing about it. He might have been happier living in ignorance. Even if living like that had a definite end date.
10.
“WHAT IS that?” Fatty said, pointing with a podgy finger.
He was gesturing to an exquisitely beautiful piece of machinery, like a flying aircraft that wasn’t yet complete.
“Oh that,” Dr. Beck said, wiping his lips after their meal. “It’s called a flight simulator. The pilots used it to practice flying.”
“Flying?” Fatty said.
“Airplanes, rockets,” Dr. Beck said. “Anything not attached to the ground. I swear those guys’ heads were always up in the air.”
Fatty looked at the insides of the machine like a kid in a candy store. There were so many buttons and dials and switches. It looked so complicated, out of this world.
“Would you like to try it?” Dr. Beck said to the group.
“I need to go check on Dad,” Jamie said.
“Me too,” Donny said, though he looked bummed to be missing out on a piece of real modern technology.
“I’ll go with you,” Lucy said.
They left.
“How about you?” Dr. Beck said to the one remaining member.
Fatty shook his head.
“I shouldn’t,” he said. “I’ll only end up breaking it. I always break things.”
“Pretty hard to break,” Dr. Beck said. “It’s firmly attached to the ground. And, if you think about it, it was really made to be crashed. So the pilots wouldn’t make the same mistakes in real life as they would in here.”
Fatty liked the sound of that. He wished he could have had a simulator before every embarrassing moment of his life.
The chairs were mesmerizing, shiny and welcoming. It wouldn’t hurt to try it out one time, would it? Dr. Beck was right. For once, there wasn’t anything he could break.
“Maybe I’ll give it one try,” he said, climbing into the cockpit.
“Pick a seat,” Dr. Beck said. “Normally, the doors should be shut, but I’ll tell the program to leave them open for your first run-through. Now, remember, you are going to make mistakes. That’s the whole point of this machine. Try not to make the same one twice.”
“Got it,” Fatty said, taking hold of the controls.
There were precious few things in life where something simply clicks when there’s no doubt in one’s mind it was what they were meant to be doing. It was difficult to discover in the old world, exacerbated in the new. After the Fall, purpose wasn’t geared toward you discovering your one true calling, it was geared toward survival.
If it wasn’t for the Reaver attack, for the Bug, for Lucy remembering how to get into this place, Fatty would never have discovered his life’s purpose. It was to fly this thing and fly it without fear.
11.
DONALD WAS fine, just as Dr. Beck said he would be. He was still unconscious, fighting the good fight, the machines keeping count of the number of rounds.
“Give me a hand,” Donny said. “We need to wash his skin so he doesn’t get bedsores.”
Jamie had no idea they had to do such things.
“I’ll get the saline solution,” Donny said.
He left the room. He’d go search in the medicine storage room located in each ward.
“Pretty unreal, huh?” Lucy said. “About the stuff in the cinema.”
“Yeah,” Jamie said. “Pretty hard to believe.”
“Do you think it’s true?” Lucy said, lowering her voice.
“What do you mean?” Jamie said. “Why would he lie?”
“I don’t know,” Lucy said. “Maybe some of the things he tells us aren’t true. Just ideas.”
She was worried about something, Jamie thought. But what?
“I’m trying to figure out why he would tell us this stuff,” Lucy said.
“He wants to pass on the information,” Jamie s
aid. “He’s old and won’t live forever.”
“Maybe,” Lucy said.
She clearly thought there was more to it than that.
“Go on then,” Jamie said. “What’s your theory about why he’d tell us this stuff?”
“No theory,” Lucy said. “I feel like. . . maybe he’s telling us for a reason. Like there’s something we could still do, some way we can change everything.”
For the first time since Jamie had gotten to the City, he felt a filament of hope. Maybe, just maybe, there was a chance they could do something.
“You mean, beat the Rages?” Jamie said.
“Beat the Rages, beat the Reavers,” Lucy said with a nod. “Maybe beat everyone.”
“Even the Bugs?” Jamie said.
