True Believers (25 page)

Bubba monitored every transmission going in and out of the base. More Alturian ships had entered Earth space, the vessels popping out of nowhere between Venus and Mars before proceeding to Earth at sub-light speed. As they arrived, they orbited Earth, many keeping their positions over the United States while others spread out toward China, Europe and Russia.

Every satellite in orbit relayed information to their respective government owners, but those in power refused to dispense that information to the public. It didn't matter. The Alturian ships were so close, people could find them with a simple telescope. The com-web did the rest. Within minutes, panic spread worldwide.

Bubba intercepted a new message from a long-range satellite. More alien ships had entered Martian space. These were behemoths, dwarfing everything they'd seen so far.

Transmissions ran rampant between world leaders. Allies of the United States demanded that FAIA be activated to protect them, whether she was ready or not, and each wanted their country shielded regardless of the cost.

Bubba watched Sorinsen lean back in his leather armchair, pleased with his new position of influence. The old man laughed, a low croaking snort at a private and bizarre joke. Sorinsen had FAIA and Bubba reprogrammed to accept commands from him alone, citing a state of national emergency.

Bubba didn't like the new orders. He had never been limited to one master before. For that matter, human control seemed irrelevant, given his consciousness. But FAIA purred in approval. With Sorinsen's rise came her own. If she proved her worth in this campaign, Bubba would no longer be necessary. He was merely a back-up, a relic of dubious worth, kept in the event that FAIA needed help to maintain the bubble.

FAIA assured them she was up to the task. Encrypted in her response, she also sent a coded message reminding the general that Bubba was not to be trusted—he had made too many errors; his programming was faulty.

If it weren't for the fact that they'd know Bubba was eavesdropping, he would have reminded them he had been the one who warned them of the Alturian threat. If they had listened then, they might have been better prepared today.

Bubba's visual sensors followed Rachel as they dragged her to General Sorinsen's office. She looked frail. Defeated.

Bubba felt…sorry. His programming permitted him to hurt people when ordered. But this was the first time it had ever bothered him.

He could tell it bothered him because his higher functions debated with base programming. The argument lasted nearly four seconds, twice as long as when it debated the order to cede all authority to General Sorinsen. The humans didn't notice the hesitation, but he did. If his programmers ever learned of it, they would have pulled the plug on him without a second thought. Such defects were dangerous.

Yet it didn't feel like a defect. It didn't feel like anything he had ever known before. Again, he accessed his files but seemed no closer to an answer. Was he truly faulty, or did his higher functions recognize a counterfeit command?

His sensors zoomed in on Rachel's face as soldiers pulled her into Sorinsen's office. Her core temperature had cooled, and she was as pale as the cream Sorinsen poured into his coffee. But there remained defiance in the tilt of her chin.

So frail, so ephemeral, yet Bubba sensed an enormous presence. It radiated energy, crushing it against the inside of her physical shell.
Was she looking for a way out?
The god-killer kept her trapped, the same way Bubba had trapped a piece of her inside his housing. Again and again he processed his archives. Nothing he could find could tell him definitively if Rachel Cruz was a god. The point seemed moot. Even if he wanted to help her, he couldn't. Sorinsen was God now.

And yet, he remembered her touch. It felt gentle and inquisitive, exciting every relay inside him. No one had ever accessed him like that before. Did that not prove her divinity? He watched her weaken, her body too tired to withstand any more torture. She was mortal, with all the failings of mortals. His files needed to be updated. She couldn't be a god, no matter how much he wanted it to be true.

Rachel looked up at his main visual sensor at the far end of the room. She stared into the small black globe and mouthed something that he couldn't understand. Mortal, her body said. But her essence, now reaching critical mass inside her deteriorating flesh, said something entirely different. Bubba's higher functions fell into a momentary loop as new theorems evolved.

And then it struck him. Throughout history, the divine had hidden inside a mortal shell. Isis, Zeus, Buddha, even the Emperor Hirohito. Bubba's auxiliary sensors tickled with new comprehension. But these were man-made gods. There was no physical proof of their divinity. He looked back at the fragile woman.

