“Whiles trembling horror did his conscience daunt,
And hellish anguish did his soul assail.”
— Spenser
The door to the utility closet under the stairs in the mansion basement swung open and Trevor stumbled out. He pushed the door shut behind and fell forward catching the conference table with one hand in order to remain upright.
“Trevor?”
The voice came from the basement stairs. Trevor barely mustered the strength to remain balanced against the table, let alone strike a more dignified pose.
Lori Brewer approached him with wide, curious eyes.
“Where’d you come from? I checked all around down here including the armory,” she referred to the heavy door leading to a stockpile of weapons and munitions. She added with a wise-ass tone, “Don’t tell me, you came out of the closet.”
The buzzing in his brain faded slowly and he found enough strength to stand. Sort of.
He noticed she held her official Imperial Administrator notebook. It kind of clashed with her otherwise casual outfit. Nonetheless, Trevor felt a twinge of panic. Exactly how long had he been out? Had he overslept the meeting?
Trevor glanced at his watch. The hands had frozen at 10:03 a.m., just about the exact moment he sunk his fingers into the mystical orb. That energy had nearly fried his brain. Apparently it had fried his watch.
He looked to Lori and spoke,”Welche zeit es ist?”
She shook her head, and asked, “What did you say? Have you been drinking?”
Lori examined his skull for a head wound. He raised a hand to his forehead, held it there as if checking for a fever, and then moved it to the back of his neck and massaged.
Let’s try this again.
“Okay, um, what time is it? Did you understand me?”
Lori did.
“Well, you don’t look injured. Just hung over or something.”
“Lori, what time is it? Did I miss the meeting?”
“Miss it? Oh no, it’s about quarter of twelve. I came early because I wanted to talk to you.”
Trevor stood straight, breathed deep, and took a few practice steps. The room did not spin quite as much.
“You? Early?” He cracked despite standing on wobbly legs. “Now that’s something.”
She followed as he walked in an effort to clear his head and gain control over his body.
“Yeah, well look, it’s not a big deal but I invited a guest to the meeting.”
Trevor still concentrated mainly on finding his balance, but he did hear her.
“A guest?”
They did laps around the conference table.
“A consultant. I wanted someone who could give us a little more insight into things going on at the front. Are you sure you’re okay?”
Trevor knew that the meeting would include several Generals as well as himself, all people who fought on the front lines. Therefore, her statement sounded off. Furthermore, the hesitation in her voice made him suspicious.
“What? Lori, listen, this is a-a-” he stopped and put a hand on the back of a chair at the empty table, breathed deep again, and then continued walking and talking with her following a step behind. “This is an important meeting, not some damn focus group. It’s not for outsiders.”
“I know that,” she sounded offended. No, actually it sounded as if she had forced the tone of offense. “This person has been in these meetings before, just not for a while. I’m telling you, it’s not a big deal.”
Trevor stopped so abruptly that Lori nearly walked into him.
“Lori. Who did you invite to the meeting?”
“Well, Captain-I invited Captain Forest to the meeting.”
Trevor slowly turned to face his old friend. His eyes widened.
“You’re joking, right? That’s a bad joke.”
“Look, Trevor, she’s hitching a ride with Shep so she’s in town. I bumped in to her yesterday and she was, well, scoping out the estate. Sort of visiting her old stomping grounds.”
“Lori,” Trevor pinched his nose. “I don’t need this right now.”
Her eyes drooped a little, then narrowed, and her head tilted in the slightest. This served as her counselor’s face, and it meant she was either prepared to listen or preparing to preach.
“Oh, really,” and as she usually did, Lori Brewer opted for preaching. “Maybe it’s exactly what you need right now.”
“I’m not in the mood to be lectured.”
“Tough shit. You spent three years bending my ear about how you were so afraid of yourself; of what you could become,” she struck a sensitive nerve. “Look at what’s happened in the last year, Trevor. The executions, the purges-what’s left of the Senate is just your rubber stamp now. There are no voices of dissent.”
He growled at her, “The treacherous bastards got what they deserved. It was bad enough what they did to me, but they let it happen to my son, too. They fell for that give peace a chance shit and now we’re on the verge of being wiped out. Hell, I had no choice but to weed out the traitors. Get out from behind your desk, administrator, and take a good look at what’s coming at us and then maybe you’ll know why we can’t afford distractions or political bullshit.”
She shot back, “I told you once, a long time ago, that if you plan to save humanity you had better start showing some humanity yourself. The only person in this whole world who managed to bring that out in you since all this started was Nina. You need to see her again.”
“Don’t preach to me.”
“All righty, then, how about this-you owe her,” Lori added a new element to the argument. “I see ‘thank you’ is not a word you’re good with, is it?”