“Especially them,” Lucy said. “Everything else, we can learn to deal with. But the Bugs. . . They’re the real problem.”
It seemed so far-fetched, such a distant, remote possibility, that Jamie couldn’t quite get his head around it. The Bugs were super-advanced beings with a spaceship parked right outside their orbit, preparing for an invasion. What was the human race supposed to do about it in their current condition?
Donny returned with cloth and saline solution.
“I’ll roll him over,” he said. “You and Lucy clean his skin. He shouldn’t get bedsores for a week or more anyway, but if we do this every day, he’ll never get any.”
Jamie couldn’t stop glancing at Lucy as Donny lifted their father’s torso. If Lucy was right—and there was no reason to suspect she wasn’t—then their adventure had only just begun.
12.
“DR. BECK?” Jamie said. “You’re still here?”
After taking care of their father, Jamie began to grow worried about Fatty. He wasn’t the type who liked to be left alone or was really capable of taking care of himself. He needed someone to watch over him. He could have easily have gotten lost in the City, and they might never have found him again. Instead, he’d found him right where they had left him. With the simulator.
“Uh?” Dr. Beck said, struggling to stay awake. “Oh. Uh, yeah. Still here.”
He was too tired to talk further. He blinked away the sleep that pressed upon his eyes. The flight simulator was bucking and weaving, moving this way and that. Through the window, Fatty could be seen clutching the controls, bending and moving left to right in his seat. He was focused on something on the other side of the glass, something only he could see.
“Flight simulator,” Dr. Beck said, head bobbing with approaching sleep.
He rested his head on the top of his walking stick as sleep finally took him. The cockpit performed one last rise and fall, leaning to one side, before coming to a rest.
“Damn it!” Fatty shouted. “Hey, Doc. Let’s try level sixty-three one last time.”
Dr. Beck turned to Jamie with a pleading look in his eye.
“Help me,” he said. “Your friend was only supposed to try it out. He’s been in there all day.”
“Doc?” Fatty called. “I’m ready to go again.”
“Leave it to me,” Jamie said.
He knew how draining Fatty could be. There were times when he wanted to wring his neck, and would have, if it wasn’t so fat and protected by its own thick rubbery layer.
He opened the door to the simulator. Surprised to find Fatty sitting there with an excited, expectant look on his face. In front of him were dozens of buttons and levers. Jamie had never seen him so excited by something other than food before.
“Jamie!” Fatty said. “Perfect timing! Want to be my co-pilot?”
“What’s a co-pilot?” Jamie said.
“It’s a really important job,” Fatty said. “With your help, I’m sure I can get past level sixty-three.”
“Don’t you think you’ve played enough today?” Jamie said.
“Play?” Fatty said, hurt. “This isn’t playing. This is developing an important skill.”
“Flying a plane with no wings?” Jamie said.
“Yeah, well, there are some transferable skills,” Fatty said. “Give me a hand with this level. You won’t regret it.”
“We need to go eat,” Jamie said, playing his trump card. It never failed to get Fatty’s attention.
“One more level,” Fatty said, handing the co-pilot helmet to Jamie. “You’re going to love it.”
Food had failed. The simulator must have been out of this world to distract Fatty to that extent. Jamie licked his lips and eyed the proffered helmet.
“Doc!” Fatty shouted out the window. “Level sixty-three! Double time!”
Dr. Beck groaned audibly.
13.
“THE KID’S a natural,” Dr. Beck said, massaging his neck.
One more turn had turned out to be ten more turns. Jamie had to admit, it was great fun. He didn’t have the natural talent Fatty—of all people!—had but he was good enough as Fatty’s second.
Fatty’s reflexes were so fast, fingers dancing over the buttons like a pianist. He was gentle but firm with the controls. It was like watching an artist at work.
“He rarely makes the same mistake twice and got to level ten without one crash,” Dr. Beck said. “Incredible, considering he’s never so much as seen an airplane before.”
Fatty strutted like a newly feathered peacock.
“Sounds like hungry work,” Jamie said.
