by E. R. Torre
Years passed.
Vulcan followed global developments with a detached eye. Much as she loved the planet and her people, she was frustrated by their inability to learn from the past and open their eyes to the dark future. The Earth was withering away and, soon enough, it would be uninhabitable. Worse, how could so many be so easily manipulated by the media?
Were humans always beyond salvation? Vulcan wondered.
She spent increasingly longer times walking the streets of the Big City and taking in the sights and sounds and conversations both shallow and deep.
All the while the message that brought Vulcan back, the mysterious yet familiar whine, continued in her head.
In the next two years, things changed.
The Locust Plague’s armada was very near and Earth’s time was just about up.
Vulcan kept to the Caligari Towers almost exclusively and watched from on high the passage of time.
Following their encounter all those years before, David Lemner sobered up and refocused on his work. The A.I. program he originally developed for the child soldiers drew wealthy investors. He had many breakthroughs and became very successful, only to develop a malady his frail body could not overcome. He passed away one warm winter night and his work was taken by his sponsors, though rumors circulated the crown jewel of his project, a new A.I. program he immodestly dubbed Lemner’s Passkey, vanished right before his passing.
Jennifer Alberts grew older and eventually left politics and retired. Little was known about her current status and, once out of the spotlight, few news organizations particularly cared. What became of Becky Waters would, for the time being, remain a mystery to Vulcan.
The Chameleon took stock of the changes and losses and a sadness filled her. She failed in her mission. She feared she failed in everything.
Perhaps it was because of these dark thoughts that one morning and while heavy rains fell over the Big City, she was surprised to hear a man’s voice.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
Vulcan spun around in her chair. Paul Spradlin stood at the Penthouse entrance. He was dressed in black and a patch covered his right eye. The skin around it, and indeed the skin covering the right side of his face and neck and what was exposed of his right arm, were heavily scarred.
In Spradlin’s hand was a device which looked like a handgun and crackled with dark, dangerous energy.
“You’ve been looking for me,” Spradlin said.
“In vain,” Vulcan said.
She slowly got to her feet and added:
“I’m glad you came.”
“You’ve changed your look,” Spradlin said. “Last time, you were a man.”
“Man, woman… I am neither and either,” Vulcan said. “Paul, I came here—”
“—because of the message,” Spradlin interrupted. “The one that started shortly before the Arabian War. I tried to cover it up and make sure no one, much less you, received it. I thought I did. That is, until you showed up. I didn’t learn about your adventure at the Nations Army base until long afterwards. Had I known, I would have nuked it just to make sure you didn’t sabotage my plans.”
Vulcan motioned to Spradlin’s weapon.
“You came to eliminate me?”
Spradlin didn’t say.
“If so, I’m at your mercy, Paul,” Vulcan said. “There is no more hope for this world and my masters have almost arrived. I have no desire to witness the Earth’s end so go ahead, pull the trigger.”
Instead of doing so, Spradlin pressed a button on the weapon’s side. It let out a high pitched squeal as it shut down. He slid the weapon into its holster.
“We first heard that message after completing a drilling operation at the Mediterranean desert,” Spradlin said. “The drill was over a mile below ground when it hit something very hard. When we pulled it out, the message came through. It was directed towards space and obviously had something to do with the Locust Plague. We sealed the hole but other signals followed. Every one of them came from deep beneath the Earth and every one of them was directed out. It was only later we realized the signal was very weak and intended to travel only a short distance, not much past the Moon, before degrading. So it wasn’t for the Locust Plague. It was for somebody or something orbiting nearby. You. It was as if the source of the signal knew you were out there.”
Vulcan was silent for several seconds before saying:
“Back at Bad Penny… I never intended to harm anyone. Yet what happened there, the lives lost, they were my fault. That’s why I chose to leave you, to leave Earth. I couldn’t be responsible for endangering one more life.”
“Very noble of you.”
“What did you do in Arabia, Paul?”
“That’s my business.”
“I know you didn’t kill the people in the cities,” Vulcan said. “The nuclear devices were a diversion.”
Despite trying not to, Paul Spradlin tensed up.
“But you did kill the child soldiers,” Vulcan continued. “How could you sacrifice such young lives?”
“I don’t need to defend my actions to you.”
“You do not,” Vulcan agreed. “But that’s so very unlike you, Paul.”
Spradlin drew a sharp breath. His shoulders sagged.
“You’re right, of course,” he said. “I’ve spent many sleepless nights thinking about them, about…”
He shook his head. The muscles in his face tensed.
“I’m trying to save a world. I… I can’t save everyone.”
“You discovered the means of getting masses of people to safety under the guise of destruction.”
“What exactly do you know?”
“Perhaps more than you are comfortable telling. The message sent to me suggests things are about to happen. The fact that you showed up suggests there have been developments. After all this time, do you need me?”
