The Road to Hell, page 5
“How long was he unconscious?” asked Kane in his deep, resonate voice, his hand resting on a small control panel.
“At least three hours,” replied the precinct captain standing between the Special Agent and the senator. “We called for you as soon as we knew we had a confirmed capture. As per your instructions, he’s been locked in that room since then. No one has gone in. No one has come out.”
“How long has he been awake?” asked the senator.
“Only for a couple of minutes. He awoke just before you arrived.”
“This is astounding,” said the senator staring out into the empty room, “Truly remarkable. You have done well, captain. I will make mention of your dedication to the Council.”
With a traditional Greek robe over the top of a dark business suit, the senator looked like the judges and barristers of old, but with a cream robe instead of black. A fine gold ribbon ran around the collar, cuffs and hem, but, other than that, the robe was plain and unadorned, almost pious in its appearance. Although it symbolised the founding of democracy in ancient Greece, the religious overtones were clearly intended to stir up Biblical references to robes of white linen and the purity of the saints. And yet the senate was anything but pure, as Senator Johannes knew all too well. As for democracy, that hadn't existed for decades, but still the institution of the senate stood, a testament to raw power, if nothing else.
Religion had been outlawed after the civil war, deemed a relic of the superstitious nature of man, an artefact from the times of ignorance. But the nature of man was not so easily changed as thousands of years and countless similar efforts had attested. Like the pharaohs in ancient Egypt, the senators took on an almost god-like role in a society devoid of deities, starved of democracy. Although senators outwardly shunned any talk of worship, on the inside they loved the sense of mystique it brought them. All men love power, especially those that deny the craving.
Bright neon lights saturated the interrogation room, flooding even the shadows with white. The senator strained to see any movement at all through the one-way mirror.
“There,” cried the captain, pointing to the far corner.
A thin wisp of smoke darted along the wall for a second before disappearing completely from sight.
“He can’t hold his breath forever,” said Kane, “Sooner or later, he’ll tire.”
__________
Down on the landing pad, hover cars followed a carefully choreographed approach pattern, streaming in and unloading passengers at the steps of the Supreme Council complex before pulling away and disappearing back into the moody clouds.
Floodlights lit up the landing pad, turning the late evening into noonday. Remote cameras scanned the forecourt for any sign of trouble as crowds of people moved about the platform, coming and going, selling hot dogs, begging for money, protesting for civil rights or just passing through on their way to one of the other administrative buildings in the complex.
One lady in particular caught the attention of the guards manning the security monitors.
“Hey, Phil, get a load of this,” said John Davies sitting in the comfort of the security control room beneath the landing pad.
Team leader Phil Hansen wandered over.
“Oh, bring that up on the main screen,” cried Hansen as he leaned down to take a good look at the surveillance camera feed.
Heads turned all around the control room as the main screen flickered briefly before bringing up the image of a beautiful woman dressed in fire-engine red. With stiletto-heeled shoes and a skin-tight silk dress, she looked completely out of place at the headquarters for the Department of Justice.
Usually, the Supreme Council building only attracted judges and lawyers, ageing solicitors, over-paid legal counsel and the ever zealous youth protesting about issues their parents had long since forgotten. The state police used floors 400 through 450 for holding cells and interrogation, but other than that, this complex was purely for administration.
Davies zoomed in closer, increasing the magnification. The dress was strapless, showing the woman’s soft cleavage in full bloom. Locks of long, jet-black hair floated on the breeze behind her. The slight bounce in her step resounded through her breasts as she sailed up the broad marble staircase toward the building entrance.
“Oh, man, I’m in love,” cried one of the security operators.
“In lust, more like it,” replied Lisa Smith, the only woman working that shift.
“You’re just jealous,” said Davies, “Damn, she looks fine.”
“Men,” replied Lisa. “You’ve got two heads, but you’re only ever thinking with the little one.”
“Well, you know what they say,” countered Davies. “Two heads are better than one.”
The other men in the control room laughed.
Lisa was distinctly unimpressed.
“Well… it’s definitely the small one that’s in control,” she said, trying to ignore them, trying to get back to work.
No one noticed a small flashing light on the main console, alerting them to a face-recognition match. Hansen spotted the alarm flashing out of the corner of his eye, but face-recognition was overrated. It had been useful once, but now every man and his dog had an entry. She probably had unpaid speeding fines, he figured, and before he could hit the button to check he was again distracted by the cajoling.
“How tight is that dress?” cried one of the other operators.
“She is so hot.”
“There ought to be a law against that.”
“Shrink-wrapped and vacuum-packed, that's the way I like my women,” cried Hansen joining in the testosterone fest, forgetting what he was thinking about, forgetting he was just about to look at the face-recognition alert. Over forty police officers would die within the hour, all because he’d missed pushing that one, small, little red button.
Davies panned, following the woman’s movement toward the door, switching from one camera to another.
