Ground Zero rj-13

by F. Paul Wilson

  She nodded. “So do I.”

  Jack leaned back and folded his arms. “You have the floor.”

  “Where to begin?” she said. “Be patient with me. I have never had to explain this before. In the past when you’ve asked, I’ve said I was your mother, but that’s not even remotely true. I say that because I am female and because I am older than any living thing on this planet.” She nodded toward Veilleur. “Even our friend here.”

  Weezy leaned forward, fascinated. Was Goethe’s “eternal feminine” more than just a concept? Was she a real being?

  “But I am not your mother in any sense. I have never called myself Gaia, though I have called myself Herta, but I am neither. I did not create you; you created me. I do not nurture you; you nurture me.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “That’s who you aren’t . . .”

  “As to who I am, perhaps another name would help. Remember what I called myself in Florida?”

  “Sure. Anya.”

  “Anya Mundy, to be exact.”

  “Anima mundi!” Weezy said. “Soul of the world!”

  The Lady smiled at Weezy. “You always were a quick one.”

  Jack was shaking his head. “I was thinking of the guy who wrote King of the Khyber Rifles.”

  “Helps to know Latin,” Weezy said.

  He looked at her. “Another language?”

  She shrugged.

  The Lady said, “ ‘Soul of the world’ is closer but not quite accurate. I am, for want of a better term, the embodiment of the sentience on this planet. I was born when the interactions of the self-aware creatures on the planet reached a certain critical mass. Like any infant, I had limited consciousness at first, but as Earth’s sentient biomass expanded, so did my awareness. Eventually I appeared as a person—a child at first, then an adolescent, then fully grown.”

  “The noosphere,” Weezy breathed, seeing it all come together. “Vernadsky and Teilhard were right?”

  The Lady nodded. “Vernadsky originated the concept, but Teilhard was closer to the truth.”

  “You’ve lost me,” Jack said.

  Weezy spoke as the facts popped into her head. “Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit who theorized that the growth of human numbers and interactions would create a separate consciousness called the noosphere. Needless to say—but I’ll say it anyway—this did not endear him to the Church.”

  “Are we talking cyberspace?”

  “No,” the Lady said. “There is nothing electronic, nothing ‘cyber’ about it.”

  “But where can it go from here?” Weezy said. “What’s the next evolutionary step?”

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I sense other noospheres out there—other worlds, other realities with sentient populations—but I can’t contact them. I am bound to my creators, to humanity. But perhaps the next step will be our noosphere achieving enough breadth and depth and strength to enable it to reach out and contact other noospheres.”

  Weezy had an epiphany. “And maybe that will lead to a community of interacting noospheres, which in turn will give rise to yet another level, an übersphere of collective noosphere consciousness.”

  Weezy felt herself trembling inside. This was wonderful.

  Jack leaned forward. “Sounds like you’re talking about God.”

  The wonder of it struck Weezy dumb for a few seconds. “Yes . . . maybe someday we’ll create God.”

  They all sat in silence for a moment, then something occurred to her.

  “They call you the Lady. Why? Do you always appear as a woman?”

  She nodded. “Always. I don’t know why. Strictly speaking, I should be considered an it, but I always appear as female. I can choose my appearance—any age, any race, any level of beauty or ugliness—but for some reason I can appear only as female. And I must appear, must be physically present in the world. I can be anywhere, but I must always be somewhere.”

  Jack frowned. “You can’t simply disappear, fade back into the noosphere?”

  “No. The noosphere is everywhere, and I am its physical manifestation. As such, I must exist in the physical world.”

  Weezy feared she might explode with . . . what? Glee? Rapture? Triumph? Vindication? But she reined herself in. She believed every word that had been said at this table, but should she? Shouldn’t she doubt? Shouldn’t she do what she had always told everyone else: Ask the next question?

  Is it real, is this the truth, or does it simply seem that way because I so want to believe?

