Aliomenti Saga 6: Stark Cataclysm

by Alex Albrinck

  Angel slipped to Adam’s side. She tapped his hand, and he looked down. She held in her hand a small device. An Energy eater. He realized the intended use and nodded, pocketing the device.

  Do you know how to do a blood transfusion?

  Adam frowned. I’ve done a few in my day.

  I’ll need you to do one in a bit. The Aliomenti will hit the aircraft Fil and I will use. You’ll need to report that I’m hurt and get Mr. Stark to us. Fil will take it from there. Just play along, and when the time comes… you’ll know what to do.

  A blood transfusion. But then he knew. Charlie’s mother had been his father’s second wife, a woman who joined the Alliance after they’d learned the secrets of ambrosia. The woman came with her own parental blood samples and provided a sample of her own before taking ambrosia. Charles, his father, had been lucky. Hope, while living outside, had bled his mother—a common medical practice at the time—and had saved the blood at Will’s request. Will had been obsessed with checking cellular and blood changes between ambrosia and non-ambrosia users, and requested Hope save any blood she could find. He’d frozen all of the samples before using up Charles’ mother’s sample, and they’d located the ancient samples in frozen storage. When Charles returned from captivity, they’d presented him with the long lost sample. Charlie had arrived two years later, and had a dozen vials of useable blood waiting for him back at the Cavern.

  Angel had nothing.

  Until her father, her young father, had arrived from the past, had taken an ambrosia-less Purge, and could provide a sample. It seemed indirect, but he suspected she’d thought through simply asking for a blood draw and identified issues he found not immediately obvious. This approach would get her the blood she needed directly.

  I’ll do it.

  Thanks, Adam.

  Fil ceased his assault upon his father, and both men climbed to their feet. He felt the need to stabilize the situation. “Let’s settle our issues at another time, please. We need to get moving.”

  He grabbed Will and pulled him toward the dwelling. “Stand still.”

  Adam concentrated on the image of the two man flying craft, and the dwelling melted as the trillions of tiny machines communicated the image, figured out where to move and how to connect. In mere moments, the craft formed around them.

  He turned back to look at Will, who was trying to mask his amazement. “Sit, Will.”

  “Oh. Right.” He sat.

  Adam used his mental control of the nanos to lift the vehicle off the ground. He could see Fil and Angel heading due south. They were supposed to go west and then rendezvous at the new camp. But Angel’s words came to mind. Adam told his nanos to follow the craft in front of them.

  The conversation on the trip covered the nanos—a relief; he could get Will the communication nanos now and transfer ownership of the excess batch—and why Fil had attacked him.

  “I wish I knew why that guy hates me so much,” Will grumbled.

  “He doesn’t hate you, Will. You just remind him of some of the most traumatic events in his life.”

  That was a slip-up. He’d been referring to the fire, of course, and the Cataclysm. Both of those weren’t shareable events with Will, though. Not in any way he could think of.

  Or could he? They couldn’t find any video of reference to the Cataclysm or what had precipitated those events. Adam found that strange. He couldn’t tell Will the full truth. But could a partial truth enable future Will to do something in the next time loop? Would he have any way to interfere?

  He decided he’d share and let Will figure out the best approach. “The Hunters took his wife and daughter hostage, Will. An Assassin, much like the one in your house, murdered both of them. They made him watch, Will. Hearing what happened to you… it reopened old wounds he’s been trying to close for years.”

  He couldn’t offer much more than that.

  He could feel Will’s discomfort and horror. “I had no idea.”

  “It really wasn’t my place to share that with you, but you needed to know. If Fil ever elects to share the story with you, I’d appreciate it if you’d act as if the story is news to you.”

  Will nodded. “Did they hurt his eyes?”

  Adam focused on the travel. The trees were thickening, testing the navigation abilities of the nanos as a group. An individual nano wouldn’t actually hit a tree. A full craft shouldn’t, and the devices needed his help to avoid collisions. “His eyes? No, I don’t think so.”

