Infernal

They encountered no more anomalies as they ascended to Level One. No more ghostly apparitions or phantoms out of time. No more nightmare creatures from God knows what time and place. The armory, located in a secure room near the motor pool, offered a plethora of supplies. Row after row of weapons and ammunition, both familiar and exotic. Sophia pointed out a Lauer MMS152, a pistol-sized weapon that emitted an electrostatic charge in the 30,000 amp range. It had an effective range of 50 meters.

“A lightning gun,” Richard mused, thinking of the unpredictable nature of electricity. “Not for me, I think.”

He chose to stay with the familiar. He selected 400 rounds of .40 caliber ammunition for the PX4 Storm and the M&P compact, another 400 rounds of 9mm ammo for the H&K P30 and the Beretta 92FS. He considered replacing the .454 Casull lost in the California melee but decided to forego that powerful but unwieldy weapon in favor of the lighter, fully automatic Heckler and Koch MP7. Unlike the .40 caliber rounds that could be used in the lighter weapons the 4.6x30mm ammunition used by the MP7 was virtually exclusive to that weapon. That meant carrying more weight but Richard thought it a fair trade. The DM11 Ultimate Combat 31-grain copper plated solid steel projectiles had a muzzle velocity of over 2300 feet per second at 200 meters. More than enough power to penetrate 20 layers of Kevlar with a1.6mm titanium backing—the standard specs for most body armor applications.

“There are forty round magazines for that,” Sophia said.

Richard nodded and said: “I’ll take a dozen.”

Spying a rack of clothing and tactical gear Richard decided to trade out the filthy jeans and flannel shirt he’d been wearing since California as well as his worn and battered duffel bag. For the former he chose a set of beige BDU pants and a Woodland digital/od combat shirt with Tactical Response Uniform sleeves and a 1/4 zippered mandarin collar. For the latter he selected a Voodoo Tactical “REAPER” Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol pack with hydration bladder; more functional than the duffel and easier to carry. Trading out the contents, he left the thirty-five thousand in cash he’d been carrying since Kansas on the floor. Away from his own Earth he doubted it would be of much use.

Guns, a first-aid kit, a small folding knife, and a four by two inch ornate felt lined copper box he’d held on to since Kansas also went into the REAPER. He topped the pack off with the new ammunition.

“What’s that?” Sophia nodded at the small copper box as Richard slipped it into a side pocket of the new pack.

“Nostalgia,” Richard said. “My mother collected trinket boxes. This one was her favorite.”

Sophia shrugged and filled a similar LRRP with M.R.E.’s, water, space blankets, flashlights, nylon rope, a fire kit, multi-tool, and a first-aid kit. She added Richard’s Beretta and selected a Springfield XD(M) 3.8 9x19mm compact pistol with an ankle holster as a back-up, as well as a Gerber Mark II tactical knife in a wrist sheath.

“Nice MOLLE,” Richard said. The term was pronounced molly and referred to what is commonly known as modular, lightweight, load-carrying equipment. A bug out pack.

“I think that’s about it,” Richard said.

He appreciatively eyed some of the larger weapons he recognized: Colt M16A4 rifles, GE M134 7.62x51mm mini-guns, Browning .50 caliber HMG’s. All too wieldy to be practical. They would have to rely on the small arms and well over a thousand rounds of ammunition they’d chosen to carry.

Richard let out a low whistle as they entered the motor pool. The space was vast, a thousand meters on a side and at least a hundred meters from floor to gantry ceiling. At the far end was an enormous set of doors that opened onto a ramp suitable for rolling out aircraft. Richard counted no less than a dozen drones of both the Predator surveillance/reconnaissance and Reaper hunter/killer types, as well as sixteen helicopters of various design and purpose.

At the near end of the chamber, just off the Officer Of the Day’s office, was a smaller set of doors the size of residential double garage doors. Inside these, lined up like terracotta warriors, were rows of military vehicles. APC’s, Breachers, M35 diesel flatbeds, LAV’s, and half-tracks. None of these were suitable for their purposes.

