Guardians of Eden (15 page)

“I never imagined you as a hacker,” Owyn remarked.

“Why? Am I too good an innocent to have ever committed a crime?” He rolled his eyes. “Being a hacker was much better for me than trying to fight, that’s for sure. I mean look how you turned out.”

“How’d you end up here?”

“A bit later on I stumbled across an encrypted communications channel coming from somewhere underground in the city so, in my great wisdom, I tried to patch into it. As it turned out the channel traced back to a hidden army base with pretty good security measures – I’m guessing courtesy of XION – so the next thing I knew I had ten automatic rifles pointing at my head.

Fortunately people with my skillset were pretty hard to come by so rather than killing me they hired me. I helped them keep track of any rebels who’d got their hands on wireless electronics for a couple of years before I got offered a place in ISO. I didn’t have anything holding me back on Earth and I was pretty fascinated by space travel so moving to another planet sounded like more fun. Now I’m starting to think my 19-year-old self was a dumb little shit and I should have taken the boring option, but I guess that’s what hindsight gives you.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad.”

“It wasn’t. I had it easy,” Sully admitted. “So what’s your story?”

“It’s a bit of a long one. You’ll have to wait until the return journey.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” He checked up on their current location. “Alright, we’re closing on Ambrose’ signal. Get ready for a sharp descent.”

As the border of the Tajari desert passed beneath them, Sully plunged into the atmosphere. The jet shook violently as they dropped, the entire hull burning red as they nosedived like a bird of prey swooping for a catch. Once they’d reached cruising altitude they levelled out again and Sully’s screens displayed a birds-eye view of what was below. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky to obscure their view, yet there were no dust storms to be seen; no swirling sands or brown mists. As they panned over countless miles of rolling dunes and rocky hills, still the air remained clear. Sully was right. It was all just another illusion conjured up by the DPD. They were hiding something here, and Owyn had his money on Ambrose leading them right to it.

“We’ve got a group of drones inbound,” Sully said as all of a sudden the jet’s radar began picking up about a dozen hostile aircraft just a few miles ahead of them. They hadn’t stayed clear for long.

Owyn jumped up to get a look at the front view camera that was now on screen. As Sully magnified the image the drones came into view. They were flying at a slightly lower altitude but that wasn’t going to be enough to avoid detection. “Can we slip past?”

“There’s no way we’re getting clear of their sensors in time but we might still be able to avoid detection. They’ll be scanning for heat and energy signatures. The hull masks our heat, so if we cut the power we might be able to slip through.”

That idea wasn’t at all smart, but they had to do something. They couldn’t just fly headfirst into that much firepower however good of a pilot Sully was. “Do it,” Owyn ordered.

As Sully flipped the switch the cockpit delved into complete darkness. The screens deactivated and the hum of the engines faded into silence.

Owyn’s heartrate sped up a little. They were now completely oblivious to what was happening outside. The feeling of separation and uncertainty was unnerving. “How do we know if they missed us?”

“We don’t.”

“Any way of checking our altitude?”

“Nope. I told you this would be exciting, didn’t I?”

Owyn squeezed his eyes shut. He was already wondering if they’d just accepted their fates. If this plan didn’t work then they’d be shot out of the sky before they knew a thing about it.

For a few seconds they both stopped still and listened. Nothing. Owyn’s foot slid forwards a few inches. A few more. He could feel the force pulling him up against the back of Sully’s chair, strengthening little by little. The jet was tipping. “Sully?” he asked nervously.

“Just a few more seconds.”

He usually had complete trust in his pilot, but Owyn’s confidence wasn’t holding so firm this time. The weight upon his feet was lessening. With every passing second he was edging closer to weightlessness. The seconds continued to tick by. Owyn winced at every little sound inside the cockpit, expecting the crash to hit at any moment.

Finally Sully took a deep breath to focus himself. “Here we go.”

The lights burst back into life, the engines roared and the screens reactivated. Their altitude was just over 1,000 feet and falling fast. They hadn’t shaken all of the drones either. In their rear view were a pack of four. Their weapons were armed and hot but they were struggling to gain a lock.

Sully wasn’t concerned. He pulled sharply to the left, flinging Owyn off his feet and into the wall. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing,” Owyn cried out.

