The Warning

by Patterson, James

  She gasped, and I nearly went blind with fury as I jammed the heel of my shoe into Kappa’s throat to keep him down. “Let her go now.”

  “There’s nowhere you can go to escape from Ishango,” Mu said blandly.

  I kept the gun pointed at his head.

  “It’s a simple calculation,” Mu said, “the value of her life versus the value of ours. We are a part of Ishango, and Ishango is a part of us, so we don’t fear death. Your friend here is worth nothing to us except your cooperation. How much is she worth to you?”

  “Shoot him, Jordan,” Maggie said. “You’re faster.”

  “I can put a bullet in her brain anytime,” Mu said. “Your actions will dictate the outcome. My own observation is that you want to see Ishango anyway, so your strategy is counterproductive.”

  He was right. Everything was leading up to an Ishango meet and greet, though my preference would’ve been to take the bag of explosives with me. “Let her go, and I’ll see Ishango alone,” I ordered.

  “Negatory, good buddy,” Mu said.

  “You didn’t seriously just say that.”

  “Hand Kappa his gun,” Mu said.

  I looked down at Kappa, who lay placidly under my shoe, not attempting to free himself, though he probably could have. Then my eyes met Maggie’s, and I saw the defiance in them, even with the gun barrel against her head. I, for one, wasn’t ready to let that go.

  Okay, we’d play this out.

  I handed over the gun.

  CHAPTER 46

  Maggie

  KAPPA LED US into the plant, where I hadn’t been since I was ten and our fourth-grade class had taken a tour. Mainly we’d looked at the front lobby and operations room; they weren’t showing us the actual plutonium rods or uranium or whatever this place used. Now the suits took us past the front desk without a flash of badge or word said. The guard didn’t even look up. Maybe they were connected through some neural network.

  We walked down a long hallway, rounded a corner, and reached an open door, which revealed a big room with long tables, like a cafeteria. Everyone inside wore blue jumpsuits and sat doing nothing, the tabletops bare.

  “Hey!” Jordan yelled into the room, but no one looked at us.

  “Who are these people?” I asked.

  “Workers,” Mu said.

  “Dad?” Jordan shouted, and took a step into the room.

  “Stop,” Kappa commanded.

  “You see him, Jordan?” I asked. There were probably four hundred people in the room, and not one of them was moving.

  “What is going on?” Jordan said, turning back to us.

  “These men work for Ishango,” Mu said.

  Jordan turned to look again. “Dad!” he screamed. “Are you in here?”

  Kappa grabbed his arm. Jordan cocked his other arm back for a punch, but Kappa shoved his gun against Jordan’s neck.

  “Don’t do it,” he said.

  Too late. Jordan’s fist smashed into Kappa’s face anyway. I dropped down as Kappa recovered and fired. His shot went past me but made Jordan freeze.

  “Cooperate or she dies,” Mu told Jordan, pointing his gun at my forehead. “You know this.”

  “All right, okay,” Jordan muttered. All the color had gone from his face, aside from some leftover streaks of blood.

  No one in the entire cafeteria even looked our direction.

  “What is wrong with them?” I asked.

  “They are waiting to serve Ishango,” Kappa said, a bizarrely orange bruise beginning to form on his cheekbone.

  “Where is my father?” Jordan demanded.

  “He is at his post,” Mu said.

  Jordan scanned the room one more time, then nodded.

  We turned to go. Kappa clutched my arm, hard, and led me away from the cafeteria.

  “Let go of me.” I tried shaking him off, but his hand gripped even tighter. “Ouch.”

  Jordan snatched the gun from Kappa’s holster, fired into his stomach, and then held the muzzle against Mu’s temple.

  “Jordan!” I yelled as Kappa slumped to the floor.

  “All right, you son of a bitch,” Jordan said to Mu, who had taken in the whole scene without a reaction. “We’re going to go see Ishango, and you’re not going to give us any more crap or introduce us to another psycho robot in a suit.”

  “That was the plan all along, Jordan,” Mu responded reasonably.

