Diamond Sky (Diamond Sky Trilogy Book 1) (34 page)

Chapter 40

Emmy
was put into a military
grade, armour plated Hummer. The general was seated next to her with a guard in
front. A mobile troop carrier followed closely behind.

‘What happened to the helicopter?’ she asked.

‘It has returned to base. Given the danger, I thought it
best not to call it back. If the driver of an automobile was to lose his mind
it is one thing, but if the same were to happen to the pilot of an airborne
craft, it is a different matter entirely.’

She nodded. Did the fool really think the infection could
take a hold that quickly? Every decision this man had so far made had been
borne of ignorance. His stupidity filled her with both fear and hope in equal measures.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked the general.

‘It’s not safe here,’ he replied. ‘My men tell me that the
radiation levels are increasing by the minute. We have a small mobile command
centre a few miles out of town. We will be protected there.’

‘Is that where you’re holding Charlie? You cannot just make
people disappear, you know. They will be missed.’

‘By who?
Until we know that this
madness can be contained, the entire town has been taken into protective
custody. You and your friend, Charlie, are not alone, by any means.’

‘You arrested an entire town; on whose authority?’

‘Not arrested; sectioned. It is for the benefit of the wider
population; believe me. You just better hope that your research is worth the
potential collateral damage. If it is; you and I may yet enjoy a productive
relationship. If not; you will be spending a long time behind bars.’

‘You don’t frighten me. I’ve dealt with more dangerous men
than you. You think you have everything under control, but you have no idea
what you are dealing with.’

‘Is that so? In case you have not noticed, I have a not
insignificant amount of manpower at my disposal and could get a further three
units in here within the hour. If any of your town
crazees
attempts anything, we will be more than ready.’

‘It does not matter how well armed you are. Even you cannot
kill a dead man.’

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

The general’s words were cut short by the sight of a
battered
ute
travelling towards his motorcade from the
direction of an old dirt trail leading into the bush. It was on a direct
collision course with the vehicle they were travelling in.

‘Take evasive action,’ he called to the driver, but it was
too late.

The impact caught the Hummer dead in the middle. The
military vehicle had reinforced panelling that did not buckle under the impact,
but it was still lifted up by the force of the collision and then sent rolling
off the side of the road.
Emmy
braced her body
against the back of her seat as they were sent spiralling out of control. She
had been wearing a seatbelt and when the vehicle came to rest, she was shaken,
but not hurt. The general had not been so cautious and without a belt to strap
him safely in place, he was sent tumbling around like a cat in a washing
machine. He was no longer conscious.

The window beside
Emmy
shattered
and after un-strapping herself, she kicked against the damaged glass, providing
an escape route. She crawled through the gap and her first instinct was to see
who was driving the
ute
. The vehicle was still on the
road, but its front had crumpled completely and whoever was behind the wheel
would have been crushed without resistance. She did not wish to see another
dead body so she turned away to check what had happened with the truck behind.
That was when the gunshots started to ring out.

The crash had coughed up a great deal of dust and the smoke
from the firearms added to the haze. She was unable to tell who or how big the
attack force was. The soldiers seemed to be switching their direction of fire
constantly as if unsure of what they were aiming at. This was not the help she
had envisaged. If anything, the attackers were more dangerous than the
soldiers. Her best option was to make a run for it.

She ran until her legs went numb. She ran until she could
feel the tendons around her muscles stretched almost to breaking point. She ran
until she had no air left in her lungs. She ran until the world around her
disintegrated into a haze of nothingness. Her body was completely spent of
energy and when she could give no more, she felt the dry dirt of the desert
against her knees and then on her palms.

Since that night when she witnessed the dying person in the
hospital, she wondered who would come for her when the time came. She did not
see her father, her mother or God forbid, her grandfather. The last thing she
saw before the darkness took her was a solitary silhouette approaching. It was
Lucas.

