Emily and Mac climbed into the snowcat alongside Petter and his driver. The vehicle's engine was already running. As soon as Emily closed the door behind her, the major ordered the driver to head out.
They traveled most of the trip back to the Machine in silence, both Emily and Mac lost in their own similar thoughts. The warehouse-farm changed everything. Everything. It offered the first real ray of hope for humanity since the Caretakers had arrived. If the Norwegians would be willing to share their expertise with the Point Loma survivors, it would eliminate one of the biggest threats to humanity's continued survival. Having a sustainable food source was, well, massive. There were other problems, of course, the hardest of which was just how they were going to take back Point Loma from Valentine and her cronies. Perhaps, if they could return with fresh vegetables, fruit, and seeds, they could use that as leverage to persuade the rest of the survivors to turn over Valentine...maybe even Valentine would see the futility of her position and give up. You can live in hope, Emily thought, even if you die in despair.
The snowcat approached the Caretaker machine Emily and Rhiannon had arrived in. Emily sensed the three men tense as the huge craft came into view. The driver pulled up alongside it, straining his neck out the window to gape open-mouthed at the vehicle.
"Hell of a ride, you've got there," Mac said, his tone hushed. He turned to look at Emily as she opened the door and stepped out of the snowcat. "We'll really have to have a chat about it. Soon." His eyes showed his bewilderment over how exactly she'd managed to come by a piece of Caretaker technology, let alone figured out how to pilot it.
Emily smiled, nodded, then said, "I'll meet you back at the Vengeance." They had agreed it would be best for Emily to follow behind Mac so he’d have time to explain to the sub’s crew that they had nothing to fear when the Machine showed up.
Before Emily could close the door behind her, Mac took out his radio and handed it to his wife. "Take this," he said. "In case of emergencies."
"You really think anything's going to screw with us in that?" Emily nodded at the looming outline of the Machine.
"Who said anything about you?" said Mac, half-seriously. "That's in case we need your help."
"We’ll be ten minutes behind you," Emily said, as she took the radio and closed the door. She stood for a few seconds and watched the snowcat disappear around a hill, then turned and walked back toward the Machine. The walkway was down already. She climbed up the ramp and headed toward the control room where Rhiannon and Thor waited. The room was sparse; no displays or control systems lined the curved walls. Two chairs that looked to have been extruded from the very floor itself sat in the room's center. Rhiannon sat in one, with Thor lying next to her. The malamute got up and padded over to Emily as she entered the room, his tail swishing back and forth. The room's walls glowed a dim red, pulsing slowly. It hadn't been doing that when she had left.
"Welcome back," said Rhiannon. She rose unsteadily to her feet, still acclimating to her blindness. Rhiannon had lost her sight back in New Mexico from the sting she had suffered when the three travelers had battled a swarm of alien bugs; a sting that had taken her to the brink of death and left both her eyes blood-red orbs. She had recovered, but it still wasn't clear at this point whether Rhiannon's blindness was temporary or permanent. But at least the girl was alive; a minor miracle in and of itself given their past experience with the creatures that now inhabited this world. When it had come time to leave Adam and find Mac, Emily had wanted to leave Rhiannon with her son, but the girl had insisted that she was coming along.
Emily walked up to the girl and gave her a hug. Hot tears began to roll down her face and onto the girl's neck.
"What's wrong?" Rhiannon asked, breaking free of Emily's hug, then moving back a step. "Oh my God! Mac...is Mac okay?"
Emily didn't think her love for this young woman could grow any stronger, but the concern in her voice for Emily's husband was so heartwarming. She felt her heart swell.
"Mac's fine," Emily said, placing a hand on Rhiannon's shoulder while smiling broadly, even though the girl could not see her. "It's all good. Better than I'd hoped for, in fact." She stepped closer to Rhiannon and took her elbow, guiding her back to her chair in the center of the room. "Have a seat. We have to go rendezvous with the Vengeance. I'll explain everything on the way."
"We can't," said Rhiannon. "The Machine...something's wrong with it."
Emily cocked her head to one side. "What do you mean?"
