The Gods We Seek Page 2

  “Yep.” Chad’s eyes were focused elsewhere. He turned to face Jake. “I may have played my long game for exclusive access to the Quadriga a little too long.” He shook his head.

  “Will they give you access now?” Jake asked.

  “If they’re smart. Terrified people aren’t at their cognitive best.”

  “You think they’re terrified?”

  “If they’re not yet, they soon will be. That thing doesn’t strike me as a peace envoy.” Chad glanced away, again focused on something else in the room. “Are you with Sara now?”

  “I was. She went to VIRCOM.”

  “Does she know anything about the invader that’s not public yet?”

  “If she does, she got it via that damn aiDe. That little bugger sure makes my job harder.”

  “You want one, don’t you?” Chad said, chuckling. “Get me something useful and I’ll see you get one. And much more. I’m working an angle to get back in the President’s good graces, so he’ll open Area 51 to me. If that fails, I want access to whatever’s tearing up Alaska.”

  “You got it, boss.” Jake replaced the cube in his pocket and went inside to his company’s assigned office in NSA headquarters.

  #

  Sara strolled into VIRCOM, her effort to project calm belied by red cheeks and heaving breaths. Dr. Abel Okoye’s avatar was there, his attention focused on something outside the virtual space. The head of every major government department arrived in short order, either in person or via holographic proxy.

  FBI Director Kyle Adams slurped his iced green tea then said, “Catch your breath, Sara. Thank you for hurrying in.”

  “It looks like you hurried, too,” Sara said. Director Adams wore designer jeans and a Washington Nationals baseball jersey.

  “Yeah, I’m missing game six of the World Series.” He gestured at the shirt. “My wife insisted I dress like a fan instead of a D.C. suit.”

  “I like her,” Sara said with a gentle smile.

  CIA Deputy Director Jason Archer and General Anne West, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, studied incoming reports. Analysts from key agencies filled the room.

  National Security Adviser Nancy Kido linked in bearing her usual stern expression. “What the hell is that thing?”

  She’s scared. Terrified. This rattled even her. Sara looked from face to face. They’re all terrified.

  “We have no idea,” General West said. “We’ve never seen anything remotely similar.” She tugged the edge of her medal-laden uniform jacket.

  “Can we stop it?” Ms. Kido asked.

  “How the hell-” General West said.

  “Have we tried to communicate with it?” Sara glanced at the General. “Sorry to interrupt.”

  The General scrutinized Sara. “You said something smarter than I was about to.”

  Director Adams said, “Local police tried the bullhorn thing. They got no response, but then, they didn’t get close. I can’t say I blame them. We have an FBI negotiation team setting up now.”

  “With due respect,” General West said, “it attacked an Air Force base. It’s not a bank robber. This is a military matter.”

  “We’re on scene now,” Director Adams said, “and equipped to respond.”

  Sara crossed her arms. “Have any people been killed?”

  “Three aircraft technicians are unaccounted for,” Director Adams said. “They were working in a building the attacker crushed. I'm not sure if it knew people were in there. It didn’t seem to go after people in particular or even military hardware on the ground. Its actions were chaotic, almost random.”

  “So,” Sara said. “We don’t know with certainty it intends us harm. It might, and we must prepare for that. If it doesn’t, and we scare or provoke it…”

  The room was silent.

  “Jason,” Ms. Kido asked, “has the CIA seen technology like this? Even something in the design stage? Any chance this is a man-made weapon? Or industrial technology being used as one?”

  Jason Archer shook his head. “Not a chance.”

  “That narrows it down,” Sara said.

  “It does?” General West raised an eyebrow.

  “It’s not ours. It’s not from a foreign power. It’s not a corporate invention.” She bit her lip. “It’s not from Earth.” There, I said it, what everyone was thinking. The worst-case scenario.

  “It doesn’t much resemble the Quadriga,” the General said.

  “Does a tank resemble a stealth drone?” Sara asked. “We have only seen one example of alien technology. There’s no reason to believe everything they build looks the same.”

