Skyquakers

by Conway, A. J.

  ‘No, stop!’ Psycho cried.

  The sound of glass breaking echoed and caught the attention of Vet’s scientists in the warehouse next door. They appeared suddenly from around the corner, dressed in white surgical attire. They halted at the shocking sight of their captain, not only up and walking, but with an uncaged specimen in his arms. They shouted something about contamination, and instantly darted to the side wall to hit the alarm. A moment later, yellow lights were blazing and sirens boomed in their ears. From every corner of the warehouse, rapid feet could be heard running their way.

  ‘Go!’ Captain cried, and they ran.

  The mechanical door leading into the human warehouse began to lower, to seal off the contamination. Captain got to it first. He stood underneath and arched his back over, making the vertebrae of his spine interlock and form a thick, solid arc of bone from his shoulders to his hips. The door crashed down onto his back, but that spine was like steel when arched. It dented the metal and held the door up long enough for Psycho to slide underneath. Captain and Lo followed after, leaving the barrier to seal shut behind them.

  They swerved through the ship. Biohazard alarms blazed from every corridor. Giants in silver chemical suits and gas masks appeared, armed with non-lethal glass guns. They fired pellets at them. Captain dragged Psycho around a tight bend, ducking bullets as they ricocheted over their heads and pierced the piping in the walls. The burst pipes filled the corridor with high-pressure water and hot steam. The shooters lost sight of them in the mist as they slipped away.

  More and more of the ship began to seal off as warnings of contamination blared throughout the cloud. Elevators shut down: they could no longer go up. The only direction, then, was down. Captain dragged Psycho into the stairwells, kicking down doors with Lo still in his arms. They could hear shouting above them and the rapid feet of approaching decontamination teams. They hurried. Two storeys down. Three. A stairwell door burst open in front of them and a giant in a gas mask lunged forward, swinging a steel, two-pronged electric cattle prod with an angry roar. Psycho was short enough to duck; Captain seized the handle of the prod mid-swing with his free hand. The attacker went to pull out a gun – a black, lethal version of the glass rifle – but Captain disarmed him, kicked him against the wall, and then stabbed the electric pod through his face mask with a vicious cry of insanity. The mask shattered, leaving the giant with both a face full of glass shards and 50,000 volts running directly into his eye socket. The giant’s head was cooked from the inside out, and eventually he collapsed to the ground in a twitching mass of burnt flesh and ruptured eyeballs. Psycho, who had held that same weapon many times and used it for his own purposes, could not help but to feel ill by the scarred, fried face gawking up at him.

  ‘Hurry. More coming,’ Captain said.

  They ran on, dodging glass bullets flying at them from the stairwell above. At last they came to a door with three pink interlocking circles drawn on the cold steel, and only then did Captain’s true intentions become clear. They burst through the door and were struck by a powerful, cold wind. Captain lunged for a nearby gas mask and hastily wrapped it over his nose and mouth, allowing him to breathe. Psycho could breathe fine; he knew exactly where he was too. They had emerged onto the lowest level of the ship, the underbelly of the cloud. At the railings, the two looked down upon a circular pit of darkness and wind, through which they saw the stormy sky and heard the thunder rippling through the atmosphere. The beams, as magnificent as they were terrifying, sat idle, unguarded in the chaotic darkness.

  ‘What the hell are we doing?’ Psycho cried. He had to shout over the hurricane-strength winds.

  Captain pointed to a dashboard at the end of the railing, almost identical to the control panels in the warehouses. ‘Get to control bench! Just like before! Up-down lever, yes?’ His voice was muffled by the gas mask.

  ‘What? Wait! You can’t do this!’

  Captain moved quickly, knowing every second was precious. With Lo still asleep in his arms, he skid down the vertical ladder with newfound energy and landed, flat-footed, on the lower ground. Psycho watched him approach the circular edge of the beam’s ring. He tried to call out to him, beg him to stop, but the winds were too overpowering. Captain stepped up to the edge of the beam’s rim. He held out his arms.

  Holy shit, he’s going to drop her.

