The Project Eden Thrillers Box Set 2: Books 4 - 6 (Ashes, Eden Rising, & Dream Sky)

by Brett Battles

  It had been years since he was last on a motorcycle, so it took him six attempts to get the engine started. When he finally did, he checked the sky again.

  The plane was low now, maybe five miles out of town. The only consolation was that it was a small jet that probably held no more than ten people.

  He considered heading right out, but knew the smart play was to wait a bit.

  As the aircraft drew closer, it adjusted its course to the north, putting it on a direct path for NB219. Though Wicks couldn’t see the base from where he was, the column of smoke rising above it was clearly visible.

  When the plane neared the plume, it began circling the base.

  Again, the urge to run hit him, but he remained where he was.

  After a third go-around, the plane lowered its landing gear and flew toward the nearby airport.

  Wait, Wicks told himself.

  The plane was only a few hundred feet above the ground now.

  Wait.

  Five stories up.

  Wait.

  Tree level.

  Wait.

  Down.

  Go!

  He twisted the accelerator and almost fell off the bike as he shot out of the driveway, but he didn’t slow down. With the plane barely on the ground, it was his best—perhaps only—opportunity to get out of there. Not only would they be unable to see him, but the plane’s engine would drown out the initial burst from the motorcycle.

  He took the southbound ramp onto the I-25 and sped out of town.

  When he hit the I-10, he continued south, every few minutes sneaking a peek over his shoulder at the sky and the highway, sure he would see people coming after him. It wasn’t until he was somewhere in the vast nothingness of west Texas that he started to think maybe he was going to be okay.

  He spent that first night in Abilene, and began considering his next move. If he avoided Project Eden locations, most of which he knew about, nearly the whole world was open to him. Finding a place where he could live out his life undetected shouldn’t be that hard.

  A voice woke him at four a.m.

  What choice do we have? We’re the only ones who can do anything about it.

  Matt’s voice. The words from so many years earlier, before Matt had faked his death and left to form the Resistance. And though the Resistance may have failed at its main objective, it hadn’t failed completely.

  The original directorate was dead. And now the new principal director, Perez, was also dead. Project Eden may have unleashed its unholy hell, but the organization had been rocked, too. And if there was any chance of keeping the Project from controlling the resurrection of mankind, it had to be rocked again, in as big a way as possible.

  The urge to pull the blanket over his head and hide from everything was so strong that Wicks’s hands trembled. The weak part of his mind said, “You’ve already done your part. Find a beautiful beach or a cabin by a lake. Anywhere. You have your pick. For you, the fight is over.”

  But the blanket remained under his chin. The fight was not over.

  “Do I really need to do this?” he whispered.

  Matt’s words again. Yes. You do.

  January 5th

  World Population

  862,727,366

  Three

  WARD MOUNTAIN NORTH, NEVADA

  8:15 AM PACIFIC STANDARD TIME (PST)

  A COLD WIND blew down the barren mountain, passing through skin like water through cloth and chilling the bones beneath. Teeth chattered, hands were stuffed in pockets, necks were buried under scarves, but no one said a word in complaint.

  The grave was dug on high ground, well away from the flash-flood channels and dry riverbeds that latticed the area. The coffin was a pine box hauled in from a mortuary in Ely. A fancier one, with metal handles and ornate scroll work, could’ve been chosen, but Rachel Hamilton had said Matt would have wanted things simple.

  All but the most essential personnel had made their way out of the warren of rooms and tunnels that made up the Resistance’s base, and trekked the quarter mile to the gravesite. Despite the frigid air, there was no snow, only the dirt and the shrubs and the wide-open sky playing home to a tiny, distant sun.

  Ash glanced at Rachel. Her eyes were locked on the pine box that held her brother. Ash let her mourn in silence for several more seconds, and then moved to the head of the grave.

  “As you can imagine, I’ve thought long and hard about what I was going to say here today, but I realized no matter what words I chose, they would be inadequate. To say Matt has been an essential element of our cause would not do him justice. Matt was the embodiment of why we are all here. Without him, it’s doubtful any of us would be alive today. He was our leader. Our friend.” He looked at Rachel. “Our brother.” He paused. “It would be easy to say we are now lost without his guidance, that our only choice is to give up. But if we are going to truly honor Matt’s memory, then we can never give up. We must fight on.” A silent beat. “I will miss him every minute of every day.”

  He nodded to the men standing next to the coffin. They moved the box over the hole, using cloth slings, and gently lowered it inside.

  “If anyone has anything they’d like to say, please step forward,” Ash said.

  One by one, people shared their stories and thoughts and wishes. When the last finished, Ash caught Chloe’s attention, silently asking if she wanted to take a turn. For a moment, he thought she was going to say something, but then she shook her head.

  “Go in peace, my friend,” he said, looking down into the hole. “We’ll take it from here.”

  Slowly the mourners began to drift back to the base. Once most were gone, the men who had lowered the coffin picked up shovels and started to fill in the grave.

  Ash walked over to Rachel and put an arm around her shoulder. “We should go back.”

  “Not yet,” she said.

  He could feel her shiver.

