Gabriel's Sacrifice (The Scrapman Trilogy Book 2) (12 page)

Doors
, Mohammad realized.

Areas of the city were speckled with dots of violet, some of which moving down city streets, or huddled around in larger numbers.

They were survivors! He witnessed their arms and legs as they moved. This map was tracking every single person left in the city.

He lifted his gloved index finger, pressing it upon a glowing portion free of any inhabitants. It enlarged, allowing him a choice of several red portals. He touched one and the hologram diminished. Mohammad lifted his hand to the wall again. This time it accepted, his fingers piercing it like gelatin.

Unhindered, he stepped through.

The hunter lay awake in his manager’s loft that overlooked the store from its angled two-way mirror. But with the LED lamp blazing beside him, all he could see in it was himself. He never fancied his face with a beard, and the end of the world had yet to convince him otherwise. So the hunter would allow himself a shave on the first day of every second week. Who knew something so mundane, something so trivial as the clean stroke of a razor would offer such pleasure in the cataclysm? Still he would often find himself looking forward to it more than anything else. The following morning would bring with it the first day of the second week, and the thought of a fresh shave could hardly lift his spirits at the moment.

The hunter rested his head upon the pillow, the enigma of the day like a flurry through his mind.

Where the fuck did that body go?

The more he thought about it, the more it drove him insane. He couldn’t explain it, and that remained to be the scariest part. Not that the hunter was scared, of course. But something had snatched that man right out from under him; and the hunter wasn’t used to being baffled beyond all rational thought.

There’s gotta be some kind of a secret door. That’s the only possible way
.

Tomorrow he’d return to Cider and start pressing bricks, like in one of those Indiana Jones movies. That’s the kind of thinking he’d been reduced to.

If it weren’t for my vasectomy, I’d swear someone was bustin’ my balls.

Victoria slipped beside him, placing her head upon his shoulder. “Let it go, James,” she said. “Try to relax.”

She called him by name. He
hated
his name. People used to call him Junior. He regretted having anything more than DNA in common with that man.

“Victoria, it was impossible.” He turned to look at her. “There’s no other way to explain it.”

“Apparently it’s not.” She smiled, trying to cheer him up with the beauty that was her face. But he would not be swayed so easily. She tucked a lock of blonde hair behind her ear, fixing him with what he knew to be the bluest of eyes. But there in the dark, they looked only grey. “Rick hasn’t stopped talking about it,” she said. “How do you put up with that guy?”

“The same way I put up with
Saint
John,” the hunter answered. “Patience, and whatever it is they say about acquired taste.”

“Some things just aren’t worth tasting, I guess,” she said, inching closer. “That’s a hint that you should kiss me, Stupid.”

“Really? I didn’t notice.”

“Wait a minute.” She twisted, propping herself up on her elbow. “Here you are, with the prettiest girl left on the planet, and you’re not gonna take action?”

“Well, if you’re not the prettiest, then you’re certainly the most conceited.”

“I’m only gonna lay it on so thick, James.” She rolled her eyes. “There is a point when you’re just being an asshole.” She lifted herself from his mattress, but he caught her by the hand.

“No.” He squeezed gently. “I enjoy your company.”

“Fine.” She fell back beside him. “So government territory, huh?”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “It’s about time someone implemented some order around here. We won’t survive if we keep acting this way.”

“You want my opinion?”

“Always.”

“We’re doomed, James. Get used to it. Our time is almost up. Like the dinosaurs, we had our chance.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“It used to,” she whispered. “But I won’t be here, regardless. I’m just happy to be alive right now.” She placed her hand on his face. “That’s more than so many can say. Forget about your legacy, James. We’re only dust.”

“Forgive me, Victoria, if I don’t share your views just yet.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She waved it away. “One day you will, and that’ll be the day that you regret the time you spent racking your brain in here, the time you could’ve spent more wisely.” She kissed his cheek and left him alone in the darkness. And in the wake of her departure, it wasn’t long before the regret she spoke of came to visit, scraping at his sides in the middle of the night.