His eyes burned into her but she pushed, “She didn’t need to go into the wilderness after you. She chose to. Not out of duty or loyalty to ‘The Emperor’, but for Trevor Stone. I don’t know everything that happened out there but something big did happen. She sacrificed for you, Trevor. She pulled you from the brink. Whatever it was that went on, I think it’s made her start asking questions about that first year again. She remembers something. I don’t know how much, and I don’t know how she knows it. But there are memories and feelings bouncing around in her head that she can’t explain, she only knows that they all tie together here and with you. It doesn’t take much, you know, to stimulate memories. A smell, a sight, a sound like a song-things may be coming back to her, I don’t care how impossible that might seem.”
He had worried that perhaps Nina learned more during their connection via the Old Man. That maybe his memories of their love slipped into her mind, perhaps ignited her emotions. He did not think it possible for her to ever truly remember that first year on her own, but if the bridge she had used to stabilize his emotional state worked in both directions then possibly some of his memories went into her head.
Part of him wished she would remember. Her memory loss had been a convenience to make their separation more palatable. The Old Man had insisted that he could not be with her, that she did not walk the same path. So when she forgot, he did not pursue even though he desperately wanted to.
Trevor’s anger toward Lori wavered. His eyes found the floor.
“It’s not that easy, Lori. You know how I feel about her. That hasn’t changed in all these years. Nina has a daughter. She has a life. And I have my duty. The truth is, even if she could remember everything-even if she had never lost those memories-we still could not be together.”
Lori did not argue the point. Instead, she threw in a new consideration.
“I think we all know that his is going to be the last meeting. When it’s over, we’re all going our separate ways. And I know things don’t look good. The point is, Trevor, you may never see her again. Do you want to miss this chance?”
He kept his eyes down. Lori slipped her arms around her friend’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze.
“Besides, she’s the best soldier you’ve got. What did you say she was once? Oh yeah, your sword. And that’s stayed true all these years. For the big jobs you turned to her, like she is an extension of your power kind of like the K9s. That’s why I think you owe it to her. Besides, she used to be in on these meetings, way back when. She’s a part of the original group.”
“Okay, okay,” he answered, although he realized he never really had a choice. With Lori Brewer, most seldom did.
Gordon came last, his arrival announced by the electric hum from the lift chair installed on the stairway after his injury. As far as Trevor could remember, this was only the third time Gordon used it.
He watched as the Intelligence Director move from the lift to his wheelchair with the help of Lori Brewer. Trevor otherwise kept his attention focused on a file folder open at his place at the head of the table.
In the past, the meetings in the conference room at the estate included Trevor’s advisory council. The events of last year had decimated the ranks of that council. Dr. Maple had died in a cemetery outside of Wilkes-Barre while serving as an unwilling investigator into the circumstances of the assassination. Trevor had impaled Evan Godfrey on the White House lawn with Stonewall McAllister’s sword. Moments later, Dante Jones had taken his own life. Most recently, Anita Nehru’s psychological condition made her unfit for service.
Of course, Reverend Johnny had been gone for four years although Trevor often thought he heard Johnny’s voice echoing in the room like a ghost reciting Bible passages.
The meeting on the afternoon of Thursday, May 21, included a less formal congregation but no less an important one. Jon Brewer sat to Trevor’s right. His wife, Lori, sat further down the table sandwiched between General Jerry Shepherd and Lori’s guest, Nina Forest, who wore an expression of a wide-eyed child beholding the wonders of FAO Schwartz.
Brett Stanton and Eva Rheimmer sat next to one another. The former’s eyes had grown more sunken and his hair thinner, possibly a result of Brett re-igniting his love-affair with alcohol.
As for Eva, her body had grown frail-looking from years of hard work on the farm and, no doubt, the stress of coordinating food distribution to a struggling-and now constricting-nation.
Omar sat in a quiet corner of the table with a full ashtray in front of his place. Gordon Knox occupied the foot of the long table in his powered wheelchair.
“Okay, then, let’s get this started,” Trevor pulled his eyes from the papers and did what he usually did: he looked each member of his audience directly in the eye-save for Nina. “Jon and Shep, break it down for us. The quick version. I think we all know the outlook.”
Jon Brewer stood to his full height of over six feet yet he appeared weak and unnerved in the presence of Trevor. He consulted a map mounted on a portable board.
“Preparations to defend the Mississippi are more than sixty percent complete with the anticipation that The Order will follow a similar vein of attack as they have since invading California.”
Trevor explained, “Simply put, they want to kill off our armies. No fancy stuff. They’ll go to where we are encamped.”
“Right,” Jon continued. “To be safe, we’re demolishing just about all river crossings and fortifying the major cities along the way including those to the west of the river like St. Louis. It seems Voggoth’s troops prefer to fight in the open. We made the decision to turn several key cities into hard points. We anticipate this will steer them into the open terrain. At that point we’ll be relying on artillery and defending the east banks of the river.”
Lori Brewer added, “The military has kept open several key arteries across the river to facilitate evacuations of the civilian population.”
“Those refugees could be a real problem,” Trevor said more callously than he intended. “We’re trying to get 1 ^ st Corp up to the front while these evacuees are clogging the roads.”
“Trevor,” Lori said, “you’ve already commandeered just about all the rail lines for the army. These people are using the only thing they have left to travel on; the roads.”
