‘What’s this? I’ve just come to know we had such a thing in the exoskeleton.’
‘You’re only beginning to know its capabilities. There’s a small fin in the tube. Open the lower end–it’s plugged. Now you have a water propeller. Without that little tool we’ll sink like stones. The pump-jet will take us there in no time without making extra noise and the speed it will provide us with, will allow us to manoeuver under water. Then you’ll need to unfold the blades so you can climb up,’ Tom advised as he demonstrated what he explained. He stepped onto a rock and prepared for a thirty-feet long dive–that rock provided the shortest distance possible between the land and the water. He jumped down into the unknown. Seconds later Mila followed him with a splash in the water. The two wiggled a few inches under the water and even felt the rain as it came pelting down. It was still just as heavy and even if they tried to take a breath they would fail and then they would drown. Therefore, they used small amounts of air drawn from scuba tanks installed in their suits. A micro compressor was employed in filling them with a constant supply of air at a maximum allowable operating pressure and kept them ready for usage at all times. The equipment did a perfect job this time and they reached the wall of the natural megastructure in less than two minutes. Tom managed to find a suitable place for climbing quickly, plunged the blades of his suit and started pulling himself up. No water was trickling down him as there was a rocky shelter a few hundred feet above him that kept the rain away from him.
‘Come on, let’s go!’ he prompted his partner, climbing his way up the rock. That took a lot of strength. The rock was hard and black as iron, yet it yielded under the strikes of his blades that were made of reinforced alloy. Mila had a hard time pulling herself up, but she did not give up. If she did not manage to crack the slope the first time, she succeeded the second or third time.
‘Come, hold my hand!’ Ivanov said, stretching his arm out to her, so he could pull her up. She could definitely use some help, moreover he was advancing rather fast. The Colonel knew she would hold him back, but he did not want to stop her. He did not want to, for he liked having her around. He saw her as something much more than just a colleague. On their quest uphill, cut off from all communications, Tom pondered over something. Something that had to do with the woman who was climbing the slope under him. He was well aware of the risk he was taking and he was ready to face the consequences, but he was not ready to deal with losing her. His chest contracted for a while and he felt hat sensation of concern mixed with an inexplicable sixth sense. Was it possible that those were feelings for her, the first indications of an incipient love. . . The Russian could not fathom what was going on, but his worry for her was like a lump lodged in his throat. The Russian Army officer knew that his emotions were suppressed by the suit, moreover at that moment they needed their full concentration present without getting distracted by other thoughts and alarm. But he did not want that passion, that infatuation to be discarded by his consciousness just like that. His desire to set them free was so strong that even the suit could not tame it. The Colonel slowed down shortly before they got to a small platform which stood right at the entrance of a short sixteen-feet-long cave. They intended to use the place as a temporary shelter from the unpleasant downpour that lashed down on them. The Moscovian held out his hand again to help Mila; not long after they could sit and rest although they had covered just a quarter of the distance up to the top.
‘Do you know what I like about you, Lieutenant?’ Ivanov called to her out of the blue, trying to overshout the noise of the falling water mingled with the irritating buzzing that seemed to be louder here.
‘No, I don’t!’ the beautiful blond answered surprised.
‘I like it how you never give up or give in. You are always on a par with the men. I think I can safely call you the bravest girl in the world. Braver even than the men I know.’
‘I’m happy to hear that,’ Mila said and smiled an invisible smile under the helmet. That confession meant a lot to her not only because of the man it came from, but also because she managed to prove to herself that women were in no way inferior to men when it came to bravery and strong character. Those words made her really glad. Up until that moment the men around her looked upon her as petite blonde beauty and her male colleagues did not take her seriously just because she was a woman. But she finally met a man who acknowledged what she wanted to hear. He saw the strong personality she had.
‘Do you know, Tom, what I like about you?’ she asked in an attempt to break the ice and return the kind and incomparably sweet confession.
