Before she could comment a loud bang! sounded, and the window above them exploded, showering them with shattered glass. Miss Cole screamed as a hot wind whistled in. The wind whipped Catalina’s hair around her face, making it writhe like Medusa’s snakes. Her ears popped painfully, and then she screamed, too, but she couldn’t hear the sound. A ringing noise set in and the whistling wind went on and on. The air inside the stairwell became stiflingly hot. By the time it finally abated, she was gasping for air. Catalina shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears.
“We have to go!” Watson said. He bounced to his feet, sending fragments of glass flying.
Miss Cole flung the stairwell door open and they ran out together. The wind was still raging outside, threatening to knock them over. As they drew near to the helicopter, they found that at least its windows had survived. They weren’t made of standard glass.
As soon as they were back inside, Watson started up the rotors once more. Thump, thump, thump, thump… Catalina fumbled with her seatbelt and slipped the headset over her ears. “How much longer do we have before the wave hits?” she asked.
Watson shook his head. “Don’t know, but we’re damn close to the impact.”
“So…”
“We stay airborne. You ladies all buckled in?”
Catalina nodded, her gaze fixed on the dark storm hulking over the horizon. Thankfully that cloud of water vapor and dust hadn’t reached them with the air blast. She couldn’t imagine Watson piloting them safely through that storm.
“Here we go…”
The rotor noise intensified and Catalina felt herself pressed down hard into her seat as the helicopter shot straight up from the roof of the United Farmers Tower.
The first thing she noticed as they flew away were the streams of hover traffic flying out from skyscrapers around them, all clawing for the sky as they raced toward the mainland. Dark columns of smoke rose from flickering orange fires below.
“All the hovers that didn’t make it,” Watson said, pointing to the smoke. “Good thing we waited.”
Catalina blinked, shocked that so many people had been killed already. They obviously hadn’t heard the warning about sticking to land routes.
They flew on for a while before Catalina noticed that Watson wasn’t headed inland. He was flying down the coast.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“I’m live streaming the event from our nose cam.”
“What? Are you crazy?”
“Relax! The danger’s passed. We may as well capture the moment.”
“Why the hell would you want to do that?”
Watson glanced at her. “Have you ever seen a sixty-meter wave?”
Catalina stared dumbly back at him.
“The danger’s passed for us.”
“What about that storm?
Watson shook his head. “Still hours out. We’ve got time. People deserve to know what happened here.”
Catalina settled back in her seat with a frown, still unconvinced.
“There!” Watson pointed to a dark ripple on the ocean, moving fast.
To Catalina’s horror Watson took them down for a closer look.
A new voice crackled in their ears. It was Miss Cole. She’d finally found her headset. “What are you doing?!” she shrieked.
Watson gave no reply. The rooftops of luxury hotels, apartments, and office buildings running the length of Galveston Island swept up toward them. As the rooftops came into focus, Catalina picked out crowds of people clustered on some of those rooftops, watching the advancing wave.
They were planning to ride it out.
The approaching ripple grew exponentially as it approached. Catalina watched, speechless with horror as the wave reached the sandy shores of the island, now towering higher than some of the buildings that faced it. The wave curled at the top, casting a shadow over the island.
Miss Cole was muttering repetitive prayers, and Watson cursed as the wave broke. Windows shattered and the shorter buildings disappeared, momentarily submerged by the wave. The water level fell dramatically, and skyscrapers fell into each other like dominoes. As the buildings collapsed, tiny, colorful specks leapt from the rooftops into the roiling trough behind the wave. In the time it took for Catalina to blink and blink again every building in sight was gone. Galveston Island was completely submerged. Watson turned the chopper inland and they saw the wave racing on through West Bay, taking out bridges on its way to the mainland.
Flying in a lazy arc, they saw that one lonely tower still remained standing. United Farmers Tower.
“I guess we didn’t have to evacuate after all,” Watson said. His tone was flat, conveying the irony, but not a hint of humor.
“All those people on the rooftops…” Catalina said.
Watson gave no reply. Maybe now he felt guilty for sticking around to film the event, morbid fascination giving way to the sick horror Catalina felt churning in her gut. Whoever had done this had just joined the ranks of history’s most infamous mass-murderers. Millions of people were going to die before it was over.
Chapter 9
“Admiral, Fleet Command is ordering us to intercept the Crimson Warrior with all possible speed,” Lieutenant Hayes reported from the comms.
“We haven’t even received a reply from our hail yet,” Alexander replied.
“After that missile hit Earth, I don’t think Fleet Command cares if the Solarians have a good excuse for their location,” McAdams put in.
“And that’s enough reason to go charging off and start a war?” Alexander countered.
“Do you want me to ask for clarification of our orders, sir?” Hayes asked.
Alexander scowled and shook his head. “No, that’s okay, Lieutenant. It’ll take days for us to reach them, anyway. Hopefully the Solarians will be able to give Earth a satisfactory answer long before that.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Bishop, set an intercept course. Ten Gs.”
“Aye, aye.”
“I guess we won’t be getting out of this mindscape for a while,” McAdams said on the other side of him.
