Lightsheild: Volume 83

The hum of the generator permeated every space with its weighty droll. Another twenty minutes and it will all come to an end. “Where’s the damn manual!” The words spewed out of her tight-lipped mouth like acid. Only the machine was there to reply with its low and unceasing hum. The greasy oil-stained spine of volume eighty-three quietly perched itself at the top of the bookshelf, peering down almost out of spite. “Did he steal it?” she thought, “Was his goal to sabotage us because he wasn’t elected to lead the new colony?” This wasn’t the first time that the old man’s sanity was questioned. His reasoning surely would have been she thought, without him to lead, they would only be prolonging the inevitable. Twenty days perhaps, instead of the now nineteen minutes left before the generator overheated and the shield it powered dissolved along with what remained of humanity. She needed the protocols of volume eighty-three.

Professor Arden’s fingers danced across the keys of the out-of-tune piano, completely unaware of his protégé’s despair and continued to crescendo the last few pensive chords of the sonata until they disintegrated into the walls of the dimly lit study. The last of the evening light filtered in through the room, illuminating a shattered ceramic vase that littered the floor; the remains of a heated discussion with a woman with a will and grit that rivaled his own. He decided that cooking a meal to fill his visceral void would fare better than picking up the bits of broken vase, and his shattered ego.

Convinced that he knew the location of the manual, she raced to the house on the hill that the professor called home. She could faintly smell what she thought were pancakes as she barreled through the front door unannounced. WHACK! He hits her in the head with a hot cast iron pan. The pancake went flying, and the sturdy, tall woman fell to the floor. “Oh my God, Evie!”

His demeanor flashed from abrupt defense to a puddle of regret as he sank to the floor beside her. Her body writhed with the pain of the blow and she managed to exhale, “Bill, the generator…” He knew she wouldn’t have come running in like that without a damn good reason. As she lifted herself slowly off of the floor, blood began to trickle down the side of her temple and high cheekbone. Regret turned to horror when he sputtered out, “What is it, Evie? What’s wrong with the generator?”

“It’s overheating again, and I can’t find… I can’t find the manual. Please tell me you have it.”

They rose from the kitchen floor, their eye contact unbroken. “I don’t have it. It never leaves the warehouse!”

Every ounce of Evie’s pain fled from her body as they made their way back to the generator. The heart-shaped locket she wore flung about her neck like wild armor. Determination and adrenaline coursing through her veins gave her more resolve now than ever. Twelve minutes and it will all be over. Professor Arden began ripping the books from their shelves after visual confirmation of the empty space between volume eighty-two and eighty-four. Evie feverishly exhausted the last canister of liquid nitrogen in an effort to buy more time, but it didn’t even negotiate a second. The glitch was that a cooling fan sensor that kept the machine from overheating was damaged. The protocol containing the override, still buried in volume eighty-three. Every book sprawled uselessly on the floor, except the one unnoticed. Eight minutes left.

“Should we tell them?” Evie takes her shaking hands and places them on her face, and all of the pain floods back. Without thinking, the wise professor replies, “No, Evie. It’s time to let go.” And they give each other a knowing look, and sit huddled in the mass of books and smoke. Professor Arden draws Evie into his arms and she rests her head on his shoulder. Four minutes left. Their minds both searching for the meaning of why, above all the other trials, why does it have to end this way.

Let it go. Those words linger in Evie’s mind as she settles into the embrace, and breathes out in surrender. She lifts her gaze from the floor and up the empty bookcase where she rests her eyes atop... “Bill!” She shoots up and leaps across the room and plucks the book from it’s sinister perch. They furiously flip to the protocol and enter keystrokes.

One minute. The low hum rose to a pitch that filled the room with a mechanical scream. Professor Arden’s hands have never moved so swiftly in his life as Evie chirped out each code for him to enter. It wasn’t enough. There were three pages of code. They barely made it through the first page. Realizing it was too late, the professor stopped typing. Evie kept screaming out the protocols, tears streaming down her face. He again wrapped her in a tight embrace and she became quiet with acceptance.

The loud roar of the generator tapered off to a dull hum, and stopped. Silence. It was over. The shield, gone. It was so, eerily quiet. Fully expecting the disintegration of their flesh from the shield’s absence, they both squeezed each other tightly. Evie thought the searing blow to her face would pale in comparison to being burnt alive by the sun even in its setting moments. Ten minutes pass. Still alive. Time was the only thing that felt like it evaporated as they held each other for the entire night. The morning sunlight invading the warehouse interuppted their reverie. Evie was the first to walk outside and the sun touching her skin was gentle warmth. The professor stood beside her, taking in the sunrise that didn’t bring destruction, but would bring in a new era to humanity.