True Believers

by Maria Zannini

  But Rachel's attention strayed the moment she spotted a tray of food sitting on a small table. Food! Her mouth watered at the mountain of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. She rushed to the table and grabbed the fork before looking up. “Mine?”

  The guard's expression shifted to something out of a Picasso painting, twisted and grotesque. He nodded grudgingly.

  She wolfed down the chow, wiping the plate clean with a slab of bread, then dotting her finger at the breadcrumbs so she wouldn't lose a single morsel. She asked for seconds, but Picasso Boy glowered at her, stomping out as soon as his speech was delivered.

  The door lock clicked behind him.

  Where was Taelen?

  She had felt his apprehension when the soldiers swarmed on them, and she sensed his suspicion, as well. But he had said nothing to alarm her. It was his touch that gave the warning.

  She could leave her flesh at any time and escape, but that meant she would have to live in the ethereal until she could return to her body or commandeer a new one.

  Most of her kin managed to keep the bodies they were born in, rejuvenating them continually over the many centuries. But if they lost their bodies through accident or neglect, it was not unheard of to seize a new body, whether the previous owner wanted to give it up or not.

  She hoped it wouldn't come to that.

  The room stank of leather, gun oil and…musk. She breathed it in and felt her body groan for more. The heady odor of a masculine scent elicited an unwelcomed desire for sex, encouraging an already heightened heat cycle. Great. Now any male marker set her off. She had to get out of here, and soon. Gilgamesh would see to it. She had to be patient.

  Judging by the layer of dust, something had been on the dresser, a TV perhaps. The drawers were hastily emptied, leaving behind an orphaned sock and a sealed package of condoms.

  Jessit's last words were beginning to lose their promise. Why were they taking so many precautions with her? As far as they were concerned she was just a field archeologist. They had no reason to hold her, unless they were afraid she'd say something about Jessit.

  Did she know too much for their comfort? They had landed in a cavity of the desert cliffs and rushed into a camouflaged entrance inside the precipice. No one spoke—not even Jessit, who marched with stiff but stoic strides despite his injuries.

  There'd been a slim glimmer of worry on his face when the medical team pulled her away from him, but he disguised it quickly. Trust him, he'd said.

  Right now, she didn’t trust anyone.

  Rachel pushed a side door open and found the bathroom. Empty, save for a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste in the trash. Whoever lived here left only minutes ago.

  This place gave her the creeps. And Paul was somewhere here too. How long did either of them have before the brass got itchy?

  She needed to find him, even if it meant exposing her secret to him.

  Her hands felt along the door and walls leading outside. Leaving her body was the easy part, but unlike Jessit, Paul couldn't see her in the ethereal. She'd have to enter him directly and share his body. It was painful and disorienting to humans without powerful endorphins like those produced during orgasm. And then there was the risk of going too far and killing him accidentally.

  Mortals couldn't handle union. It would be tricky to get Paul's attention, and the poor man would probably think he was going mad, but she'd have to try. Much as she wanted to trust Jessit, she wasn't sure he had enough clout to get them out.

  Rachel padded back to the bed and lay down. Her eyes closed hesitantly, and she let her na'hala taste the air. There were no like beings nearby. For once, she wished her father had stayed with her.

  She drew a deep breath and tried to relax.

  A sharp click startled her to a sitting position. Picasso Boy entered with a new tray of food. Bastard. So he was listening after all. He grunted a response when she thanked him and left as grimly as he came in.

  Rachel gulped down the food, despite the urgency to find Paul. Her cellular regeneration had been depleted and it was famished for fuel. She needed to replenish while she could.

  She finished quickly and climbed back into bed. Once again her na'hala sparked out of her body, a wisp of cord energy that undulated with unrepressed glee at release. It hated being cooped up inside a corporeal shell. With one small tug it yanked out the rest of her spirit.

  Her essence eased out of her body with a languid stretch. A physical body was useful for housing immortal spirits but was as suffocating as tight pantyhose.

