Korolev just stared at the screen, his eyes wide in disbelief. Then turned to his left and crouched down. “Kato! Kato!” He slapped his face.
Kato’s eyelids moved as though he were deeply asleep. Then they opened again. “No! Tell me it isn’t so, Alexei!”
Tears ran down the normally stoic Korolev’s face. “Say it isn’t so!” Kato repeated. Korolev’s mouth opened as though he were about to say something, but no words came out.
The newscaster droned on. “View of public spaces in Europe’s major cities are confirming the worst. The dead and dying must already number in the billions. Meanwhile, aircraft are taking off, landing, and flying as though oblivious. It is highly likely that they contain no more passengers…”
“Zara and Akio! And Kassandra!” Kato cried. His wailing echoed around the bridge. His tears soaked the carpet, which rippled red in response. Korolev knelt over Kato and put his arms around him.
A map of Europe, Russia, and North Africa was shown. One by one, more countries turned red: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Italy, and Spain. An awful red number below it counted the suspected casualties: five billion, six billion, seven billion.
Revenant’s captain, Hans Gruber, entered the bridge from somewhere left of the screen. He wore a look of utter shock and bereavement. “Germany too! Germany too!” He saw the two men on the floor and stopped. He turned and looked at the screen. “Oh, it cannot be…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Activate
Level thirty was packed with people, from the center ring right out to the edge. They looked like a parade of ghosts in the dim light. Level twenty-nine was similarly crammed, with everyone from toddlers to the elderly and everyone in between. Fathers gnashed their teeth. Mothers fought back tears. Children hung onto their toys. All bore backpacks or small, fold-up shopping carts to be dragged along. Tightly rolled rugs and towels containing clothes were lashed to these. Raiders and Defenders wore their black uniforms, not yet in ghost mode. They were armed as well as they could be without their weapons being obvious.
The loud babble of the crowd was silenced as Lord August, standing at the top of a two-meter step ladder so he could be seen, began to speak over the silo—wide PA system. “Men, women, and children of The Excluded. I promised you safety and peace. Together we have grown into a large family over the years, over the decades.” There was a catch in his voice. “I never saw this day coming. None of us did. We, your leaders, did our best to make good on our promises. We fought off enemies, and tried to keep food on every plate. But, in the end, we failed.” His words echoed away into silence. Nobody stirred. After a long moment, Lord August continued, “There is a term in biology: environmental pressure. Something about an organism’s environment forces it to adapt if it is not to die off. As you know, that thing has happened. Not just to Lyon, but to all of humanity. We, The Excluded, are an organism. Each of us is a cell within it. We will not die, but live. We cannot survive without each other. Indeed, fifty-nine have already given their lives in our defense. We will remember them as we travel.” Kassandra looked at Annabelle in the half-light. Annabelle looked back. Their eyes were moist. They, plus Antonio, Magana, David, and Vivianne, all exchanged looks laden with sorrow and fear. Etienne held her mother’s hand. Akio and Zara stood at the edge of the group, holding hands. “We will leave together,” August continued. “Right now, we don’t know whether rebel or government forces are in control of what remains of the city. We don’t know what the country is like outside Lyon. Our plan is to head west, out of Lyon, into the open. We will march until we find a suitable place to settle; one that has room for all of us. We will then set up a new home and a new life. None of us have any idea what that will look like yet. I, together with JC and a band of Raiders, will lead the way. You will all travel with your unit leaders. There will be three Defenders escorting each unit. Pray to your gods that our passage will be safe, our new home secure, and our harvests plentiful. Hail The Excluded!” He made the X salute.
“Hail The Excluded!” the crowd replied, reciprocating the salute. Their voices echoed for several seconds around the vast curved concrete walls. Lord August climbed down the ladder. Bearing a frown, he picked up his own cloth rucksack. JC already wore his army—style pack. It looked almost impossibly large for one man to carry. Without another word, they headed along the catwalk to exit C. The crowd parted to make way for them. A band of two dozen Raiders fell in behind them. Kassandra was not one of them; she stayed with unit 24C. Lord August and JC walked along the corridor through which the travelers had passed the first night they entered Silo 7. They turned left, and passed the old control rooms where David and Antonio had intercepted Josiah. The two men took a right, and then left into the last room before the loading dock. It was now brightly lit. Lord August opened the roller door. A set of wooden steps had been erected down to street level. He and JC stepped into the loading bay. Panicked hordes headed in both directions. Some wept. Not a few refugees this time, but a flood, illuminated by the few working street lights. No soldiers were anywhere to be seen. The Raiders were behind August and JC, filling up the alcove. “The city must have been liberated,” Lord August said to JC.
“Yes. But you’d think they’d look happier.”
Lord August looked left and spied a bearded middle-aged man striding towards them. He seemed oblivious, heading somewhere in a hurry. Just before he reached them, August said: “Excuse me, sir. Who is in control now?”
The man glared back, and kept on walking. JC, standing to August’s right, physically accosted the traveler by putting a big arm in his path and restraining him. “Speak when spoken to!”
At this the man looked up, his sunken eyes seeing but not comprehending. “Nobody is in control.”
