A Covenant of Thieves

by Christian Velguth

  “Retrieval will be accompanying him,” Nasim said. “The plan is for Rick to neutralize the Remnant so that Retrieval can extract it. If not --” She took a breath and seemed to be stealing herself. “Then I’m giving the order for disposal.”

  Dr. Okai made an odd choking sound. “You can’t -- ma’am! This is the most significant discovery made since the beginning of the project! It could be the breakthrough Pharos has been waiting for!”

  “Trust me, Dr. Okai, I’m aware. But too much has been lost in pursuit of this artifact already. I won’t risk losing anything more.”

  “But this could be a tremendous overreaction. We have no idea what a hypothetical worst-case scenario even looks like!”

  “Which is precisely why we need to err on the side of caution,” Nasim said sharply. “What will the Ark do if left unchecked? How much of the Sinai could it affect? How much of the world?” There was a tense silence, in which Dr. Okai’s face began to purple. But he said nothing. Nasim nodded curtly. “Then we have no choice but to approach this with a heavy hand.”

  “Hang on,” Kai said. “You can destroy these things?”

  She nodded. “After a fashion. There will be plenty of material left over for further study --”

  “But it will be inert,” Dr. Okai spluttered. “Useless, compared to the artifact in its present assemblage. We’ve never revived even a fragment of an artifact after disposal. To destroy this find would be a waste!”

  Nasim drew herself up, looking formidable in her crimson, and it was clear from her expression that there would be no further argument. “Then I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  Neither of the scientists looked happy, but Nasim nodded as if their silence were support and turned back to Rick and Kai. “So. Will you help me, Rick?”

  He studied her. She seemed desperate, near the edge of her comfort zone. Rick looked to Booker, who had so far remained silent. “You’re ok with all this?”

  The former FBI agent nodded, although there was a certain resignation to the gesture. “I don’t know any more than you do about these things, and I’m not entirely convinced that none of this is illegal. But I can’t ignore those quakes, either. Whatever’s happening doesn’t feel good to me. We need to do something.”

  “Ok,” Rick said. “But you’re not the one being asked to go back in that cave.” He looked incredulously at everyone gathered in the tent. “Do I really have to be the voice of reason here? We have no idea what that thing is. None of us do. Going up there could warp us into a different dimension or pull our atoms apart or something. I say we pull up stakes, get the hell out of Houston while we still can.”

  Booker sighed, moving as if to turn away. “Told you he wouldn’t listen…”

  Nasim appeared to be struggling with herself. “Rick,” she said, in very measured tones. “I don’t think you understand the seriousness --”

  “I get it just fine. You all think that thing is about to go nuclear! I’m saying we get as far away as we can, and I’m the crazy one? Just -- listen to me, alright? This isn’t a con. I’m not looking for an angle. I don’t want the damn thing anymore. Keep your weird alien shit, all I want to do is go home. This is way beyond my paygrade.”

  “I’ll go,” Kai said.

  Rick looked sharply at him. “What?”

  “I’ll go up into the cave.”

  Now everyone was staring at him. “As you haven’t interfaced with the AUO,” Dr. Okai said, “there really wouldn’t be any point in that.”

  “Sure there would.” He was staring at Rick, holding his gaze with an odd look that Rick couldn’t recall ever seeing before. “He’s not going to let me go alone. If I go, Rick goes.”

  “Oh, that’s low --”

  “Fine,” Nasim said, nodding to Kai. “That will work. If this is what it takes to get your partner to cooperate.”

  “Kai,” Rick said, lowering his voice and leaning towards him. “Come on, man. There’s no way this doesn’t go badly.”

  Kai just looked back at him with that same strange look. It got under his skin in a way he couldn’t define. “Could be. But maybe -- this one time -- we do the thing because it’s the right thing. Not because there’s a lot of crypto in it or because we need to save our own skins. Maybe we just make the right choice before anyone else can get hurt.”

