Same goes for the panther that stalked us for a couple miles. That feline sonofabitch was so assured of its status as apex land predator in the area, it barely made any attempt at stealth. It just prowled alongside us at a distance of no more than a dozen yards, sometimes lurking in thickets of bald cypress but mostly giving us a clear, unimpeded view of its tawny pelt and loping strides, as though saying, Screw you, humans. You’re on my turf. Deal.
Then we came to the perimeter fence.
Or what was left of the perimeter fence.
Chain-link mesh tangled in weeds and thick vines, it was more like a sagging wall of greenery. Plenty of handholds and toeholds. We climbed over it as easily as if it were a child’s jungle gym, and paid no mind whatsoever to the sign posted on top which read:
FORBIDDEN ZONE
ENTRY STRICTLY PROHIBITED
ON PAIN OF DEATH
BY DIVINE DECREE
Because, well, that was kind of the whole point of being there, wasn’t it? To enter this STRICTLY PROHIBITED location? With the degree of heat we were packing we were already in violation of so many divine decrees that traipsing around in the forbidden zone would be the least of the Templars’ concerns should we be caught.
Once we were safely the other side of the fence, McCreedy crossed himself. Spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch, as the old joke goes. But he did it with the Sig in his hand, the fat suppressor threaded on the end of the barrel tapping the four points on his body. I guess, just in case his capital-G God was otherwise engaged, the semiauto offered an extra layer of reassurance. When prayer doesn’t work, a 10mm subsonic round can often fill the gap.
Ahead, beyond an undulating landscape of grass and wild shrubbery, the buildings of the old Kennedy Space Center loomed.
“Our intel’s good, isn’t it?” Jorgensen piped up. “Just asking.”
“Bit late for that,” said Lind. “We’re already committed.”
“But if we’ve gone to all this trouble and we get to those buildings and it turns out there’s nothing inside worth risking our necks for…”
“The intel’s good,” I said, with perhaps more confidence than I felt. Luminous shared information across its various networks as best it could, but communications were never straightforward and messages could be intercepted, corrupted, falsified. You couldn’t completely rely on what anyone said. “Now’s as good a time as any to tell you that this mission isn’t only about looking for proof about the Savior Gods,” said Roth.
I arched an eyebrow. “It isn’t?”
“No. That’s a secondary objective. They’re aliens. That’s pretty much taken as read. It’s the only possible explanation for their enhanced abilities and their apparent immortality. We believe they fled from a world far in advance of ours, technologically speaking. They’re not messiahs, just intergalactic scammers — a bunch of chancers who spied an opportunity to lord over a stunted, backwards civilisation and seized it with both hands. And if we can find anything to confirm that, great. Cool. High-fives all round.”
“But…?” Lind prompted.
“But… after the Savior Gods arrived and began throwing their weight around, NASA began working on methods of negating their powers, levelling the playing field for us mere mortals. The eggheads examined whatever of their tech they could scavenge from the Forty-eight Hour War and took it to pieces trying to find out what made it tick. There were even attempts to reverse-engineer Dominions’ blast-lances and flight capability. The goal was a weapon that could bring down gods.”
Jorgensen let out a low whistle.
“For the longest time we were under the impression they didn’t get very far, though,” Roth went on. “The Big Twelve caught wind of what was up and flew in to personally Sodom and Gomorrah’d the shit out of the place. Scorched earth, motherfucker. The NASA guys never stood a chance. That day, religion disproved science.”
“But doesn’t that imply there’s nothing here now?” I said. “The Twelve would have been thorough cleaning the place out surely.”
“New intel suggests it’s possible something survived. Sources claim the rocket scientists were in fact closer to their goal than anyone realised. They may even have achieved it.” Roth paused. “Somewhere on the premises there may well be something that can kill a god.”
McCreedy broke the silence that followed. “‘May’ being the operative word. What are the odds?”
“No idea,” Roth admitted, “but whatever they are, I’m willing to take the gamble. We should all be. The potential reward is just too damn valuable.”
Lind and McCreedy both looked skeptical, whereas Jorgensen was nodding avidly.
“So,” I said, “we continue to treat this as a regular op, only with possible fringe benefits. Huge ones.”
“I had a girlfriend like that once,” Jorgensen said, clutching two handfuls of empty air at chest height. “Huge benefits.”
“Oh, shut up,” Lind said, thwacking his meaty biceps with a fist.
Jorgensen grinned impishly through his thick, Scandinavian-pale beard. “Better equipped than you in that respect, darling. But she couldn’t shoot the wings off a gnat like you can.”
“And the balls off a Norwegian, too, if necessary.”
“I love it when you try to emasculate me.”
“You won’t love it when I actually do.”
“Enough foreplay you two,” I said. “We’ve tyrants to dethrone.”
The brief moment of levity over, Lind transitioned back into default ice-cold operator mode. Jorgensen gave me an appreciative wink, and as a group we closed in on the Space Center. We moved slow through the waist-high grass, keeping a low profile and taking advantage of the concealment provided by unkempt foliage. Despite his size, Jorgensen proved to be quite stealthy. Lind moved effortlessly, gliding through the grass like a snake, but to my utter amazement Padre McCreedy gave her a run for her money. Roth tried his damnedest to keep up but I couldn’t help but cringe, expecting a barrage of bullets to blast us apart with every clumsy, squelching footstep he took.
Mercifully the Templars had ceased patrolling that far out from the facilities years ago, and with the distraction at Redemptionland there was only a skeleton crew on station. As we drew closer, I recognized the charred carcass of the Vehicle Assembly Building and had an urge to do my best Charlton Heston impression circa ’68 — You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell! — but refrained. I’d estimate only a third of the buildings remained standing, and even those Mother Nature was fighting for sovereignty over. If the weeds sprouting up through crumbling asphalt and the kudzu blanketing walls and abandoned vehicles were any indication, the Templars were losing that particular war.
We stopped to allow Roth to get his bearings in the alien landscape. He removed a battered old map and a penlight from his kit. We surrounded him, blocking the light from line-of-sight with our bodies while he worked. We heard the Templar well before we spotted him — stomping around through the undergrowth and whistling a melody from an early 2000s pop song. He stepped out from behind a collapsed structure fifty meters ahead and moved toward us, the torch mounted on his coilgun sweeping lazily back and forth; the product of lax discipline and long hours at an uneventful post.