Syndicate Wars: Fault Line (Seppukarian Book 3)

by Kyle Noe

  “Why would anybody do that?” Samantha blurted out.

  All eyes rotated back in her direction.

  “Because there are powerful people and interests that control and shape the world,” Xan replied. “And these people have made agreements to orchestrate world affairs. They do things that are right before your eyes that you don’t even know about. They likely cut a deal with the aliens to share our resources in return for their technology. And the aliens double-crossed them.”

  “So it’s all a big secret then?” Samantha asked.

  Xan nodded.

  “But the three of you probably couldn’t even keep secret what you talked about in here for more than a day,” Samantha said.

  “What the hell’s that supposed to mean, kid?” Xan asked.

  “It means you gotta disbelieve a lot to believe a little. You gotta believe that thousands of people can keep secret stuff that impacts everybody on Earth. That’s crazy.”

  Xan read Samantha’s look. She wasn’t buying it, so she leaned back over the rear seat. “If you’re so smart, what do you think happened?” Xan asked.

  “Maybe the aliens messed up,” Samantha said. “Maybe they’ve got a way to alter time, but the reason they’re doing it is because they screwed up somehow.”

  “Right, and we’re the crazy ones,” Xan replied, rolling her eyes.

  “Chronology Protection Hypothesis,” Samantha muttered.

  Xan glanced back. “Come again?”

  “It’s this theory someone had once upon a time. When I was on the road in Ohio an older guy named Hudgins told me about it. Everybody else said Hudgins was crazy, but this man knew what was going on. He said it’s possible to go back in time, but what messes you up is that some other power wouldn’t let you do it.”

  “What? Like God?” the shovel-faced woman asked.

  “More like nature, ma’am,” Samantha replied. “Basically that some natural power would intervene to prevent you from screwing with the past. Maybe the aliens found a way to theoretically mess with time only they didn’t count on something else stopping them from doing it.”

  “So they keep coming back?” Xan asked.

  “Is that too hard to believe?” Samantha replied.

  Xan shared a look with Samantha and Samantha knew, sensed might be a better word, what she was going to scream next. She felt a tingling sensation and noticed that the string on her wrist was vibrating.

  Xan’s mouth dropped open. “GET DOWN!”

  Samantha felt a disturbance in the air and then—

  WHACK!

  A bullet pierced the windshield and slammed into the throat of the driver, sending the SUV swerving out of control.

  14

  The Stuff of Nightmares

  Blood sprayed the windshield as the dead driver draped over the wheel, the horn blaring. Xan made a move to him, but she was a fraction too late. A chorus of screams filled the SUV as it veered across the road at 90 mph, before striking a shoulder barrier.

  Samantha heard a front tire explode like a gunshot blast.

  The SUV immediately swerved left and down an embankment and came up the other side, going airborne. The vehicle was launched forward and the last thing Samantha saw was a gas station and several other businesses off in the distance. Then the SUV landed hard and rolled over with dust and debris, filling the interior of the machine, the dead driver pinballing over the shattered windshield.

  Tethered to her seat, Samantha sat for several seconds, stars in her eyes, breathing ragged. She felt what she initially thought was a rope of sweat running down her forehead, but then she blotted it and her hand came away red. Inching a finger up, she felt a surface laceration. Her eyes jitterbugged when she saw the shovel-faced woman with her head hanging at a horrible angle, and she knew she must be dead.

  The two men were groaning and Xan already had a knife out, cutting them free from their seat belts. She maneuvered back and cut Samantha free.

  “We need to go now. They’re coming,” Xan said.

  “Who?” Samantha asked.

  “The ones that did this to us.”

  The four figures crawled out of the ruined SUV and flopped onto the hard earth. Xan staggered back and grabbed their rucksacks and weapons as—

  WHACK!

  A bullet ricocheted off the top of the SUV. Xan ducked and rolled as Samantha looked in every direction. She could see the road, up over the other side of the embankment, and the gas station and the immense trucks.

