Stones had rocked, where the Pope had spoken on the virtues of poverty, taxpayers were funding an advanced concentration camp. Once completed, it was designed to house five hundred SAFs – Subterranean Animal Forms – at a time. At its far end, the playing field was beginning to look like the basement of the Roman Colosseum ruins. The holding pens were in progress. Alleyways wound between titanium cages. Ultimately the old arena surface and all its cages would be covered over with eight floors of laboratory space. There was even a smokeless incinerator, approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, for disposing of remains.
Down on the field, the hadal had begun crawling toward the stack of concrete culverts temporarily housing his comrades. The Stick wouldn't be ready for nonhuman tenants for another year.
'Truly a march of the damned,' de l'Orme commented. 'In the space of a week, several hundred hadals have become less than two dozen. Shameful.'
'Live hadals are as rare as Martians,' the general explained. 'Getting them to the surface alive and intact – before their gut bacteria curdles or their lung tissues hemorrhage or a hundred other damn things – it's like growing hair on rock.'
There-had been isolated cases of individual hadals living in captivity on the surface. The record was an Israeli catch: eighty-three days. At their present rate, what was left of this group of fifty wasn't going to last the week.
'I don't see any water. Or food. What are they supposed to be living on?'
'We don't know. That's the whole problem. We filled a galvanized tub with clean water, and they wouldn't touch it. But see that Porta Potti for the construction workers? A few of the hadals broke in the first day and drank the sewage and chemicals. It took 'em hours to quit bucking and shrieking.'
'They died, you're saying.'
'They'll either adapt or die,' the general said. 'Around here, we call it seasoning.'
'And those other bodies lying by the sidelines?'
'That's what's left of an escape attempt.'
From this height the visitors could see the lower stands filled with soldiers and ringed with miniguns trained on the playing field. The soldiers wore bulky oversuits with hoods and oxygen tanks.
On the giant screen, the hadal male cast another glance at the night sky and promptly buried his face in the turf. They watched him clutch at the grass as if holding on to the side of a cliff.
'After our meeting, I want to go closer,' said de l'Orme. 'I want to hear him. I want to smell him.'
'Out of the question,' said Sandwell. 'It's a health issue. Nobody goes in. We don't want them getting contaminated with human diseases.'
The hadal crawled from the forty to the thirty-five. The pyramid of culvert pipes stood near the ten. Farther on, he began navigating between skeletons and rotting bodies.
'Why are the remains lying in the open like that?' Thomas asked. 'I should think they constitute a health hazard.'
'You want a burial? This isn't a pet cemetery, Father.'
Vera turned her head at the tone. Sandwell had definitely crossed over. He belonged to Helios. 'It's not a zoo, either, General. Why bring them here if you're just going to watch them fester and die?'
'I told you, old-fashioned R-and-D. We're building a truth machine. Now we'll get the facts on what really makes them tick.'
'And what's your part in it?' Thomas asked him. 'Why are you here? With them. Helios.'
The general bridled. 'Operational configuration,' he growled.
'Ah,' said January, as if she had been told something.
'Yes, I've left the Army. But I'm still manning the line,' Sandwell said. 'Still taking the fight to the enemy. Only now I'm doing it with real muscle behind me.'
'You mean money,' said January. 'The Helios treasury.'
'Whatever it takes to stop Haddie. After all those years of being ruled by globalists and warmed- over pacifists, I'm finally dealing with real patriots.'
'Bullshit, General,' January said. 'You're a hireling. You're simply helping Helios help itself to the subplanet.'
Sandwell reddened. 'These rumors about a start-up nation underneath the Pacific? That's tabloid talk.'
'When Thomas first described it, I thought he was being paranoid,' said January. 'I thought no one in their right mind would dare rip the map to shreds and glue the pieces together and declare it a country. But it's happening, and you're part of it, General.'
'But your map is still intact,' a new voice said. They turned. C.C. Cooper was standing in the doorway. 'All we've done is lift it and expose the blank tabletop. And drawn a new land where there was no land before. We're making a map within the map. Out of view. You can go on with your affairs as if we never existed. And we can go on with our affairs. We're stepping off your merry-go-round, that's all.'
Years ago, Time magazine had mythologized C.C. Cooper as a Reaganomic whiz kid, lauding his by- the-bootstraps rise through computer chips and biotech patents and television programming. The article had artfully neglected to mention his manipulation of hard currency and precious resources in the crumbling Soviet Union, or his sleight of hand with hydroelectric turbines for the Three Gorges dam project in China. His sponsorship of environmental and human-rights groups was constantly being shoveled before the public as proof that big money could have a big conscience, too.
In person, the entrepreneurial bangs and wire rims looked strained on a man his age. The former senator had a West Coast vitality that might have played well if he'd become President. At this early hour, it seemed excessive.
Cooper entered, followed by his son. Their resemblance was eerie, except that the son had better hair and wore contacts and had a quarterback's neck muscles. Also, he did not have his father's ease among the enemy. He was being groomed, but you could see that raw power did not come naturally to him. That he had been included in this morning's meeting – and that the meeting had been offered in the deep of night, while the city slept – said much to Vera and the others. It meant Cooper considered them dangerous, and that his son was now supposed to learn about dispatching one's opponents away from public view.
Behind the two Cooper men came a tall, attractive woman in her late forties, hair bobbed and jet black. She had invited herself along, that was clear. 'Eva Shoat,' Cooper said to the group. 'My wife. And this is my son, Hamilton. Cooper.' As distinct from Montgomery, Vera realized. The stepson, Shoat.
Cooper led his entourage to the table and joined the Beowulf scholars and Sandwell. He didn't ask their names. He didn't apologize for being late.
'Your country-in-progress is a renegade,' said Foley. 'No nation steps out of the international polity.'
'Says who?' Cooper asked agreeably. 'Forgive my pun. But the international polity may go to the devil. I'm going to hell.'
'Do you realize the chaos this will bring?' January asked. 'Your control of ocean shipping lanes alone. Your ability to operate without any oversight. To violate
international standards. To penetrate national borders.'
'But consider the order I'll bring by occupying the underworld. In one fell swoop, I return mankind to its innocence. This abyss beneath our feet will no longer be terrifying and unknown. It will no longer be dominated by creatures like that.' He pointed at the stadium video. The hadal was lapping its own vomit from the turf. Eva Shoat shuddered.
'Once our colonial strategy begins, we can quit fearing the monsters. No more superstitions. No more midnight fears. Our children and their children will think of the underworld as just another piece of real estate. They'll take holidays to the natural wonders beneath our feet. They'll enjoy the fruits of our inventions. They'll own the untapped energy of the planet itself. They'll be free to work on Utopia.'
'That's not the abyss man fears,' Vera protested. 'It's the one in here.' She touched the ribs above her heart.'
