3.7 - Three Hours Pt.2

Kerrik sat in the living room of his apartment on the third floor of Bunker, head bowed, glancing back and forth from Mylis to Rosha. Mylis sat across from him fiddling with her hair, tied in two buns as it always was. Rosha stood with her arms folded and a look of disbelief on her face. Thumps and muffled voices from the neighboring apartments could be heard, but the three of them were deathly silent as Mylis and Rosha processed what he had just told them. All around them, Bunker was slumbering, as if nothing was different. For the three of them, everything had changed in a moment. There was no normal, anymore, after what Kerrik had seen outside of Bunker. The world was living and dying without them, over and over.  Time itself had been broken and knocked out of place by the Horsemen, who were men in disguises playing gods. More than playing. They had become gods, by detaining Bunker outside of time. This was their world now, their creation. 

“So…” Rosha whispered, scared to break the silence. “What do we do?” 

“I have to fix this,” Kerrik said. “If they did this, there has to be a way to undo it. An off switch. Something. I can’t just go on, knowing we’re imprisoned outside of the real world.” 

Mylis looked at him and his heart dropped. She was scared, they all were. But the look she gave him was not for herself, but for him. Maybe Rosha was right, maybe she did feel the same way. Maybe, without consulting either of them, their years-long friendship had become something else. At the very worst possible time. 

“How are you going to do that?” Rosha said, putting her hands on her hips. “We don’t even know where they are, and even if we did, we wouldn’t know how to get to them.” 

“They’re going to come to me,” Kerrik said. He looked away from the two of them and rubbed his thumb on the arm of his chair. It was old, like everything in Bunker. A hard metal slatted frame draped in thick cloth. Pieces of the cloth were beginning to rip through. “I’m going to take the Core Phantom vow.” 

He heard Rosha gasp. 

“No, Kerrik you can’t,” Mylis said. “There has to be another way. I can’t let you do that.” 

He rubbed his thumb a little harder on the fraying cloth and bit his bottom lip enough to distract from the feeling bubbling up in his throat. The lightness in his head. The gravity of what he was saying. 

“If you can think of another way, I’m all ears,” he said. “We can’t access the fifth floor on our own. It’s locked down from the inside by the monks, and only Shaman Caldross can authorize it to be opened. Besides, even if we could get in, are we just supposed to start digging? We don’t know where they come from, or how they get here. The only man with enough power in Bunker to do anything about this is Caldross, and there is no doubt in my mind he is in on it. I don’t see any other way.” 

The room fell silent again. Just as it was outside of Bunker, the silence was dull and dreadfully heavy. The sound of Kerrik’s breathing became deafening in his head. He closed his eyes. Immediately, he was bombarded with images. Time, the very material of time, warping before him. Billions of moments, violently fusing in a maelstrom of captivity. The center of the maelstrom darkened into a pitch-black circle, and the Core Phantom from his childhood emerged, her hair still muddied, her limbs still long and tangled beneath her, her face still stained with tears. Her mouth moved but no sound emerged. Just as quickly as she had appeared, she was gone, and in her place were Kerrik’s parents. His mother, tall and wizened, gray hair framing her smiling face. The same smile she proudly displayed as she took her last breath, on the doorstep of infinity. Next to her, his father, arms clasped in front of his robust frame. He was laughing, his eyes pinched closed, face red, one missing front tooth showing. He had lost it in a maintenance accident on the second floor, mostly dedicated to the power systems of Bunker. An accident that also poisoned his blood beyond the medical capabilities available to them. Of course, they didn’t know that at the time. It was just a missing tooth. They were gone. Born, lived, and died in Bunker, outside of the realm of time. Never seeing the real world. He opened his eyes to Mylis and Rosha, still silent, staring off into their own individual eternities. There was no other way. 

“I cannot let this go on,” he said, quietly. “If these Horsemen are capable of breaking time, I’m afraid of what they can do to Bunker. I don’t want to involve anyone else in this. It’s too dangerous. If something happens to me down there, well...it’s just me. I’ll speak with Shaman Caldross today, and set a time for my ceremony.” He looked at Rosha but still couldn’t look at Mylis without the fear inside of him swelling up. 

