Solipsis: Escape from the Comatorium (15 page)

“
It's
weird to hear you talk about the logic that went into making the
world I grew up in. I grew up on a planet that's like twenty years
old. Isn't that god-damn profound?”

“
I
guess so,” Medved says, looking down at Gwen's unconscious
head.

“
So
how many are there? The original televators I mean.”

“
A
hundred...maybe,” Medved says as they approach the city.
Glinting in the hot sun over the city center are several figures,
flying in circles. As they near the city, Renee and Medved can
finally make out the figures: Angels, clad in gold armor, with large
white wings. They circle ominously, like golden vultures.

The
city is deserted. A group of angels inflate a hot-air balloon. It
sluggishly takes to the sky. Alongside, behemoths pile together the
original televators on top of a metal mesh. “What are they
doing?” Renee asks.

“
They're
closing our only exit,” Medved replies, still holding Gwen's
head. Her eyes are rolled up in the back of her head. Behemoths come
to the clearing carrying more televators. They pull the wire mesh
taut into a ball containing all of the working televators.

“
So
much for that idea,” Renee says.

“
There's
gotta be a televator around here they didn't find,” Medved says
hopefully. He looks at the skyscrapers all around them. “Come
on.”

Renee
follows Medved, sticking to cover, hoping not to be seen.

“
Where
are all the people?” Renee whispers. Even at such a low
whisper, she feels like her words will carry for several deserted
blocks.

“
I
don't know,” Medved replies.

“
I
was just here, they were all frozen in place, hundreds of them. Where
are they?”

The
glass canyon starts to ripple like a pond. The waves in the glass
grow stronger. “What is that?” Renee asks. A stampede of
people appears around a corner. But what are they running from? Renee
and Medved stand frozen in the path of the stampede.

A
dragon rounds the corner and unleashes a giant fireball at the backs
of the stampeding crowd, lighting dozens of people on fire. Medved
starts running and yanks Renee free from her terrified stare.

Medved
and Renee have a few hundred yards lead on the stampede, but then
they see where the stampede is heading. A group of fifty-meter-tall
behemoths stand in the way, prepared to smash the crowd like ants.
It's an organized slaughter. Renee and Medved stop in their tracks.
The stampeding crowd blindly bears down on them. Medved takes Renee's
hand and rushes to the side, toward an alley. Two armored angels land
in their path and bring swords to bear, daring Medved to keep coming.
The swords glow blue, as if they were made entirely of a focused
torch of flames.

The
wave of stampeding people crashes into Medved and Renee, splitting
them up. Medved clings strongly to Gwen's severed head, still
fervently whispering prayers. The stampede ends as the noose is
tightened on the people, like predators closing in on a school of
fish. The dragon, the behemoths, and the angels close the crowd
together. Two behemoths, massive creatures, pull on a gigantic
structure of steel, rolling it out from a side street. The steel box,
five stories high, is lined with razor wire around the perimeter of
the open top. The monsters snatch people up a handful at a time,
dropping them into this rolling prison.

Renee
watches in horror as people all around her are plucked into the sky
and dropped into the prison. The floor they land on is slanted toward
one side, causing the pile of humanity to slide to that end and fall
to the floor below, slanted in the opposite direction. She pushes,
scrambling toward the edge of the crowd, but she can't overcome the
force of the stampede. A behemoth's hand comes for her, one of its
thick fingers jams down the back of Renee's shirt as it grabs the man
right beside her. Renee takes to the air, but then Medved's paws
emerge from the crowd, grabbing Renee's foot. Renee's shirt stretches
and she falls twenty feet to the tops of the crowd. On the backs of
the masses, they surf to freedom.

A
perimeter of angels surrounds the crowd. Those who attempt to run
past the angels are cut down in an instant. The blue swords cut
through them effortlessly. Medved leaps from the top of the crowd,
tackling two unsuspecting angels. Renee follows right behind, running
through the opening and into an alley. Medved gets up and follows,
leaving behind an angel with a collapsed chest lying helplessly on
the pavement. Whoever is piloting these avatars definitely aren't
vivisected. These are people using consoles, entering this world like
it's a video game. They might be bigger and stronger, but their
coordination is only as good as their controls. But they feel no
pain, and they can respawn from any televator.

Renee
and Medved emerge from the alley running free into a deserted street.
Two angels run from the alley, giving chase. “There it is!”
Renee shouts, the ball of televators is dead ahead, though the
balloon has nearly lifted them off. Medved runs alongside her,
carrying Gwen. They run into the opening. A small behemoth sees them,
stomping into their path. This smaller monster is about the size of a
grizzly bear, but covered in elephant-like skin. Medved charges
toward the monster. He hands Gwen off to Renee running behind him.

“
Follow
me!” Medved shouts. He charges into the behemoth, knocking it
off balance, sending him spinning and falling to the ground. Renee
runs right behind Medved, through the path cleared for her. The
enmeshed ball of televators is just ahead. An angel immediately
swoops in, kicking at Renee as it flies over her. The blow clips her
ear. She clutches her head, but keeps her balance. She feels heat on
the back of her neck, the warmth from a flaming sword. She hears wind
rushing from the strong flapping of the angel's wings. The heat on
her neck grows more intense. The angel flies low, his wingtips barely
staying off the pavement. He flaps harder, trying to bring Renee
within reach. He lunges, reaching his sword out. But before he can
swing, Medved catches up to him, diving and grabbing his foot. The
angel smacks face first into the pavement.

