Master of Shadows, Chapter 9: The Powers That Be

Jack and Lily were in the weapons room of the Raptor, searching it for clues that might reveal the identity of the being that had recently visited it. Their search was interrupted by a noise in the distance. The sound began as a whisper but it quickly rose in volume until the ship itself began to shake. After a hair-raising minute it gradually faded away until it had entirely disappeared.

Jack turned to his wife. “Did you hear that?”

“Are you kidding?” his wife replied. “Do you think I’m deaf? How could I have missed it?”

“What did it sound like to you?”

“It sounded kind of like energy,” Lily replied slowly. “I know that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what it sounded like to me. If energy had a sound that would be it.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully. “That’s what I thought too. It kind of sounded like some big machine suddenly roared to life. I could be wrong, but I bet something was just turned on – and since this room is still dark I’m pretty sure it wasn’t this ship. My guess is -”

“The city,” his wife finished.

“Right.” Jack swung the rifle over his shoulder and looked around. “Well, I think we’re done here. My bones tell me we have work to do elsewhere. Are you sure you don’t want one of these portable cannon-like things? It might come in handy.”

Lily shook her head. She picked up one of the small laser guns and a holster, and tied it around her waist. “No thanks. I’ll stick with something that looks reasonable and sane.”

Jack smiled. “All right. So shall we be going? I’d like to find out what caused that noise.”

“Sure,” his wife replied. “I’m right behind you.” The two of them left the weapons room and headed back to the stairwell. They then walked up to the third floor and carefully made their way out of the ship. Once they had reached the planet’s surface they started hiking toward the city. The city could not be seen from the crash site of the Raptor, so there was no immediate way to tell if their theory was right. All they could do is keep walking.

Lily spoke up. “You know, dear, most reasonable people would want to run away from strange noises on alien planets.”

Jack shrugged. “I suppose. And I bet those reasonable people would go on to lead long and happy lives. But we need a power source to get the Raptor‘s computers going again, and as it turns out I am fresh out of power sources. My bones tell me that somewhere a really big machine just got turned on, and I have a feeling that a really big machine would probably have a power source of some kind. All we need to do is find out what it is and we’re in business.”

“Right,” Lily agreed. “Because it can’t possibly be difficult to connect an alien power source to modern electronics. Why, you can probably get a converter cable at your local convenience store.”

“One step at a time,” her husband said, grinning. “First let’s find that power source. Then we’ll worry about finding a way to use it. No sense in borrowing trouble.”

The couple walked to the crest of a small hill. When they reached the top they froze in their tracks. In front of them, past the hill, they could see the city they had fled from the day before. Today, however, the city had changed dramatically. The formerly desolate city was now encased in a glowing blue field of some kind. Through the semi-transparent field they could see that the buildings themselves were emitting a brilliant blue light that could easily be discerned in the daylight.

Jack whistled. “It certainly didn’t look like that yesterday! What do you think happened?”

“There are three options that I can think of,” Lily said. “Either we’re responsible, or someone else is responsible, or it just happened on its own and is a wild coincidence.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully. “Personally, I’m going to go with the wild coincidence. That’s the one that makes me feel the most confident about what we’re about to do. C’mon, let’s go down and check it out.”

Jack grabbed his wife’s hand and the two of them started walking toward the city. When they were right in front of the field his wife grabbed him. “Hold on a minute. Did you see that?”

“See what?” he asked.

“Look!” his wife said, pointing. A breeze was blowing along the ground, stirring up little clouds of gritty black dust. Once the clouds were formed the wind gently pushed them along the ground. When the dust came into contact with the blue field, however, it simply vanished.

Jack’s eyes widened. “Now that is unusual. You don’t suppose that would happen to us if we walked into it, do you?”

“It’s possible, don’t you think?” his wife asked. “I mean, isn’t that the whole point of force fields? To keep out unwanted things? And don’t you think we just might fall into the category of ‘unwanted things’?”

Her husband thought a moment. He then bent down to the ground, picked up a small rock, and threw it at the city. When the rock came into contact with the transparent blue shield it simply vanished in a flash of light. Jack then removed one of the tasteless food rations from his pocket and hurled it at the shield. It passed through effortlessly.

“So it doesn’t just destroy everything that it comes into contact with,” Jack remarked. He slowly extended his hand toward the field.

Lily grabbed it and pulled him back. “Are you crazy? Do you want to lose your entire arm?”

