Serpent and the Sun, Chptr. 16 – Xperience Fiction – by Liam Sweeny.

Apep was Death in the sky; the sanguine flow of air formed an updraft as it gathered about his suspended form. He peered down at the city of Anchorage. It teemed with life. Mortified, panic-stricken beetles, scurrying from houses to bunkers, dare they look up. He killed those that did.

The air was alive with energy. Apep had the ionosphere concentrated, and soon the world’s ecosystem would go into shock; breezes would turn to tornadoes, hurricanes and typhoons would stretch to blanket the Southern Hemisphere, large enough to blur the definitions. Eventually, solar radiation would cook the planet, boil the oceans and fry every patch of bare earth. It didn’t matter to Apep. Soon he’d have no need of a life-sustaining planet.

He could hear screams as the people in the streets below began to die. He was scanning brains, one after the other, searching for a specific piece of information. It was near; he could sense it. He’d been to Saqqara in Egypt before he arrived at Everest. He’d poured through the desert, scanned the sands until he found the tomb of Imhotep. The chamber, buried deep in the earth, was lined with the hieroglyphs befitting the prized architect.

The meanings of hieroglyphics were hidden from Apep under the UEC’s religious control mechanism when he found them. They were deemed a spiritual form of writing. Apep didn’t have access to them until he exterminated the Everest Presidents and took control of the UEC. That was four days ago; he had mere minutes to piece the stories together. No human could have done it, including the imbecile BlackLake. That’s why he had to be destroyed. Apep learned hieroglyphics in the time between hosts.

Within the tomb of Imhotep there was inscribed a legend regarding the first pyramid, the step-pyramid of King Djoser. According to the legend, it was constructed by only a hundred men, taking one year to complete. Such a miraculous accomplishment was due to a magic talisman that gave the workers unlimited strength and energy. They never slept, not once throughout the entire construction. They didn’t have to. They were, in essence, demigods on earth as they worked.

The talisman was called the Image of Khepre, supposedly buried in the tomb with Imhotep.  It was a scarab beetle, composed of exotic materials. Imhotep was more than just an architect. He was a man of many disciplines, one of history’s first recorded alchemists. In those days, and for centuries after, the goals of alchemists varied – everything from the transmutation of one metal to another to the transformation of vice to virtue. Often true discoveries were spawned unintentionally, as was the case with the Image of Khepre.

The talisman was a near-inexhaustible dynamo, able to supply energy in any form required. It heated water, drew electricity from the air and charged the workers’ metabolisms. Two were made by Imhotep; one was given to King Djoser, the other held in his personal collection. The copy given to Djoser was passed down through royal lines, King to King, through three dynasties. Apep could find no specific records of what happened to the dynastic copy, but an ancillary tale was found that Khufu had offended the Image of Khepre.

Imhotep’s copy was left in his tomb until the beginning of the twentieth century, when it was retrieved during an archaeological excavation and brought to the British Royal Museum. For nearly a century it sat behind glass; another religious artifact among thousands, nothing more. It was eventually sold to a museum in America, and from there to a private collector when that museum closed; an amateur scientist, according to the official record. The artifact, along with the work of the scientist who last owned it was stolen during the consolidation of the UEC, before PEALE was brought on-line.

An explosion rocked Apep, nearly making him fall from the sky. The city turned icy cold, the temperature equalizing on both sides of the border. It meant one thing; the HAARP transmitter was blown. He scanned the diamond; the entire HAARP facility was aflame. It wasn’t unexpected. He knew the energy he was attracting would interfere with HAARP. It didn’t matter; HAARP existed as a tool of the UEC.

The UEC was dead. Apep had the ionosphere all to himself.

He looked down to the street below. His escorts were standing near each other, weapons drawn as infected people ran by. Some collapsed before them; they were shocked, but they weren’t dying like the people around them. Dalton was smoking a cigarette. Apep didn’t much care for him; he was insolent. Dalton was selected to be lead escort for a reason other than his personal qualities.

He knew where it was; the Image. He must have learned about it in his undercover work with the rebels. Somehow, through countless Security Force debriefings he kept mum. He hadn’t been cracked, and his Commanding Officer used active brain-scans on three separate instances. Yet he’d sent his former partner, a fugitive, into the diamond. Apep couldn’t enter his thoughts; he tried.

