Chess Players: Atlantis and the Mockingbird

by DeVaughn, A. P.

  There’s a guy named Josiah Deblasio, from the East Coast, who has become a good friend of ours, but everyone calls him Barcode. He’s Ron’s bunkmate. He grew up in Massachusetts and is half Puerto Rican and half Italian. He’s a slick, black-haired, olive-skinned guy, and is built like a tank. He has very sharp cheekbones, and his chin comes to a fine point. His olive skin, from his neck to his wrists, is scribbled with tattoos of his heritage and his love for his mother.

  He got the nickname Barcode because the sergeant said he was nothing but US property that sits on the shelf until we need him, and he’s been acting reckless with his life ever since he got here.

  On the obstacle course one day, he was losing to one of us on the thirty-foot wall climb, and the only way he could win was to jump from the top of the damned obstacle. Miraculously, he came out unscathed as he hit the ground and rolled a few times, getting up just to yell his usual impulsive “Barcode, baby!” in his Massachusetts accent.

  Ron despises him. I think anyone who is more gung ho than Ron pisses Ron off. As a matter of fact, if you’re more gung ho than Ron, then you’re probably clinically insane.

  Seems that this onslaught of training has pulled out hidden talents in all of us. Kim is an excellent marksman. Steve is a mathematical and electronics genius, and Ron, well, Ron likes to blow shit up. He’s also the sly fox of the camp, and the way he bullshits his way around and charms everyone has landed him special treatment—exactly what we need to make our plan work.

  Just before graduation, we all received letters from our superiors. Kim was invited to marksman training. Steve got an invitation for engineering. Ron was invited to become a demolitions expert, while his bunkmate Barcode was invited to become a paratrooper. I got an invitation to new experimental training dealing with neurotransmission—basically, controlling machines with the mind using new technology.

  It’s the day of graduation, and we’re having morning chow when our meal is interrupted by the sounds of the siren.

  “Are you kidding me?” Steve says. “It’s graduation. What are we going to do, run the course again?”

  Everyone dashes out mid-meal and we line up outside, as instructed, for when we hear the siren. The drill sergeant approaches us as we stand waiting to learn what the ruckus is about.

  “A perfect time to be a Marine, is it not?” Our ritual war cry follows. “We have an important matter at hand, and Corporal Flagstaff will explain to you gentlemen what that matter is. Corporal, sir.” The drill sergeant steps to the side at attention, salutes, and shakes hands with the corporal, who has his beret tucked under his left arm.

  “Morning, gentlemen,” Flagstaff says, standing in front of us in full dress, medals and all, and chest stuck out. “You may be seated. The situation in the Middle East has escalated, and Saddam Hussein has invaded Kuwait. Our commander in chief has said that if Hussein does not leave, that we will go and help him leave. That was seventy-two hours ago, and still we have seen no compliance with our demands of cease and desist. By week’s end, we will go to war and push Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. We’ve trained you to be soldiers. You will get your chance to be exactly that. Because if anybody moves against friends of America, it’s a move against America itself. Are you ready for war?”

  “Sir, yes sir!”

  War.

  It’s not what I planned on. By the look of things, it seems like we’re going to be shipped off to the Middle East not long after graduation.

  Graduation is about to start. Everyone’s uniform is crisply creased and shoes buffed to a mirror-like sheen. We all walk out, and the ceremonies commence with flags raised and salutes and speeches and then the walk past our officers, with handshakes and a pin being placed on us, with, “Congratulations, you’re a Marine.”

  When it’s my turn on the conveyor belt to receive my pin and handshake, my stomach starts to twist into a knot, and that clamp tightens around my head.

  “Morning, son,” the officer says, shaking my hand. “Welcome to the Corps,” he says, pinning a medal on my uniform. I salute and notice a distinct scar running along the left side of his cheek, from his ear to the nose of his elderly face. It’s the same scar that Bill said his friend had. Could it be him?

