Luis saw it, gravid with horror, and it reached out to him and found him pleasing and he screamed away his mind until his brain exploded into a soup of blood from a single rupturing fear-induced embolism that went off in his skull like a cluster bomb.
34
As the prison was overwhelmed by the Mi-Go, Coogan was enveloped by searching tentacles, dragged screaming into the rising fetal mass of the Sloat-thing. It showed him the face of Franky McGrath and the faces of a hundred others, but he was not afraid. He attacked, the shank still in his hand and still razor-sharp. He plunged it into the quivering embryonic biology of the creature as acidic green blood sprayed into his face. Powered by rage and revulsion, he cut and slashed and laid the thing open with pure unreasoning animal hatred.
The Sloat-thing was an abomination.
Mist and slime and bleeding bones, a white and pustulant unborn spider and a fetal worm and something made of stalks and pulsing bladders washed up on a summer beach in a tangle of deep-sea weed. Stinking and rotting and dissolving. A ghost of teleplasm and undulating entrails and quilts of muscle, all fighting for dominance.
It was these things that Coogan killed.
Sloat’s face was hot and colorless tallow, running and pooling, trying to sculpt itself to the stolen bone beneath. But his eyes, they were brilliant and alive and deadly, yellow and smoking. “And the Old Ones will inherit the carcass of the world,” he said in a voice of mush, his breath like sewage.
And then Sloat fell apart—a living stew of writhing tentacles and palpitating flesh and oozing jelly and green venom—and Coogan collapsed into him, breathing his last breaths as the ruptured organs within him quivered and the creature’s toxic poison turned his blood to cold coagulating sauce. He lay in its remains, the squamous skin of his back prickling, the white gelatinous flesh of his hand pulsating ceaselessly, his belly opening with a watery drainage of black ichor to reveal three budding unformed limbs.
—Coogan closed his eyes—
—He felt a blackness thunder through his head—
—He was sucked from his skull—
35
—But he was not dead—
—Agony—
—Searing pain—
He felt suction, an intense magnetic pull, a blast of heat and cold as he was pulled up to the thing that hovered above Grissenberg, vacuumed into a funneling gravity sink, bathed in tongues of super-hot plasma and drowned in pools of liquid methane.
The terror of what he was going to see stripped his mind to a basal, superstitious level.
He saw images of alien cities rising in witch-cones atop ancient mountains. He saw the black basalt colonies of Mi-Go on hilltops. He saw these cities fragmenting by time, abandoned, collapsing, swallowed by ancient cataclysm only to rise again, inhabited by minds undead and unbodied.
And a voice he had heard in a dream was carried to him by a primal, screeching wind: “You will be saved.”
The images were gone.
The pulsating black core of the Oort Cloud itself was dragging him in as it sheared open and he saw a million red-litten crystal eyes staring at him, turning his mind to cold mud, those countless deranged monolithic minds spearing into his own like icy blades, laying him raw, his memories and instincts and simple animal drives divorced and dissected as something in him screamed at the violation.
Then he was rejected, spit into the cosmos.
Velocity.
Time.
Space.
He was in a foggy-dark dream, a haze, locked in some twitching peristalsis of abject terror, somehow disassociated…a drifting nothingness, a schism that was swallowing itself. Then sight. Something like sight. He stared into faces that were not faces but multi-chambered husks like alien skulls. The Mi-Go. Yes, he knew they were the Mi-Go and he was in one of their buildings on Nithon. Dozens of them were gathered around him, circling him like meat flies about a carcass. He felt their pincers crawling over him like maggots, digging into him, tunneling, slicing and bisecting and changing. He saw his entrails snake free of his belly in a bubbling stasis of blood, he saw them handling his organs and fondling his gut, passing these things from one to the other like children playing a game.
He screamed and it echoed away into dark gulfs.
