The Cydonia Objective (Morpheus Initiative 03) (43 page)

"A what?"

Another rumble, and the floor cracked. The stairway split and three steps crumbled.

"Hurry, people!" Temple shouted. "Get up here."

"Not ready yet!" Diana yelled back, sounding like she was in a tight position, perhaps trying to jump start the craft.

"On our way!" Orlando yelled, glancing at Phoebe. "We are, aren't we?"

Phoebe nodded, giving the map a long last look, memorizing it. "We are."

"Learning plan?" Orlando said as they ran for the stairs.

"Libraries," she said. "It has to be. Repositories of wisdom, starting with the one on Earth."

"In the Pharos Vault."

"Originally, yes." They gingerly took the steps, careful where they placed their feet. "And maybe the others are similar, just copies of everything we—our ancestors—once knew."

"Ancestors, or aliens?"

"Half-dozen of one, six of the other."

"Okay," Orlando said, jumping over a gap, then helping Phoebe. "I guess. But you think it's more?"

"Just by the sequence and distance." She caught her breath before the second level. "I'm sure the other lunar locations—probably well-fortified like the Pharos—contain similar wisdom so that if anything should happen on Earth..."

"Like what happened to the dinosaurs."

"Right, then if there were time and some of humanity made it out safely, they could start again."

"But on another planet or moon? Without oxygen, or hell, even an atmosphere?"

"That's not necessarily true," Diana's voice interrupted Phoebe's response. They approached the end of the walkway where Diana was standing beside Temple, just behind the spherical violet field. Behind them, rounded seating zones, capable of holding a dozen of them.

"Tell them on the way," Temple snapped, motioning Phoebe and Orlando inside. But it wasn't until Aria ran through the sparkling field and grabbed their hands that they overcame their fear and passed through, inside the UFO.

"It tickles," Orlando said, and then he was through and taking a seat beside Phoebe, next to Aria.

"No seat belts?" Phoebe asked, but Diana only shrugged as she stood in front of a pedestal and what looked like a flat podium-style presenter.

"That'll be the least of my violations, right after driving one of these without a license. Or a clue."

The mountain rumbled again, the floor pitched and gave way, cracking into chunks that fell out of sight. But the sphere remained, even as the rocks crumbled around them, bouncing off the field.

"If you're going to try something," Temple urged, "now would be a good time."

Aria sighed, leaning against Orlando. She looked down and whispered, "Goodbye, Daddy."

And Diana touched something on the screen, then sent her index finger sliding outward against the surface.

The craft moved instantly, and lurched them all forward, through the disintegrating layers of rock—

—and out into the night sky.

While behind them, the mountainside fell in chunks, pulverized and blasted outward by an invisible drill that bore deeper and deeper, annihilating everything in its path.

"I can't control it much longer," Diana whispered, sweating, leaning over the screen.

"You're doing great," said Temple. "Just try to take us down."

"Gently," Orlando offered, gripping Phoebe and Aria a little too tightly.

"Yeah," said Phoebe. "What he said. And then, when we land, how about telling us what you know, or think you know, about the lunar sites."

"That whole ‘not exactly' comment about oxygen up there."

Temple made a throaty sound. "I can answer that. What she means is that there have been reports, scientific analysis of trace oxygen levels given off on the Moon and on Mars and Phobos, around certain locations, that indicate the venting of breathable air. Somewhere down there. Most likely a contained facility, a habitat structure."

"Damn," Orlando said. "So..."

"So that's what they're planning," Phoebe said, eyes wide. "Calderon and his Marduk cult. Destroy the earth, but save themselves by jumping to the next station. A community all ready for them."

"And all the wisdom they'd need to keep going."

"And build on that knowledge," Phoebe said. "That's what I suspect. That, as you get farther out in the solar system, you're rewarded for your skill in reaching those places by receiving better information, more knowledge."

Orlando closed his eyes, seeing that last dark planet and the huge book. "Until the ultimate prize."

She nodded just as her stomach did a back flip and they dropped precipitously fast.

"Sorry!" Diana yelled over Aria's cry of surprise, which then turned to a giggle as she realized they were on the ground, and the sphere was rolling around them, yet keeping them upright inside it.

"Stop, stop," Diana hissed, sliding her finger backwards repeatedly. "Brake?"

Finally, they ground to a stop, lurching against one another. Diana tapped a section of the pad.

And the sphere vanished and she fell out on the soft earth in the middle of a pine forest. Behind them, trees were smoking, scattered in their wake.