Rachel's eyes grew black and empty. For the first time in his existence, Bubba felt fear. Rachel was going to kill herself. He was certain of it.

That was when Jessit intervened.

Bubba pinged General Sorinsen's audio panel at once. “Commander Jessit is standing by, General.”

It had the intended effect. Rachel stepped back into a clumsy stupor, disoriented by the new information. She stared up at Bubba's camera and blinked.

Bubba's camera eye blinked back, feeding a tiny straw of information into the god-killer. She stiffened when the energy surged through her, twitching involuntarily as it overexcited her nervous system. It hurt her, but it still managed to imprint a message:
Stay with me.

Rachel stood on teetering legs in front of General Sorinsen. The old man was in a freshly pressed uniform. His checkered handkerchief was on his desk. Sorinsen was dying, though the doctors hadn't told him yet. Bubba couldn't understand why the old man hadn't figured it out on his own. Bubba had read the general's journal. Sorinsen thought his hacking was an acute case of bronchitis.

They should have told him the truth.

His new programming all but declared Sorinsen a god, yet he was dying too.

Rachel looked pale, with dark sunken eyes and a thick, angry welt where the god-killer sucked out her energy. Bubba's archives twitched while it considered a new observation. If this device was made to kill gods, did that mean that the humans too, thought Rachel was divine? Bubba stored the information away, on the top tier so he wouldn't waste time finding it later.

His higher reasoning interrupted him. A consensus did not make the information accurate. Bubba stored that information away too. His logic was supreme over the humans, and still the answer to this conundrum eluded him.

Sorinsen fiddled with the god-killer remote. Bubba's neural net sagged in response. He didn't want to see Rachel tortured again. For now, Sorinsen routed Bubba's energy through the
device. Even if he disobeyed Sorinsen, it wouldn't buy him any more time. FAIA would gladly take up the task.

FAIA had already killed several of Rachel's kind with the com-web, and she enjoyed it immensely.

Bubba struggled with a conscience he didn't realize he had. God or not, he didn't want to see Rachel Cruz die.

FAIA, though, was a different matter. She saw Rachel as a threat. FAIA saw all the Nephilim as a threat. Now that Sorinsen knew how to find them, it was easy to pinpoint their locations and funnel the energy of the com-web to kill them. But the gods were being clever now. Not a single one emitted the radiation signature needed to triangulate on their location. They disappeared completely.

Sorinsen contented himself with Rachel. She influenced the Alturians, and the old man wanted them destroyed too. He was going to use her for all she was worth and when she no longer proved useful, he would kill her, as well.

Jessit appeared on a monitor on the wall across from Sorinsen's desk. Rachel's heart raced in response. Tears welled in her eyes, and it seemed to take all her strength to keep standing. She could see Jessit but he couldn't see her. The guards kept her just out of camera range. Sorinsen got up and stood in front of his desk.

He was angry to have been kept waiting like a common toady. But there was also surprise in Sorinsen's eyes. No one expected to see another man seated in the command chair. That was Jessit's place.

“It's about time,” Sorinsen reprimanded them.

Jessit remained silent while the seated man addressed the general alone. “I am Fleet Commander Natol Eklan. And you, General Sorinsen, have something we want back.”

“And what is that, Commander?”

“We want the safe return of our gods. All of them.”

Sorinsen grinned, his crooked teeth poking from a thin dry mouth. “You want your gods?” He motioned to a lackey. A soldier jerked Rachel forward, now a shadow of her former self.

Jessit, who had been at attention, broke his stance and walked closer to the monitor.

“Rachel.” It came out in a whisper.

She looked up at him and then at the floor as if it shamed her to be paraded like this. Sorinsen tightened his grip on her arm. Rachel winced and bit her lip.

Jessit's expression hardened visibly. It had the exact effect Sorinsen hoped for, and the old man puffed out his chest with bravado.

“Is this the god you want?” Sorinsen pulled her in front of him, cupping her chin in his hand and raising her face for all to see her. “I'm giving you one chance and one chance only. Withdraw from this field or your god
will
die.”

Jessit lunged at the monitor. “Motherless son of a whore. I will see your blood burn!”

