Isaac glanced sideways, first at Jacob, then past him and behind Montross, where Alexander seemed to be shrinking, trying to find a shadow. "Magnificent, eh brother?"
Jacob couldn't help himself, he was grinning ear to ear. "Think we'll get to try it out?"
"Could be fun," Isaac said. "Me first though. I got me a list of cities I'd like to crush. Like Godzilla, Tokyo will be first. Then, I never liked Paris, so snotty. And..."
Alexander felt a lump in his throat. "No. This has to stop."
Jacob shot him a confused glance, while Isaac merely chuckled. "The sad, motherless crow wants to fight destiny."
"Not destiny," Alexander said softly. "Insanity."
Isaac took a step toward him, hands balling into fists. But Jacob was there in an instant, restraining his twin.
"Boys," snapped Calderon. "Stand aside, and be quiet until you're needed."
After glaring at Alexander, who refused to back down, Isaac turned away and grumbled, "If we're needed."
"Now," said Calderon, pivoting on his cane and facing Montross. "To work, my friend. We have an ancient enemy to eradicate. One that has slumbered too long in the glow of false superiority."
#
Montross kept his attention on the central device, even as he noticed the workers above; through the windows, he could see them getting ready, industriously running about preparing the equipment and calibrating the arrays. "And just how do I fit in? And Alexander? The boys?"
Calderon gave a wolfish smile. "Alexander's here just as insurance. So you don't get any funny ideas of being a hero. My boys... well, if they're needed, if you can't do what we need, then they may step in."
Montross gave a little laugh. "They didn't do so well at Liberty Island, if I recall."
Calderon shrugged. "They came through when needed at Cairo."
"But Alexander succeeded first." Montross sent an admiring look to his nephew, where the boy still looked hopeless and lost by himself, keeping his distance from the central machine.
"So let me guess," Montross continued. "You need me to access the machine and interface with the Emerald Tablet and use its power to enhance this facility's weaponry."
"In a nutshell," Calderon said, stroking his cane's dragon tip. He pointed up at the windows. "First, my team is cracking the code, translating the instructions on the Tablet from the cipher we retrieved, thanks to Thoth and his box of secrets."
Montross sighed, looking up at all that activity. "Then you'll feed the instructions into the machine?"
Calderon shook his head. "Actually, I think we already know what needs to be done. You already know."
"I do?" Montross didn't. Sure, he had seen this facility, seen what the aftermath of this day would cause: the cataclysmic devastation, the eradication of all life on the planet, but he didn't know how. Didn't know exactly how the Tablet would be used. He stared at the machine, at the chair-like structure, suitably fitted to one individual and one Tablet.
Calderon watched his eyes. "You know. The Tablet has already worked on you. And on Alexander. You can separate from yourself. And it's in that phase, and only in that phase, that the Tablet's true power can be accessed. Tuned to your own astral body, melded and amplified."
Montross nodded slowly, the truth settling in. "So in the spiritual form, someone sits in the chair, and releases the dogs of war. So to speak."
"So to speak." Calderon stretched his arms, and held the cane tight lengthwise. "And then we finish what the Dragon started."
Montross thought for a moment, a hundred questions surging to be let out, but it was Alexander, coming up behind him, that spoke what was foremost on his mind. "What about Mars?"
Calderon rubbed the silver dragon's head, tracing the jagged horns and scaled jaws. "It's all about angles, my dear boy. All about angles." And with that, he approached the machine.
#
Alexander watched the guy with the white lab coat step off the elevator and come running over to Mason Calderon. He whispered something into the senator's ear, and then showed some numbers and figures on his handheld PDA, a stream of symbols and text.
Calderon nodded rapidly, and then patted the man on his shoulder before sending him back to the elevator. "Ready the array, Dr. Phelps. We'll have a target shortly."
Montross approached the chair. "I don't know about you, but I have no idea how to work this yet. We're not ready."
"That's all right. We have a test scenario first."
Montross raised an eyebrow. He glanced at Alexander, then at the twins, who were smirking to themselves. "I can only guess."