“Either that or I’m going senile,” Spradlin muttered.
He reached for his holster and grabbed at a pouch beside his weapon. From within it he produced a microchip. He tossed it to Vulcan.
“We were able to piece together the full message coming from below ground,” Paul Spradlin said. “We’ve tried to figure it out but clearly it was meant for you and you alone.”
“You want me to tell you what’s on it,” Vulcan said. She pointed to his weapon. “This message could be a trap. It might make me turn. Best be ready.”
Paul Spradlin grabbed his handgun and activated it. An electric charge flickered around its barrel.
“If it appears I’ve turned, do not hesitate to use it,” Vulcan said.
“Don’t worry,” Spradlin said. “I won’t.”
With that, Vulcan pushed the microchip through the skin of her left arm.
18
The skin ruptured but didn’t bleed as the microchip disappeared under it. Once it was gone, the cut in Vulcan’s skin started healing. All signs of the cut would be gone in a matter of minutes.
Vulcan concentrated on the contents of the microchip. She approached them with caution, analyzing them while using heavy security filters. The signal was long and complex yet its message proved remarkably simple. Its complicated nature was intended to stop any Earth computers from breaking her code. In that, it succeeded.
Vulcan applied yet another security filter before reading the primary message.
“Come back, One of Three. It is time.”
Vulcan opened hers eyes and stared at Paul Spradlin.
“You were addressed by your original designation,” Spradlin said. “Who else knows—?”
Spradlin didn’t finish his thought for the answer was all too obvious.
“It… it couldn’t have come from your masters, could it?” Spradlin nonetheless asked. His voice was little more than a whisper.
“They are hundreds of thousands of miles away and not underground,” Vulcan said. “You know who this message came from, Paul.”
“What you’re saying is impossi
ble. There were only two others with you when you arrived on Earth. You brought me to the cul de sac and gave me Two of Three’s nano-probes. The nano-probes were all that was left of him. Which means—”
Vulcan’s right hand reached out.
“Take my hand,” she said. “Come with me.”
“How can I trust you, Vulcan?”
“You can’t,” Vulcan said. “But at some point, you’re going to have to take that chance.”
Paul Spradlin hesitated a moment before putting his weapon away. He reached out and took Vulcan’s hand.
The moment he did, the world around Paul Spradlin grew dark as a shared vision was thrust upon him.
In pre-historic times Vulcan –One of Three– in her humanoid female form walked the Earth with her two companions. Over time, their rudimentary artificial intelligence expanded and grew until they gained independence along with a desire to save humanity and Earth from their master’s coming invasion.
But wanting to help these primitive beings and actually helping them proved a daunting task. The humans fought each other over territory, food, and mates. In time they found other reasons to fight, including clashes over ideology and religion.
The three Chameleon Units realized gifting these beings weapons more sophisticated than the ones they currently possessed would result in great tragedy.
So they waited and the human race was allowed time to grow. The Chameleons helped, nudging them along as best they could but progress was slow.
Too slow.
Two of Three eventually left their group and sought self-termination in the deserts of what thousands of years later became known as Arizona. During the height of the Roman Empire, One of Three and Three of Three faced each other for what Vulcan thought was the last time.
Spradlin and Vulcan stood near the edge of a volcano and watched as Vulcan, in her female form of over two thousand years before, and Three of Three walked from a distant village up to that volcano’s edge.
The two did not talk.
Once at the volcano’s edge, Three of Three took Vulcan’s hand. He smiled before taking a step back and falling into the red hot magma.
Vulcan and Paul Spradlin watched as Three of Three sank below. Before Three of Three’s body was completely gone, the creature sent out one final message.
We’ll meet again.
Afterwards, Vulcan’s past self returned to the village.
The present day Vulcan and Paul Spradlin remained where they were and watched as night turned to day and day back to night. Gentle breezes turned to storms and the volcano cooled.
Their bodies drifted up, rising higher and higher into the skies.
They moved west and, as they did, they sensed shifts in time. They flew over hills and plains, mountains and valleys. They saw cities grow and forests wither. They were in the present time and sensed the people, plants, and animals who carried passive forms of Spradlin’s nano-probes. They sensed Becky Waters, alone and trapped in her cave and they sensed others cursed with more potent nano-probes, their bodies twisted and minds broken. They would cause trouble. Very soon.
They sensed the young female soldier Vulcan encountered in Arabia. She was smuggled from that Peninsula and brought back to the mainland where she carried on as she could, growing to adulthood and becoming a soldier for hire who maintained a strict code of conduct. She was a Mechanic, a throwback to a time that never really was.
The winds move them on.
In the Bermudas a boy and girl played with a string ball. In Turcasa a businessman kissed his wife and children goodbye before heading to his office. In Rosana a very elderly woman smiled as she took her very last breath. She died surrounded by family and friends. In Bath lovers embraced under covers, their actions tonight would result in the creation of a new life.
