They made a pitstop at a Carl’s Junior just off the highway. The franchise’s doors were open, and there were a few piles of clothes behind the service counter, but the building was undisturbed and unconverted. In the rest-room, as they pissed in parallel, John said, “I believe her.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s so sure.”
“Hell of a reason.”
“And she ain’t lying.”
“Hell no. She’s looney tunes.”
“I don’t think so.”
Jerry zipped up and said, “She’s a witch, John.”
John didn’t disagree.
The monotonous brown-covered farmlands gradually changed color and character as they approached the Lost Hills turnoff. More bare earth appeared, dusty and dead-looking. Little spouts of air swept the land in the distance like maids cleaning up after a wild party. “Where did all the crops go?” April wondered.
Jerry shook his head. Don’t know. Don’t want to know.
John squinted into the dusty haze ahead and tapped the truck’s brake pedal, down-shifting expertly. Then he slammed the brakes hard and the truck spun out, tires squealing. Jerry cursed and April grimly hung on to the edge of the window.
The truck came to a halt reversed on the roadway. John turned them around and grabbed the gearshift back into neutral.
They stared. No words were necessary—or even possible.
A hill was crossing the highway. Slow, ponderous, perhaps a hundred feet high, the mass of shiny brown and primer gray moved through the wind-churned dust barely a quarter mile ahead.
“How many of those are there, do you think?” April asked pertly, breaking the silence.
“Can’t say,” John demurred.
“Must be one of them Lost Hills they were announcing,” Jerry said without a hint of levity.
“Maybe that’s where all the crops went,” April speculated. The brothers did not care to discuss the point John waited until the hill had passed, and a half hour later, as it slid over the fields toward the west, started the truck again and put it back in gear. They slowly crossed the mangled asphalt. The air smelled of crushed plants and dust.
“Martians,” John said. That was his last protest to April’s claim of knowing what had really happened, fie said very little after that until they started the climb up the Grapevine, past the unconverted trees and buildings of Fort Tejon and the vague outlines of tiny Gorman. As they neared the ridge, he stared at Jerry with wide eyes, pupils dilated, and said, “City of Angels, coming up.”
It was five o’clock, early evening and getting dark.
The air over Los Angeles was as purple as raw meat.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
At noon, Bernard’s lunch was delivered through the small hatch—a bowl of fruit and a roast beef sandwich with a glass of sparkling water. He ate slowly, reflectively, occasionally glancing at the VDT. It displayed the tab’s recent results in analyzing some of his serum proteins.
The screen’s alphanumerics were mint green. Red lines were taking shape under the numbers, which scrolled up as new series were added.
Bernard, what is this?
—Not to worry, he answered the internal query. If I don’t do research, I malfunction.
Their level of communication had improved enormously in just a couple of days.
?You are analyzing something to do with our communication. There is no need. You already communicate through the proper channels, through us.
—Yes, indeed. But will you tell me all I need to know?
We tell you what we are assigned to tell you.
—You’ve riddled me, so allow me to riddle you. I have to feel I’m not powerless, that I’m doing something useful.
With great difficulty, we have been trying to comprehend *encode* your situation. To VISUALIZE. You are in an enclosed SPACE. This SPACE is of *concentration*you regard as SMALL.
—But adequate, now that I have you fellows to chat with.
You are restrained. You cannot *diffuse* through the limits of the enclosed SPACE. Is this restraint by your choice?
—I’m not being punished, if that’s what you’re worried about.
We do not *encode* comprehend PUNISHED. You are well. Your body functions are in order. Your EMOTION is not extreme.
—Why should I be upset? I’ve lost It’s all over but the (ahem) loud encoding.
We WISH you were more aware of the physiology of your brain. We could tell you much more about your state. As it is, we have extreme difficulty finding WORDS to describe the location of our teams. But to return to the prior question. Why do you WISH to process other forms of communication?
—I’m not blocking my thoughts, am I? (Am I?) You should be able to figure out what I’m doing on your own. (How could I block my thoughts to you?)
You realize our inadequacy. You are so new to us. We regard you with…
—Yes?
Those who have been assigned to replicate this state to °°°°°°°This is unclear.
—I’ll say.
We regard you as if you were capable of mild *dissociation* reproof for minimal performance of assigned processing.
—You regard me as what?
We regard you as a *supreme command duster*.
—What is that? And that brings up a whole host of questions I would like to ask.
We have been authorized to answer those questions.
(Jesus! They knew the gist of the questions even before he had formed them in his mind.)
—I’d like to speak to an individual.
INDIVIDUAL?
—Not just the team or research group. One of you, acting alone.
We have studied INDIVIDUAL in your conception. We do not fit the word.
—There are no individuals?
Not precisely. Information is shared between dusters of *******
—Not clear.
Perhaps this is what you mean by INDIVIDUAL. Not the same as a single mentality. You are aware that cells cluster for basic structuring; each cluster is the smallest INDIVIDUAL. These clusters rarely separate for long into single cells. Information is passed between clusters sharing in assigned tasks, including instruction and memory. Mentality is thus divided between dusters performing a function. Important memory may be *diffused* through all dusters. What you flunk of as INDIVIDUAL may be spread throughout the *totality*.
