The Footsteps of Cain

by Derek Kohlhagen

  There you are.

  He’d been so distracted by the commotion that he hadn’t seen Cameron Rialto sitting to the side, on a battered chair situated by one of the welding machines. Cameron stood up, towering his six and a half foot frame over the rest of the group and regarding them with his unsettling dark eyes.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked. “He’s the only one not here. And those three”, at this he jabbed a finger at Henry, Samuel, and Kelly, in turn, “were in the sub-levels this morning. Why? I’ll tell you. Something happened down there. Something bad. And they don’t want to tell us the truth.”

  The crowd of technicians turned to the brooding, swarthy man, one by one, and gradually fell silent at the prospect of an explanation. Whatever Cameron was about to say, Samuel was sure it wouldn’t help the situation. He had to get things under control before a misunderstanding sprouted in their midst.

  “Stand down,” he said. “I’m here. I’ll tell you what I can.”

  Noticing him for the first time, the team focused the heat lamp of their attention on him. Henry, still marooned in the sea of frustrated people, looked at Samuel with obvious relief.

  Cameron’s eyebrows came together.

  “‘What you can’?” he accused. “What the hell does that mean? What secrets did the old man tell you to keep from us?”

  Samuel fought his instinct to fire something back at the mention of his father. It took some effort, but he was able to stay cool. He’d be damned if he was going to take any bait Cameron threw him.

  “Calm down, Cameron,” he said.

  Cameron regarded him with relaxed, unabashed antagonism. In that gaze Samuel felt the years of distaste and distrust between them. They had been at odds for so long that he couldn’t remember what had been the original catalyst for their mutual disdain. Samuel was no stranger to Cameron’s steadily growing frustration with their stagnant repair efforts, or to the blame that he harbored for Samuel himself. There was no doubt that the man was brilliant; he had almost single-handedly solved some of their most confounding challenges, and was a major reason why they had the level of technical understanding of the Spire that they did. But still, his arrogance and moodiness did not make him the most popular member of the team, a fact which he seemed to resent one moment, and relish another. He had made it clear on many occasions, to Samuel’s face, that he could manage the team far more efficiently and effectively...and now, as he glared heatedly at Samuel, he seemed to be making the same point with his eyes.

  Samuel had their attention. Now was the time to speak.

  “George has gone missing. It happened this morning. And yes,” Samuel looked pointedly at Cameron, “it happened in the sub-levels.”

  Samuel went on to describe the events of the morning...their newfound access to the computer systems, the events in the server room, and George’s final, cryptic note. With some guilt, he left out what was said in Gorman’s office.

  “The important thing to remember is to stay together,” he said finally. “I want us to pair up and look out for one another. Also, if anyone is starting to feel sick, you can’t...can not... keep it to yourself. We don’t know a lot about this thing, yet, but we still may be able to help. Everybody understand?”

  Heads nodded with varying degrees of conviction. All save Cameron’s.

  “Questions?”

  “Certainly,” Aiden said. Samuel swore he’d never seen the man blink; his eyes were even and intense, like a hawk’s. He didn’t need to yell to get his points across, and Samuel had known him long enough to know that when he said anything, it was useful to listen. “What about this...thing...on the servers? Surely we can’t just ignore it?”

  “Yes,” Nicole chimed in, “there must be some value to it...something we can use?”

  “We have reason to believe that the information that George uncovered was instrumental in his disappearance,” Samuel told them. “That being the case, for now we are to leave it alone. It could be dangerous.”

  “It could also hold the key to understanding this whole business,” Ronny piped in. His glasses would have made his eyes just oversized enough to be unsettling, if it wasn’t so comical when he blinked. “I mean, maybe.” Blink, blink.

  “Even so, I think we’ve seen at this point that the danger outweighs the benefit,” Samuel said. “We can’t risk anyone. When the time comes to take a look inside those computers again, we’re going to do it slowly, and above all, carefully. For now, I’ve placed a security lock on the server room door to revoke everyone’s access. Nobody gets in.”

  Cameron snorted.

  “This is ridiculous,” he said. “We have whole sections of the farms that could be producing, but aren’t, because we don’t know how to fucking turn them on. All indications point to an answer somewhere in those servers, which we have just started to unlock, and now you’re saying that we can’t touch them? This is the exact polar opposite of what we should be doing!”

  Henry held up his hands, ever the peace-keeper.

  “Okay, hang on...everyone calm down. Cameron, George would be standing here with us, if he hadn’t messed with whatever he messed with, down in that room. Samuel’s just trying to protect us, and—”

  “And is only succeeding in holding us back,” Cameron cut in. “These are not times to be tentative. We can’t sustain the population with our current crops. That’s just a fact. We need to start taking some bold steps, and that means risk. Did you even run this by the Council, Samuel? Or is this, once again, an ill-conceived, nepotistic decision made between only Wade and yourself?”

