“The French traitor?” asked Jack.
“I don’t have time to explain.” Selene glanced around the corridor. Then, she turned to the hound. “Is anyone behind these hatches?”
The beast examined her. The braincase was too large for it to be a normal hound. It also watched her with too much intelligence. What had Mother done to make it so smart? And why?
Finally, the beast put its nose to the floor. It seemingly followed a scent, halted, sniffed in a new spot and then trotted past them. The beast went to the hatch beside Selene’s former cell. The beast whined in an odd manner. It suddenly seemed eager.
“We need the man behind the hatch,” Selene said.
The beast cocked its head.
“What’s going on?” Jack asked her, sounding perplexed.
Selene explained to him about the brain enhancer injection. “My mind’s racing at hyper-speed. I can put things together faster than ever. I’m thinking the hound hates these people. There has to be a reason for that. I’m thinking it hates Marcus.”
“The hound was an outer sentry at the D’erlon Plant in the Ardennes,” Jack said. “How much can it hate them?”
“It’s intelligent and sensitive, but I bet they still treated it like an animal.”
The beast stared at her as if listening to every word.
“Can you break into this room?” Selene asked Jack.
Agent Elliot approached the hatch while the beast watched him carefully.
“We’re allies,” Jack muttered to the thing. “You’d better not forget that.”
The beast didn’t step aside.
“Talk to him in a friendly way,” Selene suggested.
Jack gave her a look.
“Talk to him like you’d want to be talked to,” she said.
“You’re laying down the Golden Rule on me, huh?” Jack asked.
Selene nodded.
Jack cleared his throat as he regarded the hound. “We were enemies once. Now, we’re friends. I’m going to trust you…” He looked up at Selene.
“You’re doing well,” she said. “He’s smart and sensitive. He can understand you. Don’t ever forget that.”
Jack regarded the hound again. He nodded a second later. “The past is the past. We’re both fighting for our world. I’ll cover your back and I hope you’ll cover mine.”
The beast peered at Agent Elliot. Slowly, the shaggy creature stepped out of the way.
Jack heaved a sigh of relief. Then he stepped to the hatch, testing the handle. It moved. “Ready?” he asked Selene.
“Go,” she said.
Jack opened the hatch, jumping through with his heater ready. “Jackpot,” he said a moment later.
The beast followed and stood stock still, staring at the sight.
Selene saw why a second later. A nude Marcus lay on an articulated frame. The big man didn’t move nor did his eyes open. An electrical arc surrounded his ankles, wrists and neck.
“What’s under the frame?” Jack asked.
“Probably his weapons and clothes,” Selene said.
The beast growled deep in its throat. It was a frightening sound, putting an atavistic dread in Selene’s stomach. She’d guessed right a moment ago about the beast hating Mother’s people. She gathered her resolve, turning toward the thing and going down onto one knee.
It regarded her.
“Marcus is our ally,” she told the hound. “I don’t like him, but he’s against Mother now. I think he always has been. I understand that you hate him, but we have to work together to defeat Mother. Do you understand me?”
The beast glanced from her to Marcus. Slowly, its hackles lowered and then it turned away, sitting down, waiting.
“What do you think?” Selene asked Jack.
He shrugged.
Standing, massaging her forehead, Selene approached the frame’s controls. She tried to remember what Hela had done earlier. It wasn’t clear from looking at the panel.
“I’m going to have guess,” she said.
“Whatever you’re going to do,” Jack told her, “do it quickly. We’re probably out of time as it is.”
Selene touched a control. Sizzling sounds grew louder as Marcus’s body arched as if in pain. Frantic that she’d injured him, Selene manipulated controls faster. Marcus thrashed on the frame. The stink of burned flesh heralded wisps of smoke from his ankles and wrists. The unconscious man groaned.
Selene stepped back from the controls.
“You can’t do that!” Jack shouted. “Finish what you started.”
She tried different buttons and switches. Several seconds later, the electric arcs around his throat, wrists and ankles disappeared.
“You did it,” Jack said.
Marcus’s eyes flew open. He jerked upright to a sitting position, twisting his head to stare at them. Convulsively, the big man tried to roll off the articulated frame and crashed face-first onto the floor.
The beast found that irresistible. It lunged at the prone man.
“No!” Jack shouted.
The beast growled at Agent Elliot.
“Please, we have a greater objective,” Selene told the hound. “You have to control your baser desires if we’re going to defeat Mother.”
The beast regarded her with wonder, deliberately sitting down a moment later.
“Well done,” Jack said. “We averted one disaster.” As he finished speaking, a klaxon began to blare outside in the corridor.
-89-
STONE CORRIDOR
UNDERGROUND PYRAMID
Marcus felt the hound’s scrutiny. He knew the experimental hound didn’t trust him. He couldn’t say he blamed the creature. It was amazing to him the hound was free inside the pyramid. Yet, it made sense now why the motorcycle riders had been armed with dart pistols instead of guns. They must have been tracking the hound. The beast must have slipped into the pyramid during the Learjet’s explosion. He’d always felt that Mother had underestimated the thing’s cunning.
