James Decker - Fallout

“What are you doing?” Alexei asked.

“Do you want to see Gohan or not?”

He knew something was wrong, I could see that, but he’d gotten what he wanted. He glanced at the guard one last time.

“Okay,” he said. He started to head for the elevators, and I grabbed his knapsack by the dangling strap.

“That stays here,” I told him.

“It’s mine.”

“I don’t care. It stays here or you aren’t going anywhere, you got it? Let me worry about Gohan.”

He hesitated. I thought he might actually make a run for it, but then he finally relented.

“Fine,” he muttered. He walked over to the guard station and stuffed the pack underneath the desk there before heading back.

“Okay,” I said. “Good. Let’s go.”

We followed him to the elevator lobby, where he pushed one of the buttons.

The serious look remained in his eyes as he watched the numbers descend.

Inside the elevator car, a badge reader had been mounted next to the grid of floor buttons. I showed it Gohan’s badge, and the A.I. screen lit up. The gonzo double planet icon appeared, and began to twirl.

“Greetings, Gohan Sòng,” the A.I. said. “What is your destination?”

“Level ninety,” I said. “The aircar port.”

The A.I., apparently keying off the card alone, didn’t seem to think anything strange about my drastically different appearance or voice.

“It would be my pleasure.”

The car started up. Alexei had to have put it together at that point that I had Gohan’s security badge, but he didn’t call me on it. He barely seemed to notice me at all.

“Alexei, what’s wrong?” He didn’t answer, and I stooped down to meet his eye. “Alexei, please, tell me what’s wrong.”

He still didn’t answer. He still didn’t even look at me. I tried the 3i.

Alexei, did you kill those people in Render’s Strip?

He looked over at me then, his eyes serious, but he still didn’t answer. He just turned back to watch the floor numbers go up. He had begun muttering under his breath, something in Pan-Slav that I couldn’t make out.

The floor shook a little, as vibrations made the console panel rattle. The light flickered, and Vamp looked up at it nervously.

“The building’s shaking.”

“The vibrations are from a haan power conduit,” Nix said. “I believe it converts power to charge the haan device located somewhere in this building.”

“They’re going to do it,” I said. “They’re going to try to re-create the original Impact, to bring back the haan home world.”

“Our home world was destroyed. That cannot be undone.”

“You think Gohan is lying, then?”

Nix thought for a minute.

“The original Impact was an accident,” he said, “but we were able to gather a lot of data when it occurred. Our world is gone, along with your universe. However, there are likely other versions of this world in existence that are much closer if not almost identical to our original one. In theory it would be possible to repeat the experiment under controlled conditions, to collapse another universe while pulling through a more favorable version of this world. In a case such as that, everyone inside Xinzhongzi would remain, while the rest of the world is replaced.”

“Xinzhongzi would become the new Shiliuyuán,” I said.

“Yes. The inhabitants of the new world would believe nothing had changed—only that they experienced an Impact-like event, which caused the sudden appearance of the Xinzhongzi colony.”

“If this device really does exist, and the haan are exposed, what are the chances they would actually trigger it?” I asked.

“I can’t say,” he said. “I believe they would only consider such an act as a last resort.”

“But it’s possible?”

“No one can be sure with any kind of certainty that such an attempt would succeed. It could result in nothing changing, a less desirable world, or the destruction of both universes. They would have to consider the alternative to be extinction before they would attempt it.”

“Stop the elevator,” I said. The car lurched to a stop.

“Sam, we don’t have time for this,” Vamp said.

“I’ve changed my mind,” I told the A.I. “I want to visit Rapture, instead.” Its icon twirled.

“Of course, sir.”

The elevator started up again, and my stomach dropped as the car shot upward.

“Vamp, we have to try to stop it,” I said. “I have Gohan’s authority, maybe we can shut it down.”

“Sam, they’re right behind us.”

“I know, but what if I’m right?”

Vamp shook his head, while Alexei continued to mutter to himself in Pan-Slav. I brought up the 3i’s translator, trying to listen in.

“…though I walk through the dark valley of death… I fear no harm…”

A prayer, maybe? He spoke too softly to make everything out, but he seemed to be repeating something over and over.

A low hum grew louder as the elevator slowed, then stopped.

“Only He can move the stars,” the A.I. said, and the doors opened.

We stepped out into the pristine lobby, a mixture of shiny marble and brass fixtures. The cream-colored walls were speckled with scaleflies though, and as we stepped out of the elevator car more of them flitted through the air in front of me.

“Look,” Vamp said, pointing.

I waved flies away from my face as we approached a short corridor that extended off the lobby. At the end stood a set of heavy glass double doors with swarming black bodies clustered in the corners. A badge scanner had been mounted on the wall next to the entrance.

I headed toward them, disturbing more of the flies and sending them buzzing in a cloud, some bouncing off the walls and others flitting past in a stream before settling back down. I slapped my arm as one of them bit me, and wiped it on my pant leg.

Above me something sparked, and the tube bulbs there flickered, casting shifting shadows across the floor. Somewhere farther in, a machine began to wind up and the vibrations grew, rattling the doors in their frames.

“Hold up,” Vamp said, pointing.

Through the doors a pair of shadows moved, and I heard footsteps following them. I waved for the others to get down and we crouched, waiting for them to pass.

Something slammed, and I heard the footsteps of many people sprinting away in the distance.

“…this is it,” a man’s voice echoed from somewhere down the corridor. “It’s really happening… Gohan help us….”

“Sam,” Vamp said, grabbing me by the shoulders. “Gohan’s going to have every one of his guys looking for us. We came here to get Alexei, and we got him. We need to get out of here.”

“Vamp, if this thing is real, we can’t just leave it.”

“We won’t,” Vamp said. “We’ll come back—”

“We’re not ever getting back in here,” I said. “Once they figure out how you and Shuang got into the grid, they’ll plug the holes and you won’t ever get back in there, either. We have to do this now.”

I crossed through a cloud of flies down to the corridor bend. Turning the way the others had come from, we headed farther in to an area where the walls were covered in clean, white paint and the floor carpeted a brilliant red.

“…this time?” a woman’s voice shouted from somewhere up ahead. “I’m getting out of here!”

Another voice, a man, responded, “Where is Gohan? Has anyone seen or heard from Gohan?”

The power faltered again, and the lights flickered out. The machine didn’t wind down this time, though, in fact if anything the vibrations grew stronger. People gasped in the distance as the floor shook so violently that I nearly stumbled. Metal squealed, followed by a series of booms, and through the window at the opposite end of the corridor I saw something break loose from the building face and fall.