“The worthless wooden beads round her wrist,” said Arkani.
“She would give up all her expensive finery before parting with it,” said Jirza. “How has her demeanor changed now that she is inside the vehicle?”
“She’s making Kevak’s sacred symbol with her hand,” answered Arkani, “and she is becoming highly agitated.”
“Distraught, not agitated,” said Jirza. “She has reached an extreme emotional state that makes her vulnerable to manipulation. We will put our plan into action tomorrow.”
*******
The Next Morning
Although the sun made the day unseasonably warm for autumn, Josephine Romano took no notice of it. She had barely managed to get two hours of sleep the night before, but she made sure her appearance was immaculate before leaving the luxurious hotel. During the twenty-minute commute to the hospice, the words of the doctor who had recommended the hospice echoed in her mind: “The treatments are only causing him undue stress. The time has come to consider his comfort and peace.”
For four years she had witnessed the deterioration of her once vibrant, magnificent son. After all conventional methods of treatment had failed, she used her wealth and influence to secure him a place in a promising experimental trial that was being conducted in a research facility in Wyoming. Her son achieved remission, but it only lasted for eight months. She had brought him back to Wyoming with high hopes, only to find herself traveling to the hospice where he would surely die soon.
Feeling tears well up in her eyes, she blinked them away.
I won’t let Sebby see me upset and disheveled.
Her luggage was in the trunk. Today he was being transferred to the “Family Suite,” which the staff secretly called the “Death Suite.” She had inadvertently overheard a porter make a whispered reference to it with one of his co-workers and could not get the term out of her head. The suite was furnished with an extra bed, making it possible for her to be with her son around the clock.
As the limousine made its way through the picturesque countryside, she clutched the rosary in an attempt to blot out her doubts — her faith was slipping away. Her husband had died in a skiing accident five years ago, and a few months after that first tragedy, her son began exhibiting symptoms of the cancer that would now soon claim him. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to focus on her prayers.
*******
“Here they come,” said Jirza as she looked down at the vehicle making its way up the hill.
“Angle of depression calculated,” said Tolum, tightly gripping the large rock.
*******
Josephine’s prayers were interrupted by a loud boom, followed by the sound of shattering glass. The chauffeur took the brunt of the force and was incapacitated as the limousine careened off the road and sideswiped a tree.
When the car finally came to rest, Josephine called out to him, but there was no response. His head was slumped over, and as she raised her arm to rouse him, a wave of pain coursed through her.
“Driver!” she repeated.
Again, no response.
A second wave of pain shot through her when she tried to reach her purse in the floorboard.
It’ll be alright. I don’t need the phone — the car’s automatic tracking will report that it’s been in an accident. Help will be coming soon.
She willed herself to remain calm but could not hold back the anguish that engulfed her when she realized what would happen next.
My arm is broken and will require surgery. I won’t be discharged until tomorrow at the earliest. Sebby’s going to die alone!
Out of the corner of her eye, she detected movement. When she turned her head in its direction, she saw a woman standing next to the car. She had long, reddish hair and was dressed in a tattered white robe.
The woman was…glowing. There was a visible aura about her.
Josephine rubbed her eyes with the hand of her good arm and looked at her again. The aura was still there, framing her serene face like a halo.
Blurred vision — I probably have a concussion as well.
The woman opened the car door. “Be at peace, gentle lady. God has heard your prayers, and your suffering will soon end.”
She moved her hand toward Josephine’s arm.
“No!” cried Josephine, fearing another wave of pain.
Ignoring her, the woman touched her arm. Bracing for pain, Josephine felt instead a soothing warmth. A glowing ray emanated from the woman’s fingertips into her broken arm, and she was awestruck by the immense healing power as it mended the torn tissue and bone.
“We must help the driver,” said Josephine as she climbed out of the car and rushed to the front, fruitlessly trying to open the door.
In an incredible show of strength, the woman grasped the handle and pulled the door open. The metal loudly creaked and groaned as it was done.
“Oh no,” murmured Josephine upon seeing that the driver was dead.
“I cannot do this on my own,” said the woman to Josephine. “He needs your prayers every bit as much as my touch.”
Josephine bowed her head and fell into prayer. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth,” she whispered fervently as she fingered the rosary.
The sound of a siren could be heard in the distance, and by the time help arrived, the befuddled driver was able to walk unassisted into the ambulance. Although he was covered in blood, no injuries were detected.
Josephine had called the hotel for a second limousine, and it arrived shortly after the ambulance. Refusing to be examined by the paramedics, she bustled the strange woman into the car with her.
“Quick!” she shouted to the driver. “Take us to the hospice!”
VERACITY
Planet Vambiri
Earth Year 2046 AD
“I’ve administered the stimulant, Commander,” said Betana. “He’ll be coming round soon.”
“Will the stimulant interfere with the truth serum?” asked Kevak.
“No, Commander,” said Betana.
“Thank you, Betana,” said Kevak. “That will be all.”
*******
As soon as Ikato opened his eyes, he saw Kevak standing at the foot of the bed. He smiled and attempted to sit up but was prevented from doing so by restraints that had been fitted to his wrists and ankles. Feeling panic overtake him, he immediately looked at his palm.
