SecondWorld

by Jeremy Robinson

  “How much longer do we have?” she asked.

  She doesn’t know, he thought.

  She noticed the urgency in his eyes. “What?”

  “It’s already started.”

  She sat down on the bed. “Oh my God.”

  “We have hours,” he said. “Maybe less.”

  She said nothing.

  “Elizabeth, I need you to tell me everything you know.” He crouched down in front of her. “Right now.”

  She looked at him, as though dazed, and then snapped out of it. Her eyes widened. “I think I know how to stop it.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Everything,” she said. “The attacks. The Bells.” She turned toward the end table.

  Miller looked and there on the table sat the brown leather journal of the first Elizabeth Adler.

  56

  The first thing Miller felt upon seeing the journal was suspicion. He stood up and took a step back, looking at Adler with fresh eyes. She was dressed in white—the color designated for the general population, but instead of the plain coveralls that he’d seen other people wearing, she wore a flowing white skirt with white lace trim at the bottom. Her shirt, which hugged her lithe torso, had long sleeves that ended in flowery lace cuffs that covered her hands. Her skin looked soft and radiant, like she’d been to a spa, and her hair—not only had the black dye been removed, but Adler’s crude haircut had been cleaned up. Compared to the other people in the Arche 001, she looked like a princess.

  With the sting of Brodeur’s betrayal still fresh, Miller gripped his weapon a little tighter and asked, “How did the journal get here?” He couldn’t remember the last place he’d actually seen it. New Hampshire? She kept it in her oversized purse, and he certainly hadn’t seen that, since when? Poland. She had it in Poland.

  She noted his rigid body language and the skepticism in his voice. She looked hurt by it, but answered, “I kept it with me. When we flew from the George Bush to the George Washington. And then to the Antarctic base. Tucked into my waist.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

  “I didn’t think it mattered. I didn’t keep it because I thought it would help, I kept it because I was hoping to find something in it that would vindicate my family. That my bloodline is responsible for global genocide sickens me.”

  Miller thought about it. Based on what he knew about Adler, it made sense. But still, he’d been convinced about Brodeur, too. And her clothes … the way she’d just been lying in bed while the world outside choked to death. It didn’t sit well with him.

  Adler noted his attention on her clothing. “He made me dress like this.”

  “Who?”

  “Eichmann—Brodeur. I put up a fight before we left Antarctica. Almost got away.” She pulled back the hair behind her ear, revealing a sewed-up gash, still swollen and red. “The clothing is part of his program to ‘tame’ me. Dressing me like a woman will make me act like one, he said.”

  The wound on the back of Adler’s head erased his doubts. “Sorry,” he said. “For doubting you.” It was a quick apology, but there was no time for anything more. He motioned toward the journal before she could acknowledge or accept his apology. “What did you find?”

  Adler picked up the journal and flipped past the pages of handwritten German. She stopped at the math. “There are several different equations in the journal, each labeled by the theory being tested. Anti-gravity. Magnetic force. Field expansion. Oxidization of iron. Ten in total. And despite my best efforts I’ve never been able to understand one of them. Just when I think something is going to make sense, the following page turns it all into mathematical gibberish.”

  She turned to the first page of math, written on a left-side page. “This is the first equation. For anti-gravity.”

  Miller saw a confusing jumble of numbers and symbols that looked more like an ancient language than math. But on the next page, at the top, he saw a single word.

  Energie.

  “Energy?” Miller said.

  “The second equation,” Adler confirmed with a nod. “But the first is incomplete. It never made sense to me.” She flipped through the following pages, revealing two more of the equations, each starting on the left-hand page. “None of them make sense. Unless…” She flipped back to the first page of the energy equation and pulled it out. Rather than turning the page, she slid it over so that the two right-side pages sat next to each other.

  Miller instantly saw how the pages fit together, some lines and numbers continuing from one to the next. “She hid the equation.”

