by G J Ogden
“I’ve been around, remember?” the hermit replied, noticing the new addition of the grenades on the rack and picking one up. “In the early days, I used to carry weapons, but that was before I realized that fighting these things was as futile as trying to wipe out an ant’s nest one ant at a time. The only way to survive was to stay out of their way.”
Ethan gave up and slid the weapon back onto the rack. “I’m afraid that’s no longer an option.”
“Aye, lad, I know.”
The sudden melancholy surprised Ethan, as did the hermit’s doleful posture.
“Life has stumbled on for longer than I ever imagined possible, but the truth, lad, is that this planet was delivered a death blow at the very beginning, and we’ve been falling over ever since. The difference now is that we’re finally about to hit the dirt.”
The finality of the hermit’s words scared Ethan more than the roamers outside. “There has to be hope? You, of all people, must believe that?”
There was a sudden crash of metal and the clattering of falling debris outside the door, and Ethan instinctively reached for a handgun. Yuna raced back to the holo console then turned to Ethan, the horror clear in her eyes.
“They’re through!” Yuna cried. “They’ve already broken through the dome!”
“How much longer do you need?” Ethan called back, remaining outwardly calm, despite the fact that his insides were twisting in knots.
The hermit also stayed calm, but unlike Ethan, he actually appeared to be unafraid. The old man gently placed the grenade back on the rack and then picked up the second handgun, expertly loading it and chambering a round, leaving the safety enabled. He then switched the weapon into his left hand and picked up the grenade again, sliding it into one of the deep pockets in his enormous coat.
“We’re not even half-way through the process.” Yuna called out, drawing Ethan’s attention away from the hermit’s curious actions. “We need more time!”
Ethan made for the door, but was caught on the shoulder by the hermit, who spun Ethan around to face him, with the sort of strength that would be uncommon even for a young ranger at the peak of their physical ability. He stripped the weapon from Ethan’s hand and then held up the pistol that he had just loaded.
“Look here, lad,” he said, with an unflustered seriousness that seemed absurd given the impending danger. “See this switch? You flick it that way and the red dot means its ready to fire. You flick it back, and its safe. Have you got it, lad?”
Ethan nodded, transfixed, and the hermit placed the weapon back into his hand. “This weapon is already loaded, so consider it to be as dangerous as any roamer. Use it only if you have to, understand?”
Fists began to hammer against the door; Ethan panicked and twisted away from the hermit to challenge the imminent threat, but again the hermit caught him and forced him to look back into his wise old eyes.
Ethan was frantic. “Let me go, I have to stop…” but the hermit held him firmly, before taking the second grenade from the rack and pressing it into Ethan’s belt pouch.
“Listen to me lad… I never believed this world could be healed. Truth be told, I gave up hope long, long ago.”
Ethan peered into the hermit’s eyes and like staring into black water they shone back at him, but held untold depths.
“You have proven a stubborn old man to be wrong. You have given me reason to truly hope again, Ethan, and I will not let that spark go out.”
The hammering grew louder and the garbled shouts and cries of the roamers could be heard through the door, which flexed and rattled and splintered with each new strike.
“Love your family and give life back to the world. That is your charge. You are this planet’s custodian now.”
Ethan shook his head; he didn’t understand, but no sooner had the hermit finished speaking the words, he released him and swept him aside with such force that Ethan staggered half-way across the room and then fell to his knees. The hermit loaded the first pistol he had taken from Ethan and marched towards the door, clicking off the safety as he moved, again with the agility and speed of a man a quarter of his age. Ethan felt paralyzed and could do nothing but watch as the hermit aimed the weapon and fired through the fresh gashes in the door. Cries of pain erupted from the other side, and then the hermit unlocked the door and flung it open, firing again and again to thin out the front of the pack, before charging like a bull and driving the roamers back down the corridor in a tangled heap. Bony hands tightened around his arms and legs, but using every ounce of his inhuman strength the hermit managed to reach into his pocket and pull out the grenade. Wrestling against the mass of maddened bodies pressing down on him, he twisted the ring and placed his thumb over the plunger in readiness.
“Shut the door, lad!” the hermit cried out, as the roamers climbed back to their feet and tried to push past the hermit. “Close it now!”
Ethan suddenly realized the hermit’s intention; he scrambled back to his feet and charged across the room, slamming the door shut and sliding the heavy bolt across it.
“Everyone, get back!” Ethan shouted, pushing off from the door and charging away from it, but the grenade detonated a second later and he was flung into the room, which filled with a dark cloud of smoke and dust.
Ethan blacked out for a moment, then found himself on the floor, covered in dust. He pushed himself up, coughing as the acrid smoke entered his lungs, but despite the bitter taste in his mouth and a shrill tone in his ears, he did not detect any serious injuries.
“Yuna, Gaia, are you okay?!” he called out, and then hacked up more black mucus on to the floor.
“We’re okay!” he heard them call back, and through the smoke, he could see Yuna hunched over by a console, with her mother shielding her with her own body. Moments later, the shroud of dust was sucked away through vents high in the ceiling, clearing the room of smoke in less time than it had taken to fill it.
