Requiem (62 page)

When the dry
retches had passed, he opened his eyes. After the darkness of the
elevator shaft the light burned. He pulled the mask back on, the
lenses made the light bearable; a light that he quickly realised
was in fact daylight coming from the end of the hall. He stumbled
again to his feet then started walking down the corridor, over
chunks of rubble and cracks in the floor. He stepped to the jagged
edge at the end of the corridor.

He was only one
story above ground level. He could hang off the edge he was
standing on and drop to the bottom floor easily enough. He looked
up and behind himself to the building he was in. Flames had
engulfed several floors above him.

At the foot of
the building directly in front of him there was a flaming wreck and
about ten stories up a large, burning hole in the centre of the
building. He could see a pair of burning legs hanging from the
hole. Shots were ringing out in the distance. People were
screaming.

The Warlord
regained his breath and climbed down to the ground floor of the
building. He started walking towards the sound of the gunfire not
bothering to look back at the building he'd just escaped from.

It had been a
long time since he'd stood on the streets of a Corporate Zone. The
entire horizon looked congested, suffocating on toothpicks of
concrete and glass. It was difficult to distinguish individual
buildings within the huddled mass of the city, everything had been
compressed and stretched from the ground into the sky. Each
structure competing for the light from the sun. It was sparser than
he remembered. The advertisements had been diminished considerably
but he realised that what he was seeing was likely much different
to what the consumers saw. With their optics, they probably had
specially tailored adverts imposed on every surface of the city.
Creating a digital advertising world that surrounded them 24/ 7,
likely even in their sleep. It was cheaper, easier. NeoCorp's
philosophy; minimise input, maximise output.

The gunfire
grew louder. Transport ships were flying overhead, low over the
skyscrapers. Too low. The Warlord squinted his one good eye to see
the people hanging from the landing skids, dozens of them, dragging
the ship down towards the glass face of the toothpick structures.
Some of them let go as if the fall would offer them a better fate.
The ship collided with the building and exploded out the other
side. Fragments were spat out from the explosion. The shock-wave
from a second explosion splintered the glass of the neighbouring
buildings. Popped and shattered windows rained down to the streets
below.

More ships flew
overhead. Those who only had one or two people clinging to their
undersides were lucky enough to clear the heights of the towers.
Those one or two people were unlucky enough to be dragged up
towards heaven and dropped the moment the air thinned out.

Not ten metres
away a body slammed into the pavement. Another ship collided with
another building. More gunfire had broken out only a block away.
The Warlord made some adjustments to the mask. He set the
respirator properly and adjusted the lens on the right eye. He
started walking again.

He was near the
centre of the city. The landing dock was swarming with execs and
consumers. Like cockroaches they crawled atop one another,
trampling and fighting for the remaining places aboard whatever
ship would take them.

Passively, the
Warlord watched them. A part of him knew that they were getting
what they deserved, that there was nothing wrong with letting the
wicked suffer. There was another part of him that swelled with
pity.

On their faces
was the same fear he'd seen on the streets of the Insolvency. Even
from beneath their artificial faces, the surgeries, the injections,
the lifts, the fear was the same no matter where you were. He
thought of Donny, of the boy who looked up to him like a brother or
possibly even a father. Maybe he could have been a father himself
one day but... no... not in a place like this. Thoughts of
indulgence had no place in a world where children were stampeded
upon before they could even reach the lifeboat.

He walked past
the abandoned cars clogging the streets, most of them had been left
running while their owners scrambled over one another towards the
landing pads. He needed to get back to Sinn. Icarus was coming and
if he was going to die then he needed to do so in the arms of his
home. He also needed to find Donny. His friend, the closest thing
he would get to a son, would need him to face the coming
darkness.

The Warlord
found a car nearer the back of the congestion. He slid the door up
and dropped himself into the seat. It had been a while since he'd
driven one but it was familiar enough. He checked the auto-driver
and the GPS but Sinn had been written off the maps. They told him
this was Corporate Zone Four and that the roads didn't carry on
past the walls of the Corporate Zone. The only way to travel
between them was via the maglev train but the Warlord had no desire
to be caught amongst the crowds aboard a train system that may not
even be working. He checked the vehicle's GPS again and found that
there was a loading dock on the far side of the city that could
likely lead him to the other side of the city walls. He turned the
auto-driver off and took hold of the manual driving wheel. He
turned the car around and started on his way home.

Seline was
standing on the top level balcony of the Cardian Institute, waiting
for Sear who'd told her that they needed to talk. The rain had
subsided and the sun had finally emerged from behind the thick,
billowing clouds. Belameir had reclined on the floor, propped up
against the wall behind Seline.

'According to
the news,' said Belameir, 'Icarus looks like it might be beginning
to move on from Sceril.'

'Does anyone
know what was taking it so long?' asked Seline.

'None of the
articles I've read say anything. Just that they can't set up any
kind of monitoring system because Icarus destroys whatever probes
are sent through.'

'Maybe the
Ordonians put up more of a fight than Icarus expected.'

'You know what
I think?' said Belameir. 'I think Icarus was just interested in the
ruins. Maybe it was looking for something.'

'For what?'

'I dunno.
Information.'

Sear arrived at
the door to the balcony. He stood for a moment without speaking.
Seline's wounds were healing well. They were clean. They didn't
look as painful. The stem cells had done their job. Her cast was
already off but beneath her pants there was still reinforced
bandaging to help support her leg.

'Seline. We
need to talk,' said Sear.

She turned to
face him. Her eyes were calm. They stared out from the softened
features of her face. A thin line of perspiration had formed along
her forehead, across a newly distinguished hairline.

'What is it?'
Even her voice was soft, unassuming of the news he carried.

