by S. M. Nolan
Maggie shook her off. The old woman bowed again, shuffled out through a door ahead. A massive room peeked in past a large man whom glared and shut the door.
Maggie examined her cell; a low table sat in its center with pillows around it, and her lone bed at its side. She felt her throbbing head, worsened by every eye movement. Her temples pounded, teeth ached. Her hand skirted a large gash that ran from her hair-line to her right temple and she sucked air through her teeth.
The door burst open. A large man with a rifle menaced her with dark eyes. He growled with a deep, throaty voice, “Lái ba, xiànzài!”
“Where are we going?”
“Dào xiànzài, wǒ kǎn diào nǐ de tóu,” he ordered.
He positioned the rifle and motioned to the door. Maggie relented at the possibility that he man might, in fact, remove her head. If her forehead was any indication, someone had already tried.
She stood and stepped past him out the door, emerging into a near-replica of the Nepalese temple. A large chair sat beneath the worn, Protectorate symbol at the room's front, behind bodies that scurried here and there in warm clothing. Feet scuffed stone floors. Small voices emitted from lofts. Men and women, old and young, stirred in a frenzy of activity. The whole temple breathed with lively ambiance.
Maggie paused to take it in but was shoved across the wide temple for a closed door. Two, equally large, dark-haired men scowled beside it. One man opened it onto a room identical to hers.
Russell rose at the short table and rocketed toward her, “Maggie!”
Her escort bridged the gap with a rifle-butt to his gut. He dropped to his knees. The guard barked Chinese, rifle trained on Russell's head.
“I don't fucking understand you!” He gasped, beating his fist on the ground.
Maggie stooped, “No sudden moves. Don't do it again. Are you alright?”
Russell glared at the guard whom uttered a few, sarcastic words, then left.
Maggie pled, “Russell, just stop.” He fell back against the table with a strained breath. Maggie crouched to examine him for wounds as he coughed into a hand. “Have they let you out?”
“No, but it's—”
“A Protectorate temple. Since they haven't killed us yet, I'm guessing they aren't Omega.”
“No, I saw… kids, Maggie,” he gasped.
“I know. I'm willing to bet the Reverberant's here.”
Russell waited to regain his breath, “Hell of a welcoming.”
“Can you blame them?”
He remembered the alley and airstrip, the C-130 and the temple, “No.”
“They must want to contain any possible threats.”
“Just trying to survive,” Russell agreed, his eyes on the floor. He looked her over, spied the wound on her head. He pushed aside wild hair and she shied away. “Fuck, are you alright?”
She winced, “Wicked headache, but I'll be fine.”
“I'm sorry, Maggie. I tried…”
She corrected him, “It was my mistake. I reacted without thinking. They must want to know how we found them and what we're doing here.”
“It doesn't excuse what they did.”
“No, but it makes it clearer.” She hesitated, looked him over, “What do we do now?”
“Tell them why we're here. They need to know what's happened. That we're not some kind of scouting party for Omega—or worse.”
The door opened again, a guard stepped in to one side. The old woman appeared with a tray. Two bowls rattled atop it as she set it before them on the floor. Maggie thanked her politely in Chinese.
After a pause, the woman bowed and left. The guard watched in silence as Maggie mustered her calm, spoke select words in Chinese. She finished with a bow. The guard's eyes narrowed skeptically, his stance predatory.
“Maggie?”
The guard grumbled out something then left. She returned to Russell's side.
He stared wildly at the door, “What the hell'd you say?”
She smiled, “Diplomacy has its charms.”
“That must be the English in you, Maggie.”
“Yeah? Well, the rest of me's figuring out how to escape if this goes wrong.”
“Let's just hope you got through.”
Maggie agreed with a tilted brow. She lifted a steaming bowl from the floor, slurped down soup with a furious hunger. Russell tried his best to eat, found his appetite lacking from the pain in his gut. They finished, awaited the guard's return.
