by David Gullen
The door opened. Novik stood in the entrance.
‘Why so serious?’ Snarlow said. ‘Come on in, son.’
‘How are you feeling?’ Novik said as he put the white-fletched arrow on a wheeled table.
‘A lot better, thank you.’
Don’t thank me, you tried to kill us.’
‘It wasn’t exactly personal.’
‘That’s nice to know.’
‘Where are you from, son?’
‘Here and there. Oregon mostly.’
‘When you love your country, when you devote your life to its service, sometimes you have to make sacrifices, no matter how personal and painful.’
Novik looked at the arrow. ‘I know.’
‘I can use people willing to do that. Pragmatists. Realists. People like you.’ She gave him her campaign smile.
It was hypnotic, incandescent. Novik felt the muscles of his own face involuntarily respond. The betrayal of his own body gave him the strength he needed. ‘I’m not like you,’ he said, then raised his voice. ‘This is Novik. Mary had a little lamb.’
‘Attending,’ the medical AI said.
‘Full sedation.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ Guinevere struggled to push herself upright, briefly blacked out with the pain and slumped back. She clawed at the tubes attached to her veins, Novik grabbed her wrists and held her down. She tried to summon the Voice, her Look, the Face that was worth five percent in a swing state. ‘Stop this immediately.’
‘You’ve lost,’ Novik said. ‘It’s over. I’m not like you.’
‘It’s never over. I get what I want.’
She fought it all the way down, struggled against the vast, oceanic drowsiness that seeped through her blood and into her brain. And she failed.
When Guinevere Snarlow was completely still, Novik placed a pillow over her face and pressed down. She did not struggle. It seemed to him that lying there she was complicit in his actions, accepting and participating in her own death.
When every monitor showed flat lines, he took the pillow away.
‘I’m not like you,’ Novik whispered. Then he broke the arrow in two and placed the pieces on her chest.
- 68 -
Back in the study Andriewiscz was still on-screen and making demands.
‘I want your medical data patched through to my surgeons. You have full comms. Even if I wanted to block you I can’t, the generators are down.’
Novik hung at the door. ‘There’s no point. Snarlow’s dead.’
‘You’re lying,’ Andriewiscz snapped automatically.
‘I just killed her.’
Andriewiscz’s brow furrowed, his mouth twitched, his eyes lost focus. He tried to imagine life without Guinevere Snarlow, tried to imagine the Executive and the United States without her at the helm. He thought about the future with the new President, Oscar Gordano.
Jesus Christ Almighty.
‘Son, you’re going to fry,’ Andriewiscz said. ‘Hell, I don’t think you’ll make it to trial. You’ll have trouble lying on a feather mattress without breaking your legs in five different places.
‘You’ve lost,’ Novik said. ‘It’s over. There’s nothing for you here.’
‘We’ll see about that. I’ve got all the keys to all the launch codes I need. Three minutes from now you’re going to be nothing but black shadows and molten glass. So is Paris, London, Berlin, Athens and any other God-damned city I can think of east of Lisbon. Oh yeah, Lisbon. This is total war. Only the survivors get to say what happened.’
The screen went blank.
Crane looked at Novik, aghast. ‘What have you done?’
Novik turned to Benny, ‘If you’re really who you say you are, do something now.’
‘You mean break the Prime Directive, violate every principle of my training and intervene in the destiny of an advanced, intelligent species?’
Novik felt dizzy, breathless. He thought he might be having a heart attack. ‘If that’s what it takes, yes.’
‘There’s no such rule. Anyway, you and Palfinger have saved yourselves. You did it, Novik. You alone. That said, there are always reactionary factions and Andriewiscz is a very nasty man. Seeing as you asked so nicely, we’re happy to help.’ Benny spread his hands. ‘At times like these interfering is what we do, and we do it very well.’
Purple lightning flickered across the southern sky as a dozen spider-legs of violet light hammered down from the stratosphere and stalked through Andriewiscz’s HQ. Moments later a teeth-jarring vibration shook the ground. Crockery rattled, furniture juddered across the floor, bottles jumped across the table. Benny snagged the Bowmore before it fell. Upstairs, something smashed. Slowly the shaking died away.
