Moon Mask

by James Richardson

  King said nothing. What was there to say? Raine couldn’t deny that he was running, and it was obvious who he was running from. The American soldiers. What King really wanted to know was why he was running.

  “We all have our dirty little secrets, Benny,” he replied. “You know that.”

  “Sure I do,” King agreed. “But mine don’t plunge me into panic at the mention of the United States Special Forces . . . or the idea of a medical evac to the States.” He narrowed his eyes. “You’re a wanted man, aren’t you?”

  Raine pursed his lips in thought. “Let’s just say that the U.S. Government would probably be a little on the merry-side of happy if chance landed me on a medical evac back home.” He shrugged, slipped on his headset again and turned back to start the Huey’s warm-up sequence.

  “Don’t!” King repeated more forcefully this time. “Get out of the helicopter!” King practically roared the words, anger coursing through him. But Raine shot back an equally angry, equally stubborn gaze. The pressure was mounting. The soldiers would arrive soon and it wouldn’t take long for them to discover who he was.

  “You’ll have to shoot me,” he told King. He flipped a switch. The cockpit came to life, the engines started whining.

  “Don’t think I won’t do it.”

  Raine ignored him as he worked the controls expertly. The huge propellers began to shudder into motion.

  “Raine!”

  The tail rotor began spinning; the main propellers spun faster and faster.

  “Raine!” King screamed at him and the vehemence of his voice caught the pilot’s attention. Raine spun just in time to see the flare explode from the gun in King’s hand and shoot through the air. He reacted with razor sharp reflexes, throwing open the cockpit door and hurling himself out.

  As he hit the muddy ground, the flare struck the chopper’s bubble-like windscreen and detonated. Glass exploded everywhere in a display of pink and red fireworks.

  Raine rolled to his feet, covering his head until all the glass had settled on the ground. Beneath the spinning rotor blades his hair and clothes whipped around him, churning the falling rain into a vortex.

  “You crazy son of a bitch!” he yelled at King.

  “I warned you!” King said, dropping the now useless flare gun and staring at his hands in disbelief. But Raine didn’t notice his remorse. Anger flashed through his mind, his heartbeat thudded in his ears, mixed with sudden dread, fear and urgency! He stared at the chopper - useless now without a windshield - and then glanced at the mountaintop around him. The north face was probably scalable. If he headed off now then-

  With gut wrenching dread, he stared up at the sky and realised that the thudding in his ears was not his own heartbeat . . . but the beating of propellers.

  Ripping through the fabric of the storm, three black helicopters wheeled about above the summit. Sharks, circling for the kill.

  “Shit!” Raine cursed and glared at King, a sudden urge to smash his face in getting swamped in the chaos of the moment. Lines rolled out of the choppers and black-clad soldiers began to descend on the mountain top.

  There was no escape.

  8:

  Tachyon

  UNESCO Base Camp,

  Sarisariñama Tepui,

  Venezuela,

  In a whirl of dust and debris blown up by the three helicopters’ downdrafts, ten men from the chopper hovering nearest to the stricken Huey zipped down lines. Weapons raised, they immediately spread out- five of them hurrying off towards the science tents, two towards the mess tent and three running straight for Raine and King.

  Shielding his eyes from the storm of spinning dust, rain and loose vegetation, Raine noticed that all the men wore unmarked, black NBC suits. Their faces were covered by breathing apparatus so that only their eyes could be seen. Through the gloom and the chaos of the drenching storm, they looked like escaped extras from a science fiction movie.

  One of the soldiers shouted at them but Raine couldn’t make out the words above the roar of the choppers and the pounding of the raindrops. He gestured with his ear as the soldier stepped closer, his weapon levelled at his chest.

  Could he have been recognised already?

  “Both of you, come with us!” the soldier shouted again.

  The helicopters moved away, scouting out landing sites so that the medical team could be dispatched now that the SFs had secured the vicinity. One by one, the enormous metal beasts began to touch down, remorselessly crushing the unique, often endemic vegetation of Sarisariñama without regard.

