Ghost of the Gods - 02 (23 page)

Time crawled slowly by. One of the commandos had inserted a camera through the wall of the church using a silent drill. For the past hour everyone had watched the subject healing parishioners. It was an impressive show.

“You don’t think he’s really the messiah?” whispered Cuda. “Do you?”

“Can it,” hissed Alexi. “The subject’s leaving. Here he comes.…”

The subject stepped onto the sidewalk. Zuris heard the sounds of a scuffle. He watched as Tasers hit their man, but the hybrid did not go down. The subject looked a little dazed as he pulled wired darts from his body. Several commandos took him bodily.

“Sodomite,” shouted the Messiah as he stared directly at Alexi. “Hive collaborator. God will smite you!”

“What the fuck!” yelled Alexi. “Cuda, hit him with the drugs now!”

“Cuda’s down,” yelled a commando. “He’s waxed. I got his injectors…. Good night, asshole.”

One of the helmet cameras was now inches from the subject’s face. The fight drained from the hybrid as the drugs did their work. His eyes fluttered, then closed. A straitjacket was cinched up on him, and with that the hard part was over.

“Goddamn fucking micro kill-zone!” cursed Alexi. “We’ve got collateral in the church. Looks like four civvies are waxed.”

A field stretcher was unfolded and the subject was strapped to it.

“Get that evac down here ASAP,” said Alexi. “What the hell happened to Cuda?”

“Looks like his jammer was fucked up when that civvie tried for a home run off Cuda’s brain bucket,” said a commando. “Yeah, look at this shit. He lost a wire to the bucket and didn’t know it.”

“Son of a bitch,” yelled another commando. “I thought this full battle rattle was supposed to warn you if there’s a bad circuit. Motherfucker said it was foolproof. I am gonna motherfucking foolproof him when I get back.”

“Cut the chatter and do your job,” said Alexi.

The plan called for the evacuation helicopter to touch down in the street and extract the team with their prize. Zuris heard the distinct sound of a Special Forces Stealth Blackhawk nearing the ground. He watched the overhead view from a drone. The video feeds from the commandos were shaky as the team ran toward the Blackhawk. Zuris waited until they were in the air before he switched off the screens and left the situation room in darkness.

Richard Zuris – Dallas, Texas – February 14, 0002 A.P.

In the heart of Prometheus, Zuris and Alexi watched as their new subject awoke to semi-consciousness in his chamber while strapped into medical scaffolding. His lower body was submerged into a shallow trough of water. The subject’s arms were extended straight out on side restraints like a cross. Lower restraints held his legs together and flat. His body was tipped a few degrees from horizontal. The entire arrangement viewed from above looked like a high-tech crucifixion. Ports inserted in the upper chest provided real-time blood analysis and delivery of drugs and total nutrients. His head was restrained by a series of straps. Aimed at his ears were an array of highly directional MRI safe speakers called
sonic cannons
. The array was used to radiate three-dimensional high-fidelity sound directly into a subject’s ears and mind. His eyes were taped open. The muscles that moved his eyeballs had been disabled with a paralytic agent. By necessity the drug was infused directly into the extraocular muscle capsule behind each eye through surgically inserted intravenous lines. Through a glass window in the fMRI doughnut, laser video projectors were aimed into his retinas. The audio-video outputs from this system were used to inject multimedia into the subject’s cognitive centers as feedback to god-machine responses. The subject’s brain then processed the feedback into neural streams of consciousness. Like all information flowing through a subject’s nanotech brain, the god-machine was the ultimate end consumer. Non-ferrous noble metal electrodes had been inserted into the subject’s temporal lobes near the hippocampus to directly signal the god-machine.

