Mindscape: Book 2 of the New Frontiers Series Page 8

All the better to avoid the temptation, Catalina thought. She knew all about the lure of virtual worlds. She’d lost her husband because of them.

  Catalina walked up to the windows running alongside the waiting room. She watched the Gulf of Mexico sparkling in the sun. Tufted white clouds sailed across the bright blue dome of sky overhead. Catalina smiled at the view. Virtual worlds might look and feel the same, but they still couldn’t compare to the real thing.

  She turned away from the view to take a seat. As she did so, the inside of the waiting room flashed with a blinding light. Catalina winced and whirled around to face the windows once more. She was just in time to see a fading column of light between the sky and the horizon. An eerie glow below that column radiated up from the horizon, and a searing wave of heat radiated through the windows, as if there were an oven on the other side. Her skin stung and itched from the heat.

  The column of light faded, and Catalina gasped to see that in its place stood a giant, funnel-shaped black cloud rising all the way into the stratosphere. She looked on in horror. What is that?

  Then came a low rumbling sound, followed by a much louder rattling of windows and paintings on walls. Catalina spun around, blinking rapidly to clear away pink and green columns of light from her vision. Paintings hanging on the walls fell. A crystal sculpture tottered to the floor, shattering on the marble tiles and sending jagged shards of glass in all directions. Her knees wobbled and she grabbed the nearest wall to steady herself.

  It’s an earthquake, she realized, her terror multiplying. She heard Bill’s secretary scream, and echoes of that sound came through the walls from adjacent offices. Is this building made to withstand an earthquake? Catalina wondered. How long did she have before it fell? The ground continued rocking under her feet, the building swaying from side to side.

  She made a break for the stairs, but skidded and fell in the shattered glass from the sculpture. Searing pain shot through her thigh as glass dug through her skin. The rumbling and shaking went on and on like a train running down a set of tracks right next to her. This is it. I’m going to die.

  Suddenly it stopped and everything was perfectly still. Catalina gritted her teeth and heaved herself off the ground, glass biting into her palms as she did so. She looked around at the mess in the waiting area. Watson’s secretary caught her eye. They traded looks of bewilderment and horror.

  “What the hell was that?” the secretary asked.

  Catalina shook her head and directed her gaze out the window where she’d seen the column of light appear. The black cloud was still there, but it looked bigger and angrier than it had a moment ago.

  Bill Watson’s door flew open, and he lunged out into the waiting room, his eyes wild and dark hair mussed. “One of the missiles got through,” He said.

  “Missiles?” Catalina asked.

  “Haven’t you been watching the news? Missiles! Like the ones that hit the Moon. One of them got through! There’s an evacuation alert in effect for the entire Gulf Coast. We’re supposed to get to higher ground as fast as we can.”

  Catalina gaped at him. “What higher ground? We’re on an island!”

  “We’ll have to get to the mainland. I have a helicopter on the roof,” Bill said.

  Catalina heard people screaming and muffled thuds coming from adjacent offices. All of their heads turned.

  “People are panicking,” Watson added. “No one expected the missiles to get through. The government assured us we were safe.”

  More muffled screams and thuds rippled through the walls as people tripped over each other on their way to the exits.

  “We need to get to your helicopter now,” Catalina added.

  Bill nodded. “Let’s go.” He turned and ran for the stairwell. He yanked open the door to the stairs and disappeared, not waiting for them.

  Watson’s secretary beat her there, grabbing the door before it swung shut, but Catalina careened through the open doorway, slamming into the other woman and almost knocking her over. Both women grunted, but kept moving, pounding their way up the stairs. More screaming echoed to them from further down the stairwell, footsteps sounding like thunder as people flew down to the parking levels.

  Catalina was grateful they were going in the opposite direction. She took the stairs two at a time, using the railing to pull herself up faster and take some of the weight off her injured leg. Her lungs burned and her legs and hands trembled violently as she went. It felt like forever to the top of the stairwell. Time flowed like molasses. This is a bad dream, she thought.

