His shoulders slumped. He turned his attention back to the bee hive, and listened. So much confusion. So much suffering.
What if I don’t go through with it?
YOU KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION. SHE SUFFERS, PURE AND SIMPLE. I’LL NEVER LET HER GO.
And even then?
WE DO IT ALL AGAIN. SQUARE ONE. AND DON’T THINK FOR A SECOND THAT I CAN’T MAKE THAT HAPPEN.
He hung his head. His thoughts were bitter.
I don’t think I truly understood what you asked me to do, all those years ago. I don’t think I took it in. But here, now.... It all seems like such a...waste...to be asked to throw everything away, all that potential. And for what? So I can learn your lesson.
When the voice spoke again, it came out as a venomous hiss.
I DON’T THINK I LIKE YOUR TONE.
He became angry. No...furious. At that moment he didn’t care what happened to him, didn’t care what price he would pay. He felt control slipping away.
I don’t give a damn what you—
He was suddenly interrupted from his would-be, impotent tirade by a rumbling sound that rose up from all around him. All at once, the ground was shaking and heaving, so much so that he was raised up several feet and then unceremoniously dropped as the ground fell underneath him. He was only just barely able to keep his footing.
A fissure in the earth ripped open at his heels, and from inside an illumination of the purest white sprang forth. He leaped away from it, bewildered.
The crack started to lengthen, running out to his left and right and bending back around, until the two ends of it met behind him, leaving him at the inside edge of a huge oval that was etched by the otherworldly, pale glow, rising up from the earth like an avenging spirit. The quaking below him grew worse, hammering against his feet. No longer able to weather the upheaval, and was violently dumped to the ground.
The event triggered a vague memory to surface. He felt like this had happened before, long ago...maybe in the beginning? Unbidden, he remembered himself falling, falling into the earth...not alone as he was now, but with others like himself...people he had once belonged to and who had once belonged to him. He saw their faces, screaming as they fell, and he was guilty for he knew that he was the cause of their ruin, as well….
His mind was wrenched back to the present, where it seemed his reverie had manifested. He realized that the ground was starting to suck in his legs, and that he was slowly sinking into it. Inside the oval, patches of terrain had begun to fall in, and in their absence more white light bathed the air from below.
The ground inside the oval was collapsing.
He kicked and crawled toward the edge, fighting the pull of the crumbling dirt. Outside the oval, the land appeared unaffected...whole. He had to get to it before he was claimed, sucked down into whatever was under him along with the rest of the seemingly cursed soil.
He pumped his legs one last time, and his hands overlapped the edge of the demonic crack just as the ground, which had pressed so solidly against him a scant few moments before, gave way. He grasped the edge with everything he could muster as he swung downward, digging in with his fingers to avoid plummeting down with the doomed mass of dirt. His body slammed into the side of the chasm wall, and he was jarred by the impact.
His grip held firm. He pulled by reflex, scrambling his way up and swinging his body over the brink. Once again on firm ground, he gathered himself, and peered around him to see if any other sinkholes were forming. There were no signs of other pits opening up, and the rumbling that had heralded the coming of the one he had just so narrowly escaped was now receding into the distance. The tremor was subsiding, the surrounding landscape stabilizing.
Gingerly, he pulled himself forward, and looked down over the edge. The last pieces of earth that had fallen in—rocks and sizable clumps of soil—were hurtling down into a vast expanse of...white. There was no bottom that he could see, no ending to the vertical shaft. His eyes followed the descending patches of dislodged terrain until they shrank to specks, and then disappeared from view without any indication they’d hit anything solid. Everything he saw, indeed everything that he felt in his gut, told him that the shaft had no end. In all his travels, across all of his extended years, he’d never encountered such a thing.
With great care, he stood.
UH OH.
The voice was confused...profoundly uneasy. He had never known it to express fear, but its current tone was the closest he had heard it come.
Wait. This...wasn’t you?