When the door opened, a short, old man, with white, thinning hair entered the room. Tattooed script peered from beneath his robes near his wrists and neck. His face wore exaggerated smile-lines, his mouth presently drawn up to his eyes with a grin that refused to waver. Maggie stood and bowed. He bowed back, then gestured to sit with a tattooed hand, took a place across the table from them.
“Nín shuō yīngyǔ ma?” Maggie asked politely.
The man spoke slowly with a cracking voice, “My English. From Oxford. Before the Order. Long time since I used it.”
His smile infected her, “I understand.”
She introduced them by name. “And I am the one you seek.”
“You're the Reverberant?” Russell asked.
He bowed his head, “You have a message?”
“Yes, from She-La Chen-Lee in Los Angeles: The Keepers are dead. Ryusaki and Miramoto's information has been compromised and the Nepalese temple was located and overrun. Omega's been chasing us to keep us from informing you.”
“Then we are all in grave danger,” he said, suddenly dark.
Russell interjected, “They may be nearby, but She-La believed you'd aid us.”
“Right,” Maggie added. “We've come in search of assistance. She-La believes it's time for the weapon to be destroyed.”
The Reverberant considered their words, clearly aware of the dissent among his charges. He gave a pensive look, “What do you know of the weapon?”
Maggie reached in her pocket to produce one of the photographs of the Keeper tattoos. She admitted partial ignorance, but handed the photo to the Reverberant, “Not much. Apart from it being some kind of bio-weapon that can be operated with this language.”
“Miramoto,” he breathed with resounding sorrow.
“Yes. I did the same work on Ryusaki.”
Russell intoned, “I was investigating Miramoto's death when Ryusaki was discovered. I met Maggie then. Omega's strike-force has been hunting us ever since.”
“You know nothing of our fight?” He asked, deeply consumed by the photograph.
“Only what little She-La could tell of the Order, the weapon, and the Ha-Shan,” Maggie replied.
Sadness ebbed xenoically over his face, “We have spent eons protecting their secrets, only to lose them in the process.”
“I'm sorry,” Maggie said in earnest.
The Reverberant's eyes rose, “It is our own doing.”
“Who were the Ha-Shan?” Russell asked pointedly.
“The first evolution of sentience on Earth.”
“How do you mean?”
The sadness in his eyes doubled, “They came first. An earlier, sentient lineage that lived in harmony with all life. When they died out, their ways and remains went with them. It has allowed their existence to go unknown from the greater world.”
“She-La said as much, but there is some evidence left,” Russell said, confounded.
“There is… very little. What we do not already know of, we suppress for fear it might lead to the weapon's discovery.”
“So, what happened to them?” Maggie asked.
The Reverberant sighed. His sadness emanated through-out the room. He replied with a slow, mournful air, “Our legends tell the Ha-Shan's pacifism was their undoing. As our primitive ancestors grew, the Ha-Shan were hunted. Their numbers waned until disease crippled their species. They uplifted the most intelligent of our ancestors and taught them a rudimentary form of their language. Those symbols, there.”
The Reverberant passed the photo ba
ck and hung his head.
“The first Protectorate were little more than apes trained to repeat messages and protect temples from intruders. As their intelligence grew, they learned Ha-Shan phrases, stories, and symbols.”
“For what purpose?” Russell asked, leaning forward in anticipation.
“To protect the Ha-Shan legacy.”
“The weapon,” Maggie surmised.
“Yes,” he nodded. “The Ha-Shan were great thinkers, foresighted beyond us. They saw that humans might evolve to care little for their world. Their ways were the converse of this; they embraced the weakest, protected the Earth, sacrificed themselves as prey to do so. We were beasts, but some less-so than others. The others signified the growing divide between animal and sentient. Fearing our cunning and savagery might be the undoing of all species, they created the weapon.”
“An Omega device,” Russell acknowledged with a nod.
