Breeze Corinth (Book 1): Sky Shatter (45 page)

“But I just heard someone call my name,” he said and looked down at the pool again. The water glowed even brighter, and in a flash, he was sucked in and sent plummeting to the bottom.

He thrashed around as he struggled to get his bearings. He looked up at the surface and could see Sally leaning over and looking down at him, yet she made no effort to jump in and help. The sound of static began to build as unfamiliar images of people and places whirled about him like a tornado when a hand clamped onto his shoulder. He turned to look with a feeling of dread.

It was Sally, kneeling down beside him. “What’s the matter with you? You stuck your hand in the pool then you went zombie on me.”

Breeze looked down at his arm. It was slightly discolored and pale, and he could feel a tingling sensation course through it.

“I got dragged into the pool. Didn’t you see?”

“No, you kneeled the whole time swishing your arm in the water and mumbling.”

“Sally, I fell in and sank to the bottom. I looked up and you just sat there, it was like you didn’t want to help.”

“Breeze, I would always reach out to help you,” she said and held his hands.

He leaned in and kissed her. She was taken by surprise, but didn’t resist.

He pushed her away. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…I’m sorry.”

She frowned at him. “It’s okay. Really.”

“Let’s get out of here. I really want to see what’s going on in that barn,” he said. He stood up and held out a hand to her.

Sally tried to hide her disappointment as he helped her up. Together they went up the steps and out of the cellar where they immediately began to shiver upon contact with the cold air. Breeze led Sally to a corner of the house and pointed at the barn. She nodded and followed him as they trudged across the dew-covered grass to get to it.

When they arrived, they saw that the doors were wide open and voices could be coming from deep inside.

“Who’s in there?” Sally whispered as they leaned against the door and peeked in.

“I can definitely hear Achilles, and I think Raza is in there too,” Breeze said as he cautiously stepped inside.

“Breeze!” Sally hissed.

He beckoned to her. “Come on, it’s okay. I want to hear what they’re saying.”

They crept deeper into the barn. The stray bits of hay strewn across the dirt floor muffled their footsteps, and they stuck to the shadows cast by the overhead lights that were strung along the length of the barn. Ahead, the voices became clearer.

“…I wandered the land along the length of the eastern seaboard and documented the range of destruction that I found. Entire cities had been emptied, yet the rural areas were overrun with refugees. The level of despair and hopelessness that seemed to emanate from these people was overwhelming. It did not help that I was a robot, for upon my arrival at any village, I would be attacked immediately. And I have personally witnessed paranormals being savaged by mobs, sometimes even put to the flame.”

“That is horrible, Achilles,” they heard Raza reply somberly.

A whir of servos was followed by the sound of a heavy tool dropping onto a workbench. Then Achilles responded. “Paranormals went from being the champions of the people to pariahs to be feared, hated and destroyed. This unit, in all of its years of service at Perihelion and standing side by side with the Helios, never could compute such a scenario coming to fruition.”

“So how did you come to Mount Pleasant?” Raza asked.

“I remembered how you spoke of it in the past very lovingly, and in great detail, but to ascertain its location was quite difficult. Like Perihelion, it seems to be cloaked. It took several attempts to eventually locate the path that would allow me to slip past the fog. Upon arrival, it lived up to its reputation as a refuge for… how can this humble robot word this diplomatically… interesting people.”

Raza laughed and clapped her hands.

“It is good to hear laughter again. It is a human trait I have always admired,” Achilles said.

Breeze whispered to Sally. “Let’s get closer. There is a stall across from us with its door open, we can hide in there.”

“We can hear them just fine from here,” Sally whispered back.

Breeze shook his head, grabbed her hand and towed her behind him where they snuck into the empty stall and peered out. They could see Achilles making adjustments to a comm unit as Raza sat in a chair.

“Confession, mistress,” Achilles stopped and turned to her, “please do not descend into anger at the words that I will speak, but I had concluded long ago that you must have perished. So much time had passed since my dismissal from Perihelion to the day of my arrival here. I did not expect that you would be among the living, and was elated to discover that you had not perished.”

