by Paul Hughes
“Eyelines are dead, sir.” The engineer watched the last of the head-mounted cams blink out.
What the array of cameras had displayed after the initial white had been confusing at best: twenty-four displays suddenly savagely displaced as twenty-four people were knocked back. Eyeline-04A lolled as if its carrier’s neck had been broken, but the image focused briefly on the center of the room, giving the assembly a brief glimpse at the floating orb, a swirling, building illumination, and then white nothing.
“Send in Assault B, god damn it!” Cervera had a way of barking orders that any dog would have envied.
“Tony, we—”
Jennings hated it when she narrowed her eyes at him, so she did. “We need to know what’s going on down there.”
“So we just keep sending in more troops? What happens when we run out?”
“You’re safe, Mr. President. Send in Assault B.” She repeated her command, and her underlings communicated wordlessly with nods and tappings. New eyelines snapped into life on the display. “Fancy up and filter that last transmission. And someone get me some fucking physicals! Are we in any danger here?”
“Physicals run, sir.” Another nameless engineer stuttered out from his panel. “Normal across the board—radiological, chemical—”
“Any change, you tell me.” Cervera had a way of gripping any situation and steeling herself. “Status, Assault B?”
“B ready, sir.”
“Insert. Get this to Richter.”
Somewhere above the planet flying roughly over Nebraska on a wedge of composite and titanium, James Richter responded to the chime. He removed his link from his wallet; his heart jumped a little at the incoming superblack icon.
He was the only passenger in the compartment, indeed, on that flight, so he slid the link into his seat’s display. He exhaled slowly, his eyes closed. He cleared his throat and opened his eyes to the second-long burst of data that flashed from the panel.
He gasped, his hand reaching instinctively to his heart as his latticed mindwork began to puzzle over and assemble probabilities and contexts. He thought the name Holmdel for the first time in one year and seven months, really devoted thought to Titicaca for the first time in three years and eight months. He’d learned to bury.
If it’s true—
It couldn’t be true.
But if it is—
He put his link back in his pocket and attempted to will the wedge forward to Wyoming.
“You what?”
Jennings at least attempted a look of the guilt he genuinely felt. Cervera just met Richter’s gaze and threw it back unused.
“We’ve sent more teams in.”
“How many?”
Without hesitation: “Five. We’re gaining valuable new data with each attempt.”
Richter just scoffed in disbelief. “Don’t we have robots for insertions in threat zones? You know, threat zones inside of alien fucking vessels buried underneath mountains? Little tank-tracked numbers, with instruments and cameras and weapons? Or did I just make that up?”
“Yes, sir. I mean—We have robots.” An engineer, listening in, turned from his console, surprised at his own volunteering of an opinion in the charged atmosphere of the command center. “But Secretary—”
“We thought it best to get a first-hand look.” A gofer handed Cervera another glass. She scanned it and threw it onto the growing pile.
“The Holmdel Directive specifically states—”
“There wasn’t any indication that the chamber was—”
“You didn’t think the big floating ball at the center might have been a threat?”
Neither Cervera nor Jennings had any response.
“No more.” Richter shook his head and waved his glass to black. “Shut it down. We’re not risking any more lives for something we can’t—”
“You don’t have the authority,” Jennings said quietly.
“The Directive hands final authority over any encounter scenario to the agent in—”
“Holmdel’s dead.”
Richter considered the possibility of his own disappearance if he didn’t tone down.
“Then at least slow down. Send machines into the chamber. Get a better idea of what that thing is before wasting any more people.” Richter tipped a glass from the table. It displayed the torn, bleeding pile of what had been Assault B. “Take your time with this. The vessel’s been buried for sixty-five million—”
“We don’t have the time.”
“You’re afraid of War Four breaking out? Neighbors to the north?”
“How did you—”
“Everyone knows. They’re up to something. And you want this alien technology—whatever it is—as a weapon. Then fucking research it first. Don’t just throw men at it.”
“And women.”
“And women.” Richter scanned through more images of bodies bent, twisted, pulped. “All I’m saying is slow down. We spent years going over every square inch of Titicaca. Give me a blueprint.”
A holoprint image of the buried vessel sparked to life on the main display. Richter walked to it, studied it.
“This area,” he pointed to the starboard nacelle, “is missing something. See the difference?”
Jennings and Cervera blanked.
“A smaller sphere. Not the floating one in the central chamber in the connecting hub. Note the conduits running through the twist points, the nacelle sockets.” Reynald poked the holo, which smudged and rebounded. “That floating ball is directly between two similar chambers, one on each wing of the vessel. One of those connected chambers has a spherical slug of metal secured inside. The other’s empty.”
“Not following.”
“We found what I suspect are pieces of that missing ball spread throughout South America. That thing shattered as it was ejected before impact. The ship is on a straight-line trajectory from the Titicaca site, and fragments of that shattered ball have been found from Uruguay to Peru.” He slaved a hemisphere map from his personal link.
“Why didn’t I fucking know this?” Jennings barely contained a lethal frustration.
