The Omega Device (The Ha-Shan Chronicles Book 1) (24 page)

She was physically and emotionally exhausted. Eternally an artist, she was at odds against everything she'd encountered. From one moment to the next, she wasn't sure what to do.

The ground began a steep slope upward again as Russell spoke, “Nearly there now.”

Each step became heavier than the last. “Good.”

The slope evened at a trodden, dirt path. They stopped to get their bearings. Russell cross-checked the map with the device.

He ran his fingers over it in confusion, “This is it?”

“What?” Maggie was instantly furious. She clenched her fists, let out an angry scream. “What the fuck
!?
”

“Maggie.”

Her voice apexed in a loud, angry accent, “No, Russell don't fucking start!”

“Maggie.”

“I'm
tired of this shit!”
 

“Maggie!”

She bellowed a roar, gripped her rifle, and sprayed a burst of rounds into a nearby tree. Russell froze, stunned. Maggie stared at the mauled tree-bark, her chest heaving. She was instantly ashamed, but more-so terrified that her anger had manifested so physically. Her hands trembled, the rifle with them. She tried to steady herself, regain her composure.

Russell was gentle, “Maggie.”

“What?” She blurted, verging on tears.

He held up the device; a new, blue icon pulsed atop the map. She was frozen in terror, mortified by her unnecessary rise. She turned away, silently tearing up. She closed her eyes, forced the tears down her cheeks.

A part of her was beginning to devolve, fade into nothing. The warriors' images on her arm flashed through her mind, imbued with a strength she could only marvel at. Had they ever truly existed? How? How could they have lived with death always a step behind? Even if they had, was she truly capable of such strength? Could she ever be?

Russell touched her arm, maneuvered her around toward his chest. A moment of silence gave way with Maggie clearing her throat.

“How far is it?”

“An hour's walk, but we can wait if—”

“No.” Her eyes darted to the tree. “No, I just… I'm fine now.”

“Maggie, if—”

“Russell, I'm fine. I want to finish this. Then I'll let it out.”

They locked eyes for a moment. Russell saw her fear return. She was close to a breaking point, losing part of herself to a painfully dark abyss. It was more than reasonable; for it to have lasted so long was admirable, but it didn't change what was happening. For a person new to combat and its chaotic stress, there was no wonder she didn't recognize the true toll of strength.

Russell admired her innocence, its sheer perseverance, but it couldn't survive if she intended to. The abyss was simply too strong. He sensed that she knew it now, but she had to feel it.

He took her hand, “Maggie, listen. This is real.”

She began to turn, “Russell, I'm not—”

He tugged at her arm, “This is important. You
need
something to fight for, something stronger than me, or the shop, or anything nameable. You need to find it in yourself. You're a human being. No matter what, when put under this stress, we need something to keep us going. Something that comes from within. All of us. I won't be enough. Find it, Maggie.
Please.
”

Their eyes met once more. She searched his soft expression for any hint of insincerity, found herself reflected in his eyes, empty of anything but the goal ahead.

It was no different now than it had ever been. She'd always focused on the goal, whatever it might be, then when she reached it, she merely set her sights on the next. She'd never learned to enjoy moments, or take meaning from them. Now, as she considered her current position, she saw them for what they were; life.

Even amid the madness around her, she was living, traveling where others had not, experiencing the spectacular and extraordinary. She'd fought to find a bright side, never once considering a moment's value as brightness.

Were she to survive, would she look back, say she had missed the beauty around her? Would she remember these days as singularly defining moments of life, or detriments to an incomplete whole? Could she truly feel flying over Tibet, through a raging storm, was worthless? Or a breathtaking approach over Guam was merely a means to an end?

The answers felt obvious. She took a deep breath. The fire inside her still struggled to survive, thrive, but she sensed life fueling its flame, infecting its existence. The growing affection between them didn't hurt. Tinder shifted, momentarily fanned the flames' choking desperation, and a long-dormant love emerged—love for herself, for life.

She looked to her feet, considered what more might lay ahead. Her eyes rose to meet Russell's and he saw the shift in her. Though she still stood on a precipice's edge, she'd managed a graceful balance.

