Ghost of the Gods - 02 (43 page)

Treachery

Mark Freedman – Colorado – March 8, 0002 A.P.

Mark awoke to the distant sounds of a vehicle approaching. He found Sarah watching the large command screen, which was displaying a feed from the CROWS weapon sight. The crosshairs were locked on and automatically tracking Noah’s Land Cruiser towing an off-road trailer.

“He’s back,” said Sarah. “I guess we’re about to learn what he’s planning. The singularity’s also back. The pull is weak, but I can feel it and the emotional leakage is decreasing and… and something… well...”

Sarah’s eyes were watery. Mark could feel emotions radiating from her.

“What?” asked Mark.

“Air Truth’s reported five more kill-zones. It spread from towns to small cities. Hundreds of people died in each attack and less wildlife was killed. The USAG’s still claiming it’s all a terrorist hoax.”

“We’re wasting too much time with this one hive,” complained Mark.

He was frustrated and didn’t know what to do. He zipped his coat and stepped out into the frigid bright light to confront Noah. The hives were going ahead with their plan. Mustafa’s stories were proving to be all too real. Mark noticed a faint, attractive pull from the singularity, just as Sarah had described. The cyanide gas was wearing off. Noah stepped from his Land Cruiser and went around to the back of the off-road trailer. He unlocked the double doors and opened them. Mark came up behind him and looked inside. The bottom half of the trailer was filled with military crates marked
high explosives
and the top with supplies. The sight of all that explosives was unnerving.

“I see you have been dipping into the timeline program and found something,” said Noah. “Good for you.”

Mark almost jumped as Sarah put her hand on his shoulder. She’d come up beside him in total silence.

“The singularity’s back,” announced Sarah.

“That’s only temporary,” said Noah.

He handed Sarah an unusual looking 40mm grenade chambered for the MK19. It was blue and had several aerodynamic holes in the nose cone.

“What you are holding is an XM1060-Mark three thermobaric munition,” said Noah. “It was originally developed as a cave buster during the Afghan war. Each one is far more devastating than what you have been firing from that Stryker. It will not take many of these to collapse the mine’s entrance. After that, we close off all the vents. Cyanide may stun a hive, but carbon dioxide will kill it. We’re sealing them up in a mass grave.”

“Why not just leave and regroup?” said Mark. “Torturing this wounded animal is not a winning strategy. Other hives have to know what’s going on here and think the USAG is doing it. Kicking this hornet’s nest could prematurely start an all-out war before we can win it.”

“I will not leave behind a living nest of those things,” snarled Noah. “If you are with me, you will do this!”

Mark repositioned the Stryker so they could fire parallel to ground into the entrance shaft. This gave them good odds of reaching the back of the shaft and collapsing all of it by walking the explosions forward. Sarah let loose with the MK19. Mark was shocked by the increased power of the grenades. After only sixty seconds of concentrated fire there was no point in continuing. The last few grenades had burst on the surface of the collapsed mine, throwing blast waves that could have knocked a man down had he been outside the Stryker.

As the unusual smell from the explosives drifted away, Mark, Sarah, and Noah divided up the vents and went off in different directions to cap them. Noah pulled out in his Land Cruiser to take care of the farthest vents. After sealing his first vent, Mark was grudgingly impressed with Noah’s ingenuity, if not his plan. Noah had given them inflatable heavy rubber kick balls. All they had to do was inflate a ball inside the 12-inch vent pipe and move on to the next. Even if the blueprints didn’t show all the vents, carbon dioxide was heavier than air and would accumulate with most of the vents sealed. The hive was doomed.

As Mark went from one vent to the next, he received memory capsules from Noah. While the hybrid did not have a plan for what to do next, he did have ideas. Mark knew they had to come up with a far better strategy than destroying hives one at a time. Though he was not ready to act on it, there seemed to be no other option than using McKafferty.

Mark began pumping up another ball inside another vent. He thought of all the past lifetimes he was now convinced he’d lived; assuming the timelines from last night were truly him. He was troubled by the paradox of now believing he was more than a physical body while obediently playing his part in committing mass murder. Wiping out this hive before it became operational again might save a few innocent lives. Did that balance the scales or was this nothing more than a random act of terror? They were all at war, the innocent and guilty alike. He had to keep focused on the end and not the means.

