The Gemini Effect

by Chuck Grossart

  He saw more of the humanoid forms stand up. They were nothing like the long-legged beasts he’d seen the night before. Nothing at all.

  It looked like a crowd of people standing in a group.

  Milling around.

  But he’d seen them emerge, right?

  He’d seen them rise up out of the ground, right where the casings had been.

  He was sure of it.

  But what could explain what he was seeing now?

  Those are people, he thought. And the smaller creatures . . . Rats? They’re the same size as a normal rat! What the hell is going on?

  He heard a call over the radio net: “This is Lincoln. All forces hold fire. I repeat, hold fire.”

  A trigger had already been pulled. He watched one of the being’s heads violently snap back as another overly eager sniper hit his target. The body dropped to the ground.

  The call over the net was immediate. “Hold fire! I repeat, hold your fire!”

  The beings closest to the body quickly crouched and huddled together, and then began to . . . wave their arms?

  “Jesus Christ! Those are people!” He ripped off his helmet, and heard a sound that chilled him.

  Screaming.

  Even from two hundred yards away, he could hear it.

  It was unmistakable. The sound was human!

  “Don’t shoot! Please, don’t shoot!”

  He never saw the dead person stand back up. There was nothing wrong with its head.

  If he’d seen it, he’d never have walked toward them.

  None of them would have.

  But they did.

  Lured by the bait. And led to the slaughter.

  In a smoldering, bomb-cratered field in the middle of America’s heartland, the final battle had begun.

  CHAPTER 81

  The Navy commander came into her cabin, interrupting the call from the secretary of state. “Ma’am . . . it’s the Russian president. He wishes to speak with you immediately. Line one. Translators are on line and ready.”

  She punched the button.

  “Mr. President. This is Allison Perez.”

  There was a delay as the translator spoke her words in Russian. The Russian leader didn’t let him finish.

  “There will be no need for a translator. This is President Vladimirov. I will speak English.”

  “Spasibo, sir. What can—”

  “There is no time for pleasantries. I will be direct. We have been monitoring your communications. We know you attempted to destroy the bombers President Smith sent to drop nuclear bombs on three of your own cities—an attempt which sadly failed. Are you able to control the rest of your nuclear forces?”

  They’re nervous. Just as she would be if Russia had nuked some of their own cities. She had to defuse this situation fast. “I am in control of our nuclear forces, Mr. President. Orders have been received—and acknowledged—by all senior commanders. The president cannot, nor will he be allowed to, issue any orders to our nuclear forces. There is no need for you or your country to—”

  “I have raised our alert status, as I’m sure you know.”

  “I am aware of it. I would have done the same. A reasonable precaution on your part, and I understand it.” There was something about his voice. She’d met the man on a number of occasions, talked to him at length. But now, he sounded different. “But, I must state in the strongest terms that—”

  “You must also know that the world around our two countries is suddenly at war.”

  “Yes . . . we know what’s happening.” It suddenly dawned on her. His voice—it sounded like Andrew’s voice had sounded!

  “Your president is located in your underground command center outside of Louisville, Kentucky, yes?”

  It didn’t surprise her that the Russians knew about the place. “Yes, that is correct.”

  “And this command center is designed to withstand a nuclear exchange, yes?”

  This isn’t going well. “It’s a hardened facility. Yes.”

  “We have monitored communications originating from that bunker, Ms. Perez. Not all of your forces are obeying your orders.”

  “That is incorrect, sir. The military forces of the United States will answer to me, and me alone, until we are able to rescue the president from—”

  “Are you sure he wants to be rescued, Madame Vice President?”

  “I don’t understand, Mr. President.”

  “I have spoken to him. He told me he would raise your alert levels if Russia did not lower hers. He, Madame Vice President, believes he is in control of your nuclear forces. I ask you now, who am I to believe?”

  “I will state again, Anatoly, the armed forces of the United States will answer to me. My orders, not Andrew Smith’s.” She paused as she heard a commotion in the background. Her Russian was rusty, but she’d heard enough to know it wasn’t good.

  “Madame Vice President, if this is so, why have your forces just been ordered to assume DEFCON 1?”

  Before she could utter a response, she was thrown from her chair, landing in a heap on the floor as the giant E-4 banked incredibly steeply, its engines screaming. A deafening explosion threw her against the opposite wall, and everything went black.

  Around her, the E-4 began to disintegrate as she—and it—fell from the sky.

  Two Royal Canadian Air Force CF-18 Hornets circled the flaming debris as it fell to the ground below.

