The Armageddon Effect

by Ric Dawson

  “Lane, you okay, mate? That was a helluva shocker, wasn’t it.” Kane’s concerned visage wavered into focus.

  I swallowed some drool that had leaked out from slack lips.

  “Did you feel that?” I croaked and coughed, spitting out chunks of phlegm.

  “No, didn’t feel us stop at all, was wild.” Kane watched me carefully, his hand under my elbow.

  “Not that.” My voice became a bit stronger. “The mental ‘thing’ event, whatever. Did you feel it?”

  “No, what happened?” Concern flooded his face now. Serious frown lines appeared.

  “With success in the astral I’ve become more attuned. Something really weird just happened.” I was worried. That attack? Thought burst? Whatever it was. It had been powerful.

  “Can you talk about it?” Kane said.

  “I’ll try, but it’s hard to formulate concepts and a context.” Taking a deep breath, I let the experience unfold and tried to put words to it. TJ had come over and was listening now.

  “People like to put symmetric packages around ideas and experiences. We make models to explain things but exclude details so that the model works. Everything is nice and neat. We operate our who-we-know-ourselves-as construct within a model like that. But the universe doesn’t work that way. Modeling a car as a box or a thought like a quantum wave, or our soul like it exists as this tight little nugget that slots into our space time beingness, disguises the real experience. And while it’s a comfort to pat your chest to make sure it’s there, yup soul’s here, we’re good. It’s still just a model,” I said.

  “Oooh K.” Kane looked at TJ and shrugged.

  “What did you feel?” TJ asked.

  “Soul ‘wave interference’ like a radio that picks up signal overlays from other stations. My soul signal got lost in static noise. I got a sense that other beings were blasting their beingness onto my channel,” I said half-hearted.

  “Incredible. Then what?” TJ said as she leaned in closer.

  “My signal got lost in the noise, then changed to where I’m something else, not a human, something bigger. Bulbous shapes faded in and out in my I-know-who-I-am mental matrix. The soul static scared the hell out of me at a mental-molecular psi-sensual level, if that makes sense. Like you’re lost in a sandstorm and your self stumbled off, out of sight, to be replaced by many souls, fading in and out. Not like a possession, more like, ‘oh hey, sorry my soul splatter washed over you.’ The sensation rocked my construct of self that I can play in and no one else. They-them just jumped into my identity sandbox and started building all kinds of bizarre identities. They stomped on my soul wave and disrupted my harmonious me signal.”

  I looked up at TJ.

  Kane had been listening. “Lane, you’re out there. I don’t mean close by either, but long gone, out there.” He frowned a bit then shook his head and snorted like a bug had flown up his nose. He picked up his carbine and started polishing it.

  “Maybe it’s like that coronal mass ejection event. Thought density eruptions around the universe, sending thought-static boiling through space-time. It’s extremely unsettling and I get the sense I could lose ‘me’ if it gets too powerful. Like being caught in an ocean undertow!” I watched TJ. Kane wasn’t listening anymore and looked like whatever thought he had on the subject needed to be stomped flat.

  TJ had a curious, I’m-deep-in-my-mind look. She just stared at me then looked away, still gazing into the distance.

  Good effort

  “Do you know what that was?”

  No. It didn’t feel like an attack. More like turbulence in the thought sea.

  “So turbulence in the astral then.”

  Likely. I’ll put up some defenses.

  “I’m okay now guys, thanks.” I waved my hand nonchalantly in the air. “Just a little turbulence in the thought sea.”

  You liked that, eh.

  “Yeah, ‘thought sea’ has a nice visual correlation. So you’re Canadian now, eh?”

  Maybe. Eh.

  TJ eyed me for several moments before blushing and nodding to herself. “Back to work then.” She threw me a parting smile.

  “We should be in the mountains soon and can dig in,” Kane said. Whatever notions he had about what I’d said had long died to pragmatism.

  An hour later, the sleds zipped through dark ravines in the mountains bordering the northern shores of Lake Baikal. Star shine illuminated the pitch black. The sleds’ screens showed the terrain on the dashboard. Finding a remote spot with tree and rock cover was easy. Jeff went to work with the rock drill and punched a small cave in the mountainside. Thirty minutes later we were snug inside our man-made cave. I helped Melissa staple a camouflaged sheet to the rocks around the mouth of the cave. Sven, Jim, and Molly went to work repairing the damaged sled.

