Shadowmark (The Shadowmark Trilogy Book 1)
Read Shadowmark (The Shadowmark Trilogy Book 1) Online
Authors: TM Catron
Shadowmark
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
2016 Antimatter Books ebook
Copyright © 2016 TMCatron
All rights reserved.
Print ISBN:
0692684387
ISBN-13:
978-0692684382
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Book design by TMCatron
Cover design by TMCatron
Title Page Photo by NASA
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For Eric
&
Jeremy
“Nothing is yet in its true form.”
Til We Have Faces: A Myth Retold
~C.S. Lewis
DAY 1
W
HEN
FREESTANDING
ROCK
STRUCTURES
TALL
as skyscrapers appeared overnight in all major cities in the Eastern Hemisphere, initial explanations included everything from a new type of tectonic activity to an elaborate hoax. When that night the rock towers spread like a disease, silently planting themselves in fields outside urban centers across the globe, realization spread with them. The world was not dealing with an issue of natural rock formations or a billionaire’s prank.
“. . . but are these human terrorists or extraterrestrials?” the journalist asked, her eyebrows knitted together as she leaned forward at the table.
“Sorry? I don’t quite follow,” said the man across from her. He glanced at the camera.
Mina Surrey, a tall, thirty-year-old in jeans, t-shirt, grey sweater, and heeled leather boots glanced up at the television mounted on a post directly above her. The volume was turned down low, the closed captions scrolling across the bottom of the screen. A man shoved past, jostling Mina’s bags on his way to another line. She paid him no attention. London Heathrow airport teemed with travelers.
The news had been playing all day on all stations. This particular local program, known for speculating wildly on the best of days, had already called in two “experts” on intelligent alien life. Earlier, while sitting in her hotel room and waiting for more substantial news, Mina had caught bits and pieces of the other interviews as she channel-surfed. Now the third expert sat across the table from the newscaster in t-shirt, jeans, and scruffy beard. He picked a piece of lint from his shirt and brushed it onto the table. Of the three experts, he looked the most credible.
“Have you been to see the structure, Mr. Bentlane?”
“Yes. I went up this morning before the police brought out the dogs.”
“And would you describe it to our viewers? What was it like up close?”
Mina glanced at the queue. The woman at the front leaned comfortably on the check-in desk as she tried to peek at the customer service computer screen. A bearded man behind her sat on his suitcase, tapping his foot and checking his phone. And the twenty people behind him all stood in varying states of agitation and boredom. Mina tucked a stray brown curl behind her ear and turned back to the program.
“It really is like a massive stone wall,” said Bentlane. “Watching on the telly, I thought it looked like a piece of shale sticking up out of the Thames. Like a long shard of rock fell out of the sky and landed nose down in the river. Up close, it still looks like that, only you can see it gleams, really gleams, like polished stone. And it’s black like onyx. And there’s just something about the
feeling
you get from being around the stone. It’s not quite right. Stone is stone, but this is something more.”
“And that’s why you feel it’s not of human origin?”
“Oh no, can’t be. Tell me, what terrorist group . . . no, no . . . what entity of any sort in the world has the ability to plant these structures overnight without anyone seeing them do it or leaving any evidence behind? I’m surprised anyone’s even considering terrorists.”
“Oh I’m sure someone somewhere will have filmed it. This is a digital world, after all. We just have to find the people who are holding out on us. Frankly I’m surprised no one has put up video online yet.”
Bentlane shook his head. “That’s because no one has any. And
if
extremists placed these walls, they did not discriminate. All countries, regions, and religions are affected.”
The camera left Bentlane to display helicopter footage of the phenomenon in London. The jagged piece of rock looked like it had sloughed off a larger one. It glimmered dully in the weak evening light. The camera panned around the lip of the black wall, showing an overhang of several hundred feet. Mina thought the rock looked like the outline of a tangram puzzle, two-dimensional and balancing on its end.
“It’s interesting you should call it a shard of rock,” the newscaster said over the camera footage, “because we have new estimates that this wall—or tower, as people are calling it—is at least as tall as The Shard, which is the tallest building in London, as I’m sure you know. That’s really massive, ladies and gentlemen,
really
massive. And I hope you are getting a sense of just how . . .”
Mina’s phone dinged with a new message. She dug it out from the back pocket of her jeans.
A text from her brother Lincoln displayed on-screen:
Tried calling 3 times. Can’t get thru.
Mina replied as the queue moved forward one space. The lady at the front had finally walked away.
Networks busy. Will get first flight home.
