“Yep, one cubic meter of that ore can power a city for a year. But in those vials, the ones we thought were the DNA samples, is the antidote. Both the human and the Annoronian. Both our species can survive and thrive.”
“Okay, press it,” Kilo said
Bravo nodded and moved to the wall away from the monitors.
“As soon as the water is past the door height, we should be able to swim down and through it. Take a big breath, it will be a while before we reach the end, and follow me.”
Alpha placed his finger lightly onto the button, then smiling at her, he pressed it. The door to the room and every room on the monitor unlocked. The water gushed in immediately and saturated their feet. Bravo was almost thrown off balance but righted herself against the wall as she watched the water level rise higher and higher.
“Okay, get to the side wall, and we will make our way as close to the door as we can,” Alpha instructed over the rumbling of the rapids of water funneling into the space. Marco’s body washed in, tumbling with the waves of water. The monitor sparked as the water engulfed the controls and Bravo squealed.
“The power will go out and back up will kick in, emergency lights will illuminate the halls,” Alpha called to them, taking Bravo’s hand under the water and giving it a little squeeze. “Get ready to take a big breath,” he said, eyeing the water as it gushed in. They waded in the water now unable to touch the floor, their legs pumping to keep them as close to the door as possible against the churning flood.
“Here we go,” Alpha called as the water crept up to the top of the door frame and with a gurgle, passed it. They gasped in a chest full of air and sunk below the surface. The water still pushed through the door, but slower now. The decline in power making it possible for them to drive their way out of the door frame and into the hall. They swam against the current up the corridor to where Kilo had come in.
They thrust their way through each door leading to the top, and when they approached the unflooded section, Alpha stopped and hovered under water. He signed a few instructions to Bravo and Kilo, and they took off, Bravo towards the opening and Kilo to the opposite side of Alpha.
Bravo swam up to the opening and was instantly yanked out of the water by strong arms.
Kilo and Alpha followed, but stayed under the surface and close to the walls. A body splashed into the water and Alpha and Kilo grabbed at their flailing limbs.
Not Bravo Two.
They struggled under the water trying to get to the surface, trying to get to air. But Kilo and Alpha held them down.
Their own chests ached with the strain of holding their breaths for that long. It was made worse by the stress put on their muscles holding the rebel under water with them. The body went limp in their arms and they surfaced to see Bravo holding another rebel in a choke hold against the wall.
Kilo dragged the body of the rebel out of the water with him, laid her on her side and moved her hair away from her face. She coughed, a spurt of water streaming from her mouth. She was alive but exhausted. After a few more wet coughs she passed out. Bravo laid the other—now unconscious--rebel beside her on the floor and they bound their hands and feet with their own belts.
Alpha motioned for them to follow him up the hall, he didn’t want to speak and give away their approach. They followed quietly.
A blonde duplicate rounded the corner in a hurry. She smashed into Alpha knocking him back a step but not sending him onto his backside.
She opened her mouth to speak then saw Bravo and closed it immediately and raised her hands.
“You are her,” the Bravo duplicate whispered. “The one like Bea.”
“How do you know that?” Bravo Two asked her.
“She said you were with him, that you and the Alpha were trying to destroy us all.”
“She told you I was like her?” Bravo asked quietly as Alpha stared at them quizzically.
“She didn’t have to, I heard her telling an older Alpha about you. How you are immune like her.”
“We have to get out of here and out of the Opera House.”
“You flooded the lab.” Anger crept into her voice. “She is really mad, they all are. They are calling you traitors, saying you have killed them--us--all.”
“No,” Alpha said, moving to stand united next to Bravo. “Doctor M would have; Bea has no idea what this place really was and why it wasn’t destroyed like the other labs.”
“And you do know?” she quipped.
“Yes, I do,” Alpha said then stepped around her to continue his way out.
“Wait,” she urged. “She has three more guards down the next hall and two more to the left after that. She is holed up in the control room trying to empty the water from the facility. The other Bravo’s are with her trying to help too.”
“Where do they think everyone else is?” Kilo asked.
“She told us you flooded the rooms first, to kill off your competition,” she said as she lowered her head but kept an eye on Alpha.
“They are outside already,” he assured her, and whether she believed him or not, she nodded and followed him around the corner.
They raced at super human speed around the corner and took out the three guards quickly and mostly quietly. Only the slight muffled call of the third guard threatened to give them away. At Alpha’s signal they continued around to the next two and took them out also. There were too many Bravos in with Bea for them to run in head on.
“We have to draw them out,” Kilo suggested. But Alpha frowned.
“No, we need to make them listen,” Alpha said, trying to work a solution in his mind.
“Use me,” Bravo Two offered.
“What do you suggest?” Alpha questioned not immediately understanding how he could use her.
“She thinks I am a threat, so tell her you have me, tell her you want to trade: the freedom of you and Kilo for my life.”
“She will never go for it,” Kilo said, shaking his head.
“She will,” Alpha agreed. “But I don’t know that she won’t still kill us, or shoot you on sight.” He grabbed her hand, gripping it hard. This time his heart slowed at her touch, as if being in contact with her now calmed him.