  “Shit!” Xan said, bringing her rifle around.

  The trucks were visible down the road, a cluster of what looked like men dropping down from their beds, guns in hand. Somebody had already laid their rifle across the hood of one of the trucks and was pouring fire down at them.

  Xan rose and fired out her gun. Samantha saw several things all at once. She witnessed Xan’s bullets scatter most of the ambushers. Several did not evade Xan’s attack and paid a heavy price. The top of the skull of one attacker vanished in an amber spray and two more were gut shot, crumpling to the ground, writhing around before their bodies stopped moving. The return fire had bought Samantha and the others a few seconds, but it wouldn’t last.

  “We need to get to the gas station!” Samantha shouted, nearly breathless. “It’s the only cover!”

  Xan nodded and was about to move out when Samantha grabbed her arm. “I need something to fight with.”

  “You’re just a kid,” Xan countered.

  Samantha glared at Xan. “Right now you need every fighter you can get.”

  Begrudgingly, Xan fished in her rucksack and handed Samantha an aging machine-pistol. “You know how to use it?”

  Samantha examined the gun, pulling the firing bolt back. “I’m a quick learner.”

  The four took off on a ragged run, keeping their heads down as bullets stitched the dirt all around them. The bandits who’d ambushed them were trying to cut them off before they reached the gas station. Samantha spotted a figure in a hoodie hurtling down the embankment and she opened up with her gun, riddling the attacker who fell forward into a ditch.

  Looking back up, Samantha saw that she’d fallen behind. The two men were running off ahead of her while Xan was crouched on her haunches, satellite phone pressed to one ear. Samantha wheeled around and galloped forward with everything she had. She saw one of the male resistance fighters rise up and fire his weapon only to catch a round in the face from one of the bandits. The bullet reversed the resistance fighter’s nose into his skull and he toppled back into the dust.

  The sounds of combat filled the air. The shrieks of the bandits, the staccato fire of the guns. The fog of war had descended over everything and once again, Samantha felt like she was really alive. She could sense every fiber in her body firing at once, could feel her muscles powering her forward. She heard the sound of incoming firing, the buzzing of the bullets that cleaved the air over her head. There were obstacles ahead, ditches, a few rocks, but it was as if she sensed them before she reached them, able to slide-step past the obstructions before—

  BOOM!

  An explosion detonated just up ahead.

  Samantha surmised one of the bandits had loosed a rocket-propelled grenade. Whatever it was, it atomized the other male resistance fighter and sent up a plume of dust that blinded her momentarily.

  Staggering like a losing prize fighter, Samantha pushed forward and collapsed behind a pile of rocks. Looking up, she realized she was at the back of the gas station, which was attached to a car wash and what looked like a grocery store. Xan was nowhere in sight, but she could hear the shouts of the bandits growing closer.

  Muscling herself up, Samantha took cover inside the car wash. She slipped between the cleaning contraption’s oversized rollers, sliding down the conveyor that had once pushed cars through. Peering out of a begrimed window she spotted several figures, the bandits. They were roaming the area outside, looking for her. Her eyes fixed on one of the attackers who pulled off a ski mask to reveal an older man,
bald as a stone, a deep scar wriggling like a stream from his forehead to his chin. The man barked out orders to his comrades, gesturing to the car wash.

  Realizing she’d soon be spotted, Samantha crabbed back and crawled through a broken window. By some stroke of luck, she was able to pick her way unseen into the grocery store where she tripped over a cluster of canned food that was still lying in one of the aisles.

  Crouching, she checked the magazine on her weapon. She was down to five rounds. Five rounds and there were at least seven bandits outside. The math was not good. Footfalls echoed just outside. Samantha dropped to her stomach and crawled like a snake down the main aisle of the grocery store. She was surprised to see that it was largely intact with barely a hint of having been plundered after the invasion. Off to the left of the main aisle was a stall still full of moldering fruit and on the right was shelving still heavy with canned vegetables.

