“Sorry to disappoint you,” Bram said, sarcastically.
The old man waved a dismissive hand. “Think nothing of it.” He’d misunderstood Bram’s attempt at sardonic humor. “In Ms. Muldoon’s case, she is rather ordinary from what we have gathered. Her intellect is average and, aside from being exceptionally physically fit, she has little to offer besides adding her consciousness to the collective, like all the others.”
Bram was perturbed by this evaluation. Did he have feelings for this woman? he wondered. She was so unlike his dead fiancée. And yet, there was something about her that made him care, that made him feel protective. He didn’t think it was love, but it was something. Examining her, he saw that her breathing was shallow but her temperature was holding steady.
“That is beside the point,” the old man continued. “When the humans stopped falling into our traps, we set about reviewing what might have caused this to take place. We decided it must be due to the metallic mesh that was discovered surrounding the brains of our later prey.”
“So I was right,” Solomon grunted, eyeing the old man with contempt. “When we crashed, I discovered that the pilot’s brain was covered in a fine metallic mesh, just as you described. After seeing this, I came to the same conclusion, despite having no idea it was your psychic illusions they were trying to block.”
“Do you think the mesh is causing their brains to go haywire?” Bram asked. This prompted Solomon to express a look of mild annoyance, unsure what Bram was getting at. “You know, because they persist in claiming that the Lord is speaking to them?”
Solomon rubbed his upper lip with his index finger. “It’s possible—but from what I saw, it looked like the mesh covered the surface and didn’t extend into the brain’s interior. However, because the damage to the man’s skull was so severe, I might have missed something.”
The old man held up his hand. “Perhaps this demonstration will answer your question.”
A swirling glow appeared a few inches above his hand. The glow rapidly coalesced, forming a startlingly realistic image of a disembodied human brain; the image was covered in the exact same silvery metallic mesh that Bram had seen within the pilot’s ruined skull. Though the image was disturbing, he was completely transfixed by the sight. Then, as he watched in amazement, the mesh vanished, followed by the neocortex and each successive layer, until the only thing left was the amygdala—the most primitive area of the brain—along with a pea-sized object, which was connected to the amygdala by numerous metallic filaments.
“What are we looking at?” Solomon asked.
“According to our observations,” the old man replied, “this object links each inhabitant of the city to the computer mind that controls every aspect of life in New Terra.”
22
“I suspected as much,” Solomon grumbled. “It wouldn’t be possible for the entire population of New Terra to be delusional. Even if something were contaminating the food or water, they wouldn’t have the same hallucination. An outside influence is the only logical explanation, and I don’t mean God.” He saw that Bram was skeptical. “What are your thoughts, Bram?”
“I’m puzzled. Why would anyone want to program a computer to impersonate God? What’s the advantage?”
Solomon pondered this for a moment. “I’m not sure. The original colonists were probably susceptible to religious conditioning. So it might’ve been used for social control. I must admit, it is puzzling.” He would’ve elaborated further but noticed that Bram was concentrating intensely. “Is something wrong?”
Bram held up a hand for quiet. Within seconds, a broad smile appeared. “A search party just showed up. They’re landing to investigate the sinkhole.” He turned to face the old man. “You must let us go before the search party gives up and moves on to another area. If you don’t, Gloria might not survive. She needs treatment, and she needs it now.”
The old man shrugged in a strikingly human manner. “There is nothing stopping you.”
Bram pointed back toward the blocked exit. “But what about the—” he stopped speaking. The blockage was gone, leaving the way clear for them to leave the tunnel. “I’ll be damned!”
“Our time together has, unfortunately, come to an end,” the old man said. “It has been a great pleasure encountering such surprising individuals. Hopefully we shall meet again.” With that, he disappeared. In his place sat a clump of fungal tendrils that quickly retracted into the tunnel floor, leaving nothing to show that the old man had ever been there.
“The pleasure is all yours,” Bram hissed as he scooped Gloria’s limp body into his arms.
“Here, let me help you,” Solomon said, climbing unsteadily to his feet. As he straightened up, the tunnel tilted. He was still somewhat woozy from the transfusion.
“Don’t worry about it, Solomon. You should save your strength. I don’t want you passing out before we get clear of this tunnel. I’d be tempted to leave you to the mercies of our newfound fungal friend.”
“Ha! I hope I left a sour taste in his mouth.”
Shifting Gloria in his arms, Bram glanced over his shoulder. “He’s telling me that you tasted bitter, not sour.”
“You’re still communicating with it?”
Bram increased his pace. “Yes. We need to hightail it outta here and signal the rescue party.”
“Can’t you send them a mental signal, or something?”
“I’ve tried,” Bram groused. “There’s still too much psychic interference to make contact.”
Both men broke from the tunnel and into the cavern. As they did, Solomon was relieved to see six women, standing atop three-feet-wide, antigravity disks, descending through the sinkhole opening. He was surprised to see that their rescue party was composed entirely of Minders; their spiky black hair and fierce expressions appeared even more intimidating in the gloom. None of his shipmates were among their rescuers, which he found disturbing, though not enough to set off warning sirens in his head. Concern for Gloria’s health, coupled with relief over being rescued, outweighed his unease.
