Alien Game (The Thousand Worlds)

by Rod Walker

  “My turn,” I said. “I want to ask a question.”

  Gregor inclined his head.

  “Why can we sense you like you’re a Darksider?” I said.

  “A very good question,” said Gregor. “You are aware, I trust, that my scientists developed the procedure for creating the Listeners?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Naturally, I decided to test the procedure on myself,” said Gregor. “It worked, but there were certain side effects. I can sense the Dark as you can, but the Darksiders often fail to notice my presence, or perhaps they merely assume that I am one of them. It is occasionally useful.”

  “You tested the procedure on yourself?” I said. “That’s crazy.”

  Gregor shrugged. “Only if it didn’t work. And it did work.”

  “Why would you do that to yourself?” I said. “I wouldn’t have volunteered for this.”

  Gregor smiled that mechanical smile again. “Do you know why I became a wealthy man, Corporal?”

  “For hot women and fast cars,” said Rigger. It was the first time he had spoken a complete sentence.

  Gregor looked up at him. “An excellent reason, true, but those are only side perks. And at my age, you prefer to drive slowly and take a nap in lieu of feminine company. No, I became a wealthy man because I understand the nature of money.”

  “A way of keeping score?” I said.

  “Another side perk,” said Gregor. “No, the nature of money is power, and the core of power is relationships. I didn’t become a powerful man because I was rich. No, I became a rich man because I was powerful. Many people do not understand the relationship, but I do.”

  “Which is why you created the Committee,” I said.

  Gregor nodded. “A vacuum was there, and I filled it. But before I say anything more, I wish to ask you a question.”

  “All right,” I said.

  “Why are you fighting the Dark?”

  “That should be obvious,” I said. “They’re trying to kill me. And everyone.”

  “Perhaps the question was imprecise,” said Gregor. “Why are you here, in the field, and not back at Castle Base? I observed the stiffness in your leg. You must have been severely wounded at some point, and even under the demands of our current war, surely there are rear echelon positions where you could do useful work…”

  “Who wants to be a REMF?” grunted Rigger.

  “Granted,” said Gregor. “But even a committed man cannot remain in the field forever. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh decays. So why are you here?”

  I thought over my answer for a moment.

  “Because this is important work,” I said. “It has to be done, and by accident I have the tools to do it best. So I’m here.”

  “Because this is a war unlike any other, is it not?” said Gregor. “Every single previous war has featured man warring against man. Not this one. This has united mankind against the Dark.”

  “Yeah,” I said, unsettled. That was near to my thoughts in the hospital bed. “My question. You’re Russian, right?”

  “Half,” said Gregor.

  “So what are you doing in the United States?” I said.

  “Poor timing, I am afraid,” said Gregor. “I was in Los Angeles on Invasion Day. Once I escaped the city with my local bodyguards, I met some other men who shared my concerns over the invasion, and the Committee was born.” He shrugged. “I would like to return to Russia one day, but air travel is no longer safe, so that will have to wait. Now I have a question for you.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  Gregor leaned forward again. “What kind of crystal was found at the Spokane gate?”

  “I think,” said Major Randolph from the front of the vehicle, “that this is a conversation that needs to wait until we reach Castle Base.”

  “Very well,” said Gregor, settling back in his seat.

  We rode the rest of the way in silence.

  We returned to Castle Base about a day and a half later, and at once a troop of soldiers escorted Gregor and Randolph into the command wing. Vance and Hobb were busy seeing to the M200s and their supplies, and I found myself standing alone with Rigger.

  Rigger was scowling in the direction that Gregor and Randolph and their escorts had gone. Granted, Rigger usually scowled, but he seemed more annoyed than usual.

  “What did you think of Gregor?” I said.

  I thought Rigger wasn’t going to answer, but at last he spoke. “Reminds me of a guy I knew in prison.”

  “Yeah?” I said, surprised. Rigger never talked about his past.

  “Guy made deals,” said Rigger. “He could get you cigarettes or booze or whatever. He also used a lot of pretty words like Gregor there, and he had a nice trick he’d pull. He’d give one gang a set of promises, and then he’d give a different gang the same set of promises. One thing would lead to another, and the gangs would start a riot and wipe each other out. But his hands would be clean, and he’d get all the gangs’ stuff. No one ever suspected. But he’d do it again and again.” He scowled, and then spat in the dust. “Gregor reminds me of that guy.”

  “My dad thought he was the antichrist,” I said.

  Rigger scoffed. “Yeah?”

  “Well, not really,” I said. “But my dad read a lot of websites where they thought Gregor was secretly plotting to rule the world or was working for the lizard people or something.”

  “Gregor’s been walking around with a bunch of alien stuff in his blood for years,” said Rigger. “Maybe your old man’s websites were on to something.”

  That was a disturbing thought. A really disturbing thought.

  And we had helped bring Gregor to Castle Base.

  “That guy you knew in prison,” I said. “What happened to him?”

  “People got wise to him,” said Rigger. “Someone shoved him off a balcony and he cracked his head open on the floor.”

  I looked at him.

  “What?” Rigger glared back. “It wasn’t me. I was in my cell at the time. Kind of wish I had done it, though. Guy deserved it.”

