Authors: A. G. Taylor
“How much longer?” he asked into the comm. He’d lost visuals with the doctor since the helmet had fallen apart, but he could hear.
“Almost there,” Fincher replied. “Just preparing the data packet.”
The spider withdrew its foot and raised it again – this time for the true killing blow.
“Doctor!” Hack cried.
“It’s there!” Fincher exclaimed.
Hack immediately sensed the data upload to what remained of the suit’s internal drives. As the spider leg descended, he forced the arm of the battlesuit to raise one last time…and
caught it by the foot. The spider howled, but the battlesuit fingers held it firmly.
Transferring the clonebot into his head in a nanosecond, Hack connected with the machine that was attacking him and passed on the program. He had the briefest sensation of the virus spreading
from one microscopic organism in the machine to another, before the spider ripped its leg back, pulling the arm off the battlesuit in the process.
Pushing himself out of the shattered suit, Hack stumbled away as the spider smashed its leg down again, breaking the suit in two. The spider rose up and turned to face him now he was exposed and
out in the open. In the background he saw Louise, Wei and May fighting their own desperate battles – their suits impaled and shattered as his had been. Turning his attention back to the
spider, he held his ground as it approached, pincer teeth snapping for an easy kill…
But it didn’t come.
There was a crack, like the sound of a brittle twig breaking, and the spider listed to one side. Two of its legs had simply snapped in the middle. The spider half-turned, as if surprised by the
event, and in doing so snapped off two legs on the other side. Unsupported, the machine’s abdomen crashed to the ground and split in two. Then, in a sudden chain reaction, the entire body of
the spider began to crumble into dust.
Hack grinned, sensing the clonebot virus spreading from one nanite to another within the machine’s structure – the order to shut down spreading like an unstoppable plague. In less
than ten seconds, the spider was no more than a pile of black dust that began to blow away in the wind.
The rest of the spiders stopped attacking the others in that moment and, seeing the fate of their companion, turned to face Hack. They scuttled forward to make a joint attack.
Flexing his fingers – feeling the power in them – he ran to meet the remaining spiders…
The outer shell of Alex’s battlesuit had become little more than a battered sheet of metal, but somehow it managed to deflect the rounds from the oversized machine gun
in Major Bright’s arms until the chamber clicked empty. Tossing the spent weapon to one side, Bright looked round at Sarah, who had been observing the scene without emotion.
“Let me show you how I deal with my enemies,” Bright said and strode across to where Alex was kneeling. He placed his hands on either side of the battlesuit helmet and, with a
violent twist, wrenched it free, throwing it across the base.
“Hi there,” he said and took Alex’s head in both hands. “I don’t normally kill children… But for you and your friends, I’m going to make an
exception.”
He began to exert pressure on Alex’s skull – a pressure that increased slowly until it felt like a vice closing around his head.
“Stop!”
Bright groaned in frustration as Sarah advanced towards them.
“Release him. I want to kill him with Sarah Williams’s hands.”
The major’s annoyance at the interruption gave way to a look of amusement. “Ouch. That’s cold.” He released the boy, who fell back heavily. “All yours.”
The suit opened and Alex pushed himself out, bruised arms and legs barely working. Sarah moved in swiftly…
“Sarah, no—”
His words choked as she grabbed his throat, crushing his windpipe.
“I told you,” she spat, “Sarah Williams is gone. You obey me now.”
Alex grabbed at her arm, but the grip was unbreakable. Stars exploded before his eyes as the oxygen to his brain was cut off. “I know you’re in there… Sarah…”
The doors at the end of the base smashed open as one of the spiders crashed through. The machine staggered left and right, as if disorientated… Then collapsed on the floor, where it
immediately disintegrated…
Hack walked through the opening as the dust remains of the machines blew away on the wind. Louise, Wei and May appeared behind him protectively – still wearing the battered remnants of
their suits.
Major Bright tapped Sarah, who had not taken her eyes from Alex, on the shoulder. “Hey. If you’ve finished strangling the kid, we’ve got problems.”
Sarah looked round, as if surprised to see the other children. “They defeated my spiders.”
