The Darwin Elevator

Chapter Sixteen

Hilo, Hawaii

26.JAN.2283

At the entryway, Skyler left Samantha to defend the barricade and took Jake to the roof. On the way, he stopped at the mound of cleaning supplies blocking the hall and gathered ten rolls of white plastic trash bags.

“I have an idea,” Skyler said as they climbed the stairs. He had to pause twice when Jake stumbled. The man’s eyes were cloudy, and his hands shook.

On the roof, Skyler asked Jake to look for the lost communicator while he set to work on his backup plan. From the courtyard below and the surrounding land he could hear the muffled grunts of the subhumans. Occasionally one roared, a pained and eerie sound. Others took up the cry before settling down again.

The reams of white plastic bags rolled out into perfect lines. He worked fast to write his message in giant block letters: “30m.”

Skyler had just put the finishing touches on the makeshift display when the Melville drifted overhead. Angus turned and dropped lower to make another pass. This time he tilted the wings back and forth to indicate he’d understood.

“Half an hour,” Skyler said to Jake. “Let’s make it count.”

“Take a look at this,” the sniper said. He stood at the edge of the roof, leaning over.

Skyler moved to stand next to him and looked down. Subhumans filled the wide outdoor space, four floors below. There were a hundred at least. Most were naked; all were filthy. Some carried found, primitive weapons—thick sections of tree branch, the occasional length of copper pipe.

He’d only seen a group so large once, many years before, during the Purge. Back then, in the fledgling days of Darwin’s role as “last city,” the subhuman population in Australia was massive. Large groups happened more by accident than anything else. In the years since, the population across the planet had dwindled significantly. Now they usually formed small packs of four or five, and spent their days fighting one another when they weren’t eating or sleeping.

“It’s like a bunch of swagmen took speed and decided to have an orgy,” Jake muttered.

Skyler barked a laugh. Too loud.

One screeched, a wild sound of raw anger.

The creature stared directly at Skyler. Like a chimp in a zoo, it began to jump about, waving its arms in rage and frustration.

More took up the cry. Soon they were all looking up, and feeding off one another’s disease-fueled bloodlust. A few retreated to the corners of the yard and cowered, the disease amplifying their flight reaction. Others began to throw rocks, which fell short.

“This is bad,” Jake said as the volume of the inhuman cries rose. Out of pure habit he’d already unslung his long rifle and pulled the lens cap from its scope.

A couple of the stronger ones started to climb the side of the building, using the overgrowth of vines, cracks in the concrete walls, and windowsills to pull themselves up.

Skyler hoisted his machine gun and flicked off the safety. “Retreat to the door,” he said, and began to backpedal.

Jake followed.

At the door, Skyler yanked it open and moved inside. He allowed enough room for Jake to come in as well. The sniper crouched and leveled his long gun toward the edge.

When the first head emerged over the rooftop, Jake fired. The poor creature’s skull snapped backward and then it disappeared, back to where it came.

Before Skyler could compliment the shot, the man re-aimed and fired again. Another dropped.

More appeared now. Six or seven. Jake fired in rapid shots but couldn’t keep up.

The subhumans ran very fast, their lean bodies corded with muscle. Skyler aimed and squeezed off a burst, taking one in the chest. A female, he realized. She toppled over in a heap.

Still more came. They streamed over the rooftop now.

One stood out. It had a mess of wild gray hair and wore tatters of old clothing. The leader, Skyler realized, as the sub raised its arms and bellowed.

Jake saw it, too. His shot exploded out the back of the leader’s head, spraying blood and brains across the faces of those behind it. The being went down in an unceremonious heap.

The others faltered. Some turned back, confused. A few did not, and started to laugh as they ran past the body. Jake’s rifle took on a drumlike rhythm, pat-pat-pat, as he ended their sorry lives. He worked so fast that Skyler had no time to aim.

Quiet settled. Even the birds had gone silent.

