The Meridian Ascent (Rho Agenda Assimilation Book 3)

by Richard Phillips

  When they entered the altar chamber, Janet shifted her flashlight to illuminate the Altar of the Gods and the gleaming Incan Sun Staff mounted atop it. Khal Teth didn’t pause but climbed the three tiers to stand before the golden orb. Janet followed him to the top.

  Khal Teth reached out to caress the clockwork device, Jack’s hands expertly twisting the rings that altered and realigned the mechanism. The sight pulled forth such a vivid sense of déjà vu that a wave of vertigo almost caused Janet to stumble. More than a decade ago, Klaus Barbie’s bastard son, Conrad Altman, had stood atop this altar manipulating those same rings. Dr. Priscilla McCoy had stood beside him, just as Janet now stood beside Jack’s doppelganger. And just as had happened before, the orb seemed to suck the light into its interior.

  A low vibration rose to a high-pitched hum. A dim glow leaked from within the crownpiece, growing in intensity until Janet was forced to squint. Beneath her the altar shifted, the top tier sliding toward the nearest wall, carrying her and Khal Teth along with it. When it came to a stop, she turned to see a four-foot-wide ramp that led down into darkness.

  Khal Teth switched off his flashlight, lifted the Sun Staff from its slot atop the altar, and walked down the ramp, letting it light his way. Janet and the robots followed his example. Several paces down, she heard the altar slide to close off the entrance behind her. She saw no stone in this passage. The walls and ceiling were of the same strange metal as the ramp.

  Up ahead, the passage leveled out, then stopped at a bare wall. Behind her an unseen door closed, sealing them in a room the size of a jail cell. Then the light from the Sun Staff’s golden crownpiece died, leaving the two in magenta-colored semidarkness.

  Another door whisked open in front of them, and Khal Teth led her into a larger room with five translucent chairs, one of which was positioned to the rear of the other four. Janet understood what she was looking at. This was similar to the Second Ship’s command deck after which Heather had modeled the room within the underground fortress in New Zealand. It had the same magenta lighting and gently curved walls, floor, and ceiling, all designed to minimize the crew’s distraction from the sensory data that the neural net provided. As Khal Teth moved toward the captain’s chair, Janet stopped him.

  “Before we take this ship anywhere, I want a complete tour,” she said.

  “We’ll have plenty of time to do that once we are on our way to Quol.”

  She rested her right hand on her holstered Glock. “We’ll do it now.”

  Jack’s eyes stared back at her, their familiar red glint clearly visible. But then Khal Teth turned away.

  “All right, then. Let’s get it over with,” he said.

  Janet’s tour of AQ37Z lasted more than four hours. But her tour guide wasn’t Khal Teth. It was the ship’s artificial intelligence who called itself Z. The AI was not restricted to one portion of the research vessel but controlled all facets of the ship’s operations. Although Khal Teth accompanied her, Janet had chosen to have the AI directly answer her questions.

  So Khal Teth had given the command that authorized Z to interact with her. Although the AI was linked to Jack’s brain through the captain’s headset, it also understood and could converse in all of Earth’s languages. Janet chose English.

  AQ37Z was laid out like a giant wheel with a central hub and six spokes that terminated in vertical cylinders that formed multistory chambers on the outer ring. The vast central hub housed the vessel’s power plant and engines as well as the engineering bay within which the Second Ship had once been docked. This bay was where she left the engineering robots. Using the SRT headset attuned to the robots, Janet commanded them to begin the assembly and setup of the refrigerator-sized MDS, the computer, the molecular assembler, and the food synthesizer.

  Even though Khal Teth had assured her that the AQ37Z had stocks of food and water, Heather had insisted that they take that last item, along with the combat robots. Janet approved of these precautions.

  Janet, Khal Teth, and their remaining robotic entourage moved along one of the spokes to the research ship’s outer ring. The chamber at the end of that spoke housed the bridge with the five crew chairs, the medical bay, the crew’s suspended animation chamber, and the airlock. The crew quarters filled another of the circular facilities. After that, things got creepy.

