Haven (The Last Humans Book 3) (12 page)

I
t’s not just
the face of this thing that’s mine.

This giant is exactly like me, only double the size and still growing. He has wings like mine and his muscles are the same, but on a larger scale. When he roars in anger, it’s my voice I hear, only it’s deeper due to his much bigger vocal cords.

“Seriously, Phoe, you better have answers,” I say out loud, abandoning all subtlety. There’s nothing in the memories I have access to that can explain this warped copy of me.

The giant grows another foot in the time it takes me to run down half a floor.

“Remember when I told you about the anti-intrusion algorithm in the Test?” Phoe’s thought cuts through my fog of confusion.

“Yeah.”

“And remember how Davin started talking about one back in the sky room? Well, this is it. The Haven anti-intrusion algorithm was disabled long ago, but it looks like the Circle got scared enough to enable it again.”

External memories provide me with more clues. I recall a frantic conversation between the Circle members from multiple points of view, including Wayne’s.

“I’ve Limbofied more members of the Circle already,” Phoe says, explaining the memories. “And in case it isn’t obvious, when I collect their memories, I provide you with access to them.”

Ignoring Phoe, I focus on Wayne’s memories. He was afraid of this solution. He screamed at Davin not to activate it, saying, “We’ve already seen what your solutions can accomplish.” In the end, however, Wayne was in the minority.

I shake my head to clear my mind. Getting lost in these memories is dangerous.

I look through the window. The giant—I decide he’s now a Giant with a capital G—grew another couple of feet while I was daydreaming.

Wayne was right to be afraid of this thing. The Giant is grabbing Forebears out of the air, throwing them on the ground, and stomping them to death—or into Limbo.

His victims’ memories flood into my head, and I experience the giant foot crushing every bone in their bodies. I block out the memories and focus on the positive.

This gives Phoe more resources.

Soon, though, the knowledge that the Giant is inadvertently helping us doesn’t make me feel any better about the collateral casualties. It’s too macabre to watch a giant version of myself stepping on people as though they were ants—especially since the Giant is supposed to be on their side.

“Why is it doing that? Why is it killing the Forebears?” I ask Phoe as I put another staircase behind me.

“The anti-intrusion algorithm isn’t very intelligent, and from its perspective, the Forebears are as much of a threat to Haven, as it was originally intended to be, as we are,” Phoe explains.

A dozen Phoes come into view; they probably originated in this building, but they’re now heading toward the giant creature.

I get another wave of flashbacks of the Phoes Limbofying legions of Guardians.

“Why does the Giant look like me?” I think at Phoe, trying my best to push away the memories of the carnage.

“It looks like you because it managed to access
me,
or rather a chunk of my newly gained resources. It then decided to make itself look like someone I care about in the hope that it would cause me to hesitate as I fight it.” Phoe’s mental voice sounds as if she’s gritting her teeth. “It was a strategic mistake to access me, however. When it did, it revealed some of the ways it can control its environment. I’m going to see if I can turn that ability to my advantage.”

For a second, I feel warm and fuzzy again at being referred to as someone Phoe cares about, but the pleasant feeling doesn’t last. Large swords show up in the hands of the Phoes as they charge at the Giant.

As they get closer to the Giant, their swords spark with electricity that’s every color of the rainbow.

I can’t help but notice that she/they are
not
too sentimental about attacking someone who looks like me. Not that the Giant looks much like me now. I’ve never seen such a frightening scowl on my face.

The Giant roars, looks down at the approaching Phoes, grabs one of the ancient oaks, and uproots it as if it were a tiny shrub. Armed with the tree, the Giant runs his hand over the green branches, ripping them off and turning the oak into a makeshift club.

“You need to hurry out of that building.” Phoe’s thought arrives as a bunch of her copies attack the Giant.

Two Phoes pierce his feet with their swords, while another two lodge their weapons into his side.

Their swords might as well be needles for all the damage they do to the angry Giant.