“You didn’t need to know this.” Richter swiped a red line across the floating map, connecting the dots between Uruguay and Wyoming. “And I didn’t much feel like volunteering any information after you put me on your kill list.”
“Listen, James. All I knew was that you were close to Holmdel. After the Populace—”
“If you want my help, I’ll need to choose my own team.”
Cervera shook a no. “I don’t think—”
“My own team.”
“We can’t just bring in anyone you want...”
Richter glared. “Cosmotech has a math egg named Hope Benton. Bring her in. And no more of these,” he wagged the autopsy glass before them, “third estate types. Guinea pigs. Send in the robots, and then we’ll talk about sending people in again.”
Cervera and Jennings locked a look.
“Fine.”
“Me?” Adam West slid his only photograph of Abigail into his empty wallet. Milicom paid the bills. “Blood money. Early release from my contract.”
“How long?”
“Eight years left.”
The wheezing, jittery teenager huddled in the corner of the staging area. West saw the healing split of a lip. West saw the dusky haze of a Pearl addict. She shook her head. “World won’t last another eight years.”
“Sure it will. One last dance, and we’re both out, right? Have to stay positive, kid.”
She wracked a cough, enough to scare West marginally. Either she had been smoking three packs a day for the last forty years, or she was terminal Pearl.
“What’s your name, Irish?”
She looked him up and down, the distrust of a life of trauma.
“Come on. We’re gonna be here a while. Might as well get to know each other.”
“I’m called Maggie.”
West extended a hand, shook her collection of metacarpals. The drug had burned through her, l
eaving only a gaunt form topped with a blossom of orange curls, tied lazily back with a drab cord. The green of her eyes was diluted.
“Adam West.” He was relieved, even after a lifetime of dealing with the brutality of his name, that the reference was lost on the Irish.
He could have constructed a conversation around her age, the fact that she was obviously an outsourced asset, or the Blood Army tattoo he saw crawling up the left side of her neck, but Adam West’s parents had taught him tact.
He saw others among the group crawling over her, or wanting to, the dozens of eyes of the trapped coming to rest on a pretty young thing, vulnerable, slumped in the corner. He was immune to those restings. She was a cute little girl; he was a widower. He’d protect her, although he suspected that she needed no protecting. Each trace of the artist’s needle was a kill; each slough of lung tissue was a testament to her steel core.
The staging area had once been an upper-level office complex for the Diablo Mining company. Now, fifty soldiers, all of whom West suspected were there for their own escape plans, to get out of MSI early, to make recompense for some transgression, to be promoted, all waited in various states of anticipation and fear. They were poor, scrawny kids with bobbing Adam’s apples, a few with the lowbright slope of War Three’s fallout, the non-coms and executives among them standing straight and proud, doing fine jobs of hiding their uncertainty. This job would come with a price, and no one knew who could pay.
The room held the hushed murmur of conversation that only waiting emits.
“You been here—”
West cut off as the door cycled open, cut off as one of the more eager execs stood bolt-upright: “Uh-tennn-HUT!” One hundred legs extended, one hundred heels clicked.
“As you were.” The officer was a tall man, a dark man; his suit was tall and dark. He walked into the middle of the assembly, followed by two. “I’m James Richter, and this is Hope Benton and Michael Balfour. We’re here to apprise you of the situation.”
“Hope Benton, Quantum-X.” She tossed a projector marble into the air, where it spun to life, splashing a neon blueprint into the air. The assembly silently oohed and ahhed as they studied the display. She’d done a good job of forging a schematic; the grunts would never know the difference. “What you see is the layout of the Diablo Mine, sector fourteen, subsector seven. You’ve been contracted for an important mission, one that will release you from all previous obligations to MSI.”
There was a smiling anticipation in the air. People caught glances and grins. The fifty participants each had their reasons for obligation releases.
“It’s fake,” Maggie muttered under her breath. West heard.
“Quiet, please.” Benton continued. She sparked a pointer to life and began to indicate places on the blueprint. “The Diablo Mining Corp called in Milicom because they’ve had an incident downstairs. One of their fat-bore diggers snagged a thread of an unknown metal, and that caused the core of the tractor to seize up. It went a little critical.”
“This is a cleanup, plain and simple,” Michael Balfour took off. “I’m sure most of you have experience with cleanups. MSI doesn’t usually grant contract releases for mop work, so consider yourselves lucky. If you work hard, you’ll be out of here by the end of the week.”
“Sir?” A low-lev exec, probably accounts payable in some square-state branch, raised his hand. “What kind of core was it? I mean—Are we walking into a hot pop? I want to have kids someday, and—”
Balfour shook his head, chuckling. “No, no, I assure you all, you’re in no danger. The engine was a simple—Hope? Help me out?”
“It was a pebble bed reactor. Just a big splash of pyrolytic graphite and helium. The hot pocket’s halved down to almost nothing.” She circled an area of the projected schematic. “We waited six months to bring you in, to make sure it was safe. Diablo just needs the human touch before they can get back in and start digging again.”
West followed Maggie’s gaze. She stared at Richter. West could have sworn that Richter was acting. Some people can’t contain lies.
