by Ric Dawson
Old films portrayed refugees from war. Hungry. Cold. Desperate. The heartbreak was so intense. Silent tears fell from her eyes in waves. She held onto hope; a life buoy in a sea of agony.
Sporadic tents appeared along the roadside and in the median. As they neared Woodland Park, a great tent city rose along the south side of the highway. The tents stretched for miles.
“Please stop here,” she said, waving to Megan. “We have work to do, sweetie.”
Megan nodded.
Cindy thanked the volunteer and crossed the highway. Red Cross flags marked the entrance to the compound.
The injured and tired massed around a group of tables staffed by volunteers handing out slips with numbers.
“How many in your party?” an older woman asked, her hair disheveled.
“Two, female,” Cindy replied.
“Is anyone injured or needing immediate medical care?”
“No.”
“Have you had a radiation wash?”
“Yes.”
“Is anyone in your party contagious?”
“No.”
“Here is your tent number. Just follow the signs or ask a volunteer for directions. There is a food court and medical tent for minor injuries and pain. Volunteers can help you with phone calls to relatives.”
“Thank you.” Cindy headed into the throng of people. Makeshift carnival and rodeo signs had been written over, showing where tents were grouped.
They followed the signs to an eight-man tent. There were two free cots at the back. The air smelled of astringent and body odor. Cindy and Megan settled in and drank some water and shared a candy bar someone offered up.
Everyone looked shell-shocked.
“Megan, honey, you rest here, I need to help them,” Cindy said.
“I can help too, Mom,” Megan replied.
They both got up, left the tent, and headed over to the medical area. On arriving, they saw a husky, redheaded nurse directing volunteers.
“Can we help?” Cindy asked.
The head nurse eyed them.
“Yes. We need someone to take blankets to the injured coming out of Medical.”
“My daughter and I can do that,” Cindy replied.
The nurse’s expression brightened.
“You will find the blankets on pallets three tents over. If they run out, you will need to grab someone to bring more from the trucks. The recovery tents are behind the medical tents.”
Someone hurried up and asked the head nurse a question, and she turned and walked off, shouting orders.
While handing out blankets, Cindy and Megan talked to each person, giving them encouragement. Cindy stroked their cheek or moved her hands over bandaged limbs. Every single one of them perked up after Cindy and Megan had left them. Their pain was gone.
Word went around and people looked forward to Cindy and Megan’s visit. They called them the “The Woodland Angels” with soft whispers and teared eyes. Word spread. Miracles, some said.
Medical staff were stumped at the quick recoveries of the injured.
In the end, it wasn’t transport logistics that failed. It was the car wash. They could only wash one hundred an hour. Even with stripping the casualties coming down the road, washing and outfitting them on the spot, it took five days to treat everyone. The only highway able to take them westward and away from the fallout contaminated zones, Highway 24, became a choke point.
Northward winds shifted the fallout towards Denver and blocked responders from that direction. Access from Pueblo was clear and provided the other main evacuation direction.
Weathermen were baffled by the bizarre motion of the front-range winds. A sudden inexplicable northward flow stopped abruptly before Castle Rock and turned back to the east, making a strange and hitherto unobserved “S” pattern around the Colorado Springs area that lasted for days.
None of the analysts could explain the low numbers of casualties.
PORTAL
Lane
A pungent smell woke me. It smelled like overcooked hamburgers and burnt plastic. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I sat up. The clock face illuminated the darkness.
My rumpled clothes clung to me as I slipped out of bed and fumbled around for my tablet. A cool white light doused the room from the light beam app. Holding the pad out in front of me, I went to the door and opened it. The scent of raw meat grew. Why were the lights out?
The twinkling of computer LEDs reflected off the walls. The pad cast a strong beam down the darkened hallway. I tiptoed on bare feet towards a glow. The door to Doc’s room opened. Startled, I turned. A shadowy figure lunged at me from the dark room.
