Fractime Prophesy (Part 3)

Chapter 25

  Plus: 24 Jan 2076

  Jen had just given her mission pack to her aide to stow when Major Timberin caught up with her in her lower-level mountain office.

  "Thirty minutes until mission debrief," he said. "Intel confirms a continued increase in enemy movement and chatter."

  "They're coming," Jen said, stating the obvious.

  Timberin nodded agreement. "Love what you've done to the place," he said looking around.

  Her office had no desk just a table pushed against one wall opposite a bookcase filled mostly with rare military history and astronomy hardbound books. Two chairs, alone in the middle of the office, looked out of place. Jen thought the major must have been in her office at least once since she moved to the mountain base, but could not remember exactly when.

  "Thanks," she said deadpan. "Coffee?" Rank still had its privileges on essential rations, quality notwithstanding.

  Timberin just shook his head. "So the Chinese were helpful after all."

  "Seems so," Jen said pouring a mug of steaming coffee from a dispenser on the table. "Especially, General Su Zhong. Grew up in Brooklyn. Rich family. Diplomats."

  "Yeah, I saw the file."

  "Did it say cowboy?"

  "Kind of." Timberin laughed.

  "So," Jen said, "you come down here to hear things you already know, or are you just slumming it?

  "Well, there's something interesting on the bugs feed."

  "You figure out the insignia on the uniform?"

  "No, not yet. That looks tricky."

  Jen looked at the major. "Any thoughts on where the energy beams could have come from?"

  "Who else besides the Chinese had the coordinates?" Timberin said and shrugged his shoulders.

  "Us." Jen knew the possibility of yet another infiltration was good.

  "We've just received the recon rovers feed from the Chinese," Timberin said. "It's cued up for your debrief. Maybe it will shed some light on the subject if they haven't manipulated the data. But back to the bugs' feed—"

  "I lost a whole swarm," Jen said, "two hundred next generation. For next to nothing."

  "You lost my pets!" The voice came from the doorway. It was Higgs and Lieutenant Brasca was standing behind to him.

  "Higgs!" Jen said seeing her old friend. "I knew you'd make it somehow. Lieutenant, welcome to Center. I guess we are calling here Plus now."

  "Thank you Colonel," Tye said over Higgs' shoulder.

  "Good to see you both," Major Timberin said and then cleared his throat mockingly.

  "Come in," Jen said, "The major was just about to show us the feed from your pets, Rodney. They preformed perfectly by the way."

  Rodney beamed. "Colonel, I've brought you a present from Prime." He handed Jen a metallic case. "I thought these could be of better use here."

  "Prime," she repeated, surprised.

  "A Family secret," Higgs said looking at Tye.

  Jen gently opened then quickly shut the case. Based on reports from Prime, she recognized the enemy's nano weapon. They could come in handy, but it would be a last resort.

  She looked back to Timberin. "I've watched the feed at least a hundred times; I can't say I ever saw anything interesting. Maybe there's something in infrared?"

  "It's what you couldn't see that's interesting," Timberin said as he activated her office workstation. "Here are the last few seconds from sub-flock two."

  The hologram showed the room as Jen remembered. Two doors, one opposite the other, one open, one closed and the low platform centered in the room. Each bug had a tiny red symbol above it to help identify its position. Most hovered around the parameter, but several flew madly about the room as if on patrol."

  "Beautiful," Higgs just managed to say just before the screen went white, and then black.

  Everyone, except Timberin, had a dejected look on their face.

  "Okay, what didn't I see?" Jen asked, breaking the silence.

  "Let's look at an expanded time scale," Timberin said, "the last fraction of a second, three hundredths to be exact. Too brief for the human brain to register."

  This time the hologram looked exactly as before, but the bugs on patrol in the room were barely moving.

  Then Tye gasped as figure appeared on the platform and then muttered something in a language Jen did not recognize; it did not sound kind.

  The figure wore a full pressure suit. The patina and pitting suggested it was ancient. Timberin stopped time, and rotated the figure for a complete view.

  "There is only one-hundredth of a second left in the data capture, but notice that bug has attached itself to the helmet," Timberin said pointing into the image.

  "Pre-programmed infiltration routine," Higgs said proudly as the hologram went white then black again. "But it must have been close."

  "You recognized that Lieutenant. What is it?" Jen asked as Timberin replayed a slowly rotating image of the suit.

  Tye ran her fingers through her short braids. "It is goodlife and by the looks of the transit suit, a full keeper. But how?" she said looking at Higgs in disbelief.

  "A keeper?" Timberin asked.

  "A type of goodlife," Tye replied. "Goodlife are dedicated to serving an ancient machine race. But a keeper is specialized goodlife, often a human hybrid, always critical somehow to the operation of the machine's prime directive."

