by Kailin Gow
It seems that I’m not the only one capable of reminding people about the past. Guilt weighs down on me again as I think about Wilson Hammond. I let him live. I wouldn’t let Jack kill him, because I thought he could still be saved, and that decision cost millions of people their lives. No matter what Dr. Florence has done in the past, what I’ve done is worse.
“I wish I had a better answer for you,” Dr. Florence says. “Then we wouldn’t have these… things running around killing people. Disintegrating them.”
“I have that ability,” I say. “If you work on me, would anything you came up with apply to them?”
“It… might,” Dr. Florence admits.
“So, if you were to try to reverse my powers, we could come up with a way to weaken these creatures?”
Dr. Florence looks at me seriously then. “Do you really want to give up such important gifts? They help to make you who you are.”
I shake my head. “No, they don’t. They don’t define me, and they never have. For years, I was just a girl who liked to run. I didn’t know anything about being able to burn people to death, and I certainly don’t want that to be the main thing that defines me.”
“But you’re willing to risk giving it up.”
“To save the world?” I almost laugh. “Dr. Florence, there have been days when I wished I never had these abilities. Giving them up to protect people is a tiny price to have to pay.”
Dr. Florence takes my hand. “If you really want to do this, then we’ll have to get you into the lab and sedate you. Some of the procedures I need to do will be quite… invasive.”
“Wait, Celes.” Jack is there beside me then. “You’re really going to let Dr. Florence experiment on you, just like that?”
“It’s for a good cause, Jack. If he can remove my ability, then he could remove it from these creatures, too.”
“Possibly,” Jack says. “Assuming that you trust him enough to do it.”
“There would be other scientists around. Even your dad.”
“We could find a way to help other people with this problem, Jack,” I say.
“It isn’t a problem,” Jack insists. “It’s a gift. One that makes you very special.”
“Special enough to kill people,” I say, remembering the people I’ve killed. Most of them didn’t even have enough time to scream while they burned, but a few did, and in my memories, those are the ones who come back to me. “Special enough to burn them alive until there’s nothing left. Special enough to want to do that. You’ve seen what I’m like when I get angry, Jack. It’s a curse. A curse that does nothing but kill people.”
“It could if it isn’t used properly,” Jack says, “but you’ve used it to save lives. Tell her, Grayson.”
“Most of us wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, Celes,” Grayson says. “The only people you’ve killed have been ones who were trying to kill you, and I would have killed them if you hadn’t.”
He says that now, but I can remember the horror in his eyes while I’ve burned people.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Celes?” Jack asks. “Your powers have let you help a lot of people. They let you burn us a way out of the Others’ base. They let us save your parents. They even let us start the car on the way here. We wouldn’t have escaped that creature without you. Are you sure you want to give that up?”
I know that Jack is making sensible points, but I nod my head anyway. “If it means that I can cut off the source of the problem now, then yes. I’d give up my abilities in a heartbeat. I let Hammond live, Jack. You could have stopped the apocalypse, and I let it happen. If this is what it takes to fix things, then I have to do it. If dying is what it takes to fix things, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“Don’t talk like that, Celes,” Grayson says. “We aren’t going to let you die here.”
“But you aren’t going to stop me from doing this, either,” I say. My mind is made up. I have to let Dr. Florence try.
“You understand that we might not succeed straight away?” the scientist says. “It could be a long, and potentially dangerous, process.”
“I understand,” I say. When has any part of this ever been safe? “Let’s just get on with it.”
"Ca this ev “Okay.” Dr. Florence reaches out for my hand again, but in that moment, there’s a lot of excited talking outside the door. It opens to reveal Niall, the leader of the Australian Faders.
“Dr. Cook, Jack, you’re going to want to see this.”
“Can’t it wait, Niall?” Jack asks.
“Not unless you want to miss out on a bonza opportunity. While you’ve been down here, we got a call about a team out in the desert, and we went out to help them. I mean, Outback is Outback, right? Me and the boys went out to help, and we got to them okay, but then we came across this… creature. Looked just like the one you were talking about before, Jack. Part reptile, part insect, part human. It almost burned Vincent, even after we put a few rounds into it. Thought it was going to take us all arvo to bring it down.”
“You killed it?” I ask. If they’ve managed to kill one of the creatures, that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t change anything.
“We didn’t kill it,” Niall explains. “We managed to subdue it. And you try finding things to tie up a creature that can burn through almost anything. Not to mention bringing it back on the jeep.”
“You’ve brought it here?” I say.
“Well, we weren’t going to leave it out in the desert, were we?” Niall says.
We follow him, leaving Johnny behind in the care of the doctors. Niall leads the way along a series of corridors, past a door that’s sealed with heavy locks. Behind it, there’s a cage, though it seems to be made out of the non-burning material the Faders use rather than steel.
Inside, there’s one of the creatures. It seems almost too big for the cage, it’s strange, part insect, part reptile body filling the space almost completely.
