Doc Harrison and the Apocalypse Page 7

  “No, you weren’t. They just need a lot more training. But ma’am, in my humble opinion, they can’t be trained unless we know the truth about who they really are.”

  “I see.”

  “Did you wipe their memories?”

  “No.”

  “Then... I don’t understand? Where have they been all of this time? They don’t know anything.”

  I raise my hand. “Excuse me. Mind if we join you?”

  Julie and I come forward. I nervously introduce us.

  Ms. Martha looks impatient. “I’m Martha Galloway, but everyone calls me Ms. Martha. I know who you are.”

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Julie mutters to me.

  I ignore her and forge on. “Why are you holding us?”

  “Doc, we wanted to do this carefully—because there’s a lot for you to learn, and even more for you to accept.”

  “Like what?”

  “Years ago, before you were even born, I worked with your father. He was a good man, incapable of corruption. That’s why I never stopped believing in him.”

  “Thank you, I guess?”

  “You should thank us—because keeping you here hasn’t been easy. Both of you pose a significant threat to this facility and my reputation. I’ve already lost two members of my orientation team—”

  “And you don’t plan to lose any more,” Keane interjects, acting as his own attorney.

  It’s a bold move, but I step toward her desk. “You’re doing us a favor by holding us here? Ma’am, some guys kidnapped my dad. Then we got gassed and woke up here. We just want to find my dad and go home. We don’t need any favors. Just kick us out.”

  “I know you’re frustrated, but we planned to do this slowly so that you wouldn’t be crushed under the weight of it all.”

  Okay, so I’ve had it up to here with all this vague talk. “If you want to help us, then let us out of this prison!”

  “Oh, Doc. It’s anything but... come with me.”

  We follow Ms. Martha out of the office, across the catwalk, and back into the elevator. We ascend once more, and when the doors open, the air escapes my lungs.

  For a moment, I forget how to use my legs.

  The others move forward...

  Leaving me standing there—

  Taking it all in.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  I was nine when I looked through a telescope at the Teide Observatory on Tenerife. We’d been on the island for a week, and Dad surprised me with a visit up there in the middle of the night.

  He wanted to show me an “exoplanet,” which he explained was a planet orbiting a star outside of our solar system (that’s where the “exo” part of the definition comes in).

  Although I didn’t fully grasp his explanation, I do recall staring through the eyepiece at that pinprick of light. It was pretty cool.

  After a moment, I glanced at my father, who was weeping quietly.

  “Dad? What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, it’s nothing.”

  “Then why are you crying?”

  He backhanded tears from his cheeks and smiled. “I’m fine. Just a little homesick.”

  “So let’s go home.”

  “We can’t. But who knows? Maybe one day.” He slipped beside me to peer through the telescope.

  I never knew what he meant.

  Or what we were really looking at—until now.

  Ms. Martha gestures to the scene behind her. “Welcome to the Palladium... and to the planet Flora.”

  I steal a look at Julie, eyes wide, face frozen in shock or disbelief, most likely both.

  Ms. Martha continues, “For almost fifteen years we survivors have been building this place. It’s our sanctuary. Our settlement. Our future.”

  We’ve entered a cafeteria even larger than the Great Hall at Hogwarts. We stand near the edge of a long, empty stage like the one used for assemblies at my school.

  Over one hundred rectangular tables sweep away from us in neat rows. People of all ages and all occupations, judging from their many uniforms, talk, laugh, and eat from silver trays dotting the tables like checkers. I spot families with babies, cliques of teenagers, and pockets of gray-haired seniors nestled in the far corners.

  At the same time, groups of construction workers, miners covered in dust, medical people, and school kids in matching shirts form long lines at the food counters along the far right wall. Chefs ladle out servings from gigantic vats.

  The atmosphere seems light, almost festive, and no one’s giving us a second look.

  Keane mutters in my ear, “Smells awesome, doesn’t it?”

  “Smells like Taco Tuesday.”

  He doesn’t get it.

  That’s okay. I’m cracking lame jokes because my defenses are up and I can barely comprehend this.

  Oh, it’s not this dining hall that blows me away—

  It’s the panoramic window or, more precisely, what I see through it:

  A lonely desert like one you’d find Arizona.

  Rolling hills below a city skyline in the distance.

  Skyscrapers like rotting teeth. Nuked. Destroyed.

  And two moons hanging above the ruins.

  Two moons. One twice as large as the other.

  This is an optical illusion, I argue to myself, a nightmare, part of the Hood or Community or something.

  But deep down I feel those explanations are wrong.

  Not know. Feel.

  I take deep breath, close my eyes, and gooseflesh crawls up my spine. I ask my father why he’s crying:

  “I’m fine. Just a little homesick.”

  “So let’s go home.”

  “We can’t. But who knows? Maybe one day.”

  Dad was showing me an exoplanet through the telescope. He was showing me Flora.

  My chest aches. My persona longs to escape my body and travel out there, to the city. Somewhere within the heaps of rubble are the remains of a house... a yellow house that once stood on a street lined with purple flowers.

  You can’t remember things when you’re a baby, right? But somehow I remember.