He gathered heat around his body, focusing on AV3. Most of Anchorage was dead and dying; he concentrated on accelerating the process. He felt dispassionate, but he was still connected to one. Liu was beginning to feel cold. He needed to discard the shell. He laughed as screams filtered through the atmosphere to his ears. They needed to die. Liu needed to die.

 

And Apep needed one more crack at the contents of Dalton’s cranium.

 

***

 

An hour passed in tense silence. The wind had picked up, ferociously rocking the skiff. It got so bad Jameson had to let Adam take control. Adam was in his element, making the occasional vroom, vroom! Sound as he stabilized the flight path. Jameson would’ve kept driving if not for the wind. He was left with nothing to do except talk, and he was nervous.

Sarah made him nervous; she was beautiful, spirited and strong. She also looked like Andrea. Not exactly, but she had Andrea’s nose and her hard, piercing eyes. Sarah had a voluptuous figure; Andrea was lithe. But it was her voice, scotch tumbling over ice that sent Jameson into jitters.

He was staring at something out the window, trying to look busy. He didn’t have to try; whatever was causing the gale-force wind had its center at their destination. Jameson had trained in guessing distance by line-of-sight, and an hour north-northwest of them was a conglomeration of energy, casting a red pallor on the sky, luminescent even in the daylight. It wasn’t an aurora; Jameson lived in Alaska; he knew auroras. HAARP’s aurora was continuous. It was early-evening, close to a hundred miles away and yet it jarred Jameson to look at it. It appeared as if the sun was re-setting.

“What is that?” Sarah asked.

“I don’t know,” Jameson replied, “I’ve never see anything like it before.”

“Have you ever been to Alaska before?”

“Yeah, I was born there…”

Sarah said “Oh…” and gently put her hand on Daniel’s head. He was fast asleep.

“I was an engineer.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, I-I’m sorry,” Jameson said, “I just you might want to know something about me. Never mind…” He was embarrassed, glad she couldn’t see his face.

Sarah chuckled. “Yes, Jameson…Please, tell me about it.”

“OK, ahh…I was an engineer; I specialized in nanotech—mainly bio-circuitry.” He said. He glanced back; Sarah’s forehead was crinkled, just slightly. She smiled.

“Ya’ know how Mike was able to heal quickly?”

Sarah nodded. “Yeah, that was weird.”

“He has,” Jameson stopped, “had… bio-circuitry meshed into his tissue. It could repair most injuries.”

“So you…invented that?” asked Sarah. “Is that the right way to say it?”

Jameson let out a laugh, “Oh, Lord no…” he replied, “I mean, you had it right; it was invented, but it was a group effort. I was a part of that group.”

“Oh…”

“So, now Sarah, Michael didn’t tell me much about you…” Jameson said. “What did you do before you met Michael?” Jameson knew she’d been a stripper; he didn’t care, but better that she bring it up than he.

“I was a dancer,” she said, “exotic dancer, that is…” Jameson could hear her shift in her seat… “I know that probably sounds like a stupid job,” she said, “a lot of the girls would say they were putting themselves through school… I wasn’t; I won’t lie.”

“There’s nothing wrong with dancing-,”

“Thanks, Jameson; I appreciate it,” she said, “but we had engineers in Yellowstone. I remember the way they used to look at me. Like all I was good for was getting’ them hard in their off-time.”

“I wouldn’t have looked at you like that, Sarah…”

“I know,” She said softly, “You would’ve never walked in a place like that…”

Jameson didn’t know what to say. He wanted to do something reassuring. He wanted to hold her hand, but he couldn’t. She was sitting in the back seat; it would’ve been awkward.

“Michael said you had a family.” She said.

“Yeah,” Jameson said, “…had.” He rubbed the corner of his shirt. Matthew’s tooth was still in there.

He told her about Andrea and Matthew, about Blake, Michael and his imprisonment, Laura, Seattle and New Rochester. She listened intently, asking questions occasionally. Jameson never talked about his past, but he unloaded on Sarah as though he’d known her his whole life. Occasionally, Adam would interrupt. Jameson found it amusing that Adam would be jealous. He also found it slightly disturbing. Adam had been unusually quiet for the whole ride.

“Jameson, do you know what’s going to happen when we get to Anchorage?” She asked. “I mean, how are we going to stop that…thing?” She pointed out the window. The wind howled, rocking the skiff even as Adam had control of it. “That’s him, isn’t it?” She asked, “BlackLake; whatever…He’s making the weather crazy.”

