by Mark Ellis
Kane, Grant and Domi lunged into the chamber. Slugs splattered against the transparisteel walls, flattening into grey blobs. Brigid frantically punched in the lock code, then she dived inside, trying to pull the heavy door shut by its inner handle. Grant gave her a hand. The door closed with a frighteningly final chock.
Immediately the floor disks exuded a glow, and a low, almost subsonic hum began, quickly rising in pitch to a whine. The noise changed, sounding like the distant howling of a cyclone.
Outside the room, they heard Pollard shouting in angry confusion, and the guns continued to blast. The bullets bounced off the transparisteel.
The glow brightened. A faint mist, shot through with tiny flashing sparks, formed below the ceiling disks and rose from the floor. Brigid moved toward Kane, and he put an arm around her. She tried a jittery, reassuring smile on him. Across the chamber, Grant had enfolded Domi in his arms. His face was an expressionless ebony mask.
Kane closed his eyes, and eternity hit him in the face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THE UNIVERSE EXPLODED in a blaze of unidentifiable colours and images. Kane had the sensation of falling forever into a bottomless abyss. A nightmare vision of distorted space, of tangled geometrical shapes so crazed and complex, it was impossible for his mind to absorb them.
A never-ending stream of brilliant spheres passed by him. He retained a measure of consciousness, and for some reason he knew each sphere was a separate universe, a separate reality. Universes upon universes, realities upon realities bobbing in the cosmic stream, like bubbles. He hurtled between them, following a complicated, twisting, curving course, yet at the same time it seemed as if he were flying in a straight line.
He had felt frightened and trapped before, but never as crushed and helpless and impotent as now. His mind recoiled from the effort to comprehend this welter of insanity, this streaming rush of extradimensional space. He knew he was hurtling headlong into a cluster of madness. One of the bright spheres loomed up ahead of him, and he tried to swerve away from it, around it
Kane opened his eyes.
He struggled against dizziness and nausea. Pain throbbed in his temples, like his hangover after his wine binge. His stomach quivered. Slowly his vision cleared, and he found himself slumped in a half-prone position against a wall. Below and above him, the glow faded from the metal disks. He heard a moan.
Kane pushed himself up, and looking around, saw his companions stirring dazedly on the floor. Next to him, Brigid raked her hair out of her eyes, staring around unfocusedly. He asked, “You feel all right?”
She opened her mouth as if to answer, then bowed her head and dry-heaved violently for a moment. Nothing was ejected except a few strings of bile-laced saliva. Kane would have felt more sympathy for her if he himself felt better and if, at the moment, he didn’t hold her irrationally responsible for his physical condition. Then, dragging in a harsh breath, she said, “I feel awful.”
Grant said a little hoarsely, “Didn’t work, did it? Still in the same place.”
Domi knuckled her eyes, climbing to her knees. “No. Colour is different. See?”
Kane hoisted himself unsteadily to his feet, putting a hand on the transparisteel wall. It was tinted red, not the silvery smoky hue of the chamber in Mesa Verde. “We made it,” he muttered. “We’re someplace else.”
Awe fell upon the people, mingled with incredulity. Grant broke the spell of silence.
“You mean we’ve been transported—to where?”
Brigid got to her feet. It was obvious she struggled against her own feeling of unreality. “Montana was the destination lock. Stronghold Bravo. We travelled through fourth-dimensional space on a carrier wave, short-cutting the other three.”
Kane consulted his chron. It still worked, but showed that barely a minute had elapsed since he had last checked it. That didn’t seem reasonable, but he didn’t feel up to arguing about temporal anomalies. He moved to the door handle. “Let’s see where we are.”
The handle moved up easily, and the solenoid clicked open. Sin Eater in hand, he toed the door open and slowly eased out into a small anteroom. Bare and unfurnished, it held only a polished wooden table. On the other side of the table he saw a door. As his companions joined him, Kane examined the portal chamber.