“Not really,” Fatty said. “I’m not hungry.”
Jamie blinked. He frowned and looked this boy up and down. For a fraction of a second, he thought perhaps a Bug had infiltrated his body.
“Are you all right?” Jamie said. “I’ve never known you not to be hungry before.”
“Maybe I was always hungry for something else other than food this whole time,” Fatty said. “I just never knew it.”
“Hungry for what?” Jamie said.
Fatty shared a look with Dr. Beck.
“Purpose,” he said. “I feel better than ever. I love this thing.”
He tapped the side of the simulator. Pulled his hand away.
“Ow,” he said. “She’s hot.”
“She should be after the run you gave her,” Dr. Beck said. “Like people, machines need to be rested from time to time.”
“I thought they could keep going forever?” Fatty said.
“Nothing can keep going forever,” Dr. Beck said. “Not even the cosmos.”
Fatty gave the simulator a thoughtful look as if realizing something for the first time. He turned to Jamie.
“What have you been up to?” he said.
“Nothing as exciting as you,” Jamie said.
Dr. Beck sidled up close to Jamie and lowered his voice.
“Do me a favour,” he said. “Never let me be alone with him ever again on the simulator.”
Jamie laughed. Fatty turned to look at them both.
“What’s so funny?” he said.
“Nothing,” Jamie said. “Nothing at all.”
Beep beep. Beep beep.
Jamie’s heart leapt into his throat. Dr. Beck’s beeper would make a noise when his father was having problems. He should have taken off at a run, but was in shock. Dr. Beck checked his beeper.
“Don’t worry,” Dr. Beck said. “It’s not your father. It’s something far more pressing.”
More pressing than the death of his own father? Jamie was already bricking it.
14.
RAGES. MILLING around outside one section of the mountain. They were watching them on a bank of monitors.
“What’s the problem?” Jamie said. “They can’t get in here.”
“They’re Rages, and believe me, they can get in everywhere,” Dr. Beck said. “There’s nowhere they can’t get inside.”
“But we’re inside a mountain,” Jamie said. “How can they dig through all that rock?”
“They don’t need to dig,” Lucy said, pointing at another monitor. “Look.”
Another camera faced the area of the mountain where the Rages were gathered. Scra
p metal stuck out, protruding like a wound in the City.
“There’s a hole?” Jamie said.
“It was created when we were testing out new weapon technology,” Dr. Beck said. “We covered the hole as best we could. The entrance on that side of the mountain is extremely remote. We thought the Rages wouldn’t get in. We were wrong.”
“That’s how they got in before?” Donny said.
“Yes,” Dr. Beck said. “And they slaughtered everyone here because of our negligence.”
They watched the monitors closely. The Rages didn’t appear to be heading in any particular direction. Merely meandering.
“Something must have tipped them off,” Dr. Beck said.
“What?” Fatty said.
“It could be anything,” Dr. Beck said. “Or nothing. It might be the Bugs directing them for all we know.”
“Bugs. . .” Fatty said, turning pale.
“I didn’t have time to create a better defense,” Dr. Beck said. “I thought the Rages would leave the area, would find somewhere else to terrorize. But they’re still lingering around there.”
“What does it mean?” Jamie said.
“It means the Bugs might notice there’s something of interest here,” Dr. Beck said. “We’re in trouble if we don’t get them to leave. Real trouble.”
“You said they attacked before and got in,” Donny said. “How did you get them to leave?”
“Misdirection,” Dr. Beck said. “I came out of one of the other exits and set some charges about half a mile away. I set a timer so I could get back inside before they started heading toward it.”
“That drove them out?” Donny said.
“Most of them,” Dr. Beck said. “The more stubborn ones required a more. . . primitive method.”
“What do you want to do with them?” Donny said.
“One day I want to fix that hole so they can never get back in again,” Dr. Beck said. “The trouble is, it will create an awful lot of noise. I need to get them to move far enough away so I can place the charges.”
After the Fall- The Complete series Box Set Page 25