NO, IDIOT...THIS ASSUREDLY WAS NOT ME. SOMETHING’S WRONG. IT SHOULDN’T BE HAPPENING SO SOON.
What do you mean? What is it?
He felt movement in his head, like a hand, waving away his questions.
DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT. WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME. YOU NEED TO GET MOVING. NOW.
* * *
Chapter 11 – Samuel
He opened his eyes and tried to shake off the buzzing in his head. The first thing that he saw was Seth, crumpled on the ground to his left. The young man was groggily coming to, holding a hand to one of his ears, where Samuel could see a trickle of blood running through his fingers and down the side of his head.
“You alright?” Samuel asked him. His own voice sounded odd to him. He felt he was speaking at a normal volume, but something was muffling the sound.
Seth nodded, wincing. He gestured over to Samuel’s right.
“Fine...check her....”
Following Seth’s indication, Samuel turned his head.
It was Kelly. She wasn’t moving.
He rolled over and got a closer look, then exhaled, finding that he was unconsciously holding his air in. Thankfully, Kelly looked like she was breathing. Just to make sure, he put a couple fingers to her throat, and felt a healthy throbbing under the skin. She was okay...unconscious, but okay.
The whine in his ears had started to abate, and now other sounds were penetrating. Screams…the screech of metal tearing and bending. He squinted his eyes at his surroundings, blearily.
Smoke poured into the sky, curling around the main drill shaft like a cat’s tail. Holes had been blown into the outer skin of the Dome, blemishing the previously smooth exterior. The breaches were the source of the smoke, copiously belching the thick black soot skyward. People were fleeing the area in droves, parents carrying their little ones, seeking out the shelter of the closest habmods. As his head continued to clear, Samuel was hit by a mental lightning strike.
Gorman!
“Seth! Take care of her! Get her out of here!” Samuel shouted. He got to his feet and swayed, weakly. Seth nodded at him and waved him off, crawling over to Kelly’s still form.
Samuel stumbled away. He had to get to the entrance. There were still plenty of people inside that could be hurt, or worse. Thinking about his father being among those numbers gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Samuel had to find him...had to make sure he was okay.
His legs seemed to be regaining their strength, and he went from merely avoiding a fall back down to a more stable stride, and increased his speed. As he shuffled forward, he peered upward at the destruction, not quite believing what he was seeing. The scope of the damage was...incredible.
He pounded the dirt, rounding the interior fence until the main entrance was visible. The formidable doors were set into the Dome about twenty feet, and were large enough to fit six men abreast. People were spilling out in as much an orderly manner as could be expected in the chaos. Samuel saw that many of them were injured, covered in blood and soot, and being helped along or even carried by others. He searched among them frantically for his adopted father, yelling his name in earnest. His voice sounded woefully insignificant, the clamor around him swallowing it up until it was just a small part of the larger whole. Samuel came to a stop beside the stream of frightened people, and strained to see inside for any sign of Gorman.
A tense five minutes ticked by while he stood there, looking for any sign. He shouted at
the harried passers-by, inquiring about the fate of his father while all manner of horrible scenes played in his head. The few that heard him shook their heads...the rest were too busy fleeing to heed him at all.
And then, just as he was seriously considering fighting the crowd and making his way inside to find Gorman himself, he saw a flash of silver among the bobbing heads of the crowd, in the fading light of the sunset. A rabbit jumped in Samuel’s chest as he saw the man emerge. Samuel called his name again, and Gorman waved in acknowledgment. The older man hobbled over to meet his son on a leg that didn’t seem to be supporting him as much as hindering him, and Samuel immediately put an arm around his back to take some of the weight.
“Damn it,” Gorman swore in pain, as Samuel caught him. He had to put his mouth close to Samuel’s ear to be heard above the noise. “Twisted my knee coming down the stairs. I think I felt something pop.” He looked up at the ailing building. “What’s happening?”
