“How long do the affects last?” Alan asks Aja.
“Really?” Danny’s voice is full of disbelief. “We’re actually considering this? Can’t you just use your…” He reaches out with his hand, pretending he has Alan’s ability.
“I could barely hold up a door that was already open. There’s no way I can open one that’s closed. Especially if it’s locked,” Alan tells him.
“Not long enough for my liking,” Aja tells Alan.
“You’ve been doing it for so long, your tolerance for it has risen,” Takeda says. “You could die without it?”
“I do not know. I have not been without it outside of stasis.” She only looks at Alan, pleading. Alan returns her gaze. “You’re not really considering this, are you?” Danny cuts in.
“She dies without it, she dies with it. Either way, stasis was the only thing keeping her alive. We’ll have to hurry before she starts going through withdrawals.” Alan walks to the steel door on the other side of the room.
Danny raises his hand. “Just so we all know, I said this was a bad idea.” He catches up with Alan, followed by the rest of the group.
Takeda takes a moment as he, Aja and Sahel bring up the rear. “What of your stasis mate?” He points at the man in the third chamber.
Aja turns to the chamber. “Jada killed him before they put him under.”
“Dead bodies in stasis.” Takeda tries not to let the thought bother him, too much as they join the others.
“Remove that panel,” Aja tells Alan.
Alan pulls out his screwdriver and goes to work on the screws. He loosens the first one then moves on to the second while telekinetically finishing the first. He does this until all six screws are on the floor.
The panel removed, Aja steps into the small control box and rewires the cable’s running to the door. “Each wire is in a main control position. I just have to switch their places and then…” A thud sounds out. “It’s done. Now.” She reaches down into the panel and winces as she twists her arm. “There.” She pulls her arm out of the panel and holds up a power cell. “Its got more juice left than I’d like but, it will do.” She brings the cell to her forehead and holds it there, closing her eyes, letting the low dose of radiation affect her.
“Is this the part where she starts hallucinating?” Danny asks, frustrated.
“Just relax and enjoy the show,” Aja says as she leans back, opening her eyes to a world only she can see.
“How long does this last?” Alan asks Takeda.
“It should only be a few minutes.”
“Only? Great. Just enough time for Jada to send re-enforcements, early.” Danny leans, impatiently against the wall.
CHAPTER NINE
“If we hurry, we might be able to get through all of this without a fight,” Alan says, quickening his pace through a wide, empty section.
Danny slows down. “This is a big area.”
The rest of the group slows down to analyze their surroundings. The room is a large rectangle with a ceiling too high up and too dark for them to see any of the details. The width of the metal floor has long grates from one side to the other. Between the grates, scuff marks stretch from one side of the room to the other as if something heavy had been dragged across it. Every few feet, screw holes dot the floor. Huge storage tanks are all that remain of whatever this area originally was.
“What is this?” Danny asks Takeda.
“It used to be a recreation area. There was exercise equipment attached to the floor, here. Now it houses only the water treatment tanks. Such a waste.”
“There’s no one in here.” Danny spins around, taking in the emptiness of the section.
“It lays unused, I’m afraid,” Takeda tells him.
“The lower deck is crammed tight when an entire deck isn’t even occupied?” Alan’s voice with anger. “Half of us could, easily fit in here.”
“Another result of Hallet’s law.”
Aja looks around the room for a sign of any sort of occupation. Something that suggests the area as lived in. But there is nothing. “There are more of you crammed into the lower deck? How did that happen?”
“Do you remember the vote?” Takeda asks her.
“What is the vote?” Sahel joins the depressing conversation.
“It happened during my tenure as Captain,” Takeda starts. “Other passengers preferred Hallet’s ideas rather than my own decrees. The entire ship voted on who would live where. We wound up in the lower deck. With all of its unpleasantness. An unpleasant place for proclaimed undesirables”
“Except for Alan,” Danny says. “He didn’t get a vote. Hallet just put him wherever he wanted him.”
