by S. T. Boston
The morning of the day when he'd first tried to wash the Earth's surface clean of the parasites was one of his fondest, how he'd given the command to his faithful followers, and at first light in the cities under his rule they had gone door-to-door massacring whole families, people who had rightly feared and worshipped his superiority. Killed with weapons that, at the time, were far beyond their understanding. Having rid his own territories clean of the vermin they had spread to civilisations that the foolish Earth-Human loving Arkkadians had studied, his craft hitting them by surprise, crushing them to the ground. The site of his own kind running and dying with the rats they nurtured had given him no joy, it was the bigger picture that counted, and a few deaths were a necessary evil to achieve his goal. Two planets for his kind to thrive on, thus halving the chance of them being wiped out as they so nearly were many thousands of years before.
The war had not been as swift and as genocidal as he'd planned, the fighting had spread from the Earth's surface to his home world, those faithful to him bearing arms against the foolish ones who believed it was their place to protect the abomination that had only thrived as a result of their own near extinction.
The great city that had once stood proud in the Nazca Desert was one of the first to fall, his men far outnumbered by the troops sent to protect the Earth-Humans whom lived there, but they were too late. Instead, among the stone walls Arkkadian had turned on Arkkadian, a fight that he'd painfully lost.
Two of his cities, Sodom and Gomorrah had been the last to fall, when ground and air attempts had failed and the Earth-Human protectors had realised with horror that every one of their children had been slaughtered they opted for the most power form of retribution to wipe his kind from the Earth, a power that the Earth-Humans had both learned and used in their own wars, nuclear power. He had long since fled the Earth, preserving himself for a future attempt to seize the planet he longed to control so much, however that had not stopped him from weeping with sorrow when he'd learned that nuclear fire had wiped the two strongholds from the land. Earth had been lost to him, for now.
Over the long years, hauled up on that barren planet he and his ousted followers had rebuilt and waited, patient and knowing that their time would come again, and he'd been close, so close to his goal, halted in what Earth-Humans would call the eleventh hour, by Oriyanna and the two who followed her. There was no describing the fury that ate at him like a rampant parasite over the events that had quashed his plans, but now, in these final days, he had put things into play that would deliver those responsible into his hands so they could watch as he laid waste to the Earth, wiping the Earth-Humans from the land with their own weapons of destruction. Seizing the Earth and preserving it for his kind was now beyond his reach, no matter how much he still lusted for it, now things had changed, this was, and only ever would be about revenge and it would be sweet. For if he could not control the Earth, no one would. He'd rather see it destroyed than in the hands of those whom never should have been.
Over the long years, since his first appearance on Earth, history had remembered him by many names. The people of Nazca had called him Viracocha, the Greeks had called him Mammon, others had called him by his birth name, Asmodeous, but history had most famously remembered him by a name that still struck fear into the hearts of foolish Earth-Humans, Satan.
Chapter 10
The small and agile RX7 cut its way through the night. The lack of traffic on the road had allowed them to set a reasonable pace, traffic jams and rush hours were a blight of the old world. Many vehicles still sat on drives and road sides, lifeless and rusting, their owners either unable to source or afford the parts to fix them. The other more macabre option was that they were dead. Adam kept a tense eye of the speedometer, cringing at the way Maya seemed to be unable to drive in any other way than having her foot mashing the accelerator pedal into the carpet of the foot well. At the breakneck pace she was setting he could see them covering the one-hundred and twenty mile journey in just over an hour and a half. Maya was most certainly not one to hang around. Although his car had been relatively cheap to buy and fix it wasn't the most economical of vehicles on the road, not ideal in these times of ludicrous oil prices, but normally he rarely used it. With the boy-racer style of driving she had they'd be lucky to reach Wiltshire on a tank. He could understand her wanting to put some distance between them and the major towns and cities on their route as early as possible, negating the possibility of being stopped by the police or military, or running into the various ne'er-do-wells that roamed the roads at night, robbing and thieving what they could.
From Brighton they had sped west, cutting past Portsmouth and Southampton, and at Southampton they had swung north, through Salisbury and out on to the open countryside. Around ten miles outside of Salisbury the ancient monument, Stonehenge, had loomed out of the night, silhouetted against the bright moonlit sky. The ancient stones had looked like giants, all meeting in the field in which they'd stood for thousands of years. His face pressed against the glass, the way an eager child might peer out of a car's window, Adam had watched as they slipped past. He wondered what their true purpose was, he felt sure they must have some link to the Arkkadian people who'd had such a huge influence over history, and yet had mysteriously managed to slip into obscurity leaving very little real evidence of their existence apart from a wealth of misinterpreted religions.
