There were no signs of Kyle or the villagers. Landon walked down the slight decline of the dusty tunnel, calling his son’s name. When the tunnel opened up, he started into a slow trot, each step like a punch in his gut. No remnant of clothes, food, or clues. It was as if no one had been there. Eventually he came to an underground lake. Off to the side were alcoves of areas that revealed signs of recent activity.
Landon stopped at a mound of dirt. It took a moment for him to realize it was a fresh grave. The data pad on his left forearm chirped as he waved it over the dirt. Kyle’s DNA didn’t show up, and he exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath forever. Landon jogged around the perimeter of the lake. At the far end was another tunnel that led for a mile before it split three ways. Each of those tunnels split as well. When he reentered the ship, the sun was setting.
“There are tunnels that go on for miles, but I don’t see any sign of them.”
“What are we going to do?”
Landon typed at a workstation at the side science station. “I just launched two small drones to go investigate the tunnels.”
“What about the drink you gave Kyle that you said would allow you to track him?”
“I need to be close to pick it up. Within a couple miles at a minimum, otherwise it’s useless.” Jane started to cry. “I’m not leaving without my son.”
Landon lifted the ship from hover mode and moved out. He scanned the area until he found a pond a few miles southeast. He lowered the ship onto its surface. A lever under the pilot’s seat allowed the captain’s chair to glide back about ten feet along a magnetic strip. Sub controls lowered from the ceiling and some rose from a space under the floor. A few switches later the ship’s ballast tanks gurgled and the ship sank beneath the water.
“Submersing the ship,” Landon said, “conserves energy that would be needed to keep us cloaked if we just landed in a random field.”
Moments later the ship rested on the sandy bottom. The setting sun reflected through the shallow depths of the lake in a kaleidoscope of colors.
“What now?” Jane asked.
“We need to eat and sleep.” She started to say something, but Landon cut her off. “I don’t know what’s waiting for us, but if we’re gonna find Kyle, we need to be physically and mentally ready. The drones I sent out are scurrying all over the cave system. Nova will let us know if something happens.”
Landon gave Jane his quarters and slept in one of the two guest rooms that the ship had. It was sparse, cramped space with two bunks on each side of the room. Three times during the night he checked on the drones using his data pad. Each time the data came back negative. The third time it registered that they had finished mapping the tunnel system with no results and were heading back to the ship. In the early hours of the morning, Landon met Jane at the small galley kitchen near the sleeping quarters.
“You sleep?” she asked. He shook his head no. She handed him a small tin cup of coffee. “What’s the plan?”
“The drones mapped the entire tunnel system but came up negative. There’s an exit about five miles north. I’m going to start there.”
“What’s there?”
“Nothing I know of. Maybe some sparse villages.”
Jane wiped her eyes. It was clear she was barely holding it together. Landon reached out to put his arm around her, but backed away. He had no right to comfort her. She knew his son far better than he did. She probably loved him more. He had gone on too many missions when Kyle was young to allow himself to be as upset as the woman standing next to him. She earned the right to mourn. Landon handed her a meal bar and motioned for her to follow him to the cockpit.
Fifteen minutes into the pre-flight checklist, a chirp pinged on a monitor above Landon. The red light that accompanied it flickered, then went off.
“What was that?”
Nova’s calm tone said, “Kyle’s data pad’s homing beacon came online for a few seconds, then was shut down.”
“Were you able to triangulate?” Landon shouted.
“Negative. I have a rough location though. Just over a hundred miles northeast of here.”
“What?” Landon said, pulling up a map on the terminal in front of him. “How’d he get there?”
“What’s in the location?” Jane asked.
Nova answered, “New Sacramento. We believe it is the capital of the ruling government this side of the Rockies. They have no official name or army. We suspect their numbers to be around one to five million. The rest of the west coast has no real infrastructure or government.”
“What else do we know about this area and government?” Landon asked.
“The Atoll has not dedicated much of its limited resources to what they consider a non-threat.”
Landon pounded his fist into the palm of his other hand. “Kyle was captured.”
“Or killed,” Jane said, starting to openly weep. “And someone’s hacked into his gear.”
“Don’t count him out yet. The entire village is missing. That supports my theory. Buckle in.”
Landon hit a button and the whoosh of air could be heard pushing water out of ballast tanks. The ship floated to the surface. Sunlight streamed through the thick windshield. The glass auto-tinted to compensate. Landon adjusted the lever under the captain’s chair. The controls in front of him rose into the ceiling, with the other half lowering into the floor. The captain’s chair glided forward to rest in the pilot’s position next to Jane. After finishing the pre-flight checklist, he fired up the engines.
“Let’s go find your husband.” He lifted the collective, and the ship lurched out of the water to hover. With a twitch of the throttle, they were both pushed back in the seat as the thrusters propelled them inland.
When the ship reached the end of the tunnel system, there was a chirp and a light flashed on the screen. Landon silenced the alarm with a lightning quick reflex. “I got it,” he said as if to answer a question Nova had yet to ask. He slowed the ship down to a hover. An open forest lay ahead of them. Landon scrolled through the data on a side monitor. “Nova, lower your scanners to get a closer look.”