A dozen bodies littered the roof, right on top of the “30m” sign Skyler had drawn. Blood spilled on the white plastic bags in stark contrast. Pools and splatter of deep red.

Skyler wiped the sweat from his brow. His heart pounded from adrenaline, he could feel blood throb in his temples. He took a long, measured breath. “Bloody hell,” he said after a moment. “Nice shooting.”

Jake kept his focus on the edge of the roof, and said nothing. He expected more to come, and for good reason. If the creatures were anything, they were persistent.

“We should get back downstairs,” Skyler said.

“You go,” Jake said, reloading his gun. He laid his extra clips in a line on the ground in front of him. “I’ll thin the herd.”

Skyler stared at the back of the man’s head. “Sure?”

“If Angus is going to land here, we need to clear these bastards out,” Jake said. “Besides, this is much more fun than cowering down there in the dark.”

Skyler clapped his friend on the shoulder. He turned ran down the stairwell, taking two at a time, and reached Sam at her barricade within a minute.

“What was all that noise?” she asked.

“The maestro at work,” Skyler said. Despite the relative safely, he crouched behind the stack of bookshelves she’d piled up.

Samantha grinned at him. “Think Angus got our message?”

“He got it,” Skyler said.

“Will we have enough juice to get home?” she asked, voicing their greatest fear. It’d be one thing to go down fighting, another thing altogether to get stranded out in the Clear.

“Gonna be tight, I think,” Skyler said. “You have this under control?”

She nodded, eyes glued to the hall beyond her barricade.

“I’ll head back down then. Retreat to the basement if things get interesting.”

“What about Jake?”

“Remind me to keep him on our side.” With that, Skyler turned and ran to the subbasement.

He followed the same path they took earlier and found Tania right where he’d left her.

“Did you reach Angus?”

“He’ll give us thirty minutes, all the energy we can spare.”

Tania studied the screen. The readout indicated thirty-eight minutes left. “I need more time,” she said.

“No choice, sorry. We stay any longer, we won’t get home.”

Tania searched his eyes. “I hope it’s enough, then.”

Skyler pulled a folded duffel bag from a pant pocket. “Going to scavenge a bit, won’t be far.”

Despite concern in her beautiful face, she managed a single, stiff nod.

Skyler moved through the computer room. From some of the cabinets near the back, which lacked power, he disconnected every cable he could find and tossed them in the bag. Spare parts always found a buyer.

From the front of the racks, he yanked out any removable component. Charred power leads marred some, but he bagged them all regardless of condition. Takai could sort them out.

Next he went to the power junctions along the sidewall. He kept his distance from the one that still seemed to be functional, not wanting to disrupt Tania’s work. From the others he removed circuit breakers and three large wiring harnesses.

Satisfied, he slung the heavy bag over his left shoulder and slipped the strap over his head, letting the strap run diagonally across his chest. He returned to Tania.

“You don’t fool around,” she said.

He turned so she could see just how full the duffel was. “Pays my crew.”

Tania frowned. “It does a lot more than that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The work you do, people like you, it’s the only reason anyone can survive in orbit.”

In almost five years of scavenging, Skyler rarely went a week without someone offering thanks, praise, or a compliment. Even something simple, like a new bicycle chain, could make all the difference for someone trapped in the Aura. Every person who claimed the world would end without scavengers just added to the pressure.

Tania’s words cracked that barricade. She meant it with total sincerity, and Skyler knew in that moment that all of his work had been for her, and those like her. People striving to do more in the world than just survive. People who kept hope alive for a better future.

He found it impossible to articulate any of this, so he looked away and mumbled his usual response. “No offense, but we don’t do this for the greater good. It pays—well, sometimes—and keeps me and my crew fed and sheltered, which is more than most—”

Gunfire rang out, somewhere above their heads. Not the sniper rifle, with its loud single cracks, but the booms of a shotgun.

