by Ike Hamill
The hum grew louder.
The console with the video was completely frozen. The unit began to shake and jump on the bench. The device bounced its way towards the jar.
“We should move the jar farther away,” Brook said.
Amelia shook her head. “Too dangerous. Come on—it’s time to go.”
They shuffled everyone through the door. Nobody wanted to turn their backs on the vibrating and banging experiment. They could hear the hum out in the hall and even when they descended the front steps.
In the distance, the turrets began to fire. Madelyn turned towards the perimeter.
“The assault is starting,” Madelyn said. “We’re too late.”
The hum grew in pitch and volume until it was a whine. Several people looked down at their feet. They felt the vibration in the ground. The rumble felt like it would shake the whole world apart. The building began to sway. The glass in some of the windows cracked.
The sound culminated with a giant sucking noise and then silence.
Brook and Amelia looked at each other.
“Is that it?” Brook asked.
“Shhh!” Elijah said. They all looked to him. “Listen.”
On the wind, they heard the sound of people cheering.
They turned towards the sound—it was the direction that Penny had led her group.
“The guns stopped,” Elijah said.
Amelia ran for the front door of the building. After a second, Brook chased after her. Madelyn followed. She caught up to the two women as they stood at the doorway to the lab. Amelia fumbled for the laser. The beam sparkled on the sides of the glass jar, but there was nothing inside.
“The console is dark,” Brook said. She crossed the room slowly, like she didn’t want to break the spell.
When she got to the console, Brook hit a couple of controls and then turned back. “It’s dead. They both are.”
“We need to find something else,” Amelia said. “Some other device that wasn’t in proximity.”
“There’s a terminal in Building One,” Brook said.
They went back outside.
Jacob had reached the same conclusion. Before they even reached Building One, he came down the front stairs holding a screen. He waved it at them as he ran.
“It’s out!” he yelled. “No response.”
Amelia took the screen from him and verified his findings.
Madelyn looked to Elijah. He was wandering away from the buildings. She ran to catch up.
“Do you think its true?” she asked as she caught up.
“Let’s go find out,” he said.
They took a path that passed through a thin strip of woods before leading uphill. When Elijah moved towards the red pole that marked the perimeter of the safe harbor, he dropped down to his belly. Madelyn joined him and they crawled towards the lip of the hill.
He pushed himself upright as soon as he saw. Madelyn got to her feet.
In the distance, a group of people were pushing over the turret. When it toppled, they cheered and ran on to their next target.
Elijah sighed. Vertical lines of concern marked the center of his forehead.
“What’s wrong?” Madelyn asked.
“Looks like the problem is solved, but at what cost?” Elijah asked.
They walked towards the turret as the crowd knocked over the next gun and ran on, out of sight. Elijah knelt next to it and touched the display. The machine was completely dark.
He stood up and looked towards the horizon. The sun was just rising above the trees. Elijah blinked at it.
“What if it’s the whole world?” he asked.
Madelyn folded her arms. “So what?”
He looked at her. “No consoles, terminals, synthesizers? We won’t be able to charge batteries. We won’t be able to look up information on the ether.”
Madelyn kicked the turret. “And no bad tech either.”
Elijah nodded slowly. “I suppose.”
“Was there another way out?” Madelyn asked. “What’s better—survival at a cost, or no survival at all?”
“It’s debatable,” Elijah said. “If we just doomed everyone to a slow death because they don’t have the ability to pump and purify water, then it’s debatable. Besides water, half of our crops need Q-batteries to fabricate nutrients.”
Madelyn turned away as she thought of her grandmother’s cabin. It had always been her safety net. She had plenty of food stored there, but it was all down in the subterranean cellar.
“The Q-batteries won’t work?” she asked.
“No, Madelyn,” he said. “Of course not.”
Without the Q-battery, her lift wouldn’t work. She would have to rig a ladder, and that would only work if she could manually lower the lift.
“No more showers,” he said. “No more plumbing. We’ll be back to outhouses.”
Madelyn put a hand to her forehead. She was starting to feel nauseous.
Elijah turned and Madelyn followed his eyes. Harper and Jacob were picking their way to the edge of the perimeter. When they saw Madelyn and Elijah, they broke into a run. They wore big smiles on their faces as they approached.
“It worked!” Jacob said. “Unbelievable! You were right, Aunt Mac!”
She sighed.
“What’s wrong?” Harper asked.
“Tell them,” Madelyn said to Elijah.
# # # # #
“It’s fine,” Jacob said, once he had heard all of Elijah’s concerns.
“We’ll adjust,” Harper said. “We always have.”
“Everything is precious now,” Madelyn said. She sat down on one of the legs of the fallen turret. “Food, water, bullets, and medicine are all going to evaporate. People are going to loot and hoard. There will be fighting and factions. Scarcity has caused more death than you can imagine.”
“People will survive,” Jacob said. “It’s what we do.”
“I hope you’re right,” Elijah said. “Regardless of what tomorrow brings, we have one more thing to attend to today.”
He looked at Madelyn.
“The filthy Optioners,” she said.
Elijah nodded.
