Pandora's Temple

by Jon Land

  The nightmares had started with a trip through time, back to the day of the explosion and fire. His entire family together outside of Stuttgart, Germany, on the grounds of what had once been a nuclear power plant. In his career Roy had been blessed above all else with foresight, his gift of prescience fueling his meteoric rise to the stratosphere of business. Foretelling the future of energy was impossible for most in an industry riddled by misjudgments and cutthroat competition.

  In the dream he saw himself addressing a crowd devoid of faces, mere shapeless forms before him, explaining that Germany and all industrialized countries would someday turn away from nuclear energy to less dangerous alternatives. This was because a catastrophic accident, a meltdown, was inevitable. So he explained how he had gone against the grain of energy investment by putting huge resources into plants specializing in fossil fuel development and enhancement. The dinosaurs of the energy industry. Huge, blackened anachronistic assemblages of steel beams and concrete smoke stacks belching poison into the air.

  “Germany was ahead of the curve when it came to reducing its dependence on the seventeen nuclear plants helping to power the country,” he told the faceless mass before him who, he realized in the dream, sat rigid and motionless like toy figures fit into the chairs. “So I elected to build my flagship, fully modernized fossil fuel plant on the grounds of the country’s oldest nuclear facility that was shut down for good after coming only minutes from a potential meltdown in 2004.”

  Moments later the first explosion sounded, a blast furnace swallowing the world. His family was around him and then, once again in what felt like a recorded replay, there was only smoke and desperate people racing blindly about in search of escape. Roy heard horrible rasping coughs amid the screams, himself in motion now jostled by panicked shapes slamming into him on both sides, stealing his orientation in the smoke-ravaged darkness.

  The moments that followed had given birth to Sebastian Roy in his new incarnation. The media branded him a tragic hero for what he and witnesses said happened next, when Roy managed to extricate himself from the throngs of the desperate and screaming and reach an exit where a security team pulled him the rest of the way out.

  “My family, my family!” he screamed at them.

  They shook their heads grimly, one of the news stories said, and Roy rushed back into the fire in search of his son, daughter, and wife. He battled the surge of bodies before him, screaming their names until his throat was scorched and he realized he could no longer breathe. Saved only when other bodies piled atop his, sparing him from the flames and the worst of the heat.

  Roy woke up in a hospital bed swathed in bandages and fighting off the first of the infections that seemed sure to kill him in days, if not hours.

  “Punishment,” he’d muttered to first a nurse and then a doctor in the hospital, his voice barely rising over a whisper. The pain he felt was intense, constant, resisting the attempts of painkillers to make any more than a dent in it. “I’m being punished for my sins.”

  He’d asked them for a priest to whom to confess those sins, certain he was going to die. When the priest came, Roy could sense his revulsion at what he heard, the man struggling to offer him final absolution. Sebastian Roy might not have been a religious man, but he nonetheless felt the need to share a truth he had shared with no other. Then, shortly after Roy made what was deemed a miraculous recovery, the priest disappeared. The doctor and the nurse followed soon afterward.

  Meanwhile, Roy Industries had managed to retain its status as an industry stalwart. The stock dropped precipitously at first, but it recovered just as fast when the world learned Sebastian Roy was recovering and had every intention of returning to the helm of his company. Above all else, he could not let the tragedy deter his plans for the future, especially when sabotage was found to be the cause of the explosions and resulting fire. The authorities called it terrorism, likely on the part of radical environmentalists, which only strengthened Roy’s personal resolve. Destroying them meant destroying their cause.

  He would shove it in his enemies’ faces. Use his newfound status as a truly tragic figure to help him build hundreds, even thousands, of fossil fuel plants all over the world, all of them belching black hydrocarbon smoke into the atmosphere to stain the air and dirty the clouds. Clean energy meant little to him; the future he saw was one where the world wanted heat, light, and convenient transportation above all else and wouldn’t care about the environmental price paid as long as their switches worked and they got where they wanted to go.

