by Chris Fox
"That's it," I said, snapping my fingers. "That's got to be the Black Knight satellite. We just need to find and activate this gateway."
"Black Knight?" Steve asked.
"I think it's time for Doctor Galk to say goodbye to everyone. He isn't a part of this," Jillian said, nodding in Steve's direction.
"Like hell I'm not," Steve said hotly. He turned to me. "I'm part of this, and there's no way you're sending me away without--"
"Can you 'port him to the hotel and get back here quickly?" I asked, as if Steve hadn't spoken.
"Consider it done," she said, grinning. Jillian took two steps, then touched Steve on the shoulder. He was still sputtering when they disappeared.
Marcus helped Summers to her feet, and she leaned heavily against him. I felt more than a little bad that we hadn't had time to deal with her wounds, especially after she'd spent so long in a coma. Summers had given a lot for the cause, and I owed her more consideration at the very least.
"Okay, let's get to exploring this place," I said, turning back to Mom. "Can Ra tell us if there are any traps, or anything we need to worry about?"
Jillian reappeared to my right, reeling drunkenly. I darted forward, catching her before she fell. Her hair was slick with sweat, and she was trembling. "Guess that took a little more out of me than I expected."
"There are no traps," Mom confirmed. "Jillian, are you all right, honey?"
"Fine," Jillian said, though she was still shaking. "I just need a minute. I'll wait here while the rest of you do whatever it is you need to do."
"I'll stay, too. I can keep an eye on you and Summers in case Dick finds a way down here," Marcus said, his face back into its usual dour mask.
"All right," I said, reluctantly releasing Jillian. I turned to Kali and Janaki. "Let's see if we can find this gateway. Mom, is there anything else we should know first?"
"Just that the gateway required a key. It was a staff of some kind, something he thinks of as a Primary Access Key," she said, pursing her lips. "I'll see what else I can find while you locate the gateway."
I nodded, raising my phone as a flashlight. The chamber was long, maybe another twenty feet. At the far end, I found a tall doorway cut into the stone. It continued into darkness, and we followed it for a ways until it emerged into a small chamber. This one looked much more familiar, more like the Nexus where I'd met Ka. It was cut from black marble, and the walls were decorated with the same strange, golden glyphs I'd seen both there and on the grey men's ship.
"What is this place?" Janaki murmured, creeping along the edge of the chamber. She stared hard at the runes, gently brushing one with her hand.
"It looks like the room where we found Object 3," Kali said, never getting more than an arm's length from Janaki.
I looked down. "Very, very similar. Look at this. We're standing on a teleporter."
We were on a raised platform that perfectly matched the one we'd arrived on in the Nexus. I probed it mentally, and found still more similarities. This one functioned much the same as the teleporter in the Nexus, but was only linked to two locations. The first was close, no more than a mile or two away. The second was high above us, high enough that it could definitely be in orbit. "I think this thing links the Ark of the Cradle to the Black Knight satellite."
"Can you activate it?" Kali asked, joining me near the center of the teleporter.
"Yes," I said, after a moment's consideration. "But it's going to be a one-way trip. This thing is dormant, and almost out of power."
"Just like the Nexus," Kali said.
"Nexus?" Janaki asked, brushing a lock of brown hair from her face.
"A few months back, we used a grey man teleporter and it took us to a city created by the Builders," I explained. "It was almost out of power, and while there we met a hologram like Mom. It looked like a grey man, and told us that they left a network of Arks across the planet. They're solar powered, but apparently can only draw power when the sun is emitting a certain wavelength of light. When it isn't, they go dormant. This place has been dormant a long time, and doesn't have much power. I can get it to teleport once, but after that we're on our own."
"I have so much to catch up on. If we ever get a break, you need to sit me down and catch me up. So what do we do?" Janaki asked.
