Children of the After: The Complete Series: A Young Adult Postapocalyptic Action and Adventure series (42 page)

“What you got in mind, little man?” Jack questioned

Turning back towards those gathered in the corridor, Will smiled to himself.

“Go and free all of the other slaves,” he shouted into the crowd of thousands. “Free them like we freed you and fight to make sure you are never locked in a cage again!”

As Will turned to join his siblings and Tammy in the light thingy, a cheer erupted behind him. That should do it.

Inside the elevator was unlike anything Will had ever experienced before. From below him it seemed the air rushed up beneath his feet, though he couldn’t exactly feel it on his skin, and neither his nor anyone else’s hair moved from its passing. The odd yellowish light was harsh on his eyes, forcing him to squint and for some reason his stomach began to twist as if he had the stomach flu. Looking both down and up, it appeared that the odd shaft of light continued in both directions for eternity, but Will didn’t look long as it made his stomach turn even more. Instead, he turned his attention to the glowing orb in front of him with squinty eyes and watched as Tammy placed her hand within it as his stomach lunged into his feet with a jolt.

Looking ahead he could see another floor nearly identical to the one they had just left and hoped silently that there weren’t too many more between themselves and their destination. He doubted very much that his tummy could take that kind of abuse.

As it was, as Tammy presented her hand again and again as floors flickered past, each within the blink of an eye, Will lost count. Closing his eyes tightly and swallowing the bitter acidic bile that arose time and time again, he was finally pleasantly surprised when once again they lurched upward for what seemed a final time.

This time, when his stomach began to knot itself once more, it was for an entirely different reason altogether.

* * * * *

This was it. This had to be it. It met the girl’s description. Peering out beyond the luminescent elevator they rode within, Tammy could make out many of the details that lay beyond. Ahead of them, a myriad of tubes and hoses joined with wires and pipes to create the floor, walls, and ceiling. Lights of various color and size hung here and there, seemingly at random, flashing a dizzying display that danced upon the uneven surfaces of the grand chamber. Suspended from the ceiling of the great room hung, like a pendulum, a great tear-shaped orb of what appeared to be glass. Within it light pulsed, and the thing reminded Tammy uneasily of a heart.

Beating life into the entire structure this reactor, as the child had called it, dangled upon a series of twisted and bent wires that attached to the ceiling at irregular intervals and places. Woven together, the metal bits that bound the reactor aloft appeared to be the blood vessels to the heart they served.

Though light flashed here and there, constantly illuminating the room, it was such that shadows splayed out first one way then the next as if the room was in constant flux. Gouges in the wall of melded metals lay darkened, spared from the luminous flashes, concealing any number of horrors that Tammy could imagine. Looking out into the twisted room beyond, something felt wrong about it. Something warned her to turn back. Something within her screamed that to enter the room would be folly.

Again and again the prophecy played over in her head, forcing her to recall the fallen guide it spoke of. Fallen. Lost. Dead? The words could be interpreted any number of ways, but that still didn’t make her feel any better. Would this be the place?

It didn’t matter. Tammy knew what it was they had to do, and as such she was the first to step out of the pulsing light of the elevator and onto the tangled floor of the room. Carefully placing her steps amongst the tangles of wire and hoses below, Tammy crept into the room with her companions behind her. With her eyes darting this way and that she was no more than ten paces into the giant chamber when she first felt the change. So full of power was the room, that with every pulse of the main reactor at its center, her hair rose upon her head only to fall once more when the light faded. It was peculiar, to say the least, but cemented her resolve. If there was that much energy in the room, this had to be the way to shut it down.

As slow going as it seemed, it felt like only a matter of minutes before they reached the center of the room, though her panting and beating heart said differently. Could time become skewed in a place with so much power? This was no place to ponder such things.

Looking up at the huge energetic capsule above, Tammy could see no way to reach it with ease. Sam could of course teleport up, and Jack could lift them telekinetically, but to what end? They needed to figure out a way to shut it down, or perhaps break it.

“What now?” she asked no one in particular.

“We have a closer loo…” Jack dove aside as the blast of blue light flashed past him.

