Silas: A Supernatural Thriller

by Robert J. Duperre

  “Are you speaking of the Lupine Nick Goodman?” asked Ben.

  I nodded.

  “Ah, a conundrum,” he replied, tapping his fingers together. “You see, the Lupine did not betray his gi-faht. In fact, in his own way, the Lupine was trying to save him. He left Paul out for the Dreadnaught to snatch away because he was told that Paul had turned his back on his mission. To the mind of a Lupine, being disloyal to one’s fate brings about a loss of soul. The Lupine felt that the only way to reinstate his honor was to complete Paul’s mission himself.”

  “How could you know all this?” I asked. “I still don’t get it.”

  “After Paul was brought here and fitted with the regulator, he had a lot of free time on his hands. He talked to me often, told me all about his life, what he’d been told to do, why he felt he could not go through with it, and your role in stopping this. Of course, he assumed he was speaking with Nell, but being that my power cells were necessary for her to stay operational she allowed me access to her sensors. I appreciated it greatly. It can get quite lonely having no one but a computer to talk to.”

  I chuckled at the irony of the statement and said, “So why were you in there, anyway?”

  Ben sighed, strange for a thing that didn’t need to breathe. “Unfortunately, just like the rest of my past, that is a mystery. Even Nell did not know. All she understood was that she had been dormant for two hundred years and then she wasn’t. Certain aspects of her memory were erased, as well…though she retained most of her historical documents.”

  “Like what?”

  “The history of this world, the Elders, the man who created my class of artificial human, and how the realm was evacuated. That sort of thing.”

  I leaned forward in my chair. Amazingly, the wounds on my chest didn’t hurt at all anymore. The pills had done their job beautifully. “What else can you tell me?” I asked.

  Ben glanced at the sun. “It is getting late,” he said. “You two must be departing soon. So I will simply tell you this: Approximately five hundred years ago, after the collapse of the world economy, the globe was saddled with great conflict. That marked, in this reality, the rise of our version of Kaiser Wilhelm. Countries who had been allies came to be at war. It was a dark time for humanity. The ensuing battles killed more than three quarters of the world’s population and laid waste to the infrastructure. This went on for six years, until Nelson Nash, the first Elder, came out of hiding in what had been called the United States. He was a great man, a brilliant individual who created many helpful things. He pleaded for an end to the war, which did not happen until the oceans overflowed, suffocating low coastlines and killing off more large sections of the populations of all lands.

  “When the war did end, everyone looked to Nelson Nash for guidance. He formed the Great Council, a gathering of minds like himself, and decided to re-form society in a new way. No longer would money be the driving force of humanity, but advancement. He and his Council formed universities all around this land and others, where some of the most exceptional creations ever thought of came about. Old Crone, the first Oracle, was Nelson Nash’s contribution to the collective. It was his crowning achievement, but also his downfall.

  “Old Crone assisted in this newfound hunger for knowledge in so many ways. Through its calculations, the nature of the universe, of reality, became clear. Nash discovered that the Earth is not alone in the universe, though not in the way he expected. What he found out is that there are thousands upon thousands of Earths, all floating about in close proximity. Also, he discerned that these realities interact with each other on a constant basis, that the actions in one directly affect outcomes in the other. He saw that there were small gaps in the barriers that separate these different realms, weak spots in the membrane. He ascertained a way to widen these fissures and step through. The rest of the world, starving as the oceans swallowed up their natural resources, cheered this discovery. Never again would people need to starve or freeze if all one had to do was step onto a different Earth and take what was necessary.

  “What Nelson did not bargain for, however, were the other dimensions; dark places, the homelands of creatures that existed independent of Earthly concepts. Because they were so un-Earthlike, Old Crone and the rest of the Oracles never entered these dimensions into their probability calculations. This was horrible for everyone, for the more people stepped through these newly-created portals, the thinner the mesh separating realities became. Soon, the dimensions of these dark, unearthly beings began to push forward, to shove their way into this world and others. Into this reality entered things that weren’t supposed to be here – such as the Blood Larvae that populate the waters and the Reavers you saw in the sky.

  “Upon this discovery Nelson, who was very old at the time, presented the Oracles with the new understanding he had just gathered. According to their calculations, in time the walls would break down completely, between all realms, both Earthly and not. If that were to happen, reality would become non-reality. Everything would cease to exist. There would be no Earth, no Universe. Everything would fold in on itself.

  “To remedy this situation, Nelson came up with a plan. He ordered the majority of portals to be shut down, and the evacuation of this reality. Not all agreed with him, of course – human history is rife with individuals who will not listen to reason, no matter how damning the evidence presented to them – and so before he and his Council departed, as well as most of the globe, he ordered the construction of the TS class of android – me and my brothers and sisters. We were programmed with the combined knowledge of our greatest minds and instructed to stay behind, to impart this knowledge to those who remained and act as stewards of the realm. We tried our best to stem the flow of traffic between worlds, but then another man rose up in the east, one of great darkness and power. He built a rabid following and constructed a huge eastern city that stretched from one end of the land to the other. He ordered all TS series androids destroyed, and used the Oracles to build newer models, ones designed for terror, for death, not enlightenment. Those who did not agree with his plan were stripped of their humanity and sent to live here, in the Outskirts. These new machines kept them in line, kept them away from the cities, until the power units started to fail. Why he did not simply eliminate the mutants I do not know, just as I do not know how I came to be saved from the purge and now sit with you today. All I do know is that this happened two hundred years ago.”

