A Giant Leap, part 1
Geryon's Code Cycle | The Orphaned Earth | Chapter 6
“Sounds like nonsense, but I almost believe that Moon Cross has something to do with these infected birds,” Osokin muttered bitterly. “Just to make things more fun.”
Neither he nor Randy laughed. They cursed the so-called Prince of McMurdo, cursed the late Harald of Railtown, cursed the cowardice of the Seven Winds—who had people and wealth but never attempted to organize collective defense.
Everyone knew the Moon Cross wouldn’t stop at Port Amundsen. They hadn’t come to occupy a city—they wanted all of them.
Osokin blamed himself too. He’d seen this coming, talked about it quietly in kitchens and clinics, never loud enough to matter. And who would have listened anyway? Who would abandon their family, their home, to fight a fanatical army?
Would he have gone? Would he have let Arseny? Or Randy?
Now, of course. But then, when life was easier, when it felt like things would last?
Peace may be dangerous. Treacherous.
The Moon Cross Brotherhood—often called the Blasphemers across Antarctica—first surfaced during the Golden Age, taking root on the ice the way Puritans once had in New England. In the early years, they were few in number, and when noticed at all, were dismissed as pitiful fanatics—enemies of progress, saboteurs of pleasure.
But their severe asceticism, the hours spent in silence and prayer, the ritual fasting and acts of self-denial—all of it elevated them, at least in their own eyes, above the flesh-chasers they preached against. The world, they said, was on the brink. Technology was the Devil’s gift to humanity, and only those who severed their ties to godless machinery would be spared when the reckoning came.
People laughed—at first. But slowly, they stopped laughing.
More and more intellectuals drifted toward the fringe. People who once believed in the promise of omniverse utopias—where 60% of the population had become economically and spiritually obsolete—now saw paradise for what it was: a padded cell.
The Moon Cross rejected sex as entertainment, drugs without meaning, progress without soul. Some dug deeper underground, spreading doctrine through the megacities’ tunnels and slums. No one expected the Brotherhood to reach the military. But it did. And they were the only ones prepared when the Collapse came.
They had always been in Antarctica, working like zealots alongside robots in the harshest conditions. When their creed was outlawed, they went underground. When the Blackout struck—a disaster they seemed to expect—they already dominated Port Amundsen, though peacefully. Then came Aelius, the Bloody Apostle, with a paramilitary horde out of South America, taking under his rule the cult’s most southerly outpost, and things turned from dangerous to catastrophic.
Osokin and Randy understood: this wasn’t going to end with a warning. You could outrun a plague, maybe—but not a horde. And if they learned about Alda…
“What’s now?” Randy grabbed his stepfather by the shoulders. “We have to fight back, right?”
“We have to do something,” the doctor said, voice like ash. “Wish I knew what exactly might work. Please, tell Alda to take three days of food and sail to Seal Pasture,” Osokin ordered. “If we don’t come for her, she keeps going. Far as she can.”
Randy bit his lip. The nearest coastal outpost was Seven Winds—eight days rowing if the weather was kind. And the de la Serna name didn’t open doors there anymore. But there were empty lighthouses and abandoned fishing hamlets which could serve as temporary shelter. Luckily, survival in the wilderness was not something new to Alda de la Serna.
“Don’t go inside. Don’t hug her,” Osokin warned, his voice sounded covered with rust. “Just tell her and get back to the forge. Stay with Akemi and provide her with any possible help.”
“And you?”
“I’ll get back to work.”
It took Randy fifteen minutes to reach home. He found Alda on the porch, returning from school. She listened in silence but with no fear. Her face remained calm, unreadable—only her pupils widened, dark as obsidian, as her son explained what was coming.
“Why are you standing on the porch?” she asked, as if her mind rejected the scale of the danger.
“I might be infected too... It’s just a matter of time.” Randy swallowed hard. He didn’t want to die—not really—but more than that, he wanted to hold his mother’s hands. Not only to show care, but to steady himself. “You hear the shouting? Panic’s coming—chaos, who knows what. You need to be far away from it. Dad says take the boat. Head to Seal Pasture. Right now.”
“Is there a chance this ends soon?” Alda let out a soft snort.
“We’re not babies—we’ll hold them off,” Randy said, forcing a smile.
