by E. R. Torre
Nox’s eyes moved from Joshua Landon and up. She stared at the gory remains of General Spradlin and, involuntarily, drew her hand to her mouth. Visions of the General talking to her only moments before were replaced with this gory tableau. Nox stared at his injuries, then at her hand and the General’s blood which stained it.
“The blood,” she said, awareness dawning on her.
We’re all covered in the General’s blood.
Even the computer terminals were sprinkled with it. Everyone and everything in this room was bathed in the General’s blood.
The blood which housed the alien nano-probes.
“What did you do to me back at Jennifer Alberts’ mansion?” Nox wondered. She didn’t know, not exactly, yet she knew. Years ago, the early version of Lemner’s passkey reprogrammed the nano-probes within Joshua Landon’s body and made them offensive weapons. General Spradlin did the same with his blood. He knew Lemner’s passkey and the one-time child soldiers would not be content to just kill him. They would make sure he suffered. They would make sure his blood flowed. As his blood sprayed his attackers, the nano-probes inside that blood would attack, penetrating the one-time child soldiers’ bodies as well as the computer terminals around him. All would die even as they reveled in General Spradlin’s death.
All but Nox.
“You had Becky immunize me,” she said. “You had her immunize me from your blood.”
General Spradlin purposely allowed the one-time child soldiers to take them captive, knowing that doing so would result in his death. He had to defeat them all and quickly, and this was the most effective way to do so. His sacrifice meant the end for Lemner’s passkey and the one-time child soldiers. It also freed Nox so that she could rescue the kidnapped children.
She, unlike the other one-time child soldiers, was the only one General Spradlin could trust to do this. She was the only one among them who was a true…Independent.
Nox couldn’t help but laugh.
“The last of the Mechanics…just another Independent.”
Nox gripped the syringe case. There was work to do.
Nox found the kidnapped babies in a natal wing of the hideaway. All twenty four of them lay at the center of a bank of impressive computer equipment. These computers, another part of Lemner’s passkey, were also dark. Wires stretched from the computers to the twenty four children’s rectangular cribs. A couple of the wires poked into each of them. Nox gently removed the wires and was relieved to find they were little more than feeding lines. The full indoctrination hadn’t yet begun. Lemner’s passkey was more concerned with getting rid of General Spradlin and recruiting Nox.
When Nox was done removing the feeding lines, all the infants were awake and crying at the top of their lungs.
Nox tried to console each one of them as they were injected with the vaccine. Doing so triggered forgotten memories of giving those same injections to others in Arabia. She remembered the pregnant woman more clearly now, and specifically recalled injecting her. She then remembered the woman’s warm smile and how she waved just before disappearing. Just before being saved…
When Nox was done vaccinating the kidnapped children, she stepped back.
Get ready to see some real magic.
The words and voice came from General Spradlin and were in her mind. His memories were hers. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was no longer Nox the Mechanic but a combination of herself and General Spradlin.
There would be time to figure that out. Later.
Nox watched the children and knew what came next. Not five minutes after the vaccine was administered, a hazy light appeared around them. Some were scared by this while others were curious. The light’s intensity grew. There was a sparkle followed by a gentle noise. It sounded like a wind chime.
Despite her loneliness, despite her overwhelming loss, Nox smiled.
Just like that, the infants disappeared.
The moment they were gone, Nox felt a deep pain in her chest. The pain grew sharper and sharper until Nox let out a groan. She doubled over and dropped to her knees.
She felt the Earth’s Displacers reactivate in full. Administering the vaccine to the twenty four children served as the final signal to the people operating those machines that it was time to finish Earth’s exodus. Throughout the world, wave after wave of people were transported from Earth to the awaiting Arks.
Please, Nox thought. Don’t leave me here alone…
They all fled to safety, to a place beyond the grasp of the Locust Plague. Once the Arks were filled, they would depart in search of another world to populate. Nox knew the Human Race would survive. She knew it would thrive.
Without her.
The pain passed and Nox straightened up. She wiped a tear from her eye and walked out of the natal ward.
She returned to the bodies of her fellow one-time child soldiers.
Nox spent the next hour burying the dead.
The feeling of emptiness grew within her as the Displacers continued their work.
Several times she cried out. As time passed, the sadness and her tears subsided.
Every one of the one-time child soldiers were now buried, including Joshua Landon. General Spradlin was buried before them. Despite it all, they, like Nox herself, were his children.
There was nothing to say and the emptiness within Nox was near absolute. Like one last leaf falling from a tree, she felt the very last group of Earth’s people leave.
Seconds later, she felt a rumble. Something enormous within the Big City erupted. She knew what it was. The Displacers had self-destructed. General Spradlin’s military base and the equipment in the dark basement were nothing more than highly radioactive rubble.
For a moment, she thought she’d cry once more. She was the last person left in this poisoned world. The very last one.
Even Catherine was gone, whisked away to safety…billions and billions of miles away.
