The Atomic Sea: Part Five: Flaming Skies

by Conner, Jack

  Something occurred to Avery. “How long will it take you to reverse the Device’s functions again? To undo what Uthua has done to it?”

  “Not long. To restore its original function is a minimal procedure, since that’s what it was designed for. No more than half an hour. Less, maybe.”

  “If the plan works,” Hildra said. “We better not’ve gone through all this to help fucking Sheridan stage a coup.”

  “She’s right, Doc,” Janx said. “We’re playin’ into Sheridan’s hands. She wants us to be doin’ what we’re doin’, how I don’t know.”

  “It will work,” Avery said. “Sheridan thinks she’s using us, but we’re using her.”

  “That’s what she wants you to think.”

  “That’s what we want her to think.”

  Janx sighed.

  Ani was looking at Avery with a new expression. Pride, he realized. She saw that the others depended on him, that the whole plan would not work without him and indeed that it was his plan. Seeing her expression, he couldn’t help but stand taller.

  “But whatever anyone does,” he cautioned, “don’t kill Sheridan. We need her for the antidote.”

  Janx gave Avery a long look. Avery began to feel nervous.

  Almost gently, the big man crouched down by Ani, a sad, sympathetic expression on his craggy face. Strangely, Ani didn’t recoil.

  “Did you ever ask her why, darlin’?” Janx said, and his rich voice was oddly soothing. “Did you ever ask your Aunt Jess why she jabbed you with that needle ev’rday?”

  Ani stared at him for a moment, at his scarred, nose-less, nightmarish face, and then she nodded, once, sharply.

  “What did she say?” Janx asked.

  “She said it was a leash.”

  “A leash,” Janx repeated. “For you?”

  “For Papa.”

  “And that’s all she would say?” Avery asked. When Ani nodded, he told Janx, “This doesn’t tell us anything we didn’t know already. Janx, are you done?”

  Janx’s jaws bunched. “Look, Doc ...” He clapped his hands over Ani’s ears, tight. “Ani, can you hear me?” Ani said nothing. Satisfied, Janx turned to Avery. “Doc, what I’m about to say is gonna hurt, but it needs to be said. This girl of yours is great, and I’d do anything for her—almost. I wouldn’t sacrifice the world.”

  “Who says I will?”

  “Sheridan. Look, Ani’s a yoke around your neck. A leash. You can’t let Sheridan manipulate you like this.”

  Avery wanted to punch him. “How can you say that with Ani right in front of you? If ... if we don’t get the cure from Sheridan, Ani will die.” He hadn’t wanted to say it and regretted it even as his mouth was forming the words. Fortunately Janx’s hold over Ani’s ears seemed quite tight; she didn’t flinch.

  “Easy, boys,” Hildra said.

  “I concur,” Layanna said.

  Avery and Janx glared at each other.

  “Ani is my life,” Avery said, hearing and hating the fragility in his voice, but unable to help it. A hot pain burned in his chest, and he felt his eyes burn, too, his vision beginning to blur. The anger that rose in him was elemental and primal. In a heated whisper, he said, “How can you tell me she has to die?”

  Janx’s face turned gray. “Maybe she won’t,” he said. “Maybe Sheridan will still cure her after you do what you have to do at the ceremony. Maybe it’s all a bluff.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  Janx didn’t have to answer, and he continued to stare at Avery. “If we don’t get that Device back, the world dies.”

  Avery said nothing. He’s right, he thought. Gods damn him, he’s right. But what choice do I have?

  At last Janx took a deep breath and removed his large hands from Ani’s ears. He made his face go soft, and said, “Darlin’, I’ve got a real, grown-up question to ask you.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Avery said. “Don’t—”

  Janx raised a hand to silence him, and such was the gravity in the big man’s face that Avery closed his mouth.

  “W-what is it?” Ani said. Her voice sounded very small. Avery wanted to take her and hide her from the world, especially from Janx, who looked at her with his gentle yet implacable expression.

  “If you had to choose between dyin’ again, or the world dyin’, what would you choose?” Janx said.

  Ani gaped at him.

