Fear the Survivors (7 page)

With that in mind, Shahim scanned the various guards and emplacements, surveying their firepower and angles of fire, formulating a plan. His machine mind calculated options for him, arraying statistics and probabilities of casualties on either side, and he sorted them quietly, refining his choices as the short line of trucks, cars, and carts shuffled slowly forward.

Their turn came.

As the guards approached the truck, Shahim could see the tension on their faces. The plague was spreading fast now, and the first trickle of refugees was starting to flow across the region, through border crossings like this one. But the disease was really still just taking hold, only a few deaths had been reported so far. The spreading coughs and wheezing chest infections only hinting at the scale of the epidemic that was around the corner. Once it came, the borders would start to close, maybe in a week, maybe in a few days, only time would tell.

A thick Northern Persian dialect barked surly words through his window, “Papers, please.”

Shahim withdrew a sheave of poorly faked papers that he had drawn from memory, his mind transposing an image from his databanks onto the sheets in minute detail. They were supposed to be letters from the Turkmen ministry, listing four names to match the size of his small party. The text, seals, and verbiage on the sheets were almost perfect, but the paper they were printed on, and their monochromatic tones, fell far short of authenticity. The guard was clearly suspicious, and with good cause. The papers were a sham. A second glance, a third.

Bending, the guard peered into the truck. Shahim had told Banu to pretend to be asleep across Jack and Jennifer’s laps. For Jack and Jennifer, Lord Mantil had thoroughly and somewhat brutally rubbed dirt into their white-skinned faces. He had done so with almost bruising force, but the effect had been pronounced: aging them and making them look impoverished, meager even. He had told them under no circumstances to show their teeth, a certain tell of the ardent attentions of American orthodontists.

He had also rubbed soil and even some fecal matter into his own teeth to disguise their uniform whiteness. A thick film of muck inside your mouth was not something he imagined a human would be able to stand for long, and neither would a Mobiliei, for that matter. But Shahim was neither human nor Mobiliei, he was a machine, and he grinned a dirty brown grin at the guard as he spoke in broken Iranian at him, his voice lilted with a feigned hoarseness, his body stooped, a rancid stench wafting from his breath as he calculatedly emanated poverty.

And so, looking into the cabin of the truck, the guard saw three dirty, stinking adults, clearly poor, clearly farmers, and a sleeping child. The driver’s filthy teeth and foul breath disgusted the guard. Stinking peasants, he thought with the bitter snobbery of the poor judging the poorer. He surveyed the papers once more, dubiously.

They
looked
right but they
felt
false. The paper was too thin, the ink too light. Something was clearly wrong with them. He knew he should investigate further but the idea of searching these peasants turned his stomach. He glanced at the driver once more. In the end the guard was tasked with stopping money, drugs and wanted criminals from leaving Iran and he had no reason to believe these were any of those. That they had papers that were probably forgeries was Turkmenistan’s problem. Let them deal with these scrubs.

Shahim watched the guard from behind deliberately glazed eyes, and read the man. He was not surprised when he was waved through; he had assumed that getting out of Iran would be the easy part. The farmers he had stolen the truck from had no telephone, and it would be a while yet before it was light enough for the grounded helicopter to be easily spotted from the air. Only then would the Iranian forces searching for them know that the fugitives had taken a truck. Only then would the border be notified. The problem now lay not in getting out of Iran, but with the second set of guards ahead. It lay with getting into Turkmenistan.

He edged forward. His systems primed. If it came to it he would gun the car through the gate and then leap out, leaving Jennifer to drive onward while Lord Mantil took care of any pursuers and drew their fire away from the truck and the more vulnerable humans inside. But as they rolled up to the gate, they were greeted not by a Turkmen guard, but by a formal British accent.

- - -

Malcolm struggled to contain his reaction to the overpowering smell of the driver’s breath. Could this be right?

“Umm, Lord Mantil?”

It was a strange name, but he had been told to use that name specifically, and to deliver the following message, “I am Lieutenant Malcolm Granger of her Majesty’s Ambassadorial Detail, attached to the British embassy. My friend over there, our liaison to the Turkmen government, is expediting your passage into the country. I was told to get your friends to the embassy immediately to await further instructions. A ‘Neal Danielson’ sends his regards.”

Shahim allowed a smile to show on his lips and glanced at the palpably relieved Americans next to him. Jack slumped forward, the tension ebbing from his frame like a burst damn.

