Sun

by J. C. Andrijeski

He glimpsed stars and clouds, flickers of the moon and the metal of satellites. He felt the presence of other things, floating by him in that cold space––what might have been space dust or Barrier beings, planets or moons that circled around them.

  But gradually, it grew warmer.

  Then it started to get hot.

  It grew gradually hotter as he continued to climb.

  It got hotter still as his ascent began to slow.

  At a certain point, he finally reduced speed enough that his vision of the world righted itself, allowing him to see what lived in the night sky ahead. A coherent picture gradually formed out of that blur of light and presence, shocking his heart.

  Once he could make out the writhing gold, red and orange ball hanging in the sky in front of him, flames seemed to explode before his eyes.

  They writhed in the night sky, blotting out the stars.

  The heat grew unbearable as he gazed at the flaming ball of liquid gas. Even knowing he couldn’t be burnt here, not in this form, not with Allie’s light wrapped into and around and holding his, it made him nervous to be so close.

  At the same time, he could already feel it.

  He could feel the living light there.

  It never occurred to him to look for such a thing before, not in a planet, not in a star, not in a moon or a nebula or an asteroid––but he could feel it all around him now, a geyser of light and presence washing over him, charging and crashing through his light, through his very bones.

  He gazed up at the enormous orb, and it was like seeing it for the first time.

  The source of life. The only source of life on Earth.

  And now, he needed it.

  Again, he had no idea how he knew what to do.

  He did know, though.

  He knew, and even though the whole idea of it––not just the insanity of attempting something like this in the first place, but what would happen if he actually accomplished it––should have scared the living shit out of him, he did it anyway.

  He reached into that living presence.

  He wound his light into and inside it, and it almost felt like praying.

  It felt like praying to the One True God.

  60

  THE END OF THE WORLD

  JON WATCHED THEIR lights gradually brighten, fighting nerves as the voltage ratcheted up exponentially in a matter of seconds.

  That increase in heat and light didn’t appear to be stopping, or even slowing at all.

  They just grew brighter––and brighter.

  In a handful of seconds, they were brighter still.

  Seers began to back off them, purely due to the heat they were giving off. The crystals lining the odd-shaped opening in the rock had begun to glow, turning first a pale yellow, then gradually darkening into yellow-green, then green, then yellow-green-blue.

  Now they were turning a darker green-blue.

  Revik’s light, in particular, had not only grown brighter, it had completely changed color. Flames seemed to be coursing around his body as Jon watched, licking around the structures of his lower aleimi in a way that made the nearby seers flinch back a few more steps.

  Jon could swear he saw those flames not only with his seer’s sight, but also with his naked eyes. In reflex, he pulled his niece, Lily, back too, although he could feel through her light that she was anxious about getting too far away from her parents.

  Gaos, he hoped this didn’t just kill them all.

  From next to him, Wreg turned to Dante, frowning down at the virtual screens that still hovered out from her console.

  “What’s going on with the other doors?” he said, gruff. “Are they getting anywhere with them? Is this affecting them at all?”

  Dante frowned down at the nearest screen, which just seemed to be displaying scrolling code made up of nonsense characters and numbers.

  “I don’t think anything’s changed on their end,” she said after a minute of looking at readouts. “It’s like what happened with the door here, when they were channeling light before. It looks like their machines are just throwing light into the doors and the doors are absorbing it. I’m still not noting any stabilization of the power source. It’s like it gets absorbed and just disappears, like all that light’s just being swallowed.”

  “Are they focusing on trying to open all of the doors?” Jon said. “Or just one or two?”

  Dante pursed her lips, again looking at readouts.

  “They’re all networked,” she said. “So it doesn’t seem to make much difference. Within the network itself, they’re moving light around… hitting one door, then the next. Trying different combinations of doors. They get flares here and there, but it’s not doing much overall, in terms of creating a stable connection. I’ve seen no big bursts of energy like we saw when that one door opened briefly under the Vatican.”

