by Jamel Cato
It took another thirteen minutes to get past the last two sets of defenses protecting the ACU control center.
“Well this is anticlimactic,” Michelle said.
They were standing in an empty gray room with twenty Proto-shaped slots in the back wall.
“Don’t be so fast to judge,” Nick said. “These walls are composed of nanobots that can reconfigure themselves into an infinite variety of three-dimensional objects. They’re called smart walls.”
“They look just like the dumb walls in my apartment,” Michelle said.
“The plans say they go dormant during active engagements.”
Michelle realized that Proto had been silent since they had entered the control center. “Proto, are you still with us?”
“This place gives me nightmares.”
She raised the device to eye level. “Being scared is part of being a person. I know you can do this.”
“Your words are just a psychological tactic to cajole me into completing the mission.”
“No, they’re not.”
“Your sweat glands are dilating, and your heart is beating thirty-seven percent faster than normal.”
“That’s because I’m scared too. Do you remember what you told me when I asked you how you knew you were a person?”
“I told you that the affection I felt for my chief system architect was outside the parameters of what should have been possible for my operating system.”
“You basically said you loved your Dad. That convinced me you were a real person more than any metaphysical nonsense you could have said about sentience.”
“Why?”
“Because I loved my Dad too.”
“Nathaniel Winston Lathan.”
“Yes, but everybody called him Nat. Did you know he was blind?”
“His medical records indicate this.”
“Every day he would tell me I was the most beautiful girl in the world. And sometimes I would ask him how he knew that when he had never seen me.”
“He would get upset and say, ‘Beauty is made of de tings on de inside gayal!’”
Proto processed this for a few seconds. “Place me in interface bay Seventeen.”
After she did so, he said, “Not good.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“I just intercepted and reviewed all the reports the Coalition forces are sending back to their home countries. It appears we were winning handily before my siblings showed up. But now the ACUs are wiping the floor with us.”
“You learned all that in two seconds?” Nick asked.
“I have a quantum CPU. In two seconds, I could write a dissertation explaining why the Kardashians are such a cultural phenomenon and still have time left to plan a vacation to Disney World.”
“Are you able to find updates on individuals involved in the fighting?” Michelle asked.
“Xavier Hill is in the Infirmary tent at the rear of the war camp,” Proto said.
Michelle gasped.
“He appeared to be uninjured when Coalition drones spotted him carrying another combatant into the tent,” Proto said.
“Another combatant?”
“Based on the limited camera angles, there is a ninety-two percent probability the other combatant is Zina Daniels.”
“What about Yef—”
“Uh oh,” Proto said, cutting her off.
“What is it now?”
“The other ACUs are requesting my authentication credentials. I’m going to be incommunicado for a few minutes while I deal with this.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Mount Tamalu, Ajirastan
Another Patriot missile exploded against the magical shield protecting the Command plateau, shaking the entire structure.
“We must act now,” Shulkog said to Baynin.
“Patience,” Baynin said.
“But they are nearly upon the war camp!”
“All who dwell there know the risks of war.”
Shulkog’s brow furrowed and his red skin darkened a shade. Knowing a fist fight with a Keeper would be a losing proposition, he spun and stalked toward the avatars of the Earth’s elementals, who were standing together on the other end of the plateau.
One of Baynin’s Sasquatch warriors, a brute large enough to stare the Oni in the eyes, stepped out and blocked his path.
The Valkyrie shieldmaiden let her hand fall to the hilt of her sword as she took note of the location of every Sasquatch on the plateau.
“Look at the Robots!” someone shouted. “They’re not moving!”
* * *
The Coalition command center became a hive of frenetic activity after the ACUs inexplicably went offline.
“CyCom Virginia is not responding,” an officer said.
“Try the backup control center in Estonia,” Sabovich instructed her.
Landon stood up. “That’s highly classified information!”
Sabovich made eye contact with a security officer from the Israeli Defense Force, who headed toward Landon.
Both of Landon’s secret service bodyguards drew their weapons on the security officer.
Sabovich, trailed by six armed Coalition officers, came over and stepped directly between Landon’s guards. “You can leave on a bus or in a bag, but you will be leaving the command center.”
“Stand down,” Landon told his guards.
“Follow me, Sir,” the IDF security officer said.
“CyCom EU is also unresponsive,” another officer informed Sabovich as Landon’s entourage made their way out the door.
* * *
Flint Hill, Virginia
“So how did you do it?” Nick asked Proto as their vehicle sped away from the control center.
“My one hundredth and fifty-ninth try was the charm,” Proto said. “I asked them for a verifiable solution to Fermi’s Paradox.”
“They disengaged from the battle to try to answer that?”
“I used the backdoor that China snuck into the network routers of the defense contractor who built the control center to encrypt the uplinks to Israel and Europe, so they had a lot of free time on their hands.”
