The Unearthing (31 page)

“Tempus fugit,” Each of His supplicants said, before receiving Communion;
Time flies
.

“Memento Mori,” Ashe replied to each, as He gave them Communion;
Remember death
. At last all had taken Communion; all were falling under the drug’s spell. As the drug began taking hold, His followers began partaking of each other’s flesh; grouping off, men and women, women and women, men and men…today, they would enjoy their last hours of earthly pleasure. Tonight, they would die in His name. And Ash, his own arousal rising, would partake of their flesh as well as they celebrated the triumphant coming of the Kingdom of the Lord.

♦♦♦

Bloom was out of her quarters and running, her sidearm drawn as sirens began wailing. She was halfway across the compound, moving towards the operations center when a Ranger pulled up beside her. The back door opened.

“Colonel!” Major Benedict shouted, “Get in!” Bloom hopped inside, pulling the door shut behind her.

“Report!” she barked, holstering her weapon, “What the fuck is going on?”

“All Hell’s breaking loose,” Benedict replied, “The airfield’s been hit; two explosions blasted the main hangar and the fuel dump. We’re getting reports of explosions in the Village; so far, all in residential areas!”

“Shit! Who the fuck is doing this?”

“We don’t know. It looks like lone individuals with explosives strapped to their chests. We’re rallying now. Emergency response has been dispatched to the Village to help and all available personnel have been deployed around the base to ensure no one else is out there. It’s an organized attack, but we don’t know who’s behind it yet.” They pulled up in front of the main building. Bloom was out of the Ranger, Benedict with her as she charged inside.

“Get the SSE to the designated secured areas,” she said, “And get something,
anything
into the air; call in aerial recon from whatever’s nearby if we don’t have it and don’t just send emergency response into the Village, dispatch troops!” She tore into the command center, where a war theatre had already been set up. A map of the World Ship Preserve was displayed on a tabletop screen. The Village and Fort Arapaho were centered, red circles on the map showed blast zones.

“How the fuck did this happen?” Bloom demanded, “How did they get past our perimeter?” A communications officer was racing by. Bloom grabbed him at the shoulder.

“I need an immediate conference linx to the World Council Security Commission, the World Ship Summit and the DIA,” she told him, slipping a linx into her ear at the same time, “Put it through to me here, right away, with a sub-window on this screen.” She stabbed the tabletop screen with her finger

“Contact Civil Protection and find out what’s needed to secure the Village,” Benedict said to another officer, “Find out from Laguna how long before they can assist.”

General Harrod and the Liaisons to the World Council Security Commission and World Ship Summit appeared on Bloom’s console. She apprised them of the situation.

“Have the Protectorate deploy the Peacekeepers to cut off access to the World Ship Reserve,” the Security Commission officer said.

“My Security Chief’s taking care of that as we speak,” Bloom replied. Across the room, Benedict had jacked a video boom onto his headset and was linxed in to Police Chief Sharon Raven in Laguna and he was speaking with his civilian counterpart while information scrolled directly across his vision.

“We have civilians at the gates,” another aide called, “They want in!”

“Get them inside and head them down into the shelters,” Bloom barked, turning back to Benedict, “Exo; what’s happening with the Peacekeepers?”

“The Protectorate’s Peacekeepers are being deployed,” He reported, “And we now have a preliminary casualty list.” His tone at this was now grimmer.

“What are the numbers?” Bloom asked.

“At the airfield, five dead…seventeen injured, twenty more unaccounted for. There’s an estimated count of over three hundred dead in the Village.”

“Put everyone not on defence onto the rescue,” Bloom said. She was about to turn back to the tabletop where an alarm sound signalled another set of explosions when the command center itself was hit. The explosion rocked the building, throwing everyone from their feet and plunging them into a thunderous darkness.

♦♦♦

When James and Allison got back home, Laura and her roommate coaxed James out with them to an all-night club. He went grudgingly, but admitted to himself that seeing Allison in clubwear was well worth it.

