by Mark Lingane
“Do you have a plan?”
There was a crazy twinkle in the old man’s eye. “Maybe I show them what science can do.”
34
THE HEAVENS OPENED and rain poured from the sky. They hurried through a resistance shop and gathered some supplies and raincoats.
“Is meteorology the same kind of science as astrology? Didn’t everyone hear the weather expert—and how he or she gets away with using that term is a complete mystery—say definitely fine weather for the next week? I mean, wouldn’t Mr. Weather Expert be more accurate if he looked out the window occasionally?”
Lights were going out all over the city. Vandalism and latent thuggery were rife. Good people were petrified into hiding as best they could in their homes, but the marauding crowds paid little respect to the property of good people.
Melanie took the lead in the small pack, with Nikola in the rear, and Gavin and the two boys in between. She ducked her head around each corner and swept the street ahead before waving the others up behind her.
They passed the sad ruins of the tesla school. Scaffolding surrounded the building, with ropes, buckets, wheelbarrows, and multiple piles of bricks scattered through the various levels.
Nikola noticed a familiar shadow in the school doorway. “Oliver?” he whispered.
Oliver stepped out of the shadows into the semi-darkness. The faint rays of a distant gas lamp caught the fear in his face, the terror in his eyes.
“Oliver, I’m glad to see you,” Gavin said. “I was worried you’d been caught and we wouldn’t be able to escape.”
“I have plans.” Oliver patted the young man on the shoulder. “There’s no need to worry. Tell me of your plans.”
“We’re going to the third dam to the south of the city,” Gavin said.
“Shh, not too loudly, we don’t know who’s listening,” Nikola said.
Melanie continued to keep a watchful eye out.
“And?” Oliver said.
“That’s all at the moment,” Gavin said. “Please come and meet us there.”
“I’ll do my best,” Oliver said, “but don’t be worried for me, as arrangements have been made. Remember your powers and what we’ve been striving toward.”
Gavin nodded. Melanie thought it was an odd thing for Oliver to say, but she thought that perhaps the comment reflected the circumstances.
There was a loud shout from down the street. A large crowd appeared around the corner. Melanie pushed Oliver back into the shadows of the school, and the others crowded in after her. They all waited.
There was shouting. There was crashing. There was unpleasant laughter.
Melanie stepped out into the alley, a solitary figure dimly outlined by the distant glow of the streetlight. The front row of the crowd came to a stuttering halt.
Someone said, unwisely, “Get her. She’s a dirty stinking tesla lover.”
The crowd surged forward.
Melanie extracted two large pistols from the holsters strapped beneath her cloak. She leveled them at the crowd. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
The men in front came to a sudden halt, causing those directly behind them to be pressed forward by the throng at the back.
“You need to be more accepting of people who are different from you. Especially when they have greater fire power.” Melanie cocked the pistols. The men directly in the line of fire gulped nervously and desperately tried to shuffle sideways.
“They’re freaks. Deviants. We don’t want ’em in our city,” someone shouted from the back, well cushioned from the hot action.
“Funny thing is,” Melanie said, her tone calm and measured, “they’ve all been here longer than most, if not all, of you. They accepted you into their city, and this is how you act?”
“The Lord says they should be cast out,” said a man with unruly black hair and near rags for clothes.
“Under which commandment? Is it after the one that says treat others as you wish to be treated yourself?”
There was a muttering from the crowd.
“I didn’t think so. So get out of our way, or so help me I’ll part you like the Red Sea.”
“There are more of us than you,” a tall man called from within the crowd. “You don’t scare us.”
The men at the back started to push forward again. The focus had been lost and the front row regained their collective courage.
“Look, there’s one of them now,” the thin, black-haired man said.
Melanie hazarded a look over her shoulder. Out from the shadows stepped Isaac. He was walking oddly, and had smoothed his long blond hair, from the usual tangled mess, into long straight locks. He looked beatific. He stretched out his arms and gently started to rise into the air. Flames erupted behind him and billowed out in a halo.
He looked down on the crowd. “Be gone, ye foul unbelievers. Cast ye demons out, out, damned spot, and cleanse your sins from my hands, whether it is nobler to suffer your slings and arrows, wherefore art thou.”
A breeze blew the sparks and heat from the flames behind him down the alleyway, where it singed the eyebrows of the men at the front of the crowd. It wasn’t much but it was enough to scare them. They reeled back in fear, pushing against the men behind them, who were still pushing forward. The men in the middle, trapped between the two pushing factions, started to panic, shouting angrily.
The crowd’s collective courage dribbled down their legs and into their boots, along with their hearts. As one, they retreated.
Melanie watched them go as Isaac was brought somewhat unevenly down to earth. He landed heavily on his backside and slumped to the ground. He rolled over in sudden panic and put the flames out. He stood up and removed the rope from around his waist as the others came out from the doorway. Nikola began coiling up the rope he had used to hoist Isaac into the air.
“I see the melodrama of the amateur dramatic society finally paid off,” Melanie said.
