King saw nothing even faintly recognizable, but he knew that the heaps of stone and masonry probably concealed priceless and irreplaceable objets d’art, now damaged beyond any hope of recovery. The clumps of debris had all accumulated on the inward facing walls—at least where such walls were still standing.
Then, after only a few minutes, the meandering journey ended at the edge of a crater, more than a hundred yards across and open to the night sky. Flashlight beams probed the downward slope, revealing openings that led into ancient passageways—remnants of the twelfth century fortress upon which the palace had been built—cutting into the bedrock that was itself scoured clean of any debris left over from the collapse of the roof and the floors above.
The bottom of the crater however was filled with loose fragments of rock and rubble, a heap several yards in diameter, and as King stared at the accumulation, he realized that it was the source of the ominous grinding sound.
He didn’t know what the monster on the riverboat had been, but this surely was the black hole Pradesh had awakened.
The mound—what scientists called an ‘accretion disk’—was moving, the fragments were being pulled inward, compacted together and broken into smaller pieces by the force of gravity, and all occurring at different relativistic speeds as the matter approached and ultimately crossed the event horizon. Black holes could not be seen because their gravity was too strong to allow light to reflect back to an observer but an accretion disk was a pretty good indicator of the presence of a black hole. King recalled that the destruction of matter in a black hole also released gamma radiation, which could cause lethal cell damage in humans. That wasn’t something he wanted to think about.
Then he saw something else revealed in the glow of the flashlights. A group of people stood on the edge of the crater, about thirty yards away, similarly gazing down into its depths. He recognized one figure immediately, the tall, massive form of Alexander Diotrophes—the immortal Hercules himself—squinting into the glare.
This revelation was accompanied by equal parts anger and hope. Of course he’s here, King thought. He always seems to turn up when the world’s about to end. He probably saw this coming, but was too damn secretive to share what he knew with the rest of us.
On the other hand, there wasn’t much that Diotrophes didn’t know. If there was a way to stop this thing, Alexander would be able to tell him how.
Then he saw the faces of Alexander’s companions. His heart sank as a joyful squeal echoed from the walls of the crater.
“Dad!”
38.
Somehow, Julia wasn’t a bit surprised by the appearance of the man Fiona identified as her father. She was not surprised to learn that the man, introducing himself simply as ‘King’ was also Sara’s boyfriend, nor did she have any difficulty accepting that King and Carutius were old acquaintances—she didn’t think they were friends exactly, but there was history there. She felt like she had lost her capacity to be surprised by anything where Carutius was involved.
But her mind still boggled with the revelation that the man she had met earlier, the man who had identified himself as ‘Trevor,’ was in fact Timur Suvorov, a Russian special forces soldier. That was too much.
Trevor—Timur, she corrected—did not allow the awkwardness of the situation to put down roots. “I will explain everything later,” he told her. “But right now time is short.”
“No kidding,” Fiona chirped, and then with what could only be described as youthful enthusiasm, she summarized everything that had happened, starting with following Carutius—whom she kept calling Alexander—and leading up to the appearance of the dark shape.
“Basilisk,” King muttered approvingly. “That sounds like a good name for it. We ran into it as well.”
“The basilisk,” Alexander said, “is merely an extension of the black hole’s consciousness. The real danger is there.” He pointed out to the accretion disk in the center of the crater.
“I’m not so sure,” King countered. He held up something that looked to Julia like an ordinary cell phone. “This is a quantum computer. One of ten that Mr. Brown over there—” He pointed to an older man who was being held at gunpoint by one of Timur’s companions—“was going to use to sabotage the world’s power supply. The man who actually built the things had other plans. He somehow found a way to remotely wake up the black hole down there with the quantum computer network and evidently give it some brainpower. I think it wants to make that connection permanent, so it has that basilisk running around collecting them all. This is probably the last one, and if it gets it, we’re finished.”
Alexander considered this a moment. “Perhaps not. This may be a unique opportunity. If it possesses true intelligence, we might be able to interact with it…”
He let the thought trail off before any of the others could voice an objection. “No. There’s no time. We need to act against this entity, just as the Buddhist monks did centuries ago.”
“I can do it,” Fiona said. “I’m going to use the mother tongue.”
Julia noted the look of apprehension that crossed King’s face. Before he could respond, the noise of a gunshot reached their ears. Several more followed in short bursts then fell silent.
King looked away for a moment, then bent forward and embraced Fiona. “You can do this,” he told her, and then he drew back and spoke to Alexander. “The basilisk is here. I have to go.”
The entity knew that its awareness was almost complete, and while it did not yet understand the subtleties of such intangible realities, it experienced satisfaction. The manifestation had collected all but one of the fractured pieces of its consciousness, and the last remaining piece had, quite inexplicably, been drawn near to the source—to the entity itself.