  “I just wondered why he always wears those sunglasses.”

  Oh, that made sense. “That’s another story that only Fil should share with you. He’ll do that when he’s ready.”

  He felt the Aliomenti approaching. They’d followed the trail of Will’s Energy—he’d made sure the craft let Will’s Energy escape—and were approaching. Seconds later, the first craft appeared above the canopy and fired a weapon at Fil and Angel’s ship. The shot couldn’t hit them unless they wanted it to hit them—and they did. He could feel Will’s horror as the ship collided with a tree and slid toward the ground below.

  Time to help his daughter fulfill her dream. “Angel’s hurt. It’s pretty bad.”

  The guilt flooded out of Will. Then something else: determination. He’d stop the Aliomenti. Will directed Adam to fly away from the crash to draw the Aliomenti from those injured. Adam complied. Will floated a large disk of Energy in the sky, and half of the aircraft following them collided with the disk and crashed down into the forest. Will followed up by firing Energy spheres at the Hunters, knocking both Athos and Porthos from the sky.

  Aramis decided not to push his luck and bailed out.

  After Will reactivated his Shield, Adam flew a circuitous path back to the crash site. Fil and Angel had done well. The aircraft was mangled behind them, and Fil held an apparently unconscious Angel in his arms. “I used the machines to heal what I could, but I can’t help the loss of blood.”

  Will rolled up his sleeve and looked at Adam. “Give her mine.”

  And just like that, Angel’s dream came true.

  Somewhere out there, Old Will was smiling.

  XXII

  Mechanic

  2219 A.D.

  He could hear the Mechanic thrashing about in the trunk of the time machine. He’d destroyed the backup weeks earlier, but had retained the original for research purposes. He didn’t feel comfortable destroying the working model until the “dissolvable” version was built.

  That version proved a challenge because he struggled to define the correct thickness of nanos required to provide the necessary strength to replace the composite material used in the original. He didn’t want to increase the mass substantially as testing revealed that extra mass affected the amount of energy needed to perform the time and location jumps. The distance in hops was comparable in three dimensions, but multiples large in the fourth. Every extra ounce was magnified.

  The crass language permeated the cabin, and the Mechanic sighed. He turned to his companion. “I don’t think he’s fond of us. What do you think, girl?”

  Smokey barked once.

  The Assassin went silent.

  The Mechanic laughed. Smokey had disbursed her own form of vengeance on the man, who now lived in fear that the dog would finish what she’d started. Smokey would do no such thing unless provoked, of course. The Assassin wouldn’t have the upper hand unless he had his sword and his freedom. He’d given the man his sword back because he’d need it for the next part of his journey. But he’d never leave him alone with Smokey.

  It didn’t matter. The Assassin would be out of their lives forever in short order.

  He piloted his flight-equipped time machine in toward the new site. He flew over an odd scene. Fil and Angel with Adam and Young Will Stark. He analyzed the image in his mind. A thin line of what looked like plastic tubing ran from Stark’s arm to Angel’s.

  He nodded with satisfaction. They’d figured out how to take advantage of Will’s presence in camp to solve a pressin
g matter for his daughter. When he’d cleaned Will upon the man’s arrival in this time, he’d saved the blood, just in case they didn’t figure out the solution in time. He felt it would be wrong for him to make the suggestion. Thankfully, they wouldn’t need the blood. He’d keep it in storage for his own purposes and reasons. They’d learn what he’d done and why in time, but for now, there was no reason to share.

  He landed in camp and reformed the building around the time machine. That would serve as the lab and meeting space for the primary actors in this script. He walked outside and created a secondary room just for the Assassin. He pulled the Assassin from the back of the time machine inside the nano cocoon. The Assassin screamed at him, threatening all manner of torture and death, until Smokey jumped out of the time machine cabin. She sat on her haunches, panting, and wagging her tail. The Assassin’s trousers suggested he’d not yet lost his fear of the dog.

