Ashes of the Fall (31 page)

“Where is this place?”

“Keep it moving,” the guard behind me says, jabbing the rifle butt into my back. “Just keep it moving.”

There are endless rows of pods lining the pristine warehouse sized room. Hundreds, thousands—most of them empty, unlike the ones filled with people I saw in the memory. Guess with a change of ownership came a slight personnel purge. I glance up, see that we’re headed towards the glass room in the center. Tanner’s little throne room.

And execution chamber.

“I’m not going in there.”

The procession stops, and one of the guards steps out of line, walking with purpose towards a row to the left. He yanks the sedated subject up and points a gun at her head.

It’s Carina Alonso. I can tell by the silver chain glinting around her neck in the soft light.

Without a word, I keep moving, and I hear the guard drop her sleeping body back into the pod.

The glass doors whoosh open when I stand in front of them. Olivia Redmond, Kid Vegas and Nathaniel Blackstone all wait inside. Their faces are largely expressionless, but I can tell that maintaining such stoicism is costing them a great deal of energy. They’re on the cusp of getting all they dreamed of—which is the most exciting thing a human being could ever desire.

“Please, sit down,” Blackstone says in a kind voice, gesturing towards the chair in the room’s center. I get in without protest. A tech rushes up and begins strapping me in, prodding me with various needles. “We have transferred the complete HIVE source here. And now, we only need the assembly key.”

“If you kill them…” I say, not knowing how to finish my sentence. Looking around, there’s a dozen guards outside, a half dozen people in here. I can no longer move my arms because they’re locked in. A threat would be a toothless gesture.

“Don’t worry, Luke,” Blackstone says, coming over and resting his hand on my shoulder, “you’ll be able to play with them forever.”

Play is said with a slight twinkle, like he means something dirty. If I could rip out both of his shining blue eyes and feed them to him, I would. But instead, I feel a needle probe the base of my neck. A strong sedative begins to wash over me.

“What’d you want, anyway, Blackstone?” The words are like cotton in my mouth.

“Actual progress,” Blackstone says, as if surprised. “The HoloBands, the nano-builders, HIVE—think of what can come next, if we are dedicated to discovery.”

“Even if it costs you everything?”

“To save lives, sometimes a little of our humanity must die.”

I wonder just how much of my humanity will die when I’m jacked into HIVE.

“You’re saving lives, Luke,” Blackstone says as I nod off into the ether, like if he repeats the lie it will somehow become more reassuring, “The world needs a hero like you.”

Then there’s nothing but darkness, as the words
Welcome To Hive 1.0
flash over the blackness.

I lounge in a luxurious
sea of fabric and fresh air, tracing my fingers over the small of Evelyn’s back. She smiles and rolls over, covering her naked body with the crimson striped picnic blanket. Robins chirp and the sun shines warmly on my face.

Her long blonde hair shimmers in the afternoon light, her deep, endless brown eyes searching mine for answers. In the distance, the Space Needle looms, one of the highest points on the Seattle skyline.

I sit up and drink straight from the wine bottle. This is life. My life.

Our dog, Ramses, comes over and licks my face.

“Hey boy,” I say, patting him on the flanks. He growls slightly. It reminds me of something I can’t quite put my finger on. There’s a minor throb in my left leg, which makes me frown. A reminder of a memory that I’ve forgotten. But I look down, and my leg is fine.

“Something wrong?” Evelyn’s deep brown eyes flash with concern.

“No,” I say, the sensation of discomfort passing. Ramses thick jowls rain slobber down on my bare torso. “Get outta here.”

I toss a crust of bread across the secluded park, and the dog tears after it, leaving me alone.

“You’re beautiful,” I say, turning to Evelyn. Her look of concern remains. “What?”

“I don’t know if I feel right,” she says. Her fingers touch the back of her neck. They come back stained slightly with blood. “I think something bit me.”

“We’ll go to the doctor,” I say, looking for my pants. I spot them nearby, Ramses lying on top of them, using them as a pillow. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Where would I go?” Evelyn says with a laugh.

“Come on,” I say to the dog, who only burrows deeper into my jeans, “we gotta get going.”

His face drops slightly and he rubs his snout with both of his paws to indicate his displeasure.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I say, “but I make the rules. Great sacrifice and all that, buddy.”