Despite Benny’s scruffy attire, he radiated poise and dignity, ‘My name is Bennjeffre the Spoke, Ambassador to Earth from the Commonwealth of the Galactic Arm. Congratulations on surviving your adolescence and welcome to the future. Mr Crane, I guarantee it will include your daughter.’
Crane felt a gigantic weight lift from his shoulders and he laughed. ‘You don’t much look like an Ambassador, and I’ve met a few.’
‘By necessity I was travelling incognito.’
Novik shook his head. ‘I still have trouble.’
‘I’m used to doubt. It doesn’t matter what you believe, we’re here anyway.’
Silver light swung ponderously through the woods, each tree had many shadows. Crane, Novik, Marytha and Benny went to the window. Everywhere they looked the sky was filled with cities of light.
‘But I… We…’ Marytha was lost for words. ‘Lord have mercy, I bonked an alien.’
Benny gave her a big hug. ‘Hey, me too.’
Later, Novik and Marytha walked out onto the veranda. Gigantic pinwheels of light hung over Vancouver in the west and formed a scattered line south along I5 to Seattle and beyond. Elsewhere enormous streamers of luminescence hung over every city around the world like gigantic fairy lights. Even Calgary.
A second helicopter now stood beside the Presidential aircraft. Chandra Singh was with Ellen. Visibly thinner, she was awake and stable. Chandra was preparing to operate using the special instruments and equipment he had designed for Ellen when Benny offered to translate them to the hospital deck of one of the capital ships orbiting overhead. After a brief discussion with Palfinger it was agreed. Benny, Chandra and Ellen would leave within minutes.
Marytha and Novik leaned on the stone balustrade of the veranda.
‘I wish Josie could have seen this,’ Novik said.
Marytha put her hand on his.
Out of the darkness at the edge of the lawn emerged the ursine bowman, Theodore. In his arms he carried a human form wrapped in a ground sheet. Beside him limped a bruised and battered man, heavy-set and middle-aged, his clothes torn and covered in dirt.
Novik and Marytha hurried down the steps.
‘Theodore, bring him inside. We have doctors,’ Novik said.
Theodore lowered the body to the ground and stepped back. ‘This man is beyond help. He was a stranger, yet he fought the enemy.’
The man with Theodore wiped his hands on the seat of his trousers. ‘I’m Jericho Wilson, I’ve been hunting Mitchel Gould and he led us here. Gould killed my partner, and this man’s crew. We teamed up, I don’t know much about him, his name was Bernard Halifax.’
‘I knew him,’ Marytha’s voice shook, ‘Let me see.’
‘No, ma’am,’ Wilson said. ‘If you knew him, you don’t want to see him now.’
‘What happened out there?’ Marytha said.
‘Mitchel Gould.’
‘That’s not enough.’
Wilson gave a weary sigh, ‘Can we sit down? It’s been a long day.’
‘Go inside, both of you,’ Novik said. ‘Get a drink, get cleaned up.’
‘Thanks,’ Wilson said gratefully. ‘What’s with the giant lights?’
‘Spaceships. The aliens have landed.’
‘You don’t say?’ Wilson took it in hi
s stride. ‘It’s been one of those weeks.’
When they had gone Theodore said, ‘Novik, will you return this warrior to his people?’
‘Wilson said they’re gone. If Halifax was here it was because he wanted to be.’
Theodore scooped up Halifax’s remains. ‘I will lay him with St.John. Their spirits will become guardians of this land.’
‘The Queen is dead, Theodore,’ Novik said.
Theodore dipped his head, ‘That is a good thing.’
‘I don’t know. Yes, I do. I’m just not sure how I feel about what I did.’
‘Which is as it should be.’ Theodore sniffed the air, ‘Rain, I think. Farewell, Novik. We may meet again.’
Theodore walked away into the gloom. Novik stood alone in the night.
Wilson and Marytha talked for hours. He told her what had happened and what he knew about Mitchell Gould. He told her about himself.