As Mark checked the seal around the rubber ball, a timeline flashback hit him, leaving him stunned and disoriented. He grabbed hold of the vent to keep from stumbling. The reincarnation flashback was every bit as powerful as the prior night’s. As it faded, he understood what had just happened. Some part of his consciousness had accessed the timeline interface on its own. Moments before the flashback, he’d thought about exploring his past lives for clues about the god-machine’s role. Some part of him had acted on the desire. Since last night he’d changed his objective from not only searching for past lives, but also for the birth of the god-machine itself. The two questions were intertwined. He no longer believed the machine knew who created it or when. It had no personal concept of life or death for itself. It was a true immortal.

As Mark collected his gear into his backpack, he couldn’t shake a feeling that something was missing. As he checked to make sure nothing was left behind, he realized the emotions radiating from the hive were gone, as were the stray thoughts. The faint, attractive pull from the singularity was also missing. He searched his recent memory, sifting for fragments of stray thoughts and emotions emitted from the hive. As a more complete picture formed, he grew certain the hive had committed suicide. Memory capsules from Sarah and Noah contained the same realization. Mark dropped his backpack to the ground. He stared at the vent for what seemed like hours, then turned and walked away. He knew Noah intended for them to finish the job because in his mind the suicide could be a deception. Noah and Sarah were pressing on as Mark continued walking back. Mark was certain beyond any doubt this hive was dead.

Sarah Mayfair – Colorado – March 8, 0002 A.P.

Sarah had yet to reach her first vent. The hive was whispering to her as clearly as the one in Morristown. Ralph was far out ahead of her sniffing through the underbrush as she reached the top of a hill. The sky was filled with broken clouds framing a daytime moon. Snowcapped mountains rose in the distance. It all looked as if she were in a terribly beautiful nightmare. The whispers were hinting for her to kill Mark, now that he had served his purpose. She wanted to seal the vents as quickly as possible. She needed them to die. She needed them to get out of her head. Noah had taught her how to block her emissions on the n-web. There had to be a way to block these whispers. She needed Mark’s understanding and help even more now than ever. She didn’t like what this restructuring was doing to him. He had stopped sharing his thoughts with her. He was blocking all his emotions, which would have been impossible before Noah had taught them how. Now nothing escaped him, not even the smallest feeling when they were making love. She no longer believed this extreme isolation made them any safer from hives. A little intimacy would not make any difference. She wondered if Noah had some agenda. Ralph came to her. He knew she was distressed. Sarah reached her first vent and went to work on it.

The winds were blowing through the trees and dry brush, creating even more whispers. Sarah was still ruminating on how distant Mark had grown as he became a ghost, like Noah. She was sniffling, holding back tears. The last two times they had made love Mark had not wanted her. What else was he keeping from her? Well, she was keeping secrets too. She had not dared tell him about the whispers, but now there was an even bigger secret. How could she tell him what had happened in Flagstaff? How would he take the news? He’d had a child once and lost her to the plague. To risk that happening again might be too much for him. She would have never known she was pregnant this early except by accident. The medial assist she’d used on herself out of concern over being exposed to cyanide gas had delivered an unexpected discovery. Pregnancy was not supposed to be possible for hybrids. Noah and Mustafa had both confirmed in their own words that hybrids were sterile. The entire reign of the hives and their way of twos existed because hybrids were sterile. Some hybrids believed they could not conceive because they no longer had souls. It was pure madness to bring a child into this damaged world, but deep inside her heart she knew she had secretly and irresponsibly wanted a child for months.

She finished the vent and started walking toward the next. How could she even trust her own feelings with her brain networked into the god-machine and now the hives? Maybe the pregnancy was what the god-machine wanted—or, god forbid—the hives wanted. She knew she couldn’t keep this secret from Mark for very long. She had seen it with a medical assist. So could he.

The hive’s whispers started again. Sarah screamed out in frustration. No one could hear her except Ralph. She fell to her knees and started pounding her fists together into the dirt. They were down there beneath her, those insects in their hive.

“Leave me alone!” she screamed.

Each of her blows was aimed at them. Each time her fists hit the dirt she was hurting them and herself. Ralph began howling. The tone of the hive’s whispers changed. It was somehow softer.

We know… We feel….

