CANAISIS ∞ Chronicle Two: A Captain's Journey

46 ∞ From Rage to Mission

Long Ago

Ayla became aware of redness. It was not sight, but she was seeing red that filled her vision. The red blinked out, leaving the dark behind. Then the redness returned. The cycle repeated three times as the familiar cold grew into the sensation of her hands and feet.

The red grew brighter, but she still could not see. She knew now the memory was taking her again, but she maintained her own self-awareness. A sudden, intense pain shocked her heart, and her vision cleared as the Captain gasped and snapped his eyes open, hand clenching at his chest.

Vivid red letters lit up his visor's heads-up display.

'Override commands accepted. Emergency status. Adrenaline injected. Electrical cardioversion procedure initiated. Response minimal, second charge in ten seconds.'

A timer started the countdown, and he knew he didn't have time to stop it. But he had to try.

He rolled onto his feet, but the suit hindered him. The timer counted down to zero as he made two steps. The second charge felt worse than the first, and he almost fell over as he reflexively wrapped both arms around himself in agony. His heart leaped and tried to stumble back to a synchronized rhythm, his vision came to stark contrast, and strength surged back to his limbs. He sucked in huge lungfuls of stale air as he stumbled back to the sled.

The glowing red message on his visor changed to read, 'Response positive. Injecting second adrenaline dose, emergency nutrients.'

The jab in his chest was painless as his suit injected him with a cocktail of medicine, for his body was taking on energy with each beat of his heart. It pounded in his ears as if to compete with the howling wind outside, seemingly all the louder for the quiet inside the mausoleum.

His portable lamp cast long shadows from where it lay fallen at the other end as he made it to the sled. It was all he had to see by, gray outlines and shadows, but he located a battery pack under the tarp and removed it.

Heart racing, hands shaking from the energy flooding his body, he managed to extract the dead battery from his chest and drive the new one home. His breathing was harsh and fast as his suit came back to life. Clean air surged in around his face as he stood there, and he sucked in grateful lungfuls of oxygen. Warmth came into the suit, helmet lights activated, and the red message cleared from his faceplate.

«Captain, can you hear me?» came Canaisis' voice in his ear.

"Yes, I hear you! What the hell did you go and do that for?" Gareth screamed into his suit.

«You were in medical distress, Captain, and your suit's power supply was failing.»

Again he yelled back, "I was just fine! I had everything under control!"

«I disagree, Captain. You're under severe distress at the moment, and I cannot allow you to endanger yourself. I call you to your duty, Captain. You have a mission to fulfill.»

"Would you stop with the Mission, please Canaisis! There is no Mission! Humanity is as dead as my wife, don't you get that?" He shouted so loud, he was hurting his own ears inside the helmet.

«I understand your need to visit her remains, Captain,» said Canaisis in her infuriatingly calm voice.

The adrenaline was pumping through Gareth's system, and he couldn't help the anger boiling up inside him. Finding himself pacing a circle around the sled while talking to a computer was only fueling his rage.

"What do you understand, Canaisis? What could you possibly understand? What do you know about my wife?"

All the while, his fists clenched and unclenched as black rage welled up from deep within himself. His gaze paused on the metal bar he'd carried all this time, and he couldn't help himself. He strode over and snatched it up with both hands. Holding it like a spear above his right shoulder, he ran towards the wall holding his wife's remains. The impact of the shaft against his wife's plate clanged with a sharp jolt, jarring him.