Hole in the Sky, page 18
“I don’t think it’s human,” I advise. “Seems like somebody’s best guess at what a human soldier might look like.”
“Like a nightmare,” whispers Chapman.
“That’s not possible,” says Newsome, glancing over at Gumby clinging to his rifle with damp tactical gloves. “Hold fire. For now.”
I get the impression of a scarecrow, struts poking up front under a loose uniform. I can see a metal skeleton under the fabric as it moves to stand up from its half crouch. The butt of a rifle drags in the mud, connected to a strap made of razor wire that is slicing a red smile into the creature’s skinny bicep.
“We’re close, Captain,” I whisper to Newsome. “Almost there. We need to get past this thing.”
Newsome nods at me without looking, licks his lips.
“Soldier!” calls Newsome, holding out one hand for Gumby to pause. “Talk to me, soldier. Who are you?”
The scarecrow opens its mouth. It vomits tendrils of writhing black wire across its own chin. Staggering and moaning.
“On our six!” calls Smith, his voice leaping up an octave.
Gumby spins and we see another one of these things, shambling out of the mist behind us. Its head is glinting with studs of metal poking through scalp and its shirtsleeves trail stiff tendrils of wet black wire. Another, similar nightmare is peeking over the top of the ridge.
My neck jerks as I flinch from the first three rounds exploding from Gumby’s assault rifle, spraying metal and flesh across oil-sheened puddles.
The way forward is clear.
“Stay the fuck on me, we move together!” shouts Newsome, kneeling to grab the hardcase in one hand, the other waving his sidearm. Gumby lets his rifle hang from his chest, dipping his knees to grab the other side.
Yanking my holster open, I draw the military-issued sidearm off my own hip—a generic, dead-black Glock 19.
“This is the epicenter!” I shout to Newsome, moving closer to the team. “We just gotta get to the top of this hill!”
Gumby groans as he lifts the case, and I stumble forward on instinct as I hear our team start shuffling through the wet dirt. We are slipping and sliding up this hill of sludge, dragging an extremely large bomb. More of the things are advancing up the hill behind us—a mass of bloody limbs shuffling, crawling, and clanking up the muddy trench.
Everything around me explodes into chaos: muzzle flashes; the sharp metallic smell of gunpowder; the vicious whining of brass bullet casings zipping around me like a swarm of grasshoppers; the dull mechanical smack of heavy magazines fed to hungry weapons; commands and notifications shouted among a group of trained killers at work.
All of us keep moving ahead, some facing forward, some backward—all of us staring into the maw of a nightmare, a phantasmagoria. An army of not-soldiers. We drag the case up the hill until the ground levels out.
But these things have woken up. They are all around us. Swarming.
And horribly, the creatures seem to be mimicking the soldiers. Shouting guttural imitations of the curt, professionally communicated commands. Carrying twisted hunks of metal that resemble weapons. Making sloppy, uncoordinated gestures with limbs that attenuate into deformed wire and flesh.
Bullets don’t seem to do much, besides spraying pretty shards of metal through plumes of bloody mist.
After a little while, something falls out of the sky and lands on Smith. It’s a man-shaped piece of metal and flesh and leaking pus. Smith shouts frantically as the thing claws at his face while Chapman tries to pull it off him. I watch in shock as Chapman comes away with a layer of the scarecrow’s back flesh. It peels off like a curtain of rotten meat, revealing a bright knobbed, marbled spine embedded in a gleaming metallic rib cage.
And I recognize bits and pieces of it. It’s part of a Nova Dynamics chassis from a humanoid robot, but it’s been melded into a human torso. The arms and legs are just the exoskeleton pieces from a defunct SARNOS military-funded project designed to help quadriplegic veterans control robotic limbs.
The thing is a mishmash of old technology that’s long gone and new technology that hasn’t shown up yet—except in emerging weapons briefings.
I’m staring in shock at a perversion of the future of war.
A man couldn’t live with that much metal embedded in his internal organs. I don’t know where it could have come from. These technologies are from books, from simulations, predictive threat assessments, and “blue sky” meetings.
None of this should be possible. These weapons are imaginary, yet here. But here it is—a thing with fingers like razor blades, acid dripping down its chest from under a gas mask strapped to a half-caved, rotten skull.
Reality conjured from our worst fears.
Smith has stopped making sounds. Chapman is doubled over vomiting. A small piece of his calf has been torn off, his boot spilling over with blood.
I feel a vibration on my chest and let out a yelp—thinking I’m hit. But it’s just the tablet. Incoming notification. Panting, fingers trembling, I yank out the computer and smear mud off the screen with wet fingertips trying to answer.
The message is plain. Lyceum doesn’t fuck around: “Blow it.”
Then a long authorization code appears beneath, with the final letters that make my lips go numb: “MD mandate.”
Newsome has stopped firing his weapon, noticing the tablet. Catching his gaze, I make a slicing gesture across my throat. Instantly, the captain kneels beside the hardcase and pops the latches. Chapman watches him in a daze. The one called Gumby isn’t here anymore. I never even saw what happened to him. It’s just the three of us now.
