Author Part 7
(Chapter 60 of "Senses")
GREENLAND
The Chinese consider the color white to be the color of death and mourning. I had never felt that to be appropriate until we landed in what I immediately realized was a misnamed place.
Greenland sure as hell wasn't green. It was snow and ice as far as I could see, and I don't need glasses just yet. It was also colder than I could have possibly imagined, although admittedly until the previous few days I had spent all of my life in California.
And it felt like death too. A sort of feeling that's difficult to describe without a bit of empathy thrown in. At this moment I became a believer in Jim's theory about everyone having empathic ability, even though he hadn't told me about that part of the story yet.
"This was no earthquake," Mats said.
When we landed we had discovered what appeared to be a fissure in the ground that stretched for miles. When we exited the ship however, we took a close look at the tear in the earth and we all saw how wrong it looked. From any sort of distance you could barely tell it was there. There was no dirt at all, only ice. It looked more like a cut placed by a saw on a white surface.
It had been made.
"You're right," Scott added. "It looks a lot like a certain fissure I once saw in Pasadena. I was telling you about that earlier, Jace."
I nodded, a bit stunned. "Did someone create an earthquake?" I asked.
"I don't know yet. We'll need to ask Janis to survey the age of the fissure. I'll want to know how recently it's been created."
"I just asked," Mats said. "Timing appears to coincide with the quake."
Scott whistled and looked around. "There are no marks of any digging equipment. This doesn't make any sense."
"What about lasers or other type things?" I offered, feeling way the hell out of my league.
"Not that I can tell. There must have been an explosion. Very controlled, very violent, very deep underground."
"Wouldn't there be some dirt?" Mats asked.
"You'd think so, wouldn't you? I can't explain it. My instincts just say it was an explosion. It just feels right."
Now I was getting frightened. "An underground detonation? Like a nuke?"
Scott kneeled by the fissure. "That thought crossed my mind," he said. "But if there were any radioactive traces Janis would have spoken up. Mats?"
"Hmm?"
"Ask Janis for some measurements of the fissure. Depth, length, maybe some video of the whole thing."
Mats got that far away look, then said, "She'll need to take off for a few moments. The fissure's fairly long."
"Do it. We'll be all right for a few moments. See if it looks like this all of the way down the fissure as well. Maybe we're just on a sheet of ice."
Janis lifted off silently, as she always did, and flew out of sight quickly. Scott stood up. "Anybody know any campfire songs?" he asked.
I laughed, needing a break in the tension. "What the hell's going on?" I asked.
Scott shook his head. "I don't know," he replied. "I just don't know."
Mats screamed out sharply and suddenly. Scott and I wheeled around to see him clutching his head, in obvious pain. By the time we made it to him he had passed out.
"Breathing shallow," I said.
Scott touched Mats behind his ear. "Pulse strong," he said. He looked at me. "Something may have happened to Janis."
I sat back in the snow. "Fuck," I said. "How..."
"I don't know. Something just happened inside of Mats' head and the only being I know he's connected to is Janis."
Then there was an explosion almost directly overhead, which knocked us both to the ground. If you ever get the chance to be standing under a sonic boom when it happens, don't.
Janis appeared out of nowhere directly overhead, then landed next to us. From one of her external speakers she asked, "Is he all right?"
"I don't know," Scott replied. "I don't know damned well anything!"
"Get him inside!" It was, even to this day, the only time I heard an emotional edge to Janis' voice. Except when she imitates her namesake.
"What happened?" I called out as we dragged Mats up the ramp.
"There's another Intelligent machine nearby. Within fifty miles, although my telemetry wasn't able to get a fix on it."
"What?" Scott shouted. "Here?"
"Yes. It just tried communicating with Mats."
"Did somebody get the name of that truck?"
Mats woke up about three hours later with a skull-splitting headache. By this point we had been filled by by Janis about the group's discovery that the history node had begun, and we had spent a fidgety 180 minutes or so wondering when Mats would snap out of it. Janis had refused to leave the area until Mats was conscious, yet she was seemingly unconcerned about whether or not Mats would recover completely. We felt a bit better about the fact that Janis was unconcerned, but I'll be honest with you, it didn't help all that much.
To kill time Scott had broadcasted the data about the fissure to the lab in Los Angeles, and was going over it. He was being infuriatingly quiet about it, saying only that it wasn't possible over and over again.
Which left me contemplating my fate and waiting for Mats to come out of it. It hadn't really hit me until we saw the fissure just how big an event we were facing. My whole experience with the world could be easily put away with a few sound bites. We were looking at massive destruction here. Had this fissure happened in my home town hundreds of people would be dead now.
That thought alone gave me the shivers, even if we didn't know what the hell had caused it.
What bothered me even more was that we were the only ones who knew about this, besides the person or persons responsible for this destruction. Any of you who have seen the photos we took and can say that it's not destruction should have your heads examined.
It had occurred to me already that whatever person had caused this could have done it before. And could do it again. During the call to the lab I pointed this out to Scott who relayed the message. A quick consensus was reached and we decided that we knew what the actual event would be, although caused by who, where, and why we had no clue about.
