Titan Six (15 page)

Titan Four

The Cube beneath Mount Elbert

Blade sighed and stood tall.  He was in command, and it was his job to keep the mission on track.

“Heads in the game, people,” he said.  “We need to get Titan Six.  We can mourn Eagle Eye later.”

His team looked at him, silent and grim.

“Titan Six is in the room to your right,” DJ said.

“There’s no portal,” Blade remarked.

“Touchdown had great success with a concussion grenade,” Caine said.  “Move in.”

“The blast could hurt or kill T6,” Demon said.

“You have your orders,” Caine said.  “Your primary goal is to destroy the cube.  I’ll give you one chance to rescue Titan Six.  Go for it.  Now.”

Blade lobbed a concussion grenade at the silver wall.  The wall vibrated, moving forwards and backwards like a quivering sheet of metal, before exploding.  Titan Four immediately spotted T6 lying on slabs.

Hans Beemler and Thomas Burmaster pivoted towards the gaping hole in the wall, their faces painted with the pale color of panic.

“Back-up troops!” Burmaster shouted.  “Report to the main lab now!”

Blade led the charge into the laboratory. 

“Reach up and start the second drip!” Burmaster called to Beemler.

Both Senex members attempted to turn the valves on the IVs for the next infusion in the Sentient Assimilation Procedure.

Demon and Jet attacked Beemler and Burmaster respectively.

Demon, shoulder down, drove Beemler against the wall.  Jet grabbed Burmaster by the throat and landed a solid right hook on the General’s jaw.  Burmaster winced and lost his balance.

Blade and Tomahawk leveled their weapons at the two Senex members.

“Move and you’re dead, gentlemen,” Blade announced.  “We’re starting to get annoyed with you people.”

“Unhook us,” Hawkeye said.  “And get us our helmets.”

A loud wail came from the last slab on the right.

“My hand!” cried Gator.  “I can’t feel my hand!”

Titan Six, minus Gator, jumped off the slabs and donned their helmets and gear.

Hawkeye froze when he saw Gator.  Color drained from the team leader’s face.  The machine gunner couldn’t feel his hand because his hand was no longer attached to his body.  It was lying on the floor, fingers twitching.”

“Ops, this is Hawkeye.  A piece of shrapnel severed Gator’s right hand.”

“Get the hand and bag it for reattachment,” Nguyen said.  “Bandage the wound while we activate Gator’s BioMEMS.”

“I’ll apply pressure and cauterize the wound,” Hawkeye said, “but we no longer have any nanobots in our bloodstreams.”

“What!” yelled Caine.

“Beemler and Burmaster tried turning us into Sents.  Step One destroyed our BioMEMS.”

“Shit!” Grace said.  “Give him morphine from your med kit.”

“Titan Four and Six, go to the control room at the top,” Caine said.  “The central power source for the cube is located next to the control room.  Deploy the plasma weapon on a time delay and then get the hell out of there and back on a maglev.  Touchdown will rendezvous with you down below.  Let’s have some . . . resolution.”

Demon cuffed Burmaster and Beemler while Tank and Shooter lifted Gator.

Blade turned to Jet.  “Pick up Eagle Eye and carry him over your shoulder.  We don’t leave anyone behind.  Esprit de Corps.  We’re taking him home.”

The Titan teams exited the lab.

Touchdown

The Cube beneath Mount Elbert

Touchdown raced through a labyrinth of corridors as DJ steered him away from commandos swarming through the cube.

“Get down to the SURP Station,” Caine said.  “Wait for Titan Four and Six.”

Touchdown stumbled, dropping Quiz and rolling over on his back.  As he hit the floor, he heard the sound of glass breaking.

He knelt by Quiz and his gear.  Opening the flap of the young man’s backpack, he saw several dozen crystals and glass disks.  A crystal near the top had shattered.

“Keep moving,” Caine said.  “We’ve had enough casualties.  I don’t need another.  Now, Touchdown!”

Casualties?  Touchdown wondered what was happening in the levels above him.

He picked up Quiz and the backpack.  He’d get the full story later, assuming anyone made it out of the station alive.

Central Intelligence Agency

Langley, Virginia

A man stepped into the glare occupied by Admiral McManus and the man in black.  He wore a dark Armani suit and was well groomed.  His shiny black hair was combed straight back, away from youthful olive features.