Still they continued their descent. 500 feet. 200. Sully was deep in concentration. He lifted the nose slightly but not quite until it was level. He aligned their course with a narrow ravine that split open the earth up ahead. It was only a few meters wide but it was straight – straight enough to do the ridiculous. He tipped the jet suddenly onto its side. Their altitude hit zero and they entered the ravine. The four drones were still in pursuit but they were too large to enter the ravine. One by one they crashed into the ground, bursting into flames on impact. As soon as the fourth explosion hit Sully pulled up as hard as possible, rising out of the ravine and back into the open sky. Steadily their altitude climbed back into positive figures.

Sully sat in stunned disbelief for a moment. Before he could celebrate he looked back to the radar to be sure. It was clear. He raised his fists into the air and yelled at the top of his lungs. “Fuck yeah!”

Owyn, meanwhile, was laid out flat on his face battling the urge to throw up. If only he’d stayed in his seat he’d have been fine, but instead he’d spent the entirety of Sully’s little stunt beings tossed and turned around at the back of the cockpit. “Fuck you, Sully,” he groaned.

Sully laughed. “I did warn you.”

Eventually, once his vision had finally stopped spinning, Owyn managed to pick himself up. He rubbed his head and slouched into his seat, but his break was soon cut short.

“We’re close,” Sully updated him. “I think you ought to see this.”

Immediately Owyn was revitalised. He bounced back up just in time to see a breath-taking view opening up before them.

Below, looming over the desert floor were hundreds – maybe even thousands – of cylindrical, metallic towers. They were thin and tall – taller than any skyscraper – like needles rising out of the earth. Sully had brought the jet up to near 10,000 feet yet even from this distance they were no small things. Some of them looked dull and rusted while others were polished and gleaming in the morning sun. The sight sent a chill down Owyn’s spine. Even from here he could sense the eerie atmosphere that surrounded this place.

“What the hell are they?” he wondered out loud.

“I don’t know, but I get the idea there’s a reason I don’t.”

“How far is this from the facility we destroyed?”

“A little over 800 miles. I doubt they’re directly connected.”

Owyn collected his helmet and stepped over to the airlock door. “Once I’m down start circling the area in a 10 mile radius. That should give us enough time to make evac if you pick up any inbound aircraft.”

“Watch yourself out there, O. Don’t trust him.”

“I know, Sully,” Owyn reassured him.

“And don’t do anything stupid. I’m not losing you out there.”

“Keep me informed.”

Owyn then turned back to the airlock and fastened on his helmet. He took a deep breath and stepped inside.

EDEN

Owyn dived out and plummeted headfirst towards the desert floor, slaloming his way between the towers until he’d lined up an open strip long enough for him to make his landing. His thrusters fired to stall his momentum as he closed in on impact. He flipped upright and touched down, the sand around him bursting up into the air as he skidded to a halt. The booming sound of his landing echoed hauntingly between the towers and far into the distance, emphasising the empty silence that surrounded this place. There were no winds, no subtle sounds of movement; nothing.

He unfastened his helmet then brought his contact lenses online in place of his visor. As he blinked to bring the display into focus he looked up above his head. Immediately he felt himself shrink.

The sheer scale was hard to believe. It was immense – even more so than even Kyvos. Each tower must have been at least a hundred feet wide and two miles high, and as Novus fell in the west they cast dark black shadows extending far towards the horizon. To stand in such a wide open space yet seem so small was a dizzying feeling; Owyn’s brain could hardly make sense of it.

The fact that every tower was virtually identical added to the unsettling feeling. This place had every one of the characteristics of an alien landing site; where the towers were in fact alien space ships that had come to roost in the uninhabited Tajari desert. And, without any better idea of what else it could be, Owyn was almost willing to accept that explanation as reality.

He walked over to the nearest of the towers to inspect it. No openings. No noticeable welding marks. The only construction lines were horizontal rings every 50 feet or so above. The towers were built from seamlessly forged cylinders, stacked one above another high into the sky.

He placed his hand on the metal but was immediately forced to recoil from it. It was burning hot – so much so that it singed the outer layer of his glove. That was one curiosity satisfied, now he had time for another. He kneeled down and ran his fingers through the sand. It was smooth and fine; it felt consistent, as though it lacked nature’s usual random touch. The colour wasn’t right either. From afar it looked a rich gold but in reality it was closer to grey than the sand he knew.

While Owyn was young his parents had built him and Mitch a small sand pit to play in, so for once he could make a comparison. The difference was only slight – not visible without close inspection – but it brought up another set of questions to add to the ever lengthening list. Was this even a desert? If not, what else could it be? Perhaps it was just Altaris’ version of sand, but Owyn’s first impression was that it felt more synthetic than naturally formed.

“Alright. Where am I headed?” he asked Sully.

