Crux Page 15

  They drove across the compound toward the gigantic, circular, bronze-toned statue of Shiva that heralded the entrance to the Supercollider.

  This was the main facility and was securely housed three hundred feet underneath the hard-frozen earth that protected it from both the radiation of stars and the prying eyes of spies. And it occurred to Isaiah in the moment that it would take more than an army to destroy the seventeen-mile-long supercollider that powered the blackness behind this evil—an evil he could feel. Suddenly every idea he’d possessed about solving the fate of Amanda’s sister was answered in his soul. He had suspected but hadn’t felt it with such certainty.

  Instinct told him that Amanda’s sister, Cynthia, was somewhere in the darkness separating the stars. But it was far, far, far too late to turn back from discovering the truth behind “why” and “how.” It was too late for an apology. It was even too late to appeal to a higher authority who might judge this situation on legal ground because on this ground there was no such thing as a higher authority.

  This place didn’t take orders from the world; the world took orders from the wizards who ran this facility and for how long it had been like that was anyone’s guess. It occurred to Isaiah, as they unloaded themselves from the car, that it might have been like this since the beginning of this dark dream, for whoever commanded the power a hundred years ago to construct a world-enveloping enterprise to turn back time, enslave the human race, open a space-time portal, reshape a universe with demonic powers, and perhaps even alter the galaxy itself, had more than enough power to control a few presidents.

  “I’ll take you downstairs to see Blanchard,” said Tony, extending his hand. “But I think I’ll have your pig-sticker first. No offense, Isaiah, but once you get in there and hear what you don’t wanna hear you might start lopping off heads and we wouldn’t want that, would we? Then I’d have to kill both of you. And I’d hate the hell out of that. And that’s the truth.”

  Without protest Isaiah handed over the katana. He nodded once, “You take good care of that.”

  Tony’s brow hardened as he studied the length of the sheathed blade. Then he unsheathed eighteen inches of it, staring. “I’ve seen a lot of these in my time,” he commented, “but I’ve never seen one like this. What is it?”

  “The Honjo Masamune,” said Isaiah.

  Tony sharply raised his face. “The Honjo Masamune?” He gazed down again. “Holy crap. This baby’s been lost since World War II.”

  “Not quite.”

  Tony gently sheathed the blade, a nod. “Well, I’ll take good care of it for you, hoss. I promise you that much.” He sighed wistfully. “I hope you get this baby back, man. It’s priceless. And they say it’s magical. They say Masamune forged it so that it could cut a demon in half. But you already know that, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” grunted Isaiah. “I know.”

  “Okay. You guys follow me. No need for restrains. We’re all friends here.”

  Tony walked past the idolized Shiva, waved at it vaguely.

  “I hate that bitch,” he muttered. “This whole place is filled with witches, warlocks, wizards, sorcerers, psychos and they’re all physicists. And they’ve got all these weird symbols cut above all the doors. It’s worse than Denver airport with that Masonic compass and miter all over the damn walls.” He glanced at Isaiah. “You ever been there? To Denver airport? Ever noticed all that stuff on the walls and floor? That crap has been there since they opened the place. Just walking through it makes me feel like a Mason.”

  “Yeah,” Isaiah responded, “I’ve seen it. But I don’t think it means a whole lot.”

  “It means something, hoss. And I do know from my own eyes that Denver airport sits on top of the biggest underground survival shelter in the world. It’s supposedly part of the president’s last-ditch, last-stand location to survive Armageddon. But God only knows why they have a compass and miter and those Masonic signs of power, or whatever they are, engraved on the walls. I mean, I don’t consider it spooky or anything. I deal with spooky stuff all the time, and Denver ain’t one of ’em, but it’s definitely weird. Even I don’t know why the world’s biggest survival shelter is located under a Masonic lodge.”

  Isaiah said, “As good as any other lodge, I guess. But why is this place located in these godforsaken mountains?”

  “If you listen to the eggheads that run this whorehouse, it’s because this particular piece of real estate is haunted. Or something like that.” Tony took a crunching snow-step with a curse. “This damn snow. Anyway, I’ve heard it was built on top of some old temple that was used by the long-dead Greeks to worship some kind of heathen god named Apollo or something. I don’t know. Don’t ask me them weird questions, man. I just work here. I drive a car. I scare people. Sometimes I pull a trigger. But I ain’t no witch or warlock or whatever the hell these people are. I’m just an everyday working stiff. I ain’t got enough religious beliefs to fill a shot glass. Hell, that might be why they hired me. ’Cause I don’t care what they do here. I just do my job, go home, and get drunk.”

  “Good job if you can live with yourself,” said Amanda.

  “Live with myself!” Tony barked a harsh laugh. “Girl? Why do you think I get drunk every night?”

  Amanda’s concern seemed genuine. “Then why do you work here, Tony? This isn’t the only security job out there, is it?”

  “You really wanna know?”

  “Yeah, I really do.”

  “It’s because the money’s good and there’s nothing to do. You just walk around and drink espresso and go home with a hooker.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah, hookers are basically legal in Switzerland. This place even has its own brothel, so it’s real low stress. But then they lost a whole bunch of people about two weeks back and the uniforms began carrying every rifle they could get their hands on and I’ve been running my ass off since then putting out fires left and right.”