  “Unidentified aircraft destroyed. Returning to base . . .”

  CHAPTER 82

  Admiral Grierson walked from the command center to his office. He had some calls to make. To his wife. And his children. He’d encouraged his people to do the same.

  He hoped he’d have enough time to talk to all of them.

  In the command center, alarms were blaring.

  Computerized voices were announcing event times, threat areas, decision times.

  The large status boards were alive with color and motion as the data pumped into the center.

  Data from satellites.

  Data from radar installations.

  Data showing that a massive Russian ballistic missile attack had been launched against the United States of America.

  It had finally happened.

  His wife answered the phone.

  “Honey . . . it’s me,” he said.

  CHAPTER 83

  The quick-hardening foam had been developed as a nonlethal weapon for use in riot situations, a form of crowd control, but had quickly been adapted for other uses.

  The Vanguard complex employed an enhanced form of the foam as a security measure—if a person was accidentally infected and tried to leave the facility, the foam could be sprayed from jets in the ceiling, completely encasing the person in a thick layer of the substance, instantly rendering them immobile. It was formulated to harden in a matter of seconds. As hard as concrete.

  The foam in the Vanguard complex was not nonlethal. It was designed to seal a problem away from the outside world, be it a virus, a person, or in this case, a mutated creature.

  General Rammes had pressed the emergency button at the last possible moment, trapping the creature in the clean room. Saving their lives.

  They’d made it topside right before the last portal automatically slammed shut. The complex would remain in lockdown indefinitely, opened only after the computers determined there was no threat from what was trapped inside.

  Garrett and Carolyn stood silently in the night air, taking deep breaths, just glad to be alive.

  Carolyn looked up at the stars.

  Oddly, there were quite a few falling stars this night.

  The few quickly became hundreds.

  As the sky to the east of them began to glow, flashing again and again and again with an unnatural brilliance, they knew.

  Nothing would eve
r be the same again.

  EPILOGUE

  It had been twenty years since the war.

  The northern hemisphere of the planet was a desolate, uninhabitable place. Where once-great cities had stood, nothing but twisted, radioactive debris remained. Once-fertile farmland was now a sandy, charred expanse, choked of all life for thousands of years to come.

  All the great nations of the Prior Time had passed into history. To the south, however, other great cities were taking their place. In some cases, built by hand. Brick by brick by brick.

  The survivors were constructing a new world.

  And it looked nothing like it had before.

  Peace had settled over the southern hemisphere. National boundaries, some that had lasted for centuries, faded away. Monetary concerns were no more. Starvation, poverty, disease—all had passed into the pages of the history books.

  This was the New Time.

  The survivors had stepped from the fires of a nuclear holocaust and were taking their first steps down the road toward a true utopian existence.

  But paradise, it was not.

  When the bombs were detonating all those years ago, the animals had scattered. Many had escaped to the four corners of the inhabitable world, found places to hide, and remained there to this day.

  They’d been hunted relentlessly, slaughtered by the thousands—by the millions—but the pestilence they represented had not yet been scrubbed from the face of the earth.

  They’d been breeding, growing in number, plotting in their hiding places.

  Striking from the shadows.

  And then retreating, to fight another day.

  They were smart, cunning. Incredibly resourceful.

  They’d learned the secret—the Achilles’ heel. And they’d used that knowledge to kill many of his fellow survivors.

  He knew there would never be a true peace, not until each and every one of the animals had been found and destroyed. Every last one of them.

  But today, that wasn’t his concern.

  Today was a time for the small one to explore. To learn.

  The sky was a brilliant blue dome stretching from horizon to horizon. The peaks of the Andes Mountains—in what had once been called Argentina—stretched toward the sky, scraping the bottoms of the clouds.

  “Can we go into the forest?”

  They were at the foot of the Andes, on the edge of a huge old-growth forest.

  It was safe here.

  The animals had been cleared from this area years ago.

  They could relax and enjoy the scenery, without having to be on guard.

  It was okay.

  “Yes. We can go.”

  “Do you think we’ll find some bones? If we do, I want to keep them!”

  “If we find some, you can keep a couple of them, but no more.” The small ones liked to keep the bones as trophies, reminders of a great victory.

  The forests here were thick with the remains of the animals. Left to rot where they’d died. Or to be devoured by others of their kind.

  He was sure they’d find some. Many had been killed here.

  As they walked through the forest, the fallen twigs crunching under their feet, the small one asked, “Tell me again. Tell me about the war.”

