by Tom Julian
Cardinal Jacob’s eyes went wide. “Oh my. That’s certainly bold. Was this Thea’s idea?”
“It’s my call.” He handed the smart-device back to Cardinal Jacob.
He put it to the side. “Why would I do that for you? Dr. Tier has been less than polite. She’s already paid me handsomely and it got her next to nothing.”
“If Gray has Highland, he won’t let you collect what’s in The Coffers. They are certainly fortified to be able to withstand a nuclear blast.”
Cardinal Jacob looked off. “I have been thinking about politics and the concept of damage, of our small lives and the blinks of time in which we live them. I don’t wish to do Thea any favors.”
“Dr. Tier is not a player in this.”
“Still, I don’t wish to advance her interests. I think this audience serves no purpose, boy.” He waved to the door, signifying the discussion was over.
Conrad was amazed at Cardinal Jacob’s pettiness. He had assumed the cardinal would agree to this proposition heartily, as it helped ensure he got his prize.
“Kayla Uncarna, Dela Porter, Cynthia Silvernet.” Conrad rattled off the names.
Cardinal Jacob glared at Conrad, his face growing red and angry. “Boy, you are treading very dangerously!” He wagged his finger.
“Lisa DeNunzio, Maylaya French!”
“And who are these people to you?” Cardinal Jacob spit out.
“Each of these women has several children and no fathers in the picture. None of them have income, but all live very comfortably. Little families spread over a half-dozen worlds. Who are these people to you, Excellency?”
“I’ll have your head, boy!”
“There’s nothing on me you’ll find. Nothing to grab ahold of. You know it.” Conrad let Cardinal Jacob glare at him for almost half a minute. “Your dalliances are nothing I give a damn about, but the rest of The Clergy won’t be so kind. There’d be no hope of ever getting back the prime cardinalship.”
Cardinal Jacob laughed. “You think you’re a thief? I pray for you.”
“Please pray for me. I am scared as hell, I’ll admit it,” Conrad said. Cardinal Jacob input a command in his smart-device. The screen turned black and a Believer symbol glowed red. “Is it done?”
Cardinal Jacob shook his head. “It’s primed now. All you must do is ask him. Tell him of his obligation to deliver the message.”
Conrad felt his stomach drop out. He hadn’t considered having to ask Izabeck to detonate himself. He considered turning this duty back to Cardinal Jacob, of spilling still more names out, but he took the device back and started a message. If he was going to have a man kill himself, he would have the courage to ask him personally.
Samar1483: Dear Brother. It’s time to fulfill your obligation and send my message.
There was a long pause before Izabeck responded.
Izabeck613: The trigger is ready?
Samar1483: It is. Thank you.
Izabeck613: God loves this sacrifice.
Izabeck closed the connection with no salutation. Conrad got up to leave Cardinal Jacob’s quarters, not wishing to have any further words with him. The cardinal watched him go, his robes hanging like drapes down over his feet and his hands clutching his knees. Conrad knew that in this endgame, he couldn’t let Cardinal Jacob live. He imagined the revenge a man like that could extract.
Conrad nearly collapsed in the hallway; if it hadn’t happened already, Highland was about to be engulfed in nuclear fire and dozens of people were about to die.
“God loves this sacrifice.” Conrad repeated Izabeck’s last words. At least someone does.
COMMAND CENTER PLAIN
The party left the column room now and stepped into a wide chamber, a giant cavern carved into a huge open space. Sergey had volunteered that they called this place The Command Center Plain. Above, a series of what looked like giant bare light bulbs hung from the ceiling, illuminating the place with a crisp light.
Their goal was just a short hike ahead. Beyond a small choke-point bridge and up a staircase was The Chapel, a small, steepled, golden-edged building, glowing with light. It was the command center of Highland and where they would finally meet Penny.
The party was whittled down now to seven Phaelon and the human crew—Ahmed, Blaise, Cisus, Sebaldi, Thaum, Vitus, Windwhistle, Michael, Warner, Izabeck, Gray, and Thomas, plus Sergey and Timberwolf.