  He floated the Assassin out of the room and into the private room created for his use before releasing the nano cocoon. The Assassin tumbled to the ground and the Mechanic walked out, listening to the man’s screams of protest and pounding of fists against walls that were solid for him and him alone.

  He moved back inside the lab. He needed to complete his work on the Assassin soon to give the man time to return to Aliomenti Headquarters. He’d identified a community within a reasonable flight time of the new camp where Aliomenti operated a bank branch. The Assassin would be able to get transport back to Headquarters from there.

  First, though, he had to be… altered.

  He’d been working on the specialized nanos for quite some time. The simulators kept rejecting his code or showing improper reactions to various stimuli. He’d thought of the fix during the flight between camps.

  Ironic that the Aliomenti’s invasion would enable the adjustment of their most efficient killer into a pawn of the Alliance.

  He opened the code on the holographic screen and moved into the module presenting the trouble. He scrolled through the lines of code until… there it was. The conditional statement in the code was vague and allowed for interpretations outside the guidelines he wanted. But it took a simple fix to adjust the code to fix the errors. He saved the code change and ran it through the simulators, testing the hundreds of test scenarios and stimuli against the code. He waited anxiously as the test progressed toward the scenarios that failed in previous simulations. As each passed, he allowed himself to breathe a bit more deeply. He took a deep breath. Time to get to work. He issued the commands to produce the custom nanos, placing a small vial at the base of the machine. The nanos would fall into the vial. He could inject the device, or let the nanos crawl inside his subject without the man ever knowing. He discarded both ideas as impractical. He’d make the Assassin drink something with the nanos inside. His lip curled. He liked the idea of using a foul tasting substance, but rejected that idea. If the man vomited the solution up… he’d have a mess to clean. No, he’d mix it in with plain water.

  He sat down in a chair and closed his eyes. The rest was essential. He’d be busy over the next few hours—over the next week, really—and any extra rest would prove valuable. He performed a meditation technique he’d learned years earlier to relax his mind and body and remain in a restful state until the alarm sounded. He snapped his eyes open, stood, and collected the vial. He formed a glass with his nanos, filled it with water, and poured the nano mixture in. He formed a stirrer with nanos to mix everything up, which struck in the process as an unnecessary step. He shrugged. It wouldn’t hurt, either.

  He looked at Smokey, who’d rested next to the chair, and held up a hand. “Stay here, girl.” The dog raised her head, tilted it slightly, then set her head back on the ground.

  He walked out into the bright sunlight. The new campsite was further south than the old by perhaps one hundred miles, but they’d moved away from the equator and into a higher elevation. The temperature had dropped notably, though he still felt a pleasant warmth from the sunlight. The air here was clear and fresh, with a slightly different fragrance than the old due to the different fruit trees growing in the area. The Mechanic took a deep breath and entered the Assassin’s room.

  The man sat on the floor against the far wall. “Nice of you to knock first.”

  The Mechanic shrugged. “Knock knock.”

  “Go away.”

  “Not yet.”

  “What do you want from me?” the Assassin snapped, his frustration at its peak. “You throw me in a trunk, take me to your camp, heal me, set the dog on me, then heal me again. Why don’t you just kill me? You know I’ll kill you the instant I get a chance.”

  “I don’t want to kill you,” the Mechanic replied. “I want you to be my spy at Aliomenti Headquarters.”

  The Assassin stared at him. Then he started laughing. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “Not at all.”

  “There’s no way I’d ever do that. Support human-loving traitors? Impossible. I’ll fight every single person here until I escape, and once I’m free, I’ll slaughter every one of you, starting with the dog.”

  “Smokey sends her love.”

  “Funny. What do you want from me?”

  “I told you. I want you to be my spy.”

  “And I told you I won’t.”

