The Founders

by Richard Turner

  Grant shook his head. “No, Sergeant, you and your men have done more than enough. Get to the sub.”

  Arm in arm, the Rangers helped each other limp to the waiting sub. A couple of sailors, seeing their predicament, ran to help.

  “You too, Ben,” said Grant.

  The small alien smiled and shook his head. “I’m not coming with you. My fate lies on a different path than yours. Susan knows this and accepts it, as do I.”

  “It’s your call. Now, let’s find some cover before the charges go off.”

  “Dave, over here,” called out Maclean, standing next to a thick cement pillar.

  Grant scooped up Ben in his arms and ran. They came to a sliding halt behind the column.

  “Ninety seconds,” said Maclean.

  “I hope Jeremy positioned the charges effectively enough to collapse most of the tunnel,” said Grant.

  “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  Ben reached for his pistol and started to fidget like a nervous child.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Grant.

  “Carus has sent more creatures to stop us,” replied Ben.

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “Because I can see them in my mind. They’re almost here.”

  Grant stuck his head out from behind the pillar just as two robots smashed through the barricade, sending anything in their path flying.

  Ben stuck his arm out from behind the column and fired. The blast went wide and struck an overturned cart, disintegrating it. The creatures hissed and turned to face their attackers.

  “Five-four-three-two-one,” said Maclean, counting down to detonation.

  The robots dug their clawed feet into the ground and turned to charge when an ear-splitting explosion filled the cavern. Rock, debris, and dust shot out of the tunnel. The sound of rocks tumbling down from the roof and filling the passageway drowned out everything else for a good thirty seconds.

  Grant stuck his head around the pillar and watched the dust cloud float out over the water. He and his friends moved out into the open and watched as the fog began to settle. The two robots that had been ready to strike were now just a mess of circuitry and metal, crushed under the weight of tons of rock. The rock pile reached almost to the roof. The tunnel was now all but impassable.

  “Go,” said Ben, taking a seat on a rock.

  “Carus will kill you when he gets his hands on you,” said Grant.

  “I know. Now please leave me.”

  “Come on, Dave, we’ve got to go,” said Maclean.

  Grant turned and ran with his friend to the gangplank and up onto the submarine. A Swedish sailor guided them to an open hatch. Grant let Maclean go first. He stopped to take one last look at Susan’s odd, but loyal, friend.

  Rocks began to tumble down from the top of the pile.

  Ben stood and looked up as the last robotic killer pushed its way through a narrow opening and slid down to the bottom of the rocks.

  Grant brought up his machine pistol to fire, but Ben was in the way. “Move!” he hollered.

  Ben stood immobile, like a statue. The robot got to its feet and charged him. It wrapped its arms around Ben and picked him up.

  “No!” screamed Grant as Ben fired his pistol, evaporating himself and the robot.

  “Sir, please get belowdecks,” said the sailor to Grant. “The captain has given the order to get underway.”

  Grant climbed down into the submarine. At the bottom of the ladder waited Maclean and Hayes.

  “What happened?” asked Maclean.

  “Ben’s dead,” replied Grant.

  “Damn, that’s too bad. I was just beginning to like the little bugger.”

  The Swedish sailor closed the hatch and slid down the ladder. “Excuse me,” said the sailor, trying to slip past the three men blocking the narrow corridor.

  Grant and Maclean hugged the wall to let the sailor past.

  “Where are Susan and Elena?” asked Grant.

  “They’re in the captain’s cabin,” said Hayes.

  A voice came over the sub’s speaker system. “All hands, this is the captain. Prepare to dive. I say again, prepare to dive.”

  “Game on,” said Grant. “Where’s the bridge?”

  “That way,” said Hayes, pointing down the corridor.

  Grant and Maclean made their way to the bridge but didn’t step inside the crowded control room.

  Larsen stood next to the diving station. “Make your depth five-zero meters.”

  “Aye, sir, five-zero meters,” repeated the sailor at the dive controls.