At the head of the line were three light-duty HumVee’s. All had keys in the ignition and extra fuel cans—all full, Richard noted—and had been retrofitted with OnBoard advanced Oxygen Generating Systems to function in a low oxygen atmosphere.

There was a brief moment of concern about the defensive measures Richard had activated. Driving into the optical sensor range of any of the Browning M-2 quad mounts littered about the facility would be certain suicide. The idea of returning to level 7 to shut the system off was no less disquieting. The solution was less than dramatic. The OOD’s office contained safety overrides for the perimeter defenses. The system could be interrupted for fifteen-minute intervals, or powered down indefinitely.

Richard chose to power the system down. Defending themselves against a raid by BanaTech forces was one thing. He had no compunctions about killing anyone who threatened his or Sophia’s lives. Leaving the system on to target the unwary, even the enemy, was, in Richard’s opinion, nothing short of murder.

“They’ll know we’ve gone anyway,” Sophia agreed, referring to the tracking capability inherent to the RLP’s.

The wall nearest the exit held a rack of Portable Oxygen Generating Systems, complete with masks and shoulder straps. Sophia strapped one over her face as Richard familiarized himself with the HumVee’s controls and fired up the OBOG. He gave her a thumbs-up when he was ready and she hit the control panel that opened the doors. As the doors rolled aside the night sky appeared at the top of a long ramp, resplendent with the glittery, gem-like accretion disc casting bluish-green incandescence across the heavens.

Sophia opened the passenger door—there was a slight whoosh of air as the positive pressure built up by the OBOG escaped—and got in the vehicle. She removed the POG and tossed it and another she’d removed from the rack onto the back floorboard with both REAPER packs.

“You never know,” she responded to Richard’s raised eyebrows.

Richard guided the HumVee up the ramp and out into the night.

The vehicle bounced through another ancient wash, sending the RLP flying from Sophia’s hands to clatter across the dash. She reached out and scooped it out of the air before it could drop to the floorboard.

“You could slow down,” she said.

“I may have to,” Richard said, easing off the accelerator.

Instead of driving around aimlessly, hoping for a Rip to form that would take them off this version of Earth, they’d decided on a Northeasterly course that would follow the most prominent ley line in South America. The fact that this particular line traversed much of South America before crossing the Atlantic Ocean and terminating at what Richard knew of as the Bermuda Triangle, one of ten so-called vile vortices on the planet, was not lost on him.

The terrain had become much rougher since they’d passed the outer limits of the subterranean toroidal ring used to accelerate particles for the ZeVatron. According to the odometer, they’d crossed thirty miles of open ground without any signs of decaying plant life or structures other than Oxwitic itself.

Once outside the area affected by the magnetic field, things changed. They passed long dead trees, their tortured branches reaching for an uncaring sky. Bounced through dusty washes and riverbeds, dry for decades, without a single sign of life or vegetation. Skirted a crumbling structure, its roof gone, stone walls toppled outward as if a bomb had gone off inside. Richard slowed to a crawl, maneuvering through and around the larger obstructions. If not for the four High-Intensity Discharge floodlights mounted to the roof of the cab they’d have been nearly blind despite the luminescence cast by the accretion disc overhead.

Sophia, with nothing to do except watch the disturbingly surreal landscape the HumVee ground through spoke up: “Earlier, before the spider, you asked why BanaTech would want to build something as dangerous as the Focal Point Generator. It’s simple logistics.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Richard said.

“Standard military management,” Sophia said. “Maintaining communications is the most crucial element of military strategy. Second is the ability to maintain supply lines. Military supplies follow a linear demand relationship. As you add troops to an area, more food, weapons, and ammunition are needed for those troops. As you add vehicles, you need more fuel and parts for those vehicles. An armed force without resources and transportation is defenseless.

“BanaTech’s greatest advantage over any world that resists invasion through political subterfuge is that they can send virtually unlimited forces through a Rip and gain a military foothold on that world.”

“There are worlds that have resisted BanaTech?” Richard asked, maneuvering the HumVee through a line of desiccated trees and into a clearing that may have once been a small village.

