When the black shadowy walls of the Gatesphere expanded an alien breeze rippled across the reeds, their dry hushed rustling sounds accompanying the alien music.
Marie held Tamara close to her breast as dust dislodged and drifted down from the ceiling above. The stone walls of the cottage creaked and popped with the deep bass intonations.
“Lorne...?” she half whispered as a black shadow crawled through a window.
Lorne's teleportation into the room was near instantaneous. The soldier never got the chance to raise his weapon. An invisible telekinetic tentacle shattered his arm along with his machine gun. He yelped as he tumbled backwards out the window and was swallowed by the darkness.
Lorne didn't know where the other two soldiers came from and he didn't have the luxury of finding out. The action ended as quickly as it began. One soldier demanded that Marie put the baby down while the other trained his weapon on Lorne. Marie was crying. She held Tamara closer still.
“What do you want?” her voice quivered.
The soldier raised his machine gun to her. “Just put the baby down.”
Lorne stood with his hands held forward. The alien-facet of his multimind was charging and primed like a dynamo. He could feel the energy bristling within; but withheld it – contained it.
A female soldier walked into the room. Lorne immediately recognized her. She was from the attack in Montreal. She carried her gun listlessly – she looked distracted, lost, confused even. She looked at Lorne and then at Marie. Her confusion seemed to glaze over. She drew her sidearm and pointed it at Marie and Tamara.
She pulled the trigger as she spoke the words, “Drop the baby.”
The symbiot-facet in Marie's multimind attempted to defend herself, but its reaction wasn't quick enough. Blood and brains exploded from the back of her head, as she slumped down to the ground, her last conscious effort to protect Tamara from falling.
The second soldier covering Lorne open fired!
The whirling dynamo of energy could no longer be contained and burst from Lorne in two waves. The first concussion blast deadened all the bullets' inertia. The second was intensely focused on the soldier.
It picked him up, tore him open like a ripe melon, the pipes and tubing of his intestines flailed wildly as he smashed through the cottage's stone wall, his bones and muscles hammered into a bloody pink pulp.
The ancient clay tiled roof sagged and began to collapse, but Lorne wasn't finished yet. A third psychic concussion wave exploded from his multimind.
Nesbitt dropped and rolled behind the rubble of the broken wall as the wave was released. It caught the sagging and collapsing roof, throwing its tiles and timber sky-high! The remaining three stone walls were obliterated along with the other soldiers. Nesbitt's ears were ringing from the blast.
Timber, tile, stone, and debris rained down as Lorne scanned his surroundings. His level of consciousness had peaked, his mind humming with awareness. He erected a protective shield over the baby Tamara, protecting her from the raining debris.
He both saw and heard the remote speaker and portable battery – a telekinetic claw sprang forth and pulverized it into a sparking metal and plastic mash. He saw the encircling black Gatesphere. Then he saw the other assault team. The five soldiers had surrounded the ruins of the Chiba cottage.
Something deep inside had been taken from him. A wound so deep it would never heal. Like a moving picture in his head, the image played over and over and over and over... Marie falling.
In the corridors of his multimind, the whispering echoed. Only the rage could quiet it.
Countless psychic and telekinetic tentacles and tendrils uncoiled from his mind, they snaked and slithered out. His lips peeled back revealing a horrifying grimace – his teeth bared as an inarticulate roar burst from his throat.
Mental shields expanded.
The psychic and telekinetic tentacles flexed!
All five soldiers opened fire!
* * *
Perth, Australia,
June 2nd, 2005,
(10 years in the future)
The ambulance's sirens were little more than background noise to Amber now. Static in the background. She was slipping in and out of consciousness. In and out. In and out. Then suddenly a brutal contraction would force her into the harsh world of lucidity and reality.
The paramedic was speaking to someone over the radio. Constantly reporting and updating what she could only hope would be the Emergency Room.
She couldn't breath. Her chest was tight. Far too tight.
Another contraction gripped her. She cried out in pain. The paramedic was talking to her now. She had difficulty focusing. Was he telling her to push? No! He couldn't be telling her to do that! The baby was dead. She knew it was dead. She wouldn't have to give birth to a corpse, would she?
She began hyperventilating. Sobbing and holding her breath with the contraction. Then she felt it. The dead thing was in her birth canal. She managed to look down to catch a glimpse of its gray flesh – of its vacant dead blue eyes staring at nothing. It repulsed her. It horrified her. She couldn't believe she was connected to this... this... dead thing!
Her heart began racing – skipping! Amber grabbing the paramedic’s hand in panic. Her chest felt like it was going to explode. She openly wept in fear. “Please! Please don't let... me... die....” her voice faded into less than a whisper as her heart stopped.