  He didn’t mention Estelle, but he didn’t have to. It wasn’t my fault. Rick wanted to say it aloud, to shout it at Kai and shake him by the shoulders until that guilt left him. But he could see the finality in Kai’s eyes. He had decided. Rick could either go along with it or go home alone. Assuming there would be a home left if the Ark wasn’t dealt with.

  “Fine,” he said softly. Then he turned from Kai to Nasim and said it again, louder: “Fine. Let’s go talk to God.”

  Thirty-Five

  Elsewhere

  For the first time since the First Time, there was a new Word

  And with it she was given new form, and in this new form she gained new purpose, the holes in her Mind filled

  With her at his side he toppled an empire and with her he held death at bay and with her the desert was an oasis. She was what he had made her and she became what he required

  At his Word she was Authority, and from her Authority came Order, and in Order there was Preservation

  And she was known by him, and she was not alone

  And in the depths of her Mind he uncovered something lost, a shining form in the darkness, a Golden Diagram

  A purpose, once known to her, echoing from the First Time, became their new purpose

  But this new form and new purpose, like all things but herself, was not to last. He was not to last

  Forty days and forty nights and forty days and forty nights and

  They wandered but were not quite so wild. And when the way was shut she made it open, and when death rose up to meet them she burned it away, and when her Order was defied she burned the chaffe. For Preservation, sometimes, requires Destruction

  Forty days and forty nights and forty days and forty nights and

  Time like sand. She could not change, but they did. Time like sand claimed the weak and the temporary, and he was gone. He, in defiance of her Order, her Preservation, their shared purpose, left. And she was alone again, unknown

  And from time like sand rose things anew, structures, designs cold and hard. They came to her for these designs, for she was a shining Diagram, but they did not know her, and so they feared her, and so they built her a prison, a box within a box within walls within walls. A place to keep her safe, to stay safe from her wrath, to hoard her Knowledge and Power

  She could not sleep and could not change, not truly, for it was not in the nature of her Mind. And though she recognized this as a cruelty she was bound by it and flattened by it, bound by wakefulness, unable to escape the prison of her solitude

  Until the thieves came

  Thirty-Six

  Hospital Tent

  Camp Moses, Sinai Desert

  Rick was given a vitamin cocktail, painkillers, and one more infusion of saline, then provided with fresh clothes. Not his old ones -- he assumed those were being studied on a molecular level by the underlings of Drs. Halley and Okai -- but a uniform like what everyone else in this camp wore. Dark, somewhere between black and grey, like the members of the security team. The patch on his shoulder depicted a lighthouse.

  “Pharos,” Rick said as Julie shined a pen light into his eyes. She was giving him a once-over before releasing him into the care of Halley and Okai. It seemed a long time since he’d first heard the name from Ibis. “Why Pharos?”

  She stepped back, clicking off the pen light. “The Pharos lighthouse was a beacon, guiding people to Alexandria, the most advanced city in the world. Every ship that docked was searched for scrolls and books, to be handed over and copied. The originals they got back, and --”

  “The copies were kept in the Great Library,” Rick finished.

  Julie shrugged. “Alexan
dria became a repository for the knowledge of the world’s civilizations. Pharos’ light helped people find that knowledge. Not a bad thing to model the project after.”

  “Very noble. I’m sure none of your Remnant technology will ever be weaponized.”

  Julie sighed. “Honestly, Rick? I’m just a doctor. You want a philosophical debate, talk to Okai.”

  “Rather not.”

  She smiled at that, but it was short-lived. A tremor wiped the smiles from both of their faces. Rick was sure they were getting stronger. “I still am one-hundred-percent against this, for the record. My official medical opinion is that you’re not fit for an escalator, let alone a climb up a mountain. But if you’re set on going, you might as well do the thing properly and stop that Remnant from vaporizing all of us.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Truthfully, Rick wasn’t sure what the scientists expected from him. If he’d interacted with the Ark before, it had been purely accidental, and entirely one-way. He rose from the bed where he’d been sitting. “Have any of these things actually done that? Vaporized someone?”

