by Chris Fox
“Have viper six prepared for deployment. Send a team down to the brig and have detainees Jordan and Gregg brought to the tarmac,” he ordered, setting his glass down and rising from his chair. He moved over to the mirror, studying his reflection. The pressed shirt was immaculate, but the tie was looser around the neck than he liked. His fingers itched to pull the slender silk until it too was immaculate. He denied the urge.
“Yes sir,” Benson replied. “Shall I notify you when they reach the tarmac?”
“Do that,” he ordered, grabbing his coat from the bed as he moved for the door. “Also, have Object 2 withdrawn from the vault and brought to the tarmac. Give custody to Commander Jordan.”
“Acknowledged,” she replied, then terminated the connection. That made him smile. He loved it when she took initiative.
Mark waved his hand in front of the door, stepping through before it finished sliding open with its accompanying hiss. The hall was empty, unsurprising since only the highest ranking officers were allowed housing in section seven. He walked up the corridor, shoes squeaking on the concrete as he rounded the corner.
He froze. A familiar figure stood before the elevators, a simple coincidence by all appearances. The Old Man’s icy eyes glittered as they studied Mark, his fair hair so blonde it was almost white. Not the kind of white you saw in the elderly, but the lustrous white of the Nordic. Just how old was he, anyway? He’d barely changed in the years that Mark had known him.
“Hello Mark,” the Old Man said, gesturing to the elevator. “Going down to Ops?”
“Yes, I was on my way there now,” he said, striding down the corridor in his best attempt at appearing confident. Mohn knew.
The elevator chimed and the doors slid open, revealing a pair of black-clad security guards in full gear. Not his men. Mark stepped into the elevator, turning his back to the soldiers as Mohn joined him. The Old Man pressed the Ops button and the doors slid shut. He was silent until the car began moving.
“I’m told you had Object 2 removed from the vault,” he said, shifting to face Mark. His face revealed nothing. The tone was conversational.
“And?” Mark asked, staring back with all the intensity he could muster. If the Old Man was trying for a confession, he’d be sorely disappointed. Mark wasn’t giving him anything.
The elevator came to a smooth halt. Mohn didn’t answer, instead facing the soldiers. “Gentlemen, give us the room, please.”
The doors slid open and both soldiers filed out. Mohn said nothing until the doors closed. “Mark, you withdrew an item of incredible power and put it in the hands of a god. How could you be that stupid? What if she hadn’t just given it meekly back? She could have torn through this facility like a hurricane and I promise you, nothing we have could have stopped her.”
Mark heaved an internal sigh of relief. The Old Man was talking about the training session he’d allowed Liz, not the order that would end Mark’s career and possibly his life. He might not know that Jordan, Liz and Object 2 were on their way to the tarmac even now. “I believed she would cooperate. If she had resisted she may have done some damage, but we’d have contained her. Object 2 might give her an edge, but it’s just a sword.”
Mohn scrubbed a hand through his hair, obvious irritation flashing across his features. Mark had never been on the receiving side of that irritation, but it looked as if that was about to change.
“I don’t think you heard me,” Mohn said, eyes skewering Mark. “A. God. As in a literal god, or something so close it doesn’t matter. What we’re seeing is just the beginning. In a year that young woman could tear through this entire facility with ease. In ten we wouldn’t even see her do it. We’d just die. Object 2 fuels everything she is, Mark. You have no idea how powerful it is.”
“If you do, then why haven’t you told me? What is it you know that I don’t? Because all the data we’ve collected on the sword say it’s a repository for energy with a sharp edge. She can kill people with it, but her claws already worked fine. So why don’t you enlighten me, Leif?”
“You checked my log records. You know I’ve been speaking to London,” the Old Man replied, crossing his arms. He studied Mark for a long moment before speaking again. “You’ve never asked how I came by Object One, or how I know the things I do about the ancient world. Do you want to know how I know what one of them can do with an object like number two? Because I’ve met a god, Mark. Seen him in all his terrible fury. They are human if you want to get technical, but their lifespan is measured in millennia. They can modify their own DNA. Kill with a thought. Our ancestors worshipped them and they were right to.”
