With careful fingers, Vartan inserted his hand-crafted detonator and pressed it into the square of magtex with gentle and even force. As he did, the storm roared; waves of rain kept pounding the dome overhead. He huddled in the radio room, squinting in the dim illumination provided by the last functioning light panel.
What was he forgetting? His fatigue-addled brain wasn’t working. Be a miracle if he didn’t blow himself up.
On the table sat the radio. The last link to the outside world. The place Aguila’s people would ultimately try for.
He started as a violent crash of thunder shivered the dome around him. Rattled him clear to his bones. Left him panting, scared half out of his wits. Loud bangs that sent the heart skipping weren’t a good combination when fooling around with explosives.
It was the Messiah’s order. Vartan should have thought of booby-trapping the radio room. Should have been stone-cold obvious. That he hadn’t was a sign of his exhaustion. His fear and despair.
The Messiah’s latest orders were that they leave at first light. Just as soon as they could see. Ctein would lead the way, followed by the women and the children. Then the Prophet and Batuhan, with Vartan and the three remaining men in the rear. The supposition was that in that order, Shimal would be protected.
Shimal, for God’s sake? She was the Prophet now? The universe’s voice to humanity?
Prior to her first muscle spasms, her growing problems with coordination, she’d been notable only for her fertility, having borne the Messiah four children in the eight years of their captivity in Ashanti. What possible reason did the universe have for choosing a woman as meek and submissive as Shimal?
To look at her now that she’d been chosen was to see the fear bright in her dark eyes, the quivering of her jaws, and disquiet on her thin face. From her expression, she was more prone to throwing up than imparting the universe’s wisdom.
And she orders us to leave?
Under his breath, Vartan whispered, “Damn it, Messiah, why don’t you listen to sense?”
Where would they find food? According to the reports, nothing but some of the local animals was edible. Not to mention descending the south trail to the forest.
The forest?
Vartan been there. Watched his team die and vanish before his eyes. Petre’s team had taken the north trail. And disappeared without a trace. This wasn’t symmetry inversion, not even null singularity physics. The math was simple: leave this place and die.
Now, based on Shimal’s utterance in a moment of confusion and terror, the Unreconciled were going to trust themselves to that selfsame horror? They were going to believe that the universe would protect them?
Vartan blinked against the gritty feeling in his eyes. Wiped his hands on his loin wrapping, and carefully prepared a length of thin copper wire from a spool he’d found in one of the sheds. This he tied to the detonator. Stringing it out, he tied the other end to the chair leg.
Whoever pulled out the chair would topple the block of magtex. As it tilted, the battery would shift, closing the circuit. And bang!
Checking his handiwork, Vartan used a wad of wrapping paper to conceal his bomb where it sat in the corner.
Not that he was much of a demolitions man, but he figured the corner of the room would help to direct the force of the blast against whomever might pull out the chair.
He heard steps. Looked up. Marta, her expression as lined and worried as Vartan had ever seen, stood in the doorway. “You about ready? There’s a graying in the east. We can see well enough to go.”
“It’s raining like hell out there.”
“And we don’t want to be here when the Supervisor’s people attack. We’ve got maybe an hour before they charge out of the science dome and start shooting.”
He sniffed, tried to rub the exhaustion from his eyes. Took two tries to stagger to his feet. “You ever wonder how we got to this point?”
“We are the chosen,” she said, repeating the words as rote. “The forces of darkness are going to resist. They have no other recourse. Until we bring about the Annihilation and Purification, even the atoms will oppose us.”
“Spoken like a true believer,” he said as he lifted the heavy rifle from where he’d leaned it against the doorjamb. Outside in the hallway, he picked up the drone controls. Wondered if the thing could even fly in the storm. Damn it, if the drone was grounded, they’d lost their most potent defense.
Marta’s hazel eyes barely flickered. “And what are you, Vartan? You’re the only one of the Messiah’s Will left. What else do we have but faith? Those people out there want us dead!”
“Not that we left them with much choice.”
She indicated the drone controls. “That going to work?”
“Hope so. Outside of the booby traps, it’s our only chance. I might shoot one or two, but they’ll get me in the end.”
In a voice like acid, she said, “So good to know that you’re optimistic. Shall I go tell the Messiah we’re ready?”
“I guess . . . Well, hell, why not?” Vartan winced, forced himself to plod wearily down the hallway to the double doors that opened out front.
Peering through the windows, he could barely make out the faint shapes of aquajade across the flat, the square outline of the old shipping container. From this angle, he couldn’t see the low hump of the barracks where Bess Gutierrez and the other women should have been preparing the children.
The children. Eighteen of them left. The rest taken by Donovan. Some vanished, others dead in pain and suffering.
“They were supposed to be the future. Immortal.”
The futility of it all, like lead in his heart, left him on the verge of weeping. He could see each and every one of those kids’ faces. Thin little girls and boys, the ones who’d laughed and jumped their way down the steps as they left Ashanti. Who’d bounced and played in Capella’s light. All that hope, about to be extinguished in Batuhan’s mad dash to the forest.
So much for the Revelation of immortality.
Flashes of lightning, like a staccato, illuminated the yard outside. Thunder banged, rolled, and echoed in reply.
No one in their right mind would stumble out into a downpour like this.
Come dawn, the Supervisor’s people were coming. They’d be toting rifles, and as he’d heard through the long-distance mic, they’d be coming for blood.
He remembered the look in Shyanne’s eyes as she pleaded with him to leave. Not for the first time since she’d stolen the airtruck, he wondered if she hadn’t been the smart one.
“Ah, Second Will!”
Vartan turned at the Messiah’s enthusiastic call. The man came strolling down the hallway, his bone scepter in hand. Behind him came Ctein—the last of the First Chosen. Then Shimal, her arm interlocked with Marta’s.
Time to go.
It hit home like a thrown rock: The Messiah was leaving the throne of bones behind. No one remained to carry it.
Vartan slung the rifle, retrieved a hooded poncho he’d hung by the door, and draped it over his shoulders. No way he could bring the rifle into action, covered as it was, but he’d be damned if he’d be soaked to the bone. And more to the point, he needed two hands for the drone control. He’d be last in line. Awaiting the moment the Supervisor’s group charged the admin doors.
He had to time it just right. Dive the thing—kamikaze like—right into the middle of them before he hit the detonator switch. One shot. Damn it, he had to do this right.
Vartan led the way out into the deluge, rain battering at the hood. Barely able to see, he slopped his way to the barracks, praying that the Messiah would declare the weather too wretched for the evacuation.