David Sakmyster - The Cydonia Objective

Calderon shook his head, his eyes twinkling. “For some reason, they couldn’t. Maybe they’ve forgotten how, or else they misjudged and believed it was destroyed or if not, that at least no one would be able to retrieve it.”

Xavier frowned. Something didn’t make sense there. “But…”

“Xavier, stop thinking with your head. Use your heart. Your gut. You know I’m right.”

“But HAARP… if it can do what you believe it can, then these Custodians would have infiltrated it. Sabotaged it, destroyed the potential tool of their own destruction. You can’t sneak something like that past them.” He glanced outside. “Especially after this.”

“We’re well defended,” Calderon insisted.

“I found you, RV’d it quite easily. I just couldn’t physically access the site, not without help.”

Calderon shrugged. “I admit I was worried, but we’re being protected. The legacy of Marduk perhaps. Either way, it’s our fate. Our mission is crucial, and it’s not going to be stopped. We will root them out, and with those keys…” He pointed out the window. “We’ll translate this Tablet fully, and then their worst fears will come true.”

“What do you think that’s going to tell you?”

“Only how to reactivate the genetic material the Custodians blocked in our developing species.” His eyes blazed. “We’re going to do it, wholesale, across the globe. All at once, transforming the world.”

Xavier trembled. He thought of Alexander, and the boy’s love for that Pixar movie, The Incredibles. “ And when everyone’s super…”

Calderon got the connection immediately and laughed, then finished the line: “… no one will be.”

After a pause, Xavier shook his head. “But something’s not right. You’re going to make a mistake. Enhancing your technology with the power of the Emerald Tablet will create a level of power beyond your control. You’ll do something wrong. Maybe…” He had a flash of a vision: rocks and magma blasting out of a hole, something with massive force drilling into the depths, layer after layer until cutting through a massive hollow cavity. A gleaming city of marble spires and citadels, suddenly pulverized by an invisible wave of energy which then continues deeper, deeper toward a churning crimson mass.

Xavier’s eyes shot open. “You won’t be able to control the depth. It’ll go too far, causing chain reactions, magnifying the initial vibrations into something unstoppable. It’ll smash into the core, disrupt the earth’s axis…” He felt a rush of heat, heard nine billion souls cry out at once, and then…

“You’ll kill us all,” he said as he collapsed.

Treading carefully overthe massive fragments of the library’s shattered glass dome, Nina followed the boys toward the smoldering pit. At the precipitous edge, she looked down. Hundreds of feet, past the crumbling masonry, the twisted metal posts, the smoking husks of several taxis that had been unloading passengers, the fused layers of iron and drywall, the sparking wires, the jagged bookshelves thrust like spears into the sides. Huge chunks of the library’s outer wall—the rounded Aswan Granite carved with scripts from 120 different languages—littered the ledges and were scattered about the pond, the highway, and even lodged in the walls of nearby buildings. Several boats in the harbor had been crushed with exploding debris. In the pit, a host of pages fluttered about, still whirling, descending into the darkness.

In the wreckage, Isaac found a large leather-bound book, its cover sheared in half, spine dented. Smiling, he picked it up, dusted it off and then flung it, Frisbee-style, into the void.

Nina lowered her head. So unlike his father.

Jacob stood farther back, a little wary of heights, still shaken from the last minor aftershock that had rescue crews and spectators running for safety. He edged closer to Nina, started to reach for her hand again, but then saw his brother glaring at him; so he withdrew, shambling over to Isaac.

“Keep back,” Nina ordered. “You had your look. That should be enough.”

Isaac shrugged like he hadn’t a care in the world. “No problem, not for us. Just wanted to see the carnage, we did. See what daddy Calderon can do when he sets his mind to it.”

“And when we help him,” Jacob added, the excitement in his voice faltering as he surveyed the damage once more.

“Come along then.” Nina led them around the barrier, carefully stepping over blocks and gaping fissures. They made their way to the makeshift command center that had been set up inside the planetarium. Rising from a reflecting pool on the outskirts of the main library, the planetarium had been miraculously spared, along with several other ancillary buildings, research centers and administrative offices. The waters of its reflecting pool however, displayed only a pall of lingering smoke, occasionally bisected by roving news helicopters.

Nina and the twins walked around shell-shocked workers, numb-faced police standing beside army members and rescue workers who looked dumbfounded at the totality of the destruction, so much so that they had nothing to do and no one to save. Anyone down in that hole, they reasoned, was beyond hope.

But Nina knew otherwise. After flashing her credentials to a pair of soldiers, she entered the planetarium lobby.

She strode into the main command center, through members of UNESCO, who gave her a wide berth, barely registering the presence of the two out of place boys at her heels; she headed for the center terminal where a man in khakis was bent over a flat screen monitor. He adjusted the Bluetooth device at his ear and then tapped a section of the display—the output of the ground-penetrating radar, showing ridges, clumps of debris and hollow sections.

“Yes sir,” he said. “We’ve pinpointed three such cavities directly under the impact site that could contain survivors. We can get drilling teams started, but without any other information, we’re going to have to guess…”

“You don’t have to guess,” Nina said.

The man turned. Typical retired general sort, Nina thought. Stocky, a little pot-bellied. Neck like an elephant’s leg and a hair as white as a tusk. He stood up straight and let his eyes wander over her body. “Yes senator. She’s here now. With… a couple kids.”

Nina saw Isaac stick out his tongue.

“All right, all right. Your call.” He tapped his ear, ending the conversation. “So, your boss says to dig where these rugrats tell me to dig.”

Nina smiled. “He’s your boss too. And these rugrats are our only chance.”

The man shrugged. Looked her over again, his gaze lingering around her chest. Then he stuck out his hand. “I’m—”

“I don’t care,” Nina said, brushing past him and letting the boys take two vacant chairs around the screen. “We don’t have time to get acquainted.”

Jacob glanced up at her with a smile of admiration at the way she handled the general, then settled his attention on the screen.

The commander tried to move in closer. “This, I gotta see.”

“Give us some space,” Nina ordered. “Go assess something. Now, boys. You know the target, and we know he’s alive. So I need you to focus. Think about these three air pockets down there. Think hard, and try to see. Where is he? Where is-?”

“-our brother,” they both said in unison, after closing their eyes.

But Isaac peeked, and nudged Jacob’s arm. “Wanna race?”

“Shut up. I’ve already won.”

“Boys,” Nina began. They were rushing, clouding the reading. This wasn’t the way.

But then, aware that the commander was still at her back, watching all this, both boys reached out at the same time, as if they were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors, and both pointed to the middle cavity, under the thickest section of collapsed concrete, earth and debris.