Alluvium (26 page)

A series of knocks. Loud and even in separations.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

Not knocks, but a lock-cracking mechanism at work in the outer passageway of the entrance of the dome. The door would not last, Hollis knew, but it was useful time that it bided. He was certain by now Autumn was safely inside her exosuit, protected by the inches of armor padding from whatever Saul had in store. Luckily, the flexibility of the fabric allowed for the comfortable cushioning of their child as well, who too was beneath the armor. Hollis, on the other hand, was covered with nothing more than his dirtied lab coat.

Pop.

The outer door had become unhinged, and the sound of changing air from the passageway could be heard. The rushing air equalized and was followed by another sound of grinding machines beyond the last doorway. In the darkness, Hollis approached the doorway and could see the shadows of the approaching men. There were two bodies, both bulking, moving down the shaft towards the central section of the garden that Hollis weakly guarded with his splintering spear. If he were in a better mood, Hollis would laugh at the whole scenario. Unfortunately, he could not afford any smile at the present moment.

The two figures approached the final door of separation. It was now clear they were also fitted with armored exosuits, which Hollis began to see as a great cost in not having one himself. Saul had made sure he was without one from the beginning, taking all spares in the garden as well as the remainder of the colony. He locked the exosuits away for his own personal allocation, claiming it was about order and not control. Hollis was not jaded like the others. It was a move that made him even more powerful. But the past was the past, and the present was happening, whether Hollis was prepared or not. There was no more time for rumination or second guessing. The last door was opening.

A hiss of air, signaling oxygen levels were equalizing. A voice came from behind one of the helmets.

“Honey, we’re home," boomed Saul into the trees.

Hollis remained in the shadows, hidden in his plants.

“Come on, come out. I don’t have time for games.”

Hollis stayed hidden as the two figures moved cautiously into the garden.

Saul chuckled when no response came. “Hollis, I hope you know I could burn this garden down in minutes with the firepower I brought with me. Yes, before you second guess me, I will do it with Autumn still inside. So, before you try to get heroic, know that I don’t care about playing fair.”

Saul looked to the other bulky and outfitted figure beside him and motioned for the other person to wait by the door. Saul walked forward, alone, to the edge of the wall of greenery.

“Come out now and we can solve this without bloodshed. We can solve this like civilized men.”

No response. No movement. Nothing.

“Okay," Saul behind him. “Burn it down-”

“Wait," Hollis said stepping out from the brush, spear in hand. “Just wait.”

“Nice stick you got there, caveman," Saul laughed eyeing him up and down. “Be careful, you might hurt yourself."

“Nobody has to get hurt, like you said," Hollis sternly returned to Saul’s mocking face who was blackened behind his tinted visor. “What is it you want, Saul?"

“What do I want?" Saul said raising his arms. “You know what I want. I want what's mine, not yours. Mine."

“Hollis, listen to him," the other suited man from the doorway, who Hollis recognized as being Maven by his Icelandic accent. “He just wants Autumn back to the Hub where it’s safe and we can deliver the baby in the medical bay. This isn’t a safe place to give birth, you know that, and she's due any day now. If you make her stay then she might not survive. The baby could die."

“I’m not making her stay," Hollis attacked. “I’m not the one who forced her to come here. She came here to get away from you two. You’re the rapists and murderers. Autumn told me what you’ve done, Maven. She saw the video. You thought you could drug Janya to get her pregnant against her own will. Is that the kind of acts were resorting to nowadays? If Janya didn’t want to have your baby then that was her choice, but you forced her to suicide when she got exactly that."

“What?" Maven exclaimed. “Got what?"

“You didn’t know?" Hollis asked. “You accomplished your task. You got her pregnant, and because of it, she killed herself the very next morning. She threw herself into the sandstorm and shredded her body. Your baby’s body. All because of your noble decision to save our species with your cock. But if your goal was to grow our population, then you’re not doing a very good job at it if all your pregnancies end in death."