Renee
keeps running for the balloon as it rises into the air. She runs
harder and faster, leaping for the metal mesh, trying to grab it with
her one free hand. She catches the mesh with only two fingers, they
pull back, over-extending. Her fingers slip and she falls, landing on
her back.

She
looks straight ahead as the balloon lifts into the sky.

Medved
helps her up. The angels stop pursuing. The behemoth trudges away.
The monsters concentrate on capturing the encircled group of people.
Renee and Medved head for the shadows.

Renee
and Medved find themselves alone in the street. Most of the people
have been rounded up, thoush many have slipped through the cracks.
Angels and demons are searching the city and the suburbs. In the
growing silence, all they can hear is Gwen mouthing the words, “mind
over matter.”

They
wander the streets, looking for anything, a sign of hope, an idea,
another survivor, but finding nothing but an empty city, a virtual
ghost town. The ball of televators hangs ominously over the city. So
close but so far.

“
They
had to have missed a televator somewhere,” Renee says.

Medved
and Renee emerge on a rooftop of a skyscraper. They hear hushed words
and freeze. Medved sneaks around a corner, they find two other
survivors, crouched against the edge of the building, looking into
the distance and talking quietly. They're startled by Medved, turning
and holding up make-shift weapons in defense.

“
It's
okay, I'm on your side,” Medved says. One survivor is a
chiseled, perfect man. The other is an extremely beautiful woman with
gigantic breasts. She's probably just the avatar of an old man, but
with the display system turned off, there is no way of knowing. They
look back to the horizon. Outside of the city, past the suburbs, past
the lake, past the mountains, to a horizon glowing red. “What's
out there?”

“
See
for yourself,” the male survivor says. Medved's jaw drops as he
peers through the binoculars.

“
What
is it?” Renee asks. Medved hesitates, not wanting to let her
see. Renee snatches the binoculars away then sees for herself. A line
of rolling prisons can be seen heading toward this red horizon.
Through the mountains, she can glimpse geysers of molten rock spewing
into the air, demonic monsters, it's a hellish scene.

“
Who
is doing this?” Renee asks. Nobody will offer an answer.
“Seriously, what aren't you telling me? This isn't a game
right? This is real! We're hostages. Are they holding us for ransom?
God dammit, tell me something! Who's doing this?”

“
Christians,”
Gwen chokes out audible words for the first time in hours.

“
What?”
Renee asks. Medved tries to hold Gwen tight, keeping her away from
Renee.

“
God
dammit, let me talk to my daughter,” Gwen insists. Medved
relents. Renee takes her mother's head from Medved, retreats to a
corner of the roof, sits down and holds her close.

“
It's
Dr. Lazarus's church” Gwen says quietly.

“
The
community of christian scholarly fucking brotherhood?”

“
Something
like that.”

“
Why
are they doing this? What'd we ever do to them?”

“
They
think we're cheating death,” Gwen says.

“
I
don't understand.”

“
God
has a plan and we're changing it, we're going against what god wants,
in their minds,” Gwen says.

“
It's
god's plan for us to be dead?” Renee asks. “If god wanted
us dead, wouldn't we be dead?”

“
You
have to understand how they think,” Gwen replies, “to
them, life is just a preparation for judgment. Ultimately we'll have
to go to heaven or hell based on how we lived. If you put yourself in
their shoes, and look at the world, you see us, these people who are
avoiding judgment, we're cheating. By keeping people alive, they
think we're keeping people out of heaven, away from god.”

“
So
they're just gonna kill us?” Renee asks. Medved walks over
slowly.

“
No,”
Gwen says quietly. “If they were going to kill us, we'd be dead
already.”

“
They're
sending us to hell,” Medved says, in shock. Renee turns back to
the red horizon. A plume of volcanic ash comes over the mountains,
obscuring their view of hell. Renee stares at the very real hell that
awaits all of them.

“
Everything's
going to be okay,” Gwen's severed head tries to comfort her,
but her tears betray her.

“
Are
there any televators left?” Medved asks the other survivors.

“
What
does it matter, they're not working,” the man replies.

Renee
holds up Gwen's severed head, “It does matter.”

“
I
know of one they might have missed,” the female survivor says.

Renee
runs quickly from one building entrance to the next, minimizing the
time she is in the open. The group uses this technique to move
through the streets of Solipsis. Behemoths can be heard walking
nearby, patrolling the streets. Angels fly high above, searching for
any survivors. They can hear and feel the footsteps of a nearby
behemoth, but can't tell where it is. “How far is it?”
Renee whispers to the woman as they prepare to cross another street.

“
Two
more blocks,” the woman replies. She looks to the sky, waiting
for patrolling angels to disappear. Then she leads the way as the
group crosses a street. “It's that building,” the woman
says excitedly. They're not far at all. The crushing footsteps of the
behemoth grow louder and they take cover along the side of the
street. The monster trudges by, not seeing them. Once the monster
passes, they start to cross the street. The behemoth unleashes an
unholy bellowing howl. The monster has eyes on the back of its head,
which the survivors had not noticed. The beautiful woman leads the
way as they try to cross the street and get to the door. The behemoth
dives at them, crushing the woman. Two angels swoop in, alerted by
the behemoth's call. They run for it. An angel catches up with the
man, slicing him clean in half with his blue flaming sword. The
angels are gaining on Renee and Medved.