Human Again: A Dystopian Sci-Fi Novel (Cryonemesis Book 1) (14 page)

Shanta grabbed her by the hand, and so did the boy.

“No!” Viti cried in terror.

“I can do it. Go!”

Shanta and the kid took Viti to the clinic.

I was alone.

My eyes were wet, and my hands were bloody. I lost grip of the laser gun twice before I held it high enough to reach the other wire. The black wire was slippery and I couldn’t expose it because I had no grip. Bullets whizzed all around me. There was a Purist taking cover behind the street’s curve. I dropped to the floor again and fired back. I ran out of ammo so I took the gun off the dead kid. Shots bounced off the laser gun cover. I hoped it wasn’t damaged. I shot back and killed another Purist. I wiped my hands on my clothes and stood up again, balancing the laser gun between my shoulder and my cheek. I was finally able to close the circuit. The lights on the gun blinked. I could see it was only loading to a fourth of the energy capacity, but that would have to do. I held the gun under my right armpit and the electric board underneath it in my hand. I grabbed the handle and I swung forward through the main street. I aimed for the guys in silk, and they didn’t even see me coming. And when they did it was too late, because I’d already scorched a hole in their chests. The gun loaded quickly because it only used a fourth of its capacity, yet since I fired it so close to my targets it caused severe damage.

I killed almost ten Purists when I lost grip. I fell onto the floor and the laser gun banged on my head. I immediately got my shit together and switched hands. My head was bleeding. I held the Laser gun under my left armpit and grabbed the handles with the right. I was exhausted and shaking and blood dripped into my eyes. I completed another semi-circle and killed about twenty more Purists. By now, the street was filled with bodies of both Purists and Knaan citizens.

Things started quieting down. At one point I didn’t hear a gunshot for over a minute. I disconnected the laser gun and hid it behind a simulation bed of the nearest room. I took a gun that was on the floor, and checked to see if it had bullets left. It did. I went into the clinic. There were only four guarding it now. Shanta was one of them.

“Viti?” I asked.

“The baby,” she said, and I could see the tears in her eyes.

“We killed her baby!” she screamed and I held her tight. I didn’t know what to do.

She looked at me and saw my head wound.

“Inside…,” She said, sobbing.

We went inside. It was more chaotic than when I’d left. We could barely move. I hoped more people had come to the clinic looking for a place to hide, instead of being wounded. Dr. Ashish came to look at me.

“Press here,” he said to Shanta. She pressed my wound with a bandage. And he went to get something.

“Did you see Bahomi at all?” I asked her.

“One of the teens said there was one group fighting outside.”

“Toya and Dev?”

Ashish came back and stitched my head.

“I don't know.” She burst in tears again.

My eyes started to wet and I wiped them. Ashish finished and left to tend to other people.

“We need to find Bahomi. This isn’t over yet.”

“Yeah,” she said.

Suddenly the lights went out. Everyone screamed in panic.

“
This is president Padma speaking.” She sounded choked up over the PA system. “The Nature Purification Organization has captured me and the security team.”

The screams intensified.

“They control the city. We are now their hostages. Their leader promised me that no harm will be done to us if we all cooperate and do as they say. Please evacuate the city in an orderly fashion.”

“We need to get to her,” Shanta said.

She grabbed my arm but I was exhausted. Bloody. It was over. They won. We weren't prepared. It wasn’t enough.

“We need to help her!” She screamed. “Get up soldier!”

“It’s pointless…we’re outnumbered…we failed…”

“Help me save her!”

She grabbed me and put a gun in my hand. I staggered to my feet and followed her out. Then the PA system was turned on again.

“
I’m sorry I failed you, my children.
”

Then we heard a gunshot.

“NO!” Shanta screamed in tears.

The AC stopped. Tear gas flowed in again. We both put on our gas masks. People started running outside. The eye windows were all foggy and I couldn’t see Shanta.

“Stop, don’t go there,” I shouted at the people. “It’s a trap,”

I shouted but no one could hear me through the masks. It was pointless to try and save everyone. I held Shanta while she cried. Then a large metal grinding sound filled the main street and a strange light filled the space around us.

“They’re opening the main door,” I said to Shanta with a shattered voice.

“They’re…leading them…out.”

Then I broke into tears, my mask became foggy and I couldn’t see anything. They’d killed Viti’s kid, Padma was dead and the Purists were winning. There was nothing else to do. We failed. I failed. I didn’t train them well enough, I wasn’t a leader. I shouldn’t have come back to shower, I shouldn’t have told Isaac anything, I shouldn’t have fallen in love with Shanta. I shouldn’t have gone out with Bahomi, I shouldn’t have wanted to fit in. If I’d become a storyteller none of this would have happened. I killed Viti’s kid by asking her to help us, and now all the people are running out to their death.

