“Well, I know he worked for a time on some oilrigs,” continued Maya. “…but they had funny names that I can’t quite remember,” she said vaguely.
“Tlilatl?” said Will inquisitively.
“I don’t know but that’s sounds familiar,” confirmed Maya. “What’s bothering you?” She saw the look on Will’s face. “Will?”
“Do you have any pictures of him?” asked Will intrigued.
“I only ever carry one on me,” said Maya. She reached inside her shoulder bag and grabbed the picture. Will took it from her and was dumbfounded upon the realisation he’d seen it already.
As before, he didn’t know many of the people but he was certain of two, his mother Alannah and father, Cameron. They were standing with ‘Nate W! Nathan W!’ he thought inquisitively. “Nathan Walker?”
“That’s right, my father. Nathaniel Charles Walker or just plain old Nathan,” confirmed Maya. “How’d you guess that?”
Will realised he’d unintentionally said the name out loud. He reached into his pocket and pulled a photo from his wallet. It was an old black and white photo with the frayed edges. He handed it to Maya, “Uh, snap!”
“Oh my!” she said surprised. They compared inscriptions on the back, as Maya read hers out, “To our friend Nate W, love, A & C. GEC 1980.”
“Who’s A & C?” she asked.
“Alannah and Cameron Cox,” said Will straightaway. “…my parents!”
“Wow!” said Maya.
“Wow!” repeated Will, as he nodded his head.
The journey back to the Ram Inn was bizarrely quiet. Maya and Will didn’t know quite what to say to each other, so they sat in an uncomfortable silence. When they returned, they sat in the bar and decided they both needed a drink.
During their conversation, destiny and karma topped the list. They speculated how two random people could meet, not know anything about each other and yet, have so much in common. Although, Will generally kept his cards close to his chest, this new discovery freaked him out.
Maya and Will returned to their room and were horrified to find it ransacked. There were clothes strewn across the floor, cupboards and drawers were wide open. Will recognised this incident, which was the second in a short space of time, was definitely no coincidence.
The next day, Will remonstrated angrily with the Ram Inn staff but they remained the epitome of good customer care. Maya stepped in calmly, which pacified Will and she even negotiated a complimentary weekend stay along with a three-course lunch.
The tall, dark-haired man descended the stairway nonchalantly. He had a grace that betrayed a powerful physique beneath his tailored dark-grey Armani suit. As he passed Maya and Will by the restaurant, he looked at them furtively. He’d been watching the entire commotion from the bar. He left the hotel, headed towards the car park and got into his black SUV. A faint smile creased the corner of his mouth, as he drove off.
✽✽✽
Later that week, on one cold and dark night, the lights from the nuclear station were shimmering against the ripples of the sea, as always. Pulling up to the station, Will saw a man and woman, who seemed vaguely recognisable standing at the entrance. They were beckoning to him.
The man and woman didn’t speak, they only pointed towards an access door. Obediently, Will walked through and saw that there was people working. At a first, he identified them as engineers, scientists and other workers. When he looked again, they were all faceless but that didn’t faze Will.
He walked into a grander hall and stared in awe at the nuclear reactors. Will looked down at his right hand and saw that he had an electronic device with a timer. Thinking nothing of it, he turned, looked up behind him and saw the crowded walkway.
The man and woman from the entrance was standing next to his friends, Daley and Professor McDonald. Maya stood next to a man that Will presumed was Nathan Walker and even Billy-Jo Johnson was there, still eight years old. Will didn’t know the other men who were all smartly dressed in their crisp suits. There was a mutual recognition, they all smiled at Will and he smiled back.
Now, they’re all pointing past him. Will turned back to the reactors, walked towards them and hesitated. He stopped and looked back at the walkway. Everyone was now wearing distinctive black attire with the red insignia of the Prometheans on their chests. They were gesturing behind him, pointing at the nuclear reactors.
Like a puppet, Will walked over to the reactors and attached the device magnetically to the side of one. Seconds later, sparks fizzed and crackled as the device caused the reactor walls to explode. Will turned to the crowd behind him, they smiled and applauded but he couldn’t anything.
He stared at them with his arms opened widely and accepted his fate. The fireball belched angrily outwards and engulfed Will. Superheated radiation devoured the eastern coastline, as flesh burned and buildings crumbled into nothing. Trees, plants and everything that was once green became scorched and cindered.
Will sat up and held his sweaty face in his hands, shocked. He was beginning to understand that something disastrous was looming. He suspected that the Promethean organisation were the main instigators but was certain he had a part to play.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A Fool’s Errand
The next day at the Chronicle, Daley was holding his regular staff briefing where he’d meet with his reporters and get an updated their progress. During this meeting, Will was quiet and pensive, absently taking in the glass walls of the conference room. Occasionally, he’d nod at something to give the impression that he’d been listening but in truth, his attention was far away.
Daley saw that Will was preoccupied but refrained from pointing that out in front of everyone. Will couldn’t stop himself from replaying everything he’d discovered or experienced in the past weeks. In his mind, he juggled the pictures from the Chronicles archives and the links to Promethean organisation. Next, he thought about the assassin at his apartment and wondered who might’ve sent him. Then he tried to recall every aspect of his mysterious saviour but had very little to go on. Apart from the Promethean clothing they wore.