  Larsen picked up a handset and keyed the mic. “Torpedo room, stand by to fire number one tube.”

  “Lieutenant Larsen, why are you preparing to fire a torpedo in here?” asked Grant.

  Larsen spun a chair around. Tied to it was a man in blue coveralls. “This is Seaman Berg. He was the man I told you about who defected to those murderers. He has informed me that there is a steel barrier blocking our way out to the sea. I’m going to blast it to pieces.”

  “Will one torpedo do the job?”

  Larsen grinned, but there was no humor in the expression. “Our Swedish-made, Type 62 torpedoes have 300-kilogram warheads. It’ll do the job.”

  “Conn, this is the torpedo room. Tube number one is loaded and ready,” reported a sailor over the intercom.

  “Very well, flood tube number one and then open the outer doors,” replied Larsen.

  “How long is the passageway to the sea?” asked Maclean.

  “Eighteen-hundred meters.”

  “Sir, our depth is five-zero meters,” reported the man at the dive station.

  “Take us into the passage, make our speed ten knots.”

  “Ten knots, aye,” acknowledged one of Larsen’s junior officers.

  “I hope he knows what he’s doing,” Maclean whispered to Grant. “I doubt this tunnel is all that wide.”

  “So far, he’s impressing the crap out of me,” said Grant.

  “Target acquired,” reported a red-bearded sailor.

  “Fire number one!” ordered Larsen.

  “Number one away,” came over the intercom.

  “Time to impact?”

  “Fifty-two seconds,” reported the bearded sailor.

  “Drop our speed to five knots,” said Larsen.

  The time counted down on a clock on the wall. Each second seemed like an eternity to the men in the control room. As it approached fifty seconds, Grant held his breath, crossed his fingers, and said a quick prayer.

  The torpedo struck dead center of the metal barrier and exploded. The resulting shock wave surged both ways inside the tunnel, but Larsen had timed it perfectly. The wave washed over the sub but had lost most of its power by the time it hit them.

  “Sonar report,” said Larsen.

  “Sir, the way ahead is clear,” said a thin, black-haired sailor. “You did it.”

  A loud cheer erupted in the control room that swept along to entire length of the submarine.

  “We’re not home free yet,” said Larsen. “Make your speed ten knots until we reach open water and then make it twenty.”

  “Course heading, sir?” asked a junior officer.

  Larsen looked over at Grant. “Where to, sir?”

  “The closest isolated land mass will do until I speak with my superiors,” Grant said.

  “Navigator, set a course for the South Georgian Islands,” said Larsen.

  “Mister Larsen, for now, I think it would be prudent if we were to run as silent as possible, and I’d like us to remain on radio silence.”

  “Why, sir?”

  “If the opposition does manage to get away and come looking for us, the less we do to draw attention to ourselves, the better.”

  Larsen nodded. “I’d hate to screw up now. Your orders will be followed to the T.”

  Maclean’s stomach rumbled. “Now that that’s sorted, what do you say, boss? Want to round up some food before we find a spot to get some res
t?”

  Grant chuckled. “Sounds good. We can bring some back for the rest of our gang as well.”

  60

  As far as Carus was concerned, the rubble at the end of the tunnel was mocking him. He closed his eyes and tried to enter his ship. No matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t find a way inside the craft. A chill ran down his spine. There could only be one answer: the blast must have disabled his craft. He was trapped. He drew his pistol, aimed at the top layer of boulders, and fired. Unlike a person made of soft tissue and bone, the rocks took much longer to destroy. As soon as an opening wide enough for him to crawl through appeared, Carus tossed his pistol aside and scrambled up the rocks. He was desperate to see how badly damaged his ship was. Carus squeezed through the hole and tumbled end over end until he hit the hard cement floor of the dock.

  Violent waves rocked back and forth inside the pen, and Carus knew the security gate had been breached.