“All right, sweetheart,” his mother sighed. “I’ll wait for Ilya just to say goodbye. May I give you a hug?”
The young man shook his head.
“Then wait a few minutes. I’ll pack food—for Akemi too. And your sleeping bag. And warm clothes...” Alda tried hard to keep her voice even, but the tremble gave her away.
Randy sat on the porch, watching the street fill with shouting, gasping people—neighbors clinging to each other, begging for answers to the one question no one could answer: What do we do now?
The fastest—and usually the smartest people—grabbed their kids and their bags and bolted silently toward the docks. Not everyone in McMurdo had a boat, and the ones that stayed functional were worth their weight in gold now. Deep inside, the young man worried someone might take theirs.
McMurdo was the kind of town where doors were locked only in the deepest cold. Theft used to be unthinkable. But you didn’t really know people until you were down in the pit with them—only then did you find out who would push you up… and who would stand on your shoulders just to lift themselves a little higher.
Randy didn’t want to test anyone.
“Hey, kid, you heading out for watch duty?” called a sturdy, silver-bearded fisherman—Alejandro, whose father had once been port master before the Blackout. McMurdo didn’t officially have an “elder,” but Alejandro fit the role better than anyone. He remembered the Golden Age better than anyone and had spent his youth on yachts and sport-fishing boats, long before the world froze.
With him stood Phil the gardener, and the O’Connell twins—Nick and Niall. Two years older than Randy, and never fond of him. They’d dragged that childhood grudge into adulthood, maybe because girls their age tended to glance Randy’s way more than theirs.
“Watch duty?” Randy asked, rising, uneasy.
“Of course! Somebody’s got to hold the wall if the Blasphemers come knocking! Night won’t stop them—word is, some of ’em see in the dark like it’s midday!”
“When’s muster?”
“Now, you turnip!” Alejandro barked. “We need every hand that can grip something heavier than a fishing pole!”
“Give me an hour or two,” Randy said, listening for signs of Alda. Maybe she was gathering supplies for Akemi. “Masako’s down sick. Her mom’s alone...”
“Of course,” Nick huffed. “Our tragic little blacksmith’s hiding behind skirts. Let’s move on—nothing useful here.”
“Where do I report?” Randy asked Alejandro, ignoring the jab.
“At the old relay tower,” the old man replied, clearly irritated by Randy’s delay but not quite angry. “We’re gathering there.”
“You’ll be waiting a while!” Niall sneered. “He’s got more important things than Blasphemers—ladies to entertain!”
“Quiet, pup!” Alejandro snapped. “Live as long as Madam Matsubara before you talk trash about her being ‘entertained.’”
“Randy, what’ve you got for a weapon?”
“An axe...”
“A good one, at least?”
Randy raised his arms to show the size of the blade he and Masako had forged for the Prince. It wasn’t fully set on the haft yet, but that wouldn’t matter to the Blasphemers.
Nick and Niall exchanged wary glances. Chances were, they didn’t have anything more lethal than fish knives.
Masako and Alejandro had said before that old tools—mining picks, dockworker gear—could make excellent weapons. Tools built to cut, burn, hurl hundred-kilo rocks. But by now, most of that gear was just rusting junk. Maybe—maybe—something had survived deep in the mines, but everyone knew Railtown scavengers had picked the place clean.
The door creaked. Alda stepped out, silent as snowfall, and placed a bag of food and clothes on the porch. She gave Randy’s shoulder the faintest touch and disappeared inside again without a word.
Randy grabbed the bag and took off for the forge, waving a quick goodbye to Alejandro. Nick and Niall snorted behind him, laughing about something crude. On any other day, he might’ve stopped to ask what their problem was—but not today.
At the forge, something was off. The usual smell of coal was layered with the rich scent of food. Warm food. Strange—he and Masako hadn’t cooked that day, not even reheated leftovers while she could still stand.
A gray blur darted out from the shadows. Randy froze.
“Is she all right, sweetheart?” old Akemi asked. Her hair was white as ice.
He hesitated. For years, he’d figured the old woman was half-senile—mostly because she rarely spoke.
“She’ll live,” he said. He didn’t want to give her false hope—but what else could they cling to?
