The Lucid: Episode Two

by Nick Thacker

  Contents

  Copyright

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  Thanks!

  The Lucid: Season One - Episode 2

  Copyright © 2015 by Nick Thacker & Kevin Tumlinson

  All rights reserved, published by Tumthack Publishing

  The Lucid: Season One - Episode 2

  FIRST EDITION: February 2015

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permissions, visit the contact form at www.tumlinsonthacker.com .

  ONE

  REPUBLIC OF PANNA

  20 YEARS EARLIER

  "This is the site," the guide said as the Jeep rumbled to a halt.

  Ollo had only been appointed Chief Aide to the Prime Minister a week earlier, but it had already been an eventful week. On his third day in office, Ollo had received a call from Teru, the head of the Panna water export. The company produced a primary export for Panna--the bottled water that was, at the moment, very popular with Europeans and Americans. Which meant that Teru was an important man to the Republic. As important as Ollo, in his way.

  "There has been a meteor strike near the aquifer," Teru had said.

  That statement had set into motion a series of events that led to Ollo riding uncomfortably in the old Jeep, out into the dense jungle of Panna's interior, where a large crater was ringed with hundreds of fallen trees, collapsed outward by the shockwave concussion.

  The guide driving the jeep was one of Teru's men.

  "There," he said, pointing up the ridge. "The aquifer has two chambers that are close enough to the surface for us to access without deep drilling technology. The first is where we have built our facility. This is the second. We call it 'Site B.'"

  "What does it mean?"

  "Sir?" the guide asked.

  Ollo rolled his eyes. "What does it mean, that the meteor has struck here? I agreed to come to this site, but Teru would say only that this could be a national emergency. How does this constitute a national emergency?"

  The guide looked uncomfortable, and waved toward the crater. "There is contamination," the guide said.

  Only then did Ollo see the men in contamination suits, moving around the far edge of the crater, using instruments to probe the soil or take readings from the air.

  There was a piece of equipment in the center of the crater that Ollo did not recognize. "What is that?" he asked the guide.

  "A small drilling platform. It takes a sample of the water. Our team has found some sort of heavy metal at the impact site. We have removed all that we could find, but we fear some of it has seeped into the aquifer."

  "Dangerous? Poison?"

  "We do not think so," the guide said.

  Ollo rolled his eyes again. "I do not see the point of this. Remove the metal. If it is not poison, then I see no reason to worry."

  "Sir," the guide said. "We have been unable to determine what the heavy metal is. We do not know for certain that it will not be harmful. Regulations require us to shut down production until we can thoroughly test the water."

  There they were--the words Ollo had dreaded most.

  Shut down production.

  At this time, there were few exports from Panna that anyone in the world cared about. Clothing and textiles were only a minor blip to the world economy, if that. And the attempts to build a coffee export had been a huge blunder. Add to that the fact that tourism had dropped off sharply after the tsunamis and tropical storms, and Panna was on the verge of financial collapse.

  So it was either Panna Water, or cocaine. They had opted for the water. The competition was slightly less cutthroat.

  Panna Water was a trusted brand, worldwide--artesian water from the aquifers of the island, filtered through half a mile of volcanic rock that infused it with minerals. The processing plant was more or less irrelevant, from the standing of actually "producing" anything. The water was brought in, purified and tested, and then bottled right in the facility. It was shipped by huge cargo containers, thousands of bottles per load--the irony of water being shipped by sea was not lost on Ollo.

  As a trendy product, it was popular in European and American cafes. And, at the moment, it was keeping Panna from sinking into oblivion. So shutting down production was as appealing as having someone sneeze on your food.

  "Have there been any public reports of this strike?" Ollo asked.

  "None," the guide responded. "Teru asked that we withhold any press releases until you had seen the site. My people are drafting something now, to announce the shutdown."

  "That will not be necessary," Ollo said. "Production will continue."

  The guard looked alarmed.

  "I will talk to Teru personally," Ollo said. "Testing will continue, but if we are within tolerances for all known poisons and harmful substances, then there is no reason to make a public announcement."

  The guide nodded, and put the Jeep in gear, driving them back to civilization.

  Ollo made his calls as soon as they were within range of a cell tower. Teru agreed with his decision, though Ollo got the sense that what Teru was after was someone to point to if things went wrong. That had clearly been the reason for having Ollo inspect the site, without Teru present. The new Aide to the Prime Minister--he would surely be out to prove himself, wouldn't he? He might make rash decisions. He might be overwhelmed.

  If this went wrong, Ollo would be the one who paid the price.

  And yet, he still feel this was the only way.

  The production would continue. The mysterious heavy metal would be ignored. As far as Ollo was concerned, it was just one more mineral. It could actually be good for people, really. He went back to his office and finished out his first week with a large banquet, held to welcome him to his office. He feasted on roasted pork and wild rice. He stuck to drinking wine, and politely declined the bottled water.

