Outlanders - Ghost Walk, page 17
“Now we know there’s Annunaki tech being used,” Erica said. “Partly, anyway.”
Brigid frowned. She looked at the complexity and extent of the circuitry surrounding the generator. Lines ran across the floor and into the walls. “I’ve never seen a generator hooked up like that before. It seems to be only a component instead of a power source.”
Suddenly the droning throb died. The uppermost cube of the generator stopped rotating. The entire gallery fell silent, as still as the crypts where the bones of the ancient dead were interred. Brigid’s throat tightened. “Something’s happening,” she husked out. Then directly above the top cube of the generator a spiral of green lights appeared, seeming to bleed into existence from thin air. The huge viral formation floated lazily in the gallery. While everyone watched, too paralyzed with shock to move, the shape changed from a spiral to a cloud, still floating lazily around the generator. Terror tightened a fist around Brigid’s heart. While she watched, the cloud became a tight ball of dancing red light. Under other circumstances, Brigid Baptiste would have thought the prismatic changeover in color was beautiful, but the sight of it made her throat constrict. “Maybe we should back away,” Kane said flatly. As soon as he spoke, crooked threads of red lightning erupted out of the viral cloud. They whiplashed around the people standing on the ledge, and for only an instant Brigid glimpsed a skein of blood-hued electricity crawling over her face.
THE RED ORBS WANTED answers. They asked Brigid questions only her subconscious mind could answer, and she saw no reason not to tell them truth as she remembered it. She was, after all, trained to preserve the truth. For ten of her first twenty-one years, Brigid had trained to be an archivist in Cobaltville’s Historical Division, and then for six years had worked as one. Despite the common misconception, archivists were not bookish, bespectacled scholars. They were primarily data-entry techs, albeit ones with high security clearances. Midgrade senior archivists like herself were primarily editors. A vast amount of predark historical information had survived the nukecaust, particularly documents stored in underground vaults. Tons of it, in fact, from novels to encyclopedias, to magazines printed on coated stock, which survived just about anything. Much more data—usually government documents—was digitized and stored on computer diskettes. Although she was a fairly high ranking archivist, Brigid wasn’t among the highest. Those in the upper echelons were responsible for viewing and editing—or suppressing—the most-sensitive material. Still, she had glimpsed enough to know there were bits and bytes of information that were still classified, even two centuries after the nuking. Her primary duty was not to record predark history, but to revise, rewrite and often times completely disguise it. The political causes leading to the nukecaust were well-known. They were major parts of the dogma, the articles of faith, and they had to be accurately recorded for posterity. Scheming, wicked Russkies had detonated a nuclear warhead in the basement of their embassy in Washington, D.C., even while they negotiated for peace. American retaliation had been swift and all-encompassing. The world had come very close to transforming into a smoldering, lifeless cinder spinning darkly in space. People were responsible. Russian people, American people, Asian people. People had put irresponsible people into positions of responsibility, so ergo, the responsibility for the nukecaust was the responsibility of people. Humanity as a whole. Brigid had believed that, of course. For many years, she had never questioned it. Humankind had been judged guilty and the sentence carried out forthwith. As she rose up the ranks, promoted mainly through attrition, she was allowed even greater access to secret records. Though these were heavily edited, she came across references to something called the Totality Concept, to devices called gateways, to a place called the Anthill Complex, and to projects bearing the code names of Chronos and Whisper, which hinted at phenomena termed “probability wave dysfunctions” and “alternate event horizons.” Then, toward the end of her sixth year as an archivist, Brigid read the Wyeth Codex, which contained recollections, observations, speculations and theories about the environmental conditions of post-nukecaust America. The author, Mildred Winona Wyeth, also delved deeply into the Totality Concept and its many different yet interconnected subdivisions. In her journal, she maintained that the technology simply did not exist to have created all of the Totality Concept’s many wonders—unless it had originated from somewhere, or someone else. Despite her exceptional intelligence and education, Wyeth had no inkling of the true nature of the Totality Concept’s experiments, but a number of her extrapolations that they were linked to the nukecaust came very close to the truth. In the decades following its discovery, the Wyeth Codex had been downloaded, copied and disseminated like a virus through the Historical Divisions of the entire ville network. That particular virus had infected Brigid years ago, when she found a disk containing the Codex at her workstation in the archives. After reading and committing it to memory, she had never been the same woman again. Now a different kind of virus infected Brigid Baptiste—only this time, she understood on some level that it didn’t want to infect her, but to turn her into a replica of itself.
