Mosaic (Breakthrough Book 5)

by Michael C. Grumley

  She was having trouble remembering how long she had been alone in the room, waiting on the uncomfortably hard metal chair. An hour. Maybe two.

  Her head bobbed, and she promptly jerked it back with a start. She fought to keep her mind focused and tried to guess again at how much time had elapsed.

  When she was done, Neely studied, perhaps for the millionth time, the four walls surrounding her. They were bright white and devoid of any features, giving her nothing at all to focus on. Nothing except herself, the table, and an extra chair.

  She suddenly jerked again, wide awake, when the door finally opened. At first, there was no one there, leaving her to wonder if she were hallucinating. At least until a hand reached out to hold it open. The same woman who’d met them at security edged into the doorway, whispering to someone unseen.

  She eventually stepped into the room, and without looking back, closed the door behind her. Standing and staring at Neely for a long moment, she continued forward and retrieved the second chair, all in one swift motion.

  “Doctor Lawton. It is a pleasure to meet you.”

  Neely said nothing.

  “My name is Janice Talbot. I’m a doctor, just as you are.” After a moment, she kept talking with a tilt of her head. “Well, not just like you. My field is genetics instead of microbiology. But we clearly have some overlap.”

  Neely watched the woman try to smile. Similar to their first meeting, it looked more like someone trying to mimic human emotions.

  “For example, with our friend Li Na.”

  Neely blinked and shook her head. “She’s not your friend.”

  “Well, not yet.”

  “Good luck.”

  Talbot shrugged. “The truth is she’s not all that important. We already have what we need from her.”

  Neely squinted. “What do you mean?”

  “Her blood,” Talbot answered. “It was all we needed. From her.”

  “That’s all?”

  Talbot nodded.

  “Great. So now we can go.”

  “Go?” Talbot mused. “Maybe her, but certainly not you.”

  Neely frowned, eliciting a shrug from Talbot in response.

  “I don’t expect you to understand. You’ve no doubt been highly stressed lately.”

  “What?”

  “I’m talking about why you seem to be on the slow side. You’re smarter than this. I know that. But after everything you’ve been through, it’s not uncommon to experience a noticeable dip in cognitive ability.”

  Neely shifted on her chair to ease the ache in her lower back. The movement pulled her handcuffs taut behind her.

  “What a relief.”

  Talbot looked at the cuffs. “The state you’re in can also result in irrationality and sudden outbursts.”

  “Sleep deprivation can do that.”

  “It can indeed,” Talbot agreed. She let her hands fall onto her knees, relaxed. “Well then, let me tell you a little about our…situation. Call it our curriculum. As you may have figured out, even in your limited state, you’re not here by accident. Or convenience. Your presence here is actually quite purposeful.”

  “Just when I was starting to feel unappreciated.”

  “Hopefully, you’re not too tired to remember all of this in the morning. The truth is we were fortunate to find you and Li Na together. She is valuable, yes. For her blood. Or should I say for the bacterium within her blood? But you. You, Dr. Lawton, are essential.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because while young Li Na may have provided us the tool, you have the knowledge to aid us in understanding it.”

  Neely’s eyes abruptly hardened. “You mean how to use it.”

  Talbot shrugged. “You didn’t think we were about to start from the beginning, did you?”

  Neely didn’t answer. Even through her weariness, she was putting the pieces together. She knew she was eventually going to be pumped for information. But something in her tired mind told her there was more in Talbot’s words.

  “I won’t tell you anything.”

  There was amusement on Talbot’s face before she angled her head again. “Of course, you will.”

  “No…I won’t.”

  From her chair, Talbot lowered her gaze slightly. “You must be very tired indeed,” she said. “Because you telling us what we need to know…is not even the half of it.”

  101

  The Director of the CIA stopped typing and raised his head when his office door opened. His secretary promptly stepped out of the way, allowing his subordinates John Ambrose and Matt Millican to enter.

  Andrew Hayes motioned both men forward and gestured to both chairs in front of his desk. As they sat, Deputy Ambrose grinned. “I hear you had an enjoyable time at the Gala. Chatting it up with Secretary Miller.”

  Hayes shook his head dismissively. “They know we have the two women. And they want them back. The coot even threatened me.”

  “How did they find out?”

  “How do we find out things?”

  With that, Hayes turned to the analyst, still in his early thirties. The man possessed a surprisingly youthful appearance, enough to pass for ten years younger. It was the maturity in his voice that gave it away.

  “Orders have just been issued to mobilize two Navy SEAL teams out of Coronado.”

  Hayes lowered his pen and stared. “Is that right?”

  “Yes, sir,” Millican nodded. “Teams three and five. The order was issued less than an hour ago.”

  “And by whose order would that be?”

  “Defense Secretary Miller.”

  Hayes frowned and slowly eased himself back against the black leather chair. “Where are they headed?”

  “Utah.”

  “Salt Lake City,” added Ambrose.

  “Salt Lake City,” Hayes repeated sarcastically. “What on Earth could they want there? Taking a tour of the Tabernacle?”