  “I don’t think this is appropriate,” Layanna said.

  Janx would not be deterred. “Your pa’s been tryin’ to make the decision for you,” he said. “And I think he’s been makin’ it wrong. Many people have been hurt because of it. But it should be your call. Not his. Not ours. So. What do you think?”

  “I ...” Ani swallowed. She glanced down, to the dirty floor at her feet. “I want to live,” she said, and her voice was wretched.

  Janx let out a deep breath. “Is that your answer?”

  She paused, then shook her head again. Avery trembled.

  In an even smaller voice, she said, “I want the world to live more.”

  There was a long silence.

  Ani, crying, buried her face in Avery’s side, and he wrapped his arms around her and said comforting words. To his shock, when he looked up into Janx’s face, wanting to hate the whaler, he saw tears glimmering in the big man’s eyes. They hovered there, unreleased. Janx could not look at Ani.

  “I hope you’re happy,” Avery told him. When Janx didn’t answer, he added, “None of this was necessary.”

  Janx squared his jaw. “When Sheridan jerks that leash, you’re gonna have to decide to obey or not.” More than anything, he seemed tired. “I wanted you to know what Ani thought. If worse comes to worse, I’d respect her wishes, were I you.”

  “Well you’re not.” Avery mashed his eyes shut. He cradled Ani in his arms and wished he could take her away from here, far away. He felt pressure on his hand and opened his eyes to see Layanna holding it.

  Her face was kind. “It will be okay,” she said, and he knew she lied.

  How can it?

  Sheridan rapped on the door. Avery jumped.

  Sliding it open, she said, “It’s time, folks. Uthua has just finished reversing the Device’s functions and is summoning all the VIPs to the laboratory for the ceremony. He’s about to activate it.” To Avery, she said, “Are you ready for our date?”

  Chapter 6

  Avery tried to keep from shaking as he made his way down through the bowels of the citadel, side by side with Sheridan. This is it. This is really it. He tried to tell himself to relax, but there was nothing for it. He would do anything for a drink. He’d forced himself to remain sober for what he had to do, but he realized now that that was a mistake. Better to be a bit dulled than to shake so badly he couldn’t walk. He was only vaguely aware of the Over-City groaning around him, pipes hissing and metal squealing, the rasping noise of zeppelins’ envelopes rubbing up against each other, the stink of smoke and extradimensional fumes. The whole massive thing was in even more motion than usual, descending from the skies toward the waiting sea. Through gaps, Avery could see it, vast and foaming, boiling and dark and unknowable. Lightning leapt up from the frothing surface like flashes of death.

  He was almost relieved when Sheridan said, “So. You and the Bitch, you’re back together, I take it.”

  The question only caught him off-guard for a moment. He knew Sheridan was both trying to ground him and that she was honestly interested. Invested, even.

  “Yes,” he said. His voice sounded raspy.

  “And it doesn’t bother you that she’s a monster.”

  “She’s not the monster.”

  Sheridan frowned at that, and he thought he saw hurt there, but he didn’t care. She’s poisoning my daughter. She might be a heroine to Octung, but she was no hero to him. If he hadn’t needed her so badly, he would be tempted to pitch her over the side of the nearest bottomless chasm.

  “You know,” she said quietly, “I’m sorry things ... turned out the way
they did. Between us, I mean.”

  “I’m not.”

  She looked sidelong at him, her face a mask as usual. They lapsed into silence as they reached an elevator, pressing in side-by-side with several infected officers. Some of the others murmured excitedly as the elevator coasted down. The Over-City was descending, they whispered. The time of Octung’s victory was at hand. Avery wanted to gut them.

  The elevator let off, and Sheridan led him down another series of halls and finally to another elevator. This led all the way to the lowest level, and the officers they were pressed up against here were of the highest level—invitees to the activation ceremony, Avery realized. He looked around him surreptitiously, trying to memorize the faces of the men and women he would be trying to kill over the course of the next hour. Feeling something gnaw at his stomach, he glanced away. Some things were better not thought of.