“Of course,” Sophia said. “Jefferson’s biggest problem with the Rips is that he can’t control them. He can rip his forces onto a world but due to the random nature of the Rips themselves his forces might land on that world’s version of Antarctica or some other location hundreds or even thousands of miles from where he needs them. There are worlds where he hasn’t been able to get sufficient resources to the proper locations and the political chicanery was exposed or fell apart before BanaTech could assume control. And there are other worlds that are more technologically advanced than the Homeworld. Worlds where scientists were aware of the Rips but just hadn’t learned how to exploit them yet. In those cases, war broke out. With BanaTech usually coming out on top.”

“Usually?” Richard said.

“There have been a handful of worlds Jefferson has failed to take,” Sophia said. “In those cases there is a last resort.”

Richard waited; slowing the HumVee as he approached a steep decline into what had once been a mighty river.

“The satellites BanaTech uses for communication and control are all armed with fusion-boosted nuclear fission devices of sufficient yield to reduce any Earth to smoking rubble three times over.”

“Jesus,” Richard said. He turned the vehicle parallel to the waterway, following it until he could find a safer place to cross.

“It’s Jefferson’s worst case scenario,” Sophia said, “and one he’s loathe to execute.”

Richard cast a doubtful expression her way before returning his eyes to the landscape.

“It’s true,” Sophia said. “Oh, he could give a tin shit about the people. They’re only useful to him if he can enlist them in his cause. He’s a master manipulator and not above forced conscription if that fails, but it’s the resources he’s after. The raw materials as well as the science and technology. If he has to burn an entire world he loses all that. The ability to create an artificial Rip, and target its exit point, further tips the scales in BanaTech’s favor.”

“So if he could create a Rip,” Richard said, braking the vehicle as Sophia’s RLP began humming in her hand, “and target, say, the Oval Office in Washington, D.C., he could put a stop to any insurrection attempts before they even got started.”

“Or directly subvert the government from the top,” Sophia added, “saving him time and resources.”

Sophia slid open the cover on the RLP, silencing it. She studied the screen while Richard waited.

“Can you get into that riverbed?” she asked.

“Not here,” Richard said. “The bank is too steep. We’d end up wrecking on the bottom and be on foot from there. I’ve been looking for a place to cross for the last ten minutes.”

“Keep looking,” Sophia said. “There’s a Rip forming about forty miles from here and it’s centered in that channel. The Quantum-Cray’s predict it will be open for the next three hours.”

“What if we’re driving into the arms of Jefferson’s goons? You said they’ve just been waiting for the chance to Rip in here and take us.”

“It’s possible but unlikely,” Sophia said. “You can travel through the Rips in both directions but the odds that this particular Rip terminates on a world where they’re ready to attack from are astronomical. The RLP should give us warning if they come through the Rip before we get there.”

“Like it warned us Jefferson’s goons were lurking around back in Missouri?” Richard said sarcastically.

“I still don’t know what that was all about,” Sophia said. “I’ve never known of anyone to go through a Rip without an RLP before. They’d be stranded without some means of communication with the Homeworld. It’s just too dangerous.”

“Then either Jefferson is past the point of caring about whether or not his troops get home,” Richard said, “or he’s found some way to mask the RLP’s. Either way, I guess we take our chances.” He pressed the accelerator, resuming their course.

“Oxwitic was the second attempt at creating an artificial Rip,” Sophia said, continuing the conversation. “The first took place on the Homeworld, with disastrous results. I’m not well versed on the subject but as I understand it, the science behind the Rips is supposed to be pretty straightforward. X amount of power plus Y amount of matter—in this case a particle stream of protons or anti-protons whose gluons bind to form a bosun—equals a loop of virtual quarks. These quarks are injected into a quantum field and more power is added until a field of quantum and temporal flux is achieved. The Rips naturally form inside this field. Unfortunately, it’s not that straightforward in application. Jefferson’s techs were able to create the quark loops but once they were injected into the quantum field the computers lost control. The resulting explosion took out several hundred square miles and killed over two thousand people.”

“Shit,” Richard said.

Sophia couldn’t tell if it was in response to the loss of life on the BanaTech Homeworld or the massive pile of debris he was forced to detour the vehicle around.

