West frowned, stopped moving, looked down at Patra. “I was? Sorry. I don’t remember.”
“It was beautiful. Whatever it was.” Her hand still rested on his side. West turned away from her, walked a short distance.
“They’re getting closer. I can feel them. Hell, it was probably Richter humming that song, not me. He always hummed or whistled. It annoyed the hell out of me.”
“You’re sure it’s them?”
“It’s them.”
“How many are coming?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Two, maybe three. I can’t tell… There should only be two others, unless MSI released some of the prisoners without telling us.”
“Prisoners?”
“The Styx who were placed on Santa Fosca. The ones we didn’t kill after Chicago.”
“Chicago.”
“Yeah, it was a small town in Illinois, population forty-two million, home of the Bears and the Bulls and my kind of town. You’ve heard of it, right? I believe you were sightseeing in that lovely city when first we met, Miss Jennings.”
She gave him a very dirty look and sat down against the wall of the chamber. The orb illuminated her face with slivers of light and shadow. West sat down next to her.
“What happened in Chicago, Adam?”
He stared silently ahead at the orb of stars for a moment, then turned and looked sadly into Patra’s silver eyes. “We tasted blood for the first time in Montreal. We walked over the piles of Seventh Assault’s bodies that covered the streets and we retook the city from the French by walking into their bunkers and killing them. Nothing they had could stop us. The images of the peace accords, the videos of your father signing the Containment Line agreement with the French Premier, all of it was faked. There were no Quebs left when we were through cleaning out the city. We made sure of that.
“You want to know what happened in Chicago? I’ll tell you. We were sent in to contain the rioting after all those churches were bombed. We were sent in to protect the First-Amendment rights of the New White party when they held their reactionary rally. What Milicom didn’t anticipate was the arrival of half a million protesters who started tearing the city apart to get at those racist bastards. We were given the authority to end the riots using any means necessary. Well, some of the Styx felt that using deadly force was the only option, and they opened fire on the crowds, going through the city and killing thousands. We chased after them, tried to save as many civilians as we could.
“It was that taste of blood, the mission to Montreal… The earlier levels of Styx weren’t the safest people to be around in the first place. Convicts, mental patients, people with a history of violence. People who wouldn’t be missed if they didn’t make it back from the light. It wasn’t until level H that Milicom felt confident enough in the orb entry process to send regular soldiers in.
“There were so many wounded and dead in Chicago that day. The Styx who’d opened fire realized what they’d done and fled into the city, trying to escape from Milicom. Those of us who’d stopped them from killing more people were sent after them, since we were the only soldiers capable of bringing them back in. Most of them had to be killed. Some were sent to Santa Fosca. Three of us were hidden.
“It was that taste of blood that woke up their desire to kill again. Eventually, the Milicom Damage Control department had to mindwipe most of the people in Chicago. Subliminal programming on the radio, television, weblink. Most people forgot the Chicago incident. I never did, and I never will.”
Patra had listened in silence, eyes half-closed and staring out blankly from her head. She reached out without looking and took West’s large rough hand in her own small, silver hand. She spoke, looking into the light lazily illuminating their faces.
“Where did you come from? And why’d they have to use you as a weapon?”
West looked over at Patra, not sure if she was addressing the orb or him.
The orb did not answer her questions. They sat in the darkness of the orb chamber, waiting for everything and nothing and the end of the world. West eventually leaned over and he was met halfway by Patra. They held each other in the dim light of the orb until a dull thud from above and a sudden flare-up from within the sphere brightened the room for the briefest of moments.
Patra looked into West’s eyes, which began to shimmer with an inner silver fire. He touched the left side of her face and gently kissed her right cheek.
“It’s beginning.”
a disturbance. the silence is broken.
THE CONTAGION ARRIVES. THE VIRUS APPROACHES.
THE STAR((?))
IT IS FINISHED. THE UPLOAD IS COMPLETE. WE AWAKEN FROM THE STILLNESS.
DIVERT FORCES TO VIRAL INTERCEPT.
WE WILL ERADICATE THE CONTAGION. WE WILL END THE JUDAS VIRUS FOREVER.
PURPOSE BE.
Three miles outside of Diablo.
“Simon?”
He turned, looked up in the direction of Maggie’s lifted arm and pointed finger. “Is it an eclipse?” Their shadows elongated on the frost-covered ground. In the sky, the gray veil had melted from the atmosphere, and for an instant, the sun flashed with its former brilliance.
“I don’t know…”
The sun flashed as it had before, but now it faded, a black pinpoint at its center. The stars came out. Simon was somehow relieved that stars still filled the sky. They had been absent from the heavens for over a month year? decade?.
The points of starlight stretched toward the sun, became white lines of fire. Light was being pulled into the sun.
“Jesus… They’ve made a black hole.” Hayes calmly concluded. “We’re being pulled in.”
The sky was becoming darker. The chill was gone from the air. In fact, it was becoming unpleasantly warm. What will it feel like to die in the sun?
They ran.
Richter basked in the cold light.
He had expected this development. He knew not why.
There would be no more whistling in this lifetime. He would have to leave soon.
Fourteen miles.
He ran.
Just beyond reality, the Enemy converged.
THE PURPOSE WILL BE COMPLETED. THE VIRUS WILL BE ELIMINATED. ETERNITY WILL BE OURS.
The Judas erupted into the When.
They could see it, like an accusing finger jutting into the fading sky, blemishing the southern horizon.
“Diablo,” Flynn intoned.
STAR COLLAPSE INITIATED.
HARVEST OF THIS WHEN IS THEREFORE COMPLETED. THE LOSS OF THE UPLOAD GENERATOR IS A BEARABLE LOSS NOW, BUT THE JUDAS HAVE SHOWN THEIR PRESENCE. THIS SITUATION MUST BE DEALT WITH.
YES.
WEB BREACH INITIATED BY THE JUDAS CAUSED CONSIDERABLE DAMAGE TO THE PRIMARY PATTERN.
NECESSARY FORCES WILL BE DOWNLOADED FROM THE PATTERN TO COMBAT THE THREAT AND GUARANTEE OUR CARGO’S SAFE TRANSPORT.
HOW LONG((?))
STAR COLLAPSE TOTALITY IN POINT EIGHT DECEMS.
ANOTHER WHEN HOLE WE WILL THEN HOLD. ANOTHER REALITY WILL BE RETURNED TO ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE IN THE OMEGA PATTERN. ANOTHER STEP TOWARD ERADICATING THE JUDAS VIRUS WILL BE SUCCESSFUL.
THE PURPOSE COMES UPON US WITH GREAT SPEED.
PURPOSE BE.
They walked through the dead town, finding no one.
The mine elevator was still functional. They descended.
“It’s down there,” Flynn whispered. “And something else…I can feel it…”
((the enemy is upon us, michael.))
“Yes, Simon.” Zero-Four calmly thrust his arms into the interface gauntlets, felt the reassuring lock that fused his mind to Simon’s.
((malachi and shiva signal their arrival.))
Zero-Four uneasily released his pressure from the interface gauntlets. He contemplated…
“Let’s hold our fire for now, Simon. Let’s see what they can do. Let’s see if they do anything at all.”
((yes, michael.))
They waited.
Richter looked into the shadows.
Two elevators, one already closed. He thought he heard something deep below him, perhaps felt a vibration from within the earth, but dismissed it as his imagination.