Extinction Point: Kings (Extinction Point Series (5 book series))

by Paul Antony Jones

  Valentine must not have sensed its approach, her attention still focused on the distraction that was Thor. The first she knew that she had lost was when the Machine's front tentacles lassoed her around the waist, then yanked her from her feet, high into the air as if she were nothing. Valentine let out an indignant screech that turned quickly to a squeal of mortal fear as she stared into the sightless face of the massive engine of destruction that now held her struggling within its grasp.

  The Machine's head turned to look directly at Emily, and Emily understood that through its sensors Rhiannon was looking at her, waiting for an answer to her silent unasked question.

  Emily nodded. "Do it," she managed to mumble from between her bloody lips.

  The Machine tore Valentine in half, sending her head and torso spinning far off out to sea, where it landed with a splash and vanished beneath the waves. The rest of her body went spiraling away from the beach, entrails and bodily fluids flying behind her to land with a wet thunk somewhere in the dunes.

  Emily's head sank back into the warm sand. She closed her eyes and allowed the heat of the California sun to wash over her, turning her world from red to blue. The last thing Emily Baxter sensed before she passed into unconsciousness was Thor's warm tongue against her face.

  CHAPTER 22

  Emily sat alone by the bank of a stream. The water gurgled and babbled, bouncing over rocks and pebbles, creating a symphony that was at once gently chaotic, but irresistibly beautiful. If I close my eyes, Emily thought, I'll fall instantly asleep, at least, she would have if it had not been for the obvious clues that she was already asleep.

  The grass she lay on, and that stretched out in all directions around her was a luscious green. The trees, maples and huge green birch, were in full leafy splendor, vibrant and glistening with life. The air, warm and clean, was redolent with the smell of chlorophyll and apple blossom. A few white clouds drifted serenely across the azure sky, serenaded on their journey by the song of birds, who in turn were accompanied by the lively chatter and laughter of children.

  Emily sat up and allowed her eyes to search for the source of the laughter.

  A little farther along the bank of the stream, a group of maybe fifteen children were gathered around a tall man. The man, dressed in white linen trousers and a shirt of the same material, stood in the stream, the water up to his knees. The children splashed and laughed in the stream around him. The man smiled at them as they excitedly danced around him, each one clamoring for his attention, each receiving it in turn. The stranger was tall, had a full but tightly cropped beard the same color as his blond shoulder-length hair, and, as he waded through the stream toward Emily, eyes of the deepest blue. His face, peaceful and kind, seemed...familiar to her. It was as though she recognized him from her past, but could not quite grasp the memory of who he was.

  "Hello," Emily said, smiling first at the children who followed behind the man, then at the stranger as they drew closer. "Am I in a dream?"

  The tall stranger dropped to his knees beside Emily and looked deep into her eyes, his smile widening. He reached out and took Emily's hand in his—it was warm and comforting, and she felt a gentle wave of electricity run over her skin where his hand touched her own.

  "Yes, a dream," said the stranger, "of sorts." His voice was calm, gentle, soothing.

  "You look...familiar. Do I know you?" Emily asked, canting her head to one side, the sleepy, dreamlike quality of her existence slowing her thought process. She felt so very, very relaxed. At peace.

  The stranger-who-was-not-a-stranger leaned in close to Emily, placing his lips close to her ear. He whispered, "Hello, Mommy," then drew back, his smile widening.

  The realization that this was Adam, her son, did not come as a shock to Emily, not here, not in this place, wherever this strange dream world was, if it was at all. Instead, it felt the same as when she knew the answer to a question, or a problem, but her brain was unable to release it; the solution waited on the tip of her tongue, and, when that answer finally revealed itself, it completed rather than surprised. This was that.

  Emily smiled, "Hello, baby." She wrapped her child in her arms, pulled him to her, felt the warmth of his skin pressed against hers as his arms enveloped her. She breathed in deeply, inhaling the scent of her boy.

  "Is it over?" she whispered into her son's ear.

  "Yes. It is done."`

  Adam squeezed his mother tightly, then slowly released her. The children—other children, Emily thought, because to her Adam was and always would be a child—milled around Adam's legs, smiling and quietly chattering to each other, their eyes moving from Adam to Emily and then back to Adam again.