"About an hour after you left there was a sound, like an alarm. I heard the ramp drop and thought it was you coming back, but when you didn't say anything, I ordered the Machine to retract the ramp, but nothing happened. I haven't been able to make it do anything since then...It just stopped working."
Emily stepped back. Her eyes moved to the red pulsing walls. "Damn!" she said eventually. "It must be the cold." None of the red rain creatures she'd encountered seemed capable of handling the cold for very long. It stood to reason that the same would apply to the Caretakers' machines.
"What are we going to do?" asked Rhiannon.
Emily fished the radio Mac had given her from her pocket. "Looks as though I'm going to have to call AAA."
CHAPTER 3
Mac sent a Zodiac to pick up Emily, Rhiannon, and Thor from the disabled Caretaker machine. He was waiting for them on the deck of the Vengeance as the Zodiac pulled alongside. Emily helped Rhiannon to her feet and guided her to the side of the boat. The tide was gentle but the Zodiac still pitched up and down enough that Rhiannon almost lost her footing a couple of times. If it hadn't have been for Emily's helping hands she would have been in the sea.
Mac stifled a gasp when he saw Rhiannon’s eyes. He looked at Emily, confused. "What's going—" he started to ask the question but stopped mid-sentence as Emily shook her head back and forth.
"I'll explain when we're on board," said Emily.
"Hi Mac," said Rhiannon, cheerfully.
Mac smiled back at her. "Hello sweetheart. Let's get you up here shall we." He reached down with his meaty paws and lifted the girl out of the Zodiac, depositing her on the submarine's deck. Then he helped Emily on board before calling to Thor, who had until then been sitting patiently at the bow of the small boat. The malamute leaped over the side and up onto the deck, instantly making his way to Mac. The dog rolled over onto his back and allowed the soldier to rub his belly, his tail swishing back and forth on the submarine's cold metal surface.
Emily placed an arm around Rhiannon's shoulders and guided her over the deck as Mac led them back to the entry hatch. He called down to another seaman inside the Vengeance to make sure he was waiting at the bottom of the ladder, then, one after the other, positioned Rhiannon's feet onto the first rung of the ladder.
"That's it," said Mac, keeping a hand on the girl's wrist as she uneasily began climbing down and he made sure the sailor waiting at the bottom of the ladder had her.
Emily followed behind, nimbly moving down the ladder.
"Sit," Mac told Thor, which the dog obediently did. The Scotsman picked the malamute up as though he were nothing but a big bag of potatoes, cradling him with one arm, then climbed carefully down into the submarine.
"Let's get to my cabin," he said. "This way." He led the three newcomers down a corridor to a tiny room. The only furniture consisted of a bunkbed, a chair, and a small cabinet. The room was so small there was barely enough space for all four of them to fit.
"Sit here," Mac said, taking Rhiannon's hand from Emily and guiding her to the lower bunk. He seemed about to say something, but instead he tapped a couple of the pockets of his Parka with his fingers, then fished out a pair of sunglasses. "Here," he took Rhiannon’s hand again and placed a pair of sunglasses into her upturned palm. "Best you wear these, until we let everyone know about your..."
"Cool!" said Rhiannon. She put on the sunglasses. "How do I look."
"Marvelous," said Emily.
"Now," Mac continued, turning to face Emily, "would someon
e please tell me what the bloody hell is going on? Start at the beginning."
Mac took a seat in an old wooden chair, while Emily stood. She breathed in deeply and began to talk. She explained again how, after Mac had left, Valentine had made a play for power; how the Caretakers had kidnapped Adam; how Valentine had used their son's disappearance to frame Emily; that Valentine had tried to have her murdered; how if it had not been for Rhiannon's bravery in rescuing her, that plan would have succeeded. She told him how they had stolen a helicopter and escaped the camp, following the mental pull of Adam's mind as it acted as a kind of psychic GPS beacon for her. She quickly explained their journey east, their encounter with the swarm of glowing creatures that had been responsible for Rhiannon losing her sight, and, finally, how they had found the Caretakers' ship...and Adam. When she was finished, Emily paused for a moment or two, assessing how best to tell Mac about what had happened next. She decided not to sugarcoat it.
"I told you Adam was safe—" Emily began.