"That's a good question," I said, considering. "If we teleport to the nearby room, we'll probably end up in the Ark of the Cradle. I'm betting it's dormant under the desert. If I'm right, though, we might end up somewhere that doesn't have enough power to get us back. We could be trapped."
"The same thing could be true if it takes us up to the Black Knight," Kali countered. "What if there's no oxygen up there? Or if we don't have enough power to get back?"
"Damn," I said, unsure how to proceed. "Well, the Ark of the Cradle is out. There's nothing there that we need, even if we can get in. We do need the Black Knight, and between us, we can come up with a way to get there."
Chapter 16- Black Knight
I rushed back up the hallway into the main chamber where Jillian and the others were waiting. Everyone looked exhausted, and Summers had gone a shade paler since we'd left the room. We were a mess, and in no shape to fight. We needed to get out of there immediately.
"We've found a teleporter," I said, drawing everyone's attention. "We don't know where it leads, but it's somewhere in orbit."
"That seems to confirm the whole Black Knight theory," Jillian said, rising to her feet. "Do you have any idea what to expect when we get up there?"
"None," I said, massaging my temples. We needed the one thing we didn't have--time. "Mom, did you learn anything else useful from Ra?"
She shook her head, glancing at the red hologram. Ra's face had gone passive, and he was watching us curiously. What must it be like to be woken after millennia, with no idea how the world had changed? I scooped up her crystal and she winked out of existence.
"All right then, we've got to take a chance. We're going to use the teleporter, before the grey men show up. I'm surprised they're not here already. Everyone, on your feet. We're getting the hell out of here," I said, moving to help Marcus with Summers. He gave me a sharp glance, but let me take Summers' right arm while he got the left. "We're going to do this as intelligently as possible. Since we're going into space, there's a chance oxygen will be an issue. Marcus, can you make a telekinetic bubble around us right before we teleport?"
"Can do," he said, nodding. We helped summers up the hallway and into the next room.
"David, what about all these books?" Kali asked, pausing in the doorway.
"We can't read them," I said, without slowing. "No doubt they're important, but we need to leave them for now. They're too heavy to carry."
"All right," she replied, sadly.
Our little group moved up the hallway, and we'd almost reached the little room with the teleporter when the ground began to shake. No, that wasn't quite the right word. It was a subtle vibration, one I'd experienced before on a smaller scale. "The grey men are here. Move, people, move!"
Marcus and I darted forward, all but dragging Summers onto the platform in the next room. The others clustered around us, peering back the way we'd come. A bright light flared in the room where we'd discovered Ra, and none of us needed to see what had caused it to know that the grey men had come. We were out of time.
I closed my eyes and mentally reached for the teleporter, feeling the firmware the same way I'd done with Object 3. I examined the connection to the destination in orbit, then willed the device to take us there. At first nothing happened, and I realized that it needed more power to complete the connection. I offered my own, letting it draw from the inner reserve of strength that I used to fuel my powers. I began to shake, falling to my knees as the device sucked more and more of my strength away.
"David!" Jillian cried, moving to my side and stabilizing me.
"Make that bubble, Marcus," I croaked. I could feel the power reaching a crescendo.
I caught a brief flash of
too-thin grey limbs moving up the hallway, and then we were swallowed in a sea of light. The teleport went on longer than the one that had taken us to Object 3, and when it ended, I found myself toppling face-first to a platform that mirrored the one we'd come from.
"Hang in there, David," Jillian said, her voice muffled somehow. She pulled me into a sitting position, resting my head against her shoulder. "You did it. We're in the satellite. Look."
I did, leveraging the titanic effort needed to raise my head. We were in a room cut from the same black stone I'd seen in all Builder tech, but there was a significant difference. To our right was a massive opening in the stone. That opening looked down on Earth, showing a clear view of the African continent. We were in high orbit. We'd made it.
"Is it safe to drop the bubble?" Marcus asked. He picked Summers up in his arms and stepped down from the platform. "I'm not sure how long it will take us to burn through the air I brought with us."
