A few feet from the mine entrance, scant meters from being able to finally leave Resurrection, he stopped in his tracks.
There was something in front of the mine entrance. It looked like a small private jet, only it had absolutely no windows or visible doors. It hovered in midair before the mine, soundlessly hanging in the still air of midday, so still that it seemed to be less a construct of steel and metal than an inanimate rendition done by some itinerant artist who specialized in painting mechanical miracles on canvas of air.
Adam came and stood at his side. "After you, John," he said. At that moment, the side of the jet split open and a ramp dropped out.
John looked around him. He still didn’t know what was going on, but again the presence of the guns leveled at him convinced him that the graciousness and politeness that had so far abounded could quickly change to hostility.
He stepped the rest of the way out of the mine, approaching the opening. Two more people dressed in the same strange garb as Adam came down the ramp out of the jet and held out their hands to help him in.
John glanced down the mountainside as he shuffled into the strange craft. He saw a thin line of people, some of them his friends, all of them known to him, following several hounds up the mountain trail. The queue ululated in perfect synchronization, every person marching to the hypnotic cadence of an unknown drummer.
It was the entire town, making its way up the mountain. John’s stomach lurched with renewed dread. They were coming for him, he knew. This nightmare was not yet over.
Adam saw them too, but did not react with terror as had John. He calmly pulled what looked like a button from his pocket.
"Control," he said into the tiny device.
"Yes," answered a woman’s voice, apparently emerging from the button. It must be some sort of radio or communications device, but the voice that came from the small machine Adam held was unaccompanied by the tinny sound that John expected from field communicators. It was crystal clear, as though the speaker was standing by them, unseen but present.
"Sheila, this is Adam. We have them."
"Thank God."
"Thank Him later. Right now initiate shut-down on Loston. And roll everyone back two days."
"Okay."
Adam repocketed the button and looked down the hill again. John followed his gaze and saw the men and women and children making their way up the hill suddenly stop. They swayed as in a breeze for a long moment, then slowly crumpled like papers in a strong wind and slumped to the ground.
Adam pushed John gently into the craft before them. The rest of the Controllers followed, and the ramp retracted into the ship, sealing it behind them.
***
Malachi poked his head into the tunnel, watching John carry Fran out, followed closely by Adam and his group of Controller drones.
Malachi couldn’t take them on, he knew. Deirdre and Jenna were undoubtedly dead, and for him to attack all the Controllers on his own would be tantamount to suicide. But, if he was lucky, if he was
blessed
, the situation could still turn to his advantage.
He watched carefully, ready to dart back into the side room where he had secreted himself upon emerging from the depths of the mountain only minutes before John and Fran had arrived. He could be gone in an instant should Adam or anyone in his group turn this way. But no one did, and he followed them cautiously down the tunnel. He saw them get into the dropjet, and it started to rise. Malachi ran out of the mine, pulling a tracer pin from his belt. He threw it at the rising craft, heard it click to the metal and knew that it would instantly solder itself to the metal of the jet.
The jet was taking Adam home.
And home was where the heart was. The Controllers had moved their headquarters since his defection from their ranks, and every one of the Fans who had tried to pinpoint its new location had met with failure. But there was nowhere else this jet could possibly be going than back to its own time and place, to care for Fran. The risk of her dying was one that frightened them enough that they would take her there to care for, in a place where she could receive the best possible medical attention. They would probably also wipe her memory.
Of course, Malachi hoped to stop all that. Fran had escaped, for the moment. But now he could follow her. Could follow them all, and that meant he could at last find the Control HQ and do what he wanted to.
He would see the world in flames.
THREE – INTO THE OUTSIDE
SUBJECT ACQUISITION/
TRANSIT LOG
John stared at Adam, who returned his gaze steadily. Fran lay across John’s lap, still unconscious, and that worried him. She was in a coma, he feared, and he didn’t know what to do about that. He was in some sort of a ship with people - if they were people; John hadn’t ruled out the alternate possibility that they were some strange alien race - who had saved his life and then forced him at gunpoint to accompany them. He just wasn’t sure what to think or what was going to happen to him.
He looked again at Adam, studying the man who sat across from him. The man’s eyes were so blue that John thought he could see the sky in them. He could also see worry and anguish in those orbs, as though the weight of the world rested on this man’s shoulders. Or more than that. They were eyes that spoke of trust, and care, and love. But John would not be fooled. He would not be at ease until he and Fran were home again, and safe.
Safety. Was that even a possibility anymore?
"Where are we going?" John asked.
Adam smiled. "Just wait," he said. "All will be explained."
"Why not now?"
Again, that enigmatic smile. "Because you wouldn’t believe it if I told you."
"Try me."
Adam shrugged, as if to say, you asked for it. "We’re going to Virginia."
John had prepared himself for nearly any answer, but had certainly expected something more along the lines of "The third star in the Alpha Centauri system" or "We will be disintegrated and our particles beamed to a starship, where we will go where no man has gone before" or even "Booga booga, haven’t you figured out that you’re insane?" But "Virginia" was the last thing he would have expected. The men and women around him must have seen his discomfiture, for they laughed heartily. The sound made him relax a bit.
Laughter. Very human laughter. Surely people who laughed so openly couldn’t be evil, could they? John knew he was doing more than just grasping at straws with that line of thought. He was inventing reasons to hope. But as that was all he had left to him, that was what he would do.
Adam leaned forward and put a hand on John’s knee. The worry still clouded his sky blue eyes, but a twinkle also shone in them. "It’s not outer space, but don’t worry. I think you’ll be surprised anyway."
The crew around John laughed again.