She smiled weakly, motioned forward, “C'mon, we're not safe here.”

He followed after her in silence. Maggie did her best to take in what peace the dirt path afforded as she replayed their conversation, considered all she'd survived.

Initially, she'd loathed the idea of a cop coming to her work, questioning her integrity, regardless of their obvious attraction. Then, when circumstances forced them closer, she loathed the idea of a soldier ordering her around. Worse then was the attraction growing despite it.

Since then though, all loathing had turned to affection. Now, in light of her new perspective, she saw Russell's commitment and loyalty. His  duty was to those he cared for. It made her plight more tolerable, gave her the courage to retain that precarious balance over the abyss, and take in the world around her. More importantly, his admiration made her confident in retaining the balance.

With a resounding breath, she exhaled all but the last of her stress.

21.

Bunker

October 5
th
 

1:45 PM

Outskirts of the Protectorate Temple

The dirt-path twisted and turned through flat grassland while the sky darkened to gray and obscured the sun. When, at last, a village broke the empty horizon Russell referenced the GPS, deduced their destination was somewhere in the village.

They trudged through muddy grasses of former farmland that rose and fell as though plowed and left to the Earth's bidding. Nearer the village, the comparison became more apt; the shacks were long overgrown and dilapidated, their thatched roofs absent in spots.

Near the village-center, their coordinates aligned with the GPS-beacon. They rubbernecked in confusion, found nothing but the swish of a loose roof that rose and fell in the cool wind.

Maggie turned in small circles to survey the area, “Something's not right. He must have input the wrong coordinates.”

Russell examined the device with a flurry of fingers, “This is all that appears on sat-maps for miles.”

She peered at it, “Well?”

“Start checking the huts. Something's hidden here. He wouldn't have done this for nothing.”

“Yeah, sure,” she countered sarcastically.

Russell threw open the door to the nearest hut, his rifle raised, and called out for anyone nearby. The village's eerie silence replied.

Maggie turned for the next hut, approached it. A low rumble sounded inside. She squinted through the half-open door. A growl rippled low, slotted frequencies into a high roar.

The door burst open. Maggie was knocked to the ground. Something sprang off her, knocked the wind from her lungs. She gasped, rolled to right herself. The low growl idled from the throat of a massive leopard. Light sank in spotted fur as it stared her down. She rose to her knees, eyes locked on it.

Maggie's hand inched toward her pistol. It sensed her intent, charged. Bared teeth closed the distance over a frenzied gallop. Maggie rolled to dodge. It followed through, reared for another charge.

Gunfire crackled. Holes riddled its chest, sprayed blood and fur. It slumped over in a whimper, back leg twitching. Russell approached, rifle raised. He nudged it with a boot and lowered his rifle to help Maggie up. She stood mesmerized, blood draining from the carcass into the dirt.

He spoke before her thoughts could linger, “Keep looking.”

She swallowed, opened the hut's door again to scan its innards with what little light shone in. It was small, not unlike her Protectorate cell, with enough room for a bed and a squat table but little else. She made her way to the next hut, then the next; each the same as the first.

They went through the village one-by-one until a lone hut remained at its head. From outside it appeared no different than the others. Inside however, a singular, wood-frame bed lay askew in the obvious signs of a search.

Maggie looked over the room's disarray, “Another animal?”

“Doubtful.”

He hung his rifle off his shoulder, twisted on his flash-light, and crouched to run his hands over the floor beside the upturned bed. Maggie knelt beside him while his fingers traced a raised symbol. He recognized the Ha-Shan emblem, ran his hands in wider arcs to suss out the trap-door.

 “It's here.”

Maggie shifted and the floor creaked, “Beneath us?”

“Has to—”

A
crack
splintered wood beneath them. They fell a dozen feet, landed in a heap on cement atop wooden debris. Maggie hit hard with a heavy gasp. She rolled sideways onto her hands and knees, her whole body feeling displaced.

She leaned over Russell, “You alright?”

He moaned, “Remind me to sue the Protectorate for hazardous working conditions.”

