The instance that his eyes closed, Dexter felt a bright blue light throbbing through his core. He couldn’t exactly see it except at the edges of the closed-eye darkness, but he could feel the sense that it was moving through the dimensions that orbited the universe. Leaf was transcendent now, moving through the elements, calling up the power of his Eternity to the vessel of his death.
An instant sonar pitch echoed through the air around him, high like eagle cries low like bass tones. Dexter’s eyes popped open. The walls of the Mustang were supercharged with Leaf’s fire and Derek’s pulses. The walls were see-through now, clear and a glittering metallic, moving like a lava lamp as if they’d been crystallized and made into plasma at the same time.
Dexter felt like he was in orbit and sitting still all at once. He coughed as something passed through him. That star-light pushed up the dirt, unearthing more of the dead. Their strength was renewed and they started standing up. Their eyes were clear like prisms and reflected the Northern lights, bathing the earth with all the colors of the spectrum.
Dexter looked up. He felt something moving on the Mustang’s roof. He eased himself out, transfixed.
There stood Jane—or rather, the Jane holographic vessel he’d come to associate with the love of his youth. Only now she was different. The change was radiant. Her skin had taken on the color of the Hope Diamond with the Galaxies shining through it. There were small flashes on every inch of exposed skin that glowed and rippled with the faint colors of all the precious gemstones.
The power of this light was centered in the direct middle of her forehead. This formed a small circle almost like a dot and pulsated the intense color of a pure amethyst. This light seemed to radiate some kind of electromagnetism. It drew the dead up from the dust. They were transformed from strange molded figures of rage and vengeance, collecting Jane’s aura on their own, growing stronger and almost alive.
Dexter felt his heart leap to his throat. Jane’s hand stretched out toward him and beckoned him.
He climbed up on top of the Mustang, amazed that its enhanced plasma-state frame would still hold his weight.
Jane took his hand in hers and made a fist. He felt a jolt of electricity pass through him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. It didn’t kill him but in this moment he felt like he’d shattered the Veil between living humans and those who had passed. His eyes were open. He could see the dimensions cycling each other. The earth was no more than a drop of water, intricate in all its moving pieces, but micro-sized in comparison to everything else. The universes and beyond cycled each other like particles of water in the Pacific. It was so vast, he felt as if he could have drowned in it. Yet she was his air and she was his life. He was revived even as he was dying by the power of all things.
As they stood there, revived, the two looked out in the direction they’d come. They heard that base tone drop again. Dexter knew what the sounds were now. They were the sounds of energy compressed by the many revolving mechanisms that were the immeasurable Cosmos. The music of the heavens.
Out of that sound, the people linked by the collective consciousness were coming together. The Geryon’s warning had knocked a hole in the She-Hitler’s defenses. The sky opened in small pockets of contained transversals, like wormholes that were controllable. They were like elevators between time and space, created by a program introduced into the Cosmos’s digital code itself. More than the elements, these bright spots revolved at ever increasing speed. People who were dead, whole armies’ worth of elite soldiers of fortune and innocents and drug/weapons dealers and law enforcement that Leona had slaughtered were walking through the sky, stumbling out onto the rustled ground.
There was a mushroom cloud of electrical fields and then Kingsley marched through. His eyes blazed like the sun seven times reheated. He was furious and that fury reflected on the elements, sending dust devils rising up like waterspouts, shooting superheated rocks and shrapnel, fire and lightning fields. He carried Kiara, limp and dazed on his shoulders.
Behind him came the armies. The rest of the slaughtered, along with Taylor Riveaulx, Reilly, Agent Timlin, Lindsey, Ivy, Harrison, Joseph, the Cuban officials, Shreveport’s Guard, the pirates that Leona had slaughtered.
Vincent stood up and smiled, fingering the handle of one of his guns. He also was altered clothed in white light.
