“How many of these guys do you have?” Kane asked as King Jack removed his crimson cloak.
Jack thought about this for a moment as one of the Gene-agers took the cloak. “We keep fifteen hundred to cover the basic operations of the ville, from day care duties for the children to running the machinery underpinning this very facility,” he explained. “They’re very adaptive, although they burn out after about twelve years.”
“‘Burn out’?” Grant repeated, alarmed at the implication. “These are people...aren’t they?”
Jack smiled that winning smile of his once again as he drew the golden rod he had brought from the throne room. It never seemed to leave him. He waggled it before the nearest Gene-ager—a male wearing an emerald one-piece suit. At the wave of the stick, the Gene-ager’s eyes went black and he bowed his head infinitesimally.
“What—?” Grant began, but the king was not finished.
The two Cerberus warriors watched as Jack motioned with the golden stick, stepping closer to another of the servants. This figure did the same, as did a third standing a few feet away.
Kane was eyeing the rod warily as he asked the question on both men’s minds. “How did you do that?”
“They live and breathe,” Jack explained. “But they’re significantly less than human.”
Chapter 16
Serra do Norte, Brazil
Twin cones of multihued light materialized from the ether, one above ground and the other, counterintuitively, beneath, forming an hourglass shape amid the greenery of the dense forest. Streaks of lightning hurtled within those eerie cones like witch fire, creating an impossible sense of depth within those swirling lights.
It was the interphaser, Cerberus’s teleportation device, appearing out of nowhere. Birds squawked at the strange intrusion, while rodents scampered back to their burrows or hid themselves amid the low-hanging ferns, turning startled eyes away from the sudden burst of light.
A moment later, the multicolored cones coalesced into four silhouettes as the Cerberus recovery team appeared from the quantum ether. There were four of them in all—Falk and Cataman for the investigative side, Edwards and Sinclair for security.
Edwards was a tall man with broad shoulders and a body language that spoke of aggression. He didn’t walk so much as prowl, and he didn’t speak to people, he talked at them. Or shouted.
His hair was shaved to a faint shadow on his head, and his right ear was mangled where a bullet had clipped it. Edwards wore a camouflage jacket with loose pants, the legs of which were marked with a half-dozen pockets, each one bulging with supplies. He was checking a Beretta 93-R pistol in his hands, assuring himself that it was loaded. He also wore a rifle on a strap across his back—an M-16 derivative manufactured in the late twentieth century by Colt.
Sinclair was the other part of the security detail, a dark-skinned woman whose short hair was cropped close to her scalp. She wore a flak jacket and camo pants, and like Edwards she had armed herself with a lightweight pistol—in her case a Smith & Wesson 0.45 Third Generation with a magazine clip in its butt. Like Edwards, she had trained in the deadly arts of combat—in her case, as a Navy SEAL back in the late twentieth century before being held in suspended animation for two hundred years inside the Manitius Moon Base. She had been with the Cerberus unit ever since, acting in a security role.
The third member of the group was an ageing man with a slightly stooped bearing. He was a pale man with salt-and-pepper hair brushed back from the sides of his head in two extravagant wings. It gave him the air of an addled professor, an impression his singed lab coat only served to enhance. This was Roy Cataman, one of the more recent additions to the Cerberus scientific community. Most recently, Cataman had been pivotal in an investigation into an ancient supersoldier program.
Mariah Falk rounded out the team, exhausted from worry but determined to see things through to the bitter end.
Edwards was striding out of the mystical light show almost before the quantum gate had sealed and he called to Mariah as he marched.
“Whereabouts is the spot where you found the spaceship?” Edwards barked.
Mariah trotted after him, still trying to get her bearings after the teleportational jump through quantum space. “About three miles distant,” she said, recognizing their location—it was the same spot where she and Domi had arrived just a day before. Was she really so tired she’d forgotten how fixed parallax jump points were?
“About three miles—or three miles?” Edwards snapped impatiently, intruding on Mariah’s thoughts.
“Two and three-quarter miles,” Mariah replied, holding her irritation in check. “Bear west-southwest.”
Edwards nodded indifferently, consulting an electronic compass clutched in the palm of his hand. “Have arrived at location,” Edwards confirmed, engaging his Commtact without bothering to alert Mariah or the others. “Everything quiet. Am checking it out.” With that, Edwards scurried off into the underbrush, the Beretta pistol in his hand.
At the jump point, Sinclair was carefully packing away the interphaser unit while Professor Cataman was merely endeavoring to catch his breath.
“You okay, Doc?” Sinclair asked as she placed the pyramid shape of the interphaser inside the foam-lined case the team had brought with them for that purpose.
Standing bent over with his hands resting on the tops of his legs, Cataman brushed Sinclair’s concerns away with a wave of his hand. “I’ll...be...fine in a...moment or two,” he said weakly.