“She won’t, not in front of the other Bravos.”
“You are right,” the other Bravo agreed. “I only knew you were a threat because she was telling some Armond guy that you had to be stopped, that she couldn’t rule if you lived because you can do what she can.”
“Armond is in there?” Alpha asked, remembering him from the tunnels and how much he disliked him then, and funnily enough, now still.
“No, she sent him out to get the rest of the rebels. He should be back soon though.”
“Then we don’t have a lot of time. Let’s see if this works.”
Alpha walked up to the end, the frantic tapping of keys and collection of identical whispers hard to hear past. It was like listening to someone speak to themselves at super speed.
“Bea!” Alpha called and the room ahead silenced. “I have Bravo Two, if you want her, you have to let the rest of the Bravo’s inside with you go free.”
There was silence then some inaudible whispers. “How do I know you really have her?” Bea asked.
“You know I do. Come on, you don’t want them anyway, she is the one you need, let them go.”
“Send her in, but I can’t promise the others will go with you, or let you live long after what you have done to the others.”
The whispers rose again, anger fueling their tone.
“I saved them,” Alpha replied, hoping Bea would take the bait. He needed her to engage in this with him so that he could reveal her to be the fraud she was, so he could get the Bravos to follow him out of the facility and take all control away from her.
“Killing them was saving them?” she called back, and Alpha knew he had her.
“Who killed them?” he asked, genuine question in his tone. “Not I. I saved them. Sent them from the rooms you planned to slay them in, and t
hrough the Trials Doctor Lawson devised.”
“You lie,” Bea spat, angrily.
“They are free, freer than the Bravos you have deceived into staying with you, tricked into helping you. All so...what? So you can control the new world? The world you think should be yours?”
Silence.
“Are they really alive?” a duplicate asked tentatively from within the room. There was a shrill cry as a burst of blue energy shot out of the doorway and the whispers erupted into screams.
Alpha and Kilo rushed the doorway, the Bravo duplicates had Bea on the ground, presumably the Bravo who had called out lay dead beside her. Her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling above, a smoking hole through her chest.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
One of the Bravos walked through the collective of Bravo clones, up to where they had Bea pinned to the floor. Her brow hardened as she knelt, grabbed Bea by the neck and twisted sharply before Alpha or anyone could do a thing to stop her.
Gasps came from the other Bravos as those that had been holding Bea dropped her limp arms and legs and stepped away slowly.
“She wouldn’t have stopped. She would have never stopped,” the Bravo said, staring at the lifeless eyes of the young and old Bravo bodies lying on the floor.
“What are we going to do now?” one of them asked, looking at Alpha and the others.
“Now we get out of here and go and save both the species left on this world,” Alpha said, turning. He offered his hand to Bravo Two. She looked down at it before smiling and lacing her fingers with his. Together, they led the duplicates out of the facility.
Waiting for them was a vast collection of duplicates, rebels and Annoronians. The duplicates had stacked the storage trolleys under the trees at the edge of the park.
“You have all been lied to,” Alpha called out across the horde of bodies. “Neither species is doomed to live a baron life, we have the answer, we have the cure.”
“What have you done?” Armond yelled as he and the other rebels converged on the area. “Where is Bea?”
“She is dead, she lied to you, they both lied to you all.”
Armond didn’t move, he shot glances all around him at the Annoronians, duplicates and rebels.
“What are you doing?” he yelled at them. “You have to fight them, the Aliens took our world, took our people, killed us, why won’t you fight?” He strode towards an Annoronian girl with bright blonde hair stained green with her own blood. When his fist was about to connect with her head a hand stopped him.
“Stand down,” Zulu said, Blue growling at his side. “Listen to what Alpha has to say.”
“I am an Alpha, an Alpha One, and trust me when I say, there is nothing he knows that I do not.”
Zulu lessened his hold over Armond’s fist. “Just listen,” Zulu told him, placing a hand on Blue’s head. The dog tilted his head towards Zulu and let his ears lay back with the stroke of Zulu’s hand.
Armond folded his arms across his chest then raised a brow Alpha’s way.
Alpha and Bravo walked hand in hand towards the trolleys. Kilo followed close behind. When Alpha reached one he pressed the lid and it released to reveal a multitude of green and red vials.
“Those are frozen samples,” one Annoronian cried out of the crowd.
“No,” Alpha said, taking one out of its chamber and holding it up for them all to see. “This is the cure. The war, the taking of the Annoronian world, all of it was orchestrated to cleanse this world ready for their return, after they mine your planet dry.”
“What do you mean? They took our world, we have seen the footage, we have seen them on our planet living their lives in the world we were banished from,” Fa said, moving through the crowd of people, she stopped when she saw Kilo and he straightened beside Alpha.
“Yes, but your planet is dying, it will sustain them for one, maybe two generations. Just long enough for them to collect the radioactive ore found in your planet’s subsurface. Then they must return. They wanted the world ready for them. That is why so many were left behind.”
