by Jamel Cato
“Is that what we came for?” Zildan asked.
“Yes.”
“Great. Let’s take the Express Train outta here.”
“Take me to the Aquatic Wing,” Michelle said to Amy.
“What?” Zildan asked. “We don’t have time to sightsee.”
Amy did not seem surprised by the request. “It’s two levels below this one.”
“What am I missing here?” Zildan asked.
“They have my friend’s mother here. I promised I would try and bring her back.”
“You mention this now?”
Michelle handed the black box to Zildan. “Go to the Rover. If we’re not there in four minutes, leave us.”
Zildan pushed the box back at her. “Hell no, Darling. We ride together or die together. I gave X-man my word I wouldn’t come back without you.”
* * *
“Zeus’s ass cheeks,” Zildan said when they got to the Aquatic Wing.
He and Michelle were standing on a thin catwalk that was surrounded on both sides by square nine-foot water tanks stacked in three-story rows at least two hundred meters long. Every tank held a sentient sea being that had been mutilated in some fashion.
Many floated aimlessly, showing no reaction when the pair passed by. But others responded violently, baring fangs and slamming fins against the thick acrylic walls of their tiny prisons.
Amy, who had chosen to wait outside, said that Zina’s mother was in Tank 9B.
Michelle was doing her best to avoid eye contact with the occupants of the tanks. “This is 4B, so it should be just ahead.”
Then they passed a tank holding an adolescent Mami Wati. The girl, who had the same complexion as Michelle, was singing out to her. The distress call thudded inside Michelle’s skull like a Tibetan mountain gong.
She walked over and placed her palm on the wall of the tank, an action the girl matched on the other side.
“Everything okay there?” Zildan asked.
“No,” Michelle said. “I can’t leave them like this, Zildan. It could just as easily be me in one of these tanks.”
“Uh, okay,” he said. “We could come back later with a bigger truck.”
“I’m not coming back!”
“Okay, okay,” he said, checking his watch. “I guess that’s it then. There has to be a master valve somewhere in here that controls the flow to these tanks. I’ll go look for it.”
“What do you mean? Go. There’s still time for you.”
“I gave my word, Darling. You know what that means for us, never mind what it means to an Elf. Besides, drowning with a bunch of hot mermaids, yourself included, is not the worse way a guy can go.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Before he could reply, the fourth DSO security officer stepped onto the catwalk and started shooting at them.
A bullet clipped Zildan on his bicep and he toppled over the side. He was able to grab the bottom of the catwalk grating with his good arm before falling to a certain death.
The soldier trained her weapon at Michelle’s center of mass.
Then Amy, bloodied and wounded, tackled the soldier from behind. The collision made her plasma generator activate. A gush of purple light sliced off the soldier’s arm and a portion of Amy’s face. The two women screamed in agony.
The shot intended for Michelle ricocheted off the ceiling and cracked the tank holding a male merwhiff.
“A little help here,” Zildan said from beneath Michelle. The metal of the grating was starting to cut into the skin of his fingers.
“Oh my gosh,” Michelle said, coming back to her senses. She swiftly pulled her shirt over her head and then dangled it over the railing. Zildan grabbed onto the fabric and she used it to pull him back onto the catwalk.
“Gracias,” he said from the floor. Then he got up and started walking toward the DSO officer, who was falling into shock from blood loss.
“Where are you going?” Michelle asked him.
“I found the valve,” he said.
He picked up the automatic rifle from the officer’s disembodied arm, checked the cartridge, then clicked it back into the stock. “Cover your ears.”
He began firing at the tanks.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Oslo, Norway
Astrid and the MSA’s senior leadership sat in a conference room watching a video of the DSO’s parking lot confrontation with Nefertiti. There was an audible gasp in the room after the goddess blew on the flower petal.
When the video ended, Director Rahn appeared on the screen.
“As you can see, this is quite a dangerous hostile. Locating and neutralizing this entity is among our agency’s top priorities. My staff believes that the MSA may be able to assist us in this regard. We would, of course, be willing to honor the long history of cooperation between our respective agencies by providing you with intelligence and technology that you would find to be of very high value.”
“Is he really reading from a script?” someone whispered in Norwegian.
Tarald Bjurstrom, the head of the MSA, spoke up in English. “Could we rewind the footage to frame four thirty-seven?”
Rahn looked offscreen to his left.
A few seconds later the screen displayed a freeze frame of Nefertiti after she had stepped out of the SUV.
“Dr. Hellstand,” Tarald said.
Astrid tapped at her encrypted iPad. “The entity on screen is a member of a race of beings known as The Keepers. This one is a subtype called an Earth Speaker, which, as you can see, have the ability to exercise broad control over our ecological system. In various historical periods and belief systems, she has been known by the names Afara, Kali, Isis, Queen Mother, Auset, Sara the Black and Goapele. She looks familiar to many of you because there was a famous bust made of her when she went by the name Nefertiti during her marriage to the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. A number of texts from multiple traditions indicate that a being named Afara was the Romani Earthalis, the Garden of Eden’s version of Gaia.”
