A Mission Remembered

by Tanner Froreich

  It wasn’t long before I reached Johnston Atoll. The small island had a strip of reef that lay right above the surface about 1,000 ft from the northern beach. The entirety of the island was a little over a square mile. The island consisted of one runway with corresponding buildings, but about fifteen feet from the water line was a fence that encompassed the entire island except a miniscule docking area.

  A small plot of land to the North East of the main island, about a fourth of an acre in total, provided me a place to slow down, rest, and get my bearings. However, as soon as I landed, alarms went off on the main island and a dinghy rumbled across the waves as it approached. The crew hadn’t spotted me yet, but I had nowhere to hide on this scrap of land. Doing the only thing I could, I dove into the water and swam away from the island.

  IODINE must have known that an intruder would have used the small island as a vantage point.

  I broke the surface just enough to breathe. Though the voice was muffled by the water in my ears, I heard one of the agents say, “Base? It’s a false alarm again; there’s nothing here. Over. Stupid sea birds.”

  I didn’t hear if base responded or not, but I realized that this was going to be much more difficult than I had originally anticipated. I waited in the shallows for the agents to head back to the main island, and then I tried my best to follow behind them without being seen. The distance between the two plots of land was about two miles, and I wasn’t as good at swimming as running, but I still had strong legs. I was getting tired as I approached the dock of the main island.

  The IODINE agents were pulling the dinghy out of the water when I floated into the shadow of one of the concrete pylons. Surveying the compound, I noticed the entire place was set up like a prison. There was no way for me to get in without giving away my position. I was in the water thinking about what to do when a lone security guard wandered too close to the dock I was hiding by.

  Within moments, the guard was hidden under the tarp of a boat, unconscious, and I casually walked onto the base in his uniform, staying in the shadows of course. Using the guard’s key card, I gained access into the first building I reached. For a covert agency, it was curious that I had used the same trick twice on IODINE. The multi-story building was surprisingly small. From the inside, it didn’t look much like a prison building, nor was it staffed like one. Avoiding direct eye contact with anyone I met, I made my way to the stairway. I started ascending the stairs, yet when I looked over the railing I realized that they descended far below the ground.

  I chose to change direction and descended the stairs. After some careful snooping, I found out that the vast majority of the building was underground, connecting each of the buildings above the surface. I questioned the safety of having a building like this inside an island surrounded by ocean. The first few levels weren’t containment levels, but things like offices and infirmaries. I finally reached the containment levels to encounter a checkpoint.

  The guard asked for my I.D. and I was stumped. The card I had didn’t have my face on it, and it looked like there was also a fingerprint scanner I would have to get past.

  When the guards noticed that I paused, one prepared to reach for his radio, and I prepared to knock them out. Before he could say anything, a voice called out from behind the checkpoint, “Let him through! I have his I.D.”

  Behind the barred gate, Derek was approaching with a card. He gave it to the guard, who looked it over and let me through without using the fingerprint scanner.

  Derek couldn’t have shown up at a better time. Once we were out of earshot, I asked, “How’d you know I’d be there, or that I would be coming here?”

  “IODINE has been on high alert since you had your friend put up that video. Granted, we pulled it down before much of the public could see it. After our last encounter, I knew you’d been heading here.”

  It was a blessing that he could be here to help me. “Good. They didn’t find out that you helped me back at the mountain?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, I’m a bit too clever for that.”

  We continued to descend through the levels, going deeper and deeper into the subsurface of the island. “I’m going to assume you know the location of the man I’m looking for.”

  Derek nodded as he tightened his dark red scarf. “I still don’t completely understand why saving him is so important to you, but yes, I do. He’s this way.” We continued to descend without opposition. “Where’d you get the security uniform?”

  I shrugged. “A guard who is taking a much-needed break on a boat.”

  “I hope no one finds him before you’re gone. We don’t need a repeat of last time.”