  Carus stepped over the severed hand of one of his creations. His mind was awhirl. He had to come up with an explanation for the disaster that had befallen the base under his command. Vogel and all the others would be dead soon—they would be his scapegoats. Carus stumbled to his craft as if in a daze. Several large boulders had smashed into the outer casing, crushing the ship’s engine and ripping open a large gash, exposing the bridge. He didn’t need to be told that the ship would never fly again.

  Carus ran his hand along the exterior of the ship until he came to a hidden panel. He opened it and pulled down on a lever. The outer casing split apart and a slender, one-man ship slid out. Carus placed his hand on the cockpit, activating the craft. He waited for the ship to warm up before opening the cockpit and climbing inside. Carus checked that the ship’s flight controls were operational. Satisfied that he was ready to go, Carus looked at the timer on his tablet and saw the base had thirteen minutes of life left to it. He saw no reason to delay his departure and applied power to the engine. Carus aimed the nose of his craft at the dark water filling the cavern. Like a bird diving underwater, his ship leveled out at fifty meters and sped down the tunnel to the open sea.

  At the far end of the tunnel, he brought his ship out of the water and straight up into the night sky. When he was thirty thousand meters above Antarctica, he opened his engine and shot off at mach 10. The southern continent faded from view as he flew north to his new facility, hidden in the Russian wilderness.

  Vogel paced back and forth in the command center as the bad news was relayed to him. His life had fallen to pieces in a matter of minutes. He slumped down into his chair, opened a desk drawer, and took hold of an old German Army revolver. Vogel checked that it was loaded before placing it against his temple. His hand shook like a leaf. He took a deep breath and pulled back on the trigger. But no matter how hard he willed it, Vogel couldn’t bring himself to blow his brains out. He dropped the pistol on the floor and stared blankly at the open door to his office.

  “What’s the problem, Doctor? Do you lack the guts to finish yourself off?” asked Niskala as he limped into the room.

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  Niskala tossed a seismic charge on Vogel’s desk.

  “What is the meaning of this?”

  Niskala laughed. “Herr Vogel, this is one of the charges we set to destroy the base when the last crew of people was ready to leave.”

  “So?”

  “One of my people found this and brought it to me. Look at its timer. It’s already been activated.”

  Vogel’s eyes widened and his stomach dropped when he saw the flashing red LED timer count down from one minute to fifty-nine seconds. “Surely, you can deactivate these devices?”

  “No, sir. I’ve tried already. We’ve been locked out of the controls. There’s nothing we can do stop them.” Niskala glanced at the timer on the explosives. “In forty-three seconds, you, I, and everyone on the base will be killed.”

  “Who could have done such a thing?”

  “Carus. Who else?”

  “Why would he kill us? We’ve served him loyally for decades.”

  “To cover his tracks and to prevent this installation from falling into the wrong hands. Face it; we were nothing more than disposable assets that he used to accomplish his mission.”

  Vogel shook his head. “I can’t… no. I won’t believe that we meant nothing to him and The Founders.”

  “Believe what you want,” said Niskala, turning the charge so Vogel could see the timer. “Our time is up.”

  A brilliant flash of light, followed a split second later by a thunderous explosion, ripped Vogel’s office to pieces, along with the two men sitting there. The first row of charges broke open the earth under the geothermal station, allowing the red-hot magma trapped deep below the surface to rise. The next batch of explosives brought down the domed roof above the ancient village, killing anyone trapped out in the open. The last wave collapsed the submarine pen. Anyone fortunate enough to have survived the blasts either died from the numbing-cold wind whipping down from above into the base or was burnt alive as the crack in the earth spewed lava, which inexorably consumed the base and anyone in it.

  61

  Grant pulled open the door to the captain’s cabin carrying an armload of bottled water, juice, sandwiches, and fresh fruit and slid inside. Behind him, Maclean had appropriated several bottles of wine, a loaf of bread, and a tray of cheeses.

  “Room service,” said Grant.

  “Thank God, I’m famished,” said Hayes, helping both men place the food down on a small table.