Alexander nodded absently. Ten Gs sustained acceleration was far too much to survive without the cushioning effects of a liquid bath. He traced imaginary constellations between the stars on the main holo display. That virtual view corresponded to a real one, just like everything else in the Adamantine’s mindscape.
“You know…” he began. “Thirty years ago, I thought we called it The Last War for a reason. Why is everyone suddenly in such a hurry to start a new one?”
“It’s human nature, sir,” McAdams replied. “An eye for an eye.”
“Maybe that’s the problem. The Human League might have it all wrong. They’re afraid we’re going to make ourselves obsolete and end up with bots running the world, but I’m starting to wonder if that would be so bad. Maybe they’d actually be better at it.”
“I think the problem is the obsolete part,” McAdams said. “If we are no longer useful, and bots are running things, why should they keep us around at all? We’ll just be taking up valuable resources and space.”
Alexander sighed and rubbed his eyes, trying to ease some of the pressure he felt building behind them. “How much longer before the Solarian ship can send us a reply?”
“One hour and fifteen minutes, sir,” Hayes replied.
“All right, put it on the clock, Hayes. McAdams—set condition yellow. We may as well stretch our virtual legs while we wait.”
“Aye, Captain,” she said.
Alexander unbuckled from his couch and stood up. One of the advantages of being immersed in a mindscape was that certain elements of realism could be momentarily suspended for comfort’s sake. That meant that even with the Adamantine hurtling through space at ten Gs he could still get up and walk around as if it was no more than one G.
McAdams climbed out of her acceleration couch and stood beside him.
Alexander nodded to her and then said, “Bishop,
you have the conn. Any new developments, let me know and we’ll be back in a flash.” Literally. A split second was all it would take for him and McAdams to warp through the virtual world back to the bridge.
“Aye, Captain,” Bishop said.
“McAdams?”
“After you, sir,” she said.
He nodded and they walked to the elevator together.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“For a drink.”
“A drink, sir?” she asked, frowning.
He cast her a grim look. “It’s not like we can actually get drunk, Commander. The effects are simulated, and they’ll pass as soon as we want them to.”
“I know, sir, but…”
Alexander waved the elevator open and they walked in. The doors slid shut behind them, and he selected Officer’s Lounge (75) from the control panel. “But?” he prompted, turning to her. The lift tube started upward, pressing them momentarily harder against the floor.
Her expression was troubled. “It seems wrong to be toasting up here while millions of people are dying back on Earth.”
“Who said anything about toasting? Why do you think I need a drink? It’s not going to hurt you to virtually numb your senses for a while, Commander.”
McAdams nodded reluctantly. “Yes, sir.”
* * *
“You have to get me an audience with the president,” Lars Becker said, feeling a muscle jerk in his cheek as he stared at a hologram of his old subordinate. Fleet Admiral Anderson had been a lieutenant back then. That had been a lifetime ago—not that lifetimes were a meaningful measure of time anymore.
Anderson shook his head. “You know I can’t do that, sir. You were dishonorably discharged.”
Lars smiled crookedly into the holocorder on his desk. “Ja, Becker the Disgrace, the Admiral who cried Wolf—or is it the Admiral who Cried Aliens? That would be closer to the truth, I think.”
“I’m very busy at the moment, sir…”
“Listen to you—still calling me sir. If you have that much respect for me, then you need to listen to me now, Anderson. These attacks are not what the president thinks they are, and I have proof. If the Alliance goes after the Solarians for this, we’re going to end up with two enemies, and when the real one comes roaring out of that wormhole, we won’t be prepared.”
Anderson grimaced. “I need to go, sir. I’m sorry. For what it’s worth, I have already presented your concerns to the president and the joint chiefs of staff. Unfortunately they didn’t share those concerns.”
“You went to them without proof. I can convince them. Just give me five minutes with the president. That’s all I need.”
“He won’t agree to see you. I’m sorry, sir. Take care of yourself.”
Lars Becker gaped at the screen as the holo image faded away. He leaned back in his chair, considering what he should do.
A loud moaning sound stole his attention. He glared at the thin walls of his apartment. The woman in 205D was having another virtual rendezvous. A frown touched his lips. The only good part about government housing was that it was free. He’d lost his benefits when he’d been discharged, and since jobs were such a scarce commodity, he couldn’t afford to pay rent in a nicer place. Pity being a conspiracy theorist doesn’t pay.
Becker looked around his modest hundred-square-foot micro studio. The desk in front of him could be raised and lowered into the floor to double as a coffee table or just to get it out of the way. The couch where he sat was fully convertible, allowing him to sit upright at his desk, recline to watch holofeeds, or lie down and sleep. The kitchen was tiny and ill-equipped for cooking, so he mostly ate government-issue meal packs and drank nutrient slurry. He couldn’t afford fresh food, anyway. But by far the worst was the bathroom; the toilet was actually inside of the shower, and his knees touched the walls whenever he had to sit on his watertight throne.
