by Jim Lombardo
Copyright © 2019 by Jim Lombardo
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Print ISBN: 978-1-54395-925-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-54395-926-0
Dedication
This book is dedicated to Sophia, an extraordinary little girl I know, who thinks outside of the box.
“All that we do is touched with ocean, and yet we remain on the shore of what we know.”
–Richard Wilbur
Table of Contents
Foreword
Prologue
Chapter One: Worlds Colliding
Chapter Two: Echoes (Two years later)
Chapter Three: Simon Says
Chapter Four: Tempest
Chapter Five: Jigsaw
Chapter Six: Experimentation
Chapter Seven: Homecoming
Chapter Eight: Expectations
Chapter Nine: Miniature, Flat People
Chapter Ten: The Tiny Pupil
Chapter Eleven: Brian Blake
Chapter Twelve: Paroxysm
Chapter Thirteen: Gamma Waves
Chapter Fourteen: Monica Merrick
Chapter Fifteen: Hannah’s Brain
Chapter Sixteen: Little Star (6 weeks)
Chapter Seventeen: Pushing the Envelope
Chapter Eighteen: Aunt Doris
Chapter Nineteen: Wordplay
Chapter Twenty: Common Knowledge
Chapter Twenty-One: Prime Time (5 months old)
Chapter Twenty-Two: Playground (8 months old)
Chapter Twenty-Three: Wishes, Gifts & Friends (1 year old)
Chapter Twenty-Four: To Kiss a Mockingbird (2.05 years old)
Chapter Twenty-Five: Wondergirl
Chapter Twenty-Six: Premonition (2.25 years old)
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Genius Camp (3.25 years old)
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Robin
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Ode to Joy (4.35 years old)
Chapter Thirty: Salt Island
Chapter Thirty-One: StarPros (4.70 years old)
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Yellow Kittens
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Greatest Chess Move
Ever Played (5 years old)
Chapter Thirty-Four: A Useful Life
Chapter Thirty-Five: Ellie (5.65 years old)
Chapter Thirty-Six: Climbing Boys
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Key to Success
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Anomaly
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Titan
Chapter Forty: Aurora
Chapter Forty-One: Tuning In (6.30 years old)
Chapter Forty-Two: Moving Day
Chapter Forty-Three: Mammoth Cave
Chapter Forty-Four: Volunteerism
Chapter Forty-Five: Breach
Chapter Forty-Six: Marblehead
Chapter Forty-Seven: Despair
Chapter Forty-Eight: Executive Order
Chapter Forty-Nine: Nothing
Chapter Fifty: Nightingale
Chapter Fifty-One: The Hum
Chapter Fifty-Two: Reconnecting
Chapter Fifty-Three: Adiemus
Chapter Fifty-Four: Faith and Fate
Chapter Fifty-Five: Green Light
Chapter Fifty-Six: Refuge
Chapter Fifty-Seven: The Grand Scheme of Things
Chapter Fifty-Eight: Stonehenge
Chapter Fifty-Nine: Safe Journey
Chapter Sixty: True
Chapter Sixty-One: Enlightenment
Chapter Sixty-Two: Sergio
Chapter Sixty-Three: Waiting It Out
Chapter Sixty-Four: Nature
Chapter Sixty-Five: Inner Oblivion
Chapter Sixty-Six: Sergio, the Update
Chapter Sixty-Seven: Blake Lake (Nearing 7 years old)
Chapter Sixty-Eight: A Curtain Closing
Epilogue
Foreword
“Mrs. Blake — or Monica, if I may — please have a seat.” The impeccably attired man motioned toward a mahogany conference table in the center of the room. “I’m Marshall Goldrick, chief of the Crisis Management Team for the National Security Agency.” He flashed a credential badge that was hanging by a thin rawhide strap around his neck. The two sat down across from each other, and the man paused briefly to to collect his thoughts before commencing.
“Monica…I’m sorry, but we need to transfer Hannah to a more secure facility,” Marshall stated firmly.
“More secure than this?” Monica asked in angry disbelief, as an Apache helicopter passed overhead, shaking the blinds covering the single small window in the room.
“It’s for her own protection, and we need her to be able to concentrate, without being distracted by the media or anyone else, with the proper equipment and support at her disposal.”
“You can’t take her anywhere without my consent,” Monica protested, her voice quavering. “She’s my child, in case you forgot.”
“Look, we have an executive order from the President of the United States to do this,” the chief quickly responded. “But tell me, what other choice do we have? We’ve had the best people working on this 24/7 for the past two weeks, and they’re completely baffled. We need Hannah.”
“Why is my husband being held?” Monica demanded. “Do you need him too?”
“He’s comfortable and being cared for.” Marshall lowered his head and began rubbing his temples up and down with his fingertips, trying to massage out the stress. He ran his fingers through his short, wiry hair that was losing out to gray, looked back up at her with bloodshot eyes, and pleaded for some common sense. “Monica, let’s get real. You and I both know Brian’s never going to cooperate. He’s too much of a risk to the operation. I promise you, we’ll get you on the phone with him today.”
“Seems like you’re making all the decisions just fine for my family, sir,” Monica sneered. “So what exactly do you want from me?”
