Chapter 30
Serra do Norte, Brazil
“What the hell is that?” Edwards barked, drawing everyone’s attention.
The investigation team had moved from the area where the alien lifeboat had been buried, trekking closer to the spot that Roy Cataman had identified with the parallax point in the sky. It was unspoiled forest here, green and lush with the call-and-response birdsong playing through the air from the middle distance. Cataman, Mariah and Sinclair turned at Edwards’s surprised shout.
“Up there,” Edwards told them. “Where the prof says our parallax point is.”
Something glistened in the sky like the morning star.
Edwards was already delving into his backpack for his binocs, a confused scowl darkening his sun-reddened face.
“I see it,” Cataman said. “Shining. What is it?”
Edwards had his binoculars to his eyes now, their strap dangling beneath his chin. Sinclair drew her own pair from her field kit and whipped them up to her eyes.
Through the magnifying lenses, Edwards and Sinclair viewed the glistening point in much more detail. It appeared to be a circular pattern holding position in the sky about a mile above them. The pattern was a luminescent white, and its glow was a little like looking into a lightbulb, burning a brief afterimage on the retina. The circle was broken into sections and it spun continually as it held in place, the outer and inner circles rotating in opposite directions. Around its edge, symbols appeared to be written in the very air itself.
Sinclair whistled, handing her binocs to Cataman. “Looks like I don’t know what,” she said, shaking her head.
Cataman took the binoculars and held them briefly to his eyes before handing them back. Mariah was already busy setting up their computer equipment on a flat expanse of ground, using a blanket to protect the computer base. Cataman leaned down and tapped the screen, commanding it to run an analysis on the phenomenon in the sky. The distance was too great to get much info, he knew, but they had to do something—especially if this was the conclusion to whatever was happening out here.
While Cataman worked the computer, Mariah grabbed the field glasses and turned them to the sky. As she looked, she let out a gasp. “There’s someone up there,” she said.
“Yes,” Edwards confirmed. He continued peering through the binoculars, but even without them the others could see the glowing circles fade from existence and the silhouette of a man plummet out of the sky, feet first.
“You told us not to jump to that parallax point without securing a landing platform,” Sinclair reminded Cataman. “Whoever was up there could have done with your advice, no? That’s one heck of a drop.”
“Over a mile,” Cataman agreed, thumbing through a plethora of screens on his computer terminal as he mentally processed the early data.
Mariah gasped again. “Then...they’ll die,” she said with evident concern.
Levelheaded and practical, Edwards was already engaging his Commtact to report what he could see. It took a moment for his communiqué to patch through to Cerberus, and the reply came through distorted.
“—ay again, Edw—?” Brewster Philboyd’s voice stuttered. “—can’t g—”
“I said we got something here appearing right out of that parallax point,” Edwards repeated, speaking quickly to get the information across.
“Copy that,” came Philboyd’s reply, marred by the hiss of static. “We—ooking at same now.”
Overhead, the figure in the sky was dropping to earth in a straight line, feet first as it fell.
“What if it’s Domi?” Mariah asked. “Or Kane? Or...”
It was impossible to guess the plummeting figure’s identity from this distance, but one thing was clear. This was not a controlled approach—the person was simply falling.
“It’s not Kane,” Sinclair said as she scrutinized the distant figure through the binoculars. “Not unless he’s wearing a suit of armor.”
“Ain’t Domi, neither,” Edwards confirmed, focusing his own binocs on the figure. He could see it now, as could Sinclair. The figure in the sky was masculine and it wore a radical suit of armor. The armor was a deep orange like the setting sun and included a towering headpiece that doubled the height of the man’s head. And there was something else about the figure, too, Edwards realized as it plummeted toward them.
“That ain’t a man,” he said, whipping the binoculars from his face. “It’s too darn big. Everybody clear the area. We need to get out of here, right now.”
That was all the warning they needed. Professionals all, the group grabbed what they could and started to run, with Edwards bringing up the rear, the Beretta back in his hand from the shoulder rig he carried it in.
“What is it, Edwards?” Mariah asked between ragged breaths. “What did you see?”