“There has to be another way,” Rosha mumbled under her breath and stormed out. 

“Kerrik, I…” Mylis trailed off. He begrudgingly locked eyes with her, fighting every impulse to look away. There, in between them, a lifetime. He could feel it as tangible as the worn cloth on the chair he was sitting in. A beautiful acceptance of everything he had been ignoring and wishing to go away, and with it, reciprocation in turn. As wonderful and terrible a moment as he had ever lived, in the shadow of what he had promised to do. Like watching a canvas painted and then burned to ash in a moment. He wanted nothing more than to stay in that moment, with her, forever. His skin prickled and for a split second, the tension and soreness he still felt from climbing the rope to the top of Bunker dissipated. Then, as sudden as a heartbeat and with the same dismal mundanity, the feeling broke. They both looked away. 

“I can stay with you if you want,” she said, scratching her boot on the floor. Kerrik was more afraid of this than any confrontation with the Horsemen. It would only cause her more hurt.

“No, you should-” he began to say the hardest thing he had ever tried to say, but she interrupted him. 

“Don’t,” she said. “If you don’t want me to stay, I won’t, but I’m not letting you play the solitary hero by keeping me away. We both know what this means. I just want to spend some more time with you, before…” she struggled to end her sentence once more. 

The walls he was so deliberately constructing crumbled to ruin, and tears welled up in his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried, but here he was, in front of the only woman he had ever loved, crying. 

“Everything feels like a cage now,” he said. 

Mylis stood and took his hand, pulling him over to the couch, a similar metal frame draped in slightly heavier cloth. She sat him down, then sat next to him and pulled him close. He wept on her shoulder, breathing in her familiar musty smell. She wiped the tears from his cheeks until he choked down the last of them, then she pulled him closer. 

Rosha had an idea. It was a terrible idea. Even in its infancy, she could see that. But it was worth a try. Mylis would hate it, and Kerrick seemed to have set his mind on martyrdom, but she wasn’t about to let him take the weight of all of Bunker on his shoulders. The sickening feeling she could see in his eyes had poured through her veins like a spiteful flame, setting everything within her to burn. She was no animal to be locked up, bound outside of time. 

There was more than one way into the fifth floor. Any self-respecting rogue knew that, but of course, Mylis and Kerrick grew up in different circles than Rosha. On the fourth floor, in a corner of an old workshop covered in the dust of a handful of lifetimes, was a broken metal vent cover for a system long forgotten. Young children with more time than was healthy for them would dare each other to crawl down through it and bring back a handful of dirt from the fifth floor. Each and every one of them, if they succeeded or chickened out, swore an oath to never divulge the location of the vent cover to anyone, for fear of it being repaired or cemented over. Rosha swore her oath at age nine and kept it pinned close to her heart still, at age twenty-four. 

She stole out of the dwelling sector of the fourth floor and found her way through the dead-quiet of the craftsman sector. It wouldn’t be long until it was bustling with basket-weavers, tailors, synthetic arborists, artists, and anyone else peddling a trade. For the moment, though, it was calm and dark without a hint of movement. Rosha walked through the stalls, still decorated and covered in wares. Theft wasn’t unheard of in Bunker, but it was rare. It was rather easy to spot your stolen goods at one point or another. She reached the far end of the large chamber and pulled open an old iron-barred door, one of the few remaining original doors in Bunker. It led to what was at one point a craftsman annex, full of workshops and additional shop spaces. It was quickly and unceremoniously abandoned after a second-floor platform was installed in the main chamber of the craftsman sector. Why peddle your wares in a dinghy closed off hallway when you can lord over your peers in the central chamber? 

Rosha reached into her pocket and pulled out her shellbulb, a half-sphere with a finger-sized loop in the back. She flicked the on switch and slid the loop onto her middle finger, illuminating the passage before her. The annex was cold, colder than the rest of Bunker. The heating ducts had been mostly closed off to channel the heat elsewhere. The air was heavy and pressed layers of dust down to coat the floor like hair on the skin. Rosha’s sneakers faded from view in some places, where the dust was deeper than others. She passed four rooms, all partially or fully emptied long ago before she reached the workshop with the broken vent cover. 