* * *
The whispering in Nesbitt's head had grown to a deafening scream. She lay behind a ruined wall of rubble, her eyes squeezed shut. She couldn't even think anymore. On the peripheral edge of her consciousness she was aware of gun fire.... then... her mind went silent.... except for that one voice... it had to be truth, it was so clear...“Kill.”
She heard the ugly bark of machine gun fire. She heard soldiers screaming. She stood up from her cover and surveyed her surroundings. She had entered hell.
A wave of moving darkness cascaded and flooded over a soldier. Insects! Crickets! The soldier screamed and madly flailed his arms!
Another soldier was firing upon... Nesbitt rubbed her eyes. She couldn't believe what she was seeing. The dead and gutted body of one of her soldiers walked. Its entrails dragging across the ground behind it, leaving a slug-like trail of blood and gore.
Lorne was distracted by the machine gun fire of the remaining three soldiers – some sort of barrier glowed red-hot from the multiple bullet impacts.
And laying in her dead mother's arms was the baby.
“...kill...”
Another sound – an annoying memory - contradicted it. Tried to remind her of her mission perimeters. Like the corrupted logic found in dreams and nightmares this somehow made sense. Somehow, the Whisperer convinced her, this was her purpose.
Nesbitt raised the barrel of her machine gun, switched over to full automatic. She fired at baby Tamara.
Lorne could barely see through the wall of fire and ricocheting bullets around him, but he could see enough. Tamara was in mortal danger.
His shock and adrenaline and rage fed the symbiot within. Its faltering energy spiked again. The shield that protected him from the machine gun fire became a weapon – like a shock wave, blasted the bullets to molten metal and hammered into the three soldiers, knocking them flat. Lorne extended this shield over his daughter.
Nesbitt's bullets bounced, splintered, and melted upon impact. Baby Tamara was shocked! Her arms and legs jerked and stiffened – her green and gold flecked eyes bulging wide!
Tamara began to cry.
* * *
The deck tilted beneath Leaman's feet. Even the three Japanese officers noticed.
“What was that?” Leaman mumbled as he stood and looked outside.
The wind had picked up. The warship was listing sideways, he could feel it.
“Nesbitt?” he tried communicating with her again. She wasn't answering. “Nesbitt, copy!”
The Yamayuki rumbled, its engines shaking the ship. Lights powered on and the alar
ms began. Sirens wailed.
Leaman returned to his com centre. One of the Japanese officers made eye-contact with him and said only one word: “Tsunami.”
The Japanese officers were all talking, receiving and issuing orders over their com links as The Yamayuki turned its bow into the coming tsunami.
Leaman knew no response for this – no protocol.
“When is... what...” Leaman cleared his throat. “When does it impact us?”
“ETA, less than 15 minutes.”
“Scramble the Seahawk.” Leaman's mind was whirling. “Scramble the Seahawk. The helicopter might be able to rescue Nesbitt and her men.”
He stepped back onto the outer deck. He could still see the black on black horizon... but it had risen...
* * *
Nesbitt's gun clicked empty. Baby Tamara's crying became frantic. She was terrified. And as the baby's wailing rose to become a high pitched shriek, her eyes seemed to glow golden – and she disappeared - Vanished into thin air! Teleported.
The shadowy walls of the Gatesphere snapped out of existence. Simply gone – broken. A breeze of normality blew through the ruins. The sane and natural starlight illuminated the devastation.
Lorne, his multimind exhausted, dropped to his knees. She was safe! He didn't understand why or how Tamara did it. It didn't matter now. She was safe. He was safe now. The Gatesphere was gone.
The three soldiers regained their footing and stood. The black mass of crickets filtered back into the reeds, and the gory reanimated corpse collapsed into a heap of slaughtered human effluence, no longer controlled and fed energy from his exhausted Symbiot-facet. Lorne remained on his knees, breathing heavily, his shoulders slumped. His multimind was depleted. His energy reserves empty.
* * *
Perth, Australia,
June 2nd, 2005,
(10 years in the future)
The paramedic sat back, the defibrillator pads in his hands. He was sweating. His hands were shaking. He exhaled a deep long breath, hoping to calm his nerves.
Amber's body lay still. Her blue eyes in sharp contrast to the bloodshot whites, stared blankly at the ambulance ceiling. One side of her mouth hung open and limp.
He reached over and closed her eyes. The blanket on the floor was soaked with blood, but the baby was still lodged in the birth canal. She hadn't managed to birth the stillborn before she died.