“My god, you work for one of them,” Mark said, eyes widening. He took a step back, but there was nowhere to go. “Is that why you founded this company? To help one of them control the world?”
“It’s far more complex than that,” Mohn replied, raising a hand to forestall Mark’s protest. “Hear me out. It’s past time I shared this with someone and I can’t think of anyone better than you. You are my right hand Mark. And I’m desperate enough to gamble everything, if it will ensure your continued loyalty. I need you, Mark.”
“I’m listening.”
“Do you remember when I revealed Object One to the board back in Panama?” the Old Man asked, touching his chest with two fingers.
“How could I forget? That was the moment you galvanized the board into coming here,” Mark replied. He crossed his arms, still feeling trapped. “You said you’d received it from your grandfather, that it had some sort of powers.”
“That last part was a lie. I didn’t receive it from my grandfather. I was my grandfather, Mark,” the Old Man explained, eyes searching. “I’ve faked my own death several times, so people didn’t suspect that I never aged.”
“Come again?” was all Mark could muster.
“I was born in 1838 in Helsinki. A woodsman by trade, if you can believe that. I hunted my own game and sold lumber. Didn’t make much, but I survived. One day I came into town with a haul of wolf pelts and there wasn’t anyone there. Everyone had disappeared. Doors were open. Fires still burned in hearths. But the people? They were just gone, Mark. Every last person I’d ever known. Gone.”
Mark reeled, leaning his back against the smooth metal wall as he struggled to understand what he was hearing. Eighteen thirty-eight? That would make him, what? A hundred and seventy-five years old. Mohn could have passed for forty.
“A patch of darkness detached from the night. It scooped me up and carried me into the old inn. Next thing I knew, I was plopped into a chair. Then he sat down across from me,” Mohn explained, eyes distant as he related the tale. “He had leathery skin and glowing green eyes. It was completely foreign to me. I’d never seen anyone like that before. Never seen anyone who didn’t look like me. Then he opened his mouth and showed me fangs that could chew the flesh from your bones. I was terrified, Mark. I knew what he was then. A draugr, a creature straight out of Norse legend. I also knew what had befallen my village. This thing had eaten them.
“The draugr gave me a choice. I could serve it in life, growing powerful and outliving everyone around me. Or I could die a swift death. It wasn’t a difficult choice, Mark,” the Old Man explained, shoulders slumping. “I did things I wasn’t proud of. Helped it learn how the world had changed since it had last awoken. I spent the next year as a slave, doing whatever it wished of me. We traveled throughout eastern Europe visiting what he called sites of power.”
“Did this monster have a name?” Mark demanded.
“His name was Usir,” the Old Man replied. He paused for a long moment before continuing.
“Traveling with him was horrific. We’d blaze through a town in a matter of hours, draining the inhabitants dry. His thirst was unquenchable. Mark, we gave rise to the legends of vampires in Europe. I’m sure of it. I even met Stoker, and his accounts were not far off the mark. Then the day came that my master told me he would return to his slumber.
“He demanded that I prepare th
e way for his eventual awakening. That the day would come when he would emerge to reclaim his rightful place, and that I would be foremost among his servants,” he said, unbuttoning his purple shirt and exposing a gold chain. He withdrew the pendant, a clearly Egyptian eye of Horus with a ruby set in the center. “Usir gave me this. He hung it around my neck himself. The draugr told me he could use it to find me. He also told me it would keep me alive until the world was ready for his return, and that if I deviated in my task, he would know. I’d seen his wrath, Mark. It terrifies me still, almost two centuries later.”
“So you sold your soul to this thing?” Mark asked, hurling the words like spears. “This thing could be responsible for the zombie virus, and you’re following it?”
