An alarm began to blare throughout the base. Just a one-story facility, but of labyrinthine halls and corridors that would shame even the most seasoned cartographer. But Terrance sprinted through the corridors as fast as a marlin, as if he knew the base’s layout, and I guessed he did. Which clouted me. Because that meant the Harmonists were much more powerful and organized than I had given them credit for. And that Freedom’s Voice was much more than just a voice. It dawned upon me for the first time. We could actually lose a war against them.

But I needed to save the Naturals first. All those thoughts vanished when I saw what lay ahead of us. The anvils to my chest returned. I even winced. A sea of corpses. In front of me. Ice blades, flames blades, gravels, everything lacerated, scorched my heart, my soul. To the point I could not hear the alarm anymore. And I felt I had returned to the Bridge. To an ocean of bridger failures. Pustules shrouded their bodies. Their faces. To the point I couldn’t tell if they were still human.

Sick bastard. I thought him low, vile, but it didn’t clout me until I saw it, the extent of Julius’ genocide. Though I guessed Zielkkenhom had come up with the plan, after the first pandemic. And Julius just obeyed like the good bootlicker he was. Pathetic sap. If he wasn’t a genocidal maniac I’d have felt sorry for him. I had little sympathy for people whose souls lay not within them, but someplace deeper than the Earth’s core, deeper than the most putrid bog on the surface, deeper than the searing cave of icy crystals, so they’d have practice for eternity.

Ellie would have sympathized with Julius, though. And not just prayed for him, but with him; even if she knew he would kill her when they finished. She always made me change my mind. I prayed for fortitude. Not to let vengeance drown me.

“Bastards,” I heard Girgor mutter. Had never seen him like this before. I didn’t know how he fared in Wexford, but to see him like that after everything he must have seen as a Knight clouted my chest, even more than the corpses themselves. But before I could even utter a sound, he shot, “Stay safe, bambino,” and then just sprinted ahead, as if he also knew the layout. As if he knew exactly where to go and what to do. And kept me in the dark about his plans. But I didn’t have time to worry about his hidden plans. I needed to save Ashley’s parents. And the other Naturals, as well.

Gravity hauled my soul to the turloughs of Earth’s core, felt it leave my body. To the point I felt a hollow vessel for organs. To the point I felt as void as the Enhanceds. Because I knew they were human. And for a second, I had thought them just corpses, just carcasses that I had to avoid so they wouldn’t infect me. But God had given them dignity. And I would respect that. I was keeping my distance from them, because it would have been foolish to move them outside and provide them a proper burial. I could have gotten infected and died. And forsook those who clamored for justice.

I spotted a Harmonist among the deceased, had seen him on the news a year ago. I prayed for him, but I did not feel sorry for him. I knew what the Harmonists had done. Blow up water plants. Tamper with the biomass power plants. Manipulate the people into thinking their rule would free them. They were the same enslavers that Zielkkenhom was, only more vicious and brutal. But then again, Julius had ordered a mass annhiliation to find the cure, a genocide against Naturals. So one thing I knew. No one could rule indefinitely. At least, not if things remained the same. I would make sure of that.

I hadn’t even stepped ahead, when someone snatched my neck and thrust me into a nearby room. Could not even stretch my arm toward him. My snatcher’s eyes, as glinting blazes ready to shoot me. Ready to make me one more of the corpses. Ready to send me to the afterlife.

I stared at the barrel of the gun. But I was not going to panic. I calmed down and scanned the area. A vase lay nearby. I placed my arms behind my back and turned, but immediately crouched, grasped the vase, and hurled it at him. He just sneered, thinking I was an insect of sorts, and dodged it, but that sneer vanished when I rammed against him and struck his chest, struck it with his own arrogance.

He tumbled and let go of his gun and I stretched my arm towards it but he just stood still, staring at the gun, staring at me snatch the gun. And I didn’t know whether to target him or just shoot him, but I decided to target him, though not with the trigger ready. “What do you have to say?”

“Tecum sum,” he said.

Latin? A Natural? Must have been. He seemed familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I had seen him. He had a common face.

“Tecum sum.”

A natural working for the military? A traitor?

“I’m an insider,” he said. “I want to help you. Actually, I just want to avenge those who died here. Those bastards will not get away with genocide. Which has accomplished nothing. Because they have not even found someone immune yet.” He paused a second, as if to gather his thoughts. “Maybe it’s you. You’re still alive and asymptomatic.”

“It’s equal to me,” I said. “I’m going to—”

“Surrender immediately, traitors Cael Cavanaugh and Marko Zelnej,” declared a soldier through the base’s speakers. “We have slaughtered the other defectors.” His voice, even more stern than before. “If you capitulate now, we shall kill you swiftly. Should we be in need to blast the door open, you shall suffer a death more tormenting than your worst nightmares. We shall grant you one minute to surrender.”

“Defection?” I asked Marko.

“I convinced some soldiers to defect because they had started perishing,” he said. “Though what sliced their egos more was that their perfects bodies had been scarred. Disfigured. Sometimes I think they’re even hollower than the Achroites, even though their blood is not translucent. I had planted the seeds of rebellion, and that stupid Julius bastard reaped them himself, once the soldiers found out he could not ship them any more antivirals. And they killed each other for the few remaining doses.”

The images of Pang pummeled my mind, not as gravels, but as landslides that crushed my brain, and rendered my soul void. I saw myself returning to Pang, only for a shoal of corpses in the snow to welcome me. Bodies reduced to nothing but wretched refuse, dirt. As if they had not been persons, as if they had not lived at all, but as if their sole purpose rested on vanishing into the snow. Where the arctic winds and polar nights would freeze them, and the midnight sun scorch them, until no one knew they had ever existed. Until Pang became as desolate as the mountains of Baffin, more deserted than the Rim, and even more bleak than the Bridge.

