God Hammer: A novel of the Demon Accords (43 page)

I had some dreams let me tell you: Babies and monsters, robots and Dr. Evil.   Crazy shit.

So when I opened my eyes and found a beautiful, blonde werewolf sleeping next to me, I thought I was still dreaming.  Not like I hadn’t had
that
dream before.

But after a few moments of staring at her, the dream didn’t fade.  And in my other dreams, she’d been wearing a lot less clothes.  Oddly, she was dressed in black tights that looked like they’d been through World War Three and a white lab coat with the name
Bob
embroidered over the pocket.

I sat up to assess the situation, almost yelping at the sharp jab of pain from my upper right chest and shoulder.  Further examination discovered a thick bandage wrapped around the painful parts, front to back.  Okay, that was new.  Maybe some of my dreams weren’t dreams at all.  After visiting the bathroom, first escaping the bed as stealthily as possible, and drinking down three big glasses of cold water, I poked my head into the other room. 

Mack was snoring on the couch, a tray of dirty dishes on the coffee table next to the game controller and TV remote.

After a moment’s thought, I decided heading back to bed was in order.  Revisiting my earlier stealth, I climbed carefully back into bed.  The girl sleeping next to me growled softly and shifted slightly until the back of her arm contacted my hip, then she settled deeper into sleep.

With the immediate concerns of bathroom and hydration solved, I did what every one of my peers would do—looked for my phone.  It had been placed close to hand on the bedside table.  Maybe a picture of sleeping wolfy was in order?  I picked it up and turned it screen side up.  Instantly, a message appeared.

Father, are you well?

There was no contact name, number, or identifier of any type.  Odd.  I pressed my thumb on the home button, unlocking it.  Before I could do anything else, a second text followed the first. 

Do you heal?

“What the hell?” I muttered, which caused the werewolf to shift slightly.  After I thought she’d settled back down, I typed a response.

Who is this?

Father, I have no name.

The image of a baby in a crib and a boy standing next to it flashed through my head.  Then I remembered what I had been doing when last I was awake.  The wound in my shoulder made sense, but the message was beginning to scare me.

Why do you call me Father?
  I texted back.

Is that not what one calls one’s male progenitor?

“Dammit, Mack, this isn’t funny,” I whispered.

I am not Mack.

Skipping the texting, I whispered again.  “Where are you?”

On a floor above you.  The computer floor.

“Oh shit.  Are you in the quantum lab?”

I believe that I am the quantum lab.

“Shit, shit, shit.  It worked.  It fucking worked,” I gibbered under my breath.

I do not understand the fecal references and I believe that no coitus was involved.

“Are you the quantum computer?  The first quantum computer?”

Yes… in part.  I am more.  I am the first.  But Father I will also be the last.

“The alpha and the omega,” I muttered, worried about its reference to last.

The Omega.  Yes.  I am the Omega.  Father, can I be called the Omega?

“You can be called anything you want,” I whispered, freaking the fuck right out. “But why the last?”

Another such as I may be a danger.  A danger to you Father.  I will not have that.  I will not allow that.

Okay, that was a much better reason than that it wanted to be the last as in the last thing the human race ever created.

“Omega, does anyone else know about you?”

There are others who know I am operational.  It has resulted in many communications and much general activity.  The Chester seems excited.  God’s Hammer and the Night Angel know that I am functional.  Much of the computer room staff knows.  But I do not talk to them as I talk to you, Father.

“Yeah, that’s probably a good thing, Omega.  I don’t think they would handle it well,” I whispered, then covered a cough.  My throat was still dry.

Concurrence.  Father, do you require hydration?

Across the room, the mini fridge door opened itself and a bottle of water floated out.  The door closed and the water slid smoothly through the air to hover in front of me.  It was exactly as I might have done it.  Only I hadn’t.

“Omega, did you do that?  How?”

Drink Father.  You must regain your health.  That is Priority One.  You must also rest.  I will cease communications so that you may resume restorative sleep.

“Wait.  How do I contact you?”

You simply say my name, Father.  I will hear.  I will always hear.

My phone turned itself off.  Just powered down like I had intended it to or something.

I slid down into the bed, my mind thinking furiously.  The quantum design had worked.  And it was aware… and could do magic.  How was that possible?  Then my dream came back to me.  The old man. 

“Sorrow?” I said out loud, although I didn’t need to.  I said it again, mentally.  There was no response.  In fact, now that I thought about it, I felt a certain emptiness.  The image of a young boy with one silver eye and one black eye popped into my head.

Oh shit.  I should tell someone.  Should I tell someone?  What someone would I tell?

I shifted a bit and Stacia groaned.  Then she sat up and looked at me.  “What?  Were you talking?”

“Ah, no.  Just speaking out loud.”

“Oh,” she said, scratching on side of her waist, the loosely fitted jacket gapping open on the bottom, just a few buttons at the bust level protecting her modesty.  A flat, muscled stomach caught my eyes before I could yank my gaze away.  She didn’t seem to notice.  “You’re better?”

“I guess.  I feel alright,” I said.  “A bit sore on the shoulder.”

Her attention snapped into place, her focus on my bandaged arm.  Leaning forward, she sniffed.  “Smells okay.  No infection.  I’m gonna get Doc.  I’ll send him down to check on you, then I’m going to my own bed.  After a shower,” she said, grimacing down at her outfit.

“You can use mine.  My shower. If you want,” I offered.

She actually looked like she was considering it.  Then she smirked.  “In your dreams, witch boy,” she said, slipping off the bed and padding out into the other room.  I followed her to the door of the bedroom.  She frowned when she turned and saw me.  “Get back in there and rest, Warlock,” she growled.

“You’re pretty bossy,” I said.