It was a duplicate of the one they had entered, except for the colour of the transparisteel. The only other difference was a notice imprinted on the chamber wall, right above the keypad panel. In faded, maroon lettering, it read Entry Absolutely Forbidden To All But Callsign Cerberus Personnel.
Grant, Domi and Brigid followed Kane through the anteroom to the door. It was unlocked and he turned the knob, stepping through it into a room that stopped him in his tracks. It made the Intel section of the Magistrate Division look like a part-time hobbyist’s cellar.
The room was long, with high, vaulted ceilings. Consoles of dials, switches, keyboards and lights flickering red, green and amber ran the length of the walls. Circuits hummed, needles twitched and monitor screens displayed changing columns of numbers.
“How can everything still work?” Grant demanded, shifting the muzzle of his blaster to cover every corner, including the computer terminals.
“Nuclear engines,” replied Brigid. “Maybe mini-fusion reactors.”
She examined several of the machines, finding they responded to experimental touches of the keys. “Fully functional. No dust, either. Surely this place hasn’t been sealed since the Nukeday.”
“Doesn’t seem likely,” Kane remarked. He met Brigid’s gaze and nodded toward the far door. It hung open, showing only darkness beyond. “Let’s take a look.”
As always, Kane took the point, his companions following closely behind. As he passed through the doorway, overhead lights flashed to yellow life. Before them stretched a long tunnel. The walls and floors were of softly gleaming metal and shaped like a square with an arch on top. It was at least twenty feet across. Great curving ribs of metal and massive girders supported the high rock roof.
Brigid bent over and touched the floor. “Herculaneum alloy, like the sec doors in the Enclaves and the monolith.”
They moved forward, their footfalls making ghostly echoes so that their ears were confused. Grant stopped and turned twice, under the impression they were being followed. Even with the echoes, the silence was brooding and sepulchral.
They followed Kane for two hundred feet, then the tunnel reached a T. After a moment’s consideration, Kane led them to the right. The corridor narrowed, and the walls were lined on either side with doors. He resisted the temptation to open them as they passed by. It was more important to find an exit. Nobody spoke as they walked. Ahead, the passageway seemed to debouch into a dimly lit space. Kane realized he was having trouble walking in a straight line. He was almost ill from fatigue and lack of sleep.
Kane slowed his pace, finger on the Sin Eater’s trigger-stud. The tunnel abruptly ended against a massive door, obviously made of Herculaneum alloy. Connected to the frame at shoulder level he saw small square glass panel. A sequence of lights blinked within it.
Just inside the door, emblazoned on the right-hand wall were large, stylized black images of three snarling hound’s heads. Their eyes glowed red. Underneath the image, rendered in the same bright blood colour was the word: Cerberus.
Domi read the word aloud, stumbling over the pronunciation. “Don’t get it.”
In a low whisper, Brigid announced, “Cerberus, the guardian of the portal to Hades. Also, the code name for the project devoted to the Quantum Interphase Teletransducer experiments. This stronghold was the headquarters for Callsign Cerberus. A major component of the Conception Infinitis program itself.”
Kane repressed a shudder. The oppressive atmosphere of the stronghold was insidious. “Let’s try to get that door open.”
The voice speaking from behind them was pleasant. “But yo
u’ve only just arrived.”
Before the echoes of the first word faded in the passage, both Grant and Kane spun around, gun barrels lifting, fingers crooked over triggers. Kane and Brigid recognized the erect but ancient-looking man standing in the vague light, but they were too stunned to speak his name.
Lakesh held out his hands, palms upward, in a gesture of welcome and to show he was unarmed. “Kane, you and Brigid gave us a rather difficult time.” His educated tone was gently reproving. “You moved too fast for us to implement our removal plan.”
His bespectacled eyes flicked appreciatively over Domi’s form. “Nor did we make allowances for a fourth member of your party.”
Grant demanded, “Who is this old crock?”
“A senior archivist,” answered Brigid.
“And a member of the Trust,” Kane added, his voice grim and cold.
