The pipe was narrow, but Lilly could see at least half-a-dozen of them, their eyes blinking back the light like little sparking fireflies.
She remembered the first time she had shown them to the Coven.
They had all gathered round – all of them – summoned by the Elders, after Lily had gone straight to Ginger.
Lily had opened up the grate in the wall, and introduced them to a talking dragon.
Within this small circle, it might as well have been a burning bush or a crying portrait of the Virgin Mary.
What better way to start a new religion than with Scripture right out of the horse's mouth?
Lily had failed the Coven once. Now she found herself back in favor.
More than that, they were looking to Lily as if she were the prophet's chosen voice – even Ginger and Luna.
The only off-note was Michelle, who had been morose in the couple of weeks since nurse Rosa had disappeared. Lily didn't know the details, but Michelle had been brought in for questioning by General Rhodes himself.
Michelle had not talked about it. And in point of fact, seemed rather cowed.
That by itself, left Lily more frightened of Rhodes than anything since she had been on the Mount.
Ginger had broached Michelle, tentatively, in the time since, but was forcefully rebuked.
When push came to shove, Ginger was older sister. In a knuckle-up, Michelle was BIG sister, and so, for the moment, she was allowed her space.
The rest of the Coven, however, were assigned duties – it was not too hard to charm a soldier into doing favors – certainly not anything as harmless as setting a helpless lab-animal free.
Lily had already been one of the first to embrace the young soldiers on the base, Arc Project or no Arc Project – and in fact, she was wondering if she might not already be pregnant. Although, it was just possible she might have been a little knocked-up before she actually got to the Mount.
No need to throw that on the record, though – certainly not to Corporal Stevens.
The elevator slowed as it approached the upper-levels, before stopping at the maintenance floor.
Corporal Stevens smiled as Lily rolled her cart out.
“See you later?” he asked.
But she shook her head sadly.
“Not tonight,” she said, without explanation – just as Ginger taught her. Let him wonder. Stevens looked appropriately crestfallen as the elevator door shut in front of him.
Lily checked her bag. She had gone ahead and made her grab. The small container had been waiting next to the trash. With Rhodes there, she had almost chickened out, and had only grabbed it up because she was more afraid they might find it.
She opened the little box. Inside, were several glowing green vials – along with a pack of pneumatic injector needles.
Something for the next shipment out – and there had been a lot of flights lately.
Still, Rhodes had been in the lab.
Ginger, she decided, would have to be told.
Tomorrow, the Coven would honor KT-day – and Lily wanted nothing to go wrong.
Chapter 11
The young woman's name was Kristie Morgan, and she had made her way down from Alaska over the last several months, working her way through Canada until she had just now reached the border of Montana, into the United States.
For whatever reason, the northern territories tended to have fewer of the really large beasts – the odd bloom notwithstanding – possibly because of the largely higher elevations. But they were well-stocked with sickle-claws.
Kristie had been trapped in her cabin for weeks.
As the Alaskan nights had started to grow long, packs of sickle-claws became ever bolder, even as she picked them off one at a time with an old-fashioned bolt-action rifle she had bought for protection during the polar bear migration. But the polar bears hadn't shown this year.
Perhaps they had already been eaten.
When her supplies low, Kristie had fled across the tundra.
And although she had no idea, Major Tom had watched her every step of the way.
Of all those who had witnessed the apocalypse, Major Tom had the best view.
Major Tom Corbett had been in space for eighteen months – a recently launched single-man station, purportedly designed for communications, but actually a surveillance vessel – dubbed the Eye in the Sky. Tom was hooked into every satellite in space, and he had seen the world end from every linked viewscreen on Earth. In high-definition.
At the beginning, he had received a lot of broadcasts from below – even after the digital platforms were fried there was still ham radio, CBs and walkie-talkies. Some people even broadcast video. Kristie had been one of those. She was also all over the radio waves – at first calling for help and then, over the following weeks, just talking over the air, narrating her life.
That was how Tom got to know her, even as all the other broadcasts faded – and frighteningly quickly.
Once he'd known her name, he'd actually pinpointed her location, and had managed to zoom a satellite camera down to where she lived.
Tom had watched her trek down through the Yukon – all her skirmishes with the hordes of sickle-claws – unable to even speak to her.
At least, he couldn't until just today.
Tom had been effectively trapped on the EITS station once ground support failed. He didn't even have an escape pod – or at least not one that would survive re-entry. The operator of the EITS was not allowed to come and go of his own authority – that's how non-espionage it was. There was the module-entry-pod attached to the airlock, which was the means by which you entered the station, but that was ferried from a shuttle.
On the other hand, there was the International Space Station. The ISS had been on automatic for the last several months before KT-day, after sustaining damage with debris from a junked Chinese satellite, and was absent any crew. Tom had actually picked up the bulk of the ISS' normal duties, networking satellites and such, until repairs were completed.
