The Alien Element

by M. G. Herron

  In the Translocator platform, a dozen or so scientists who worked on the lunar base were gathered around Stanis, who clutched his bleeding head. “I tried to stop them—” he said.

  “We have a bigger problem,” Amon said. “There’s a bomb. We all have to go, right now.”

  Amon got them all to gather closely on the platform. The lurching feeling began in his gut. They reassembled on Earth a moment later.

  Amon put his hands on his knees as he fought to keep the contents of his stomach on the inside. He’d been using the Translocator a lot. Apparently too many reassemblies in a short time period still made one quite nauseous. He squeezed his lips shut and dry heaved once, twice, as the others moved off the platform and spread out into the crowded Translocator lab.

  Fortunately, Agent Moreno was less affected.

  “We need a bomb squad, stat!” the detective shouted.

  “Already on it, boss,” an FBI agent said. He spoke into a headset. “HQ says they can get a bomb squad here in 10 minutes.”

  “Not soon enough!” Agent Moreno said. “There’s only about fifteen minutes left on the clock. By the time they get down here it will be too late. Who else knows their way around plastic explosives?”

  “What about the NSA?” Eliana suggested. “Audrey just told me they were outside.”

  Amon lifted his head. He staggered into one of the metal rings, steadying himself against the metal, still warm from the reassembly. “Eliana! When did you get here?”

  “Hey, babe,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “I am now,” Amon said.

  He stepped off the platform and walked down the ramp to meet her. He pulled her into his arms with a sigh, then held her out at arm’s length. He inspected her dirty face. She directed her gaze away from him, but didn’t pull her body away. Amon pulled her back to him again and buried his face in her neck. Her hair smelled like…ozone?

  “Is it really you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  Agent Moreno was on the phone now. “Do you guys have a bomb squad on premises?” He heaved an audible sigh of relief.

  “Yeah?” Amon said.

  “The president insisted on assigning a bomb squad. He wanted to be ready for every eventuality. They’re coming inside now.”

  It was Amon’s turn to sigh. “Remind me to send that man a very expensive gift basket.”

  Eliana pulled away from Amon.

  “What happened there?” he asked. “I was so scared for you.”

  “I’m okay. Or, I will be.” Her eyes darkened all of a sudden, and she clenched her jaw. “My friend Rakulo is in danger.”

  Amon blinked. He looked down and saw the transponder bracelet on her wrist. Rakulo must have given her his transponder. Well, that was good. At least if she did another crazy thing, she could contact him through the device this time.

  “Don’t you care?” Eliana demanded.

  “I do,” he said quickly. “I—” He glanced down the hall. “I’ve just been so worried about you. One emergency at a time, okay?”

  Eliana twisted her mouth. She did that thing she always did when she was mad, and pressed her tongue against her lower teeth.

  Amon felt the guilt return like a gut punch. How do I always manage to say the wrong things?

  Eliana finally nodded and walked over to stand by Audrey and Reuben. The whole room shifted restlessly, waiting in silence for the bomb squad to arrive.

  A man in a big bulky dark green blast-resistant suit, followed by two other agents carrying radios and laptops, sprinted into the room.

  The man stopped just inside the door. He looked around. “Where’s the bomb?” he said.

  “In there,” Amon said, pointing at the sphere of rings.

  The bomb tech paled, but hurried forward nonetheless. The others went with him.

  “Stand inside the rings,” Amon said, directing him.

  “I’ll show them where it is,” Agent Moreno said.

  Reuben raised his hands at the holodeck and all four men vanished. Amon guessed they had about 5 minutes left now.

  “All right, we’re here,” Agent Moreno said through the radio a few minutes later. He was breathing heavily. “Looks pretty straightforward…”

  “How much time is left?” Amon asked.

  “Three minutes,” Agent Moreno said.

  Silence on the line for over a minute. The seconds seemed to drag on. Reuben stepped up between Eliana and Amon. He put one arm around each of their necks and held them close. Jeanine came over and joined them a moment later, and then Enzo as well.

