by S. T. Boston
“I know,” Maya replied, just as Adam's phone lit up with an incoming text message. “With the ones who died during the incident in the lead up to The Reaper, and the ones Sam has killed, there aren't many higher intellect, senior Earth-Breed left.” She watched him anxiously as he scanned the phone's screen before he let out a long, relieved breath. “Is that your sister?”
“Yes. She can't get a connection to call, but she says, 'I'm safe, have things to tell you, see you soon.' Thank God.” Adam checked his watch. “How are we for fuel?” He craned his neck to read the small gauge.
“We should be fine,” replied Maya, flicking her dark eyes down to the dimly lit dash. They passed the hulk of a crashed passenger jet, abandoned in a field to their right, its bulbous front end silhouetted against the sky like a man-made mountain. Every time Adam saw these things, it reminded him how lucky they'd been to escape from the Egypt Air flight with barely a scratch. There were many grim reminders like this one, scattered all over the globe. There just weren't enough resources left to clean up all the wreckage. One day, hopefully soon, macabre monuments such as the wrecked 747 they'd just passed would be gone. “After we fled I was on my own for many months, living as best I could, like many of the remaining Earth-Humans. As society slowly got back on its feet, I was contacted by another Earth-Breed – Benjamin Hawker – he was a former US Government employee.” Maya looked a little forlorn. “He was directly involved in the hunt for you and Sam when you were— on the run. He informed me that one of our kind had been killed in an execution-style murder here in England. He feared the Arkkadians were once again here on Earth, intending to track us all down. At the time, we had no idea it was Sam Becker. We now know that the Arkkadians are the ones selecting the targets, they're just using Sam Becker to carry out their work.”
“How the hell have you managed to learn so much?” Adam asked, adjusting the heater. It was becoming more than a little stuffy in the small cab of the Mazda.
“That's not important right now,” Maya replied curtly.
“I think it's very important, if I'm going to trust you. How do I know you're not still working for them? How do I know that this isn't some clever ploy to take me easily?” Maya fired him a look which revealed she was hurt by his last statement. “You've got to admit it would be a very easy way to do things cleanly.”
“I see your point,” she conceded, sounding glum. “Do you know anything of what the Arkkadian people have done after your return to Earth?”
“Nothing.” Adam had often wondered how things had played out in the months after he and Sam had been sent home. Almost every fibre of his body had wanted to stay on that peaceful planet; had it not been for Lucie, he wouldn't have returned home. Oriyanna had told him she would likely be sent to Sheol to oversee the war effort, and it had crossed his mind more than once that something might have happened to her. It was fair to say that returning home was a gamble, a gamble which had paid off. Without the benefit of the Tabut, or Ark as he preferred to think of it, it had taken them a full seven days to get back aboard one of the Arkkadian scout vessels. Despite his never ending wonder at the technological marvel they'd travelled in, the seven-day trip had seemed to take an age. Not a waking minute of the trip had gone by, without him thinking of his sister and whether he'd find her alive. His brain sent him back to that day for a minute. He and Sam had returned to London in the early hours of a Sunday morning. The rains which had washed the virus from the planet had stopped. That day, the sun was just starting to peek over the tops of the terrace houses, and the air had been pleasantly warm with the promise of an unusually hot May day. Despite the pleasant warmth, there had been something far more sinister in the air. The smell of decay. His back garden, which had once been his father's pride and joy, now resembled nothing more than a muddy quagmire. Small mist trails of swiftly-evaporating water reached up from the ground resembling long, spindly snakes being charmed from the sodden grass as they reached for a sun which worked feverishly to take the vast amounts of water from the ground. At first, Adam had been relieved to see that every window of the house was covered with opaque plastic sheeting. Thank god, she listened and took my advice, had been his first thought. Finding the back door locked, he'd spent a good few minutes banging on it inanely with Sam, hoping to see Lucie making her way through the kitchen to discover what all the fuss was about. After getting no reply, he'd gone to the shed and found a pickaxe that hadn't been used since his