I, Cassandra

62 | CASSANDRA VALLIS

Now I'm here I don't know what to do with myself. I don't know what I thought was going to happen when I reached Alpha VII, but I expected more than this. I don't understand how so little of it can remain after only a thousand years. Before I ended up being de Pommier's experiment when I was a kid, I remember learning about the ruins in Rome that were two thousand years old. We watched as drones flew over the city in real-time. Even filled with refugee tents and campfires, the Colosseum looked a lot better than this and it was twice as old.

All that remains of Alpha VII are heaps of irregular mounds—what I assume used to be buildings—covered in a dense carpet of vines. I am sick of them and their sharp, cruel barbs.

I've almost picked my way around the city's perimeter and apart from what's left of the decaying, vine-infested monolithic struts that supported the dome I have found nothing. No one has survived. There is no evidence of anyone ever having been here, no clearings, no ramshackle shelters. Nothing. If there have been, they're long gone. For the hundredth time since I first got an eyeful of this sullen, sunken basin of overgrown vegetation, the weight of time bears down on me. I can't escape the sense that far more than one thousand years have passed. I think again of the Colosseum as I approach the jagged claw of another strut arcing up from the nest of vines. It looks ancient, and worn by more than two thousand years of weather, probably even more than five . . . maybe even more than that. And then it hits me, why Ryan wasn't there. I didn't wake up in time and Ryan shut down and rotted away. And now. Here I am. Alone. Fuck.

A wave of desolation rolls over me even as I resist the explanation because nothing else makes sense. I'm lost to a time so far into the future even the struts look as if they are about to collapse. I can't do this. Be here, in this place. It's madness. I never wanted this anyway. Without Ryan, there's nothing left for me, no reason to go on. I have no intention of dying a slow death of starvation, of living in misery until my body gives up and I curl up to die like an insect. My gaze slides back to the distant strut and catches on a smudge that looks like a vine dangling in the light breeze. A chill slides through me. It seems the hateful things have a useful purpose after all. So be it. My eyes on my feet, I press on, my thoughts turning back to Ryan and the last thing I said to him as I slipped into cryo-sleep.

See you on the other side.

I wonder if he'll be there. On the other side. Waiting. The silence of aeons envelopes me. Dread of what's to come touches my spine. It's going to hurt for a long ti—

'Shit! Motherfucker! God damn fucking bitch!'

The hairs on the back of my neck reach for the stars. I turn.

'Fuck this bloody hole straight to hell!'

It's a man's voice. A wail of hope screams through me.

'Ryan,' I breathe. Oh god. Let it be Ryan. I almost cry out his name, when wariness rams through me, hard-earned during my life with Zandiki. Or, it warns, maybe not Ryan.

I hold my breath and wait, willing there to be more swear words, to fix the location, but it's over. Whoever is pissed off isn't giving up any more information. I can't be sure but I think he's near the strut that's behind me, the one I passed an hour ago. I turn and head back, never taking my eyes off the thing, for now, nothing more than a looming shadow against the constellations.

My feet hurry and catch against the vines, tripping me up, but I press on, reckless, afraid he will leave and I will miss him. Hope claws at me, my desperation so raw it steals my breath. Please, my thoughts scream, let it be Ryan. With every step that shortens the distance between me and the strut, hope pounds through me, hot as the beat of a battle drum: Please. Let. It. Be. Ryan. Please. Let. It. Be.—

A cry shreds the air. I stagger to a halt. A heavy thud. Silence.

'Ryan!' The scream leaves me, borne of fear, loneliness, hope. No answer.

Everything shrinks to a tiny point. I run until my lungs burst into fire and my throat aches, but I don't stop. I can't. There is no thought, only action.

At the strut, I scramble through the vines and search the darkness, frantic. There. A body, face down, dressed in rags. My hands trembling, I turn him over.