Air Force One, Conclusion (7)
"I am at a loss to explain further," Johnny says. "I regret that we had a — disagreement some time ago, concerning details of my implementation. I further regret that, when he attempted to contact me after our disagreement, I was, at first, uncommunicative. However, when I at last relented and attempted to contact him, he was already engaged in this phantom conversation." "I suspected some device of the enemy, but there is no radio jamming in evidence. I have, so far as I can determine, complete oversight of all electronic systems aboard the aircraft. Mick is in the control room, which, fortunately, is equipped with sensitive microphones. I have been able to hear sounds in the room as faint as his breath and the rustle of his clothing, yet I can hear no indication of the other side of the conversation in which he seems to be engaged. Even if he were wearing headphones, I would easily be able to detect the sound of their speakers. "In addition, I am even at this moment talking to him through the control room speakers at maximum volume. I know that my transmission is reaching the room’s speakers because I am able to hear my own voice through other microphones located several compartments away. Any normal human would consider it to be extremely loud. I have considered the possibility that some injury or environmental effect may have caused sudden hearing failure in Mick, but as yet I can create no scenarios which are not, a priori, highly unlikely and very few which are not observably false. "As I said, regretfully, I can offer no further explanation at this time." Anne keys the mike but says nothing, staring instead through the dark windshield. Only a faint outline of treetops against the sky is visible, but she is not looking at them. She is seeing Colonel Tennen standing over a dead trucker in the parking lot. "OK, Johnny" Anne says, "it’s going to be alright. You just listen to me now. "You said you have control of everything on the airplane. Does that include being able to make it go where you want?" She speaks clearly into the radio, unaware that every trucker in the convoy is now standing as close as he can get to her cab’s open door and holding their breath to hear what’s going on. Jack supposes that if he tried to close the door at this point, he’d get his arm broken. "OK ," she continues after he confirms her assumption. She enunciates her words carefully, as though concerned that so much as a slurred word might be misinterpreted, like the bad output of old speech-recognition software. "I want you to turn that airplane directly toward where you are now, and make it go as fast as you can. Then you turn toward it, and you go as fast as you can. Then when you get close to it — it won’t take very long, will it, with both of you going like that? When it gets close, you bring it down in a field or something. Or on a road, maybe. But you bring it right down in front of you, so you’re close to it when it lands. And then, Johnny, you kill every man on that airplane that’s not my husband. Do you understand? Can you do that?" "I am uncertain," the Bolo replies. "And the aircraft has sustained damage which prevents it from making a normal landing. However, this does seem to me to be the most practicable plan with any probability—" "All right," Anne exclaims. "All right. That’s good. But, Johnny, you have to start right away. Mick might be in danger right now." "Of course. Forgive me," the Bolo says. "I meant to explain: your plan is highly similar to my own, which I began implementing over twenty minutes ago. I am currently traveling overland at an average speed of approximately ninety-one miles per hour. The broken nature of the terrain precludes greater speed at this time, however I am also pushing the aircraft to the maximum speed which I believe its airframe can now endure. Our combined velocity is slightly in excess of two hundred miles per hour. I expect to rendezvous with the aircraft within sixteen minutes." "Oh," Anne says in a small voice. She had unconsciously assumed that the tank must be stationary because his voice was not shaking. "Also," Johnny says, "I should now commence radio silence. I am beamcasting toward your location, but no such solution is a guarantee against all eavesdroppers, given your lack of encryption hardware. Please continue to proceed on your current heading. I will contact you immediately following the engagement. "Hopefully," the tank concludes, "I will have good news. JNY-013 out." Anne slowly hangs up the microphone, large in her hand, on its rather worn hook. Only then does she turn to get back out of the truck. She stops, surprised by the presence of her moonlit audience. "God damn, Annie," one man says. "What kinda rig is that bastard driving?" Anne smiles faintly at the man, hardly hearing him. The image of Mick, sitting in the aircraft without hearing Johnny’s voice troubles her. I am able to hear my own voice through other microphones located several compartments away. Any normal human would consider it to be extremely loud. She quickly turns back toward the radio. ———————————————————————————— The Warrior ———————————————————————————— Mick’s hand shakes as he tries to persuade it to touch the section of the control console that he has identified as pertaining to doors. He is sweating, almost nauseated by the effort. