Genetic Drift (27 page)

DAY 287

THE THREE MEN

TERRAFORMER

As Marcus rushed into the interface room, he spotted Ben and immediately ran for him.  He noticed the red sleeved Trolls and rushed by them.  He slowed enough to grab Ben by the arm and pull him.  “They’re here, we’re under attack,” he hollered.  The announcement caused everyone to start moving.

“Hope, take those Trolls with you and let them know that this is life or death,” Ben shouted.  He turned to follow Marcus and looked toward Ethen.  “Come with us,” he told Ethen as he ran past.  Marcus was heading straight for the laboratory and Ben knew that it would be as good a place as any to defend themselves against the Trolls and their orbitizers since it was at least familiar.  Ethen sprinted behind Marcus and Ben.  He stopped on the stairwell.

“Do you want to go up?” he yelled to Ben.

“No,” Ben yelled back, “we don’t know what’s up there.”

Ethen ran down the stairs to catch up with Marcus and Ben.  He reached the door and entered the laboratory.  He found the nearest undamaged vat and took cover behind it.  Ethen looked for Marcus and Ben but could not see either of them.  His attention diverted to the front of the room when he heard a clank in the distance.  His eyes scanned between every vat as he tried to identify the source of the sound.  He quietly moved from one vat to the next, carefully avoiding being seen.

Ben was crouched behind Marcus.  They had heard the clank as well.  They had taken position on the wall opposite of Ethen.  Marcus looked toward the entrance and spotted a Troll.  Ben tapped him on his shoulder.  “It doesn’t have any red on its arms.  It’s not with us,” Ben whispered.  Marcus nodded his head in understanding and moved toward the Troll, keeping low so he wasn’t seen.

The Troll didn’t notice Marcus as it walked down an aisle of vats.  Quietly, Marcus crept to an empty tank next to the blue hued Troll.  Ben was close behind and placed himself next to an adjacent vat.  When the Troll looked in the opposite direction, Marcus seized his opportunity.  He jumped from cover and began to shoot the Troll.  Ben, matching Marcus’ initiative, jumped into the aisle behind the Troll and began firing as well.  The Troll had no time to react as the bullets collided with its head.

The Troll began to unload its orbitizer as it tried to stop the onslaught.  It shot wildly and the blue orbs flew in a flurry.  Some of the orbs were absorbed by the wall and the others met with the vats creating holes where glass used to be.  The Troll started to collapse and ceased its orbitizer fire.  The core was blackened and depleted as the Troll hit the ground.

Ethen saw the shots from the orbitizer and once they stopped, he rushed to the Troll.  With his gun ready to fire, he saw movement and aimed his shot.  Marcus had walked over to the Troll and stood over it.  Ethen dropped his arm and went to the Troll.  He saw the Troll start its regeneration process and shot at its head until it stopped recovering.  “How many of those things did you see?” Ben asked Marcus.

“Ten, maybe twelve, and one was riding that blue beast,” Marcus said.

“Well, that’s one down,” Ben noted.

“It’s actually three,” Quill added, breathing heavy with his blade in his hand as he emerged from behind the door.

“I never thought I would say this but I’m glad you’re here,” Marcus greeted Quill.

“It’s all clear out here.  I think the others went outside,” Quill said, waving the others to follow him.

Ben was the first to meet Quill.  He put his hand on his shoulder and gave him an approving grin.  Marcus and Ethen took a few seconds longer to get to Quill.  “So we killed three of them, we have nine more to go, max,” Ethen said.  Quill looked at him.  He sheathed his blade and started counting on his fingers. 

“I thought you were talking about how many we killed.  There are five more dead outside of that inter…thing room because of your Troll buddies and one more died down near the lounge,” Quill informed them.  Ethen was thinking how nice it would be to actually be relaxing in a lounge.  His mind came back to fighting the Trolls.

“That means three left,” Ethen told everyone the count. 

“And one big monster,” Marcus added.

“We can stand here and talk about it or we can go find the others,” Ben said to refocus the others on their task.  He didn’t wait for a response and started down the hall.  Quill fell in behind Marcus and Ethen as they followed Ben.  The path was unobstructed and Ben made the turn for the exterior door.  He moved quicker knowing that there were only a few Trolls left.  Through the patches of light and darkness, Ben made his way toward the daylight.  Instead of jumping out to the ramp, he slowed to see what was waiting for them outside.