“Are you recording this?” asked Hansen leaning forward to take a better look at Davies' screen. The face-recognition alert was now the furtherest thing from his mind. The blinking light just seemed to fade into the background.
“Oh, yeah,” replied Davies.
Hansen punched several buttons on a handheld control pad activating an automated computerised camera-tracking sequence. Within seconds, the cameras surrounding the hover pad, the main entrance, security checkpoint and lobby all focused on this one woman dressed so beautifully in red. Without taking his eyes off the screen, Hansen zoomed in on the woman’s cleavage using his control pad. The soft curves of her pale skin filled the main monitor.
“Oh, baby,” cried Davies.
Forty or so monitors set around the control room all displayed various angles of this one lady walking through the portico. Davies had his head down, madly punching buttons, pulling up a three-dimensional holographic image reconstructed from the various camera shots. The hologram appeared in the centre of the room, above the situation desk.
“Now this is more like it,” said Hansen, walking over toward the glowing image and running his hands through the air, seemingly caressing her virtual legs. Wolf whistles and cheers deafened those in the room, drowning out Lisa’s protests.
The hologram seemed alive as the woman’s chest rose and fell in time with her breathing, swelling and settling with each step she took.
No one caught the slight turn of her head. Dark sunglasses hid her eyes, but she definitely glanced sideways as though she were looking to make eye contact with someone.
The guards watched as she walked inside the building and stepped through the detectors in the lobby. A flashing light went off. Flustered and confused, she stood there with her arms slightly raised as a security guard ran an electronic wand over her, looking for the source of the alarm.
“Oh, that’s not fair. That is so unfair,” cried Hansen. “The lucky bastard.”
Davies pulled the camera zoom back so they could catch all the action.
The wand drifted across her body and up, over her breasts, moving as though it followed some invisible contour curving around her.
“Ten bucks says she’s not wearing a bra,” cried Davies.
“You’re on,” replied Hansen.
Lisa had had enough. “Men,” she said as she got up in disgust and left to get some coffee. And still the face-recognition switch flashed in the background, unnoticed and ignored.
The security team watched as the woman stared straight at the closest camera. She knew they were watching. She licked her lips slowly, showing her pearly white teeth as she ran her tongue over her glossy red lipstick in a slow, provocative motion. To those inside the control room, watching the hologram, she appeared to be staring right at them.
“Oh, she knows. She knows,” cried Davies.
“Yeah… Now that’s what I’m talking about,” laughed Hansen.
“Frisk her, frisk her.” A couple of the other men in the control room began shouting. “Pat her down, search her.”
The security officer with the electronic wand couldn’t find anything. There was nothing to search. It wasn’t like she was wearing loose fitting clothing or anything in which she could conceal a hidden weapon or an electronic snooping device. This gal left nothing to the imagination, the officer thought. The dress was so tight it looked like she was about to split out of it at the seams.
“Aw, come on, body search, check for weapons, get your hands on her,” cried Hansen jesting.
Waving the wand back over her body, the officer scanned down her trim, athletic legs toward her feet. Instinctively, she stepped apart, allowing the officer to run the wand around between her legs. A thin split built into her dress ran up her thigh to her hip, revealing her soft, pink flesh.
“I can’t stand it,” cried Davies, pounding his fist on the desk in excitement.
“She’s not wearing any panties,” cried one of the other operators.
“Oh, this is hot. This is so hot,” yelled Hansen. “We should be streaming this live.”
Finally, the electronic wand sounded down by her feet. Her stiletto shoes had set off the over-sensitive detector. With a blush and a smile, the officer waved her through and she walked on, striding confidently, a woman that knew she had the whole world falling at her feet.
__________
“Where is Artemis?” asked Kane, leaning down and speaking into a microphone.
The thin wisps of smoke were gone. On the other side of the one-way mirror a dark mass of fog swirled around the room in the vague shape of a man. Every now and then the form of a teenager was clearly visible in the billowing cloud.
“Tell me where he is. Tell me where I can find him.”
A deep voice broke from within the interrogation room crying, “Artemis… is… here…”
Kane flicked a switch and 50,000 volts of electricity surged through floor of the interrogation room. The captain stood silently to one side as the senator squirmed; such soft hands were not use to such violent means.
“Tell me,” yelled Kane. “Tell me and I’ll make the pain go away.”
The senator watched in astonishment as arcs of electricity danced around the room. A blood-curdling scream resounded through the glass.
“Tell me,” screamed Kane, yelling back at the cries of anguish.
Suddenly, the form of a young man appeared slumping against the table before rolling down onto the floor. Kane released the switch, turning off the voltage.
“Is he dead?” asked the senator.
“He’ll wish he was,” replied Kane. “No. He’s just unconscious. It takes more than that to kill these monsters.”
“But he’s just a child,” said the senator staring at the young man lying on the floor, seeing this daemon in physical form for the first time. Blood pooled on the tiles, running from around the young man’s eyes, out from his mouth and down from his nose. To the ageing, grey-haired senator, he looked more like a boy than a man, a teenager if anything.
