Eriq couldn't refute the statement since it had merit. He failed to lead his group to safety, but he also had the blood of the Force Elite within him. Their attitude: There was a solution for everything.

He pushed away from the door.

And he looked for that solution.

John Eldridge didn't know if President Michelin was terrified or angry as he sat beside Eldridge with their backs to the wall.

It was a long moment before anyone spoke, each taking in the gravity of their situation with absorption.

But it was Eldridge who broke the ice. "I'm a hypocrite," he said.

Michelin turned to him. "What?"

"I said, I'm a hypocrite. Do as I say, not as I do."

"What the Hell are you talking about?"

"I was hoping that I wouldn't see something like this in my lifetime, always hoping that the end would be the problem for somebody else. Not mine. Not yours. Not anyone that I hold dear to me." Eldridge removed his glasses, huffed a warm breath against the lenses, and then wiped them clean with the tail of his soiled shirt. "We're going to die here, you know."

"We're going to do no such thing," said Michelin. But deep down he knew that Eldridge was right. They were all going to die inside this ship.

Eldridge offered a low chuckle, one that said I know you're lying. "Yup," he went on. "No more Bertucci suits for you. No more clean shirts for me."

"You need to get ahold of yourself," Michelin returned sharply.

But Eldridge didn't appear to hear him. "I didn't care if we slaughtered the Wasteland savages as long as we lived in relative comfort," he said. "Hunt them down, and then process their meat to keep going what is undeniably the beginning of the end of the Fields of Elysium."

"Shut up before someone hears you, you idiot."

"Not only have we been lying to the people, but we've been lying to ourselves, as well. These little pockets of utopia have been on life support for a long time now, when they've been Hell in disguise. Don't you think?"

Michelin sighed. "Our intentions were good," he commented. "I had to choose between the lesser of the evils necessary to keep the Fields going. We both did."

Eldridge smirked. "And you know what they say about good intentions."

Michelin did. The road to Hell was paved with them.

Eldridge looked at the low-level ceiling and stared at nothing in particular. "I didn't care what happened to those outside the walls," he said evenly. "But now that I've become one of the hunted and know what it feels like, I can't commit myself to follow through with that protocol."

"You'll feel differently once we get out of here," Michelin responded.

"Yeah. Maybe. But that's the key phrase, isn't it? Once we get out of here." He turned to the president with a look of someone who was absolutely crestfallen. "But we're never getting out of here," he said. "Not today. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not ever. And do you want to know why, even if we do happen to get out of this room?"

Michelin looked directly at him, but offered no response because he knew the question to be a rhetorical one.

"Because we've drifted too far from base," he answered. "The window of opportunity has closed. Air Force Six could never make the distance with limited capabilities."

"You've got to have faith."

"My faith was turning a blind eye to the reality of what's been truly going on. Earth is a dead planet. It has been for a while. We simply created hope when there really wasn't any. All hope died on the very day the last plankton died in the ocean-when every creature on the food chain above them died, and so on, leaving us to feed on each other because there's nothing left. We did this to ourselves. And those things out there," he pointed to the door with his chin, "are the forerunners of a new race."

"You're talking in circles, man. Get a hold of yourself."

"They're the new Order," Eldridge continued. "The new kings who sit on top of the food chain all by themselves. And when they eventually break through that door," he faced Michelin, "they're going to prove my point."

The muscles in the back of Michelin's jaw began to work as anger started to seethe. "We will get out of here," he said, fighting for calm.

Eldridge feigned a smile. "Yeah," he said. "You keep holding onto your faith. You keep turning that blind eye of yours to the truth. But in the end, the truth will eventually rear its ugly head and send you along that road paved with good intentions."

"Yeah, well, you'll be right beside me."

Eldridge nodded. "I won't deny that." Again he stared ceilingward. "I won't deny that at all."

Michelin stood up, and deeply disgusted, drew space from Eldridge. He no longer wanted to communicate with the man because of one matter: Eldridge was stealing away his hope.

Michelin continued to turn a blind eye.

"Michelin was wrong," Sheena said. She'd overheard the exchange between Eriq and President Michelin, the painful accusations of leading everyone to slaughter.

Eriq traced his finger lovingly against her cheek. "Yes and no," he said. "I did lead us to an area where there was no way out."

"You were led here by those things out there. Everybody knows that. You tried your best, Eriq."

But he found no comfort in her words.

"I haven't given up," he said to her. "I haven't."

She fell into his embrace and could hear the strong heartbeat in his chest. "I believe in you."

Don't believe too hard, he thought.

Like John Eldridge, he was seeing things through the eyes of a realist, things as they truly were.

But unlike John Eldridge, he had not completely lost his faith.

Michelin wandered by Father Gardenzia, who corralled Lisa Millette into a comforting embrace, and proffered a look of repugnance. Why was this woman always out of control? They all shared the same tragedy and misfortune.

