The Misbegotten

They came streaking from the super-structure of the Maglev station. They raced across the miles-deep ice sheet at four hundred and fifty kilometers an hour. The vista spread before them. Though there were scars, blackened streaks and damaged, New Jerusalem sparkled. It gleamed before spewing smoke that boiled up into a massive cloud formation. It shone with a light onto itself – resilient, beautiful, as stubborn as it inhabitants.

The Islamic Federation of Europa had come to their doorstep back in the middle of the twenty-first century. Their loyalty and silence proven, the construction of New Jerusalem had been one of the first projects awarded to the Synod. It took over twenty years to complete. But when finished, upon this jumbled section of a never-ending ice sheet, stood something short of a miracle.

It was an exact replica of the Old City of Jerusalem complete with the Haram Esh-Sharif, known as the Temple Mount to the given commoner. Also reproduced was the Church of the Holy Sepulcre, the Lady Tunshuq’s Palace, the great Citadel, the Western Wall Plaza and the Monastery Compound. As its predecessor, New Jerusalem divided into four quarters. Only these weren’t given onto different religions. Here, on Europa, the main branches of Islam itself carved up the city. The Sunni lived in what was the old Islamic Quarter on Earth. The Shia had taken the Christian Quarter. The Sufi occupied the Armenian part. Meanwhile, the Kharijite, Ahmadiyya and the Quranists shared the Jewish section. This included the Wailing Wall or Kotel. On Earth, rumors spoke of the Kotel as the only remnant of the ancient wall surrounding the courtyard of the Jewish Temple.

It is common belief construction of the original began in 19 BCE by Herod the Great himself and finished sometime after his death. The Jew’s of Earth considered it to be one of the holiest sites on the planet.

Though he was well versed in the history of the ancient Near East, all this meant little to Estefan at the moment.

They blazed across the barren snow-scape toward New Jerusalem, his mind made heavy with thoughts of Jacob. He kept wondering how his captors had been capable of defeating the ‘Spider implanted in his cousin’s skull.

The technicians at ExTech had sworn they were infallible. Their confidence was ironclad, because ‘Spiders operated robust, 2048-terabtye encryption program. So powerful in fact even the newest Neuro-Nanoswarm Farm-nets couldn’t crack it.

Some of the ExTech engineers had even gone so far to say the ‘Spiders could be as smart as a low functioning Human brain.

That had impressed Estefan. And yet, someone had defeated the security measure within a fortnight of install. It baffled the Keeper. He knew there was no one out there that could overcome Jacqueline’s cronies. She employed only the best. Plus, she made a habit of removed underperformers within hours of failing to meet the metrics she assigned to them.

He knew the Walach Group or the Milandry Sisters didn’t have the resources. None of the sub-governments and business entities vying for influence within the Combined Corporate Board possessed the labs or the tech.

The Synod dominated the Board, and had for many years. Draxis Corp’s financial windfall made it so the moment it began to fill their coffers beyond belief. None of the Space-Jacks or Dark Pirates would dare cross him, so he didn’t even bother considering them.

The once almighty military of the N.I.A. paled in comparison to the vast armadas he had sailing about the Solar System now. In fact, none of the sub-governments could defeat Synod Tech. The operative thought being the Synod itself supplied them with what they needed to defend themselves. Estefan would never sell the cream of his technology or armaments. So, there was no way any of them could mount an assault upon his family and hope to win.

So, who then, genius? he questioned himself, harsh, staring out the Diatainium-plexi covering both sides of the Maglev. “Hamza, my friend,” he called to their still cowering host.

“Yes, my Lord,” he asked. He came up through their ranks to the front of the sub-sonic bullet train. He clasped his hands, fingers rubbing before his chest.

The security forces Hamza had brought with him, stayed back. They mulled about the tube-like cabin, on high-alert. The sneak attack had unnerved them for obvious reasons. They didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.

“When we complete our business here, I would like a few samples of any machinery or parts left behind in the attack. Anything foreign, I would like our labs to inspect. Whatever the Federation can spare is fine. It doesn’t have to be all that much. Do you think you could make that possible?” He spoke with his usual, calm voice.

