The God Peak

by Patrick Hemstreet

  Lorstad nodded. “I would like you to repeat that experiment under more rigorously controlled circumstances. Perhaps with a day or two to recover . . . ?”

  Chuck could only stare at him. “It wasn’t an experiment. It was an emergency measure precipitated by one of your supposedly superior comrades.”

  “It was an accident,” said Lorstad. “Alexis didn’t mean to harm anyone. She was frustrated.”

  “She was out of control.” Chuck stood, put his hands on the gleaming anodized desktop, and leaned toward the other man. “Here’s what I know, Kristian: power corrupts. Abilities like the ones we share can be a blessing if they’re handled with care and compassion. If they’re not, they are an unmitigated curse. Alexis isn’t just frustrated, she’s angry, and her anger turns outward. She shows no ability to empathize. She’s dangerous, not just to . . . Profanes like Joey Blossom, but to anyone close to her.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “How do you not know it?” Chuck turned on his heel and left Lorstad’s office.

  So, the professor thinks I’m out of control, does he?

  Kristian raised his head. Alexis stood in the doorway of his office, her arms crossed over her chest, her thoughts dripping displeasure.

  You eavesdropped, he thought.

  She shrugged. You didn’t block me.

  He actually wasn’t sure he could block her completely anymore, but he wasn’t about to let her know that. Do you care what Charles thinks?

  Strong negative.

  Then why raise the issue?

  She sauntered into the office, regarding him through hooded eyes. Do you believe him?

  Kristian pondered how best to answer that question. He knew it to be loaded. I believe that what you did betrayed . . . a lack of control and perspective. Not just the childish display of temper, but the verbal rant you indulged in after the fact. That could have been kept between us.

  She moved to place her hands on his desk and lean over it, very much as Charles Brenton had just done. A wave of scorn hit him like a hot, stinging spray. “I didn’t want to keep it between us,” she said aloud. “I wanted them to hear what I was thinking.”

  “Why? Whatever could be gained by making them aware of your . . . condescension?”

  She glanced backward at the door and closed it with a thought before firing back at him.

  Whatever could be gained by making them feel superior? Was that your gambit? The reason you pretend there are things they can do that we cannot? Did you expect your pet neurologist to work harder for you if he thought his training and technology would benefit us?

  Alexis, I am not pretending. Everything I said in that room was true. They are evolving. We are not. Their synapses are being rewired, their chemistry rebalanced, their perceptions stretched and elevated. Perhaps we are the ones who are pretending to a status we do not deserve.

  She straightened, eyes blazing. “I don’t believe you!” she cried aloud. “I will never believe you! You are—are smitten by that girl. That child.”

  That child, as you call her, is a prodigy the like of which we have never produced even with the aid of immersion therapy. We play with atoms and electrons. We tinker with physical objects and energies. But not one of us can create semiautonomous entities. It is possible that Minerva might one day create autonomous entities—a form of life. It is imperative that she join the ranks of the Learned. This has nothing to do with me being “smitten.” It has only to do with me being cognizant of her abilities.

  Alexis smiled archly. You forget, Kristian, how well I can read you. It galls you that she loves a mere man when you would offer her a demigod. She swung around then, and strode from the room with jealousy radiating from every pore.

  Kristian shook his head. He was beginning to think Charles’s observations about Alexis had some merit. He was not jealous of Eugene Pozniaki; her read of him was full of her own projections. His entire dissatisfaction with the young scientist was that, of all Charles Brenton’s comrades, Pozniaki was the only one who seemed to possess no talent for zeta abilities. That alone made him a poor match for such a vibrant talent as Mini. Charles, himself, Daisuke Kobayashi, or even Joey Blossom would make a better match. If the physiological and neurological changes the Zetas were undergoing were permanent, then it made the most sense to pair talent to talent.

  That was not something Kristian thought he would ever convince the Zetas and their creator of, however. If they possessed one flaw, it was that they were simply too human.