"Why guess?" Calderon asked. "Surely you can figure it out. Or Alexander can see it."
"Your target?" Alexander shot back. "You mean the next place you want to destroy. More buildings to crush, people to kill?"
Isaac made a chuckling sound in his throat. "Just coming attractions."
"Before the main event," said Jacob, with a little less enthusiasm.
"We should have the actual coordinates momentarily from our feathered accomplice in the nest of our woefully under-matched adversaries."
Montross perked up. "You've got a mole in Stargate?"
Calderon smiled. "We have followers everywhere. We could have struck and leveled them much earlier, but we've found it useful to have a viewpoint into our enemy's activities."
"Staying one step ahead," Isaac said. "Righto, father?"
"Righto, as you say." Calderon approached the back of the chair, where there was an LCD screen set on an angled post, and a keyboard. He tapped a few keys, grinning to himself. "Translation is done, my friends. And our scientists are working on calibrating the device, feeding in the new data. Simply… astounding." His eyes rapidly skimmed over the data and the schematics, the formulae. "It's all here!"
"Congratulations," Montross said from the other side. His fingertips traced the armrests, caressing the smooth metal contours, all the way up to the rectangular slot for the Emerald Tablet. "So now you'll have the power of the ancients."
Calderon looked around the side. Met Montross's eyes. "The power of Tiamat and Marduk."
"The power of the universe."
"You're like me, Montross. You can't pass up this chance. You were born special, and now you've been given a chance to rise above the mass of humanity. To become like Marduk, like Thoth even, if you must compare yourself to him."
Montross closed his eyes. "A god."
"Leave your body. Leave this world, travel to a new one."
Montross's eyes opened. "Mars?"
And Calderon smiled. "It's all there, waiting for us. Where the ancients left it."
Montross swooned. There was a flash in his mind—a desert of blue that suddenly cracked down the middle. Revealing: a glimpse of a monument in the sands, a giant face, and a tunnel-structure below it; a vast complex supported by reinforced pillars. Within the walls: flashing lights, tubes and wires, humming machinery.
He held his head, shaking it until Alexander came to his side. "Was it—?"
Montross kept his eyes on Calderon, who now appeared very interested. "Tell me, did you just get a look at our little secret?"
"I saw something down there below the Face. A facility."
"The sacred texts are clear," Calderon said, barely above a whisper. "The caretakers, just a few of them, remained after the War. Maintaining the banks of DNA, the memory tanks and flesh pods. When we need to be corporeal again, bodies will be ready for our arrival."
Calderon had the Emerald Tablet out now, and its glow was fierce. Pulsing, bathing the three brothers in its light, making Montross giddy with anticipation.
"At first," Calderon continued, "it was simply a safeguard. Redundancy in case something happened on the Earth. And there was a precedent, apparently. The meteor, what did in the dinosaurs…"
Montross nodded, but was barely listening. "It's clear now. Wipe out the earth, get rid of the competition. Just like the Tower of Babel or the Flood."
"Except we'll do it righ
t this time. And this time, we—the Gods now—will be reborn anew on the planet that is our birthright."
"Yeah," said Alexander, brazen now, "but then what? It's a desert. No atmosphere, no water. No Fun."
Isaac smirked at him and Jacob just licked his lips.
"Good question," Montross said. "But I don't think Mars is their ultimate destination."
"True." Calderon moved up, then placed the Emerald Tablet over the slot. "It's just a bouncing off point. The stars await—the true birthplace of our race, and we will venture out there, immortal, timeless. Sending out our astral bodies, to which there are no time and space limitations. But first, there is something we must do. One more loose end."
Isaac grinned. "About time. We strike at the lunar base."
"The what?" Alexander asked.
"The far side of the moon," Calderon answered as he lowered the tablet gently into the slot and the machine began to hum "Where the last remnants of Thoth's guard have lingered. Just as a few of Marduk's custodians stayed behind on Mars, so did Thoth leave his faithful on the lunar colony."
"On the far side," Montross whispered.
"Always with its face turned away from Earth," Calderon said. "Protected from telescopes and other prying eyes."
