The Prometheus Effect

by David Fleming

“It’s been several years since it was last filled to capacity,” Jack said.

  Another half-answer. Whether Jack was being evasive, or just genuinely careful about divulging details, Mykl had yet to decide.

  Mykl crawled into the seat closest to Jack’s. His feet didn’t even reach the edge of the bottom cushion, and with his arms fully extended to the sides, his fingertips barely made contact with the armrests. His chair was oriented with its back toward Jack’s, so he turned around, leaned to the side, and peered at Jack with a “What now?” look.

  “My apologies,” Jack said. “These seats weren’t designed with children in mind. If you lift the inside of the right armrest, you’ll find a control pad. Seat adjustments are at the bottom.”

  Mykl withdrew the thin pad and placed it across his lap. It had an alphanumeric keyboard and a large empty space for drawing patterns, like Mykl had seen Jack do before. Pictograms on the bottom made for intuitive seat adjustments. A light touch rotated him slowly to face Jack. If all the seats had this capacity, then it made perfect sense for them to be spaced so far apart, so they couldn’t bump into each other.

  Jack ran a finger along the left edge of his control pad, causing the entire pad to glow slightly. Mykl managed to do the same before Jack entered a series of keystrokes that left them in total darkness. The pad in Mykl’s lap provided a portable island of light to cling to in an empty black sea. He waited for the show to begin.

  Jack’s fingers blurred across his glowing pad and then—Stars!

  It was like staring up into a perfectly clear evening sky. Mykl tilted his seat back and made a full rotation to take in the awesome spectacle. He could gaze at the stars for hours without feeling cold or getting a crick in his neck.

  “This is the way the sky above us would look if it were dark outside. A geosynchronous orbiting telescope set to a wide-field view supplies the image feed.”

  “I like it,” Mykl said. “Is the view adjustable from here?” His eyes danced over a long string of numbers and characters low on the horizon.

  “All of our satellites can be controlled from any number of locations, including here.” Jack began entering a new set of codes.

  “Will I be permitted to…” Mykl paused ever so slightly to think of another word besides “play.” He was certain that one did not play with satellites. “… manipulate any of them?” he finished.

  With a hint of a smile and a quick glance at Mykl’s not-so-innocent expression, Jack replied, “Once I’ve finished your orientation here, you will be allowed to… play with them all you wish. Your clearance level won’t allow you to cause them any harm.”

  Mykl’s control pad blocked his micro fist pump from Jack’s view. He hoped.

  Jack changed the star field, then manipulated a tiny circular cursor in the stars and settled it on an extremely faint pinpoint of light. “This is our own sun as viewed from a distance of approximately fifty light years. The unmanned research vessel that deployed the sensor package responsible for this image is still in transit to its destination. With the FTL relay, you could bring up a visual from the vessel, too, but the light would be severely red-shifted. Once it—”

  “Wait,” Mykl interrupted. Speaking directly at the center of the circular cursor, he said, “You’re telling me that you can send commands to a probe that’s fifty light years away… at faster than the speed of light?” This must be some sort of test. Jack couldn’t possibly think he was so stupid to believe such nonsense.

  “FTL probably isn’t the most accurate statement,” Jack amended.

  Mykl smirked in the dark.

  “Instantaneous would be a more precise term.”

  Mykl rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “How?”

  “There are particles in the nucleus of an atom—so small that they have yet to be discovered by the outside world—that when split, can be utilized for the passing of data almost instantaneously. No matter how far apart the split particles are, what happens to one, happens to the other. Discovering the particle was the easy part. Finding out how to manipulate it… now that was a challenge.”

  Slowly exhaling, Mykl sensed his mind spinning down into micro-atomic infinity. This sounded more like magic than science. With a deep sucking intake of breath, he brought himself back to reality.

  “You have fusion,” Mykl said, almost in accusation.

  “Yes,” Jack confirmed.

  “You have FTL communication.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can make cities of diamond—out of dirt.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why not put all this technology out there for the world to use?”