“Connected you to Ambrose’ signal now. Let me know if you see it.”

A marker appeared before Owyn’s eyes, pointing him towards Ambrose’ location. It was still some way away, deep in the heart of the jungle of towers.

“I’ve got it,” Owyn reported. He then readied his pistol and set off trudging through the dust towards the target.

As he made his approach the marker remained perfectly still, tempting him closer. He avoided walking in a straight line in an attempt to conceal himself. Even as the marker moved within what should have been visible range he was still yet to see or hear anything to break the monotony. At no point had he expected this to be easy, but the unsettling feeling in his stomach was growing and growing now. He was never less comfortable than when he knew he had no control over what was about to happen.

He reported back to Sully. “Still no sign of Ambrose. Anything on your end?” The comms stayed silent. “Sully?” Still nothing. “Oh shit,” Owyn whispered to himself.

From somewhere behind him he heard a sound. He froze and took a deep breath. Gripping his pistol firmly in both hands he spun around. There was Ambrose, stood still and silent as a statue behind him. The barrel of Owyn’s gun was mere inches from his face yet he didn’t even twitch.

“Hands in the air and step back,” Owyn instructed him. He didn’t shout, just kept his voice firm and flat. Ambrose complied, lifting his empty hands and holding them either side of his head before taking a couple of slow steps backwards. “Behind your head.” Again he did as he was told, placing his hands one over the other on the back of his head while remaining totally silent. Owyn took one hand from his gun, opened up a pocket on his belt and held up Rodriguez’ pendant. “What does this mean?” he asked.

“Haven’t you figured that out already? All of your answers are right here,” Ambrose said calmly. “You managed to find your way easily enough.”

“You led me here. Why? What is this place?”

“You don’t need me to tell you; you can see for yourself.” He turned and set off walking.

“Walk slowly and keep your hands behind your head. Pull any shit and I’ll shoot,” Owyn asserted, though it didn’t seem as though Ambrose was taking much notice of his threats.

As they approached one of the towers Owyn maintained a distance of a few steps, keeping a firm hold of his trigger. Just short of it Ambrose stopped. He used his feet to brush aside the sand around him and reveal a large metal hatch dug into the rock. “May I?” he asked.

Owyn nodded to allow him to remove his hands from his head, taking another step back just in case. Ambrose then leaned down and lifted the hatch, revealing a brightly lit staircase descending underground. He put his hands back behind his head and led the way down. Hesitantly Owyn followed.

They didn’t descend far before the floor flattened out into a long, narrow corridor. Everything – the walls, floor and stairs – was covered with a plastic skin of smooth, crisp white, although tarnished slightly by a thin layer of grey dust that had settled onto it. Bright white lights were spaced equally along the ceiling and there was a solitary door at the far end. Aside from that the corridor was completely empty. There were no doors to either side, no windows through to another room and nothing at all to clutter the panelled floor.

This corridor alone was even more chilling than the rest of the place. There was nothing to spark the senses; nothing to dispel the feeling of emptiness. It felt like the walk at the end of death row, as the walls closed in and the guilty were left with nothing but their thoughts for company – or the final walk before the gates of heaven, where the judged were left to recount their life and actions before facing their final judgement. In some sense, whatever was beyond that door was the point of no return.

They stopped in front of the door. Again Ambrose requested permission and Owyn granted it. He reached down and activated the switch. After a few anxious seconds the door lifted to reveal its secrets.

Instead of a single, straight corridor, the way ahead was populated with numerous perpendicular corridors, both left and right at equal intervals. The same pattern continued down each one of those corridors, creating a crisscross of wide halls surrounding huge square pillars in between. Another set of stairs dropped the floor a little lower and everything was much wider and more open than before. Even before stepping through Owyn felt the temperature drop and he quickly found himself shivering.

Ambrose descended the steps and approached the nearest of the pillars. He stood beside one of three small round windows that lined each of its sides. “There are your answers,” he said, before standing aside. Owyn suffered a brief second of hesitance, but quickly succumbed to the urge. He lowered his gun, approached the window and peered through.

Inside was a vertical metal cylinder with a narrow glass strip down the nearest side to give a view within. Through it, the bubbling blue liquid that filled the tube could be seen, writhing and shifting like something alive. Below, the tube extended deep down into a black hole, until even the burning blue light it emitted had been swallowed by the darkness. Every few seconds the liquid pulsed as something within the tube thrust it downwards into the void.

The cylinder, of course, was one of the towers from above the surface. They really were like needles, driven deep into the flesh of Altaris.

