by M. Modak
Void whistled a quiet tune and said with a happy smile, “It was Prowler.” A moment later two red cat eyes appeared from a dark corner and then its enormous black body, eight feet in length, moved out of the shadow and across the room.
“Prowler,” Void said in a sweet tone, “Come here kitty.” As the large cat walked, it began to glow red-hot and shrink in size becoming smaller than the big cats of Africa. It jumped from the ground as its fur cooled and changed from pink to grey and then a blood soaked white. Its body continued to shrink to that of a large house cat. Void caught it in her arms. Prowler started to purr and his eyes turned a soft emerald as she gently pet him.
Then she said to Whitman, “While we were in the elevator I communicated to Prowler our need for safe passage once we were on the surface.” She looked around the open hall and with a smile she said, “All clear.”
Whitman grunted, “The hell it is! This was supposed to be a secret meeting not an open slaughter!” He whispered to himself, “Sapen was wrong?” He spoke loudly again, “Now I’m going to have to have a team come down here and clean up this mess!”
“There already in route general,” she replied.
Whitman growled, “I’m goanna have my men tear you apart and put you back right again, bitch! There’s something to be said for restrained force!” It was a threat he made often. Sapen had told her to ignore it.
“All systems functional Mr. Whitman and all your priorities are in order,” she said.
“Damn better be!” he yelled. Then he cooled a little as he looked at the cat in her arms. “I see our first production Synthlife his in service. Where are the others?”
“Sapen decided to only allow one to be field tested. He didn’t want any mistakes,” Void said.
“Good idea,” he said, “All I need is a bunch of monsters going haywire in the middle of Atlanta tonight,”
Whitman lifted his foot. Blood and guts stuck to the bottom of his shoes making a squishing bubbling sound as it separated from him with each step. He walked deeper into the atrium trying not to step on anything that might squish under his weight. Then he remembered the guard that had saved his life and he turned back, “Are you coming?” The huge man groaned his displeasure at the whole situation but followed him out.
The three left the building. 15 Special Forces soldiers descended from a large military helicopter and greeted them. One man approached Whitman and shouted over the whoosh, “Mr. Whitman, Sir! Our orders are to secure a cleanup and assist Void in subject termination below building grade.”
Whitman nodded and pointed to the Capital Building, “There are two squads coming up in the elevators one and three. Eliminate them and everyone on the subfloor. Hurry, you have two hours!”
The soldier stood at attention and stomped his right foot as a hand went to his heart. He said, “On the triple sir!” Then he signaled his team and they slipped off into the rainy night, and into the Capitol.
The helicopter moved to the clearing and lowered, sending up water and mud in a whirl as it touched down. Whitman crouched and ran to the open chopper doors. Void was waiting right behind him as he turned around to give his command, “Void, go make sure everyone on the council is finished like I promised,” He paused as the words caught in his throat, “And…and… leave no witnesses.”
Void disappeared.
Whitman sighed then yelled out into the rain, “And when you’re done go get Drake and bring him to my office.” The lone guard jumped in behind him.
With a twirl of his wrist, he gestured to the pilot, time to leave. The chopper lifted into the air and vanished into the black clouds. Rain fell in sheets as the incoming weather system moved across Georgia. The helicopter shook in turbulent fits as it passed under patches of thick downfall. The storm had appeared out of nowhere late last night and had stalled over the city. Some forecasters were saying it was supposed to clear by morning but forecasters were sometimes wrong.
Whitman took off his tie and rung it out on the floor. Blood and tiny pieces of bone that had sprayed across him back in the elevator lobby, dripped onto the metal floor. He felt suddenly exhausted. The helicopter’s methodical whoosh, whoosh, whoosh induced a sleepy trance that filled the cabin with no other thought or sound. Whitman held on to a strap that hung from the ceiling.
His mind went over and over the last 30 minutes of his life as if that was all he had ever lived. In his mind, he saw the hideous scene that had just happened, and the knowledge that it was happening again sickened him. He felt a deep regret for all that was lost today.
Then he paused, remembering his hesitancy to explain his full plans for the grid of networked warehouses around the globe. It was a key part of his script. It puzzled him, why had I changed my mind…
Then he felt regret and he hoped for a moment that he had pursued it all in a different way. He hated killing, but it was too late now, he had committed everything to this end.
He smiled to himself, pleased that at least the decision had been made, he didn’t need them anymore. He had given them their chance to act and they blew it. They had tried to kill him. What is this world coming to?
Whitman jerked as a sharp sting came from his side and yelled, “Damn!” He reached for his right hip. The man sitting across from him didn’t make a sound. The mask still covered his face. He wore the normal black, Special Operations Uniform assigned to the council guard but Whitman could see that it was made of a material that only the highest-ranking officers had access to. A dark hood was pulled over his head and green eyes peered from behind the clear glass of the black goggles. Small pieces of splintered bones studded the soldier’s leather boots but the black cloth of his uniform hid the blood that soaked his whole body.