Mac's reaction was instantaneous, his eyes widened and he started to speak, but Emily took his hand in hers, silencing him. "And he is safe," she continued, "I just...I just couldn't tell you everything, not in front of the Norwegians."
"Oh-kay," he said, guardedly, "I trust you. Now, tell me what's going on with my son because I am very, very confused right now."
Emily took a big breath of air and dived right in. "The Caretakers took him because he was different, unique. Before it died, the last Caretaker told me they had never come across someone like Adam...ever! So, they kidnapped him and they...they experimented on him."
"What!" Mac exploded. "What?"
"It's okay, really it is," said Emily. "Please, I know that this is difficult to hear but just let me explain, okay?"
Mac gave an abrupt nod of his head.
"The Caretakers changed him, Mac. He's still our little boy, but he's...he's changed.
A storm of emotion swept across Mac's face; fear, anger, sadness, confusion. He abruptly stood up, sending his chair skittering across the floor. "What the hell do you mean by 'changed?'"
Emily took his hands in hers. He stared intently back at her as she continued her story. "They connected him to a machine, expecting him to die, but he didn't die, he thrived. Somehow, he gained control of the Caretaker ship and its technology and dug into its memory. He found a secret buried so deeply, even the Caretakers didn't know it existed. A terrible secret from their history. The secret was that the Caretakers had been changed by the Locusts from their original purpose as benevolent beings tasked with helping life flourish wherever they found it, into a weapon of destruction. The Locusts follow from planet to planet as the Caretakers reshape each new world to the Locusts' specifications and harvest it for their own use."
"What?" said Mac, stunned.
"Yes, but the Locusts must have planted a self-destruct mechanism deep in the Caretakers DNA, because once Adam revealed the fact that they had been manipulated by the Locusts, it activated, and the Caretakers started dying. It killed them all, Mac, but not Adam. Not Adam."
Mac let go of Emily's hands. His face was flushed bright crimson.
Emily continued, "I...I still don't really understand the science behind it, but the process the Caretakers put him through, it accelerated Adam, he's not a baby anymore, more like a teenager, I suppose, but it also enhanced his mind. With access to all that alien knowledge and technology, it's given him...powers...abilities. He can control aspects of the red world. Emotionally, he's still a child, but his IQ, it must be off the charts, unreadable by human standards. And he's still growing, but his body is unable to keep up with the powers he's been given, doing just about anything tires him out very quickly."
There was a long pause while Mac digested what he'd been told. "But he's okay, right? He's still...human." Mac bent down, righted the fallen chair, and sat back down. Thor got up and moved closer to his master, pushing his head against Mac’s hand until he started to stroke him.
Emily nodded. "Yes, he's alive and well, but he's permanently joined with their ship now. He has access to almost all the Caretakers' memories and data. He said he's connected to everything that the red rain changed, like an unimaginably complex version of the Internet. It’s through that connection that he can gather so much information. He can even control some of the lifeforms; just the small ones right now, but he thinks that eventually he will be able to possess any life form on the planet."
"Jesus!" Mac hissed. He looked up at his wife, his eyes tearing up. "He's still our boy, right? He's still our Adam."
"Yes, oh God, yes. He's still Adam," Emily said. Stepping in close to her husband she placed a hand on his cheek, "I know it's a lot to take in, but, yes, he's still our Adam. He's just very, very powerful."
"Jesus!" Mac repeated.
"He's able to control their craft, too; at least, some of them," Emily explained. "He's still learning, still discovering what he's capable of. Adam managed to work out how to control the machine Rhiannon and I arrived at Svalbard in. He told it to bring us here. When we left he was trying to gain control of the ship we found him in."
Mac was dumbfounded. "It's all just...I...after everything that happened after the red rain came, I thought there was nothing left that could possibly surprise me. But this...this I just can't get my head around. I'm going to need some time to process it all."
Emily touched his hand. "It’s a massive amount of information to take in, I know; I'm still wrapping my mind around it, too. But Mac, he's still our son and he wants to help us."
Mac nodded silently. His face remained stoically calm, but his eyes revealed the storm of confusion that Emily knew must be raging within his body.