“Neal, you fabulous son of a bitch,” Jack mumbled into his lap, laughing weakly. Shahim noticed the Englishman’s crinkled up nose and remembered his deliberately potent breath. He deliberately minimized the air wafting over his grit-covered teeth, and as the aroma subsided, the officer’s politeness became easier, more natural, and the Englishman continued.

“For confirmation I was told to ask you …” he consulted his notes, “what are you the …” the next part was said with clear doubt, Malcolm certain it must have been incorrectly transcribed in some way. But he said it anyway, his orders clear: “what are you the
second … arberator
of?”

His brow crinkled and he looked back at the disheveled man in front of him. As he watched the truck driver’s black eyes, the man seemed to straighten, his whole demeanor changing. The lowly peasant he had seen only moments before surged, his back straightening, his expression setting in an iron look, the man behind the machine allowing the full measure of his pride to show in his expression and demeanor. Malcolm watched as Lord Mantil became the warrior before whom thousands had fallen, first to appease his race’s greed, and then to appease his own conscience.

“I am the Second Arberator of the
Orbital
, Lieutenant Granger: Lord Mantil of the Mantilatchi.” said the man.

Malcolm was transfixed by the powerful stare of the transformed man. The black eyes were piercing. The mention of the strange title seemed to have given a surge of power to the suddenly imperious looking man, and Malcolm managed only a nod at the reply he had been told to expect to the cryptic question.

“Well,” Malcolm managed after a moment, “for you I have special instructions, Lord Mantil.” he said, and the Agent looked at him curiously, “I am to get you to the airport immediately. You are booked on the first flight out to London. You’ll be met there with new papers and then you are to head to Tel Aviv, I believe. There to meet a … John Hunt … who has further instructions for you.”

The message told him a great deal. That it came from a British soldier told Lord Mantil that the team was alive and thriving, and spreading out to gather new allies. That it mentioned John Hunt meant his colleague was also alive, and had not fallen prey to the satellites before they were destroyed. Finally that it mentioned Tel Aviv could only mean that they were seeking Raz Shellet.

Shahim proverbially licked his lips. A worthy opponent. And another chance to bring the shame he felt to bear on a just recipient.

Lord Mantil nodded, and Malcolm told them to follow him back to the embassy. He would get them all clean clothes, a shower, and any medical attention they required, then Shahim would leave with Malcolm for the airport per their instructions.

Malcolm did not inquire as to the identity of the mysterious child, nor did the border guards or Turkmen liaison. Many a stranger had been given passage through this border with far less of an invite than the one being extended to these refugees, and no one saw the need to be officious in that invite’s application.

Chapter 8: Team Mechanics

“The problem does not lie in the structure, but in the scale
.” said Birgit, frustrated. Madeline looked at her with anger in her blood. The German scientist had joined Madeline only a day before in what was now Madeline’s personal laboratory in North Dakota.

In a surprisingly efficient move, the Japanese and US governments had jointly leased the entire site from Matsuoka Industries for an indefinite period. Neal had let Madeline know the news along with a host of other developments only yesterday, while sitting in his office in DC. The rest of the meeting had focused on the initial members of her new team, and the initial projects she was to focus on.

It had felt strange, taking orders from Neal. But they had not been delivered as a set of orders so much as a list of requests made of an equal, and after discussion he had willingly modified his expectations based on her feedback. Appreciative of the auspicious start to this new phase in their relationship, she had returned to North Dakota just ahead of the first of her new team members, Dr. Birgit Hauptman.

Dr. Hauptman was a surprisingly slovenly dressed woman in her fifties, shedding the stern stereotype of her German heritage along with several office dress codes that Madeline had not been aware she was a stickler for. They had met at the airport in Minnesota, and Birgit had joined Madeline in the back of the government Suburban driven by a member of the security detail now assigned to Madeline. They had talked of their backgrounds, and Birgit had quizzed Madeline on all that had happened over the last two years before her inclusion in the project. Most notably the revelations of John Hunt and the workings of the resonance manipulator.

Then their conversation had shifted to wave dynamics. While a little outside Birgit’s field, she had dabbled in them as part of her experiments. Like the many people experimenting in her area of expertise, Birgit had exhausted so many options looking for ever-better methods of containment. For Dr. Hauptman was a nuclear physicist. But she worked well outside the standard electricity generation and weapons antics of modern day nuclear science. She was among the many researchers who were exploring the alchemist’s dream of a practical fusion reaction.