  “Do you know who Prometheus was, Mykl?”

  “Um, mythical person who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man?”

  “Exactly. Now, what do you think man would do today if he were given all the technology we possess here?”

  “I… I don’t know.” Mykl didn’t like the initial dark thoughts that came to him, and he certainly didn’t want to share them.

  “Take some time to think about Prometheus and what would happen if he were to be put on trial for his actions. Then determine if you would do things differently. Then and now.”

  “Is this like homework?”

  “Your first assignment,” Jack said. “You didn’t think this was going to be easy, did you?”

  “Ha! I didn’t know school had started!”

  Mykl admired the pseudo-stars. He didn’t feel like delving into a philosophical trial for a mythical being yet. There were too many galaxies, stars, and planets to explore. He half expected to wake up from a dream and find himself back in the nightmare of the Box. If not for the very real puncture wound itching like crazy on his leg, he would have pinched himself. This City could mean the end of science fiction and all its—

  He cut off his own thought to ask, “Are there any aliens down here?”

  “Yes,” Jack said. He switched off the stars, leaving the two of them in darkness but for the control panels that lit their faces dramatically from below.

  Mykl noticed that Jack had answered his question immediately, without pausing to think. No time taken to make up a story or to deceive. Mykl was sure he would have gotten the same type of response had he asked for a drink of water.

  “Is there any question I can ask where the answer won’t shock me out of my socks?”

  “Are you afraid of the truth, Mykl?”

  “Is the truth a face-sucking monster?”

  Jack laughed. “Would you like to meet him?”

  “Who?”

  “Our resident alien.”

  “Love to,” Mykl replied. This is definitely the end of science fiction.

  CHAPTER 36

  A titanic flowing wave of black diamond leapt from the cavern wall. Frozen at the peak of its curl, it suggested an impending crash of monumental destruction, marking the entrance to the City’s Research and Development facility.

  “There’re hidden fish rendered inside the wave if you know where to look,” Jack said as he ushered Mykl inside.

  Jack led Mykl down a brightly glowing hallway. Their curving path took them so far that Mykl thought they must certainly be beyond the boundaries of the cavern.

  Finally, Jack stopped and poised his hand over a depression in the wall. “Ready?” he asked.

  In the half hour it had taken them to get to this moment, Mykl had imagined a menagerie of alien creatures in an infinite variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Jack had given him no hint or clue as to what to expect, nor had Mykl asked. This was a special moment, not to be spoiled by forewarning.

  Mykl swallowed his anxiety and nodded warily at Jack, his eyes never leaving the door.

  Swishing efficiently aside, the door revealed a narrow, high-ceilinged laboratory with low workstations bracketing a closed blast door directly opposite them. At Mykl’s eye level, tables with wire cages sliced out from the wall between workstations. They all appeared to be empty. Like so much of the City, the r
oom was unoccupied.

  “Is he invisible?” Mykl whispered, leaning his head inside with his feet firmly planted outside.

  “No, he’s just very small. His name is Noah.”

  At the mention of the name, a small white furry head with tiny ears and beady black eyes popped up to peek through the wires of the closest cage. It wiggled its whiskers at Mykl.

  Mykl took tentative steps toward it. The two beings locked eyes and blinked in unison, each no doubt wondering the intention of the other. Mykl furrowed his eyebrows in perplexed confusion. The caged being flicked the fluffy tip of its tail in curiosity. In the last few hours, Mykl had learned of the existence of technologies that could drastically change the future of life on the planet. Now, he stood nose to nose with…

  “A mouse?”

  Mykl raised his fingers to the tiny beast to let it sniff him. Wispy breaths puffed against his skin. The mouse rose on its hind legs to pat the spot on Mykl’s finger where Dr. Lee had taken a blood sample, then in a cedar-scented explosion of wood shavings, it bounded to the far corner of its cage.

  Apparently, science fiction was safe—for now.

