Artifact

by Vaughn Heppner

  -91-

  CONTROL CHAMBER

  UNDERGROUND PYRAMID

  Selene saw Marcus shove Jack out of the elevator. It seemed like a treacherous thing to do. Agent Elliot was good on his feet, though, managing to remain upright as he stumbled into the chamber.

  The soldier bounded out, raised his gun and aimed at the woman in the center of the vast room. Marcus pulled the trigger several times. The .55 Knocker went click, click, click, the hammer rising and falling to absolutely no effect but for the noise.

  Jack moved almost as fast, aiming a heater with his thumb pressed against the firing button. His silent weapon had even less effect.

  Marcus reacted faster, turning, aiming the gun at a nearby operator. He pulled the trigger again, producing another useless click.

  Many operators glanced at them. Selene noticed they reacted badly to sight of the hound. The beast watched tensely with its hackles raised.

  Marcus roared with frustration, shaking his Knocker. He glared at the assembled operators. “Follow me!” he shouted, holstering the big gun and breaking into a sprint for the cloaked person in the center.

  That one had turned. She wore a shimmering mask just like the one she’d worn in the video from 1908. It was Mother. Selene knew because goosebumps rose on her arms and thighs.

  Marcus moved like an out-of-control semi, his features flushed and his lips pulled back in a fierce snarl. The hound lunged after him, streaking past Jack. That must have finally penetrated Agent Elliot’s thinking. He ran after the other two. Selene saw a gleaming knife in Marcus’s right fist.

  “Hold,” Mother said, her voice loud, maybe amplified. She raised something metallic in her right hand. It flashed blue, sending a wide blue beam that caught Marcus, the beast and Jack within its ray.

  All three of them slowed and then stopped, standing rigidly still as if they couldn’t move.

  “We are undone, mademoiselle,” Ney whispered to Selene. The DGSE agent hadn’t charged with the others. He now holstered his gun with a minimum of fanfare, no doubt hoping to remain unnoticed.

  “Marcus,” Mother said. “You’re interrupting my moment of glory. That is unseemly of you.”

  Marcus didn’t respond. It was quite possible he could not.

  “You brought friends,” Mother said. “Look. There is the experimental hound. I consider its presence a monument to my genius. I have bested the ancients in that field, whose greatest creature was the untamable Minotaur. I believe the next few moments will show another of my triumphs as I excel beyond anything they achieved.”

  As Mother spoke, Selene glanced at the giant screens. They showed frightful images. There was a city somewhere. It had masses of palm trees and other tropical plants. Hordes of people madly pedaled their bicycles. Something shimmering appeared above them. A second later, a mighty explosion filled the air. Buildings burst apart. Trees flattened themselves just like in the Tunguska Event and people went flying.

  A similar event happened in the Artic or Antarctic Ocean. The sky-flash sent ice and snow hurdling into the disturbed sea.

  Other screens showed howling winds sweeping everything before them. Cars, parts of houses, trees, cows, dogs, people and fences flew through the air at terrific speeds. In another screen, electrical discharges flashed upward into the roiling sky. It hurt Selene’s eyes the bolts were so intensely white. Charred corpses lay scattered everywhere there.

  Selene glanced from screen to screen. Mountains shook. Lava spewed out of prairies. Cities crumpled from devastating earthquakes. Massive tsunamis sped at coastlines.

  She’s destroying the Earth, Selene realized. Is this what happened last time thousands of years ago?

  “We’re ready to begin the countdown,” a lean man said at one of the control panels. “I’m not sure how long we can funnel the energies,” he added.

  “What are you hoping to achieve with this madness?” Selene shouted at Mother.

  The woman with the shimmering mask turned toward her. “Ah. Selene, my child, you always strike to the heart of the matter. You are a pleasure to me. You have surmounted many obstacles to reach this place. I am well pleased with you.”

  Selene took courage at that. She raised an arm, indicating the various screens. “You’re destroying the planet. Nikola Tesla predicted such a thing.”