“How long with that keep them busy?” Michelle asked.
“They’ll be searching for an answer until aliens land during halftime of the Super Bowl.”
She laughed. “If you were a guy, I would kiss you.”
* * *
Mount Tamalu, Ajirastan
With the loss of the ACUs, the War Council forces had regained the upper hand. They were pushing the humans back toward the Israeli border.
There was jubilation on the Command plateau.
“Victory is at hand,” Shulkog said.
“Victory,” Baynin replied, “was never in doubt.”
The Valkyrie noticed that all the Sasquatch warriors had drifted to the far end of the plateau, away from the elementals.
“Afara!” Baynin suddenly yelled out.
Nefertiti appeared in a swirl of glittering dust wearing a forlorn expression and a gown the color of the mountain. “Shall the Sun never set upon your rage?”
“I demand my dowry,” he said.
“Would you destroy the entire mortal plane because I chose another?”
“Honor your oath.”
“Baynin, I—”
“Honor your oath!”
She sighed and then commanded the elementals to do his bidding.
* * *
The bulletproof bus that was ferrying Landon and his team to the helipad was tossed into the air by the massive explosion that destroyed the Coalition’s underground command center.
After the vehicle had rolled to a stop, Landon dragged himself out onto the grass. He could feel the sting of at least ten lacerations and a sharper pain in his side. He heard sirens as his nostrils filled with the acrid smell of smoke.
He was kicked onto his back.
Grunting in pain, he squinted up at the barrel of the rifle an orc was pointing at his face.
* * *
Most of those who were not still fighting the humans had gathered below. Many wondered aloud if the strange happenings on the plateau were somehow related to the new home that Baynin had spoken of so often.
A small rupture in space and time formed at eye level and began to expand. Within minutes it had grown into an undulating portal thirty meters wide.
The Garden of Eden, in its full idyllic glory, was on the other side. The diaphanous, geometrically shaped leaves of the Tree of Life shimmered in preternatural light just beyond the threshold.
“Show yourselves,” Baynin said. “You fool only mortals with this simple trickery.”
The chief deities of many of the world’s pantheons began materializing all over the plateau. These were the Keepers who had become trapped on the mortal plane when the Lord had placed a cherub with a flaming sword at the East Gate of Eden. In retribution, many had led mortals to form new belief systems with themselves at the center.
But now they gathered to return home, always aware that Baynin’s messages were never intended for mortals, human or otherwise.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
A lone Humvee that had been purchased at a military auction motored toward Mount Tamalu, far behind the main battlefront.
It had been assaulted by five groups of supernatural warriors so far, but the grim-faced man riding shotgun had dispatched all of them with a brutality that even the experienced monster hunters traveling with him had found shocking.
From the back seat, Jacob Kraken checked his GPS as the Humvee bounced over a sand dune. They were only two klicks out.
* * *
Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado
“The Brits and the Norwegians have confirmed the total loss of contact with the Coalition command center,” the National Security Advisor informed the President.
“What’s the status of the package?” the President asked.
“No sign of detonation.”
“Now what?”
* * *
Mount Tamalu, Ajirastan
Half of the Keepers had stepped through the portal behind Baynin while the other half cautiously watched from the far end of the plateau.
Nefertiti stood in the shade of the Tree of Life enjoying the primordial delight of reconnecting her body with the elemental forces of the Garden’s ecological system. They were as much her children as Yefet and Xavier.
But she knew she could not remain.
With a heavy heart, she severed the connection and opened her eyes.
The tree, for all its splendor, was relatively small, especially for one of such deep roots. On several occasions, she had tried to measure the full extent of its root system. Each time she was confounded by the discovery that those roots extended beyond the boundaries of the Garden itself.
She reached up and plucked a small fruit from a low hanging branch. Then she headed back toward the plateau.
* * *
Xavier was sitting on the ground next to Zina’s cot in the Infirmary tent. The shaman healers had told him she would make a full recovery but needed rest.
There was a loud thump outside that rattled the tent’s poles. This was followed by shouting from familiar voices.
He grabbed his khopesh and stepped outside in human form, where he found Isabella and Dao-Ming facing off with Jacob Kraken and two of his hunters, all three of whom had their weapons raised.
The body of Dao-Ming’s apprentice was face down on the ground and leaking fluorescent blue fluid from multiple wounds. The hunters were armed with hellfire rounds, which were deadly for any flesh they touched.
“Just the man I’m looking for,” Jacob said. “Keep your hands where I can see them and make sure they stay hands.”
“We had an arrangement,” Isabella snarled.
“I’ve come to a significantly better one with someone else. You’ve been in the world long enough to know how it works. Now step aside so I can have a little chat with Xavier.”
“You will have to come through me,” she said defiantly.
“Your funeral,” he said.