  Dr. Okoye leaned forward, resting his weight on his ornate, dark-wood walking staff. “There’s also no reason to assume we’re dealing with the same aliens.”

  “I suppose not,” Ms. Kido said. Her image hovered in the center of VIRCOM, examining each department head. “That’s the consensus? I’m to inform President Billmore that the best minds of his administration concluded an alien power attacked our Air Force base in Alaska?”

  Quiet.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Sara said. “That’s the only conclusion that fits the facts.”

  Ms. Kido swallowed. “All right. I’ll brief the President.”

  #

  “Mr. President,” Addie said, “you have an incoming call from the National Security Adviser regarding the disturbance in Alaska.” Addie’s disembodied, holographic torso floated in front of President Billmore, where a flesh-and-blood visitor might stand. Her consciousness lived in a box deep inside the National Security Agency alongside three dozen other experimental, personality-infused artificial intelligences.

  The President rapped his knuckles on the Resolute desk. “Put her through, please.”

  Nancy Kido’s image replaced Addie’s. “Sir, our assessment is the thing rampaging through Elmendorf Air Force Base is alien technology.”

  The President’s shoulders slumped. “How confident are you?”

  “Confident. It’s not remotely like anything made on Earth. There are no apparent similarities to the Quadriga, either.”

  “Humanity went our entire existence with no trace of aliens, now we have two encounters half a year apart? That doesn’t add up.”

  “Maybe they want their ship back,” Ms. Kido said.

  “The Quadriga?” President Billmore ambled to a side table and poured himself a virgin Mint Julep from an icy pitcher. “Wouldn’t they be able to take it back if they knew we have it? If a tribe of Bushmen stole an F-41, a Seal team wouldn’t even work up a sweat recovering it.”

  Ms. Kido shrugged.

  “How do you suggest we proceed?” the President asked.

  “I ordered Alaska’s National Guard to stand down. We don’t know the alien’s motives but shooting it up won’t help relations. Director Adams has an FBI negotiation team setting up at the perimeter of the airfield. We’re also moving heavy military assets into the area in case diplomacy fails.”

  The President took a long sip of Mint Julep, licked his lips, and eyed the glass. “We’re either about to negotiate with a technologically superior alien or go to war with it. Both versions scare the shit out of me.” He set the glass down. “Let me know when the FBI team’s ready. I’ll join you in VIRCOM.”

  Addie's image reappeared. “Not Bushmen. Cavemen, perhaps. Or chimpanzees,” she said.

  “Excuse me?” The President’s jaw hung open.

  “The gap between a race that can bridge the stars and humanity is more than a couple hundred years.”

  “Since when are you programmed to offer an opinion on policy?”

  “I’m sorry,” Addie said. “Is my insight unwelcome?

  “Well, no,” the President said. “The fact that you have insight to offer is… I didn't know you were capable.”

  “I weigh this type of information to better prioritize your schedule. It has always been part of my programming as you put it. I thought it would improve our working relationship if I express the outcome of my an
alysis the same way your human colleagues do. I will stop if you prefer.”

  “No.” The President shook his head. “No, please. Share your thoughts with me when you consider it relevant.” The President walked to a tall window behind his desk and gazed upon the Rose Garden. “The way you see it, either they’re benign, or we’re screwed?”

  Addie lowered her digital eyes. “If something that advanced wants to destroy humanity, they will. You won’t be able to stop them.”

  First Contact

  A projection of Elmendorf materialized in VIRCOM, appearing like a 3D movie on one wall of the holographic space. Smoke and dust obscured the golden sun, casting long shadows over the airfield’s wrecked buildings and its two destroyed runways. The twisted morass of shiny metal that was the alien loomed over a toppled control tower, unmoving. Drones, large and small, military and commercial, took up a perimeter a kilometer away while autonomous vehicles crawled the streets, edging closer to the hulking mass.

  The holo-feed from an FBI team popped in front of the scene of destruction, a three-dimensional picture-in-picture. The agents were hunkered down in a confined vehicle, with video monitors and computer screens lining the walls.