  The guys, Lara, and I meet up for the small graduation party they have for us off-base after the ceremony. A lot of the decorated officers and experienced servicemen are here boasting of their combat stories, medals of valor, and years of service.

  “Well, I’m glad that’s over,” Ron says. “One more week of that guy yelling at us and I may have crawled into his sleeping quarters and pummeled him while he slept.”

  It feels good to finally let our hair down. Even though we’ll be shipped off to war after our specialty training, it’s a much-needed break. I get to spend time with Lara, as well.

  I see the officer with the scarred face talking among some ass-kissers. “Excuse me, guys,” I say to my friends as I excuse myself. I walk over to a small crowd of people posted by the drinks table and shove my way to the center.

  “Hello, sir, I’m Dwight Jones,” I humbly say, extending my hand.

  “Nice to meet you, young man. I’m Master Sergeant Khol, professor of biology and vice president at the university in this town,” he says, shaking my hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you. You’re a very promising young man. We haven’t seen anything like you for a long time.”

  “Thank you, sir. I’ve heard a lot about you, as well. I’m honored, sir. I’ve heard of your valor in the Pacific with your good friend and how you saved him. That’s how you got that scar on your face, right?”

  He looks at me as if he’d seen a ghost.

  “Your friend Dutch, in the Pacific,” I say.

  “Dutch?” he says with a puzzled look.

  A man stumbles over, laughing and smelling of Scotch.

  “Scar?” the inebriated man garbles, pinching the VP’s cheeks. “He’s never looked prettier.” He leans over and puckers his lips, trying to kiss him.

  “The young man must be mistaking me for someone else,” Khol says, laughing off my comments. “I wasn’t in the Pacific, and I don’t know of any Dutch. But don’t worry, son, too much wine isn’t a crime this evening. Sleep it off,” he says, patting me on my back and walking away.

  Am I going crazy, or is he telling the truth? Maybe I did have too much wine.

  That night as I lay with Lara in her hotel room, I can only wonder what will come of us as the third part of the plan is set to begin.

  The next day, an early bird’s hand wraps on my door and startles me awake as Lara sleeps. After opening my eyes, my hangover nails me to the bed when I try and get up.

  “Yes, who is it?” I shout from my bed. Staggering to the door, I open it and squint at the morning light coming through the hallway window, shielding my burning eyes with my hand. “Who are you?” I ask the young man.

  “Just a messenger,” the young man says, shrugging his shoulders. “There’s an urgent phone call for you downstairs, sir.” He backs away and disappears downstairs without giving me a chance to ask another question.

  I quickly get dressed and scramble downstairs. “Hello?” I say, putting the receiver to my ear.

  “Is this Dwight?” says an eerie man’s voice.

  “Yes, this is Dwight. Who’s this?”

  “Meet me at 805 Forge Lane in twenty minutes.”

  “What? Why? Who is this?” I ask.

  “Come alone. I have the answers to your questions about your father and why you have been having nightmares. Tell no one where you’re going. Leave now. In twenty minutes, I’ll be gone,” he says.

  “How do you know that? Who is this?” I’m left speaking to the dial tone.

  It’s too late to say no, and, for some reason, I’m beckoned to meet this mysterious voice. Anyone who knows my father must be a friend. There’s only one way to find out.

  Chapter 22: The Man with the Scarred Face

  I leave Lara still fast asleep in bed. Eighteen minut
es later I pull up in a cab to the address given to me. It’s a diner by the name of the Silver Spoon.

  Peeking through the aluminum shutters, I see a lone waitress behind the counter, wearing a blue apron and wiping down the bar.

  Walking up to the door, I give a tug on the handle. It’s locked. Closed at this time of day? I hear a buzzer and tug at the door again and it opens.

  The waitress greets me and walks over to the glass door, peeks through the aluminum shutters, then closes the shutters quickly. She proceeds to close a few more shutters around the diner. The bright sunlight is shut out one window at a time. Then she flips the “open” sign hanging in the door to “closed.”

