Clio and Cy: The Apocalypse (4 page)

"Men fear death as children fear to go in the
dark."

- Francis Bacon

South Carolina:

RMB Jackson:

The Underground Passageway:

Urged by love, thoughts of finding her mother pulled her
inside. She squeezed through the hatch and entered the earthen cave. Like slave
runners once had, clandestine men built the secret passageway during an evil
time, during the early part of the war. Quietly, the battle still raged inside
of the survivors that were left.

Clio ventured through the tunnel, afraid to look where her
light shined. No choice, she had to move forward. The cave meandered, jagged
and uneven; as if she were inside the road kill guts of a giant python. Clio
felt the air temperature drop.
Must be
going deeper,
she thought. Crawling through the low places, she skimmed her
backpack off the dirt ceiling. A dark mysterious tunnel was bad enough, and the
sudden lapses in subterranean consistency were unnerving. Uncomfortable, she
crawled, wishing the path would widen.

Not sure I can make it
through that,
Clio thought, looking at a narrow opening where the tunnel
had bottlenecked to the size of a football. There was no other way – go forward
or crawl back to the shelter. Clio removed her rucksack and tried to cram it
through a hole not much bigger than her head. Pushing and slinking along, she
rammed the pack through the narrowest part. Then her head… Her body… Going
deeper…

Caught under a mini avalanche, dirt fell from the
constricting walls while Clio wiggled forward. She struggled through the
collapsing earth, clawing to make the rucksack size hole bigger, rooting like a
mole. Three feet… Clio couldn’t hold her breath any longer and inhaled loose
granules of airborne grit, sucking them up her nasal passages. Four feet… She
felt sand going deep inside to her brain. Clio spit and gritted it out. Six
feet… She tried to rush through but progress was slow, feeling the weight of
falling dirt. Eight feet… Clio pulled her trailing body through the tunnel,
digging off her elbows like a land gargoyle. Ten feet…

Finally clear… She could breathe. The pathway widened…
Covered in dirt, she looked like an aborigine girl.

 
Stretching up as far
as overhead clearance allowed, Clio made it to her feet and hunched along until
she could almost stand like a proper human. Brushing the dirt off her body, she
walked toward an unknown destination. Clio seemed to be slowing, or losing strength.
That’s it.
I’m going
uphill… I think
…
She wasn’t sure. It was hard to keep her sense of direction in the dark
confines of the snake’s belly. The flashlight’s bright center revealed the
path’s rough surface. Light faded out weaker and wider, casting ringed shapes
over the terrain like electric tie-dye as she walked.

Moving through the tunnel with swimming thoughts, Clio kept
the flashlight shining far out ahead of her.
The photon pistol…
Thinking about her weapon, she panicked, Clio
couldn’t remember how to use the thing. The more she thought about it, the more
she felt lost.

After dropping her rucksack on the ground, she grabbed the
weapon, pulling it out in a hurry.
Breathe
Clio… breathe
… She listened to herself and steadied. Holding the flashlight
between her chest and chin, she clutched the pistol and felt the safety switch,
exploring the weapon…
there it is
…
She traced over the trigger. Confidence calmed her.
That’s right… like that… click… aim… squeeze…

Without the flashlight on, it was pitch black inside the
tunnel, not that Clio turned it off for a second. She’d risk killing the
batteries before she did that. It was dark but… The tunnel smelled like
something… It smelled…
familiar
.
Like dry mud that’d been hosed wet
,
remembering that scent due to her mother washing it off her hands and arms
countless times when she was younger.

She dreamed of a small creek bed before the war started,
they were just flashes in her mind, but it was a real place. She was only four
or five then… maybe. Getting muddy, splashing and frolicking, she was always
down there playing. It was one of those rare memories from a tender age that
would always stick with her – she knew she loved the creek, recalling being a
mucky dirt ball for at least a year of her life. She was happy then…
Maybe all people felt like that before the
war started… happier, even the adults,
Clio pondered…

Her happiness was eaten away and only a distant memory now.
She’d been swallowed inside the belly of the snake for a long time. Clio slowly
lost track until her six senses were infected like snakebite. Several hours
drifted away and it was impossible to tell minutes from hours. The shelter
vault under her home was child’s play compared to this tunnel. Clio’s depth
perception fried in a crosswire melt down. Time slipped away. Tick… tock… tick…
tock… tick… tock… Six hours ticked down.

