“You’re very observant. Give me that drive, will you, ol’ boy?”
“You mean Josiah didn’t give up The Society’s secrets?”
“We tortured the old man, but you gotta hand it to him. He held out until his crusty old heart couldn’t stand it any longer.”
“So you’re saying all I have to do is outlast you?”
Greenwood chuckled and turned to the rest of the men. “Search his ship. Find his brat daughter.”
Cutler surged forward, only to be met with Greenwood’s gun in his face.
“Now,” Greenwood shouted. His men didn’t hesitate another moment.
“You piece of garbage,” Cutler said, seething. “She’s just a kid.”
“She’s also the perfect leverage, Cutler. You’ll do anything for her, including turning over The Society’s schematics for the terrabombs. Come on, I’m not an idiot. And neither are you.”
“What do you want them for anyway?”
“You mean the perfect mechanisms for particle dispersal?” He laughed. “Yes, whatever could I want that for?”
“You’re going to kill the few people who are still alive? The world’s ended already.”
“No, no, no, Cutler,” Greenwood said. “The world is just beginning, and I’m going to remake it in my image.”
With this, Greenwood pulled his mask from his face, revealing greenish-gray skin that was slick with sweat. His eyes had a yellow tinge and when he smiled, his gums were black.
Cutler’s face must have asked the question for him.
“This is the price I paid to be cured,” Greenwood said. “And I’d make the same choice again and again if it meant surviving KV.”
“You’ve become the monster you always were.”
“Oh, Cutler,” Greenwood crooned. “You have no idea.” He punched Cutler so hard in the chest his feet actually left the ground as he was thrown back.
“I’m not sure what the nerds back home threw together, but whatever it was not only cured me of the virus, it made me stronger. A lot stronger.”
“Not to mention insane,” Cutler said, reeling.
Greenwood cackled. “Maybe a little bit.”
Cutler tried to get to his feet before Greenwood was within arm’s reach. The vaccine made him faster, too. Before Cutler knew what was happening, he was off his feet again. Greenwood had a hand wrapped around his throat.
“I’m going to enjoy breaking your neck,” Greenwood sneered. “I’m going to do it slowly.”
A barrage of gunfire came from the Waarheid, followed by Katherine’s scream.
A soldier had her and Ethan at gunpoint, marching them out of the ship.
“Where are the others?” Greenwood snapped.
“This one shot them,” the soldier answered, pushing Ethan forward until he collapsed at Greenwood’s feet.
“Don’t hurt him,” said Kit.
Cutler could feel the pressure building behind his face.
“Little mouse, I wouldn’t think of it,” Greenwood said, dropping Cutler to the ground, gasping. “You see, I can’t kill him until he tells me where the drive is. I can only torture you.”
“Don’t touch her,” Cutler gasped, but his throat was raw and it came out strangled. He was too dizzy to stand.
“You’re in no position to bargain, friend.”
“Neither are you,” said Ethan as he pulled a knife from his boot and plunged it into Greenwood’s thigh.
Greenwood’s look of mild shock preceded a fit of raucous laughter as he pulled it from his leg and dropped it to the side.
“Kids these days,” Greenwood said. He swung his injured leg back and kicked Ethan in the stomach. The boy fell back in a heap, where he lay gasping.
The moment of distraction was all Cutler needed as he lunged for the knife and threw it at the last remaining soldier. It made a sickening sound as it plunged into his neck. The man grabbed his throat as he bled out. Within seconds, he collapsed and ceased moving.
“That evens the odds a little bit,” Cutler said.
“Hardly,” Greenwood replied.
“Let the kids go and I’ll take you to the drive.”
“You know what I hate?" Greenwood growled. He raised his gun toward Kit. “Sentimentality.”
Cutler launched himself in front of Kit. “Let her go, and I’ll take you to the drive.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Greenwood said. Lowering his gun, he shot Cutler in the leg.
“Dad!” Katherine ran to his side.
“The next one is going in her leg,” he said, aiming the gun at Kit. Cutler could feel her vibrating with fear next to him.
When the next shot sounded, he looked up. The scene before him didn’t make sense. There was Ethan, holding the dead soldier’s rifle, and a blossoming splash of red spread across Greenwood’s chest.