“Of course,” Niall says, “it isn’t exactly much to look at, but I thought you might want it anyway.”
I look around at the others. Dr. Florence, Sebastian, and Jack all seem to be thinking the same thing. Jack nods to the creature.
“If Celes could maybe tell us something about stopping those things, one of them will tell us so much more. We need to find a way to sedate it and then get it into the lab.”
<+2" face="Arial Unicode MS">SIXTEEN
We head across to another lab, where it takes Dr. Florence almost a half hour to get set up. In that time, I see medical personnel wheeling Johnny across in his hospital bed.
“You didn’t think I’d miss out on the opportunity to do this, did you?” Johnny asks.
“You should be resting,” I insist. “We can do this without you.”
“Well, that’s one way to make me feel useless,” Johnny says. “Celes, I want to help. I should help. If anyone can help to find a way to deal with this problem, it’s me.”
I realize that despite arguing, he’s still asking me for permission. Whatever else is happening, I’m still his president.
“Okay, Johnny, but if it gets too much, we’ll get you out of here, okay?”
“Okay.”
The creature that the Australian Faders have captured is out of its cage now. It’s a risk, but the scientists need to get to it if they’re going to work on it. It’s sedated, suspended within a network of wires coated with heat resistant materials. It looks strange. An impossible blend of creatures that is somehow bigger than all of them. Dr. Florence, Sebastian, a couple of the Australian Faders and a few more scientists stand around it, working with a wide variety of machinery.
“What are you going to do?” I ask Dr. Florence.
“We’re going to start by getting as much information as possible,” he says. “Physiological, neurological… as much data as we can find. That will make it easier to understand if these creatures have any obvious weaknesses that can be exploited.”
“Do you think they will have any?” I
ask.
Jack answers, moving to stand next to me. “Everything has a weakness, Celes.”
I wonder what mine is. Is it him? Grayson? The way my heart seems to jump between them almost at random, leaving me breathless and unable to make up my mind what I want? Unable even to think when they’re close. That has to be a weakness, doesn’t it? Yet it’s not one I think I’m going to be able to do anythie twide vng about.
“What are you going to do first?” I ask Dr. Florence, trying not to think about Jack or Grayson too much. Here, in a confined space with both of them, it’s impossible.
“We’re going to check its brainwaves first,” Dr. Florence explains. “I want to be in a position to see how they respond to different stimuli.”
“We can’t do too much on that front,” Sebastian points out. “After all, the creature isn’t conscious, and we are not about to wake it up to check. In fact, we should work faster. We have no way of knowing how its hybrid physiology will process the sedative.”
“It’s one of the questions I’m hoping to answer in the course of this investigation,” Dr. Florence says.
“Well, let’s not do it by being burned to death.”
Technicians hurry around them, attaching pads to the creature’s skull, linked by wires to computer screens that start to show data. Dr. Florence starts to press buttons and the data changes. It’s hard to feel useful in that moment, standing there watching other people work. I’m meant to be at the heart of this mission, but right now, I just don’t have the scientific skills to make a contribution.
“There are brain waves going all over the place,” Dr. Florence says. “And a complex brain. More complex than insect ones, or even reptiles, yet different to mammalian ones as well. It’s like the structures of the brain are designed specifically for the manipulation of energy.”
“Is it the same with mine?” I ask.
“Close, maybe,” Johnny answers from his bed, “but not the same. These things’ brains aren’t human.”
Dr. Florence starts to push more buttons.
“What are you checking now?” Grayson asks, from the side of the room.
“I want to examine the creature’s metabolic rate. If what we know about their speed and strength is true, then a high metabolic rate might fit in with that. It also makes sense in terms of their ability to manipulate energy.”
The numbers on the screen spike as Dr. Florence makes a few more adjustments. “Incredible. Everything about these creatures is fast. What interests me, if they use such vast amounts of energy, is how that energy is transported around the body.”
“W mes Newhat do you mean?” I ask.
“Well, in humans, we get energy through a variety of physical systems, but the most important one is the heart carrying oxygenated blood around the body. With the size of these creatures, their cardio-vascular systems must have enlarged considerably, but I think it might be even more complicated than that.”
“Why?” I ask. Eventually, Dr. Florence is going to give us an answer that we can use.
“Because insects don’t really have hearts as we know them, or even the same kind of blood,” Dr. Florence explains. “Instead, they have an integrated circulatory system where hemolymph, the closest thing they have to blood, flows through the whole body. They have a kind of dorsal vessel that does a similar job to the heart in pumping it around, but it isn’t the same.”
“So what are you expecting to see?” Jack asks. “An enlarged dorsal vessel? A combination of it with a heart?”
“Something like that, possibly,” Dr. Florence says. “We won’t know until we’ve done an ultrasound or MRI of its main body cavity.”
They opt for the MRI when Sebastian’s technicians come forward with equipment that lets them do it far more portably than would normally be possible. Yet another piece of technology the Faders have that the rest of the world does not. The results take just a minute or two to come up on the screen.
