Aethon Arises (Endless Fire Book 2)

by R E Kearney

  Puerto Rican salsa music envelops the families partying in the shelters and tables nearest the lechonera. Cautiously, they monitor his approach until they spy his glowing green, Aethon Free badge matching theirs. When they realize he is safe, they smile, flash their own bright badges, and motion for him to join them.

  Seeking soothing solitude, he smiles, politely declines and ambles to the last shelter, as Mugavus had instructed. Sliding into a seat at the table farthest from the lechonera and nearest to nature, he prepares to savor every bite of traditional Puerto Rican lechón he can eat. But, as much as starving for a piece of authentic pork, he is starving for peace of mind.

  Robert had not realized the depth of Shengwu’s emotions and passions until he watched her sacrificing herself to save Peter. Recalling her torment, he gently touches the artificial skin tissue covering the gash on his head from Peter’s bed. Unwanted tears begin escaping down Robert’s cheeks, as images of Shengwu’s anguish and pain flood his mind.

  For many long hours, he had been keeping vigil. Through day and night, he sat in the hospital monitoring her. Filled with painkillers, she floated in a special solution to ease the agony of her hands, feet and face disfigured by excruciatingly painful Manchineel burns and blisters.

  Just an hour ago, he was still by her side when the robo-aides lifted her from her aqua-bed and transported her to see Margarete. He chokes recalling Shengwu sobbing to Margarete, “I am sorry. I am so sorry. I failed. I tried everything. Everything. Your Peter is gone Margarete. But, I will not allow him to die. He will never die.”

  Sucking in a deep breath to collect himself, Robert rejoins the festive families surrounding him. With a napkin, he dabs his cheeks and blows his nose. Shaking his head and shoulders, like a dog shedding water, he sheds his sadness. He leans forward and inhales deeply to regain the sweet smell of his holiday meal. Plop! His badge drops into his platter of food.

  “If you had designed those badges better, that wouldn’t happen.” Mugavus Komfort’s Estonian-accented, scolding voice arises from the grass outside the shelter, startling Robert.

  Rising from his seat and leaning over the railing, he scans the lawn and bushes surrounding his shelter. Seeing nobody, he searches the shelter. First, he peers under his table, then he inspects the beams and roof above him. Feeling foolish and wondering if she is pranking him, he sits. With a napkin, he lifts his badge from his platter and carefully swabs away the pork grease.

  “You may be a super hacker tracker, but you stink as an engineer.” The bodiless voice sarcastically teases.

  “Sorry, but I stopped talking to my imaginary friends when I was six years old.” Robert forks a saucy hunk of pork into his mouth. His tongue cradles the meat. He closes his eyes. The smoky flavor dances across his taste buds. Finally, he chews and chews and chews, squeezing the flavor from each tangy morsel.

  “You still have your Neanderthal weakness for devouring dead animals, I see.” Invisible Mugavus interrupts Robert’s contented chewing. Her voice sounds, as if she is within a meter of him, now. “I thought I cured you of that nasty, barbaric habit.”

  “Oh, you and your environment-saving entomophagy. You may chug all the bugs you want, Mugavus, but for me human cooked real mammal meat is a true treat that can’t be beat and is becoming impossible to find.” Robert cuts loose another portion of pork. “Besides, as the great philosophizing comedian John Cleese once said, ‘If God did not intend for us to eat animals, then why did he make them out of meat?’ And, if you didn’t want me to eat meat here, then why did you tell me to come here?”

  “Safety in numbers and location. I know that if I have to, I’ll be able to sneak you out this back way with less chance of people noticing.” As if magically materializing from air, Mugavus’ hand appears, snatches some yucca from Robert’s plate, and disappears. “Besides, I heard they have great yucca.”

  “Hey thief!” Robert flips a fork load of pigeon peas in the direction where the hand appeared and disappeared. The flying, flung peas crash against a wall of air that is not there, bounce backward and scatter across the table, except for two. Two peas, appearing to defy gravity, float in the air in front of Robert.

  He chuckles at the curious sight, then reaches out and swipes the peas away. “Why do you think you may need to sneak me out of here? These people are happy. It’s the holidays. We have Aethon under control here, and…”

  Smiling, Robert tugs on his shirt. “…see the Maple leaf on my shirt? See it? That tells everybody that I’m Canadian. Everybody likes Canadians, ya knahw…especially this Canadian. Eh?”

