Resilience, page 6
Fang hugged her knees to her chest. She opened her mouth but no words came out. A tremor rose through her core; she couldn’t stop shaking.
Derek knelt beside her and drew her to him. “Hey, Fang, we weren’t to know. Vulcan is to blame, not us.”
Fang leaned into his warmth, wishing she could bury herself in it and forget the cold truths and what she had done. “You and I are only alive as long as Vulcan considers us useful. Remember what he did to those convergers in the battle games.”
Derek’s eyes grew wide. Fang sat up. “He euthanised them.” Derek pointed the remote at the screen. The volume died and the screen disappeared with a mechanical squeal, plunging the gym into stillness. The blind lifted to reveal vision of the snowy forest outside once more. The view calmed her and helped tamp down her exhaustion and fear.
Derek grabbed his drink bottle and turned his back on the security camera. “Let’s talk in my room.”
When they reached his door, he palmed it open and the floor lights flickered on. They stepped inside and the door hissed shut behind them. His room was identical to hers: single bed, desk, closet, tiny bathroom. Derek grabbed his chair and motioned to the bed. Fang sank onto it, acutely aware she was invading Derek’s private space. This is where he slept, thought, dreamed. The only place he had any freedom. And he let me in here, she thought. Fang sensed Derek watching her. Blushing, she looked away and noticed a bottle of pills on the night stand.
“I don’t sleep well,” Derek said in a soft voice. “My brother needs constant care, medicine, and I’m not there for him.”
“I miss my brother too.” Fang kneaded her palm with her fist, anything to stop the frustration threatening to overwhelm her. “And my father. I’m scared for them. Everything I’ve done … I just wanted to find a way to help people. To make my father proud. Not this.”
They sat in silence, the absence of their loved ones filling the tiny room. Derek looked up first, his eyes finding Fang’s. Something raw and vulnerable passed unspoken between them.
“Trust me, there’s no point dwelling on the past.” With a sigh, Derek stood and ran his hands through his hair.
Fang watched him pacing the confines of the room like a caged tiger. How many regrets did Derek have? He’d betrayed Robyn after helping her with the induced convergence doses. Had done Vulcan’s bidding, blinded by the desire to get his PhD. Which made him what? Foolish? Selfish? But not unique. “It’s painful, isn’t it? I understand.”
Derek couldn’t look at her. Fang would never understand the shame he lived with every single day. Vulcan had finally approved his thesis. Derek was now Dr Smith. But the price of getting his heart’s desire was so much higher than he’d ever imagined. Terence dead, Catherine held prisoner in a cell, and Robyn? “I’ve hurt anyone I’ve ever cared about.”
Fang closed her eyes. The words could have been her own.
“You’re my only friend,” Derek murmured.
Don’t say that! she wanted to shout. She’d been alone for so long. Trapped by Vulcan, throwing herself into her work to survive. Trusting no-one because who would she trust? Tears pricked her eyes. She lifted her gaze to Derek. “Me too.”
Derek reached for her, enveloping her in a hug. She leaned into his shoulder as they held each other, an island of calm amidst so much uncertainty.
Chapter 7: Iceland
We depend on vast swathes of agricultural land for nourishment. We require networks of satellites and wires for communication and electricity. How quickly civilisation crumbles when both these systems fail. We believed we were the apex of the evolutionary pyramid and we were wrong. Humanity has never faced a crisis like this. Perhaps if we had stood strong, like the brothers and sisters we are supposed to be, we could have borne it. But no – we turned on each other. Calamity renders us back to our basest instincts. Squabbling over remaining resources extends its reach to every continent; every city, every household. Country borders are as fluid as water. In a matter of months, nowhere on Earth will be safe. The sun doesn’t recognise lines on a map or fictional borders. It speaks the ancient language of energy and matter.
Extract from The Last Bastion of the Anthropocene, Ester Akintola, the final UN Secretary General.
Fletcher screwed his eyes shut as he felt the jarring wrench of the transition to the spirit world. Head pounding, he pushed back against the nausea rising in his stomach, until it receded and left him feeling weightless. When he opened his eyes, he was standing on a rocky outcrop above a snowy plain, surrounded by a heavy white mist. Wind lashed him with sleet and Fletcher shivered.