“I had high hopes for you,” McManus said, stepping forward so that Gwen could see his face clearly.  “You career could have advanced farther than you ever dreamed.”

“Not in some covert government that I have no allegiance to,” Gwen countered.

“You’ll never understand what Senex really is or what it does,” McManus said.  “Your time on this earth is coming to a rapid close.”

Gwen scowled at the self-righteous tone of her boss.  “Don’t try to fool me about the happy, carefree relocation of my family to Colorado.  You’ve wanted me for yourself the entire time I’ve worked at the CIA.  In Colorado, it’s Ben who would have been killed, with some burnt body being identified as his in a car accident.”

McManus clapped slowly and mockingly.  “Since you’re about to die, I won’t lie.  Yes, I was going to have Ben killed.  I think we could have been a successful couple.”

“You’re a lecherous madman,” Gwen said.  “And a narcissist.”  Gwen smiled sarcastically.  “You don’t mind my being truthful since I’m about to die, do you?”

McManus frowned but made no reply.

He turned to the man with the Armani suit.  “It’s time.”

McManus stepped back as the man took a handgun from a shoulder holster concealed by his suit coat.  It was a dark, long-barreled pistol with a silencer attached.

Titan Four and Titan Six

The Cube beneath Mount Elbert

Titan Six once again stood next to the blown-out rectangular window that admitted a view of the cube’s control room.

“The central facility powering the cube is adjacent to the control room,” DJ explained.

Aiko walked to the right where the ever-present hydrogen symbol was embossed on the wall.  She pushed it nine times, causing a portal to appear.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she said, her mouth open in astonishment.  “It’s — ”

“It’s a reactor,” Tank said, staring at a large glass sphere in the center of the cube’s power generation headquarters.  “It’s connected by titanium rods to conduits spreading out in dozens of directions.”

“It’s more than just a regular reactor,” Ambergris said.  “It’s fusion, a source of power that humans haven’t been able to achieve on any mass scale.”

“Like the sun fusing two atoms of hydrogen to create helium,” said Aiko.

“Right,” said Ambergris.  “Fusion in the sun unleashes huge quantities of energy.  It’s what keeps us all alive.  On earth, scientists are trying to fuse deuterium with tritium.  From the readings we’re getting in Ops, it’s what people on earth tried thousands of years ago, only successfully.”

“There’s mention of fusion in The Genesis Code,” Nguyen said, “although we haven’t decoded all of the complex steps necessary to accomplish it ourselves.”

“The energy released in fusion is in the form of extremely hot plasma,” Ambergris said.  “If you can release Resolution into the conduits, it should destabilize the existing plasma that the glass sphere is sending to every part of the living cube.”

“Sounds like we could blow away most of Colorado,” said Shooter.

“The cube will be heated by thousand of degrees,” said Ambergris.  “There will be an explosion, and then the structure will implode, cool, and degrade into inert elements.  The Rocky Mountains will feel a few tremors, but nothing serious.”

“Such a waste,” said Hawkeye, “but Senex is insidious enough as it is without having technology that could make it invulnerable.  Let’s rig Resolution for detonation.”

Tomahawk hooked the weapon, no larger than a small carry-on suitcase, to the glass sphere and twelve metal conduits.  He typed several instructions on the bomb’s keypad, causing red and green lights to suddenly appear on the exterior of the black metal case.

“Armed and loaded,” Tomahawk informed the teams.  “All I need is the correct timing delay before this thing kicks in and feeds plasma to the cube.”

“Maglev trains are advancing on SURP Station 872 from the east,” DJ said.  “More troops.  Senex knows the facility is in jeopardy.  ETA for the reinforcements is forty minutes.”

“Set Resolution for thirty minutes,” Caine said.

“That’s cutting it close,” cautioned Hawkeye.  “We have to get out of here and clear of the station down below before it blows.  Our safety margin isn’t very large.  We need to board the maglev in no less than twenty minutes and then hightail it west.”

“Then I suggest you start to exit,” Caine said.  “Rendezvous with Touchdown and Quiz and then push the maglev to its limit.”

“Affirmative, Ops,” said Hawkeye.

Touchdown and Quiz

Surp Station 872

Touchdown, carrying Quiz and extra gear, exited the cube and walked towards the maglev.  Within seconds, however, he found himself backpedaling.  A line of five sentinels marched from the shadows, their photon tubes charged.