"And from your reach with the HAARP weapon."
Calderon nodded, as he finished inserting the tablet. He stepped back. "But now that we know the formula we have the power to separate from matter and can travel to the Mars facility—"
Alexander got it first. "—Where you can aim from there and strike at the lunar base!"
Isaac jabbed his brother. "God, he's slow. Must've been home-schooled."
Alexander took a step back as the Emerald Tablet disappeared into the slot and the machine trembled, sending vibrations through the floor. Then, it started to glow.
His skin prickled, and he swooned as a shooting pain tore through his skull.
Just as quickly as it came on, the pain was gone.
And he was standing over his body.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my—
A flash of green light, then pain, and he was back.
Phew! Back inside.
On the floor, holding his head. Relieved to be back, but just as certain that he'd just been given an opportunity to save the day—
—and blown it.
5.
Mount Shasta
Phoebe raced out of the control center and rushed down the hall. She thought she'd get there first, but there was already an alarm sounding. Guards raced ahead of her, guns drawn. They took their positions on either side of the door.
"Orlando!" Phoebe shouted, just as Temple and Diana rounded the corner. "I saw a flash back there of a gun. Someone firing at him."
"He was in the room?"
"I don't know, I don't know!" She couldn't think, couldn't focus. Could barely breathe.
They reached the door together, and when Temple tried it and found it locked, he nodded to the larger guard, who promptly entered an override code on the keypad, then threw the door open.
Phoebe pushed inside, wriggling in ahead of the guards, just slipping past Temple's reach as he tried to hold her back.
"Orlando!" Emotions raging as she ran inside, her heart nearly gave out as soon as she saw him on the ground, face down beside the empty chair.
"Phoebe, wait!" Temple called, desperation in his voice. Dimly Phoebe thought he was trying to save her from the worst, but it was too late.
"Damn it, Orlando, don't you be dead, don't die on me here." She dropped to her knees beside him, hands shaking. Touched his shoulder, squeezed it. Then, reached for a pulse.
"I'm sorry," Temple whispered, even as his men spread out, searching the room.
"Sir!" one of them called. "A section of the wall here—it's gone!"
Phoebe whimpered as she touched Orlando's neck. Her fingers shook so badly she couldn't tell if he had a pulse or not. Instead, she smoothed back his hair, leaned down and gave him a kiss. Works in the Disney movies, she thought. She bent down. Closed her eyes, heard scrambling feet, men rushing out the room through the newly-discovered exit. She caught a strange but familiar smell: of a cavern underground and a fresh stream, clear and pure air.
Ready to feel his cold skin against her lips, instead she gasped as, with a grunt and a rush of motion, Orlando turned and sat up.
"Where'd they go!?"
Phoebe opened her eyes and as she grabbed Orlando's shoulders she scanned his chest, looking for blood stains and bullet holes.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Now where's the Dove?" Orlando stood up, taking great heaving breaths as his head whipped about in confusion. He caught sight of Temple, at the strange, arched doorway that had materialized at the side wall beside the view screen. The edges of the arch looked as though they'd been cauterized, blasted through the metal and concrete and seared right through the bedrock into the waiting tunnel.
Temple cleared his throat. "Good to see you still up and about, soldier. Now, before we go blundering in after the Dove, why don't you tell us what happened here?
Orlando scratched his head, and only now noticed Phoebe gaping at him with a mix of relief and anger. "Wait, are those tears?"
"Shut up." She wiped at her eyes. "Saw you get shot, so if you're from Krypton you better start explaining."
Orlando swallowed hard. "All right, but I'm not sure you'll believe me."
"You kidding?" Temple asked. "After what you guys have been through, what we've seen? About the only thing I don't believe in is the Tooth Fairy. But even that, I remain open-minded about."
"The Dove had me scanning Mars, looking for an end-around to the shield that's blocking us up there around the Cydonia region."
Phoebe looked closer at him. "And you got it, didn't you?"
Orlando grinned sheepishly. "I got something. I questioned whether I could view someone or something else who knew what was up there. And I saw him."
