“Holy crap, man! Run!” Zara shouted. As the black craft tilted more, it began to slide to the right, losing altitude as it did so. It picked up speed, like a frisbee after reaching the peak of its flight. A terrible fact soon became apparent: it would hit one of the columns. It was the second nearest structure to where they stood, some 300 meters away. The craft’s slide continued picking up speed. Everybody shielded their eyes as a blinding flash ensued. A visible shockwave blew outwards, shearing the column in two and smashing into the roof. The deafening blast reached Zara and Akio a second later, knocking them over. The huge glass tower also broke near the bottom. A large section of it, taking up most of its height, began to topple like an enormous tree being felled. It seemed to happen in slow motion.
Akio turned back around to face his wife. The light from the burning, falling pieces of the gunship played on her face. The column was not falling towards them, but panic took over anyway as the hysterical mob around them fled in all directions, some knocking each other over. Akio and Zara got back up and ran as fast as they could, away from the scene. Twenty seconds later, they reached the base of the closest column (not the one hit by the gunship.) The earth heaved. Akio and Zara were knocked to the ground once again. Turning around, they watched as clouds of dust and debris exploded into the air a few hundred meters away. Bus-sized shards of two meter-thick glass sprayed out in all directions, cutting through buildings as though they were made of paper. The deafening roar reached them. They covered their ears. Akio stared as the smoke and dust obscured the view into the city center. Zara, however, was looking at the roof above the hanging stub where the collapsed structure used to be. Large cracks began to spread, radiating out in all directions. She was transfixed, but then she let out a loud scream. The cracks reached the top of the column by which they were now sitting. Hundreds of panicked shrieks filled the air. Ever so slowly, the roof began to collapse. “WE’RE DEAD!” Zara yelled.
“OH, CHRIST!” Akio shouted, looking up. He then looked around frantically. They were ten meters away from the enormous, round concrete base of the nearby column. The blackened remnants of the forces that had been guarding it were all around. Small fires still burned. “Let’s try that door!” Spaced every twenty meters or so around the base were metal emergency exit doors with stairs that led up from the lower level of the city. Akio and Zara sprang to their feet and sprinted to it, as larger and larger chunks of the green roof fell in a sickening upside down eruption that spread out slowly from the epicenter of the destruction. The falling rubble above the felled column was already halfway to the ground. Akio pulled on the door handle as hard as he could. Miraculously the portal, which had been so jealously guarded just minutes ago, opened. They ran in. Other people, seeing this, dashed for the door. The couple ran down a bare concrete passageway, leading straight into the massive, solid concrete dome. After twenty meters, they reached the stairs leading down. “For God’s sake run!” Akio panted. He took the stairs three at a time. Zara, having shorter legs, could only manage two at a time. Akio stopped and turned around, waiting for her. A stampede of people rushed in behind her. An earthquake began as millions of tons of concrete, steel, and glass began to hit the ground. The stairs shook violently. Akio fell backwards, catching the railing just in time to stop himself from hitting the landing. Zara was thrown into the air. She landed face down, her torso on the landing and her legs on the bottom stairs. She braced herself with her arms just before hitting the concrete, thus avoiding smashing her head on the hard gray floor. The front of her legs hit the steps. She cried out in pain. A rolling mass of people who had rushed in behind them swept down like a wave, crushing both of them. The walls and stairs cracked as the shaking intensified. The roar sounded like a thousand jackhammers. The air filled with dust and screaming. The lights went out, and all was pitch black.
----
Akio gasped for breath, as he lay on his back. His chest couldn’t expand with the crushing weight of people on top of him. He reached out with his right hand to try to find Zara in the darkness. All he found were bodies. Swirling concrete dust filled his eyes. He closed them tight. “I love you, my sweet,” he yelled.
Eventually the quake stopped. The air was filled with muffled screams, cries and coughs. The lights came back on to reveal a scene of chaos. The stairwell both above and below where Zara and Akio had landed was piled with fallen people. Some of them bled from head wounds as shoe-sized pieces of concrete had broken free from the walls and fallen on them. Everybody scrambled to try to get back on their feet. In the process, some rolled further down the next flight of stairs. Akio’s eyes watered from the dust. He gritted his teeth and, with all his strength, pushed up with his arms and legs. The woman who had landed on top of his was flung to his left, by to the top of the next flight of stairs. He gulped down air, his eyes practically popping out of his head. Then, he turned to his right and began to pull flailing people off of Zara. Still on his back, Akio drew his knees up, grabbed a human, rolled to his left, and ejected them onto the lady he had already moved. After moving two more people in this fashion, Zara could be seen. Sprawled face down, her legs still going up the stairs, she wasn’t moving. “Come on baby!” Akio slapped her face several times. A man still lay on her legs. Akio managed to get up enough to tug at him. He couldn’t be moved. Those at the top of the stairs were now getting to their feet. More dust billowed in through the passageway, which led directly out into what had been the city. People coughed, spluttered and gasped. Akio was sitting. He looked around, and then grabbed Zara’s upper body in a bear hug in order to pull her free. With all the force he could muster, he braced his feet against a step and pushed. Slowly, he managed to extricate her from the tangle of people. They were now lying on the landing with Zara on his right, limp in his arms. He felt her neck for a pulse and then tipped her head back. Akio put his lips to hers. He blew hard. After allowing the air out again, he blew a second time, and then a third. Suddenly, she started to cough and wheeze. “Oh baby!” Akio said, his face lighting up. He slapped her back. She coughed up more dust. Her eyes focused on his joyful face.