The Mi-Go were in his head, penetrating his skull and severing his sensory network: careful, meticulous, expert. His brain was an egg, a glossy-gray ova, a sticky, slimy, yolky mass that came free, disembodied, falling into the dark mouth of a pit, plunging into infinite black amniotic waters that were the blood of the cosmos. A cylinder. There he waited with hundreds of others all safely secreted in their individual canisters, waiting to be born again, to commune with some distant other. And Coogan could see his other, his host that he would soon commune with: a wriggling, faceless sack crawling through the guttering shadows of a sterile world. He had been saved from Nemesis, saved to be made whole and made one with a creeping alien pestilence. And it was this knowledge, more than anything else, that caused the entity known as Johnny Coogan to cease to exist.
The R’lyeh Singularity
David Conyers & Brian M. Sammons
1. Baghdad
Jordan’s first thought was that his drowning had to be a dream. When he realized he was drenched in seawater and shivering from near zero temperatures, he thought otherwise.
He could smell salt. His eyes stung. A man splashed and flailed in the rough water next to him, perhaps a ghost, and shook from the cold. He wore black fatigues, typical for a covert operation. He kept saying in an Australian accent through chattering teeth: “I’ve told you before, Jordan.”
“Told me what?”
“We’re inside a naked singularity. Anything is possible.”
Like a reflection lost in a rippling pool, the man simply vanished, and Jordan found himself standing alone, barely supported on shaking legs, and saturated. His eyes had never closed.
There was seaweed on the floor of his Baghdad apartment. His feet sloshed within an expanding puddle on the concrete floor. It was one hundred and ten in the midday Middle Eastern heat, yet he was freezing.
Anxious to act, Jordan stripped, showered, toweled off and dressed in a fresh set of clothes. By then he was hot again.
Despite forcing himself to perform simple, normal routines, the vision still disturbed him. The seaweed remained on the floor where he had left it, which gave him a shudder. At least the water was evaporating even if the lingering smell was of brine.
Strangely this was not the most bizarre experience in Jordan’s most peculiar profession; he’d had plenty of weirder phenomena interfere in his life and as many more that had almost killed him. Years ago he once met himself in a rough bar in Douala, Cameroon. Jordan had spotted his twin easily, being the only other white face in the African dive, but before either could start a conversation his other self had simply vanished. Jordan had forgotten about that, dismissing it as a brief moment of psychosis, but now that experience hit him hard with a profound sense of déjà vu. That other Jordan had been saturated too.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts. At least he had come to no physical harm, today or that time in Cameroon, many years ago.
He stared again into the cracked mirror of his sparse bathroom. He wasn’t shaking. His pupils weren’t dilating. He was in control again, and this was good.
The dye in his hair and the artificial tan of his skin were at least unaffected. He might have been born a typical white boy in Midwest America, but the face staring back looked Middle Eastern to the point he barely recognized himself, which was the intention. Then again he almost never did recognize himself. There was nothing distinguishing about Jordan, he was the perfect mimic. For a moment he tried to remember the real him, but couldn’t.
He did know why he was in Iraq. The last three months he had lived and breathed the cover of an Iraqi businessman, otherwise it would not have been possible to survive in a sector of the ruined city overrun with Shiite militias. He could hear the distant spray
of gunfire even now, and the cries of a woman in a neighboring apartment abusing someone in Arabic.
Peering through his window, he saw dogs on the street lapping at a pool of blood. He dismissed the sight with a shrug. That scene at least was normal.
Checking his watch with its inbuilt GPS tracker, it was time to move. Opening the failed air-conditioning grill in the wall of his apartment, he selected key items from his concealed field kit. After he strapped on his flak vest, holstered his H&K SOCOM .45 and checked that the commando knives sheathed on his right leg and left arm were secure, he walked three blocks avoiding eye contact with everyone he passed. Day time streets were busy with men wearing traditional long white loose galabiyyas, smoking hookhah pipes or sitting cross-legged in coffee shops. Not many looked at him, not even the twenty militia soldiers peering through the alcove of a mosque shelled during the 2003 invasion. Jordan could have stayed in, but it was not worth the risk of meeting his contacts in his apartment. No one knew where he lived, not even his CIA handlers, and Jordan was determined his situation would remain unchanged.