  “Actually, we do,” the computerized voice of Mindsweeper said. We stopped dead in our tracks as we saw the menace standing in our way. “We would love to learn more about how your body works, Arphaxad.”

  I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists. “Kingsley, why must you always be in my way?”

  The voice chuckled. “You think I’m Kingsley? He’s dead. He died in Korea.” He removed the helmet and revealed that it was Agent Welsh under the mask this time. “Mindsweeper is a mantel, not a person. As for Agent Kingsley, if he was alive, he would be in a cell somewhere here.”

  Derek stepped out from behind me. “Agent, I order you to leave us. I will deal with you when my work with Mr. Fredrick is done.”

  Ethan sneered and spat at Derek. “I’ve never liked someone who is a turncoat. Do you really think you’ve ever gotten away with anything Derek? Algorithm predicted your betrayal nearly three months ago. Trust me when I say, today you’ll pay.”

  Derek wasn’t daunted by this threat at all. “I want to know just who this Algorithm is, Agent!”

  Chuckling again he said, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Agent!” Derek shouted.

  Ethan went to put the helmet back on, but I said, “Kingsley is alive, and I just fought with him two days ago. He wore the same kind of suit you are in right now.”

  He paused. “You’re lying. I wouldn’t associate myself with that traitor; he turned against my country.”

  I gestured to the fading scar across my face. “He did this to me, while taking orders from Algorithm.”

  He shook his head, unwilling to think he was working with insurrectionists. “That means IODINE wanted the Senator to die. I voted for that man! No! You’re wrong Arphaxad. Why should I trust you?”

  “Because I believe ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.’” [12] I pleaded with him.

  He didn’t do anything for a moment. “No, I can’t believe you. I fight for the good of America.”

  “At any cost?” I humbly asked.

  “No, I will never ally myself with a treasonist like yourself.”

  He tried to put his helmet on again, but knowing what that would mean, I rocketed forward. With one solid punch, I knocked the confused man out cold. Not taking any chances, I unplugged any exposed wires on his suit.

  “That was easy,” Derek said.

  “Maybe too easy – I think he was a just warning of what’s to come. Algorithm knows we’re here.”

  Chapter 38

  Algorithm

  Cautiously, we continued to dive deeper into the earth with each level. I tried to remember how many stories we had passed through, but it must have been upwards of twenty to thirty.

  “How long did it take to build this place?” I wondered aloud.

  Derek shrugged. “It was here before my time, but I think it was somewhere near seventeen years.”

  I shook my head. This place must have been almost impossibly difficult to complete. When I thought we would continue to weave our way downward forever, Derek lead me in an unexpected direction. We changed our course of traveling from staircase to staircase to a purposeful eastward direction. We must have been getting close.

  We passed a small window. This caught me off guard, considering we were who knows how deep into the earth. I looked out the port, which was no larg
er than a dinner plate. It gave me a rare look into the abyss, as I stared into the dark ocean. Light from the surface could barely be seen under the tower of water. I noticed the hallway we were traveling down didn’t have any forks or offshoots. It must have solitarily extended from the undersea mountain into the dark cold deep.

  That’s when we found Ravenhouse. The unconscious man wasn’t in a normal cell; he was suspended in a giant clear sphere. This sphere was suspended in the room, which was also another giant glass sphere of unimaginable thickness. The entire thing looked like it could be detached and dropped into the seemingly endless depths.

  Derek cringed at the sight of it. “I remember authorizing the blueprints for this. There are gears which transfers the ocean’s pushing pressure into a pulling pressure holding him there.” I could see the pistons which were on the outside of the sphere. “He is essentially being pulled into submission by the ocean.”

  I walked closer to the sphere, stepping over a bulkhead door seal. I had forgotten how large he was. His hairy body expanded and contracted with every breath. His muscular arms and legs were pulled taut by his restraints, which encompassed his entire forearms and ankles. I still wondered how IODINE was able to subdue a man of such obvious strength.

