“What is that,” Harold yelled. Declan searched out what Harold asked about, seeing that he had finally taken notice of the mechanical arms. They stopped climbing just as the mechanical arm’s long gray finger tapped the head of a naked woman. Color spiraled out of her body. A moment later, her body slumped down, falling when the floor beneath her opened. And like before, Declan watched the woman slide off the conveyer and disappear into the black depths of the cavern.
“Holy shit!” Harold yelled, grinning from ear to ear. “Did you see that?”
“Let’s keep moving,” Declan said glumly. He couldn’t be certain what sickened him more… the machine’s appetite, or how Harold reacted. Harold remained still, staring as two more bodies were disposed. Declan nudged his middle, poking just below a rib to jibe him into moving.
“Watch it!” Harold yelled, sending his foot across Declan’s face. The bottom of Harold’s shoe grazed Declan’s head, leaving behind a scrape that stung when the briny air touched it. “I gave you a warning—didn’t I. And the next one won’t just scratch your pretty face.”
Declan moved back to the safety of the landing as the cut on his face began to bleed into his eye. He’d clean it up and then continue his climb. As he worked a makeshift bandage, he was surprised to see how well Harold took to the wall. He climbed with efficiency, seeming to know exactly where to place his feet and hands. But when Harold took his eyes off of the wall to watch the mechanical arms deliver more death, he misplaced a hand and slipped. Declan launched himself, pressing his middle against the railing, clutching it with one hand and grabbing Harold’s arm with the other.
“Help me,” Harold pleaded. Declan strained, feeling the muscles rip in his arm as he tried to pull Harold back to the landing. But Harold was too heavy and had begun to slip.
“You’ll need both arms. If I can reach the bottom rail, then I can pull myself up.” Harold pawed at Declan’s arm with both hands, climbing him like a rope. But his weight and strength were too much, and Declan felt his feet slipping from the grated floor—he was going to topple over the rail.
“Wait, I’m falling over!” he screamed, and pinned one of his legs between the railing bars to brace himself. “I can’t pull you up.”
“I’ll pull you down if you don’t,” Harold screamed at him, his voice breaking in raspy gasps. “I’ll pull us both down! Now give me your other arm!”
Declan hesitated, but then saw the detonator perching on the lip of Harold’s pocket.
“It’s time,” Declan told him, and in a single instant, he decided Harold’s fate.
“What?” Harold asked, his bemused expression becoming a plea.
Declan ignored Harold, and pinned his other leg behind the rail, securing himself to the landing. He leaned over, swinging his free arm and slapped Andie’s large gray button one last time.
“Hi everybody,” Andie sang. Declan wept when he heard Andie’s voice.
“What are you doing?” Harold cried. “What do you think you’re doing!”
“Fuck you Harold!” Declan answered flatly and plucked the detonator from Harold’s pocket.
“No… No, you can’t do that!”
“You killed Sammi!” he told him, fixing his eyes on Harold’s piggy face. He stared into the evil that he had known all of his life. He looked for the promise of anything worthy but found nothing. “You killed her!”
“Please Declan,” Harold begged. “Oh please, it was an accident, I swear—”
But Declan never let him finish, and loosened his grip just enough to feel the last of the evil slip from his fingers.
“Andie—projector!” Declan screamed and watched the bulbous orb rise out of Andie’s head. He heard the faint echo of the droid’s voice but couldn’t make out the words over Harold’s screams. And as they fell, Andie’s orb beamed an arrow of brilliant light that circled around and around, painting everything it touched in a beautiful array of white light.
When Andie’s projector was at its brightest, Declan wished his mechanical friend a final goodbye and then pressed the detonator.
There was one other time in Declan’s life that he had seen the sun. Today he saw it again in the form of an enormous ball of fire racing to consume everything in the cavern. The shockwave came first, causing bodies to tumble and fall mercilessly from the conveyors. Arms and legs spilled over the ledges, careening toward the volcano erupting below them. Declan held onto the platform—his head thrown back as the heat came next. In an instant, the air was like an oven and impossible to breathe. Declan pulled himself back to the landing, falling to his knees and tried to secure himself to the grated floor.
He dared a look below, but the brightness was too much. The cavern’s black depths had suddenly became alive as a monstrous fire crawled up the walls, consuming everything.
A blink. Declan had nothing but a single blink before he knew that he was going to turn to ash if he didn’t get off the landing.
“Climb,” he tried to yell, but his throat had scorched in the heated air. He blindly reached up, searching for the opening. His hands and feet found exactly where they needed to be as though some kind of magic helped push him out of harm’s way.
When he saddled the cavern’s opening and crawled into the corridor, the flames of the explosion rifled up from behind him and careened over his head. The force of the massive fireball threw the parade of zombies onto their backs and shattered the lights on the walls. Declan covered his head, feeling the heat burning his hair and scalp. He shut his eyes, pressing them and then covering his face, fearing that his eyeballs would melt. The heat was enormous, and the air remained too hot to breath.
A sip, he told himself. Just a sip, or you’ll pass out. But the air burned his throat and his lungs. He forced himself to breath, and his throat instinctively began to close.
