39
CIVILISATION OF LIGHT
A blur of Kevlar tumbled out the side of the chopper, spiralling helplessly toward a roaring avalanche below, churning and spewing out ice and rock as it growled down toward the cluster of sleepy villages off in the distance. The body was swept beneath the white ocean, stolen from the world.
The helicopter veered sharply, its metal blades slicing at the air inches from the rock cliffs before it was pulled back on course with a sharp tug at the controls. The pilot collected himself, focussed on keeping everyone in the air. He felt like a ship tossed about in a storm as all hell reared up around them. "Steady baby," he whispered at the bird. "You got this."
Henry Foss found himself on the floor, trapped beneath a pile of cargo boxes which dug dangerously into his chest. He kicked his legs frantically, beating his fists against the crates but they persisted in being a dead weight pinning him to the chopper. Declan was kneeling in the back seat, tangled in his head piece as he fought against the swift strikes of John's blade.
Foss coughed in alarm as a stream of warm blood splattered over his mouth. It belonged to another one of the men, caught by surprise trying to sneak up on Druitt. There was now a blade protruding from his throat, gleaming like the spaceship breaking free of the mountain behind them. John curled his hand around the handle of the knife and cut through the man's throat, sending another wash of blood over the upholstery of the cabin before returning his attention to Declan.
The junior office fell beside Henry, clawing at his severed skin before falling lifelessly to the ground. The chopper swerved to avoid another rush of snow. The body slid over the floor and then out into the abyss. The movement dislodged the crates which tumbled out after the corpse. Henry heaved the last one off and crawled to the far side of the cabin next to the pilot.
"Can you land?" Henry shouted.
The pilot shook his head. "Not a chance in this mess!" the whole mountain range was disintegrating around them. "It's the end of the god damn world out there."
Henry freed the pilot's handgun and aimed it square to John's back. As he went to pull the trigger, Declan momentarily gained the upper hand, pushing both men onto the floor where they continued. Henry couldn't get a clean shot. "Dammit!" he growled. "Druitt what the hell?" he shouted. "Let him go!"
John caught Declan's wrist – wrapping his long, gloved fingers around it then snapped it backwards. Declan shrieked in agony, dropping his weapon. Two more well placed fists to the chin and Declan passed out. That only left Henry, the pilot and history's most notorious serial killer.
"Mr Foss, what a pleasure to see you again..." John would have bowed but there simply wasn't the head-room in the chopper. "Need to borrow your bird. You know how it is – trouble with the magnetic fields."
"Really rather not let you do that," Henry replied, still holding his gun up. It trembled in his hand, drawn by an invisible force toward the collapsing mountain. "Oh – holy – mother of – " Henry was distracted as the entire base of the mountain fell away revealing the smooth underside of the alien ship hovering above the ground. The remainder of the mountain was now supported only by the space ship. Now Henry was a science fiction geek through and through but the last thing he wanted to see right now was – well, that.
"It's closing!" Ashley screamed.
The Immortal, Apries, Magnus and Ashley struggled through the violence, clawing up the shifting ramp of stones that fell away from their feet like a sand dune. A sharp crack of white light shone from the dying opening, beckoning them to freedom but it was getting fainter every second, obscured by the hail raining down from the roof. The mountain groaned and cried, its ancient form on the edge of destruction.
Apries and the Immortal scrambled ahead, then turned to help the humans onto the final shelf of rock. They stood on the slither of cliff, buffeted by a raging wind kicked up by a helicopter.
"Something's wrong!" Ashley shouted, watching the helicopter struggle, teetering from side to side like a drunk mosquito. "Oh..." She saw the unmistakable silhouette of her father standing in the middle of the open door. He had a gun to the pilot and a free hand hanging onto the metal structure. There were bodies on the ground around him but they were impossible to make out. Henry...
"He wants us to jump," Helen eyed the scene warily. "We don't have much choice."
"Mum..."
"That's our only way out, Ash. Those two might be able to survive the fall but we'd all be buried under the snow drift. I've done the whole, 'freezing to death' thing."
The helicopter swooped as close as it dared, chunks of ice slashed into powder by its blades.
"Helen!" John beckoned her.
He threw a heavy rope out. Apries caught it and hauled it toward the others. They took turns, wrapping their limbs around the rope. "This is such a bad idea," Ashley whispered, as the rope cut into her gloves.
The tug from the helicopter was sudden and brutal, yanking all of them off the cliff and into the air. They screamed as the mountain broke apart behind them, the last vestiges of rock falling from the spaceship with a roar.
The helicopter fled, stealing off into the horizon. Above it, an enormous silver ship gracefully drifted up. Ice rained off its curved shell like crystal waterfalls. For a while it hovered over the wasteland of ice, humming as its underside spun. Lightning forked from its hull, hitting some of the mountain tops with angry cracks and then it vanished, seeping into a different dimension of space.
