Xenofall (The Wasteland Chronicles, Book 7) (12 page)

By the time we reached the Bunker, the air had cleared, revealing the large mountain 84 was housed in. Anna angled
Perseus
toward the mountainside, where the hangar opened vertically to the air. The entrance tunnel led straight down into darkness.

“Control, this is Anna aboard the
Orion.
Do you have a copy?”

“Orion?”
a man’s voice responded. “What are you doing here?”

“Clear us to land,” Anna said. “There’s something we want to check on.”

“You’re cleared,” the man said. “You can park next to
Perseus.”

“Where’s the crew’s location?”

“You mean Makara and them? They went up a while ago. Why?”

“Up to Level Three?”

“Yeah,” the man said. “Is something wrong?”

“We don’t know. That’s why we’re here.”

Anna lowered the ship vertically over the hangar opening. As we descended, the darkness was replaced with the dim fluorescence of the hangar below. I looked down to see people watching our approach from the hangar floor.
Perseus
was parked nearby.

“They’re here, alright,” I said.

Neither Anna nor Julian said anything as
Perseus
landed on the floor. We unstrapped ourselves and headed to the wardroom to exit the ship.

When we entered the hangar bay, Lauren was waiting at the bottom of the ramp, flanked by several civilians.

“What on Earth are you doing here?” she asked, arms crossed. “You’re supposed to be with the army.”

“Makara, Samuel, and Michael weren’t answering their calls,” Anna said. “We came to investigate.”

Lauren frowned, puzzled. “Aren’t you overreacting a bit? They went up to Level Three not an hour ago. What could have possibly happened?”

“I don’t know,” Anna said. “Probably nothing. But it’s unlike any of them to go so long without answering. We decided not to take the chance.”

“We shouldn’t be long,” I said.

By now, a large crowd had gathered around us, asking questions, but we pressed through and headed to the stairs.

“Wait!” Lauren said.

We stopped, and turned around.

“What
aren’t
you telling me?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “We need you to stay here and watch over our people.”

She laughed in disbelief. “Alex, you don’t tell me what to do.”

“All we know is,” Anna said, “Makara said she’d call us from the control room first thing.” She looked at Lauren pointedly. “That hasn’t happened, and it’s not like Makara to forget something that important.”

“I’m sure something came up, or...”

“That’s what we think, too,” Anna said. “Still, better safe than sorry.”

“If that’s what you think, then I’m going, too.”

“Lauren,” Anna said. “Please. Stay here. We won’t be long, and we need someone to watch over these people.”

“You think it’ll be dangerous?”

I decided to share my earlier thought. “It’s possible some of the Lords were left behind. We just don’t know what it could be. That’s why we’re going up.”

“We’ll be back soon,” Julian said.

Before she could protest further, we turned and headed toward the stairs that would lead up to Level Nineteen. Lauren harrumphed behind us. I turned to see her walking away.

As Anna dug out a flashlight to light the way, Julian spoke.

“Do you really think there’s a danger?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s no reason to think there is. But still, sometimes you just get a feeling about something...if you ignore feelings like that, you’ll be sorry.”

“I feel the same way,” Anna said.

We ran up the steps until we reached Level Ten, where we had to take a corridor to the other side in order to continue our ascent. We were gasping for breath by the time we started climbing the stairs again. Only our flashlights lit the complete darkness until we arrived at Level Three, where the power was on.

“Looks like they’re here,” I said.

As we headed to the Command Center, the corridors were quiet and cold. My apprehension increased as we walked on. We turned onto the final corridor that led to the Command Center. From there, it was a straight shot to the railing overhanging the control room below.

We ran along the corridor until we reached the railing. There, Michael stood alone behind one of the computers, typing. There was no sign of Makara or Samuel.

“Michael?” I called.

He tensed a moment before turning his head, showing only the left side of his face.

“The silos are almost fully online,” he said. “It took it a while to reroute power from
Orion’s
drive.”

“Where are Makara and Samuel?”

“Down below,” he said. “Making sure the power flows smoothly.”

There was an edge to his voice that made me stiffen a bit.

