by Rod Walker
“Let’s go,” said Jack. “I’ll take point. You two watch my back. Try not to shoot me in the back.”
Rigger snorted. “If I’m going to shoot you, Sergeant Walter, it’ll be right between the eyes.”
“Just shut up and follow me,” said Jack.
Rigger offered no complaints as he took the left behind Jack and I took the right. We jogged around the base of the citadel, its dark mass rising over us, and came to the entrance. I expected to see a mob of drones charging out to fight us, but nothing moved in the gloom beyond. Evidently every Darksider in the city was already engaged with the enemy, and no reinforcements had come through the gate yet.
Walking through the entrance was disturbingly like walking through the mouth of some giant creature, an impression reinforced by the organic appearance of the chamber beyond. It was roundish, with glossy black floors and ceilings and walls, and red veins pulsed and throbbed on the walls, giving off a sickly red light. The smell…there weren’t words for the smell. It was an alien reek, a weird mixture of the dusty smell of a spider’s web and the fetid stink of a swamp under the noon sun.
There was another archway in the distance, and through it I glimpsed the pale familiar light of an open gate.
“Gate’s that way,” said Jack.
“Of course it is,” said Rigger. “We can all sense it.” Jack looked at him. “Sir.”
“Either of you sense anything?” said Jack.
“Yeah,” I said. “But not in here with us. I could sense the throbbing pressure of the gate and the transductor crystal, hear the whispering hisses of the communicating Darksiders, and feel them moving around outside the citadel, but I didn’t think there were any in here with us.
That wasn’t going to last.
“All right, let’s hurry up,” said Jack, and he jogged forward, Rigger and I following him.
We entered a vast chamber, easily half the size of the entire citadel. Veins as thick as a grown man covered the walls, glowing with sullen light, and I saw thousands of bundles of things that looked like purple fiber-optic cables bound to the wall, glowing and dripping with a foul-smelling slime. The floor was a bit soft, like a safety mat, and gave off an unpleasant squishing sound with very footstep.
The gate yawned open before us.
It was the biggest gate I had ever seen, big enough that an F-16 fighter jet could have rolled through it without much trouble. Beyond I glimpsed the nightmare world of the Dark, and the whining metallic sound buzzed in my ears. I could neither see nor sense any Darksiders in the chamber, and I couldn’t sense any of them beyond the gate.
That didn’t mean anything. The senses of a Listener did not always function properly when trying to reach through a gate.
“Through the gate,” said Jack. “Follow me.”
Rigger and I followed him through the gate and into the world of the Dark.
It was just as I remembered it from previous visits. We were on a plain of black grass-like plants, one of those forests of giant black mushrooms about a kilometer away. The sky was still the color of blood, twisting black clouds flying overhead far faster than the wind would have indicated. Behind the forest I saw a row of mountains, and to my right, a few kilometers away, was a city of giant obsidian structures, like the citadel back in Spokane but far larger.
The transductor crystal was only about three hundred meters away.
It floated above the corpse-flower like plant, its surface pulsing and flickering with glimmers of white light. The thing was about the usual size, about the width of a volleyball, but it looked more complicated. I realized that it had more facets than the normal crystals. The most facets I had ever seen on a transductor crystal had been ninety-six, but I was willing to bet this one had at least twice as many more.
And I felt different in my head. Usually the crystals had a feeling of pressure, of sharpness, but this was accompanied by a weird buzzing noise I could only hear inside of my head. It sounded almost like a TV show playing through a really bad speaker.
It almost sounded like the crystal was trying to talk to me.
“You guys hear that?” said Rigger, unease going over his ugly face.
“Yeah,” I said. “Guess Major Randolph was right. This one is special.”
“Special or not, it’s coming back with us,” said Jack.
We headed towards the crystal. It floated over the flower-like thing, seeming to bob gently as it revolved.
“Rigger, you carry it,” said Jack. “Kane and I will cover you.”
Rigger grunted. “Right, I…look out!”
We all felt it at the same time, and we looked towards the sky simultaneously.
I had never seen a flying assault drone before. The assault drones were big, so big that I doubted they could fly, but the creature diving towards us had massive blurring wings the size of a basketball court. The bulk of the drone in the center almost seemed like an afterthought. The huge wings folded up as it landed, and Jack, Rigger, and I all tried to scatter.
Jack and Rigger dodged.
I didn’t quite make it.
Something stabbed through my stomach and burst out my back, and my left leg exploded with pain. I would have screamed, but I was in too much pain to manage it.
Also, I was flying. The impact had thrown me into the air.
I hit the ground hard at the base of the corpse flower-thing and heard something crunch inside me.
I blacked out for a little bit.
When I woke up I was in a lot of pain, and Jack and Rigger had killed the assault drone. They were standing over me. Jack was frowning. Rigger was scowling. I looked down at myself. There was a lot of blood on my stomach and more on my left leg, and everything below the level of my chest just hurt. I also felt light-headed and a little detached from the pain, which wasn’t good.
I wondered if my father had felt this way right before he did.
“He’s done for,” said Rigger.
“He’s still alive,” said Jack.
