One Awake In All The World-6
1054 Words
“Stop,” said Stiletto. “This is it.”
Squinting into the fog, she saw a gray metal door set into a low stone bunker at the end of the street.
“Ventilation system,” said Stiletto. “That’s what’s been making those vibrations. It’s pumping stale air out of an underground chamber and pumping in fresh.”
“Sagran bio signs?” said Candle, gently bouncing Luma until her eyes opened. In spite of the run through the streets, Luma’s sleepiness was coming back in force.
“Lots, but faint,” said Stiletto, watching the flash-brain screen on her arm. “We didn’t pick them up earlier because there’s some kind of interference signal.”
“Invisible fence, maybe?” said Candle. “A signal tuned to a frequency that keeps the Skilla out?”
“Beats me,” said Stiletto, “but I think I found a way in.” She pointed her fingertip sensors at the windowless stone bunker. “There’s a shaft on the other side of the door, leading underground.”
As Candle started for the bunker, he bounced Luma on his arm. “Look familiar?”
Luma grinned sleepily. “Yes!” she said, pointing an index finger at the bunker. “This is where Mommy and Daddy take me every year. This is the place I couldn’t find when I got lost.”
“Cool,” Candle said with a smile. “Guess you’re not lost anymore.”
When the three of them reached the bunker, Stiletto gave the metal door a push. When it wouldn’t open, she turned her attention to what looked like a release mechanism.
The release mechanism consisted of a keypad at eye level with ten push buttons. Each button was imprinted with an alien symbol; Stiletto’s wild guess was that the symbols corresponded to the numbers zero through nine.
“Numeric code lock,” she said, aiming her fingertip sensors at the mechanism. “Normally, I could crack this puppy open in a heartbeat.”
“But?” said Candle.
“The device isn’t electronic, so it’ll take my flash-brain longer to analyze it.”
Candle sighed. “What about you?” he said to Luma. “Have any idea how to open the door?”
Luma frowned and rubbed an eye with her fist. “Mommy taught me a song, but I don’t know if I can remember all the words right now.”
“You remember the tune at least?” said Candle.
“Maybe.”
“How about giving it a try?” said Candle.
Stiletto was about to say something when she caught the smell of vinegar in the air. Before she even looked at the readout of the flash-brain, her heart started to pound.
Raising her warflower, she turned away from the door.
“Pass,” she said, keeping her voice perfectly even. “Multiple Skilla life signs, coming in fast.”
Candle nodded. “Guess our friends aren’t so nocturnal after all.”
In the distance, Stiletto could hear the clattering of claws. Hundreds of them.
Getting closer every second.
“How about if you work with Luma on remembering that song?” said Candle. “Music isn’t my strong suit.”
Stiletto moved in and took Luma, balancing the little girl’s weight on her hip.
“Try to make it a fast number,” said Candle. “Not that I expect much trouble at all whatsoever.”
With a wink, he walked off to face the horde of creatures stampeding down the street.
* * * *
Candle stationed himself twenty meters from the bunker and immediately opened fire. He blasted his warflower into the fog for a full minute before he finally caught his first glimpse of the Skilla.
One of the creatures slipped through the field of fire and lunged toward him. It was as big as a rhinoceros, with six lean legs and claws like scimitars. A huge scorpion’s tail arced over its body, tipped with a spiked stinger as big as a man’s head. Its torso was covered in long, crimson spines that glistened as if they were wet.
It had a face like an open wound lined with razor-sharp teeth.
As the warflower’s beam lashed into the Skilla, Candle was disappointed. He had hoped that seeing the enemy would have made it seem less intimidating.
Now, he wished that the Skilla had stayed out of sight.
* * * *
Stiletto would’ve thought, with the legion of Skilla attacking, that her biggest challenge would be calming Luma down. Instead, she had to fight to keep the little girl awake.
“Luma,” Stiletto said sharply, shaking the girl in her arms. “How did the song go?”
Luma hummed three notes and closed her eyes.
Stiletto shook her. “Sing the song. The one about the door.”
Luma’s eyes drifted open. “Five laughing children standing in the rain,” she sang softly, and then she stopped.
“Luma!” The sounds of battle filled Stiletto’s ears.
Luma’s eyes dropped shut, then popped open.“Five laughing children standing in the rain,” she sang. “One of them’s a three-year-old and two are six and ten.”
Stiletto memorized the sequence of numbers from the song: five, one, three, two, six, one, zero.
“Number one is six feet tall and always gets the door,” Luma sang without opening her eyes. “But Mommy says the ones she loves the best are two and four.” Luma yawned and lowered her head back onto Stiletto’s bare shoulder. “The end.”
Stiletto added the numbers from the last two lines to the earlier sequence. She typed them into the keypad on the door, as if the top three keys were numbers one through three, the second row four through six, the third row seven through nine, and the bottom key zero.
She entered the sequence in a hurry: five, one, three, two, six, one, zero, one, six, one, two, four.
Nothing happened.
* * * *
Candle didn’t think he could hold off the Skilla for much longer.
As his warflower fire dropped the creatures at the front of the horde, more rushed up from behind. The pile of bodies kept rising, forcing Candle to aim upward at increasingly sharp angles. Then, the onrushing Skilla started using the pile as a diving platform.
As they hurtled through the fog from above, claws and stingers extended, Candle picked them off one after another...but the terrible rain wouldn’t end. When one shrieking Skilla went down, another one or two always took its place.
They just never stopped coming. Candle knew, as each moment flew by and the bunker door stayed shut, that things were probably going to get much worse very soon.
* * * *
As Stiletto went over Luma’s song again, she found a place where she might have screwed up.
When Luma had sung, “But Mommy says the ones she loves the best are two and four,” Stiletto had added the numbers one, two, and four to the sequence. What if the plural “ones” meant she should have added more than a single “one” to the string?
Stiletto puffed strands of blond hair out of her face and punched in the number sequence on the keypad again, this time adding another number one before the final two and four.
A second later, she heard the clicking of tumblers inside the door. Then, a clang and a scrape.
The door slid open, releasing a blast of musty air that overpowered the vinegar stink of the Skilla.
- Writer
