“It happened a long time ago,” the President said.
“I see,” Ethan replied. His hand went to his left side to try to ease some of the pain there of fractured ribs and raw nerves.
He took stock of the other objects: a small humanoid-looking figurine fashioned from a metal that shimmered with many colors, a square of what appeared to be ordinary window glass but was only a few millimeters in thickness, a coil of delicately fine silver-colored wire, and the rest of them.
“There are no weapons here,” the peacekeeper said. “These are gifts.”
“Gifts,” the President repeated, hollowly.
“Brought to you—foolishly—by civilizations wanting to make contact. You weren’t ready for that. You were far from ready, and they learned that lesson.”
“No weapons?” Jefferson sounded distraught. “None? Ethan, there’s nothing here?”
Ethan didn’t answer.
“What is that?” he asked President Beale. He lifted his hand to point at the small black cube. Arizona, the sixth day of May, 1979.
“A mystery,” the President said.
Ethan picked it up. It was light, and again it could be easily managed with one hand, and could sit right in the palm. The sides were smooth and featureless, the dimensions perfect.
“No substance that we know of on Earth,” Beale said, “can drill into it or leave a mark on it. X-rays can’t see into it. No medical or military device we have can look inside that thing. So it just sits there doing nothing. The scientists figured that if it was going to blow up the world it would have already, but they were so afraid of it they kept it in a lead-lined vault for over twenty years.”
“Maybe you’re supposed to paint white dots on it and hang it from your rearview mirror,” said Dave, who was beginning to realize that there was truly nothing here, that the Cyphers and Gorgons were having one hell of a battle over their heads, and there was probably no way to get back to the White Mansion, which itself was as safe as an open wound.
Ethan pondered the object. Neither could he penetrate what was inside it, but…
“This is a gift too,” he said. “It has to be. The question is…what was it created to give?”
“We’ll never know,” said Beale.
“It looks like fear,” Ethan decided.
“What?” This time it was Jefferson who posed the question.
“Like fear. A small black cube of fear.” That statement caused the seed of an idea to grow roots. “Tell me…any one of you…what do the people of your planet collectively fear?”
“Alien invasion,” Dave said. “Or for two alien tribes to be fighting over us.”
“More than that,” Ethan urged. “Some fear that’s been a real possibility for a long time, much longer than their war.”
“Total destruction,” Olivia offered.
“How?” Ethan kept examining the cube as he waited for an answer.
“Nuclear bombs,” Jefferson said. “Or…I don’t know…The End, I guess. Like what killed the dinosaurs.”
“The strike of a huge asteroid,” the President added. “Even now…I mean, before all this…we know they’re out there. Some have passed pretty close, but we’ve kept it secret. We thought that if one of those hit us again, it could be the end of all life.”
“And you were defenseless against those,” said Ethan, who already knew the answer.
“We had emergency plans, but we would’ve only gotten one chance, and if we failed, it would be all over.”
Ethan felt he needed to cough up blood again. How long could he keep this body going? He didn’t know.
Fear…an asteroid strike…the end of all life…one chance and if we failed it would be all over.
Something resonated within him. He could not see into the cube, could not discern its alien workings or its purpose, but like the idea of the White Mansion, he could not put out of his consciousness the progression of fear…an asteroid strike…the end of all life…one chance and if we failed it would be all over…
“I have to find a way into this,” the peacekeeper said, his voice thick.
He had just finished saying this when a siren went off and the cool female voice said from a speaker in the ceiling: “Intruder on Level One…Intruder on Level Two…Intruder on all levels…multiple intruders…warning…warning…multiple intruders on all levels…”
Ethan knew they had come to kill him. Time was running out for everyone in this room and for every human who huddled in a shelter all across this world. They were on their way, and they would not wait for this form to fall and his true essence to break free.
The black cube sat in his palm. Fear, he thought. End of all life. One chance. One.
They were coming.
Thirty-Four.
“It’s impossible!” Beale’s eyes were wild. “Nothing can get in here!”
“Warning…warning…multiple intruders on all levels,” said the female voice, its cool computerized cheerfulness now completely out of place. “Echo Sierra. Repeat…Echo Sierra.”
“What does that mean?” Dave demanded.
“Worst case scenario. Everybody stays on lockdown while the Special Ops soldiers work…but there aren’t any here.” Beale left them in the artifacts room to confer with Derryman and Winslett, who both looked as if they were ready to climb the walls. Corporal Suarez had taken a position where he could watch the steel door, his rifle at the ready.
“He says nothing can get in here,” Jefferson said. His face had become a swamp of sweat. “That’s what he thought about the White Mansion too. Ethan, do you know where they are and how many?”
“Many signals,” Ethan answered, but he was giving most of his concentration to the black cube. The siren was still sounding, a high oscillating noise. Pain nagged at him, pulling him away from his task. “They’re not far from this room,” he added. “They’re fighting each other right now, which gives us some time.”
Dave thumbed the safety off his automatic rifle. He offered the pistol to Olivia, who gladly took it.
“I know this cube is a gift,” Ethan said. “It has to open up, somehow.”
“By the time you figure that out we’ll be dead.” Jefferson looked with some consternation at the pistol in Olivia’s hand. “Don’t I get a gun? How about letting me hold that one?”
“I’m fine as it is, thanks,” she told him.
“You can hold this.” Ethan held the cube out to Jefferson.
“I don’t want that damned thing. It scares the hell out of me.”
“Please hold it. I need a free hand.”
Reluctantly, Jefferson took the cube and held it before him in his right palm. “Echo Sierra…Echo Sierra,” the computerized voice repeated, but no Special Ops soldiers were coming to their rescue.
“How much time do you think we have?” Dave asked, watching the door and the walls.
“I have no…” Idea, Ethan was about to say. But an idea did pierce through, and that idea was: Time.
The greatest gift.
A thousand permutations went through his mind in a matter of seconds. A thousand odds were weighed, a thousand combinations and possibilities. He looked at the digital clock on the far wall, which had just changed over to 20:52.
“I’m going to try something,” he said. “Every civilization recognizes the concept of a positive and a null, which would be to you one and zero. In your language, binary code. Whatever happens,” he told Jefferson, “don’t drop it.”
“What’s going to happen?”
Ethan ignored him. The clock still showed 20:52.
He spoke the number calmly and clearly in binary code: “One, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero one, zero zero.”