I‘m going to suffocate. A notion of dread swam through his head as a thankful rush of cool air blew over his face. He opened his mouth to breath it in. The fire pulled on the air, sucking it in from all corners of the machine. H dared another sip of the cool air, taking in just enough to stay alive.
Declan crawled along the floor as blackness crept into his eyes. But he pushed, gulping at the burnt air. The flames danced along the walls and ceiling, burning and melting everything it touched. As he reached the machine’s great hub, black smoke billowed upward, filling the enormous chamber and hiding the lights. When the fires finally crawled back into the cavern like a dragon to its lair, the air began to return. Declan eased up onto his knees, choking and vomiting. Soon he knelt forward and was able to get to his feet. A rumble came from the cavern.
A second explosion? he wondered and realized that the Andie-bomb may have had more energy cells left to explode. His only other thought was to run.
19
Excitement fluttered deep in Isla’s gut. The frightful essence of it born the moment she met the strange man named Phil. He’s aware too, she thought cheerfully, and shuddered as a wonderful notion ticked inside her. An ancient notion, she considered jokingly, and then tried to remember the last time she looked at a man the way she looked at him. Isla caught herself staring again, but then forced herself to turn back to the terminal and to follow his suggestions as she navigated a hundred different systems at the same time.
Her sisters—that is what she decided to call them—were doing the same exact maneuvers as her, mirroring every move in near perfect synchronization, guaranteeing a unified system attack.
“The programming is easy enough,” she mumbled. “Just a simple relay, tripping one component and then another—all in series so that only a few vital systems remain on.”
“Life support” Phil added, but the reference did not sound familiar to her. Many of his references were unfamiliar, but like any puzzle, she could figure out the meaning. “Forever?”
Isla nodded, a smile slipping as she glanced in his direction. The idea of the machine not running anymore felt as strange to her as sharing company with another person.
“That one!” Phil interrupted. “I know that one… select it.”
Isla swiped her finger across the screen, tripping one of the animated switches. An animated dial appeared. Phil instructed her to rotate the virtual knob clockwise twenty degrees, and not a degree more. She followed his instructions, all the while watching the six other open sessions, making sure her sisters followed her lead. One at a time, the dials turned the twenty degrees that Phil instructed. When each of her sisters typed that they were ready, Isla knew it was time.
Anxiety ticked deep inside her, causing her shoulders to stiffen and her mouth to go dry. She swallowed nervously, uncertain of their outcome. The anticipation made her feel both giddy and scared at the same time.
“We’re all set,” she told Phil, putting his hand in hers. She searched for assurance from him about what they were doing. He looked at her steadily but then raised his brow. She sensed that he was equally unsure of what was going to happen. “Ready?”
“I’m ready,” he answered and signaled to her to forward the remaining set of instructions. Isla took a deep breath but then hesitated. Her finger hung in the air—an inch from changing their world forever. Phil cradled her hand and moved it forward, touching the screen. “We’ve come this far—it’s time to finish it.”
Like before, they watched the latest set of directions reach one of her sisters. The instructions were then passed on to one of the others, who passed it on. She tried to blink, but froze, watching, as the cycle repeated until all of them had applied the changes. She sighed and lightly clapped Phil on the shoulder, celebrating their accomplishment. Phil raised his hand, quieting the moment, and then pointed at the screen.
A minute was all they had—less really, when taking into account the delays that occurred while relaying the messages around the world. The messaging isn’t instantaneous, she reminded herself. Don’t forget to account for the communications delay. After all, just one misstep and the affected machine could turn the machine closest to it back on, tripping that machine to turn the next one on, repeating until they were all back on. Isla shook her head at the complexity of the timing but loved the risk and excitement, too.
As she swiped around the animated knobs and switches, watching the translucent white dial-marking move from position four to position six, the machine suddenly groaned and heaved like a mountain waking to cough out volcanic ash. Isla pulled her hand back—unsure if she had caused the piercing sound. Vibrations came next and sent a shudder through the room, throwing the lab equipment into a frenzied dance atop the tables and from the storage shelves. Glass fell, shattering in a rain of tumbling pebbles. Any remains of her lab from the zombie attack was quickly lost. She pushed both hands up into the air, terrified of touching anything else.
“Was that supposed to happen?” she asked. But Phil didn’t answer. His face twisted in a morph of excitement and confusion. “Phil! Is that us?”
“Yes! It’s working,” he answered her. “Six is the correct number, but warn the others about the potential for a huge shudder.”
She warned the others. And as they made the change, they reported back that their machine’s tempo slowed. But they also reported that there was no shudder felt.
“They didn’t get the shudder,” she relayed and raised her voice, fearing their machine was different, jeopardizing their plan. Phil turned, darting glances, placing his hands on the metal floor to feel the vibrations. He closed his eyes, moving his lips, but said nothing.
“The machine is slowing, but the shudder wasn’t from us… not like before.” Phil told her as he sat back down. “Must be the boy, Declan and his friend. I think they’ve reached the soul of the machine and destroyed it.”
