James Scotson - Planets Falling

I’m overwhelmed when I learn that the stories of the lights on the moon are largely true. After Troll and the other interfaces crushed humanity on earth, the ancient ones remained on the big white orb and worlds beyond it. Until the night our village was destroyed, our ancestors still inhabited the moon and were watching us from afar. Troll lost contact with its kin on earth when the lights went out up there. About this one thing, Troll is as uninformed as we are.

The morning of our attack comes. We take advantage of one more meal from Troll before it’s time to kill it and escape. Flip takes the lift up to munitions, as he’s done during the past few days. Bets and I gather in the central room while Theo retreats into the recesses of the facility. Time to act wanked. Theo sings drinking songs from the village and howls like a wolf. Bets talks to herself, occasionally smacking her forehead, belly, and butt while skipping. Flip fires weapons upstairs. He’s no longer aiming into the range but discharging haphazardly. An occasional explosion suggests that he’s having fun with the concussion grenades. Much like the night of Fromer’s visit, one of Troll’s boxes approaches me. “Amy Marksman, I require your assistance. Your companions are behaving outside of my performance parameters. This is highly unusual.”

I respond using a language that I invented with my friends when I was five. Complete gibberish. I dance and shout. Troll goes quiet. The lift descends as the armory shakes and shudders the entire facility. I’m sweating as I sway my arms and tap on the box like a drum. Three more boxes appear. One heads toward me, one toward Bets, and the other toward the lift. Troll is apparently not distracted enough. Bets jumps on top of one of the boxes and shouts, “Troll, tell me all about the people who lived here before us, starting with the oldest and ending with the youngest.” It seems that Troll is about to speak when Bets interrupts it. “Troll, tell me about how you were made.” The boxes move toward her. “Troll, how many stars are in the sky?” I keep singing and speaking in tongues as I rush to the lift, joining Flip. Bets keeps asking new questions, interrupting the machine. Flip and I descend into the lower level.

When the lift stops, I freeze. All the mummified bodies are scattered on the floor and Theo has disappeared. Flip has a robe full of concussion grenades and a small launcher strapped over his shoulder. He lobs volleys of explosives randomly into corners of the room. Four more rolling boxes appear and then I feel dizzy. The air grows thinner, as both Flip and I gasp. “It’s sucking the air out,” Flip hisses. “Take this grenade and make it count.” He fires at the boxes while I run toward the small glass cube perched on a table that contains Troll’s mind. The air shudders with explosions as Flip screams. Bets joins him in the distance. All goes grey as I activate the warm metal in my hand and lunge forward at the pedestal.

I awake to dead eyes and a shriveled face, acrid smoke, and more screaming. A mummy of some long-dead captive is draped over me. The screaming’s coming from Flip — he sounds a bit like a cat in heat. The space is washed in red light. I push the debris and mummy aside and crawl toward Flip’s mewing. One of the robots has him pinned to the wall, a large spike extending from the machine and lodged in his skull. His arms and legs are flailing. Rivulets of crimson blood are pooling in his lap. I have no idea what to do. The box is motionless, the light on its top absent. The logical portion of my mind suggests that I killed Troll. But not before it impaled poor Flip, pinning him to the wall like an insect. I start screaming and throwing chunks of glass — Troll’s brain — at the box.

“Oh no.” Theo’s croak from behind me sends me lunging forward. “Poor, poor Flip.”

Flip’s intact eye has rolled back; his screams transform to a soft gurgle. Theo whispers, “There’s nothing we could’ve done for him. He’d make his people proud.”

“Where were you Theo?”

“Getting this.” He extends a hand with a small plate of black glass, warm to the touch. He waves his hand over it and an image of the planet appears above it. “A map. I was afraid it’d be destroyed when we attacked Troll.”

Flip’s no longer breathing and I marvel that I survived the explosion. Shards of glass and plastic are scattered everywhere. I swear it was the pile of dead bodies that softened the blow. “Theo, are we sure that Troll is gone?”

“If you’re considering sticking around to find out, I’d consider you wanked for real. We need to get Bets, collect some weapons and provisions, and then leave.”

The lift no longer works. We climb a ladder and search the ground section for Bets. We call for her, with no answer. Theo shouts, “I’m heading upstairs to get some guns and grenades. Keep looking for Bets.” He begins scaling the wall up the shaft of the lift. The robots are still on the floor, with the chairs and tables scattered about. A stool is jammed in between a pair of steel doors. I approach cautiously and peek in the space. One of Troll’s robots is on the floor, with Bets pinned underneath it. My stomach lurches, expecting to see the same horrific scene that Flip left in the basement. Instead, Bets is breathing, with her short blade jammed in one of the robot’s black eyes. Her head’s caked with dried blood, but the gash appears to be superficial. It won’t be long before she again treats me with loathing.

Theo starts lowering weapons, ammo, and grenades via a makeshift rope system he’s fashioned from bed sheets and other materials. I gather them in our sacks and begin setting up a pile that we can retrieve for packing on the horses, if they’re still there. Theo finishes and slides down. Bets has regained consciousness and is puking. “Can you travel?” Theo asks. She nods uncertainly. We begin trekking up the corridor to the surface.

Halfway up, the lights change from dim red to bright white. The facility is powering back up and something’s following us. We increase our pace, but Bets is still weak and dizzy, slowing us considerably. I turn to see three robots gaining ground, each with a spike extended similar to the one that impaled Flip. Theo hands Bets to me. “Head up. I’ll take care of these.” He crouches and pulls a plasma rifle from his pack. I marvel how quickly we’ve adapted from arrows, staffs, and swords to these lethal tools.

I drag Bets toward the outer portal to the sound of Theo’s shots. The same red light we saw when we first found the door to the facility appears and is scanning us. A soft whine fills the corridor and instinct tells me to duck. I pull Bets to the floor just as a beam of white hot light sears the wall where we were standing. We crawl the last few feet to the doors. Surprisingly, the doors slide open and we’re in the open air, with noonday sun shining in our eyes. It’s blinding.

As our eyes adjust, we hear Samuel shout, “Get down.” Samuel’s hiding behind the same ruddy boulder Theo and I used what seems like months ago. Arrows fly as we crawl toward him. There are five immobile robots strewn around the area loaded with arrows and dented by rocks. We flop behind the boulder to find English sitting next to Samuel, staring at us with an astonished gleam in his eyes. This is the closest to a smile I’ve ever seen on his face.

“Where the hell’ve you been?” Samuel hisses.

I try to answer but an explosion and rain of rocks interrupts me. Theo’s rushing toward us as a ball of flame that looks like an arrow but is surely much more lethal follows him from the portal. He ducks and the rocket, I think Troll called it, smacks into the boulder. Theo regains his footing, pulls a weapon I don’t recognize from his belt, and fires at the door. A thin white flame flies across the space, hits the doors, and the entire opening crumbles with a roar. “We’re not going back in there,” Theo gasps.