That's right. "No more hiding underground and waiting for things to improve." I gesture toward the Twenty. "These kids deserve better. Together, we're going to build a future greater than anything you or Chancellor Hawthorne or the Governors ever could have planned. If you want to be part of it, great. Otherwise, our descendants will see you in a few hundred years."
I turn away. There's nothing more to say to this man.
"Your descendants will not survive in the Domes," he calls after me. "Eurasia was never intended to be a permanent solution for humankind. That city of glass is already fractured. With the addition of you and your superhuman friends, tensions will reach a breaking point. No one in the Domes will be spared from the chaos to come." He pauses. "Futuro Tower has room for you, too, Daiyna. Join us in cryo-sleep. Awake in a few centuries to a beautiful world lush with vegetation and every known species of animal running wild. Earth as it was meant to be!"
I keep walking toward the aerocar. Sera's and Erik's siblings make way for me. They don't seem to know where to look.
"Your kind made the world the way it is," Sera tells Dr. Wong, holding her ground. "Accept it. Move on."
Wong beckons to the Twenty. "The Promised Land awaits!" he calls out.
They shake their heads and glance at each other with mild shrugs. "We're offline."
Then they start to murmur about getting back to their respective domes, about the work they left unfinished, about how they've lost track of time.
One blurts out, "Did they say cryo-sleep? No thanks!"
Dr. Wong blinks, unable to believe his eyes as the Twenty cram themselves back into the two waiting aerocars. "I don't understand…"
"You've lost your hold on them." Sera smiles, half-turning to watch her siblings. "You won't be able to brainwash them anymore."
He clenches his jaw. "You've turned my children against me, Sera."
Before I can pivot and raise my weapon, Wong has already drawn his from a coat pocket and pulled the trigger with a blinding flash of light. Reflexively, Sera activates her suit's guns, and they tear the doctor to shreds. But the damage to Sera is done. She slumps forward against the harness of her power-suit with a hole in her chest.
I lead the charge, followed by Erik and Dunn, rushing to her side. The Twenty follow, two of whom work in the medical field. We get Sera's limp body out of the exoskeleton and lay her flat on her back. There is no blood. Wong hit her with the laser welder he used to cut his way out of the elevator. It burned a hole straight through Sera—entering her chest and exiting between her shoulder blades. Obliterating all flesh and bone in between, and instantly cauterizing the wound.
Silence holds the moment.
"It missed her heart," says one of the Twenty with his ear to Sera's chest. "I won't know the extent of the damage until I can scan it—which I'd be able to do if I was still online." He scowls at Erik.
Erik keeps his hand on Sera's brow and holds her hand. "She's breathing. She has a pulse. She'll be okay," he says quietly.
"That remains to be seen," says another of their siblings "We need to get her to a hospital immediately and stabilize her. She's suffered massive trauma to her body."
The communication device in my pocket bleeps, and I quickly retrieve it. "Where are you?"
"Right outside," Luther says, and at the same moment, the hangar roof above us starts to slide open, releasing atmosphere in gusts through the cracks.
I nudge Dunn. "Get them into those vehicles. All of them—now!"
The clone nods, shepherding the Twenty back into the aerocars on the landing pad. Once we're all squeezed inside the two vehicles and the doors are sealed tight, oxygen starts flowing out of vents in the interior. I look up through the patched windscreen to find three identical aerocars hovering above us, gleaming white and blue against the ash-grey sky.
"We're headed back to Dome 10," I explain the situation to Luther. "We've got the kids. One wounded, eighteen others who can't breathe the air on the surface."
"Understood. We'll accompany you."
I nod to Erik, and he takes us aloft. Half of the Twenty sit on the floor in the cargo compartment, making room for Sera to lie on her back on the bench seat. They brace her unconscious body to keep it from shifting while in flight and watch her like faithful devotees, their faces etched with concern. Dunn follows our trajectory toward the Mediterranean in the second vehicle, carrying the other nine aboard. The clone didn't seem happy about being separated from Sera. Strange behavior for a non-human.
"You may want to stick around and explore that facility," I tell Luther. "But brace yourselves for a hostile welcome." I fill him in on the details, including the gun-wielding Wong clones. Milton will need to disarm them all first.
"Solomon Wong was planning for another apocalypse," Luther muses.
"From what I hear, he has quite a collection in that ten-story bunker."
"Worth a look," he agrees.
"Milton should take his passengers on a tour."
"The spirits?" Luther sounds intrigued.
I gaze out the tinted window at Futuro Tower, frozen halfway up through the earth like an unfinished monument from ancient times.
"Tell him there are animals."
26 EpilogueSpirits of the Earth
25 Years After All-Clear
Time passes differently for us than it does for the humans. We measure it in seasons, not years, moving with it now in bodies of flesh and bone as we did long ago.
We run.
We soar.
We swim.
We lie in the soft green grass sprouting from earth soil and bask in the golden sunlight filtering through the domed ceiling high above. This is our home now: Dome 11. The only Preserve left on the planet.
No longer do we hover above the desolate earth, seeking to
