EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum

by Shane Stadler

  7

  Wednesday, 10 June (4:55 a.m. EST – Mar del Plata, Argentina)

  Jonathan struggled to keep his eyes open by the time they’d reached the Argentine naval base at Mar del Plata. By her silence, he could tell Denise was also exhausted. And they were both freezing.

  He rubbed his runny nose with the back of his cold hand as they sat on an iron bench inside an open Quonset hut, awaiting the next leg of the trip. Two CIA operatives paced at the wide opening that faced the sea. After an hour of half-frozen, intermittent sleep, the chopping sound of a helicopter rose above the sounds of the waves that lapped against the rocky shore. Jonathan strained his eyes to locate its red and white blinking lights in the sharp background of stars.

  Just as the helicopter made its final approach, its engines whined and it flared back into the air. The two CIA officers screamed in Jonathan’s direction as they scrambled for cover. Jonathan looked into the rear of the Quonset hut and spotted an open door and two shadowy figures. There were two men, one crouching behind an old boat and the other behind a stack of wooden crates.

  The first shot struck the thick metal arm of the bench. Denise yelped and bent over, falling onto the gravel floor. Jonathan fell on top of her as dark blood mushroomed rapidly around the frayed tear in her jeans.

  After that, everything seemed to move in slow motion as the two CIA operatives charged in the direction of the shooters. Jonathan rolled Denise onto her back and placed her hand on the wound on her thigh.

  “Press hard,” he yelled.

  Keeping crouched as low as he could, he dragged her by her feet behind an old tractor. He then fumbled under his coat only to realize he didn’t have his gun – couldn’t get it on the international flight. More shots rang out, some hitting the tractor frame, scattering lead and paint in random directions.

  The CIA men maneuvered around old marine equipment and returned fire. One of them took a bullet to the shoulder, and settled on his rear behind a pile of bricks. The other rushed to him, but sprinted away a few seconds later as the wounded man covered his advance. Ten seconds later a flurry of shots ended the conflict: both attackers were dead.

  The two CIA officers yelled back and forth a few times, and the wounded man radioed the chopper. Jonathan turned his attention to Denise, whose face was pale, and her pant leg soaked with blood. He pressed his hand over hers to put more pressure on the wound. She grunted in pain.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Jonathan said.

  “Those bastards shot me!” she yelled with a look of rage in her face he’d never witnessed before. She tried to stand.

  “Stop,” Jonathan said. “You need a medic.”

  She relaxed and started to go unconscious. He grabbed her face and shook gently. “Stay awake,” he said. He didn’t want her to go into shock.

  He examined the wound but couldn’t assess the damage.

  Ten minutes later they were on board the chopper and heading out to sea.

  The wounded man looked to be okay. The other operative looked more closely at Denise’s thigh. “She’ll be okay, but you’re lucky we’re just minutes away,” he said.

  “You guys did well back there, thank you,” Jonathan said. “Who were they?”

  “Chinese operatives,” the man replied. “No identification on them, but we were warned about Chinese interference. They looked the part.”

  “They’re dead?” Jonathan asked.

  The man nodded. “Would’ve been better to bring one back alive, but that’s not the way it worked out.”

  Jonathan nodded and looked forward, past the pilots and through the front windshield. They were approaching the USS Stennis.

  8

  (Unknown time)

  Will awoke but remained still until he figured out where he was. Light filtered in through the dirty gray tarp that covered his face and body. The air smelled like paint, and the pungent taste of puke coated his mouth. He must have passed out, or fallen asleep. The extreme separation had drained him. The last thing he remembered was rinsing his mouth out with horrible-tasting water from the sink in the utility room, and then covering himself with the tarp. He was still in the utility room. He was lucky they hadn’t found him.

  His stomach grumbled and he felt weak, like he had a hangover. He needed to find food.

  9

  Wednesday, 10 June (5:10 a.m. EST – Weddell Sea)

  The helicopter landed gently on the Stennis. Jonathan tried to follow the medical crew who whisked Denise and the wounded CIA operative away, but a sailor stopped him – he’d only get in the way.