Alan walks toward the tanks, not wanting to listen to the details of his placement.
Four storage tanks sit on the floor, against the wall. The tops of them reach the middle of the wall— As far as Alan can tell, anyway. He knocks on one of them. The drumming sound on its clear plastic surface tells him it’s empty. He walks to another one and raps his knuckles on it. Also empty.
Looking down at the grates, he notices they all flow into one and go under a third storage tank. A dust covered plaque is attached to this storage tank. Unlike the two clear ones, this one has an almost yellow hue.
Alan reaches out for the plaque and wipes away at the dust, sending the small particles floating off and down to the floor. He wipes a few more times until the words are clear, [WASTE RECLAMATION]. In disgust, Alan stumbles backward, his feet almost flying out from under him. Instead of falling down, he falls into Takeda who braces them both with his cane.
“I know what you’re thinking. It was a desperate time. It still is. Every drop of water, whether from the potable tanks or from the passengers themselves, must be saved or used. None can be wasted. Our survival depends on it. You may not know this. There are ways to recycle and purify water.” Takeda taps on the floor grates with his cane. “Drainage systems for those who once used this place. The very sweat from their brows would flow into the grates and then into this very tank. Of course it was purified before being used. I seem to recall there being more than this. But then, maybe my memory is not as sharp as it used to be.”
“I can’t believe we were made to drink this.”
“And wash with it.”
An acidic taste rises into this throat. Alan swallows it back. “Don’t tell the others about this.” Takeda nods in agreement.
Aja, followed by the others, walks toward a metal tank. Out of its sides, run two pipes going opposite directions. One toward the lower deck, the other toward the upper decks. It too has a plaque. She dusts it off and reads the words, [CAUTION. HOT]. A smaller hand reaches out to touch the tank. Aja swats it away. “No Sahel. It will burn you.”
“So there are water heaters,” Danny says, irritated. He follows the pipe heading toward the lower deck. “Well that explains that,“ he says, pointing at an empty section of the pipe.
“It must have broken a long time ago,” Alan adds.
“Sure, just close it off. No need to repair a broken part. They’re just lower deckers, they won’t mind.” Danny pulls on the cap but it’s on too tight. “They did this on purpose.”
Alan turns to Takeda.“Will this heat the water enough for everyone on the ship?”
“It did at one time,” Takeda tells him.
Alan reaches out for the hot water tank. He touches it lightly. “It’s warm.”
“So it does work,” Danny says. “You know what this means? We control the water. Hot or cold, it’s ours.”
Takeda looks to Alan. “How would you proceed?”
“We control the water? That gives us a major advantage. We’ll use it to force Hallet to step down and hold another vote. We won’t even have to fight. Carl.”
Carl steps forward, shaking his fists in anticipation. “Who do I hit first?”
“No one,” Alan tells him. “You’ll stay here. If Hallet doesn’t give into our demands, we’l
l get on the intercom and tell you to shut it off.”
“The whole thing?” Carl asks.
“The whole thing. Hot, cold, all of it. See how long they can go without.”
“But won’t that affect the lower deck?” Danny asks.
Takeda points at a bank of valves. “The flows are separate. The lower deck has its own. Only the valve to the upper decks will need to be closed off.”
“We should bring people up here. Give them a chance out of the cold. Maybe get some more breathing room,” Danny suggests.
“I agree,” Alan says. “That might even slow the spread of illness. Two of you go back and bring up whoever wants to come.” At his word, two volunteers, immediately run back toward the lower deck. “The rest of us, keep moving.”
“They can’t stop us, now,” Danny says.
Alan cracks a small smile. Finally a feeling of hope.
CHAPTER TEN
Alan works quickly to take out the screws in the door control panel. Just as before, screwdriver then telekinesis. Before he can fully remove the panel, Aja nearly tramples him to get to the wires.
