The Mendelssohnian Theory: Action Adventure, Sci-Fi, Apocalyptic ,Y/A (14 page)

Adam sat in the locked and sealed technicians’ room and waited.
The door was locked behind him as soon as the two men who’d caught him on
Asimov Street, the longest street in the Odyssey American Space Base, admitted
him there. He had surprised them when he lifted his head from among the
shadows, while they went out a side window, carrying the equipment they had
stolen from the nearby office. They stormed him and took a hold of him. If he hadn’t
been so weakened by starvation, he wouldn’t have allowed them to capture him,
but two weeks of foraging for food in trash cans and sleepless nights, have
taken their toll, and in spite of his resistance and struggle, he was captured
and bound by the two thieves and their assistants. Actually, he didn’t really
care about being captured. Once, he thought he’d be able to run forever.
Nothing mattered to him anymore. Ever since the space shuttle explosion, he’d
been busy with surviving, but now he couldn’t think of a good reason to keep on
running.

*

The small evacuation vehicle in which he’d managed to escape the
damaged spacecraft landed on a secluded part of Mars, far from any human
settlement. He remained seated in the pilot seat long after the engine of the
small hovercraft had died. The reality of his life struck him and discouraged
him. He placed his head on the control panel in front of him and shut his eyes,
filled with emptiness. If until now, there was always someone who had followed
him, had taken care of him, had kept him safe from afar all the time in which
he was being chased, now he remained alone, in a new world, removed from
anything he had ever known, without refuge or any definite purpose. He found it
difficult to believe anyone would continue to search for him after the shuttle
explosion; he assumed no one would find him in the Martian wilderness that
surrounded him in every direction. Where could he go? How will he survive? What
was even the point? He asked himself, but could find no answer within him. He
began to feel a prickling sensation in his eyes and realized these were tears,
his own. His sobs intensified, and the tears trickled down his face and on the
dashboard, which supported his head. He heard a shrill cry, and it took a
moment for him to realize it was the sound of his own screams. Fear of the
future rolled itself into a ball in his diaphragm, connected with the pain over
the death of Jewel, a pain that he finally allowed himself to feel, a pain that
went out into the air with a maddened, aggressive scream. He will never allow
such a moment to return, will never allow himself to be in such a situation
again, and never allow others to harm him without putting up a fight. A white
light suddenly blinked at the bottom of his eye-screens, diverted his attention
and repressed the pain and anger. This wasn’t the time to be idle. He opened
the screen, and a map appeared in front of his eyes, showing his location and
indicating the nearest military bases on Mars. A space suit was hung on a hook
next to the hovercraft door, and he hurried to wear and adjust it, before
leaving the hovercraft into the great Martian wilderness. He chose a course
leading to the nearest base. There, he thought, he will try to survive and wait
to see what will transpire. There was no point in trying to make any plans
beyond that, if he’d learned anything from the moment the chase had begun, it
was to expect nothing and everything at the same time. There will always be
surprises, and he will only survive if he will react to them quickly.