  She beat Watson’s secretary to the top of the stairs and body-checked the door open. The sun assaulted her still-aching eyes. Tears welled, and her eyes automatically narrowed to slits. She fought through the tears to find Watson. He was already halfway to the waiting helicopter. Gasping for air, she pounded after him, limping from the pain of broken glass in her thigh.

  Watson reached the chopper and yanked the door open. He launched himself inside and disappeared in the relative darkness of the cabin.

  Afraid that he was going to take off without them, Catalina called out, “Wait!”

  The helicopter’s rotors were already spinning up—thump, thump, thump… and there was no way that he’d heard her over the noise.

  A split second later, his head popped out the open door and he gestured impatiently for them to hurry. Catalina poured on a burst of speed, willing her burning legs to pump faster, and her lungs to stop screaming for oxygen. Her head felt light. Dark spots danced before her eyes. She was going to pass out.

  No!

  Catalina stumbled and fell. But rather than the unforgiving smack of the concrete rooftop, she felt herself being lifted back up, and she opened her eyes to see Watson pulling her inside the helicopter. Somehow she’d made it. Behind her someone screamed. Watson’s secretary. Catalina turned to see her yank the rear door open and clamber inside.

  “Shut the doors!” Watson reached over Catalina and pulled her door shut. His secretary did likewise, and then the thump-thump-thumping of the rotors picked up speed as Watson prepared to take off.

  Abruptly, the noise faded once more.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Watson shook his head and pointed out the window. Catalina turned to look. The dark cloud she’d seen before was bigger than ever, stretching as far and wide as any hurricane. That probably wasn’t far from the truth. The impact must have kicked up an enormous amount of water vapor and sediment.

  Watson passed her a headset to her so they could talk. She slipped it over her ears with shaking hands.

  “We can’t go anywhere until that shock wave passes,” he explained. The sound of the rotors died completely.

  “What’s wrong?” Watson’s secretary asked. Not wearing a headset, she’d missed his explanation. “We need to take off now… please!”

  “What about the tsunami?” Catalina asked, ignoring her.

  “Soon as the shock wave passes we’ll come back here and make a break for it. Till then we need to go back inside and take shelter. The stairwell should do.” Watson removed his headset and opened the door on his side of the cockpit before hopping out.

  Catalina opened her own door and followed him.

  “Wait!” the secretary screamed after them. She caught up with them just as they were hurrying back inside.

  Watson sat down on the landing at the top of the stairs, to one side of the door and just below a window. Catalina gingerly sat beside him, careful to mind her injured leg. She made a mental connection to the net and found a news channel streaming out of New Houston. She settled in to watch it on her comm band. A hologram of a news anchor appeared above her wrist, speaking in rapid, urgent tones.

  “…missile was moving at a third of the speed of light when it landed in the Gulf of Mexico ten minutes ago. The impact occurred 300 kilometers south of New Houston, triggering an earthquake that registered 7.1 on the Richter scale. Both the impact and the earthquake are expected to produce high waves, and tsunami warnings
are in effect for all coastal areas. Waves are estimated to reach anywhere from 5 to 60 meters and will begin arriving within the hour.

  “If you are anywhere within fifty kilometers of the coast, you are advised to get to higher ground as quickly as possible, using land routes only. Overpressure from the shock waves will make aerial flight extremely dangerous.”

  Catalina minimized the feed. “Looks like you were right, Watson.”

  Watson nodded and reached for his secretary’s hand. “Don’t worry, Miss Cole. We’ll still have plenty of time to get away.”

  Before she could comment a loud bang! sounded, and the window above them exploded, showering them with shattered glass. Miss Cole screamed as a hot wind whistled in. The wind whipped Catalina’s hair around her face, making it writhe like Medusa’s snakes. Her ears popped painfully, and then she screamed, too, but she couldn’t hear the sound. A ringing noise set in and the whistling wind went on and on. The air inside the stairwell became stiflingly hot. By the time it finally abated, she was gasping for air. Catalina shook her head to clear the ringing in her ears.