“I don’t understand. I thought…We all have our parts to play and…I thought that Andromeda was behind it all. For revenge against Leona….” Dexter realized he was thinking aloud only when he felt Jane’s hand tighten its grip around his own.
“I am Andromeda.” She smiled. For a moment, Dexter felt sheer panic. Then, he looked into her eyes.
“I’m the other side of the same coin, Dex. It’s time to take back the Earth.” Jane nodded and raised their clasped hands high above their head. Now Dexter understood in full.
This was a debriefing.
*****
Chapter 10
Thunder rolled and smoke shot up. The air was intensely rarified, like virgin snow suspended in the airways. Out of the silence, Jane had gathered the full attention of the throng.
“The Andromeda Act was written to spare the civilian people from the wrath of tyrants and their collaborators who want to exploit them. I gave my life to see this human act come to the light and sanctify human life. My whole life had been caught up in the business of preserving life and in healing. I won’t die until I see this life’s pursuit rewarded. That’s why I was able to use the Andromeda serum to return from the various dimensions when I died.” Jane drew in a deep breath and took a step in front of Dexter, holding a protective hand out to shield him.
“There’ve been a lot of war councils. A lot of talk between us. It’s time for us to act. I called you together by the power of the collective consciousness to explain in the easiest terms I can the science that I was able to optimize, with no education, even in death, to continue my fight.” Jane paused to see if they were all tracking with her before she explained.
“Andromeda serum is more than just a magic potion that provides a nuclear charge and electrifies the human genome. Actually, it causes the transposons, or ‘jumping genes’ in human strands of DNA to act as little moving crews and cameras for a massive amount of recycling photon energy. It does this to copy and sew the fabric of the human design into other dimensions. Our universe is an extremely complex digital/ chemical algorithm. Almost like a living program and yet not a cyborg. The universe itself stores and downloads information. We are alive in that we are stored in this information and the code that makes us living organisms and sentient beings will release us via physiochemical processes into different data compartments, or dimensions, of the Universe’s network.
“Our actions will now redefine the balance that is existence and everything, everywhere, ever. Captain Matheson’s genetic anomaly has given him the ability to act as a toggle switch between the sources of power flow from one dimension to the next. When he struck me with his earthquake just now, I was snapped back into the true and stable force of the Andromeda. I’m ready to lead you out to meet her like we discussed.” Jane’s amethyst light was gathering in intensity.
“Our enemy is moving to open the doors of this interdimensional interface wide open. They have collaborated to use their unnatural manipulations of all the laws of physics, chemicals and astral structure to infect the Universe itself with a virus. A virus that will slowly corrupt or delete all the data that the Universe stores. Which means that we will be thrust into an eternity of ending. It’s not just death or the end of continuation in one dimension that we now face. It’s not just the end of existence. It isn’t even becoming something else entirely.
“What we face is a never ending maze, a spider’s web, a continuous looping anti-program of violence and chaos. Life will not be. Neither will death. It will be something much worse. An eternity of despotism. By definition, an eternity in Hell.” Jane paused, waiting for some course of response. There was only sil
ence. Silence because they understood. Their tragedy wasn’t in destruction. It was going on living under the whip of a would-be dictator.
“Each one of our minds will now act as a network of collective knowledge. That’s the power I’ve been able to extract from my former body, from whatever was left of my life, contingent upon the serum She-Hitler herself first injected me with. Now we will be linked in a strategy for battle that cannot be confused or sabotaged because it’s adaptable. That is why you are here and not dispersed to all the places that you meant to be otherwise.
“Now I will send you out, fully aware and newly conscious of this power. Go, before it’s too late. The only way we will succeed in our strategy is if we stand together and stand up to the tyrants.” Jane raised her hands and snapped her fingers. Dexter gasped, seeing those holes opening in the atmosphere again. He was dropped down, just like riding an elevator, but at a missile’s speed.
