Deep Silence

by Jonathan Maberry

He set aside the night-vision binoculars he was using to spot for Duffy and picked up his own rifle.

  “Hooah,” he said.

  Duffy grinned. “Hoo-fucking-ah.”

  They opened fire at the swarming figures.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-NINE

  YELLOWSTONE CALDERA

  YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING

  The stairs went down and down and down. Through long patches of darkness and into a light that seemed to come from the burning heart of the Earth herself.

  Great coils of steam rose from below, and when I looked over the edge of the railing I could see the work platform far below. A dozen men milling like ants around something that gleamed like silver. A God Machine, I had no doubt. A big one. Bigger than the one in D.C. And around it were smaller ones that the workers were lifting and carrying away with them. From what I could make out, they had finished the construction of the devices, or at least all the ones down there. But they were still placing them.

  My heart lifted and perched on a fragile branch of hopefulness. There was still time.

  The stairs were metal, so I had to move slowly enough to stay silent, and it was a long way down. The elevator looked like it opened right behind the big machine, so taking that would definitely have been suicide.

  I moved down and down, and I could feel the rising heat even through the suit’s cooling system. Sweat stung my eyes but I blinked them clear.

  Down and down.

  When I was two flights up from the bottom I paused again and gave my earbud the tap-pattern to let them know I could hear but not speak. I wanted confirmation that they were seeing this, too.

  There was absolutely nothing. Not from the TOC, the ORB, or my team. I glanced around. Down here, deep inside the caldera, this close to a trillion tons of lava and gas, yeah … no signal of any kind was getting out without a cable running up to the surface.

  Fair enough. It meant the assholes down there weren’t speaking to anyone, either. I crouched and watched, letting what I saw teach me.

  The big God Machine was maybe six times larger than the smaller ones, though less than a fifth the size of the massive one at Pushkin. It had a line of green crystals in slots on its side, but they were covered with a thicker slab of glass that was veined with wires. Some kind of signal blocker, I guessed, to keep the effects of the activated crystals from affecting the workers. Okay, that made me unclench a little. And I thought about the wires in the coverall I was wearing. Maybe a backup to that? I hoped so.

  The God Machine was already on. I could see it vibrate and the air around it shimmer. The effect made the stone wall against which it was set look insubstantial. Hard to say whether that was an accurate assessment or merely a distortion effect, like a heat haze. No green men stepped through, though; nor did I catch any glimpses of alien worlds.

  The smaller machines were not active, it seemed. The workers picked them up and placed them on carts before pushing them down side tunnels. When I leaned to look into the tunnels it appeared as if they curled around, and my guess was they formed a ring around what I assumed was a rock-lined thermal vent. I’m no scientist, but I’ve blown enough things up to be able to make an assessment. If the vent was as big as it looked, based on the arc of the tunnels, then it seemed likely Valen was going to use his machines to drastically destabilize it once all of the devices were on. The big machine already running had probably set the groundwork—literally—by tampering with the fault lines running through the whole caldera. I would have bet a shiny nickel that there were more of the big ones somewhere. Running. Getting the whole thing ready to blow.

  I saw something odd—well, something in keeping with the general and pervasive oddness of the scene. The tunnels themselves seemed to shimmer, very much like the walls had in the hallway at Pushkin. What did that mean? Were they real tunnels, or some kind of matter disturbance effect of the God Machine?

  The big question remained … what next? I had a whole bunch of grenades as well as some blaster plasters. I could blow the big God Machine halfway into orbit. What, though, would be the effect? Did those machines just turn to rubble when they blew? The ones in D.C. exploded with real force. What would happen to the big vent if I destroyed this one?

  Would destroying it be enough? What if the machine needed to be adjusted and dialed down, like cooling a nuclear reactor? The more complex the machine, the greater the forces within it, the more complex it gets to turn it off.

