Illumination

In one terrifying and sudden instant, the ground erupted around them, sending chunks of ice flying into the air. Jack screamed and was thrown back; she felt Sierra being torn away from her in the torrent. Chips of ice flecked her cheeks and cut deep, forcing her to close her eyes and wait for the pain to end. She felt her back smack hard against the side of the buggy, which grumbled and shifted in protest. Blood pounded in Jack’s ears and her head began to throb as she slid to the ground, defenseless.

Then, there was silence, which was even worse than the noise. Still unwilling to move, Jack rested her head on one, torn sleeve and opened her eyes to gaze upon the fearful scene.

A giant solfect, bigger than any that Jack had ever seen before, had burst through the ground and now held the light grenade, which was still sparkling in its powerful jaws. Though only the size of their buggy, it still towered over them, shrieking in triumph at its emergence from the ground. The solfect tottered unsteadily on dangerously thin limbs, which stretched out over the gaping hole it had made in bursting from the ground.

This creature seemed foreign at first, but Jack soon realized that there was a patch of crimson hair on its leathery head. It’s Ben! Except he’s even bigger now. Maybe twice as big. She cradled her head in one hand, fingers pressed up against the cracked side of the helmet, then moved them down to the rest of her body. There seemed to be no blood or cuts, but ugly scrapes down the sides of her once-again exposed arms, which were now frosting black in the devilish cold. She rubbed them and winced as particles of dead skin flaked off alongside the frostbite crystals.

The others had also been pushed away by the force of the blast and now lay crumpled beside each other, just a few feet away from Jack. Bailey was already on her feet and scrambling for her gun. Liam was sitting up and staring in awe at the alpha. Sierra was lying on her side, not moving, and Robin was hunched over her, frantically trying to wake his little sister. Her helmet, which had absorbed much of the blast that would’ve hit Jack, had crumpled in on one side, but not so much as to crush her.

“Sierra, are you okay?” she whispered, dragging herself over to her sister. The alpha solfect made no attempt to attack them. It just stood there and watched.

“Ja—Jack?” Sierra rolled over at the prompting of her older siblings and looked up in dazed wonder. Her eyes widened until they were watering with fright. But she pulled herself back up and tilted her head back to look at the creature that towered over her just a few yards away. Her body trembled as if she wanted to run, but something pinned her down and kept her from fleeing.

“Why isn’t it attacking us?” Robin asked, eyebrows knit together. Jack shook her head and crawled back to the buggy, where her pack was lying on the ground, as well its contents. She shook it out, hands shaking, and found what she wanted—the Quicksilver. Jack pulled the safety trigger and the gun unfolded, sparkling under the beam of her Illuminator. Bailey ran over, shouldering her weapon, and the two of them took aim at the solfect.

“The blasts didn’t work last time,” Liam warned, crouching next to them, curls plastered to the sides of his head. His long, tangled bangs had been swept aside to reveal his bad eye, which was bruised black and blistered all over. “What makes you think they’ll work now?”

“Nothing. But if there’s anything we can do to scare it away or distract it, I’m more than happy to pull the trigger,” Bailey spat, raising the gunsight to her eye.

As she spoke, the solfect finally snapped out of whatever daze it was in and started forward towards the three of them, who backed up against the buggy. Jack could feel the vibrations of the buggy’s engine pulsing through her; the heat of the engine radiated outwards and pressed against the back of her uniform. Robin forced Sierra to her feet and the two siblings dove forward to escape the solfect’s spindly legs, which stabbed down to the ground as it walked and sent tiny showers of ice up into the air. Why does it always have to be us? Jack moaned to herself. Why can’t someone else summon the monsters?

The solfect stopped just a few feet away from them, swaying back and forth in an indecisive manner. It then bowed down low to the ground so that its legs were leaning back, and made a horrid, squealing sound in the back of its throat. Jack tried to move back even further, but found that her boots were scrabbling on looser ground. Her finger twitched on the trigger, for once aching to pull and shoot the creature that had taken her father away from her. But she held back, for her group and the alpha seemed to be in some sort of a tense truce. She didn’t want to break it and doom them all by her rashness. Bailey seemed to feel the same; after a moment, she lowered the rifle and it automatically compacted into its slider form.

The solfect—the alpha—suddenly turned towards the empty blackness, a mere silhouette that glinted in the light of their Illuminators. It raised its head up and let out an unearthly howl, deeper than Jack had expected. A thrill ran down her spine and she gasped as the solfect swung its head back and forth, reiterating its strange cry. What does it want? Sparks were still flying out of its mouth; the light grenade was slowly being compressed and punctured by one of the solfect’s miniscule, razor-like fangs.