  “You’re going to get sick if you stay out here any longer,” he told her.

  “Not yet.”

  As he started to take a step back to give her privacy, she touched his arm.

  “No. Stay.”

  Ash caught Chloe’s attention, and motioned with his eyes toward where his children were waiting with Ginny Thorton. Chloe nodded, collected the kids, and led them toward the base.

  Soon, the only ones left by the grave were Rachel, Ash, and the four men burying the casket.

  “Walk with me,” Rachel said.

  She started down a path leading away from the base into the empty desert, Ash walking at her side.

  “I can’t do this,” she said after they were out of earshot of the others.

  Ash said nothing.

  “I’m serious. I’m not qualified. I don’t know what he knew, I didn’t have his experience. I can’t…it’s too much.”

  “None of us is qualified,” he said.

  She turned to him. “You are. You have a military background. You should take his place.”

  “No one is going to take Matt’s place.”

  “But that’s what everyone’s expecting me to do.”

  “No, they’re not. They are expecting you to lead us, yes, but they know you’re not Matt.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “It’s not.” He paused. “The people here look up to you. They always have. They wouldn’t accept anyone else in charge but you.”

  “But I can’t do what my brother did! I wasn’t inside the Project. I don’t know what he knew.”

  “I don’t, either. And neither does Pax or Chloe or anyone else. That’s something we’ll have to move forward without.”

  “But Matt always knew what to do.”

  “Just because you’re in charge doesn’t mean you have to lead the same way he did. You can rely on others to advise you and help decide courses of action.”

  She turned back to the desert. In a near whisper, she said, “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  CHLOE WAS WAITING near the entra
nce when Ash escorted Rachel inside thirty minutes later. She was pretending to inspect some equipment, but he knew she was waiting for him.

  “Where would you like to go?” he asked Rachel. “Your room?”

  Rachel thought for a moment, and then nodded. “Please.”

  As they headed toward the tunnel leading to the residential sections, Ash caught Chloe’s eye and patted the air with his hand, telling her to stay. She frowned, but he knew she would do as he asked.

  The few people he and Rachel passed on the way to her quarters moved quickly to the side, muttering their condolences. Rachel greeted the first two with a “thank you,” but seemed to lose steam after that so Ash took up the task.

  When they finally reached her room, he said, “If you need anything at all, want to talk or whatever, have someone find me and I’ll come right away.”

  She put a weak hand on his arm. “I know you will, and I appreciate it.” She opened her door and disappeared inside.

  The moment the latch slipped into place, he headed back the way they’d come.

  As soon as Chloe saw him, she said, “Okay?”

  He nodded.

  But before they could leave, they heard steps coming toward them from one of the other hallways. They held their position and were joined a few seconds later by two men from engineering, toting tool boxes and dressed for the outside.

  “Captain,” the lead man said. “Chloe.”

  His partner nodded.

  “Morning, Caleb,” Ash said. “Problems?”

  Caleb Matthews stopped next to the outside door and adjusted his scarf. “Stupid solar panels,” he said. “One of them decided it didn’t want to work today.”

  He opened the door and let a blast of cold air into the room.

  “This is going to be fun,” the other man—Devin—said as he pulled his hood over his head.

  “This is not my definition of fun,” Caleb shot back.

  “Hello, it was a joke,” Devin said.

  “Not a funny one.”

  “Be careful out there,” Ash said.

  “Oh, I’ll be fine,” Caleb replied. “Devin’s doing all the work.”

  “I don’t think so,” Devin said as they stepped outside.

  Caleb said something back but it was lost behind the shutting of the door.

  “Come on,” Ash said to Chloe.

  They returned to the residential section and stopped in front of Matt’s room.

  Until that morning, it had been where their friend’s body was kept. As a show of respect, members of the Resistance had taken turns sitting watch. All very thoughtful and good, except it meant the room had not been vacant since Ash, Chloe, and the others had brought Matt to Ward Mountain.

  Augustine. Dream. Sky.

  Those had been nearly the last words Matt had spoken before he died. He had been desperate for Ash to remember them, but had failed to explain their significance.

  During the journey back to Nevada, Chloe was the only one Ash told about the words, but she’d had no more ideas than he did about their meaning. What they did know was that the words were important or Matt wouldn’t have wasted his last breaths passing them on. And since he’d kept them secret, they agreed to be careful about who they asked about the words’ significance.

  Rachel was the obvious one to talk to, but she had been in a deep depression since they’d radioed ahead about her brother’s death and was having a hard time focusing on anything. So Ash had been reluctant to approach her and had even considered putting it off. It was Chloe who finally convinced him it was not something that could wait. With her help, he’d arranged a few moments alone with Rachel the day before.

  “I don’t mean to bother you,” he’d said, “but I need to ask you something.”

  It took her a moment to look at him, as if his words were traveling at a fraction of the speed of sound.

  “What?” she asked, even that single word a struggle.

  “Matt said something to me before he died.”

  She looked confused.

  “I didn’t understand what he meant, but thought maybe you would.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Augustine dream sky.”

  A blank stare, then, “Sounds like gibberish to me.”