  “We have to go!” Watson said. He bounced to his feet, sending fragments of glass flying.

  Miss Cole flung the stairwell door open and they ran out together. The wind was still raging outside, threatening to knock them over. As they drew near to the helicopter, they found that at least its windows had survived. They weren’t made of standard glass.

  As soon as they were back inside, Watson started up the rotors once more. Thump, thump, thump, thump… Catalina fumbled with her seatbelt and slipped the headset over her ears. “How much longer do we have before the wave hits?” she asked.

  Watson shook his head. “Don’t know, but we’re damn close to the impact.”

  “So…”

  “We stay airborne. You ladies all buckled in?”

  Catalina nodded, her gaze fixed on the dark storm hulking over the horizon. Thankfully that cloud of water vapor and dust hadn’t reached them with the air blast. She couldn’t imagine Watson piloting them safely through that storm.

  “Here we go…”

  The rotor noise intensified and Catalina felt herself pressed down hard into her seat as the helicopter shot straight up from the roof of the United Farmers Tower.

  The first thing she noticed as they flew away were the streams of hover traffic flying out from skyscrapers around them, all clawing for the sky as they raced toward the mainland. Dark columns of smoke rose from flickering orange fires below.

  “All the hovers that didn’t make it,” Watson said, pointing to the smoke. “Good thing we waited.”

  Catalina blinked, shocked that so many people had been killed already. They obviously hadn’t heard the warning about sticking to land routes.

  They flew on for a while before Catalina noticed that Watson wasn’t headed inland. He was flying down the coast.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “I’m live streaming the event from our nose cam.”

  “What? Are you crazy?”

  “Relax! The danger’s passed. We may as well capture the moment.”

  “Why the hell would you want to do that?”

  Watson glanced at her. “Have you ever seen a sixty-meter wave?”

  Catalina stared dumbly back at him.

  “The danger’s passed for us.”

  “What about that storm?

  Watson shook his head. “Still hours out. We’ve got time. People deserve to know what happened here.”

  Catalina settled back in her seat with a frown, still unconvinced.

  “There!” Watson pointed to a dark ripple on the ocean, moving fast.

  To Catalina’s horror Watson took them down for a closer look.

  A new voice crackled in their ears. It was Miss Cole. She’d finally found her headset. “What are you doing?!” she shrieked.

  Watson gave no reply. The rooftops of luxury hotels, apartments, and office buildings running the length of Galveston Island swept up toward them. As the rooftops came into focus, Catalina picked out crowds of people clustered on some of those rooftops, watching the advancing wave.

  They were planning to ride it out.

  The approaching ripple grew exponentially as it approached. Catalina watched, speechless with horror as the wave reached the sandy shores of the island, now towering higher than some of the buildings that faced it. The wave curled at the top, casting a shadow over the island.

  Miss Cole was muttering repetitive prayers, and Watson cursed as the wave broke. Windows shattered and the shorter buildings disappeared, momentarily submerged by the wave. The water level fell dramatically, and skyscrapers fell into each other like dominoes. As the buildings collapsed, tiny, colorful specks leapt from the rooftops into the roiling trough behind the wave. In the time it took for Catalina to blink and blink again every building in sight was gone. Galveston Island was completely submerged. Watson turned the chopper inland and they saw the wave racing on through West Bay, taking out bridges on its way to the mainland.

  Flying in a lazy arc, they saw that one lonely tower still remained standing. United Farmers Tower.

  “I guess we didn’t have to evacuate after all,” Watson said. His tone was flat, conveying the irony, but not a hint of humor.

  “All those people on the rooftops…” Catalina said.

  Watson gave no reply. Maybe now he felt guilty for sticking around to film the event, morbid fascination giving way to the sick horror Catalina felt churning in her gut. Whoever had done this had just joined the ranks of history’s most infamous mass-murderers. Millions of people were going to die before it was over.