  They all stood, arms interlocked, their collective fingers crossed, in the silence.

  Agent Moreno finally sighed into the radio. “He got it. The clock stopped at seventeen seconds.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Reuben said, sagging forward.

  “Crisis averted,” Amon said. He chuckled nervously. The laughter spread through the others. They all grinned.

  While Amon waited tensely for the disabled bomb to arrive back in his lab, Eliana turned to face him.

  “Amon,” Eliana said. “Rakulo is in danger. He needs our help. The others would go to his aid, but they can’t reach him. There’s a Wall blocking their way.”

  “A wall?”

  Eliana nodded calmly. “A huge Wall built by Xucha to trap Rakulo’s people there. So that he can exploit their sacrifices.”

  “How do you know that?” Amon asked, incredulous.

  “He told me,” she said. “Sort of.”

  Amon felt his eyebrows raising. Standing nearby, Reuben’s rose, too.

  “What if we send that bomb to Kakul, and use it to blast a hole in the Wall?” Eliana said. “We do that, then his friends will be able to get through the Wall.”

  “It worked then, sending Rakulo on the other side of the Wall?”

  Eliana met the old man’s eyes. “He saved my life, Reuben.”

  The old man pulled Eliana to him. “I’m glad you’re safe, dear.”

  “I don’t know,” Amon said. “If it were up to me, I’d do it, but…”

  Eliana stared at him with an unblinking gaze. Amon inhaled through his nose. Even Reuben scowled at him.

  Amon licked his lips, chagrined. He turned. “Agent Moreno?”

  Eliana explained the situation a second time to the FBI and bomb tech guys.

  To Amon’s surprise, Agent Moreno shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

  “I’ll go with her,” Amon said, stepping forward almost automatically.

  “Send the bomb tech instead,” Eliana said, her eyes burning with something akin to passion. “Someone who actually knows what he’s doing.”

  Amon sagged. “Of course. But, why do you need to go back then?”

  “So that someone can explain what’s happening. The people there have never seen a bomb before.”

  “They won’t freak out, will they?” the bomb tech asked.

  “No,” she said. “They’re no strangers to powerful magic. They’ve just never seen this kind of magic before.”

  The husky, bald FBI bomb tech that disarmed the device at the reactor went up the ramp to join Eliana in the Translocator platform.

  Amon didn’t take his eyes off his wife. Reuben activated the machine, using the carbonado this time. The rings spun and the bright light given off by the transfer burned his retinas. The red outline of her form remained in the air for several seconds after she was gone.

  He looked down. Had she really just been in his arms a second ago? He couldn’t hold on to her.

  43

  Blast Radius

  She and the bomb tech reassembled in the jungle of Kakul a few hundred yards south of the wall.

  Eliana looked around. Forest, forest, forest… there.

  “So, uh,” the bomb guy said. “Where do you want it? Didn’t you say there was a—” His mouth fell open as he followed Eliana’s gaze into the jungle toward the setting sun.

  Eliana sa
id nothing. She just stared up. Even from a hundred yards away, the metal Wall towered over them, casting a shadow as long as the coming night.

  Eliana had never seen such a Wall. The closest thing it could be compared to standing at the foot of the Dallas Cowboys football stadium. Except this Wall was constructed of a single sheer, unmarked, and slightly concave bronze face.

  The wall was a structure of such singular alien construction that any doubts Eliana harbored about Remethiakara’s origin fled from her head. At the same time, she knew he must have left many things out of his vision-stories. The wall was a clear sign that the Kakuli people’s presence here—and, therefore, their service to Xucha—was anything but voluntary.

  The bushes around them rustled, and suddenly Eliana and the bomb guy were surrounded by pointed spears.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” the bomb tech said.

  “Easy.”

  When Citlali saw Eliana, she barked an order and the spears lowered.