“Damn rad addict,” Danny says under his breath.
Alan watches her work the wires before finally reaching down for the depleted power cell. She pulls it out and begins the hallucination process, again. “Should we wait for her, this time, too?”
“She’ll catch up. Hurry and open the door,” Takeda tells him.
“Wait,” a little voice says. Alan looks down when he feels someone grab his hand. Sahel looks up at him. “We can’t go that way.”
“It’s the only way to go,” Alan tells him.
“It’s bad in there.”
Alan looks at Danny and Takeda as though they have an answer.
“We don’t have time for this,” Danny says.
Alan looks at Aja, expecting her to silence her son. Her hand reaches out for invisible objects. She’s too deep into her hallucination to be aware of reality.
“Something bad will happen in there,” Sahel elaborates.
Alan crouches down in front of Sahel. “What’s bad in there? What’s going to happen?”
“The Cuttyman is in there.”
“Who’s the Cuttyman?”
“I saw him in a dream. He’s in there.” Sahel runs to Aja and wraps his arms around her leg. She looks down at Sahel and her eyes get wide. Whatever form he’s taken in her radiation fueled haze, it’s obviously shocking.
“Cuttyman?” Danny squeezes the bridge of his nose. “I have no idea who or what that is but this is the only way forward, right? We need to go. So let’s go.” Danny rushes to the control panel and presses the button, opening the door.
The group is met with a black room. There is no sign of anyone or anything inside.
“You been through here before?” Danny whispers to Alan.
“Yeah.”
“Is it always this dark?”
“I’ve never seen it lit up. But I don’t think there’s anything inside.”
“You sure?”
“I’ve never bumped into anything so…”
“It is a storage compartment,” Takeda tells them. “Nothing has been placed in here in quite some time. We should be able to just walk through.”
Danny is the first to step in. He cautiously feels around to make sure he doesn’t run into anything. The rest of the group follows.
“Everyone, just watch your step…Just in case,” Alan says as he moves to the front.
An odd sound stops them all. “Did you hear that?” Aja asks from behind them.
“You hearing things, now?” Danny’s question is mocking.
“They’re only visual hallucinations. Not audible,” she tells him. “She’s right,” Alan says. “I heard it too. It sounded like breathing.”
Suddenly, the door behind them shuts. “It’s the Cuttyman,” Sahel gets closer to his mother, almost pushing her down.
“Alan,” Takeda whispers as the darkness slowly fades, revealing a mass of men with eye covering masks, all in uniforms standing in front of them. The clothes look as though stitched together, one half black, the other half gray.
Alan’s focus shifts from the mass of masked me to a sliver of blue growing larger outside of a window. “Is that the…”
Aja points Sahel toward the growing sphere outside of the window. “You see, son. It’s our real home. It’s Earth.”
“Earth,” Alan repeats as the sun’s reflection reveals more of the planet just outside the window. The image holds them in awe for several moments.
“There will be time for admiration, later,” Takeda reminds Alan. “We must go.”
Everyone except for Aja and Sahel return their focus to the group in front of them. “Good morning!” the uniformed men say, in unison.
“That’s a welcome change,” Danny says. He starts to step forward, ready to greet the masked men but he stops abruptly as the men blocking their way, all pull out short swords. “Or not.” Danny steps back next to Alan. “Now what?”
“Now we fight.” Alan rushes forward.
He mentally swipes one of the swords from a masked man, sending it toward the ceiling. The force stick the sword into the metal above them. The maneuver distracts the guard long enough for Alan to leap forward, feet first. He kicks his legs out, knocking the man into two others behind him. The three of them fall backwards, one of them falling on the sword of another. Danny jumps upward and grabs the sword in the ceiling. With one jerk, he pulls it from its place and lands back on his feet, immediately swinging at one of the uniformed men. The strike connects, dropping the man to the floor. His sword falls with a rattle. Danny kicks it back toward his group. One of the lower deckers picks it up and rushes into the battle. He is followed by others who hold their makeshift weapons high and ready to strike.
