2041 Sanctuary (Genesis) (55 page)

♦

‘It allowed us to observe how the energy is transferred,’ Dagmar said, his breathing laboured, ‘it was a fortuitous event to happen now, just when we were about to begin.’

‘The ceiling’s activation is more than a scientific discovery,’ Selene said, ‘much more, and whatever you may think it was not by the fluke of chance that Sanctuary has awoken.’

Dagmar’s expression was dubious. ‘You believe it was by design?’

‘That you doubt it,’ Selene said, ‘shows how wedded you are to the material world. I’m surprised you haven’t realised by now, Director, working with your quantum mechanics, that the world beyond our senses,’ – she laid a hand on his shoulder – ‘is there for us to control.’

Dagmar stared into her mismatched eyes and then gave a shake of his head. ‘The occult is not science. And whatever you may think, the ceiling is not some kind of sign.’

‘But that is exactly what it is.’ She released her hold. ‘Sanctuary’s vast vaults have reactivated now, of all times throughout history, when the skies rain fire and the world and every living thing is faced with annihilation. These are momentous days, foretold before your God Device was even found.’

‘Prophecy and hearsay are no substitute for observational experimentation and hard data,’ Dagmar said, his temper rising, ‘but the fact remains, something turned the ceiling on, and something else will turn it off.’

‘Says the uninitiated man.’ Selene looked down on him with something akin to pity. ‘But you are quite right, it is simple cause and effect. And if –
when
– you decide to suspend your belief and embrace ours, you will come to see that the human mind, if harnessed, is more powerful than you could ever have imagined.’

The high-pitched whine of an electric turbine drew their attention and a large platform arrived beyond the barrier, which automatically began to rise.

Dagmar led the delegation forward and held his hand over a large, red button as he waited for everyone to board. He looked at Selene who gave him a nod.

‘Take us down, Director,’ she said.

Dagmar Sørensen depressed the button and they descended into the depths.

♦

Joiner scanned the images and waited for Dagmar and the Committee members to reappear, but seconds came and went and the wallscreen remained unchanged.

‘Computer,’ Joiner said, ‘get them back! Re-locate Dagmar Sørensen.’

‘Re-locating,’ the A.I. said.

Joiner walked along the wall, searching for any sign of the R&D director, the Committee members or the four chrome-clad assassins, but seconds turned to minutes and there was still no sign of them.

‘Where are they?’ Joiner said, agitated.

Myers peered at the screen, waiting. ‘Perhaps they’ve gone beyond the network.’

‘Computer,’ Joiner said, ‘where is Dagmar Sørensen?’

‘Re-locating …’

Joiner stalked back across the office, his eyes boring into the screen as he continued to seek the missing delegation. ‘Where are they?!’

‘There is a ninety-eight point nine per cent probability,’ the computer said, ‘that Dagmar Sørensen is no longer inside the facility. Shall I search for his companions?’

‘Do it!’ Joiner slammed his hand down on the desk. ‘FIND THEM!’

Chapter Eighty Nine

Dagmar Sørensen emerged from the elevator ten levels below the main laboratory complex and entered a large, oval chamber made from dark, grey concrete. Selene Dubois and her entourage followed him out and peered round at the sealed room in which they now found themselves.

‘This way, please,’ Dagmar said, and he walked forward to stand on a section of the floor segregated from the rest by a single, circular channel.

When everyone was inside the circle Dagmar pressed a button on his collar. ‘We’re ready.’

A white light appeared above and a glass cylinder rose up out of the floor as an identical one slid down from above to meet it.

Dagmar removed a breathing mask from the pocket of his lab coat and placed it over his nose and mouth. ‘You may feel a slight pressure in your ears,’ he said to Selene, ‘don’t worry it’s just part of the decontamination process.’ He gestured to the armed assassins. ‘Tell them once they’re inside not to remove their helmets or they’ll compromise the air.’

Selene turned to one of the armoured figures. ‘Did you hear that?’

The man behind the mirrored visor gave a slow nod of his head.

A loud buzzer sounded and Dagmar said to the Committee members, ‘You may want to hold your breath!’

A moment later a whoosh of mist engulfed the cylinder and the people within. Three seconds after that, the vapour turned a faint shade of yellow before the metallic clunk of a heavy mechanism sent the concrete pad on which they stood gliding up through the giant transparent tube and through an opening in the ceiling above.