Brett Stanton, who served as Director of Industry and Manufacturing, eyed the map and said, “Doesn’t look like we’re making great time pulling back. No, now wait, I’m not trying to be critical, but it looks like The Order could be kicking our butts harder than they’ve been.”
“We might have an answer why,” Shep joined the conversation. His recently-acquired cowboy hat rested on the table in front of him. He told the others news that Trevor and Jon Brewer already knew. “I reckon we’ve got a few more players comin’ to the party. Two days ago our border outpost at Laredo, Texas reported a column of them Redcoats-I’m sorry, we call them Centurians these days, right? As I was sayin’, a nice big bunch of them came across the Rio Grande and are headin’ north on Interstate 35. So far we’ve seen a good dozen heavy artillery pieces and what we think is their version of armored vehicles carrying infantry. The column is about a mile long.”
Jon Brewer said, “Centurians from the south and someone else from the North. Yesterday we lost contact with our garrison at Winnipeg, so a small airborne relief force flew up there from Minneapolis. They ran into these.”
Jon produced a pair of photographs from his pile of stuff and threw the first one onto the center of the table. People leaned forward to see.
The first photograph showed a relatively tight shot of an airship floating through the heavens near the U.S.-Canadian border. More precisely, the airship featured one large zeppelin with two smaller dirigibles attached to either side, making a three-headed flying monster with a big propeller at the back.
The airship wore a rusty color with a sharp gray lightning icon surrounded by a circle on the main fuselage. A big, rectangular gondola with a bank of forward-facing windows served as the obvious bridge area but lines in that undercarriage suggested a modular nature.
Antennas and radio dishes and obvious gun emplacements-resembling miniature howitzers-stuck out from various places all across the ship. At the bow sat an assembly resembling a mix between a transmitter and cannon.
“It’s a Geryon battleship,” Trevor told them. “If you think it’s nothing but a big Hindenburg we can knock down easy, you’re in for a nasty surprise. It can protect itself well against anti-air fire and fighters. That main gun could level this mansion in a couple of seconds. Better yet, from the undercarriage it deploys the Steel Guard; robotic soldiers controlled via virtual reality from technicians onboard the ship.”
Jon threw the second photograph on top of the first. This one showed three of the Battleships.
“Our scouts counted the three and then ran for their lives.”
Trevor said, “From what our Intel says, it seems the Geryon Reich was well-established in Asia before we closed off the Gateways. I must admit, I’m kind of surprised they only sent three, though.”
Trevor glanced around the table again, looking each guest in the eye. When he came to Nina their eyes locked for several seconds until separated by Gordon Knox’s voice.
“There’s more,” Gordon offered a photograph of his own. “Since I decided to come all the way over, I thought I’d bring something special. You know how I love to be dramatic. Maybe someone can tell me what these are…”
Trevor stood and moved around the table to get closer to the photograph. He ended up peering over Nina’s shoulder at the picture. For a moment, his eyes stared at the photograph but his mind drifted somewhere else.
“They’re beautiful,” Lori Brewer said.
“They scare the hell outta me,” Shep admitted.
Trevor’s eyes focused on the photograph. He saw a trio of large, seagoing vessels pulling into a dilapidated port. The ships appeared a blend of clipper and ark with golden sales unfurled from vertical tubes rising from brown and red hulls.
Gordon said to Omar, “Your boys need to be congratulated. The work they did to get the SR-71 airworthy has paid off.”
Omar’s mood did not lighten. He sat silent.
“What are you sayin’, Gordon?” Shep asked.
“With the state of things we needed a new intelligence gathering tool. Some of you might not know it, but Omar’s group pulled a Blackbird out of mothballs and got her running again. I just received these shots this morning. They come from the Port of Oakland taken seventy-two hours ago.”
Trevor recognized the ships from his experiences on that other Earth.
“Chaktaw,” he said. “Chaktaw sailing vessels. Voggoth is certainly pulling out all the stops.”
Cross-talk erupted. Trevor, for his part, considered his words carefully as he returned to the head of the table.
“That’s why Voggoth isn’t hitting us hard right now.”
“Wow,” Jon Brewer said. “He’s just waiting for all his friends to get here. More reinforcements. Instead of the Battle of Five Armies, this time it’s going to be the Battle of Six Armies, that is if the Grenadiers can even help this time.”
A new voice entered the conversation, one that sounded timid and shy as if not meaning to be heard. “No big deal,” Nina mumbled in reference to the photographs.
Everyone stopped and gaped at her, even Trevor. Nina blushed.
“What did you say?” He asked.
Nina nearly shriveled into her seat. The thirty-four-year-old woman looked more a bashful teenager called on in class.
“Um, look, I’m just saying it just doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.”
“Not a big deal?” Eva Rheimmer did not suffer what she thought to be foolishness. “My dear, that’s three new armies to contend with. We’re already in a tough spot.”
“Let her speak,” Trevor said. “Go ahead, Captain. What’s on your mind?”