“Do you have any other ideas?” Jack asked. “I’ll touch it slowly and gently. If anything goes wrong I’ll stop. It will be fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Uh-huh,” his wife said. “Unless when you touch the field it vaporizes your entire body. Then I’ll have to save the planet by myself. Plus, I’m pretty sure your life insurance doesn’t cover ‘death by alien force field’.”

“You’re probably right. But I think my accidental death and dismemberment insurance would cover it. I seem to remember asking my employer about that when I signed up for benefits.”

“Fine!” his wife said, stepping back. “Have it your way. But if it kills you don’t come and complain to me! I warned you.”

Jack smiled. He then slowly reached his hand out and touched the blue field. To his enormous relief his hand easily passed through it without harm. Gathering courage, Jack walked into the field and effortlessly breezed right through. After he had safely reached the other side he turned and looked at his wife. “See? I told you it would be fine! It didn’t even damage my weapon. Come on! It’s a long hike to the city center.”

Lily cautiously walked through the shield. Once she was safely on the other side she shuddered. “That was terrifying! How do we get into these situations?”

Jack laughed. “It comes from leading an exciting life on the frontiers of space, exploring places where saner people would never go. This is high adventure, dear!”

Lily smiled. “Just don’t let it go to your head, dear. When we get home you’ve got a desk job to go back to. Don’t get any crazy ideas about changing careers.”

“We can talk about that when we get home,” Jack agreed. “Right now I think we’re still trying to save civilization.”

The couple began jogging toward the center of the city, where the tallest buildings were located. They were still sore from their exertions over the past several days, but much of the initial pain had dissipated. Having a few good meals and a good night’s sleep had worked wonders for both of them.

After a while Jack started noticing that the city was actually almost unchanged from the day before. Aside from the glowing buildings and the protective blue shield nothing else was different. The city was still empty and the buildings were still ruined shells of their former selves. Jack was about to point this out to his observant wife when suddenly a person materialized in front of them.

Jack immediately stopped. His wife grabbed him. “Do you see that?” she hissed.

Her husband nodded but said nothing. The man that was standing in front of them was almost a foot taller than Jack. He looked very much like a human and was dressed in a long, flowing white robe and appeared to be an elderly gentleman with short white hair. What drew Jack’s attention the most, though, was that the man had six fingers on each hand – four normal fingers and two opposable thumbs.

The man smiled at them and started speaking in an alien language. Jack frowned. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m afraid I’m not getting any of that. Do you speak any other languages?”

The figure’s expression did not change. He continued talking as if nothing had happened.

“Do you realize what that sounds like?” his wife whispered.

Jack shook his head. He waved a hand in front of the stranger’s face but the man did not respond. “Nope, I don’t. It sure doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before.”

“Nonsense!” his wife replied in a low voice. “You heard that same language yesterday, in the basement of that building. Remember? It’s the same thing – words that sound like breaking glass!”

“Wow! I’d forgotten. You know, I think you’re right.” Jack picked up a small piece of metal from the ground and threw it at the man. It passed effortlessly through him.

Lily put her face in her hands. “Jack! Are you out of your mind? What if he hadn’t been a hologram? Whatever possessed you to throw a rock at an alien on a hostile planet?”

“It wasn’t a rock, it was a piece of metal,” her husband pointed out. “And besides, the guy wasn’t responding at all. I had a feeling he wasn’t actually real. I think he’s a recording of some kind.”

Lily sighed. “So what do we do now?”

Jack looked around. The center of the city was still an hour’s hike ahead of them, but there were sizable buildings on either side. “Why not explore one of the towers right here? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“But what about the alien?”

Jack shrugged. “For all we know he might stand there and babble on for hours. We can’t understand what he’s saying and standing here listening to him isn’t going to change that. There’s no point in hanging around.”

“But don’t you want to know what he’s saying?”

“I suppose, but as it turns out I don’t speak many unknown alien languages. It’s a lost cause. We’d be better off moving on to something that is not a lost cause – like locating a power source.”

Jack held onto his wife’s hand and the two of them walked into the nearest skyscraper. After they entered the building they searched the ground floor. Sure enough, at the rear of the building was an elevator shaft, and not far from the elevator was an old stairwell.

“Look at this!” Jack exclaimed, as they opened the door and walked into the stairwell. “It goes down into a basement. Are we in luck or what?”

“Don’t most tall buildings have basements?” Lily asked.

“Probably, come to think of it. Isn’t there some structural reason for it? Maybe tall buildings have to have a large basement to stay balanced.”

