“So what happens now?” Brian asked of Chin once the man took off his headset and placed it on the table next to Alex’s keyboard.
“Now we take a little ride back to the Terracotta soldier pits,” he answered politely as always, and gestured with his arm for the two archeologists to lead the way out of the tent.
“You plan on disturbing the Emperor’s tomb to reach that other chamber don’t you?” Professor Russell accused. “Why? For what reason?”
For the first time since meeting Chin, Brian watched the man’s accommodating smile that never wavered run flat.
“To further our knowledge of Chinese history of course,” the man offered, and grabbed Alex by the arm to forcibly move her along toward the door, but she was having none of it.
Alex rotated her arm backwards and twisted away from Chin’s grasp. “Right, and I’m from Mars. If you were interested in preserving history, you would assemble a team of archeologists. They would take months planning out the best way to open the chamber without disturbing the priceless and most likely fragile artifacts inside. Last time I checked you are an intelligence agent. Did you finish your PhD and a lifetime of field work in archeology in the last ten minutes while I wasn’t paying attention?”
Her last statement brought the smile back to Chin’s lips. “This is China. Things are done differently in my country than in yours.”
“Differently or stupidly?” Alex fired back.
Chin allowed the smile to run away from his lips while quickly drawing his pistol and leveling the threatening instrument at Brian and Alex to deliver his response. “Out the door, now.”
Alex nodded her head and glanced toward Professor Russell as she began pacing toward the door. “Yeah, that’s how it’s done in our country too, sometimes.”
Brian followed Alex toward the door, but continued pleading his case as he moved. “This is a protected Chinese national landmark. It is illegal, immoral, and not to mention reckless to open that door without proper professionals on hand to preserve the findings. You can’t do this.”
“Why are you in such a hurry to desecrate this national treasure?” Brian asked with his pleas growing more insistent with every step taken toward the door. Just before stepping out into the evening air he snapped his fingers and turned to face Chin with an index finger pointed right at the short Chinaman.
“Radiation,” Brian blurted out like it was the answer to a question worth a million dollars on a game show. “That is about the only thing that could interfere with the emitter readings enough to show us nothing. You knew it was there all along, didn’t you?”
Chin raised his eyebrows in surprise at the statement, then shook his head in mild disappointment. “Americans, always thinking for themselves rather than doing as they are told.”
“We do things differently in America,” Professor Russell deadpanned back.
“Fine,” Chin said while turning Brian back toward the door to continue their progress. “We have known about the radiation for a while now, but we were not certain if the readings came from the chamber we knew about already or from another source. Before this discovery I was not certain it was worth the trouble of violating the chamber to reach the radiation source, but now I am.”
While walking toward the transport vehicles, Brian could not figure out why Chin was divulging this information to them. He worked for the Chinese intelligence agency. By definition, this made him a secretive individual who horded information rather than dispensing it willingly. This was out of character.
“So what, there’s a little radiation in there. You guys already have the bomb. What could you possibly get from this stuff that you don’t already have?” Alex asked. “Do you think it’s some sort of ‘ultra radiation’ that could power your whole country for a thousand years or something?”
“The radiation is actually quite benign in strength. It is the frequency that interests me,” Chin said while intently watching the body language of his two captives. Both Alex and Brian broke stride at the mention of frequencies. Brian recalled all too well the discussion they were privy to while held captive inside the Sphinx.
“Interesting response,” Chin marveled. “You should feel very privileged. Only a dozen people, including your current and living former Presidents, know about frequency Alpha. I cannot say I know what it is, but I do know it is very important to my American counterparts. We shall have to compare notes once we are done here.”
When they reached the Mengshi off-road vehicle that Chin guided them toward, Alex was the first to climb into the back seat. Once settled she looked back at Brian as he climbed in with a hateful look that screamed ‘I told you so!’
**********
Frank heard the words Chin spoke to his men loud and clear through the bug he installed in Alex’s laptop. Unlike the two archeologists, he was perfectly fluent in Chinese and understood the order to converge on the burial chamber entrance located near the Terracotta Army pits.
