by A. G. Riddle
Start with the simple stuff, he thought.
“Alpha, how can Dr. Warner operate you without voice or tactile input?”
“Dr. Warner received a neural implant nine local days ago.”
“Received? How?”
“Dr. Warner programmed me to perform the implant surgery.”
Just one more thing that hadn’t come up during their nightly Honey, what did you do at work today? discussion.
Milo cut his eyes at David, a slight grin forming on his lips. “I want one.”
“That makes one of us.” David focused on the holomovie. “Alpha, increase playback rate.”
“Interval?”
“Five minutes per second.”
The flashing screens of text morphed into solid waves, like white water sloshing back and forth in a black fish tank. Kate didn’t move a muscle.
Seconds ticked by. Then the screen was off, and Kate was floating in the glowing yellow vat.
“Stop,” David said. “Replay telemetry just before Dr. Warner enters the round… whatever it is.”
David held his breath as he watched. The screen with text went out, and Kate walked to the rear of the room, just beside the vats. A wall slid open, she grabbed a silver helmet, and then walked to the vat, which slid open. She stepped inside, donned the helmet, and after the glass vat sealed, lifted off the ground.
“Alpha, resume accelerated playback.”
The room remained the same with a single exception: slowly, blood began trickling out of Kate’s helmet.
In the last second, David and Milo entered, and then three words flashed on the screen.
End of Telemetry
Milo turned to David. “Now what?”
David glanced between the screen and the vat that held Kate. Then he eyed the empty one.
“Alpha, can I join Dr. Warner’s experiment?”
The panel at the back of the room slid open, revealing a single silver helmet.
Milo’s eyes grew wide. “This is a bad idea, Mr. David.”
“Got any good ideas?”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“You know I do.”
The glass vat rotated, its glass opening. David stepped inside, pulled the helmet on, and the research lab disappeared.
3
It took a few seconds for David’s eyes to adjust to the bright light beaming into the space. Directly ahead, a rectangular display flashed text he couldn’t make out yet. The place reminded him of a train station with its arrivals/departures board, except that there seemed to be no entrance or exit to the cavernous space, just a solid white floor and arched columns that let light shine through.
Alpha’s booming voice echoed. “Welcome to the Resurrection Archives. State your command.”
David stepped closer to the board and began reading.
Memory Date..Health.....Replay
=========== =========== ======
12.37.40.13..Corrupted..Complete
13.48.19.23..Intact.....Complete
13.56.64.15..Corrupted..Complete
A dozen rows continued—all complete. The last entry was:
14.72.47.23..Corrupted..In-progress
“Alpha, what are my options?”
“You may open an archived memory or join a simulation in-progress.”
In-progress. Kate would be there. If she was hurt… or under attack. David glanced around. He had no weapons, nothing to defend her with. It didn’t matter.
“Join simulation in progress.”
“Notify existing members?”
“No,” he said on instinct. The element of surprise might preserve some advantage.
The lighted train station and board faded and a much smaller, darker place took form. The bridge of a spaceship. David stood at the rear. Text, charts, and images scrolled across the walls of the oval room, covering them. At the front, two figures stood before a wide viewscreen, staring at a world that floated against the black of space. David instantly recognized both of them.
On the left stood Dr. Arthur Janus, the other member of the Atlantean research team. He had helped David save Kate from Dorian Sloane and Ares in the final hours of the Atlantis Plague, but David still had mixed feelings about Janus. The brilliant scientist had created a false cure for the Atlantis Plague that erased seventy thousand years of human evolution—reverting the human race to a point before the Atlantis Gene was administered. Janus had sworn that rolling back human evolution was the only way to save humanity from an unimaginable enemy.
David felt no such conflicting feelings for the scientist standing beside Janus. He felt only love. In the reflection of the black areas of space on the screen, David could just make out the small features of Kate’s beautiful face. She concentrated hard on the image of the world. David had seen that look many times. He was almost lost in it, but a sharp voice, calling out from overhead, snapped him back.
“This area is under a military quarantine. Evacuate immediately. Repeat: this area is under a military quarantine.”
Another voice interrupted. It was similar to Alpha’s tone. “Evacuation course configured. Execute?”
“Negative,” Kate said. “Sigma, silence notifications from military buoys and maintain geosynchronous orbit.”
“This is reckless,” Janus said.
“I have to know.”
David stepped closer to the screen. The world was similar to earth, but the colors were different. The oceans were too green, the clouds too yellow, the land only red, brown and light tan. There were no trees. Only round, black craters interrupted the barren landscape.
“It could have been a natural occurrence,” Janus said. “A series of comets or an asteroid field.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You don’t—”
“It wasn’t.” The viewscreen zoomed to one of the impact craters. “A series of roads lead to each crater. There were cities there. This was an attack. Maybe they carved up an asteroid field and used the pieces for the kinetic bombardment.” The viewscreen changed again. A ruined city in a desert landscape took shape, its skyscrapers crumbling. “They let the environmental fallout take care of anyone outside the major cities. There could be answers there.” Kate’s voice was final. David knew that voice. He had experienced it several times himself.