“Aren’t you confusing a basement with a foundation?” his wife asked.

“Maybe. I forget. I guess taking that engineering class in school wouldn’t have been such a waste of time after all. Oh well.” The couple quickly descended the staircase. When they got to the lowest level Jack spotted an airlock door with a glowing control panel beside it. After thinking back on his experience with the airlock yesterday he walked up to it and pressed a button. The door opened.

“Are you sure we should do this?” Lily asked, as she followed her husband into the airlock. “You remember what happened last time!”

“Do you have an alternate plan?”

Lily shook her head. Jack pressed a button on the inner control panel, and the door they had just stepped through slid shut. The inner door then opened.

To their surprise the inner door did not open into a room filled with holoscreens. Instead, through the opening they could see a balcony that overlooked a giant plaza that stretched for hundreds of feet. The balcony extended like a catwalk around the entire open area, circling it.

Jack walked over to the balcony and looked down. The opening extended for eight stories below them and four stories above them. Each floor had its own balcony and a series of crisscrossing staircases connected the floors to each other. The entire room was lit with a white light that appeared to have no obvious source.

“It looks like a giant mall,” Lily said. “It’s beautiful.”

“Or at least it used to be,” her husband commented. “I bet at one time there used to be fountains and trees and other things in here. Now it’s just a big empty room. There aren’t even any decorations!”

“Not entirely,” his wife corrected. She pointed to the level below them at a giant glowing holoscreen.

Jack looked at it and squinted, trying to see what it was displaying. He frowned. “Why doesn’t this planet have anything other than holoscreens, Lily? Where are the filing cabinets? Where are the ping pong tables? Where is the fine cuisine? What kind of giant city only has computer screens, of all things?”

Lily shook her head. “Maybe that’s all that survived. Or maybe the city is just a giant computer. Or maybe aliens just have poor interior decorating skills. Regardless, I think if you want to read that display you’re going to have to actually go down there and look at it.”

Jack laughed. The couple made their way to the nearest staircase and walked down it to the lower level. They then made their way along the balcony to the giant holoscreen.

Jack studied it for a moment. “It’s clearly a map. I can’t make out any of the writing, but it’s definitely a map of this area. Do you see anything that looks like a power source?”

Lily studied the map closely. She glanced over the balcony to the floor below, and then looked back at the map. Lily then reached up and touched one of the buttons on the screen.

Jack’s eyes widened in shock. “Hey there! You told me we weren’t supposed to be pushing buttons.”

“But I knew what that one was going to do,” Lily explained. “This screen is now showing a map of the lowest level of the plaza. These buttons tell the map to show a different floor. My guess is that if there’s a power source nearby it’s probably at some protected location, like a lower level. So I pressed the last button. As you can see, the map has changed.”

Jack nodded. “It does look like there’s something below this area. But how do we get there?”

Lily pointed to a stairwell on the display. “That’s our ticket! Let’s head there and see what we find.”

As Jack and Lily turned to go they saw the alien materialize in front of them. It began talking to them in the same tone that it had before. Jack waved his hand in front of it but it did not respond.

“There’s still nobody home,” Jack remarked. “Nothing to see here. Let’s go!”

The couple made their way down flight after flight of stairs and finally reached the ground floor. Jack followed his wife as she led him to the staircase she had found on the map. They then walked down the stairs to the basement.

At the bottom of the stairwell was a large door made out of blue metal. Jack look at the symbols surrounding the door and smiled. “I don’t need a crash-course in alien languages to know what that says. That door has ‘danger’ written all over it.”

As Jack walked up to the door the alien appeared directly in front of him for a third time. This time the alien appeared agitated.

“I don’t think he wants you to go in there,” Lily said.

Jack once again waved his hand in front of the alien’s face. The alien did not respond. “It’s still just a recording. Until we’re connected to a live person I think ignoring him is all we can do.” Jack walked up to the door and tried to open it but it did not budge. The giant metal door was locked.

“I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way,” Jack sighed. He took a step back and aimed his rifle at it.

Lily grabbed his arm. “Don’t even think about it, Jack! For all we know that could destroy the entire building. Let me open it with my pistol.”

Jack nodded and stepped out of the way. Lily aimed her hand-held laser pistol at the edge of the door. She pulled the trigger and in a swift move she sliced the door open. After releasing the trigger Lily walked up to the door and pushed on it. The door fell over onto the ground with a loud clang. As soon as the door hit the ground the holographic person disappeared.

Jack smiled. “Nice work!” Lily nodded and placed her weapon back in its holster.