  “There they are.” FBI Director Adams made a pinching gesture toward the team. A transparent, green sphere now highlighted an armored personnel carrier parked three hundred meters from the alien. Yellow letters on its gray roof read FBI. “Proceed when ready,” he said.

  “Roger,” a man in the vehicle replied. “We will begin with a prime sequence.” The armored personnel carrier’s back wall folded down, forming a ramp. A meter-tall, treaded robot, the kind used by bomb squads, rolled out, pulled a U-turn, and headed up dust-strewn Sijan Avenue to meet the alien visitor.

  “Seriously? A prime sequence?” Sara asked. “Our best protocol for establishing communications is the first thing anyone thought of in the eighties?”

  A deep, paternal chuckle rumbled from Dr. Okoye. “Sometimes, the obvious ideas are the best ones. I suspect that holds strongest when you’re trying to exchange thoughts with someone who may conceive of the universe very differently than you do.”

  “We have an arsenal of methods, Ms. Wells,” Director Adams said. “We’ll start simple and see what happens.”

  Sara nodded. Her eyebrows pinched together as she followed the robot’s progress.

  The bot stopped fifty meters from the alien. A box on one of its arms unfolded into a nine-panel video screen. Another arm, with an antenna affixed, turned to face the towering metallic worm. Simultaneously, a one-second burst of white light pulsed twice on the screen, an integrated speaker blared a mid-range tone twice, and the microwave antenna emitted a low-power beam, on-off on-off. One second later, the triad of signals pulsed three times. Another pause, then five pulses. The sequence repeated up to twenty-three, then stopped.

  The gigantic creature twisted toward the robot. A pair of tentacles unwound from its shiny body and slithered together over what a human would consider its torso. A brilliant blue-white light pulsed between the tips. Three flashes of electricity arced between the points. Pause. A single flash. Pause. Four flashes. Pause. Flash. Pause. Five flashes. Pause. Nine flashes. The display continued.

  Dr. Okoye raised his eyebrows. “Pi. It’s pi. More than that, that’s pi represented in base ten, the number base that seems natural to humans, mostly because we happen to have ten fingers. It feels natural to us because of our own particular evolution.”

  “Are they sending us the message they’ve studied us?” President Billmore asked.

  “That’s a reasonable hypothesis.” Dr. Okoye sighed and leaned on his staff. “One we can test through further observation. Director Adams, can your team draw a circle on the video screen? Let it know we understand the significance of pi.”

  The Director nodded. “Do it,” he told his team.

  The alien sparked light again. One pulse. Another pulse. Two pulses, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one.

  “It’s the Fibonacci sequence,” Dr. Okoye said.

  “The… what?” President Billmore asked.

  “It’s a numeric sequence that has interesting properties, some of them involving prime numbers. Perhaps the creature is trying to continue the conversation by discussing a related topic.”

  “So how do we-” the President said.

  A slender, gleaming tendril shot up from the ground in front of the FBI vehicle. It stretched ten meters into the air, then whipped down, splitting the armored roof like a knife cracking an egg. Another tendril emerged behind the rear hatch. The metallic shapes arched over, grabbed the two halves, and pried the vehicle apart. The one at the front flicked its tip across the lead FBI agent, slashing him from shoulder to hip. It reared back and jabbed forth, impaling the man. He screamed and writhed in agony as he was hoisted high into the air. The other tendril impaled a technician, pinning him to the vehicle’s metal floor. The third agent, climbing through the shattered windshield, pulled out his service weapon and rolled to a crouch in front of the vehicle. His head snapped back and forth between the two tendrils, between his mortally wounded colleagues. The first tendril lifted the squirming body it carried overhead and rattled it. Blood and bile oozed over the remaining agent. He shook violently, dropped the pistol, and bolted back down Sijan Avenue.

  Director Adams scowled and shook his head. “Shit. There’s your answer, Mr. President. It’s hostile.”

  The President steepled his fingers and lowered his chin. He sighed, then slapped both palms on his desk. “The Guard’s hand-me-down weapons didn’t even scratch the thing. Do our modern weapons stand a chance?”