  I mean, sure, I could try and force Valen to do it, but how would I know if he was doing that or turning it so high it overloaded? I already half suspected he was out of his mind and maybe suicidal, because he was here instead of fleeing the country before it blew.

  Which meant … what? Was our race against the clock not as down to the wire as it seemed? If so, damn, that would make a really nice change and I would promise to devote my life to good works and Jesus. Hell, I’d get a sex change and become a nun if this was all next week’s doomsday clock.

  But I didn’t think so. Too many loose ends. Too many of these militiaman flunkies who could get drunk and talk big and ruin the whole thing. No, I thought the clock was ticking and boom time was close.

  Real damn close.

  But how to stop it? I was pretty sure the tallest of the three men nearest to the big machine was Valen Oruraka, because he was giving orders to two others.

  Well, as my old math teacher tried to explain to me once, when faced with a complex problem, begin by solving those parts you understand.

  Okay.

  I crept down to the ground level, picked up a clipboard that was resting on the edge of a cart, walked over to the men loading a God Machine onto another cart, and shot them in the head. Another man cried out and tried to unsling a rifle. He died, too.

  First part of the problem solved.

  The tall man whirled and stared at me through the orange lenses of his goggles. Yeah, the same eyes I’d seen in D.C. looking down the barrel of a Taser, except now I had the only gun.

  “Hello, Valen,” I said.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY

  YELLOWSTONE CALDERA

  YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING

  He stared at me with eyes filled with strange lights. Not madness, exactly, but definitely a profound surprise, horror, and something else. Relief? No, that was wishful thinking on my part.

  “Ledger,” he said hoarsely.

  I touched the barrel of the gun to his face, right between his goggle lenses.

  “Turn it off,” I said.

  Valen reached up a gentle hand and moved my gun barrel. Not to the side, but down, placing it over his heart. Making a statement about his acceptance of what I could do, but also creating an easier line of communication between us. It was a strangely intimate act.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “You can,” I said.

  “Go ahead and kill me, Captain Ledger. I’ve already accepted that I’m dying today.”

  “Yeah, well, hoorah for you. This isn’t about you making a grand sacrifice to usher in the Novyy Sovetskiy.”

  He looked surprised for maybe half a second, then nodded. “She told me you were smart.”

  “You mean Gadyuka?”

  I couldn’t see his mouth, but his eyes crinkled. He was smiling. “Very smart.”

  “She’s dead,” I told him.

  “Oh.”

  “You’re not surprised?”

  “A little. She seemed like the kind of person who would be hard to kill,” said Valen.

  “Do you want to know how she died?”

  He shook his head. “You’re trying to rattle me. But it’s a little late for that.” He gestured to the machine. “You see, I really can’t turn it off. That was a design requirement from Gadyuka. She was the only one who had the code. Did the person who killed her bother to ask? No. I can see it in your eyes. They didn’t, which means the code died with her.” He paused. “Do you know why Gadyuka had them build that into the machine? Because of me.�
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  He looked down at the gun, shook his head, and stepped away from me, walking over to the rows of green crystals.

  “She said it was because of them. The Lemurian quartz. We were all afraid of the effect … which you’ve seen. If you spoke with Gadyuka then you know that the activated crystals drive people crazy. Murder. Suicide. Mass hysteria. You saw it in Washington. I’ve seen it many times. Gadyuka was afraid that the men working with me here—and I—would go crazy and damage it. So they built in safeguards, a locking mechanism that freezes the controls once they’re set. I couldn’t stop it even if I wanted to.”

  “Mr. Valen,” called a voice, “I … holy shit!”

  Another pair of truckers had come back with an empty cart, and had seen the dead bodies on the floor. They went for their guns. I already had mine out. I shot them both and all Valen did was stand there and watch. I swapped out my magazines and pointed the barrel at him again.

  “How far did you idiots think this through?” I asked. “You’re going to kill a hundred million or more people in America. Maybe half the population of Canada and a big chunk of Mexico. If this thing blows really big, then you have nuclear winter and then there’s famine everywhere. Including your New Soviet.”

