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by Gareth Worthington

  Teller’s flashlight gave enough light to see the irritated look on Phelps’ face.

  “Be my guest, prof,” Phelps said.

  The professor handed his detector to the Navy Seal by his side and began digging around the object, which Teller could now see was a box. Skarsgaard had wedged his hands underneath in an effort to lift it. He tugged several times, but the thing didn’t budge.

  “Problem?” Phelps jibed.

  “It must be incredibly dense,” Skarsgaard said.

  “Maybe it’s the box?” Teller offered. “Looks like a mineral or something. Maybe it’s just real heavy.”

  “Possibly,” the professor said.

  “So, we open it,” Phelps offered. “If it’s a box, it’ll have a hinge or a seal or something right?”

  Teller checked his oxygen gauge. Twenty minutes left. “Okay, let’s crack this sucker open. We don’t have much time.”

  Without a reply, Phelps unsheathed his serrated dive knife and sank down to the seabed to investigate. Teller watched as the Navy Seal searched the box, running the knife along its surface to detect a groove.

  “Got it,” Phelps said with satisfaction.

  Teller held his breath.

  The soldier crammed the edge of his blade into a furrow that seemed to run the length of the heavy container. “If this thing is heavy, it’s going to take a few of us to pry it off.”

  Teller didn’t need to be prompted, his own blade now forced into the same slight gap. Skarsgaard shoved his knife inside and waited for the signal. The three men pressed down on their blades, trying to force the lid off. It raised slightly, perhaps an inch.

  Phelps grunted. “Dammit.”

  “What if the Huahuqui help?” Teller suggested. “They’re stronger than us, and more capable in the water. They can pull on it while we lever it.”

  “How are we going to explain that to them? Their symbiotes are at the surface?” Phelps asked.

  Teller checked his gauge again. Thirteen minutes. “They’ll get it,” he said then swam over to the nearest Huahuqui who stopped swirling and faced him. Here goes nothing, he thought, then began pointing and miming his desire for help to open the box.

  The Huahuqui, Taika Teller recalled, cocked its broad head and stared at him for a moment. Then, in what could only be described as an ‘ah-ha’ moment, Taika dove down toward to the sea floor followed closely by her three companions. Teller adjusted his buoyancy and trailed them down.

  Now ready, everyone tried again. Teller, Phelps and Skarsgaard levered the lid with their knives and the Huahuqui slipped their fingers into the gap and pulled on the lid. It popped off in a puff of silt and debris, floated less than two feet away, and quickly sank back to the sand.

  The cloud of silt dissipated, and Teller breathed a sigh of relief. There in the black mineral box was a glowing blue gelatinous orb about the size of a grapefruit. Preserved in seawater, it had not desiccated. In fact, it seemed in near-perfect condition. The Huahuqui spun and circled in excitement, a curtain of bubbles forming around the group.

  Skarsgaard looked up to Teller. “Is this what you were looking for?”

  Teller nodded, heart still hammering at the prospect of having the upper hand against the Nine Veils. But, perhaps more than that, he couldn’t wait to tell Freya that his jaunt had been worth it. That not going after KJ had been the right choice. “That it is, Professor. That it is.”

  Location: Tocayōtla, China

  Under a purple night sky, the Doyen stood at the foot of the Temple of the Moon. Victoria’s temple. He’d granted her this place—built it for her—as thanks for her devotion to the Nine Veils and her assistance in understanding the Huahuqui. When he’d chanced upon her all those years ago, the only adult human alive who had experienced the bond with a knowledge bringer, the opportunity could not pass him by. He believed her invaluable to the universe’s great plan. In fact, he had believed it divine providence that their paths had crossed at all.

  At first, his belief in her had seemed founded. She was lost, both mentally and spiritually, and so had readily accepted the teachings of the Nine Veils. With a voracious appetite to understand her own existence and that of the world, she’d crashed through five of the veils within a year. And with each elevation in her understanding, the Doyen had allowed her deeper into the sanctum of Nine Veils, revealing their place in history and of course the future.

