The Mendelssohnian Theory: Action Adventure, Sci-Fi, Apocalyptic ,Y/A (13 page)

Adam woke up feeling the floor trembling beneath his feet and the
walls emitting screeching sounds. He immediately leaped outside, tapped the
back of his hand to open the side partitions and discovered they were stuck.
The narrower partition had partly opened, and the wider one was unresponsive.
He squeezed his way through the narrow opening and tripped on the floor beyond
the partition, rolling and bumping into a motionless body. He jumped to his
feet, his brain implant immediately kicked into action and took control of his
body, ready to identify dangers and neutralize them. Adam examined the body
he’d bumped into and discovered Don, or at least part of what was once Don. He
delayed another moment next to the dismembered body and turned to look for
Jewel. “Run,” Don’s gurgling voice was heard behind him. Adam turned to him,
surprised to discover Don was still alive. “Run,” Don mumbled again, his only
remaining eye drilled holes in Adam’s.

“You’re alive?” asked Adam, aware of the foolishness of his
question.

“There’re here, looking for you.” Adam leaned toward Don and
tried to raise him into a sitting posture, but the ex-soldier resisted him.
“You need to hurry,” he urged the lad, “I was only able to delay them.”

“I can’t leave you like that,” Adam announced.

“Yes, you can! You can’t help me anymore,” Don cut syllables
with an arid hoarse voice,” I’ll delay them, and you’ll hurry to the evacuation
capsule. There’s one next to the great hall of mirrors. It’s concealed there,
behind to the tallest window in the room. You’ll need to break the window to
get inside.”

“Why are you doing this?” asked Adam.

“I received instructions to safeguard and protect you at any
cost and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Now hurry up.” The blasts of gunfire
and sound of laser rifles were heard outside their cabin. Adam hesitated a
moment more, then rose to his feet and turned to leave the cabin. Don’s voice
was heard behind him: “Don’t be angry at Jewel,” he said, “she wasn’t aware of
it, but she was working for me.” Adam stopped and returned to the half-soldier
lying on the floor. “Her job was to protect you and that she did. Now go.” Adam
stood next to Don a moment more, waiting for explanations, but it seemed the
veteran soldier had lost his consciousness. The noise of laser volleys was
heard, and the smell of burnt plastiglass hung in the air. He quickly rose and
turned to leave, passing by Jewel’s part of the cabin and checking its content.
Jewel was lying hunched on the floor, and he hurried to her, checking for signs
of life to no avail. Jewel was dead. He turned her on her back and saw a sharp
metal pole protruding from her chest. The sound of another volley of shots
awoke Adam from rigidity and liquefied the sprouts of grief that threatened to
swallow him. He hurried to slip out of the cabin, which had now become a trap.

A young soldier entered the small cabin, followed by Sato,
the hired assassin. The soldier examined the cabin and approached the hacked
body of the man revealed to him. He bent to check for a pulse, when suddenly,
the body rose to life.

Don sent a lightning-quick hand and grabbed the laser gun
from the hand of the inexperienced soldier. With the same motion, he turned the
gun around, pointed it toward the soldier’s abdomen and pulled the trigger. The
soldier screamed with pain as his belly was ripped open, and its content
spilled out, smearing Don’s face and neck with a gooey, sticky mixture of
liquids, blood, and innards. Don pulled the soldier closest to him, using him
as a human shield, and diverted the gun toward Sato, or at least toward the
place in which Sato had been standing a second ago. The experienced assassin
jumped and rolled across the cabin, attaching his body to the back of the dead
soldier who was now held between the two veterans. Sato’s gun was already in
his hand and while Don attempted to direct his gun again toward Sato’s new
location, the Assassin had already managed to blast a few holes through his
head. The duel was finished, seconds after it had begun. Sato rose, brushed his
clothes and quickly left the cabin. The team of agents that was forced upon him
by high-level officials had merely served to delay him and hinder his actions.
He decided to disregard the instructions of his client and work by himself. But
now, in space, he was ‘stuck’ with field agents that were inappropriate for
such an operation and definitely inappropriate to work with Sato. He’d known
ever since he had matured – in order to utilize his abilities to the fullest,
he needed to operate on his own.

