Jason had no doubt Vacili knew precisely what he was involved with and was actively supporting them, and yet he left his camera in the RV at this critical moment, surprising Jason.
“Five minutes,” Lily said. She didn't have to say any more. Jason knew why they were here. They were waiting for the explosion at North Bend. Lachlan had promised a spectacular fireworks display, lots of special effects without any real damage. Jason wasn't so sure.
Stegmeyer and Vacili crossed the road and hooked up with a local news crew. Jason hadn't noticed them when they had first arrived. A male reporter stood in front of a camera on a tripod with the baseball diamond directly behind him. Vacili spoke with the cameraman while Stegmeyer moved the reporter, positioning him slightly to one side. They were lining up for the shot, ensuring North Bend was visible in the distance. That explained why Vacili had left his camera in the RV, Jason thought. On this shoot, he was the director.
Lachlan jogged over, holding his phone up and calling out something, but Jason couldn't make out what was being said. Lachlan pointed up to the sky, but neither Stegmeyer or Vacili turned to look. They kept their attention on the news crew. The cameraman disappeared behind the lens and the reporter began talking into a microphone held up to his chin. He gestured to the baseball diamond beside him as a Learjet roared overhead, screaming past barely a hundred feet above the bleachers.
The roar of the engine was deafening. The RV shook. The crowd in the stands was visibly shaken. Kids and adults alike screamed in fright. Some huddled together, holding loved ones. A few ran. Others stood, pulling out smartphones and taking pictures or recording video as the Learjet screamed down into the valley.
The jet banked sharply. Its distinct shape, with fuel pods at the end of its wings and high set tail were visible in profile for a few seconds as the craft turned, lining up for its approach to the nuclear power plant. The plane was terrifyingly low to the ground, looking as though its wings were about to clip the streetlights lining the distant avenue. Cars swerved. A bus rode up onto the pavement, crushing a small tree.
Jason couldn't help himself. He couldn't sit there in the RV. He had to see this out in the open.
“No,” Lily cried as he darted out the door of the RV. She ran hard on his heels.
Jason came around the side of the huge vehicle just as the jet leveled out, heading for the nuclear power plant. Lily came up beside him.
The cameraman across the street followed the path of the jet. Parents stood in the bleachers watching as the Learjet slammed into the side of the distant nuclear power plant.
A blinding flash of light cut through the deepening twilight.
There was no sound at first, which surprised Jason. He watched as a massive fireball enveloped the twenty story building.
Jason found himself wondering how anything could survive the fury of such a blast.
Silence fell as the fireball mushroomed into the sky.
Cars stopped on the road. Drivers stood beside the open doors of their cars, watching what looked like a nuclear explosion roiling into the heavens.
The billowing cloud seethed with anger. In the midst of the black smoke, reds and oranges glowed like the sun.
BOOM!
Jason felt the blast wave pass through him, rattling his bones. Window panes shattered in the fire station behind him. Still, the mushroom cloud rose higher. A long dark column formed a thin stem beneath the fireball. The head of the cloud enfolded upon itself, reaching thousands of feet into the air.
Nobody moved.
People stared in disbelief at the sight before them. Armageddon had come, and they were paralyzed. What could be done? Jason could understand how crippling this sight was for them. Even knowing the impact wasn't a threat to his safety didn't stop the helpless feeling from washing over him as he watched the massive explosion unfold.
“Come on,” said Lachlan.
Jason hadn't noticed the professor crossing the road. Lachlan, Stegmeyer and Vacili were the only ones on the move. Everyone else stood there spellbound, aghast with horror. Vacili grabbed his camera from the RV.
A child screamed, and that seemed to break the paralysis. In an instant, the din of hundreds of people panicking filled the ballpark. People began running, screaming, trying to reach the illusory safety of their cars.
Lachlan led Jason away from the blast and into a house two doors down from the fire station.