“Despite the tragedy,” she continued, “the first attempt wasn’t for naught. Analysis revealed two flaws in the FPG design. One, they were tapping into The Source for power. That kind of unknown and unregulated power was too much for the TeVatron they were using to stream particles. They needed a higher energy particle accelerator and a way to regulate the power to it. Two, the QC’s, though they are designed to be thinking machines, lacked something.”

“The Rips appear to be a naturally occurring phenomenon but at the same time there seems to be intelligence behind them, some indefinable and illogical—almost human element—that defines when and where they occur. Armed with this new knowledge Jefferson ordered the experiments forward. He moved them off world, where there’d be no chance of repeating the first disaster in a critical location, and ordered his science team to find a way to integrate a human intelligence into the equation.”

“Oxwitic,” Richard said. “But something went horribly wrong there, too.”

“Exactly,” Sophia agreed. “They solved the power problems. Built the ZeVatron and ran through all the tests to ensure there’d be no explosion this time. They even found someone willing to be plugged in to all that energy to attempt Rip formation.”

“Michael Manus.”

“That’s right. He was one of the original designers of the FPG who survived the first test by virtue of having the flu on the day of the test. He was also the one who analyzed the data and discovered that the QC’s operate too logically to adjust to the myriad of ephemeral and intangible decisions that had to be made.

“No,” Sophia corrected herself, “decision is the wrong word. The calculations are decisions, but they have to be made with human interaction. Human feeling. A certain…”

“Je ne sais quoi,” Richard offered, referring to the French phrase for an indefinable quality.

“Right!” Sophia said, pleased that Richard understood.

“But Michael miscalculated too. Introducing a human intelligence into the machine wasn’t enough. He couldn’t control the forces inside FPG either. He must have made some mental wrong turn, some bad virtual decision, because instead of a Rip he opened a temporal rift that encapsulated him, protecting him from any outside influence like Jefferson burning the room, but also trapping him forever like a computer hard drive stuck in a nested goto loop.”

“A computer crash,” Richard said. “A blue screen with no escape button or reboot option.”

“A fair analogy,” Sophia said.

Richard had edged the HumVee past the debris along the riverbank—the remains of a fishing community, he’d concluded—and had moved the vehicle closer to the bank where the terrain was smoother.

“Well, lookee here!” he exclaimed.

Sophia did. The remains of a long concrete ramp, partially blocked by smaller debris, led down to the riverbed.

“Must have been a boat ramp,” Sophia said. “Probably got a lot of use back when this river was flowing. Do you think we can use it?”

“I think so,” Richard said. “It’s blocked towards the bottom but I can’t tell from here what’s blocking it. Some old flotsam and jetsam would be my guess. We should be able to punch through. How are we doing on time?”

“We’re okay,” Sophia said, checking the RLP. “We still have over two hours and we’re only thirty miles away.”

With that Richard guided the HumVee down the ramp, crunching over small rocks, planks and old tree limbs that turned to dust when the tires rolled over them. Halfway down the headlights revealed the remains of an old tugboat heeled over to one side, its bow pockmarked with rust-eaten holes.

“Uh-oh,” Richard said.

“Can we go around?”

“Maybe.”

Richard eased the vehicle forward, the tugboat rising above them as they descended. Near the bottom of the ramp it towered over them, the size of a small house. Richard could feel it looming over the HumVee like some great beast playing possum; a predator awaiting its prey before pouncing with enormous rusty iron claws.

Swallowing a lump in his throat Richard edged past the derelict, the vehicle’s tires kissing empty space at the edge of the ramp. If they rolled too far they would bottom out on that side, tires spinning uselessly. Worse, they could roll off the ramp and turn turtle in the riverbed. Either way the vehicle would be useless. On foot they couldn’t make the Rip in time and they didn’t carry enough water and oxygen to make it back to Oxwitic and wait for another.

There was a screeching, metal rending sound as the HumVee brushed the side of the tugboat. Brittle aged iron and steel gave way and the bow of the vessel disintegrated showering Richard’s side of the vehicle with debris. He bore down on the accelerator to clear the cascading avalanche of wreckage before it could bury them, launching them off the end of the boat ramp and into the riverbed with a resounding crash.