He looked through the door and saw one Troll mounted on the blue beast as Marcus had said.  He continued his count.  Two, three, four Trolls.  He looked closer at the Trolls, realizing he had just counted one too many.  Then he noticed a Troll holding Maddie.  It had red cordon sleeves.  That was the problem.  It was not fighting with them.  He saw another Troll holding Jay and one standing behind Hope.  Barron was out there as well but not as a hostage.  He was aiming an orbitizer at Hope.

Marcus had the same view as Ben.  “This isn’t the way things are going to go down,” he said.  He raised his gun and started to fire on the Troll holding Maddie.  The Troll released her to shield itself with its hands.  Barron trained his gun on the terraformer and began to shoot.  The Crossbearer made way for the door as the Troll mounted on it began to fire. 

“Fall back, fall back,” Ben yelled.

The Crossbearer neared the ramp.  Barron saw that it was going to take care of the would-be attackers.  He turned to aim at Hope again but was met by Maddie in his spin.  She tried to grab the orbitizer but the red sleeved Troll pulled her away, leaving it just out of her grasp.

Barron aimed at Hope once again.  The core of the orbitizer began to glow blue as he readied to fire.

“NOOOOOOOOOO,” Maddie screamed.

DAY 287

HUMAN VS NANOCYTE

TERRAFORMER

Ethen, Marcus, and Ben ran down the hall.  Quill was nowhere in sight.  Ethen didn’t bother to look back or around. He was so focused on getting to the end of the hall that nothing was going to distract him.  They all knew that the Crossbearer would kill them if it caught up to them. 
Tink, tink, tink,
the sound of its knifed feet meeting metal echoed down the hall.

A hum went past Ben’s head as a blue orb flew by and was absorbed by the wall.  Ben looked back to see how close the monster was.  Another shot came from its direction and dissipated as it hit the floor behind him.  Marcus was less concerned with what was behind him.  He was trying to catch up to Ethen.

Ben tried to catch up to Marcus but he wasn’t fast enough to shorten the distance.  Marcus got further away and Ben looked back again.  The Crossbearer was catching up to him.  He clenched his jaw and pushed his legs as fast as they could go. 

Tink, tink, tink
, the sound was getting faster and louder no matter how fast Ben ran.  Ethen made it to the end of the hall and turned toward the laboratory.  Marcus was only a few steps behind and he zoomed in the same direction.  Ben watched as Marcus and Ethen darted out of view.  The end of the hall seemed like an eternity.

Ben was nearing the end of the hall when he tripped on his own feet.  The floor got closer to his face and he turned in time for his cheekbone to crack against the hard metal. 
Tink, tink, tink
, the sound was practically on him.  He turned to his side to look behind him and there was the Crossbearer. 

He watched as it slowed down to gauge his distance and then he spotted Quill.  Quill had managed to get himself up to the ceiling.  He fell from the ceiling and landed behind the Troll riding the behemoth.  With a quick slice of his blade, the Troll became headless and tipped over on its side.  The Crossbearer felt Quill’s landing and the sudden absence of the rider.  It changed its focus from Ben and tried to rid itself of the nuisance on its back.  The Crossbearer started to buck but Quill held on to its quills to avoid being thrown off.  As its neck turned its head toward Quill, Quill repositioned the blade downward in his fist.  The Crossbearer opened its mouth to attack and Quill plunged his blade into its neck.  The monster let out an awful shriek and started bucking frantically.  Quill kept his hold and jabbed repeatedly.  His last strike hit the base of the monster’s skull.  The knifed feet scraped across the floor as the Crossbearer splayed to the ground. 

Quill wiped the blue blood from his blade onto his pants and then jumped off the monster.  He walked to the side of its head and saw it trying to regenerate.  He hacked its neck until it stopped trying to heal itself.  He stared at the monster and then turned to Ben.  “That’s one more kill for me,” Quill said as he helped Ben to his feet.

“We have to help the others,” Ben said as he sprinted for the door to the outside.

“Thanks would have been nice,” Quill said as he watched Ben run toward the light.

Let us go, Rho
commanded the red sleeved Troll.

I will not.  I am doing the bidding of the queen mother.

Barron’s eyes squinted, fully focused on Hope.  Keeping his aim, he had withheld some information from Maddie that he could no longer contain.  “Your friend, Barron, his mind tried to resist this.  I was formed inside of him.  Then, his brain was slowly withdrawn from his head and I replaced him.  His pains, his worries, he begged for it to stop until he couldn’t beg anymore.  I replaced him slowly.  His anguish went away with a whisper as I was in control.  I was and am Barron.  There is no part of him in here anymore.”