“Let me finish,” the Old Man growled, eyes tightening. “I never said I agreed. After the draugr left I ran, fast and hard. I headed south, visiting libraries and sharing soup with wizened grandmothers willing to share old tales. There had to be some proof that I wasn’t crazy. It took years to find it. There were myths and legends everywhere, but almost nothing tangible. Except for me. I stopped aging, Mark. At first I just thought it was good luck, but when I hadn’t changed for a decade I knew. The draugr’s amulet was proof of an ancient civilization we couldn’t begin to understand. I’d felt its power and beside it, we’re nothing. Yet my only chance of beating it laid in understanding it. I needed to harness the same power they used, what I considered magic back then. That was long before the discovery of signals.
“So I used the years to my advantage. I cultivated wealth and influence, because I had the luxury of understanding time in a way very few people can,” he explained, pausing to lick his lips. “Mark, over the last two centuries I’ve gotten the briefest taste of what it’s like for them. What it’s like to be a god. But all I have is the immortality and a few paltry trinkets I’ve collected, not the raw power they wield. These things shaped empires that spanned continents. You know what a young werewolf can do. Imagine the power of a millennia-old goddess.”
“You were going to tell me about how you weren’t selling out humanity,” Mark gave back, eyeing the Old Man critically.
“After Usir left I didn’t have any compulsion to serve him, but at the same time I knew he’d return,” the Old Man explained, shaking his head. “So I went about learning the world. Learning as much about the past as I could. I founded archeological digs and visited ancient ruins. I was a big part of Egyptology back in the nineteen-twenties. I’ve spent time in South America and India. Always searching for our roots, for some proof of where this thing came from. I found his fingerprints everywhere. He manipulated cultures throughout history, I’m sure of it. From Chichen Itza in the sixth century to Egypt an ocean away. I think the audacious bastard even played Imhotep in third-dynasty Egypt. He taught Djoser how to make pyramids. Always he was found in a culture that created pyramids. Why? What was the significance to a timeless god about the specific shape of a pyramid? Why were they always made of stone?”
Mark was shocked to his core. So much time to learn the world, to study patterns. If you knew what to look for, that is. So many of the company’s mysterious operations suddenly made sense.
“My search for the answers led to the founding of this company. I came to understand the galactic procession, that the world would eventually return to the conditions that allowed these gods to flourish. I knew the time was fast approaching, but I hadn’t even guessed there might be something like the viruses they unleashed. I did suspect the Arks and even learned where the first one would appear.”
“You’re talking about Peru,” Mark interjected.
“Exactly,” the Old Man replied, shaking his head. “I had no idea what we’d find within, but I knew we had to learn all we could before my master returned.”
The fact that the Old Man still called this Usir master terrified Mark. “So what was your goal in the end? You’ve gathered all this knowledge. Now what? Are we going to fight them?” he asked.
“I honestly don’t think we can fight them,” Mohn said, giving the first shrug Mark had ever seen. “But I’m going to try. We’re going to try. I hope you understand what an immense risk I’m taking in trusting you, Mark. I hope I have your continued loyalty.”
The whole thing sounded good. Sounded plausible, maybe because of its implausibility. Yet a detail nagged at Mark. If the Old Man wasn’t serving this master any longer, why all the calls to London? Mohn was lying, trying to lull Mark into complacency.
“Of course,” Mark answered smoothly, dropping his arms to his sides. The last few grains were slipping down the hourglass. Whatever the Old Man’s endgame was, Mark was certain he was about to find out. “We’re in this together.”
Chapter 61- Whole Once More
The Mother smiled for the first time in a very, very long while. She swept down the ramp into the central chamber, admiring the handiwork of the past several days. Each of the control obelisks shone with a faint inner light, a pale shadow of the energy the rods would one day hold. It wasn’t much, but it illuminated the glyphs she’d lovingly painted on the walls all those millennia ago.
The labor had taken her nearly a century, each pictograph lovingly crafted. It was a diary in a way, the remembrance of the events that had led her here. The endless war with the deathless, the desperate struggle to keep them from the shores of this strange continent. Even loss and rebirth of Osiris and the struggle to wrest the secrets left behind by The Builders. She approached one of her favorite scenes, the very first she’d painted.
