Trinity's Legacy

by P A Vasey

  I looked around for the others and saw that I was the only one still conscious. The soldiers, scientists, Hubert and Stillman, Stevens, all were lying motionless on the floor. I sensed the desperation washing over him and I reached out and grasped his hand.

  “Let me help Amy. It’s not too late.”

  “It is, Kate,” he said, his voice weak and breaking. “I drove Amy to this. Me. I could have brought her in to my family. Made her welcome. Made sacrifices. She … she never had a chance. The drugs, the prostitution. It was all too hard for me. I had … other priorities. And now… you reap what you sow.”

  He let go of my hand and I saw his shoulders shuddering, as he attempted to stave off the anguish he was feeling. He looked down at the limp form of his daughter, limbs at awkward angles, like a discarded doll. Eyes open, pupils enlarging slowly. Dying. Then he took a step backwards, and shook his head.

  “I cannot do this any more.”

  The blueness of his eyes was replaced by glaring green phosphorescence, and his countenance changed and stiffened as his mouth curled up in a rictus grin. I put my hands up to my mouth as I felt the alien mind burst through, its tendrils infiltrating into my head, accompanied by the fear and terror that my brain engaged in response. The Vu-Hak took control of my motor cortex, and I found myself dumped in the dentist chair again. Leather restraints rose up and encircled my arms and legs, tying knots so tight I felt my circulation would soon be compromised.

  “Please,” I managed, blinking away tears, “don’t let it end like this.”

  There was a flicker of recognition, a candle in the dark, and then it was gone. The voice of the Vu-Hak boomed inside my head.

  [He has gone. I am here. I am all there is.]

  The Vu-Hak stared at a point on the ceiling, and a ripple appeared like an inverted drop of water on a pond. The tiles bent upwards and wires snapped and pipes twisted and groaned and everything was sucked into an enlarging ragged hole. With a last look in my direction, the alien disappeared, flying through the breach in a soundless blur of motion. A few seconds later there was a whistling sound followed by a low rumble as contents of the hole started to fall back down. I struggled with my restraints as slabs of earth and concrete and suffocating dust started to pour from the ceiling. Debris was bouncing off the floor and ricocheting around the laboratory, narrowly missing the sleeping soldiers and the rest of the group.

  I coughed as the dust and grit started making its way into my lungs. I pulled at my restraints and to my surprise they had already loosened, falling away easily as the knots gave way. The metal buckles flopped to the ground so I jumped out of the chair and made for Amy who was still lying motionless. I thought I could feel a thready pulse in her neck and then I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Hubert, his face in a handkerchief and covered in dust, standing over me. He helped me take hold of Amy and carry her towards the door. Bigger pieces of earth and rocks continued to rebound and drop out of the still-expanding hole in the ceiling. Stillman had struggled to her feet and buried her face in her blouse, choking on the dust. Stevens appeared by her side and put an arm around her and they shuffled towards the door as well. The soldiers were slowly regaining consciousness and were attempting to gather their weapons on the other side of the room and staggering for the exit. A piece of concrete struck one of the soldiers full on his face and he went down awkwardly, blood pouring from his ruined nose. One of his colleagues tried to get to him but was also flattened by a huge gout of dust and debris as the ceiling split even further and metal pipes arrowed down, electrical sparks arcing around the gap from exposed wiring.

  Hubert saw it too and shook his head in evident frustration. “The whole roof is going to come down. We’ve got to get out now!”

  “But,” I began…

  “Those pipes are carrying oxygen!” he shouted over the crescendo. “If the sparks ignite …”

  “I get it!” I yelled back, and hobbled as fast as I could.

  We reached the door and Stillman produced a key card and swiped it without effect across the keypad. She looked up, despair in her eyes. We laid Amy gently against the wall and Hubert pulled out his card and pressed it firmly against the keypad with the same result. Then the lights went off and we were in semi-darkness, flashes of illumination coming from the sparks produced by the ceiling wires shorting out. Two soldiers bumped into us, and one pulled out a small powerful torch that he ignited and shone on the door lock. The other pulled out his sidearm and pointed it at the keypad, firing six quick-fire rounds into it. I pushed on the door and it creaked open, the hinge mechanism destroyed. We fell out into the corridor, carried Amy through, and pulled the door closed just before a muffled explosion and a wave of pressure pushed it against us. More soldiers and agents had arrived on our side, and they all put shoulders against the door holding it closed as dust blew under the jam and into the corridor.