Fusion was the controlled driving together of atoms to replicate the hot, potent release of pure atomic power occurring every day in the heart of every functioning star in the universe. Unlike fission, it did not require the use of heavy metals like plutonium and uranium, with all of their associated dangers and costs. Fusion yielded more energy, required no specialized fuels, and left no radioactive by-product.

An ideal to strive for? No doubt. But for fusion to occur, so much heat and pressure was required that the only place it happened naturally was at the core of a star. And so, to date, no one had been able to make a fusion reactor that didn’t take more energy to run than it actually created. Birgit did not know it yet, but by the end of this week those inefficient Tokomak reactors of her career to date would have joined the zeppelin as yet another impractical foible of the past.

Before the two accomplished women could reach that goal, however, they would have to surmount hurdles even John couldn’t help them with. For John could tell them how it could work, and his papers were like a treasure map to a wide-eyed, childlike Birgit; he could even give them a precise design that matched the small but potent reactor that burned within each and every Agent that still walked the earth. But they needed to replicate that design on a massive diversity of scales, and for that they needed not only a design but an understanding of how it worked.

With Birgit’s already extensive knowledge and expertise, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but they were playing with fire. Not the fire the first cavemen ignited eons ago, but a flame that could not only burn their curious fingers, but vaporize anyone within a blast radius they had yet to even calculate. They had to step very carefully indeed, as any misstep could cost them their lives.

But patience was an elusive virtue indeed when you had a machine in your laboratory that could almost instantly execute any design you could conceive of. Deus ex machina could easily become diabolus ex machina.

Hours later, in the lab now, their conversation having taken turns and twists neither could have expected, Madeline pressed the look of frustration from her face, her restraint like an iron on the frown that Birgit’s obstinacy was wrinkling into her brow.

“I understand that scaling is an issue here,
Dr
. Hauptman, and that is exactly why I think we should start by replicating
exactly
what was given to us and testing how that unit wor …”

Birgit cut Madeline off, “We have discussed this, Madeline, and I fail to see the benefit of building something we already know works.” Birgit’s German accent somehow made her interru
ption even more annoying, though Madeline knew how unreasonable that was, and she snapped.

“It is useful
because
we know it works. And because we know it is
safe,
” she shouted suddenly, with undisguised anger. “I for one have no desire to add to the deaths this team has already suffered this week.”

Birgit was stunned silent, first by Madeline’s tone, Birgit’s own ire rising at the other woman’s faltering professionalism, and then by the revelation of a loss within the team. She saw the subsurface grief hiding behind Madeline’s glazing eyes, and she started to soften.

For her part, Madeline’s anger had already extinguished itself in the act of flaring, consuming all her rage like oxygen in a moment and leaving only sadness afterward, an ember smoldering in the dark, empty cavern that she felt herself shivering in.

After more than a week of uncertainty, Madeline had heard third-hand that her friend Martin was dead. The confirmation had eventually come from the British embassy in Ashgabat. Only Jack and one of the co-opted pilots had been among the survivors Shahim had shepherded safely away from the closing jaws of an enraged Iranian army.

Martin’s death had revived the feelings of helplessness and impending defeat that had started long ago on a terrible night in India. She would never know exactly how Laurie and James had died. What her lover James had been thinking as the crew of the
King’s Transom
had become the first to die at the hands of the Mobiliei. But since then she had been skating on a razor thin sheet of hope as the threat they had gradually uncovered loomed ever darker and colder around them.

While the destruction of the satellites had brought some measure of relief from the ever-present fear, Madeline’s own encounter with one of the Agents, Lana Wilson, stood as a stark reminder of what still hunted them even now.

Birgit watched the American silently. She had just met this woman, and though she obliquely understood that Madeline and her colleagues had been through an ordeal, she saw now that she had not truly appreciated the strain it must have put them under.

She also knew she could be abrasive and stubborn, and that she typically came across as somewhat arrogant. She normally did not really care. But maybe she should listen to this woman, if only for the sake of her new colleague’s sanity, but also because, for perhaps the first time in years, Birgit might be out of her depth. Standing suddenly, Birgit crossed to one of her bags and started to ruffle through it.

“You are right, of course.” she said, rummaging for something. Madeline stared at the German woman’s back as she laid her wheel-aboard bag down and unzipped it. Was she being pitied? She did not want pity. Pity was second only to having been given an easy time by some of her older, more lecherous professors on the list of things that really, really pissed Madeline off. She was at the junction between grief and anger when the other woman suddenly stood up, clasping a faded, multicolored jacket.

