Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten (65 page)

As a teenager, when her “changes” first began to flower, she had been told she was an Unminder, a Human Celeste with the ability to nullify Mutations that touched her.  Even at the young age of seventeen, she’d been able to make the Celestial powers of others dissipate when they tried to use them upon her.  As she grew older and her Mutations matured, she found she could cut off others from their gifts by touching them.  As time passed and the decades turned to centuries, Sandy’s Mutation continued to strengthen until, roughly a hundred and twenty years ago, she discovered she could project this nullifying ability.  She could “shield” others from the manipulative intent of other Celeste’s.  That’s what she’d done here, now.  She had cleaved Hamza form his Muto ability… and he was going berserk.

Sandy glanced down at Leda.  “You take him before he kills himself,” she muttered sardonically.

Leda moved only her eyes.  They widened, the whites made huge.

An instant later, the man stopped, his face slack, his arms like noodles, but it lasted no more than a moment.

Leda reeled back, both mentally and physically, as if she
had stumbled upon something abhorrent.  She took a few steps back, stumbling, catching herself before she fell.

Sandy reached out to steady her, the breadth of her web retracting.

“Aaaaaah!” brayed their host, in command of his Mutation once again.  Without preamble he puffed his chest and heaved it toward the wall closest to him.  Some unseen force smashed it like balsa wood.  Before either woman could react, he was through the gaping hole.  He ran like a lunatic into the blistering, icy landscape of Europa, growing with each step he took – arms, legs, body grotesquely misshapen.  Those awful, gangly limbs hacked through his clothing until they were naught but tattered ribbons.  He was swallowed by driving snow and wind, gone.

Security force fields descended at once, shutting off the Antarctic-like chill threatening to freeze them all.

Sandy, with Leda in tow, walked toward the large gash in the wall, eyes darting this way and that at the scene beyond.  There had been a battle raging, only now it was waning.  The white and blue security Skycars and lesser spacecraft were rocketing heavenward after hundreds of smaller, more agile vessels.  They were black against the ever-billowing whiteness of the air and were accelerating form the surface of the moon at an astonishing rate.  Their make was unlike anything Sandy had ever seen.  No one in the Sixteen Worlds made craft such as these.  They were dark, no, that wasn’t the correct way to describe them.  They absorbed the light around them, sucked it in, making the day about them seem all the more dim, dull, lifeless.  She couldn’t tell if they were metal or plastic or some Diatainium alloy.  Her mind wouldn’t allow her to grasp what she was seeing.  They all bore prongs, forward facing and appeared sharp, even at a distance.  They seem to carry no weapons, but were covered with bulging hemispheres that seemed to distort the air about them for a micro-second, then it was gone.  Moments later, whatever the hemisphere had been facing ripped apart.  It didn’t explode.  There was no flame.  It was literally ripped to shreds.  Whatever fires starting were secondary, and not caused by whatever force was being wielded.  She watched the dogfighting for a few seconds longer, but the ships passed into the clouds and out of sight.

Below, fires, both large and small, burned furiously about the city known to them as New Jerusalem.  Even as they two women watched, other flying objects, thousands  – colored white and red.  They came from every which way, streaking toward the city out of massive underground bunkers hidden in the great ice sheet.  Some bristling with fire hoses, others with long ladders, some appeared no more than flying trucks, pulling box-like structures.  There were still more jammed with personnel or piles of supplies, some crammed with tools of all sorts.  Whatever they were, they brought assistance and medicine to all who required it.  Help was on the way.

“What was that thing?” asked Sandy.

“I can’t say exactly,” began Leda, “but it definitely wasn’t human…  Its mind was so...
unnatural
.”  She shuddered as she said it.  “I couldn’t stand it.”

Sandy turned to look at her
sister-in-marriage.  “Destro-Mancer?”

“Maybe.”  It was only a whisper.

Estefan had just gained his feet when the doors leading to the Main Terminal of the Maglev station burst open and to their horror, Hamza Ahmed Khali-Bhall strode in.  Three score guards upon his heels.  Dressed once again as they had seen him back in the Null-ship, his clothing no longer tattered remains.

How had he mended them so quickly?
thought Sandy, tilting her head to one side.