"The Tooth Fairy?"
"The Dove."
"So he knew," Temple said through gritted teeth, drawing the conclusion ahead of Orlando's schedule. "Son of a bitch."
"Knew, and apparently had been dealing with your friends behind the door."
"What?!" Both Phoebe and Temple said it at once.
"Yeah," Orlando said hurriedly, as he stepped over to the chair and picked up a Twinkie. "Breakfast of champions. Saw a wrapper in my vision, inside Mt. Shasta. I followed one of those glowing orb-UFO-like deals inside."
"Foo fighters, we call 'em," Temple said. "Track 'em sporadically, couple times a year they come out, but they never make contact, and before we can engage, they're either gone or back in the mountain."
Orlando nodded. "Anyway, I saw another one of these chairs. The Dove's been down there, a special guest apparently. That's when I came out of the vision, and that's when he pulled a gun and shot me."
"I knew it!" Phoebe said, and again looked at his undamaged chest. "You are from Krypton."
"No, but apparently the Dove overestimated his allies."
"What do you mean? And hurry," Temple urged. "My men are itching to go after him, and I'm itching to see what's down this tunnel."
"He shot me," Orlando said, "but I don't know how to describe it except to say that time just stopped. The bullet hung in the air a foot from my chest. I couldn't move, I was stuck in mid lunge for the Dove, and he was frozen with this crap-eating grin on his big face as he pulled the trigger. But then..."
"Then," Phoebe whispered, "you saw one of them. The Custodians."
"Yeah, them." Orlando took a deep breath. "A bald guy with deep black eyes. Unnerving as hell. His head was huge, and at first I thought, holy crap it's an alien. But he was tall, and wore a brown robe like some Franciscan monk. And he moved. Damn, did he move. Fast and jerky, like in one spot then the next without even taking a step. Like stop-motion film. I noticed the wall, disintegrated. And then this bald dude with big black eyes like I said, he was there. Staring into the Dove's eyes and shaking his head sa
dly."
"Then what?" Temple said, still trying to hurry him.
"Then..." Orlando closed his eyes and shuddered. "And this is why there's no hurry looking for the Dove."
"Oh God," Phoebe whispered, and then she saw it too:
The Custodian, from behind. Standing between Orlando and the Dove. First, he plucks the bullet from the air and flicks it with one motion of his finger, sending it sputtering across the room. Then he turns and lays his large palm with its long spindly fingers on the Dove's forehead, covering his eyes. "We gave you insights, opened your mind. Chose you to be the messenger, but instead you traded our secrets to the Great Enemy and worse, you sold out your own kind. And somehow you thought your actions beyond our sight?" The great bald head shook, and—from another shifting viewpoint—the almond-sized eyes turned even darker.
"All those things we would allow, as you are a pure spirit of free will. But we cannot allow the death of this one by your hands. So now we must act."
The hand moved back and the fingers turned inward slowly, as if squeezing a grapefruit, and formed a fist. And the Dove shook, rose off the floor in an outline of fire, then... imploded. His body was rent to shreds, but all self-contained in a central implosion that swallowed up his entire exploding bulk.
And then it was gone, and the Custodian turned. "You have work to do." He placed a finger on Orlando's forehead and said: "Resume."
Phoebe took in a huge gulp of air and returned just as Orlando finished telling the story to Temple.
"... blew him right up in front of me. And then touched my forehead and told me to get back to work. Like I was some slacker."
"Knows you too well," Phoebe said. "But apparently they have plans for you too."
"For both of us."
Phoebe and Orlando stared at each other in wonder, until a returning guard yelled: "Nothing there! Ends in a solid rock wall."
"Of course," Temple said. "So what now?"
Just then, a tiny form entered the room from the hallway.
"Aria?" Phoebe said, immediately turning at the sound.
"Glad you're okay, Orlando," the Hummingbird said. But she was pale, shaking. And Diana appeared behind her momentarily, pushing the wheelchair with her father.
The Cydonia Objective (Morpheus Initiative 03) Page 24