  They are beautiful. Beautiful, Emily thought.

  "Who are they?" she asked, unable to contain the joy she felt at the sight of the children as they frolicked and played in the grass at her son's feet.

  Adam smiled again. "My sisters and my brothers."

  Confused, Emily started to say that he had no brothers or sisters but stopped before the words left her lips. She knew that that was not correct. It was this place, she realized, this other world. In this dream-place, no untruth could be spoken or thought. How that was, she did not know, did not care. She was just content that it was.

  Adam continued. "They are future echoes. Probabilities waiting to be realized. Children of the new world. The new Earth." He reached a hand down to stroke the hair of a little girl, no more than four or five, who clung to his leg, her arms wrapped around his calf, her cheek resting against Adam's thigh just above his knee. She had blonde hair, glittering eyes, and a radiant smile. Her eyes focused on Emily, never leaving her.

  Emily's smile grew wider. "You're beautiful," she said.

  The little girl giggled, then dipped her head behind Adam's leg.

  "Is this the past or the future?" Emily asked.

  Adam smiled, "This is both past and future. It is what once was and what will be again should you choose the right path."

  "The right path?" Emily asked.

  "You are on the path. You have always known that it was the right one. Simply continue. Do not falter," he said.

  "What about you, son? What path have you chosen?"

  Adam's smile faltered, "I must leave."

  "No!" said Emily, reaching to take her son's hand in her own. "I can't lose you again. Not now. Please."

  Adam squeezed his mother's hand. "I am already gone. There is so much left for me to understand. The destruction of the Caretakers has left a vacuum in the universe. I must find those who created them and tell them what has happened. I must understand them."

  "But what if you can't find them? What if they are all dust, as dead as the Caretakers?"

  "Then I will take their place."

  "But why? Why does it have to be you?"

  "Because the universe has always needed a steward. Left on its own, it teeters toward chaos. If there is to be order, life, then someone must help to direct it."

  Adam dropped to a sitting position in the grass, squeezed his mother's hand and released it. He ran his hand over the head of the blonde-haired girl who now sat in his lap, quietly working at something unseen in her hands. The little girl had made a daisy chain from the wild flowers that grew all around. She stood, walked to Emily and placed the daisy chain solemnly over Emily's head.

  "Thank you." Emily smiled at the little girl as she returned to Adam's lap.

  The little girl smiled shyly, leaning against Adam's chest as he spoke.

  "You have given this planet and countless other worlds and civilizations a second chance, and in return, I have given you and those who stood at your side a gift. Do not allow it to be squandered."

  "A gift?" Emily asked, although she felt as though she already knew the answer to her question. Felt it within her.

  Adam smiled. His head tilted skyward.

  Where had the clouds come from, Emily wondered. She had not seen their approach but now they covered the whole of the sky. Emily sensed that with
their approach, her time in this place had drawn almost to a conclusion.

  "Will I ever see you again?" Emily asked. She looked up at her child, squinting because the sun was directly behind his head, creating a fierce halo of light.

  "One day," Adam said. He lifted the little girl from his lap, placed her between his mother and him, then pushed himself to his feet. Adam took a step back toward the stream.

  "No, please. Don't go. Please..."

  Adam took another step backward, still smiling.

  "Please," Emily begged, "stay."

  "I love you," said Adam.

  "I love you, too," Emily whispered.

  Then Adam was gone and the clouds filled the sky.

  But the beautiful blonde-haired child remained.

  •••

  Emily opened her eyes to a world that was darker than the one she had just left. As her mind gradually returned to the reality of this world, memories slowly began to return to her. She had been in a fight...? Yes, that felt right, but in that moment, she could not recall the exact details of it all, they eluded the grasp of her mind. It took several seconds for her senses to fully return to her, but when they finally did, she saw that she lay in bed in a room with dull white walls. There were several machines and monitors next to her bed, quietly doing whatever they were designed to do. An intravenous tube fed a clear liquid from a bag hanging from a stand into her right arm. Obviously, she was in a hospital, but Emily didn't think it was Point Loma's infirmary.

