by L. E. Howel
“See if you can get him out,” Birch shouted to Lauren and Jane. He didn’t have time for this.
Together the two women coaxed him out and soon they were all running to the entrance of the station. Birch reached it first, and as he looked back he caught sight of two trucks pulling up to the curb. He shouted for the others to hurry as their doors banged open and the heavy boots of soldiers clumped noisily to the ground. A moment later the men were pulling the guns from their belts, but Birch and the others had already disappeared inside.
Inside the station a great crush of people moved, herd-like through the turnstiles. Thousands of individuals, collectively forming a crowd moved swiftly toward the platforms, rushing for trains to take them home. Birch didn’t see their individuality. He only saw them as a mass, an obstacle to be overcome in their dash for freedom.
“Where to?” Birch pushed his pistol into Edwards’ back.
“We’ve got to get down to the lower levels,” Edwards shouted over the sound of passing commuters and buzzing equipment. They ran to the turnstiles. “The base is down there.” He pointed beneath their feet.
“Make sure you’re right.” Birch looked menacingly at him. “You wouldn’t want to get it wrong.”
“This is it,” Edwards responded reassuringly. “They used part of the underground facility as a head start for digging out this station. Whatever’s left is down there.” He pointed again to the ground beneath them.
“Great,” Birch spat, “let’s get at it then.” By now they had reached the barrier. A line of weary commuters filed through the turnstile, but instead of waiting his turn he pushed past the crowd and jumped over the metal posts blocking his path. He pulled Edwards behind him as he ran for the escalators. The others followed amid a tumult of angry, indignant voices. Soon they were all descending to the levels below. They rushed down the crowded escalator. Behind them the soldiers had reached the gate and were swamped by a sea of furious, complaining commuters.
Edwards knew it was only a matter of time. He would guide them as far as they wanted, but now that they were down here there was no way of escape. Already he had seen the cameras whirring and turning to face them in their dissent. Everything they did would be covered by those things. There was nowhere to run. Yes, he would guide them to the rusting relics of their history, but it would be the one thing that led to their capture. Back above he knew the troops would be radioing in reinforcements, setting up a cordon, and preparing everything to get these people back where they belonged. He only hoped there would be enough left of the old Hypnos station to keep them occupied until they could be captured. He didn’t want to be around Major Birch when he realized that all of this had been for nothing.
Edwards led them deeper and deeper, away from the crowded walkways and into the darker service passages, and finally into a passageway of bare rock. For a time they could still hear the echo of the busy, industrious feet bustling above them. Finally even this died away and the silence of the earth surrounded them. Only the quiet clumping of their feet and the expiration of their own breath could be heard. It was dark now. They had passed beyond the area of electrical lighting and all they could do was hang on to each other and keep walking. It all should have been worrying, they were fleeing for their lives in the darkness, but instead Birch found peace. There was a healing silence- almost like the plains where he and Karla had sat among the tall grass and looked up into the dark sky to see the gleaming stars. He wished he could see them again.
The passage was narrowing. It made their progress harder. Birch was surprised. He imagined that the stars had come out for him as twinkling points of light glowed in the darkness above.
“What is that?” Jane was asking. It snapped Birch from the indulgent impression that they had all been for him, some kind of special remembrance of those days that would never return.
“It means we’re getting close,” Edwards answered. “This place still has a power source that keeps everything juiced up down here. You’re seeing the reflection of that energy.”
It was a beautiful wonder. Little pinpricks of colored light bounced from the dark stone and reflected around them; his mind was captivated by the sight. It filled him with an anticipation, like stepping through dark caverns toward a dragon’s den filled with shimmering riches. In this respect the sight that met them as they entered the cave was a disappointment. There were no riches here. Edwards had been right, there wasn’t any promising equipment left behind. The great cavern and the machinery within it, was dingy, dusty, and rusty. It was a perfect picture of neglect and decay. This was a forgotten history.
“Not much is it?” Edwards drawled.
“I’m not so sure,” Birch was poring over one of the computer consoles. He had gingerly tried the power and was surprised when it immediately clicked and hummed musically in its startup sequence. This was very different to the dilapidated consoles in Denver, perhaps it was because it was military grade material, or maybe it was simply that moisture hadn’t gotten into these computers the way they had with the others. Whatever the reason Birch felt lucky to see the menu appear, crisp and clean on the screen.
“What do you make of this?” he called over to Jane. She moved swiftly to his side and tapped away on the console.
“This is a control computer from the Hypnos missions by the looks of it.” She continued working at the keyboard. “They must have moved all this stuff up to Washington after our time.”
“Yeah, just like Michaels said,” Birch mused. “It must have been pretty bad for them to move everything up here. This isn’t exactly the ideal launch site.”
Jane grunted an answer, but didn’t look up from the screen.
“Well, see what you can find in the memory of that thing that might help us. I was expecting more here somehow.”
Jane nodded and kept working at the console.