Jordan did allow himself one small luxury: a simple smile. Today he could put the weirdness that plagued most of his life behind him, and focus on his profession, a covert operative whose specialty was in eliminating enemy targets.
At eleven hundred sharp as arranged, Jordan reached the main road at the end of his block. A black, armor-plated Mercedes SUV covered in dust pulled up in front of him. As the vehicle slowed, its door opened and Jordan climbed in. The driver didn’t wait for him to be fully seated before accelerating again into the traffic.
While Baghdad might be in the midst of civil war, its six and a half million citizens still needed to get to work every day, clogging the streets with diesel guzzling automobiles in a city where infrastructure was at best a work in progress.
Two Caucasian men sat in the front. Another sat opposite Jordan in the back and he had a silenced Berretta pointed at Jordan’s head. All three wore expensive sunglasses, western business shirts and slacks. Other than their flak vests they stood out like the American corporate middle-management that they were.
“You Michael Talcott?” demanded the man with the weapon. “You look like a towel head.” There was a quiver in his voice which Jordan recognized as nerves. The man held the weapon like an amateur.
Jordan shrugged. “Today I am.” If he wanted to he could subdue the man in seconds and switch the Berretta to his command. He might have to soon enough.
“What’s with the cocky attitude?” said the driver spinning the wheel fast as he overtook several barely functional cars while simultaneously honking the horn at young boys trying to dart between the busy traffic.
Jordan wasn’t in the mood for chest beating, so he said quickly, “I take it you’re Reddy, right? The man waving the piece around who’s about to wet himself must be Lawrence. That leaves Shaw sitting in front of me.” When the three men looked questioningly at each other, Jordan knew that he’d read them correctly. The files provided to him were light on detail, but enough to tell each man apart.
While they deliberated, Jordan snatched Lawrence’s pistol with one hand as he punched the man in the gut with the other. Lawrence doubled over gasping for air. Jordan then stripped the pistol into its component pieces, allowing them to fall to the floor.
A startled Reddy glanced back to see what Jordan was doing. Shaw did his best to strangle a yelp of fear concerning oncoming traffic, yet sounded desperate enough to draw Reddy’s focus where it should be. In a panic Reddy swerved hard, narrowly missing a truck decorated with bullet holes that transported mangy goats. The driver of the truck swore at Reddy, but whatever he said was lost behind the four wheel drive’s sound proofed glass.
“What the fuck are you doing, Talcott?” snapped Shaw when he had control of his composure and the vehicle again.
Jordan kept his expression as cold as his feelings for these men. “Are we going to talk like civilized people now?”
The two men in the front exchanged glances. Lawrence, who was still struggling to breathe without wheezing, hadn’t moved from his doubled-over position.
“This is Baghdad, Talcott,” said a bitter Reddy. “We had to check. You could have been anyone. And that disguise…”
Jordan nodded, agreeing. So they had some sense about them after all. People were shot, run over, incinerated or blown up by improvised explosive devices everyday in this excuse for a city. “Well I’m who I say I am. You guys seem to know your way around the city. What do you need me for?”
“Someone we know in the CIA said you were good at providing protection.”
Jordan allowed himself to relax slightly. The chest-beating dispensed with, they were finally getting down to business. “This is a babysitting job?”
Reddy nodded. “But not for us, we can handle ourselves in this shit hole. We’re about to take delivery of a package.”
“A package?”
“Yes, and it’s your job to make sure we get it to Baghdad International Airport in one piece.”
Jordan nodded. Reddy and his two underlings were expecting trouble, a foe who wanted this package at any cost. If this mission were simple and safe, he would never have been called.