“Stop talking," Saul boomed. “Stop whining about what happened that day. She was too weak and too narrow-minded to see the bigger picture. She shouldn’t have refused when I proposed the idea. I couldn’t let her stop Maven from doing his duty. So we had to resort to sedation. Yes, you think you’re all innocent in this, Hollis, but it was your drugs that made it possible. You should have locked them in a better place than your bedside table. You’re just as responsible as any of us."

“Of course, it all makes sense now," Hollis chuckled, shaking his head. “It was you who stole them for your sick game. What else did you use them for? The Commander?"

“Richard gave me no choice. He saw it all from his surveillance monitors, but he had his orders. He would say nothing, do nothing, because he knew there was no other choice for us to survive. He understood. But, unfortunately for him, after her suicide he couldn’t handle it anymore and began to crack. He was going to come clean, so I did what I had to do to keep us all alive, just the same for Novak. Just the same for Asnee."

“You did what you had to do? Don’t you see what you’re doing?" Hollis laughed under his breath. “You killed all of them, and you’ll keep killing all of them until you're the last man alive. That’s what you really want. You want all these women to yourself."

Saul stepped forward. “No! I want a real society! They should have accepted their duty. There was one reason why they were chosen to come here. It was their weakness that killed them, not my strength. They were the one’s who betrayed us. Maven was the only one to listen to me. To see the importance of a future. He was the only one to hold true to his purpose."

“She was pregnant?" Maven mutter to himself again, taking a step back towards the door. “It worked?”

“How can your sick mind see that as betrayal?" Hollis laughed mockingly. “It hadn’t been more than two weeks since Earth was lost when you started your abuse with Janya, and I’m sure she was just the first on your list. If you only waited, gave her time, maybe she would have considered it, but not with you, with Asnee, the man you killed in cold blood. They loved each other, and all they needed was time to find that love again."

Saul shook his head. “That's what you refuse to accept, just like the rest of them. Time is what we don’t have. The longer we wait, the quicker we lose track of our mission. Time is the most important resource we have. Who knows how long this colony will last until a revolt, or a mechanical malfunction, or a storm comes to wipe us out. We’re in uncharted territories here. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow or even the next hour. We can’t wait around for them to be ready, we need to be ready now."

“Ready for what exactly?"

“The restart."

“You honestly think things can go back to normal, just like that? Things take time, time that we do have, believe it or not. We’re young. And we still have a chance, they had a chance, if you only let them prove themselves, instead of spying on them, distrusting them, raping them, and killing them."

“It wasn’t supposed to go how it did," Maven sympathetically added from the background. “She liked me, Janya. She would always talk to me, try to help me when I was feeling lost. I- I think I fell in love with her, in a way. I thought she wanted it-"

“Enough!" Saul screamed, uncoupling the nail gun from his suit and lifting to Hollis. “Where is she!"

Hollis steadied the spear in his hands.

“Tell me now, or you die," Saul screamed again.

“Leave," Hollis said. “There’s nothing for you here."

“It’s my child!" Saul yelled, shaking the gun. “It’s my fucking child, not yours!"

“No," Hollis returned confidently. “It’s mine."

Pop. Pop. Pop.

Three nails propelled themselves across the space between the two parties. Two struck Hollis’ exposed skin, one lodging itself into his upper left thigh, and the lower center of his chest. He reeled over in pain, falling to his knees.

“Autumn, if you don’t come with me this next one goes into his forehead!" screamed Saul into the gardens core, fast approaching the downed man.

“The baby is mine!" screamed Hollis again, leaping to his feet in a burst of energy and jabbing the spear into Saul’s chest plate.

The attack was effective at pushing Saul back, but it produced nothing more than a slight scratch on his exosuit. The physical exertion was too much for Hollis’ injured body to bear, and he stumbled to the ground beside Saul. Quickly, Hollis lifted himself again, and taking advantage of Saul’s moment of shock, limped towards the treeline.

Pop. Pop.

Two more nails were shot at the stumbling man. One missed, the other dug itself into the heel of his right leg. Hollis faltered again, but kept his pace, making it through thick bushes of the central garden, leaving spattering of wet blood on the leaves. He threw his body against a tree, catching his breath for a moment and bracing against the pain that rippled through his body.