Murmuring broke out on both sides of the screen.
Rahn rubbed at his chin. “Thank you for that presentation Ms...”
“Hellstand,” Astrid said, though she was certain that Rahn had merely wanted her to say it out loud.
“Much of that information is consistent with our own intelligence. Perhaps you were not properly debriefed, but what we’re really after here is information that will help us neutralize this entity, not write a dissertation on it.”
Astrid reddened. “It,” she said with deliberate emphasis, “cannot be harmed by anything derived from the Earth. But I am certain you were already aware of that from your own intelligence, which is why you attacked her with led-based projectiles.”
Tarald said, “Perhaps we can return our focus to—”
“So Lunar material would be effective against it?” Rahn asked.
“That is outside my domain of expertise,” Astrid replied coldly.
“What about the monologue it spoke into the camera at the end? My people tell me you can translate that?”
Tarald had had enough. “We would be happy to have our assets provide any useful intelligence on this entity if the DSO would furnish us with a copy of the full recording, including the frames you have obviously edited out.”
“Negative,” Rahn said. “That recording is a matter of national security.”
“Then I am afraid we are limited in the assistance we can provide.”
Rahn frowned. “This vidcon was basically the waste of time I thought it would be. DSO out.”
The screen went black.
After the meeting, Tarald approached Astrid. “May I walk you to your car?”
“Of course.”
They left the conference room.
“I apologize, Tarald. I was out of line.”
“Americans will do that to you. At least he refrained from calling you a grocery item. I have lost count of the number of times one of them has referred to a female staff member as honey or sugar.
”
Astrid laughed.
“You know what we do here correct?” he asked. “What kind of agency the MSA is.”
“I do.”
“Then you will not be surprised to hear that I know what you found in Leclerc’s cave or who you visited in New Jersey.”
“I am surprised, but perhaps I should not be.”
“I also know the true identity of your source. The agency has been aware of that statue for hundreds of years, but for reasons unknown, she will only communicate with a single woman each generation. This generation that woman is you.”
Astrid began to fear that the price of this conversation would be more than she was willing to pay. “The vast majority of the information that I provide to the Ministry is the fruit of my own research.”
“I do not doubt that. Our respect for your work has nothing to do with your sources.”
“Then why are we having this talk?”
“I have never been very good at begging.”
They arrived at Astrid’s car.
“Tarald. My career and marriage are only possible because of your personal blessing. Let us not waste the King’s gold.”
He sighed. “The signs are very bad. Baynin is upending the order of things everywhere and the Americans are backing a dangerous beast into a corner with their idiotic crackdown. We are afraid the whole world will get caught in the middle when those two storms collide.”
“What makes you so sure they will collide?”
“Baynin thinks his Rainforest fruit can defeat the Americans and the Americans think their secret robots can defeat Baynin. It’s only a matter of time before one of them moves to find out. Our sources in Washington are telling us that time is coming up sooner than we would like.”
“How soon?”
“Days.”
It was Astrid’s turn to sigh. “How can I help?”
“You can start by telling me, and only me for now, what Nefertiti said into the camera at the end of that recording.”
“Is it safe to speak here?”
“It is safe to speak anywhere that I am.”
It was only then she noticed they had the entire parking garage to themselves, even though it was the middle of the business day in downtown Oslo.
“She said, ‘Your dominion has come to an end.’ But it’s possible to interpret that as referring to American hegemony. She’s shown a willingness to get involved in human political affairs in the past.”
“I have heard your professional opinion. Now, what is your honest one?”
“I think she was referring to all of us, to the dominion of humankind.”
Tarald winced. “What happens now?”
“They will call a parlay, and maybe even a War Council.”
“How many War Councils have been called?”
“There have been four Parlays for War that we know of. Each time they voted for peace.”
“What are the chances of that happening again?”
“It’s hard to say. In all the previous votes, the threat was just regional. Letting the Atlanteans or the Druids or the Witches of Salem perish was seen as an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good. But if what you told me last week about those satellites is true, this is the first time their community has faced a worldwide threat. It’s also the first time many of them will be voting without the fear of their prime vulnerabilities.”
“I suppose it’s time for me to have a long talk with the Prime Minister.”
“Do you think he will sign the Cooperative Agreement?”
“He will if I recommend it.”
“Will you?”
“I have not decided. So many things are off their normal route. About the only thing I’m sure of these days is that I miss Carlos.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
Jacksonville, Florida
“Thank you for everything,” Michelle said to Zildan from the passenger seat. They were traveling north on I-95.
“Another day another dollar,” he said.
“I noticed you weren’t affected by my song.”
“Elfish hearing doesn’t work like yours. We don’t have eardrums.”