  It held.

  I slumped against the wall as Stillman came over and knelt down beside me. “Are you OK?” she asked.

  I nodded. “You’re hurt, though.”

  She looked down to see that her own blouse was ripped, and crimson ooze was making its way down to the belt line. She went pale and decided to sit down as well. “I’m fine,” she said, and smiled tightly. “Just a scratch.”

  Hubert appeared looking worse for wear, his black suit greyed by dust and pockmarked by scratches and rips. He also had a cut on his head and a smear of blood was trickling past his ear. He squatted down on his haunches to check on Stillman and me, but then we all noticed Amy starting to move her head and twitching her neck. Her eyelids flickered and she gave a cough and proceeded to vomit up a large volume of yellow-green mucus and bile. I moved quickly and turned her head away but she pushed me away and hauled herself upright, flopping back against the wall. She winced and tentatively massaged her neck, which was angry and red with indentations where Adam’s fingers had been. Her eyes flickered open and she looked around in a daze.

  She caught my eye.

  “What happened?” she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  FBI Black Site, CA

  “Well this is seriously fucked up.”

  Stillman was shaking her head as a nurse completed bandaging her abdomen after it had been cleaned and sutured. We were in a four-bedded hospital-type room with no windows, the walls creamy white and bereft of adornments. She was lying on top of one of the beds, which were arranged two facing two. On a panel behind her bed hung taps, oxygen hoses, switches and connectors. There was no decoration at all save a few limp curtains that could separate each bed from the others should privacy be required. The room smelled of bleach and the floor was shiny grey-green linoleum that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a prison cell. There were unused stands for IV drips, and monitors and dispensers for rubber gloves, hand sanitiser and soap.

  The room was as devoid of beauty as I was of hope.

  Amy occupied the bed opposite and was under the blankets, fast asleep, oxygen being fed via nasal prongs. She was hooked up to a monitor that was producing regular benign-sounding bleeps and pings. I was perched on an uncomfortable plastic-backed chair at the foot of Amy’s bed, chewing another nail down to the quick. Sitting beside Stillman was a concerned-looking Hubert, patched up and wearing a new unblemished black suit. He glanced at his watch then stared at me with a concerned look on his face.

  “Where’s Adam gone?”

  I didn’t answer. I was going through the events of the last few hours, and trying to sift through the emotions and thoughts that had percolated through my mind as Adam and the Vu-Hak had fought for control.

  “Kate?” said Stillman, a tremor in her voice. “Has Adam gone to the crater?”

  I took a deep, shuddering breath. “It’s not Adam in there anymore, it’s the Vu-Hak. It’s taken over. I don’t know if Adam will be able to come back. I don’t know if he wants to.”

  “Why would you say that?” said Stillman. “We need him, don’t we?” She look
ed at Hubert, eyes pleading, wet. “He’s the key!”

  I told them what I knew, what I’d learnt about Amy’s betrayal and the murder of Cora Benedict. The guilt that Adam was feeling and the hopelessness I sensed as he finally let the Vu-Hak take control.

  “I think learning about Amy has pushed him over the edge,” I said morosely. “I got the feeling he’s just given up.”

  “So without him, that alien is loose and unchecked.” Stillman looked across the room at Amy. “It was a fucking mistake bringing her. What were we thinking?”

  “We didn’t know the truth,” I said. “It was the right play, given what we thought we knew.”

  Stillman was looking angrily now at Amy, tears welling up in her eyes. I could see that she was on the verge of losing it and I started to get up but at that moment Amy stirred and reached up to pull her nasal prongs out. She stretched over to her bedside table and with tremulous hands managed to bring a glass of water to her lips. She looked around and blinked a few times while taking a couple of sizeable mouthfuls before realising that we were watching her.