“Multiple explosions!” Samuel yelled to him. “The Dome got hit, hard! We don’t know the full extent of the danger, yet, and we won’t until everyone clears out and we’ve had enough time to survey the damage!”
Gorman closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Of all things, this. Of all times, now.”
Samuel glanced up at the billowing black cloud hemorrhaging from the broken curve of the Dome.
“Father, the blasts...they were almost simultaneous! There’s no way this was an accident; somebody had to have set those charges!”
“Somebody, indeed,” Gorman said, somberly. “There aren’t too many candidates. If what you are saying is true—if this was a coordinated effort—then I’m sure we’ll be dismayed to find that our most vital areas were targeted.” He looked behind him. “Come on, help me somewhere I can sit down! My leg feels like it’s on fire!”
They moved together, one holding up the other, until they reached the safety of the nearest habmod, away from the chaos where they could hear one another better. Samuel eased his father down onto a makeshift bench, and made sure the injured Councilman was comfortably resting up against the smooth skin of the module before he let him go. Gorman breathed out another hiss of pain.
Samuel’s anger surged, brought on by a combination of seeing his father in pain, and a strong suspicion of who was to blame.
“I’m going to kill him,” he seethed.
“Careful,” Gorman said, grabbing his arm. “Take a breath. You know that won’t help things.”
“Won’t it?”
“No. We are not executioners. Sam, I’ve always taught you to find another solution. Find him, yes. Contain him, definitely. But we need to do this the right way...we need to make sure we know what caused this before we act. Every one of us has a right to a fair evaluation of our alleged guilt.”
Samuel gritted his teeth against his impulses. “We’ll see. I’m going to head over to the church, in case that jackal is thinking about bugging out. Will you be okay?” He looked again at Gorman’s twisted leg.
The injured elder gently pushed him away. “I’m fine...stop fussing! You go and do what you must. Just remember what I said. Go now. Find him.”
Samuel turned to sprint away, but Gorman’s voice stopped him one last time.
“Sam! Don’t go by yourself! The man’s a serpent...sly...dangerous! We don’t know what his next steps will be...you make sure to be careful now, boy!”
Samuel gave him a quick nod, and then he was off, kicking his feet behind him.
He had always considered the head priest of the Church of the Reclamation to be dangerous. Even so, and even sure as he was of Tristan’s involvement, he still was beside himself that the fanatic would go this far.
How? How could he have gotten his hands on the materials necessary for such widespread destruction? Samuel of course knew of the supply room, on the primary mining level inside the Dome, and the blasting equipment kept there. As far as he knew, it would be the only thing in the facility capable of such devastation. But, how would the priest get access to the explosives? The only ones that could get into that room—
His thoughts darkened. A realization hit him solidly in the gut, and he almost tripped.
The only ones who could get into the supply room were himself, and the members of his maintenance team. Each one of them had a key.
Samuel shuddered at the implications of what he was realizing. He had worked with them for years; surely there would have been signs if any one of them were developing corrupted loyalties. The only one he could think of was Cameron, with his restless contradiction and combative nature. Cameron, who countered his decisions so often. Cameron, the antagonist.
Cameron Rialto...whom Kelly had seen on the mining level just that morning.
He swore, and cursed himself for being an idiot. Cameron certainly had the means and access to pull off something like this. He was driven, intelligent, and openly critical of the status quo that Samuel fought to maintain. He had displayed on many occasions that he would take steps to further his own agenda. Could that agenda have grown so moldered, could the man have grown so imbalanced, that he would sacrifice lives?
Samuel brooded on this as he cut his way through the throngs of people still evacuating the Dome. He saw Henry and Ethan directing the flow of humanity and quelling the tide of panic as best as they were able. As Samuel ran up he heard them yelling at the people to meet at the base of the external wall, until order could be reestablished. Their composure in the crisis reminded Samuel that, even if Cameron had gone bad, at least his judge of character had made a positive difference in other ways.
He called out to them as he approached.
