Why would a Christian group target him for assassination in Iraq? How the hell did they even know he was there? Before he could ponder any further, Claire spoke again.
“Buddy, I have urgent satellite data coming in from the Stillwater complex as well as reconnaissance-drone video. I suggest we move to a secure location to review.”
Not many of those left in the city, Paulson thought. Police sirens sounded in the distance, growing louder as they approached. Claire climbed on his shoulder, and they retreated from his burning apartment building. He stopped to help a few injured get to the street, but had no time to conduct a more thorough search for others that may be buried. The emergency crews on the way would have to take care of that. He wondered about the news reports; in all the chaos, he’d almost forgotten about the nanobot swarm.
A couple of blocks down the street they found a small open-air fruit and vegetable market. It was empty of wares at this late hour, and no one was around. He ducked inside one of the stalls and knelt in the mud and trash, shielded from peering eyes on the street.
Claire climbed down from his shoulder onto his lap, and a holographic image sprouted into the air just above her.
“This surveillance drone is positioned over the Stillwater mining site. Showing footage.”
The hologram showed the desolate landscape and gently undulating hills of Stillwater, Montana. The foreboding Beartooth Mountains lay heavy on the horizon, their sharp, rugged peaks jutting high. Out in front of the drone, tiny glittery insect-like objects flew quickly, like speeding rockets of confetti. The drone had been able to catch up to the bots.
“I’m back in contact with the White House,” Claire said.
“Good, can you show them?”
The familiar image of the situation room appeared off to the side in another hologram projection. The president, secretary of defense and other members of the elite White House security detail were hunched around a long conference table, looking into the camera.
“Buddy, glad to have you back,” President Bush said. “Looks like our drone here found your little nanobots. It’s fired a couple of missiles, but hasn’t been able to shoot them down yet. The durn things are tricky fast.”
The president looked down at the table, getting that look on his face that Buddy knew meant bad news was coming.
“You know, Buddy, we’ve been talking here, and I find it really hard to believe that these things pose such a huge threat. I mean, come on, there are only what, five or six of them? And they’re smaller than a fly. What can they really do?”
Anger rose within Paulson. “Mr. President, with all due respect, these things may seem insignificant in small numbers, but they are able to multiply. And if that happens, then we’re all dead.”
“Right.” Rumsfeld jumped into the conversation, his tone dripping with scorn. “You’ve told us that before, and we’ve all seen the videos from the future. But the truth is, Sky Hammer is an extreme measure, to be used only as a last resort. I’m not sure we’re at that point yet.”
If Paulson had been in the room with them, he would’ve had a hard time not grabbing Rumsfeld by his throat and choking sense into the man.
“Sir, I cannot emphasize this strongly enough: these things cannot be allowed to multiply. If we don’t initiate Sky Hammer now, then all is lost.”
As they were talking, the swarm dropped out of the sky and dove toward the ground. One of the men in the situation room pointed at the screen. The nanobots had disappeared into the expansive scar that was the Stillwater igneous mine.
“Dear God, no,” Buddy whispered.
“What the hell is that?” Bush said, pointing into the camera.
Before anyone could answer, something started oozing out of the barren, rocky ground. It looked like a small stream of silver flowing from a spring. Then another sprang up, then another and another. Soon the ground was dotted with tiny springs of silver. In seconds springs turned to ponds and the ponds began to merge into a lake. Then the calm flow of the silver lake exploded into a giant plume shooting high into the air.
Paulson squirmed in his dirt seat as tiny nanobots plastered the lens of the drone’s video camera. Then the scene went dark, showing nothing but static.
“We’ve lost the feed,” a man in the White House group said, stating the obvious. “Switching to satellite.”
Hundreds of miles above Earth, the satellite focused on the scene at the mine. The giant plume had grown even larger, a vast geyser of silvery-green ash erupting from a super-volcano. It was spreading rapidly.
“Mr. President, what should we do?” Rumsfeld asked.
Bush was gawking at the satellite image, mouth open.
“Mr. President?”
Bush snapped out of his momentary stupor and slammed his fist on the desk.
“Initiate Sky Ham—”
Before he could finish, a searing-bright flash filled the video screen. Then communications went down.
“Claire, what the hell was that?” Paulson asked, knowing deep down what had just happened.
“I’m sorry, Buddy, but the threat probability was too high. I chose to initiate Sky Hammer twenty-one minutes thirty-three point two seconds ago.”
Paulson gaped at the crab-like creature sitting calmly on his knee. It had just independently initiated a high altitude nuclear EMP detonation over U.S. soil.
Chapter 7
1:00 p.m., July 25, 2002
La Ciudad Celestial, Peru
“Holly Scarborough, it’s about time you found me, honey,” the other Holly said with a wry smirk on her face. She looked basically the same as Holly looked now, but a streak of white ran through the middle of her hair. The other big difference was that her missing arm had been replaced by a fully functional one, although instead of flesh colored, it was sky blue.
