Project Human

didn’t care anymore. Death would find the doctor, he thought.

  “Jada,” he groaned. “Jada. I’m coming.”

  The nurse led him quickly down the hall. Vibrations were felt with every step. Parts of the walls were eroding around them. The hall was vacant; the ward abandoned. She had to help him, them, she corrected, reach the transport area. It was what Jean had wanted. Jean, her longtime friend and advisor. She would make her proud.

  “Hurry!” she shouted to Barton, pulling him along.

  Barton nodded, seeing the fire in the other’s eyes. It was now or never. And for the first time in a decade, Barton prayed silently in his head. The hatred he had for God diminished, replaced by hope.

  If you’re real…send me home!!

  T W E N T Y - E I G H T

  Darryl’s sight cleared slowly. His head throbbed. Something black dangled above him. He watched it for a second before he realized what it was. Then everything came back to him—like the roar of machines and structures collapsing from somewhere close by.

  “Adelle!”

  Darryl sat upright. He saw her in the bed, rubbing her face. She was alive.

  “Darryl?” she asked cautiously. “Did it work?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I think so. I feel strange.”

  The doors burst open and two bodies rushed in. Darryl and Adelle turned to see the nurse and Barton. They sighed in relief.

  “We have to leave right now!” Barton yelled.

  Barton saw the worry in their eyes. He helped the nurse get them out of the beds and on their feet. They were together, he noticed. They were normal.

  He smiled. It brought him hope. They would make it.

  Jada. Avery. Lorelai. Make it for them.

  “We’re going home,” Barton said out loud.

  “The escape pods,” the nurse said, motioning for them to follow her.

  Barton looked at the nurse. “Jean was a great friend. You make her proud.”

  The nurse nodded sadly. She raced to the door; Darryl grabbed Adelle’s hand and followed; Barton spit in disgust at the room and what it stood for, then followed them into the hall.

  “Where’s Whitmere?” Darryl asked.

  “He’s discovering his new identity,” Barton smirked.

  Barton drifted then. He saw bits and pieces of the hall as they moved, heard parts of words spoken in between his drifting, but felt none of it. As they followed the speedy nurse through the maze of halls and doors and stairs, his mind sent him home, back to his family.

  The group encountered only a couple of others, all running for other sections. The voice on the speaker boomed out once, stating that section nine was closed off. They had made it out just in time. The nurse moved faster. She needed to save herself once this was finished, and she needed time to do so.

  Sprinting up a spiral staircase, the group reached the transport bay. It was wide open, with monstrous doors leading to smaller ships and pods, ones used for surveillance, others for emergency. Machines were scattered along the walls, under the massive windows, towering above them like glass buildings. Barton hesitated when he saw the devices. They were meant for capturing, he knew. He hated them.

  “There!” The nurse pointed to a section on the far wall where a series of doors lined the great wall. Seconds later, the room shook in waves, trembling with enough force to toss mounted units from the wall and nearly bring them all to their knees. The boom that followed left no doubt that something terrible was happening.

  And it was getting closer to them.

  The nurse led them to a door and opened it. Inside was a tunnel with another door leading into a tear-shaped pod, attached on the outside of the wall. She motioned to its door and began their farewells.

  “I’ll go no further,” the nurse said. “I have to reach the higher levels.”

  “We thank you,” Darryl said. He shook her hand; she looked surprised.

  “We owe you our lives,” Adelle added. She hugged the nurse quickly.

  “Go.” The other nurse motioned. Her face was saddened by her losses. “Go!”

  Darryl and Adelle rushed into the small tunnel and opened the hatch door. They looked back, realizing that a secondary door stood just within to seal their exit. They stood beside the pod opening.

  “Barton!” Adelle urged. “Come on!”

  “I can’t thank you enough,” he said to the nurse. “Go save yourself. We’re going home.”

  Barton walked for his escape. It seemed like he was waking from a bad dream.

  “Where are we?” Adelle asked.

  Barton heard Adelle’s voice. It sounded like an angel speaking directly to him. Walking into the tunnel was dream-like. Everything was cast in an iron-looking substance. It was foreign; it was alien; he would never see it again.

  “We’re at the bottom of the ocean,” he said softly. He saw the look she gave. He nodded to reassure her that she had heard him right. “All this time.”