“They left them behind to die?” November Ten asked, stepping to the front of the crowd. Alpha looked to the large gash that ran the length of her forearm and frowned, then nodded to November Seven who stood by her. November Seven took hold of her arm and dressed the wound.
“They did leave them to die,” Alpha said, addressing the group again. “But we have the cure, we can survive, and with the technology here, we can be ready when they do return, not to fight them but to show them what a united world can be, should be.”
Kilo stepped up and held out his hand to Alpha. Alpha grabbed a dosing device concealed under the lid of the trolley and inserted the vial into it. Taking Kilo’s hand, he pressed the device against his forearm and squeezed the trigger. With a hiss the liquid went from the vial into Kilo’s arm.
"Annoronians get red, humans or duplicates get green. If you want the cure, come up and claim it. If you don’t we won’t force you, but know that it will always be here for you if you ever change your mind.”
Fa came up first from the Annoronians. Kilo took her arm and injected the red tube. She smiled and they walked towards the water’s edge as the others came forwards.
Alpha’s initial team were the first to claim their cure. Bravo Seven stepped forwards with Zulu and Blue.
“What about the other animals?” she asked, looking to Blue.
Alpha smiled. “They were never affected, the humans took most of the mammals with them, what was left was so few in number, they assumed they too had been affected.”
“So there are no zygotes, no unallocated embryos?” Zulu asked as he took the cure next.
“They are here too,” Alpha said lifting the section of vials to reveal another chamber beneath. It was filled with tiny white Eppendorf tubes, the mist of the coolant flowed over the edge of the opening and Alpha closed it to not risk the status of the samples.
Zulu smiled and led Blue away, Bravo Seven at his side. The others came forwards in spicks and specks, then in droves. After the first few had their shots they took over injecting others with the many dose devices inside the lids of the trolleys.
Alpha quietly walked back to the secondary control room where the body of Bea remained on the floor beside her younger duplicated self. He stepped around her and entered a code into the system. The screens lit up and a gurgling noise echoed from within the facility. He walked back out to the others and saw many of them had joined Kilo and Fa, congregating around the water’s edge. Joining them he saw what they were watching.
His activation of the drainage had turned on the fans under the facility. They churned and created swirls in the water. The trash and foam on the surface caught in the current created a pretty pattern.
“Well if we are going to stay, we better clean up the place a bit, don’t you think?” Fa giggled to Kilo as her fingers brushed against his. Kilo turned his hand so that their fingers intertwined.
“We can stay forever,” he said, looking at her the way Alpha looked at Bravo Two.
Bravo Two crept up on Alpha, but he smelt her sweet scent as she approached and as she was near, he spun and grabbed her, took her in his arms and kissed her.
It was nothing like he thought it could be. Though all he had to go off was the few images he had seen during his growth in the pod.
He didn’t know it would send his heart into his throat, that his whole body would quiver and that his mouth would move in time with hers without any control of his own. It was perfect, she was perfect. They were free.
A scream broke their connection and they spun in time to see Doctor M dash into the open door of the facility.
“You said she died?” Alpha snapped at Kilo.
“Bea shot her in the chest, she should be dead,” Kilo called after him, but Alpha and Bravo were already headed for the door. Kilo followed.
The lab had quickly drained of all the water thanks to the fans Alpha had activated so it made it easy for Doctor M to
make her way through the completely open facility.
They followed her swiftly through the halls only a few seconds behind. She dashed into the main control room.
“Stop,” Alpha yelled, rounding the doorway.
“You still don’t understand boy,” she coughed and green stained her lips. “I could duplicate whatever I wanted back at that ship, but this, this I could only do here. And thanks to you…”
Bravo two pulled her weapon and shot at Doctor M. An orange wall of light absorbed the energy from the gun and Doctor M pulled a small object from her pocket, waving it snidely at them.
“Stop!” Alpha called, as Doctor M pressed a latch at the back of the control board and it separated to reveal another smaller keyboard, a big green button at its center.
“What are you doing?” Bravo hovered on her toes like she was about to dart forwards.
“If we can’t ever go home, neither can they."
Alpha lunged forwards into a sprint, but her hand came down on the button.
A hum buzzed through the control board and the monitors flickered. The images showed people, humans walking in wooded areas of unusually coloured trees. Children playing in grass parks. Men and women digging in mines, their clothes covered in a shimmery dust, but smiles on their faces. The people on the screens all froze as the ground they stood on wavered. Fear crossed their faces and the screens flickered with static.
“What did you do?” Bravo yelled, grabbing Doctor M by the shoulders and shaking her wildly. Doctor M laughed, but it was halted by a wet cough. Her breath gurgled with the blood that soaked her lungs. Her eyes rolled back a little.
“I win,” she said as her eyes fell back and her body went limp in Bravo’s arms. Bravo dropped her lifeless body to the ground.
“What did she do Alpha?” she asked, as Alpha pressed at the keys trying to bring back the images of the other world, the Annoronian world.
Flashes of fire and running people came in between the static. The ground exploding beneath them. The buildings disappearing beneath flames and dust. Then nothing. Just static.
Alpha 9 Page 20
