The Cydonia Objective

“I’m not going to argue anymore. If you’re not going to let me go, then shoot me if it’ll make you feel better.”

“Oh it would, Caleb. It really would. But I think Jacob and Isaac really want to meet their daddy, and I can’t deny them such a simple pleasure.” She took a seat opposite him on the deck, crossing her silky tan legs slowly while she leaned forward, casually holding the .45. “But first, there’s the matter of Giza’s subterranean labyrinth. Senator Calderon tasked me to find out exactly what you learned down there.”

Caleb cocked his head. “Why? Couldn’t he get the boys to RV it?”

Nina didn’t move. “Their minds are… a little OCD, I’d say. Getting them to focus is like teaching a golden retriever to play chess in a park full of kids throwing balls.” She absently tapped the gun’s barrel against her front teeth. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you’re up to? What is it you and Xavier thought you could do to stop Calderon? Stop a man who could do…” she motioned to the devastation on the shore “…that?”

Caleb smoothed back his thick wet hair, and his eyes locked on hers. She didn’t need the gun to make him feel like he was at her mercy. Just like when they had first met, he felt out of her league, humbled by her beauty. Only now, he could see something else behind her eyes: the calculating, catlike fury and selfishness that Nina possessed in abundance. But he held onto a hope that just as Caleb had changed after he had discovered he had a son, maybe some grand lycanthropic transformation would work her over, reforming her. But it didn’t seem likely.

“Go to hell,” he whispered. “You want to find out, you know what you have to do.”

“Oh,” Nina said, tracing her lips with the gun’s barrel, “you’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Caleb stood up. “Again, I’m not here to talk, and I’m not here to help you. Do what you need to do, but I won’t be a willing subject.”

Nina stood beside him, taking the bait without realizing she’d just been hooked. Smiling, she reached for him and said, “Just the way I like it.”

#

He felt a burning rush as she grabbed his wrist, and then she was turning him towards her, and the sun was behind her, blazing through her hair, and her face disappeared into the blackest shadow as she leaned in.

And then her lips were on his, her tongue opening his mouth, her lungs sucking in his breath. He squirmed in her grasp, even as he felt the electric chill of her curves against his wet chest, her legs encircling his calves, pinning him in place as she took his thoughts. His memories, his essence.

But this time, he was prepared. His mind was focused.

She may have thought she was taking from him, but this time, he was the one giving.

#

She saw it all, just as he had mentally prepped it, as if he had loaded the projector in his mind, and had it playing in an infinite loop so that anyone that poked their head in for a look, would see…

A massive ripple of energy, nearly invisible but sparking as if roiling with electromagnetic charges at war within the ether, a wave tearing through New York City, blasting the skyline apart, cutting a swath through the island, tearing across the harbor and splitting the waters, causing mirror-image tsunamis, parting before the Statue of Liberty which seemed to wince before being struck. It shatters, arm, torso and crown tossed in separate directions, caught up in the flux and separately pulverized.

Then—ascent, and a satellite’s view. The ripple tears across the globe, leaving a path of destruction from an origin point somewhere in eastern Alaska. But then… the clouds are massing, swirling over the northern hemisphere, lighting up from within, periodically bursting with intense flashes. Massive auroras are appearing in the upper atmosphere, as if an unseen hand works with vibrant watercolors, splashing them in broad brushstrokes over the world’s skies. Breathtaking. Beautiful.

The earth trembles. Wobbles unsteadily. In breaks of the clouds, the land masses seem to be shifting. Major sections tearing free. Waters spilling over entire countries. The globe shifts the wrong way. The poles reverse. Flipping, as if something has completely unsettled the core, scrambled it and shut off the dynamo at the center of Earth’s molten center, then jump-started it again.

The vision draws sideways so that the Earth is out of the frame, and its companion pulls near. The Moon. Silvery, lustrous, complacent. So bright…

…on one side. But we’re nearing, soaring around, towards the darkness. Towards…

#

The vision ended in a searing ball of light. Intense white that turned to yellow, then dimmed… and dimmed. She couldn’t get her bearings, but Nina felt as if she were weightless. Still in space. Still…

Then it dawned on her. She couldn’t see, not yet. Not with the glare of the sun still tearing at her eyes, but she knew all the same. She was in the water. In the damn harbor. With… a vest on? And—a regulator stuffed into her mouth. She was breathing the tasteless but pure air from a scuba tank.

That meant…

Shit!

She tried to spin around, awkwardly lashing out with her hands. Where was he? How did she get out here?

But then she realized it.

He had been ready for her. He knew she’d try to pry the truth from his mind, and he was ready.

But with what?

What the hell was that?

She floated, and her vision gradually returned along with the sound of a motor, a familiar motor, departing swiftly.

Damn Caleb.

#

Lucky, he thought, steering the boat the last few yards, coasting into the dock, where two youths waited with ropes to reel and tether him in. I got lucky. Nina had her guard down, and never considered that Caleb could show her anything that would literally send her reeling.

Let her stew on that, he thought as he disembarked and gave the boat-hands a tip out of the purse Nina had left behind. He took that with him, wrapped in a towel that he tucked under his arm.

Happily, she had also left her cell phone on the seat. He quickly made his way into the shadow of Qaitbey’s Fortress and took it out, preparing to dial Phoebe. But first he glanced out into the harbor, where far out there he thought he could make out Nina, starting to swim for the rocky shore. He knew it was probably a mistake to let her live. But he wasn’t a killer. He could no more strap weights to her chest and dump her, unconscious, into the harbor, than he could strangle a sleeping cat. Not to mention the newfound connection they shared. But while he couldn’t kill her, only incapacitate her for a time, neither did he believe they could work together.

Hopefully what he had shown her would cause her to second-guess what she had been told. Or at least, to start to question whose side she was really on. But he wouldn’t count on it.

He had work to do.

On the second ring, Phoebe picked up and once she heard his voice, relief flooded hers. “Big brother! Glad my vision wasn’t wrong, and you’re still alive. How’s Alexander?”

“Safe, for now. But listen, we need to move fast. And I don’t want them tracking this call. I need your help. Can you get me out of here? Where are you, I tried looking, but only–”

“Saw something blue?” Phoebe’s voice was giddy, like she had just opened a favorite present. “We got ourselves one of those shields!”

“A what? And who’s we?”

“You won’t believe me. Orlando and I, we’re on a plane, nearing…”

Caleb heard an unfamiliar voice yell out and cut her off: “Don’t say where we’re going!”

“Oh right,” said Phoebe. “Kind of defeats the purpose of a shield. Anyway, we’re with some others with similar interests. Been recruited, you might say. We’ll find a way to get you here discreetly.”