  Darryl opened the door into the pod. He looked into Adelle’s eyes and saw them sparkle. They stepped in; it was small, round with seats and small windows. They turned back to see Barton as he was about to enter.

  In a blur behind him, the nurse ran, screaming.

  Barton turned back, knowing something was wrong. He saw the nurse sprinting towards them. Out of the shadows, Whitmere came—his weapon firing everywhere.

  “Close the door! Go!” the nurse screamed.

  She raced into the tunnel. She had to seal the door before Whitmere was given the chance to stop them. She stood at the wall, pressing a series of buttons. Whitmere’s shots exploded into the walls around her, plastering her in debris.

  “No one leaves me!” Whitmere cried.

  Barton saw Whitmere coming. He saw the nurse bleeding from her side. She had been shot. He saw the look in her eyes as she dropped to the floor, just before the door she was trying to close. Whitmere came rushing, his shoulder sending blood down his arm, dripping off his fingers.

  “Did you think I would let you leave?”

  Barton rushed to the door controls. He hit a switch and a massive door began to descend behind Whitmere, trapping him in the corridor with them. Adelle and Darryl screamed for Barton to join them. Barton had to make sure they could escape, pressing buttons, not sure exactly what was happening. He needed the secondary door to close; he needed Whitmere locked away from them. As he turned, Whitmere struck him down.

  “I’m not through with you!”

  Whitmere stood within the tunnel. The secondary door was closing just ahead of them now. “What did you do to me?!”

  Whitmere began shooting his weapon at Barton, at the door, at the pod. Darryl and Adelle dove for cover, closing the pod door. Sections of the walls in the corridor began to crumble.

  “Stop!” Barton yelled. Without the protective shield, the ship had no way of repairing the wounds he was giving it. The pressure would be too great.

  Barton crawled to his feet. He felt his life slipping away. Escape seemed like an impassible mountain. His hope faded quickly.

  Cracks formed along the walls where Whitmere had shot. Small beads of water dripped from them, turning into steady streams. Barton saw them.

  “You’re mine,” Whitmere coughed.

  Barton felt the weapon at his head.

  “Just do it,” he told Whitmere. “Just do it.”

  Barton was tired. He had struggled for too long. He wasn’t going home. He had fought with all that he had, and he had lost. Better to save his friends, then to have them all die.

  “Do it.” His voice barely made a sound.

  “It’s not going to be that easy,” Whitmere spit, hissing in pain.

  Whitmere pulled Barton back off of the wall. He would take him before the Council as proof that their race needed to be killed off. This time, they all die.

  “Kill me!” Barton urged. His eyes were on the pod, walking backwards. The door before him lowering closer to the floor. “Go, Adelle!”

  “They’re dead,
too!”

  Whitmere pulled his weapon off from Barton’s head to shoot into the pod when a stream of water broke into a vicious sweep, crumbling a part of the wall, sending Whitmere to his knees.

  Barton took control.

  He turned quickly, striking Whitmere in the head twice, knocking him hard enough to break lose his weapon. Water poured in unchecked. Soon the entire wall would be collapsed, he knew. Like the rest of the ship.

  Whitmere reached for the gun, but Barton sent a blow into his wounded shoulder, knocking the other back into the rising water. Barton stood, walked over to him and stepped on his head, keeping him under.

  “The door! Barton!” Adelle and Darryl both screamed.

  Barton saw the secondary door would reach the floor in seconds. He held Whitmere where he was, making sure he could not follow. This was the end.

  “I’m going home!”

  Barton waited as long as he could, then dove under the water, under the closing door, and into the pod’s entrance. Barton ran to the pod. Whitmere’s screams died suddenly. As Barton shut the pod door, he looked back.

  “It’s over,” he said to himself.

  “Let’s go,” Darryl said.

  Barton nodded.

  Adelle and Darryl scrambled to get locked in as Barton sat at the controls. He read over Jean’s instructions.

  “Hold on!”

  The pod’s windows showed nothing but darkness. As Barton set the program, the pod shuttered, coming to life. It couldn’t move fast enough for them.

  “Hurry!” Darryl pleaded.

  “I can’t believe we’re leaving,” Adelle cried. “I want to go home.”

  “Now!”

  Barton yelled as the pod detached itself from the ship and began to speed up into the darkness. It shook and trembled; all of them yelling in