The Armageddon Effect Page 12

  The vehicle jostled on rough pavement. My eyes followed the road winding up the small mountain to where it disappeared in a dark hole in the mountainside. Tires spun loose gravel as we hurried towards the looming maw which used to house the Cold War fortress called NORAD. The North American Aerospace Defense Command.

  It didn’t appear all that impressive from the outside. A fence, some soldiers, some scattered buildings, and a gaping tunnel that could easily swallow a truck or two. Yet I knew that inside that mountain a vibrant, self-contained habitat had stood sentinel as the center of American national air defense for decades. My eyes widened in appreciation at the engineering achievement.

  Guards opened the tall razor-wire-topped gate without slowing the convoy and snapped a salute as we roared by. We thundered across the open road and into the ominous tunnel. The rumble of engines and shriek of tires echoed off the close walls. Bright sunlight turned to scattered shadows in the artificially lit gloom. Far from the entrance, we came to a stop at a giant steel door. As I climbed out, I looked up at the door. I remembered brochures claimed it weighed twenty-five tons and extended six meters high with similar width and depth. I gazed in awe at the giant cylindrical plug embedded in the rough-hewn granite. It took a certain aplomb to remain calm when walking into a sealed vault. I didn’t feel calm. Sweat poured from my forehead even in the cool corridor. Unless someone opened that door, getting out again seemed impossible. Lock-down sounded more like locked tomb.

  A buzz-like vibration irritated my scalp and I felt something, a presence. The sensation grew as we walked toward the door. Something lived in that door. The knowledge came to me like an epiphany. The egregor of the generations of service of the men and women who had served in this rock-enshrouded vault lived in that door. A Guardian. It radiated Honor. Bravery.

  It would stop the most determined of shadows.

  As I gazed in wonder, a distant whisper echoed. No.

  A red revolving light spun up, strobing the tunnel in crimson beams as a horn blasted three times. The door started to close. “Hurry,” someone said.

  Car doors slammed as we hurried inside amid a rush of footsteps. Glancing back, I watched as a wall of forearm-sized rods slowly moved into place, completing the door seal with a resounding thud.

  Why didn’t I feel safe? I was nervous as a cat on skates at a dog convention.

  Small half-cylinders of blasting holes scored the walls and reminded me the entire complex was blasted out of solid granite. A guarded security station blocked the narrow rock tunnel.

  An officer stepped into the corridor as we approached. He extended a hand to Julie.

  “Lieutenant Jim Sanders, Ms. Jamieson. I’m in charge of your security detail while in the CMC,” he said. We all shook hands and stepped up to the station guard.

  The guard took our photos and gave us picture badges.

  I wanted to say, “Badges. We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” but I figured my movie lore wouldn’t impress. I disliked authority. Probably because they never could help me.

  Each badge had “Octagon” in bright red at the top.

  Lieutenant Sanders hustled our entourage into the main facility. A muscled security forces guy waited inside with two other guards, a black-mustached guy and a cute, freckled Anglo-gal. They all carried carbines. The squad took up positions around us as we continued inside.

  I heard the young lieutenant speaking to us as the odor of wet rock permeated my senses. I reached out and touched a wall. Moist. Slick.

  “Most of the base personnel are civilian contractors with the exception of the security forces,” he said.

  I could see rows of squat white buildings beyond the security entry. They filled the cavern and beyond them loomed a large hemisphere. Massive over-sized damped springs elevated each building.

  “Why are the buildings on springs?” I asked the guard at my side.

  “The springs protect the buildings from shock waves produced by nukes,” the Anglo-gal replied. Her attractive blue-steel eyes complimented her tanned face. Her straw-hair bun filled a canted black military beret.

  Great. They were expecting nukes. I didn’t think those springs would help much if a large chunk of roof decided to visit the floor.

  I rolled my shoulders to ease tension. The thought of nukes made me more nervous.

  “Calm down, Lane,” I muttered.

  Kane gave me one of his slitted-eye, probing looks.