The instant the women spotted the three, they casually rested their hands on the stun-batons strapped to their lean, muscular hips.
“Thank God you found us,” he blurted out, pulling slightly ahead of the other two.
Bram slowed his pace. “Something about this doesn’t feel right,” he cautioned.
The antigravity disks settled smoothly to the ground. Stepping off, the eerily similar women headed straight toward Solomon, wordlessly pulling their stun-batons from their holsters.
“My name is Dr. Solomon Chavez, and this is Bram Waters,” he announced, confused over the women’s actions. “He’s carrying Lt. Gloria Muldoon. As you can see, she’s been injured and needs medical atten—ah!”
Solomon collapsed to the ground. One of the Minders had stunned him in the solar plexus. She walked up and stood over him like an Amazon warrior. Solomon was completely immobile, his brain functions teetering on the edge of oblivion. The last thing he witnessed before passing out was Bram cursing and attempting to escape with Gloria in his arms. A stun-baton caught the psychic in the lower back, above his left kidney. With a loud yelp, he dropped to the ground and collapsed atop Gloria. That’s when Solomon blacked out.
•
“Don’t worry about her, she’ll be dead soon enough.”
Gloria lay on the cavern floor, recovering from the shock of being dropped and receiving part of the charge from the stun-baton that knocked Bram unconscious. The jolt had taken her breath away. She was thankful she hadn’t been knocked senseless like him and Solomon, but she was too weak from the viral infection to do anything other than lie on the cavern floor and watch those damnable bitches whisk both men away.
One of the coldly efficient women had been prepared to finish Gloria off. She’d twisted something on the end of her stun-baton—probably a kill-switch—and was about to press its tip to Gloria’s neck when she was told not to bother.
Gloria had been spared by
fate. The entire scenario felt like a bad dream. Even as the Minder was preparing to kill her, Gloria barely registered the moment. In her feverish condition, she wouldn’t have been able to fight her off, even if she tried.
The next thing Gloria knew, she was alone in the cavern, sweating uncontrollably, lapsing in and out of consciousness. Her fever had broken, but it didn’t matter, she was as good as dead, and she didn’t have the energy to care.
Over the next several hours, she continued to sweat profusely, increasing her dehydration. She even imagined the old man trying to speak with her, but she knew that wasn’t possible. He was back in the tunnel. Or was he? Had the chancellor’s security bitches captured him too? No, there was something about him … but what was it?
Gloria’s eyes fluttered open. She felt a little better, a little stronger.
Why was the sinkhole opening getting larger? What were roots (if that’s what they really were) doing wrapped around her arms, legs and torso? God, her eyelids were so heavy …
Hours passed before she drifted up from the depths of a deep, dreamless sleep. The sun was streaming through her bedroom window, waking her prematurely. Or … had her alarm failed to go off? Good God, she was late for work!
Eyes popping open, she jerked upright. Where am I? Nervously scanning her surroundings, Gloria realized she’d been asleep on a patch of lime-green grass; a fallen tree lay approximately thirty feet away. Disconcerting memories flashed through her mind; memories of being stranded in the middle of an alien forest—and something else—she recalled that her father was Solomon Chavez.
From the corner of her eye, she noticed something dark near her left hand. Turning her head, Gloria stared at a pitch-black opening in the ground. It was the sinkhole. And then it hit her: she was no longer trapped underground. How could this be? She hadn’t climbed out; that was impossible.
“How the hell did I—”
“We helped you, Lt. Muldoon.”
The voice came from the direction she’d been looking before noticing the sinkhole. Startled, she gave an uncharacteristically girlish yelp. Reaching for her pistol, she spun around to confront the culprit who snuck up on her. It was the old man—Argus.
“What the hell!” She scrambled away from him, pistol pointed at his chest.
“Stop where you are, Lieutenant, before you fall in the sinkhole.”
Gloria froze. Slowly looking over her left shoulder, she saw the edge of the sinkhole less than a foot away. Pulling her knees up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them and stared at the ground directly in front of her. Another memory had returned: the old man standing beside her was not really a man at all, but an illusion manufactured by a telepathic mushroom—or so she’d gathered from Bram as she lay burning with fever.
Bram! Her concern for his welfare was deeper than she expected, twisting her stomach up in knots at the thought of him being in trouble.
“The two men I was with,” she began, fearing to make eye contact with the old man. “Do you know where they are? I need to know what’s happened to them.”
Argus placed his hands behind his back and gazed into the distance. “They have been taken to the city. We are unfamiliar with the city’s layout, but we have established that they are being held in its exact center, one-hundred fifty-five feet underground, in a hardened bunker designed to protect the machine mind that controls New Terra. They are presently unconscious, but from what we gather, they are in grave danger.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.” She climbed with difficulty to her feet. “A machine mind, huh? If you could please point me in the right direction, I need to return to the city and somehow warn the others.” Dizzy, she placed her hands on her knees. “Also, where can I find some water?”
