Menlo Park, New Jersey
Sullivan took a seat next to the electrical monstrosity and waited to receive a call from hell. The chair rested on a rubber mat, as if that would somehow help protect him if the energy inside the box escaped. The glass wasn’t even warm, but that didn’t make him feel any safer. The phone itself looked normal. Nothing else was.
Several different audio recording devices had been set around the table. Two film cameras were rolling, one electrical and one hand crank, just in case. Judging from the sheer amount of fingernail biting this was a momentous occasion for the EGE scientists. The Naval Intelligence people were having conniption fits. Sullivan had been given a typed list of questions to ask the Chairman’s ghost. The connections did not usually hold for long. Time would be of the essence.
The longest that EGE had ever been able to keep a connection was five minutes. A team of six men were sitting at one console, fiddling with dials, wearing headphones and concerned expressions. The scientist that Sullivan had mentally christened Clipboard Man was watching the clock on the wall. He interrupted his nervous sweat dabbing long enough to begin a countdown. “Ten… nine… eight …”
Briiiiiiiing.
The bell sounded like a perfectly normal telephone. It was sort of sad, that after all the labor of constructing this terrible abomination in the sight of God, Edison couldn’t be bothered to come up with anything more impressive for the ringer.
“He’s early!” Clipboard Man turned deathly pale. “Why is he early? Oh no. What do we do?”
Briiiiiiiing.
Sullivan simply answered the phone. He put the earpiece against his head and the connection made an unpleasant hum. He leaned in closer to the microphone. “Hello?”
“Mr. Sullivan.” The voice seemed to come from a billion miles away, and maybe it was. “It is I, Okubo Tokugawa.”
It sounded like him, but it could be a trick. “Prove it.”
“We spoke for the first time in the between place, where the dead go to dream, where the Power dwells. For you it is a haunted place of barbed wire and muddy bones.” The voice grew stronger. Closer. Steady and calm. “The last time we met was aboard my flagship. After you fed your own brother a sword, I asked you to stand with me to watch an old world die as a new one was born.”
“Chairman.”
“I was. Am. It is hard to know. Things are… sluggish in this place. So cold. So very dark… It is hard to see and harder to think. When are you?”
“It’s February sixteenth, nineteen thirty-three.”
“I have not been gone long then… Does the world miss me yet?”
Perhaps it wasn’t an odd question, coming from a dead man. “No.”
“They will soon enough.” The sound that came next might have been a sad chuckle.
“Your Imperium still thinks you’re alive.”
“Indeed? That is for the best. They will need to be strong for what is coming.”
The Chairman had not pierced the veil to make small talk. “What’s this about?”
“I cannot reach my followers, but a warning must be given. I can no longer find the dream of the Power. My sons can no longer hear my words. I despaired, for I saw what had come, yet had no one to give my message to. Until I found this light in the void. There is no marvelous device such as this in the Imperium. It is difficult, but in this cube, my words can be heard, even if only by my enemies.”
Sullivan looked over at the glass nervously. The pulsating energy was eerily quiet. Was the Chairman’s ghost actually inside?
“But we are no longer enemies. The dead have no enemies, only memories like fog and kingdoms are like dust. Japanese, American, it matters not. All will die if I cannot prepare them. Yet, who among you would heed my warning? And I knew… The strongest among my foes would understand.”
The Chairman’s entire doctrine had been based upon survival of the fittest, and Sullivan had been the one to defeat the Imperium’s finest Iron Guard, but it had been a crazy little Okie girl that had done the impossible and crippled the Chairman himself. “You want the strongest?” It was probably a sin to goad the restless dead, but he couldn’t resist. “I should go get Faye, then.”
“Perhaps she will be someday. The Power has blessed her with a bond beyond anything I have ever seen. I do not understand why it chose her, but she has her own part to play in the events to come. You will have to do, for you have seen the Power as it really is.”
“What do you want?”
“The Enemy has caught the scent of the Power. It will soon be on Earth.”
Sullivan exhaled slowly. He was one of the only people in the world who understood what magic really was. It had traveled from world to world for who knew how long, bonding magic to intelligent creatures, letting their magic grow, and consuming that magic when they died. The abilities that had appeared in the last century weren’t miracles, they were just manifestations of a being that could influence the natural world. It was a repetitive cycle.
Sadly, he’d also learned that the Power was not the top of its food chain. Something else fed on the Power, just as it fed on them. And the Power fleeing and leaving its hosts to be destroyed by its predator was just part of the cycle. “You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me about the Enemy.”
“It will consume the Power until the Power has no choice but to flee. When that happens, the Enemy will wreck this world like it has done so many times before. You must defeat it before it takes hold.”
“How?”
“First there will come a scout. This is the Pathfinder. The enemy sends them ahead to many worlds, searching for prey, but the spaces between are vast and deep. The Pathfinder must gather enough energy to send a message back to the Enemy, and it must be destroyed before it can do that. I have done this myself, twice before.”
“Where is it?”
Clipboard Man shouted, “The signal is breaking up.”
The Chairman’s voice had grown distant again. “The coming of the Pathfinder woke me from my sleep, and already I can feel myself drifting away. It will arrive soon. The time is short. It is… confusing. I can no longer think clearly. My children, my Iron Guard.. I taught them how to search, but you must warn them. They will know what to do.”
“How much time do we have?”
“Weeks, perhaps months. Certainly not years. Time is different here.” The Chairman kept talking, but it was too faint. Sullivan didn’t understand. The background noise was louder. It sounded like a crowd of thousands screaming, until it all coalesced into one hoarse buzz.
“We’re losing the connection.”
“Sullivan, ask the questions!” shouted the Navy captain, pointed madly at the papers on the table. “The questions!”
But the Navy questionnaire was forgotten. It was about things like who tried to assassinate the president and Imperium weapon systems. Those things meant nothing compared to this. “How do I kill the Pathfinder?”
“Each one is different, but each… So very powerful.”
“Better than you were?”
“Yes.” The word trailed off into a hiss. “I was the first of our kind. The Power learned on me, but there are others like me, almost as old… If you can find them, convince them, they can hel-”
The line was nothing but the empty wailing of the damned. “Get him back.”
“We’re trying,” said Clipboard.
Suddenly, the Chairman’s voice returned. “-d. I think it has found me. I do not know how. A piece of the Pathfinder is here to silence me. Listen carefully. You must warn my children, my Iron Guard. They will know what to do.”