Adam quickly adjusted to the planet’s low gravity. He
advances with high, long leaps toward the nearest American stronghold.
According to the map in his eye-screens, his destination was about three
thousand Earthly miles away. He hoped the suit would last till he gets there;
that was his only chance of surviving. In time, he learned to balance himself
in the thin air, and once he had mastered the technique, his leaps and bounds
became so wide, he actually managed to hover above the ground and inspect his
surroundings. That was how he discovered the coming metallic sandstorm, which
quickly advanced toward him. He stopped for a moment, knowing unless he will
immediately find shelter, the storm will carry him away with it, and that will
probably spell his death. He lunged into the air a few times while turning
around and examining the lay of the land. His eye sensors discovered a
half-hidden crevice down one of the hills, about a mile and a half from where
he was standing. He doubted whether the crevice was wide enough to accommodate
his body but had no time to seek a better shelter. Aware of the fact the storm
was drawing nearer, about to catch up to him, Adam felt its strength shoving
the atmosphere around him, felt the wind blowing sand clouds that threatened to
blind his way. He’d nearly reached the crevice, had almost jumped into the
narrow opening, had almost held a hand to grab its walls, when a gust of thick
and sticky wind snatched him from the ground and carried him with it. The storm
whirled him, tossed him from side to side and quickly carried him away from the
escape hovercraft’s landing place. Splinters of metallic rocks bumped against
his body, the grating sound of sand gusts hurt his ears and threatened to injure
them. He could only raise his knees to his chest and protect his head with his
hands. Adam felt as if his senses were bombarded with information. The noise,
the light, the sensation of contact, he could nearly feel, through the sealed
protective mask that covered his head, the taste of the dust that closed on him
from every direction. He tried to straighten himself and discovered that he was
able to navigate and maintain his stability with the aid of swimming motions
while being pushed by the strong wind. He balanced himself and hovered on the
sandstorm, then directed himself above it and actually managed to ride its
back. Heavenly starts were spread in front of his eyes, below him stretched a
black and gray abyss. At least up there, above the storm, it was quieter and
balancing his body had become easier. For a moment, he felt as on top of the
world and was literally there. It filled his heart with thrill and glory, ‘I’m
Invincible’, he almost shouted.

He had no idea how long he’d hovered like that, while maintaining
his equilibrium, gliding on the back of the wind like a rider in a rodeo ring,
but he eventually got tired and lost his concentration. In a single moment in
which he’d lost his attention, he lost his balance and swirled in the air. His
head bumped against his knees, and a stone immediately hit his back and whirled
him round and round. Darkness engulfed him, and he slipped from the back of the
beast into the heart of the crushing tempest.

When he woke up, his ears hurt, and his mouth was dry and itching.
Another moment had passed before he realized the pain in his ears was due to
the absence of the rumbling sound of the storm. In the pale light that snuck
its way through the haze it had left in its wake, he examined the terrain
around him. The storm had cast him on the slope of a tall hill, beneath which
lay a wide and shallow valley, strewn with large rock formations whose color
was paler than that of the earth they were embedded in. Adam wondered whether
the storm had brought the rocks as well and whether the storm he’d ridden was
the most powerful Mars had to offer. His body was aching, but he began to sense
a comforting itch that indicated his body’s biological nanoparticles were
vigorously busy with healing and mending his body. He was about to stand up,
when a small ground hovercraft passed him by, less than thirty feet away. Adam
hurried to hide and lay still while the hovercraft surrounded the area in which
he lay, probably seeking what had activated the motion sensors on the driver’s
monitor. The pilot must have thought nothing living could be there and
following a short circle around the area, abandoned his searches and the
hovercraft continued on its way, gliding slowly, carefully passing between the
rock formations. Adam waited till hovercraft disappeared and then, thanking the
pilot’s rational thinking that’d caused him to fly away, rose and examined his
aching body once more. In spite of being battered by flying rocks, he was happy
to discover not a bone in his body had been broken. His protective suit was
quite damaged, but still sixty percent functional and Adam knew he had no
choice but settle for that.

Adam was certain that the fact the hovercraft had appeared in
the area indicated the proximity of a human settlement, as if it was a seagull
and he was piloting an ancient sailboat. He began to follow it, first with
small and hesitated footsteps, but the more he advanced, the more he
accelerated his gait, until he was leaping from place to place, just as he’d
done before the storm had grabbed him. He passed through the rocks. From up
close they seemed even vaster, each one more than sixty feet wide and thirty
feet high. His leaps had brought him to the edge of the valley, where the
largest rock lay. Adam circled it on foot while regaining his breath and
relaxing his muscles. He counted a hundred and seven steps from one side of the
rock to the other, and then leaped up the giant chunk of stone. His leap
brought him halfway up the rock, and there he found foot and hand holds. He
continued to climb the rock until he stood on its very top and viewed his
surroundings. In front of him, in the distance, which he measured with the aid
of his brain implant, about two miles from where he was standing, he identified
the mining base the hovercraft must have been headed to. He sat on the edge of
the rock, feet dangling in the thin Martial air, and stared at his destination
with tired disinterest. It was the first time in a long time he actually
relaxed his muscles and allowed his mind to settle down. His tiredness
threatened to overcome him, and he permitted himself to rest. Lights began to
blink on his eye-screens, announcing that the functionality of his suit had
been damaged and he should quickly reach an Earthly atmosphere bubble (Human
Atmosphere Bubble ©), such as the one entrapping the mining base in front of
him. He sighed and began to carefully descend from the vast lump of stone. Once
his feet had reached the ground, he headed toward the human base, without a
shred of an idea how he will infiltrate it without being revealed and arrested
as a trespasser and an escaped criminal.