Interphaser packed, Sinclair strolled over to join the scientist, a smile of concern on her lips. “Takes it out of you the first time, doesn’t it?”
“What does?” Cataman asked.
“The interphaser jump,” Sinclair said.
Cataman glanced up at Sinclair to agree, but as he did so he swayed on the spot and Sinclair had to grab his arm to steady him. “It rather does,” Cataman agreed after taking a deep breath. “Thank you, Sinclair.”
As the two of them spoke, Edwards reappeared from his brief jaunt to scope out the area. “All clear here,” he told Sinclair. “There’s evidence of some building, but it’s just ruins now. Let’s move this party out and get ourselves posted at the last known location of Kane’s team.”
Sinclair nodded. “Agreed. Roy? Will you be okay?”
Cataman straightened up gently. “Yes, I’m sure the walk will do me some good. Clear my head.”
Edwards looked at Cataman and shrugged. Civilians! May the barons save us from them.
Though Edwards could not guess it, the ruins that he had found were from an ancient temple that had once dominated the riverbank close to their set-down point. Like many of the so-called parallax points that the interphaser tapped into to ferry its passengers about, this area had once been revered as a sacred site by primitive peoples. A few paces ahead, Mariah Falk was eyeing the afternoon sky as the others sorted themselves out. It was a crystal-clear blue with only a few delicate, featherlike wisps of white cloud floating high in its glorious depths.
“We’re moving out, Mariah,” Sinclair told her as Edwards marched on ahead. “You okay?”
“Yep,” Mariah assured the ex-Navy officer. “Just thinking about the blue sky and how, back where we started, they used to have that phrase—
blue-sky thinking.
You remember that?”
“Yeah,” Sinclair told her. “Positive thinking with no roadblocks to your ideas, or something like that.”
“Something like that,” Mariah agreed. “I guess whoever thought of it never lost a friend to an alien kidnapping, huh?”
Sinclair looked gravely at the geologist. “We’ll find Domi,” she said. “We’ll find all of them.”
“We’d better,” Mariah said. “Otherwise, I’m not sure I’m going to be going out in the field ever again.”
Chapter 17
Location unknown
“They’re significantly less than human,” King Jack had said just a few seconds before. The statement hung there in the bathing house like a lead weight.
Kane and Grant were aghast at the king’s words, but the golden-armored monarch did not seem to notice. He continued to wave the golden shaft that he carried in a broad, sweeping arc. As he did so, every one of the Gene-agers that manned the washrooms seemed to fall asleep, bowing their heads so that their chins struck their chests.
“They’re designed to respond to the Glorious Omni-Device—or God Rod,” Jack said proudly.
The Gene-agers bowed their heads for a five count until Jack raised the rod and with a smile brought them all back to life. The Gene-agers continued about their business as if nothing had happened.
“You see?”
“Seems like you have the ultimate control here,” Grant said, watching as the slaves continued about their tasks.
“A monarch rules,” Jack reminded him, “and he takes the can, sometimes, too. But without that man to look up to, things soon devolve into anarchy.”
“Now, that I can vouch for,” Kane agreed. He was thinking of the mess that North America had been left in when the barons disappeared several years ago, a mess it was still working through.
“So long as I’ve got this,” Jack continued, showing Kane and Grant the golden rod, “there’s nothing in the warp that’s going to worry anyone.”
Kane eyed the God Rod, trying to make sense of what it was and what it did. “Yeah, I noticed that back in your palace,” he said. “What is that thing? Magic wand?”
Kane and Grant watched as energies coruscated across the rod’s surface like waves crashing on the shore. “It attracts and holds energy,” Jack told them, “and it’s bonded to my genetic code. That means no one but the king gets to play the shut-down trick with the Gene-agers here.”
Grant shot the king a dark look. “Still looks a lot like slavery to me,” he said. “And in my experience, that isn’t something that ever ends well...Your Highness,” he added after a moment.
“They’re not man enough to be slaves,” King Jack assured him. “They’re just automatons made of flesh. Human robots.”
“And you never fear they might rise up against you?” Grant asked, uncomfortable with the situation.
Jack shook his head. “This system has been in place since before your granddaddy was a twinkle in
his
granddaddy’s eye,” he boasted. “We pulled away from the surface a long time ago, and we did it because some of us could see the way things were down there and figured that it wasn’t ever likely to change.
“Look around you—look at what you’re experiencing,” Jack told them both. “The king is showing you around his city. I have nothing to fear from my subjects. We have no crime. We want for nothing. This isn’t an Earth state where people will try to take what they don’t yet have. We’re beyond that—
centuries
beyond that. It’s possible to achieve when people work together. When there’s trust.”