  I felt like I was in a dream. I shook myself and stared at the robot. This was so much to take in, so much to believe. And yet with that being said, there was one fact that stuck out as contradictory.

  “Wait,” I said, “you say the director did this stuff two centuries ago? But according to Paul, he’s still here. How’s that possible?”

  Ben shrugged. “I am not certain. There are no records of his appearance on file, nor any communications with him, only the fact that he exists. It is my guess that he is either not one man but many, or perhaps something else, one of those unearthly beings that crossed over so long ago. Either option I find equally possible.”

  Ben peered over his shoulder, where the top half of the red sun was visible just above the cliffs. “This is enough history,” he said. “You must leave in a short while, and there are preparations to be made.”

  I just looked at him and kept my mouth shut. So did Silas. Really, what could we say?

  56

  Ben, Silas, and I walked into the black hole cut into the mountain. Unlike the entrance on the other side, the one we came through when we arrived the previous night, this one was obvious in its purpose. The porthole was rimmed with steel, and there was a walkway underfoot. We strolled through the darkness, using the glow of Ben’s eyes to find our way. It seemed to go on forever, through twisting hallways and rooms that must have been huge, because the sound of my breathing echoed back to me tenfold. Silas’s claws tapping on metal as he ambled calmed me down. It was consistent, it was real. In a world where nothing else seemed to be, I
grabbed hold of that as hard as I could.

  Eventually, when we reached an area where the ground seemed to soften, Ben told me to stop. He circled behind me and I heard the sounds of squeaking hinges and snapping wires. Light suddenly entered the world, accompanied by the mechanical hum of a generator revving up.

  When my eyes adjusted to the light I saw a carpet beneath my booted feet. Silas sniffed around the floor. He sneezed, kicking up a cloud of dust. I slapped my thigh and he came to me. I rubbed his head and took a moment to inspect our surroundings.

  We were in an office of some sort. On the far side of the room was a desk, itself layered with dust. The rucksack Kaiser had given me rested atop it. The desk faced a huge black television screen embedded in the wall, much like those we discovered in the Dreadnaught’s resting place. I imagined gigantic red numbers counting down to one and a quiver shook my body. The only other furnishings in the office were numbered filing cabinets.

  Ben stood next to the door. A panel in the wall hung open, and a thin wire ran from a plug in the center until it disappeared underneath his chest plate. He glanced at me and traced his shiny dome of a head with one hand, looking like a man running his fingers through his hair. His blue eyes dimmed a moment and his posture slackened. A second later he was stable again.

  “Nell’s power supplies ran out years ago,” he said. “The only way to now power the facility is through me, unfortunately.”

  “I get it. It’s why you were plugged into the mainframe, right?”

  “Correct.”

  I glanced around again, sensed Silas growing impatient, and said, “Ben, why are we here?”

  The android pointed across the way. “You must retrieve something from cabinet number 4. Please open it.”

  I did as I was told. The drawer wasn’t locked, though its sliders must have rusted away long ago. It was tough to pull out, like someone was on the other side trying to stop it from opening. When the drawer finally slid out, I glanced inside and saw the hold contained only one item – an object that looked like a six-inch-long golden bullet. I picked it up. It was heavy. There were markings carved into its sides. I flipped it over. On the other side there was only one carving – the same strange symbol I’d seen on the killer tree in my dream. I held it down so Silas could smell it. He turned his nose away like it stunk.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  Ben pointed at the object. “This is the key,” he said. “There is only one portal back to Q-9, your version of Earth. It is located on the other side of the Misting Lake. I assume you know where that is?”

  I nodded.

  “Very well. Cross the lake and head back the way you came. The access point to the portal lock is hidden inside a very special tree located at the bottom of a basin. It should not be very hard to find. Open the regulator box inside the tree, place the key inside the lock, and then enter the numbers from Lonnigan’s song. The portal will open for thirty seconds. Make sure to retrieve the key before you enter, however, and only step through one at a time. The portals do not open wide enough to ensure safe passage of multiple numbers. Plus, there is a chance of…genetic amalgamation should you try and squeeze through together.”

  “That doesn’t sound too pleasant,” I said.

  Ben chuckled. The sound reverberated in his voice box. “I would assume it is not, though I have never seen the aftermath for myself. Also, make sure you retrieve the key before you leave. Once on the other side, destroy the key, as well as the Cragton Disk. This is the only way to assure the passage to your world stays closed forever.”

  I shuffled from foot to foot. “Uh, Cragton Disk? Paul mentioned that in his letter, but I don’t have it.”