  Frowning, she looked over her shoulder and up at him.

  “To be honest, I’m still not sure how they did that. If Allie was able to open that door, even with the telekinetic machine there, why not this one? Shouldn’t this one be easier?”

  Jon glanced at her, his mouth firming.

  “Allie thought maybe it was because she hit that one faster and harder,” he muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets and glancing over his shoulder at his sister and her husband. “She said the way she did it in Rome was more like an attack. She was trying to save everyone from the telekinetic machine.”

  Grimacing as he remembered her words, Jon shrugged with one hand.

  “She thought maybe she ‘startled’ it, so that the door opened on its own. She tried not to do that down here. She didn’t want the door to open and shut quickly again. She was afraid it would burn out the door, like what happened to the one in Rome.”

  When the others looked at him, puzzled, Jon shrugged a second time with the same hand.

  “That’s what Allie said, right, ‘Dori? That she smacked the door, and it opened?”

  “Yes.” Balidor made the more or less motion with one hand. “Yes. The Bridge thought perhaps it was something like that. Her words felt true.”

  “So why isn’t this one opening on its own?” Dante retorted. “Is it just an asshole? Or what?”

  Frowning, Balidor didn’t answer.

  No one else answered her, either.

  Exhaling, Dante wiped the sweat off her forehead before scowling back at her machines. “Well, the aleimic light of the people in those cities is taking a big hit. Based on that, and how little the doors’ overall light levels seem to have changed, I’m guessing whatever they’re doing isn’t really working.”

  “How big of a hit?”

  Turning, Dante frowned at Wreg’s blunt question.

  “Do I look seer?” she retorted. “I don’t know. Look at the levels, Holmes! They’re half what they were. That can’t be good, right? Didn’t you say humans need light to live, too?”

  A whisper of nausea and worry left Wreg’s light.

  “Half?” he said. “You say half the living light in those cities is drained already? Is that drop in light spread evenly through the population?”

  Something about the look on his face, or maybe something she heard in his voice, made Dante’s scowl fade. The sarcasm vanished from her voice.

  “I don’t know,” she said, worried. “It’s evenly dispersed in the sense of geographically, but I don’t know how that’s translating on the ground. I haven’t looked at the micro-level.” She pushed a hank of sweaty hair out of her face. “Give me a sec. I haven’t broken down the stats person by person. Unless Vik did that.”

  She glanced at Vikram, who shook his head slowly, his mouth a hard line.

  “Okay,” she said, looking back at Wreg. “Hang on.”

  Her eyes went back to scanning numbers. From the concentration and tautness of her expression, Jon guessed she was manipulating the code via her headset, using mind-commands and probably some kind of virtual interface he couldn’t see.

  What felt like a long couple
of seconds later, she looked up.

  Her expression was grim, her eyes angry.

  “People have already died, or are dying,” she said. “They’re definitely killing people. When I drilled it down, it showed individual sources had already gone dark. I would guess the usual suspects are going first. Old people. Sick people. Kids.”

  Swallowing, she glared down at the screen instead of up at them.

  “Fuckers haven’t even slowed down. They’re just snuffing them and moving on.”

  From where he knelt in the dirt next to her, Vik looked up at Wreg and Jon too, his violet eyes worried.

  “Brothers,” he said, his voice low. “I have bad news from up top, too.”

  Wreg gave Jon a look, frowning.

  Gripping Lily’s shoulders tighter in his hands, Jon clenched his jaw.

  By now, other seers stood closer as well. Yumi had moved closer to listen, along with Declan, Jorag, Raddi, Anale and Torek, and the two humans, Max and Tawa. All of them stared down at the East Indian seer now, waiting for him to go on.