Bellum opened the garage, saying, “We've been planning every detail of this for the past eighteen months. You'll find boots, jackets and helmets already in the vehicle.”
As they walked around the large truck, Lachlan explained, saying, “Local fire crews have standing orders for containment at North Bend. Given the size of that blast, they'll have every appliance in the city there in the next half hour.”
Bellum busied himself, handing out heavy boots, turnout pants and jackets, and helmets.
“You guys will ride in the back,” Lachlan said to Jason and Lily.
The hazmat vehicle looked like a perfect rectangle. It must feel like driving a brick, Jason thought. Every conceivable inch of space had been covered by something functional. Dozens of compartments lined the vehicle, each with labels designating their contents. There were hoses rolled up and stacked against one side and a ladder at the back allowing access to the roof. The truck must have weighed at least ten tons. If it was a fake, it had Jason fooled. Every detail was meticulous, right down to the North Bend city logo on the doors.
Jason and Lily climbed aboard as Bellum turned over the diesel engine. The engine roared to life, shaking the frame of the vehicle. Black smoke billowed out of the exhaust.
Jason sat there with his helmet in his lap. Lily put her helmet on. Her head looked absurdly small in the huge helmet. She turned to him and grinned like a schoolgirl, signaling with her thumbs up. Jason gave her a nervous thumbs up in response.
The others climbed aboard. Bellum waited, watching as two fire engines pulled out of the fire station and headed down the street away from them. He drove the truck out of the garage and onto the street, but didn't sound the siren until they were almost a block away.
Jason couldn't help but be swept up in the moment. He rolled down his window and rested his elbow on the door. The wind whipped through the back of the truck. Cars, buses and trucks all pulled to one side, letting the convoy of fire engines and the hazmat truck through. The convoy slowed as they approached red lights at intersections, but never stopped. Sirens wailed discordantly across the town. Several other fire departments had mobilized. Jason could see additional fire engines joining them on the main road to North Bend.
Smoke continued to billow from the nuclear power plant. The mushroom cloud had dissipated, turning into a dark, ghostly smudge in the clear night sky, blotting out the stars. Fires raged within the compound.
The fire engines raced up to the open main gate. Several security guards recognized the lead vehicle and waved them through. There were already a number of other fire engines at the scene. At least one of them looked as though it was from the plant.
The convoy came to a halt and their hazmat truck pulled to one side as the lead fire truck stopped to talk to the emergency controller on the ground. An overweight man dressed in yellow gear stood beside the front fire engine. He was clearly flustered. He hadn't donned his helmet, leaving it lying on the ground a few feet away. He had a radio in one hand and was gesturing wildly with the other as he barked instructions.
They started moving again, driving around the side of the main building to where the fire was raging. Flames licked at the concrete.
Several firefighters jumped out of the lead engine as they came to a halt upwind from the fire. Jason could see these guys were taking no chances. They were already breathing through the air tanks on their backs.
Out in an open field away from the prevailing wind, another fire engine was setting up decontamination showers. This was a well rehearsed emergency plan moving into operation.
The ha
zmat truck pulled up on the far side of the fire engines, parking away from the fire, beside the dome over reactor one.
Water sprayed through the air as the firefighters fought to control secondary blazes that had erupted in the low-lying surrounding buildings. Lights flickered as electricity fluctuated. Darkness descended on the plant. The only light came from the raging fires and the fire engines. The sound of diesel generators kicked in and dim, emergency lighting switched on.
Lachlan and Bellum jumped out of the truck and jogged over toward an enclosed walkway leading to the unscathed dome towering over what was supposed to be reactor one. Everyone else followed.
Bellum was carrying a heavy duffle bag over his shoulder. The sound of metal tools clinked as he ran. He dropped the bag unceremoniously on the ground in front of a set of doors and pulled out a shotgun. Two quick, well placed shots rang out, blowing the hinges off the door and causing the steel frame to fall inward with a thud.