  Psycho ran to the control bench, but he didn’t make it. Behind him, the doors burst open and an army of giants appeared, all wearing spacesuits and gas masks. One of them was Engineer. He saw Psycho and the boy’s knees went weak.

  ‘I tried to stop him! I couldn’t—’

  Engineer slapped him, hard, across the face. Psycho was thrown to the ground.

  Engineer marched to the railings and looked down to see what commotion had stirred everyone from their sleep. To see the captain alive and frighteningly healthy was unexpected, and yet Engineer’s piercing eyes behind his gas mask showed a faint sign of malicious delight. His armed giants had their glass guns aimed at the former leader, ready to fire on Engineer’s command. Was this what all the alarms were about? All this commotion to rescue a native? The old coot had most certainly lost his mind, but now Engineer had the pleasure of doing something permanent about it. He gave the orders for his loyal soldiers to switch their rifles from glass to black.

  Psycho sat up and rubbed his bruised cheek. He saw Engineer’s crewmen take out their lethal weapons and lock onto the Captain, aiming to kill instead of simply immobilise. The spray of black bullets would undoubtedly kill Lo too. He panicked. He looked over his shoulder and saw the operating dashboard, still unguarded. This was going to hurt, he could already feel it.

  Captain stood with poise and confidence before the firing squad. He said nothing; gave no justification for his actions, no ability to explain his sudden newfound health. He and Engineer locked eyes as old friends, or new enemies. Engineer was not interested in listening to anything he had to say; he knew who that native in his arms was and he suspected his actions were a result of a massive psychotic break of some sort. It was bound to happen; age and illness had destroyed the captain’s mind. This breach in security was only going to result in Engineer’s promotion and Captain’s detention, that was, if Engineer cared to keep him alive.

  Captain had long known that his time was up and knew he would not have the strength to build a campaign against Engineer for the return of his captaincy. So he was accepting of his fate. The fate of his child, on the other hand, was not Engineer’s decision. In his frail arms, he cradled Lo. He stroked her hair one last time. He looked down and felt the cold wind gushing up from the abyss at his feet. Through the cloud-cover, he could see the orange glow of dawn approaching.

  Engineer shouted at him to put the contaminated specimen down and submit peacefully.

  Captain complied. He dropped her.

  ‘No!’ Psycho screamed.

  Engineer snarled at such cheek and slammed his fists against the railing. He ordered the captain’s arrest. The crewmen set upon him, seizing his wrists in cuffs. Captain struggled against them. He cried out to Psycho, in English, ‘Do it! Do it now!’

  Engineer spun back and saw his native servant, working the control bench. In rage, he seized a cattle prod and marched towards him, ordering him to step away from the beams. Psycho pretended not to hear. Lo had fallen to Earth; he did not have long. Rapidly his hands worked the dashboard as he had learnt using the identical system in the warehouses: three power switches initiated the nuclear reactor, unleashing a high-pitched whir as the generator began working at full capacity. Pink and purple light began to surge through the cables and surround the circular brim of the beam’s outer ring. A blazing halo of light in the centre of the floor hummed brighter and brighter, building strength and power, waiting to be unleashed in a tremendous blast.

  Psycho felt Engineer’s shadow tower over him from behind, a raised electric prod in hand. With seconds to spare, Psycho seized the heavy lever and pushed it down into the ‘drop’
position. A moment later, the sting of the prod up his spine threw him to the ground.

  The beams struck, rocketing down through the clouds with a colossal eruption of built-up nuclear energy. Hopefully, somewhere many thousands of feet down, Lo was trapped in this beam, saving her from plummeting to her death. There was no way to know, though: perhaps she had fallen out of range; perhaps she was already dead.

  Psycho was paralysed on the ground. He felt a powerful kick to his ribs, causing him to choke and gasp for air. Engineer, standing over his body, began cursing under his breath in the language of the giants, calling him a liar, a traitor. At the dashboard, he pulled the heavy lever back to idle, shutting down the whole system. The beam was cut off and the machines powered down. Engineer then checked the digital screens and suddenly he swore: the specimen had landed on Earth, alive. Psycho, at his feet, could suddenly breathe again. Below the railings, he could hear the captured Captain laughing hysterically in victory. Engineer ordered his crew to take the bastard away and chain him up somewhere. He then bent down and, with a long, bony arm, he took Psycho by the scruff of his hair and dragged him to his feet. He slammed him against the wall.