“Don’t be scared, dear. This video projects holographic images directly onto your optic nerve. It’s a bit unnerving at first, but you get used to it. No one else can see this but you. Let me get right to the point. The situation here is grave. There’s been an attack at Project Chronos. We are presently just over a year from E-Day. It’s actually New Year’s Day 2037. Woo hoo!”
Future Holly twirled a blue finger in the air in mock excitement.
Behind her a flurry of people were running around in a smoke-filled room, putting out fires and carrying damaged equipment. Others were moving holographic images around with their hands. Several of the holograms displayed the familiar doughnut shape of the time travel vortex generator; others showed a stream of equations. Charred burn marks covered the wall, and several men dressed in military fatigues were picking up tables and chairs that had been knocked over.
“We aren’t sure exactly what it was that came at us,” future Holly said. “It looked exactly like a child’s stuffed teddy bear but with one small difference—it wanted to kill us and destroy the base. Luckily, we’d posted a lot of security men here over the last month and armed them with the latest plasma rifles and EM pulse cannons. They were able to hold this thing off until help arrived. And the help came in the form of the little black dog you’re holding in your hands right now.”
Holly tried to look down at her hand, but couldn’t see any parts of her body.
“We don’t know the exact motivation of the teddy bear. A vortex just opened and the bear came through. It immediately tried to connect with the Chronos mainframe. That’s when the soldiers fired on it. The creature already had one leg missing, possibly from another fight in the future, but it was still able to move surprisingly fast. It killed one of the guards, but not before he was able to burn it with a plasma rifle. Then it took out two more men before another vortex opened and this toy dog jumped through. The two creatures wrestled and fought each other until the dog finally got the upper hand. Yet the teddy bear had already obtained enough control over the Chronos mainframe to initiate a new vortex. The bear jumped through it and escaped. We know he went into the past, but we don’t know exactly when. From the da
ta we've gathered it looked like he was trying to jump to the mid-twenty tens, however the fight with the dog damaged the jump weight calculations in the mainframe so he likely ended up much further back than that."
Future Holly paused to adjust her blouse, frowning.
"Probably several hundred years further back. Which scares me.”
The whole scenario sounded crazy, but Holly had long since learned to put away her doubts when it came to bizarre messages from the future. Besides, she really liked her blue arm and the confidence her future self showed.
“We’d hoped this dog would answer a lot of our questions, but it says that it’s not programmed to provide additional information other than its primary mission, which is to pursue and destroy any infected information-gathering units—the term it used to describe the bear. So we can assume that these robot-animal things are some type of reconnaissance devices and that some are infected with a virus that makes them go nuts and want to kill. I have no idea who programmed either of these units nor what type of infection the bear has. But I can assume whoever our foe is, the force behind E-Day, likely infected the bear. And now the bear is trying to destroy Chronos."
Shit, that sounded all too familiar. Holly thought back to the infected Patrick Chen she and Jeff had to fight off just after they time jumped. He was infected with a nanovirus that transformed him into a maniacal killing machine.
Future Holly continued speaking.
“We are presently fueling up for another time jump to send the black dog back so it can continue to pursue the teddy bear. We have to approximate when the bear ended up based on our best guess as to its weight and the amount of fuel in the vortex reactor at the time that it went through. I hope our calculation puts the dog as close to the bear as possible. I don’t like sending these things back into the time stream without knowing more, but leaving the bear alone back there is too big a risk. Luckily the dog is allowing me to send this message as a failsafe in case it has been unable to destroy the bear. So, Holly, if you’re hearing this right now, then I need you to find the teddy bear and destroy it. The future of Chronos—the future of our entire race, depends on it. Encoded in this dog is a signal frequency that the bear uses for communication. The dog will send it to your portable so you can try to track it. Good luck.”
Great, like I don’t have enough on my plate already with an impending viral apocalypse and a time machine to create. Now I’ve got a killer teddy-bear-terminator-robot thingy to contend with.
The scene at the Chronos base faded away, and Holly was back in the dark cavern holding the cybernetic dog. Niles was still on the ground, just regaining consciousness from having been shocked. Javier was trying to help him up.
“I’m sorry, Niles, I need to leave now, and I have to take this with me.”
“Holly, what are you talking about? Right when I was shocked, I saw an image of you with a blue arm standing in some futuristic control room. I think you have some explaining to do. What the hell is that black dog, and what did I just see?”
The shock must’ve been a fail-safe to prevent anyone other than Holly from accessing the message. The flash Niles saw was just the start of the message; only she was able to see the whole thing. That must explain why her picture and the string theory equations were on the walls of the Incan temple. When the ancient Incans touched the cybernetic dog, they received a shock and what they would interpret as a vision. It all made sense. But how did the dog end up in Peru? Was that where the bear had gone? That was a question she would have to pursue later. Right now Niles needed an answer.
She saw no way out but the truth. There was too much evidence around, and Niles wouldn’t rest until he got some explanation.
“Here’s the deal, Niles: I’m going to be honest with you. If you tell anyone this story, no one will believe you and you’ll be laughed out of the archeology profession and branded a fraud.”
