“Who killed you?” Goto asks.
“A friend,” he replies, pulling his shirt down before taking his seat. “After I got tired of reviving dead insects and animals in the forest I decided it was time to take things to the next level. So I had a buddy in pre-med drown me, and bring me back to life after I flat-lined. Now I control myself just as easily as I control the rest of them.”
Brodie points to the mysterious redhead sitting next to Trent, finally coming to a grim realization. “So this girl – she’s a corpse, too?”
“Damn,” Jens adds, sounding both disgusted and impressed. “You brought a chick back from the dead and started banging her? That is some messed up shit, dude. I mean she’s hot, but still...”
Trent laughs again, even more boisterously than before, and casually throws an arm around her shoulders. “Naw, she was alive when we met. Amber here was only dead for a minute before I reanimated her.”
Everyone gazes at her, trying to detect any signs of movement. Amber stares straight ahead, sitting perfectly upright with her hands folded in her lap. Her eyes are glazed over, showing no signs of awareness – it’s almost as if she’s a remarkably lifelike robot awaiting a command from her programmer.
Paige folds her arms tightly across her chest and begins to tap her foot. Her heavy combat boot isn’t designed to ‘tap’ so much as ‘clomp’, so it immediately draws everyone’s attention. “Well thanks for stopping by,” she says sharply, “But before we accept anyone new into our group we need time to discuss it. Big decision and all.”
Goto glances towards Paige. “A word in private?”
Without further prompting everyone stands. Brodie offers to give Trent and Amber a tour of the compound, while Allison and Jens return to their respective rooms without another word.
Goto turns his head to ensure that everyone is out of earshot before continuing. “So why don’t you tell me what’s wrong.”
“Are you kidding me?” she shouts, pointing towards the hallway. “This guy is a freakin’ sociopath!”
Goto cocks his head curiously. “And?”
“And nothing. Do I need another reason?”
“Cole has taken human lives and you trust him implicitly.”
“Because he’s trustworthy.”
“And Trent isn’t?” Goto asks rhetorically.
“You didn’t see what he did to that poor girl?” Paige says, throwing her hands apart.
“Taking control of someone’s mind and manipulating them with his powers? Yes, I can imagine you’d find that quite reprehensible.”
“Don’t make this about me. There’s a line, and this guy crossed it.”
“Who decides where this invisible line is? You?”
“Enough with the mind games, Goto. You can give it a rest because we’re on the same side now. Yes, I’ve been manipulating Dia to try and make her a better person, and yes, it backfired. Believe me, I know how badly I fucked up – everyone keeps reminding me. But I’m not the bad guy here. I’m trying to make things right.”
“Despite what you may think, I didn’t want to speak with you alone so that I could chastise you or apportion blame. Essentially I agree with you, although I have nothing against sociopaths per se. Rather, I had a thought regarding ‘Trent’ and wanted to discuss it with you.”
“Awesome,” Paige groans, pacing in small circles with her hands on her hips. “So you’re suggesting we keep this maniac around?”
“For the moment, yes. You missed the show, but what that disturbing young man did was nothing short of extraordinary: he was able to raise a hundred people and control them independently without thinking twice. Imagine the army he could raise with the proper accelerant.”
Paige stops in her tracks. “Muse.”
“Precisely,” Goto replies with a confident nod. “We don’t have to worry about recruiting hundreds of super powered beings – we can summon as many as we need, and use them as pawns.”
“All right,” Paige says, sounding somewhat less skeptical. “So what’s the plan?”
Goto uses his phone to dim the lights and activate the projector, illuminating a world map that covers the far wall. He taps the surface of his touch screen again and the browser zooms to the southern United States, and then further magnifies to enlarge the city of New Orleans. A satellite view of a cemetery comes into view, bringing the tops of the mausoleums into sharp focus. The sun-bleached roofs of several hundred crypts occupy the screen; the famous above-ground burial sites that were employed to prevent the caskets from floating away.