Zuris considered the Prometheus chamber a work in progress. They had learned from tragic deaths that the micro kill-zones spasmodically emitted by a few subjects operated independently of the god-machine. To protect the staff each chamber was isolated with zone-jammers. An alternate way to safely connect subjects to the god-machine was then needed. A conduit of water saturated with COBIC was the solution. The conduit was constructed from a pair of clear vinyl tubes that circulated lake water saturated with COBIC through a trough in which the subject was partially submerged. An array of signal analyzers monitored all data conducted along the n-web pathways in the conduits. In turn, jammer-shielded pipes connected the conduits in the labs to a river, which was fed by a chain of smaller aquifers that were connected to the Ogallala Aquifer and ultimately the god-machine. Like everything in Prometheus, even the water conduits leading to the river were fully redundant and hardened to mil standards.

Zuris studied the brain activity maps and signal displays as the Prometheus interface was switched on. Moments later the infusion of DMT began. Moderate doses of the psychotropic drug DMT had been found to increase susceptibility and throughput. A supercomputer began feeding test signals through a firewalled sub-processor into the subject’s temporal lobes. The same computer performed analysis on the resulting n-web signals relayed through the water conduit. The brain activity maps and signal displays registered a sudden massive flow of data. This event indicated a successful interfacing.

“Wonderful,” said Zuris. “Every day another step closer.”

“I am not sure about this one,” Alexi muttered. “He’s as crazy as they come.”

“Some psychiatrists believe psychotics have minds that are more open to spiritual dimensions,” said Zuris. “Let’s hope our messiah will have better connections to his god-machine.”

Open Roads

Mark Freedman – Montreal – February 13, 0002 A.P.

The train that had just arrived through the subway tunnel was now leaving. The squad of Canadian soldiers had them cornered. Mark had his hands in the air. He glanced down at his chest and saw three red dots from laser pointers. He looked over at Sarah and saw two red dots on her chest. Her arms were at her sides. They were both wearing thin high-tech body armor so the protection did not show and offered an advantage of surprise. In these times so many people wore body armor. These Canadian soldiers would have to be total fools to not be packing ammunition that could penetrate the best vests. He was getting enough mental chatter from them to know the soldiers had received orders that terrorist suspects matching their description were video recorded leaving the Montreal Bioethics Institute just before it was blown up. An assist
was showing heightened heart and respiration for all the soldiers.

“Get on the
ground
!” yelled the squad leader.

Mark was receiving a stream of agitated memory capsules from Sarah. He was worried she was going to draw on them. She was confident she could take them all before they fired. In a memory capsule she pointed out that all but one of the soldiers had their fingers outside their trigger guards. She was receiving a lot of emotional confusion from the men. They were all young and did not want to kill innocent people. They were no longer sure Mark and Sarah were their suspects. Mark sent Sarah a message that she was going to get them both killed if she tried anything. The squad leader unclipped a microphone that was fastened to his coat.

“We may have the terrorist suspects… Roger… Will hold for your arrival.”

The soldiers started to edge toward them. Mark saw civilians plastering themselves against the walls of the subway station.

“I said get on the ground. Do it
now
!” yelled the squad leader.

Mark knew this was going to end badly. Sarah was not going to be captured by these soldiers. She’d had far too many run-ins with military types in the past. Something crashed behind the soldiers. It sounded like a vending machine being pushed over and smashing. Two of the men turned to look. Another crash erupted. Mark could see the soldiers were jumpy. They all started glancing behind them, then back at Mark and Sarah. Mark shrugged and smiled, trying to communicate he had no idea what was going on. The lights suddenly went out behind the soldiers. All except the squad leader turned away from Mark and Sarah. Flashlights snapped on and began sweeping the darkness. Mark knew it would now be child’s play for Sarah to kill them all in a few seconds. He was disgusted by the mental image, but at some deeper, primitive level he was hoping she would do it now. Automatic fire erupted. Mark felt Sarah grab his arm and with a violent tug she sent him toward the ground. An assist registered a surge of adrenaline. The world was moving in slow motion. While falling, Mark saw a flashlight beam illuminate the ghostlike hybrid. The living god stared at Mark and for an instant Mark felt the hybrid invade his mind. He saw muzzle flashes from a compact assault rifle the hybrid was brandishing. A soldier’s head exploded, then another. Mark’s body hit the cement floor. His eyes were focused back on the carnage no more than seconds after he registered pain from his hard impact. The far end of the subway platform was in darkness except for a single flashlight, which was rolling across the ground. The hybrid was gone. All the soldiers were dead. Sarah was flat on her stomach, aiming her Beretta in a two-handed grip toward the far end of the station.