It turned and suddenly dropped the smoking grenade to the ground, where it sat smoking and sputtering like the flare that Jack had found on her first mechanic mission, before all of the chaos had happened. The alpha stamped a pincer on the ground, then suddenly took off like a flash. Jack stood up in surprise and watched as the creature skittered a dozen yards away from them, in the direction that they’d been going before they’d gotten lost. It turned and looked back at them anxiously, then let out another series of squeals. Like a command.

“It wants us to follow him,” she realized out loud. The others stood up and joined her. But why does he want us to go to Colony 186? What’s so special about it that he feels the need to help us instead of hurt us?

“What do we do now?” Everyone turned to look at Liam. “I mean, do we follow the alpha or not?” He continued, “What if it’s a trap? I don’t want to get in trouble—”

“For God’s sake, stop whining about getting into trouble. We’re all off the deep end,” Bailey snapped. “If there’s anyone who’ll be able to sweet talk their way back into power among us when this is done, it’s you. Just stop worrying about it.” She turned to look at the solfect, who was shifting from side to side again. It chirped irritably, which echoed back across the plains towards them. “I think it’s getting impatient. We’d better hurry if we’re going to get anywhere.”

“I’m up for it,” Robin voted, nodding.

“Count me in,” Sierra said, though she scowled as she agreed.

Jack sighed and put her hand into the circle. “Less talk, more rescuing.” They all looked at Liam, who folded his arms and refused to contribute. “C’mon…”

“Oh, fine.” Something in the Brit’s face relaxed and his whole body seemed to lose tension as he put his hand into the circle. Like he was letting a part of him go. Jack squeezed his hand tightly. “Let’s go and get it over with. From the looks of it, Ben’s impatient to get going.”

Indeed, the solfect was starting to make its way back towards them, growling and taking steps that echoed across the plains and split the stale air. Robin gestured for them to get up. Jack took a moment to dust herself off; there were fragments of ice clinging to her knees and digging into her bare skin. She took a mental note to get a new uniform when they returned, for the sleeve of her brand-new one was already hanging by a thread. The uniforms were made for insulation, not so much for protection from solfect attacks. If we make it out alive, she told herself, then shook her head fiercely to banish the dark thought. Don’t think like that! When we make it out. When this is all over.

They piled into the buggy once again and warmth flooded over them in an instant. Robin shut the doors and the few strands of fog that had escaped the outdoors to join them soon wisped away under the heat of the buggy’s radiator, which hummed and buzzed. Jack’s brother had kept the engine running; now he put the buggy in gear and eased it towards the alpha, whose mouth opened as if to chitter approval. A pop song came on the radio and Sierra started to hum along nervously, but then stopped as her older brother turned it off. Soon, there was nothing but silence all around. Once again, it hurt more than the noise.

When they came up to the solfect, Robin stopped the buggy. The headlights illuminated the monster’s elongated, drooping head. Its slimy tongue gleamed under the light of the Illuminator. Its eyes—if there were any—stared out at them, leathery folds coated in a pus-like, green crust. Jack bit her lower lip and did her best to ignore the solfect as it walked alongside the buggy, its head bowed low, tongue leaving an acidic streak down each windowpane. But she couldn’t refrain from turning her head to watch as the alpha solfect stared at her through the glass, a mere silhouette in the blackness. I’m not afraid of you. We might be playing your game right now, but once I find my father, the tables will turn, she thought, folding her hands in her lap and holding the creature’s gaze. Eventually, it dropped the locked stare and continued to pace in circles around the buggy, which was bathed in a dim, orange glow. The bulb overhead flickered slightly but held steady. The last thing Jack wanted was to be sitting in almost complete darkness with nothing but ten Illuminator beams to hunt down the monster’s whereabouts.

After two tense laps around the buggy, during which nothing sounded but the purr of the engine and Jack’s own breathing, the solfect detached from its orbit and bounded ahead a few yards. It turned and looked back at them expectantly and grimaced, showing off its many rows of fangs. “I think it’s done pacing,” Bailey warned tightly. Robin seemed frozen and unable to move; he stared straight ahead without blinking. Only his rising and falling chest indicated that he was alive.

“Wake up and let’s get moving,” Liam said, gently yet firmly poking his best friend from the neighboring seat. “Come on, Robin.”

