by R F Hurteau
“Well, not just like before,” Ambrose pointed out, puffing out his chest. “I intend for this time around to be a softer landing.”
“We’ll be monitoring transmissions through the Gate the whole time you’re gone. Using this, you can let us know when you’re ready to come back through. I’ve set the frequency, so you don’t have to do anything, just press this button.” He gave Felix a quick overview of the simple device.
“Okay,” said Penelope. “Sanctuary is coming up, dead ahead!”
Everyone stood, moving toward the cockpit to stare out at the vast, icy landscape.
Pluto’s spotlights cut a swatch through the deep blue twilight sky, illuminating drifts of snow far beneath them. Ironic, Felix thought, that they had left Sanctuary as the sun rose and were now returning just after it had dipped below the horizon once more, the beginning of another long, polar night.
The softly illuminated domes appeared in view one after another, growing larger by the second as they approached. There was silence in the cabin, each of them lost in their own thoughts.
Everything that had happened here, everything Felix had been through, came flooding back so hard and fast that he felt his eyes filling with tears. He tried to wipe them away inconspicuously, but felt Tobias place a comforting hand on his shoulder.
“My word,” breathed Thoris in amazement. “It’s a good deal larger than I imagined it to be.”
Felix cleared his throat. “Ten thousand people need quite a bit of space,” he said. “Or at least, there were ten thousand people. I’m not sure how many there are now, with the Elves gone.”
He paused, wondering as he had many times over the last six months what had become of the several hundred Halfsies and their families. He hoped they were okay. In any case, that had nothing to do with their current mission. Felix needed to keep his mind on the job.
“And where is Antiquity’s Gate, exactly?”
“Right in the middle of the domes,” answered Tobias, squinting as more of Sanctuary came into focus. “You’ll be able to see it soon. Have you ever seen pictures?”
The Gate appeared before them at that moment, and the sight made even Tobias stop talking. Deep violet radiance spilled out onto the surrounding icy landscape, reflecting off the snow and creating a vibrant field of light against the gathering darkness.
Tobias found his voice again after a moment. “It’s quite impressive, is it not? A unique crystalline structure of unknown origin...wait a minute...” he sounded puzzled as they sped closer. “What are those...?”
“What are what?” Felix attempted to pinpoint what his friend was looking at.
“All right,” Ambrose instructed, “Here it comes, Felix. Gather your things, I’d like to make this quick so we can get the engine upgrades finished. I sure hope your numbers pan out, Penelope. I’d hate to be stranded here a second time.”
“Oh—you don’t think—” Tobias murmured, his eyes slits as he peered through the cockpit, trying to push past Felix to get closer to the glass, “They couldn’t have, could they?”
“What are you talking about?” Felix demanded.
Tobias’ eyes grew wide with fear. “Ambrose! Pull up! Turn back!”
“What are you on about?” snapped Ambrose, though he had instinctively begun to pull up on his steering column in response to the sheer terror in Tobias’ voice.
It was too late. Felix felt as much as heard a series of rapid impacts against the side of the ship, like the clanging of a hammer on steel. One of them clipped Pluto’s tail, sending them careening into a spin.
“They’re firing on us! Hang on to something!”
Ambrose was making a valiant attempt to regain control of the ship. Tobias and Thoris were slammed against the bulkhead where inertia held them in place.
Felix managed to grab hold of the overhead netting, shoving his body between the two front seats in order to keep his footing. He watched through the windshield as the domes swirled around them like a massive wheel, flashes of light cascading across his vision as the turrets continued to fire. A loud hissing filled the compartment, and he turned his head to see a jet of white twirling wildly in their wake through the small rear window.
For one brief moment, he remembered his dream, the fierce explosion of steam transforming into a plume of snow.
Then he was ripped back to reality by the jolting of the ship.
“Penelope, give me thrusters!” roared Ambrose above the noise, and she struggled against inertia, leaning to flip a switch before she was forced back into her seat.
Ambrose jerked on the steering column. Felix felt his feet leave the floor as his head whipped forward. The ship leveled out, feet from the ground, and a plume of snow rose up around them like a veil, obscuring the landscape.
The world stopped spinning around him and everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. The Gate loomed into view, a gaping mouth waiting to swallow them whole. Too late to pull up, Ambrose aimed Pluto’s nose straight.
The engine shuddered. Blood pounded in Felix’s ears. The hissing drowned out the rest of the world.
They slipped through the Gate as neatly as thread through a needle. There was a blinding light, and then—darkness.
Four
Easily Confused
IT seemed like every time Denton turned around, he was staring straight down the ugly black maw of another meeting.
He had always been a man of action, but as the new head of Security it seemed that the majority of his time was devoted to words. Meetings about the new hierarchy. Meetings about the state of Security. Meetings about how to feed the people. Always more talking.
He wondered how anything got done around here, when the entire body of their government seemed to spend a majority of their time sequestered in this stifling little room.
He comforted himself in knowing that, at least tonight, they would be discussing something in which Denton had played a major role. At the same time, he was conflicted. They would expect him to speak about it. Denton had never had much interest in listening to flowery speeches. He had even less interest in delivering one.
