by Toby Tate
Exasperated, Gabe realized arguing was useless and time was short.
“Okay, but stay here behind the dune in case something happens. We’ll send Max as soon as we’re at the compound.” She was about to leave, and then turned and took Gordon’s hand. “Stay safe,” she said, and headed for the chopper.
As they were about to board the Little Bird, Gabe heard Scooter yelling behind them. She glanced back and saw the machine slowly rising above the sand dunes, and a section of the space around it seemed to be warping, as if she was seeing it through a glass fishbowl, with a perfect circle widening in the center of it, pushing the space outward. She realized it was a result of the wormhole effect being created by Cain and the creature inside the sphere. If Abel didn’t act soon, Gabe realized, the earth’s magnetic field would be drained and they would be incinerated by cosmic rays.
* * *
It had been alive longer than time could even measure, for it was virtually immortal. There were others of its kind, but they were few. They had touched more universes than most beings realized even existed, had experienced countless worlds, endless stars and galaxies and visited the minds of the inhabitants of advanced civilizations in every dimensional reality. And then, they had lured it into a trap, taking advantage of its natural curiosity and childlike innocence and trust, baited with the promise of something new, something it had never experienced.
So here it sat for incalculable eons, inside this strange container, left alone with its own thoughts and its memories of freedom. It had no need of food or drink, or even sleep, but like all living things, there was one thing it craved—companionship. There was no longer any outside stimulation to feed its enormous intellect, and soon, it thought only of death and began to lose itself, the essence of what it once was—it slowly began to go insane.
But then something happened. Another mind spoke to it from outside its container, and it was like heaven itself to have communion with another being, like a warm, shining light after a long, endless darkness. Whether or not it was a hallucination, it could not be sure, but the being told it that it would soon be set free, but that freedom would come at a price—the price would be life itself. But what was life without freedom, without the stimulation of other intelligences? Just meaningless existence.
Then the being went away and it was alone.
But it took comfort in knowing that its suffering would soon end and that it would once again be free.
* * *
Abel awoke on the floor and glanced up at the spectacle of Cain standing with arms outstretched like some kind of demigod outlined in blazing white light, the power from the magnetic field shooting into his body, the floor beneath, and into the vessel itself. He glanced around at the symbols etched into the walls and saw that they, too, radiated with the power that was flowing through the vessel. He knew that down below, the creature inside the sphere, the one he had conversed with, was using that power against its will to bend space-time and enable the vessel to traverse the cosmos with ease.
Abel rose to his feet and walked to where Cain stood gazing up at the sky, his white-blonde hair standing on end, his face shining like the sun. Abel couldn’t help but think of the New Testament scripture where Jesus had climbed a mountain and conversed with Moses and Elijah. Jesus’ “face shone like the sun,” and Peter had offered to build monuments in honor of the three men. This vessel was also a monument, Abel realized—a monument to what the Lilitu could accomplish, to their greatness, their ambition, and their superiority.
But it was also a monument to all that was evil in the universe, a symbol of absolute nihilism.
He glanced around at the sleeping bodies in the suspended animation tubes lining the walls—males and females with white-blonde hair and flawless features, all eerily similar in appearance, their smooth, pliant brains not yet stamped by knowledge or life experience—his kindred. And the Lilitu were not only indestructible, they lived for centuries, at least here on earth. As Cain had said, they were perfect in every way. Did he have the right to destroy life, even if he found that life to be abhorrent? Were they not created by the same God that had created man?
He thought of a world with no humanity, no spirituality, only sensuality. Eventually, they would grow to maturity and with their vast intellect they would reach out to the stars and populate entire solar systems and galaxies, conquering and dominating whatever life forms they may find there.
And they would destroy that life.
The vessel rose ever higher, closer to the doorway that he knew awaited it just outside as the earth’s magnetic field began to weaken from the drain that the vessel was putting on it. Soon, it would completely disappear and life on the planet would be non-existent within a matter of weeks, if not days.
The machine hummed and vibrated from the immense power that Cain was channeling through it, the light so bright that Abel had to shield his eyes, and he remembered Lydia’s last words to him: “Wherever you go, I am always there with you.”
A single tear trickled down Abel’s cheek as he swung open the gate to his brain and telegraphed one last message. They were now mere feet from the space between worlds that would allow them to traverse light years of distance in but a few moments time. Cain turned his face to look at his clone and Abel thought that he saw not fear, but bewilderment in Cain’s eyes as he slid a hand into his pocket...
God forgive me
...and pressed the button.
Chapter Sixty-Two
The Little Bird was making its way across the barren landscape toward the UNICAT when Gabe felt Mad Dog tap her on the shoulder. She looked over and he pointed down. On the sand below were two of the Humvees that had driven away from the excavation site earlier.
“These guys are fucking crazy!” he yelled over the din of the helicopter rotors. But there wasn’t time to turn around and try to take them out. Cain’s machine was about to be obliterated, and anything within a kilometer would disintegrate from the heat. Gabe watched as one of them stopped and a soldier popped out of the roof with a rocket launcher pointed up at them.
