by David Beers
Their speed picked up and finally she was running.
They reached the bottom and spilled out onto the platform. Christine walked to its edge and looked up into the sky. The transports were closer, and God, there were so many. They were like massive bees covering flowers, searching up and down for honey.
“What do we do?” someone yelled to her.
“Get inside the transport!” she hollered across the platform.
There was a slight breeze, which was unusual but showed how many transports were looking for her—all their wind turbines actually changing the city’s atmosphere.
You’re not going to make it, she thought. They’re right. What are you going to do? Race out of this city without them seeing you? Do you think the rickety thing beneath this platform is going to have more speed than the ones you’re looking at? Everyone is dead. All of you.
Some leaders might have sacrificed themselves right then. They might have turned around and told their followers to go, that they would bring the enemy transports to them.
The idea never even occurred to Christine. She would neither sacrifice herself nor surrender, because both were the same. The people following her, those that followed David before, had volunteered to die for this cause, and Christine would make them do it. They would fight until the end. Everyone beneath her command. If David died serving the Unformed, then so would they.
She turned and ran across the platform, the metal clanging beneath her pounding feet. She rushed down the small stairs and hopped into the transport’s open top.
Ten people were either seated or standing, all looking at her. Their faces were dirty, and she knew many held wounds beneath their clothing.
Christine walked to the front of the transport and sat in her chair, facing the front window.
Seal us off, she told her nanotech.
The transport’s top closed.
She listened to the soft noise of the turbines spinning outside. The moment she left the bottom of this building, the True Faith would see her. They would come, perhaps all of them.
She turned around and looked at the crew behind her. “You two,” she said, pointing at the two men that had been with her since Day One. She thought their names both started with an ‘e’, but that’s as much as she knew. “Take hold of the weapons. Don’t fire until they’re within 30 Corinanmers. We can’t waste power with the lasers if we’re going to miss, and this thing isn’t going to be accurate at far distances. Do you understand?”
Both nodded.
She held their gaze for another second. Filthy and young, most likely their blood had been passed from their parents. They were here though, with her. They hadn’t fled, and now they were going to defend everyone in here against the coming onslaught.
Christine nodded back at them, then turned around to face the transport’s front.
She closed her eyes for a second, swallowed, and braced herself for the violence coming. When she opened them, she reached forward and grabbed the transport’s controls. She pressed forward on the accelerator and the smooth hum outside increased. At the same time, she dropped the transport and it streaked down beneath the building.
It paused for a brief second, hanging in the air, as she switched directions from down to forward.
The transport took off, slamming her and everyone else back into their seats.
She glanced to the upper left of the window, seeing the transport’s rear displayed.
The 100 transports had all stopped moving over their metal flowers, their noses now pointing toward the strange transport fleeing the city.
Christine tried to press harder on the accelerator, but there was nowhere for it to go. The transport vibrated as it whipped by the buildings outside.
Still looking in the upper left of the screen, Christine saw transports dropping just as hers had. Ten at first, then another twenty, and finally the majority of them were all free falling from the city, looking to find the open sky beneath the dangers of the city’s buildings. She had a bit of a head start on them, but not much. The transport was roaring along, at least it felt like it inside, but Christine understood that the things behind her would catch up quickly.
Seconds turned into minutes. No one around Christine spoke, most of them were turned around and looking at the coming onslaught.
They reached her just as she passed the city’s last building.
“FIRE!” she shouted.
The lasers ignited, rocking the inside of the transport. Christine bore down on the accelerator, maintaining control of the machine.
“YES!” someone shouted in the back. Christine’s eyes flashed to the upper left of the window and watched as one of the enemy ships fell, flames growing rapidly across its exterior.
Christine looked forward again. She tilted the nose down, picking up speed as she bent to gravity’s will.
The ships behind her did the same.
One approached on her right, breaking her transport’s back plane.
“HIT IT!” someone shouted. Lasers were firing off the ship at a constant pace, but Christine couldn’t keep up with what they were striking.
A green light flashed inside the transport, starting at the top and then scanning down. The transport shook, both from the speed Christine imposed on it and the lasers shooting from it. The green light flowed down Christine’s body, and she watched it as it scanned her taut forearms gripping the ship’s controls.
“I GOT IT!” someone shouted and the green light died. Christine glanced to her right, seeing the ship that had been scanning them dropping.
Another ship pulled up on the opposite side, slowing down as it did, so that they were traveling at the same speed. Christine looked at it, knowing with certainty that she couldn’t outrun any of them. It was further away, yet the green light splayed from its side, catching her transport in its rays.
It moved across her opposite shoulder, then stopped.
It held about midway through the transport, the green light cutting a line right across her arm.
The light shut off and Christine looked over, hoping to see the transport falling as the other had.
They know you’re in here, she thought.
“KILL THEM!”
Lasers ripped from the transport’s weapons, but each shot was keeping it from reaching its full speed—sacrificing power for protection.
