by Nirina Stone
I turn the corner to face them. “What in Odin are you talking about? What am I not near ready for?” I ask.
Blair turns around to face me. “I thought you were in your room, packing.”
“Looks like I’m right where I need to be,” I reply, “given that I’m the subject of your discussion.” I try to inject more confidence in my words than I feel.
“Okay,” Blair replies. “I’ll fill you in, but brace yourself.”
The Metrills, he tells me, have been around since years, no decades before the Great Omni. I remember the screen we watched in that tiny room—it was in 1958. The date didn’t surprise me—they’re well established down here, more so than the Prospo or the Sorens as far as I can tell.
“They were selected out of thousands to live underground, to survive what many knew was coming. They started building and living underground in the mid to late nineteen hundreds.”
“Who selected them?” I ask, realizing there’s not much I know about the time before the Great Omni. Really, bits and parts of our history that still make little sense to me.
“They say it was the ‘populace’,” Blair says, “whatever that means. They were picked from thousands of people that applied to enter a competition and underwent several tests to become the remaining one hundred and seventy three.”
Nearly two hundred people, chosen from thousands, to live underground? Why?
I look over at the holopersona. “Blair says that many knew what was coming. Did they foresee the Great Omni?”
“Some did,” he admits. “The ones that believed it was on the horizon are the ones that set all this up. Unfortunately, there were billions of others that weren’t informed or were informed and didn’t believe what they heard.”
So it could have been avoided?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Blair says, “but there was no way to stop it. They only had one choice—they expanded this hidden world. They tried to get as many believers as possible out of the north. They couldn’t save everyone.”
That much I know.
“But why?” I ask, thinking about this seemingly peaceful people that dance in a circle. People that are capable of starting fires in another community, to—what? Keep this side of the world to themselves? “Why did they go underground? Why were they selected? What is their purpose?”
“There are many things they do here, Romy,” Father’s holo says. “Research is the largest one. Experimentation. Records keeping—”
So they’re really a group of scientists. It still doesn’t add up though.
“What are we to them?” I finally say, wondering why it’s easy for me this time to walk around the grounds without a care in the world. Wondering what’s different this time, wondering why they kidnapped me the first time.
“We are descendants of the people that selected them,” Blair says, and hesitates. “I mean, it was a vote across the people but our families were the ultimate final judges. At least, it’s the best way I can describe them. Over the years, our families have been deified by the Metrills.”
Hmmm, I think, scientists that ended up creating gods out of the people that chose them. Why not? There were only over a hundred of them to first occupy this space. They were largely isolated from the rest of the world, for what is it now, three hundred years?
Why wouldn’t they end up idolizing the ones that saved them from generations of war, violence, famine—everything else that people living on Earth’s surface had to endure. The Great Omni that killed most of the people.
But they knew of the Great Omni long before it happened. “Why didn’t they try to stop it?” I ask.
“Think about it,” Blair says. “Think about a world full of over ten billion, of which more than half were in the dark when it came to what the powers that be were up to on the other side of the planet.
“Then think about that time, the people that wanted to believe they were invincible, that they were superior. There was no way any kind of war could possibly wipe out their lifestyle.”
The numbers are far beyond what I can imagine, but I can’t help notice the clear parallels with life in Apex.
“So,” I say, as my head wraps around all this new information. I turn to Father’s holopersona again. “What is their ultimate purpose?”
He looks at Blair, who nods at him to continue. “This will be difficult—difficult to understand,” he says.
“Would the screen in that tiny room explain it?” I ask. “The one that Blair showed me a few days ago?”
“It—would,” the holo says, “to an extent.”
So we make our way down the halls again, until we’re in the room. The holo walks beside me though I know he can easily disappear and reappear again in another room within seconds. I wonder if he thinks it would leave me more at ease with him, but I still remember he’s but an apparition.
The screen in the room lights up.
Blair says, “Please show the Metrills’ greatest—accomplishments.”
I wonder why he hesitated on the word.
What flashes across the screen stumps me as dates float to the top and all I see is what looks like storms. Tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones, earthquakes.
Locations and dates of major destruction—“Tangshan 1976” then “Indian Ocean 2004” then “Haiti 2010”. The pictures and disasters don’t stop, until the final one—
“Northern hemisphere 2050”
The screens show the devastation across the world, people’s vehicles, animals, sometimes houses, being ripped apart or thrown across fields. Floods, fires, death.
What in Odin is this? I think, as I fight the idea that I know exactly what it is.
I stay quiet, wanting the screen to continue but at the same time, wishing I’d never seen any of this.
“Their ultimate plan is to—cleanse—as they like to put it,” Father’s holo says.
I’ve noted how clean the entire facility is, all shiny and dust-free. Not a speck of dirt, thanks to the metal being anti-everything, much like some of the metal used to build up Prospo City. It’s not such a bad thing, I think, keeping the place spotless.
But I know that’s not what he means.
