Prometheus Ascending

Chapter 3

Three

The rising sun was invisible behind the thick clouds. Icy wind blew through Annie’s blonde curls and she shivered. It smelled salty. The waves played somewhere in the distance, she could hear their roar, and her heart went out into the sea.

They were gone. No notice, not a single word. Just gone. Annie couldn’t believe her eyes when she found the van, and a car vanished in the early morning along with Rahab, Adama and Björn. Where did they go? And why? The plan was to wait out the consequences of the transmission in the mountains. The army had scattered nearby and was waiting for further instruction. But the days grew colder on the pastures in Cornwall. And the people grew restless.

Annie’s chest tightened as she rubbed her arms and bit her lips. She had never been part of their inner circle, only a hanger-on who had thrust herself upon Adama. She felt the weight of it fully now. Was she not even worth leaving a note? Some hint, at least? She had sacrificed everything for Adama—the safety of her home, the approval of her parents. Annie closed her eyes and imagined she stood at the shore of Buttermere Lake. It always provided her soul with rest. Yet still the inner voice whispered, You don’t belong here.

“He’s awake, screaming!” One of the sergeants hurried up the hill where Annie stood, interrupting her thoughts. She pushed back the nagging sensation in her chest and followed him to the tent in the far corner.

Four people remained up here. Two sergeants, she and Brennan. One last car.

Annie shivered as she walked across the wet, soft moss. Her feet sank into the turf, which soaked her shoes through. They had to find a solution. Their food supplies would run out in a couple of days. The air grew colder with every day. But what if they’d come back any minute?

Annie heard the screams of the boy echo between the mountains. Screams of terror. She entered the tent where he lay in his own sweat. Adama had provided medical care for this teenage boy he had rescued from the last labour camp on the island. He was George’s son. Annie had known George, at least briefly. She had never met his wife, who she knew was brutally murdered shortly before they arrived in Lake District.

Annie was reluctant to admit it, but she was afraid of the boy. Because he was not simply a boy. Because Manasseh had made him something else instead. Brennan was a cyborg.

The left side of his head was embedded with dark metallic implants that went from above where his ear should be down to a neck that nearly vanished into machinery. An exoskeleton fused with his body supported his arms and chest. His left arm and leg were fully mechanical.

What Manasseh had done to him was beyond her. He had taken his body apart and fused it back together to create a machine. The gods only knew what was going on inside his brain. He was not only a traumatized teenager. He was a machine. And Adama had left her with him.

Annie felt abandoned. Left behind by everyone she loved. On her very own for the first time.

Brennan squirmed and twisted while unbearable screams left his mouth. She mustered all of her courage to approach him and put her hand on his chest—at least the part where there was flesh left. Could he even feel her touch? Probably not.

“Shhtttt,” she whispered, “Everything’s going to be okay.”

She still had this power over people. Even over him.

After a short while, his breathing steadied, and he calmed down. When his chest rose and fell to a calm rhythm, he opened his eyes. They were of a bright green, nearly yellow.

“What was it?” Annie tried to whisper, trying to conceal her dread at the sight of this creature.

“Something bad’s happening,” he said. His voice sounded thin. Barely mature. How old was he? Probably sixteen or seventeen.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not sure. I just saw visions. Death. Pain. Something terrible is happening.”

Visions. Like Adama did.

Maybe they were somehow similar? Both had this weird sense of the future. Of what would happen. They had been in the same laboratories. Had the same experiments performed on them. Maybe this was why Adama had saved Brennan. Because he had seen something of himself in the boy.

“Tell me what you saw,” Annie replied.

“I heard more than I saw, it was mostly dark.” A slight hint of panic rose in his voice. “Screams, shots, hits, flesh being cut open…” He stopped, as if about to vomit.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it.”

“We need to leave,” he whispered.

“Leave?”

“Yes, we need to move.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know! We just need to!”

The sergeant who had been with them in the tent, Sergeant Hawkins, motioned her to the exit. She placed her hand on Brennan’s chest and nodded.

Outside the tent, the sergeant urged, “We have to make a decision. Bearclaw suggests we gather the army again. The men are growing restless. But he can’t make a move without Adama’s agreement.”

“Well… Adama’s gone, and I have no idea if and when he’s coming back…”

“You knew him better than any of us did. You need to decide.”

Annie gave a nervous laugh. “Is that a joke? I have no clue about warfare or armies.”

“I know.” He was maybe ten years older than her. A three-day stubble decorated his firm chin and cheeks. “But you know about this… future stuff. You heard what the boy said. Do you think he’s right? Is there anything to it? How urgently do we have to move?”

Annie squinted. Hawkins demanded too much of her. Making such a decision? She had always been in the back lines of this fight, following Adama, or Björn, relying on somebody to make those decisions for her. She was unqualified to do what he asked of her.

“I have to think about it.” She tried to make those words sound steady, but they came out as a whisper. Hawkins nodded and left.

And here she was. Alone again. With a burden she could not carry.

Adama, where are you?

She was furious. Angry with those who had simply abandoned her in the middle of nowhere. What if they had died? Something terrible is happening. What if Brennan was right? A heavy burden fell like a weight on her chest. She was afraid. Had she lost them?