Chapter 26
The hum of electronics and a steady, castanet clicking insinuated itself into Brigid’s mind. She came awake slowly. First the black void turned to gray, then to a pale, shimmering red. Pain consumed her body. Her head pounded rhythmically, in cadence with her heartbeat. She tried to open her eyes, but she couldn’t see anything but a dull reddish blob and she wondered if she had lost her sight. She tried to put her hands under her, but they seemed to be somewhere else, beyond her control. Her stumbling thoughts probed for the reason why. Grinding her teeth, Brigid mentally explored her body, noting its position and posture. She realized she lay on her back and when she tried to move, cramping needles of agony shot up her shoulders and arms. A persistent pressure compressed her wrists, squeezed them so tightly together her hands were no more than numb, half-remembered presences at the ends of her arms. By a tentative exploration with her fingertips, she felt hard straps pinning her wrists. She turned her body, aware of the tremors that went through her. Nausea became a clawed animal trying to tear its way out of her stomach. It was all she could do to swallow the column of burning bile working its way up her throat. Brigid shifted her legs, and they trembled violently. She struggled frantically, managing to angle her elbows to lever herself up, but her body went into convulsions. She fell back, panting. She realized her body was dissociated from the messages of her mind. Every order from her brain seemed to confuse her nerves and muscles. She tasted fear, a sharp, bitter tang as of freshly sheared copper wire. Somewhere in the distance she heard a hoarse male voice. She couldn’t distinguish the words, but she wasn’t sure if was because the voice spoke a foreign language or because her neurons were misfiring so badly her mind could no longer recognize words. She opened her mouth to call for help, but shut it again. Although her thoughts moved like half-frozen mud, she knew it was best to keep as silent and as motionless as possible. She opened her eyes wide, blinking repeatedly. The wavering red glow slowly resolved itself into a distorted low-angle view of the two-tiered generator. A hazy crimson aura surrounded it. When Brigid realized she lay at its base, memory and awareness returned in a simultaneous rush. She strained at the binding around her wrists but she felt no slack. She kicked her legs, thrashing wildly. She guessed that the exposure to the energy of the viral had scrambled her nervous system. Pain thudded at the back of her head, and she stopped struggling. She sucked in a long lungful of air, trying to calm down. A man’s voice, somewhere behind her said, “That’s right…fighting it only makes the effects worse. You’ll recover in a moment. Relax.” A hand inserted itself between the back of her neck and floor and lifted her to a sitting position. Brigid blinked repeatedly and a man’s dark face swam into focus. He wore a beige coverall, begrimed with oil, grease and bloodstains.
“You took an EMP jolt,” he said soothingly. “Pretty mild, considering the size of the viral. That’s why your eyes aren’t working right…the eyes are particularly vulnerable to EM radiation.”
With effort, Brigid said, “You’re Quintus Breech.” She was dismayed by how weak her voice sounded. The man nodded.
“One and the same. I’ve seen pictures of you in the consortium files. You’re Brigid Baptiste. You look just like your pix.”
“I can’t say the same for you.” Brigid studied him. He did not resemble the dapper Quintus Breech she had seen on the DVD. His face showed raw abrasions and two of his teeth were missing. He shrugged. “You can’t tinker around with the power of the quantum field and not get kicked around a little.”
“Or die,” Brigid said, her voice growing stronger.
Breech smiled crookedly. “Yeah, there’s that. But I’m prepared.”
“You are?”
“Sure. When it my time comes, I’ll accept it without complaint. There won’t be any monuments erected over my grave, but I’ll have made my contribution.”
“To what?”
“To the next step in humanity’s evolution. That alone is a worthwhile epitaph.”