The journey had been mainly silent since passing Portsmouth. For every minute that ticked by, Adam found himself trusting Maya more and more, the longer he spent with her without her making some attempt on his life, the better he felt. Still, he didn't allow himself to relax fully, who and what she was had firmly cemented itself to the front of his mind. As they'd left Brighton in the rear view mirror Maya had told him of how they had planned to take him at his Aunt and Uncle's house following his book talk, he shuddered as she recounted the events that had unfolded in their modest Bungalow with its serene sea view. To prove the story Maya had shown him photographs on her phone, in the pictures lay two men that he did not recognise, he did however know the room they were in only too well. Both men lay in pools of blood, sprawled out on his Aunt and Uncle's kitchen floor. One guy, I think she had said his name was Chris, still had a look of surprise on his face that gave him an almost life-like look, however the gaping hole in the side of his neck told a different story. It surprised Adam how easily he could consume such images; death, unfortunately, had become a regular character in this damaged world.
Maya had told him of how once taken he was to be flown to Peru, to him. Adam had sat silently, listening with horror and not quite being able to believe that he was being thrown headlong into this ancient battle once again. He knew only too well that it was nothing short of a miracle to have survived the first ordeal, he felt sure that he was fast running out of lives even with The Gift coursing through his veins. There was one topic that he felt reluctant to press Maya for information on, the exact details of what evil was now planned for Earth, the need to ask her burned at him, grew with an unstoppable anxiousness until he could bear it now longer. As the small car twisted through the Wiltshire countryside, fast approaching their destination he took his face away from the window and looked at Maya, her delicate face stern with concentration as she navigated them through the dark and twisty country lanes that snaked across the rural countryside, like a ball of uncoiled string. On more than one occasion she'd had to jam the brakes on to avoid hitting the various wildlife that dashed in front of the speeding car, as if in a bid to commit suicide. It would seem that The Reaper had been exclusively a human virus, there were no cases of the native animal species getting sick in any country. The developers on Sheol who had engineered the killer had been very good at their work.
“What are we facing here?” He finally asked. “You said he plans to leave this planet as dead as Mars. Just what kind of weapon does he have?”
“No weapon,” replied Maya, not taking her clear blue eyes off the road, “The ship he is in was o
nce an Arkkadian exploration vessel, it's very ancient, it was not a craft built for war.” Maya guided them through the small town of Pewsey, Adam pointed out the left turn she needed, hardly slowing down she threw the Mazda into the corner, causing him to grab what Sam always called the Fuck Me Handle above the door, the tyres squeal in protest against the tarmac. She powered the Mazda down a very narrow road, hitting a railway bridge faster than Adam would have liked and causing his stomach to lurch as if he were on a roller coaster.
“Just how is he planning to do it then?” Adam watched a small housing estate fly past them, a few houses had lights on but many were in darkness.
“If he were in possession of such a weapon, do you really think he would be sat out in that desert waiting? No, he would have just struck out at Earth as soon as his craft came into orbit, six months ago. He is relying on you Earth-Humans to be the architects of your own downfall.” The small housing estate vanished into the night, giving way to a tree lined road, the old ragged oaks making their own natural tunnel over the thin strip of unkempt tarmac, highway maintenance had not been high on the agenda over the last few years. “Over the last few months,” she continued, as they hit a pothole that shook the car and made her wrestle the steering wheel, “all of the world's superpowers have been locked in a race to repair and bring back online their nuclear launch capabilities.” She shook her head sadly. “The race has been on since Russia started to get a little choosy about who, and at what price they sell their precious Siberian oil to.”
“Another mess we are in thanks to your kind,” jeered Adam. “I'm sure you know that one of the Watchers, Euri Peterson, as he was known on Earth, had pioneered hydro run engines.”
“I know.”
“Yeah, well after his death, and during the week of The Reaper, Zeon Developments suffered a massive fire, it burnt the place to the ground. So much of the research and patented information was lost that it has set the development of the technology back years. The members of his development team who are still alive are back-engineering a few of the jets they had in service, but the set-back from his death and fire has been disastrous.”
“You follow the news then?” Maya asked.
“Of course, every day. I am, you might say, a little paranoid now.”
“You know then that there is a naval stand-off about to take place in the Pacific between the USA and Russia over the Siberian oil supplies?” Adam nodded his head. “Those subs are nuclear ready, not only that but the old nuclear launch bunkers and silos are all, once again, nuclear ready. You see, the EMP never rendered the payloads useless, the weapons just needed fixing and new launch and defence programs needed writing. They are just waiting for the launch systems to go live and make every nuke tangible once again. It's been a race which will see all the former nuclear powers get to the finish line within a few hours of each other. Or so my sources say.”
“So what, he is hoping that someone will push the button? I know they are fully expecting there to be another Cold War, but even during the first one, no one actually had the balls to do it. They used to say that nuclear weapons made the world a safer place. Bullshit, if you ask me.”
“No, he has a program, one that can assume control of any country's defence systems, once those nuclear launch systems are back online they will be fair game to him,” Maya answered gravely.
