The Essence of Darkness

by Thomas Clearlake

  The others remained silent, trying to register their movements. What they heard terrified them. The noise was faint—more a murmur than the sound of footsteps. It hammered the ground steadily, like a surge.

  Redfield operated the breech of his assault rifle. “Our time may have come,” he shouted, “but a lot of these bastards are going to go down before we do!”

  Perry also cocked his weapon.

  The murmur was swelling, second by second.

  Matthew and Coyote were watching the only two tunnels that opened into the hall where they stood.

  Suddenly, the ground shook under their feet. Several creatures, at least five, burst in. They wore armor and wielded rough swords cut from their ore in their hands. They slowed their pace and took their time advancing, planted on their muscular limbs, staring at them with their inky eyes.

  One of them came forward toward Matthew and uttered human words interspersed with hostile growls. “We’re giving you a choice, Sentinel. Join us or you will perish with them,” it shouted, pointing to Matthew’s crew.

  Matthew felt his body’s particles activate. He had never experienced this movement before and had no control over it. “I’m on their side, and that’s where I’m staying,” he retorted, pointing his weapon at the creatures.

  The five entities barked jagged snarls between their teeth; it sounded like a battle cry. A multitude of others suddenly stormed out of the tunnels. In a coordinated movement, they all rushed the resistance fighters, spinning their blades. Matthew opened fire. But he soon saw that their mineral armor stopped the AK-47 bullets. The others fired continuously at the creatures that leaped onto the walls to jump them. One of them managed to take Perry by surprise. It ripped his head off with its clawed hands. Coyote loaded a warhead into his rocket launcher and opened fire on an entrance where they were pouring in by the dozens. But the explosion couldn’t stem the flood of screaming monsters invading the space from all sides. Redfield was hurling his grenades with one hand and shooting in all directions with the other. Coyote also started throwing grenades, but their ammunition would run out soon. Matthew grabbed his rocket launcher and blew up a creature that was about to jump on Redfield. He grabbed a warhead from his bag to reload his rocket launcher. But at that moment, he felt the strange sensation that had gripped him a few minutes earlier. His particles seemed to be disconnecting him from his structure. A black cloud was revolving around him. He then felt the presence of another being approaching . . .

  A voice rose in his mind, the same as the one he’d heard in his dreams—the voice of his father, Eliott.

  “Matthew.”

  “Dad,” he answered in his mind.

  Eliott, in his cloud form, came out of one of the room’s walls and floated to Matthew, whose body was disintegrating. The two shadows then merged into one.

  “We’re reunited now.”

  Matthew had the incredible impression that he himself had spoken these words, as their two bodies were so intertwined.

  They were a single being because there could be only one Sentinel.

  Down below, creatures has surrounded Redfield and Coyote. They were out of ammunition. They waved their last grenades to discourage the creatures from moving in on them. The circle of Hominum primus was tightening around them.

  “We can only save one of them.”

  Redfield threw his last grenade into the throng. One of the monsters picked it up from the ground before it exploded. The Hominum primus glared at the young resistance fighter with its dark eyes while squeezing the grenade in its hand so hard that it didn’t go off. Redfield snapped and pulled out his combat knife to rush toward the creatures in a suicide attack.

  The cloud descended from the hall’s ceiling and wrapped Coyote in its particles. Before the monsters could hurl themselves at him, his body rose into the air, carried by the black cloud that embraced him with its fumaroles. Slipping far above the creatures and Adept soldiers searching everywhere for explosive charges, the cloud flew to the well and back to the surface.

  Coyote was unconscious when the cloud carried him away. From his earpiece, Lauren’s panicked voice repeated, “Coyote, Matthew, do you read me? How are you doing? Only twelve minutes until the charges explode! I repeat, how are you doing with evacuating the area?”

  The cloud passed through the crypt door and had time to travel several miles across the ice fields. Coyote gradually regained consciousness. The freezing wind was burning his cheeks. He barely had time to realize that a cloud was carrying him through the air when an ultrapowerful shock wave shook the cloud. It fell several feet, propelled from afar by the massive explosion that roared on for a minute, shaking the earth. A black cloud rose several thousand feet into a sky lit red by the nuclear explosion. A bitter smile played on Coyote’s lips, while tears streamed from his eyes. Was it joy? Sorrow? His whole team had perished at the bottom of that accursed crypt. But they had just won a victory for all of humanity.

  He suddenly felt a presence. He turned around to see, a few yards away, the strange black cloud of about seventy cubic feet hovering about three feet off the ground. The thing remained motionless for another moment and then rose, disappearing into the distance in the wind-driven snow.

  Then he heard Lauren’s desperate voice in his earpiece. “Coyote, Matthew, infiltration team, do you read me? This is Lauren. Where are you? Coyote, Matthew, do you read me?”

  “I read you, Lauren.” He didn’t know what else to say. His gaze drifted to the horizon, illuminated by an immense orange glow. It rose into space, its light gradually fading.

  “Coyote? Is everything Okay? We made it back to the helicopter. Where are you?”

  “Lauren—”

  “Activate your trackers,” she said, without waiting for his reply. “We’ll come pick you up.”