More were approaching now. Christine saw one appear at the top of her vision, another beneath them.
“BRING YOUR TRANSPORT TO A STOP.”
The voice was human and filled the air, muting even the lasers’ noise.
Christine’s teeth ground together and she tried yet again to push the accelerator forward.
The transport above her moved closer.
“SHOOT THE MOTHERFUCKER!” Christine shouted.
“I CAN’T! IT’S TOO CLOSE, THE RICOCHET WILL HIT US!” one of the men screamed back.
Christine wasted no time. She flipped the thrusters from behind her toward the ship’s bottom. Everyone inside flew forward, even the gunners losing grips on their weapons. The transport ripped upward, slamming into the ship above them. Metal crunched and Christine looked up, her hands reflexively loosening on the controls as she tried to see if her attack was working.
The enemy ship didn’t veer to the left or right, but rather sat on top of them. Christine looked down; the ship from the bottom was almost on them now. If Christine fell through the floor, she wouldn’t fall more than six inches before landing on it.
She knew what came next.
It was over.
Fuck ‘em, she thought.
The turbines switched again. She blasted them above and the transport flew into the ship beneath, slamming into it … Or that’s what she expected to happen. Instead Christine saw only electricity spread out across the transport’s bottom. There was an electrical field around them.
And now she felt it, her speed decreasing. Her hands held the controls down, but it didn’t matter. They were slowing, the invi
sible field forcing them to stop. She turned around and looked at those behind her.
“Hand to hand, then. Use whatever you can.”
Christine stood, ready to die. She pulled a blade from her jacket pocket. She watched as others pulled more advanced weapons, but Christine had learned over the past few weeks that she preferred steel when it came to death.
The ship slowed to a full stop.
They hovered in the air, and Christine took a moment to look around outside. Transports everywhere. They weren’t firing, though, and that meant they were here to capture her—not kill her.
Electricity sparked above her and she watched as the field peeled back the transport’s door. It opened slowly, metal mechanisms inside screeching in protest. Christine brought the blade in front of her, expecting people to drop down and the fight to begin.
The door stood open for a moment and everyone stared up, though no one moved.
Christine felt the blast, but just for a second. Air—and only air—yet still a force she had never felt before shot out from the ship above. She held no chance against it, and it filled the transport. She lost her footing immediately and was pressed down against the floor. Her head hit it hard, and bright stars danced across her vision, quickly followed by blackness encroaching around the sides.
She looked around her and saw the others pressed down as well. No one was able to move. Everyone had been disabled without so much as a single punch thrown.
Christine thought that people would drop in, but as her transport started moving forward again she realized they wouldn’t waste the effort. The air kept pummeling her, refusing to let her up. She could see the skin on her arms rippling flat against her bones.
The transport slowly turned around and started flying north.
Christine saw the blade, knocked from her grip and held firmly in place just out of reach. She closed her eyes, still seeing stars in the darkness, and knew that the war was over.
Three
“There they are,” the First Priest said. He spoke as if he was showing Rebecca matching dining room furniture he wanted to sell her.
Instead of something she might want to purchase, Rebecca was looking at two people she loved. Perhaps the last two of those people that existed. Rhett and Christine.
They were spread eagle against a stone wall. Necklaces were wrapped around their necks and clamps held their arms and wrists against the stone. Their bodies didn’t sag against the clamps, meaning that they were supported by something unseen. Rebecca didn’t know what, having no idea what sort of power the True Faith held. It could be magic for all she knew.
They had gotten Christine.
There’s nothing they can’t have now, she thought. David is gone and their reign is supreme. The only thing that ever protected you from this fate was him, and you killed him.
“I’ve told the one on the right, Scoble, that you were our informant. I don’t think he’s told the new woman yet, though I’m not completely sure why. Perhaps he doesn’t believe me, or doesn’t want to.”
Rebecca sat on the stool in the middle of her room; the wall which flickered in and out of existence to let the Priest in now displayed her loved ones.
The First Priest turned to her, though Rebecca didn’t look over. “I know that you worked alone, but I still find it hard to believe. All of these people loved him, your dead brother. They all wanted him to succeed; yet you, his sister, decided that couldn’t happen. I find it … odd, I guess.”
“What’s going to happen to them?” Rebecca asked. Demanding anything was impossible, and if she needed a reminder, she only had to reach up and touch her tender cheek.
“It depends on how much you, and they, want to work with me. Each of you will influence how much pain you all receive,” the First Priest said, looking back to the wall.
“What do you think I can tell you? I don’t have David’s power. I never did. Neither did they. You’re asking for us to describe a world that we’ve never been to. I can only tell you what I saw with David, but that’s not going to help you.”
The First Priest’s bald face remained placid. “That’s a start. Let’s begin there. Tell me everything you know about your brother, and when you finish, we’ll see what else we can figure out.”
“What are you going to ask of them?” Rebecca said.
