Reflexive Fire - 01

by Jack Murphy

  With the breeders wiped out by his plague, he could finally bring a new line of long-suppressed occult technology to the forefront. Life extension technologies would ensure that he and those he selected would survive to carry on their ambitions for hundreds of years, until such a point came that technology rendered life as currently perceived irrelevant and their species evolved into something altogether different.

  Oh, a portion of humanity had been there before, in a time long forgotten. Prior to The Fall, a race of optimally functioning people had existed even more powerful than he.

  Before him Leviathan purred, electronic hums idling by, waiting patiently for work. A small field of databanks were interconnected, containing solid state data storage, enough to contain every piece of information that had existed, into infinity as near as occult scientists could tell. Centered in the core of the data processing center was the brain, a quantum computer that was not supposed to exist. For the moment it was isolated, underground, and quarantined from the outside world.

  The supercomputer made use of the bizarre effects of quantum entanglement, manipulating information laterally across the time domain to provide any calculation, any function, faster than the human mind could comprehend. The effects were so unbelievable, so shocking, that several of the world's preeminent scientists had to be condemned after working with Leviathan. Hieronymus made sure they stayed in solitary, pumped full of pharmaceuticals, not that anyone would believe them anyway.

  In the darkness of their cells, they whispered to themselves that the computer made the calculations in the past, before the data was even inputted into the system.

  He could have had them disposed of, but found that they made far better pets; they bore testament to The Order's agenda, the coming amalgamation. Their feeble minds were literally driven insane, unable to comprehend what he had known since Leviathan's inception. It wasn't science but black magic, drawing on the power of the black sun. It channeled the power flowing from the reality that geometrically unfolded itself from the Void.

  The artificial entity called the United States Government was allowed to run a parallel but far inferior project called Main Core, making use of more conventional technologies. Still, it had served its purpose, monitoring enormous swaths of the eaters simultaneously.

  Power consumption, financial systems, infrastructure, political opinion, psychological trends, and much more were cataloged by Main Core and filtered through its periphery systems. Closed-circuit television camera systems from London to New York to Basra were monitored. Cell phone conversations were listened in on for key words and exact coordinates to that person's location, triangulated and tracked. Social Media networks and other websites compiled massive amounts of data hourly.

  All of it was added up into an aggregate, one that when processed through the computer systems could be used to predict the future with a fair amount of accuracy. When the collapse was initiated and the US Federal Government was eliminated on Day Sixteen, Main Core would be taken offline if the chaos hadn't knocked it out already.

  On that day, Leviathan would be unleashed on the planet. Tapping into dark fiber and redundant systems put into place years prior, it would keep the world running, and running by Hieronymus' rules. The earth's resources would be quickly calculated and redistributed as he saw fit, and Leviathan's systems would maintain Total Information Awareness, an all-seeing eye that never blinked. Silently, it would monitor what was left of the cattle.

  The puppet master grinned, watching his creation, blinking red lights flashing as it waited in the darkness. Hieronymus inhaled sharply. It knew he was in the room.

  After the cleansing, the world would be redesigned in his image. Singapore would explode into a metropolis of technology-manufacturing with serfs assembling the tools the elite required. Meanwhile, the planetary regime would establish a massive spaceport just outside the capital of Kazakhstan. The elite themselves would peer down on their subjects from heavily fortified enclaves and towering skyscrapers. True technological progress would be unveiled, harnessing energies yet unrealized.

  In a few decades the terraforming of the planet Mars would begin and two decades after that the first human-led superluminal space travel would take place. Channeling ancient, esoteric energies, they would create craft that moved faster than light itself, exploring the vastness of space.

  Remote viewers had already made contact with no less than five extraterrestrial consciousnesses in their galaxy alone. Gliese 581 had been transmitting signals at least since the elite's scientific foundations and societies had begun listening. The data contained in the transmission had been decrypted by Leviathan, but the message remained obscured; the occult scientists remained baffled by the language and manner of speech.

  It was no matter. It would be no more than forty years before they made first contact.

  Assessments would be carried out; the alien planet's mineral and sentient life forms would be calculated and cataloged. Then the harvesting would begin once again. The alien species would be subjugated and used as slave labor until they were rendered useless by further technological advancements. Planned extinction would come next.

  There would be one remaining thorn in his side and that was the elite themselves.

  Their will to power, the need to conquer and kill would never be quenched. Not by the global culling, nothing would satisfy those elites who operated near his own level. After the pandemic they would war with each other, sooner rather than later in Hieronymus' estimation.

  Leviathan concurred.

  Weapons, conventional and non-conventional had been prepositioned and secreted away in caches across the globe, hidden for later use by Jarogniew, Kammler, and many others. They thought their contingency plans remained clandestine, but in truth nothing remained a secret from him.

  Deeper in the hall, resting alongside Leviathan were all manner of officially non-existent weapons. Directed energy, psychotronic generators, geoengineering, radionics, and orthogonal frame rotational weapons were already at his disposal. In the aftermath of the culling, around Day Thirty the weapons would be fired upon his fellow elite, not to mention at least two other factions he expected to survive his apocalypse in China and Japan.

