Song of Ariel: A Blue Light Thriller (Book 2) (Blue Light Series)

by Mark Edward Hall

  “I’m sorry we can’t all go.” Ariel began sobbing now, her frail little body hitching with every convulsion. “Mama and Papa, I love you so very much.”

  The panic in Annie’s eyes was palpable now. “Doug, what is she saying?”

  “We have to stay here, Annie,” Doug said, knowing instinctively what was about to happen. We have to help protect this place until Ariel gets to safety. He knew now why Jason and Danielle and the others had come. It had all been planned out long before any of them were born. “But Ariel needs to go and she needs to take some people with her. Not us, unfortunately. But if she doesn’t go soon, she’ll never get the chance to do what she was born to do.”

  “My little girl isn’t going anywhere without me, Doug.”

  “You can’t go, Mama,” Ariel sobbed.

  “Why not?”

  “Because your work here isn’t done. You’re part of the plan, and the plan says you have to stay.”

  Now Annie’s eyes were spitting fire. She stepped toward Doug and slapped him across the face with an open hand. “I will not accept this,” she said. “What have you done?”

  “Don’t, Mama,” Ariel cried. “It’s not his fault.”

  “You were part of this too, Annie,” Doug said, and much as he tried he could not hide the bitterness in his voice. “You’re her mother, and you’re the daughter of her grandfather.”

  “Oh, God no,” Annie said, backing away, her trembling hand covering her mouth. Enlightenment had now come into her eyes. “That monster that calls itself Collector is down there, isn’t it? He was sent back here so that he could use our daughter to save some dystopian nightmare of a future that probably isn’t worth saving.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that, Annie. But it doesn’t matter now. It’s too late to do anything about it. You see, I just received a phone call from your father. Those are his soldiers out there, and more are on the way. It may be only a matter of minutes before they break in here. He wants you and Ariel, but mostly he wants Ariel. Once he has her, it’s over, she’ll never get to do what she was born to do. And yes, the collector is waiting down below to help guide her and the ones who have been chosen to go with her through the portal.”

  Annie backed away, her hand over her mouth, speechless now, as her eyes shot daggers of accusation at Doug.

  The woman who had been standing just outside the door listening, moved quickly but silently away and disappeared into the tunnels.

  CHAPTER 30

  Ice Caves. Northern Maine Wilderness. July 6th.

  When Doug came out of Ariel’s bedroom, he called a meeting of everyone in the main room.

  Danny Wolf emerged from the room he’d been using to compose Ariel’s song and informed everyone that the song was essentially finished, but had no idea whether it was right, or even good. Ariel said that she would be the judge of that, and also said that she needed time alone with Danny, so she promptly spirited him off to her room where she would make a determination.

  “Where did Nadia go?” Doug asked.

  Baffled glances were exchanged all around.

  “She didn’t go out the front,” Laura said. “I’ve been right here all day and no one has gone out that door.” She barked out a quick laugh. “Like anyone would be stupid enough to step out into that mess”

  In the end no one could answer Doug’s question, so they all went looking. After fifteen minutes of searching every nook and cranny including the privy at the very rear of the main chamber, they called a halt to the search.

  “Where the hell is she?” Doug asked Dr. Randal.

  “I don’t know,” Randal said. “I swear I don’t. He was sweating and fidgeting nervously, his eyes hugely magnified behind his glasses. “I was watching the monitors. One minute she was there beside me, and the next she was gone. I didn’t see her leave.”

  “Where could she have gone?” asked Slim.

  “Only one place I can think of,” Doug replied. “Down into the caves.”

  “But why?” Jennings asked. “What the hell could she have possibly gone down there for?”

  “I can think of only two reasons,” Doug said. “Either she wanted to see what’s down there for herself or she already knows, and has some sort of agenda.”

  Jennings huffed out a disconcerted breath. “She’s searching blind, then. No way is she ever going to find her way in those caves.”

  “Not true,” Dr. Randal said.

  All eyes turned to Randal. “What the hell are you talking about?” Doug said.

  Randal was really sweating now, rivulets of the stuff running down his cheeks and forehead, soaking his shirt. In a barely audible voice, he said, “How do you think we were able to find you?”

  “That’s a good question,” Annie said.

  “They knew where we were,” Doug said.

  “You have a tracking device planted in your pectoral muscle,” Randal told Doug. “Nadia put it there on the night she left you in that safe house in Kentucky. The Brotherhood has been tracking you ever since.”

  Doug went for Randal’s throat. “You asshole!”

  Jennings stepped between them. “Doug, don’t. It’s not worth it.”

  “We needed to know where you were,” Randal said, backing away. “We meant you no harm. It has all been for the safety of the child.”

  “Why is our child so fucking important?” Annie railed.

  “If you don’t know that by now, you never will,” Randal said, his face taking on a rapturous glow. “She’s the new messiah. She was born to save man from his own self-destructive tendencies.”

  “You really believe that, don’t you, asshole?” Doug said.

  “Oh, yes, I do, because it is the truth.”

  “So where’s Nadia?” Jennings asked Randal.

  “Honestly, I don’t know.”