Unscathed by the attacks, the colossal creature swings his club to his right, causing two of the Phoes to fly into the screaming crowd of armed and frightened Forebears. As the Phoes fly, they swing their swords, Limbofying people in their paths. I’m not sure if they did it to gain more resources or to stop their uncontrolled flights, but the mob screams so loudly that I can hear them through the windows.

The Giant grabs a Phoe and a random stranger from the crowd and slams their heads together so violently that they instantly Limbofy.

Instantly, the Giant grows bigger by at least a couple of feet.

“Phoe,” I say frantically. “Are you okay? Are there more of you?”

“There are many of me, yes,” she replies. “Don’t worry about me. Get to the lobby.”

One of the Phoes is standing her ground against the Giant, who now towers over the building’s fourth floor.

Phoe raises her arms to the sky in a strange gesture and screams something so loudly that the stairs below my feet vibrate.

In the time it takes me to cover another floor, nothing happens outside. The Giant is trying to stomp on Phoe, but she dodges his massive feet.

Then flocks of birds and herds of animals rush at the Giant from every direction.

I keep descending the stairs. More and more birds come forth. It looks like these birds are flying through the Sanctum’s gateway from every island in Haven. The second I think about it, I get flooded with centuries of ornithological knowledge, which I quickly suppress.

The animals are from the local zoos. The memories supply me with details on the species and personalities of each one. There aren’t as many animals as there are birds, but what they lack in quantity, they make up in viciousness. There are many dangerous species, ranging from silverback gorillas to grizzly bears.

I think I understand what’s happening. Somehow, Phoe influenced all these creatures to attack my immense doppelganger; like that Disney princess, she summoned all this nature to her will. She must be flexing her abilities to manipulate the world around us.

The birds keep coming, nearly blotting out the sky and plunging the already-depressing-looking Sanctum into a morose darkness.

My enhanced eyesight must also include night vision, because I have no trouble seeing a ginormous flock of crows pecking at the Giant’s eyes—eyes that are now the size of swimming pools. An even bigger flock of white birds—herons, I think—are pecking at his shoulders.

On the ground, a team of elephants and hippos are intent on tripping the Giant. They’re ramming into his legs over and over.

The Giant roars. The sound is so savage that I break into a sweat.

The Giant swats at the crows, then opens his cavern-like mouth and sucks in air.

The two flocks of birds disappear in his maw.

With nothing pecking at his eyes, the Giant stands there, taking the rest of the abuse in stride. But I soon understand his real strategy—if I can even call it that. He’s simply growing much faster, meaning that the animals are becoming a smaller nuisance, literally.

Once he considers himself big enough, the Giant starts walking. His steps shake the ground beneath my feet and rattle the windows.

As he walks, he leaves a trail of dead animals and birds behind. If a Forebear is too slow to get out of his way, he or she is instantly Limbofied.

After a handful of steps, his destination becomes clear, and my insides fill with lead.

“No,” I think in desperation. “He can’t be planning what I think he’s planning.”

Phoe doesn’t reply, but it’s obvious now.

He’s walking toward me.

I practically plunge downward.

I’m only five floors up from the lobby. If I make it there, I should be able to escape. Once I’m outside, I’ll be too small for him to zone in on.

He gets closer.

I cover another twelve steps.

He reaches for the Spike building with his stadium-sized hand, grabbing it somewhere in the middle, and I realize he wasn’t coming after me.

He was grabbing a weapon to swat at the birds with.

Unfortunately for me and everyone else in this building, the weapon he chose is the building itself.

I suck in a breath and grab on to the rails with all my might.

The noise that follows is how I always pictured the sound of the world ending. There’s an unholy screech of metal bending and breaking, and the ripping noise of concrete getting pulverized into sand.

The building shudders violently, and the floor becomes the ceiling, then quickly becomes the wall, and then the twirling repeats over and over again, in a rollercoaster-like fury. My hands clutch the rails in a claw-like grip, but I know I won’t be able to hold on like this for long.

A barrage of memories hits me—memories of people’s last moments. Moments when they cracked their heads against a wall, the floor, the ceiling. It’s too much to take, especially since that’s the fate I’m about to meet.