Tom's module pod could theoretically connect with the ISS and get him on board. They had entry-proof lifeboats.
Of course, that still left the problem of what happened when he landed in the middle of the ocean. It wasn't like there was a boat coming to get him anymore.
In any case, staying on the EITS wasn't an option. For whatever reason, the on-board computer was deteriorating badly.
Almost simultaneous with KT-day, and for no technical rhyme or reason he could decipher, his mainframe went haywire, with random glitches, like a cat running on a keyboard. Some functions seemed to work perfectly – he could access satellite-video for example – but at the same time entire spectrums of bandwidth seemed utterly and completely blocked – none of the military bandwidths came in, despite Tom's repeated efforts.
That by itself should not have been possible. He knew factions of the armed forces still maintained – he'd seen evidence of continued skirmishes from satellite-images.
But radio-reception was cosmetic. It now seemed the EITS' life-support systems were starting to get blinky.
He had waited the last six months for the ISS to come in range of his little module-pod. That had been today.
He had projected the very moment the ISS would be in range.
When he had climbed into that module pod, and pushed the airlock shut behind him, it was the finest moment of pure terror he had ever experienced in his life.
There was nothing on Earth that could compare to what it was like to be in space – physically, mentally, spiritually – the weightlessness – the view of the Earth itself below – a billowing blue jewel that was always surrounded by a starscape of permanent night.
Pushing the release, lofting the module pod away from its moorings was like letting go of a life raft.
The ISS was barely in sight. Tom only prayed his glitchy computer possessed the AI-cognitivity to connect with the station's ports.
He hoped the station itself hadn't been further compromise
d.
The pod's minimal propulsion drifted him painfully slowly across the airless chasm.
When he was within three-thousand meters, he initiated the docking commands.
For long minutes, there was no response.
What would happen if the ISS simply didn't read his corrupted signal? He might collide with the station – or worse, go sailing on past. The thought of arrowing off into space – to just continue to drift on forever – started a bead of sweat on his temple. He wiped it off, watching the droplet float and then split into particles.
Then there was a responding beep and the pod's propulsion fired briefly, angling towards the ISS' own air-locks.
With excruciating slowness, the pod floated until Tom felt the bump of contact as they connected to the dock. There was the heavy locking sound as the units attached.
And then the air-lock opened.
There was a blink as the automated lights in the station clicked on.
Tom took a cautious breath.
After a moment, he let himself into the adjoining chamber – the US module that had been one of the original centerpieces of the station. Over the years, contributing countries had added sections of their own – there had been plans to one day attach thirty modules to the original cluster. No longer to be, of course.
It was the first time Tom had been on the ISS in several years. And would be the first time anyone had been aboard in at least sixteen months.
He blinked as something touched his face – he swatted reflexively, as if at a spider, and came up with an empty candy wrapper, just floating loose.
As he looked around, he realized there was more debris floating loosely – nothing major or mechanical – just loose refuse.
It seemed odd that the departing cosmonauts would have left the place in such disarray. Tom wondered if it was possible the ISS had sustained further damage – perhaps impact from asteroids or other space debris.
Although, this reminded him more of a long-closed warehouse where rats had gotten into the supplies – which seemed unlikely in space.
Tom let himself up through the corridors, arrowing his weightless body like a swimmer, taking a moment to luxuriate in the relative space of the station versus the tiny little EITS. He knew his muscles were likely badly atrophied – his motivation to exercise had been low in recent months.
The main U.S. lab on the ISS was the Destiny module, and the walls were lined with blinking computers that operated mindlessly, careless of the absence of active human hands. Along the floor was a view-portal, looking down on Earth. It was Tom's favorite room on the station.
He pulled himself in front of what had been his own desk for a period of weeks – there were no chairs, but handles to hook your feet and keep you from floating away. Tom tapped the console and the screen blinked alive.
He tapped a few more buttons. Everything seemed to be online. He was looking at an active system.
Whatever had corrupted the EITS apparently hadn't touched the ISS.
Which meant, among other things, he should have access to all available bandwidths.
It also meant he could talk back.
He tapped the screen again, bringing in a satellite feed, focusing the cameras as he had done so often in recent months.
After a few minutes, he found her.
Kristie was on foot. Her trajectory would be pointing her towards the Maelstrom air-force base in northern Montana – perhaps that was her destination – her audio feed had cut out from the EITS station's reception several weeks ago.
Tom had her bandwidth. He realized he could call her – he could talk to her.
He actually felt himself freezing up, as shy as a kid asking for his first date.
What exactly was he going to tell her? Hi – I'm Tom and I've been spying on you from space for a year?
He laughed at himself, taking a breath, his eyes turning up and around as he thought about what to say.
As he did so, his eyes happened on one of the other screens.
And he frowned.
He turned from Kristie's image, pulling himself in front of the other workstation – an active station, he realized.