When Mats suddenly sat up I had planned to tell him about everything we had deduced, but all I could ask was, "How do you feel?" A pretty stupid question if you think about it, but he answered.
"Like someone tried to fry eggs, shells and all, in my skull," Mats replied. He shook his head, beard flying back and forth so violently that I had to take a step back. "Janis, how long was I out?"
"Three hours," the ship and I said simultaneously.
Mats brought his hands up to his face and rubbed his eyes. "Fuck," he finally said. He lay back down on the couch he had been resting on and closed his eyes. "I don't want to repeat that experience. Where are we?"
I started to answer but I could now recognize that look Mats got when he was in communion with Janis even when Mats had his eyes closed. "I see," he finally said aloud. "Let's leave here, shall we? Head for the lab."
I never felt the ship take off, but I know it did because Scott came back from the communications console. "Awake are you?" he said. "Good, we weren't able to convince Janis to leave, so since the ship is moving I have to assume that you woke up and asked."
"I did," Mats replied. "Janis assumed that I'd want to talk with that machine again when I awoke. She was wrong about that one."
"You still have a tendency to be unpredictable," the ship said. "I cherish that."
Mats smiled and opened his eyes. "Me too." He sat up again. "Can someone get me an aspirin or twelve?"
Scott sprinted to the ship's head, where the medicine cabinet was, and came back with the tablets and a glass of water. Mats downed them all.
"Now then," Scott said, "We're going to bring you up to speed, then you tell us what happened. The history node has begun."
The three of us (Janis included) spent the next twenty minutes telling Mats about the events happening in Los Angeles, and how everyone had reached the same conclusion. Mats figured it out quickly that we had already stumbled onto one piece of the puzzle.
"Makes sense," he said. "The quake that shouldn't have happened probably happened at about the same time as Morgana's vision. Now what?"
"If memory serves," I said, "and it usually does, events are going to circle around you." I pointed at Mats. "Or at least to some degree. I'd be willing to bet that the machine that tried to communicate with you is how you are supposed to interface with the solution to all of this."
Mats nodded. "Probably," he conceded. "Thing is, all we really have here is a device involved. What's the real story?"
"Don't know," Scott replied. "When we're at the lab we should have a meeting about it all."
"Wrong," I said. "I'll stay behind and we'll have that meeting. I'd be willing to bet that Larry's already a step ahead of you. You two need to find that computer."
"No fucking way," Mats shot back. "You have no idea how much that hurt."
"Well, what happened?" Scott asked.
"It was like a hot spike going through my skull and ricocheting around, all the while asking for the next command. That's all it said, 'next command'. Hurt like you couldn't possibly believe."
"I think your metaphors have sufficed," Scott said with a wry smile.
"Good. Anyway, it wouldn't let go of my head. I couldn't hear Janis, or either of you, or even myself. I guess some sort of self-defense mechanism finally made me pass out."
I sighed. "You still need to go back and at least find the sucker," I said.
"Give me one good reason."
"I'll give you a few billion. It only hit me in the past couple of hours, but the entire human race is really depending on us. What if one of these machines causes the fissure we just saw?"
"I've been assuming that to be the case," Scott said.
"What if there are more than this one?" I continued. "What if instead of a few miles the effect stretched for a few hundred miles? The effect would be cataclysmic. What if this is one in a series? I admit that this one alone couldn't do much, not from here, but wouldn't it be nice to know all we can about the weapon involved here?"
Mats nodded. "I see your point. This isn't a thought experiment anymore. Our own problems don't mean a hill of beans in this crazy world." Mats' impression of Humphrey Bogart was uncanny. I laughed.
"Why not go back now?" Scott asked.
"For one thing, I'm tired of space travel for the time being," I said, "as surprising as that sounds. Besides, we were in the middle of nowhere. It would take several hours for someone to come back and get the machine, if that's what they intend. If we wait a bit, perhaps we can catch them in the act."
"Sounds iffy. What if the machine is mobile?"
"What if it tries at me again?" Mats asked.
"It is iffy," I said, "and I doubt it's mobile. Not in the middle of Greenland for crying out loud. And I'm not saying contact the damn thing. I don't think it's necessary to do so. Just find it, so we know where it is. Face it, if it doesn't go anywhere, it's not going to destroy the world. Not by earthquakes from Greenland. Besides, when we land back at the lab I'd be willing to bet that Larry will ask you to go back for a million other reasons."
Mats nodded with a sigh. "Probably true," he said. "Janis, how long until we're at the lab?"
"Three hours, twenty minutes," Janis replied.
"Taking the long way, I see," Scott said.
"It's necessary this time," the ship said. "We came very close to an observation satellite when we left Greenland."
"Understood," Mats responded. "Janis, could you whip up some food for us while we wait?"
"Certainly. Any requests?"
"Cajun food," I said, surprising even myself. "Other than that, make it a surprise."
"Done."
"You like cajun?" Mats asked.
I shook my head, puzzled. "I don't really know," I said. "I've never had it before."
Mats frowned, while Scott rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Any reason you ordered it then?" Scott asked. "It's not necessarily a taste everyone has."
I shook my head. "I honestly don't know," I replied.