“What is the political situation?” JC demanded.
“Get back under your rock!” the man replied. He squirmed, but JC held him tightly.
“Answers! Now!”
“Like you don’t know!”
“Know what?”
“Billions dead!”
JC blinked. “What?”
“The space virus thing. It happened. There’s nobody left outside the city. No government. Nothing. Now let me go!” JC did so.
The normally unshockable JC looked aghast. “I’m not sure I heard that correctly,” he said to August. A pair of disheveled ladies pushed their way past the man, heading in the opposite direction. “We need information,” JC barked. Slightly quizzical expressions replaced their obvious sorrow. They stopped obligingly. “Is it true the Extinction Switch has been used?” JC said.
“Yes it is.” The ladies eyed the band of black-clad raiders behind JC and hurried on. The news passed back through the crowd waiting to exit Silo 7 like a tidal wave. Shocked expressions, gasps, and cries followed in its wake. As soon as Annabelle heard, she wailed and fell to the ground. “Veronique! Oh, my little Veronique! And my mother!” Kassandra looked on, open-mouthed.
“Shit! England!” David said. His face turned white as the realization struck him full force. “Dear God, no!”
“Oh David!” Vivianne cried. She let go Etienne’s hand and hugged him tightly.
Antonio, gulping back tears, turned and faced away from them. Kassandra clasped her hand to her mouth, as her eyes began to moisten. All around them were cries of grief for loved ones outside of the underground section of Lyon.
JC turned to Lord August. His steely gaze was resolute, yet tinged with fear.
“My God!” Lord August said. He scanned the rushing crowd on the street for a few seconds, and then looked back at JC. “What do we do now?”
----
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Kato repeated, as he strode furiously up and down the large living area of his suite. The walls were turning into a pixelated red pattern in response to his mood. “Oh Jesus, Oh God…” His eyes were fiery, and his jaw was set. On his next pass through the room, he kept going, through the automatic sliding door, into the white kitchen area. He went to the l
eft, behind the counter, and opened a drawer. Kato removed a steak knife. His teeth were gritted as he held it in his right hand. He twirled it slowly, examining the shiny blade. Kato ran his left thumb along the blade, then unbuttoned the left sleeve of his white shirt. He rolled it up carefully. Then, he put the blade against his wrist.
“Kato?” Korolev’s voice sounded from the living room. “Where the heck are you?”
“Dammit,” Kato growled. He drew the knife across his flesh. A line of red formed. It began to drip.
The doors slid open. A wide-eyed Korolev stood there. “Kato! God, no!” Korolev ran over and pried the knife from Kato’s grip. Kato just looked at his wrist, his eyes glazed over. “What are you doing?” Korolev pleaded. “Ship emergency! First aid needed!”
Kato snapped out of his trance-like state. “Alexei, no! I can’t let anyone see me like this!”
“What the hell are you doing?! This doesn’t solve anything!” The blood became a fine, continuous trickle.
“I can’t live with myself, Alexei. I’m responsible for fourteen billion deaths. Seung Yi only exists in this century because of me! I created a monster!”
“He was already a monster, Kato,” Korolev said firmly as he looked around desperately for anything that would stop the bleeding. He hurriedly began to unbutton his own dark, long sleeved shirt. After undoing the top three buttons, he yanked it off over his head and began to tie the sleeve around Kato’s wrist.
"It's all been me, Alexei! Everything I've tried to do, I did it on my own! And you know what? I did it! I built a company from the ground up, changed the world, left it, came back, and then did it all again. BUT I COULDN'T DO THIS! I couldn't stop him!”
Korolev sighed, as he pulled the knot tight around Kato’s wrist. Blood began to seep through the material. “I wondered if you’d get hit like this emotionally, Kato.”
“What?”
Korolev looked Kato in the eye. “I’m also degreed in psychology. I’ve watched you with great interest over the years. I wanted to see how you’d develop emotionally. You’re the only person who’s ever slept for hundreds of years and then come back to a world changed beyond all recognition. Well, you and Zara anyway. You never fully reintegrated into society. You’ve stayed at arm’s length from everybody.” Kato’s eyes narrowed. Korolev continued, his tone very gentle. “It was after you lost Susan, wasn’t it? You put the walls up inside, and resolved never to feel helpless again. That’s why you boarded a starship headed for nowhere. Then, when you came back, you still chose to live in space. This ship, it’s a gilded cage. You never really built a new life for yourself. Emotionally, anyway.”
Kato’s eyes spat fire. “Dammit Alexei!”
“It’s okay, Kato. It really is okay. You did what you had to do to protect yourself. It’s time to let go.”
“But… Seung Yi…”
“You couldn’t have known this would happen. And you did try to stop him. You and Zara both did.”
Kato sighed. “I failed her, too.”
“You were the best father you could have been. It’s pretty monumental that you managed to raise her by yourself in what must have been tortuous, pain-filled years after Susan’s passing. At the same time as building TAON from nothing. Let go, Kato. You can’t control everything. Open your heart, and embrace the mystery that is life.”
