by Rob Horner
Shaking his head, Lieutenant Barnes moved back to the chair. He had to explain, to apologize. Maybe he could make the director believe that it was all their fault, these perfect Wonder Twins. He would never have destroyed so much agency property if he’d been in control of himself.
“So, I take it you remember meeting Robert and Jillian Douglas.”
The lieutenant’s head snapped up. He remembered those names!
The director’s smile widened. “Yes, I thought as much. And you’re right, of course you are. These are two of the project’s successes. And, I believe you’ve already had the pleasure of meeting two others, Travis and Sherry.”
The Lieutenant couldn’t believe it. These two were…so maybe it wasn’t such a crazy idea that they’d made him do something.
“Oh, do stop shaking and listen. Yes, they made you do something you didn’t intend to do. That’s Robert’s ability. They also watched you the entire time, which is Jillian’s power, so I’m aware you put Agent Travers to rest. He was most of the way there before you stepped in, but you put the nail in his coffin. Don’t worry, Mr. Habet also acted on my orders. You see, when Jillian and Robert can’t connect with a target physically, they can still dominate over distance as through a phone line. I’ve been told the experience is…detrimental to the long-term mental health of the recipient. Much better when they can touch and no chance of side effects.”
Lieutenant Barnes looked up and locked eyes with the director, who could captivate a television audience or a Senate conference, and somehow never feel the taint of any of the actions of his agents or his agency.
“But believe me when I say it was a necessity. They had to program you at the airport. You see, the one thing all the Heritage survivors have in common is the ability to communicate telepathically with their Pair-Bond and to read the thoughts of others. Had you gone to meet with Travis and Sherry without Robert’s interference, you’d have been discovered. I don’t know if Travis or Sherry could kill in cold blood, but I doubt Travis’s father would have hesitated.
“So, you see, what you did, you did because I wanted it done. Captain Ortega tapped you for the assignment on my orders. Agent Travers has been a loose cannon since the first wave of subjects survived the experiment and he needed to be stopped.”
“But what about the facility, about the project?” Lieutenant Barnes asked.
Instead of answering, the director rose from his seat. He wasn’t a particularly tall man, but his back was straight, his stride was firm, and his every movement an economy of motion. He was always a man in control. His voice modulated through various inflections but never wavered in volume. He could exude sympathy or empathy or wield sarcasm as cutting as a knife. Now this master manipulator walked around his desk and assumed a perch on the corner in front of the American flag, his focus still on the seated lieutenant.
“For too long there has been a problem with the organization of this project. We recruited military men and women but placed an intelligence agent in charge of their surveillance and supervision. I tried, with Captain Ortega, to begin relinquishing the role of primary contact. I thought that handling military subjects should best be left to those who understood them. Sadly, I couldn’t change his mind. He was appalled at what we’d done and determined to shut it down.
“So, I needed someone else, someone who could see the bigger picture, once he’d been given a little information. What you have there in that folder is just a small piece; it doesn’t detail anything beyond the experiments themselves. Imagine the possibilities, Lieutenant. Robert and Jillian can go anywhere and, with a touch, make anyone do almost anything they want. You were there when Travis and Sherry destroyed a building by themselves. How’d they do it, by the way?”
“I…um…there was something about overdriving electrical circuits, overloading power supplies…I’m not sure.”
“Ah, that would be Travis then, no doubt.”
“I…are the men always the powerful ones?”
“Oh, not at all. There’s a pretty little redhead corpsman who is a literal firecracker when you piss her off, not that she knows it yet. No, I’m assuming this because Agent Travers reported he’d shot Travis, yet you saw him unhurt. Simple deduction says healing would be Sherry’s special ability. She’s not the only one. Healing is one of the more common abilities these subjects have gained.”
“Sir, you keep saying subjects…how many—”
“How many are out there? We created two hundred and twelve; that’s how many discrete alien samples remained after several decades of NASA scientists tampering with things they didn’t understand. I believe you have that information in your portfolio. The first twenty or so were abject failures, monstrous mutations, psychosis, ugh.” He shivered with disgust, and Lieutenant Barnes was hard-pressed to tell if it was real or just another act. “Some never manifested any abilities at all, even when brought into direct contact with their Pair-Bond. Later testing showed their bodies had rid themselves of the alien DNA. We haven’t yet determined why, but we’re investigating the phenomenon.”
The way he said that gave Robert the chills. He was certain those men and women were not living free but were instead trapped in a military hospital being poked, prodded, and tested daily.