"Ms. Millette, you really need to get a hold of yourself," Michelin told her. "Your lack of control can be infectious. And nobody want's that, do we? It's always about maintaining hope, isn't it?"

She leaned forward with her face creased and flushed from pressing it too tightly against the priest's garments. "Why don't you just piss off," she told him.

This seemed to catch President Michelin off guard.

"My mother always said that you were the bottom of the barrel not only as a politician, but as a man. You build hope only to take it away, that's what you do. You make promises, and then you make excuses as to why you can't keep them."

"Where the Hell did this come from?' he asked. "I only said-"

"I have no interest in what you have to say," she said. She turned to Father Gardenzia. "Excuse me, Father, but I need a breath of fresh air."

"Understood, my dear."

When she left, Michelin felt awkward while standing next to the priest. "Don't tell me that you've lost your faith, Father. It seems to be in short supply around here."

"My faith is bulletproof," he answered. "It can be struck and struck repeatedly, but never with a killing blow."

How poignant, Michelin thought, wanting to roll his eyes. Then: "So tell me. These things. What are they? How did they come to be?" He cocked his head. "Why would God allow such an abomination to exist?" He didn't care about the priest's thoughts. It was simply in his nature to be malicious, even with a blunt stroke of a few insulting words masked to seem sincere.

Gardenzia shrugged. "Who knows who or what they are, or what their purpose is."

"So you don't have an answer?"

"Should I?"

"You're the one who's supposed to have a grasp on the realms regarding the living and the dead. Here we have both."

"I'm a priest, President Michelin. I provide faith and spiritual healing. I don't provide answers to questions I don't have answers to. Whatever these things are, for whatever reason the dead have risen, is not for me to say. Nor do I lay claim to know why God has, or has not, provided me an answer through divine intervention."

What good are you then? I need to hear that we can get out of here.

Father Gardenzia raised his hand as if to use it to brush by President Michelin. "Excuse me," he said. Then he walked away, leaving the president to stand alone.

In his effort to provide comfort, Farther Gardenzia walked throughout the chamber offering reassurances. Senator Newel was sitting in the corner cradling his head as tufts of hair bled through the cracks of his fingers, the man looking as if he was about to tear them out by the roots. Lisa Millette was walking in circles embracing herself, the woman repeating over and over about how badly she wanted to go home. The Detail guard stood sentinel by the door holding his firearm, and John Eldridge was off in his own little world as he stared ceilingward. Eriq stood before shelves lined with bottles of hydrochloric and muriatic acid and appeared studious, as if considering their potential uses. Sheena was in the center of the room appearing blissfully reposed.

The priest sidled up to her. "You look remarkably calm," he told her, gently smiling.

But she had a thousand-mile stare. "She remembered," she said.

"Who?"

"My mother." She turned to him. "She remembered me. She said . . . daughter."

Father Gardenzia recalled the moment. "I do remember," he said.

But she had questions. "Father?"

"Yes."

"Obviously you believe that our bodies are the seats for the human soul, correct?"

"I do."

"And when the body dies and the soul passes, the soul takes with it the conscious mind. Yes?"

"Yes."

"Then why did she remember me? Why didn't the conscious mind pass when her soul did?"

After hesitating, he honestly stated, "I don't know. But I do know that your mother saved us all. She remembered and reacted with undeniable love, sacrificing whatever was left of her so that you, and we, could go on. It's nice to know that such love is everywhere and encompasses everything. It doesn't matter if we understand it or not. All we have to know is that it exists."

"Do you think that she's finally passed?"

He nodded. "Trust me, child. Love always finds its way."

She sighed a measure of relief, then laid a hand gently upon his forearm. "Thank you," she said. "For promoting faith when faith was all but lost."

Gardenzia smiled.

He had done his job.

Even if it was rebuilding faith one soul at a time.

Eriq was standing before the rows of shelves containing liters of acids, pondering possible uses. The surrounding steel walls were one-inch thick, and though acids proved corrosive, he knew they weren't strong enough to eat their way through the walls. The thought of having no options to fall back on to save their lives sickened him.

"Got a plan in mind?" asked the Detail guard. The man stood by the door with his pistol double-gripped and held high.

"No. Not particularly."

"We ain't got all day, man."

I know that!

"And they're getting closer," the guard added. "I can hear them coming down the hall."

Eriq began to rake his fingers through his hair. There's a solution for everything. There's a solution for- And then something rammed against the door. Something powerful. Something large.

The guard took a step back, his firearm directed at the metal door.

. . . BANG . . .

The entire area shuddered, causing the bottles of acid on the shelves to rattle.

. . . BANG . . .

The first dent appeared, one the size of a grapefruit.

. . . BANG . . .

A second dent.