After a short time, Will looked sheepishly around the table and saw everyone had left the conference room. Except for Daley who’d been watching Will the entire time. He was concerned Will had taken on too much and perhaps wasn’t ready for the big assignment.
“You seem distracted,” noted Daley. “…Everything okay?”
“Sorry boss, I was thinking about a girl?” lied Will, with a grain of truth.
“A girl, huh!” said Daley dubiously. “She must be something?” he added.
“She’s a keeper,” insisted Will.
“A keeper huh?” wondered Daley, as he scratched his cheek. He looked at Will and took a measured breath before he spoke, “Look, I know your plate’s full, so if it’s too much...” he offered.
“It’s fine, I can handle it,” said Will, cutting Daley off. “You were talking about some problem with a big energy provider,” he added, as Daley looked on. “Sorry boss, I should’ve been paying more attention,” admitted Will, as he emptied the coffee maker into two mugs.
Daley recapped parts of his earlier brief for Will. Specifically, how the Office for Nuclear Regulation had ordered UK GAS to shut down two nuclear facilities because of safety concerns. Two plants in Lancashire were found to have unexpected cracks in their boiler units.
Daley and Will questioned the wisdom of the UKG and wondered why they hadn’t acted sooner. Although, Daley’s next words that sent a chill through Will, “It’s a good thing someone at the ONR knew what they were doing,” he said disparagingly. “The last thing we need is another Fyodorgrad here in Britain.”
Daley’s words echoed through Will, as he thought about the worst-case scenario, ‘What if Britain was in danger of becoming the next Fyodorgrad?’ Then he thought about his dreams, “That would be catastrophic,” said Will worryingly.
As he ushered Will out of the conference room, Daley reminded him that the UKG’
s shortcomings dovetailed neatly into both his assignment and college work. Will walked out with even more information swirling around his mind.
“Don’t worry, boss, I mean Daley,” he smiled reassuringly. “I’m, all over it.”
“Great!” said Daley happily. “It’d be nice to have that story ready for print before one of our competitors beat us to the headline,” he added cynically.
Will sat in his car with the key in the ignition. Before he could start the car, he sat back and thought about everything he knew again. Several things that seemed unconnected began to merge into a bigger thing. As he drove away from the Chronicle, there was one inescapable fact that he couldn’t avoid, everything revolved around him somehow.
When he returned to his apartment, Will realised that he couldn’t do it alone. He decided to bring in someone he trusted implicitly. While he waited for his computer to switch on, the flashing red light on his mobile phone alerted him to unanswered messages.
The computer was still whining itself on, so Will decided to listen to his messages. The first few were missed calls from Maya, prior to their break at Firle and two from his friends. He deleted those instantly after listening to them. After that, there were two messages from Adam and one from the professor, which he ignored.
The next two messages were from the professor, which sounded more serious. Will listened to them carefully, ‘Message received Thursday, 7.45pm… Sorry William, it’s uh, Etienne McDonald again. I realise it’s late but um, we really need to talk. Please call me as soon as possible. I’ll be at the RC until 9pm.’
The tone in the professor’s voice disturbed Will, as he listened to his next message, ‘Message received, Saturday 10.15am… It’s extremely important that you call me William. Where are you? I do hope that you’re okay.’
Will had never heard fear in the Professor’s voice before. Furthermore, he’d never heard the professor refer to himself as Etienne, not to him anyway. Will wondered what would make the professor sound so scared. He made a mental note to call him back as soon as he finished.
There were two final messages that Will nearly deleted without even listening to them. The penultimate one caught him off guard as he listened, ‘Last message, received Sunday 11.20pm… The picture William Cox is, the picture’s the key. That’s where you’ll find your answers.’ The muffled voice of the unidentified caller only enhanced Will’s curiosity and made his next decision simple. He pressed the third button on the keypad, ‘Message saved!’
The final message filled Will with a stronger sense of dread than the others. A knot tightened in the pit of his stomach, as he listened, ‘Message received, today at 7.03pm… William, I’m so sorry, I should have told you before… it’s too late now! I knew your parents!’ The signal was poor, which made the message sound bitty. ‘We were all… shared a goal… a Prometh’, Promethean Creed. No, wait!’
Will furiously tapped the keypad on his phone and tried to call the Professor repeatedly. Time-after-time the dialling tone purred and nothing, then he recalled the last message, where the professor said he’d be two hours ago. Will decided to go the one place where he knew he’d find the Professor.
He snatched his keys off the table and headed straight for the RC. Taking the shortest route, Will drove as fast as the speed limit allowed and soon arrived at his destination. He rushed across the campus.
Although it was late in the evening, there were a few lights scattered around the different faculties. Will headed straight for the Faculty of Media and Literature, where he expected to find the Professor.
As he approached the professor’s office, Will started to feel increasingly daunted by the tension. Every step that he took echoed hauntingly down the empty hallway of Adie House. Will stopped outside the Professor’s office and could see the dim lights protruding from underneath the door.
