SecondWorld

by Jeremy Robinson

  Miller drew his knife and stabbed it into the side of the tank. Twin streams of fuel poured out and flowed slowly toward the open end of the crate. He pushed himself back to the other side of the car and stood. Moving in the tight space was difficult, but Miller made his way around to the back of the car as the smell of gasoline wafted into the air.

  Kammler wouldn’t smell the fuel, but he would see it once the puddle emerged from beneath he car, which it would in just a moment.

  Standing at the rear of the car, Miller saw the fuel peek out and made his move. He jumped out of the box, hoping that Kammler would have his weapons trained on the car doors. But he didn’t wait to see if he was right; he dove forward into a roll, just as the weapons twanged, and missed. Again. Kammler cursed in German, his composure melting away.

  Miller knew he had just a few moments before the weapons recharged, and this time, he ran away. Toward the end of the aisle. The crackling hum grew louder as Kammler gave chase, but came to a quick stop as Miller turned around to face him, handgun aimed at the gas.

  Kammler laughed again. “Your people never knew when to keep running,” the man said.

  “And you never know when to shut up and pull the trigger.” Miller adjusted his aim down and to the right. He squeezed off three quick rounds. A flare of orange light followed the third shot, and then a massive explosion as the gas tank ignited. The powerful blast knocked Miller off his feet and smashed Kammler’s machine into the metal frame of the next warehouse stack.

  Miller pushed himself up and took a breath. His chest ached. The pony bottle had been knocked from his face. He found it dangling around his neck and pulled it back on.

  There was a loud grinding of metal and a crackling hum as Kammler’s machine righted itself and yanked its arms free from the large warehouse shelves. The explosion had been powerful, but not powerful enough, and the flames died immediately for the same reason the car wouldn’t start. The twin weapons lowered toward Miller. There would be no banter this time. No delay.

  But Kammler never got to pull the trigger. The three-story-tall warehouse shelf above the car buckled and dumped its contents. Miller didn’t know what the crates held, but when they landed atop Kammler, they struck like a runaway truck. Kammler, and the robotic suit, slammed to the floor as more heavy crates toppled down. Miller doubted the man was dead, but there wasn’t time for that anyway.

  Not wanting to expose himself to more gunfire, Miller found a gap in the crates of the shelving unit between him and the control center. He slid through and found Adler waving him over. “I cannot get in! The programs running the satellites are protected. The settings are locked.”

  She tapped on the keyboard, trying something else. “Scheiße!”

  Miller entered the control center and ran to her side. On the screen he saw a display that showed the status of several satellites. Bars rose and fell, monitoring various systems, none of which Miller could discern since everything was in German. “What is all this?”

  “The system is monitoring the satellites, adjusting power, altitude, everything from here. But it’s locked. I can’t boost the power.” Adler slammed her fist down on the keyboard.

  Computers were not Miller’s forte, but thinking clearly under pressure was. “What would happen if the satellites were no longer being controlled?”

  “In theory, without their energy intake being controlled, they would take in more energy than they could handle. Different method. Same result. They might also just shut down. But I can’t do that either,” Adler said. “Everything to do with the satellites is locked. I’d need a password.”

  “But you can access other functions?”

  “Yeah, everything else, but—”

  “Fork bomb,” Miller said.

  Adler’s eyes went wide. She mouthed the word “fork bomb” and then her fingers became a blur over the keyboard, but the windows he saw on the screen looked nothing like the command prompt he saw in Antarctica.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Have something to do first.”

  “What? There isn’t—”

  “Done,” she said. The command prompt opened and Miller saw the fork bomb code scroll onto the screen.

  $ :(){:|:&};:

  She hit Enter and then said, “We need to get out of here. Now!”

  “We should make sure it works,” Miller said. “If they get here, they could—”

  “They’re never going to get the chance,” Adler shouted. “Listen!”

  Miller focused on his hearing. There were boots. Voices—muffled behind rebreathers. Weapons being cocked. The occasional gunshot seeking them out. And he heard crates being shoved aside from the aisle where Kammler had been buried. But behind it all, there was something else.

  Something persistent.

  And rising.

  A buzz.

  Like a beehive.

  61

  Miller’s head snapped up. A much more modern-looking Bell hung from the ceiling. It was at least half the size of the one in Antarctica. Adler had managed to activate the fail-safe device—what was no doubt meant to be used if the facility was overrun by a hostile force—using Brodeur’s own tactic against him.

  “Take off your weapon’s sound suppressor,” Miller said as he twisted his off. “Let’s make as much noise as we can.”

  Adler removed her silencer. “If we’re going to get out of here, we need to leave now.”

  “We’re not leaving,” Miller said.

  “What!”

  He pointed to the set of double doors that led to the vault door. “You better believe that’s locked down. There’s no way out.”

  Adler looked at the floor. “Then it ends here.”

  “Actually,” Miller said with a morphine smile, “I was thinking it could end in there.” He pointed to the cryogenic chamber. The short hall connecting the two spaces was open. “The cavern in Antarctica was one big open space, so I don’t think they had much choice. But this place is man-made. It will be shielded. I’d bet my life on it.”

