XXIX.
Peter I Island, Antarctica – 2239
In the weeks following the incident, Elizabeth found herself falling in and out of consciousness, and that each time she woke up, the world and her view of it was irreparably changed. “So, what?” she could hear a voice say the first time she woke. “The device is dead?”
“No,” another said, “there’s just no return signal anymore.”
“What about her?” the first voice asked. “Did she break it? Is she dead?”
“N-no, Sir…” the second replied with more than a hint of annoyance in their voice. “We believe it simply served its purpose… Uh, think a flare shot – the gun still works but there’s nothing to fire. As for Miss Beth, she’s very much alive.”
‘Miss Beth’, that was what Dr. Albertson called her, the ‘friend’ who had got her into this mess. It was nice to hear a friendly voice, even if it was all a haze.
“Well, what did it do to her?” the unknown voice questioned, now taking a sympathetic tone that carried a sigh. “She did sign the agreement, didn’t she?”
The rotten bastard, Beth thought sourly, trying her damnedest to come to so she could tell him that to his face. Whoever he was, he just didn’t want to get sued. That would be the least of his worries, she promised herself.
“Yes-yes, of course!” Dr. Albertson stated exasperatedly. “As for what it did to her… We simply won’t know until she can tell us.”
“Fine, just call me as soon as she wakes up,” ordered the first voice, that annoyed sigh tacked on again. “Call me first, Albertson, before next of kin, before anyone!”
Elizabeth drifted out again, losing her place in time and the world. It could have been hours before she awoke again, or days, or years. She could no longer tell, for when she slept, when the darkness reclaimed her, she dreamt of other lives in other times. At once she was a he: a stonemason’s son, two-thousand years before, living in a land of wheat seas and sapphire oceans. The future world he had lived was but a distant dream, a faded memory that was gone as soon as his morning chores were done. He lived a life watching his father, growing to fit the craft that was being passed down to him – until war broke out. People from the sea, they showed no mercy, not even for a stonemason’s son. His last memory was of how hot the sword felt as it cut into him, feeling like it was on fire, and how he wished he had just run away with that girl when he was twelve.
Elizabeth awoke herself again, still bedridden, drifting into the world paralyzed but hearing. “Any word from Calivada HQ? Or maybe New Houston?” a worrying voice asked from her side. It was Rodney, Elizabeth realized. She got the feeling he came there a lot, remembered him crying once. It was sweet, but she still abhorred him. “Why can’t we reach anyone?”
“Something is going on out there,” a woman would say. “I can… I can just feel it. We haven’t been able to get ahold of anyone off the island – not just the other bases. Brass shut up tight too once we started asking.”
“I… I know I bluster a lot,” Rodney said softly, “but I gotta admit, I’m real fucking scared here. I’m scared shitless. Ever since the incident, shit’s been really weird around here. And, it’s fucking funny, this is the only room I feel safe in anymore. We don’t even know if she’s really alive, or if anyone’s home if she is, but… She was just so tough as shit all the time – I don’t know – it’s comforting, you know?”
“Me too…” the woman admitted shakily. “I’ve never even talked with her, but me and a few others of C-Lab come here… just to get away from it all. Feels safe, warm… You know? Like… Like embers of fire, and we’re all huddled around them for warmth. I know that sounds crazy, but…”
“No, that’s it…” Rodney offered. “That’s the exact feeling, I think. What the hell is going on? What were you guys working on over in C-Lab anyways?” he asked with a sort of relieved sigh. “The Bigwigs won’t tell us squat, despite us working in the same facility now.”
“I… I might get in trouble,” the woman shakily stated before steeling herself. “But, honestly, I don’t really give a shit anymore. I just want to see my son, dammit!” She paused, and with it, Elizabeth felt herself falling from reality again. “Our book, the Vitae Libro,” the woman continued, “it’s a bestiary, it looks like… and, like the rest, a manual. It shows us these fantastic creatures – seven of them, though we suspect more. They’re like the giant monsters in those old movies, or maybe Greek mythology. Each one has a name and… each one has a blueprint.”
“It makes monsters? Jeez, that’s… terrifying,” Rodney uttered. “How is that even possible?”
“It isn’t, not with the best B.E. equipment in the world,” the woman said before adding, “But, what we brought isn’t exactly worldly, is it?”
“What did you bring?” Rodney pressed, his voice a fitting quiver. Just as Elizabeth fell back into the void, she heard two final words, “The Forge…”
This time as the future peeled away, Elizabeth found herself in the body and mind of a factory worker. She lived during a time of war, ancient, rusted, when man first took to the skies as birds, and dug through the earth like rats. Her whole life she had been told how useless she was as a woman, but now women were all they had and the men in charge sang a different tune. Now she wasn’t just allowed to work but expected to, demanded to. If they refused, they weren’t doing their part in this nonsensical war, this man’s war, and they were branded unpatriotic – traitors to the cause. So, there she was, pulling a lever, stamping metal, screwing shells together, and her coworker when time allowed it.