“Well, sir, unless there’s more to them than these pictures, then there’s, well, I’m just saying there’s not a whole lot of them. Not when you look at what The Order is throwing at us. Listen, if I were these Geryons and Redcoats and whatever, I’d think it’s kind of a waste of time for me to send a couple hundred troops and a few ships here and there all the way across the world to pile on.”
“Pile on?” Trevor asked not so much for clarification, but because it struck a chord with him. “What do you mean?”
“Look, we’re in bad shape. The Order doesn’t need these reinforcements, he grows his own wherever and so far he’s got us on the run. It’s like they’re here just to get in on the action. You know, to claim some of the glory for themselves.”
Trevor listened to her and kept staring right at Nina Forest with a glazed expression. She turned a greater shade of red.
Instead of ridiculing her, he said, “You’re right. Shit yeah, you’re right. That’s exactly what they’re doing. They’re piling on.”
“Trevor,” Gordon Knox broke in. “No one appreciates Captain Forest’s observations more so than I but let’s be real. These alien governments are tight on forces as it is. They wouldn’t send what little they’ve got off to do battle with us for no reason.”
“You’re wrong, Gordon,” Trevor nodded his head as the answer formed clearly in his mind. “That’s exactly what they’re doing. Voggoth will wait until these guys get into position, then he’s going to pummel the crap out of us. When he’s done he’ll let these guys-the Chaktaw, the Centurians, and the Geryons-go marching right across the Mississippi to finish us off. The same way Eisenhower let De Gaulle and the Free French spearhead the liberation of Paris; more a symbol than a necessity.”
“Okay,” Shep glanced at the others around the table and then to Trevor and said, “Seems to me you know something that the rest of us don’t.”
Silence fell over the room. All of the attendees stared at Trevor, waiting for answers.
Trevor thought, this time, the reply, ‘ I just picked it up’ won’t feed the bulldog.
“You’re right, Shep. Truth is, I still don’t know the whole picture, but I think I can make some educated guesses now. Lori told me a little while ago that this is probably the last meeting. I think she’s right. That means maybe the time has come to tell you what I know. I think that would be fair and if there’s any harm in it, well, I don’t think it matters much at this point.”
He felt an eagerness on behalf of his people to hear the truth. He could also sense apprehension. They wanted to know, but they also feared knowing.
“I wish I could tell you the why. I don’t know that for sure yet, although I have my suspicions. But I can tell you what. And it starts like this: eleven years ago the invasion began. Alien animals and alien armies from eight different points of origin. Four years ago we learned something new, something we have not shared with the general public. My trip across dimensions showed that there are also eight different parallel universes with eight different Earths, each one serving as an arena of battle. The difference is that on each of those Earths a different species plays the home team. Here it’s us. Where I went it was the Chaktaw and human beings were a part of the invading force.”
As the only one at the table who had not previously heard any of it, Nina’s eyes widened with each revelation.
Brett Stanton cut in, “Now hold on now, you told us that mankind was originally from Sirius in these other universes. Am I remembering that right?”
“Yes, and we would have been from Sirius here, too, but our life form-our DNA-was transplanted to this Earth millions of years ago.”
Omar spoke for the first time, “My Anita told me that all of the life on this planet is theorized to have come from an original strand of DNA. Evolution created man just as it created timber wolves and trout. But all from an original source.”
Trevor agreed. “Yes. I think that’s why animals came through, too. It’s as if all life from each of the races is being judged but that each version of the DNA developed only one sentient species; one race for each ecosystem at the top of the food chain, I suppose.”
“Judged?” the idea offended Lori. “Judged by whom?”
“That’s a good question,” Trevor did something he rarely did anymore; he smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood. It did not work. They greeted his smile with a collection of gazes ranging from blank to shocked.
“Near as I can guess, all of these universes-including ours-are secondary. Maybe that’s not the right word. What I mean is, somewhere there is a core universe, or cosmos. One where humanity and all the other races evolved over billions of years. That’s who I think is behind this. They set the stage and wrote the rules.”
“So we’re just-we’re not-” Nina’s expression suggested amazed and sad together. “We’re not important. Just tools or pawns. Machines?” And she looked to him with the expression of a child searching for assurance.
Trevor saw the damage that idea did to Nina, a woman who often questioned her humanity. Trevor could imagine the thoughts going through her mind; thoughts of self-loathing, of smallness. When he had first met her, she felt life held nothing for her other than fighting. With time she learned otherwise, only to forget again.
“No. No I don’t believe that at all,” Trevor told everyone in the room but his eyes held on Nina. “You raised a daughter. Is she just a tool? Of course not. What about you, Lori? Is Catherine a machine? I know-I know I’m not,” but he wondered. “We are living, thinking beings who had lives before all this turned our world to Hell. We’re not fighting because we want to, we’re fighting because we have to.”
Eva Rheimmer asked in a bitter tone, “You said something about rules?”
“I don’t have a handbook, Eva. But look at our nukes. They don’t work. The beings who pulled all this together had the power to do that. Something at the sub-atomic level, I’ll bet. Same with bio weapons. I don’t think weapons of mass destruction are allowed. The folks behind this want a slug fest.”
