Emerald Sky

by David Clarkson

  ‘She’s inside,’ said Jimmy. ‘Don’t worry, she’ll come for us soon enough.’

  They did not have to wait long for Jimmy’s prophecy to pass. The large outer blast doors opened to reveal the demure and deceptively innocent looking form of the Lucy-tulpa. Two Chinese soldiers lay still on the floor behind her.

  ‘I guess we follow,’ said Emmy.

  ‘I guess so,’ replied Esteban, and then whispering in her ear; ‘you better know what you are doing.’

  As they entered the compound, Esteban crouched down to check on the fallen soldiers. Each possessed a healthy pulse, but none was in any danger of regaining consciousness any time soon. He then went through their pockets before retrieving their rifles. Both the scientist and the psychic shook their heads when offered the spare firearm. Esteban slung one over his shoulder and kept the other in his hands. Jimmy pulled Emmy to one side.

  ‘I wanted to thank you for what you did. Well, what Lucy did, but that’s still you, - right?’

  ‘I guess so,’ replied Emmy. ‘How are you feeling now?’

  He smiled. Despite the terrible situation they were in, this was the brightest she had seen him since being apprehended by the Americans.

  ‘Better than ever,’ he said. ‘I feel like I’ve been given a fresh start. All that stuff we discussed back home about why I had no long term visions. I don’t think that applies anymore.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘I died. Just now, when I fell from the building. That was the moment I had feared for so long, but thanks to you it never really mattered. You changed it. You brought me back. Once we get out of here, things are going to be different. I can feel it.’

  Emmy nodded in a detached, non-committal way. She hoped he was right, but something told her to be cautious. Jimmy had always possessed a positive disposition, but this was through naivety rather than genuine optimism. His ability to intuit the future was a tremendous asset to the team. Perhaps an even greater asset than her tulpa. Anything that could change how Jimmy received and reacted to his visions introduced an element of uncertainty. This was something she could definitely do without.

  Up ahead she could see that Esteban and the tulpa had reached an internal door.

  ‘Why the hold up?’ she asked. ‘Surely my girl can just break this thing down.’

  ‘Or we could use the key card,’ said Esteban.

  He held up the security pass that he had taken from one of the fallen guards.

  ‘And I suppose you know the code,’ said Emmy.

  ‘No, but he does.’

  The soldier pointed at Jimmy. The young psychic stepped forward and keyed in a nine digit security code whilst Esteban inserted the card in the reader. The doors slid open revealing a corridor filled with toxic gas.

  ‘Get back!’ shouted Esteban.

  The others did as instructed and Esteban hit the button to close the door again.

  ‘What now?’ asked Emmy.

  ‘The tulpa,’ said Esteban, receiving a scolding look in return. ‘I mean, Lucy,’ he corrected. ‘She will have to go it alone. She can take the key cards.’ Then turning to Emmy he added: ‘Do you think you can crack the codes?’

  ‘You mean subconsciously?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She shrugged.

  ‘I don’t see why not. I mean, technically she’s just as smart as I am. Even if she can’t, she can probably just teleport or smash her way through. It’s better for us if she doesn’t use up too much energy though. I have no idea what her limits actually are.’

  ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’

  ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’ She then glanced up and down the corridor. There did not appear to be anywhere else for them to go. ‘What do we do in the meantime?’ she asked.

  ‘There’s a ventilation shaft,’ replied Jimmy. ‘It’s clear of the gas.’

  ‘You have to be kidding me,’

  ‘I just call it as I see it,’ replied Jimmy. ‘And right now, I see us climbing into the ventilation shaft.’

  ***

  Charlie was unaware of the battle taking place on the upper levels of the compound. The general no longer saw fit to fill him in on his nefarious schemes and had banished him back to the detention level. The scientist suspected that the next time he left his cell it would be to face a firing squad. There was no other possible outcome. He was simply too dangerous to be kept alive.

  Maximum security dictated that guards be posted inside and outside of the cell. The only way to open the door was for both of these men to activate their key cards together and then input a code that each had one half of. Charlie was unable to overpower either man physically and bribery was out of the question. Both were dedicated servants of their general and beyond corruption.

  A light came on above the door, signalling to the guard inside that his partner wanted to open it.

  No visit or changeover was scheduled. This made the guard inside nervous. On the access panel there was a screen where he could bring up a live feed from outside of the cell. Everything appeared normal. He pressed the intercom button.

  ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘There has been a breach,’ the outer guard replied. ‘The security of the compound has been compromised.’

  ‘What has Major Heng instructed?’

  ‘Lockdown protocol has been initiated. You know what that means.’

  Both guards inserted their key cards and entered the code. Their orders as to how they should react in the event of an attack were clear. Once a hostile force infiltrated the base their prisoner would become a dangerous liability and had to be dealt with accordingly.

  The outer guard entered the cell. Charlie suspected that something was up, but he had no idea what his captors were actually planning. Only when the guards produced a blindfold did he realise what they were about to do.

  ‘Stop,’ he called out. ‘This is crazy. This is murder.’