Adam ran down the abandoned corridor, glancing behind him now
and then, to check if his pursuers were already after him. He increased his
speed when he discovered that he was indeed being chased. On his way, he
crossed corridor intersections and saw the movements of panic-stricken people,
even though the corridor walls muffled the noises the commotion of blasts and
gunfire had created. He reached the hall of mirrors, knowing his time was short
and in a few brief moments, his pursuers would catch up with him. He sought the
tallest window, just as Don had instructed him to during his last moments. Once
he’d discovered it, about thirty feet above him, he became perplexed, not
knowing how he could climb all the way up there. He also didn’t know how he
would shatter the acrylic glass that separated him from the evacuation capsule,
attached to the other side of the window. He carefully examined the wall in
front of him once more. The wall was filled with windows and mirrors, sunk
within narrow niches. He examined the nearest niche and discovered that it
could support his hands and feet. Without losing another second, he jumped onto
the wall and began to climb, lifting himself from niche to niche, from one
foothold to the next. He had already passed almost half the distance to the upper
window when the sound of footsteps in the hallway reached his ears and made him
freeze in his tracks. He crouched within the niche, bending his arms and legs
as well as he could. The sound of footsteps intensified, someone stopped in
front of the hall’s entrance. Adam didn’t dare to move a muscle. He stopped his
breath and waited to see what will happen next. From the corner of his eye, he
managed to see a head peeking beyond the door and examining the hall of mirrors
from side to side. He knew that if the man would only raise his eyes, he would
be revealed, and all would be lost. The man continued to examine the supposedly
empty hall a moment longer, and then turned around and continued to run down
the corridor. Adam waited a few more seconds and continued to climb up the
wall. It was obvious to him that larger and more determined forces would reach
the hall before long, and he wouldn’t be able to evade them. Time was of the
essence, and he needed to reach the highest window and the evacuation capsule attached
to it as soon as possible. He moved from window to window and had already
reached the last niche before his destination when two black-clad warriors
broke into the hall. Adam raised himself quickly to the final window, and one
of the soldiers fired at him with his weapon. The laser beam scorched the
sleeve of his protective suit, passed through his arm muscles and hit the wall
behind him. The second soldier fired right after his companion, missing Adam’s
head by a hairsbreadth. Adam used his foot as a pivot and turned his back to
the window, barely able to hang onto the window depression. Soldiers fired
again, and Adam tried to avoid the laser beams as best he could. The wound
burned on his arm, and the pain clouded his senses. The next shot missed him,
but the beam hit the acrylic window and tore up holes in it. Chunks of melted
acrylic glass flew in all directions, delaying the soldier’s next volley. Adam
took advantage of that moment. He turned around and kicked the cracked window
that shattered with a loud suction noise. He jumped into the hole that was
torn, hoping with all his heart that the evacuation capsule was indeed attached
to the window as Don had promised him before his death.

The soldiers hurried to the wall and began to climb it in the
exact same way Adam had climbed it a few seconds before. Suddenly, a grating
corklike sound was heard, and the air in the hall of mirrors began to be
discharged from the broken window. The force of the suction pulled the nearest
soldier to the window. The soldier screamed as he flew. He battered against the
acrylic glass remains and was swallowed into the opening. The second solider
hurried to escape, struggling with the airflow, sucked and sucking out
(S&So ©).

Sato entered the hall. He stood at the entrance, ignoring the
force of the suction that attempted to draw him inside, analyzing what’d just
taken place. His target had jumped to his death seconds ago through the broken
window, straight into the frozen emptiness of space. He had partially failed in
his mission. His task was to capture him alive. Failure will have its price.
The party that ordered the contract will not be pleased. Sato wasn’t pleased as
well. Not only would he lose the amount promised to him upon signing the
contract, but his expenses wouldn’t be covered either. Oh well, he will
minimize his losses, there were additional contracts waiting, he shouldn’t be
bothered by a single failure, this mustn’t influence the level of his
performance.

He turned around and left the hall of mirrors, tapping a
command on his hand for the computer of his private hovercraft to start the
engines and prepare for takeoff. ‘The hall of mirrors’ door closed behind Sato,
sealing the hall until robots will fix the damage caused to the window from the
outside.