Becker grimaced and turned to look out the apartment’s only window—a convincing hologram. That window gave him a floor-to-ceiling view of whatever he wanted. Right now it showed a lake, blue water shimmering in the sun, a rolling carpet of bright green grass leading down to a pebbly shore. Large willow trees arched over the scene, casting flickering shadows across the grass as a breeze blew. Becker sighed and his eyes drifted shut. He imagined he could feel the wind on his face and touch the cool water with his toes, the sun beating down on his face…
Then he opened his eyes. He’d just plugged into the oldest form of Mindscape—imagination. There’d been a time when people had spent their lives actually experiencing all of those things in the real world. Now they settled for the instant gratification of the Mindscape. Real beaches were garbage dumps with swarms of stray dogs and cats picking through the refuse. Few people even bothered with real pets these days, just as they didn’t bother with having children. Virtual ones didn’t cost money, and didn’t require people to spend less time in their beloved mindscapes.
Becker looked away from the window and stared at the wall across from him. The black rectangle of an old-fashioned holoscreen hung there. On a whim, he waved his hand at the screen to turn it on. It was already tuned to an Alliance News Network holofeed. The news anchor talked about the missile impact in the Gulf of Mexico, and footage of the devastation flashed before Becker’s eyes on a horrendous loop, whole cities wiped out by the tsunami. An estimated thirty million people were dead or missing, and no doubt that number would only continue to rise in the days and weeks to come.
Becker shook his head. These were just the warning shots. What would happen when the invasion came? It was going to catch everyone by surprise. He knew what was coming; he had a responsibility to warn people. Everyone acknowledged that the universe was simply too vast for humanity to be alone, but no one really took the idea of an alien threat seriously.
“They didn’t then, and they don’t now…” Becker whispered. The president might not want to speak with him, but there was another way to get his attention, and while he was at it, the attention of the entire world. It was time to go public with his information.
Again.
The last time he’d spoken to the press, he’d earned himself a dishonorable discharge, but this time would be different. This time he had proof.
Chapter 10
McAdams took another sip of her martini, and Alexander downed his third tumbler of Scotch. He stared absently into the bottom of the glass and savored the pleasant warmth spreading through him. It made his head feel five pounds lighter, and he’d almost managed to silence the accusing screams of the dead. One more glass should do it.
Or maybe that was what it would take to pass out.
Not that he could pass out while he was in the Mindscape. It was designed to keep him conscious, and the instant someone upgraded the ship’s alert status from condition yellow to general quarters, sobriety would be back and hammering away with accusations—You didn’t hit even one missile. That’s all it would have taken. Just one, and Earth would be safe. One lucky shot to save millions of lives.
Reports from Earth had reached them over the past hour—the impact had triggered an earthquake and a massive tsunami. The gulf coast was completely inundated, whole cities leveled. The scale of devastation was immense.
“You have any loved ones close to the impact?” McAdams asked.
Alexander began to shake his head, then he stopped himself and shrugged, his lips parting in a bitter smirk. “You know, I have no idea. It’s been a long time since I’ve had any loved ones.”
McAdams’ brow pinched with sympathy. “I’m sorry. What happened between you and your wife?”
Alexander met her gaze, at a loss for words.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” she added.
“I suppose you have a right to know since I left you to go after my wife. I guess karma’s still a bitch, because twenty years later she left me to go after our son.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I had the boy’s real father conscripted; he die
d somewhere in old Confederate Russia. When Dorian found out, he disowned me and his mother.”
“You had him conscripted? Is that even legal?”
“Oh, it was legal. The man was an illegal immigrant in the North. Back then the penalty for that was the same as the price for citizenship—military service.”
“Then you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Well, I did hunt him down to make sure he was caught, and then I made sure he was sent somewhere dangerous enough that he might not survive.”
“I see,” McAdams said, her gaze hardening.
Alexander nodded. “Not so hard to understand why they left me, is it?”
Her expression softened, and she placed her hand over his. “We all make mistakes. And I know you, Alex. To do something like that, you must have had a good reason.”
“Sure, that guy was abusive. He almost killed my wife back when they were together. You could call what I did revenge, but he had it coming.”
“What I don’t understand is how your wife could leave you over that. Your son, sure, but even he should come around if you explain it to him. Besides, it’s not like you put the man against a wall and shot him yourself.”
Alexander poured himself another half a glass of Scotch. “The Mindscape ruined us. At the end we spent so little time together that we may as well have been two strangers living in the same house. Living like that, our marriage couldn’t hope to compete with the love of a mother for her son. Caty saw that she needed to distance herself from me in order to win Dorian back, and that’s exactly what she did.”
“Did you try to go after them? To explain?”
Alexander took a gulp of whiskey and grimaced as it burned a fiery trail down his throat. “If either of them still cared, they would have come back. Besides, I was tired of living an empty virtual life. Best case, I would get to go back to that. They gave me the excuse I needed to unplug and get the hell away from it all. The last taste of real purpose I ever had was with the Navy. You don’t know how strong the drive to be useful is until you realize that the world wouldn’t even miss you if you were gone. Long story short, I came back to the only home I’ve ever known.”
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