“We made a mistake,” Edwards told all of them. “Assumed something ’cause of the distance. But that thing’s a whole load bigger than a man. More like a ville tower.”
A great shadow in human shape seemed to grow from nowhere behind the Cerberus survey team, darkening the foliage and ground like the ink of a tattoo. With every second, the shadow became larger still, until it was impossibly huge, stretching out across a vast acre of land. At the same time, the sound of the hurtling figure grew from an almost subliminal whine to a roar of rushing wind like a hurricane.
Mariah stumbled, and as she did she took a peek back over her shoulder to see the falling man properly for the first time. He was so large he obscured the sky, more like a toppling skyscraper than something human. It appeared to be a gigantic robot, a fixed expression cast on its face, glowing red eyes searing out from beneath a stylized brow.
Mariah gasped as the colossus sank beneath the tree line and out of her line of sight.
“Just keep running,” Edwards instructed, shoving one hand between the geologist’s shoulder blades and forcing her to move faster. “Cerberus, we have a problem!” he added, engaging his Commtact link.
Behind them, the enormous figure slammed through the highest branches of the trees, wrenching wood and leaves away as it plummeted to the ground. Birds cawed and took flight, other animals shrieked and ran, and the nocturnal creatures awoke with hideous yells of fear.
And then, for a single instant, everything seemed to fall utterly silent. Mariah, Edwards, Sinclair and Roy stopped and turned back, watching where the thing had fallen behind the line of trees.
The silence was followed by a noise like thunder, so close, so
loud
that it shook everyone in the vicinity right down to the core. The Cerberus field team was thrown to the ground by the aftershock, while uprooted trees toppled and fell. A massive flock of birds took flight and great lightning-shaped scars appeared across the earth, ripping holes in the ground with the power of the shock wave. The world armor had landed.
Bitterroot Mountains, Montana
T
HE
SATELLITE
IMAGERY
was unambiguous. Lakesh stared at the live feed with a sinking feeling in his gut. There, standing in the midst of the forest, was a figure so tall it was almost impossible to picture.
Farrell sat at his desk, working back through the recorded footage of the event. “Damn thing appeared out of thin air,” he confirmed with irritation. “One minute it’s clear skies, next we have the dang Colossus of Rhodes on our doorstep. Relatively.”
The satellite cameras had been poised when the figure had arrived, prompted by Roy Cataman’s assertion that there was a parallax point up there in the sky. On screen now, Lakesh could see the circle of lights wink out as the figure itself materialized.
“Backtrack a little,” Lakesh commanded, patting the top of Farrell’s monitor with his fingers. “Let’s look at the moments before the object appeared.”
Farrell did so, rewinding the footage to just before the colossus began its descent. Lakesh leaned closer, scanning the twin circles of light that seemed to rotate in the air. The overhead camera of the satellite was looking directly at and through them.
“They must be a quarter mile across,” Lakesh stated incredulously. “Freeze-frame and bring us closer.”
Farrell tapped an instruction into the computer and the image froze on screen. Another tap and the circles magnified and recentered. They had lost some detail, but close up it was clear that there was some kind of patterning across the outer ring. Lakesh nodded slowly as realization dawned.
“Sumerian pictograms,” Lakesh said. “Glyphs, icons, whatever you wish to call them.”
Farrell looked up at Lakesh, brows raised in surprise. “Dr. Singh?” he asked.
“Just thinking aloud,” Lakesh said, but he was clearly working something through in his mind. “If that portal is Annunaki controlled then it could mean...” He stopped, unable to finish as he realized the dark implications of what he was suggesting.
“Surely Enlil couldn’t have risen from the dead,” Farrell stated, recalling the most vicious Annunaki overlord who had been an ongoing thorn in the Cerberus operation’s side until the recent God War.
Lakesh fixed him with a grim stare. “The Annunaki have ways of reviving themselves from even a deathlike scenario,” he said bleakly. “If this parallax point leads to a hidden base of theirs, then our colleagues are in even more trouble than we assumed.”