Its new awareness had increased the entity’s knowledge of its physical environment. It knew that the manifestation was outside the building, and that it needed to go inside, but the way was blocked by a wall. That posed no great difficulty; with a touch, the manifestation could change the mass of the obstacle, transforming it into a gaseous vapor. But as it reached out to open a passage, it felt again the impact of an assault.
Bullets, fired from a gun.
This had happened before, when its understanding was not complete. Now, as then, the bullets could not harm it. As they touched the manifestation, the projectiles were changed, but this simple action caused the manifestation to halt its advance, if ever so slightly. These bullets…the gun that fired them…were keeping the manifestation from accomplishing its purpose, and that was intolerable.
Though it did not understand the subtleties of intangible realities, the entity experienced annoyance.
It reached out with its awareness. The bullets…the gun…a man.
The manifestation changed the man.
The assault ended. The entity experienced satisfaction. The manifestation returned to its purpose and began moving again.
39.
King drew away from Fiona and Sara and turned to Suvorov. He didn’t know what to make of the Spetsnaz. Was he the Russian’s captive? His partner?
“I’ve got to get moving,” he said.
Suvorov nodded. “We’ll try to slow it down.”
King started to move away, but the Russian called out to him.
“Wait.” He handed King the suppressed Uzi and the satchel full of magazines and improvised explosive devices. “Might come in handy.”
King wasn’t so sure about the sentiment, but was grateful for the gesture. He slung the satchel over a shoulder and then without further delay, set out along the perimeter of the crater, all the while feeling irresistibly drawn toward its center.
He knew that he had to stay ahead of the thing, but also that he had to draw it away from the others, because even a glancing contact would prove instantly fatal. Getting back outside the museum seemed his best course of action, but doing so would be a challenge, as the quake had collapsed hallways and blocked points of egress. A single wrong turn might sen
d him to a dead end in a very literal sense.
Multiple reports—the Spetsnaz’s Uzis and Chesler’s pistol—reached his ears over the insistent grinding from the accretion disk, signaling that the dark shape, Fiona’s basilisk, had arrived. He risked a glance back and saw the thing emerging at the edge of the pit, not far from the passage he and the Russians had used. But the basilisk didn’t need to negotiate the choked corridors of the museum; it had passed right through all obstacles in its path.
The muzzle flash from the guns illuminated the surreal skirmish like strobe lights, revealing the scene in a series of freeze-frame images. The basilisk barely moved as bullets poured into it. Suvorov had been right about being able to slow it down, but he didn’t dare believe that it was possible to harm this otherworldly thing. Indeed, despite the hesitation, the great dark shape appeared to shrug off the fusillade and began sliding forward, creeping out over the edge of the pit, angling straight toward King.
King realized immediately that the basilisk was unaffected by the micro black hole’s gravity well, and felt panic rise in his chest. The basilisk would be able to cut across the crater and quickly close the intervening distance while he was reduced to practically crawling along the precarious edge of the pit.
Damn. I should have expected that.
He reached an opening leading back into the museum, and reluctantly climbed inside. He caught one last glimpse of the others—of Sara, Fiona and Alexander huddled together in preparation to do whatever it was they were going to do to stop the black hole—and he breathed a silent prayer that they would succeed. Then he ventured into the dark tunnel.
40.
The explosive report of gunfire made Fiona jump, but Alexander’s firm hand on her shoulder calmed her nerves. She gazed up at him. “Tell me what to do.”
“Do you recall the sound from the recording I was playing? ‘Om.’ It is an ancient word, the first part of the Buddhist mantra, which when chanted, clears the meditative mind and opens one’s awareness to the universe. The word likely derives from the mother tongue and is full of power.”
“If it’s that simple,” Sara asked, making no effort to hide her anxiety, “why do you need Fiona to do it?”
“Last time, it took the combined voices of an entire village to render the black hole dormant, and even then, it was a close thing. They repeated the word, but did not understand it. It is my belief…my hope, that Fiona’s ability to understand the mother tongue will make the difference.” He turned his attention again to the girl. “The word might be only the beginning. As you speak it, open your mind to what you know of the mother tongue. The knowledge is in you. Your ability to recognize the hidden language of creation in works of art proves it, and if you can unlock that knowledge, you will be able to bend the black hole to your will, even as you once used it to stop the golem.”
“Bend it?”
“Tell it what to do. Black holes are so much more than just destroyers. They are gateways to other realities, gateways that are closed to us because of our own physical limitations. You hold the key to changing that, Fiona.”
“I just want to stop it.”
“And so you shall. But you must trust me, and follow my instructions no matter how difficult it seems.” He grasped her hands and directed her to sit on the floor. He sat in front of her, crossing his legs in the yogic lotus position, but bracing her against the inexorable pull of the black hole’s gravity. “Now, let us begin.”
“Can I help?” Sara asked, likewise settling down next to Fiona.
Alexander nodded then drew in a deep breath, indicating that they should do the same.
Fiona felt her chest grow tight with fear. What if she couldn’t do this? What if Alexander was wrong and she didn’t know how to tell the black hole what to do? King would die…they would all die.