He walked to the barrel of water they used for cooling metal and scrubbed his hands clean.
“Eat,” the woman said, guiding him to the couch. On the table sat a golden heap of fried fish, two steaming baked potatoes smothered in thick mushroom gravy—exactly what he needed. It was like she’d known he was coming. A witch? No—just a mother.
“I brought something for you too,” he said, pulling the bag open.
Akemi gave a nod toward the table. “Nothing will go to waste, dear.”
Was this what it took to wake her from years of silence? Disaster? Randy shook his head. I’ll never understand people.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’d trade places with Masako in a heartbeat,” she whispered. “When her brother died so little, we were devastated. But losing a grown child, Randy... it’s a hundred times worse. Especially one so wonderful.” Her voice quivered. “I’d cry now—gladly—but I can’t even manage that.”
“She’s strong,” he murmured. “Let’s hope not everyone dies from this. Dad says even in the worst outbreaks, there are survivors…”
He wanted to believe it. But the words tasted like ash.
“And you, son?” Her small, birdlike hand smoothed his hair.
“I’m okay. For now.”
Akemi didn’t ask him to stay—not even for a while. That lifted a weight from Randy’s shoulders. If he ended up sick too, she’d manage. Maybe Masako—oh, Sun, let her recover—would be back by then.
Still, better not to plan too far ahead. They might not live through the night.
She already knew everything. Had heard the neighbors wailing. But she wasn’t afraid—not of the fanatics, not of the chaos. And she accepted Randy’s leaving with the same quiet composure.
He, on the other hand, was unraveling. Nerves stripped raw. He choked down half a potato, a few crisp fish that crunched like sunflower seeds, and washed it all down with cold water. Then he rinsed the dishes and went to fix the axe head to its haft.
By the time he stepped outside, night had swallowed the town. Smoke clung to the air. Orange glows flickered here and there—funeral pyres, casting long shadows across the streets.
At the foot of the iron-laced tower—long silent, but once used to scan the skies—a crowd had gathered. No more than three hundred souls. Men, women, teens, elders—the oldest of them being Alejandro himself.
They weren’t soldiers, just townsfolk. But Alejandro barked out orders with the confidence of someone who’d captained more than a few storms.
Weapons were scarce. Firearms even more so. Only those with security backgrounds from the pre-Blackout days still had them, and even then, many had rusted or failed.
The rest? Makeshift clubs, knives, harpoons, cleavers, sharpened rebar. Anything that could kill.
The few who could craft crossbows had long since left for Railtown. The city was left with three usable weapons and thirty bolts.
Thankfully, before he drowned, Masako’s father had built a ballista—crude but functional. It could launch rocks, even dead birds, in wide, sweeping arcs. That might be enough to buy them time.
The sentries, shivering on their posts, swore into the wind. Someone had run off—took a boat that wasn’t theirs. Randy didn’t want to know who. He couldn’t stand another disappointment.
He stood silent, face hidden beneath his hood, staring toward the Junkyard, where the fighting had raged since midday. The Moon Cross Brotherhood had made camp near the old factory. The Prince’s gang must have been fighting with the fury of men who knew exactly what would happen if they got caught alive.
The second group of the invaders had blocked the highway. The third had taken the railroad tracks. Everyone standing guard through the long night wrestled with the same question: Why were they lingering and not attacking the town?
Had they spotted the smoke from the funeral pyres and realized storming McMurdo now was too risky? Or were they after something specific—something buried in the Castle that they couldn’t get anywhere else?
Rumors churned like ash on wind: that the Moon Cross had a spy in McMurdo. And if that were true, it could only be one of their own—no strangers had been seen in days.
Some said the bastard had even started the plague in the town. No way two disasters like this hit back-to-back by accident.
Now all the fanatics could do was try to take the factory from the Prince and wait out the end. Without coal, the ones who survived the sickness would still freeze or starve.
Randy’s fingers, wrapped in fraying dark-blue gloves, tightened on the axe handle.
Right now, he hated the Prince as much as the Moon Cross—but still, he had to hope the bastard held the line.
“If they’re just standing there, a couple people could break off and run to Railtown with the news,” he said aloud, trying to shake off the silence.“If they’ve got any brains, they’ll send help. They have to. Because they’re next. We’re just the flies they’ll swat on the way.”
