The Children of New Earth (22 page)

“It’s hard to explain. My eyes…it’s like they tell me what her next move will be, then it’s up to me to go from there.”

“Very useful for Dragons,” one Neogen said. “You can tell if it's about to burn you to a crisp or just eat you alive.”

“Aha, good one,” another responded sarcastically. “It’d be funnier if we weren’t fighting a bunch of them tomorrow.”

“Good thing we know their weakness, thanks to Aaron,” I said.

“Thanks, friend. This enhanced sight thing is really turning into something, huh?” he said. “Now I’m good for something more than just seeing in the dark.”

We continued to talk for a bit before the next fight. I watched a few more after that, mostly trying to learn through observation. I’m not sure how much I assimilated, but I got the chance to prove myself when I was challenged to a duel by a Neogen called Olivia. She proposed that powers were allowed and the first person to land a hit won the round, best of three. I agreed.

We stepped into the center of the arena, and got into position. My opponent stood firm, knees bent, perfect form, and blade pointed directly at me. I sort of just stood there, sword in hand. When the fight started, she completely disappeared. Before I could react, a holographic blade emerged from my chest and the buzzer sounded.

I turned around to see Olivia rematerialize, her hand forming around the hilt.

“OK, not cool,” I said.

“We did say powers allowed.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know what your power was.”

“I don’t know yours but you don’t see me crying about it.”

“Alright I see how it is. Let’s do best of three.”

“You’re on.”

We took position, and the round started. I froze time just as she went invisible. It took a second, but I was able to do it before she reached me. It was a little difficult to hit a target I couldn’t see, even with all the time in the world. I found myself swinging blindly in the air in the area where I last saw her. This went on for a good minute before I finally heard the buzzer on the hilt. I unfroze time and she reappeared with a disappointed look on her face. To everyone else, I must’ve teleported and ended the round the second it began.

“OK, wise guy, last round,” she said.

This time I did the exact same thing, except this time I couldn’t find her. I swung for almost 10 minutes and it wasn’t even that big of an arena. Finally, I gave up and let go of time. Almost right away, my buzzer went off, and I looked down to see her, laying flat on the ground with a huge smile on her face.

“I cannot believe that worked,” she said laughing.

“But…how??”

“I turned invisible, then dropped to the floor, then you froze time, and I waited. Well, technically I didn’t really wait I just sort of laid there and hoped. How long were you out?”

“Like a minute.”

“Liar.

“OK, like two minutes.”

“Liiiarrrr.”

“OK, like ten minutes.”

“Wow, I really wish I could’ve seen you attack thin air for ten minutes.”

“Let’s live through tomorrow and we’ll see. Are you Alpha or Beta?”

“Alpha, of course.”

“Shoulda known.”

“Hey! You two!” someone shouted out. “If you’re done making out or whatever, can you clear the arena? Some of us actually wanna fight.”

“Sorry!” I yelled back, then turned to Olivia. “So, I’ll see you around? Maybe we can rematch sometime.”

“I look forward to it.”

I headed back to the room to get some rest. It was late, and we had a very important day tomorrow. The others were already there, sound asleep. I took off my shirt, crawled into bed, and fell asleep the moment I closed my eyes.

That night, I had my first dream in a long time. I was standing on some kind of invisible surface about a thousand feet in the air. The sky was dark, and the heavy clouds shadowed the metropolis below in perpetual night. I looked down to see a group of skyscrapers, all rife with broken windows and destroyed infrastructure. Metal bars and wires were strewn everywhere, illuminated by the occasional eruption of sparks from some broken electrical system. Plants and weeds grew rampant between the cracks of concrete, and vines snaked along whatever surface they could find. The moon began to shine through the clouds, revealing more of the landscape. Tall buildings stood in scattered locations across the horizon, though much of the terrain was made up of fields dotted with smaller buildings. I then looked to my left and saw what seemed to be the shoreline, beyond which were countless clusters of tiny islands each with a land bridge connecting them to the main continent. To my right was a desert, devoid of life and shrouded in fog and dust.