  Jeff monitored his comms device. “Still a lot of radio traffic in the skies, but looks like we lost ‘em,” he said, looking up from his small console.

  “Wow, what’s that?” Melissa pointed up. A series of bright flashes back-lit high-altitude clouds in the inky night sky. The explosions fired like a string of firecrackers. The pyrotechnics extended horizon to horizon, each blast lasting long seconds before fading out.

  “All traffic just vanished. Went dead almost like they were destroyed. What’s going on?”

  “You guys should come see this. The whole sky is lit up with high-altitude explosions. I’m guessing nuclear.” I pointed at the sky.

  Everyone rushed over to the cave entrance to peer up into the night sky. The light show lasted fifteen minutes. Then the skies went dark, and wisps of clouds drifted over a background of twinkling stars. Snow flurries spun flakes about, but the thick snowfall had stopped.

  The kids quieted down after the light show. Tired. I snuggled into the sharp lines of several chests and finally squirmed into a comfortable position. I heard the sounds of people meditating and peeked over a chest. Out on the cavern floor everyone had stopped work. They sat in a circle with the children. Blankets had been pulled from rucksacks to sit on. The group held hands. “Lane, come join us. We are just doing our evening group meditation,” Molly said.

  I crawled over a chest and settled into a lotus position in the circle. A prismatic crystal nestled in a hand-crafted sconce in the center of the circle. Once settled in, everyone began a transcendental ‘om’ that resonated in the cavern.

  The crystals began to glow, shadows retreated, and energy pressed into my mind. A union of spirits refreshed me. A communion of human soul energy much like what Kane, Sam, and I had experienced in the Octagon. The feeling was accompanied by a powerful sense of self-in-the-universe. It was a cognition, recognition, acceptance, delight, in the vast cosmic unknown. The energy spoke to me in my friends’ voices. My soul was accepted. My spirit revealed. The promise of conscious self never forgotten. The gift to humanity. We all bathed in our group essence of being as one thought. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I let them fall from damp eyelashes. Was I sad for humanity missing this as a species, or simply feeling sorry for myself.

  The group broke up after the meditation, and sleep came easily.

  Kane shook me awake.

  “Rise and shine, nut-job.” Kane’s scruffy face stared down at me as I opened my eyes.

  “Gah. That’s a visage I could do without before coffee,” I said.

  Mirth crinkled the crow’s feet around the sides of his eyes. “Got a meetin’. The gals made some coffee.” His steely eyes were back to business.

  I crawled over to a small cook stove where coffee brewed in a large glass pot. “Civilization, yeah.”

  Molly yawned and thrust a cup at me. “Here ya go.”

  Taking the cup, I noticed everyone had gathered around. The kids were playing some kind of smash-rock game at the rear of the cave. Even Phats and Monk seemed content. The cat cages were self-contained. They synthesized water and a protein paste from small cubes that filled a metal box near the cages’ handles.

  Jim started the discussion
off. “Folks, we have an issue. We need to get the kids to a safe place, but we also need to stop Wraith and the CME they are trying to create. I see two possibilities. We leave the kids here and make a strike at Aogashima, or we split the team. Send one group to the spot we picked in Washington State and the other group tackles Wraith. Any thoughts?”

  I didn’t like the idea of splitting the team, but we couldn’t take the kids into a battle. In the end we decided to leave the kids in the cave. TJ, Molly, and Jeff would stay with the kids. Jeff would carve storage tunnels for our gear and make a safer exit tunnel. TJ would contact her relatives for a place to stay in Irkutsk. Jim, Sven, Melissa, Kane, and I would assault Aogashima.

  “We need some way to prevent Wraith from getting the grav sled and its technology,” I said.

  Jim nodded. “We can rig an internal meltdown. Molly, is that possible?”

  “Yes, it would be a simple matter to swap the oscillation coupling to the grav coils. The explosion might be a little dangerous, though.” Concern darkened her dirt-smeared face. She was in the process of wiping a dirt smudge from her face when Jim had asked. I suspected Molly had been working most of the night to get the sled fixed.