“Yeah,” Jameson replied, “And I wish I could tell you what we’re gonna’ do; I can’t.” He tapped the dash nervously. “Two weeks ago I was preoccupied with preserving archives at New Rochester. Blake threw a wrench at me when he showed up. I’m flying-by-wire.”

“No,” Adam said, “I’m flying-by-wire!”

“Are you able to, Adam?” asked Jameson as he tapped on the window, “How’s it going?”

“The gales are topping two-hundred miles-an-hour,” Adam’s voice sounded rushed; annoyed even. “As far as whether or I’m able to drive this thing,” he added, “…we’re not eating dirt.”

Jameson was torn; happy that Adam was showing some adult emotion, yet hoping his attitude trend wouldn’t continue, or get worse. It wouldn’t be long before Adam was beyond Jameson’s control; an equal.

Not an equal. A superior. Jameson shuddered at the prospect. He loved Adam. He could barely admit it to himself, but he did. It was different than his love for Andrea or Matthew. But as they drove, their lives in Adam’s cyber-hands, he realized that different wasn’t less.

Jameson took a deep breath. He checked the battery power. They weren’t draining as much as they should have been. Adam was good enough to harness every tailwind, reducing thrust with astonishing precision. No human driver could have done it. He also lowered the skiff to a level that allowed them to double speed. Jameson suddenly realized how close they were when they flew over a ridge. Anchorage was clearly visible. Sarah hung her fingers on the edge of the passengers’ seat as she stared out the window at the contorted Anchorage skyline. She summed it up in six words.

“Oh…my…God,” she said, “What is that?”

 

***

 

Grey smoke languished; planetary rings gravity-bound to Blake’s motionless form. He was dressed in a mismatch of clothing, whatever Laura could get her hands on. His uniform had self-cleaning features, but he didn’t want to wear it anymore. He was dying; determined to die free, however possible.

He was in the Arboretum. In better times, Seattle’s Arboretum was an oasis in the city, a panorama of foliage, diverse in flora from raw forest to the delicate Japanese Gardens in which Blake was then standing. The Japanese Gardens were all that were left of the original arboretum. The rest of the land was in cultivation, now the main provider of food for the city. There were still trees, only the forests had become orchards. Fields of tall grass now grain crops, bean-fields and small streams carved into channels of irrigation.

They chose Seattle for a number of reasons; it was easy to defend against weather attacks, it was surrounded in evergreens, which made it easy to throw off heat detection. More practically, it was near a region of volcanism, and a source of energy was available.

They didn’t choose Seattle because of the great shape it was in. The escape was a Diaspora; if the UEC had a better grasp of PEALE, they would have never made it to Seattle. In fact, over a hundred people died as it was. But a year after they left Denali, they arrived in a city inhabited. They weren’t rebels; they called themselves Resistance, but Blake had a hard believing there was a difference. But then he met Laura.

She was in her mid-twenties; Blake was stunned by her beauty. She wore a ragged urban-camouflage jump-suit; it looked like something out of the Energy Wars (later Blake found out it was.) It was tight on her just a bit, but she had a knock-out body. It would’ve been easier if that was the first thing Blake noticed about her. Unfortunately for him, the first thing he noticed was a searing pain in his shoulder when she shot him.

He didn’t blame her. If he was in her place he’d have done exactly the same thing. It was, of course, a misunderstanding, but Blake never forgot the bravery she showed protecting her people. She knew who he was, what he was; his uniform, his tattoo, the fact that she called him an asshole Guardsman as she took aim. He forgave her, eventually… and when the Resistance agreed to allow them residence, Laura and Blake had gotten to know each other over hours too many to count.

Blake startled as he felt her arms around him.

“Laura…”

“What makes you think it’s me?”

“I’d recognize your touch anywhere,” he replied, “It’s been in my fantasies for years.”

“I thought you didn’t dream?”

“I don’t,” he smiled, “but I do fantasize…” she thumped him in the chest with the point of her thumb. He laughed. She squeezed him tight, her firm, warm breasts pressed against him. Among all the things she made him feel, what he liked best right then was that she made him feel at home.

“How are you feeling?”

Blake sighed. “It’s spreading. It’s in my collar-bone; there’s a new spot on my calf.”