It showed her standing atop a spire in a massive city. An alien city, one she’d never fully understood in the brief months she’d studied it before it sank beneath the waves. One of the few mysteries remaining to her back then. After all the world had been her plaything. She’d been a goddess, worshiped by entire peoples under many different names in just as many lands. Isis. Pombo. The Mother. There were so many.
She stroked the cool wall, fingers feeling a familiar electric rush as they brushed the stone. That was why they’d chosen not just stone, but this stone in particular. Quartz contained the energy better than nearly any other substance save Sunsteel. It was easily mined and plentiful throughout the world, making it ideal for the inner core. The outer core was cut from obsidian, etched smooth through shaping. That channeled sun and moon both, feeding the power into the Ark’s nearly limitless reserves.
Those reserves were sadly depleted now. It would be years before the place was fully functional. Perhaps decades depending on how much power she used along the way. It was a dangerous time, a time when her stronghold provided far less than it someday would. Yet it was still an improvement over the ruin she’d found when she’d first awoken.
“Where are they now, Yukon?” she asked, stroking her loyal companion’s neck as she strode through the inner chamber. It was a mystery she had no way of answering, save for attempting to contact the Ark of the Redwood. That might prove fruitless, or it might reveal the Ark’s new owner. Would that be Blair? Or Irakesh?
If it had been uncovered, what of the most precious cargo within? What of her daughter, willful and stubborn and beautiful. Jes’ka was ready for this new world, but was the world ready for her?
The Mother strode through the remainder of the chamber, passing by the hand of the past and entering the heart. Its white walls pulsed slowly with energy, in time with her heartbeat. How many generations of man had passed while she’d slumbered here?
She rested a hand on the rejuvenator, knowing that somewhere her daughter rested in a similar one. What should she do? She would meditate and pray that the small strength this place gave Blair would be enough to help the Ka-Dun secure the Ark of the Redwood so that she might be reunited with her daughter.
The lights flickered and when they resumed, their illumination was less. She whirled, sensing movement behind her. A faint greenish glow came from the central chamber, a familiar glow. The Mother exited the rejuvenation chamber, shifting to her wolf form ins
tinctively as she took in the figure before her.
“By the gods,” she whispered, the words the same she’d uttered nearly twenty-five millennia before, when she’d first laid eyes on the shimmering figure. “Ka, how have you come here?”
The translucent figure met her impassively, its flat black eyes and long thin neck too alien to be human. It had two hands and two legs, but each hand possessed only four fingers. Its skin was a deep green. Her own age had lacked a word to describe the figure, but this new age supplied it. Ka was a hologram.
“Greetings, Ka-Ken,” Ka offered, inclining its head. The hologram flickered, and the lights dimmed further. “I must be brief. Accessing the systems here drains the little power remaining.”
“I ask again, how have you come here?” the Mother asked, extending an arm. The reassuring weight of the Primary Access Key coalesced in her hand, its golden length held defensively before her. “You should be imprisoned in the Nexus.”
“This was so, until very recently,” Ka said, giving another bob of its head. “A hominid recently entered the Nexus and accessed my systems. Doing so drained the primary battery, and the Nexus entered hibernation. When this occurred I was shunted to background systems.”
“That doesn’t explain how you came to be here,” the Mother countered, eyes narrowing. “Explain. Tell me of this hominid.”
“Assuredly,” Ka said, to all appearances the dutiful servant. The Mother knew just how deceptive that appearance was, memories of The First Ark large in her mind. Ka flickered again. “The Nexus sought to offload my matrix to the first available Ark. When you initiated repairs, the Ark rebooted, which removed the security preventing me from entering. When the Nexus detected this I was automatically shunted here.”
“And this hominid?” the Mother asked, stomach twisting in knots. If Set had somehow entered the Nexus …