Sketch #2

Gaia ran. Grinning hugely, a kid with a secret. She ignored her injuries, scrambling across the windswept rocky shelf as though the fate of the world rested on her speed. Her arms wrapped tight and carefully around the globe in her arms. Some joker had etched the continents onto the hazy glass. It was all she could do not to giggle. Distantly she wondered if she had lost her mind. She was about to fulfill the Children’s mission, deliver the Earth, and she couldn’t even keep a straight face about it.

She was the last, she knew she was. “Must be stress, gotta be stress,” she mumbled into the wind. Ice formed in her damp hair, whipping thin scratches onto her face and hands. The loose cotton shirt and oversized sweatpants she had been sleeping in were hardly appropriate attire for a subzero sprint on a mountain top in thin atmosphere. Her lungs were on fire. She could no longer feel her feet. No point in worrying though, not much longer now. The summit was just ahead, a plateau barely ten feet square where some long-forgotten leader had wanted to “stand on top of the world” and the little people had scrambled to oblige, clearing the minimum of space a Lift would need to land.

Breathing was becoming a real chore. They had to be dead now. Her brother, her friends, her Children. They were good. The army was better. It had never been a question.

Gaia summoned them. Her face pale, like the Mother’s snow. Her eyes, like leaves of the Mother’s oak, dark with purpose. “It must be now. There is no more time.” Jessi huddled close with the others, hand locked fast with her brother Jami, to stricken to let go. Less than twelve left. That, at least, was good. The Children of Gaia had long fought for the Mother. Once upon a time they had been content merely to speak out, pick up cans, save the owls. Jessi knew all this stuff, who didn’t? Then things had changed, people other than the Children (who had then gone by the serviceable title “Greenpeace”) had actually started to care for Earth, helped make her strong, began to give her a chance to heal some of the massive damage that they had caused. Humanity had seemed to wake up. Battled with education and love, the population had begun to shrink. Animals were cherished, not for fun, fur, or oils, but for what they were, children of Earth. Pollution had been well on its way to extinction, and the rainforest was cared for, not just by a handful of semi-interested countries, but by a entire worried planet. In exchange, humanity had been allowed by Earth to discover cures to some of the worst diseases ever to threaten them. Cancer, AIDS, the Ebola plague, all were practically eradicated.

But then something had happened, something stupid, and no one seemed quite sure what. One day peace. Then Bam! The next day war. The only saving grace had been the lack of fusion bombs. Within ten years the rainforest existed in Costa Rica and nowhere else. A whole new wave of incurable disease had cropped up, the population was booming, and with the exception of a few rats and feral dogs, wildlife existed only in books. No one gave a damn about the Mother, and Greenpeace vanished. The Children of Gaia acted as they had appeared, silently. Moving to Costa Rica, where they could at least pretend they had a chance, their leader, biologist Mary Helmsley, changed her name to Gaia and set them on the course they would follow forever. Earth’s deliverance.

Thirty years later Gaia tottered out of the forest and called a summoning. “I have done it,” she said “I have solved the problem. I know how to end the onslaught. Humanity has had their chance, and again and again the Mother has forgiven them. Now it is almost too late. She is dying and we are the only one’s who can hear Her.” Gaia pulled a small, pale, leaf from her pocket and held it up reverently. “Humanity must end, only then will we have done enough.” The leaf, which came from a plant later known a “Kervorkian’s Vine” after some 20th century doctor, when dried, crumbled into a powder that was one of the finest substances known. Called K-Vyne, it made the finest flour look like sand, and was the instigator of the deadliest and most painless plague ever. And best of all, it was only lethal to humans. A single thimbleful, dumped in a ventilation system, was enough to infect a forty story office building in under five minutes, and then proceed to destroy most of the city and surrounding countryside when the Vyne mutated in the victims into a highly contagious disease that killed in 72 hours. Even if the victims were all contained, stopping further contamination at that angle, the dust that caused the original infection lingered for years, waiting. Spreading.

The greater part of Michigan and the great lakes region was still uninhabitable. K-Vyne lingered for years, and as the wind blew, it spread farther and farther away from the source. Every now and then a paper would report the latest death toll as a idle sideline, people just didn’t care anymore, about anything.

That had been the test, with a success rate so dramatic that some of the less committed members had shied away, and convinced Gaia and the rest to give this message time to sink in, just a few years. Jessi curled her lip at the thought, hadn’t history told this story enough? So Gaia had died and her successor donned her name in memorial, as became the tradition through the years. The Children of Gaia never had children of their own flesh, they kept alive through conscription or adoption, the numbers had shrunk through the years and the Vyne waited. On orders of the first Gaia, a basketball sized globe of glass had been carefully filled with K-Vyne and sealed, then set out on a pedestal for all the Children to see and know. The theory behind the globe, and the glass, was that even if they were discovered and raided, surely someone would be able to knock it to the floor. Distributed that way it would probably take longer to spread. But it would eventually happen. And Earth would be saved.

Glitter and Jami had dashed into her quarters and wordlessly hauled her out of bed, fury and grief mingled on their faces, Jessi felt her heart tighten in fear as they raced to the monitor room. Everyone was there. Shock was the general expression. One look at the screen told her why. Her knees gave out and she joined her family on the floor. Multiple fusion bombs had been detonated, the first by apparent accident, trigger happy monsters had done the rest. More were expected. Gaia stood alone, slim and straight, tears tracked down a resolute expression. “It must be now. There is no more time”

“In three days we will take the Vyne to the mountain, and peace to the Mother. We will all go, this is our great task. Prepare Children.” She had departed without another word. Into the forest, to speak with Earth. Jessi had been too excited to spare much attention to anyone else, or she might have noticed the fear on Glitter’s face.