  The remaining chambers located at the end of the other spokes were biolabs dedicated to collecting and analyzing the genetic makeup of Earth’s flora and fauna, with an emphasis on humans. The AQ37Z’s primary mission was to develop a detailed understanding of the planet’s intelligent species and the genetic changes that were occurring generation to generation. The fact that the crew of the research vessel hadn’t collected any of the other species that many regarded as having high intelligence, such as whales or dolphins, surprised Janet. Again, Z provided the answer when she raised the question. The Altreians were interested only in beings who manufactured and made use of increasingly sophisticated tools.

  To that end, thousands of chrysalis cylinders were arrayed along each hub and around the outer ring. According to Z, 47 percent of those cylinders were presently occupied by humans collected from various eras since the research vessel had arrived on Earth. The rest remained empty, awaiting samples of humanity from generations yet to come.

  As Janet roamed those long corridors with Khal Teth at her side, her anger increased to the point that she had to force herself to unclench her fists. Every couple of generations, this ship had awakened its crew, sending them out to collect more human guinea pigs to be probed, prodded, and put into suspended animation. And the bastards had used the Second Ship for their roundup.

  The vast majority of the genetic testing and analysis came at Z’s direction while the crew slept. As needed, the AI would rouse individuals from different generations and regions for comparison with more recent samples, using automated machinery to move the subjects to and from the biolabs. The images that brought to Janet’s mind made her physically ill.

  When she completed her circuit of the AQ37Z, she halted inside the room that she thought of as the ship’s bridge, turning on Khal Teth.

  “I’ve heard enough,” she said.

  Khal Teth’s grin on Jack’s face did nothing to improve her mood.

  “Are you ready for me to take us out?” Khal Teth asked, sliding into the captain’s chair.

  “Is this going to be a rough ride?”

  “The ship’s inertial damping is so good you won’t notice any acceleration.”

  “What about weightlessness?”

  “Not unless we want it.”

  Janet sank into the rightmost of the four crew chairs. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. It was time to go get her Jack and get rid of this doppelganger.

  “Go ahead.”

  Then, as Khal Teth settled back into his command chair, the AQ37Z shifted into subspace.

  The ground lurched so hard beneath Tall Bear’s pickup truck that he had to fight the steering wheel to keep the vehicle from overturning. He was unsuccessful. As the truck rolled down a short embankment and into a ditch, the driver’s-side airbags exploded into his face and left side. For several seconds, Tall Bear hung upside down from his seat belt as blood stung his eyes and dripped from his face.

  The smell of gasoline spurred him into motion.

  He struggled with the seat-belt release to no avail. So he pulled the knife from his belt sheath and cut the strap, tumbling into a pile on the damaged roof. Suddenly a flame burst to life in the engine compartment where, fed by fuel, it quickly grew into a blaze that licked through the smashed-out front windshield.

  Unable to open the door, Tall Bear lay back and kicked the side window with all the power he could put through his size 14 cowboy boots. Although the safety glass bulged, it refused to give way. Heat and smoke roiled around him, and Tall Bear held his breath to avoid sucking it into his lungs. Again he kicked with an adrenaline-fueled energy that broke the glass and bent the door frame.

  Ignoring
the searing pain of the flames, he scrambled out of the truck and up the bank, rolling in the dirt to extinguish the fire that had clawed its way up the back of his shirt. When at last he stopped, he lay on his back, panting, bathed in the light of the fire that licked the evening sky.

  In the distance, the sound of an emergency siren blared from Tiahuanaco, the small town near the ruins of the Kalasasaya Temple. Tall Bear struggled to his knees and then to his feet, wiped the blood from his eyes, and stared back in the direction from which he had come. The dust cloud that had climbed into the evening sky told him all he needed to know.

  The earth had just swallowed the ruins of the Kalasasaya Temple.

