First Contact

Chapter 455

The pavement was cracked and worn, with grass, nature's shocktroop, pushing up between the chunks of ancient asphalt. Bushes were on either side of the road, rustling softly as the quartet passed them despite the still heavy air. The night sky was full of stars, many of which moved unnaturally in silent confirmation that they were man made. The air was thick and heavy, cool and crisp, with the taste of rust and growing green things that left a tang on the tongue. The road led up the side of ancient mountain that was scarred by its past. Massive craters dotted it, where in times past there had been attempts to flatten the mountain or destroy what was inside. All monuments to hubris as the mountain had ignored the attempts in the same way it ignored everything else. Vegetation had pushed into the craters, roots breaking up plasma glass, rock succumbing to root and the freeze-thaw cycle, until the floors and walls of the craters had become dirt.

Here and there the rusted out body of a ground vehicle was in the road, heading away or toward where the road led. Even heavy duty military vehicles at times, the battlesteel armor rusted somehow and crumbling. Skeletons dotted the road, and in some places festooned the bushes. Twice power armor hung in the bushes, the vegetation having managed to get into the interior spaces and wind around the bones in a grotesque parody of a body.

The quartet ignored it all as they trudged up the road.

In the lead was a heavily armored quadruped chassis, bounding forward and back, pausing to bark at bushes or hidden creatures. Pausing now and then to dig at the road, its warsteel claws ripping up the asphalt only for the cracked and faded black stone to repair itself moments later.

The trio following moved more like a gaggle. A slim androgynous man with a bald head and brown skin wearing a jumpsuit with a barcode across the base of his skull and on his forehead and forearms. A heavily muscled man with obvious cybernetic arms and legs, a set of tattoos on the side of his face proclaiming to any who could decipher them who and what he was. The last was a thick bodied matron of noticable endowment who was pretty in a severe way.

They were silent for the most part as they moved up the road, heading for a legendary area that had nearly been forgotten by the universe.

The Face of Crying Anne.

None of them commented on the fact that it wasn't any closer to sunrise than it had been for the long discussions in the parking garage, or the meandering path they had taken out of the city, or the long time they had been walking up the winding road.

According to the maps it should have only been a twelve mile walk. Easily done in a couple of hours.

Instead, they had been walking for nearly one hundred fifty miles and were only now finally getting close.

"You guys really managed to somehow make Earth even worse," the woman sneered as they turned the corner to head for the final stretch.

"Really?" the slender man asked.

"Dimensional and temporal banding and damage, feral plantlife, a chipmunk that would like nothing more than to jab me in the spine with its stinger and lay eggs in my asshole, all wrapped together in a marvelous shit sandwich stamped 'Earth, Please Come Again' on it," she sneered.

The heavyset man just gave a grunt.

"Mistakes were made," the slender one said, shrugging.

"Yeah," the woman said softly, walking through a skeleton and kicking several of the bones away.

Both of the men took note of the fact that she either didn't notice or didn't care.

"So did you ever meet anyone you didn't hate?" the heavyset man asked.

The woman shrugged. "My children. That's it. Everyone else was more or less oxygen thieves."

Both looked at each other then away. The heavyset one was wondering just who had drawn the unlucky straw to be assigned to her as children, the slender one wondered what kind of suicidal masochist decided that the woman would be a good sexual partner and mother to children.

"Oppenhiemer," she suddenly said. "I liked him. He was a skinny depressive Communist that if it wasn't for his intellect I would have slit his throat with a broken piece of glass, but I liked him for his intellect anyway," she was silent for a moment. "Like me, he needed physics more than friends."

They were silent as the cracked and damaged parking lot in front of the massive tunnel entrance blocked by a heavy warsteel door.

"That's new," the woman said.

"It's always been there," the heavyset man grunted.

"No, it hasn't, Daxin," the woman sneered, turning and facing him. "I was here when it was built. The tunnel used to be open on both ends with a curve to help channel and mitigate the overpressure wave of a direct nuclear strike. Having a door there is stupid."

Daxin just spit off to the side. "Been there for 8,000 years, right, Dhruv?"

The slender man shrugged. "Eight thousand years isn't forever, brother," he looked at the woman. "Pardon my rudeness, Dee."