Gray was up front. He stepped warily, alongside Sergey. He took in the glowing building ahead. This setup baffled him, burying the command center deep inside Highland with no easy way to access. It looked to be a small country church on a hill.
“Why did you build this? The purpose?”
“Maybe for you,” Sergey replied sarcastically. “Our A.I., Penny, lives in there.”
“Pilgrimage,” Gray huffed. “That machine makes you come to her on your knees.”
Sergey shrugged, unimpressed by Gray’s inference.
Farther back in the column, Vitus, a wiry young man with a Star of David encircled by the Believer symbol on his armor, spun about. “I feel like God could just flick me off his palm.”
“We’re small in all this,” Ahmed agreed.
Izabeck blocked their path and shook his finger. “You and you. We’re not in a place of God!”
“Bishop said this is the first part of heaven. You don’t feel it, brother?” Vitus asked.
“I want to cleanse myself,” Izabeck muttered, peeling off from the group. He found himself overwhelmed with disgust.
The motley procession went by him, the rest of the men overjoyed by the sight of The Chapel. “It’s the barn of some golden calf!” he muttered just loud enough that a few of them heard. The Phaelon passed by, grunting and hissing, shoving and snapping at each other with casual violence. He rubbed his arm and thought about his obligation to deliver Cardinal Jacob’s message to Gray.
In the back of the party came Timberwolf, hands zip-tied and Droma walking behind him, weapon trained on his back. The man disgusted Izabeck. A cockroach that kept on living. In Timberwolf, he saw a wretched future—men like him strapping into Sabatin rigs, combining themselves with alien technology. His existence mocked the core of the Believer faith, but here he was, experiencing this as some sort of witness.
In front of it all, Gray walked in more sin with every step, perverting the faith of everyone here into something blasphemous. Izabeck thought he might have been able to tolerate this, but he couldn’t. He called himself the “Sword of God,” like those that flanked the Angel of the Alchemy! He thumbed his notebook and flipped through the third testament he had written for Gray. He felt filled with hypocrisy at his own words. Gray had led him to throw away what he believed and he came to an awful realization.
This is all my fault!
Gray was enacting a religious construct that Izabeck had created in his book. Gray was pushing everything aside, rationalizing any actions to fight against the only sin that remained—sloth, standing by while God’s will went unfulfilled. And on the other side of God’s judgment was God’s forgiveness, with all means justified by the ends.
The bomb was no longer a message from Cardinal Jacob to Gray, but just an envelope.
I am the message. Izabeck wept softly to himself. I am the message.
Izabeck traced the Believer mark on his forehead and then pressed his finger into the crook of his elbow until he felt a click. Four squares glowed yellow under the skin on his forearm. He pressed them in the sequence he’d been shown and they all glowed red. “There is no god but God and I heed his judgment,” he said to himself, pressing them down all at once and closing his eyes.
Nothing happened.
SUNRISE
Timberwolf and Droma passed by Izabeck, standing off to the side. Izabeck seemed agitated, rubbing his arm and looking through his notebook. Dr. Tier had warned that he was Cardinal Jacob’s man and that he was dangerous. Timberwolf assumed he was a willing martyr for whatever Cardinal Jacob had in mind for him.
�
��So, who’d you like to hunt?” Timberwolf asked Droma, certain the Phaelon understood more English than she let on. She didn’t respond. Timberwolf motioned to Izabeck. “That one there. Wily, but dumb. Small skull. No trophy.” Droma gave him the slightest acknowledgment.
Timberwolf decided to work Droma like a source and maybe turn her. “Phaelon have a hunting culture. We’re not into hunting for fun, not like the old days. You have a word, for when we took your world. Dynata, time ending. Him…” Timberwolf motioned to Gray up ahead. “He’s King Time Ender. Understand? Dynata.”
Droma met Timberwolf’s gaze, a hint of understanding. The Phaelon nodded to Izabeck, taking a long snout-full of air into her nostrils as they passed. “Zret,” she said to Timberwolf.
Sunrise? He was confused by the Phaelon word, but then he understood. When humans dropped nukes on the Red Forest on Phaelon Prime, it was like nothing the Phaelon had ever seen. They called the nuclear fire sunrise. “Zret,” Droma said again.
