by Greig Beck
The HAWC saw that, even now, the bones continued to age, going from a yellow-white, to brown and then the color of the earth. He had no doubt that in a little while all trace of the man would be gone forever.
“What just happened here?” he asked.
“Give me you knife.” Matt held out his hand.
Maddock drew it and handed it to the Harvard professor. Matt then leaned forward and used the long blade to lift out the necklace from Alojzy’s decaying bones. He held it up for a moment and then turned.
“It’s supposed to be just a myth.” Matt looked at the dangling golden jewelry. “In fact, five minutes ago, I would have said it was a myth.” He snorted softly. “But not anymore.”
“Would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on?” Maddock asked. “And whether we’re at risk of the same fate as Mr. Mazur here?”
Matt turned and gave him a half smile. “It would be mine or your fate if we wore this.” He glanced over his shoulder at Klara. “But not hers.”
“What is it?” Maddock stared at the jewels glinting in their light beams.
Matt held the necklace up on the end of his knife. “It was handcrafted by the great Hephaestus, blacksmith of the Olympian gods. He made it for his wife, Aphrodite. He also made Zeus’s thunderbolt spear, and Poseidon’s trident.”
He smiled up at it. “It’s the Necklace of Harmonia.” He turned to Maddock and raised his eyebrows. “And Hephaestus cursed it.”
“Cursed, yeah.” Maddock thumbed at Alojzy’s moldering bones. “I can see that.”
“Curses are real things?” Klara shook her head. “This is bullshit. How do you even do that?”
“Magic of course.” Matt turned to give her a flat smile.
“Oh, of course.” Klara’s lips pressed together.
“There’s a whole world of things that is well beyond any normal person’s comprehension.” He turned back to the jewels. “I’ve seen things that defy physics and would tear at your sanity.”
“So, the mad Führer wasn’t so mad after all?” Maddock held up a hand flat in front of the necklace. “I can feel it, like static electricity.”
“Yeah, I can feel it too,” Matt replied. “It is said that any woman who wears the Necklace of Harmonia will remain young and beautiful forever.”
“That doesn’t sound like a curse,’ Maddock said.
“Not for the woman,” Matt replied. “But there was a sting in the tail; a trap. Apparently Hephaestus found out that his wife, Aphrodite, goddess of love, was having an affair with Ares, the god of war. He became enraged and vowed to avenge himself.”
He turned to Maddock. “Never piss off a god or demi-god. Crafty old Hephaestus knew that Ares had a taste for adornments, so expected that Aphrodite would let him wear the magnificent jewels.”
Matt turned the necklace a little. “You see, the necklace’s granting of eternal youth to women means it’s got to get the essence of youth from somewhere.” He chuckled. “So it takes it from men. Hephaestus hoped to turn Ares into an old man. But the curse was too broad, so any man who wore it lost his youth. It never worked on Ares.” He tossed it back onto the pile of moldering clothes. “But looks like it really does work on anyone else.” He sighed. “Poor Alojzy.”
“The punishment was a bit over the top, but the thief deserved it,” Klara scorned.
“Lighten up.” Matt scowled. “No one deserves that.”
“Yeah? And what if he pulled out something that killed us all?” Klara’s chin jutted.
“That’s enough.” Maddock got to his feet and turned about. “What other horrors are waiting for us in these crates?”
“It doesn’t matter.” Matt stood and handed back Maddock’s knife. “Now for some good news.” Matt flat smiled. “I found the stone.”
CHAPTER 27
Central Scientific Research Institute, Ministry of Defense, Shchyolkovo, Moscow
Colonel Nadi Borishenko let his eyes run down the list of interested parties for his weaponized silachnids: Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and even a number of South American countries had displayed interest.
The conditioned silachnids were going to be worth hundreds of millions, maybe even billions. Borishenko smiled; it’d be a nice little side-deal to the mission plan he was working on that would be the culmination of his work. Once undertaken, Russia’s main adversary would be hobbled, and the devastating value of the bugs would be displayed for the world to see. And then that’s when he would set a price.
He changed computer screens. Borishenko steepled his fingers under his chin as he reread his mission profile; he’d already performed his target assessment, and the lethality impact, and also chosen his delivery mechanism. The only question remaining was whether there was going to be a second-wave attack, or if things went wrong, a political need for plausible deniability.
He snorted; nothing could go wrong. After all, a plague outbreak in the center of a major metropolis would be catastrophic. When the silachnids were finished, the city would be a war zone, or empty of life. Who’d be left to ask questions?
He had one last thing to do; the Russian hummed a soft tune as he prepared for the most important meeting of his life.
CHAPTER 28
Vin was waiting for them up top, and helped haul the slab of granite out. When he was told about Alojzy he just grunted and took it in his stride. Matt knew that these soldiers dealt with death every single day.
When they finally exited to the forest again Matt sucked in a cool draft of frigid air, and filled his lungs, cleansing them.
“Hey!” Maddock drew his gun, pointing it upwards.
In a flash, both Klara and Vin followed suit, and when Matt looked upwards, he thought he saw a dot disappear over the treetops.
“What was it?” he asked.