*

The door of the technicians’ room opened, and Adam lifted his
eyes to see who was entering. To his surprise, he couldn’t see anyone. He rose
to his feet and approached the opening, then, after a moment, he stepped
outside hesitatingly. He found himself in a narrow and winding corridor, which
reminded him of the giant space shuttle’s corridors. “Move along,” a voice
commanded him, “second door to the left.” He tried to understand where the
voice was coming from and when he’d failed, obeyed the instruction and entered
through the door.

In the bluish light, which illuminated the room, Adam
discovered a standard desk with a single chair in front of it. The rest of the
room was devoid of any furniture, other than a pixelated wall painting
depicting Earthly views. He could not associate the view in the painting with
any place he was familiar with, but the forested mountains in the painting
reminded him of an old picture. Way back then, before his world had shattered
forever, a similar picture was hung on the wall of Michael Krupnick’s office,
the manager of the high school he’d learned in, not too long ago, in the Jewish
reservation. The bluish light did not evenly illuminate the entire room and
from one of its darkened corners, a tall and skinny man emerged into the light.
To Adam’s eyes, he appeared much like Joseph, other that the fact the man in
front of him was beardless and Joseph did not have so many scars on his face.
The man instructed Adam to sit down with a gesture that indicated he was
accustomed to being immediately obeyed. Adam sat in the white chair in a
seemingly relaxed posture, but inside was tense and ready to spring through the
door that remained open. “My men tell me you’ve interrupted their work,” the
man said, “at least the one who can still talk, the other one needs a facial
reconstruction after the ‘treatment’ you’ve given him.”

“He shouldn’t have attacked me,” Adam attempted to justify
his actions.

“You were in the wrong place and saw things you weren’t
supposed to see,” said the tall man and a thin smile stretched the scars on his
face. He examined the youth in front of him once more, knowing even
professional soldiers tried to avoid confrontations with his men. Yet this tot
had struggled with them unarmed. If two additional men hadn’t been called to
help and threatened him with their weapons, he might have even escaped. The
youth’s emaciated and tired visage and tattered appearance hid a large,
mysterious question mark. The drastic shift from indifference to savageness
that’d showed itself in his struggle with his men piqued the interest of the
scarred man.

“I’m Dmitry,” he said, “Dmitry Bialystok.”

The youth nodded with incidental politeness. “What do you
want from me?” he asked.

“To give you a greeting from far away,” answered Dmitry.

“A greeting?” the youth seemed confused and it appeared to
Dmitry that a crack had opened in the mask of indifference covering his face.

“From someone who must really love you and care about you,”
said Dmitry, and when the youth did not respond, he added, “Elizabeth asked me
to keep you safe if I found you alive.”

“Really?” asked Adam, a marked suspiciousness in his voice,
“and why should I believe you?”

“You don’t have to,” answered Dmitry, “as far as I’m
concerned, you can get back to the same hole we’ve found you in and keep on
foraging the recycled trash cans for spoiled food and hide from the police, the
corporation and everybody else. On the other hand, I can offer you food and
shelter. Clean clothes as well.” Adam stole a glance to his worn suit, then
raised his eyes and met Bialystok’s steady gaze.