Chronosphere Read online

  “Affirmative,” the second said. “We’re detecting partial decay over a fifteen-mile sweep. Almost full decay for five miles.”

  “Full? We need to dilute the solution more. Starving them won’t do us any good.”

  “Headquarters was clear. Full decay. Said the bastards won’t eat a single potato unless we give it to them. I guess they’re upping the dosages since the wedding went through.”

  Silence.

  “They tried to pull this on Centauri,” the first voice said again. “Killed off the locals. I hope they know what they’re doing.”

  “So what if we kill them off? There’s a thousand more planets just like this one.”

  “I want EP3092 to work out. Tired of moving all the damn time. I’m too old for another cryo-freeze.”

  The recording ended.

  “They moved to another room,” Ana said. “I couldn’t find it in the system. I am sorry that I couldn’t record more.”

  “How…” Petra’s face was white as snow. “How did you make their voices… how did you understand…” Her words became a jumbled mess.

  “You’re gonna have way more questions later,” Anton said. “I’ll explain everything to you when I can, but we don’t really have the time right now. You’re best off just calling it magic.”

  “Magic,” she said, unsatisfied. “Fine.”

  Anton began to pull on pieces of the ebony armor. Petra shifted her weight back and forth, still trying to process what was happening.

  “So they’re invisible,” she said. “But they can’t see us either. So why are you putting the armor on?”

  “I at least need them to open the door,” Anton said. “Ana, I take it there are no easy ways to sneak in?”

  “There is one other door on the opposite side, but it can only be operated by the control panel in the front area. I tried to hack it, but it must be manually operated.”

  “What does the back-door lead to?”

  “Based on the tech signature, I suspect a research laboratory. At the moment, there is one life sign present there.”

  Anton finished putting on the armor.

  “I’ll get to that control panel,” Anton said. “Ana, lead Petra to the back door. As soon as I get it open, stick that reptile until he’s dead. And try to be quiet about it. The last thing we need is a survivor getting a message out to the mothership.”

  They started to move toward their destinations when Anton stopped.

  “Ana, wait, can you extrapolate a simple translator from that recording? Maybe mix it with some other recordings from back in our present? I should have a few backed up on your hard drive. I need to be able to say a few simple sentences to this guy.”

  Ana stared ahead blankly for a moment. Petra watched her with a raised eyebrow.

  “It is rudimentary,” she said, “but it should work.”

  She detached the speaker from her hand and gave it to Anton, who slid it inside the helmet and up to his mouth.

  “Good luck,” he said. The translator turned his words into clicks and gurgles. It didn’t sound perfect, but it would have to do.

  Anton followed Ana’s instructions to find the general area where the main entrance was. When he was close, he took a deep breath, made sure the translator was close enough to his mouth, then shouted.

  “Help! Help!” he cried, hearing the language morph. “Emergency situation in Jagari!”

  He waved his arms, feeling a bit foolish. It was fortunate that the grunts didn’t know exactly where the outpost was. After a few seconds, a voice seemed to come from the hill in front of him.

  “Soldier,” the voice said. “Explain yourself.”

  “The castle guard staged an uprising,” he said. “It’s a bloodbath. Please let me in, I will explain.”

  There was a pause.

  “We have heard no distress calls from the castle. Return to your post.”

  “They found them out and ambushed them before a call could get out. I barely escaped.”

  Another pause. Anton’s heart beat in his ears.

  “Step inside, quickly.”

  Simultaneously nervous and relieved, Anton watched a round metal door materialize in the side of the hill. He ran toward it and threw it open.

  It was clear that the outpost reptilians were not as combat savvy as their counterparts in the city. The one that greeted Anton was in his natural form. He’d never seen an old reptilian. He was still tall and hulking, but there were cracks and wrinkles throughout his scales. His faded yellow eyes were tired and wise. A dark green robe hung over him.

  Anton stepped into a control room. Blinking lights flashed over metal panels, bars and monitors scrolled information that he didn’t have time to analyze.

  “Explain yourself, quickly,” the old Draconian said.

  Anton didn’t bother. As quickly as he could, he pulled his laser pistol from behind him and ended the warden’s long life. Once the beam melted through his face, it smashed into a control panel on the opposite side of the room. Sparks and smoke billowed out of the wreckage.

  “What’s happening in there?” Croaked a voice from an adjacent room.

  “Minor accident,” Anton called out, hoping his voice sounded similar enough to his victim’s. “Don’t worry.”

  Anton frantically scanned the room. Knobs and levers dotted everything. Feeling overwhelmed, he ran to them one-by-one, searching for any indication of an emergency opening.

  “Did you fall again? I’ll come help,” called the voice.

  “No, no,” Anton said. “That won’t be necessary.”

  He came to a red lever with the image of a doorway printed onto its metal panel. It was worth a shot. He pulled it.

  Suddenly, a voice recording brought every intercom in the outpost to life.

