SOMA (LGBT-scifi-romance)

Chapter Five: Run

Sector 06: Cita Avis

Jan. 15, 462 AC

Soma waited for Leanne.

The lights went out six days after Christmas. Blackness bathed the colony. Every sound Soma heard after the lights went out sounded like aliens: errant sky fish crawling across the tower canopy, four wings brushing against radiation tiles, the clanging of climate generators, and coughing old ships. Space itself seemed to breathe, and the sun far below had a faint heartbeat. Occasionally, he heard feral synthetics howl in the distance.

Mrs. S was still alive, though her body began to rot. It would've been easier, perhaps, to simply forget she existed, to take what he needed from her store and ignore the poundings on the hatch glass, but the thought made Soma sick. Twice more, he broke into the convenience store, for more saba for his inhaler, packets of vacuum-dried noodles, and clean water. He threw crackers and bottles to Mrs. S through the partially opened hatch, along with his old brown coat. She ripped at the packages and swallowed mouthfuls of plastic. She ignored the coat.

One by one, the synthetics in the apartment complex turned blue-eyed, with frost deep in their throats, and stopped breathing. The Taylor couple died from cold. Mr. Tidbit just waned away. With each loss, Soma felt a small part of his mind shut down. Doing anything was hard. Thinking was harder.

Two weeks after the New Year, even the ferals had gone quiet. The silence was almost worse. The gravity generator of Sentinel Tower shorted. One day, Soma woke between Maria and Cain and realized they stank of decay. Their lips cracked and their open eyes dried in their sockets. He didn't remember much after that.

Soma found himself floating next to his bunk bed with corpses across the room, staring at the chrome com in his hands. He hadn't moved for hours, maybe days. He had broken the coat hanger tree and flung fabrics around the room. He'd broken the sink. Water hung in spheres by the windows. The walls of the tower were charred and Soma didn't know how any of that happened.

Maria's com vibrated. There was a silhouette of a woman's face in silver. Her hair was on fire.

Soma raised the black leather bracelet to his lips. "Leanne?" he rasped. His shoulders heaved and his voice sounded like the hissing tungsten in old light bulbs. "Why didn't you answer? They needed... You were supposed to help them. You were supposed to..."

Lines of text appeared then, red as Cataclysm on the metallic backdrop.

Don't cry, Leanne wrote. Humans killed your family. They culled your colony and left you among the corpses. And now they're coming. Don't cry. Run.

Soma was never scared of humans. Didn't like them, but he remembered that the silver-haired doctor and some of the scientists had been kind. But now everyone—Leanne, Cain, Maria—was gone. Humans had taken them all.

So Soma prepared to run. He cleaned the tower, vacuuming spilled water. He returned the coat hanger tree to a corner of the room and organized the chemical closet. He packed up the photo stills, dried food, and put on the Christmas-colored coat. Soma kissed Maria on the corner of her mouth and Cain on the forehead, lips lingering on their cold, fetid skin.

And he left them tangled in their bottom bed, with fresh sheets swathed around them and their hair neatly combed. They embraced; their limbs and blue faces were at once beautiful and so, so sad. Soma let the tower hatch slide shut, took a shaky breath, and adjusted Leanne's com against his arm.

That was when he saw the lights: a pair of filtered orange spots through the smog. Soma blinked, amazed, and watched the ship descend through the lunaroids towards him. Hope hiccupped in his throat. "Help..." he rasped, waving his arms. "Help!"