“The initial blast rocked the mine, so watch your step on entry. The walls and floors are a little tilted. You’ll be issued protective gear, so don’t worry about making babies.” Hope looked over and smiled at the low-lev, and a nervous laugh sputtered to life around the room. “And so—” she motioned to two guards at the chamber door, who cycled it open. A line of gofers carrying crates of rubberized protective suits came in. “Everybody suit up, so you can begin. Good luck, Assault K. Stay safe down there.”
West noted a glare behind Richter’s eyes as he looked at the woman.
The display blinked off, and Benton caught the marble. The three left the chamber to the sound of squeaking rubber being pulled over street clothes.
“Michael? We’ll catch up to you.”
Balfour winked at Richter as he continued down the shaft.
“James?”
“I can’t believe we’re fucking going through with this.”
Benton exhaled slowly. “There’s no other—”
“There’s plenty of other ways.”
“The probes didn’t tell us anything. We need human—”
“Rats. You need rats for the maze. We don’t know what that thing is, but we’re still sending people in to get slaughtered.”
She bristled at the word. “The last two groups—I wouldn’t call it a slaughter.”
“Still ended up dead.”
“No.” Her eyebrows narrowed defensively. “Two lived.”
“And then fucking died.”
She started walking again. “Why did you even bring me here? If you don’t believe in what we’re doing?”
He grabbed her hand and anchored her in place. “Because you’re brilliant. I thought you’d figure it out. I didn’t think anyone else’d have to die.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
He let go of her hand in frustration, raising his own helplessly. “You haven’t disappointed me.”
“Will you still say that when the K group comes out dead?”
“I don’t know.”
She walked away.
Jennings had gone home. Apparently his wife was sick. Cervera sat in his chair. None of the engineers seemed to mind.
“It can’t be easy for you, I know.” She said, half-watching the eyelines begin to light up. “Being here.”
“Hmm?” Michael Balfour turned away from watching a disembodied conversation between two of the fodders.
“It can’t be easy, seeing those two all over each other.” The unspoken implication.
“James needed help. You, too. It was the least I could do.”
“Who would have thought, all of us back together again?”
“Not all of us.”
The room was suddenly a torrent of chair squeaks and throat clears.
“You could have said no.”
“No. I couldn’t turn this down.” Couldn’t turn him down.
“Couldn’t turn her down?”
She has no idea. Michael smiled.
“Speak of the devil,” Cervera offered seats to the returning Richter and Benton. “Judas cow ready?”
“The herd’s getting suited. The lead’s been briefed. He thinks we’re after gold. Enthusiastic sort. They’ll follow him.” Benton sat between Cervera and Balfour. Richter noticed. He took a chair as far away as the room allowed.
“Eyelines?” Cervera performed a quick survey.
“Allll—up.” An engineer activated the last of the fifty.
“Good.” Cervera leaned forward. She was starting to like this dance. “Send in K group.”
“No good,” Maggie grumbled. “They’re lying to us.” She adjusted the tiny camera mount banded to her head. “And I don’t fuckin’ care if you’re listenin’.” She let the microphone boing back into place.
West grinned as he locked his bubble in place, the cool wash of canned air displacing his internal warmth. He grinned, but he felt it
, too.
“All right, everyone. Ready?” The low-lev was a little too eager. West thought he knew something. “Assault K, move out.” Authority fills a void, especially at the prospect of gold.
Walking down canted corridors.
The groan of a metallish bulkhead.
“What the—”
The world became light, and Maggie fell to the ground.
Screaming, life in gaps, brilliant white light, brilliant white light. West knew he was screaming, knew it, but couldn’t hear himself, the room was so light. A ball at the center, a light, and fingers, reaching, grasping. He didn’t exactly have to throw himself to the ground; he fell beside Maggie. The last thing he saw was the light, that light, reaching out and through the fifty, K group, eyes open, lances of white erupting from the ball, the ball at the center, reaching, and
“I’m going down there.” Richter’s chair tipped as he stood up. “This has to stop.”
“James—”
“Don’t fucking James me, Tony. We have to stop this.” The door closed behind him.
“What do we—”
“I’m going, too.” And Hope Benton did.
The eyelines were dying, one by one by ten.
“Mike, get on the—”
“Sorry, Tony. I have to stop them.” Balfour ran.
Cervera wasn’t going anywhere.
It was a heartbeat.
West thought he was still alive.
Blood. Gushing from his nose, thin, hesitant trails from his eyes. The worst headache. He rolled to his side and vomited across the composite floor. There were bodies around him, and something had changed. There were bodies around him, and one was alive.
Maggie coughed beside him, a wracking, horrible affair. He crawled the feet to her, the distance seeming miles. Wiped vomit and blood from his face as he touched her. She started to cry.
“Did you see it?”
Cervera stood over the engineer’s glass, jaw dropped. There were lifesigns on two. Not flickering, strong. They were talking. Finally. A breakthrough. Two survivors who weren’t squealing bags of smeared flesh and agony. Finally.
