Hero Born: Project Solaris (19 page)

"Follow the right edge of the obelisks," I ordered, letting my fingers brush them as I walked. "Take slow easy steps and keep one hand extended in front of you so you'll know when the person ahead of you stops. We have no idea if this will fool them, so don't assume they can't see us. Be ready to react to anything."

We continued moving, slowly and steadily, towards the central crystal. As Usir had predicted, the chittering calls sounded again, a little closer. They came from behind and either side. Only the route to the crystal was exempted.

Several minutes later, the central crystal came into our field of view. It was mostly obscured by obelisks, but there it was in all its sapphire glory. I could feel the strength of it, feel it yearning to join with my mind. If there hadn't been an ambush waiting I probably would have.

"Kali," Usir whispered, just loudly enough to carry a few feet.

"Yeah?" she whispered back. She was right behind me, almost touching my arm.

"Thus far you've only mastered small bursts of fire, yes?" Usir asked.

"I guess so. I can certainly burn things," she whispered back, her voice smaller and meeker than it had been.

"I want you to try something a little more advanced," he whispered, forging on before she had a chance to react. "You're going to excite every molecule of air near that crystal. Heat them all until the very air burns. It will be faster and hotter than anything you've done before, and it will cause an explosion. That will knock them off balance and we'll begin our assault."

"Uh, give me a minute," she said. I couldn't see her, but I heard her shifting back and forth from foot to foot. There was a long pause before she finally spoke. "Okay. I think I can do it. When do you want me to try?"

"Like hell you're dropping a detonate on that crystal," Summers snarled from somewhere behind Usir. "Marcus could be there. Even regeneration won't save him if he's caught anywhere near ground zero."

"Summers," Usir replied, giving a very vocal sigh. "You're becoming a liability. I'll give you one more chance to master your emotions, after which you become expendable. Am I clear?"

"This isn't the time for bickering," I said, keeping my voice low. "If this is going to work, we need to work together, and that includes you, Usir."

"I'm not letting her do it," Summers said, tone as defiant as ever.

Usir shimmered into existence, stalking down the line of obelisks. I don't know how he knew where she was, but he reached out with a hand and a moment later Summers shimmered into view. Usir's palm was pressed to her forehead, and a pulse of sickly green light shone where the skin met. It wasn't the same green the grey men used. It was sharper. More primal.

Summers began to twitch and shake, mouth lolling open as her gaze grew unfocused. It went on for maybe two or three seconds, then she dropped to the black stone. I wasn't sure if she was unconscious or dead, and I supposed given the circumstances it didn't much matter.

"What the hell are you doing?" I snapped, stalking forward and grabbing Usir's shoulder. I spun him to face me. "There aren't very many of us, and you just took out the only other person who can control grey man tech. I needed her help to destroy the beacon."

Usir's eyes flared an unnatural green, and his face hardened. "The last thing we need right now is an unstable operative. The grey men would have turned her against us."

"You haven't heard the last of this," I shot back, leaning in until our noses nearly touched. "Right now we need each other, but that could change. Remember that, Usir."

"Oh, I will," Usir said, turning towards Jillian. "Jillian, could you cloak our approach?"

She hesitated a moment, catching my eyes. I nodded. Neither of us liked Usir's methods, but we couldn't exactly pick our allies at the moment. Her posture straightened, then a wave of cool energy pulsed from her, and we were once again hidden from sight.
 

"All right, Kali," I said, stalking a little closer to the clearing with the control crystal. "I want you to use this detonate ability Usir told you about. After the initial explosion, Jillian and I will engage any survivors. I'll count down from three. Three, two..."

On one there was a sudden flash of light and a concussion of sound. The blast knocked me back into the obelisks. The sudden burst of pressure sent fresh pain through the wounds on my chest and I began to tear up.

"Now, David. Go, go," Usir said urgently.

I charged, running heedlessly between the columns. I could hear Kali's feet slapping the stone behind me, and the others a little farther back. I charged towards the central crystal, sizing up the situation as I arrived.
 