  “I will hurt you,” Doug said.

  Randal blinked once, twice, three times. “If she has an agenda, I know nothing about it. This was not part of our plan. I can’t believe she would do such a thing.”

  “What’s down there?” Laura asked.

  “Something you wouldn’t believe,” Slim replied. Laura looked over at Slim and then slid her gaze to Jennings.

  Jennings said, “You’ll know soon enough.”

  “Cut it out, Rick. You’ve kept me in the dark about this place for years. I think I deserve to know. And so does Danny.”

  “It’s another world,” Jennings said. “I can’t explain it any better than that. You have to see it to believe it, and you’re going to have to wait. I’m tired, I’m hungry and I’m pissed off. I don’t have time for this now. Maybe Slim, Charlee or Johnny can explain. They’ve been there.” He looked over at Eli. “You haven’t said anything?”

  “I’ve barely had time to catch my breath since we got back.”

  “I don’t like this,” Charlee said bursting into tears. “I didn’t ask for any of this. I don’t want to die.”

  “Welcome to the club,” said Johnny Cobain.

  Eli limped over to where Charlee sat with her head in her hands. He took one of her hands, held it and softly said, “I feel your pain, Charlee. We’re going to get through this, I promise. The story of the death of Mani, or Buddha, as we now know him, goes something like this:

  “It was a day of pain

  and a time of sorrow

  when the messenger of light

  entered death

  when he entered complete nirvana”

  Charlee looked up at Eli, her wet eyes filled with astonishment. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I don’t know how it’s supposed to make you feel, Charlee. You have to look inside your own heart and decide what it’s telling you. The past several days have been hard on you, I know. You’ve suffered a great injury to your body, but you came back from it. I guess what I’m trying to say is we must first overcome our fear and our uncertainty before we can invite the messenger of light into our hearts.”

  Charlee wa
s silent for a long moment as she stared at Eli. Then she put her arms around the little man and held him. “Thank you,” she said.

  “Until we know what’s going on, I don’t want you in the control room,” Doug told Randal. “I want you here in the main room where someone can keep an eye on you.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on him,” Laura said.

  Randal glanced first at Laura and then at Doug. “Honestly, I have no idea where she went or why,” Randal said.

  “Pardon us if we don’t believe you,” Jennings said.

  “So, what’s the plan?” Jennings asked Doug.

  “We need to wait for word from Ariel.” Doug briefly told the group about what had gone down in Ariel’s bedroom and what she had said.

  “So some of us are supposedly going through this big portal with Ariel,” Laura said, “and some of us aren’t?”

  “Basically that’s it in a nutshell, according to Ariel.”

  “Who gets to go and who stays? Johnny Cobain asked.

  “That’s up to Ariel and we won’t know until she puts it all together.” Doug’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “She’s already said that Annie and I aren’t going.”

  Annie said, “You know I’m not letting her go without me, Doug.”

  “You may not have a choice.”

  “Bullshit! I don’t care what she says or how smart she is, or even if she is the fucking savior of the world, I’m going wherever she goes. She’s just a baby and I’m not letting her out of my sight.” Annie did an about face and stomped off in the direction of Ariel’s room.

  Doug let her go. When Annie made her mind up to something there was no stopping her. Outside explosions shook the earth and the muffled, syncopated sound of automatic weapons’ fire pierced the cavern walls.

  CHAPTER 31

  Ice Caves. Northern Maine Wilderness. July 6th.

  Doug, Jason and Rick spent the next half hour gathering weapons from the cache in the back of the caves while Laura and Slim kept an eye on things up front. Everyone got a weapon except Randal and Eli. Randal, for obvious reasons, Eli, because he was a pacifist. It was okay, Eli was like the unit chaplain, only with a Zen twist. He was their own private little Yoda. His combined wisdom and humor was a tension breaker they all needed in this time of high stress and uncertainty.

  During the weapons’ transfer Doug’s mind went back to the night in the Kentucky estate when Nadia had drugged him. He knew that must have been the moment she’d inserted the tracking device. He remembered the next morning during the firefight with the intruders, how he’d felt a small sting in his pectoral muscle and thought he had been struck by a piece of shrapnel. He pulled his shirt out away from his body and inspected the old wound. It was just a small, inconsequential pucker on his skin that he’d never thought anything about. Now he felt violated. He wanted to take a knife and cut the chip out.

  Jennings, breaking Doug’s reverie, casually mentioned something about an ace in the hole, and Jason picked up on it. “What ace in the hole?” he asked.

  “Follow me,” Doug said. He did an about face and headed back toward the control room. Jennings and Jason followed.

  In the privacy of the control room Doug explained that, like the cabin down by the pond, he and Jennings had built two perimeters loaded with high explosives that completely circumnavigated the mountaintop in which the cavern entrance was formed. There was an inner perimeter one hundred yards out, and an outer perimeter at two hundred yards.

  “With everything that’s happening out there, what makes you think they haven’t already been detonated?” Jason asked.

  “Oh, you’d know it if they’d been detonated,” Jennings replied.

  Jason looked confused.