  "These machines," Jen said, "What—"

  Tye interrupted her, "They have had many names. The family had long given up on the speculation that one could be behind this war. We have surveyed all the inner and outer planets, even under the seas of Titan and Ganymede." She appeared lost in thought as she said softly, "The Leadership is goodlife."

  "These machines are weapons?" Jen asked.

  "To call them a weapon is an understatement of the worse kind," Tye replied. "Billions of solar years ago they were created as a weapon of intimidation. These machine-controlled AI ships are the final solution to war, doomsday machines out of control. Self-replicating, they scour the universe still on their perverse mission. They have evolved into various types like the Torus ships that attacked Fenube-6 and even possibly the advanced cyborg hives of and their infamous prism ships."

  "And their mission?" Jen asked wondering what a hive of cyborgs would look like and shuttered.

  "Destroy all organic life," Tye said solemnly.

  The room fell silent; they were transfixed on the slowly rotating suited figure.

  "That would explain the Fermi Paradox," Higgs said putting his arm around Tye. "The Drake equation suggests there lots of life out there, but we've never met any. These machines seem a plausible reason."

  Tye looked at him solemnly and nodded.

  "There's more," Timberin said. "The bug that attached itself to the keeper was not destroyed with the others."

  "I guess the bug could have been shielded by the suit somehow," Higgs speculated.

  Timberin continued, "Its feed continued, but because it left the contact distance threshold of the colonel's pad, it was saved to internal memory and later dumped into another directory."

  "Probably not the best programming," Higgs added rubbing his chin while still looking at the suited figure.

  "So, where did it go?" Tye asked anxiously.

  "And as a result," Timberin continued, "the feed was never shared with the Chinese. Good thing your extraction was delayed or your pad may have never uploaded it." He looked at Tye. "Here's where that bug went."

  The keeper disappeared, and Jen's office filled with what looked like an object resembling a metallic soccer ball but one kicked a few times too many.

  "Sorry," Timberin said as he reduced the scale so no one stood within the image. A minuscule red icon was all that indicated the Keeper and the bug hitchhiker, floated in space well beyond the object. "Five sides with detail were captured in this image," he said. "The other sides were reconstructed based on the apparent geometry of the object. It was lucky that the bug was facing it."

  Tye grabbed Higgs hand.
"It is a dodec," she said, "a very primitive Type. Not much is known about this version as most have evolved into other structures; cubes and spheres being the most recent."

  Jen saw that the pentagonal sides in the bug's field of view had numerous pits and several had large holes. The remaining reconstructed sides were featureless. "Do we have a scale on this?"

  "It's only slightly smaller than our moon," Timberin replied solemnly.

  The group fell silent. Jen looked at Timberin, who shook his head with a subtle shrug of his shoulders.

  "That's one big dodecahedron," Higgs said awestruck.

  "The star field," Tye said apprehensively, "can I see it."

  Timberin changed the constructed image to the real bugs-eye view. The dodec filled the majority of the field of view. The area surrounding the dodec was only darkness.

  "There are no stars," Tye said, stating the obvious.

  Jen noticed Tye gently squeeze Higgs hand.

  "Tye?" Jen asked.

  "Null space," Tye replied. "The boundary between all the fractimes in the multiverse."

  Jen glanced at Timberin with raised eyebrows, but he was still staring at the dodec's image.

  "To date, the existence of null space was only a theory," Higgs added.

  "There's a bit more to the memory feed," Timberin said and played the last segment.

  The dodec vanished replaced by a wall with a doorway, similar to the previous room and then the feed went blank. Jen thought she saw a blurry figure in the doorway.

  "It looks like the keeper made a transitional transit to null space close to the dodec only to transit into another room at the same complex. Can't be sure, just seems to fit," Timberin said.

  "But why?" Jen asked.

  "To escape the barrage?" Tye speculated.

  "But why not into the dodec?" Jen asked.

  "Maybe its emergency transit routine needed some extra space to compensate for any geospatial errors given the microsecond decision to escape," Higgs offered.

  No one else had any answers or speculation.

  "Okay," Jen said staring at the strange patterns on the sides of the dodec, "the shows over until the official debrief in a few minutes."

  Except for Timberin and Jen, junior officers filled an upper-level conference room as proxy for their superiors who were in their own summit concerning recent enemy movements.

  Watkins, sitting across from her, brought John Mackinac to Jen's mind. She forced herself to re-focused on Timberin as he finished the review of the bugs feed.

  "The next data are from the Chinese recon rover," Timberin said as the images captured by Higgs bugs played to their finish. "As you know," he continued, "the rover was able to obtain a star fix to determine the date, February twelfth, 2085. And while trained on the night sky during the bombardment it also captured these pictures." He reduced the rooms lighting and projected the imagery on the room's two-dimensional screen.