  The elevator disgorged itself and Sheridan led onward, through narrow halls with high ceilings and across rickety walkways spanning the void. Wind hissed and blew all around them. Suddenly they rounded a bend and a building loomed ahead.

  “That’s it,” Sheridan said.

  Avery could have figured that out by the line of distinguished Octunggen trickling into it. The laboratory was large, with rounded sides and a flat roof, nondescript and somehow all the grimmer for that. Like the Temple of the Air, a moat encircled it, this one plunging directly through the sky, with nothing else on the way, all the way to the Atomic Sea, which was a vast dark stretch from horizon to horizon, getting closer with every breath. The fumes it exhaled coated the surface like a thin fog, concealing it just enough to make the sea appear even more mysterious and eerie. Patterns appeared in the fog, twisting and writhing, more apparent with every inch the Over-City drew toward it. The laboratory’s under-section was strangely bowed, and Avery could see it protruding below. Lightning rods stabbed down from it, emitting odd hissing noises. White flashes blasted up from the sea and struck the rods frequently, making them crackle and blur, and when they did Avery could hear machinery humming.

  A thin line of uniformed or otherwise well-dressed people trickled over the narrow bridge into the building, each one having to show ID to waiting guards. Soldiers ringed the building discreetly, and Avery had no doubt their visible presence was only a small portion of their true force. They were taking no chances today. He and Sheridan waited as the line progressed, and to his surprise he detected a hint of nervousness in her. He even thought he saw the glimmer of sweat on her brow. Despite himself, he remembered what it tasted like.

  “It will be fine,” he assured her, surprising himself. “The ID will hold up,” he added, guessing that this was what worried her. He spoke quietly so that no one else would hear, but with the wind roaring up through the moat, and the crackle and boom of the lightning strikes, he doubted he need fret over-much about that.

  “I’m not worried,” Sheridan said, sounding impatient. Then she relented. “Not about that.”

  “What then?”

  She hesitated, as if weighing whether or not to respond, then decided against it.

  “Nothing.”

  He knew that’s all he would get out of her, and on one level he was not surprised. She had never been very forthcoming. Just the same, he was encouraged as he always was to see signs of humanity in her, even if it was simple human fear. It occurred to him that he felt the same about Layanna, and he couldn’t decide which one lived up to his hopes of humanity more. He wondered what it said about him that both the women in his life were equally remote and terrible.

  The line edged up, and he and Sheridan moved onto the bridge. Wind fluttered his uniform and threatened to unseat his cap. He hastily grabbed at it. Sheridan’s eyes misted, but otherwise she did not seem perturbed at all. Thunder boomed all around. Avery could feel it in his bones. The wind chilled him, made him shiver.

  The line moved up slowly. He tried not to peer over the edge of the railing. Though the Atomic Sea was now so close he could smell it, all electricity and ozone and ammonia and salt, it was still too far down not to get vertigo when looking at it, or at least he believed so; he wasn’t going to risk it again. He heard a great explosion below and knew that a large gas bubble had just reached the boiling, churning surface of the sea only to be struck by a bolt of lightning. For a moment he could even feel the warm updraft caused by the blast. Home again, he thought dourly, thinking of Janx.

  “ID, please,” said the lead guard at the door.

  Sheridan presented her ID badge coolly while Avery fumbled for his. His fingers were slick with sweat as he turned it over. The guard barely glanced at it, though, and Avery saw him smile and even bow his head at Sheridan. Apparently she was considered such the idol that her date was simply an after-thought. Avery’s mind boggled.

  With that, he and Sheridan stepped into the building and out of the wind. He shuddered in release, removed his hat, and patted his hair back down, what there was of it, and replaced the hat. His heart beat like a bird trying to escape a cage that was too small. His ribs felt brittle. He couldn’t believe he was doing this.

  “Do you need to sit down?” Sheridan asked.

  That sounds like a good idea. And a glass of brandy. “No, I’ll be fine.”

  She led on. They passed behind several others in a line through one tight hall after another. Shortly the ways opened up and Avery saw thick doors on each side—cells. People on the other side of the iron doors screamed and thumped the metal. There came the smell of feces and urine and unwashed bodies. The moans and bellowings of the prisoners unnerved him, though the Octunggen ahead did not appear phased. They had likely expected this.