Sear looked
down at Belameir. He wanted to ask him to leave but thought better
of it, that maybe his presence would help Seline, or even himself
somehow.

'There's no
easy way to say this...'

Holy shit,
he's going to propose,
thought Belameir.

There was a
slight crease on her brow.

'It's about
Icarus,' began Sear.

Seline felt a
shadow creeping over her but the sky was cloudless.

'The machine
will not work the way we originally planned.'

There was
nothing heavy in the words – not yet. Seline waited for Sear to
continue but he didn't. She realised he was waiting for her to say
something.

'What do you
mean?' she said.

'The machine
won't be able to close the Atlas Gate properly.'

'So you're
saying it's not going to work at all?'

'No. The
information we got from your blackbox; it's incomplete. We don't
think it will work on a three way gate.'

'I don't
understand.'

Sear looked
down. 'We will be able to cut off one end of the wormhole but not
the other.'

'One end?... as
in
this
end?'

'Yes.'

'And... the
gates between Sol and Yeta will stay open?'

'Yes.'

'… Leading
Icarus directly to Sol.'

'Yes.'

The softness of
her expression had melted from her face, leaving a cold look of
disgust. 'No,' she said, shaking her head, 'that can't be
right.'

'I wish it
weren't.'

She was still
shaking her head. Belameir had remained quietly seated on the
ground, looking up at Sear, giving away little in his
expression.

Seline's mouth
moved, twitched, then finally managed to force a word out.
'Why?'

'Why what?'

'Why won't it
work?'

Sear shook his
head. 'According to the blueprints, you would need to construct two
machines and place them at both the Saranture gate and the Sol
gate.'

'And? I don't
see the problem.'

'There is not
enough time, not enough resources.' The response was flat, and to
Seline's ear, rehearsed.

'But there's
enough time to construct one for this end of the Atlas Gate?'

'Ye-'

'They began
construction over a week ago. You showed me the blueprints. You
said it could be done. You said only two days ago that everything
was on track. There must be something you aren't telling me.'

'It's
complicated, Seline.'

'Then simplify
it!'

He stared at
her. 'I don't have all the information, Seline,' he said. 'You'll
have to talk to the council.'

'I'm asking
you
. How long have you known this? How long have you known
that the machine would work like this?'

'Sel,' said
Belameir, who'd quietly stood up and moved towards Seline, 'don't
shoot the messenger. Sear's not to blame here.' He paused for a
moment, could see the look on her face; a lifetime of confusion
welling beneath tired eyes, rimmed by the darkness of thousands of
sleepless nights, thin, reluctant lips, choking on the words that
so often meant the most. 'There's no reason to blame yourself,'
Belameir continued, 'this isn't your fault.'

'I gave them
the blueprints to save us
all
,' said Seline. 'I trusted
them! The least they could do-' she looked directly at Sear, 'the
least
you
could do is tell me why you're going to let Sol be
destroyed!'

'It's not that
simple, Seline.'

'For fucks
sake! Just try to explain it at least. I'm not a child!'

'I tried to
find a w-'

She forced her
way past him, down the steps.

'You can't go
in right now. The council is still in session,' said Sear as he
followed her with Belameir close behind.

Seline took the
elevator down to the floor housing the council chambers. She
followed the map in her optics and quickly found herself at the
door to the main chambers. She tried to open the door but it was
locked. She slammed her fist into the display pad and the door slid
to the side.

A group of a
dozen large, oval chairs were arranged in a semi-circle, facing a
small holographic display panel in the centre of the room. The only
council member Seline recognised was Tialus. Five of the chairs
were unoccupied. Tialus was seated on the far left side of the
semi-circle. The holographic display was shut off. The seven
council members stared at her with a mild air of annoyance.

'You realise
what you're doing don't you?!' said Seline, shifting her eyes from
one counsellor to the other.

'Providing
impromptu audiences to impatient humans, apparently,' said one of
the counsellors, casually glancing at the others.

'You can build
two machines. You can save us!'

'Build two
machines? That's easy for you to say from where you stand,
human.'

'You're aiming
Icarus straight at them... without warning... without
protection.'

'Yes, we are
aware of that.'

'… Directly to
Earth.'

'Yes.'

'But... you
can't be serious. You're talking about genocide. You're talking
about destroying an entire planet. An entire civilization –
my
civilization.'

'Who are you to
lecture on the morality of war?' said the council member opposite
Tialus. Her eyes peered out from deep in their sockets, worn and
aged, they looked like they'd been passed down through generations
of Yurrick, like they'd seen all of this before.

'You must
understand that these are not circumstances which we chose,
Seline,' said Tialus.

'You're making
the choice right now not to save us!' argued Seline.

'Just as your
species made the choice long ago to wage war on us,' said one of
the counsellors.

'There is no
alternative, Seline. We need to buy more time,' said Tialus.

'Then build
another machine. Build two and block off both exits.'

'We cannot do
that.'

'Cannot or will
not?'

'There is not
enough time or fuel,' said Tialus.

'You have to
try!'

'No. We have to
survive. NeoCorp has declared war against the Yurrick. Why should
we be expending our resources to protect them? Even if we had the
time and the technology it would be incredibly unwise to protect an
enemy that would gladly see our world burn. We have seen the
research conducted by NeoCorp. Biological weapons, sterility
plagues, cancer cells bred specifically for our species... but none
of these even compare to the atrocities your species has inflicted
upon itself and the world you inhabit. Like a virus, the ideologies
of your species infect the minds of every man, woman, and
child.'

'Then what am
I? What about Belameir? Abigail? We're exceptions aren't we? We
can't be the only ones. You'll see everyone destroyed because of
the actions of a small group.'