A quick squint at the glowing wall clock answered his question. 2:37 a.m. Much too early to be awake. Mykl rolled over in relief when someone finally answered the phone. But his eyes popped open again when he overheard his mom’s name spoken. Quickly, he ran to listen.
“Yes, she has a child here… No, she’s listed as a single parent… No, she’s the only person we have a contact number for. Why, what’s wrong? … Oh my God.”
Mykl didn’t want to believe the likely meaning of that “Oh my God.” It can’t be true. No. It can’t. She was going to be picking him up in a few hours. She was. She had to. They were talking about someone else, something else… anyone else besides his mom.
The lady set her phone down as if it had become too heavy to hold. Mykl stepped into the room to face her. Tears already rolled down his cheeks, as well as hers.
“I’m so sorry, Mykl,” she said to him in a hoarse whisper.
Grief and uncertainty threatened to crush him under their immense weight. His legs would no longer let him stand. He lowered himself into a fetal position on the cold tile. Merciless serpents of anguish and despair coiled about his chest and throat, robbing him of breath. His mom was all he had. Her loving smile touched his mind. He tried in vain to hold her image close, only to lose it in a cold fog. Angrily, he flicked a mental lash at the beasts already beginning to feed on her memory. You can’t have her, he thought. She’s mine!
Maybe they’d made a mistake and it wasn’t her? She changed her name and hair color like the days of the week. Maybe it was a lady who wasn’t a mom? That way there wouldn’t be a kid left all alone. The most beautiful person in the world would then show up with a warm hug and make the pain in his chest go away. He could tell her how much he loved her and always would. Then they could celebrate his birthday, get his present… and meet his dad.
All of that was gone now. His heart no longer served a purpose. Life without her wasn’t worth living.
The care worker knelt beside him, placing a hand on his back. “The police are sending someone to get you, Mykl.”
Her voice sounded so far away. He scrunched hands into his teary eyes. Another voice echoed in his mind. “Happy birthday, Stinker!”
“Where will I go?” he managed to ask.
“I don’t know, Mykl. I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 3
Late Winter 2040
Sebastian Falstano felt as uncomfortable passing through the hatch into the submarine as the crew who had called it home for the last six months did at his entry. While his discomfort originated from suppressing claustrophobic thoughts, the crew’s came from having to share their space with a stranger working for the CIA. Sebastian wasn’t concerned with them, however; their orders forbade them to speak to the spook for any reason other than an emergency. Sebastian cared only about his mission: determine the validity of newly discovered evidence of supposed extraterrestrial technology, and the impact it could have on the world if made public.
Bookended by the submarine commander and his XO, Sebastian made his way through narrow passageways. He had been assured by his superiors that he would receive special treatment and enjoy private quarters, and he was looking forward to it. His arduous route to the sub had required clandestine connections and blindfolded transportation switches that had left no chance for relaxation, and with more than forty-eight hours clocked and thousands of miles traveled, he could smell his own funk. A cigarette, shower, and a decent meal were in order.
They passed the galley and its enticing aromas. As Sebastian was deciding what would come first—the shower or the meal—two men with no-nonsense expressions stepped out from behind a bulkhead. With grips like iron shackles, they took hold of his upper arms. One pressed a pneumatic syringe against his left jugular vein and pulled the trigger.
Darkness engulfed him.
***
Back in his quarters, the commander sat down heavily at his small desk. His executive officer had followed him at his unspoken order, which had consisted of a concerned look and a jerk of his head.
“Close the door, Kyle,” the commander said. When it shut completely, he continued, “I don’t like this, not one bit. Why would they pull us off a critical recovery mission?”
“The rocket debris will surely still be there when we return. Brass must think it can wait,” said the XO.
