by Dawn Dagger
We waited in silence for a moment, then Dierdre dragged herself to her feet, a steely look hardening her face. Her dark blue eyes became walls. “If I remember correctly, the scientists that destroyed this world were creating some sort of device. I know enough coding, I might be able to alter the device to help us teleport, or reactivate my powers, or something.”
“Coding?” I repeated. “You mean, HTML, or C-cubed? You know, I made a website once! And a lil’ robot that frowned when you shook him!”
She gave me a dumbfounded look. “No… more like… re-coding the DNA structure of time and reality… waitaminute. You guys still use HTML?”
“Uh, yeah.” I scratched the back of my neck. “And yeah, I, uh, I don’t know about DNA.”
“Fantastic. All right. We just have to find this device…” She turned towards Amy. “Okay, love… Before everything messed up, do remember anything about any sort of new, fancy, big machine thing people made?”
Amy narrowed her eyes and puckered her lips, thinking hard. “There was… a… a young machine! They made a young machine!”
“A young machine?” Dierdre repeated.
“Yeah!” She hopped. “It was this big machine that made people young. My dad said it was,” she crossed her arms and spoke in a low voice, “‘a damn shame that people wanted to use machines like that’.”
“Where was it, do you remember?” Dierdre asked, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Where was the machine?”
“On the TV?” She tilted her head.
“On the TV, Amy, where was the device? Was it in a big city?”
Amy rubbed her chin, screwing her eyes closed. “A big… big city. The city where the president was!!”
“Washington DC?”
“Yeah! That’s it!”
Dierdre whirled around to face me. “That device backfired! That’s what ruined everything! If we can find it, since it already alters DNA structure, I can just change the numbers. Then, then we can go to the MMEA, apologize, and tell them what happened!”
“Okay!”
The trip to Washington, DC was as mundane as the trip to Georgia. Everything was exactly the same, save a few more zombies which we disposed of quickly. It wasn’t hard to find the giant, white building covered in tattered flags.
“It’s gotta be in here,” Dierdre said, practically running into the building.
“I can’t wait to take a shower, and eat a sub…” I muttered, more to myself than to the girls. My stomach hurt, and the feeling of dirt on my skin was unbearable. I wanted to shred it off.
“Me too…” Amy mumbled. “I want soap.”
We wandered past ancient busts and broken cabinets, around piles of papers and flags on the floor, following the sound of Dierdre’s echoing footsteps. We couldn’t find anything that looked remotely like a giant ‘young device’.
“Is it big or small?” Dierdre asked Amy as glass crunched beneath our feet.
“It’s big! And silver!”
“Should be easy to find then…”
We wandered through all the floors, hopping over broken decks, and sometimes having me lift giant chunks of plaster or broken segments of columns out of the way. We found nothing that matched Amy’s vague description.
“Maybe, maybe it isn’t in the Capitol Building…” Dierdre mused, turning her head to look at us. “Maybe it’s--”
BANG!
I yelped and stumbled backwards, my head ringing. I had run into something full force, and it hurt. Dierdre rushed over and gasped. Amy jumped up and down, pointing excitedly, momentarily lost for words.
“Th-That’s it! Guys, that’s the thing!”
I rubbed my eyes and they readjusted, revealing a cylindrical, silver tube that was just a little taller than Dierdre. She already had her hands on the device, propping open the control panel and examining it. Amy and I stood in silence, holding our breaths. We were almost home!
“Wait? No!” Dierdre cried. She slammed her fist against the side of the machine. Tears welled in her eyes. “No, no, no!”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s dead!” She roared, wheeling around and shaking her hands at me. “There’s no power! It runs on solar power, and there’s no sun! So, there’s no way to—” Her words were cut off by a violent sob. Dierdre slid to the ground, screaming and crying. “God damnit!” She wailed.
Amy ran over and hugged her, holding her as she shook. Dierdre wailed into the void as I stood in a horrible shock, unmoved by her display. That was our last resort. There was no way off of the dead world.
