The Cydonia Objective mi-3

by David Sakmyster

  Were they sure? Calderon hadn’t relied on their talents yet, hadn’t had the necessity. The boys were young, green and untested. The visit to the Statue of Liberty proved that they weren’t ready. They were powerful, to be sure, but just not focused. A wasted trip. And he hadn’t had the time then to help guide them. But if all went well here, if they could capture or kill Crowe and Montross, even eliminate the Morpheus Initiative, then Lady Liberty could keep her secrets for all he cared.

  Three mercenaries, HK-45s out in front, filed around him and moved ahead of the boys. They opened the door, and Calderon tapped his cane once, hearing it echo metallically off the walls and amidst the relics, then he followed them inside and down into the subterranean chambers to await their quarry.

  #

  Xavier Montross pushed the center stone on the wall. He really didn’t need to remote view this part. He knew this was the door, the exit that in ancient times had led out a half-mile beyond the Khepre Pyramid, where the initiates could exit into a well, then ascend to the desert and see the monuments from a different vantage point. Caleb would’ve said it had something to do with mental perspective and a sense of spiritual evolution, but Xavier could care less.

  This part was easy. In his flashlight beam, the light dimming already from four hours of continuous use, he could see three rectangular blocks set in the wall to the right of a large, smooth block. The door. And here, it was too obvious. Two of the blocks had the hieroglyphics facing right, as was typical. The middle one had the characters facing left. While he couldn’t translate these scripts specifically, he didn’t need to. Push the right one, the door opens. Push one of the other two and…

  All right, he thought. Didn’t get this far by being impulsive. Better just be safe and take a look…

  He closed his eyes, spread out his arms and concentrated. On the door, willing to be shown a time when it didn’t open, when in fact someone had gotten it wrong. Show me.

  He teetered unsteadily. A vibration traveled up his spine, tingling the base of his neck. Pushing through his skull to the center of his forehead. His mouth opened and he let out a gasp.

  A nervous young bald man with a wavering hand reaches for the middle stone. Pushes it with confidence, smiling–

  -right up to the point the block he’s standing on drops. Only a few inches—but it’s enough. Something sharp whisks across, driven with incredible force. The youth screams in agony, slides backwards and lands, lifting his legs to look in horror at the stumps where his feet used to be…

  Enough!

  Xavier pulled himself back, snapped his mind out of the vision. He’d seen too many of these sights, experienced so much pain and death. As if he’d been there himself. But whether it was one soul or an entire world’s population, death was death. Brutal, remorseless. Uncaring.

  Steadying himself, he looked at the stones again. And realized his mistake.

  The middle one, while different, was really just a mirror image of the top one. They were one and the same, copies just written in reverse.

  The bottom one…

  Montross leaned forward. Pushed it—and felt his feet tensing, ready to jump at the slightest movement. Not that he’d have the chance.

  But then the wall ahead shook, dust fell from the ceiling, and a thin sliver of light appeared at the left, steadily growing as the block pulled aside.

  Light? Xavier squinted. He turned off his flashlight. The stone slid farther. Run back, he thought, and had a flash of a cluttered room, something like a storage area, with crates and boxes pulled back from the wall, from the open wooden door on the other side. Just a glimpse, before the four men in black suits raised their weapons at him and surged through the opening.

  #

  Back in the shadows, around the last corner of this point of the labyrinth, Xavier crouched. On his knees. I’m not going to die, he thought. I would have seen it. And then he cursed himself. Too often this gift of foresight about his death led him to a false sense of security. He failed to fully scout out other more uncomfortable situations.

  But he was far from without resources.

  #

  Calderon walked through his mercenaries as they encircled the red-haired man who had emerged, squinting, from the doorway.

  “Ah, Xavier Montross. We meet at last.” Calderon cocked his head. Something was odd. Montross was too calm. He’d just emerged from what should have been a stiflingly hot, oppressive and dank labyrinth, and yet he wasn’t even sweating. His hair was perfect, no dirt on his face, nothing to tell of any ordeal. Like he had just awoke from a peaceful nap.