Ten hours bleed off. Tick… tock… tick… tock… Thirteen hours
drifted away. Seeing something ahead, she walked closer. It was a glimmer of
hope. Slicing through the darkness, it came down from the top. Light was
shining in.
Am I hallucinating
? She
wondered, looking up.
It’s a… a… hole…

High up, but it appeared to be another tunnel. The air
smelled right,
fresh
… Clio moved
directly under the blinding light. Squinting, she could see the sky in a blue
sliver. Then she realized something with dread. If she wasn’t hallucinating and
it was a tunnel leading up, it was too high to reach. It was an impossible
exit. Defeated, she sat down…

She drifted off to sleep, unaware for how long when she
woke. After a few hours of smelling the air and basking in the taunting light,
Clio abandoned the overhead shaft.

Seventeen hours inside the cave…
Clio
pressed on but seriously argued with herself about turning back. Non-stop,
she
argued. Guided by instinct, she
continued moving. She was threatened with growing doom, and her flashlight was
fading in the darkness. Nineteen hours... Tick… tock… tick… tock… Twenty-one
hours passed. Twenty-two… Clio banged her light as it dwindled down to pathetic
bleakness. Twenty-three…

Hour Twenty-Six and
Clio’s
mental shell cracked. Clio’s mind formed into the first stage of psychosis.
Hallucinations floated, seeing things as if she’d gone into the rabbit hole.
Things hovered in front of her – things that weren’t really there. The
illusions weren’t necessarily bad. Her defenses were trying to protect her
through the feel-good-blanket of euphoria. Clio had a psych dinner for the eyes
and a feel-good show performing inside her body. Caught between the edges of
ecstasy and madness, she almost got used to her new state - enough to control
it anyway -
keep going...

Clio slowed… She looked down, shining the remaining circle
at the ground in front of her feet. Stopping, she squatted to inspect, brushing
her hand over the marks and feeling the ridges over her fingertips -
those almost look like tracks, or paw marks,
or … something…?

Maybe I’m
hallucinating them?
The tracks waffled between fantasy and reality. They
were real… they weren’t real… they were real… they weren’t real… Her
mind changed every few seconds until
she drifted off in euphoria, forgetting about them. Suddenly, a fresh set
pulled her back to reality.

More tracks?
Can’t be… they don’t look right… I’m seeing
things…
They were real… they weren’t real… they were real… no, they weren’t
real…

Clio continued down the tunnel and flashed the hazy spec
from her flashlight onto the dirt wall beside her. The young girl’s defenses
kicked in. She was stoned and high as a kite.
Look at these things...
Clio thought with a happy smile, running
her hand over the primitive designs. Several grooves ran laterally along the
wall. Delayed fear pulled her back to earth after she realized what they were.
Claw marks were gouged in deep through the dirt.

Aiming the spec of light on the adjacent wall, she went to
the marks, ugh!!! She ran her hands over them, terrified at what she felt. Clio
was also now aware that her euphoria lost some of its chemical kick. Taking
over at the helm, fight or flight was operating her controls. Unfortunately,
she was sharper, not one hundred percent, but the fog was lifting.
Keep going
, she told herself.
Oh… my… God…
Clio thought after looking
at a new set of markings impossible to ignore.

They were everywhere.

What made those?
Clio didn’t want to know the answer and chastised herself for asking. X
patterns… Crosses… deep territorial marks were scored into the sides of the
tunnel. Not markings like a raccoon or something small would make. They were
five to six feet off the ground.
Whatever
scratched these obviously eats meat, big slabs of it,
she pondered
.

Doing her best to move forward, the twelve-year-old began to
tremble and shake, wanting to run,
but to
where?
The place became giant - and the passageway’s diameter expanded as
if a whale swallowed her whole. Eight feet high and seven feet across, Clio
kept moving through the wide-open cavern.

Oh thank God!
Her
mind praised with joy, seeing a sliver of light shining down inside the cave.
End of the line, she’d made it, and the tunnel’s exit was finally before her.

Before she ran out, she needed time to think. Clio needed to
pee anyway, realizing that she’d been holding it since she entered the secret
passageway.

Clio smelled swaths of fresh air and wanted to run to the
light, but she knew better. Pants down around her ankles, she squatted to
tinkle, waiting… Finally flowing after a long pause, Clio avoided getting the
pee on her shoes, squirming around on her heels and balled-up-toes.

