The Nightmare Unleashed

by J. J. Carlson

  Daron’s lips spread in a sly grin. “Because Jarrod Hawkins is in London, and you’re going to meet with him. Then the three of you are going to blow that base straight to hell.”

  9

  When the color returned to Eugene’s face, he tapped the map and said, “Hold on, how do you know Jarrod is in London? I thought our signal intelligence was torn to shreds by Katharos.”

  Daron shook his head. “The NSA infrastructure is still there. We just can’t use it without tipping our hand to Katharos. Passive surveillance of phone calls, email traffic, and satellite communications is still taking place, but we can’t actively search for Jarrod without Katharos knowing everything that we know.”

  He smiled, then continued, “But I didn’t need a building full of supercomputers to find Jarrod. His…activities tend to draw media attention. I had a few people I trust take up permanent residence in front of the television. This morning, one of my couch potatoes found a story that fit Jarrod’s MO—a judge and three convicted rapists found dead in a London park.”

  “London’s a big city,” Ford said. “How will Jarrod know where to find us?”

  “Or even that we’re coming?” Eugene added.

  Daron sighed. “There are a few eggheads at the NSA I still trust. If Jarrod has kept up his habit of checking on his sister through Facebook, we’ll be able to get a message out.”

  Eugene shook his head. “Any message we send will be intercepted by Katharos. If we schedule a meeting, we’ll end up walking into a trap.”

  Daron retrieved a slip of paper from his pocket and held it up. A series of numbers covered one side of the note. “We have a simple code that Katharos will have trouble breaking. It was derived from…” He hesitated. “From the argument Santiago and I had after he discovered that I had lied to him.”

  “Good times,” Eugene said, grinning. “How’s your jaw, by the way?”

  Daron scowled. “It’s fine. The point is, Jarrod was present when that conversation took place. He has something the docs call ‘HSAM memory,’ so he’ll be able to remember every word that was spoken. When we give numbers to the letters of the spoken words, we can form a unique code. If we combine the code with the crypto-algorithm embedded in Jarrod’s brain, he should be the only person on earth capable of understanding the message.”

  “I don’t know,” Eugene murmured. “Katharos has cracked every encrypted code on the planet. I doubt this one will hold up.”

  Daron nodded, acknowledging the counterpoint. “It’s possible they’ll intercept the message. But if they try to set up an ambush, it’s likely Jarrod will see any Katharos agents lying in wait as targets of opportunity. He’ll be a tremendous asset in the field.”

  Ford rested his hands on the table and eyed the map. “What’s our infil?”

  Eugene crossed his arms. “Yeah, I was wondering about that. How are we supposed to get to London if we can’t even show our faces in public? It’s not like we can just waltz through the airport and get our passports stamped.”

  Daron hesitated. “I’ve made arrangements with Andrews Air Force Base. You’ll ride in the cargo hold of a Boeing 767.”

  Eugene rolled his eyes. “How are we supposed to attack a Katharos outpost if we suffocate?”

  Daron took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “You’ll be riding in a crate of emergency oxygen tanks. Feel free to use them to stay alive. When the aircraft descends to ten-thousand feet, the cargo door will ‘malfunction,’ and you will parachute out.”

  “Wait…” Eugene said, squinting. “We won’t be using those stupid picnic-blanket parachutes, will we?”

  Locking eyes with Eugene, Daron said, “Yes, you will.”

  Eugene grimaced. “Then Ford has to jump out first.”

  “Why?” Ford asked.

  “So you can catch me if I burn in. I hate those things.”

  “Your landing zone will be twenty miles from the London Underground,” Daron said, cutting them both off. “You’ll hike in and link up with Jarrod on the subway.”

  “If he feels like showing up,” Eugene added.

  “He will,” said Daron. “He may not be entirely reliable, but he won’t walk away from a fight. Once you make contact, you’ll make your way to Lakenheath, where Jarrod will steal a payload of high-explosives.”

  “How will we get past base security?” Ford asked.