  The soldier waved his rifle, a QBZ-95, Raine noted. “Move! Now!”

  “Alright,” Raine raised his hands above his head.

  “You too,” he snapped at King. Raine felt a small surge of relief flood through him. If the archaeologist was being treated the same way as him then it meant he hadn’t been singled out and identified. Yet.

  At gun point, Raine and King were led across the table mountain’s summit, back down the slippery path to the mess tent. They were pushed less than gently inside.

  “You’re early,” King pointed out to the soldier. “Not that your punctuality isn’t welcome, mind you.”

  Raine had noticed that also. A.D. Nebrinski had said the team would be with them in around three hours. That was less than two hours ago. He also noticed something else.

  “You haven’t identified yourself. Who the hell are you?”

  There was a moment’s hesitation. It was fractional, but defiantly there.

  “I am Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Sanderson, United States Special Forces,” the man said crisply.

  Raine detected the merest hint of an accent hidden amongst the clipped, practiced American drawl. He glanced at the man’s weapon again; QBZ-95 assault rifle. And the helicopters were all Harbin Z-9s.

  He glanced around the tent’s interior. The arrival of the American forces had stirred up a mixture of excitement and relief, but also a little fear. The soldiers’ masked faces were less than friendly and their demeanour was brusque, even to the very sick. In fact, he noticed that none of the medical staff had even entered yet.

  “There are a lot of sick people here, Lieutenant-Colonel,” he said to Sanderson. “How’re you gonna get them all out in just three helicopters?”

  Again there was a pause. Subtle, but there.

  “Larger transport ships are on their way,” he replied.

  King scanned the tent, noticing how anyone who was not in it was being marched in through the open flap. Several of the scientists who were only displaying minor symptoms had been attempting to pack up and secure several of the more important specimens they had collected over the months. They were being rounded up and herded together like cattle.

  “Why are you treating us like criminals?” he demanded.

  “It is important to assemble you all in one place so that we can set up a secure perimeter,” Sanderson replied. Then, without preamble, he raised his voice to address the entire tent.

  “My name is Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Sanderson, United States Special Forces.” The muted chatter faded to silence as all eyes fell expectantly upon the soldier.

  “As you are all aware, you have been infected with a highly contagious virus and you, this camp and this entire mountain have been officially quarantined under the authorisation of the World Health Organisation. Medical teams are on site and shall begin administering to the sick in short order, but in the meantime I must ask that you all remain here. Guards will be posted on all access points to this tent and anyone attempting to leave will be shot.”

  His blunt statement received several horrified gasps from the gathered expedition. Without another word, Sanderson ducked back out of the opening and the flap was allowed to fall back into place.

  “Ben!” Raine heard Sid call as the conversations in the tent tentatively started back up. She pushed her way through the milling throngs, disturbed from their sickbeds by the soldiers’ arrival, and ran t
o King’s side. He embraced her, kissed her head then moved her back to assess her health.

  Her skin was deathly pale, Raine noted. Her eyes were yellow and blood-shot and the reddening on her hand had begun to blister.

  “You should be resting,” King admonished her.

  “I’m fine,” she shrugged him off and glanced at Raine. His crystal-blue eyes panned across the tent, scanning each person’s face in turn. Someone was missing.

  “Where’s Nadia?”

  “I don’t know,” Sid replied. “After our . . . discussion earlier, she left the mess tent. I’ve not seen her since.”

  As if on cue, the tent flaps were suddenly flung open and Nadia was practically thrown inside.

  “Where were you?” Sid asked as she hurried to her friend’s side.

  Nadia’s hard eyes caught her face and expressed a sense of dread. She gestured them all into a corner away from the main congregation and dropped her voice. Her own illness was developing, Raine noticed, glancing at her blistering arm and sickly, pale face.

  “They lied to us,” she whispered to them.

