The 4400® Promises Broken

by David Mack

  But that was the past. Jordan had to focus on the present.

  Maybe I should order a preemptive strike against the guided-missile cruisers, he thought. Not to destroy them, but to disarm them. It might be easier than intercepting missiles in flight … He was about to give the order when he heard Maia gasp.

  “Stop!” she screamed, cutting through the heavy chatter in the conference room. “It’s all a decoy!”

  Motioning for everyone else to stay quiet, Jordan asked Maia, “What’s a decoy, Maia?”

  “All of it!” she cried. “The ships, the planes, the soldiers. That’s not the attack!” She pointed at the ceiling. “The real attack’s coming from up there!”

  Everyone looked up except Kyle, who turned away, apparently listening intently to his invisible oracle. Then he, too, turned his gaze upward, revealing the look of terror on his face. “A satellite!” he shouted. “Cassie says it’s a strike from orbit, and we’re the target!”

  “Evacuate the building!” Jordan bellowed. “Hal, Lucas, Renata! I need you with me.” He turned to Gary. “Go with Kyle, and get Maia to safety.”

  Gary nodded and followed Kyle to the door, where he waited for Maia to catch up to him. Then he took her hand and led her out into the corridor packed with people running for the stairs.

  Jordan faced his trio of gestalt specialists. “Is there any chance you three could stop the satellite?” he asked.

  “If you can point me at it,” Renata said, “I can try to fry it before it shoots.”

  “Finding it’ll be the trick,” Hal said, adjusting his opaque black glasses.

  Gripping their shoulders, Jordan said, “Try. Quickly.”

  Lucas reached out and joined hands with Hal and Renata. All three of them bowed their heads and concentrated.

  “I’m looking for it,” Hal said, his frustration evident. “But I don’t know where to start. Space is so vast … so empty.”

  “Keep trying,” Jordan urged him.

  Shaking his head, Hal replied, “I’m sorry, it all looks the same. I have no point of reference, no place to start from.”

  Kyle leaned back in through the conference room door and barked at Jordan, “Ninety seconds!”

  Even though Jordan harbored serious fears about Cassie’s bloodthirsty tendencies, she had never been wrong before, and he wasn’t going to test her now. “That’s it,” he said, pushing the gestalt trio ahead of him toward the door. “Run!”

  10:22 A.M.

  Captain Arthur Desmond, commanding officer of the nuclear aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, stood in the center of the warship’s dim but bustling Combat Direction Center. The compartment was bathed in a deep blue glow that was pierced at regular intervals by the tactical monitors’ brilliant displays, which ranged in hue from bright green to bloodred to amber.

  Radio chatter filled the air. It was matched by the low buzz of personnel speaking softly into their headsets.

  Desmond stood silently, awaiting final confirmation of the ship’s orders. On a bulkhead packed with flat-screen video monitors, the center screen displayed a satellite image of downtown Seattle, over which had been superimposed a computer-generated three-dimensional wireframe and targeting sight.

  Commander Serena Hess, the ship’s executive officer, hovered above the communications officer. She nodded once as the young ensign finished delivering his report, then crossed the cramped compartment to Desmond’s side. “The tac officer confirms all units are in position, and the firing solution is clear. U.S. Space Command has verified the satellite is ready, and that we have control,” she said.

  “Thank you,” Desmond said. From the console in front of him, he picked up the handset of a phone that was on a ready line to the Pentagon. “Admiral Kazansky?”

  “Go ahead, Captain,” replied the chief of the Navy.

  “The Air Force confirms ready on the HEL, sir. Holding for final confirmation of the order.”

  “Stand by,” Kazansky said. It took only a matter of seconds for the admiral to relay the request to the White House.

  The next voice on the line was one Desmond had hoped never to hear: “Captain, this is the president. Fire the weapon.”

  “Yes, Mister President. Abraham Lincoln out.” Desmond hung up the phone, turned to his XO, and said, “Do it.”

  Hess nodded to the tactical action officer, who spoke to the weapons officer, who pressed a single button on his console, releasing a ten-second burst from a high-energy laser mounted on a classified satellite in orbit, high above the planet.

