“And now I’m going to lead you out of it,” she called down to them as she swung her body like a mountain climber across the front of the pod to which she clung and pried the door open, tossing out the not-yet-activated android occupant, his body falling rapidly into the approaching black hole. “The decompression will occur in seconds. Unlock the pods from the pillars, get inside a pod, close the door, and hang on. It’s your only hope.”
Old-timer and Djanet exchanged astounded glances before Old-timer quickly used his powerful appendages to rip off the locks that held the pod they clung to into place before he slid back its door. Luckily, it was unoccupied, and he was able to bring himself, along with Samantha on his right and Djanet on his left, inside. The fit, however was extraordinarily snug, both of the women’s bodies squishing onto his hips, each of them tucking their shoulders to allow for the door to close. The last thing Old-timer saw before he closed the door was Daniella and Paine just below on the pillar to their opposite side, also sharing a pod, their eyes locked on one another, Daniella appearing confused and frightened, while Paine’s eyes expressed a gentleness that Old-timer had never seen from the professional killer.
Then he sensed eyes on him to his right and caught Samantha looking up at him, her eyes carrying their own hurt and confusion, and he looked away when he couldn’t take it anymore.
“What do you think our chances are?” Djanet asked, her focus on surviving, as it should’ve been.
“Better than you might think,” Old-timer replied. “1 could’ve killed us if she’d really wanted to. There’s a reason we’re still alive. I suggest we follow her lead for now, as ridiculous as that notion might have sounded five minutes ago.”
“So we’re being manipulated—again,” Djanet said, summing up the situation.
“Yeah,” Old-timer sighed. “What else is new?”
Suddenly, there was a shudder, then a shockwave that was far more powerful than anything they’d felt so far. Through the dark, tinted window of the pod, they saw the hull breach, a sudden exit forming in the side of the ship that was so huge, the pressure being released so massive, that the pillars, each one of them dozens of times taller than the tallest structures ever built by humans on Earth, began crumbling like a sandcastle, breaking free from their moorings like matchsticks, being sucked toward the hole.
The pods were sucked in too, the acceleration so instant and extreme that it would’ve killed them if they’d still been in their post-human bodies.
“This is it,” Old-timer grunted. “Hold on!”
5
“Thel! What’s happening?” James shouted as he heard her last, panicked shouts.
“I’m out of control!” Thel shouted back as she was forced out the door again, her magnetic field cocooning her and the unconscious Alejandra and Lieutenant Commander Patrick—she hadn’t been able to save anyone else. “They’re all dead! Aldous killed them—he murdered them! The Purist complex is flooding—he brought down the ceiling!”
“Oh my God,” James whispered before his mind quickly snapped into action. “Thel, find a bottleneck point. Throw up a magnetic field and seal in the water before the entire complex is flooded!”
“Uhn!” she grunted in reply as she struggled to turn, the torrent of water propelling her through a long hallway. She managed to turn and saw the end, an opening that led back into the main hub of the complex. “I got it—hang on!” she shouted as she prepared herself, timing her next maneuver. She’d have to relinquish her cocoon, lowering her own protection and the protection that had saved Alejandra and the lieutenant commander so that she could seal in the flood, as the walls were the bottle neck she needed. Just before she reached them, she lowered her field, falling into the whitewater rapids, the water warm like that in a bathtub. She was swept away and then fired up a new magnetic field, closing in the torrent of water behind her as she slid across the soaked, concrete floor of the main hub of the new Purist complex. Alejandra’s and Lieutenant Commander Patrick’s unconscious bodies limply hydroplaned until the water dispersed enough beneath them and they came to violent halts several meters behind Thel, but her eyes remained on the wall of water that, within seconds, had completely filled the hallway from the floor to the ceiling.
“Are you okay, Thel?” James asked, feeling utterly helpless as he waited for an update. “Did it work?”
“It worked,” Thel gasped, “but, James, I was only able to save two of them. I lost all the rest—including Governor Wong. He drowned.”