by Scott Reeves
Please, God, he thought with all his might, eyes squeezed shut, leaking tears.
He didn’t know how long he lay there, weeping, completely unsure of what to do next. Maybe a half hour, maybe an hour. Did it matter anymore? Maybe it was time to just surrender. Samala’s God sure as shit hadn’t answered his prayers yet. How long did it take, anyway? He had hoped for an instant miracle, but so far, nothing.
Then the fatline phone in his pocket began ringing. All around him, faces turned, zeroing in on him.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
He shoved a hand into his pocket and yanked the phone out. He threw it away from him as if it were a live grenade, wanting to be rid of the damned thing before the psychos connected it with him. It continued to ring as it spun through the air, and he hoped the sound of it might draw the psychos away from him. Finally it hit the distant hallway wall and cracked to pieces.
But the psychos ignored the phone. Their dead, vacuous eyes remained fastened on him. His cover was blown.
He scrambled out from beneath the corpse and jumped to his feet. He winced at the pain and looked down at his left leg. Blood soaked his pant leg, but he decided not to roll it up and look. He might not like what he saw, and right now, there was nothing he could do about it anyway.
So he gritted his teeth and raced away as best he could up the corridor toward the elevators. No other direction offered any possibility of hope. The psychos turned, reacting slowly, but reacting nonetheless, and shambled relentlessly after him.
He ran, and found that his flight was much easier going this time, since he was not being dogged by a robocop. The psychos were not easy obstacles to avoid, but avoiding them wasn’t as hard without the added worry of the machine-man. After experiencing robocops and psychos together, psychos alone were almost a cakewalk.
When the hallway emptied out into the large circular room, he rushed ahead to the elevators and spun, putting his back against the wall and facing his enemies.
His eyes darted about wildly, searching. Where should he go, what should he do? He had to be near the elevators when that army guy arrived. What had his name been? Rod-something? Rod. Yet he couldn’t remain where he was; the elevators were too exposed.
How long would he have to wait? At least he had hope that Rod and his army were still coming; surely that had been Rod calling just minutes ago.
Maybe he could duck into one of the shops and seek out a hiding place, maybe one with a line of sight on the elevators?
Meanwhile, as he considered his options, the psychos were shuffling ever closer. Fortunately there weren’t that many of the fast ones around, the ones that came out of the transmats. What few there were seemed to be busy feeding on nearby corpses. Easier prey, no doubt.
Even as Mal watched, one of the corpses being fed upon suddenly got up and walked away. That infuriated the feeding psycho, a pretty woman with big tits in a tight, torn dress that seemed like she would have had a nice snatch. For a second, he worried that she might turn her attention upon him. But instead, she took off after her shambling meal, jumped on the corpse’s back and began chowing down on the back of its neck, even as it continued stumbling off down the hallway.
Mal looked at a drug parlor across the way, with a wide open front and a few cozy trip booths along the back wall, any one of which offered a good view of the elevators. He was about to make a run for it when the psychos stumbling slowly toward him, arms outstretched to grab at him, suddenly began dancing spasmodically as they were shredded by plasma bursts.
He looked to his right, the source of the fire.
His old pal Bin was approaching from around the curve of the elevator shafts, a tube of metal clutched in his hands. He was aiming it at the approaching psychos and tapping a circuit board that dangled below the thing.
“Mal, my young friend!” the treacherous bastard called out jovially.
He dispatched all the psychos within a hundred feet of them, then came to stand at Mal’s side. He hefted the tube of metal for Mal’s inspection.
“I ripped it off a dormant robocop up a hallway around there.” He pointed vaguely over his shoulder, toward the other side of the circular room. Then he set the thing down, leaning it against the elevator shaft within easy reach. After giving Mal a companionable slap on the shoulder, he said, “Hey, about earlier. You understand how it is, right?”
Mal wanted to spit in the man’s smiling face, but he still thought any ally was better than no ally. “Sure, I understand exactly how it is,” he said bitterly.