  And now I’m embarrassed—because I’m tearing up over this feeling I have, this powerful feeling that tells me I am home. I was born here. I have a wreath. A persona. I’m connected to this place in a way I cannot explain.

  The next revelation makes me smile.

  Yes, I’m a Floran, which means I’m an alien, and you’re having a close encounter of the third kind.

  Maybe this could be cool.

  I could be this space invader from Area 51 ready to tear-ass across the cosmos in my super-charged UFO. Hook me up, ET. Let’s go freak out some farmers and phone home.

  Damn, I need to calm down and get serious about this stuff. I still have a grocery list of questions:

  Like, for example, why were we so skinny and weak when we got here? Were our wreaths draining us?

  And were our parents giving us drugs to hide who we are? Keane mentioned something about drugs that can shut down our abilities.

  And that feeling we had when we first woke up? Like the whole world was pressing down on us?

  That one I can answer.

  This is Flora, a planet that must have stronger gravity than Earth. We have to work harder to move around, and it’s taken a while for our bodies to adapt.

  But how did we get here? And where is my father?

  Ms. Martha takes my hand and then Julie’s. “What you see is real, and if you don’t believe it, we’ll take you outside for an even better look.”

  Julie starts to hyperventilate. “This... you’re saying... this place...”

  “This is really Flora. Or at least the ruins of a world that was so incredibly beautiful.”

  Julie blinks hard. “This can’t be happening. This is some kind of crazy joke. We’re being punked by somebody really rich. Maybe by somebody in the film industry who could pull off all the special effects.”

  Ms. Martha shakes her head. “I know this sounds crazy. Just take a
deep breath. An ancient race placed our ancestors on four different planets. We call them seed worlds.”

  “Seed worlds?” I ask.

  “She’s talking about Earth, Flora, Halsparr, and Galleon,” Keane explains. “Everyone knows about them, but honestly we don’t know if there’s life out there.”

  Ms. Martha lifts her brows. “Actually, we do.”

  “I thought the whole First Ones thing was just a legend,” Keane says. “I mean just another explanation for the Gods.”

  “It’s not a legend. Doc and Julie were born here, but for the last fifteen years, they’ve been living on Earth, a planet with over seven billion people.”

  Keane’s mouth falls open. He’s way more surprised than I am. I knew it already. My body told me the truth.

  Ms. Martha squeezes my hand. “As Keane mentioned, we’re four separate worlds all continually influenced by that alien race. They’ve been called many names over the years, but now we simply refer to them as the First Ones.”

  “Who are they?” I ask.

  “Details were classified and never released to the public before the withering. Some believe they live among us. We have religions founded entirely on that premise. And as you can see, they’ve had a profound impact on our history and culture. That’s why our planets are so similar.”

  “Is that why we all speak English?” I ask.

  “Actually, Doc, we’re not. You just think we are.”

  “But I can hear and feel myself speaking English.”

  “No, you’re speaking a northern dialect of Heather, one of about twenty languages here on Flora.” Her grin says she’ll blow my mind once more. “When you picked up the books in my office, what did you see?”

  “Symbols.”

  “You didn’t know what they were at first, but then they appeared in English.”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s your wreath translating for you. And it does a very sophisticated job, but it’s not perfect. You notice a slight lag when you read. And there are always some words or concepts that we don’t grasp, like Xbox or place names like Winter Springs, Florida, but it does do a good job with time and measurements, and it doesn’t affect accents.”

  “Like Meeka’s?”

  “Yes. She’s from a city called Lily. It’s near the eastern half of Larkspur. That’s a continent in our southern hemisphere. The people there have a mutation that alters their speech.”

  Keane’s gaze alternates between the window and us. “Ms. Martha, I’m trying to understand this. Are you saying they went to Earth and came back?”

  “Correct.”

  “But no one’s ever gone past the moons.”

  “That’s classified.”

  “Does it involve something called the engine?” I ask.

  Ms. Martha’s tone sharpens. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I’m not sure, exactly.”

  Julie interrupts us with a deep groan. She hunches over, and then drops to her knees. “I’m gonna be sick.”

  Keane and I hunker down beside her. She looks green.

  We’re low and have our backs to the panoramic window—

  When the glass shatters and the entire place explodes like a million grenades going off at the same time…

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The past always finds a way to catch up with you.

  That’s one of my dad’s favorite sayings.

  It means the decisions you make now will affect you for the rest of your life.

  Decisions like cheating in your pre-algebra class.

  Or sneaking out of the house at night to taste whiskey.

  Or stealing movies off the web.

  Hey, at least with that last one I was pretty clever. Those movies were still in the theatres.

  I guess it would be embarrassing for a top-secret scientist to have a son in jail for movie piracy. I think it’s like twenty years in a maximum-security prison and a million dollar fine, or something really harsh like that.

  However, those are all trivial screw-ups.

  Compared to causing an apocalypse.

  Ms. Martha was going to tell me about the engine. And I wanted to ask her more details about my father and how he may (I repeat may) have been involved in what she called “the withering” and what I assume was Flora’s nuclear war.

