Lori stubbornly asked, “And why is that?”
“The Feranites. The Red Hands.”
“Huh?”
“They lost. I saw it when The Order had me the last time. They’re gone now. Actually, they’re worse than gone. Voggoth turned them into something horrible. I think you could say that they’re in Hell, now. All of them across all the universes.”
Jon listened patiently without saying a word, he did not mind going unnoticed by Trevor these days. Yet he had to ask, “Wow, but is Voggoth on some Earth somewhere defending his turf? From what we’ve heard before, he’s not quite like the others.”
Trevor shook his head. “Nope. He is something different, isn’t he? For some reason he’s getting a pass in all this, as if they think of him as something superior. I’m guessing the others kind of see him as a sort of judge or referee.”
Nina jumped, “So he’s covering for them, is that it? Those bastards couldn’t beat us so now he’s doing the job. But if he punches through at the Mississippi they’ll march in and take all the credit, right?”
“I suppose so, yeah.”
Lori Brewer spat, “Who are these things to put us through this? What right have they got?”
Knox laughed but without much humor and pointed out, “Who were the Romans and their gladiatorial games? What about the Aztecs who if they had no one to go to war with would divide up their tribes and fight one another then execute the losers in sacrifice. Or better yet, what about World War I? That wasn’t about anything other than the nations in Europe finally getting sick of each other and wanting to figure out who the better guy was. As insane as all this may seem, it has historical precedent in our own civilization. Guess it isn’t as funny when you’re on this side of the glass.”
“We’re not talking about normal human beings,” Lori protested. “Right, Trevor? The powers behind this are supposed to be more evolved. I’m hearing this is about arrogance and pride. A bunch of pseudo-Gods flexing their beer muscles. They’re supposed to be better.”
That struck a chord with Trevor. He chewed on the idea for several seconds while cross talk created a chaotic atmosphere in the basement.
“Excuse me, now hold on,” Brett Stanton broke the verbal gridlock. Trevor noticed that the man stared directly at him. “Just taking a step back, here-now hold on but it seems to me that you’ve been at the center of this from day one. Mind if I ask what makes you so special?”
“Genetics,” Trevor answered honestly, although that answer confused everyone at the table. “Remember I said that they seeded Earth with the original strand of our basic DNA? Well think of that as a code. Or, I guess, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that were scattered throughout the evolution of man. It ended up that I had most of those pieces in me. For some reason, that made me Johnny on the spot. Ashley had the last remaining pieces in her blood. Together we re-assembled that jigsaw puzzle, every last piece.”
Lori gasped, “Your son? JB?”
Trevor nodded.
Eva Rheimmer asked, “I don’t understand. What is so special about your son?”
“He was the starter’s pistol for the invasion. I don’t know how, but as soon as he was conceived it signaled the beginning. Of course, I didn’t even know I had a son until Ashley re-appeared.”
Shep jumped in, “Hold on. Now there’s a good question. What about those ark-riders? Who made them disappear just as things were heating up? And why?”
“I have no clue,” Trevor admitted.
“There is one clue,” Omar added to the conversation. “When you were abducted to that other Earth, the structure that took you left behind a residual radiation matching the type of radiation left behind in places of mass disappearances.”
“That’s right,” Lori recalled that particular briefing. “So there’s a connection.”
Gordon cleared his throat. “Not only that, but it’s the same residual radiation being left behind in the cities where Voggoth’s creatures have been disappearing as of late. Not the most settling of connections.”
“That structure actually belonged to a type of entity named ‘the Nyx.’” Trevor said for the benefit of those who had forgotten his report after returning from the alternate Earth. “I don’t know how that fits. But I believe Voggoth helped those people on the other Earth get me to their side so that I could help them beat the Chaktaw, who were the home team, if you will. At the same time, that hurt things back here. He kind of tried to kill two birds with-well-with one Stone.”
Shep ignored the quip and pressed another question: “Okay, then, how about this. What’s up with you and those K9s?”
That question reminded Jon of another; one that had bugged him for eleven years. “And where’d you learn to do all the shit you ‘just picked up’? The Richard Stone I knew in the old days could sell Chevys but could not fly an attack helicopter.”
Jon’s tone produced a laugh around the table. Trevor shared the chuckle. It felt good to slip in a moment of levity. Yet as he spoke he worried that the answers would show him to be a fraud. Would these people who had followed him all these years still see him in the same light once the magician’s tricks were revealed?
He answered the second question first.
“I can’t quiet explain it, but I was given the gift of memories. It seems it was their way of balancing things. Trust me, I didn’t want it. But I can fly an attack chopper because I have the memories of a pilot who could. Same with guns and engineering and all that. I don’t know everything, and I’m not perfect at it, either. Still,” Trevor gripped his hands in fists, “You can’t imagine the confidence that gives you-the-the…”
“The power?” Lori finished the thought.
“Yeah. Knowledge really is power.”
“Well I’ll bet that comes in handy,” Brett remarked in a light tone.
Trevor froze; his eyes remained open but stared at something no one else could see. He remembered the images of the infantryman who gave him the skills to use an assault rifle; he remembered breathing that soldier’s last breath. He remembered the rich man who had built the estate and feeling that man’s heart attack as the pressure built in his chest.
“It-it comes with a price,” he told them. The good humor evaporated. “It comes with a responsibility. Most of those memories-maybe all of them-come from people who died. I can feel their dying thoughts.”
Jon shot, “Human memories? Okay, that’s cool. Then why have you been able to figure out a few of those alien devices, like the Eagles?”
Trevor slowly shook his head as he replied, “That’s a good question. I think-I think if I knew the answer it might be useful. But I don’t. Not yet. I think-I think that’s connected to JB somehow, too. I don’t know…” and Trevor faded into a trance again as he tried to unlock that particular mystery.
Shep gained Trevor’s attention by repeating his question, “And the dogs?”
He sighed, shrugged, and said, “I don’t know for sure. I can guess, though. I think-I think…” Trevor paced around the table with his hands in front as if trying to sculpt the answer out of thin air. “Let me put it to you this way. I don’t think nature is as passive as we might think. Maybe nature-our world, if you will-maybe there’s a certain amount of interconnectivity…”
“Um, I’m not quite following you on this one,” Shep said with one of his wise eyes half-cocked like Mr. Spock spying something illogical. “Are you saying God has a hand in this?”
“No, no I don’t think so. Maybe some people might see it that way, I guess that’s sort of in the eye of the beholder. But we know that nature adapts. Usually that happens over the course of decades or centuries. I think the Grenadiers are something along that line; a reaction to the invaders-especially Voggoth-coming to our world.”
Trevor glanced around the room. They wanted more.