by Jason Luthor
“You’d have the advantage though. You’re telling me these Rocs can stand up to all the guns and missiles you’ve got loaded on these things?”
“It’s true that any single Talon is faster and stronger than a flying Creeper. I’d guess that one Talon is even more than a match for a dozen of them. That’s not the strength of creatures created by the Creep though, now is it? An injured Creeper can heal rapidly and return to the fight. The Creep itself can produce hundreds and hundreds of beasts. Thousands, even. The Creep doesn’t need to produce creatures that are individually stronger than our war machines. All it has to do is create, and create, until it has a swarm of monsters it can throw into the fight. Then, it’s only a matter of time before the Creep is on the rampage, growing and expanding. We avoid using masses of machines for just this reason, at least in the air. Ground vehicles draw on only a small part of the energy released from Pocket Space, and they attract much less attention, especially if we use traditional vehicles fueled by gasoline.”
“So, all this firepower, but you’ll never get to use it.”
There’s a moment after she says it when the general has a gleam in his eye. I almost think he was waiting for someone to ask that kind of question. “We do use it, just strategically. And soon, it may just be possible for us to use all of this without fear of the Creep. We do have a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Yes. Perhaps it’s time we ended our walking tour. Let’s go for a drive.”
Personal Recording of the President, Gabriel Branagh 15
Driving away from Fort Silence and toward the coast, I can’t help but feel just a little bit paranoid. Even with all the tanks lining the streets, we’re still outside the walls of the fort and going to who the hell knows where. The entire 30 minutes of the ride, Yousef’s dodging every question I throw at him, but grinning at me like he thinks I’ll be happy once we get wherever it is we’re going.
“You’ll be happy with the surprise, Mr. President,” he tells me as we zip down the road, passing through rows of towers that are getting smaller and smaller, until the buildings fall away completely and all that’s left to see are a few buildings huddling along the water’s edge.
“What the hell am I looking at, Yousef?”
“The future of military power in our world,” he says with a smile.
“Well, thanks a lot for the clarification.”
“Oh, Gabriel, it’s not so difficult to understand. You study ancient history, as do I. We’ve talked about this.”
“Right, and so what about that?”
“Tell me, for centuries, how did mankind dominate the world? What drove his ability to master the globe with his military might?”
“What? You’re talking about ships. Naval ships.”
“Correct. For a time, naval carriers took troops around the world and delivered aircraft to conflicts across the globe. Sea power was necessary for any country to exert military dominance, at least for a time. Or, at least until the discovery of Pocket Space.”
Tommy leans in. “I don’t get it. Why would Pocket Space change that? Wouldn’t that just let militaries make even more powerful ships?”
“Which is exactly what they did, until they discovered a better way to cross the globe than sailing.”
“A better way?”
Yousef smiles. “Watch.”
Our vehicle pulls to a stop overlooking the waters. From here, it’s obvious that the buildings along the water’s edge form a small military outpost. It’s already late in the day, so the skies are getting darker, but there’s still enough light that we can clearly see the murky ocean in front of us. “I hope this surprise is worth it.”
“It is, Mr. President,” he says as we’re all unloading out of the vehicle. “It is.” He taps at the small earpiece around his ear. “General Yousef to Coastline Command. Are you hearing this?” We can’t hear whatever’s being said through his earpiece, but he nods a few times, smiling the whole way like a kid who just got candy. “Good. Good. We are in position. Please, message Commander Petrovic. Tell him to raise the Dynamis.”
For a second, we’re all just left standing there. Colonel Martin’s got his arms crossed, and Tommy looks confused. It’s a little ominous, but Doctor Watson’s just staring, his hands tucked into his lab coat with his lips locked tight. Before she ever got to Central, Jackie obviously saw more military combat than she’s talked about, so not much has caught her interest on the tour. Still, as we form a small crowd on a hill that slides down to the beach, she’s staring like a hawk down at the ocean’s surface. Then, that’s when we all see it, a light shining up out of the dark waters. At first, it’s a faint glowing that starts to shimmer along the surface, but soon that glow is expanding, like we’re staring at rows of lights shining from some underwater city. The waters are churning, bubbling and parting while the lights grow brighter and brighter, until they’re burning against the surface and the waters are sliding away.
And then the top of something starts to push through the waters, rising up out of the ocean like some incredible beast from out of legend. It’s huge, easily the length of multiple buildings if they were lined up one after the other. Its long forward nose is rounded, but there are blocky sections all along its huge body. Protruding sections on both sides of it look like they could hold smaller vehicles, while the entire outer body is covered in gun batteries. End to end . . . I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look like it’s the size of a few buildings itself. As it lifts higher out of the water, there’s a second when all of us expect it to stop, to pause once it’s lifted to the surface, but it doesn’t.