“No, really?” Bright said.
Louise stepped in front of Hack, flipped back her helmet and pointed a finger at Sarah. “Let him go!”
Sarah released her grip on his neck and Alex fell to his knees, gasping for breath. May and Wei moved to Louise’s side. The younger girl gave them each a nod and then looked back at Bright
and Sarah.
“Get them.”
As the kids in the remaining battlesuits ran at them, Sarah casually opened her hands. There was a rush of air and the suits disintegrated into a million tiny shards of metal that flew out in
all directions around the base. Louise and the others, stripped of their protection, dropped to the ground. Sarah glanced at Major Bright.
“Let me show you how
I
deal with my enemies.”
Blue electricity sprang from her fingers, hitting all the children simultaneously. They fell to their knees, faces twisted with pain, unable to fight back or even flee…
“This game is almost over,” the Entity says, laying its penultimate stone on the Go board. “You have lost. As have your friends.”
Sarah looks into the old man’s evil, black eyes. “It’s not over until I say it is.” She removes her last stone from the bag and lays it down, isolating a group of the
Entity’s stones. She plucks then from the board and lays them on the bed. The two piles of captured stones are even.
“This is a draw. So what now?”
The Entity shakes its head and, to her surprise, produces another black stone from its bag. “But I still have a piece to play.” It lays it down, taking a final white and adding it
to the pile. The Entity’s leering smile widens.
“You’ve lost…”
Alex held up a hand against the electricity surging over him, but it was no use. The sickening smell of singeing hair was in the air all around. Then, abruptly, the agony
ceased.
Sarah lowered her hands and looked around the beaten children. Louise, Wei, Hack and May lay where they had fallen, paralysed by the after-effects of the electrical blast. Sarah turned to the
hypersphere and fired off a bolt of electricity. The silver sphere immediately began to turn and then fall in on itself, revealing a tunnel stretching down…for ever.
She’s opened the portal,
Hack said weakly in Alex’s head.
Alex tried to move, but Sarah grabbed him by the shoulder and lifted him to his feet with supernatural strength.
“Sarah, don’t do this,” Alex begged as she dragged him towards the opening of the portal. Up close, he could see the silvery sides of the tunnel rotating and feel an uncanny
pull – almost like a gravitational attraction to the thing. “Sarah, please.”
The girl tightened her grip on his shoulders, digging her fingers in until he cried out. “I’m going to send you a long way away, Alex. Perhaps when your friends see what happens to
you inside the portal, they’ll realize that surrender is the best option.”
With the last of his strength, Alex attempted to pull away, but it was no use. Sarah pulled him to the edge of the gap in reality that the hypersphere had become. But on the threshold she
paused…
“Wait!” Sarah exclaims as the Entity makes to pack up the board, suddenly remembering something important... “I have one last move.”
The old man stops his hand and looks at her. “Not possible.”
Sarah reaches inside her pocket and retrieves the white stone Daniel gave her back on the train…
She lays it on the board…capturing two of her opponent’s stones…
“I win,” she says. In the centre of the Go board, the polished white surface of the stone shines, becoming a brilliant point of light between them. The Entity grabs Sarah’s
arm, digging its nails into her flesh.
“Cheat!” it hisses, voice full of bile.
Sarah wrenches her arm free, drawing blood as the nails rake her skin. “Since when did you fight fair? You played with one extra stone and so did I! Now give me the cure.”
The Go board is engulfed in white light now, so brilliant it is impossible to look at directly. The Entity cringes back in the bed, away from the brightness. Sarah grabs the handle of the
samurai sword and rises swiftly. The light is so intense now it is almost impossible to see the bed, but she can make out the Entity’s black eyes staring at her in rage.
“I cannot be defeated!”
“Let’s see about that.” Sarah holds the sword handle in both hands and brings the blade down, severing the leads and tubes connecting the old man to the machines. There is a
howl from the bed and warning lights flash. Sarah raises the sword again and strikes a second blow, this time cutting the heart monitors in half. They explode in showers of sparks.
“Nooooooooooooooo!”