“The water table is extremely high in that part of the country,” Goto explains, “and burying a casket six feet underground would result in some interesting situations during flooding and heavy rainstorms. The dead would rise – literally – as the caskets pushed their way to the surface when the excess water floated them above ground. To prevent their dead from returning to the land of the living, the customary Spanish above-ground burial system was put into place.”
The mausoleums are hauntingly beautiful. Some are quite ornate, complete with detailed stained glass windows and wrought iron gates. “With all of the caskets conveniently above ground,” Goto ponders aloud, “one could almost imagine the effect if all of their occupants were to reanimate: an army of the undead would arise, and create a near unstoppable force.”
Paige’s eyes widen. “And the incoming storm will keep civilians away, as well as the cops. I have to hand it to you – this is clever.”
“It’s halfway brilliant, at any rate,” Goto replies, bringing a finger to his lips as he studies the map. “But now the question becomes this: how exactly do we get Dia and the General to willingly step into the center of a graveyard, and allow us to surround them?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” she says with a small shrug. “I’ll call and invite them.”
Chapter Twenty-Three – Cantankerous
Western Australia | January 28, 2012 | 2:30 pm, Western Standard Time
Goto looks the part of a university professor as he motions towards the map on the wall, commanding the attention of everyone in the living room. “Thank you all for indulging me,” he begins.
He’s only a minute into his lecture about above-ground graves and rising water tables when he’s interrupted by three loud raps at the compound’s front door.
“Who the shit could that be?” Jens asks, staring quizzically at the entrance.
Goto takes a step towards the door, pulling a small pistol from the side holster concealed beneath his sweater. “You know, I really must check the warranty on that cloaking system...”
Cole strides confidently towards the entrance and brushes past Goto. “Take it easy, double-oh-seven. I’ve got this.” He flings the door wide open to reveal a greying middle-aged man, wearing an old New York Yankees jersey, shorts and sandals. He’s clutching a black computer bag in one hand and a half-empty bottle of scotch in the other.
Cole looks the nervous visitor up and down. “Can we help you?”
The man takes a quick swig from the bottle and wipes his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “I’ve got a message. It’s from Danica.”
He’s barely able to finish his sentence before the point of Cole’s elbow smashes the side of his skull, knocking him unconscious.
***
Molloy’s heavy eyelids crack open, and he peers around the room. Ten minutes, two hours – it’s impossible to tell how long he’s been out for. His neck is sore, his ribs are aching; it’s like a bad hangover crossed with a head-on collision. Drops of blood fill his ear and run down the side of his face, flowing freely from the deep laceration above his temple. He tries to move but he’s tied to a chair, with his arms fixed firmly behind his back, and his legs bound together at the ankles.
Twenty feet from their prisoner, everyone is gathered around the living room; Cole, Jens, Brodie, Goto, Paige and Allison; Trent and his ‘girlfriend’ are nowhere to be found – they decided to wander off and explore the grounds.
Goto
checks his tablet and reassures everyone that the short-range heat signature readers aren’t picking up anything of significance in the surrounding area. He doesn’t know how this man found them, or how he arrived here on foot – but for whatever reason, he seems to be alone.
After the briefing, Brodie approaches the ominous computer bag lying on the coffee table, waving a long silver device that looks vaguely like a metal detector at an airport. Satisfied with a few cursory passes around the surface he flips it over, scanning the opposite side. His wand drones softly and emits an occasional crackle, but throughout the process it remains relatively silent. “This is clean. Definitely no explosives.” Then he unzips the bag and pulls out the laptop. “So who wants to turn this sucker on and see what happens?”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Cole says cautiously. “We don’t know what’s going to happen when you hit the power button.”
“Hey,” Brodie says with an uncharacteristic tone of authority in his voice. “I don’t go on missions and tell you how to punch people in the face. This is my shit we’re dealing with here, and I know how to handle it.” He reaches across the table and takes the joint he just lit out of an ash tray, bringing it to his lips before taking a long drag. “Now back off, man. I’m a goddamned professional.”