Looking across the room it seemed Tammy’s imagined nightmares had come to life as dozens of the robo-sapien guards poured out of a rent in the wall where light did not touch. Raising their weaponized arms, they took aim at her and her companions and began firing flashes of focused blue light that snapped and crackled as it sailed through the air around them.

Realizing their predicament, Tammy turned to run as Will attempted to jump away, his ankle becoming caught by a twist of wire as he tumbled to the ground in a heap. Jack was already in the air above and Sam blinked away, leaving Tammy and Will to fend for themselves. Blue pulses of light erupted around her, but there was no time to delay. Turning her attention to Will, Tammy grasped at both his foot and the wire, and with a tug and a twist she set him free. Rising from the floor, she saw as a blue pulse was released in their direction, and shoved Will out of the way just in time to save him from the blast.

With searing pain in her shoulder, Tammy’s vision swam as she lay looking up from the floor. Though she could hear her ears ringing and feel her heart pounding, she never felt so relaxed in her life. Closing her eyes, she let the room and the world fade away.

Jack watched Tammy take the hit but there was nothing he could do about it. As much as it pained him to watch her crumple to the floor, a writhing mass of limbs and blood, he needed to focus. From above the heads of his siblings, the robot guardians of the alien prison city concentrated their fire on him. Using his power against the floor and walls, he managed to soar about the room, held aloft by nothing more than the power of his mind. Here and there the aliens’ shots hit tubes and wires and pipes, the laser-like power tearing, searing, and melting sections away when it struck. In more than one instance sparks began to spray from the damaged conduits, and in one location, Jack noted a blue luminescent fluid leaking from a newly formed break in a pipe.

Nearing a wall of the immense room with the robo-guards’ shots trailing just behind him, Jack spared a look back to witness Sam landing upon one of the guards' heads at the same time as Will dove behind a bundle of twisted pipes. With blasts of blue light all around him, Jack focused his mind and rocketed upwards before diving once more with blasts of crackling light right on his heels. In this confined space with an enemy that was better prepared and armed, Jack knew it was only a matter of time before he or one of his siblings took a hit. He had to do something and fast.

Swooping across the room, Jack focused his power on a row of the robot men ahead, and sent them flying as if from an invisible wave as they twisted and tumbled through the air into a jumbled mess upon the floor. No sooner did he smile at the ease with which they were dispatched, than he noticed more of the things still filing out of a chasm in the wall. Where there were dozens, now near a hundred of the mechanical beings stood and as he noted them, they too took aim at him as a new wave of blasts began falling all about him.

Refocusing his power, Jack soared up and away, putting some distance between himself and his foes. All about the room more of the mechanical beings were pouring in from hidden corridors, forming into lines and groups all about the massive chamber. Thinking to use their weapons against them, Jack rose to face the giant pulsing vessel in the middle of the room. Pausing briefly, he allowed the multitude of enemies to draw down upon him and begin firing before he released his control of the power to plummet straight down by more than thirty feet. Above him, sparks rained down as hundreds of searing blasts struck the reactor. Jack’s hope faded quickly as he watched on for a brief second, only to realize that no harm had come to the thing. It seemed almost as if the blasts were simply absorbed, adding to the power which the thing already contained. Was there no way to bring the thing down?

Dodging a new round of blasts and then another, Jack gasped in surprise when Sam appeared out of thin air just a dozen yards away, only to begin falling before vanishing once more. Again she appeared, this time higher up, and with a scream she fell and vanished again. Blasts of blue light sizzled past Jack still, but darting between the supporting pipes and tubes and hoses that held the reactor aloft, he managed to dodge them again and again. Above, Sam screamed once more and looking up, Jack barely noted her location before she vanished again as a series of blasts struck the large tube behind where she had been. From the tube, liquid oozed and bubbled, and Jack moved to take a closer look.

Weaving up to the damaged tube, careful to hide behind cover as much as possible, he looked down briefly and noted that several groups of the robots were on the move and converging on a spot almost directly below him. There, in the shadows between two giant pipes, Will moved about the tangled web of a floor, dragging the unconscious form of Tammy with him. Cursing his luck, Jack was forced to abandon his inspection of the leaking pipe above just as Sam screamed again from somewhere behind him.

