by James Somers
UNEARTHED
Alfred climbed yet another fresh pile of debris in search of his master’s signal. The auricular communication pin should still be transmitting even if Night was dead. It would transmit his status to the H7 robot as long as there was the slightest trace of heat left in his body.
Sirens were going crazy in the city following this most recent aftershock. Many more buildings, previously made unstable by the main quake, had now fallen, causing more death and destruction in a battered and bleeding Jerusalem. Now it seemed Jason might be counted among those lost in all of this turmoil. Still, Alfred would not give up his search until he knew for certain his master’s fate.
Alfred stopped at a pile of wreckage still smoldering in the street. Within the torn knot of steel that had recently been a car struggled the upper torso of a wounded H9 robot. It reacted to Alfred’s presence. “H7 Counterpart, release me,” it said in a deep menacing monotone.
Alfred watched it apathetically for a moment before moving on. Clearly Jason Night had done this with a clever detonation. He was on the right trail. Ahead, Alfred saw the settling plume of dust belonging to a toppled building. It had fallen sideways across the road, scattering debris in every direction.
The main superstructure had settled into a massive disjointed mound of steel girders, concrete and glass all mingled with miles of electrical cable and water pipes. Alfred found a suitable entrance and started in cautiously.
The dust cloud engulfed him immediately. Alfred scanned the debris, utilizing his ability to detect heat signatures. Several presented themselves immediately. The building was burning in places—most likely from gas lines set ablaze. Alfred erased their patterns from his scans.
Within minutes of searching, he had managed to reduce his reception so that only five heat signatures comparable for body heat remained visible. None were moving. Three were two degrees below normal and falling. Likely they were deceased already. Two others were steady, even slightly elevated, indicating injury—bodies fighting to survive.
Alfred saw the first nearby—to his right—half buried beneath several criss-crossing girders. He recognized the man instantly, but it wasn’t Jason Night. Agent Wraith of Babylon lay pinned with a block of concrete crushing his left leg. Alfred’s scans indicated a pulverized femur, internal bleeding in his pelvis and a fractured right arm. He was unconscious and if left here would likely die within hours. Alfred passed on without further inquiry.
A little further on, the H7 found the second living human body. However, the man had somehow been buried underground. How is that possible? His advanced CPU struggled for possibilities. After all, how could a man be driven into the pavement and still be living? Even an H9 wouldn’t have survived such a pummeling.
Alfred approached eagerly, finding the spot where debris had covered the man. He was nearly ten feet below the level of the street. Alfred began to pull metal rods, twisted copper plumbing and shredded carpet away from the place. Quickly, he uncovered the answer to his inner query.
The aftershock had apparently rent the pavement, creating a fissure. Ten feet down, Alfred found the man he had expected must be dead. Jason lay unconscious wedged within the split underlying rock. Alfred allowed himself a small smile as his scans revealed his master very much alive. However, he was picking up a slowly expanding subdural hematoma. The bleeding between his skull and brain was potentially life threatening. He had to be removed at once and receive immediate medical care.
“Alfred!”
The H7 turned at Chloe’s anxious voice. He had instructed the girl and her father to find safety back in the tunnel until he came for them. There were very likely more patrols out searching for them. Clearly, Jason had wanted them to be kept safe. His wild attack had been meant to draw away the predators stalking them through Jerusalem’s ruined neighborhoods.
For a millisecond Alfred considered not answering her call. They would likely not enter the destroyed building where he had found his master. However, he also realized he couldn’t rescue Jason without help. His master was too far down for Alfred to have any hope of getting his body out without further injuring him. Certainly his unstable condition wouldn’t help. He had no choice.
“I’m here!” he called to her.
“Where?” came the reply.
“Inside the collapsed building ahead of you!” he said. “Be very careful as you come through. I’ve found him!”
Alfred did not want to alert any listeners who might be searching nearby. His master’s name could be heard by an H9 nearly a mile away if he dared speak it. Within moments, Solomon Gauge came cautiously through the tangle of wreckage that surrounded them like a cave. Chloe came on his heels, largely ignoring the surrounding dangers—bare wires, sharp edges and loose debris that could collapse at any moment. “Where is he, Alfred?” she said anxiously. “Is he alive?”
“He lives,” Alfred said, indicating the rift in the pavement where he had cleared most of the debris. “But he has fallen, and bleeding is increasing the pressure on his brain.”
Chloe looked relieved then stunned in the same moment. She started to call to Jason, but Alfred interrupted her. “He is currently unconscious, Miss,” he said. “We must get him out quickly and relieve the pressure. I’ll need both of you to help.”
Solomon set instantly to action, commandeering various items from his pouches along with items scavenged from the surrounding wreckage. In minutes, he had rigged a makeshift harness with several loops of cut cable. “It’s crude,” he said.
“It will do very nicely,” Alfred commented. “I will go down and secure him.”
Without further preamble, Alfred straddled the fissure then brought his feet together. He dropped straight down into the hole. A fraction of a second later his powerful hands and feet thrust out against the rock to instantly halt his descent before he also became wedged between the rock.