  “The Dreng telekinetics are working with the diggers,” Vik said, still keeping his voice low as he glanced around the rest of the room. “Maygar is helping with that now… he and Cass are trying to keep them out, if only by using the construct here to block the clones who are trying to use the telekinesis to break through. Jem’s giving them targeting data and technical support. Tarsi is helping them with the shields.”

  Vikram nodded over to the other side of the room.

  Jon followed his gaze to where Revik’s son sat with Cass on the stone floor of the cave. Behind them, in an unnervingly symmetrical circle, sat the six Revik clones, all of their eyes glowing faintly with green light.

  Tarsi sat crosslegged near the cave wall not far from them, her clear, crystal-like eyes showing her to be gone, somewhere outside of her body.

  Dalejem sat in front of them, his long hair tied back, sweat running down his handsome face. Directly below him, he Sasquatch, Hondo and Gina had unrolled a second array of portable consoles. His eyes showed him to be working in the Barrier as well.

  “How much time?” Balidor said, seeming to pick up on Vikram’s meaning before the rest of them. “Do we know how long they can keep them out? And can some of us help?”

  Vikram hesitated, then shook his head slowly.

  “We don’t know how long,” he admitted. “Not for sure.”

  Exhaling, he pushed his own sweaty hair out of his eyes as he added,

  “Help is always welcome, brothers and sisters, but honestly, I think we need you more in here. Someone must be here to protect the Sword and Bridge. Outside those doors,” he added, pointing towards the opening into the cave wall. “…We are fairly well deployed.”

  Exhaling and wiping sweat off his face again, he added,

  “Luriaal and her seers are leading a team of local humans, along with refugee seers, Atwar’s people, and others to fight on the ground. They’ve already engaged factions of the Myther Army up top, primarily with explosives and ambushes. They’re trying to stall them, and keep them away from the caves. President Brooks is working with more humans to move the Listers and refugees in deeper, to see if we can establish another physical barrier of some kind to slow them down in the event they break through. Our biggest problem is time. We don’t have a lot of time, even apart from whatever the Dreng are doing with the doors. We’re also out of OBEs.”

  He nodded towards Cass, Maygar and the clones.

  “They’re getting low on light,” he added. “The Dreng found a way to close off the feeding pools, so they only have access to our group for light. Jem says there’s likely no way to break the shield… not without the Sword. Perhaps not even with him.”

  Vikram looked at Revik, whose light was even brighter than before.

  “Not like it matters now. He is sadly indisposed. Likely for the foreseeable future.”

  Vikram nodded towards Revik, as if they didn’t already know what he meant.

  “Anyway,” Vikram added. “We are out of options, my friends. We are past the point where we can likely surprise them, too. Even their telekinetic clones seem to be learning exponentially from the tactics we’ve employed against them thus far.”

  “How many telekinetics do they have left?” Jon said. “We killed some on the surface, right?” He glanced at Dante. “She did, I mean. I heard Dante took out a whole group with that satellite laser. How many are left? Do we know?”

  “We estimate at least fifteen, more likely twenty, even after what Nenzi and Dante killed.”

  “Twenty.” Jon felt sick. “That’s a lot of telekinetics.”

  “They’ve still got less agency than ours,” Vikram reminded him, glancing at the clones. “But yes. It is a lot of telekinetics.”

  “Eventually they will break through,” Balidor said, causing all eyes to turn to him. “We must begin talking about what we’re going to do, when that happens. It’s likely we’ll lose everyone we aren’t able to lock behind at least one OBE, even if we put up an armed resistance. The hybrids alone will do a lot of damage.”

  He glanced at Angeline, frowning, before looking back at the others.

  “We need a few lines of defense before they hit the main barriers, since we can’t fit even half of our group behind those lines.”

  Pausing, he added grimly, “If we don’t have those lines set up before they break through, the diggers and telekinetics will make short work of us, particularly our civilian population. The Myther humans might not have to fire a shot. They can just set the diggers on us and sit back and wait. Or release gas. Or possibly explosives––”

  “You mean if the door isn’t open,” Jax broke in, his voice warning. “If the Bridge opens the door, then we go through.”