  “You are,” she said.

  Miller gave a laugh, forced away his smile, and said, “Sorry. Morphine. Ready?”

  She nodded.

  Miller peeked over the partition and saw an army. A hundred men at least.

  Bullets zinged over his head as he ducked.

  Adler saw his wide eyes. “That bad?”

  “Don’t look. Just point your gun in back as you run and you’re bound to hit someone. Don’t stop shooting until you run out of bullets.”

  Adler braced herself, ready to make a suicidal sprint over two hundred feet of open space.

  Miller looked back at Adler and a flicker of light behind her caught his attention. The computer screens—all of them, including the big display—went black. The fork bomb had worked, but would the satellites overload? And would it be soon enough? There was no way to know, unless they lived. “Go!” Miller shouted, breaking out into a limpy sprint with Adler on his heels.

  The pair started firing right away, which gave them a few seconds to build speed while the enemy flinched. At his best, Miller could finish a hundred-yard dash in just over twelve seconds, two longer than the world record. Injured and hopped up on morphine, he figured it would take twenty.

  Five seconds into his run, Miller ejected his spent clip and slapped in another. The enemy opened fire.

  Adler shouted in pain, but stayed on her feet and kept firing.

  Miller dove into a roll, allowing Adler to pass him, and came up facing the enemy. The control center in the middle of the room had helped block a lot of the fire, but the SS men were running around it now, shooting wildly as they ran. Miller focused, fired several times, and took out the two lead men. But the rest didn’t slow. They had numbers and cultlike conviction on their side.

  He caught sight of Brodeur, just three men back, shouting for his men to press forward. He lined up the shot, but never took it. A round struck his side, tearing skin and muscle before ricocheti
ng off a rib, which broke.

  Miller fell back with a shout.

  Brodeur ordered his men to fire.

  Adler appeared by Miller’s side, yanking him to his feet.

  The SS shooters took aim, tracking their targets more easily while not giving chase.

  Miller stumbled, tripping up Adler. They both fell into the hallway joining the control center with the cryogenics chamber.

  Bullets flew over their heads, kill shots had they not fallen.

  A spike of adrenaline cleared Miller’s morphine-dulled mind and while he gained a surge of energy, he also felt his pain more acutely. He roared in pain as he jumped up, took hold of Adler, and dove into the cryogenics chamber. He scrambled to the side as bullets pinged off the floor.

  Out of sight for the moment, Miller took two deep breaths. His lungs burned. All of the exertion had drained his pony bottle’s air five minutes faster than advertised.

  He took it off and tossed it aside.

  Adler handed him hers, and he took two deep breaths from it before handing it back. He looked down at the woman. She’d taken two rounds, one on the side of her waist and the other on her left trapezius. Both were close to being kill shots, but they were survivable wounds. If treated.

  Running feet followed a war cry from the control center. Miller chanced a look. The SS soldiers ran for the hallway door, charging like men on an ancient battlefield, Brodeur at their lead.

  Miller ducked back as bullets began to fly.

  They were done.

  He dropped his weapon.

  Raised his eyes, like he could see the sky through the hundreds of feet of stone, and said a quick prayer for Arwen.

  That’s when he saw the door.

  A large steel blast door hung above the hallway entrance.

  Just above Miller’s head was a red button labeled NOTFALL in German. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but the button’s function was clear. He struggled to reach it as the sound of running boots echoed through the short hallway.

  Miller lunged up and slapped the button.

  The door descended.

  The fastest of the Nazis dove under the falling door.

  Adler shot him five times.

  The second fastest made it halfway through before the door slammed down, cutting him in half.

  The dull thud of human fists followed.

  Miller stood and helped Adler up.

  The thick blast door had a long, thin window. He walked to it and saw a sea of angry faces. Brodeur stood at the center of them, seething. The man shouted something, but Miller couldn’t hear him. He pointed at his ear and mouthed, “I can’t hear you.”

  Brodeur just stared at him with the eyes of a predator; the eyes of a man who knew he would eventually get through this blast door and destroy his enemy.

  But Miller knew better.

  Though the cryogenics chamber was silent, save for the hum of the life-support systems, he knew the control center would be buzzing with the sound of a thousand bees. He pointed to his ear, and mouthed, “What’s that sound?”

  Brodeur cocked his head slightly, then started shouting and fired two rounds in the ceiling. The pounding on the door ceased. The men surrounding him stopped moving. With a flash of recognition, the color drained from Brodeur’s face. He started to shout an order, but it was already too late.

  Brodeur itched at his skin as it suddenly reddened.

  The men around him began to flail and fall.

  Brodeur took a step back, aimed his weapon at Miller through the window, and pulled the trigger, over and over.

  The gunshots sounded like distant fireworks to Miller. The glass was several inches thick. He didn’t even flinch.