With Shaw and Reddy focused on the road ahead, Jordan reached into Lawrence’s pockets and slipped the man’s wallet into his palm. Lawrence was still gasping and didn’t notice. Jordan found US dollars, credit cards, travel vaccination certificates and a company ID for Rick Lawrence, who worked for Centaurus Pharmaceuticals.
Jordan pocketed the ID figuring it might come in handy later. He then put everything else again into the wallet and slipped it back into the man’s pants.
A bus sped past. Someone threw a rock at their window, which despite clanging loudly, didn’t leave a scratch.
Jordan looked to the front of the SUV. There was a CB radio and a satellite navigation system as he expected. That was good; he might need them later.
“I take it this is a black op?”
“Black, what?” Shaw spoke for the first time with a strong Texan accent.
“The package, it has to be deniable right, otherwise you’d have a Marine escort?”
Both Shaw and Reddy nodded.
“I guess, Talcott, you wouldn’t get to meet many honest people in your line of work,” Shaw laughed.
No one joined him.
Lawrence, who was the youngest of the three men finally managed to sit upright. His eyes were watering and he was still in pain. Spit dribbled from his mouth. The man groaned before he said, “Why did you punch me?”
“You were holding a gun at me.” Jordan said in a matter of fact way. For him, this kind of job felt normal. He liked normal. He didn’t like shifting through dimensions and being saturated and cold for no reason that he could explain. Guns in his face were simple issues in comparison. “I want to live a long time, and you weren’t helping.”
Lawrence sneered. Before he could say more their vehicle was waved down at a Provincial Police checkpoint overseen by US Marines. Reddy had their papers ready. He asked for Jordan’s passport, so Jordan handed over the one that identified him as Michael Talcott.
After a few minutes of delay, the Provincial Police waved them through, but not before they received the nod from the overseeing Marine officer. They were expected.
Once on the other side of the checkpoint the infrastructure transformed. Jordan knew he lived in a decaying utilities-poor sector of Baghdad, but it was luxury to what they saw next. After a few minutes of furious driving through potholed streets and past the decaying corpses of donkeys, the buildings began to resemble piles of rubble rather than engineered structures. Children with missing limbs threw stones and Molotov cocktails. Fires burnt in rusted gas drums. Old men wilted under crumbling balconies and watched without comment or expression as the expensive German automobile powered past.
“Do you know where we are?” Jordan asked.
“Yep,” said Reddy, too sure of himself to give
Jordan any confidence in their capabilities to handle themselves in this place.
“I hope you boys know what you’re doing. Shiite and Sunni insurgents each control a half of this sector and I’m guessing we’re driving through the middle of no man’s land.”
“So?” quipped Shaw.
“So when they’re not killing each other, they make it their purpose to kill westerners. Oh, and next time, try to drive a less suspicious car.”
Reddy sneered. “We’ll that’s what you’re here for buddy, to keep us safe, so earn your money.”
A few minutes later they arrived at a crumbling building with a fallen sign in Arabic that stated this was once an orphanage, and perhaps still was.
Jordan felt sick in his gut. Centaurus Pharmaceuticals was a drug company, and like most drug companies they liked to test newly developed products on third world subjects. But an orphanage; even for Centaurus that was going too far.
The three men checked their flak vests then strapped on riot helmets. Reddy and Shaw chambered the first rounds into their automatics. There was no denying the three men had prior military or police experience, otherwise they wouldn’t have been picked for an Iraqi assignment in a sector as dangerous as this one, but they were still amateurs when compared to Jordan’s special forces training. It was the subtleties in what they did not do that gave them away. Their scans of potential sniper points were too quick. Their assessment of escape routes, should they need them, were too flippant.
When Shaw handcuffed a bullet proof briefcase to his left arm and then gave the key to Reddy, Jordan knew in his gut that he wasn’t ever going to like any of them. Drug companies and orphanages in the heart of violent Baghdad couldn’t add up to anything pleasant.
Before they stepped out Reddy turned to Jordan. “Mr. Talcott, I’ve been told you’ve had prior experience with ESBs?”
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