  Isaac scampered between two of the soldiers, approaching Montross from behind. Jacob, meanwhile, had taken an interest in the doorway. The open section of flimsy drywall that had concealed the sandstone entrance beyond it.

  “Jacob.” Calderon called to the boy. “Wait.” He moved closer to Montross, easing between two of the guns. “We don’t know what’s down there.”

  “I do,” said Isaac. With a sneer, he kicked out with a swipe that should have bent in the back of Xavier’s right leg—but his foot passed right through and Isaac tumbled, off balance and with a cry of shock.

  Montross’ image gave a wink—and then disappeared. Furious, Calderon gripped the head of his cane like a sword hilt. “Inside—now! Get him, he can’t be far!”

  Or could he? This was it, Calderon thought. One of the gifts bestowed by the Emerald Tablet, a power he needed, and one only he fully understood. Its implications were all-encompassing, not just on a personal level, but what it could do if interfaced with the right technology, such as what they had built up in Alaska.

  If Montross had practiced, if had deciphered the Tablet and perfected the skills, he could be anywhere.

  But he wasn’t, Calderon realized. The door had been physically opened from the other side. He was close.

  #

  Worth a shot, Montross thought as he breathed his consciousness back into his body, just as air would fill his lungs. He had just enough time to start to run back the way he had come, intending to get far enough to trip one of the traps he had avoided on the way here. But it was too late.

  They were on him. Pinning him to the wall. Hands behind his back, secured with plastic bonds. Then hauled back out, into the light, surrounded by crates, dust, and two boys.

  “Ah, my newly discovered nephews.” Despite his predicament, Montross found it wasn’t that hard to smile, and to mean it. “You actually look a bit like your father, but those green eyes of yours—all Nina.”

  “Well, Xavier…” said a voice he had heard many times, but only in visions. In dark, smoke-filled rooms, and once on a massive glacier under the midnight sky, observing the Northern Lights over a sleeping radar facility.

  “This time in the flesh.” Mason Calderon leaned forward, both hands on his cane. His skin was lustrous, shining in the lights as if he’d applied a liberal dose of makeup before a stage performance. His eyes were hooded but sharp, moving rapidly, taking in everything about his captive. Thin white hair was slicked back from his high forehead, except for a lone curved strand that fell across his face like a scimitar blade.

  Montross stood up straight. “Well, you got me. Not too much effort for you, I hope. But, sorry to say, I’m all you’re getting. The other birds have flown the coop.”

  One of the boys moved around so he could stand by his brother. They both glared up at Montross with an oddly similar glints in their eyes. One had slightly finer hair, more chestnut than his brother’s walnut-colored tangle of curls. “We can still get them, father.”

  “No Jacob,” Calderon replied. “Not without trusting this man here to guide us.”

  “We can do it,” the other boy insisted.

  “We can see as well as he can.”

  Montross gave a little chuckle, but he had to admire the kids’ guts. Definitely a potent mix of their parents’ qualities.

  Calderon shook his head. “Sorry boys. Besides, I believe Montross here did what he s
et out to do. He bought Caleb and Alexander time to head back and get out the main entrance, hoping to fool us here.” He smirked. “Good thing Nina will be there, waiting.”

  Montross shrugged. “Maybe they’re not coming out. Lots to do down there. While traipsing through history’s looking glass, I saw all kinds of ceremonies, people living for years in those ventilated chambers, tunnels that connected to faraway exits, ports along the Nile and farther.”

  Calderon sighed. “And I doubt I even need to ask, but I assume you do not have the keys on you?”

  Montross laughed. “Wishful thinking, but of course not.” He nodded over his shoulder. “They’re back in there.”

  Calderon cocked his head, and Montross knew the man was weighing his words, deciding how much stock to put in Montross’ answer. But at this point, he didn’t care.

  Montross took a deep breath. “So, Senator Calderon. You’ve got the Emerald Tablet. Or at least, my former associate does. And you believe she’s now in your employ because of these…” Montross raised his chin toward the defiant boys, who were glaring at him with twin looks of menace. “…these lovely angels. But you don’t have the translation. Nor the keys to get into that box.”