Brigid eyed the man, looking for any signs of dementia. He seemed sane enough, and his stoic attitude toward death was one she understood. She had learned to accept risk as a part of her way of life, taking chances so that others might find the ground beneath their feet a little more secure. She didn’t consider her attitude idealism, but simple pragmatism. If she had learned anything from her friends, it was to regard death as a part of the challenge of existence, a fact that every man and woman must face eventually. She could accept it without humiliating herself, if it came as a result of her efforts to remove the yokes of the barons from the collective neck of humanity. Although she never spoke of it, certainly not to the cynical Kane, she had privately vowed to make the future a better, cleaner place than either the past or the present.
“Where are my friends?” Brigid asked.
“Safe.” Breech smiled wryly. “That is, about as safe as they could be under the circumstances.” “I don’t like the sound of that.”
Breech’s smile disappeared. “There’s no reason why you should.”
“I suppose you and Erica had a lot to talk about.”
Breech’s face brightened. “She’s here?”
“You didn’t see her?”
“No—the viral incapacitated all of you, but when we came to collect you, I couldn’t find her. At first I thought she might have stayed behind.”
“You seem happy that she’s here.”
A line of consternation appeared on Breech’s brow. “Why wouldn’t I be? I love her.”
Brigid stared at him, surprised into speechlessness for a long moment. “Your men tried to kill all of us, Erica included,” she stated.
Breech sighed. “I know.” Putting his hands under her arms, he heaved her to her feet, steadying her as her legs wobbled.
Brigid attempted to take a forward step, but lost her balance and nearly fell. Breech caught her. She breathed harshly, listing from side to side. “Can’t you cut my hands loose?” she demanded angrily. “So I can at least catch myself if I fall?”
“If you were anyone else, I would,” he replied regretfully. “But you’re no ordinary woman. Just aim yourself for that door.” Breech pointed to a bevel-framed doorway a few yards away. Carefully, as though she walked on a heaving deck, Brigid went toward the opening, with Breech’s hand at her elbow. Her face was locked in a mask of concentration as she blocked out everything but the necessity to take the next step, and the next, and the next.
“I’m sorry that a couple of my men got trigger-happy,” Breech said. “My staff is fused out and some are worse off than others. I’ve been forced to discipline them.”
Brigid glanced at the abrasions on his face. “Looks like it’s been a two-way street.”
Breech forced a smile. “It’s been something of a study in behavioral neurology.”
“What’s been?”
“How different people react to exposure to the EM field. I’m probably a little mad myself.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Brigid said grimly.
As they walked toward the door, Breech said, “You might still feel a little queasy, so if you need to throw up, just let me know.”
“I am feeling a little sick to my stomach. Why is that?”
“Radiation.” Brigid felt her heartbeat speed up. “What kind of radiation?”
“I’m not sure,” he replied uncertainly.
“The wavelength is in the ultrahigh frequency. Only very sensitive equipment can detect it, much less measure it.”
“You’re talking theta-band emissions, aren’t you?”
Breech glanced at her in surprise. “I’m afraid so. You know about the transmitter?”
“As much as it’s possible to know about Annunaki technology.”
Quintus Breech nodded contemplatively. “I figured we were dealing with retro-engineered alien tech. I think there might be some Danaan in it, too.”
They stepped over the threshold into the adjoining room, and Brigid’s gait faltered. It was filled, from wall to ceiling, with an intricate mass of circuitry. Indicator lights glowed, switches clicked steadily, which she recognized as the castanet clatter she had heard earlier, and a multitude of little chevron-shaped panels pulsated. Brigid swept her gaze over it and said, “As a general rule the Tuatha de Danaan didn’t use such extensive machinery.”
“Yeah, that’s what Erica said, too.”
“So, what is all this gear?” Breech turned earnest eyes upon her.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she stated. “Especially the red glow around the generators. You must have a theory about it.”
Breech nodded. “At first, I assumed the generator was a power source, a self-perpetuating feed shunt from the quantum stream. Now I’m not sure. If you know about the Annunaki—” He broke off, his jaw muscles bunching.
“What?” Brigid asked.
Quintus Breech inhaled a deep breath. “If you know about the Annunaki and the Archons, maybe you can tell me if any of them are still alive in this machine.”