  “He was very insistent. Wanted me to remember.”

  “I have no idea what he meant,” she said, her face hardening. “If it’s not gibberish, then it’s probably something that will get our people killed. Forget it. Forget he said anything.”

  “I thought it might be good if we—”

  “I said forget it.”

  He should have waited, he realized, let a few days pass, maybe a week or two. Her brother’s death was still too fresh. He could see all she wanted to do was curl up in a corner and he couldn’t blame her for that. But he couldn’t ignore Matt’s message, and a delay of a week or two could very well be too long.

  The only other person who might’ve known something was Rich Paxton. But while Ash was relieved to hear Pax was alive and had returned from northern Canada, Matt’s old right-hand man had left for Latin America to help a group of survivors, so a private conversation with him was currently impossible.

  The only option left was for Chloe and Ash to check through Matt’s things to see if they could find an answer.

  Obtaining a key to Matt’s room had not been a problem. With Rachel overwhelmed by her brother’s death, and Pax off site, Ash had been seen as the next in command. No one noticed when he kept one of Matt’s keys.

  The hallway empty, they slipped inside the room and closed the door.

  The bed where Matt’s body had lain was rumpled, the top cover off center from when the pallbearers had come to carry him out to the casket. Piled against the back wall were the four boxes and two large duffel bags containing all his personal possessions from the Ranch, waiting to be unpacked. Though in death Matt had occupied the room, he had never lived there.

  Working silently so as not to disturb Rachel in her suite next door, Ash and Chloe started going through the boxes. Sweaters, long underwear, socks, T-shirts, buttoned shirts, pants, and shoes—all four boxes full of clothes.

  They carefully taped the boxes back up and moved on to the duffel bags. The heavy one was stuffed with books—a survivalist’s how-to treasure trove of instructions on how to do everything from simple farming to advanced electronics. Ash could imagine Matt sitting up late reading through them.

  The lighter bag held a box of photos, a few pictures in frames, and several journals, each tied closed by strings. Chloe pulled the top one out, untied it, and opened the cover. On the front page was a thirteen-month date range from several years earlier.

  Ash motioned for Chloe to flip through the book.

  Every single page was filled with handwriting they recognized as Matt’s. She randomly stopped at one of the pages and held the book out so they could both read.

  Monday, Sept. 23rd

  Prep for winter almost complete. Have left most of those details in Rachel’s hands. Heard from G1 this morning. No real news, which I guess is good. Pax is still out on the recruiting run. When we spoke, he said things with the group in Singapore looked promising. If he’s able to bring them aboard, that’ll up our organization by another thirty-seven. They will also hold a strategic position that we desperately need. I stressed to him how important it is that he succeeds.

  At the end of the entry were several numbers, in distinct sets.

  00317 43 4388 9629 20153 6 7219

  A quick glance at some of the previous entries revealed a few of them also ended with numbers. Ash could discern no obvious meaning, so told Chloe they could figure out later if the numbers were important or not.

  They quickly went through the rest of the books, eight in all. Each was filled front to back like the first.

  “We’re missing one,” Chloe whispered.

  Ash nodded. He’d noticed it, too. The journal covering the last four months wasn’t there.

 
He stepped over to the pack Matt had taken with him on the trip south to New Mexico, and searched through the pockets. He found the journal wrapped in a shirt at the very bottom of the main section.

  “Done here,” he whispered, showing her the book.

  They closed the duffel bags and arranged them and the boxes exactly as they had been before. At the door, they paused to make sure the corridor was quiet before leaving with their old friend’s journals.

  Four

  ISABELLA ISLAND

  11:38 AM CENTRAL STANDARD TIME (CST)

  “HOW YOU FEELING?” Robert asked, raising his voice enough for it to carry through the wall into the next room.

  “No change,” Renee’s muffled reply came back.

  Though he was still pissed off at her, his anger was far outweighed by the relief he felt from her response.

  Twenty-four hours earlier—two days after Isabella Island had been doused with the Sage Flu virus by an organization apparently known as Project Eden—Renee had walked outside.

  While Robert knew that eventually someone would have to test the effectiveness of the vaccine they’d been given, he’d fully intended to be the one leaving the confines of the dining room where everyone had holed up. Leave it to Renee to sneak away and do it herself. When Robert found out, it took Rich Paxton, Estella, and several of the others to keep him from running out after her.

  “We only need one guinea pig,” Pax had said.

  Renee had stayed outside and exposed herself to the virus for several hours before moving into the restaurant manager’s office on the other side of the wall. Robert had yelled at her at first, but soon tempered his emotions when he finally accepted that what was done was done. Since then, he had spent most of his hours leaning against the wall, talking to her and checking on her, and sometimes not saying anything at all.

  Pax had told them it could be anywhere from a few hours to a couple of days before she’d show signs of infection, but given the concentration of the virus she’d been exposed to, he was leaning more toward the former than the latter. Robert’s own experience with the Sage Flu was minimal. Dominic was the only one he’d watched die, and it hadn’t been much more than a day before his friend had shown signs. Surely Renee would have come down with it by now.