"Bah," Dee walked toward the door. Laser targeting systems went live, painting her with a grid. It swept over her several times then shrunk down to a single dot between her breasts. "I don't think it likes me."

"I thought you'd have clearances," Dhruv said.

The woman shook her head. "You've watched too many movies," she snapped. "Any codes I had were scoured out of the system before they even put me in cryostasis. Hidden backdoors and access codes that go unrevoked are brain dead pabulum for an audience that needs to be reminded to put their dick back in their pants before zipping up."

Daxin shook his head, moving up to the door. The grid appeared, scanning over him, then winked out.

"Three for entry," he said.

The door hissed as the pressure was equalized.

"Great fucking security," the woman shook her head. "Three for entry," she said in a high pitched mocking tone.

"They made us here," Dhruv said. He stepped forward and the system scanned him. "They remade him the first time here before dumping him at the arcology in hopes he'd just disappear."

"Back in my day," Dee said, looking at Daxin. "We killed our failures and buried them in a shallow grave in the Mojave Desert."

"Times change," Daxin shrugged.

"Yeah, and obviously not for the better," Dee said. She looked at the quadruped robot, who had pulled a tire off one of the many battered, rusted, and dented vehicles, and was busy chewing on it. "Your dog looks like a fool with all that metal."

"Well, the Friend Plague kind of changed everything," Daxin rumbled. "What, you don't like dogs?"

The door finally stopped hissing.

"I had a dog when I was a little girl," Dee said. "I shared my food with it."

"What happened to it?" Dhruv asked.

"Arkie dusties ate him during the Dirty Thirties," Dee said. "Depression and dust."

Daxin and Dhruv looked at each other again.

"I left soon afterwards, never looked back," she said.

The door suddenly gave a loud clack and started to open. Dee moved up to look at it. "Bolts are thinner than I'd use, spaced too close," she shook her head. "Probably material and engineering advances I don't know about."

She looked down the long tunnel, where lights were finally starting to click on.

"It's a mile to the facility," she said, starting to walk in.

"What exactly are we here for?" Daxin rumbled. "I'm not quite clear beyond 'the Case Omaha' you stated. I doubt we'll find a box on a podium with those words written on it."

Dee snorted as she pulled out her cigarettes. "The War Operational Planning Response, or WOPR, is more than likely what's handling the Case Omaha. I would have figured it was replaced, but the continuing legends of Prince Whopper, Keeper of the Keys, the Flame Broiler, leads me to believe that its still in operation."

"What if it's just confused legends? Put there for Temporal Warfare Countermeasures or just when they rebuilt history?" Dhruv asked, sauntering along behind Daxin.

"If this place still exists, unlike China's Lotus City or the Russian's GO-42 it hasn't been turned into a museum," Dee said. She glanced back as she lit the cigarette. "Plus, there's going to be certain things here that they won't have."

"Why?" Dhruv asked. "Earth is pretty much one unified organization now."

Again, Dee snorted. "Because the Hamburger Kingdom is 'MURICA which was America," she said. "Not to sound all Nationalistic, but American politicians never met anyone they didn't want to fuck."

"And they wouldn't reinvent the wheel," Daxin mused. FIDO came running over and Daxin scratched his petting nerve, making FIDO quiver with glee, shaking the tire in his mouth.

"Not to mention, there's some things that I know were here that they wouldn't want to move. Hell, they probably wouldn't want to admit to having it in there," Dee said. "Something that specifically pertains to the two of you."

"Like what?" Dhruv asked, looking around nervously. He could feel the weight of the mountain pushing down on him.

"You'll see," Dee smiled. Her smile got wider, showing plenty of teeth. "Trust me."

Dhruv's face looked like he bit into a lemon.

-----------------

Hours had passed. The hallways had been dimly lit, the polished floors having a feeling of age despite the immaculate highly polished wax. The hallway doors had plates on them that at first were interesting, then just slowly turned into a blur of letters on brown nameplates.

Multiple elevators, all of them with only numbers. Twice instead of a digital panel there had been physical buttons that had to be pressed.

Once Dee had pressed two buttons at the same time.