parents were alive. His father, who'd been a stickler for maintaining his tools, had sharpened the blade on a regular basis. The handle, now a mixture of flaking red paint and clear lacquer, would lead most to believe the tool was useless, but the axe was still as sharp as the day it had left the store. With Sam's help he'd used it to hack away at the door until the lock had been smashed to pieces, and with a metallic clang, fell to the floor. Part of him hadn't wanted the door to give, sure that once inside he'd be faced with the grim task of searching from room to room, wondering with the opening of each door if he'd find his sister lying there, dead. Stepping into the kitchen he'd called her name, but gotten no reply. Shaking uncontrollably, Sam by his side they'd cautiously made their way through to the lounge. Huddled behind the large brown leather sofa Sam had slept on the night before they'd left, clutching a baseball bat in one hand and Jinx the cat in the other, was his sister. For a few long seconds, she'd remained there, staring at him through wide, frightened eyes, seemingly unable to believe her eyes. A tearful reunion had ensued, followed by the long and protracted job of explaining everything that had happened. As painful as it had been for him to leave Oriyanna and her promise of a life together, he knew the moment he saw Lucie behind the sofa that he'd made the right choice.
“In the months after the virus,” Maya began, snapping him back from the memory, “the Arkkadians hit Sheol, and the attack was far greater than the one after the Great War. This time, they didn't just want to destroy their craft and maroon them on that remote rock, they wanted to take control. After multiple air attacks they sent ground troops in. Sheol was a mining planet; long before the Great War it was a hive of activity – it has a vast series of nine underground levels, and each has separate structures and caverns. Air strikes were not enough to flush out those responsible, and the Arkkadian troops knew they would have to take the fight deep into the planet itself, to the lowest levels of the old mines. Their mission was to capture the Elders who remained there, wanting to ensure something like this could never happen again. Whilst they wanted to take as many of their leaders as possible, their primary mission was to capture him.”
“Asmodeous? Adam questioned, and he heard the foreboding in his own voice.
“Yes,” Maya replied. “All of the non-Elders on Sheol had been born there; like me, they could not help what they were a part of. They are currently being held on Sheol under Arkkadian rule. Those who are not willing to be repatriated are facing execution. I fear that many of them will die; their hatred for the Arkkadians has built up over many generations.”
“Just how many are there living there?” Adam was creating a picture in his head of the hellish place, imagining the Elders and civilian population living within the planet like a massive, evil army of ants.
“Due to the size of the planet and its inability to sustain crops and fresh water without the use of technology, just a few hundred million. They have very strict birth control laws, to stop the planet becoming over-populated.”
“They deserve whatever's coming,” said Adam bitterly, hatred burning hot in his gut. “I take it the Elders will face execution?”
“The ones they captured, yes.”
He turned sharply to stare at her. “What do you mean, the ones they captured?”
“Before the first attack, a single craft – Arkus 2 – made its escape from the planet. She used to be an Arkkadian vessel, hijacked by Asmodeous and stolen during the Great War. Aboard were three Elders and Asmodeous himself.”
“Do you know where they went?” asked Adam, altho
ugh he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer. There was only one way Maya could know so much about the events of the last few years.
“Where else did they have to go? Here. Earth. They spent many months on the craft, and they didn't come here directly. Only when they had no food or supplies left, did they risk it.”
“How long ago?” Adam snapped.
“Six months.”
“And you know where he is?” Adam rubbed at his tired eyes and wondered just how much more there was that he didn't know.
“Yes, it's where I travelled from, to reach you today. He is in a place where he once ruled during the ancient times on Earth, before the Great War. Thousands of years ago, there was a city there. There is no trace of it now, however, other than some massive etchings on the ground which Earth-Humans have been puzzling about since their discovery.
“Please tell me I'm won't have to head back to Egypt,” Adam groaned. “I'd always wanted to visit the pyramids, but last time, I got a little more of the ancient Egyptian experience than your average holidaymaker.”