Apparently Janus had as well. He lowered his head. “Take the Beta Lander. It will give you better maneuverability without the arcs.”
He turned and walked toward the door at the rear of the bridge.
David braced. But Janus couldn’t see him. Can Kate?
Kate fell in behind Janus but stopped and stared at David. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“What is this, Kate? Something is happening to you outside. You’re dying.”
Kate took two more long steps toward the exit. “I can’t protect you here.”
“Protect me from what?”
She took another step. “Don’t follow me.” She lunged through the exit.
David charged after her.
He stood outside. On the planet. He spun, trying—
Kate. She was ahead of him, in an EVA suit, bounding for the crumbling city. Behind them, a small black ship sat on the red rocky terrain.
“Kate!” David called, running toward her.
She stopped.
The ground shook once, then again, throwing David off his feet. The sky opened, and a red object poured through, blinding David and smothering him with its heat. He felt as though an asteroid-sized fire poker were barreling toward him.
He tried to stand, but the shaking ground pulled him down again.
He crawled, feeling the heat from above and the sizzling rocks below melting him.
Kate seemed to float over the shaking ground. She loped forward, timing her landings to the quakes that shot her up and forward, toward David.
She covered him, and David wished he could see her face through the mirrored suit visor.
He felt himself falling. His feet touched a cold floor, and h
is head slammed into the glass. The vat. The research lab.
The glass swiveled open, and Milo rushed forward, his eyebrows high, his mouth open. “Mr. David…”
David looked down. His body wasn’t burned, but sweat covered him. Blood flowed from his nose.
Kate.
David’s muscles shook as he pushed himself up and staggered to her vat. The glass opened, and she fell straight down, like a contestant in a dunking booth.
David caught her, but he wasn’t strong enough to stand. They spilled onto the cold floor, her landing on his chest.
David grabbed her neck. The pulse was faint—but there.
“Alpha! Can you help her?”
“Unknown.”
“Unknown why?” David shouted.
“I have no current diagnosis.”
“What the hell’s it going to take to get one?”
A round panel opened, and a flat table extended into the room.
“A full diagnostic scan.”
Milo rushed to pick up Kate’s feet, and David gripped under her armpits, straining with every last ounce of strength to lift her onto the table.
David thought the table took its sweet time gliding back into the wall. A dark piece of glass covered the round hole, and he peered inside at a line of blue light that moved from Kate’s feet to her head.
The screen on the wall flickered to life, its only message:
DIAGNOSTIC SCAN IN PROGRESS…
“What happened?” Milo asked.
“I… We…” David shook his head. “I have no idea.”
The screen changed.
Primary Diagnosis:
Neurodegeneration due to Resurrection Syndrome
Prognosis:
Terminal
Predicted Survival:
4–7 local days
Immediate Concerns:
Subarachnoid hemorrhage
Cerebral thrombosis
Recommended action:
Surgical intervention
Estimated Surgical Success Rate:
39%
With each word David read, more of the room disappeared. Feeling faded. He felt his hand reach out and brace the glass vat. He stared at the screen.
Alpha’s words beat down upon him, smothering him like the heat from the fire poker on the ruined planet. “Perform recommended surgery?”
David heard himself say yes, and vaguely, he was aware of Milo putting his arm around him, though it barely reached the top of his shoulder.
4
Two Miles Below the Surface of Antarctica
The screams served as Dorian’s only guide through the ship’s dark corridors. For days, he had searched for their source. They always stopped as he drew near, and Ares would appear, forcing Dorian to leave the Atlantean structure that covered two hundred fifty square miles under the ice cap of Antarctica, making him return to the surface, back to the preparations for the final assault—grunt work that was beneath him.
If Ares was here, spending every waking hour in the room with the screams, that’s where the action was. Dorian was sure of it.
The screams stopped. Dorian halted.
Another wail erupted, and he turned a corner, then another. They were coming from behind the double doors directly ahead.
Dorian leaned against the wall and waited. Answers. Ares had promised him answers, the truth about his past. Like Kate Warner, Dorian had been conceived in another time—before the First World War, saved from the Spanish flu by an Atlantean tube, and awoken in 1978 with the memories of an Atlantean.
Dorian had Ares’ memories, and those repressed recollections had driven his entire life. Dorian had seen only glimpses: battles on land, sea, air, and the largest battles of all, in space. Dorian longed to know what had happened to Ares, his history, Dorian’s past, his origins. Most of all, he longed to understand himself, the why behind his entire life.
Dorian wiped away another bit of blood from his nose. The nose bleeds were more frequent now, as were the headaches and nightmares. Something was happening to him. He pushed that out of his mind.