  “And mixed them up so they would make no sense,” Adler said. “I think it was her way of making sure the equations couldn’t be understood by the wrong people.”

  “How did you figure it out?”

  “I was thinking about my grandmother, trying to understand her thought process. I remembered a game she used to play with me—a kind of mathematical hopscotch. The numbers in the answer determined where I had to jump, but the track always ended with two separate paths, left and right. I had to pick one and hop it to the end. Ten squares. I always thought it was a strange way to end the game, but I loved making her happy. The first time we played I chose left, and lost. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘When the path is confusing and the numbers all wrong, follow only the right side.’ For the longest time I thought it was a morality lesson, about being on the side of right—the good side. It’s part of why I became an agent—liaison. But the game had nothing to do with right and wrong and everything to do with this book.”

  “She wanted you to figure it out,” Miller said.

  “I think so.”

  “And did you?”

  “Some of the equations are still beyond me, though I think I could make sense of them if I had the time. But only one of them is important.”

  “Follow only the right side,” Miller said. “Energy.”

  “Exactly,” Adler said. “The equation proves the feasibility of the Bell’s power source, a ‘zero point energy’ device developed for the Reich by Hans Coler. My grandmother refers to it as the Coil in her notes. The equation runs for twenty straight right-side pages and despite its length is fairly straightforward, though I suspect it is a simplified version of the original. At the end of the equation is an addendum. Ten additional pages that I suspect my grandmother never gave the Nazis.”

  Miller felt like a kid with his first lottery ticket, waiting to see if his numbers would turn up. He cracked his knuckles and licked his lips.

  “The Coil generates a never-ending supply of power. Perpetual energy. But it is sensitive to rapid fluctuations. It takes a very specific charge to get the device going, and once it does, the charge must remain within a certain range or it will generate more energy than it needs, or can store in its batteries. It is a very delicate balance. Once it is operating, the Coil supplies its own energy, but produces more than it consumes. The excess energy is contained in batteries, which I’m guessing is what powers the Bell’s magnetic force, the energy field, and anti-gravity systems.”

  “Why run off batteries when there is an energy source that can’t be depleted?” Miller asked.

  “When too much energy is put into the Coil, it feeds more energy into itself. It begins to generate more energy than it can contain, and feeds even more to itself. The more it generates, the faster it generates. Power feeding power.”

  “Until it reaches critical mass,” Miller guessed.

  She confirmed it with a nod.

  “And then, ka-boom?”

  “Big ka-boom.”

  “How big?”

  Adler shrugged. “That’s not in the journal. But if the Bells are in orbit, and the world is doomed anyway, I think it’s worth the risk.”

  She’s right, Miller thought. Even if the Bells detonated with the force of nuclear warheads, they couldn’t do any damage to the surface while in Earth’s orbit. “So what’s our plan, kick down the doors to Control and Security, find access to the system controllin
g the Bells, and give them a little extra juice?”

  “That is what I was thinking,” Adler said.

  Despite the odds being stacked against such a thing succeeding, with the fate of the world in the balance, there was no choice but to try. The thought led to a question. “Were you going to try this on your own?”

  “Security is too tight. I was waiting,” she said. “For help.”

  “You thought I was dead,” Miller said.

  “I just…” She sighed. “If I tried on my own, I’d probably be dead already and then no one would ever know how to stop it. I wasn’t waiting for you. I was waiting for anyone.”

  Miller chastised himself for giving her a hard time. She had clearly been desperate to apply her knowledge, but could do nothing on her own. She was strong, and a good shot, but she’d be on her own against an army. And while four people against an army wasn’t much better, Miller had at least been trained to be a one-man army if necessary. “You said security is tight. You’ve been down there?”

  “When we first arrived,” she said. “He presented me to Kammler like I was a big fish he’d caught.”

  “Kammler is here?”