“This is our favourite place,” Allison told James when they arrived at Freebase, a Sens club that catered to the tox crowd with heavy beat dance music and flashy surrealistic lighting and décor.

Freebase served alcohol, hallucinogens, narcotics and other recreational drugs at the bar. As Allison, Laura and James bought and consumed half-doses of E from a scantily-clad waitress, he found himself recalling why he’d once enjoyed the club scene so much. As the fast-acting Ecstasy began taking hold they made their way out onto the dance floor. It wasn’t long before the three of them were stoned, sweaty and sensuously moving against one another, the music seeming to control them. James tried to concentrate his dancing on Allison, wanting so much to touch and be touched by her, but concentration was difficult. Whenever Laura, or for that matter anyone else brushed up against him, he found himself pulled into that experience. Several times James found himself engaged in dances with strangers, being drawn back into Allison and Laura’s circle. Often he simply remembered he was here with them and turned around to marvel at the sight of the two of them dancing together, pressed and grinding like lovers. Then they would pull him back and they would all dance together some more.

Finally they retired from the dance floor to one of the upper levels of the club. Laura and Allison had had to pull James away from where he had been standing next to a bus-sized subwoofer, relishing in the way the violent vibrations from the giant speaker seemed to displace him in space and time. The three of them collapsed in a sinuous heap, drinking concentrated fruit juice over crushed ice, brought over by a nearly-nude waiter whose only covering was boots, a silver thong and a money belt.

“Gods, I love the service in this joint!” Allison said, approvingly. James lit a cigarette from his pack, his head throbbing and the sweaty heat of Allison and Laura electric against his chest. The Sens music was unbelievably loud; jarring psychedelic sounds with almost no clear pattern to the noise. Rhythm was dead; raw sound was the new music aesthetic. Suddenly the crowds started screaming and cheering and it took James a long moment, still buzzing and recovering from more than an hour’s non-stop dancing, to realize why. The music had changed, the noise shifting subtly around a new sound: the crystalline wailing of Shipsong. The spinner had manipulated the alien tempo and notes somehow, warping Shipsong’s natural rhythms and octaves, layering it all back on itself. Somehow the Shipsong was still whole in the mix and made every sound in the club part of its symphony. While Laura and Allison seemed enraptured by the sound it upset James. It seemed to be encroaching on him, suffocating him.

“Shit,” He said, pushing himself up and away from Allison and Laura, “I have to get out of here. I need some air.” He rushed past Allison and Laura who, stunned by his sudden egress, needed a moment before they were clear-headed enough to follow him. James pushed his way down to the main level and out towards the front entrance. Forcing through the multitude and fighting to get out only made James’ level of panic rise. He felt like he was suffocating; the air he was breathing in too hot, too humid. A crowd was in the lobby, waiting to get inside. Stoned, freaking out because of what the Shipsong was dredging up within him, bordering on a drug-heightened panic attack, James ran into someone in line. He looked into the crazed face of a young woman, who unbelievably, was singing
Onward, Christian Soldier
: the hymn Francis George Franck had screamed out after killing the Prof and just before taking his own life. It was more than James could take; he stormed into the street. It was cold and raining out and James began breathing deeply of the chilly air, trying to calm himself.

“James!” James looked back. He had started across the street. Allison and Laura were closing on him.

“James, what’s wrong?” Laura asked, “What’s going on?”

“I…freaked out,” He said, “I had to get out of the club and--” the entire front of the club blossomed into orange fire. A hot blast of air threw James, Laura and Allison the rest of the way across the street. They were deafened instantly by a concussion they barely heard before falling violently to earth. They were pelted with debris. James whited out, stunned into a daze for a few moments. When he came to, forcing himself into a sitting position, what he saw stupefied him. The club had been in the middle of the block. It and the buildings to either side of it had been levelled, turned into flaming rubble. The street was littered with debris. Every car on the street had had its windows shattered. People staggered from other buildings, wounded, bloody; mangled bodies littered the sidewalk. James only became aware of the deafening ringing in his ears as it subsided. He could hear people screaming, sirens approaching and unbelievably, more explosions, near and in the distance.