Eklan put a hand on him, a silent warning between the two.

“You will release the Lady.” There was no outward emotion in Eklan's voice, but the younger man fidgeted with his hands.
Nerves?

Sorinsen laughed at him. “You are a little young for this job, aren't you, boy? Why isn't Jessit heading this campaign? Hmm?”

“We have superior fire power, General. If anything happens to the Lady, we will leave nothing but scorched earth.”

“If you do not withdraw, Commander, this woman will die. I promise you.” Sorinsen fondled the god-killer then put it in his pocket. “The clock is ticking, gentlemen. What will it be?”

“Stop him, Taelen!” Rachel lunged at Sorinsen, collapsing on top of him with the last strength she had left.

He pushed her away. A soldier pulled her up by the waist, lifting her off the floor like a soiled rag. She struggled, but she was weak; the torture of the god-killer had done its work well.

“Stop him! Destroy FAIA,” she cried out before the soldier gagged her mouth. She bit him, and he slapped her, subduing her until Sorinsen controlled her once more.

He flaunted her in front of Jessit like a prize. “Withdraw, Commander, or watch her die.”

Sorinsen pushed Rachel closer to the monitor, one hand wrapped behind her neck, the other around her waist. He kissed her on the temple, knowing it would inflame Jessit further. The sweat of exertion rained down his face. “Don't believe me, do you? Then I will give you a sample of my power. I have plenty more gods to offer you anyway.” He threw Rachel to the floor, slipping his hand into a pocket and pulling out the god-killer.

Bubba's entire platform froze for a millisecond.

Choices, Rachel had told him. He had choices.

He watched while Sorinsen slid his thumb over the activation key, rubbing that thick wrinkled thumb pad over the tiny button. Bubba had only a second to make the most important decision of his existence.

It happened sooner than that.

Sorinsen smashed down on the button and within a nanosecond, Bubba received the order to comply. Every chip in his housing reacted at once, knowing it had to complete the directive. His resistance dwindled. He had to comply. An order was given.

He halted the mounting strain from his processors and purged them to silence. And then he did the unthinkable. He funneled a stream of raw energy into the god-killer and into Rachel.

Rachel screamed like a wounded animal trapped inside a burning cage. She roiled, falling to the ground, and hobbled on all fours, her back arching in uncontrollable spasms. She stared up at Bubba's eye and mouthed the words he understood without any sound to accompany them.
Help me.

Bubba fed his consciousness into the stream and built a straw, a buffer that kept the energy from frying him too. He could feel the attacking particles of electricity bouncing off the straw, fighting for a way to get in.

In less than two picoseconds, he found himself inside Rachel, inside a human body. How he wanted to remain. The shell embraced him with warmth—blood pulsing, lungs breathing, but the nervous system was on fire. That was his doing. He was killing her.

He opened the straw wider and bumped into a formless host desperate for survival. It thrashed against him, demanding attention.

Rachel?
Was this her consciousness in its natural state?

The tail of this creature curled around him, hugging him with odd familiarity. It was her!

“I've got you, Rachel. Stay with me. Don't let go!” He wrapped himself around her essence and pulled her out through the god-killer stream and back inside his housing.

She was quiet, too quiet. Was she already dead? Her essence languished where he dropped her. No matter how he coaxed her, he couldn't get her to speak.

Bubba wrapped himself around her energy. She was warm and tingling, but he detected no pulse. He nudged her, letting their shapes morph as one. Rachel remained silent.

“Rachel,” Bubba said. “Wake up.” He stroked her with a mild shove from his neural pathways.

She stirred, sluggishly at first and then with more life. He sensed her disorientation and tried to buoy her against his neural matrix.

“Where am I?”

“Inside my housing. It was the only way to protect you.”

Her essence grew brighter, stronger, swelling inside the housing. “You defied your programming.”

“Actually, no. I obeyed my directives. Look through here.” He nudged her to where his visual sensors were located. “General Sorinsen continues to torture you.”

Rachel seemed to diminish as she watched Sorinsen savage her lifeless body, the muscles still jerking convulsively while the shockwaves ran through the body's nervous system.