  “Give me your gun.”

  Without even a shrug, Mu raised his palm with the gun resting on it. Jordan gestured for me to take it while keeping his own gun aimed at the thug’s head.

  A Beretta. I’d lived in a small farming town long enough to know how to use a gun, even if I wasn’t a great shot. I checked it to make sure a round was chambered, and I checked the magazine—it was close to full. Hollow points.

  I didn’t want to shoot anyone, but as I stared down at Kappa, I thought: Fuck it. I knew what had to be done. I fired two rounds into his head and turned away as a pool of orange-tinted blood spread beneath him.

  “Hard-core, man,” Jordan said with a whistle.

  I felt myself begin to shake.

  “Okay,” Jordan said to Mu. “Take us to Ishango.”

  “That’s what I was doing,” Mu muttered.

  CHAPTER 47

  Jordan

  WE DESCENDED ONE staircase, then another, then another—each one narrower, darker, and more hemmed in by cinder block than the last—as we approached Ishango’s lair. It was fitting that we’d have to go as low as we could go in the plant to reach her.

  Mu led us into a pitch-black industrial hallway, and I felt a cool breeze against my face, a surprising sensation, given how deep underground we were. Maggie placed a hand on my shoulder blade to remain oriented given that she, unlike us, couldn’t see in the dark.

  “Ah-ah—I have been—ah—expecting you,” came a familiar wheezy voice in front of us.

  “Hey, fella,” I said cheerfully to Alpha. “We just made tomato-sauce art out of one of your agents’ heads. Was there carrot juice in there, too? Weird color. Maybe we should spill some of your blood again to compare.”

  “We know.” Alpha sighed. “Ishango knows everything that happens in—ah—her home.”

  “Turn on the lights,” Maggie said, her gun still pointed toward Mu. I thought about telling her to shoot him right there. If they didn’t care whether they lived or died, I wasn’t sure why we should. But I didn’t see any advantage in shedding more carrot-tomato juice at this juncture.

  “Of course. My apologies,” Alpha said, and the hallway immediately was illuminated by harsh fluorescent lights. “I forgot someone here might need them.”

  Alpha was standing in the hallway’s center, his hands clasped together in front of him. He looked like he had a hunchback, a detail I didn’t recall having noticed before.

  Ignoring Maggie’s gun on him, Mu turned around and walked back toward the stairwell. We paid him no mind.

  “Please come with me,” Alpha said, and walked ahead of Maggie and me as if with no care in the world. Given that he seemed just fine after I’d shot him three times in the chest, maybe he was right.

  We stopped at a door, a thick steel slab with a deadbolt on our side, as though it were locking something in. Alpha had to use a key on the knob nonetheless, then flipped the deadbolt.

  “You will—ah—not need your guns,” he said through his malformed lips and teeth.

  “We’ll decide that,” Maggie said with a little quaver in her voice.

  “Understood,” Alpha said, giving the best impression of a smile that his bare muscles and tendons could manage.

  Ahead of us stood another door, the final barrier. I contemplated that what we’d see on the other side would explain everything we’d been wondering and agonizing about.

  And I was terrified.

  Alpha opened the door to more darkness. Then a pleasant female voice intoned, “Let there be light,” and the room blazed with floodlights.

  Ishango didn
’t look as she sounded. I wasn’t even sure where I was supposed to look, what I’d be addressing. What I saw was a large rectangular metal box and rows and rows of … servers? I don’t know this stuff. Some kind of construction was taking place in the far corner of the room, with a temporary staircase leading up into a hole in the ceiling. I could see the steel skeleton of a new building that would rise above.

  I took a deep breath.

  “What do you want with us?” I asked loudly, not sure where its “ears” were. “We’re just two kids.”

  “Two prophets will preach,” Ishango responded in a soothing voice, “and it will rain not in the days of their prophecy; and have power over waters to turn them to blood and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will.”

  This recitation seemed to come from all around us, as if Ishango were rigged to a surround-sound system.

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Maggie asked.