“Stop right there!” ordered Flavia, having regained her composure, a wicked looking Katana held with both hands.  It was overcharged and glowed faintly in the harsh light provided by what was left of the Eco-Halogens, bulbs that mimicked the illumination given off by fireflies – ultra-efficient, lasting for years.

Hamza froze in his tracks, holding up an arm, fist balled.  The security troops stopped on a dime. 
Well trained,
thought the Keeper as he strode toward the newcomers, fury brooding about his mantle.

“You had better explain yourself this instant or I will have my wife wipe your minds clean as if they’d never existed.  Then the rest of us will make it a reality,” threatened Estefan.  It had been a long time since he had been this angry.

The descendant of the towering sands of Arabia placed both of his hands forward, a placating gesture, his dark brown eyes were wide.  “We mean you no harm, Great One!  We were under attack and came as fast as we could to ensure no harm came to you or your lovely wives,” he pleaded, his feet spaced wide as if he anticipated being searched.

“Under attack?” asked Ruby.  “By whom, no one would dare attack the Federation without us knowing about it beforehand!”

His gaze shifted to the tall, narrow hipped woman.  “We are still in the midst of ascertaining that ourselves.”

“Didn’t the planetary defenses give warning?”  It was Katie’s turn to ask a question.

He shook his head, his eyes still wide, his breathing was shallow.  Estefan could sense the man understood his threat.  He knew it was real.  “They attacked from within…”

“
What?!?
”  It was a question and a demand.  The Keeper took a few steps toward the man called Hamza, or so he claimed.

Flavia kept pace with him.  They remained side-by-side.  She would
n’t allow her ward to get in front of her.  He could inadvertently prevent her from moving unencumbered.

“They were already here… somehow, my Lord.  They came from everywhere at once,” he explained, his v
oice strained.

Estefan was beginning to comprehend this was more out of embarrassment than fear.  They were Honored Guests, and they had been treated poorly on his watch.  He was
scandalized.

“And they attacked the moment our Skycar touched down?” stated Mena with a question.

“H-how did you know that?” he asked, astounded.

“You were about to tell us the very same,” she answered as if her reply was as ordinary as apple pie.

“Is this true?” queried the Keeper, realigning the man’s focus.

“Well, yes, I was as a matter of fact, but she said it first.”  His eyes darted back and forth between the Estefan and Mena.

Behind his troops began to shuffle, the tension forcing them to move, though their training was screaming otherwise.

Suddenly, an image popped into Estefan’s mind, somewhat strange from what he was used to seeing projected into his head by Ramona.  It was split-screen, images two-up as professional photographers would term it.  On the left hand side, he saw Hamza and on the right he saw yet another representation of the man before him.  For a moment, he was confused.  He almost turned toward his wife to ask her the m
eaning of the dual image.  Then he saw it, or rather… saw them.  The Hamza on the left had blue eyes, the Hamza on the right had dark brown.  Three Hundred and eighty-four years of living hadn’t dampened his memory in the least.

The Hamza he’d seen on the sim-screen in the Null-ship had dark brown eyes.

The blue-eyes version was an imposter!

But, who the hell would want to -?
was the thought he almost finished.

Flavia exclaimed of a sudden.  “We have a breach in the security protocols
originating from The Gathering!”

“What”, “How?”, “When?”  All were questions resounding at once.

The Guardian waved her ‘Swarm to life, her fingers flying over the simulated word-keys.

“Who?” asked the Keeper when the din had died down,
his voice stern, carrying.

A second passed, then another.  Abruptly, Flavia stopped her eyes as wide as saucers, gazing at Estefan, tears welling.

“Jacob.  It’s Jacob.  Someone got to Jacob and made him talk,” she replied her voice trembling.

The Keeper’s face turned to a mask of twisted granite.  “Did the chip explode?”  He almost regretted having the frequency of the ‘Spiders attuned to Flavia’s ‘Swarm alone.  He hadn’t anticipated them being triggered.  He trusted the Synod and the High Command implicitly, a scenario of this sort hadn’t entered his mind.  He should’ve known better!

She tapped a few more keys floating in the air.  Then, she stopped, abject terror behind her expression.  “No…”

“Oh my god,” murmured Tirza.

“Son of a bitch!” cursed Katie.

The Keeper took half a minute to think.  Time seemed to stand still.