  Until, eventually, it came to light that he and his cult had been the force controlling the Green and Red Society—who more than twenty years ago had attacked the USA to steal K’in. An attack that resulted in her temporary death and subsequent resurrection owed to the mixing of her DNA with the creature Wak.

  The Doyen could not be sure if it was that moment Victoria’s persona had begun to twist, but it was the moment that her eagerness to raise the Nine Veils to a position of power exploded. Frustrated with playing the shadows, utilising existing terrorist factions, she had suggested that they begin to build their own army—a division of highly trained assassins to infiltrate and execute key figures in government structures. This way, they would accelerate the Nine Veils ascension and bring back a global belief in God and his plan. And in those days, he was a younger and more ambitious man. Her strategy had seemed reasonable. As a first step, he used his influence to hack ECHELON to listen to the world’s conversations and choose where to strike. First priority was money for the facilities and resources for their army. A manipulated stock market had provided.

  Millions of dollars were accumulated and added to the Nine Veils already sizeable stockpile. In the modern capitalist world, there really wasn’t anything he couldn’t purchase. Aircraft, man power, weapons, land. And so, the process of creating a loyal army, grown from young men and women—orphans taken from abject poverty in Russia—began. Being young, they were impressionable and easily coerced. Fealty given freely. Yet, paranoid as she was, Victoria insisted on a safety protocol should one ever be captured: death by remotely triggered explosive ink. Crude, but necessary. His older self would now not agree.

  While his discomfort with how the children were managed by Victoria grew, he could not deny their critical role when once again the hand of fate intervened: a sink hole in Siberia opened and provided not one but a nest of Huahuqui for the taking. Just as Victoria had predicted, using out-dated terrorist cells had failed in obtaining the creatures. He had not counted on Freya Nilsson or the USA government interceding. In the end, it was her orphan army that was, at least partially, successful.

  Half of the known Huahuqui and their bonded children were stolen from Antarctica.

  As with all stolen beings, the Huahuqui and children did not give away their loyalty. In fact, they fought Victoria’s rule with all they had. None more so than Svetlana. This infuriated Victoria beyond all measure.

  Neith sat at the Doyen’s heel, and he subconsciously rubbed at her raised snout. The touch of her smooth skin drove the Doyen’s train of thought to Victoria’s continued refusal to bond with a Huahuqui. He’d tried to convince her that perhaps that would be a way to reach the children and the other Huahuqui. But she refused. Or maybe the Huahuqui rejected her. It was never clear.

  What was clear, was Victoria would stop at nothing to achieve absolute control.

  He stared at the Temple even harder, as if the extra effort might make the very stone walls transparent for him to see inside. It was in this place she’d experimented on the children. For a time, he’d let it continue. Turned a blind eye. Until ... Nyalku. That day the experiments stopped. He sucked in a cold crisp breath of night air.

  “Looking for me?” Victoria sidled next to him, her stare also fixed on her lonely abode.

  Without turning the Doyen said, “in a manner of speaking, yes.” He paused, calculating his next words. “Two decades is a long time.”

  A long silence filled the distance between them. Another cold breeze whipped at the brickwork and his robes.

  “Phase two is complete,” she continued, ign
oring his olive branch. “We have control of Swiss Mountain.”

  “Then everything is on track,” the Doyen replied.

  More silence.

  “The Americans,” Victoria said, her tone flat and emotionless. “They have an orb.”

  “I know.”

  “And if they find a way to use it against us?” she asked.

  “We are safe here. The shield has protected us all this time.” The Doyen nodded to a metallic protrusion sat like a crown on the very pinnacle of his own temple. “Besides, the orb will not stay in their possession for long.”

  That grabbed Victoria’s attention. She stepped in front of him, her ice-cold eyes searching his. “One of your spies?”

  The Doyen simply smiled.

  “Your arrogance will be the failure of our plan,” Victoria said, wagging a finger at him.

  “Not our plan. The universe’s plan. God’s plan.”

  “That’s what I am talking about,” she said, her tone growing harder. “You cannot rely on a misplaced faith in fate.”