  “Evidently, not everybody, Robert. I’m here to tell you that three men are in Puerto Rico to eliminate you.” Mugavus dryly delivers her intelligence. “Actually, they’ve been ordered here for both you and Shengwu. Maybe more, but we don’t know for certain.”

  “Well thank you Mugavus, you certainly know how to ruin my excellent meal.” Robert slides his plate away. “Do you know why? Why now? Why me? Don’t they know what a sweet, generous fellow I am? Are they some big pharma goons? Rita and I just sent four of them to the prison infirmary. I suppose that would upset them. Yet, in spite of their interference, we have the Aethon vaccine. The entire world knows about the vaccine, now. Negocio told everybody, Mugavus. Free vaccine! They can’t stop it. They’re too late.”

  “Actually, Negocio’s announcement of a free vaccine created massive problems. Fear sells medicine. Free vaccine will cost big pharma and Abaddon’s government billions of dollars. They don’t like that. So they are banning it. Claim it is untested poison.” Mugavus groans. “In the metrostates, they’re rioting. In the wastedlands, lots of people are still dying.”

  “Keep the people dying to keep the people buying?” Robert laments. “Big pharma always has its profit sharing plan.”

  “But, these guys after you, they’re not big pharma and they’re not interested in the Aethon vaccine. Although, I don’t believe these three would have complained if big pharma’s boys had succeeded and you had failed.” Mugavus explains in a disembodied voice too loud for the sudden, silent lull between salsa songs.

  She waits for the music to return, then continues. “They’ve been in Puerto Rico waiting and watching for events to align for them, just as they have. By announcing the vaccine, Negocio opened the door for them. With the world’s attention focusing on Negocio freely sharing the Aethon vaccine, they doubt that anybody will notice their moves against you and Shengwu. They’re anticipating exercising that old magician’s trick of distraction hiding action. Also they assume Negocio will relax his security. They expect you to lower your guard, as well.”

  “Ah yes, but they fail to understand what a wily warrior I am.” Robert glances over his left shoulder, then his right. A boy eating at the nearest table is eyeing him, suspiciously. “Why don’t you remove your digital, background-duplication, camouflage, concealing cloak and join me? Talking to empty space is too strange. People are beginning to suspect I’m crazy.”

  “I’d consider crazy an accurate diagnosis by them.” Mugavus jokingly goads him. “It’s safer for both of us, if I remain unseen. So, why don’t you just stop interrupting me? Go back to gnawing on your dead beast like a caveman and listen.”

  Robert considers throwing something more than peas at her phantom voice, but decides to accept her advice. He retrieves his plate, loads his fork with meat, slides it into his mouth, chews and listens.

  “The worst news is that Evoil escaped Ethiopia, Robert, and he’s grown even more insane. He’s gone mad and is seeking revenge on you and me. That’s why, I’m remaining covered. I can see without being seen.”

  Robert chokes on his meat. “Evoil is still alive and in Puerto Rico?!”

  “No, not in Puerto Rico. Our intelligence tells us that Evoil’s operating out of a bunker somewhere in the ruins of D.C. But, we received some information from a Faul Dusslig about his plans. Shortly before she was murdered, she messaged us that he had dispatched thr
ee of his Sicarii assassins, code named Willy Wanker, Billy Bollocks and Pour LeNuls, to Puerto Rico.”

  “Only three? Lucky me.” Robert swigs his beer to flush the lodged lump of pork down his throat. He coughs followed by a burp.

  “Well, there may be one more to make it four. Evoil’s pastor, a Reverend Diaboli, is returning to San Juan to provide spiritual guidance to the three Sicarii. Our sources told us that he is the leader of those religious protestors outside Stamina Vitae. He’s been using them as a cover, so he can spy on Shengwu for Evoil.” Mugavus voice is moving. Robert turns following her words.

  “Those protestors are gone. Many of them died from Aethon. I had nothing to do with them and Shengwu is treating those still alive, so I don’t understand why this Diaboli is after me.” Robert swallows another bit of beer.

  Mugavus’ camouflage cloak rustles as she changes position. “Actually, my fellow SPEA analysts believe they want you, so they can use you to get to Shengwu. They’re after her because they’re certain she possesses the program and data for some US Department of Defense genetic engineering project called ELF. Heard of it?”

