Dragon Over Washington (The Third War Of The Bir Nibaru Gods) (9 page)

“Agent Thorpe? Your ID card?” she repeated herself. He blinked again. She handed him back his ID card, though he did not recall giving it to her in the first place. He blushed, took his card and left, walking as fast as he could.

“Agent Thorpe? Agent Thorpe?” she called after him. He turned back, his heart pounding.

“Agent Thorpe? Your bag.” A long finger pointed at his backpack. Thorpe looked abashed as he walked back, took his backpack and left without a word.

“Well, that went just fine. I’m really making progress here. A real lady killer,” Thorpe muttered as he hurried out of the building.

He exited through the big glass doors and strode into the parking lot. He winced as a thunderclap rolled over him. A moment later fat drops of rain began falling.

“Just wonderful,” he murmured as he hurried to his car.

He started to rummage in his backpack for the keys, his clothes already soaking wet. His short, red hair was plastered to his scalp by the time he found his keys and started to unlock his car. Suddenly he froze, staring up at the sky, blinking as water poured into his eyes.

“Weather! Weather images!” he yelled. He ran back to the building. Just before he reached it, he cursed vehemently, ran back to his car, pulled the car keys out of the door lock, threw them into his backpack and ran back to the entrance as fast as he could, a red-haired streak moving through the gray, sodden world.

He entered the building and drew some satisfaction from leaving a muddy puddle right on the head of the NSA bald eagle emblem on the floor.

“Hi, it’s me. I left five minutes ago. I just remembered something I forgot inside,” he said as he tried to pass through the guards at the entrance, but the revolving barrier wouldn’t budge. He looked up.

“Your ID card, please,” Shannon said.

“Oh, come on. I just passed through like, five minutes ago,” he protested.

“Your ID card, please,” she said coldly.

“Give me a break. Look, I’m leaving puddles all over your shiny floor,” Thorpe panted.

“Your ID card,” she said. Thorpe grumbled under his breath and handed her his ID card. She checked it on her computer as Thorpe tried to wring some of the water out of his clothing. His card was returned a moment later.

“You may proceed,” she said. Thorpe grabbed his badge and stormed towards the revolving barrier. It did not move. He looked back.

“Your bag, Agent Thorpe,” a guard said.

Thorpe’s mouth worked for a moment, but he headed wordlessly back and gave his backpack over for inspection. It was returned a moment later, and Thorpe moved into the building without looking back. A few minutes later he was sitting in front of his desk, the heater blasting away. Drops of water left small rivulets as they ran down his face. “Okay, let's see,” Thorpe said to himself and sneezed.

The NSA got the latest weather reports and images from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA. NOAA had a series of Geostationary Operational Environmental satellites in orbit. Each GOES satellite was orbiting the earth at a distance of 20,000 miles. Its speed of rotation, coupled with the earth turning on its axis, allowed each of the satellites to hover, as it were, at a stationary point above the earth. On the four-thousand pound satellites were mounted an array of low-resolution visible light and infrared cameras.

Their images were continuously transmitted, enabling ground stations to accumulate a database of images, not only showing the current state of the weather, but also allowing NOAA to study changes as they occurred. The satellites transmitted images once every five to ten minutes, allowing every change in weather to be tracked and analyzed.

“Let’s see if NOAA caught an image of my Blanket phenomenon over the ocean.”

Thorpe located the images captured eight days ago, the first time the Trailmapper application reported radio networks going down, and eagerly opened the file. It was an infrared image of the Atlantic. A predominantly bright ocean filled the picture, some clouds clustered at a distance to the south. Thorpe looked carefully at the image, trying to zero down on the coordinates he sought. NOAA had kindly added a grid over the picture, making it easy for him to locate his area. There was nothing there but ocean. Thorpe thumped the desk with his fist, causing the dinosaurs to shake.

“Nothing!” Thorpe fumed. He got up and walked over to the department fridge, but realized it had run out of Diet Coke. He slammed the door and stormed back to his computer. The image remained on his screen, taunting him.