  Then came the tsunami-caused disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan. Suddenly demand for fossil fuel replacement facilities, a market now cornered by Roy Industries, exploded. Rival energy companies imploded under the strain and poor planning to be sucked up and absorbed at Roy’s whim for pennies on the dollar. Once a powerful force in the industry, Sebastian Roy became the prevailing one to whom former rivals were beholden if they wanted to share in his production of the gigawatts that were far more valuable than any single resource in controlling the world.

  Still, that wasn’t enough. He wanted more, some ultimate source of power that would render all others obsolete even as it brought meaning to the loss of his family. And now, because of what had happened a half world away in the Gulf of Mexico, he found himself on the verge of finding that source at long last.

  Roy used his call button to summon Pierce as soon as the nightmares had relinquished their hold on him.

  “You thought I was crazy when I told you what I was after, didn’t you?” he said.

  “I thought this was a fool’s errand, yes, Mr. Roy.”

  “And what do you think now, Pierce?”

  “Nothing. Because I’m too scared.”

  “All great achievements require sacrifice,” Roy reminded him. “There is nothing to fear from that, no more anyway than that experienced by those involved in the Manhattan Project, the men who changed the world forever at Alamogordo.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Roy, none of your theories accounted for whatever happened to the Deepwater Venture.”

  “Going back to the Manhattan Project,” Roy told him, “there was a letter circulated by some of the foremost scientists in the world claiming an atomic detonation could create a chain reaction that might destroy the entire planet. Had those behind the project heeded their warning, we never would’ve developed the bomb. Mutual deterrence would have gone out the window, the Cold War progressing down an entirely different route. Just imagine, Pierce.”

  “I have, I am.”

  “We must proceed, as the Manhattan Project did, in spite of the risks. Because, make no mistake about it, what we are working toward here has the potential to change the world in even more profound ways.”

  “It can’t be harnessed, Mr. Roy. Even those who’ve been trumpeting its existence for decades have no idea how to contain it.”

  “Then we’ll find a way and once we do, the world will never be the same again. Contact the scientists in Geneva,” Roy continued. “Tell them a jet will be coming to pick them up first thing tomorrow.”

  “Should I tell them why?”

  “Only that the time has finally come.”

  CHAPTER 39

  New Orleans

  Hank Folsom arranged for Captain Seven to set up shop at the New Orleans Homeland Security offices inside City Hall downtown on Perdido Street. Doubling as the region’s headquarters for Emergency Management, the offices occupied the sprawling tan and glass slab of a building’s top three floors. The lowermost floor was accessible only via a dedicated lobby elevator and restricted to authorized personnel.

  “Here’s the thing,” Folsom explained, after meeting them outside. “Homeland has created these regional centers to be capable of overseeing operations on a national level in the event some kind of catastrophe or attack knocks out our main headquarters and command centers.”

  “Sounds wise,” McCracken acknowledged.

  “What you need to know is that this N
ew Orleans center is a kind of prototype with enhanced security procedures.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Better you see for yourself, McCracken.”

  •

  McCracken saw exactly what Folsom had been referring to as soon as the elevator deposited them in a reception area outside the entrance to Homeland’s self-contained floors inside City Hall. A waist-high robot on treads, looking like a minitank, stood vigil outside the glass entry doors.

  “During the early days of the Iraq war,” Folsom explained, “our technicians converted bomb-disposal robots to carry machine guns, grenade launchers, even rockets. Within a year, a bunch of these SWORDS, or Special Weapons Observation Remote reconnaissance Direct action System, robots were deployed in the arena.”

  “First I’ve heard of that,” said McCracken.

  “That’s because there were problems, MacNuts,” noted Captain Seven. “Isn’t that right, B-rat?” His final remark was aimed at Folsom.

  “Kinks we’ve now ironed out.”

  “Sure, whatever you say,” the captain smirked, turning to McCracken. “Dude, I could build better machines out of Tinker Toys.”