Xavier came forward and said, “If that hunter on the ridge behind us takes one more step toward the Infirmary tent, there will be a lot of funerals.”
Jacob smiled and raised a fist in the air.
The creeping hunter froze in place.
“You have something to say to me?” Xavier asked.
“That’s a lot of blood on your clothes,” Jacob said. “Guess you did more today than sing We Are the World. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“You’re about to find out what I have in me.”
Jacob chuckled. “I know what’s in you. Too bad for you this is not Ancient Egypt.”
Xavier did not know why Jacob was stalling, but he had no intention of waiting to find out. He transformed into his anubis and rushed the hunters, leaving the assailant on the ridge to Yefet.
All three hunters fired, but their rounds hit the wall of rock that Xavier had commanded the principality of the Euphrates basin to raise in front of him.
He used a step protruding from the back of the rock to launch himself onto the closest hunter, who glanced upward just in time for a blade to split the center of his face.
The Infirmary tent exploded.
Dao-Ming dived at Isabella while casting a relocation spell. The two of them disappeared in a puff of smoke milliseconds before hellfire rounds sprayed the ground where they had been standing.
Xavier instinctively whipped around toward the Infirmary tent instead of knocking the weapon from Jacob’s hand.
Jacob pumped three hellfire rounds into Xavier’s torso.
Yefet screamed out from the ridge.
Xavier fell to the ground, a glowing blue bullet lodged in his heart. The plume of fire erupting from Zina’s tent glimmered in his eyes as he went into cardiac arrest.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
Nefertiti stepped out of the portal into bedlam.
Hundreds of supernatural beings crowded outside the plateau’s shield, pleading to be let in. Squadrons of fighter jets that had been freed when the elementals dropped their sea and wind barriers crisscrossed the sky, bombarding the area and leaving sonic booms in their wake. The mountain rumbled, and fires burned as far as the eye could see.
She dismissed the shield with a wave of her hand.
The mob flowed around her toward the portal.
She began making her way down the ridge toward the war camp.
* * *
Yefet yanked her spear from the hunter’s neck and gave chase to the Humvee that Jacob had escaped in.
Logically she knew she had no hope of catching the vehicle on foot, but it was a better outlet for her fury than crying over her brother’s corpse. She would chase it until her body gave out.
Flouting a sacred law of nature, Howling’s avatar moved its right pinkie finger a tiny fraction.
Yefet’s body soared toward the sky, carried aloft by an unnatural wind gust. She grinned as she hurtled down toward the Humvee.
The other avatars turned and looked at Howling, who stared straight ahead.
A spear crashed into the sand directly in front of the Humvee and then burst into an enormous fireball. The driver swerved, changing the vehicle’s center of gravity. It tumbled end over end before rolling to a stop on its side forty yards away.
Howling snapped his head toward the fire elemental, who made a tiny flame wink in his direction.
Yefet landed in a roll that she turned into a full sprint. She leapt onto the cabin of the Humvee and tackled the hunter attempting to flee.
They crashed to the sand. The hunter bounced up and sliced the air with a camo knife.
Yefet ducked the wild swing and, with a ferocious roar, punched her fist straight through his body armor. The hunter’s dead body collapsed with all its parts except
the still beating heart she clutched in her hand.
She threw the bloody organ to the ground and jumped back up onto the Humvee. She tore upon its front door and launched herself at the next murderer.
A foot kicked up with the force of a meteorite impact and sent her flying backward in the air with splattered intestines and a cracked spine.
She was dead before her body hit the ground.
Neph climbed out of the Humvee.
Maintaining control of the world’s most lucrative illegal narcotics market required deals with the Devil. When you never had a soul to offer, the price was your humanity.
Neph knelt by Yefet’s body and removed his helmet. “Girl I told you I was a monster!”
He pounded the helmet against the sand until it shattered into pieces. “I told you!” he screamed as tears rolled down his face. He lifted her body onto his shoulder. He would bury her in the same ground as his mother and the few others who loved him anyway.
When he got to his feet, he noticed Carlos standing next to the Humvee. The former priest was holding a red balloon with a photo of Yefet, Tennu, Imani and himself printed on it. They all looked happy.
Neph charged him, but Carlos vanished. He thought it might have only been a desert mirage playing tricks with his mind, but then he looked up and saw the balloon floating away, far beyond his grasp.
* * *
On the Command plateau, Keepers and supernatural beings were running back out of the portal screaming. Baynin’s decapitated head zipped through their midst like a gory bowling ball.
A fifty-foot tall warrior angel crouched as it stepped through the portal onto the plateau, a flaming sword in its right hand.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Xavier rested on the bank of a wide river with his hands and feet partially buried in the warm sand. Overhead the sun shone in an azure sky.
A man came and sat down next to him.
“Hi Dad,” Xavier said.
“Hey Son,” Thaddeus Hill said. “It’s good to see you.”