Ana, the last earth walker, stepped out of the mist, grinning beneath her heavy furs.
Fletcher peered out into the grey, desolate sky. “What are we doing here, Ana?”
She pointed to a figure just visible on the snowy plain below. Fletcher watched the horse and rider approach. As they came closer, he made out the figure of a young girl riding a fine black horse bareback, her fur coat billowing in the wind. Several hundred metres behind followed a trio of riders, their mounts kicking up sludgy snow drifts. For a while, Fletcher watched their progress, then he turned to Ana. “They’re headed straight for us.”
She shrugged. “I guess they are.”
The girl was clearer now. Fletcher could hear the dark horse’s ragged breath as it pushed through the snow, see the spittle fly from its mouth. “How did she cover such a distance so quickly?”
“It’s a memory. Our memory,” Ana explained.
The young rider urged her horse onward, glancing over her shoulder at the men who pursued her. In a moment, she was almost on top of Fletcher and Ana and he stumbled backwards.
Ana stepped into the path of the oncoming steed. Oblivious to the earth walker’s presence, the rider pressed forward, then simply burst straight through her. The air around Ana rippled.
The girl whirled her horse around. It heaved for breath as it danced, ducking its head, its flanks foamed with sweat. The men in pursuit quickly made up ground. The girl leapt from her horse and prepared to face them. Beneath her fur cloak, her chest rose rapidly. Though her hair was matted and unkempt, and her face smeared with grime, Fletcher knew this was Ana. Much younger, but the girl’s eyes burned with the same determination as the earth walker. He waved a tentative hand in front of her face, but she didn’t react.
The three riders halted on the outcrop. Their horses snorted and steam rose from their shiny, damp bodies. “Return the grain or prepare to die,” shouted an enormous man. Not fat, but broad, his face half covered by a thick, wiry beard. “The vista bard is law. Hand me the barley, girl. I will not ask again.”
The young Ana stood firm, her gaze defiant. “It is not yours to take.”
Hairy jerked his head and, with a heavy thud, the other riders dismounted. The thickset men walked toward the young Ana, their movements slow and unconcerned. The girl held her ground.
Fletcher gripped his knife, ready to defend the girl. He glanced at the earth walker, but all she did was press a finger to her lips. “This is the good bit.”
Good? This tiny girl might be brave but she was not strong enough to fight off two fully grown men.
Before he could protest, an ominous rumbling filled the air. Thunder, Fletcher first thought, but then the earth beneath his feet shook. The rumbling grew into a heavy roar and the ground cracked open, zigzagging between the girl and her attackers. The split widened into a chasm that stretched deep into the ground. The man closest to the rift scrabbled desperately to maintain his balance at the edge of the growing chasm. Eyes wide with fear, he tumbled into the abyss, rocks cascading after him. The terrified horses whinnied and all but the leader’s mount turned and bolted.
From deep within the chasm, a fiery glow sent plumes of steam and ash high into the air. The second attacker staggered backwards, desperate to escape the wall of heat. “Holy shit,” Fletcher muttered. He’d just witnessed the birth of a volcano.
Ana turned and smiled. “Incredible, isn’t it? The earth spirit found me.”
By Fletcher’s reckoning, the rift ran for at least twenty metres. There was no way Ana’s surviving pursuers could double back. Through the smoke, Fletcher saw the young girl kneel with her head in her hands. Her black pony calmly approached and she reached out in wonder to the horse, her skin crawling with the familiar green glow.
“I still remember the feeling,” Ana whispered. “As if I’d been broken into a million fragments and rebuilt. Everything made sense – why Inga and I could do more than the other children and their ponies.”
The young Ana and her horse pulsated with green light. Fletcher’s skin also flared green.
Following its instincts, Hairy’s horse bucked savagely and dislodged the leader. The animal galloped back down the rocky mountain just as the chasm spewed an enormous burp of liquid fire. The two men didn’t stand a chance. The rock beneath their feet melted and oozed around them. The air filled with their tortured screams. The pulsating green sphere protecting the young Ana and her horse, Inga, flickered under the onslaught of molten rock then blazed heavenward as the eruption ceased.