Greenwood growled, throwing down his weapon and reaching for Ethan’s neck.
Ethan let loose another three shots, all of which hit Greenwood in the chest. The monster was steadfast. Ethan backed up until he tripped over one of the soldier’s dead bodies. A final shot rang out, and then Greenwood fell upon Ethan.
Despite the burning in his leg, Cutler raced to pull Greenwood off of Ethan. To his surprise, Greenwood’s body gave no resistance. When Cutler flipped him over onto his back and prepared to strike, he noticed a single entry wound that penetrated through his left eye socket.
He turned to Ethan. “Nice shot.”
“It was kind of an accident,” Ethan said. “But I’ll take it.”
Cutler pressed two fingers against Greenwood’s cool, slimy skin. “No heartbeat.”
Kit approached cautiously. “But he’s not… normal.”
“He’s got a bullet in his brain,” said Cutler. “He may have been able to survive the ones in his chest, but no creature can function without a brain.”
“You need to get that patched up,” Ethan said, motioning to Cutler’s leg. Hooking an arm around Cutler’s waist, he proceeded to help him back to the ship.
“We need to get out of here,” Cutler said. “Greenwood might be dead, but his ship isn’t. It’ll be transmitting its location. Sooner or later someone will be out here to see what happened. We’d better be long gone before that happens.”
“I like the sound of that,” said Kit, hooking her arm around Cutler’s waist as well.
“Thought you might,” Cutler said, smiling down at her. He turned to Ethan. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Saving my life, for one,” Cutler said, breathlessly. The pain was growing stronger with every step he took. “And for protecting her.”
“Your daughter’s a warrior babe,” Ethan said, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Katherine's blushing face. “The only reason why I got that third shot off was because she threw a bedpan at the soldier’s head.”
Kit shrugged. “I’m just glad I could help.”
Epilogue
“Dad, I love you, but I’m never doing that again.” Kit stood over him as he sat in a chair in the med bay, a needle in one gloved hand and a bloody piece of gauze in the other.
“With any luck,” Cutler said, inspecting the crude stitches in his leg, “you won’t have to. I don’t plan on getting shot again.”
“Most people don’t actually plan on getting shot.”
“Fair enough.” He’d just begun rolling the leg of his pants down over his freshly patched wound when Ethan came barreling into the room.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, per se.” His eyebrows pulled together.
“Per se? What’s going on?”
“The ship, the nav system, it's detected human life.”
Cutler raced as fast as he could to the door before Ethan could continue.
“They couldn’t have tracked Greenwood’s ship already,” said Kit.
“It’s not that,” Ethan said. When they turned the corner onto the bridge, Cutler was already seated, scrutinizing the view scr
een.
“There are a thousand data points here,” he said.
“And the number keeps rising,” Ethan said as three more data points popped up on the map in front of them.
“Hold on,” said Kit, “this is Ares II.”
Cutler sat back in his seat. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t know.” Ethan looked at Kit and Cutler, as if the answers lay with them. “The nav system is telling us there are at least a thousand people living on this planet.”
“A thousand?” Kit’s eyes flickered back to the map. “But all my records show that Ares II had a population that was about half of Earth’s. Shouldn’t there be only a couple dozen survivors?”
“Maybe the virus hasn’t reached Ares II yet,” said Ethan.
“Unlikely,” said Cutler.
A few more dots appeared on the map. Kit leaned in. “What does it mean?”
Cutler shook his head. “It means Ares II is either the luckiest planet in the solar system, or its people found a cure for The Keresian Virus.”
His injured leg be damned, Cutler began prepping for an on-foot journey as Kit and Ethan scoured the view screens for a course that would take them to what they could only assume was the largest pocket of survivors left in the universe. And somewhere, underneath layers of emotional scarred tissue, Cutler’s soul quickened at the touch of a magical salve that had long eluded him: hope.
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About the Author
SIMEON GRAVES IS A LIFE-LONG SCIENCE FICTION FAN.
HE SPENDS HIS DAYS WRITING, DAYDREAMING AND WONDERING WHAT ELSE IS OUT THERE.
GRAVES IS THE AUTHOR OF THE LAST BUILDER SERIES AND OTHER UPCOMING NOVELS.
For more information visit
www.SimeonGraves.com
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