“Sorry, Blake; we’re trying to find out a way to reverse it,” she said, “All we have to go by is Michael, and his system’s not easy to get into.”

“They’re dissecting him?”

“They’re trying to, Blake; it’s the only way we can-,” Blake moved away. Laura reached out to him, but he backed off.

“Blake, c’mon…”

“…so the other day you tell me I‘m here to die,” He said, “and now you’re saying they got Michael body splayed out on a table…for me?” Blake spoke without facing her. He rarely did that. Not to her.

“Would should we do, Blake!?” Laura was tired. Blake wasn’t angry with her. He was just angry; she was just close.

“Bury him.” He said. Then he turned to Laura, ignoring the pain in his shoulder as he caressed her cheek with his hand. “Please, Laura…”

“What about the others?”

“What others?”

“We’ve been lucky, Blake,” she said, “We haven’t had victims. Yet. But that could change. We need to know what we’re dealing with.”

Blake didn’t say anything. She was right.

“I’m sorry, Blake…” She said. “I love you.”

That was enough to stun Blake. “Whoa…what!?”

“I said it, Blake; I love you.” She said. “I always did.”

“Even back in the day? What about Borland? Jameson?”

“Blake, I loved you from the day I shot you.” Blake laughed.

“You know what you did that day?” Laura stepped closer. The arboretum was closed to them only.

“You sighed.” She said. “You took a deep breath then you blew me a kiss. I know that shot hurt like hell. You told Michael, and later on he told me.”

“You know what that said to me about your character?”

Blake let out a laugh. “Yeah, well, it didn’t matter; you wound up with Borland anyway.” He said quietly.

“You wouldn’t stay, Blake!” She shouted. “Every day, one way or another you talked about wanting an assignment. What was I supposed to think!?”

“Aw, Laura, it wasn’t you…”

“I know that now.” He said. “But then, I mean…things were different.” He stared out over the pond at the meticulously groomed bushes.

“Things were new.” Laura looked at him blankly.

“Love was new.” He looked intently at Laura and lowered his voice. “Look, I always made a big deal about how I shouldn’t be here, like I’d interfere or something….” He said. “That wasn’t it. It’s just, I mean, when you got with Roger, I just…”

“Oh, Blake,” She said, her eyes dampening, “I never cared about Roger like I cared about you. He just-,”

“He just what?”

Laura held it on the tip of her tongue.

“Laura, tell me…” He said, “We’ve been through enough,”

“He was comfortable,” she said, “He didn’t excite me, but I didn’t have to worry about getting my heart broken either…”

Her words shocked Blake. Comfortable? He didn’t know whether to be hurt or pissed off. He just stood there quietly, immersed in his thoughts.

“Blake; please…don’t say nothing.” Laura was choked up. “I never meant to hurt you. I did love you.” She said. “I do love you.”

“I didn’t know if I could be a leader with a broken heart.”

Blake brushed the hair that her tears had plastered to her face. With his thumb he wiped her eyes. He couldn’t be angry. And at that point he realized that back then, he left her no choice.

“I love you too, Laura.” He said as he brought her lips to his.

 

***

 

“Inspiring leaders lead from the front-lines,” he once told her during a game of chess, “But effective leaders could never do that. You can’t send a regiment to its death if you’re standing in it.”

“Why would you do that?” She asked. He moved his bishop into an un-protected position. Elle capitalized on it, seizing the piece.

“Well, my dear,” He said, eyes scattered about the board, “Sometimes you have to sacrifice the few to save the whole.” He wiggled his fingers over his side. “The best general sees all assets as equally expendable; making all pieces equal in the attack.” He moved his knight forward, checking Elle’s king. The bishop was a trick. She couldn’t counter.

“Checkmate.” He said as he got up. “…and think about what I said.”

That was years ago. She was barely a teenager. Her father was dead now, and Elle was running around the guts of a Sanctuary adrift, realizing that in some battles, the front line was all there was.

“We can bring her to twenty knots, President Renier; just say the word.”

“Yes, let’s get her going.” She said. “And you are?”

The extended his rough, gangly hand. “Marcus Finnegan.”

“Call me Elle.” She shook it without hesitation, though in her Tier handshakes were considered bad manners. There were eight other people in the driving core, including the two she’d met earlier; her Chief Engineer Jasper Donalds and Chief Navigator Al-Sayid Abdullah.