“What are you doing?” Jane asked. Landon didn’t respond. She leaned over to look at the monitor. “You’re scanning human DNA?”
“Ten degrees starboard is a mass grave,” Nova said.
“Shut up, Nova.” Landon said.
“That’s him!” Jane shouted. “I just know he’s down there.”
“Stop it.” Landon floated the ship until they were over the gully filled with human remains. A picture showed up on the terminals in front of the pilot and copilot seats.
“Oh dear Lord,” Jane gasped.
“Nova?”
“Scanning.”
“I have found over five hundred different DNA there. Only nine bodies are at a decomposition level that would correlate with Kyle’s time frame.”
“And?”
The pause was excruciating. Nova said, “Nothing matching Kyle’s DNA.”
Landon had been holding his breath. When he exhaled, tears followed. Jane joined in, almost hyperventilating.
“I can’t take much more of this,” she wept.
Landon wiped his face with his shirtsleeve. “Come on. We gotta keep moving forward until we can’t.”
He waited for Jane to collect herself before he accelerated the ship.
Chapter Eight
The Gulf of Mexico 2040
Six hours and a mid-flight refuel later, Josiah’s helicopter touched down in the Gulf of Mexico on an oil rig. A young black man dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt came out to greet Josiah. The wind blew his shirt aside to reveal a sidearm in an appendix holster.
Josiah had recruited Rick Bezalel out of MIT his junior year. It was imperative to get the engineering, math, and programming prospects before graduation to beat his competition. Rick was an anomaly who was not only an engineering genius, but also an athletic phenomenon who had turned down division one scholarships for football to attend MIT. Josi
ah tried to lure Rick to leave school early with money, power, cars, and other material wealth, but Rick kept refusing. The continual no thanks made Josiah want the kid even more. No prior recruit had ever withstood this level of recruiting tactics and temptations.
During the last meeting in Josiah's Cambridge, Massachusetts, satellite office, Lewis threw his data pad against the wall when Rick said no to their final offer. With just a look from Josiah, Lewis picked up his shattered tablet and left the room.
Josiah broke the silence. “Sorry for Lewis' behavior. He’s got a temper but means right.”
Rick waved off the incident and lowered his head to face the table in front of him. “I’m sorry. It’s just not right for me, Mr. Saunders. I appreciate your offers and all the time you and your staff have spent with me.”
Josiah got up to leave but stopped when he heard the single word, “Wait.” Rick was looking at the last page of one of Josiah's thick pile of spreadsheets, which listed all his corporations and projects Rick could choose from. Rick pointed to a small line item. “What's this? I recognize the zip code 78412. I’ve scuba dived out of Corpus Christi.”
Josiah rushed back to the table like a child being offered free candy to look at the line item. Rick was pointing to one of his R&D projects. He watched the young man try to find the corresponding paperwork for the project.
After a minute, Rick held up both hands. “I don’t get it. I can’t find any more data for this project.”
“Because it’s a ghost,” Josiah said. “It shouldn’t have even shown up on the spreadsheet in front of you. I’m going to wreck someone’s year because of it.”
Ultimately what lured Rick to leave school and work for Josiah was an off-the-radar project. He was using an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico to act as cover for underwater pet projects. The goal was to harvest materials found in the ocean to create base materials for housing that could be built underwater. Rick, an avid scuba diver, jumped at the offer to help construct a modest underwater lab and living quarters. Josiah wanted Rick for defense projects but gave in to the young man’s request and allowed him to manage this noncritical, off-the-radar project. If it went nowhere he still had the genius kid on his team, and Bradley didn’t.
“Afternoon, sir,” Rick shouted after the copter powered down. “Good to have you here.”
Josiah stared up in the sky as if he could see invisible drones or spy satellites collecting data. “Let's get below deck.”
They entered a steel watertight door and went down metal steps, passing by dozens of foreign workers. Each was hand-chosen by Rick and flown out to and from the job site blindfolded on privately financed helicopters. None of the employees made eye contact with Josiah, but all of them said hi to Rick, who returned their hellos.
“Workers seem to like you,” Josiah acknowledged.
“I try to treat them with respect.”
“Respect tells me you’re overpaying them.”
“Boss, you wanted top-of-the-line personnel, and you wanted this kept secret. That doesn’t come cheap.”
For some reason Rick was one of the only people he let talk to him in a casual tone. There was something about him that he liked. Josiah assumed it was because this pet project was exciting, and he carried that enthusiasm over to Rick, whose job it was to deliver fun news. There was something else about Rick. He didn't fear Josiah. He came from a modest background and had nothing in his file that said he should be anything but fearful of unemployment. Instead he was bold and treated money with little importance.
Rick led him to a steel elevator. He swiped a card hanging from around his neck and the doors parted.
“Are we heading down to the water line?”
Rick hit a new button Josiah had never seen before on the elevator panel. The elevator descended longer than he remembered. The door opened and they faced a clear, round, crystal room about twenty feet in diameter. Inside, passive lighting along the ceiling gave the room an ethereal glow. The green-blue water of the Gulf of Mexico was just outside the crystal shell. Josiah's mouth curled up in a smile, a movement his muscles weren't used to.