“What the fuck is going on?” she screamed. “That bastard murders a building full of innocent hybrids, then saves us?”

“Let’s get out of here.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Sarah!”

“Yeah… Yeah, I’m with you. I’m going.”

Mark Freedman – Quebec – February 14, 0002 A.P.

Sarah held the Humvee to a reasonable highway speed. The sun was rising in front of them. The slow pace was making Mark anxious, but he knew she was being smart. They were almost safely out of the area. They had a good escape plan. Once they exited the highway near Lake Champlain, they could follow several good direct routes across the border into New York State. Border checkpoints were no longer manned. No one cared who came or went between the USAG and Canada. Since the Canadians were now hunting terrorists, the checkpoints might be manned, but the odds of that were remote. Still, they had no intention of taking any chances. They’d only use rural crossings. The plan was to stop at a safe distance and hike down under cover of woods or fields to binocular range. It the checkpoint was abandoned, they’d use it.

Mark stared at a weathered billboard listing attractions for Lake Champlain as they cruised past. The attractions were probably all closed forever. He was confused by his jumbled emotions. They were colliding with each other like billiard balls and scattering in every direction. Simple things were setting him off. He knew Sarah was tracking every one of his feelings and that he was probably confusing her too. So many people had needlessly died since they set off from Pueblo Canyon. With perfect recall he could see the Canadian soldiers being murdered in rapid succession, one after another. It was one more small massacre added to the global massacre that had brought the world to this point.

“There’s our exit,” said Sarah. “Home free once we get off this highway.”

“Nothing’s free anymore,” said Mark.

An hour later, after hiking back to their Humvee, they blasted through a deserted rural checkpoint far above the posted speed limit. Upper New York State, for some reason, felt safer to Mark, but the world was stranger than he could have possibly imagined only a few short weeks ago. Communes of highly evolved hybrids were at war with ghostlike renegade hybrids, who were even more highly evolved than the communes. As if that was not enough to make the world feel surreal, for the past two hours he’d been sensing the subtle pulls of an increasing number of singularities. Sarah was experiencing the same tidal crosscurrents and had questioned them repeatedly.

Mark was using the assist that displayed n-web architecture to try to gauge direction and distance to the singularities as well as their numbers. It was an odd feeling to be sailing down a highway moving through a three-dimensional rendering of n-web pathways geo-projected all around him. The projection extended beyond the boundaries of the Humvee out to the horizons. He estimated there were sixteen singularities in this half of the continent and most of them were south; very few were east or west.

“How could they all be communes?” asked Sarah.

“If they turn out to be real, this makes Adam either very bad at basic math or a liar. He said there were twenty communes in the entire world. I suppose some of these could be decoys. Who knows? I keep finding more every time I check. If they’re all real, then these singularities are either coming out of hiding all at once or spreading like a virus.”

“What I don’t understand is if we can find them, then the betrayers can find them too,” said Sarah. “It’s like the communes are showing themselves to taunt a pack of psychopaths bent on destroying them. It’s mass suicide.”

“I agree it doesn’t make sense. Adam’s stories are not holding up under daylight unless the communes are trying to lure betrayers into some kind of trap.”

“I think we should head for the nearest singularity to see if it’s real.”

“I agree,” he said.

“Maine?”

“Maine… Somewhere near Portland, I think.”

