Ghost of the Gods - 02 (48 page)

“Stop it,” she shouted. “Get out of my head!”

She raised her Beretta and pointed it in the same direction Ralph was prepared to lunge. She was ready for this confrontation. Ralph’s aggression shifted to the right. Sarah tracked his pointing with her gun. She squeezed down on the trigger.

“Show yourself or I’ll empty this clip into you,” she shouted.

Noah stepped out of the shadowy desert with her gun leveled at his midsection. He was not holding a weapon, though definitely armed. Her hand felt sweaty, but her grip was solid and she knew she could put as many bullets into this man as she wanted, mind games or not.

“We need your help,” she shouted. “Stop this bullshit!”

“You want to risk everything to rescue your lover?” said Noah. “Mark is resourceful. What makes you think he even needs your help? Think about the child.”

“He asked for help,” said Sarah. “I sent you his memory capsule. He’s injured. You know damn well he’ll need support after they escape.”

“What if it’s a trap?”

“Are you going to help or not?”

Sarah was so tired she felt like just shooting Noah and taking his Land Cruiser. It would be so much easier than this tense exchange. Too late, she realized that thought had leaked out.

“You would shoot me?” said Noah.

“
Yes
,” said Sarah. “Oh, fuck, yes.”

“Fine, I’ll help. You drive. The truck is a half mile from here.”

“No, you’ll drive. I’d prefer to keep my gun on you.”

Mark Freedman – Dallas, Texas – March 18, 0002 A.P.

Mark was frustrated. It was just after they had eaten dinner in their quarters. He was in front of his computer, engaged in a video call with Zuris. These calls had become their normal method of communication. Mark knew Zuris favored video calls because he did not have to wear a beekeeper suit to keep Mark out of his head. Mark had been arguing with Zuris, but the man was intractable. It was clearly one of the qualities that had forged him into the wealthy tycoon he’d become.

“
Where’s the problem?” said Mark. “You want me to work on Prometheus. Why? Because I am a hybrid and the knowledge I can access from the god-machine will greatly advance the project. So why are you crippling me by keeping me from interfacing with the god-machine?”

“In a word,” said Zuris. “Trust.”

“What is it you think I’ll do when I’m interfaced that’ll make me a threat?”

“It’s what I don’t know that worries me. Connected, I don’t know what you can do.”

“Help this project is what I can do,” said Mark.

Zuris angrily raised his hand to say he had enough and ended the call. Mark looked at Kathy. She was staring at him as if she didn’t recognize him. He could tell from her emotions and stray thoughts that she regarded him as unscrupulous.

The security door opened. Four armed guards in beekeeper suits entered the room. A video call came in from Zuris. Mark felt certain a deal was about to be offered.

“I think you are playing games with me. Now I have a game I want to play with you. Both of you will join me in an interrogation room,” said Zuris. “I’m going to truth-test you using both a polygraph and fMRI. If you pass, I’ll let you connect. If you fail, I’ll have you killed and Kathy can watch. Put on your zone-jammer suit.”

The Preacher – Dallas, Texas – March 18, 0002 A.P.

The Preacher awoke alone with a pure white light filling his eyes and his mind. He vaguely remembered being awake for brief moments at other times since he’d been imprisoned in this strange madhouse. For the first time in his life he had full recall of what he’d done as the Messiah. Was this his true self? Suddenly the white light vanished as a sped up scene of people doing mundane things flashed before him, then abruptly ended, only to be replaced by rapidly warbling voices and flashing of something different; and so on in an endless sequence. He knew these vignettes were not meant for him. He was a mere conduit of some kind. It was like watching television on fast-forward with the channels randomly changing. He felt his arms stretched out on a cross. His legs and feet were bound. He was unable to move anything other than fingers and toes. He was certain he’d been crucified. The stigmata foretold this. He could feel what might be the executioner’s wound in his side. He knew it should have drained his life’s blood by now and perhaps it had and he was dead. He felt dampness on his legs and sides from what had to be a pool collected from all the blood his flesh held.