  ‘I’m… sorry…’ the boy choked out.

  Engineer told him what had to be done: that specimen was a contaminant, a pathogen which had the potential to ruin all of his work. Psycho was going back to Earth. Find the escaped vermin. Kill it before it spreads.

  Reluctantly, Psycho said he would not let him down.

  PART THREE

  RUN

  Her first message read: ‘RUN.’

  To which he replied, ‘What?’

  As they spoke casually, hiding their ulterior conversation from the prying ears beyond the door, she wrote another: ‘Leave them all, and RUN.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Shh!’

  ‘What are you? Tell me! What are you?’

  An angry, suspicious fist began banging on the door, shouting, ‘Ned! What’s going on in there? Open up!’

  Then the dog started barking.

  Ned saw his rifle, resting next to the door. He leapt up to grab it. Lara cried, ‘You’ll only make it worse!’ but he wanted it anyway. He hurried to the window and parted a small gap in the thin curtains to see what was happening outside.

  ‘Oh, god…’ he panted.

  Zebra Rock was surrounded by ghosts, by transient creatures which appeared from the cumulonimbus ether in a single clap of thunder. Their silver threads and dark shades were masks over dead and lifeless faces, obscuring the absent soul of killers. The Suits, they were known as, were never meant to have become such a reckless force. These people, these slaves, were not particularly large in size, not military trained, nor were they the demented offspring of some vicious alien experiment. They were simply boys and girls, old ladies and bald men, who had lost their grip on the world long ago, along with all conscious processing, and anything resembling their original human selves. These erased faces were meant to be harmless, but now they stood with weapons in their hands and blood on the soles of their leather shoes. They had learnt to assemble, and under the right – or perhaps, wrong – leadership, these kidnapped souls had fallen victim to the sadistic pleasure of one.

  A young man stood amongst his army with the face of indifference. Behind his façade, he was exhausted and in physical pain, but that was not the face he wanted to show, not today. Instead he stood proudly, firm-footed. He wanted this to be over quickly.

  Ned and Lara watched the scene from the window. It was daunting to suddenly see so many converted disciples surround them in such perfect posture, forming an arc that encompassed the gallery, the campsite, and thirteen – now fourteen – terrified survivors. The red-eyed James was out there, drawn to the danger by Moonboy’s warning. In his stained singlet and baggy jeans, he stood with his gun, barrel pointed, giving the Suits all a good mouthing-off. Behind him, Elizabeth and the students cowered in terror, while Munroe stood guard in front of his gallery as the mighty troll who would not let these scum pass. Some of the settlers were armed and some had left their guns elsewhere. One or two joined James in his rants, aiming their barrels and demanding they left. The Suits said nothing. They did not respond to James’ orders to get off their property, or his insults that they were nothing but a pack of alien-trained bitches. Elizabeth tried to step forward and offer words of reasoning, but James pushed her back and continued to aggravate them with patriotic rage. The Suits said nothing.

  Michael then pulled himself from Violet’s restraint and went limping forward, pointing an accusing finger at one young man, one cocky Suit standing directly in front of them all. His tirades were muffled from inside the gallery, but Ned knew what he was saying: that was him. That was the Suit who killed Andrew, the one who tortured him, ignored his screams of mercy, and left him to rot in the dirt. Michael was bellowing so hard that he was almost crying. Violet tried to pull him back into submission, but he pushed her away and continued limping forward, finger raised at the boy as he stood there, silent, completely apathetic. He called him dirty, he called him a coward.

  Michael was shot in the head. Violet screamed.

  And then it started. Ned felt the glass pane next to his ear shatter from a bullet, either theirs or one of the settlers’, forcing him to duck down and press his back against the wall. Lara threw herself to the ground and covered her ears from the chaos.

  ‘Run!’ she screamed.

  But he couldn’t leave them.

  From the opposite window, an arm smashed its way through the glass and began clawing at them with the zombie-like drone of, ‘Contamination! Contamination!’