  The Doyen’s eyebrows raised. “Do you not believe in God’s greater plan?”

  “I believe He gave us free will for a reason,” she replied through a now clenched jaw.

  “Perhaps free will is but an illusion,” he said, satisfied with his own wise words. “Perhaps our actions are but patterns we cannot see for the vastness of time over which they are enacted in the universe. Each human’s step incremental in the journey of everything.”

  Victoria’s calm expression contorted. “What happened to you? You have become lost in your own self-importance. You think you see all, but you don’t.”

  “What don’t I see, Victoria?”

  His protégé didn’t answer. Her cold eyes seemed to burn with icy fire. Then, without another word she stormed toward her temple. He watched her silhouette grow smaller until it disappeared through the security doors. The Doyen considered what it was she might do in there all alone. But of course, nothing of significance happened within Tocayōtla of which he didn’t know. Not after her experiments. Victoria’s anger had grown beyond control. But soon it would not matter. Soon the Great Syzygy would come to pass, and the universe’s will would be known. Everything was already in motion. There was no stopping fate.

  Location: Alpha Base, Antarctica

  It had been a while since Freya had been to Alpha Base. With her condition deteriorating Jonathan had insisted she be as comfortable as possible. To be fair, the cold didn’t help the already strange numb feeling of limbs that were less and less under her control.

  Freya sat in the massive mess hall in Biome One, surrounded by the familiar hustle and bustle of scientists and Stratum passing through, though it felt different than before. The last time she was here the place felt utopian: the most educated men and women on the planet working together with the children and the Huahuqui to unlock secrets of a better humanity—secrets we had unraveled in antiquity. If Atlantis had ever existed, Biome One—how it was—is how she imagined it.

  Now there was an air of fear.

  The biologists and chemists wore grey expressions, heavy with worry. The Stratum were not lively yet seemed to rush from place to place. With what they were so busy was unclear. The Nine Veils had injected dread into the minds and hearts of these good people—a cancer that was spreading throughout Alpha Base. To Freya, the little Huahuqui looked lost and alone. And in her mind, it was because they didn’t have a leader—their leader: KJ. They may be a hive, but even hives had queen bees.

  As much as KJ hated to hear it, he was their leader. Young, testosterone-fueled and rash, but a leader nonetheless. The Stratum looked to him for his strength, his confidence, in the face of all obstacles. Never one to be beaten or admit defeat, KJ drove through. Just like he had the night Alpha Base lost all power, nearly turning everyone into a popsicles. He huddled everyone together in the very canteen in which she sat. He organized a rotation system, like penguins, to ensure everyone had some heat for some of the time. He told knock-knock jokes for four hours straight to make them all laugh.

  Freya sighed. He was also the one who stole a jet, pretended to fly to China, and apparently parachuted out beforehand. According to the flight computer onboard, the plane dropped to a reasonable parachuting height in Northern Laos. Why the hell would he go to Laos, Freya thought. What the hell is he looking for?

  “Mind if I sit?”

  Freya looked up from her note pad. “Sorry?”

  “Can I sit? Seems everyone’s running around like headless chickens.”

  “Sure, uh ...”

  “Koa, Brown,” the man said and took a seat.

  “Freya Teller,” she replied.

  “Oh? You any relation to Jonathan Teller?” Koa said, sipping on his hot coffee.

  “He’s my husband.”

  “Gotcha,” Koa said. “Geez, everyone around here’s gone batshit. I tried for years to get into this place. Not quite what I imagined.”

  “Well we’re kinda facing total nuclear destruction, or don’t you watch the news?” Freya pointed to a muted TV hanging on the opposite wall, a newsreader outside a nuclear power station giving a silent spiel. Her arm jerked and she quickly withdrew it into her lap.

  Koa didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, hard to miss really. Typical, I make the discovery of a lifetime and the world descends into nuclear winter.” He shook his head and took another long slurp of his hot drink. “Koatlan was so close.”

  Freya screwed up her nose in irritation. “I’m sorry who are you? What is it you do here?”

  “He’s the famous Koa Brown, didn’t you know?” a woman said, her tone dripping with sarcasm. She clunked a dinner try on the table and took a seat.