I thought back on the time I dreamed about a city that hadn’t been ravaged by war, a city with beautiful architecture and a thriving populace. As I had that thought, I turned my head east towards the sandy expanse. That’s when I saw some strange movement. From here, it just looked like a layer of black smoke covering the ground. But when I focused my gaze, I nearly fell back in shock. It wasn’t smoke. It was Demons, thousands of them running and scuffling amongst themselves. Their snarling grew louder, and I found myself feeling rather nervous about this invisible platform I was standing on.

I was then startled by a thundering boom coming from deeper in the fog, followed by a rush of hot wind. Then another came, further pushing back the wall of mist ahead of me and revealing the rest of the city. The sound got louder and louder, and my heartbeat quickened with each new pulse of air. I looked around frantically, trying to make out any kind of movement or shape in the dense fog, all the while hoping I wouldn’t fall to the ground. After what seemed like ages, I saw them.

Three Titans were walking out towards me. They were much, much larger than the last one I’d encountered. At my current elevation I must’ve been level with their heads, towering over even the largest skyscrapers of the city. The Demons below got louder as they moved towards the city. I heard the Swarms moaning, the Minotaurs bellowing, and the Sirens shrieking. I kept telling myself it wasn’t real, and my terror slowly turned to fearful amazement. Then, out of literally nowhere, a fleet of Dragons emerged from the clouds above, roaring furiously and following the Titans’ path.

I looked ahead to see where they were going. The clouds had yielded to the moon, and it finally revealed a most astounding scene. It was a skyscraper that stood more than three times taller than any of the surrounding buildings. Even at my current elevation, the peak must’ve been hundreds of feet higher than where I was standing. It was in pristine condition; not a single window was broken, nor was any part of it structurally damaged. At its tip, a green light flashed at timed intervals, like a beacon. The base was surrounded by a small lake, over which tiny waves danced in the moonlight.

That’s when I realized where I was. This was once the city of Dubai, and I was looking at the capital Sanctuary of New Earth. I was heartbroken to see that this architectural masterpiece, the only building left untouched in the entire city, was about to be destroyed. The Demon army surrounded the building, and I watched in horror as the Titans made fists and raised their arms, preparing to attack. The Dragons that were circling overhead turned for a dive. An onslaught of Minotaurs, Sirens, and Swarms charged at the Sanctuary’s foundations. However, before the Titans’ attacks landed, some kind of blue force field lit up around the building and knocked them back with incredible force. Their arms crackled with electricity, eventually surrounding their entire bodies and reducing them to dust within seconds. As the Dragons flew into the barrier, their bodies disintegrated from head to tail. The Demons charging from the ground. Within seconds, the entire army was destroyed, and silence fell once again upon the city.

Now I knew why this was the only building still standing. Its defense systems were the most powerful that I’d ever seen. It could survive just about any form of Demon attack. I only hoped that what I was seeing depicted reality, and wasn’t some fabrication of my imagination. I could assume this dream-induced omnipresence was some side effect of my power, but even now I didn’t fully understand it.

Just as I was feeling calmer, I heard another deep reverberation in the air around me. I turned around and looked into the distance. In the fog, I could make out over a dozen massive shadows. An alarming number of other shapes seemed to be flying alongside them. On the ground, a thick layer what seemed like black smoke was quickly advancing towards the structure. Another wave of Demons was coming for an attack, but if they failed, there would be another, and another, and another. I didn’t know how long the force field would last before it was finally broken, and one of mankind’s last bastions of survival would be lost.

In a panic, I woke up with a start. Everyone else was asleep, with the exception of Cora, who was sitting up in her bed.

She gave me a reassuring look, and said, “Don’t be afraid.”

Somehow her words brought some degree of comfort, and I was able to fall asleep once again.

Chapter 16

The next morning we made our final preparations in relative silence. I strapped on my boots and donned my purple cloak. I’d had it with me since the beginning, and would take it with me to the end. In my pack, I kept a health kit, some ammo, a spare knife, and a set of tools. I woke up Mark, by which I mean I turned him on, and walked with him to our rendezvous with the others.