Jason felt as though he were caught in the current of a fast moving stream, being dragged along by the sheer weight of water pressing on his body. He couldn't help but follow. He had to see the UFO. An overwhelming compulsion demanded his obedience. All the fear and reservations he'd had were drowned by the current.
Professor Lachlan was the first one through the door. He had some kind of map in his hand. Bellum grabbed the bag and stepped through after him.
“We've got five minutes on the ground and that's it,” Lachlan yelled. “Grab anything you can: hard drives, print outs, schematics, and then get back here. Vacili, stay with Jason and Lily. Record everything that happens.”
Before he had time to think, Jason found himself jogging down a long hallway behind Bellum and the professor. Emergency lights flickered overhead. Another shotgun blast blew open the door at the far end of the corridor, and in the confined space, the report was deafening. Bellum's shot had hit the lock and handle, blowing a hole six inches in diameter in the door. He had to be using some kind of solid shot, like a bear slug rather than regular shotgun shells.
Without the main power, the inside of the vast dome looked hauntingly empty. A single spotlight overhead illuminated the UFO. Jason stepped through the door and got his first good look at the craft. He was overcome by the sheer size of the interstellar alien machine.
From where he was standing, the UFO looked roughly circular, like the classic shape of a flying saucer from the 1950s, but it was pitch black rather than silver in color. A series of permanent scaffolds had been erected around the craft, allowing workers to move above and around or below the massive vessel without touching it. It looked as though the UFO was resting on some kind of small base under its center, with the bulk of the disk suspended in the air.
The walkways were extensive and allowed access at distances anywhere from a few feet to a few inches of the dark skin of the interstellar vehicle. The craft was covered in graffiti. At least it looked like graffiti at first glance, but these were the calculations scattered around the vessel. They were drawn at hasty angles. Some of them were incomplete. Most of them were overlapped by some other formula.
Lily gasped.
“There's no time for sightseeing,” Lachlan yelled. “We've got to be in and out in five minutes!”
Lachlan ignored the craft, jogging over to one of the split floors that surrounded the UFO. He had a battery powered screwdriver and began the task of disconnecting the many computers. He tossed hard drives in a backpack and then jogged further along the floor. Jason could see he was skipping stations, trying to strip out at least one computer from each section.
Jason shed his fire helmet and heavy jacket, standing there in a t-shirt, bunker pants, and oversized rubber boots. They were far too heavy to drag around, so he shimmied out of them, leaving them crumpled on the floor.
“You'll need these when we leave,” Lily said, turning to him.
“You don't understand,” Jason replied, gesturing to the craft. “Can't you see it? None of us will leave this place. We won't make it out of here alive!”
Lily looked at where Jason had pointed. He was staring at several phrases carved into the side of the vehicle.
Why? Why? Why?
Why keep coming?
Only death awaits
Jason bent down and grabbed a small hand ax that had been hanging from the belt of his coveralls.
“What are you doing?” Lily asked.
The ax had a blade on one side, a pick on the other. Jason turned the ax around and rested the pick in the O of Only. The blade fit perfectly. Slowly, he traced the word Only.
“Jason,” Lily cried. “We don't have time for this!”
“On the contrary,” Jason replied, speaking in a calm voice. “We have a time machine. We have all the time in the universe.”
He rested his hand on the side of the vessel as he traced the word death with the ax pick, thinking about the implications of the word and the style of writing. With his hand on the skin of the alien craft, a long, low growl reverberated through the air, like the sound of an animal in distress.
The UFO shook.
“She's alive,” Jason said.
“That's impossible,” Lily replied. “This is a machine!”
“I thought so too,” he said. “But she's not. She responded to my touch.”
Jason stroked the hide of the massive beast, feeling the hard exterior soften in response to his touch. What had looked like a stone surface had a texture similar to leather. Jason thought the hide resembled that of an elephant, thick and impenetrable.
