Chapter 1
It felt like the head cold from hell.
For the past five months, all Edwards could remember hearing inside his head was that monotonous droning sound, like a choir of tuneless children rehearsing some song they could never get right, never reaching the second note of the refrain. It was a noise, a droning that was so all-pervasive that it had seemed, over time, to obliterate his own considerations, to wipe them from his mind, blocking his ability to form rational thought.
It wasn’t as though Edwards was what you would call an ideas man, of course. Over six feet tall with the broad shoulders of his father, a muscular body from hours in the gym and the military bearing of an ex-Magistrate, Edwards was a member of the Cerberus team of rebels who strove to defend mankind against the insidious threat of the Annunaki. Edwards’s role had been as muscle, acting as security and bodyguard on field expeditions where the scientists of the organization might run into danger.
He had taken a bullet out in the Pacific, the shell clipping his right ear and leaving it a ravaged lump of flesh. While plastic surgery could have fixed that mangled scar, Edwards had instead chosen to keep that bullet-bitten ear, like some trophy to represent what he was: a man of deeds and not of words.
Right now, Edwards lay in a CAT scanner, eyes closed as the radiation mapped his brain, layer by layer. In the control room, five people watched as the real-time results flashed across the control terminal. Four of them were Cerberus personnel like Edwards, while the fifth was a man named Kazuko who was the on-site physician for this facility overlooking the Pacific Ocean where the Cerberus team had been forced to make their temporary headquarters.
For years now Cerberus had operated out of an ancient military redoubt in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana, from which their sixty-strong team had monitored the world and responded to threats at a moment’s notice. But just seven weeks ago the once-secure redoubt had been infiltrated and turned against its personnel. Their leader Lakesh and his team found themselves imprisoned within a cavernous prison called Life Camp Zero. The infiltration had been performed by the loyal troops of Ullikummis, an Annunaki prince who had recently returned to Earth to exact revenge on his father Enlil. The incursion had been achieved in a manner that bypassed the redoubt’s notorious security—Ullikummis had people on the inside. Ullikummis was a genetic abomination, his body clad in stone, and he had displayed a psionic gift with which he could control the rocks around him. Part of that gift had been to create mind-altering stones, buds from his own body that had planted themselves like seeds within unsuspecting humans. Once planted, these seeds—known as obedience stones—had affected a person’s thought process, acting as an entheogen, filling the subject with a sense of euphoria to feel closer to Ullikummis as their god.
When Ullikummis and his army had neared the Cerberus redoubt, utilizing folded space to evade many of the surveillance systems, his presence had triggered the hidden stones that lurked in several of the personnel within, among them Edwards of the bullet-bitten ear, resulting in the whole team’s incarceration in Life Camp Zero, a claustrophobic prison carved out of rock. While the Cerberus team had ultimately managed to overpower their jailers, one final revelation remained: the warrenlike Life Camp Zero was in fact the Cerberus redoubt, altered almost beyond recognition by the rock-shaping abilities of Ullikummis. The once-proud military base had been rendered unusable by the manipulations of the stone god, and the remaining Cerberus personnel had been forced to flee, dispersing into small groups and hiding themselves across the country as they struggled to survive in a world turned against them. Beyond the walls of the redoubt, the Cerberus warriors found the cult of Ullikummis had grown at an alarming rate, and though they could not possibly know the exact figures, the loyal subjects who would now lay their lives down for their Annunaki master numbered over one million.
It had only been in the past week that Lakesh had begun to establish this new, temporary headquarters for the Cerberus operation. This facility was in actuality an embassy for the Tigers of Heaven, a warrior class operating out of New Edo in the Pacific. The Tigers’ leader, Shizuka, was a longtime ally of the Cerberus team, and she had graciously donated the manse for the duration of the Cerberus team’s exile from their own headquarters, providing what additional equipment she could and granting the team the added security of a squadron of her own fearsome warriors, the samurai-like Tigers of Heaven themselves.