“Zret,” Timberwolf said back to Droma.
BLASPHEME
The party crossed over the small bridge in front of the hill upon which stood The Chapel. The chasm under the bridge dropped down into blackness. Warner dropped a stone and listened for it to land, but he didn’t hear anything. The drop formed a barrier in front of The Chapel and there was no way around it.
They approached the staircase under The Chapel, the building glowing gold above them. Windwhistle peered into a glass enclosure under the stairs and the others joined him, transfixed. Inside was a Sabatin in its natural form. No bio-armor or technology affixed to it. Compared to Wrath, its head was small, its jaws barely fierce.
Sergey rolled his eyes. “Yes, that’s what they’re made of.” The Sabatin moved away, uninterested in their attention.
“Prayer!” Gray ordered. The men rolled out their prayer mats, falling to their knees. They drew the Believer symbol on their foreheads and Gray stood before them. “This is our destination. What we’ve fought and died for. Let us pray.”
They began in unison, their voices strong and filled with purpose.
“Our father, who gives his judgment, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on all our worlds as it is in heaven. And…”
“Stop!” Izabeck cried, rising to his feet.
For a moment, there was kindness on Gray’s face, an understanding that all this was perhaps overwhelming to the man. But then he saw the flash of a knife. “Izabeck!”
“I’m sorry, Bishop. I can’t. What we’re doing…I can’t!”
“Son, God has shown us these wonders. He needs you to be strong. He needs you to finish your book!”
“It’s blasphemy! This place. These things we come for. But him…” He saved the worst of his scorn for Timberwolf. “He’s the worst of all!”
Izabeck plunged the knife into his forearm. Gray didn’t stop him. “Perhaps it’s best you go.”
“I am the message!” Izabeck wept.
Timberwolf chortled. “You might want to check that.”
Gray knocked the knife away. Izabeck had opened a chamber in his arm filled with electronics and more. Michael examined it. “It’s a nuke.”
Gray pulled Izabeck up roughly by the arm he’d cut into. “You wavered! Your first name is Jude. Judas Izabeck. How fitting for someone who wavers. You can give me your life when I ask for it. Not before.”
“Hey, you might need a nuke. You never know,” Timberwolf chided.
“There’s a trigger in there he was trying to activate,” Michael said as he cuffed Izabeck’s hands behind him with zip-wire. “Execute him, Emmanuel?”
Gray looked up the stairs, then back at Timberwolf. “No. He will become useful.”
THE STAIRS
The party climbed the stairs to The Chapel. Gray herded Sergey in the front. “No chance of talking you out of this?” the small man asked.
“No, friend.”
They reached the top of the stairs and stood before a set of black double-doors. “I need that ring of keys you took from me.”
Gray handed Sergey the heavy brass ring and he fumbled with it until he found the right key. He unlocked the door and lifted the titanium bar that stretched across it. Gray pushed inside and dull lights flickered on with a neon hum. The small space had the configuration of a church, with a few benches, desks and chairs, some knocked over. Where the altar would be, there was a large, white, upright computer with a few screens and dials. It looked old fashioned, like a throwback to hundreds of years before.
“What you did here was impressive. We can do business. Forgive and forget,” Sergey suggested.
“I forgive, but I never forget.”
Michael and Droma, with Timberwolf in tow, filed in. “Why am I here?” Timberwolf huffed.
Gray ignored him and turned to Michael. “Post a mixed guard. Defensive positions outside. Use those tables. They might be titanium.” The men and the Phaelon began to take the objects from the room and arranged them to make makeshift fortifications outside.
“Emmanuel, can we cut him away now? We’re here.” Michael motioned to Timberwolf and thumbed his weapon.
“I wouldn’t,” Sergey objected.
“I’ll deal with our Mr. Velez,” Gray said.
Sergey wiped the dust off a chair and sat down. “We never come here. No one does.”
“This is your command center and you never come here? How do you…make stuff?” Gray asked.