  Four heavily dressed men guided him and the other CIA officer along a green line painted on the deck, leading them away from the landing pad and into the interior of the ship.

  He was then handed off to two sailors wearing khaki jumpsuits and blue baseball caps who led him to a room where he met the ship’s captain, and two others that he already knew. Daniel and Sylvia looked distraught.

  Daniel shook his head. “Sorry, we had no idea –”

  “– we were aware of the risks,” Jonathan cut in.

  “I was hoping to have Will Thompson here as well,” Daniel said, and then sat down and gestured for Jonathan to do the same.

  “Why the frantic scramble?” Jonathan asked.

  Daniel pulled a laptop from a leather knapsack at his feet. “We’re close to the beacon,” he explained as he turned the screen towards Jonathan. “It looks like this.”

  It looked as he imagined it from Daniel’s description during their meet in Chicago, except the bulbous top portion seemed small compared to its long, tapered stem. It was like a stretched chess piece – a pawn with and undersized head. “Fascinating,” Jonathan said. “Have you determined its purpose?”

  “Only guesses,” Daniel said. “We’ll learn more when we get inside it.”

  “Inside?” Jonathan asked. “Did you find a hatch?”

  “No, and it’s physically impenetrable,” Daniel replied. “That’s why we need Thompson.”

  Jonathan gasped. He knew immediately what Daniel was thinking.

  “What?” Daniel asked.

  “You believe that he can separate,” Jonathan said.

  Daniel stared at him intently. “Can he?”

  Jonathan didn’t know the answer to the question. He had a vague idea what separation meant, but hadn’t considered that it was really possible.

  “You ever ask him about it?” Sylvia asked.

  “No, not directly,” Jonathan replied. “I’ve read reports from the Red Box that described some strange things, but they could all be explained by, well … other means. We’d assumed he might have been having hallucinations at the time and – ”

  “Have you seen the videos from the Red Box?” Daniel asked.

  “They disappeared before we could obtain them,” Jonathan answered.

  Daniel nodded. “Well, we have,” he said. His face reddened and his voice gained volume. “In one, a woman – a dentist – got thrown to the floor by some invisible force. In another, Thompson read numbers out of his field of view. I saw him, while confined to the Exoskeleton, incinerate thousands of hornets in midflight – brilliant flashes of white light. The final events, and the explosion that ended it all, were nothing short of terrifying.”

  Jonathan sat back in his chair, looking at Daniel and thinking. Having been focused on the legal issues and the investigative aspects of the case, he’d pushed all of the crazy stuff into the background. And Will hadn’t offered any information on his own.

  “We need to get him back,” Daniel said, “and make sure the Chinese don’t to use him to get inside the beacon.”

  “How will they do that?” Jonathan asked.

  “A submarine – to get him close,” Daniel replied. “But that will be difficult with our ships in the area.”

  “But suppose they do get access,” Jonathan said, “and Will separates and gets inside. Do you even have a guess as to what’s there?”

  “No,” Daniel repl
ied. “But we might find answers in the information we took from the base.”

  “Base?” Jonathan asked. What the hell was he talking about?

  Daniel nodded. “Remember I told you that one of our subs found a cavern?”

  “Yes.”

  Sylvia smiled. “There’s a lot we need to tell you.”

  Jonathan’s fascination was quelled by another invading thought. Denise was like a daughter to him. He stood. “Please take me to sick bay. I need to see her.”

  10

  Wednesday, 10 June (7:35 a.m. EST)

  Jonathan woke up slouched in a chair in the sickbay waiting room. He must’ve dozed off while they worked on Denise. He stood from his chair and looked through the small window in the surgery room door. They were gone.

  He walked out of the waiting room and found a nurse who directed him to the recovery room. When he arrived, Denise was already dressed and sitting in a wheelchair next to a cot. She wore loose shorts over her bandaged right leg.

