David Hanrahan - Archon of the Covenant

“Can you help me? My friend is in trouble, in the cave back there, and I need help. I have to get to some place out there…”

She trailed off, pointing out into the wilderness, then remembered — she looked up, into the night sky, and saw the Dog Star burning bright. The anvil of the supercell was bearing north into the stars. It wouldn’t be long until the storm seized the sky. The aroton looked back at her then off into the distance. It pondered aloud:

“I’m free, aren’t I? What does one do once they’re free?”

“You can help. Help me, and help my friend.”

The aroton got up, dropping the pulse rifle against its back, the strap pulled tight. It lifted the longrifle aloft, resting it perpendicular against its shoulder. It looked at the girl a moment then began to walk away.

“No, Becca. I’m afraid not. Helping seems the opposite of freedom.”

Becca was crestfallen. She looked around, panicked, and then sprinted over to the landslide. She crawled up the ruined pit wall where the 797F had flown off. She started to fall backwards — the abyss of revin carcasses festering beneath her. She looked over her shoulder, catching the stench momentarily, and then dug her feet into the ramp, furiously clambering upwards. As she did, a faint clamor rose on the air. She stopped near the crown, catching her breath, then held her lungs to listen to the faraway noise. She looked across the silt mound, to the northwest. The tide of revins had washed back into the complex. They were here. Thousands. She scraped her way to the top and peered into the wasteland of Asarco. She saw a flat road stretching east in the moonlight and ran towards it, already out of breath as she began her sprint. Her leg pulsated as she strained to keep her gait steady.

Becca cast off into the dark, into the squall line bearing down. The cold front winds rushed past her, flattening the dry weeds along the road. She exited the Asarco complex and into the dusty desert floor. The Dog Star began to fade into high passing clouds. The dust whipped off the ground and flew past her, lashing at her face and hands as she pushed into the air. The first few raindrops fell around her. A lighting strike crashed into the desert floor to the left, deafening the winds and briefly irradiating the braided ground. Becca fell over in fright, tumbling onto her unsteady leg, covering her ears and shrieking into the thunderclap, her voice split by the roar. Her thigh burned.

The downpour washed over Becca in waves. As she ran, she went headlong into thickets of trixis, saltbush, and palo verde — branches flailing at her skin. Submerged, wandering into a low bed of reeds. The lightning intensified around her, forking into the ground from the black heaven above. The ground flashed behind and to the side. The booming clap split the air. Becca winced the first few times, shielding her eyes, but then ignored them — squinting into the flashes as she ran, looking around at the lit patches of desert. As she sprinted forward, ahead of one massive strike, she looked behind her and saw the brush line of the desert, rattling — the naked flesh of a thousand revins emerging into the momentary flash of light and then vanishing into darkness just as quickly.

She strained with everything left within her. She felt her leg might break. She kept on into the squall. Soon, the Dog Star was gone. In the din of the storm, she thought she heard the cries and grunts of the revins just behind her. She pushed her hands through the low branches of a willow and a twisted, menacing face would appear before her — an apparition, illusion. She closed her eyes and fought past the leaves. She ran for miles, not knowing how far she had gone, where she was going, or what she was doing. She thought of her mother, of Terrence, and Gilberto. She thought about the sentinel. She sobbed as she ran, rain washing her tears, unsympathetic and intolerant. Another lightning column struck just before her, blinding her, sending her tumbling forward into a low creek bed, falling over. She sunk into the wet sand of the creek bed, which was filling with water. She looked at her bleeding hands and Becca sobbed, resigned to fate. Her leg felt split in two. The lightning subsided and the night went black — a swirl of wind, rain, and broken branches flying past her.

From the dark mineshaft, the sentinel opened a faint channel and connected with the aroton, which was ascending a high point outside of the complex, walking into the west:

Please. Help her.

I will not kill any more. I have a new path now. I don’t know where it will go, but the wolf is gone, and so am I.

That’s not true. There is another. I saw a Mexican Wolf in the north foothills, in the wild. It was alive.

A lie. No. That can’t be true.

You have access to my history. Read my files. You emulate mankind and thus you have faults. You choose what to see and what to ignore. If you look, you’ll understand. Your freedom is a mirage. Help the girl and I’ll unlock my file on the Mexican Wolf. Please.

Becca stood up in the creek bed, the water rising around her, rushing past. She looked around blindly in the darkness, not knowing where she was, or even which side of the creek she had just come from. She gazed up into the rain.

“I’m sorry. I can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

She swung her gaze over to the water rushing at her, up to her knees now. She wondered where it would take her. She wanted to simply fall into it and wash away into the blank space of nothingness that occupied the world unknown to her. She closed her eyes and reached her hands out. Her eyelids closed. She believed, for a moment, that she was dying, entering heaven. She opened her eyes fitfully in time to see a blinding light flash over her. Not a lighting strike, but a cannonade of illumination arcing across the maelstrom. She looked forward and saw a patch of ground ahead, past the creek bed, illuminate and softly flare upwards into the night. Becca climbed out of the water and wandered over to the light. The ground was awash in chemiluminescence. The circle of light cast a soft, blue glow on the rustling trees and brush around her. She heard a dull boom to the west, different than the thunder, and saw another shot race across the sky — like a comet crashing into the mud, it crashed into the distance straight ahead. Becca ran towards it — the only light left in the world around her. When she reached the next patch of light, another would streak across the void and she would run to it too. As she ran, she heard shrieks behind her. She would race into the barrens and look behind — the faces of the revins emerged in the same patch of light she had just fled. They were closing in. Becca constricted, pushing her legs into the sodden ground. Her legs began to numb, like the ground was air. She was slowing down, physically unable to go further. She reached the last light marker and stopped. She looked around frantically, waiting for another volley to split the sky, but none came. She looked behind her and could see the branches of the acacias bend and whip behind her. She heard cackling. She lifted her left arm straight towards the prior, fading marker, and angled her right hand outwards, parallel, holding the wet book aloft towards the void. She judged the abyss directly ahead and kept running. As she ran, she continued to look backwards. She could seem them now. She could see their dark outlines sprinting towards her, their silhouettes lit by the last marker. She could hear their panting and the slog of thousands of unshorn feet dredging the steeped caliche.

Becca came into a clearing, crossing over a dark paved road that ran east and west. Ahead, there was no place to hide. A fallen palo verde stretched into the road before her, the wind whipping at its skeletal limbs. Telephone poles stretched along the road, disappearing into the western dark. She laid her hands on her knees to catch her breath and then looked up. She could see it — a faint, green flashing in the distance. The signal. A revin leapt out of the brush behind her and screamed at her! Becca screamed back and the revin stumbled backwards, briefly surprised at her tenor. It took a deep breath in and snarled. Becca ran across the expanse and the revin ran after her, toying with her. It would run up alongside and claw at her drenched sweatshirt, tugging at her. Soon there were others. She ran straight towards the green flashing light. The others joined in, shoving her into the ground. She got up, muddy, staring back at the seething masses that had gathered around her. One ran up and clawed at her face then tugged at the hood of her sweatshirt, savagely trying to rip it from her. They had her encircled now, cackling and enjoying this game. Caught in a deranged hysteria, darting in and out of the fray, jumping over her and leaping off her back, into the rain. Through the fists and bare legs scrambling around her, Becca saw the green flashing light lift off the ground and hover aloft in the darkness ahead. She felt a bony hand reach around her ankles and looked over to see a revin, its nose shorn off, rolling her pant leg up and gnashing its jaw, ready to sink its teeth into her leg. She felt another tugging at the book in her hand and she clutched tight and yelled: