33
The Room: Level 3
End Game
Sparks and Zeer lay on the ground outside the Shelter. They both had awakened just as Harlequin and her guards had tossed them on the ground. Her last words were still very clear in their minds. “You god dam son-of-a-bitches failed! Now you’ll die with everyone else. You’ll feel the death and destruction that you deserve, and you’ll see yourselves and all of the Pariah wiped off the face of the Earth. Our descendants will return one day, and you won’t be around to do a damned thing about it!”
Zeer had looked back at her with her own ragged rage and yelled, “Where’s Rad? What have you done with him?”
“He’ll be thrown out soon along with the rest of the garbage!” Harlequin then turned, walked back into the Shelter with her guards, and slammed the door behind her.
Zeer and Sparks sat with their heads bowed, knowing that they had failed and recognizing the dire consequences of that failure.
Sparks finally spoke. “Zeer, let’s wait here. God, I’m worried! Rad was the one working with the computer. He was the one trying to destroy the programs. What are they going to do to him?”
“I don’t know, Sparks. They’ll probably keep him there while they check to see what he did. If they can’t find out quickly enough on their own, they may torture him. I know Rad won’t tell them anything. I’m afraid for his life.”
They waited through the rest of the night and had crawled onto an old dilapidated bench nearby. They lay on its slatted surface, nursing the wounds where the guards had hit and kicked them. They didn’t sleep, but nodded off here and there, trying to stay awake to help Rad when and if he came out.
***
The morning light was just beginning to spread through the pervasive and constant haze. Zeer had dozed off with Sparks laying close by, asleep. Her eyes slowly opened. She sat up. Her side was aching from an especially severe kick to her ribs. She glanced around and noticed a lump on the ground in front of the Shelter. She got up immediately and stumbled towards it. It was Rad. She checked his neck and found a pulse. She then surveyed his body and found serious wounds everywhere. They had tortured him.
He was unconscious and bleeding slowly from a brutal injury in his lower abdomen. She pulled back his shirt and saw a gash from some type of sharp object. She quickly yelled for Sparks. He was already awake and on his way over. She and Sparks ripped off pieces of their cleanest clothing and made some bandages for Rad.
Just then, from somewhere behind them, they became aware of several people walking in their direction. The one in the lead was Zoe. She spoke first. “I thought something might have gone wrong. You hadn’t returned to camp so I brought some people to help.”
Both Sparks’ and Zeer’s eyes teared up as they thanked Zoe and the others. They all worked quickly to make Rad comfortable and treat his wounds as best they could. Sparks asked Zoe if she’d brought one of the tri-bikes so they could use it to transport him back to the valley. She shook her head, apologized, and explained that she hadn’t wanted to risk the noise; but she’d brought a couple stretchers with her just in case. Sparks thanked her again profusely, and they carefully moved Rad onto one of them and began carrying him back to the mountains.
Zeer walked up to Zoe and said, “Thank you, Zoe. Thank you for coming. He’s hurt so badly. I don’t know if he’s… I don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
Zoe had a very somber look on her face. “We’re going to do everything we can, Zeer. Sparks is an excellent healer. Rad has a chance. You know he does.” She put her arm around Zeer’s shoulder, and they walked towards home.
***
Arriving in the valley, Zeer, Zoe and the others who were carrying Rad took him to Sparks’ hut and laid him on a table after covering it with a clean, sterile cloth. His wounds quickly stained the surface. Sparks asked everyone to leave, except for Zeer and Zoe. He needed room to work. Zoe had become his nurse whenever he needed to treat someone, and Zeer stayed to help and be close to Rad. Following Sparks’ directions, they carefully removed Rad’s soiled and blood-stained clothing, allowing Sparks a good look at his injuries.
They were in the hut for several hours doing whatever they could to deal with his wounds and try to determine how badly he was injured. He had multiple lacerations of the neck and head; his fingers and toes had been broken, and some type of device had been attached to his chest. They could see burn marks on his torso and more than one gash from a sharp object in his lower abdomen, probably from a knife. He was in very bad shape.
Sparks had been able to stay the bleeding for now, but from the type and number of wounds, he believed that there was probably also internal bleeding that he didn’t have the ability to treat. Zeer could see the extreme worry on Sparks’ face and knew that Rad’s chances were slim.
“It doesn’t look good,” Sparks told both Zoe and Zeer. “I don’t have what I need to deal with the internal bleeding. I’ve done the best I can. I was able to give him a medication that should ease the pain and inflammation. It should also slow the bleeding, but the only thing we can do now is stay with him and hope for the best.”
Zeer looked at Rad and thought of everything that he’d been through and how much he cared for the Earth and the Terrans. She couldn’t imagine losing him after all that they had accomplished and everything that had happened. “I’ll stay with him. I’ll let you know if I see any change. You two go get some food and rest.”