“Unfortunately, you will find no surface water in this vicinity,” the old man informed her. “However, if you travel in the direction we are pointing, you will come across a bush covered in red berries. They are edible to your species and will supply both the hydration and nutrition you require to recover your strength. Once you have eaten your fill, angle five degrees northward and keep a steady pace. You should arrive at the city in approximately fifty-six hours.”
Gloria was stretching, working a kink out of her lower back. A tone of frustration entered her voice. “That’s great, that’s just fucking great.”
•
Bram woke to the sound of a moan. Opening his eyes, he saw Solomon sitting on a bunk, rubbing his temples. He appeared to be in a lot of pain. Bram sympathized, as he had a splitting headache, his entire body ached, and he felt lethargic. The Minders who captured them must have used powerful sedatives to keep them unconscious after their stun-batons wore off.
He sat up and looked around. The room was small, no bigger than six-feet wide by ten-feet long. A sink and toilet were located against the back wall. “Where are we?”
“Looks like a prison cell,” Solomon answered. “What I don’t understand is why we’re here.”
“You will find that out soon enough.” The voice was female and came from a hidden speaker in the ceiling. “Stand up, move to the foot of your beds, and wait for your escorts.”
Bram exchanged glances with Solomon. “Escorts, huh? I don’t remember being invited to a fancy dinner.”
“Nor do I,” Solomon replied. “Unless our escorts use force, I’m staying right here.”
“That is not an option,” said the disembodied voice. “You will comply with your escort’s orders. Failure to comply will result in punishment.”
Both men suddenly felt a searing pain directly between their shoulder blades, as if they’d just been prodded with a red-hot poker. Shrieking in sheer agony, they stumbled forward a step, each instinctively reaching behind them in vain, trying to claw at the spot where the burn was located. Almost as soon as the pain began, it was over … yet the memory remained.
Breathing hard, Bram shook his head. “Perhaps we—perhaps we should do as they say.”
Solomon cleared his throat. “As of now, that would seem the best course of action.”
“Excellent,” the voice said. “Despite your brutish male exteriors, you learn quickly.”
Bram frowned. “I don’t know about you, Solomon, but I think our jailer might be sexist.”
A defeated shrug was his only reply. Bram sensed that Solomon was worried about Gloria. “Perhaps she’ll be wherever it is they’re taking us,” he whispered.
Solomon shot him a suspicious glare. Bram was reminded of the times his companion tried to avoid his company in the past—before their shared experience in the tunnel. He was on the verge of reassuring Solomon that he’d not been reading his mind, when the man’s expression softened and he averted his eyes.
“I hope you’re right, Bram … for both our sakes,” he remarked. “Lately I’ve come to realize how much you care for–for my daughter.”
Bram didn’t know what to say. He cared for Gloria—that much was true—but he had no idea his feelings were so obvious. Either that or Solomon’s fatherly instincts were surfacing.
Suddenly, a faint outline appeared on the blank wall in front of them. The outline became more distinct, taking on the shape of an arch.
“That’s a pretty neat trick,” he said, thinking that it would be virtually impossible to escape from a cell with an invisible exit.
The surface of the arch faded from white to gray and then to black; the same black he’d seen within deactivated foldways. The darkness within, which felt like a terrible emptiness whenever he gazed at it, began to brighten. A room appeared on the other side of the archway. One guard—then a second stepped into the cell—stun-batons at the ready.
“Place your hands behind your backs,” ordered the second guard as she entered. She, like all the other Minders, wore her hair short, black, and spiky. She was in magnificent shape, her navy-blue uniform clinging to her like a second skin. “Turn around.”
Both men did as they were ordered. The moment their backs were turned, their wrists d
rew together, as though suddenly magnetized. Bram was unable to feel anything like handcuffs touching his skin. He tried to pull his wrists apart, but was unsuccessful. An intense tingling sensation gripped his wrists, becoming increasingly painful the more he tried to separate them. After only a few seconds, he relaxed his efforts.
“I suspect the stun-batons have the capacity to bind our wrists with a restriction field made of plasma—one that also induces pain when needed,” Solomon stated.
“That is correct, Dr. Chavez,” the disembodied voice in the ceiling acknowledged. “I urge you to comply with any and all orders given to you from here on out … and remember this: do not try anything foolish, for the pain you experienced will recommence at the slightest provocation from either of you. Have I made myself clear?”
“Perfectly clear,” Bram said. “We have no clue where we are, but even if we did, where could we go if we did manage to escape?”
“You are correct, Mr. Waters. Any attempt to escape would be a fruitless endeavor. Proceed.”
The guard nearest Bram poked him in the ribs with her baton. “The two of you will form up, one behind the other, and remain that way until ordered to proceed through the foldway … do you understand?”
Bram was tempted to make a sarcastic remark, but instead held his tongue, respecting the fact that Solomon would suffer because of his belligerence. He grunted a halfhearted yes, which was followed by Solomon’s own desultory agreement. Waving him forward with her baton, the guard pointed to a spot on the floor where she wanted him to stand. He dutifully complied; as did Solomon, who fell in line directly behind him. The two Minders were positioned on either side of them, their cold, dispassionate eyes sizing them up, looking for any unruly twitch of muscle.
Solomon's Arrow Page 32