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Sweat rolled down Andres back but it wasn’t just the heat. To say he was nervous would be understating the situation. He was terrified. It wasn’t everyday he was called to speak before a closed meeting of The Order.
The reactors that supplied the artificial luminary had been shut down so although daytime it was actually dark. He’d informed The Order five days ago that such measures were necessary but still his presence had been requested. Probably because the temperature was continuing to climb and people were starting to die.
It was not really possible to stay out in the open for long periods of time now. So he’d ordered a private transfer hoping that The Order would foot the bill. From inside its air conditioned interior he gazed at their darkened world illuminated by methane powered street lights and wondered if there would be many more tomorrows. It crushed him to think of his little Kaylee and others like her being cooked alive instead of living life to the full. He thought about Tara too and how he wished he’d done better by her. He could not undo what he had already happened but he could do his best with what little time they had left. According to his calculations they had about four days to a week before they all fried. The thought of it almost made him lose his lunch in the foot well. None of it seemed real at all.
The transport pulled into the underground parking zone and the driver quickly let him out.
“Give the bill to the woman on the front desk,” Andre said, nodding towards the revolving doors.
He nodded and wished him well before rushing into the building to escape the heat. Andre took the lift up to the third floor. The doors opened and he stepped into a blindingly white foyer furnished with tempered glass furniture. Another woman sat at the desk, a fan to either side blowing directly in her face.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes, I have an audience with The Order.”
“Name?”
“Professor Andreous Cass.”
She glanced up at him as if she were about to say something then appeared to think better of it.
“If you just take a seat over there you will be called shortly.”
He did as he was told, setting his presentation folders on his trembling knees. Ten minutes later he was called over the crackling intercom.
The frosted glass doors opened and he stepped apprehensively into the Forum. Twelve robed figures sat around a circular table. All wore black except one – the Grand Master. He wore scarlet. Like the others his face was obscured by a hood and a mask of cobalt blue. This was meant to hide their identities but it was common knowledge that the current Grand Master was Eutychus Flame. Andre even knew a few of the others, Mostyn Forteleza the owner of Acru Industries and Jayruth Williams a techware designer. They had relinquished their anonymity because they felt it wouldn’t interfere with their lives. The rest chose to remain nameless to the public.
“Please, sit down,” said the Grand Master Flame indicating an empty chair at the head of the table.
“Thank you sir.”
Although it was hard to make out how they felt about his presence he got the general impression they were keen to see what he had to say. All except one gave him their rapt attention.
“Professor Cass, it is vital that we cut to the heart of the matter without preamble. Even we, the laymen and women of this dome recognise that we cannot go on this way. We need to know exactly where we stand. How long have we got? And what can we do about it?” said Eutychus.
“I have the exact figures here somewhere,” he mumbled, leafing through his folders. Where was that spreadsheet? He’d had it a minute ago.
“Mr Cass. We do not need exact figures. Just give us your best guess.”
“We’ve got between four days and a week at current rates of escalation. My opinion is it will probably be five days.”
“And in the meantime people will keep dying,” said a woman. “My neighbour and her husband died two days ago. They were elderly and in poor shape. They just couldn’t take it anymore.”
“The hospitals are full. But treating people is a waste of time if we can’t stop whatever’s causing this,” said Jayruth.
“I suppose what we are saying is that we are desperate,” sighed Grand Master Flame. He threw back his hood and removed his mask casting it onto the table with a clatter. With great weariness he removed his robe revealing ultra light linen trousers and shirt underneath.
They all followed his example except one.
“Tara. There is no point spending our last few hours concealing an identity that will soon be gone,” said Flame.
The hooded figure he addressed said nothing. It glanced briefly at Andre. Their eyes made contact. It looked away. But it was too late the seed had already been planted.
“Tara?” he gasped. “Is that you?”
He jumped to his feet and rounded the table.
“It IS you!”
When he entered the Forum he had seen the silver bracelet he had given her for their anniversary dangling from her wrist but he had dismissed its significance telling himself that many women probably owned that design. But when he heard her name that had clinched it. Things started to add up now in his head, all the late night shifts and all the secrecy.
“Well this a turn up for the books!” scoffed Mostyn.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” exclaimed Andre. “You knew I was coming here today.”
Flame slapped the table with his palm.
“We do not have time for this. You two can work out your family situation later, if indeed there is a later.”
Andre looked rattled.
“Yes sir.”
“Good. So…What we need right now is suggestions. We’ll take anything you’ve got. Anything. Just tell us what the hell is causing this!”
From the corner of his eye Professor Cass saw Tara disrobe. He tried to ignore it.
