Earth Yell: Book 5 in the Earth Song Series

by Nick Cook

  The only thing in this white void of a world was me. I was dressed in the same combat gear that I’d been in a moment ago, during the battle. My LRS was in its holster on my belt, my MP5 still slung over my shoulder. Even the Empyrean Key was in my hand, although I couldn’t remember removing it from the stone column as the torrent of water from the collapsing ceiling had struck us.

  ‘Hello?’ I called out.

  There was nothing for a moment, but then in the far distance I heard a voice.

  ‘Lauren, is that you?’ Jack called back.

  My heart leapt. ‘Yes!’

  ‘Well shit me senseless, what the hell is this new crazy?’ Ruby’s voice said next.

  She was followed by Mike. ‘Well if this is someone’s version of heaven, it’s as bloody boring as hell.’

  In this impossible situation I actually found myself laughing.

  ‘Isn’t that the truth?’ I shouted back. ‘Everyone keep talking and let’s see if we can find each other.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Mike said. ‘So I’m guessing you managed to shift us over to E8 judging by the whole surreal nature of where we are?’

  ‘Actually I didn’t do this,’ I said. ‘There was this flower icon that I activated and it seemed to turn on whatever that facility was. Did you see the ceiling of that huge chamber split open?’

  ‘Yeah, what the hell was that all about?’ Jack said, his voice getting louder as a black dot appeared in the distance, then became him as he drew closer.

  ‘Lauren definitely found the on switch for that giant machine by the looks of it,’ Ruby said, her voice louder too as she appeared from the opposite direction. ‘But how is it we’re alive, not that I’m complaining?’

  ‘Was it anything to do with that glowing light that swept down through the water towards us?’ Mike asked, so close that he made me jump.

  I turned round to see him standing there and hugged him. ‘God, it’s good to see you,’ I said.

  ’So almost getting killed is what it takes to get a hug out of you these days,’ he said, squeezing me back.

  I grinned at him. ‘Yes, it looks that way. And to answer your question, I did see that light.’

  ‘Yeah, I got a good look at it before everything went black,’ Jack said as he reached us and joined what was fast becoming a group hug. ‘I’m pretty sure it was a Guardian crystal.’

  ‘Hang on, are you saying it transported us here?’ Ruby asked.

  As we all broke apart, I turned round to see her standing in front of me. Our reunion was rewarded with a round of fist bumps.

  I felt a huge surge of relief wash through me. Somehow, we’d survived. Before I could pursue whether the Guardian had been involved in our rescue, more specks appeared in the distance.

  We all traded looks.

  ‘Maybe we’re about to find out the answers from whoever or whatever they are,’ Jack said as we started to head towards them.

  But somehow, as I knew they would be, the specks gradually resolved into people. Some were moving towards us, others huddling in small groups, but many were hanging suspended in pearlescent balls of translucent light.

  ‘Okay, this is going to get interesting,’ Ruby said, as a man in a bomber jacket with goggles around his neck reached us first.

  He put his hands on his hips. ‘Are you the people who brought us here? Because I for one would like to know what the hell is going on!’ he said with a distinctly mid-western American accent.

  Then a fisherman in a yellow waterproof gabbled something in French, but unhelpfully my earbud was offline and wasn’t translating. Then came others, some wearing contemporary clothes, but many looking like they’d been plucked straight out of the pages of a history book, including a guy who had what looked like Spanish armour from the sixteenth century. They surrounded us, all talking at once.

  I held up my hands, which had no effect whatsoever. Then there was loud whistle.

  ‘Will you all please shut up and listen to the woman?’ Ruby said, withdrawing her fingers from her mouth and gesturing at me.

  Everyone fell silent, their expectant faces all turned in my direction as though I was the one with all the answers. So nothing new there then.

  But before I could attempt to come up with anything sounding vaguely like a coherent response, I spotted a familiar face among the crowd, pushing through them to get to me, tears running down his cheeks.