Finally the door slid open and Dee led them in.

"It was found in Egypt a long time ago. Moved to England, then to the US during the Second World War to ensure that the Nazis never go a hold of it," Dee said, leading them in. "Of course, you guys have probably seen these scattered all over the galaxy."

"What?" Dhruv asked. He felt tired, and was beginning to suspect that Dee had deliberately led them in circles.

Although... looking around, he noticed that the tech was incredibly old. Semiconductor binary computer systems, massive server racks, steel construction.

"That," Dee said, pointing out the observation window.

Daxin turned and looked, keeping Dee in the corner of his vision. He didn't trust the woman, not in the slightest. She reminded him too much of the women that had came in and stared as he had struggled to survive the latest alteration done to his body. Cold eyes, nothing human beyond the form.

His eyebrows went up.

Inside was an L-Gate.

"We knew it operated on a chevron to rune locking system. We could power it up, get the first, sometimes a second, chevron to lock, but beyond that, if the third chevron didn't lock correctly the entire system powered down when you went to lock a fourth, making it damn near impossible to crack," Dee said softly. "Those were heady days."

Dhruv turned and stared at her. "Do you think it works?"

Dee shrugged. "Before we left I pulled L-Gate data. We can give it a test run. There's another L-Gate about eight hundred light years out," she leaned on one of the computer consoles. "The problem is, is fairly simple. It shares processing power and power power with another marvel."

"What?" Daxin asked, tearing his attention away.

"It's a surprise," Dee said.

Daxin shook his head. "No. No more surprises," he said. "Come clean about all of this."

Dee gave him a big smile. "Or what, big guy? You'll kill me? Hurt me? Torture me?" she giggled, then laughed, then broke out in howling insane laughter that suddenly cut off. She looked at Daxin, her gun metal eyes smoldering. "Those Combine assholes had me for years trying to break me. Then the Imperium arrived and they tried to break me. Then they tried double-teaming me."

Dee sneered. "The sun will burn out before I let slip one piece of information I don't want anyone to have."

"Then I'm out. Enjoy," Daxin turned and started walking toward the elevator. "I never asked for any of this. I just want left alone. FIDO, let's go."

"Shall I tell that to your wife and daughters?" Dee smirked.

Daxin stopped dead, lightning snarling around his fists. He took a deep breath then slowly turned. Dee was leaned against the console, lighting a cigarette, staring at him. Dhruv's expression was carefully blank, but Daxin noticed he'd given himself plenty of room around himself.

"Explain," Daxin growled, keeping wired reflexes from unlocking the pistol holster built into his thigh.

"I need leverage against you, you big thug, so what better leverage then your wife and both of your daughters?" Dee asked. "And no, you can't waste me and then look for them in the system," her smile got wider. "I'm the Lord of Hell, and I have your wife and daughters," she puffed on her cigarette, exhaling smoke that smelt of brimstone and scorched blood. "If you look back for one moment, Orpheus..." she snapped the lighter shut, the flame going out as she leaned nonchalantly against the panel.

The lights went out and the huge battlesteel ring outside the observation room began to hum. Massive electromagnetic driven motors began turning the outside ring, a grinding squeal filling the room. Several lights exploded and two computers failed as the ancient electronics could not withstand the sudden surge of energy.

Daxin had expected Dee to make a run for it, try to escape. Legion puffed into nearly a dozen copies of himself, blocking the exists, all in light body armor.

Instead she remained still, taking a deep drag off of her cigarette, the sparks from the exploded florescent light falling around her, her gray eyes unreadable.

The ring began to hum, a low bone rattling frequency, slowly picking up both pitch and speed.

Dee removed the cigarette from her mouth and cocked her wrist back, pointing straight up with the two fingers holding the cigarette.

She snapped her fingers forward and the ring suddenly stopped, sparks showering from the motor driven gears. There was a slowly declining whining noise and the computers all suddenly turned off.

For a moment the only light was Dee's cigarette and red emergency lights in the massive room beyond that had once been slated to handle the exhaust of ICBMs.

Then computers flickered to life, BIOS and POST screens flickering up, and the computers began to beep.

"Do I have your attention, you big thug?" Dee smiled.