Sato had already managed to take off in his hovercraft and
accelerate away from the shuttle when a loud blast rocked his spacecraft. He
hurried to stabilize the hovercraft and with a wide arc, flew back. The large
shuttle could be seen through his front window, leaning on its side, black
smoke mixed with white oxygen emitting from where its control tower used to be.
A brief examination in his sensors revealed to him that the shuttle was doomed.
Evacuation hovercrafts were spat from it like cannonballs, carrying survivors.
Sato didn’t know how the blast had happened but had no intention of remaining
in the area and no intention of being related to the event in any way. The
shuttle leaned more and more on its side and began to glide with growing speed
into the atmosphere of Mars. The heat caused by its friction with the thin
atmosphere caused the body of the shuttle to heat up, and its color gradually
became orange. Soon, the metal body will ignite and explode. Sato turned his
hovercraft around once more and fixed a course that will enable it to orbit the
red planet.

News of the Scandinavia Space Shuttle’s explosion had hit
Elizabeth like a thunderbolt. The knowledge that she’d failed in her task to
lead Adam to the fulfillment of his destiny shattered her. At the heart of the
fire swamps next to New Tokyo, where she and her people had established the
“Freedom” organization’s new headquarters, the commander had sealed herself in
the living quarters next to her office and refused to come out. Adam was lost
in space and with him humankind’s chances of an evolutionary leap forward were
lost as well. Civilization was sentenced to extinction because it was doubtful
it would survive the Earth’s inevitable end. The loss of her pupil had burdened
her heart, as well as her responsibility for his death. She’d been wrong to
disbelieve the corporation would dare to explode a huge space shuttle bearing
thousands of passengers, distant from its destination and without any hope of a
rescue. In the months in which she’d trained Adam, she had learned to know him
better and respect him. He surprised her with his determination and his ability
to adapt himself to extreme situations and survive them with an almost inhuman
tranquility. Now, when he was gone, she realized how much she loved him, as if
he was her own son, and how sorely she would miss him.

Joseph had tried to speak with her, but he, like all the
others, simply encountered the wall she’d built around herself. She did not
want to be in contact with anyone. While lying in bed, she scanned the
worldwide-web time and again in search of any information about Adam, but her
investigation did not yield any results. Adam wasn’t mentioned anywhere, and
the explosion of the shuttle was played down and merely mentioned as an
accident. Two weeks later, Elizabeth abandoned her searches and began to leave
the secret base during the evenings, and go to the nearest city, New Tokyo,
marching up and down darkened streets, avoiding contact with people, covering
miles and miles before dawn. Then she returned to her cell and slept all day
until evening fell again, and she left for her nocturnal journeys once more.

Her people understood what she was going through; they did
not bother her or involve her with the various organization activities.
Elizabeth, on her end, had disconnected all inner communication means in her
brain implant and blocked all external communication attempts. She continued to
conduct herself that way, until the day in which her deputy, Chandra May, barged
into her small living quarters. “There’s verification,” she shouted at her
commander, “he’s alive!”

Elizabeth jumped to her feet. “Are you sure?” she asked,
thrilled.

“Yes,” answered Chandra, “we just spoke with Dmitri
Bialystok.”

“Dmitri?” Elizabeth was surprised, “he’s on Mars?”

“Yes,” answered Chandra with enthusiasm, “he found him hiding
in the alleyways of the American base. He was weak and starved, but fought with
his men nonetheless and nearly managed to escape. If you’ll open your inner-outer
communication lines (In&Out Com ©), you’ll be able to speak with Dmitry
directly on a secure line.”