He opened the door to the Council chambers and saw, with dismay, that he was amongst the first to arrive. He hadn’t intended on being early. Perhaps it was the constant stress of his new position. That must be it. All the stress that came with the sudden burden of responsibility was changing him.
Changing him into someone who showed up to things on time.
He walked around to the opposite side of the table, seating himself as far away from the other early arrivals as possible in order to avoid any chance of having to engage in small talk.
There were a dozen Council members, and a dozen more attendants who were heads of various strategic departments. Schooling, Agriculture, Transportation, Communications...he couldn’t name them all, nor did he care to.
The only thing that concerned him was how many there were. Denton was no math whiz, but even he knew that a full meeting like this made for twenty-three potentially uncomfortable conversations.
His efforts at appearing unapproachable had failed.
“Hey, Denton,” said Ben Parker in his annoyingly chipper tone. He sat beside his sister, who did not offer a greeting but instead stared at Denton with a look that suggested she had just smelled something distasteful.
“Parker,” he acknowledged with a nod that he hoped had an air of finality to it.
“How are things over in Security?”
Parker always had been unable to take a hint. But then he waved a hand.
“Never mind, I’m sure we’re going to be hearing all about it soon!”
After that, there was blissful silence as they waited for the rest of the department heads to file in.
It had come as a shock to Denton when he’d been elected as the new head of Security. Edwin Smalls had once pointed out to him that he wasn’t very well-liked, and Denton had not been offended in the least. He had never cared what other people thought of him, or the w
ay he did things.
But the anti-Elven feelings that were so rampant after the riots must have given his popularity a boost. Everyone knew he was no friend to the Elves. They’d been looking for a strong leader, who wasn’t afraid to do what was necessary to protect them. They’d turned to him, and he’d accepted.
Looking back, knowing what the job would entail, he might have declined. But it was what it was, and there was no turning back now.
“Thank you all for coming tonight.” Edwin Smalls was at the head of the table, his expression serious, and Denton scoffed. As if we had a choice. “There’s something important I would like to discuss with all of you.”
At this, Nelson Boggs sat up straighter.
“But first,” continued Smalls, “let’s get all of our other business out of the way. Now, to begin—yes, Sylvia?”
The small woman’s face flushed as all eyes turned her way and she lowered her raised hand. “I was hoping we could reopen our discussion on the Halfsies.”
The room filled with murmurs. Denton scowled. Not again.
The fate of the Halfsies had become a recurrent topic at these meetings, as the new Council members were fiercely divided on the subject. Like Denton, none of the others seemed too eager to be swayed to the opposing side. So instead they just went round and round, wasting everyone’s time with the same damned argument over and over again.
“That’s not up for debate,” Denton took it upon himself to declare, hoping to head off the lot of them. “It’s been settled.”
Meagan O’Dell chimed in, much to his chagrin. “I agree with Sylvia. We ought to at least talk about it.”
The murmuring grew louder as others weighed in with their own unwanted opinions on the matter.
After the riots had been brought under control, Security had systematically rounded up all of the Halfsies. A few had been caught in the fighting, but many had had the good sense to hunker down and wait things out.
Although almost half of the Council had strongly protested, the will of the people of New Sanctuary had won out, and the Halfsies had been forced into servitude, subjected to the rigors and dangers of the Geothermal Plant.
Many thought of this as a type of justice for all that the Elves had done to Humans during Sanctuary’s history. Yet the Parker siblings and a handful of strong supporters had continued their very vocal protest of this “mistreatment.”
The conversation that followed was predictable, the same old thing rehashed for the hundredth time.
“It isn’t right. They aren’t slaves; they shouldn’t even be prisoners. They didn’t do anything wrong!” Sylvia’s brother was nodding animatedly beside her. The do-good siblings, at it again.
Smalls’ reply was mechanical and well-rehearsed. “Being part Elf is enough. The people have spoken. They don’t trust the Halfsies, not after all that’s happened. This is the only justice we have to offer them.”
“This isn’t justice, and you know it!” Parker said, angry now. “Sylvia has said it before, and I’ll say it again. What we’ve allowed to happen is wrong, Edwin. I don’t care about popular opinion”
“I don’t disagree, Ben,” interjected Boggs, his tone sickeningly placating, “but what are we supposed to do? Without the Geothermal Plant, New Sanctuary can’t survive. Someone’s got to run it. If you think about it, the Halfsies are benefiting from it just as much as we are.”
But Sylvia never could leave well enough alone. “It should be on a volunteer basis, or maybe some kind of mandatory rotation. It doesn’t have to be as terrible as it is. The conditions down there are awful, but with a little work—”
“We are putting everything we have into the defense of this city. If New Sanctuary is lost, the point is moot,” Smalls pointed out. “As far as your suggestions, we will discuss this further and determine the best way to improve working and living conditions for the Halfsies once our own safety has been assured.”
Denton laughed, and everyone looked at him, the faces a mixture of confusion and abhorrence.