‘No, I don’t even have an idea what you could possibly like about me,’ the Russian replied with a tinge of low self-esteem as he had rarely heard a good word about himself. Maybe his colleagues maintained his self-esteem low out of spite or envy.
‘You have qualities that many women would find attractive in you, but I saw something else. I saw how big your heart is. It is so big that I don’t know how this planet could even hold it. You’re always ready to sacrifice yourself for everybody else’s sake and always ready to offer your help no matter what could happen. I wish there were more men like you, maybe then the Earth would have been a better place and we wouldn’t have to be here now. But what matters now is that thanks to people like you and Zanev, we’re headed in the right direction,’ she disclosed earnestly. They sat down on the rock for a while without saying a word. They thought about things that neither of them would dare say now, but they could well lay the foundations of a new beginning for them. It was quite obvious they were not indifferent to each other, yet for some reason they tried to keep their distance hard as it was. Mila still loved her fiancé who had started to fade away now and visited her thoughts less often and Thomas tried to keep his focus entirely on the mission. Both of them tried to stop the powerful surge of emotions that threatened to burst out in the least appropriate moment . . . That is why they did not reveal anything to each another and remained silent in the misty cave.
Suddenly the Colonel sprang up to his feet and started pacing around nervously. Climbing up the rock was harder than he though because of the wildly gushing liquid and the toughness of the rock.
‘We won’t make it up there before the main sun sets. Once it goes down we’ll be able to continue our way up under the light of the full moon, but I don’t think spending the night here is a bright idea,’ he shared. Maybe he had truly underestimated the situation or there was something inside of him that did not wish to jeopardize neither his own nor his partner’s life. ‘To hell with that mountain! No one will know if anything happens to us and then those down there are doomed to failure. Even the equipment detects too many disturbances. I have a sinking suspicion that even the suits might fail us because of the strong electromagnetic field. Let’s take samples from the rock and get out of this place. What do you say?’ Ivanov asked.
‘I agree, we’d better go before it’s too late, we’re pushing our luck.’
‘Whether we’re pushing it or not, the situation can always become worse than it is,’ the young Colonel said as he prepared to take the samples. He collected a few small pieces of the rock and dropped them into a couple of vials which he placed into a special concave space in his suit. ‘I think these are enough, but just to make sure, I’ll get a larger one, too.’ He hit the rock with his blade various times and carved out a chunk slightly bigger than a tennis ball. The block looked a lot like magnetite. ‘It’s almost as hard as a metal,’ the Moscovian said, thoughtful. ‘Let’s get down, I’ll go first.’ Just as he was about to take a step down into the abyss hundreds-of-feet deep, a deafening cry exploded from the nether parts of the rocky mountain. A familiar cry that sent chills down their spines. The mist dispersed quickly and left them withered by the pelting rain. They were coming from the depths of the water around the colossus. Dozens of water demons. But this time they were not grayish white in color, but pitch black like the rock itself. They roared thunderously and slithered up the slope as though
they were glued to it and it helped them ascend.
‘What do we do now?’ Mila asked, fear clear in her voice. ‘If we fight back, we’ll lose, there’s too many of them. Ivanov did not rush into an answer, but instead started looking around. The place they had stopped at was one of the colossus’s spots that jutted out the most.
‘We’ll jump!’ the man cried.
‘What? We’ll die if we jump,’ Nikolaevna replied, startled, as she observed the advance of their hunters up the slopes.
‘Not if we have the luck you’re saying we have. We stand a strong chance. We should gain momentum running so that we don’t splatter onto the rocky slopes beneath when we jump,’ the Colonel said.
‘Isn’t there any other way?’ the young woman asked a little panicked, stealing another glace at the approaching horde of demons.
‘There are only two ways–one up and one down. If we stay a little longer on this rock, we’ll be torn apart. Come with me, we’ll gain momentum running and we’ll jump,’ he said and stretched out his arm and prompted his partner. ‘Don’t be scared, that’s not who you are!’ Mila took him by the hand as a sign of consent and they walked as deep into the cave as they could.
