by Byron Craft
If shoggoths could display any degree of intelligence, it occurred right then, because they quickly retreated from the tank’s surface after discovering that there was no way to breach its outer shell. Doucette regained visual and watched “the slimeballs” rapidly slither toward the firetruck. The Abrams' highly mobile design enabled Doucette to turn it on a dime firing its 120mm cannon without hesitation. The tank is equipped with a ballistic fire-control computer that uses system-supplied data from a laser rangefinder, crosswind sensor, and a pendulum static cant sensor. The fire-control system combines the data to compute a firing solution in microseconds for the gunner. The range and objective were calculated when he fired the round. A fiery “crack” ensued, and the warhead located the target.
A massive shoggoth, two hundred yards distance burst into a billion pieces. Dr. Betty Baker proved to be a quick learner and, as instructed, loaded another whopping cannon shell into the breach. Seconds later Doucette fired the main armament again. A 120mm warhead rocketed from the smoothbore gun striking a cluster of slime creatures. A third shot from the main gun waylaid the last of them. Or so they thought. Doucette saw something in the distance that disturbed him. He zoomed in on the area that was once occupied by his first target. Some parts of the shoggoth he shot at must have been destroyed; disintegrated by the blast but not all. What he saw made his stomach churn. Bits of shoggoth rolled like marbles along the ground toward a common spot and rejoined. “The damn things can reassemble themselves,” his voice cracked. Doucette grabbed the walkie-talkie and pressed the “Talk” button, “Li did you see that?”
“Sure did, Sarge,” came a static filled reply. “I’m on it!”
* * *
“Bonsai!” hollered Li Clarke as she stomped on the gas pedal.
“You’re not Japanese,” corrected Norm Tyson, “You’re from China.”
“I know that, but they don’t.” The truck accelerated toward the re-forming shoggoths. It had an automatic transmission, so it was a simple matter for Li to keep her left hand on the steering wheel and her right poised over the water cannon’s joystick.
A semi-translucent blob rose up from the earth to meet a high-pressure blast of saline solution. “Gotcha you bastard,” an ecstatic Li Clarke bellowed. Her merriment was premature. Instead of completely dissolving the shoggoth rolled backward only losing about half of its substance.
“The damn thing is retreating!” Li exclaimed in genuine amazement.
“They never did that before,” added Norm.
A second blob rolled into view, and Li wasted no time blasting it with a torrent of salt water. This one ducked. It flattened out as the salty water streamed overhead. Li Clarke keyed the mic on the walkie-talkie. “They appear to be displaying a community mind, shared experience.”
* * *
“What the hell does she mean?” asked Doucette.
“A collective consciousness, a hive mind or group mentality,” offered Martin Storch. “What one thing experiences the others learn.”
“Good Lord,” exclaimed the Sergeant. “Get out of there!” he screamed into the two-way radio.
* * *
“What the hell is it doing?” questioned Li leaning forward and straining for a better look through the truck’s windshield. The flattened shoggoth remained flattened sprouting short tentacles resembling oversized cilia. The tendrils became footlets causing currents in the surrounding alien bodily fluid providing propulsion. An immense shoggoth disc skimmed in the direction of the firetruck.
Li was unable to direct the water cannon at an angle downward enough to soak the oncoming monstrosity. The cannon was designed to extinguish burning buildings and not much lower. Li, Norm, and Len watched astonished as the gigantic pancake shaped protozoan organism slipped under their truck. “Oh shit!” cried Li realizing what happened. She shifted to “Reverse” and attempted to back away. The firetruck would not budge. Li pressed the pedal to the metal, but it would still not move. “Something has wrapped around the driveshaft.” Then she shrieked. It was coming out of the heat and air-conditioning vents. Before they could unlatch the truck’s doors the cab filled with the burning acid of shoggoth tissue.