Marcus gripped his .55 Knocker. He didn’t like seeing the D17 agent here, didn’t like the idea of working with the man. He was Marcus. He could do this on his own. Still, he would use what fate had given him.
Marcus understood the others needed him to do this. He’d woken up to their fright concerning the klaxon. It had stopped sounding. The klaxon hadn’t had anything to do with them. Instead, it had announced the beginning of The Day. The final countdown was here, and he still didn’t know what the stations were ultimately supposed to achieve.
The geologist had told him they repelled the iron core of the planet, creating a stronger magnetic field. She’d wanted to know if that gave him any hints as to the grand purpose. Frederick and Hela might have known. Marcus didn’t have a clue. He would have soon, though.
Marcus hadn’t been to any of the other stations. Station Eight had been the first after all these years, and it had been abandoned. Although apparently not completely so, not given the D17 agent’s fantastic story of gravitational tube transfer.
The point, though, was that Marcus knew his way inside the underground pyramid. He kept them hidden as they advanced toward the great central chamber. Mother would be in there, doing whatever it was she’d planned these last seven hundred years.
Marcus grinned intently. This was it. Finally, he was going to face a worthy opponent. There wasn’t anyone like Mother. She would have her lackeys at the controls around the room. Marcus hefted his Knocker. He knew what was going to happen to Mother’s favorite children. Hopefully, smug Frederick would be in there. Amazingly, Hela was already dead.
Marcus led the way with Jack, Selene, the hound and Ney behind him. They’d found the former DGSE agent in the next cell, secured to another articulated frame.
Maybe he would need allies to cover his back. His siblings were dangerous just like him. How many would be in the central chamber?
Marcus had been doing some hard soul-searching for many years. It had crystalized on the plane ride back to Libya. The s
tations were dangerous to the Earth. Selene had told him about Hela’s comment: that Mother wouldn’t need him in the New Order. He felt betrayed by that, but he understood. The smart ones always thought to use the fighters, the champions.
He was going to kill Mother, shut down the stations and pick up the reins of Mother’s hidden kingdom. It was time to do things his way. He’d been the subordinate long enough. That meant he had to kill everyone in the pyramid, including those marching behind him. Treachery was wrong, especially as the others had freed him from the frame. But, to gain control of Mother’s apparatus, it was worth backstabbing his allies this one time.
To defeat Mother in her lair, Marcus would need every advantage. Thus, he would fight with his allies one hundred percent.
Marcus was going to trust his instinctive judgment to know when to turn on them. At that point, he wouldn’t hesitate, coming out on top with Mother’s empire ready to obey him.
Marcus paused, glancing back at the D17 agent. The man watched him. Marcus didn’t like that.
“We take an elevator up several floors,” Marcus whispered. “When the door opens—we’re going to have to kill everyone in the chamber.”
The D17 agent nodded curtly.
“Mother won’t show us mercy,” Marcus said.
“Got it,” the man said.
“We, therefore, must be equally ruthless.”
The D17 agent became blank-faced.
It was then Marcus had a glimpse of the real Jack Elliot, the man’s deadliness. It caused Marcus’s features to harden. That in turn made the agent’s eyebrows lift fractionally. Both men’s gun hands tensed.
Marcus forced a smile. He’d almost raised his Knocker to obliterate the dangerous agent. At the last second, he recognized the slight, telltale signs of a force field suit. His .55 caliber bullets would not reach Agent Elliot. He was going to need a heater to slay the man.
The soldier also realized the agent recognized his desire to shoot him. Jack had barely restrained himself.
Instead of making Marcus afraid, he felt a wild elation sing through his body and mind. This was why he had been born, to fight worthy foes. First, he would take down Mother. Then, he would rid himself of the second most dangerous person on Earth, Jack Elliot. That would prove that Marcus was the champion of the world.
“Are you ready?” the soldier asked in a low voice.
“Let’s do it,” Jack said, hoarsely.
“Yes,” Marcus said, “let’s.”
-90-
ELEVATOR
UNDERGROUND PYRAMID
Jack checked the fully charged heater, slipping it inside a front pocket. He stood before Marcus with his back to the soldier. The five of them including the hound rode a lift upward.
“How big is the pyramid?” Selene asked from the back.
“Five times the Giza pyramid,” Marcus rumbled.
“It’s huge then,” Selene said.
“Yes.”
“Who built it?”
Jack heard Marcus’s jacket rustle. The soldier must be shrugging.
“You don’t know?” Selene asked.
“No,” Marcus said, flatly.
“Aren’t you curious?”
“Does it matter who?” the soldier asked.
“I should think it matters considerably,” Selene said.
Jack cleared his throat. “Samson told me two hundred fallen angels started the mess.”
“What?” Selene asked.
“Samson said it’s all recorded in the Book of Enoch,” Jack said, quickly explaining some of what Samson had told him.
“What does any of what you just said have to do with the stations?” Selene asked.
“I didn’t think so earlier,” Jack said, “but now I think the fallen angels built them.”
“Ah…I have news for you, Jack. The stations use high technology.”
“I got that,” Jack said.
“Angels don’t use high tech,” Selene told him.