Freedom was almost hers; the opening was only a few yards
away. Clio gasped… As sure as the incoming daylight, she heard movement.
What is it?
All the hair on her body
stood erect, as if each follicle were saluting like her father’s commando
brigade.

Clio was still peeing with her pants around her ankles and
her heart was pounding. Sifting down amidst the sunlight, she witnessed sand
falling inside the passageway exit. Something was scratching and digging and
breathing over the hole. Like shudders opened in an ancient room, light bathed
the falling silt.

Suddenly, it appeared like a hanging bat. A terrifying head
popped inside the cave.

“Sssshhhhaaa,” it hissed, exposing its fangs and staring
with yellow eyes.

The creature dropped down inside the cave, facing her after
twisting and landing perfectly. “Ssshhhhaaa,” it hissed again, and coiled its
body, ready to spring.
 
The creature was
the size of a grown man and ripped in muscle, blocking the exit. Tasting her,
the charcoal skin monster sniffed the air, emitting a foul stench.

Clio grabbed her pistol, aiming and shivering with her pants
bunched over her feet. The gun rattled, shaking in her unsteady hand. Her
pungent urine slowed the creature’s attack, its senses stifled by the strange
odor. Things slowed and the weapon steadied as she watched herself from on
high.

The creature lunged and
Clio
shot. “Zzzzzzzzwhhhap!”

Locking her grip in fear, she squeezed the trigger and
didn’t let go, shooting a constant stream of flesh destroying light that
loosened the earth like a sand blaster. Clio released the trigger but couldn’t
see through the dirty storm. Breathing hard, the child watched the dust settle
and clear.
Gross!
Bloody creature
parts were revealed in the aftermath of photon wash and the incoming sunlight.

Clio was too afraid to move and looked at the exit.
What if more of those things are up there?
Waiting for me…
Outside, however, is not what she needed to be worried
about.

She heard it behind her. A new threat was hunting her from
deep inside the cave. The twelve-year-old remembered the vertical tunnel.
What if one of those things dug it as
another way to get down inside this cave?

The beast grew louder and Clio felt as if she was in a
nightmare. She was. The thing was on a mission toward the young girl, coming
fast and making noise, hissing and scratching. “Ssssshhhaaa.”

Dirt loosened from the earthen ceiling and its viscous
breathing echoed down the tunnel. Energy moved beneath her feet. She was sure
of it. Something was running hard and fast and coming her way.

Alexandria, Virginia:

“Good morning Dr. Marcus.”

“Good morning Cy.”

“Something new for me today?” Cy asked, sensing his creator
had another test in store.

Dr. Pressfield scrunched his face together, thinking,
looking into his cyborg’s torso, as if searching for the right answer,
expecting it to burst from his creation’s perfect chest. “Thinking about it
Cy.”

He knew there was only one path to take and with that
realization, tranquility settled enough to allow him to make eye contact with
Cy.

“You’re not sure though, Dr. Marcus, are you?”

“Cy, sometimes I think you can read my mind.”

“You know that’s technically impossible Dr. Marcus.”

“Yes Cy, I know…” Dr. Marcus said, hiding the fact he wasn’t
actually sure if his young cyborg could fortune tell.

Cy called his creator by the title and name, Dr. Marcus. He
did things like that even though he wasn’t specifically programed with that
directive. Somehow coming from Cy, it sounded right. He knew how to be formal
and personal at the same time, showing respect and affection equally, with a
simple mention of “Dr. Marcus.”

“Something dangerous, Dr. Marcus?”

“Yes, for anyone in the world it would be, but for you… I
don’t know… that’s what I want to find out...”

“I can tell how much you care about me, Dr. Marcus,” Cy
stated, using a tone that elicited how much he cared about his creator, too.

As if to amend his statement, Marcus held up his hand and
shook his head no. “That came out wrong… It’s something more, Cy… more than a
test,” Dr. Pressfield announced.

“Oh, I see. Something important needs to be done, and
through the act of doing it lays the test, too?”

“You’re an amazing creature, Cy. You sure know how to make
me proud,” Dr. Pressfield said with goose bumps tingling down his arms.

Cy walked toward the window with the sound of his gentle
steps being placed on the oak floor and looked out. “What do you need me to do
Dr. Marcus? Where is it that you’d have me go?”

Marcus looked at his cyborg’s back. “I need something to
continue my work,” Dr. Pressfield affirmed.