“Don’t be fooled,” replied Kane. “He’s playing possum. It’s all part of his training. Enter that room and you’re a dead man.”
“How did you catch him?” asked the senator, turning toward the captain.
“We picked him up during a routine patrol,” replied the captain, standing to attention, “He evaded capture for more than an hour but, as we poured more and more troops into the area it became increasingly harder for him to escape, even with his special abilities. Eventually we cornered him. He made a break for it and fell through a skylight. When we got down to him, he was unconscious. From there, we brought him to this holding cell as per our standard quarantine procedures.”
“This is brilliant,” said the senator.
“Captain,” said Kane. “Your services are no longer required. You will leave us.”
Nothing further needed to be said. The captain backed away, bowing slightly as he turned and left Kane alone with the senator.
“What is he?” asked the senator, watching a hand twitch in the other room. “I mean I know the name, I’ve read the briefings and seen the photos, but this, this is something else. All the scientific articles and abstract discussions mean nothing until you actually see one of them in operation.”
“During the war there were experiments in genetic engineering,” began Kane. “Most of the subjects died. The variations were just too radical, tearing at the very fabric of existence. They were bonding volatile strands of anti-quarks within the atoms of a select DNA chain. Of those that survived, only a handful had traits that were useful to the military. Those that had an offensive capacity were labelled daemon, meaning devil or evil spirit. The rest were cleansed. The daemon were originally designated as assassins, assets that could infiltrate with stealth, move as a shadow and murder in the dark.”
“But how do they do it? How do they move like a ghost? I don't mean in a scientific sense, that stuff goes over my head. But can you explain it in layman's terms? In terms I can understand?”
The senator watched as the feet of the young man fade in and out of sight while the rest of his body stayed limp and inert on the floor.
“Time travel seems remarkable, but it's not. It's actually quite dull and ordinary. We travel through time every second of every day without ever really thinking about. We travel on from one second to the next, like a stick floating down a river. It sounds strange, but that, in essence, is time travel in its most basic form, and it's entirely natural.”
“If time was a regular spatial dimension, we'd find ourselves slipping in just one direction at a constant pace all the time, like sliding on ice. All they are doing is changing direction every now and then. If we're slipping in a straight line, they're dancing back and forth.”
“They are free to move in four dimensions, not three. They bend time around them. Oh, not in terms of months or years like you see in the movies, only in terms of seconds or minutes, in some cases even hours.”
“They move around in time,” replied the senator, somewhat lost in thought. “It seems so fantastic, unreal.”
“Oh, it’s real, alright.”
“They seem to float, as if on a breeze,” the senator added, looking intently at the young man as his arms drifted in and out of view. He read all the senatorial reviews and seen pictures, but nothing compared to seeing one of the daemon live.
Kane took a sip of water before continuing.
“As time warps around them, their bodies distort and so they appear as a blur, a mist, or a shadow. We see them in only one phase as they spreads themselves out over multiple regions of time. They can’t walk through walls but they can search local time to see if a door has been or will be opened and then use that to escape.”
“I understand the words you're using, but the meaning is lost on me,” replied the senator, watching as the young man in the other room groaned softly, rolling his head to one side.
“It is difficult to grasp, senator, but time is just another dimension. It seems somewhat unique to us, but it’s simply a dimension like any other. Forwards and backwards, up and down, left and right. We see our world in three dimensions when, in reality, it unfolds in four dimensions as time continually rolls on.”
Inside the interrogation room a bloody hand reached up and grabbed hold of the edge of the table as the young man struggled slowly to his feet.
“Imagine this building as viewed from space. Imagine if you could look down upon this floor with x-ray vision. From that height, the building would appear flat and it would look like I was moving in only two dimensions as I moved around the floor.”
“On this floor, I cannot walk directly from the turbo-shaft to the windows. There's a concrete wall in my way. I have to go around and through security, but if I go up five floors to the cafeteria I can walk right out of the lift and over to the window. To you, watching from space, watching me move about in only two dimensions, it would appear as though I walked into an obstacle, walked back to the centre of the building and then simply walked through the obstacle to get to the window. You wouldn’t see me move between floors, shifting in a third dimension. To you, it would seem like I could walk through walls. Essentially, that’s what the daemon are doing with time.”
Kane picked up his glass of water and took another sip before continuing, watching as the young man in the other room staggered back against the wall.
“They can’t move through time for periods of days, weeks, months or years for the same reason you can’t run faster than a horse or a car. It’s a physical limitation.”
“What do they want?” asked the senator. He knew full well what Artemis wanted, but he wanted to hear it from Kane, to make sure Kane understood the gravity of the situation.
“They want a revolution. They want anarchy, to destroy the Council.”
Kane reached down and pressed a button beside the microphone built into the control panel.
“Where is Artemis?”
In hazy blur, the young man shot forward from over behind the table up to the glass, covering a distance of almost ten feet in a fraction of a second as he screamed out, “He’s here. He’s right here…”