Inna was a sweet girl, but a bit too chatty. When the enemy finally reached them. they singled them out for it – for their love. For all her hard work, for all the struggle and patriotism she had shown for her country they never repaid it, they never came for them, not even when the war was won. She would die in that camp, she thought as they unloaded them off the train, either from sickness, murder, or starvation. She would die there, they all would, she just knew it – and she did. Inna was a sweet girl, but she cursed her to Hell with her dying breath.
This time, when Elizabeth woke, she awoke to the blaring sounds of alarms. Her eyelids parted and feeling pulsed through her body with the tingling sensation of a limb waking up. The room was dark save for the blinding red emergency light that seemed to beat in tune with her racing heart. Elizabeth groaned and pushed herself up, throwing her legs over the side of the bed, but not daring to attempt to stand, not just yet. She had been in that state before and trying to stand was always a bad idea. No, first she’d get a sense of herself and her surroundings. She was in a room in the med-bay, the door was shut and locked – a manual seal from her side thankfully. Her mouth was dry and every inch of her ached, especially the spot where the IV was lodged in her arm. It was an angry red color and just as dry as her mouth. She traced the hose up to an empty bag, which probably explained why she felt like absolute shit. Elizabeth tugged the line out of her arm with a hiss, and then tossed it aside. “What the…” she uttered softly, her voice hoarse. “What the hell happened here? Anyone? Hello?!”
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There came no answer beyond the warning cry of the alarm. Elizabeth sat in confusion for a few minutes before deciding to test her legs. She fell, but that wasn’t exactly surprising. With the help of the IV pole Elizabeth managed to stand, and after a few minutes walking with it she pushed it aside. Immediately after she could trust her legs not to give out on her, she made her way to the door, unbolting it. It wouldn’t budge. She shifted focus to the A.I. call box at the side of it. Elizabeth pressed the call button insistently. “Hey! Hey, open up!” She demanded. “What the fuck is going on here?”
“DOOR FUNCTION: DISABLED,” the A.I. system announced. “PLEASE STATE I.D. NUMBER OR OVERRIDE CODE – CLASS S OR HIGHER CLEARANCE REQUIRED. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE REQUIRED CLEARANCE, REPORT TO A SECURITY OFFICER NEAR YOU FOR ASSISTANCE.”
Elizabeth planted an irritated fist into the door and cursed. It was the first time she had ever had to use the code and she wasn’t wholly sure she actually remembered it. “Um…” She began, licking her cracked lips, an act she instantly regretted. “Override Code: Epsilon-Georgia 2-2-1-5.”
“OVERRIDE CODE ACCEPTED,” the A.I. granted. “DOOR FUNCTION: RESTORED. PLEASE STAND BACK.” The sliding door let out a metallic cry as it slowly opened about a foot and a half before getting caught on something and freezing. Elizabeth let out another hiss and tapped at the A.I. call box with growing angst. “Hey, open up!” she called, but only got static as a reply. There was no helping it, she had to force her way through, and hope the door didn’t decide to go in reverse. Elizabeth reached through the door and felt around. There was something sharp and something wet. With a yelp she pulled her hand back through and discovered that wetness was blood. It stank, matter of fact the whole damn hallway stank. It was a smell she recognized from a past life. Was it Mars or… elsewhere? Trying to conjure the memory made her head swim with flashes of lives not her own. Either way she recognized the smell – the smell of rot.
Elizabeth reached out again and this time managed to find some leverage to help her squeeze through. It was an ungraceful attempt that left her collapsed on the other side with an aching head. She pushed herself up off the ground to get a look at what the shadowed hallway had in store, what lied behind the door. It was a man, or most of one, slumped down with a keycard in his rotting hand. It looked to her that he was the one who initiated the lockdown before whatever it was had ripped him to shreds. Elizabeth was no stranger to death, it being the basis of her previous career, but with how mangled the body was and the fetor rising off it, her stomach couldn’t help but churn at the sight of it.
She steeled herself and dared to near the jagged mess of gore and bones for the keycard it still clutched. ‘Rodney J.’ the card read. Elizabeth cursed and held the card close to her breast. She still didn’t like him – but whatever did this to him would like her even less. Elizabeth breathed deeply and pushed the anger aside – revenge was always second to survival, and to survive she needed something a little more protective than a hospital gown. Some clothes, maybe a weapon; she figured both could be found at the nearest security station. Elizabeth just had to reach it before whatever got Rodney found her as well.
