Jaspre Bark - Dawn Over Doomsday

The rest of the meeting went exactly as Ahiga had planned. He couldn't have hoped for a better outcome. He didn't feel victorious though. He just felt an uncontrollable anger growing inside him. At first he tried to ignore this, it made no sense. Then he realised where it came from.

It was the Hopi's glare as he was dragged out. Ahiga had seen that self same look before. From the most beautiful pair of brown eyes he'd ever seen. Eyes that had looked up at him along the barrel of a pistol. A barrel he'd pushed between two tender lips. Lips that could have sealed Ahiga's fate if they'd chosen to.

Instead they were wrapped silently around his gun. Ahiga still felt the recoil as he squeezed the trigger and silenced those lips forever. He still heard Fitch and Golding's laughter. "That's the end of that little faggot!" Fitch had said.

"He ain't gonna fuck with any of the 57th Street bangers no more," Golding had said. "Ain't that right Tom?"

Ahiga had dropped the gun and left the room. He vowed right then he'd make them pay. Now he was about to make good on that.

Cortez was tired and hungry. He hadn't eaten since the previous night and he hadn't slept since the night before. All their provisions had gone down with the whore. The brave, dead whore that Cortez couldn't find it in himself to hate anymore.

He said nothing about his hunger and fatigue and neither did Anna or Greaves. He could see they weren't taking it well. Anna was quiet and withdrawn. She walked with her head down and her shoulders slumped, hugging herself. She shivered whenever she stood still.

Anna had taken the whore's death very badly, screaming and kicking as the vehicle went over the edge. Greaves and Cortez had to pull her back to avoid the lava that splashed back up onto the bridge, sizzling as it cooled to form part of the surface. Cortez had noted, with the air of detachment he got in those situations, that this is how the bridge must have formed in the first place.

Anna had cried for several hours after that and there was little Greaves or Cortez could say to console her. They were dealing with the loss themselves. Once she'd cried the whole thing out she had just sunk into herself. Cortez couldn't think of anything to say to comfort her and not even the words of Jesus or Mohammed, peace be upon them, sprang to his lips.

Greaves was not in a good way either, he was nearly out of painkillers. Cortez could see that he was trying to ration his remaining supplies and was still walking bow legged on account of the burns on his thighs. Whenever he stood up, the scent of rotting flesh wafted off him.

Greaves had taken them around the edge of the plateau in order to come back on themselves towards the opening of a ventilation shaft in the centre. This was apparently to avoid being picked up by the lab's security. It was a favourite tactic of Greaves. Cortez was beginning to recognise them now. He no longer thought of the little guy as his employer. Cortez instinctively knew the haul that went down with the whore and her vehicle was the last payout Greaves was ever going to make and Cortez hung around now out of a sense of obligation.

He felt a little like he'd let Greaves down by getting him tortured, even if he had saved his life after that. Now he wanted to make sure the little guy stayed out of trouble in the final stages of the mission. Cortez felt he owed him that at least.

He also felt responsible towards Anna. There were few women in his life he had thought of as friends and there were even fewer Christians, especially since his conversion. But Cortez thought Anna a very dear friend, no matter what either of them believed in. He felt there was something holy about her intentions to find the virus in the complex below. He wanted to make certain that she saw this through to the end.

They sat for hours by the ventilation shaft, watching the sun go down as Greaves had been insistent they only attempt to enter in the dead of night. They said very little as they sat together. There was very little any of them had to say. Greaves had a pocket watch that he kept consulting every half hour. Timing was everything in this operation he told them.

Cortez was about to stand to get the blood flowing in his legs when Anna cried out. She clutched her stomach and writhed as though in pain. Cortez bent over her to see if she was alright and Anna, forgetting herself, clasped hold of his robes and pulled herself close.

"It knows I'm here," she said, choking out the words between spasms of pain. "Merciful father, so many of them. So hungry for me." She clung on to Cortez who did not know how to respond. He did not wish to be disrespectful of Anna, to compromise her modesty. He felt uncomfortable being so close to her, but he was the only person to whom she could be close.

To Cortez being physically close to another human being meant he was going to hurt them. He was very good at causing pain. He knew little about giving comfort. He cast his mind to the Qu'ran and remembered Muhammad himself, peace be upon him, had said, "I commend you to be good to women." While Allah had been explicit in saying: "Whether male or female; you are of one another."

She felt tiny next to him, whimpering in pain. Cortez placed his large, scarred arms around her. This felt strange to him, but not unpleasant. He didn't believe it was wrong. He was honouring the teachings of the prophets, and helping his friend.

"It's your biogenic field," said Greaves. "It can sense your proximity. I imagine if you were to examine the virus under an electron microscope you would see an increased level of activity. Something akin to excitement, no doubt. It senses in you the potential of what it might become. It feels the hunger of all life to evolve, to improve its condition and to grow more powerful."

Greaves words didn't help Anna any, but after a while the pain died down and she was herself again. She pulled away from Cortez, suddenly embarrassed by their closeness. Cortez, for his part, didn't know where to put himself either and they turned away from each other. Greaves saved them any further uneasiness by glancing at his watch and deciding it was time to crawl down the ventilation shaft.

Taking a Swiss army knife from his pocket, Greaves undid the screws on the grill. The shaft was a sheer drop, so they proceeded by pressing their palms and their feet against opposite sides and shuffling down. Cortez could see Greaves was having trouble with this. He was weak from pain and lack of food and the effort probably wasn't good for his wounds.

Fortunately the vent changed direction, slanting off at an angle about twenty feet down. Greaves let go of the sides with gratitude and slid down the smooth metal of the shaft. Cortez and Anna followed suit. They crawled along the last few feet of the shaft as it became horizontal.

The shaft ended in a grill, six feet off the ground, that looked onto a corridor. Greaves snipped a hole in each corner of the grill's wire and reached through to undo the screws holding it in place. They lifted the grill off but Greaves made them wait before climbing out of the shaft.

"As part of an energy efficiency drive, the security system only ever uses a third of it's cameras at any one time," said Greaves without looking up from his watch. "They're programmed to go on and off in a predetermined sequence. If you know the sequence you can pass through the building without once being caught on camera. There's only a skeleton security crew posted this time of night, so if we're lucky, we won't run into any of them on the way there." Greaves looked up from his watch. "Right. Time to go."

Cortez helped Greaves out of the shaft then lowered Anna down without making a noise. They crept along a labyrinth of corridors, each one looked identical to the last with only the numbers on the doors varying. Greaves would stop them occasionally, look at his watch for a moment, then tell them to continue.