He said something to the driver, his own voice sounding distant and unrecognizable. He couldn't remember if the driver answered or not, then the sirens were turned off.
* * *
Nesbitt dropped her machine gun. She pulled out her sidearm and walked towards the prone Lorne. Her headache had completely dissipated. She believed her mind was clear. It all made sense. Kill. She remembered the mission. The Whisperer allowed her brain to see at least that part of the mission.
She stood before Lorne, her pistol pointed at his forehead. His breathing was laboured. He knew he couldn't protect himself any longer. The two made eye-contact. She had fired upon his baby. She had murdered his wife. He memorized her face. Her features. Everything about her. He etched her image into his memory. Eventually, he would hunt her down.
“Nesbitt,” one of the other soldiers started, “Lower your weapon. Mission has failed. Termination of target was only authorized while within the Gatesphere.”
Nesbitt made eye-contact with Lorne. She couldn't hear her fellow officer – the Whisperer wouldn't allow it. The Whisperer made her feel ecstatic – orgasmic – like the mystical high of worship!
“Iä! Iä! Krulgh fhtagn!” she cried out in orgasmic ecstasy as she pulled the trigger and blew his brains out.
* * *
The metempsychosis was different this time. Lorne's alien-facet was depleted, exhausted. He no longer had the energy to remote view the planet. His ability to manipulate and direct the symbiot-facet gone, he careened recklessly through this alien process of reincarnation.
He felt like he traveled groggily down a darkened corridor.
The billions of people were just passing sounds, blended voices, white noise; rushing and flooding past in an incomprehensible blur.
But on the peripheral edge of his consciousness, he was aware of whisperings from outside the corridor. His foggy perception of their source – the whisperers themselves – were strange and disturbing.
Inanimate objects, like stone statues. Dead but somehow vaguely aware; dreaming. An identity stuck him; a single word; a name possibly - more akin to a sound. Krulgh.
His consciousness faltered and blinked out as he uncontrollably plummeted into black abysses of sheer madness.
Chapter 16: Birth and Rebirth!
Perth, Australia,
June 2nd, 2005,
(10 years in the future)
Amber gasped! The sudden and violent intake of air startled the paramedic. He jumped as her eyes abruptly sprang open!
Her body jerked with a spasm. A disjointed and incoherent sound bellowed from her lungs. It was a long and painful lamentation. The paramedic was doubly shocked when the howl was joined by a baby's cry! The half-born fetus' skin began shifting from blue-gray to pink as oxygen entered its bloodstream.
Lorne's mind was overwhelmed! Pain. It was all he could see – feel – experience. It was his entire world. Unparallelled suffering!
“Pain!” Screamed the Amber-facet of his multimind! “Pain, not suffering! Never suffering!”
Lorne couldn't concentrate. Couldn't focus. Couldn't find any escape or reprieve from this overwhelming pain! His mind, his psyche was never built to experience or endure this kind of pain!
He felt his consciousness, his very essence, dividing, dispersing. His very thoughts diminishing.
Although some aspect of Lorne was still aware of the Whisperer, he could no longer hold a coherent thought. He was engulfed by the pain. Debilitated by it. And this leeching, dividing draining was overtaking him.
It was Amber who answered its call. It was the Amber-facet who took control – took the reigns – and allowed the Whisperer in.
The sudden intake of energy was enough! With a final grunt she pushed!
The baby was a boy and it cried and screamed. But as mother and child saw one another, there was no maternal bonding. Something perfused the moment. Some deeply rooted instinct in both of them recognized the unnaturalness; the wrongness of the event.
The baby boy's blue eyes were open. Green and gold flecks sparkled in his eyes as an emotion akin to fear and flight permeated them. His cries became a wailing colic.
The psychic ether in the ambulance was palatable, as the baby's eyes glowed briefly. And then he disappeared. Snapped out of existence. Teleported away.
Amber's mind was confused from the trauma, and Lorne's fragmented mind was still in the throes of rage from the battle.
Feeling threatened, instinctively, his multimind released a concussion wave. It blew the top and side of the ambulance open. The vehicle swerved and skidded across the road. It clipped a street lamp as its driver wrestled for control, finally slamming into another vehicle.
The back of the ambulance was split open like a tin can. The paramedic lay stunned on his back, lucky to not have fallen out. He couldn't believe his eyes! The blonde girl stood up and disintegrated into a mist and vanished!
As she teleported away she became aware. Like a tickle in your throat that preempts a cough. Like the ever so slight telltale hint of the disease before it spreads throughout and became contagious.
The Hunt: Symbiosys Page 11