  He alone would have first strike capability, hitting hard and fast the moment the elite let their guard down as they attempted to consolidate power after the plague.

  Letting his hands rest on the composite plastic cube that housed the supercomputer, he let out a laugh that resonated throughout the great hall. The cube was now nothing more than a mental placeholder, a receiver at best. The calculations and processes were done elsewhere, inside the infolded electromagnetic space all around them.

  Turning away, he walked from the cavernous hall. He could feel Leviathan disengage from him, the mental link severing as the computer, or being, or whatever it was, noted his absence and went back into meditation.

  Back in the initiation room he changed from his robe and back into his customary fitted suit and loafers. Without bothering to glance back at his work, Hieronymus left Lilith and the others behind, boarding a heavy freight elevator.

  With a push of a button he began ascending to the surface. Minutes crawled by, the darkness interrupted by the occasional service light. When the elevator came to a halt, he stepped off and sat down on an electric golf cart. Powering the cart down the long corridor, a gust of cool air brushed across his wrinkled face. Motion detectors activated banks of overhead lighting as he sped down the tunnel. Behind him a series of heavy blast doors slammed shut. Leviathan would be running the compound in his absence.

  With the final blast door swinging shut, Hieronymus squinted in the natural sunlight, continuing to drive down a dirt road. Behind him a bulldozer rumbled up to the twelve ton door, pushing dirt over it. The work crew in charge of concealing and sanitizing the area was already taken care of. The activation agent to the binary virus was laced into their catered lunch. They would be dead before they ever stepped off the work site.r />
  Hieronymus remained stone-faced as his private jet came into view. The engines were already warmed up, the pilot waiting for him to arrive. Pulling up alongside, he put the golf cart into park and walked towards the open hatch. As he climbed the steps, the cold Colorado wind tossed his gray hair. The old man couldn't help but smile.

  The black stork was on its way.

  Twenty Nine

  Burning bridges never felt so good.

  Deckard braced himself against the fuselage of the aircraft, gazing out the small portal as they flew high above the clouds. It had taken a long time to get to this point, with everything riding on the line. Good people had died. His people.

  His only source of relief was in knowing that the best he could hope for was a pyrrhic victory. If they failed, none of them would be around to experience the results. Squinting, Deckard could barely make out masses of land somewhere below. Swaths of earth, farmed by and lived on by human beings. Slowly, he shook his head.

  Billions dead.

  He wouldn't let that happen.

  His fingers brushed against the grip of the Kimber 1911 automatic sitting snugly in his holster. He had forgone Samruk's standard issue Glock 19 opting to carry his personal weapon. The Glock was a fine gun, but tonight he wanted the extra knockdown power provided by the .45 caliber round.

  Shifting his gaze, Deckard saw Pat sitting on the grated floor of the Antonov, preparing his gear for what was waiting for them on the other side of an hour or so. The pilots didn't know it yet, but Samruk International was on a collision course with the most powerful men in the world.

  They had as much money as printing presses could produce at their disposal, hundreds of private security contractors, and the most high tech weapons and equipment imaginable waiting for anyone who crossed them.

  Samruk's sole advantage lay in the fact that they were doing something that had never been done before.

  In hours they had stripped their headquarters, packing everything onto the half-dozen Antonov's that arrived back in Astana hours after they received the Operations Order. All vehicles and weapons were strapped down; the contents of their offices were palletized and loaded to take with them for extended operations.

  Officially, Pat was still on convalescence leave from Delta Force after his ordeal in Colombia. Frank had reached out to him for help. All he had said was that it was something Deckard and the old crew were all on board with.

  The Master Sergeant didn't need any further explanation. As the Russian cargo planes were warming their engines, preparing to lift off in Astana, Pat came running up to the ramp. Red in the face and out of breath, he threw his gear bag onto the plane and was helped on board.

  Pat expertly reassembled his AK-103, making sure that key points of friction were lubricated, before obsessively examining his kit for a third time. He was no stranger to the realities of combat and knew that survivability depended largely on setting the conditions for success before ever stepping onto the battlefield. He continued his preparations, despite Deckard having told him that everything came down to a roll of the dice.

  Turning back to the window, Deckard's jaw tightened.

  They were now over the Pacific Ocean, the six huge aircraft transporting the entire battalion to Denver International Airport.

  It was time to roll the dice.

  “What does that thing do?”

  “Lower the landing gear,” the black operations pilot answered, more than a little annoyed by his backseat flyer.

  “What about that dial?” Chuck Rochenoire asked.

  “Fuel gauge.”

  “And what about that?”

  “Why don't you take a seat already,” the copilot said. “We don't need any war tourists upfront.”

  “You got me all wrong,” Chuck said, smiling as he pressed his Glock 19 pistol into the nape of the pilot's neck.

  “Hey, what the hell!” the copilot screamed, before reaching for the .38 Special tucked under his jacket.

  “Halt,” Kurt Jager said, grabbing the man's wrist in an iron grip, his own pistol shoved under the copilot's nose.