“Sam’s in trouble,” Skyler said. He checked his watch. “Ten minutes still. Son of a bitch.”

“Go help her,” Tania said. Her fearful tone contradicted her words. She was shaking.

He grabbed her by her upper arms. “Eight minutes, no more. Got it?”

She nodded.

“Can you find your way back to the stairs?”

Again she nodded.

“Deep breath, Tania. They won’t get past us, I promise.”

She drew a long breath and let it out slowly.

He gave her wrist a squeeze, using the opportunity to glance at the gauges mounted on her suit. The air level read just above half. Satisfied, Skyler ran for the stairs.

At the door he almost ran into her.

She backed up, and they stood side by side in the doorway at the bottom of the steps. Six bodies had already piled up on the stairs, with a fresh one just tumbling to a stop halfway up.

“Better position behind us,” Skyler said. “This is too close.”

“Lead on,” Samantha said.

He closed the door to the stairwell—a nearly useless gesture since it didn’t have a lock—and retreated to the data vault entry door with the shoulder-high window. Skyler slammed the door behind them, and with the butt of his rifle he smashed the glass.

Flipping the gun around, he pointed it through the space the glass had occupied, and waited.

Sam reloaded her weapon at the same time. “These f*ckers are really far gone, Skyler. Never seen them so aggressive.”

“And in such a large group. I don’t get it.”

The door to the stairwell burst open and Skyler answered with a spray of bullets. With the awkward angle, aim was out of the question, so he fired for effect.

Another of the creatures dropped, skidding to a sickening halt, blood spilling from wounds on its chest and legs.

“I’m low on ammo,” Samantha said.

Skyler fired again, a short burst. “We’re going to be trapped in here.”

“Where’s the map?”

Skyler looked down at his jacket. “Inside pocket!” he shouted, over the crackling sound of his gun. Samantha reached and took it.

“Go get Tania,” Skyler said. “I’ll hold them off.”

“We can both go. Look, below the computer room. There’s a subbasement marked ‘Shipping and Receiving.’ A ramp leads out of it, back up to the surface.”

She set the map against the door. Skyler studied it and let off another burst from the rifle without even looking. Sure enough, a sloped road led from the subterranean loading dock to a parking lot some fifty meters distant. “We’d be far from Jake, and outdoors,” he said.

“Yeah, but all the subs will be in here. We can come back through the trees, to the rear of the building.”

He fired again through the window. A wild yelp of pain came from the diseased human sprinting toward the door. It fell in a heap.

“You’re assuming there’s a way through the floor.”

“I’ll make one if I have to. Beats the hell out of this.”

Skyler led the way, moving as fast as his legs would carry him. Behind, they heard the snarls and growls of subhumans trying to open the windowed door.

They found Tania in the data center, already packing up her equipment.

“You get it all?” Skyler asked.

She shook her head. “Eighty percent. It will have to do.”

Samantha turned the map in her hands, getting oriented. “Over here, I think.” They followed her to the back wall of the room. Samantha opened a door, which displayed an assortment of warning signs related to electricity.

“We’re f*cked,” she said. The room inside the door was barely a meter deep and contained some sort of electrical junction, which filled the entire space.

“Down there,” Tania said, pointing at the floor. Conduits from the equipment disappeared through large panels, set into the floor like tiles. Skyler crouched and, with Samantha’s help, tried to dislodge one of them, but there was no gap to insert their fingers.

Tania turned and ran back toward the front of the room.

Skyler shouted after her, “Where the hell—”

“Help us, you bitch!” Samantha shouted.

Tania removed something from the wall near the front of the room and ran back to them. A metal handle, oversized, with two large suction cups on either end.

She slammed the thing down onto the floor tile, and then lifted. The square panel came away with ease. Tania tossed it aside and faced the two of them.

“Ah,” Samantha said, “Sorry about the ‘bitch’ thing.”

“Can we go?” Skyler asked.

