FORTY-NINE: radiation
Knives was immobilized. Stryker could see Vash's brother, still encased in shimmering, golden light, the magnum still clenched tightly at his side. Stryker had often wondered how it was that Vash the Stampede could knock over entire cities in little more than a few moments time. Since he'd come to know the true Vash, he realized that the truth of it was far more dangerous than the rumor, in many bizarre and fearful ways. Knives was as dangerous as his brother, yet the world about them knew nothing of the plant-spawn that were Knives and Vash.
They only knew the fiction, the bloodthirsty, womanizing, crack shot of an outlaw known simply as Vash the Stampede, the Humanoid Typhoon. They knew nothing of Jed Quinn and his ruthless desire, a madman seeking vengeance on the hapless plant-spawn that his precious Project SEEDS in turn had created. Stryker didn't know for sure who had developed the plants, or where they had come from, but the truth was that they had been slaves to the desires of Project SEEDS, and Project SEEDS, at one time, anyway, had been headed by Dr. Jebidiah Quinn.
And so he knew the truth. It had been Quinn all along. He was grateful to know that Knives had been smart enough to create the automated destruction sequence. That would save them a hell of a lot of time. Might even make victory possible. But first, he had to get to the magnum. It was sheer genius to use the very element responsible for the creation of the plant-spawn to in turn destroy the clones. Obviously Knives had been determined to see to the end of the clones himself, especially if things went sour. Too bad Quinn had turned on him, though that had probably been the whole plan all along.
Stryker slipped his eight-shooter from the holster and punched a button in the side of the ejection bubble. The pod burst out of the side of the hull with a terrible rumble. All eyes shifted up from to the giant metal ball barreling toward the sand. The heavy pod slammed into the sand and continued to roll, smashing several clones in its wake. Stryker was glad that he was strapped in tight, safe from the violent roll as his world churned around him. For once, he was glad he hadn't had anything to eat for several days.
When the massive ball rolled to a stop in the soft sand, the hull burst apart, sending shards of metal in every direction. Some of it slammed into nearby clones, tearing away at them, even decapitating one. The world around the explosion was stained red as Stryker leapt skyward, over the debris and shocked clones.
He knew he hadn't a bullet to spare. He took aim at the source of the tractor beam that held Knives and started shooting.
Spike burst through the entry way of the Renaissance room and started shooting. The Cross Punisher ripped through the wall of clones in his path. He started running across the way, paving a path of blood and destruction to get to Vash. He didn't really understand how it was the clones didn't take him out, how it was that he mowed them down now and somehow felt as though he wasn't even being watched. He didn't complain, though. There was a job to do.
With clones falling all about him, he worked his way to Vash. His heart thundered in his chest as he peered to the glow of light from the ceiling above. That's my shot. That's where it is. He shifted his glare to the girl beneath the plant. "Get your head down!" he shouted. "It's about to get really hot in here!"
He shifted the Cross Punisher around with almost a flick of his wrist. It was heavy, but his determination outweighed the pressure set firmly on his shoulders. Peering down the sight, he stared up into the light.
"No, wait!" Vash shouted, reaching out.
Spike pulled the trigger.
Vash could see the rocket burst free of the barrel of the Cross Punisher, sending a shell with a thin tail of smoke racing toward the ceiling. With the flash of light that followed, Vash knew it was too late.
All about him, the army of clones froze in their tracks. They stared up through thin visors to the ray of light that flooded the room. For Vash, it brought a tingling and warm sensation, typically sending him into a calm state. The clones, he knew, would simply be poisoned by the trilithium radiation, just like the humans. He flashed a look of anger to Spike, wondering how long he would have before he would drop. The bounty hunter just stood there, limp, gazing up to the light.
Meryl! He spun about and raced toward the plant. He had to get to her. He had to take her in his arms before the end. "Meryl!" he cried out in desperation.
Behind him, one of the clones wailed in agony. They had already started to drop. The sickening stench of burning flesh filled the room. From the corner of his eye he saw them, lying in heaps, writhing in pain. His eyes stung with the thick smog of death.