The man nodded, head bouncing with vigor. “Y-yes, Your Eminence, I don’t think it’ll be a problem in the least. Our Imams will want to know of the infidels who attacked our home in such a cowardly fashion. And, they know the Aegis Synod can gather information faster than any other group in the Sixteen Worlds.” He paused to smile, some of the congeniality he’d displayed earlier in evidence. “It might not be samples at all, my Lord. It might be everything we scrounge from the rubble of New Jerusalem they will ship to you.” His eyes twinkled.

Estefan had to chuckle at the other man’s enthusiasm, even in his darkened state. He could see Hamza shame over what happened to him and his wives, though it hadn’t been his fault. He was still trying to make it up to them. “Good, good and thank you,” said Estefan, a mild dismissal, peering over at Flavia.

Her eyes met his, then glanced down at his side where his fingers signed.

“Anything new?” he had asked.

She shook her head in the negative, her eyes still red-rimmed and moist.

Jacob’s betrayal had shocked them all.

“How much can we assume the new enemy knows of the Shadow Spark?” was his second silent question.

She glanced away, but her fingers still signed. “We can assume the enemy of ours knows the Shadow Spark is here. But judging from our little encounter, our enemy didn’t seem to know where it was exactly.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He wanted us. He knew, we knew where it was. He needed one of us to tell him, but he hadn’t counted on Sandy.” She peered back at him, one eyebrow raised, shrugging. “There mustn’t be Shields where he comes from”

They both shared a look at the tall, athletic woman, sitting next to Leda. She had one hand resting upon the others still flat belly, oblivious to the others around them.

It was clear to Estefan, they were talking about her pregnancy. Since Leda had never given birth herself, she must be brimming with questions.

“He did seem shocked by his inability to touch her with his Mutation,” agreed the Keeper, thinking his wife’s logic sound. “What do you make of his Mutation, now that were on the topic?”

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen or felt before,” replied Flavia at once, her fingers twining and twirling about. “I was helpless against it. In fact, we all were. If it hadn’t been for Sandy, things could’ve gone bad, real bad.”

Estefan nodded, though he was no longer peering in her direction. He was looking out the Diatainium-plexi, seeing the super-fast train was approaching another station. Though it was minute, he could feel the deceleration beneath his loafers. Since cold never touched him, he hadn’t bothered to change into thick, fur-lined boots as had his wives. His dress shoes would suit him fine.

New Jerusalem was about them before they knew it as they shot into the bowels of the monolithic structure. Its makers built it of miraculous, if not gigantic, blocks of ice. They stacked and piled them high to house the massive amount of trains flying in and out of it.

The Maglev stopped without sound, the doors of their particular cabin, opened with only the slightest hiss. Within seconds, the security detail poured forth securing a wide swath of the terminal. Methodical, but firm they pushed back civilians and the like.

“I was half-expecting to see Dr. Ball here waiting for us,” said the Keeper to their host.

The man’s head was jerking this way and that, looking for anything out of the ordinary, anything threatening. After a few heartbeats, the man regarded Estefan. “He is one of our primary agents stationed on Earth, and a distant relative to boot. He is a fourth cousin of mine, or something along those lines. It is unfortunate though, M’Lord, for we will never allow him to set foot upon this most holy moon.” Hamza leaned closer. “He has lived far too long amongst the infidels of the Sixteen Worlds. It has corrupted his soul, I’m afraid.” Then, he glanced at the eight women filing out of the bullet train and seemed to swallow something thick. “I didn’t mean to imply, my lord, that you and your -.”

Estefan didn’t let him finish. “We know what we are, my friend. Infidels, unbelievers, the fallen – call us what you will. It bothers us not. We are the Aegis Synod. We answer to no one, man or god alike.”

Hamza swallowed again.

Estefan knew his words where of the highest heresy.

“Come, Your Eminence, we have a large Skycar waiting to take you to your destination.” Hamza spoke in a hurry, eager to change the subject.

“Lead on, lead on,” was all the Keeper said as he gestured for the other to show the way.