  Brodeur pounded on the window with his fist. The blow left a white smear behind. Brodeur noticed it and looked at his hand. The skin hung loose over his bones as the liquefied meat inside slid down into his arm and pooled at his elbow. The look of horror on his face became disfigured as his muscles, blood, cartilage, and sinews separated into their elemental parts. His face drooped, and then fell away, leaving a blood-covered skull with eyes and bits of stringy flesh dripping down the sides. The eyes stared back at Miller’s, burning with rage. A moment later, the two orbs deflated and fell away. Brodeur’s liquid brain slid out of the eye sockets a moment before his body crashed to the floor, forming a large pool of human sludge along with a hundred other soldiers and the fifty white-clothed men who had already asphyxiated.

  Miller fell away from the door and sat down.

  Adler joined him. “We should move away from the door,” she said. “Just in case.”

  Miller groaned and managed to pull himself away from the growing pool of blood surrounding the one and a half soldiers who made it into the room, but could go no farther. He lay back and closed his eyes. The morphine was wearing off. He was bleeding from, well, everywhere. He had killed his enemy, but it seemed they had done him in, too. It would just take a little longer.

  But it was a good death.

  Or was it?

  “Did you do it?” he asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Save the world?”

  Adler shrugged, leaned on his chest, and closed her eyes as they both slipped into unconsciousness.

  62

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Arwen looked out the window. The view was distorted through the translucent oxygen tent, but she could see the red flakes well enough. The first flake had fallen two hours ago, and the man on the news said—between sobs—that soon, the people who were exposed to the air would suffer from iron poisoning. They would feel sick. Then better. And then sick again before dying.

  But they wouldn’t even last that long. Not this time. The rate of oxidization was much faster than in Miami or Tokyo or Tel Aviv. Within the hour, the air would feel as thin as it was at the top of Mount Everest. An hour after that, only those with air supplies would survive. But with the red storm now projected to last a week—no one knew how long the effects would last beyond that—it was doubtful that many people, if any, would survive.

  Arwen knew from experience that she could last days in her oxygen tent, but the idea of being alone that long only to die alone didn’t sit well with her.

  She lifted up the oxygen tent and slid out of bed. Her wounds hurt a little less now, helped out some by the medication she’d been given. But she hadn’t seen a nurse in hours. Not since the first red flake fell. The medication would wear off soon.

  She eyed the pony bottle Miller left for her. Part of her wanted to take it, load up a cart of oxygen tanks, and make for the hills like Miller would. But there was nowhere to hide.

  An inch of red covered everything outside the window. She looked at the ground and saw some people standing in it, facing death head on.

  When she saw smoke rising in the distance, she realized that not everyone was facing the end of the world so peacefully. Some people would probably die long before the air ran out. Some people were probably already dead.

  As she feared Miller to be.

  He wouldn’t have given up. And if there were red flakes falling from the sky, it meant he was dead.

  Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision.

  So when a distant sparkle of light caught her attention, she couldn’t tell what she’d seen.

  As the newscaster’s voice suddenly grew high-pitched, Arwen wiped her eyes dry and looked in the direction the light had come from.

  Up.

  Then it repeated. A blue explosion of light pulsed in the sky. It reminded her of a swimming jellyfish, bursting out and then pulling in. But then it was gone again.

  A moment later it repeated, but near the horizon.

  Then again, above her.

  And again, and again.

  Soon the sky was filled with soft blue explosions.

  It was beautiful.

  But not nearly as beautiful as the blue sky that slowly emerged from the purple.

  The newscaster was shouting now. Dancing. Hugging a
nd kissing a camera crew.

  Arwen placed her hand against the glass as the news cut to people and places all around the world. Singing and dancing filled the streets, including the one below her window.

  Arwen looked up and saw a single red flake slip through the sky. It struck her window and stuck for a moment before a gust of wind carried it away.

  The last red flake had fallen.

  63

  Miller wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious, but figured it had been several hours judging by how stiff his body felt. The flow of blood from his wounds had slowed, if not stopped. Adler lay next to him in a similar state.

  He reached out and grazed her cheek with his hand. The movement caused him excruciating pain, but when her eyes flicked open and looked at him, it was worth it.

  “Just to confirm,” he said. “We did save the world, right?”

  She grinned weakly. “I think so.”

  “You think so?”

  “I was trained never to confirm something I haven’t seen with my own eyes.”

  “Hey,” Miller said. “I just realized something.” He took a deep breath. “I’m breathing.”

  Adler gave a nod. “I think the air came back on around the same time I activated the Bell. Brodeur wasn’t wearing a mask when he … melted.”

  “Neither was I,” Miller said. “I guess seeing a man melt distracted me.”

  “It happens,” Adler said with a grin.

  “So,” Miller said. “Who trained you?”

  “What?”

  “You said you were trained to never confirm something you hadn’t seen with your own eyes. Earlier you mistakenly referred to yourself as an agent, rather than a liaison. You shoot as well as I do. So who trained you? And don’t feed me any Interpol bullshit. I’ve earned the truth.”

  “My name really is Elizabeth Adler,” she said. “As is my grandmother’s, and that really is her journal. And I had no idea Gerlach was my grandfather. All that was true.”

  “But,” Miller urged.

  A loud clunk from the door made both of them jump. Gears within the wall ground. The door slid up with a groan.