“What about weapons?” Kane asked. It was a grim question, but one that had been on the minds of both Cerberus men from the moment they had landed here.
“Weapons,” the figure in the gold armor repeated, pronouncing the word with gravitas, almost as though it was a weapon itself. “We once had weapons, centuries ago, back when we were naive and still finding our way. This city existed even then, constructed on the technology that we’d found out on the coast of Ireland. But we weren’t so fast back then, hadn’t tapped the right mix of junk to make that possible, so we had to rely on weaponry to keep us alive when we jaunted over the surface.
“Some people figured that was fun, a kind of vacation from the luxury here,” Jack said darkly. “Weapons were found and adapted and, yes, they got used. I used them, too, I’m not ashamed to say.”
“But now?” Kane encouraged.
“One day my son made a life on the surface and he didn’t come back,” Jack told him, and Kane saw the look of pain in the king’s eyes. In that moment, King Jack looked older. “It wasn’t long after that that I decreed all weapons be stored away forever, and that any new technology we found was defanged the way a snake charmer defangs his snake. I don’t like weapons, and Neal’s disappearance made that decision much easier for me to make.”
“Your son was called Neal,” Kane stated, piecing the story together.
“Yes.” Jack nodded, his expression dour. Then he looked up at Kane and Grant and the old smile reappeared as if in some magic act—now you see it, now you don’t. “I believe I promised you fellas a chance to go swimming,” he said cheerily.
A moment later, Kane and Grant were stripping out of their clothes and shadow suits and joining the king as he paddled out into the shallow end of the amber pool.
* * *
O
NE
OF
THE
rooms of the royal palace was given over to a display of ornate fountains that utilized a combination of water and colored light. The fountains had been designed by the most proficient artists in the kingdom, and they covered such diverse subjects as scenes from Greek mythology—here a hydra with thrashing necks made of water, there an arrow striking Achilles’s heel in a jet of crimson light—to undersea fancies of dancing fish and mermaids, all of them lit in the greens and blues of the ocean depths.
Queen Rosalind had retired to her chambers after thanking Brigid and Domi for their kind help during her momentary aberration at the prophetic machinery. Domi had led Brigid here, explaining it was an area of tranquillity and meditation, and that she had already settled on it as one of her favorite areas of the magical palace.
Brigid’s eyes widened as she took in the enclosed area of fountains. It stretched the length of several football fields, with a majestic fountain every ten yards, placed one next to the other like exhibits in an art gallery. A dozen or so people milled about the vast room, taking up positions on benches and playing some derivative of chess or drafts in the illumination cast by a fountain.
The walls were lit from within, a soft shine that did not hurt the eyes, and many of the fountains radiated an internal glow. High above, at the top of the huge room, a line of skylights looked up into the rainbow whirl of the cosmic rift.
“Well?” Domi prompted, reveling in her friend’s surprise. “What do you think?”
“It’s beautiful,” Brigid said, struggling to take everything in. “Bending light and water like this—simply breathtaking.”
“There’s a few places just like this in the ville,” Domi explained, sitting on a bench seat, “as well as others that do similar things with three-dimensional paintings and colored wood. The whole ville is geared toward artistic expression.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Brigid said, joining Domi on the seat. “The whole palace is a marvel of statuary and ornate carvings. I guess that’s what happens when a society no longer has to struggle to achieve its goals. It turns to art.”
“Or to finding other places to rule,” Domi said dourly.
“Yes, territory can be a big driving factor for any society,” Brigid agreed. “I wonder why King Jack’s people never expanded onto the surface. With the tech they have up here they could have conquered most of Earth’s peoples in a matter of a few days.”
“I think they feel safe here,” Domi said, running her alabaster hand through the trickling waters of a fountain. The fountain sculpture showed a fishing boat called by sirens and veering onto the rocks. “They’ve almost unlimited space to expand, and existing in a quantum warp they have no predators, no threats.”
“Not even from within?” Brigid asked. Then she shook her head. “I keep forgetting that you’ve only been here for a day, Domi, hardly any longer than we have. You seem so...at home.”
“I am at home, Brigid,” Domi told her. “What possible reason could make me leave?”
Brigid’s gaze left Domi and turned to the falling water of a fountain designed to look like a charging centaur. The centaur’s feet were lost in the mist of water where it struck the fountain’s base, while light reflected across its flanks to suggest movement.
“Brigid?” Domi prompted. “Why don’t you stay with me? The people here have made me so welcome. I’m sure they’d be only too happy to have a mind like yours here, contributing to their bank of knowledge.”