Thus it was that the director of Cerberus, Mohandas Lakesh Singh, now found himself standing in the hastily established monitoring suite of the CAT scanner, watching the multicolored brain maps appear as the scan carved its invisible path through Edwards’s skull. A cyberneticist and physicist by training, Lakesh appeared to be in his mid-fifties, with dusky skin and a well-built body. His high brow and piercing blue eyes gave clear indication of his vast intelligence, while his aquiline nose and small, refined mouth suggested a man of culture, as well as scientific learning. Lakesh’s dark hair was brushed back from his face, streaks of white peppering the wisps that ran at his temples and over his ears. While Lakesh, as he was affectionately known, looked to be about fifty-five, he was in fact closer to five times that age; he had been born in the middle of the twentieth century and had worked as a scientist on various military projects, including the development of the mat-trans system of teleportation. Through cryogenic suspension and a program of organ replacement, Lakesh had survived to his 250th birthday. Most recently, an encounter with a Quad V hybrid called Priscilla had regenerated Lakesh’s ailing body, fixing him at the physical age he now appeared.
Lakesh wore a white jumpsuit, the standard uniform of the Cerberus personnel. With all of the disruption that the team had suffered over the past two months, Lakesh felt that appearances were crucial to restore that sense of teamwork once again among his dispirited personnel.
Lakesh was joined in the small surveillance lab by Reba DeFore, longtime Cerberus physician. DeFore had long, ash-blond hair, which she had arranged in an elaborate French braid atop her head. She had endured psychological trauma during the attack on Cerberus, and Lakesh was pleased to finally see her appear to be acting more herself once again. The last time he had seen her, her eyes had been red-ringed from continuous crying, and her hair had been in a state of disarray that was utterly out of character for a woman who so prided herself on her own appearance. Like Lakesh, DeFore wore one of the simple jumpsuits, its white contributing an almost ghostlike pallor to her already pale skin. After the attack on Cerberus, she had gone into hiding in one of the safehouses provided by another Cerberus ally called Ohio Blue, an independent trader who had gray-market connections across the country. DeFore had had the difficult job of monitoring Edwards who, after his traitorous turn against Cerberus, had been kept chained and imprisoned while they were in hiding. Even now, as he lay on the bed of the CAT scanner, Edwards’s hands were tied with rope, metal manacles being out of the question while in the presence of the powerful equipment that would magnetize them immediately. Like Kazuko, DeFore was here to bring medical expertise.
Though an expert in her own field, the third Cerberus operative in the darkened booth, however, was not there to provide medical insights. A slim, dark-haired woman in her forties, her name was Mariah Falk and she was a geologist, an expert on rock formations and strata. Though not conventionally pretty, Mariah had an engaging manner and an enthusiastic smile that could win the heart of almost anyone she encountered. Even now, she was smiling as she watched the CAT scanner’s report take shape, her narrowed eyes alive with interest. Rocks were at the root of Cerberus’s problems just now, which had elevated Mariah to the level of critical advisor for the duration of the Ullikummis infiltration.
The slim form of Dr. Kazuko pointed to something on the scan, a dark mass appearing like bubbles to the left-hand side of Edwards’s head. “This appears to be a foreign body,” he explained, “possibly cancerous—it’s hard to tell.” Despite this alarming news, Kazuko had a calm, level voice that well suited his low-key manner. He was a short man by Caucasian standards, standing at a little over five feet tall, with the golden skin and almond-shaped eyes of the Orient, and short black hair slicked back from his forehead. Unlike the others, Dr. Kazuko was dressed in layers of leather armor the color of red wine, and he wore a long scabbard—currently empty—at his belt. As well as being a medical doctor Kazuko, like all Tigers of Heaven, was a highly trained warrior. “Whatever it is,” Kazuko continued, “the pattern and spread suggest that it is not static—it’s growing.”
Lakesh nodded, a grave look of concern on his features. “A dreadful thing,” he muttered.
“My guess is it’s the rock,” Mariah confirmed as she watched the scan unfold, “but it’s difficult to get a proper idea of what’s in there.”