Lori wondered, “Are they-are they Gods? Our God?”
“No,” Trevor felt sure of that. “Highly-evolved beings is my guess. What looks like magic to us is probably just incredibly advanced technology. They probably don’t even look like humans anymore, or Chaktaw or Geryons. We’re what they were a couple of eons ago.”
Omar, his accent completely gone, joined the discussion once more. “Before our world changed, there were theorists hypothesizing about an eventual technological singularity; a moment when our computers and machines became so advanced and so intertwined with people that it would change the nature of our existence. That mankind would become something unrecognizable, perhaps outgrowing our bodies, perhaps transcending the physical laws of the universe as we understand them.”
Trevor thought of the Old Man and how he seemed a projection. “Maybe even things like-things like time will become irrelevant.”
“Now hold on here,” Shepherd leaned forward. “Who said we had to fight in all this? If this is some kind of game, I’m sick of playin’. I’ve watched a lot of good people get cut down and the idea that this is sport doesn’t sit good with me.”
“It’s not that easy,” Trevor answered while most of the table nodded in agreement with Shep. “I don’t think ‘sport’ is the right way to characterize it. A challenge. A demonstration. A contest, maybe. Point is, we haven’t got a choice. Once they made us a part of this we had to win.”
Lori stubbornly asked, “And why is that?”
“The Feranites. The Red Hands.”
“Huh?”
“They lost. I saw it when The Order had me the last time. They’re gone now. Actually, they’re worse than gone. Voggoth turned them into something horrible. I think you could say that they’re in Hell, now. All of them across all the universes.”
Jon listened patiently without saying a word, he did not mind going unnoticed by Trevor these days. Yet he had to ask, “Wow, but is Voggoth on some Earth somewhere defending his turf? From what we’ve heard before, he’s not quite like the others.”
Trevor shook his head. “Nope. He is something different, isn’t he? For some reason he’s getting a pass in all this, as if they think of him as something superior. I’m guessing the others kind of see him as a sort of judge or referee.”
Nina jumped, “So he’s covering for them, is that it? Those bastards couldn’t beat us so now he’s doing the job. But if he punches through at the Mississippi they’ll march in and take all the credit, right?”
“I suppose so, yeah.”
Lori Brewer spat, “Who are these things to put us through this? What right have they got?”
Knox laughed but without much humor and pointed out, “Who were the Romans and their gladiatorial games? What about the Aztecs who if they had no one to go to war with would divide up their tribes and fight one another then execute the losers in sacrifice. Or better yet, what about World War I? That wasn’t about anything other than the nations in Europe finally getting sick of each other and wanting to figure out who the better guy was. As insane as all this may seem, it has historical precedent in our own civilization. Guess it isn’t as funny when you’re on this side of the glass.”
“We’re not talking about normal human beings,” Lori protested. “Right, Trevor? The powers behind this are supposed to be more evolved. I’m hearing this is about arrogance and pride. A bunch of pseudo-Gods flexing their beer muscles. They’re supposed to be better.”
That struck a chord with Trevor. He chewed on the idea for several seconds while cross talk created a chaotic atmosphere in the basement.
“Excuse me, now hold on,” Brett Stanton broke the verbal gridlock. Trevor noticed that the man stared directly at him. “Just taking a step back, here-now hold on but it seems to me that you’ve been at the center of this from day one. Mind if I ask what makes you so special?”
“Genetics,” Trevor answered honestly, although that answer confused everyone at the table. “Remember I said that they seeded Earth with the original strand of our basic DNA? Well think of that as a code. Or, I guess, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that were scattered throughout the evolution of man. It ended up that I had most of those pieces in me. For some reason, that made me Johnny on the spot. Ashley had the last remaining pieces in her blood. Together we re-assembled that jigsaw puzzle, every last piece.”
Lori gasped, “Your son? JB?”
Trevor nodded.
Eva Rheimmer asked, “I don’t understand. What is so special about your son?”
“He was the starter’s pistol for the invasion. I don’t know how, but as soon as he was conceived it signaled the beginning. Of course, I didn’t even know I had a son until Ashley re-appeared.”
Shep jumped in, “Hold on. Now there’s a good question. What about those ark-riders? Who made them disappear just as things were heating up? And why?”
“I have no clue,” Trevor admitted.
“There is one clue,” Omar added to the conversation. “When you were abducted to that other Earth, the structure that took you left behind a residual radiation matching the type of radiation left behind in places of mass disappearances.”
“That’s right,” Lori recalled that particular briefing. “So there’s a connection.”
Gordon cleared his throat. “Not only that, but it’s the same residual radiation being left behind in the cities where Voggoth’s creatures have been disappearing as of late. Not the most settling of connections.”
“That structure actually belonged to a type of entity named ‘the Nyx.’” Trevor said for the benefit of those who had forgotten his report after returning from the alternate Earth. “I don’t know how that fits. But I believe Voggoth helped those people on the other Earth get me to their side so that I could help them beat the Chaktaw, who were the home team, if you will. At the same time, that hurt things back here. He kind of tried to kill two birds with-well-with one Stone.”