***

The devastating assault that began on the small convoy
leaving the observatory soon reached the mobile army base and temporary detention
camp located just seven kilometres from the town. Nobody knew what hit them.
Charlie only became aware of the attack when he heard gunshots in the distance.
He was being kept separately from the other prisoners and had a military
scientist with him, the pair of them trying to figure out how to deal with the
radiation problem. The scientist’s name was Randy, which did not fill Charlie
with confidence.

‘Friends of yours?’ asked Randy, suspiciously.

‘My friends do not carry guns,’ replied Charlie. ‘Whatever
is going on out there has no connection with anybody I know.’

‘What should we do?’

‘Why are you asking me? Maybe you should go get one of your
soldier friends.’

Randy still seemed unsure, but he followed Charlie’s
suggestion. He opened the door onto a corridor that was awash with frenetic
activity. Soldiers ran back and forth, weapons held in their hands, ready to
use at a moment’s notice. The military scientist tried to grab the attention of
a soldier, but was completely ignored. Charlie got out of his seat and joined
his international colleague in the corridor.

‘I don’t think you should be leaving that room,’ said Randy.

‘Nobody is really concerned with what I do right now.’ The
room originally had a guard at the door, but he was long gone, joining his
comrades in the heat of battle. ‘Until we figure out what is going on, it is
best to assume we are all in equal danger. We should stick together, as a
precaution.’

Randy nodded. Despite being employed by the military, the
young American seemed even less at ease with the situation than Charlie. The
pair of them figured out which direction the majority of the gunfire was coming
from and then headed the other way.

‘Can you get us out of here?’ asked Charlie.’

‘There’s a maintenance depot this way,’ Randy pointed up the
corridor. ‘There will be a transport parked out there. If we can make it to the
highway, we should be okay.’

Charlie followed the other scientist, but when they got to
the maintenance room he began to have doubts.

‘What about the others?’ he asked.

‘The soldiers can take care of themselves,’ replied Randy.

‘I’m not talking about the soldiers. What about the
townspeople? We cannot just leave them.’

‘Yes we can.’

Randy continued on to look for the transport, but Charlie
did not go with him. He turned around and headed back the way he had come,
searching for any clues that might lead him to the residents of Jackson’s Hill.
The infirmary was in the west wing of the military base and that is where he
found his people.

It did not take long for him to realise that there was
nothing he could do for them. Beds were crammed into every available space and
each was filled with a heavily sedated prisoner. The doctor had been correct in
guessing that sedation was the only way to deal with the radiation, but it was,
of course, only a short term solution.

He walked between the beds when there was a gap large enough
to accommodate him. He considered attempting to rouse some people from their
slumber, but he knew this would be futile. They were all under far too deeply.
He saw the doctor and he also spotted others he knew. He saw Mindy, and Lucas’
uncle Harry. Even the thugs from the bar who had abused
Emmy
elicited his sympathy as they lay helplessly before him. There was nothing he
could do for any of them.

‘It’s not your fault.’

The voice startled him, but when he looked up, he relaxed.
It was Lucas.

‘You made it back,’ he said. ‘When the soldiers turned up, I
feared the worst. They questioned me and wanted to know everything, but gave me
nothing in return. Did you make it in time – did you save the professor? I know
what he did was wrong, but if anybody can find a cure for the radiation, it is
him.’

‘The professor is doing just fine. Captain Peters was not so
lucky.’

Lucas smiled cruelly and Charlie suspected that something
was wrong. Then the doors at the far end of the room burst open and three
soldiers came running in. They all trained their weapons on Lucas.

‘Put your hands where we can see them,’ one of the soldiers
shouted.

The policeman followed their command, but then he did
something unexpected. He winked at Charlie before vanishing in front of the
scientist’s eyes. Charlie was completely gobsmacked, but he was unable to dwell
on what he saw for long. Lucas reappeared directly behind the group of soldiers
and that was when he realised that it was not Lucas at all. It was Jackson Fox.