  No, we’re not friggin safe.

  I felt like yelling, but managed a weak smile instead and a conspiratorial nod. Something nagged at me. Precognitive fear? But why? I didn’t want to just pop the shield. Some guard might shoot me.

  “That is the command capsule,” Jim said as he pointed ahead to the large domed building.

  “Today, we are headed up a level to the Octagon.” He turned to the right toward a series of small stacked huts.

  “Below us, the facility has water reservoirs and secure power,” he droned on. His young voice barely contained his youthful exuberance. I’d guess he was twenty.

  My mind drifted as we walked. The constant drip of water faintly echoed from the surrounding cracked rock. Gray swaths were broken by lighter mineral veins along the walls. The sullen rocks reminded me we were trapped underground in a hot, wet cave hundreds of meters below the surface with one exit. Wonderful.

  After weaving through corridors and pipes, we came to a service hoist. All that was left of our entourage were two of the dark-sunglasses guys, our security detail, and the driver and female agent from my SUV. Both were mid-twenties, average height, clean-cut American youth. Sleek. Muscled. CIA maybe, or NSA. They didn’t offer to clear up my ignorance. I never expected the movie stereotype of our clandestine services to be true. I bet they enjoyed that image. It made sense though, another example of subtle visual conditioning. The spooks left us at the hoist.

  We climbed into the open cage elevator, and the hoist pulled smoothly to a start. The cage climbed over the tops of the buildings, and along the walls small caves came into view that led into gloomy service tunnels. We entered an elevator-sized hole at the top of the cavern and continued up about one hundred meters. The hoist came to a stop and we got out into a house-sized, circular room. The hoist shaft continued up, lit by LED strips along the shaft walls.

  Bricks rimmed the shaft in the floor and provided a waist-high support. One tunnel exited the chamber. The tunnel was bracketed by another circular steel door about half the size of the door leading into the main complex below.

  “Welcome to the Octagon,” the lieutenant said. “This facility has its own electric-diesel power which you see here.” He pointed to a large generator just past the door. “Exhaust is vented into ducts above us.”

  Two guards stood near the door leading into the Octagon. They saluted and checked our badges.

  I stopped dead in my tracks, mouth agape, and stared at the circular rim of the pressure door. Large runes similar to those Diedra had made at my house were etched all around the circumference of the frame.

  A guard put his hand up as I tried to snap a picture.

  “No pictures in here please, sir,” the guard said as he moved to grab my tablet.

  Kane stopped next to me, glancing at the guard. “What’s up, Lane?”

  I put the tablet back in my bag as the guard stood there for a moment eying me. “We’re fine, Corporal,” Kane injected.

  He looked at Kane and stood a little taller. “Yes, sir.”

  “Power runes I think; written in the frame of the door. I sure didn’t expect to see that in a secret research bunker.” I frowned.

  Squinting, Kane looked at the door. “I don’t see anything, just a door frame.”

  “You don’t see the faintly glowing white marks about six inches tall around the frame?”

  “Nope,” he said with a grunt.

  I took a moment to jot the runes down in my notebook.

  Once inside, I expected the air to be musty and stale but was pleasantly
surprised that despite the wet rock odor, the fresh air had the unmistakable aroma of wet grass and pine. I knew we were still too deep in the mountain to smell outside air.

  “Do the vents bring in air from outside?” I asked.

  The lieutenant turned to me as if seeing me for the first time. “There are experimental hydroponics above us. They provide fresh air and food in emergencies,” he intoned. “This facility also has a separate water supply isolated from the main center below. We could survive in here for a good while.”

  The Octagon was impressive. The dry, smooth-cut stone indicated this was a new addition to the complex. After a lengthy tour, new maintenance engineers showed up, and we headed to our rooms. They were small but clean. A desk and chair on one side and a bed on the other. A small shower was attached. The fresh bedding calmed my concerns about accommodations. It wasn’t home, but it would do. I was bone tired and excited at the same time.