Mark Freedman – Upper New York State – February 14, 0002 A.P.

New York no longer felt as safe as it had when they’d first crossed the Canadian border. All the major roadways were congested with wreckage and explosive destruction from recent warfare. What was unsettling was that this needless destruction had happened months ago, not years. There was frozen mud and snow everywhere. It must have rained as well as snowed here in the last few days. Rain in upper New York State in February was unimaginable. Year after year the polar jet streams were wandering greater distances, changing their paths, leaving abnormal weather patterns in their wake. The jet streams were also oscillating more. It was possible to have warm spring-like weather one day with a blizzard the next day. Everywhere Mark looked he could see the fingerprints of global warming.

The nearest bridge across Lake Champlain was at Rouses Point. They found the huge bridge had been demolished and never rebuilt. Ferries were no longer running. They were forced to drive south following Lake Champlain, searching for a place to cross. Soon they reached a smaller bridge, which looked like it had been destroyed by warfare. The Humvee’s GPS was showing their next option was the Lake Champlain bridge. There were symbols for road construction over the bridge, which could mean anything. The symbols could have been appended any time in the past several years. The GPS showed that Lake Champlain and its southern river formed a very narrow one hundred and fifty mile long barrier of water. This bridge-hunting detour had already added too many miles to their route and could add far more.

Sarah slowly pulled the Humvee to a stop in the middle of the roadway. Mark got out and walked a hundred feet closer. He stared down from the edge of a bomb crater in the middle of the road. Sarah came up next to him. The bridge had clearly been mangled by aerial bombardment. The roadbed over the icy river was pockmarked with craters and canted at dangerous angles. Spans of it were completely missing in spots. Traffic between New York and Vermont had been effectively cut off.

“This is starting to look like a quarantine line,” said Sarah. “Someone decided to stop all traffic between New York and Vermont and then never bothered to fix what they broke.”

“Whatever the reason,” said Mark. “I think we have a much longer drive ahead of us than we thought.”

Traveling the war-torn roads was slow and bone jarring at times. Half a day later they finally found their bridge and crossed into Vermont. An old bed and breakfast looked like a good place to stop. They had both thought it was abandoned and were surprised and pleased to have to pay for their night’s stay, a warm shower, and food. The owner included a free bowl for Ralph and a huge bone. He liked people who traveled with dogs, said it showed good character.

Light from a small fireplace filled the room with a soft, flickering glow. Mark was massaging Sarah’s feet. The deeper feelings he was starting to have for her oddly caused him less concern than when their affair had started. Was this an affair? He was confused. He hadn’t wanted these feelings.

“Do you think we still have souls?” asked Sarah.

“Looks like you still have both of yours.”

“No, I mean it.”

Mark sighed. He sat up against the headboard and stopped massaging Sarah’s feet. He thought about her unease with herself that had raised this question.

“I don’t feel that my essence has changed,” he said. “But then again, if we were slowly losing our humanity and becoming machines, would we even notice?”

“I don’t fully trust my own thoughts anymore,” whispered Sarah.

“Neither do I,” said Mark.

“I know.”

“But I think as long as we doubt ourselves,” said Mark. “We’re still ourselves and—”

With a powerful crash the room door splintered in two. Mercenaries charged in, followed by a murderous looking Alexander. A half-dozen machine guns were pointed at them. Mark could tell every one of these men wanted to begin shooting. The only thing holding them back was Alexander. The smile on the man’s face sent shivers through Mark’s body. Sarah was frozen. She did not even move to cover herself.

“This has been a long hunt,” said Alexander. “Look at me, traitors, for I am god!”

“You’re insane,” snapped Sarah.

“You can kill them now,” said Alexander.