  One word spoken … one button pushed … one flash of light.

  And a building vanished.

  An executive express elevator delivered Jordan and his senior advisors to the ground floor of the Collier building less than thirty seconds after they had evacuated the conference room. As the tiny group sprinted out of the building and down the steps onto Cherry Street, the cloudless blue sky above boomed with thunder.

  A sword of fire from the heavens lanced down, brighter than the sun, and hammered through the core of the skyscraper behind them. Fire erupted from every window and filled the ground floor. The ground shook, and the concrete plaza that surrounded the building fractured. Parts of it heaved upward; others sank.

  “Run!” Jordan ordered, leading his people across the street, through the open-air plaza of Seattle City Hall.

  The sidewalks were choked with pedestrians and the streets were packed with cars whose drivers all stared upward, agape at the towering spectacle of destruction above them, too shocked to realize they ought to take cover, until it was too late do so. Burning debris fell amid a storm of shattered glass, some of it in huge plates and shards that impaled the trapped bystanders.

  A deafening blast knocked Jordan and his entourage flat on the glass-dusted concrete and peppered them with shrapnel. Fighting with bloodied palms to push himself back to his feet, he heard behind him the first rumbling death throes of the doomed skyscraper, which began to implode from the top down.

  “Go!” Jordan barked at his people, waving them past him.

  Gary picked up Maia and carried the stunned teen with him as he continued running southeast across the plaza, amid hundreds of fleeing civilians, toward James Street. Emil led the sightless Hal, Lucas carried the wounded and bleeding Renata, and Kyle flanked Jordan.

  The collapse of the Collier Foundation tower accelerated. As the building vanished into itself, a mountain of dark gray ash and smoke bloomed around it and rushed outward.

  We’re not going to make it, Jordan realized as he looked back and saw the black blizzard descend upon him.

  Then something unseen held him fast, and he saw his friends pulled toward him by an invisible force. It took him a moment to process that it was the handiwork of his bodyguard Emil, who had used his telekinetic ability to pull everyone to himself.

  The diminutive young man raised his arms and touched his fingers together high over his head, forming an inverted V.

  As the crushing torrent of pulverized concrete, broken metal, shattered glass, and choking dust fell, it struck Emil’s psychokinetic barrier high overhead and broke wide to the left and right of the plaza’s James Street staircase, leaving Jordan and the others huddled on a narrow wedge of safe ground.

  All that Jordan could smell was smoke and gasoline. Dust and superfine glass powder stung his eyes, and the whole world sounded muffled, as if it were underwater. His eyes cascaded with tears to cleanse themselves, then he blinked through the pain and looked back.

  A smoldering mountain of gray rubble loomed above him. There was no sign of the skyscraper he had claimed as his headquarters just a few months earlier, nor of Seattle City Hall. Where moments earlier he had seen streets jammed with cars, he saw only heaps of jagged concrete and twisted steel.

  Emil extended his hand to Jordan and helped him stand. Peering through the grimy haze, Jordan saw that Kyle, Gary, Maia, Hal, Lucas, and Renata were still with him. Like himself, they all were painted gray with du
st and hacking and coughing.

  Shaking Emil’s hand, Jordan said, “Good work.” Though the young man had not yet demonstrated the same kind of precision control over his psychokinesis that Richard Tyler had, Emil had just proved that he was certainly Richard’s equal in raw power.

  Jordan turned to the others. “Is everyone all right?”

  Lucas, who was kneeling beside the bloodied and gasping Renata, looked up and answered in a voice shaken by grief, “No.”

  Gary, Kyle, and Maia gathered in front of Jordan.

  “I’m not sensing many minds nearby,” Gary said. “Aside from us, I’d say only a couple hundred people made it out alive.”

  Kyle’s face was a portrait of rage. “There were thousands of people in there,” he said. “And who knows how many more in City Hall, and on the street, and the other buildings?” He seized Jordan’s arm. “We warned them not to attack us. Now it’s time to make them pay. One word from you and we can wipe out any city you want: New York, D.C., Boston. Just name it.”