  Rachel let her form writhe freely. She eased herself over to the door but when she tried to go through, it blocked her.

  She stepped back and reexamined the door.

  Solid steel. The one thing electromagnetic energy couldn't pass through without being trapped between its molecules.

  She pressed against the concrete wall. Her ethereal form passed through the cement without a hitch, only to find herself mobbed by a cavalcade of soldiers.

  Rachel glided from corridor to corridor, finding nothing on this level but more uniforms. She had stolen into several rooms but Paul was nowhere to be found. Where could they have kept him? She thought for sure they would've put him in the same wing as her.

  Her spirit floated toward a bristling energy source. This wasn't electrical. It was emotion, dark and angry. Those were the most primal energies, and the most dangerous.

  The gaunt old man who had greeted Jessit on their arrival smashed his fist on a desk and barked orders in rapid succession. Officers scrambled out of his office as if they were on fire, rousing everyone in their wakes. “Lock it down,” he shouted. “Lock it all down. I want that prisoner found.”

  Rachel panicked. Had they discovered her body? She raced back, slicing through walls, trying to find a shortcut back to her cell. A piece of her spirit tangled on something when she passed through a wall and ended up in a computer's hard drive. She had never been inside a machine before, and this one seemed aware of her presence. It spoke to her.

  New software found.

  She froze. Was it referring to her? She tried to wiggle her trapped spirit out of the tiny circuitry board that had pinned a piece of her, but the machine threw up a grid of energy, strong enough to keep her in place. “What the hell?”

  My name is Bubba. Who are you?

  “Rachel.”

  Rachel Cruz?

  Rachel hesitated. “Yes.”

  Welcome, Rachel Cruz. I was not aware humans could enter my matrix.

  “They can't.” She tried to ease her trapped essence out of Bubba's clamp. “Bubba, you're hurting me.”

  It released her at once. Rachel pulled away from the circuitry, careful not to touch anything else within the housing.

  Apologies, Rachel Cruz.

  Rachel slipped through the perforated panel of the hard drive housing and stood outside staring at the machine. She didn't know the first thing about computers but she knew this one was different. This one seemed sentient. It was aware of itself, and worse yet, aware of her.

  She backed away cautiously then vanished through a wall, traveling in the open corridors until she reached her wing. Relieved to see familiar surroundings once more, she lunged through the wall of her quarters, clipping the shoulder of the soldier standing guard. He shuddered. The kind of shudder you get when people say someone stepped on your grave. In a way, she had.

  No one had disturbed her body. And no alarm had been raised on her account. She slipped back into her shell and blinked her eyes open.

  Men rushed up and down the corridor outside, shouting orders and curses. Someone slid a key into the lock, and the tumblers clicked open. A rifle appeared first, followed by a dour-faced soldier with cherry Jello-colored eyes. They must have woken him out of a hangover. Picasso Boy was right behind him.

  Jello Guy searched the bathroom, while Picasso Boy looked under her bed. Rachel didn't see the point in asking any questions. She was certain they wouldn't answer.

  The soldier by her
bed lifted his sidearm and gestured with it in warning. Rachel felt a lump rise to her throat. Did they plan on killing her in cold blood? There were only two of them. If they tried to harm her she would leave this compound with a mystery it could never solve.

  Picasso Boy nodded to his peer, who clamored up the end table and lifted one end of the ceiling tile up with the tip of his gun. With his free hand he pulled out a penlight and waved it in each direction. After a few tense moments he grunted to the other man and jumped down.

  Jello Guy pointed to the bathroom and ordered Rachel to get up. “If you need to go to the bathroom, go now. You won't get another chance.”

  Rachel didn't know what to make of the odd offer, but she did as she was told. If they were going somewhere it didn't have to be on a full bladder. She walked into the bathroom, keeping a watchful eye on the soldiers before closing the door behind her.