The soldiers stood no chance. Fox placed his hands over the
head of one, twisting his neck to a snap before the poor man even knew that he
was being attacked. Fox then grabbed the rifle from the dead man and used it to
shoot a second soldier before facing off with the third, gun to gun. It was a
stalemate or at least it should have been. Fox lowered his gun and invited the
soldier to fire.

Charlie impulsively recoiled away in horror as the shot
burst forth from the soldier’s rifle, but the bullet did not hit its target.
The soldier fired again and then held his finger in place sending a rapid
stream of bullets towards Jackson Fox. Not one hit its target. Fox was too fast
and he seemed to know the exact trajectory of each and every individual bullet.
He danced between them in an elaborate ballet of intuitive perfection until all
of the soldier’s ammo was spent.

Unwilling to give up against an infinitely superior opponent,
the soldier threw down his depleted weapon and ran towards his foe, brandishing
a knife taken from his belt. Fox caught the wrist of the hand in which the
soldier held the knife with one of his own and placed his other around the
soldier’s neck.

‘Let him go!’ screamed Charlie, drawing Fox’s attention.

‘You would show this man mercy?’ asked Fox.

‘Of course,’ replied Charlie, ‘and you should too. We are
scientists, not killers.’

‘We are Gods,’ replied Fox, ‘and these nothing but bacteria
in comparison.’

‘I am no God and neither are you.’

Fox smiled. The soldier looked like he was about to
struggle, but the professor tightened his grip, rendering such an act of
recalcitrance impossible.

‘You are half right.’

Charlie swallowed hard.

‘If you truly believe yourself to be God, show this man
mercy. Please.’

‘That I cannot do.
You see, to
sustain this level of power, I need to recharge regularly. That is why Mike’s
body failed.’

Charlie applied his knowledge of quantum mechanics to the
professor’s predicament and came to the same conclusion as his former mentor.

‘This is crazy. To operate at this level indefinitely would
require you to kill thousands, millions even. It is not possible. Even if you
do not burn up so much energy by teleporting, that body is not going to last
you.
Armareth
told us he could only survive inside of
Sammy because the Aboriginal’s spirit remained with its body. Lucas has gone
and his body will die – even you cannot stop that.’

‘Very good, Dr Nguyen.
You are
smarter than my granddaughter gives you credit for. I have already found a
solution to the problem you pose, however. You are correct in thinking that
this body cannot sustain me, which is why I must return to my own flesh and
blood.’

‘Your body is a meat carcass.’

‘I grow tired of this conversation and I also grow weak. You
have delayed me enough.’

Charlie turned away in disgust as Fox drained the life from
the soldier, replenishing his own.

‘Why?’ asked Charlie. ‘Surely you have killed enough to
sustain you for now. There is nobody left for you to fight.’

‘True, my enemies are defeated, but I do have a long journey
ahead of me and so do you.’

He approached Charlie, but the scientist did not run. He had
nowhere to run to.

‘You are going to kill me?’

‘I am going to bring you peace.’

So that was the professor’s idea of peace – murder. The
great man had truly lost his way and Charlie feared the skills that could have
been used to benefit mankind may now destroy it.

‘Just make it quick and painless,’ he said.

He closed his eyes and waited for the heat. It came, but not
as he expected it to. The sensation was not instantaneous and nor was it
painful. All he felt was a gentle warming of his brow that quickly spread down
over his body. The air felt moist and humid rather than scorched and smoky.

He opened his eyes.

Lucas was gone, as was the compound and everything else that
had surrounded him just moments earlier. In its place was grass. It was the
greenest grass he had ever seen. Even the parks growing up in a satellite town
of Melbourne did not have grass so vibrant, so full of life and vitality. He
began to walk and that was when he noticed what was really incongruous about
the scene. It was him. He still wore his dirty lab coat, and his arm and hands
were still stained with blood and grease.