  “That’s the beauty of it,” Daron said, smiling. “Once you have Jarrod, you can go anywhere you want. He danced around the security here in Hillcrest for weeks—Lakenheath won’t be a problem for him.”

  “Give a bomb to a freakishly-dangerous killing machine with a taste for gruesome executions,” Eugene said, shrugging. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Daron paused for a long moment. Finally, he spoke, sounding defeated, “I wish we had someone else, but we don’t. It would be suicide for you to take on a Katharos command post alone, and I don’t want to lose any more shooters. Get some rest. Your plane leaves tomorrow morning.”

  10

  The Palace, Central Siberia

  The holographic display on Emily’s forearm turned blue and blinked three times. Her assistant frowned and nodded at the device on her wrist.

  “Is something wrong, Empress?”

  Emily paused on the steps leading up to the Throne Room and glanced at her forearm. The display turned white and began scrolling through a message. “Go on without me,” she said, waving him forward. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

  The assistant gave a tiny bow and jogged up the stairs.

  Emily smiled, noting the bounce in his step. The entire Palace had been buzzing with anticipation for the past twenty-four hours. Everyone was nervous and excited about Borya’s transformation. The Emperor’s loyal subjects worried for his health, but they were eager for him to become the Oracle. Many men and women of Katharos secretly idolized Borya’s vast intellect, and Emily wondered if they would openly worship him once he was connected to twenty biological quantum computers. She sincerely hoped not; such displays were beneath agents of Katharos.

  Swiping upward on the skin beneath her wrist, she scanned the rest of the message. One of the servers had intercepted and decrypted a coded message meant for Jarrod Hawkins.

  She sighed and selected the second suggested course of action. Though each of the Servers were impressive in their own right, they were nothing compared to what Borya would become. When his mind connected to the others, he would merge them with his own consciousness. The near-limitless computing power of twenty human brains and next-generation artificial intelligence would be his to command. Emily would no longer need to issue orders or read any more “urgent” messages. The Oracle would analyze every conceivable problem, choose the ideal solution, and give directives in the blink of an eye. Borya would be able to see every path and consequence, then direct Katharos to victory with the wisdom of a prophet.

  Emily shuffled up the stairs and placed her hand on the Throne Room’s ornately carved door. For the first time in years, Emily’s fingers trembled with excitement. It was almost overwhelming, knowing how close she was to victory. Borya’s transformation would topple the first domino that led to global societal collapse and the rebirth of the human race. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and pushed open the door.

  She strode forward, her feet noiseless on the thick red carpet. She passed rows of authentic Terracotta soldiers and ascended the terrace at the far end of the room, where Borya was waiting. His wheelchair was gone; a few days after the transformation, he would no longer need it. His body was wrapped in purple silk and stretched out on an adjustable bed. His unseeing eyes blinked slowly as he breathed the jasmine-scented air.

  “My love,” Emily said, taking his hand. “I am here.”

  “E—Emily,” Borya said, his tongue struggling with the word.

  Emily bit her lip and fought back tears. Borya hadn’t spoken with his own voice in years, due to the invasive surgeries he had volunteered for. Emily had pr
ogrammed the nanobots to repair the neural pathways to the muscles in his jaw, but hearing him actually speak…

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, trying to hide the emotion in her voice.

  Borya coughed, then took a moment to catch his breath. “Old.”

  Emily smiled and ran a hand along his cheek. To her amazement, Borya turned his head at her touch.

  “I am glad that you are here,” Borya said. “And that I can feel your skin one last time…as a man.”

  Emily leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. “But you will be more than a man, and I will love you as I have always loved you.”

  Borya licked his dry lips. “Is it ready?”

  Emily glanced at her assistant, who was standing behind Borya’s bed. Wearing a giddy grin, the assistant nodded.

  Emily kissed Borya again, then pushed away. “The connection is ready. The whole world is waiting for your guidance.”

  Borya gave a twitchy smile. “Then we should not waste time.”

  The assistant held up a thick tube. Black, hair-like tendrils floated on air currents near the tube’s adhesive mouth.