“We know little of their civilization, save the symbol denoting the chambers where their ruins reside.”
“The symbol?” Maggie said, surprised. “There's only one?”
“Yes, hidden within the creed of our Order.”
“The tattoo,” Russell said, examining the photograph.
“It tells a story, a history; “Force and Sun brought first the God-man, who gave hand to man, and became second.” It is our history. The force of life and the universe first created the Ha-Shan, who uplifted Humanity as the second, sentient race.”
“The symbol,” Maggie said, studying the asterisk-marked, triangular mound. “Is Ha-Shan?”
The Reverberant bowed his head, “Our enemies know of this symbol, but as a marker of our Order. They would never think to associate it with the weapon directly. The Keepers exist to preserve the Ha-Shan language but also to confuse the enemy.”
Maggie was silent, thoughtful; Humanity's origins lay hidden within temples devoted to hiding it. The normal anthropocentric view of man's intelligence had long been challenged but now Humanity was the late comer. A second evolution of life, not only vastly inferior, but ferociously more violent.
Locating the ruins of the first evolution would become a race. As much as it pained her, despite their outdated ways, the Protectorate were right. The weapon would be sought, discovered, and after a violent fashion, used.
“We have to destroy it.”
“We cannot,” the Reverberant replied. “It is a remnant of a great, lost people.”
“That's no reason to risk our species' existence.”
“Our peril has been so for eons and will remain so.”
She snipped at him, “With all due respect, you're a fool if you think it can remain hidden forever.”
“It must.”
“You're not understanding me,” she stressed. “This isn't something you can keep hidden. Even if Omega doesn't figure it out, and try to get what they want by telling the world, someone will find something that leads them to it.”
“Then we will suppress it.”
She countered quickly, “You can try, but progress will eventually reveal our origins. It will happen. It's inevitable. Being onerous is bollocks. You're only digging yourself and the Order a grave. If you don't evolve, adapt to the world around you, it will annihilate you. If you don't destroy the weapon, and the Protectorate falls, all of the Order's work will have been for nothing.”
“You propose destroying the weapon, simply to protect the world from it?”
She threw up her arms, “What the bloody hell's the point to preserving it anyhow?”
“Maggie.”
“No!” She silenced Russell with a hand. “I was dragged into this. I'm not walking away until it's over, and I intend to end it.”
“There is no end to this battle,” the Reverberant calmly replied.
“Bullshit!”
“Maggie!”
“Russell, I'm tired of running.” She looked to the Reverberant. “You should be too. The people here… life is for living. If there's a threat you alone can neutralize, you're obligated to do so.”
“By what authority?”
“The moral one,” she replied, as frustrated as though arguing with a petulant child. “You speak so highly of benevolent masters from millennia ago, yet don't practice benevolence yourself. You're the only people that can guarantee Humanity's safety against this threat. If the Order falls, so does Humanity's hope. If you don't change, you become obsolete. Your ideals are already in danger of it. You cannot expect to lord over Humanity peacefully if you do not take steps to protect the peace. It is inevitable the weapon will be found. Even if it's a thousand years from now, you've still caused it through inaction. It. Must. Be. Destroyed.”
The Reverberant reflected on her words with a deep breath. “What do you propose?”
Maggie rubbed her throbbing forehead, “I… I don't know.”
“You come bearing issue, but not solution,” he said studiously.
“No, I come seeking guidance and assistance from the only source capable of it. Secrets do not stay buried when they're this large. You're a rational human, one whose life hangs in the balance. You must see the weapon will eventually be discovered.”
“Yet you've no strategy for dealing with it.”
“No,” Russell mused. “But I assume you don't either. Otherwise, you'd have done it yourself by now. There must be some reason you haven't destroyed the weapon. Either you know where it is, and can't reach it, or you have no idea if it exists.”
The Reverberant considered his implication, “It does exist.”