  Robert’s eyes widen with recognition. Reacting quickly, he recovers his nonchalance. “Yes, she may have mentioned it, but only as a project of her father’s.”

  Mugavus’ background digital regeneration flickers for a moment, as she moves, creating a ripple in the recreated, projected-through background veiling her. Another background misalignment occurs when her cloak brushes against Robert. The boy at the other table is intently studying Robert’s table noting the unnatural changes to the scenery.

  Finally, when Mugavus sits on the bench next to Robert her cloak’s reconstruction of the scenery stabilizes. Making it too late for when the boy convinces his father to glance Robert’s way. Seeing nothing unusual, the boy’s father gruffly warns him to pay more attention to his food and less attention to other people. He obeys his father’s reprimand for a few seconds, but his curiosity rapidly returns his eyes and attention to Robert.

  Whispering, Mugavus continues her revelations. “When Shengwu’s father escaped Abaddon’s SS Deacons, the ELF genome engineering project disappeared. At least, the SS Deacons could not find it when they searched his lab. But with their hatred and ignorance of science, they probably wouldn’t have recognized the ELF data, if they had found it. They tortured one of his assistants to death and destroyed his lab searching, but…”

  “So, he stole it to save it. Good for him. He’s a hero in my eyes.” Robert murmurs, acting as if he is concentrating on his plate, ignoring the cloak concealed Mugavus now sitting next to him. “But, since both you and I know that Righteous Rightists despise science and genetics especially, why do they want it bad enough to kill for it?”

  “SPEA’s intelligence sources have heard two reasons.” Robert hears Mugavus suck in a deep breath. “I consider both of these very disturbing. First, they wanted Shengwu’s father to create a huge army of mind-controllable Christian soldiers that they could use to enforce their will. Then second, and this really frightens me, they were reportedly wanting him to develop a method for enslaving the general US population. A type of enshrined obedience, if you will. We’re still investigating both claims.”

  Again he questions her innocently, as if he knows nothing about Shengwu’s involvement with ELF. “But, why do you think Shengwu has it, if her father took it?”

  “We suspect Shengwu possesses the ELF digits, because she synthesized a human embryo using it. Just by happenstance, Pion discovered a series of clandestine interactions between Shengwu and SPEA’s AI involving ELF algorithms. She conducted her DNA synthesis with SPEA’s AI quantum computer using a covert interface.”

  Mugavus pauses for a thought before resuming. “But, what Pion considered most extraordinary was that Shengwu was able to simultaneously conduct research involving both Aethon and ELF genome engineering algorithms. Pion suspects that she was using Aethon genetic engineering algorithms to distract her, so she wouldn’t notice the ELF genetic engineering algorithms. It was like she was two people.”

  “What do you think she is endeavoring to do?” Robert decides to continue withholding his personal knowledge of Shengwu’s activities until he learns exactly what Mugavus and SPEA know and want from him. If Shengwu is not revealing her plans to them, then Robert certainly will not divulge what he has seen. Shengwu has earned his loyalty and, at this moment, his silence. She protected him. He will protect her.

  “We’re not certain what her plan is. But, she doesn’t need to hide. She needs to know that SPEA wants to preserve ELF and shelter her. That’s why I’m here and that’s why we’ve hidden our air transportation on the Bahia de San Juan just off La Perla. Remember Dijaineo’s sky whale? Well, now it’s floating digitally camouflaged invisible, ready and waiting.” Again, Mugavus is caught talking loudly when the music stops.

  Mugavus’ plan surprises Robert. “La Perla? Why did you hide the sky whale there? Negocio told me it’s a poverty-stricken, hide-out for smugglers and drug dealers.”

  Unable to contain himself any longer, the observing boy stealthily creeps away from his family’s table toward Robert. On his tip toes, he sneaks closer and closer until he ducks into Robert’s shadow. Hiding behind Robert’s back, he barely breaths as he listens and scrutinizes the space to Robert’s left.

  Robert hears Mugavus chuckle. “Did you learn nothing in Ethiopia? When you want something hidden who better to hide it than smugglers. Besides, I’ve always trusted the poor. There is a certain honesty in poverty.”

