The Eternity Machine

by Vaughn Heppner

  “Bah,” Hela said. “You’re overreacting.”

  “I wonder,” Selene said. “I’m beginning to think that must be what happened in the past. The Earth had a…a Tesla Event. The crust went up and down possibly just as he suggested. By spinning the core too fast, you may be bringing about another such event through the buildup of the vibrations over time. Surely, a fast spinning core will wobble. The effects to the planet…”

  Hela opened her mouth. Before she could speak, an intercom buzzed. “Just a moment,” she told Selene. Hela stepped to the intercom, pressing a button. “Yes?”

  “Mother wants the applicant to see the grand finale.”

  “I haven’t stabilized her mind yet.”

  “The Day has arrived, dear sister. Mother is insistent. You can repair Marcus’s damage later. Bring the applicant to the main chamber.”

  “I hear and obey,” Hela said. She turned from the intercom.

  “What does she mean calling me an applicant?” Selene asked.

  “It should be obvious. The solution is making your mind race, putting seemingly unrelated events together, helping you make intuitive connections.”

  Selene frowned.

  “There’s only one job opening left,” Hela said.

  “I’m to be the next Mother?” Selene asked.

  Hela clapped her hands. “Yes! Mother has allowed you a normal childhood and life. It will give you the right perspectives when the time comes for you to make the ascension into Motherhood.”

  “But…The Day has arrived. The New Order is about to begin. Do you need a new Mother after this?”

  “That is a shrewd question,” Hela said. “One of Mother’s key attributes is to always prepare for the worst. The Day hasn’t happened yet, although we’re less than an hour away, I would think.”

  “What is going to happen exactly?” Selene asked.

  Hela pressed a control. The electric lines no longer snaked over Selene’s ankles and wrists. The numb feeling immediately switched to pinpricks of sensation.

  “Your clothes are under the frame,” Hela said. “We must hurry. This is the greatest moment in human history.”

  Selene sat up, feeling woozy. She kept blinking, waiting for more feeling in her limbs.

  “Come,” Hela said, with her hand on the latch.

  Selene slid down to the floor. It was warm.

  Hela turned the latch, opened the door and gasped with astonishment.

  -86-

  GRAVITATIONAL TUBE CHAMBER

  UNDERGROUND PYRAMID

  Jack took his thumb off the heater switch as foul-smelling smoke curled before him. He looked around, saw a bundle of wires and picked them up. With the plastic-coated wires acting as insulation, he grabbed the hot latch, yanking open the hatch.

  He had burned out the locking mechanism with his heater. It had cost him an appreciable portion of its charge. Fortunately, he had two heaters.

  He tossed the wires into the chamber and kicked the hatch shut behind him. He was outside in a corridor. He noticed something different right away. This corridor wasn’t metal like Station Eight. No. The walls around him were fashioned out of stone.

  Am I inside the underground pyramid? Does that make sense?

  Could the gravitational rock tube have angled upward from its original depth at Station Eight? It was possible, he supposed, more than possible given the fantastic technology he’d been seeing so far.

  Jack listened. He could hear a hum but he didn’t hear any voices or footfalls. Was this the right place? The rock corridor made him think so.

  He advanced with the heater ready. He’d made it. At least, he would work off that assumption until proven otherwise. All the deaths, the pain and sacrifices to get him here at this place at this time—Agent Elliot planned to make it count.

  His heart didn’t pound. He did not grip the heater with a shaking hand. He moved cautiously but loosely. His eyes burned with desire and intensity. This was his Superbowl appearance. This was why he’d trained all these years. A group of super-humans wanted to screw with his world. An old witch figured she could outmaneuver everyone. Jack was sure Mother had ordered an attack upon Secretary King and caused David Carter’s mind to betray him. Because of that, Jack had shot his friend. It was payback time now. It was time to stop the conspiracy from destroying everything Agent Elliot held sacred.

