Class Fives: Origins

by Jon H. Thompson

  16

  Emergence

  Crawford leaned slowly back in his chair, watching the bright, wide, sudden bloom of pure light through the eye of the satellite on the large TV screen that occupied the far wall of his office, and wondered for that breathless second whether it meant the end of the world.

  But then it began to fade, the image darkening back to its normal, muted shades, the view of the spreading countryside far beneath beginning to refocus.

  No, he realized. This wasn’t the end. This was what success looked like.

  He watched the light fade to a spot and finally die, leaving only a common, gray mass in a huge circle around where the light had been. From the long shadow being cast by the descending sun, it looked quite deep.

  Around him, in his office, their eyes fixed to the large TV screen, were various analysts and staff who were aware of the significance of the event, their own tension electrifying the room. But as they began to realize that they had not just been witness to the end of their own lives, a ragged but earnest whooping and cheers boiled up among them.

  “All right,” Crawford said after a moment, loud and firm, “Let’s quiet down. We’re still working.”

  Quickly the burst of excitement was stifled, and solemn, studious expressions were assumed.

  Crawford turned his chair away from the screen and looked over at where most had gathered.

  “Now,” he said, “We need to get in touch with State and coordinate on our offer of assistance, which we most assuredly will be making. I want people in those teams. Use medical cover, but they’re to focus on sampling of the site.”

  Several of the staff were already jotting notes.

  “As part of that team,” Crawford went on, “We need to fold in an extraction scenario. We had an asset on site and we need to get him out.”

  He paused to think a moment.

  “What’s going on in Montana?”

  One of the analysts glanced down to refer to a long page of notes.

  “There are teams on-site,” he said, crisply. “Agent White has been recovered from the domicile and we have Montgomery and another suspect in custody.”

  “What about the other asset?”

  The analyst scanned his notes and shook his head.

  “No data about him.”

  Crawford’s brows furrowed.

  “His recovery is priority.”

  “Yes sir,” the analyst said and moved swiftly out the door and down the steps to the main room.

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen,” Crawford said, sweeping them with his gaze, “We skated on very thin ice this time. Now, that’s nobody’s fault. We’re all new to this. It’s learn as you go. We all know that. But, now that we’ve had an actual event, I want you to start incorporating the variables into your scenarios. Get a sense of what to expect. The next time we get something like this, and I guarantee you we will, we need to be ready. We were lucky this time. Let’s not have to depend on that again, all right?”

  There were firm nods of agreement and faint, encouraging mutters among the group.

  “All right, that’s it. We need to clean it up. Thank you for your attention.”

  They didn’t linger, but moved briskly out of the office and back to their tasks in their own offices, scattered throughout the non-descript office building that sat quietly and unnoticed across the river from the capitol.

  There was still much to do.

  All evidence of this entire affair would have to be gathered, hidden, destroyed or otherwise removed, and he already had teams working on that. After the discovery of the girl and the body of agent White in the small house in Providence, carefully shaped stories about a notorious serial killer, a bald man who usually dressed in a dark suit, currently in custody, had been circulated.

  No clever press releases were needed about the frail old man living in the abandoned missile silo bunker, also in custody. He had very effectively removed himself from the notice of the world for so long that Crawford would be happy to respect his desire to remain unknown.

  Russia was a different matter. The emergency assistance team would be a good cover for his own people, and with any luck they would find the asset.

  And the way things were in that backward country, it was even possible the Russians would think it was something of their own that had gone wrong. He would deposit hints of a fault in the abandoned and ancient nuclear reactor that had powered the original experiment those long decades ago. After all, the Russians were aware of the limitations of their technology. It would be a bitter pill to swallow, but after having experienced Chernobyl they would accept it, if grudgingly.

  He took a moment to draw in a deep breath, realizing that he would at last be able to head home, get a good, stiff drink and sleep in his own bed.

  That thought caused him to wonder about the two new assets. The Class Fives. And he had two of them.

  They both had performed well, he considered. Very raw, very lumbering, but that merely required proper training and some basic groundwork.

  And he had to admit, they were a Hell of a pair of assets. Once properly honed, they would be stunning. He would have to carefully weigh the advantages of keeping them pure black, utterly unknown to the world, against the deterrence factor if a carefully controlled knowledge of their existence was allowed to reach certain parties.

  But that was a long-term consideration, he told himself. That was grand strategic, and he wouldn’t have time to get around to making those kind of choices until he had something he could trust to function on its own, a system instituted and in place and working dependably.

  And reaching that point would still take one Hell of a lot of work. The appropriations had finally been approved out of some secret military budget, and by this time next year they would have their own private facilities, which he’d already selected. The cost would be staggering, but once completed it would be the most advanced, most secure and, he hoped, most effective agency in the world.

  No one would know of its existence, save those unfortunate enough to require its services, and the very highest authorities of the administration.