  Mac sat in a chair near her bed. His head cradled by a hand whose elbow rested on the armrest of the chair. He was breathing rhythmically. Asleep. Snoring quite loudly, a large y-shaped adhesive bandage strapped to his broken nose.

  Mac! The memory of her husband, lying unconscious on the ground returned with a blinding flash of panic that quickly began to subside, because there he was in the chair, alive and well. Another image flashed into her mind, this one of Petter; unconscious, and covered in blood. And then all her memories just seemed to pop back into existence at once: the assault on the Locusts' lair; the survivors they had found deep within; their flight from the lair and the ensuing battle and final destruction of the Locusts, along with the abominations they had created; the terrible, terrible losses that had once again been inflicted on her fragile species. Valentine, and her ultimate death at the hands of Rhiannon.

  And finally, there was Adam.

  Oddly, she felt no sense of loss for her son; probably, she reasoned, because the profound emotional heat of her 'dream' still burned within her; a dream she suspected was actually a farewell from her son, her very much alive son, who was now out there, somewhere in the heavens, traveling on a mission to find the creators of the Caretakers. Where there should have been soul-breaking pain at his absence, there was only a profound sense of love, a love that burned at the center of her mind and in her heart; a parting gift from her beautiful, irreplaceable star child.

  Emily's eyes drifted down her body to her left leg...it was in a cast from the knee down, two large pillows beneath it for support. Her right hand was also encased in a bandage, wrapped around all her fingers down to her wrist. Wrapped around her remaining fingers, she corrected herself, because there was a space where her pinky finger should have been; a permanent reminder of her battle with Valentine. She felt absolutely no pain. Zero. Nada. That, she quickly deduced, was because she was dosed up-to-the-gills with painkillers; the unmistakable soothing fuzziness of opioid-induced peace and wellbeing flowed warmly through her veins.

  And with that realization came a sudden sense of panic.

  Emily tried to call Mac's name, but her lips refused to move, fused together by a lack of moisture. Her tongue felt like a strip of the Mojave Desert in the middle of summer. She looked to her right then left, stretched past one of the monitors for a red plastic cup on the bedside table. It had some water left in it and she emptied the cup in one gulp, swishing the water around her mouth and over her lips before swallowing. Her throat felt like it had constricted to one-third its normal size. She tried to speak again, this time more successfully.

  "Mac!" she croaked. He did not react. "Mac!" she repeated, this time a little louder.

  Her husband's eyes flickered open. He blinked twice, then his eyes grew wide, and in a second he was out of the chair and at her side.

  "Emily! Oh, thank Christ. I thought you..." His voice trailed off as tears began to flow, emotion holding his throat in a stranglehold of love and relief.

  Emily pulled Mac's hand to her cracked lips and kissed the back of it.

  Her husband gulped down his emotion, closed his eyes for a second, exhaled a breath that Emily had the distinct impression he had been holding for a very, very long time, and smiled. He leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. "I...We...I..." he stuttered, unable to form a coherent sentence. "God damn it!"

  They both laughed gently at his verbal stumbling.

  "It’s okay," Emily croaked. "I'm okay."

  Mac took the empty plastic cup from her and refilled it from a pitcher on a table in the corner of the room. He returned the cup to his wife and she drank it slowly, savoring the coolness of the water against her mouth and throat.

  When Mac spoke again his powers of communication had miraculously returned. "We weren't sure if you'd come out of it, the coma...You were in a fucking coma..."

  "Petter?" Emily asked.

  Before Mac even spoke, she knew from the cloud that seemed to move across his face that the news would not be good. "He didn't make it. I tried to help him, but his blood loss was just too much. We returned his body, along with the bodies of his people that we could find to Svalbard for burial."

  "How?" said Emily, confused at how they could have done that so quickly.

  "Rhiannon's been bringing people back and forth between Point Loma and Svalbard. Did I mention that's where you are? Svalbard Island. She ferried you to the hospital here. Doctor Johansen and Doctor Candillier have been looking after you since we brought you here. Captain Constantine's in the room next to this one." Mac smiled brightly, as if that little nugget pleased him greatly. Then, anticipating her next question, he added, "Eight days. You were in a coma for eight days."