Mad Dog’s eyes grew wide. “Oh shit!”
But the man below never got a chance to fire.
At first, they saw the flash, followed by the deafening boom of the explosion. But the worst was the percussive wave. A tsunami of sand blew into the Little Bird’s tail section, filling the cockpit and pummeling them like a giant fist, forcing them into an uncontrollable spin. Gabe saw sky, ground, sky, ground, over and over until she thought she would be sick.
“Hang on, we’re gonna hit!” she heard Max yell.
When they finally impacted the sand, she blacked out.
* * *
Gabe felt a hand on her shoulder, shaking it gently. And then she heard a voice, far way at first, but getting closer as she fought her way through to consciousness.
“Gabe. Hey, Gabe, you okay?”
She slowly opened her eyes—it was Bio. He looked like hell—shirt ripped in several places, a bloody lip, lacerated brow—but at least he was alive. She was sure she looked just as bad, or worse.
She propped herself up on one elbow and looked around. Everyone was checking out the Little Bird, which meant nobody was seriously injured—except for One Shot, who was lying on the ground unconscious. The nose of the craft was buried in the sand, but the main rotor looked straight, as did the tail rotor.
Gabe held out a hand and he pulled her to her feet. “Did the chopper make it?”
“It’s still in one piece, if that’s what you mean.”
Gabe glanced up at the dune in front of her and noticed that it was shorter than normal and level on top, as if it had been evened out with a giant shovel. She walked around Bio and climbed up to the top. As far as her eyes could see, every dune had been leveled and some of the sand on the desert floor glistened in the sun where the intense heat had turned it to glass. As luck would have it, they had been protected by this last dune. In the direction of the excavation she could see curling wisp
s of smoke, but no fires. She wondered how big the crater would be, or if there was one. Since there was no nuclear material in the vessel, they wouldn’t have to worry about radiation fallout.
Abel had given his life to save them and she would be forever in his debt. She would have to tell Lydia, and that was a task she did not look forward to.
Then, she glanced over at the men and remembered they were still missing someone.
“Gordon and Scooter,” she murmured.
She ran back down the dune and over to the chopper. “Come on, we have to get this thing in the air,” she said, and began pushing on the nose of the Little Bird.
“I’m afraid she’s not going anywhere,” Max said. “She’s clogged up with sand and all her filters and fluids have to be changed. I’ll have to do a full mechanical before I can even start the engine. She’s grounded until we get back stateside.”
Gabe stared at Max for a moment, digesting what he had said and weighing their options.
“We have to get One Shot to the UNICAT and get him patched up,” she said. “We’re close to the camp, so the UNICAT should be close by. Bio, you stay here with One Shot while Mad Dog and Max go back and get the Range Rover. Take Bio and One Shot to the UNICAT, then go to the bunker.”
Max furrowed his brow. “What are you gonna do?”
“I’m going to go find Gordon and Scooter. It’s less than a klick, so I should make it in under a half hour.”
* * *
As Gabe hiked across the wasted landscape, fatigue began to beat her down like a double dose of gravity. Every step felt as if she wore concrete boots, the sand pulling at her feet like suction cups. Her injured finger throbbed and her brain was still fuzzy from the helicopter crash and from her near-death experience courtesy of Abel. She was surprised she could move at all. But she would continue on until she could walk no more. Her fist priority was finding Gordon and Scooter, and the only thing that would stop her was serious injury or death.
The scene around her reminded her of something out of a TV documentary about the horrors of the atomic bomb. As barren as it had been before, it was even more so now, as dead and lifeless as the surface of Mars. Sections of the ground had been subjected to heat so intense it had turned the sand to glass, which crunched to pieces under her boots like broken pottery shards. Everywhere she looked was covered with shrapnel from the machine, big pieces and small, blackened and charred, some of it melted out of shape by the million-degree heat. After walking for what seemed like hours, she could see the area up ahead where they had last seen Scooter and Gordon.
It was impossible to tell where the MRAP had even been, or even the larger TPz troop carrier. They were buried under tons of sand, and there was no way to get them out without digging tools. Unfortunately, all the construction equipment lay behind her in smoldering ruins. If Gordon and Scooter had climbed into the MRAP at the last minute, they had run out of breathable air by now, or if not, they would by the time they were dug up.
Gabe turned and looked over the rest of the site and noticed something—the big steel doors that had housed the excavation were closed, and they had withstood the incredible heat from the explosion. That meant that everything underneath would have survived, as well.
Chapter Sixty-Three
Gabe trekked across the flattened dune and then stopped and stared at the devastation. The ground around the massive steel doors had been blasted into a crater, and was now like a huge bowl filled with warped and charred metal from the construction equipment and shattered glass from the solar panels. Here and there, wisps of smoke still curled up into the desert sky. She could see parts of Cain’s machine in the crater, as well, and thought of Abel. It was as if a giant fist had come down from the sky and smashed everything to rubble, and then set it all on fire. She was forced to go around the tangled wreckage to get to the concrete bunker’s entrance, wasting even more precious time.
