Day 126 - Babel - Chapter 22 (1633 words)

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BABEL

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 22

Victor saw stars, fixed and incandescent in the sky not like the floating and blinking ones you expected to see when you were concussed but bright, pulsing explosions of pure light on a black back lit world. There was no ground beneath him, just air and a sense that he was facing 'up' and the motion of weightless travel through space. His body was a feather on the surface of the water, a leaf in the breeze and a graceful ship cutting a path to nowhere. This feeling could last forever, he wanted it to last forever and stay in this perfect balance between earth and sky, weightless and airy like he was made of bubbles, hollow and sparkling glycerine.

Then he knew it was over before it was over, there was a subtle shift and he felt gravity reasserting itself over him, though it could only have been seconds at most, that cresting feeling as he rose in a gentle arc and reached the vertex of his trajectory and then the body that carried him started filling with a mass again, like an hourglass righted on time, weight flowed back into him and he could feel every grain of it adding to him.

The blissful euphoria he felt in flight was being replaced by a flailing grasp at the air, the relentless suffocating push of gravity was crushing his chest and the ballet he had been thinking was now rag doll as he thrashed about, trying to claw his way back to a state that was only in his mind. The night sky brightened and it was day again, the stars still there and flashing at him, but now harder to see in the lit up blue of the atmosphere. It was receding still, and as he accelerated away from it he got a second sense of grace in his new vector, but this one was more anxious, less euphoric as he knew there was a reckoning at the bottom.

The water was like a hard wooden floor, old and brittle enough to break, but solid enough to let you know that your bones and skin were impediments to be crushed in its palm. The breathtaking view was instantly blacked out again as he impacted the surface, unsure any longer which way was up and if he was even in one piece any more, the shattering of all grace was harsh and violent. For a short while he had been in nirvana, it was silent and peaceful, without anything to weigh down his body or mind.

The pain took an equal eternity to be replaced by suffocating water, in his eyes with blood and glass he was in a bubble of his own velocity, filling in faster and with inexorable intent, the sea was claiming its own and dragging him down to it's own undertaking. His arms and legs were of lead, he could not move, breath or think, he just floated in the middle under the surface by a few feet. He could not tell which way to go and did not have the energy or will to go in any direction, he remained an insect trapped in amber, waiting for future generations to pick apart his encasing prison and set him free.

George had been watching the odd group of Babel taking their prisoner to the wharf, had seen something in the way that they moved him, in the way he resisted their intentions, that kept him hidden in the shadows. Something in the paranoid way that Barbara had drunkenly spilled all her irrationality bad stuck in his mind, she was probably wrong about most of it of course, but if she was even a little right? It could not hurt to be circumspect, but it could hurt to be too forthcoming with these new creatures too soon.

He was not sure anymore that they were human, the former Babel now this weird controlled body snatched group entity? George was on the pier level and hiding behind some cover that kept him invisible to the street, out of sight but he had a pretty good view around the gates and the pier bollards that sheltered him, he could see quite clearly. There were hundreds of people all there, watching and waiting for this man, centred a focal point for them. Was this some kind of gladiatorial contest about to kick off? It had a ring of people all focussed inwards on the man, the contestant, the victim or the accused?

When the explosion happened George could hear it, see the sudden puff of smoke and light, and felt a tightening in the air like a storm was on the way. The man, lifted upwards higher and faster than George could track properly, he had taken off and was blasted backwards and upwards maybe thirty feet or more, it was harder to gauge but the height and length of his movement was pronounced and exaggerated in that moment.

His arms wind-milled at first, but then stopped and fell limp at his side as he flew, higher and further than George thought possible. It looked amazing and suddenly George felt envy for this stark defiance of gravity, physics and the common sense of self preservation. It was now at the peak of the arc, just as the man's body pointed head down again to aim for the water below, he had been blown clear off the edge of the wharf and thrown well over half way to the next wharf where George was hiding. They were not at the same length and latitude at their respective docks, but the man flew much closer and into the view where George could see his face, the smile of peace and serenity being supplanted by the terror and fear of falling.

Barbara was also watching from the room above, she was hiding in the curtains, but she had a bird's eye view of the proceedings and saw the man brought in, attempt to escape and eventually set off the bomb that had been brought to him. As the blast crumpled and shook the windows of the rooms near her, rattling the one to he right of where she peaked through the gap swathed in net curtains, she saw more evidence of the new alien nature of the Babel, no longer human at all.

As the explosions ripped up the nearest bodies to the blast, it had blown outwards in fire and backwards in force. The man, was lifted and thrown away by the nature of his bomb, designed to create a directional blast of shards and fire, pointed away from his position, turned and ignited in a split second by a soul not expecting to survive the detonation. There were plenty of people engulfed instantly in the conflagration, catching fire and being scattered like bowling pins, but the wave of pressure knocked down the nearest thirty or forty people, flattening them, knocking them hard, fast and violent to the ground.

In the split second that followed, and Barbara saw that there was the tiniest of gaps, a reaction following the blast, the rest of them, the Babel now Looped, fell backwards in sympathy to those nearest the explosion, all falling in synch with each other, like they had when they joined hands for the linking process earlier, this time all thrown back. She could see from on high that they were all affected, man, woman and child all thrown backwards radiated out from the blast in sympathy and more importantly all staying down.

The man hit the water with a splash and the Babel did not get up. The water rushed in and filled the impact crater his crash landing had created, closing up and leaving waves in his place, and the Babel still lay on the ground. Barbara heard a second splash and the flailing arms of someone swimming wildly trying to get out to rescue the man, form and grace forgotten in a blind panic to swim hard and fast to get there in time. The stunned and dead on the wharf opposite them were still not moving, and a couple of them were on fire, unmoved and flames licking from their limbs like human candles.

George ran and leapt into the water, diving as far as he cold head first into the space between then wharves, making a heavy splash as he hit the murky green at a difficult angle, forcing air out of his lungs as he lunged again and again to get to where the man was. It took forever in his mind to bridge the gap between them, diving under the surface and trying to find the body in the less than clear waters of the harbour.

He was dragged down a little at first but pushed, kicked and spluttered upwards until his lungs burst and he let go. Rasping for a air he took as much as he could as quickly as he could and dove again to attempt a rescue once more. This time he found it easier and made better progress, pulling the man to the surface with him. He crooked an arm around his shoulders, under his armpits and swam backwards to the hotel wharf, pulling both of them together out of sight in the black water under the wharf, grabbing the pylons for stability and taking more care to get them both to ground again.

There was a way up at the tip of the pier, and a stairway rose from where the water taxi's would dock. He carried the man up and brought him inside the lower lobby of the hotel, laying him out on the marble floor and trying CPR on him, getting a mouthful of salt-water and blood for his efforts