We met in front of this large gate, a short walk south of the entrance hall. Some were talking, some were quiet, keeping to themselves. I saw one telekinetic keeping a bullet in perpetual revolution around her finger. A flyer was floating about 20 feet in the air, back towards the ground and arms folded across his chest. Another Neogen was looking around the room, and I could only guess she was a psychokinetic, reading the mental state of everyone in the room. For me, it was hard to tell who was excited and who was nervous. Most of them were probably a combination of the two.

After a few minutes, we were called to action.

“Alright, Betas with Michael,” Micah said, entering the room with her brother and father.

“And Alphas with Micah,” Michael added.

We split up into our respective teams, then turned our attention to Cameron.

“Well, here we are. After these long, uncertain years, you’ve finally been given a purpose, a real chance to benefit your people. You have trained for this. You are ready for this. Each and every one of you will be remembered as part of the generation that brought humanity back from the brink of extinction. This is your world now, and I know you will make your Parents proud.”

And at that moment, for the first time in a long time, I thought of my parents. It’d been months since the attack on my Sanctuary, and I’d made peace with their fate. I felt a sense of pride that I was continuing the work they’d started those many years ago. Dubai was the center of New Earth’s government, and perhaps there was the solution to reuniting mankind.

When Cameron finished his speech, there was an uproarious applause with cheers erupting from everyone in the crowd; morale had never been higher. Amidst our shouts of confidence, the gate slowly groaned open and revealed a circular tunnel with gray walls and pipes running along the edges. The dim ceiling lights lit up one by one, leading further into the passageway . Michael and Micah stepped in front, and led the charge.

We ran through the tunnel for several minutes. The tapping of a hundred footsteps echoed throughout the tube, amidst an otherwise air of silence. I was afraid the residual excitement was starting to wear off. But my fears were put to rest when various passionate battle cries erupted in the darkness.

“Whoop Whoop!”

“U.S.A!!!”

“Hell yeah!”

“I say ‘Neo’, you say ‘Gen’! Neo!”

“GEN!”

“Marco!”

“Polo!”

Our cheering and laughter reverberated throughout the tunnels, and I was almost certain the Demons could hear us coming. With any luck, they’d be intimidated rather than provoked. I caught up with Olivia and gave her a tap on her left shoulder, while standing to her right. She looked left, then turned to her right and smiled.

“Wow, you gonna trick a Dragon like that?”

“Oh just watch me.”

“I’m so pumped for this.”

“You ever think we might be too excited?”

“Not once. You?”

“Nope.”

We smiled to each other and continued onward. I overheard Cora talking to Isaac behind me.

“I never thought I’d willingly run towards danger,” she said.

“It’s a good thing in my opinion,” Isaac responded. “If this were a book, many would call that character development.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

“Usually.”

“Well, I’d still rather not die. That hasn’t done any developing.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll die for you as many times as you need.”

“That’s…that’s one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me.”

“To be fair, not many people can say that and mean it.”

A short distance ahead of me were Aaron and Rachel. They were excitedly running along, probably talking about various methods of dismembering Demons. Lynn was running alongside us as a cheetah, and I think I heard Micah tell Raphael not to accidentally use his power. He chuckled nervously.

When we finally reached the end of the tunnel, a few of us at the front helped to push open a large trapdoor that led into the house and we filed into the ground floor. Cracks ran along the walls and floor, and the windows were completely gone. Ahead of us, the entrance opened up into an empty, sandy expanse, beyond which the ocean sparkled in the sunlight.

We cautiously stepped out of the building, scanning the landscape. The trees swayed in the wind, waves crashed on the distant shore, and there was not a single Demon in sight.

“Are you. Freaking. Kidding me.” Rachel said in a calm voice. Not like the complacent calm of someone at peace with their lives. More like the calm in a person’s heart just before they commit meticulously planned murder.

Micah sent out scouts to check the area, including Jared. They reported back within minutes, reporting no hostiles in sight.