It took a moment for the full impact to sink in.
Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.
Chapter 12
The screen Tom was looking at was a duplicate of his own console on the EITS. And the surrounding screens were his workstation.
He tapped the keyboard, bringing up his home screen.
Everything was working, as if there had never been a single glitch.
The EITS had interfaced with the ISS mainframe when it had taken over its duties, pending repairs – could some virus have infiltrated at that point?
If so, why was the random haywire only on his end?
Now he realized a number of the surrounding screens were also images from the EITS – a security video log of his own chair – live footage of where he'd sat for the last year-and-a-half.
As if he'd been being monitored.
Tom frowned.
There were several other active screens as well – global maps, highlighting specific geographical areas. These views continued to rotate, reconfiguring moment to moment.
He realized he was not looking at a remote system continuing to operate – this was an active workstation.
Was someone on the ISS?
He tapped the console, bringing up the security screens from each compartment on the station one after the other.
After successive views of three empty corridors, the screen from the module right next door popped up – the Tranquility living-quarters.
Tom felt his blood run cold.
The image on-screen was all bug-eyes, teeth, and claws, jabbering at the camera.
He pulled the image back and found himself looking at a little two-legged lizard.
It was a little beast he knew all too well.
When KT-day had hit, and before his system had melted down, Tom still had access to all the least-hackable information in the world, and he knew all about Nolan Hinkle – about Monster Island – and Otto.
“Oh no,” he breathed.
Suddenly everything made sense – every malfunction, every glitch. The interface with the ISS had overridden his own system on the EITS.
Behind him, there was the electric hum as the compartment door slid open.
Three of the little beasts, as weightless as butterflies, sprang into the room, claws out, jaws wide and hissing.
Attached to the console beside him was a coffee mug, adapted for zero-gravity with a sealed-top and a metal straw. Tom grabbed it up, and turned to smack the first of the little clawed bastards as they came for his eyes and throat.
The scaly little creature ricocheted with the impact, bouncing off the walls. Bracing against the console, Tom took a second, wide swing, catching the other two almost simultaneously, sending them spinning. One of them tumbled back out the door, but the other caught hold of the chamber wall.
Sealing his grip, Tom lunged forward with his foot, kicking the clinging lizard out after the other, and sealed the airlock shut. Then he turned to the third, which was perched along the rafters, claws extended and hissing. Tom wielded the coffee cup, straw-end first. He also grabbed a sharpened pencil.
The Otto hissed again, balefully. Then it pushed off the wall, making a dash for the door at the opposite end of the compartment. Tom hit the switch. There was a satisfying crunch as the scaly rat didn't quite make it through before the airlock sealed.
Tom shivered. He hated those little bastards.
He put a hand to his shoulder where a slashing claw had snagged his arm, sending droplets of blood floating like little red balloons.
Then he turned back to the screens, taking a closer look at the maps.
It was actually quite helpful that Otto used the military's own coding. It made things perfectly clear.
Tom glanced back where Kristie's face still waited on-screen – just a touch of a button
away.
Instead, he tuned into the military bandwidths that had been so mysteriously blocked for the last year.
“Mayday,” he said into the speaker, “this is Major Tom Corbett, aboard the International Space Station. Mayday. I have urgent communications for General Nathan Rhodes. “
Chapter 13
Mark was ready to get the hell out of these mountains. Besides Junior, he was pretty sure that big ape he'd shot was tailing him.
The last thing he needed was another giant beast with a grudge. A little one with a grudge was bad enough.
There was no amount of self-interest to be served by forging forward on this ill-advised rescue mission, and Mark wanted more than anything to just start putting miles between all of it.
Unfortunately, he had a pretty good fix on the crashed chopper's postilion, marked by a steady plume of smoke, putting them right at the top of the highest available peak – and why the hell not?
He was also pretty sure there were survivors. He'd seen pterosaurs circling and heard the retort of several gunshots. Someone was a pretty good shot, dropping one of the winged dragons with each pop.
Mark guessed at least two miles from his position. Uphill, mountain miles.
And this was clearly no ordinary mountain. It reminded Mark of nothing so much as the tropical brush that had bordered the beach when the lifeboats of the Pacific Princess had made shore. More of that invasive shrubbery, much of it latching parasitically onto the giant timber.
He'd already seen the wildlife.
So far, it was giant gorillas, hatchling T. rex, and the trees were flush with nasty pterosaurs – some of the real ugly ones with teeth.
He'd also seen something had left a pile of shit the size of a minivan.
Mark chose not to even speculate, beyond the affirmation that the area was set to bloom – maybe even a trigger-point.
It was fortunate, at least, that he was coming in from the east. The southwest side of the mountain was a sheer drop, peaking at the ridge, before dropping into a series of forested canyons and valleys – a winding fissure of lowlands that trailed out from the surrounding mountains.
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