The Far Dawn (5 page)

Lilly stayed persistent. “Okay,” she said, “but before we help you, you need to prove to us that you know things. Tell us something about Project Elysium.”

Peter shook his head, half smiling, and his tone shaded darker again. When he spoke like this, he looked to the side of the camera, like there was someone else there. I thought of it as his Moros voice. “Fair enough. She plays rough, very rough. I like it.” Then he shook his head and sounded more like Peter, looking at us again with war-torn eyes. “Well, what do you want to know?”

“Where are Paul and his team right now?” Lilly asked.

“That I don't know. They were in Coke-Sahel, acquiring a target, and then they headed to Desenna, but there's been nothing on them since.”

“How about the Ascending Stars?” I asked. “What do you know about that?”

“I've heard the term,” said Peter, “but it's vague. Something to do with the project, and it's definitely related to the uranium they stole, and something called Egress, but that's it.”

“This is useless,” said Lilly. “I thought you said you knew things.”

“Lilly . . .” I felt like Peter had mentioned enough key terms to prove that he knew something, or maybe I was just being too sympathetic to his nightmare situation.

“I do!” he pleaded. “How about this . . . . I know that Eden's board of directors are at a facility they call Elysium Planitia. And its coordinates are . . .” He held up his leg, and we could see that his pants were covered in writing scrawled in black ink. “Here: three point zero degrees north and one hundred fifty-four point seven degrees east. I have also heard them refer to this place as EdenHome.”

“That's something real,” I said to Lilly.

“Nothing we can verify right now,” she pointed out.

Something slammed into the door behind Peter. It bent, cracking like it might give way, and the muffled sounds of snarling returned.

“Now can you reset me?” Peter asked, his voice pleading. “And then I'll tell you more. I swear.”

“Tell us now.” Lilly kept her edge, sounding like an interrogator. And while I thought that was probably the smartest way to play this, I couldn't quite meet her there. Peter sounded genuinely scared, and I wouldn't wish his world on anyone.

“It's okay,” I said, touching her arm and raising my eyebrows. She frowned, but nodded. “We'll reset you,” I said, “as long as we have your word you'll still have information for us.”

“You have my word.” Peter's eyes locked on me. “And thank you—” The door behind him started to splinter. “I can't tell you how much.”

“Okay,” I said. “Here we go.”

I pressed the Enter button. It lit up, and the little screen started scrolling information. The cylinder began to pulse. I heard a humming sound, and looked up to see a panel sliding open above me. A searing white light shot down, blinding me.

“Yes, that's it,” said Peter/Moros again. “You're perfect. You'll do just fine.”

“What?” I asked. His voice sounded different. Closer.

“Owen . . . ?” Lilly asked distantly.

The screen stopped scrolling and words flashed:

Initiating Transfer

My vision began to blur. I blinked but felt like I was losing control of my body. There was a flash of an image in my mind, of a cramped room full of circuitry. A crack made me spin my head and I saw a chunk of the door behind me fall away, but wait, this was wrong. What I was seeing wasn't in the room with Lilly, instead it was . . .

Inside Vista.

4

“WHAT'S HAPPENING?” I ASKED. MY VOICE sounded like it was coming through a speaker.

Good luck in Vista
, said Peter, and it was no longer like I was listening to his voice, but instead like he was inside my head.
Your body will be a perfect fit.

And now I could feel the transfer happening, like I was being fragmented into tiny bits and blowing on a wind. Reality was re-forming around me, from the Vista control room to the cramped closet, while Peter downloaded back into the real world.

Stealing my body.

LILLY!
I shouted and yet I could tell it was no longer my real voice. The feel of breathing, of speaking, had become electronic. The world became a closet of controls around me, adorned with flashing lights and the sound of terrible creatures behind me, and I was a one-armed, cyberlegged boy with a chain saw and mad scribblings all over my pants legs.

Sorry,
Peter said, his voice distant now,
You were my only chance.