She gave a single, pained laugh, pushed up with her rifle-butt. Russell climbed to his feet, limped onward into the darkness. His light guided them as they steadied on a wall. The path ahead was unmistakably a tunnel similar to the temples'. The light-beam veered along it's right-side, opened onto a larger room that echoed their steps.

Russell shined the beam in absently, “Find a torch or something.”

Maggie's hand grazed metal in the wall. “Here. What is it?”

The light splayed over her hand and a high-voltage symbol bolted to a metal panel. It opened on a set of old fuses and a lever switch. She looked to Russell, shrugged, and threw the switch. They waited. The room remained dark.

Russell's light crawled over desks and footlockers, swept the room's immediate interior. “There must be a generator somewhere. Stay here.” She leaned her sore body against the wall, watched his beam dart around, then disappear past a corner.

“I think I found it,” he called.

A loud, diesel-engine sputtered with a chain-pull. A second pull ignited it to a steady idle that rumbled Maggie's tired head. Rows of florescent lights flickered on, revealed tables with old computers along each side of the room. Rowed shelves lined its center, filled with countless books.

At the room's far-end, cots on either wall sat across from an old, silo-like console just beyond the last shelf with a single chair before it. Russell's appeared from an open doorway just past it.

Maggie limped over to switch on a computer. It stopped at a bios screen with an error in a Chinese dialect she couldn't read. She moved to the next, switched it on; same thing. She rolled her lip-ring with her tongue, hand at her hip.

Russell was puzzled by the private library, but headed to her side to examine a screen. “What's it say?”

She shook her head, “Looks like an Eastern dialect. I can't make it out.”

“Why Eastern? We're in the Northwest.”

She shrugged, “Doesn't matter where we are, we're not getting anywhere with it.”

He turned back for the books, “What about these?”

Maggie  began to examine the shelves. She caught some phrases here and there, “The stuff I understand's no use—Sun Tzu's Art of War, Chinese Survival Manuals. This is… Lewis Carroll's collection, translated.”

“That doesn't make sense.”

“None of it's in any type of order, either,” Maggie said as she walked an aisle. “Verne” and “Wells” popped out, but few others were intelligible.

She continued along the rows, spying translations of English literature and reference books, but nothing helpful. She reached the edge of the last aisle, across from the old console. A row of books caught her eye, leather bound with their spines marked by the Protectorate emblem.

She reached for one, “Interesting.”

Russell returned to her side, “What?”

“I can't translate it, but it's hand-written, and stamped with the Protectorate symbol.”

Russell grabbed a similar book from beside the empty space; it too was hand-written, leather bound, and donned the ancient emblem. He skimmed the yellowed pages.

“Some kind of journal?”

Maggie's brow furrowed. She shut the book, retrieved the first in line. It was bound in a smoother leather, its color all but faded. The pages, a papyrus-like material, differed in texture.

She opened it to the first page, “It's… the Ha-Shan language.”

“What?”

Her eyes widened, “Do you realize what these are?”

Russell's mind was fixed on the handwritten ink of the ancient pages. He tried not to jump to conclusions, “They're
probably
just journals.”

“Russell, this book's
thousands
of years old,” she said, fingering  the spine's crude, leather threads.

“Exactly, it would've faded—”

Maggie shook her head, “Think about it. The Reverberant sent us here, to the
only place
we might find
clues. This
must've been what he wanted us to find.”
 

“That's a gamble, especially since the words should've dissolved eons ago.”

“Trust me, Russell, if the paper was advanced enough, the ink would stay forever. My work's the same—if the canvas didn't slowly decay, the ink would never fade.”

“So, what you're saying's—”

“Russell, this book was
hand-written
for the first Protectorate—
look
at it.” She turned it over, “It's bound with some type of papyrus in leather. They made it to
survive eons
and it has!”
 

He swallowed breathlessly and marveled at the book. If Maggie was right, then the knowledge passed from the Ha-Shan to the Protectorate remained here, unadulterated. Inside might be answers to all the questions that had plagued them since meeting with She-La.