“That part is simple, Monica. We want you on our side. Will you please come with me and Dr. Gordon Anderson — Hannah’s associate in the lab — to see your daughter? We want you to explain the situation to her, and tell her that a transfer is the right course of action. Hannah has to be in the right frame of mind for this, and we think you’re the only one who can ensure that.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Monica laughed condescendingly. “You’re acting like Hannah doesn’t understand the whole story here, and the part she’s playing in it. She’s already light years ahead of us on that. There’s no explaining anything to her. The fact is, you don’t need me for this. Hannah already knows exactly what’s at stake, and she isn’t about to let any emotion or person affect her thinking, not even her own mother. I could march down there, fall at her little feet, and beg her to stay or go, and it wouldn’t change a damn thing. I’m sure she’s already figured out that she may have to hurt me in the short term to save my life in the long run, so she’s going to disregard any feelings or opinions I have on this, one way or the other.”
Monica halted. Her eyes strayed from the chief as she played out the likely scenario awaiting in the lab. A look of pained desperation crept across her face. “She’s going to say, ‘I have to go, Mom.’ I guarantee it. So, where are you taking her?”
“We want to station her at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.”
“Station her? Really? You make it sound like my daughter’s an aircraft carrier, Mr. Goldrick.”
“Please, call me Marshall. She’ll be protected in a deep underground lab there, and she’ll be 1,700 miles farther away from the sphere
…or creature…or whatever the hell it is, which might give her more time to figure everything out. Time is our enemy right now, and it’s hovering over us like a vulture.”
Three loud thuds on the door interrupted the discussion, followed by a booming voice. “Come on, Goldie, move it along! We gotta roll!”
Marshall exhaled emphatically, and the two sat quietly as another Apache lumbered closely by. The room was overtaken by the clamor of whipping rotor blades and screaming twin turboshaft engines. As the amplitude of the sound waves eventually began to abate, the worry lines on the man’s forehead momentarily smoothed out as well.
“It’s funny, I remember one summer I had this job at a sub shop in my old hometown. I used to think it was so nerve-racking around lunchtime, like, oh my God we’re running low on pickles,” he mused, trying to inject humor into the conversation despite the dire circumstances. “We’ll set you up close by, so you can see your daughter if she wants to take a break.”
Monica sagged limply back into her chair and relented with a fragile, “Okay.” She knew there was no argument.
“Hey...Monica,” Chief Goldrick said sympathetically, “I’m truly sorry that the burden of an entire world is resting on your daughter’s shoulders.”
“Thank you, Marshall,” she replied with a mixture of gratitude and resignation. Then she added one final plea. “Just remind the people watching over Hannah that those shoulders are very small.”
Prologue
(Syzygy – 4 Billion Years B.C.)
The sun blazed down upon the barren, boulder-strewn stretch of beach. Waves pounded against the shore rhythmically and relentlessly, as they had for millions of years. Here, on this particular day, the scene was bustling, but devoid of consciousness. Life had not begun yet on the planet, so there was no living thing to see this place, to hear it, smell or feel it. But nature pressed on all the same. Waves of sound reverberated, and waves of light reflected, though not a single organism existed to sense or interpret them in any way. Like the ocean’s waves, the energy of these other waves bounded and bounced around blindly until finally dissipating into the collective cosmic soup.
Nature’s play proceeded along peacefully until the giant yellow orb in the sky suddenly began to change its hue. An eerie-looking dark disk, like a ravenous predator, appeared to be slowly but inexorably consuming it, altering the perfectly spherical shape. The light on the beach rapidly faded as if storm clouds were approaching. An azure sky shifted to a peculiar shade of purple, while the shimmering blue sea degraded into an angry gray. There seemed to be deliberate intent as the event unfolded. Within a brief space of time, the once-glorious fireball was reduced to a frail, dim crescent before being completely blotted out, leaving the scene in utter darkness. The sun, as if protesting the attack, projected a spectacular halo of luminescence around the jet-black vanquisher, resembling the golden mane of a proud lion. “I’m still here!” it seemed to cry out from behind the brazen behemoth.
A short time later, a hairline sliver of light peeked around one side. As it grew, the opposite-facing crescent now seemed to be repelling the intruder and pushing it away, until the glinting arc burst forth brilliantly, lavishing the landscape with dazzling radiance, and resolutely reawakening the day. The mighty globe continued to battle, driving the invader off steadily, never wavering until victory was achieved, and its grandeur was fully restored.
Once again, the sun shone down upon a shore that was completely oblivious. But for some reason, this absence of sentience would not keep.
Chapter One
Worlds Colliding
Monica reflexively jammed the toe of her stiletto onto the brake pedal as hard as she could and stiffened her slender arms. Squeezing the steering wheel, she closed her eyes and prepared for impact. But the speeding ambulance — running a red light without its sirens on — swerved and narrowly avoided hitting her pearl white Prius before streaking off.
The woman had barely opened her eyes in relief when she was rammed from behind with a thunderous boom. Her car violently jerked forward a yard or two before coming to a dead stop.