Dropping out of the sky like a rock, Jack threw his power against the floor just before impact to slow his fall to a near stop. Gingerly touching down, he quickly spun on a heel to get his bearings and began picking targets. Tossing a robo-sapien here and smacking two together there, he began with the nearest and started clearing a path for him and Will to escape.

“C’mon, Will, we’ve got to get out of the middle and find some better cover for you.”

“I’m not leaving Tammy,” Will shouted in reply.

“For now you have to, we’ll come back for her, I promise.” Two more robots sailed away as Jack spun to locate his next victim.

“She saved all of us when we needed her most. I’m not leaving her.”

Jack knew the argument was moot. He also knew his little brother was right. Even if it were to save their own skin, they couldn’t leave Tammy unprotected. Nodding his agreement to his brother’s waiting gaze, Jack turned to locate his next target as a blast caught him in the back, flinging him forward to somersault across the floor as the breath rushed from his lungs.

* * * * *

Sam hated teleporting. At least teleporting into a place with no floor. It was terrifying no matter how many times she did it. Each time she reappeared she immediately began to plummet. Each fall made her scream, and both the fall and the scream made it increasingly hard to focus on the next blink. Fortunately, it also made her extremely hard to target. At least that was what she suspected as each time she appeared the robot jerks began shooting their light thingamajiggies at her, and each time they neared, she fell beneath their blows and out of harm’s way. No matter how much she hated doing it, however, she had a plan and so far it was working.

Looking as she fell, another embarrassing scream tearing out from between her clenched lips, she located a huge collection of woven pipes and wires above and ahead of her. Sam blinked and found herself just above the point she wanted by several feet and began to plummet and scream. Blasts followed her as she fell, their blue lights reflecting and dancing off the metal surfaces around her as the twisted metal, now above her, was shredded to pieces by the onslaught.

Blinking away, Sam looked back to where she had been as the decimated steel and rubber of the pipes and wires began to shred and tear, a great mournful sound echoing throughout the room as it gave way. Below, as Sam blinked again, she watched as the great pulsing reactor twisted slightly as one of its supports failed. Her plan was working. Locating another major support for the reactor, she blinked again as she was relocated and blasts of flashing and crackling light ensued.

Support after support, large and small, Sam used the robots’ weapons against them. From time to time she would look about for her siblings and Tammy, but had seen no sign of them. Though fear welled up inside her, making her question whether or not they were alive and well, she swallowed it down, steeling her resolve, and continued to fight in the only way she could.

It was an hour, maybe more, or maybe less, when Sam found herself too exhausted to carry on much longer. With her shoulders sagging and head hung low, she ported for a final time, reappearing just above the last major support she could locate. For more than half an hour the giant tear-shaped orb groaned and pulsed irregularly, but still it clung to the giant room with its remaining wires and strands of tubes and pipes. It had turned nearly a full revolution at one point and that was the point when Sam had thought herself victorious, but she realized all too soon that she had been wrong.

Plummeting down, yet again, she watched as the blasts landed above her and to her left slightly, searing through the large bundle of wires, catching fire to the insulation and melting the copper cores. Like living serpents, the torn and severed strands danced in the air, some of them recoiling quickly due to strain, others weaving and wriggling in the air as if possessed by something inhuman. Sam fell.

She tried to focus, tried to look down to a point that was safe to land, but she was tired. Too tired. With her head pounding and vision growing dark, she plummeted towards the twisted metal floor like a meteor from the heavens. Just as the last of her vision faded, she felt her body jerk, her fall coming to a sudden stop and knew she had hit the floor. There was no pain. She was too tired.

* * * * *

Will pulled on Tammy’s wrists with all of his might. Dragging her across the uneven floor was becoming more difficult by the minute, but he refused to give up. He had thought that the hit Jack had taken would be their undoing, but luckily for them all, his pack and its contents had taken the brunt of the damage. Glancing up towards his brother, he knew immediately that something else was wrong. Gone was the angered and concentrated look upon Jack’s face. Now, instead, he looked worried. Scared.

Turning his attention past Jack, Will quickly located the source of his brother’s concern. There, levitating perhaps a foot off the floor, was the limp form of Sam, now swiftly moving towards them. She didn’t move. Her eyes were closed. The robot warriors of the aliens continued to crowd around them, growing nearer and nearer. Will realized that something else had changed. They had stopped shooting.