“Great. So. Have you heard anymore from our new friends?”
Mal shrugged. “Someone tried to call, but I wasn’t able to answer.”
Bin nodded. The two of them stood there, watching the slowly approaching psychos. In a few seconds it would be time to pick up the weapon salvaged from the robocop and start shooting again. Bin fidgeted. He toyed with the bracelet on the wrist of his right arm.
Then, from around the curve of the elevator shafts, they heard a pneumatic hiss as one of the elevator doors rolled open.
“Hey!” Mal called out. “Rod? Around here!”
A man in his mid-sixties stepped into view. He held a force rifle, with which he calmly vaporized the psychos who had nearly closed the distance again on Mal and Bin.
The dirty work done, he gave a friendly wave as he approached. He reached out and shook Mal’s hand. Nice, firm handshake. Mal liked that. “Good to meet you, Mal,” he said. “Welcome aboard.”
Then he reached out to shake Bin’s hand. As he did so, he noticed the bracelet jangling on Bin’s wrist. He frowned. Then he set down his force rifle, leaned it against the shaft wall next to Bin’s salvaged weapon.
Around the curve came two men and a woman. They stood at a distance, keeping a watchful eye on the psychos, occasionally vaporizing the ones that strayed close.
“So,” Rod said to Mal. “Are the two of you related? Father and son?” He looked between Mal and Bin.
Mal shook his head. “No, we met just recently, just after this whole mess started.”
“Good, good,” Rod said. Then, in one swift movement, he reached behind his back, pulled some sort of ancient gun from his waistband, raised it to Bin’s head and put three loud shots between the man’s eyes.
Mal leapt away, shocked both by the incredible loudness of the weapon’s report and the unexpectedness of the elderly man’s action.
Bin’s body toppled over backward to the floor, his face frozen in a shocked expression that looked exactly how Mal felt.
Rod knelt beside Bin’s corpse and gently took the bracelet off Bin’s wrist. Mal could tell the man just wanted to rip it off, but didn’t want to damage it, so he was gentle. He looked at the bracelet, turned it over and read an inscription on the back.
Then he looked up at Mal with a galaxy of hurt swimming on his face. “Ten years ago, my daughter was murdered,” he said loudly, so both Mal and everyone else could hear. Rod’s friends had obviously been caught off guard by the killing as well. They stood uncertainly in the background, no longer paying much attention to the psychos. “Her killer was never found. I gave this bracelet to her. Surely no one but her killer would have it.”
Mal relaxed. If that were true, then he understood Rod’s action. He could empathize with the older man.
Then a thought occurred to him. It suddenly seemed awfully strange that Bin was the only person he had encountered in the air ducts, the only one with enough sense to use them as an escape route. But what if the man hadn’t really been escaping from his wife, as he had said? If Bin had killed Rod’s daughter…
Samala.
In Mal’s mind, utter certainty clicked into place and his blood went cold.
He threw himself to the floor and began searching Bin’s corpse. He found nothing that wouldn’t have been in another man’s pockets: credit chips, a few pills, a data crystal, that sort of stuff.
He also found a holocube. When he pressed it to his eyes, he saw himself and Samala goin
g at it on the bed. Samala had told him she was going to record their tryst that day. Obviously, she had.
Mal fell on the corpse and began beating the holy shit out of it, cursing Bin and shouting out Samala’s name and screaming in rage.
Rod and his men pulled Mal away and dragged him kicking and screaming around to their elevator. Once he was inside and they were heading upward, they let him go, and he sagged to the floor and sobbed until his chest hurt.
Rodor Batsalam
Galactic Year 912, Month 4, Day 12
7:00 PM Planetary Standard Time
The elevator was cramped. The immense box took up a lot of room, and what space was left was taken up by Rodor, his eleven companions, and the woman confined within the force cube.