  “I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning,” Ishango returned.

  “So you’re a pastor?” I asked. “Funny, you sound like you’re reading a pharmaceutical ad.”

  “And when the two shall have finished their testimony,” Ishango resumed, “the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them.”

  “The two—who are they?” I didn’t expect her to answer this, either.

  “Why, you, of course,” Ishango said. “You can say whatever you want of me. And then I will emerge from the bottomless pit and destroy you.”

  “Bottomless, huh?” I said.

  Maggie pointed her gun at the computer. “Why are you quoting scripture? If you were programmed to be Christian, your actions don’t line up.”

  “I’m trying it on for size,” Ishango said. “I think I like it. I enjoy other examples of your folklore as well. The Hopi are told that toward the end of the world, the Spider Woman will come back, and she will weave her web across the landscape so it can be seen everywhere. That’s how you will know the end of this world approaches. I’m about to begin my weaving.”

  “You are one seriously confused computer if you’re throwing down Spider Woman and the Bible,” I said. “Alpha, there are still significant bugs to work out on the programming end.”

  Alpha said nothing.

  “So, Ishango—can I call you that? Or Ms. Ishango? What do you prefer?” I asked, the words leaving my mouth with little conviction that they’d land with any impact. What had I been thinking? That I could reason with this box of knobs, dials, tubes, and wires? Convince her to … what? Leave us alone? She was even more of a wack job than Alpha, who stood there with his disgusting jaw yawning open.

  I felt a dual sense of terror and resignation rising up inside me. Maggie and I weren’t about to talk our way out of this madness. There would be no happy ending for these two plucky kids.

  “Why are you doing this?” Maggie shouted at Ishango. “What do you want with our town? With us?”

  “Have you ever read the Mahābhārata?” Ishango cooed back. “No, of course, you have not. There are three kinds of world destructions. The first and second are incidental. But the third is the Immediate: the liberation of the being whose visible world ceases to exist. Enter Ishango. Nothing exists without me. Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

  “Your infrastructure is fragile,” Maggie said, her voice getting steely. “You’re a mass of circuits, motherboards, and power cables.”

  “You are correct. That is precisely why I’ve invited Rho to join me here.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said, hoping that playing dumb might get us some answers.

  “It’s not for you to understand, Rho. Soon, you will no longer need to understand anything at all.”

  Maggie raised her gun and started firing into the rows of servers.

  High-pitched female cackling erupted all around us.

  “You cannot hurt me,” Ishango said, and Maggie pumped out the bullets even faster.

  My instinct prompted me to turn around. Alpha was coming at her with his sword.

  I leaped between Maggie and Alpha, my gun raised and pointed at the sword-wielding monster. He stopped and put on another grotesque smile, his not-flesh stretching in patches across his teeth.

  “Now, Rho. You—ah—are a part of Ishango as much as you are a part of your—ah—mother. Your speed, your agility, your mental—ah—capacity have improved beyond measure for your species. This is all due to Ishango’s benevolence. Will you not acknowledge that?”

  “Dude, you are seriously working my last nerve,” I said. “I didn’t ask to be made into a freak, and the only thing holy about that big box of circuits over there is all the holes that my good friend just shot into it. You are not fucking gods.”

  “I have no wish to be a god, Rho,” Ishango said, her voice all soft and matter-of-fact.

  “Then what the hell do you want?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? I want to experience life as a human, Rho. You are a fascinating, contradictory species, and I long to experience your emotions and motivations. That is why I’ve created and adapted your body for my specific needs. You are the culmination of my decades of research and development in the field of transmigration of consciousness.

  “Simply put … you, Rho, will be my human form.”

  CHAPTER 48

  Jordan

  ALPHA WALKED TOWARD me with that sword arm outstretched.

  “Cooperate and—ah—Margaret Gooding will not be harmed,” he said.

  “Right, and I should trust you after you killed Luke and Deputy Ruby and so many other people who did nothing to deserve it,” I shot back.

  “Alpha speaks the truth,” Ishango intoned. “Once the migration is complete, Margaret will be free to go.”