  Emily rounded the bed and took the tube from the assistant. Slowly, gently, she placed it against the back of Borya’s skull. The assistant handed her several strips of tape, which she used to secure the connection. When she was finished, she returned to Borya’s side and took his hand.

  “Is it done?” Borya asked

  She nodded. “The neural link should form within the next few minutes. Are you feeling any pain?”

  “No.” Borya’s eyebrows furrowed. “I can…see…something. It’s like doors in an endless hallway.”

  “Your brain is creating a spatial setting to interact with the new information available to you. It should pass.”

  Borya frowned. “Now it’s a spider web, with billions of tiny boxes attached to every strand. Wait…now it’s—” He stopped mid-sentence and winced.

  “Borya,” Emily said, stroking his face, “are you alright?”

  Borya exhaled, then smiled. “It’s…incredible. Time is…slowing down. It even seems to stop at my will.”

  “You’re starting to experience the universe at the quantum level, where time becomes an abstraction.”

  “There is…so much…” The skin around Borya’s eyes tightened, hinting at the pain beneath.

  “Try to relax. It will be tempting to pull mountains of data into your brain, but you need to fight it. Use the Servers—become one with the hive mind.”

  The muscles in his face slackened a little. “Yes…it’s working. I can see the beyond. We are becoming one, sharing the burden and…and…”

  Emily gripped his hand tighter. “What’s wrong?”

  Borya’s eyes widened into pools of fear. His jaw opened and closed while he gasped for air like a fish out of water. “No,” he moaned. “Stay back.” His voice rose in pitch and volume, and he screamed, “Get away from me!”

  “What’s happening?” the assistant asked, rushing to Emily’s side.

  “I—I don’t know.” She gripped Borya’s face with both hands. “My love, can you hear me?”

  Borya’s weathered lips stretched until they cracked, and blood seeped from the tiny slits. His chest expanded, and he let out a terror-stricken scream.

  “What do we do?” The assistant clawed at Emily’s sleeve. “Should we unplug him?”

  Emily hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Do it.”

  The assistant rushed to a holographic screen and was just about to close the connection when the screaming stopped.

  “Wait,” Emily said, holding up a hand.

  Borya’s expression turned frigid. His eyes stared at the ceiling, and he mouthed silent words.

  The assistant lowered his hand, then returned to Emily’s side. “What is he saying, Empress?”

  As if in response, Borya began to vocalize his speech. “Noi suntem Kảlạng ca vergaan. Hu sawf maak ons dood todos. Noi suntem Kảlạng ca vergaan. Hu sawf maak ons dood todos.”

  Taking a step back, the assistant said, “What the hell?”

  Emily squinted and tilted her head as Borya repeated the strange phrases. “It’s Romanian,” she said. “And Spanish. And…maybe Dutch.”

  “But what does it mean?”

  Emily strode to the holographic display and waved her fingers in front of its sensor. “I can have the computer translate. It should only take a moment.”

  “Hu sawf maak ons dood todos.”

  A line of text appeared on the display, followed by another. Emily’s eyes bounced from left to right, and her face turned ghostly pale.

  “Empress?”

  Emily blinked, then banished the translation with a flick of her fingers. “It’s nothing, just a string of nonsense. His brain has been overwhelmed by the transformation.” She motioned with her hands to bring up the connection controls. “I’m going to disconnect him. We will adjust the network in the Server Room and, once he has had time to rest, we will connect him to a single Server.”

  Borya closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, falling into a deep sleep.

  “We will gradually add more Servers until he regains omniscience.” After a long pause, Emily added. “You will speak of this to no one. If anyone asks, you will tell them Emperor has already become the Oracle.”

  The assistant stared at the slumbering founder of Katharos and said, “Of course, Empress.”

  “Good. Now, get to the Server Room and scrub in. We’ll start working on the network immediately.”

  The assistant clicked his heels together, bowed, and scurried away.

  Emily watched him go and listened as his feet descended the stairs outside the Throne Room. She took a deep breath and waved her fingers to retrieve the translation. Reading one word at a time, she began to cry.