“Well, I should have known. These satellites have such a lousy resolution. Even a Star Destroyer or a Borg Cube wouldn’t show up on their images.” He slumped down in his chair and thumbed the mouse listlessly, watching the images move across his screen one after the other. Thorpe’s eyes roamed aimlessly as he clicked his mouse repeatedly, letting the images flow one after the other. Suddenly he blinked. The images’ constant motion across the screen had allowed Thorpe’s eyes to catch something, a tiny dark smudge crawling across the screen.

He stared at the smudge and began to browse through the images more slowly, this time going backward instead of forward. This dark smudge, only a few pixels across in breadth, indicated an object that would have been colder than its surroundings. It crawled and disappeared right into the Radio Blanket’s region. Thorpe played the images again. The dark spot, a dense cloud, surged across the ocean, moved north, reached New York City and hovered there. Thorpe continued playing the images. He saw the dark smudge leave the city two days ago and head westwards. It reached somewhere over the New York state area and stayed there, growing.

“Gotcha!” Thorpe grinned. “And the good guys score! But, how is it possible for a cloud to travel in a straight line and what was it doing over New York?” Thorpe’s smile wavered. He sneezed once more and searched for GOES satellite images of the Colorado Mountains. He started playing them forward, starting with an image taken eight days ago. He watched them eagerly, hoping to find another black smudge crawling across his screen. And though he didn’t see any smudge, he did see something else.

Infrared weather images showed the ground’s temperature as well as the temperature of the various cloud formations above it. Thorpe saw that, starting eight days ago when the first Radio Blanket effect was detected, the Beaver Flat Tops Mountains’ temperature had been constantly rising. The last weather image was from yesterday. The legend aside the image indicated that the Beaver Flat Tops Mountains were fifteen degrees warmer than the mountains around them and were steadily getting warmer. The rocks glowed with heat.

“Dear God. How do you heat up a mountain?” Thorpe mumbled. He wasn’t grinning anymore. He turned back to the SPOT satellite images and found the ones whose coverage included the Beaver Flat Tops Mountains. He looked at them carefully, concentrating on the mountains that were heating up, and frowned. He couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. He used an enhancing application and went over the images again, zooming in on every image till it filled his screen. He looked for any inconsistencies, any roads or trails, any suspicious flat surfaces or any other indication of human activity on the mountains. He wasn’t really surprised that he found nothing.

“That’s just great. Something’s heating up a whole mountain. Something that doesn’t appear on satellite images. And it can’t be volcanic activity in those solid rock mountains.”

Thorpe sat in his cubicle, staring at the screen. He was suddenly acutely aware of the silence around him, how alone he was. Everyone else had gone home a long time ago. There was no one there to help him, no one to turn to for help. It was up to him. Thorpe shuddered.

“Radio Blankets which are physically impossible. Clouds that travel in straight lines. Whole mountains heating up. The Russian army fighting an enemy we cannot pinpoint. And there’s nothing to explain it.” Thorpe rubbed his forehead. Suddenly, this game wasn’t fun anymore.

Thorpe’s smartphone beeped. It was a message from his gaming guild, reminding him about the gaming session tonight. Thorpe looked at the smartphone’s time display and whistled shrilly. It was almost nine. A small grin slowly grew on his face when he prepared to go home.

“I’m not giving up yet. Victory for the bad guys today. Tomorrow is Act Two!” Thorpe growled, shaking his fist at the map on his wall.

Thorpe drove slowly through the base with his smartphone’s music turned off, something which probably had never happened before. He reached Fort Meade’s main gate without realizing it and he watched dully as the gate swung open. Suddenly, a spark was reawakened in his eyes.

“Hiding from old SPOT satellites? Ha! When the going gets tough, the tough start hacking! Tomorrow we’ll see a daring hack into the KH11 control computer. Dmitry, you don’t stand a chance protecting that computer from me! Let’s see whatever it is that’s out there hiding from the best spy satellites in the world, controlled by the best - me!”