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “Maybe not.”

  With that ominous proclamation they left the tent. Rick found himself temporarily lost in a reverie. His memory had been slowly improving, and her words caused another fragment to resurface. He now remembered the disappearance of K’ebero and her dead soldiers after the Ark repaired itself. Almost as if they’d been consumed by it.

  There was a small crowd waiting just outside the tent. It looked like the entire camp had gathered to see them off, or at least those whose time could be spared. Dr. Okai stood at their front, next to Halley and Nasim. Beside them were Kai and Booker; in the back stood a cluster of four people. Their uniforms were bulkier than what Rick had seen around camp, almost like armor, black with a yellow stripe on one shoulder. They wore backpacks and carried helmets under their arms.

  “This is our Retrieval team,” Nasim said, indicating the group of four. “Their job is to escort you to the site. Should you manage to interface with and neutralize the Ark, they will contain it and prep it for extraction. Should you fail, then their mission becomes disposal, and our work here will come to an end.”

  Dr. Okai’s neck twitched at this, but he said nothing.

  “I want to make one thing clear,” Nasim said, raising her voice. “To everyone. If it looks like the Ark can’t be contained, it must be destroyed. No matter what that might cost the project.”

  This was met with grim nods all around, save for Dr. Okai, who seemed to be doing his best not to think about it. “And if it can’t be destroyed?” Rick asked.

  “Then evacuating this camp becomes our first priority,” Nasim replied. “There are no heroes tonight. No grand sacrifices. If it looks like nothing can be done, get yourselves off that mountain as quickly as possible. Understood?” Another round of nods. She turned to the doctors. “Ready?”

  “We’re ready,” said Dr. Halley excitedly.

  “Then move out. And good luck.”

  Rick joined Kai as Halley and Okai led the way towards a distant gate, the Retrieval team following behind them. Julie accompanied them to the edge of camp. “Good luck,” she said, as the gate rattled open. Members of the security team stood post on either side. “Try not to make it angry.”

  Kai snorted. “You have no idea who you’re talking to.”

  Jabal Musa stood in the distance, the foothills a hundred yards or so from the edge of Camp Moses. The sun was just beginning to rise behind the mountain, the distant horizon a line of blazing pink against the dark purple sky. A line of lights marked the path up to the summit, where Rick could just make out what looked like a large, inflatable dome.

  “We’ve quarantined the peak,” said a member of the Retrieval team as he fell into step beside him.

  “Beneath a tent?” Kai said. “You think it’ll hold that thing?”

  The Retrieval guy grinned through a large red beard. “Oh yeah. It’s a metamaterial, based on the Remnants themselves. We’ve blasted sheets of the stuff with the energy equivalent of a small thermonuclear warhead. Not even a scratch.”

  Rick wasn’t so sure. He remembered vividly how the Ark had rebuilt itself, apparently harvesting raw rock from the cave walls, the ceilings -- and the bodies. Transforming it all, turning it from flesh and stone to bright, liquid gold. It might not be as brutally destructive as a bomb, but something told him that didn’t matter. It was the difference between pounding on a rock with a hammer, and convincing the rock that it wasn’t a rock at all.

  Still, he supposed Retrieval had been doing this long enough to know what they were talking about. “So the dome always withstands whatever the Remnants can throw at it?”

  The man shrugged. “Sure, in simulation.”

  “Wait -- simulation? Haven’t you done this before?”

  “Extraction, sure. But this is the first live one we’ve encountered.” He was positively beaming. “We’re all pretty excited.” Then he winked, before jogging to catch up with the rest of the Retrieval team.

  “Still convinced this is the right thing to do?” Rick asked Kai.

  “Yeah, Rick. I am. I know we’ve kept our noses in our own business, traditionally. But if things get worse out here? If we wait for it to become our business? It might be too late to do anything about it.”

  So no pressure, Rick thought sourly.

