The Alien Element

by M. G. Herron

  “He must have granted his own Translocator access when he was here.”

  Amon was torn. He thought about Eliana. What if that black-armored being got to her? What was Lucas planning to do with a MegaPower reactor? A horrible revulsion filled his whole being with nausea as he was split at cross purposes.

  Reuben came up to Amon and put one hand on his shoulder. “Take a deep breath.”

  Amon complied, exhaling shakily.

  Eliana had gone through the rift on her own two feet. She knew the risks. Thinking about it now, it had been foolish to send that other man through armed with nothing but a knife. That black-armored being had decapitated six armed mercenaries with a laser. Amon had seen it with his own two eyes. What was a cave man with a knife going to do against something with that kind of power?

  What would Lucas do with a reactor? Given his track record, it was certainly nothing good. It wasn’t just Eliana who would suffer if he didn’t act, either. Lucas was a threat to the whole world. How many had he already experimented on and killed? How many more must suffer?

  “Ok,” Amon finally said. “We deal with Lucas first. Then I’ll go after Eliana. Reuben, you send me to the lunar platform. Moreno, come with me.”

  “Don’t we need space suits?” Agent Moreno asked.

  “A suit isn’t necessary. There’s no breach in the domes this time.”

  Half a dozen FBI agents crowded onto the translocation platform with Amon and Agent Moreno.

  “Ready?”

  “Here,” Moreno said, handing Amon a pistol. “Just in case.”

  “We’re ready,” Amon said.

  “Stand still.”

  Amon closed his eyes against the light, his stomach flipped, and they found themselves in the lunar base in Dome 2, on the platform.

  A domed ceiling rose above them. In front of them, a ramp led down into the insulated plastic tube that served as a walkway to connect the primary domes of the lunar base and the underground MegaPower reactor.

  White sheets covered three lumps on the floor—the astronauts, where they had been gunned down by Lucas’s mercenaries.

  The FBI agents drew their weapons when they spotted the bodies. Yet all of them still gazed around, looking at their surroundings in wonder.

  “This way.” Amon started off at a brisk walk down the hall. At the second intersection, he opened the airlock and turned into a tunnel that moved left. Once in the tunnel, Agent Moreno gestured, and his men fanned out in front and behind them.

  “Keep your hands off the trigger unless you don’t have any other choice,” Amon said. “The domes are made of a strong plastic, but a few stray bullets could breach the atmosphere. A stray bullet to the reactor could breach the core and irradiate us all.”

  After a few sections of hallway, they finally approached the last segment that led to the door of the reactor. The airlock let them through, and then they were looking at the open door to the reactor—the locks had been drilled through with powerful lasers.

  A ten-foot thick concrete structure insulated and protected the MegaPower core in the center of the reactor—a huge section of the wall had been cut away, exposing the metal core. Wires connecting the klaxon alarm had been cut at the communications panel on the wall, but a red light still spun on the ceiling, illuminating the reactor room in rotating shades of red.

  Inside the main room, Amon saw movement. Beyond the big fans and pumps designed to bleed residual heat out to the surface, Amon could make out a few people walking around on the far end near the reactor itself. Two big blond men lifted and carried a Stirling engine—the piece of equipment that transformed the heat from the nuclear reactor into electricity—between them. That meant they must have detached the engine from the nuclear fission reactor already.

  “Ahh, Amon.” Lucas stepped out from behind the cement heat shield surrounding the core at the center of the large dome. “I was wondering when you’d get here.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” Lucas stepped past the rolling cart.

  When Agent Moreno saw him, he and the other agents drew their guns.

  “Careful, boys! There be radioactive elements.”

  “Easy,” Amon said.

  Agent Moreno adjusted his grip on his pistol. “This bastard killed my partner.”

  “I know.” As he approached, Amon saw that Lucas’s face was drooping down on one side. “What happened to you?”

  Lucas held one arm close to his side, and even seemed to walk with a slight limp. “None of your concern.”

  “Ah, I see what happened. When you translocated out of my lab without the aid of a platform or the carbonado, you were maimed by your own Translocator.”