  Sergeant Major Korgan tossed the curtain aside that served as a partition between the cockpit and the cargo area, immediately pointing his pistol at the navigator.

  “Now you reorient on new set of coordinates,” he said in heavily accented English.

  Unbeknownst to the flight crew, a similar scene was taking place on each of the transport aircraft at that moment. Samruk mercenaries were raiding the cockpits, effectively staging multiple simultaneous hijackings. They could already feel the shift under their feet as the massive airplane changed its heading, the pilots given little choice at gunpoint.

  Making wide lazy turns the aircraft shifted onto azimuth, heading to the Southern Pacific Ocean.

  Thirty

  A low-pitched hum in the distance was the only warning before the dark shadows came into view. They flew in low, landing gear skimming just feet above the choppy ocean waters.

  With Johnston Atoll almost entirely blacked out, the pilots flew under night vision goggles, relying on the few beacons that were lit. The passengers of the first flight bounced off the cold metal floor as the wheels made contact with the runway, the pilots immediately throwing the levers to apply thrust reversers and speed brakes to slow them down before they ran off the other end of the runway.

  On the ground, black-uniformed gunmen frowned and pointed at the unexpected arrivals as one plane landed after another. Dozens of different aircraft had been flying in and out for days, all intended to be under the radar, but at least those had been announced to the ground crews so they could prepare for the arrival.

  Peeling off onto the parking apron, the massive Russian airplanes dropped ramp, tan colored assault trucks disgorged themselves and spilled out like locusts, accelerating across the covert airbase. Splitting into platoon-sized elements, the Kazakh mercenaries rushed for their individual objectives.

  With defense systems finally being brought online by the control tower, a dozen Phalanx anti-aircraft cannons swung into position to confront the final Antonov on approach. The last Samruk aircraft almost made it to the tarmac and out of the offensive radius of fire before the guns opened up with cannon fire shooting through the sky.

  The radar-guided Gatling guns locked onto target and immediately began pouring on long bursts of twenty millimeter tungsten steel armor-piercing rounds. Multiple streams of fire chopped through the aircraft's wings and fuselage, sending it bursting into flames. Tilting to one side, the aircraft dipped down sickeningly, then rotated into a vicious angle until its wings were nearly vertical, trailing flame behind them.

  When the Antonov slammed into the concrete that made up the artificial island, the subsequent explosion briefly turned night into day. Flaming wreckage rained down on the northern side of the atoll, the revolting smell of burning jet fuel invading the mercenaries' noses.

  Deckard noted the losses in as detached a manner as he could from the back of his assault vehicle. Half of Charlie Company was gone. Kazakh comrades and old friends, Piet and Gordan, were the first casualties. Grimly, he acknowledged that this was just the opening salvo.

  Much worse was to come.

  Bravo Company trucks screamed down the tarmac, swerving to avoid large chunks of burning wreckage as they sped towards the hangers.

  Johnston Atoll sat in the Pacific Ocean, south of Hawaii and had been continuously expanded throughout the Cold War. Stretching from atop its base on a coral reef, the military base sprawled out over fifty square miles. Used for nuclear testing until the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was then maintained for the storage and decommission of the military's aging chemical weapons stockpile. Finally in 2004 the atoll had been completely stripped of buildings and officially shut down.

  Unofficially, it had been reopened just days later under the auspices of several intelligence agencies and rebuilt into a covert staging ground. A black site.

  The lead vehicle jerked, the passengers hol
ding onto their seats and other handholds to avoid being thrown out, as enemy gunfire caught the driver by surprise. Green tracers skipped across the concrete, searching for them. Turning their turrets to face the enemy, the PKM gunners fired back in the direction of the enemy's muzzle flashes.

  Still speeding towards the hangers, individual Kazakhs seated in the back of the vehicles laid down a volley of fire with their Mk14 grenade launchers. The result was a combination of machine gun fire and bursts of forty millimeter HE grenades.

  The mercenaries were closing the distance quickly while delivering at least semi-accurate suppressive fire. It looked like they were going to make it, when a bright orange streak flashed through the air. It skipped off the pavement and detonated somewhere behind them. The next anti-tank missile came hurdling straight towards the center of the convoy as they drove in a wedge-shaped formation.

  One of the drivers saw it heading for him and yanked on the wheel just a moment before it exploded next to them. The mercenaries were peppered with debris but otherwise left unharmed except for one Kazakh who was thrown off the back of the truck.

  Seconds later, Bravo Company overtook the remaining guards and encircled the hanger complex. Dead security contractors littered the ground, some crying out in agony. The mercenaries were under orders to take as many alive for questioning as possible. No executions would take place, not yet.

  Alpha Company kept a large degree of standoff, hanging back to avoid close combat. The three brick and stucco buildings that served as barracks were in the process of getting hammered by both direct and indirect fire.

  The barracks housed the support personnel that maintained the facilities on the clandestine base as well as the private security contractors, the hired goons standing by for whatever dirty work needed to be done. On seeing the size and scope of the facilities, Frank knew that he was seeing a mirror image of Samruk International. A parallel group who would serve similar purposes after the plague was released on the world.