Sparks knew that he couldn’t argue with Zeer, so he just said, “Zeer, I’ll get some food for you, too. I don’t think any of us are very hungry, but we need to keep up our strength.”
She looked up at Sparks, nodded, and said, “Okay.”
Zeer’s eyes followed her two friends as they were leaving and saw them hesitate as they neared the door. Someone in an Earthen-colored robe entered the hut in front of them. They all tensed, not knowing or recognizing who it was. The person pulled their hood down, and Zeer’s eyes widened with surprise and relief. It was Fawn.
Immediately, Zeer ran to her, put her arms around her, and spoke through tears of worry. “Can you help him, Fawn? They were incredibly cruel to him. He’s in bad shape. Can you?”
Fawn held Zeer and gazed at Rad’s body on the table. Shaking her head in disbelief, she merely answered, “I’ll try.” That’s all she could say for now.
She let go of Zeer and walked over to where Rad lay. She pulled back the sheet that covered him. The number and severity of his wounds shocked her. She willed herself to remain calm and then spoke quietly, saying, “I’ll need Sparks to stay for a few minutes. Then I’ll probably need to be alone with him. Don’t worry, I’ll let all of you know more as soon as I can.”
Zoe and Zeer left the hut, followed shortly by Sparks. He walked over to them and asked Zeer a question. “Fawn looked through Rad’s clothing and found some kind of a ball that was in one of his pockets. What was that, Zeer?”
Zeer took hers out and showed it to him. “It’s an energy sphere that is tuned specifically to our individual bodies. We use it to travel, and I know that members of the Healing Cluster use them when someone is ill or injured to help them heal. I don’t know a lot about it, but it’s a very powerful tool. I can only hope that Fawn can use it to help Rad.”
“Healing Cluster? What’s that?”
Zeer, in her worry over Rad, had forgotten for a moment that she was not supposed to mention anything about Loon. She hadn’t thought, but at this point, she didn’t think it mattered very much and said, “I’ll tell you later.”
Sparks sat down by Zeer and held her. Zoe left them and went to communicate what was happening with the rest of the camp. Everyone was solemn and quiet that night, thinking about Rad and hoping for his recovery.
***
t she’d done everything that she could.
Zoe was sitting with Rad now. The rest of them were eating what breakfast they could. Sparks had gathered all of the people in the camp together for the morning meal. He had a lot that he needed to tell them.
“I know all of you were worried when we didn’t come back to camp yesterday, and I wanted to thank each of you for your concern. I want to also thank those of you who left camp and came to get us. It would have been very difficult to get Rad back here without your help. All of you – thank you.”
He continued, “We’ve been involved in something that you need to know about. Zoe knew generally what we were doing, but now I need to tell the rest of you. I’m sure you’ve all heard the rumors about the people who live in the Shelter leaving Earth. Well, it’s true. They’re abandoning our planet tomorrow morning.”
Everyone took this in, glancing at each other and murmuring. “They’ve been planning this for a long time, and you also need to know that the Visionary Council had a second part to their plan. No one, except their leaders, knew what it was, but it was rumored to be something that could affect the Earth and everyone outside the Shelter. We had to find out what it was. So, yesterday, Rad, Zeer, and I went into the Shelter and snuck into the central computer core. Rad hacked into the system to find out what their plans were. We discovered that it was something horrible and decided to delete the program to keep them from doing it. It took us too long, though. They found out, stopped us, threw Zeer and I outside, and tortured Rad.”
One man spoke up in a grave voice. “So…what’s the second part of this plan?”
Sparks paused and then explained, “As I said, tomorrow they will leave Earth. Thirty days after that, the program that we were trying to delete will run.”
Again Sparks hesitated. He still couldn’t believe this was going to happen and wished that he didn’t have to give them this news. “Millions of small drones carrying a toxin will be released all over the Earth. The toxin will be short-lived, but it will kill every human left behind on the planet.”
There was not a sound as everyone took this in. One small woman finally spoke in a shaky voice and said, “How could…How could anyone do such a thing?” She fell to her knees. Her husband knelt down beside her. Dismay and disbelief spread over the faces of everyone.
Sparks spoke again. “We do have one hope. It’s not going to be easy, and I don’t know if it will actually work, but after they leave, the Shelter will be left untouched. It will probably be locked, though, and have a lot of security measures in place to keep us from entering. We’re going to have to try break in and then get as many people as possible inside before the thirty days are up. Maybe we can still find a way to stop the drones, but if not, at least we might be able to protect ourselves from inside. There are a lot of ‘ifs’ in that plan, but it’s our best shot.”
The Terrans responded immediately. “We’ll help! We’ll do whatever it takes. When do we start?”