  “Yes, brother.” Balidor turned, looking at him. “If the door is open, we go through. But we can no longer assume that will happen in time… or that it will happen at all. It is good to have faith in our intermediaries, but we must be prepared to run, if need be. Tawa has told us of a lower tunnel that can possibly take us out to the east. As a last resort.”

  Silence followed his words.

  No one, Jon included, really believed they’d get out of here alive.

  Not that way. Not through a tunnel to the east. Not through any other tunnel.

  If they left these caves, it would only be one way.

  His eyes shifted back to Allie and Revik, who were so bright now, they were hard to look at.

  If Allie and Revik didn’t get them through, they’d burn down here––flesh, bones, red dust, the blood of their friends and ancestors mixed with theirs. They’d be here with the gods of the New World when the sun swallowed the only home any of them had ever known.

  Jon bit his lip, still staring at the backs of Revik and Allie.

  Hurry, he found himself thinking at them. Hurry, Al. You need to fucking hurry.

  He had no idea if his sister heard him.

  He had no idea if it would make any difference if she had.

  “KILL THOSE VERMIN! Now!” Deifilius snapped, pointing at the explosions going up in a disjointed line to the east. “Stamp them out like the cockroaches they are! They aren’t even seer… they’re human! What is the problem?”

  He stared at Franc and Marcus, the two commanders of his seer forces.

  Franc stared off in the distance, his eyes weary. Marcus, a lean, tall man with a manicured mustache stared back at him, as if he wanted to respond, but didn’t trust himself to be civil.

  Marcus looked probably the most rumpled Deifilius had ever seen him.

  The normally spotless black and white uniform he wore was covered in red dust. His mustache was sweaty and covered in dust. Sweat stuck his short brown hair to his forehead and neck. Sweat wetted the front of his jacket and shirt, running down his face in rivulets. His normally olive complexion was red and blotchy and swollen.

  “Where are your icebloods?” Deifilius snapped at Marcus, ignoring the quieter Franc.
“Can’t they deal with this problem?”

  “They’re fighting the telekinetics down below,” Marcus responded mildly, his jaw working in obvious annoyance. “They’re trying to break through with the diggers. I had thought that was still our priority, not routing a few savages from their holes––”

  “When will they break through?” Deifilius cut in, wiping a part of his robes over his forehead. “How much more time?”

  The silver strands were writhing over him angrily, buzzing in his ears, screaming at him from some distant, star-dotted stretch of black sky over his head.

  Deifilius felt dizzy, half out of his head. He could hear nothing but that buzzing. He could feel the violent flicks of their light, the frenetic urgency there, the fury that he hadn’t yet done what they needed him to do.

  He knew something was wrong.

  Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

  And it was so hot.

  It was too hot to think, to move, to breathe.

  It felt like hell itself had visited itself upon Earth.

  In his delirium, he wondered if it had. He wondered if the Bridge had done this, too––if she and her minions below, hiding inside this maze of cursed red rock, were bringing that hell up to him, forcing him to live it, to breathe it in with them.

  “Sir?” Marcus said from next to him, his words overly polite. “Did you want us to break off from our efforts to get past their seers below to chase the Red Indians? Or should we continue in the work we came here to do?”

  Deifilius heard the sarcasm in his voice, the disrespect.

  He knew his people were angry with him.

  He knew they’d expected this to be an easy victory, over an unprepared and vastly overmatched foe. The attack in the canyon angered most of them, and not only because they’d lost a quarter of their forces during those twenty or thirty minutes. He knew most of them wanted to just back off the site and bomb it back to the stone age.

  Deifilius knew all of this. He could feel it in the silver strands, whispers of the minds around him, of their anger at him, their disgust at his failure.

  He couldn’t make himself care.

  The silver strands wanted him to go below.