  “The Council is busy with other matters,” Samuel growled. His hands had balled up into fists at his sides. “Gorman is perfectly capable, and well within his rights to make this call on his own. I think he’s proven he doesn’t need to answer to us.”

  “I see. And who does he answer to, then?”

  “This is getting us nowhere,” Ethan said, his gravelly voice rumbling. “We’ve been asked to leave the computers alone, so let’s not be babies about it! Instead, let’s figure out what we can do, and do it! We don’t serve anyone standing here, yapping and stamping our feet all day, now do we?”

  “Agreed,” Samuel said. His eyes had not left Cameron’s, and his face was cold. “I will share information on this matter as it becomes available. Everyone has their assignments. Let’s get back to work.”

  With that, Samuel turned and exited the shop. When he was alone, he took a moment for himself, paused, and took a deep breath. He looked to the west, where the sun was getting lower in the sky and reflecting off the blood-colored rust and silver of the Dome. In that slice of time, the world looked disturbingly beautiful...like a corpse wearing make-up.

  He was startled by a slap on his shoulder. It was Ethan; the old codger had come out behind him.

  “He’s an ass,” he said, walking past Samuel. “Always has been.”

  Samuel shared a quick smile with the man, and watched him stiffly shuffle off toward the Dome.

  The others were emerging as well, and dispersing back to their respective duties. Cameron didn’t look at him, pointedly, but he still wore that dark cloud over his head as he stalked away. When the rest of them were gone, Kelly and Seth lagged behind and joined him.

  “Well,” Seth said, “these meetings have never stopped being fun to watch, I’ll say that much.” He grinned. “I swear one of these times you and that overgrown sour puss are going to jump on each other and have a good old wrestling match, once and for all the marbles.”

  “I don’t know why he has to make everything so difficult,” Kelly said, looking at Samuel. “He doesn’t seem to understand that there are no sides, here. We’re all trying to figure out how to...well...how to figure things out, I guess. We should be doing it together.”

  Samuel humphed. During those few seconds, he didn’t care what he said about Cameron Rialto, or to whom.

  “Damn that man,” he said. “Our different ideas are supposed to make us better at what w
e do…they show us all the sides of the puzzles we’re trying to solve, instead of just one. But, there’s a limit. Too many differing ideas, supported by overconfidence and tunnel-vision? It unravels the whole process...makes us all worse.”

  “Man, you guys are grade-A downers,” Seth said, rolling his eyes. “You need some happy in your life. Look at me. I live in a hostile environment, my job is to keep fixing crap that invariably breaks down again, I don’t get the three square meals a day I’d like, and I’ve got zits on my ass. But do you hear me complaining? No. There’s a sparkle at the end of my tunnel, baby, and I’m gonna keep on walkin’, knees high, clown nose on and ready. Why, just the other day I was talking to Nicole, and like I told her—”

  “Seth…don’t you have somewhere to be?” Kelly asked, stifling a grin.

  “—like I told her,” he went on, shooting her an injured look, “I got the secret to finding happiness in this godforsaken place. You know what it is? Besides frequent masturbation, I mean? (Oh don’t look at me like that, you guys...everybody does it.) Here’s the thing: Everybody’s fighting everything. Fighting the elements, fighting each other...fighting the Big Breakdown of man and machine. I, for one, think the world is trying to teach us something. Maybe we should stop fighting everything so much, just chill out, and listen to the fucking wind or whatever. Maybe we should stop struggling against the tide and just, like, float along...y’know?”

  Samuel blinked. “That’s your advice? ‘Float along’?”

  Seth again looked hurt by Samuel’s open incredulity, but remained mostly undeterred. “Yeah, baby. Just jump in the current and see where we end up. We might be surprised.”

  “Seth, you certainly are a...unique...person,” Kelly said. Samuel almost laughed out loud at how carefully she seemed to choose the word.

  Seth beamed, missing her meaning.

  “Damn straight,” he said. “Daaaaamn straight.”

  Samuel shook his head.

  “Alright,” he said. “Come on. Let’s get back—”

  He didn’t get to finish, for suddenly the air was alive with sound and heat. A string of detonations rang out into the early evening sky—so close together, Samuel couldn’t tell how many—and the three of them were knocked to the ground, like they’d been slapped by a giant hand made of force and fire.

  Explosions. They were coming from the Dome.

  * * *

  Chapter 10 – ???

  One foot, and then the other. On and on he walked.