It is the Entity – screaming for its life. The door to the room bursts open and the nurse flies in, a knife in her hand. Sarah barely looks round, sweeping the sword back with her right
arm as if she has been using it all her life. The blade slices through Nurse Bowen’s neck and she dissolves into nothingness… Sarah brings the sword back, raises it high… And
advances on the bed for the killing blow…
“You cannot destroy me!” the Entity screams. “The universe needs me!”
“The universe needs you?” Sarah says. “You’re nothing but a cancer. And I’m going to cut you away. Give me the cure right now, or I will destroy
you.”
The Entity cackles through its pain. “You won’t do it. You wouldn’t dare…”
Sarah swipes the blade down, cutting through the light, the bedclothes…
The room explodes in all directions…
Suddenly the floor and walls and ceiling are gone, replaced by the blackness of the void. But there is also the Entity. It is no longer a thing of light, but an insect – its true form.
Its bloated body is dark with infections, while its massive limbs hang uselessly, too weak to support the overgrown bulk. As she falls towards it, the creature’s eyes look up at her.
She angles the blade down and pierces the monster’s brain…
The body of the Entity splits along the middle from one end to another. Its abdomen spills dust across the emptiness of the void, choking and engulfing Sarah, blotting out everything. She
fights against the tide, sensing what remains of the alien consciousness as it is torn apart.
“Give me the cure!” she screams. “Give it to me!”
The Entity makes contact with her one last time. It says one word…
“Never.”
“No!” she cries trying to hold its shattered consciousness together, sifting the mass of memories, twisted thoughts and desires. As she does so she becomes aware of her own body
– so very far away in another dimension. Going into freefall, she senses Alex and the others, in desperate need of help and diverts all her power towards one final act…
“What’s the hold-up?” Major Bright demanded, pushing Sarah aside in order to throw the boy into the portal himself. The girl turned as he pulled Alex from
her grasp.
“Leave him alone.”
Something in her tone made him stop and look round. His eyes widened as he saw something in her expression. Something different.
Something human.
He snatched his pistol from his belt and brought it round. Sarah was too fast, however, catching his hand in hers. She squeezed…
…and every bone in his hand broke.
“Arrrrgh,” Bright gasped, releasing Alex and grabbing at Sarah with his other hand. She caught his wrist, giving it a violent twist. The arm dislocated with a sickening pop. Major
Bright’s eyes rolled into his skull and he sank to his knees. Somehow he managed to stay conscious, however, fighting the incredible pain. His mouth moved…
“How?”
“This is for Commander Craig,” Sarah said as she released him. She looked at Louise and gave a command.
Put him in the portal.
With that, she collapsed to the ground. Bright staggered to his feet, both arms hanging uselessly at his side. He looked around wildly, seeking an escape route.
“Bright!” Louise yelled at him, rising into a crouch and holding out her hand. “Where do you think you’re going?”
The major groaned and turned to face the girl. Preparing for the inevitable, he pulled his shoulders back and straightened into a defiant military posture. His mouth twisted into a final,
contemptuous sneer.
“Bloody kids.”
Louise hit him with every drop of telekinetic power she had. The major was lifted from his feet and thrown backwards. For a split section it was possible to see him caught in the mouth of the
portal, being stretched and torn apart by the massive forces within. His dying screams were loud enough to be heard above the maelstrom…
…then an explosion within the tunnel itself shook the power station a second time. The mouth of the portal became a vacuum, sucking in everything from all around. Bricks, fallen weapons,
computer components, torn sections of metal – all flew into the gaping hole. Alex leaped across the mouth of the portal and threw himself on the unconscious Sarah, saving her from being
caught up in the vacuum. A few metres away, Louise and the others clung onto anything that wouldn’t move to stop themselves from being pulled in.
Everyone, get out of here!
Alex cried out.
Louise, help them!
Using the last of her strength to fight against the forces pulling them towards the portal, Louise managed to stand. She walked slowly to where Wei was clinging onto a post and took his hand. As
she led him over to Hack and May, she looked round at Alex, holding on to Sarah below the mouth of the portal.