“I’ve had two teams working on this problem for eighteen months as you know. We tried just about every adjustment to the environmental systems we could think of. Nothing worked. We’ve even switched the luminary off, which is unprecedented I might add.”
Flame was grinding his teeth.
“For God’s sake man! Stop telling us what it isn’t and tell us what it is!”
Andre sighed and hung his head.
“You’re not going to like this, but I think it’s coming from outside the dome. For some reason the world outside our world is heating up.”
Tara sneered at his explanation.
“Don’t be ridiculous! There’s nothing out there.”
However Mostyn Forteleza, owner of Acru Industries didn’t agree.
“Of course there’s something out there. We left a whole civilisation behind. God only knows what they put into action for the sake of vengeance before they were wiped off the face of the earth.”
The others stared in horror that he should give such ancient secrets away and also because they had never considered such an explanation for their present woes. For over two thousand years the Order had kept secret their sin of mass genocide. No one was supposed to know that upon leaving the surface they had left behind a nation of telepaths that had sprung up from the gene pool over the previous ten thousand years. Once sequestered at the bottom of the Indian Ocean they had released their weapons of mass destruction irradiating the earth and everything on it including the mind reading telepaths. Everyone but the then members of The Order, was reset, their memories wiped and the files encrypted so that only those with the highest authority could access them. The door to the outside was sealed forever. No way in. No way out.
“I think you’d better explain what you just said,” said Andre looking pale.
Eutychus shrugged and threw his legs across the table, “No point holding back now.”
So they told him about how the dome had been built by sleeper cells of eight generations of construction workers, a place to hide while the nuclear storms raged and wiped out their enemies. They also told how there had originally been two domes constructed – one called The Deep and the other called The Trench. The second had developed a serious flaw in its foundations and had to be abandoned before completion.
“Only I’m starting to wonder if the telepaths didn’t get to it and manage to make it habitable somehow,” said Jayruth dryly. “Remember that girl? Adela something. You won’t have knowledge of this Andre but a couple of weeks ago a young girl with a history of serious mental illness entered The Keel and apparently disappeared into thin air. No one has seen her since. She left behind a drawing up on the roof top.”
He slid his gauntlet across the table so Andre could see it.
“I can’t make it out. What’s it supposed to be?”
“Two domes. The Trench and The Deep. But both fully constructed, not as the files suggested.”
“Shit!” exclaimed Flame.
Andre was lost. None of it was making sense.
“But you said she was a D-lude? Why is this important?”
“Because she’s more than just a D-lude. We have reason to believe she can teleport. And because if she’s not here she’s got to be somewhere else and I’m willing to bet it’s with a dome full of telepaths who hate the very air we breathe.”
“They will be waiting for you, you know.”
Adela smiled at the pewter haired president. After four days in their world she had come to know it as Lavady.
“I know,” she said. “But I have to go back. They are my people whether they hate me or not.”
“Then we are siblings, for they hate us too.”
Adela nodded. They had told her of the ancient wars between the talkers and the mind readers. She could scarcely believe that anyone could be so cruel as to wipe out another race just because they were different.
“They will help you. I will make them.”
The jet black being flecked with tiny particles of silver smiled.
“I know you will try. But we both know that both our worlds are in trouble. The magma is advancing and the fires still rage. It is unlikely I will see you again. But if I don’t please be assured that I am glad to have met you. You have given me hope that not all in your world wish us harm.”
“Goodbye Lavady. I will do what I can.”
He nodded and she sunk down into herself with an ear splitting hiss and flash of light. For a second or two she was weightless and the next she felt herself reforming. Her feet hit the floor and then a split second after she felt a stabbing pain in her arm causing her to collapse.
I must leave! I’ve made a mistake in coming back!
The others knew what she was thinking, with or without the gift of reading minds.
“Don’t! You must stay!” cried a voice.
The room was still spinning. When the carousel had stopped she saw that the speaker was her father.
“Just stay calm,” he told her. “Everything will be alright.”
Her vision cleared and she looked into his gentle face. There were many people standing behind him which surprised her, because when she had left The Keel it had been empty.
“What did you do to my arm?”
“It’s a tracking device and a prototype phase disrupter. Try to jump ship again and you will die screaming in agony,” said one of Mostyn’s lab workers.
“Charming. And to think I came back here to help you.”
“Explain. Where have you been?” snapped Eutychus.
Jim Sheldern gave him a warning glance.
“It’s all right. Everything will be all right,” he said, bending to embrace her.
She patted him on the shoulder and almost smiled. It faded when she noticed the lack of artificial sunlight.
“The temperature still rises then?” she said to the others.
“To hell with that! Of course it does. Answer the question. We need to know where you have been. You’re one of them aren’t you?” said Eutychus.