Brigid’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t, either. Erica told me about the Archons and their genetic relationship with the Danaan and the Annunaki, but this device doesn’t seem to be of their creation. But I’ve been told about the First Folk and how they used some kind of energy that almost destroyed the world. Proto-planic? Does that ring a bell?”
A chill finger ran up and down her spine. The First Folk, the so-called Archons, had used the technology from both the Annunaki and the Tuatha de Danaan, redesigning it and blending both into a single form with several functions. However, the Danaan and Annunaki forbade the sharing of advanced scientific knowledge with humanity. Lakesh had speculated the solution to both the riddle of the so-called Archons and humanity’s mysterious origins lay in ancient religious codices. He had finally come to accept that he could not penetrate the convoluted conspiracy of secrecy that had been maintained for twenty thousand years or more. The few surviving sacred texts contained only hints, inferences passed down from generation to generation, not actual answers. Ancient documents that might have held the truth had crumbled into dust or were deliberately destroyed. Regardless, historical records of nonhuman influence on Terran development ran uninterrupted from the very dawn of humankind to the present day. Always it was the same—human beings as possessions, with a never-ending conflict bred between them, promoting spiritual decay and perpetuating conditions of unremitting physical hardship. And always, secret societies were created by human pawns to conceal and to protect the true nature of humanity’s custodians—or masters. Such societies traced their roots back to ancient Egypt, Babylon, Mesopotamia, Greece and Sumeria. Throughout humankind’s history, secret covenants with mysterious nonhuman entities known by a variety of names in variety of places—the Nagas, the Oannes, the Titans and lastly the Archons—were struck by kings, princes and even presidents. The secret societies acted more or less as the plenipotentiaries of the entities, and their oaths revolved around a single theme—the presence of the beings must never be revealed to humanity at large. The First Folk, the hybrid race propagated by the Annunaki and the Tuatha de Danaan, functioned much like a secret society. It was their duty to keep the ancient secrets of their ancestors alive, yet not perpetuate the same errors as their forebears, especially in their dealings with humans, with whom they shared a genetic link. Humankind was still struggling to overcome a global cataclysm, striving again for civilization, and the graceful First Folk did what they could to assist. They insinuated themselves into schools, into political circles, prompting and ensuring men made the right decisions. Due to the First Folk’s influence, humankind enjoyed a thousand years of relative peace and harmony, during which the Atlantean civilization arose. Lam, a leader of the First Folk and Balam’s father, sought to convince the Annunaki and Danaan representatives to allow humanity to grow and evolve without strictures. Instead, the two races threatened to visit another cataclysm upon Earth and hurl humankind back into savagery. The First Folk knew their forebears had too many weapons in their arsenals, stolen and adapted from other worlds they visited and exploited, for them to be able to defend Earth. Nor did they possess the resources to fight an all-out war, but once they had aroused their forebears’ suspicions, they had no choice but to take quick, preemptive action. They employed an energy they called proto-planic. According to what Brigid had been told, the force demolished an Annunaki settlement on the Moon and killed the royal family. A blow-back effect, a reverse reaction that the First Folk had not foreseen, very nearly destroyed the Earth. It decimated human and the First Folk civilizations. In their attempts to defend humankind, they had inadvertently brought about the destruction their forebears had threatened. After the global catastrophe, the First Folk transformed themselves to adapt to the new environment. Their muscle tissue became less dense, motor reflexes sharpened, optic capacities broadened. A new range of psychic abilities were developed that allowed them to survive on a planet whose magnetic fields had changed, whose weather was drastically unpredictable. In the process, the physical appearance of the First Folk changed from tall, slender, graceful creatures to small, furtive shadow dwellers. Although the survivors of the custodial race were viewed by humans as demons and monsters, they still tried to protect humanity over the long track of time, as they clawed their way back up from barbarism. At the dawn of Earth’s industrial revolution, the First Folk’s descendants, the entities later known as Grays and Archons, feared more reprisals from their forebears. As protective coloration, they fabricated a convoluted false history designed to confound any enterprising human who got too close to the truth.