How about that? he thought. I’m on a space ship going to Virginia with a bunch of commandos out of a Buck Rogers show. And it’s all so terribly funny.
It wasn’t, but somehow the events of the past week had awakened something in him. He realized that he felt
good
all of a sudden, in a way that he had not felt since Annie’s death. He felt as though he had purpose, a reason to be alive. It felt right. As though he was speeding, not to some unimaginable future, but as though he was going home.
FAN HQ
AD 1999/AE 3999
Malachi walked into the place that was his home, and within seconds his people surrounded him, asking a thousand questions: "Are you all right?" "Was it successful?" "Did you kill her?" "Where are the others?"
A thousand questions, a thousand hands touching him, caressing him. He closed his eyes for a moment and felt of the warmth that sprang from their souls like a spring of cleanest water, something unknown to his world for two thousand years.
He lived in Newark, New Jersey.
At least, he
thought
it was New Jersey. That was what he guessed based on the small bits of the past that were unearthed in the subterranean caverns where the Fans took refuge from the cruel world outside. He could not be sure, of course, for Newark had not existed as a living place for some two thousand years. But that was his guess, and he supposed that Newark was as good a place as any. Jerusalem or one of the hallowed lands of the Bible would have been more fitting to his mission, perhaps, but since Fran and the Controllers were located somewhere on this continent, the Fans had to make their homes here as well.
He looked upon his people, a small army of men and women who gazed up at him with something akin to worship. Each was dressed differently, each wearing clothing stolen from a different time, each holding weapons that had been invented during distinct historical epochs. Some of his people looked quite normal. Others were ravaged by the cosmic rays that constantly swept over this doomed earth’s face. They lived underground, below a thick barrier of sand and stone, in order to avoid those deadly emissions, but the nature of their work took them out often enough that most Fans were destined to die of cancer.
Malachi felt no revulsion at the sight of half-eaten faces, no chill at the touch of hands that left bloody marks on his clothing. These were his people, his brothers and sisters, his sons and daughters in the kingdom they were building.
When everyone had gathered around, cramming into the room which served as their assembly hall and as their chapel, he spoke.
"She is still alive," he said. A ripple went through the assemblage. Sadness, despair. He held up a hand to quell the burgeoning sense of helplessness that was the constant companion of every one of them. "The others," he said at last, speaking of Todd, Deirdre, and Jenna, "have gone on to their reward. The three of you who went out have not come back. One was a machine, but two were lost to us without divulging their true natures." He bowed his head as though praying, then raised it and said, "Let it be known that they were human. They were real, and they shall rest in eternity for their great work."
A great sigh swept through the group. A few began crying, not with sadness but with envy. The rest waited for the remainder of Malachi’s report. Return and report: it was the way they had done it for almost two thousand years now, and though Malachi was the newest in a long line of priest-kings and had changed many things, this aspect would never change. He would return and report, so that the work could go on, no matter what.
"The girl is still alive. So is her protector," he said, a sneer curling his lips at the last word. "A Recovery team came into Loston and saved them."
Again the sigh rippled through his people. More sadness. He held up his hands, and even the tiny whispers and murmurs melted instantly away, like snowflakes on the scorched ground above them.
"There is blessing, though," he said. He held up his tracker. "They still have Fran, but I’m tracking them –
all
of them - back to Control."
The silence that followed that statement was deafening, like the absolute silence that must have been heard in the second before God first said "Let there be light." It was the stillness of promise, of knowledge that what was to come would be glory.
Malachi allowed himself a smile. "Arm yourselves," he said. "All of you. We attack them as soon as you are prepared. We end it all"
A great cheer went up and the group divided into a hundred smaller units, putting on gear, dividing up weapons. Preparing.
Malachi watched it all. He took a deep breath, and his body cried out with the strain of the last two days. But at the same time he felt light and ready for what came.
He closed his eyes, and again felt the hot breath of fire, fire that burned across the world and completed what had begun two thousand years before.
Today was the day.
Armageddon, begun two millennia ago, would at last be complete.
CONTROL HQ - RUSHM
AD 3999/AE 1999
A thump signaled their arrival at wherever it was they were headed. Adam had said their destination was Virginia, but John didn’t really expect to see the place he knew from travel books and TV shows as Virginia, with the rolling hills and mountains and signs pointing out the historic sights.
He wasn’t disappointed. The view that greeted him upon arrival was nothing he was prepared for. It was utterly alien, and that sense of displacement was only heightened by Adam calling it Virginia.
The door cracked open and once again Adam gestured for John to go first. He didn’t resist this time, stepping out with Fran still in his arms. He entered what appeared to be some kind of hangar, but it was like no other hangar he’d ever seen or heard of. It was bathed in a strange red light that poured through the hangar opening like a liquid rose. Several other craft like the ones he’d flown in on hung in the air nearby, and several carlike contraptions squatted at their sides. The vehicles were short and boxy, and looked like dune-buggies with tank treads instead of wheels.
He had barely had a moment to take it all in when five men scrambled toward him. They were large, muscles straining against the strange fabric of their shirts, and John realized that they meant to take Fran from him.
A sudden rage gripped him. Adam had betrayed them, the good feelings nothing but a front and a lie. John resisted the groping hands of the men, but there were too many of them, and he was encumbered by Fran’s still unmoving form. He managed to take two of them out with swift kicks to the knees and inner thighs that left them curled on the steel floor of the hangar in various stages of hurt.
Then he realized - vaguely, as all his thoughts floated in a cottony haze of confusion, fear, fatigue, and anger - that not only were the three remaining men still coming at him, but the people who had come with Adam were doing their best to peel Fran away from him.
"No!" he screamed, and redoubled his efforts to escape. But he couldn’t. It was impossible.