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

Leaves rustled around him, but all missed. Hollis pushed off the tree and staggered forward to the central clearing, leaving a path of blood to be followed like an animal in the hunt. Hollis met another tree trunk with his right shoulder and rested there for a moment, catching his breath and checking his wounds. The nails were deep, but not deep enough to do any significant internal damage. He was lucky they missed his head and struck less vital sections of his body.

“Saul, stop!" It was Autumn’s voice. It was to the left of him, through the bushes.

Hollis turned and pushed forth in pain. He parted a hanging vine and entered the rows of hydroponic aquifers. There, between the aisles of bubbling water and vegetation, he saw Autumn geared up in her armored exosuit. Emerging from the bushes nearby was Saul, his gun in hand, and rushing to come face to face with Autumn.

“Stop!" Hollis screamed.

Saul turned to him, lifting the gun to halt him from coming any closer, and then turned his head back to Autumn. “Is it true?" he said. “Is it his?"

“It’s true," she cried.

Saul let out a sigh of emotional defeat. “No," he repeated. “No. No. No.”

For a handful of seconds, there was no more action between the three. Autumn’s cries echoed around the dome, Hollis waited for the final nail to lodge itself into his heart, and Saul let the newly acquired information soak in.

“No," Saul repeated one last time, much calmer in tone.

He lowered his gun from Hollis’ direction, dropped his head, and turned away from Autumn. “Okay. Okay, then you’ve made your choice," he said stoically, looking around the garden in acceptance. “You can finally be one big happy family, just like you always wanted.”

Saul cleared his throat, nodded to each of them, and then he left suddenly, joining his comrade by the doorway. They exited the facility far less dramatically than they entered it.

Waiting for no longer than what was necessary to assure Saul was gone, Autumn rushed over to Hollis and threw her arms around him, soaking her white armor in his red blood. Her cries softened as he slowly unlatched her helmet, revealing a face of fear and confusion, but most importantly, a face of relief. The two kissed, skin to skin, and embraced all that they had not lost.

“You’re safe," Hollis whispered to her, grunting as she inspected his wounds.

“We need to get you cleaned up," she said to him.

“I’m okay.”

“No, you’re bleeding badly.”

“I just- I don’t understand," Hollis said. “Why did he leave like that? He had us. He won.”

Almost immediately following the comment, the humming of the generator that powered the greenhouse ceased to a silence. Absolute quiet overtook the scene, leaving Autumn and Hollis frozen in the dark.

“What's happening?" she asked fearfully.

The whirling sounds of the gardens ventilation system died down to an eerie stillness

and nothing more could be heard aside from their own accelerating breathing. Hollis looked around expecting to see Saul in a violent return, but there was no sign of him. Instead, all Hollis saw was a dim orange glow in the distance between a thicket of leaves. The glow grew bigger and brighter as time ticked on.

“Put your helmet back on!" Hollis demanded in a panic. “Hurry!"

The crackling of fire filled the soundless void. The once singular glow had multiplied rapidly without backup power to activate the sprinkler system to impede it. The glow leaped from leaf to leaf like a living lifeform with the intent to colonize the entire space. Autumn fumbled at her helmet as she locked it back over her head, isolating herself from the thickening smoke that swelled around them. As her lungs took in clean air, Hollis’ took in the polluted air of his gardens destruction. He coughed and staggered forward, still bleeding onto the heating grasses at his feet, and he quickly found himself disoriented from the strength of the nearby blaze. The toxins from the burning of his psychoactive plants began to take hold of his mind. Autumn saw him faltering and took him under her arm, guiding his weakening body from the wave of the fire. The smoke thickened, making it difficult for Autumn to see through her blackening visor as soot collected on the screen. Still, she pushed ahead, knowing the general area of the main entrance to the garden. She cleared aside clouds of ash with the sweeping of her arms while maintaining Hollis’ broken balance. Together they burst from the gardens internal brush and found themselves in the open space of the outer circle.