  “Where’s Susan?”

  “She’s asleep in the captain’s bunk,” said Elena.

  Grant looked over to see Susan wrapped in a blanket with a peaceful look on her face. “Poor thing must be exhausted.”

  “If she’d move over, I’d slide in and join her myself,” said Elena, “I’m struggling to keep my eyes open.”

  Maclean opened one of the bottles of wine and poured out four glasses. He raised his glass. “Here’s to luck.”

  “To luck,” repeated everyone before taking a sip.

  Hayes and Maclean handed around the food. No one had to be prompted to dig in.

  “Boss, back on the bridge you fed Larsen a bit of a white lie, right?” said Maclean between bites of his sandwich.

  Grant sat back and took a deep swig of water. “How so?”

  “The only reason for us to remain on radio silence has nothing to do with the opposition. You want to tightly control the flow of information from the survivors to their respective governments, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “But these men’s families are going to want to know they’re alive,” said Elena.

  “And they will, but not without a carefully orchestrated plan to do so.”

  “You sound like those government hardnoses we ran into in Alaska,” said Maclean.

  “I suppose I do. So what? We can’t let what we’ve learned leak to the press, or there’ll be mayhem and calls for the incarceration of every person in the world who has A-negative blood. Think about it. If all of a sudden you found out your neighbor’s DNA had been altered by an alien race at some point in the past, so they could be used to help create hybrids to perpetuate their species, would you treat them the same way as you did the day before? Not everyone would act with revulsion and suspicion, but enough people would to create an atmosphere hostile to people like Susan and her mother, and I’m sure as hell not going to allow that to happen.”

  “People always fear what they don’t know. It could turn ugly enough that these people, through no fault of their own, could be rounded up in concentration camps like the Jews were during the Second World War,” said Hayes.

  “But people are being visited, and some are taken by these aliens for testing,” said Elena. “Surely, they should be warned.”

  “Warned to do what?” said Grant. “If we were to advise everyone in the world that if you have A-negative blood, you stand a good chance of being visited an
d abducted by little gray aliens, what do you think would happen?”

  Elena was at a loss for words and shook her head.

  “Ten to one, if these people weren’t rounded up, they’d be openly ostracized by society. Hell, some might take their lives, or the lives of their children, to prevent them from being contacted by the Grays.”

  “Hundreds of millions of people have A-negative blood,” said Hayes. “Of these, only a small percentage stand the chance of ever being contacted by an extraterrestrial being. Captain Grant is right. Silence is golden when it comes to this issue.”

  Grant looked over at his friend. “What do you think, Jim?”

  “I’m with you,” said Maclean. “The world already has enough problems. Adding to them won’t help a soul.”

  “Elena?” asked Grant.

  “There has to be something we can do. But I’m tired, and not thinking straight right now. I guess this is a problem for people who get paid more money than we do.”

  “So, we’re agreed. I’ll contact the colonel as soon as possible, so he can have our black ops friends from Alaska standing by on the South Georgians to oversee the reprogramming of the survivors.”

  “What kind of cockamamie story do you think they’ll come up with for explaining the sub crew?” said Maclean.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps the sub sank, and the survivors made it to a remote island where they have been living all this time until they were rescued.”

  “Hey, that’s good. You could get a job with our mystery friends if you ever get tired of working with us.”

  “Not for a million dollars. This job is stressful enough.”

  62

  Philip Roth sat up in bed, switched off his television, and reached for a glass of water on his nightstand. The news on the television depressed him to no end. First, he had lost contact with Charles and his team on Bouvet Island. Second, the island had been reputedly hit by a meteorite, and now a dormant volcano in Antarctica had erupted. Roth didn’t believe in coincidences. His team was dead, and he was out of pocket to the tune of ten million dollars. His injuries still bothered him, but Roth tried to stay as mobile as possible. He got out of bed, picked up his cane, and slowly walked to his desk. Roth opened his secure computer and waited for his emails to load.