  Eliana recognized Quen and Thevanah and a few of the younger warriors from the cave. The others were older men, mostly. Were these older men from the other faction they had been fighting?

  She could ask questions later. For now, there was an urgent matter to attend to.

  “Rakulo is in trouble. He’s in Xucha’s tower on the other side of the Wall.”

  Citlali’s face fell. “Then he is lost.”

  Eliana shook her head, and grinned. “No. We brought something that will allow us to go through the Wall to find him. I hope.”

  The bomb tech carried the charges the last hundred yards through the forest. The natives stood by, watching uneasily as the bomb guy attached the plastic explosives to the Wall, positioning them against the base.

  He finished and stepped away from the Wall. “Get everyone to move back. We need to be out of the blast radius.”

  Eliana translated, and they moved back by a few yards. The tech found a large tree to shelter behind.

  “Way farther back!” he said.

  Eliana ushered the warriors back another fifty yards. The bomb guy stuck his fingers in his ears.

  Eliana cupped her hands over her ears as a ball of fire flared at the base of the Wall. Smoke rose from where the bombs had been planted a moment before.

  They approached slowly. The hole made by the explosives was a thin, ragged tear. The metal had held up remarkably well.

  But the warriors were not to be held back. Using the ends of their spears on the hot metal, they pushed the torn edges back until the gap was wide enough to squeeze through.

  Through they went. They ran across the cracked, dry ground, heading for the tower where the roots, like a great tree, meandered down into the cracks in the ground.

  Citlali walked slower than the rest, breathing painfully. Eliana slipped through the Wall, and put her arm under Citlali to support her as they walked. They watched the others explore the base of the tower, gazing into the cracks at the green water and pointing.

  “That’s how he got in,” Eliana said to Citlali. “Rakulo was covered in that green slime when I saw him.”

  But the other warriors had already figured it out. Quen, the big man, was the first to slip his broad shoulders into the widest crack.

  44

  Moving House

  Rakulo’s vision faded to black at the edges as Xucha carted eggs and other supplies out of the chamber.

  Funny, that a so-called God should have to move house like this. Apparently, all sorts of supplies had to be stowed and carried through that black doorway. Where was he planning to go? Rakulo watched as well as he could with limited motion as Xucha carried a case full of the long tubes that ran from the trunk of the tower to the eggs across the room. Some blood seeped around the side of the blade in his gut—he could feel the liquid dripping down his abdomen—but for the most part the weapon blocked the wound, and kept him alive.

  That scared Rakulo far more than the possibility of death. He had already accepted the possibility of death. He wouldn’t have been able to jump into the Well of Sacrifices if he hadn’t. But to be kept alive, and used for who knows what nefarious purpose?

  Rakulo had never been so frightened in his life.

  Yet, even this he would be willing to endure, if it meant that Xucha would leave his people alone.

  Rakulo winced when an explosion rocked the chamber. The tower itself seemed to sway. Xucha hurried with the eggs, moving faster now from the far chamber through the dark doorway, snarling and hissing in agitation.

  The next time Xucha went through the doorway, Rakulo thought he saw something moving in the egg chamber. There were whispers, and then a heavy thud, and Rakulo gasped and groaned. He could move his limbs again! The demon rolled on the floor of the chamber by his head.

  Quen knelt in front of him, the man’s broad shoulders dripping with that green ichor. He mouthed the words, “Are you okay?”

  “Quen!” Rakulo said, his voice barely audible to himself. “Xucha is coming back. Block your ears with cloth!”

  “Shhhh,” Quen whispered. Rakulo clamped his mouth shut when he realized he was yelling. He couldn’t hear a damned thing.

  Rakulo pointed to the doorway, then pointed to the cloth stuffed in his ear.

  Quen nodded, then said something over his shoulders. Others were trickling in—Thevanah, Yeli, and even Maatiaak’s warriors! Quen cut two strips of fabric from his tunic and stuffed them both in his ears. The others followed suit.