  “What do you mean, Molly? Odd how?” Jim asked.

  “The coils modify the gravity field. That’s the field that affects how much mass things have. I’m not totally sure if a meltdown is ermm, a good idea. That might result in a mass energy exchange.” Molly’s frown deepened.

  TJ leaned into the conversation. “What she is saying is mass-energy conversion as in a nuclear explosion.” TJ raised her eyebrows.

  “Umm. Ja.” Molly nodded.

  “Oh,” was all Jim could say.

  “So what’s the plan once we get to Aogashima?” I asked, glancing down as one of the younger children came and sat next to me.

  Jim looked up. “You’re our scout. You go in, find a way for us to get to whatever it is causing the CME to be created. Then we come in and shut it down.” He smiled, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the child who had nestled up next to me.

  “I’m Brenn,” he said, nodding his head as he spoke, then looked up at me.

  “Hi Brenn, how old are you?”

  “I’m five!” he said and pushed a blond curl out of his eyes. Stopping for a moment in thought, he continued. “I got three dragons, and then, then, the jallwhaggle got me.” He frowned. “But I jumped, ten times!”

  “I see. You did very good then.”

  “No!! I lost! Silly.” He held a small tablet. He slipped an arm around mine, tightening his tiny grip, then snuggled in even closer while watching everyone else.

  “Is that your brother and sister over there?”

  “Yes. Reyek, he’s seven, and Kiali, she’s five.”

  I heard Kane speaking nearby. I looked over as he shook his head slowly.

  “You’re starting to sound like Lane, Lieutenant. Let’s get to it!” Then he glanced my way. “I see you made a friend,” Kane said, and ruffled Brenn’s blond hair.

  “Brenn, come on, we have to get ready!” a tall lanky boy yelled over to us.

  “That’s Rolf, he’s sev’teen, and Julie, she’s sixteen,” Brenn said.

  “You know your numbers. You must be smart.”

  “Yes. I am,” Brenn said.

  “Brenn!!!”

  “I need to go.” Brenn looked up with his round blue eyes full of hope and wonder. Then he got up and scurried over to the other sled, leaping from box to box in a blur of knobby legs and squeals.

  Molly grabbed some tools and hunkered down under the dashboard of Jim’s sled.

  Jeff burned some new storage tunnels. Then we unloaded gear off the sled.

  Even as we worked, I was trying to figure out the new group dynamic.

  “They all seem so in-tune to each other.”

  They’ve lived and worked together for fifty years.

  “Yes. I know, it’s just difficult to fathom. They all seem very informal. I don’t see any hook-ups. Sven and Melissa acknowledged having the teens. Yet they don’t act like a couple.”

  Maybe it wasn’t planned. Eh.

  “But everyone shows concern over the kids. Like they’re all the parents.”

  There were no obvious couples among the Obhireans. Coincidence?

  “You think they are in some kind of open relationship thing?”

  I’m still trying to understand horny, eh.

  “TMI! I don’t want to go there.”

  We got our sled packed, essentials only, and floated out the mouth of the cave. The children waved as we edged out onto the mountain. Snowflakes danced in the air as wind sprites whipped flurries around the mountainside. Spruce trees thinned at the timber line a hundred meters up. A light morning fog limited visibility to a few hundred meters.

  We rose through the ghostly canopy of evergreens as startled elk scrambled deeper into the forest. Keeping an eye out for low-flying aircraft, Jim took us up to five thousand feet and then the craft darted southeast over the mountain tops.

  Jim turned to me. “We shouldn’t be spotted. We have a heat and EM signature but will be in low-populated zones. Once we get closer to major cities, I’ll take us up to high altitudes.”

  “It’s about twenty-four hundred miles, so about twenty-four hours,” Sven piped back at Jim, checking a pad in his hands.

  Melissa and Kane had several of the tri-prong guns out and were cleaning them. Strange glowing white crystals fitted into slots around a furrowed cylinder, disassembled on a chest they were working on.

  “How do those work?” I asked as I grabbed a seat nearby to watch Mel and Kane work on the weapons.

