Genesis (5 page)

Emily
walked across the beach, Adam cradled in the crook of her arm, Thor trotting happily ahead of her, his nose fixed to the ground. Her eyes stared out to sea, but they registered nothing. Her thoughts were entirely with her husband, deep beneath the rolling waves, travelling in what equated to little more than a glorified tin can, heading north on what would either be the beginning of a new dawn for mankind or a fool’s errand that would put a hard and heavy full stop next to the final chapter of the human race. Thor eyed the waves smashing into the beach; a gray-white froth of foam pushed up from the ocean with each new swell, almost a mirror of the storm gathering to the west. The sun was already low on the horizon, slowly being devoured by the angry clouds.

She was not used to feeling this way, so . . . unfocused. Always the independent one, she knew she was more than capable of looking after herself, but now, in this moment, with Mac well on his way to Svalbard, she was feeling—what? Diluted, diminished? Yes, that was the best way to describe how she felt. It was as though a part of her, and a major part of her at that, had been lost, and she was less because of it. She was so used to having Mac chime in on her conversation, or share his opinion on one of the many problems she encountered on a daily basis. It was just too damn quiet without him around. And the worry—holy shit! The constant gnaw in her stomach made her want to vomit . . . all the time. It was worse than when she was pregnant.

“At least I still have you two boys to look out for me.” She sat down on the sandy slope of a dune. Adam gurgled happily at her from between the folds of his bright-blue blanket. She placed her free arm around Thor’s neck. The malamute turned his head and licked her cheek, then dropped to all fours and placed his head across her feet. He gave a soft huff of expelled air and closed his eyes.

The next couple of months were going to be hard, she knew that. She would just have to busy herself with as much work as possible to keep her mind off Mac and the rest of the
Vengeance
crew. But she had decided that she was going to allow herself one night of moping about like a lovesick teenager.

That’s right, love, you just get it out of your system,
she heard Mac’s voice say in her head.

She smiled . . . and then came the tears.

“Alright, that’s enough of that now,” she said after a few minutes, sniffling back the tears and wiping her nose with the back of her hand. She canted her head back as far as she could and drew in a deep breath of the evening air. It held the promising smell of rain, but the clouds were still far enough out to sea that she did not have to worry about the three of them getting caught in a squall.

I hope it pours
.

Although the submarine’s desalination units met the survivors’ drinking water needs, the Point Loma locals all liked to gather as much rainwater as they could. It was sweet and pure now, free of any pollutants. Might just as well have come straight from a spring.

Emily allowed her eyes to drift across the concavity of the sky above her.

There! She spotted the unmistakable arc of the glittering line she and Mac had seen only a couple of nights earlier. Except . . . now it was bigger, thicker. In fact, it looked as though it had tripled in width, maybe even quadrupled, and it seemed to be even brighter than she remembered. Before, it had been just an indistinct thread, now it was a solid slash of twinkling light stretching across the night sky, unmissable in the growing darkness.

Emily got to her feet and followed the line of light across the sky with her eyes. She was sure it was in exactly the same location she and Mac had first seen it, which meant her husband had been correct in his observation that, whatever this new phenomenon was, it was fixed in place many kilometers above the ground. It was only the equivalent of a couple of human hairs in breadth at this distance, and while Emily had never been into astronomy, she was certain it had not been there before Earth fell to the aliens. It seemed logical to assume it could only be the handiwork of the Caretakers.

“What the hell are you?” she wondered to the heavens.

In the rush and chaos to get Mac on his way, neither had brought up the strange new addition to the night sky. She wondered if anyone else had seen it yet. Doubtful, she decided, because at night few people—
and wisely so,
she thought—ventured outside the fences that surrounded the camp. The perimeter security lights that kicked on just before dusk each night outshone anything in the sky, so no one was going to be able to see it from inside the compound either.

Maybe she should drag Valentine out here and show her, but she doubted that even this would go far in convincing that woman. In fact, she was beginning to think that that woman was choosing
not
to be convinced. She felt a creeping suspicion that Valentine’s apparent dislike for her was an attempt to strengthen her position within the community by targeting the one person she could use to distract the rest of the survivors away from her own agenda.

She was effectively pointing at Emily and yelling, “Witch!”

Well, as long as Emily did not end up tied to a stake, she would be able to handle herself. Valentine did not pose much more than an annoyance to her at this point. She was just going to have to steer clear of the conniving bitch until Mac got back and then they could figure out how to deal with her and her cronies, if the need arose.

