“Yeah,” Franklin agrees, “and what in the world is that thing again?”
I’d already tried to explain it once to them, to blank stares. So I try one more time, just thinking in terms they’d understand. “It’s a machine,” I say, “that can create black holes.”
“And what—” Sanaa says, “does THAT mean?”
In the simplest terms I can think, I say, “If they succeed with the codes that Grandma Rosemary Mason left behind, they can basically make the Earth—disappear into itself. Literally have a black hole start from here and fall in on itself. Think of a massive landslide. Without the rubble.”
Sanaa sits down on the edge of Blair’s bed so suddenly that I’m sure she’s bitten her tongue.
“How in Odin would we stop something like that?” she says, in a voice far louder than I’ve ever heard her use.
I don’t have an answer for her. As far as I know, there just isn’t a way.
Until Blair says, “We need to contact the Sorens.”
When the others don’t respond, I pause for a moment, then say, “Are you crazy? They’re the last people we should be talking to.”
Has he forgotten—?
“If you can think of anything better than having their army on our side?” Blair says, “I’m all ears, Mason.”
He never calls me by my last name. I realize, this isn’t just Blair speaking. This is the commander.
The army. And the army will—what?
“First,” I say, “they didn’t believe me, remember? I brought it up countless times with the general and Leader Strohm, what the Metrills’ plans are, and they laughed me out of the room. Every time.”
“Well that’s coz they haven’t seen what we’ve seen here. They don’t know. We can show them—”
“And—” I continue, without letting him finish, “what’ll they be able to do? Get here just in time to get swallowed into the hole, along with the rest of us? There’s no stopping this from happening once it starts, Blair,” I say. “Anything you throw at a black hole, bombs, jets, whatever, will disappear.”
When I finally take a breath, he says, “Yes but it’s not happening yet. We need to get them on board so we stop the Metrills before anything starts. Right? Can we handle the hundreds of them across the world on our own?”
He’s got a point. But I also don’t like where he’s heading, with mentioning “hundreds of them.”
Still, I don’t move when he goes up to a side of the wall in his compartment. He dials in and gets General Mason’s face to float up in the air as she stares down at me, her brows furrowed.
“Well you’re alive,” she says. I can’t tell if the sound of her voice is relief or regret, but it doesn’t matter right now.
Blair says, “General. I know we’ve had our—differences—but you need to see this. And you need to allow me some leeway for a few minutes, as we simply don’t have much time otherwise.”
She leans forward as she takes in our background and I see recognition in her eyes. “You’re with the Metrills.”
“That we are—and, General, what we’re about to show you is proof of what Lady Mason has been trying to tell you and Leader Strohm all along, what the Metrills have been up to.”
Then he brings up some sort of graph on a smaller screen and sends that over to the general’s office, where she can read about the CERN Collider and all its capabilities.
Her eyes widen as she takes it all in, then she stares out at us. I don’t have to say a word—the look on her face matches the looks on ours.
“This is really happening,” she mutters into the screen. “We have to stop them. YOU have to stop them.” She’s looking right at me now.
Blair says, “Yes, General. That is why we’re here. We need your help. Because this is far more than just the four of us can handle on our own. We need you.”
As they continue talking, I see what he means now. At least with the Soren army’s numbers behind us, we stand a better chance of stopping the Metrills. Even if the Sorens are now our enemy.
Mother leans back into her chair again as she listens to Blair’s ideas, then her eyes land on me. “You have to kill them all.”
“What—?” I say, but before I can continue, she starts yelling.
“It’s either them or the entire planet, Romy. What do you think your option is here? This can’t end peacefully! Do you understand that?”
I frown up at her face. That’s an entire people. She means to get rid of every Metrill on Earth.
My thoughts go straight to Annicka. She can’t be the only one who’s against what they’re planning to do. I mean sure, she’s passive about it, but—
How can I conscientiously allow—
When the general’s holoimage disappears, Blair turns to me. “You never did access your great grandma’s full memories, did you?” he says.
I say no, wondering what that has to do with any of this, then he summons a holo.
I expect it to be Father’s holo but when a stranger pops up, Blair says, “Your father’s holo was attached to the station in the north, and couldn’t be moved before they’d flattened it.”
He was just a holo, I tell myself. Father had already died years before I’d met the holo. But still—I can’t help the small flutter of regret and nostalgia in the pit of my stomach.
But I also know this new holo’s about to show me more of Rosemary Mason’s memories so I lie still, my mind on Father as I close my eyes and let the images take over.
I see flashes of people’s faces as Rosemary remembers her family, her team, several faces of people that she’d had to leave behind in the north when the Great Omni was brought about.
Then I stand in a room surrounded by the team—the other Legacies—as they all wait for me to make a decision. Mornie Blair watches me, waiting, and I say, “I vote no.”
She charges at me with rage in her eyes, and I let her punch me.
“They need to!” she screams as she continues punching. I throw my arms up automatically to stop more blows to the head, but otherwise I don’t try to defend myself or to throw her off.