On the other side of the door was a long, wide hallway with a metal floor, a metal ceiling, and frosted glass walls. Every hundred feet the glass walls were interrupted by a glass door. The hallway continued on far into the distance.

Lily spoke up. “I may be wrong, but I think this parallels the street above us.”

“Could be,” Jack said. “Maybe this is some kind of corridor that runs under all of the buildings.”

As they walked down the endless corridor they peered through the frosted glass. The glass was difficult to see through but they could tell that on the other side of the glass were rows and rows of giant machines. The machines appeared to emit a blue light.

Jack walked up to one of the glass doors and opened it. After stepping through to the other side of the frosted glass he walked up to the nearest machine to get a closer look. The giant machines were a maze of complicated tubes, wiring, and readouts, all of which were covered in alien symbols. All of the machines appeared to be slightly different; a few were only ten feet long while others were several times that size. What most struck Jack, however, were the glowing blue cylinders that each machine was centered around. Each cylinder was approximately three feet long and was made of some type of transparent material. Within it was a bright blue fire.

“What do you think all of this is for?” his wife asked.

“Beats me,” he replied. “If I was a Starman I could wave some magical gadget in front of it and find out that it replicates snack foods, or something. All I know is that it’s big, it’s complicated, it’s alien, and it seems to draw power from those blue cylinder things.”

“That blue is everywhere,” Lily commented. “This city has blue walls, blue buildings, and a blue force field. Whoever built this city must have really liked that particular color.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Would you have any objections if I tried to remove that glowing blue cylinder and took it back to the Raptor?”

Lily shook her head. “Go for it. That looks like the only removable piece of the entire machine. If it’s as light as it looks you should be able to carry it. But what do you think is going to happen when you remove it? What if someone complains?”

Jack laughed. “I’m not really frightened by ancient holographic recordings. I think we’ll be fine.”

Jack carefully studied the machine for a moment. He then reached over and opened some clamps. “I like this! Easily removable. Now that’s what I’m talking about.”

Jack placed his hands on the cylinder, grabbed it, and pulled. After a brief struggle it popped out of the machine. To his relief the cylinder continued to glow after it had been removed. Jack turned to his wife, smiling in triumph. “Well, that went -”

He was interrupted by a warning siren. The white lights went out and a pulsing orange light filled the room. The siren continued to wail.

Lily suddenly screamed and pointed. About three hundred feet away there was a metal door embedded in the wall behind one of the machines. This door had just opened and a giant robot was in the process of stepping out of it. The robot was vaguely humanoid, but what most struck Jack was that it was at least eight feet tall and was carrying what looked like a large, dangerous weapon. As they watched the robot’s head swiveled in their direction. When Jack saw what was about to happen he grabbed his wife and yanked her back behind the machine. A moment later the robot fired!

The blue bolt from the robot’s gun just barely missed them. It struck the glass wall behind them, shattering it into a thousand dangerous shards. The entire hundred-foot pane of frosted glass fell to the ground, scattering pieces everywhere.

Jack quickly handed his wife the blue cylinder he was carrying. He then unslung the rifle from his shoulder, jumped out from behind the machine, and fired it in the robot’s general direction. To his surprise the rifle did not send out a searing laser bolt. Instead, a brilliant white projectile shot out of the gun. The projectile missed the robot by about two feet and smashed into the wall behind it.

When the projectile struck the wall there was a fantastic roar and a brilliant flash of white light. The entire area erupted in flame and smoke. Since Lily was behind a machine she was protected from the blast, but the shockwave caught Jack and launched him across the room. He flew through the broken glass wall and was thrown down the hallway. His laser gun went flying and he crashed painfully onto the ground.

As the smoke cleared Lily ran to her husband’s side and helped him off the ground. Once he was on his feet she picked up his rifle and gave it back to him. Jack stood up and took at look at the damage. He could not believe what he saw. The entire area where the robot used to be was simply gone. The wall was gone. The door was gone. Even the machines that had been near the robot were gone. There was simply nothing left. The surrounding ceiling and floor were badly charred.

Jack looked at the devastation in disbelief. “What on earth was that?”

“I don’t think we want to know what your gun fired,” Lily said. Overhead a warning siren continued to wail.

“Let’s get out of here,” Jack urged. He nodded toward another metal door in the far side of the hallway. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think this city likes us anymore. Let’s take that door topside and get out of here.”

Lily grabbed the blue cylinder and nodded. “I’m right behind you!”