Shep ignored the quip and pressed another question: “Okay, then, how about this. What’s up with you and those K9s?”
That question reminded Jon of another; one that had bugged him for eleven years. “And where’d you learn to do all the shit you ‘just picked up’? The Richard Stone I knew in the old days could sell Chevys but could not fly an attack helicopter.”
Jon’s tone produced a laugh around the table. Trevor shared the chuckle. It felt good to slip in a moment of levity. Yet as he spoke he worried that the answers would show him to be a fraud. Would these people who had followed him all these years still see him in the same light once the magician’s tricks were revealed?
He answered the second question first.
“I can’t quiet explain it, but I was given the gift of memories. It seems it was their way of balancing things. Trust me, I didn’t want it. But I can fly an attack chopper because I have the memories of a pilot who could. Same with guns and engineering and all that. I don’t know everything, and I’m not perfect at it, either. Still,” Trevor gripped his hands in fists, “You can’t imagine the confidence that gives you-the-the…”
“The power?” Lori finished the thought.
“Yeah. Knowledge really is power.”
“Well I’ll bet that comes in handy,” Brett remarked in a light tone.
Trevor froze; his eyes remained open but stared at something no one else could see. He remembered the images of the infantryman who gave him the skills to use an assault rifle; he remembered breathing that soldier’s last breath. He remembered the rich man who had built the estate and feeling that man’s heart attack as the pressure built in his chest.
“It-it comes with a price,” he told them. The good humor evaporated. “It comes with a responsibility. Most of those memories-maybe all of them-come from people who died. I can feel their dying thoughts.”
Jon shot, “Human memories? Okay, that’s cool. Then why have you been able to figure out a few of those alien devices, like the Eagles?”
Trevor slowly shook his head as he replied, “That’s a good question. I think-I think if I knew the answer it might be useful. But I don’t. Not yet. I think-I think that’s connected to JB somehow, too. I don’t know…” and Trevor faded into a trance again as he tried to unlock that particular mystery.
Shep gained Trevor’s attention by repeating his question, “And the dogs?”
He sighed, shrugged, and said, “I don’t know for sure. I can guess, though. I think-I think…” Trevor paced around the table with his hands in front as if trying to sculpt the answer out of thin air. “Let me put it to you this way. I don’t think nature is as passive as we might think. Maybe nature-our world, if you will-maybe there’s a certain amount of interconnectivity…”
“Um, I’m not quite following you on this one,” Shep said with one of his wise eyes half-cocked like Mr. Spock spying something illogical. “Are you saying God has a hand in this?”
“No, no I don’t think so. Maybe some people might see it that way, I guess that’s sort of in the eye of the beholder. But we know that nature adapts. Usually that happens over the course of decades or centuries. I think the Grenadiers are something along that line; a reaction to the invaders-especially Voggoth-coming to our world.”
Trevor glanced around the room. They wanted more.
“I said I’m not sure. But look, every living thing on Earth came from an original strand of DNA, that makes us all connected on some level. Biologists and whatnot always talk about a balanced environment and when something gets out of whack, there’s a correction. When the other aliens came with their animals, it was like a virus invading a body, especially when Voggoth came. Newcomers from outside the ecosystem knocked things out of balance. Look at the storms that pop up whenever there are a lot of The Order’s creatures around. Like those storms, I think the dogs are nature’s answer; nature’s antibodies. Because I carry such a pure form of the original DNA in my body, I developed a strong connection to them. But we’ve all seen how well-trained they are, straight from birth.”
“That’s the truth,” Shep agreed. “They follow commands from day one as if they were the best trained dogs I ever saw. Maybe they’re a little bit in all our heads, but you just got a stronger dose of it. Is that what you’re saying?”
Trevor said, “Even before the invasion dogs came in all kinds of breeds perfectly fit to meet the needs of mankind. There’s a reason they are known as man’s best friend. But since the invasion that connection grew exponentially. So yeah, that’s what I’m saying. I think you can trace it back to nature. From what I can tell, each of the races on each of the Earth’s developed similar helpers from their environments. Look, that’s what I got so far, I’m sorry it’s not clearer.”
Silence around table. A few glances amongst one another such as Lori eyeing Jon and Eva sharing a look with Brett. Gordon just sat in his wheelchair and watched it all unfold. He did not appear phased by the revelations. Trevor figured Gordon was blessed with some internal mechanism allowing him to categorize and file information in certain ways that fit his job description.
Jon Brewer spoke, “So what do we do now? If I’m following you, you’re saying that this Voggoth isn’t supposed to be doing what he’s doing; that this isn’t his fight. I admit, if not for him we’d have everything under control I think.”
“Sir,” Nina Forest volunteered. “I don’t know but listen, when it comes to war there really aren’t any rules. Not in my book. What I’m saying is, we have to find a way to win. Screw the rules.”
He appreciated her defiance; it gave energy to the room. Trevor nodded in complete agreement.