Adela faced him head on. She wasn’t scared. They were.
“I want to see my mother.”
Her father tried to intercede between the two of them.
“I will get someone to bring her.”
“No. Not Juanita. I mean my real mother. The one who gave birth to me.”
Jim glanced away. He had his suspicions when she had broken into the Records Offices all those months ago. Now he knew for certain that she had discovered the truth – that they had adopted her when his wife Juanita could no long bear children of her own. After two boys they still wanted a girl and adoption seemed like the only way.
“She’s adopted? Were you aware of this?” Grand Master Flame asked the officer beside him. She nodded.
“Yes Sir. We found out a few hours ago when we managed to recover the erased footage from the security systems at the Records Office. Adela could clearly be seen accessing Michaela Voors records. I was about to tell you when we got the call to meet you here,” said Commander Anita Grey. “I thought it made more sense to hold off till I could tell you in person.”
“Who is this Michaela Voors?”
“That’s Adela’s birth name. It is also the name of her real mother – also known as Mickey Voors. They’ve got her down in the R.R.D. She’s been there for twenty two years. A non-responsive.”
A tremor shook the building. They were running out of time.
“If you want to see her, you must tell us where you have been these last five days.”
Flame and Adela faced each other off. Either way she would be taking a gamble. If she phased her way into the R.D.D Unit she risked death from the tracker that they had inserted and then she would be able to save no one. If she trusted them and told them where she had been and who with, they may reset her out of fear and then once again no one would be saved, neither talker nor telepath.
It was a tough one. The weight of the world was not supposed to be on the shoulders of a twenty two year old woman.
“Do I have your word?” she said.
“Yes.”
“Then I suppose that will have to do.”
“They’re dying every bit as much as we are! The ground has split apart in their dome and fire is spewing out of it and burning everything up! They may all be dead already,” cried Adela, trying to make them see sense.
“Lies! All of it!” shouted Jayruth. “Do not listen to her. The telepaths are trying to wipe us out just as they did before. I told you they still existed! It is they who are slowly cooking us to death. We’re wasting time talking when we should be finding a way to destroy them.”
Adela groaned.
“I have told you the truth. Now let me see my mother just as you promised.”
The room stunk of sweat and the desperate.
“She is telling the truth. I can tell by her body signals,” said Commander Grey.
At the dusty desk over by the window Flame held his head in his hands.
“Remove the tracker,” he said quietly.
Mostyn motioned for a member of his staff to do so. It hurt like hell but she was grateful.
“Thank you. I will be back as soon as I can. I promise.”
Without waiting for a reply she vanished in a blaze of light and sound flipping Jayruth the middle finger as she imploded.
Mickey had known her daughter was coming. She knew a great many things since the black and silver man had appeared to her in the store room all those years ago. She had stopped telling the others though because nobody ever believed her.
There were no nurses in the ward when Adela appeared, just Rigola, her neighbour and she was heavily sedated anyway.
At first the mother and daughter duo said nothing to each other. They just shared a look that held the pain of so many wasted years.
“Sit down,” Mickey said softly.
Adela sat and took her hand, goose bumps rising from every hair follicle.
“You know who I am?”
“Yes. You are my daughter.”
“What else do you know? Do you know why the world is heating up?”
“We both know, only you haven’t discovered that you have that knowledge yet. They threw us this lifeline. It’s their doing.”
Adela’s heart sank.
“You mean the Telepaths? You believe they’re behind this?”
“No,” she said scornfully. “They did not turn our dome into an inferno. They were the victims in the Gene Wars. They wouldn’t do something like this. The heat must be affecting them too. I meant the ones like your father. They have given us the tools to save ourselves from the burning ball.”
Adela leaned forward in her seat.
“Tell me about him.”
“There is not much to tell. His people stem from those who were left behind on the surface when it was irradiated by the Talkers. They were the Telepaths who never made it to The Trench. Most of them died, but a small group survived the radiation by adapting to their environment, as is often the way. They were able to sustain themselves by drawing energy from the sunlight. In time they developed the ability to teleport in addition to the mind reading abilities they already had. But it wasn’t enough. The world was desolate and the crumbling ruins reminded them daily of what they had lost. They tried many times to reach the domes but they were sealed from within and the ‘clean’ air inside was like deadly poison to them. A handful with power enough to make the teleport journey were able to exist for mere seconds in our underwater worlds. But it was never long enough to achieve anything useful – until you that is. After several deaths in an already miniscule population they decided to leave earth and head for the stars. Every now and then they return to the world of their birth. It was on one of those journeys that they noticed our world was doomed.”
Tears welled up in Adela’s eyes. They ran down her face leaving crystalline tracks.
“They must have suffered so much,” she said with a sniff.