“Know what?” thought Sarah. She stopped beating the ground. Her face was wet with tears. What were they whispering about? She was out of breath. Her fists were sore but healing; her vision was blurred.

Nothing must harm it…

Within moments the hive went silent. The world went silent. It felt as if the entire universe was holding its breath. Sarah somehow knew mass suicide had just been committed below her feet. The absence of radiated emotions from the hive and vanished tidal pulls confirmed they were no more. She thought she would be relieved when they were gone, but now she was more confused and worried than ever.
Nothing must harm it.
Were they referring to her child? Why would they care? If anything, this child made her an even bigger threat to their way of life.

Mark Freedman – Colorado – March 8, 0002 A.P.

The day was turning blustery and surrounded Mark with rustling sounds. He was haunted with mild flashbacks that came and then dissolved like apparitions. Unlike the initial flashback, these aftershocks were experienced as very faint sensory projections superimposed over his reality. It was like living two lives at the same time but with one, the flashback, as faint as thin veils of fog. Vague wisps of buildings, sounds, smells, emotions, and people faded in and out of the forest he was wandering through. All his past lives relived through the timeline contained memories beyond what could possibly be in the archive. There was no acceptable scientific explanation for this extended memory, but right now he didn’t care. The flashbacks had given him an idea, one he would devote his full attention to as soon as he was settled inside the Stryker. He wanted to locate a reincarnation of himself from 47,000 years ago, the time he thought of as the Barringer Crater War. That lifetime, if it existed, would contain complete information leading up to the war, information that might be helpful against the hives. Maybe that’s what Mustafa had feared at Barringer Crater. The threat was not something the old man would reveal but something Mark might remember. The hives had almost gone extinct during that war. Maybe what was needed was another Barringer Crater?

Mark had almost returned to the mine shaft. The wind blew a small flurry of dried leaves across his path as he shimmied down a bank that led to the mine. A mild flashback distracted him as the lifetime superimposed itself over his senses. He emerged from the forest into the huge clearing, which had become a war zone. He glanced at the sealed mine entrance and felt the hive dead inside it. He headed toward their Stryker. The side of his neck was stung by a large insect. He slapped at the little bastard but hit something hard that tore at his skin.

“What the hell?”

He pulled a hard-shelled creature from his neck and saw a dart. He then realized an assist had been warning him organics were nearby. His arms and legs stung from repeated hits. He pulled off more darts. His immune system was surging to combat whatever was happening.

At a tree line 50 feet away soldiers in camouflage were slowly creeping into view. His reaction time was dropping rapidly. An assist was warning he was losing the fight against drugs, which were disrupting his higher functions. His immune system was a froth of pure rage and desire to destroy the aggressor. He watched soldiers brandishing Tasers drop to the ground, dead, as his immune system lashed out invisibly with micro kill-zones. He stumbled to the dirt and tried to get up. A flurry of stings landed all over his body, followed by electrocution. His world faded to black.

Sarah Mayfair – Colorado – March 8, 0002 A.P.

Sarah was experiencing a distant buzzing of emotions and assumed it was some kind of echo from a hive that was no more. She imagined it was residual emotions leaching from the n-web. It was disrupting her senses and distracting in the same way a faint ringing in the ear might be. Ralph was heeling. Sarah stopped short as she crested the hill leading down to the mine. She was stunned by what was before her. Mark was lying on the ground with soldiers approaching him in a wide circle. She tried to send Mark a memory capsule and failed. She could tell by a medical assist he was in a deep coma. Armored vehicles with Army insignia were moving into view. She sent Ralph hunting down behind the hill to prevent anyone from flanking her. She positioned herself behind a tree to give herself as much cover as possible and took aim with her M4. At this range, hitting her targets was going to be a serious challenge. An assist was identifying which targets to hit first. She would have to move fast from spot to spot before any heavy return fire from the Army vehicles could find her. If she had enough ammo, it was long odds, but possible for her to save Mark. The assist identified a high-ranking officer exiting one of the armored vehicles as a new first target. Sarah was having a hard time making all the pieces fit. The assist identified the officer as General McKafferty. Was he still personally hunting them? First Morristown, and now here. Fuck. It was his funeral.

She was ready to squeeze off her first shot when a terrible confusion invaded her head. There was intense buzzing and disorientation. Her senses were jumbled by what was assaulting her and she had no doubt it was an assault. She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t fire.