He smiled. “I’m not sure yet. I think figuring out how they can serve Corinth will be part of the fun.” The First Priest looked to her again. “We’ll begin tonight. I want you to start at the beginning. I want to know everything about him, your dead Prophet. I don’t care how long it takes.”
Rebecca remained still for a moment. Rhett and Christine didn’t appear to be in any pain, but what would they look like next time she saw them? Would all their skin still be there? What about their eyes? Fingers and toes? What parts of them would be missing, and how could she help stop that?
“I’ll tell you what I know….” Rebecca had to be careful with her words here. Foolishness couldn’t be mistaken for bravery, and to make demands would bring only pain. Yet, she still wanted to tell this man something—anything—that might help Rhett and Christine.
Your choices put them up there, arms and legs spread, at this Priest’s mercy.
“Were you going to finish that sentence?” he asked.
“No,” Rebecca said as tears came to her eyes.
There wasn’t any point. Foolishness or bravery, what did any of it matter anymore?
“I’m going to go see your friends then,” the First Priest said. “Think about where you want to start this evening.”
The two hadn’t spoken much, and Rhett figured that was for two reasons, the first being anything they said would be heard. The second was … what did they really have to say?
They both knew what was going to happen, and for the most part, what had already happened.
There’s more to tell her, Rhett. You just don’t want to do it.
He hadn’t mentioned to Christine what the First Priest told him. He hadn’t said anything about Rebecca, and he wasn’t going to. Because it wasn’t true.
Then why are you worrying about it? a piece of his mind asked. If it’s a lie, why not put it out in the open? Christine won’t believe it either.
Was that true, though? Innately, Rhett felt Christine would be more inclined to believe it, regardless of how close Rebecca and David had been.
She’s right next to you. Tell her and find out.
Rhett pushed the thought from his mind. It didn’t matter if he said anything or not, the Priest would whenever he returned—Rhett was sure of that.
They now hung against the wall, though the word ‘hung’ wasn’t exactly accurate. It was simply all Rhett’s exhausted mind could come up with at the moment. There wasn’t any pain; they simply rested with their backs against the wall. Rhett knew they were waiting for pain, though.
Christine did, too, even if she hadn’t voiced it. Their past had led to this present, and both surely knew what was to come.
“How long do you think we’ve been in here?” she asked, pulling him from his thoughts.
He found that he liked hearing her voice. Preferred it immeasurably to the sound of his own thoughts.
“I don’t know.”
“I hate this,” she said. “It’s the most undignified position I’ve ever been in.”
Rhett smiled. “Undignified?”
“I don’t really have another phrase for it. You know what I’m saying.”
He did. Their bodies spread wide across the wall and forced to stare straight forward; he was almost like a cadaver.
He couldn’t help but laugh, even if softly, at Christine’s rancor. Their world had ended, and they now sat at the Old World’s proverbial gates of hell, waiting for the Devil to come open them … and yet she had a problem with the way the gates looked.
“You saw him?” she asked. “At the end?”
“Yes,” Rhett said.
“How did it happen? I haven’t heard an
ything, not since you first told me. Only rumors.”
Rhett closed his eyes, picturing David in the sky. Flying backwards and sending those gray webs forward, a God in his element and fighting some demon refusing to recognize his power.
“He was … He was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. This man, this Disciple, was going after him. They were in the sky and David kept retreating. The Disciple, he was somehow immune to David’s gray. I didn’t know what was going to happen. It seemed like he couldn’t actually hurt the Disciple, but the Disciple couldn’t reach him either. It was a standoff, I guess. And then ….”
He paused, seeing the orange lights again—huge, bright dots appearing across the sky.
A chill went down his body.
“Ships. Hundreds of them. They were invisible, Christine. No one saw them. No one knew they were there at all. They surrounded him and he had no idea. They all fired at once … and that was it. He just fell ….”
“Stop,” Christine said. Rhett’s voice had turned watery, unable to hold his emotion back. Christine’s was frosted ice from an arctic cave untouched by the sun. “Ships? Ships shot David?”
Rhett couldn’t nod, nor turn to look at Christine. “Yes.”
“That’s not possible ….” She trailed off for a second, then said, “You’re sure? It wasn’t something else? Not some trick the True Faith used?”
Rhett opened his mouth, but paused for a moment, the memory replaying. “No. I’m sure. The lasers somehow revealed the parts of the ships they were attached to. Like outlines in the sky. Ships shot him down, Christine. Why does it matter?”
“I don’t believe it,” she said, the ice freezing harder. “I don’t fucking believe it.”
Rhett could only stare across the empty room, could see none of the emotion on Christine’s face. “What? What is it?”
“She knew. She fucking knew they were coming for him.”
Rhett felt his stomach sink, a thousand pound weight suddenly appearing inside him. “Who?”
“Rebecca. I told her. We heard from a source that they were sending ships after David, and I told her.” The last two words broke through the ice and sounded hysterical. They echoed off the walls around them, a madness bouncing to and fro before finally coming to rest, leaving only silence behind.