Mark felt bullets punching through his chest. He experienced loss of control as his nanotech brain’s autonomic systems took over and commanded free-swimming COBIC to the sites of injury. Unnecessary functions were shutting down. His vision was fading. Stanch the blood loss, mend the flesh. The injuries were multiplying. The smell of gunpowder was suffocating. He felt Sarah gripping his hand like a terrible vise, then go slack…

Mark awoke, knocking a lamp to the floor. The bulb exploded. The room was empty and filled with a deep orange glow. The fire had turned to embers. He touched his chest, examined it, found nothing, and was dazed. He looked at the door. It was intact. He looked at Sarah. She was awake and trembling. Her eyes were wide with shock. She kept looking at her chest.

“We’re not dead?” said Sarah.

“I think we just had the same dream,” said Mark.

“It was so real. You were worried about losing your soul then Alexander broke in. He claimed he was god, then they murdered us.”

Mark received a memory capsule from her. They’d had exactly the same dream in every detail. The foot massage, the discussion, Alexander, their murder—it was all identical. The god-machine made these types of shared dreams and visions possible, but they were rare.

“Alexander’s dead,” said Mark. “We saw him die in that explosion. We felt his presence evaporate.”

“Did we or had we seen exactly what he wanted us to see and felt exactly what he wanted us to feel?”

Sarah got out bed, retrieved her M4, and chambered a round. She looked out through the curtained window then started collecting her outerwear.

“This is a dream warning,” she said. “He could be out there right now.”

“He’s dead,” said Mark. “We shared a dream, a nightmare. It was as real as any lucid dream but neither of us knew we were dreaming.”

“That’s exactly how every one of my premonitions were during the plague.”

“He’s dead. I am telling you, he’s dead,” said Mark. “All these years we’d have picked up something coming from him if he was alive.”

“Did we pick up anything the last time when he used drugs to hide his thoughts and ambushed us? It’s almost morning. I want to get out of here now!”

“Fine…”

Mark drove the Humvee, using night vision goggles. He was concerned about the heat signature from the engine. They had another hour until sunrise. If no gangs tried to kill them, then with a little luck they could reach the New Hampshire-Maine border around noon. There had been no further hints of Alexander. Sarah was rechecking the MK19 grenade machine gun in the backseat. Mark could hear the clatter from her working the belt feed. The trunk was filled with munitions boxes loaded with 40mm grenade belts, bricks of plastic explosive, claymore antipersonnel mines, and ammo. They were carrying enough weapons and munitions to win a small war.

Sarah climbed over the console and into the front seat. Wordlessly, she settled in with a tablet. He saw her starting to search for news stories that matched Alexander’s unusual psychopathic style. Mark looked back at the road just in time to lift off the gas. In front of them was a long stretch of highway pockmarked with bomb craters the size of their Humvee. Plows had scrapped the roadbed, leaving marks as if some huge clawed monster had attacked. On the shoulder was fresh wreckage, unrecognizable tangled piles of sheet metal and steel surrounded by drive-train parts and wheels. People had been attacked here recently, and then someone had scraped the wreckage off the road like so much litter to make room for the next victims.

“Shit!” yelled Sarah.

“I know,” said Mark.

“No, you don’t. There’s a huge story out of Montreal about a terrorist attack. It must have just gone up on every news site on the web. They’re showing footage of us leaving the institute just before the explosion. You can easily see our faces and they have our names. They also have a headshot of you. Looks like a picture Kathy took at the CDC and they have my police ID photo. We are supposed to be armed, dangerous, and on a killing spree.”

“The subway bloodbath was witnessed by a lot of people,” said Mark. “The Canadians have to know that wasn’t us.”

“There’s no mention of what happened in the subway. It gets worse. They’re claiming new evidence proves you’re the Nobel Prize winning mastermind who genetically engineering COBIC bacteria. The two of us apparently worked together and released the weaponized bacteria without warning or demand. They’re making us out to be mentally deranged.”

“I always knew I’d be famous,” said Mark, shaking his head.

“The only good news is they have no description of our Humvee and we’re supposedly still in Canada plotting another mad bombing.”