The Day of the Nefilim (34 page)

“Asshat.”

The Secretary-General’s smile widened. “Whatever you say, citizen.” He hadn’t felt this alive in years. Contact with the people was so invigorating! He must do more of it.

The guards – some of them Nefilim because they looked so intimidating and had proven on that account to be effective at crowd control – made the prisoners lie down in pairs, male and female, in a grid that had been marked out on the floor. There was a little trouble, but not much. Anyone who resisted was clubbed unconscious, but it was mostly abject fear that did the job.

Columns of light appeared, reaching down from the ceiling onto each of the couples. There were some incongruous pairings here, the Secretary-General sniggered to himself. He could have made them fornicate, but this wasn’t the time for such frivolity. It was a home movie idea that could wait for another time.

Technicians moved among the victims, attaching probes. It was a visceral process, and there was some blood, but no complaining. Something was anaesthetizing them. Or paralyzing them. When it was done, the Nefilim technicians did something to a device that had appeared from the floor, and the process began.

The victims started melting into the floor, as though they were made of salt and the rock below them was a pool of dark water. It took just a few minutes, during which the Secretary-General watched, enthralled.
Science! How marvelous!
Standing up and crossing over to the nearest victim, he looked down into the melting face. It was streaked through with something the color and texture of granite. The eyes were the only thing that still looked human; they looked back up at him.

After a few minutes, it was all over. The last traces of the bodies had disappeared into the rock. The columns of light flared, suddenly intense as they assimilated the new energy, and then disappeared.

“Is that all there is to it? When do we know whether it’s worked?”

One of the Nefilim turned to him.
‘We know now. There is enough power in the grid not only to reclaim what has been lost, but also to destroy the mutant creation.’

“Excellent! How long? And it will stay like this?”

‘Yes. The process will begin immediately, and within days, everything will be as it should be.’

Ah, SCIENCE!

* * *

THE NEFILIM SENT ANOTHER INVASION FLEET. This time it was mainly transports and their escorts, instead of the large cruisers that had made up most of the first fleet. They were planning a different kind of war. And this time, they were prepared. They paused out of range of the defense satellites whose orbits enveloped the globe, and sent in unpiloted drones that destroyed them, one by one.

With the space defenses gone, the invaders had free access to the Earth’s skies, but when they appeared above the cities in their battle groups, they found to their surprise that there was plenty of resistance.

When groups of their own fliers came up to meet them, they didn’t know what to think; perhaps they were being welcomed. In the first few minutes they lost ships, but they learned quickly.

The invaders were repelled from some cities, but Paris, Beijing and Cairo fell, and other places besides, and these became their centers. Other cities didn’t survive the fight for them, and became worthless piles of ash.

When the Nefilim who had gone over to the humans realized what was happening, most of them changed sides again. It was a messy process, and many were killed. Those that didn’t make it away were rounded up and put in safe places deep underground, well away from the fighting. The humans were left with the bulk of the Nefilim weapons, and they made good use of them.

The war for Earth had begun in earnest. The humans, deducing that the Nefilim had set up their main command center in Beijing, destroyed the city. The invaders retaliated by wiping out Chicago and what little was left of Germany.

The war was fought in the oceans as well. Cruisers, crewed by both Nefilim and humans, hunted each other in the expanses of the Pacific and beneath the ice of the polar seas.

After a few days, the human government in general and the Secretary-General in particular were happy with the way things were going. The fighting was hard, and the casualties were high, but the aliens were fewer in number, were playing away from home, and they were being confronted by their own technology.

When the war was in its second week, most of a supply fleet from the Nefilim home planet was destroyed as soon as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere. After that, the balance shifted even further away from the Nefilim.

The Nefilim prisoners were given an ultimatum – work with the UN, or not at all. Those who refused were executed.

The grid had grown strong, just as the scientists had said it would. The Stream had resisted, but now it was falling back, like a plant giving way to a withering drought.

For a few days, the Secretary-General was truly, deeply happy.

* * *

But it didn’t last. A few days later, Alexis and the few generals who could make the trip converged on Mount Weather.

It was bad. Once again, everything was in chaos.

“What the fuck is going on? I want to know what’s happening!” the Secretary-General bellowed. He suspected a plot. He had some scientists tortured, but it changed nothing.
What was happening?

The grid was writhing, like an animal having a seizure. Spikes of energy were sweeping through it, causing power systems to overload and craft to drop from the sky like stones. Weapons were failing. The earthquakes started again. The military campaign was falling apart.

“It’s the invaders!” ranted the Secretary-General.

“It can’t be. The same thing is happening to them,” came the reply. “They’re no better off than we are.”

Even without the technology and the weapons, the fighting went on. The armies on both sides took up clubs and made shields and spears and bows and arrows. The population, instead of being turned to ashes or incinerated, was soon fleeing before medieval hordes.

The war clattered and moaned like a re-enactment of the Crusades. At this, the Nefilim had a natural ability that was more than a match for the humans, and the tide of war turned in their favor.

More ships arrived from their home world, dropping reinforcements by parachute before they lost power and made suicide dives into human-held areas.

“So…? what is happening?” yelled the Secretary-General, leaning over a map of the advancing Nefilim lines.

“There is something in the grid,” replied the scientists.

“What do you mean?”

“Entities – consciousness – something alive is
inside
the grid. Whatever it is, it is fighting us.”

“Find a way to put me in there,” said Alexis, whose thirst for revenge was consuming her. “If you can do it to the plebs you use for energy, you can do it to me. I can find out what’s happening, and then you can bring me back out.”

It was agreed.

* * *

IT HAD TAKEN THEM FIVE DAYS, but they finally found the node the blue woman had talked about.