“How do you know that? If they understand great mysteries, why wouldn’t they be able to make high tech stations, lasers and gravitational tubes?”
No one spoke for a moment. Jack turned around. Selene stared at him in disbelief. Marcus was stone-faced. Ney seemed uninterested.
“Let’s use our reason,” Selene finally said.
“I’m all for that,” Jack said. “I’m just telling you what Samson Mark Two told me. He was pretty certain about it, too.”
“Madmen usually are certain,” Selene said. “It’s one of the signs of their madness. Clearly, the stations are wrecking the Earth just as they did last time. That doesn’t take God. It just takes meddling aliens who unleashed powers they couldn’t control.”
“But—”
“Listen,” Selene said, “Tesla once said, ‘what one man calls God, another calls the laws of physics.’ If you want to call these aliens fallen angels…” Selene shrugged.
Jack blinked several times. “Whatever the stations are supposed to do,” he said, “it must be critically important to Mother.”
“Hela spoke about bringing universal peace to the planet,” Selene said. “The use today is supposed to usher in a new order of existence.”
“We have another two floors to go,” Marcus announced. He drew the Knocker, the huge barrel looking murderous this close.
Jack pulled out the heater he’d filched from one of the soldiers he’d slain earlier. It was fully charged. He put that in a different pocket. Then, he took out a flat, palm-sized control unit with several buttons on it. He debated asking Marcus what it was supposed to do. He hesitated, though.
Jack didn’t trust Marcus. He had a nose for these things. In the secretive world of espionage and commando raids, one had to rely on one’s instincts if one was going to come out of the ops alive. The man behind him was a killer, had attacked them in Station Eight at Mother’s orders. The soldier had switched sides because the Learjet pilot had turned on him—Selene had whispered the story to Jack while walking down a corridor.
What did Marcus desire most of all? That was the key to understanding the soldier. So far, Jack had felt smug superiority from the man. Marcus walked, talked and acted like a superman, looking down his nose at them. Would such a man be content to live an ordinary life? Marcus hadn’t even buckled under Mother’s rule. What did that tell him?
Elliot snorted to himself. He recalled a lesson from Sunday school. This was a crazy time to think about it. It must have been Samson’s tales getting to him. What had caused the Devil’s fall from grace? It had been pride, overweening ambition to replace God with himself. That had started the war in Heaven.
Why should it be any different down here? A man like Marcus didn’t want to take second place to anyone. Maybe it had galled Marcus all these years taking orders from Mother. Wasn’t the soldier supposed to be a superman? Sure. Why did Mother trust some of her supermen and not the others? Surely, the world’s most cunning person could recognize whom she should keep at arm’s length.
What did that mean for them? It meant that Marcus was a temporary ally. He would have ulterior motives. The soldier’s arrogance screamed that to be true.
Should I turn around and fry him? Is he more dangerous at our back or is he worth more fighting with us against Mother?
Jack inhaled as he set himself. They were almost to the control chamber. The ultimate objective today was stopping Mother. That meant they badly needed Marcus’s help. Once they shut down the stations, if that was possible, then it would be time to worry about the aftermath.
This was like Russia and America uniting in World War II to take down Germany. Once the fighting ended, then round two started.
The beast growled from deep in its throat.
Jack’s neck prickled with anticipation. It was too bad Mother or her scientists hadn’t given the hound the ability to speak.
We have to stop Mother.
Jack squeezed his eyes shut and opened them wide. Unlike normal ops, he was nervous today. His
heart pounded and his palms had become sweaty.
Jack transferred a heater to his left hand, wiping his right palm on his pants. Then he re-gripped the heater with the right.
Marcus chuckled low under his breath.
That made Jack’s gut twist. The soldier yearned for this. He was going into battle with two DNA-freaks. What had it been like in the world before the Great Cataclysm? Had there really been heroes of old, supermen?
The elevator slowed.
Jack used the back of his right hand to wipe his mouth.
The elevator stopped. The doors began to open. As they did, Jack felt the soldier’s left hand on his back just below his neck. The doors slid open faster. Marcus shoved Jack, propelling Agent Elliot into a vast chamber the shape of an inner pyramid.
People stood at controls everywhere. Some sat on seats halfway up the slanted walls. There were giant screens in various places. What seemed like computers whirled with colored displays. It was like NORAD, only in an underground pyramid built before human history had started.
Jack kept stumbling, working to catch himself, doing his best to keep from tripping onto his face.
In the middle of the vast chamber that was bigger than three football fields stood a person in a cloak and hood with her back to Jack. Before the person was a giant circular object maybe thirty feet high and as far across. Blue lights pulsed along the circular disc. There was nothing in the center of the disc. Jack could see through it onto the other side of the pyramidal-shaped chamber.
There had to be two hundred people at the controls. Jack hadn’t expected so many. He wondered if Marcus had.
Finally, stopping, glancing over his shoulder, Jack saw Marcus. The big man raised his Knocker with preternatural speed. He aimed at the person in the center of the chamber and began to squeeze his trigger finger.
Jack whipped around to see what would happen to the person he assumed must be Mother.
Artifact Page 36