“All right,” Cole concedes, hands raised while he backs away. “Do whatever you want. You’re the computer guy.”
Brodie opens the laptop and angles it towards the group, allowing everyone a clear view of the screen. With the press of a button the device blinks to life, humming as the internal fan begins to spin. The start-up chime ensues, followed by the login screen. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The screen suddenly fades to black and a video begins. She appears. Her hair is blond and her eyes are blue, in the same altered state as when she manifests. Dia’s face is unmistakable, but her voice and demeanor are markedly different; her words are clipped and proper, as if she’s mimicking a formal accent, but the tone is coming naturally.
“Greetings,” she begins solemnly. “I can only assume you’re all gathered around, watching this from your secret hideout in the Australian outback. You’re no doubt wondering who this delivery man is, and how he arrived here. His name is Detective Sean Molloy. He’s a traitor. He betrayed the General, he betrayed the New World Council, and, in turn, he betrayed the United States of America.”
“She’s lying,” Molloy mumbles, barely audible from across the room. His words come out slurred – his concussion must be worse than he thought.
Goto pauses the video and glances back over his shoulder. “If he speaks again, Jens, would you be kind enough to retrieve something heavy from the kitchen and beat him repeatedly with it? I believe we have a marble rolling pin in the top drawer by the sink.”
Jens shrugs indifferently before taking a sip of beer. “Sure, I guess.”
Paige shushes them both, and Cole reaches forward to increase the volume on the laptop.
“Detective Molloy was sent there to deliver this message,” Dia continues, “but his work is now complete. If you’d like to torture or kill him, feel free.
“Moving on to more pressing matters, Paige, I want to be very clear: I know about everything. I know that you tried to kill me and our father in Brazil. I know you want to stop me from getting back to 3016 and regaining my rightful place in The Federation. And I know about you and Cole. I bet this was all part of the plan, wasn’t it? Get rid of me and you can have it all: you’re the leader of the group, you get all the glory for yourself – and to top it off you get the man as well.” Dia’s stare intensifies and the whites of her eyes disappear, filling with a dark blue energy. “Well I’m sorry to spoil your fairy tale, but this story isn’t going to end with rainbows and unicorns. It’s going to be a fucking bloodbath.”
The room falls deathly silent – it’s as if Dia’s last words caused everyone to stop breathing.
“I’ve gained some much-needed perspective during our time apart,” she continues, “and after a lot of soul searching, something has become abundantly clear, Paige: at first I thought that all of this was just about your jealousy, but now I realize it’s about much more. It’s about control. You’re an obsessive control freak; you always have been, and you can never allow anyone to make their own decisions. It’s why you were wiping my memory for all those years, and why you’ve been manipulating Brodie, Cole, and the rest of those idiots you surround yourself with. No one would ever follow you based on your actual leadership skills, and you’ve always resented that. So you worm your way into people’s minds with your parasitic little power, and turn them into your lapdogs. Believe me when I tell you, sister...that time has passed.
“Nothing will stop me from regaining my throne, but that’s not your concern. What will be of interest to you is the General, once he has Akashic. Because there will be nowhere left for you to hide anywhere on this planet. When he reshapes the world, everyone will fall into line – and then, finally, you’ll know what it’s like. You’ll be the one on a leash, and you can spend the rest of your miserable life following orders at someone else’s whim.”
Dia leans away from the camera and the intensity in her eyes begin to fade. The whites reappear and her pupils blink into view. “Based on the intel that we have, your new hideout almost certainly has a defense systems against air strikes. And if we attacked, you’d escape safely in your Aithon jet. I’m sure you know by now that there is no explosive inside this laptop; I doubt that Brodie would have powered it on had he scanned it and found anything. But I’m thinking that since the little piece of tech soldered to the computer’s motherboard won’t be invented for another five hundred years or so, it probably slipped by him. Things are about to get ever hotter in the outback...I hope you’re all wearing sun block.”