It was well past the outskirts of the city, isolated at the end of a small valley, near a cluster of houses and surrounded by trees. They landed and followed a worn path to an old adobe building set into the side of a hill.

The house was well past its best times. The steps that led up to it were hollowed with age. On the portico in front of it, a couple of thin dogs scratched themselves under bare wooden benches.

They went through a pair of unpainted doors into a room that appeared to be some sort of shrine. Against the far wall a cluttered altar was covered in photographs and paintings and an almost impossible number of burning candles. On a table stood ritual objects, pieces of plants, and a couple of skulls that had been fashioned out of some black material. On the walls hung paintings of people in saintly poses. A few wooden benches like the ones outside were arranged in front of the altar.

There was room here for maybe a dozen people, twenty if it was going to be crowded. The place smelled of burnt fat, mixed with a heavy, sweet aroma.

“What is this place?” Bark had never seen anything like it. This planet kept coming up with one surprise after another.

“Some religious cult thing,” said Reina. “Voodoo or something. This part of the world is big on weird religions.”

“Weirder than other places?” asked Pig.

“Nah, probably not. They’re all pretty strange if you ask me,” Reina replied.

A bead curtain beside the altar parted, and a middle-aged woman came into the room. She stood uncertainly beside the altar, her hands clasped in front of her, and said something in a language that none of them understood.

“Sounds like Spanish,” Reina said.

“Why is it,” said Bark, who had had enough of the mystery, “that I can’t understand her? Sahrin, can you?”

“No, I can’t. It’s weird. What’s going on?”

“It’s the photon belt,” said the blue woman. “Out there in the rest of the universe, you can all understand each other” – they nodded – “but the photon belt has its own rules. This planet is undergoing some special reconstruction, and it will have its own ways from now on. It’s going to be a special place. You can understand the rest of us because you met us before the belt arrived, but from now on, for as long as you’re on this planet, you won’t be able to understand anyone you meet who speaks a language different from any that you’ve already heard.”

“Could be difficult.” Bark shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, at least that explains that,” said Sahrin. “You sure know a lot about what’s going on.”

The blue woman held Sahrin’s gaze and nodded, but didn’t reply. Instead, she spoke to the local woman in her own language. Before she had finished, a voice came from behind the bead curtain. It spoke in Spanish, and then changed to English.

“Come through! Enough formalities and introductions!”

The local woman looked relieved. She pulled the beads aside and gestured that they should enter.

“At least someone here speaks a language we can understand,” said Sahrin.

The room behind the altar had no windows. A few candles worked hard, pooling their resources in unsure battle against the gloom. The walls were lined with shelves of props that no doubt had turns of duty in the shrine room. In one corner sat a bench, at which the woman had obviously been working. On it figures of deities, no bigger than children’s dolls, were in various stages of construction. Limbs, torsos and heads were piled together, the aftermath of some toy armageddon, waiting to be resurrected.

The voice spoke again from the far end of the room.

“Down here. Don’t be shy.”

They approached, their eyes gradually becoming accustomed to the light. There was no one there. Just a large pile of something that appeared to be mud.

“That’s right,” said the voice. “It’s me. Or should I say, I’m it!”

Bark turned to the blue woman. “Could you…?”

She nodded, and shrugged out of her robe. Soon there was enough light for them to see by. The voice was coming from the thing in front of them. It was alive.

“Not just a parlor trick for the locals, I assure you,” it said. “What you see is what you get.”

It was about five feet high, about five feet wide at its base, and tapered towards the top as though it had been poured onto the ground and then allowed to set. Its pink surface bulged unevenly, as though it was covering mounds of fat. Set into it were eyes, noses, ears and mouths, as though the whole thing was the result of a collection of wax figures being allowed to melt together on a hot day.

“I can guess what you’re thinking. You’re quite right, I wouldn’t be winning any beauty contests, would I?” said one of the mouths.

“What
are
you?” Geoca asked the question for all of them.

“One of you,” another mouth replied. “A mutant, just like you. I have a special job, though. I’m here – well, mobility isn’t my strong suit, so I’d have trouble being anywhere else, wouldn’t I? – to look after the node. Actually, you could say that I’m part of the Stream, rather than a keeper. Remedios here is the keeper, even though she doesn’t know it. She thinks I’m the oracle for this shrine. She looks after me, and the Stream flows through me.”

“I’ve never come across a mutant like you before.”

“No, you wouldn’t have. They broke the mold when they made me!” The thing seemed to find that funny, and most of its mouths laughed. “I’ve been expecting you,” one of them said above the chorus.

“I don’t think so,” replied Bark. “We’ve only come here because our flier needs fixing. If it didn’t need repairs…”

“I know all that,” the creature replied. “But as I told you, I’m part of the Stream, and since your ship changed its power system, so is it. And therefore I know what’s been going on. No magic, I assure you, no magic. As I said, I’ve been expecting you. There are no secrets.” It laughed to itself again. “I also know that you’re planning on going to Mount Weather.”

“Mount Weather?”

“Their headquarters. You know what I’m talking about, Bark. Your mountain. Am I right?”

“You’re right.”

“Of course I am. Now, there have been some developments that you might not be aware of. The Stream is in serious trouble.”

“What…? The last we knew, things were going well...”

“Oh, they were, and I wish it was still so, but I’m afraid you’re a little behind the times. The Nefilim grid is growing again, and at a rate much faster than before. It seems to be unstoppable.”

“They’ve changed something, then.”

“They most certainly have. They’ve charged it up. Given it some juice. The Stream is falling away before it, and nothing that we’ve tried has made any difference.”

“How? What have they done?”

“I may have the answer.” Anak was using his voice. “They have probably put a large number of individuals into the system. Their energy would have been used to make it much stronger than before.” He explained how it was done.

“That’s fucking inhuman!” Reina flushed with anger.