Thorpe drove the rest of his way home whistling merrily. He forgot the cold feeling that had gripped his guts when he saw the heated mountain. He didn’t want to think about the significance nor the possible consequences. Thorpe only thought about his online gaming session. His guild was about to start a new quest tonight.

Day 9 after Earth Barrier Breach.

The fast brigantine “Poison Dagger” on approach to Earth. Tuesday, 07:34.

The captain leaned back on the rail encircling the aft castle. The ship was running well, keeping station easily with the larger frigate sailing half a mile ahead. The half-furled sails were aligned perfectly with the gentle winds, the ship’s lines were taut and everything was secured. The captain had dismissed the ship from combat stations and the night watch had been allowed belowdecks to sleep. The big, burly first mate approached the captain, looking carefully at him. The captain’s gaze was towards the stern, watching the huge expanse of luminous water that was the Skyriver.

“The time comes,” the captain said softly.

“Sir?”

“We have to attack soon. The Luguvalium frigate is scouting the sphere. It is not a destroyer. It does not carry enough armed men to take and conquer a sphere nor does it carry the heavy war engines necessary to destroy fortifications. We should attack it now, while it is within the sphere’s whirlpool, while its maneuverability suffers,” the captain rumbled. The first mate glanced at the vessel sailing ahead, the larger frigate floating amidst a sea of shadows, the barely visible guiding light hanging from its stern gallery.

“Aye, sir,” the first mate said, his voice gruff.

“We should launch the cutter. With it directing us, we could approach the Luguvalium ship from the stern and launch the bolts before its captain even knows we are behind. The combined firepower of the Poison Dagger and the Bludgeon should penetrate the enemy’s Pure Shield with ease.”

“Aye, sir.”

“That accursed witch. If he hadn’t ordered us to wait, we would have been on our way back now,” the captain grumbled.

“Aye, sir. Sir?”

The captain turned to the first mate.

“Kennard is sick, sir.” The first mate said.

The captain frowned. “Sick?”

“I’ve put him in a cabin, sir. He will not leave it.”

“Yes, well done. We do not need sickness to spread through the men,” the captain said without much interest and then looked up, watching the colorful Skyriver lanes crisscrossing the dark skies, the greatest spider web ever created.

The first mate saw the captain’s eyes following one of the Skyriver lanes as it spiraled far away among the huge, dancing stars.

“I see the lane leading back to House Cadaver’s sphere. I see no reason to wait any longer. Our enemy is only a few miles away. Launch the cutter and have a message sent to the Bludgeon. I want us to attack. I do not care what that cursed abomination said, we are -” The captain stopped talking and cocked his head.

The hushed up conversations of the sailors on deck and up on the rigging stopped.  The captain turned around. The black-robed figure was back on deck, looking around slowly, the invisible gaze of the iron mask within the cowl scanning over the aft castle without pause, giving no indication that it had taken any notice of the captain. It was as if a patch of darkness was roaming across the ship, a cold wind blowing from within that darkness. The captain shuddered, trying not to think what malevolent force had taken the form of the black-robed figure on his ship.

The figure circled the perimeter of the ship and finally planted itself in the middle of the deck, between the ship’s two masts. The captain felt, rather than heard, the lines’ pulleys stop as the sailors abandoned them, almost all the sailors above deck slipping below. In time, even the breaths of the men around him, the first mate and the helmsman, were barely heard.

The black-robed figure held its athame before it, the iron blade darker than the darkest night. It lifted the athame over his head and then plunged it down towards the deck. The captain was appalled at the sight of the witch plunging the blade into the heart of his ship; couldn’t abide the sliver of dark metal aimed at the center of his beloved Poison Dagger. The captain surged forward but was caught by the first mate, the big burly officer barely holding the small, stocky captain.