  Lucas smiled, but it looked more like a grimace now. The left side of his face was paralyzed and didn’t move when he smiled. His suit, however, was still immaculately pressed, his black wingtips polished and clean. Even the tri-folded handkerchief in his pocket was perfectly creased.

  “I’ll admit,” Lucas said, “that my deformity is unfortunate. But it is not irreversible. Now that we have a more reliable power source, nothing can stop us.”

  A wash of sweat prickled to the surface of Amon’s skin as he realized how Lucas was powering his Translocator.

  “You’re using a nuclear reactor as a power source, aren’t you?” Amon said.

  Lucas clapped slowly, the sound echoing hollowly. The second large Stirling engine was carried across the room behind him.

  “Took you long enough,” Lucas smirked.

  “That’s why you were having issues with the translocations. Not a lack of a platform to focus the reassembly—you don’t care if those people get hurt—but you don’t have enough power. You need the plutonium.”

  “Something like that,” Lucas said. “Now that we have the nuclear fission reactor, we won’t need any more plutonium.”

  “You can’t take that with you.”

  Several big men lifted the nuclear core and set it on the cart between the Stirling engines.

  Lucas limped up to Amon until he was standing face to face with him. The deformity of his face was more obvious from here. It looked like a heat source had melted half his face.

  Agent Moreno had followed Lucas with his gun. “I’m warning you.”

  “What? You’re going to shoot me? My men have guns, too, you know.”

  To show him they were telling the truth, the blond men each drew pistols from holsters on their belts.

  “If you shoot, they’ll shoot back. And if one of you misses, you’ll breach the dome and we’ll all get sucked out into the cold vacuum of space.”

  The men rolled the cart forward until they were right behind Lucas. Amon and the FBI men blocked they doorway. The two groups stared at each other for a long minute.

  “He’s right,” Amon said. “Let them go.”

  Amon stepped aside.

  “God damnit, Amon!” Moreno shouted. He kept his gun trained on Lucas.

  “Either shoot me or move, man.” Lucas stepped up until the barrel of Moreno’s gun was pressed against his chest. “You’re wasting your time. The clock is ticking.”

  “What did you say?” Amon ran around the back of the cement heat shield that housed the reactor core. Several brick-shaped objects wrapped in plastic and a small clock had been left on the floor there.

  “Agent Moreno! We have a big problem!”

  “Damnit!” Moreno said. The FBI agents finally stepped aside. Lucas and his men wheeled the rolling cart quickly down the hall. And then they were running, to get to the platform no doubt.

  They slipped through the first airlock and were gone a moment later.

  “Agent Moreno,” Amon said. “You better get over here!”

  “You two, follow them,” Agent Moreno ordered. Then he found Amon at the back of the reactor dome.

  The red letters on the clock currently read, 19:51, and counted backward. It made a small, barely audible beeping sound with each sec
ond that ticked by.

  19:50…

  19:49…

  19:48…

  40

  Behind the Black Curtain

  Rakulo felt a vicious, animal satisfaction deep in his core as the egg cracked under his sandaled heel. He slipped as his foot came down, and he staggered back. The phlegmy fluid coating his body was something between blood and mud, slick and sticky. It got in his mouth and tasted sour and salty at the same time.

  The big egg struck the floor and cracked a second time. Fluid spilled out of it and pooled in a lopsided puddle.

  Xucha roared, a horrible angry sound muffled by his helmet, and bent over the broken egg briefly. Rakulo seized his chance, leaping forward and bringing the knife down on Xucha’s head, going for the killing blow that would destroy his God.

  His aim was true—the blade struck the helmet square in the middle—and glanced off. The tip of the knife sank into the spongy floor.

  Xucha stood up lightning fast and kicked Rakulo in the ribs, knocking the air from his lungs. The knife stayed stuck in the floor.

  Rakulo landed on his wrist, which bent awkwardly. He cried out. Then Xucha let a black-armored fist fall. It struck Rakulo in the jaw. He splayed to the floor.

  Xucha staggered to the side all of a sudden. He used the wall to brace himself. Someone else was on him, hanging from around his neck—Eliana! So she was here after all!