  Bright streaks, Jen instantly recognized as the attacking energy beams, emanated from a distant point source. Just as she was about to suggest a closer look at the beam's source, Timberin zoomed the image and followed a dark, matte, delta-winged ship.

  "It's less than ten meters in length," Timberin said and zooming again, the inscription 'USS Forever-G' clearly became legible as the craft slowly preformed a split-s and continued its fire on the complex below.

  "Well that makes the Time Corps primary suspects," Jen said looking at Tye. "And does anyone know what USS stands for?"

  "USS is the Confederation acronym for United Space Ship," Tye said. "The Forever is a shuttle-class timeship employing a hyper-impulse drive. It would likely operate from a mother ship in the 29th century. Of course, the exact fractime of origin is indeterminable from the available data."

  "But how did they discover the transit hub's location?" Timberin asked.

  "When is a better question," Jen said thoughtfully. "But now we have an enemy offensive to counter," she added with a sigh. "Intel indicates a major attack, on both east and west Rocky Mountain fronts is imminent. Lieutenant Watkins is hereby promoted to captain and will liaise with the militia groups digging in around Colorado and Utah. Major Timberin will coordinate the mountain defense. More details will come after the war summit this afternoon. Good luck everyone."

  As they were leaving the briefing room, Tye caught Jen, drawing her aside. "I have to notify the Family of these developments," she said "but first I must talk to you Colonel. I can offer an explanation but—"

  "Please do," Jen interrupted.

  "We have to meet with the Family, but not here, not now and with John Mackinac."

  "Mackinac?" Jen asked rhetorically. "Not the legend thing?"

  "I believe Captain Mackinac's destiny in these matters cannot be ignored further. Especially now we can prove a machine is behind the war."

  "You want me to leave now with an attack eminent and our backs against the proverbial wall."

  "The Forever raises more questions than I can answer. A direct attack that far downline is unusual for the Time Corps even after a Sojourn."

  Jen knew Jenny trusted Tye, but leaving now seemed unthinkable.

  "I fear that without those answers," Tye said, "soon there may be no wall to back against. We must leave now."

  Jen considered Tye's violet eyes and knew she was implying the possibility of the complete erasure of Center by the Time Corps.

  "Colonel?" Tye said returning Jen's eye-to-eye gaze.

  "What the hell, let's go," Jen relented.

  William Lutzger paced his cell. It was over a month since Johnston left with Cliff and the huge mutant. A small, elderly woman brought food and water every morning and emptied his bucket, but he had seen no one else. He had tried to start a conversation with the woman, but she remained silent each morning.

  His cell, off to one side in Johnston's office, was five steps from end to end and he could just touch his fingertips against bars on each side. He reflected on how many other poor bastards she may have held captive in the cage. Revenge was on his mind as he started the first of his afternoon sit-up reps, but the office's door opening interrupted his thoughts.

  "What the fuck? Who are you?" the man said in a high, whiny voice. He was dressed entirely in a black suit, including a black waistcoat.

  "What's it to you asshole and who the fuck are you?" Lutzger replied coolly looking the guy up and down mid crunch.

  "I'm goodlife administrator Slangtong. This is my sector," he said taking out a pad from a pouch on his belt. "Security," he spoke at it, "we have a cleanup in the commander's old office." He looked at Lutzger with distain. "You'll talk. They always do with the Synth. What are you doing in the commander's cell? Some kinky experiment of hers? I've heard she was into that sort of thing. Very unprofessional."

  Lutzger stood up and stared at the man through his cell's bars. "Slang," he said and then spit on the administrators left shoe. "I'm Kharg. The new cull master."

  "Security, cancel that last order," he said hastily at his pad. "This is most unusual; the Prophesy says your file is under repair."

  Lutzger continued to glare at the bizarre, little man.

  "I…I'll find the key override." Slang nervously thumbed his pads screen until the cell door opened.

  "Where is the commander?" Lutzger demanded, stepping out of his cell and taking a deep breath. "After weeks in this cell, I have a few things to discuss with her."

  "She's dead along with the crew of her command aircraft, but the war's ending and victory will be ours to enjoy in the Promised Land beyond the barrier."

  Lutzger walked around Johnston's office taking stock of anything that might be useful. "What's this barrier?"

  "It marks the end times. The Prophesy says it to be so. All downline transfers have stopped, and we are preparing for the departure."

  "Ah, the Prophesy," Lutzger said nodding as if he knew what this lunatic was saying.

  "We assumed you were on the command craft. I must cancel the request for anot
her cull master. It's been very difficult to replace you in these late times," he said inputting more instructions into his pad. "There's not much time. We have to prepare goodlife for the journey. I'll escort you to the upline transfer platform. It's not far."

  Slang studied his pad for a moment and then said, "From there, there's an aircraft waiting to take us to the hub."

  "Good and about time. We are already running behind," Lutzger said snatching the pad containing the dead cull master's mission brief from Johnston's desk.