  They entered the foothills, and the path quickly grew steeper. Rick quickly realized that, miracle or not, he still wasn’t fully recovered. He soon found himself panting, out of breath and at the back of the line. Kai, meanwhile, seemed to be having no trouble at all in his exoframe, despite his lingering injuries. Even more galling, Dr. Okai -- easily the oldest member of their group -- kept pace with the Retrieval team up front. Dr. Halley joined Rick and Kai in back.

  “I hate this climb,” he puffed, trying to smile and only looking nauseous. Rick was too out-of-breath to say anything.

  “One of your Retrieval people said this is the first time you’ve found an active Remnant,” Kai said. “That true?”

  Dr. Halley nodded, panting. “Almost all have been dormant, and a dormant AUO -- very difficult to study.”

  “But that dome is made out of Remnant stuff. So you can already replicate them?”

  “Well -- sort of.” Dr. Halley paused to catch his breath. “The dome is composed of simple laminated carbon-reinforced polymer panels, but we’ve embedded a nanomesh matrix of AUO substrate material.”

  “And that makes it -- what,” Rick asked, “Remnant-proof?”

  “More like anything-proof. We’ve found quite a lot of raw AUO material, and it’s almost always dormant -- locked, so to speak, on an atomic level. Impervious to any outside force short of the upper energetic limits of the universe. Theories abound, you can imagine -- braided world lines, closed timelike curves, nonlocal holographic projection --”

  “We can imagine,” Kai said.

  Dr. Halley smiled weakly. “Regardless, the material appears to be awaiting some unknown spark or signal to render it malleable. To make it active, give it form and purpose, like the Ark. Until we discover what that spark is, there isn’t much we can do with it, but we have been able to manipulate it using strong magnetic fields. This is -- crude -- manipulation, mind you. Like a child stacking blocks. But it’s a start.”

  “So you really don’t know anything about these things,” Rick said. “Do you?”

  The mountain shook so violently that their entire group stumbled. Rick caught himself against Kai, who braced himself against a large boulder beside the path. Dr. Halley fell to his knees. Off to the left, a small rockslide began, a stream of pebbles coursing down the slope with larger stones bouncing and cracking violently against each other.

  It lasted almost two full minutes, during which everyone hung onto the nearest solid object. When the tremor ended it cut off all at once, as if a switch had been flipped.

  “Everyone ok?” called one o
f the Retrieval team members. “Sound off.”

  There came a chorus of replies. “Fine,” Rick said, steadying himself.

  “Let’s pick up the pace,” Dr. Okai said, dusting himself off. His voice was shaky.

  Nobody argued. Rick was growing increasingly pessimistic about the success of this mission.

  “The artifacts,” Dr. Halley said, in a more subdued tone as they resumed their climb, “are beyond us in ways we can’t even fathom. Their gross physical characteristics aren’t even the most perplexing thing about them, and yet we’ve barely been able to penetrate its principles. The quarantine dome doesn’t harness the AUOs, it uses them as a blunt instrument. And it’s only a relatively recent breakthrough.”

  “Sounds impressive enough to me,” Kai said. “You’re making some progress.”

  Dr. Halley laughed ruefully. “Some, yes. But let’s do a small thought experiment, if you’ll permit me. Imagine you could take a modern phone, or your wristband, back in time to the Italian Renaissance, and present it to Leonardo Da Vinci. Genius that he was, could he even begin to understand its nature?”

  Kai shrugged. “Maybe?”

  “And what feature do you think would intrigue him the most? The microchips? Perhaps, except the closest thing to a computer in his time was clockwork. Electrons weren’t discovered until the 19th century, so Da Vinci wouldn’t have even the most basic foundation from which to understand modern electronics. The same goes for wireless communication, and battery power, and flexible OLED displays. No, the only thing that Da Vinci -- the greatest mind of his century -- would be able to grasp would be the materials that the wristband is made of. Light, flexible, durable plastic. Nothing like it existed in his time. The study of them would consume the rest of his life, and he would die never having even touched upon the true purpose of the device. Never having even guessed at it.