  “We will, soon.” Calderon twirled the cane in his fingers, tracing the golden scales of the dragon, letting his index finger glide across the length of the spear thrust through its skull. “Although it’s not essential. From what you’ve just shown us, you’ve confirmed that proximity to the Emerald Tablet alone can get me what I need.”

  “Yeah,” Montross said, “but my mind’s better tuned toward it, or am I wrong and you’re actually a psychic yourself?”

  Calderon flinched. His eyes narrowed. The twins looked at each other.

  Isaac grunted. “But we are, aren’t we ‘Dad’?”

  “Righto,” Jacob chimed in. “We can do it, can’t we? Give us the tablet-thing. We’ll show you.”

  “Boys, don’t get ahead of yourselves.” Calderon never took his eyes off of Montross. “You may be right, Xavier. Which is why Nina will soon have these boys in that chamber. We’ll get the box, then go after Caleb and Alexander. There’s no way for them to escape, we’ll find them and those keys. Once the translation is in my possession and the Tablet’s secrets are mine, I’m certain that I will be able to duplicate your abilities. And much more. Its arcane instructions, I’m told, will fully reactivate what time and evolution have blocked.” He fondled the dragon’s wings, then smiled. “But more importantly, I will have what I need to complete our facility’s true purpose.”

  “Don’t count those chickens yet,” Montross said quietly. “There’s the little matter of the Morpheus Initiative in your way.”

  “Oh, I don’t think they’ll be in my way much longer. Last I checked, Phoebe and Orlando had their car destroyed outside of Cairo. And your brother and nephew…” He shrugged. “Only a matter of time. There’s no escape. I may have Nina give them the opportunity to join us in this momentous occasion, but I doubt Caleb’s visions could actually extend so far as to see the greatness of what we’re doing.”

  “Which is what, exactly?” Montross asked, his wrists struggling against the sharp bonds. “Besides wiping out everyone on the planet?”

  Calderon smiled. “Not everyone.” He tapped his cane against the floor. “It’s heartening to know that despite your powers, you can’t see it all.”

  I haven’t asked the right questions, Montross thought. That was something, at least. To know there might be more, another way to save themselves.

  Calderon turned and walked confidently up the stairs. The soldiers jabbed Montross along, and as he followed, Jacob and Isaac moved so they ascended on either side of him. Both looked up at him with an unnerving curiosity, like executioners taking perverse pleasure in watching the condemned on his final climb to the scaffold.

  Montross tried to ignore them. At the top, as he emerged into the museum’s westernmost wing, he took a moment to get his bearings. He thought about remote viewing the next passage of time, trying to glimpse what lay in store. But instead he got a flash of something else:

  Mason Calderon standing on a dizzying metal platform, pale blue electric sparks in his hair, his cane raised high. Like a modern-day Merlin, calling down elemental spirits. The sky itself turns a magnificent swirl of orange and hardened emerald, folding and twisting like a multicolored tapestry, everything churning and exploding over snow-capped mountains.

  Suddenly, Calderon’s face appeared in his sight, jarring the vision. “What are you seeing?”

  Montross had gone pale. His lips trembled. “I think… it was the beginning.”

  “Of what?”

  “The end of the world.”

  Calderon nodded, with a light dazzling in the darkest centers of his pupils. “I may not be psychic, but that’s one vision I’ve seen as well. Many, many times…”

  6.

  “This is crap,” Orlando said with a groan about thirty minutes later. He thumbed through the papers, the small-print, the few photographs of the region, the caves seen from a distance, some satellite maps, and a blurred-out picture of a little girl working in the fields with what may have been her parents.

  “I agree.” Phoebe snatched up the last photograph, unclipped it from the folder’s edge. “This here, this is all we need. The other stuff will only cloud our thoughts. Focus on her, and let’s get this over with.”

  “But there’s a lot of that ‘other stuff’ in here. If this is true, Jesus. She’s only ten! The daughter of an American missionary and a Bamian native woman. Watched her mother butchered before her eyes.”