“I don’t know how much human emotion you comprehend Achilles, but I will tell you that my desire to see my daughter again is what has kept me alive for so long.”

“Nina. Yes. You did mention her. Please tell more.”

She took a sip of tea from her cup, and then carefully placed it on a saucer. The skin of her hands and arms glistened from the glow of the overhead lights as she ran her fingers through her long hair, and then piled it into a bun.

Sally pulled Breeze closer to her and whispered. “She keeps looking younger and younger all the time.”

Raza continued. “The pregnancy was difficult, and the birth was almost perilous. Not only for my daughter, but myself as well, but we made it through.”

“Those must have been joyous times for both you and Oslo. Forgive me mistress for the inquiry, but Oslo is the father, yes?”

Raza smiled and nodded. “You can ask me anything, and yes, he is. You are right, it was a joyous time for us all. Amidst the chaos that was consuming the world, we had our little slice of heaven. If only for a brief time,” she sniffled.

“But, Nina was a sickly child who required constant medical treatment. Then, Perihelion was given the order from up high to decommission. Essential personnel were leaving to be with their families as nobody wanted to stick around and toil under the boot of the new Elephim regime. Oslo, the good man that he is, tried his best to rally everyone to stay and fight back against the regime, but only a dedicated few answered the call. We did our best to track down and save other paranormal children from across the world, but it was too late. The days of the Helios as champions of Earth and her colonies were over. It was time to accept the new era that descended upon us like a dark cloud.”

She burst into tears, and then quickly composed herself. “I argued with Oslo for the longest time that we also needed to leave. He wanted us to go to Scandinavia, but I convinced him it would be safer in Appalachia. We arrived here and for a brief time, we were happy. But then Nina took a turn for the worse.” Raza leaned back in her chair and took in a deep breath. Her voice trembled when she spoke again. “She…began to age, and rapidly. One day she was fine, then in a blink of an eye the child would age several years. There were frightening times when she would become old and shriveled, and then miraculously she would revert to her normal age, but then continue reverting to an infant. It was-,” her voice cracked as she stopped to suppress a sob, ”—horrible.”

Achilles gently placed a hand on her shoulder and she patted it. “We were in despair as there were no medical facilities here that could treat her. We had long grown accustomed to the state-of-the-art equipment at Perihelion, and realized only too late we should have brought with us at least a few machines. By then we had to confront the knowledge that we were helpless.”

Achilles sat down on a metal stool. Its eyes glowed as it put its hands together and listened intently.

She continued. “Oslo theorized that because Nina was conceived and born on Perihelion, her inner clock was tuned to the island, and because the island was slightly out of step with the rest of the planet, so was she. Removing her from the island was catastrophic, and we needed to go back, he said. I disagreed and we fought bitterly. It almost broke us apart. Then she had another one of her attacks. She aged rapidly before our eyes and just about withered and died. I gave in and we decided to take our shuttlecraft back to Perihelion. That’s when it happened.”

Raza shook her head and was silent as tears streamed down her cheeks. When she spoke, it was in a hushed tone. “We packed for our trip back to the island while Nina was bedridden and screaming in pain, then we gathered our belongings and loaded the shuttle, not unlike the one the younglings arrived on. For all I know, it could be the same one, as you are aware of Oslo’s penchant for holding on to old pieces of junk,” she smiled weakly through her tears.

Achilles chuckled and tapped its chest. “Do I.”

“We barely made it to the coastline when we were attacked. The ship’s sirens were wailing and we were losing power. We barely landed and we huddled inside, not sure what to do. We didn’t even know what hit us. Then, that’s when I saw it.”

Achilles’ eyes glowed brighter as Raza shifted in her seat.

“I peered out into the darkness from the cockpit while Oslo was busy punching in commands into the console, trying to get the ship up and running again, when I saw a figure step out from the tree line and stride across the open field toward us. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me as in the midst of the hysteria and madness of everything happening around us I could have been hallucinating, but to this day I could never get over how…confident it appeared. It was as if it did not care nor possess a hint of fear in the world. It was covered head to toe in black and then there was that sound, a crackling…,”

“A hissing noise perhaps, mistress, similar to what is emitted from electronic equipment?” Achilles offered.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“I have dealt with these nefarious ones, the Elephim, many times in the past,” Achilles replied.