“Prep for detonation!” shouts Newsome. “Chapman, cover us! Professor, get your ass over here!”
The authority in his voice sends my feet churning before I’m aware that I’m obeying. I jam my fingers through the blood-soaked loop of the hardcase handle. I help him flip the lid off and we throw it clear. Popping the hinges, we let the sides collapse to reveal the titanium frame of the “man-portable” fail-safe weapon.
The bomb is resting in a shallow pool of quicksilver left over from the object—sinking at a cockeyed angle. Staring down at the metallic-looking liquid, I realize it has collected around a dimple in the mound.
This is the epicenter for every strange occurrence on that topographic map.
This is the source of our nightmares.
Digging under my collar, I produce a stubby red key hanging on a chain. When I pull it out, Newsome eyeballs it angrily. Clearly, it’s the first he knew of the key to the trigger lock around my neck.
“Figures,” he spits, taking the key.
We are in the middle of a populated area of the United States—what’s commonly known as the Heartland. We can’t drop a nuclear weapon or anything as silly as that. Instead, Newsome is about to activate a specialized munition that will concentrate its energy into the ground to eradicate anything that might have come into contact with that object.
First contact, my ass.
I don’t care if it’s a buried spaceship or an alien command bunker or a factory pumping out twisted military hardware—it will be shaken to pieces. Those little green men will be choking on lungfuls of dirt.
If they aren’t going to play nice, then neither are we.
“This is it!” I shout. “Prepare to evac on foot!”
Newsome turns the key, turning his head. Four penetrating rounds blast anchors into the ground under the leg mounts. The earth below us vibrates as the stabilizers stubbornly screw down, turning until they’ve latched the weapon into place. The explosive is now online. The control pad blinks “LD ON BL ON.”
We are go for detonation.
“Get over to the tree line,” urges Newsome. “You’ve got the archive on your back, keep it safe!”
I pat the side of my heavy rucksack and salute the special forces captain kneeling beside what has become the United States military’s official response to first contact. The soldier is already busy activating the weapon, Chapman standing over him with his weapon out and a tourniquet on his thigh.
“Good luck,” says the kid, grinning through bloody teeth.
Newsome is waving for me to run.
Backing away, I clutch my pistol in both hands. The last time I see them, the two soldiers have their backs to me. They’re conferring with each other on final preparations. Based on their body language, I realize I need to be putting a lot more distance between us.
The heavy rucksack jumps, beating a panicked rhythm on the back of my thighs as I find the tree line and sprint for it. As I hit the edge of the woods, I wrap an arm around a branch to stop myself.
It slingshots me around and behind a sturdy trunk. Off-balance, I fall onto my butt on the soggy grass. Crawling to the base of the tree on all fours, I turn my head and open my mouth wide to pop my ears to equalize pressure.
And that’s when I see them.
A Native guy with long black braids is watching me, a pistol strapped to his chest. A teenage girl is also peeking from around his side. The two of them look very concerned for me, a scared man sprinting alone into the woods.
“You two should get down,” I say to them. “Right now.”
31
Descent
JIM HARDGRAY // Epicenter
Quarantine, +3 Hours
This muddy white guy with a huge rucksack tells me to get down, then drops onto his ass in the dirt. I frown a little at the way he’s holding his mouth open in an O. His hands are cupped over his ears and his back is arched as he shoves himself up against the trunk of a tree. I cock my head at him and try to understand what all the frantic gestures mean.
Of course, that’s when everything explodes.
I don’t know what expression I’m making now because the world has stopped making sense. A forest of mostly hickory and cedar trees are whipsawing back and forth. The ground is bucking under my feet, rushing up to meet me. As the last sunlight fades, the woods around me have turned to a dreamy smear of brown and gold and green.
Next thing I know, I’m on my back. Trying to catch my breath, I’m staring up at that fading white sky, veined with tree branches and dotted with leaves and twigs and bark. All of it is falling down, tracing paths across my vision. The whole world is ringing like a bell, roaring like a waterfall. And then silence. Just a rasping, wheezing sound like an old broken-down truck—my own breathing.
I can’t help groaning as I turn over.
“Tawny? You okay?”
I’m unsteady, crawling on my hands and knees. Tawny is already up on her feet, hands out to steady herself.
“Dad!” she calls to me, indignant. “What the heck were you thinking?”
I shake my head a little, trying to make my eyes focus on her.
“What’s that?” I mumble.
“That guy was clearing his ears for the explosion. Why didn’t you listen? You just stood there like a dummy.”
Confused, I turn my head and see the man from earlier. He is sitting up on his knees a few yards away. His comically huge backpack is lying beside him and he’s messing with some kind of flat computer. The guy glances between me and my daughter, a real grim look on his face.
“Your kid is smart,” says the guy.
The computer man is dressed like a soldier, but he doesn’t move like one. He’s moving like a businessman late for work. His hands are tip-tapping over a filthy computer screen. Whatever he sees is leaving him frustrated.
He tucks the computer into a pocket on his chest, climbs to his feet.
“Gavin Clark,” says the guy, leaning over with his hand out. I shake it without thinking, and he hauls me up to my feet.
