Overture (Earth Song) (10 page)

Victor
went from looking concerned to confused. He cocked his head and started to say something, but then stopped. “Did you say more than one?”

“
Yes, there is one in Beijing, and maybe elsewhere. Many cities around the world have disturbances, riots, and other problems. I think they might have to do with those Portals. But it’s too big for me to figure out.”

“
It’s too big for any mortal to understand,” Victor agreed. He stepped forward and sat on the edge of the stage, leaning forward and bringing his head roughly level with the officer. “Your news is just reinforcing to me. No one knows the will of God. The Avatars are working His plan, influencing us to work His will. Even your being here to give me this news is His will.”

“
You’re talking like I’m one of your disciples, Victor.”

“
You would be most welcome as one of us, Bill.”

It
wasn't lost on the detective that Victor was now addressing him by his first name. The changes to this street prophet were more profound that at first glance. “I’ve got work to do,” Harper said and turned to go, “you better be careful who sees you. That warrant is federal. Some big agent from the NSA is in charge, and I suspect he wants to pick your brain for a year or two.”

Harper
strode up the aisle and out of the auditorium, Victor watching him all the way out through the faded curtains. “We’ve got a problem,” said Gabriel, “I knew him when he was a rookie. The kid's gonna report you in, sooner or later, mark my words.”

“
We’d be best to get you somewhere safe until we can figure what to do,” Duke agreed.

“
Jesus didn’t run when he knew they were coming to take him for trial,” Victor pointed out. “He too had his Judas, but I don’t think Lt. Harper will be mine.” The other two looked at him and tried to understand what he was thinking. “I will not run from this calling. We stay.”

If the spraycrete dome could possibly hold more equipment, Dr. George Osgood didn’t know how. A pair of new entrances had been cut, each nearly the size of the activated Portal. Since there was no longer any concern about contamination, the airlock was removed making access easier. The doors were big, wide, automatic garage types, each tall enough to admit a medium-sized truck. As the sun went down, a small convoy of army trucks raced toward the dome from where they'd been parked in alleys a few miles away.

From
her vantage point in the woods a half mile away, a young Indian girl observed their arrival through binoculars. Nearby sat a little cooler holding soda and snacks. Besides that was a bag for garbage. She’d spent the whole day in her observation post just as she’d spent many days since witnessing the arrival of the Portal. She’d watched Victor come across the park, seen the walls disappear, and watched him confront the Avatar.

As
she watched the Humvees and trucks race across the street and into the compound around the Portal dome, she wondered if she were doing the right thing. Sometimes her mind was cloudy and it was all confusing. But, at this moment everything was crystal clear. It was the right thing to do. She lifted the binoculars (a hideously expensive night vision model) and watched the trucks begin to unload black-beret troops and boxes of supplies. Something different was going on tonight. The government agents always moved a lot of equipment each night when no one was looking, but this was different. It had an urgency about it, a more purposeful move.

“
They have no right to hide the Portal from us,” she growled and tried to see more. Once or twice she’d tried sneaking up to the fenced perimeter. They had some advanced surveillance systems because she never got close before camouflaged agents appeared to warn her away. The newly installed garage doors raised and she was rewarded with a rare glimpse inside. The Portal was still there; tantalizingly close through the view of the binoculars. As the men worked, she plotted.

Not
far away, someone else watched through a surveillance scope. Lieutenant Billy Harper chewed a Philly cheese steak sandwich and made mental notes of how many men he saw. Since they'd chased off the NYPD, the number of feds involved had jumped drastically. Harper just couldn't imagine why there were more of them every day. What were they planning?

Earlier
he was at home surfing the Followers of the Avatar website, or FotA for short. He was again amazed at the level of sophistication achieved in only days. The site was professionally crafted and easy to navigate. He wondered how a tiny ministry of ex-street people operating out of a condemned porn palace could afford the kind of skill it took to build such a website, practically overnight. Harper guessed someone donated that time as well. The site was even listed on the most powerful Internet search engines, and he knew that wasn't cheap.

The
website was light on detail and heavy on religious mumbo-jumbo, but it also had megabytes of high-resolution images of the Portal and the so-called Avatar. Professional artist’s renditions scanned and presented for your viewing. Most had commentary from “The Prophet Victor”. The images were woven together to help visitors reach the same conclusion as Victor had originally come to. This was an Avatar of God and the Portal was a passage to Heaven.

“
What the fuck am I doing?” he wondered for the tenth time that night. He was a decorated New York City Police lieutenant with his whole career in front of him, and he was spying on government agents, misusing police equipment, and accessing confidential databases for his own use. He’d used the department database to refresh his memory on the story of Capt. Hicks, now Gabriel. He'd done time and been released on parole two years ago. The FotA did have a legitimate lease on their building, and while it was condemned, they had a right to occupy it prior to demolition. Whether they had a right to hold services to the public in such a place was another question that he, as a police officer, should have investigated. “And just what are you doing in there?” he wondered as he wiped cream cheese from his hands. The trucks were all unloaded and the doors were closing, taking the Portal dais from his view. The damned thing looked just like Victor's drawings.

Unaware
they were being observed, the work continued inside the dome. Ten days ago a completely unprepared scientist had fallen through the Portal and disappeared. A search of the New York vicinity had been organized, but other scientists stopped the effort almost before it began. The video recordings taken from the other side of the Portal were analyzed. The man was no longer on Earth.

