Authors: David Clarkson
The unnatural being approached the command
centre much quicker than expected. It was not hindered in the least by the gas
and it made light work of cracking the security codes for the internal doors.
It was now just one partition away from the general’s personal security team
whom he had posted directly outside of his chamber. His scientists had earlier
evacuated when the battle had begun.
‘General, what are your orders?’ asked
Major Heng.
‘Instruct the guards to intercept the
moment that thing breaches the outer corridor,’ replied Tao. ‘I do not want it
getting in here – do you understand?’
‘Yes, General.’
The major relayed the order to his
subordinates. He then flicked the comm to speaker so they could both hear the
resulting confrontation.
It did not last for long.
The barrage of machine gun fire was
layered and deep, but with each second that passed, one of those layers was
stripped away. Tao’s men had not stood a chance. In less than half a minute
there was just the rattle of one firearm remaining. Then it too was silenced.
‘It’s at the door,’ said the major.
‘I do not want it getting in here,’
replied the general.
Heng knew what was expected of him.
The major left his station and withdrew
his sidearm. It was the first time he had removed it from the holster in a
combat situation since being assigned to Tibet three years earlier. When he got
to the door he raised the weapon in front of him.
His hand trembled.
Doubt and fear were to an out of practice
soldier what rust was to metal. When the door opened, he lost his nerve.
Confusion compounded his crippling negative emotions. The unstoppable demon he was
expecting turned out to be nothing more than a young woman.
He glanced over her shoulder and saw the
men she had defeated in the corridor behind. They looked dazed but they were
alive. Each had been armed with a semi automatic rifle yet she had somehow
nullified the threat they posed to her without killing them. Were these really
the actions of a corrupt and immoral enemy?
He looked directly at the girl. There was
nothing but innocence and compassion in her eyes.
‘Is there a problem, Major?’ asked
General Tao.
Before Heng was able to offer a response,
the Lucy-tulpa gave him a reassuring smile, encouraging him to stand by his
instincts. The purity of her emotion took him back to his early life, before
military service. He had grown up on a farm, which had been in his family’s
possession for generations. Heng’s father always wanted his son to follow in
his footsteps rather than take up military service. The major now realised that
he should have listened to his old man.
‘I am sorry, General, but there is
nothing more I can do here.’
The general met his gaze.
‘I know,’ Tao replied.
The shot took Heng by surprise. Because
he had been caught so steadfastly in the general’s gaze, he had not seen the
gun. The general had fired from the hip and the bullet impacted into the centre
of the major’s chest. It stopped his heart instantly and without pain.
The mortally wounded man fell to the
ground. His mission had come to an end. The last he saw was the tulpa standing
over him and its presence filled him with hope. He died without fear.
‘How can you be so cruel?’ the tulpa
asked General Tao.
‘To achieve greatness, one must be
unattached to emotion,’ replied the general. ‘Tell me – can you feel?’
The tulpa hesitated. Its reaction to the
murder had been intellectual rather than emotional. It looked back at the
unconscious soldiers it had spared from meeting the same fate as Major Heng.
‘Feelings are irrelevant,’ it told him.
‘Compassion and forgiveness are essential to a successfully functioning
society. Hate and conflict will always result in a negative outcome. What a man
such as you perceives as subjective morality, is merely objective logic. Good
triumphs over evil because the positive outweighs the negative. That is why
there is something rather than nothing. That is why life continues to multiply
despite the fact that everything dies. It is also why we will beat you.’
‘You’ve already lost,’ sneered the
general. ‘The Chosen Ones cannot be stopped. By now they will be at their
targets. It is only a matter of time.’
‘In that case, I better hurry up.’
The tulpa covered the distance between
them in a fraction of a second. Not through teleportation, but by sheer
unrestrained speed. Somewhere along the way it also greatly increased in size –
the petite young woman transforming into the gigantic beast of local folklore.
What it did not realise, however, was that the general was no longer limited by
conventional reflexes either. The serum he had synthesised from Jimmy’s blood
now flowed through his veins.
Tao stepped out of the beast’s path and
slammed his fists into its back, redirecting its momentum to send it crashing
into a wall. The reinforced metallic surface buckled under the force of impact
sending a shockwave reverberating throughout the command centre.
Though it was incapable of feeling pain,
the tulpa was momentarily confused by the general’s surprise counter attack.
Before it was able to fully orientate itself, the general instigated his follow
up. He grabbed hold of the unnatural being by the back of its neck and threw it
through an open doorway leading to the astral projection chamber. He then
pressed the control to seal the door shut behind it.
He knew it would not take long for the
tulpa to get out of the room so Tao acted quickly. He may have lacked the
scientific nous to start up the astral pods, but knowledge was nothing next to
the power of foresight. His fingers instinctively rapped on the keyboard and
the machines purred into life. By overriding the safety protocols he was able to
reverse the polarity of the astral field, causing it to radiate outwards. With
the output set to one hundred percent and all of the pods running at once, the
entire chamber soon flooded with the effects of these technological marvels.
The machines were designed to separate
consciousness from matter and the tulpa was composed entirely of projected
consciousness condensed into a material avatar. Unable to resist the
irrepressible astral pull, the tulpa regressed back into a state of pure
unbidden energy. It lost its form and substance, becoming nothing more than a
detached essence of Emmy’s subconscious.
***
The first soldier had gone down when
Esteban fired. As he suspected, the fallen man’s partner was able to retaliate
before he could recalibrate his aim.