Maya laughed nervously. “No, the empires held by the Arkkadian people in the old days were vast and spread across the globe. He's in an area known as Nazca, in Peru, and he isn't just hiding there, he wants revenge. The craft he's in, although ancient, is still far more advanced than any Earth technology. He's planning to use it, and a select number of Earth-Breed, against you.”
“Impossible,” said Adam defiantly, although even he didn't believe his own statement. “If there is a massive spacecraft out in the Nazca desert, I'm sure someone would have seen it.”
“Adam, you've been to Arkkadia, you know the technology that's at hand. Even when his craft was built, many years ago, what you would call a cloaking device was considered old tech. I promise you that his craft is out there, in the desert. Those impressive lines on the ground, those were created for him by slaves he bred to create massive monuments in his honour. He truly believed he was a god among the men he and his people had created. His vanity wouldn't have taken him anywhere else on this planet. Despite the city which once lay there being long gone, the ground monuments remained. The Nazca people called him Viracocha; they saw him as a creator, but he was far from being that. He's held many names among Earth's various religions but I think you know only too well what name you would know him by.”
Adam didn't need to speak it, the very thought of it made his hairs stand on end.
Maya continued. “His hatred for humanity is incredibly powerful. Sheol is lost, and Earth is lost to him and his people. If he can't have it, he'd decided no one can. He's planning a last stand that will leave this planet as dead as Mars!”
Chapter 7
Rico Farez was sure he'd seen that particular lampshade before, and lying there in the grainy darkness, the suspicion turned to certainty. Swallowing back the phlegm which seemed stuck in his otherwise parched throat, his confused, pounding brain tried to deduce where he'd seen it. The answer finally came to him – Ikea. Whoever that lampshade belonged to, must once have shopped at the furniture giant. Rico wasn't sure why his head had been tackling such a pointless and inane question since he came around a few minutes ago, but he felt some satisfaction in knowing he'd managed to solve the issue. The next problem was, what the hell was he doing here staring at a lampshade in the first place? Rolling his head slightly to the right, he felt hard tiles beneath his shaved head. Straining to see in the dimly lit room, he could just make out a tangled mess which was a pair of legs, sticking out at odd angles from behind a breakfast bar in the middle of the modestly-sized kitchen. There appeared to be a thin rug under the legs, breaking the expanse of neatly-tiled floor. As his brain worked on who the hell the legs might belong to, he realised that the owner of the legs wasn't laying on a rug at all. Further inspection confirmed they were laying in a pool of blood which appeared black in the darkness. The thick, viscous liquid had spread out a good few feet from the body, marooning it on its own little island.
With more than a little trepidation, Rico slid his hand from his stomach and touched the floor to his left, searching for his own island of blood. His fears were confirmed when his hand dropped into the thick, sticky liquid that had cooled on the tiled floor. In a moment of blind panic he tried to sit up, the attempt futile when he realised with mounting horror that he couldn't feel his legs. Not only that, but his whole body felt numb, like a piece of old rubber. Turning his head to the left, he could just make out a light, shining brightly in a hallway on the other side of the adjoining lounge. The sound of a gull cawing, outside the house, brought the events leading up to his unusual situation flooding back, “Fisher,” he croaked, his dry throat protesting. Rico swallowed, wincing at the pain which flared up like fire in his gut. “Adam Fisher?” The name left his lips posed as a question – he knew it was important, and more than likely the reason he was in this predicament.
Like an unanchored boat on rough seas, his mind bobbed and pitched from one thought to the next, quickly and erratically. He began cursing the Elders, for not granting the front-line agents the Gift, which rendered situations like this avoidable. The Gift had to be earned; the only trouble was, you often died trying to earn it. The irony of the fact wasn't lost on Rico, even in his painfully bleak situation. A wave of thought washed over his brain and that name pushed to the forefront again – Adam Fisher – however this time, the name of a town also slipped in beside it – Brighton.