Kato leaned on the counter, a defeated man. The ship’s doctor, in a white uniform, entered the room. Korolev turned to him, and put an index finger up, indicating that he should wait. “You are more than your successes,” Korolev said. “Albert Einstein is one of your idols, correct?”
“Yes,” Kato said, meekly.
“Even with his great knowledge and insight, he knew there is an inscrutable mystery behind all of existence. He didn’t pretend to know it, he just embraced it. It’s a cliche, but he became one with it.”
There was silence for a few seconds. Eventually, Korolev spoke softly. “It’s time to let go, Kato. You can’t change what happened in the 21st century, nor in this one. You weren’t responsible for Seung Yi, nor will you necessarily be his undoing. None of us knows what’s going to happen. You have a daughter and granddaughter who loved you more than anything. Their lives were touched and made better by you. There are many more who could benefit from your success and wisdom.” The doctor looked on anxiously.
Finally, Kato said, “You’re a good man, Alexei. Probably the finest I’ve ever met.”
Korolev smiled. “That’s high praise coming from someone over four hundred years old.” The two men embraced for a minute. “Now, are you going to let this man fix you up?”
“Yes.” Korolev turned to the doctor and nodded. He rushed over, removed the tied blood-soaked shirt, and applied a smart bandage to Kato’s wrist. It tightened instantly.
“I miss Susan her more than anything, Alexei. There were many times I thought about ending it all just so I didn’t have to feel anything anymore. And, depending on what’s in the afterlife, I could perhaps be with her.”
“But you didn’t do it. That’s the important thing. That inner drive kept you going. The one that keeps us all going even through the hardest of times. You know what though?”
“What?”
“Call it gut instinct, or perhaps intuition, but I think your greatest days are yet to come.”
----
“We have to do something!” JC bellowed. “Inaction is not an option. Not unless you want to see people dropping dead from starvation and thirst!” He, Lord August, Blake, and the other eleven Defender squad leaders sat in a circle on level thirty. The dumbstruck, grieving population of Silo 7 had gone back to their units after their aborted attempt to leave.
“But, a collapsing city, and a sterilized countryside!” Lord August said. “For all we know, this… thing could kill anybody who sets foot outside. The population that’s left will be reduced to lawless savagery. It’ll make what’s happened in Lyon so far look like nothing. I won’t hear of it. We are not going. We’ll send out raiding parties to glean what we can. But, we’re staying put.”
“Then you are condemning us to death! The silo will become a tomb. I for one am not going to live like an animal in the gutter.” JC looked around the assembled squad leaders. “Who’s with me? Who wants to at least try to survive? We’ve got ace fighters, and others who could step in quickly. Our chances out there are better than average.”
A ring of frightened faces looked back at him. “But sir,” Blake said, “there could still be remnants of both armies out there. In fact there will be, because a lot of troops were underground when it hit. They’ll duke it out for territory.”
Another squad leader, Aimee, addressed Lord August: “Sir, the NPRF will have forgotten about us now. We need not fear them.” Her eyes narrowed. “We have fearless fighters, tough as nails. We can’t take armies on by force, but we can be cunning and fly under their radars. Plus, we’ve already shown that we can take them on in small-scale battles.”
Lord August closed his eyes. “This is more than any leader should have to bear.”
“The burden is no longer yours, August,” JC said. He stood up and puffed out his chest. “I am assuming leadership of The Excluded.”
August stood too, shooting daggers at JC with his eyes.
“No you’re not! Fine. I won’t rule out leaving. But we need information. We’ve got to get this right, or our next move will be our last.” He looked around at the gathered leaders. “We need to find out who’s in charge, just how lawless it is, and what our safest routes might be. We will send out patrols to assess the situation. Then I will assimilate what I learn. I promise you a decision within twelve hours.”
JC glared at him. “Fine, old man. But if it’s anything other than leaving, I’ll tie you to the railings and we’ll leave anyway.”
Kassandra took Zara’s face in her hands, as she kneeled on deck 25A. Together, they cast a long shadow on the catwalk. “Mom, if I never see you again, I want you to know that I love you.
” She then looked to her right. “You too, Dad.”
“W… why?” Zara stammered, from behind terrified eyes.
“I’m going out of the city to see if it’s safe. If I don’t come back, we know it isn’t.” Kassandra’s eyes had a steely resolve.
“But… aren’t there dozens of Raiders or Defenders or whatever they’re called? Couldn’t one of the others go?”
“Yes, and a bunch of us volunteered. We have some fast motorbikes. But, only one person needs to actually go outside. JC chose me.”
There was a long silence. Zara flung her arms around Kassandra. “God, I wish you hadn’t done this, baby. Actually, you know? I’m going to go with you.
“What?”
“I’m going with you. I brought some old communications gear. I can get in touch with your grandpa in orbit, to let him know we’re okay. But, it won’t work underground. I have to be in the open.” Zara let go of Kassandra and rifled through an overstuffed side pocket of her pants. She pulled out a square silver plastic device about the size of an alarm clock. The front was dotted with small holes. One side had a tiny touchscreen. “It’s a shortwave radio. It’ll work where the nets won’t, provided he’s in a line of sight range. When are you going?”
The Extinction Switch: Book three of the Kato's War series Page 21