  For the next few minutes, Jack prowled through the stone corridors. He passed locked hatches, a heat vent and peered into a room with screens and hieroglyphic symbols. It struck him then. He recalled the sniper he’d caused to plummet to his death from the helicopter in Siwa. The shooter had had a hieroglyphic on the sole of his foot. Now, Jack knew why. The man had belonged to Mother.

  Finally, he came to closed doors reminiscent of those in Station Eight. He typed in the same commands Samson Mark Two had shown him on an outer pad.

  The doors opened. Jack stepped into a metal elevator. He pressed a button, wondering if he was making a mistake. The doors closed, and nothing happened for a moment. Jack dreaded hearing someone chuckle at him through a speaker. Had this been a trap?

  Then, the elevator began to rise. Jack let out his breath. Until then, he hadn’t known he’d been holding it. The ride went smoothly enough. He had no idea how many floors he passed.

  With a lurch, the elevator stopped. The doors opened and three big men, each the size of the D’erlon soldier, stared at him.

  Before they could respond, Jack pressed the heater stud. He burnt a neat little hole in the first man’s chest, drilling the heart. He did the same thing to the second man. The third swung at him. Jack swayed back. The fist grazed his chin. It wasn’t enough, though. Jack still pressed the stud, burning through the man’s neck. The giant of a man staggered backward. Jack shot him in the chest now, causing the man to crash onto the floor.

  Agent Elliot panted. He was in overdrive, a human wrecking ball meant to stop Mother’s brood any way he could.

  He checked each dead man, lifted a heater off one and a small control unit from another. As he stepped to the third, he heard a terrified scream from down the corridor. A second later, his mind cataloged the noise. That was Selene. She was in the underground pyramid, nearby and in danger.

  -87-

  CELL

  UNDERGROUND PYRAMID

  The beast had been waiting patiently, having sniffed out the trail of one of the plane people. That one was behind the door, a barrier the beast hadn’t been able to open. It had slunk into an alcove as one of Mother’s tormenters had hurried past a little while ago. She had opened the door before it could react, slipping inside and closing the barrier behind her.

  The beast had recognized the woman and remembered her scent. She had been the worst tormentor of all, the woman in the white lab coat with her hair pulled back on her head. The beast had bitter reason to remember her. She had watched him many, many times, as she’d practiced one foul experiment after another on him in his puppyhood.

  With the scent of her still strong in its snout—the hound lay down, forgetting its other plans. It wanted revenge upon the chief tormentor. The beast’s hackles rose even as it controlled itself from squirting urine in recollected fear.

  The beast panted, blinking, thinking of the joy of sinking its fangs into her flesh. He would taste her blood, killing her for the evil of her experimentation.

  Finally, the latch moved.

  With a low growl, the beast rushed out of the alcove. The door opened. The tormentor saw him. She gasped. It was a lovely sound. Terror filled her eyes, but also a pitiless resolve to live. A hand sank into one of her lab coat pockets. At the same time, she began to close the door.

  No! The beast would not lose her now. The shaggy hound leaped, hitting the hatch a micro-moment before it would have latched shut. The hatch slammed open at its weight, crashing against the tormentor, hurling her backward.

  The seconds seemed like hours to the beast. It was in an altered state. Everything moved in slow motion. Its paws d
escended toward the floor. The woman continued to backpedal, gaining control of her feet. A red welt rose on her face. How she kept her balance, the beast didn’t know, but she did. Worse, her hand pulled out of a lab coat pocket, holding onto a heater.

  The beast landed on the floor.

  The woman’s thumb jabbed down on a button. A red light on the end of the heater blinked on. The tormentor’s hand swung upward. The beast realized she was trying to align the red light with its body. The beast remembered heaters and their invisible beams. It had a great respect for invisible dangers. The tormentors had taught it that. The hound ran, moving away from the alignment. It strained to reach the enemy. She sought to regain bodily control. She was fantastically coordinated and deadly. The race seemed to take an agonizingly long time. Her hand came closer, closer, the beast strove to move and then its fur began to singe from a dreadful invisible heat.