“James!” He turned his head. Allison. She was dirty, cut…kneeling over Laura. He made his way over to them. Laura was struggling to breathe. Some jagged metal shard had cut through her and she was covered in blood, rasping breath in gurgling lungfuls.

“Oh, God…” James moaned. He dug into a pocket for his linx. It had been shattered. Ambulances and fire trucks were pulling in on either side of the street.

“Go!” he bellowed desperately at Allison, “Go get help!” Allison ran; no, limped, he noticed, as she had been cut in the leg. Allison was screaming towards the nearest ambulance. In the eternal moments it took for the paramedics to rush over, James couldn’t help but think of how horribly familiar this all was; cradling Laura’s head in his lap as she lay dying, choking on her own blood just as her father had, the same scared, shocked expression in her eyes, just as he had seen in her father’s.

♦♦♦

The lights flickered back to life and then flashed out again. Emergency lights flared as the sprinkler system began to deluge. Ghostly beams from the emergency lamps in the corners cast an eerie incandescence over the dead, black consoles and systems control panels in the situation room. Bloom picked herself up as did the rest of her crew. Benedict listened intently to his linx for a moment.

“They hit the south side of the building,” He said, “The structure’s been very badly damaged; it could come down at any time.”

“Give the order to evacuate,” Bloom said, “Everyone at arms-ready. We’ll fall back to the emergency shelters,” Bloom made sure her voice was heard by all, “If you can, grab portable consoles on the way out; we’ll set up our command center there. Post guards at
all
shelter entrances. Anyone who fails password confirmation is to be shot on sight.” There was nothing left to be said. Only the hiss of the water spraying down from the fire extinguishers and the wet footsteps of the evacuees was heard. Gunshots, sirens and the cold desert air greeted them as they made their way outside. Their wet clothes immediately began steaming as they made their way to the nearest shelter entrance. A soldier came running up, saluting quickly as he paced Colonel Bloom.

“We’ve engaged the enemy across the compound, Ma’am!” he reported, as they reached the doors of the shelter. A sandbagged machine gun nest had already been set up at its entrance.

“Who’s the enemy?” Bloom demanded, “Do we have an ident, yet?”

“Enemy or enemies unknown!” the soldier replied as he and Bloom began ushering people inside, “Civilian clothes, but their hardware and tactics say very well trained!”

“We’re receiving reports of similar attacks around the country.” Benedict said, pressing his linx into his ear. “And sporadic reports of other attacks around the world.”

♦♦♦

The Minister had been escorted—under guard—to the Defence Ministry headquarters on Laurier Avenue. He was brought straight to a situation room in one of many sub-basements buried deep into the Ottawa granite. A string of terrorist attacks had begun across the country at one-thirteen AM, Pacific Time. The attacks coincided with similar attacks in the United States, Mexico and across Europe and Asia. The Canadian attacks had taken place in the Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and Quebec City regions. Oddly enough Ottawa, the nation’s Capital, had not been attacked. Military, residential and commercial districts had been attacked by powerful bombs and weapons fire. The national death toll was catastrophic; already into the tens of thousands. The Minister was immediately linxed into a conference with the World Council Security Commission and his Defence colleagues from around the world, including two of his confederates from the Committee.

“The most violent attacks seem centered in and around the World Ship Preserve,” The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff remarked. The World Council Security Commissioner referred to his notes.

“It would appear that the attacks can be directly attributed to one group: The Church of the United Trinity. A primary analysis shows that in almost all the areas under attack there is a significant United Trinity Observant presence.”

“Yes,” The British Defence Minister said, “Italian police managed to intercept one of the attackers before she could get to her principle target, the Vatican. She claimed to be working for the Son of the Son of God; that’s been Gabriel Ashe’s self-ascribed moniker for years.”