When she arrived at the opposite side of the crater, she saw that the bunker was no longer there. It, too, had been destroyed in the blast.
Gabe could feel the blood pumping through her temples as her helmet pressed up against her skull. She snatched it off her head and tossed it on the ground. “Shit! This is crazy.” She knew that they were probably running out of oxygen, or the ceiling could have collapsed—she had to get in there.
There was no way she was going to dig her way into the bunker entrance, and she couldn’t open those steel doors. Then it hit her.
The Humvees, the ones that had chased after them earlier—they had to have come from somewhere. She had to find the opening, and hope that it hadn’t been covered over by the blast. She prayed that when she did eventually get inside, Scooter and Gordon were there...and still alive.
* * *
She walked for an hour through the sand and rubble, beginning close to the blast area, working her way outward in a concentric circle. Hopelessness gnawed at her insides like a hungry parasite as the desert sun rose higher in the sky, the ever-increasing heat weakening her body as well as her mind. Where the hell was this other entrance? Did it even exist? She was exhausted from the hike, from the battle, from the chopper crash, from her near-death experience—it was all beginning to take its toll and Gabe wasn’t sure how much longer she could hold out.
All at once, she saw what appeared to be a small sand dune with a section of concrete peeking through. She ran to it and began to wipe away the sand, quickly uncovering part of an entrance similar to the one they had used to access the bunker earlier. It was facing away from where the blast occurred, so the sand had only covered the outside and was piled about halfway up the opening. She crawled on her belly and dropped down into the space, landing on a solid concrete passageway. It was definitely big enough for an MRAP to drive through, she thought.
She broke out a Maglite and followed the passage until she came to a large, truck-sized opening and went inside. It looked like a bay where vehicle maintenance was done—there were several tool boxes and machines for performing tune-ups, tires and rims, and a couple of Humvees. There was no one inside. One good thing about the explosion, she figured—it had taken out the rest of Cain’s hired goons.
She kept walking until she reached a smaller steel door, pulled it open, and went through. She found herself once again standing in front of the excavation where the huge machine had been. Gabe shone her light up and saw the big steel trap doors had bowed slightly from the heat, but the concrete around it was cracked and crumbling to pieces. The sand above had acted as an extra barrier that kept it from getting blasted, but only to a point. She needed to find Scooter and Gordon and get out before the whole place caved in.
Then she heard a noise—there were voices, people talking. She followed the sound to the room where the scientists and construction workers were being held and pulled on the door handle. It wouldn’t budge—the frame had been bent by the bunker settling after the explosion.
“Scooter!” Gabe yelled. “Gordon! I’m out here! Can you move the door? It’s stuck!”
She saw the door begin to swing open slowly and grabbed hold of the handle to help. The bottom scraped against the concrete with a squeal, until she finally had an opening big enough to walk through. Dust and debris floated in the air of the room and she saw that the ceiling hadn’t fared as well—part of it had caved in and a couple of men were buried beneath it. Scooter and some of the others were moving sections of it, freeing them. Gordon stood staring at her, his clothes torn and tattered and his face covered with cuts and bruises. He looked like a little lost boy, she thought.
Gordon tried to smile, but winced instead, touching an abrasion on his cheek. “Ow.”
Gabe took his hand in hers. “I told you I’d be back. I thought you were dead when we couldn’t find the MRAP.”
“I kind of feel like I’m dead right now.”
She glanced over at the fallen concrete as the last man was pulled out and laid flat on the floor. It looked as if they had all survived; although some of them hadn
’t gotten over the effects of the parasites and were still unable to move themselves.
“When we saw that anomaly form above Cain’s machine, we knew we were out of time, so our only option was coming back inside the bunker,” Gordon said. “When the explosion hit, it hit hard. The ground shook like a nine-point-oh earthquake was rattling it. Then the lights went out and the ceiling caved in. I thought it was the end.”
Gabe smiled. “That makes two of us.” She told him about One Shot, about the chopper going down, and about the scene of devastation outside the bunker.
Gordon slowly shook his head. “Wow. I guess we’re all lucky to be alive.” They stared at each other for a few moments, and Gabe thought of how his blue eyes reminded her of the Caribbean ocean. Then he sighed and said, “Well, I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The ones who could walk helped carry the rest outside the bunker and onto the sand, where they would wait for help.
Max and Mad Dog showed up in the Range Rover and drove them to the UNICAT, where Bio had One Shot under sedation. They needed to get him to a doctor soon. They radioed in the location of the bunker and the construction workers and scientists. An hour later, they were headed back to Al Dhafra Air Base and left the rest of the cleanup to someone else—as far as Gabe was concerned, she was done.
She knew that the place would be crawling with UAE intelligence within hours and the CIA would want to go over the area, as well. She was sure that the entire incident would never be known by the media as anything other than the site of UAE and American Air Force jets that crashed during a training exercise.