“Jim Hardgray,” I say.
“And you’re Tawny?”
My daughter nods.
“Jim and Tawny,” he says. “I’m guessing you guys live around here?”
“What gave it away?” asks Tawny, lips pointing at my braids.
“Why are you up on this hill?” he asks. “Why aren’t you hiding somewhere?”
Tawny and I share a look. There’s too much to say, and too little. I just give the guy a shrug. He looks back and forth between us some more, letting the silence drag out until it gets awkward. That’s fine with me.
“Okay, you can keep your secrets. But understand nothing much will surprise me,” he says, gesturing at the rucksack lying in the mud. “Help me with this?”
Tawny and I lift up the rucksack and help him shrug it over his shoulders. He barely has it on before he sets off striding in the direction of the explosion.
“You’re safest with me. Come on,” says Gavin.
I glance at Tawny before we start following behind him.
“And who are you?” I ask. “Why are you on this mound?”
“Government business,” says Gavin, not looking back. “Sent here to deal with the object that came down.”
The ground ahead of us is churned up and littered with chunks of stone and shattered splinters of wood. There are also stranger bits mixed in: jagged shards of metal, coils of black wire, and scraps of partially buried military fatigues.
“Well, it looks like you dealt with it,” Tawny says.
“And then some,” I can’t help adding.
Gavin stops and turns to us, real sorrow on his face.
“I hope so,” he says. “It was a fail-safe bomb. A last-ditch effort.”
Blinking, the guy looks us up and down again. The gears are turning in his head, even standing here at the edge of what I realize is a smoking crater, among what are probably the bodies of the guys he came up here with.
“You said you live near here?” he asks us. “So, you must have seen the…manifestations? When did you first realize something was wrong?”
“Three days ago,” I say.
“What domain? Air, land, or sea?”
Funny question. I think about it.
“Out on the river. We saw something on the water.”
“That’s consistent. Anomalies were manifesting all around here just prior to impact. All domains. What did the weapon look like?”
Tawny and I share a surprised glance.
“Wasn’t a weapon,” I say.
“Technology, then,” says Gavin.
“Wasn’t a technology.”
Gavin stops, confused, then continues.
“Whatever landed here has been sending out weapons of all varieties. Drones. Robotic platforms. Loitering munitions. Partially humanoid robots. I was part of a squad…” Gavin looks back into the mist toward where the explosion came from. “Maybe not anymore,” he says. “So, what varieties did you see?”
I’m confused. Or maybe he’s confused.
“A Native guy,” says Tawny. “In an old-timey canoe. And, like, a snake.”
I give her a little shake of my head, and she rolls her eyes at me.
It’s ingrained in all of us not to talk about stuff like that. Speaking on seeing your ancestors is a big maybe. But the horned serpent we saw in the sky is a hard no. The Uktena is only partially in our world. To talk about it makes it more real. You bring that stuff into your life by giving a name to it.
Tawny cocks her head at me, waiting for permission.
“Jim, this affects national security,” says Gavin. “I need to know the whole picture. What your daughter is talking about is very different from my experience.”
Reluctantly, I fill him in.
“Okay, guy. We never saw any weapons,” I say. “We’ve only seen…ancestors. Travelers. I don’t know what to call it. They warned us. We didn’t listen. And they kept us safe from the other…stuff. And one of them guided us to this exact spot just before that bomb of yours went off.”
“You’re saying these manifestations…they’ve been helping you?”
Gavin is staring down into the devastated mound, eyes searching the swirls of mist. I can tell he’s lost people out here. From the resigned sag of his shoulders, it doesn’t seem like he expects to see any of them coming back.
I’m thinking it’s a good time to put some distance between us.
“Look,” I say, putting an arm over Tawny. “I’m just trying to keep my daughter safe—”
Gavin looks back at us and his eyes are so tired.
“Listen to me, please,” he says. “Whatever that object was, it’s attacking us. All the weaponized technology was coming from that big hole in the ground right there. We tracked it here, to this hill. The epicenter. And after my guys fought their way tooth and nail to get here, what do I find?”
Gavin is frowning up into my face, the tendons in his neck standing out and his dark brown eyes blinking.
“You found us,” I say.
“We found civilians. At the epicenter of what looks to be an alien attack. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe it’s not. But I need to know absolutely everything.”
I nod.
“We saw the Uktena,” I whisper. “A horned serpent. Right near here, on the mounds.”
“The mounds?”
The confusion on his face makes me feel sad. This man was sent here in ignorance by people even more ignorant than him. He’s not even smart enough to know how disrespectful his actions have been in this place.
Careful you don’t step on your ancestors.
“You’re standing on the Spiro mound complex,” I say, not trying to hide my disappointment in him. “This mound has been here tens of thousands of years. The ancestors of every Native person in these lands built this place. It’s a sacred place. And you just blew it all to hell.”
Gavin looks stunned, glancing around at the debris lying all around us with fresh eyes. He never realized where he was. What he was dealing with.
“I had no idea,” he says. “We didn’t know. There wasn’t time.”