Whitman felt a sting in his side and guessed the wind had blown debris into the helicopter’s belly; he turned to look outside the window. The city was so large, much different from what he had known as a young man. Lasers now lit the city with holographic roads that shimmied in the dark with connecting beams of red, blue, and yellow. It divided itself into a grid work fit for the 22-century’s largest transportation system.
Whitman spoke without turning his head, “You know I built all this? Not all the buildings, I built everything connecting to them. I could have rebuilt all the buildings but I had to leave something for the rest of the economy to do.” He glanced back to see if the soldier was paying attention. The man was staring back through his night vision lenses. Whitman returned his eyes to the passing landscape below, “I invented the hologram generators that you see down there. I made it possible for billions of people to move on streets of light. I designed the world causeway, connecting Africa to Mexico and California to Japan and all the other continents. Do you know what it took to make those stupid governments see the light?” Whitman glanced back to the soldier.
The man didn’t answer.
Whitman looked through the open door into the dark night. His eyes reflected the horizon’s artificial lights as sadness and regret slowed his voice into a somber tone, “It took every nickel I had and a few lives that were close to me to make it happen. Those idiot council members, what were they thinking. Now I have to start over again, I need people I can trust!”
Whitman looked back to the man. Now he was on his feet, hunched up against the low ceiling. Whitman said, “Where are you going?” He couldn’t tell, but he was sure the soldier was smiling beneath the mask. Whitman yelled, “What the hell are you doing?” The man unclipped a red grenade from his belt and held it in his right hand. Whitman froze.
The big man took off his mask. Then his whole body flashed an intense blue light. All the sounds from the world outside the chopper’s cabin ceased. His strong, angular face caught the soft yellow glow from the light roads below and through a thick Spanish accent the soldier said, “You are a man after the red dragons own heart but I cannot kill you. And yes, I have met people who feel what it took to make your global road system. It felt like a loss of free will, one of the worst feelin
gs a person can have. I believe the term was, ‘Unconditional Acceptance.’ Mr. Whitman I have come across universes to save your life, for what reason I know not. I saved your life tonight. My first mission is complete. You have created a monster named Sapen, which must be destroyed. I understand your intentions were…noble but you have given away your heart to do this thing. Sapen will outgrow you very soon; he may already be trying to eliminate you now. I suggest you stop. Stop everything right now; find a place to hide and think of a new way forward. Find the way where everyone wins. You don’t know how valuable your life is. Don’t waste it.” The sound of the shaking helicopter flying through the wind and pouring rain came all at once, as the big man dropped the red grenade next to his feet then jumped into the darkness below.
The grenade did not explode as Whitman feared but red smoke began to spew; filling the cabin. The smell pulled at Whitens stomach as he tried to hold his breath.
The pilot yelled, “Is everything alright back there general?”
Whitman closed his eyes and held his breath as he searched for the sound of the bouncing grenade. Then when the chopper bumped the canister rolled against his leg. He quickly grabbed it and tossed it out the open door. He glanced down into the passing rain hoping to locate the soldier but he could only see the trail of smoke that followed the grenade down into an empty parking lot. Then he sat back quietly in his seat thinking about what the man had said to him as they flew the rest of the way home.
The helicopter landed upon the Laytech Inc. building a few minutes later and the pilot cut the engine. A team of scientist and technicians dressed in slick white, and yellow plastic suits greeted him. Whitman dropped from the chopper onto the wet roof. He needed to check on a few things, did that soldier speak the truth?
A stream of blood began dripping off his dark blue suit and into the small currents of rainwater that had formed on the roof. The rain had just stopped and patches of clear sky revealed the calm of twinkling stars. From the top of the Laytech tower, he could see that the greatest part of the storm was steadily building not far in the distance.
“Mr. Whitman, you okay? There is blood…and… and…you’re covered in blood! We heard the distress call from the pilot over our scanner?” Whitman pushed the concerned scientist aside with the back of his hand as he passed.
“Shut the hell up!” He said with a snap. The others stepped aside holding their questions.
He entered a side door next to the main elevator with a standard key and made his way to his private office. After taking a shower and changing clothes he sat down at his desk and turned on the autophone. The autophone asked, “Who would you like to speak with Mr. Whitman?”
“Get me the director of the FBI,”
Chapter 7 Ultimatum
Universe XJ824
John got off the table as the team of scientist unhooked him from the memory machine and secured all the wires and equipment, so they could take it with them. They had only about a day’s worth of visual imprints on file. They started from when he awoke yesterday and ended when he had begun serving his team coffee and bagels. Then it continued up until the moment he blacked out. He had hoped that more of Joshua’s life would have been recorded. But the screen just went blank after Aughra had covered him with S-matter.