Dexter gasped. His ears were ringing and he was a bit dizzy. He was standing steadily on his own feet. Jane was still standing next to him, clutching his hand. Vincent stood panting, trying to clear his throat and steady himself against a trashcan to keep from falling down.
They were standing on the mall in Washington, D.C., at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.
*****
Chapter 11
“What are we doing here?”
Dexter didn’t like questioning Jane. Ever since the beginning of this adventure, she’d been blazing the trail. Still, the initial plan was to take She-Hitler on at the Dark Altar that Kingsley was talking about, wasn’t it? If they were able to step through the transversals of time, then why didn’t they just skip to the end of the page and finish this?
Jane turned to face Dexter, a smile plastering her features. It was strange, shooting sparks from the edges of her mouth like she was breathing ice. She nodded.
“Yes, Dexter. All roads lead to the Altar. You know that there’s still an empire to crumble, if we’ve got any kind of chance. The snake’s venom is in his head. Leona’s power is coming from another source. When my consciousness was linked with the collective, I could feel him. Drawing me out to fight.” Jane fell silent and turned toward the steps.
Dexter and Vincent exchanged a glance. Vincent smiled and his face turned red. His head swiveled almost mechanically and he clutched his temples, drawing in a deep breath.
“I don’t suppose Jane ever explained her background to you, Dexter. It’s time to start telling you now, since it looks like you’ve chosen to be part of my family.” Vincent paused. He studied Dexter carefully, gauging whether he was ready or not.
“Yeah. I’ve gathered a little bit of it from the things she knew. She told me you were an FBI agent. The fact that she had the skills and the guts to stand up to She-Hitler…You taught her your trade.” Dexter swallowed. He was speaking from guess work, mostly.
Vincent nodded.
“Jane’s mother died when she was a little girl. My job… We had to move a lot. She practically helped me raise her little brother. The danger finally caught up with us when she got to be a teenager.
“When I moved to Shreveport, I was supposed to be helping an ex-CIA agent, that Timlin guy, solve a private case he was working. It was the case of Leaf Manson’s father, that Cyrus Manson that attacked you back in New Orleans.” Vincent stopped looking at the edge of the stairs. His eyes welled up with tears, watching his daughter and the awkward way she was walking now.
“Dexter followed his gaze, feeling the breath sucked out of him. Jane’s shoulders were illuminated as the light emanating from her crossed with the sunlight. The markings from her fatal flogging ignited, as if she was branded with eternal fire.
“When we started digging into Manson’s mysterious ending, we crossed swords for the first time with the She-Hitler. Dexter, you’ve never fully known my daughter. When she worked the CCU at Caddo Vitality, she didn’t even fully know herself.” Vincent let out a shaking breath. Dexter’s eyes were forced away from Jane.
“What do you mean?”
“She was born with all the right genes to survive Leona’s tests, ironically. See, Dexter, she inherited a gene anomaly from me. I don’t know how to explain it any other way than this, but I have extremely heightened senses. They almost work like shark sonar or echolocation. I carried it until I died of battle wounds back in 2011. Then, Leona used that anomaly in my brain against me to lock me into her collective consciousness. It’s an extremely complex photoacoustic hologram she downloaded and isolated to a digital simulation in her teacher’s dimension. Really, I know that doesn’t make sense, but to simplify it a little bit: She-Hitler has her own Purgatory. I went there when I died. Jane went there the night She-Hitler overran Shreveport and injected her with the collective consciousness serum.”
Vincent’s voice grew low. “So, that’s how…that’s how she survived the serum thing that Leona did to her. What she’s been doing. Part of her was already imprisoned in that interdimensional trap thing anyway.” Dexter felt his legs going weak.
“I was able to guide her through it until I was jarred out of the Purgatory. I woke up in my body, which was still somehow well preserved and in one of Leona’s labs. The doctor that was doing tests on Jane had me and Timlin in a restricted area. Kingsley was able to recover us using several of his doubles. I need you to work closely with me, Dexter. I have the skill set and the knowledge to push Jane through to victory. I will need a decoy to mislead them. Do you understand what I’m asking of you, son?” Vincent drew a shaky breath.