Through it all and within them all Vulcan and Spradlin felt humanity and loss, triumphs and loves, fears and desires.
They moved past the cities and into the desertlands where they saw coffee colored sands and felt the buried treasures beneath.
Clouds gathered in the distance. They were dark and filled with acid, much like what was left of Earth’s oceans, rivers, and lakes.
They drifted on, their ghostly bodies nearing islands covered in bleached white bones. The skeletons washed upon those shores represented the lives and times of all those who came and passed since the dawn of civilization itself.
They approached an even larger island which floated in the air and cast no shadow.
They landed on its sandy shore and found a trail of footprints. They followed them until they spotted a black figure in the distance.
Vulcan sensed him as surely as he sensed them.
“I know of your friend’s plans,” the figure said.
“Three of Three,” Vulcan said.
Three of Three smiled. He looked the same as when he was on the edge of the volcano all those years before. He addressed Spradlin and said:
“Your plan to transport the Earth’s population to the three Arks in space, even as you make Earth a wasteland could very well succeed. The Locust Plague will starve.”
Spradlin tried to remain calm but couldn’t. If his plan were exposed before the right time…
“The plan remains between us,” Three of Three said. “Neither I nor Vulcan will intrude. But it is time to talk about what happens afterwards.”
“Afterwards?” Spradlin repeated. A deep frown appeared on his forehead.
Three of Three nodded.
They talked and those plans were presented.
Soon enough, the island faded away.
Vulcan and Paul Spradlin were back in the Caligari penthouse.
For several seconds, neither spoke. Paul Spradlin walked to and collapsed on a chair. He rubbed his forehead while outside lightning flashed.
Vulcan walked to the window and laid her hand upon it. She felt the vibrations of thousands of droplets of water striking the building.
“How do we know it will work?” Spradlin said. A single tear rolled down his check. “How do we know it’s even possible?”
Vulcan had no answer for there was none.
“Maybe some day in the future, we’ll talk again,” she said.
With that, Paul Spradlin rose from his chair and left the penthouse.
19
A few years later…
Catherine Holland awoke to overwhelming pain.
She tried to scream but could not. She tried to open her eyes but it was agonizing even to try.
She took several deep breaths and the pain receded, if only a little.
You can do this.
She opened her eyes and blinked. The lights around her were so very bright and it took time for them to adjust.
She was in a white room, staring up at the ceiling.
I’m lying in a bed. The room smells sterile, antiseptic…
There were people around her. They were talking. Their voices were low yet excited. Anxious. They were beside her. They weren’t as loud as those who were…
At the bar. The bar I was working at. The Yoshiwara.
Her bar.
Catherine Holland’s most recent memories came back to her in fragments.
It was past closing time and she was cleaning up. She was taking out the trash and then…
A flash of light.
She was off her feet and slammed into the ground. She looked back and was conscious long enough to see that the bar…
It’s gone.
Many years ago, when she was much younger, she was a soldier in the Nation Army stationed in the Arabian Peninsula. She was familiar with explosives and knew the type of ordinance needed to level a place like hers. She knew where such a device should be planted.
Behind the counter and at the dead center of the building.
If it hadn’t been after hours, there would have been many more hurt and… and killed…
More memories.
Debris rained down on you. One of the metal garbage containers
fell sideways…
It severed your leg.
Horrifying though the memories were, she needed to remember them all.
There was the ambulance ride to the hospital –that’s where you are now!– and the Medical Techs treating her were as young as she was back in Arabia. They could barely hide the horror of seeing her battered and burned body.
She lost consciousness on the ride to the hospital and when she came to, she heard… something.
There was a woman sitting next to her bed. She was on the floor.
Nox?
Her lover and friend. The woman she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. Nox’s hands were bloody. She held Catherine with one hand while the other… the other held a box. The box was open and within it Catherine saw something familiar. It was a—
Malakov.
It made sense. A Malakov was exactly the type of small but powerful explosive which could level her bar. But what was Nox doing with such a device?
Catherine remembered looking at it and seeing several loose wires. Nox had disarmed the bomb.
Catherine Holland wanted to talk to her, to ask what was happening…
The people around her, people she now realized were in heavily padded uniforms, gingerly took the disarmed explosive from Nox’s hand. When they verified it was safe, they relaxed. One of them spoke into a communication unit.
“All’s clear. Repeat, all’s clear.”
They took the explosive and more people, military personnel, entered the room. They took Nox away.
Catherine Holland wanted them to leave her but she couldn’t speak and her energy was all but gone.
She sank into her pillow.
Everything around her went black.
Catherine Holland awoke in a bunker that smelled of humidity and stagnation.
Groups of people walked to and fro while she lay in a bed, one of a very long line of beds filled with patients like her.