“Come on,” he cried, running along the scaffolding, feeling the metal walkway vibrating beneath his bare feet.
As he ran, he tried to keep contact with the creature. His fingers trailed over the thick hide, skimming over the scars of various calculations and formulas.
“They're telling a story,” he said, “the equations,” lifting his hand every ten feet to dodge the scaffold support poles, always returning to the UFO.
The scaffolding wasn't level, at some points forcing him higher, dropping down lower at others as he jogged around the massive living vessel. The UFO seemed to breathe, expanding as the chest of a man would when inhaling deeply.
Lachlan had seen the craft respond to Jason and ran over to join them.
“What is it? What's happening?”
“She's alive!” Jason yelled in excitement. He stopped, looking at the formulas and words before him. For the first time, Jason could see the etchings as a continuous whole rather than a disjointed mess, and he understood what he was looking at.
“These markings,” he cried. “They're here for us. They're meant for us, so we would understand.”
“Understand what?” Lachlan asked.
“I'm still figuring that out,” Jason replied. “But this is deliberate and it's meant for us, I'm sure of it.”
“Who wrote these words?” Lily asked.
Jason shrugged. He ran his fingers over a series of words.
Beautiful
Lonely
Scared
Hurt
“The formulas,” Jason said, letting the words speak for themselves as he referred to a jumble of calculations to one side. “I know what they are. They're not calculations for time travel, they're trying to understand the impact of unshielded travel of regular matter through a wormhole comprised of exotic matter. They're trying to determine the consequences for anyone passing back in time.”
Lily had a pickaxe as well. Like Jason earlier, she ran the tip of the ax gently over the scars, tracing the words, seeming lost in thought.
“We need to get up higher,” she said, pointing toward the center of the UFO. There was a dome on top of the creature, barely visible from where they were on the rim of the gigantic beast.
Jason began climbing up the scaffolding hanging over the living being. Lachlan and Lily followed. Vacili hung back a few yards, catching everything on video.
Down below, gunfire erupted. Jason caught a glimpse of Bellum firing an M4,
rattling off shots in rapid succession. The crack of each round being fired echoed through the dome. Stegmeyer was already heading back for the walkway.
“We have to go,” Lachlan cried. “We've got to get out of here while we still can.”
“We can't,” Jason replied, dropping down from the scaffolding and onto the sloping flanks of the vast interstellar creature. “We can't leave her. Don't you understand? She's waited. She's endured. She's held on for us, waiting for us to free her.”
Lily followed Jason, landing just a few feet away from him. She crouched as she absorbed the jump, and came to a rest with one hand reaching out and touching the thick, scarred hide. Even here, numerous formulas tattooed the skin of the animal.
Lachlan hesitated.
“Come on,” Jason cried, gesturing with the pickaxe still in his hand. “You want answers. They're all here. They're all around us, written in plain sight.”
“But it makes no sense,” Lachlan cried. “Who would leave these messages?”
Jason didn't have an answer, but he'd already figured out that all of these markings were made by only a couple of people. Although the carvings were crude in places, they were unmistakably related, as though the same people had written different messages at different points in time. One person had been preoccupied with the science, the other had focused on emotions.
Free
Release
Mercy
Jason watched in horror as the professor lurched forward. A bullet ripped through his shoulder, spraying blood over them. Lachlan struggled to hold onto the railing. He fell to his knees as a second bullet tore through his thigh.
The old man tumbled from the scaffolding, falling awkwardly onto the creature. The massive beast responded to his presence, wailing in a tone deeper than a fog horn. Lachlan slid to one side. He was in danger of rolling off the edge of the wing when Jason grabbed his wrist. A single finger, a thumb and three mutilated stubs grabbed desperately at Jason's hand. Lily grabbed her father's other hand. Together, the two of them hauled the old man further up the steep incline on the flanks of the beast. The thick hide on which they stood trembled, shaking as the creature groaned.
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