In the center of the room were two long tables, with various instruments and tools strewn across them. Only what was deemed too broken or invaluable to bother with. Around them were shapes in the dust left behind as a marker of pieces taken after the workshop, like empty graves dotted through the graveyard. One tool caught Rosha’s eye, through the fluttering clouds of dust that manifested and dispersed around her. A large crescent wrench missing its knurl and hex jaw. That would work. She reached a hand into the dust and pulled the tool up from beneath its barrow, shook the excess free, and tucked it between her hip and her pants, cinching them tighter with her belt to hold it in place. She winced as the ice-cold steel pressed against her skin. No time to waste. Before the morning bell, every other day, Shaman Caldross and his monks would deliver crates of food from the fifth floor given to them by the Horsemen. The bell was swiftly approaching. 

She pulled the vent cover free and gently slid it aside, clicked off her shellbulb submerging herself in pitch black, then pulled herself down headfirst into the hole. It was considerably tighter for her as an adult, but still manageable, so long as she didn’t breathe much. Getting in wasn’t the hard part, though. As she pulled herself further down, she reached a part of the vent that angled forward. Her arms were stretched in front of her, slowly pulling her through, the vent too tight to have them at her sides. Halfway through the curve, the walls of the vent pressed hard against her chest. She winced under the pressure and tried to ignore the mounting panic in her head. For a few terrifying seconds, she felt well and truly stuck, until finally her fingertips grasped the edge of the exit and she pulled with all her strength. The warm earthy air of the fifth floor hit her as she emerged from the tunnel and tumbled to the dirt, in complete darkness, and with no breath in her lungs, but free. 

She lay for a moment in the dirt regaining her composure, and then she heard them. Voices, muffled, through the wall. Caldross surely, and another. They were already here waiting. She tried to make out what they were saying, but her still pounding heartbeat was too loud in her ears. She crawled to a wall and felt her way along it until hitting a door frame, then she awkwardly grasped at it for a moment before finding the bar that would allow her to slide it open. As quietly as she could she slid it open an inch. A razor of light cut through from the center chamber, but the source was elsewhere. The main room appeared to be empty, the voices and light coming from the side room adjacent to Rosha’s. She needed a better look. After she was certain the main chamber was clear, she pulled the door open fully and crept out, bent down close to the ground. Luckily, the dirt muffled her footsteps perfectly. She leaned over and peered into the doorway that spilled light out into the main room like a gutted fish spills blood. It was a much larger room than the one she was just in, with stacks of crates along the nearest wall, a wooden platform in the center, and a strange hole in the floor on the opposite, with a metal frame and pulley over it. Shaman Caldross and two monks Rosha didn’t recognize stood on the platform talking, their backs to Rosha. 

“-Leftover from the last harvest,” Caldross continued. “Alois promised some meat in this shipment as well. Lamb and catfish, as well as some pork. Of course, you will have the first pick of what they bring, before we take it topside.” 

“Thank you shaman,” one of the monks said. His voice was deep and horribly cracked as if someone had taken a rake to his vocal cords. “Ever watchful of your servants.” 

The stacked crates closest to Rosha weren’t flush with the wall, so she, as fast as she could while remaining silent, crept into the room and made her way behind them. Her heart was pounding now, loud and aggressive. As soon as she nestled herself behind the crates and found a small gap between them to watch through, the voice of Shaman Caldross was drowned out by a grinding sound. Caldross and the two monks immediately fell to their knees in reverence. Rosha peered through the crates and could see that the pulley above the hole was being worked. From the hole, a platform came into view, being hoisted up by two men. They stood on either side of the platform operating cranks, and in the center, stood a man with long wavy blonde hair. All around him were crates of food, and in front of him was a large canvas sack. As the platform clicked into place, Shaman Caldross raised a hand. 

“It is an honor as always, Horseman Alois. We welcome you back-” Caldross was interrupted by the man as he hoisted the canvas sack up and tossed it to the ground in front of the prostrated men. 

“This one was a dud, Caldross,” he said. Just as Kerrick had said. That voice was the same as the creature who carried off the Core Phantoms. It was true. They really were just men. The canvas sack rolled forward and a leg poked out from the opening, gray and lifeless. Rosha put a hand to her mouth to stifle her gasp. “She barely made it down to Bunker Prime before she started whimpering and begging to go back. After one day on the farm, she tried to escape. You can’t just send us any old hag. We need workers.” 