  Isaiah asked, “How did they lose people?”

  “Time is short so let’s just say it was a seriously fubar-ed situation and left a lot of people messed up in the head.”

  Isaiah was careful to keep it unforced. “Anything else been happening around here?”

  “Ah,” Tony motioned, “a lot of people have got lobbed off to the big Geneva asylum with nervous breakdowns. That kind of thing happens here more than any place I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen war zones all over the world. But I’ve never seen so many people go insane at such a rapid rate in such a small place.”

  “How do you explain it?”

  “Hell if I know, Musashi. We find people wandering around at night claiming they’re seeing ghosts and demons and stuff. It’ll be like that for weeks. And that’s not even when they turn that collider up to full power, which they’ve only done twice, thank God.” He shook his head. “When they do that, it’s like everybody goes crazy around here. I’ve never seen anything like it. And they don’t go crazy because of the stress because there’s plenty of women and booze and every other kind of entertainment. No, man, people go crazy in this place saying they’ve been talking to dead people or some monster was raping them at night. It’s weird as hell, man. And since they had this last accident with that collider, this freaking place has gone tee-totally insane with people seeing demons, talking to Satan, cutting the heads off their pets and sticking them on top of broomsticks. I’m tellin’ ya, it’s got bad around here, brother. Bad enough to even scare me.”

  Amanda asked, “Have you seen anything, Tony?”

  “Nah,” Tony waved, “I ain’t got enough imagination to see anything. If I see something, I just write it off as bad whiskey. But plenty of others are claiming to see ghosts and goblins and skeletons in their rooms and hearing chains rattling in the walls and things goin’ bump in the night. I had to respond to some emergency situations involving a few of the lab coats who were jabbering about how they’d rather die than m
eet whatever the hell is inside that collider. I managed to disarm two of them before they pulled the trigger, but the other one was too quick for me. He plastered his brains all over the wall with a .357 Magnum. But the thing is … well, it was even weirder than that. It was something about the last thing he said before he pulled the trigger.”

  “What did he say?” asked Isaiah.

  “He said, ‘He’s here,’ and then blew his brains out.” Tony released a sigh. “It was weird, man.”

  “He said, ‘He’s here?’” Amanda asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Hell if I know,” Tony replied. “But I didn’t like the sound of it.”

  ***

  Isaiah honestly didn’t mind waiting a half-hour in the subtly illuminated office. Nor did he care to make an attempt to escape from the room even though they were not handcuffed to the chairs or bound by flex cuffs or ropes. And, considering their circumstances, handcuffs did seem redundant if not ridiculous.

  He knew that Tony and more guards were alertly poised outside the door and additional backup was stationed at every corner, every corridor, every elevator and any other means of reaching the surface and that the herculean security system wasn’t singly focused on Amanda and himself, either.

  The guards were obviously afraid of something a lot more dangerous than them because it didn’t require five hundred fully automatic rifles to watch one man and woman. This was the kind of firepower you dragged out to repel an invasion.

  Isaiah was aware they were three hundred feet underground and—by his boldest estimate—less than fifty feet from the cement wall of the Large Hadron Supercollider. Although Isaiah half-expected to feel the slightest trembling or vibration or just an electric presence, there was nothing he could detect. It was like standing beside the outside wall of a centuries-old, unused subway. Unless a train was barreling down the track you might as well be standing outside a graveyard.

  Amanda, conversely, was fidgeting and fuming and again asked, “Why do you think they haven’t killed us already?”

  After a moment Isaiah answered, “I suspect they want to find out what we know before they make a decision about what to do with us.” He inhaled deeply, then added, “You know, Amanda, there’s a fair chance they won’t kill us. I’m not sure that there’s any reason for you to get all worked up about this.”

  “Are you crazy!” She turned into him. “We are sitting on top of a demonic thermo-nuclear reactor that probably ate my sister alive and only God in Heaven knows whether they’re going to throw us in there, too!” She slammed a hand on the chair. “Isaiah! How can you be so calm? And why did you let him take your sword? You didn’t even put up a fight!”

  “Because it got us in here, Amanda. And isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “To be held prisoner by these goons? No!” She looked in every direction. “I thought we were going to sneak back in here like Batman and Robin and make Blanchard tell us the truth! And now we’re prisoners!”

  Isaiah scoffed. “Amanda, everybody here is a prisoner. They think they’re in control of this machine but they’re not. They never have been, not even when it was just a bunch of blueprints. Whatever power is behind this machine is in control of both the machine and the people who think they’re going to benefit from it because that’s exactly what this entity wants them to think.” His jawline tightened. “This entity wants them to think they’re in charge. Then, when they can keep that portal open long enough, it’s going to escape whatever dimension it’s trapped in and kill everybody in this place.”

  “What will happen to the rest of the world?” asked Amanda.