“No turning back now,” she said. A small, dying reservation caused her to pause and consider what it was that they were going to do. After all, this had been her home for more years than her own Commune. She let the sadness hold her for just a moment and then shook it off, turning back to her terminal’s screen to check the progress reported by her sisters.
“No turning back,” he repeated her words, putting his hand on her back. She leaned against his warm touch and continued turning the dials and flipping the switches.
“Now what?” she asked, having exhausted all the changes. Her mind wandered to what she thought would be next. “It’s the lights. Correct? We have to disconnect them too.”
Nodding, Phil smiled at her. “Now you’re getting it.” She liked that he said that and then moved to the next set of internal system, sending new instructions to her sisters. A few reported back that they had already applied the change, realizing what the next logical step had to be. Isla had underestimated her sisters and felt a sense of pride. She pressed her hand on the terminal, comforted by their confidence.
The door to the lab opened, blowing in a strong wind of commotion. The smell of burnt air came with it as a smokey figure fell into the room. Isla gasped when she saw the charred shadow of Declan. Smoke streamed in behind him and clouded around him as if resting when he stopped. His coveralls were mere cinders, still burning with stray embers shooting off as he dropped to his knees. Phil leaped from his chair, patting down Declan’s burning coveralls.
“It’s done!” Declan yelled, but his voice was nothing more than a gravelly wheeze, and he seemed oblivious to what was happening to his coveralls. Isla continued typing instructions but found that she could not turn away. “The soul… the machine’s soul… destroyed it!”
Black soot covered his face, extinguishing his features in a way that looked inhuman. His hair had been singed from the heat, curling and matting in spots with wisps of smoke continuing to float about as he stood back up to moved across the room. As he passed her, the stench of burnt flesh carried with him, causing her to choke. Beyond the smoldering odor, it was his face that was the most frightening. The whites of his eyes beamed like lights—surrounded by skin that had darkened and bubbled until it peeled back, cutting red tears through the ashy soot.
“What happened to your friend?” Isla asked. “Phil mentioned you brought someone to help.”
“Died,” Declan answered and then hesitated. “He took the bomb to the bottom. Did it work? Is the machine dead?”
“I’m sorry about your friend—” Phil began to say.
“Wasn’t a friend,” Declan interrupted. “He wasn’t anyone’s friend. Did it work?”
“It certainly helped,” Phil said. “This machine won’t function anymore, not for mining and recycling anyway. We’re trying to break the restart cycle now. How are we doing Isla?”
“Good,” she answered, realizing that she was staring at Declan. It was his ears. She had never seen anything like them. One was nearly completely gone, burned away to just the lobe. The other had faired better—blackened and split open—fresh blood dripped from the open wound. Hadn’t been cauterized, it will become infected soon if left alone, she thought. “There’s some water and a first-aid kit?”
“Thank you,” Declan wheezed and almost at once wavered, leaning forward and then back as though he would collapse. He shook himself and focused past her, staring at the terminal’s screen. “You can see the other machines from there?”
“Not just see them, but talk to them too,” Phil answered. “We’ve made contact with each of them and we’re just about ready to shut the core systems down.”
“Why not shut it all down?” Declan argued. “I mean, turn it off. Turn everything off.”
“We can’t,” she exclaimed. And while she had thought the same, Isla also considered what would happen next. How many people were awakened? How many were put to work year after year, for centuries? “We have to take care of everyone who will become aware like us… like Sammi.”
“Will the clouds lift?” Declan asked, faltering again while he tried to wash
some of the soot from his face.
“You’re talking about the End of Gray Skies?” she asked, realizing that she hadn’t heard the words, let alone speak of them, in decades. “If I’m understanding what we’ve done here, then yes, we’ll see the end of gray skies.”
“Do it!” Phil screamed, startling Isla. She saw something then—deep in his eyes—a crazed unrest that she initially thought might be exhaustion. But when he stopped helping Declan and shook a fist in the air, she realized it was more. He had waited a millennium for this moment, and he would not wait a moment longer. Tremors erupted across his body and huge patches of red blotted his cheeks as he began to yell, “Do It! DO IT!”
Without hesitation, Isla punched in the last of the codes, confirming the plan with each of her sisters. Together they set into motion what would end the machine’s hold on their world.
Declan screamed and grabbed at his head, trying to hide from a sound that seemed to come from everywhere. Isla cried out, but her voice disappeared in the noise. She dug her fingers deep into her ears and felt her insides begin to shake apart. The room tipped to one side, and the lights on the wall shattered in a silent glassy rainfall. Her equipments was next—the remaining test tubes and beakers cracked in a blink, covering the glass with a laden mosaic of geometric shapes. She watched as one bled its contents before finally disintegrating into a crumpled pile.
Something warm and wet kissed her cheek, turning cold almost at once. The same sensation kissed her other cheek, and Isla brought her hand back from her ears. A bright red blood stain blossomed like a flower in her palm.
The blood vault, she wondered, and pushed herself up, holding onto the lab tables. She made her way to the round window and peered inside the room. The articulating arms had stopped moving. It’s working.
Union Page 10