“Samuel!” Henry answered, momentarily distracted from directing the people to safety. “You okay? Have you heard anything from the others?”
“Battered, but otherwise fine,” Samuel said. “Ethan, can you do this without Henry? I need him.”
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Ethan returned, scowling. “You two go. You get that son of a bitch.”
Samuel hadn’t said anything about Tristan. The grizzled technician may have been venerable, but his mind was still as shrewd as ever. Henry, on the other hand, hadn’t put it together yet.
“What?” he said. “What’s going on, Samuel?”
“Just come with me; I’ll explain on the way.”
They left Ethan behind, growling his orders to the confused crowd. As they pushed their way toward the Church, Henry’s brain started to catch up.
“Shit,” he breathed. “You really think he did this?”
“Who else could it be?” Samuel said. “He’s been against us from the start.”
“So what’s the plan? What are we going to do with him?”
“I’ve got my own preferences,” Samuel spat, “but Gorman wants him locked up. For now, we’ll have to confine him to one of the habmods.” He sneered. “The bastard’s going to get to live in luxury until we can figure out how to handle this.”
They entered the cluster of shacks on the other side of the ailing Dome, weaving through them with as much speed as they could muster. Then, when the Church of the Reclamation suddenly sprang up before them, Samuel was relieved. He had predicted that they would have to ferret Tristan out—that he would have fled already—but it seemed that would not be necessary.
Two men stood before the Church.
The first, the zealot, stood at his makeshift pulpit with his hands out toward the destruction, and a look of ecstasy on his face. His lips were moving, soundlessly, causing Samuel to suspect that his words were only for himself. Whatever the subject of his silent monologue might have been, he was only half delivering it. The rest of the time he was cackling to himself in delight.
Samuel took one look at him, and he knew. He cursed himself again for not following his earlier instincts, and neutralizing the man.
Tristan had completely given in to madness.
The second man was standing before Tristan, turning with a look of surprise on his
face as Samuel and Henry entered the clearing.
Samuel’s earlier musings were confirmed.
Cameron stood before him, and Samuel saw him naked in his betrayal. The bigger man was saying something, but Samuel didn’t hear him...didn’t want to hear him. Samuel had selected him to be on the team, years ago. It had been his decision. And now, people were hurt...hurt, and worse. All because, against his better judgment, he’d given this man a chance to help them make life better for everyone. The brazen face of his treachery ignited a fire in Samuel’s chest.
“Henry, get Tristan,” Samuel said through clenched teeth. He approached Cameron with clenched fists.
Cameron put his hands up, palms out.
“Samuel...listen to me,” he said. “I can see what you’re thinking, and I know what this looks like—”
“Shut up!” Samuel yelled at him. “You’ll only make it worse for yourself!”
“When I saw the blasts, I thought the same thing you did,” Cameron continued, taking a few steps back. His eyes were scrutinizing, like he was trying to read Samuel’s intentions. “It’s been Tristan all along! I came to make sure he didn’t escape!”
Samuel shook his head, ignoring Cameron’s lies.
“You killed people today,” Samuel hissed.
“Samuel, no...listen to me,” he said, his voice low. “Don’t be an idiot.”
It was then that Tristan said the first words Samuel could understand since they’d arrived. Henry had pulled him down from the pulpit and was holding on to the collar of his robes. His hair, usually so neatly laid back, was now hanging around his face in disheveled strands. His eyes were staring and predatory.
“The big man performed his duties admirably!” he shouted. “He did everything I asked him to. I’ll have to remember his services for later!”
Cameron’s face went white. “No...Samuel, he’s lying! He’s manipulating the situation!”
“All the trust I had in you...wasted....” Samuel advanced on him. His mind was getting hazy, saturated by his anger. “All that time, you could have chosen something different. Something better.” Samuel passed close to the pulpit, and reached out. He snapped off a long plank of wood, and held it in front of him.
The Footsteps of Cain Page 10
