“Do you think it’s safe? What if there are survivors in those wrecks? There’s so many of them.”
“It’s safe. Nothing could’ve survived this. Let’s go.” He grasped her hand reassuringly, not feeling at all reassured himself about the monstrous vehicles, aliens, whatever that littered the landscape all the way to the horizon. The expanse looked as if the world’s largest toddler had strewn his toys carelessly across the countryside. Simon felt sick. America was forever gone, regardless of what they found at Diablo.
“Simon?”
He looked at her, eyes windows to the heartbreak he felt at seeing his once-proud nation reduced to an enormous quarry. She embraced him, kissed his cheek tenderly.
Hands joined, they walked into the valley of the dead.
Dirt.
Hmmm…
Hadn’t there been mountains here at some point?
Richter quizzically surveyed the bleak expanse of gouged earth before him. They certainly had been thorough. At least it would make the journey quicker; he had only hills to traverse now, it appeared. He wondered sardonically what the save-the-rainforest types would think of this mess. Of course, they were all now part of the monster that had killed the planet themselves. What irony, to be consumed by the consumer, to become one with that which had destroyed your beloved blue jewel in the night between the stars.
We will never reach the stars.
How very sad. As a boy, he had hoped to be an astronaut, and as a pilot coming out of War Three, he had almost lived his dream. Almost.
Something about clouds, and ex-lovers, and unraveled kingdoms.
A beautiful song, if only he could remember how it went. Didn’t really matter; his lips were too dry to whistle. Had been for weeks.
Richter walked on, kicking a small stone before him.
Kick, clatter skitter clatter. Kick, skitter clatter skitter. How joyous were the sounds of life’s simple pleasures. How joyous any sound became in this mute dead world. Kick, clatter skitter clatter.
Clink.
Orb. Night? Maybe. Gray.
Clink.
The orb was brighter by the day; what that meant, neither knew. It did not reach out for them. Apparently the fact that they had both been into the light nullified any threat of the light reaching out for them. It had tasted their souls already; apparently it did not need a second bite.
Patra took another spoonful of tepid vegetable beef soup and guided it to her mouth. Clink. They had found quite a supply of canned food in the mostly-demolished Diablo Grocery, and although neither ever really felt hungry, they ate, probably because it took up time and it truly felt strange to not eat. So vegetable beef soup it was.
West looked up at each spoonful that Patra delivered to her mouth, not because he was interested in her table manners, but as a reflex. Clink. Each time she placed the spoon to her lips, it made a subtle metal “clink” as her non-flesh lips made contact with the stainless steel spoon. They had not felt metallic when she had kissed him.
She smiled when she noticed his gaze, and looked sheepishly down at her utensil. “Sorry.” She pushed the bowl away. “Can’t really help it.” She snapped her silver fingers and they made a distinctive peal. “Just call me the Metal Woman, Batman.”
West shook his head, put his soup bowl down next to Patra’s. “You aren’t going to give that one a rest yet, are you?”
“Not yet. I figure I can get a few more days out of it before you get too annoyed with me to speak to me anymore.”
“Yeah, probably.”
They sat as best they could with their backs to the curved wall of the room, facing the orb. The swirls of light leisurely played on its surface, turning the sphere into an obscene, hypnotizing disco ball that illuminated the expanse in splashes of luminescence. If only there had been music…
West stood, grabbed Patra’s hand, and pulled her to her feet. She frowned in surprise, not sure of what West was doing. Her silent question was answered as West placed his right hand on her hip and raised her left hand into the air, then spun her around and dipped her low to the floor.
“Do you dance, Ms. Jennings?”
She laughed. “It appears I do now.”
They moved as one around and around the orb, dancing a ridiculous impression of a tango to silence, neither caring about the fact that there was no music and the planet was dying and it was the end of the world.
They journeyed.
Days. Weeks. Whatever. Now that the aliens no longer swarmed across the sky, they had no fear of capture. They walked across the scoured, blackened face of the once-great nation. Ghost towns. Suburbs of the dead. Flattened cities. Hopes and dreams and tomorrows that would never be.
There were no people, no bodies, no sign that anyone had survived the invasion at all. They were surrounded by the total absence of life. The Enemy had indeed been thorough.
They talked. And talked. Never before had Hayes known someone with whom he could be so open. They shared many a laugh under the faded western skies. He found Flynn to be an amazing individual. Someone he could have fallen for in a different world, in a different time. Someone he was falling for now.
They walked in silence, the only sound their boots crunching through the black crystalline earth with which the destruction of the generator had salted the continent. They had found warmer clothing; they had been lucky. The air was frigid; they could see each exhalation as a white cloud of breath, and each inhalation was cold enough to be painful if not first filtered through their scarves. Simon looked over at Maggie, and her beautiful eyes smiled at him through the gap in the fabric around her face. How could she remain so calm and content when the planet was dying before their very eyes?
How much colder would it get before the end?
How are we going to get off this corpse of a world?
And where are we going to go?
He wished that they could watch the sun set on a beach or the stone breakwater in Harkness that extended into Lake Superior, where he could hold her hand as he had held Brigid’s. He wished he could tell day from night. He wished that he could love her.
He forced the thoughts deep into his mind. Buried and forgotten. It was easier that way. He could not love her here, now, inasmuch as he knew that he wanted to, needed to. It was how he had lived his entire life. Bury your shattered dreams.
Slowly and coldly the miles to Wyoming counted down.
Fourteen days months? years? after West and Patra emerged from the Shadow, Flynn and Hayes crossed the Montana-Wyoming border. Four hours days? weeks? later, Richter entered Wyoming from Utah, humming the nameless song that tortured him incessantly, kicking before him a small stone that had been his sole companion through the entire state. In the heavens of silence, the Enemy waited for the sun to die.
They converged.
“Judas Golgotha Simon, you’re cleared for departure.”
((affirmative, command.))
“Good luck, Simon.”
Indeed. Good luck. He chose not to acknowledge the blessing of Judas Commander Hannah Kilbourne.
((engaging shadow drives.))
The massive vessel flickered, faded from existence. Simon strongly suspected that he would never again see Program Seven.
“Judas gunships Malachi, Shiva, you are cleared for immediate departure on preset contrail coordinates.”
{malachi concurs.}
[shiva concurs.]
“Watch him. Watch him closely. You’ll receive your orders when it’s time.”
The stiletto shapes of the crafts ceased to exist.
They would watch, and they would wait, and when the time came, they would see to it that Judas Simon would not unravel the most important plans ever made. With Magdalene gone, Simon was the weak link now.
“What’s that?” She spoke into the hollow of his neck with her metal voice.
West opened his eyes to a swaying spherical world that he was creating by slowly dancing around the now-silent orb chamber with Patra. “What?”
“What song was that? You were humming something.”