Prologue
“This was not what we agreed upon, Emma.”, said Horace with visible distress in his voice. And it was not just him. Everyone was worried and anxious, and Emma knew it. But she could not waver or be taken aback by the situation. Sure, the early incursion by the Sentinels was not on the cards, but they were here now. And she had to think of a solution. Fast. Emma frantically glanced at each of her team members, their faces painted with fear. But one of them seemed relatively calm, and looking at her, the cogs in Emma’s brain turned slightly, and an idea came. A much-needed one.
“Valerie, I need you to do something”. Emma’s sharp and direct choice of words started a seemingly calm Valerie. She stammered, “What do you need?” Emma’s eyes filled with a tiny glimmer of hope again. She stood up and walked over to the control panel in front of the large glass windows overlooking the laboratory. The control room had been a safe haven for them for the last two weeks, but the bleak surroundings had unknowingly eaten away at the determination the team once showed. Most of them were sitting down near a corner of the room, trying to make as little noise as possible with the sentinels just three floors below them. Three floors. A sudden noise came from below, too close for comfort. They were getting closer. Emma and Valerie looked at each other as the latter brought out the Traveller from a torn pocket of her denim blue jacket.
Emma quickly tried to turn it on, but in vain. “Can you fix it?” asked Emma with a certain mix of desperation and order in her voice. “I don’t know. If I could, I would’ve by now, but to fix it I need Ceteritium, and lots of it.”
“Shit!” Emma exasperated. She already knew that. Without Ceteritium, there’s no hope for them to get out of here, and if they don’t get out of here, this world will end and maybe countless others.
“They are close.”, said Horace. Both Emma and Valerie turned their heads towards him. “You can feel them?” asked Emma. Her breath now clearly trembling. Horace, being an empath, could always feel anger and repression, and could tell whose it was if the emotions were extreme enough. And they were, this time. He put a finger on his lips and, with the other hand, pointed towards the floor. They were just below them. One small noise and the Sentinels would kill them in an instant. Everyone stayed silent. Valerie could not join the group and stayed near the control panel. Crouched down, she put a hand over her mouth to cover up anything. Even the sound of her breath. Emma was about to go to the corner when Horace signalled her to stop and stay put. The noise that they heard before turned into a rhythmic thumping. Inching closer to where they were sitting. The whole room became filled with vibrations. The table on the other end of the room, near the entrance, started to shake. Nothing could be heard except them. There were four people huddled near the corner trying to stay as quiet as possible, but it was becoming increasingly difficult.
After what seemed to be an eternity, the Sentinels moved towards another part of the floor. But the team was not out of the woods yet. Horace gestured to all of them not to say anything; instead, write it. Emma took a piece of paper from her backpack and wroteHow to get Ceteritium? Lots of it.Horace scratched his head for a second, but an answer came to his mind, which he knew Emma was not going to like. He relayed, on the same piece of paper,Sentinels have a lot.Everyone looked at Horace with a face that screamed, Are you serious? But two people started considering the possibility. Emma and David. David is the second in command and was heavily wounded trying to get to the control room. He and Emma locked eyes, and they both silently agreed that this was the best route possible. “We have no other choice.”, said David. His voice was deeper than usual. The amateurish first aid attempt only prevented his immediate demise, but he was edging closer to it. Both got up and walked over to the control panel. The team members knew what they were planning to do. Get the Ceteritium from the Sentinels. It was a suicide mission. But it had to be done.
“Valrie, can you fix the Traveller to the point where you only need to put Ceteritium in it to use it?”, asked Emma. Valerie, still covering her mouth, stood up and waited a moment before she answered, “In theory, yes. But I have never tried to do that. There might be complications, something might go wro-”, Emma cut in before she could finish. “It doesn’t matter. I trust you. And I need this to work. Otherwise, we are not going to survive this.”
David was contemplating something while looking at the far end of the laboratory door. The white lights illuminated on the entrance and the space just in front of the windows of the control room. He noticed a slight movement near the door, and it didn’t take long for him to realize that the Sentinels were going to break the door down any instant. Valerie had just finished fixing the Traveler when David took his sling supporting his left arm, off and proceeded to enter the lab. Wincing in pain as he walked towards the back door. Blood oozing out of his abdomen and upper left thigh. Emma turned towards him and caught him as he almost fell. “Where do you think you’re going? We need a plan to attack them if we want to get out of here. You cannot face them by yourself let alone defeat them.”
“You’re right. I can’t.” He was not joking. With dead seriousness he looked at the group behind. Particularly, Janice. His wife. But she couldn’t tell. Fending off the Sentinels at the gate took too much of a toll on everyone, but none more so than this couple. In the scuffle to get free, Janice’s eyes got scratched by a Sentinel’s arm and she instantly lost sight in both of her eyes. Even though her pale white skin, and unkempt curly red hair still shone in the dark gloomy room. She stood up as if she knew David was looking at her.
“What do you need?”, asked Janice, facing David. David, for a second, didn’t answer. Instead, he took his hand and caressed his wife’s face. As if it was the last time he could ever do so. Passed her lush red hair through his fingers, one last time. Emma saw tears flowing down both husband and wife. As if they knew, they were never going to feel each other’s presence again. This was the last time. He wiped his tears off and took his wife hands, and said, “Emma, we both have lost everything. My best friend. My son. And with that I have also lost the will to live. But I do not want to die like this. Helpless and feeling like a burden. I want these deaths to mean something. I want to mean something. Let me do this.”