“Chief Engineer Donalds,” She asked, her finger at a white board schematic of the Sanctuary, “How powerful can we make the typhoons without compromising the Sanctuary?”

“Let me check,” Donalds walked over to a shelf full of technical manuals. “Gotta’ look that one up…”

“Don’t they have stuff like that in data-cube?”

“Sure they do.” He said, “They’re held in the directorate.” He looked over and smiled.

“Elle,” called Abdullah from his station, “we’re approaching maximum capacity. We need to dump off.” Elle glanced over at Donalds. Dumping off would make the typhoon bigger. She needed to know what they could handle.

“I’ma’ lookin’, I’ma’ lookin’,” said Donalds, his hands shuffling through white-sheets like a Rolodex at the hands of an adept secretary.

“Got it.” He flipped through the white sheets. “Says here the external structure was designed for a sustained Category 5.” He said. “We use Cat Fours to charge; Five’s a redundancy.”

“Abdullah, dump enough to bring it to Cat Five.” She said. Then she turned back to Donalds. “What are the damage estimates for Cats Six through Eight?”

“Eight?!”

“Yes. Eight.” She said. “Can you run us through this?”

Donalds let out a nervous laugh. “Yes, but-,”

“Start with Six, then.” She handed him a solid beam pointer, scrubbing the white board with her sleeve to clean off the Sanctuary diagram. Suddenly she felt the increase in speed and the sheer gravity of the typhoon.

Donalds cleared his throat.

“This is all guesswork, Elle,” He started, “This is the type of thing they do studies over.”

“I trust your experience,” She said, “Go on.”

Donalds drew an outline around the Sanctuary spire.

“The Category Five rating is due largely to the Sanctuary’s outer coating. Most people don’t realize that the Sanctuary is coated with a translucent layer call PDC…stands for Pressure Differential Cell. Basically, it generates electricity from subtle differences in pressure.”

“Where does the electricity go?”

“Mostly to power civilian applications;” He replied, “Mezzanine lights, apartment window auto-tints… They’re offline now, with the rest of the Tier general-power.”

“We face two problems with a Cat Six,” he continued, “For that matter, anything above a Five, to varying degrees. We have the damage done to the Sanctuary structure, and we’ve got the difficulty in controlling larger storms.”

Abdullah looked up from his screen, “We’re sustaining a Cat Five, Elle,” He said, “We’re charging up again. We’ll have about ten minute before we have to empty the tanks.”

“Thanks, Abdullah,” Elle replied before motioning back to Donalds. “Go ahead.”

“As I was saying,” Donalds drew two straight lines, one on either side of the Sanctuary.

“The more powerful the hurricane,” He continued, “the less control we’ll have over it.” He crossed the straight lines over wavy ones. “Category Six storms; we’ve not seen many, but we have seen enough to know the eye-walls are solid, but they move in and out. If one gets too close…” He paused. “…then I don’t need to tell you about Sevens or Eights.”

Elle was quiet. She didn’t know enough about the engineering to offer ideas.

“We’ve got another problem.” Said Abdullah.

“What now?”

“I’m picking up another storm, about fifty miles southwest of our position.”

“Another storm!?” Elle slapped her hand to her forehead.  “Is it Atlantic Sanctuary, by any chance?”

“No,” replied Abdullah, “It’s a rouge storm. Pressure readings are low; 600 millibars.

Elle shook her head in disbelief. “600? That’s…”

“Cat Seven.” Donalds said. Then the whole Sanctuary shook. Elle was jarred from her feet, catching herself on a filing cabinet.

“Abdullah! What was that?!”

Abdullah was moving frantically between an analog radar screen and a control panel.

“We’re losing speed!” He shouted.

“Can you dump more power?” She asked.

“It’s not that!” He said, “We haven’t lost power. We’re still at Cat Five!”

“What, then?!” Elle said. Abdullah was quiet. A small crowd was at the screen.

“It’s movin’ quick.” Said Donalds.

“And we’re not.” Abdullah added.

“There’s a concentration of energy at our target,” said one of the other technicians.

“A storm?”

“Hard to say,” The tech replied, “…never seen anything like it.

Elle’s last nerve was fraying. “What the hell is going on!?”

She was answered with a rumbling from within the Sanctuary. She felt her world go up-side down. Then she lost consciousness.

 

***

 

“Just out of curiosity, you don’t know anything about any of this, right?”