Instead, it continues to rise and rise, like nothing is going to stop it. Nothing does. This massive ship keeps lifting skyward, ocean waters sliding off of its frame as it begins to rise into the air, looming above us as its moves higher and higher. Massive lights explode from underneath its body, scanning the grounds and turning toward us as the entirety of the ship begins to slowly turn, its nose dragging across the sky until it’s passing over us and casting a shadow deep onto the street behind us. For a second, I almost can’t believe what I’m seeing, and when it lets out this deep, bellowing horn sound that feels like it’s shaking the ground beneath us, I can’t help but take a step back.
Yousef smiles. “The golden horn. The sound of victory from the skies.”
The entire time, Jackie’s standing there, her fists clenched as she’s staring upward. The winds swirling along the ground beat at her, her helmet dissolving in the face of this windstorm to let her hair free in the gale. Yousef takes a step beside her, watching as she stares into the lights beaming down on us, and smiles at her. “You aren’t afraid?”
“I stopped being afraid a long time ago.”
“As did I. I took my fears and used them in the only way worth using them. To save humanity. You understand, don’t you?”
She takes a second before she looks back at him. “I understand.”
Their eyes stay connected to each other a second longer before he turns towards us, his arms gesturing to the massive ship that’s staring down on us from the skies, Yousef’s silhouette burning against the lights swelling behind him. “You see, now, the weapon that will deliver us our freedom. The Dynamis, an example of Apeiron’s technology at the peak of its power. A weapon, Mr. President, that will deliver peace for you people that ‘shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.’”
Tommy’s Recording 23
For the second night in a row, we’re sitting at dinner with General Yousef, who’s been looking pretty happy with himself since we got back. He raises a glass in a toast to us. “To a second night of merriment.”
The president raises a glass but looks like he’s struggling a little as he takes a drink. “It’s impressive, Yousef. Damn impressive.”
Jackie looks down the table to the general. “Why haven’t you used it.”
Yousef smiles but looks confused as he stares back at her. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve got a
ship two thousand feet long with more firepower on its hull than half of Central Freedom has across the entire island. I know you said you didn’t send out your Talons because the Creep would respond to them, but that ship you’ve got out there’s on a completely different level. There’s got to be a good reason you haven’t gone out there to deal with the Creep yet.” She takes a deep breath as she looks at him. “Like the president said . . . it’s impressive. It’s still not enough thought, is it? You think it could be your answer to the Creep, but you don’t know how to use it safely yet.”
General Yousef pauses as he looks back to her. “The Dynamis is incredibly powerful, easily able to deal with overwhelming forces. Even she is not infinite, though.”
“Not like the Creep.”
“Not like the Creep,” he echoes her. “The truth is we have used it. We’ve sent her into the Deadlands and wiped out hundreds . . . thousands . . . of Creepers. Taking her against the source of the infestation though . . . “
The president looks over at him. “The source? Then you also know what’s controlling the Creep in this part of the country.”
The general’s about to answer when Jackie interrupts. “No, he doesn’t. He’s not talking about that kind of source.”
Yousef turns to her with a smile. “We also lack the scientists with the background in Creep research to fully understand our enemy.”
“The president knows what’s controlling the Creep around the Deadlands. Sort of.”
“Does he?”
Branagh raises his glass. “Like she said. Sort of. The Northwest Creep Colony.”
Jackie starts explaining. “The Creep might all be connected, and maybe it does have some kind of central mind . . . I don’t think we’ve figured that part out yet. What I know for sure’s that it needs these centers of control, like nerve clusters. When you kill one of those centers, a lot of the surrounding Creep starts to die out. That includes the Creep’s ability to spawn new creatures.”
Yousef’s smile fades a little. “How do you know all this?”
“Because I’ve killed one of those centers.” She looks my way. “Judge.”
When she says his name, it puts a chill down my spine. “Right. Him.”
Yousef gives her this weird look, because he’s obviously never heard the name before. “What is Judge?”
She looks back at the general. “Who is Judge, you mean. Judge is . . . was, a pretty powerfully infected person. He could control the Creep and use it to fight, and besides having lived for hundreds of years, you could put a thousand bullets inside of him and still not kill him.”
“But you beat him?”
“Yeah.”
“You say it so casually, as if it were routine.”
“Well, I can swear it wasn’t. I just try not to think about it anymore.”
“Fair enough. In your case though, it seems Judge was a single person and not a colony?”
“Besides the fact that he was connected to an undead network of human minds that were trapped in the Creep? Sure.”
“Yes, well, in our case, we’ve tracked the most intense source of Creep west of here. Any attempts to move our troops that way in large numbers brings the Creep down on our forces.”
The president nods as he takes another drink. “And that’s what I’m talking about. The Northwest Creep Colony. A single Creep infestation dozens of city blocks wide with the ability to create thousands of Creepers at a moment’s notice.”
“Well, this colony prevents us from launching any large scale operations that use Pocket Space for an energy source. We can only move our forces so far before the Creep starts responding. And when it does . . .”
“Death.”
He nods. “The Creep never betrays its reputation. In our defense, the Dynamis has given us an edge that we’ve never had before. We’ve killed thousands of its spawn and lived to tell the tale.”
The president leans in. “And like you said, you’re still not sure if that ship could take out the source of Creep around here.”