  She hesitated, then steeled herself to ask.

  “Can you show me a different you?”

  The Lady frowned. “Normally I would not even consider such a request, but for you . . . what would you prefer?”

  “How about . . .”—something way different—“an Inuit woman?”

  Mrs. Clevenger blurred, then sharpened to a shorter, darker-skinned woman with almond eyes and black hair braided into two long pigtails. She looked to be in her twenties and was snuggled in a fur-lined parka.

  The dog barked and Weezy looked to see a large male husky standing on four legs and wagging its tail.

  “Another question,” Jack said. “You’re always with a dog. Why a dog?”

  She shrugged and spoke in a younger, softer voice. “He’s my male counterpart. Just as something in the consciousness of the noosphere demands I appear as female—”

  “The eternal feminine,” Weezy said. It explained so much ancient mythology.

  “Perhaps. But the noosphere demands that he appear as a male dog. I don’t know why. I am supposedly his mistress, but he doesn’t always listen.”

  She picked up a knife from the table and held it before her, staring at the blade as she rotated it back and forth. Then she plunged it through the palm of her other hand.

  Weezy let out a yelp of shock. “Ohmygod!”

  The Lady smiled. “Not to worry. I do not eat or drink, and I cannot be hurt in the usual sense.” She removed the knife and the skin immediately sealed itself. “But I can be hurt.”

  She rose and shed the parka, revealing small, dark-tipped breasts.

  Weezy heard Jack say, “Yikes,” but she could not take her eyes off the deep dimple in the Lady’s abdomen to the right of the navel, wide enough to admit two fingertips.

  Then she turned and Weezy gasped as she saw her back. The skin was pocked with hundreds of punctate scars and crisscrossed with fine red lines connecting them. She noticed another dimple in the small of her back, similar to the one in front. For a second she thought she saw light flash within it, but that couldn’t be.

  She shook her head. Couldn’t be? What did that mean anymore?

  Neither Jack nor Veilleur seemed surprised, although Jack looked uncomfortable. He’d apparently seen it before.

  “What . . . what happened?”

  “Opus Omega,” she said, then pointed to the Compendium. “You will read about it in there.”

  Again that instantaneous flash from the dimple. Weezy cocked her head and leaned a little to the right—and froze as she saw light from the window.

  The dimple was a tunnel, a through-and-through passage.

  Weezy didn’t ask about that . . . wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  “All about it?” she asked.

  The Lady raised the parka back over her shoulders. It was closed when she turned to face her.

  “Much of it. The Compendium is ancient and long out of date. Jack knows some of what is not in there. He can fill you in. Study it well, Weezy.”

  “And keep a special eye out for this,” Veilleur said, speaking for the first time since they’d sat down.

  He passed her a slip of paper on which he’d written a strange word: Fhinntmanchca.

  “What is it?”

  “A legend. See what, if anything, the Compendium has to say about it.”

  “I don’t think she should be wasting her time on things that never were and never shall be,” the Lady said.

  Veilleur shrugged. “T
here’s been an Alarm about it. We can’t ignore it.”

  The Lady turned to Weezy. “Absorb all you can. Use your brain to help us thwart the Adversary.”

  The charge overwhelmed her. “Me? What can I do that you can’t? What can I learn that you don’t already know?”

  “I have blind spots. Many things that involve the Ally and the Otherness are shielded from me.”

  “Like the Fhinntmanchca, perhaps?” Veilleur said, a smile peeking through his beard.

  She sighed. “Perhaps. At times I can sense the Adversary’s presence and know what he is doing—he is human, after all—but other times he seems to wink out of existence. He is active on a number of fronts now. Some are petty, involving simple vengeance, others are hidden from me. But he has a plan . . . he most certainly has a plan.”

  “To do what?”