  I puzzled over the whispers as I stared at the ceiling. They kept popping into my mind. Was someone talking to me? But whom?

  With a shudder, I recalled the countless nights as a child, and the terrifying dreams. I had defeated the Soulstealers. In the real. Right?

  And now something new, bigger, attacked me. I defeated it as well. What about when I slept? Would I be defenseless? Nothing had happened last night. Maybe it was over?

  I knew it was only the beginning. Something horrible approached.

  CLUSTERMUCKED

  I had barely closed my eyes when a knock at the door jolted me awake. Groggy, I crossed the room and opened the door.

  Julie half-smiled. “Conference in twenty minutes, just down the hall,” she said.

  “Roger,” I said and gave her a mock salute.

  “I know you’re not at home and haven’t been able to clean up, but maybe freshen up best you can and comb the hair, please? There will be a lot of important people there.”

  I could appreciate she was trying to be diplomatic. I must have looked frazzled. She turned and headed to the next door down the hall.

  The Octagon had a ring of rooms against the outer walls comprised of storage, toilets, and bunker-like rooms. From the tour, I knew it could house twelve people. The computers and equipment occupied the interior of the structure, along with four sensory deprivation tanks. Racks of server blades, cabinets, and floor-to-ceiling monitors covered the walls. LEDs blinked all around; every item was state-of-the-art and optically connected. Large hanging monitors surrounded the four sleep chambers. Despite the heat from the equipment, the facility was cold.

  The tanks faced a glass-enclosed conference room. The area seated twelve at a central table and another twelve in chairs around the wall, all occupied. The packed room smelled of sweat and stale cologne. The stars and scrambled eggs that adorned most uniforms at the table alarmed me. I sat down at the only open chair as all eyes watched.

  Julie began the introductions.

  “Hello, everyone, and thank you for coming. I’ve known Admiral Barsin for a long time, and I personally want to thank you for arranging everything on such short notice. What you are about to hear will challenge your believability. However, please trust me when I say everything you will hear is true. I will introduce everyone on our team briefly and pass the ball to Admiral Barsin. Starting on my left is Kane Randall, former Special Operations Officer, Lane Sudler, software developer at Tribal Sounds, and I’m Julie Jamieson, DARPA Projects Officer. Admiral?”

  The stocky Admiral Barsin stood up to address the room. Everyone silently braced to attention. His lined face and keen stare blended with a palpable command presence.

  “Welcome to Cheyenne Mountain, ladies and gentlemen. I know many of you have traveled far, at great haste and expense, to sit this meeting. My name is U.S. Admiral Barsin, to my left is Canadian Lieutenant General Msythie, and U.S. Lieutenant General Ames. Representing Homeland is Special Agent in Charge Jack Morgan.”

  General Msythie had close-cropped, thin, gray hair and a stern expression, while General Ames’s keen eyes peered from under her auburn hair and drilled right through me. Agent Morgan looked like a bulldog on a bad day, grumpy and belligerent. Black, buzz-cut hair with tints of gray crowned a tall, broad frame. His squinted eyes rarely left me.

  “I apologize to everyone for keeping introductions brief, but, for now, I think those will be sufficient to get the meeting rolling. If anyone wants to add anything, please introduce yourself first.”

  Turning to me, the admiral continued, “First. Let me say, if not for the high regard we have for Julie, discussions here today would have been in a more constrained venue, Mr. Sudler.” The admiral gave me a measured gaze. “To say that the revelations of the last twenty-four hours have been anything short of earth-shattering would be an understatement. Mr. Sudler, could you give us an overview of the events as you experienced them over the last several weeks, please?” The admiral resumed his seat.

  “Yes.” I coughed and cleared my throat. “It started about two weeks ago when I astral traveled and encountered a powerful entity of compassion. They are called Primals. The Compassion Primal altered my mind and since then I’ve had psionic powers. The next day a woman named Diedra Milani showed me a place in the astral called Sanctuary and gave me two devices. At the time, she claimed the devices were books. It turns out they were much more than books. They were also a weapon and a defensive shield against astral entities.”

