From the very walls of the spherical orb chamber, aliens began to materialize, black shell forming over silver endoskeleton. They sensed him and approached.
His thoughts were wandering as the excruciating webs worked their way into his flesh and the black presence struggled to grasp his soul.
Patra Jennings shifted her arm, and with a flash of radiance, severed the webs that held him in place.
“I can still feel them. The ones that aren’t dead.”
“How?”
“I can feel them still alive, billions and billions. Captured by the aliens. Their minds are being drained. Fading away. It’s like the aliens are collecting them, using them as a power source.”
“A power source? Food?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know…The Diablo vessel was powered by neural energy.” She pointed upward. “Neural energy. Electrical patterns. Souls. You see all of those?”
Hayes nodded.
“That would take a lot of energy. Billions of minds. Billions of souls.”
The web severed, West could shift once more.
The aliens rushed at him.
He began the killing frenzy.
The corridor he had walked down into the orb chamber sealed off, faded into solid black metal. No escape.
West whirled around, warding off the mindless creatures that surged before him.
Patra.
She gazed at her own arm, spellbound by her shifted limb. West studied her face. She was definitely the President’s daughter, older, shorter hair, but hell, it had been over a decade since she had disappeared.
In places, the metallic web had actually meshed with the underlying skin. She wasn’t human anymore. Disks of metal protruded from her temples. Extending from them were the strands of metal that had fused with most of her body. If he hadn’t pulled her back…
No way out. Except…
The aliens were upon him.
“Diablo, Wyoming…Sounds pretty ominous.”
“What?” Flynn looked up at Hayes, who had fallen silent.
“Diablo. The vessel. Is it still there?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know why they would have destroyed it. I don’t see how they could have destroyed it. They could have sealed it into the mountain, but I don’t think they would have. It was too much of an asset.”
“Let’s go.”
“What?” She was intrigued.
“Let’s go to Diablo and see what’s there.”
“I already know what’s there, Simon. Weren’t you paying attention last night?” She smiled that smile and her eyes shined.
If she only knew… “I know, but that warship could be the key to winning back this planet…It’s a hope.”
“No. We’re hope.” She embraced him.
“Maggie?”
“Hmm?” She looked up into Simon’s eyes.
“You could hear me think of Wind River before.”
“Yes.”
“What else could you hear me think?”
She grinned mischievously, revealing dimples. There was a spark in her shiny gray eyes. “Don’t worry, Simon. I didn’t hear too much. I don’t listen to everything, you know.” The embrace tightened, and she kissed him quickly on the cheek.
Hayes stood motionless, feeling Flynn against him. He never had been good at dealing with awkward situations, especially those awkward situations dealing with women. He eventually put his arms around her and returned her embrace in kind. She looked into his pale blue eyes, and a sly smile came to her face.
“What is it?”
“In your book, in ‘Deus Ex Machina,’ do we win? Do we defeat the aliens?”
He laughed, and sighed. “Rejected twelve times. Each time because it had a negative ending. Humanity falls, the aliens took over, and the stage was set for a sequel about the resistance.”
“Did you ever write the sequel?”
“Maggie, we’re living the sequel.”
The battle was exhausting West.
He and Patra had stepped close to the orb, so close that the light became a burning force. West looked at the light, had to struggle to look away again.
The walls. Aliens everywhere. They were materializing from the walls.
Too many.
Desperation.
Patra was in shock. West couldn’t blame her.
The orb. Heaven.
“We have to go through it! Now!”
She did not understand. She was terrified.
West shifted his arms back down, grabbed the young woman. “We have to jump into the light! We can’t stay here!” Her fiery silver eyes were blank; she was not comprehending. He looked once more around the chamber at the aliens. A voice filled his mind, his soul.
GO THEN. PRAY YOUR GODS, JUDAS. OMEGA IS THE ONLY—
Shielding Patra with his body, they jumped into the light.
NO—
Time stopped.
The spire shattered with force enough to level the crater walls. An inconceivable deluge of light poured from the crater, swept out across the land, consuming everything in its path. Countless patterns dissolved into the landscape, the uploaded dead screaming with sudden freedom in the instant before they dissolved into nothing. In the sky above what had been Chicago, the translucent purple web cracked and the Enemy vessels fell from the sky, suddenly empty of their lifeblood of souls.
The wave of light erupted from the dead upload spire, and nothing could stand in its path. The humans collected at the base of the spire, the Enemy vessels on land and in air, all were cleansed from existence in the pure wave of light. They felt no pain.
West and Patra had entered the orb.
timesweep.
a white place, out of time.
the Whenstream.
“What is it?”
(((tight-beam combeacon; recon front code fourteen-seven.)))
“Fourteen-seven? I thought we’d abandoned that When.”
(((recon galilee matthew, ali report)))
“Run it.”
a pause. eyes widen.
“Convene the Circle. Now.”
(((done.)))
“You’ve been called here because we have a confirmed web breach.”
The meeting chamber of the Judas Command First Circle was filled with shocked silence. Several members looked up suddenly at the announcement. There had not been a web breach in… Well, a long time. Hundreds of years, perhaps thousands. Perhaps longer.
“When?”
“The timesweep waves are emanating from the Fourteen-seven front.”
