I, Cassandra

47 | RYAN MADDOX

PART II | This is how it begins

A flickering behind my eyes drags me back from the darkness, in its wake, a hum resonates through me, awakening my senses, but it's jagged and unpleasant as it slides through me, growing stronger here, fading, then igniting there—like something else is alive inside me, something that isn't me.

I scan my memories. Nothing but emptiness confronts me. There's nothing else to do but wait, and let my mind organise itself. A heartbeat later it hits me, where I am. Lubochnia. The ambush. My men dying all around me. The incoming strike hurtling towards us, its scream of promised death.

A slice of panic carves its way through me, stark and ugly. No. Please. I can't be dead.

Blue.

The hum dies. A surge of power slams into me and with it, my memories. The lab. My return to life in the body of another. London. Blue. A gunshot in a stairwell. Alpha VII. Mars. de Pommier. A major upgrade. Screens bleeding red. The safe. The key to a vault. A sky on fire. Our descent into the depths of G-II. The end of all things.

Blue.

I can't move, but there's no pain, at least. Darkness impales my vision. A moment later the echolocation snaps on.

I'm pinned in between two pods. I shove the one before me away, its weight more than a tonne, but for me, it's nearly nothing. Beneath, my legs are crushed. I wait, aching with impatience as I rebuild from the inside out.

Chaos surrounds me. Against the outer walls, hundreds of pods lay piled up against each other in heaps—a wreckage of them, sideways, upside down, others standing on end. Deep undulations carve the floor where the Earth purged itself of its agony and tore the metallic surface into two, as though shorn by giant scissors.

Nothing remains as it was. I have no idea which pod is Blue's. Impatience seethes through me as I endure my temporary futility. I seek the code for her pod but a thick film of dust coats everything. All I can do is wait.

It's hell.

Another tremor rises from the depths below our prison. Several pods at the top of the nearest heap loosen their tenuous hold. They tumble to the ground, sending great clouds of dust that take forever to settle. I wonder how long I was unaware. I check my legs. Halfway. At seventy percent it will be enough for me to move. Another tremor comes, heavier and angrier than the first. I count the passage of time between them. One hundred twenty-three seconds pass when the third tremor makes its appearance. Sixty-five percent and I haven't even begun to consider how we will get out of here. The elevator will have been lost, but there must be a second access way to this place, to have only one would be madness. I scan my memories of the layout of the city, searching for an opening that leads nowhere. Another tremor rocks the ground beneath my feet. I conserve my energy for my repairs. One problem at a time. First. Find Blue. Because if she's gone, nothing else matters anyway. This place can be my grave.

Seventy percent. I'm already moving, clambering over the wreckage, pushing the pods aside, my hands thick with dust as I seek the only thing that can identify her to me: G-II-0493.

One empty pod after another greets me. A vicious rumbling rises from the depths, ominous, hot with the promise of fuck knows what next. I move with extreme precision and speed, all my power focussed on this solitary objective, sensing I have just one small window of opportunity to get this right or I will lose her forever.

Silence follows in the wake of the rumbling, laden with warning. It's coming, whatever it is. I shove the nearest pod aside and expose the one underneath. A faint bleat of light sears the opacity of my echolocation. Raw with hope, I swipe the dust aside and there it is. G-II-0493. Blue. Her pod is still intact, and after a rapid scan—operational. There isn't even time to feel relief, because the next upheaval comes with the force of a thousand tsunamis, a world enraged, determined to tear itself apart.

Beneath, the floor buckles and falls, angry waves of the Earth's inner storm. Above, a jagged scar rips apart the ceiling and separates with a spine-grinding tear of geological agony. Hell rains down in great sheets of gneiss, smashing everything in their path. Another rent opens in the floor, and I see it, what is to come. We are going to be in for the ride of our lives. The pods at the opposite end of the hall tumble into the abyss opening beside them, man's highest achievement roiling into the Earth's depths, a pointless mass of scrap. Beneath Blue's pod, a thrust, brutal as a rocket launch shoves us straight up towards the rent, its maw opening wider by the second. I throw myself over Blue's pod and don't let go.