—But you’re not all of one mentality, a group mind, collective consciousness.
No, as much as we can analyze those concepts.
—You can argue with each other.
There can be differences of approach, yes.
—So what is a command cluster?
Key duster placed along travel *Juncture*, lymph and blood vessels, to monitor performance of traveling clusters, servant cells, *tailored* cells. You are like the mightiest of cell command clusters, yet you are ENCLOSED and have not yet chosen to exert your power to *lyse*. Why do you not exert control?
Eyes dosed, he pondered that question for a long while—perhaps a second or more—and replied,
—You are becoming acquainted with mystery.
Are you attempting to challenge by these researches into our communication?
—No.
There is a *disjunction* here.
—I’m getting tired now. Please leave me alone for a while.
Understood.
He rubbed his eyes and picked up a piece of fruit He suddenly felt exhausted.
“Michael?”
Paulsen-Fuchs stood in the reception area. “Hello, Paul,” Bernard said. “I’ve just been having the weirdest conversation.”
“Yes?”
“I think they’re treating me like some sort of minor deity.”
“Oh, dear,” Paulsen-Fuchs said.
“And I probably only have a couple of weeks left.”
“You said that when you arrived only then, you said a week.”
“I can feel the changes now. It’s slow, but it’s still going to
happen.”
They stared at each other through the three-layer glass. Paulsen-Fuchs tried to speak several times, but nothing came out He lifted his hands helplessly.
“Yeah,” Bernard said, sighing.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
North America, Satellite Transmission from High-Altitude Reconnaissance RB-1 H; Voice of Lloyd Upton, Correspondent EBN
Yes, in place—leads separate and patched—we’re all a bit nervous here, don’t mind the teeth chattering. Taping now? And the direct feed…yes, Arnold? 1,2,3. Lloyd Upchuck here, yes, that’s how I feel…Okay. Colin, that bottle. The orange suit won’t upset the viddy? It upsets me. Let’s begin.
Hello, I’m Lloyd Upton from the British branch of the European Broadcasting Network. I’m now at twenty thousand meters over the heartland of the United States of America, in the rear compartment of an American B-l bomber modified for high-altitude reconnaissance, an RB-1H. With me are correspondents from four major continental networks, from European branches of two United States news organizations, and the BBC. We are the first civilian journalists to fly over the United States since the beginning of the most hideous plague in world history. We are accompanied by two civilian scientists whom we will interview on the return leg of our flight which has thus far averaged twice the speed of sound, that is Mach 2.
In just eight weeks, two short months, the entire North American continent has undergone a virtually indescribable transformation. All familiar landmarks—entire cities-have vanished beneath, or perhaps been transformed into, a landscape of biological nightmare. Our aircraft has followed a zigzag course from New York to Atlantic City, then over to Washington, DC, through Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio, and soon we will be dipping down to one thousand meters to pass over Chicago, Illinois and the Great Lakes. At that point we will double back and fly along the Eastern seaboard to Florida, and over the Gulf of Mexico we will be refueled from aircraft flying out of Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, which, miraculously, has escaped the major effects of the plague.
We can imagine the grief of Americans stranded in England, Europe and Asia, as well as other parts of the globe. I greatly fear we can bring them no solace with this historic overflight. What we have seen can bring solace to no member of the human race. Yet we have not witnessed desolation, but rather a weird and- if I may be forgiven a bizarre sort of aesthetic judgment wonderful landscape of an entirely new form of life, its origin shrouded in secrecy, though the authorities themselves may not know. Speculation that the plague arose in a biological laboratory in San Diego, California has neither been corroborated nor denied by government authorities, and EBN has been unable to interview a potential key participant in the…uh…drama, famed neurosurgeon Dr. Michael Bernard, currently kept in sterile confinement near Wiesbaden, West Germany.
We are now transmitting direct-feed video and still pictures from our cameras and special real-time reconnaissance cameras aboard our aircraft Some will be seen live; others are being processed and edited and will follow this historic live broadcast.
How can I begin to describe the landscapes beneath us? A new vocabulary, a new language, may be necessary. Textures and forms hitherto unknown to biologists, to geologists, cover the cities and suburbs, even the wildernesses of North America. Entire forests have become gray-green…uh…forests of spires, spikes, needles. Through telephoto lenses we have seen motion in these complexes, elephant-sized objects moving by unknown means. We have seen rivers undergoing some sort of controlled flow, patterns unlike the flow of normal waterways. On the Atlantic Coast, most especially in the vicinity of New York and Atlantic City, for a distance of some ten to twenty kilometers the ocean itself has been coated with an apparently living blanket of shiny, glassy green.