“They’ve been responsible for every single major ‘natural disaster’ on the earth,” Blair says. “That was their responsibility from the start, from before they moved down here.”
I glare at him. He’s known all along what they do? And he’s fine with it? My frown deepens.
“I know, Rome,” he says, before I can say a thing. “But remember how Citizens would conduct reduction burns back home?”
Of course I do. We’d do them two or three times a year. “But they were to prevent bushfires,” I say, “to protect our homes and our crop. We didn’t kill people when we burnt perimeters.”
“I know,” Blair says. “Still, the Metrills believe what they’ve done is similar. They’ve used the weather as a secret weapon against enemies. Their job back then was to keep cleansing smaller areas: an earthquake here, a tornado there. They believed it was to achieve a sort of—balance—in the world.”
I look back at the screen, trying to relate what I see to what I know about the seemingly peaceful people. At least it no longer shows flashes of destruction they have caused in the world.
Now it shows what looks to be a value statement of sorts. “Always remember” float to the top of the screen, then it shows what looks to be a signed document. “Signatures of the one hundred and seventy three” shows up in cursive, and each of the people selected to hide underground lines up to leave his or her signature on the paper.
Then the words, “We watch, we wait, we execute.” More words scroll up the screen, but those are the ones that stick in my head.
Then Father’s holo continues to speak.
“Over the years, in seclusion, they have come to a decision that people’s time on earth is coming to an end,” he says. “And they think it’s time to make way for something else. Much like the dinosaurs had made way for
humans.”
Then it hits me. There was only one way those ancient beasts “made way” for people—and that was through their absolute destruction. Does he mean—?
“They only need to unlock something in Rosemary Mason’s memories to start the process. They need you to do it. Those dreams you had? Where you had to save the girl? It’s how your limited human synapses assess and translate what needs to be done. If you had succeeded in saving her, you would have been able to unlock what they need. Your mother would have been able to as well, but she’s far from amenable when it comes to the Metrills.”
“Me—?” I ask. How can a mere little Citizen possibly have a role in all this? This just doesn’t happen.
“And that’s why they’ve used me,” Father’s holo continues. “To communicate with you, because they know you trust me.”
He’s right, and they’re far more manipulative than I’d imagined. Even questioning everything the holo’s said, there’s a part of me that will always trust Father, and it’s near impossible for me to distinguish between the two.
As I mull over what he says, vividly remembering the dreams, it’s clear to me that I can’t help the Metrills. And I won’t. That’s suicide. What are they thinking?
“To what?” I say. “To destroy the earth? There’s no way I’d help them with that.”
“The thing is,” Blair says, “they will eventually unlock it. It will take longer without your help, but they’ll figure out a way. At least if you do it, it will be unlocked to us too. We could plan a way to stop it.”
That makes sense, but I also know I’m newly terrified of these Metrills and of what they’re capable. I’m terrified there’s no way we could stop them.
They’ve messed with my brain before, I think, with the fires they had me start. Despite what Father’s said, I still think they got me pregnant though I have no clue what their motivation would be.
If they can have this sort of influence on me, if they can manipulate the weather in the way they do, how in the world could we possibly stop them? We can’t. That’s how.
I hear Blair say to the holo, “Well. What are our options?”
Father’s voice says, “They could dig deeper into the earth. There’s no guarantee, but it’s one way.”
“And Apex?”
“If you warn them, they could migrate to the moon. Or Mars.”
“But that’s risky. Who knows what sort of effect what they do will have on the moon? Is there even enough space?” Blair says. “Enough ships? Enough reserves? You’re talking about hundreds of thousands of people—”
“No,” Father’s voice says. “Not that high a number. Only a few thousand.”
Blair’s breath hitches as he runs a hand through his hair. “But that’s—”
“Indeed,” Father’s voice says. “Indeed.”
I let go of a breath I didn’t realize I’d held. I have a difficult time relating the peaceful Metrills dancing in the field to what they’re talking about now. Still, I ask, “What exactly is it that I’ll be unlocking if I succeed in saving the girl in those—dreams?”
“A map,” Father’s holo says. “Or more specifically, coordinates to the place where the Legacies would have left codes—that would decimate the Earth from the inside out. The Metrills weren’t left with that—they merely had access to the equipment, but not the key.”
“Why would the Legacies do that?” I ask. “Why would they be okay with that?”
“They didn’t know the Metrills would come to a decision like this. They believed that weather manipulation was important in the overall scheme of things. They never anticipated—well, this.”
It finally occurs to me that the Great Omni was planned, that the Legacies had the Metrills’ help in it all.
“Did they think the Great Omni was a—a dry run, for what they plan to do now?” I ask, picturing the greatest devastation the earth had ever survived. The entire Northern hemisphere was destroyed. Those of us who survived in the Southern hemisphere didn’t have an easy time of it either. Now I learn that the Legacies helped start it all.
“In a way, yes,” the holo says. “There was a group of us—Sorens, Citizens, Prospo alike—who were in negotiations with them to prevent it. I’m afraid our internal problems had us focused on the wrong things, focused on fighting each other. Not surprisingly, we failed.”