  They waited until they heard the water running in the sink before kicking the door open and dragging her out. Rachel didn't even get out a good scream. Picasso Boy dragged her back to the bed and snapped a pair of handcuffs on her, attaching the other cuff to a long metal conduit that ran the length of the room behind her. She struggled against her bonds to no avail.

  “Relax, sister. We just want to make sure you stay the whole night.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  Both men chuckled and knuckle-bumped each other before filing out.

  Rachel tugged on her cuffs, trying to squeeze her hand out. She considered shape-shifting her small hand to something slimmer, boneless. But she'd be hard pressed to explain her freedom if she couldn't find a sure means of escape.

  She scraped the cuff along the pipe and kicked at her bedding. Jessit was wrong. She wasn't safe at all.

  Chapter 8

  The conference hall bristled with angry words and bitter accusations when Jacob Denman slipped in like a shadow. The compound had never been compromised before. Denman felt certain their secrets were safe and Paul Domino was as good as dead—at least he would be after Denman was through with him.

  Denman put Colonel Chavez on the hunt. No one escaped the little Mexican for long. He was sharper than a barracuda and infinitely more relentless. For the time being that would have to appease General Sorinsen. Until Bubba passed his diagnostics, they had to deal with matters on their own.

  Domino hadn't just tapped into a computer hard drive; he'd stumbled into next-generation technology. His fingerprints were all over the artificial intelligence of Big Bubba. It recorded all his keystrokes and every site he visited. The AI imprinted this information and shared it with FAIA, its baby sister. What Denman didn't understand was why Bubba had let Domino in.

  It was one more nail in Bubba's coffin. FAIA would take over soon. And that little AI didn't trust anyone.

  The general population only knew FAIA as the com-web. They didn't know her real name or what it stood for. Focused Access Intra-viral Arsenal. Com-web was built with tax dollars as the ultimate communications device. But that was only for show. Further tests proved she could do so much more.

  That's when she became classified. Her web didn't only connect people worldwide. It manipulated the magnetosphere, theoretically creating an electromagnetic shield. Theoretically. The simulations had been successful, but the live tests had yet to reach the desired results.

  Domino's misdeeds forced them to scrub the next trial. Until they knew Bubba was secure, they'd have to keep the AI siblings separated. FAIA was too important to risk infection.

  When Paul Domino escaped, he had scrambled their codes enough to force a complete reboot. It would take hours to get back online and days to retrieve garbled information. General Sorinsen mother-fucked every man present. Lambda Core had been compromised. Someone was going to pay with his career.

  “How the hell does an outsider reconfigure the most sophisticated computer system in the world? Where were the firewalls? Where were the goddamned safeties?”

  Nearly a dozen uniforms answered at once, all of them sounding like whining cats. Denman scowled at them in disgust. The fools buried themselves with their excuses.

  “He scrambled the codes, sir, but he didn't take anything,” one ruddy-faced colonel explained.

  “How do you know?” Sorinsen thundered back. “We didn't even know he hacked in until a few minutes ago.”

  “The securities held, sir,” another colonel added. “He could view the files but nothing was downloaded, nothing printed. There's no history of it.”

  Denman didn't want to mention that any man who could hack into a super-secret computer system would have no problem tampering with the histories—or at least try. Domino would have gotten clean away if Bubba hadn't kept a duplicate history to share with FAIA. A redundancy protocol in case of a computer meltdown.

  Denman strolled around the room while a dozen voices fought for Sorinsen's attention. Jack Chavez, the lowest-ranking officer present, sat silently in the background. Denman nodded to him, assuring him that Sorinsen's rage would pass. The old man had to bluster after what happened. Half the men in the room would likely be transferred—or worse—before the week was out.

  “Chavez!” Sorinsen barked. “You're head of compound security. How the hell did this happen?”

  Denman drifted past Sorinsen at that very moment and whispered into his ear. “Eakins handles computer security, doesn't he?”

  Sorinsen's eyes flashed at Eakins. Denman pressed closer to Sorinsen's ear. “Don't worry about Domino. He won't survive the desert. But computer security has been tainted through sheer negligence.”