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you afraid of what they’ll do to Johnny? Do you care more about a machine than your own daughter? He’ll be dead in a few years anyway, unless you can figure out how to whittle new plutonium fuel rods. He’s dead already! Still, his hand shakes as he forces it closer. You’re tired. You don’t know what the hell you’re doing, and if you don’t pull it together there is going to be a goddamn Bolo battle tank blowing apart the University of Michigan gunning for your little girl! He nods, as though listening to the voice, then painfully concentrates his remaining attention. Taking three quick breaths, he jabs at the open cockpit door icon. As he touches it, he once again feels the odd vibration of the panel. Unaccountably, tears leak from the corners of his eyes. Behind him, the slight sound that the steel doors make as they slide open seems like the saddest in the universe — or beyond it. Welcome to Air Force One, pal the copilot’s mummified corpse tells him in passing as he stands, and turns. Beyond the door, the dark hall apparently goes on forever. He watches as distant shapes form in it, and resolve themselves into the outlines of walking men. He unconsciously steps back as they approach, until he feels the cold copilot’s seat stop him just as a man emerges into the wide control room. The man stands looking around, as though at a place which he has long hoped to see, then looks at Mick and smiles. He is, by far, the most beautiful being, man or woman, that Mick has ever seen. His features, if coarsened and cruelly aged, might conceivably be those of Colonel Tennen. A minute frown crosses his perfect features and he gestures in an offhand way at the control console. The sickening pressure, which has receded greatly with the magnificent being’s arrival, now vanishes altogether — leaving Mick’s entire consciousness free to concentrate on the man before him. "Now, come, Mick," Tennen says. "The key." He puts out his hand, and Mick immediately reaches into his pocket for the President’s key, knowing in every fiber of his soul that nothing matters but to please this being. Nor will any lesser goal ever matter again. As he delivers the plastic key, he instinctively kneels, looking up at his master’s face. "You have done well," the man says to him. "You will serve me now, and I will care for you always." The man smiles at him, and reaches down to bestow one finger’s light, loving touch on the center of his forehead. In the moment of that touch, Mick is happier by far than he has been since the first moment of his life: filled with gladness enough to dissolve the boundaries of his spirit, and admit him forever into a realm of unlimited joy. Then Tennen turns back toward the empty doorway, and beckons. "Entuten-ak ha pa sbai?" he demands. "Usekt per ha-aq, uhen setcheb i metcher ark!" The very sound of the man’s voice thrills Mick. The words he speaks, which could sound coarse in a lesser voice, are instead a phrase from the most refined of musical instruments: its every note inspiring love and joy. Yet, his words carry the slightest overtone of impatience. The man wants his other servants who came with him up the long hall to hang back no longer, but to emerge courageously and take the victory that they have won. Immediately, Mick is angered by their tardiness. No one, no matter how long in the Master’s service, should ever make him waste a single moment of his precious time, every shining instant of which is a world of glory unto itself, a jewel beyond any price or comprehension. He jumps to his feet again, intent on entering the dark hall himself and dragging the foremost few laggards bodily into the control room. Perhaps they are afraid to enter the room with its wide window and two corpses. Then their fear is childish. Has he not spent hours in this very room? He strides forward with purpose. From out of the darkness of the hallway, a figure emerges haltingly into the control room’s relative light. But it is not one of the soldiers at all. It is the corpse of Agent Page — walking. Mick stops and backpedals awkwardly, his legs gone to ice, staring at the apparition. The corpse’s chest is covered with blood and gore from the gaping wound in its chest. Its moonlit skin is white, and its hair and staring eyes as black as the Void. Mick comes up against the chair again and freezes in horror there. Even Tennen takes a step back, his eyes wide. Behind Page, more shapes begin to emerge from the hall. His men, even more mutilated than he. Behind them, barely visible on the floor, are the bodies of a few of Tennen’s men. The length of that hall, Mick remembers, has no exits. "No," Tennen says quietly, as if speaking to a child. "Impossible." "Impossible!" he