Abruptly, the sadness lifted. She looked up and away, toward the Big City. She sensed something.
No. I’m not the last person. There is one other.
Nox dropped her shovel and ran.
52
Nox found the military transport truck the General and she used to drive to the base parked where they left it. The blowing desert sand was already licking at her tires and a thin layer covered her body. In another couple of days, the vehicle itself might well be swallowed whole.
Nox ran to the transport and opened the driver’s side door. The key was still in the ignition, right where General Spradlin left it.
You left it for me, she thought. It was a nice though unnecessary gesture. Nox knew how to hot wire almost anything on wheels. She closed the door and gazed out the front windshield. Her trail of footprints disappeared into the distance.
A flicker of memory was triggered in her mind. She had an image of walking to the base, but her point of view was that of General Spradlin. His felt a mix of dread and hope as they approached the hidden Desertlands base. Though he knew these were his final minutes of life, he knew his sacrifice would not be in vain.
I know you will save the children, Nox, he thought during those last minutes.
Nox saw him then, looking at her. Holding her up.
“I forgive you,” he said.
She didn’t understand it then. She did now.
Nox turned the key and the transport truck came to life.
“Goodbye, General.”
Nox drove like a demon through the Desertlands and made quick time back to the Big City. She spotted a thick black cloud rising from the southwest side of the town. The cloud originated from General Spradlin’s military base. Nox knew all that was left of the base and the enormous Displacer buried underneath it was a radioactive crater.
Desert gave way to wire fences and the military transport vehicle made it to the last chance Diner and the barricade before the Big City. Nox navigated the tight entry and was soon on solid streets. She hurried through this familiar terrain.
&nbs
p; Nox drove north, eventually reaching the outskirts of Jennifer Alberts’ estate. The midday sun was bright in the sky, revealing the destruction that was once the dilapidated mansion.
Nox drove the truck to epicenter of the blast.
Before the crater that marked the mansion’s remains, she hit the transport’s brakes and jumped out of the vehicle. She ran past burnt wood, shattered furniture, and unidentifiable debris and climbed down the crater. She stumbled as she went and eventually found the remains of the stairs leading to the basement. Nox descended those stairs, pushing aside still more debris along the way. It took her a while to clear a path, but she soon reached the basement.
Once there, she found the rock walls relatively intact. She worked her way deeper and deeper into darkness until reaching Becky Waters’ computer room. Though the explosion was very powerful, the brunt of its energy was spent on the mansion. The computer equipment here was scorched from the heat but had not shattered. The rock walls appeared to have muffled much of the explosion’s impact.
Nox moved to the computer room’s far wall. To her right was the door to the garage. Its heavy wood paneling was cracked and burned. To her left was the metal door that led to the bunkers. It was slightly warped but otherwise relatively intact.
Nox pushed against the door and found it was jammed. She slammed her body against it a couple of times until it gave and the door cracked opened.
Nox entered the room beyond. The bunker’s beds were in place, just as Nox remembered them. On the other side of the room was a metal door. This door was almost intact and opened easily. Beyond it was a small room occupied by a single chair and, before it, a small computer panel. The computer monitor was on. It displayed electronic snow.
In the chair before it sat a single figure.
“Becky?” Nox said.
The figure stirred.
“Nox?”
The one time partner of General Spradlin looked terrible. Dark, dried blood stained much of her body. She sported a series of deep cuts and bruises.
“You…you look like hell,” Nox said.
Becky Waters eyed the blood stained body of Nox and let out a laugh.
“Speak for yourself,” she said.
The last of Nox’s memories returned as she helped Becky Waters out of the basement. She recalled being inoculated against General Spradlin’s weaponized blood and felt the inevitability of the one-time child soldiers’ descent on the mansion. She also remembered, this time through General Spradlin’s thoughts, how Jennifer Alberts was injected with the Displacer vaccine. While Lemner’s passkey was active, Spradlin’s Displacers were shut down. However, the General left orders that should the Displacer computer scanners register anyone inoculated with his vaccine, they were to be immediately whisked away to the Arks. Thus, Jennifer Alberts was saved before the one-time child soldiers attacked her mansion.
Nox took Becky Waters from the basement and to the transport truck. She sat her in the front passenger seat and reached for a first aid kit hanging from a side panel. She applied medicated crème and wraps to the woman’s exposed injuries.
“I can’t feel anyone…anyone at all,” Becky Waters said. “No one but you. Is it…?”
“Yes,” Nox replied. “It’s over.”
“The babies?”
“Gone with the rest of them.”
“The General?”
“He…succeeded,” Nox said. “We’re all that’s left.”
Nox took her time applying the medication and bandages on Becky.
When she was done, Becky Waters looked much better. The damage she sustained from the blast, however, was great. Muffled or not, the shock wave crushed parts of her body, breaking bones and causing an unknown amount of internal injury.
“I’m…I’m sorry,” Becky Waters told Nox.