The witch bent down, cutting through the thick timbers with ease. He traced a nonagon on the deck, taking his time, creating smooth, straight lines connected at their ends, making sure no gaps were left between the lines. The athame had no trouble cutting the thick, hardened timbers.

The captain tore his eyes from the witch and the damage being done to his ship. He looked around him and frowned, seeing very few sailors about and the few that were keeping their distance from the witch. The fore topsail was loosening and the single sailor on the rigging was having trouble handling the sail, while trying hard to remain silent as possible, not to make the black-robed figure turn towards him.

The captain noticed two other sailors nearby, avoiding his gaze. The first mate was looking at his feet, his face white. The captain snarled. His ship had never been this quiet—it was now a frightened animal trying to escape some beast’s notice by playing dead.

The captain took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He climbed down the ladder, to the main deck, and moved toward the bent black figure in front of him. He walked slowly, his heavy boots ringing on the deck, the sound echoing around the silent ship.

“Take one more step, captain, and you will be screaming with no mouth for nine eternities in nine hells.”

The stocky captain stopped. He looked down. His boot was on the edge of the nonagon, hovering over the lines the black-robed figure was carving into the thick deck planks. The captain stepped back hurriedly. As he watched the witch continue its carving, he closed and opened his gnarled fists. He could feel the eyes of the few sailors above deck staring at him, prodding him on. He grabbed his sword's hilt and cleared his voice.

“Maybe, hmm, you could do this elsewhere. Below deck, perhaps. The men cannot work, you see. We need to have the main deck cleared for -” He stopped.

The witch rose up, a black thing that seemed to possess too many ankles and elbows. The captain stepped back, unable to face the iron mask under the cowl, nor gaze into the deep darkness where eyes should have been. Unable to face that living shadow, he turned and moved away, slinking back to the aft castle, his eyes darting every which way.

The witch finished carving the symbol on the deck and passed his black glove over the deep lines. Then it stepped back and studied its creation carefully, looking for any imperfections in the nonagon. At long last, the dark athame was secreted away inside the voluminous robes.

“Captain!” it bellowed.

The captain stopped in place and turned, against his will, back towards the witch. His eyes were wide, like an animal on a leash.

“Have the sailor I used before brought to me,” the metallic whisper echoed across the deck, louder than it should have.

“But - Kennard is sick. He could infect the other -” The captain stopped, seeing the black serrated dagger move fractionally.

The witch watched Kennard being dragged on deck. The sailor stood inside the nonagon the witch had carved, still holding the iron plaque with deadened fingers, swaying, sweat dripping into his clothes.

Small tendrils of noxious yellow vapor appeared, hovering here and there on the deck, swirling around the ropes. The witch stood outside the symbol, careful not to let any part of its body cross the boundary. It faced the symbol, raising both hands, palms opened, fingers spread wide.

“
Sin-Shar-Ishkun Adar Hejaat
!” The call rang out metallically. A silence spread over the ship: the lines stopped groaning, the half-furled sails stopped flapping, and even the hull stopped creaking. All the small noises on board a ship, the ship’s soul according to the sailors’ belief, disappeared. A noxious smell began to permeate the ship, while a dark, yellow mist descended. The mist coalesced into a spinning vortex of yellow smoke that darkened and thickened, filling the space around the nonagon.

Suddenly, with an inhuman shriek that made the sailors’ ears bleed, a gigantic maw formed out of yellow billowing sulfur and lunged towards Kennard.

“
Sin-Shar-Ishkun Adar Hejaat
!” The metallic words could still be heard over the monstrous sounds of the demon lunging for the sailor, hungering, its nebulous coils surrounding the nonagon symbol on every side.

“
Sin-Shar-Ishkun Adar Hejaat
!” With the third intonation of the name, the cloud subsided, sinking down, forming a writhing formless mass in front of the witch. Two eyes formed within the yellow vapor, staring at the black-robed figure.

“Master!” The voice boomed of the dark yellow cloud, the single word burning its way across the deck.