She shook her head. “It was relentless. Was it human? It may have looked like one, but it seemed so mechanical in its behavior. I screamed at Oslo and pointed it out to him. He cursed mightily and activated the ship’s weapons, but nothing seemed to have any impact on it. It either absorbed our energy weapons, or merely sidestepped them while never once breaking its stride. It walked up to the ship and forced open the cargo door where I rushed over to meet it head on. I was so fearful for our lives, Nina’s life especially, that is seemed to give me the energy I needed to defend us. That is when I came face to face with it.”

She stood up abruptly and walked toward the stall where Breeze and Sally were hiding.

Breeze pulled Sally close and made a hushing gesture by placing a finger to his lips.

Raza stood by the stall, and then turned to Achilles. “The noise that emanated from it was disconcerting to say the least, and I could barely concentrate. Its body and face were jet black and it just stared at me, even cocked its head like a little dog, as if I was something that amused it. I flew into a telekinetic rage, and threw everything that wasn’t bolted down in the ship at it and sent it flying out the door, then charged after this monster that had attacked my family.”

Achilles shifted on its stool and the metal creaked and echoed through the frosty air of the barn.

“Oslo rushed out to help me. He had set the automatic weapons systems to track it and fire, but they barely had any effect. He then displaced the space time field around the creature to disrupt and frustrate it while I hit it with telekinetic blasts. It didn’t matter, it kept charging us. All the while that damn hissing noise became overwhelming. But within that noise I picked out what seemed to be,” she shook her head, “a broadcast, like it was transmitting what it was experiencing to others of its kind. Then I realized it was also signaling for its companions to come and help secure the package it was seeking.”

Achilles’ eyes glowed. “Heavens no, mistress. Do not say it was seeking—”

“Nina. It wanted Nina. I could see and hear it clear as day. It also knew that I could read its thoughts, and yet it didn’t seem to care that I knew of its real objective which was to kill Oslo and I, destroy the ship, and take my daughter away to some awful place far, far away,” she said, then drew a deep breath while struggling to compose herself.

Inside the stall, Sally buried her head into Breeze’s chest. He held her close as the air around them began to shimmer.

Raza continued her story. “I can remember screaming at Oslo to get back into the ship and get it working again, and then I charged at the Elephim with the rage of a mother grizzly defending her cubs. Oh, what a sight I must have been, a petite country girl assaulting a horrible creature from the depths of some unknown hell. I tell you now Achilles, so you can record this moment and broadcast it for future generations, that I threw all of my power at it. I uprooted trees and flung them, while boulders that were firmly lodged in the mountains came flying at it like missiles. It would not have my daughter, I would rather die than to let that happen.”

Raza shuffled back to her chair and gripped the headrest. “I thought I had defeated it, but it was relentless, and soon it was marching right toward me as if I had done nothing. I could feel myself becoming weaker by the moment, as if my very essence was not only being ripped out of me, but extinguished. I was nothing more to it than a candle whose flame was to be snuffed out. Then I caught a flash of light from the corner of my eye. It was the ship. Oslo had brought her back to life. I could clearly see him silhouetted in the cargo door, frantically waving and yelling at me to get in. But deep down inside I knew if Nina were to survive, I had to stay behind.”

She crumpled into her seat and looked down at her hands. “I reached out to Oslo with my mind and told him to go. Save yourself, save our daughter, I said to him. I will catch up with you, I assured him, though we both knew I didn’t have a chance. I then threw a telekinetic shield around the creature and anchored myself to the ground. I wouldn’t let it get to the ship, I just wouldn’t. I could hear the whine of the engines above the creature’s howls of rage that its quarry was escaping. I turned to watch as the ship flew into the looming darkness and dashed toward the coast. Oh, was that Elephim mad at me. It bucked and kicked inside its prison until it finally wore me out and broke free. I laid on the ground near death from the strain as it hovered over me. There was a swirling of…stars, across its face, and for a moment I swear I saw a human face looking at me with a look of confusion and despair. But it was all so brief. And then it was gone. Like my daughter. Gone.”