  “It’s a very special mouse,” Jack replied.

  “Did I scare it?” Mykl frowned, but the mouse quickly returned. It reached out between the wires with both paws holding something out to Mykl. A split shell with a greenish seed inside.

  “He likes you,” Jack said. “He doesn’t share his beloved pistachios with just anyone.”

  Mykl couldn’t help but smile as he accepted the offering with thumb and forefinger. “Thank you, Noah.”

  The mouse raised a paw above its eye, then extended it out to Mykl.

  “You pry the shell halves apart and eat the seed,” Jack instructed. He must have guessed that I’ve never seen a pistachio before, Mykl thought. Which he appreciated, since he hadn’t.

  “Yum! These are good,” Mykl said. Then he thought about the source of his treat. With a hand covering the side of his mouth, he whispered to Jack, “I’m not going to catch some alien mouse disease, am I?”

  “Not to worry. Being an alien isn’t contagious, only hereditary—or, in Noah’s case, artificially induced.”

  Mykl blinked. “So it really is a mouse? I mean—an earth mouse? I mean—you know what I mean.”

  “In your online research at the asylum, did you ever delve into the history of space exploration?”

  “Of course. Even when I was still with my… my mom.”

  “In the mid-1970s we acquired samples of soil, water, and ice from the inner planets, Jupiter, Saturn, and their moons. The most significant findings came from one moon orbiting Jupiter. Europa. Under its icy crust is an ocean teaming with a dormant virus. On the surface, in patches of shade, lives an ice lichen. Nothing intelligent, but—the virus, should it ever find its way into Earth’s ecosystem, is capable of killing ninety percent of all multicellular organisms. Including all intelligent life.”

  Mykl instantly had misgivings about sharing Noah’s food.

  “The lichens proved to be the most interesting and useful of the specimens. Our researchers postulate that the constant hard radiation from Jupiter forced the lichens to evolve at an accelerated rate. Without constant radiation, dynamic changes could not have happened fast enough for it to adapt and survive in its harsh environment.”

  Jack removed a clear, puck-shaped item from a nearby workstation and handed it to Mykl. “This is the first sample of another living species in our solar system.”

  Mykl ran his fingers over the clear material. There wasn’t any reason to ask what it was made of—he already knew. The sample inside resembled a heavily weathered rusty green paint chip. He could find something similar in the asylum quad without much effort.

  “What makes it so special?” he asked, giving it back to Jack.

  “With some genetic tweaking, we infected the lichen with the virus. The adaptive properties of the lichen then allowed for symbiotic interaction with carbon-based life forms.” Jack indicated Noah, who waved an empty pistachio shell at him. “Normal lab mice only have a life span of about three years. Noah is sixty years old.”

  Jack returned the specimen to its place and invited Mykl to follow him. But Mykl paused beside Noah’s cage. He felt sorry for the tiny critter. Sixty years in a cage wasn’t living—it was a sentence. Fourteen months had been fourteen too many for Mykl in his own asylum prison. Pistachios or not, it seemed wrong.

  He waved goodbye to Noah and followed Jack to the blast door.

  They entered a space nearly identical to the safety vestibule they came through when Jack first brought them all to the City. Jack performed the opening routine, with Mykl observing every nuance. Finally, with a wait-until-you-see-this smile, Jack pushed open the second blast door and moved aside for Mykl.

  Another cavern, even larger than the City’s, beckoned. Towering trees near the entrance swayed gently in a warm breeze. The ground sloped down to a manicured park, which then gave way to fields of green crops in rows. Lakes, interconnected by meandering streams, softened the hard lines of the fields. Long shadows stretched away from rectangular sun strips, shining low to Mykl’s left.

  As Mykl wandered forward, Jack tapped his shoulder and pointed at the wall behind them, where a balcony was mounted. At first glance Mykl thought it was far away, then he realized it was just extremely scaled down. An attached slide spiraled several feet to the ground. He caught a glimpse of a tiny blur of white flying down the last few feet before it scampered off into the trees.