  The Russians were pulling out of Ukraine; Al Sabbah suddenly found itself unwelcome where it had before enjoyed much freedom to operate; Palestinian authorities unilaterally recognized Israel’s right to exist within borders that would allow Palestine a contiguous area.

  It was a good start, but it was a start that involved only those parties whose leaders had been firsthand witnesses of the Alphas’ capabilities. Hamas was not impressed; North Korea was indignant and accused those leaders who had responded of rank cowardice; ISIS and similar groups were likewise continuing their operations confident that God was on their side.

  The United States was tied up in democratic knots. The president and her team briefed Congress thoroughly on the situation, but Congress was divided in its response. A coalition of congressmen and senators—led by a Senator Bluth—insisted that the United States not “cave” to terrorist threats, but instead that she stand firm. They were not a majority, but had enough influence within the system to insist on making no military moves without more information—information that the president had no way to give them. The president was urged by her allies and confidants to humor Bluth and his gang for now. The upcoming election was, apparently, all too important. A major transition of power in the midst of this unprecedented crisis could present an insurmountable ordeal for the United States government and her people. The public must be soothed for as long as possible; the usual Washington infighting had to be mitigated for the sake of public trust. That all sounded wonderful, but hardly practical or realistic. She’d toe the line for now.

  It was not unexpected, really, and Mike was relieved when neither Sara nor Tim seemed inclined to force the issue. The United States, Sara believed, would come around once they had witnessed what befell others who refused to comply.

  The Alphas gave their first demonstration on the battlefields in Iraq where, when the Iraqis and allies stood down, ISIS thought it had been given carte blanche to take as much territory as it desired. ISIS forces had no more than begun a fresh offensive when every networked system in the so-called Islamic State disintegrated. Not, however, before destroying every connected component with showy finality. Every communications system shrieked deafeningly, then fell silent; every computerized weapon misfired in horrific ways; every supply corridor was disrupted. Planes fell out of the sky; radar failed; missiles exploded on their launch platforms. The jihadists were overrun with ifrits and djinn and several leaders were visited by the spirit of Muhammad, who sternly commanded them to lay down their arms while reminding them that “God loves not the aggressor.”

  Tim joked that he was probably in deep trouble for impersonating a Prophet while Sara contacted the leaders of the allied coalition that had been fighting ISIS and gave them permission to move in and mop up, after which they were to withdraw all but peacekeeping troops from the affected areas.

  In the wake of that teachable moment, the war in Syria ended in strategic withdrawals on all sides and Hamas stopped firing rockets into Israel. Iran opened its prison gates and released every political and religious prisoner within. So did China. Even the drug cartels in South America became suddenly quiet and all but invisible. With that overwhelming proof of concept, three congressmen defected from Bluth’s cadre. Sensing that momentum shift, President Ellis used executive powers to issue stand-down orders to American forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria. The Joint Chiefs found reasonable cause to curtail military action on several other fronts.

  Bluth countered by accu
sing the president of outright failure to protect the American people and called for a removal of her executive powers. He began to hint that the Ellis administration’s behavior with regard to foreign policy was being driven by timidity and fear of “special interest groups.” Technically, he didn’t really have a legal leg to stand on. But he didn’t actually need one. Between social media and talk radio, he had all the outlets necessary to sow doubt and discord. Stirring the pot was all he needed to do at this point. Create chaos and fear and then present himself as a salve for the wound. The president’s approval rating would plunge and then he could drop a little bombshell of his own courtesy of Ted Freitag’s handiwork.

  It helped that not everyone around the world was giving in. North Korea, for example, continued to bluster and bully, loudly threatening to invade her southern neighbor. The morning after the threat was made, though, the North Korean military woke to find that no device with a computerized component would operate. When the North Korean government expressed its outrage, it found itself dealing with a nationwide failure of its entire power grid and an infestation of ancient demons straight out of legend.

  This was the case in other regions as well.