It mattered not.
Fortunately for him, he had only been
caught in the path of a wax bullet.
‘Drop it!’ he shouted.
The Chinese soldier complied immediately,
throwing down his rifle and raising his arms in the air.
Jimmy and Emmy pushed their way out of
the ventilation shaft. Esteban nodded his thanks to the young psychic, who
replied with a shrug. He just did what he did. Free will and good intentions
had nothing to do with it.
‘Are there anymore?’ asked Emmy.
‘No,’ replied Jimmy.
They shepherded their prisoners back into
the cell where they saw Charlie cuffed and blindfolded, chained to the bed
frame. Jimmy located the key to the cuffs on the belt of the injured soldier.
Esteban’s bullet had shattered the man’s shoulder blade. He may never regain
full functionality in his arm, but it was better than the alternative.
‘Emmy, I’m so glad to see you,’ said
Charlie. ‘Please tell me you managed to stop the general.’
She shook her head.
‘Not yet. We do have a special weapon
though. I think you already met Lucy.’
‘I met something, but it certainly wasn’t
that sweet girl from Jackson’s Hill. You created that – right?’
‘It’s a long story. We don’t have time
n...’
Before she could complete what she was
about to say, the room and all of its occupants vanished from Emmy’s view and
she found herself a disembodied essence in a strange void, just like on one of
her astral trips. Unlike on one of her out of body journeys, this time she
could not shape her form by force of will, instead her energy seemed to be
dispersing like a cloud of vapour.
Seconds later, she opened her eyes to see
her friends staring down at her.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘You passed out,’ replied Esteban. ‘Are
you okay?’
‘I don’t know. One minute I was here and
the next it was like I was elsewhere.’
‘The tulpa,’ they both then said in
unison.
Emmy tried to focus on the link between
her and the Lucy-tulpa, but could no longer find it. That particular connection
in her brain had become numb.
‘She’s gone,’ she said.
‘Can you bring her back?’ asked Esteban.
‘I don’t think so. Not right away, at
least. The process is mentally exhausting – I need to rest before I can do it
again.’
‘We don’t have time. With the tulpa gone,
it’s down to us now.’
Esteban gathered the rifles from the two
guards and put them alongside the pair he had been carrying. He was determined
to put on a show of strength, so this time he insisted that they each carry a
weapon.
Charlie used a computer at the sentry
booth to hack into the mainframe and flush out the toxic gas that poisoned the
corridors of the upper compound. They then exited the detention level via the
ventilation shafts. With no more obstacles in their way, it did not take them
long to reach the command centre.
General Tao was waiting for them. He did
not appear to be armed, but Esteban in particular knew that there was more than
one place to conceal a weapon. They could not afford to take any chances. The
four friends trained their rifles on their enemy whilst fanning out across the
room.
‘This is treason, Dr Nguyen,’ the general
said when he saw Charlie.
‘So double the death sentence you already
gave me,’ the scientist replied.
The general smiled. While he did not
tolerate insubordination, defiance was an attitude he always admired.
‘I expect you have some pathetic plan,’
the general said, his English flawless and without accent. ‘Because I can
assure you it will not work. Your young psychic is no longer unique.’
A single shot rang out. Esteban had been
the one to pull the trigger, but his bullet did not find its target, harmlessly
impacting into a wall instead. The general had barely even moved. He just
tilted his head the minimal distance to take it out of the projectile’s path.
The group knew at once that he was infected by the radiation.
‘You’re messing with forces you cannot comprehend,’
said Charlie.
‘No,’ said Tao. ‘I am bringing order to
the chaos. I have turned the poison you created into a gift for all of mankind.
It is those freaks you call friends who are the real danger.’
‘So why don’t you do something about it?’
asked Esteban.
‘Don’t provoke him,’ warned Charlie. ‘We
can still find a diplomatic solution to this.’
‘The only solution is my absolute
victory,’ replied Tao. ‘You cannot defeat me.’
‘He’s right,’ said Esteban. ‘We cannot
win. But neither can he. It’s a stalemate. If he could take out any one of us
he would have done it by now. His newly acquired psychic powers are crippling
his free will.’
‘Yet you are free to do whatever you
choose,’ said Tao. ‘Tell me, Agent Cruz, how do you propose that we break this
impasse?’
Esteban glanced at his comrades and then
back to the general. When a soldier is faced with a no-win scenario the only
options are death or surrender. He had never killed without it being absolutely
necessary and he saw no reason to die unnecessarily either. If you cannot save
everybody, you save who you can.
‘The scientists mean nothing to me, but I
want your assurance you will let Jimmy live,’ he replied.
‘What?’ said Emmy, the hollow look of
betrayal already showing in her face.
Ignoring her, the soldier continued to
barter with the general: ‘Emmy’s yours to do with as you please. Kill her for
all I care. If you know who I am, you must have read my file. I’m a mercenary.
Before this job came along, I worked for the highest bidder – so make me an
offer. I could be of great value to you.’
‘Esteban, this is crazy,’ said Emmy. ‘He can
see the future. Unless you’re actually prepared to give me up, this won’t
work.’
Esteban kept his gaze fixed on Tao.
‘Am I bluffing, General?’
Tao’s eyes took on a distant, out of
focus glaze as he scanned the room, watching an invisible movie playing in his
mind. When his attention returned to the here and now, he was smiling.
‘You have a deal, Agent Cruz. There may
yet be a place for a man such as you in the new world order.’