The
Deck
Monday, August 30, 5:05
A.M.
Time Remaining on
Extinction Clock: 54 hours, 55 minutes
E.S.T.
“I think she suspects,” said Cyrus. He
sipped his wine and held the Riesling in his mouth to taste its
subtleties.
“About?”
“The Wave. Not that she could know anything
with specific knowledge, but I think she suspects that we have some
sort of global agenda.”
“Of course she suspects,” said Otto.
“Wouldn’t you be disappointed in her if she
didn’t?”
Cyrus nodded. It was true
enough.
“But,” said Otto, “she can only be guessing.
She can’t know.”
“No.”
“Not like we know.”
“No.”
“You’ll be able to see for yourself when you
visit the Dragon Factory tomorrow.”
They thought about that for a while, and
then they both laughed.
“Are you surprised that they invited me?”
asked Cyrus.
“A little.”
“Do you think it’s a trap?”
“Of course. Our misdirection with the
assassins probably only fooled Paris,” said Otto. He pursed his
lips and added, “Though my guess is that this is a fishing
expedition more than anything. She wants to look you in the eye
when she talks about the attack. She probably believes that you’ll
give something away.”
Cyrus laughed again. Otto
nodded.
“She’s very smart, that one,” said Cyrus,
“but I think we can both agree that she doesn’t know me as well as
she thinks she does.”
“No.”
“So. a fishing expedition with a trapdoor if
she doesn’t like what she sees? Is that what you
think?”
“More or less. Probably not as rigid as
that. Hecate likes wiggle room. If she’s not one hundred percent
sure that you sent the assassins, then I expect she’ll give you
some heavily edited version of a tour. Letting you see only what
she thinks would appeal to you and perhaps flatter you. She’s her
father’s daughter in that regard.”
“No, Otto. I think she gets that from
you.”
Otto shrugged. “I believe that’s her
plan.”
“And if she becomes convinced that I am
responsible for the assassins? Do you think she’ll try to have me
killed?”
“No,” said Otto. “Not a chance. She may
torture you a bit; I think she’d be very happy to do
that.”
“Let her try.”
“As you say. But ultimately I think Hecate
would want you alive. She’s smart enough to know that you’re
smarter. She and Paris have stolen more science then they’ve
pioneered. You, Mr. Cyrus, are science. Hecate is too much your
daughter to throw away such a valuable resource.”
“She’d want you dead, though,” Cyrus
said.
“Without a doubt. And I would like to think
that she’s too smart to risk torturing me. She learned the art from
me, and she knows that turning it around is something I daresay
I’ve pioneered. No. if Hecate gets the chance she’ll put a bullet
in my brain.”
“If we let her,” said
Cyrus.
“If we let her,” said Otto.
They smiled and clinked
glasses.
They sat in lounge chairs that had been
brought outside. All of the Deck’s exterior lights had been turned
off, and they were miles from any town. There was nothing to mute
the jeweled brilliance of the sky. They could even see the creamy
flow of the Milky Way.
“Veder is on his way,” said Otto. “He’ll be
here before the Twins’ jet arrives for you. Do you want him to
accompany you? We can say that he’s your valet.”
“No. He can go in with the team. But once
your Russians have breached the walls I want Veder to find me. I
want him protecting me throughout.”
“Easy enough.”
They lapsed into a longer
silence.
Several times Otto looked at Cyrus and
opened his mouth to speak, but each time he left his thoughts
unsaid. Finally Cyrus smiled and said, “Speak your mind before you
drive me crazy. You want to know about the Hive. About how I
feel?”
“Yes. We lost so much.. ”
“We lost nothing that matters,
Otto.”
“The New Men. The breeding stock.
”
“The Twins will have them somewhere. They’re
smart enough to recognize what the New Men are. They would want to
experiment with them. Once we take the Dragon Factory we’ll get
them back. Or we’ll get enough of them back so that we can start
again.”
“And Eighty-two?”
“I don’t think the Twins will have killed
him. I think he’s alive. I feel it. If he’s at the Dragon Factory
and unharmed, I might even show the Twins a degree of
mercy.”
Otto did not need to ask what Cyrus would
do-or to what extremes he would go-if Eighty-two was dead. No
amount of pills would be able to control Cyrus if that
happened.
But then Cyrus surprised him by saying, “But
in the end it doesn’t matter.”
Otto gave him a sharp look.
“Somehow I feel like we’ve moved past that,”
said Cyrus. “As we get closer to the Extinction Wave, so many of
the other things are becoming less important.”
“The New Men fill a necessary role. A master
race needs a slave race.”
“Maybe.”
“Those are your own words, Mr.
Cyrus.”
“I know, and I believed them when I said
them. But they don’t feel as valid now. We’re doing a great thing,
Otto. We’re doing something that has never been done before. Within
a year a billion mud people will have died. Within five years-once
the second and third Waves have had a chance to reach even the
remotest parts of Asia-there will only be a billion people on the
planet. When we created the New Men we conceived them as a servant
race during an orderly transfer of power. But. do you really think
things will be orderly?”
Otto said nothing.
“I think we have lit a fuse to chaos itself.
As the mud people die, the white races will not unify as a single
people. You know that as well as I do. That was Hitler’s folly,
because he believed that whites would naturally form alliances as
the dirt races were extinguished. You and I, Otto. we’re guilty of
being caught up in fervor.”
“Why this change of heart? Are you doubting
our purpose?”
Cyrus laughed. “Good God, no. If anything, I
have never felt my resolve and my focus-my mental focus, Otto-to be
stronger. With the betrayal of the Twins I feel like blinders have
been removed and a bigger, grander picture is spread out before
me.”
“Are we having an incident, Mr. Cyrus?
Should I get your pills?”
“No. no, nothing like that. I’m in earnest
when I say that I have never been more focused.”
“Then what are you saying? I’m old, it’s
late, and I’m tired, so please tell me in less grandiose
terms.”
Cyrus nodded. “Fair enough.” He sipped his
wine and set the glass on the cooling desert sand. “I have been
reimagining the world as it will be after the Extinction
Wave-Waves-have passed. There will be no reemergence of old powers.
The Aryan nations will not rise. That was a propaganda that we both
believed, and we’ve believed it for so long that we forgot to think
it through; we forgot to allow the ancient dream to evolve even
while we evolved our plans as we acquired new science. The deaths
of five billion people will not bring a paradise on earth. It will
not create an Aryan utopia.”
“Then what will it bring?”
“I told you. Chaos. Mass deaths will bring
fear. Fear will inspire suspicion, and suspicion will become war.
Our Extinction Wave is going to plunge our world into an age of
total global warfare. Nations will fall; empires will collide; the
entire planet will be awash in blood.”
Otto was staring at him
now.
Cyrus looked up at the endless
stars.
“We were born in conflict, Otto. Our
species. Darwin was right about survival of the fittest. That’s
what this will become. Evolution through attrition. We will light a
furnace in which anything that is weak will be burned to ashes.
True to our deepest dreams, Otto. only the strong shall survive. It
is up to us to ensure that strength is measured by how skillfully
the sword of technology is used. But make no mistake, we are about
to destroy the world as we know it.” He closed his eyes. “And it
will be glorious.”