Montross closed his eyes. “A god.”
“Leave your body. Leave this world, travel to a new one.”
Montross’s eyes opened. “Mars?”
And Calderon smiled. “It’s all there, waiting for us. Where the ancients left it.”
Montross swooned. There was a flash in his mind—
He held his head, shaking it until Alexander came to his side. “Was it—?”
Montross kept his eyes on Calderon, who now appeared very interested. “Tell me, did you just get a look at our little secret?”
“I saw something down there below the Face. A facility.”
“The sacred texts are clear,” Calderon said, barely above a whisper. “The caretakers, just a few of them, remained after the War. Maintaining the banks of DNA, the memory tanks and flesh pods. When we need to be corporeal again, bodies will be ready for our arrival.”
Calderon had the Emerald Tablet out now, and its glow was fierce. Pulsing, bathing the three brothers in its light, making Montross giddy with anticipation.
“At first,” Calderon continued, “it was simply a safeguard. Redundancy in case something happened on the Earth. And there was a precedent, apparently. The meteor, what did in the dinosaurs…”
Montross nodded, but was barely listening. “It’s clear now. Wipe out the earth, get rid of the competition. Just like the Tower of Babel or the Flood.”
“Except we’ll do it right this time. And this time, we—the Gods now—will be reborn anew on the planet that is our birthright.”
“Yeah,” said Alexander, brazen now, “but then what? It’s a desert. No atmosphere, no water. No Fun.”
Isaac smirked at him and Jacob just licked his lips.
“Good question,” Montross said. “But I don’t think Mars is their ultimate destination.”
“True.” Calderon moved up, then placed the Emerald Tablet over the slot. “It’s just a bouncing off point. The stars await—the true birthplace of our race, and we will venture out there, immortal, timeless. Sending out our astral bodies, to which there are no time and space limitations. But first, there is something we must do. One more loose end.”
Isaac grinned. “About time. We strike at the lunar base.”
“The what?” Alexander asked.
“The far side of the moon,” Calderon answered as he lowered the tablet gently into the slot and the machine began to hum “Where the last remnants of Thoth’s guard have lingered. Just as a few of Marduk’s custodians stayed behind on Mars, so did Thoth leave his faithful on the lunar colony.”
“On the far side,” Montross whispered.
“Always with its face turned away from Earth,” Calderon said. “Protected from telescopes and other prying eyes.”
“And from your reach with the HAARP weapon.”
Calderon nodded, as he finished inserting the tablet. He stepped back. “But now that we know the formula we have the power to separate from matter and can travel to the Mars facility—”
Alexander got it first. “—Where you can aim from there and strike at the lunar base!”
Isaac jabbed his brother. “God, he’s slow. Must’ve been home-schooled.”
Alexander took a step back as the Emerald Tablet disappeared into the slot and the machine trembled, sending vibrations through the floor. Then, it started to glow.
His skin prickled, and he swooned as a shooting pain tore through his skull.
Just as quickly as it came on, the pain was gone.
And he was standing over his body.
A flash of green light, then
On the floor, holding his head. Relieved to be back, but just as certain that he’d just been given an opportunity to save the day—
—and blown it.
5.
Phoebe raced out of the control center and rushed down the hall. She thought she’d get there first, but there was already an alarm sounding. Guards raced ahead of her, guns drawn. They took their positions on either side of the door.
“Orlando!” Phoebe shouted, just as Temple and Diana rounded the corner. “I saw a flash back there of a gun. Someone firing at him.”
“He was in the room?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know!” She couldn’t think, couldn’t focus. Could barely breathe.
They reached the door together, and when Temple tried it and found it locked, he nodded to the larger guard, who promptly entered an override code on the keypad, then threw the door open.
Phoebe pushed inside, wriggling in ahead of the guards, just slipping past Temple’s reach as he tried to hold her back.
“Orlando!” Emotions raging as she ran inside, her heart nearly gave out as soon as she saw him on the ground, face down beside the empty chair.
“Phoebe, wait!” Temple called, desperation in his voice. Dimly Phoebe thought he was trying to save her from the worst, but it was too late.
“Damn it, Orlando, don’t you be dead, don’t die on me here.” She dropped to her knees beside him, hands shaking. Touched his shoulder, squeezed it. Then, reached for a pulse.
“I’m sorry,” Temple whispered, even as his men spread out, searching the room.
“Sir!” one of them called. “A section of the wall here—it’s gone!”
Phoebe whimpered as she touched Orlando’s neck. Her fingers shook so badly she couldn’t tell if he had a pulse or not. Instead, she smoothed back his hair, leaned down and gave him a kiss.
Ready to feel his cold skin against her lips, instead she gasped as, with a grunt and a rush of motion, Orlando turned and sat up.
“Where’d they go!?”
Phoebe opened her eyes and as she grabbed Orlando’s shoulders she scanned his chest, looking for blood stains and bullet holes.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Now where’s the Dove?” Orlando stood up, taking great heaving breaths as his head whipped about in confusion. He caught sight of Temple, at the strange, arched doorway that had materialized at the side wall beside the view screen. The edges of the arch looked as though they’d been cauterized, blasted through the metal and concrete and seared right through the bedrock into the waiting tunnel.
Temple cleared his throat. “Good to see you still up and about, soldier. Now, before we go blundering in after the Dove, why don’t you tell us what happened here?
Orlando scratched his head, and only now noticed Phoebe gaping at him with a mix of relief and anger. “Wait, are those tears?”
“Shut up.” She wiped at her eyes. “Saw you get shot, so if you’re from Krypton you better start