  “Piss off, Allison,” Koa said, disappearing behind his mug.

  Freya tightened her lips and then buried herself back in her notes. She didn’t have time for this shit, she was trying to find a clue to the Nine Veils and what they were up to. How the hell they had managed to infiltrate Project Swiss Mountain. More to the point, why had they infiltrated it? What was the damn point? How were the power stations and the bunkers connected?

  “Ugh this guy,” Allison said.

  Freya huffed and looked up.

  “He’s friggin everywhere y’know? I mean how much money does the guy have to have to be able to put on commercials like all the time, across multiple continents?” Allison waved at the TV as if it would magically make it change channel.

  “Well, you might wanna think about joining the cult of the Sixth Sun,” Koa said. “If the world goes all radioactive his temples might be the only places viable.”

  Something in Freya’s chest stirred. “What did you say?” she asked, now staring at the screen. The image of Heston Tunbridge, a broad man with a square jaw and greying beard stared back.

  “Just our luck, it’ll be his crazy cult creeps who inherit the Earth,” Allison said.

  Freya grabbed both wheels of her chair and stared into space, her mind crackling with the realization. “Heston Tunbridge. The Nine Veils. Building temples,” she said aloud. “Of course.”

  “Huh?” Koa said.

  “I’m sorry,” Freya said, wheeling her chair away from the table. “I really need to speak with my husband, he’ll be here shortly.”

  “Sure.” Koa nodded. “Let him know I’ll be going back out to the site and will meet him there.”

  Freya stopped and wheeled back to Koa. “Meet you at what site? What did you say you do again?”

  Koa wiped his hand on his coat and offered it for Freya to shake. “Doctor Koa Brown, archeologist. I, uh we,” he glanced at Allison, “found a temple buried in the ice not too far from Alpha Base. A Huahuqui temple. We think it’s a broadcasting station, to all the Huahuqui of the world. Your husband went to find an orb to power it.”

  Freya’s heart stopped. “All the orbs were destroyed.”

  “Apparently not,” Allison interjected. “He found one and is on his way here.”

  CHAPT
ER NINE

  Location: Theung Village, Laos

  The small village comprised of well-constructed houses of woven bamboo, sawn lumber and grass thatch, all sat on bamboo piles six feet above the ground. Inside the chief’s house, near the far end by the rice barn, it was surprisingly cozy; an open hearth warming the interior. The group of Stratum humans and Catherine sat cross legged in a circle with the chief, his wife, and several of their children, hungrily munching down more purple rice in banana leaves. The Huahuqui curled up next to their symbiotes, sleeping soundly.

  The chief, a short slender man of some fifty years, talked at length—pausing at regular intervals to allow Igor and Leo to translate. As suspected, KJ’s hosts were Laos Theung, a semi-sedentary people who derived their living from the forest, fishing, small local craftsmanship, and cultivating rice, fruit, and vegetables. Their people did not write, instead passing knowledge via spoken stories—stories steeped in witchcraft, spirits, the after-life and Hell. It seemed that many of the stories revolved around the Phi and the Phaya Naga, whom the locals believed the Huahuqui to be. It was for this reason KJ and his friends were being hosted at all.

  KJ rubbed the top of K’awin’s head gently, musing on the next steps. This was a good place to stop, but they couldn’t stay for long. Svetlana still had to be found and he still had to lead them across the border into China.

  “So, I think we need to try again,” KJ said, feeling a prolonged gap in the conversation.

  “Try again?” Merry and Lex repeated.

  “Yeah, to connect with Svetlana,” KJ pressed. “We’re much closer now. That was the idea, right?”

  The group looked to each other, then nodded and shrugged in agreement.

  “I guess so,” Nikolaj said.

  Everyone shuffled in closer to one another, stirring their Huahuqui awake.

  The chief frowned, asking something of Igor, who quickly replied.

  “What did he say?” Catherine asked, pulling her camera from its bag.

  “He wanted to know what we are doing,” Igor replied. “I told him we must complete a special prayer for a friend.”