‘Now we’re doing this every man for himself. Listen to me carefully, straighten up your body as much as you can before the fall, otherwise your knees will bash your head and in case you start drowning, I won’t be able to help you. Use the harness to control the flying as much as you can. And don’t forget that it will be a short fall with a massive impact on the surface because we’re quite heavy. Once you recover from the shock, use the propeller at full speed until you get to the shore. Do you get it?’ the sturdy Russian gave his final instructions.
His compatriot nodded in agreement as she had no clue whether she could do all she had to. The suit was of immense help when it came to handling the situation and the overwhelming emotions, the threat of a quick death was real and her whole body went stiff. She got goose bumps from head to toe, for she knew that within a few seconds she would have to throw herself off a mile-high precipice. Her rapid breathing and the rush of adrenaline created that sensation of facing up the tunnel that some people see when their life is in danger and in addition to that the part of the brain that the nanorobots stimulated made her feel like time was moving slower. She did not see or hear anything outside that tunnel. At once Thomas nudged her so she could hear him.
‘Do it now!’ he cried, ran fast ahead and jumped, extending his harness so much that it looked like the wings of a bird.
Mila could hear the beast’s noises a dozen of feet away under her. And then under the influence of the suit, she just rushed ahead fearlessly, as fast as she could. Her eyes met the infinite horizon for a second and then she dropped straight down. Towards the very abyss beneath her. Her heart seemed to have lodged in her throat. Her entire body froze with horror. Then her harness spread out into the air and took her away from the rock. The high velocity created a vapor cone around the suit and with a bit of help from the contemporary technologies, Mila managed to push herself off as far away as she possibly could. The moment of impact came next. She flipped over and then straightened her back so she could fall with her feet first. The crash into the water looked like a bullet piercing its target–it happened so fast that it deafened her for a while after she penetrated the water and found herself dozens of feet under the surface. The blond somehow managed not to go into stupor surrounded by the dark blue liquid. Complete darkness and blindness engulfed the brave Russian. She started waving her limbs up and down, trying to get to the surface. It did not take long for the exoskeleton and its good underwater capabilities to take her afloat safe and sound.
‘Liuetenant!’ she heard a voice crying her name a few times. That was Tom. ‘Swim to the shore!’ he called louder to make sure she heard him and dipped into the water. The young woman followed him, employing all of her power to escape the trap she was caught into. The final dozen of feet, right when the end seemed so close, something terrible happened. She got to the shallow waters near the beach and lifted her head only to see Tom fighting with two of the black creatures. He struck them time and over again in an attempt to slay them, but he failed. Every time he tried, sparks flared, but the monsters remained in one piece. They seemed to have been made of the same substance that made up the mountain–hard, black, magnetite-like. One of the beasts saw Mila as she was wading towards the shore. It went for her, ready to rip her apart. She took a defensive posture, all her senses sharpened, awaiting a skirmish.
‘Nooo!’ Tom cried. He pushed away the creature he was combating and dashed for the dark killer that charged at the blond woman. He launched a full-force assault on the creature, slashing it in the back. It fell helpless in the water. ‘Get out now!’ the Moscovian yelled. His compatriot got to solid ground, or rather solid stones through which she could hardly go, but that was the best possible way to get out as it did not involve climbing–that would have held them back. The second creature stood up and once again attacked the commander of the research team. Quite a battle raged. The two figures were intertwined in a dance of death with the strong Menoetian sun blazing down on them. Right when Lieutenant Nikolavna was ready to help her colleague, the water behind her started moving and splashing. With powerful movements and leaps dozens of creatures blackened the water in the distance that took on a tarry color. The woman was thrown into deep horror. She broke into a wild run and pushed the critter that was still fighting with Tom. The black guardian of the rocky titan fell between two vertical rocks nearby and the space was narrow enough to keep the beast stuck for a while.