  “Doubtful,” said Ambrose.

  The CIA Director looked at the younger Millican who then spoke. “They’re headed for Dugway.”

  “They know the women are there.”

  “Evidently,” Hayes said, pressing his hands together. “So Merl Miller and Jim Langford want to pick a fight. I didn’t think they had it in them.”

  “They seem to be full of surprises.”

  “Yes. They are.”

  “This could get messy,” Ambrose said. “Americans fighting Americans.”

  Hayes frowned, dismissing the comment. “Please. This isn’t the first time.”

  “If anyone on the outside gets wind of this, it will be difficult to explain.”

  “Maybe. Then again, the order did come from Miller, did it not? And probably with the help of Langford. So if they do attack and some Navy boys get killed, it won’t be hard to hang that unfortunate fact around their necks.” Hayes looked at the younger Millican. “I want a copy of the order. As evidence.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Does Bullman know about it?”

  Ambrose shook his head. “As of this moment, only the three of us.”

  Hayes nodded and remained quiet, thinking. “Can those SEALs get in?”

  “To Dugway? I don’t see how. The place is a fortress.”

  “And yet isn’t that the kind of place SEALs are trained to find a way into?”

  “We’ve had our own people try to do it before and they never could. And we’re just as good.”

  “I certainly hope so.” With that, Hayes leaned forward and reached for his phone. “I’ll call Bullman. He’s going to need to prepare. In the meantime,” he said to Millican, “get ready to feed them every detail you have on the movement of those SEAL teams.”

  “Absolutely.”

  Both men stood back up as Hayes spoke into his phone. “Get me General Bullman.”

  The director watched as his two men left and closed the door behind them. Waiting for the call, he couldn’t help but smirk at the move. The geezers had thrown down the gauntlet. They now were
coming to get the two women. No matter what the cost. Which was a shame, because the cost was going to be steep. And in the end, it didn’t even matter. They already had what they needed.

  It was a staggering mistake. Miller and Langford were about to find out that even their precious SEALs were no match for what was quietly awaiting at Dugway.

  102

  “Jesus,” Rothman mumbled, turning to Talbot who now stood next to him. “He’s unbelievable.”

  Janice Talbot nodded, reluctantly. She didn’t care for Rothman, but she had to agree. To her, Rothman was little more than General Bullman’s pet, albeit one of the smarter ones. One of the Army’s lead biologists, he was the man in charge of carrying out the military’s new genetic profiling. And as much as she hated to admit it, he was right. At least this time. Their test subject, James Seever, was proving to be nothing short of a biological miracle.

  Together the two stood before a one-way mirror, peering into another examination room. On the bed lay Seever, heavily sedated and covered by a sheet up to his chest. On a monitor next to the large mirror were Seever’s vital signs. All still within normal ranges.

  “The man takes every gene edit we throw at him!”

  Again, Talbot nodded. It was true. At first, they were just thrilled to find a test subject who didn’t succumb to the same genetic side effects that affected the others. That alone was an achievement. And ironically took even longer than it did to fully map their targeted gene sequences.

  When Seever became the first to survive a second modification, it was a giant leap forward. Both for Talbot and Rothman. But now, now that his body had successfully absorbed several of the gene edits, something began to shift in the back of Talbot’s mind.

  Her excitement was beginning to shift toward worry.

  How was it possible? How was his system able to survive what had killed so many others? Yes, everyone’s genetic composition was different. But their first patients had died after one or two edits to their DNA. From everything they could observe and measure, James Seever was able to take multiple changes without missing a beat. The question was why?

  But even beyond that. Even if they could understand why, the next question was even bigger. When.

  When would they reach the limit? When would they go too far? In other words, how many changes were too many? Rothman insisted they had identified all the related gene proteins for each profile. But Talbot was not foolish enough to believe that. It was the same thinking that always proved to be man’s ultimate folly. A shortsighted, arrogant belief that each time we solved a problem, we eliminated it completely.

  Talbot knew better. Human beings were terrible at learning from the past. Terrible at recognizing the oversimplified assumptions that had allowed them to get into trouble. Until long after the fact.

  James Seever personified her ideal test subject in so many ways. Yes, his body’s physical makeup was incredible. So scientifically unique, in fact, that it was now reaching beyond the boundary of even her level of confidence.

  Just exactly how far could his DNA be pushed? And what would happen when they injected the bacterium from the Chinese girl? Would it absorb another change and allow his body to heal at an accelerated rate just like her? Or would it finally break their streak?

  Then there were the trade-offs for all of Seever’s previous gene edits. Each awakened new abilities within the man’s body, but came with a price. His cells were losing their normal ability to regenerate. And those new attributes given to him meant very little if he would not live long enough to use them.

  Janice Talbot was still staring through the window when she caught the outline of her own faint reflection in the glass, appearing to hover ominously above James Seever’s body.

  He was incredible all right. But what Talbot didn’t know…was that she would soon get her answer as to why.

  103

  “That…is incredible.”