The doors opened, and Ares strode out, unsurprised to see Dorian.
Dorian strained to see inside the chamber. A man hung from the wall, blood running from the straps cutting into his outstretched arms and the wounds on his chest and legs. The doors closed, and Ares stopped in the corridor. “You disappoint me, Dorian.”
“Likewise. You promised me answers.”
“You’ll have them.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
Dorian closed the distance to Ares. “Now.”
Ares brought his straightened hand across, striking Dorian in the throat, sending him to the ground, gasping for air.
“You will give me exactly one more order in your life, Dorian. Do you understand? If you were anyone else, I wouldn’t even tolerate what you just did. But you are me. More so than you know. And I know you better than you know yourself. I haven’t told you about our past because it would cloud your judgment. We have work to do. Knowing the full truth would put you at risk. I’m depending on you, Dorian. In a few short days, we will control this planet. The survivors, the remainder of the human race—a race, I remind you, that I helped create, helped save from extinction—will be the founding members of our army.”
“Who are we fighting?”
“An enemy of unimaginable strength.”
Dorian got to his feet but kept his distance. “I have quite an imagination.”
Ares resumed his brisk pace, Dorian following at a distance. “They defeated us in a night and a day, Dorian. Imagine that. We were the most advanced race in the known universe—even more advanced than the lost civilizations we had found.”
They reached the crossroads where an enormous set of doors opened onto the miles of glass tubes that held the Atlantean survivors. “They’re all that’s left.”
“I thought you said they can never awaken, that their trauma from the attacks was too great for them to overcome.”
“It is.”
“You got someone out. Who is he?”
“He’s not one of them. Of us. He’s not your concern. Your concern is the war ahead.”
“The war ahead,” Dorian muttered. “We don’t have the numbers.”
“Stay the course, Dorian. Believe. In a few short days, we will have this world. Then we will embark on the great campaign, a war to save all the human worlds. This enemy is your enemy too. Humans share our DNA. This enemy will come for you too, sooner or later. You cannot hide. But together, we can fight. If we don’t raise our army now, while the window exists, we lose everything. The fate of a thousand worlds rests in your hands.”
“Right. A thousand worlds. I’d like to point out what I see as a few key challenges. Personnel. There are maybe a few billion humans left on earth. They’re weak, sick, and starving. That’s our army pool—assuming we can even take the planet, and I’m not even sure of that. So a few billion, not necessarily strong, in our ‘army.’ And I use that term loosely. Up against a power that rules the galaxy… Sorry, but I don’t like our chances.”
“You’re smarter than that, Dorian. You think this war will resemble your primitive ideas about space warfare? Metal and plastic ships floating through space shooting lasers and explosives at each other? Please. You think I haven’t considered our situation? Numbers aren’t our key to victory. I made this plan forty thousand years ago. You’ve been on the case three months. Have faith, Dorian.”
“Give me a reason.”
Ares smiled. “You actually think you can goad me into giving you all the answers your little heart desires, Dorian? Want me to make you feel good, whole, safe? That’s why you came to Antarctica originally, isn’t it? To find your father? Uncover the truth about your past?”
“You treat me like this—after all I’ve done for you?”
“You’ve done for yourself, Dorian. Ask me the question you really want to ask.”
Dorian shook his head.
“Go ahead.”
“What’s happening to me?” Dorian stared at Ares. “What did you do to me?”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“There’s something wrong with me, isn’t there?”
“Of course there is. You’re human.”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m dying. I can feel it.”
“In time, Dorian. I saved your people. I have a plan. We will establish a lasting peace in this universe. You don’t know how elusive that has been.” Ares stepped closer to Dorian. “There are truths I can’t reveal to you. You’re not ready. Have patience. Answers will come. It’s important I help you understand the past. Your misinterpretation could sink us, Dorian. You’re important. I can do this without you, but I don’t want to. I’ve waited a long time to have someone like you by my side. If your faith is strong enough, there’s no limit to what we can do.”
Ares turned and led them out of the crossroads, away from the long hall that held the tubes, toward the portal entrance. Dorian followed in silence, a war beginning in his mind: blindly obey or rebel? They suited up without another word and crossed the ice chamber beyond, where the Bell hung.
Dorian lingered, and his eyes drifted to the ravine where he had found his father, frozen, encased in ice within the EVA suit, a victim of the Bell and his Immari lieutenant, who had betrayed him.
Ares stepped up onto the metal basket. “The future is all that matters, Dorian.”
The dark vertical shaft passed in silence, and the basket stopped at the surface. The rows of pop-up habitats spread out across the flat sheet of ice like an endless flow of white caterpillars dug into the snow.
Dorian had grown up in Germany and then London. He only thought he knew cold. Antarctica was a wilderness with no equal.
As he and Ares strode toward the central ops building, Immari staffers clad in thick white parkas scurried between the habitats, some saluting, others keeping their heads down as the winds hit them.