The concrete platform came to a stop with a pneumatic hiss and five clamps snapped down to secure it in place. The yellow haze dissipated and Dagmar stepped down a set of steps and into a hive of activity.

♦

Selene Dubois and her associates followed the R&D director into a vast underground atrium one hundred feet wide and thrice that in length. Technicians, doctors, scientists and military personnel bustled throughout the large expanse, which acted as an oversize laboratory full of medical apparatus, operating tables, a strange array of robotic equipment, and a host of workstations similar to those found in Sanctuary’s Exploration Division, the legendary SED.

Towering glass windows lined both sides of the expanse, behind which multiple floors separated residential areas from offices and more high-tech labs. While those working in the atrium’s centre remained focused on their finely tuned equipment, skilled labourers toiled on the levels above, sending showers of sparks cascading to the floor as they welded in new sections of an overhead crane.

‘All the staff you see,’ Dagmar said, raising his voice over the clamour, ‘live and work in this compound and are totally independent from the rest of the complex and the base beyond.’ He paused to cough into his handkerchief. ‘No one comes in and no one goes out without my express permission.’

‘How long are they here for?’ Selene said.

‘As long as it takes.’ Dagmar skirted round a vat of foul-smelling liquid and headed towards a quieter section of the compound.

The noise behind died away and the group entered a long, silent corridor that echoed to the sounds of their footsteps. At the end, two armed sentries stood aside to allow them through a large reinforced metal hatch and they emerged into a structure similar to the giant cell that housed the Pharos. However, rather than having a spartan interior, this prison had been partitioned into five sections by thick, semi-transparent curtains that hung from the ceiling above. Around the tops of the walls, more scientists worked at a host of holographic workstations that ringed the entire perimeter.

Dagmar paused before the first curtain. ‘Your bodyguards will have to stay here, unless they plan on living out the rest of their days in Sanctuary.’

Selene gestured to the assassins’ leader, who halted his team’s advance.

Reduced to a party of four, Dagmar and the three Committee members pushed past the first curtain.

On either side, shrouded by the plastic sheets, the indistinct forms of lab technicians worked in silence around large pieces of similarly obscure apparatus.

Dagmar moved aside the final partition and motioned to three scientists to vacate the area. Left alone with the R&D director, Selene and her two associates assembled on a platform to gaze up at what they’d journeyed to see.

A minute of reverential silence followed before Selene said, ‘How long until you begin?’

‘As soon as they arrive.’

‘Ophion has been despatched to ensure safe passage,’ she said. ‘They will be here within the hour.’

‘What about the … complication?’ said one of the other Committee members. ‘Will it not cause a delay?’

Dagmar shook his head. ‘The surgery will be swift.’

‘Will it cause permanent damage?’ Selene said, concerned. ‘There is much we need to know.’

‘It will be invasive, but we will try to ensure there is no lasting impairment, at least in terms of cognitive ability.’ Dagmar wiped spittle from the corner of his mouth. ‘The timing, though,’ he said, ‘it couldn’t have been any better; the chance of success has increased dramatically.’

‘The timing is the chime of destiny,’ Selene said, returning her attention to the focus of their fascination. ‘Powerful forces are at work and thousands of years of disconnected events have transpired to bring us to this point. A new age of humanity has begun and we will shape its future for millennia to come. The work you do today, Director, will echo an eternity.’

She reached out to run her fingers over a dark, coral-like surface, while her gaze remained fixed on the rest of the monolithic structure that soared above their heads.

Retrieved from deep within Sanctuary Proper’s forgotten reaches, the primordial edifice glinted and glistened beneath powerful lighting rigs and those that laid eyes on it knew they were looking at something conceived beyond the machinations of man. A mass of state-of-the-art monitoring equipment surrounded the fifty foot high monument, which had five vertical sides to form a pentagonal prism twenty feet in width. Attached to this wealth of technological hardware, thick black cables sprouted like many lifeless snakes to wend their way to the artefact’s rocky substrate, where they terminated. But it was the forward-facing and singularly unique frontage of the ancient architecture that captivated the eye. Some ten feet wide and thirty high, a single, rectangular void had been fashioned deep into the relic’s core. And recessed into the front edge of this depression, framed by a corroded metal surround, was a glass-like panel that held back a pale, viscous liquid which swirled in slow, lazy eddies as it merged with darker fluids disturbed from within. At the base of the aperture a ceramic panel had been installed by Anakim hands eons past, and sunk into its centre were three perfectly formed circles.