* * *
The crew of the M1A2 Abrams looked on helplessly at the situation. On the forward monitor, they observed the doors to the firetruck fly open, and Li Clarke, Norm Tyson, and Len Sibbald stagger out covered in alien slime. Their actions resembled individuals doused in flaming gasoline twitching and convulsing, unable to extinguish their impending death. Before long they fell to the ground and stopped moving. The remaining shoggoths surrounded their downed prey.
“You know there is only one thing left to do?” Martin urged Sergeant Doucette.
“Yes,” he replied in a gloomy resonance that no man should have to utter. Doucette activated the laser fire-control targeting system. The barrel of the 120mm cannon rotated slightly and aimed directly at the firetruck. In less than a second, the big gun fired, and the truck’s tank erupted into a ball of fire and water. When the air cleared, all the shoggoths had been eliminated.
Molly and Betty broke down crying. They had worked with the three scientists for several years. Knew their families, spent Christmases together. Their beloved Office of Science and Technology was all but gone.
* * *
Sergeant Doucette exited the tank and closed the hatch behind him. He ventured out alone to make sure it was “all clear,” safe. He surveyed the area meticulously with a pair of binoculars. As the cameras had revealed, there wasn’t a living shoggoth in sight. Perched on the tarmac, off in the distance was a Boeing 757. He was taken back by the markings on the plane. The tail section sported the American flag with the numbers, “80002” below. On the fuselage were the words, “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.” Doucette was suddenly distracted when he heard someone shout, “Welcome to Minot Airforce Base.”
A man in a Colonel’s uniform stood in an opened doorway. His collar unbuttoned, a necktie hung loosely, and he had 5 o’clock shadow.
Chapter 14:
The Plan
The Globe, Minot AFB
The elevator was egg shaped. There was room for all. Before Martin left the tank, he filled two plastic shopping bags with his liquor stash. The trip down was slow. It made him thirsty.
When the lift’s doors slid open, they stared into an immense room. Shiny copper alloy clad the walls. Steampunk first came to Martin’s mind. A long-curved wall displayed an array of computer consoles and flat screen monitors. Three men in white lab coats monitored the equipment. “This is our control center,” directed Colonel Lewis Fielding with the wave of a hand. “I used to refer to it as our ‘Command Center,’ but my command is reduced to my three technicians here.”
Doucette saluted and volunteered, “Consider us part of your command from now on, Colonel.”
“Thank you, Sergeant. You are the only military man in your group I see. The rest of you are civilians.”
“Dr. Baker, Bob Nye, and I are all that is left of Washington’s Office of Science and Technology. And this is Martin Storch, world’s foremost authority on H.P. Lovecraft and Cthulhu,” Molly added pointing to Martin.
“It is a pleasure, Colonel,” said Martin with an extended hand.
“I only wish our meeting could be under more pleasurable circumstances,” replied Fielding taking the offered hand.
Martin Storch surveyed their surroundings with added scrutiny. The room was a half-circle. A loop with a curved ceiling bisected down the middle by a partition. The dividing wall had three doors in it.
Bob Nye looking a bit pale stepped forward. Colonel Fielding recognizing Bob with a nod asked, “And you are Mr. Nye?”
“Where do those doors lead?” he slurred.
“The other half of our spherical abode. The one on the left is to the galley and mess hall. We call this installation ‘The Globe.’ Stocked and provisioned originally to house one-hundred personnel for two-years. Enough of a surplus now to supply the few of us for a decad
e I suppose,” he digressed with a disheartened grimace.
“And the other two doors?” Bob questioned appearing queasy.
“The one on the right is to living quarters, and the middle one is to the restrooms and showers.”
Bob Nye covered his mouth with an opened palm and charged through the middle doorway. The door hanging on double acting hinges swung both ways rapidly, in out, in out, opened closed, opened closed. Each swift partings of the door away from the jamb hurled a staccato of retching as Bob Nye upchucked into a porcelain receptacle.
“Too much lemonade,” remarked Martin Storch turning to the Colonel. “A science experiment.”