  TWO

  PRESENT DAY

  A blur of lights and motion swept past on either side as Adam dipped in and out of consciousness. He was on the ground again, after a brief helicopter hop, and was strapped to a stretcher being rolled at high speed into a squat, indistinct building, through a series of corridors.

  "Stop," he said, though his voice was strained and quiet. No one heard him.

  "Stop!" he tried to shout. But his voice wasn't quite working the way he wanted. He came out as guttural moaning, louder but no more distinct.

  He realized that his thinking wasn't quite right, either. His mind was muddied. He wasn't able to focus on the details of the world as it rushed by.

  Drugged, he thought. Sedative.

  Despite the lethargy that was threatening to overtake him and drive him back into unconsciousness, Adam managed to tense his arms, pulling as hard as he could at the straps that held him in place. He started to kick his feet, struggling to loosen them from the restraints. He had to get off of this gurney. He had to get out of of here.

  He had to find his family.

  As if someone heard his thoughts, one of his escorts said, "His family is in T-38."

  "We isolate him," a woman said. "He's different. Unaffected."

  "Lucid?" the man replied. "We got one?"

  "Priseman wants him in T-54."

  "Got it," the man replied.

  Adam was still struggling weakly against the restraints, but he filed aw
ay the information for later. T-38 and T-54. It sounded like they were in the same wing, at least. If he could escape, he might be able to get to his family and get them out of here. He wasn't sure how, yet. He wasn't sure of anything.

  "What about the other one? The body?"

  "We have it," the woman said. "Second unit picked it up. It's in the cooler."

  Cooler?

  Something in Adam's brain fired. The cooler! The vials! He had to get those, to get them to ... who? Ethan would know. He'd ask Ethan.

  Ethan is dead.

  The words formed in Adam's brain automatically, and they were enough to shock him back into the fight. He struggled again, pulling against the straps, and raised his head, twisting his neck painfully, trying to see where he was.

  One of the men--a soldier maybe, wearing body armor and carrying an automatic weapon--was carrying the blue cooler. Adam involuntarily reached for it, and when the solider saw him, he smiled, then casually tossed the cooler in the trash as they went by.

  Adam let out a guttural cry, anger expressed in the only way he could. The soldier smirked, and fell back, out of sight.

  Adam continued to stare, glaring now at the wall rushing past.

  He settled back, and in a moment they turned the gurney and rolled him into a room, leaving him strapped down. He couldn't see the door, from this vantage point.

  "Leave him here for now," the woman said. "Priseman has people coming in to do a blood panel."

  "What about his family?" the man asked.

  Adam strained again against the restraints, pulling with all his strength. He turned his head, trying to see the door, trying to hear what they had planned for his family.

  All he heard was a click as the door closed.

  THREE

  The mobile command unit was parked in a fenced-in lot behind the research facility. David had ordered that the lot be cleared of all cars, and that temporary fencing be raised to block anyone from entering. The MCU was as safe as one could get, in terms of military-grade armor and life support systems. He could be parked in the middle of the busiest shopping mall in the world, for all it mattered, and no one would even know for sure if he was in there.

  But David preferred solitude. Especially when he was thinking.

  On the screen in front of him he saw Adam Bolland being rolled into the facility on a stretcher. He watched as Bolland struggled against the restraints, and even managed to feel a bit of pity for the man. He wanted his family, after all. He wanted to get them out of there, to get them someplace safe.

  Unfortunately, his goals were not going to be achieved.

  The youngest daughter, Sarah, had suffered a seizure just after the family was taken into custody. At the moment she was in a coma, attached to numerous machines that were keeping her hydrated and alive, while monitoring her condition--which was as severe as it was unusual.

  The twins, Sammie and Charlie, were in a room of their own, and were showing all the signs of being suppressed--glassy stares, recurring pattern movements, and a complete lack of awareness of their surroundings.

  Kate Bolland--the wife--also appeared to be one of the Suppressed.

  David scowled once he realized he was now using that term by reflex.

  Suppressed.

  It had come up again and again from the researchers and scientists on the project. It was coined by some woman from the World Health Organization--one of the first researchers to discover what was happening. And, because humans are fond of clever categorizations, it caught on.

  David thought it was a bit puerile--categorizing people as "Lucid" or "Suppressed." But the terms stuck, and if there was any hope of everyone being on the same page, it would have to come from a common set of terms. This was as good as David could hope for.

  "Sir," one of the staff said over David's direct channel. "With the subject in custody, should we move his family to a more secure wing?"

  "Maintain their quarantine," David said. "Place guards at the door of Mr. Bolland's room. I'm sure he'll be happy to learn, later, that we have cared well for his family."

  "Yes, sir."

  David smiled. Care, of course, was the furthest thing from his mind. Study--that was the order of the day.