  “What is this place?” he asked.

  “This is where prisoners are taken,” Sheridan said. “From the facilities. They’re brought here for testing. I told you there would be human experimentation here.”

  They passed a series of doors, then through an open chamber of a type Avery knew too well—an operating room. Only this was a nightmare O.R., dismal and cluttered with vicious, gleaming metal tools, weird substances in jars, bubbling seawater in an aquarium. A patient, male and young, was strapped to the surgical bed with leather restraints, another strip of leather gagging his mouth. His eyes bulged, rolling madly in his skull. Sweat streamed down from his hair and beaded his bare chest and arms, making him gleam. Octunggen military doctors in white coats circled him, attended by a battery of nurses threading between strange, foreign-looking machinery connected to hoses, needles, knives ... One doctor bent over the man, applied a certain tool, and the man screamed against his gag, bucking wildly.

  “What are they doing to him?” Avery said.

  “Experiments,” Sheridan said, as if it were obvious.

  “But ... what sort? Why?”

  “Don’t look so shocked, Doctor. Your own people do experiments.”

  “Not like this,” he said.

  “High Command wants certain goals met, and the eggheads are helping them to meet them. What else did you expect to see in a top-secret Octunggen laboratory?”

  They passed out of the horrible operating room and down a hall lined with doors leading to more operating rooms. Almost all contained the same sorts of scenes, and Avery saw wretched prisoners being led from their cells to the rooms of torment, trembling and weeping, some voiding their bladders on the way. Others, what was left of the prisoners after the procedures, was carted back to the rooms on rolling beds. Some still moved. Avery tried not to look.

  “Why?” he said again.

  “There are many goals for the experiments,” she said in exasperation. “One of the main ones is to find ways to control the mutations when one accepts the Sacrament. Imagine if you accepted it with the understanding that you would be transformed into a glorious scorpion-fish creature, or a terrible octopus-man, or what have you. High Command wants battalions of shark-men with thick skin and rows of sharp teeth, legions of lobster-troops with impenetrable shells and claws that can crack through an e
nemy’s body-armor with a single snap, and various combinations. It’s all quite logical.”

  “It’s monstrous.”

  “That word again.”

  The screams and the smells of shit and disinfectant surrounded Avery. He realized he was trembling again. Part of him felt guilty for ever allowing himself to admire the Octunggen. They were clearly not worthy of even reluctant appreciation, and he couldn’t believe Sheridan could so calmly walk through this place of the damned. It was like a level of hell. He realized she must have inured herself to this and many other atrocities, simply shut off that part of her mind long ago.

  You knew what she was, he told himself. Don’t play the innocent now.

  They entered the very center of the laboratory building and stepped into a large, domed room filled with people and activity. This was it, Avery realized. This was the chamber in which the future of the world would be decided. Scientific machines, benches and staff cluttered the chamber, technicians tweaking nozzles, firing jets, going over reports. Hoses and wires snaked across the ground, all converging on the object at the very center of the room, the thing Avery had come here to steal and what others had come to activate. The Device, glimmering and silver, alive to a hundred possibilities, hovered between two down-sweeping metal arms, suspended in some sort of force field. Huge, humming machines ringed the Device, sparks flickering from them. Avery realized these were the machines that connected to the lightning rods on the underside of the building—just below his feet—and that they were storing the energy collected from the sea. The lightning strikes blasted the rods, which channeled their power into these constructs, constructs which then were connected via many wires to a sort of pedestal that stood near the two metal arms the Device was suspended between. At some trigger energy would leap from the pedestal and presumably into the Device. The whole room crackled with energy, and Avery realized his hair was beginning to stand on end under his peaked cap.

  In the center of it all, standing over the Device triumphantly, was the lord of the Over-City himself, the great and terrible Uthua. Avery had been so entranced by the spectacle of the rest of the room that he saw Uthua only belatedly, and when he did he stepped back, as if to shield himself behind Sheridan.