‘You’re a cop?’ Marytha said.
‘Kind of.’
‘Halifax hated cops.’
‘We got along.’
A nostalgic half-smile grew on Marytha’s face. ‘It happens.’
Wilson also told her about the anti-matter warheads hidden in the woods.
‘Where do you think Gould is now?’ Marytha said.
‘Back in New Orleans.’
Marytha thought it over. ‘I think we both have reasons to make a house call.’
At sun up they were gone.
- 69 -
Age of Wonders
We’re not alone and we’re not in charge. Now I think about it, we never were, not truly. When unmanageable emergent phenomena like Permanent Larry come into being, the result of things we shouldn’t have been doing anyway, Masters of Destiny is not the phrase that best describes the human race.
Maybe now. Now that we have some help.
Strange things are happening all over. Some of them might even be true. One that does seem to be is Spontaneous Human Combustion. All across the world, mostly in North America, some in Europe, a few in China and Africa, people have been bursting into flames.
They’ve been seen in vehicles, found in apartments, filmed in parks and malls. Every single one of them was a young adult, smartly dressed and well-groomed. It seems they were all Americans. They all fell over at the same time, everywhere, and burned with a flame many describe as ‘like a white flower’.
– Slobodan Jones, KUWjones.org
Deep in a subterranean command and control centre far beneath the near infinite cornfields of Nebraska, Oscar Gordano slunk from one empty chamber to another. As soon as news of Guinevere’s death reached him, his security team had insisted he transfer immediately to this gigantic bunker, an underground city for the entire administration.
President Gordano. How he had once dreamed of this moment.
Guinevere was dead, Lobotnov was missing, and, if reports were to be believed, Andriewiscz had been turned to a pillar of salt. Gordano was the last surviving member of the executive. Soon after he arrived, his bowels turned to water and he locked himself in the can.
‘Sir, Are you all right?’ a voice called, then sneezed explosively.
‘Motion sickness.’ Gordano giggled hysterically, ‘Motion sickness – geddit?’
‘I need to secure the perimeter, sir.’
Gordano never saw him again.
They had promised him an administration, engineers, scientists, a gathering army. One by one his people slipped away on some pretext or another. The last, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with wordless fear, had simply fled.
‘Go on, you pussy,’ Gordano shrieked at the receding footsteps. ‘You run like a girl.’
Lobotnov should be here. He had promised he would be as he shook Gordano’s hand beside the big USAAF helicopter.
‘You go on ahead, Oscar,’ Lobotnov had said. ‘I just need to issue a Room Service directive to tidy away our loyal assets.’
Utterly alone, Gordano tried to raise the outside world. For a few minutes he studied the external monitors. Strange insects like fat-bodied dragonflies swarmed across the mown grass, tarmac and perimeter fence. Fascinated, he watched them crawl over the lenses. In the middle distance was a running figure. Gordano manipulated the controls, zoomed in and saw a naked man.
At night he was unable to sleep, his head thick with cold. Outside, high overhead, enormous clusters of lights tumbled across the sky. They awed and frightened him. He wanted to go outside but was too scared. In the morning when he tried to call Jazmin his phone fell apart, spongy with black mildew. Back in the security room the consoles and monitors had burst open as masses of tiny, long-stalked mushrooms erupted from the electronic equipment. Outside, all the insects were dead.
One by one the monitors stopped working. Gordano didn’t know what to do, he was running a fever, it was so hard to think. He was very afraid.
Three levels down Gordano located a standby security office in working order. He called everyone he knew on open channel. He used all the passwords and access codes in the envelopes he had been given when they told him he was President. He even tried to call Shirleen.
‘The bitch is probably blowing her new houseboy,’ he muttered. What he really wanted was for her to tie him up and beat him.
He put the entire site into lockdown and took a double dose of cold cure.
The enormous Presidential suite was luxurious and silent. Gordano lay on the vast bed and drank bourbon. He swam naked in the pool, he watched porn and masturbated. Sinuses throbbing, he fell asleep. When he woke he felt terrible, burning up with thirst. As he fixed himself a glass of soda he noticed the Meeja console in the corner. He put on the headphones and turned it on.