I spun toward the door and watched it splinter apart. There were three of those red-faced, yellow-eyed creatures, their fangs curved and hung with tattered flesh. I tried to stand but lost my balance on my cyborg leg. I stumbled, claws raked across my chest; the chain saw was heavy and I didn't know how to operate it.

No, this couldn't be happening! After all this, I couldn't die in some virtual world, a lie of an ending for my lie of a life—how could this be it? So incredibly pointless, without meaning, some random computer mutation now sinking its teeth into my thigh . . .

I swung the saw, hitting the creature in the head, its teeth tearing away as my leg exploded in pain, but another demon yanked the saw from my hand. They hissed with glee and lunged and all bit deeper. I tried to kick, but one tore my leg off in a spray of sparks.

And I screamed as the pain grew, Peter's pain becoming my pain and I was dying and dying, dying—

But then the light became white again, and the demons and the pain started to fade.

Error: Transfer Suspended.

No! What's happening?

The snarling, the pain of the closet in Vista faded and the clean light of the control room began to fill my vision. I saw the room, the red wires, the cube, and the light inside the crystal cylinder flashing red.

“Owen!” Lilly called.

Recipient Contains Mental Pathway Corruption.

Unsuitable for Transfer.

Action Terminated.

“No!”

Peter's voice was outside my head again. And I was me.

I fell back to the floor, a searing pain surging through my skull. I blinked, and found Lilly kneeling over me.

“Are you okay?”

“No! Help me! Help me!”

I looked around her to the wall panel, where I saw Peter thrashing against the demon creatures.

“I'm sorry! Help me!”

“Don't worry about him,” said Lilly.

“I won't,” I said weakly.

Peter screamed again, and was dragged down out of the view of the screen.

Lilly help me to my feet. “What happened?”

“He tried to download into me,” I said. “But . . . the computer rejected me. It said my brain was too damaged, I guess from what Paul did to me during cryo.”

“Well,” said Lilly, kissing my forehead, “that is one unexpected bonus of having your mind messed with. Come on.” She guided me toward the door.

Behind us, I heard the saw buzz to life. I turned back and saw a splatter of green blood hit the screen, and the sound of screaming and swearing and then Peter appeared, his face smeared in blood, his and the demons', and his chest raked with deep wounds.

“COME BACK!” he screamed wildly. “I'M SORRY! You can't leave me in here—” He spun and chopped again.

“Sorry,” I said, but couldn't help turning to Lilly. “Maybe we should try—”

“No. He can wait for the next sucker to come along.”

We stepped around the chair in the doorway. Lilly yanked it free and I pushed the vault door closed. Peter kept screaming, and as the door sealed shut we heard him cursing us and the demons of Vista, his saw grinding away.

And then we were in the utter quiet of the front office.

We threw our arms around each other. I tried to relax and let the pain seep out of my head. “It would be nice if someone, just once, was honest with us. I felt bad for him, though. That was a terrible way to live.”

“They all got what they deserved,” said Lilly darkly. “They're just like the people in the Edens, trying to escape from the world rather than live in it. It's everybody for themselves, it seems like, everywhere we go. And it always ends badly.” She kissed my cheek and brightened. “So your damage saved you,” she said.

“Yeah.” I almost smiled. “What do you know. But I wish we'd gotten more information from him.”

“We know where EdenHome is,” said Lilly, “and the board of directors, if he was telling the truth. I'm not sure what good that will do us, though.”

“Me either. We'll need to find a gamma link to check those coordinates.”

We stepped outside, into the clear dark and cool breeze, and climbed back into the craft. My head still ached, and I still pictured those creatures, computer code gone wrong, biting into me. Twice now, we'd seen the worlds people tried to build to escape this one—here and in Desenna—seen them both end in terror and screaming, seen them devour themselves.

What is of this earth cannot control it, and thus the horrors are unleashed,
the Terra had said to me on the roof of the Walmart.

The tide that swallows a people is born of its own darkest desires,
Victoria had said just before she died.

And even once the pain in my head had subsided, and we'd put many peaks between us and the Vista station, I wondered if it would ever be any different, or whether we were always doomed to these endings in blood.