They rode the elevator in near silence. Rodor’s soldiers whispered amongst themselves. Rodor himself didn’t speak. He watched the boy (young man, really, he corrected himself) squatting on the floor in one corner, huddled in on himself with his head buried between his knees.
Rodor felt sorry for Mal. Apparently they had both been victimized by the same man. The very event that had caused Rodor to pray for the downfall of civilization had been avenged. His prayers had been answered. But without his slow-boiling anger at the beast who had killed his daughter, what did he have left? What did it matter whether they survived or not, now?
He had lost his will to survive. He had blasted it into Bin Jamin’s forehead. As far as he was concerned, the new world order could die with the rest of civilization. His anger had been eased.
But he had made a promise to his soldiers, and so he would continue as planned. Because he did have something left, he realized. He had his honor, he had his faith. He was a man of his word. He was a man of the Word.
He watched the floors slowly tick upward on the display above the door. They were just passing the 100th floor. He sighed. It was going to be a long trip upward.
Kneeling down, he gently touched Mal’s knee. “You hungry, pal?”
Mal looked up and nodded. His eyes were rimmed with red, his cheeks wet.
Rodor beckoned to one of his men. “Wilsor, why don’t you break out some of that food?”
Wilsor nodded and shrugged out of the backpack strapped to his back. He unzipped it and began passing out food bars.
They ate in silence, and then sat around as the elevator rose to the building heights, sharing memories of the world that was passing away.
As they ate, Rodor noticed the blood on Mal’s pant leg and called Kulash over. The good doctor treated Mal’s leg, rinsed it with disinfectant, and bandaged the wound. It was merely a superficial flesh wound, and the young man would be fine.
About three hours later, the display above the door informed them that they had reached the 5,500th floor. End of the line. Just three floors below the roof.
Rodor stood and clapped his hands. “All right, let’s move out! Someone get young Mal a rifle.” He held his own rifle at the ready as the elevator doors slid open.
The enormous circular room was virtually identical to the one they had left so far below, right down to the infestation of infected. They shambled aimlessly about until the elevator doors opened to reveal Rodor and his men, whereupon they began shuffling in from all sides.
Rodor blasted a few away from the door and then stepped out of the car and moved aside, continuing to fire as others emerged to join in the slaughter.
Pull trigger, zap, poof, infected gone.
Pull trigger, zap, poof, infected gone.
Rodor pointed to his left, at a door stenciled with the word “Stairs” on the distant wall. “Those lead to the roof. Let’s move!”
He headed for the distant door, shooting as he advanced. Behind him, the wheels of the immense box squeaked as it was pulled forward.
They gained the stairwell with little difficulty, leaving a swath of bloody destruction in their wake.
Now would come the difficult part: getting the immense box up the stairs. The thing was heavy!
As he opened the door, Rodor told his men, “You all wait here. I’ll go up and check the rooftop door. There’s no use lugging the box up the stairs if we can’t get out.” He didn’t foresee any problems, but one could never be sure.
He climbed the three flights of stairs. At the top, there was a short landing, at the end of which stood the exit that let out onto the rooftop. He swiped his thumb across the keypad beside the door. There was a click as the lock disengaged. Reaching out, he turned the doorknob and pulled.
It opened a crack and then stopped. He yanked at it and heard the telltale rattle of a chain. The damn door was held shut on the outside with a chain and a padlock!
“Dammit,” he mumbled.
He stepped back from the door, assessing it. He knew the door was most likely made to withstand force rifle fire, but he had to at least try. Raising his rifle, he let off a shot.
No effect, not even a burn mark on the door.
He couldn’t get the door open wide enough to take a shot at the chain and the padlock, but he was sure he would have gotten the same result as he had with the door.
He leaned against the stairwell wall and sighed. Then he pulled out his fatline phone and dialed up Andy Watson, his contact on the roof.
Andy Watson
Galactic Year 912, Month 4, Day 12
10:10 PM Planetary Standard Time
Andy picked up his phone on the third ring. “Hello?” he said.