  “Tesla,” Mother said. “He aided my research for a time. He had a brilliant mind, but he did not truly understand vibrations.”

  “What?”

  Mother laughed. “What you’re seeing is an illusion, sweet girl. The worthless ones die by their millions, but it doesn’t matter in the end. We will rebuild paradise on Earth. Later, we shall expand throughout the galaxy with the noblest civilization in existence.”

  “Do you see the screens?” Selene shouted. “It’s a mass disaster just like last time.”

  “Last time,” Mother said, “the ancients lost control at the end. They unleashed uncontained energies due to their attempt to breach the Citadel. That produced a disaster, as you say. It did not destroy the world machine, though. I will search for different outposts, connecting with them and reaping the benefit of their greater wisdom and technology.”

  Selene shook her head. “What does the world-machine do? I don’t understand.”

  “The great ones came here from afar,” Mother said. “They were banished, I believe. They did not travel by spaceship, but through a doorway, through interdimensional travel. That is as good a word as any for what this is.” Mother indicated the circular object rising from the floor behind her. “The great ones had been left adrift on our mud-ball planet. They did not accept the verdict, however. They used their wisdom and craft, deciding to build a world machine so they could return home.”

  Selene frowned.

  “The Citadel’s protective devices must have overloaded through the doorway,” Mother said. “That unleashed a surge of uncontained energies onto the Earth, bringing about what many refer to as the Great Cataclysm.”

  “You’re about to do that again,” Selene protested.

  “No, no, dear child,” Mother said. “You are either not listening or failing to perceive. I am not attempting to breach the Citadel. I am trying for a different location, somewhere we may link up with the others.”

  “What others?” Selene asked.

  “The ones that surely must exist in the vast cosmos,” Mother said.

  “We’re ready,” the lean man shouted.

  “Excellent, dear Frederick,” Mother said. “Let us begin the search.”

  Selene glanced at Frederick and realized she’d seen him before at the Siwa Oasis. He had left in the caravan of Land Rovers. He now sat at intricate controls with a screen before him.

  “I’m engaging the dimensional scanner,” Frederick said.

  His screen buzzed fuzzily before coalescing into a sea of bubbling lava. A strange stone ship appeared to float through the steaming red, sluggish substance. In the background, stars blazed in profusion.

  Frederick manipulated the controls.

  The screen turned fuzzy again, this time coalescing into gently rolling granite hills that glittered with millions of gems. Above the millions of green, red, white and yellow stones slid a gray barge fifty feet above the ground. Tubes snaked down from the barge, vacuuming the gems from the hills.

  “I have a possibility,” Frederick said.

  Mother examined a larger screen nearer her showing the same image. “No. That reality strikes me as too mechanistic.”

  Once again, Frederick adjusted his controls. After a time, the screen showed a nighttime world with several cratered moons hanging in the otherwise dark sky. A sluggish sea appeared in the background.

  Selene squinted, looking closer. It appeared that a giant tentacle slid out of the mucky sea to grasp at something skimming the surface.

  “That’s too primitive,” Mother complained.

  “The coordinates are difficult the farther afield I try,” Frederick said.

  “Try somet
hing nearer our reality then,” Mother suggested.

  Once more, Frederick manipulated the controls.

  Selene was beginning to understand what he was doing. The solution Marcus had given her still stimulated her brain to furious and fast connections.

  This time, the screen showed a meadow with a brook. There were tall green fronds that waved gently in a breeze. Red spines grew elsewhere with purple pods hanging near the fifty-foot spikes. A strange, purple-feathered bird flittered through the scene.

  “Do you see that spire?” Mother asked. “Zoom into the background to the left.”

  Frederick did so.

  Selene gasped. Others in the room murmured.

  On the screen rose a slender silver tower. It was beautiful. An equally silver air-car slid toward the spire.