Rico cranked his neck to the side. It felt as if it needed a good oiling, and his bones creaked under his skin, as if they were a set of rusty old hinges on an unkempt garden gate. His eyes focused on the legs still sticking out bizarrely from behind the breakfast bar. He was sure he must know the owner of those legs – not that it would do him much good. He suspected the legs were attached to a body which was well and truly dead. In that moment, a tidal wave of memories overwhelmed him, flooding his mind with the night's events – but it brought him no comfort.
Rico was a dead man – if he didn't die here, he couldn't help thinking that he'd regret it. He closed his eyes and replayed the night's events, hoping to remember a single scrap of information which might spare him, should he ever manage to extricate himself from this small island of sticky, cold blood.
* * *
Rico glanced up at the darkened windows of the bungalow on Wilson Avenue, noting how the road sloped gently downhill toward the sea. In daylight, the majority of these modest homes would have stunning, yet expensive views over the coast.
“His book talk begins in twenty-five minutes,” a soft female voice said from the rear seat.
“You're certain he will return here tonight?” Chris Grogan asked, craning his trunk-like neck around from the driver's seat to look at her.
“We tailed him from here to the hotel half an hour ago,” Maya snapped. “He won't risk driving back to London tonight – even if he makes it before curfew, the streets are not a good place to be.”
Rico cracked open the door of the BMW 3 Series, allowing cool, coastal air to flood the stuffy cab, the smell of the sea instantly wafting around them. In the distance, the sound of waves breaking on the stony beach filtered into the brisk night. “We go in through the rear door, just as we planned,” Rico croaked, his Eastern European accent harsh. “As soon as he comes in, Chris will hit him with the tranq-gun, then it's a swift run to the airport, and a short flight to France where he will be reunited with his friend and sister, before…” Rico smiled, relishing the thought of turning both Fisher and Becker over to him – the great one. “Let's hope they packed some sun lotion, it's a bit warmer where they're going.”
“Enough chat,” cut in Maya. “Let's get inside, it's freezing out here.” They jumped out of the car and hurried down the brick paved drive; the wind was bitingly cold, late September was promising a hard winter. Since the seven-day storm, the seasons had shifted, earlier summers and earlier winters becoming the new norm. Keeping their bodies up against the half brick, half-timber clad wall, they rounded
the back of the bungalow one-by-one. Chris rushed in from the right, his massive hulk of a body powering through the flimsy larch lap gate as if it was made of soggy paper. The gate swung open with a crack when the latch broke and it swung back, hitting the fence hard.
Rico watched Maya wince at the loud noise, but it was likely that a good proportion of these houses were empty, and besides, in these uncertain times, people kept themselves to themselves. With a last, tentative glance for prying eyes, they slipped into the back garden.
At the rear door, Rico dug a small cloth roll from his jacket pocket. He uncoiled it on the concrete step at the rear door and fished out a pair of long, thin needle-like pliers. He slipped the implement into the lock and expertly began to feel his way around inside the barrel, feeling for how the key to this lock would work the mechanism. In less than ten seconds the latch clicked, and pressing a little weight onto the door it swung inward, bathing his chilled skin in warmer, slightly stale air. Rico leaned to one side and let Maya and Chris slip past him. He placed the lock-picking tool neatly into the kit roll and secured it in his jacket, making his way in, just a few seconds behind the others, only pausing to shut the door quietly behind him.
The kitchen was a decent size, with a modest breakfast bar standing like an island in the centre of the room. The breakfast bar had a built-in coffee machine, and it looked as if it hadn't been used in a good few years. Despite the tidy appearance, the surfaces were covered with dust. “I'm guessing he doesn't holiday here much!” mused Rico, running a finger through the dust on the espresso machine and rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. “It's not bad around here,” he continued, surveying the kitchen and squinting through the gloom into the lounge, which was visible through a large, open arch. “Pity this will all be wasteland in a few days' time – I could see myself retiring here.” He grinned smugly at Maya, but she rounded the arch and disappeared into the lounge.