  Through the glass, McCracken could see SWORDS bots patrolling the Homeland facility’s halls. And perched on twin pedestals just inside the entrance were a pair of humanoid robots nearly as tall as Johnny Wareagle complete with arms, legs, feet, and torso but no head he could discern.

  “That’s the Atlas model,” Folsom said, noting McCracken’s interested gaze. “Built by Boston Dynamics as the next step in robotic evolution. The Atlas will move through difficult terrain using humanlike behavior: sometimes walking upright as a bipod, sometimes turning sideways to squeeze through narrow passages, and sometimes, when the terrain gets its nastiest, using its hands for extra support and balance. Unlike most other humanoid robots that use static techniques to control their motion, Atlas will move dynamically, leveraging the advanced control software and high-performance actuated hardware.”

  “Sounds like a sales pitch you’ve given before, Hank.”

  “Oh, once or twice.”

  “Why don’t you tell him about the reason for the Atlas deployment delays?” Captain Seven prodded.

  “They’re off-line. For display purposes only.”

  Captain Seven looked toward McCracken. “That’s because one of the prototypes played trash compactor with its programmer. Apparently it had temperament issues. Vision problems, too, since prototypes like these have continued to have trouble distinguishing between the good guys and the bad guys.”

  Folsom swung toward McCracken. “Who is this guy?”

  “Specialist you authorized to help the cause.”

  “What’s your security clearance?” Folsom demanded of Captain Seven.

  “Higher than you’ve ever heard of, B-rat. I’ve been designing shit that actually works since you were crapping your diapers. In fact, I once made a bomb made out of crap.”

  “Can we just get started?” Folsom asked, flashing his ID card for the sentry SWORDS machine guarding the door.

  “What’s he doing now?” from Folsom once they were inside a high-tech conference room, as Captain Seven walked the perimeter of the walls, tracing a finger down the center.

  “I don’t know,” said McCracken. “I’m not even sure he does. Must be something they do on the planet he comes from.”

  Captain Seven suddenly stopped and turned. “Building wiring wouldn’t keep a seventh grader working on a science project from breaching the firewall.” The captain’s dull blue eyes fell on Folsom, shaking his head with a cocksure smile. “And you’re trying to build robots, B-rat?”

  “What does ‘B-rat’ mean?”

  “Short for ‘bureaucrat’ in the captain’s lexicon,” McCracken elaborated as Wareagle stifled a smile and a wheeled SWORDS robot stopped in the doorway as if to register who was present inside.

  “Synonym for asshole,” Captain Seven continued, eyeing Folsom. “Hey, you smoke dope? I hear the government grows some badass shit for approved medical purposes only. In my mind, you should distribute it to Congress and watch legislation finally get passed along with the joints.”

  “I have no idea how to even respond to that.”

  Captain Seven’s eyes twinkled. “Speaking of which, my supply got ruined in the storm. Caught a natural high for a time off being on that rig, but I feel a need coming on.”

  “No worries,” McCracken told him. “The DEA has offices in this building too. Maybe I can rustle some up for you from their stash.”

  “Really?”

  “No.”

  Captain Seven didn’t bother to hide his disappointment. His long gray hair hung in twisted ringlets from the storm and sea’s effects hours earlier. He plopped down into a rolling chair set before a computer and leaned back far enough to splay his leather vest over the arms.

  “Think I’ll get to work.”

  “How bad I say this was last night and this morning?” Captain Seven asked an hour later after running any number of computations and reviewing the data off the NSA site he’d hacked.

  “Bad,” McCracken told him.

  “Well, it’s worse.”

  “So what else is new?”

  “The Venture, as in on the subatomic level. Another level beyond molecular, in case you were wondering. I’ve been chasing this off and on for five years now, ever since it nearly got me killed in the Mediterranean. Man oh man, I never thought I’d find it.”

  “Find what?”