She spent a few more minutes pondering the lights, but by the time she decided the air was becoming too chilled for little Adam, she was still none the wiser about what the implications of the Caretakers’ latest pet project might be. She knew that they never did anything without a purpose. This meant
something
, of that she was absolutely sure. Although God only knew what that might be.

“Come on, guys,” she said as a cold gust of wind cut through her jacket. “Let’s go home.”

It was quiet in the apartment without Mac.
Too bloody quiet,
to quote the man himself.

So for the first few days after he left, Emily busied herself with anything and everything to help take her mind off his absence, but she found herself pausing during everyday tasks or conversations with others around the camp, waiting for one of his typical Mac one-liners, or—on a rare occasion, at least—a surprisingly deep insight. By day six of his first week away, she realized she was just not the same person without him around.

The
Vengeance
was cruising deep and running silent. It would not surface until it reached Svalbard, and even then it would only be above the waves long enough to get Mac and his team off the boat before submerging again in the belief—or maybe it would be better described as hope, as no one had yet put the theory to the test—that the Caretakers would not or could not harm them as long as they stayed below the waves. So there would not even be the opportunity to speak to Mac on the satellite phone. She would know nothing about him until the submarine returned to Point Loma in eight to twelve weeks . . . if it returned.

“Goddamn it,” she said to herself. “You have to stop thinking like that.” All in all, she was doing a pretty damn good job of dealing with his absence. That feeling of unease from the first few days had finally dimmed to a small burning spot in her stomach, but it would occasionally flare up and scorch her. But at least she was getting better at containing those sudden outbreaks of melancholy.

Emily eased the door to Rhiannon’s bedroom open and peeked around. “Knock, knock,” she said. Rhiannon was sitting up in bed, reading an old hardback book that, if the tattered cover was anything to go by, had seen better days.

“What’s the book?” Emily asked, sitting down on the edge of the creaking mattress.

Rhiannon flashed her the cover:
The Prisoner of Zenda
.

“Good choice,” Emily said with a smile. “You okay?”

Rhiannon nodded, then after a second said, “They’ll be okay, won’t they? They’ll come back, you promise?”

“Of course they will, hon,” Emily said, surprised at how easily the half truth slipped off her tongue. “A few more weeks and they’ll be home. Don’t you worry.” Emily reached down and eased the book out of Rhiannon’s hands. “How about I read to you?”

Rhiannon nodded. Emily began to read.

Twenty minutes later and Rhiannon’s soft snores told Emily the girl was deeply asleep. She placed the closed book on the nightstand and pulled the sheets gently up to the girl’s chin, placed a light kiss on her forehead, then eased the door shut behind her as she stepped into the darkening corridor.

Emily opened the door to her own bedroom and stepped across to the cot where Adam lay, also soundly asleep, his lips parted slightly, the silky tip of his blanket damp from his teething.

“Good night, little man,” she whispered.

She undressed quickly, leaving her clothes draped over the back of a chair, checked on her boy a final time, then climbed between the welcoming smoothness of the bedsheets.

A current of cool air blew in through the open window, and, as Emily allowed sleep to take her, she imagined her husband could smell the same briny scent of the ocean the evening breeze carried to her.

I am flying.

She swooped down through the canopy, dropping quickly past the twisted branches before pulling up level with the ground, moving through the forest on diaphanous mother-of-pearl wings, their deep thrum pulsating through every muscle of her body as she darted between tree and over bush. It was dark here, with just the faintest hint of light seeping through the western edge of the forest. Dusk was coming.

I am everything.

The thought did not strike her as being the least bit incongruous; instead, it perfectly summed up her existence. A part of her brain—the human part, the distant echo of who she was, the part named Emily Baxter, the part that could never really accept what she was experiencing—still knew the statement made no sense, but that part of her no longer mattered.

Her perception was a gradual expansion of her consciousness from the single point of her being outward into a sphere-filling bubble of awareness; she sensed the presence of billions of potential doorways, all just within reach. She felt
. . .
connected. She was a facet within a massive structure of world-spanning immensity—all she had to do was choose one and
. . .

I am colossus.

It was bright daylight now. In the distance she saw an ocean, gray waves slowly swelling against a shoreline. She no longer saw with anything resembling human sight; instead, she felt the colors as though they were textures, sensed the tiny vibrations flowing through the air around her, caressing the outer skin of her monumental body as it rose inexorably skyward. And from this great height, towering over every entity within the rest of the red forest beneath her, she felt a warm, salty breeze moving past her, caressing her branches. Her roots were deep within the ground, seeking out the rivulets and pools of water that collected there, sourcing the nutrients that ensured she continued to grow, and thrive, and give back.