‘Run, Mila, take this and run! I’ll distract them!’ the Colonel said and handed Mila the chunk of magnetite. ‘Zanev needs to get this no matter what!’
‘I’m not leaving you!’ the beautiful woman cried a few times, squeezing him by the hand.
‘If you stay, we’ll both die,’ he wrenched himself free from her grasp and rushed to face his ill fate. ‘Come to me, freaks, come!’ he yelled before he ran into the first wave of black tormentors.
The first monster fell into the water, dazed, the second one suffered the same fate, the third got its lower limbs severed. But the creatures would not stop coming in flocks. His compatriot watched all that and saw that the battle was doomed to failure. But some irresistible feeling, or it could have been the programming of the suit, made her run away. She raced through the low shrubbery, her harness getting multiple scratches. Once in a while she almost stopped, entangled in the thorny weeds, but she kept on running across the field and then through the forest. She fell and got up, and rolled down the slope. All that savage marathon was mingled with the feeling that one of the monsters was constantly following her, breathing down her neck. She felt that all those sensations flooding her inside the suit–it seemed to have gone into a rescue mode. In the meantime, Tom was engaged in the battle against the attackers and eventually broke into a run, just like his partner, chased by the hundreds of beats. He was running fast, brought to bay on three fronts. Suddenly in the narrow corridor formed by the demons he spotted an opportunity. The nearby rock was the edge of canyon that had been “molded” by the wild river that sprang from the colossus. The closer he got to the edge, the more he realized that the jump would be an impossibility. The distance was too great, even for a daredevil like him. Despite that he did not give up, he gained momentum running, but stopped when he reached the edge and looked down into the dark water that ran so fast that it looked like something was after it. He did not have time to gauge the distance and then thought about the depth of the river bed. In the last second before the monsters flew at him, he jumped and floated downwards. The clash was hard and almost deathly, but the Colonel managed to come afloat, dazed, and drifted downstream. Maybe his luck and his willingness to fight were broken at that moment. He was caught in the worst possible scenario–dragged down by the rapids into the even more horrid Menoetian ocean. His life was in great danger...
‘M
ila, what’s happening? You’ve been off the radars for a long time. I couldn’t hear or see you!’ Zanev, worried, asked over the communications once the Russian woman entered deep into the forest. She had run for miles and there was only a short distance to cover before she got to the shuttle.
‘He’s gone, Thomas is gone!’ she repeated, panting, on the verge of bursting into tears inside the helmet.
‘What happened? Where’s the Colonel?’ Shocked by what he had heard the Professor wanted to know what the heck was going on.
‘Ivanov captured their attention so I could get away. The creatures went after him. That’s the last thing I saw,’ Mila said, trying to calm her voice down, still panting from the long run. ‘I’m bringing samples and a big chunk from the gigantic rock. I’ll be with you in a while.’
‘Roger that,’ Roman said and cut the line, scared and crushed by the turn of events. He realized more and more that the distant land they were in was too dangerous a place for a new beginning for the human race. ‘Roman to “Hunters”, I repeat, Roman to “Hunters”. Over.’
‘Hunters here. Over.’ Hiroshi responded.
‘Be careful! Code orange! Get back to the base ASAP.
‘What happened?’ Alan joined in.
‘The Colonel is missing. Be extremely cautious! You may be in danger.’
‘What? Tom is missing? I can’t believe that!’ Alan uttered scared. ‘What are we going to do now? Are we going back?’
‘No, we need to finish what we’ve started, we’ve gone too far to go back now. It’s too late, we can’t help him. There’s a bit more than a mile and a half to an open field. We make a quick kill, wait for a minute to see what happens and go back to the base.’ Said Liu.
‘I agree, when we get there, we’ll decide if we should mount a rescue op. I bet he’s gone to the most hideous place,’ Huroshi assumed without a shadow of a doubt.
Dawn of Hope- Exodus Page 35