Mohammad exited the hyper-wall, coming to rest along an old pickup. Sure enough, there were no survivors in the area. He found himself completely alone out in the night. The sidewalk stretched at both his sides, cars sprawled out on the street beyond. He looked again at the mechanical appendage lining his fingers, bringing it before his nocturnal eyes. He counted three buttons atop the device, their purposes eluding him at the moment.

Mohammad held the device away from him, gritted his teeth, and pressed the first button. The silver liquid within the vile vanished in that instant, only to be found crawling along his arm the next. He tried to brush it off with his other hand, but the liquid only spread, beginning to engulf both arms at once.

“What in God’s name?!”

It climbed his neck, stretching over the curve of his jaw and along the top of his head. He tried to tear it off, but it was no use. The thing would be suffocating him soon, possibly sliding down his throat and choking out his newfound life … but it did nothing of the sort.

Mohammad found himself covered from head to foot, still able to see, breathe and hear. He stood straight, inspecting the liquid that covered his entire body.

What is this?

He witnessed his reflection in the pickup’s window, a silver statue of himself, and then he was gone, vanished from sight. Although Mohammad could still see himself quite clearly from within the substance, the pickup revealed his transparency from the outside. This was how Gabriel appeared to him the night before, invisible, coated in this silver liquid.

Finding invisibility rather redundant there in the darkness, he pressed the switch again. It diminished as the liquid returned to the vile. He then pressed the second button and it glowed purple … but nothing else seemed to happen. He turned it off, and back on … still nothing but the glowing button. He tried the third switch. This one glowed orange … but it didn’t do a damn thing either.

Mohammad would have enjoyed an alien briefing, or at least an instructional video on the device.

He turned and stepped back through the hyper-wall, almost yelping when he found Gabriel waiting for him on the other side.

“So what did you learn?” the Traveler asked.

Mohammad pointed back at the wall. “I can choose doors to enter throughout the city, and I can be invisible.”

“What else?”

“There’s two other buttons, but I don’t know what they do.”

“Press the second one.” Gabriel smiled.

Mohammad pressed it again. “See? It doesn’t do any–” A flash of bright blue light hurled toward him, as Mohammad threw up his hands instinctively. The flash was then followed by a burst of violet surrounding him. Gabriel threw another volley of blue energy, and again it was deflected by the violet cocoon in which Mohammad was encased. “It’s a shield,” he realized.

“Yes,” Gabriel concurred. “This, Mohammad, is what will make you bullet proof.” The Traveler threw another burst of energy at him, again it met the shield.

“How are you doing that?”

“Watch my hand.” Gabriel threw another. The energy was emitted by his device. He’d curled his fingers, then expanded abruptly when he released it.

Mohammad did the same, forming a claw with his hand, then let it go. A blue orb launched from his device, colliding with Gabriel’s shield. Waves of violet tendrils wrapped around the immense Traveler as he grinned beneath them.

“Good.” Gabriel said as he lowered his hands. “Press it again to lower the shield.”

Mohammad did.

“And now the third.”

Mohammad pressed it … nothing but that little orange light.

“This one was designed for damage control,” Gabriel stated. “It emits a sonic wavelength that disrupts all combustible reactions. Fire cannot exist around it.”

“I see,” Mohammad nodded, turning it off.

“Navigating the doors and the invisibility is all I hope you will ever need.” Gabriel turned back toward the hyper-wall. “Remember, we work in secret. We are ghosts, you and I. But if ever you’re in danger, know that you will be well protected.” And with that, he was gone.

Mohammad practiced a bit more with the device, causing a small fire with his plasma weapon that enabled him to use the orange button, or the
auto-zero,
as the Fijian would later call it. That was a term the operators would use when configuring their converting machines. Mohammad found it fitting. The flame did as Gabriel said it would, extinguished immediately upon Mohammad’s approach, leaving behind a wispy strand of smoke.