  Robert places his finger to his lips. “Shh. I sense we’re being watched.”

  Speaking in a soft voice, Mugavus whispers, “Pion told me that Shengwu codenamed her ELF synthesis work, Operation Resurrect Peter and that her first interaction was when…”

  “Ha!” yells the boy, jumping and punching his small fist into Mugavus’ digitally hidden hip. When his hand collides with her cloaked back, he is as surprised as Robert and Mugavus. They swivel to watch him. Silently, he glances away at his father, whose eyes and attention are on his sister.

  With the boy’s attention diverted, Mugavus slides away from Robert’s side. “I’ve got to go. I’ll contact you or you can contact me. Watch yourself, Robert.”

  “Papi!” The boy calls to attract his father’s attention.

  “Papi!” He hollers again, but the music buries his small voice, and his father ignores him. Returning his interest to Robert, he hesitates, then he thrusts both hands forward. He grabs air.

  With his hand on top of his head, Robert gently guides the dispirited boy to his father’s side. “Little man, you can’t catch what you can’t see. Yes, she was there, but now she’s air. She had to flee, just like me.”

  TUNNEL VISION

  “Shengwu Kexuejia is dead. She died suddenly from myocardial infarction.” Doctor Salud dictates for Shengwu’s death certificate and her social media report. “Results of the autopsy to be conducted by the San Juan coroner’s office will be included when they are available.”

  Wearing a coroner’s cold composure, Robert accompanies the robotic corpse-cart containing Shengwu’s bio-bagged body out the rear of the hospital. Two mortuary assistance-robots transfer the corpse-cart into the waiting coroner’s transfer auto-auto. Robert climbs into the rear of the coroner’s carriage and sits next to Shengwu’s body. As they leave the hospital complex, he opens the bio-bag. She is at peace.

  In two auto-autos hovering just outside the hospital complex, four men wait and watch their aerodrone’s visuals. They were approaching the hospital when they received Doctor Salud’s death announcement. They paused to consider their options. Not entirely convinced by Salud’s vague statement, they launched the aerodrone now surveilling the complex. When the coroner’s transfer auto-auto departs, the aerodrone shadows it. The two, waiting auto-autos interface their navigation systems with the aerodrone and begin pursuit.

  Inside the leading auto-auto, Revere
nd Diaboli issues his orders to his three accompanying Sicarii. “Deacon Evoil’s latest commandment to me was that if we cannot capture and get Shengwu or her father out of Puerto Rico, then kill them. Do whatever is necessary to recover ELF, if it is here. Then destroy all traces of it. Above all, we must ensure nobody learns of ELF. Do you all understand?”

  The three Sicarii respond that they understand. Each of them then retrieves and prepares their pneumatic pistols. Their hunt begins.

  Stealing a corpse is so much easier than sneaking a pained, blister-covered Shengwu out of the hospital, so that is exactly what Robert is doing. One, carefully measured injection of the general anesthetic methohexital by Doctor Salud temporarily sedated Shengwu into the comatose condition required for his plan to work. Add sufficient pain-killing medication to suppress any possible groans and to the uninformed observer, she is dead. Nobody challenges the removal of her body.

  “Rita, I’m approaching Stamina Vitae. I should arrive in approximately ten minutes.” Robert alerts Rita.

  “No! You can’t come here now. We’re surrounded by Aethon infected Americans…basically under siege. Negocio’s security has established a perimeter. They put the facility on lock down. You won’t be able to enter.”

  “Hold here.” Robert orders the auto-auto transport onto a side pad. Rubbing his fingers against his forehead, he attempts to generate a contingency plan. He did not consider the possibility of them not being able to covertly enter the facility and sneak into the lab.

  Scratching his head, he gazes at Shengwu’s placid face. “Well my friend, I’m out of ideas.”

  For many long minutes, Robert and Shengwu hold in place, while Robert considers his options and attempts to develop a contingency plan. To ensure he stays away, Rita interfaces his PCD with Stamina Vitae’s security drones providing him with continuous visual situational awareness. What he sees, he does not like. More desperate, Aethon infected Americans are arriving, overwhelming Negocio’s security. Sick with fever and scared of dying, they are shoving and shouting and fighting. A poisonous shower of Aethon transmitting blood, sweat, spit and tears rains death upon all. They are the dead living.