“A few others were completely subverted by the procedure, manifesting similar deformities as those in the beginning, though happening at a much slower rate. Those poor souls have been isolated and are undergoing testing. All told, only fifty-one subjects have survived and are currently serving in various locations within the Fleet. Of those fifty-one, thirty-two are viable Pair-Bonds.”
“Like Travis and Sherry?” Barnes asked.
“Yes, and like Robert and Jillian here. You see, this other race existed in a binary status, one yin for each yang. I’m not sure if it’s correct to say one man for one woman, because we aren’t certain they had genders like us. Regardless, since we are also a binary society, it makes sense that it would take a complete pairing for anything to happen. When one half doesn’t survive, it doesn’t matter if the other half does. The survivor is functionally inert and will not manifest any abilities. They remain more intelligent, stronger, and healthier. Their bodies will eventually overcome genetic short-comings and will seem…prettier…like these two.”
“But right now, they’re wasted. They’re a weapon with no trigger, a warhead with no payload.”
“That was the plan all along?” Barnes asked.
“Of course, it was. We’ve got Koreans making nuclear weapons, Muslims waging religious jihad on everyone who doesn’t agree with them, Russians again taking a direct interest in the world, undermining governments, using the tried and true Weather Underground doctrine of toppling democracies from within. We needed something wholly American, something we can use to turn our enemies against each other, or against themselves. And if that fails, people who can blow shit up without getting caught smuggling explosives through an airport.”
“We needed this project. And it worked! We made some mistakes. We failed to look at these subjects from a human perspective. We didn’t acknowledge the sense of sacrifice that would drive a man or woman to enlist in the military. But we can fix that now.” He held out his hand to Robert Barnes. “That is, if you agree to be our new military man at the top, Lieutenant Commander Barnes.”
A…promotion…for taking over a project he wanted to control in the first place. The lieutenant commander’s smile gave the Director all the answer he needed.
“Good man, Barnes. I knew you were the right one for this.” He clapped his hands together, stood up from his perch on the side of his desk, and returned to his seat. The director opened a small manila folder, perused its contents, then passed it across the desk.
“Inside you’ll find everything you need to get started: orders for you to relocate from Oceana to the Pentagon, your new office passcode, your ID badge, log-ins and passwords for your computer, what programs to open and how to authenticate yourself with them, the wo
rks.”
Barnes accepted the folder, his mind full of fog. Everything was happening so fast. Relocated to the Pentagon? Given control over…
“What, exactly, am I supposed to do, sir?”
“You’re supposed to be my go-between, Mr. Barnes. Get to know the personnel who have direct supervisory capacity over our subjects in the Fleet. Go meet the guys and gals. Get to know them. Or get their supervisors to do it. You can talk to them and maybe get them to talk to you. We’ve had enough accidents and lost enough subjects to things they don’t understand. We need to establish a solid mechanism for identifying those who are coming into their power and develop a program to train them for more advanced work within the agency. They’re all patriots. They all volunteered to serve. Let’s make them something they can be proud of.”
It seemed a tall order, but Barnes could already see pathways in his mind, ways he might attack the problem. It was one of communication and logistics, something he’d been trained to handle.
“Oh, and Commander, there are two other things.”
Barnes looked up from the folder.
“First of all, before you contact any subject, you come see Robert and Jillian. They can protect you, so your mind doesn’t give you away.”
Barnes swallowed. The idea of putting himself in their power again was not a savory one.
“Secondly, there’s a potential situation brewing with the final three subjects.”
“I remember something strange about them,” Barnes said. “Something with the experiment numbers?”
“Yes, two of them are a natural Pair-Bond, but the third is…well…apparently it could bond with either of the primaries. I don’t know what that means, if it means anything. It scared the crap out of our scientists once they realized it and it scares the hell out of me now.”
“Do you want me bring them in?” Barnes asked.
“Hell no! I want you to facilitate the interaction of these three in a real-world scenario. I just don’t want it to get back to us.”
“I…okay, sir. When will it happen?”
“Sometime after June of next year. I can’t be more specific than that.”
Lieutenant Commander Barnes scratched his head, thinking. June of next year. There weren’t many things in the Navy planned that far ahead.
Thinking out loud, he said, “The U.S.S. Lincoln just completed sea trials last month, which should put it in the ten-month window for a deployment, assuming it passes flight-deck qualifications.” Looking up, he added, “They may not all be on the ship now, but if the carrier deploys in June or July, they will pick up squadrons and ancillary personnel after they leave port.”