  “What?” she said.

  I was still struck by the resemblance to Adam. Tall and willowy, with exquisite bone structure. It’s no wonder she went down a treat in the underbelly of Vegas.

  Stillman glared. “Have you any idea what you’ve done?”

  Amy tried to return the stare, but averted her eyes after a few seconds. She took another drink and her shoulders started to move and the tears came.

  “This is your fault,” Stillman said.

  Amy brushed a tear away from her cheek with the heel of her hand, “What do you mean?”

  “You’re an accessory to murder,” said Stillman. “And not only that, because of you the whole fucking human race may be wiped out.”

  “Wait, Colleen,” I began. “That’s a stretch… she wasn’t responsible for the wormhole.”

  Before I could continue, Stillman launched herself across the room and slapped Amy hard, the sound loud and brutal. The glass smashed into the wall, spilling water everywhere and spraying fragments onto the sheets. Stillman went to hit her again but was restrained by Hubert who grabbed her by the arms and dragged her away screaming, livid and inconsolable. Amy scrabbled back against the bed rest, pulling the sheets up around her and shaking her head from side to side and screaming obscenities. Hubert was shouting in Stillman’s ear as she furiously tried to break free from his grip and launch another attack on Amy. The door crashed open and three FBI agents entered and helped Hubert manoeuvre Stillman to the other side of the room. The agents then flanked Amy’s bed and stood there like sentries. Amy sobbed into her sheets and started rocking to and fro as Hubert sat down next to Stillman and brushed a hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. He gently lifted her chin upwards with a finger and looked into her eyes. It was a tender moment, and made me understand their relationship a bit better.

  I took a deep breath and walked over to Amy who was rocking metronomically in her bed. Hubert and Stillman just stared at me as I perched on the edge and put my hand on her arm. She looked at me, her eyes wide and puffy, hair smeared over her face, her cheek reddening from Stillman’s blow. I brushed her hair back and offered her a tissue from my pocket. She took it and I thought I detected a twitch of thanks from the corner of her mouth.

  “It’s not your fault Amy,” I murmured.

  She blinked up at me in surprise, and I heard Hubert starting to protest.

  “It’s not.” I repeated firmly, giving them both a hard look. “Think about it. Think what we know. She’s just a kid. Her mom died, her father was no longer a part of her life. She got into a bad situation. Drugs and all… that hardly makes it her fault.”

  “She brought those killers to Cora’s home. She did nothing to stop it..,” Stillman objected.

  “She was strung out, she was desperate,” I pointed out. “She had no idea what was going on. What could she have done?”

  To my surprise, Hubert nodded. “Alright,” he said rising from the bed. “So we need to regroup. Figure out our next move.”

  I swallowed hard. “There’s something I need to tell you. Adam’s been allowing me to eavesdrop on his thoughts and conversations with the Vu-Hak. I wondered why, but now it all makes sense. He was trying to warn me.”

  “About what?” asked Hubert, eyes narrowing.

  “About how things will go down when they arrive.”

  “He told you as much?”

  “He gave me access to their conversations. It would appear that when the Vu-Hak come through the wormhole they’re going to remotely launch every nuclear weapon on the planet. Eradicate all human life from the planet.”

  “Won’t that destroy them too?” asked Stillman, a horrified look on her face.

  I shook my head. “I can’t imagine they’d do it if there was any risk to themselves. I guess that as they don’t have physical form, there’s nothing to destroy.”

  “But they’ll be coming as physical beings, won’t they?” said Hubert. “They’re needing to come through the wormhole in those machine bodies.”

  “Yes!” said Stillman, excitedly. “Adam was susceptible to EMP and nuclear weapons produce EMP as a by-product. Massively so!”

  “I think they’ll have adapted or developed a defence against it.” I said. “Remember Adam’s comment about ‘showing your hand too early’? I’m pretty sure that was a big hint. In any case, that’ll be it for humanity. There are fourteen thousand, nine hundred and twenty nuclear weapons capable of immediate launch on this planet. Oh, and let’s not forget about maybe a couple of dozen lower yield weapons in North Korea. But all said and done, enough to vaporise the planet many times over.”