We were stuck forever.
We would never save my mother.
We would never save the world. Never make up for my living.
“I just want to go home!” Dierdre shrieked. “Just let me go home!”
Amy continued to rub her back, her face sad and worried. My mind was whirring, turning. There had to be another way, hadn’t there? We couldn’t just die. We had people to save. Things to do. We had two of the most powerful devices in the universe. We couldn’t just…
“I’ll swim us,” I said firmly.
“What?” Amy squeaked softly, looking frightened.
“I’ll swim us out there.” I was talking to Dierdre, who was still staring hollowly into the darkness. She had gone silent at my proclamation. “The bad guys are holed up in the Bermuda Triangle, right? And the artifacts and time bubbles are outside of time, right? Can we access the MMEA’s time bubble from anywhere, since it's also outside of time?”
“I don’t… it’s…” She choked.
“Yes, or no?” I asked sternly. Tears continued to drain down her cheeks, cutting wide bands and revealing just how pale her skin was. “Dierdre, tell me!” I exclaimed, angrier than I knew I was. Amy flinched.
“Yes,” she whispered, not meeting my eyes. “Yes, we can get into it from any teleportation device. Being outside of time would help.”
“Then let’s go,” I said firmly, gesturing for her to stand. “Get up, now. We’re going to find something and we will make it to the Bermuda Triangle. You two are getting out of here.”
“N-no!” Dierdre cried, gripping my arm as I began to walk away. “Absolutely not! It’s entirely too dangerous!”
I gave her a gentle smiled and pulled her calmly to her shaky feet. “For you, or for me? C’mon, let’s go get a boat.”
15
We found a small boat by the shore of another state. The boat hardly ran, but hardly wasn’t what we were looking for. While I siphoned as much gasoline as I could from the other, useless boats, Amy and Dierdre found food and water and blanket and clothes. We loaded all of the items into the boat.
While we worked, Dierdre never stopped muttering about how horrible an idea it was. I ignored her. The idea was going to work. It had to. There were no other options. I wasn’t going to let my two girls die.
After we had fully stocked the supplies, we spent the night in a small gas station close to the dock. Amy fell asleep as soon as she laid her head down, and Dierdre drifted off not long after, but I found it impossible to sleep.
I stepped out of the gas station and stared up at the dark sky, wondering if my mother was going to be where we were going. Would that complicate my half formed plan? Was she all right? I sure hoped so.
“I’ll be there for you soon…” I whispered into the starless, pulsating sky.
I sat down on a bench outside of the gas station, lost in my own musing. After a long time, Dierdre appeared and sat beside me, her face twisted with concern. The patches of pale skin were more prominent now, and her eyes were red ringed. She had been crying.
“We don’t know this will work,” she whispered, her voice begging.
“It has to,” I said simply.
“We could… live here, ya know. Let the MMEA save the real world. We could rebuild with Amy. That was the original way things worked, wasn’t it? We could be the new people she met. We could create some generators…”
I turned to her, shocke
d by her. “Stay here?” I said dumbfoundedly. “No, no! Dierdre! I know you need the sun as much as I said my mother.” I gently brushed my thumb across her filthy cheek. “You miss the sun, I know that. Don’t worry. I’ll have you back to the sun soon. We will be save.”
“Even if… if we don’t die…” Dierdre started, hugging her knees. “You might, Clayton. You might die.”
“I’m already supposed to be dead,” I said softly, giving her a small smile. “So, Fate will have what she wants, right? Besides, I’m a superhero. It’s my job.”
Dierdre slumped sideways, letting her head rest on my shoulder. I wrapped my arm around her back, giving her support and a gentle hug. “How long have we been here, do ya think?” I asked.
“More than a month… A year? I hope the MMEA doesn’t think we’re dead. I hope the bad guys didn’t get the turtle. I hope--”
“We’ll see soon,” I interrupted gently, shushing her. “Don’t worry about it now.”