  “Tracker activated,” he confirmed.

  “Coyote, I only have your signal on the radar; where are the others, Coyote?”

  “I’m the only survivor from the infiltration team, Lauren. They fought to the very end. I don’t know how I was able to survive, myself, but I’m here.”

  One of Lauren’s team members took over. “Coyote, hold your position; we’re taking off right now and coming to get you.”

  “Copy that. I’m waiting for you.”

  47

  The Black Hawk landed at the Rajpur heliport under a glorious sky. Lauren, Coyote, Liam O’Leary, and Fred Morse stepped out to the cheers of the entire base assembled there. They paid a solemn tribute to those who had sacrificed themselves. Lauren was devastated in the silence. She tried not to show any of the pain that weighed on her heart.

  The base improvised a big party, but they didn’t spend much time celebrating. This victory was only the beginning of humanity’s uprising against Hominum primus.

  Now they could restore hope.

  Everything was going to be possible again.

  January 2019

  The news had spread like wildfire. Within a few days, the Dawn resistance had relayed the information to the allied fighter networks. These in turn had given it to civilian organizations and small independent groups. The control Hominum primus exercised was now based only on representative power. It was no longer able to subjugate man by force since it had just lost eighty percent of its population—all of its warriors—in the destruction of the crypt. Now the resistance had to assemble a global armed force capable of overthrowing the Adept-led government in secret. This would only be possible over time.

  In the camp cities that had flourished far from the former megacities, people were organizing to spread the message of the Dawn—all people, no exceptions. This was no longer only the resistance fighters’ mission. It had become a duty and an honor for every individual—man, woman, or child old enough to talk—to speak for freedom.

  Little by little, a new consciousness was rising. It was so powerful that it transcended racial differences, social classes, and borders. It seemed unlimited. Instead of destroying our species, the Elders
had united it around a new common ideal.

  Instead of dividing it, they had brought it together.

  Humanity had emerged from the unequal battle against this common enemy greater and stronger than ever. And based on that victory, it would build the foundation for a new era, an era of true peace and prosperity. In the countryside, children ran naked and drank river water without fear of contamination. Women sang, and people celebrated around fires all night long like our ancestors did.

  The effects of industrial shortages the war caused weren’t all bad. People emerged from the cocoon of multimedia technologies. They awoke from the illusion of artificial happiness that insidiously poisoned them, making them slaves of virtual pleasures. People reclaimed their bodies and their minds.

  And they were reclaiming the land.

  The giant reapers that had harvested thousands of tons of genetically modified wheat daily were now rusting in abandoned sheds. So were hundreds of other species of mechanical monsters that, a few months before, had still bruised the Earth with their steel claws. The abandoned fields stretched as far as the eye could see. People could claim and own plots, on the sole condition that they cultivate them in a sustainable way.

  The time of suffering was over.

  And some of the wisest among us were happy to say that “People had finally come to their senses.”

  May 4, 2019

  The independent radio stations officially declared the end of the H-4 pandemic. Authorities continued to distribute the H-0 antivirus, but they now distributed it publicly, thanks to the efforts of the opposition party, the resistance’s voice. They didn’t have a voice in the UN assembly, which Hominum primus still controlled. But the people heard it, and that was all that mattered. The idea of creating a global military opposition began to take shape. Since the Adepts had dismantled the human political classes, everything was now possible. The field was open to establishing new ideologies and implementing them over time. The word utopia often came up. And people now realized that it no longer belonged in the realm of dreams. For some, humanity had emerged from its blindness through the door of war, and this had been a blessing in disguise. That might have been true, but the wounds needed to heal. Having this kind of discussion meant opening the door to new conflicts—especially since others foresaw possibilities that didn’t bode well. A positive majority had to emerge, based precisely on everything man had previously described as utopian. This was the case if they wanted to achieve a political ideal that was sound and in keeping with the common good.

  Economically, large firms continued to dominate the market and finished buying out the last independent groups that had held out so far. The Adepts intended to maintain their economic diktat. Although appearances still suggested the Adepts’ supremacy, in reality, power was changing hands. The Dawn decided to concentrate its forces on large-scale media campaigns. It created the U-Life movement, intended to become the voice of the free world. The Dawn’s still had an improvised broadcasting network with no satellites and even less television. But their message was getting through anyway. Families were getting their old transistor radios from the attic. MIT was working on a parallel Internet project. In the field, deportations to the extraction camps were still taking place, but they were decreasing sharply. The resistance-led guerrillas were on the rise. Throughout the world, thousands of volunteers, regardless of age or gender, joined the Dawn every day. In July 2019, there were two consecutive attacks on the extraction camps in Limestone, Arkansas and Sangre de Cristo, New Mexico. They completely destroyed both sites and rescued 14,800 human survivors On the military side, the situation was changing again. For most of the generals who had allied themselves with the Adepts, it was an uncertain time. It wasn’t difficult to predict what would happen. Within the armies, desertion was on the rise. As the weeks passed, the new order became more fragile. It was now just a matter of time before it would end.

