Keary Taylor - The Human

There was glass all over the floor in the lobby where the computers had fallen and shattered. Papers were scattered everywhere. A screaming woman cowered under one of the desks, clutching her wrist which was bleeding profusely.

“I got her!” Avian shouted, breaking off and pulling off his shirt to press into the bleeding wound.

“Anyone else need medical attention?” Royce bellowed, pausing momentarily in the lobby. Everyone else seemed to be okay.

“Eve, take the second floor, find Elijah if you can. Make sure everyone is okay,” Royce ordered. “Send everyone out the south doors. Addie, the blue floor.”

We all broke off.

I dashed up the stairwell, taking them two at a time. They all seemed to be intact.

“Get off the stairs!” I shouted, dodging around a small group of older women cowering on a landing. “Royce wants everyone outside the building now! South entrance!”

They looked at me fearfully, but nodded and started down the stairs.

I stepped out into the hallway and started knocking on doors.

“Everyone alright in here?” I asked, finding a couple inside. There was stuff covering the floor, but nothing looked terribly damaged.

They nodded their heads. “You’re back?”

“Yeah,” I said, suddenly feeling self-conscious of my shaved head. “Royce wants everyone outside the south entrance.”

They slipped into the stairway.

I continued to check doors. A woman had slipped in the shower when the quake started and hit her head on the sink. There was blood gushing from her eyebrow. I sent her in Avian’s direction.

Elijah had worked his way down from the opposite end of the hallway and we met in the middle.

“Welcome back!” he shouted as the ground shook once more.

“Again?” I said, struggling to keep my balance.

“Aftershock,” he said, waving me back toward the stairway. “They’ll keep coming for a bit.”

When we got to the stairway, we found a stampede of scientists in white lab coats frantically carrying equipment down the stairs. They shouted in angry, stressed voices. I made out words like “broken equipment” and “years of research”.

The damage would be worst on the blue floor.

And my heart sank into my stomach.

“The Pulse,” I said to Elijah, my eyes wide. “It’s on the roof!”

“Don’t worry,” Elijah said as we waited for the scientists to clear out. “After those people took you, Royce had it moved to an underground, secure location.”

“Is that going to be any better?” I asked as we descended the stairs.

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s go check it out.”

After we were sure everyone had made their way outside, we searched briefly for Royce to tell him where we were going. When he was nowhere to be found, we passed the message along to Avian as he stitched people up.

Elijah and I sprinted down the road. Another aftershock hit, nearly knocking us to the ground. He led me two blocks away and down into a parking garage.

There was a large steel door blocking off the entrance and Elijah pressed a number into a keypad. It beeped twice and retracted.

Dust billowed out at us as soon as the door started opening and Elijah swore loudly. We ducked beneath the door and Elijah shined a flashlight through the dust.

It looked like the back half of the building had collapsed down into the garage.

And one side of the Pulse was crushed completely.

Elijah swore again.

“It would have been perfectly safe from people like the ones that took you,” Elijah said as we approached to inspect the damage. “Who would have anticipated that it would be Mother Earth that would turn on us this time?”

As we looked closer, it was only a quarter of the gigantic ring that had been smashed by a pillar that had toppled over on it.

“This took them four years to build,” I said, panic building in my system. “We’re going to have thousands and thousands of Bane falling on us in three days.”

“So it’s true?” Elijah asked, glaring at me through the dim light. “They really left a beacon here in the city?”

I nodded. “Come on,” I said, turning and sprinting back outside.

We found Royce immediately when we got back to the hospital. The aftershocks seemed to have finally died out. He was barking for Elijah when we came up.

“The Pulse,” I said, my voice anxious. “You’ve got to get it out of that garage. The entire building is about to collapse on it. It’s already damaged.”

Royce’s face reddened further and he took half a moment to formulate a plan. “Get a team. Take one of the tanks. Pull it out of there!”

Elijah started shouting for his crew.

“You got this?” I asked Elijah, who nodded and headed for our own underground parking garage for one of the tanks.

I turned to see what I could do to help Royce when a bolt of lightning flashed through my brain and my knees buckled.

Everything illuminated in green. Numbers flashed everywhere. Suddenly they all pulsed and formed into a zero point one two in the center of my vision.

And the world was black again.

I was lying on a cot when I came to. It was dark and the air was cold.

I sat up and looked around.

It seemed everyone was sleeping outside. It must have been late, considering it looked like most everyone was in fact sleeping. Several small fires were scattered about, a few lone figures sat around them, warming their hands and talking.

I heard Avian speaking not far away and found him with Royce, their heads low, their voices heavy and quiet. I rose to join them.

They stood over a man and my entire body felt cold when his face and all of the blood came into view.

Eli. Morgan’s husband. Expectant father.

“Is he…?” I tried to ask.

Avian met my eyes and nodded his head.

“What happened?”

“They were out with the rehoming crew,” Royce said, his voice rough. “They were all cleaning a new building when the quake hit. The roof collapsed on them.”

“He bled out,” Avian said, his voice catching.

I squeezed my eyes closed, shaking my head.

“Where is Morgan?” I asked.

Avian pointed to a cot a ways away. She was curled into a ball around her slowly growing stomach. “She was hit too. It knocked her unconscious. She hasn’t woken up yet.”

“The baby?”

“We don’t know.”

I nodded, hugging my arms around me. “Will it be safe to go back inside the hospital?” I asked Royce. I couldn’t dwell on the death and despair any more.

“Elijah’s crew scouted it out. Everything looks okay,” Royce said. “We want to check it again in the morning. We thought it safest to give everything some time to settle.”

“Do you remember anything this time?” Avian asked me, walking around Eli’s cot, pulling me into his arms.

I shook my head. “Same as the last two times.”

“Once we get this all cleaned up Dr. Beeson will fix it,” Avian said, pressing his forehead to mine. “It looks like most of the equipment made it through. He’ll do what he does best.”

I nodded, biting my upper lip. I suddenly recalled the memories and nightmares I’d had in the Underground, the dreams. Dr. Beeson evaluating me and declaring I didn’t need an adjustment yet.

“Get some rest you two,” Royce said as he covered Eli with a blanket. “There isn’t much more you can do until morning.”

“What about you?” I asked Royce. There were dark bags beneath his eyes.

“Not now,” he said, shaking his head. “There will be no sleep for me tonight.”

I wanted to ask him more questions. I wanted to know if we’d be able to fix the Pulse. We needed to make plans. I wanted to know if everyone else had made it out of the hospital okay. But his eyes told me he was done with questions for the night.