  “Well, don’t shoot Gregor,” I said. “You’ll get court-martialed and shot.”

  “Nah,” said Rigger. “I wouldn’t shoot him. That’d be stupid. Have to make it look like an accident.”

  I blinked, and he grinned and guffawed.

  “Let’s get some food,” I said. “We…”

  “Nate! Roland!”

  I turned and saw Jack jogging towards us.

  “Trouble?” I said.

  “Maybe,” I said. “We’ve been summoned to a meeting with the General. All three of us.”

  Chapter 10: Old Wars

  “The Mikhail Gregor?” said Jack as we hurried towards the command wing. “The one who created the Listeners?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I didn’t know if that was classified or not, so I had gone ahead and told Jack what had happened in the desert. He had been as surprised as I had been. Everyone in the Listeners knew about Gregor, since he was the reason that the Listeners existed in the first place. For him to have been the architect behind the GDC was a shock.

  “Heck of a coincidence,” said Jack.

  “It makes sense, doesn’t it?” I said. “Explains a lot about the GDC and the way they’ve been acting. If Gregor built it to fight the Dark and had to recruit help from cartels, bureaucrats, and game developers with money, it explains why all the parts of the Committee are starting to fight each other.”

  “Wonder why he decided to defect,” said Jack.

  Rigger grunted. “Bet his friends wised up to him and it got too hot for him.”

  “And I wonder why the General wants to talk to me,” said Jack. “You guys were the ones who found Gregor.”

  That was a good point, and then I realized the answer.

  “Spokane,” I said, and the two older men looked at me. “It’s because of Spokane. Gregor was asking about it, and the three of us carried the crystal through the gate.”

  “You carried th
e crystal,” said Jack. “We carried you.”

  “And you were heavy,” said Rigger.

  “Well,” said Jack, “one way or another, we’re about to find out what this is all about.”

  “Bet it won’t be good,” said Rigger with dour certainty.

  We fell silent as we reached the command wing. Two soldiers met us at the doors and escorted us inside. I had been in the command wing before, and it looked a lot like a typical office building, with desks and printers and filing cabinets. Running an army does take a lot of paperwork, and even though the government had been destroyed, Black Division still needed records and files and all that. The two soldiers led us to an elevator at the end of the hall, unlocked the door, and ushered us inside. While I had been in the command wing before, I had never been in the elevator, and I noticed that the command wing had six levels of basements.

  We went down to the lowest basement, and then the elevator continued for one more level after that, a level that didn’t show up on the panel.

  I had known that Black Division had a lot of secret stuff buried beneath Castle Base, but I hadn’t known about this.

  The elevator doors hissed open, revealing a long concrete corridor illuminated by harsh lights in steel cages. I took a step out of the elevator and staggered as the sudden presence of the Dark flooded my mind. Had the Division been keeping Darksiders down here? No, that wasn’t it…

  Jack wobbled a bit and caught his balance.

  “You three okay?” said one of our escorts.

  “Yeah,” said Jack. “Just…caught me off guard.”

  “Guess we know where they take all those transductor crystals from the gates,” I said. I sensed dozens of them around me. I hadn’t given it any thought. I knew the science division looked at the crystals, but I hadn’t wondered where they did it.

  “Sorry about that,” said the second escort. “They keep all the weird stuff down here. I guess it’s a bit of a shock for you Listener guys. This way.”

  We walked down the corridor, past reinforced steel doors. I felt the presence of the transductor crystals in my head. They all seemed identical, except for one, a familiar sharp presence that brought a lot of bad memories flooding back.

  The major transductor crystal from Spokane was down here, too.

  In fact, I thought it was right ahead of me.

  And I had the strangest feeling that it could sense me, too.

  The corridor ended in a set of reinforced steel doors. One of our escorts stopped, entered a number into a keypad, and spoke what sounded like a code phrase into a speaker. There was an electric buzzing noise, the sound of heavy bolts sliding aside, and the steel doors swung open.

  We stepped into what looked like a situation room. A long wooden table ran the length of the concrete room, and a dozen big TVs had been bolted to the wall. The room could have held fifty people, but right now there were only a dozen men at the table. On one side I saw General Culver, Major Randolph, and other high-ranking officers in the Division. Captain Vance was sitting on one end, and he looked a little uncomfortable among so much high-ranking brass.

  On the other side of the table sat Mikhail Gregor, still in his gray suit, smiling faintly at the officers of the Division. He looked as calm as he had in that truck, which was strange, because he was sitting in the stronghold of men who were probably his enemies.

  In the far wall was a thick window, and on the other side of the window was the major transductor crystal. It had started floating again, and it revolved slowly over a metal table, its black facets flashing with occasional flickers of white light. Suddenly I was back on the other side of the gate, feeling the Darksider’s chitin tear into my flesh, and for a moment I was frozen.

  The instant after that I had the sudden overwhelming fear that the crystal was about to open a new gate in the middle of Castle Base.

  Jack snapped off a crisp salute, and that brought me back to reality. Training took over, and I saluted, as did Rigger.