Immediately he felt better, healthier than he had for days. This time he read the note that had appeared beside the console, then sat back to enjoy a fresh glass of cognac and the hand-rolled Havana cigar he found in a previously empty drawer.
After a few minutes’ peaceful enjoyment there came a rap on the door and a busty young intern hurried in. She must have just come from cheerleader practice because she was dressed in a short, pleated skirt and a tight sweater with his own initials as a motif. Beneath the sweater her ample and obviously natural breasts jiggled with excitement.
‘Sir, wonderful news. We’ve won!’
‘Why don’t you come in?’ Gordano said.
She gave him an impish smile, ‘Can I use your pool?’
‘Sure. Call me Ozzie.’
‘I don’t have a costume, Ozzie.’
Gordano felt his terrors slip away.
Oh my God, oh my God. Oh my God.
Oh.
My.
God.
I don’t know how I’m going to say this so I’m just going to say it. No spin, no angle, no bias – just the facts.
I don’t believe I just said that. And you are not going to believe what I am going to say next, I shit you not.
Oh my God.
That’s not it. I haven’t said it yet, don’t go away. Yes, they’ve landed. Yes, they walk among us. Weird shit all over, people catching fire, big flappy bugs melt your underwear, but this!
Listen.
Somebody has detonated an antimatter warhead inside Permanent Larry.
I did just say that, didn’t I? You heard me right. In this New World Order of ours crazy-ass shit still happens.
Now for the good news.
Compared to an average hurricane, a tactical nuke or equivalent is about 0.1% of total stored energy. The likely environmental effect – zip, and Larry ain’t average. On the other hand his eye was right over Nu-Orleans.
Why is that good news? Well, if you’re into geo-engineering, Lake Pontchartrain is now big enough to qualify as in inland sea, and there’s a storm surge pushing up the Mississippi powerful enough to kick start the great mid-western ocean.
But most important, that worthless scumbag trader in human misery Mitchell Gould is almost certainly dead. If he isn’t, then his organisation most definite
ly is, because Nu Orleans, Big Easy 2.0, whatever you want to call it, is no more.
Whoever did this got all biblical, folks. They smote the Big Easy and she died. The fused glass wastelands at the heart of Mexico City and Ottawa look like the Garden of Eden compared to this.
So, well done good buddy, whoever you were. If you were after revenge you got it. If you wanted to be remembered, you got that too. Just one thing – next time, send a postcard and tell us who the hell you are.
And why.
You complete NUTTER.
- 70 -
It was over.
The lodge at Million Pines was deserted. Benny and Ellen were in space and Palfinger was on his way to join Bianca in Micronesia.
Novik walked down to the lake and sat on the lonely shore. After an hour he returned to the lodge and wandered through the silent rooms. Echoes of action and conversation still hung in the air, laughter and screams, the sounds of gunfire. The bullet holes in the study panelling already looked like the fossil remains of some ancient conflict.
As the afternoon wore on, the prospect of a night in the company of ghosts and memories felt increasingly unappealing. Novik loaded his backpack with spare clothes, a knife, a blanket and other useful equipment. He took a fresh bottle of the Bowmore from the cellar. He opened up the armoury and put on one of Crane’s armoured coats. Ready to leave, he stood in the entrance hall and listened to the silent house for a moment. As the sun set he pulled the wide doors shut behind him and walked away through the twilight.
The blacktop ran in a series of long rises and dips east and west, the flanking forest darkly green, evening stars twinkled overhead. At the bottom of Novik’s backpack were the last few thousand dollars of Gould’s stash. He tightened the straps and looked along the road. One direction seemed the same as the other, he turned left and started walking.
He had walked several miles when he heard the sound of a car approaching behind him and stuck out his thumb. Sleek and charcoal grey, a lobsterback Cadillac AFC-16 rolled to a halt beside him. The nearside windows rolled down and Novik saw the passenger compartment was empty.