  Because in discovering Adam Bolland as a Lucid, David found himself in a unique position. He now had, to his knowledge, the only subjects on Earth who fit the full spectrum, from Lucid to Suppressed. With an unexpected new category in-between.

  Adam was clearly one of the Lucid--completely resistant to the heavy metal poisoning that was slowly sapping the will of the world.

  Lucid were rare, but David had managed to tag and procure a number of them, housing them in this facility. It had been part of his mission, along with studying the effects of high-frequency command-level programming on the Suppressed. Procure and program. That was his agenda.

  But he had a further agenda to determine exactly how the Lucid were able to resist the heavy metal poisoning. And, if possible, to replicate that resistance. Because as that strange metal replicated and spread through the water supply, it was becoming increasingly difficult to avoid. And his employers very much wanted to avoid it, at all costs.

  This facility had also been charged with apprehending the Suppressed as they arose, keeping them out of the public eye for as long as possible. That mission was a bust, now that all hell was breaking loose outside. Colorado Springs was already being overrun by spontaneous instances of the Suppressed, acting at random, sometimes acting violently. And there was every indication that the same story was unfolding elsewhere across the US and the rest of the world.

  As a result of the sudden and unexpected upswing of Suppressed activity, quarantining had become a moot point. Those quarantined in this facility were now no more than test subjects.

  Except for a handful of them: the Bollands represented so much more.

  Adam was Lucid, while Kate and the twins were Suppressed. Kate, then, represented a genetic link to the children, but not to Adam. That created a baseline. One Lucid, one suppressed, three genetic offspring.

  Mrs. Halpern would be very pleased with the data David could pull from studying the Bolland family. He predicted that they could make significant leaps forward in the research.

  And then there was the youngest girl--Sarah.

  There was clearly something going on with her, genetically. Perhaps she had inherited some odd trait from her father that was in conflict with the rest of her genome. It was causing her to simultaneously exhibit traits of both the Suppressed and the Lucid, and the results were actually quite catastrophic.

  Her body, it seemed, was at war with itself.

  That was potentially devastating for the young girl's life, but it would be very important to the research.

  David was no geneticist. His expertise lay in technology and systems. Even the command-level programming they were using to control local military and law enforcement relied a great deal on physical technology--transmitters that could just reach the frequency at which the heavy metal would start to resonate.

  But after participating in the study the Suppressed for as long as he had, he could see patterns forming in the way the Lucid arose.

  Most were genetic dead ends--sterile and unable to produce offspring. Rarely would a Lucid have children, and those would inevitably be Lucid as well--the genetic resistance transmitting to the next generation.

  But Adam had produced two Suppressed children, and one child with a severe and unusual disorder.

  What was it about Bolland's genes that made the difference? Or...

  David called up the data on Bolland's family, as well as data from his past blood samples of Adam. He knew enough about genetics to quickly find what he was looking for, and when he saw it, he smiled.

  "Kate, you wicked woman," David said, his smile Cheshire-like.

  Adam was not the father of Kate's twins. Momma had been playing the field.

  In one respect, this was disappointing news. It meant that they didn't hav
e quite the genetic research treasure trove they'd hoped for. No baseline.

  But David checked another set of genetic markers to confirm another theory, and again smiled when he was proven to be correct.

  Sarah Bolland was Adam's daughter.

  Which meant that the going theory about the Lucid might still be true. For some reason, the Lucid had difficulty reproducing. And yet, by some miracle Sarah had been born. And born different.

  It seemed David had a genetic treasure on his hands after all.

  FOUR

  15 YEARS EARLIER

  "The objective of the World Health Organization (WHO) shall be to provide health and care options for all peoples of the world, to the best of the Organization's ability."

  It was right there in front of her face, every single day, and yet every single day she wanted to rip it off the wall.

  The quote was plastered up around the building -- her building -- and yet it didn't feel like her quote. It felt alien somehow. The right philosophy, the right idea, but somehow incompatible with her reality. These days, anyway.

  It didn't drive her; it didn't cause her the same anxious excitement, the constant feeling of 'running out of time' that she used to feel.

  Instead it made her want to vomit.

  Jocelyn Wu remembered when the quote was different. Better. She remembered when it actually meant something, when it was a simple, provocative, enticing reason to join the WHO:

  The objective of the World Health Organization shall be the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.

  But not today.

  Today, the WHO was a fragmented, politically-driven, overly bureaucratic collection of scientists, medical personnel, and an army of administrators, all with the goal of covering their own collective asses.

  The WHO was still considered the most effective agency of the United Nations--which wasn't saying much. Despite the lofty goals and affirmations of the organization, it had produced a disappointingly small body of work since Jocelyn had joined a year earlier. Jocelyn had expected more. She'd joined because she'd wanted to make a serious impact on the health of the world, and had ended up being essentially a ...