Perched and frozen in a braced position, Monica managed to relax her grip on the wheel. “Oh, dear Lord, why me?” she whimpered, her long brown hair now disheveled. Trying to regain her composure, she tucked it behind her ears and summoned the courage to look into her rearview mirror, wincing at the sight of her now popped up and mangled trunk.
Dutifully, she unbuckled her seatbelt and emerged hesitantly from her car to face the culprit. A black Jeep 4x4’s front end was jammed into her back bumper, with smoke billowing from its hood. The front windshield was partially shattered, with a spider cracked portion blocking her view of the occupant.
Monica fished into her jacket pocket for her cell phone, then looked helplessly skyward as she pictured it reclining on its charging dock back in her bedroom. Her eyes darted about the vicinity hoping to spot a good Samaritan, but this was a desolate area of Gloucester, a coastal town in Massachusetts. The only signs of life were an abandoned strip mall, and a vast, weed-covered parking lot sprawled out before a giant, dilapidated drive-in movie screen from a bygone era. All the roads leading away from the intersection lay vacant, and her heart sank at the spectacle of each one narrowing into nothingness as they receded into the distance.
Reluctantly, she made her way forward, approaching the open driver’s side window which was spilling out the bass of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”. A broad-shouldered man in a dark tank top was sitting there with his eyes closed, his head reposed placidly on the bucket seat’s headrest. He was mumbling a steady stream of profanity as if in a trance. An unused lap and shoulder belt hung idly by his side.
Monica checked out his smattering of freckles and curly strawberry-blond hair. A couple of facial scars and puffy under-eye bags undermined his youth. On his head was a black and gold Boston Bruins cap, knocked askew by the collision. He was covered with a mix of salt, sand, and grease, along with broken bits of glass. She backed away for a few moments, searching again in vain for another car or person, then returned her gaze inside the vehicle and mustered the gumption to speak up. “Hello?”
The driver’s eyes abruptly sprung open and he jerked upright. Turning his head left, his woozy brain was confronted by this stranger staring at him from just inches away. “You…you thtopped, all of a thudden,” he snarled, while inadvertently jettisoning two busted teeth at her.
Monica recoiled, but then leaned forward again. “Are you okay? We crashed.”
“No shit.” Grimacing, he tried to move his right leg which was contorted into a bizarre angle, while struggling to regain his wits and expel stray tooth fragments from his mouth.
“Let me get you something.”
Monica ran back to her car, grabbed a bottle of Poland Springs from the center console, and returned to the Jeep. “Here, take this.”
The driver snatched the container from her, took a swig, swished the water around in his mouth a few times, then spit it out onto the passenger floorboard, next to a rolled-up pair of rubber overalls and fishing equipment. Not in the mood for rock ‘n’ roll, he hammered the radio dial with his fist to silence it.
“You stopped all of a sudden,” he repeated firmly.
“Yeah? Well, you didn’t,” she protested. “Sorry, there was this ambulance coming right at me. Of all freaking things.”
He paused to consider that. “Brian Blake,” he said civilly, reaching across for her hand, and for the first time noticing the allure of her eyes.
“Monica Merrick,” she replied as they shook hands gently, lingering longer than would be considered customary.
“You hurt at all?” Brian asked.
“I don’t know...I might be.”
“Well, if you don’t know, then you’re probably okay.” Brian sucked in a deep breath and exhaled forcefully. “Anyhow, you look fine to me.” He positioned the shaky rearv
iew mirror so he could see his face. It was sullied by remnants of his commercial fishing job and the accident. He removed his cap and examined the swelling bump on his forehead, more out of curiosity than concern. Brian then started pawing at his cheeks to groom himself. But he was only making things look worse.
“And I look just fine too,” he pronounced sarcastically.
“Yeah, that goose egg on your head. The thing’s huge.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“But, I mean, that’s like the biggest goose egg I’ve ever seen in my entire life. It can’t be okay.”
“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
“I’m sorry. But it’s unbelievable. In fact it’s….it’s actually growing as I’m watching it right now. It’s funny how it really does look like an egg.”
“Yeah, it’s hysterical,” Brian deadpanned. “Can we get off the goose egg and talk about something else, please?” He tried to put his Bruins cap back on, but quickly realized it wouldn’t fit over the ballooning swell. He chucked it over his right shoulder into the back seat.
“I see that you weren’t using your seatbelt.”
“Who are you, my mother?” Brian retorted. “What a character. How ’bout we talk about getting some help here.”
“Yes, do you have a phone? We need to call 911.”
“Nah, I’m just a lil’ dinged up. Let’s get a tow tru—, owww!” Brian shouted as pain surged through his fractured leg.
Grimacing again, he pulled out his iPhone and handed it over to Monica, then gingerly slumped his aching head back onto the headrest in frustration. “Okay…call an ambulance...but tell ’em not to try to kill anyone this time.”
Monica fiddled with Brian’s phone for a moment, while he furtively stole a glance at her bare ring finger.
“Oh, do you want to enter in your password yourself?” she asked.
“It’s 1-2-3-4.”
“That’s your password?”
“Yeah.”
“No kidding? Your password is just 1-2-3-4?”
“Yes.”