“Dammit! This is a prototype stealth submarine, not a taxi! And, that smug son of a bitch didn’t even have the courtesy to ask permission to come aboard. Now we’re sailing with a dark navigation plot, without bearing, speed, or depth, while some satellite feed takes over our course headings. You know the consequences if we’re discovered. Did they take the self-destruct commands from me as well? No, I don’t like this at all. The sooner he’s dead or off my boat, the better. These orders put my boat and my crew in unnecessary danger. There’s something very odd about this mission.”
The XO, standing at ease, said, “The orders came with Juliet Romeo priority.”
“I’ve never even heard of a Juliet Romeo priority before!” the commander railed. “The damned thing required more authentication codes than it takes to launch a two-megaton Novabird. I’ve been serving on tin cans for twenty-seven years. They should trust me enough to tell me where we’re going.”
“Perhaps that’s why you were selected, sir. You have a reputation for making correct decisions, even in the poor light of dimly explained orders. Maybe it’s better that we don’t know where we’re going. They’ve obviously invested a great deal of resources to accommodate this man, yet they still regard him as expendable. What’s to keep them from thinking the same of us?”
“You’ve got a really sick mind. You know that?” The commander withdrew his sidearm from its holster and slid the magazine out. After racking out the loaded round, he inspected the breach with a critical eye. The XO froze, his eyes widening slightly in concern. “You did a great job cleaning this,” the commander said. “It’d be a real shame if I had to dirty it up on that spook.”
“Yes, sir. It would.”
CHAPTER 4
Flat on his back, naked and cold, in a tiny deserted infirmary, Sebastian pounded the back of his head progressively harder against a sliver of pillow. The numbing buzz from his rattled brain seeped into his body and through to the thin, unforgiving mattress. Stiff leather straps bit into the flesh of his limbs and torso. Porous IV tape compressed folded gauze pads over standard injection sites and tugged painfully at the fine hair of his inner arms. A pea-sized dot of fresh venous blood seeped through one of the pads. That single bit of evidence, and an ache in his groin, told him the IVs and a catheter had recently been removed.
He had no means of calculating time. The thought of countless days strapped down and sedated rapidly fouled his mood. To make things worse, his body smelled like a dirty diaper soaked in vinegar. Days of intravenous feeding had left him craving anything he could chew more than twice before swallowing.
A spinning spoked wheel at the heavy, sealed hatch announced visitors. Sebastian’s thoughts coalesced into a dangerously reckless attitude.
The commander of the sub tossed a set of clothes into his face as the hatch swung open. “Get dressed. It’s time you got off my boat.” The ship’s med tech followed the commander inside, swiftly unfastened Sebastian’s bindings, and promptly withdrew.
“Where are we?” Sebastian asked as he put on the same clothes he had started his journey in.
“Our location is classified,” the commander said.
Sebastian’s expression transformed into one of arrogance. He considered informing the commander of the importance of his mission. But before he could utter another word, the commander’s icy tone stopped him.
“I don’t care what clearance level you have, Mr. Falstano, or how highly regarded you come. Your orders state that you are to keep your mouth shut from now until you are safely sealed outside my boat. If you speak to any member of my crew, I have explicit orders to shoot you. In the head. Without question or repercussion. Under
stood?”
Sebastian noted the commander’s empty holster and the deadly black semi-auto pistol gripped in his right hand, safety off and finger indexed above the trigger. Even with frangible bullets, it was a breach of standard safety protocol to draw a weapon inside a submarine, unless one intended to use it. “Understood,” Sebastian replied.
A quick sniff of his wrinkled shirt revealed they hadn’t bothered to launder his clothes during his forced hibernation. The commander’s crooked smile confirmed the insult was intentional. Muscles along Sebastian’s jaw bulged as his clenched teeth fought to contain the seething comments swimming in the back of his throat.
“Ready when you are, Commander,” Sebastian said with enough insolence to erase the last trace of smile from the commander’s face. The commander made a terse gesture with his pistol to direct Sebastian out of the infirmary.
An eerie quiet greeted him as he stepped into the deserted passageway. Apparently the commander had taken steps to remove any opportunity for him to commit suicide by inadvertently talking to a crew member. Sebastian chuckled at the thought as his long strides took him to the forward hatch.