“Yeah, but not for long,” said Rigger. “Look, we ought to put a bullet in his head and go. We’ve got to get the crystal and get out of here. We stay here, the Dark will eat us. And we can’t leave Kane here alive for them.”
“I’m not leaving a soldier behind,” snapped Jack.
“Rigger’s right,” I rasped. Was that my father speaking or me? “I’ll just slow you down. Just give me my gun, I won’t let them take me alive.”
“Look, Sergeant,” said Rigger, ignoring me. “You don’t want to do it. I can do it.”
“No, there’s another way,” said Jack. “Roland can carry the crystal, and we’ll carry him.” He looked at me. “Can you hold onto it?”
“I…” I wanted to tell him to have Rigger shoot me and leave before it was too late. But something inside me rejected the thought. If the Dark wanted my life, they would have to come and get it. I wasn’t going to do their work for them, and I wasn’t going to let Rigger do it either.
And I was the only family Maggie had left. I couldn’t die and leave her alone in the world.
“Yeah,” I said. “Give me the crystal and I’ll carry it. But if I drop it, take the crystal, shoot me, and run. Don’t get yourselves killed on my account.”
Jack nodded and stepped out of my field of vision. A few seconds later I heard him swear, and I felt the shift in my mind as the transductor crystal moved.
“That feels…weird,” said Jack. He came back into sight, holding the transductor crystal. “Here. Watch out.”
He lowered the crystal, and I forced my arms to move through the pain and grasped it.
A strange sensation pulsed through my head.
He was right. It did feel weird. Whenever I held a transductor crystal, my abilities as a Listener seemed to sharpen and come into focus. I heard the communication of the hive mind all around us, and I felt the strange presence of the crystal between my hands. It felt different than the other ones, and I had the distinct feeling that the crystal was trying to tel
l me something. Maybe that was just the pain and the blood loss.
No. It was something else. It wasn’t trying to talk to me.
It wanted me to do something.
It was…was it a user interface? Like a command prompt? I didn’t like computers all that much, but Maggie had told me about her database work for the Division. There was something called a command prompt where you could type instructions to the computer. The prompt was the computer prompting you to enter commands, to tell it what to do.
I had the feeling that the presence in my mind was a command prompt of some kind. Like the crystal wanted me to tell it what to do…
Then Rigger grabbed my knees and Jack grabbed me under the arms, and I forgot about the crystal in the wave of pain that roared through me.
“You all right?” said Jack. “Don’t drop it!”
“He’s gut-stabbed,” said Rigger. “Yeah, he’s great.”
“Go,” I croaked, clutching the crystal against my chest as if I my life depended on it.
I suppose it did.
Jack and Rigger broke into a shuffling half-run. Every step sent agony through me. You know how you’re not supposed to move a severely injured person because you might exacerbate their internal injuries? I can tell you first-hand what great advice that is. Every step jarred me, and I could feel it tearing things inside me. I tasted something metallic in my mouth. Blood, that was it. Maybe the Dark wouldn’t kill me. Maybe I would just bleed to death. At this point, that felt almost like a victory.
It was only 300 meters, but it took an agonizing eternity. Or it felt like an eternity. In reality, I don’t think it took Jack and Rigger more than two minutes to run from the crystal flower to the gate. I felt every one of those steps, even as I felt the strange presence of the crystal in my thoughts. I also felt thousands of Darksiders rushing towards us in panic. The evil inhabitants of this obsidian Hell city were coming to kill us.
“Sideways,” said Jack. “Turn sideways.” He was panting. “Both of us go through at the same time. “Else we’ll cut him in half when the gate closes.”
Rigger said a bad word, but I felt myself rotating with them. To the right, I saw the glow of the gate back to Earth. To the left, I saw the Hell city and the twisted purple jungle, and against the writhing black sky I saw the outline of hundreds of Dark flyers hurtling towards us like attack helicopters.
“Now!” said Jack.
White light filled my vision as we passed through the gate.
Then the gate snapped closed, and we were back in the huge chamber at the heart of the citadel. Both Jack and Rigger stumbled and dropped me, and I hit the ground hard, the crystal rolling off my chest to come to a stop a few yards away against the rubble on the floor.
I was in far too much pain to do anything but lie there, panting in agony.
Fortunately, it didn’t take me long to pass out.
Chapter 8: Recovery
I didn’t die.
You probably knew that, on account of how I’m still telling this story and all.
I didn’t die, but I came close. If I had just been a common infantryman, I probably would have died. My wounds were pretty bad. But I was a Listener. Black Division didn’t have nearly enough Listeners, and nearly a third of our Listeners had been killed in the attack. So I got a helicopter ride back to Castle Base and the hospital while other wounded men did not.
It wasn’t fair. But life isn’t fair, and for once it wasn’t fair in my favor, which is why I am still here to tell this story.
I don’t remember much of the next three weeks. Only flashes, here and there.
The roar of the chopper’s rotors, and the medic shouting something at the pilot.
The lights flashing over the ceiling as I lay on a gurney wheeled along a corridor. Someone was screaming. It was a really annoying sound and I wished the screamer would shut up.
Then I realized it was me. That was embarrassing.