“Yes. They did. But they are not bitter. Your father died trying to help us.”
“He’s dead?”
She nodded.
“Since being exposed to the radiation our environment is toxic for them. The last thing he told me is that he would die within minutes of returning to his people. He communicated by touch whilst the genetic material that contained you was delivered. He sacrificed his life to create a hybrid between species, one that could teleport, tell the future and read minds. He was the most gifted individual ever to emerge from his kind and apparently I am a powerful latent futurecaster, which is an extremely rare thing. You are the one that they rested their hopes on. He told me that when the time came, you would have the answers.”
Adela was stunned. She had hoped it would be the other way round. She had no answers, not even for herself. The bed seemed like the most logical place to shed her tears. She pressed her face to the stiff cotton sheets releasing her despair. They were done for. The world was staggering to its doom and there was not one thing she could do to prevent it.
Mickey stroked her daughter’s silken hair then rested her head against it. Immediately Adela flinched, her eyes snapping open like trapdoors. But she couldn’t see the room around her. There was a bright light at first. Then she saw the ocean outside and The Deep how it used to be with its zones and quadrants and the hustle and bustle of intelligent life. It was illuminated properly just as it was before the crushing heat arrived, with plazas and industry and schools and parks. A strange force propelled her towards the zone that she had been conceived in. Weightless and intangible she plummeted through the walls of the R.R.D Unit and sank down, down, down through its many sub levels. The hospital cum jail stopped at floor minus six but she kept on going until she reached a hollowed out section in its extensive foundations.
Banks of computers and screens stood on every side. In the centre were a series of chairs, a console in front of each. She stumbled backwards and leaned on one. It blinked into life with a bird like trill. Instinctively she sat down and strapped herself in, her hands flying all over the touch screen. With a burst of static the black screens burst into life with flashing visuals and displays. Instead of panicking she took it all in her stride and looked for the one that showed planet earth. When she found it she swallowed hard, blinking rapidly, chilled to the bone by what she saw. Something had knocked the earth out of orbit sending it straight into the heart of the churning sun. There was no time to lose. She had to act. Everything she’d ever loved depended on it.
Mickey gasped at the suddenness of her breaking contact. But she recovered quickly.
“There’s not much time,” She said.
“It’s ok. I can do it Mum.”
Adela hugged her briefly and then phased sixteen levels into the earth until she reached the emergency command centre. It was exactly like the vision. Only in the vision she had never hit the launch button. There was no time to quibble about whether or not she was doing the right thing. She just had to go with her instincts. Her hands depressed the levers that released the dark matter into the reaction chamber. A tiny hollow needle punctured the globule of utter black on the microscopic level releasing a micro droplet of Theraton. There was a sudden surge beneath her, a barely restrained energy just waiting to be released. With one eye on the vicious red sun Adela hit the multi dimensional thrusters. The dome lurched and screamed as it tried to free itself from two thousand years worth of silt and ultra strength concrete.
She fought to find her centre of calm. She found it and applied a little more pressure to the thrusters. The scream escalated. She imagined she could hear those of the terrified inhabitants above the noise of the engines. The eye of the sun blazed against the eternal night drawing them closer and closer to their fate. Determined to avoid that scenario, she closed her eyes and gradually powered the thrusters to full capacity ripping the dome from the ocean floor. Something told her to keep the power at max in order to escape the gravitational pull of the sun. The touch of a small blue button filled the double skinned dome with insulating liquid that would stand the rigors of space. Through miles and miles of sea water the Deep ploughed until it burst from the scalding waves and out into the open. With the atmosphere boiled away there was nothing but space. Only Adela could see it on the view screens. There was no time to search the surface for traces of what had been. She aimed the Deep for the outer edge of the solar system where their telepathic/teleporting cousins awaited in a star ship the size of a large asteroid.
Half way there she began to weep bitterly in the knowledge that she had left Lavady and his people to die in the second dome.
“All those people,” she sobbed. “So many lives. They deserved so much more.”
“Adela,” said a voice.
She looked around but there was no one there.
“Adela. My name is Maigut. I live in the Trench. You visited our home. I am speaking to you by the power of thought.”
Adela sat up and gasped.
“Where are you?”
“Look on your screens. You will see an enormous glittering capsule. We’re inside it. We’re leaving the ocean as we speak. Our cousins gave me the same gifts as you. I am also in the command centre. The one in the bowels of our world.”
“But how did you halt the flow of magma?”
“The makers installed various methods to seal the dome in such an eventuality. It was difficult, but I managed. That knowledge is with you also.”
Adela sobbed with joy.
“So what do we do now? Where shall we go?”
“We can go wherever we like my cousin. It’s a big universe out there.”
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