Even as Lakesh spoke, Brewster Philboyd was updating the ops room on what was occurring in Serra do Norte, care of the live satellite link. “Look alive, people,” he said with trepidation. “That...thing, whatever it is, is moving.”
On screen, the gigantic man-thing was walking through the forest, each stride covering over twenty yards, the feet trampling trees and flattening grass as they landed, crushing everything in its path.
“Forget Domi and Kane,” Lakesh ordered. “We have a field team out there right now and they’re directly in the path of that monster.”
Serra do Norte, Brazil
M
ANIPULATING
THE
W
ORLD
A
RMOR
via the mind rig, Wertham the Strange “tasted” Earth air for the first time in a millennium. Yes, the feeling was secondhand, relayed to him through the Titan suit’s senses, but the sensation felt no less real for that. For all intents, Wertham
was
the suit now, towering over the lush green landscape of the Serra do Norte area. And tower he did.
The suit stood three hundred feet high, every inch constructed from gleaming metal. He strode forward, reveling in each step, feeling each thundering blow as the Titan suit’s huge soles crashed down against the ground. Each stride took him sixty feet forward, two steps and he was at a river; three and he had crossed it.
Up ahead, people were running and screaming—four in all, scampering through the foliage like rats in a maze. Wertham focused the suit’s powerful lenses toward the retreating forms, magnifying the image with a mental command. Their terrified faces washed across his mind’s eye like projections on a theater screen, and Wertham felt a sense of joy at their fear. Surface men had killed Jack’s son years ago. They were not to be trusted. They did well to be afraid of him—he was their new god. Soon the only word they would be able to scream would be his name, the only sound they would be able to make would be in tribute to him.
He lit the eyes, preparing to carve his name in fire across the landscape.
Cosmic Rift
E
NTERING
THE
PALACE
was easy. Kane and Grant followed King Jack as he used a back way, “Just to make sure we don’t get busted,” as he had phrased it.
The palace was dark, the lights flickering only occasionally, leaving ominous shadows to sprawl from the magnificent architecture. Equipped with the night-vision lenses, Kane and Grant barely noticed.
They came across several threats, Gene-agers who had been recruited into sentry duty, but they were slow moving and proved easy enough to avoid.
They heard voices as they passed the open doorway to a room that Jack identified as the ballroom, and peering inside they saw most of the royal retinue waiting there, watched over by grim-faced Gene-agers. Jack’s people seemed to be taking the imprisonment well, by and large engaging in conversations that showed no sense of concern about their current situation.
“And these are the people you trust to advise you,” Grant said with irony.
“A simpleton’s advice is often the most incisive,” Jack replied.
Leaving the captives, the group hurried on through the darkened corridors until they reached a door that appeared narrow by the proportions of the palace.
“Through here,” Jack explained, pushing the door open. “This is a back way to the throne room. I used to access it sometimes when I had, um, business in the kitchens.”
“The kind of business that fits between two slices of bread?” Grant asked.
“Or sometimes needs to be toasted,” Jack replied, flashing his easy smile.
Kane and Grant followed the old man, and they found themselves in another corridor, this one lined with potted plants and featuring a fresco painted across the ceiling. An armored figure lay sprawled at the far end of the corridor, and it took Kane just a second to recognize her. It was Domi.
Kane hurried over to where the albino girl lay, calling her name in an urgent whisper before crouching down to check her pulse. “Unconscious but alive,” he told Grant.
“Guess this means we’re on the right track,” Grant said, nodding grimly.
Without another word, both men commanded their Sin Eaters from the hidden wrist holsters back into the palms of their hands. They had a feeling things were about to get worse before they got better.
Serra do Norte, Brazil
T
HE
WORLD
ARMOR
loomed over the lush jungle like some fallen god. The Titan’s eyes began to glow more fiercely, their ruby red turning a brighter orange-white like the heart of a fire. The change was accompanied by a hum that reverberated through the air.
Then the eyes took fire, twin beams blasting from them with sizzling heat. Ten feet from the Titan’s nose, the beams combined and continued down toward the ground as one thick orange shaft before searing the forest in a six-foot-wide line of fire. The line continued, drawing a pattern across the ground.