He climbed up into his nest later that evening, but had trouble sleeping on account of his racing mind. It went almost directly to Radia, how he could have protected her now, now that he was more like her, now that he’d been … advanced. He still looked human, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

His mind then went to his brother, Shorab–the tales he would tell Mohammad when they were younger, tales of a creature that lurked in children’s closets, snatching them up when they were fast asleep. Its world consisted of doors upon doors, gateways to an endless supply of adolescent rooms, able to jump from one to the next.

If only his brother could see him now, the creature of vast legend, the bogeyman himself.

M
ohammad awoke to the rumblings of his own stomach. He hadn’t eaten anything the day before, and now his body was calling out for nourishment. But the growling of his stomach wasn’t just the result of his hunger. It was also due to an appetizing scent busily winding its way through the factory, something familiar, something delectable he hadn’t tasted in ages.

He rolled and fell from the nest, landing with hardly a sound fifteen feet below. He felt the bones in his legs as they absorbed the impact. They flexed beneath him, whereas his human femurs would have shattered to pieces. He stood and stretched the night from his muscles. They quivered within his dark flesh.

Walking out to the converting area, he found Gabriel waiting for him. Resting in the Traveler’s hands was the source of the smell. Gabriel held it out to Mohammad as he approached, a knife sticking up out of its green and thorny skin.

Soursop.

“Where did you get that?”

“Animals are not the only living things I can replicate.” Gabriel grinned. “I saw many of these in your memories as a child.”

The Traveler was correct. It was one of Mohammad’s favorite fruits growing up. They grew in trees, all over Fiji. Mohammad would sometimes find them burst open from the fall, their pale centers awaiting his lips.

Mohammad took it, slicing it open, the sweetness of the fruit on his tongue before long. “You saw my memories?”

“In flashes, yes.”

He cut another chunk from the soursop. It tasted just as he’d remembered. “How?”

“The device can display it,” Gabriel answered, “if you press the blue light as it collects.”

Mohammad nodded, still chewing.

“You’ll have your chance today.”

“Someone dead?”

“Dying,” Gabriel clarified, “soon.”

“So we wait it out?”

“No.” The Traveler shook his head. “You will go now.”

He shot Gabriel an inquisitive glance. “How can I get his memories if he’s still alive?”

“Hold your fingers first over his eyes,” the Traveler answered. “He will become unconscious.” Gabriel triggered his glove. “You can obtain his memories then.” A hologram leapt from his hand, imbedding itself in the space just above; whatever was sending the Traveler the image was moving at an impossible speed, flying over the tops of buildings, weaving down alleys and between cars until it came to the man Gabriel spoke of.

And he was hardly a man at all, just a teenager.

The kid could hardly stand without the aid of his hand upon the building beside him. He looked incredibly sick, with darkish rings surrounding his eyes, hardly able to keep them from closing.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Infection,” Gabriel answered. “He will not survive the day; but if we are quick, we can have him back before the sun sets.”

Mohammad took his final bite of the soursop, then slipped on the mechanical fingers. Triggering the hyper-wall, he chose the closest door to the kid’s location from the display, covered himself invisible, and stepped through.

With the sun instantly upon his face, and the sidewalk beneath his feet, Mohammad still remained a block away from the dying teenager. The silver liquid allowed the sun to cleave him entirely, erasing his existence as he crossed the city streets. Discovering no shadow lingering beneath him, he made haste down the alleys. Mohammad became a mere element–a rustling of leaves, the swinging of a loosened gate. And when he approached the boy, the sick kid could only look through him.

“You alright?” Mohammad asked, and the kid turned around slowly, wearily.

“No,” he answered his unseen empathizer. “I’m … sick.”

“Allow me to help you.” He placed the device over the kid’s eyes, catching him as he collapsed. Gently, Mohammad laid his body down, pressing it to the boy’s head when he was flat on his back. The blue light began pulsing and Mohammad touched it with his index finger.

A hologram appeared above the device and the first memory Mohammad witnessed was a side-scrolling video game from the boy’s youth, and a dark haired sibling as they fought over the controller. Then there was a woman, her head dangling over a kitchen table scattered with bills and a calculator.