  Jordan pulled free of Kyle’s grasp. “I have a better idea. Follow me.” Walking toward Lucas, Hal, and Renata, he continued. “The U.S. military’s greatest strength is its global information network. But a strength can become a dependency, and a dependency is a weakness.” He kneeled and took Renata’s hand. “Forgive me, but I need to ask you to do one last thing.”

  The dying woman replied through a mouth stained with blood and caked with dust, “Anything.”

  He looked at Kyle. “Can Cassie tell us what the control point was for the satellite that just hit us?”

  “Um …” Kyle said, recoiling a little at being put on the spot. He frowned as he averted his eyes and half turned away from Jordan. Then his confidence returned, and he pivoted back to face the group. “An aircraft carrier on the Pacific coast, twenty-five nautical miles west of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.”

  “Tell her I said thank you,” Jordan said. To his gestalt trio, he continued. “I want you three to find that carrier. Renata, the ship’s computers might still have a link to the satellite that hit us, and through that, to America’s entire network of military satellites. Do your best to tap into it.”

  She nodded. “I’ll try.”

  Lucas, Hal, and Renata joined hands, bowed their heads, and closed their eyes. Jordan, Kyle, Gary, and Maia gathered around them as they communed.

  “I see the ship,” Hal said. His black glasses were broken, revealing his unseeing eyes looking in different directions. “I’ve found its captain. He’s in its command center.”

  Renata coughed up a mouthful of blood, then said, “This is the place. I’m moving through its computers.” She wheezed as she fought for breath, and her exhalations sounded wet. “They still have a link to the satellite.”

  “Is it the one that attacked us?” Jordan asked.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice fading. “I can still see the order in its activity log. The weapon is recharging.”

  Crouching beside her, Jordan whispered into her ear, “Is it connected to any other satellites?”

  Renata’s voice became faint and monotonal. “It’s linked to something. I can follow it …” The color drained from her face. “It’s the U.S. Space Command center at the Pentagon.”

  “This is what we talked about,” Jordan said. “From here, you can knock out all the satellites at once.” The woman began to slump, and Jordan saw her hands slipping from those of Hal and Lucas. He caught her in his arms and held her in place. “Renata, please hang on. We need you to do this. Just one time.”

  “Too many,” she protested, as if she were sleep-talking. “Too big. I can’t.”

  “We’re here, Renata,” Lucas said in a soothing timbre. “Hal and I can help you. Use our strength to clear your mind. Take what you need from us.”

  Inhaling slowly and deeply, Renata seemed to recover some of her focus, and she nodded once. “All right,” she said. “One more time …” The intensity of her exertion put deep furrows in her brow. “I’m inside the command system … All the satellites are linked now … And I’m sending them priority self-destruct orders.” She flashed an amused smile. “Bye-bye birdies.”

  “It’s done,” Hal said. “I can see all the satellites in orbit. Their cores are overloading and slagging their internal components.” He nodded with grim satisfaction. “They’re fried.”

  Lucas released Hal and Renata’s hands. “I’ve ended the link,” he said.

  Jordan embraced Renata, whose life he could feel slipping away. “You did it,” he said. “You’ve just crippled the greatest military in the world.”

  “That’ll show ‘em,” she said through a bloodstained grin.

  Then she let go of one last, quiet breath, and lay still in Jordan’s arms. He gently laid her body on the ash-covered concrete steps, then stood and faced the others. “Find as many survivors as you can, and quickly,” he said. “We don’t have much time. We need to get to shelter before the soldiers come.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  10:25 A.M.

  “GODDAMN,” JED SAID. “It’s a free-for-all out there.”

  Tom stared at the mayhem depicted on the various wall screens and computer monitors in NTAC’s crisis center, and he had to admit that Jed was right. Seattle had become a madhouse. Rioters roamed the streets, destroying cars and setting fires. Looters smashed in store windows and pillaged private homes—whether or not their owners were there to offer resistance.