The glint of silver flickered in my beam as it plunged towards my chest. I put my hands up and the blade pierced the center of the tablet, sending small sparks flashing across the screen. Then it went dark. The knife yanked free and split the shattered pad. The strength of the strike pushed me back on my heels. I tripped and fell.
In the faint blinks of light, the figure leaned over me. The knife raised again. I held the pieces of the shattered pad up to try to stop the blow. Stunned. Paralyzed.
The roar of a nearby carbine shattered the silence. Flashes of fire exploded from a silhouette in the hallway. The person above me jerked and spun like a marionette as bullets slammed home. The ringing in my ears wouldn’t stop.
A flashlight beam whipped by and settled on the body lying near me. Blood seeped onto the floor from multiple wounds. I pushed away from the encroaching viscous pool.
Someone came near. “Lane, you okay?” It was Kane.
“Y-Yeah,” I said.
“Jesus, it’s Samantha. What the hell?” Kane exclaimed, his flashlight playing over her tousled hair and blood-splattered face.
Samantha?
The flickering lights drew my attention away from the grisly scene.
“What’s wrong with the power?”
“She shorted the generator and killed one of Max’s boys. Charlie Liman.”
“She came out of Doc’s room,” I pointed out with sudden dread.
“Crap,” Kane snorted. He swung his torch around the room. Blood spray covered the walls next to the bed. Doc sprawled over the bed with his arms over his head. “He tried to cover his head. Look there. She went for the artery bundles in his armpit,” Kane said. He checked for pulse and shook his head. Doc’s dilated pupils stared at the ceiling.
“He’s dead. Damn, those cuts are spot on from the manual. Where the hell did she pick that up?” Kane grimaced.
“Let’s get the lights back on. Then we can police the bodies. We’ll wrap them in sheets and put them in with Daedalus. The cold should stop the rot and smell.” My voice was cold. Distant. I wanted to scream, but my mind froze. I barely breathed.
Kane just nodded. From his clenched jaw, I could tell Doc’s death had affected him. There was a sadness in the corners of his eyes.
Voices came from the generator room. Battery power lit the halls with an eerie reddish glow.
Max squatted over Charlie’s limp form and pushed hair off his bloodied forehead, then closed Charlie’s dead eyes.
“He was young, you know, fresh out of school. The kid never knew how to rest, always go, go, go, only reason he was here,” Max said. “He just wouldn’t stop fussing with the generator.” He stood up. “So, by the gunfire I assume you killed the son of a bitch?” Max said.
“It was Samantha. I don’t know what happened. It must have been the cybral spores she got hit with. They did something to her.” I felt helpless. I had no idea what the hell the spores had done.
“I’ll check. Audam, you there?” I said.
Max was looking at me like I’d lost my mind … again. He glanced at Kane, who just shrugged, turning his hands upward.
“Audam is the alien tech in my body. It, um he, I think, has a name now. Don’t ask.” I frowned.
Yes
“What did the cybral spores do to Samantha?”
The spores attacked her brain. Once in
fected, Samantha lost control over her mind. The infecting spores allow shadow manipulators, like the Kaa’zak, to take over your thoughts and actions. They convinced her to destroy the generator, and kill Doc and the tech.
“Just friggin’ great! And you didn’t tell me this because?”
You never asked.
“Damn, and don’t say it. Please let me know next time I miss a critical bit of information.”
Okay.
Turning to the group, I said, “The spores infected her mind and took control. There’s a lot we just don’t know about how things work in the astral, and we are paying the price. Max, can you fix the generator?” I looked at Max. His slumped shoulders squared off a bit, and he stood a bit straighter.
“Not sure. That bitch shorted the coils. We don’t have a spare,” he spat out. “But the crew here is good, we will fix what we can.”
“Lane, any idea why she went after Doc?” Jim asked.
“Proximity to the generator is the only thing that makes sense. His room was the closest.”
