The Day of the Nefilim (18 page)

When the missiles hit, they destroyed most of the domes and underground structures instantly and the air exploded out of the others almost as quickly. The side of the hemisphere in which Lieutenant Sider was standing was ruptured by a piece of flying metal, and the last thing that he thought, as the blood boiled from his eyes and the cells in his body began exploding and freezing and he turned into something that was hard and dry and inside out, was that it was a pity that he hadn’t met the aliens.

* * *

THE GENERAL HAD CHOSEN one of the tributaries off the main shaft, and was flying around in a maze of tunnels, looking for a way out.

Thead could tell that things weren’t going well for the General. The bitch Sahrin had wasted a helicopter, and with it a squad of his boys, and the pursuit of the freak ship had been a total disaster. Three more helicopters gone, and thirty men, minus the couple of live ones they’d pulled out of the vortex.

The General’s face was a ghostly white, and it wasn’t just from the reflected glare of the searchlights.

Thead had his own concerns. For a start, he’d realized in the shaft that, like the locals, he couldn’t see his old ship any more. And the feeling of being in two worlds at once, the familiar impression of being in a state of continual transference, was gone. He felt totally, undeniably physical. He’d undergone some sort of shift.

The General had turned the radio down, to get some respite from the torrent of abuse that was coming from the Gore twins. “What the fuck do you think you’re doin’ you little fuck I’m goin’ ram your head up your ass old man just you wait till the SG hears about this you are fucking history old man that’s what you are history and as for following those Nefilim freaks up here you have got no brains you piece of crap I’m gonna…”

“No one forced you to come with us, Vice-Secretary. You could have stayed on the island and finished your movie.” The General flipped the switch on the torrent of abuse, which had just intensified by another degree.

“Not the best time for everyone to get edgy, General,” said Thead. “We’re in trouble here.”

“Do you like the Gores, Thead?”

“That’s irrelevant, General. I’m a scientist. And a philosopher of course, dedicated to the truth.”

The General grunted. “Crap. You’re a nasty little piece of work who would probably be quite happy with those idiots over there.” He nodded towards the Gores’ helicopter.

“You don’t understand me, that’s all,” sniffed Thead. “Apart from which, no, I have no particular feelings for the Vice-Secretarial personalities, one way or the other.”
But it’s becoming increasingly obvious that they are more likely to be of use to me than you are, General,
he thought. The General had been under a dark enough cloud before they had set out on this ill-fated mission, and things would be worse, not better, after this.

They were flying above an underground river. The stink of sewage permeated everything, making them gag and stinging their eyes. Their searchlights fell on a wall of cascading water ahead of them. It was a waterfall, issuing from a great vent at least fifty feet wide, high up in a rock face.

“What is it?” asked Thead, immediately forgetting their recent animosity.

“It’s not natural. Judging by the smell, I’d say it’s a sewer outfall.”

They flew into the sewer’s mouth, the General not caring whether the Gores followed, but they did.

They soon regretted their decision. Their path narrowed and the roof became lower, until finally they were forced to set the helicopter down. When they climbed out, the General, Thead and six soldiers were standing knee-deep in raw sewage.

“Aw, shit,” said one of the soldiers, holding his hand over his mouth. No one laughed.

The Gore twins arrived. As they landed, the wind from their rotors sent a slurry of sewage flying, covering everyone.

“Gas masks,” the General ordered, but he was too late. They were all dripping slime.

The Gores emerged from their helicopter, fully outfitted with orgone breathers, waist-high waders, and portable halogen searchlights.

“A lovely evening for a stroll, Theo.”

“I think so, Alexis. Very fine. And such bouquet.” They were happy, relishing the General’s predicament. They shone their lights down the tunnel. It was long.

“Hmm.”

“Yes. Hmm. Shall we?”

They started walking, trudging through New York’s shit.

How fitting
. His career, once bright and hopeful, had sunk to a new nadir. He’d lost men and helicopters. Two of the top Nefilim were dead and the strangers on the ship had escaped him again.

“Where are we?” asked a soldier.