Hamza nodded and led them down a side corridor. A few minutes earlier, commuters might’ve crammed its confines, but now it was devoid of all passengers. The entire expanse was clear.

The security cordon moved as they did. The guards formed a bubble-like wall of human flesh. It flexed and contorted to their environs and the speed with which they walked.

They strode four hundred meters down the hallway, every once and a while passing doors on either side. They came at uneven intervals, some larger than others, some doubled. A few were so narrow one would have to turn sideways to past the threshold.

There were many and where they might’ve led, Estefan had no clue.

The corridor ended with floor to ceiling Diatainium-Plexi, three sets of automatic doors cut into it. Hamza led them through the center set and they emerged onto a wide avenue. It had four lanes traveling one way and four traveling the other, sidewalks at both sides and a rather broad island in the middle. A dome covered the entire construct.

In fact, domes covered all the buildings and edifices on this side of the juggernaut train station. The sizes varied accordingly. But they flowed creating a frothing mass, like monstrous primordial soup. Man-sized Eco-Halogens illuminated the street. The air about them sparkled. It was harsh, but sufficient. Since the weather above the domes had turned for the worse, little sunlight reached the ground. Great masses of tumbling clouds and massive swaths of snow fell at ten times the rate Estefan would’ve seen on Earth.

“My Lord,” prompted Hamza.

Estefan saw the nine super-stretch Skycars before them, parked in a long line. They were Maserati-Gravs, beautiful, elegant works of art – pregnant with style and panache. Each sold for upward of four million exchange credits, pure sex appeal. Yet, they were piteously lacking armor and weapons.

Vehicles manufactured by Chaz Motors would look the same. And, they would have the capability to withstand a twenty-first century Tomahawk cruise missile.

Well, maybe they wouldn’t quite look like works of art.

The Synod took the fifth car from the front and only Mr. Bhall joined them. The other eight Skycars the security detail filled to capacity. Within seconds of the last door hissed shut against the outside environment. The cars rocketed out into the empty avenue. Almost at once, they took a sweeping right hand transition to the main artery of transportation. Then, they zoomed into the still smoldering city.

Traffic on the opposite side of the highway was bustling, but on their side there was none. More Maserati-Gravs, at least a score, blocked the crush of vehicles from behind. Another, smaller, group made sure there were no stragglers up front. Thus, no traffic could get within one and a half kilometers of them in either direction.

Their speed was fantastic. But it still paled in comparison to Flavia’s display when she and Estefan had been trying to shake the Fermonist back in Angel Free Town. When she’d switched their car to manual and went on afterburner, they’d traveled twice as fast.

She must’ve been thinking the same thing, because she signed with swift fingers, “Why so slow?”

He grinned at her like an idiot. It was strange how sometimes his wives, any one of them, could read his mind.

They came streaking down the highway. They darted through a replica of the Jaffa Gate, passing Omar Ibn El-Khattab Square. Then it was onto a thoroughfare known only as David. But that too was gone in a flash and they merged onto Silsileh Road.

“Our destination is the Temple Mount?” asked Estefan, his brow furled.

Hamza Ahmed Khali-Bhall shrugged apologetically. “One could say it is and not be far from the truth and would still, in a technical sense, be lying.”

Estefan scowled. “Isn’t the Mount a rather conspicuous place to hide something as volatile as the Shadow Spark?”

“If it were atop the Temple Mount, then yes, it would be a horrible place to hide something as precious as the Shadow Spark,” was all he would say.

Estefan was still frowning when he realized a decent section of the wall ahead of them was coming apart. Beyond, there was nothing but darkness. It was then he began to get an inkling of what his host was hinting at.

The Temple Mount on Europa was hollow.

The entire caravan flashed through the opening in the hillside and into an open space roughly three hundred meters square. Behind them, the doors were almost closed, lights flickering on only after they had shut completely. The drivers lined up the Skycars parallel about ten feet apart. They disengaged the engines, unsealed the doors. The security team jumped out of the vehicles first, forming a protective ring around the Synod.