“The earth spirit moves the continents like toys, blesses the soil with fertility, carves mountains and valleys,” said Ana, transfixed by her younger self and the green light dancing in the sky. “But much has changed since Nyx slowly wormed out of her prison. She has taken advantage of the air, sea and earth spirits’ weakness in the years without a walker. She tricked me.” Sorrow washed over Ana’s face. She turned to Fletcher. “You have to make it right.”
Then whiteness blanketed him and Fletcher’s ears filled with a sound like roaring water. “No, Ana, wait!” he yelled into the void.
Fletcher woke up in the semi-darkness of the cave, still wrapped in his sleeping bag. He rolled over and saw Bry kneeling by the butane burner, trying to coax a whisper of flame. Beyond the maw of their womb-like sanctuary, snow fell in infinite sheets.
Bry took the pot to the opening of the cave and filled it. He set the pot above the flame to boil and turned to Fletcher. “You saw her again.”
Fletcher crawled out of his sleeping bag and shrugged on his parka. “We’re getting closer.” It had taken five anxious days smuggled aboard a fishing boat to get past the border patrols, followed by weeks of hiking through the Icelandic wilderness. His whole body ached, although his muscles were slowly hardening as his strength returned. Bry passed him a mug of tea and Fletcher relished the warmth through his gloves.
Meeting Ana on the solstice had changed everything. She’d explained how Nyx had infected the earth spirit Gaia. How he was the only one who could free Gaia. Ever since, Ana kept dipping in and out of his mind when he slept, sharing snippets of her life. It was after one such dream that he’d stumbled into the farmhouse kitchen before dawn to find Bry sitting calmly at the dining table, reading by candle light.
Bry had understood. “You’re walkers. Able to bridge the divide between humans and animals. Nature constantly searches for ways to connect with us. It’s as if somewhere along the line, we lost the old ways of wholeness.”
They were still talking when everyone else staggered into the kitchen for breakfast. After that, they fell into an easy pattern – long nights spent at the kitchen table poring over maps and charts. Bry translated Fletcher’s visits with Ana into geographical and geological sense. Until one day Bry had pushed a heavily annotated map of Iceland across the table. “This is our route. We leave whenever you’re ready.”
And here they were, holed up in a tiny cave in the middle of the Icelandic wilderness, Fletcher’s initial certainty replaced by growing doubts.
Bry pressed a bowl of porridge into his hands. “Eat up. What else did you learn?”
Fletcher ran through a collection of memories. “She stole barley, talked about something called the vista bard?”
“That fits with our estimated timeline. The northern hemisphere went through an extended cold period we now call the Little Ice Age – the seasons merged almost into one, creating a long winter. Greenland and Iceland were the worst hit. The glaciation caused extensive failure of cereal crops. Many died. Icelanders began moving away from a grain-based diet toward a marine diet. Lots of salted fish. And the vista bard came into effect – effectively serfdom under another name.”
“Slavery?”
Bry scraped the last skerricks of porridge from his bowl. “Yes and no. The terms of the vista bard did entitle a labourer to move on to a new farm after a year. But the work was hard, the days long whichever farm you worked on. It would have been a bitter time to exist.”
The wind angled inside the cave. Fletcher pulled his beanie lower over his ears.
“What happens if you find this earth spirit, Gaia?” Bry asked, pulling on his jacket and scarf.
Focusing on his breakfast, Fletcher hoped Bry wouldn’t see the fear in his eyes. “I need to free Gaia from Nyx’s grasp, I’m just not sure how exactly. I’m hoping Ana will show me once we get closer.” The sense of failure blanketed him.
“Since you can’t go into the spirit world, is your bond with the earth spirit enough?”
Fletcher gripped his bowl tighter. “I don’t know. I couldn’t save Ariana when she needed me. Or Eva. Ariana and Eli are real walkers – they’re jetting around the world on rescue missions, saving people.” It was a knife in his gut, twisted anew with each passing day. The solstice had shown him what he’d always feared: he was not as strong as the others.