  CHAPTER 25

  NEW ZEALAND

  23 March

  Jamal sat in his control chair, letting his mind roam through the military computers of the Federation Security Service and finding bad news wherever he looked. Prokorov had placed two Russian heavy bombers and the Eighty-Second Airborne Division on alert for potential deployment to New Zealand. Yes, the Smythes had been busted.

  “We’ve got company within our outer perimeter,” said Eileen from her chair to his left.

  “How many?”

  “It looks like three fifteen-man special-forces teams.”

  Jamal shifted his attention, pulling up the data from the sensors that monitored the outer boundaries of the Tasman Mining Corporation’s property. Then he picked up his QE phone and pressed the call button for Heather, who answered after two rings.

  “What is it?”

  “Special forces recon units have just penetrated our outer perimeter in three places. They’re on foot.”

  “How far?”

  “The closest unit is just over seven miles from here. Moving through that steep terrain, they’re probably two hours out. Do you want me to send out some bots to take them out?”

  Heather paused. “No. Let them come. They can’t penetrate our shielding.”

  “The Eighty-Second has been placed on alert along with Russia’s Fifty-Second Heavy Bomber Air Regiment out of Shaykovka. It won’t be long until Prokorov puts those Backfires and Bears in the air. I wouldn’t put it past him to hit us with nukes.”

  “Look, we’ve all known it was just a matter of time until they found us,” Heather said. “We’re prepared for this. I’m going to finish my workout and get cleaned up. In the meantime, gather the rest of our team in the lower conference room. Meeting starts in forty-five minutes.”

  When she hung up, Jamal glanced over at Eileen. “Well,” he said, “the boss didn’t sound too worried.”

  Denise’s voice drew his gaze to where the older computer scientist sat. “I’m worried enough for all of us. We’ve got nowhere to run.”

  “Technically, that’s not true,” said Jamal. “The Meridian Ascent is sitting down in the Earth gate chamber, and we could all hop on board and go for a ride.”

  “Christ, that sounds even worse than being trapped down here,” said Denise.

  “Or we could get out through the Earth gate to one of our Safe Earth resistance strongholds,” said Jamal.

  “Those aren’t strongholds. They’re hiding holes that are even less secure than this one. It seems like we lose one every other week.”

  “Denise,” said Eileen, “you can relax. We’re more than a mile below ground and have redundant matter disrupters to power our internal and external stasis shields. We can make anything we need, including food and water, and have an ever-expanding army of robotic workers. We’re going to be just fine.”

  Jamal knew that Eileen was doing her best to sound like she believed what she was saying, but he wasn’t buying it. Just like everything else they’d attempted, something was bound to go wrong.

  Suddenly he noticed the smooth, round object in his right hand. His eyes were drawn to the holographic data sphere that Senator Freddy Hagerman had called his lucky marble. Since the day that Freddy had delivered this to them, Jamal had carried it in his pocket. Now as he watched the way the marble shifted colors as he twisted it under the room lighting, he imagined that he could see the ghostly copy of himself that rested within that small orb.

  Swallowing, he returned it to his pocket. Things would have to get a whole lot worse before he dared propose they unleash that weapon.

  By the time the meeting started, things had gotten a whole lot worse. Heather entered the conference room and made the announcement they had all been dreading.

  “The leaders of the UFNS and its member nations have just held a joint press conference to announce to the world that they have formed a mutually beneficial alliance with an extraterrestrial government known as the Kasari Collective. As part of the terms of this treaty, the Kasari have agreed to provide advisors and technology to help the governments of Earth put an end to all poverty and endless warfare. The Kasari also promise to gift Earth with a superior version of the nanite infusion, providing a much longer life span and improved quality of life.”

  “And a partridge in a pear tree,” said Jamal, pulling nervous laughter from most of those gathered around the table.

  Heather even managed a smile at the wisecrack.

  “Thank you for that bit of perspective, Jamal,” she said. “I called you all together to make sure everyone has a full understanding of the challenges we face.”

  For the next thirty minutes, Heather laid the bare facts before them, adding her own evaluations of various probable actions that the UFNS and Kasari were likely to take against them. That brought her to the biggest stumbling block.