  “I’m no expert. TJ could probably explain it in detail,” Mel offered.

  Kane groaned under his breath. “Which is worse than getting shot with the weapon unless you’re a total geekoid.”

  “He’s definitely a geekoid.” Mel winked at me. “But at least he’s a cutie, unlike other grumps around here I know.”

  Kane harummped while oiling several thin rods.

  “To answer your question, it uses the gravity field to change the mass of a point in space, affecting all the mass around that point. It isn’t a close-range weapon. You don’t want to get caught in the field effect range. But it’s nasty at medium and long ranges. It implodes anything it strikes. And I mean anything.” She lifted her thin brown eyebrows.

  “The area around the target can freeze momentarily. Which is a little weird to see when an ice block appears around the lump that used to be your target. If the target doesn’t freeze, it will explode. Most biological targets do that. It all happens very fast,” she said. “There’s a lot of radiation. That’s another reason to be far away from the target.”

  I remembered some college physics. “Wait a minute, isn’t that dangerous? I mean, you’re talking about creating a new gravity field here in front of us? Right?” I said.

  “I’m not the expert. The effect is very short-lived.” Mel blushed. “Apparently it creates a small wobble in space time or so I’m told. TP guns aren’t built larger than what you see here because of that secondary effect.”

  “What does TP mean?” I asked.

  Sven laughed and said, “Toilet paper, because whatever you fire at turns to ‘skit.’”

  Kane pulled a “handgun” out from a side holster. It looked like a large, six-centimeter-long thumb-sized purple crystal mounted on a metal banana. Delicate wires, lens, and mirrors surrounded the crystal inside a silver metal grating.

  “Laser gun. Want one?” he asked.

  “Of course. Who doesn’t want a laser gun. Just show me how to work it.”

  Kane looked at Mel, who was frowning.

  “After we set down, Kane. No burning holes in our high-altitude craft thousands of meters above the ground, please,” Mel said.

  Kane snorted. “By the way, we call the rifle a ‘TP’ gun for Tri-Prong shield generator. We have rifle and cannon
versions of the laser handgun. They all use the same technology. We call those BHL weapons. The BHL stands for Brillouin Higgs Laser.”

  I figured he knew about as much about what BHL meant as I did.

  “Don’t let the size fool you. This puppy can generate a fifty-kilowatt pulsed laser beam. While it would take a minute to burn through hardened tank armor, a human target would be drilled instantly unless they had ablative or reflective protection. Even lightly armored vehicles offer little resistance to this laser.”

  “Ablative?” I asked.

  “A surface made of material that boils off under the attack of the beam.” Kane finished polishing some rods and picked up other pieces of the laser gun. “The laser guns are effective, but the heat they produce can be an issue. Which is why we prefer the TP guns for targets at long range.”

  Kane reached behind him and grabbed a pair of long, silvery gloves. “Be sure you wear these if you intend to fire any BHL weapons. When you fire, use short, delayed bursts, not a long, controlled burn or you’ll start cooking from the exhaust heat. Use the gun’s holster. Don’t lay the gun down after you’ve fired it. That little handgun can get toasty. Hot enough to melt itself if you’re not careful where you put it. The rifle and cannon have heat shields.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “We have a TP gun for you as well. Just need some time to show you how it works,” Mel said. “TP guns are not rapid-fire weapons and take about thirty seconds to charge the field generators before firing.”

  Everyone fell silent after a while. Sven napped under a tarp, and Mel and Kane joined him after the weapons maintenance. I know they had been up a lot during the evening prepping for the trip. The grav sled had three stools for the crew. I sat down next to Jim.

  He watched various dials. Without turning to me, he said, “It’s mostly automatic. The only thing to do is watch for other aircraft. There’s nothing in the sky. Not even passenger jets.” His brows creased in thought. “This is strange. We should pick up tons of air traffic.”

  “Where are we now?” I asked.

  “Over northern China on a southeasterly track. Scrambled military jets is the biggest concern,” Jim said as he pointed towards a data pad in a holder on the dashboard. “Can you check that pad and see if anything is blinking? May as well put you to work!” he said.