Six charred bodies greeted our arrival. Marcus was the farthest from the blast, half-burned dreads still recognizable despite the extensive burns ruining his back. The other five were all human, but it was impossible to identify them beyond that.
 

"Where are the grey men?" I asked quietly.
 

"All around us," Usir said, cursing low in a language I didn't even recognize, much less understand. "They're waiting, because they understand our objective. We try for the crystal. They attack. We have no choice but to walk into it."

"Maybe we could wait them out?" Kali asked. Her voice was shaky, probably from the adrenaline. I met her gaze: flat, and black, and unnerving. But it was still Kali.

"Won't work," I said, softly but with authority. "Time is on their side and they know it. Hell, they may have already called for reinforcements. We need to end this, and end this quickly. They know that."

"Assuming we survive this, you'll make a fine strategist," Usir said, tone clearly pleased. "We have no choice but to walk into their trap. Are you ready, David?"

"I'll activate the crystal. The rest of you be ready to defend me when they attack." I took a deep breath and approached the crystal. I circled it twice, walking around the multifaceted surface as I studied it. I was just delaying the inevitable, and I knew it. I was terrified. The moment I touched that crystal they'd know, and odds were good I'd be disintegrated immediately afterwards.

Chapter 31- Meet the Grey Men

Touching the crystal was like diving off the Golden Gate Bridge, a long slow fall into a very deep pool of knowledge. It crashed over me in a frigid wave, and it was all I could do to keep my head above water. So much information, so many separate systems and data feeds. I felt like a child.
 

I closed my eyes and tried to orient myself. This wasn't really all that different from the internet, though the twisting flows of data winding around me were certainly more complex. But, like the internet, if I could learn it then I could master it. After all, I'd been working with computers since Junior High. I opened my eyes again, studying the colorful flows. It was dizzying--all that code, all those bitstreams--but I quickly spotted a pattern.

The data flowed in tides, just like the ocean. Depending on where I was, it pulled me in a specific direction. I found that, if I tried, I could drift along those tides, moving through the system at an incredible pace. Having some semblance of control eroded the panic, and I began breathing normally.

My confidence was further reinforced by the fact that I was still alive. Unlike in most movies or books, time did not appear to pass any less quickly inside a computer, so the grey men had already had plenty of time to attack. In fact, my allies were probably battling for their lives at that very moment.

I could probably find out, but not yet. My time here was extremely limited, and right now I had to make an impossible choice. I might be able to help my friends, I needed to destroy the beacon, and most importantly, to me anyway, I might be able to find out what happened to Mom.

I froze, indecision gnawing at me. I had to know. Mom took priority, besides, if I was fast I could take care of the other things too. I dove into the data flow, sifting as I sought records. It didn't take long to find the data store where they housed information about their experiments.

Unfortunately, there were hundreds of thousands, and they spanned millennia. I closed my eyes for a moment. There had to be a way to filter the data, to query their database looking for specific information.

I began sifting based on today's date, looking backwards. Then I added a gender filter, and tacked on an age filter. Then I added a geographic region filter. Each filter narrowed the list by an order of magnitude, until I was left with a half dozen. The very first one was familiar, but it wasn't mom.

It was Kali's mother, the picture was too similar to be anyone else. She'd been returned the previous day, her experiment marked as concluded. I wasn't sure what that even meant, but it least it looked like she was alive.

I searched the other five records. Mom was the last one. The record contained an attached bundle of information unlike anything I'd ever seen. It was something like a video, but when I observed it was more like a direct memory that had been recorded somehow. It included sounds, smells, even emotions.
 

I realized I was observing events through the eyes of a grey man. It showed a ship moving into position over a small house surrounded by trees. Familiar trees. Then the ship powered up and launched a devastating beam of green energy. The house was incinerated, all that remained a smoking crater. It was the attack itself.