  “Each charge consists of ten pounds of insulated C-4 buried about a foot beneath the surface,” Doug explained. “They’re approximately ten paces apart and have wireless detonators keyed to two separate switches. Only three people know where the switches are; me, Rick and Annie.”

  Jason looked even more confused. “Why haven’t we used them?”

  “We’d kill the animals, and Ariel would never forgive us.”

  “The animals are already being killed.”

  “True, but it’s not us doing the killing,” Doug said. “And truth is, I’m not sure the cavern would withstand the blasts. Those charges are to be used only as a last resort.”

  “Something’s been bothering me since De Roché called,” Jennings said. “Someone blew up the cabin yesterday with missiles launched from a drone. If De Roché needs Ariel for his so called new world order, then why did he try to kill her?”

  “I don’t think he did.”

  Jennings frowned. “Well, who the hell did then?”

  “Can’t answer that, but it seems we have two or more factions all battling for different outcomes.”

  “I think he’s right,” Jason said. “Charlee, Danielle, Slim and I saw some strange and dangerous characters out on the road, Spencer being the least of them. There were preachers inciting riots, biker gangs, private militia groups. The world is in a bad way and it’s filled with opportunists.”

  “And De Roché is at the top of the asshole list,” Doug said. “He claims he has control of the stolen pathogen and can turn it on and off at will.”

  Jennings shook his head. “I don’t buy it. I can’t imagine anyone having that sort of power.”

  “I hope you’re right,” said Jason. “What are the chances Spencer is in cahoots with your father-in-law?” he asked Doug.

  “I don’t know. I think Spencer has his own agenda.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that, Doug,” Jennings said. “I’ve never trusted that bastard.”

  Doug frowned.

  “Do you know what his agenda is?” asked Jason.

  “Absolutely,” Jennings said. “To serve his masters.”

  “Who are?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I assume it’s some faction within the U.S. Government. He works for a top-secret government organization known as the Project. Supposedly they’re tasked with protecting the homeland from non-conventional threats.”

  “Such as?”

  “Ever watch the X-files?” asked Doug.

  Jason nodded.

  “There you go,” Jennings said. “The Project is the U.S. Government’s real life X-Files.”

  “I have something else I need to talk to you about,” Doug told Jennings. He looked over at Jason as if trying to decide whether to include him or not. In the end, he decided it was okay. Ariel asked him to be here for a reason, and Doug trusted Ariel.

  “I found something down near the interface,” he told Jennings. “I think you should look at it,”

  “You mean the tip of that cursed spear that started this whole mess?”

  “No, something else.”

  Jennings was confused. “What?”

  Doug pulled something from his pocket, showed it to Jennings and Jason.

  To Jennings it looked like a tiny silver cigarette lighter. He squinted in confusion. “What the hell…?”

  “It’s a flash drive,” Jason said.

  “Exactly,” Doug said.

  Jennings said, “A what?”

  “A USB drive, you know, for a computer.”

  “Well I’ll be a son of a bitch. What the hell was that thing doing down there?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Doug said. “It was just sitting there on the shelf beside the spear tip. It wasn’t there when I left the object. Doesn’t look old. Actually it looks brand new and kind of futuristic.”

  Jennings groaned. “That means someone else has been down there. There must be another way in.”

  “Not necessarily,” Doug said.

  “Has to be.”

  “I think it was left there by the Collector, or someone else connected to the Collector. Jason, you said that Ralph Little told you aliens had taken over all the world’s nuclear weapons.”

  “That’s what he s
aid.”

  “How did he know that?”

  “Well . . . he had an old ham radio and he heard it from several different sources.”

  “And you believed it?”

  “There’s a lot of misinformation out there. People are in a panic. I don’t know what to believe. He was right about everything else.”

  “Jesus,” Jennings said. “Could that actually be true?”

  “A few days ago I wouldn’t have believed any of this,” Jason said. “Now…well, now everything’s different.”

  “If there are aliens, and they have the nukes, you think they plan on using them against us?” Jennings asked.

  Jason gave his head an adamant shake. “No way. I think they’re guarding them. They know us humans are stupid enough to blow ourselves to kingdom come, and they’re acting as a failsafe, making sure we don’t totally wipe out the planet.”

  Doug said, “Listen, Rick, Ariel said someone from the future came back in time to save the past. Open your mind and imagine that that place down there doesn’t exist in the present.”

  “I can’t even begin to wrap my head around that,” Jennings said.

  “Humor me, Rick. What if it’s a small piece of some distant future, a way for aliens to quickly and easily move back and forth between us and whatever place or time they come from? Ariel did say it was a portal.”

  “Yeah, but how the hell are they getting in and out?”

  “Jesus, Rick, you saw how Jason and the others got here. You saw how we all got from the bottom of that canyon back up here to the caves. Use your imagination. They don’t walk in and out like normal people. They don’t need doors. They’re using some sort of advanced transit system we don’t understand. It’s a portal of some kind. I know that for certain. Maybe it’s the only one. Maybe it’s not. We both know those Blue Light things are everywhere. So what if those portals are everywhere? What if the aliens are here to save the past because saving us somehow saves the future? Maybe it saves them. What if they’re us in the future?”