  “There,” Mother said. “We have found an outpost. I am sure of it. Open the way. It is time Earth reconnected with the universal civilization.”

  Selene glanced at other screens. The devastation throughout the world had worsened. Would opening the dimensional portal take more power? Would that strain the Earth even more as the world machine did whatever the ancient beings had designed it to do?

  Oh, this was terrible.

  -92-

  CONTROL CHAMBER

  UNDERGROUND PYRAMID

  Jack strained to move his right hand. He’d been straining ever since Mother had hit him with the paralysis beam.

  He could hear just fine, but he couldn’t move his head, although he could move his eyes back and forth. What he saw on the nearby screens sickened him. The world machine as Mother called it—the stations and whatever else she had—caused vast destruction. He had no doubt this had happened in the past. Maybe the portal let in worse energies.

  What had Mother said before? The ancient beings had tried to breach the Citadel. Could that have been another word for Heaven? There had been war in Heaven with a third of the angels thrown out.

  Jack’s jaw muscles bunched as he strained to move his right hand. The beam had exhausted him, made it so none of his limbs obeyed his will. He had a feeling that he would have succumbed to total numbness as well, but every time he rested from straining, his energy to try returned almost right away. Could the substance in the needles from the stone object have already changed him? He suspected that was it. He recovered faster than he ever had in his life. It gave him the resolve to keep doing this.

  Jack willed his fingers to twitch. One did the slightest bit. He could do this if he kept struggling.

  The inner war occupied everything in him. He heard the voices going back and forth, Mother and Selene, but he didn’t pay attention to the words anymore. His world zeroed down to his titanic effort. Marcus had frozen. The smart hound couldn’t do a damn thing. It was all up to Jack Elliot. He had been in this situation before. He knew how these things should go.

  Total focus was the answer. Absolute concentration took over as Jack strained, strained, and moved his right hand just a fraction toward his pocket.

  He had two more heaters, as he’d dropped the first one. They were all useless now. Mother must have some kind of dampening field in place.

  He had to reach the tiny gadget he’d stolen from one of the supermen he’d killed in front of the elevator. Could it do anything?

  I have no idea. There’s only one way to find out, now isn’t there?

  Jack’s fingertips touched the top of his pocket. He’d gotten this far, he could go farther. He struggled and nearly blacked out from effort.

  He stopped for a moment, recouping. The blood pounded in his ears and made his eyes blurry. Faster than he could believe, though, he felt good again.

  Jack strained, pushed, focused and slid his fingers into his pocket. They touched the gadget, sliding over the front. With infinite patience and furious trying, he pressed a button.

  Of course, nothing happened.

  Jack struggled again, pressing another button. Again, he struck out and remained frozen. Then…

  Wait a sec. He felt tingling throughout his body. His head twisted to the left. He was nearly frozen but thawing.

  “Stay in one spot,” he whispered to the others. “I have a buzzer. It’s negating her beam. Let’s wait until we can attack at full coordination.”

  Marcus grunted.

  On the other side of Jack, the beast whined.

  Seconds passed. Jack slowly moved his head. What he saw frightened him.

  Down the slightly slanted floor in the middle of the chamber, the circular object blazed with a bright light. Jack could no longer look through the middle. It was like the surface of a vertical, shimmering pond, creating ripples. Then the ripples vanished and Jack peered into the most beautiful meadow in the world. What’s more, he heard birds chirp. It was simply fantastic. He spied the silver tower in the distance. What was that place?

  Mother approached the shining circular object in the middle of the chamber. She appeared to be looking into the new world, searching for something.

  At that moment, claws scratched against the tiles of the floor. To Jack’s left, the beast broke into a run. The beast darted for Mother, straining to reach the cloaked woman.

  Did the hound attempt to reach her before she turned to see her danger?

  “Mother!” a man shouted. “Behind you! The hound has broken free. It’s attacking.”

  Jack leaped forward and began to run at Mother, too. So did Marcus. The soldier quickly pulled ahead of him. Marcus truly was a superman in strength, maybe in daring too.