Frank was on the move at a fast jog to try and reach the pits located a mile away ahead of Chin and his men. He had no idea what came up on Alex’s screen, but having it described as big and pointing out a source of interference piqued his concern. This was no longer an investigative mission to make sure secrets were not leaked to a hostile nation; this was now a major concern requiring action.
Chapter 60: Defining Evil
After listening to Hastelloy ramble on about the past for over an hour, Mark decided he had heard enough. Listening to the stories gave him a good feel for what made the man tick; now it was time to put that knowledge to good use.
While Hastelloy paused to take a drink of water, Mark began laughing. Softly to himself at first, but the laughter soon bounced between the office walls drawing awkward stares from Dr. Holmes and his patient. “Let me paraphrase everything that I just heard. The Alpha are pure evil while the Novi are the source of all things noble and good in our world today.”
“That is a bit simplistic don’t you think?” Hastelloy countered as he placed his drinking glass back on the coffee table.
Mark tossed his hands out wide and shrugged his shoulders. “What can I say, I’m a simple guy. Though I must point out that you killing millions of Chinese farmers to incite your little rebellion, or the poisoning of the nobles to unite that rebellion under one leader does not sound all that noble or good to me.”
Hastelloy shifted his weight to lean on the right armrest of the chair and brought his hand up to cup his chin in contemplation. “Well, not such a simple man after all. You of all people must realize that no one is always bad or always good all the time. Everyone lives within the boundaries of black and white in various shades of grey.”
“Those actions, along with your man leveling the city walls of Constantinople allowing it to be sacked, look awfully dark to me. In fact, I don’t see any white at all in that picture,” Mark observed. Hastelloy was trying to sell himself to Mark and his brother as some sort of guardian angel. Mark wasn’t buying it and now it was time to make sure Jeff was not tempted to believe it either.
“If you want to judge those individual actions outside the context of the bigger picture, you are free to reach that conclusion. By those rules then, I am free to condemn your acts of water boarding suspects and murdering Valnor’s wife in Berlin as acts of evil also,” Hastelloy responded with an intense and hateful glare. “Or am I to assume you are a decent man whose despicable actions are performed to safeguard the lives of others for the greater good?”
Mark felt a cold shudder electrify his body with both panic and rage. The last thing he wanted mentioned in front of his brother was the unfortunate necessities of his job. Jeff was an idealist; he would not understand. A glance toward his brother told Mark he needed to cut off this avenue of discussion, but Hastelloy beat him to it.
Hastelloy casually looked over at Jeffrey. “Doctor, you are an impartial observer here. Why don’t you be the judge? Was your brother’s torturing of Valnor’s wife to death in order to gain
information about the supposed threat my crew poses to this entire planet of seven billion people good or evil?”
Mark jumped in before his brother could even draw a breath, let alone answer the question. “If there were any truth to that accusation, then the answer would of course be my actions were for the good. Working to safeguard billions is by definition working towards the greater good.”
“Now then, can you claim the same noble cause?” Mark continued. “You and your men control a weapon capable of destroying this entire planet inhabited by some seven billion people. All so you can try and safeguard those twenty million Novi lives housed in that Nexus device of yours. The greater good tilts away from you I’d say.”
“Good or evil also depends on one’s perspective,” Hastelloy responded without missing a beat. “Until now the fortunes of humanity and my crew were intertwined. Defeating the Alpha saved humanity from an eternity of slavery and the Nexus from destruction.”
“And now?” Mark prodded.
“Now, in addition to the Alpha threat, the safety of the Nexus and my crew are pitted against your leadership’s fear of the unknown along with their obsessive need for control,” Hastelloy answered in a frigid tone.
Mark paused the debate to assess his brother’s situation. One look said it all; he was in complete shock by what he had heard and sat as a mute observer to the exchange.