  “How many of those lunatics do you think are p-positive?” asked Jed, arms crossed over his Kevlar-lined black tactical vest. “There are people in those crowds levitating things, disintegrating things, and doing God knows what else.”

  Marco adjusted his glasses, apparently considering the question. “Given the exodus of p-negatives after the fifty/ fifty epidemic last year, I’d estimate up to three-quarters of our troublemakers are sporting some kind of superpower.”

  “No wonder Seattle PD’s nowhere in sight,” Tom said, imagining how nightmarish the current scenario must look from the perspective of a beat cop without promicin powers. He loosened a side strap on his tactical vest to scratch at an itch that was working its way across his ribs and lower back. “Even Jordan’s ‘peace officers’ look like they’re getting clobbered,” he noted, watching what appeared to be an altercation between a psychokinetic officer and a rioter who could induce seizures with a simple touch.

  Shaking his head, Jed remarked, “Is the fire department even trying to answer calls? I’m looking at three buildings going up in—”

  He was cut off by a blinding flash of white light from a monitor showing a long-distance image of the downtown Seattle skyline. For a moment, Tom felt a twist of raw terror in his gut as he imagined it might be a nuclear warhead detonating. Then the aperture self-adjusted on whatever camera was providing the feed, and all four NTAC agents saw clearly the beam of energy slicing straight down from the sky into the Collier building.

  Watching the tower shatter into fire and fragments, all that Tom could think about was Kyle. From the back of the room, he heard Diana whisper in abject horror, “Maia …”

  The skyscraper imploded from the top down, sinking into itself even as its base erupted and buried several blocks of the city in rubble and a thick gray cloud. Watching the collapse, Tom relived all his worst memories of September 11, 2001. Despite his best efforts not to show his emotions, his eyes burned and misted with tears.

  Jed staggered a bit and lowered himself into a chair, all the while unable to take his eyes off the screen. “Jesus,” he mumbled, sounding like someone in shock.

  Tom swallowed hard and bit back on his fear. He walked over to Marco and gripped the younger man’s shoulder. “Can you get me a line out? Cell, landline, anything? I have to call Kyle, and Diana needs to reach Maia, now.”

  “I’ll try,” Marco said, tapping madly at a communications station keyboard. The monitor attached to it gave him nothing but flashing-red negative responses. “Nothing,” he said. “The Army
cut the landlines, and they’re jamming all nonmilitary frequencies.” He kicked the wall under his workstation. “We’re completely cut off.”

  “That does it,” Diana said. She drew her sidearm, removed and checked the clip, then reloaded the weapon, released the safety, and holstered it. “The cops are MIA, Jordan’s peace officers are useless, and the military’s part of the damn problem.” She slung her assault rifle across her back in the same manner that Jed wore his and picked up her extra ammunition clips as she walked with a purpose toward the door.

  Stepping into her path and holding out one hand, Tom said, “Whoa! You’re not going out there.”

  “The hell I’m not,” Diana said, her gaze fierce and unyielding. “I’ve had enough, Tom. If Maia’s alive—if, by some miracle, whether it was made by God or by promicin, she got out of that building in one piece—I’m gonna find her, and I’m gonna get her out of the city once and for all.”

  “Diana,” Tom said, trying to talk sense to her. “It’s literally a war zone out there. We don’t have any backup. For all we know, we’ve been classified as targets. And if Maia’s alive, then she’s surrounded by some of the most powerful people on the planet.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Diana replied. “Your son’s a grown man. He can handle himself in a crisis. Maia’s only thirteen years old, Tom! She’s still a child, for God’s sake.”

  “I know she’s thirteen, but I’d hardly call her a child, Diana. You didn’t see her in that meeting with Jordan. She handles herself better than some so-called adults I’ve known.”

  Looking not the least bit persuaded by his argument, Diana said, “You have three choices, Tom. You can come with me. You can stay here.” She regarded him with an unblinking stare.

  After several seconds of tense silence, he asked warily, “What’s choice number three?”

  She drew her pistol and aimed it at his face.

  He backed up one full stride, then stepped out of her path and let her pass. She marched past him, girded for battle, and walked away without a backward glance.