  But now we’re flat on our bellies. Lights flash. People wail and scream. Black smoke pours into the dining hall. I smell chemicals like bleach. The booming echoes.

  I lift my chin.

  Ms. Martha’s body lies on the floor. Her chest, arms, and legs are peppered with shrapnel from the blast.

  Meanwhile, her persona glows before us and shouts, “Get to the elevator! Hollis will meet you on the next level!”

  “What’s happening?” Keane shouts.

  “Just go!”

  I force myself up and signal to Keane that Julie needs help. She’s on her hands and knees, either getting sicker or just freaking out. We yank her up and drag her back toward the elevator.

  The rat-tat-tat of gunfire echoes through the hall.

  Yes, we’re on another planet, but the weapons here sound absolutely conventional and absolutely deadly.

  More shots crack behind us, with secondary explosions rocking even closer now.

  Bone-chilling shrieks join in a chorus as people trample each other, fighting for the exits.

  Glass shatters. Broken tables hurl through the air and crash into more people.

  I flinch as rounds stitch lines in the walls beside us.

  Out in front, the smoke takes on a life of its own, impaled by bullets that send coils floating toward the ceiling.

  Keane palms the control panel. The doors part. We throw ourselves inside.

  Two women carrying babies charge toward the elevator. They reach out for us—

  But the doors bang shut in their faces.

  “Oh, no,” Julie gasps.

  We stand there in guilt-stricken silence.

  “You ever get attacked before?” I ask Keane.

  “Yeah, but nothing like this…”

  “Who’s Hollis?”

  “I don’t know. He must work for her.”

  Julie’s clutching her stomach.

  “You okay?”

  She can barely nod.

  The elevator stops short. Main lights out. Red emergency lights on. No power.

  “Seriously?” Julie asks.

  “Stay here,” Keane says. “I’ll have a look.” He closes his eyes. His persona emerges from his chest, takes form with its green aura, and then exits in a flash.

  After a few seconds, he snaps open his eyes. “I’m talking to my friends in the Hood. The nomads are everywhere.”

  “Those are the people attacking us?” I ask.

  He nods. “They’re from the old army before the withering, but they’re not the good guys anymore. There’s a couple thousand of them, maybe more.”

  “What do they want?” Julie asks.

  “Everything,” Keane answers. “They follow this maniac who sends out patrols, and they just kill everyone. But Ms. Martha, she set up this defense with these creatures called jahlerrs that block them from jumping inside. I’ve never seen them, but I guess they died or failed.”

  “But we have an army, too, right?” I ask. “Like those guys that got us in the cave?”

  “Yeah, sec-force teams. Martha said we outnumber them, but they always outgun us. Now wait…” His eyes grow vague. “They’re moving down into the tunnels. Big firefight in the command center.” His face contorts with sheer terror. “Guys, we can’t stay! We need to get outside!”

  “Well isn’t that ironic! Now we get to leave!” I bang my fist on the wall... and the walls feel like they’re closing in on us.

  Wait a minute.

  Every elevator has an escape hatch in the ceiling—

  Unless your elevator’s on another planet.

  No hatch. I curse and look around.

  “Uh, Keane, I know you’re doing your mu
ltitasking thing, but we’re stuck here. I’ll jump in my persona and look for a way out.”

  “No, stay here. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Even in my persona?”

  “Hell, yeah, you can still get lost. Not only that, but your persona takes damage just like your body, only the damage goes to your wreath, so if your persona gets shot or whatever, that hurts your wreath. And if that happens, you can lose your persona and can even die.”

  “Great. Remind me to stop asking questions.”

  I turn around and find Julie with her fingers wedged into the door jam. She’s already created a two-inch gap. She looks over her shoulder, her eyes begging for help.

  I join her. We grapple with the doors for a few seconds—until they snap open.

  “Did we do that?” she asks.

  “I don’t think so.”

  We’re between floors. There’s a gap about three feet tall at the top, but it’s difficult to reach.

  A figure shoves himself into the gap and extends his hand. He has long gray hair pulled into a ponytail and big brown eyes. He’s like a cool college professor, but he’s dressed like a soldier. “I’m Hollis,” he says in an accent that sounds vaguely Australian. “Julie, you’re first.”

  “You know me?” she asks, taking his hand.

  He grins. “Since you were a little girl.”

  She disappears. He returns and hauls me through the gap with little effort, as though I’m a rag doll. Two soldiers are waiting for us near the lift. Lights attached to their helmets cast dim puddles on the floor.

  Hollis finishes lifting Keane from the elevator. “We good to go?”

  “You do look familiar,” I tell him.

  “The last time you saw me, I was shooting a gas canister in your face.”

  “That was you? So you’re from Earth?”

  “Not originally.”

  “Then you’re just like me and Julie!”

  He winks. “Better looking.”

  “How do you know us?”

  “I work with your father.

  “Do you know where he is?” I demand.

  “I have an idea, but we can’t talk now. C’mon, we have to go. There’s an exit inside the bike park.”

  “What about gear for outside?” Keane asks.

  “Can we breathe the air?” I ask.