  “You didn’t think us so heartless as to keep our little friend locked away in a cage all these decades, did you?”

  “Never crossed my mind…”

  Jack had closed the door behind them, but now it opened again, and Delilah stepped through. She smiled at Mykl, then scowled at Jack.

  “You,” she said, pointing, “need to remember to carry your phone.” She bent down to Mykl. “And you!” she said. “You need to wash up for supper. I bet your hands smell like fish food.”

  It seemed to Mykl that this woman never lost a bet.

  She handed Jack his phone and shared some words that Mykl couldn’t make out, but which clearly made Jack concerned.

  Jack turned to Mykl. “I’m afraid I have to leave,” he said. “I probably won’t be back until late tonight. Lahlah will take you back.” He mussed Mykl’s hair and left in a hurry.

  “Lahlah?” Mykl asked, looking up at Delilah, who was straightening his chocolate brown hair with caring fingers.

  “Our rascal of a son pinned that one on me when he was young, and it’s stuck ever since.”

  “It’s pretty. I like it,” Mykl declared to a pair of mesmerizing green eyes.

  “Is that so? Well then, I have a proposition for you. How would you like to stay in the house with me and Jack? I’ll even let you call me Lahlah.”

  This wasn’t a woman who played fair. How could anyone possibly say no to those eyes—and that smile? He felt warm, safe… and loved. All he could manage to say without his voice breaking was, “Okay.”

  She took his hand to lead him out. “Still have to keep your room clean though, kiddo,” she said with a wink.

  When they passed by Noah’s empty cage, Mykl asked, “With a whole…” Mykl searched for a word, “… world to explore in the other cavern, why would he ever come back to this cage?”

  “Because that’s where the pistachios are, silly.”

  CHAPTER 37

  “Is he wearing the vest?” asked the agent with the binoculars.

  “According to my sensor readings, yes,” said the agent with the directional density scanner.

  “Well, if he isn’t, he’s dead. Even with these reduced-velocity rounds,” said the agent looking through a high-powered rifle scope.

  ***

  Sebastian stretched after finishing a prerecording of his interview with a local news affiliate known to be sympathetic to whistleblowers. It had not gone as well as he’d anticipated, but in the end,
everything worked out fine. They were ignorant as to who they were dealing with. Now, if tonight’s viewers deemed his story credible, he could start parlaying his secrets into a meteoric payout.

  “Our media people would like to know if you’ll be staying in town tonight, Mr. Falstano?” the girl at the news studio’s reception desk asked as he passed her.

  “I certainly am,” he replied. “Got an important dinner date.” He paused to put on his sunglasses and admire his reflection in the tinted glass of the lobby windows. Not quite satisfied, he licked a finger to flatten an eyebrow…

  ***

  “Now!”

  ***

  A hole appeared in the dark tint an instant before his reflection fell in a cascade of tempered glass at his feet. Brilliant sunlight and searing pain hit him all at once. The heavy slug impacting his left breast pocket dropped him to his knees. Clutching his chest, he dove to the ground and squirmed through sharp bits of glass to hide behind a couch.

  Squealing tires and acrid smoke marked the retreat of his would-be assassins.

  Desperately, he ripped open his shirt, thrust a hand under the protective vest, and withdrew it. No blood. If he could have laughed at that moment, he would have. Until his breath returned, primal grunting noises would have to do. Still. I’m alive!

  And I’m smarter than they are, he thought. Smart enough to be prepared for an attempt on his life. If they had aimed for his head they might have succeeded. If the glass hadn’t slowed the bullet it might have had the energy to penetrate his vest. If he didn’t always wear his sunglasses he might have been blinded by flying glass.

  If, if, if. He had always been lucky. Today, many times over. And now they had given him all the credibility he needed—in the form of a copper-plated slug lodged in the chest plate of his vest.

  Damn, that hurt though.

  ***

  “Nice shot.”

  “Thanks.”

  ***