The H7 deftly looped the wire harness around Jason’s body in several places. He placed Solomon and Chloe’s uniform jackets between the wire and his skin to prevent his weight causing it to dig in. When he was finished, Jason’s unconscious form was cradled beneath his upper and lower torso and under his knees. Alfred let Solomon and Chloe get into position with the other ends of the wire braided together and wrapped around a girder fixed enough to support his weight.
Alfred cradled Jason’s head and neck as they began to pull, lifting him steadily until he appeared at the lip of the fissure. Solomon held the wire securely while Chloe hastened to Jason’s side in order to help Alfred get him completely out and situated so they could move him out of the wreckage.
“I will carry him out,” Alfred said quickly. “We don’t have time to waste fashioning anything to transport him.”
“We can help,” Chloe offered.
Alfred smiled at her. “Truly, Miss, his weight will be negligible to me.” Alfred gently repositioned himself in order to cradle Jason’s body then lifted him straight up. His one hundred and eighty pounds seemed featherweight in Alfred’s arms.
“He’s going to die, you know?” a menacing voice called to them from the wreckage.
Everyone turned toward the man pinned beneath a chunk of concrete easily weighing hundreds of pounds. Wraith, bloody and battered, peered maliciously at them through the tangle of wreckage. “We’re all going to die,” he added.
Solomon’s pistol appeared in his hand aimed at the Babylon agent. “Some of us sooner than others,” he said.
“No, Daddy,” Chloe said as she placed her hand on her father’s arm, easing it down. “He’s finished without us,” she said. “Leave his fate in the hands of the Lord.”
Solomon considered it then lowered his weapon and holstered it. He nodded to his daughter. “Let’s get Jason out of here,” he said.
Alfred passed by them, carrying Jason’s cradled body out the way they had come in. Chloe followed with Solomon bringing up the rear. He did not regard Wraith even though the agent began to frantically push against the block pinning
him down. Wraith screamed at them, hurling curses at their backs, but no one regarded.
RITUAL
Oliver reclined in his plush office chair within his quarters at the Jewish Temple. Jacob sat opposite him in another similar chair, watching his master very carefully. Oliver smiled. “Relax, Jacob,” he said. “Soon, no army on Earth will be able to stand before us.”
Jacob did as he was told, attempting to release his doubts and fears about recent events. He was no fool. There was plenty to be concerned over of late. The rise of the two witnesses following Oliver’s seeming victory headed a growing list of events that appeared ready to overthrow his master’s glorious vision for the world.
He tried not to think about the condition of the city around them. Jerusalem was in shambles and thousands had been killed. Reports of terrible aftershocks were coming in through available channels. Power was still out across most of the city.
Jacob felt the gentle undertow of the virtual World Mind as Oliver closed his eyes before him. Jacob closed his eyes as well, allowing the current to sweep him out of his body into a sea of consciousness—pure thought unencumbered by the limits of a physical world. He felt insubstantial—a wisp of smoke riding a hurricane.
Jacob was pulled to Oliver. They were not in a place, necessarily, though it did have form for the sake of perception—an anchor for the mind. His incorporeal state coalesced into a virtual image standing upon a hellish plain next to Oliver Theed. Memories of volcanic magma flows following their cooling came to mind—smoldering black rock spreading out on every side toward the horizon. Overhead, a crimson sky churned with ominous dark clouds and streaks of amber lightning.
Jacob was surprised to find the clones—apparently all two hundred million—standing rigid and nude before them. They were identical in form here as they were in reality. Somehow they were spaced out at arms length like a vast army called to attention, yet there was no life in them—no light of consciousness in their eyes. They were nothing more at the moment than flesh puppets controlled by the mind of their master, Oliver Theed.
Oliver called to them. “My brothers in bondage,” he whispered. The whisper carried across the endless plain in every direction. Jacob wondered why he had addressed the clones this way. Could it be that he thought of them as brothers because his body was also a cloned form?
Then something unexpected happened. Jacob realized quickly that his master had not been addressing the lifeless clones at all. Points of white light coalesced over the clones—one to each body. The light expanded, giving way to the materializing forms of angels with flowing white robes and white wings.
Their faces were cherubic yet strong. The angels exuded power. Then their forms changed as corruption consumed each of them, robbing them of their pure beauty. Their wings became soiled with blood and filth. Their robes looked like they had been washed in mud. The beauty of their cherubic faces turned fierce as dark circles appeared beneath their eyes. The glow in their skin faded to ashen gray. Their perfect teeth became foul and decayed.
Jacob realized that the first form of the angels had been something once possessed but now lost. They were ugly creatures and venomous in their anger. Each of the angels descended toward the body made for them. As their forms enveloped the physical bodies of the clones they were drawn within.
The clones—all of them—opened their eyes. The eyes now held a fiery light—a manifestation of the malevolent spirits residing within. Oliver spoke again. “Now, my brothers, we walk the earth in mortal flesh together as the Son has done. But we will not bring mercy or pity. As my army, you will ride forth in wrath, taking with you all the misery of your exile.”