  “Open the gates to the Otherness and let it flood through. And that will be the end of you and, as a consequence, the end of me. For once the Change occurs, the Ally will not want us back. By combining your knowledge of known history with the secrets of the First Age, you may find a way to impede the Adversary, or perhaps even stop him. He is fallible—he has made mistakes in the past—and therefore stoppable.”

  By me? Weezy thought. Me? I don’t think so.

  12

  “I have to go in there?” Darryl said, staring at the Orsa.

  “Well, no.” Drexler spoke from where he stood about ten feet away with Hank. “But you do have to reach in and remove the compound. ‘He who would be healed must remove the compound from the Orsa.’ Or so tradition says.”

  Darryl did not like that idea one bit. He didn’t want any part of him inside that thing. But for a cure, he might go through with it.

  “But the thing’s alive. You said so yourself. And I’m reaching into its mouth and—”

  “It doesn’t have a mouth. It doesn’t eat in the sense you’re thinking. It draws sustenance from contact with the Opus Omega column buried beneath it. That column is planted at an intersection point in the Nexus Grid. That is why we dug up the concrete there, so the Orsa could have contact with the column and draw life from the Grid.”

  Darryl scratched his scraggly jaw, wondering what the hell Drexler had just said. Bunch of gobbledygook.

  “I don’t know, man . . .”

  “See that groove encircling the very end there?”

  He saw it. Maybe half an inch deep running around the conical end, maybe a foot in from the tip.

  “Yeah?”

  “That is a plug of sorts. You simply have to remove it, then reach inside for the compound. Place the compound in the bin by your feet as you remove it. Very simple.”

  Easy for you to say.

  He stared at the thing. The light reflecting off its dull surface partially obscured the vein of brown dust within. He adjusted his angle to study it. He wondered how it had got in there. Then again, what did it matter? He had to get it out.

  Okay. Here goes.

  He slipped his fingers into the groove and felt the Orsa’s surface ripple as he touched it. He stifled his own ripple—of revulsion—and kept his grip. Leaning back he began to pull and twist.

  The plug moved surprisingly easily, almost as though the Orsa was helping to push it out. Darryl didn’t know if he liked that idea. But maybe the Orsa wanted to be rid of it, like getting a splinter removed from its skin.

  He thought of that old story about somebody removing a splinter from a lion’s paw, and then the lion becoming his friend. Maybe that was how this worked. If he removed the plug, the Orsa would be his friend and cure him.

  Finally it released with a slurping pop! He could have sworn he heard the Orsa sigh as the plug fell into his hands.

  “Excellent,” Drexler said. “Now, begin removing the compound.”

  Darryl stared at the pocket left by the plug. A ways beyond it lay the vein of dust. He reached in, immersing his arm to the shoulder.

  “Hey, it’s warm in here and kind of wet.”

  “Does it smell like fish?” Hank said.

  “Not funny, Hank.”

  Thankfully it didn’t smell like anything.

  His questing fingers found the compound and he pulled out a handful. He stared at it. Brown and powdery, with little flecks of what looked like fine gravel.

  Are you the stuff that’s gonna make me better?

  “Okay. I got some.”

  “You must remove it all.”

  He looked at the vein. It ran pretty far in.

  “All? How am I gonna get to it?”

  “By doing what is necessary.”

  “You can do it, Darryl,” Hank said.

  I don’t need a cheerleader, Darryl thought. I need someone to do this for me.

  But since no one was going to volunteer . . .

  He dumped the compound into the bin and returned to his task. He stretched as far as he could, removed more, but the rest was beyond his reach.

  He turned to Hank and Drexler. “I’ll need a hoe or something to get the rest out.”

  “No-no!” Drexler said, waving his hands. “You might damage the inner membranes. That mustn’t happen.”

  “Okay, then, how do I get to the rest?”

  “Just crawl in and get it,” Hank said. “Let’s get this done with.”

  Darryl stared at the opening and didn’t like that idea one bit. Something about this thing made him afraid. But he didn’t see any way around it.