It was less than twenty-six hours later someone hit the panic button.

Again Gaia stood alone. ”The plan has changed, we leave now, and separately. Ten of us as decoys that one may succeed. We have been betrayed.” It was unbelievable, but also undeniable. On the monitor some newsman blathered on about discovering the source of the Detroit plague, and some great military coup in progress to take the back-water Neanderthals who had conceived it before they could strike again. She paid him little attention, her mind slow with sleep that not even her interrupted shower had completely shaken. Still incredulous over being betrayed. Gaia reclaimed their attention. “We have eleven small gliders, you all know how to control them adequately for our purpose. Do everything in your power to evade attack as long as possible, it will be enough, for the Mother.” The Children turned to leave, it had been so sudden. This was the end? As Jessi turned to leave for her glider, wondering which direction would be most effective as a diversion, a hand caught her shoulder. Her last glance before she turned to face her leader was Jami’s back receding into darkness.

“Gaia?”

The woman smiled somewhat sadly, in her arms was the Vyne. “No, no longer. I am Rachel again. As I was before. And as the best pilot here, it is imperative that I lead the destroyers on a long and merry chase ...to give you the time to finish this.” Jessi froze as Gaia shoved the globe into her arms.

“Lady?”

“Hush. Come with me.” They raced through the twisted corridors of the complex. Down rusty rungs and cracked metal where the Mother had already begun to reclaim her own, until they came to a door locked with a rusty padlock. “Through here is a transport, it will work. At the end of the trip will be a glider, it is already programmed with your destination. All you need do is land. And finish this.”

“Why me?” A classic question for a bizarre situation. As many times as she had imagined this in her youth; the fate of the Mother resting in her hands. She alone able to bring salvation to Earth... She had never imagined it quite like this. She had never considered failure. It loomed large now. “Surely Brean, or Megan...”

“Hush, and listen.” Rachel’s face was solemn, her eyes shiny. “I have always know, since first I saw you, who would succeed me. And now, at the last, I know again the rightness of my choice. You are one with us. One with Her. You, above all, have the dedication, the heart, the will, to bring the calamity of human kind to it’s much deserved end. Only you. I have been too much among them. It saps my strength for the task. You are stronger than me, Gaia. Now go.” A hard shove and a slammed door, fleeing footsteps. These were all that registered on her stunned wits as flakes of ancient metal sifted down on her still form. Sifted down until the distant sound of twisting metal sent her sprinting like a startled deer for the promised escape.

The promised transport had been there. It had taken her far enough from the complex that normal air traffic should have hidden her from military suspicion. As the glider lifted into the sky her eyes fastened on the faint explosion signifying the death of a Child. A fierce joy grabbed her heart, soon there would be no more death, or fear. The Mother would be saved. Again paradise would rule. She wondered where she was headed. Only Gaia had known where the Vyne was to be released from. All she knew was that it was on the top of some mountain. Only Gaia. Wonder washed all thought of victory from her. “I am Gaia. I am Gaia?” Incredulous laughter filled the small craft. She sincerely hoped the little plane knew exactly where it was going, as she had no idea at all.

Her landing skills were as miserable as ever. That she had escaped the destruction of the Glider with a sore ankle and minor lacerations was simply a sign of the Mothers joy in her mission. Gaia felt fortunate that she had been so close to the summit, else she would have been forced to loose the Vyne by the crash site. That would have been unacceptable. She was Gaia. She was last of the line. She would be the best. It would be perfect.

In the distance, the high pitched whine of technologies latest in Lift science loomed closer, though still below the ledge. She ran harder, almost there. A gust of wind nearly swept her off her feet, but the sudden cut of engines, and the metal on metal sound of a opening door, was too immediate a concern for her to spare any thought for the air.

Twelve feet, ten feet, eight feet, six.. So close. Wind screamed over the stone. Someone shouted something behind her, she didn’t understand. The Mother’s voice was too loud. Five feet, four feet, three feet, two... The shouting turned louder and frantic. She no longer had the sense that it was directed at her. Something hit numbing and low in her back, sending her sprawling on her belly. The globe arched from arms thrown wide by instinct. She raised her eyes to follow the globe’s flight, a task at the edge of her ability. Darkness ate her vision in great swimming spots. She vaguely acknowledged the crimson smears on her arms as blood. All her spirit, attention, dreams, rode the wind with that fragile piece of glass. It descended almost slowly, her strength gave out when it was mere inches from the ground. As she lay her head on the Mother’s bare bone, her body wrapped in the most protective warmth, she let a small smile curve her lips. She was glad, in the end, that other’s had come to witness this. So that when they joined her, they could tell her what it had been like to watch that glass shatter. And the wind sweep green freedom over the land.

Hands numb with cold, he deftly plucked the glass from the air where it hovered a few centimeters from barren stone that surely would have shattered it. A swift glance behind assured him that no one had witnessed this illegal display of telekinesis. First out the door when the Lift had landed. Only one to attempt to outrun the fleet footed terrorist, unlike the moron that had shot her. The others, judging from their expressions, simply assumed he had been agile enough to snatch the glass in mid-flight. He was devoutly grateful for that at least. No one was sure exactly what particular brand of darkness was entombed in the glass ball. But judging from it’s lingering effect in the old states, the potential disaster he had barely prevented was astronomical. For a moment, watching the stiff approach of the men who were, legally, his superiors, (and who would no doubt lecture him severely for the huge breach of conduct he had committed by dashing from the Lift before them, never mind that he may very well have saved human existence on this planet,) he was sorely tempted to simply drop it and let the unknown woman’s vengeance become his own. He shook his head and gazed blankly at the body already beginning to freeze. Her smile did not escape his attention, and he wondered if, when his own time came, he would not share the expression.