“Shut up!” The Gore brother fired into the water and laughed as the soldier jumped.

“Jesus,” said the General, “don’t shoot at my boys, please, Vice-Secretary. We might need them.”

“Awfully sorry, General,” replied Alexis. “I’ll try to restrain my brother’s exuberance. But you must surely appreciate a certain… frustration…” Her icy blue eyes blinked behind her gas mask.

They walked for hours, entering passageways and making turns without having any idea where they were going. Finally, just when Thead was beginning to wonder if they would ever get out, a light came into view, beckoning to them from the distance. It was a welcome sight; even the Gores breathed sighs of relief behind their masks.

Shortly afterwards, they emerged from a stormwater drain into bright sunlight. They were standing in the bottom of a viaduct, surrounded by buildings. The water was cleaner here, a fact for which they were all supremely grateful as they washed themselves as well as they could.

The General tried his radio, but it had stopped working. With no choice, they started walking again, until they found a way up onto a street. They stopped at a pay phone. They would have to get someone to come and pick them up.

The skyline told them that they were in New York.
Ironic,
the General thought. There was a good chance that the SG would be in town. The perfect end to a perfect day. Pedestrians walking past held their noses and kept their distance.

He searched through his wet pockets for change for the phone and found none.

“Who’s got a quarter?”

One of the soldiers handed him a coin. The Gores sniggered. The General dialed.

Half an hour later, unmarked vehicles arrived and collected them.

* * *

THE GROUP BLENDED INTO NEW YORK WELL. The streets were a sea of humanity in which there was no danger at all of them standing out. If anything, they were underdressed. The anonymity was reassuring.

Geoca knew the city well. He navigated their way through the streets and to a subway, where they descended into the maelstrom of the city’s subway rush hour. They couldn’t move in the crowded carriage. It was hot and claustrophobic, and the air was hardly breathable.

Finally, after what seemed like several hours but which was actually only one, they were walking through one of the poorer neighborhoods. It felt like a different city, with its narrow untidy streets and dilapidated buildings. Most of the shop windows were covered with metal grills, and the streets were watched over by surveillance cameras.

Reina had always supposed that of all cities, New York was the one to visit, and despite their mission, she was feeling like a tourist. For Bark, Sahrin and the Senator, it was just another large city, with the same frantic energy found in large cities in any place or any time.

It was raining, a gray drizzle that had been going on long enough to fill the gutters, causing the blocked drains to overflow, and turning the newspaper hoardings into an untidy pantheon of soggy, disintegrating newsprint.

“COMET APPROACHES NEAREST POINT,” said one. “H-19 BEST SEEN TONIGHT,” another proclaimed above a grainy blown-up picture of a hazy white object set in a field of black.

“What’s going on? What comet?” asked Reina. They had turned down a side street, and were walking along a row of small shops that sheltered precariously beneath a freeway.

“There is no comet,” replied Geoca. “It’s a lie. It’s Marduk, the Nefilim home planet. Which means that the photon belt is near.”

They came to an antique shop. Geoca pushed the door open and went in. He waited until the others had followed, then locked the door behind them. It was a typical musty and overcrowded junk shop; shelves and displays were piled high with old ceramics, metalware and things made of old wood.

Behind the counter, which was as crowded as any other part of the shop, sat the proprietor, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. “COMET FEVER GRIPS CITY,” the headline read. He looked up and smiled as he recognized Geoca.

“Well, well. I’ve been expecting a visitor, but little did I expect that it would be you! How are you?”

“Tired, but well enough, old man. And you? How is life here on the surface?”

“I can’t complain. Well, I could, but who would listen?” The shopkeeper came out from behind the counter and embraced Geoca. “It’s good to see you. As for life here, I’ve grown used to it. It has qualities about it that grow on one. But I still miss the underworld.” He surveyed the group over the top of his glasses and seemed satisfied with what he saw. “Of course, I never lose sight of my real purpose here. You have the crystal?”

“Of course,” Geoca nodded. “It’s taken some effort and a few lives to get it here.”