  11

  London, England

  As Eugene descended into the heart of Kensington Station, claustrophobia began to set in. It had nothing to do with the low ceilings or stale air—even the flight across the Atlantic in a shipping crate hadn’t bothered him. His anxiety was due to the fact that he and Ford were at a severe tactical disadvantage. They were weaponless in a subway station packed with hundreds of people and riddled with places for a team of assassins to hide. Despite Daron’s assurances, Eugene expected to be attacked or at least followed by Katharos Agents. So far, he hadn’t seen any sign of them, which only reinforced his feeling that he and Ford were walking into an ambush. As he descended deeper into the subway station, it felt like the jaws of a bear trap were waiting to snap shut around him.

  He half-jogged down the escalator, mumbling apologies to people he bumped into along the way. Ford followed a few steps behind him, offering no apologies of his own. At the bottom of the first escalator, a curved tunnel led subway-goers out of sight. The walls were covered with 1970’s-era tiles and adorned with glossy advertisements for movies, perfumes, and local attractions. Eugene glanced into a rounded mirror at the corner of the tunnel, checking for suspicious persons. His mind was in overdrive, and his eyes bounced back and forth between hands, bags, and loose-fitting shirts as he searched for concealed weapons. If he’d been allowed to carry a gun of his own, he wouldn’t feel so worried, but Daron had forbidden it. Getting taken into custody by local law enforcement was essentially a death sentence. If arrested, they would be hunted down by Katharos before they made it to the police station. Keeping a low profile was an absolute necessity, so they had hidden their weapons in a copse of trees outside of the city before finishing the hike in.

  Eugene clenched his fists as he rounded the turn and found another escalator. This one was even more packed with people than the last one. Gritting his teeth, he stepped onto the slotted-steel and rode it slowly downward.

  “No sign of Nick,” Ford whispered. He and Eugene had decided beforehand to refer to Jarrod only as “Nick.”

  Eugene gave a tiny nod, making sure to keep his head down so his baseball cap would conceal his eyes. “If he’s
here, we probably won’t see him until he wants us to. Just watch for goons.”

  They finally reached the subway tube, and Eugene relaxed a little. The space was still cramped, but it was well-lit by a continuous line of fluorescent lights. He leaned against the wall, eyeing everyone that passed. Ford sat on a bench a few yards away, keeping his head down and pretending to look bored. There was a squealing sound in the distance, and the front end of the subway train appeared a few seconds later. Its blue and white cars settled to a stop, and Eugene stepped through an orange sliding door. Ford entered the next door down the line and gripped the overhead railing with one hand.

  Not wanting to look suspicious, Eugene took an empty seat next to a hooded man with a stubbly beard. The man’s odor and downtrodden demeanor gave the impression of homelessness, but that didn’t bother Eugene. In fact, it reassured him. Katharos assassins would be anything but homeless.

  As the subway rumbled forward, Eugene casually assessed the other passengers. No one appeared unduly interested in him or Ford, and he saw no sign of Jarrod.

  “Any trouble on the way in?” the homeless man mumbled.

  “Excuse me?” Eugene said, shifting away from the man. “Are you talking to me?”

  “No, I’m talking to the mouse in your pocket.”

  Eugene’s eyes widened. He leaned forward to get a better look beneath the man’s hood and said, “Jarrod?”

  The man shook his head in disgust. “Keep it together, Marine, and don’t call me that.”

  Eugene blinked twice. “Sorry. I’m just—surprised. How did you know I was going to sit here?”

  “Humans are predictable. Did you have any trouble on the way in?”

  “No. Actually, we didn’t.”

  “Good. That means I got them all.”

  Eugene shifted in his seat. “Got all of…whom?”

  “I’m not going to spell it out for you. The people who knew you were coming.”

  Silently, Eugene cursed Daron’s plan. Katharos had intercepted the message and sent assassins to kill or capture him and Ford. He rubbed his tired eyes with two fingers and said, “Thanks for that.”