“Have you done that which you were charged to do?”

“Master! I’ve scouted the sphere, readying myself!”

“Scouting, creature of The Pit? You were ordered to kill the human!”

“Master! He has wards about him.”

“Wards?”

“Master! The power of a land, an ancient spell, leaching my strength away.”

“Yes! The Azure Empire wards”!”

“Master! I lack the power.” The burning words would have damaged an unprotected listener, singeing cloth and igniting wood, but they had no effect on the witch.

“Demon, if you do not have the capacity to do that which you were charged with, you are of no use to me.” The black iron athame appeared again.

“Master, bide! If my essence would be allowed to enter the sphere, I will feast upon his flesh.”

“Demon, I will not allow you the meat. Your usefulness has passed.”

The eyes in the yellow cloud began to redden. The cloud began to roll about, its color darkening, stealing some of the shadowy light on deck.

“Master! There are other ways. I may be able to use the sphere natives.”

The black dagger stopped in its course.

“Master! The mortals! They can be made to kill this stranger to their sphere!”

A black-gloved hand moved across the black iron mask and then went down to rub the neck.

“The mortals of the sphere? Show me views of the sphere, demon!”

Streamers of yellow mist flowed from the cloud hovering above the deck. The cloud rose, hovering, as the eyes in the cloud focused on the deck below. The temperature began to rise and an image formed below the cloud, a wavering, half-transparent mirage.

A globe appeared, a blue green gem with fluffy white clouds around it. The image wavered, waves of heat traversing it. The perspective changed, moving closer to the world, faster than the eye could follow. One continent appeared, an inverted triangle, whose mid section was occupied by lush, green jungles while its top and bottom regions were parched deserts.

The image blurred again and a great desert appeared, dotted with sun-bleached pyramids, one side in shadow. Again the perspective changed and the viewpoint fleeted across a desert till a sun-bleached town huddling at the foot of the huge pyramids swam into view. Carriages moving slowly across cobbled streets appeared, people in robes and white headdresses riding small horses and camels came into view. The few fields outside the town were being worked by tired farmers who were heaving and tilling the soil with hand-held tools, scythes and horse -pulled ploughs.

“Pitiful sphere, pitiful mortals. Show me their vehicles!”

The image wavered, the point of view skittering over the desert, following a dirt road. Finally, it stopped, the image becoming sharper. A worn wooden carriage pulled by two horses plodding slowly onwards was visible.

“Their ships!” The black-robed witch commanded, his voice echoing metallically from within the iron mask.

The image wavered again, the perspective fleeting across the desert to a sea to the north. A huge expanse of bright blue waves was traversed till an object came into view. It was blurry at first but resolved quickly; the image of a one-masted sailing ship towing a fishing net finally appeared.

“Bah!” The black-robed witch exclaimed.

The witch turned around in disgust. The moment the black-robed figure’s back was turned the image changed, the fishing ship evolved: the sail disappearing, a diesel engine appearing, the wooden hull changing into metal, and the ship growing four times in size. And then the image was gone in the blink of an eye, and by the time the black-robed witch turned back to face the demon - its billowing yellow fumes ever shifting; its eyes, their gaze unwavering, still floating inside the brimstone cloud - it had disappeared.

“A primitive culture. Easy pickings for the Azure Empire,” the witch hissed. The iron mask turned towards the demon. “Can you fulfill your task, creature of the Pit Lands?” The witch asked.

“Master! Need power. Need substance.”

“I have told you once before, demon. Your essence will not enter that sphere. You will not materialize in the land.”

“Master!”

“Use your powers. Use your guile. Or I will send you back to the Pit Lands whence you came!”

“Master! It will be fulfilled.” The syllables burned as they were uttered, adding more sulfur to the fumes already inundating the air.

“Remember the prize that awaits you upon the completion of your task. Remember that the Luguvalium noble must die on the sphere, not on the Skyriver. Be gone, then. You are dismissed,” the witch said.