“They’ll be close. They’re probably trying to figure out why their guns have gone offline,” Elijah said.
They heard gunfire from the north.
“I think Penny’s group has found them,” Madelyn said.
Elijah began to run towards the sound of the gunfire. Madelyn turned back to Jacob and Harper.
“Move carefully. There’s a chance that people will panic. Gather food and first aid. Make everything mobile. I think it’s time for us to get out of Fairbanks. We’ll meet you at Elijah’s place—that’s closest to the truck.”
“Okay,” Jacob said.
She started to run.
“Be careful,” Harper called.
Madelyn raised her hand in response. She followed Elijah’s trail as he passed through the safe harbor again. He turned west before he got to the northern perimeter. She heard more shots fired and then heard bullets passing through the limbs and leaves above her.
Elijah had taken up a position behind a rock. He was spying the battle across the field.
Two or three gunmen were holding their position behind a vehicle. Madelyn recognized Niren as the young man popped up and shot at one of the approaching citizens. Penny had her group spread out at the edge of the trees. She was sending a phalanx around to the east to flank the vehicle, but they couldn’t cross the open area without coming under fire. At the moment, Niren was holding them back. The other person was firing from below the vehicle. Madelyn couldn’t get a good look at that one.
“They’ve got a decent stronghold there,” Elijah said. “No way to flank them without drawing fire.”
“Why don’t they move out? That vehicle looks armored.”
“It’s electric,” Elijah said. “Quiet, but now useless.”
Madelyn nodded.
Penny’s group began to fire back at the vehicle while a
person made a dash across the open area. Niren ignored the incoming bullets and shot the person in the chest. They collapsed. For a second, it seemed that everyone in Penny’s group fired at once. Then, it went silent.
“We can’t stay here,” Elijah said. “It’s only a matter of time before one group or the other spots us.”
“Ryan will withdraw. Where will he go?” Madelyn asked.
Elijah thought about it.
“His best escape route will take him towards the cliffs. If we’re fast, we might be able to circle around this mess and beat him there.”
“Then go,” Madelyn said.
# # # # #
Elijah headed west, away from the fight and away from the cliffs. He took Madelyn so far west that she wondered if he had forgotten where they were supposed to go. She couldn’t ask him though. He was moving so fast that it was all she could do to keep up. When he finally turned north, the gunfire had stopped. She pictured Ryan, Niren, and Caleb escaping into the wilds.
They were running down a cracked sidewalk when Elijah slowed and held up a hand.
Madelyn shot him an angry look. This was no time for them to pause.
She was about to run by him when she smelled what had made him slow—thick blood was in the air. This wasn’t blood from a scratch, this was deep, arterial blood. Madelyn didn’t know how she could tell the difference, but she could.
Elijah dropped into a crouch and crept forward as he pulled the knife from his belt.
The street was more grass than pavement. The plants had pushed up slabs of asphalt. Bushes and shrubs poked up through some of the cracks. Through this dense cover, Elijah crept. Madelyn rushed forward when he stabbed his knife down.
Caleb stared up at the sky. Bloody tears leaked from his eyes, and a line of spit and blood traced down from the corner of his mouth. Elijah’s knife was buried in the young man’s chest. It wasn’t his worst wound. A good piece of Caleb’s neck was missing, and she saw bullet wounds in his shoulder, hip, and leg.
Elijah took his hand from the knife and pulled back.
Caleb’s hand batted and clawed at the handle. He lacked the strength to pull the knife out.
“Will he die?” Madelyn asked.
“Maybe. If we leave the knife in, maybe,” Elijah said.
Bloody spit bubbled on his lips as Caleb managed to whisper. “Finish it.”
Elijah looked to Madelyn, like he needed permission.
She nodded.
Elijah closed his eyes for a second. She imagined that he was saying a prayer, or maybe speaking to his dead brother. When he opened his eyes again, Elijah used the knife to cut deep below Caleb’s sternum. After making some precise moves with the knife, Elijah reached into the young man’s chest and pulled out his heart.
Elijah moved forward and whispered to Caleb. “Close your eyes. It will take a little while. Acknowledge your pain and it will go away.”
Caleb closed his eyes. His face was still twisted in agony.
Elijah wiped the blood from his hands on the grass.
By the time they stood up, Madelyn saw Caleb’s face transform. He smiled and then was still.
“Is he dead?”
Elijah sighed. “I think he is. He must have been weaker than I thought.”
They didn’t have time for any more ceremony. Elijah ran on. It didn’t long for him to find the trail of the other two. Ryan and Niren were ahead, but not by much. Madelyn spotted the fresh blood on the grass. At least one of them was injured it was slowing them down.
Elijah stopped to sniff the wind at the end of a path. Madelyn pointed at the movement. Ryan looked back and spotted them. He was helping Niren over a downed tree. When he saw their pursuit, Ryan let go of Niren’s hand and ran.
The young man looked back as Elijah began to sprint towards him.
Niren had a gun. He slid down to the other side of the tree trunk and brought the rifle down to rest on the bark. Madelyn ducked behind a bush. She heard Elijah take a few more steps before the rifle went off. Madelyn stayed low. Niren was thirty or forty meters away. She moved slowly through the brush so she could hear if he tried to run.