“That’s right. That’s what I have planned. We’ve been doing things their way since day one and just when it seems we got this thing licked, The Order goes and changes the playing field. So yeah, it’s time we take a different approach. I’m going to break the rules.”
Shep said, “I look up and down the front lines and I don’t see any chance of that.”
“Nina,” Trevor said, “Tell him what I’m thinking.”
That surprised everyone at the table, but she knew.
With a smile, Captain Nina Forest told Shep and the rest, “You won’t find a chance of it on the front lines because, listen, that’s playing by the rules still. He’s just saying that it’s time to break those rules and hit them where it counts.”
Trevor added, “Yes, but I’m not thinking about all of them. Just one guy in particular.”
Eva Rheimmer asked, “What does that mean?”
Trevor turned his attention to the foot of the table.
“Gordon?”
The Intelligence Director read from the report Ashley had forced him to make in person.
“My agents have identified The Order’s original base of operations on the west side of the Ural Mountains. Our European friends have confirmed this information and we have every reason to believe it is still operational.”
Trevor said softly, “Voggoth. The heart of the enemy. Command and Control. Maybe even more importantly, the guy who set the table for this game. If I were a nerd-and you know I’m not; at least not anymore-then I might think of him as the Dungeon Master.”
Shep had no idea. “The what?”
“Sorry, I forgot,” Trevor smiled at the older man. “You never even watched Star Trek.”
“No, now wait, this Dungeon Master as you call him,” Brett Stanton’s tone suggested familiarity with the subject, “is sticking his hand in the game a little more directly than he should. Am I following you?”
Trevor answered with a nod.
“Excuse me,” Omar broke in with a cynical tone, “Voggoth is on the other side of the world. We can’t even get to Colorado anymore, how are we to launch an assault in Russia?”
A chorus of voices tried to answer.
“We still have the Chrysaor,” said Jon Brewer.
“My team could hit it,” Nina volunteered.
“Time to put that navy to use,” Shep suggested.
“Whoa, hold on,” Trevor raised a hand. “We need all of that to defend the Mississippi. Our best chance to survive is to stop The Order on the battlefield. It’s not a great chance, but it’s the best one. My plan is to try and re-shuffle the deck. I don’t know exactly what is going to happen, but we have to change the status quo; we have to break those rules.”
Brett put a finger in his ear and wiggled, saying, “Now maybe I heard you wrong. No, wait, I’m sure you just said that we got to try and knock out this Voggoth fella. How do you expect to do that without an army?”
Trevor sat and crossed his hands in front of him on the table top. His eyes found Lori Brewer’s. She had known him since childhood; since the days when he had gone by the name Richard. She could read him like a book.
The answer dawned on her and she said it aloud with a tremor of shock, “Your son?”
His silence served as answer enough.
Eva Rheimmer questioned. “I don’t understand.”
Jon Brewer did.
“At The Order’s base last year, JB managed to gain control over their facility. He is the reason Trevor escaped. I’m guessing it has something to do with the-what did you call it? — the jigsaw puzzle that he is.”
“My son is very special. He is a symbol, I think, of all the life that comes from our original strand of DNA. The purest sample. We know that The Order is not alive. They are the antithesis of life. When he came in contact with The Order’s machines all hell broke loose.”
Shepherd tried to guess, “Are you saying that maybe Jorgie might be able to hijack their armies like they say he did at that off-shore base? ‘Cause from where I’m sitting, that would be a good time.”
Trevor smirked at Shep’s tone but also shook his head.
“I don’t think so. It’s not that easy. There’s no silver bullet that’s going to turn this around. It’s going to take more than a bayonet charge to save our asses this time.”
Lori asked, “So you’re going to Europe to make your way to Voggoth’s place?”
“Yes,” Trevor said. “Me and my son.”
“But you haven’t told us why.” Lori complained.
“Yes, I did. I’m going to re-shuffle the deck. If JB is the ultimate expression of life and Voggoth is the antithesis of the same…”
Omar gasped, “Matter and anti-matter. You think this could destroy Voggoth?”
“No, not really,” Trevor admitted to them and to himself that his plan contained more questions than answers. “But we know he’s totally different from the other life forms involved in this. What I hope-I guess I’m hoping to get a reaction. Knock him off balance-or send a signal that can’t be ignored-s omething.”
“A signal that can’t be ignored?” Eva asked. “What does that mean?”
“I have reason to believe that the beings who orchestrated Armageddon are not aware of exactly how involved Voggoth is here, that it would be against the rules. Maybe they don’t want to know because they don’t mind us getting creamed. But if I can make them see then that might force Voggoth to back off here.”
“And we were winning until he jumped in with both feet,” Jon said.
Nina pounced, “What do you want us to do? Should some of us come with you?”
Trevor felt a charge shiver through his spine. The idea of Nina coming with him-to be so close to her again. Maybe-maybe…
“No,” and he saw her eyes falter with disappointment and rejection. He wanted to tell her that he desired her to come, but he felt this a suicide mission and besides, Nina’s talents could best serve humanity doing what she did best. “You have an important job here. You all do. You have to hold off The Order. As long as we’re alive and fighting we have a chance. Once we’re overrun we all die, no matter what I manage to do on the other side of the world.”