“My friend, Hamza, it seems our timetable has accelerated considerably.  Take us to the package at once.  We must leave this place within the hour!” he ordered as if the other man was his lackey.

Hamza jerked as if poked with an electrical prod.  “Yes, my Lord!  Follow me!”  He was so eager to please, he seemed more like a child than a man.

Estefan ignored him.  Someone had got to his cousin.  Despite all the firepower they had sent into the Kuiper Belt, someone had still managed to get to him. 
Who, though, this mysterious specter of a man who attacked us here?  Was this the Destro-Mancer?  Was this our enemy?  Was this is being we should fear…?

He let that percolate for a few moments, then spun to face his wives, while Hamza doled out commands to his men.  There was movement all about them.

“I was wrong,” he began, taking time to look into the eyes of each of them.  “You were right.  This
is
our concern.”  They shifted on uncertain feet.  Estefan hardly ever admitted a fault.  When he did, it made them all feel uncomfortable.  “Now, though, it is more than mere concern.  This motherfucker took my cousin, your brother-in-arms, and when someone does that to the Aegis Synod…
that means fucking WAR!
  Let’s get what we came here to get, secure it, and then we tear this goddamned solar system apart until we find Jacob!”

He twirled around and was gone through the portal leading to the Maglev terminal.

Behind him, his wives followed.

Ramona came alongside Flavia, whispering, “Isn’t he sexy as shit when he gets mad?”

Estefan’s one-time half-sister smiled wickedly.  “I get wet every time…”

Ramona’s whooping guffaws resounded throughout the giant train station.
  Meant to express cheer, they didn’t.  To anyone listening, it was fiendish laughter, throaty, dipping with malcontent.  It wasn’t the first evil laugh ever uttered by a member of the Aegis Synod.

~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Earth Summer – 2385)

The Shadow Spark

They came from the super-structure of the Maglev station, streaking across the miles-deep ice sheet at nearly
four hundred and fifty kilometers an hour.  The vista spread before them.  Even though it was scarred, blackened and damaged as smoke spewed forth, boiling into a massive cloud formation, New Jerusalem still sparkled.  It shone with a light onto itself – resilient, beautiful, as stubborn as it inhabitants.

Its construction had been one of the first projects awarded to the Synod after their loyalty and silence brought the
Islamic Federation of Europa to their doorstep back in the middle of the twenty-first century.  It had taken nearly twenty years to complete, but when finished, what they had forged upon this jumbled section of a never-ending ice sheet, was nothing short of a miracle.  It was an exact replica of the Old City of Jerusalem complete with Haram Esh-Sharif, commonly known as the Temple Mount, the Church of the Holy Sepulcre, the Lady Tunshuq’s Palace, the great Citadel, the Western Wall Plaza and the Monastery Compound.  It was even divided into four quarters as its predecessor had been for many years on Earth, only these weren’t given onto different religions.  Here, on Europa, the city was carved up by the main branches of Islam itself.  The Sunni were given what was the old Islamic Quarter on Earth, while the Shia had taken the Christian Quarter.  The Sufi occupied the Armenian portion.  Meanwhile, the Kharijite, Ahmadiyya and the Quranists shared the Jewish section, complete with its Wailing Wall or Kotel, which was said to be the only remnant of the ancient wall that surrounded the Jewish Temple’s courtyard.  The original is commonly believed to have been constructed in 19 BCE by Herod the Great himself and finished sometime after his death.  It is considered by the Jew’s of Earth to be one of the holiest sites on the planet.

All of that meant very 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 skull.  The technicians at ExTech had sworn they were infallible, because they operated robust, 2048-bit encryption software, so powerful even the newest Neuro-Nanoswarm Farm-nets couldn’t crack it.  They were rumored to be as smart as a low functioning Human brain and 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 and typically removed underperformers within hours of failing to meet the metrics they were charged with surpassing.

He knew the Walach Group or the Milandry Sisters didn’t have the resources.  None of the sub-governments and business entities vying for power and influence within the Combined Corporate Board possessed the labs or the tech.  The Synod dominated the Board, and had for many years, since Draxis Corp’s financial windfall 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. on Earth 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, because, for the most part, the Synod supplied them with what they needed to defend themselves.

So, who then, genius?
he questioned himself harshly, 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, coming up through their ranks at the front of the sub-sonic bullet train, his hands clasped and rubbing before his chest.