“She makes stuff,” Sergey responded. The computer stirred to life, screens flickering. “That’s Penny.”
“Penny, huh? That stand for anything?” Gray asked.
“That’s her name.” Sergey shrugged.
A grandmotherly voice, tinny and ancient, came from Penny’s speakers and her panels glowed a warm orange. “Sergey? It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I’m looking forward to creating more children. What are our guests here for?”
“They want you to make them children. Lots of children.”
“Come closer,” Penny said.
Sergey hesitated, but Gray shoved him forward. “Do it!”
Images of Highland products flashed on Penny’s screen. The visual stopped on a Sabatin. Sergey placed his hand on the screen, and it scanned him. “Where are the others? Ivan? Achilles?” Penny asked.
“They’re not with us,” Sergey said, sadly.
Gray took a vial of Ivan Dacha’s blood and forced it into Sergey’s hand. Sergey waved it in front of the screen. “I can’t make these children for you,” Penny said, her voice sorry but stern.
Gray eyed Sergey and he tried the scanning process again.
“I’m sorry. I can’t,” Penny said.
“Why?” Gray demanded.
“There is only one living genetic key. I need at least two.”
A realization came over Gray. Living genetic key. “Your brother? Ivan? You killed him in the cargo bay on the Nemesis so this would fail! That wasn’t an accident.”
“Some failures move us forward.”
Gray rubbed his temples, dumbfounded. Sergey looked off placidly. Gray couldn’t believe he had killed Ivan and that he had been stringing him along all this time.
“Why?” Gray fell to his knees in exhausted frustration.
“To arrive at this moment, right here!” Sergey stomped his foot like a child. “You pay and pay and never learn your lessons. You may hold this place, but it’s not yours.”
Thomas approached. “Bishop, there’s a warehouse below. It’s teeming.”
Gray waved him off. “Take someone with you.” Thomas tapped Vitus and left through a set of double-doors behind Penny.
Timberwolf stood in the back, resting against the wall. He sensed the unfocused vigor of the Arnock horde growing closer. They were probably passing through the column room now, less than a half hour away. Timberwolf felt Kizik then, like the creature was just waking up.
I’m coming, he heard in his mind.
OVERCOME
Aboard Nemes
is, the pilot nervously scanned the screens. He looked at a view of the outside. Farrow zoomed out and panned, focusing for a moment on an Arnock landing craft in the distance. Thousands of the creatures streamed towards him across the bottom of The Eye; a few had already gone past.
He tried to reach Gray to warn him and scanned the sub-light stream channels for Assault Corps ships that might be in range, but communications were still blocked. Farrow had heard the horror stories from the landings on Arnock Prime, the mind-bending, the madness, the drop-lifters all coming back empty. He didn’t feel the beings in his mind yet. He couldn’t imagine that, sharing the space in his head.
He flipped open a cover on the dash, exposing a juicy red emergency launch button. He closed it, opened it again. If he hit that button, Nemesis would be hurtled into the atmosphere. He assumed landing again would not be an option.
Then a shadow appeared above him. Out the window, a two-story-tall sentry Arnock stared in. “Oh no,” Farrow got out, but only at a whisper. He reached for the button, but in that instant, everything was rolling. The sentry Arnock turned Nemesis over like it was a toy and straddled the ship’s belly.
Farrow called to Gray. “May-day, may-day. God, I’m turning over. Bishop…” The Arnock pierced Nemesis’s belly with a spear-like leg and Farrow went silent.
WITNESS
Gray was still on his knees in front of Penny. He hadn’t intended to supplicate himself, but there he was. “We have a war with the Arnock. Our survival is at stake. We need these…children so we can win.”
“I’m sorry,” Penny said, full of sympathy.
Gray rose, realizing he was begging. “You will be.”
“Oh yeah, put holes in her too. That’ll help,” Timberwolf cracked from the back of the room.
“Who is that?” Penny asked.
“He’s a witness. Not worth your time,” Gray responded.
There was a ping and a wisp of air moved across Timberwolf’s face. “Timberwolf? I’m sorry! I should have recognized you. How are you?” she asked with delight, her panels glowing brightly.