  And he would dedicate himself to honing it to a razor’s edge, able to address any mystery or horror a capricious universe could throw at the world.

  But it could be done now, he realized. The seeds of some kind of new age had been planted, albeit behind his back by the forward hurtle of mankind’s own lust for knowledge and power, and he’d only stumbled upon the seedling. But he could work with that.

  There would be new crises to face, composed of elements beyond the comprehension of those who saw the world and thought it unable to contain more than had surrounded them every day.

  There were monsters hiding in the shadows.

  And he would be the one dealing with them.

  But it had to be done, if humanity were to survive.

  And as there appeared to be no one else who even realized the threats existed, then he would take on that burden as best he could.

  It was his duty, not just as a servant of his government, but as a man. He was nothing more than a soldier, charged to protect his fellow human beings from the caprices of nature, or the wrath of the universe. And, he realized a bit sadly, from their own foolishness.

  A lousy job, he thought.

  But he would do it.

  He had to.

  So, he considered, how to begin?

  John opened his eyes slowly, feeling them sticky, resisting the command to admit the light, but finally they surrendered and parted.

  He felt numb, a weird kind of tingling crawling over his skin.

  With effort he managed to pull his head up and let his eyes sweep around him.

  Hospital, he thought. White sheets, clunky looking machines, and that damned ugly-ass screen thing.

  He lowered his head and drew in a deep breath, feeling the tingling begin to abate.

  I didn’t die, he told himself. I really thought I was dead.

  He ponder
ed this a while.

  Maybe I won’t die, he thought. Maybe it just makes me sick as a dog, no matter how far I go. Almost an hour this time, he considered. Maybe there wasn’t a hard limit after all.

  He heard the scuffing of feet, and a nurse appeared around the end of the screen that was apparently masking him from more than half of the room.

  She noticed he was looking at her, and she smiled as she moved around the bed to check him and scan the read-outs of the monitors next to the bed.

  “Well, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  He felt a strange sense of exhilaration flow through him.

  “Good,” he said, his voice harsh and croaking. “I feel good. I saved the world. Can’t bitch about that. I saved your life, you know that? That’s pretty good, don’t you think?”

  The nurse seemed totally nonplussed, merely glancing down and favoring him with a warm smile.

  “Did you? Well, thank you.”

  She turned her attention back to the monitors.

  “That’s right,” he went on, relaxing as he thought about the entire experience. “This mad scientist was trying to blow up the world, but this friend of mine, who can’t be hurt, and I, we stopped it. Well, he stopped it the second time, after I jumped back and gave him the information. The first time though, that was amazing. The whole world. Boom.”

  “That’s nice,” the nurse said absently, her attention fixed on the screens.

  “Yeah,” he replied, “It is. Very nice. Nice not to be dead.”

  “Certainly is,” she agreed.

  Finally she turned her full attention to him.

  “So, do you need anything? Would you like a sip of water?”

  “Yes, please.”

  She poured some from the pitcher on the small table beside the bed into a glass, and fitted it with a straw. She held it out to him, he turned his head and sucked at the straw slowly. It was wonderful, soothing and full of promise.

  “So, your vitals look good. You should be out of here in no time.”

  He swallowed and she removed the glass.

  “Where is 'here'?” he asked.

  “They didn’t tell you? Oh, well, you’re in Crush Mountain Memorial Hospital, Crush Mountain, Montana.”

  “Where’s that?” he inquired.

  She considered this a moment. “We’re about a hundred miles east of Glacier National Park.”

  “Not much help,” he said. “I’m not from around here.”

  She favored him with a warm smile.

  “Well, don’t worry about that for now. You just get better, okay? And I’ll look in on you again later.”

  She turned and moved around the end of the bed, disappearing behind the screen once again.

  I guess they must have found me, he thought. That’s good. I need a vacation anyway.

  He felt his eyes suddenly growing heavy again, the tingling slowly beginning to return and settle over him like a comforting blanket.

  I want a goddamn medal, he thought sluggishly. Something big and gold and…

  His eyes slipped closed and he drifted off into the blackness.

  The nurse reached the end of the hallway, opened the door and stepped into the small office beyond.

  The two men in dark suits turned to regard her.

  “We need to transport, as soon as possible,” she said, her expression now flat and cold, as she reached up to remove the cardboard cap.

  “He’s got a rather intemperate mouth.”

  She placed the cap on the desk and turned to regard them.

  “Did you find out how he was retrieved?”

  One of the men seemed to straighten slightly, and spoke.

  “Local resident saw him unconscious on the side of the road. Called the police. He was transported here.”

  The nurse considered this.

  “Where was he found?”

  “About twenty miles from here,” the other man said.

  “When?” she asked flatly.

  “Last night, about midnight,” the man responded. “Why?”