“You can mock me, but you have to admit it came in handy. My cape will never be the same again, though.” Isaac removed the oily and charred remains of his cape and dropped it on the cobblestones.
Oliver grinned. “Science and simple illusion triumphs again over irrational thought and fear.”
“That scared them off for the moment, but this is really bad. What are we going to do? We’re all targets now,” Melanie said.
“I’m so sorry,” Sebastian said. “Maybe we should leave. You have enough to deal with here.”
Melanie looked at him. “We stay together. You and I’ve been through too much for either of us to give up. Anyway, if I abandoned you, whom would I laugh at?”
Nikola and Oliver shook hands. “Good luck, friend,” Nikola said. “I hope we meet up again in better circumstances.”
Oliver nodded. “Take heart, old chum, science will prevail one way or another.” He quickly glanced at the sixth floor of the administration building. Melanie noticed that Nikola looked up as well. Then Oliver stepped into the darkness and was gone. Gavin looked physically sick.
“Come on, everybody, time is of the essence here.” Melanie clapped her hands in an effort to refocus them all.
They charged on through the maze of alleyways toward the gateway.
“Stop,” Sebastian shouted. “I can feel something.”
They all came to a sudden halt and turned onto the main street leading to the gates. A large gun exploded, and a wall of flame and metal erupted down the street in the direction they had been heading. If they had continued around the corner, the flaming ball of metal death would have killed them all.
Sebastian glanced around the corner. All seemed clear. He could see the main gates, standing partially ajar, enticing in their promise of escape and safety beyond. He waited. He couldn’t see or sense anything. He waved everyone around and they charged toward the gates.
Out from the guardhouse stepped a slightly portly lady, wearing a wide-brimmed hat. She leveled a large gun, two-thirds flame-thrower, at them and smiled. She was mutte
ring under her breath. Her eyes were unfocused, staring at a point that only her belief allowed her to see.
“And there was war in heaven: we the angels have fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven.”
She cocked the weapon. It wavered uncertainly, mainly focusing on Sebastian. They could see it was loaded and ready to blast.
“These are the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, as he hath declared to his servants, we the prophets: and then the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdom of our Lord and his Christ, and he shall reign forever. The prophecy has been fulfilled.”
She fired.
35
TIME SLOWED.
MELANIE screamed.
Sebastian remained calm. He closed his eyes and the outline of the bullets appeared in the air in front of him. The bullets slowed and hung suspended in the air. He opened his eyes. “I know your secret,” he whispered.
The bullets dropped out of the air and scattered on the ground. The backblast from the huge gun ignited the remaining gunpowder. The fireball exploded and surged upward, the shockwave flattening everyone except Sebastian and Kerry.
The two stood staring at each other as smoke and flames billowed around them.
“I see your future, child,” Kerry said to Sebastian. “You will die at the hands of your friends.”
Melanie came silently to her feet. “And I have seen yours,” she said. She leveled her gun at the side of Kerry’s head and pulled back the hammer.
Kerry’s expression hardly registered surprise at Melanie’s quiet and swift movement. Her eyes swiveled sideways but the rest of her stayed focused on Sebastian. She said to Melanie, “You are a devil child with your sneaking, deceitful ways.”
“Without your disciples, your words no longer hold any threat. But I have a high-powered gun aimed directly at your head. I win.”
“Melanie,” Sebastian said, “she isn’t worth it.”
“Think of what she’s done, Sebastian. We’re being forced from our city by her evil thoughts.”
“We don’t kill our own people, and she’s one of us.”
“Not by my definition,” Melanie said. “She’s already painted us as the bad people. If we kill her now, we end everything. We all get to go home and sleep in our own beds.”
“Pull the trigger if you dare, sinful harlot.”
“No, Melanie, it’ll make her a martyr,” Sebastian said. “If she dies, the crowd will definitely kill us. We plan. We come back. We show everyone through peaceful ways that we’re not the bad ones.”
Melanie hesitated for a moment longer. “Okay.” She raised her pistol and unloaded it.
“You are stupid, devil child. You should have taken the shot when you had the chance. Now you’ll pay for it.”
A ring of guards from the newly formed mayor’s office quickly surrounded them, herding them into a tight pack with no escape.
“Kill them all,” Kerry said. She turned and walked away.
The team huddled together. Their eyes darted around, looking for a way out. Sebastian examined the weapons facing them. They were the standard short-range rifles used by all the city guards. They all had metal barrels.
A command was barked in the background, a distant echo as he dropped into the darkness. There was a click, followed by a scream, but it was all happening to someone else. He wrapped his mind around the metal, and twisted. He toppled backward into the light. He felt hands grab him and he was running. There was more shouting. His mind began to focus and was presented with the image of Melanie smashing two guards’ heads together. Guns lay discarded on the ground, all with their barrels bent upwards.
They charged toward the gates.
There was a hiss to one side, and Captain Barnes stepped out of a small service entrance in the wall. “This way,” he whispered. He grabbed Nikola as they all ran through. “Keep the flame burning, Commander.”