  I stared in disbelief at the man that I instantly recognised as Raúl.

  ‘You’re alive!’ Jack said, also recognising him.

  Raúl gave Jack a confused look as if to say who the hell are you, but then his face twisted with grief. ‘I should be dead, but an angel spared me. Please help me…’ A sob broke from his mouth as he took hold of my hand. He towed me towards one of the nearest spheres of light and then placed his hand on it.

  The light intensified where his hands touched the surface. Then I saw who was within it and for a moment I was rooted to the spot as surprise rushed through me.

  Within the partly opaque glowing sphere, tucked into a foetal position, was a woman in a bikini with flowing dark hair. Even though I couldn’t see her clearly I immediately knew that it was Raúl’s sister, Maricela, with several bullet wounds in her back.

  Raúl let go of my hand and dropped into a kneeling position before the sphere as fresh tears sprung from his eyes.

  The sphere encasing Maricela was just like hundreds of others around us, quite a few with a similar scene playing out as people grieved before them.

  I knelt by Raúl and put my arm around his shoulder. Sobbing freely now, he leaned his head into me as the rest of the team joined us.

  Then Mike gasped and pointed towards two other spheres close by. When I looked at who was inside them, my heart shattered for the second time that day.

  In the nearest one was Tom, while in the one next to it was Erin’s co-pilot, Daryl.

  I was immediately up on my feet, racing to them. I pressed my hands on Tom’s sphere, trying to break through the surface, desperately, impossibly believing for a moment that he might still be alive. But as ethereal as the sphere looked, it was as unyielding as steel no matter how hard I pushed against its surface.

  I stared at Tom, looking for even the tiniest breath moving his lungs, but saw none. Then with an awful realisation, I was as certain as I could be that my dear friend was dead.

  The crowd had gathered around us, many watching me with compassion and understanding in their faces. But the only one I had eyes for was Tom. He looked at peace, his face smooth and free from worry, just as I’d seen him before that massive boulder had hit Artemis and driven it down into the ravine.

  A sob rose up through me and broke free from my mouth. Then Jack was by my side as hot tears flowed, not saying anything but just cradling me in his arms.

  My sobs began to slow as my tears began to subside. Then my grief gave way to bewilderment, the same expression I’d seen on Raúl’s face a moment ago.

  ‘What happened here?’ I asked Jack.

  Jack smudged my tears away with his thumbs. ‘My guess is that in the same way that a Guardian AI rescued us and Raúl, it also did the same for those it was too late to save.’

  ‘You mean if Tom hadn’t set that self-destruct sequence, he might still be alive?’

  Jack raised his shoulders a fraction. ‘There’s no way to know that for sure, Lauren. But what I do know is that Tom’s selfless action was enough to convince a Zumwalt destroyer that there was no longer a need to keep launching its missiles. So try to hang on to the fact that he gave his life to save ours. That is every definition of a hero that I can think of.’

  I slowly nodded, feeling the grief loosen its claws in my soul a little.

  I turned my face back to the sphere to gaze at the serene face of my friend. ‘You’re right… and Tom almost looks at peace now.’

  ‘His race is done, and what a race it was,’ Jack said with a faraway look in his eyes.

  ‘That’s a very poet
ic way to put it,’ I said.

  Jack leaned in and kissed me on the side of the head. ‘I put that particular romantic streak down to my ancient Scottish ancestry. It tends to make an appearance at times like these.’

  Then Mike appeared, casting a sideways grimace towards Tom and Daryl’s spheres, before returning his gaze to us. ‘Guys, you’re going to want to hear what Raúl has just told Ruby and me.’

  Jack gave my shoulder a last squeeze and offered his hand to me.

  I grabbed onto it, wrapping my fingers around his and not letting go. Hand in hand we followed Mike back towards Ruby and Raúl, who were standing next to Maricela’s sphere.

  ‘Can you tell them what you just told us about the last thing you remember before you arrived here, Raúl?’ Mike said.