  He struggled with his cuffs, but he was ultimately powerless. One of the guards pulled the blindfold down over the scientist’s face and the other stuffed a rag into his mouth, which he then covered with a binding.

  The first then reached into his belt and took out two bullets. One of these projectiles was a live round and the other was a dummy cartridge composed of wax. The latter would, of course, be harmless, but by using a wax bullet instead of a blank round it would produce a realistic recoil, masking whether it was the real bullet or not. Neither soldier had any idea which round was which. By retaining the anonymity of which guard delivered the kill shot, neither man would have to live with the dishonour of murdering a defenceless man.

  The bullets were distributed and the rifles loaded. The guards then took aim.

  ‘After the count of three,’ said the first soldier.

  His compatriot nodded.

  ‘One.’

  Both men tensed.

  ‘Two.’

  They placed their fingers on their respective triggers.

  ‘Th...’

  ***

  ‘I’ve found a way out,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Let me through,’ replied Esteban. ‘It’s best if I take point.’

  The Australian stared back at him, blankly.

  ‘I’ll go first,’ added Esteban.

  He peered through a gap in the grille and could see that it led onto an empty corridor. As they had hoped, there was no gas being dispersed in this part of the compound.

  He grasped one of his rifles with both hands and smashed the butt against the inside of the grille, knocking it clear of its setting. It clattered onto the floor.

  Not wanting to be left exposed and vulnerable for long, he rolled into the corridor and sprung back to his feet with his rifle cocked and pressed against his shoulder. He was immediately confronted by two armed guards.

  They yelled instructions at him in Mandarin. He did not need to be fluent in the language to know what they wanted him to do. If he put the gun down, they would almost certainly shoot h
im. If he shot one of them, the other would return fire before he had a chance to readjust his aim. It was a stalemate and they definitely had the advantage. Esteban had something else though. Esteban had Jimmy.

  ‘Tell me what to do,’ he called out.

  ‘You go for the guy on the left,’ replied Jimmy, still crouched in the ventilation shaft.

  Esteban knew the second hostile would return fire as soon as he shot the first. It was a suicidal move. With Jimmy calling it, he guessed he did not really have a choice either way. He squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter 43

  The unnatural being approached the command centre much quicker than expected. It was not hindered in the least by the gas and it made light work of cracking the security codes for the internal doors. It was now just one partition away from the general’s personal security team whom he had posted directly outside of his chamber. His scientists had earlier evacuated when the battle had begun.

  ‘General, what are your orders?’ asked Major Heng.

  ‘Instruct the guards to intercept the moment that thing breaches the outer corridor,’ replied Tao. ‘I do not want it getting in here – do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, General.’

  The major relayed the order to his subordinates. He then flicked the comm to speaker so they could both hear the resulting confrontation.

  It did not last for long.

  The barrage of machine gun fire was layered and deep, but with each second that passed, one of those layers was stripped away. Tao’s men had not stood a chance. In less than half a minute there was just the rattle of one firearm remaining. Then it too was silenced.

  ‘It’s at the door,’ said the major.

  ‘I do not want it getting in here,’ replied the general.

  Heng knew what was expected of him.

  The major left his station and withdrew his sidearm. It was the first time he had removed it from the holster in a combat situation since being assigned to Tibet three years earlier. When he got to the door he raised the weapon in front of him.

  His hand trembled.

  Doubt and fear were to an out of practice soldier what rust was to metal. When the door opened, he lost his nerve. Confusion compounded his crippling negative emotions. The unstoppable demon he was expecting turned out to be nothing more than a young woman.

  He glanced over her shoulder and saw the men she had defeated in the corridor behind. They looked dazed but they were alive. Each had been armed with a semi automatic rifle yet she had somehow nullified the threat they posed to her without killing them. Were these really the actions of a corrupt and immoral enemy?

  He looked directly at the girl. There was nothing but innocence and compassion in her eyes.

  ‘Is there a problem, Major?’ asked General Tao.

  Before Heng was able to offer a response, the Lucy-tulpa gave him a reassuring smile, encouraging him to stand by his instincts. The purity of her emotion took him back to his early life, before military service. He had grown up on a farm, which had been in his family’s possession for generations. Heng’s father always wanted his son to follow in his footsteps rather than take up military service. The major now realised that he should have listened to his old man.

  ‘I am sorry, General, but there is nothing more I can do here.’

  The general met his gaze.

  ‘I know,’ Tao replied.

  The shot took Heng by surprise. Because he had been caught so steadfastly in the general’s gaze, he had not seen the gun. The general had fired from the hip and the bullet impacted into the centre of the major’s chest. It stopped his heart instantly and without pain.

  The mortally wounded man fell to the ground. His mission had come to an end. The last he saw was the tulpa standing over him and its presence filled him with hope. He died without fear.

  ‘How can you be so cruel?’ the tulpa asked General Tao.

  ‘To achieve greatness, one must be unattached to emotion,’ replied the general. ‘Tell me – can you feel?’

  The tulpa hesitated. Its reaction to the murder had been intellectual rather than emotional. It looked back at the unconscious soldiers it had spared from meeting the same fate as Major Heng.