  Chapter 9

  “Admiral, Fleet Command is ordering us to intercept the Crimson Warrior with all possible speed,” Lieutenant Hayes reported from the comms.

  “We haven’t even received a reply from our hail yet,” Alexander replied.

  “After that missile hit Earth, I don’t think Fleet Command cares if the Solarians have a good excuse for their location,” McAdams put in.

  “And that’s enough reason to go charging off and start a war?” Alexander countered.

  “Do you want me to ask for clarification of our orders, sir?” Hayes asked.

  Alexander scowled and shook his head. “No, that’s okay, Lieutenant. It’ll take days for us to reach them, anyway. Hopefully the Solarians will be able to give Earth a satisfactory answer long before that.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Bishop, set an intercept course. Ten Gs.”

  “Aye, aye.”

  “I guess we won’t be getting out of this mindscape for a while,” McAdams said on the other side of him.

  Alexander nodded absently. Ten Gs sustained acceleration was far too much to survive without the cushioning effects of a liquid bath. He traced imaginary constellations between the stars on the main holo display. That virtual view corresponded to a real one, just like everything else in the Adamantine’s mindscape.

  “You know…” he began. “Thirty years ago, I thought we called it The Last War for a reason. Why is everyone suddenly in such a hurry to start a new one?”

  “It’s human nature, sir,” McAdams replied. “An eye for an eye.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem. The Human League might have it all wrong. They’re afraid we’re going to make ourselves obsolete and end up with bots running the world, but I’m starting to wonder if that would be so bad. Maybe they’d actually be better at it.”

  “I think the problem is the obsolete part,” McAdams said. “If we are no longer useful, and bots are running things, why should they keep us around at all? We’ll just be taking up valuable resources and space.”

  Alexander sighed and rubbed his eyes, trying to ease some of the pressure he felt building behind them. “How much longer before the Solarian ship can send us a reply?”

  “One hour and fifteen minutes, sir,” Hayes replied.

  “All right, put it on the clock, Hayes. McAdams—set condition yel
low. We may as well stretch our virtual legs while we wait.”

  “Aye, Captain,” she said.

  Alexander unbuckled from his couch and stood up. One of the advantages of being immersed in a mindscape was that certain elements of realism could be momentarily suspended for comfort’s sake. That meant that even with the Adamantine hurtling through space at ten Gs he could still get up and walk around as if it was no more than one G.

  McAdams climbed out of her acceleration couch and stood beside him.

  Alexander nodded to her and then said, “Bishop, you have the conn. Any new developments, let me know and we’ll be back in a flash.” Literally. A split second was all it would take for him and McAdams to warp through the virtual world back to the bridge.

  “Aye, Captain,” Bishop said.

  “McAdams?”

  “After you, sir,” she said.

  He nodded and they walked to the elevator together.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “For a drink.”

  “A drink, sir?” she asked, frowning.

  He cast her a grim look. “It’s not like we can actually get drunk, Commander. The effects are simulated, and they’ll pass as soon as we want them to.”

  “I know, sir, but…”

  Alexander waved the elevator open and they walked in. The doors slid shut behind them, and he selected Officer’s Lounge (75) from the control panel. “But?” he prompted, turning to her. The lift tube started upward, pressing them momentarily harder against the floor.

  Her expression was troubled. “It seems wrong to be toasting up here while millions of people are dying back on Earth.”

  “Who said anything about toasting? Why do you think I need a drink? It’s not going to hurt you to virtually numb your senses for a while, Commander.”

  McAdams nodded reluctantly. “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  “You have to get me an audience with the president,” Lars Becker said, feeling a muscle jerk in his cheek as he stared at a hologram of his old subordinate. Fleet Admiral Anderson had been a lieutenant back then. That had been a lifetime ago—not that lifetimes were a meaningful measure of time anymore.