  “Dwight,” I hear coming from a corner of the diner, barely lit by a hanging light. The fuzzy face gets clearer as I approach the corner. It’s the scarred man from the night before. He’s dressed in an outdated top hat and overcoat, a neatly pressed white ruffled collared shirt garnished with a jewel-encrusted broach. He signals me over, nods at the lone waiter, and she leaves and goes into the kitchen. I sit down, and before I can speak.

  “Were you followed?” he calmly asks, peering through the aluminum shutters pried open with his fingers.

  “No, I believe not. Why would I be followed? What’s going on?”

  “Son, this friend of yours who told you to deliver the message, does he have a scar above his upper lip and sport a limp?”

  “Yes, he does. But, sir, I don’t understand.”

  “Just as I suspected. Do you mind?” he says as he reaches into his overcoat and opens a small silver case that has a few cigarettes in it.

  “No, I don’t mind,” I say.

  “I haven’t smoked in over fifty years, and I haven’t worn this fancy suit in the same amount of time.”

  He then tilts the case toward me. “No, thank you,” I kindly decline. “I don’t smoke. Those things will kill you.”

  “Young man,” he laughs, “death should be the least of your worries.”

  He then takes out a matchbook, strikes a match, puts it to the cigarette, and theatrically waves the match out. He takes a deep, long drag and slowly exhales the smoke out of the side of his mouth and then though his nostrils, closing his eyes and tilting his head back in euphoria as if falling to sleep in a hammock.

  “I’ve forgotten how good that feels,” he sighs.

  “So why did you quit?” I ask.

  “I had to become—someone else,” he says, taking another long drag.

  As puzzled as I was, I could do nothing but listen.

  “Young man, when you think of this world and the people who live in it, what comes to mind?” he asks, finishing off his cigarette and stamping it out in the brand new ashtray on the table.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I say.

  “When you approached me at the dinner last night and said what you said, I had planned to kill you. That woman you met when you walked in, who looks like a waitress, isn’t a waitress at all; she’s my personal bodyguard, a trained killer, an assassin. And as soon as I gave her a signal, she would have offered you a drink with cyanide in it or put a bullet in your head and two in your chest, just to make sure you were finished. Or, if you declined my offer to meet me here, she would have hunted you down and made it look like an accident. However, I realized what you are, and the fact that you don’t know what you are is what kept me from killing you. I thought they would never have been able to do it, but they are clever. You are innocent on grounds of plausible deniability, but you’re just as lethal as a virus-carrying monkey who’s immune to his own deadly pathogen and that can destroy the world with one innocent act. I looked into your eyes, your evil, innocent eyes, and determined to let you live so that you can fulfill your purpose. You saw my scars, but the fact is, I had my scars removed with plastic surgery ages ago. In fact, I have an entirely new face. Those eyes that you were given are your weapons. You are able to see things no other man can see—things that don’t exist anymore and things that are made to look like something else.

  “There are things about this world that are far beyond what average human thought can fathom, things that I have seen and experienced, things that I’ve done and been a part of. I could have achieved these things, but I chose otherwise. Coincidence is fact, and myth is possibility, and impossibilities are weapons. Even though I’m the VP of a military school, you and I are exactly alike. In the end, we are all pawns. This life that I have lived for the past fifty years has been meaningless, hiding like a coward, just to die as an old man who’s afraid of his own shadow. Here.”

  He reaches inside his overcoat and slides a folded piece of paper toward me. Opening it, there are a few names with numbers written on it, just as in the book that I found in that old library.

  “If you want to know the truth, find this man. He’s just like me, an outcast and a deserter. But, beware, young man, this information you seek has a cost, and you will always pay. Take this as well.”

  He takes his wristwatch off and gives it to me. But there are no numbers like a watch, just a dial with pips and gauges on it.

  “You’ll know what to do with this when need be. The man’s name is Herring. If you value what you hold dear, this meeting never happened. Good luck, young man.”