  “What are you doing?” Jonathan asked. “Aren’t you supposed to – ”

  “I’m not sitting in here all day,” she said. “I’m fine. Just not supposed to walk on it for a day.”

  A doctor walked in and Jonathan turned to her. “Is that true?” he asked.

  She nodded and smiled. “She was lucky. She was hit with two small fragments. Caused some tissue damage and a lot of bleeding, but it missed the large vessels. If she can handle the pain, she can walk on it tomorrow.”

  “See?” Denise said, smiling. “You worry too much.”

  “How’s the other fellow?” Jonathan asked, referring to the CIA officer that was hit in the shoulder.

  The doctor smiled. “He’ll be back on the job in a few weeks,” she said and nodded towards Denise. “I’ll see her tomorrow morning. If all’s okay, she’ll be cleared to walk.”

  Jonathan shrugged. “Breakfast?”

  Denise nodded.

  He rolled her out of the sickbay towards the mess hall. “So what’s it like being shot?” he asked.

  “I’ll tell you tomorrow when the pain sets in,” she said. “Have you ever been?”

  “Yes,” Jonathan replied.

  Just as he was about to elaborate, Daniel and Sylvia turned the corner and joined them on their way to the mess hall.

  They ate as Daniel and Sylvia got them up to speed on the beacon and the Nazi base. An hour flew by in what seemed like minutes.

  Afterwards, Jonathan pushed Denise behind the others as they made their way to meet with Captain Grimes. They met in a large ready room with a rectangular table at the center.

  Grimes described the recent events on the Chinese carrier.

  “Crashed into the ocean immediately after takeoff,” Jonathan repeated the captain’s words, astonished.

  “That happened yesterday and they haven’t attempted another launch,” Grimes added. “Seems like they haven’t ironed out all of the problems with their carriers.”

  Jonathan looked to Denise on his right, and then to Daniel and Sylvia across the table. He wondered if they were thinking the same as he was: there was more to the pilot’s demise than an equipment malfunction. What was he thinking – Will had a hand in it? It was preposterous.

  The captain told them that he’d keep them apprised of any new developments, and walked out. Jonathan and Denise were now up to speed regarding the beacon and the Nazi base.

  “They were trying to reincarnate Hitler?” Jonathan asked, trying to keep his skepticism at bay.

  “That’s what Mengele wrote in his notes,” Daniel said as he fidgeted with his hands on the table. “The idea was that, if Hitler’s soul traveled with his ashes, and they could get a soul to leave a body that was still alive, then Hitler could occupy the body – like a possession. But that’s just a side story. The beacon is the more urgent matter.”

  “We need to decipher the inner two rings,” Sylvia added, and then shook her head and sighed. “Even if we had a team of experts, it could take months.”

  “We need to recover Will, and get him down there,” Jonathan suggested. “He’ll have to get inside before we’ve figured it all out.”

  “The Chinese would kill Thompson rather than allow us to acquire him,” Daniel argued.

  “Then we’re stuck,” Denise said.

  Jonathan flinched as the first officer of the Stennis burst into the room.

  “The captain wants you to come with me,” he said.

  “What’s going on?” Daniel asked.

  “The Chinese carrier is on fire,” the officer replied.

  “Did we attack?” Denise asked.

  The young office shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Jonathan then wondered if the ship was being attacked from the inside.

  11

  Wednesday, 10 June (8:58 a.m. EST)

  Setting the lower deck ablaze had been easier than Will had anticipated. He’d separated and ripped a hole in a fuel tank of one of the jets, spilling its contents to the floor. He’d done the same to a portable fueling vehicle, and then ignited it all with an arc-welder. Jet fuel wasn’t as easy to ignite as gasoline, but once it got going, it spread like wildfire and was difficult to extinguish. He figured at least four planes had been destroyed. His estimate increased after secondary explosions rocked the ship.

  Next, he located the piston that drove the aircraft launching mechanism and punctured it, releasing a burst of high-pressure steam that could cut through flesh. Jets could no longer be launched.