“Hello, Andy. How are you?” said a man’s voice.
“Mr. Wainright?” Andy asked. It didn’t sound like the man who had called him earlier.
“No,” the voice said. “Drake Wainright didn’t make it.” The man’s voice was choked as he said this. “I’m Rodor Batsalam. Andy, I’m at the rooftop stairwell exit.”
“It’s chained shut,” Andy said.
“Yes, I found that out,” the man said with some irritation.
“That’s why I had to stay on the spaceport,” Andy said. “I couldn’t take the transmats, and the stairs were chained shut.”
“But at least you’re safe,” Rodor said patiently. “You are safe, aren’t you?”
“For the moment,” Andy said. “I’m sitting with a woman who has risen from the dead, but she hasn’t given me any trouble. She’s dead, but she’s not like the others.”
“Really?” Rodor said. “That’s interesting, and I’d like to see her when we get onto the roof. If we can figure a way to get onto the roof.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Andy asked.
“I don’t know,” Rodor said. “Is there anything you can do to help? That’s why I called you.”
“Well, there’s a platform that I can raise and lower up and down the side of the building, some sort of platform for window washers or cargo or something.”
“Really?” Rodor said, excitement in his voice. “That’s perfect. Which side of the building is it on?”
Andy looked out the window. The stars were out, barely visible through the dark purple gas of the nebula. He remembered that the sun had set to his left hours earlier, a beautiful sunset that he had watched while waiting for Drake to call again. He assumed Caldor followed the standards for directional labels.
“The north side,” Andy said. “I’ve been studying the platform, thinking of lowering myself down on it if worse came to worst. It’s got little traveling wheels on the rim that’s attached to the building, and I think it can be made to go around corners. So I think I can send it down another side of the building if you need me to.”
“The north side is fine,” Rodor said. “Give me a few minutes to get over to the north side, and then I’ll call you again to lower down the platform.”
“Okay,” Andy said. “I’ll be waiting for your call.” But by then he was talking to dead air. Apparently people ended conversations rather abruptly here on Caldor. He would have to get used to that.
Then he heaved a sad sigh. No, he wouldn’t have to get used to it. He would have to g
et used to a lot of new things however this whole catastrophe turned out, but hopefully rudeness would no longer be one of them.
He went to stand by the long window. With his arms folded behind his back, he looked out across the jagged horizon of rooftops. Nothing moved against the backdrop of stars and purple gases. He had been watching for the past several hours, hoping a starship would eventually swoop from the night sky and rescue them all. But so far, nothing.
Behind him, the dead woman Joyce Rider stared at his back, neither moving nor breathing, just staring at him through eyes completely lacking any spark of life or humanity. She was so beautiful. Or rather, she had been so beautiful. Now, she was an abomination.
About twenty minutes later his fatline phone rang again. “Hello?” he answered.
“Yes, Andy, we’re at the north side of the building,” said Rodor’s voice. There was gunfire in the background, then the sound of glass shattering, followed by continued gunfire. “We’ve removed the windows. Lower the platform now, please.”
Andy went to the controls and pressed the button that lowered the platform. Outside the window, the platform lurched and began descending, crawling slowly down the side of the building.
“Let me know when it’s on your floor,” Andy said, “so I can stop it.”
“Will do,” said Rodor. A few minutes later, he said, “Okay, it’s here.”
Andy hit the same button again. The cables outside the window spasmed as the platform jerked to a halt.
He toggled the switch that opened the window. The flexible, transparent material retracted into the ceiling. Then he got to his hands and knees, carefully crawled toward the edge, and craned his neck out to see what was going on down below. His hair whipped wildly in the wind.
About fifty feet down, men and women were moving a long, narrow box onto the platform. He could hear nothing above the tremendous roar of the wind, but he could almost imagine the clanging of the platform’s metal floor as they moved about, imagined he could hear their idle chatter.