“What… happened?” she said.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said. A man two steps above got to his feet, then tottered and fell towards Akio. He reached up with his left arm and leg, and deflected him sideways. Akio got to a crouching position. Holding both Zara’s hands he said, “Can you get up?”
She sat up, put on hand on the ground to brace herself, and tried. “Aaargh!” Her face was contorted with pain. “My legs…”
Akio looked distraught. “Uh… we have to do something… I know what. I’ll give you a piggyback.” He turned around so his back was facing Zara, and crouched as low as possible. Zara pushed herself up with both hands, and managed to grab onto his neck. Akio gritted his teeth and pushed upwards with everything he had. He stood up, and lifted Zara from the ground as she clung on. Akio held onto the handrail for balance. Fallen people still littered the stairwell, though some were now getting back up. He pressed through to the top of the next flight of stairs. “Move!” he said, shoving a lady out of the way with his left knee. “Move!” People looked up and made a way for him. Some were already heading downstairs. Grunting from the effort, Akio made it down to the next landing, a few meters below. He rested for a second, and then set off down again. Descending flight after flight of stairs, they headed deeper underground.
“I’ve got to rest,” Akio said, eight flights of stairs later. Panting heavily, he crouched by the wall and set Zara down, before sitting back next to her. Sweat ran down through the dust covering his face. He sneezed. Ashen faced zombie-like people hobbled down past them. Some clutched open head wounds.
Zara gritted her teeth and closed her eyes as she leaned back against the concrete wall. She pulled both knees up to her chest, gripping her left ankle with one hand and her right knee with the other. “I think they may be broken. I can’t put any weight on them at all.” Tears dripped onto her light blue button-up
shirt. Akio, who was sitting on her left, turned and put his arms around her. They stayed like this for several minutes. More refugees passed them.
“Do you know how far down it is?” Akio called out to a man carrying a little boy.
“No, sorry.”
Eventually, Akio said: “Are you ready?” Zara nodded. He crouched in front of her. She grabbed onto him, as before. Akio got to his feet and set off down again, holding tight to the handrail on his right. Four flights later, they passed a man holding a young woman in his arms and weeping over her. Akio kept going. He began to take it more slowly, steadying himself after each step. Four more flights of stairs, and they reached the bottom. It was a boxy lobby, the size of a small living room. It had one door, which was propped open. Akio walked out. They were on the sidewalk of an underground road. “Let’s rest again.” He moved Zara and set her down so she was sitting with her back against the wall. Akio sat down on her left. He looked left and right. The road went further than he could see both ways. It had wide sidewalks, and room for three lanes of traffic in either direction. The drab gray walls were punctuated by storefronts. They were smoke blackened and deserted. The dark roof, with its line of streetlights, gave it a close, confined feeling. This was amplified by many of the lights being out. In the half-darkness, Akio could make out the cracks in walls and roof. Chunks of masonry had fallen into the road. Burned, smashed vehicles, stripped of most of their parts, sat by the sides of the roadway. Dazed-looking people shuffled around. Headlights could be seen in the far distance, coming in their direction. Ten meters to their left, water spurted from a crack in the wall, flowing across the sidewalk and down the curb.
“So this is what the underground city is like,” Zara said. Akio nodded. “Do you really think Kassie could be here?” she continued.
Akio pursed his lips and shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“But…” Zara said.
“I’m sorry. That wasn’t the answer you wanted, was it?”
Zara shook her head. Tears still ran down her cheeks. Zara turned and buried her face in his shoulder. Akio held and comforted her, rocking her gently. Eventually, he patted his left pocket. One tissue left. He pulled it out and gave it to Zara. She blew her nose and dried her eyes. They sat in silence for awhile. A convoy of four black armed personnel carriers, with the white initials NPRF stenciled on the sides, passed them from left to right at high speed. Dust and soot were stirred up in their wake. Akio coughed as it covered them. A few minutes later, two teenage boys walked past. “Excuse me, do you know where we are?” Akio called out.
“Non,” the boy on the left said.
“Which way goes out of the city?” Akio asked.
The other boy pointed in the direction they were walking, which was to Akio’s right. “Zis goes west. It is a long way to ze edge.”
“Thank you.”
“What now?” Zara said quietly.
“I guess we try and head that way.”