Before I could even say something, I heard Marko click something in his pocket. “Don’t worry, Cael,” he said. “I snatched a couple of grenades from their supplies. Once they enter we—”

Grenades? I had to answer sooner than I thought. “You might kill prisoners with that.”

“They’re all dead, Cael,” he said. “No point in worrying about corpses.”

“What if someone’s still alive?”

“Impossible.”

“We can just defeat them.”

“You don’t want to kill them?”

“I don’t want us to lose our souls,” I said. “It’s one thing to kill in self-defense. Another to blast grenades all over.”

“It’s the only way.”

“Only way? Are you a Harmonist or something?” I said. “Because you sound just like them. The end justifies the means.”

“Don’t you want vengeance for those Julius massacred?”

“I want to find the cure,” I said. “And I will not become Julius in the process. I will not become Zielkkenhom or Eudora in the process.” I said the words, but deep down, even though it squirmed my soul to admit it, I was not certain of that. Needed to pray harder. And act.

“And what if I were a Harmonist?” he said. “Would that be such a problem? The enemy of your enemy is your friend. Even a temporary one.”

“The enemy of my enemy is also my enemy.”

“I am not a Harmonist,” he said. “I’m just an Impure fed up with Zielkkenhom. One who’s willing to do something about it. Not just bridge and live in peace in his district.”

I stared at him. He did not seem to lie. “If we could get the Enhanceds to support reforming the Non-Enhanced Defense Act, or even the Constitution itself, we—”

I saw his face. Not void as that of the soldiers, but as magma bursts, ready to explode.

“If we are going to work together—”

“Why do you get to call the shots?” he said. “I saved you.”

The USN soldiers opened the door and Marko just hurled one of his grenades at them. I shut my eyes, ducked, and the explosion blasted my eardrums. To the point I could not hear a thing. And something struck my arm. Something that seemed like a body part. But I did not look. Could not. I had lived through the blasts of Section O. Through the wails of Wexford. And I would not relive them.

I just sprinted outside and opened my eyes, Marko now gone. Soldiers merged with the Naturals. Esneas, equaled to the Naturals. Only in death, I guessed. And I prayed they would all rest in eternity, but the Esneas had dirtied their hands for the Achroites, stained their souls for them, and I did not think it would end well. But I always prayed for miracles. Ellie taught me that. Even for people who did not deserve them.

I darted past the steel mausoleum the base had turned into, trying not to step on corpses on the way, but having gravity blast my soul each time I did, to the point I felt it ripped out of me, and thrust into the abyss of Cumberland Sound. But I stepped on them, not because I wanted to, but because it seemed more like a battlefield than a base. Even in Wexford the corpses did not lie next to each other, as a soul-smashing pack of sardines. Was it wrong that I was not consumed by grief? I knew the Bridge had desensitized me, but to the point of stepping on a corpse by accident, and be able to keep going?

My hearing returned, not completely, but enough so that I could hear bullets and explosions. The lights had gone, but it seemed like a supernova compared to the Bridge. I thought of helping Marko, not because I though the soldiers would kill him, though that was a possibility, but because the thought of him dying in that state squirmed my chest, of his soul facing God in that state, of him suffering eternally coiled my soul.

But not as much as when I stepped on a corpse and collapsed. Not as much as when I saw that corpse’s face. And recognized it. Flame blades seared my veins. To the point I felt back in the Bridge. And I knew exactly where I had seen it. I would never forget those faces. The faces of that day. One of Eudora’s soldiers, one of those who invaded Wexford guised as Knights of Malta. One of those who razed an innocent city, and forever tarnished the Knights’ reputation in Ireland and the rest of Europe.

Took all the power of the Holy Spirit within me not to kick his face. Thank God he was… I thought of something else. Diverted it. Because that was not a Christian thought. Vengeance was not Christian. I would have to pray for him. And I tried to, but I could not say the words, not even in my mind. Perhaps I could when I was not in front of them, because when I faced them, when I was face to face with those inhuman slaughterers, things changed. And difficulty spiraled.

It coiled my soul. Squirmed it of all its holiness. Because Jesus had saved His enemies. Because Jesus prayed for his enemies. Even in front of them. Even while they were crucifying Him. And they had not crucified me. I knew what I had to do.

God, spare him.

Fast, quick. But that would matter so much for God because I had let go of my sinful desires. But then I thought of the Commandant, the one who had shot me. The soldier in front of me had not shot me. And I still found praying for him more difficult than remaining calm after three minutes and fifty-nine seconds in the Bridge. If I stood in front of the Commandant, if God placed me in that spot, would I have His fortitude? And more importantly, would I use it?

But then it clouted me. If I found someone passing off as an USN soldier, how many more did? Had an EF regiment infiltrated the USN’ military, assaulted the base even? Was Zielkkenhom so incompetent? Or too arrogant to think someone could infiltrate his army? I went with the latter.

I examined the corpses, but none seemed familiar. None I had seen. Counted over a hundred bodies. And it had been a waste of time. Time I could have used to escape. But then I heard something. Saw someone move. A Natural. Two Naturals. They were alive. Joy thawed the ice that remained in my veins. It had not been a waste of time. I smiled. Even more when I saw them. But they did not smile when they saw me alive. They thought I was the reason their daughter had died.

Ashley’s parents lay in front of me.

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