Ethan scrambled to the sleeping area, dizzy and off-balance due to the ringing in his ears, and found Summer still unconscious, but breathing. The smoke had not had an opportunity to encroach deeply into the sleeping alcove, before the venting had kicked in, and Summer was unscathed, besides a thin coating of dust covering her face and hair, which Ethan gently brushed away. He left her and stumbled back into the main room, still coughing up black phlegm. The grenade’s detonation had brought the dome and surrounding walls of the hallway crashing down, sealing them in behind an avalanche of rubble.
Yuna and Gaia staggered over to Ethan’s side, coughing and rubbing dust from their eyes.
“What happened?” Gaia spluttered.
Ethan stared at the newly-formed barricade of twisted metal and stone; it was a barrier that was impenetrable to even the most belligerent enemy.
“The hermit just bought us the extra time we need.”
Yuna frowned, not following Ethan’s meaning.
“He’s gone, Yuna. He did it to save us. So, let’s make sure he’s the last to fall.”
Chapter 32
Ethan closed his eyes and concentrated on the soothing hum of the air-conditioning system, which worked to distribute the serum throughout the laboratory building. It had taken Gaia and Yuna another hour to modify the air-conditioning system and route enough power from the limited reserves to activate it, none of which would have been possible without the hermit’s sacrifice.
The absence of the old man was felt by everyone, but Ethan felt it more keenly than he had expected to considering that, in truth, he barely knew the man. He regretted that he would no longer have the chance to learn more about him and his remarkable life. The mysteries that had shrouded his nomadic existence had been as impenetrable as the enormous coat that he wore, but in his last hours he had revealed secrets more fantastic than Ethan had ever concocted in his wildest imagination. He should have felt disappointed that the story of the guardians had merely been a re-hashing of folklore and faerie stories from the hermit’s grandmother, but he was actually glad of the t
ruth. There had been a time, not all that long ago, when the mystery of the lights in the night sky had driven Ethan to search for answers and to want more than this barren world offered. Ethan’s faith was destroyed as a boy who saw his parents killed by roamers, and he had been searching for something to make sense of that loss, and make sense of the world. He had believed the answers he desired to be in the past, or somewhere up in the sky, but he had found the truth he sought right where it had always been – not in the stars, but planetside, in the dirt of the settlement square, and in the trees of the forest, and in the icy, biting chill of the mountain air. And he had found it within Summer, who had tested him and challenged him, but had always been there when he needed her. She had always loved him, even when he went chasing after faerie stories. He knew precious little of these ancient stories, other than that they were supposed to have a happy ending, but that didn’t seem possible anymore. Not without Katie and Elijah, and not with Summer’s fate still undecided. The best ending he could wish for was a hopeful one; one where Summer was still alive, and her fire rekindled.
“I believe it has worked,” said Gaia, who was staring at a console screen alongside her daughter.
Ethan opened his eyes and rubbed his throbbing temples. “I’m sorry Gaia, I zoned out for a moment then.”
Gaia gently squeezed Ethan’s arm and smiled. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
Ethan smiled back and squeezed her hand gently in response. “It’s okay. Tell me again what you said.”
Gaia pointed to the screen. “Why don’t you see for yourself. I must admit that I am surprised. Pleasantly surprised, of course, but surprised nonetheless.”
Yuna noticed Ethan’s furrowed brow and helped him out by pressing her finger to the screen in several places, highlighting different holo security feeds.
“The plan worked; the roamers are either dead or dying.”
Ethan studied the images that Yuna had highlighted, and all across the laboratory, even on the roof, roamers and the maddened lay either motionless, or dragged themselves pointlessly forward with what strength remained in their twisted, warped bodies. It was a pitiful sight, and Ethan felt no gladness, only a solemn sense of sadness that the end of the Maddening would have to come about through such grisly means. Despite how twisted and vile the lives of these creatures had become, they had all been people once.
Then the console screen shut off, followed by all the other systems in the room, including the air-conditioning system, the absence of which created a deathly silence, which was replaced by the ringing in Ethan’s ears. The only light in the room came from what appeared to be naturally iridescent panels along the bottom of the walls, and it was barely enough to navigate by.
“What happened?” said Ethan, placing a hand on the wall to orientate himself.
“I’d say we’ve burned through all of the reserve battery power,” said Yuna. “Running the air-conditioning and ventilation systems for the entire lab required a significant amount of energy.”
“But, what about the serum?”
“The serum was fully distributed already,” said Gaia in a reassuring tone. “Any corrupted being inside the laboratory, and even within a short distance beyond its walls, will have been exposed. We are safe.”
“Well, not exactly,” said Yuna, ominously.
Ethan and Gaia turned to her, and though the light was too dim to accurately read their expressions, Yuna could guess at the sort of looks they were giving her.
“With the entrance blocked completely, and all power to the air and ventilation systems gone, this room will soon run out of breathable air.”
Ethan laughed. “There’s always something.”
“Indeed,” said Gaia. “I am sure our hermit friend would remind us to still maintain hope.”