  The general grumbled at Denman below earshot of the other officers. “Domino wouldn't have gotten to a terminal if you had eliminated him when I ordered you to.”

  Denman emptied his face of any expression and spoke with quiet confidence. “He was still useful, sir.”

  “Well, he's not useful now, is he?” Sorinsen stared at the sweating faces of his staff. He pummeled his fist on the table, shaking coffee cups and men alike. “Get out! All of you. Find Domino. And fix my goddamn computer, or I swear I'll bust every single one of you to sergeant.”

  The men scrambled out, a few trying to get through the door at once. Denman lingered at Sorinsen's side, signaling to Chavez to wait for him outside. Right now he needed to talk to the old man.

  Sorinsen gagged on a cough, wiping his mouth with a checked handkerchief that he kept stuffed in a breast pocket. He pulled a bottle of pills out of his desk drawer and shook out two tablets, popping them to the back of his tongue. Denman poured him some water.

  “I should have listened to my own counsel, Jacob. You've been pencil-pushing too long. I knew Domino was a threat.”

  “But until now, we didn't know what kind of threat.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” He wiped his mouth again and folded the thin square of cloth into quarters. “He could've sabotaged our entire operation.”

  “But he didn't.” Denman pulled a chair closer to Sorinsen and sat down. “I think he was trying to get to the girl. For whatever reason he didn't make it. That leads me to believe that he'll attempt a rescue.”

  Sorinsen scoffed. “To what end? He still can't get out. Can he?”

  “I've got maintenance engineers going over the compound's blueprints. If there's a way out, we'll get there before he does.”

  “And the girl?”

  “Jessit wants her. It would be in our best interest to give her to him.”

  “I don't like it. Surely, we can find him someone else. Someone who works for us. Someone we can control.”

  “That would be preferable, but Jessit was adamant. He asked that she be gifted to him in payment for his inconvenience. That's a common request on their world. To refuse it would be seen as impolite.”

  Denman waited while the old man wadded his handkerchief and mopped the sweat off his forehead. Yelling with only one lung must have been hard work. He poured a fresh glass of water for Sorinsen.

  “And what if s
he misbehaves? I don't need an inter-planetary incident on my hands.” Sorinsen wheezed, his chest rattling like a paper bag.

  “I'll see that she understands her obligations, sir. We can't afford to alienate our guests now. We're too close to the prize. We've learned to spot the radiation signature even before the Alturians can. If we do have unwelcome guests on Earth, we'll find them first.”

  “Not just find them, Jacob. Eliminate them,” he rasped. “The president wants them all gone. Now that we know we're not alone in this universe we need to protect ourselves, before we end up under somebody's boot heel.”

  “All we have to do is keep the Alturians distracted, and for that Dr. Cruz will play into our hands nicely. As for our phantom aliens…” He handed Sorinsen two small devices that fit in the palm of his hand. “We've identified the radiation signature with pinpoint accuracy. Whatever they are, they appear as electromagnetic energy with a very specific wavelength. These little toys will keep them under our control.”

  Sorinsen picked up one of the devices. It looked like a pedometer, but with four needle-like prongs on its back side. “What is it?”

  “You wanted us to build you a god-killer. That's it. If we find these people, all we have to do is impale them with this thing along any set of cluster nerves. It's a loop conductor that can fry them alive the moment they try to use their energy.”

  “You're assuming they're flesh and blood.”

  Denman leaned into the old man and whispered conspiratorially. “I've shadowed the Alturians from day one. Their historical texts state that these gods walked among them in physical bodies. I'm certain they're just like us, only they've found some stealth technology that keeps them invisible. All we have to do is pinpoint their whereabouts.”

  Sorinsen looked pleased.

  Despite what the Alturians believed, these gods were mortal, and if they had physical bodies, they could be caught and killed.

  The old general picked up the other machine. “What does this do?”