I know she’s right, but I simply can’t do it. I can’t allow our people to commit genocide just so—what? So the Metrills can’t, some day in whatever future, bring about the destruction of the Earth? A BIG maybe, at that.
When Mornie finally gets off me, I wipe blood off my face as bruises rise on my cheeks and eyes.
“They’ll evolve,” I say, though I’m not convinced of my own words. “I believe they’ll evolve and not go through with—something like that.”
“You’ll regret this,” Mornie says. “Look what they’ve done already. How many people will you allow them to kill? In OUR names? Before you realize they’re a failed experiment? That they’ll bring about a bigger apocalypse than the Great Omni some day?”
But no. They can’t. They’re passive. I know many more of them are peaceful than she claims. The rest—well the rest can be changed. They have to, and we’ll show them. We’ll show them now that we’re establishing our new homes here in Apex.
We’ll show them we deserve the Earth, that we’ll do better this time. We won’t forget our past. We’ll do better—
I open my eyes with Rosemary’s new memory in my mind, and yell out.
Her words are so familiar, I know I’ve thought them myself, over and over again.
But she was wrong. She thought people would do better, that we’d live peacefully together. She thought the Metrills wouldn’t have to decide to destroy us. And she was wrong.
You Must Kill Them
The general’s instructions to us are clear, not an hour after we’d shared everything we know about the Metrills. We are to use “whatever means necessary” to kill them, all four hundred or so of them around the world, before they bring about Project Atlantis.
“What is your vote, Romy?” she demands.
I only hesitate for a moment, then croak a “Yes.”
“Good,” she says, then she han
ds off the location of the ex-Prospo Biological weapons we can use on this side of the world while she’ll handle the other stations on her side of the equator.
The equator!
“Mother—I mean, General Mason,” I say quickly. “I’d like to ask for one more thing. I mean after we’ve succeeded with this mission.”
Trying it earlier would be moot since who knows IF we’ll succeed.
She listens to me, then nods her head. “You have my word,” she says. “The EPrison population will be freed and the prison shut down.”
With that, I turn away from her, and make my way out of the commander’s quarters.
I don’t stop until I reach Annicka’s room.
She sees the look in my eyes and wraps me in her arms as I cry into her shoulders.
How can I kill her? Well, I can’t. I can’t kill any of them.
Rosemary Mason might have been wrong, but I know I can’t destroy an entire race of people due to the extreme beliefs of some.
So I ask Annicka how they intend to escape once they start the process to make the Earth disappear.
“Oh no, most of us don’t,” Annicka says sadly. “We’re right here where it will all begin. There are pods all over Earth that other Metrills can use to escape. But those of us here—well, we’ll be gone before we can even think of escape, see?”
“Annicka,” I say, shaking my head from side to side. “I don’t understand this at all. You’re against what’s about to happen, and you’ll die because of it. But you’re not doing anything to try to stop it. Why?”
“It’s our purpose here,” she says. “I’ve been taught that since I was a wee girl. This is my entire purpose. What can I do? I’m but one. The many will always trump the one.”
She has a point but I just can’t accept it. “Is there any way to stop this from happening?” I say. “To throw a wrench in it, so to speak? I mean it’s a machine, right? It’s breakable. Right?”
She watches me carefully as I speak, my words getting faster. Then she places a small hand on my shoulder, and uses the other hand to wipe tears from my face.
“Why would we stop it from happening?” she says. “Do you disagree that the human population is evil to its core?”
Just a few years ago, I would have vehemently disagreed. But I’ve seen what we can do to each other. I’ve seen first-hand how evil we can be.
Still, I think of Mazz. Sophia. There’s a conundrum right there. I can’t imagine anything more evil than a mercenary like him, a Death Doctor. I can’t imagine sitting in front of another human and just—calmly ending their lives.
And yet, there he was, taking care of that little girl like she was his own. So there is evil in people, yes, but does it have to be permanent? Then there are the kids, the families at the EPrison. They were labelled ‘Too Dangerous’ for various reasons, but the real reason? They were all political prisoners.
As all this mulls in my head, Annicka continues to stroke my cheek with her hand, still waiting for my answer. Rosemary Mason was wrong, I remind myself. She voted against it—and look where we are now.
Then I remember Mazz again, and the people at the EPrison.
“There’s still hope, Annicka,” I tell her softly. “I believe in it. Yes, we’re flawed, and yes some of us are evil. But not all. Not ALL!”
I clutch her tiny hands in mine. “I’m not evil Annicka,” I assure her. “My team isn’t.” Even Frankie, but I can’t bring myself to admit that out loud.
“The kids you saw in EPrison, some of the people there, despite punishments and hatred they’d had to withstand. Did you think they were evil?”
She looks down at my hands desperately clutching hers.
“There’s still hope,” I say again. “People can still change.”
As she looks into my eyes again, I know my words are moot. She gives me a soft smile. “You and your friends should go now. We will begin soon. I believe there’s hope for you. You can escape this, along with the other Metrills. They will take you.”
Then she turns away from me as I walk out of her room, dejected.
When I reach the team and tell them my decision, Blair moves up to me and holds me tight in his arms.
