Year Zero

1

Zachariah Eight Arms cried. It was the first time in a long time that he had done that.

He wiped his face with the back of his hand. He had to think of some way out of this

mess. He had to save his daughter if he could.

His wife had been ripped apart in front of him as he tried to think of some way to

escape the thing plowing through the buildings. Then their building had fallen down

on top of him, and Sola. He couldn’t tell if she was all right in the pile of bricks and

wooden beams.

He knew he needed to do something. The thing had erupted in the middle of the city.

Daemons would respond with as much force as they could wield to kill it. His

building, the remains of his building, were in the target zone.

He needed to get himself and Sola out of that imaginary circle before even more bad

things happened to them.

How could he do that pinned down like he was? He had to summon his daemon and

put it to work. It was the only way. It was slow, but maybe it could build something

to move the bricks before the counterattack started.

He concentrated and his daemon pushed out of the pores of his torn skin. He smiled

as he tried to think of his next move. He needed light to see with, and a way to move

the rubble pinning him down.

His daemon ate some of the rubble and split apart until a swarm filled the spaces

around him. The familiar buzzing made him smile. A small light kicked on next to his

face. He turned his head as much as he could to preserve his vision. The swarm

collapsed into one six-legged bug.

“Good job, Gold Bug,” said Zachariah. “I need you to build something to move this

stuff off of me. I need you to hurry. I have a feeling that I don’t have long.”

Festus and Primrose would be in the air by now if they were still alive. He had to get

free before they acted.

“Sola!,” called Zachariah. “Can you hear me? I’m trying to free us.”

Gold Bug chewed on the rubble, and split. Each component chewed on a piece, then

split apart. Then the clones chewed and split. They did this a hundred times. Each

time they split apart, they remained connected by a thread of silver.

They shaped the silver until they had something that resembled a lamp on a stand.

The light came on and the brick vanished in the glare.

Zachariah waited for the lamp to cut off before he shrugged out of the pile that

remained. His daemon knew everything he did, and he had studied far and wide

before coming home. A little concentrated light would be in their wheelhouse.

“Sola!,” He shouted. “I’m looking for you.”

“I’m over here, Da!,” cried the little girl. “I’m over here.”

“Can you summon your daemon?,” asked Zachariah. It was still weak, but it might

be useful in this situation. Gold Bug just wasn’t fast enough in his opinion.

“I think so,” said Sola. “Hardy, Hardy!”

A flying insect appeared in the light. It buzzed as its skin shimmered. It looked

around, finally lighting on a pile of brick.

“We need to free Sola and get out of here,” said Zachariah. “I need something to help

move the rock, Gold Bug. It will be up to you to get her free, Hardy.”

Zachariah turned the lamp to point up. He turned on the power for a moment. The

collapsed ceiling burned away above. It gave him an excellent view of flying things

with too many eyes and teeth circling above.

It also gave them an excellent view of him struggling to free his daughter. Some of

them swooped down to make a meal of this sudden prize.

Gold Bug took the lamp apart as Zachariah tried to use it. It pointed the lens at the

pile of rock where Sola must be. A distortion in the air sent the rubble flying up

through the hole in the ceiling. The reverse rain scattered the flying things, but

several had been too close when the rubble started flying and crashed in the street and

against other houses in bloody rags that used to be bodies.

“Who taught you how to do that?,” asked Zachariah. “That was totally marvelous.”

Gold Bug applied the ray carefully until Sola was visible. Hardy waited for the beam

to cut off before pulling her clear of the pile. Luckily the beams that supported the

roof had fell in such a way that nothing fell directly on top of her and hurt her too

much that she couldn’t move.

“Use the beam on the wall, Gold Bug,” said Zachariah. “We’re going to need to

escape before more of those show up and try to kill us.”

The golden ant directed the beam at the intact wall farthest from the black column

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still battling other residents in the street. Nothing happened except some shaking of

dust in the air.

“Go, Hardy, go,” commanded Sola. She pointed at the offending wall.

Her daemon punched through the wall after a moment to gather flight speed. It landed

outside and remained in place so they could move under its watchful eyes.

Zachariah picked up his daughter and ducked through the hole. He was happy that the

rest of the wall hadn’t fallen in on him. He ran from their building, not looking back.

They had to get out of the city if they wanted to live.

“Let’s go,” said Zachariah. “We have to get out of here as fast as possible.”

Hardy picked him up and carried father and daughter down the streets away from the

ocean. Gold Bug returned home to its nest so it could rest up for the next challenge.

The second bug started to fade when its strength was gone.

Zachariah ran. His daughter wasn’t as light as she had been, but they were still

making good time.

How long did they have before Festus dropped the hammer on the many tentacled

thing behind them? That was how long they had to live.

Other citizens flew on the same path as him. Some carried others on the backs of their

daemons. He couldn’t do that with Gold Bug. The daemon could only create fragile

devices to alter the world’s natural laws, and more importantly was only six inches

long if that much.

