Jeremy Robinson - Blackout

Carutius glanced back quizzically, prompting her to add, “It’s from Harry Potter. A snake that can turn people into stone just by looking at them.”

“I’m familiar with the mythological creature,” he rumbled, with what almost sounded like approval. “In this case, our basilisk triggered a strange matter reaction. It changed the atomic mass of every particle in his body, and he was literally turned to stone. Mostly silicon if I’m not mistaken.”

“Why?” Julia asked. “I mean, this doesn’t make any sense. Black holes are just supposed to suck everything in. They’re not supposed to wander around turning people to stone.”

“Black holes don’t ‘suck,’” Carutius said. “They exert a gravitational influence that attracts matter and causes it to fall into the event horizon. But you are correct. Something else is going on here. Everything that we know, or rather think we know, about black holes is based on theories. It may be that there is some kind of consciousness at work here.”

“That thing is alive?” Julia said.

“Not in a conventional sense, but yes, it is conceivable.” He put a hand on Fiona’s shoulder. “And it might be that you can communicate with it.”

“Me?” Fiona squeaked, but then a look of understanding came over her. “You mean using the mother tongue.”

Julia gaped at them but withheld comment. Carutius and the girl both seemed to know a lot about what was going on, and that scared the hell out of her. Who are these people?

Fiona’s brow creased and she shook her head. “But I don’t know the mother tongue. I barely knew enough to stop the golem.”

“You know more than you realize. Remember what you told me before? How the artwork in the museum and the fragments of the Buddha statues spoke you? The knowledge is within you, and I believe that together, we can unlock that knowledge and use it to control this thing.”

“Control it,” Fiona murmured. “I could sing it to sleep again, like the monks did.”

Carutius seemed to frown but then nodded. “Yes. It will be difficult. You will have to trust me implicitly, and do exactly as I instruct.”

Sara shook her head. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to stand by and let you take her chasing after that thing.”

“Dr. Fogg, the fate of this world is in the balance, and Fiona might be the only person who can tip the balance in our favor.”

“We don’t even know where it is.”

As if to punctuate Sara’s reply, a loud crump echoed from the museum and reverberated through the ground beneath their feet. Carutius gazed back at the ruined building and raised a hand to silence further comment. He listened for a moment then turned back to them and said: “I don’t think we’ll have to go anywhere.”

The entity’s awareness of itself and the world in which it existed increased exponentially as the disparate fragments of its consciousness were assimilated. It had begun this process knowing nothing more than the impulsive need-an attraction as basic as magnetism or nuclear force-to bring those pieces together.

The manifestation had been drawn inexorably to those pieces, sensing that they were together in one physical location, even though the concept of location had no meaning to the entity, at least, not at the beginning. Obstacles lay in its path, an utterly alien environment of which it was not even truly aware, but like a bead of water following the path of least resistance, it moved around these, or when that did not suffice, changed them. The latter was no mean feat; there was a price to be paid for altering the substance of reality.

It comprehended all of this now. As the fragments of the consciousness-the mind-were gathered by the manifestation, its awareness of the environment and its grasp of causal relationships blossomed into existence. No longer was it driven purely by physical forces; no, now it guided the manifestation purposefully. The pieces of the mind lay scattered before it, moving to and fro in an effort to avoid assimilation, but the entity guided the manifestation intently, focusing on collecting each one in turn. The entity sensed another piece of the mind added, and its awareness leaped forward again. It was nearly complete. Only three more remained.

Now something different. The manifestation was encountering resistance-a storm of matter that it could not avoid. A threat! Surely nothing that could endanger the manifestation, but the relentless barrage of dense particles had halted its advance, forced it to change each of the incoming projectiles. Neutrons were stripped away in an instant, metals changed to insubstantial gaseous elements, but the entity felt its power waning.

This threat had to be neutralized.

To do that, it needed to feed.

King grasped Brown by the collar and hauled him erect. The gambler might not have had any clue about Pradesh’s actual agenda, much less any ability to alter its outcome, and dragging him around was probably going to end up being more trouble than it was worth, but he’d gone through too much to take the bastard down. He wasn’t about to simply turn the man loose. A single bullet probably would have resolved the dilemma, but that wasn’t King’s style.

“Chesler! Grab him.” King pointed to Pradesh. As the Alpha Dog mercenary moved into the room, King thrust his captive into the corridor. He kept one hand on Brown’s collar and the other on the grip of the Uzi pressed against the base of the gambler’s spine, pre-empting any displays of resistance on the latter’s part. As he made his way back toward the casino, the noise of the disturbance outside grew more intense, though not quite loud enough to drown out Pradesh’s insane cackle.

A black hole, he thought. A black hole with a brain, no less. God damn it. Why can’t the crazies just stick to weaponized Ebola and suitcase nukes?

Five years ago, he probably would have dismissed Pradesh’s claim out of hand, but he’d seen a lot of impossible things since then-mythological monsters, Neanderthals, golem. He’d survived them all. Hell, he’d found a way to stop them all.

The screams had dwindled by the time he reached the casino, and when he threw open the door to the aft deck, he found it empty. Or rather, almost empty. Three human forms were visible, standing at the railing and seemingly gazing out at the dark water. But they didn’t move. The three appeared frozen in place, as still as statues. King resisted the urge to make a closer inspection; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know what had happened to them.

The distinctive crack of an unsilenced Uzi grabbed his attention and he instinctively drew back against the superstructure, looking for cover. The shots had originated along the port side of the riverboat. As far as he knew-and he had taken a crash course in physics as part of Deep Blue’s new intensive educational program for Chess Team-black holes didn’t use semi-automatic weapons. Something else was going on. He dragged Brown behind him toward the corner and peeked around it.

His first impression was that someone had blocked access to the deck with a black velvet curtain. Ten feet high, with shadowy protrusions spread out behind it, the thing didn’t look like any kind of black hole he’d ever read about.

Pradesh must have gotten bad information. It was impossible to see a black hole because their gravity was so strong that no light could reflect back to reach the human eye. Nor did this apparition appear to be causing any gravitational or relativistic disturbances. This thing, as weird as it was, could not be a black hole.

And if it’s not a black hole, maybe bullets can hurt it. He hefted his own Uzi and started to take aim, but something brushed past him before he could pull the trigger.