With a heightened the sense of apprehension, he stiffened his jaw and steeled himself, as he stood outside. The Professor’s door was ajar and cautiously, Will pushed it open a little further. The antique door groaned and creaked at the hinges, which did nothing to ease his increasing angst.
“Professor?” shouted Will into the deathly silence. He crouched down guardedly and waited, just as he’d seen the cops do in the movies. The only sounds that could heard was the acids churning fiercely inside Will’s stomach. Remaining stationary, he became aware of the mechanical whirring of the fan and a low humming coming from the professor’s desktop computer. He called out a second time, “Professor, Professor McDonald?” said Will more softly.
Again, there was an uncomfortable silence. Will’s nose twitched reflexively, as he detected several distinct smells lingering in the air. The first was the unmistakeable smell of alcohol, the second was smoke from gunfire and the third, was iron from stale blood.
Will stood up cautiously and pushed the door open slowly. He rubbernecked very around the doorframe very slowly. When he thought it was safe, he stepped into the office as though he was walking a tightrope.
Suddenly, he stopped when he got to the Professor’s solid oak desk. On it, there was a whiskey glass lying on its side and dark brown liquid strewn across students’ paperwork. A half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels stood on top of some more papers that were now soaked in alcohol.
The Professor’s large leather swivel chair was facing away towards the large Georgian-style windows behind him. Ominously, Will walked over to the chair and spun it around. He started to heave and take large gulps of air.
Will could see that the Professor’s body slumped in his chair lifeless with his head flopped to one side. Horrified, he looked away but couldn’t stop himself as he vomited. After a while, he composed himself and examined the scene with forensics expertise.
In the professor’s dangling right hand was a small firearm. Faint traces of smoke was still seeping from the barrel. In his left, there were some seven-by-five inch photos and a brown A4 envelope. Will looked at the side of the Professor’s head and cringed when he saw the unpleasantness of the gaping exit wound.
The sight of the bloody spray on the wall sickened Will. He took the Professor’s jacket off the back of the door and covered him respectfully. Then all his courage left him, as he slumped to the floor silently and placed his head in hands.
Time seemed to drag slowly but in reality, only fifteen minutes had passed since Will had called the emergency services. He was becoming increasingly irate by their slow arrival. Trying to look anywhere except the Professor’s body, Will spotted a mini camera nestled subtly among piles of folders on a shelf.
He wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before, Will assumed there were more but didn’t look for them. Surprised and disturbed in equal measure, Will looked at the bookshelf and saw that nothing was amiss, except for the filing cabinet that was slightly open.
Curiosity made him look at the Professor’s hands again, more specifically, the pictures he was holding. Will got to his feet and prised the photos carefully from the Professor’s cold, pallid hands and stared at them.
In the first photo, the Professor was standing next to some men in suits. Two were Japanese and looked like engineers and the other two were European, and they were all wearing suits. The second photo intrigued Will even more. There were some people standing in front of a metal fencing with buildings in the background. Will found the plaque on the fence in the foreground interesting, it had Satoshima-1 Power Plant etched onto it.
Will made a mental note and returned the photos to their original place. He then turned to the unclosed filing cabinet. The sounds of sirens wailed in the distance, signalling the impending arrival of the emergency services, “About bloody time,” he cursed.
He quickly opened the cabinet drawers, rifling swiftly through the separations. There was one section out of place, Will grabbed it and glanced through the contents. As the Police and ambulance sirens approached the RC, a discordance of sounds loudly filled the air.
Will realised that he had very little time, as multiple footst
eps raced up the stairs and through the hallway. He heard voices barking instructions and the sounds of mechanical working parts grinded forwards and back. “Shit!” he said in a whisper.
He wasn’t sure what he was looking for but became frustrated regardless. Beads of sweat trickled down his forehead, as his fingers shuffled faster. Will heard the sounds of footsteps getting nearer. Then he saw it, another picture of the Professor but this time with two men and a young girl.
At first, Will was unsure of the location. However, when he looked closer, he saw the ocean in the background and realised the people appeared high up, as if standing on a platform. Will turned the picture over and saw the inscription, which read Mexico 2000. ‘Hmm, could be Tlilatl?’ he thought.
Suddenly, a clamour of boots stomping and clanking metal metres away from the door made Will’s heart skipped a beat. He quickly and quietly closed the filing cabinet, slipping the photo inside of one of the Professor’s journalism books. Ironically, it was a Journalism research book, called ‘Investigating Untold Truths.’
The door exploded, ‘Armed police… Don’t move! Do not move… Down, get down! Hands behind your back son,’ they shouted over each other. Given his predicament, Will sensibly followed their instructions. The thought of being found in a room with a dead body wasn’t exactly a good look.
Will stood face-first against the wall with his hands cuffed behind his back. He was already considering the extent of the Professor’s relationship to the people in the photo. One of the men, he’d come to know as Nathan Walker and the young girl he presumed was Maya. The other man, he didn’t recognise.
Some of the pieces that Will struggled to piece together earlier were slotting into place, and a clearer picture was started to form. The scope of these connections would become more apparent to Will in the coming days, as they intertwined with a complexity that he couldn’t anticipate.
Promethean Shadows Page 5