Bry didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he focused on meticulously repacking the cooking equipment, wiping each bowl and spoon clean with snow. Once he was done, he turned to Fletcher. “Did you know that I’m sixty-two? I still second guess my decisions, wish I’d done more to help. It never gets any easier.”
“I know I could have done more.” Fletcher wrapped his arms around his knees. “It’s like there’s a wild thing inside of me, desperate to get out. A greedy, hate-filled, fearful beast fighting with the part of me that is kind, brave and loving.”
The fear he strived so hard to keep in check rose up and threatened to paralyse Fletcher. His voice caught in his throat. “I don’t want the beast to win.”
Bry stared down at Fletcher huddled on the cold ground. “I believe in you, in what you’re doing.”
Fletcher stood and reached for his rucksack to hide the tears, but he wasn’t fast enough. The older man drew him into a hug. Fletcher squeezed the mountain goat of a man back, whispering, “Thank you.”
“Now come on,” Bry said, releasing Fletcher and hoiking his rucksack onto his back. He pushed through the snowdrift covering the cave entrance and Fletcher followed close behind. The spine of the mountain range was aglow in the early morning light, the sky achingly bright now the snow clouds had moved on. Bry pointed to the goat track weaving sinuously into deeper mist. “Early days yet, boyo.”
Chapter 8: Vessel
We experience events of high-energy confluence regularly, yet we fail to see their utility unless directly affected. The aquatic superhighway – currents that funnel energy around the planet and drive our weather. Electrical storms, cyclones, tornados. Volcanic eruptions that dramatically expand the landscape. Things of beauty, and power.
Miranda Collins, Working Notes.
The ground under his feet swayed. Fletcher flailed to steady himself as the darkness resolved into blinding whiteness.
“You look like you’re wrestling an octopus.”
Fletcher blinked rapidly until his vision cleared. Ana stood there, wrapped in a fur cloak, her face tilted in amusement. He looked around. They were on top of a mountain, clouds buoying them upwards. A jet of steam forcefully displaced the cool air eddying around Fletcher’s body. The clouds parted and revealed that they were on the edge of a gaping crater. Deep below him, magma churned, slow and viscous.
“This is how you can talk with the earth spirit.” Fletcher’s foot slipped on ice-slick rock. He screamed, scrambling to keep his balance. Ana gripped his arm.
“It must be active,” she carried on, indicating the clouds of oppressive smoke. “I hope you are luckier than me.” A sad smile crossed her face and she flickered and began to fade. Fletcher reached for her, but he was already falling back into the blackness.
“Wake up. You’re daydreaming again.”
Startled, Fletcher dropped his protein bar into the snow. “I fell asleep? I didn’t mean to.” Fletcher retrieved the protein bar, trying to hold onto the threads of the dream-vision.
Bry zipped his rubbish inside his rucksack. “Time to get moving. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today.” A burst of static punctuated his words. Frowning, Bry fished a bulky radio receiver from his pocket and studied the screen. “Another damn solar flare.”
Fletcher devoured the protein bar in two bites, shoving the wrapper in his coat pocket. “Ana showed me a volcano about to erupt.”
Bry looked up from the receiver. “If my calculations are correct, we’ve been retracing Ana’s journey almost exactly, but we need to hurry. We’re still two days’ hard hike from the next volcano, and it’s due any day now. If we miss this one, it might be months until you get another shot.”
“You knew?”
Bry stared out into the mist. He reminded Fletcher of an ancient Norse god surveying his dominion. “You, my daughter, young Eli. It’s astounding how the three of you can harness energy. I figured you would need a dramatic energy input to reach the earth spirit. And since Iceland is one of the most volcanically active places on the planet, here we are.” Bry threw Fletcher his pack. “So let’s stop wasting time, ay?”
It had taken a day and a half of hard walking through thick snow to bring them this far. The volcano remained in sight but the monolith never got any closer. Fletcher pulled down his scarf and flinched as the snow whipped his face. “How much longer?”