“Sorry.” This was a lie, he was not sorry. In fact, he was unable to keep himself from grinning, “just wondering when we’ll have assured safety, since we live right next to a Gate that leads to a whole buncha Elves who are dying to see us wiped out.”
There was a brief, awkward pause before the others burst back into conversation, but Denton stopped listening at this point. He’d heard it all before. He tried, half-heartedly, to pay attention, but his mind wasn’t built for politics and negotiation. He found himself nodding off as the rest of them droned on.
All at once, Denton noticed that the room had gone quiet. He reached out, picking at a small scratch on the smooth surface of the table, pretending that he’d been looking at it the whole time. Then, trying to appear casual, he glanced up.
They were all staring at him. Denton felt his body tense. His natural reaction to almost any situation was to get angry.
He glared at Smalls, who had an impatient, condescending expression plastered on his smug face.
“I was saying,” he said in a clipped tone, apparently repeating himself, “that a much more pressing matter is the status of our defenses. Would you please elaborate on that, Mr. Murphy?”
I’d like to elaborate my fist on your face, thought Denton. He gritted his teeth and began to speak.
“Yeah. So, uh, we’ve been working on a way to defend the city, in case the Elves try to come back.”
Sweet Evenmire, he hated this. He looked around at their expectant faces. What were they all waiting for? Wasn’t this self-explanatory? “We’ve got a bunch of nerds in one of the labs who were able to design turrets from old specs we found in the library. They use...” He scrunched up his face in concentration, trying to remember the terminology they’d been spouting at him just this morning. “Uh...explosive projectiles? Anyway, we’ve made some of those, too. Not a lot, but we’re working on it. We’ve mounted the turrets on every dome. They’re triggered remotely from a new control panel in Core Operations.”
There. He’d said what he’d come to say. They all waited for him to continue, but he sat back in his seat, drumming his fingers on the table.
“Anything comes through that Gate, we’ll shoot it dead,” he finished with a shrug.
Their glorious leader frowned and but was fast to recover, his face breaking into what seemed to be a very painful smile.
“Thank you, Denton. What do you need in order to increase production of these projectiles?”
“More nerds,” Denton said, “and more materials. There’s three parts. Don’t bother asking me the names—I forget. But two they can create in the lab, and one can be found under the Geothermal Plant, in the tunnels.”
Smalls nodded. “We’ll get more workers down there to collect it, then, and we’ll get your team whatever they need. I want this to be a top priority.” He looked around the table. “Does anyone have any questions for Denton at this time?”
Boggs raised a hand. “Um, I do.”
Denton glared scathingly in his direction, but the little man seemed undeterred.
“What about the outside of the domes? Facing away from the Gate, I mean.”
Denton felt confused, which made him angry. “Ain’t no Elves coming from outside the domes. They live on the other side of the Gate, see?”
“Well, obviously, yes, but...” the scrawny overachiever shot a nervous glance toward Smalls, who nodded. “We may have other problems. Besides the Elves, I mean.”
Denton sat up straighter. This was news to him. He glanced around and, judging from the looks of others, it was a surprise to everyone else, too.
Meagan O’Dell, head of Communications, cleared her throat. “You all might be aware that we recently discovered the Therans’ radio center, which allowed them to communicate with their Theran counterparts.”
Denton saw some of the others nodding. He, on the other hand, had no idea what was going on.
“We’ve rerouted all of that equipment into the Observato
ry, for ease of use.”
“Congratulations,” Denton said dryly, eliciting a few nervous laughs from around the table. O’Dell shot him a withering glare, which took just long enough for Boggs, ever craving the spotlight, to launch himself into her monologue.
“We have become aware since the Therans’ retreat that we are not, as was previously suggested, the only survivors of the Sequencing. We have reason to believe that we’re picking up communications from other Humans.”
There was nervous murmuring from around the table.
“Everyone, calm down,” Smalls said. “Now, what Nelson has just told you, it must not leave this room. Do you understand? We need to know more about what we’re dealing with before this becomes public knowledge.”
The room erupted into a cacophony of sound as ideas began flying around the room from every direction, some more wild than others.
“Are they planning to attack us?”
“Maybe they could help with our food supplies!”
“Why haven’t they made contact?”
Smalls gave a dramatic sigh, resting his open palms against the table. “This is precisely the reason why we’re not going to be sharing this information until we know more. Imagine this on a much larger scale. So yes, Denton. We will need to look at increasing our defenses, so that we can fire in whichever direction is necessary.”
“They don’t swivel,” Denton pointed out, spinning one finger in the air in demonstration. “They’re heavy, ya know. They’re only about a third of the way up, they ain’t gonna be able to target anything outside the ring. You shoulda warned me that they needed to do more.”
“Well, I’m warning you now,” Smalls said smartly. “We didn’t realize...anyway. Find a way to move them or get more out there. Anything. Just in case we come up against any...unexpected conflicts.”
“That’s not going to be easy. It took us six months to get what we’ve got up and running. Maybe if you’d told me earlier...”
