Rhea's End Read online

  “Am I allowed to pick up my camera?”

  “This is a restricted area,” she responded.

  I looked around and saw a cafe across the road. It was unusual, in that, along with coffee and food, it sold walking sticks. Such a strange thing to sell on a world where everyone's enhanced.

  I crossed the street and asked the immortal, who manned the counter, if it was possible for me to purchase a walking stick with Earth transfers. I had some money in an Earth bank and it was just about possible that they would accept a transfer. I didn’t know if they were technically able to make the transfer. Interstella banking had changed a great deal since Rhea’s decline.

  The immortal accepted and I purchased a walking stick, registering my ID in the process. Collecting the money was now the immortal’s problem.

  Jogging back over to the gate I asked the immortal, there, if it was acceptable for me to stick my walking stick beyond the gate.

  The immortal just repeated what she said before, “This is a restricted area.”

  Hayden was still in a state of shock by all this.

  “Don’t do it, Raul,” he said with a look of despair.

  But I had to try. I reached my walking stick in and scooped the camera out. No sooner did I have hold of the camera then the immortal grabbed my arm.

  Hayden cried, “No!”

  I said, “Get off.”

  The immortal repeated, “This is a restricted area, the police are on their way.”

  “I didn’t go in the restricted area. Only this stick did.”

  The immortal looked down at the stick.

  “I’m not the stick. Here you have the stick.” I handed the walking stick to the immortal and she took it. A moment later she let me go.

  “The alert has been canceled,” she said.

  “Where did that police officer take my friend?”

  The immortal jerked her head towards me. “To the police headquarters.”

  “Where’s that?”

  The immortal sharply turned her body and began marching down the road. I waved at Hayden to follow. He seemed close to tears. The immortal led us down a series of roads and streets for what seemed like twenty minutes, until we reached a large biodome. The sign on the building said, ‘Police Headquarters’ and the immortal led us inside.

  Outside, the sky had started getting dim, but in here, through the honeycombed outer shell of the biodome, the sky looked bright. Large wooden walls, which only reached a fraction of the way to the dome above, were being polished by immortals. The wooden walls separated the interior into rooms and corridors.

  An immortal stood at reception in the empty waiting room. It seemed likely that nobody had waited in here for centuries. This wasn’t a time capsule - it was a mortuary of a dead world. All the people that built up this planet, just for it to end up like this in the space of half a dozen centuries. All worlds end, someday. They’ll all find their own unique form of death. But this - this all seemed so needlessly self destructive.

  I walked to the receptionist and asked if our friend had been brought here.

  He asked what my friends name was, as if they’d arrested others.

  I said, “Florina Jesp.”

  He spoke with a husky croak, “She only committed a minor offence and will be let off with a warning. If you wait here, she won’t be long.”

  Hayden and I sat down and waited. We barely said a word as the minutes went by.

  Hayden did say, “Lets not leave the hotel again, not until the rescue party arrives.”

  I nodded in agreement. I dreaded spending, even, one more day on this planet. I don’t know how long we waited but it took some time.

  Eventually, Florina emerged from a corridor, and we ran up to her. There was fear in her eyes. I gave her a hug. That was when I noticed. The twitch in her movements. The ripple across her muscles.

  I held her face and looked into her eyes. I could see it in there - the panic.

  “Florina, what have they done to you?” I said.

  The reply came back, “I’m sorry, I’m not available right now.”

  But she was there - trapped. This wasn’t some voluntary withdrawal into her mind as she allowed the internal machinery take over. She was being pushed around against her will - forced to play the puppet.

  “What have they done to you?”

  She shuddered forwards as she continued on her way.

  I went after her but Hayden put his hand out.

  “We can’t do anything now. It’s as you said, we have to concentrate on getting out of here and exposing this place.”

  I don’t know why, perhaps it was too much for me, but I agreed.

  I shouted over at Florina, telling her it would be ok, and then I watched her walk away.

  Chapter 4

  We walked back to the hotel. We asked an immortal for directions and he led us all the way there. I was surprised how far we’d travelled. I was surprised again to see Florina standing in the foyer. It must have been designated as her home but now it was her place of work, as well. She stood at reception.

  “Florina,” said Hayden, running over.

  Her enhancements projected her voice from the side of her mouth, as they wrestled their control over her, “Welcome to the Road Hall Hotel. How may I help you?”

  “We’re here for you, Florina.”

  The life, the terror in her eyes. She was a more disturbing sight than any of the shriveled up immortals. They could do this to any of us. Really, we were not there for her. Neither me or Hayden dared to be there for her.

  I rested my arms on the desk as I leaned forwards, “Florina, do you know if you’re going to be coming back with us, when the rescue party arrives?”

  She paused for a moment, the Core selected her answer, “I’ve have been granted this permanent position at the hotel.”

  The words must have shook Florina to her core as they were choked out of her.

  “Listen, Florina, we’ve got your camera, we can-” Hayden stopped me, placing a hand on my shoulder and saying, “Shh.”