Someone put a mask over my face, and then everything went black.
The next thing I remember clearly is the dream.
I was standing in the Dark’s twisted world, in one of those purple jungles of glowing mushroom-things. Maggie stood a few yards away, both hands grasping the complicated transductor crystal I had nearly gotten killed to claim. She was staring into it, both her hands as steady as stone.
Her eyes rose from the crystal and met mine. Her face was blank, utterly free of all emotion.
“You are human,” said Maggie. Her voice sounded strange, flat and unemotional, almost like she was reading from a technical manual.
“Yes,” I said.
“But you have been altered,” said Maggie. “The technology of the weapon has modified your physiology. You can now engage in a limited form of communication with the network.”
“Um,” I said. “What?” I admit I sometimes didn’t know what Maggie was talking about, especially when she got going about SQL databases, but this didn’t sound anything like her.
“You are human, but modified,” said Maggie. “This may be of use.”
“Okay,” I said.
“The war is over,” said Maggie.
“No, it isn’t,” I said. “That was just Spokane. There are lots of gates still left.”
“Your mode of perception is inadequate,” said Maggie. “This method of communication is inefficient. Your cognitive processes require you to consider information through word-symbols, and symbols inherently contain a degree of inaccuracy.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Yes,” said Maggie. She looked back into the crystal, lost in thought. “The war is over.”
“Considering that I might be dead and in a really weird Hell because of that war,” I said, “I think I can safely say that it isn’t.”
“No,” said Maggie. “You are still alive. The war is over. Listen carefully. A long time ago there was a war.”
“How long ago?” I said.
“For the purposes of this discussion, the precise timescale is irrelevant,” said Maggie. “Your race has not yet devised mathematical-symbols and processes for comprehending time on that scale. Suffice it to say it was long ago. In this war, two powerful races tried to destroy one another. They both succeeded, and both perished in due course. But their creations continue to fight the war, even though it is long finished.”
“I don’t understand,” I said, confused.
“Endeavor to do so,” said Maggie. “You do not understand the weapon. But others of your race do, and they will attempt to take control of it. That would be catastrophic. The power of the weapon should not pass into human hands.” She shook her head, and for the first time emotion went over her face. It was irritation. “This method of communication is limited, but it is the best you can manage for now. Human biology is not compatible with the weapon even under ideal circumstances, and these are far from optimal circumstances. I can only communicate with those like you, and even then, only with your subconscious mind. Nevertheless, you must remember this.”
And then she was gone.
After the dream, or maybe the nightmare, ended, there were more flashes. Hospital beds and doctors and nurses staring down at me. Machines beeping. Tubes in my arms and down my throat.
Maggie sitting in a chair next to a hospital bed, crying.
Then the flashes of memory linked together, and I woke up.
I let out a long, stuttering breath. I felt terrible, with that familiar wooziness that meant I was on painkillers. I was lying in a hospital bed in Castle Base’s infirmary. In fact, I think it may have even been the same bed where I had woken up after the zombie had infected me. I blinked my gummy eyes into focus, and saw Maggie sitting next to me, frowning as she typed on a laptop.
Her expression was so like the dream that I was confused for a moment.
“Maggie?” I croaked.
She flinched so violently that the laptop almost fell out of her lap.
“Roland?” she said.
“Yeah,”
I said. “Guess I’m not dead.”
She pushed aside the laptop, grabbed my hand, and started crying, but they were happy tears.
The next few months were unpleasant enough that I wished I could have slept through them, too. Still, it could have been worse, and you can’t attend physical therapy when you’re unconscious.
Major Randolph visited me first, once Maggie had to go back to work. He filled me in on what had happened after I had passed out in the citadel. Jack and Rigger had managed to keep me from bleeding out, and called for medical evac for me.
“Then we took the city?” I said.
“We did,” said Randolph. “It was a hard fight and we lost a lot of good men. Too many. But Spokane is ours, and you and Sergeant Walter and Corporal Rigger closed the gate. The Committee also managed to shut down the gate at Las Vegas, so the Dark has been cleared from the Cascades to the Mississippi.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s good news.”
“We’re already making plans to attack the Dark gate in Seattle,” said Randolph. “There’s a lot of hard work to do yet, but this was a major victory. Maybe even the turning point. If we can crack the defenses at Seattle, and there is no reason to think that we can’t, we should have them on the run.”
“Wow,” I said again. I was still on a lot of painkillers so it was hard to think of words. “I’m surprised the Dark hasn’t struck back.”
“They’ve tried,” said Randolph, “but we’ve been able to detect and close their gates as soon as they open them. Also, the scientists think that the gates draw each other, that it’s easier for the Dark to open smaller gates closer to a larger one. With the Spokane gate shut, it’s much, much harder for them to open anything in this area, and it’s even possible that if they try, the gate might open closer to one of the bigger gates remaining in Seattle and San Francisco.”
“Sounds complicated,” I said.
“It is,” said Major Randolph. “It has something to do with that transductor crystal that you and Walter and Rigger brought back. It’s an order of magnitude more complex than the other crystals we’ve seized, and we think it can somehow control the simpler crystals. We’ve never seen anything like it before.”
