“Ok…” I said out loud.
The first dilemma hit me. I had no idea how to fix the thing. I didn’t design it. I was no engineer. I may have fabricated the five thousand barrier, the Alaco Cure, among other things, but never this. A man named Phillips designed the core, and the sphere I’d used to travel through the barrier. He was the mind behind this installation.
The brilliance of the core was that it was the most powerful new energy source ever conceived. Comparable to a tesla coil, but just much more effective. It motorized electrical devices wirelessly, evident as it powered the timer all the way from here. Much like ideas of Nikola Tesla, who had experimented with science like this, Phillips actually had a working version about a year before all of this happened. The prototype was still in the testing phase, but nothing else could be used and so we’d switched on this prototype power source. It should still have twenty-eight more years to go, but it was dying right in front of my eyes. I hadn’t the faintest clue where to begin.
I ran around the walls and came to the door that led to the sealed core room. The power source wasn’t radioactive, nor was it dangerous really, but Phillips wanted it separated from the environment of a busy science center.
I unlocked the heavy metal door and swung it open, entering the vault. It was so… simple. A plastic stand held the device that almost resembled the sphere I had carried around. But this was much larger. Instead of etching, it had dimples like a golf ball, and it glowed with a much darker blue than my sphere. Also near the top of the orb was a clear cut-away that allowed me to look inside. The inside of the sphere was also incredibly simple. It looked like a liquid, along with a few other electronics, but not much else.
It smelled sterile but not hot. The orb wasn’t burning or anything. I studied it as I came closer, trying to think of something, anything, to understand what my next move was.
Then as if answering my question, several dark walkers entered the room. I only stared at them through the glass, not willing to hide anymore. What was the point? The barrier was going to fall with the power failure. Apparently that was what happened at all the other installations.
I thought of Olivia, who was the only real family I’d ever had. Even my family, my real family, wasn’t really there. Dad was consumed with the business, and mom had died of cancer when I was very young. I had no siblings. Now Olivia was gone, most likely killed because of me. The virus may have taken all of Olivia’s family away. In retrospect, I’d killed all of her siblings, her parents, and anyone she’d cared about. She may have been immune to the initial outbreak of the virus, but it would have remained dormant in her system until twenty-six, when she would most likely turn.
“It’s about time…” A voice escaped from the corner of the room. I turned, not worrying about the creatures. Instead I refocused on the sound that suddenly burst into existence. It was a voice so familiar yet so foreign. A body in the corner formed whole and approached, the blue hue of the power source giving light to a face I thought I’d never see: my own.
Right there in front of my eyes, I was staring at myself. He was smiling ear to ear. It wasn’t a reflection. I didn’t think it was my imagination. If it was insomnia, it was a damn good hallucination.
“You fucking failure,” he said. A frown reformed from the once cruel smile and dictated the direction he was going. He wore the same clothing I did, styled his hair the same way. It was like I was looking into a mirror. It was definitely, me.
“You know, the point that the universe could conjure up someone like you is an absolute mystery. Have you even fathomed what you brought to this world? Extermination? Annihilation? Genocide?” he snarled.
“It wasn’t meant to…” I pleaded.
“Your fabled cure meant to do what exactly? Kill every last person or turn them into something inhuman? Well congratulations, because that’s what happened. You see that?” He pointed at the power source. “So much for lasting forever, right? Just another fuck-up in a long line of fuck-ups! The barrier… what a ridiculous notion; what an idiotic idea.”
He snarled again. He sauntered over and closed the heavy metal door. One of the creatures crashed against the door and roared in protest, which caused more screams that seemed to shake the double-paneled glass.
“You’re not getting off that easy. No sir, not by a long shot. You don’t deserve to be ripped to pieces,” he explained.
“I know,” I said. I didn’t have the heart to argue. It was all true. The world deserved to see me die a worse, longer death. Getting shredded from head to toe with claws would only take a few moments. My suffering should last much longer.
“Do you? I mean, do you really understand?” He returned to stand in front of me, eyes squinting, as if trying to read me. “Jack and Susan… dead. Olivia? She’s gone. But that doesn’t even remotely compare to destroying an entire planet. All of humanity. All of it. Completely gone, forever dead. Because. Of. You,” he said, pressing a finger into my chest.
I felt the pressure. He was surely no ghost or figment of my imagination. He was as real as it gets. “What a disgrace,” he said and shook his head.
Rage filled my stomach at the sound of Olivia’s name. I lashed out, striking him squarely on the jaw. His head bent back but he smiled off the blow.
“That’s what you needed years ago, a little balls. Could’ve destroyed those samples before they were ever moved. Of course, you failed at that too. Pathetic,” he said and wiped a sleeve across his bloodied mouth. He moved over to the core again and rested a palm on it, bowing his head gravely as he changed his attitude.
“It’s not the point that the cure didn’t work. It’s not the point that you couldn’t figure out the virus mutation. It’s the point that you were willing to give up in the end,” he explained. “Instead of thinking about jumping from a building, you should have been down in the labs working. Trying. Failing. And picking up yourself all over again. You shouldn’t even think about giving up now, even if the clock strikes zero. You are the only one with enough… intelligence to break this curse. Well, at least, you were.”
“I, I, just…” the words didn’t come. I was stunned, shocked, loathing myself. He spoke the truth. The virus existed because of me, but could have stopped if I’d acted quicker. It could’ve been contained or even destroyed. But I didn’t do either of those, and because of that everybody was going to suffer, had suffered and died, only a few left to endure this world I’d created.
“It doesn’t matter much, I guess,” he said. “You already gave up long ago. I really hope it hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. I hope it isn’t easy. You deserve every bit of what’s about to happen.”
He frowned once more before fading from sight. It left me ill, reeling backwards. All the while the constant screaming outside reminded me that soon enough I would be one of them.
A lurch in my chest sent me curling up on my knees, feeling a pain like I was being invisibly stabbed through the lungs. My heart crushed beneath an unseen weight, and my eyes were on fire. I crashed to the floor, no longer able to stand. The turning had begun, and the last image I saw was the door flying open and the creatures scrambling into the room.
Chapter 25: The Turning
“Whhhhooooooo issssss it?” a voice questioned.
A million voices responded.
I woke up. The creatures hovered over me but didn’t attack. My eyes were still on fire, but otherwise I felt ok. Gathering to my feet, I backed up while keeping my attention on the closest one. But it was the voices that cascaded through my head, reverberating off the walls of my mind. I covered my ears but the shrieks didn’t dampen or waiver. Nothing was right.