  The beast was already halfway to Mother when she turned around.

  -93-

  CONTROL CHAMBER

  UNDERGROUND PYRAMID

  Selene nudged Ney. The Frenchman glanced at her.

  “You have a gun,” she whispered.

  “It doesn’t fire in this chamber,” he whispered back.

  “You can still use it as a club, can’t you?”

  “Oui,” he said.

  “Then get ready to use it.”

  “Against whom?” Ney whispered.

  “Frederick,” Selene said, starting toward his spot along the wall.

  She had a plan. It was a wild one, workable because Jack Elliot had found a way to break the freezing blue beam. She had thought of it because the flashes kept snapping in her mind, seeing connections and putting two and two together faster than she had ever been able to do in her life.

  Selene believed she knew how to operate Frederick’s board. It was incredible to her, but it controlled some sort of dimensional portal. That meant Mother had opened a path to a place far from Earth in space, possibly time and maybe even in a different dimension. Clearly, such a transfer was very difficult. Otherwise, wouldn’t aliens have used such a method to come to Earth more often? Mother attempted to reach the extraterrestrials that had arrived on the planet in the distant past. If the ancient memories of that time were correct, the aliens had set themselves up as gods, toying with human lives and producing monstrosities to terrorize the primitives. Why would the extraterrestrials be any better this time? It was up to her to cut the tenuous connection, to make sure the arrogant aliens stayed far away from this world.

  Frederick glanced at Selene. He scowled, and he glanced past her at Mother.

  “Turn off the damper!” Mother shouted.

  “Yes,” Selene told Frederick. “Do that and we can shoot Mother down like a wild beast. Please press whatever switch you have to so we can gun down the lot of you.”

  Frederick glanced at a particular switch on his board. Selene noted the look.

  Frederick scowled at her. Maybe he understood she’d just tricked him. He reached under the panel and came up with a knife. “First things first,” Frederick said. The man lunged at her.

  Selene barely twisted aside. Danny had always told her to run from a knife. A few cuts and a person bled into unconsciousness. This time—

  Ney shouted and swung. He came from around Selene. Frederick was one of Mother’s supermen, however. He had impossib
le reflexes. The man shifted his swipe and managed to thrust. The knife went into Ney’s chest. The DGSE agent still completed the swing, though, clubbing Frederick on the side of the head with the gun handle. That staggered Frederick. The lean man tripped over his feet and went down onto the floor.

  Ney groaned, releasing his gun and crumpling.

  Selene hardly thought. She reached the console and pressed the button Frederick had glanced at, the dampener switch hopefully. After it clicked, she picked up Ney’s fallen gun. At the same moment, Frederick clutched her left ankle as he lay on the floor.

  Selene shot him twice. His grip slackened and she kicked his hand away.

  A moment later, Selene sat down at the controls. Yes, here was the selector switch and here was the one that cycled through the various coordinates. She could put this on a timer, opening and closing pathways. That was very interesting. This was the final key to ridding the Earth of Mother. Selene had to play this just right, though. It would be tricky.

  She began to manipulate the panel. Movement at the corner of her vision caused Selene to turn. Two of Mother’s people rushed her. Selene grabbed the gun and shot them.

  More of the operators were getting up. Too many whispered together as if they were going to rush en masse at her.

  Backpedalling to Ney, Selene dug in his pockets, finding more magazines. The DGSE agent was coughing up blood, dying.

  Selene steeled herself to the necessity of shooting people. If she didn’t do this, the Earth could find itself under an alien heel ten times worse than last time. Mother had talked about peace, but she meant extraterrestrial domination over a supine human race. Freedom meant she had to do this.

  Aiming at the nearest operators, Selene began firing, killing Mother’s children. She found it sickening, her stomach turning over and squeezing. Her hand began to shake.

  “You have to do this,” Selene told herself. “Saving the planet has become your responsibility.”