The submarine’s Executive Officer stood at attention in a shaft of greenish light below the hatch as they entered the airlock chamber. His eyes darted to the pistol in his commander’s hand before he saluted and stepped aside. “The cavern is secure, sir,” he said, dropping the salute.
Sebastian had considered the commander’s threat during his short walk—and had deemed it to be a bluff. His mission was much too important for him to be executed for the trivial act of speaking to someone. It wasn’t as if he would be divulging mission specifics, and he desperately desired information on his whereabouts. Besides, their treatment of him prompted an irrational urge to test the commander. With one hand on a rung of the ladder leading up to the light, he flashed an impudent grin and drawled to the XO, “Where the hell are we, Ensign?”
The crisp click of a gun hammer strike sounded behind Sebastian’s head, shattering his grin. He turned to see the red-faced commander holding a pistol centered on his forehead. A flicker of confusion haunted the eyes of the two men on opposite sides of the weapon. Before Sebastian could regain his wits and laugh at the commander’s misfortune, a crushing pain in his abdomen lifted him off his feet. The XO, his fist firmly planted in Sebastian’s gut, whispered harshly, “Get out!”
Unable to retort for lack of breath, Sebastian scaled the ladder and crawled through the hatch to collapse on the outer deck. The hatch slammed closed inches from his head, leaving him alone in an artificially lit concrete cavern.
***
The XO climbed down from securing the hatch to find the commander’s pistol directed at him. Without a word, the XO calmly extended his hand, palm up, for the weapon.
“I loaded this weapon myself!” the commander exclaimed, ripping the slide back. The unfired round tumbled in the air above the ejection port, and the commander deftly snatched it into his hand. An unscathed primer stared back at him from the 9mm cartridge.
He released his grip on the pistol as the XO took possession of it. Still staring at the primer, he asked, “Why did you remove my firing pin, XO Smith?”
“I had orders to, sir.”
CHAPTER 5
Sebastian fish-gulped painful breaths as he acquainted himself with his new surroundings. That crazy bastard had looked as if he actually meant to kill him! What had he hoped to accomplish by pulling the trigger of an unloaded gun? Then again, he had to consider the sobering thought that it may have been loaded and his life was spared by an all-too-rare misfire. If they were willing to kill in order to protect whatever’s stored here, then it must be something extraordinary.
Normal breathing came back gradually, but a residual ache still filled his abdomen. That XO was going to find himself unclogging shitters on a carrier when Sebastian got done with this assignment. His prior intelligence-gathering operations—not to mention a few surreptitious finds in forbidden files—had provided him enough embarrassing details on Navy brass to make revenge a certainty.
The submarine let out a sigh of air and began slipping beneath the waters. Sebastian scrambled to his feet and leapt to a rusted ladder bolted to a natural stone wall. Hanging from a rung, he watched the last of the electronic sensor masts vanish into an inky black swirl.
A moment of inspiration struck him, and he climbed down to dip his hand in the water. It felt on the warm side and—he brought a moistened finger to his lips—tasted salty. At least he could rule out the larger freshwater lakes accessible to sub traffic.
“We have drinkable water up top if you’re that thirsty,” said a sultry female voice.
Tilting his head back, Sebastian saw a gorgeous blonde wearing a plain white lab coat standing at the top of the ladder. A brief glimpse of pink panties under her skirt brightened his mood. “And what else do you have waiting for me up there?” he asked suggestively.
“Don’t tempt me, Mr. Falstano,” she said, turning sideways to brandish her pistol and block his leering view.
“Why does everyone want to shoot me?”
“You were selected because you’re the most qualified to execute this assignment. My orders carry specific instructions on what you may be shown and what you are to evaluate. Any deviation shall be met with lethal force. The sensitivity of this mission makes even you expendable if you show signs of instability.”