Beneath the floor they stood on was a crawl space, packed with bundles of cables and a variety of cooling and power conduits. Below that, more tiles.

Samantha sat down on the edge of the opening, and kicked. The weaker tile below cracked in half and fell away. Through the hole, darkness. Skyler turned his flashlight back on.

“Four-meter drop,” Samantha said.

Skyler laughed. “You’re almost that tall, you go first.”

“Flip a coin?” Sam said.

In the hallway outside the computer room, they heard a crashing sound, followed by hideous screams.

“No time to argue. Down you go.”

Samantha lowered herself down into the floor between a gap in the conduits. She grasped the metal girder that framed the space where the tile used to be, and hung from it. Finally she let go, dropping down into the dark room.

“I’m okay,” she called up.

Skyler looked at Tania, found her white as a sheet, eyes wide with terror. He followed her eyes to see a subhuman turning the corner at the far end of the computer room.

Naked, covered with dirt, blood, and old scars—more gruesome than most. It had an open wound on the side of its face, rancid with infection, revealing the bone beneath. The creature tried to scream at them, but all that came out was a sick gurgling sound.

Skyler aimed and squeezed off a burst. Bullets tore through the pitiful being’s face, snapping its head back in grotesque fashion. It flopped to the ground, heaved once, and went still.

The noise from the gun brought a cry from Tania. She wavered on the verge of panic.

“Get below!” he shouted at her, but she was incapable of movement. Skyler slung his weapon and grabbed her wrists. He forced her over the hole in the floor and lowered her down as far as he could.

Tania stared into his eyes, tears streaming from her own.

He dropped her into the darkness below.

Another subhuman entered the computer room, and Skyler sprayed the last of his clip toward the creature. He managed to wing it in the leg, enough to put the creature on the floor.

Sucking in his gut, Skyler stepped as far as he could inside the little power closet. Then he grabbed the door handle and jumped through the hole in the floor. The fall, combined with his grip on the handle, caused the door to slam closed above him.

He hit the floor below and felt jarring pain shoot up through his knees. He toppled to the ground, grabbing his legs in agony.

Samantha was over him in seconds. “F*ck. Anything broken?”

He shook his head, grunting.

“Can you walk?”

“I’ll damn well try,” he said through clenched teeth. “Reload my gun.”

Samantha took the offered weapon and removed a spare clip from Skyler’s belt. The last he had.

“Tania, are you with us?” he asked the scientist.

She clutched the briefcase to her chest again. Her lip quivered.

“Brilliant idea, using that … whatever the hell it was. You saved our asses,” Skyler said.

“Slab sucker,” Tania said.

“Huh?”

“The boys on Green Level call it a slab sucker.” Her voice came from a faraway place.

Samantha whispered in Skyler’s ear. “She’s in shock.”

“I know,” he said back. Then louder, “Let’s keep moving, eh?” He let Samantha help him to his feet, ignoring the pain in his legs.

She cocked her shotgun and then led them toward the exit.



A large segmented door, big enough for vehicles, marked the rear of the building. They emerged to unnerving quiet, on a pothole-infested access road that wound up and out of view. Weeds grew waist-high from every crack in the surface.

Samantha led as fast as Skyler’s knees would allow. She stayed a solid ten meters ahead, her body in constant motion as she checked every direction for approaching subs.

At the end of the access road, she halted behind a thicket to surveyed the ground between their position and the cluster of buildings. Skyler judged them to be a hundred and fifty meters from the building where Jake waited on the roof. He couldn’t see the rooftop, or any subhumans on the ground around it. A parking lot filled the space between them. Wildflowers choked every gap in the asphalt surface. Scattered about were the remnants of vehicles, left behind to rot as people fled the disease.

Skyler couldn’t help but catalog useful parts as he surveyed the vast lot. A hard habit to set aside, no matter the imminent danger. Fabric from the car seats, LED bulbs in the headlamps, dashboard components—the list went on and on.