“And Brigid’s Preservationist contact,” put in Lakesh. “Not to mention one of the original architects of Conception Infinitis. Welcome to Stronghold Bravo. Welcome to Callsign Cerberus.”
His eyes behind the thick lenses sparkled. “We may as well begin the indoctrination.”
He took a sideways step, and a half-dozen figures in trim burgundy bodysuits emerged from the mouth of the corridor. Miniature likenesses of the snarling hound’s heads on the wall were emblazoned on the left breasts of the coveralls.
All six people held pristine-condition SA80 subguns at the ready. The five men and one woman were different in skin colour, height and build, but they all appeared very efficient. They immediately took up position in a half circle facing the four people. Although they handled their weapons deftly, Kane suspected they weren’t experts in their use. Still, with the point-and-shoot subguns, they didn’t need to be.
“You will turn over your weapons,” Lakesh said, “and accompany my staff to decam. Afterward, we will talk.”
Brigid swept her green eyes over the six-armed people. “Will we be allowed to leave?”
Lakesh gave her a sad, cryptic smile. “Of course, Brigid. But you have nothing to leave for and no place to go. I, unfortunately, contributed to that.”
Grant and Kane exchanged a brief glance, and both of them handed over their side arms. Kane unsnapped his helmet’s jaw guard and tugged it off his head with an audible sigh of relief. Brigid glanced at him, did a double take and said in an undertone, “You look terrible.”
“Good. First article of the Magistrate’s oath. Mind and body should always be in sync.”
Three of the people in burgundy flanked them, and the other three closed up behind them. They walked back into the corridor and turned into the first door on the right. It opened up onto a wide, white-tiled shower room. Each stall was enclosed by shoulder-high partitions. Rad-counter gauges were affixed to the walls beneath the shower heads.
“Undress in there,” the women said. She was stocky of build, her skin a deep bronze, her eyes dark brown, her ash blond hair braided at the back of her head. “Your clothing will have to be decontaminated, too.”
Kane stepped into the cubicle, and the rad sensor read him. Though the needle stayed in the orange area, it wavered dangerously close to red. He shed his armour, piling it beneath the shower-head. A mixture of warm liquid disinfectant and cleansing fluid sprayed from the nozzle. He worked the decam stream into a lather and massaged it into his scalp and all over his body. He kept one eye on the rad counter. When the needle leaned over into the yellow zone, a jet of cool, clear water gushed down and rinsed him off.
After he stepped out of the stall, he felt much better. A man handed him a black T-shirt, a pair of olive khaki pants and jump boots. All of the clothing fit well, except for the boots, which were a tad too small.
Grant’s bullet wound was re-bandaged by the bronze-skinned woman who curtly introduced herself as DeFore, the resident medic. She diagnosed Domi with a bruised rib cage but with no cracked bones. After everyone was similarly decontaminated and attired in the black T shirt and khaki pants ensemble, they were given bottles of water and escorted back into the corridor, then into a room near the T-junction. Lakesh sat waiting behind a desk in a small, sparsely furnished office. Besides the desk and four chairs, the only other piece of furniture was a small computer console.
He waved them to the chairs and extended a hand, offering Grant and Kane a pair of slim cigars. They looked at them suspiciously.
“Tobacco cleanses the heart and calms the spirit, or so the Native Americans believe,” Lakesh said. “Besides, I understand you two have developed a fondness for cigars. They’re excellent, not that homegrown domestic stuff you get in Tartarus.”
Kane and Grant took them and the big lighter Lakesh handed over. After they had set the cigars alight and sent grey wreaths curling ceiling-ward, Lakesh said, “I wish I could indulge myself, but at my age and condition, it’s tempting fate. I’m on my second set of lungs as it is.”
Brigid’s hand, poised to fan smoke away from her face, halted in mid-motion. “Sir?”
Lakesh interlaced his fingers on the desktop. “I have a great deal to tell you now that you’re outrunners. Does it bother you that I employ that term?”