“Oh, really?” Sebastian feigned indifference, though his gut was full of aching doubt. As he climbed the ladder, he surreptitiously plucked a piece of crumbling stone by a ladder bolt and tucked it into his left shoe. She appeared not to have noticed.
When he reached the top of the ladder and stood, it irked him to discover that he was significantly shorter than his host. A freakishly tall Amazon holding a gun didn’t bode well for his chances to get to know her better.
“Where the hell are we, darling?” he asked as he surveyed the crudely made cavern.
“I don’t know. They didn’t tell me, and I knew better than to ask.”
“Who are ‘they’?”
“The people who gave me the gun.”
Sebastian smirked. “What day is it then?”
“No idea.”
“Time?”
“Sorry.”
“Well, what can you tell me?”
“You were brought here under strict security to determine the validity of the artifact stored in this facility. Your credentials in science and energy, along with your clearance level, made you the best candidate. Beyond that…” She gave a shrug and an elegant flick of her wrist.
Sebastian carefully composed his face. But as he ran a hand through his hair, he couldn’t help but frown at the pungent body odor wafting from his armpit. Unwashed and unarmed—she had the better of him. “Fine then. Take me to the artifact, so I can get on with the assignment and be done with this place.”
“As you wish,” she said, her eyes flicking up to a security camera, then indicating he should lead the way to the massive vault door serving as the cavern’s only dry exit. Pretending not to notice the discreetly mounted lens, Sebastian passed over the vault threshold, the woman at his heels. With mechanical assistance the door thundered shut behind them, leaving them in complete darkness.
As a child, Sebastian’s mother had taken him on a cave tour beyond city limits. When they were deep inside, their guide had turned off the lights to show them how dark the cave appeared in its natural state. It was a darkness so complete that one’s eyes could never adapt to it. The guide pressed on with his droning monologue in the dark, not realizing that Sebastian had panicked and wet his pants.
This new darkness tugged at those memories. Sebastian sensed his inner panic rising; it threatened to take over his mind and, once again, his bladder. But as he opened his mouth to scream, the hallway lit ahead of them, allowing him to regain his leash on sanity.
“Everything okay, Mr. Falstano?”
“Fine,” he managed to croak after a co
nvulsive swallow.
As they walked down the hallway, Sebastian ran his hand along the rough exposed aggregate in the concrete wall; this place had been constructed hastily. The hallway had no turns, and ended at a ten-foot-square metal door that was even more imposing than the one they had just passed through.
The Amazon rapidly scribbled a pattern code into a circular touchpad next to the door. A high-pitched whine began resonating through the heavy air, causing Sebastian’s nose hairs to tingle. Reflexively, he raised an index finger to his nose and rubbed it in an attempt to alleviate the discomfort. The inescapable harmonics in his skull were like having a dentist drilling all his teeth at once.
“Annoying, isn’t it?” she said as she regarded him calmly, absentmindedly tapping the pistol on her left thigh.
“It’s torture!” Sebastian’s eyes watered. “What’s the reason for it?” he barely grated out.
“One of many security measures. The noise is just an insignificant side effect.” She showed no signs of discomfort.
Insignificant side effect?
An eternity of two minutes passed before silence once again fell upon them. Another few seconds and Sebastian would have divulged national secrets for a moment of peace. For a moment, he had even thought of going for her gun; by the way she handled it, he could tell she wasn’t trained in its use. But the cameras told him there had to be someone else in the cavern, and it wasn’t worth the risk to find out if they knew how to use a weapon. Besides, even if he did manage to wrest it from her, they could quietly turn out the lights and leave him to rot. If he was expendable, she certainly was too.
“Go ahead, Mr. Falstano,” she said, gesturing toward the door’s tiny handle.
With a skeptical glance at his minder, Sebastian gave the handle a tug. The three-foot-thick door swung toward him with surprisingly minimal effort. As he stepped around it, his eyes widened in surprise. A large section of the other side of the door he'd just pulled open looked like it would protrude several feet into the wide hallway of the next room in its closed position.
The Prometheus Effect Page 2