  “And the missing cryogenic chambers. From what I could see, there are just as many unopened chambers here as there were opened in Antarctica. I think the thawing process isn’t quite perfected yet—Kammler had some burn marks on his face I don’t remember from the photos I’ve seen of him. They must be waiting until after SecondWorld arrives to thaw out the rest.”

  Miller thought about the name he’d read on the computer screen in Antarctica. The thought of that man returning to the world was an injustice he could not ignore. Nor could he deal with it now. “Tell me about the security. What do we have to go through?”

  “There are four armed guards. Brownshirt Nazis. The blueshirts—U.S. citizens from a variety of law-enforcement agencies—police the general population. As do the robotic devices. They scan DNA, by the way.”

  “I know,” Miller replied. “Found out the hard way.”

  “The door to Security and Control has a hand scanner,” Adler said. “And a code number and a retinal scanner, and—”

  “I get it,” Miller said. “We’re not getting through.”

  Two quick knocks came from the door.

  Adler tensed.

  Miller walked to the door, weapon ready to shoot whoever might be on the other side. He opened it, saw Vesely, Pale Horse, and an unconscious third man dressed in red propped up between them like they were three chums. He opened the door and let them in, closing the door behind them.

  “What happened?” Miller asked. “Who is he?”

  “Is maintenance staff. Pale Horse broke his neck,” Vesely said, pointing to the man’s shirt. “I have idea. Well, Charlie’s idea.”

  “Actually,” Miller said, “so do I— Wait … Charlie’s idea?”

  57

  After hearing Vesely’s plan, which was risky as hell, but perhaps their best chance of success, Miller added his idea to the mix. The combined plan was bold and messy, but if it worked, the enemy wouldn’t know what hit them.

  Ten minutes later, they were ready. Miller put the general’s shirt back on, covering the fresh bandage on his arm. He threw on the coat next and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. The sight of himself dressed in Nazi regalia was disconcerting, though not nearly as much as the dead maintenance man lying in the tub. The man was just as dead as before, but was now stripped to his underwear, covered in his own blood, and missing a hand.

  He left the bathroom and found the others ready to go. Vesely was now dressed in red, and had the maintenance man’s satchel over his shoulder. He still wore his two guns and Stetson despite Miller’s protest. A cowboy to the end. The satchel, which had been full of tools, now held a severed hand—Charlie’s idea.

  Vesely shook Miller’s hand. “Good luck, Survivor.”

  “You, too, Cowboy.”

  After tilting his hat toward the other two, he opened the door, looked both ways, and then slipped out into the hallway, heading up.

  Miller wasn’t sure he’d see Vesely again. They were about to embark on suicide missions. That both of them would survive seemed unlikely. Still, they’d come this far, so he decided to hold on to the hope that he’d see the quirky Czech cowboy again.

  Miller turned to Adler and Pale Horse. “You two ready?”

  Adler held out her hand. She had changed into a brown uniform that was a few sizes too big. The rolled-up sleeves and pant legs looked a little off, but she looked far less conspicuous. With her loose-fitting clothes and her hair tucked up inside a brown cap, she could almost pass for a man—a very short and pretty man. “Have a gun for me?”

  Pale Horse handed her his sound-suppressed Sig Sauer along with three spare clips. “I seem to be a slow draw with this,” he said, and then patted his UMP submachine gun. “Besides, I think I’ll have more use for this in the next few minutes.”

  Miller confirmed the man’s thought with a nod and headed for the door. He looked to Adler. “Ready?”

  She stepped around him and opened the door. With seriousness Miller hadn’t yet seen, she said, “Let’s go,” and stepped into the hallway. Miller and Pale Horse followed.

  A quick check revealed no one nearby and no robo-Bettys. They approached the railing and looked down. The atrium at the bottom of the complex looked like a galleria at Christmastime. The sea of voices. The bustling bodies. The sound of the fountain. There was an energy to the place. An excitement. Miller saw coins in the fountain and wondered if he would find George Washington printed on them, or Adolf Hitler.