Phoebe glanced back, gasping at the shadowy, stooped form of Mt. Shasta, looking grotesquely mutated, half-formed and still losing cohesion. The sound was building, near deafening. So much so that she didn't hear Orlando crying out until several moments later.

And then, it was just to hear a recap of his vision.

"The shield! It's gone!"

"What shield?" Temple asked, righting himself from the dirt. His voice was barely audible.

"Mars!" Orlando yelled. "The Martian shield is gone. Well, not yet, but it's their whole facility... bodies in tanks. Robotic-looking caretakers." His wide eyes fixed on Phoebe. "It's being attacked!"

"What? Who's doing it?" Temple yelled over the rumbling destruction, even as a cloud of dust rolling from the mountain obscured the stars and the bright red speck of light in the eastern sky.

Orlando shook his head, but Aria started clapping.

She fixed her bright blue eyes on Temple, then on Diana, and smiled.

9.

HAARP

As Calderon stood up and smugly left the chamber, his work done and Stargate destroyed, Alexander briefly shut his eyes and tried to picture his father.

Repelled by an undulating, unscalable wall of blue, more powerful and unyielding than anything he had encountered before, Alexander withdrew, feeling like he bounced off entirely. And landed—

Inside of a huge snow-capped mountain, Phoebe and Orlando race into what looks like a floating globe, then soar outside in an exhilarating rush before half the mountain collapses around them.

And then he returned, wiping the grin off his face just as Jacob noticed, and Isaac turned around sharply. "What do you think he saw, brother?"

Jacob shrugged. "A happy childhood memory?"

Isaac laughed. "Couldn't have been happier than ours. What with the hunting, the remote-viewing, the killing."

"Everything we ever wanted," Jacob said glumly.

Alexander shook his head. "You aren't my brothers. I don't care anymore. You're nothing like my father."

"And you," Isaac spat, "are too much like your mother." He grinned and raised his hand for a high-five with Jacob, who let it hang there.

Alexander felt his blood boiling. Fists clenched, he was about to advance on Isaac when he saw the boy still carried the sword-cane in his other hand behind his back. And Alexander noted the body laying beside the chair. Montross, bleeding out still, his blood pooling onto the polished floor.

Bleeding. That means he's still alive.

"Isaac. Jacob," Calderon stepped between them. Reached over and held out his hand. "Ah, there it is. My cane, please."

Isaac handed it over with a slight bow, never taking his eyes off Alexander.

Jacob cleared his throat sheepishly as he glanced up to the engineers. "So, is it over?"

Calderon spun his cane, keeping his eye on Alexander. "Why don't you boys tell me? I know I brought the mountain down around those Stargate fools, but I don't know if any are still alive under all that rubble."

"Let's get us a look-see then," said Isaac. "Seems to be all we're good for."

Jacob managed a grin. "Found us our brother in Alexander, we did."

"And wait a sec. Hold the phone, he never thanked us for that, did he?"

"Boys!" Calderon snapped. "Enough. Now we have to prepare. It's time."

Jacob and Isaac smiled and closed their eyes, their training kicking in. "Time," they both whispered.

"Time to shed these skins. Leave our bodies and travel the path of the Great Ones to the Red Land..."

"...where we'll be reborn," Isaac and Jacob said in unison.

"...and from our new home, with new eyes, we'll observe the death throes of this planet and imagine the suffering as the world is purged. First, I will follow the instructions on the Tablet, and I will let it guide me from this flesh and into the machine, where only pure matter can interact with the Emerald Tablet's true form."

Isaac clapped his hands slowly, picturing it.

"We'll set the target as the earth's very core, and send the scalar energy waves at a direct path through the pole..."

Calderon approached the device, about to retrieve the Emerald Tablet, when a call came in over the speakers from the techs upstairs. He glanced up, and two men in lab coats rushed out of the room and leaned over the railing.

"What is it now?" Calderon snapped. "You should be powering down and resetting the arrays before we—"

"But that's it, sir. We can't power down!"

"What?"

Alexander perked up. His attention turned to the chair-device, where for just a moment he thought he saw an outline, like an afterimage of Calderon sitting there.

Except, that wasn't Calderon.

"We can't power down! It's not letting us, not responding."

Same build and posture, but one thing different...

Calderon fumed. "Then what's it doing?"

...red hair!

"It's firing, Sir."

#

Calderon fumed.
Firing
without my guidance?
"All right, so it's still blasting Mount Shasta. Just turn the damn thing off already, that's taken care of."

"It's not aimed at Mount Shasta anymore."