“Anything for Jane.” Dexter felt like a landslide had fallen off on his shoulders. How in heaven had such terrible things befallen Jane and her family? How could such good people deserve something so horrible?
Suddenly a vicious cry shot through the silence. “You pig!” Jane’s power shook the ground. The men took off running, scrambling to a halt when they saw who she was talking too.
“Hello, Frankenstein.” Doctor Lorraine stood at the foot of Abraham Lincoln’s stone likeness. Only now the lab coat was gone. It had been replaced by the clothes of a Catholic priest. He held an antique claymore in his hands. There was something not right about it. It didn’t look like anything from a historical period of human history, and yet it was obviously extremely old. There was also writing across its blade in a unique language’s script that looked similar to Sanskrit. It seemed to be emanating gaseous vapors as well. Jane’s eyes were crossing and she clutched at her throat.
“It’s admirable how you scramble for the lives and sense of reality of your people. I see no other purpose that could be tacked to the appendage that was your wretched life.” The Doctor smiled and swung the sword in a tight arc, swinging it over Jane’s head. She didn’t flinch or even make a sound. The gaseous vapor that was sizzling from the blade had sedated her.
“Was this your daughter, Vincent Lewis? Don’t look alarmed. I know all of you who walked into my Purgatory system. Leona was a fool to think she could ever own it for herself. Like Hitler and Stalin and all the tyrants before her, Leona Kelley, or Caroline Riveaulx, or whatever she wants to call herself fell painfully in love with—and paid the ultimate price for—her own legend.” The Doctor swung the sword to a stand-still under Jane’s throat.
The electrical pulses it put out stood her in place. Her own intense charges must have crossed. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she was an X-Ray before them, trashing in place, clutching at her throat to fight for whatever semblance of life that remained in her.
Vincent stepped forward, reached into the back of his belt, and pulled out the matching pair of knives.
“Hey! I know you, Doctor Lorraine. Do you think I would be surprised or daunted by the creep that experimented on my daughter? You and your ilk are going to pay the full price for the kingdom you’ve brought down on us.” Vincent gritted his teeth.
“Vincent! Toss me one! Two are better than one.” Dexter took a long stride forward. His heart was in his nostrils, making blood break free and s
tream down his face with rage at seeing Jane torment yet again.
Vincent looked at Dexter, smiling and tossed him a knife. He swept it up by the handle and took a fighter’s stance. Doctor Lorraine seethed, stabbing the sword into the pavement at Jane’s feet. Her thrashing continued.
Out of holsters at his feet, he plucked a pair of curving daggers.
“If I can hold back the strong suit that was Jane Lewis’ soul, then I can control the Andromeda. I need her. You have no idea the power that she houses. It’s like forcing the aura of the Cosmos into a tiny gel capsule. I will need to use it to establish my reign on the ashes of the zenith I allowed the Medusa to reach!” Lorraine tossed his head.
“You?! You’re a lab rat!” Dexter spat on the ground.
“No, dear boy. That’s only a cover. I am called Lucia, the light of another world. I’m about to eclipse yours for a brighter future a dominion that will remove the apathy of man and instate absolution.” Lucia’s eyes rolled back in his head, taking on a light that illuminated the entire Lincoln Memorial the shade of driven snow. Its intensity sent hairline cracks through the stones. Lincoln’s face cracked and began to slide away.
Holes were opening in the earth, shattering the foundations of Washington. Dexter felt the knives hover over his head. The electricity spun him on his heels in tight rotations.
For a split second, he could see the city. People were screaming and running. Further down the mall, the Capitol seemed to shudder and the Washington Monument cracked and teetered over. The earth opened and fire and lightning shot out. The ocean was being drawn into it and the buildings. The earth moved turning to ectoplasm in the wake of the angry dead.
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