Estefan and his wives exited their Skycar with Hamza.

The Keeper glanced about. The chamber was roughly hewn. Its’ surfaces were uneven and scarred with Diatainium wrought x-beam. These reinforced the lopsided arch wherever needed. The spray of some unknown substance covered the ice below them. The ground was level, dull grey and dimpled, giving it a degree of traction when stepped upon.

To Estefan it appeared like tartan. The spongy, brick-red material used to coat the running tracks of the world when he was teenager. Only this stuff was the wrong color.

Brilliant Eco-Halogens circled them, ensconced in heavy copper-like bowls, bolted onto the surrounding walls. There was only one other portal aside from the one they used to enter the chamber. On the opposite wall, hacked into the ice, stood twin metal doors, they were large.

Looking at the space all together, Estefan could tell this was no more than a parking garage, emptied for their sake.

“My honored guests, if you would follow me,” gestured the guide. He stood a few feet away from the knot of them, pointing toward the doors on the other side of the chamber.

The Keeper nodded.

The Synod formed up about him.

He reached out to hold Leda’s hand, walking beside her the entire way to the portals.

She smiled up at him, somewhat surprised at the open display of intimacy, but then again, she’d never been pregnant before. She wasn’t used to the “Royal Treatment”.

Hamza strode up to a large round, glowing sensor. It was inset at the center of a pattern of intricate filigree where the two doors came together. He leaned forward, his face was almost pressed against it, his lips moving fast as he spoke into the half-sphere of radiance. When he finished, he waited a few heartbeats. Next, he put his hands to either side of his face, palms forward, splayed. His thumbs and forefingers touched his chin and temple respectively. He remained motionless until a rumbling; baritone thrum reverberated throughout the room. It twanged their bones like tuning forks. A series of clicks and clacks followed from within the doors, and they opened.

Hamza was through them before they gaped in full.

The rest of their group stepped through after.

Estefan and Leda found themselves bunched between a double-loop of bodies. The passage beyond was ten meters wide, but it was still crowded with some many people traversing through it at once.

Their host led them down the long hall until it crossed an identical one, a third of a kilometer into the heart of the Mount. He turned to his right without hesitation, leading them another seventy meters before coming to another intersection. This time he turned left. Then turned left again about ninety meters form their last turn. He led them down a flight of stairs, turned the right, then left and then another series of right hand turns. He did not pause when they came upon a threshold of stairs. He walked them down that spiral staircase that seemed to have no end.

By then, disorientation overwhelmed Estefan and his wives. They knew they’d need help getting back to the Skycars on their way out. This was likely the intent of their roundabout journey in the first place, but none of them worried too much. After the fiasco upon their arrival, not even Flavia expected anything clandestine to occur soon. Hamza would see to that personally. The symbiotic relationship between the Federation and Aegis Synod was too important to jeopardize.

Next, he led them down corridor after corridor of curving, canted and sloped passages. These were even more confusion than the right-angled ones above.

The Keeper gave up trying to guess how far under the Mount they’d traveled. He pushed all thoughts of what direction they walked and decided to follow Hamza Ahmed Khali-Bhall’s lead. He cleared his mind of all else.

Finally, after what seemed an interminable time, they came to a colossal door. It blocked the way from floor to ceiling, a door unlike any they’d seen thus far.

Estefan lips lost symmetry as he gave Leda a crooked smile.

He shrugged his shoulders at Katie when she glanced their way a moment later.

It was a hinged door to a vault, complete with spoke handwheel, keypad punch, timelock and palm print reader.

Estefan hadn’t seen anything like it in almost two hundred years.

It looked brand new.

Their host walked straight up to the Diatainium-steel alloyed behemoth. He began working the redundant safety measures. Within ninety seconds, he had the enormous, fifteen foot thick obstruction swinging open on perfect balanced pivots.

Behind it was the last thing any of the Synod had expected to see – the folding doors of an elevator.

Hamza spoke in rapid Arabic to the commanding officer of their security detail.

He, in turn, shouted a brisk command to his troops. At once, they came to attention, divided into equal lines along either side of the passageway.