Dalton shook his head and scratched his chin. “Not a fuckin’ clue, brother-man…”

“Thanks. Just checking,” The air above was cherry, bright as if the whole breadth of the sky were searing magma. Liu’s form hovered directly over their heads, a bright white spike swirling the mix. Gerhardt could smell ozone in the air. The Sanctuary released a trace of ozone from the fuel cell. He hated the smell.

However the sky was just a distraction compared to the horror on the ground. People were dying wholesale, screams obstructed by phlegm or foam; Gerhardt couldn’t tell which. He could only tell that it was eating them apart. He and Dalton hadn’t moved from their position in ten minutes, and one victim that collapsed a couple of yards from them left nothing behind but the slimy jumper he wore.

“Somethin’ ain’t right.”

Gerhardt laughed. “Ya’ think?”

Dalton reached in his pocket for a cigarette, found one and lit it up.

“Don’t get smart,” he said, “…unless you got an answer for all this…” Suddenly his cigarette burst into flames. He cursed and spat it out. He aimed his middle finger up in the air at Liu. “Asshole!”

“You sure that’s the smartest thing to say to the guy?”

“If he wanted us dead, we’d be jelly right now” Dalton pointed to the slimy jumpsuit on the ground, “just like that guy. He wants us alive for a reason.”

Gerhardt leaned back against the cinderblock barrier they were standing in front of. It was there to protect the Receiving Station, rendered useless in the attack. “So what do we do now?”

“Wait.” Dalton replied. He pulled a round tin out of his shirt pocket, pinching out some tobacco and stuffing his lower lip. He waved the tin in Gerhardt’s direction. He waved it off.

Dalton tossed him the can. “Might be our last day,” He said. “Live a little.”

Gerhardt stared at the tin for a long second. Then he looked up.

“Fuck it,” He grabbed a pinch.

“Spit out the juice,” Dalton instructed him, his eyes darting around.  “God knows there’s enough ‘round here to puke over.” He squatted down by the jumper.

“Lord knows who you’ll be pukin’ on.”

The silence was uncomfortable. The screaming had subsided, replaced by the sound of thunder coming from Liu. The sound never faded, the rumble was a continual monotone. Then, almost too sudden to be real, it stopped. Gerhardt spit out the tobacco and Dalton rose to feet, both of them shielding their eyes from the light as they looked up at Liu. His form, though small, was growing bigger. Gerhardt thought it was because he was descending. He was half-right.

Liu was descending, or whatever the thing was that used to be Liu. But he, it was increasing in size as well. It didn’t look human, having Liu’s face only. The body was serpentine; black and brown pulsations, blue and yellow rings that weren’t rings at all, but symbols. Gerhardt didn’t recognize them, but Dalton did.

“Hieroglyphs.” He said.

“Hiero-what?”

“Heiroglyphs.” Dalton repeated. “Ever heard of the Egyptians?”

“Yeah, they built…pyramids, right?”

“Yeah; more than that, but that’s them. Hieroglyphics was their ‘magical language’.”

“I never heard of it.”

“Of course not,” Dalton said, “Sanctuaries hid it-,” They were interrupted by a loud bang in the distance. Gerhardt’s visual scanner went off.

Dalton checked the data-reader on his wrist and cursed. “HAARP.”

Gerhardt didn’t have to ask. He knew what Dalton meant. HAARP was close, and in the maelstrom, it was vulnerable. The bang was the Central Transmitter blowing up.

“What’s that mean, Dalt’?” Gerhardt took his rifle off his shoulder, “Why isn’t the aurora going away?”

Dalton was staring straight at Liu. Gerhardt went to ask again, but then Dalton put his fingers to his forehead.

“It’s not Liu.” He said. “Liu’s a vegetable, and it’s not Apep either, no matter what it says…”

“Then what-,”

“PEALE.” Dalton’s voice was a whisper. “Coulson BlackLake couldn’t hold it…”

“PEALE?” Gerhardt couldn’t finish the question, only partly because he hadn’t thought of one. Liu, Apep, PEALE had landed, and Gerhardt couldn’t breathe. He grabbed at his neck, but felt nothing. He became light-headed, white spots appeared in his field of view.

Then…nothing.