5

WE FLEW SOUTHWEST THROUGH THE NIGHT, THE air getting thinner and colder as we pushed higher. We wrapped our blankets tightly around ourselves and over our heads, and I fought the dizziness brought on by the lack of oxygen. The moon crawled across the sky. We arced from peak to peak, mostly silent.

“I can't get all the screaming out of my head,” said Lilly.

“Me neither.” Vista made me think of Paul. I wondered if his selectees would get bored of EdenHome and become perversions. What if he destroyed the rest of the human race, only to have his precious elite lose their minds?

Far off, dawn began to light the horizon, the sun returning from its journey around the world, ready to burn again. All across the planet, people were starting a new day by taking cover, unaware of the other danger they faced. I wondered: How many dawns did we have left before either we succeeded or Paul did?

Just then, in the ice-blue light, I saw a reflection of crystal. A gleam of skull-like white.

Ahead were the highest peaks in the entire range, a ring of jagged rock, like a crown. At its back, the highest spire of all shot straight up, nearly vertical, a finger pointing to the heavens. Suspended like a swallow's nest on the inner wall of this peak, was a stone structure with curved walls and a giant arcing crystal window, like an eye looking out over the entire world.

As we came closer, I could see more buildings at the base of the spire, nestled within the crownlike ring. Angular structures that mimicked the rock, more crystal windows, and a series of stone catwalks carved into the sheer walls. Some gray-streaked smears remained in the alleys between the buildings.

“Is that snow?” Lilly asked.

“I think so,” I said. “This place was probably ice covered for ages.”

I dropped below the rim of the crown and flew along its steep sides, keeping the tip of the highest spire in view. I curved around behind it, and here the mountains gave way to a cliff that dropped thousands of meters into a remote valley. The back of the spire was smooth except for a single hole, far up near the top, small and rectangular with an arched top, like a window.

“Which way do we go in?” Lilly asked.

“Not sure yet.” I banked back around to the side of the crown and rose until we reached a gap between two of the peaks. We could see the entirety of the small temple complex, including a flat landing area just below. It had walls with giant stone rings for tying off Atlantean ships.

That was where the Eden hover copters were.

“Uh-oh,” I said, and immediately dropped back out of sight. Had we been spotted? I listened, but there was only wind. “Now what?”

“How about there?” Lilly pointed to a spot below us, a ledge sticking out of the steep mountainside that was just wide enough to land on, if I was careful.

“It's a long climb back up to the top,” I said, surveying the treacherous slope above the ledge.

“Don't need to climb,” Lilly reminded, and when I looked at her, she'd started floating ever so slightly off her seat.

I smiled. “You think you can carry me?”

Lilly curled her arm and flexed. “No problem.”

I waited for a lull in the wind, then landed carefully on the narrow ledge. I grazed the wall, and had to come around again, but still, it was a move I couldn't have made a few days ago, not with these cross breezes and such a small space, but all the flying had made the craft like an extension of me. I knew it so well, its every reaction to the breeze.

I lowered the sails before they could catch a breeze and pull us off the side.

“What's our plan?” Lilly asked.

I slipped my knife into my belt and gazed up the slope. “Not sure. Head up and get a closer look.” Just talking made me breathe hard. My brain felt fuzzy with the altitude, and now, looking up, I saw white spots in my eyes, but also something red . . .

Red and flickering, more like an actual light.

“Owen!” Lilly hissed. She pointed at the mast, just by the vortex. A small red light was dancing there.

Targeting . . .

“Get out!” I shouted, but froze. There was nowhere to go on the tiny ledge.

“Hang on.” Lilly turned her back to me. I threw my arms around her shoulders and she dove over the side.

We plummeted through the dark, gaining speed. Wind roared in our faces.

“
Qii-Farr-saaan
 . . . ,” Lilly whispered, and the blue light glowed all around us. Her skin looked luminous. Then she began to sing a high note, warbling in the wind, and we slowed and leveled out.