  “I know,” he said, and his eyes glistened. “God help me, I know.”

  “So why do it? Is wrecking half the world really going to bring about the future you want?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Prevailing winds will sweep the ash to parts of Europe, some of Africa, and across Asia. We’ve run the computer models a thousand times. Of all the superpowers, Russia will be the least damaged. When the skies clear and the snows melt, we will be the last powerful nation left standing. We will be able to control the smaller agricultural nations. Easily. We have a nuclear arsenal and they do not. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and China will be crippled. They will need our help, and we will give it.”

  “You mean you’ll sell them wheat and corn as long as they pay for it by becoming good little Communists.”

  Valen shrugged. “The projections say that after a time of turmoil there will be one world. Fewer people, less of a strain on resources, and a strong central government. A world government.” He paused and again I saw his eyes crinkle. “You think I’m insane, of course.” He shrugged. “You’re probably right.”

  I lowered my pistol and stepped closer. “How is it worth it? How is any of this worth it?”

  Valen shook his head. “I love my country, Captain Ledger. I would do anything to save it.”

  “Even this?”

  Tears fell from his eyes. “If I could stop the machine, Captain, I would. I think. I … I don’t know. I drove all the way here from Washington, listening to the news as they counted the dead.” He stopped and shook his head like a dog trying to shake off fleas. “I went to church, you know.”

  “You what?”

  “I went to church. To ten of them, all through Washington. Every night before we turned on the machines, I went to church. I talked to the priests. I’m an atheist, Captain. I don’t believe in God. Not a Catholic God or any god. I only believe in my country, and yet … I went to church. I talked about sin and redemption. I asked the priests how the church reconciles the sin of killing with the Ten Commandments, with scripture. With Jesus. I couldn’t understand it, you see, and I wanted to. I wanted to know that I wasn’t going to hell.”

  “You’re an atheist and you believe in hell?”

  He laughed. “Maybe it proves I’m insane. I had to ask the questions, Captain, because I felt that I was confronting a crisis of faith. Not in God, but in my purpose. You see, my group, my party, does not accept that the Cold War ever ended. The war goes on. It is complex and hard to explain, but it persists.”

  “The war is the war,” I said, and he looked surprised.

  “Then you understand.”

  “I understand devotion to country. I understand raising a gun to defend those you love.”

  “And do you love your country?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Right or wrong? No matter which direction it takes?”

  “I’m not on the policy level.”

  He shook his head. “You have an opinion.”

  “I’m sworn to protect my country, even when some of the people running it make the wrong call or do the wrong thing. When I want to affect policy, I go and vote. I don’t blow up half the world. And you want to talk about sin? Sure, the history books your new Communist Party will allow people to write about this will probably paint you as a hero. But you’re a monster. If this machine goes off then you will be the biggest monster in the history of the world. Nothing is worth that. No cause, no religion, no politics can ever justify this. Never. And I think you know it.”

  He turned and looked at the machine. “When I came down here, Captain, I thought about what would happen if I could somehow switch it off. But I can’t. To do that would be to betray more than my party. It would mean betraying my people. It would mean abandoning them to greater hardship than they have ever known. Within a hundred years, Russia, as we know it now, will be gone. Bankrupt, torn apart, broken beyond repair. I can prevent that and help usher in an era of genuine abundance. America will fall, yes, and other nations will be hurt, but Russia will enter a golden age of prosperity.” He looked at me, tears streaming down his face. “How can I turn aside from that? What choice do I have left?”

  “None, I guess,” I said as I raised my pistol.

  And that’s when someone shot me in the back.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-ONE

  YELLOWSTONE CALDERA

  YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING

  Top Sims saw Tracy Cole fall.