WEATHER OBSERVATION OUTPOST, KASHMIR MOUNTAIN BASE
John lay in the snow; a fallen angel with his wings freshly seared from hell. In the cold, his scars were dark pink gashes cut through his skin as though he were some ancient map that led to mayhem and death. Helen knelt over him, prying apart his eyelids to shine a small torch at them. His enlarged pupils did not react at all but his breath was steady. He was alive.
"Whatever Amasis gave him, it's sent him into a coma. What happened?" Helen asked the pilot.
"He just collapsed in the back when we were over the village. I thought he was going to fall out when we landed."
Henry was sitting with Ashley inside the dilapidated weather base. It wasn't much to look at but after the frozen nightmare of the mountain it was paradise.
"Tesla will be so bummed that he missed the ship leave," Ashley sipped her cheap mug of tea.
"Seriously though – a spaceship, buried in a mountain. That's so hardcore scifi," Henry marvelled. He was holding an icepack to his forehead. "Please tell me they're sending a plane this time. I think I've over helicopters. And boats. And tombs..."
Ashley rolled her eyes. "I was the one dangling from it for half-a-bloody hour. Hi mum!"
Helen slipped inside, shaking off a light dusting of snow. "John's out cold. We're packing him up for transport now."
"What – back to the Sanctuary? Seriously, you think that's a good idea?" Henry gaped.
"Amasis gave him a potent drug rumoured to alter his sense of reality. Apries thinks he might be able to help us come up with an antidote besides, what do you expect me to do, leave him on the mountains so that he can wake up and continue terrorising the world? In the meantime, we should all get some rest. It's a long flight home."
Helen turned and took a final look at the mountains. There was a fresh gash of black where the snow had been knocked from the peaks and the skyline was a mountain short. Aside from that, the damage to the world was small.
THE SANCTUARY, OLD CITY
"Tell me truthfully, is my wine cellar going to survive this period of mourning you've set yourself into?" Helen lounged on the sofa, her feet up on an expensive silk cushion, glass of white in her hand (as Tesla'd already worked his way through all the reds worth drinking). He was on the rug by the fire, splayed over it trying to straighten out his back. His bottle of wine was kept in easy reach.
In the weeks they had been back, Tesla had invested his time re-writing the history of humanity. He doubted anyone would ever read it but historical truth meant something to him, even if it didn't reveal him as the heir to the world's throne.
"There were five conscious people who watched that ship take off and none of you can give me even a vaguely accurate description of what happened. It's like giving Shakespeare's lost works to someone who can't read – burning a Rembrandt in front of a blind man."
"Oh Nikola, honestly, we were busy trying not to fall to our deaths," she replied, in that ever-patient tone.
He curled his lip up in a snarl, baring a fang.
"Besides," she continued, "you got a good look at some of its computers, learned an entirely new mathematical language and, I have no doubt, stolen a few secrets about the universe for future profit." His reply was a shrug. "Thought so – now cheer up."
He was quiet for a while, content to lay there in silence watching the flames dance about. They were too warm this close but he was transfixed by them. The fire reminded him of stars; their molten surfaces and churning magnetic storms. Whenever action was born from force, though it be infinitesimal, the cosmic balance was upset and universal motion its result. The mass of the earth was dependent on a supergravitational force from all the stars in the universe. Nothing was separate. There is no gap between, no break in continuity, no special and distinguishing vital agent. The same law governed all matter, all the universe was alive. Wherever there was heat and light, life followed. Electricity was the heart and thus, the secret of life.
"What are you thinking about?" Helen sat up, glass cupped in her hands. "Are you contemplating some great problem?"
Tesla turned his head, his pale blue eyes settling on her. He missed her endless rings of blood hair.
"So it turns out that we're nothing more than the result of an experiment," he lamented. "All that history – dynasties and empires – doomed to fail from the start. I don't mind being the result of mindless chaos, in fact, there is a certain beauty in life's blind luck. I do, however, take mild offence at being an insect's escape plan."
She smirked into her glass then set it on the table. Helen moved from the couch to the floor, crawling over to him. "Oh Nikola... You were an experiment anyway," she reminded him.
"Your experiment," he corrected her.
"And I don't mind," she couldn't resist running her fingers through his scruffy hair. He looked so young and innocent when he was in a bad mood. "Besides, weren't you always the one rambling on about wanting to see the stars? At least now you know it's possible – that there is something out there worth finding."
His pout softened. "I think I could do without running into another one of – whatever that was."
"I'm sure we'll run into a lot of things but nothing so troublesome as a vampire."
"Cheeky... I'm not sure I'd survive another one of your adventures. This one nearly did me in." He paused, a frown on his lips. "When were you going to tell me about James? I'm not a fool, Helen."
"You know James..." she whispered. "He had no wish to trouble anyone. I didn't realise he was so ill until Declan called. You helped him cheat death for a long time but not even your inventions could keep him alive forever."
"He should have let me test the retrovirus on him," Tesla muttered, his usual ego tainted with sadness. "I could have saved him."