Birch looked up to take in the rest of the cavern. Pieces of equipment lay strewn about. Some of them he recognized, others were alien to him. It was strange to think of this musty place as the last home of human hope. Now it had been replaced by Michaels’ tower, but the ideas there were danker and mustier than this place could ever be. It was a return to feudal lordship. The reinstating of the old society of privilege, and this president held all the advantages because he made the decisions for everyone.
“I’ve found something, Major,” Jane announced. “It looks like a manifest for each of the Hypnos missions. It’s odd though.”
“What?” Birch turned his attention to the screen.
“Well, the records are all here for the Hypnos missions, but everything’s pretty sketchy. A lot of the information seems encrypted. None of missions are clearly laid out, but it looks like there were at least another ten after ours. The security measures go crazy from there though. It’s like they didn’t even trust themselves anymore. I’m running across all kinds of codes and counter-codes, all designed, not to keep outsiders from hacking in, but to keep fellow insiders out.”
“That is strange,” Birch looked worried, “was there some kind of conspiracy?”
“I can’t really tell, but this is the weirdest thing yet,” she tapped at the keyboard again and brought up a display of mission status. “Hypnos I and II are listed here; their missions both failed to find any suitable planets for colonization. I’m not sure if they tried to come back or not, that isn’t clear, but they both failed.”
This news was almost a relief to Birch. He wasn’t the only one. He wondered if they tried to get back, and if they did what happened to them. At least his failure seemed less heavy to him now.
“That’s not the weirdest thing though,” Jane continued, “it’s what they’ve got listed with our mission.” She pointed to the screen. Birch read the green letters flashing on the black background: ‘mission successful: colonization process begun.’
“Mission successful,” Birch echoed. “Michaels was right. They sent people up to that rock.” Lauren looked up from where she was guarding Edwards a
nd the boy.
“They couldn’t do that!” she blurted. “We didn’t lay any of the groundwork they needed to survive on that planet. It would have been suicide.”
“Nevertheless, they did it,” Jane reported evenly, “and it looks like some reports came back from the colony. Sounds like things started off okay there, though it’s been silent now for a long time.”
“They shouldn’t have lived at all,” Lauren persisted. “They wouldn’t have had the ability to last long without our work being done.”
“That’s not what it says here,” Jane gestured to the screen. “I don’t understand it any more than you, but that’s what it says.” She fell silent. For a time she stood glaring at the computer screen, as though trying to read some foreign language that she could almost comprehend.
“What’s the matter Jane?” Birch followed her gaze down to the screen.
“It’s asking for you,” she pointed down at the monitor. “It wants you to report.” Birch hesitated for a moment before he looked. Indeed the computer was requesting his personal ID code. “I’m not sure how it knew you were here,” Jane warned. “I wouldn’t give it anything. Something isn’t right. This computer seems to be at war with itself. Everything I’ve tried to do on it seems hard; it’s like I’m coming between two distinct personalities. It keeps putting things on the screen; then pulling them off again. Trying to show me stuff, then removing it. I’m not sure what it’s up to.”
“Let me get this straight,” Birch smiled, “you’re telling me that we’ve got a schizophrenic computer here and you wouldn’t trust it?”
“That’s not quite the way I’d put it,” Jane huffed, “but I know something’s wrong. It doesn’t seem right. I’m just not sure you’d want it to get a hold of your personal information. Remember, you’re the one who told us to keep as much of that away from these people as we could.”
Birch nodded, but a frown crossed his face. “Nice advice,” he muttered, “but we don’t have time to play it safe.” A faint sound from further up the tunnel seemed to punctuate his thought. “We don’t have time. You and Lauren better look around and try to find another way out of here, I’ll work on this computer a minute longer and see if it can help us at all.”
Jane nodded and sulkily left the terminal. Birch was glad to have her out of the way. He turned his attention back to the computer.
The screen still flashed with the prompt: ‘Birch, Major Thomas- personal ID #’. For a moment he hesitated, the green icon appeared and disappeared, like the opening and closing of a door. Finally he decided. He punched in the code and an instant later a red light shot from the terminal and scanned him. He fell back in shock.
“Major!” Jane leapt quickly to his side. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” Birch managed to mumble. Physically he had felt nothing, but something had happened. That computer had looked inside him. It was looking for something he couldn’t explain, and he didn’t know if it had found it.
Then nothing happened. Birch understood what Jane had meant about the computer. It had been swift and efficient up to this point, but now it seemed to stall and delay at this last moment, as though it were fighting between two separate and distinct instincts. Finally one side won out and the display read, ‘Clearance complete: Engine warm up sequence begun. Opening bay doors.’ Birch blinked at the screen, unsure of exactly what this meant.
A sudden metallic creak from the far wall answered the question. Slowly it moved aside, and to Birch’s astonishment the gap behind it revealed a spacecraft, not like their old ship, the Hypnos III, but sleek and shiny, like something out of proper science fiction. This was not the junk of reality. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. This must have been what they had developed in the last days before the government fell, the last hoorah for humanity and its noble dream of space travel. Now perhaps it could be born again to that purpose. It might help them escape.