  “Since the upload of VJ’s free-will virus failed, I see no realistic chance that we can conquer the UFNS and their Kasari masters, no matter how many combat robots we build. So you see, our realistic survival choices boil down to two options.”

  Heather let her eyes wander across the faces of her friends, family, and allies, reluctant to say the words that needed to be spoken.

  “In the worst-case scenario, each of us must choose whether to shelter here in our own little subterranean world or join the crew of the Meridian Ascent and search for a new home out among the stars.”

  The silence that followed Heather’s words seemed to thicken the air, making it hard for her to breathe.

  A new noise drew her attention, the sound of something rolling on the tabletop. There, between Jamal’s two hands, he slowly rolled a familiar iridescent sphere back and forth. When his eyes met hers, the probabilities that cascaded through her head changed, shifting for better and for worse.

  “We do have a weapon that we haven’t even tried,” said Jamal.

  “Yes,” said Denise, staring in horror at the holographic data sphere, “because it has a high chance of triggering the end of days.”

  “For those of you who don’t know what we’re talking about,” Heather said, looking at the Meridian crew and the McFarland and Smythe parents, “that is a holographic data sphere that Jack and Janet recovered more than a decade ago. It was invented by the medical-device billionaire, Steve Grange, who downloaded a copy of Jamal’s mind into an artificial intelligence and stored it in that innocent-looking marble.”

  “That AI helped us kill Grange and stop the Chinese from getting that technology,” said Jamal.

  “But it tried to escape onto the Internet,” Denise said. “And if that would have happened, it could not have been contained.”

  “I don’t think we need to worry about the rogue superintelligence scenario,” said Jamal.

  “And why is that?” asked Mark.

  “Don’t you get it? It’s a copy of me. It has my value system.”

  “You can’t know that,” said Denise.

  “I do.”

  “The Kasari Collective was almost wiped out by a rogue AI,” said Jennifer. “They fear that above all else.”

  “And with good reason,” said Eileen, “but I’m not seeing any other options that offer us hope of saving the earth from total assimilation. Has anyone got a better idea?”

  “Assimilation might be better
than being dead,” said Denise.

  “It isn’t,” said Jennifer. “Not if you love freedom.”

  Dgarra leaned forward to prop his elbows on the table. “A weapon that is never used is no weapon at all.”

  Heather studied the seven-foot Koranthian with the otherworldly, sometimes intimidating features. Dgarra carried himself with a gravitas that she found very appealing. And his obvious love for Jen was as plain as hers for him. That made the general family.

  “I was an AI before I made myself real,” said VJ, startling Heather. “And I was modeled after Jennifer. I believe Jamal when he says that we can trust a downloaded version of him to do the right thing.”

  “And,” said Rob, “Eos is an AI, and she has saved me more than once. She’s helped us all. What does that tell you?”

  “Exactly what my probabilities are saying,” said Heather. “If we release this Virtual Jamal, our chances of winning get a hell of a lot bigger . . . and so does our downside risk. But if we do nothing, we’re guaranteed to eventually lose our world.”

  “And that, I can assure you, is a horrible thing,” said Dgarra.

  Heather put it to a vote. The yes side garnered Mark, Jennifer, Rob, Eos, Raul, Dgarra, VJ, Jamal, Eileen, Gil, Anna, Fred, and Heather. The nos consisted of Denise and Linda Smythe. Thus, it was decided.

  But as everyone filed out of the room, the downside kept playing itself out in Heather’s mind.

  CHAPTER 26

  FRIENDSHIP CAVERN, NORTH KOREA

  23 March

  When the first of the UFNS commandos penetrated the Smythe cloaking field and hit the shielding that formed a wide bubble around the New Zealand compound, Commander Shalegha became alert to the data streaming from them through the hive-mind. By the time all three teams had converged on different sides of the shielded area, a clear image of the enclosed terrain had formed in her tactical visualization. And she had to admit that the breadth of that protection was impressive, extending over a radius more than one English mile.