  When Xucha stepped through the door a moment later and screamed, his warriors flinched, but held their ground. Thevanah darted forward, shoving a spear at Xucha. He parried the jab, then struck her. But then another warrior was there, beating him down, and another, and another.

  Each time the god threw one warrior against the wall, another took his place. They backed him into a corner with sheer numbers and the ferocity of their attack.

  Xucha threw Quen off him for a second time, then tried to dart toward the egg chamber. He wanted to get back there, but there was no way he could with all the others blocking the way. He couldn’t get to the wall to control his demons, either. There was only one way out.

  As the black-clad god backed into the black doorway, Xucha opened his fang-lined mouth and stared at Rakulo across the chamber. And then the tentacles that made up the frame began to unwind, and the doorway disappeared, taking Xucha with it.

  Rakulo’s vision had continued to fade this whole time, as the pain increased. By the time Xucha was gone, a moaning sound came from somewhere, and Rakulo realized it was him moaning. As Xucha disappeared, the adrenaline rush subsided, and Rakulo lost consciousness.

  45

  Darkness Stares Back

  Nearly four hours after Amon sent Eliana through with the NSA bomb tech, a commotion on the ground floor sent Agent Moreno running to rescue Eliana’s archaeological team, who had shown up unannounced and were presently being accosted by the irascible combination of NSA and FBI agents and private security personnel set to guard the perimeter.

  “Oh no,” Audrey said, standing. “They must be worried sick about Eliana.”

  Amon sighed and glanced back at the Holodeck—no incoming coordinates shone on the display, which had him wondering where Eliana was and what was taking her so long. Amon squeezed his eyes shut and buried his face in his hands.

  His heart fretted for his wife, and his mind darted from the classified compound his once-peaceful office had become to his obligation to inform the president about Lucas’s nuclear ambitions. The delays caused by the stolen nuclear fission reactor would cost the LTA billions. Even with their engineers working round the clock, it would take another 3 months—minimum—to construct a new nuclear fission reactor, and get the base back online.

  “I’ll go,” Audrey said, standing. “You’ve got enough to worry about.”

  Amon smiled weakly. “Thanks, Audrey.”

  She hurried after Moreno, edging nervously past Reuben, Dr. Enzo Badeux, and the guards. Together, they reviewed the new guard’s
24-hour rotation schedule.

  Amon stared at the holodeck. He twirled a finger to refresh the display. Still no signal from Eliana.

  Reuben and Enzo had set the place to rights in the past few hours, with almost no direction from Amon. He felt a deep appreciation being surrounded by such capable people, and a deeper fear that he couldn’t trust anyone completely ever again, not after the betrayal by both Lucas and Wes.

  Enzo arranged for the cage of rebar and netting to be disassembled, and cleared any unneeded personnel out of the Translocator lab, including finding hotels for the rattled lunar base scientists and astronauts to spend the night. Then Reuben got the idea in his head that they needed motion detection installed on the premises in the wake of the breaches, and Enzo authorized funds for it from the LTA. FBI spies showed up and Reuben supervised the new installation. Additional security was a top priority with another Translocator loose in the world.

  Meanwhile, Jeanine began making phone calls to LTA. They started arranging a way to use satellites to track down any large amounts of radiation being given off around the world, in the hopes that they could track down Lucas and his Translocator. Their theory was that once he managed to set up the fission reactor, they would be able to track him down by the heat signature.

  Amon no longer had any doubt about Lucas’s ability to get a functional Translocator online. He’d obviously made some errors with it, but he’d managed to make it run, albeit with varied and often disastrous results. With a MegaPower fission reactor at his disposal for energy needs, he would be extremely dangerous.

  While they worked, Amon brooded near the holodeck. Over time, an idea began to develop in his mind.

  Enzo finally came back to Amon. “How are you holding up?”

  Amon made a noncommittal sound in his throat. “It could have been worse. I hate the idea of setbacks. It will take another three months, minimum, to build a new nuclear fission reactor.”