17
Atop the lofty Pico de Aneto, in the snow-dusted Spanish Pyrenees, a huge administrative complex spread itself from crag toicy crag. The headquarters of Earth's world government (for that's what it was) rated as one of the modern wonders of civilization. It had been built upon glittering spans of metal that, from a distance, looked something like a cross between a snowflake, and a vast spider web. Penelope had an office there, as did Jeff Tracy, and the American President.
Audience halls, offices, guest houses and hangars were built into the grey limestone mountainside, or else clung to the lacy fretwork as homes and shops had once lined London Bridge. Transport pods slid along electrified rails like the beads on some three-dimensional abacus, ferrying diplomats, secretaries, guards and ambassadors from one terribly important meeting to the next. For a center of power, the complex was whimsically beautiful, gleaming in the ruddy light of dawn like a dew-gemmed web strung between fence posts.
The very best offices, with the most breath-catching views, were at center span, where you could look upward at stabbing peaks, then down again through an eel's-nest of shifting clouds, at the azure lake and green valley below. The other chambers (more securely placed, perhaps, but undoubtedly duller) twisted long, dreary miles into the mountain's riddled flanks.
It was known officially as the "World Unity Complex", and was actually anything but. WorldGov's hold on power was tenuous at best, and constantly being challenged by its supposedly docile member states. The ancient Middle Kingdom of China, in particular, gave the World President hair-tugging fits, for the Chinese took their assimilation no better than the proud Arabs had, or the rebellious Americans. It was a terribly shallow accord, held together by little more than prayer and sticking plaster, or so it often seemed.
That morning, with the President at a televised press-conference, and many thousands of bureaucrats swarming through the governmental hive, something happened. A huge aircraft banked through the northeastern pass, (survivors later described the craft as dark green or grey, with the number '2' painted on its hull in bright yellow... or had it been white...?) leveled out just a bit, then roared toward the World Unity Complex's delicately trestled span. Here and there, people with windows stopped stirring their coffee to point, setting down newspapers, and half-rising for a better look, chairs squeaking back across polished slate floors.
'International Rescue? Here?'
Some joked nervously of landslides and freak storms, others mentioned terrorists, but no one was seriously worried. Despite the Defense Department's stance on illegal technology, the Thunderbirds were viewed by most as well-meaning vigilantes; outside the law, but still of it.
Then came the missiles, at least ten, fired by the big green plane as it pulled a sudden hard bank, exposing a rounded belly studded with gun turrets and missile tubes. There wasn't time to react or seek shelter, beyond diving under desks and tables. The vapor-plumed weapons struck bridge and mountainside with abrupt, ground-rupturing force, sending avalanches of metal and rock and mangled flesh cascading to the lake below. Miles of tunnel collapsed immediately, trapping thousands and killing others outright. The burning bridge folded like a paper fan, titanium-alloy struts groaning as they twisted slowly apart. Transport cars plummeted. People fell, or jumped to escape the flames. Black smoke, cindered paper and choking rock-dust filled the air; all of it on camera. Heard from a safe distance, over live video feed, the terrified shrieking was more of a long, whispered sigh.
The aircraft circled once; slowly, as if examining its handiwork. Then, mission accomplished, it sped away through the narrow pass, leaving agony and devastation in its wake. And now, when the desperate survivors cried "International Rescue", it wasn't a call for help, but a savage, blood-fueled curse.
A mysterious broadcast a few hours later, heard all over the world, and beyond:
"The City in the Sky and the Jewel of the Sea shall fall, and the Chariot of Man's Pride be struck down with fire, raining death upon all who worship the Machine. Earth will once more be free!"