“I see. Well, we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But we should proceed. There isn’t much time.”

“Are we close, then?”

“Yes. Very close.” He led them through a narrow door out to the back of the shop, into a small and surprisingly neat living room, furnished with as tasteful a selection of items as the shop’s stock could provide. From there they passed through another door, and down a flight of stairs to an alley behind the shops.

The place was shared by rubbish and rats that scurried away into the corners, and someone’s makeshift bed; an old mattress in a lean-to of cardboard boxes at the end of the lane.

The old man knelt down beside an iron grating set into the wall. “Here it is.”

“Here’s what?” asked Bark and Reina together.

“The node,” replied Geoca.

“This space here,” said the shopkeeper, moving the grating aside. “It’s been watched over for many years. And this is the moment I’ve been waiting for, all that time. Now, if I can have the crystal…”

Sahrin reached into her coat, searched among the grenades she still had there, and produced the crystal. With a sense of relief, she handed it over.

“My, but it’s beautiful.” The shopkeeper admired it for a moment, allowing the antique dealer in him a few seconds of indulgence. His fingers traced its finely cut surfaces.

He placed the crystal into a depression in the floor of the recess. As soon as it was in place, it began to glow with a soft blue light that pulsed gently, like a leisurely heartbeat.

As they watched, gathered around the opening in the wall as though it was a campfire on a cold night, the crystal appeared to expand. Then they saw that it wasn’t the crystal itself that was growing, but rather its influence. It was as though it was taking over the rock that surrounded it. The blue light spread out in fine tendrils that slowly solidified, forming into thicker lines of force that disappeared underground.

“The paths of the Stream,” the shopkeeper breathed, his voice lowered. “They will keep growing until they meet with the energy lines of the other crystals that have been placed at the other nodes, and between them they will continue to grow, until eventually the Stream will cover the planet. And it will create a new world in the process.”

“How long will it take?” asked Bark. He was impressed.

Reina thought it was quite beautiful. “I want one,” she said.

“Soon, my dear, everyone will be able to have as many of these as they want,” the shopkeeper replied.

“No one knows how long it will take,” Geoca said. “The last time this was done was over a quarter of a million years ago. And then, as far as we know, there was nothing competing with it.”

“What could be competing with it?” Bark had forgotten what Sahrin had told him about the Nefilim grid.

The shopkeeper placed an old cardboard box over the crystal to conceal the glow, and replaced the grating. “The Nefilim grid. An unnatural thing, an abomination. Hideous in its genesis and hideous in its maintenance. It will fight for its survival, we can be sure of that.”

“And we’ll fight to destroy it,” said Geoca. “Of that you can be equally sure.”

They were finished here. They went back inside, where the shopkeeper opened an old bottle of Madeira and disappeared into the kitchen to cook a meal.

And they were all, they realized as they sat down to plates piled high with meat and vegetables covered with a rich sauce, hungry. After they had finished eating, which took quite some time, and were feeling mellowed by the Madeira, which took not much time at all, the shopkeeper cleared his throat and changed the topic of conversation, which had been relaxed and casual until then. Everyone had enjoyed a respite from the trials that they had been through.

He set his glass down. “As the Stream grows, it will be in ever-greater conflict with the Nefilim grid. There are interesting times coming. There will be much turbulence, and the photon belt will only be the first of it.”

“But I’m afraid,” he said, filling their glasses, “that there has been an unfortunate occurrence. One of our messengers has disappeared. He was carrying a crystal to the Antarctic. We don’t yet know exactly what happened to him, in fact we may never know. He could have been captured, although for his sake I hope not.”

“The empty node is a problem. It is a matter of urgency that a crystal be placed there. If the geometry isn’t complete, the Stream will not have the balance necessary for it to grow properly, and there is no telling how it will develop.”

The others exchanged glances around the table.

“So you want us to deliver another crystal, then?” asked Bark. “It will have to be a communal decision, of course.”

They had all seen enough to know what was at stake. “We’ll do it,” said Reina, and the rest of them nodded. Having gone this far, turning back wasn’t an option.