I was breathing heavy inside the mask and holding Shanta. She was shivering. And then Isaac’s mantra arose in my mind:
“I shall grow old and die, all the people I love will fade away, everything is changing, and everything is connected.”
And then I just let go. There was nothing for me to achieve anymore, I will die one day anyway. I’d lost the people I loved anyway—so I failed them too—everything was already changing in front of me, and everything was connected and I just couldn’t control it all by myself.

When everything was gone and I had reached rock bottom, there was nothing else left but Knaan’s people. I could still try to save them. Nothing else mattered anymore, not my life, not my parents, not Padma’s, not Viti’s, not Shanta’s, Toya’s, Dev’s or Bahomi’s. I could still try to save the people. And if I die trying it won’t matter because I already died once and I will die again. I felt my body getting energetic again, my strength returning. Shanta noticed it and sat next to me.

“Follow me,” I said and grabbed Shanta by the hand. She felt so tired and heavy. We had to walk through the current of people. They were trying to escape the gas, not knowing they were being led to their deaths.

We walked to the water corridor where Bahomi had led me before. The air was cool. The gas hadn’t gotten there so we took off our gas masks, gasping for fresh air. We were thirsty and tired and hurting.

“What are we going to do?” She asked me.

“I have an idea but we have to go outside.”

We kept walking for another minute until we reached the hatch. Bahomi was lying there next to a pile of dead Purists. He was badly hurt. Gunshot to the stomach. He sat in a pool of blood holding his gun.

“
I guarded the hatch
,” he said smiling, “
I killed so many of them
.”

Shanta looked at him with disgust.

“
Take me to the clinic, please
.”

Her face contorted, and she raised her gun. I wasn’t fast enough to stop what was about to happen.

“This is your fault,” Shanta said, and shot him in the head. His brains splattered onto the wall and all over Shanta’s face and clothes.

“And this is for my mom.”

She then spat on his corpse and started crying. I controlled a gag reflex. She was scary and powerful and I had nothing to say. But this wasn’t over yet. We put on the cactus suits that were stashed there and went out the hatch to plan ahead.

Chapter 17

The sun was setting and more people poured out of the city's smoking mouth. There stood thousands of people in white overalls, pale and skinny. The useless army of the numb, without a home and without a leader.

We snuck around in our cactus suits.

“My brothers are still there, and so are my friends,” said Shanta.

“So are Isaac and his wife, and Viti and her husband. I hope they are alive.”

“What's your plan?” She asked.

“The Purists can just kill them all right there, but they haven’t.”

One of the Purists stood up on a boulder. He looked like a healthy, built version of Knaan people. Like he escaped and got a tan and grew stubble. It took me a second to realize he is the same Purist leader from the video twenty years ago. Purist soldiers surrounded the crowd and aimed directly at the people. Each Purist was wearing the same thin cactus suit. Other Purist soldiers pulled random people from the first line and took them up the hill in front of the crowd.

“Your city is ours,” he shouted. His voice was carried away to a distance with no trees to stop it. “Your
technology
is useless,
you
are useless, and your president is
dead
.”

There was a loud commotion in the crowd. He raised his hand and one of the soldiers shot an old man who'd been carried away to the hill. The crowd went completely quiet.

“Do not say a word. Disobey me and we'll shoot another one of yours. If you wish to survive do exactly as I say.” He paused and looked at the crowd. He must have felt like a god.

“If you're an energy, water or food technician, raise your hand.”

No one lifted a finger. He raised his hand again and a woman was shot. Her body rolled down the hill. Next in line was a teenage boy.

“If you are a water, energy or food technician raise your hand.”

Hands lifted.

“Go stand next to the main gate.”

People started to move. There were whispers and quiet crying.

“SILENCE!”

He raised his hand again and the teenage boy fell to his death along with two other men that were kneeling next to him.

“They need the people who'll maintain the systems for them,” Shanta said.

“So what if there were no functional systems left?” I said.

“If we destroy the systems no one will survive.”

“So then we need to kill the Purists first.”

“How many are they?”

“A lot.”

I paused to think because something in the picture before my eyes was wrong.

“If we can split them up somehow,” I said “maybe the rest could help us. We are out-gunned but not out-numbered.” There were thousands of scared people being held by maybe a couple hundred gunmen.

“Look at them, how can THEY help us?”

“It’s our only chance. Let’s release the food,” I said with a grin.

We snuck back inside, walking as fast as we could without making a sound. We jumped over bodies so we didn’t slide on the blood. All lights were off except the emergency lights. With no AC the smell and heat were horrible. Flies now circled the bodies.

We finally got down to the room full of bug containers. The control panel showed near-maximum capacity.

“So, what do we expect should happen?” Shanta asked.

“The cockroaches need to follow the light and swamp the crowd.”

“And then we charge the Purists and hope the people will follow.”

“Simple.”

She turned to me and held my hand. Her hand was dirty with dry blood.

“I’m sorry I got you into this, I had no other option.”

“Ahh, I do this all the time,” I smiled.

“I’m also
not
sorry because without you everything would be shitball soup.”

“It’s a shitball soup anyway.”

