Chapter Two
At the eastern tip of Lake Balkhash, in the Khazak Soviet Republic, there stands an immense and heavily fortified dacha. The area is barren, one might almost say desolate, as the salt deposits that extend for several kilometers from the lake shore have stunted or killed every crop that anyone ever tried to grow there. Some dozens of kilometers away, on the north shore of the Lake, the ruins of a small power plant lie rusting, the bricks, piping, and copper wires long since scavenged for other uses. Aside from the dacha, they are the only evidence that civilization had ever tried to gain a foothold in this land.
The lord and master here had built the dacha only six years earlier. It was not the occasional restful weekend that he desired, not a break in his hectic lifestyle, not any of the usual reasons that the powerful and well-placed owned these sorts of retreats. No, all he desired that this location provide him was privacy, and the opportunity to conduct his business in secret. He knew full well that the Soviet would take a very dim view of his activities, and not everyone in a position of political power could be bribed. He didn't want anyone dropping by, snooping around, prying into his business, looking over his shoulder. It was, indeed, a bit of paranoia. But in his line of work, a healthy paranoia kept one's vital fluid where it belonged.
He'd chosen the spot carefully. No regular air routes came anywhere close. The area was of little use, militarily. And not even during the height of the spice trade had any roads of any significance meandered through the land. The only ones who ever came out this way now were those who worked for, or had business with, the master. One such was on his way even now.
The master stayed inside, as he had for the last few months. There was nothing outdoors to gladden the eye, and the air was foul. He had installed filters to keep out the insistent dust that forever blew in from the shore, the dust that soon left eyes stinging and a bitter tang of salt in one's throat that no amount of coughing could help. Air-lock-type doorways led into cleansing and changing rooms, and several spas occupied various places in the rambling house. He also had a deep and secret set of rooms, stocked with supplies for years, many meters below the dacha's foundations. Just in case. And everywhere around the house and grounds, he had placed cameras and motion detectors and infrared scanners and remote-operated automatic guns. Again, just in case.
It was a healthy paranoia. Really, it was. He told himself that many times each day.
So he had no need to stir himself from his austere and highly polished sanctum as the transport made its slow, slow way across the long expanse of salt shore. He watched it, and he waited. Before long it came to the entrance, and his guards let it in through the gate. He watched as it traveled up the drive and entered the garages, watched as the two occupants emerged and dusted off their clothes. They followed the signs to the cleansing rooms where they found changes of clothes waiting for them. As always, the clothing consisted of light cotton pants and tank tops, because while the master hardly ever felt comfortably warm, and kept the temperatures in his rooms at a level others considered sweltering, he realized that certain accommodations had to be made for them. And so, eventually, after the master had finished his breakfast and all traces were cleared away, they were ushered in to his presence.
The driver hung back while his passenger came forward and presented the master with an envelope, executing a short bow all the while. He did what he could to hide his nervousness: though he'd been acting in this capacity for his employer for a few years now, he never had gotten over his dislike of the man, nor did he think he ever would. His master was not the sort of man that anyone could – or should – feel comfortable with. He hoped that the master, sitting there in his heavy overcoat and fur hat, would attribute the sweat running down his face to the excessive heat in the room, and not to the prickly fear he was dealing with.
The man behind the desk took the envelope, slit it open, and pulled out the single sheet of paper. One side was covered with a maze of tiny squares in red and blue and green. He oriented it and fed it into a small device on his desk. It whirred quietly for a minute, and then the coded message came up on his monitor.
Project Vulcan offline.
All operatives lost.
All hardware destroyed.
NSA involvement suspected.
Following up to determine culprits.
Will report when have more information.
- IB
The master read through the message. One of his hands clenched into a fist, and dozens of tiny, needle-like thorns protruded from the skin around his knuckles. A dark brown, viscous substance oozed from the base of each one. With carefully casual movements, he erased the screen, pulled the message paper out of the device, inspected it for damage and proper orientation, and reinserted it. Obviously there had been a mistake the first time. That had to be it.
Shortly, the same message appeared before him. He read it through slowly, then read it through again, becoming more incredulous with each repetition.
How could such a thing have happened?
Answer: it could not. The plan was foolproof. He had spent most of the last decade identifying any and every hindrance he could imagine and methodically eliminating each one. His goal of reducing the North American Union to third-world status was all but guaranteed.
There was no possible way to stop the tectonic collapse, once begun! All his researchers, all the physicists and geologists and fluid mechanics specialists and experts in vibration had assured him of it! The machine must have worked! It could not have failed! It could not!
And yet, somehow, it had. He stared at the screen, bile scorching his throat.
Project Vulcan offline. A decade of his life, wasted. More than a third of the time he'd spent building up this organization. It was intolerable.
All operatives lost. How many thousands of man-years of training did that represent? He had no idea.
All hardware destroyed. Sixty-five billion rubles. Gone. Eliminated. He might as well have made a big pile of the money and set it on fire. At least it would have warmed him for a while.
NSA involvement suspected.
The NSA. Again, and always, it was the supers of North America. How had they found him? Who had they broken? Where had his organization failed him?
The NSA.
How he loathed them.
They would pay, and pay dearly. Everyone would pay!
His rage mounting, he slammed a fist down onto the desk, cracking the heavy hardwood. And as he looked up at his visitors, his eyes were glowing with a feral, yellow light. The passenger gasped and took a step backwards, but twin beams of pale luminescence lanced from the master's eyes to strike him mid-torso. There was a soft pop, and a light mist of ash floated to the floor. The driver shrieked and turned, but had not yet touched the door when the eldritch fire hit him in the back, and he, too, vanished.
The master sat there for quite some time, regaining control, grounding and consolidating his fury until it condensed to a white-hot point. He would, he told himself, use that anger to his advantage. Oh, how they would regret getting in his way!
What to do next? Clearly, the hated North Americans must die.
Perhaps the time for subtlety was past. Perhaps a more direct approach was needed. He sat, thinking, until the shadows outside grew very long, until hunger could no longer be easily ignored. At length, he stirred himself, typed a message into his machine, and a sheet of paper slid out from its base. He took this, folded it, and placed it in another envelope. Then he called a servant and informed him that he had need of a new messenger.