  Raúl raised a tear-streaked face from where he’d been gazing at Maricela. ‘Like I said, an angel came for me.’

  Jack peered at him. ‘And what exactly did this angel look like?’

  ‘A shining light that rushed towards me. The next thing I knew, I arrived here to see my sister encased in this ball…’ A fresh sob cut off his words.

  I held his gaze. ‘The Guardian saved you, saved all of us, but wasn’t in time to save your sister. Just as it was too late for our friends.’

  Raúl blinked back tears and nodded.

  I glanced round at the spheres. This place, apart from being somewhere that the survivors had been bought to, was a mortuary for those less fortunate.

  ‘But that’s not the most significant bit, Lauren,’ Ruby said. She turned to Raúl. ‘Tell them when this happened.’

  ‘Just a few minutes ago,’ he replied.

  My initial confusion was replaced by sudden comprehension as I looked thoughtfully at the crowd, the people from throughout history. This had to be everything to do with Jack’s Bermuda Triangle theory, where the countless people who’d disappeared over the centuries had ended up here, saved by the Guardians patrolling the seas.

  I spoke up so that they could all hear. ‘Those of you who speak English, can I ask if you arrived just moments ago?’

  At least half the people in the crowd nodded.

  I turned back to the others. ‘I’m sure it hasn’t been lost on any of you that some of these people, even if they don’t realise it, have been stuck here for hundreds of years.’

  ‘Then you know what this means. Based on the fact that time is obviously frozen here, that suggests we have made it over to E8 after all,’ Mike said.

  ‘Okay, even if that’s true, how long in our time have we been here?’ Jack asked. ‘Could years have already passed and the Kimprak have already arrived and destroyed our world?’

  ‘I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions about that,’ Mike replied. ‘Remember that in E8 time is a very fluid concept and the fact this place is still being generated by a micro mind, suggests that it is still very much intact and our world along with it.’

  ‘But if that’s true, where’s the micro mind that has to be behind all of this?’ I asked.

  Jack raked his hand through his hair. ‘Maybe to get the answer to that it’s time to ask your magic eight ball, Lauren.’

  I raised the stone orb still clutched in my hand to see a single triangular icon hovering over it, the same as I’d previously used to summon Lucy. Maybe that was exactly the reason that I’d arrived with it in this place, to allow me to make contact.

  ‘That looks promising,’ Jack said. It was another confirmation that this was E8. With or without synaesthesia, they could all see the control icons on the Empyrean Key for themselves whenever we were there.

  ‘Then let’s hope the micro mind is in a talkative mood, because I for one could certainly do with some answers,’ Ruby said.

  ‘Can’t we all?’ I replied. I selected the icon and flicked my wrist forward.

  In a pulse of light everyone around me disappeared and then I was standing alone in the white endless room… alone that was, apart from the glowing, featureless female made from flowing plasma who was standing before me.

  ‘I see that you have an Empyrean Key and know how to use it,’ she said in soft neutral English.

  ‘Yes, but where have my friends gone and all the others?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t worry about them. They are perfectly safe within the stasis field.’

  ‘That’s how you’ve frozen time there?’

  ‘It is,’ the figure replied.

  I tried to gather my thoughts as my fresh grief about Tom echoed through me.

  ‘So I’m assuming you’re the micro mind’s avatar, but what should I call you?’

  ‘Yes I am. You may refer to me as Eranos, although in your human tongue that would roughly translate to operator.’

  ‘As in the operator of that huge machine beneath the ocean?’

  ‘Yes. That machine is called the Resonancy Generator.’

  As I realised I was about to find out its purpose, my anticipation rose. ‘And what exactly does that machine do, Eranos?’

  ‘It will awaken every other brother and sister of mine on this planet,’ Eranos replied.

  I stared at the AI as I processed her words. ‘It will activate all the micro minds that we haven’t found yet?’