Lock down this room right now! Vash thought up to the plant as he lay a hand on the railing and jumped up to the platform where he'd last seen Meryl. Fully expecting to find her there, struggling to breath, with her skin already bright red, he felt his feet connect with the floor and started looking about. "Meryl? Meryl!" He looked about, eyes wide. His heart thundered violently in his chest as he searched for her.
But Meryl was nowhere to be found.
He spun about and saw the squirming masses. Cries and shouts of agonies, men begging for the pain to stop, were the only sounds that met his ears. Somehow, he thought, somewhat uneasy, Spike remained upright. He was leaning against the Cross Punisher and staring up at the gaping hole in what had appeared to be a skylight. Vash knew that the light shield was there to hold back the radiation when the plant was operating. He peered quickly up to the plant. "Its over! I need you to shut off the radiation! Right now!"
The light within the tube of energy that held the plant flickered briefly, and began to fade.
In that instant, all the power in the Millennium Arc faded.
Stryker knew he hadn't hit the tractor beam. It was too heavily shielded for anything like that, especially considering he only had a few bullets. Just eight shots, in fact. Somehow, though, as he came crashing to his feet near Knives, the shimmering light of the tractor beam faded. The gun clattered to the desert floor, followed quickly by Knives.
Determination swept through Stryker as he stretched his fingers out toward the weapon.
Milly raced for the entrance, her legs and arms pumping wildly, vision blurred by the threat of tears. Behind her, Jet moved on, occasionally firing a bullet into the shadows. He didn't understand it, how all these men, the clones, had fallen, literally burned alive, as if their skin had festered and boiled through the heat of some unseen fire. The stink of burnt flesh stung his eyes. He focused on Milly to try to keep his mind off the carnage. He had to admire the girl's stamina, her determination, her courage despite all they had seen.
Maybe, he realized, she had seen much more in her life than was meant for a young woman her age, considering the company she had kept in the past. That seemed to make sense.
He noticed there were others, ordinary men, not the clones that had filled the halls before. Probably Gung-Ho Guns. They'd been caught up in whatever had killed the clones. One less thing to worry about, he decided. Though, he realized, whatever had killed those men didn't have quite the same effect as it had on the clones. These men had red skin, eyes bulging as if they had been choking to death. The clones just looked as though they had been cooked where they stood.
Whatever had happened to these men, no one had survived.
How does this thing work? Stryker looked about, feeling the eyes of thousands burning into him. They stood there, seemingly oblivious. He stared down at the weapon. He knew only that you could pull the pin that held it together, and that two plates would fall away to free the trilithium crystal. One of the Gung-Ho Guns had showed him that much. But it didn't tell him how he was to activate it. He peered about. Almost as if stirred from a silent dream, the clones started forward. They raised their weapons, setting their intent on him.
Time was running short. He was about to die. After that, who knew?
A foreign voice exploded into his thoughts. Knives's voice. Show some dignity, Sean. There is a world of torment before you. End it now.
"I am not afraid of death," Stryker murmured, peering about, and then turning his attention to the Angel Arm magnum once more.
Then show us all why death should be afraid of you.
Sean's breath caught in his throat. He brought the Angel Arm up, a sneer etched on his suddenly hardened features. He nodded, returning his thoughts to Knives: If the price of what it takes to end this is life, then they can have mine.
"Now that's more like it." Stryker's fiery eyes shifted down to see Knives lying in the dirt, peering up at him.
Vash's brother brought his fingers up in that moment, just over his face. He flicked them once, creating a resounding snap. The magnum shifted weight in his hand as the pin popped out of place, sending the plates flying away from the gun chamber. Stryker's very life flashed before his eyes.
It was the pain of remembrance, ten-fold. Beginning with death. He floated alone in shimmering light, a light he had never known. Or did he? Perhaps it was something familiar, a recurring dream that lingered on the edge of eternity, just beyond his grasp.
I am here for you, brother, though you will not remember me.
He stood with the woman who had adopted him, in the entrance of their home, overlooking the small farm his foster father had erected from nothing more than a few seeds, sweat, and tears. Off in the distance, the village plant could be seen, visible from within the cracked bowels of a fallen starship.