  She took a step and a gunshot rang out.

  “Stop where you are!” a man shouted.

  She did.

  Then stilled herself and slowly swiveled around.

  The bald man with the scar was eying her from the far end of the grocery store. He had a rifle up and was aiming at her.

  “Drop the fucking gun!” he added.

  She didn’t and three more men appeared.

  Bandits.

  Two of them were in their forties, but the final one was a kid, probably only a few years older than Samantha. Maybe it was their drab clothing or the fact that they were huffing and puffing, nearly out of breath, but she wasn’t scared of them. She was just annoyed that they’d been able to ambush them.

  “You hear me?!” the bald man said, waving his rifle.

  “My ears work just fine,” Samantha replied.

  “So drop the goddamn gun!”

  “Not until you drop yours,” she replied.

  “You killed one of our people!” one of the other bandits yelled.

  Samantha shrugged. “That was self-defense.”

  “That’s what you say,” the teenage bandit hissed.

  “Well, of course that’s what I say, dumbass,” Samantha replied. “I’m the one talking.”

  The bandits exchanged looks and then the bald bandit squeezed off a single shot. The bullet wavered the air near Samantha’s ear, close enough almost to kiss it.

  “The next one goes through your left eye,” the bald man snarled.

  Samantha dropped her gun, the bad guys a hundred feet away from her. She took a step back and that’s when she felt it. A nearly imperceptible pulse radiating from the ground, like the sensation that might presage an earthquake. Next came a terrific shudder that coursed through the entirety of the structure, rattling the roof, shaking the walls. Something inside her whispered to get down. Get down now! And so she did as—

  BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

  Controlled explosions filled the grocery store on either side of her. Before she covered her face she watched cans of food detonate like explosives, the moldering fruit blasting apart like grenades. A section of tin can scythed past her cheek and shrapnel filled the air. Samantha pressed herself down and rolled under an overturned section of shelving, hands over her ears.

  The blasts continued unabated for several seconds, mixing with the screams of the bandits and then all was silent save for the moan of a man who sounded as if he was in agony. Several seconds later this sound ceased and Samantha haltingly levered herself up.

  The interior of the grocery store had been obliterated. Glass was everywhere, and there were gaping holes in the roof and walls. The bandits had been tossed in various directions, as if swatted down by a giant hand. Most of them lay bent and broken, little tributaries of blood running from their bodies, snaking across the off-white vinyl flooring. Somebody else had done this, she immediately thought. Somebody had fired something, but what? Grenades, yes, had to be. Somebody on the outside had fired into the store. She’d seen the cans explode, seen the fruit ripped apart like dynamite.

  Who had the power to do that?

  She had a sudden scary thought that it might have been the monstrosity from her nightmares and it frightened her, so she picked up her machine-pistol, swiveled and made for an exit door. That’s when the footfalls sounded. They were coming from the other direction and she gaped back and saw him. Saw the dark figure at the rear of the grocery store. He was standing as still as a statue, clad in what looked like a religious robe of some kind. There was something, some insignia on the front of the robe. What appeared to be a red snake devouring itself, tail first. Samantha raised her gun.

  “Stop where you are!” she shouted.

  The figure did. And then it raised its arms which were long and milky white and something, some pulse of light spiraled forward and slammed into Samantha lifting her off of her feet. The man, this thing, had come for her, she thought while sailing through the air. The dark one from her nightmares had come to do something terrible to her!

  The air rushed past in what seemed like slow-motion, and Samantha craned her neck to see the grocery store’s plate-glass window rushing forward to meet her. She screamed, throwing up her arm for protection when—

  WHUNK!

  She came to a jarring stop.

  Still suspended in mid-air. The sensation was like being in a harness, but she was unable to move her extremities. It was as if they’d gone to sleep. Then there was another feeling, like a vice being turned around her midsection and now she was moving, being manipulated. Some invisible force was rotating her around to face the figure, who was approaching from the rear of the store.