* * *
Three of the monitors displayed multiple views of Cthulhu’s movements. “There is a ten-second delay on our images of the anomaly,” explained the Colonel. “Taped delayed,” he smiled. “I’m old school. My techs are continually reminding me that the term is ‘digitally delayed.’” Fielding’s smile altered to a scowl. “We discovered too soon, unfortunately, that when the creature viewed on live feed it insanity befalls the observer followed by suicide. There was a fourth technician down here at first. A nice young man, dedicated, a hard worker. He was the first to spot it on the satellite feed. It drove him crazy. Hanged himself in the shower. He’s in a body bag in the next room.” Long faced he added, “One cannot behold the face of the Gorgon and live!”
“And Cthulhu has been moving for quite a while?” inquired Martin.
Fielding frowned at the mention of the demon’s name and then shrugged his shoulders in surrender and answered, “Yes, and from what we can always tell on a straight line, never faltering.”
“Two hours ago, it landed east of Toulon on the coast of France,” Tech Romero added.
“From the South Pole to France,” pondered Martin Storch tugging at his eyepatch. “Why?”
“Could it be just random?” Molly speculated.
“Not likely, ma’am. It doesn’t seem to matter what gets in its way; mountains, large bodies of water, even deep ravines, it never wavers. Always due north in a straight line.”
“So, it is determined to get somewhere,” speculated Martin. “If it keeps this course Cthulhu would eventually reach the northern polar ice caps and continuing it would circumnavigate the planet going from south to north. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe it is a way for it to spread its psionic waves worldwide,” Betty Baker interjected.
“Doubtful,” countered Martin. “It seems to fry the brains of everyone on the planet wherever it resides.”
“Well, it’s not the Energizer Bunny, going on forever. It has to be going somewhere?” alleged Bob Nye looking a little worse for wear, his face damp from a brief wash-up in the lavatory.
“I concur,” declared Martin, for the first time since we have met, he deemed. “Mr. Romero, can you calculate all probabilities of Cthulhu’s points of terminus based on any and all beneficial likelihoods for a dimensional creature using the current trajectory?”
Romero facial features wrinkled and furrowed pondering the request. Then nodding with a smile answered, “I can run a problem-solving algorithm. It’s going to take a while.”
“Break time can become a happy hour,” Martin announced. “Speaking of fried brains, we need to lube the libido,” pouring himself a cup of vodka from his stash.
“That won’t be necessary down here, Mr. Storch. The Globe is well insulated against psionic waves.”
“Then a toast to the Globe.”
* * *
The double-whammy the apocalyptic world now called Cthulhu moved unrelenting across the French countryside. Massive, half a mile wide, its height was practically unimaginable to the few that were left alive to view it on the landmass. And to those that were not stoned, intoxicated, or mad to begin with it, it was death to look upon it or to suffer its brain eating ripples. The survivor of the remote period did not perceive the living things that lay in its path as obstacles. They were less than bacteria to it; stomping through a petri dish of cultured cells. A hundred million years had elapsed since the Old One had walked the Earth; no longer imprisoned in an anomalous loop, the fourth-dimension. R’lyeh was not at the bottom of the sea as legend had placed it. It was Cthulhu’s fourth-dimensional prison where it slept and dreamt. The spatial coil had finally been broken, and now it had one more task to perform. Journey to the stopping point. The one place it needed to destroy, that once crushed underfoot, would assure the Old One’s permanent dominance over the planet; where it would propagate and feed on the lifeforms that lived there until it grew in power, enabling it to traverse the solar system, then the stars and eventually the entire universe with supremacy.
The pulpy, tentacled head surmounting a grotesque scaly body marched north.
* * *
Martin had only a couple snorts. He did not want to get tipsy or silly. He needed to focus. Romero had loaned him an iPad and using IMAPS he plotted the known course of Cthulhu from Antarctica to France while occupying one of the one-hundred plus bunks in the Globe. Molly was alongside of him. Her hand on his thigh. It was great to have her there as well as the placement of her hand, but he had to concentrate. “A straight line, why a damn straight line,” he brooded out load attempting to keep his mind on the tablet and off the sexy babe.