“Down below? What do you mean?”

Michael seemed annoyed by our presence, turning back to face the computer.

“Yeah. At the fusion reactor. We couldn’t get enough power, but Samuel must have been successful.” He paused. “It’s working now.”

I looked at Anna and Julian. We knew something wasn’t right.

“None of you answered our calls,” I said.

“They’re too far underground to get reception, Alex. And me...well, I left my radio back on the ship.” He forced a smile. “Sorry to have caused such a scare.”

Something about this wasn’t adding up. It was his manner, his tone...it was very unlike Michael. If things were going to take a little longer, Makara would have let us know.

“The Command Center has a direct line to the outside,” I said. “Why didn’t you establish a connection?”

“I’m busy here, Alex,” Michael said.

I just stared at him, shocked. Now, I absolutely
knew
something wasn’t right.

“Michael,”
Julian said.

At Julian’s voice, Michael turned. There was a strange look in his brown eyes. It took me a moment to figure out what it was. They say the eyes are windows to the soul. Only I saw no soul, nothing that was Michael. The eyes were dead, emotionless. A chill came over me.

“What happened, Michael?” Julian asked.

There were too many things going wrong, too many things being shrugged off.

Everything clicked at once. I raised my Beretta.

“Step away from the computer, Michael.”

Anna’s eyes widened. “Alex, what are you doing?”

I didn’t know how it happened, but the answer seemed obvious.

“He has a writhe.”

As if he didn’t have a gun pointed at him, Michael merely continued to type, a smile playing on his lips.

“You won’t kill me, Alex. If you kill me, you let her win.”

Now, both Julian and Anna drew their handguns, pointing them at Michael’s back.

“I’m warning you!”
I said. “Step away!”

“Michael, please,” Julian said. “Step away from the computer. You don’t want to do this.”

The wall screen flashed on, displaying a map of the United States. Several lines arced from Bunker 84 to Los Angeles.

“You’re reprogramming the flight path of the nukes,” I said. “What did you do to Makara and Samuel?”

Michael didn’t answer. He merely continued to work.

“Michael, step away!” Anna yelled.

“Do you really think I could stop myself, even if I wanted to?” he said. “I can only do what she says. You know that. So why do you threaten me? If you don’t want these nukes going off on the army, then pull the goddamn trigger. It’s what Michael would want.”

There were only two options before us. Let Michael live, and have him destroy the entire army. Or shoot him, right here, right now.

I decided to buy more time. I wasn’t going to shoot him unless I absolutely had to.

“What did you do with them, Michael?”

“I did what I had to,” he said. “All I needed was Samuel’s clearance. After that...
she
showed me the rest.”

I felt a sick twisting in my gut such as I had ever known. How long had that writhe been living in his head, unknown even to him, waiting for the right moment to strike? Ruth’s going unconscious was, in a way, a red herring. It made us think no one else on the crew could be infected. And now, the writhe had led Michael to where it mattered.

More than that, there were so many times Michael could have ended my life, but Askala and the writhe had waited for
this.
She considered the nukes a greater prize than even
Elekim.
Askala had conquered this Bunker once for the very purpose of gaining the nukes.

Now, she was conquering it again.

“You killed them, didn’t you?” Anna asked.

Michael didn’t answer. Now, he had stopped using the computer completely. I knew, at some point in the next few seconds, the shooting would start.

Unless I found a way to stop it.

Quietus had warned me not to do this, away from the strength of the ichor. But I saw no other choice. I didn’t want to shoot Michael, and I didn’t want Askala to use him to fire the nukes.

I closed my eyes and reached out for the writhe.

“Alex!” Anna said. “Alex, don’t...”

It was the last thing I heard before I was swallowed by darkness.

I could only hope that Quietus’s warning had been enough to prepare me.

***

T
he darkness was far more oppressive than it was in the Xenolith. There was only coldness and pain, like I was being crushed in the deepest pressures of the sea. There was nothing but the pain, the panic, the realization of my mistake in doing this.

Here,
Askala whispered.
Here I shall keep you until the end of time.