“You’re going to die, I promise,” Maddie said.

“I doubt you will have the capacity to see that through,” he replied.

Barron’s mouth went silent and his muscles tensed as he started to clasp the pad. Maddie couldn’t contain the overflow of adrenaline as her legs burned to take action.  With her last act of desperation, she lunged as hard as she could to knock the orbitizer off of its intended target.  Her body separated from the Troll as she leapt with one foot from the ground and the other from the Troll’s knee.  Her metallic hand contacted the end of the barrel.  Her fingers wrapped around the exit of the muzzle.  Barron saw Maddie’s hand, smiled, and fired.  A blue orb left the core and traveled through the orbitizer.  It hit the muzzle and Maddie’s hand started to glow as it absorbed the energy from the shot. 

The Troll holding Jay let him go to help pull Maddie from the orbitizer.  Jay felt the release and instantly ran for Hope.  The blue orb wasn’t totally absorbed by Maddie’s metallic hand.  Three blue discs formed as they passed through the openings of her fingers and headed straight for Hope.  Jay reached Hope and leapt to shove her out of the line of fire.  But he was too late.  Hope’s body flew through the air from the push and the three discs cut through her back and neck, severing her spine with the three strikes.  Hope fell to the ground lifeless.  Jay felt his anger well up inside seeing Hope lay limp.  His fury turned his face red and he ran straight for Barron. 

Maddie’s hand stopped glowing and was jerked away from the orbitizer by the other Troll.  With each of her arms being individually held by a Troll, she could not move.  The Troll that was guarding Hope attempted to stop Jay’s assault.

“Did you think you could stop me?  It is as the queen mother has directed,” Barron said, victoriously waving the orbitizer.  His stance soon changed as Jay collided with him at full speed.  The orbitizer flew out of Barron’s hands and onto the ground.  Jay unleashed his anger.  His fists connected with Barron’s face and blood started to flow out.  The Troll that had guarded Hope reached Jay and pulled him off of Barron with a quick yank.

Barron wiped his face and got to his feet.  The wounds quickly healed in front of Jay and Maddie.  “You see, you can’t hurt me,” Barron said as his hand covered his face with another wipe.  When he removed his hand from his face, it looked like nothing had happened with the exception of smeared blood running down his jawline.  “Now, it’s your turn,” he told Jay.

Just as Barron spoke, bullets rang out from the terraformer.  It was Ben and he was firing at the Trolls.  The red sleeved Troll let go of Maddie’s arm and covered its body to protect itself from the gunfire.  Click, Ben was out of bullets and had to reload.  He reached into his belt and it was empty.  Gunshots came from behind him and he spun around to see Marcus and Ethen firing as his replacements.  The red sleeved Troll was shouldering the brunt of the barrage.  Quill ran out of the terraformer and went straight for the Troll holding Jay.  Marcus and Ethen marched forward as they continued firing.  The red sleeved Troll fell to the ground and the gunfire was then directed at the other Troll holding Maddie.

Quill reached the Troll with Jay and with one quick flick of his blade, he cleaved the Troll’s head from its body.  Jay, again, went straight for Barron once the Troll released its grip.

If you let go now and surrender, you might survive, Rho
told the Troll still holding Maddie.  The Troll loosened its grip on Maddie and fell immediately to the ground.  The gunfire stopped as Jay again tackled Barron to the ground.

“I want him dead,” Jay screamed as loudly as he could in Barron’s face.

Maddie, Quill, and the soldiers walked up to Jay and pulled him off of Barron.

“Let’s give him a message to deliver to the queen mother,” Maddie said.

“Use the Troll, it’s still alive.  We don’t need him,” Jay said.

Maddie paused to look down at Barron.  She opened her mouth to speak when a blue orb flew across her sight and connected with Barron’s head.  Marcus and Ethen raised their guns and Quill raised his blade.  Jay turned around to see what it was.

Hope was standing with an orbitizer in her hand and said, “Now we can have the Troll deliver the message.”  Jay ran to Hope.  She dropped the orbitizer as he approached.

“I thought you were dead,” he said, as he hugged her with all of his strength.

“
Kappa
saved me,” Hope replied, and returned Jay’s hug.

“Well, I guess there’s one thing left to do,” Maddie said as she walked to the Troll cowering on the ground.  Maddie thought to
Rho
,
“Remember, we are doing this.  We are one.”

She reached out her hand to touch the Troll. 

Rho
’s message was simple.

Rho and Maddie have survived.