  “By these signs you shall know my works,” the figure said, gesturing to the destruction, to the bodies of the bandits.

  “Who a-are y-you?” Samantha stuttered.

  “I am the one who was always here,” the figure replied. “I am memory.” The thing, and Samantha would come to learn that its name, among countless others, was Hadrian, drew near and Samantha watched its features distort, the welted flesh on its bald head and disfigured face somehow being cosmetically reassembled into something else. What looked like a woman with unblemished flesh that might have been cast from porcelain. Hadrian, in this guise, was achingly beautiful, but the dark eyes remained. The ones that glimmered like two little fires at the bottom of a cave. Samantha looked into them and her throat tightened, because there was no hint of humanity.

  “What do you want?” Samantha asked.

  Hadrian smiled. “Much.”

  15

  A Glimpse into the Past

  The vice-like grip around her torso tightened and Samantha felt herself being squeezed. She exhaled as Hadrian twisted a long wrist repositioning her so that she was levitating, some ten feet off the ground looking down at the floor.

  “I’ve been watching you for a long time,” Hadrian said. “Before you were born, the powers and principalities of the universe set you apart.”

  Samantha’s momentary shock had worn off and been replaced by something else. Anger, even a bit of annoyance. She assumed Hadrian was part of the alien invasion and was going to kill her and so if she was going to be crossing over, she would not go lightly.

  “I know you’re an alien and all, but none of what you said makes any sense at all,” she said, spitting the words out.

  “You’ve seen me before,” Hadrian said.

  “Nope, but I’m pretty sure if I did I would’ve—”

  “Remembered that face,” Hadrian said, finishing her sentence.

  Samantha’s jaw drooped as Hadrian continued, “Don’t tell me you haven’t had premonitions yourself during moments that felt like what you might call déjà vu. You were about to ask me how I knew what you were going to say, yes?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Because we’ve done this twenty-seven times before,” Hadrian replied. “Different loops

  with different resolutions. Sometimes I let you live, other times I saw you die, but not once did I show you that which is going to be revealed now.”
/>   Samantha’s eyes widened. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I came here to show you the truth,”

  “I know what the truth is. You and your buddies invaded our planet and mucked it all

  up.”

  “Now you need to know why.”

  “Doesn’t matter why,” Samantha replied, “it just matters that it happened. So how ‘bout you let me down so we can settle this, me against … whatever you are.”

  Hadrian didn’t respond, choosing instead to rotate his fingers. Samantha was horrified to see that the walls and floor had simply fallen away and it was as if she were lying suspended in the deepest part of the ocean. A grid of some sort appeared on the floor, scribed in silver. To Samantha, it looked like a blueprint, a cross-section of the universe, something that instinct told her was too complex for her mind to comprehend just yet.

  Next she saw what resembled a million different doorways of various shapes and sizes within the grid and then Hadrian turned his wrist again and one of them opened. The vice-like grip around her released and Samantha felt herself being shoved forward by a blast of air. Then she was falling, straight down, as if she’d stepped off the edge of a skyscraper.

  Air rushed past Samantha as she corkscrewed down into the opening before coming to a stop on what looked like a colossal plain, a broad field of darkness illuminated by what appeared to be spokes of lightning. She was bobbing in the air, in the middle of what she assumed was deep space. Samantha could sense Hadrian at her side even though she couldn’t see him. He seemed to be above and around her all at once.

  “What is this place?” she asked.

  “The center of everything. The point from which time itself unwinds,” Hadrian’s voice answered from somewhere off in the shadows. “Count yourself lucky, girl. You are one of the few to see it. The Imago Dei, the image of God.”

  BOOM!

  A red ring with a darkened interior exploded out in the distance, birthing a rope of fire that formed itself into the image Samantha had seen on Hadrian’s robe, the snake devouring itself.