“Can you disable the memories?” I beg Phoe. “I don’t need to see any more death.”

The memories stop, but the tumbling only gets stronger, nauseating me.

Through the window, I see glimpses of the ground, then the sky.

The animals down below are all but dead; the same goes for anyone unlucky enough to fall under the Giant’s football-field-sized feet.

Dead birds splatter all over the windows as well. The Giant is already doing what I thought it might—using the Spike building as a club.

At one point, through my nausea, I get a glimpse of a lonesome Phoe, standing behind the Giant and raising her arms to the sky. It could be a trick of my spinning mind, but I think she’s growing like the Giant did.

Suddenly, the Giant jerks the building, and my hands are ripped away from the rails.

My body shoots forward—which, strictly speaking, should have been downward. My shoulder makes a crunching sound as it hits the metal staircase; then the building around me rotates again, and my lower back slams into the railing. My whole body goes numb.

When the sparks in my eyes clear up, I confirm that Phoe is growing into a second giant figure, and she’s large enough to fight the Giant-Theo-algorithm thing.

I spit out a tooth and try to fly, but my body doesn’t respond.

Either my wings are broken or my back is.

Through the window, I see Giant-Phoe getting closer and realize why.

The Giant is about to hit her with the building.

When the blow connects, everything around me shudders, and my head smashes into the window.

The world instantly goes away.

G
roggily
, I regain consciousness. The first thing I hear is Phoe’s booming voice, which I think is saying something along the lines of, “I healed your body, Theo. Now get out of there.”

Opening my eyes, I see that the window in front of me is broken. I doubt it was my head that broke it, but I’m sure it contributed.

Given how hard I hit my head and my memories of broken bones and broken back, I feel surprisingly good. But I don’t have time to sit here and introspect. The building is still in the hands of the Giant.

Tensing all over, I unfold my wings and fly out of the window, doing my best not to cut myself on the shards of broken glass.

As soon as I clear the window, the skyscraper slams into something huge. The sound wave rolls over me, throwing me away from the impact.

I beat my wings frantically and try to remember what happened before I blacked out. There was some hope, I think, but I’m fuzzy on what it was.

I chance a look back and can’t believe my eyes.

This is what I almost forgot.

There are two giants: a giant Theo and a smaller, but still giant Phoe.

The Theo-Giant smacks the Phoe-Giant with the building so hard that she flies backward, her wings and arms flailing.

Her back hits the Sanctum’s dome, and the world goes silent.

Then the sound wave hits me again, knocking me off my path.

I flap my wings desperately to regain altitude, and once I’m flying straight again, I look back.

Phoe’s body slamming into the dome cracked the diamond shell. With the sound of planet-sized nails scratching against a galaxy-sized chalkboard, the dome breaks apart.

I dodge the first piece, then the next.

The falling debris knocks down the Forebears around me, and then, like hail from a world-ending hurricane, the rest of the dome comes crashing down.

I watch in fascinated horror as the Forebears get their heads bashed in by pieces of the broken dome. Screams blend into a cacophony of sound that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. I’m grateful the memories of those dying people aren’t slamming into my brain. If Phoe hadn’t disabled them, I would be on the ground, clutching my head.

As I dodge another diamond the size of my body, I realize that my throat is burning from screaming—which I’ve been doing just like everyone else.

Swerving around more debris, I try to make my way out of the war zone that the Sanctum has become.

In the distance, I see Giant-Phoe seemingly recover from that monumental crash into the dome. She spreads her wings and launches herself at Giant-Theo, her five-feet-wide jaw tense with determination.

Giant-Theo throws the building at her. She dodges, and the Spike building flies toward one of the islands that orbit the Sanctum. It collides with the island, instantly turning into metal and glass dust. I congratulate myself for getting out of the building before that happened.

Giant-Phoe flies at the Giant with her fist raised, but he evades the punch and responds with a blood-chilling roar.

He’s even taller now; they both are. It looks like the dome would’ve been a goner no matter what; if Phoe didn’t break it with her back, they would’ve outgrown it by now.