The laptop screeches out a high-pitched whine.
A solid blue screen appears.
Then a blackout hits the compound like a thunderclap. Every light, monitor and appliance dies instantly...along with the missile defense system.
Chapter Twenty-Four – Begrudge
Western Australia | January 28, 2012 | 3:16 pm, Western Standard Time
The ambient noise that is often taken for granted – the gentle hum of the air conditioning, the drone of a refrigerator, and the almost imperceptible noise of an overhead light – all blink out of existence. It’s the type of silence that can only be experienced during a power failure, and it’s deafening.
“What the hell just happened?” Jens asks, staring at the ceiling fan as it slowly rotates to a stop.
“That was an EMP,” Brodie shouts, racing towards the kitchen. “An electromagnetic pulse. It fried everything in the compound, and now we’re sitting ducks.” He rummages through the cupboards beneath the island and retrieves his metal briefcase; the custom designed case where he stores his most sensitive material. “I’d hurry up and gather your shit, because I have a feeling we don’t have much time.”
As everyone scatters to retrieve their belongings the first bomb impacts the compound. The sound is ear-splitting. A stream of fire pours into the living room, blasting everyone off their feet. The windows shatter and the furniture catches fire.
Cole rushes to help Allison and Paige, ushering them out the back exit towards the Aithon. Luckily neither were burned, but are moving slowly after the dizzying blast wave. Cole kicks the flaming door from its hinges and shields them from the flames as they step into the daylight.
Jens follows closely behind, but pauses in the threshold. He turns and squints through the thickening smoke to see Detective Molloy, still bound to a chair, lying on his side. The flames surround him and ignite his clothing, overtaking his body. Jens wants to rush back, untie their hostage and drag him to safely. In a battle where black and white are often clearly defined, this is a pretty goddamned grey area. While not a saint, this guy probably doesn’t deserve to burn to death while his captors race to safety. His moment of hesitation lingers a heartbeat too long –
Brodie races by, dragging Jens out by the arm.
Jens feels a crushing pang of regret as he stumbles to safety, unaware that Dia and The General were the ones responsible for the detective’s demise, even before the first bomb dropped. The EMP triggered by the laptop shut down Molloy’s pacemaker, killing him shortly after the power outage. Leave it to The General – no detail is ever left unchecked.
The group follows Goto across the field towards the landing strip. The jet awaits with the entrance ramp lowered, and the engines hum in preparation for takeoff.
Military jets scramble overhead, screaming by at a blistering clip. A pair of missiles hit the Aithon, doing little damage to its hull, but the blast is still unnerving. There’s no telling how much additional damage their already-battered jet can sustain.
Cole stands at the foot of the ramp after assisting Paige and Allison inside, awaiting the rest of their group. Brodie and Jens follow with Goto following close behind. Trent and his girlfriend saunter towards the jet, blissfully unconcerned with the explosions detonating around them.
“Pick up the pace,” Cole shouts, frantically waving them aboard.
Trent approached with a crooked smirk brazenly stretched across his face. “We’re leaving this party? This is what I came here for.”
“You’ll get your chance,” Cole replies, shoving him aboard.
As the ramp retracts into the belly of the jet, Cole turns to see the flaming compound sustain a final volley.
The blast reduces their former home to kindling and rubble.
Chapter Twenty-Five – Sagacious
Over Eastern Australia | January 28, 2012 | 6:42 pm, Eastern Daylight Time
The sensation of hopelessness is palpable. Slumped into the couches and chairs of the Aithon’s lounge, the gang looks – and feels – more defeated than they ever thought possible. It’s clear that team morale is in need of a significant boost. And although pep-talks are hardly Paige’s strong suit, there’s an announcement she’s been waiting to make for quite some time – she figures this is as good a time as any.
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