Ethan laughed again, drawing puzzled glances from Gaia and Yuna, and then reached inside the pouch in his belt, removing the grenade that the hermit had placed there, before his final, heroic act. The pistol the hermit had loaded for him was now tucked inside his belt; despite not caring for the weapon, he wanted to keep it close at hand.
“I think the time for hoping is over. It’s time we made our own luck. And our own exit.”
This time Yuna laughed. “Don’t you think that’s a bit…” she hesitated, searching for the right word, before finally settling on, “…extreme?”
“I think the past few days have re-defined my concept of what’s extreme.”
Gaia studied the grenade in Ethan’s hand and then glanced across to the sleeping alcove.
“If we break a small hole into the wall cavity at the back of the sleeping alcove and place the grenade deep inside, then the blast should be focused inside the wall.” said Gaia, in a decidedly matter-of-fact tone. “So long as we are all safely over the far side of the main room here, we should be fine.”
“Mother? Is that you?” joked Yuna. “Tell me, what have you done with Gaia?!”
Gaia raised an eyebrow, but did not smile. “Very funny, Yuna. If you have an alternative suggestion, now is the time.”
“No, what the hell,” said Yuna, raising her arms to her side and them slapping them against her thighs. “Blow up the damn wall, but let’s not forget to move Summer out of the alcove first…”
Yuna helped Ethan to lift Summer out of the bed and carry her into the main room. The effort of transporting her was far greater than he expected, which Yuna attributed to the changing mixture of gases in the air. She was still unconscious as they laid her down, and her skin felt clammy and cold. Gaia read Ethan’s expression.
“I will check her over while you make preparations.”
“How long will it take, before we know for sure if the serum has worked?” said Ethan.
“The fact she is not already dead can only be a good sign,” Gaia offered. “But the truth is there is no way to know.”
Ethan nodded and tried to focus his mind on getting them out, before the air became unbreathable. He hurried back to the alcove with Yuna in tow, and together they used whatever tools and implements they could find to break a hole into the wall, large enough to slip the grenade into. Again, the effort was exhausting and Ethan began to feel light-headed, but finally they prized open a gap that was just large enough to slide the canister-like explosive through.
“Do you know how to set this thing off?” asked Ethan; sweat had beaded on his brow and his breaths were becoming shallower by the minute.
Yuna took the grenade and started to examine it clumsily.
“I’m not sure. This ring around the center seems to rotate, and there is a sort of button or plunger on the top.”
She rotated the ring and then flipped the grenade over in her hands, trying to work out what to do next, but her mind was a mess and even keeping her eyes focused was a struggle. Then she pressed the plunger on top and the ring lit up red.
The sight of this was like a shot of adrenalin directly into Ethan’s heart; he had seen this before, shortly before the hermit had blown the entrance, and he knew they had only a matter of seconds. He snatched the grenade and rammed it through the opening in the wall, and then grabbed Yuna’s hand and dragged her along with him, charging out of the alcove and into the main room just as the grenade detonated.
The next thing Ethan knew, Gaia was standing over him, helping him off the floor. He was vaguely aware of her voice, but mostly he just heard ringing. Next to him was Yuna, legs outstretched in front of her, hand clasping a thick, white bandage to her forehead. The ringing in his ears subsided enough to hear Gaia’s voice.
“Ethan, are you okay?”
He checked himself over and other than his headache feeling ten times worse than before, he seemed to still be in one piece. “I think so. Did it work?”
Yuna laughed and smiled, and then pointed over to the opposite wall, which was largely no longer there. “You could say that.”
Ethan got up and dusted himself down again – though by this point his ranger clothing was almos
t as much dust as it was fabric – and walked over to where the alcove had been. Half of the wall had been blown away, revealing a wide corridor on the other side. He stepped through into the corridor, drawing the pistol from his belt as a precaution, and checked up and down its length. At one side, leading further into the laboratory, were three bodies, motionless, either dead or dying, and at the other end was a large glass door that seemed to lead out on to a veranda, overlooking the lakeside. He followed the corridor to the end and tried the door, which opened, and stepped outside.
The night air was brisk and bracing, and felt wonderful compared to the claustrophobic stuffiness of the facilities in the control room. He pressed the pistol back into his belt and walked to the edge of the veranda to get a clear view out across the glassy, black lake. The sky was clean and clear and lit brightly by the moon and countless stars, and for the first time in a long time he did not feel afraid, or in danger. He felt like he was staring out at a new world, waiting to wake up from a generations-long slumber.
As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Ethan noticed dozens of smaller lights that at first appeared not unlike the other stars twinkling gently around them, but then each shot away, tracing sharp white lines across the sky in every direction. This dance of lights continued for a few more seconds and then there was a brilliant blue flash of light, brief but blinding in its intensity, followed a second later by a thunderous boom that filled Ethan’s burgeoning heart once more with dread.
Chapter 33
Fatigue wracked Maria’s already weakened muscles as she grasped the arms of the command chair, head and body pressed tightly into the seat back due to the intense force resulting from the shuttle’s hard deceleration. An alarm sounded in the cabin and Maria strained her neck to check the panel in her chair, which warned that the engines were in overload. She glanced up to check the flight program and noted that only a few seconds remained before the hard-burn braking sequence would end.