Mark looked back at Hastelloy and released a skeptical smirk. “You and your men are still around now. Stands to reason you were successful in defeating the Alpha back then.”
“Some of us are still around,” Hastelloy corrected. “If I ever fail at stopping the Alpha, and you have the misfortune of meeting one of them, you will learn very quickly that they do not go down easily.”
“You make it sound like they still might be a threat today,” Mark said with genuine concern. “Would you mind telling me how things wound up with the Alpha back then?”
Chapter 61: Extinguish the Flames
Hastelloy slowed his brisk jog to an apprehensive walk as he approached the opened doors of the burial chamber. The continued flashing of blue light past him as he ran along the nearly mile long tunnel gave him hope that Gallono was finding a way to hold off the reanimated Alpha relics.
He approached the door with light footsteps, placed the deceivingly heavy hand cannons against the wall, gripped his sledge hammer with two hands and hoisted the heavy end overhead.
“It appears those Novi are putting up an adequate fight,” a feminine voice standing just inside the doorway said in the harsh Alpha language. “That makes six reanimations so far.”
“Let me know when it gets into the thousands, then I’ll start worrying,” a domineering male voice responded from deep inside the chamber.
Hastelloy heard the female sigh in frustration and used that brief distraction to the fullest. He burst in through the doorway and demolished the unsuspecting clay figure with a crushing downward swing of his hammer.
The glowing relic inside faded away, but then Hastelloy noticed the vibrant glow reappear above a stone altar along the far wall fifty feet away with copper wires extending to it from a nearby clay vase that stood over seven feet tall. A moment later the relic drew upward into the ceiling and shifted from a glow of deep red and yellow to an electric blue hue. Then the light rushed past him down the tunnel toward the soldier pits.
Hastelloy’s preoccupation with the Alpha reanimation process did not serve him well. An Alpha warrior caught him momentarily by surprise and leveled a shoulder led tackle that left them both crumpled on the floor. The Alpha warrior was the first to recover. The beast rose to its full height, towering over Hastelloy with an open hand bearing razor sharp claws ready to strike.
Hastelloy rolled toward the Alpha to bring his hammer up with as much force as possible, devastating the creature with a well placed strike to the groin.
The Alpha stumbled back with a high pitched howl that could have woken the dead emperor still resting in his ornate casket at the center of the room. A second Alpha warrior leapt into action. Hastelloy managed to dodge three punches, but a vicious snap kick connected with the wooden handle of his sledge hammer, breaking it in half and leaving the business end on the floor. The Alpha warrior prowled forward to continue the attack, but was called off.
“No. I’ve waited three thousand years for this moment, and I will have it,” a clay soldier commanded as it strutted forward toward Hastelloy. It stopped momentarily over the Alpha coddling its genitals and then looked at the other. “You two guard the altar. That is your duty. I will secure victory over this enemy Goron was never able to defeat.”
Unarmed and nursing a set of cracked ribs from the Alpha’s bone crushing tackle, Hastelloy backed away toward the center of the chamber. He looked around for options. His objective was clearly the stone altar and connecting clay vase, but it was now flanked by the two Alpha warriors.
Off in a dusty corner, far from the revered altar, sat five vibrant relics swaying slowly in the air. Their unceremonious position led Hastelloy to conclude these relics chose not to violate their cultural rules and reanimate. Running through the arithmetic in his head gave Hastelloy a moment of relief.
He assumed every relic would be coming after Gallono down in the soldier pits. With two Alpha standing guard, the clay soldier stalking him, and five relics resisting reanimation, Gallono was left to fight against at most six clay soldiers. It was still not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination, but within the commander’s abilities.
“Looks like some of your crew still have a shred of self-respect; enough not to violate their most sacred laws at least,” Hastelloy said as he walked backwards over a bridge spanning a five foot wide river of mercury. “Having trouble keeping the troops in line there, Kuanti?”
“A frustratingly selfish choice, but inconsequential in the end,” Kuanti barked. “Cora and the other five are more than capable of sending your man back to that Nexus device of yours.”
