William Dietz - Resistance - The Gathering Storm

But Hale couldn’t voice what he knew, so he made the only kind of comment he could. “That thing is big , Harley—so don’t piss it off.”

Purvis glanced at Hale, realized that the Sentinel knew more than he cared to admit, and produced a snort of disgust. “I don’t know what’s going on here—but I hope the brass hats know what they’re doing.”

“So do I,” Hale said grimly. “So do I. But don’t bet on it.”

Once on the ground, he saw that a Lynx was sitting on the tarmac not far from the specially equipped four-engined bomber that had been used to slip Grace in the night before. A ring of heavily armed Rangers were on-site to protect the plane. The four-by-four’s driver came to attention, and delivered a picture-perfect salute.

“Welcome to Wyoming, sir.”

“Thanks,” Hale replied. He returned the salute and placed his duffel bag and weapon in the back. “How long will it take to reach the base?”

“About fifteen minutes, sir,” the Sentinel answered as he slid behind the wheel.

“Okay then,” Hale replied, and took his place in the passenger seat. “Let’s hit it.”

The soldier’s estimate proved to be accurate as the Lynx followed a two-lane highway north for roughly five miles before turning onto a dirt road. Meanwhile, the Chimeran ship not only blotted out a large section of blue sky but bled ozone into the air which crackled with static electricity. The driver made no mention of it, but continued to glance up occasionally as he negotiated the series of twists and turns that led to the base.

When the four-by-four came to a stop in front of the main gate an M-12 tank and a platoon of Rangers were there to greet it. Both men were subjected to redundant security checks by Secret Service, Army, and some of the SRPA personnel who had been added to the President’s security team.

Thanks to Hale’s status as officer in charge of the SRPA detachment, he was cleared with a minimum of fuss, and allowed to proceed. Five minutes later the Lynx came to a halt behind a convoy of six heavily armored vehicles that had been used to ferry Grace in from the airport. They were parked in front of a low concrete building that extended back into the hillside behind it and was protected by a number of antiaircraft batteries.

Hale thanked the driver, took both his bag and carbine out of the back, and carried them to the front of the building where it was necessary to pass through security all over again. Once that process was complete, a Ranger led Hale through a maze of starkly bare corridors to the observation deck, which consisted of a long narrow room that fronted an open space beyond.

Roughly two dozen people were present, half of whom were scientists, the rest being members of the President’s security team or personal staff.

Major Blake was present because in addition to the Sentinels assigned to help guard Grace, SRPA had been called upon to help secure the entire base. So as Hale entered, the major came over to greet him.

“Good work rescuing those prisoners, soldier… Too bad about Dentweiler.”

“Yes, sir,” Hale agreed. “I can’t say I liked the man—but that was a horrible way to go.”

Blake nodded. “Sorry to drag you up here so soon after a difficult mission, but this is turning into a circus, and I need your help.”

Hale raised an eyebrow. He knew Blake pretty well, and could see the anger in the other man’s eyes.

“A circus, sir?”

Blake made a face.

“Dentweiler used Hannah Shepherd to lure Daedalus into a trap and brought him here. Now the President wants to talk to him! Lord knows why.”

Hale knew why based on the tape recordings stored in one of his cargo pockets. And he would have said as much if a klaxon hadn’t begun to bleat, and most of those present went forward to stare out through the armored glass. “What’s going on?” he wanted to know.

“This is it,” Blake answered grimly. “Dentweiler’s eggheads have been using the carrot-and-stick approach to gain Daedalus’s cooperation. Preliminary talks have been underway for a week now, and according to the people in charge, Daedalus has been receptive to the possibility of bilateral talks. So much so that when Daedalus requested a show of good faith, Grace gave permission for a Chimeran battleship to enter our airspace. Now he’s going out to meet with Daedalus face-to-face.”

“Face-to-face? You’ve got to be kidding,” Hale replied. “Doesn’t anyone remember what happened in Iceland? He can’t be trusted. You know that… You were there when Daedalus broke out.”

“That’s what I told ′em,” Blake agreed bleakly. “But they won’t listen. They believe the pain they can administer to Daedalus, plus the fact that they’re holding his wife hostage, will prevent him from running amok.”

“That’s bullshit,” Hale responded as both men went forward to look out through the window. He was just in time to see President Grace step out into the huge cell where Daedalus was being held.

Although his physical body was in Wyoming, Daedalus’s restless consciousness was elsewhere in the world, mind-jumping from a Hybrid in Padang, Indonesia, to a Howler near Fada, Chad, to a Grim outside La Paz, Bolivia, to a Titan plodding across a wintry field in Ukraine, to a Mauler exploring the streets of New Delhi, India.

In each case Daedalus was welcomed, because he was an expression of the wholeness to which they all belonged. That’s what they assumed anyway, although Daedalus had reason to believe that he had risen above the Chimeran virus, and even taken control of it. Unless it was controlling him so thoroughly that he couldn’t detect its presence, that is. A possibility that continued to plague him, but one he couldn’t do anything about.

Such were Daedalus’s thoughts as a jolt of electricity brought his mind back to the body that housed it. It was an ungainly thing that resembled nothing so much as an airborne tumor from which spindly legs dangled. The electric shock didn’t hurt, nor was it meant to, although the humans could turn up the intensity if they chose to. No, the nip was their way of summoning him back, typically for the purpose of a long, boring communication.

As Daedalus opened his many eyes, he saw that a human had stepped out onto the concrete directly below him. The floor had been hosed down less than an hour earlier and was still damp in places. “The man standing in front of you is President Noah Grace,” a disembodied voice informed him. “He wishes to speak with you.”

The words echoed endlessly through Daedalus’s brain and carried him away. He was a Steelhead, feasting on a human leg in Paris, when a stronger electric shock suddenly jerked him back. “Meat-speech,” as he thought of it, required a great deal of concentration, more so all the time, and his first attempt produced nothing other than gibberish. “Meano pontha hyblom oraga.”

Noah Grace stood in the shadow thrown by the airborne monstrosity and looked up at it. With the exception of the spire attack at the Lincoln Memorial, this was as close as he had been to a Chimera. If Daedalus truly qualified as such.

But rather than the bowel-emptying fear that Grace thought he might experience, he felt another emotion instead. And that was a sense of power. Because the monstrosity hovering above him was his captive—rather than the other way around—and therefore subject to his will. The only problem was whether it was still human enough to communicate. The gibberish was not a good start.

Grace cleared his throat. “I speak for the people of the United States of America.”

Daedalus farted gas and his body sank. Grace felt a sudden stab of fear, but forced himself to stand his ground as the fleshy horror came down to something approaching eye level. He could see the remnants of a human head that had been almost entirely subsumed by the lumpy body to which it was attached. Coal black eyes stared out at him from deep-set sockets as purplish lips began to move.