  The beast leaped, opened it jaws as a vicious growl emanated from deep in its throat.

  At the same time, another woman began to scream. She stood beside a board in the room. Her scream was piercing and went on and on.

  The beast flew through the air. The hand with the red-lit heater strove to align with it. Then, the beast reached the tormentor and time flowed back into its proper stream.

  The beast bore the tormentor to the floor. It bit the hand with the heater, crushing flesh, hearing bones snap, breaking the weapon. The tormentor squirmed and thrust a knee against it. The beast snarled with spittle flying, whipping its head about. For an instant, they stared into each other’s eyes. The beast recalled those eyes watching it many, many painful times from behind a glass partition. There was no partition now. Its fangs sank into soft throat-flesh. The tormentor tried to fight back.

  Savagely, it shook the tormenter and bit down harder.

  “Stop it!” the other woman shouted. “You’re killing her. You’re—”

  The beast released the tormentor, snarling, staring up at the woman leaning against a frame.

  She stared into its eyes. Her words stilled from her slack mouth. The beast could sense her fear and helplessness. She had been in the plane, however. That had been significant a little while ago. Now, with the blood of a tormenter in its mouth—

  “Selene!” a man said from behind.

  “Jack?”

  The beast whirled around. With a start, it realized he recognized the intruder. The beast had faced and fought this man before in the forest. The man had cut it with a knife. The beast had slain his friend in an attempt to escape the invisible barrier. If only that little box had worked to allow it freedom from the dish-shaped fences.

  “Look at its braincase,” Selene said, who was hurriedly fastening her bra.

  “I see it,” Jack said, who aimed a heater at the hound.

  “It’s smart and it just killed Hela.”

  “I heard your scream,” Jack said. “I think everyone in the pyramid heard it. People are going to show up soon. We have to find Mother before that happens.”

  The beast perked up as a fierce desire washed through it. The beast trembled with desire. Mother, it had heard the tormentors speak of her many times. Mother was the author of all its woes, this it had come to realize. As much as it wanted to kill the man with the weapon in front of it, the beast wondered if the man was the enemy of his enemy.

  “Do you see how the dog is listening to us?” Selene asked.

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “I wonder if Mother’s people messed with its DNA, using the stamper on its embryonic cells. They made it smart.”

  Selene nodded as if that made sense to her. “Do you understand me?” she asked the hound.

  The beast cocked its head. It had learned in the past that the tormentors enjoyed when it did that.

  “You do understand me,” Selene said. “Do you like Mother?”

  The beast growled.

  Selene looked up at Jack. “Did you see that? It hates Mother just as we do.”

  “That’s an awfully big leap,” Jack said. “Maybe it just hates us talking to it.”

  “Help us,” Selene told the hound. “Help us and we’ll help you later.”

  The beast understood her words. It didn’t trust her, though. It certainly didn’t trust the man with the weapon aimed at it.

  “Maybe I should just kill it,” Jack said. “This is the creature that killed my partner back in the Ardennes Forest.”

  The beast grew tense, ready to whirl around and charge the man. The trick would be to catch him by surprise.

  “None of its past actions matter,” Selene said. “The hound is here. It killed Hela. Why did it do that?”

  “Because it’s a crazed beast,” Jack said.

  “Agent Elliot, what matters more than anything else right now?”

  Jack glanced at Selene. She was beautiful, distracting him in her bra and panties. Then, he regarded the hound again. “I don’t like you because you killed my friend,” he told the beast. “But I’m willing to work together in order to stop Mother. Are you smart because the ancient beings played with animal DNA as if they were gods?”

  The beast deliberately scratched its front paw on the floor. That had always impressed the tormentors in the old days when they had tested its intelligence.

  “It understands you,” Selene said in wonder.

  “I don’t know…” Jack said slowly.