  “So he’s been here almost twenty four hours,” she said.

  “About that, yes,” the man said, eyeing her suspiciously.

  She turned this information over in her thoughts a moment.

  “How far is the target from here?” she said quietly. “The bunker.”

  “Four hundred something miles. Other side of the state,” the first man said.

  She absorbed this, her logical mind trying to fit it into the other stray facts she already had gathered.

  She nodded briskly.

  “All right,” she said, “Start arranging for transport. He’s sedated. We need to move him before sunup. And I need to talk to Crawford. Something doesn’t feel right.”

  She turned back toward the door.

  “What do you mean?” one of the men said tensely.

  She stopped, a hand on the doorknob, and turned back to them.

  “He was found within an hour after the strike team hit the bunker, which is about four hundred miles from here. I think this time, when he did what he’s supposed to be able to do… he moved. In space.”

  She turned, pulled open the door and swept out, letting it slip slowly closed behind her.

  Olga Nevski moved across her small cabin, setting the large pot of beets on the low table. If she managed to finish preparing them she could have borscht for dinner. But there was still the washing to take in from the line out back. And the chickens to feed. And they had been acting so strangely since that frightening light had burned over the horizon. Her mother had told her the stories about the bright, sudden lights she had seen when she was only a girl. They had something to do with the war, she recalled, or some war, a great while ago.

  And indeed, ever since that light had flashed so briefly across the sky and made the earth shake, she had noticed many of those strange flying machines, like distant locusts, sailing overhead toward the place. But they only flew over occasionally now. Whatever had happened was already fading away into just another thing that had once occurred, temporarily disrupting the steady, daily trek toward survival.

  She took a particularly large beet, turning it over in her hands, and noticed a soft spot at the bottom. She would have to cut that off, she thought, and turned to the other table where she kept the kitchen knives and buckets of water.

  By chance she happened to glance up and out through the large window on the other side of the narrow table and froze, the beet slipping from her hand and clattering into the empty metal bucket that rested on the flat surface.

  Outside, between the tautly stretched, thin ropes on which her washing was hung, she saw the man, carefully pulling down one of her worn shirts and a pair of battered overalls, her second best pair. At the sound of the clattering bucket from the open window he whirled and half crouched, his eyes finding and fixing on her looking at him through the small, square opening in the building.

  Olga’s mouth parted slowly as her mind tried to make some sense of this strange sight.

  The man was nothing special, looking like most men. His hair was cut short and nicely arranged, and he had no beard. A stranger from the city, she wondered. Lost?

  But if that was the case, why was he completely naked?

  He glanced around, as if searching for an answer to his current dilemma, then turned back to her and gave a shy, embarrassed smile, raising one hand in greeting.

  “Hello,” he seemed to call in some strange language, and rattled on for a few moments, pointing back toward where the light had appeared those days ago, and at himself.

  It sounded like English, she thought. Is he an Englishman? Or an American? He must be an American, she decided. They are all supposed to be crazy.

  But what was a naked American doing here, she thought? After all, naked Americans didn’t just fall out of the sky. At least, she didn’t think so.

  Dan felt the phone vibrate in his shirt pocket and he retrieved it, a tiny splinter of hope shooting through him
. But when he flipped it open he saw that it was only Jim.

  “Hey,” he said into the small device, his tone disappointed.

  “How about it?” Jim said, “You coming or what?”

  Dan glanced at his watch. He was running late.

  “Crap,” he said, “Okay, I’ll be along in a bit. Just finishing up something.”

  “You’re buying the first round,” Jim said, chidingly.

  “Right,” he responded. “See you in a bit.”

  He flipped the phone closed, paused a moment, then opened it again, dialing in the number.

  It rang a dozen times before the voicemail kicked in. He waited through the outgoing message.

  “Hey,” he finally said, “Roger, it’s Dan. I guess this thing you’re doing must be pretty involved. So, give me a call when you get in. I thought of a new experiment we need to try. What’s your capacity for Jack Daniels consumption? Okay, call me when you can. Bye.”

  He slapped the phone closed and stood, feeling a little uncomfortable. It had been almost a month now, and he hadn’t heard from either John or Roger. Of course, it was possible whatever they were doing was something long-term, but somehow that didn’t feel right. After all, with what they could do almost any challenge shouldn’t take long to resolve, one way or another.

  Then again, was it really any of his business? And would they even want him butting in on their lives, whatever they were at this point?

  Maybe, he told himself, he’d just check around a little. After all, as a cop, wasn’t he supposed to investigate things?

  Feeling slightly better, he scooped his jacket off the back of the chair, and was slipping it on even as he went out the front door and moved to his car.

  Ten minutes later he was pulling into the parking lot of the small, neighborhood bar where he and Jim sometimes came to watch the games on the large assortment of televisions scattered around the walls.