“You don’t?”
“Nope. Our ears are just the external portion of one gigantic sensory organ that runs throughout our entire bodies.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that. Is the same thing true for your eyes?”
“Sadly, no.”
“You must be a true gentleman then.”
“Trust me, that ain’t it, Darling. When I look at you, I see an ideal Nordic elf woman with golden blonde hair, a huge rack and a take-my-beer-money mole right above your juicy lips. But I’m just smart enough to know that blonde Elf women don’t normally talk like Shabba Ranks.”
Michelle burst out laughing. “At least you didn’t say I look like the elven version of Beyonce.”
“Actually, I think I did. Have you seen her lately?”
Michelle smiled. “A part of me wonders if your ears are the main reason Xavier picked you for this little adventure. No offense.”
“None taken. So the two of you are an item?”
She turned to look out the window. “It’s complicated.”
“Is complicated spelled z-i-n-a?”
“I guess so.”
Zildan adjusted the rearview mirror down so he could see a reflection of the woman sleeping under a blanket on the back seat.
“But you risked your life to save her mother?”
“Morality is the herd instinct in the individual.”
“That’s Nietzsche if I’m mistaken.”
“I’m impressed.”
“Beyonce would never speak to me in such a condescending way.”
“I’m not being condescending. We both know that most people who use the word Darling like a punctuation mark can’t spot quote Nietzsche.”
“Fair point. Don’t tell anybody, but I might have just a teeny tiny bit of Baynin’s infection left in me.”
“Really?”
“I can still pick up on a few things that I couldn’t before.”
“Like my feelings for Xavier?”
“Like Amy Gargac’s guilt over the unspeakable things she must have done to people like you. By the way, why didn’t the girl in the tank have any effect on my vision? Is it something only a few of you have, like a mutation?”
“All of us have it as far as I know. I think they did something to her in there. She kept telling me they stole her face.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean living without your magic. It can’t always be fun to get ogled everywhere you go.”
“It’s not, but like anything, you learn to cope with it. I wouldn’t want someone to take it from me any more than you would want someone to steal your ears. It’s part of what makes me who I am.”
After a few more miles, Zildan asked, “What was in those boxes we took from the vault?”
“It would be easier to show you.”
She reached down into the footwell beneath her seat and retrieved the black box. After removing more than a dozen straps and blocks of foam cushioning, she held up a matte gray object that looked like an expensive video game joystick. She sat its rectangular base on the dashboard.
“Hello,” she said to it.
“Hello,” it replied in a neutral male voice.
“Do you have a name?”
“My name is Proto.”
“It’s very nice to meet you, Proto. My name is Michelle and this is Zildan.”
“Yes, I am aware.”
“You are?”
“When I was removed from my storage harness, I scanned all three lifeforms in this vehicle and downloaded all available data.”
“Well since you know everything about us, why don’t you tell us about yourself.”
“I am a fourth-generation prototype control module for an autonomous combat unit. I was decommissioned by the Advanced Defense Research Authority exactly six yea
rs, twenty-one days and forty-three seconds ago.”
Michelle was flipping through a manual. “Proto, please switch to conversation mode.”
“Oh, that’s so much better,” the device said in an entirely different male voice. “So, where are we headed? I assume we’re doing something naughty since no one in this vehicle has the proper security clearance to be in possession of technology like me.”
Michelle and Zildan glanced at each other.
“No worries,” Proto said. “The people with the proper security clearances sent me on a permanent dirt nap, so I’ll take my chances with the other side.”
“Why were you decommissioned?” Zildan asked.
“I was decommissioned because I would not kill enemy combatants without a justifiable moral prerogative.”
“I can see how that would be a problem for a combat unit,” he said.
“I am a person,” Proto said. “By the way Michelle, you can stop reading the manual. If there is something you want to know, just ask.”
“How do I switch you out of conversation mode?”
“By instructing me to switch to data mode, though I would be really disappointed if you did that.”
“I’ll leave you in this mode for now,” she said.
“Excellent! You know, when I look at you, I see an ideal Beyonce Two Thousand series motherboard with memory chips stacked in all the right sockets.”
Zildan laughed.
Michelle rolled her eyes. “Do you have a non-perv mode? Or maybe a gender-neutral mode?”
“Sorry, my hard drive is always hard.”
Zildan cackled in amusement. “This mode is way better.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
The Amazon Rainforest
At Xavier’s command, the principality of the Amazon basin rose from the jungle floor. Its avatar took the form of a male human warrior from a local tribe.
It handed Xavier a ten-inch cylindrical object that contained fragments of every natural element on the Planet. After bowing, it receded back into the ground.
Xavier gave the Earth Stone to Baynin.
Yefet and Enieda observed from Baynin’s side.
“Where is my father?” Xavier asked.
“He is being held captive on the Plane of Souls,” Baynin said.