“All of these towers are filled with that stuff?” Owyn asked. Ambrose nodded. “Why? What the hell is it?”

“It’s called Vitirium, and it’s here because it’s what’s keeping Altaris alive.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Owyn snapped back.

“Novus, Altaris’ sun, is much colder than Earth’s sun. The distance between Novus and Altaris is also much further than the distance between Sol and Earth. In its natural state Altaris couldn’t possibly support life of any kind. It would be nothing more than a frozen wasteland.”

“So what? This stuff heats it up? How?”

“In a way. These towers inject Vitirium into the planet’s core. It reacts and melts the solid metals beneath the crust to provide enough heat to the surface for us to survive,” Ambrose explained. “Novus still provides some UV radiation but the contrast in temperature between day and night isn’t close to what it should be. It’s also why Altaris also lacks true seasons; for instance snow and ice can only be found at high altitude, never anywhere else and never varying throughout the planet’s orbit.”

“But why? How? It doesn’t make any sense. Altaris was supposed to be just like Earth when NASA found it.”

Ambrose shook his head. “NASA didn’t find Altaris. XION did. NASA died long before the civil war even began; the US just kept it quiet enough for the public to think they were still operating. They couldn’t allow the American people to know that they were losing control of their own country or else they risked losing their faith completely. In truth XION practically controlled the US by the time you left.

Once the state of Earth became unsustainable, the military needed to appear as though they were leading the way in the search for a new home. They couldn’t possibly hope to fund something on that scale on their own but XION had already been planning their project for years. Once they had access to the entire US population they were set to go. How else do you think those ships materialised out of thin air?”

“Are you saying XION control Altaris as well?”

“Completely, yes. They had invested too much time and too many resources into Altaris to ever allow anyone else to take control of it. Still, even given the time they devoted to the idea it was unlikely they’d ever find a suitable planet within a realistic distance, so instead they devised an alternate solution –
make
a suitable planet. That’s what the symbol on that pendant is. It represents XION’s Altaris Project – the creation of humanity’s new home. This site is where XION first landed and gave life to this planet. This is Eden.”

While Ambrose had been speaking Owyn had begun pacing back and forth along the corridor, trying to process what he was hearing – trying to decide how much of it he could believe. “How exactly do you know all this?” he questioned. “How am I supposed to believe any of it?”

Ambrose quickly dismissed his concerns. “Why does it matter? You came for answers didn’t you? Here they are.”

“It matters,” Owyn stated bluntly. In reality he didn’t have much doubt he was being told the truth but he also knew Ambrose was holding something back – he had to be – so he was determined to dig out as much as he possibly could.

Ambrose held his ground. “No, it doesn’t, because you’ll believe me anyway. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

Owyn raised his voice, letting his calm front drop slightly. “Do you really think after all the shit you’ve pulled I’ll just blindly believe whatever you say? You manipulated us for God knows how long then fucked off and had Miller finish the job for you. I can’t imagine what you had to do to get him to listen to your bullshit.”

“I didn’t have to do anything. Captain Miller was volatile; you know that as well as anyone. It was only a matter of time before he went too far. Three years ago he and his team raided settlement in Mississippi, slaughtering two hundred innocent people because he suspected a connection to one of the rebel leaders. There wasn’t one, and the whole thing went public. XION were forced to act, sentencing him to a lifetime of hard labour in the Middle East. I offered him a way out. He would rather fight and die a quick death than rot in the mines so he agreed to do what I asked of him.”

“And what was that; to get into my head and keep me quiet so it’d be easier for you to get me to do what you wanted?”

“Miller’s job, beyond filling my shoes, was to make sure you were ready to take charge of ISO when I needed you to. He succeeded in that.” Ambrose put his hands on his hips and looked Owyn straight in the eye. “If you think so badly of me then why
are
you here? I didn’t force you to come.”

Now it was Owyn’s turn to shake his head. “No, you did. You left me without a choice and you know it. I’m here because I want to know what you’ve been hiding from us and I want to know why.”

“
I
haven’t been hiding anything from you.”

“I don’t care what your orders were,” Owyn interrupted before he could attempt to shirk responsibility. “I don’t care what the DPD or XION or whoever told you not to tell us. You’ve been defying their orders and using us as a weapon against them while keeping us in the dark and yourself out of the crossfire. Why? Why not tell us the truth about Installation 3, about Rodriguez, about this place and everything else? If you’re doing this with proper reason then we’d have backed you, but instead you decided to lead us blindly to the slaughter. How can you justify that?”