  ‘Feelings are irrelevant,’ it told him. ‘Compassion and forgiveness are essential to a successfully functioning society. Hate and conflict will always result in a negative outcome. What a man such as you perceives as subjective morality, is merely objective logic. Good triumphs over evil because the positive outweighs the negative. That is why there is something rather than nothing. That is why life continues to multiply despite the fact that everything dies. It is also why we will beat you.’

  ‘You’ve already lost,’ sneered the general. ‘The Chosen Ones cannot be stopped. By now they will be at their targets. It is only a matter of time.’

  ‘In that case, I better hurry up.’

  The tulpa covered the distance between them in a fraction of a second. Not through teleportation, but by sheer unrestrained speed. Somewhere along the way it also greatly increased in size – the petite young woman transforming into the gigantic beast of local folklore. What it did not realise, however, was that the general was no longer limited by conventional reflexes either. The serum he had synthesised from Jimmy’s blood now flowed through his veins.

  Tao stepped out of the beast’s path and slammed his fists into its back, redirecting its momentum to send it crashing into a wall. The reinforced metallic surface buckled under the force of impact sending a shockwave reverberating throughout the command centre.

  Though it was incapable of feeling pain, the tulpa was momentarily confused by the general’s surprise counter attack. Before it was able to fully orientate itself, the general instigated his follow up. He grabbed hold of the unnatural being by the back of its neck and threw it through an open doorway leading to the astral projection chamber. He then pressed the control to seal the door shut behind it.

  He knew it would not take long for the tulpa to get out of the room so Tao acted quickly. He may have lacked the scientific nous to start up the astral pods, but knowledge was nothing next to the power of foresight. His fingers instinctively rapped on the keyboard and the machines purred into life. By overriding the safety protocols he was able to reverse the polarity of the astral field, causing it to radiate outwards. With the output set to one hundred percent and all of the pods running at once, the entire chamber soon flooded with the effects of these technological marvels.

  The machines were designed to separate consciousness from matter and the tulpa was composed entirely of projected consciousness condensed into a material avatar. Unable to resist the irrepressible astral pull, the tulpa regressed back into a state of pure unbidden energy. It lost its form and substance, becoming nothing more than a detached essence of Emmy’s subconscious.

  ***

  The first soldier had gone down when Esteban fired. As he suspected, the fallen man’s partner was able to retaliate before he could recalibrate his aim.

  It mattered not.

  Fortunately for him, he had only been caught in the path of a wax bullet.

  ‘Drop it!’ he shouted.

  The Chinese soldier complied immediately, throwing down his rifle and raising his arms in the air.

  Jimmy and Emmy pushed their way out of the ventilation shaft. Esteban nodded his thanks to the young psychic, who replied with a shrug. He just did what he did. Free will and good intentions had nothing to do with it.

  ‘Are there anymore?’ asked Emmy.

  ‘No,’ replied Jimmy.

  They shepherded their prisoners back into the cell where they saw Charlie cuffed and blindfolded, chained to the bed frame. Jimmy located the key to the cuffs on the belt of the injured soldier. Esteban’s bullet had shattered the man’s shoulder blade. He may never regain full functionality in his arm, but it was better than the alternative.

  ‘Emmy, I’m so glad to see you,’ said Charlie. ‘Please tell me you managed to stop the general.’

/>   She shook her head.

  ‘Not yet. We do have a special weapon though. I think you already met Lucy.’

  ‘I met something, but it certainly wasn’t that sweet girl from Jackson’s Hill. You created that – right?’

  ‘It’s a long story. We don’t have time n...’

  Before she could complete what she was about to say, the room and all of its occupants vanished from Emmy’s view and she found herself a disembodied essence in a strange void, just like on one of her astral trips. Unlike on one of her out of body journeys, this time she could not shape her form by force of will, instead her energy seemed to be dispersing like a cloud of vapour.

  Seconds later, she opened her eyes to see her friends staring down at her.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked.

  ‘You passed out,’ replied Esteban. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I don’t know. One minute I was here and the next it was like I was elsewhere.’

  ‘The tulpa,’ they both then said in unison.

  Emmy tried to focus on the link between her and the Lucy-tulpa, but could no longer find it. That particular connection in her brain had become numb.

  ‘She’s gone,’ she said.

  ‘Can you bring her back?’ asked Esteban.

  ‘I don’t think so. Not right away, at least. The process is mentally exhausting – I need to rest before I can do it again.’

  ‘We don’t have time. With the tulpa gone, it’s down to us now.’

  Esteban gathered the rifles from the two guards and put them alongside the pair he had been carrying. He was determined to put on a show of strength, so this time he insisted that they each carry a weapon.

  Charlie used a computer at the sentry booth to hack into the mainframe and flush out the toxic gas that poisoned the corridors of the upper compound. They then exited the detention level via the ventilation shafts. With no more obstacles in their way, it did not take them long to reach the command centre.

  General Tao was waiting for them. He did not appear to be armed, but Esteban in particular knew that there was more than one place to conceal a weapon. They could not afford to take any chances. The four friends trained their rifles on their enemy whilst fanning out across the room.