“How?” was all he could muster.
“I did promise the guys a bonus if they had this done by the time you showed up.”
Josiah touched the hard crystal wall. “This was just a schematic the last time I was here.”
“I don't sleep much, and I finished the formula, tested it, and then made the call to build this.”
“I should fire you for making that decision, but I think I'm going to hug you.” Rick held out his hands in a joking gesture, but Josiah held up his hand. “Uh, no.”
“Ah, the germ thing. I get it,” Rick said. “Well, I told you it was possible to take sand on the bottom and make hardened crystal. I pressure tested the crystal, and it will withstand any depth in any ocean.”
Josiah pointed to a metal portal embedded in the far end of the crystal room. “What's that?”
“It's where I’m going to daisy-chain the next pod. That is, if you approve?”
“Oh, I approve.”
Rick brought Josiah back up to a conference room adjacent to Rick's living quarters. It was sparse but had some plants in it, along with maps and drawings. Every wall was a floor-to-ceiling digital whiteboard that was filled with mathematical formulas, most of which Josiah picked up on, and a few that surprised him. He was impressed but would never admit it to Rick.
Another section of the wall was covered with formulas he had never seen before. “These aren’t physics, chemistry, or even nanotechnology formulas,” he said pointing to them.
“Those are string theories. Just kicking around stuff on my lunch break.”
“Kicking around, huh?” Josiah said, impressed with his protégé, but also annoyed he was distracted from work. “For what purpose?”
“We operate in the four dimensions of space and time. String theorists believe there are ten or more dimensions.” He waited as if to gauge Josiah’s interest in the subject.
“Go on.”
“Many scientists believe the universe is so finely tuned that it’s mathematically impossible it didn’t have a Creator. And that God’s language is math.”
For the first time Josiah noticed a worn leather book in a corner of the table with the words Holy Bible on it. His disappointment at Rick was almost as palatable as his excitement when he saw the crystal room. “How could a kid as smart as you believe in that?” Josiah said, pointing to the Bible.
“Boss, ironically it was science that helped me become a believer. There's no way the universe could have just come into existence without some outside help. Life doesn’t evolve from non-life. You know I'm a numbers geek. The models I've worked on all add up to a lawgiver behind the laws.”
Josiah didn't respond. He was gathering more intel in this brief conversation about his employee than he had in the past year. As disappointed as he was, this was important data that filled in the gaps on questions he had about his genius protégé.
“If I didn't know first-hand that you were a genius, I'd call you an idiot.” Josiah pointed to the Bible. “In my other world you'd be fired for having that book on your desk.”
“That book,” Rick said, “keeps me honest and will help you sleep better at night. That book has forced me to stay on budget and come in ahead of schedule. That book says that I must be a good steward with what has been granted to me. I will never steal from you. I will never lie to you. As long as you are not asking me to commit a crime, I will always have your back. Heck, you could go away for a year and come back, and I will be working just as hard as when you left.”
Josiah chuckled. Loyalty was not something he was proficient in producing. This was a variable he could never factor into his data mining on staff. Instead he kept them motivated by money on one end and fear on the other. They knew outside Sector One’s building was a world bustling with crime, disease, and death. Unlike the useless office manager he had fired for being a Christian, Rick had far more intr
insic value. For now, he would tolerate his pet genius's religious nonsense.
“I'll make a deal with you. Keep producing, and I'll keep overlooking your policy breach.”
“Roger that,” he said. “So could I ask your long-term plans for this place?”
“I don’t know. Monetize it somehow. Why?”
“I don't know what it is,” Rick said, “but I've felt a real sense of urgency with this project.”
“Whatever motivates you to go at this pace, then keep at it.”
For the next hour, Rick took Josiah around the entire oil platform. They met with engineers who harvested materials to make the crystal, and with other staff who processed the materials. Rick went to shake Josiah's hand as he stepped back in the helicopter, and his boss waved off the handshake again.
“Sorry.”
“I need you to stay off the radar,” Josiah said. “Contact me through back channels only if it's an emergency.”
“Roger that, boss. Remember I'm heading to Mexico to get married in a few weeks, but we’re coming here after the wedding. I'll take a honeymoon later.”
“You're letting your fiancé live in Mexico? Don’t you know what the crime rate is there? Why isn't she here living with you in safety?”
“We aren't married yet.”
It took Josiah a moment to realize that Rick meant he was remaining abstinent until marriage. Josiah shook his head and proceeded to plug the wire from his tablet into the panel in the helicopter’s terminal. The droid in the front seat started moving as the helicopter lights came on.
Before the rotors got too loud, Josiah shouted, “I've been off the grid for too long. My staff are probably freaking out. Keep at this.”
Rick shut the helicopter door and walked backward out of the way. His kind smile and wave were annoying Josiah until he realized the smile came from the only employee he trusted. Rick was right, Josiah would sleep better at night knowing the steward in charge of his favorite project was loyal and honest. Maybe he should rethink the policy against hiring Christians. If they were dumb enough to follow a book that commanded honesty, then he could use that to his advantage.
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