  I said, “Things will be alright, I promise.”

  I waved to her as I followed Hayden into the lift.

  He said to me, “The Core may be listening to anything we say. We mustn’t do anything to make it question our actions.”

  “We just hold tight?” I asked.

  “That’s the plan.”

  I shook my head, “For all we know their plan is to come for us whilst we sleep,” I gestured with the camera, “The sooner we have this footage transmitted, the safer we’ll be. If we go to the ship, even if they end up doing this to us, people will come and put an end to all this. In a matter of weeks, maybe.”

  “You want to go to the ship and release a transmission pod?”

  I nodded, “If they aren’t prepared to let us do that, they’re never going to let us off this planet. They’ll change us.”

  “They’ve changed me already,” said Hayden, “It’s an eternal hell we’re seeing here. Launching a transmission pod in the atmosphere is dangerous. It might trigger them to react to us. I can’t stand the idea of what they did to Florina - what they did to this world.”

  The lift opened and the empty face of an immortal greeted us as we exited. He walked into the lift, and we continued onwards towards our rooms.

  Hayden said, “Okay, you’re right. We should go to the ship. We should never have taken the immortals’ offer of food and shelter. We had all the food we needed there. Tasteless as it was.”

  I gave a decisive nod, “Ok, lets grab our things and go.”

  We gathered all the stuff we could carry. The immortals had carried all our possessions for us, to the hotel. We would now return to the ship with only the bare essentials.

  I felt nothing for the things I left behind. Memorabilia of all the worlds I travelled. They all seemed insignificant in the light of our current threat. We went into the lift and out through the foyer. I turned to look at Florina. How abandoned she m
ust have felt, there and then. Were those tears?

  We remembered the way to the hangar with the ship. It was now dark, but the light from the buildings lit our way. There was another ‘Authorised Access Only’ sign, but we asked an immortal about it and she confirmed we were authorised to enter the area.

  We made our way onto the ship. What had they done?! They’d gutted her.

  We dropped our things and ran outside, an immortal stood by the rear or the ship taking readingings from the hull.

  “What have you done to my ship?” I cried.

  “We were unable to repair your ship. We can only exchange your technology for functional technology of our own.”

  “You didn’t think to ask me?”

  “You said, ‘Do what you can.’ Substituting your technology was all we could do.”

  “What did you do with the components from the ship?”

  We only needed a transmission pod, to send a out an interstellar distress signal. It seemed unlikely that this planet would have any equivalent technology - at least none that would be working.

  The immortal led us out of the hangar and to a neighbouring building.

  Hayden looked exhausted. The gravity and the stress was getting to him.

  The immortal opened the door for us and said, “This is where we disassembled your technology.”

  I didn’t like his use of the word disassembled but we went inside to see what we could find.

  The lights came on automatically for us. There were no immortals in there.

  The floor was littered with the salvaged parts of the spacecraft. At first my heart sank as my eyes scanned across the tiny fragments - leftovers of the ship - all disassembled to their base components. The immortals would have been cataloguing and recording every device as they stripped them down.

  Looking over to the far side of the room, I saw larger items and equipment not yet taken to pieces. We trod carefully across the cluttered floor and started rummaging through the heaps.

  After a minute, Hayden called out, “Found it.”

  I turned and approached. There, under a sheet of insulating fibre, was a transmission pod. Two metres long and shaped like a squashed egg - these would fire into the air and then do a suicidal temporal jump, where they transmit their data into subspace, before breaking out of jump and shattering into pieces. They were not meant for launching within the atmospheres but we had little choice.

  I said, “We need to get it outside.”

  Hayden was way ahead of me and was clearing a pathway for us to drag it.

  On this planet it weighed a ton. We needed something to move it.

  “Perhaps we should get the immortal to help?” I said. The immortal was still stood outside, looking in through the open door. If he left, and the door shut, we’d be trapped.

  “I’d rather not involve them unless necessary,” replied Hayden, “You think we could activate it here?”

  I shook my head. “It’ll need an open space in order to fly. I can upload the data from the video and get it ready, but we’ll need to move it before launch.”

  I uploaded the data and set its destination to every media outpost I could think of. I wasn’t going to trust it to the council alone.

  I half feared they’d cover it up and declare a quarantine, rather than launch a rescue. This was unusually cynical of me, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

  Chapter 5

  “We’ll have to ask the immortals for help.” I said, “It’s the only way to move it.”

  Hayden just looked at me so I took it the initiative. Standing up, I walked over to the immortal in the doorway.

  “Could you help us move this pod outside?”

  “Clearance is required to remove any item.”

  “Clearance? What do you mean, they’re our items?”

  “Clearance is required-”

  “Ok, where do I get clearance?”

  The immortal turned as if to lead us away. I called Hayden over and we followed the immortal.

  But only for a few steps. No sooner had we exited the building, the immortal spun to face me and grabbed me by my wrist.

  “You are not permitted to remove anything without clearance.”

  A panic overwhelmed me as I pulled on my wrist in vain. The immortal’s grip was unshiftable.