The security forces Hamza had brought with him, stayed back, mulling about the tube-like cabin, on high-alert.  The sneak attack they’d experienced had obviously unnerved them.  They didn’t want to make the same mistake twice.

“When our business is completed, I would like a few
samples of any machinery or parts left behind by whoever attacked New Jerusalem.  Whatever can be spared.  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 vigorously.  “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 garner 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 that can be scrounged from the rubble of New Jerusalem.”  His eyes twinkled.

Estefan had to chuckle at the other man’s enthusiasm, even in his darkened state.  He could see Hamza was ashamed by what happened to him and his wives, though it hadn’t been his fault.  He was still trying to make it up to them.  “Very good, 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 assumed 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. 
“There mustn’t be Shields where he comes from…”

They both shared a look at the tall, athletic woman, sitting next to Leda, one hand resting on 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’ve been 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, all of us were.  If it hadn’t been for Sandy, things could’ve gone bad, very 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, already 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, though they were hidden under their long robes.

New Jerusalem was suddenly about them
, as they shot into the bowels of the monolithic structure.  It was made of magnificently gigantic blocks of ice, stacked and piled to house the massive amount of trains flying in and out of it.  The Maglev stopped soundlessly, the doors of their particular cabin housing them, opened without noise.  Within seconds, the security detail poured forth securing a wide swath of the terminal, methodically pushing 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.  Fourth cousin of mine, or something along those lines, but he will never be allowed 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 swallowed thickly.  “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.  “Come, Your Eminence, we have a large Skycar waiting to take you to your destination.”  He spoke in a hurry, eager to change the subject.

“Lead on, lead on,” was all he said as he gestured to him.

Hamza nodded and led them down a side corridor.  A few minutes earlier, it had most likely been crammed with commuters, but now it was devoid of all passengers.  The entire expanse was clear.

The security cordon moved as they did, a bubble-like wall of human flesh flexing and contorting to their environs and the speed they were walking.  They walked four hundred meters down the hallway, passing doors on either side every once and a while.  They came at uneven intervals, some larger than others, some doubled, a few so narrow one would h
ave to turn sideways to past its’ 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 them.  Hamza led them through the center set and they emerged onto a wide avenue, four lanes traveling one way and four traveling the other, sidewalks at both sides and a rather broad one in the middle.  The entire construct was domed. In fact, all of the buildings and edifices on this side of the juggernaut train station were covered in domes.  The sizes varied accordingly, but they flowed together creating a frothing mass, very much like what one would expect to find when viewing primordial soup through a microscope.  The street was illuminated by man-sized Eco-Halogens, making the air about them glare when viewed from a certain angle.  It was harsh, but sufficient, especially since above the domes the weather seemed to have turned for the worse.   Great masses of tumbling clouds and massive swaths of snow were falling at ten times the rate Estefan had 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, and sold for upward of four million exchange credits each, but they were piteously lacking armor and weapons.  Vehicles manufactured by Chaz Motors would look the same, but had 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 were filled to capacity by the security detail.  Within seconds of the last door hissing shut, as it sealed itself from the outside environment, the cars rocketed out into the empty avenue, taking a sweeping right hand transition to the main artery of transportation into the still smoldering city.

Traffic on the opposite side of the highway was bustling, but on their side there was none.  Estefan and his wives watched as at least a score of additional Maserati-Gravs, blocked the crush of vehicles from behind and made sure there were no stragglers up front.  They were moving along the Grav-lanes, traffic barred from getting within one and a half kilometers of them in either direction.  Their speed was fantastic, but 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.

She must’ve been thinking the same thing, because she abruptly signed,
“Why so slow?”
, and 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 and through a replica of the Jaffa Gate, passing Omar Ibn El-Khattab Square and onto a thoroughfare known only as David, but then 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 still, technically, be lying.”

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

“If it were indeed 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 suddenly realized a decent portion of the wall ahead of them was coming apart and beyond 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 nearly closed, the lights flickering on only after they had shut completely.  The drivers lined up the Skycars parallel about ten feet apart, disengaging the engines, unsealing the doors.  The security team jumped out of the vehicles first, forming a protective cordon around the Synod as Estefan and his wives exited their Skycar with Hamza.