  Hubert and Stillman were staring at me so I continued. “That Vu-Hak didn’t care that I’d found out the plan. Not only didn’t it care, it teased me with images of nuclear fireballs burning and destroying everything in their path. I saw radiation fallout - fiery snowflakes from hell - then the nuclear winter obliterating the sun’s rays for years. Permanent darkness followed by the extinction of every species on the planet. To them, we’re just an organic life-form infesting this planet, a planet which they’re going to destroy and use as raw material to construct one of those spheres around our sun.”

  Hubert’s features darkened, and he looked at his watch. “It’s eleven thirty. We’ve still got time to stop him. We just need to figure out how.”

  “What if everyone disarms all the weapons? Make them useless?” said Stillman, her gaze shifting to and fro between us.

  Hubert stood up and brushed the creases out of his suit. “There’s no time. The rest of the world doesn’t even know the Vu-Hak is here. There’d be widespread disbelief, committees would be formed, UN special sessions would be convened, you name it. Not gonna happen. No, Adam is still the key, if we can get to him. He controlled the Vu-Hak, and then gave up that control voluntarily. We need to get him back on our side.”

  “But how?” I said. “He’s given up.”

  Hubert wagged a finger at me. “No. He’s still got you. You might be able to get through to him. You might be our only chance.”

  Stillman eased her feet off the bed, and winced a little. She looked at me and smiled. The terror seemed to have gone from her eyes. “He’s right. Like it or not, this is all on you now. No pressure.”

  I put my head in my hands and ran my fingers through my hair. Hubert came and sat down next to me. His grey hair was neatly combed and there were emerging crow’s feet around his eyes, which were a warm, dark almond. “I don’t know if I can,” I said softly.

  “You can. You must. You’re stronger than you think. And you won’t be alone.”

  I gave a watery smile, but then I looked over at Amy, who was still rocking backwards and forwards, her eyes a blackened mess from smeared mascara. I remembered the despair radiating out of Adam.

  “What if Adam doesn’t think humanity is worth saving?”

  Hubert said nothing in reply, but that
was enough.

  There was a knock on the door, and an agent appeared. He motioned to Hubert, who patted me on the knee and got up to join him. They conferred for a couple of seconds, and then the agent left. Hubert gathered himself, and turned to face us.

  “There’s a video feed coming in from the crater. General Baker says that everything’s in position, locked down tight. Wants to talk strategy.”

  I held my tongue. I knew the military strategy already. More of the same, only bigger guns.

  “Just down the corridor,” said Hubert. “Situation room.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Ground Zero, Nevada Test Site

  Hubert led the way into a semi-darkened room lit by the glow coming from a bank of LCD monitors. There were a number of haphazardly arranged couches and a low centre table upon which sat a big multidirectional microphone looking like a black tarantula. Two technicians were huddled in one corner behind a desk containing banks of receivers and audio devices.

  Stillman and I sat side-by-side on one of the couches at the back and Hubert took a seat by the table where he could talk into the microphone. There was a low crackle coming from hidden loudspeakers in the ceiling, and the room smelled of old cigarette smoke. On the screens were a variety of angles of the crater and what I guessed was the observation tower I’d seen being built yesterday on the uppermost level of the canopy. I could see the horizon, which from this elevated position was a long way away. The sky was a picture perfect blue behind the distant mountains, with just a hint of darkening as the afternoon wore on. The sun, a benign yellow ball, hung low in the sky, as the earth raced and spun towards another evening. The phrase ‘the calm before the storm’ drifted into my consciousness, and I wondered whether I was being prescient, or just pessimistic.

  Hubert waved at the technicians, and another screen flicked to a view of Baker himself on the canopy, scanning the horizon through binoculars. He must have heard the connection activate, because he glanced in our direction and grabbed a headset, keying in the COM channel. “Director Hubert,” his voice crackled. “Welcome to Ground Zero.”