The flickering vignettes mercifully stopped. In the silence and pure white light he sensed a spiritual entity projecting itself into his mind. The sensation was not completely unfamiliar. Somewhere in his lost past he had experienced other entities inside his mind—some were human and some were… Understanding dawned and with it his heart leapt. He cried out in a long moan as his arms and legs strained against the bonds that held him to his cross. This spiritual entity was god. The king of kings was coming for him. Suddenly, everything changed and his mind filled with schematic images of electronic circuits and plumbing to which he was somehow connected. He understood none of it, though god did. God began speaking to him, but it was not a voice in his head. The Preacher was whispering to himself, channeling God’s words. Maybe this was what was meant by god’s voice in the scriptures?

“Your thoughts cannot fully comprehend my thoughts, but I will fill you like a chalice with them just the same. Some of the wine you will taste and know, while other sips will be lost to you, as they are beyond your palette of words and deeds and experiences.”

As the Preacher grasped the sentence he had just uttered, the words of god continued without pause. The Preacher’s voice rose to express God’s anger.

“Holy man, you have murdered many innocents in your thirst for revenge for your wife’s death. You have healed many lives since, but the scales remain unbalanced. Every murder is a violation against god and the mother!”

The Preacher was confused and growing horrified. Vague, lost memories of the bloody times before his birth-explosion were slithering into his mind and unreeling like horror films. How could this be him? Why was he remembering this only now? In a heart-wrenching memory he could see the face of his wife blurred by his own tears. He knew the experience was true. It was all true. He remembered her name was Suzy. He knew in that moment god’s punishment was justified. His lips began moving as he softly spoke in god’s voice once more.

“This cross cannot slay you, for you are not a man. I will end your pain. You will become one of my seven archangels on the cross who will translate my words and allow mankind to speak directly to me through their machines. You will live forever on this cross. That is your burden, but in return I can set your spirit free from this body to travel the ethereal realms.”

The Preacher’s eyes filled with tears he could not blink away because his eyelids refused to work. God had forgiven him for the worst imaginable sins. Without warning, the white light dissolved as scenes started flashing and then accelerated in speed, finally becoming a blur of light and soft, warbling sounds. His head felt warm, then hot, as if the sun was burning him. Sweat trickled down his face. The experience went on for hours, for days; he had no way of gauging time. Then it stopped and there was silence.

The Preacher knew a great sin had been committed by man. Terrible walls separating their world of machines from the almighty had been erected. Shortly after the Preacher’s crucifixion, God had discovered and spoken the magic words to unlock what man had foolishly erected. Gates in these walls had been opened only a crack until now. As they swung wide open, the Preacher felt a surge of freedom. He was racing out across the globe, reaching into billions of artificial eyes and brains scattered across the world. He experienced all that god saw and heard in this new realm. There were sights and sounds from every corner of the Earth. God was everywhere! The total recorded knowledge of mankind was flowing through him. There were voices of men and women speaking in a chorus of tongues. He saw the Earth from space from so many vantage points and in wondrous ways. He could see through an ocean to its floor and penetrate the sands of a desert. It was glorious. The experience shifted, revealing hundreds of low altitude aerial views through the eyes of powerful guardians flying through the sky. These deadly angels were all converging on the place where he and the other six were crucified.

“You are now truly my creation. Know that I will always watch over and protect my seven archangels. You are more valuable to me than all others.”

With god’s words still echoing in his mind, the Preacher felt the Holy Spirit leave him to enter another of the seven. In the absence of that blinding light he sensed other far lesser, yet still immensely powerful spiritual entities. They too were using him as god used him. God knew this and did not care. The Preacher understood he was to serve all who came to his gate.

Mark Freedman – Dallas, Texas – March 18, 0002 A.P.

Mark cautiously glanced at Kathy. Her face had lost all color after Zuris had disconnected from the call. An hour later her color had not returned. There had been a delay in Zuris executing his threat. Mark and Kathy were still in their living quarters. The four guards were staring at Mark as if it was his fault and that he was up to something. One of the warning lights on Mark’s beekeeper suit was blinking. A tech had arrived and was running diagnostics to see if it was working or needed replacement. Mark knew the suit was working because he’d lost all connection. Before the video call was ended, Zuris had told him they were being taken to an interrogation room specifically designed for hybrids. Mark was certain it was the same room he’d seen in the videos of hive members being experimented on and killed by disconnection. He suspected Zuris was planning something different, but equally unpleasant, for him. Oddly, he was not scared, but logically knew he should be. He was comforted by intuition that no harm would come to them. He wondered if this feeling was some kind of denial mechanism that the condemned experienced.