Gerhardt woke up covered in his own vomit. He was staring at the sky, which for some reason had acquired a rainbow texture. He could still hear thunder, but it was in the distance. He drew a few deep breaths before sitting up, but finally he managed to prop himself up on his elbow. The Apep beast was gone, leaving him and Dalton, whom he could see sitting with his back against the barrier. He was motionless; he must’ve been hurt. Gerhardt gripped his side as he got up, making his way over on one knee and a stiffened leg as pivot. What he saw when he got there made him vomit until all that was left was the urge to wretch.

Dalton’s jacket was torn open at the chest. Gerhardt saw a dark patch; he thought it was blood dampening the fabric. He shined a flashlight on it and saw what it really was; a gaping hole in Dalton’s chest. His sternum was cracked, ribs jutting out jagged from his heart’s broken cage. The heart was gone; Gerhardt scanned the ground for it, no luck. His eyes were open, mouth opening and closing; must have been involuntary movements. Dead bodies did that; that’s what Gerhardt surmised as he scanned the ground for clues. That is, until Dalton spoke.

“Kill me, Ger’…” He said.

Gerhardt did a double-take. No. He shined the light in Dalton’s eyes. I’m hearing things. But Dalton’s pupils contracted in reaction to the light.

“It has my heart, Ger’,” Dalton said, and Gerhardt knew he was speaking. “It’ll lead him to where I don’t want him going. Kill me.”

“H-how?” replied Gerhardt. He pointed to the hole in Dalton’s chest. “Y-You’re already dead!”

“It can’t reanimate the brain,” said Dalton. “but it only needs the heart to find…”

“Find what?!”

“Just do it, Ger’; one in the brain. Hurry!” Dalton’s eyes were pleading. He was in pain; Gerhardt was confused. He aimed at Dalton, but wavered on firing.

“Remember when you shot that old woman?” Dalton said, “This is worse.”

“Stop being such a pussy.”

Gerhardt took a deep breath. Then he fired. He was close enough to catch Dalton’s brain matter on his face as spray. He sunk down to his knees, alone and in tears

Rest in Peace, Dalton, he thought after his ducts ran dry. He sat there numb, gazing up at an atmosphere in rebellion.

 

***

 

Alice didn’t cry when Kenny told her. He would’ve liked to think she heard it already, on a radio in the house he didn’t know about. But there was no radio outside of the depot. Sam told him he wouldn’t dare put one so close to the fam’.

No, Alice just expected it. Her lip was trembling; barely enough to even notice, but it was there. She loved Sam; he was her first love, and in Alaska, it wasn’t uncommon for first loves to get married having never found the love of another.

Jimmy and Mitchell were sitting at the table. They were eating when Kenny came up; they both stopped eating when he broke the news. Jimmy just swirled his potatoes over and over, staring at the plate as if it could shield him from the truth. Mitchell was more proactive.

“This is bullshit!” He shouted as he threw his plate against the wall. He pointed a finger at Kenny.

“It should’ve been you, Kenny!” He cried, “You killed Alex; why did you have to be the one to stay!?”

“I-I don’t-,” and he didn’t. What could he have said, except that Mitchell was right?

“Dad! Jesus-fucking-Christ!” He sobbed, “Daaaad!!!” Jimmy’s eyes were clouding; he was on the verge of it too.

“I don’t blame you, Kenny,” Alice said in a soft voice, “for either of them.” She put her hand on Kenny’s, and he felt the tremble. Then he realized the tremble was his.

He didn’t have time to feel grief. Whatever killed Sam was an unknown, still alive…and heading their way. He motioned Alice and Jimmy out into the living room, where Mitchell was collapsed on the couch, his head held fast in the grip of his forearms.

“Listen up,” Kenny said, “You too, Mitchell.” Mitchell sneered; Kenny let it pass.

“The thing that killed Sam isn’t done.” He said. “It’s coming here next; the depot. Whatever it is, it isn’t human, and it’s not Guard.” The boys stared at him blankly.

“We need to get some of that equipment up and running.” He pointed toward the basement door.

“How!?” asked Mitchell, “And why should we trust you?”

Kenny tossed Mitchell his HK sidearm. Mitchell nearly dropped it.

“Mitchell, when this is all done,” Kenny said, “Supposing we all make it out of this in one piece,” he leaned in closer, pointed to the sidearm. “I’ll stand there and let you drop me with that thing.”

Mitchell looked at him with uncertainty. He gripped the sidearm, aimed in at a chair cushion and fired. The cushion erupted in stuffing and wisps of acrid smoke.

“Okay.”