I can’t imagine a group of Prospos and Citizens or Sorens getting along long enough for calm negotiations. We’ve never stopped trying to kill each other.
Maybe the Metrills are right after all. Maybe we are doomed, no matter what we try.
Before I can ask another question, I know the complex has been attacked again, because the ceiling collapses on us.
After the ceiling retracts back to the top and the lights are on, I see the back of Blair’s bot gliding around the corner, and the holo is gone too. Before I can change my mind, I run out of the room in search of Blair. I run, and keep running, but see no one.
I run past rooms that I know are still flattened because their doors are stuck to the ground. What in Odin is going on? I know that, last time, the entire place was back to normal. I keep running, looking for an exit when I turn a corner and slam into Blair.
“Thought you’d be here,” he says. “I hope you managed to pack because we need to go. Now.”
What? He’s not even healed yet, I think, then I realize that I ran right into his chest. He’s on his feet, and no longer in a chair. “Blair,” I say, “your glidingbot—?”
“I’m borrowing something from the Metrills,” he says, then he turns and I see a metal exoskeleton attached to him like a glued-on backpack, running from his shoulder blades to the top of his bottom. He throws a t-shirt on as he turns back to me. “It will keep my spine straight while I heal. We’ve got to go.”
“The Metrills,” I say, breathlessly. I haven’t seen a single one since the ceiling collapsed.
“They’re leaving too,” he says. “Somewhere northeast. They can take care of themselves.”
That I don’t doubt, but who attacked them this time? Was it the Sorens again? And for what purpose? If Eric knows I’m still here and on my way to him, who exactly is doing the attacking and why?
But of course I don’t get to ask the questions I need answers to. We’re rushing into an open veda and we’re out on the surface already. The destruction is as bad as what I’d dreamt about, those many nights ago, but this time I’m not being pulled to a waiting copta by the Metrills.
This time, I run hand in hand with a metal-backed Blair and we’re running to something far bigger than a mere copta.
I’ve never been in one of these so I gulp and stand back, my hand slipping out of Blair’s. He keeps running up to the metal bird when it hits me that it’s a heliplane. It already starts to lift into the air and it occurs to me that I should have jumped, should not have dropped Blair’s hand, as surprised as I was.
Because as Blair slips into his seat and looks back to reach an arm out to me, I feel myself slipping back and falling on my back as the ground tilts and collapses beneath me.
Blair yells something and struggles to undo the cables holding him tight in his seat, but that’s when Frankie reaches over and stops him.
She watches me fall back, fright in her eyes, as she holds him back. He turns to yell at her as the heliplane rises higher and out of my sight.
Its shiny silver underbelly is the last thing I see before I tumble and am swallowed whole by the ground, buried under mounds of dirt and rubble. My legs are sucked into some sort of vortex, or maybe the earth’s hungry mouth. My ears fill with dirt, muffling sounds of my impending death. Nothing can pull me out of this.
The last thing I think to do is shut my eyes and mouth, and let myself sink further down into the ground, my heart the only sound over the falling earth.
16
Setbacks to Bear
When my legs drop through a small hole, I wriggle and kick until my torso is pulled through as well. I’m
pinched a bit snug, what with the swell in my belly, but I try to make myself smaller.
My arms flail out to my sides, and I throw my right arm down, to grab the sides of the hole I’m through. I still can’t breathe, but know that whatever is beneath me is an air pocket of some sort.
Whether there is even breathable air does not matter right now. All that matters is that I pull my head away from the dirt and into the space below me. So I keep kicking and struggling.
I move both arms to my sides and push on the surface from below, until the hole gives away to the rest of my body and I fall through something, to land on a hard metal floor. I cough, sputter and try in futile to shake the gunk and dirt from my ears.
Without thinking, I take a deep breath and, despite the mud and dirt that I then cough up, I know this air is breathable. So I must be in one of the Metrills’ rooms. The grit and dirt in my eyes don’t help much, but I catch a shiny wall from the corner of my eye. I know the Metrills are leaving now, but don’t know what that means for this place.
So when the ground rumbles, I jump up, meaning to get back to the surface. That heliplane must be long gone by now. Blair would know I couldn’t survive that fall. Even if he insisted, I know she wouldn’t allow it. So I’m on my own.
When I feel another deep rumble under my feet, I run for it, knowing that I only have mere minutes before I’m flat on the ground with the ceiling atop me.
Who knows if, this time it will retract at all, or if they will flatten the whole space and leave it that way. The Metrills are not a wasteful people.
So I run faster, not knowing the direction, not knowing my destination, but knowing that staying here won’t get me anything but flattened. I don’t bump into anyone and keep running though the rumbling doesn’t stop and I’m flailing and falling before I know what’s happening.
The fall hurts, but at least it stopped me before I run into whatever in Odin that thing is. I turn a corner and stop when I hear a low growl to my left where whatever light source the Metrills had is switched off.
