Free Vigil by Craig Saunders, C. R. Saunders Page B

The rumour was, it was a gateway.’
    ‘That would have to go somewhere, right? What are you saying?’
    ‘There’s another accelerator. The two were linked. One was secret. One was public. The public never knew what was going on. They were both essential. Time and space are just dimensions. There was no wormhole through space. That would take the power of a sun imploding, is the best guess. With that power on a small scale? Using the power of an atom? Couldn’t it just be that they managed time and space? Or just time?’
    ‘What, they could control time?’
    ‘No. But they could send things back.’
    ‘Bullshit,’ said Samson.
    ‘I hope so.’
    ‘It’s got to be nonsense, Tom. It’s not possible.’
    ‘I hope so. Because I don’t think the elder vampires want us as food. I think they want the world. The world as it was. What if they could go back in time and create a world where people were just cattle, food for an immortal race?’
    ‘Bullshit,’ said Sam again.
    ‘Sam. Ask me how I know this. Ask me.’
    ‘Fuck you, Tom. Don’t try to get in my head.’
    ‘Sarah?’ Tom said. He smiled, but he didn’t feel anything approaching humour.
    Sarah had been quiet throughout. Her face was pale.
    ‘Tom…it can’t be.’
    ‘Tell them.’
    ‘If it were true…and there were two accelerators, they could go anywhere they wanted. They’ve had twenty years to work on it. I bet they could do anything they set their minds to.’
    ‘I don’t think they want us as food. We’re just in the way.’
    ‘What have we got to do with it?’ said Marie. ‘I don’t get it.’
    ‘Well done, Tom,’ said Suzanne. ‘You’ve freaked everyone out. Is that what you want?’
    ‘No,’ said Tom, shaking his head sadly. ‘That not what I want. I want to grow old. I want to die in peace. When I was growing up I wanted to be my own man, but I was always in my father’s shadow. I can’t get away from the bastard, even though he’s dead.
    ‘I know all this because the private concern that bought the CERN project is the same one that built this facility. Fallon Corp. bought it. My father’s company.
    ‘I think the second accelerator is here. I think we’re on top of it.’
     
    *

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    The Parisian Countryside
    2025 A .D.
    Year Zero: Apocalypse
     
    The intruder watches the old man’s chest rising, though he should be dead. But it is early in the night yet.
    The fires that ravage the remains of Paris burn bright against the night, and even though the intruder is accustomed to the light, it still pains him.
    He turns from the beginning of the end of the world, and looks to the old man again, his thin chest rising and falling. Looks at the artificial hand, the machines, back to the old man, time and time again, until he can bear to look no longer.
    For a time, he turns his attention to the painting on the wall. The paint is cracked but the beauty of the subject is unmistakable. The hand that painted the woman was talented. The intruder can see the brush strokes that make up her dark hair, the lustre somewhat faded over many years. Her eyes, jade, stare down at the man in the bed. It is her he will see if he ever wakes. She will be his first sight.
    It makes the man in the coat angry and sad and unsure. The man in the bed has a soul. He had forgotten. But he is remembering more with every passing day, the memories flying into his head now, faster and more powerful by the minute. Each new revelation has the power to buckle his knees and bring tears to his eyes.
    Yes, he remembers. He remembers very well.
    He turns away from the painting and the memories with a heart of marble and looks once more to the old man propped in the bed.
    The old man’s ribs and collar bones poke at the thin cotton nightshirt he wears. A shirt the nurses would have had to put on him, for he had been in this state of unbeing for many weeks now, since the heart attack that felled him.
    That he had breath at all was a