  She gripped her white arms around Xucha’s black-armored head, and twisted. The helmet came off, and Eliana fell backward. She landed on the floor and rolled away, the helmet in her arms.

  Rakulo took advantage of the distraction to take off the bracelet that the old man had given him.

  “Eliana!” he shouted, and threw it in her direction. She caught it in the black helmet, and then lifted it, pressing the button at the same time. The green light went solid. A second later and she was gone in a flash of bright light.

  Rakulo was left facing Xucha across the chamber at the top of his tower, the knife in the floor between them. Beneath his helmet, the God had a snake-like face with big yellowish-brown eyes. His skin was scaly and alien, but covered with delicate colorful feathers like a bird. Where a nose should have been was a vertical slit. But the mouth was wide, and twisted with anger.

  Xucha lunged, and Rakulo dove to avoid him. He was so fast! Rakulo rolled across the floor and came back up to his feet with the knife in his hand once again. He twirled it effortlessly, like an extension of his body.

  “Come on!” he said, turning to kick at another of the eggs near him.

  Xucha’s mouth fell open and he screamed again. Without the helmet to muffle it, the screeching noise reverberated off the walls and made Rakulo’s head ring…except, only on the right side, where his good ear was. He couldn’t hear anything on the left side. That ear had gone bad, and for once, it was an advantage.

  Xucha darted across the room. Rakulo ran the opposite way, shoving another egg off its perch as he went.

  Xucha bent toward the egg and stretched his hands out. But he just missed it. The egg hit the floor, and cracked. Xucha’s shoulders rose and fell once, twice.

  The God was clearly distressed, more worried about protecting the eggs than about stopping Rakulo. It was almost as if Rakulo was nothing more than an irritating insect, a frustrating distraction, but not a real danger—except to the eggs.

  Rakulo took the opportunity to reach down and quickly cut a thin strip of fabric from his tunic. He balled it up, and stuffed it into his good right ear. It stayed in thanks to the sticky ichor coating his body.

  The next time Xucha let out a cry, it was loud, but nothing he couldn’t bear.

  His cries were still cries of horrible pain, like the kind Rakulo had heard his mother make when Rakulo’s younger brother, Tilak, died. The kind of pain only a parent can possibly understand.

  Xucha finished securing the cracked—but not broken—egg back in its spot, then turned slowly back to Rakulo. A twisted, hate-filled snarl split his strange snake-face. He stepped slowly across the room toward Rakulo. Frightened at the sudden focus and slowness of Xucha’s movements, Rakulo backed out of the egg room and into the other chamber from which Eliana and Xucha had first come.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw three round demons on a shelf to his right. Xucha gestured at them, but they didn’t rise.

  He made a fist in his frustration.

  He can’t control them without the helmet, Rakulo thought. This was his chance. Xucha made his way over to the opposite wall, keeping Rakulo in his sight the whole time. At his touch, the wall lit up and shifted, a hundred shapes coming to life and dazzling Rakulo with their twisting forms.

  One of the orbs finally rose from its perch behind him. It wobbled unsteadily, and Rakulo now saw the tools below the half-empty shelf, the blackened, dirty rags. Nonetheless, a blue light spread out from the orb, encompassing Rakulo in its light, and freezing him in place.

  Xucha crossed the room. He took Rakulo’s knife from his paralyzed hand, aimed the point at a spot between his ribs, and slid it deep into his body. Rakulo could only move enough to gasp slightly as his whole body went cold. With his eyes, he glanced down and saw that the blade had sunk up to the handle in his gut.

  Rakulo flinched when Xucha’s feathered head darted in close, but he couldn’t turn away. He was cold, so very cold. And the pain had begun to burn as well.

  Whatever Xucha was, he was not Rakulo’s god. The creature’s breath was hot on his neck. “You’re coming with me,” he whispered.

  Xucha set Rakulo’s paralyzed body on the floor in the center of the chamber near a night-black stone twice as big as his head. Rakulo gritted his teeth when Xucha set him down. The demon continued to hover nearby, the paralyzing beam of light immobilizing Rakulo.