shouts, his beautiful face suddenly a mask of fury. He slaps at a delicate ornament on his belt, and the aura of faint blue light flickers around him again. But he continues to back up until he, too, is trapped against the edge of the control console. Still Page shambles forward, drawing a gurgling breath with every step. "You are dead! Dead!" Tennen screams. "It is impossible! Only the Great—" "Yes," Page says, his voice a bubbling exhalation of gasses from the grave. "The Great — indeed." He ponderously lifts his arm to the side, opening his hand, and then Mick sees that a short sword is there somehow, and Page is closing his bloodless grip on its hilt. The blade flickers with blue light, as though only it in the wide room reflects the illumination of Tennen’s shield. Page steps within arm’s length of Tennen, just outside the reach of the shield, while his men array themselves slowly in an arc behind him. Where the shield intersects the control console it flickers more brightly, making a rustling, rasping sound like sibilant voices. "No," Tennen whispers, leaning back over the control panel. His hands search desperately for some purchase on its smooth surface as if, were he only to find a grip, he might pull himself backward over the console, away from his enemy’s nightmarish corpse, and turn to hurl himself through the curved glass of the windscreen beyond. "When you go—" Page gurgles, stopping continually to draw breath, "to — your Masters. Tell them. Before they — consume your soul — that the Great — have returned." He raises the sword, to point at the center of Tennen’s chest. "Your time," Page says, "is finished." Then Tennen’s face contorts with rage, like that of an animal, and the sound that issues from his throat has no part of the voice of a man. He roars, and the sound is equal parts unbounded rage and unending fear. He raises his hands then, too, perhaps knowing that the shield that stopped his enemy’s bullets will not stop his blade. In this, too, he is more animal than man, drawing one hand instantly back as though to slash at his opponent’s throat. But he is too late. Page’s blade flashes forward, cleaving the insubstantial shield like air, and plunges into Tennen’s chest. Tennen’s beautiful eyes widen, looking at Page as though he had suddenly remembered something astonishing, and then change to reflect the utmost terror. Then he looks up toward the dark ceiling. The blue light of the shield fades, and Page lets his lifeless body slide at last to the floor. Page opens his hand again, and his palm is empty. The sword is gone. He motions, and one of the other agents moves toward Mick. The innkeeper tries to scramble away, but his hand brushes the pilot’s hair and he recoils from that as well, nearly slipping to the floor. The agent ignores him, and moves carefully to seat himself in the copilot’s chair. He proceeds to press icons on the control panel, apparently unimpeded by obviously fatal wounds to his head and neck. Mick looks away, to find Page watching him. "You — really should be dead," Mick says. Page only stares at him for a moment, then makes the effort to draw a breath. Mick realizes that he is not truly breathing — there would be little point, considering that there are several holes in his lungs and at least one through his heart. He is only taking air in because he needs it to form his words. "Yes," he says, hoarsely. "Long — ago." "How can you — not be dead?" Mick asks, his voice small. "With — great effort. Powerful — help." Even as he speaks, the dead agent coughs weakly, then is racked by a fit of coughing. Each convulsion expels a mist of blood, black in the moonlight. "And—" the agent continues, "some discomfort. I do not — recommend it." Mick stares at him, realizing that his voice has, since the coughing, improved noticeably. He still, however, sounds very much like a corpse. "Don’t — worry," the agent continues, "I’ll — get better." Mick looks down at Tennen’s body, the open eyes still staring upward. The man’s face seems handsome now, but not imbued with indescribable, radiant beauty. Remembering it, he gasps, seized by horror like ice around his heart. His hands jerk free of the seat-back as though to protect himself even from the lifeless body. "Oh God," he moans. No man, even having a sensual dream and then waking up to find him arms entwined in the coils of a snake — could be as horrified. "Oh, no. No, Jesus! Forgive me!" "Stop," Page says. "I would have — done anything," Mick whispers. "I would have given him my daughter. I gave him my soul!" He shouts. "Be still!", Page commands, stepping to him and grabbing his shoulder. His touch is like a splash of cold water. "He is not — in any position — to enforce his contracts." "And," the agent continues, "you must — understand. You, and — this—", he moves a hand to indicate the great aircraft around them, "were bait. We used you. I used you. To make them — gather — the last of their power. To break it." "As it was," he says, "you did better — than bait should."
Copyright © 2000 Michael Goulish |