  At the FBI, severe tensions between supervisors of the various services led to more than thirty resignations on American soil. However, the Bureau allowed no leaks about the reasons for these internal conflicts.

  Special Agent Lauren Chambers prepared the official report on the St. Marys case, dated June 8, 2019. It documented an investigation into five child abductions that occurred between June 9 and September 27, 2017. Special Agent Eliott Cooper’s investigations had led him to find the culprits in the forests about twenty-five miles northeast of the city. They included Cassandra Owens, age 21, Emily Russel, age 23, and Isolde Hohenwald, a German national of unknown age. All three sustained fatal injuries during Agent Cooper’s armed intervention. The agent had intervened in response to what he had described as the attempted murder of five-year-old Christopher Elmer. The officer had fired his handgun twelve times at the three suspects who, according to his statement, “were practicing a ritual sacrifice on the child as part of an occult ceremony.” The three suspects had perished as a result of their injuries. Special Agent Eliott Cooper had suffered serious injuries during this operation and died several hours later. Young Christopher Elmer had also succumbed to his injuries. Special Agent Lauren Chambers had brilliantly resolved this case on November 19, 2017. She had investigated the events and found three surviving children held captive in the basement of a coal mine: Timothy Pearson, Ryan Jones, and Jaden Watson. Five-year-old Iris Winkler had passed away during her confinement.

  Lauren had access to this report only twenty-four hours before it went public. This report had in fact replaced the report she’d written. On the advice of her comrades at the Dawn, she didn’t attempt to make the truth heard. There was no point. Sooner or later, heads would roll. Pressure was increasing on the Hominum primus strategists, and the politicians under the Adepts were beginning to consider turning against the ruling power.

  Special Agent Lauren Chambers resigned the FBI on November 7, 2019.

  In this highly unstable geopolitical context, the Pentagon called for an investigation into the activities of the multinational Scientech group. They referred the case to the NSA, independent of any authority. Two months later, the agency forwarded the results of its investigations to the Pentagon in a confidential file.

  The report indicated that the Hominum primus crypts found in the US, eight in total, were all on lands Scientech had acquired over the past thirty years. The NSA also reported that it had encountered administrative delays in obtaining certain accounting, management, and production documents from Scientech. But beyond this investigation, fundamental questions arose. Was the crypt count reliable? Could there be others?

  The Kremlin had publicly denied that a twenty-megaton nuclear explosion had taken place in Siberia. It remained silent on the political relations between Russia and the Adept coalition.

  On American soil, the resistance officially destroyed the last two extraction camps still in operation on November 14 and November 27, 2019. For the NSA experts, the most important thing was that they had neutralized the regeneration of the Elders. However, they assigned a department to counting and locating crypts eventually not yet discovered.

  No official document mentioned the existence of the Sentinel. There was no record of any statements mentioning the creature.

  Eliott Cooper received a headstone at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, DC without any ceremony or posthumous medal.

  *

  Lauren left the Meadow Creek base for Oregon, near Colton, a village south of Portland. She had bought a small farm there. She moved there with her mother, Sandra, who was now sixty-two years old and paraplegic. Lauren spent most of her days on her parcel of land. She planned to grow a vegetable garden there and possibly buy an additional plot to make a living. Taking care of her mother took the rest of her time, but it wasn’t a burden for her. They had both learned to foster a relationship full of tenderness and respect. The facility where her mother had been staying in Los Angeles had evacuated her just before the bombings. Lauren had paid for home care and housed her mother at her home in Seattle until she
returned from Meadow Creek to look for a larger place to live, far from the city.

  Maple Bird Farm was on a hillside. It had belonged to a Dawn resistance fighter killed on a mission. Lauren had bought it for next to nothing from his brother, who was too old to take care of it. It was a rustic building passed down from one generation to the next since the West was won. There was work to do; a tornado had damaged the barn and stables. She needed to replace some sheet metal that had come off the roof and nail boards to the walls—nothing very complicated. Even so, it would take her a good two months to refurbish the building on her own. The stables would house only two or three draft animals. Lauren wanted to work her land using biodynamic methods. All she had left to do was to repair the old farm equipment rusting in the back of the barn.

  She needed to be busy with physical tasks to avoid thinking too much. She couldn’t forget Eliott and Matthew. Not a minute went by without her thinking of one or the other. Her heart felt so heavy. More than once, when the pain was unbearable, she thought about grabbing her gun and turning it on herself. At those times, she thought of Eliott. She listened to the advice he would have given, if he had been there, near her: “Never let your guard down. Fight until the very end.” So she doubled her efforts in her work, sawing boards to rebuild the barn, plowing an acre of land with a spade and pickax, weeding by hand, and chopping wood with an ax. She would only stop when night finally fell, when she was dragging from exhaustion. Then she went inside to prepare dinner. Sometimes, she didn’t eat and went upstairs to collapse on her bed. In those moments, she no longer had the strength to think, and even less to suffer. She would wake up in the early morning to start back to work, without a word, with an empty stare, like a wandering ghost. She would have given anything to be with them, on the other side.

  On rare occasions, her mother was able to get her to say a few words. “How do you feel, my girl? You look awfully pale this morning.”