"Give me a minute," I said, closing my eyes. I tried to concentrate, to feel the facility around us. In theory, I should be able to tap into whatever systems it possessed, which would let me figure out whether or not we had life support.
"If you are concerned about environmental integrity, I can assure you this facility is perfectly adequate to sustain your basic biological needs," came a mechanical voice. I opened my eyes, blinking at the figure standing near the far side of he room.
It was a hologram, one a lot like Ka. It had the same deep, green skin, oblong head, and flat, black eyes. It was taller than a grey man, but similar in every other respect. The hologram watched us curiously, clearly waiting for a response.
"Who are you?" Jillian asked, helping me to my feet. I felt a little better, but I wasn't going to be much good to anyone until I slept for about two weeks.
"I am Ark Keep Ren, appointed to keep watch over Orbital Facility Theta," the hologram explained. Its voice was completely emotionless, quite unlike Ka's.
"What is Orbital Facility Theta?" I asked. Jillian helped me from the platform, and we limped closer to Ren. Marcus and Summers hobbled over as well. Only Kali and Janaki looked anywhere close to normal.
"This facility was created to coordinate the Great Arks. It monitors the sun, and utilizes the Arks' ability to regulate the earth's magnetosphere," Ren replied, matter-of-factly. "In addition, this facility gathers data both on the planet below and the surrounding solar system. This information is available to any Ark Lord, and coming to the facility is unnecessary unless there is a need for direct maintenance."
"Are there crew quarters? Or some place where we can rest?" I asked.
"We possess seven rejuvenators?" Ren asked, as if confused by the request. "Would you like a tour of the facility?"
"Sure," I said, finally releasing Jillian.
Ren guided us from the chamber, into a wide room with hallways leading off it like spokes on a wheel. The room possessed four obelisks like the one in the mothership, each set atop a small platform. Three of the pillars glowed with a soft, white light, while the forth was dark and singed.
"This is the central control hub. As you can see, the facility has sustained light damage. This occurred when an asteroid impacted, roughly six hundred thousand years ago. Since then, the facility has operated at 82% efficiency, with no further degradation," Ren explained, drifting through the chamber toward the center. "From here you can enter the docking bay, the rejuvenator chamber, the archive, the command console, or the transporter room where you entered the facility."
"Take me to the command console," I ordered. I was more interested in whatever the rejuvenators were, since they sounded like the closest thing to beds this place might have. I didn't have time, though. "Is it possible to lock the transporter room so that no one else can enter?"
Ren cocked its head, considering. "It can be done, though I am unsure why you'd wish to do such a thing."
"Just take me to the command console and show me how to do it," I said. Ren turned wordlessly, drifting like a ghost as it moved down one of the spokes. The hallway was flat, black stone. Unadorned until we reached a doorway. A single golden sigil was etched above it, and I could see a spartan room on the other side.
Ren moved inside and I followed. There was a single black marble chair, with a large, blue crystal rotating slowly in the air before it. It reminded me of the control crystal in the mothership, though this one was smaller and of a different hue.
The others crowded into the room behind me, though no one said anything. The tension was palpable, and for good reason. We'd narrowly escaped the grey men in the Hall of Records. If they were able to use the same teleporter, they could be right behind us. They could be arriving right now.
"What do I need to do to block it?" I asked Ren, moving to the stone chair and sitting heavily. The stone flowed like putty, reforming itself to the contours of my body. It was surprisingly comfortable, and more than a little disquieting.
"I can see that your helixes have been modified to allow you to interface with the control crystal. Simply concentrate, and envision the schematic showing the station's layout. You will see a power conduit connecting the teleporter to the energy condenser. Disconnect that, and the teleporter will be inert." The hologram's voice was still emotionless, yet I could sense its disapproval.