“Drone, I think.” Maddock seethed. “We’ve been made.”
“By whom?” Klara asked, and then slid her gun back into its holster.
Maddock did the same. “Doesn’t matter now.” He pointed. “Let’s get back, double time.”
The hike back to the pickup point seemed more arduous than the walk in, and not only because they did it at speed. Though it took less total hours, it was done in near total silence, and that made time stretch.
Once onboard the helicopter, Matt felt elated they’d achieved their objective and also simply that they’d been able to get the hell out of there – the entire place had a lingering feeling of death hanging over the landscape. They all knew that there were the restless ghosts of nearly thirty thousand men, women, and possibly children still trapped below the ground. The bodies’ state of decomposition and degradation meant they’d probably never be identified.
“Well, Professor, we’ve done our bit in getting you what you need. Now it’s up to you,” Maddock said. “It’ll take us a full day to get back home, but your work starts now.”
Matt nodded, barely hearing the soldier. He kneeled before the stone tablet and used a rag to gently wipe away the dust in the tiny grooves and crevices.
They still hadn’t taken off and the Polish pilot moved about securing the cabin for takeoff. He gave Maddock the thumbs-up, and then, as he passed by Matt, leaned over him.
“I think you go long way for gravestone.”
Matt looked up, just as the pilot dropped his hand and stuck it in his pocket. Matt nodded. “Yes, a long way in distance and time.”
The pilot hovered for a moment more, and Matt looked back up at him. He made a small sound in his throat and headed back to the cockpit. “Takeoff, two minutes,” he said without turning.
Matt went back to his work. He ran a hand down the side of the stone, feeling the rough edges.
“I don’t think it was broken off the other piece. But more like a separate page,” he said over his shoulder. “But the messages overlap, from one tablet to the other.”
“Looks like the same markings and certainly contemporaneous,” Klara observed.
“Yes, and I’m betting same astro
nomical signs and formulae.” He traced some of the runic-style designs. “Could be a map.” Matt made some notes. “It has to be, and coordinates in a fashion.”
“A map to what?” Maddock asked.
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Matt faced him. “I’ll need to have the stones side by side, but from my previous notes, the first stone outlined the problem. Remember the quote: They have come and they will come again – Each ending greater than the last – Only those from the core can stop them, when …”
“Uplifting,” Klara replied.
“Given the plague that’s occurring all over the world, I’d say more prophetic,” Matt retorted. “The first stone even had an image of one of those strange bug-like things. And this second stone works with the first one, creating a cross-referencing answer to the problem. Or at least I think it does. Once I have both pieces of the puzzle, I can start to draw out the meaning. Maybe even find out where they’re pointing us toward. And to what.”
Klara squatted beside him. “It looks so old. And you said it predates any other civilization known?”
“Yes, the Aztlanteans were in existence when everyone else was still in nomadic tribes hunting the last of the mega-fauna mammals. About ten to twelve thousand years ago, maybe even older,” Matt replied.
“That might be a problem.” Maddock slowly turned. “If those symbols really do turn out to be map coordinates then they were in existence at the end of the last great ice age, which only ended around eleven thousand years ago.” Maddock raised his eyebrows.
Matt shrugged. “And so? It was a lot cooler then. Humans adapted to snow and ice with little problem.”
“Snow isn’t the problem. But ice is. You see, more freezing cold means more ice. More ice, means more seawater locked up in the caps. More ice locked up in the caps, means …” He lifted his chin. “Get it now?”
“Oh shit, of course.” Matt put a hand to his forehead. “More seawater locked up means more landmass exposed, so sea levels were hundreds of feet lower.” He pushed his long hair back and then looked up at the HAWC. “Let’s keep our fingers crossed that wherever this is leading us is well inland. But if not, then what?”
A corner of Maddock’s mouth lifted. “Underwater, in a desert, or buried under ice – we’ll find it and get to it. ”
Matt held up a finger. “Unless it’s inside a volcano. I ain’t going inside a volcano again for as long as I live. Or under ice for that matter.” He chuckled. “And I’m skipping jungles as well from now on.”
Klara half smiled. “You really have used up eight of your nine lives, Professor.” Her smile dropped. “Stay lucky.”
“Don’t envy me, I’ve seen too many good people die,” he replied.
“Everyone dies.” Klara’s eyes were glassy and dispassionate.
Matt wondered if there was something personal behind the comment. He watched her for a while, but she seemed to have closed down.
After a while Matt’s eyelids began to droop and he felt he’d drawn out about as much as he could from the stone. So far it indicated that there was a place where a solution, or answer, or maybe even a cure, for the plague existed. But the wording was complex, in that it referred to the solution in terms of it being something like an adversary, and he didn’t know whether that meant to them or the bugs.
He looked at his watch – it was already twenty hundred hours, eight in the evening, and he didn’t think he had slept in two days. He was hungry and so tired that his vision was beginning to blur.
“Can’t do any more here. I’m calling it a night. Tomorrow we’ll be back home and when the stones are together, I can begin again.”
Matt lay down across a row of hard seats, folded his arms across his stomach as though hugging himself and closed his eyes. “Wake me for breakfast.”