“It’s not there,” said Kevak.
Ikato wondered if the chip’s encryption algorithm had been enough to keep the data secret.
“The encryption algorithm was an old one and easy to break,” said Kevak, anticipating what he was thinking. “It might also interest you to know that you were first hacked over a year ago, and the data that was targeted was your Touch Healing research.”
“Impossible!” cried Ikato. “I made regular checks on that specific data when Jirza and Tolum first suggested using the Vambir as hosts for the nanobots. My research never used the second skin approach! Their interest in nanobots was just a coincidence!”
“If you had run a full diagnostic,” said Kevak, “you would have learned how Jirza and Tolum generated a sound spectrograph of your voice and used it to obtain remote access.”
“But no commands to access that data were made!” insisted Ikato.
“That’s because after the data was copied, they used the fake voice command to delete the access request and left the original data untouched,” explained Kevak.
A feeling of dread encompassed Ikato. “The explosion that injured me—” he began.
“Jirza, Tolum, Kwetz, and Arkani are gone,” said Kevak. “They used your hacked data to construct a new mainframe. The rumbling was caused by the wormhole activation. The explosions that followed resulted from the self-destruct command that was triggered as soon as the wormhole closed. They didn’t need a ship. The nanobots protected their atomic structure just like you designed them to. You solved your organic matter transportation problem a long time ago.”
Ikato opened his mouth to speak, but Kevak stopped him. “You should know, Ikato, that truth serum has been introduced into your system. Nanobots are monitoring your pulse, respiration, and skin conductivity. The serum compels you to tell the truth. The nanobots will detect any attempts by you to resist. Now, what were you about to say?”
“I only solved the organic matter problem after the gamma ray pulse disaster,” said Ikato.
“By experimenting with the remains of Moses!” accused Kevak. “Not only are you a murderer, but you are a meddler of the worst degree! You interfered with the religion of an entire planet! The burning bush and the garbled misinterpretation of ‘Yahweh’ is because of you! The Ten Commandments were carved into the rock with a laser controlled by you on Vambiri! And worst of all, Moses ascended, not into Heaven, but into a wormhole created by you!”
“I am not a meddler, Kevak, please believe me,” pleaded Ikato. “I am a missionary for the Creator! Everything I did was inspired by Him! I sought only to spread His message to another world!”
“Did the Creator tell you to murder Moses?” demanded Kevak.
“I did everything in my power to transport him to Vambiri alive!” cried Ikato. “I fervently prayed that deploying the cloak inside the wormhole would be enough to protect him!”
“But it didn’t,” said Kevak, “and you knew there was a high probability he would not survive transportation.”
“Which is why I waited until natural death was on the verge of claiming him!” protested Ikato. “He wasn’t just an old man — his vital signs confirmed he was actively dying. It was only then that I initiated the collection algorithm.”
“The final entry in your log only records that the transportation was unsuccessful,” said Kevak. “What did you do with Moses?”
Ikato’s heart rate began to climb.
“Stop resisting!” ordered Kevak.
“I…cloned…him,” said Ikato.
“We scanned the chamber you were found in when we first arrived,” said Kevak. “No anomalies have been detected. Where is Moses and his clone?”
“They’re both there,” said Ikato. “Your instruments were set to detect a Vambir cloak — it’s not a cloak that conceals them. There is a cavity underground — I dug it out myself with lasdrills and depleted the oxygen from the air. After that I was completely dependent on the breathing apparatus and tanks. The last thing I did before filling in the cavity was to leave a radiation absorption emitter behind.”
“Absorption emitter?” asked Kevak.
“A device that both emits and absorbs radiation in order to mimic its surroundings,” answered Ikato.
“You will take me there now,” said Kevak as he removed Ikato’s restraints.
BREAKTHROUGH
Lifeboat, Arctic Circle
2046 AD
“Incredible!” exclaimed Merk. “Look at how they bind together to keep the organism intact!”
The camera inside the microscope projected the slide image onto the screen.
“What are we looking at?” asked Jasper.
“It’s been bombarded with radiation,” said Merk, “but there’s no deterioration.”
He changed the slide. “This sample was exposed to smallpox, but the disease couldn’t latch onto the cells because the receptors had been filled. Imagine injecting cement into a keyhole — the key won’t unlock the door after it sets!”
“All of the slides were infused with nanobots,” said Devonna. “Not only do they protect against infectious diseases, but they make wormhole transportation without a spaceship possible because they act like a glue that keeps the atomic integrity intact.”
“That’s not all they do,” said Merk as he reached for another slide. “Those of you with hybrid DNA will need to activate your solar shields.”
Making sure everyone was protected first, he directed a ray of ultraviolet light at the slide. “See? It’s untouched! The samples are from your own hybrid cells.”
“We did the same to a sample consisting of cells taken from Kevak that were in storage,” said Devonna. “The ultraviolet light vaporized it.”
“So that’s why they came back to Earth!” exclaimed Tariq. “The Newlunders underwent a reverse metamorphosis once they were weaned off blood, and their DNA reverted to pure Vambir.”