  “Caution: back door now open,” it clicked in Draconian and repeated itself

  Another reptilian in a lab coat stepped into the room. Upon seeing the corpse of his colleague, he gasped, then retreated into another room. Anton threw off his helmet and chased after him. Just as he entered the hallway, he saw the end of a tail disappear into another room. He rushed in after the scientist and was met with a bright purple light. Anton ducked instinctively while what looked like brightly glowing purple blades sailed over his head. The blades crashed into the wall, burying themselves into the metal before flashing several times and exploding in a violent expulsion of light. Heat radiated with each miniature detonation.

  The reptilian had weapons unlike anything Anton had ever seen before. There were two of them. The one he’d just fired looked like a simple laser pistol, but with a clustered barrel. The reptilian cast that one aside but picked up another from a table. Though still shaped like a pistol, more of the purple blades jutted out of the top of this one. The room would have been dark if not for the glow. They seemed to be in a small laboratory where beakers, flasks, and pipettes occupied the countertops. A few of them were full of blood.

  The Draconian scientist launched more of the glowing ammunition, and Anton barely managed to duck and avoid them. Crouched low, he fired a shot that opened the reptilian’s chest and splattered the lab with gore.

  Anton raced out of the room and down the hallway, following the sounds of metal on metal. By the time he reached the largest room of the outpost, Petra was already pulling her twin blades out of the chest of one Draconian. The other’s headless corpse lay in a pool of green blood several feet away. Ana stood beside her.

  The threats now removed, he took a moment to remove the armor that weighed him down and examine the room. It was about as large as the dining chamber in the castle. One wall was lined with computer screens displaying charts, graphs, and digital maps of the area. A series of massive vats were pushed against the opposite wall, all full of a cloudy red liquid that was too bright to be human blood. It took him a moment to register the sounds of barking and ruffling feathers. In a corner of the room, a cluster of caged animals raised a commotion. The Draconians held several chickens,
dogs, and cats against their will.

  The room was centered around a large table, the contents of which almost made Anton retch. A spread of gunky, formless, organic matter covered most of the surface. In it, Anton recognized tiny bits of corn, potatoes, and strawberries. In other parts of it, feathers, teeth and tufts of hair were embedded in the gunk.

  A strange odor wafted from the substance. Earthy sweetness, like an overripe fruit. The fact that it wasn’t altogether unpleasant made it more disturbing. Petra stared at it in horror, seemingly forgetting about her blood-covered hands and swords. Ana looked to be analyzing it closely but coming up with very little.

  “What the hell is this?” Petra dropped her swords and approached it.

  Ana looked from the goop over to the vats against the wall.

  “Some kind of experiment,” she said. “This substance appears to be dissolving - or somehow fundamentally changing - the nature of the substances being consumed.”

  Anton dipped a finger into the ooze and pulled it back. The stuff clung to his hand like mucus.

  “This is what they’re using to poison the crops.” He wiped his finger on his armor. “But there’s animal bits in there too. Shit. So they’re going for the animals too. Those boars weren’t a fluke.”

  A familiar vision suddenly appeared to him. Traveling to the outskirts of modern Jagari as a teenager and staring out over the vast desolation that surrounded it. An endless expanse dry, cracked earth only occasionally interspersed with trees and decrepit buildings. Was that how far this experiment was set to go?

  His thoughts were interrupted by three loud beeps. The animals went silent. Some kind of sensor was going off on one of the screens. Suddenly, a reptilian voice filled the room. Anton did his best to interpret it.

  “Command post,” it said. “We received a transmission that your emergency door was engaged. Is everything going smoothly?”

  Anton ran for the helmet he’d dropped on the ground and frantically grabbed his translator.

  “Affirmative,” he said. “Just an accident.”

  “Heard,” the voice said. “How’s the dilution radius currently?”

  Anton froze for a moment, trying to remember what they’d overheard when Ana bugged the now dead reptilians.

  “We’re detecting partial decay over a fifteen-mile sweep. Almost full decay for five miles.”

  “Excellent. Over.”

  Anton and Petra sighed with relief.

  “It’s going to be a problem if they keep checking in,” Anton said. “We’ll need to install an A.I. or something to meet their responses. Hopefully that will at least satisfy them for today.”

  The animals resumed their distressed sounds.

  “Why did they stop when the magic voice happened?” Petra asked.

  Anton looked at the animals.

  “They’re terrified,” he said. “The Draconians must have trained them to shut up when a transmission comes in.”

  He approached the poor beasts, looking deeply into a hound’s eyes and seeing pain and fear.

  “They tormented you, huh? Got their kicks off your fear before turning you into biological soup. Sons of bitches.”

  “Should we let them out?” Petra asked.

  “Yeah but be careful. Abused animals can lash out at anyone.”

  He unlocked the cages and let the animals out. They shook, too afraid to attack. Anton gently led them down the hallway and opened the front door for them. They winced against the sunlight and hobbled out to the hills.

  When he returned to the main lab, Ana was seated in front of one of the screens, examining a control panel. Petra stood behind her, watching her work.

  “Is it gonna be hard to hack?” Anton asked Ana.

  “It shouldn’t be too difficult,” Ana responded. “Give me a few minutes.”

  He left her to it. His brain was too jumbled and disgusted to focus on such a specialized task. Ana’s inability to be flustered was one of her greatest assets. Anton had a powerful mind, but this required a laser-like focus that just wasn’t possible under extremely stressful circumstances. Transplanting his focused mental abilities into an A.I. had been one of his greatest ideas.