  He then ripped out the hydraulic hoses that actuated the lift that raised planes from the lower bay to the deck. With hydraulic fluid spraying like blood from a severed aorta, he crushed the central hydraulic cylinder, rendering the entire system nonfunctional. Now the planes couldn’t even get to the upper deck. The Chinese carrier was now just a useless platform.

  He returned to his body and nearly vomited. His body sickened again from the extended separation, but he recovered more quickly this time. He was feeling better since he’d found food – canned goods – after moving from the utility closet to a storage room a few doors down. Although he’d been unable to read the cans, most had contained seafood of some kind. He’d also choked down a can of slime that he guessed was pureed sea cucumbers.

  He was satisfied with the damage he’d caused to the carrier’s launch capabilities, but he wasn’t finished. His next objective was to render the carrier dead in the water – he’d destroy the propulsion system.

  He was in the upper-middle part of the ship, just below the launch deck. The propulsion system would be aft and below him. It was too far for him to separate, so he’d have to move his body closer. He could tell by the noise that there was a lot of action outside – they’d be looking for a saboteur. If they were looking for a plain-clothed Caucasian, he’d be identified immediately. He had to find a way to blend in.

  He separated and searched the adjacent rooms. Two doors down, he found a rack of overalls – the type mechanics wear. He unlocked the door of the room from the inside, and returned to his body. He exited the supply room, walked along the wall and into the room he’d just unlocked, and closed the door. The light was already on.

  He sorted through the rack of dark blue overalls. He found one that was too large, but the remaining six or seven were too small. He slipped it on over his clothes and buttoned it. He rolled up the sleeves and cuffed the legs. It had Chinese characters embroidered on the left side of the chest. In a locker on the far wall was a box of baseball-style hats with flexible bands. He found the largest one and put it on, pulling the bill down low over his eyes. It was a good fit.

  He walked out of the room into the bay where sailors rushed about with tools and fire extinguishers, responding to officers barking orders through bullhorns. Although he understood nothing of what they said, there was panic in their faces and urgency in their actions. He tried to put himself in their place: one of their fighters had recently plunged into the sea, and their capacity to launch the others ha
d been eliminated. Worse, fires had spontaneously broken out on the lower deck. He wondered how they’d feel when their ship was dead in the water.

  He weaved his way through foot traffic across the bay to the same staircase he’d climbed earlier. He descended two levels, turned left, and followed a corridor towards the rear of the ship. As the pungent odor of diesel fuel filled his nostrils, it became clear to him that the carrier did not have a nuclear reactor. When the smell was strong, he entered a room at random, and was relieved to find it vacant.

  A set of three-level bunks hung from the walls on both sides of the quarters. He climbed into the upper bunk of the one on the right, lay on his back, and pulled a wool blanket over his head. After one breath he yanked the blanket back – the body odor that saturated the bedding was overwhelming. Instead, he turned on his side and faced the wall in case someone came in the room.

  He knew what he was going to do, but didn’t have a plan for what to do afterwards. Eventually, he’d have to get off the ship – not an easy thing to do in the freezing seas at the bottom of the world. Once the carrier was rendered helpless, maybe Cho would hand him over to the U.S. fleet. If not, maybe he’d eliminate Cho. Maybe he’d eliminate Cho either way.

  He separated, passed through the door and into the corridor, and proceeded towards the back of the ship. After passing through a few rooms, he found what he sought: giant diesel engines, two rows of three separated by a corrugated-steel walkway. A half-dozen men monitored a wall of gauges and displays, while a team of three worked on one of the six engines. Engine parts were laid out in an orderly fashion on a tarp next to the men.

  Will passed through the housing of the first engine and examined its innards. It was running, its 16 pistons pounding at a blurring pace. The question was whether he should make subtle damages to the engines, or tear them to pieces. He decided on the latter.

  He reached towards one of the pistons and noticed something peculiar. As he concentrated on the moving pistons, they seemed to slow down. As he got closer, the pistons slowed to a standstill. He grabbed one and ripped it through the cylinder. He backed out to observe the consequences of his modification.