  “What?” King asked. “Who?”

  “The Americans, WHO, UNESCO, Assistant Director Nebrinski . . . and these men.”

  “Whoa,” Raine said to slow her down. “What have they lied about, Nadia?”

  Her eyes met his, serious and severe, yet somewhere in the sapphire orbs Raine could see the same fear that ran through them all.

  “There is no virus,” she explained then glanced at King. “You were right all along, Ben. The Moon Mask is cursed.”

  “What?” Sid was shocked. Nadia was the last person she had expected to get sucked into the saga of the mask.

  “We are not suffering from a virus,” she subconsciously rubbed her arm. “We are suffering from the effects of radiation poisoning.”

  That didn’t make any sense to Raine. “I thought you said you had scanned for radiation?”

  “I did. There was none.”

  “Then what-”

  “After our discussion earlier, I recalibrated my equipment to scan for one particular type of radiation. I detected some and traced its source.” She looked significantly at King. “The piece of the Moon Mask, the smaller jaw section,” she clarified, “is composed entirely out of iridium.” She clarified further for the three blank stares. “At temperatures below 0.14 kelvins, iridium becomes a superconductor, which means it has virtually no electrical resistance. What is peculiar here, however, is that it is emitting tachyon radiation.”

  “Which means . . ?”

  “A tachyon is a hypothetical subatomic particle that moves faster than the speed of light.”

  “Again,” Raine said. “‘Which means . . ?’”

  Nadia sighed heavily. She had little patience for people on a slower wavelength than her. “Scientists have for years been trying to prove that tachyons exist. They are an elemental aspect to theoretical physics, and to many they have become a . . .” she shrugged. “A holy grail to physicists.” She paused and her face seemed to darken. “Including my father.”

  Raine knew little about Nadia’s early years, only rumours and gossip he had heard on the expedition. One of those rumours was that her father had been executed for feeding potentially dangerous information to terrorists.

  “I won’t bore you with all the details,” she said curtly, “however one unusual aspect of tachyons is that as their speed increases, their energy decreases. Therefore, theoretically, the longer a tachyon exists, the faster it travels and the more energy it bleeds as Cherenkov radiation. This is well known.”

  “Yeah, who didn’t know that,” Raine quipped.

  “My father, however, dedicated most of his adult life to proving that tachyons are real. After decades of research, he succeeded in constructing a device which captured a single tachyon for one billionth of a second.”

  “A billionth of a second?” Raine asked, incredulous.

  “What he detected was an enormous amount of energy, travelling at the speed of light. The particle also emitted a type of radiation which conventional Geiger counters could not detect.”

  “Tachyon radiation,” Sid confirmed.

  “That’s right. And that’s why my initial scans failed to indicate any radioactive material. Because the radiation that does exist is unlike any previously detected, except by my father.”

  “So what does this mean for us?” Sid asked, trepidation in her voice. “Can it not be treated?”

  “On the contrary,” Nadia replied. “It can be treated in much the same way as conventional radiation sickness, if caught in time.”

  Raine saw the relief wash over Sid’s face. King tightened his grip on her shoulders, reassuringly.

  “I still cannot explain why the two of you are showing no symptoms, however,” she said to Raine and King. “Theoretically, as you both had direct contact with the mask, you should both be dead.”

  “That’s reassuring,” Raine smiled. He glanced at King. He had remained quiet through most of Nadia’s explanation, absorbing all the details. He knew what the archaeologist was thinking, beyond the immediate implications of the Russian’s discovery.

  The tachyon radiation proved that the Curse of the Moon Mask was real. The deaths of the slavers, the legends of the flesh eating Evil Spirit of Sarisariñama. It was further validation to his work.

  “My theory is that your immunity, Ben,” she directed her words at King, “might possibly stem from your ancestral roots.”

  “It makes sense,” Sid agreed. “The Bouda supposedly developed an immunity to the ‘curse’, at least to a point. And if the curse is radiation, its stands to reason that, somehow, they were protected from it in order for them to use the mask. That immunity must have been passed down through your ancestors.”