  The control panel in front of the shell had a program very similar to Mindsweeper’s gauntlet. When I pressed the “Release” button, the device stated out loud, “Level 10 access required.”

  Derek shook his head. “Don’t look at me; I’m only a Level 9.”

  “There’s a very good reason for that,” said a not too distant voice. “I knew you’d turn on us eventually Derek.”

  I turned around to see Mr. Bordeaux standing no more than ten feet behind us with a gun pointed at us. He looked calm, as if he knew exactly what was going to happen.

  I wasn’t going to wait for him to start monologuing. I shot forward and grabbed him. Pushing him against the wall, I knocked the gun out of his hand.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” he grunted as I pressed my forearm against his chest.

  I was about to counter with something snarky when the console said, “Level 10 credentials required. Failsafe initiation in two minutes.” I immediately felt something sharp pierce my neck.

  I felt sick, and without the ability to maintain balance, I stumbled to brace myself against the wall.

  Derek had just grabbed the gun, but before he could do anything, Mr. Bordeaux kicked his hand and then punched him to the ground.

  I tried to use my speed, but the wave of illness was so disorienting that I missed my target and smacked into the sphere holding the prisoner.

  “I would like to thank you, Arphaxad. You’ve played your part in this script beautifully,” he mocked as he gave Derek another kick. “I personally didn’t have any doubt in my plan. Of course, even now with you so close to rescuing that wretch, I am confident my plan will come to completion.”

  I forced myself up. “So, you’re Algorithm.”

  He nodded modestly. “If you must call me that. I think it has a nice ring to it. But yes, I’ve planned every event that has happened since our first meeting that day in the graveyard. From Mindsweeper to Korea, and your escape to your mother’s death, everything has happened as I’ve predicted.”

  “You are responsible for my mother’s death!” I shouted as I launched forward. I still couldn’t control my movements, so I was stopped by the control panel which I accidently ran into. I felt like I was going to vomit.

  “No, I had nothing to do with that. Weren’t you listening? I simply predicted her time of death. This little adventure was mostly a test run to see just how predictable you are. I had learned a lot from studying your behavior involving Dr. Pinesberg, but I needed to be at least 99.45% sure how you would react to a given situation. So, I set up a series of events that somewhat resembled what you’ve already experienced, to see if you would respond the same as before, and you did – perfectly.”

  I didn't have time to register the babble he was speaking because the computer said, “Failsafe initiated.”

  The sound of hydraulics releasing filled the room. I looked towards Mr. Bordeaux to see a flood door quickly shutting me and the other prisoner in.

  I raced forward and caught the door on my shoulders. I gasped as its full weight pressed down my back. Part of me was tempted to drop the door and deal with getting the man out later, but when I felt water dripping through the seals of the door onto my back, I knew I couldn’t. The cold liquid started pooling in the lowest part of the cell’s sphere.

  As the hydraulics powering the door pressed down, I realized if I didn’t do something, I was going to be crushed. Though I had no idea where the strength came from, I held the door up long enough to figure out what to do. I pushed it back up with all I had, my nausea being pushed into the recesses of my mind with my life on the line.

  Mr. Bordeaux walked up to me and pulled my head up to look him in the face. His expression was smug and sinister. “Don’t worry Arphaxad. It may not look like it, but you will survive this. I’m counting on it.”

  With that he shot my right leg. The sudden pain caused me to fall onto my right knee. It felt like my back was about to snap. I heard the sound of a body falling. I would’ve looked back if I could have. The failsafe must have dropped the prisoner. But the amount of strength required to keep this door up with one leg shot and cold water running all over my body was maddening.

  Derek forced himself to get up; he was clutching his upper gut. “This is wrong Jeff. The war, what you’ve had done to Arf, what’s the point? I can’t see how any of this is anything but...evil.”