  He was a man, but was also much more...much different than what a man was. He could do things that regular men could only dream of. He was strong. Fast. He could see things miles away with crystal clarity. He could even hear the thoughts of others just as he heard his own, voices dripping down on his consciousness.

  Each one was, by itself, only a whisper. But, a billion whispers all heard at once? The force of such a thing would turn any mortal mind to jelly.

  In the beginning, there had been a relative few of them, tickling the inside his skull with their feathered caresses. As time went on, as humankind had reproduced itself into the billions, the tide of its collective thought pool had threatened to rush over his defenses and cave his head in, like a tin can at crush depth. It had taken him time, mercifully and cruelly his most abundant resource, to adapt to the constant deafening drone of it, and to focus only on the ones that mattered in the moment.

  Now, there were so few left. He’d gotten used to the telepathic dump in the background, and now that it was mostly gone, it only punctuated his solitude. Strangely, he found that he missed the activity…the bustle of the thing that had, for years, overloaded his mind. Through the centuries, having so much silence in his head had lathered oil on his sanity, making it slick and hard to grip. He was surprised that he’d been able to hold onto it as long as he had.

  I’D LIKE TO INTERJECT. I DON’T THINK YOU’RE GIVING ME ANY CREDIT IN THIS REGARD. WITHOUT ME, YOU’D HAVE GONE COMPLETELY BONKERS A LONG TIME AGO. SEE, THE HUMAN BRAIN, EVEN AN AUGMENTED ONE SUCH AS YOURS, WASN’T BUILT FOR THIS KIND OF THING. THEY BEGIN AS EMPTY VESSELS, AND THEN DRINK IN STIMULI AND FORM CONNECTIONS LIKE CRAZY UNTIL THE BODY INVARIABLY DIES. AFTER THAT, THE BRAIN’S FUNCTION IS CONCLUDED, HAVING PRETTY MUCH BEEN FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH ALL THE SHIT IT LEARNED...ALL THE MEMORIES IT MADE IN THE PATHETICALLY SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME IT HAD TO DO IT.

  NOW, YOU...YOU’RE DIFFERENT. YOUR BRAIN HAS BEEN CHUGGA CHUGGING AWAY FOR WAAAY TOO LONG. THERE’S BEEN SO MUCH CRAP DUMPED IN THERE THAT YOU RED-LINED ON YOUR LIMIT, SAY, FIVE HUNDRED OR SO YEARS IN. A’COURSE, THAT BOWL OF OATMEAL IN YOUR HEAD CAN BREAK DOWN CONNECTIONS TO MAKE ROOM, BUT NOT NEARLY AS FAST AS IT CAN BUILD NEW ONES. SO, IF LEFT ON ITS OWN, YOUR BRAIN WOULD START OVERWRITING EXISTING CIRCUITRY AND CRAM IN WHAT IT COULD, WHERE IT COULD.

  THIS WOULD LEAVE FLOATING, FRAGMENTED MEMORIES IN THERE, WHICH, IF LEFT UNCHECKED, WOULD DO SOME REALLY FUCKED UP THINGS TO YOUR PROCESSING CAPABILITY. IN THE END, YOU’D END UP AN IMMORTAL VEGETABLE, OR WHATEVER IS WORSE THAN A VEGETABLE.

  (FOR THE RECORD, I DON’T THINK THERE IS ANYTHING IN THIS WORLD THAT IS WORSE THAN A VEGETABLE. BROCCOLI, IN PARTICULAR.)

  SO BECAUSE I’M SUCH A NICE PERSON (AND BECAUSE I CAN’T STAND VEGETABLES), I HELP YOU OUT. I HELP YOU BREAK DOWN YOUR MEMORIES FASTER, SO THAT SHIT DOESN’T BUILD UP IN YOUR HEAD AND MAKE YOU LOONEY. YOU SEE? YOU SEE HOW GREAT I AM?

  YUP, IF I HAD HANDS, WE’D SO BE HIGH-FIVING.

  It paused.

  I KNOW YOU WOULDN’T WANT TO, BUT I WOULD MAKE YOU.

  His lips curled in a derisive grimace.

  So you help me forget. You help me forget everything except the things I want to forget.

  A snort of condescension burst into his head.

  WELL, NATURALLY. THIS AIN’T CABO.

  So why do it? And, after all these years...all this time...why aren’t you like me? How can you do this for so long, without losing your mind?