  In Afghanistan, the leadership of the Taliban thought they had a golden opportunity to reinsert themselves into the government of the country by staging a daytime assault on the National Assembly offices in Kabul during a legislative session. They sent a convoy of more than a dozen military vehicles—including a tank—down Shura Street, blocked it to approaching traffic, and took over the forecourt of the Assembly building.

  Watching an Al Jazeera video feed of the scene from the ops theater, Sara paced and considered options. She turned to Mike. “You have line of sight. What can you give me?”

  Mike swallowed, wanting to say, cheekily, “I got nothing,” but knowing she’d never buy it. “I can wreck the machinery—the guns, the vehicles. At least any that I can see.”

  “Do it.” She turned to Tim next. “What about you? Your minotaur commander available to make an appearance with some of his cohort?”

  Tim grinned. “You got it.”

  The minotaur that appeared on the screen in the center of the Assembly building turnaround was huge, and he had brought many friends. Some smaller versions of himself, some that looked like giant gargoyles. The minotaurs stomped among the vehicles, which—with Mike’s urging—erupted in flames one after the other. They had only enough substance to swat small weapons aside, but Mike’s internal destruction made them seem far more powerful. The gargoyles alit on ground and roof alike of the administrative building and deked the combatants into firing at them. They only appeared to have substance; as they had at the Deep Shield camp, the bullets went right through them and took out whatever or whoever was on the opposite side.

  Mike exploded his last troop carrier and melted the tank’s gun, then paused to watch Sara as she began to employ her own expanding talents. She brought an interior view to their oversized screens—one from surveillance cameras within the building. Here there was still gunfire as the Taliban rebels advanced down a long, broad corridor toward a huge set of closed doors before which defenders had stacked random pieces of furniture. Sara chose this stage to make a showy appearance.

  Her avatar shimmered into existence before the hastily barricaded doors like a landing party from Star Trek. This was her own construct. It was recognizable as Sara, but an eerily perfect Sara dressed in gleaming, body-hugging black leather with shoulder-length hair the color of eggplant and pale skin with the sheen of pearl. She wore no mask this time, and her eyes shone like moons.

  After a moment of shocked hesitation, one of the officers strode up to the offensive figure and raised a hand to strike her. He snarled something in Pashto and swung. His arm went through her head and he lost his balance, staggering almost to his knees. He regained his footing roaring with rage and pointed his rifle at Sara’s midsection. She smiled, then grasped the muzzle of the gun and wrenched it from the man’s hands. Then she hit him in the head with it, knocking him down. He skidded across the polished marble of the floor and fetched up against a wall.

  Tim crowed. “Awesome move, Sara!”

  The other soldiers reacted by firing past their fallen leader at this outrageous creature quite as if they still expected her to behave like any woman of their acquaintance. Sara crossed her arms over her breasts and regarded her would-be murderers with calm disdain. The bullets passed right through her.

  “Mike,” she said, quietly, “disarm them, please.”

  He did, exciting the atoms in first the muzzles of their guns, then the firing mechanisms. The guns grew too hot to handle, and the soldiers were forced to drop them or be horribly burned. The rifles clattered to the floor amid cries of distress, and there they warped and smoked.

  The broad hallway fell into a brief, stunned silence before every man in it began to roar his outrage and fury. They advanced on Sara’s avatar, which she had now clothed in a frenetic halo of static energy.

  “Mike, can you make an earthquake?” she asked him.

  “No, don’t think so.”

  “No, I mean create an earthquake. Shake the building, jiggle some beams and bolts.”

  “I think that’s doable . . .”

  “I’ll need that on my mark. Tim, do you have a translation program online somewhere?”

  “Uh, yeah. Arabic, I guess?”

  “No—this is Afghanistan. Pashto. Let me know when you—”

  “You’ve got it.”

  “Good deal.” She thrust her arms out, her avatar mirroring the movement. “Mike, make me an earthquake.”