Jon asked, “How do you figure that?”
“If this is a challenge, well, to put it in the best way, I guess, don’t think of it as a football game with a scoreboard and a clock. Think of it as ski jumping or gymnastics with judges and score cards. Less objective, more subjective. If the judges start to think we’re beaten then they’ll pull the plug on us. That’s what happened to the Feranites.”
Lori asked, “But what is it you’re planning to do? And why?”
Trevor answered, “I’m going to hit the heart of the enemy. All this time we keep thinking about the Chaktaw, the Hivvans, the Duass and the rest as the people we need to be fighting. But that’s playing by the rules. To win this we have to go around those rules. I’m going after Voggoth.”
“Pardon me,” Shep said, “but like Brett said, don’t you think you’ll need an army for that?”
Gordon’s voice joined the fray from the foot of the table: “Our European friends have been waiting a long time, Trevor. We’ve been shipping them weapons and supplies, but I still don’t think they’ll be happy when you show up without firepower. Maybe you should take the Chrysaor, at least. We can tough it out without her for a while.”
“You’ll need it more,” Trevor answered. “You have to hold out. Don’t let Voggoth hand them a victory. As long as we’re still fighting on a large scale there’s hope. Besides, I don’t want to attract attention to this trip. I’m hoping to fly under the radar.”
Trevor could see questions boiling beneath the surface of each of the attendees, but the time for those questions had passed. He slowly and deliberately worked his way around the table, making eye contact with each of them.
As they had during those early days, during the protracted war against the Hivvans, during the invasion of California, they looked to Trevor for hope, for strength, and for direction. Apparently seeing the wires and the trap doors did not completely diminish the magician’s magic. Maybe there was more to Trevor Stone than the gifts.
He saw his good friend Lori Brewer whom he had known since childhood. At times he felt her to be the only conscience he had. He glanced at Jerry Shepherd and remembered convincing him and his small band of police officers to join the estate.
Trevor turned to Jon Brewer. Twice Jon had held the reins of power and twice he had dropped the ball. Yet on the battlefield he knew Jon to be a valiant soldier and a brilliant strategist. He trusted Jon to fight to the death on the Mississippi.
Trevor took a moment to put his hand on Jon’s shoulder and look at his friend. Jon returned the stare and saw confidence in Trevor’s expression. Trust. The time had come for The Emperor to show faith in his general again.
Trevor then found Gordon’s eyes at the far end of the table. As he expected, those eyes glared back big and strong. Of course, Gordon’s strength would falter when he moved away from the table on wheels instead of legs, but something or someone had given Gordon the courage to return to the conference table. Trevor hoped that courage would last.
Eva Rheimmer and Brett Stanton sat side by side. Of all the people at the table Trevor thought those two to be the least appreciated. Eva pre-dated all the others; Trevor had made contact with her and her husband before the end of that first summer. He had convinced them to share food from their farm in exchange for K9 protection. That deal planted the initial seed of success.
As for Brett, the years had proven him to be a logistical and manufacturing genius. The dreadnoughts would never have grown from blue prints to flying battleships without his work. Indeed, their armies would have run dry of materials long before ousting the Hivvans if not for Stanton.
Trevor turned his gaze to Omar who sat quiet with a sagging, half-ash cigarette dangling from his lips. From the first matter-maker recovered in the hills of northeastern Pennsylvania to the anti-gravity catapults on the dreadnought flight decks, Omar turned alien technology into human weapons. His contributions were now only matched by his sacrifice, for Anita Nehru would never be the same.
At last he found the blue eyes of Nina Forest. Once, a long time ago, he thought those eyes cold. Were they still icy? He could not say. She did not remember what they shared but he remembered; remembered all too well. The pain of losing her made him more the monster. How many times over the years could he have used her compassion? After the slaughter at New Winnabow, the revelations of another Earth, the discovery of the Presidential redoubt in the heart of Cheyenne Mountain-times of regret, of shock, of horror-but he had had nowhere to turn.
He moved his eyes away. A feeling of guilt or maybe bashfulness overcame him. As if he felt a crush on a school girl who could never know.
Trevor pushed those thoughts from his mind in favor of something he had meant to say a long time ago.
“We’ve been together for a long time, haven’t we? We’ve come a long way, too. Everyone at this table has reason to be proud of what we’ve accomplished this far. We’re all that’s left. Along the way-along the way we lost some good friends,” Trevor considered and said with a chuckle in his voice, “and some not-so-good ones, too.”
Flashes of uncomfortable smiles.
“I have been honored by your trust in me. The truth is that you people have often been my strength. I hate that we will be apart for the end of this, but you all have jobs to do and I know you will do them with excellence. I have faith in you. As for me, I was told from the beginning that I have a path to walk. I suppose that my end was meant to come the same way it began; alone.”