  OH, I’M NOT LIKE YOU. OH, WOW. I’M NOT EVEN REMOTELY LIKE YOU. I’M ACTUALLY OFFENDED THAT YOU’D EVEN SUGGEST SUCH A THING. IMAGINE IF AN AMOEBA ASKED YOU THAT QUESTION. AN AMOEBA WITH A MOUTH, I MEAN. “WHY AREN’T YOU LIKE ME, IMPOSSIBLY-HUGE-AND-INFINITELY-MORE-SIGNIFICANT-THAN-ME THING? WHY AREN’T YOU LIKE ME, GALAXY?” JEEZ. AFTER ALL THIS TIME...I REALLY CAN’T BELIEVE YOU ASKED ME THAT!

  OUR TIME TOGETHER? THIS MAGICAL JOURNEY WE’VE BEEN SO PRIVILEGED TO EXPERIENCE? IT’S JUST ABOUT AS SIGNIFICANT TO ME AS A TESTICULAR ITCH. I JUST REACH DOWN THERE, PINCH AND ROLL, AND FEEL SOMEWHAT SATISFIED BEFORE I MOVE ON TO WHATEVER THE HELL I WAS DOING THAT WAS, INCOMPREHENSIVELY TO YOU, MORE IMPORTANT. I’M SORRY IF THAT HURTS YOUR AMOEBA-FEELINGS, AMOEBA.

  He should have known he’d receive such an answer; he shouldn’t have even asked the question. He wondered how many times he’d vowed to stop speaking to the voice. He wondered how many times he’d forgotten how many times he’d vowed to stop speaking to the voice.

  But, he always came back. It was the loneliness. There simply wasn’t anyone else.

  The humans didn’t count; they were just cattle, funneling into his slaughterhouse. He’d learned the lesson a long time ago: Sever all ties with them. Let them go. Don’t bond with the thing you were sent to kill. It was better that way.

  He returned his attention to the road ahead, and then noticed something. The buzz of the last beehive was different, now. Something had happened.

  IT’S STARTED.

  Fear. Panic. Betrayal. As predicted, they were turning on one another. He half-hoped that they would snuff each other out so that he would be spared what he knew he must do.

  YOU’RE NOT THAT LUCKY. THEY’RE GOING TO NEED YOUR HELP, BUDDY-BOY.

  He concentrated.

  Yes. There.

  There were agents of chaos at work, again...the ever-active elements of humankind’s cannibalization. It was the only comfort he was afforded in his preternatural life: Even if he had never come along, if he had not transgressed and been forced into his immemorial servitude, the world very w
ell may have killed itself off anyway. In the uncountable times that he had witnessed the worst of one’s actions against another, he mused that, just maybe, he wasn’t murdering humankind as much as he was euthanizing it.

  Either that, either it was a mercy killing he undertook, or the human beast certainly deserved what it got. It could be a cruel, suicidal, petty thing.

  A pang of regret stabbed him. He’d gone and forgotten the children. The innocents.

  He’d slaughtered them as well, and nothing they’d done could be used to rationalize what they received. He seemed to remember wanting children, in his previous life. Yes, the more he thought about it, the more he was certain that he had.

  He’d wanted children…and she would have been their mother.

  He couldn’t remember...had he thought about them, in the haze of millennia past? Had he looked into the faces of the young ones he’d killed, and instead seen those of his unborn progeny? The harder he concentrated on it, the more sure of it he was.

  His old companions, Regret and Self-Pity, took a seat at his table. If only he could go back and undo what he had done. If only he could step into his previous self and seize that thoughtless impulse before it had been birthed as action!

  It had been a mistake! Must he pay so harshly for one hair’s breadth of error?

  He heard an exasperated sigh in his head.

  I’M TRYING TO STAY PATIENT WITH YOU, MAN. WE’VE BEEN OVER THIS. FIRST OF ALL, LET’S NOT FORGET: FOR THE RECORD, YOU DIDN’T SCREW UP ONCE, YOU SCREWED UP TWICE. SECOND OF ALL, IT’S NOT LIKE YOU STOLE SOMEBODY’S LOLLY POP. NO, YOU REACHED DOWN INTO THAT GRAB-BAG OF SIN, AND YOU PULLED OUT A WHOPPER! THE BIG ENCHILADA! WHAT’S MORE, YOU KNEW IT TO BE WRONG! YOU RECOGNIZED IT FOR WHAT IT WAS. BUT YOU WENT AND DID IT ANYWAY, NOW DIDN’T YOU?

  Don’t you think I know that?! Don’t you know that I think about it, every day?!

  OH I KNOW YOU DO. I MAKE SURE YOU DO. I MAY HAVE TO HELP YOU FORGET THINGS SO THAT YOU WON’T GO CRAZY, BUT I’LL NEVER, EVER LET YOU FORGET THAT. I’VE GOT A JOB TO DO, AFTER ALL.