  Emily allowed that piece of information to sink in for a second, then discarded it, because it was not important. What was important was that she convey her message to her husband quickly, because she could feel exhaustion beginning to creep into her mind again.

  "Anesthetic," she said. "Pain killers."

  Mac stood up quickly. "Christ! Yes, of course, sorry. Let me go and get Doctor—" he started to turn away, his fingers releasing Emily's hand as he started toward the door.

  Emily grabbed his hand, refusing to allow it to slip from her own. "No. No more painkillers. No more anesthetic. None, understand?" The clouds of exhaustion were approaching faster now. There wasn't much more time.

  Mac stepped in closer. "What? I don't understand. Why don't you want painkillers?"

  She pulled him in as close to her mouth as possible, and as reality slipped away she managed to speak. "Pregnant," she said. "I'm pregnant."

  EPILOGUE

  Time passed quickly, as it inevitably does when you are focused on a goal. And when that goal is the survival of humanity, time, at least for Emily, had seemed to fly by faster than she could ever remember it doing. Today was no exception; although time had gotten away from her for all the right reasons, which made a pleasant change.

  She rose quietly from the bed, took her dressing gown from the back of the bedroom door and walked out onto the balcony, looking briefly back at the bed, where Mac lay naked beneath the sheets breathing gently, a sheen of sweat from their afternoon lovemaking glinting on his shoulders. Thor, who had been lying on the floorboards, leaped up onto the bed, settling into the space she had just vacated, his tail shushing gently across the sheets, as if giving his approval to the love that Emily felt so strongly within this room. She pulled her robe around her, more to cover her nakedness than for warmth,
the California air as perfect as it had always been. As she tied the robe, her eye unconsciously moved to the space where her right pinky finger should have been, then to her left ankle where the bone had not quite set properly, pushing out against the skin. She still walked with a limp, even after all these years, and would, she knew, for the rest of her life; a parting gift to remember Valentine by. She could live with that trade-off, she told herself, as she did every day when these thoughts inevitably invaded her mind, especially when she counted everything she had gained since those terrible, distant days.

  Emily leaned against the balcony’s wrought-iron railing, her eyes moving across the square below her window to the twenty-or-so other two-story family homes clustered around it, the late-afternoon sun pushing their shadows out over the space. Eight trees—poplars, if Emily recalled correctly—offered shade to anyone who chose to spend a few moments resting on the large plots of succulent green grass that grew beneath their leafy branches. The houses surrounding the square were white-walled, blue-roofed, in a classic Greek style, thanks to a native of the Greek island of Kos, an architect and former resident of Svalbard who had brought his skills to bear on the new communes. Emily’s commune was just one of fifty or so similar projects that followed the line of the coast north of the survivors’ original Point Loma home in kibbutz-style communities.

  She looked over the roofs of the homes. In the distance, the edge of the red jungle was unmissable, but between the jungle and the collection of houses, and also to the west, and the south of the commune...was color. Acre-upon-acre of green and yellow fields. Here and there, scattered amongst the crop fields like diamonds, the sun glinted off large glass hot-houses, that held the fruits and vegetables for the community.

  It was humanity’s best hope for a future and it was beautiful.

  Her mind drifted back through time. When, after many months of recuperation and therapy, and even as her belly swelled with the new life growing within it, Doctor Johansen had finally judged Emily fit enough to be discharged from the hospital, the first thing she had done was to keep her promise to Magda Solheim, the Governor of Longyearbyen. She offered any of the island’s residents the chance to return with her and Mac to California. Almost everyone on Svalbard had taken the chance at a new life, a fresh start, with only a handful of longtime residents choosing to remain behind, the lure of sunshine and warm seas, no match for the ice-cold beauty of their island home. Emily couldn’t blame them, not really; the island was the last vestige of normalcy in their lives, and leaving it, seeing what the planet had become, would have forced them to accept the horrors that had been perpetrated on the world. There was solace in not knowing, in ignoring the reality that lay beyond their sight, she understood that. No, she couldn’t blame the holdouts one bit for wanting to stay right where they were.