Brigid smiled at Domi’s words. What she said was probably true—King Jack and his people seemed very welcoming to newcomers. They hadn’t once asked for Brigid and her colleagues to justify their reasons for being here. However, what had most struck Brigid was not the words, but the fact that they were being uttered by Domi of all people, the most taciturn and withdrawn member of the whole Cerberus operation.
Her plea was not just heartfelt; it was eloquent—more eloquent than she had ever known Domi to be. Brigid looked around the vast room, scanning for something she could not put her finger on. Could it be that there was something here, in this room or in the palace or perhaps even in the whole of the floating city that was boosting Domi’s intellect? And was it affecting all of them?
* * *
A
T
THE
EXACT
moment that Brigid Baptiste was marveling at the tranquillity of Authentiville, Wertham the Strange stepped onto the landing pad of the prison complex with Ronald floating beside him in his automated motion chair. Ronald’s private air mule was waiting at the end of the landing platform, a hundred feet above street level. Square in shape with windows all around, the compact vehicle was reminiscent of an alpine cable car.
As Ronald made his way to the air mule, Wertham halted a few steps beyond the open doors of his prison, taking in the view of the golden city, breathing in fresh air for the first time in seven hundred years.
Ronald turned back. “You like what you see?” he asked.
Wertham nodded. “The question is, do
you
like it, Doctor? Is it what you want?”
“You know me, Wertham,” Ronald said, opening the door of the mule with a wave of his hand. “I’m a simple man with simple tastes. A kingdom of this size will be more than adequate for my needs.”
“Which leaves me with the surface world,” Wertham mused.
“If you are able to tame it,” Ronald reminded him.
Wertham laughed as he stepped into the mule with Ronald. “Oh, I’ll tame it all right. When I’m done, Earth will bear my face on its largest continent, and every living person will know only one word, and that word shall be my name.”
At the vehicle controls, Ronald toggled a switch and set the mule to rise from the landing platform. In a few seconds, the private vehicle was passing through the sky above Authentiville. It cut an effortless path between other vehicles as Ronald guided it to one of the vast parks that dominated the ground level.
“The city looks smaller than I remembered,” Wertham observed as he stood before one of the mule’s panoramic windows. “Funny how things become bigger in one’s mind over time.”
A moment later, the mule touched down at the edge of Pacifist Park, which covered almost three acres of land. Surrounded by a golden barred fence, the park featured softly undulating hillocks and just a few trees; perfectly trimmed grass carpeted the whole thing in a swathe of green.
As the mule powered down, Wertham was pleased to see people were out enjoying the park, sunbathing in the rainbow glow of the vortex, children running around playing children’s games.
“A lot has changed,” Wertham exclaimed as he surveyed the park and the towering skyline looming behind it.
Ronald looked up at his associate from his chair. “You don’t recognize it, then?”
Wertham showed him that terrible smile, the one that spoke of inhuman genius, of insights that man was never meant to know. “They could only disguise so much,” Wertham said, twirling his silver rod in his hands like some sinister majorette. “Shall we?”
Ronald followed as Wertham stepped from the mule’s ramp and out into the green park. “They used the camouflage tech we found on the sky disks,” Ronald explained.
Wertham nodded. “I see.” He knew the technology that Ronald was talking about. The Annunaki sky disks had been equipped with technology that would adopt the color of their background, making them appear as just a shimmer in the air when they flew within the atmosphere. It was a way to hide them in plain sight. Though Wertham could not see it, he guessed that the same technology had been retooled to create the illusion of the beautiful park he saw before him. And yes, it was an illusion, formed of hard light.
Wertham closed his eyes for a moment, mentally consulting the circuitry within the silver-skinned rod he had secretly constructed during the years trapped in his cell. The old plans formed before him, a web of ancient catwalks that had not been trodden upon for almost a thousand years.
“Move left,” Wertham instructed, and Ronald guided his motion chair until he was in line with where Wertham was indicating.
Then, with a twist of the silver baton, Wertham tapped the hidden technology beneath its skin and felt the shimmer tech that held the park in place. Something winked out in his field of vision as a great plain of grass simply vanished to be replaced by a gap sunk into the earth. The people who had been on that patch of grass—fifty square feet of it in all—screamed as they began to fall, the hard-light hologram that had been holding them up winking out of existence. They tumbled down into the body of the thing that resided below, great cavernous lines of metal sunk deep into the foundations of the floating city.
Other people in the park turned at the sudden change, shouting and pointing at the eerie sight of the ground literally ceasing to exist. Down there, beneath the illusion of perfect grass, lay a great industrial structure, all hard lines and sheer metal. Wertham watched as another batch of people disappeared with another turn of the rod in his hands, plummeting down into the forgotten industrial complex. Behind him, the mule sat on what was now an island of grass between the ancient catwalks.
Ronald’s expression was fixed as he watched more people fall to their deaths. “You could have let them go,” he said.