Shaman Caldross bowed lower. 

“Please forgive me, Horseman,” he said. “I was wrong to commit such a poor subject to your service. I will find another more suitable one before the day's end, I swear it.” 

“See that you do,” Alois said. He waved a hand at the monks. “Clear this off of my platform so that I can rid myself of this charity work.” 

The two monks sprang into action, both mumbling words of respect as they frantically shifted crates from the elevator to the wooden platform. Shaman Caldross moved to the canvas bag and gently tucked Yeska’s leg back inside before tightening the opening and pulling it to the side of the room. Alois stood with his arms folded, looming over the entire room. As soon as the last crate was moved, he snapped his fingers at the other men on the elevator who immediately began cranking. 

“Do better, Caldross. I do not wish to replace you, but you are toeing a fine line,” he said. 

“I will not let you down!” Caldross called after him, as the elevator disappeared. He stood for a moment, staring at the empty shaft, scratching frantically at the sleeve of his robe. He looked towards the crates Rosha was behind and she froze, but he quickly looked away and motioned to the canvas bag. 

“We will give Yeska a proper burial, before anything else,” he said. Rosha could see him shaking. “She deserved better.” 

“Yes, Shaman.” both monks said in unison. Rosha waited until the three of them had moved Yeska into another room and begun the burial process before she made her move. 

“Shaman Caldross, may I have a word with you?” Kerrick said as the shaman and his monks dropped off the last of the morning supplies. Even being in his presence made Kerrick nervous, now, but he did his best to hide it. 

“Of course, Kerrick,” Caldross put a hand on his shoulder and motioned him away from the crowd. “What is it I can do for you?” 

“I...I would like to take the Core Phantom vow,” Kerrick said. “I feel I have been called to serve.” 

A look flashed across the shaman’s face. He tried to hide it, but Kerrick caught it by the tail as it fled, a look of pure delight. The shaman quickly composed himself and slowly nodded. 

“I see. You are quite young, but I am not one to doubt the calling,” he said. His reserved demeanor was easily betrayed by the light in his pale green eyes. He was struggling and failing mightily to contain himself. “It just so happens that the Horsemen are in need of a new Core Phantom, so your timing is blessed. Shall we proceed to the chamber now? While we have a crowd already gathered?” 

Kerrick looked around at the people of Bunker, blissfully piecing together baskets of food for the week. A man he didn’t recognize hoisted his son up onto his shoulders, the boy happily biting into an apple. A young woman he recognized from a workshop he had attended a few months ago moved an empty crate aside for an older man next to her who smiled and thanked her before picking a few things up for himself. Mylis held an empty basket behind the crowd, staring at Kerrick. She smiled as they locked eyes, but even in the smile, he could see pain. It was a good reminder. The modicum of doubt that was sprouting inside of him was burnt to ash in the heat of his love for Bunker. It was for them. 

“Yes, I’m ready,” he said. 

The knees of Kerrick’s pants would be stained with dirt once again. Just as they were fourteen years ago. A door left ajar, changing the entire course of his life. He whispered the final line of the Core Phantom vow. It was even more boring when you were reading it. Then came the familiar rumble of the Horsemen, the geysers of dirt, the crescent-shaped claws, and iron-barred heads, then he was in darkness. He couldn’t feel anything. Somehow the Horsemen had created a barrier around him as they descended, like an egg. It felt slick and cold, but the longer they descended, the warmer it got. He began to panic. The darkness was overwhelming him, and the warmth turned to heat. Sweat was pouring from his head and he was having trouble breathing. He opened his mouth to cry out but the sound didn’t escape the shell. Then, suddenly, the heat dissipated and a blinding light hit him. The two Horsemen opened their claws and the egg puffed away into the air like smoke. He was sitting in a chamber not too dissimilar to those on the fifth floor of Bunker, only the dirt was on the ceiling and the floor was cold iron. 

“Welcome to Bunker Prime, young one,” the Horseman to his left said. It wasn’t the blonde-haired man, this one had a deeper voice. “I am Gallus. Come with me.”