“You need a power source, don’t you Dr. Marcus?”

Dr. Pressfield smiled and nodded his head up and down. “Yes,
right again Cy, I need a power source.”

“The one you spoke of in your old laboratory? The one in
Washington, DC?”

“Yes, Cy, that one. There’s no other way for me to continue
my work… to build you a friend.”

Cy stared out the window and then turned back smiling. “I
have you, Dr. Marcus; I don’t need any more friends.”

“I appreciate that Cy, but the world, I fear, needs more
like you…”

“True, I wouldn’t want to deprive the world of my wonderful
personality and charm, Dr. Marcus. Heaven knows it’s in much need these days,”
Cy said grinning, lifting his head in pretend arrogance.

It was things like that that made it impossible. Dr.
Pressfield loved his creation like the son he never had. Impossible not to,
given the fact his young cyborg was funny and charming. Impossible, like a
puppy dog giving you cute eyes and wagging its tail; Marcus had to love him.

Cy gazed out the window again, dreaming in ways only he
could. Pivoting away from the scenery, he faced his master, patiently watching.

Feeling eyes, Dr. Marcus Pressfield pondered in his head and
turned, looking at his creation. “I don’t know if you can find it Cy… or if
it’s even operable if you do… but…”

“It’s worth a shot, Dr. Marcus… You know it and I know it.”

“Yes… I think you’re right, Cy. It’s worth a shot.”

Washington, DC was in ruins, along with most of the United
States. Dr. Pressfield knew his former laboratory was probably under thousands
of pounds of concrete and rubble, but Cy was correct – it was worth a shot. Dr.
Pressfield, “the scientist,” needed a power source. He needed a unique
generator.

Only a few existed in the world and it just so happened that
one was in his old office. Super charged; it was able to reach gigavolt
potentials with an energy output in excess of 100 megajoule. It was a
masterpiece of technology. An intense 10 million Ampere-GeV proton beam drawn
from Dr. Pressfield’s generator could ignite a deuterium thermonuclear
detonation wave in its cylinder, where the strong magnetic field of the proton
beam entraps the charged fusion reaction products inside.
Meaning:
Dr. Pressfield’s super battery could produce concentrated
power the strength beyond a
Bolt of
Lightning
. And, it was the size of a toaster.

Dr. Pressfield looked at Cy, feeling his heartbeat pounding.
“It would be dangerous, Cy. You know the things that are out there.”

“I do, Dr. Marcus, and I have no fear of them.”

Dr. Pressfield knew that Cy wasn’t programmed with fear, but
then again, he was part human. “Are you sure, Cy?” Marcus asked.

“None, Dr. Marcus. I fear not.”

Even though Dr. Pressfield created Cy from scratch, he
realized the line between his cyborg
being fully
human, and part machine, had blurred long ago. He
acted
so…
so damn human.

Dr. Pressfield wasn’t prepared for the emotional attachment
that crept into his heart over the last few months. His creation, this super
cyborg, was so perfect, yet so human - it was impossible not to care for him.
It was impossible not to worry for his safety – even if for his own selfish
reasons. He didn’t want to lose his best friend. After his wife died in the
war, Cy was now his only friend. Corny maybe, but Marcus loved him.

Dr. Pressfield’s wife was killed during the first invasion
of DC. Along with the rest of her office co-workers, Ker shot and stomped his
wife’s guts out. Like those working in the World Trade Center Towers in the
year 2001, they were caught unprepared.

“I just don’t want to lose you Cy… I’m…”

Cy walked behind Dr. Pressfield and placed his hand on his
master’s shoulder. “You’re afraid, Dr. Marcus. I understand.”

“I am, Cy…” Dr. Pressfield said, grabbing his cyborg’s hand.
“I’m more afraid than I’ve ever been. If something happened to you… I
couldn’t…”

Dr. Pressfield shook his head not wanting to think about
what could happen to his cyborg, his beloved friend.

“Oh ye of little faith, Dr. Marcus,” Cy preached, rubbing
his master on the top of his head. “I can do it. Have faith in me, Dr. Marcus.”

Dr. Pressfield paused… “Ok, Cy, I believe you… I still don’t
like it, but… I guess if we’re going to do this then… we need to come up with a
plan.”

“I already have one, Dr. Marcus,” Cy said with a smile.

Dr. Pressfield shook his head, grinning from ear to ear -
still fearful about the outcome. “I’m sure you do Cy.”