  Isaiah shrugged, “The rest of the world might eventually figure out how to beat it. I mean, if it comes into this world it has to take some kind of physical form. And I doubt that anything is dangerous without a head on its shoulders, so we can always kill it. But I doubt it’s gonna be easy.” A pause. “It’ll probably be like trying to put a collar on an angry tiger. I wouldn’t wanna be the first to lay hands on it.”

  “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  The restful voice was preceded by the almost silent opening and closing of the door and Isaiah didn’t have to glance to know that it was Assistant Director Blanchard who slowly came into view, then calmly settled behind his thick glass desk.

  “Since we met yesterday, I’ve been briefed about you,” Blanchard said as he leaned forward, hands calmly clasped. “Ms. Deker, why do you insist on taking such interest in us? I have assured you that your sister’s death was accidental. And, in case you are unaware, there have been many accidents, and many deaths at this facility although, I might add, we do have a better record than those who built the Golden Gate Bridge that buried twenty-odd men at a time.”

  He squinted, adding, “The truth is that this is a very expensive, very complicated, and very dangerous machine. The construction was dangerous and the operation of this facility is even more dangerous. And I can assure you that there will always be a high incident rate of injuries in this facility just as there are high incident rates of injuries and deaths in any high-risk profession like being an electrical lineman, a police officer, a fireman, or a high-steel worker. Any number of occupations. But you seem to believe that something sinister surrounds your sister’s tragic death and there is something evil or demonic behind it. Also, you seem to believe that we are attempting to conceal the matter.”

  Amanda was aware that she was simply staring, and gaping, as Isaiah said without noticeable emotion, “If you turn that supercollider up to full power again, you’re gonna die, Blanchard.”

  The slow shift in gaze that Blanchard made from Amanda to Isaiah took fully three seconds before Blanchard froze. His tone dropped, distinctly irritated. “And just what do you know about a multibillion-dollar machine that was under construction before you were ever born, Isaiah?” He waited. “I’d rather be more civil and address you by your surname and not your Christian name but we have, in fact, found seventy-seven last names associated with you and I’m not sure which is accurate.”

  “Smith will do.”

  Blanchard smirked, “I’ll just use Isaiah. At least that one is probably true. And truth seems to be a precious commodity with you two.” Blanchard wiped his face, flicking away a bead of sweat. “You do realize the trouble that you’ve caused me, don’t you?”

  Amanda muttered, “I hope so.”

  With a grimace Blanchard added, “To begin, Ms. Deker, this facility is unlike any other that has ever existed and what we do here has never been done. Further, what we learn here is only shared with a privileged few, and that includes your government, as well. You see, the United States only knows what we decide they should know, and it’s much the same with the member nations of our committee. It is even the same with the personnel who work here. The word for it is ‘containment.’ You only know what you are required to know in order to do your job.”

  Eyes widening, Amanda asked, “And you’re telling us this because …?”

  “What I am going to tell you will, of course, never leave this facility.”

  “Fat chance.”

  “No,” Blanchard gestured, clearly indulgent. “What I mean, Ms. Deker, is the decision concerning your interference has been agreed upon.”

  “He’s saying that someone above his pay grade has decided that we’re never leaving this place,” Isaiah commented. “I’m just curious, Blanchard, about why you’re keeping us alive at all. It has something to do with Amanda, doesn’t it?”

  “How perceptive of you,” Blanchard smiled. “You see, we’ve done a DNA analysis of the seven employees who disappeared during the last full-power test of the collider and we found, quite to our surprise, that they had something in common. And that included your sister.”

  Amanda’s lips barely moved. “They were all Jews.”

  “Exactly,” smiled Blanchard. “And so, in order to test our theory, w
e are going to turn on the supercollider again to full power and see if the surge duplicates the results of our last experiment, which took a regrettable turn.” He gestured. “But that’s what science is. You repeat the same experiment and if the end results are the same then you have what scientists quantify as a fact.”

  Rising, Blanchard strolled around the desk. “You see, until now we have only been able to keep the portal open for a nanosecond. But during the last experiment we kept it open for almost two tenths of a second. And the result was, well, shocking. In fact, we lost seven physicists, including your sister, to a phenomenon we still cannot explain. Nor do we have a clue why those who were taken were those who were predominately of Jewish origin. We only know what happened and so we must repeat the experiment and measure result against result. Of course, we are not telling those in the Observation Room who are of Jewish descent that they may very well meet their doom tomorrow morning. And since you are here, Ms. Deker, I see no reason to waste your life when you could distinctly help with the experiment.”

  “I can tell you why it’s taking people of Jewish descent,” said Isaiah in a bored monotone.

  Blanchard’s eyes widened. “And what would that be?”

  “Because Jews are their closest ancestors.”

  The director tilted his head. “Ancestors?”

  “The creatures trapped inside that dimension once walked this planet,” Isaiah stated with bland certainty. “The Old Testament called them ‘Nephilim.’ They were giants. They were malignant. They were evil. And they were very seriously skilled in what seemed to be sorcery but it was just science. However, they did possess powers alien to normal human beings. They could shapeshift. They could read minds. They were far more intelligent than us. They were, in effect, the enemy of all mankind. And they were almost indestructible in battle. In fact, they would have conquered the world but for one man who made it a personal crusade to kill every last one of them.”