She nodded into my shoulder, staying silent. I hummed quietly to her, and she slowly began to fall asleep. I didn’t move, despite my arm going numb. I didn’t want to disturb her. She hadn’t been getting much sleep.
I stayed awake through the rest of the night, until I had thought through what we were doing so many times I began to be a little afraid of it. Once I realized that I was beginning to think twice, I gently nudged Dierdre.
“C’mon, sunshine. Time to go.”
16
The sailing was smooth. The waters were calm and undisturbed, save by the motor of our boat. We had managed to piece together a general direction in which to head from an old atlas, a destroyed globe, and an unreliable compass. And Dierdre’s brain, of course.
Dierdre and Amy took turns telling stories and talking about what they missed most about the old world, and I kept my attention fully on the boat. Any time it ran out of gas, I refilled it and the girls took the time to eat.
Finally, they slept, draped along the bottom of the small fishing boat. They slept so long that I might have been worried they were dead, had I not been able to see the rise and fall of their chests.
It was lonely, just me and my thoughts. Even Edward seemed cold and like no company. I hated my thoughts. They just played over and over again in my mind, endlessly. How I should have been dead. How I was going to die. How there was no hope for me. How this was the end of my journey.
“Well, then just accept that fact!” I growled at myself. “This is the end of everything. But it’s okay! It’s okay because they’re safe. They’ll live.”
Gentle arms suddenly wrapped around me from behind, and I turned to see Dierdre hugging me tightly. She said nothing, burying her nose in the back of my shoulder. I didn’t ask her to let go. I enjoyed her warmth and pressure.
We sailed for a long time like that, until Amy woke back up. Dierdre left me feeling cold and lonely to play games with her and Amy’s hands, and to tell her stories, and teach her languages I didn’t know. I was unsure of how long we had been on the boat before it finally stopped, out of gas.
“Now what?” Amy murmured quietly, once the engine had quite its sputtering, and the boat was completely still. Not even a wave rocked it.
“Now, I use my superpowers.” I said, ruffling her hair. She gave me a doubtful look, her blond brows knitting but, and Dierdre bit her lip, but neither protested. I steadied myself on the edge of the small boat, then slipped off into the water.
I gasped in shock as it sucked against my skin. God, it was cold!
I bit back a curse and put my hands against the side of the boat. I have to save them. You’re alright. Calm down. I kicked against the water and the boat began to slide forward. I’m basically a meat engine, I thought with a bitter chuckle. I swam on until the cold penetrated my bones, until my muscles locked up. I swam until I could barely move, but I didn’t want to stop. Dierdre forced me back into the boat.
Dierdre wrapped me in a blanket and forced me to eat a granola bar, muttering, “We should have saved the gas for when you were sleeping.”
I nodded.
I rested for long enough it made me antsy, but I had to be able to breathe. Once I had the energy to breathe, I slipped back into the water. After three times of this process, Dierdre forced me to sleep. She would not tell me how much longer we had to swim. She knew, I knew. It just worried her.
I would pretend to sleep, then when Amy and her fell into a fitful nap, I would climb back into the freezing water and continue to swim. I gave in for nothing, beginning to shake constantly from exhaustion and cold. I only got out of the water to breathe, when my lungs had collapsed from the pressure.
The water began to change. It acted differently. It was warmer. It ebbed and flowed in ways it had only been still before. We were getting closer, I could feel it. The warmth was nice. I felt less horrible.
Soon the food ran out. Then the water. Dierdre talked anyways, trying to get Amy to respond. To learn languages, to play games... But Amy was sick. She lay, curled on the floor of the boat, staring into space.
I swam harder. Amy was not allowed to die.
Black wavered at the edges of my vision. I couldn’t feel my body anymore, just this weird, static-y sensation. I floated between consciousness and unconsciousness, but I never stopped. Not until I began to drift beneath the dark water, and Dierdre had to pull me out of the water.
She tore off my wet clothes and wrapped me in every blanket she had, pressing her warm hands against my back, forcing me to breathe. Dierdre cupped the jaguar into my palm and laid me beside Amy. My head buzzed. Black kept crashing in over my vision, obscuring my view of Deirdre.