I’m not sure where the words come from, but they feel
right
to me for reasons that aren’t entirely my own. Did my old man used to say them? Did Evelyn use them? Maybe I heard them at Carina’s church, where she sometimes gives non-secular sermons.

I put my shoulder into Ramses’ flank and manage to get a hundred pounds of unwilling dog off my clothes. Hurrying into them, I say, “All right, we’re ready to go.”

But when I turn around, Evelyn is gone. Panic climbs into my chest, despite the idyllic landscape.

“Evelyn?” I say. “Ev?”

She’s vanished—her clothes still there in a pile next to the open wicker basket, everything as it was. But the red picnic blanket is empty, as if she simply teleported somewhere else. The smell of lilacs clings to the early summer air.

Ramses lets out a sad noise, and I say, “I know, bud, we’ll find her.”

I feel a sharp pain in the back of my neck as I walk over to examine the scene. There are no footsteps or tracks leading away from the park.

“Ev?” Why would she leave our little slice of paradise? Why would anyone want to leave?

The pain shoots through my neck again, this time so hard that I have to kneel down. I touch the base of my head and come away with blood.

Something must’ve bitten me too. I try to rise to my feet, but find that my sense of balance is distorted—all of my senses are. The world warps in and out of focus, the Space Needle going from a shimmering monument to a cracked ruin, covered by a gray sky.

I fall flat on my face, neck burning now, struggling to breathe.

“Ev…” I say.

The grass beneath me disappears, and then I smell smoke.

“Ev?” I say, groggily. “Ramses?”

“No,” a woman says, stepping in front of me. Her green eyes shine from beneath the folds of fabric. She holds a large rifle in her hands. “Good to see you again, Luke.”

I try to place the voice, those radioactive eyes, but can’t. I feel something slide out of my neck. Looking down, at the ground, I shudder. There’s a lab tech lying prone, blood seeping into the floor. Nothing like Seattle, the life I have with Ev.

“Where am I?” I say as she helps me up, coughing from the smoke. A burning warehouse of pods greets me as I look around.

“You’re back in the real world,” she says. I have to lean on her shoulder for support.

“Where’d everyone go,” I say, my eyes focusing on the empty pods. “What happened to Seattle?”

“HIVE happened. Three years happened, Luke,” the woman says. Her name comes to me. Jana Rose. The Remnants. Everything rushing back—HIVE, being placed under, Blackstone and the others watching on as if it were some sort of ribbon cutting ceremony. “And the world needs a hero.”

“Carina,” I say, the memories still assembling themselves. “Evelyn. Saving lives…”

“They’re okay,” Jana says, practically dragging me through the smoldering wreckage of the server farm. “But there aren’t that many lives left to save.”

“The factions,” I say.

“All-out war,” she says with a blunt curtness that I both appreciate and don’t. “This is only the beginning, Luke.”

“So what do we do,” I say when we get closer to the door.

“We run like hell.” She kicks the door down and gestures for me to lead the way.

I hesitate.

“Why come for me?” There are a lot of bodies here, not all of them belonging to Blackstone’s men. There was a heavy cost in saving me, one that will need to be repaid in full. A pain shoots through my temple as gunfire cracks nearby. The stimulus is overwhelming, bright—all too real after being lost in the HIVE.

I lean up against the exit doorway to catch my breath, searching Jana’s face for an answer. She senses the true depth of the question—what’s the world like? What did I do by giving Blackstone the key to the virtual kingdom?

But her simple, terse response gives me chills, answering everything at once with a steady look from those glowing green eyes with a few simple words.

“Because you’re the only one who can end it.”

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Ashes of the Fall
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Ruins of the Fall
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The Rapture
: a man trapped in an endless time loop by his former employer must break free to save the woman he loves. (dystopian/time travel)

The Last Dreamer
: when Devin Travis dreams, he enters the minds of others - but when outside forces discover Devin’s ability, they will stop at nothing to use it for their own ends.

Vanishing Midnight
: a century after the Earth’s destruction, the survivors live in sky cities rigidly separated by social caste - until Mathias Harris decides to escape the sky. (dystopian)

Paradise
: a group of island vacationers desperately fight for survival against the elements and each other when a viral outbreak cuts them off from the mainland. (post apocalyptic)

THE SHADOW CONSPIRACY TRILOGY