“I didn’t want to simply fly it blindly into the Deadlands, coming under attack for miles before we stumbled onto the source.” He stops and shakes his head. “But Gabriel, you and I both know even if I created the greatest planned assault in history and hit that colony with all the fury at my disposal, the problem isn’t hurting Creep. The problem is making sure it stays dead. We all know how quickly it repairs itself and heals.”
“True.”
“But you have the same idea I have. Destroy it at its heart and you make it easy to clean up all the Creep around it.”
“So, then the question really is, how do we kill it in a way that makes sure it stays down for good?”
“A question we haven’t been able to solve on our own. With the help of your good doctor though,” he says as he glances down at Doc Watson. The older man seems to only slowly become aware that he’s being stared at, and it takes him a second before he startles back to reality.
“Oh, I’m . . . I’m sorry. What is the question?”
“The question is whether you would be able to help us come up with a way that guaranteed the Creep stayed dead.”
“I see.” He looks away for a second, his eyes searching the roof like the answers are written there. “Perhaps. Did you have something particular in mind?”
“Central Freedom and Fort Silence can both manipulate Pocket Space and use those to repel the Creep. We can even make the Creep wither up.”
“Ah, yes. The repulsion poles. You believe they could be adjusted to kill the Creep on a large scale. Weaponized, as it were.”
“That was my thought.”
“Perhaps.” His fingers dance on his chin as he’s thinking about the problem. “I had just such an idea years ago, but the problem was that the Creep regenerates so rapidly. Killing off even a large area with a sort of . . . energy bomb, for lack of better words, would still leave them with their regenerative capabilities intact once the energy field wore off. However, if you detonated such a device at a critical point in the Creep’s biology . . . in one of these nerve centers . . .”
“Do you think it would work?”
“In theory. The larger problem may be simply getting the bomb into the nerve center. It would have to be deployed in the very core of the monstrosity.”
“Well, we can’t begin thinking about that before we’ve even created this ‘bomb.’ If you helped us create it, I’m sure we could find a way to deliver it.” He looks at the president. “If you were willing to share the technology and information with us, of course.”
Branagh frowns as he stares back at Yousef. “So, now we’re going from you deploying your men throughout Central Freedom to wanting us to share critical information about the enemy?”
“For the sake of all our survival? Yes. Without question, yes.”
He shakes his head as he looks away. “Again, you know I can’t make that call on my own. I’m going to need to debate this with the Advisory Council and the War Council. And I’m not even entirely sold about whether I should go along with your military plan. Like Tommy said earlier today, it doesn’t take much to start heading down a dangerous road with all this.”
The general tries to hide his disappointment, but it’s obvious. “Well, after all I’ve said and shown you, I don’t believe words will do any more good. However, I do hope you can see why this alliance is important. Together, we could do great things. The survival of humanity depends on it. But I can only say that so many times in one night.”
Jackie’s Recording 03
Tonight probably could have gone better. I don’t know. Maybe . . . maybe I don’t know what I’m doing.
Maybe I messed up.
It’s about six at night when I hear the ringer from my door. At that point, I haven’t seen anyone all day. I’ve basically just been cooped up in my room while all the real military guys argue with each other about what to do next. Tommy was supposed to sit in on a call with the president and Colonel Martin while
they argued with the War Council about General Yousef’s offer.
That didn’t leave me with much to do except sit around. I guess I could’ve gone to see the doc, but I’m not exactly friends with him. I didn’t wander out there in the Deadlands with him like Tommy and the rest of them did. And, honestly, he’s just a little bit nutters. So, I stuck to myself. I wasn’t expecting any company, so I’m more than surprised when I hear the door chime singing through the room. It’s even weirder when I see who’s waiting for me.
“General Yousef,” I tell him when the door opens.
He flashes that smile at me, white teeth shining under golden brown skin. “I’m not going to call you Dark Angel whenever you’re not on official business, and so I don’t think there’s any reason to call me by my title, either. Yousef is fine.”
“Alright, Yousef.” He stands there looking at me for a second, almost until it’s awkward. “Is something wrong?”
“It’s strange to see you without your armor on. You’re obviously in top physical condition without it, but when you’re not wearing it, you’re not as naturally intimidating.”
“It’s the glowing red eyes, isn’t it? They tend to chase away all the boys from the yard.”
“Well, a good thing I’m no boy, then.”
“True.”
“You’re also almost a foot smaller.”
“Creep biology. I get bigger to fit the suit.”
“Amazing.”
It’s all he says, and again, there’s this awkward second where nothing gets said. “Did you need me for something, or . . . ?”
“No, that would be the wrong way to put it. I noticed you hadn’t been out of your room all day.”
“Keeping tabs on me so you can make sure I don’t go spying on you or tearing up your armory?”
“Not at all. Just a bit worried about you.”
“Worried?”
He smiles, but it’s weird. It’s not a happy one. “How much have you heard about me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I heard you and your dad are control freaks and borderline monsters who want to take over everything from here to Central Freedom. You know. Basic warlord stuff.”