  “At east, gentlemen,” said the General as our escorts left, closing the doors behind them. “Sergeant Walter, Corporal Rigger, Corporal Kane. Thank you for coming. We’ve asked you here because you were the three Listeners who brought back the object of our discussion.” He gestured with a thick hand at the window and the crystal.

  “Are you sure you can trust them, General?” said Gregor. His presence seemed to grate against that of the crystal. That faint, humorless smile widened. “The things I am about to share with you are rather dangerous.”

  Great.

  “Every man here has proven himself worthy of trust, often in the most dangerous circumstances,” said the General, and despite the strange meeting, I felt a flicker of pride. “Please be seated.”

  Jack, Rigger, and I sat next to Vance, who nodded at us and then kept glaring at Gregor. It seemed that Gregor also set off the alarm bells in Vance’s head.

  “Let’s begin,” said General Culver. “Mr. Gregor, I was not entirely surprised to learn that you were the chief architect of the Committee.” Gregor inclined his head in acknowledgment. “But having learned that, I was surprised that you would defect to us. Might I ask why?”

  “Because the Committee,” said Gregor, “is no longer a fit instrument for my purpose.”

  “And what is your purpose?” said Major Randolph.

  “The complete and total destruction of the Dark,” said Gregor. “The experiment, you see, has rather gotten out of hand.”

  “Experiment?” said the General, his tone hardening.

  The two old men looked at each other for a moment. They looked like two old, old enemies getting ready to fight once more.

  “You see, General,” said Gregor, “I read your PhD dissertation. I read the books of the authors you cited. All the warriors throughout history all say the same thing, do they not? To defeat your foe, you must understand him. Is that not correct?”

  “It is,” said the General.

  “So,” said Gregor, “tell me. What is the nature of the Dark?”

  “Their nature?” said the General. “This is hardly the time for riddling games.”

  “It’s not a game, General Culver,” said Gregor. “It is a deadly serious business, and the fate of the planet and humanity alike depends upon our answer.”

  The General was silent for a moment. “The best assessment of our scientists is that the Darksiders are a predatory, migratory species, much like a locust swarm. They move from world to world, use up all the available organic resources to propagate themselves, and when they’ve finished, the open new gates until they find another compatible world and move on to conquer it. We don’t know how long they’ve been doing this or how many worlds they’ve conquered, but it’s probably been a very long time…and Earth is likely the latest in a long line of worlds they’ve assaulted.”

  “All that is accurate, General,” said Gregor, “but it overlooks one important point.”

  “Which is?”

  “The origins of the Dark,” said Gregor. “It did not evolve. God did not create it on the sixth day. Instead, it was engineered.”

  “Explain,” said the General.

  “My researchers have made progress decoding some of the information stored in the genetic matrices of the Dark,” said Gregor. “And in doing so, we have realized the truth. The Dark was created as a weapon. Long ago, long before human civilization, two great alien races were locked in an eternal war. They were so powerful that to us they would seem like gods, but they were equally matched and so could not overcome the other. Then one of the races engineered a weapon of surpassing power, one that would win the war.”

  “The Dark,” said the General, no expression his face.

  “Precisely,” said Gregor.

  “How can you possibly know this?” said Randolph. “You dug this information out of dead Darksiders?”

  “Exactly, Major Randolph,” said Gregor. “Consider your laptop computer. Now consider what would happen if an alien race with no knowledge of humanit
y came across the device. Just from analyzing it, they could learn a great deal about humanity. From the keys and the screen and the speakers they could make accurate guess about our physical configuration. And once they taught themselves to read the files on the hard drive, they could learn even more. To extend the metaphor, each individual Darksider is a laptop computer, and they all share a common operating system and firmware. Once we realized that the Darksiders were bioengineered creatures, my scientists were able to learn a great deal from that starting point.”

  “So what happened to these two alien races of yours?” said the General.

  “The weapon was more successful than its creators dreamed,” said Gregor. “It destroyed its creators’ enemies…and then it turned and destroyed its own creators as well. They had made it too powerful, and the central core that controls the Dark will continue its mission, whatever the cost. The ancient war is over, but the weapon persists, rather like one of those poor Japanese soldiers still fighting World War II in the 1970s. The Dark has been spreading throughout the universe, destroying planet after planet, race after race, and our race is its current target.”

  It made sense. It also explained a lot of the otherwise inexplicable behavior of the Dark. The Darksiders hadn’t adapted very well to fighting us. They were horribly destructive and had killed a lot of people, but they didn’t seem to understand fighting humans very well. Most of the Division’s oil came from North and South Dakota, and if the Dark had destroyed the facilities there, it could have hindered or even crippled us, but it ignored the refineries and the pumps. It did attack our crops and fields, but that only seemed to be so it could harvest more biomass to build its organic structures, and it was just as likely to strip a forest bare. It had been as if they thought they were fighting someone else.

  In hindsight, that was just it. The Dark’s inexplicable behavior was because the Darksiders had been designed to fight someone else.

  Forget the Japanese guy. It was more like an infected computer that was part of a botnet that kept running its viral program long after its creator had been arrested and put away.

  I realized that everyone was staring at me, and then I realized that I had spoken aloud.