Birgit turned back to Madeline with a childlike smile on her face. “My lucky lab coat!” she said, as though it was the most important thing in the world. She pulled on the tie-dyed atrocity and smiled. Eccentricity was the luxury of the rich and the successful, and Birgit had been one of the leaders in her field for long enough now that she was usually the most important person in any lab she found herself in. Thus she had long forgotten how completely ridiculous she looked in the old, beaten throwback to her childhood in the seventies.

Without meaning to, Madeline started to laugh, immediately trying to hold it back as the initial chuckles brought a hurt look from Birgit. But attempts at restraining her mirth only exacerbated it. She shook her head. Trying to speak and apologize, but after a moment she recognized in the German woman’s surprised look the posturing of someone deliberately making fun of herself, and knew that Birgit was offering an olive branch. Her laughter faded and was replaced by an affectionate smile, and a look of understanding passed between them. It was obvious they were going to rip each other apart in here, but they could at least do so with a mutual respect.

“If you are finished mocking me, shall we get on with some actual work?” said Birgit, indignantly.

“Yes, of course.” said Madeline. She turned back to her computer screen and began mapping the design John had given them into the Resonance Manipulator’s control parameters. Birgit came over and stood behind her, watching her work with growing fascination. She offered the occasional comment, more often on the design than the way Madeline was entering it, and soon Madeline began to see how much she could learn from her new colleague. She may be an arrogant, well, you know what, but aren’t we all, thought Madeline.

An almost identical, though less censored thought was crossing Birgit’s mind as well.

- - -

Hours later they gave up. They had tried to manage it, but had eventually resigned themselves to just letting the grid do it. The long, complex process of initiating the device they had birthed in the golden womb of the resonance manipulator had been fraught with a growing trepidation.

They had known from their schematics that the small machine would yield something disproportionate, and they had planned ahead. Thick cables interwoven with now familiar superconductive fiber worked hard to sap the electricity from the little parcel of pressure and power humming in a corner of the room.

Well, it was not humming, so much as the systems being barraged by it were. They watched the spiking voltages as the machine drove a phenomenal surge into the facility’s transformer network. The research campus’s grid had been designed to feed the many projects, both large and small, that the electronics giant had conducted over the years. Now it was doing the opposite, driving voltage outward, back into the high-voltage power lines that had once fed it.

Birgit stared in amazement.
Decades of research had come to this. A part of her may have been capable of anger. Anger at the wasted years she had spent trying to get to this point, when in the end, one day,
this
day, the answer would be presented to her on a platter. But the simple, artistic beauty of the solution was such perfection to her, a lost piece in a puzzle she had sought to solve for so long, the crucial page in a book that had been full of confusion, suddenly becoming clear as the misplaced paragraphs were revealed. So many questions answered.

Her scientific soul rejoiced at it.

Even as it did so, she also started to look outward from this point. Seeking how to take it forward. In time she would battle nightmarish fears at what Earth’s enemies must already have accomplished with this knowledge, she may even have moments of despondency as she contemplated how long ago their enemies had been walking down this road that she was just now starting upon. But the scientist in her would always respond with grim determination to outstrip them even from here, to show them that she had not needed their help to find this start to her new path. She was an excellent and vibrant mind, and she would prove it to them, through victory.

But all that was a long way from now. For now, she simply sat next to her equally mute companion trying to absorb some measure of what they were witnessing.

The state electric board would be seeing something extraordinary as well: their demand would be falling off dramatically. Their dispatching systems were even now struggling to manage the variance, peak generation stations powering down, transformers dumping load as this new, tiny power source flooded the grid with energy.

After half an hour, they eventually turned away from the machine, leaving it to generate, leaving it to add of itself to the world. They had greater miracles to perpetuate. They had just germinated the first shoots of the end of fossil fuel. The small device they had just made with a day’s work could generate more power from a pint of water than the building they occupied would use in a century.

Madeline thought of the space-based fighter known as a “Skalm” that John Hunt had shown her in a fit of frustration while watching his friend Shahim fight alone in Iran. The quixotic engines that humanity would need to make that ship possible would need exponentially more power than even their little friend over there could deliver. Add to that the fact that the coming Armada they faced brought with it over a thousand of these Skalms, and the task ahead of them started to seem inconceivable. But seeing this machine and knowing that they had an insider’s knowledge of their enemy’s capabilities couldn’t help but spark some measure of hope.