He gazed everyone there, shook his head in admiration, and said, “You are truly remarkable people - all of you! Right now, though, lets all hope that Rad recovers, and I want all of you to take care of each other and do what you can to get yourselves ready. That will include eating enough and getting your rest. One other thing, please don’t tell anyone in the city, at least not yet. We’ll need to see if we can get inside, first. If we’re successful, then we can begin to move people into the Shelter in an orderly way. If we’re not, we’ll let them know what’s going to happen. They have a right to know.”
Everyone dispersed from the meeting, some to their huts and others remained outside, talking with each other. Thirty days. It was all they had.
***
A bright orange sun rose on the eastern horizon, attempting to burn through the noxious atmosphere of the Earth. The sky was gloomy and russet-colored, blocking the bright rays of the dawn and covering the camp with a heavy pall of uncertainty. No one had slept the night through, as the reality of this particular morning had begun to sink in.
Some were doing their best to get the day started by preparing food and going about their morning chores. Others sat quietly with family or friends, wondering about the future and what would happen in the next few weeks.
Zoe was ladling tea from a large kettle for anyone that wanted some, and on that morning especially, everyone appreciated Zoe’s care and her cup of tea. As she worked, she kept glancing up towards the horizon in the east where the sun had risen. Sparks had mentioned to her that the launch area was located in that direction. She was watching for the first ships to leave.
She had just poured another cup of tea when she looked up again and there it was - the first ship exploding into the sky - the first to leave Earth. The pot of tea fell from her grasp as she gasped and pointed. Others quickly looked in the same direction and saw the rocket shoot upwards and then disappear into the heavy smog. It only took a moment, but then they saw another and another and another. Everyone was standing, watching, and listening to the constant roar in the distance. It brought what Sparks had told them and turned it into stark reality. The people from the Shelters were actually abandoning the Earth – abandoning them.
It went on and on intermittently for several hours, and Sparks and Fawn were now outside watching the spectacle with everyone else. They couldn’t keep the sadness and worry off their faces. Fawn knew the history of Earth and knew that all human life would be destroyed in a short time. She looked at Sparks and understood that he would do everything he could to help, but it had already been written. She reached out to him and put her arm around his shoulders – this man who cared so deeply and had worked so incredibly hard.
At that moment, Sparks asked himself, ‘What will happen to all of us here…?’ A small tear streaked down his face. He had to turn away as anger and worry began to sweep over him.
Then he noticed Zeer standing just outside his hut. He wiped the tears from his cheeks and walked towards her. She, too, had tears streaming down her face, staining her clothing with grief. She looked straight into his eyes and spoke the words that she hoped she’d never have to say. “Rad… He’s dead, Sparks. God…he’s dead…”
***
‘It was too much. Too much!’ The people of the Shelter deserting the Earth and the Terrans in such a cruel way, the news of the oncoming holocaust, and now Rad…their dear friend - a person who had meant so much to them, who had given his life in order to try to help them. ‘It was too much to bear!’
At that moment, Fawn realized that she needed to help everyone gain some closure in order for them to make it through the next thirty days. Inside her chest, the pressure of what she knew and how little could be done about it was immense. It was an ache from which she might not ever recover. She had never, actually, traveled to this time in Earth’s past. She had learned about what had happened by watching the histories on Loon, listening to the historians and to her teacher, Shar. But actually being here, meeting and knowing the people, and being involved directly were more than she could deal with. For Zeer and Sparks and for all the people in the camp, though, she had to remain strong. There was only one course that she could take. She knew what she had to do.
***
Zeer and Sparks were in bad shape. They had spent so much time with Rad, and the three of them had become incredibly close. They had bonded, not only because of who they were, but also because of living through this time together. Now, part of that bond had been broken. They couldn’t believe he was gone.
Fawn spent some time with Sparks and Zeer, preparing
a ceremony to honor Rad and hopefully help everyone that had known him deal with the tragedy. It would be a short ceremony, but they all felt that they needed to do something. They needed to remember him together.
With Zoe’s help, they brought a table out into the middle of the huts and placed pieces of wood around and under it. They covered the wood with a liquid that would enable it to burn fast and hot. They moved slowly, and none of them spoke a word as they went about preparing the pyre.
They carried Rad out and laid him on the table. All of the Terrans in the valley were gathered round. Everyone was solemn, mourning the loss of their dear friend.
Finally, everything was prepared and Fawn spoke. “Rad lays with us here on Earth, his home, his mother. To care, to empathize, to hope, to dream, to love were all part of who he was, and I can say that these important traits are in all of you as well. He came to your home and worked tirelessly. He gave up his life as your friend and fellow human. You, and the Earth, meant so much to him. You meant everything to him.”
Fawn then reached into her pocket and brought out a leather book. She placed it on the table beside Rad. Then she pulled a knife and a small glass tube out of her other pocket. With the knife, she cut off a lock of Rad’s hair and placed it inside the tube. She sealed it and handed it to Sparks as she said, “For you. Keep it, always, where others can see it and gain hope and strength from it.”