Alisa Ryker was a gentle woman, the first face he had seen in his new existence, the only existence in his memory. She clutched his hand with a proud smile as she showed him the world outside from the tiny room he had known, the room in which she had helped him to heal. He held her wrinkled hand, giving it a gentle squeeze that showed his appreciation. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it gently.
"Welcome home, Sean," she whispered.
He glanced at her. "Why Sean?" he asked quietly.
"I have to go. It's just something I have to do."
Tristan turned to him in that moment, a heavy frown on his face. "What was that, my son?"
"I'm leaving. I have to explore my purpose in this life. I can't do that sitting around out here in the middle of nowhere."
No more than that. Tristan simply nodded and took his son's hand, a tear drizzling down his cheek. In the coming seconds, Sean learned the truth of something his foster parents had tried to instill in him since his first days with them, when he was conscious but bedridden.
"Patience is a virtue, Sean. Remember that. Take with you the love your mother and I have for you, and understand that love will never die, but it will grow in you always. There is so much good in your heart. It's one of the first things I noticed about you the day you woke up."
Sean didn't respond. He simply stood there and watched had been walking through town to meet Marian at the bank. He stimply continued on down the dusty street toward the bank where his foster parents had left the money they had found on him when he had come into their lives.
Tears poured mercilessly into his eyes. Sean had loved the Rykers so much, and he knew they had known. It didn't take the pain away.
A thousand questions spilled into his thoughts, and then evaporated an instant later as a different pain, the thundering pain of his heart exploding through his right arm. White hot pain blinded him as he threw his head back and howled in agony. His arm had ruptured, and light spilled through him as flesh mended with metal. The Angel Arm burst forth, and Sean lost all control, all sense of self. There was only mind-numbingly violent pain.
Gunsmoke shook with a vengeance.
"A jettison tube," Vash murmured, new hope surging through him. Meryl…could she have gotten out before the trilithium wave had been unleashed? Quickly, he lowered to a knee and ripped the panel out of the floor. His keen eyes widened as he saw her there, hunched over a mound of bulking flesh fixed with contrasting metal. She was blinking up at him, trying to focus. His hair was different, but she knew it was him by the way he smiled and reached a hand out for her. Knowing that everything had worked out all right, she sagged over with relief.
"Vash," she whispered, breathing slowly. "I thought…"
"It's all right, Meryl. We're safe…for the time being."
She took his hand and came to his feet. Morgante, who sat with her in the twisting jettison tube, rose easily alongside her, so tall that his head and shoulders came out where Meryl had to strive to and come to her tiptoes to peer over the edge. Vash was impressed that the big man had known where to find her, that he had found his way through the jettison tube, probably from the gateship's command center. Grinning ear to ear, he shook his head and offered Meryl his hand.
She accepted, eyes sparkling. Morgante took her by the waist and lifted her up and out of the jettison tube. She sat there on the edge, looking back and forth from her father to her lover, and shook her head in disbelief. Then, proudly, she took gave Vash's hand a squeeze.
"Vash, I want you to meet my father…Richard."
The blast of sand and wind and light sent Milly sprawled across the titanium floor, just inside the entrance of the Millennium Arc. For what seemed an eternity the power coursed through the air just overhead, seeming to suck the sound, the very life from the very room. She felt the air being ripped from her lungs. Jet dropped over her, protecting her head from flying debris.
Her head pounded relentlessly, as if her brain was trying to escape the confines of her skull. Her heart raced alongside it, though she that by all rights it should have stopped in the instant the power had been unleashed. She had seen it all once before, but she had not been nearly so close, within a blink of death.
Sometimes she wondered if knowing Vash had at all been worth it to her, and then she would chastise herself for thinking such a thing could at all be possible. Knowing Vash had brought a lot of heartache, but not because he wished such a thing on his friends.
Before she realized it, the air was still again. The light was gone. She thought that somewhere she should be able to hear people groaning, crying out in pain. Somehow, all the world was dead quiet. A thin layer of dust began to settle.
The weight was lifted from her as Jet Black rose to a knee, peering out through the entrance. The blue sky was coated over by a blanket of airborne sand. Gasping for breath, Milly pushed him out of her way and practically lunged to the entrance, forcing her way through the wall that had been melted away by that machine. She spilled over the edge and tumbled out onto the sand.