  He could see a hallway entrance across the way. Above the doorway was a sign that read SECURITY AND CONTROL. According to Adler, the vaultlike door was at the end of that hallway. With all the security, they would never get the door open from this end, so Miller came up with a plan that would get them to open the door from the other side.

  Miller reached into his pocket and took out the plastic Ziploc bag in which he had kept his painkillers. Now it was full of still-warm liquid—his blood. He poked several holes in the plastic with his knife, then sliced it down the middle for good measure. “Stand back,” he said to Adler and Pale Horse. Better if they didn’t get the blood, containing his DNA, on them—like everyone below them was about to.

  He gripped the corner of the bag and sent it flying out over the atrium with a flick of his wrist. The bag spun out over the open space like a Frisbee, spraying his blood in every direction.

  The first reaction came fast, but was confused. A woman below yelped and said, “What was that?”

  A chorus of voices soon joined the woman, none too fearful until one person said, “Is that blood?”

  Another replied. “It is!”

  And then it happened. An alarm.

  Miller peeked over the railing. The crowd below was frozen in place, some looking up, trying to figure out where the blood had come from. He could see specks of it covering their faces. But that’s not why they weren’t moving.

  A single robo-Betty at the center of the group was flashing red. An electronic voice spoke from it, “Anomalous DNA detected. Please remain still until security arrives to assist you.”

  Miller realized that if he hadn’t shot the robo-Betty in the elevator, he might have gotten the same message. But at the same time, it might have alerted security to his presence. This turn of events threw a rather large monkey wrench in his plans.

  Another alarm sounded. Then another. Ten more followed. All of the robo-Bettys in the atrium had detected his blood and sounded the alarm. But none of them were activating, and probably wouldn’t unless … someone disobeyed. That’s why the crowd had frozen. If they ran, the Bettys would activate. These people had been trained well. Too well.

  A loud pinging noise drew his attention up. High above, where the flags were attached to the ceiling, were sparks. When the first five-story-tall flag fell, Miller knew what had happened. Vesely had seen their pre
dicament and fired on the flags. The giant flags would send people scattering, or set off the Bettys themselves upon reaching the floor. The second flag fell moments later.

  “Go!” Miller said, and began running down the spiraling ramp. No one was paying any attention to them.

  As they rounded the second floor, the flags fell past.

  “Run!” Miller shouted. “The flags will set them off!”

  That’s all it took. The people below realized he was right.

  And ran.

  The Bettys sprang into action, even as more of the killer devices arrived on the scene, alarms sounding. Screams rose up from the atrium as a thousand metal balls blasted through the air, cutting down at least fifty people. Miller felt a moment of regret for the people. They weren’t soldiers. But they were complicit to genocide, so his regret didn’t last long.

  As Miller rounded the ramp to the ground floor, he noticed a robo-Betty up ahead. He slowed and let Pale Horse and Adler catch up. “Grab that thing,” he said to Pale Horse. “Don’t let it see the blood, or me.”

  Pale Horse ran ahead and picked up the device. It scanned him as he held it, the light turning green. Then the wheels just spun as it tried to move on. Pale Horse kept the sensor turned toward the ceiling as Miller passed and said, “Let’s go.”

  They rounded the ramp onto the atrium floor and were greeted by a war zone. At least a hundred people lay dead and dying, many of them wearing blue and brown. A few survivors clung to the far walls, afraid to move. A single robo-Betty sat at the edge of the atrium, flashing its red light at a corpse and ordering it not to move.

  Miller led Pale Horse and Adler across the opposite side of the atrium and headed for the hallway to Security and Control. As he approached the hall, he saw that his plan had succeeded. The four security personnel that had been guarding the large vaultlike door had rushed toward the atrium when the first alarms had sounded. Three of them lay dead. A fourth, farther down the sloped hallway, was injured. Miller took aim and shot the man as he walked past. The man would have died from his injuries, so it was a mercy, but Miller also didn’t want the man shooting them in the back when he saw what came next.