“Keep dreaming, genius,” Nick muttered, spitting into the dark.“No one’s stickin’ their neck out for us. If Harald were alive, maybe. But Stella will chicken out.”
“That’s not true!” Randy shot back. “How the hell are they supposed to survive without our coal?”
Nick didn’t answer. He spat again—harder this time, like he wanted it to hit the enemy in the face. His brother Niall didn’t back him up either—he was off with Alejandro, two hundred meters down the wall.
So the night dragged on—slow, suffocating.Wet snow drifted down in fits, clinging to lashes, sliding down faces like cold tears. Randy’s back ached, his knees throbbed, and fear chewed at his chest.
To chase away the anguish, Randy thought of his hot air balloon. Not a dream anymore—he’d designed it himself over three years, built the frame, rigged the tension wires.
He’d launched test flights, sent up small animals, made everyone roll their eyes with his “ballooning nonsense.”
But Masako had helped. She believed in it.
The flying transport was almost done. Just missing one thing: a wing big enough to lift it. And fabric that size didn’t grow on trees. Nor it was sold anywhere.
“Hey, kid.”
Randy blinked. Alejandro was limping toward him.
“While they’re still outside, we must gear up,” the old fisherman said. “We need arrows. A hell of a lot of them. We’ll need our gear repaired. Instead of standing here staring into the dark, you could handle that. But get an hour or two of rest first.”
He pressed a hardened arrow into Randy’s palm.
Randy stumbled through town like a sleepwalker. In the forge, he nearly walked into the anvil, then the barrel. Somehow made it to the couch in Masako’s forge. Collapsed onto it fully dressed, arrow still in hand.
He woke to someone stroking his hair and nearly jumped when he saw Alda sitting beside him.
“What?” he gasped through a breathless knot of anxiety. “You didn’t leave? Why?”
“I ran once,” Alda replied softly. “Leaving behind the man I loved. Now I have three people I care about. I’m not making that mistake again.”
“What could you have done back then?”
“Then? Nothing,” his mother said. “But now I can. Hot food. Clean clothes. Comfort. That matters more than you think. You fight—I help. That’s what I told Ilya when he tried to shove me into the damn boat.”
“Did many people leave?”
“All the kids under twelve were evacuated—except the sick ones. They pulled two little ones off the boat ‘cause they were coughing. What else could they do?.. Anyone suspected of being infected—we gathered them in the school. I’m heading there next.”
“Is Dad okay?”
“He’s hanging on, Randy. Sleeping like a rock right now. I just hope no one wakes him while I’m gone…”
“How’s he gonna take it if you get sick?” Randy shook his head. “Like watching people die every day at work isn’t already killing him enough…”
“I know what to do if it happens,” Alda said, her voice sharp. Randy didn’t argue after that.
“Did he say anything about Masako?”
“No… he was so tired I didn’t even ask.” She paused. “Oh—and you better not go outside. On my way here, I saw a corpse in the street.”
Whatever the case, Randy’s first instinct was to run to his mentor. But then he remembered the bolts—he’d been tasked with forging crossbow bolts, likely for the whole damn day—assuming the Moon Cross didn’t start their assault before then. And he’d already slept half the day away.
He leapt to his feet, splashed cold water on his face, and hurried to stoke the forge.
Alda stayed a while, quietly watching him work, then left to bring breakfast to the students quarantined in the shut-down school.
Randy worked straight through until nightfall, forging and sharpening arrows without pause.
Several times, teens sent by Alejandro ran in to grab fresh bolts and sprinted back out to deliver them to the defenders on the walls. They said volunteers were now stationed on rooftops and in the towers, picking off gulls and albatrosses with rifles and crossbows. But it wasn’t enough. The birds kept coming—used to feasting on trash and fish guts, they couldn’t help flying back to the city.
The battle at the Castle flared up again. Smoke rolled through the streets—thicker than yesterday. Grimacing at the stench, Randy hammered harder, faster—trying to drown the world out, trying not to think.
By sunset, when he plunged the final bolt into water—his right hand raw and barely responding—Akemi slipped into the forge, silent as ever.
He hadn’t seen her leave the house. She had her own door. She moved like a ghost.