With his soccer-field-sized hand, Giant-Theo reaches for the island the building hit. The Giant is so large that the poor island looks like a rock in his hand. In a swift motion, he slams the enormous object against Phoe’s head.

The collision sounds like tectonic plates grinding against each other. The wind from the impact is tornado strong, causing me to lose altitude.

When I recover, I see Giant-Phoe on her knees, her hands cradling her head.

“Phoe,” I yell in her direction. “Are you okay?”

“Please don’t distract me,” she answers mentally. “Find Davin or Jeremiah. They’re the only members of the Circle left alive. They might know something about this anti-intrusion algorithm, plus I still haven’t figured out how to deal with the virus once we’re done here—assuming we survive, which is something I’m beginning to doubt.”

Giant-Theo reaches for another moon-like island from the sky.

I let Phoe concentrate on her battle and turn to take in the carnage around me.

That timely move saves me from getting my head bashed in by Davin’s mace. He must’ve flown behind me, planning to send me to Limbo. I duck instinctively, and the mace whooshes an inch from my earlobe.

Davin swings his second mace at my shoulder.

He looks disheveled and desperate. I guess the destruction the Giant is causing isn’t something Davin planned for. I bet he wishes he’d listened to Wayne and the others who feared this anti-intrusion algorithm would be as big of a disaster as the Jeremiah virus.

Remembering what happened in Oasis reminds me that Davin is one of the people responsible for my friends’ deaths. My mind instantly clears. It’s amazing how centering anger and hatred can be.

Summoning my right katana, I block his mace attack. His strike is hard and his weapon is heavy, almost causing the blade of my sword to bend. My joints ache from the ricochet, but I grit my teeth and try to cut him.

Davin spreads his wings wider, moving backward, away from my strike, and kicks me in the shin.

This time I feel the pain full on. Phoe no longer has the bandwidth to take the pain away, which means I really have to focus; if I’m not careful, I’ll be Limbofied.

I summon my left katana and fly backward.

Davin doesn’t chase me.

He stays beyond the reach of my weapons, waiting.

I curse myself for asking Phoe to disable my link to those memories. If I could access them, I might recall something about Davin’s fighting style.

My attention is drawn to Giant-Phoe. She’s recovered and is holding Giant-Theo in a headlock.

Suddenly, pain explodes in my shoulder.

Something, or someone, attacked me from behind.

Davin looks giddy as he leaps for me, both maces raised above his head.

I dodge his left strike and catch the right one by crossing my blades, which lessens the recoil by half.

A thunderous noise comes from the battling titans, but I don’t dare look at what caused it. Instead, I glance behind me to see who attacked me.

It’s someone with albino bat wings; he cut me with his machete. When our eyes lock, he lets out a war cry with his cello-like voice and raises the machete for a second strike.

I parry his blade with my katana, realizing that I succeeded in finding Davin and Jeremiah. Or, rather, they found me—unfortunately, both of them at the same time.

Ignoring the pain in my shoulder, I use my left sword to slice at Davin’s exposed torso while parrying Jeremiah’s machete thrust with my right.

Jeremiah swings for my midsection, and Davin nearly lands a blow to my right arm.

I make a split-second decision.

If I fight them both, I’ll lose for sure. My only chance to survive is to try something that’s beyond desperate. I kick Jeremiah in the crotch, and as he wobbles backwards, I ignore him completely and attack Davin.

Crossing my swords, I dive for him. He hits me in the chest with his right mace, and I feel a rib crack, but I don’t let that stop me. Still keeping my swords crossed, my knuckles white, I rip the blades through Davin’s neck in a smooth, continuous motion. His head separates from his body, and he Limbofies.

At that very second, Jeremiah’s machete slices through my left wrist.

I scream.

The bone in my wrist is cleaved in two, as are the tendons and ligaments. I watch in surreal terror as my hand, still clutching the fiery katana in a death grip, falls away.