  “Inside,” Drexler said. “You must enter to retrieve the rest. And don’t forget: You will be cured not only of AIDS, but of every illness hidden in your body. If you have a cancer, it will be gone; if you have hardened arteries, they will be cleared.”

  Well, that didn’t sound so bad.

  “All right. I’m going, I’m going.”

  He put one arm in, followed by the other. Then, taking a deep breath, he ducked and slipped his head and shoulders inside.

  Warm in here . . . much warmer than he’d figured. Light from the room filtered through. The sides of the cavity were softer than around the plug, and much, much softer than the Orsa’s hide.

  But forget about that—just grab as much of this junk as you can and get out.

  Even better: Start grabbing the compound and pushing it behind him—the tight space made it hard but it was doable. That way he could scoop it up once he slid back out.

  He cleared out the new area of the vein within reach. The dust seemed lumpier here.

  Almost to the end. Just a little more and he’d be finished. As he inched farther in, he thought he felt the sides tremble. He froze, waiting to feel it again, wondering if he’d really felt it.

  All remained still. Maybe he’d caused it himself. Maybe he’d just felt his own vibrations. More than ever now he wanted to get out of here ASAP.

  The urgency pushed him forward again, stretching his fingers toward the final deposit. He grabbed a handful and felt some larger lumps. He pulled it closer and opened his hand. In the dim light the lumps had definite shapes. They looked familiar. Almost like—

  Teeth! These were human teeth!

  Just then the sides trembled again, but this time they tightened against him.

  No!

  He began a frantic struggle backward, pushing as hard as he could against the slick, rubbery surface, but his hands slipped and the space grew even smaller.

  He screamed.

  The walls began to weep a clear, sour fluid that pressed against his face. He sealed his lips against it but it ran in through his nostrils. It soaked through his clothes and into his skin. And then the trembling in the walls organized into ripples running from his head, along his body, and down his legs. He felt the compound he’d pushed back beside his legs begin to slide away, following the ripples.

  The walls tightened further, molding to him, sealing against him until he couldn’t move a finger. He tried to scream again but the walls were so tight he couldn’t draw a breath. He loosed a strangled groan that allowed the fluid to rush in
to his mouth. It ran down his throat, seeping through his tissues from within and without.

  As his vision and consciousness dimmed he saw the hazy figures of Hank and Drexler through the encasing semitransparent walls. One figure struggling to move his way and the other holding him back.

  Drexler! He knew all along! He set me up!

  13

  “An awful lot to absorb,” Jack said as he exited the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and took the ramp to the southbound BQE.

  He’d degaraged his own car for this trip, and the big black Crown Victoria moved easily into the flow. Traffic on the dreaded Brooklyn-Queens Expressway wasn’t bad at the moment, but come 4 P.M. it would start to thicken into motorized sludge.

  In a way he wished it were later. He knew a couple of good Russian restaurants out where they were headed. He could treat Weezy to some primo borscht. Wouldn’t mind a little himself.

  But she looked too dazed to eat. He felt sorry for her. What he’d learned in an incremental process over the past two years had been dumped on her in a matter of an hour. She slumped in the passenger seat with the Compendium-laden backpack clutched against her chest like the handbag of an Omaha matron crossing Times Square.

  “Yeah, a lot,” she said after a bit. “I’ve been accused of having wild theories, but they’re flat-out nothing compared to the reality you three just laid on me. Even though this doesn’t contradict anything I’ve assumed or conjectured, it’s going to take a while to sink in. I knew the truth behind the Secret History was big, but I never dreamed it was this big.”

  “Big as it gets.”

  “Who’s this ‘Adversary’ Mister Veilleur was talking about?”

  “He’s the Otherness’s point man.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  “He does.” Rasalom. “But we don’t speak it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he hears, and then he comes looking for whoever’s taking his name in vain. So why don’t we just call him ‘R’?”

  “Is he as scary as you’re making him sound?”