“I just came from Masako,” her voice rasped through the dry air of the smithy. “Your dad says her end is close.”
The bolt slipped from his fingers and hit the floor with a heavy clang.
Randy sucked in a breath between clenched teeth and paced back and forth, eyes wild. Masako… Dying…
Among his peers, Randy was considered one of the lucky ones—he’d only lost one person in his life, and that had happened before he was even born.
He’d never really imagined the moment when the dark countdown would restart ticking for him.
“Akemi… Why aren’t you by her side?..”
“Who would’ve let me stay?” the old woman sighed. “They wouldn’t even let me in. Not to say goodbye. Not to see my girl, maybe one last time.”
She looked up, her eyes sharp despite her age. “And anyway, our losses, Randy... they’re our own to bear. But now, more than ever, we belong to each other.
I see you’re still well. Let’s hope it stays that way.”
She stepped closer to the forge, letting the heat soak into her bones. Her lashes were still wet with tears; a fat drop clung to the tip of her nose. Randy’s own eyes started to sting. He loathed himself for not being able to stop any of it.
“Ilya says you’re not to go anywhere tonight,” Akemi murmured. “He’s coming to see us.”
“How am I supposed to stand guard, then?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But for now, come with me. It’s important.”
She grabbed a lantern. Together, they climbed the ramp to the second floor—a ramp that, once upon a time, had moved on its own—and pushed open the door to Masako’s small, sparsely furnished room. The cricket chirped weakly from its cage on the nightstand.
Akemi went to the wall and opened a built-in closet. She reached in and began pulling out what looked like a length of shimmering, silvery fabric.
“Come on, help me,” she whispered.
Randy took hold and pulled. And pulled. The fabric seemed endless. Soon the room was swamped with it, the folds spreading across the floor until there was nowhere left to step. They had to set the lantern aside to get their hands free and avoid starting a fire.
With unexpected agility, Akemi bundled up the bulk of it and dragged it downstairs. Randy followed, gripping the trailing train of the thing, which slipped behind him like a silk flood.
It felt thick in his hands—soft, almost warm, and strangely pleasant. Wide straps hung off the mass like dead vines. Some of the edges were melted, sliced clean, like they'd been cut with a hot blade.
“What is this?” he asked, staring down at the glimmering sprawl as Matsubara spread it across the floor with surprising reverence.
“This, dear boy,” she said, “is called a parachute.”
“A what?”
“They used to lower things from the sky with it—back before antigravs. Or jump themselves, if they were brave enough. It had holes. Masako patched them up. Still... I don’t think this one was made for a person. Looks too big. Probably used for dropping equipment.”
Under different circumstances, Randy would’ve shouted, laughed, danced. His dream was unfolding on its own, right here on the forge floor. The one thing he’d been missing—the thing—was now spread out in front of him like a gift from the gods. A dome of skycloth that, with heat, could carry him into the clouds.
The crate was almost ready—pieced together from junk he’d salvaged from the Dump over the years. He knew that place like his own pulse. Bit by bit, with pauses to avoid patrols, he’d sneaked out sheets of heat-resistant plastic. No rush back then. But now everything had changed.
The burner was ready too—thanks to Masako. She was the only one who ever truly understood what he was building. The only one who believed.
Still kneeling, not quite believing it, Randy ran his hand over the fabric again. It was cool, and smeared here and there with soot and dust. No calculations needed—he could feel it. With enough fuel, this thing could lift two people his size.
“Where’d she even get something like this?” he muttered. “It’s gotta be worth two buckets of coal. Maybe three…”
Akemi chuckled. She knew the material would cost much, much more.
"My husband brought it from Railtown not long before he vanished into the ocean," she replied. "Raised Masako like a boy her whole life — then one day, out of nowhere, he gets it in his head: ‘Let my baby have a dress to show off in, at least once.’ I’ve no idea what devil he sold his soul to get this," she added with a bitter smile. "I know I would’ve."
"No way," muttered Dr. Osokin, walking in, his eyes fixed hungrily on the silvery sea at their feet.
Picture: Mattew Stephenson
This definitely feels like a world on the edge. It's nice to see so many working together, despite their differences and trying to help out. Great post, Liudmila.