  Ned shot him. It went off without him even realising it, but suddenly the Suit in the window had vanished. He panted, staring at his weapon as though it had done that by itself.

  ‘Oh god, oh shit—’

  ‘Get up! Go!’ Lara dragged the distressed boy to his feet and pulled the door open.

  By that stage, it was already over.

  The battle had been brief, apathetic, and meaningless. Twelve dead bodies lay scattered across the settler’s camp. Their arms were outstretched in the dust as if reaching for the hands of one another, their backs turned as if they had made an attempt to run. Nothing moved. Around them, Suits stood and looked down at the bodies as if not knowing what they were, as if the tattered clothes on their backs, so astonishingly different to their own, made them unrecognisable as a species. They lay there, every last one of them, with not a single glint in their eyes, not the slightest sound of a panting breath. And afterwards, the agents of the Skyquakers looked up from the mess they had made and it was instantly forgotten: life, death, humanity.

  Ned was paralysed at first. A moment later he was screaming.

  There was one Suit in the middle, a young man with slick, dark hair, who did nothing but command the others. His name was Psycho. He stood in the heat of the day, sweating in his silver suit, hiding the pain and frustration behind his sunglasses. He and Lara looked at one another and she could see the demented face behind his mask. He was a monster. She ignored it in the beginning, but she had always known this fact.

  The Suits raised their weapons at their true target, standing unguarded besides the last boy. ‘Contamination!’ they all droned at once, like an army of robots.

  ‘You know how this ends, Lo,’ Psycho called out over the graveyard.

  Moonboy was still barking. Terrified, he ran to his master and cowered behind Ned’s legs, whimpering.

  ‘Shoot the analogue too,’ Psycho added.

  The alien guns were raised at Moonboy.

  ‘No!’ Ned grabbed the dog’s collar and pulled him back.

  At the same time, Lara took Ned’s rifle right out of his hands and aimed it at Psycho’s head.

  Ned, still trying to control a hysterical Moonboy by the neck, seized Lara’s wrist to stop her from making a huge mistake—

  At that moment, Ned’s vision went blurry. He lost all sense of depth and direction, as though
his head had been pushed underwater. He panicked. He felt his body drift, become weightless, and yet he wasn’t moving anywhere. Around him, the world spun rapidly, in all three dimensions. His head felt as if it was going to explode from the pressure, eventually causing him to black out.

  BEACH

  When he woke, he was lying in sand. The continuous motion of waves lapping at his feet pulled him from darkness. Overhead, the sun was setting. Orange colours swirled across the sky and the first of the brightest stars were beginning to emerge. A hand stroked his hair and at first he thought it was his mother’s. Drifting back into proper consciousness, Ned shot up and seized the stroking hand in a powerful, angry grip.

  Lara lurched back. ‘It’s me. Are you okay?’

  Ned shuffled backwards, panting wildly. He was on a beach, a very pristine, tropical beach with white sand, mangroves, and endless ocean. He looked out towards the sea, the sun settling lazily to his right, and simply remained staring as if he had not seen water in years. Where was the desert? The Ord? The red, scorched earth and the dry fields? This was not the Kununurra. This was not where he slept last night.

  He stared back at Lara. She was kneeling beside him and also covered in sand, as if she had only woken up minutes before him. He then noticed what she was wearing: Elizabeth’s pyjamas. He touched the fabric of her pants, as if not sure to believe they were real. He stepped away, shaking his head. He got up, but fell backwards on his first try. He began spinning in circles.

  ‘Ned—’

  ‘Where are they?’ he screamed. He shook his head, ran his fingers through his hair, gritted his teeth. He remembered everything. He began to feel his heart flutter, the panic rising to his throat. ‘No, no, no, no, no! Where are they? What did you do? What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing! I have no idea where we are either!’

  He collapsed to his knees and pushed his forehead into the sand. He started crying. Lara knelt by him in silence, watching him. He punched the sand over and over, making shallow craters. He cried and cursed and tried to grip the earth as though he needed something to hold on to, but the tiny grains kept slipping away through his fingers. He sat back on his knees, looked up to the sky, and he screamed.