“No,” Johnny says, staring at it, “that can’t be right.”
“What can’t be?” I ask, not sure what it is that I’m meant to be seeing. I need to understand, and not just because it might give us a way to deal with these creatures. It might also tell me more about the way my body works.
“I’m no expert on insectoid physiology,” Johnny says, “but that looks like they have acquired a heart in addition to the usual dorsal vessel.”
“That’s what I’m seeing,” Sebastian confirms, moving to stand beside Dr. Florence.
“So what’s the problem?” I ask.
Dr. Florence shakes his head, taking a step back from the equipment. He looks over at the creature, lit by the bright lighting of the room, as though he might be able to figure out what is going on just by looking at it.
“The problem,” he explains, “is that neither one is really sufficient to supply the energy needs of a creature this size. Perhaps if both systems are working together?”
“But then they’d be in conflict,” Sebastian points out. “The body doesn’t have two systems to do one job, because they’d get in each other’s way. They’d balance for a time, but if they got out of balance…”
I look around their faces. “How did this happen?”
“It must be a side effect of the solar storm,” Sebastian says. “The transformation enlarged them and started to change their physiology, but the process isn’t complete.”
“That would explain why they go back to being small,” I say. “They aren’t stable at this size.”
“But they still take back enough changes to bring about the Fever,” Jack points out.
I nod. “Could this mix of hearts be our way to stop them? It sounds like if they were put under any kind of stress, they could have a heart attack really easily.”
“In theory, that could work,” Sebastian admits. “But actually doing it would be harder. We’ve already seen that fighting or chasing prey won’t do it, so what would?”
“We’ll think of something,” Grayson says. “For now, the important thing is that we know of a way to destroy them without risking the lives of the few people that we have.”
“We can experiment on this one,” Dr. Florence suggests. “If we try out a range of stimuli, we can find one that will stress the creature enough to make its new circulatory system fail.”
I notice that he doesn’t seem to have any qualms about conducting potentially fatal experiments on the creatures. Is that just that they aren’t human, or is Dr. Florence maybe not the humanitarian that he wants us to think he is? After all, we only have his word for it that he left Hammond because he didn’t like experimenting on humans.
That’s a matter for another time now, though. The fact is that we know enough about these creatures to potentially destroy them. If we can do that…
I turn to Jack. “We could stop the Fever. We could do what we came here to do. If we manage it, we might even be able to go home. I mean, we have the Fading machines.”
“We’d have to go home,” Jack says. “We’d have to check that the future changes the way it is meant to change.”
Even Grayson seems to agree with that. “If we don’t, then we could th
I nod, though the truth is that we’re getting a long way ahead of ourselves. First, we still have to destroy the creatures, and even with what we know, that won’t be easy. After all, we still haven’t thought of anything that will be enough to terrify a huge, part reptile, part insect creature to death.
I try to focus on smaller things. “Dr. Cook,” I say to Sebastian, “can you get what we’ve learned to other Faders? I assume that there must still be some out in other areas of the world. Plus, there will be the populations who made it to the shelters. If they at least know about this weakness, then maybe they can find ways to exploit it so that they aren’t all killed by the creatures.”
“We have satellite communications again, as well as more advanced signaling equipment. If there’s anybody listening, then we should be able to reach them without a proble
m.”
An idea comes to me. I don’t know if it will work or not, but it has to be worth a try.
“Can we use the satellite to create more visual effects too?” I ask.
“It’s not what it was designed for, but I guess if we reprogram some of the onboard circuitry, we could probably do it.” Sebastian looks at me. “What are you thinking, Celes?”
I’m thinking that there’s one thing in the world that is guaranteed to scare every living thing on it. One thing that these creatures definitely know about, and which even they must surely be terrified of.
“It’s very simple,” I explain. “We’re going to do the one thing that might scare even these things enough to get their hearts beating. We’re going to re-create the apocalypse.”
SEVENTEEN
In a control room deeper in the rock spur, Sebastian stands in front of the controls for the Faders’ satellite. I’ve been watching him and some of the other scientists there working for hours now, as they try to make the necessary modifications for this plan. Some of them have seemed a little reluctant, saying that it might damage parts of the satellite that sound important, but Sebastian has been able to keep them working. He’s still their boss, apocalypse or no apocalypse.
“Will it destroy the satellite?” I ask.
Sebastian shrugs. “It probably won’t go that far, but we’re using it for a purpose for which it was never intended, effectively using it as a giant projector, with the clouds as our screen, while simultaneously sending out signals to every functioning TV and radio that we can find. It probably won’t last for more than a day or so before burning out.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It seems like you’ve had nothing but trouble since I showed up.”
Sebastian shakes his head. “It’s what we’re here for, Celes. This moment is what the Faders are about. And this is for my son, too.”
“Even though Jack isn’t your son?”
“He is in every sense that matters. Mechanical things can be fixed. I can put a new satellite up. We’ve even rebuilt the Fading machine. People matter more.”