The noise from the passageway was growing louder now. From the sound of it the men chasing them had brought reinforcements. He knew this was their last chance; they had to run. These men were coming to take them back to their gilded cage. Birch would never go back to that. He would prefer to die. He took one last look down at the screen and shouted to the others.
“The ship’s engines are warming up,” he bellowed. “Get up to the cockpit as fast as you can! It looks like we’ll have company any minute now, hurry!”
They all ran for the ship. Lauren prodded Edwards and the boy toward the flight elevator.
“Don’t take me,” Edwards was pleading. “You can’t have any other need for me now. I don’t belong out there! I’ve done all I can do so why don’t you let me go?”
His pleas went unheeded. They entered the flight elevator.
By now the first of the soldiers had entered the cavern and was running toward the ship. Birch pushed the button and they slowly rose into the air. A few shots from Birch and Jane had stopped the first men, but another two had reached them before they were more than a few feet off the ground. The first one leapt immediately onto the rising platform, but had been shoved off just as quickly again by a swift kick from Jane. The second man had lost his footing and held onto the floor of the elevator cage by his fingertips. It was only a moment later that he too fell to earth where they both lay winded.
Birch watched as they steadily rose higher up the side of the ship. It was too slow. Already some of the men below were working on the computer, trying to override the launch sequence. Another group were clambering up the stairs that wound around the elevator as an emergency exit.
It was the third group that worried Birch most. These men were at the bottom of the elevator shaft trying to stop their assent. A moment later they succeeded as the cage shuddered to a halt. Without pause Birch flung the cage door open and ordered everyone to jump to the staircase.
Birch was the last to jump, but just as he was about to leap to safety the elevator lurched again and started a quick dissent. For a moment he felt himself floating before gravity caught him and sent him smashing hard against the steel floor. Groggily he climbed to his feet, aware that if he reached the bottom he would never escape. With great effort he lifted the cage door again and jumped for the stairs.
The momentum of his dissent sent him hard into the metal staircase. His gun fell from his hands to the ground far below. At least he had made it, but he had lost a lot of ground. The others were now well above him and clambering fast toward the access door of the ship. He had to hurry, but a thudding punch to the side of his head told him that he had other problems to worry about.
Birch’s fast trip down had brought him level with the soldiers running up the stairs. Now the first of them had reached him and was trying to force him back down. Birch kicked hard at the man’s knee and sent him toppling backwards, but he knew this would only delay them.
He was quickly on his feet again and running up the stairs. Every few moments it seemed that another set of hands was grabbing at him from behind, but he would kick out again at the rising forms and send them thudding into each other. They would land in a pile of confusion, tumbling headlong down the narrow stairway, but each time they rose again. They were relentless, and Birch knew eventually he would be overcome.
From here Birch could see another, more worrying development back on the ground. The elevator had finally arrived at the bottom and soldiers were getting in. They were going to cut them off at the top. If they made it they would all be trapped on the stairs. Perhaps even Jane and the others wouldn’t get there in time, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that. All he could do was climb.
Birch made slow progress. His legs hurt and his lungs burned. He had gained little ground on the enemies below as they harried his every step. Above him he imagined that Jane’s group would be getting close to the doors by now, but he couldn’t tell. At least he’d slowed the soldiers on the stairs enough to give them a chance. There wasn’t anything he could do about the elevator though. It ha
d passed him a moment ago, baring its load of muscled troops. They had stared sullenly at him as they passed inches from his face. Only the metal of their cage separated them. Soon they would be at the top and they all would be trapped..
He had almost given up, but still he hopelessly pressed on. In his struggle to survive he hadn’t noticed the form descending to him. He was startled when soft hands clasped his arm and pulled him away from another attack. It was Jane. She lifted her rifle and sent a shot down that scattered their pursuers.
“What are you doing?” Birch had snapped as she bent down to help pull his weary legs up.
“It looks like I’m saving you,” she answered coolly.
Birch shook his head. “You’re second-in-command, you have other duties. You should be getting ready for the takeoff; you’re putting the others at risk by helping me.”
“I guess you’re right,” Jane responded, “but sometimes people have to help others in spite of what the regulations say. Sometimes you just have to do what’s right.” Her eyes fixed on Birch’s for an instant. There was a deeper meaning there that he didn’t care to understand. He looked away.
“Besides,” she added mischievously, “we need a pilot.”
“Great,” he answered gloomily and heaved himself up. “Now give me that gun!”
He pulled the rifle from her hands and, without hesitation, pointed it at the main cable of the elevator and fired at point-blank range. The shot exploded the wire and sent it coiling like a snake to the ground below. The counterweight broke loose and fell to the ground, sending the other cable swiftly up with the sound of grinding metal. It was only an instant later that the elevator above them began a sudden plummet to earth.
Birch watched aghast as the cage of men slipped past them. The stony faces of these mechanical soldiers contorted with fear. Like the Ares boy in the woods they had seemed unreal, malicious, even demonic. It hadn’t mattered if he hurt them, but now he saw that it did, and it made him sick. He stared as they hurtled to the ground. They landed with a grinding thud that shook the tower. It swayed under the impact and almost came away from the side of the ship.