He nodded. “We will post armed guards to patrol the facility going forward.”
“Since everyone is awake, it’s a good idea to check all the systems you’re responsible for. Let’s hope she didn’t damage anything else.” I gazed at Jeff. He nodded and rushed from the room. Everyone else hurried off to check their own systems.
They reported back that all systems were undamaged. Max was the last to come by my room.
“Lane, you have a minute?” Max said as he poked his head in the open door.
“Sure, Max. How’s the power looking?”
Max glanced at his hands as he cupped them. The air had become stale in the last hour, and it was getting stuffy from all the electronics in the lab.
“It’s bad,” he said. He walked in and shut the door. Max was a tough guy. Deep creases lined his face. “The generator coil’s fused. Melted. We can’t repair it. We have two days of clean air,” he said. He looked straight into my eyes.
“What? But isn’t the air connected to the outside?”
“No. A filtration system pulls air into the facility. When the main hatch closed, the Octagon became self-contained. Without the blower, the air will turn toxic.”
I tried to hide the shock on my face. “Okay, keep this quiet. I’ll get us an exit out of here.”
Max looked skeptical. Then opened the door and headed back into the hallway.
“Audam”
Yes
“I need to use power runes to get us out of here. Do you have any information on them?”
The power runes are an artifact from previous ages of man your scholars refer to as Atlantis. Those ages were destroyed by the Ziir’jal. Before the Atlanteans passed, their scientists rediscovered an earlier technology. Sounds and visual inputs, like symbols, caused the human brain to activate a psionic chunnel, a tunnel between the known energy channels. They used specially crafted crystals, called firestones, as amplifiers for the quantum chunnel frequencies. These crystals were crafted to optimize certain molecular properties using what your science calls Brillouin zones. Human scientists are even now rediscovering the firestone technology and the use of Brillouin zones in crystals. The psi-child Edgar Cayce described how these capstones were used during his dream recordings. While the additional power of a crystal source is not needed for astral travel, moving through space-time requires tremendous energies. Your medallion is one such crystal.”
“The medallion is a firestone of ancient Atlantis?”
Yes
“Do you know which runes I need in order to travel to another destination on earth?”
I only know of the runes Scout Jiel’ra used for travel to Sanctuary.
“Who?”
You know her as Diedra Milani. The power runes were a remarkable human discovery. The Disavowed only began experimenting with them during this current age of man.
“Ah, okay. Wait, you activated a travel rune set when I was pulled to the firefall?”
No. Scout Jiel’ra activated those and channeled the activation through me.
“So three runes are needed to travel.”
Not always.
“What does that mean?”
Three runes will only get you to a general location, not a specific location in space and time. Three runes only work for travel to astral-related places. If you don’t use the correct number of runes, then either your location or time or both will be off.
“This just gets better and better.”
The target is usually a rune portal.
“I have to know the runes for a particular portal?”
No, there are only so many portals. If you are close in space and time to that which is desired, and a portal exists there, then you will go to that portal. Creating a new portal makes a new potential exit portal as well.
Before, you only traveled in the astral. That only requires the three runes and thinking of your destination.
“The portal to the firefall was a dragon, snake, and star. It was in the dragon realm so the dragon rune was the destination. I’m not sure what the snake and star represent.”
I could get us out of the Octagon, but whether or not we landed in the right spot was a whole different trick.
How to launch the power sequence had me baffled. Guessing among the forty-four possible combinations of the Compassion egregor runes seemed suicidal.
I let that be and concentrated on Kabbal mysticism and the Sephiroth. The ancient Hebrew Tree of Life appeared to depict a general mapping of fundamental processes via paths, and the states of universal egregors as coupled pairs. The paths between the couple pairs of Sephiroth indicated various contextual expressions of thought energy and the state of the human, as being, ascending, or descending the tree.
Moving from high to low on the tree entailed a release transform of energy, a manifestation, while moving up indicated an absorption transform, an enhancement.
