The Silk Road Saga: Part I - Silkworm

20 - Silkworm

Yuan found himself in a dingy room located above a brothel, staring at a video recording that he could have sworn was fake, except everything that had happened to him in the last twenty four hours was so extraordinary that he no longer knew what to believe anymore. The recording showed a patch of air bubble and melt, as if someone was applying a blowtorch to a thin film of plastic. A purple ring faintly pulsed behind the warping air. The ring grew bright and more vivid, like an infection growing beneath the skin, then the portal burst into existence. The circle hung a few inches above the ground, its rim oscillating back and forth, like the maw of some terrible worm.

A person stepped into frame, a local man carrying an ancient looking spear. Yuan thought he looked familiar and he wracked his brains trying to remember where he'd seen him before. That was it, a few months ago he'd been fired for drinking on the job. A whole group of locals had quit at the same time, the roughest of the bunch in Yuan's opinion. The local tentatively approached the portal, gazing through it at whatever lay on the other side. He paused on the threshold of the purple maw then he stepped inside, first one leg, then the other. Just as he was disappearing from view there was a blur of movement. A Chinese teenager sprinted across the screen, aiming straight for the portal.

"Yue" shouted Yuan, rising to his feet.

His son dived through the portal and Yuan could just about make out through the grainy pixels that a tussle was ensuing on the other side. He gripped the iPad so tightly that his knuckles turned white. What an earth was his son doing? Yuan tried to peer closer at the screening, but it was no use. The resolution was too low to make out anything meaningful. The edges of the portal began to tremble and the circle started to shrink. It grew smaller and smaller until it was no bigger than the head of a pin, then it disappeared from view altogether. The portal had vanished and all that remained was empty air. His son hadn't just disappeared, he'd departed from this world. Yuan leaned back in his chair and shook his head, marshalling every ounce of calm logic that decades of engineering had taught him.

"How do I know this is real? Anything can be faked these days" said Yuan.

"True, true, but why would I go to all this effort. What's in it for me?" replied the professor, tugging at an errant strand of hair.

"You could be trying to trick me out of money or perhaps you just enjoy fooling with people, maybe this is part of some sick twisted game or even a new tv show" said Yuan, thinking out loud.

"You're an engineer for the state railway company, you don't have any money, and if I wanted to play a sick twisted game, why waste my time coming all the way to Uzbekistan, there are plenty of more gullible people closer to home" said the professor.

Everything the professor said made sense but then the video that Yuan had just watched seemed so improbable, so out of the realm of the ordinary, that he couldn't bring himself to accept that it was real. Except that Yue had been there. His son had gone through that portal, he'd be taken by that thing, whatever it was. He couldn't shake the feeling that the circle had been a mouth, the maw of a creature beyond mortal comprehension. Instinctively Yuan felt that his son was alive, but he didn't know whether this meant that he should believe the professor or not. His brain was trying to fight what his eyes had shown him. He sunk his head into his hands. He hadn't felt this adrift since the death of Yue's mother.

"I need a drink" said Yuan.

"That can be arranged" said the professor.

He motioned to the driver, who was standing guard by the door. The heavy-set man opened a battered looking mini-fridge in the corner of the room. Inside was a bottle Russian vodka. Probably fake, thought Yuan, but he didn't care, at this point he just needed a hit of ethanol to clear his mind. The driver poured him a glass, sniffed it suspiciously, then hand it to Yuan.

"It's your funeral" said the driver.

Yuan knocked back the glass without trying to taste it. He grimaced as a jagged rush of raw alcohol ran down his throat. He made a gargling sound and slapped his cheeks with his hand. He felt better already.

"That thing, that portal, what is called? Does it have a name?" asked Yuan.

"The enemy gives them numbers. This particular portal is called P2159. As you can see, imagination isn't their strong suit" said the professor with a wry smile.

"Wait, there's more than one of these things?" said the Yuan.

"Quite how many, we're not entirely sure, but when one disappears another pops up and the thing is they're appearing more frequently. It's only a matter of time before someone else finds out about the Silkworm, they probably already have" said the professor.

"The Silkworm?" asked Yuan.

"That's my name for whatever is causing these portals. They're purple, like a worm, and they only seem to appear along a certain latitude which correlates exactly with the route of the old Silk Road. Hence the name, Silkworm. That's one of the benefits of making a scientific discovery, you get naming rights" said the professor with a chuckle.

"You discovered these?" said Yuan.

"I used to work for a government organisation called the Anomaly Investigation Unit, although everyone just called it AIU. We were responsible for investigating things beyond the realm of explanation by modern science" said the professor.

"Such as?" asked Yuan

The professor looked at his feet with embarrassment.

"Ghosts, time travel, the undead, things most people think are consigned to the realm of fiction. Most of it was nonsense of course, dead-ends and crackpots, but occasionally something would crop up that was of interest. Then the Silkworm happened" said the professor.

He removed his glasses and rubbed them on the front of his shirt.

"And the government paid you to do this?" asked Yuan.

The professor replaced his glasses before replying.

"We're a superpower Mr. Ma, a superpower with a lot of money. The Chinese government can pay for many things" said the professor.

"But clearly you don't work for the AIU anymore" said Yuan.

"Let's just say that we had a divergence in opinions. After I discovered the Silkworm the Party became very interested in our work. My old boss was replaced by a man who went simply by a codename, someone from up high in the Ministry of State Security. Such men have little truck with discoveries that are for the benefit of all mankind, their only interest is what benefit they can bring to the Party. As time went by I realised that this so called Mr J was working on a secret scheme, a plan so audacious, so bewilderingly mad, that he knew he had to keep it hidden from me. But I found out, I hid in plain sight and piece by piece managed to puzzle together what Mr J was planning. The rational part of me, the scientist, was appalled, but I have to admit that my romantic side was taken with his sheer brazenness" said the professor breathlessly.

"What are they planning to do?" asked Yuan.

The professor fixed him with a distant stare, filled with admiration and horror, like a partner in the thrall of a cruel lover.

"Mr J wants to change history" said the professor.

Yuan waited to see if the professor was joking, but the look on his face was dead serious.

"How?" asked Yuan.

"He's going to assassinate Genghis Khan" said the professor.

Without Yuan even having to ask, the driver poured him another drink. He felt his head start to spin. What an earth had Yue got himself mixed up in.