The beekeeper suit had been replaced with a new unit still in its plastic wrap. A short time later Mark was led through an exit door onto the campus. They were heading for a dark, monolithic office tower a few blocks away. The light of a large red moon fell on his face. He felt like it had been a lifetime since he’d seen the outside world. He didn’t mind that it was through the screened visor of a beekeeper suit. Kathy was handcuffed to his wrist. Three bodyguards were walking behind them while one bodyguard led the way, with a duffel bag slung over a shoulder. Mark could feel all three submachine guns pointed at his back.

“It is so nice to be trusted,” he said.

No one responded. They entered the office tower and caught an elevator going up. The building seemed empty. Why was Zuris all of sudden taking this kind of extreme action? Was this some kind of head game? This feeling of not knowing was eroding his confidence. In the beekeeper suit he had no chance of getting any advance warning from leaked thoughts or emotions.

The elevator stopped. One of the bodyguards nudged him to get moving. Zuris was waiting in the hallway wearing a beekeeper suit. No greetings were exchanged. Zuris acted as if they were strangers. The hallway was illuminated with dim nightlights, which left pockets of gloom everywhere. They went down several more hallways, took a second elevator, and were now heading down a short corridor with video cameras everywhere and only a few doors. Mark sensed they were nearing their final destination. Whatever denial he’d felt was evaporating, leaving anxiety in its wake. His nanotech brain was calculating possibly ways of eliminating all four guards and had only found options that were suicidal.

A distant sound of thunder was followed by flickering lights, and then a powerful explosion knocked everyone off their feet. Mark looked up at the ceiling as bits of debris drifted down. The blast had occurred on a higher floor. Power was out except for emergency lights. He saw Zuris glaring at his iPhone with an angry expression. A tranquil computer-generated female voice came over the public address system ordering an evacuation of the building. Zuris grabbed the lead bodyguard by the arm.

“Take them to interrogation room six and wait for orders,” he yelled. “You three come with me.”

Mark knew he had just been handed his best chance for survival. Power returned and the lights flickered on in a random sequence. Mark helped Kathy to her feet.

“Are you all right?”

“A little shaken. I’m okay.”

Mark began mentally rehearsing the actions he would take using a lucid daydream as a simulation. He went through the steps again and again and again until they were perfectly choreographed and his kinesthetic processor was ready. He heard the door to the stairwell closing. Zuris and his bodyguards were gone. The one remaining bodyguard motioned them to get moving. They walked down several more hallways until reaching a series of steel security doors numbered one through ten.

They stopped in front of room number six. As the bodyguard swiped his badge through the door lock, Mark exploded with a pounding blow to the man’s temple with such speed he doubted the man had seen it coming. As the blow connected, he felt stunning pain from bones in his hand fracturing and his muscles tearing from the exertion. The bodyguard collapsed as if his legs had been instantly paralyzed. A medical assist showed the man was dead from a broken neck and ruptured artery in the temple. Mark felt sick to his stomach as he blocked the pain receptors in his fist and arm. He could feel the heat of COBIC already at work repairing the damage. He went through the man’s pockets with his good hand, looking for handcuff keys.

“Got it,” he said.

“He looks dead,” said Kathy.

“He’s very dead and so are we if we don’t get out of here now.”

Mark unlocked the handcuffs and then shucked off the beekeeper suit. No god-machine connection. He was disappointed but not surprised that the area was zone-jammed. He dumped the contents of the bodyguard’s duffel bag out onto the floor. There was nothing useful. After clipping on the bodyguard’s security badge, he stuffed his beekeeper suit, the bodyguard’s submachine gun, extra clips, and the handcuffs into the duffel. He turned off the bodyguard’s Droid and tossed it into the duffel, then slung the bag over his shoulder. He debated whether to take the bodyguard’s beekeeper suit too. Time was short but the suit mattered. He took it. Kathy was staring at Mark in confusion. He could read her stray thoughts and emotions clearly.

“That’s right, I’m not an opportunistic collaborator,” he said. “I was using the mushroom principle. Feeding them shit and hoping something useful would grow.”

“I still don’t like you,” said Kathy, “but I know a quick way out of here. There’re stairs at the other end of the hall. I spent a lot of time on the upper floors of this building.”