Rising from the blackened plain next to each incarnated demon came creatures so foul that Jacob did not know exactly how he might describe them. They resembled horses, but they had heads like lions. They breathed out sulfurous smoke and fire from their mouths. Their tails were like serpents with heads that repeatedly struck out at anything nearby.
The clones each climbed onto the saddle of their respective beast. When they did, their nude forms became encased with armor—fiery red and blue. The creatures reared back, making terrifying screeching calls that made Jacob fear down to his very soul.
“Ride forth my brothers!” Oliver commanded.
Jacob felt the entire scene collapse beneath him as his mind was pulled away back to his waiting body. When he woke in his chair, Jacob was sweating profusely. He looked around until he found Oliver standing before a broad window overlooking the temple below where many priests were busy trying to organize a cleanup following the quake.
“My lord, what just happened?” Jacob asked, his mind still reeling from the experience upon the burnt plain.
Oliver turned to him with a look of immense satisfaction upon his face. “My brothers are free,” he said, then he closed his eyes and turned back to the window.
Within the underground facility deep within the Nevada desert known only by the designation Area 51, General James Treswell woke from a deep sleep within his bunk. An alarm could be heard in the distance through walls of concrete and steel. A monitor on his wall was flashing brightly, making him squint. “Answer!” he said bitterly.
A soldier bearing the rank of Corporal came into view on the monitor. He was hysterical, shouting his report frantically at the General while all sorts of mayhem took place in the background. A flash erupted followed by a horrendous boom that rumbled through the General’s quarters though he was two floors above the place where the disruption was occurring.
As Treswell attempted to speak with the frantic Corporal a gout of flame suddenly engulfed the man. The video feed winked out at the same time, leaving Treswell blind to what was happening down there. He cursed, throwing on his trousers in a rush to get out the door. Spotting other soldiers in the hall, Treswell ordered them to get their weapons and follow him.
By the time he made it to the elevator at the end of the corridor, Treswell had an escort of nearly a dozen armed men. They descended quickly to level thirteen where the disturbance was happening. Treswell was already sweating for more reasons than just the apparent attack.
The secrecy over this particular level was above and beyond the maximum security designated for the rest of the facility and its experiments. It was directly tied to the High Representative of the New Eden Alliance, Oliver Theed. Treswell was one of the few men who actually knew that.
If Theed’s clone experiment had been compromised in some way on Treswell’s watch, he would be the one paying the price—probably with his life. The higher-ups in the chain of command knew that Theed used Babylon as his own personal hit squad. When someone displeased Oliver Theed, they usually disappeared sooner or later.
When the elevator door opened, a grisly scene awaited them. The titanium vault that separated the huge staging area from the actual clone growth chamber had been melted. The charred corpses of at least thirty soldiers lay smoldering across the huge staging area floor. However, what stopped Treswell and his men in their tracks were the creatures responsible.
Treswell had never seen anything like them—not even in his nightmares. Countless human riders sat mounted upon horrifying beasts with heads like lions breathing fire and smoke from their mouths. Their tails waved in the air like vipers, hissing and striking.
The hellish rider nearest to the elevator turned in his saddle to look at Treswell and his men. He said nothing, but turned his animal toward the crowded elevator. Treswell barely realized what was happening in time. He bolted through the doors, yelling for his men to attack.
As Treswell rolled out across the floor between the creature’s legs, it unleashed sulfurous smoke and fire into the elevator, bathing the soldiers in agony. They writhed and screamed as Treswell got to his feet beyond the rider and bolted through the chamber trying to save himself. However, there was simply no where to go. Thousands of the riders had jammed into the staging area. He was surrounded on all sides.
Treswell tried to fire his pistol
at one of the riders, but the rounds were easily deflected by the rider’s brilliant armor. Hearing a hissing sound behind him, General Treswell turned to find one of the creatures’ tails writhing in the air. It struck him lightning quick, tearing away part of his face as the fangs delivered their payload. The venom raced through his body, like fire in his veins. He tried to scream, but paralysis had him in its grip. All he could do was lay on the ground twitching in agony, praying for merciful death to take him.
REPORT
Jacob read the report again, but he still couldn’t make any sense of it. Oliver would be furious. So many of their own had been killed. He remembered the last bad news Oliver had received. His personal assistant had gotten his head bashed before being shot just to still his painful moaning. Jacob paused before Theed’s office door. He took a deep breath then opened it.
Oliver was standing before the huge window that allowed him to overlook the temple courtyard, as he often did. “Come in, Jacob,” he said. “Would you care for something to drink?”
Jacob eyed the liquor cabinet on the far wall before politely declining.
Oliver still had his back to him. “You seem distressed about something, Jacob.”
“I am, Master,” Jacob began. His hands were trembling already. “It’s about our facilities where your clone army was housed.”
“Yes?”
“It doesn’t make any sense, my lord, but all of our people have been killed at each facility. Hundreds bearing the Mark are dead.”
“I see.”
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Jacob said. “Why would the clones kill our people?”
Oliver was silent for a moment before turning toward Jacob. “What is man that thou art mindful of him?” Oliver said.
“Excuse me?” Jacob said, not understanding the context for the question.