Elizabeth focused, drawing a map of the compound in her mind. She had every security station and every exit memorized just as she had been trained to, and the nearest station to the med-bay wasn’t far, just down the hall. She immediately started for it, keeping close to the wall, watching for any sign of movement as she went. Elizabeth shambled down the hall, arm against the wall to steady her quaking legs as she ran. With each step it became harder and harder to tell if it was her legs shaking or the whole damned world around her. She took the corner sharply, and when she did, the hallway broke out into a wholly different world. It wasn’t the temperature-controlled halls of the complex she was greeted with, nor was it the frozen volcanic wastes of the island just beyond its walls. Instead, it was a warmth, a humid heat: summer in Georgia. Elizabeth looked down at the twists of dark green grass that parted her toes, and then up at fireflies dancing in the air like the countless stars in the heavens above. Fairies, her grandmother swore they were. Standing there, for the first time she believed it, and that they had spirited her away.
It was exactly as it was in her youth, the rolling hills, the thickets of pine and oaks, the sweet scent of magnolias and roses, and the never-ending chorus of life all around her. She couldn’t help but smile and twirl and fall to her knees in the grass, the warm, soft grass of a life that was never hers. That was when she heard it – the cry of a lamb. Elizabeth staggered to her feet, and there it was, standing before her. It’s seven eyes fell upon her, it’s weighty gaze piercing into her very soul – all of her souls. “Y-you…” She stammered, trying to steady herself. “Where is this? Wait… I’m still in the device, aren’t I?”
“No,” the Lamb said, words in her mind, “you are not. You are exactly where you were: in the hall, at the seat of the world. But, the sights that surround you, you are not ready to see them.”
“I don’t… understand,” Elizabeth admitted. “How are you here? How are we here? What happened?”
“It is a kindness I offer you,” said the Lamb, turning away from her. “You have undone the seal, the last of seven. A star has fallen, and it has been given the key to the bottomless pit. Follow me.”
Elizabeth didn’t know why, but she followed it. She followed even though every fiber of her being told her not to, though every ounce of sense telling her to run away. It wasn’t fear that drove her, or courage even, or how that summer warmth seemed to fade with the distance between them. It was faith. Elizabeth couldn’t explain it, not rightly, and she didn’t understand it enough to even try. But she knew what she felt, and what she felt when she looked upon the lamb, when she heard it’s everchanging voice in her mind, it was faith. Though its image and very being frightened her, she knew in her heart that she was safe, maybe the safest she’d ever been, with the Lamb by her side. That’s how they descended the corridor, side by side, footprints in the sand. She had read the good book, the bible, Revelations – the story of the end of days, of fire and brimstone. She had never believed it, none of it, not really. It had always been tradition before, just tradition – something kept up to stay connected with those long since passed. But thanks to that feebly held tradition, she recognized who walked besides her now – who had always walked besides her. She, for the life of her, just couldn’t understand why.
That was a question that pained her more and more with each step, stabbing into her soul until she fell to her knees unable to walk any further without asking it. “Why me…? Oh, GOD, why me?!” Elizabeth pleaded. “I’ve sinned, LORD! I’ve sinned my whole damned life away. I’ve killed so many people… I’ve lied, cheated, and stole! Why me? Please – please tell me! Of all people, why me?” The Seven-Eyed Lamb stalled and turned back to her. It’s eyes felt like a sword on the nape of her neck, one she waited patiently, expectantly even, to cut in deep. “Evil is the folly of all men,” stated the Lamb, it’s voice both a chorus of angels and pagan songs of chthonic depths. “Even the most righteous man may do evil unto his enemies – evil seen as goodness to those who are not. It is not the evil we do in life that matters most. It is the good we do for life that raises us out of perdition. No one is below redemption and forgiveness, so long as they seek it. Do you seek it, Living One?”
“Yes,” Elizabeth uttered shakily behind a veil of euphoric tears, “I do… What must I do?”
“Stand, Living One. Stand and be forgiven!” Roared the Lamb. “Will you sit and do nothing to halt wickedness’s fel design, or rise to the challenge and do what must be done?”
“I will… I will rise!” she proclaimed, pushing herself off the summer green. “I will do what must be done.”
Suddenly a cry rang out, a bestial moan that sung of agony and despair. It was not the lamb, but something further in, beyond the grassy hills, crying for help. “What is that?” Elizabeth asked.
“What must be done,” answered the Lamb. It was a stag, white as snow and pierced through the side. The wound itself and the blood that pooled around it however was black as tar. It smelled of rot and a bitterness that reminded Elizabeth of a foul medicine. “What’s happened to it?” She asked the Lamb.
“It bares the Mark of the Beast,” answered the Lamb, “as so many others. It tries to find purchase within them, but no mortal flesh can bare it unchanged.”
“What must I do?” Elizabeth pushed. “How can I help it?”
“There is no cure but death,” the voice of Eternity replied. “You must free it before the mark consumes it, body and soul. Will you deny it this kindness?” Elizabeth grabbed the stag by its horns and said firmly, “No.”