The boat suddenly rocked, then twisted. It jolted violently, and Dierdre gasped as she fell backwards. I clutched the jaguar, and Dierdre cradled the owl close to her chest. Amy weakly caught hold of my arm.
The world swirled. Once, twice, faster and faster. The boat jolted and Dierdre screamed.
Then we were falling. Slowly, falling.
Water slammed against my face, filling my nose, my mouth. Water rushed around my head. I was dying.
Darkness consumed everything.
17
My eyes slowly fluttered open to a grey light that surrounded me. My vision sharpened to see a grey, slated ceiling, and the edges of mottled, grey walls. I felt myself yawn, my body feeling loose and numb.
Grey… light.
Light!
I sat up quickly, pain shooting through my body like white lightning. I didn’t care. There was light. I began to cry, looking around. I wiped the tears from my eyes with the back of my hands, gasping past the pain and excitement.
I was sitting on a cot, a thin sheet draped over me. I wore no clothing, but I could see my hands and my feet and the tiled floor and the red door of the room. “I can see!” I tried to climb out of the bed, but my legs protested, and I landed hard on the cool floor.
It was nearly impossible to move, so I just whispered into the ground, “I can see…” and let my heart beat fast against the cool tiles.
The door opened suddenly, allowing more light into the room. I then realized my nakedness. Embarrassed, I let the adrenaline help me sit up and throw the sheet into my lap. A young woman stepped into the room, wearing a black jumpsuit that looked a little familiar. Her curly, black hair was cut short and pinned back from her chocolatey face. Her brown eyes were intense, but not angry as she regarded me, sitting on the floor.
She was beautiful and terrifying all at once, and it made my heart jolt.
“Clayton?” she asked.
“Y-yeah, that’s me…”
She gestured. “If you come this way, we can get you into a shower. Blaco removed your clothes to ensure you did not get sick from the cold, but we did not want to intrude to the point of bathing you.”
Blanco sounded like a guy’s name, and the idea that a guy undressed me made me feel a little better about the whole awful situation. I stood shakily, keeping the sheet wrapped tightly around my waist. The woman p
ut her hand on my arm to steady me, and the touch sent tingles throughout me.
She led me through long hallways that reminded me of some memory that just escaped me, but felt vaguely familiar. In fact, a lot of my memories seemed to be escaping me… My head was buzzing, and I couldn’t quite recall much of anything.
I didn’t mind too much.
A shower sounded delightful. I really needed one. Desperately needed one.
The woman opened a door that led into a large bath and locker room that held a line of showers. “Someone will leave you clothes on the sink. All of the showers have soap and razors. If you need any help, just say ‘intercom’ and your name. It will activate the intercom system to allow you to speak. Make sense?”
It absolutely did not make sense, but I wanted a shower so badly that I was trembling, so I nodded eagerly. She gave me a curt nod and left the room. I leapt into the nearest shower and wrenched the handle to turn the water onto full blast. My face was splashed with perfectly warm water, and I groaned contently.
I burst into delighted laughter as it bubbled through my chest, and I grabbed the bottles of soap, squeezing them into my hands and scrubbing them into my hair, which hung a little past my ears. I washed my hair two or three times, then scrubbed my body with the washrag and scratchy sponge until my skin felt as if it had been cut off.
The soap didn’t smell like anything, which, for whatever reason, disappointed me greatly, but I was so, so happy to be clean that I could even care.
I stepped out of the shower and wrapped a fluffy, white towel around my body, then noticed a long scar on my side. I wondered where it had come from. As the woman had said, on the sink lay a sweat suit and undergarments. I quickly changed into the clothes and used the fluffy towel to fuzz all of the water out of my hair.
I yawned, feeling suddenly sleepy, warm and clean. I pulled myself to sit on the sink, and waited for someone to reappear and tell me what to do. After sitting there for a while, I realized the lady had told me to do something.