  “It was a long time ago, little one. Far away from here. The beasts fought us, tearing at us, ripping at us, but they couldn’t win. They couldn’t kill us all.”

  “Because we were superior, right?”

  “That’s right. We were—and still are—superior to them.”

  His senses screamed an alarm. They were being watched.

  From the right. From the left. In front. And behind.

  Surrounded!

  Together, they crouched low to the ground and raised their arms, feeling outward, trying to find them, to hurt them. To kill them.

  But it wasn’t working.

  The animals stepped from the trees. Advancing. Their boldness shocked him—and then, he could see why they’d been able to approach undetected.

  They wore the shields. The damned helmets! Crafted from the one substance he couldn’t penetrate, the metal that rendered him, and the little one, helpless.

  The first dart slid through the small one’s skull, piercing the organ that gave him his strength. He dropped to the ground, paralyzed. Still alive, but unable to move.

  He watched one of the animals raise its blowgun. Its dart entered his skull right above his left eye, and pierced the organ in the center of his brain—the Achilles’ heel of his kind.

  As he lay immobile on the forest floor, he could hear them coming for him. He watched the tuft of feathers tied to the end of the long, thin dart wave in the breeze. Above it, he saw the faces of the animals standing over him.

  He could do nothing as one of the animals placed the killing herb into his mouth. And into the mouth of the little one.

  The effects were immediate.

  His vision began to blur.

  He felt the little one slip away, their connection abruptly severed by his death.

  And then, darkness.

  They were dead.

  The animals hacked at the bodies, tore them limb from limb.

  They hung the pieces from branches.

  It was a warning to any others who dared venture into this forest. This was their land now. It would never be taken from them again.

  Two of the animals stood on a rock outcropping, looking below at the carnage they’d left in the trees.

  Garrett removed his helmet, the hammered lead heavy in his hand.

  Carolyn removed hers, as well.

  They slipped back into the forest, disappearing like ghosts into the shadows.

  They would emerge again, when the time was right.

  To kill. And kill again. Until the creatures ruled no more.

  Today, their tribe had sent a message.

  The war was not over. It was only beginning.

  And humanity—what was left of it—was on the prowl.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  So . . . who does a writer thank when it comes to producing a novel? As Goose said in Top Gun, the list is long and distinguished, but I’ll attempt to keep it brief.

  First and foremost, many thanks to my wife, Nessa, without whom I’d have surely ended up living in a van down by the river. She’s my common sense, my gut check, my swift kick, my most honest critic and most fervent supporter, and the mother of our three kiddos—two beautiful daughters and an amazing son, whose hearts are all in the right place because she made sure of it. Most of all, though, she’s been my candle in the window since 1984 . . . and it’s never dimmed.

  To my mom, Jackie, who I’ll always remember sitting in front of an electric Royal in her cluttered writing room, clacking away at the keys and stamping her unique wisdom down on heavy bond paper. Every time I see a yellow rose or stand in a silent swirl of snowflakes on a quiet February night, I’ll know you’re near.

  To my dad, Lieutenant Colonel James J. Grossart, USAF, for every single cherished moment. I wish there’d been more time.

  To Bruce Allen, my creative writing teacher at Northglenn High, who was one of the first to open my eyes to the power and joy of the written word. I hope you get to read this and understand the impact you had.

  To the team at 47North, what can I say? You picked The Gemini Effect over so many others as the winner of the 2014 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I count myself fortunate as well to have had my book land in the expert hands of Jason Kirk, my editor, who helped craft my self-published novel into what it is today. He taught me the meaning of “split infinitive” (apparently, it’s not some kind of spicy soup . . . who’da thunk it?), and I taught him the word Missileer. Thank you for your patience, Jason. To Ben Grossblatt, my co
pyeditor, who ensured each comma was in its proper place and called out every single instance where my “words by phonics” spelling style made an appearance, I say thank you, and I hope I didn’t make your eyes bleed too badly. Any guy with “Gross” in his last name is okay by me! To Scott Barrie of Cyanotype Book Architects, thank you for producing a cover that captures the story so well; the blending of the biohazard symbol, the DNA helix, and the Gemini symbol is simply amazing.

  Finally, I want to thank you, my reader. May this novel be the start of a long and enjoyable relationship. You bring the popcorn, and I’ll bring the pages.

  Chuck Grossart

  Bellevue, Nebraska

  March 1, 2015

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2013 Ashley Crawford

  Chuck Grossart lives in Bellevue, Nebraska, with his wife, kids, and usually too many dogs.