Dmitry Bialystok was the leader of a space smugglers gang,
pirates, as the space authorities had labeled them, one of many groups that
imported and exported Earth products to the highest bidder. While the large
corporations dominated commerce and transportation routes in the solar system,
and the superpowers provided them protection, the smugglers dominated the gray
area between those two forces. They sought flight and commerce routes outside
the large system, avoiding the Earth’s legal systems and the military forces
trying to stop them. In the three hundred and fifty years since commercial
space travel had begun, the smuggler bands conducted about twenty percent of
all galactic commerce. Naturally, no corporation was willing to endure such a
cut in its profits and therefore, the smugglers were constantly hunted, and the
attempts to annihilate them were ceaseless. The Space Patrol forces, Space
Guards (Space Guard Inc.), struck the smuggler space-hovercrafts as often as
they could, but the independent space merchants fought back and did not
surrender. Their space-hovercrafts were small, quick and just as
technologically sophisticated as the corporation forces’. More than often, they
managed to successfully evade their pursuers. The balance of power between the
two forces was maintained until it was discovered some of the smuggler bands
were sponsored and operated by one of the corporations that wanted to gain the
best of both worlds. When the smuggler leaders had discovered that, they
decided to cooperate. First, they shared information with each other about the
movement of the corporations and the superpowers in space, later on they
created a shared cooperative, based on equal terms. Each gang controlled a
different part of space and the smuggling of different products. Their
coordination and cooperation was so successful that their percentage in all
human commerce grew and grew until it reached about thirty percent. The
corporations and superpowers had no other choice but to accept the existing
situation and calculate the percentage of commerce lost to the smugglers as a
constant in their mining cost and benefit calculations.

Dmitry Bialystok was the most daring of the smuggling gang
leaders. His gang controlled the main commerce line between the Earth and Mars.
The red planet contained the largest human population outside the Earth,
located in several superpower bases. Dmitry’s smugglers were known for their
equanimity and fighting skills. They were a small elite unit of warriors that
had gathered over the years around Bialystok and were proud to serve under his
command. They defined themselves as independent merchants who reject any
authority, be it government or corporation, other than that of their commander.
Dmitri Bialystok’s gang was known for its daring and its ability to provide any
service for anyone, based, of course, on the pre-agreed price. Elizabeth had
gained Dmitry’s trust when she helped his hovercraft escape from a corporation
powers attack, and had sheltered him in one of Freedom’s hidden bases. The
trust and mutual appreciation that were established between them had led to the
continuation of their relationship. They weren’t in constant contact, but when
the need arose, helped one another as best they could.

Elizabeth quickly transferred her eyes to tactical mode and
webwired the inner communication center in her implant. A deluge of news
bulletins and messages flooded her eye-screens. She screened all messages other
than Dmitry’s and opened it. “You’ve trained him well,” the brief message said.
Elizabeth established a connection to Dmitry in a secure space line
(safeguarded space link) and the image of the space smuggler gang leader appeared
immediately. “Is he all right?” she hurried to ask and Dmitry laughed.

“Hello to you too,” he said, “yes. He’s fine considering the
fact he hasn’t eaten almost anything in the past two weeks and struggled to
adjust to his different body weight on Mars.”

“Can you keep him safe?”

“That depends,” said the smuggler, “if he draws fire to him,
it won’t be good for my business, you know how we like to keep a low profile.”

“I’ll see to it that no one will know you have him,” said
Elizabeth.

“You know it’s not easy with us,” Dmitry warned her, “we
don’t offer any free meals. Those who can’t carry their weight get thrown
away.”

“I know,” Elizabeth said, “and I’m not asking you to give him
any free meals. You’ll see,” she added, “he’ll surprise you with his
Durability.”

“It’s been a long time since anyone’s been able to surprise
me,” Dmitry laughed, “and what do I get in return?”

Elizabeth was prepared for that. That was the smuggler’s
first and foremost rule – scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. “A fully
equipped landing area, hidden in an Australian base, for a full year,” she said
and Dmitry nodded appreciatively.

“He must mean a lot to you.”

“That’s right,” answered Elizabeth, “he’ll mean a lot to you
too.”

“We’ll see about that, Elizabeth,” said the smuggler, “always
a pleasure doing business with you,” and with that, he disappeared from the eye
screen. Elizabeth leaned back and for the first time in days, allowed herself
to relax. Adam was alive and with him; hope for the human race was still alive
as well. She allowed herself another moment of tranquility on her bed before
she sent Joseph an inner-text message. “He’s alive,” Elizabeth wrote with the
aid of the ancient technology they used so as not to be discovered by the
corporation’s cutting edge technological means, “we need to create a camouflage
diversion.” The answer immediately arrived from Joseph as a brief text message
in the shape of a smiling, yellow little face.

During the next few weeks, contradicting technological traces
regarding Adam’s whereabouts were found, on Europa and on Earth, in Siberia, in
Old Brasilia, Quebec, New Manila and next to Washington DC. Joseph and his team
of technicians had done their job, and Elizabeth felt, for the first time in a
long, long time, that they just might have a chance.