  Mr. Bordeaux rolled his eyes. “War has a good purpose. For one, I’m tired of North Korea’s constant threat; and two, war helps keep the population down and eliminates the weak among humanity. I’m just helping with crowd control. As for Mr. Fredrick, I need someone for the conspiracy theories to target.”

  Derek opened his mouth to speak again, but in an instant, Mr. Bordeaux pointed his gun at him and fired. He might as well have shot me, since the sudden sorrow of watching my friend fall to the ground almost caused me to drop the door. I glared at Jeff as I felt that deep furious rage swell within me.

  Straightening the collar of his jacket he added, “Or maybe it’s all just a power play.”

  I shouted as I forced the door up. I was enraged. For a moment, I was going to rush forward and get my hands on this Algorithm, but as soon as I tried to put weight on my right leg, it gave out. In that moment, I also lost my stance with my left leg. I was now on both knees supporting the crushing door. The bullet, though it hadn’t punctured my suit, was still stuck in my leg – a design flaw of the suit.

  Mr. Bordeaux turned to me briefly and then shot Derek twice more to ensure his lifelessness.

  Grunting under the weight of the door I said, “You will not get away with that, or any of it. God will bring all things to light.”

  He looked at me and shook his head like an adult does to a confused five-year old. “Do you still think God is in control? Do you still think God can protect His people, like He protected Derek? Oh, naive Arphaxad, God has nothing to do with any of this. I’m the god in this situation.”

  He kicked me in the chest, trying to knock me to the other side of the flood door. Somehow, I was able to hold my ground, but then he shot me in the chest. The bullet struck the symbol on my suit, but the energy still pushed me off my knees and backwards.

  It took every ounce of reflexes to get out of the way of the falling door. It slammed shut with Algorithm on one side, and the Troll and me on the other.

  I looked around for a way out, but the only exit was sealed shut. Ravenhouse had gained consciousness, and he was staring at me with the most confused and partially ashamed expression on his face. I pulled the bullets out of my leg and chest to allow them to heal.

  The room began to fill with water at an exponential rate. Within moments I was swimming, water had seeped into my suit and the salt water sti
nging in my healing wound. Realizing what was going to happen, the prisoner curled his hand into a massive fist and punched the glass exterior of his cell, cracking it.

  When he struck it again, the larger housing which separated us from the ocean dislodged from the mountain. As it pulled away, the portion which connected to the flood door was exposed to the ocean and water flooded into the chamber. The sudden pressure hit me like a train, and I blacked out.

  ∆∆∆

  I awoke coughing and gagging on sea water. It took a moment for me to realize where I was. I was on a fishing boat with Ravenhouse and what I assumed was a member of the ship’s crew looking down at me. I continued coughing.

  “Take it easy Blue Berry,” spoke the man who I had ‘rescued’. He was still soaking wet, as was I.

  “Where are we?”

  He looked at the crewmate for an answer. “We are on our way back to Honolulu, Hawaii,” the sailor stuttered. “We should get you two dried off below deck.” He spoke to us like he couldn’t reconcile what he was seeing in his head.

  Once dried, I sat near the bow of the ship. The steady stream of sea air was calming. I sighed as I thought about Derek. He had done so much for me; now he was dead. I groaned in my heart as I thought about Jeff. He had everything planned out. He thought he could play god. He said God had no control over him, but God was in control, wasn't He?

  I buried my own doubts as I heard Ravenhouse approaching. He handed me a cup of water, which looked small in his huge hands.

  “What happened?” I started as I took a long drink.

  He grunted. “I saved you.” Something in his voice revealed that he was considering why he had done what he did. Similar to how I was wondering why I had risked everything, and even caused Mr. Phillips’ death, to save this stranger. Continuing, he stated, “When the water rushed in and you were unresponsive, my cell shattered under the pressure. I was able to grab you and swim to the surface. At that depth, we are lucky to be alive. From there we drifted for a little bit when, by another stroke of luck, this trawler caught my leg in its net.”