Zara tried to stand. She sank back down, crying out in pain. “I’m sorry to be such a burden…”
“It’s okay baby. We’ll just do the best we can. Are you ready to go?” Zara nodded. Akio picked her up on his back again, and they set off. He took slow, measured steps, pacing himself to conserve energy. Fifty meters later, they passed what looked like the entrance to a large elevator on the other side of the street. A sign above the door said SUBWAY. It was dark. Soon after that was an intersection. They crossed it. The next hundred meters consisted of more shops, standing empty and forlorn. A handful of people walked in either direction. After that came featureless blank walls. Akio had to tread carefully, as the sidewalk was buckled and broken. A shorted-out light showered sparks. Small residential streets intersected their route.
“Babe, I can’t go another step,” Akio said, just after another intersection.
“Then put me down. We’ll rest. Probably for the night now, since it’s 7:30.” Akio crouched and set Zara down.
They were near a small alcove in the long gray wall. It was perhaps a meter deep. Akio went to investigate it. “Can’t sleep in there, it’s all wet. Water running down the back wall.” He walked in and put his tongue against the rough surface for several minutes, gathering the moisture. Zara scooted herself over using her hands. She had no option but to sit on the wet ground and drink in the same manner. After they had quenched their thirst, Zara said, “Less people about now.”
“Yeah. I think I heard something about there being a curfew in the occupied zone down here.”
“I’m hungry beyond belief,” Zara said.
“Me too. I’d do anything for a bite to eat.”
“Look at us, reduced to drinking like dogs,” she said. “I never thought humans could live this way. I mean, I’d read about it, especially during the Tribulation years, but I never thought I’d experience it.”
“I hate to say it, but this may be the end. We may never make it out of here.”
“Don’t lose hope.”
“I’m trying not to. Maybe it’s just the weariness talking.”
Zara scooted back against the wall to the right of the alcove using her hands to move, and sat upright with her legs out in front of her. A lone tear left a glistening track through the dirt on her left cheek. It reflected a flickering street light in the roof. The light then went out completely. Akio laid on his right side, with his head on her lap. He was asleep within seconds. Zara’s head began to droop forward. She awoke again with a start, as some raised voices echoed down the road. Then, unable to help herself, she fell asleep again. She slumped to her left, resting her head on his side. There was a sign three meters above ground level at the nearby intersection. In faux gold lettering on a black enamel plate, it said RUE BORCHAL.
----
Zan Tang and Tai Zu had traveled to the furthest inhabited point from the center of Vesta. An hour’s train journey took them to a vast hall, eighty kilometers out. The most recent piece of infrastructure, it was known as Manufacturing Facility Number 4. The space itself was over one kilometer long. So much spoil had been created when it was excavated that a new shaft to the surface had been built just to dispose of it. The hall contained row upon row of the silver, house-sized MCT (matter creation technology) machines. They worked constantly, creating more of everything the growing colony needed, from food to blocks of iridium. The two men exited the train at the last of its three stops there, which was also its terminus. They held onto members of a steel frame, in the shape of a large tube, which was meant to aid in weightless navigation. It ran the length of the hall.
Tang watched the departing cylindrical train, as its lights reflected from the great silver machines. Behind them was the gray rock of the inside of the cavern. They were the only two people within hundreds of meters.
“I’m guessing you had a reason to come all the way out here,” Zu said.
“Yes I did,” Tang said. “You remember I told you my grandfather’s real intent was Entara’s demise, rather than protection?”
“Yes.”
“Do you harbor any feelings against the Master?” Tang asked.
“Of course not! I am one hundred percent loyal to the Master.”
“Then why didn’t you turn me in when you knew there was anti-Entaran sentiment in my bloodline?”
“Well, it wasn’t like you personally held that belief…”
Tang held up a finger. “But you also knew that the punishment for knowing this and not reporting it is the same as being a dissenter: death. In other words, you are complicit in a capital offense.” Zu’s mouth flapped like a fish out of water, but no words came out. “But, it’s okay,” Tang continued. “I wanted to test the waters.” Zu raised both of his very faint eyebrows. “Zu, I am not just descended from a dissenter. I am one.”
Silence. Eventually, a stunned-looking Zu said, “I can see why we had to come all the way out here to talk now.”
Tang nodded. “In fact, part of my motivation for volunteering to be one of the Tor
ch Bearers, a member of the backup colony in 2357, was so that I could be here in the very unlikely event that the backup colony was needed. Everyone has a moral threshold, Zu. A point up to which they will tolerate evil. I’m ashamed to say mine is somewhere north of six billion dead.” Tang looked him in the eyes. “I watched while the Master killed all those people. We are all complicit, because we knew that was his plan. But, as far as any of us knew, that’s as far as he would go. I knew nothing of any cull, any plan to use the Extinction Switch even if his demands were met.”
“None of us did, Tang.”
“Right. But we do know now, because he told us. I have no idea how many other High Councilors know about this. But I’m going to stop him, Zu. I don’t know how yet. But if my life ever had a purpose, this is it. We must stop this evil in its tracks, even if it costs us everything. I can’t do it alone, though. Are you with me?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Lightning Strikes
“We have to move out,” JC said. “It’s no longer viable here.”
The Extinction Switch: Book three of the Kato's War series Page 18