To everyone’s surprise, the memory machine had recovered some scattered memories, from Joshua’s last 24hours, that was stored in John’s neurons. It started with fragments of a nightmare Joshua had had; one John had also had but forgotten. When he saw it, it had triggered the memory and sent chills down his spine.
It showed a man, who looked like an older version of John, sitting at a bank of view screens in a room that overlooked a moon. They could see stars just outside a large window. Spaceships were coming and going from a dock not far below. The view screens held images from several deep space telescopes, scattered throughout the galaxy and perhaps beyond that, revealing real-time footage of the end of the universe.
On some viewers, stars were exploding. Distant galaxies were imploding, shrinking as their spiraling arms withdrew into their centers. Panic had erupted on the moon base; a wave of invisible destruction had passed over their solar system. Their sun had just gone nova…
Then there was a gap and the memories. It jumped to Joshua making breakfast for Rana and forward again to him walking around with Michael at his interview. Rana had turned red when the video of her and Joshua making love appeared on the screen. Dr. Peterson quickly fast-forwarded through that part but the damage was done.
Overwhelmed, Rana started crying. Kayla moved next to her. She held Rana as she cried, trying to console her.
The memories skipped to the last image.
Rana looked beautiful as she danced with Michael at the Crystal Ball Room last night. Then the memory machine froze. The picture showed an almost magical image of Rana and her red dress splayed out as she danced. It was the last thing held in Joshua’s mind.
Rana inhaled deeply as she tried to digest what she was seeing but her heart broke again and she wept.
John thought, at least those images scientifically confirmed everything I’ve been saying about these new memories, though by now everyone believed him.
Rana quieted, and the whole group went silent as everyone tried to think of what to do next. They had gone through a lot of trouble to get here. They had given everything, told Dr. Peterson everything, only one question hung in the air.
John asked, “So, will you shut down the Graviton Antennas now doctor?”
Dr. Peterson said, “Many different governments have contributed to this scientific cause. Billions have been spent on the research alone. If you count the research from the particle accelerator in Texas the total cost has reached a staggering trillion. This is a huge sum of money. I can’t just toss away everything because of an odd event that maybe loosely connected to the Lab Works project.”
The large flexscreen behind Dr. Peterson was on now and was showing all the major news channels. The latest reports gave the number of people affected by Aughra to now be over 2,000,000 in the last hour; with most of those people living in Atlanta. John had concluded that Aughra was increasing in power exponentially as the hours passed by.
“What about the scrambled signal you were receiving along with the graviton feed from the nebula?” John asked, “Is it still coming in?” The last graduate student had just finished removing the final sensor attached to him and was leaving.
After the door closed behind them Dr. Peterson said, “I pulled up last hour’s feed and fast forward through it. It looks like the signal spiked about 20 minutes ago.”
John looked dumbfounded. He said, “That’s almost a hello?”
Rana asked, “Why is that?”
Dr. Peterson replied, “Stars usually don’t just start increasing their pulse rate. It’s as if it just decided that it preferred us and increased its signal. And look at that signal. I think there may be some kind of information buildup, perhaps its bottlenecked, trying to get through all at once. I’ll have the computer give an estimate on the size of information that maybe trying to get in.”
“Decided?” Michael asked.
The doctor pressed on the small flexscreen in his hand and put the image of a signal streaming across a graph on the large viewer. It presented a steady, if somewhat erratic, red line zigzagging along the bottom of the screen horizontally from left to right. Behind it, a solid green bar gradually increasing in width, showing the flow of graviton particles the antenna was designed to detect. Suddenly there was a long red wave followed by a quick drop in signal. Then there was an explosion of choppy red lines that was beginning to look more organized and fluid, rising with the green bar right up until the present.
“Perhaps someone simply bumped into that loose wire and now it’s fixed,” Kayla said, “The signal is coming in clearly? Maybe it was always like that but now the problem is fixed.”
John remembered that sort of thing happening before in his lab but not with a signa
l like this. And why was it showing up on the detector? It could have been someone in the process of repairing or adjusting something in the hardware but the pattern he was seeing was caused by someone or something…
Dr. Peterson said, “For the past hour I’ve been running a simple check on the hardware. I just sent a general message to all personnel asking for a report on any adjustments, no matter how small, preformed on any of the equipment throughout the nine detectors. So far, all the hardware checks out. No one has reported any work performed, yet. I’ll give it a few more minutes for anyone to respond before ruling that out.”
Everyone relaxed just a little, waiting for any word.
Rana laid her head on the table and closed her eyes. The stress from the long night had caught up with her. Unless the end of the world was at hand, she was going to take a nap. She missed her husband terribly. Since they were married, they had rarely been away from each other. He was so close, in the form of John, but in reality, he was a world away. The pain was too much. Seeing John tore at her heart. John had his body but Joshua’s spirit was gone.