  Xucha touched that wall again, and a dozen tentacles twined together to form a doorway. A rippling black curtain appeared in the doorway. Rakulo thought he could see a similar-looking chamber to the one they were in through the black ripples. Was there another tower? Or somewhere else Xucha could hide?

  Xucha stepped through the black curtain and was gone. In his frozen position he could only watch the open doorway. Xucha returned a minute later, retrieved an egg from the chamber in which Rakulo had arrived, and carried it through the doorway.

  Several long minutes later, Xucha returned empty-handed and went back into the room with the eggs. He gingerly carried a second egg—the one that Rakulo had cracked but not broken—across the room in front of Rakulo, and disappeared through the doorway again.

  All the while, unable to move his limbs or anything more than his eyes, Rakulo bled onto the floor, the knife up to the hilt in his side, and watched as Xucha transported his little godlings to safety.

  41

  Two Dangers

  Eliana stumbled forward and nearly crashed into a steel ring that sliced down in front of her face.

  She gasped, then darted through the gap in the rings before they had fully come to a stop.

  “Eliana, is that you?” Audrey called from across the lab. The dozen or so men pointing pistols at her waited.

  “For the love of god, lower your guns,” Audrey said. “I’ve just had about enough of guns for a lifetime.” She hurried over to Eliana’s side and guided her to a nearby chair.

  Eliana glanced down at the helmet in her hands. She worked her lips a few times but no words came out. It was always jarring coming through the Translocator, but this was another level of contrast entirely.

  “Audrey,” she finally said. “He’s in danger. I have to help him.”

  “Who is in danger?”

  “Rakulo.”

  “Is that the man that they sent back to look for you?”

  “Yes! He found me. Remethiakara…I mean, Xucha was there. They were fighting, and Rakulo threw the transponder to me. I panicked, pressed the button, and then I was here. But I have to go back. I have to help him.”

  “We’ll do what we can, I promise. But first…” />
  She glanced toward Reuben and Jeanine and the other scientists, who were now crowding around the holodeck. Eliana felt a moment of relief, seeing Reuben, to know that he had made it home safe. When had he returned?

  Faint voices came from the middle of the gathering, from a speaker near the holodeck itself.

  “Agent Moreno,” Amon’s voice shouted. “You better get over here!”

  But Amon wasn’t here. He was somewhere else.

  “What’s happening?” Eliana said.

  Audrey just shook her head.

  “Oy gevalt…” Reuben said with a groan. “That little pisha.”

  42

  One Emergency at a Time

  When Agent Moreno finally caught sight of the bomb, his skin went pale and waxy.

  Amon looked from the FBI agent’s face to the red-lettered digital clock facing up on the top of it. Exposed wires ran from the back of the clock to the wrapped packages stacked below.

  Nothing fancy about it. Just good old fashioned plastic explosives, arranged in a brick about two feet tall by two feet thick. Enough, Amon figured, to blow the top off the auxiliary dome housing the nuclear facility—inflatable interior, radiation shield, and all.

  They’d be picking up the pieces for months.

  “We need to go,” Amon said. He grabbed Agent Moreno and pulled him away from the bomb.

  “We need a bomb squad,” Agent Moreno said. “I have some basic training on how to defuse bombs, but…” He reached out his shaking hands and began to fiddle with the colorful wires. The other FBI agents shifted nervously. Agent Moreno dropped his hands to his sides and sighed. “Not enough.”

  “Reuben, did you get that?” Amon said.

  Reuben’s voice came after the normal delay. “Loud and clear.”

  “What do you mean, bomb squad?” someone else said, the voice faint but distinctly female. Amon gasped. He knew that voice.

  “Let’s get out of here while we can,” he said.

  Wasting no time, Amon sprinted down the access tunnel the way that Lucas and his men had gone a moment before. He slapped his hand against the button that would open the airlock, ran through the adjacent segment, and slammed his hand into the button for the next airlock. By this time he was panting hard. Ahead, he saw a flash of light as the platform disassembled Lucas and the nuclear equipment.