  “Mother is accelerating the inner core of the Earth,” Selene said in a rush. “That’s making the magnetic field stronger. That’s what’s playing havoc with the world’s temperature and electronics.”

  “How is she doing that?” Jack asked.

  “The stations are giant repellers, using magnetics to spin the inner core faster. Haven’t you noticed how hot it is everywhere?”

  “Actually,” Jack said. “I haven’t been outside lately. I reached this place by using a gravitational tube.”

  “We’re running out of time,” Selene said. “We have to get to the control room and stop the process before our technological civilization is demolished by high gauss levels.”

  Jack didn’t know about gauss levels, but he agreed about stopping Mother. “What are we going to do about the dog?” he asked.

  “If you’re willing to help us,” Selene told the hound, “rub your front paw on the floor again.”

  The beast understood her words and rubbed its paw on the floor.

  “What do you say, Jack?” Selene asked. “Should we join forces with the intelligent dog? We’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  Agent Elliot kept his weapon aimed at the hound. Finally, he lowered his arm. “I must be crazy, but okay. Do you have any idea how to get to the control room?”

  “I don’t,” Selene said.

  The beast glanced back and forth between the two humans. Then, it trotted toward the man. For a moment, it seemed as if the man was going to aim the heater at it again. Instead, he stepped aside.

  A wild, instinctive impulse to attack the man nearly overcame the beast’s desire to kill tormenters first. By reason alone, the hound refrained from attacking the man. Instead, it trotted out of the cell. It had understood the last question. It believed it knew the way to the place they wanted to go. There was a peculiar odor in the air. It would follow the smell and see what happened.

  -88-

  STONE CORRIDOR

  UNDERGROUND PYRAMID

  Selene’s mind seethed in turmoil. New thoughts flashed for her attention, trying to bind seemingly irrational propositions into intuitive insights. It gave her a headache and made it difficult to concentrate.

  “Wait,” she said.

  Jack halted. They’d barely gone twenty feet from the cell.

  The beast didn’t listen to her, holding its snout in the air, testing scents, she supposed, as it trotted along.

  Jack whistled softly. The beast looked back, perhaps noticing they’d stopped, as it finally did likewise.

  “Is there a problem?” Jack asked her.

  “Yes. It’s just
the three of us against Mother’s horde. Marcus—”

  “Who’s that?” Jack asked.

  “The soldier you shot in Station Eight,” Selene said. “After taking me to his plane, we talked. I was able to convince him to help me against Mother.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  Selene gave Jack a quick rundown of what had happened in the Learjet. “Marcus must be nearby,” she said at the end. “It stands to reason that if they held me in this area, he should be in one of these cells, too. We could use Ney Blanc, as well.”

  “The French traitor?” asked Jack.

  “I don’t have time to explain.” Selene glanced around the corridor. Then, she turned to the hound. “Is anyone behind these hatches?”

  The beast examined her. The braincase was too large for it to be a normal hound. It also watched her with too much intelligence. What had Mother done to make it so smart? And why?

  Finally, the beast put its nose to the floor. It seemingly followed a scent, halted, sniffed in a new spot and then trotted past them. The beast went to the hatch beside Selene’s former cell. The beast whined in an odd manner. It suddenly seemed eager.

  “We need the man behind the hatch,” Selene said.

  The beast cocked its head.

  “What’s going on?” Jack asked her, sounding perplexed.

  Selene explained to him about the brain enhancer injection. “My mind’s racing at hyper-speed. I can put things together faster than ever. I’m thinking the hound hates these people. There has to be a reason for that. I’m thinking it hates Marcus.”

  “The hound was an outer sentry at the D’erlon Plant in the Ardennes,” Jack said. “How much can it hate them?”

  “It’s intelligent and sensitive, but I bet they still treated it like an animal.”

  The beast stared at her as if listening to every word.

  “Can you break into this room?” Selene asked Jack.

  Agent Elliot approached the hatch while the beast watched him carefully.

  “We’re allies,” Jack muttered to the thing. “You’d better not forget that.”