  The same word muttered by a Navy SEAL thousands of miles away as he floated in place less than fifty feet below the U.S.N.S. Pathfinder.

  The storm was waning, yet it was still strong enough to send him back and forth a few feet with each surge. But Corbin barely noticed. Instead, he was staring down through his mask at the coral below, utterly astounded.

  Less than twenty feet beneath him was a large square hole in the coral, for lack of a better word. The opening defied logic, giving him a bird’s eye view both down and directly into the alien ship.

  Ackerman’s voice came through the speaker into Corbin’s stainless-steel helmet. “What are you seeing?”

  “It’s just as Tay described.”

  Corbin looked to his partner Beene, floating a few feet away. Both were holding onto the same rescue line, made of thick black rubber and weighted at the bottom.

  Beene looked up and shook his own helmet from side to side. “How is that even possible?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Can you see Tay?” Ackerman asked.

  Corbin peered down through the giant opening and nodded. “Yes. I can see his headlamp. A couple hundred feet down, maybe less. He’s in the raft. Paddling toward the wall.”

  “Excellent. We ready to lower?”

  “Yep. Ease her down.”

  Together, Corbin and Beene loosened their grip and watched as the line began to descend. A large weight at the end kept it taut, in addition to the extra tank and regulator tied firmly around it.

  Upon reaching the opening, the bundle briefly shimmered as it passed from the ocean into the open air of the ship’s interior.

  Corbin continued shaking his head. “Let me tell you something. If there’s only one thing we learn from this alien ship, it’s gotta be how to do that!”

  Beene nodded. “Amen.”

  Both divers kept watching, maintaining a visual fix as the line continued lowering. The tank and vest now twisting freely in the air in a controlled descent toward Tay.

  ***

  When Tay was finally lifted out of the water and lowered onto the Pathfinder’s stern deck, he was completely overwhelmed. Not only was Captain Emerson standing at the edge, but what appeared to be every member of the ship’s crew stood there with him. And they were all clapping.

  Once down, he pulled the regulator out of his mouth and peeled off his mask. Tay ignored the pain in his leg and leaned back onto the wet metal deck, full of gratitude and staring up into the clouded sky above.

  A huge grin on his face, Emerson approached and squatted down next to him. “Welcome back aboard, Lieutenant.”

  104

  Chris Ramirez joined the rest of the group in sickbay. Lieutenant Tay was now resting on one of the two operating tables, which folded down. He was crowded around by most of the engineering team, all constantly being pushed back by the nurses while a heavy brace was secured to Tay’s leg.

  After a few long hours in quarantine, Elgin Tay was alive and in good spirits, helped by the giant half-eaten turkey leg in his right hand and a healthy dose of morphine coursing through his system. His face, slightly glazed from the medication, managed to maintain a constant beam as he tried to answer a barrage of questions.

  Chris grinned and stepped behind Alison who was watching from just outside the doorway. “Pretty amazing.”

  She shook her head happily. “You can say that again.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  Alison instinctively reached up and fingered the bandage on her ear. “Oh, I’m fine. Just a scratch.”

  “Good.” Chris nodded. “You…uh, still feeling anything from the decompression sickness?”

  “Nope.”

  “Excellent.”

  When he became quiet again, Alison raised an eyebrow and turned around. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Really? Just wondering.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  She folded her arms. “Oh no you don’t. I’ve known you way too long to fall for that routine. What is it?”

  He glanced over her
shoulder at the rest of the group, still carrying on. “I…may have something interesting to show you.”

  ***

  Alison stared at the small screen of their mobile IMIS server before turning back to Chris. “What does that mean, you friend live?”

  “I don’t know. I presume they were talking about Lieutenant Tay.”

  “But we already know he’s alive. Is this a congratulations or something?”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think so. Look at the timestamp.”

  Alison leaned in and then looked at her watch curiously. “That was hours ago.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You hadn’t seen this message until now?”

  “No. We were all busy trying to get Tay out.”

  She furrowed her brow while calculating in her head. “That means this message was sent before we heard from Lieutenant Tay?”

  “Exactly.”

  “And the message,” she said, “was them telling us he was alive.”

  “It seems so.”

  Alison cut away from the screen and looked back at Chris. “And it was from Sally. How did she know?”

  “You got me,” he shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t her as much as them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, in order for us to receive this message, she would have to have been close to the Pathfinder. And to our underwater microphone.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Meaning she probably wouldn’t have been all that close to the alien ship, where Lieutenant Tay was.”

  Alison blinked, thinking. “So, one of the others told her?”

  “Or possibly more than one.”

  It was an interesting notion. Not just in the timing of Sally’s message, but also in the larger context of underwater communication. It was a question she and Chris had pondered for a long time. Just how far did the realm of dolphin communication reach? Or any order of the Cetaceans for that matter, including whales or porpoises. Water was much denser than air, allowing sound to travel much faster. Up to four times faster. Sound also required much less energy in water, and therefore, could travel not only faster but farther as well, depending on the depth.