A deep hum filled the air. The Melville, Skyler realized, high overhead. The only thing that sounded better than those engines was Tania’s calm, measured breaths. Her gaze might still be vague and distant, but his confidence grew that she would recover soon.

Samantha rose from her crouch. “No time to waste.”

She ran. Skyler wanted to scream from the searing pain in his knees, but with each step the sensation abated. Despite his aching legs, he moved faster than Tania. She didn’t complain when he grabbed her elbow and pulled her along. Despite the weight of her environment suit, the woman showed no signs of exhaustion. Skyler realized she had not complained about the bulky outfit once.

The hum of the Melville’s engines grew like approaching thunder.

At the back entrance, Samantha flashed five-and-five to Skyler before rushing through the back door. She wanted ten seconds to clear their path.

Skyler guided Tania to the outer wall and hunkered down in front of her. He couldn’t see the aircraft, and had to gauge her distance by the engine tone. Close now, but still not in vertical landing mode.

“Mother of God,” Skyler whispered.

The cacophony generated by the ship’s engines drew subhumans like moths to a flame. He stared in horror at the tree line beyond the parking lot.

The creatures streamed from the forest. Some galloped on all fours, like apes. He’d never seen so many in one place, focused on the same goal, as if they’d formed a clan.

Tania gasped. She clutched at Skyler’s sleeve.

“Run,” he said. “Don’t look back. Go!”

She ducked inside to the sound of shotgun blasts from deep within.

We’re surrounded, Skyler thought.

All the while the thunder from the approaching aircraft grew, until the noise drowned everything, even the cries of the subhumans.

Skyler saw no point in wasting bullets. There were far too many. The roof was all that mattered. He followed Tania, pausing only to shut the door.

She waited at the stairwell entrance. Samantha stood at her side, her breaths loud and labored. A few pitiful bodies were sprawled in the corridor beyond.

“To the roof, now,” Skyler said. He went first, and heard their footsteps on the stairs behind him.

Two flights above he stepped around the body of a subhuman, shot in the throat. Jake may have come down, he realized.

At the top he found the door to the roof open. Bodies littered the gravel surface. Beyond them, the Melville rested on the building’s landing pad, her engines at idle now. Skyler could see Angus’s face in the cockpit window, white with fear.

He paused. “Is Jake aboard?!” he called.

Angus read his lips, then shook his head.

Skyler looked across the rooftop. “Jake?” he shouted out.

No response came.

“Jake?!”

“He must be inside,” Samantha said. “You saw that body on the steps. Give me your weapon.”

He handed her the gun. “I’ll be right behind you.”

Bracing her shotgun on armpit, and holding the submachine gun in her other hand, Samantha disappeared into the darkness without another word.

Not five seconds elapsed before Skyler heard gunfire below.

He removed his pistol from the holster on his leg. “Let’s get you aboard,” he said to Tania.

She set the pace, somewhere between a walk and jog, crouching under the swirling winds of the Melville’s thrusters. Skyler threw an arm over his face to fight off the maelstrom of dust and rock kicked up by the engines.

“Where are the others?” Angus shouted from the open cargo ramp.

Skyler waved him back. “Be ready to take off!”

Angus hesitated, then returned to the cockpit.

Skyler ushered Tania through the door and tossed the duffel bag in after her. “Close the door, but be ready to let us in.”

“Skyler—”

“Do it!”



Tania flinched at the barked order, and pressed the button to close the ramp. The captain disappeared out of her view as the cabin sealed.

She found herself alone, the aircraft dead quiet save for the faint hiss from the engines. There were no windows in the cargo bay. She threw her briefcase into a seat and went to the cockpit door.

Angus glanced back at her and offered a sympathetic nod. She leaned in to see through the cockpit window. An odd angle with her bulky suit helmet.

One of the aircraft’s engines blocked much of her view. She could only see Skyler from the torso down.