“We might die.”

“We might.”

“Anyway, it was nice knowing you.”

“You too.”

We faced each other for a beat and then looked at the container.

“How do we break this open?” She asked.

I saw a pipe wrench lying on a tool rack and brought it to the container. I opened a sliding door and saw the disgusting festival inside though a square glass window. It looked like the right place to plant my wrench.

“Let’s hope they follow the light.”

“Ok, on the count of three, and then we run to the hatch.”

“Sounds like a suicide plan.”

“Do we have enough ammo?

“Probably not.”

“Ok,” I said, and took a deep breath. I lifted the wrench: “One…two…three…”

I swung the wrench into the glass and it shattered inwards. It took less than a millisecond for the roaches to realize there was an opening. They poured out like a river of sewage overflowing the street. We ran like crazy. The bugs clung to our clothes, crawling inside our sleeves. It was the worst sensation I have ever experienced. I wanted to puke out of every pour in my skin. We ran and shook our bodies until we reached the hatch. We put on the cactus suits and climbed up as fast as we could and closed the hatch. We were still scratching our bodies and picking out bugs. The hatch was far enough from the people. No one had noticed us. We started crawling on our stomachs toward the crowd. In a normal day we would get shot in a millisecond but the security system was down and the cameras were broken. Our cactus suits quickly filled with the sand we were crawling on. We hid behind a rock and watched as the Purist leader raised his hand and shot another group of people. He was sorting out the ones he needed, making the others more and more submissive. By Bahomi’s stories, he might order them to kill each other to sort out the fittest to convert.

“Come on. Where are they?” I whispered.

“Any second now.”

And then we saw it, like a stain of oil spreading on a yellow ocean. Millions of bugs poured out of the main gate in any direction possible. The Purists were surprised. People started to shout.

“STOP THE LEAK!” the Purist leader yelled. He ordered five soldiers to go inside. They hesitated so he shot one of them. The rest ran inside. The crowd started to back away from the main gate.

“STOP!” the leader yelled, shooting at the crowd. People fell down.

As the bugs came closer and closer the Purist soldiers began to look nervous.

“They’re not splitting up,” Shanta said.

“It's too late.”

I was afraid, and my body was filled with adrenaline. I’d lost it all any way, and had nothing else to lose.

We waited just a few more seconds until the four Purists vanished inside the city’s mouth. And then we stood up and cocked our guns and started to run into the crowd. The Purist didn’t see us until we started to fire. We took out three of them. We continued running.

“STOMP THEM! WE ARE THOUSANDS! PICK UP A ROCK AND KILL THE PURISTS FOR YOUR FAMILIES! FOR PRESIDENT PADMA!” I yelled.

We shot more at the Purists before the crowd devoured them. The first rows of people got hit by the Purist’s shots but in a few seconds the guns were torn off their hands. The Purists were pushed to the ground and stomped by the thousands of furious legs of the united numb army. They bashed their heads with rocks. They shot them with their own guns. They cracked their bones and tore their flesh. The people of Knaan felt the power of the mass for the first time ever. I saw the Purist leader running away and I shot at him but I missed. I tore the cactus suit off myself and started to run after him up the hill, to the same place Bahomi took me to watch over the Purist city. I shot three more times, all missed during my run. As soon as he was across the hill I realized this time I wasn’t going to have mercy. With my last strength I ran up the hill and planted myself on the ground like a sniper. I shot him while he was running down towards the Purist camp, yet missed again. I threw the gun to the ground the tossed my body off the ridge. I started spinning and spinning like a barrel down the hill. My head hit the rocks and my back felt like it was about to break. I rolled and rolled until I crashed into him at the foot of the hill. He screamed in pain. I put my thumbs in his eyes and clung to his head while thrusting it into the ground. He screamed like a wounded animal. He screamed until his skull cracked and he stopped moving. I pulled my fingers from his bloody eye sockets and didn’t look back.

When I came down the hill on Knaan’s side I saw the Purists were flattened on the ground and were covered in dirt. People screamed of excitement. People cried of sadness and joy. Many of us had died but thousands would live on.

The last rays of sun painted the sky with yellow, green and blue. Darkness was taking over. The bugs had dispersed. We had no food and no security. Shanta climbed onto the boulder on which the Purist leader stood just a moment ago.

“I am Shanta, daughter of President Padma. We have a lot to do. Care for our wounded. Bury our dead. Clean our city and restore its systems. Whoever has a technical job, please take care of your post. The others should take care of their rooms and surrounding corridors.”

She looked at me and extended her hand. I reached out and got on the boulder.

“This is Roy. The GTA. Without him we’d all be dead.”

They cheered for us from the top of their lungs, and people hugged and cried and screamed with joy.

I smiled at her, and she smiled back. We stepped down from the boulder and went back inside. Every senior technician gathered their staff and went inside to fix the systems. People worked all night to restore the city to normality. Shanta eventually found her brothers.

We were safe at last.