Filaria - Brent Hayward [97]
“I brought you upwards, sir. Below us, there have been events. Of cataclysmic proportions.”
“How far up are we?”
“Cataclysmic,” Steven whispered, as if he had not heard Mereziah. Staring off into middle space, where a billow of grey rolled in as the thin rain attempted to slice through it, the bearded man said, “Most of the fires are out.”
From within the haze just then came a swell of groans and cries: people were injured in there. Gravely injured. Wounded were all around Mereziah but he could not see them. Other sounds were urgent voices, people giving instruction, calling for assistance, trying to help in a helpless situation.
Steven said, “But there are fires burning below, on several levels.” He looked at Mereziah again. “The air here is being cleaned. We’ve activated a small squall. It’ll take a while but thank God the air conditioning is working.”
“What . . . events?” Mereziah struggled to understand. “Did you say where we were? How high up we came?”
Now that Mereziah’s senses were clearing, he saw that Steven looked exhausted, deflated, yet in an odd way seemed healthier than all the people he had ever known. Newer, skin uniform in tone, his body’s lines less harsh.
Beyond the man’s head was more smoke, more mist.
“A collapse, for starters,” Steven said. “On level twenty-four, above the stasis tanks. We might still be there, if it wasn’t for that fire.
“And apparently there’s been a breach of some kind, in the outer structure. No one has been able to see the roof clearly yet and we have no data from outside. The suns are struggling to stay lit. I don’t know how much time has gone by . . .” Letting his words fade, Steven looked up once more, as if for guidance, peering into the grey bank hanging over them both.
Finally Mereziah managed to move a hand, a foot. He tried to sit up. “I have to know where we are. I insist.”
“There’s fighting. And a thousand nasty viruses in the air. It’s a wonder anyone is alive.”
Despite the small size of Steven’s eyes, they held a powerful urgency, blazing with a power long-vanished from the old man — if it had ever resided in him.
A sudden wave of warm rain moved over, splattering loudly in the mud as the squall intensified. Dense veils of downpour consumed the landscape, then, just as suddenly, diminished.
“What is happening?” Mereziah whispered.
“I wanted to ask you that.” Steven touched Mereziah’s shoulder. “You have on an old uniform. I’ve never seen it before. I don’t recognize it.”
“I’m a lift attendant.”
“The elevators?”
Mereziah was not sure how to respond.
“Listen, can you speak for the network? Were you in touch recently? Up until . . . until this?”
“I don’t know.” Water dripped from the red beard to Mereziah’s face, mingling with the rain and the tears. “I don’t recall a thing.” Watching the falling droplets, Mereziah realized that Steven also wore a mask of some sort: a thin membrane covered the man’s mouth, probably similar, or identical, to the one over his own.
“You have no insights at all?” Steven’s voice verged on desperation. “We were paid good money. But my God, how much time has passed?” His eyes implored. “You’re the only person I’ve found wearing a uniform, the only staff member besides myself, so I thought . . .”
All Mereziah could say was, “You should have let me die,” for now his memories had come back, triggered by the smell of charred meat in the air: yes, a woman had been burned, consumed by fire. He had watched her die. He had filled his lungs with her stench. But worse than the knowledge of how a human smells and looks when they are immolated, worse even than the fact that this knowledge was now integrated into him, never to leave, was the memory of the kiss he’d planted on the beautiful toothless mouth of Crystal Max. He recalled her indignity, her anger, her hatred of him. He recalled her subsequent demise.
Sheets of rain washed over.
He was responsible. For Crystal’s death. For all of the deaths.
Right now, Crystal was probably