“I knew you’d say this,” he says. “I knew you couldn’t go through with something like that, with a genocide.” He throws an arm up at the space where the general’s holo once was.
“So, what do we do now?” Franklin says.
“Annicka says some of the Metrills are getting away in escape pods,” I say, “throughout the world. You guys should get on them. Make sure the Sorens have all the EPrison people with them, too.”
“You mean we,” Blair says.
“No. I mean you. I can’t—I can’t try to save myself, Blair, knowing what will happen to everyone else. I can’t live with that. This is my decision. I decide to die along with them.”
“You’re nuts,” he says, “if you think I’d just run off without you. I’m with you. Whatever you decide.”
“What she’s decided,” Frankie says, “is suicide.”
“What would your choice be?” I slowly turn into her glare. “I mean, out of the two you’re given.”
“Survival, of course!” she scoffs.
“That option’s not on the table,” I say. Not where the Metrills are concerned.
To which she replies, “It is always on the table, Romy.”
“I don’t know about you,” Sanaa says to Frankie. “But I know my chances at surviving are highest when I fight for it.” Not a hint of irony in her voice.
Sanaa and Franklin stare at each other, then back at us.
“Then we all stay,” Sanaa says, as Franklin nods her head.
“We stay,” I agree, “and we fight.”
Well…at least it will be one of the most interesting ways to die.
We make our way stealthily, though I know we don’t need to—around the corner onto a metal bridge of sorts that will take us straight to the Collider’s main controls. I look up at the massive machine, not knowing what we’d need to do stop it, but knowing I’m willing to die trying, and so do they.
A pang of doubt grows in the back of my mind, but I fight it back, not for the first time. Instead I think of my team—it’s too bad they’ll die, we’ll all die here.
We could have had some amazing adventures together—even with Frankie in tow. I admire the way she walks. Even now, knowing this is likely a failed attempt, she holds her head high. So do Blair and Sanaa. So do I.
As we approach the machine, finally I give in to my doubts, forgetting for a moment that this awesome team’s still on my side.
Because there’s no one around to try to stop us. The Metrills are generally passive, but there isn’t a single one of them around—we haven’t walked past any since we left our quarters.
Not only that, but it’s so silent here, and though I don’t know much about the Collider, I expect it to make some sort of residual sound or hum or something—well, anything! But, other than the shallow breaths from us four, it’s pin drop silent.
That’s when I turn to the group and they watch me warily. I don’t have to say it—I can see on their faces they’re already aware of what’s going on.
Still, I need to say it out loud. “They’re not deploying black holes,” I say. “They’re not using the Collider.”
It’s what my brain’s been trying to tell me all this time. That it didn’t make any sense. Because the Metrills have an intense respect for the Earth. They love her and care for her like she’s an elderly mother, but they equally fear her and abide to her as one would a vengeful god.
Which, in a way, I guess she could be.
“So they’re not destroying Earth?” Sanaa whispers in the vast space. The silence still makes her voice sound louder than she intends.
“If they do any damage,” I say, “it won’t be permanent. The Earth will be able to fix it. Restart—recycle—”
I look around us. So the Hadron Collider’s just anot
her structure where they’ve set up a station, but that’s it. So, what could they be up to?
“It could be anything,” Blair says, the gravity in his voice making his eyes pop. “It could be that harvester. Who knows how many they have all over the Earth’s surface?”
“They could cause earthquakes that will create sinkholes and swallow everyone whole,” Franklin adds.
“Or, well, anything. They can cause cyclones, tsunamis. Why wouldn’t they push everything all at once. I mean, this would be the Great Omni all over again, right? Except everywhere this time. There wouldn’t be any real escape.”
All the various ways they could kill us makes my pulse play a staccato in my head.
But something Annicka said reminds me that, whatever they have planned, this is where everything will start from. So if not the Collider—
“The trains,” I gasp. “Their underground trains travel through corridors all over the Earth. Whatever they’re planning must involve them. It’s all launching from here.”
We start running even before I finish my sentence. They must have explosives or something lined in the trains that can travel from one side of the Earth to the other within hours. What better way to cause destruction to civilization, and yet still allow the Earth to fix herself after a few decades.
I wouldn’t be surprised if their massive cause of destruction won’t leave behind too much metal or non-biodegradables.
We only stop running when we arrive at the entrance to the very train that brought us here. A group of ten Metrills walk around, fiddling with knobs and buttons, and I know, even without fully understanding what they’re doing, that this is it.
They’re about to set launch and the destruction will begin. So I run up to the closest Metrill to me as the others do the same, and I slam a flying kick into him.
He stands without so much as a blink and crouches into the stance. I know he’s ready for his dance. And we fight. I’m as fast as he is, as strong, but he surprises me by not going on the defense at all. In fact, if anything, I’d think he was just humouring a child or swatting an annoying mosquito.
Still, I hammer my fists into him, and he blocks every attempt and doesn’t hit me back. Finally, I hear a loud huff behind me and see Sanaa and Frankie and Blair step back from their fights too.
Romy's Last Stand: Book III of the 2250 Saga Page 20