  I protested, “I didn’t take anything.”

  “The immortal took the camera from me and placed it back in the building, yanking me along in the process.”

  “I didn’t take this camera from here. It was always with me.”

  My complaint was useless. I must have put it down when uploading the video. From that moment, in the eyes of the immortal, it was forbidden property.

  “The police have been notified and are on their way.”

  Hayden looked on in horror.

  “Let go, you’re hurting me,” I screamed. To my surprise, it did.

  I fell back onto the ground. The immortal took a step towards me.

  Its face screwed up as it spoke, “You are to wait until the police arrive.”

  Hayden disappeared from view for a moment, around the building. Then he reemerged, appeared behind the immortal.

  “There’s a ladder back here. Maybe they won’t follow you on the roof.”

  It was a long shot but without instructions maybe they wouldn’t. I walked around the side of the building, the immortal followed a step behind me. I heard the sound of a transport pulling up. Not much time, now. A ladder ran up the side of the building. I grabbed hold and the immortal seemed to react.

  Hayden tapped the immortal on the shoulder from behind, and said, “Excuse me, could I distract you for a moment.”

  The immortal turned. I rushed up the ladder as fast as I could. My body was strong, ideally suited to such heavy gravity.

  I pulled myself up bar after bar. I heard Hayden scream. Looking back, I saw that the immortal had hold of him.

  “You aided in a criminal action.” It moaned. It wasn’t so dumb.

  The police arrived on the scene, below, and dragged Hayden away.

  He looked up at me. “Dear, God,” he cried. He shouted at the police to get off and complained about them hurting him. It was no use. As he was disappearing from sight, he bellowed, “You have to launch the pod, You have to!”

  Had the police forgotten about me? Would they be back?

  The roof was flat and black. There was a large cylindrical building towering over head. I wondered if immortals would be looking down on me from in there.

  The building I stood on was made from resin, it was the same for most of the smaller buildings on Rhea. A small part of the roof was raised above my head and a door was sunk into the side. Perhaps it was possible to get inside from here?

  I fantasized that all I need do was hit the launch command on the pod, but I knew things weren’t that simple. Nothing guaranteed the pod’s success, even if I found a way of getting the pod outside. They were designed to be launched from space. Launching inside the building would be an act of suicide.

  The door on the roof was locked. It would more than likely have led to a back room in the building. There could have been immortals there. It might be the direction the police would come, if they returned to collect me. Would the immortal all attempt to grab me on sight?

  I tried slamming the door, to open it. It seemed designed to open outwards. It was no use. Perhaps I should take this opportunity to climb down the ladder and find an alternate way in. It was quiet down there.

  I peered over at the ground where Hayden had been dragged away. I could feel my legs crumble, feebly, beneath me. I couldn't stand. I just wanted to crawl away from it all. I would rest a minute, or would that be the worst thing I could do? There aren’t any survival guides for situations like this.

  None of this mattered - not anymore. I was tired and exhausted. I climbed above the doorway onto the small patch of roof above and lay down. I told myself that it was some sort of hiding place. Should the polic
e come back, they’d look across the roof and think that I had gone elsewhere. This was a particularly pitiful lie. I was still in plain sight as I fell asleep.

  Chapter 6

  I woke the next morning with sun on my back. I was still here - still on the roof. I peered over at the nearby buildings, staying flat on my belly. I could make out the odd immortal going about its business.

  I needed to get the pod. I couldn’t delay. Immortals could come at any moment to finish breaking apart the various items from the ship. They could be beneath me now, finishing the job.

  The area at the base of the building seemed clear. I pulled myself over to the ladder and, taking a deep breath, I climbed down.

  Feet on the ground, I edged cautiously around the side of the building. My way was partly blocked by a fence. I could see no windows but I could get to two doors, both shut. The large set of doors I’d previously passed through, and a smaller side door. I might have been able to prise it open, but that might cause an alert. I could try breaking the door, then rushing back up the ladder to wait some more. I didn’t think hiding on the roof was worth risking twice. These were desperate plans.

  Only then did I notice a fist sized mechanical button by the side of the door. It couldn’t be that simple, but maybe it was. I pushed the button inwards and heard a click. The side door flipped open. It must have been some kind of emergency exit.

  It was dark inside. A good sign that there was nobody there. I entered and the lights came on. I ran towards the pod. It was there - right where we left it.

  Now I needed to move it. They must surely have some kind of device for moving heavy items. I rummaged around the room, not knowing what such a device would look like.

  I noticed chains running along the ceiling. Perhaps they were used for lifting things? There were no manual controls. Almost everything in this world had to be operated via antique mind implants.

  The chain wouldn’t reach the pod, not that there was a means to attach it. I resolved to find my own method for moving it.

  I lay a metal roller in front of the pod, angled to face the doorway. Then, using another metal beam with a bolt at the end, I slowly winched the front of the pod up, enough to roll the roller under. I then laid a number of additional rollers out in front, and started slowly winching the pod forwards.