Emma was speechless. She did not know what to say. She frantically looked around the room, asking for help, asking for someone to refute this action, but no one did. Everyone quietly approved David’s decision. Emma then looked towards Janice, and even before she could say anything, Janice spoke. “Emma. I know what you want to say. Believe me, it would be absolutely wonderful if we all could get out of here alive, but we both know that is not possible. Let us do this. Please.”
Emma could not comprehend what was about to happen. Letting the two most competent people on the team, two of the closest people, two people she called family, sacrifice their lives for her, was not something she was ready to do, but ultimately, she had to say yes. David and Janice both smiled and hugged each of their teammates and placed a kiss on Emma’s forehead before setting off towards the lab. As they were about to enter, a voice from the back of the room said, “I’ll go too.” Everyone turned to look at Ephram. The 23-year-old who joined the team with Emma and Valerie, slowly stood up. He was sitting behind Janice and was incredibly quiet throughout the whole ordeal, but now it became clear why. He lifted his shirt to reveal that he too has been stabbed by a Sentinel and the area near the wound had started to become grey, indicating Cetritius. An infection caused due to direct contact between human skin and the purest form of Ceteritium. Emma and Valerie’s faces turned from agony to pure shock and confusion. Meanwhile, the Sentinels had breached the lab door and were advancing towards the room.
Ephram tried to quickly walk towards the couple, but Emma stopped him. Her face now a crying mess. Everyone understood what that meant. Valerie, equally in shock, tried to separate Emma from him, but she was not ready to let him go as well. Ephram, gestured towards Valerie to let him manage this and took Emma in his arms and consoled her as she sobbed her heart out. Placing a kiss on her forehead as well, he held her face within his two hands and wiped her tears away. Taking in her big blue eyes, her frizzy blonde hair, her blood-soaked lips and cheeks, he hugged her for one final time and looked at David. Both nodded as he took up his gun and bid farewell to the rest of the team.
Three of them exited the control room and started walking towards the Sentinels. “So, the plan is that you and Janice shoot at them and lure them towards you. Only two out of three would pay attention to you and while you fight the two sentinels, I kill the third one and take the Ceteritium core out and throw it towards the room”? said Ephram with a doubt in his voice. Both Janice and David nodded, and Ephram asked no further questions.
After taking their positions, David, and Janice behind one of the genome sequencing tables, and Ephram behind the cryochamber, they waited for the Sentinels to get in their immediate view. Ephram waiting for the signal from David, had his 7-inch Mercurian blade in his hand, ready to go. David gestured with his gun raised high that it was go time. Both him and Jancie started shooting at the pair of Sentinels while the third one was directly in front of Ephram, with its back to him. Ephram, without looking at how the couple were faring, jumped off using the cryochamber as support and jabbed his blade through the Sentinel’s heart. The Sentinel with a few grindings and mechanical noises, fell silent and limped to the ground. His triumph was short lived however, as he looked towards his right when there were no more gunfire sounds coming. David and Janice both lay there. Dead. The Sentinels tearing their body off in unnatural ways to feed, to replenish their energy. The sight made Ephram nauseous as he tried to stand up after cutting off the Ceteritium core from the dead Sentinel’s body.
The sound of him moving made the other two Sentinels glance towards him, and with his breath getting heavy he knew they would be coming towards him. He looked at the control room windows. Valerie and Horace had turned their eyes away from this gruesome scene, but Emma was staring directly at him. In that moment, Ephram knew, he had to run. He had to make David’s and Janice’s sacrifice worth it. Make his sacrifice worth it. He put the blade back into its holster and secured the core in a small black bag with a starp so that he could throw it. And he ran. And with him the Sentinels. They left the mangled bodies of the couple behind them without giving them another thought, they hurled themselves acrros the lab towards the room.
The faster he tried to go; the Sentinels started to run even faster. After 3 seconds had passed he knew he was never going to reach the room. Emma knew it as well. Both locked eyes with each other, and with a wry smile, saying their final goodbyes as Ephram swung the bag with the core with all his might towards the glass panel. It shattered. He stopped. Valerie was startled by the glass breaking but got her senses back when she saw the core glowing inside the small bag. Without wasting another second, she placed the Traveler into collection mode and held it near the Ceteritium core, and with a loud whoomph, it absorbed the core entirely.
Emma, for the last time, looked at Ephram before the Sentinels caught up to him, and turned towards Valerie. “What’s the closest Earth?” Valerie replied with equal swiftness, after checking the Traveler, “There are two, Earth-216 and Earth-01. Which one?”
Emma glanced at both Valerie and Horace. Both nodded, agreeing with whatever she chose. The Sentinels devoured Ephram completely, drowning out his screams, and one of them jumped onto the control panel to see that a circular portal with a blue hue glowing, with Emma in front of it. A moment of silence observed between them. As if the Sentinels are allowing them to escape. Emma did not care. She knew that it was a losing battle, but she also knew that the war was far from over and she believed that it would be the humans who would come out on top. As the Sentinel leapt off the table towards Emma, she turned and walked into the portal. It snapped shut as the Sentinel’s clawed arms were about to reach her