He yawned and started to dream of monstrous bugs, hidden caves, and a world without people.
*
Rudolph Schneider rubbed his hands together as the images arrived on his computer. There were only three photographs, but he complimented the pilot for being able to get such clear and complete shots.
He rubbed his chin as he sat forward and began to unravel the inscriptions. After another few moments he eased back in his soft leather chair.
“Interesting.”
CHAPTER 29
The War Room, USSTRATCOM
The massive room was a hive of activity. The two dozen technical specialists and an equal number of military personnel generated a groundswell of noise as information was collected, analyzed, collated, and then summarized for one man.
Colonel Jack Hammerson stood at the center of the information vortex, directing the information traffic as he coordinated the mission project.
Bottom line was they were at war, and as yet, they knew little about their adversary – which was a fatal flaw in any conflict theatre.
On the fifty square foot wall before him was an image of the globe spread out in two dimensions. It was a composite image taken from their satellites and collected into a single real-time mosaic by their computer systems.
Hammerson’s jaw clenched as he watched the monstrous orange nuclear flowers blooming around the world – one over northern China; one, strangely, deep in the Siberian Lake Baikal; another in Pakistan; and a final one, smaller, identified as a Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB, in eastern Australia – that one ate up oxygen in a designated area and burned with the intensity of a sun.
Hammerson knew exactly what those countries were doing – trying to cleanse their landscapes of the swarms. It’d probably work, as nothing could survive that heat. But the problem was the swarms had multiplied, and some covered huge areas. Plus the damn things got bigger and more voracious, and now consumed entire towns, and anything else too slow to get out of their way. And the price was high if there were still survivors in the overrun zones.
Hammerson knew that no country was going to be able to continue nuking its own territory. There had to be a better way.
He turned to another of the huge screens – their sophisticated artificial intelligence MUSE system tapped into every foreign power’s security database to see what they were using, where they were using it, and when. If any one of them had found a solution to the swarm that didn’t involve weapons of mass destruction, he’d adopt it. So far they had the same as he did: nothing.
Their own swarms were now moving at will over Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, with smaller ones over Mississippi and Missouri. Reluctantly, he’d taken Hartigan’s advice and used crop dusters to spray them with hydrofluoric acid. On contact it melted the bastards right out of the sky. But it also poisoned the landscape. Plus, seeing it was a contact toxin, they could never hope to physically hit every single one of the damn things.
“Fucking bugs,” he muttered. Some were calling it the return of the biblical plagues.
Extinction plagues, Hammerson thought as he exhaled through clenched teeth. The difference was, where the locust plagues ate the crops, these horrifying sons of bitches went after the people and ate the bones right out of the flesh.
“Colonel.”
Hammerson turned.
“Professor Kearns has arrived.”
Hammerson nodded. “Take them to laboratory two, and see they’ve got everything they need. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
Colonel Jack Hammerson headed for the door. Hartigan had something to show him in relation to the bugs. Somehow he bet it wasn’t going to be good news.
*
Jack Hammerson ignored the cold of the refrigerated room and focused on the long metal table with four large foam blocks at varying intervals.
Doctor Phillip Hartigan stood rod straight, arms by his side, and a colleague at each shoulder.
Hammerson looked from the trio to the blocks.
“Ladies and gentlemen, at ease.” Hammerson nodded. “I hope you’ve got something for me.”
“We have, but unfortunately nothing good.”
Hammerson snorted. �
�Why did I expect that?”
Hartigan stepped toward the long steel bench. “We’ve shown before that the silicon entities are growing, and evolving.”
“Evolving? First time I’ve heard this.” Hammerson frowned. “How? I thought it took hundreds if not thousands of generations for an evolutionary change to become apparent.”
“That’s true. But we know with biological entities like these that have a sped-up metabolism and lifespan, generational change can occur very quickly. Look at Drosophila melanogaste, the fruit fly. In four years it can have had over two hundred generations.”
“So they’re like large fruit flies?” Hammerson looked up, waiting.
“No, their lifespans are longer, and the changes are more significant. Something else is promoting the alterations. Maybe it’s the solar energy, or something else in the atmosphere or environment. But whatever it is, these things are rapidly changing.”
“How?” Hammerson asked.
“Becoming more formidable for a start,” the small scientist beside Hartigan added.
Hammerson recognized the woman. “Doctor Miles.” He nodded to her. The young scientist was Hartigan’s specialist entomologist. Hammerson had read some of her analytical work previously, and recognized she had a top-class mind.
“More formidable? Well that’s just great. We’re already having trouble stopping them now.”
Hammerson stared down at the steel tables and their four passengers. On the first foam block was the original specimen, roughly the size of a hornet. The next showed a specimen about the size of a fist. On this one it was easier to pick out the anomalies from normal hexapod invertebrate creatures, such as the eight legs, scales and tufts of fur underneath.
The third block had a grotesque insectoid-looking thing that was around a foot in length. It hardly looked real – its carapace looked like black plastic. But he could see the eyes looked more human than insect, and Hammerson immediately felt a visceral revulsion for the thing. He couldn’t imagine being out in the open when a swarm of these descended on you.