“Mitchell!” Alice shouted. “Was that necessary, young man?”

He looked at Kenny, his eyes returned to the sight as he waved the piece across the back-wall, its red dot bouncing jagged across the cedar paneling.

“Ooooh yeah…” He said. Then he looked back at Kenny.

“You got a deal.” He said. “So how do we do this?”

“We start by haulin’ ass down to the depot.” Kenny opened up the basement door. And, expectedly, Mitchell made him walk the tunnel first.

As they walked the tunnel, the ground started rumbling. It was distant; occasionally a stream of fine dust would trickle down on them.

“That him?” asked Jimmy.

“I don’t know; maybe.” Kenny had a flashlight that put a good beam down the tunnel. “We should hurry though…”

They reached the entrance to the depot. Kenny didn’t bother to close it before he went up. As soon as they got in, he turned to Mitchell.

“We can power any two vehicles, any two cannons, the depot control center and we’ll have two scarabs left. Sam told you about the scarab, right?”

“No,” Mitchell said, “I told him about it; I got him the one he’s got. Or ones, if you made copies…”

“Mitchell goes to the hidden markets in Anchorage when Sam can’t-,” Alice stopped, grew quiet.

“Half this shit I got us…”

“Mitchell Jacob!” Alice said, “I didn’t raise you vulgar!” Mitchell quietly walked the central corridor; Kenny jogged to follow him. He came to a stop next to an armored skiff.

“DUSAT-3, this thing’s called…” He said. “It looks like a skiff; it’s not. It’s a directed-energy weapon platform.” He patted the side. “Pretty all-purpose; good thing about it is it’s not an ionosphere-dependent system. Most UEC shit is, and if this…whatever it is, is UEC, we’ll want something it can’t just turn off.”

“OK,” Kenny nodded, “So, two of these? Three?”

“You know how to drive one?”

“Oh, no, I was thinking Alice-,” Mitchell pointed Kenny’s sidearm at him point-blank.

“Don’t think.”

“Sorry.” Kenny wiped a thin bead of sweat from his brow when Mitchell turned back to the equipment.

“Two of these will be fine.” Mitchell said. Then they made it to the depot’s extensive weapons-rack. He grabbed a weapon that reminded Kenny of an antique metal vacuum with a nozzle tip.

“Ionospheric De-Stabilization Cannons” He said, “These are run by ionospheric energy, so the UEC can deactivate them. But that’s kind of the point.”

“Can you explain that?”

Mitchell brought the cannon over to the DUSAT-3. “These things disrupt the ionosphere, making it hard for a weather-weapon to work. They can be kicked, like I said, but it’s a headache, and it takes a lot of their time and energy to do it.”

“So it’s basically a fuck you to the UEC.”

“About that…”

“So why would the UEC build something that creates headaches for…the UEC?”

Mitchell waved his hand around the depot. “I don’t know… maybe they were afraid that some of their weather weapon shit would fall in the wrong hands.” He said. “Plus, there are a few Guardsmen out there who turned; that could’ve been part of it…”

Kenny tapped the cannon. “How many?”

“We could put one on each DUSAT, so that’s two.”

“That’s four so far, plus one for the control center in here.” Kenny noted. “That’ll leave us three scarabs.” Mitchell tapped his jaw.

“OK,” he said, “We have a bunker shell. Damn near impenetrable if it has a good power source. Mom goes in it until this is over.”

“OK.” Kenny said. “That leaves two.”

“Hmm…” Mitchell looked at Jimmy. “Anything?”

“How ‘bout the scanner?” He asked. “That thing could see all of Alaska if it had enough juice.”

“Right, I didn’t even think about that.” Mitchell looked over at Kenny.

“That leaves one.” he said. “Just hold on to it.”

In the minute it took to get the scarabs gathered up and out to the boys, they were already in the DUSATs, cannons connected, waiting for juice. Kenny gave them each two and set one in the bunker shell, even at the protest of Alice. The last thing to be energized was the scanner, and when it came to life, all three of them could tell one, and only one thing;

Something dark was enshrouding the horizon. They were in its path, and it was growing. The fact was underscored by a new rumbling, loosing further streams of dust. Jimmy drummed the side-door with his nails, Mitchell snapped some gum.

“C’mon, motherfucker… whatever you are…” said Mitchell, looking at his screen between snaps. “Got some payback for ya’…”

 

 

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