She paused as Niles rose to his feet, leaning on Javier’s shoulder and holding the flashlight out before them.
“The truth is . . . in the near future, I will help invent a time machine. This little dog”—she waved it at him—“comes from the future and was sent back in time to deliver a message to me. A world-changing message. Your Incan friends must’ve received part of that message just as you did, and not understanding it, thought it was a vision from one of their deities. The painting of me and the equations in the other room were part of what they saw in the message.”
Niles, eyes blinking, shook his head again and again.
“Holly, in normal circumstances I wouldn’t believe a word of what you just told me. So you’re right, no one else in their right mind would ever believe that story coming from me.”
He shared a look with Javier.
“Indiana Jones never had to deal with time travel,” Javier mumbled. “I don’t want my career over before it even starts. No, I won’t be telling anyone about time-traveling toy cocker spaniels.”
He laughed a little hysterically, and Holly joined him, though her laughter ended with a few tears dripping down her cheeks. Humanity being helped by toys was absurd. But the fact that it was all real shook her to the core.
“And my picture and the equations painted on the walls?” Holly asked.
Niles pressed his lips together. “I think I’ll just leave that out of my published findings about this site. And if anyone on the dig asks about them, we can just say it was part of an elaborate hoax. I don’t think any of my people will come to the conclusion that the drawings were related in any way to time travel.”
His conclusions sounded plausible.
“Very well then,” Holly said. “I’m sorry you had to get involved with this whole thing.”
As she began walking to the stone doorway, Niles turned to her and said, “That’s okay. I can’t honestly say I’m sorry. But can you at least tell me what this message from the future is about?”
Holly smiled ever so slightly and said, “Let’s just say I’m going on a bear hunt.”
Chapter 8
12:45 p.m., July 25, 2002
Las Vegas
Jeff Madison’s private plane rose up over the Las Vegas skyline. He could see all the large hotels below, glistening in the midday sun, calling out to him, enticing him, with their temptations. But Jeff had made a decision. Humanity needed him, flawed as he was.
His mind was still hazy, and he dearly wanted to do another line of cocaine just to jolt himself back into what he called reality, even though this life, this time, often seemed just like a dream.
He was staring out at the horizon, daydreaming of past and future lives, when he saw a flash in the distance. It was just over the curve of the earth, but high in the sky. The flash spread slowly across the horizon like wildfire in the clouds.
“Did you guys see that?” Jeff asked the pilots through his intercom.
“We did, sir,” Captain Daniels replied. “We’re waiting for word from the control tower, but communications seem to be disrupted.”
Great, more communication problems.
“Just continue on to San Diego and let me know when communications are back up.”
“But, sir, we should return to the Las Vegas airport until we have communications.”
“It’s urgent that we get to San Diego immediately,” Jeff said firmly. “I have an important meeting I can’t miss.”
He heard grumbling from the pilots, and the co-pilot made some comment about meeting a hooker.
Jeff turned off the intercom. He supposed he deserved such ridicule and disrespect. He hadn’t done much to deserve any sort of admiration from others over the last few years. After building up his company and his fortune, he’d slipped into that easy world of endless slacking, parties, and women. Lots of women. More than he could count. Most forgotten. All but one, that is. He tried to remember the last time he saw Holly Scarborough. It had to have been at least three years. He still thought of her easy laugh and the way she would gently brush her long blond hair behind her ears.
Jeff shook his head. He needed to clear his mind of childish delusions. Despite his and Holly’s torrid six-month love affair years ago, he knew it would never work out between them long term; they were too different. Holly was into her science and trying to save the world and Jeff was into . . . Well, what the hell was he into? He didn’t really know what his motivation was any more. Perhaps this little quest he was going on would help him regain his focus. Or perhaps it would be the end of him.
He felt that familiar craving for a drink scratching away at the back of his consciousness. But he wouldn’t give in. He knew that returning to sobriety was not going to be as easy as just flipping a switch in his mind, as he did back at the hotel. No, it was going to take effort, effort over time.
To take his mind off problems that had no easy solutions, he pulled out his portable. The device was starting to show signs of wear and tear, with scratches and a general dullness creeping over its once glossy black surface. Unfortunately, there wouldn’t be a place to repair it or buy replacement parts for years. So he had to make do with a twelve-year-old device. Still, it was among the most advanced pieces of technology on the planet. He just hoped the thing wouldn’t go on him before his company was able to complete the process of reverse engineering its components.
Jeff quickly pulled up the historical news file, something he accessed almost every day. None of the old newspapers or TV broadcasts showed any sort of atmospheric anomaly for today or any type of explosion—or any reason for such a widespread communications outage. He quickly checked tomorrow, July 26, and found nothing reported there either. Nothing but the usual celebrity gossip.
He stared out the window at the bright orange glow on the horizon, watching as the colors began changing to a darker reddish shade. Then his eyes started to close. The flight from Vegas to San Diego was just over an hour. He had a lot of sleep to catch up on, and a quick nap was what he needed right now. He slowly faded out, still wondering what was going on.
NanoSwarm: Extermination Day Book Two Page 6