"You might have saved him," Helen replied, placing her hand on his arm. "But I think he was ready to leave us. Not everyone wants to be immortal, Nikola." Helen had the good grace not to draw attention to the wet sheen in Nikola's eyes as he picked up his bottle of wine and made a silent toast to the fire and his old friend. "When were you going to tell me about Ashley?" she added softly.
Nikola set the bottle down. "What about Ashley?" he replied carefully.
"We've known each other too long to bandy about. It took me most of my life to work it out. It was a puzzle, you see – one of James's favourites. Of all the people that John killed over the years the death of my father never fit into his neat profile. It was a crime of passion, the very opposite of John's sadistic kills. His were ruthless acts to fill a void."
Nikola would have used stronger language to describe the atrocities of that man.
"I think I knew the moment Ashley was taken back into the past," Helen continued. "She was there that night, standing in the attic. For nearly a week my father had been tending a mysterious patient, a young girl. It was her... I don't know why she killed her grandfather but I have a sneaking suspicion that you do."
"You should be talking to Ashley about this," Nikola replied.
"Please Nikola, what happened that night? I need to know why my father died."
"The truth?" he whispered.
She nodded. He was the only person that she'd believe it from.
"An accident. John was trying to steal your father's journal, Ashley was after the source blood to save Zimmerman. She was startled by a door slamming in the storm."
An accident. Helen wasn't sure if that was worse. Her father died for nothing. "Then where did he go, Nikola? His body went missing before we could bury him and I was left with an empty casket. What kind of monster steals a body before he can be set to rest? Someone or something took him for a reason."
"Maybe there is some truth in your visions."
"You actually think that my father could be alive? Will disagrees with you. He believes that I am projecting a fantasy to deal with the present."
"We disagree on many things," Nikola assured her. "Still..." he scooted closer, leaning against some stray cushions next to her, turning up his charm. "Save the world, get the girl, make off with the treasure." He waved his wine about theatrically. "This is what we do."
Her head tilted, dark hair falling over her eyes. "The girl...?"
"Well, sorta..." Nikola leaned in hopefully.
"Nikola..."
"Aw come on," he purred. "I totally abandoned all my carefully laid evil plans to spring to your rescue – again."
"Are you ever going to stop doing that? It's exhausting keeping you from ruling the Earth."
"When Alexandra saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer – ow!" the wine cork bounced off his forehead.
John's world blurred out of the shadows. At first a hint of light spread through depths like a stain of sunlight, spiralling toward a galactic heart. Brighter and brighter, the orb split into three. Lights. Electric ones – globes that were eerily similar to Helen's infirmary.
John fisted his hands, struggling against the leather restraints.
"Hey – easy," Dr Zimmerman frowned. "You're under observation."
Ashley sat in the back of the room, flicking through an old journal. "I'll keep an eye on him."
"You sure, Ash?"
She nodded. "Yeah. We have a few things to talk about."
5 MONTHS LATER
"Dude, is that -"
"Eyes down, Wolfgang," Nikola muttered, tilting the electric tablet away from Foss's prying eyes.
"You can't not share an entirely new discipline of mathematics," Henry complained, trailing the half-vampire like a puppy.
"Mr Foss, as a legally dead citizen of a different country offering my services for free, I am entitled to do anything I wish. Now shoo – you are meant to be part of that entourage for Apries."
Henry visible huffed. "I really don't want to go to Egypt."
Nikola paused in the hallway, smirking maliciously. "Just think, there will be pyramids – and sand..."
Henry rolled his eyes and eventually wandered off to pack. Nikola resumed his journey along the innards of Helen's Sanctuary. Often he imagined the building as a beast, sleeping at the heart of the city. It didn't help that Helen went through a crimson phase a hundred years ago resulting in all of its innards carpeted and painted varying shades of red. Its baroque beams and snarling doors formed a skeleton to which the metaphoric rotting flesh fell clung. He tilted his head as he casually passed an arch of bullet holes, torn into the plaster.
Hours later, Nikola found himself pacing Helen's office with a superior air, wiping his hands calmly on a lace handkerchief. He was intrigued by the invitation but not trusting enough to believe that she could have anything but ulterior motives in calling him at this late hour. No doubt there was some missing piece of research she needed or a set of sharp claws at her disposal.
"And what service shall it be this evening?" he asked, seating himself in Helen's chair. It was beneath him to approach any of the other seats in the room, besides, she seemed content to pace about her office, pausing at the fireplace to stoke it into action.
There were unopened letters scattered over the desk, several of which Nikola let his eyes linger on. They were all from Watson. Of course they were. The old man had never acquainted himself with modern technology. Indeed, it would not be a stretch to presume that they were written with a quill dipped into a stained inkwell better suited to a museum.
He wasn't aware that they comprised his last will and testimony.
A sharp 'crack' broke the silence as Whitechapel materialised in front of them. Oh, but this was going to be an interesting night after all.
"Gentlemen," she nodded at them both and closed the door.