  He did. He did more. He brought down bits of the ceiling in a highly localized trembler. The shouts of outrage stopped as the soldiers were forced to focus on keeping their feet.

  Sara, her hands still extended, demanded, “You want this to stop?” She made the demand in English, but in the video feed, the words came out of the avatar’s mouth in Pashto. “If you want this to stop, shut up!”

  The men only shouted more loudly and shook useless fists.

  “I said, stop talking!”

  Mike punctuated the words with sharp jolts that shot dust into the air.

  The shouting stopped.

  Sara shot Mike a look and lowered her arms, palms down. He brought the tremors slowly to a halt. The silence was complete but for the sound of plaster crumbling to the floor and muted chaos from the forecourt.

  “Your leaders were warned,” Sara told the Taliban fighters. “Perhaps they didn’t tell you that. Perhaps they didn’t inform you that they are no longer in control of their own fate or yours. We are.”

  “Who are you?” asked the first man Sara had felled. His speech was translated into stilted English. “Are you a demon?”

  “I am the future.”

  “Hell,” murmured Tim, “she’s their worst nightmare—a woman with power.”

  “Who has sent you?” the Afghani asked.

  “God has sent me. He has sent me with a message for you and your leaders. Your weapons are useless and your ideology is bankrupt. God has demanded that all wars on this world cease. That all conflicts be resolved. The Afghani government and the Americans stopped fighting because they understand the consequences of not obeying these commandments. Do you now understand?”

  The man sneered. “You speak for God? You—a woman?”

  Sara flicked a glance back at Mike. He shook the room again, raining more plaster onto the men below. As if on cue, a chunk of ceiling the size of a grapefruit struck one man in the shoulder, toppling him. Every man in the room backed up a step.

  “Now that I’ve got your attention, understand this. Your petty war with the Afghani government will cease. You will stop trying to force your interpretation of Islam and your philosophies on anyone. Moreover, you will let girls and women be educated and you will grant them such rights as they request and you will let them decide if they wish to veil themselves. If you do not do these things, you wil
l not know the rewards of paradise nor will God remember your names.”

  “You are a demon!” muttered the officer Sara had struck. He looked at her as if he might try to attack her again.

  “No, I’m more of an avenging angel. You want demons? I’ll give you demons.”

  Tim chuckled. In the time it took for Mike to draw a breath, the broad entry was overrun with small, monkey-like creatures with horrific faces and many sharp teeth. They moved like smoke and made a sound that grated on the ears like nails on chalkboard. Next, he conjured a pair of gargoyles that lumbered into the hall through the wide-open statehouse doors and took up positions on either side.

  Several of the men literally cowered before them and began loudly praying for deliverance.

  “Whatever I am,” Sara told the soldiers, “I am not something you can understand, much less control. You will leave now and you will not return. If your leaders try to make you return, show them your ruined weapons, then flee from them, for they’ll be the next to feel the wrath of God. Leave. Now. My creatures won’t harm you—if you do as I say.”

  After a moment of hesitation, the soldiers turned and fled the Assembly building, carefully avoiding the sentinel gargoyles, who watched with hungry gazes through eyes like flaming orbs. Sara waited until they had gathered their comrades and melted away before she allowed her avatar to disappear. The screens defaulted to the video feed from an Al Jazeera camera on a neighboring rooftop.

  Mike’s throat closed up. The forecourt of the building and the street beyond were littered with bodies—some twisted horribly, others blackened and smoking. Blood pooled in the gutters and spattered walls. The waters of the fountain in the center of the courtyard ran red. Tim’s minions still roamed among the dead and dying. They faded out one by one until the street was empty of anything that moved.

  Mike made himself breathe. One deep breath, two, three. His head hurt and his ears rang.

  “Good job, boys,” Sara said. “We may have to repeat the lesson, but sooner or later they’ll get it, I think.” She came to stand in front of Mike. “How’s your progress with the bots? How many can you control at once?”