He ran from the ship to the stairway entrance, his pistol held in both hands, aimed dead on the open door. The wind generated from the Melville’s engines whipped his clothing about and filled the air with dust. Bodies of subhumans lay everywhere.

Tania held her breath. The contrast of death and paradise brought tears to her eyes.

Skyler entered the stairwell, and darkness, gone from her view.



The stairs had become a slaughterhouse. He stepped over two more dead subhumans before reaching the bottom, and guessed the carnage wasn’t over yet.

A shot rang out from the direction of the barricaded alcove, and Skyler ran.

He found Samantha kneeling over Jake’s limp body. She cradled his head in her lap, tears streaming down her cheeks. Skyler stopped and fell to a seated position a few meters from them.

A pistol dangled from Jake’s fingers. A stream of blood ran from the corner of his mouth and down his neck, smearing on Samantha’s pants. The woman’s hands, which held the dead sniper’s head, were coated in blood.

“He ate a goddamn bullet,” Sam muttered. “Rather than letting them—”

Skyler clenched his teeth and looked away, fighting his own tears. He wanted to punch something, to exact some kind of revenge. “It’s my fault. We should’ve landed together. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Samantha came to him. She gripped his shoulder with one hand and squeezed. Her other hand, coated with Jake’s blood, slipped around his neck and she pulled him toward her until their foreheads touched. “We don’t always see eye to eye, Skyler, but I don’t lay this at your feet. I’d never do that.”

He blinked tears away and looked at her. “You have to crouch for us to see eye to eye,” he muttered.

A laugh escaped both their lips. Sam head-butted him, a gentle rebuke to his gallows humor. “That’s the Skyler I know. Enough of the waterworks, all right?”

“What do we do about Jake?” he asked, staring at his friend’s limp form.

“We’re scavengers,” Sam replied, dragging the back of her hand across her nose. “We take his shit and get the hell out of this godforsaken place. Just like he would have done if it were one of us lying there.”



Five long minutes passed with no sign of them. Tania stared at the maw of the open stairwell, ignoring the pilot Angus as he fretted nervously. For now, at least, the subhumans were gone. Elsewhere, she thought, or all slain.

A figure emerged from the door—Samantha, alone, her head down and shoulders slumped.

Tania’s breath caught in her throat. Then she saw Skyler, just behind the stocky woman. A few steps into the sunlight, the captain faltered, his knees buckled. Samantha turned and caught him in stride. She carried him toward the plane, out of view.

Tania felt an enormous pit open in her stomach.

She raced back to the rear door of the craft and opened it just in time for Samantha to climb the ramp and dump Skyler on the floor.

Unchecked rage showed on the tall woman’s face. She slammed the “close” button and the red intercom button in unison, so hard Tania thought they would break.

“Get us the f*ck out of here,” Samantha said.

The pilot made no reply. The engines answered for him. They roared back to full strength and the craft tilted as it left the ground.

“Belt in,” Samantha said to Tania, without looking at her.

Tania moved to help Skyler up, but he stubbornly waved her off and pulled himself into a seat. Feeling lost, she took the seat next to him and buckled herself in.

Samantha pounded the butt of her shotgun against the wall, over and over. Each impact was weaker than the last as her strength, if not her rage, drained. In the end she stumbled through the cockpit door and closed it behind her.

Tania watched Skyler for a time, as the Melville sped away. He slept, or pretended to.

She felt numb, completely exhausted. Eventually she reached out a gloved hand and took his, held it firm. When his fingers tightened around hers, she fought to hold back tears. They’d lost one of their crew for her mission. A man had died, somewhere in the depths of that horrible building. Alone in the dark, those creatures cackling as they tore at his face …

Guilt would hang over her for the rest of her life. She knew that with total certainty. Tania retreated, found a place in her mind that she could make sense of. The lab on Black Level, her work, her research. She wanted nothing more in the world than to be back there now, and so she closed her eyes and took herself there.