  “You’re under the impression that you have a choice in the matter,” the Mechanic replied. He reformed the nano cocoon around the Assassin, squeezing the man’s limbs to his sides, crushing the limited Energy inside him. The man’s eyes went wide, whether due to fear or a lack of oxygen, the Mechanic didn’t know. Didn’t care, either. He took the glass, walked to the Mechanic, and pinched the man’s nostrils and mouth closed. He waited until the man’s face started to show oxygen deprivation before releasing his mouth and pouring the mixture in. The desperate need for air forced the man to inhale, and in so doing swallow the mix. He released the man’s nostrils and used the nanos to force the man’s jaw closed. He could breathe. But even if he managed to force himself to vomit the concoction by force of will, it had nowhere to go.

  He left the man in that state, ignoring the flames sparking from the man’s face. The feedback mechanism would take a few moments to activate. Seven minutes later, after teaching the Mechanic words he’d not heard in all his years of living but understood to be insults, he got the result he wanted.

  He could see himself through the Assassin’s blood red eyes.

  The tools for spying were in place. That was the easy part, though. He’d injected a form of communication nanos into the man. Instead of communicating with general nanos, though, they transmitted what the man saw and heard to the Mechanic.

  That wasn’t enough, though. He had no interest in watching the man slaughter innocents. And that was the challenge. He needed something to modify the man’s mind to prevent the murder of humans and members of the Alliance. Energy-based memory blocks would leave markers too easy to spot by the Aliomenti. They’d know the Assassin had been tampered with. And they’d imprison him or execute him before he could provide useful information. He needed a technology solution.

  It was time to test the solution. He released the man from the cocoon. The Assassin patted his arms and legs, testing to ensure he had control of his own limbs.

  He walked over and, as the Mechanic looked at him, punched the man in the face.

  It hurt. He’d not thrown punches often in his life, and it had been years since the last. His hand throbbed. But the satisfaction derived from the damage to the killer made it worth the pain.

  He watched. The Assassin’s rage mounted, the desire to kill rose to a fever pitch, and he did… nothing.

  Success.

  He explained to the Assassin his new role in life. He’d be incapable of killing a human or a member of the Alliance. At the Mechanic’s direction, he might directly act against the orders of the Leader, though he must do so in a manner suggestive of a failed effort than outright disobedience. He would be expected at times to meet with the Mecha
nic and reveal information he’d seen or heard.

  They discussed how the Assassin would integrate himself back into Aliomenti society after his absence. He would announce that he’d indeed been captured by the Alliance and placed in forced captivity. He’d escaped, killing several members of the Alliance in the process, and had made his way to the closest city with an Aliomenti branch. He could also report that Will Stark was in the place he’d just escaped, and his power was greatly diminished. A well-timed strike at the camp could net them Stark and the few remaining members of the Alliance in the world.

  “Anything else? Master?” The Assassin sneered the last word. The Mechanic didn’t care. He couldn’t make the man polite to members of the Alliance and not raise the suspicions of those targeted for spying.

  “Ah, there’s one more thing.” The Mechanic smiled. “You’ve been asleep for almost two centuries.”

  The Assassin stared at him, and then started laughing. “Now I know you’re joking.”

  “Suit yourself. In the past 200 years, a huge cataclysmic event has thinned the number of humans in the world by billions. Quite a few Aliomenti perished. The Alliance? Well, the Alliance isn’t what it once was.”

  “That’s crazy talk,” the Assassin said. But his scarred face clouded. It was clear he doubted his own words.

  “There’s a new Assassin now. They thought you were dead. A man named Abaddon. He—”

  “No. No, not him.” The Assassin shook his head. “That man is insane. He’ll do something stupid, something foolish, and—”

  “He did do something stupid and foolish. That precipitated the Cataclysm I mentioned.” He shrugged. “Believe me or don’t believe me. I don’t care. But when you realize I’m correct, you’ll understand that when I tell you that Will Stark was also kept asleep since your encounter, I’m definitely not lying.”

  The Assassin stared at him.

  The Mechanic reformed the cocoon around the Assassin and hauled him out of the room and into the bright sunlight before entering the meeting room with the time machine. He kicked open the trunk.