The final person within the room spoke up then, his voice deep as faraway thunder. Grant was another Cerberus field operative, and he took particular interest in this case not least because he was also an ex-Magistrate like Edwards. Grant was a huge figure, with dark skin like polished ebony and a body that was all muscle, with not an ounce of fat. Unlike the others, Grant wore a shadow suit, a gossamer-thin armored weave that offered protection from radiation, environmental contamination and extreme climates. He had augmented this with a few simple adornments, dark pants and a pale shirt, which he wore unbuttoned like a jacket. The grimness of his bearing could not be mistaken; his interest in this case was personal. “I remember Edwards having some trouble with his Commtact a while back,” Grant said, referring to the subdermal radio system implanted in the mastoid bone of the user. “Seemed he could hear transmissions but his own reports weren’t coming through.”
Lakesh nodded wistfully as he remembered. “That’s correct, my friend,” he said. “Edwards had been out in Hope at the time, providing medical help to the refugee populace. We’d had trouble contacting him while he was out there, but other events had seemed to overshadow that problem.”
The “other events” in question had included a visit by an alien called Balam, as well as Edwards himself getting knocked unconscious during a religious rally celebrating the coming of Ullikummis.
DeFore spoke up then, her voice sounding rather loud in the confined area. “We need to operate,” she announced. “Whatever this thing in Edwards’s head is, we need to see what it’s doing and how. That could provide a valuable insight into how Ullikummis is spreading his influence.”
Dr. Kazuko nodded in assent. “Loath as I am to open a man up like this, it seems the only option left open to us,” he agreed. “And if, as you say, it’s some kind of stone that’s in there, then not doing anything will be far more dangerous than operating. This man’s brain is calcifying as the growth spreads. Left unchecked, he could lose his power of speech, his rational will—he would be left as a vegetable.”
Lakesh’s brow furrowed as he considered what the two doctors were proposing. “Do we have the facilities here to operate?” he asked Kazuko.
The Tigers of Heaven doctor nodded. “I can call for everything we require,” he said. “We could likely operate as soon as tomorrow, if you’re agreeable, Dr. Singh.”
With weary reluctance, Lakesh slowly nodded. “Whatever it all means, it’s time we got to the root of the problem.”
* * *
W
ITH
THE
ASSISTANCE
OF
two Tigers of Heaven guards, Grant escorted Edwards back on a gurney to a windowless room that was located just belowground level in the vast complex of Shizuka’s winter palace. Edwards was strapped down, hand and foot, to the gurney. However, despite being sedated, he still had some fight in him, and he glared at Grant as the larger man escorted him to his cell.
“I don’t like doing this much, either,” Grant assured Edwards as he saw the rage burning in the man’s eyes.
Under Grant’s instruction, the Tigers of Heaven prepared to move Edwards from the gurney to the single futonlike mattress that lay against one wall. The guards untied the straps that held Edwards’s feet down, but his ankles remained bound to one another so that he had no hope of escape. Then they moved up to his wrists, untying the tight straps and freeing his hands, a guard standing on either side of the gurney.
Grant watched warily from the end of the cot, his face emotionless as Edwards was untied from the gurney. Like everything in the winter palace, the room was pleasantly decorated, the peach wallpaper featuring a flock of white doves soaring over its sunset colors. Despite the austerity of the single mattress, featuring as it did four horizontal straps that could buckle the occupant in place, it still looked typically artistic, the dark swirl of pattern there mixed with gold thread that caught the soft side lighting of the room. A low occasional table had been placed against one wall, a vase of dried flowers in its center to add color to the room. This hidden room had likely been used as servants’ quarters once upon a time, and in other circumstances it could seem quite delightful, Grant was sure. As was, however, it had been pressed into service as a jail cell, its lack of windows ideal to prevent any chance of escape. Edwards was sedated and kept restrained, but even so, he was an ex-Magistrate, one of the class of highly trained enforcers in the towering villes that dotted the country. Any enemy underestimated him at their own folly.
But as the Tigers of Heaven guard unstrapped Edwards’s bound right wrist, the ex-Mag moved, lashing out with his fist and knocking the warrior backward. Already unstrapped, Edwards’s left hand snatched at the other guard’s arm, yanking him with such force that the man flipped over the gurney and crashed headfirst to the floor.