John Schettler - Golem 7

“I make it 98.37% integrity—and that’s from the Arion system, mind you. Good enough for you?”

Kelly raised his eyebrows, impressed. Golem 7 had apparently been vindicated. “Alright, those are good numbers but—“

“But what, man? Let’s get started! As soon as you activate the Arch, Paul and Maeve will get the call on their cell phones and rush over here. So turn things on!”

“Well, hell, Robert, we’ve got any number of things to consider here—fuel being the main issue. PG&E was in here yesterday reading me the riot act. They’re going to deliver our next electric bill parcel post! Said we have to restrict operations to post peak hours or they’ll have to take us off the grid permanently.”

“Oh, they’ll get their damn money, tell them not to worry. Look here… We can spin up on internal generators, right? Then let’s get on that now so we can establish a Nexus Point here. We’ll want to get the call out to Paul and Maeve right away.”

“Well it’s not just the money,” said Kelly. “It’s the fuel situation. Paul was able to get all three generators filled, but he wanted to see about arranging a reserve supply.”

“He’s filled the generator tanks? Good man! That should be plenty to get us started. Then we can go back on PG&E power after six tonight, and hopefully the power will remain stable enough for us to run a mission.”

Robert waited, ready to overcome any further objection and watching Kelly’s closely. “I’ve got him, Kelly,” he said in a low voice. “Got him by the scruff of his neck. I know who he is and why he was born. And I know how he pulled it all off as well. I’ve got a paper trail on the bastard, even though he was trying mightily to keep a low profile, and I’ve even got him on surveillance cameras. Then I ran his whole genealogy, so I’ve got good numbers for Outcomes and Consequence to boot. Maeve won’t be a problem when she looks at the data, I can assure you of that much. Now… we can either sit here quibbling or we can do something about this situation out there.” He pointed at one of the walls where the world beyond the safe inner sanctum of the Arch complex was slowly spinning off its kilter and winding down into chaos.

The world after the tsunami generated by Palma’s eruption and collapse was now a wild and dangerous place. Even here in the Bay Area things were rapidly getting out of hand, though the West coast had managed some level of normalcy, being farthest removed from the disaster zones in the East. Now, a week after the tsunami struck, people were finally over the initial shock and had shifted into a low level panic mode. Markets were being stripped bare of food and the supply chain was working overtime to try and restock shelves. Crime was on the rise, and it was no longer safe after dark, even in relatively quiet neighborhoods. The professor had to brandish his umbrella to fend off a man on the way over to the Arch complex that very afternoon. Street beggars had become uncommonly aggressive.

Their last mission had managed to prevent a fate ten thousand times worse than all this when they intervened successfully to assure a victory in the pivotal Battle of Tours. Each member of the team had played a key role in achieving that outcome on a complex three part mission to the early eighth century. In doing so they had received some much needed help from their associates in the future. The Order had used some novel methods to overcome the challenge and obstacle of the Palma Shadow, now a near impenetrable barrier to Time shifts from their distant point on the Meridian.

With the catastrophic effects of defeat at Tours forestalled, the project team closed ranks around their friend Kelly Ramer as the Arch spun down, its fuel depleted, and they feared that his life would again be forfeit in the world they would be left with. They had no time or resources to try and affect the outcome of Palma that night. Kelly would live or die, as fate judged him in that last hour when he reached for the power switch and turned off the Arch.

He lived because it was not Ra’id Husan Al Din this time around, the nefarious terrorist that had been eliminated from the Meridian by the first mission they ran. Another man had risen to take his place. The Assassin cult of the future had run yet another operation in their grand scheme, reversing both Palma and the Frankish victory at Tours in one throw. Their effort at Tours had been parried, but Palma remained in place and, as each day passed, its shadow on the Meridian intensified. This time it was someone else behind the eruption that had sent a mountain of ocean water hurtling at the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. And here was Nordhausen, his pencil still tapping nervously on a stack of notebooks, a Blue-Ray disk in hand, and a determined look on his face as he waited for Kelly to act.

“Well?” said the professor. “Do something!”

Kelly sighed. “Alright, alright. I made the call to shut down the last operation, and my life was on the line then. So I guess I can fire this baby up again if you insist. I don’t like operating on the advice of just one Golem Bank, but it was number seven, and well… I’ve developed a fondness for those little buggers. I’ll move into startup mode, but when Paul and Maeve get here you’ll have to answer for it if this doesn’t pan out, my friend.”

“Don’t worry about them,” said Robert. “Once they look at the data I’ve uncovered they’ll agree it was the only thing to be done. Get it all on-line, Kelly. We’ll be protected in a Nexus and they’ll be here in no time.

“Give me a second…” Kelly was already flipping switches, putting the number one internal power system on-line and setting up a backup generator as well. “I’ll get the Arch up in ten minutes, but as soon as the number one generator comes up to speed I’ll have to take us off the outside power grid or we’ll have cops here with a warrant in no time.”

“They threatened you with that?”

“Damn right. The silly PG&E rep was adamant. We get no more than basic kilowatt cycles here until post-peak hours or they are going to have the whole place shut down. Power is a big issue all over the state now. And we’re starting to get a huge migration of people from the east coast, as California is one of the few places left in the country with some civil order. So resources are really going to be stretched thin.”

“Don’t worry,” said Nordhausen. “None of that will matter soon enough. Just turn everything on.”

“Well, what in God’s name are we going to do? I don’t want to sit here wasting precious fuel like this.”

The Professor smiled. “You just get us safely into a Nexus Point here and I’ll tell you all about it, my friend. I’ll tell you all about it.”

It was a hotJuly evening in 1940 at the port of Mers-el Kebir, just north up the gently curving coast from the great city of Oran, Algeria. The sun was falling slowly towards the horizon, and the quality of light was deepening to a rich gold, painting the sharp angles and squared turrets of the main French battle fleet which rode at anchor here, one of several naval flotillas scattered about the Mediterranean after France had capitulated and finally signed an armistice with Germany the previous month. Admiral Gensoul sat fitfully in his ward room, his discomfiture increasing hour by hour throughout that long afternoon. For even though hostilities with Germany had officially ended, the threat of war was still close at hand, only this time from their former friend and ally!

Even now British battleships were waiting just offshore, intent on forcing one of several possible outcomes they might deem favorable concerning the disposition of Gensoul’s powerful battle fleet. He had two fast battlecruisers here with him, the Dunquerque , where he kept his flag, and the Strausbourg , both sleek and powerful ships that had been explicitly built to hunt down and kill ships like the troublesome Deutschland class “pocket battleships” Graff Spee and Admiral Sheer of the German navy. And with them were two older ships, the battleships Bretagne and Provence, relics from the first war, with keels dating back to 1912.