Prologue #2
“People see what they need to see, kid.” He said, smiling sadly.
“The real geniuses are the people who figured out anything useful from my ramblings. I just wound up being the face of things because I had a name a few people knew, and I could explain things that really shouldn’t have been explainable without a hell of a lot of education.
That was always my strength, really… I was smart enough to get the gist, but dumb enough to explain it in a way regular people got. ”
The building energy in the air broke suddenly and the people at the center of the room abruptly vanished as though they’d never been. The next group was hurried into position, corralled and contained as the capacitors charged up for the next burst transit. The pair tensed as they felt the shift.
“What’s going on?”
“Alert! Internal breach!”
The old man stiffened, automatically checking his timepiece. It was an anachronistic looking pocket watch that linked to his personal computer, that happened to also tell the time.
“Too fast,” He said, face drawn. “They should be held off for another seven minutes.”
“Did the door fail?”
“I don’t… no,” He breathed deeply as he checked the reports flying through the system, just the subjects flipping across the small screen of his device. “No, they came in through the mountain. No one expected that they’d be able to dig through solid granite that fast. Damn it. I should have known.”
“Sir, we have to get you on the next transport,” The kid grabbed him, dragging him through the crowd, waving for the nearest Sergeant for attention. “I’ve got a priority evacuee here, Sarge!”
“Stop dragging me around, I’m not your pet cat.” The old man grumbled as he was pulled through the crowd.
The military personnel at the checkpoint pushed forward to meet them, clearing some room as they brought up a scanner and quickly ran an ident burst.
“He’s cleared. Get him through to the next outward bound group.”
He found himself being pushed along, forced through the crowd of people that was growing ever more worried as the soldiers fought to keep order as best they could. The transport platform was warming up for the next hop as he was pushed on, while others were being forcibly held back.
He looked at a young woman, crying as she had a young child in tow, being held back by the soldier who’d just cleared him through and swallowed. A family was something he’d never had, but that didn’t mean he had no empathy in his soul. If anything, he knew that his problem was that he had too much.
It made him a pushover most of his life, not wanting to see others hurt.
An explosion to the back of the room shook the air, however, causing him to look up with widening eyes.
They were there, the shimmer in the air surrounding the combat units visible as the smoke cleared. The screaming and panic intensified as the press forced even closer, pushing the soldiers back.
“Keep them off the platform or no one is getting out! They’ll scramble the system!”
The old man didn’t know who had shouted it, might even have been him in all the excitement, but he knew it was true.
The transport system was based off tech that he’d helped figure out, in the initial phase at least, and while he had no clue how it worked in detail, he had spent enough times explaining it to the brass like he was talking to kindergartners to know that if the system was compromised, no one would get out.
Indecision gripped him then, as it had many times in his life.
He liked to think that he was a good person, who reacted appropriately to stress, and in many ways he did.
He didn’t panic, he never had in his life, he just went cold.
Normally, though, in his cold calculations he just kept running the scenarios over and over in his head, never coming to a decision until it was often a moot point entirely.
Not now.
Without thinking, he stepped off the platform, grabbing the woman and child and shoving them up in his place.
“Sir!”
“I’m an old man,” He yelled back over the noise. “Got a few more years in me at most, and you know it kid. Give the future to the young! They weigh less than I do combined, get as many out as you can!.”
With that, he turned his back on the yelling soldier and started pushing his way forward. Passing a guard post he snagged up a rifle and checked it was loaded, smiling as he did. He knew how to use one, but never had needed to in his life.
This seemed like a good time for the first time. He grabbed a couple magazines and began to move away from the checkpoint.
“One side!” He yelled as he pointed the barrel at the ceiling and kept moving forward.
Soldiers he’d seen but not really known were advancing through the crowd with him, as were others who’d managed to secure weapons… and some who hadn’t.
He stopped at a pylon, using it both for cover and to support his old body as he panted from the exertion of just moving ten or fifteen meters through the crowd.
The rifle lowered as he waved at people, screaming into the air for them to get clear of his line of fire though he doubted they could hear him.
The Sig rifle had been fixed with medium distance optics, optimized for the cavernous interior of the room they were in, and he dropped the green dot on the shimmering forms of the invaders’ combat drones.
In a moment the sound of screams was drowned out by the roar of gunfire echoing from all directions.
He could feel the reports more than hear them, nothing more than ringing was left of his hearing after just a handful of shots.
He doubted he was going to need to worry about hearing damage, though, so he kept firing.
Beam fire raged across the room, burning down people as they tried to run with nowhere to go. Dozens fell ablaze, cut in half and lit aflame in the same moment, as their blood was vaporized and tore the flesh containing it as it exploded out from within in gory steam explosions.
He ducked as a beam scored the pylon he had covered behind, but continued to fire from his knees without knowing for sure if he was hitting anything.
Some of the drones were struck, though, and staggered and fell in response to the fusillade of rounds hammering into them. He took that as a sign to keep shooting until the rifle locked open, then struggled to reload with fumbling motions.
Thank god for engineers and the maintenance people who keep them honest, He thought as he easily found the magazine catch and let the metal box clatter to the ground. The new one seated easily enough, until the slide tried to load the first round and jammed.
Cursing he yanked the slide back, rapping the magazine hard on the base the way he’d been told over and over by trainers, and tried again. This time it locked closed, loading a round and he aimed his weapon again.
The old man’s eyes widened as he realized that the enemy had advanced rapidly while he was reloading and one was only meters away.
Reflexively he jerked at the trigger, throwing off his aim but at the range involved it didn’t matter. Round after round slammed into the advancing drone, sending shards flying as the shielding was penetrated. It rushed forward, though, charging into him and the pylon.
The cement cracked as he was thrown to the ground, the rifle clattering away from his tired old hands.
He thought about scrambling around for it, but knew as the thing got back into motion that he would never make it.
Instead he spat at it and smiled.
“You lot better hope that hell doesn’t exist, because if it does… We’ll all be waiting for you.”
He screamed the last as the thing charged him, grunting as he was lifting into the air. A wrenching, ripping, feeling tore through him as the world began to tunnel into blackness. He was falling, but somehow he never felt himself land.
Good luck kiddos. It's all on you now… I’m so fucking sorry for the mess we left for you.
It all went… black.
*****
“Sebastian, better wake up! The bus will be here soon.”
He opened his eyes, blinking, confused. Darting his glance from one side of the room to the other as he considered the bed he was in.
It was a single, and old. He could feel the springs poking at him as he lay there. Slowly he lifted a hand, looking at it in unadulterated confusion for a long moment in time.
No liver spots, no wrinkles, and somehow a lot smaller than he remembered it being.
Turning his head to one side he spotted a tiny end table that was doubling as a desk, some school books and a pencil case were there along with a calendar that had crossed off dates.
The next one was instead circled, with a note saying last day!.
It read June twenty third, nineteen eighty six.
The door opened.
“Seb! Come on,” The woman who’d opened it chastised him as he felt his heart clench at seeing her for the first time in decades. “You’re going to be late for school.”
Sebastian Parker swallowed, nodding his head mechanically.
“I’m getting up, mom.”
She looked at him oddly, but nodded and stepped out.
He got up slowly, taking in his scrawny body as his mind tried desperately to understand any of what he was seeing.
What. The. Hell?
*****