“They will be guarding us from here,” explained their guide. “Only a selected few have access to the Holding.” His smiled, a little nervous. He was not accustomed to having unbelievers this close to the heart of their guarded society.

He entered a fourteen digit code into yet another keypad and the elevator opened. Lights that had been dark up to this point came on as they stepped into it the elevator.

It consisted of -Plexi, held together by thin brackets of metal. But once their descent began, they could see they were within a triple-hulled conveyance. It was more pill-shaped than cube-like, not your typical configuration at all.

Their speed was gradual at first, but increased as a steady pace. Before long though, the support beams within the shaft – some twenty meters apart – were flashing past them quite swift. It was difficult to keep track of them. There must’ve been motion dampers built into the elevator itself. None of them felt as though they plummeted downward at close to what people on Earth would say was terminal velocity.

After a couple of minutes, Estefan leaned toward Hamza. “How far are we going down?”

“Quite a ways,” replied the other man, rocking back and forth on his heels. He had his hands clasped behind his back.

Estefan had to nod when their host said nothing else. He kept his face as rigid as he could manage. He preferred getting complete explanations when he asked a question.

“It’s making me feel funny,” Leda said, hugging her waist.

“It’s always like that in your first trimester, sis,” said Mena with a mollifying tone.

Sandy sniggered, playful. “She’d know, girl. She’s given birth to more babies than the rest of us.”

That’s right, huh? thought the mother-to-be, gazing at her sister-in-marriage in a different light. She’s done this eleven times already! My god!

As her side, Estefan gave her hand a reassuring squeeze and seemed about to add something to the conversation. He stopped cold when they burst forth from the frozen tube, still plummeting.

Gasps of pure amazement rippled through them, a miraculous sight unfolding. They found themselves beneath the thickness of the two-mile ice sheet. Surrounding them on all sides was a hidden, planet-wide ocean.

“The colors!” exclaimed Tirza, stepping toward the Plexi, her face a fraction of an inch away.

They never should’ve been able to see through the stunning azure of Europa’s ocean. Concealed underneath an impenetrable layer of ice only inky blackness should have encircled them. It hadn’t. They never should’ve been able to see at a distance, but they could. Everything should’ve been as black as coal. It should've been a featureless void no light could pierce, yet… it was the exactly opposite.

It was like gazing through a man-made aquarium, the water crystalline, the light ubiquitous. Tirza was certain she could see for kilometers through the chilly depths. It was so vivid, so infused with clarity, she forgot breathe.

“How is this possible?” she asked out of breath.

Hamza shuffled to her side. “It is the proto-bacteria in the water itself. It is bioluminescent. In fact, almost every microbe, organism and full-formed creature in our ocean gives off its own light to some degree. Our scientists have come to the conclusion this is a defense mechanism. It targets the specific aspect of concealment.” He bobbed his head as if the concept overwhelmed him as well. This despite the fact he’d been born and raised upon the Jovian moon. “The non-predatory life-forms are usually the brightest. Some can set a hectoliter of the ocean ablaze with light, which is quite incredible. Don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes,” muttered Tirza, her eyes dancing about as creatures of wondrous variety began to come into view.

They watched in silence as they continued their descent into the primeval depths. It wasn’t long before larger organisms began to shimmer and dance into existence. Some were not all that different than those living in the abysses of Earth. Others, though, were otherworldly and terrible.

There was a school of eel-like creature. They coursed through the frigid waters with long dorsal and ventral ridges. These ended with a large posterior, fanlike fin. Its’ head was bulbous, almost spherical with large eyes and a mouth no bigger than a tiny slice at the bottom of its’ rounded head.

There were avian-looking fish with beaks and long, long wings, though they swam instead of flew.

They saw beetle-shaped coruscations attached in great swaths along the tub containing the elevator. They appeared as chitinous as would earth-like bugs. But, they were gone so fast none of them could make out much more than their exoskeletons.

In the distance, swam some sort of leviathan, no more than a darker shade of blue against the lighter closer to them. It billowed like a cumulonimbus cloud, but it was indistinct and amorphous. It could’ve been a large school of oceanic beings, rather than a single entity. As they watched, it seemed like the first one moment and then the second a moment later.