My heart thudded. Was there any way she survived that? I reviewed the rest of the data, pausing at something I didn't really understand. The grey man had recorded something unexpected at the moment it had fired. Something it was labeling as a temporal surge.
 

Temporal. Time. A time surge? Did that mean that Mom had survived somehow? I didn't have any more time to spare. I needed to help my friends. If we lived I could come back and look for more information.

I returned my attention to the data flow, looking for anything that might resemble an internal camera. I was immediately shunted into a massive pool of data. It provided a top-down perspective on the entire pyramid, and when I concentrated I was able to focus on specific parts. I willed myself to zoom down to the center, and sure enough I was able to witness the battle raging.
 

Blasts of fire came from Kali's hiding place behind an obelisk, and she reduced more than one grey man to a smoldering husk. Jillian had taken a more defensive approach, tackling Usir out of the way and phasing through several obelisks when a boomerang pulse almost disintegrated him.
 

At least a half dozen grey men were down, but more than a dozen still fought. My heart sank as I realized this could only end one way. My allies would be overwhelmed eventually if I didn't do something.
 

You can do NOTHING
. A voice thundered, digitized and without emotion, louder than the name of God.
 

A figure floated down to my data pool, a grey man, but somehow more menacing. Maybe it was a trick of this place, but it seemed taller and larger. A leader of some kind?

What are you?
I asked, mostly as a play for time.
 

I am the arbiter of the host
. The grey man thought back, its voice thunderous.
You are nothing more than a failed experiment. Your entire species is an accident, enabled only by the departure of my race from this world. You come to this place, ignorant of even its most basic functions.

If we're so insignificant, why are you recruiting us to fight your war for you?
I countered. I wasn't sure if making this thing mad was a good idea, but if it kept it talking then it was worth it.
 

Expediency. Knowledge. We learn from your DNA, and in so doing gain potent weapons.
The grey continued. It didn't seem angry. If anything, it seemed amused. It was more emotion than I was used to from the grey men.
One day soon our numbers will darken the sky of this world, more numerous than the stars. Until then there is much to be gleaned from your species.

So you aren't planning on using us as weapons against our own kind?
I used the opportunity to study the data pool and consider my options.

Your motivations are rudimentary and short-sighted. You think in years, your elders in decades. Your entire history is only a handful of millennia.
It responded. The words were harsh, but the tone remained emotionless. I wasn't even worth this thing's derision.
My very existence is beyond your comprehension. I observe time in a way your limited intellect cannot begin to conceive. I witnessed the birth of your species, and now I am the herald of its destruction.
 

I glanced down at my friends again. They were still alive. How could I help them? I studied the data pool, and began forming a plan. There was a way to help them, if I could keep this thing busy.

All I'm hearing is a lot of talk. We've killed dozens of you in the last few hours. We've beaten your control slivers. We'll beat you too,
I shot back, forcing as much defiance into the words as I could. I hoped it sounded good, because I wasn't sure I believed it.

You exhibit the overconfidence common in your species. It merely contributes to your downfall.
The grey continued.
Our technology far surpasses your own. Our abilities have been honed over a thousand, thousand generations. The rudimentary abilities we have granted you are an insignificant threat.

Are they now?
I said, with more than a little smugness. The creature had accused me of overconfidence, but I'd just spotted its weakness.

I reached into the data pool and issued a series of commands. The first slammed an energy field around the area surrounding the central crystal. Usir, Kali, and Jillian were trapped in the field along with two greys. Jillian made short work of one, while Kali incinerated the other. As long as that field was up, they'd be protected.

You overstep yourself, an insect wandering across the face of a deity. The eradication of your species begins with you.
The grey thundered. Maybe I was ascribing emotion where there was none, but I thought I finally detected a note of anger. The grey's eyes widened, and a high-pitched ringing filled my ears. I could feel the creature forcing its way into my mind. I tried to stop it, to erect walls and somehow keep it out. It was like every bad horror movie, when people tried to board up windows and doors. The monster always got in anyway.