The person in question finally started as if from a bad dream. “Sorry...must’ve...froze there.” Robin pressed a hand against the side of his helmet and turned to smile nervously at them. He then pressed the accelerator down with one boot and the buggy jolted forward out of its mechanical reverie. They roared forward at a sudden speed and the solfect looked back ahead and continued running, obviously taken aback by its charge’s sudden enthusiasm.

The next hour and a half passed in a similar fashion. The alpha solfect would sprint ahead, its many limbs leaving bug-like footprints in the crusty ice, almost until it disappeared out of sight. But Robin would gun the buggy onwards and the headlights would soon reveal the creature waiting for them, gnashing its teeth impatiently and swaying from side to side. No one dared speak for fear to upset it somehow (even though it couldn’t hear them). But inside, Jack’s blood boiled and she yearned to head out and shoot at the solfect with all her might, though she wouldn’t even scratch it. From Sierra’s tightly clenched teeth and fists, she could tell that her sister felt the same on the matter.

Finally, a large cliff of ice loomed over their heads to the right. Robin turned the headlights so everyone could see its outline; a smile broke out across his face, the first real one in a while. The other four seemed to lose all tension at this gesture, which showed that their unofficial captain was at ease, at least somewhat. The silhouette of the mountain sent harrowing memories running through Jack’s mind, but they were faint compared to the relief that she felt at the site of the landmark.

The solfect seemed to sense the change coming over the passengers in the buggy. It stopped and let them catch up so that both it and the buggy were side by side. Instead of looking through the windows at them, it held its gaze straight ahead and bobbed its head up and down, its tongue rolling and flopping around like a thick, slippery rope. Then, it backed up and turned so it was facing away. As Jack watched, the alpha solfect sprinted away from the buggy and left them, its figure becoming smaller and smaller until the darkness consumed it and Jack’s Illuminator could no longer detect even its silhouette.

With the alpha gone and a familiar landmark towering over them ahead, the occupants of the buggy cheered up significantly. Robin turned on the radio and this time let Sierra hum along to all the songs that she knew the melodies for but not the words. Also known as all the songs, Jack thought, fiddling with the straps on her pack.

“In about two hours we’ll pass this cliff, according to the map,” Robin announced, pointing to the holographic display on the dashboard, which twitched from side to side as they left the range of Illumination ray reception. Now they were running on batteries. “Then I’ll radio ahead to the next checkpoint and ask for clearance. We’ll eat our dinner and sleep there, but we’re gonna have to get an early start tomorrow morning. Can’t lose track of time.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, whether out of excitement or anxiety, Jack wasn’t sure.

“Where are we going next? Not another friend from flight school, I hope,” Liam muttered.

His friend chuckled softly and darkly. “Oh no, if you enjoyed Connor’s house, this’ll be even better, I promise you.”

“That sounded sarcastic.”

“Because you’re great at detecting it.” Robin’s brows were furrowed close together. He turned up the music even more, silencing the rest of the conversation.

Indeed, in two hours the cliff was far behind them and they were passing through what looked like a rich neighborhood, as the monitors indicated that they were entering a zone of high quality Illumination rays. Large, rectangular buildings lined the canyon that they descended into, distanced from each other but still taking up all the space there was to offer. Some of them were so tall that they stretched up past the top of the canyon, probably for the wealthiest citizens and their families. Some of them had bridges and walkways that extended out over the canyon between two buildings. As the buggy passed underneath one, Jack looked up and saw several figures standing on the walkway. She couldn’t tell how many; it was too dark to see much past the existence of said figures. Either way, the buildings were huge and ornately decorated too. There was an audible gasp from the passengers of the buggy as they passed a house that had a Creeping Verendium sitting in a pot on the front porch. Wow...there are only twenty domesticated Creepers in New Earth and this family has one of them? They must be very important, she thought to herself, looking over Bailey’s shoulder. The gargantuan plant waved a feeler at them as they passed. Probably not a friendly gesture, but Sierra waved back anyways.

“Here we are,” Robin said as the buggy grinded to a halt. They were still in the center of the canyon. “To the left.” He rolled down the windows for better visibility, letting a frigid cloud of fog blow in.

They were parked in front of one of the smaller buildings in the canyon. Still, it was about the size of one of the dormitory buildings in Jack’s old colony. It was long and short, unlike some of the other houses, and painted a peeling crimson color that was not pleasing on the eyes. As Jack got out alongside the others, she saw that there was a security gate out front laced with electrical pulses. One break in the fence and the pulses would activate, creating an electrical net that not only would shock the attacker into unconsciousness, but read the colony identification chip inserted into every citizen’s wrist. This way, the burglar could easily be identified.