  Captain Seven hesitated ever so slightly before responding. “Dark matter.”

  PART THREE:

  DARK MATTER

  CHAPTER 40

  New Orleans

  Katie DeMarco had tried them all—every phone number, the contacts for WorldSafe she’d long committed to memory—to no avail. All of them had gone to ground in the wake of what happened in Greenland.

  Or worse.

  She’d spent the night walking the streets of downtown New Orleans, lingering in hotel bathroom stalls and in the darkest corners of fast-food restaurants out of view from the street as she dried out from the storm’s deluge. She let instinct guide just how long to remain in each, her thinking finally clearing with the approach of a dawn that had found her huddled in the damp dewy mist rising off the ground of Saint Louis Cemetery Number One. The aboveground burial vaults offered plenty of cover, and the cemetery’s location close to the Mississippi River just one block from the start of the French Quarter provided ample escape routes if it came to that.

  She’d found a spot to hide herself amid the cold stone, granite, and marble vaults where she greeted the sun’s first warming rays. Fear and fatigue had made it hard to collect her thoughts, but the sun revived Katie enough for her to consider her next move in clothes that felt stale, damp, and musty.

  WorldSafe, its name now sadly ironic, offered no respite. Her contact Twist was dead. The Aum Shinrikyo cult was after her for one reason, the killers behind the massacre in Greenland for another reason entirely.

  All because of whatever had happened to the Deepwater Venture in the hours following her hasty departure.

  Katie rose and peered out from behind the crypt holding Etienne de Boré, scion of New Orleans’s early sugar industry and first mayor of the city. Finding the cemetery still deserted save for her and whatever ghosts might be about, she slid out with the trees as cover and clung to side and back streets en route to the French Quarter, where she used a side entrance of the Hotel St. Marie. She ducked into a restroom toting a drugstore bag stuffed with fresh bandages and antiseptic to redress the cuts on her palms that still smarted from closing her hands around the basement lightbulb.

  Her mind began to crystallize around a plan beyond that, as she wrapped her wounds with fresh dressings and chucked her original dressings in the trash. There were a few other contacts she could call upon, fervent supporters of WorldSafe who would be made understandably livid by what had transpired. Katie wouldn’t tell them everything, not
even close, just enough to make them understand she needed their help.

  She emerged from the restroom, reconstructing phone numbers in her mind when a pair of police officers with guns drawn lurched out before her.

  “Stay where you are! Show us your hands!”

  Heavy footsteps pounded the floor behind her, more police closing from there as well.

  “Down on the floor!” the first cop ordered, gun steadied straight on her. “Do it now!”

  Katie complied, crying out in pain as her arms were yanked behind her back and cuffs slapped on her wrists.

  CHAPTER 41

  New Orleans

  “What?” was Captain Seven’s only response to the skeptical stares cast his way.

  “I was hoping for a more rational explanation,” McCracken told him.

  “You want rational, you got the wrong guy. You knew that when you called me in.”

  “I still wasn’t expecting something out of science fiction.”

  “You mean like milking jellyfish for their toxin? Wonder if that rig’s crew would’ve felt any better if they knew it was only something out of science fiction that killed them.”

  “I get the point.”

  “You better,” Captain Seven said, shaking his head. “So typical. I expected more from you, MacNuts, you of all people who hijacked a space shuttle, stopped a Russian death ray from destroying the country, fought genetically enhanced supermen, saved the country from a coup, saved Disney World, the Alamo . . . Oh, and did I forget to mention New York City?”

  “Same man,” McCracken told him. “Just younger and less jaded back in those days.”

  “Superweapons are nothing new, MacNuts; you’ve been fighting them for thirty years now. But this one’s different from anything you’ve faced before. We’re not talking here about a city or even a country. We’re talking about dumping the whole freaking world into a Mixmaster and seeing what’s left. You want somebody to blame for what happened in the Gulf and it pisses you off there was no hostile action involved.”