“For what?”
“For what was done to you,” she said. “To all of you.”
“You save humanity,” Nox said. “If I were in your place…”
Becky Waters shook her head.
“No one could have done what General Spradlin did,” Becky Waters said. “No one.”
Becky marveled at the destruction around them.
“Made quite a mess of things.”
“You should rest,” Nox said.
“Good advice,” Becky said. “I think I will.”
Nox found it difficult to keep her emotions in check. On the way up Becky had coughed up considerable amounts of blood and her metal limbs barely moved. Her injuries required professional medical care, something Nox was incapable of giving. Becky’s only hope for survival rested on the nano-probes within her. Would they be enough?
Becky Waters leaned back in her seat and shut her eyes. For a second, Nox feared the only other person on the face of this barren world was also gone. But Becky Waters breathing, though labored, continued. She wouldn’t die. At least not yet.
Nox quietly closed the passenger door and walked to the back of the military vehicle. She opened the rear hatch and reached for the box of supplies. They couldn’t remain within the Big City’s limits for long as the Displacer’s radiation was permeating the area even now. They would have to retreat to the desert. But to survive for any prolonged period of time there, they needed supplies.
Nox removed the food and liquid rations with the purpose of taking an inventory of what they had. When she reached the bottom of the box, she found a sealed package. Written on it was a single word:
NOX
She ripped the package open and found a computer pad and file within. She immediately recognized the file. It was the one General Spradlin gave Nox in his office, the one Nox herself left at Catherine Holland’s side back in the military hospital.
Catherine.
The memory of her friend came back in full force. Catherine Holland was safe with the rest of humanity and so very far away.
Nox considered reading the file’s contents. For so long she hungered for information about her past, yet when given this file, she refused to open it unless she felt she had earned the right to do so.
She earned that right.
But the contents of the file no longer were important or even relevant to her.
Nox set the file aside and brooded. Her thoughts returned to Catherine, until it was hard for her to think of anything else.
I wish I could have said goodbye, she thought. She fought her sadness reached for the computer pad. She pressed down on its screen and it lit up.
On it was a video image of Catherine Holland.
“Hello, Nox,” Catherine said. Bandages covered her head and her right eye was a swollen mess. She tried to say something but, for the moment, couldn’t. Tears ran down Catherine’s face. She shook her head and wiped them away.
“I hope,” she said then paused. “I hope you’re doing well. They were…they were kind enough to let me make this message for you. There’s so much I want to tell you…”
Nox pressed the computer tablet’s screen, freezing the image.
She stepped away from the transport vehicle and walked a distance from it.
In the passenger seat of the transport vehicle, Becky Waters stirred. She saw Nox walk away and sit next to a charred piece of lumber. The Mechanic stared at the computer tab while a voice emerged from it. The Mechanic’s eyes welled up and tears flowed down her cheeks.
After a while, the message ended. Nox ran it again, then a third time before turning the computer tablet off. She remained by the wreckage of the mansion for several more minutes, contemplating the scene around her.
“Goodbye,” Nox said.
She wiped her face and stood up. She held the computer tablet tight and smiled.
“Thank you, General,” she said.
She returned to the transport truck and put the tablet back into the package along with the unread file. Afterwards, she climbed into the driver’s seat. She stared through the front window for a few seconds and at the destruction that surrounded them.
“How you doing
?” Becky Waters asked.
“I should be asking you that question.”
“Better,” Becky Waters said. “Now, what about you?”
“I’m doing better, too,” Nox replied. “What now?”
Becky Waters thought about that.
“Let’s take a ride.”
“Where?”
“North.”
“North? Why?”
“Got a place up there…a little past the sands,” Becky said.
“A…place?”
“Yeah. Nice little…hideaway. Well stocked.”
A knowing smile worked its way onto Nox’s face.
“Is there anything you and the General didn’t plan out?”
“If…if there is, I don’t know about it,” Becky said.
Nox let out a laugh.
“North it is,” she said.
And together, the two of them drove off.
EPILOGUE
Several months later a new star appeared in the night sky.
Each night that followed, it grew larger and larger. After a few weeks, it was a fifth the size of the Moon. Soon after that, it was visible during the day as well as the night. More weeks passed and the star kept growing until it filled most of the sky.
By then, it was obvious the object was not a star. It was a dark gray sphere with enormous mechanical projections that resembled spikes on a cactus. Swarms of smaller lights –starships– buzzed the structure like bees around a hive.
No, not bees.
Locusts.
The invaders were awake and making preparations for their arrival.
On the northern Desertlands, Nox lowered her binoculars and laid them on the transport vehicle’s hood. She walked to the vehicle’s rear hatch to check on her supplies. During this latest scavenger run, she loaded up on as many weapons as she could find.
Given the impossibly large object that loomed over her world, these weapons seemed pathetically few.
Yet even now, with the odds so overwhelmingly against her, she had no intention of lying down and giving up.