“Thanks, Barnes. And you try to keep safe.”
Captain Barnes smiled. “The men and I have a plan. Now go.” He closed the heavy door behind them.
They scurried along the outside of the wall, keeping out of sight of the guards in the observation towers. The huge dams loomed large over them, disappearing into the darkness.
Melanie raised her hand as they approached the third dam. All was quiet. The dam seemed deceptively abandoned. There seemed to be nothing beneath it. Underneath the great four pillars suspending the immense well of water there was nothing but smoothed-out sand.
She was worried. “Where is everything? Albert said something would be here.”
“Surely he’d disguise it,” Sebastian said. “You can’t leave a great pile of suspicious-looking equipment around. Someone would report it if they thought they couldn’t steal it.”
“What’s this?” Isaac said. “There’s a sign over here. ‘Do not press this button,’” he read.
“That’s the standard health and safety sign. They put them up under all of the dams,” Gavin said. “Stop wasting time and look for something hidden.”
“Does Albert sign them all?” Isaac asked Nikola.
Nikola had sagged against one of the thick supports and was catching his breath. “None of them.”
“Thought so.” Isaac smacked his palm on the large red button.
“No!” shouted Gavin. He covered his head, waiting for the torrential downpour.
There was a loud hissing from above as the base of the dam slowly descended. The platform landed gently on the sand. On it was a number of large items covered in a sand-colored sheet.
“What I want to know,” Isaac said, “is how he does all this stuff without anyone noticing.”
“He has many hidden talents,” Sebastian said cryptically.
“I think he’s got many hiding talents.”
Melanie ripped off the cover. The moonlight bounced off the shiny vehicles shimmering in the rain. There were four steambikes, custom designed with several obvious enhancements, and one with two of Dr. Gatling’s arm-mounted gun-machines.
Melanie smiled. “That is so mine. If that genius was younger and sexy, I’d kiss him. And here, of course,” she said, looking over at Gavin.
“We need to wait for Oliver,” he said.
“We can’t,” she said. “We should get going. If we wait we’ll be discovered, then we’re all in trouble.”
A monolithic explosion erupted from the fourth floor of the administration building. Flames engulfed the level and crawled up the outside walls.
“Whoa!” Isaac said.
“My books,” muttered Nikola. “I hope Om is okay.”
“They were sacrificed for a good cause,” Melanie said, the only one close enough to hear him.
“I hope they don’t go into the top floor, otherwise they’ll get a real firestorm,” he said.
There was a shout followed by several gunshots. The sand near the team exploded.
“They’re onto us,” shouted Melanie. “Time to go, everyone on their bike.”
“But what about Oliver? He’s not here yet.”
“I’m sorry, Gavin. We have to leave him.”
“No!”
“You heard him, he said not to wait. He’s smart enough to save himself. We on the other hand are being shot at right now.” After seeing his face, she added, “If you want to wait for him and then catch up, it’s up to you. But for now I need to get these people to safety. Are you with us?”
He sighed and got on the bike.
She smiled and blew him a kiss. “Good choice, lover boy.”
They jumped on the bikes and tore off into the distance.
“Where are we heading?” Melanie shouted.
“Camooweal,” replied Nikola. “We should be safe there.”
36
“NIKOLA?” MELANIE CALLED across to Nikola. The warm rain fell against her face, washing the dust and mud away. S
he shook her head occasionally to dislodge the accumulating water from her hair.
“Yes?”
“You and Oliver were looking at the sixth floor.”
“Hmm.”
“Is that where Number One is?”
He looked over to her. There seemed little point in keeping so much from her. The others were a little way behind and wouldn’t be able to hear.
“Yes.”
“But you said Om.”
“Om is the shortened version of Number One’s name. We use it when people are nearby and we don’t want them to know who we’re talking about.”
“Number One has a name?”
“Of course Number One has a name. Omega. Who would name their child Number One?”
“Omega must have had very strange parents.”
“You have no idea.”
“Why did it hurt him? When the cyborgs got up there, it was like the life was ripped out of him.”
“An even harder question. There’s power in this world. Electromagnetic forces keep the universe together and spinning. It seeps through the very fabric of existence. A tesla senses it. Sebastian is capable of controlling it. At the moment it’s a game for him. He hasn’t realized where his path can lead. Omega has been fluctuating ever since Sebastian was born. He presents a danger to it, and the engine can feel that. If you have something that balances everything, and it suddenly unbalances, then what happens?”
“Are you saying that just by being alive Sebastian can unbalance everything?”
“We don’t know. This hasn’t happened before. Well, once, by our iconic hero cast in bronze in the city center.”
“Or—”
It was as far as she got. As they crested the rise, they came face to face with several hundred cyborgs. A wave of black scuttling shapes, offset by a sea of ominous flashing red lights, and a reptilian clicking and slithering, drowned out the natural noises of the desert plain.
They stuttered to a halt. Various close groups of cyborgs turned to face them.