Alan pulls out a handful of nuts and bolts and throws them forward. Aided by his abilities, the bits of metal, rapidly, fly into the mass of sword wielders. Some of them find targets, others do not. Those that do hit with enough force to knock their marks down. Some even bury themselves into flesh.
Masses of arms and legs lash out at one another. Each side tries to gain the upper hand, neither really do so. Both sides suffer losses. Only Alan’s group seems to be emotionally affected by those losses. The masked men do nothing to help a fallen member of their side but only continue their sword swinging.
Alan picks up two swords from fallen masked men. Before he has time to stand another masked man swing his his sword down on him. Alan falls on his back, bringing up his swords in an X, blocking the attack. The man pushes down, a sadistic smile shows gold and silver teeth.
“Great morning, isn’t it?” The man asks as if he’s completely unaware that people are in the room, dying or that he and his companions are responsible for most of it.
Alan pushes back up but the man’s weight is too much for him. He looks to his side and spots a sword lying on the floor. He risks lowering his focus on the man dangerously close to killing him and turns it on the sword. The sharp weapon shakes a few times before flying from its resting place, right for Alan’s attacker.
The blade hits the masked man’s shoulder, stabbing him before falling to the floor. The blow has the desired effect making him lose his focus, giving Alan the opportunity to push the man off of him. Takeda’s cane does the rest, cracking the masked man across the nose and to the floor.
Alan stands up, ready to continue the fight.
“Stop this at once.” The shrill voice of Jada freezes everyone in their tracks. “You’re all being ridiculous. Ruining a beautiful morning like this. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.” She stands up on a podium, her companions on either side of her. “Ruining such a lovely morning as this. Ruining our long standing tradition. Did any of you greet the planet when her light first shone? Hmm?”
The lower deckers only look at each other, confused as to her meaning.
“Of cour
se you didn’t,” Jada continues. “It’s this attitude that caused the vote to place you all down below. And it is there that you shall turn around and return to, immediately.”
“We’re going to the bridge,” Alan says.
“Oh for goodness sakes,” Jada reaches down to her shoes and flicks a small switch on the side of each one. Her companions and the masked men do the same. Then, straightening, she pulls a lever on the wall. The lower deckers immediately leave the floor and float up to the ceiling.
Jada looks up at them. “If you insist on this stubborn display then I will simply have to remove your ability to resist.”
Alan looks down at their opponents’ shoes.
“Magnetic adhesion,” Takeda says as he gradually pushes himself back toward the floor with his cane.
Alan tries to force himself to fall back to the floor but is unable to. Danny braces himself against a beam on the ceiling. He rears a sword back and launches it at Jada. The projectile flips end over end toward her. A masked man turns off his magnetic shoes and pushes upward in the path of the sword. It hits him, burying itself into his chest and pushing him backwards above Jada, nearly kicking her in the head.
“Would someone mind?” Jada says. The axe-woman hooks her axe on the man’s foot and pulls him aside.
Both sides remain in place, staring at each other. “Well, don’t just stand there,” Jada shouts to all of the masked men. “They’re as easy as pinatas, now.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The masked men move toward the prone group, swords ready. The heavy clunking of their boots are like thunderous clapping in Alan’s ears. Most of the men convey no emotion on their task. Others seem to relish what they’re about to do. White smiles of sinister glee are illuminated by the light reflecting off of the Earth outside the windows. Short swords wave back and forth in a teasing pattern.
Alan looks back at his group then ahead at Jada. Her fingers steeple and tap together as she smiles at what is to come. His eyes dart to the gravity control lever. One of the masked men uses the tip of his sword to spin a dead soldier. The body turns on a horizontal axis, moving toward Alan. The leader of the lower deck grabs the spinning deceased’s boot and pushes the man down then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bolt.
The Final Revolution Page 4