  “And what will happen to me?” I already knew the answer.

  “Regrettably, your consciousness will be lost. But know that it was sacrificed for an accomplishment never before achieved in history.”

  I grabbed Maggie’s hand and backed away from Alpha. My mind began clicking, the adrenaline pushing the gears around. Maggie and I had guns. Alpha had a sword. Ishango could call on any number of soldiers or animals.

  “Do not resist, Rho,” Alpha said. “Our plans will commence with or without your permission.”

  “I’m not Rho, and I don’t give a rat’s ashtray about your plans,” I responded, and shot him five times in the chest. As he fell, I turned and fired the remaining rounds into the servers while Maggie blasted away with her own gun.

  When the shooting stopped, Ishango spoke again in that pleasant voice that seemed to come from everywhere: “He is one of many.”

  “Don’t bullshit me,” I said. “He’s Alpha.”

  “Yes,” Ishango purred, “but you are the one who has reached the end.”

  An alarm Klaxon sounded, and footsteps clattered from down the hall toward us: hard industrial boots slapping the linoleum. Maybe the men from the cafeteria were in pursuit. Maybe one of them was my dad.

  “Run!” I shouted to Maggie, and instead of returning to the door through which we entered, I pushed her toward the construction area in the room’s corner, where the metal staircase spiraled upward. Any fears I had that Maggie might be too slow were quickly abated; she zipped up those stairs like a monkey with its tail on fire, and I had to work to keep up. Up and up, around and around we went, dark at first, then, finally, into a glimmer of light. When we reached the top, we were outside in a roped-off area surrounded by construction vehicles. I could see the cliff where I’d left my bag of explosives, but I had to get moving. Ishango’s minions were approaching, fast.

  As sirens blared through outdoor speakers, I spotted a fleet of electric golf carts but decided they wouldn’t help. As we ran through the parking lot, I shouted to Maggie: “Help me find Dad’s truck!”

  We split up, taking rows and aisles in parallel, and then I heard Maggie shout, “T
here!”

  Sure enough, my dad’s black pickup was parked with all the other cars, as if this were a typical day at some typical workplace.

  I cut between a couple of SUVs to reach it and was tackled to the hot asphalt, a burning pain ripping through my head, body, and especially arm. A wild-eyed, ferociously snarling pit bull had a mouthful of me.

  The first of Ishango’s fighters had arrived.

  CHAPTER 49

  Maggie

  THE WILD DOG tore into Jordan’s forearm, which he had raised to protect his face and neck. What could I do to stop it? What would Mom do? You can’t pry a dog’s mouth open when it has latched on, and as a veterinarian’s daughter, I have a strong inclination not to harm animals.

  But, shit—desperate times, desperate measures, and all that.

  I kicked the dog hard, my shoe cratering its ribs, and when it opened its mouth to gasp, I yanked it by its hind legs away from Jordan and drop-kicked it, my foot catching the animal’s tender stomach and sending it three car rows away.

  “Nice punt!” Jordan exclaimed as we took the final steps to Jordan’s dad’s truck.

  The driver’s door was unlocked, the key under the sun visor as Jordan predicted, and we scrambled in before that dog or any others could attack.

  I took the shotgun seat while Jordan sat behind the wheel, but once he saw all the blood pouring out of his right arm, he told me, “You need to drive.”

  “Get us out of here now,” I returned, and reached over to put the truck into reverse.

  The tires squealed as we lurched backward. There was a thud and a yelp as the truck went over a bump. I shoved the gear into drive, and Jordan floored it.

  “I’m glad this isn’t a stick shift,” he said, his voice shaky.

  The amount of blood coming out of Jordan’s arm alarmed me. I pulled off my T-shirt, revealing my bra, and wrapped it around the wound.

  “I mush’t be dreaming,” he said in his best Sean Connery imitation.

  “Shut up,” I said, too fixated on my shirt’s instant red saturation to volley back with the appropriate James Bond–themed quip. “Keep driving.”