Kill Switch by Jonathan Maberry

relate to the other?”
    â€œNatural resources,” said Prospero. “Imagine if no one had to fight wars over limited supplies of oil, natural gas, coal. Imagine if no one ever had to fight for a place to stand, for a place to build a home. For land to raise sheep and cows and things like that. Imagine if there were infinite oceans in which to fish. If there was enough for everyone and more than anyone could ever use, why would people like my father and his cronies ever have to build bombs or fighter planes or any of that stuff?”
    Greene nodded. “That is an appealing thought, of course. An end to the cause of war. By inference it would cancel out greed because there would be no limit to the things one person could possess.”
    Prospero brightened and nodded enthusiastically. “Then you do get it.”
    â€œI understand the benefits of such a scenario,” said the doctor. “But it’s a dream, Prospero, and dreams are only dreams.”
    â€œThat’s just it,” said Prospero, a strange light igniting in his eyes. “What if they’re not dreams? What if, when we dream, we’re somehow looking from our world into another world? What if everything people dream is that? What if all dreams, no matter how weird or wild or crazy, are people seeing other versions of the world, other universes where maybe the same rules of physics don’t apply?”
    The boy leaned forward, his fists clenched.
    â€œDoc, that’s what is going on in my dreams,” he continued, his voice dropping to a terse whisper. “The people of my world, the gods of my world, and even the slaves—the shoggoths—they all whisper to me. They want me to build the God Machine. They know I can do it. They want me to come home.”

 
    CHAPTER TWELVE
    THE VINSON MASSIF
    THE SENTINEL RANGE OF THE ELLSWORTH MOUNTAINS
    ANTARCTICA
    AUGUST 19, 10:55 P.M.
    A city?
    It made no sense.
    None.
    Bunny said, “Who built this?”
    â€œNo one,” whispered Top. “You know how deep we are, Farm Boy? We’re beneath a hundred million goddamn years of ice. Maybe twice that. No one had ever built no city down here. No one ever lived here.”
    The presence of the city—the sheer scope and complexity of it—made a lie of Top’s words.
    We stood there, dwarfed by it. It was as if the builders of ancient Egypt had constructed a megalopolis on the scale of New York or Hong Kong. Only bigger. Much, much bigger. We stopped talking about what we were seeing. It was an impossible conversation, and the echoes of our voices seemed incredibly tiny in that vastness. It made us feel like ants. It took us ten more minutes to reach the bottom of the slope.
    â€œAll that excavation equipment,” murmured Top. “And the tunnel we followed to get down here. Erskine and his crew were looking for this. Maybe the Chinese and Russians, too.”
    â€œHow’d they know ?” wondered Bunny. “With all the iron in the rock, they couldn’t have seen it with ground-penetrating radar. How’d they know it was here, Top? How’d they know?”
    Top shook his head. “That’s one more question to add to a long damn list.”
    He cut a sideways look at me as he said that.
    Fair enough. I needed those same answers, and for the same reasons.
    â€œSpread out and scout the area,” I ordered.
    Aside from a confusion of bloody footprints and a few pieces of dropped or discarded gear, we saw no further traces of people down here. That should have been a comfort, but it wasn’t.
    Top called, “Hey, Cap’n, you seeing this?”
    â€œYeah,” I said, gaping at the city. “Of course I see—”
    â€œNo,” he said, “over there.” He pointed to a space between two of the titanic blocks. I hadn’t noticed it at first because it was nestled closer to the ground and was dwarfed by this impossible architecture. There,