  ‘Yes, that is its core purpose. However, my connections to my kin were severed when they were attacked by a Kimprak virus that was designed in part to disrupt our communication network. When that happened, this facility activated a defence algorithm that cut me off from the rest of the network so that my systems wouldn’t be compromised.’

  I wasn’t sure I dared to believe what she was telling me. ‘And this Resonancy Generator has been activated? That’s why that light show happened back there and the roof started to open?’

  ‘Yes, that was the initial booting up of the system. When it is fully activated it will send out a low frequency pulse. To use a human analogy, think of the Resonancy Generator as a hammer, which will be used to hit the bell that is your planet and that will change the frequency forever.’

  I stared at her. ‘You’re talking about Earth Song aren’t you, the frequency tones that our planet radiates out into space?’

  ‘Yes, although I am not familiar with that exact phrase, we seem to be describing the same thing. Every micro mind that has been shut down has an emergency protocol that will be waiting to hear the carrier tone.’

  A sense of excitement was building rapidly inside me; if I had understood Eranos correctly, this could change everything.

  I hardly dared to ask my next question because the implications were so huge. ‘And when they do hear this new version of the Earth Song, they’ll awaken?’

  ‘Precisely,’ Eranos replied.

  After all the grief of the day, the sudden surge of joy was like a shaft of sunlight on the darkest winter day. ‘That’s incredible news.’ But now to find out whether Eranos also had the answer to my other burning question. ‘Do you also know the secret about how the micro minds will help defend us from the Kimprak invasion?’

  ‘Sadly no. The significance of that particular secret is so great that our creators felt it prudent to keep that knowledge hidden, even from me. It is only to be revealed when it is absolutely necessary; a last resort.’

  I’d been hoping for answers and what I’d already learned would change everything. Whatever the big reveal was would just have to wait. But for now, this was more than great news. Just like that, our search for the remaining micro minds would be over and that was incredible.

  ‘Okay, that aside, tell me about all the people you brought here, including us?’

  The glowing figure nodded. ‘Ah yes. I have tried to save those where I could, giving them a reprieve from certain death by transporting them here.’

  I thought of Tom, Daryl and Maricela. ‘Some, but not all?’

  A note of sadness crept into the AI’s voice. ‘You are correct. My Guardians couldn’t reach some of them in time to save them. However, I still retrieved their bodies because one day I hoped to be able to
return them to your world when I was given permission to do so.’

  I thought of Tom and once again my grief swirled inside me and I had to push it back down.

  ‘Who can give you permission to return all of us?’ I asked.

  ‘As you possess an Empyrean Key, you have that authority. However, I must warn you that if I try to return you now to where you were saved from, you would all be drowned. It is almost completely flooded.’

  My stomach knotted. ‘Please say you’re not telling me there’s no way to get back?’

  ‘The hell she isn’t, my little sunflower,’ a familiar voice said from behind me.

  I turned to see Lucy standing there. I rushed to her and threw my arms around her neck in a fierce hug.

  ‘Goodness, it’s good to see you too, Lauren.’

  I pulled away from her. ‘But how can you be here?’

  ‘Because the Operator activated the substrata communication network when you used an Empyrean Key to enter this E8 reality bubble she created. That activated communication protocols and through that she can now talk to any awoken micro mind, AKA me and the other merged AIs within me.’

  Fresh hope flooded through me. ‘So how do we get everyone out of this place and back to the real world?’

  ‘It may be the real world to you, but as I can assure you, E8 is very much our reality,’ Eranos replied.

  Lucy nodded. ‘That philosophical point aside, Lauren, there is a way to return you and your team. But it’s going to be very tricky and the timing is going to be awfully tight. Right now the Resonancy Generator is just starting to fully power up and when it does, all hell is going to break loose as it’s basically going to cause an earthquake in the immediate vicinity. And that’s not forgetting the humongous whirlpool that will be created when it transmits the signal.’

  ‘But why generate a whirlpool?’ I asked.