  “Excuse the interruption, but can you explain what astral travel is?” asked General Msythie.

  “Yes, of course. It is as if you are in a dream, but you’re not. One of the alien devices describes it as a place where thoughts manifest and interact. Space and time are distorted, non-linear. Your thoughts create the environment you think you see based on what you expect to see. We are beings of space and time. Therefore, we create the illusion of landscapes, vegetation, terrain, and travel. We think we are interacting like we would in the real world. The truth is apparently too bizarre to fit into our fixed notion of what is real.”

  “But things you do in this astral place, they have real consequences in the real world?” interrupted General Msythie. He shook his head and rubbed his ear like he had a bug stuck in it.

  “Yes. Take for example the recent attack on the Wolf Creek Nuclear facility. An astral hacker generated real network traffic that nearly caused a core meltdown at the plant,” I said.

  Agent Morgan slammed his hand down on the table. “How the hell does he know about that? Was he involved?”

  Admiral Barsin glared at the man. “Let’s hear him out, Agent Morgan.”

  From the center of the table, a voice crackled over the speakers, “This is Vice-Admiral Graves, U.S. Cyber Command. I can confirm a modified tempest attack breached the nuclear facility’s core assembly at Wolf Creek. Up to this point, we had no idea how the perpetrators accessed the reactor.”

  My mind reeled. Director of the U.S. Cyber Command! How many other high-ranking brass were listening in. Maybe even the President? I tried to be casual and placed both hands together on the table to hide the sudden nervous twitches. Chest muscles tightened, making it hard to breathe, as I gulped air like a fish out of the water. More voices chimed in, asking Admiral Graves about details of the incident; others followed suit as the discussion shifted to several associated topics.

  After twenty minutes of animated exchanges and sideline discussions, a woman at the table stood.

  “I am Dr. Thuraya Juchaine, Principal Scientist in these facility. Mr. Sudler, I understand alien technologicals are embedded in your arm and hand. Might we see these, please?”

  It surprised me that the doctor wore a black and gold trimmed hijab. Her cream complexion suggested a native heritage, but the accent screamed Russian.

  Everyone quieted down as I removed my shirt and showed them the implants.

  “The armband on right biceps, this is shield device, and hand is weapon?” she asked.

  “Yes, that’s correct,” I said.

  All five
bars on my bicep glowed blue. One half-bar glimmered on my hand. A staffer with a video-cam leaned forward as others strained to get better views.

  “What are the blue bars do, Mr. Sudler? Are these, um, the diodes that emit light?” she asked.

  “The blue bars indicate power available for the devices. When the blue light is gone, they do not work.”

  “I see. Thanks you.” She sat down as others crowded close with cameras.

  Choosing my words, I said, “The devices have merged at a cellular level with my body’s cells. Before the implantation, they looked like candy-bar-style phones. I operate them by thought, same as before. However, once embedded, the devices are more functional than before. They informed me it would be impossible to reverse the implantation without destroying both the host and the devices.”

  Yeah. I may have exaggerated. Okay. I lied. Hopefully, they bought it.

  “Wait. Did you say ‘they’ informed you?” Jack Morgan stood up and leaned in. “Who are THEY? Admiral, I demand you arrest and isolate this man. For all we know, he has accomplices getting details of every top secret function taking place here.”

  The room turned chilly. All eyes riveted on me.

  “Mr. Sudler, are we to understand another party is aware of this conversation and present in this room?” Admiral Barsin asked.

  “T-The devices respond to mental queries like a computer avatar. They are not self-aware,” I said.

  “You know this for a fact?” Jack Morgan said.

  “They just respond to my questions,” I said.

  Jack Morgan whispered into a small device on his wrist while scowling.

  Shield On.

  A soft blue globe enveloped the table amid loud gasps. A glass crashed to the floor, and the guards lowered their carbines towards my chest, fingers on triggers

  “That won’t be necessary,” Admiral Barsin said and raised his hand. The men stood down.