Tearing his eyes away from his siblings, Will looked all about. They were surrounded and the enemy was closing in. There were hundreds of the things. They were all identical, and all of them, though not firing, aimed their weapons at him and his companions. There was nowhere to go. Nothing to be done. The battle was over. They had been bested. Defeated. They had lost.

Will’s face shifted from determined to angry as his cheeks swiftly grew hot. It wasn’t fair. They had come so far and worked so hard. To lose now, to give up, just didn’t seem possible. They had spent weeks on the run, chased from one place to another by creatures bent on their destruction, only to finally locate the source of all their problems and fail to defeat it. Will couldn’t give in. He couldn’t let it go. Apparently, neither could Jack.

With a roar that sounded something like a lion, Jack thrust out his arms, throwing back dozens of the robot attackers before turning his gaze upwards. With the tendons straining in his neck and the blood vessels in his eyes and forehead throbbing, Will watched as the great pulsating reactor, still clinging to the air by tenuous cords, began to heave and twist upon its supports. Sparks and fluid rained down and a deep resounding moaning sound seemed to come from everywhere at once as just for an instant the robo-aliens hesitated in their approach.

Jack seemed to notice it too, as Will watched him strain yet further as the reactor was suddenly yanked one way and then another, tubes and wires ripping free from its surface again and again. With another growl, this time much quieter than the first, Jack fell to his knees as the pulsating tear was wrenched downwards with a twist and continued to fall.

Will expected the thing to shatter when it hit the ground, like a light bulb he had seen Dad drop in the kitchen once. Instead, the semi-transparent reactor smacked the floor causing it to vibrate, bouncing once before it settled amongst its fallen supports. Flashing once, more brightly than ever before, it flickered out as smoke rose from it, emitting a hissing sound and rancid smell. Jack collapsed to the floor ahead of him, but Will knew that it was okay. The robots had ceased their approach with the snuffing of the reactor. Even now they stood like statues with their heads sagging forwards.

Looking quickly to Jack and then Sam, Will was at a loss as to what to do next. Both of his siblings were unconscious, and Tammy lay at his feet, wounded and bleeding. As if to make matters worse, the flickering lights about the room, partially hidden by the masses of twisted steel and wire, began to fade, as if the reactor had indeed powered everything. At least that was what Will imagined as darkness enveloped the room.

Alone in the dark, in an alien city, Will reached out to brush Tammy’s face.

“It’ll be okay. We just gotta think, what would a superhero do?” Will said into the darkness. Ahead of him, beyond the frozen metallic bodies of the robots, the reactor flickered to life once more and glowed dimly, creating an eerie mockery of the room’s prior appearance as Tammy’s eyes flickered open. Around them, several of the robots began to stir once more.

* * * * *

Blinking rapidly, Tammy tried to clear her vision while fighting the urge to vomit. Her arm and shoulder throbbed to the point of fainting yet again, but she fought past the pain, trying her best to understand little Will’s words from above her. With her blurred vision clearing, she looked up as Will‘s words fell silent, and turning her head painfully she located both Jack and Sam only a short distance away. Both lay upon the floor unmoving, but motion from beyond them caught her attention.

Silhouetted by the fallen reactor behind them, the robots closed in on them, their shadows stretching out across the twisted floor, making it appear alive and moving. On they came, slowly and steadily, their arms up as if reaching out to grasp at the air, and Tammy could do nothing but watch them come, fearing more for Will than for herself. Trembling from the exertion of holding her head up, she let it fall once more as Will stood above her in an attempt to keep her safe.

Within moments the robots were on them and Tammy watched from the floor as both Sam and Jack were lifted off the floor roughly by their arms and legs and carried away to be lost in the masses of metallic bodies. Still on the mechanical beings came.

Tammy fought the urge to scream, trying to remain brave for Will as the things grabbed him up and off of his feet, kicking and screaming, as he was hauled away and suddenly silenced. Crying silently as Will’s small body vanished in the crowd, Tammy cared little for herself as she too was yanked up off the floor and bodily flung over the shoulder of one of the bots before it turned and began moving in the opposite direction her companions had been taken.