"Our real problem, isn't Adam," Emily continued, "it's the Locusts. And if we have any hopes of getting back to Point Loma and enlisting their help, we're going to have to figure out how to deal with Valentine and her cronies."
Mac pulled Emily in, enclosing her with his arms. He cradled the back of her head with one hand and held her to him. When he pulled back, there was a change in his face; her husband, the kind, gentle man that Emily loved more deeply than she ever could have imagined was gone, replaced by the professional, deadly soldier.
"Okay," Mac said, "We'll deal with the Locusts once we find them, in the meantime, I'm going to figure out how I'm going to kill Valentine."
•••
"Honey, wake up."
Mac's voice pulled Emily from a deep, dreamless sleep.
"What is it?" she asked, seeing a fresh look of concern on her husband's face. She cast a brief glance at her watch; she'd been asleep for a couple of hours since she had revealed everything to Mac about Adam.
"It's the Captain, he's taken a bit of a fall," Mac said. "I need your help with him."
"Of course," Emily said. She threw back the thin blanket that covered her and sat up.
"What's going on?" Rhiannon asked, sitting up.
"Captain Constantine's had an accident," Emily said, "I'm going to help Mac. You okay here for a few?"
Rhiannon nodded. "I hope he's okay."
"I'm sure he will be. Won't be long," said Emily, closing the door behind her and Mac.
Mac led Emily through the sub's innards.
"What happened?" she asked.
"He was top-side, running through some inspections; slipped on some ice and hit the deck hard. Pretty sure he's done some real damage. He's still up top; we didn't want to move him until we knew the extent of his injuries."
The wind had picked up again as they emerged onto the sub's deck. It sliced the air with sword-like gusts of razor-sharp cold. Emily shivered, zipped up her parka, and followed Mac aft along the deck toward the stern.
Captain Constantine was just beyond the base of the conning tower. Two other crewmen stood over him, talking quietly to their commander. Someone had covered him in thick blankets to ensure he stayed warm. Even so, his face looked gray as Emily and Mac approached.
"Oh boy, what have yo
u done now?" Emily said, smiling confidently as she approached.
The captain's head turned in her direction, and, despite his obvious pain, a smile crossed his lined face. "Well, well, well. Mac filled me in on your return, I'd hoped to make time to talk with you after you had gotten some rest. This wasn't quite what I had in mind, though." He tried to keep his smile in place but it was quickly turning into more of a grimace as he fought back the pain. Emily saw he had a nasty gash over his right eye, the trickle of blood running down his cheek already freezing over.
"Where are you hurt?" she asked him.
"Right leg. Just below the knee." The words came out in a hiss.
"I'm going to take a look," Emily said, kneeling at his feet. She lifted the blanket to reveal the captain's legs. Gently, ever so gently, she rolled up the right leg of his pants. Emily flinched when she saw the obvious outline of a broken tibia bone pressing against the bruised skin just below his knee. There was more bruising closer to his ankle too. "Okay, looks like you've got at least one break," she said. She stood back up and turned to Mac, leading him a few meters away. "That's a really nasty break. Might be a problem with his ankle, too. Do we have anyone on board capable of working on this?"
Mac nodded at the two men standing over the commander. "They're it. Neither of them have the kind of training to deal with something this serious."
Emily thought for a moment. "It’s going to be a bastard trying to get him into the sub's infirmary."
"We can strap him to a board and lower him down. It'll be painful."
Emily shook her head. "I'd be really nervous about making his injuries worse. That head wound looks bad, too. And for all we know, he could have a concussion or worse."
Mac exhaled hard, a thick white fog of vapor.
"The Norwegians have a hospital. That means they should have more experienced medical staff and better facilities than we have on board the Vengeance," Emily said, leaving the statement hanging in the air for Mac to consider.
He thought for a few moments, then, "Yeah, let's give them a bell. See if they are willing to help. It'll be a good indication of whether they’re really willing to lend us a hand." Mac pulled his portable radio from his belt, tuned the frequency to a nautical emergency channel and spoke. "Longyearbyen, Longyearbyen, this is submarine HMS Vengeance, we have a medical emergency. Requesting urgent assistance for our commander. Do you copy, over?"
Extinction Point: Kings (Extinction Point Series (5 book series)) Page 3