There were hundreds more, all shapes, guises, and forms. Some were infinitesimal. Some were broad and sweeping as their limbs meandered through the currents of this hidden water world.

They had been so wrapped in the scene before them; they had forgotten they were moving. In the ten minutes they’d scrutinized the vast array of life through the tube, they’d been descending. It wasn’t until an overpowering glow from below made them stare down even further. Their eyes went deeper, to unimaginable depths. The fantastic shape of the Holding came into view and, for the second time, there were gasps abound. It was gigantic, a kilometer in diameter.

“It is round?” asked Ruby. Both of her hands and forehead pressed onto the transparent side of the elevator. Her eyes she glued to the vista below.

“The correct term for its shape is a truncated icosahedron, a more rounded version of a twenty-sided sphere. The extra surfaces not only allow for a cleaner appearance, the added strength they give is tremendous. This is crucial, because the Holdings outer surfaces are withstanding a fraction less than 199,736 kPa. This is the equal to 1,971 earth atmospheres – an unequivocal crush if you ask me,” explained Hamza.

Estefan did a few quick conversion calculations in his head. The true nature metric weights and measures still eluded him. He’d learned the English system in school as a child. A few seconds later, his eyes bugged out of his head when he figured the pressure in terms of psi (pounds per square inch) – 28,969.224!

Holy shit, that’s a lot of weight!

He peered down at the Holding through the transparent floor, marveling at the splendid feat of engineering. Estefan could only guess at how they had managed to build it, let alone keep it moored in place at such a depth. He wanted to ask, but decided against it. Hamza most likely didn’t have the authorization to disclose such delicate secrets concerning the Federation’s treasure trove. There was a reason they tucked it within the middle of Europa’s endless ocean.

His long-time allies had been busy these many years.

The Holding came at them fast. Within ninety seconds it swallowed them, and the beauty of Europa’s hidden seas vanished. They traversed a no more than a quarter of a kilometer, decelerating the entire time. At last the elevator stopped and opened, revealing another corridor. This was long, but much narrower. The floors, walls and ceiling were all made of Diatainium and steel, thick and bulky, devoid of decoration. Things in the Holding were pure functionality.

They walked from the elevator, passing so many doors Estefan lost count after a hundred meters. Hamza led them to the third to the last on the left-hand side. He produced a two-pronged iron key and inserted it into the locking mechanism. He had to turn it five complete rotations, while internal levers and tumblers clinked and clanked from within. With the final turn, a hissing sound emanated from every end of the door. It was pressure-sealed, the air within heavier than that in the hall, leaving a sweet, brunt scent in their noses.

Hamza pried open the door as tiny Eco-Halogens twinkled on. They radiated with enough light to show another spiral staircase, going down. It wasn’t a long trip, only a few decks. It deposited them before a transparent wall, three feet thick, flawless, clear. Behind it, there was nothing but a small dais atop which stood a pedestal, one meter in height. Resting in the center of the pedestal’s upper surface sat an innocuous pair of sunglasses.

“Finally, my Lord, we are here,” announced Hamza. He looked proud.

“Where?” asked the Keeper, trying to keep the incredulity from saturating his one-word retort.

“Why at the vault of the Shadow Spark, of course.”

Estefan’s brow furled. “But there’s nothing but a pair of sunglasses in there.”

Hamza Ahmed Khali-Bhall’s smile was so broad it was borderline ridiculous.

The Keeper stared at him in silence for a time, then, “You have got to be kidding me!”

Their host gave the merest of nods.

“Are you’re telling me the greatest weapon ever known to Mankind you've hidden within a pair of Ray-Ban Aviators?”

Hamza rocked back and forth upon his heels, looking quite smug. “It is the final security measure, my Lord, its’ very appearance. We can hide the Shadow Spark in plain view without anyone being the wiser.

“Sonofabitch!” exclaimed the Keeper.

Estefan’s wives laughed and giggled like schoolgirls.