Kerrick stood on wobbly legs, putting a hand to the wall for balance. 

“What will I be doing?” he asked. It was as much a question for Gallus as it was for himself, now that he was here with no idea what to do next. 

“You have been assigned to farm duty,” Gallus said. “Planting, tending, and harvesting the crops on the surface.” 

The surface? A large cog clicked into place in Kerrick’s mind. The building with translucent walls he had seen outside of Bunker. The Horsemen were using Core Phantoms to farm on the surface of a world outside of time. The woman he had seen as a child, her body, warped and damaged in ways he didn’t understand. She was victimized by time. A thousand years passing through her in an instant, pulling and taking and stretching. 

“You okay?” Gallus said, waiting at the door of the room. The other Horseman had already left, while Kerrick was lost in his revelation. 

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” he said, trying to compose himself. “Let’s go.” 

He followed Gallus out, into a white hallway overflowing with light. The other Horseman was halfway down the hallway before he disappeared into a side room. At the end of the hall were closed double doors. 

“There is going to be a lot of information in a very small amount of time, but I need you to keep up okay?” Gallus said, lumbering forward in his massive suit. “Before we get to the farm elevator we’re going to pass through the Stabilization Chamber. It is crucially important that you do not touch anything, while inside.” 

Kerrick thought he heard a muffled thud and a clang, but Gallus didn’t seem to notice. 

“In the center of the room is the Stabilization Engine. It is the one thing keeping you humans alive.” 

It seemed that even to Core Phantoms, the Horsemen didn’t reveal their true nature. 

“What do you mean?” Kerrick asked. He needed as much information as he could gather while it was proffered. 

“Time is not what it once was,” Gallus said. “You humans damaged it beyond repair. Thankfully, we were able to maintain a pocket of it. So long as the Stabilization Engine is running, Bunker and Bunker Prime are protected. If anything were to happen to it, you humans would be reduced to nothingness in a matter of moments.” 

As they neared the large double doors, the other horsemen reemerged from the room behind them and stepped up behind Kerrick. Gallus turned and paused. 

“Are you bored enough to come on a farm run, Decima?” he asked. The other horseman shrugged and nodded. 

“Fine with me,” Gallus said. “I’m bored of doing this anyway, maybe I’ll have you take over.” 

He held his armband up to a screen next to the double doors and it blinked green, then the doors slid open. Inside was a large chamber, roughly the size of the craftsmen sector. Pulsing blue lights flashed across the white walls of the domed room, and Kerrick was ushered onto a walkway by the horseman behind. He glanced down for a moment and saw nothing. Beneath the walkway was darkness, save a faint red dot in the center. The walkway ran around the perimeter of the room, and at one point, extended out towards the center. At the end of the path, suspended in the air by heavy cables, was the Stabilization Engine. A perfectly still pure white globe made up of thin slivers all layered overtop of one another like a bowl of pasta. The room was completely silent, except for a thunderous crack originating from the engine every few moments. Gallus continued along the walkway, making for a set of double doors on the other side. The walkway widened as they reached the section that extended towards the Engine, and as they did, the double doors ahead of them swung open. The blonde-haired man proudly walked through them and approached the group.

“Gallus, Decima,” he said. “And you must be our new Core Phantom. I am Alois, the presiding chairman of Bunker Prime.” 

Kerrick nodded and bowed his head in reverence. Perhaps he could make a break for the Engine. Use something, anything, to damage it. He could surely outpace the two Horsemen, in their bulky attire. Alois, on the other hand, would most likely catch him before any damage could be done. He was quickly realizing how thoroughly out of his depth he was. Perhaps the only course of action was inaction, for now. Wait until an opportunity arises. He would sacrifice his body to time if he needed to. Gallus shared a few words with Alois before continuing forward along the walkway, calling for Kerrick to follow. Before he could move, Decima lumbered up to Alois and swung her claw, cutting his stomach open. Alois gasped in shock, then fell face-first on the walkway, his blood pouring down into the abyss.

“Decima!?” Gallus shouted. “What have you done?” 

Decima charged Gallus and swiped at his neck, but he brought a claw up to match. 