I tried to scream, but there was nothing for me to scream with. I couldn’t even form thoughts with which to defend myself.

You’ve given yourself into my hand,
Elekim.
Now, despair, as I crush you.

The darkness was then pinpricked with thousands of points of light – white, blue, yellow, deep red. The points were different sizes, and it was a moment before I realized they were stars, and that I was in space. A white-hot light brightened in my vision, making it impossible to see. Heat baked my skin, a heat that increased with each passing second. It was a pain beyond imagining.

As I screamed, the heat subsided, ever so slightly. I felt a weakness in Askala’s will, a hesitation.

I realized I wasn’t alone.

Now, Alex. Attack!

The voice was Anna’s. I didn’t know how she was here, but I used this chance to focus on the writhe. At last, I found it, forming a connection with my mind. The will of the writhe wavered, but did not break. I attacked it with all my conscious energy, knowing that this was my one chance to defeat it.

But I didn’t have the strength. I held firm, not letting the writhe push back against me, but I could only hold this for so long. Suddenly, I became aware of Anna joining her will to mine.

Together,
she said.

We pushed against the writhe. A burst of light, brighter than any star, ignited in the darkness. The writhe let out a long scream, alien and terrible. The surrounding stars burst into novae, blinding in their mutual radiance.

We waited in the following silence for a long time, until the light faded, until the stars were gone and a great, warm emptiness had been left behind.

And then, there was only darkness.

***

W
hen I awoke, it was not on the Command Center floor. It was in a bed. I still saw the stars floating in an endless black. My mouth was dry, and every muscle was stiff.

With effort, I opened my eyes to find my vision blurred. A face swam before me. I couldn’t tell who it was; the room was dark, and my eyes couldn’t seem to focus.

A hand closed around mine, its warmth entering my skin.

My voice came out raspy. “Anna?”

“Who do you think?”

And like that, she held me, her hair pressed against my cheek.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“You’re on
Perseus.
It’s 01:34.

01:34. I’d been out ten hours, give or take. Trying to remember anything was a great effort.

“How did I get here?”

“You fought the writhe, remember?” Anna asked. “It controlled Michael’s mind.”

I wanted to ask more, but it was too hard to even think. I settled back on my pillow, closing my eyes once more.

“The army must be at the Great Blight now,” I said. “Did they make it past Last Town?”

“Yeah,” Anna said. “An entire day has passed. You slept through the night, through today, up until now.”

So, I had been out not for ten hours. It was more like thirty-plus.

“And I just
now
woke up?”

Before Anna could answer, everything returned to me. Anna had been there with me, in the darkness. Without her, I would have lost the fight with the writhe.

“You helped me,” I said.

Anna nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know how it happened, but I just sort of...reached out. I found you there, fighting the writhe.”

“How did you do it?” I asked.

“I have no idea. It all just sort of...happened. Like I had no control over it.”

There were so many things we didn’t understand, but one thing was for sure: without Anna, I probably would have never woken up.

“Whatever you did, you saved me,” I said. “As far as
how
it happened...we’ll have to ask Quietus the next time we see her.”

“I was knocked out, too, but I woke up this morning. I guess you had it a lot worse.”

“What about Makara and Samuel?”

“They’re both alright. Pretty beat up, but alright. Michael overpowered them both, disarmed them...I can only speculate why he left it at that. Makara thinks the writhe somehow made him stronger. He waited just long enough for Samuel to put in his password before knocking them both out cold. He slammed their heads against the wall, one with each hand.” Anna shook her head. “Neither saw it coming. It almost seems...unreal. He dragged them into one of the dorms.”

“And they’re alright? After all of
that?”

“We should count ourselves lucky. Askala wasn’t worried about killing them, so much as getting Michael to the computer. He had just started programming the nukes to hit Los Angeles, when we came along. Julian said you, I, and Michael just went down on the floor. There was really nothing he could do, but he watched until we all had gone sort of...still. He found Makara and Samuel in the adjoining dorm, and was about to go down for help, only Samuel and Makara came to. Long story short, Samuel was able to clear the nukes’ flight path.”