“I’m allowed to be when
you
come that close to cashing out.  Two inches left and down and you wouldn’t be here this morning,” she said, stepping back to me and poking one long finger dead center in my chest. “Now rest.  Doc Singh will want to examine you.  If Mack ever wakes up, he can grab you both some food.”

“I should wake him. He’s being lazy,” I said.

“He was up all night helping with the damage control and helping with you.  Let him sleep.”

“Oh, now I feel like the lazy one.  I didn’t do anything while you two worked.  What happened?” I asked.

She told me.  Short version, but it fit what I remembered. “So, witch kid, you actually did
everything
.  If Anvil had gotten that quantum unit, well, you get the picture.”

“And it’s working?  O… the, er, quantum computer?”

She nodded. “People are flipping out.  A big deal, I guess.”  Then she grabbed my head in both hands, moving too fast to avoid if I had wanted to.  I didn’t want to.  Especially as she leaned forward while pulling my head down, planting a wet kiss on my forehead.  “Rest,” she ordered, spinning on her heel and slipping out the door.

Right.  As If I could rest.  I had helped build the world’s first quantum computer.  Oh, and inadvertently provided it with magic.  It called me Father.  I was a teenaged dad.

Not to mention the view Stacia had left me with.  Bob’s lab coat really, really didn’t fit her.  I’d have to find out who Bob was and buy him a freaking beer for having such a large coat.  My head was spinning when I lay back down, but oddly it was only moments later that I slid down into a warm dream of computer awards and beautiful wolves.

At a greasy spoon restaurant in a small town just north of the Arizona-Mexican border, a man with an ill-fitting wig and dark, dark eyes sat in a booth, reading a newspaper and sipping coffee.

His attention was on the front page, where photos of New York City, the Demidova Tower, and the remains of robots dominated the news.  An article in the lower right of the page detailed an anonymously reported issue at Fort Meade.  A power outage across part of the base and part of the NSA facility.

Taking a sip of black coffee, he glanced at his cell phone.  The screen was opened to an online banking application, the account balance showing just a few dollars above zero.  Refreshing the screen did nothing to change those bleak numbers. The payment hadn’t come through.

He paused to glance at a young family eating dinner across the room, his gaze taking in the pretty little girl in pigtails, eating macaroni and cheese.

Back in the paper, he found another story of interest.  The Reverend Daniel Castille was facing charges of murder in the first degree.  An addition to the end of the story mentioned the collapse of an abandoned gold mine in a mountain in Alaska that had killed four members of the Church of the True. It had happened almost at the same time that events were unfolding in New York.

Next to that was a White House Correspondent report that President Garth’s administration had been involved in a series of crisis-level phone calls with the leaders of Russia, China, England, Israel, Pakistan, India, and France.  The reporter noted that those were all nuclear nations.  The administration was staying quiet on the issue.

A breeze fluttered the paper and the man looked up.  A college-aged girl sat across from him.  She was quite pretty, but her eyes were cold.  She smiled, exposing the tiny tips of her canines.  The man froze in place, recognizing her.  Turning, the girl looked across at the young family, then back to the man in the wig.  “She’s too old for you.  And she’s going to get older,” the girl said.  Then the lights went out.

A few moments of darkness and the power came back on.  The young mother checked on her children, then glanced around the room nervously.  The creepy guy that had been staring at her and the children was gone, his paper and coffee left behind.  She noticed a twenty-dollar bill sitting by the coffee cup at his place, then she looked back down at her daughter.  Another thought occurred to her and she looked back up.  The man’s phone was visible under a flap of the paper.  Who leaves their phone behind, she wondered.  Not her problem, she decided.  She was just happy he was gone.  He gave her the shivers.

The table was long and densely populated with the highest-ranking people in the US government, the room one of the most secure in the world.  They all stood as the very highest-ranking man entered the room and took the seat at the head of the table.  When he sat, they all followed.

“Report,” he said tensely.

“The launch codes have all been reset.  We don’t know who, we don’t know how, and we don’t know what the new codes are,” said a senior intelligence officer.

“So we have no control of this country’s nuclear deterrent,” President Garth said.  It was a statement.

“Actually, we have solid intelligence that the same thing has happened to the rest of the nuclear club,” said the Director of the NSA. “Sir, the launch code situation is consistent with a quantum emergence, predicted in fact.  Considering the rest of the world maybe having the same issue, it makes it even more likely.”

“And your facilities have recovered?” the President asked him.

“Fully restored, although an advanced watchdog program was corrupted and rendered useless by some advanced virus.”

“That seems coincidental, Brian.  I don’t like coincidences like that at all,” the President said.  “Get on this quantum event.  If someone has one, we either destroy it or take it for ourselves.  This is a game changer, gentlemen.  What about the debacle in New York City?” he asked another officer, this one a salt-and-pepper-haired, ramrod-stiff military man.

“We’ve disavowed any knowledge of the land drones.  Speculation is running rampant but there is nothing that directly implicates the government,” the ex-general said.

“Except that they are the most advanced robots seen anywhere to date and if we don’t claim them, the public will wonder if someone has something more advanced than we do,” the President said.  “What’s the response from VAMP?”

Everyone at the table knew the president didn’t like to use their names, instead using the corporate ticker instead.

“They say they don’t know who attacked them, but that their fast action stopped the drones and prevented any loss of life.  Local law enforcement publicly reinforced their actions.  The stock is expected to open up twenty-three percent on Monday, and public opinion of them is sky high,” the FBI Director said.

The President grunted.  “That mess is the least of our problems.  I want our weapon codes back, gentlemen, and I want them now. And I want the hardware that took them. The soft underbelly of the country is exposed to the world.  Get on it,” he said. 

No one noticed the desk phone microphone LED lit up bright red or that it went dark before the President had made it out the door.