I decided the first step was the initial setting or condition. Occult mysticism had this as an assertion or statement of decision, a purification and moving from the lowest manifestation, Malkuth, to a higher level in the tree.
Great! So from the tree, the paths I’d need were Qoph Nun Ayin Shin.
Wonderful. I had a vague notion of a spiritual path. How do I turn that into an actual journey through space-time?
Then it hit me. Forty-four paths that represented all the directions you could take or half that went one way and half that went the other.
Twenty-two. The same as the number of paths in the Sephiroth. Nah, it couldn’t be that easy. I had only seen four of the seven symbols. Wait. I had been shown those four symbols. There were more, hidden. I wrote down the four symbols, checking on the symbols and figures. Dragon, Snake, Star. I had it.
Dragon represented the destination, Snake was space-time, and Star was the symbol of moving up, ascending. That would explain why I didn’t end up back in space-time on the return flight. I smirked at the analogy to flight.
I’d finally made some headway with this intoxicating gibberish. I was starting to wonder if clicking my heels and muttering “take me home” wasn’t going to work better. Nothing like having people’s lives wrapped up in a whim of wishful thinking.
So, earth to astral without an actual destination, then back to earth at a different location and in the same time. Piece of cake. I rolled my eyes. So how does all that compare to the symbols on the Compassion egregor’s pillars? I checked the pillars’ sigils.
Well crap … not even remotely the same.
We’re all gonna die.
Agreed.
“Shut up. Metallic construct.”
No need to be testy. I was trying to be helpful.
“You mean sarcastic.”
“That sounded like a burning train careening off a bridge.”
Critic.
“Be quiet. I have to think.”
I must find shelter.
I leaned back.
/> Written and spoken. I need both runes and words or perhaps thoughts.
Could ancient kabbal letters, when spoken, be the verbal component? Well, Audam had said ancient humans developed the runes of power.
Yes.
“Gah. I need some space. Go to your corner or whatever. We will set some rules on what’s appropriate interaction.”
Meanie.
Ignoring the annoying voice in my head, I closed my eyes.
The best I could come up with in the end was to use the written travel runes in the sequence Snake-Star-Dragon-Spear-Snake and pray we didn’t get stuck in the Dragon Realm. Then speak the paths of the Sephiroth while focused on the amulet and Compassion Primal for energy.
I just couldn’t risk using the compassion symbols until I had a better idea what they were used for. I figured if nothing happened when I tried that, the backup plan was use the compassion symbols next. I was pretty sure everyone would know I was a lunatic after this was over. Whoa, it was going to take a big circle to get everyone in it.
I walked over to the sleep chamber and found TJ, Jeff, Kane, Sven, and Mel.
Sven lifted a fallen beam with a grunt and leaned it against the wall. He winked at Mel and flexed. She rolled her eyes.
“Hello, Lane. How is the master of magic doing?” Mel said.
“Puzzled at the moment,” I said. “Could you guys pass the word around that our first attempt at astral teleportation will occur in four hours. Everyone should make sure they have equipment they want to take, and everything in the Octagon is locked down.”
“Sure, Lane,” TJ said. Everyone else except Jeff looked at me with skewed eyebrows and crooked smiles.
“Jeff, can you stabilize Daedalus for an extended period of time?” I asked
“Yepper. The air-gas recycle system will keep the temperature in the containment enclosure low for two, maybe three years.” The soft clicks of keystrokes never slowed down as he stared at his monitor. Jeff pretty much lived in the “computer zone.”
It took some time to draw the runes on the chamber floor with enough spacing to allow all of us to stand inside the circle. Everyone had grabbed their essentials. More than a few had looks of bewilderment or annoyance on their faces. The cats huddled in their cages. Molly stroked Phats through the enclosure. They did not look pleased. Phats emitted a plaintive howl every few minutes. Monk just cowered in the back of the cage, eyes wide. I could relate.