The best he could hope for was to create a swarm big enough to create a machine big

enough to carry him and Sola out of danger. That would take too long considering his

calculations.

Flying daemons and their riders blasted the mountainous beast with the energies

under their control. He supposed it was to buy time for those on the ground to escape.

One by one, they were snuffed out by the monster and its minions.

He stumbled over a boy and his daemon. He managed to keep upright as he stepped

to keep from falling.

“What are you doing?,” asked Zachariah. “Run. Run for your lives.”

“You run, old man,” said the boy. “Knife and me can handle those flying things

easily.”

“Stay and die then,” said Zachariah. He started jogging toward the edge of town

again. He saw more of the minions swoop down on the straggling line, but there was

nothing he could do.

Gold Bug didn’t have any offensive ability other than his bite.

Pulses of light fired into the wrongly designed birds. The boy and his daemon ran at

Zachariah’s side. He realized that the daemon was mechanical like his own. It had

produced a projector from its back to protect the trio as they fled down the avenue.

A whistling filled the air. Zachariah looked up. Something large was dropping on the

city. They were dead. He kept running. If Sola could summon Hardy, the flying

creature could carry her away from the destruction.

They didn’t both have to die.

“What’s going on?,” asked the boy.

“We’re about to die,” said Zachariah.

“Protective wall, Knife!,” shouted the boy.

“Bubble!,” shouted Zachariah. “Do a bubble if you can.”

“Do it,” said the boy.

The spider’s metallic shell split open. The gun came apart and then came back

together in a new configuration. The shell slammed shut. A blue bubble encircled the

three.

“Hunch down, and hope your daemon can hold the field,” said Zachariah. He

wrapped himself around Sola and held her close. The boy tried to do the same for his

daemon, but it was three times as big as he was, and yanked him under it.

The rock hit the meat tower in the center of the ruined port. The wave of air picked

the ball up and flung it away as buildings on all sides started falling over.

“Hold on!,” screamed Zachariah. “Don’t let the bubble drop no matter what. It’s the

only thing keeping us alive.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” said the boy.

The bubble, riding the blast wave, crashed through a building and bounced off a roof

to land on a street and then roll to a stop. The center of the city was gone. Fragile

creatures caught in the force from the rock drop had been rendered into meat rags

pressed against the surviving walls of the city.

“Don’t let the bubble drop,” said Zachariah. “Festus won’t stop with just one.”

“How do you know?,” asked the boy.

“He’ll make sure he’s exterminated that thing whatever it was,” said the machinist.

“That means he’s going to drop more rocks on the center of the city until he is sure

he wiped it out.”

“We’re in that blast radius,” said the boy. “Look at what he’s already done.”

“We need to hunker down until we’re sure he’s stopped, or we need to start running

and hope he has stopped,” said Zachariah.

“He hasn’t stopped,” said Sola. She pointed at a second rock falling next to the crater

of the first strike.

“Hunker down and hope we can keep riding the wave to safety,” said Zachariah.

“I don’t know if Knife can take more,” said the boy.

“Can he just keep the bubble going for a little bit longer?,” said Sola.

The boy consulted with his spider, rubbing the metallic head. He nodded.

“We can keep it up for a little bit,” he said.

Sola concentrated. Hardy appeared from her hand. He buzzed into the air on extended

wings.

“Hardy,” said Sola. “I need you to get this bubble moving with your ram. Otherwise,

we’ll die.”

Hardy picked up the spider and started in the air. He poured on the speed as the

whistling of more impacts sounded in the air. The wave of pushed air hit the bubble

and sent it soaring through the air. The daemon stopped flying as the pressure pushed

them out of the wrecked port.

The kids screamed in fear, but Zachariah looked behind them as much as he could as

they tumbled through the air.

They hit and bounced in a field far away from where Riordiana had once stood. Knife

let the field drop as they looked at the ocean filling in where the once mighty port had

been.

Zachariah fought back the tears as he watched the water spin where his home used to

be. Flying daemons that hadn’t been knocked out of the sky turned and flew out to

sea.

“Where are they going?,” Sola asked.

“I don’t know,” said Zachariah. “We need to move away from here in case there are

more of those flying bats around.”

“Knife can handle them,” said the boy. “Name’s Bolan.”

“Zachariah Eight Arms,” said Zachariah. “This is my daughter, Sola. Thank you for

your help. We couldn’t have survived without you and your daemon.”

“I wouldn’t have either,” said Bolan. “What do we do now?”

“I’m heading inland for a bit,” said Zachariah. “There seem to be survivors heading

to sea. You might be able to catch up with them and see what they are going to do.”

“Let’s stick together for a while,” said Bolan. “I don’t have anywhere to be.”

“Parents?,” asked Zachariah.

“They were going to the square when that thing appeared,” said Bolan.