“Hey, what is this?” Hayes looked as disoriented as Michael felt.
“Ignore it. It’s an illusion.” Guy’s gaze never wavered, fixed on the door. He reached out, his arm extending like a rubber toy when he placed a hand against cool metallic surface. The delusion ended, snapping the hallway back into normal focus. “Dr. Stein. Would you be so kind as to use your entry key?”
Stein placed his hand on the panel, giving Guy a nervous glance. “What exactly do you think you’ll find in here?”
“Absolution.” Guy’s voice was so different that Michael had to take another look. He’d never heard hope from Guy before.
Stein shook his head. “Then you’ve come to the wrong place.”
Guy just looked at him. Stein sighed and tapped in his key code. The door slid open with a serpentine hiss, expelling jets of vapor.
A bioroid stood in the doorway; black as pitch, still as a statue.
For a long moment no one moved. The bioroid shifted its head from side to side as if scanning them. Its sightless gaze lingered longest on Guy.
Michael’s finger tightened on the trigger of his gun.
The bioroid turned and strode away on silent feet. Michael exchanged glances with Guy, who shrugged.
“Let’s go.”
“It’s got to be a trap.”
“It’s definitely a trap. But what choice do we have?” He led the way into the control room.
Michael’s mouth dropped open as they entered. The interior was completely different from the clean, streamlined look of the rest of the facility. It was a massive, nightmarish configuration of gunmetal steel platforms, winking lights, haphazardly positioned consoles, and ropes of cables and wires that hung from the towering constructs like vines from synthetic tree limbs. Moving figures were barely visible — more of the black-outfitted bioroids. They soundlessly moved and tended to unknown tasks on the ground and catwalks built into the walls and support frames.
A rounded portal centered the room, framed by dark metallic latticework, a tower that stretched upward to heights so vast the apex was lost to sight. A massive violet-white cord of near-blinding energy crackled within the tower, pulsing with deep thrums that rattled the chamber. Michael had seen a similar phenomenon before on the roof the mill, but that instance seemed pitiful in the face of what was in front of him. The chamber was another world, a tribute to a cybernetic god who communed from a digital heaven. They were just ants, insects crawling among the whirring gears of a clock tower, ignorant of its grandiose mechanisms. All he knew was the energy being harnessed was beyond anything humanity had seen before.
He was staring at the end of the world.
“This is nuts.” Hayes stared around like a lost, frightened child. “Must be the center of that tower we saw outside. How do we stop something like this?”
Michael shook his head, wincing. His ability to concentrate was severely challenged by the nearness of the energy tower. His eyes were pulled to the galvanic beam, his body tingled from head to toe. Hairs lifted from his arms and scalp, his mind flashed with static. For an instant the violet energy stream flashed, a million screaming faces shimmered within before disintegrating into flickers of brilliant light.
“What is this place?”
Dr. Stein whimpered from where he huddled behind Hayes. “The Threshold. Built directly over the anomaly in the ocean.”
“The anomaly?”
“The wormhole. It forms a bridge between our world and the Other side. Every occurrence of what you know as Aberrations has sprang from this point of origin. But without a proper Threshold, the effects are haphazard and chaotic. This was built to repair that error. Those on the Other side will enter our world without restriction, claiming this world for themselves.”
“Not if we stop it.”
“You fool. Do you think we’d be allowed in here if there were even a remote chance of that happening? Look around you. This can’t be stopped. It can’t even be understood.”
“You don’t know Guy.”
Stein gave Michael a pitying look. “If you think you do, you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”
Michael glanced at Guy, who moved toward the main tower with the reverential approach of a proselyte to a massive idol.
“There’s the nuke.”
Guy approached the base of the massive turret, where a cylindrical apparatus was attached inside a housing connected by wires and suspended above a heavily armored tubular spout. The nuke looked so tiny, completely insignificant against all that encompassed it. Guy methodically checked the device before tapping his earpiece. The conversation crackled in Michael’s ear via his own headset.
“Team two, this is Guy. Do you copy?”
“Copy. This is Blackwell. We’ve been attacked. Charlie Foxtrot… is dead.”
Michael heard Hayes groan from behind him. Guy accepted the news without a change of expression.
“I’ve found the nuke. I need the access code to activate it.”
“Thank God. The code is Delta One Alpha Niner Bravo Four Oscar Five Mike Bravo. You should get an option to set the timer. Max is fifteen minutes.”
“Not a lot of time.”
“Not meant to be. Set it and get out of there, Guy. We’ll meet you at the sub.”
“If we’re not there, take off without us, understood?”
There was only a brief pause at the other end. “Understood.”
The channel went dead.
Guy nodded to Michael and Hayes. “Better get going.”
“You’re not coming with us?”
Guy shook his head. “I’ll wait until you get to the sub before setting the timer. Should give you enough time to get clear.”
“But… you’ll die.”
Guy’s face remained impassive. “I was never a part of this world, Michael. This is where it ends for me. You should get going.”
Hayes started for the door. “Sounds good to me. Come on, Michael.”
Michael hesitated, unsure of why he felt so unsettled.
Hayes gestured frantically. “Come on!”
Michael stared at Guy, who stood like an effigy against the backdrop of the gargantuan tower of sizzling energy. Shadows advanced and were shoved back by the flashes of blazing light, a display of conflict that flickered around Guy, darkening and illuminating his stony face. Only his eyes seemed alive, glimmering with the terrible truth.
Michael’s voice trembled. “You’re… not going to destroy the tower, are you?”
Hayes stopped in his tracks. “What do you mean, he’s not gonna destroy it? He has to destroy it. We came in here to destroy it.”
Michael took an apprehensive step toward the stranger he thought he knew. “A nuke is nothing compared to the raw power being housed in here right now. It won’t destroy the aberrant energy, much less destroy the Threshold.”
“No.”
“What are you doing, then?”
“Opening the Threshold.”
Michael flinched. The indifferently spoken words were like a searing lash across his face. “No. No, that’s not true, Guy.”
Guy went on as if he didn’t hear Michael. “The nuke will be funneled to the wormhole on the ocean floor. The resulting explosion will destroy the barrier, allowing the entire stream of energy to pass through unhindered.” He pointed to the massive turret. “This tower will project the eruption into the atmosphere, where it will amalgamate with our world.”
Hayes reached for his pistol. “The Aberration is controlling him. We have to take him out before it’s too late!”
Michael motioned for Hayes to stand down, keeping his gaze fixed on Guy. “Amalgamate? Isn’t that what you’ve been fighting against? Don’t you Wardsmen prevent Aberrations from taking over the world?”
“Aberrations, yes. But this isn’t an Aberration I’m talking about. Aberrations are chaotic eruptions of psionic waste, the worst of humanity’s mental condition. But there is a flip side: the DEIS code.”