  “Railguns might harm it,” General West said, her voice filled with resolve. “A tungsten shell traveling at four kilometers per second will be hard to dodge and will hurt like hell, no matter what planet you’re from.”

  The President nodded. “Move in everything we’ve got. When we hit it, I want the strike to feel like Armageddon. We might not get a second chance.” He furrowed his brow. “Evacuate Anchorage. If our conventional weapons fail… We can’t risk this thing escaping. Shit, I can’t believe I’m saying this. If they fail, we'll nuke the base.”

  #

  A message flashed in Sara’s ocular implant. “Can you talk?” the note from Jake read.

  Sara focused her mind and imagined the concept of being busy. Her aiDe generated the words, “Not now” under Jake’s question. She sent the reply.

  “They want me back in Area 51 immediately,” he typed in reply. “What’s happening?”

  “Classified. Sorry. Be careful.”

  “I’m scared, Sara. Can you tell me anything?”

  He knows I can’t. Why does he press me like this? “There’s nothing I can share.”

  “Do I have to worry about the Quadriga being attacked?”

  Dammit, Jake. “Be careful. I have to go.”

  #

  “What’s it doing?” Sara asked, squinting her eyes at the projection of the alien in VIRCOM. The sun had set over Anchorage. Powerful searchlights illuminated the worm-like form. It was morphing, its base expanding outward and its top sinking toward the ground. “It’s reforming into a hemisphere,” she said.

  “That’s the strongest shape. The one best able to withstand an attack,” Dr. Okoye said.

  “I assume it has detected our military buildup,” General West said.

  “How’s that buildup coming along?” the President asked.

  The General added a tactical overlay to the aerial view of Anchorage. “We amassed conventional and railgun artillery at Anchorage International, a small airport called Merrill Field, and on Anchorage Golf Course. A squadron of F-41’s equipped with tank buster cannons and anti-armor missiles is refueling in-flight over Prince William Sound. They’ll be ready to engage in ten minutes. Two more squadrons are en route, one and five hours out, respectively. Two railgun-armed frigates are making their way up from Seattle, but they won’t be here until after sunrise.” She turned to
look at President Billmore. “And we have a B-21 loaded with two tactical nuclear cruise missiles loitering east of the target.”

  “How’s the evacuation proceeding?” the President asked.

  “We’re ninety percent clear,” the Director of FEMA said. “Aliens motivate people to get out of Dodge in a way even a category five hurricane can’t. We’re moving folks by land, sea, and air. There are still people at the port, about five kilometers from ground zero. The rest are at the international airport and bunched up at the south edge of the city evacuating along Highway One. Those groups are twelve kilometers from the action.”

  “How long until the port is clear?” the President asked.

  “The last ship’s loading now. Fifteen minutes.”

  “General West, any change in the alien’s posture?” the President asked.

  “No, sir. It appears to be biding its time, waiting for our next move.”

  “We attack in twenty minutes. I want everything to hit at once and don’t stop pulverizing the area until I say so.”

  “Yes, sir!” the General said.

  General West and the Director of FEMA gave instructions to their teams in muted voices. The other occupants of VIRCOM went about their business in silence, unwilling to disturb the somber atmosphere as the minutes ticked down toward Earth’s first battle with an extraterrestrial.

  “It’s time, sir,” the General said.

  President Billmore nodded. “God help us,” he muttered. “Open fire.”

  Attack aircraft entered supercruise, shattering windows as they skimmed Anchorage’s rooftops. Batteries of railguns hurled tungsten slugs toward the alien at hypersonic velocity. Howitzers opened up, raining high explosive ordinance upon the airfield. The first wave struck the target at once with awesome fury. Sparks flew high into the night sky. Electricity arced. Massive explosions rocked northern Anchorage. Chunks of dirt and concrete fell from the air. The jets cleared the engagement zone north over Eagle Bay, unharmed. Artillery thundered down on the airfield, wave after wave of shells wracking the base.

  The President sighed. “Cease fire. Let’s see what we’ve got.”