“
What they hell are you saying?” Mark Volant demanded as he ran into the control trailer. Dr. Osgood had looked as if he had discovered the Holy Grail itself.

“
Look at this!” the scientist said and pointed to a screen. Volant looked at it for a long moment, narrowing his eyes in concentration.

“
I’m looking at the sky,” he said with a shrug. “You made me think I was going to see E.T., rockets ships, something crazy like that.”

“
You don’t see anything strange?”

“
No.”

Osgood
sighed and shook his head.

“
If you’re playing some kind of a game with me, I’m not amused. We’re trying to organize a search for your missing man. I doubt that idiot could survive overnight in this park without a motor home, and who knows how many miles he is from here-“

“
If I had to make a wild-assed-guess I’d say a couple hundred trillion miles.”

“
Did you say trillion?”

“
Sure did. Roberts, bring up the night sky, will you?” Another man nodded and the image changed. “We ran a composite of the northern hemisphere night sky.” Volant could see the stars spinning around slowly then moving back and forth. For a moment he recognized the Big Dipper, then Orion’s belt. The scene stopped moving and a new bunch of stars appeared. These were made bright blue to offset them from the white normal stars. The patterns didn’t look familiar at all. As he watched, they started moving again, at a dizzying speed. “We didn’t find a complete match.”

“
So what does that mean?”

“
The stars we photographed on the other side of the Portal are not the same as those on this side. Shit, we even ran the southern hemisphere just in case we were missing something. It’s not our neighborhood.”

“
It might not be our galaxy,” threw in Roberts, earning a scowl from Volant.

“
This is ludicrous,” the agent said finally. “Are you trying to tell me that damned thing opened a door to another world?”

“
Almost certainly.”

Volant's
brow knitted in consternation, trying to get his mind around the puzzle. “It’s like that movie Stargate?”

“
Oh, I don’t think it’s an Einstein-Rosen bridge (a stable worm hole). More than likely some kind of a dimensional Portal, or quantum filament transition. You probably can't see through a worm hole like you can through this-”

“
In English, please!” Volant snapped and looked out the window of his trailer at the dome in the near distance. “I guess your fellow egghead is dead meat.”

“
No, we just need to go through and get him!”

“
Out of the question,” he said and made a sharp, chopping gesture. 

“
What are you talking about? You just can’t leave him there.”

“
You saw what happened, he couldn’t come back.”

“
That was just the first attempt. To establish a scientific sample we need to try again. Maybe if more than one person goes through we can return.”

“
You volunteering to go through next?”

Osgood
’s eyes got big and he took an unconscious step back.

“
I didn’t think so. Who’s going to make the decision to send people through to, as you're claiming, another planet? And what might be a one way trip?” Osgood remained silent and looked pensive. “Yah, that’s what I thought too.”

“
Well, he was the first human to set foot on another planet,” said Osgood.

“
Good for him. I'll get the kid a fucking medal. Why would you even think that this might be a two-way Portal? You’ve looked at the drawing on that thing. It’s pretty obviously some sort of evacuation device. Other scientists think it might be a way of luring us into a trap. If they're right, it looks like they caught their first bug.”

“
A rather far-fetched assumption, wouldn’t you say?”

“
Any more far-fetched than a Portal to another world?”

“
There are so many aspects to this discovery I couldn’t begin to tell you about all of them. From the very fact that such a device is possible, to the fact that a world nearly identical to our own exists elsewhere! We need to tell the world!”

“
No fucking way. Threat assessment is ongoing.”

“
If you believe this was a threat, don’t you think they would have wheeled a bomb through, or sent an army over by now?”

“
Possibly, but who sent it, and why not hang around and brag about it, or at least say hello?”

“
Good question, unfortunately only one person saw our benefactor…”

“
Or aggressor,” Volant reminded the doctor, “and we can’t find him. As usual, the cops are powerless to find one homeless bum. I can’t believe they let him go in the first place.”

“
Maybe they let him go on purpose.”

“
What did you say?”

“
I said maybe someone wanted to let him go. Maybe they had seen it too, or wanted to keep the secret to themselves. Maybe even in on it from the beginning?”

Volant
nodded his head and scratched his chin as he thought. “Well, we’re still looking for him. My superiors are weighing the options about whether to go through the Portal again.”

“
I would say we have to, if only to see if our man is still alive.”

“
He’s not a big enough concern to send another person through on a one-way trip, but there are other reasons to go through.” Osgood scowled but could do nothing but wait for morning.

To
Volant's surprise the decision came only an hour later. A C-130 landed at JFK and brought with it a highly trained team of army commandos, the next to go through.

The
event would be recorded in every way imaginable for further analysis. Volant wouldn’t tell Osgood why the higher-ups had experienced a sudden change of heart over sending through an expedition. 

Once
the commandos were on site, the military and scientists went to work with fervor. Equipment was aligned, computers began recording and the elite soldiers were shown in. The squad of twelve stood looking at the gleaming dais and all the arrayed equipment with the calm detachment of the professional soldier. Their commander stood at the head of the group and looked everything over before pronouncing his opinion. “What a cluster fuck.”