Madelyn crept closer.
She heard the rush of footsteps and tried to maneuver so she could see what was going on. Another shot was fired. Madelyn couldn’t stand it. She ran back towards the path. She stopped when she saw a figure standing near the downed log. It was Elijah.
She moved to the edge of the path and peered through the leaves. He hadn’t said anything—hadn’t told her that it was safe to come out. Madelyn was afraid that maybe Elijah had been taken hostage.
When he took a step back from the tree and turned, Madelyn forgot caution and emerged from the leaves.
“Elijah?” she asked.
He looked up at her. “He’s gone.”
She cocked her head.
# # # # #
Elijah held Niren’s rifle.
Madelyn took in the sight of the young man as she approached. Niren had been clipped by a bullet at some point. The blood had run down his leg. A worse injury was apparent from the lump rising on his head. The center of the contusion was marked with a hooked red line.
“After he fired, I pulled the rifle forward and drove it back into his head,” Elijah said.
Madelyn nodded. With the explanation, she recognized the stamp of the stock in Niren’s flesh.
“It shouldn’t have killed him,” he said.
“It killed him?” Madelyn asked.
She reached forward and touched his flesh. It was still warm, but there was no pulse under his skin.
“He’s an Optioner,” Madelyn said. “How did you kill him with a bump on the head?”
“We better catch up with Ryan,” Elijah said. He stepped over the tree.
“Wait, Elijah, you better explain this to me.”
When he turned back, he appeared angry. Elijah was never angry.
“It affected everything,” he said. “The Tailors modify your DNA to make you stronger and more efficient, but they also stick around. They work to keep everything tuned up, and they coordinate after injuries.”
Madelyn stopped. “He wasn’t an Optioner anymore?”
“None of us are,” Elijah said. He turned away and started walking again.
“That’s impossible,” she said. “I can still hear everything and smell everything. My eyesight is still sharp.”
“The changes are still in you,” he said. “The agents of that change are dead. They won’t help you anymore.”
“That’s great news,” she said. “That means that we can kill Ryan like he was a normal person.”
Elijah moved close enough to whisper. “It means he can kill us. By now, he has high ground.”
Madelyn nodded and her smile disappeared.
Elijah continued to whisper. “You backtrack far enough to get on the high side of the cliffs. I’m going to approach from the ground and get him to reveal his position.” He handed her the rifle. “Don’t miss.”
# # # # #
Madelyn had the wind. She could smell Ryan. His exertion was painted on the breeze. When she closed her eyes and focused, she thought she might be able to pinpoint him by smell alone. Madelyn opened her eyes again and let them go wide. She allowed herself to take in every photon of the morning light. It hurt her sensitive eyes, but she let it flood in anyway. Somewhere in her field of view, Ryan might be lurking on the cliffs.
Elijah was down in the brush. She couldn’t see him, but he made his movement obvious. A branch would swing and then leaves would flutter. The low, scrubby trees were dense, and Elijah was putting on a show of moving through them.
Madelyn heard a click. It wasn’t a Roamer. It was the bolt of Ryan’s rifle sliding into place. He must have reloaded his weapon. On the ground below, Elijah kept moving.
Ryan was too smart for Elijah’s game. He wasn’t going to fire at a shaking branch. He was going to wait for good visual confirmation before he pulled the trigger. Madelyn scanned the clif
fs. They weren’t high, but the rocks offered plenty of good hiding places, especially with the sun coming up behind them. Deep shadows were cut into the cliff face.
“You’re all alone, Ryan,” Elijah called from below. “Your underlings are both dead. After what you did, the people are going to hunt you down.”
A branch shook below. From her angle, Madelyn spotted Elijah. He was nowhere near the shaking tree. She hoped that the trees were blocking Ryan from seeing him. Madelyn returned her eyes to the cliff and thought about the click she had heard. She tried to imagine where it would have originated from. It was no good. She needed more than one click to pin down a direction. With a tiny bit more evidence, she could make some deductions.
“They can’t let you live after what you’ve done. They’ll never trust you, and never rest until they have your head.”
Elijah shook another branch.
Madelyn could see half of his face and all of his chest. If Ryan had her angle, he would have been able to easily disable Elijah and maybe even kill him.
“If you had been patient, you might have played the long game. What was your greatest asset if it wasn’t time? Now you’ve squandered even that.”
She frowned and watched the cliffs for movement. Elijah was stupid if he thought that shaking a branch was actually going to draw fire.
Madelyn blinked. Elijah was hopelessly optimistic, but he wasn’t stupid.
She figured it out. Elijah wasn’t stupid.
The shot rang out. Her ears pinpointed the sound as her eyes caught the puff of smoke from barrel.
She saw Ryan’s hand and the gun as it shifted during Ryan’s reload. Before he could squeeze off another round, Madelyn shot the edge of the rock, just above the gun. The loose rock exploded in shrapnel and Ryan let out a surprised bark. His shoulder came forward as Madelyn chambered another round. She shot again without hesitation. Ryan’s arm jerked back as the cloud of red mist erupted.