“I knew I was right to pick you,” the director said with a smile, but Barnes wasn’t listening.
“You want to let it happen, but it could be dangerous. You need me to control it or contain it, and, at best, bring more people into the agency.”
The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency smiled at his two loyal helpers, Robert and Jillian, as Barnes worked through the logistics of the problem he’d been given. The director already knew the only possible solution, but he needed Barnes to arrive at the conclusion on his own.
“You’ll need someone there, on the ship, someone who belongs, someone, no, some ones, who understand what’s happening.
“Oh my God!” Barnes exclaimed.
“You need Travis and Sherry!”
To Be Continued…
Acknowledgements
As we’re all aware, it takes a lot of work to bring a story like this to life. Writing the story is the easy part. In the case of Project: Heritage, the book was initially written during the summer and fall of 1997, while I and 4,500 other salty sailors manned the USS Constellation (CV-64), on a Western Pacific deployment. The book was written at a rate of a couple of chapters a week, drawn from my own knowledge and inference.
My first reader, as trapped by the circumstance of our deployment as he was obligated by his best friend status, was Eliseo Hinojos. His encouragement prompted me to keep the files and now, twenty-two years later, I am proud to present this story.
It’s been updated extensively, both by my greater experience as a writer as well as in facts pertaining to current technology. The great and powerful Google and Wikipedia provide a wealth of information to make sure the science behind my fiction is as accurate as I can make it.
It should go without saying that the only time real people and places are mentioned is in reference to historical events, readily accessible through any search engine.
Everything else is purely the product of my own imagination. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No federal agents were harmed in the creation of this work.
Don’t miss Rob Horner’s first exciting novel, Brightness: a supernatural thriller.
A desperate father is terrified when his oldest daughter begins seeing things no one else can see. As the hallucinations take on more clarity, he discovers there are greater forces in the world than modern science can explain. With his family in danger, Michael Richards must accept the destiny chosen for his children, and protect them at all costs from dark forces intent upon destroying them.
Available now on Kindle and in paperback on Amazon.com.
A New Science Fiction series from the best-selling author of Night Zero.
A day at the carnival turns to a war for the planet as John Wilson stumbles into what he believes is a demonic summoning. At the same time, a multitude of white lights strike the Earth, granting supernatural abilities to hundreds of people.
Armed with an amazing power to project force and allied with a telekinetic and a girl who can literally see who is gifted and who is a monster, John and his friends decide to strike back at the hordes invading their world.
This new science fiction series is available now on Kindle and in paperback on Amazon.com.
Surrogacy, Book 2 of The Chosen Cycle, will release in October 2019.
Scientists have developed a way to vaccinate entire cities without consent or the possibility of refusal. The theory is sound, but something goes wrong, and a highly contagious combination of virus and prion is unleashed, a middle-stage organism too dangerous to test.
With emergency services overwhelmed, a small community hospital tries to combat the unthinkable--an illness that causes aggression, spreads through violence, and won’t allow the dead to rest.
Enter a new nightmare as the nurses and staff fight for survival against a plague based in science, a “what-if” that will leave you second-guessing. Are you ready for the end?
Available on Amazon and Kindle, pick up your copy today!
Published by Covenant Books in June 2019, The Dungeon marks a departure from the supernatural. Billed as a pure action-thriller, The Dungeon takes readers on a roller-coaster ride of adrenaline, with a surprise ending that will have you gasping for air and begging for more.
A multinational corporation has found Daedalus’s labyrinth, an ancient structure that is central to a dozen Greek myths. Hidden among a wealth of decaying weapons and crumbled structures, a bronze disk is discovered, with a message inscribed on its surface in both Greek and English.
Ten strangers find themselves trapped in a modern-day recreation of the labyrinth, unwitting participants in a new reality program. Survive the labyrinth, and all their sins will be forgiven. But it won’t be easy, not when every room is designed to kill.
Rob Horner is a Virginia Beach native and former Navy Avionics Technician who spent twenty years working with electronics before finding his calling in medicine. Now a nurse practitioner with Urgent Care of Mountain View, primarily in the Morganton and Hickory, North Carolina locations, he splits his time between work, writing, and family. He is blessed with a loving wife, two sons, and three beautiful daughters. He and his family live in Lenoir, NC.
His can be found in various places on the web:
Twitter @RobHorner8
www.allauthor.
com/page/robhorner
Facebook at www.facebook.com/robhorner
via email at [email protected],
or on his blog at Rob-Horner.com.