Ten minutes passed before she received a reply:
What about classes?
College closed indefinitely,
she answered.
An American graduate student studying for a semester at Oxford, Mina had been spending the weekend in London when the tower appeared. But the thought of going back to her small flat in Oxford sounded hollow. Most students would have taken the train or found rides home. She now had no classes to attend, no students to teach. Mina imagined sitting at her desk working quietly on her dissertation while the University crumbled around her, destroyed by events outside. Nothing so disastrous would happen, of course, but all the same, a trip home would do her good. And she had plenty of notes to keep her busy. Mina clutched her laptop bag reflexively.
She thought about calling her godparents in St. Louis, Karen and Tom, but they would be at work already. And anyway, what would she say? “I called to see if you were okay, to see if you knew about the enormous rock towers in every city in the world.”
Reaching out to them was silly. But Mina needed the contact with them anyway. She found Karen’s name in her contacts and called her godmother. It didn’t ring at all or go even to voicemail. Mina looked at the phone to see “Call Failed” displayed on her screen. She tried Tom’s number with the same result. Contenting herself with text messages, Mina told them both she was okay and heading home. Neither replied back.
Her phone dinged one more time. Lincoln again.
Find a way to watch US news. President’s making an announcement.
Mina searched up and down the line. Travelers remained as they were before, only everyone had shuffled forward a few feet. Now the bearded man with the nervous foot stood in front of the counter, and was trying to book a flight by repeatedly patting the counter with his hand. The security official behind the counter kept his eye on the customer but made no move toward him. No doubt he would not be the last angry passenger they would see today. He certainly was not the first.
Deciding she would not be required to move anytime soon, Mina took a chance and dumped her tote bag and coat on the tile floor at her feet. She sat on her carry-on and pulled out her laptop, browsing through to the first news site streaming live coverage of the president’s briefing.
Madame President stood tight-faced and rigid in front of a podium, the presidential seal displayed behind her. Mina doubted the President was even in Washington, DC. Towers had landed there, too, as well as New York City, Boston, Chicago, and twenty other cities across the United States. The video loaded slowly, the spinning circle in the middle of the screen the only indication Mina’s computer was even attempting a connection. She glanced up at the television screens around the airport. None of them had picked up the coverage. Suddenly the laptop’s audio, then video, cut in. A few of Mina’s curious neighbors looked over her shoulder. She shifted so they could see and turned up the volume.
“. . . and we demand that the extremists responsible step forward. The United States and its allies will not negotiate with terrorists. This has always been our policy, and it has not changed in the last twenty-four hours . . .” The video paused, distorted and pixelated, the spinning circle returning. Mina resisted the urge to refresh the page.
After a moment it continued, “And now I would like to address the American people, and indeed all of our friends around the world: I urge you to remain calm until this crisis has passed. It is human nature to worry, and I am not making light of your concerns. However, this is a time when our mettle is tested. A time when, years from now, we can look back and say our strength of character was proven steadfast and unwavering. Treat one another with respect, with kindness, and with dignity . . .”
The video split in two; the President speaking on the left, while on the right, the cameras broadcast a live view of the Brooklyn Bridge. A line of tanks and armored trucks, overshadowed by helicopter escorts, passed by and headed into the city. Then the cameras cut away to Washington, DC, where a similar scene was playing out down Pennsylvania Avenue.
“. . . and we will emerge from this test stronger and more united than ever.”
Unsurprisingly, all flights to the United States were booked for the next month. After putting herself on every possible waitlist, Mina found a blank space of wall near a coffee stand and sat down with her legs stretched out, prepared to spend the night. She dozed fitfully, her head lolling against the concrete wall. More people crammed into the building. The line for coffee stretched all the way to the lines for tickets, the queues becoming entangled with each other as wait-listers argued with newcomers about which line to get in. In the meantime, television programming switched to coverage of British troops helping police curb the swell of looting going on in the streets. A network or two picked up the US news, replaying the President’s brief urge for calm as well as the Prime Minister’s similar urge for peace and the message that everyone should “just go home.”
No organization had yet to claim responsibility for the towers, as everyone was calling them now. At least the networks had settled on a name. Now that the things had a name, people could focus on figuring out what they actually were. Some said giant bombs. Some claimed giant prisons. Still others thought super-computers designed to take control of everyone’s minds. But they were only discussing the last theory on the Internet. Even the speculative mainstream media had the sense to stay away from those notions. Around midnight, the alien invasion theories cropped up again, this time with more authentic-looking science to back them up.