  While she worked, he went back to the lab where a lizard corpse lay on the floor and glassware sat undisturbed. Anton pulled a small, empty jar from a shelf and a pair of abandoned gloves and returned to the main room. He walked over to the row of vats as Ana finished up.

  “I’ve accessed the computer’s main programs,” she said.

  Anton smiled at her efficiency. He dipped a gloved hand into the vat, filled the glass jar, and capped it off. Turning to her, he replied, “What have we got?”

  On a screen, a digital map of Androna was displayed. Ana hit a few keys and zoomed into Jagari, then closer in on their exact location.

  “This is a chronological projection,” she said. “Watch.”

  She pressed a few more buttons and the image became animated. A red circle spread out from their location and engulfed Jagari and all the surrounding areas.

  “This is where we are now,” she said. “Or, more accurately, when we are.”

  The projection went on to show it expanding outward further and further. Meanwhile, Jagari began to spread out further as well, following closely behind the expanding radius.

  “They’re gonna build the city as the poison spreads,” Anton said.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Petra said. “Why would they taint all of the crops and livestock. The people have to eat something.”

  “I don’t think they will taint everything,” Anton said. “They’ll just have total control over what does get produced. And the humans will see them as saviors, the only ones able to grow anything.”

  The city grew steadily until several bright green dots appeared. They fell into place in distant corners of the expanding city, at which point the image of the city began to expand exponentially faster.

  “What are the green dots?” Petra asked.

  “I suspect they represent future Draconian landing parties,” Ana answered.

  “Shit,” Anton said. “Can you tell when that’s projected to happen?”

  Ana backed up the program to the moment the green dots showed up.

  “Almost exactly two hundred and fifty years from now,” Ana turned to Petra. “Two hundred and fifty years from your wedding day, to be exact.”

  “Damn,” Anton said. “They’re gonna plant their roots for more than two centuries. They want to be unstoppable before they show up full force.”

  As the projection continued to expand, it zoomed out to reveal other population centers across the planet. The time lapse showed each with a new green circle, each one either expanding until it merged with Jagari or until the isolated population was eradicated.

  “They’re going to infect all of the planet’s leaders,” he said, “make them drink blood and become loyal. Create a mega city that contains all life on the planet. That’s why the rest of Androna is desolate…”

  “So…” Petra said after a moment. “What do we do?”

  “We kill them,” Anton said. “We go back to Jagari, infiltrate the castle, and murder these bastards. Then we can figure out how to keep the mothership fooled. Let’s just hope they haven’t gotten too many of your people to commune with them.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Get over here, Hectus.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Hectus winced as Matthias ran a sharp blade along his forearm, licking his lips hungrily as he watched crimson streak down flesh. Normally, Matthias wouldn’t be so brash while disguised as King Gareth, but things were escalating in ways he hadn’t anticipated. It was a strange combination of emotions for him.

  On one hand, he was stressed. The four assassins he’d sent nearly twelve hours ago had not returned, and he suspected that the damned magician had already disposed of them. He’d underestimated the man, but he wouldn’t make that mistake again.

  On the other hand, he was giddy with
his newfound power, even if it was strictly for appearances. He liked the feeling of sitting on Gareth's throne. The irony of the real king and queen rotting in their own dark, dank dungeon brought him great pleasure. It made the taste of Hectus’ blood all the sweeter.

  The nobleman looked very pale. Matteo had already warned him against overindulging, but Matthias didn’t care if the man lived or died. He’d already served his purpose, and more members of the castle were participating in the blood ritual all the time.

  After getting his fill, Matthias approached the mirror he’d set up in a corner of the reception hall. This new form wasn’t ideal. He carried fat in too many places, but then again, so did that nobleman that he’d killed a week ago. And this new form allowed for a great many indulgences. Even the members of the castle staff that hadn’t participated in the blood ritual yet still obeyed him.

  Matteo entered the room holding a burlap sack and approached the throne. He hadn’t switched his form yet. Matthias had suggested imitating the princess, but Matteo didn’t see the point. Once he reached the reptilian patriarch, he set it down before him, looking grim.

  “What’s this?” Matthias asked him.

  “Some of the magician’s supplies,” Matteo answered. “Petra was gathering them to take with her when she left. I suggest you take a look.”

  Still feeling a bit blood drunk, Matthias looked over the items. Neither of the Draconian royals was particularly tech-savvy - that was the job of the outpost wardens - but it didn’t take a sharp eye to see that these were not of this era.

  “How did you get this?” Matthias asked.

  “Eliza,” Matteo said. “Apparently she set up a couple of bugs in the castle but didn’t feel the need to share that with us. I walked in on her going through the sack. She was kind enough to let us ‘take a look’ at it.”

  “Surveillance?” Matthias boomed. “That bitch brought surveillance technology, set it up, and didn’t tell us? What’s her angle? Where are the surveillance displays?”

  “I don’t know,” Matteo admitted, “but I do not think we should place any more trust in that woman. I’ve had a strange feeling about her from the beginning.”