Her eyes went wide at what she saw.
The earth was shredded all about, no matter what direction she looked. Charred bodies littered the desert for as far as the eye could see. She knew without a doubt that it was over, and the sudden realization sent a sea of tears raining from her eyes. She collapsed there, face-first into the sand, and cried her eyes out.
"Stryker," she mumbled.
Knives had said that the clones would be destroyed by a blast of trilithium radiation. The Angel Arms worked in that way, and he had been out here.
If the clones were all dead, Knives had unleashed the Angel Arm. Or Stryker had. Either way, what did it matter?
A hand touched her shoulder. She nearly gasped in surprise as she shot to her knees. Her hopes soared, but then she saw who had touched her. It was Knives. He peered down to her, an emotionless gaze on his face. His eyes turned then, scanning the carnage all about. "It's over. They destroyed the ones on the inside. And now, Stryker has destroyed the ones on the outside. The army is finished. Quinn is finished."
Milly just sat there, continuing to blubber as she stared up at him. She was still frightened by this tall man, the one who seemed so much like Vash. This man was no more than a killer, she told herself.
"Quit blubbering," Knives grunted. "Get up on your feet and behave like a hero. This day, we are all heroes."
She continued to stare up at him. "But Sean…"
"Is the biggest of heroes," Knives finished, holding out his hand. "And if you don't dry those tears right now, I won't let you see him. He deserves a woman with some backbone."
Milly blinked. "What…what are you talking about?"
"Stop crying and stand up," Knives said gently. "He'll be joining us shortly."
"Sean…isn't dead?"
Knives grinned. "Course not. There he is over there."
Milly turned her eyes quickly to follow the plant-spawn's gaze. Sure enough, a tall man had appeared through the wall of dust. He moved slowly, limping through the carnage. Leaping to her feet, she darted past Knives, arms lifting out toward Sean, a laugh catching in her throat as she ran. Sean paused several paces away, letting her come to him. She leapt into his waiting arms.
Knives turned from them then, continuing on toward the Millennium Arc. He froze there when he found Jet peering at him. Joining the old man were three others who had seemingly just arrived from inside. He grinned. Leaning against the melted doorframe were Vash, Meryl, and Morgante the Warhead. With a shake of his head, he joined the four, peering to each of them in turn.
"Then it's over?" Vash said, watching Knives.
"It's over," Knives replied. He peered down to Meryl, and then up to Vash. "I'm glad you have found what you wanted in this life, my brother."
Vash nodded. "And what about you,Knives? What is it do you want?"
"My future is uncertain, but the beginning is here, in this ship."
Meryl wet her lips, peering up at him. "So, you used the Angel Arm against them?"
"Of course not. Sean did."
"Sean! But…I thought you said the trilithium radiation would kill the clones."
Knives nodded. "That it did."
Meryl blinked. "But Sean is Vash's clone too," she murmured. "Shouldn't…I mean, he's okay, isn't he? He's not going to die?"
"Of course he isn't going to die. He's strong as an ox." Knives smirked. "I told you that the clones were all programmed with an automated destruction sequence. I did not tell you that I had two prototypes that were not."
Vash blinked. "Stryker, and the other one that killed your clone."
Knives nodded. "Yes."
"What's so different about them?" Meryl asked.
"First of all," Vash said gently, "the two prototypes were the only clones created using my DNA."
"What!" Meryl yelled, spinning to face him.
Knives peered to his brother, waiting.
"To program DNA sequencing like that, he would've had to have living tissue, uncontaminated. The only living tissue he had access to was his own. The arm was contaminated by Legato, so after he got what he could and created Stryker and the other clone, he used the technology on himself. The clones were an army of plant-spawn, like we thought…"
"But they were cloned using my DNA," Knives confirmed with a nod of his head. He grinned at his brother, giving him a clap on the shoulder. "Not bad, not bad at all."
"Now that we've got all that worked out," Jet grumbled, though they could tell by the look on his face that the whole situation meant absolutely nothing to him, "let's go get Faye and Ed and figure out what we can do about us."