“So where is it?” Maggie asked, her frustration mounting. The Reverberant was clearly apprehensive. She attempted to assuage his fears. “We're asking to help. This needs to end. It's mutually beneficial. I'm not spending my whole life on the run, and no-one else, Protectorate included, should have to die to protect a threat.”
Russell jumped in, seeing the Reverberant's internal dilemma. “You say the first Protectorate were beasts. They'd have known nothing of brotherhood, nor moral obligation, but the Ha-Shan would've foreseen Humanity's evolution—this eventuality. They'd have expected the Order to become true guardians by destroying or activating the weapon. By judging where they could not. They'd have known we couldn't live peacefully in this eventuality if the weapon existed. The history of the Order already dictated the weapon's existence would be known. If you believe what you say, the Ha-Shan would've anticipated this. If so, destroying the weapon is protecting their legacy—of peace.”
Maggie picked up, hoping to finally persuade the Reverberant. “The Order's priorities must either evolve with Humanity, or be consumed by it. There's no other logical path. The weapon must be destroyed, and it must be done before Omega finds it.”
Her final words rang through her head, throbbed with each repeating syllable. She forced away pain to watch the Reverberant's unchanged demeanor.
He looked her in the eyes, “You make powerful points, but my decision cannot yet be made.” His hand rose to stay her opening mouth. “I must meditate further. It is a decision I cannot take lightly. I will return. Remain here until then.”
Maggie sighed desperately, seeing his mind would not easily be swayed. He rose for the door and gave a hard knock. It opened on a guard that followed him away. A second guard shut the door. Maggie sank beside Russell, rested her aching head against his shoulder.
“He'll make the right call,” he said, sliding an arm around her.
“Fuck, I hope so.”
She listened to his heartbeat resonate in his chest, it counted away each moment in life's dwindling time.
19.
Judgment
October 5th
3:41 AM
Tibetan Protectorate Temple
Maggie and Russell spent the next several hours in silence. Maggie's mind was too full to speak. Russell tried to lift her mood, but her replies were short. She snapped without malice but with a clear resignation not to speak. Eventually, he allowed her to pace about the small room while h
e settled against a corner of the bed.
She walked with her arms crossed, bit or pulled at her lip-ring with a pair of fingers. Every few laps she'd stop, listen, scoff, then return to pacing. The succinct rhythm was hypnotic.
Russell closed his eyes to let his mind wander. He found little sympathy for the Reverberant. His people had devoted their lives to something for no reason grander than a historical burden. They'd given up everything the world offered, exiled themselves to protect it.
Despite that, their exile had forced a silent narcissism about the man, his actions and motivations therein difficult to understand. If dissent within the Order had caused a schism, why refuse the logic in their views? The weapon was a threat, countered their mission to protect Humanity at the Ha-Shan's behest, so why allow it to remain intact?
Giving the Reverberant sole control was a mistake, regardless of the man's personal wisdom. He must have known that. Likewise, Maggie's belief of the Order's obsolescence was also erroneous, at least for now. They might still uphold their purpose as delegated; protecting Ha-Shan knowledge was not exclusive to the weapon's state. Any responsibility otherwise was assumed, not assigned.
But Maggie's moral assertion was correct. History would not remain buried forever, and when brought to light, would invariably result in war for possession of the weapon. Her point was valid, and gravely in need of consideration.
While the Reverberant would have considered it many times over, it was possible he'd become disconnected from the weapon's implications. Moreover, he might have never faced the growing threat of Omega at such close-range. Their own involvement was possibly an entirely new factor in the Reverberant's perspective. Hopefully, it was one that would override whatever had convinced him to preserve the weapon.
Overall, Russell admitted agreement with Maggie; either the Order needed to evolve, adapt, and destroy the weapon, or die out. If they were willing to shift their priorities and traditions, they could rise as true guardians of the Ha-Shan's knowledge and ways of peace. Otherwise, regardless of which faction won-out, the Protectorate's mission was a failure.