As for the cities themselves—not a sign of normal living things, not a sign of human beings. New York City is an unfamiliar jumble of geometric shapes, a city apparently dismantled and rearranged to suit the purposes of the plague if a plague can have a purpose. Indeed, what we have seen supports the popular rumor that North America has been invaded by some form of intelligent biological life—that is, intelligent microorganisms, organisms that cooperate, mutate, adapt and alter their environment New Jersey and Connecticut show similar biological formations, what the journalists of this flight have come to call megaplexes, for want of any better word. We leave further refinements in nomenclature to the scientists.
We are now descending. The city of Chicago is in the state of Illinois, situated at the southwestern tip of Lake Michigan, a huge inland body of fresh water. We are now about one hundred kilometers from Chicago, moving southwesterly over Lake Michigan. Let’s move the camera to show what we, the correspondents and scientists and crew aboard this flight, are seeing directly. This special high-detail visual display screen is now showing the surface of Lake Michigan, absolutely smooth, very much like the surface of the ocean around the seaboard metropolitan areas. The grid is, I assume, for mapping purposes. Pardon my finger, but I may point out these peculiar features, seen before in the waters of the Hudson River, these peculiar and quite vivid yellow-green circles, or atolls, with the extremely complex radiating lines like the spokes of a wheel. No explanation for these formations is known, though satellite pictures have occasionally shown extensions of the spokes racing to the shore to connect with topographic changes taking place on the land.
Pardon me? Yes, I’ll move. We have, uh, been informed that some of these displays are classified, for our eyes only, as it were.
Now we have changed course and are swooping in an arc over Waukegan, Illinois. Illinois is renowned for its flatness, as well as for its automobiles, Detroit being in…no, Detroit is in Michigan. Yes. Illinois is renowned for its flat topography, and Chicago has been called the Windy City, because of winds blowing in from Lake Michigan. As we can see, the topography is now a network of ground very much like farmland, though instead of grids and squares, the divisions are ovoid-elliptical, I meaner circular, with smaller circles filling in between larger circles. In the center of each circle is a mound, a sort of point reminiscent of the central cone in lunar craters. These cones—yes, I see, they are actually cone-shaped pyramids, with concentric steps or tiers rising along the outside. The tips of these cones are orange, rather like the flight suit I am wearing. Day-glo orange, very striking.
We have slowed considerably. The swing-wings have been deployed, and we now pass at a comparatively leisured pace over Evanston, north of Chicago. Not a sign of humanity wherever we look. We are all…er…quite nervous now, I believe even the U.S. Air Force officers and crew, for if anything were to go wrong, we would be deposited directly in the middle of…Yes, well we won’t think about that. Lower and slower.
We have decided to pass over Chicago because of satellite and high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft photographs showing a concentration of biological activity around this once-great city. As Chicago was once the capitol of the American heartland, now apparently it is serving as some kind of focus, a clearing house perhaps, for activity all around the country, from Canada to Mexico. Great pipeline-like structures can be seen flowing into Chicago from all directions. In some areas the pipelines open up into broad canals and we can actually see the rapid flow of a viscous green fluid…Yes. There. Can we…? Well, later in the broadcast. The canals must be a half kilometer wide. Amazing, awesome.
Rumors from major centers of military intelligence in Wiesbaden and in London and Scotland point to another and very different center of activity on the West Coast of the United States. Details are not available, but apparently Chicago shares with Southwestern California the distinction of being prime points of interest for investigators and researchers. We will not be flying to the West Coast, however; our aircraft does not have the range without refueling, and there are no refueling points that far across the continent.
We are now experiencing some acceleration as we make several sharp turns. Passing over the suburb of Oak Park, where, with reference to a map spread before me, not
a single street or roadway can be identified. And now over Chicago itself, if I may judge by proportion perhaps just over Cicero Avenue, now out to the lake again, yes, that’s Montrose Harbor and Lake Shore Drive and Lincoln park, identifiable only by outline against the lake. More acceleration, a wide circle, over the area of the Museum of Science and Industry perhaps—we are all guessing here. And now I can see waterways, perhaps the original branches of the Ship Canal, and now we are down to approximately a thousand meters, a very perilous altitude, for we have no idea how high these biologicals may extend. Lord, I am frightened. We all are. We are now passing over…yes…
Jesus. Pardon me. They must have been the stockyards, Union Stocksyards. That’s what they must have been. We have just barely seen them, but the pilot has started us into a steep climb and we are now swinging due south. What we have seen…
Pardon me.
I am wiping my eyes, out of terror, awe, for I have seen nothing like this in all the hours we have been wandering over this nightmare land. Telephoto cameras showed us extensive detail of what must at one time have been the famed stockyard of Chicago. When we consider the enormous mass of creatures–pigs, cattle-concentrated in those regions, perhaps we should not be surprised or shocked. But the largest moving creatures I have seen have been whales, and these exceeded in size the largest whale by I know not precisely how much. Great brown and white eggs, could they have been hovering? Perhaps just on the ground. Greater than dinosaurs, yet with no discernible legs, head, tail. Not without features, however, extensions and elongations, tended or surrounded by polyhedrons, that is, icosahedrons or dodecahedrons-with insect-like legs, straight not jointed, legs that had to be two or three meters thick. The ovoid creatures or whatever they were could have easily spread across a rugby field.