The tree-like tunnel suddenly ended and the road burst out into open fields, large rolling hills rose to their right, looking over the fields in what gave the appearance of a massive yet natural amphitheatre.
“We are nearly there,” said Adam, it's a left in about a mile. His mind was spinning, it seemed almost impossible that the insecurity and mistrust between the world's leaders was going to give Asmodeous a second chance. The one positive to come out of the EMP was how it had put everyone on a level playing field weapons wise. It should have been a fresh start, a more peaceful existence without war ships and missiles, fighter planes and tanks. Had he not seen such a life on Arkkadia he never would have thought it possible, it was a fresh start that Earth-Humans seemed incapable of taking. Maybe it was better for everyone if Asmodeous just ended the whole thing, hell right, at that moment he felt like going directly out to that desert and pushing the button for him. Then he remembered the way that local communities had pulled together in the early days, the days when at night all you had was a candle to see by and you kept a knife, cricket bat or whatever your weapon of choice was, by your side when you slept in case looters decided tonight was your lucky night. He remembered how in his street they had pooled their food supply and rationed it out, an informal agreement until the government set things back in motion. Human nature was essentially good, and that deserved preserving, didn't it?
“I have seen the how this program will work, Adam.” She eyed him with her wide eyes. The car reached the junction, the wheels skidding to a stop on a small layer of gravel that had somehow built up on the road. Spinning the wheels she went left. “The program has a name. Enola. And Enola is very clever. Once those systems are live it will assess Earth's weather patterns and run predictions for wind and rain patterns over the coming weeks, then target each weapon according to how best the radiation will spread, factored in with initial causality numbers by the blast of each payload.”
“And you think that I, or we, can stop this from happening?”
“I don't know,” she said bleakly. “I had to do something.”
“Just the other side of the bridge,” Adam instructed as they approached the cottage. He felt nauseous, both from her manner of her driving and at the thought that in less than two days those systems would be back making the planet Asmodeous' own private shooting gallery. “It's a small, thatched cottage on your left.”
Maya took this bridge a little slower, Adam glanced out of the window and got a look at the canal where he and Lucie had swum and kayaked as children, it was hard to tell but he felt sure there was a half sunken narrow-boat sticking out from his side of the stone arch. “Just here,” he indicted with his hand, Maya jammed the brake on, testing the inertia mechanism on Adam's belt. With one final over exaggerated turn she fired the car into the driveway and cut the engine. Adam unclipped his belt, suddenly eager to escape the stuffy cab. Stretching himself out he enjoyed the chilled air on his skin, it felt like being washed clean. “There should be a key under the large pot in the greenhouse,” he called back, heading up the narrow drive, his shoes crunching on the pea-shingle. Here and there weeds sprung from the small stones, all fighting for their own bit of space. Swinging the back gate open he clicked on the torch function of his phone, the garden looked like a miniature rainforest, nature had well and truly taken control over the modest sized plot of land. The grass, although looking slightly the worse for wear from the recent and very early cold spell of weather, reached up to his waist, he found himself pushing it aside with his free hand. “Wait there,” he called glancing over his shoulder and pointing the light toward Maya who shielded her eyes from the glare. He was about to tell her he didn't want her falling over when his foot found a divot of grass, or one of his grandfather's gnomes, which had once stood pride of place on the immaculate lawn. Before he had time to speak he went down hard, his phone spilling from his hand. Feeling pain flare in his ankle he cursed his stupidity, got to his feet and shook the wounded joint, knowing full well that in a few seconds there would be no evidence that he'd ever taken a tumble. Sure enough in under a minute he was back, phone in hand and sliding the greenhouse door open. Cobwebs hung from the whitewashed glass roof, they swirled and stirred gently as the now open door allowed fresh air to flood the small out-building. The large terracotta planter was exactly where Adam had remembered it to be, briefly he tried to recall when he was last at the cottage. It had been before the world had changed, meaning the place would have been standing empty for the best part of three years. Lifting the heavy tub he found the key, right where it should be, where he'd placed it after a weekends heavy drinking with Sam, it seemed lik
e a lifetime ago. The brass looked dull and the metal felt reassuringly cool to the touch. Leaving the Greenhouse behind he followed his downtrodden path back to the gate, where Maya was stood waiting. He stopped briefly at the spot he'd fallen, crouched down and fished around, his hand rummaging in the overgrown greenery. Finding what he was after Adam tugged it free, just as he'd suspected, the culprit was indeed one of the gnomes, he looked a little worse for wear after being lost in the jungle-garden for god knows how long, his jolly red hat now faded and flaking. Taking the ornament with him Adam reached the gate and set the sorry-looking gnome on the gravel, facing away from the gate like some tiny watchman stood on post. It was a completely inane attempt to restore some kind of order to the property but it made him feel a little better.