“Who is this?!” Jack asked her older brother as he shut down the buggy. Now it was just them standing in the fog by their vehicle, their beams of artificial light piercing through the darkness.

“Connor’s dad,” Robin said with a grimace. Jack remembered how, in the picture at Connor’s house, the father had been standing apart from the rest of the family. Now she realized why. Is he estranged from his wife and kids or are they estranged from him? What brought about this? Does he live here alone or does he live with someone else? Is that why he left them?!

“Cheerful place,” Bailey muttered to herself, shouldering her pack. Their breaths mingled in the air.

“Well, we all can’t be rich and nice,” Jack commented. Liam said nothing, probably tired of everyone ragging on his social status. “Well, um, is he expecting us?”

“Yes, thankfully. Connor said he would radio ahead of time and tell his dad.” Robin took a few experimental steps towards the door, then turned back and waited for the others to join him. “Come on, he won’t bite. Probably.”

“That’s reassuring.” Liam stepped up to join his friend. “Let’s get moving before it’s too late. We have a time slot to fill.”

“We do?” Jack asked as the remaining three of them headed up towards the gate. “Huh.”

Robin stepped up to the keypad that was mounted to the gate, just above the handle. There was a series of numbers and symbols, as well as a button to call the main house. Jack’s brother pushed the button and waited for the tinny crackling to subside.

After a moment of silence, a man’s voice spoke through the intercom line, surprisingly clear for what looked like a middle-class tech set. “Hello? This is Doctor John Alpin speaking. State your name and purpose.”

Wow, this guy really is formal, Jack thought.

“Robin—I mean, Robert Amundsen speaking. We were sent by your son.” When there was no response, he added, “Connor.”

“Yes,” the man said dryly, followed by a new burst of static. “One moment, please.” His tone was cold, but Jack thought she could detect a layer of emotion beneath it, one she couldn’t identify yet. Dr. Alpin spoke again, this time to someone in the house. “Victoria, be a dear and open the door, please.”

The electrified gate swung open, forcing the five of them to step back. Once it had finished and let out a beep of approval, they stepped into the courtyard and walked up to the door. The garden was covered in ice and snow, but some varieties of exotic, engineered plants still poked their frosted buds above the ground. It was quite pretty, if Jack was being honest with herself. Which she wasn’t.

When they reached the oak door, Robin was forced to step forward and knock again for admittance. There was an awkward pause before it swung open, held by a short, smiling woman with an apron on and a very elaborate hairdo. Her collar was done up in exquisite detail and she didn’t have to wear the identification numbers that the poor colony communities did. Jack almost scoffed, but forced herself to put on a big, welcoming grin. You’re a kind, helpful nineteen-year-old, she told herself. And this is only for an evening.

“Come in, come in,” the woman welcomed them, shuffling to the side to allow the five of them to pass. “Doctor Alpin has been expecting you. Let me take you to the study and get you all warmed up. You all must be freezing after a night driving with nothing but a simple buggy Illuminator to keep you cozy.” She clucked her tongue in a matronly fashion, even though she was about as tall as they were, and closed the door behind them. No turning back now.

“Thank you, ma’am. Are you the Doctor’s sister?” Bailey asked hesitantly, in her most polite tone possible. Which still wasn’t very polite.

“Goodness no. I’m the maid. Victoria,” the woman introduced herself with a sniff. She still seemed to carry herself above them even despite her supposed, lower-class status. “I assume you’re Robert, Jacklyn, Liam, Sierra, and Bailey.” She pointed at them in an incorrect order as she led them down a hallway with a red carpet and photographs covering the walls. “I trust your journey to...wherever you’re going has been well.”

“As well as it can be,” Robin responded, wisely holding back on the part where Ben crashed the party in solfect form and nearly killed them. “I trust your night has been peaceful enough.”

“Well, more Apexes in the area. Those creatures are nasty. The master made me go out this morning and reinforce the electric fence. They seem to target us more frequently than the other houses. I wonder why.”

Jack shifted uneasily at this turn in the conversation and was glad when they stopped in front of a set of doors. “Doctor Alpin’s in here. He’s not in the best mood, so be warned.” Victoria knocked once, and, at the prompting of a voice from inside, opened the left door and gestured for Jack and the others to enter. “Good luck,” she whispered before closing the door behind them and leaving them alone with the doctor.