“You know the Colonel said that we could live down here comfortably for ten years,” she volunteered rubbing the inside of his leg.
“Yeah, but I’d like to enjoy the daylight from time to time,” Martin replied brushing her hand aside.
“I thought you liked me, Martin.”
“Yeah, too much, but this is not the time. We need to talk ... about us ... but not now.”
“You’re no fun,” Molly pouted and grabbed the iPad. “You’re fixated on this straight line of yours,” she ran a finger up the tablet’s screen display. “It could be going anywhere. Europe is a big place. Why as the crow flies the length of the trek even crosses Switzerland. I like Switzerland. I was in Geneva last year for an international physics conference. It is a beautiful city.”
“That’s it!” Martin cried out sitting up quickly hitting his head on the underside of the top bunk. “Ouch!” he yelped.
Molly took hold of his noggin and caressed the top of his skull. “You didn’t open up that wound, did you?” Then she kissed him hard on the mouth.
Martin gasping for air broke free and yelled, “Don’t you see, it’s CERN!”
* * *
“CERN?” questioned Romano.
“It’s the obvious choice,” challenged Martin Storch. “Did you run a probability equation on Geneva?”
“It is a problem-solving algorithm.”
“Whatever, did you?”
“Yes, and it had a probability factor of eighty-seven-point six percent. Which I must admit is the highest factor using my Bernard algorithm so far.”
“Bernard?” Martin queried. “Did you name your program after a relative, your father?”
“No, Bernard Quatermass.”
Oh, brother, this guy is truly a nerd, thought Martin, better go lightly. “Then it stands to reason that Cthulhu would want to destroy CERN’s new 100 km-long particle collider that might breach the dark matter of the universe, the fourth dimension. Why else would it travel from the South Pole, 9,000 miles to Geneva?”
“Nine-thousand-four-hundred-thirteen point seventy-three miles,” Romano corrected.
“Thank you, Mr. Spock.”
The physicist in Molly Gibson kicked in. “Oh my God, Martin, you could be right! There’re tons of questions that experiments with the collider will spark, that scientists are trying to find the answers. The main one is why the universe is made up of matter instead of anti-matter? Dark matter comprises around twenty-five percent of the universe, but what kind of particle is it? How does gravity play with other forces? We don’t have a clue at the moment, but the opening of the fourth dimension may be the answer. In the particle physics game, size does matter. We don’t, ye
t, possess the particle-physicist level of scientific understanding. However, it could be simplified down to Albert Einstein’s formula: E=mc².”
“Do you happen to know if the CERN Particle Collider is currently functioning?” Martin asked Molly.
“Initial testing was supposed to begin around the time that the ‘Event’ occurred. It stands to reason that it may be up and running, if only in part, otherwise what would the attraction be to Cthulhu? If I remember my stats correctly, CERN had around 2,500 scientific, technical, and administrative staff members hosting the collider. If some of them are still living, even just a handful, we might be able to open that dark space and ...”
“And suck the bastard back to where it belongs,” said Martin completing her thought. “Create a four-space black hole like the one that trapped him so long ago.”
“Only one problem with your idea,” said Romero jumping into the conversation. “Geneva Switzerland is four-thousand-five-hundred-seventy-eight miles from here.
“I don't know anything about Einstein’s E=mc², but I'm pretty sure I can get us there,” offered Staff Sergeant Francis Doucette.
* * *
“Colonel, if I’m not mistaken that is Airforce Two sitting out there on the tarmac, the Vice President’s plane?” questioned the Sergeant.
“Yes, Algernon Steele was here touring the facilities before the ‘Event.’ His 757 was under procedural maintenance inspection when called back to D.C. He left in one of the escort jets before the maintenance could be completed. The psionic waves hadn’t reached this far north at that time, thank God, or we would have lost him as well.”