But if Alexander was right about the radiation poisoning, they were all dead already. So what difference did it make?
With her lungs filled like a balloon about to burst, Fiona pressed her lips together and let the strange word vibrate from the roof of her mouth.
“Om.”
41.
Fickle luck decided to throw King a bone. In addition to being broad and relatively intact, the passage was lit at intervals by battery-operated emergency lights and exit signs. He sprinted down the corridor, glancing back every few seconds to see if the basilisk was following. The third time he did this, he saw that it was.
The thing was a moving wall of darkness, filling the height and breadth of the hallway, rolling forward like a ponderous but unstoppable tsunami of night. One by one, the emergency lights were engulfed in its mass and the scant illumination behind King dimmed.
He put on a fresh burst of speed, taking a left turn at an intersection—as indicated by the arrow on the exit sign—without slowing, and once again, briefly lost sight of the basilisk.
A few more turns brought him to the exit, or rather the place where the exit door had been. Now, there was just a gaping hole where the entire wall had collapsed inward. He picked his way across the rubble, painfully aware that the delay was erasing his lead, and vaulted through the opening into the night.
Muted light issued from the breach in the wall, and as he ran out across the courtyard, he glanced back, waiting for the moment that the light would be eclipsed by the basilisk’s bulk.
Several seconds passed, but the light did not change.
Something was wrong. The basilisk wasn’t following him anymore.
King felt a new rush of fear as the realization hit home. If it wasn’t chasing him, that could only mean…
“Fiona!”
The entity had no memory of its past, but it comprehended this new threat.
The manifestation had nearly reached the man who carried the last fragment of its consciousness, but that was no longer the entity’s primary concern. The word resonated through every particle of its physical being and it understood what would happen if the speaker of the word was not immediately silenced.
The entity was not defenseless. The word stimulated it in a way that the creatures of this world would understand as pain, and just as pain triggered a violent, instinctive reaction in those fragile beings of flesh, so too did the harmonic vibrations cause the entity’s essence to respond with furious intensity.
Raw matter spiraled into the entity and was changed. Its mass increased…doubled…and doubled again.
The steady hum of the word faltered as the world around the entity shook, but the reprieve was short-lived. The speaking resumed and the pain returned.
Though it did not understand the subtleties of intangible realities, the entity experienced fear.
Filled with primal desperation, the entity turned the manifestation away from its pursuit and summoned it back with a new purpose.
42.
As a vibration rumbled up through the ground, Suvorov threw his arms around Julia and tackled her to the ground. The reaction was instinctive. He barely knew the woman and she meant nothing at all to him, but protecting her felt like the most natural thing in the world.
He’d felt the same way about assisting King. Despite the fact that the man was notionally the enemy of his country, despite the fact that King had killed Kharitonov, Suvorov knew that King was motivated by something profoundly superior to patriotism or a desire for revenge. King was risking himself to help others, to save a world of strangers, and that was something Suvorov could not help but admire.
He had emptied two magazines into the basilisk before it disappeared into the passage after King. The bullets had definitely slowed the thing down, and that made him think that it might be possible to kill it. It would surely take more rounds than they had, but he wasn’t going to let that fact prevent him from taking action.
Then the quake had started.
He covered Julia with his own body as the walls of the Louvre groaned under the increasingly violent shaking. The earlier tremor had already collapsed the roof overhead, eliminating the danger of a
nything falling on them, but now pieces of debris were breaking off and falling at an angle, like raindrops being driven sideways by a fierce wind. Suvorov felt chunks of marble and wood strike his exposed back before bouncing away and tumbling into the pit. Then he felt Julia and himself sliding into the crater as well.
He frantically scrambled for a purchase and his fingers curled around a piece of metal jutting from the wall of the crater.
Pain tore through him. He felt as if his left arm had been wrenched from its socket. It was not just the combination of his own weight with Julia’s; he felt impossibly heavy, like his clothes were made of lead. Julia, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, seemed to weigh a ton, and he could feel her slipping.
A scream pierced the ominous rumble and Suvorov glimpsed his teammate, Konstantin Vasileyev, tumbling down the side of the pit. The Spetsnaz’s fingers clawed at the rough slope of the crater but to no avail. Vasileyev slammed into the slowly gyrating mass of debris at the center and was smashed flat against it like an insect against the canopy of a fighter jet.
Suvorov thrust the horror of his comrade’s demise from his mind and focused on saving himself and Julia. He wrapped his legs around her, squeezing tight to prevent her from slipping further, and then released the embrace of his right arm and reached for the metal protrusion.
Ignoring the agony in his left shoulder, he heaved with all his might. A sustained exertion got him only a few inches before exhaustion forced him to relent, but thankfully, the sloping crater wall afforded enough resistance to keep them from sliding back. After a few seconds of respite, he tried again.
Callsign: King - Book 3 - Blackout (A Jack Sigler - Chess Team Novella) Page 15