“Have you gone mad!?” he yelled. He held her attack at bay with one claw and brought the other towards her ribs. She quickly disengaged, leaping backward out of range of the strike. Gallus brought both claws up and launched a barrage of swings at Decima. She backed up, knocking some away, stepping out of the way of others, but one managed to slice across her arm. She cried out but kept her defenses up. He was quickly and aggressively gaining ground on her, the surprise overruled by survival instincts. Decima took another glancing blow across the chest and knocked another claw inches away from her neck. Gallus was clearly more comfortable in his suit, and he pressed his advantage. Kerrick stood paralyzed next to Alois who was still face down, gurgling in the throes of death. Decima hazarded a glance in his direction, then shouted at him. 

“Kerrick! The Engine! Now!” 

Rosha? How? How had she found her way down here? Found a suit? She was right, there was no time for questions. He ran down the pathway to the Engine. When he reached it, he realized that it wasn’t perfectly still, it was rapidly spinning. Faster than his vision could register, but he could feel the air being thrown by it. Attached to the railing in front of it was a screen with a blinking cursor inside of an empty field and one word suspended above it. Password. Kerrick couldn’t breathe. His hands were shaking uncontrollably. He could hear Rosha struggling with Gallus behind him. Password. Password. He closed his eyes and focused. The maelstrom of time whirled before him once more, consuming all in its path. Once more, the maelstrom blended into a black spiral with the Core Phantom from his childhood at the center, only this time he could hear her. The mumbling from when he found her. 

“Symzonia.” 

He frantically typed the word. The password was accepted, and a list of operations unfolded before him. He scrolled through them, searching for what he knew should come next. 

“System abort.” 

Rosha cried out behind him as another claw strike found purchase. 

He selected the option and the blue lights in the cavernous chamber clicked to red, flashing in anger.

“NO!” Gallus screamed. Kerrick turned and saw the Horseman abandon Rosha and charge towards him, each step shaking the entire platform. He raised his claws high, prepared to bring them down on Kerrick, but stopped just short, his arms and legs swinging forward but his torso caught. Kerrick could only see the massive horseman in front of him, but he heard Rosha let out a primal roar behind, and suddenly Gallus lifted off of the walkway. Rosha had her claws hooked into the back of his suit, and with whatever strength she had left, she threw herself towards the railing, then dropped to the floor and swung Gallus over the edge. He frantically clawed at the air for purchase but found none, and careened down into the darkness. Rosha was still on the walkway, but her voice echoed out from the suit. 

“I think I’m going to keep this suit,” she said. “If we get out of here.”

Kerrick smiled at her, then turned back to the screen. Another dialogue box had popped up, crowned with three words. Override code required.   

“62579.” 

The system paused and fear overtook Kerrick. Then it clicked through, the screen flashing “Shutdown Imminent” in bright bold letters. The sphere vibrated, then shook violently. Each thin strand began to separate from the core and extend outward as it continued to spin, but was clearly losing speed. 

“Uhmmm, I don’t know what’s about to happen, but I think this might not be the best place for us to be,” Kerrick said. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” 

He pulled Rosha to her feet, now seeing multiple bloody cuts in the suit. Luckily none of them seemed to be in vital areas. He could barely help her walk in such a large suit, but together they shuffled back into the hallway, using her thankfully still functioning armband to open the double doors. The Stabilization Engine was anything but, as it churned and screamed in the center of the room, breaking off pieces of the ceiling and shattering the walkway. Rosha quickly scanned her armband again on the other side and just as the double doors closed, they partially caved outwards under the pressure of an explosion.

“We’ve got you!” Shaman Caldross called up to Kerrick. He looked down off of the makeshift platform they had rigged to carry him up to the sun window. Shaman Caldross, with more life in his face than Kerrick had ever seen, held on to the rope along with his monks, Mylis, and a few others. Rosha peered up at him with her arm in a sling, and with her other hand she held up a middle finger, smiling as she did it. He reached the broken window and closed his eyes before pulling himself through. He felt his feet make purchase on the other side and took two long breaths before opening his eyes. Stretching out before him in every direction, was green grass, wavering delicately in the breeze. A cloudy blue sky held a bright sun, calm and still. For the first time, Kerrick saw the world.