I stared hard at the rotating crystal, interfacing with it in exactly the same way I did with the mothership. To my immense relief, doing so was far easier, and the flow of data inside was much more manageable. That made sense, as this station was created millions of years prior to current grey man technology.
I navigated through the system, noting several areas of interest. The station could both broadcast and receive signals, and it appeared to be picking up everything from HBO to military frequencies. We could use the Black Knight to monitor every human communication, and probably to hack them as well. This place was a godsend, in our hands anyway. If the grey men got their hands on it, we were in serious trouble. A quick examination of the firmware made me go cold.
The Nexus had a sort of DRM that encrypted the operating system, and made it impossible for the grey men to use. That was the reasons for their experiments, after all. They'd needed to create someone like me in order to interface with the Arks or the Nexus. This place was different, though. It possessed none of those safeguards, and anyone could tap into it. If the grey men got inside, they'd have the means to find every last super, and to monitor and control all human communication.
I envisioned the layout of the station as Ren had instructed, and immediately spotted the power conduit. I willed it to sever, and that portion of the station went dark. The teleporter was offline. We were safe, for the time being at least.
Chapter 17- Death Pods
We'd gathered in something that was probably meant to be a Builder mess hall. It had two long tables molded from sleek, black marble, each with a bench on either side that molded itself to your butt when you sat. It was unnerving, but surprisingly comfortable. The room had no other adornment, aside from the glyph over the door leading back into the central chamber.
The team collapsed at one of the tables--myself, Jillian, and Marcus on one side, with Summers, Janaki, and Kali on the other. Everyone had dark circles under their eyes. Our clothing was covered in a mixture of sweat, dust, and, in some cases, blood. But we were alive.
"Ren, is there anything to eat here?" I asked, leaning both elbows on the table. I badly wanted sleep, but food was an even more immediate priority.
"Regrettably, this facility is not equipped to sustain your immediate biological needs," the hologram said, the apology delivered in an emotionless monotone. "If you wish, you can use the rejuvenators to sustain yourselves. You will be placed into a state of suspended animation, your wounds healed, and your nutritional needs provided."
"What's to keep you from killing us while we sleep in these death pods?" Marcus asked, scowling at the hologram.
The hologram blinked, then cocked its head. "I do not understand your
query. I am unable to harm you, my programing will not allow it. Nor am I sure what you mean by 'death pod'."
"I can review his programming before we use the pods," I said, rubbing at my eyes. "We need sleep, and it sounds like this is the only way to feed ourselves in the short term."
"What about the long term?" Jillian asked. Her hair was askew, and a smudge of dirt marred her left cheek. She was still gorgeous.
"That's a good question," I said, exhaling a long sigh while I considered it. "If I understand this place's basic architecture, I think we can use it not only to find supers, but also to spy on the grey men. It should be able to pick up their ship-to-ship transmissions, as well as any ground communications from agents like Dick."
"What about food, though?" Kali asked. Her stomach gave a loud grumble, and she blushed. Janaki smiled, and the blush deepened.
"I have an idea about that," I said, thinking out loud. "I can summon the mothership. If it's close to the Black Knight, then Jillian can ferry people back and forth. We can bring supplies in that way."
"That sounds viable," Summers allowed, pursing her lips. "So we take a nap in these rejuvenators, and when we wake up, the mothership arrives?"
"Something like that," I said, nodding. "After that we'll need a plan, though."
"We still need to find the FTL prototype, don't we?" Kali asked. I met her gaze, still unnerved by the flack black eyes. "It seems like that should still be top priority, especially since this place gives us the means to do it. We need to stop the grey men from bringing reinforcements from wherever they come from."
"Kali's right," Jillian said. She combed her fingers through her hair, trying to undo a knot. "If we can block their call home, then we're on much more even footing."
"All right," I said, rising shakily to my feet. "Ren, why don't you show us these rejuvenators? We'll recharge while we wait for the mothership, and when we wake up, I'll use the Black Knight to try to locate Dick's new facility."