Dagmar entered a command into a nearby computer and the platform on which they stood rose up into the air to bring them level with the artefact’s centre. Another command activated a mechanism high above and a large, black panel dropped down to cover the monolith’s transparent case and the fluid within.

‘Our new ally has proven his worth,’ Dagmar said, savouring his success, ‘and to relinquish something he craved confirms his allegiance is – for now – beyond doubt.’

‘Malcolm Joiner has done well.’ Selene glanced at him. ‘The imminent arrival of the elusive Ms. Morgan and the pendant will be the final piece in our puzzle.’

‘Are you ready to see the fruits of our labour?’ Dagmar said.

Selene nodded and the R&D director flicked a switch, causing the black panel to shimmer. A wave of electricity swept over its surface and the onlookers were bathed in a flickering glow.

Where the relic’s interior had been shielded from view, the bespoke scanner, designed to penetrate the dense liquid within, laid bare its secrets. Immersed in what now looked like clear, sparkling water, not one, but three forms hung suspended around a central core. Each one of the figures, mouths agape and naked as the day they were born, remained devoid of movement, except for their eyes which occasionally moved as if asleep. And what a sleep it had been; for hundreds of thousands of years these citizens from another age had remained in a state of eternal hibernation, waiting for someone, or something, to wake them from an endless dream. And that wait had –
finally
–
come to an end.

Selene stepped closer to the flickering image. ‘It is time,’ she said, mesmerised by the vision of the three Anakim giants, ‘to awaken … the gods.’

Epilogue

The laughing calls of boisterous chimpanzees echoed out through the lush jungle of the Amazonian rainforest while the midday sun beat down with a ferocious heat. Close by, hosts of exotic birds roosted in the lofty vaults of towering trees, their many squawks and whistles mixing with the sound of the millions of creeping, crawling, buzzing insects that scuttled and flew through the dense undergrowth.

Immersed in the midst of this scene of natural wonder, hundreds of miles from civilisation and deep within the forest’s heart, strange shapes lurked hidden beneath the verdant greens of resurgent foliage. Lost cities and forgotten civilisations, buried by time and with links to a past far older than many would believe, lay waiting to be discovered by those that sought to reclaim it. But where there was the old there was also the new, and while the dead were gone, the living continued to fight for survival in an uncertain world.

Next to a small tributary of the mighty Amazon River, some distance from the ancient realms, a small group of huts had been built by human endeavour. Within this tiny compound, a plume of smoke drifted up into the stifling, humid sky and the smell of roasting meat wafted upstream on a subtle breeze. Drawn in by this succulent aroma, wild animals sniffed the air and prowled closer to see what they could see. But amongst these creatures large and small, another animal, a super-predator, stalked its prey.

A branch cracked and the top of a small tree shuddered, sending a flock of birds flying screeching into the skies. Monkeys chattered in warning and a big cat growled, and yet it was an indigenous infant that stood in danger’s way. Sitting on its own, the young child played at the edge of a clearing, its parents momentarily distracted elsewhere. Another twig snapped, the bushes rustled and a dark shadow blocked out the sun. The child gazed up into a pair of glowing green eyes. An armoured hand grasped the limb of a tree and the figure swayed on its feet before moving from the forest and out into the open.

The man reached up and removed his helmet to reveal the back of a close-shaven head glistening with sweat. Staggering forward, the interloper managed ten more steps across dusty soil before dropping to his knees. The helmet fell from lifeless fingers and a moment later he keeled over with an audible crash that brought the natives running. The leader of the tribe approached and prodded the lifeless form with a stick before rolling the body over to reveal the face of a foreigner. More people gathered round to observe the oddity and a woman crouched down and touched the metallic suit with a tentative hand. She looked up at her husband and pointed at a symbol on the man’s armour before holding up a circle of wood with a hole in the middle that hung round her neck. ‘It is a sign,’ she said in her native tongue.