Kuanti chuckled softly as he lumbered his heavy body across the bridge to join Hastelloy on an island surrounded by rivers of mercury, housing the solid copper sarcophagus of Emperor Qui Shi Huang. It stood four feet tall with a lifelike rendering of the man inside engraved into the lid. Hastelloy stepped around to the other side to keep the immensely heavy barrier between him and his stalker.
Kuanti strolled up to the sarcophagus and casually scraped a hand over the smooth metallic surface. “It’s funny when you think about it: you and the Nexus, us and these earthen bodies. Two sets of immortals locked in endless combat. I suspect the superstitious creatures inhabiting this planet would consider it a battle between gods.”
“It’s evident you crave power and recognition, Kuanti, but you are not a god. The universe was not so poorly designed,” Hastelloy said while circling around the copper barrier which brought the relic altar into clear view for him.
The chamber grew noticeably brighter with the arrival of four glowing relics on the altar. One immediately began rising up toward the ceiling to reanimate again, but then returned to the altar.
“Hmm, immortal no longer it appears,” Hastelloy mocked.
Kuanti glanced over his shoulder then back to Hastelloy with a self-satisfied grin. “The process does take quite a bit of power. Give it a few minutes and my men will be back in the fight. If your man goes down, will he be back so soon? No, I suppose not. You probably have that Nexus device tucked away somewhere on the western continent.”
“Something like that,” Hastelloy acknowledged. “Trick is you have to bring him down first.”
“Pretty soon that won’t be a problem,” Kuanti said slamming his shoulder into the coffin separating him from Hastelloy. The copper fixture groaned and resisted, but eventually gave way. The sarcophagus toppled over sending Hastelloy scrambling to get out of the way. The entire chamber shook with the impact, and a minor tremor followed when the exquisitely sculpted lid fell open upon impact.
Hastelloy took a running jump ont
o the capsized coffin, then delivered a flying side kick to the head of Kuanti. The painful sensation of kicking a brick wall raced up Hastelloy’s leg, but it was worth the price. Kuanti fell backwards onto his back with another reverberating crash.
He half expected the momentary victory to entice the Alpha warriors to rejoin the fight, but they simply looked on with all the morbid enthusiasm of fans watching a gladiator duel.
While Kuanti casually got back to his feet, Hastelloy looked past the red clay figure and noticed a subtle movement among the shadows near the chamber door. He was careful not to look directly at the disturbance to give it any undue attention. Through his peripheral vision, Hastelloy recognized Gallono as the source of movement. He was sneaking along the wall keeping to the shadows, and carried the two hand cannons Hastelloy set near the door before charging into the chamber.
Kuanti was back on his feet again. Hastelloy moved in behind the toppled sarcophagus, but Kuanti leapt on top of the fixture to clear a direct path to Hastelloy.
Kuanti stepped down from the coffin and methodically backed Hastelloy in against the river of mercury. “You are out of places to hide. It’s time to face your defeat like a man.”
Gallono looked poised to step out of the shadows and blast Kuanti apart with a hand cannon, but a barely perceptible shake of Hastelloy’s head waved him off. He flicked his eyes toward the relic altar guarded by the Alpha warriors and Gallono got the message. All Hastelloy needed to do now was keep the show interesting enough for the audience to allow the commander to execute his orders.
Hastelloy briefly considered jumping over the five foot wide river of flowing metal, but opted to keep the spectacle confined to the sarcophagus island. Wandering eyes might spot shadowy movements he did not want noticed. Unarmed and cornered, Hastelloy did the only thing he could; lowered his shoulder and charged.
Kuanti stepped backwards and to the side to absorb the hit. He looped his arms down underneath Hastelloy’s armpits and flung him across the island to land against the coffin. Hastelloy scrambled to his feet, jumped up onto the sarcophagus to dodge a punch, then jumped onto the back of Kuanti and held tight with a headlock grip.
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