  “Stop,” Phoebe insisted. She closed the folder, tossed it on the floor. And with a scornful glance at their sleeping companion, she reached into her pack and pulled out a scrapbook. Two pencils. Offered one to Orlando and ripped out a sheet of paper.

  “I’ll use… damn. No laptop.”

  “Sorry to bring you back to the Middle Ages, but just grab a damn pencil.” She took a deep breath, leaned back and grasped her pencil lightly between her finger and her thumb. In a moment, as Orlando watched, her eyes rolled back, her mouth opened and her arm shook.

  Orlando sighed. “All right then. Don’t wait for me.”

  #

  First: a full vision of Blue. Deep and tranquil like the depths of the Caribbean. Close, and yet impossible to grasp, like the sky.

  Phoebe struggled. Pulled back. Sent her questions away from the depths, toward more solid ground. Toward the past…

  Blue again. But this time, the pure infinite blue of the Afghanistan sky. Down to the great cliffs of the Kohebaba range. A rock wall pockmarked with caves, ridges and steep grooves beside an immense hollowed out niche. Its smaller twin far to the right.

  Pull back…

  The fields. Dust and sand. A few straggly juniper bushes. A goat here and there. In the blistering sun, a crowd of villagers stand in the center of a loose scattering of adobe shacks. A lone rusty well sits untended and unused at the edge of the village, and scrawny buzzards perch on its rotting boards.

  Riding horses, three men carrying AK-47s are keeping the villagers together in a group. Forcing them to remain. To watch.

  A mujahedeen fighter, all in black astride a white horse, unravels the sash from his face. A single eye glares at the villagers; the other—the left, is hidden behind a black patch with jewels embedded in the cloth. He raises his gun and shouts toward the cliff wall, addressing the seemingly empty caves. “Bring her out!”

  The walls are silent. The largest niche, holding only the rubble now of the largest statue ever built, trembles slightly as if the earth had just rumbled.

  The man known as The Eye shouts again. “Bring her out, infidels! Or the will of Allah will fall upon your friends.” He makes a motion with his left hand, a nonchalant waving in the direction of a bewildered young man standing by himself.

  Another fighter on horseback rides up behind the youth and with a ululating cry, brings down a scimitar, sil
encing the boy’s sudden cry of fright. A spray of blood across the sand, and the other villagers erupt in shrieks and cries.

  “NOW!” the Eye shouts again to the hills. In a moment, he points to another villager, a huddled old woman.

  But then, motion in one of the caves. A man and a woman emerge, heads bowed. Dressed in tattered clothes.

  The Eye holds up a hand restraining his men. Gallops ahead a short distance. “Show me the girl!”

  The man’s shoulders slump as he steps away from the woman, letting a small girl walk into the sunlight. Blinking, shielding her eyes, she walks to the edge. Trying to appear brave, she raises her dirty face to the sky and spreads her arms as if they’re tiny wings.

  And the villagers murmur to themselves. Some drop to their knees, others whimper.

  “Enough!” hisses the Eye. He motions to his men. “Bring her down.” And as they gallop toward the base of the giant niche in the cave-riddled mountainside, he stares at the girl, not more than seven or eight. And he finds it difficult to look at her, despite the grime and dust covering her face and hair, her shredded clothes.

  She’s glowing, reflecting the painful brilliance of the sun.

  But in minutes, the three of them are down, herded like wayward sheep into the clearing.

  The Eye dismounts and stands before them.

  “You gave me a good chase, girl.” She refuses to look up at him. Her eyes—bright blue like the sky—stare only over at the headless young man at the edge of the clearing. Her father squeezes her hand tight and her mother clasps her other hand.

  The Eye considers the three of them, then tells the girl, “You have the look and the stink of your American father about you.”

  “Leave her alone,” the father says, daring a tone of defiance. “We don’t know why she can do what she does, but it’s not evil. It’s not—”

  “I know that, infidel.” The Eye grins, and taps his jeweled eye patch. “She is a gift from Allah. A gift I was meant to find. And use.”

  “No, please—” the mother starts, and tries to pull her daughter back.