J’Vor grimaced. “The Vambir who killed Pocatello — they would now be immune to daylight!”
“It’s going to be next to impossible to find them,” said Tariq.
“Not if they need blood to survive,” said Nadia. “It’ll be like the old days when the Vambir were at large and hunting humans — look for clusters of mysterious disappearances.”
“What if they no longer need blood?” asked Emanui. “What if the nanobots have repressed the weaknesses inherent in Vambir DNA? That would explain the tolerance of daylight; maybe it would also allow ingestion of regular food.”
Everyone silently acknowledged the difficulty of the task ahead of them.
“There’s only one way to find out,” said J’Vor. “Inject the nanobots into a hybrid. I volunteer to go first.”
“No,” insisted Tariq. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We have to know what we’re dealing with,” said J’Vor.
“There’s not enough raw material,” said Merk. “We’ll have to splice the samples we have and see if we can grow more from cultures. That will take some time, assuming that it works.”
“Time is what we don’t have,” said J’Vor.
TRANSCENDENTAL
Romano Residence, Colorado
2046 AD
Jirza picked up an appetizer and took a bite. As she slowly chewed, she savored the flavor.
Arkani tried some then bent over and retched. “Disgusting!”
“You ate it too fast,” said Jirza. “Give the nanobots time to adjust your metabolism. We must learn to partake of their food.”
She then turned her attention to Kwetz. “You seem to have gotten the hang of it.”
“I spent many years observing Primitives ingest their food,” he said with a shrug.
His nonchalant manner belied his uneasiness; so desperate had he been to cure Vrin that he had not given any thought of how they would return to Vambiri once transmutation had been achieved, assuming Jirza had worked that out already. But instead of making immediate plans to gain access to a particle accelerator, Jirza was hell-bent on this nonsensical mission of gaining the trust of this rich human female through curing her son.
He had to tread carefully, since his usefulness had ended the second they set foot on Earth. If he pressed Jirza about returning to Vambiri, she would regard him as problematic and could easily decide to eliminate him. All he could do at this point was to pretend that Jirza’s agenda was more important than curing Vrin and hope for the best.
Never before did he feel as vibrant as he did now, and it made the fact that Vrin was wasting away on Vambiri that much harder to bear.
He knew of Jirza’s abilities to read people and had taken precautions against it — he willed his heartbeat and respiration to remain at normal levels. His vital signs did not betray the turmoil inside him, since one slip-up would be his undoing.
Josephine Romano was Jirza’s stepping stone into the elite circles of society. The wealthy woman was a member of a political dynasty established by her grandfather, Gabe Walsh. Not only had Walsh been a long-serving member of the Senate, but he had also been his party’s nominee in the 2032 presidential election. Everyone in Josephine’s well-connected family had seen first-hand what Jirza had done for Sebastian Romano, who was now the picture of health and free of all traces of the cancer that was within hours of claiming him.
Although Josephine never had any political ambitions for herself, Sebastian, despite his youth, had entertained the notion of someday running for public office before his illness had struck him down. He did not have the Walsh name, but he had the pedigree, and his striking good looks coupled with his sharp mind made him a good fit for t
he profession.
But he possessed a quality that did not go over well in the establishment wing of either party: his near-death experience had left him every bit as devout as his mother. The political power brokers who attended soirees at the exclusive parlors in Washington D.C. mocked his faith behind his back and summarily decreed that because of his strongly held convictions, he couldn’t even win an election for dog catcher. Endorsing a convicted embezzler was preferable to running a candidate who believed in faith healing.
Tolum suddenly lifted his head. “They approach.”
Josephine and Sebastian entered the sitting room.
“It was as I suspected,” said Sebastian. “The party leadership will not support my candidacy.”
“You don’t need them,” said Jirza. “They’re nothing but self-appointed talking heads who live in a bubble of privilege. You have been chosen by God — who cares what they think?”
“Third-party candidates have never been anything more than spoilers,” said Sebastian. “The media pushes that perception every time someone looks like overtaking the mainstream.”
“We could appeal to the afflicted,” said Josephine. “We could go into every hospice in poverty-stricken regions of the country and make a real difference. No one could sweep thousands of cases of genuine faith healing under the carpet!”
“We could cover more ground and win over more converts if you could strategically place your acolytes across the country,” said Sebastian to Jirza, warming to the idea. “Tolum could be sent to the midwest, Arkani to the southern states, and Kwetz to the west coast. You could remain with me on the tour of the northeast corridor.”
Kwetz’s heart leapt at the thought of being out from under Jirza’s watchful eye. He immediately realized that he had let his emotions register for the briefest amount of time, and Jirza would have surely detected it. He had to think of something to say to put her suspicions at ease.
“I am not adept in the art of public speaking,” protested Kwetz. “If I were to act on your behalf, the press would continuously pepper me with questions. One slip-up or off-the-cuff remark that reflected badly on you would be headline news for months. Please don’t subject me to that kind of pressure.”
The Nosferatu Chronicles: Return to Vambiri Page 13