  He was reloading when the shot rang out and her cry rose like a tortured gull into the night. He pivoted and fired, catching the shooter in the upper chest, just above the line of his body armor. The man went down, but by then Top was running to where Cole had dropped. He went down on his knees, trying to see how bad it was.

  Her face and throat were painted with black, which is the color blood looks through night vision. He felt for a pulse and found it, but it was too light and too fast. Then he saw the hole. It was in her upper right side, and it had to have been made by an armor-piercing round. It was big and red and had tunneled through her upper chest and out through her shoulder bone, doing dreadful damage.

  “I got you,” he said as he tore open his pouch for sterile packing to stanch the blood flow. “I got you.”

  “I know,” she said, but her voice was very far away.

  Ghost came running toward them. Top tried to ward the dog away. There was a sharp scream and suddenly Ghost was falling, his white fur turning the same slick, oily black.

  * * *

  Everything went perfect. Until it didn’t.

  The truckers and militiamen came thundering along the road, racing toward the shed with the ferocity of men answering a call. Bunny knew that it had to mean Captain Ledger was in the middle of it. They were coming from the hills, though. Only a few were going to pass between the trucks, which was where the majority of the traps were set.

  “Shit,” cried Tate.

  “I know,” growled Bunny as he snatched up his drum-fed combat shotgun. “Guess we do this old school.”

  They opened fire. Seven militiamen went down in the first barrage, but the rest turned and the sounds of gunfire—booms and bangs and cracks and pops—filled the night. Bunny and Tate ran for cover, but there were simply too many hostiles and they covered too wide an area. There was no safe place left.

  Behind them the first of the smaller band of truckers kicked their way through the Toybox trip wires and the world turned from dark night to fiery day.

  * * *

  From his shooting spot, Duffy did not have the challenge of finding a target, but of having too many targets. He fired and fired, killing or at least dropping someone with every shot. More kept coming.

  A dozen yards to his left,
Smith was lobbing grenades with great force, sending them arcing down into the mass of shooters. The blasts blew apart the truckers, but more ran forward over the dying and the dead.

  Smith screamed and fell back, and when Duffy looked he saw his friend sprawled like a starfish, mouth gasping like a fish, eyes white and staring upward at the night.

  Duffy reloaded and fired. And fired.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED FORTY-TWO

  YELLOWSTONE CALDERA

  YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING

  The bullet hit me between the shoulder blades and knocked me against Valen. The punch was so hard my gun went flying and the barrel cracked one of the Russian’s goggle lenses before falling out of sight.

  I dropped, trying to breathe. The spider-silk-laced body armor stopped the round and sloughed off some of the impact, but I still felt torn in half. I flung myself down and rolled toward the God Machine. The next rounds missed me and struck the device. Metal wires burst apart and the reinforced glass over the green crystals shattered.

  “Stop! Stop!” cried Valen, waving his arms and throwing himself between the shooter and me. He backed up and stood with his shoulders against the panel, arms wide, screaming. “For God’s sake—stop!”

  Three militiamen came running out of a side tunnel, guns up, ready to kill. I had no gun and no damn chance at all.

  And then there was a sound. A huge, deep, bass hooooom sound that shook the whole cavern. Massive chunks of rock cracked and fell from the walls, smashing themselves to pieces all around me. I rolled all the way against the machine and curled up, trying to use its structure to protect myself.

  Another earsplitting hooooooooom!

  The floor split and jets of steam and gas shot upward. One of the shooters was caught by one and instantly burst into flame. The other two skidded to a stop, then turned and ran for the stairs, but a piece of rock the size of a Greyhound bus leaned out from the wall and smashed down on the stairs, crushing them like soda straws and obliterating the two men as if they’d never existed.

  There was one more hooooom sound and the whole world seemed to shiver. I saw sparks burst from the damaged circuitry on the God Machine. Valen, who still stood with his back to it, began to turn. I was on my belly, leaning against the base of the thing. There was a burst of green light so intense that its brightness stabbed me through the head. I screamed and reeled back.