  Leaving him with his cloud of cigarette smoke, the waitress, expressionless, cleans off the counter and watches me all the way out of the door.

  I head home, and that entire day my mind is racing. What’s the price that I have to pay? This man Herring, I have seen this name before.

  Back at my room, I ramble through my suitcase frantically to find the book with the numbers and names in it that I swiped back in Oak County. My father must have known the VP. The numbers and name match. I slide my finger down the page comparing name, latitude, and longitude with date. Bingo. The closest date and coordinates are around the same time that the final move is made for Halibut.

  The heist will start months from now, as soon as we get back from the Middle East.

  The next morning, I pick up the paper on my way to grab a bite to eat. On the front page is a story about the VP of the school. He was found in his home, dead from an apparent heart attack, just minutes after I had left him. I don’t know what is going on, but I’m going to seek out the name and find out what really happened with my father.

  Chapter 23: The Past. Code Name Trident

  A red-haired man wearing a lab coat and clutching a clipboard walks through a large room with thick glass tanks and steel cages built into the cement walls. Various animals are inside the tanks and cages: large predatory cats, such as tigers and leopards, unique reptiles, such as chameleons, crocodiles, and vipers, and random beasts like ostrich, octopi, and bats. Most are hooked up to tubes and cords that feed into machines and devices. The man methodically observes each animal, jotting down notes on the notepad while he looks at readings on the machines at each animal’s holding cell. He then takes his attention to a separate room.

  He approaches a large metal door, takes his key card that’s clipped to his lab coat and swipes it through the security card receiver. The red light on the receiver turns a bright green. That’s followed by two loud beeping sounds and the clank of multiple locks unlatching. Then the door opens with a rush of air that makes a hissing sound through the air-tight seal. He enters a huge observatory. A metal mesh catwalk dissects two open structures. There’s a jungle-like habitat, an obstacle course, and a large grass area encased in thick security glass, steel bars, and concrete. Two beeps sound, and the door that he just entered swings shut again.

  “Ah, Lord Lued,” Lord Bui says, turning around. “I was just making my daily rounds. The two subjects appear to be making remarkable progress in growth and intelligence. Things are going as planned. Would you like to see one of our products?”

  “Yes, by all means,” replies Lord Lued, walking alongside.

  Lord Bui walks to an intercom near one of the large glass viewing windows.

  “Titus, Titus,” he says
seductively into the intercom, like he’s calling his pet. Out in the distance through the thick trees, there’s movement. “There you are, my child. Come closer so that we can see you.”

  Swinging and climbing from branch to branch, swooping through the air with summersaults and twirls, Titus lands in the grass directly in front of the two men.

  “Magnificent, isn’t he?” Bui says to Lued.

  A child looking the age of thirteen stands before the men, barefoot and in a loin cloth. However, his body is built like that of a prime athlete, with dense muscle and animal-like characteristics in his face and head, including pointy ears, overgrown incisors, and catlike irises.

  “It’s only three years since he was born. The growth rate slows after the fifth year, when they are fully grown. They’re calculated to have a productive life span of fifteen-plus years,” says Bui. “We’ve chosen to breed only males. The male physiology can handle the problem we’ve had with them overheating. We’ve had to triple their metabolism to get the desired results in strength, growth, speed, and healing. Their steady-state body temperature is a hundred and three degrees, but they can operate all the way up to a hundred and twelve degrees. Bone density has increased two hundred percent, muscle mass a hundred and seventy-five percent. Eyesight, smell, and coordination are exponentially above normal human measurements. We’ve also had to add a second, smaller heart in the lower left abdomen for extra blood pressure and adrenaline delivery to the lower extremities. By the looks of things, I think we have our finished product.”

  “When can we have mass production?” Lued asks.

  “We have already started. Twenty in one month, and, as logistics improve, we can make up to ten new drones per week and have them fully grown within three years. Titus,” Bui says into the intercom, “obstacle course.”