Touchdown knelt slowly and gently laid Quiz on the concrete platform, not daring to take his eyes from the Sents.  He had five seconds, maybe ten, before the creatures fired their weapons.  He slowly reached for the laser rifle attached to his backpack.

He was in the act of bringing it forward when the tubes of two Sents glowed brightly, discharging their photons.

Touchdown fell sideways, unconscious.  Quiz’s body, already immobile, convulsed in a brief spasm and remained motionless.

The Sents then marched down the corridor to the exterior of the cube.  They stood in a straight line facing the hydrogen symbol and currently invisible arched portal by which Titan Six had entered the cube.  They were obviously waiting for people to exit the massive structure.

Ops Center

Beneath Mount Whitney

“I’ve got something, Mrs. Caine,” said DJ, staring intently at one of her monitors.

“Shoot,” Caine said.

“I’ve been trying to get a steady reading on the cube’s energy signature since the mission started, but the energy coming from that monster is naturally massive, plus the readings have been erratic.  But I tried something after listening to Joshua talk about fusion.  Take a look at this.”

Caine studied DJ’s monitor.

“I recalibrated my sensors to look for deuterium,” DJ continued.  “I wasn’t looking for it before since it’s only one of two stable isotopes of hydrogen, but not the most common.  It has a neutron, the other isotope doesn’t.  It was hiding in the hydrogen band.”

DJ pointed to a small spike on the bandwidth showing the chemical composition of the cube — the various elements from the periodic table.

“Impressive,” said Caine, “but what’s the significance?”

DJ looked over her shoulder at the Titan CEO.  “I may be able to tap into the cube’s energy grid if necessary.”

“Good work, but it might be a case of too little too late,” Caine said.  “Our teams need to be clear of the cube in a matter of minutes.”

Titan Four and Titan Six

The Cube beneath Mount Elbert

Titan Four and Titan Six descended with their prisoners in one of the many cylindrical elevators inside the cube.  An unpleasant voice suddenly spoke through a speaker at the top of the tube.  It was Allan Marshall.

“Forgive me, Thomas and Hans,” said Marshall, “but I have to stop Titan Global from debriefing you.  More importantly, I can’t take the chance that they’ll return to their floating base and spread the word about Senex, even if in general terms.  They know too much already.”

“Understood,” said Thomas Burmaster.  “Do what you have to in order to — ”

“I told you before to behave yourself,” Hawkeye growled.

Although the quarters were cramped, Hawkeye jabbed his fist into Burmaster’s jaw, breaking his mandible.

“I warned you before, General,” Hawkeye said.  “No more talking.”

Burmaster’s eyes rolled white into their sockets as he winced, blood pouring from the corner of his mouth onto his chin and chest.

The elevator suddenly accelerated.

“We’re in freefall!” cried Blade.

Beemler smiled.  “We’re all going to be killed.  There will be no debriefing, Titan Six.  And don’t think that Senex doesn’t have the capability to destroy Titan Global, as far-reaching as its influence is.  We’ve created and destroyed entire nations.”

Beemler laughed like a lunatic, his head thrown back in victory as the elevator continued its uncontrolled two-mile descent.

“We need to hit the maglev in fifteen minutes,” Hawkeye said in a cool voice.

“You’re going to hit the bottom of the cube in just two minutes,” Beemler said, still gloating.  “You won’t be needing any maglev.”

“This thing must be doing sixty miles per hour,” Tank noted nervously.  He coughed.  “Not that anybody’s interested.”

Gator was in terrible pain despite the painkillers he’d been given.  His eyes were glazed.  As for Burmaster, he was semiconscious, his head resting limply on his right shoulder.

The elevator suddenly slowed.

“Can you read, Titan Six?” asked DJ.

“Affirmative,” said Hawkeye.

“I’ve got your position on my screen and the hologram,” she said.  “I’ve tapped into a subsystem of the cube’s energy grid that controls the elevators.  Bringing you to a stop any second now.  By the way, there are Sents waiting for you outside the cube.”

“Nice work, DJ,” said Hawkeye.  “Expect a dozen roses if we make it back.”

The elevator came to a gentle stop, with Titan teams and their prisoners exiting and making their way to the front of the cube.

“Ten minutes left,” said Hawkeye.