  “Then what about me?” Raine asked.

  Nadia eyed him curiously. “You, Mister Raine, I believe are nothing but a defect of nature.”

  King steered the conversation back to Nadia’s original concern. “Why would anyone lie about this?” he asked. “I mean, if they had just told us we were suffering from radiation poisoning-”

  “Because the Americans want the Moon Mask,” Nadia cut him off.

  “What? Why?” Sid exclaimed. Raine watched the interaction, glancing around the tent to ensure no one was listening in.

  “My father was killed because he was accused of selling tachyon technology to the Shariat Jamaat, a separatist organisation in Dagestan,” the Russian woman explained.

  “Why would they care about a bunch of hypothetical particles that haven’t even been proven to exist?” Sid asked.

  “Why would Moscow care?” Raine added, intrigued.

  “Because of the enormous amounts of energy created by tachyons,” Nadia explained. “They’ve been linked to Zero Point Energy, which is, in your layman’s terms,” she directed this at Raine, “a hypothetical well of infinite energy. If tachyons could be proven to exist and then harnessed, whoever controlled that power would theoretically have an unlimited energy source. My father’s most grandiose claim was that if he could develop a way to emit tachyons, he would have solved all of humankind’s energy problems. He would have saved the world.”

  It was all falling into place for Raine now.

  “So the Russian authorities didn’t want rebels controlling this power source,” Sid realised, but Raine knew it was much more than that.

  “It wasn’t about the power to create,” he said, glancing at Nadia for confirmation. “It was about the power to destroy.”

  Her beautiful blue eyes were swept by a pang of sadness and shame. She nodded slowly. Raine could see realisation dawn on King and Sid also. The enormity of what they suddenly faced had begun to take hold.

  “A bomb,” Raine voiced their fears.

  Nadia allowed the icy moment to linger a little more.

  The thunderous pounding of the storm against the canvass became a distant, wom
b-like echo in Raine’s ears. He felt his heartbeat quicken.

  “A tachyon bomb,” Nadia said at last, “would have the potential for unlimited destructive power. It would make the highest yield nuclear warhead look like a water pistol.”

  “So, if the Moon Mask is emitting tachyon radiation,” Sid said cautiously, “then I assume-”

  “It is also emitting tachyons themselves,” Nadia confirmed, cutting her off. “The radiation is merely an unfortunate by-product.”

  “And, if the Americans get the mask and harness the tachyons, they’ll be able to build one of these bombs?” King asked.

  “In time, yes.”

  “Then I have some good and some bad news for you all,” Raine cut in. He pulled aside the tent flap a fraction and glanced out at the armed guards posted around the mess tent. The remaining personnel were sweeping through the camp, ignoring the sick and dying scientists. Searching for something.

  “Those aren’t American soldiers,” he said. “They’re Chinese.”

  9:

  Fatal Distractions

  UNESCO Base Camp,

  Sarisariñama Tepui,

  Venezuela,

  “Chinese?”

  King, Sid and Nadia all said the word at the same time, shocked. Raine briefly described how he had noticed the soldiers’ equipment. QBZ-95 assault rifles, Harbin Z-9 helicopters. Only one of them had spoken, and even then Raine had detected the hint of a Far Eastern accent. Their faces were masked by their NBC suits and while the lack of markings and insignia was not uncommon for Special Forces teams, he would have expected some official identification as they were acting on behalf of the U.N.

  All in all, he knew that their plan was simple. Most civilians wouldn’t know a QBZ-95 from a BB gun, especially a bunch of nerdy scientists working on a remote mountain top. But Raine had been trained to identify weapons and aircraft and recognise threats. From the moment the troops had landed, he had felt that training slip back to the forefront of his mind. As he had been marched through the camp, he had been building a mental map in his head, pinpointing the location of the helicopters and the sentries as they were posted.