“No,” stated Domi, matter-of-factly.
Lakesh smiled. “The unit in this facility is the only one with no transit-feed connection to the others. Its jump lines are untraceable. This is a forgotten stronghold, considered long inactive by the barons. No one will ever find you.”
“Is that an assurance,” Brigid inquired, “or a threat?”
“Neither. It’s simply the truth. Neither you, Kane or Grant can ever again appear as yourselves in the baronies. Your former lives no longer exist. I am hoping you will find a place for yourselves here.”
Kane tapped ash onto the floor, affecting not to notice Lakesh’s raised eyebrow. “Where is ‘here’? Is this the secret headquarters of the Preservationists?”
“Yes and no. The Preservationists as an organization does not actually exist. It’s a convenient categorization applied to anyone who opposes the barons and the Directorate. Essentially, it’s a front, a diversion to conceal the real work that goes on here.”
“Real work?” Grant echoed.
“I represent, and belong to, the underground resistance which opposes the agenda to make humans an endangered species. I saw that you were worthy, Brigid, of contributing to that work. If Kane hadn’t involved you in his own personal crusade, you would have been brought here eventually. I fed you bits and pieces of information over the past year to see what you would do with them. A test, so to speak, and you passed. Your case was already decided. You arrived here by a different method than I envisioned, but you’re here where you belong, nevertheless.”
His gaze shifted to Kane. “Your case was already decided, too. However, the role you were selected to play was written to be very different. I had no idea you would break your conditioning so quickly, motivated by purely emotional impulses. You flew completely in the face of all my extrapolations. In fact, your actions may bring about an alternate event horizon, and I cannot describe how deeply that possibility intrigues me.”
Exhaling twin jets of smoke from his nostrils, Grant said sarcastically, “And I cannot describe how deeply you are irritating me. All right, you say you know all about us. Just who the rad-blasted hell are you?”
“My full name is Mohandas Lakesh Singh. I was born in Kashmir, in the nation once known as India. Due to my extraordinarily high IQ, I came to America on a scholarship at age sixteen. When I was nineteen, I received my doctorate in cybernetics and quantum mechanics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I worked as a consultant for NASA for a year before being wooed away by a government-contract electronics company. I found myself working at a military base in Dulce, New Mexico.”
Kane made a spitting sound, as though trying to rid his lip of a shred of tobacco. It sounded disdainful. “You’re old, but
you’re not that old.”
The corners of Lakesh’s eyes crinkled. “I was born in 1952, so yes, I am that old if you consider nearly three hundred years to be old. Of course, a century of that span was spent in stasis...a form of suspended animation.”
Dead silence fell over the office. Kane stared speechless, first at him, then one by one at his companions. Swiftly he stood up,
“Thank you for the shower and the smoke,” he said crisply. “If you’ll return our property, I think we’ll be on our way.”
The mild humour vanished from Lakesh’s voice, and it rose in a reedy rasp. “Sit down, Kane! You have no ‘way’ to be on! Do you think you can leave this place, this room, unless I allow it?”
The old man’s lips worked, and he drew in a breath. “You’re so much like your father, and your grandfather. Brave and talented, but overconfident, reckless fools, and it takes so very little to knock your equilibrium out from under you. A few new concepts, new ideas, and you’re reeling around in shock. Don’t you understand that what you learned from the baron is but the merest tip of a vast iceberg?” He pinched the air between thumb and forefinger.
“You know just enough to get yourself and these others killed. The hidden mass of the iceberg is so huge, so thick, it stretches back many thousands of years. You can barely comprehend the events of the last two days, and you think you can strap on your gun, swagger out of here and blast your way to the truth? Rein in your inbred Magistrate’s arrogance, Kane. You’ve smashed your brains out against the iceberg, but you’re too ignorant to know it. You’re treading black water, waiting to drown. And you’ll sink straight to the bottom, straight to a fool’s hell, an exile’s hell, never knowing the whyness of it.”