  “You don’t?” replied the android as his shoulders slumped. “I assumed you used it to cross into this realm.”

  “I didn’t.” I remembered the wolf-man standing above me as I lay paralyzed on the side of the hill, a glowing object in his hand. He’d also had a strange pendant around his neck when he confronted me in this world. “Nick Goodman, Paul’s gi-faht, brought me here. He’s got the disk.”

  “You must retrieve it,” stated Ben, matter-of-factly.

  “Really? But what about the key?”

  “Dimensional portals can be opened independent of the gateways using the disks. They were developed as hunting devices, for those whose job it was to track down and retrieve social deviants who skipped this reality in hope of escaping penalty. They can detect the genetic makeup of any being whose origin comes from this place, as well as open the portals. It is imperative you find it before you leave. The Cragton is the last of its kind.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Of course it is.”

  “Do you think you can do this?” he asked.

  “I sure as hell hope so,” I replied.

  “As do I,” stated Ben. The tone of his mechanical voice was grave.

  57

  We made our way back to the place Silas and I first entered the Dreadnaught’s lair. Ben opened a panel buried in the cave wall before we reached the fence. He pushed a few buttons and closed it. I heard a low humming sound.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “I am using the last of the station’s reserve power to start the cleansing program. Please be sure you are nowhere near this access point in thirty minutes.”

  “Cleansing program, huh?” I said, to which Ben nodded. “I guess we’ll be far away, then.”

  “It is a good idea if you are.”

  Ben proceeded to rip the gate away from the hole in the cliff. His strength amazed me, as he tossed the thing aside as if it were a sheet of cardboard. I stepped outside to see the last glowing rays of the setting sun streak overhead. The full moon would soon show itself, and I had a day’s journey back to the shelter, at least. I checked my imaginary watch and told myself, if you run, you might be able to make it.

  Ben squatted and in one motion leapt twenty feet to the top of the cliff. He looked down at me; his glowing blue eyes were a haunting sight in the coming darkness.

  “This is where we say our goodbyes, my new friend,” he said.

  “I guess so,” I replied. “Thank you for everything.”

  “Do not thank me yet, Ken. Thank me once you get home and are safe. Only then will that thanks mean anything.”

  I saluted him. “Will do, partner.”

  He turned to go, hesitated, and then swiveled back to me. “Ken, there is one more thing I must tell you,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Please make sure the girl is safe. If she is who the Director thinks she is, she is the only hope of stopping the end of everything. She is a being crafted of this place, of this reality, and therefore holds the key.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Honestly, it is for the future to find out, and not for us.” With that, Ben mimicked my salute and swirled around. “Always remember,” I heard his synthetic voice say as he vanished from sight, “your life is short in relation to the universe, but it is not the only one. You will have other adventures to experience.”

  And then he was gone.

  We stood and listened to the insects’ song for a few minutes after that, staring up at the ridge Ben had disappeared over, until Silas broke the silence with a whimper. I knelt before him, grabbed him by the ears, and pulled them back, making his forehead slope. I laughed.

  “Pretty interesting fellow, huh? For a robot.”

  Silas yipped. His tongue lolled from his mouth while he panted.

  “Let’s say we get out of here, boy. I’ll race you home. Sound like a plan?” He started incessantly licking my face, to which I replied, “I’ll take that as a yes. Lead the way.”

  Silas walked ahead of me, his pace brisk. I kept up with him easily. Ben had given me what was left of his magic pain medicine before we left the complex-in-the-mountain, and I discovered it had other effects besides simply curing me of ache. For the first time in over a year my heart didn’t hurt when it beat. Energy coursed through me, as if I’
d been injected with copious amounts of caffeine. I bounced on my toes while I walked, feeling like I could run a marathon if I so chose.

  When the sun disappeared, the giant disk of a moon was already high in the sky. Silas began to falter, teetering in pain. I knew what came next. I stopped him, scooted to the ground, and held him close to my chest as the change came over him again. His weight shifted and his groans of pain melded with the insects to create sorrowful music. I felt his pulse slow as the hair fell from his neck and face. His features contorted and when I saw him, bathed in the blue light of the moon, with a visage that was just as much dog as boy, I kissed him on the forehead. It doesn’t matter what you appear to be, that kiss said.

  In no time his cries of animal torment became confused human whimpers. He burrowed into me and wrapped his little boy arms around my neck. Then he did something stupendous. He leaned in and planted his rosebud lips against my cheek. I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing as he did so. A part of me knew this would be the last time I’d see him this way, and it meant everything for him to bless me with that very human display of adoration. Even with the frightening things I’d seen over the last few days, I didn’t want this particular chapter to end.

  We sat there for a little while as father and son, he cooing like an infant while I stroked his hair. A cold breeze blew past us, causing me to shiver. I removed the blanket from my rucksack and wrapped it around Silas. The bright evening then became even brighter as a plume of yellow light illuminated the canopy above. I heard a sudden swoosh and the breeze kicked up. I knew exactly what that meant.