chamber lit up.
“Never in the flesh.”
Montross let his eyes roam about, following the thousands of wires, ventilation tubes and piping snaking around the corners, connecting to various refrigerator-sized servers and computer banks. A glass-walled office overlooked the main floor, reached by a platform elevator.
“Of course,” Calderon said. “I assumed as much. And we never had the luxury of the Afghans and their Shield. Or, I presume, our friends in the revived Stargate Program, with theirs.”
Montross gave him a quick look, then continued his visual tour of the chamber. He took in the apexed ceiling, a hundred feet above, the sheer metal walls inclining to a point, leaving a gap straight above a device on the floor–a massive throne-like contraption that looked like it could fit a person after they had ascended the nine steps into the machine’s ‘seat’. The arm rests were enormous, and the one on the right supported a pedestal–with a slot wide enough to insert something the size of the Emerald Tablet.
“There it is,” Calderon whispered, leaning forward with both hands on his cane. At his back, the twins had gathered, at last showing some reverence. They had left their skateboards outside and now stood, heads bowed as if in prayer.
Isaac glanced sideways, first at Jacob, then past him and behind Montross, where Alexander seemed to be shrinking, trying to find a shadow. “Magnificent, eh brother?”
Jacob couldn’t help himself, he was grinning ear to ear. “Think we’ll get to try it out?”
“Could be fun,” Isaac said. “Me first though. I got me a list of cities I’d like to crush. Like Godzilla, Tokyo will be first. Then, I never liked Paris, so snotty. And…”
Alexander felt a lump in his throat. “No. This has to stop.”
Jacob shot him a confused glance, while Isaac merely chuckled. “The sad, motherless crow wants to fight destiny.”
“Not destiny,” Alexander said softly. “Insanity.”
Isaac took a step toward him, hands balling into fists. But Jacob was there in an instant, restraining his twin.
“Boys,” snapped Calderon. “Stand aside, and be quiet until you’re needed.”
After glaring at Alexander, who refused to back down, Isaac turned away and grumbled, “
“Now,” said Calderon, pivoting on his cane and facing Montross. “To work, my friend. We have an ancient enemy to eradicate. One that has slumbered too long in the glow of false superiority.”
Montross kept his attention on the central device, even as he noticed the workers above; through the windows, he could see them getting ready, industriously running about preparing the equipment and calibrating the arrays. “And just how do I fit in? And Alexander? The boys?”
Calderon gave a wolfish smile. “Alexander’s here just as insurance. So you don’t get any funny ideas of being a hero. My boys… well, if they’re needed, if you can’t do what we need, then they may step in.”
Montross gave a little laugh. “They didn’t do so well at Liberty Island, if I recall.”
Calderon shrugged. “They came through when needed at Cairo.”
“But Alexander succeeded first.” Montross sent an admiring look to his nephew, where the boy still looked hopeless and lost by himself, keeping his distance from the central machine.
“So let me guess,” Montross continued. “You need me to access the machine and interface with the Emerald Tablet and use its power to enhance this facility’s weaponry.”
“In a nutshell,” Calderon said, stroking his cane’s dragon tip. He pointed up at the windows. “First, my team is cracking the code, translating the instructions on the Tablet from the cipher we retrieved, thanks to Thoth and his box of secrets.”
Montross sighed, looking up at all that activity. “Then you’ll feed the instructions into the machine?”
Calderon shook his head. “Actually, I think we already know what needs to be done. You already know.”
“I do?” Montross didn’t. Sure, he had seen this facility, seen what the aftermath of this day would cause: the cataclysmic devastation, the eradication of all life on the planet, but he didn’t know how. Didn’t know exactly how the Tablet would be used. He stared at the machine, at the chair-like structure, suitably fitted to one individual and one Tablet.
Calderon watched his eyes. “You
Montross nodded slowly, the truth settling in. “So in the spiritual form, someone sits in the chair, and releases the dogs of war. So to speak.”
“So to speak.” Calderon stretched his arms, and held the cane tight lengthwise. “And then we finish what the Dragon started.”
Montross thought for a moment, a hundred questions surging to be let out, but it was Alexander, coming up behind him, that spoke what was foremost on his mind. “What about Mars?”
Calderon rubbed the silver dragon’s head, tracing the jagged horns and scaled jaws. “It’s all about angles, my dear boy. All about angles.” And with that, he approached the machine.
Alexander watched the guy with the white lab coat step off the elevator and come running over to Mason Calderon. He whispered something into the senator’s ear, and then showed some numbers and figures on his handheld PDA, a stream of symbols and text.
Calderon nodded rapidly, and then patted the man on his shoulder before sending him back to the elevator. “Ready the array, Dr. Phelps. We’ll have a target shortly.”
Montross approached the chair. “I don’t know about you, but I have no idea how to work this yet. We’re not ready.”
“That’s all right. We have a test scenario first.”
Montross raised an eyebrow. He glanced at Alexander, then at the twins, who were smirking to themselves. “I can only guess.”
“Why guess?” Calderon asked. “Surely you can figure it out. Or Alexander can see it.”
“Your target?” Alexander shot back. “You mean the next place you want to destroy. More buildings to crush, people to kill?”
Isaac made a chuckling sound in his throat. “Just coming attractions.”
“Before the main event,” said Jacob, with a little less enthusiasm.
“We should have the actual coordinates momentarily from our feathered accomplice in the nest of our woefully under-matched adversaries.”
Montross perked up. “You’ve got a mole in Stargate?”
Calderon smiled. “We have followers everywhere. We could have struck and leveled them much earlier, but we’ve found it useful to have a viewpoint into our enemy’s activities.”
“Staying one step ahead,” Isaac said. “Righto, father?”
“Righto, as you say.” Calderon approached the back of the chair, where there was an LCD screen set on an angled post, and a keyboard. He tapped a few keys, grinning to himself. “Translation is done, my friends. And our scientists are working on calibrating the device, feeding in the new data. Simply… astounding.” His eyes rapidly skimmed over the data and the schematics, the formulae. “It’s all here!”
“Congratulations,” Montross said from the other side. His fingertips traced the armrests, caressing the smooth metal contours, all the way up to the rectangular slot for the Emerald Tablet. “So now you’ll have the power of the ancients.”
Calderon looked around the side. Met Montross’s eyes. “The power of Tiamat and Marduk.”
“The power of the universe.”
“You’re like me, Montross. You can’t pass up this chance. You were born special, and now you’ve been given a chance to rise above the mass of humanity. To become like Marduk, like Thoth even, if you must compare yourself to him.”