I scream again.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt this kind of pain. It’s textured and nuanced in its awfulness. All the pain I’ve ever felt in my life is distilled into this one moment, and through the red haze, I hear Jeremiah say, “Now I’ll cut off your head.”

My thoughts suddenly clear, all my senses sharpening. I look at Jeremiah’s face and try to replace my agony with anger. I meditate on the anger. I taste it. I channel it. I force myself to remember how powerless I felt when my friends were dying in Oasis. I remind myself that it was all Jeremiah’s fault. His mind drove that horrid virus and allowed it to disable the life support systems on the ship.

The grisly mantra works.

The pain recedes, and determination settles into my mind.

Through the white mist of hatred in my eyes, I see Jeremiah swinging the machete at my neck.

I lean back sharply, causing him to miss.

He screams and swings the machete at my left shoulder.

I block the strike with my sword, and in an unbroken trajectory, I slice at his temple.

There’s a line of blood across Jeremiah’s face and fear in his eyes, but I’m in too much of a stupor to gloat.

I’m feeling weaker by the minute.

Then it dawns on me.

The luminescent liquid of my blood is gushing out of the remnant of my arm. If I let this continue, I’ll faint, and then I’ll lose. All Jeremiah has to do is wait, which is probably why he’s more focused on defense than offense.

No.

I won’t let him win.

I have to stop the bleeding.

I squeeze the hilt of my katana until my knuckles go from white to purple. I’m about to do something truly insane, but I don’t dwell on it. I simply touch the fire from my blade to my bleeding stump.

There’s a disgusting sizzle of burning flesh, and a terrible barbecue smell hits my nose.

The fountain of blood slows to a trickle and then stops.

Unbelievably, I don’t feel any pain. I might’ve surpassed my suffering threshold—or perhaps Haven’s interface only allows for so much.

Jeremiah looks at me in confounded fascination. I guess he didn’t expect me to hurt myself so badly.

Then a wave of searing pain hits me. I was wrong. The Haven interface does allow me to feel the burn; the pain was just slow to register in my battle-weary brain.

The agony threatens to take away my consciousness, but I fight to stay awake. If I black out for even an instant, Jeremiah will make sure I never come back to my senses.

Through the wetness blurring my vision, I see Jeremiah swing the machete at my leg.

I fly up, causing him to miss, and swing my sword at his head.

I succeed in chopping off a chunk of Jeremiah’s hair and scalp, and the flame of my blade sets his remaining hair on fire.

He screams, patting at his head to put out the flames, and I use that moment to raise my sword and deliver another wound to his left shoulder.

Fear and pain seem to give Jeremiah a second wind. A horrific cry escapes his throat, and he swings his machete at me like some kind of ancient berserker.

I’m forced to go on the defensive, my arm getting progressively numb as I block his next five strikes.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that in the distance, Giant-Phoe’s enormous teeth are ripping at Giant-Theo’s towering neck. The two bodies are locked in a deadly embrace, but her bite seems to be turning the tide. Giant-Theo falls to the ground, toppling Forebears in his wake. A huge piece of the Giant’s flesh is caught in Giant-Phoe’s teeth, and the rest of him breaks into the largest Limbofication Haven has ever seen.

I pay for my distraction with my ear, which Jeremiah’s machete hacks off.

I don’t even register this new wave of pain, but the sight of my blood seems to give Jeremiah renewed energy, and he launches into another round of berserker attacks.

Blocking his strikes is getting difficult. I don’t think I can last much longer.

Out of sheer desperation, instead of blocking the next machete strike with my sword, I meet it with the stump of my left arm.

The machete cuts deep into the charred flesh and bone.

The pain doesn’t hit me right away, but I know it’s on its way.

I thrust my katana forward.

“Wait, Theo,” Phoe says in my head just as I bury my sword in Jeremiah’s belly. “Don’t—”

Whatever she was going to tell me, she’s too late.

I press my sword deeper into Jeremiah, and he Limbofies.

Seeing him turn into those pixelated pieces is the most welcome sight.

Then the pain from my arm reaches my brain, and the world goes black.