Daxin snarled at her and looked at Legion. All but one suddenly puffed into black mist that swirled across the floor to twist around his feet for a moment.

"Don't look at me," Dhruv said.

"What's she got on you, brother?" Daxin asked.

Dhruv looked Daxin dead in the eye. "She says she can break the Case Omaha and I believe her."

"You don't even know what's causing it," Daxin growled, opening and closing his hand.

Dee shook her head. "No. I don't," she said. She stared at Daxin. "But I'm not stupid enough to look at you, see what you look like and drop fifty points off of your IQ," she exhaled smoke again through her clenched teeth. "You're smart enough to run a starship by yourself, just to start."

Daxin made a non-commital noise.

"And unlike everyone else, I don't give a flying rat's ass about the whole 'clinical misanthrope' part of your profile. I've met humanity," her grin got wider. "I don't like them either."

"So why show us this?" Dhruv asked, turning to face the room where the L-Gate was at. Lights were slowly coming back on, showing that there were maintenance robots replacing the blown out lights.

"To fix this, I need to show you that I can get you out of The Bag," Dee said. She pushed off the counter and started walking toward the far door. "But to use that gateway, we've got to decouple it from another system to use the power," she shook her head. "Unless you want to take the time to refurbish the reactors, which have more or less been in maintenance mode for thousands of years."

Dhruv glanced at Daxin who gave a slight shake of his head as they followed her out.

"So why bring us? Why not just come yourself?" Dhruv asked.

"I couldn't get in," Dee said, shrugging. "I needed to be flesh and blood, and for that I needed a clear mat-trans beacon signal."

"Like we have," Dhruv said.

"We do?" Daxin asked.

"That's what she says," Dhruv said.

"And you believe her?" Daxin stared at Dee's back as she waited for the high security blast door to slowly open.

"Do I have a choice?" Dhruv asked.

Daxin shook his head then glared at Dee. "I don't trust you."

"And you are right not too," Dee smiled. It got wider, showing too many teeth. "Curse thy sudden and obvious inevitable betrayal, Brutus," she said. The opened and she turned around, facing away. "But I need you, so that's good enough right now."

------------------

Dhruv stared at the item in the middle of the room. A hexagonal chamber, black glass with blue edging, twenty meters wide and ten meters tall, surrounded by computer consoles. It was constantly humming, the pitch rising and falling slowly, rhythmically, with the glow from the armaglass slowly pulsing with it.

"A mat-trans," Daxin said, staring at it. "Not like the ones we used to assault Anthill though."

"Gen-Zero," Dhruv said, walking forward to look at the armaglass. "My God, it's old."

"I'm a little older," Dee said, moving to one of the desks and sitting down. She cracked her knuckles. "Let's see just how far I'm locked out."

"What's it doing?" Daxin asked, staring at it.

"Cylindrical construction-deconstruction fabrication loop," Dee said, tapping at the keyboard. "Hmph, capital P password underscore one dash two dash three, they never learn."

Daxin moved around to the backside of it, looking at the heavy data and power cables. Dhruv met him at the back and they looked at each other.

**she's dangerous** Dhruv signed to him.

**no shit I figured that out** Daxin said.

**you believe her about your family** Dhruv glanced back the way they'd come.

**no she'll tell me anything she thinks I want to hear to get me to do what she wants** Daxin said. He reached out and scratched FIDO's petting nerve, a nervous habit of his own.

**we can't kill her she can't kill us we're kind of stuck** Dhruv said. **why would she care about the case omaha**

**don't know** Daxin signed, then turned around and walked back around to the front of the mat-trans chamber.

Dee sat, kicked back in the chair, a cigarette in one hand, blowing smoke into the air.

When Dhruv came around from the backside she sat up, putting the cigarette in her mouth. She smiled at both of them.

**I heard you two idiots** she signed. She pointed behind Daxin. When Dhruv and Daxin turned and looked they saw an angled mirror, high up on the wall, in the corner, that showed the back side of the mat-trans.

Dhruv just shook his head.

"We can go," Dee said, standing up. "I'm done here."

Daxin shook his head, following her out. He glanced at Dhruv.

**I just want left alone**