by Ben Yallop
'You could build shelters. Protect people!'
'Hey, I didn't say the leaders of the world hadn't done anything. Do some research. Read about the bunkers that have been built. Any conspiracy theorist will tell you where they are and about the stocks of tinned food and bottled water inside. But remember we don't know when the end will happen. It could be tomorrow, it could be in a thousand years. But do some research. While you're doing that check out the Philadelphia Experiment. You might be a bit less surprised that we know about you. We've been aware of all this for some time. Go onto some of the websites set up by fans of the paranormal. Excuse the pun but try to read between the lines, Sam. The truth is out there.'
She pushed her blonde hair away from her face where a strand had become stuck to her lip. Amy continued. 'It's not like the Government has an infinite supply of time and money you know. The Prime Minister needs to protect the country's interests today too.'
Suddenly Sam realised that there was no point in staying here any longer. That feeling of hopelessness had washed over him again. Quickly he took a couple of steps, his feet crunching on the rough gravel on the roof, before leaping back the way he had come, across a gap between buildings. As he moved he saw Amy show her palm to the shadowy corner where the sniper had been. Sam landed heavily and took off again immediately, almost colliding with a satellite dish on the next roof and staggering as he landed.
Amy dropped lightly and softly beside him, again brushing her hair from her lips and now holding a pair of shiny high-heeled shoes in her hand as well as her purse. She put her hand on his arm. It felt like a static shock and Sam flinched.
'We can help you,' she said softly.
'I don't need any help,' he answered crossly, knowing as soon as he said it that it was a lie and hating that he couldn't allow himself to give in. For the briefest moment it sounded like a wonderful idea to have someone look after him. To sleep in a dry, warm bed. To eat a hot meal with a knife and fork. A hot shower. After all, wasn’t that why he had come here? To pass the burden of knowledge that he carried to someone else? Someone more important? But, no, he couldn’t take help now and he leapt away, crossing streets at random until he finally collided nosily with a set of bins near a fire escape. He collapsed, breathing heavily. No-one was following him. He had his wish. He was alone again.
Back near Downing Street Amy brushed a stone from between her toes. She gave a sigh. Sam was in trouble; that was sure. But there was no way she could help him unless he would let her. She was pretty sure he was going to be important though. She had enough information about the future to know that he had the potential to change things considerably, provided that the future was predictable when people could time travel and provided that she could keep him safe. Perhaps she ought to seek some advice.
She used presence to leap back to the roof of Number 10. Landing softly she slipped her heels back on and strode across to where the sniper Ade, whom everyone knew as Larry, was carefully packing away his rifle. He was almost completely invisible in the shadows, his dark Nigerian skin and shaved head shining faintly from the streetlights. He was one of an extremely small number of people who knew about Amy’s abilities. His own presence was not very strong and he couldn’t move around like Amy could, but he was one of the best shots in the world. A skill that was vital when your target might suddenly leap a hundred feet in the air and try to push your bullet back the way it had come. Amy had worked with him on a number of occasions and they had a good partnership. She had even been able to bend his bullets like a homing missile using her own presence making them an effective and deadly team. They had hunted several Riven together.
Larry looked up as she approached. ’So, you didn’t manage to convince him to come in then? I thought the cocktail dress might clinch it.’
Amy scowled in mock irritation and used presence to lift a small piece of gravel and flick it at him, bouncing it off his forehead.
‘Hey!’ he objected.
Amy pushed her blonde hair back from her face. ‘I thought I might see if I can make contact with some others before I follow him,’ she said.
‘Sure. Do you need me?’ Larry finished packing away his rifle and snapped the lid shut.
‘No, thanks. I’ll come find you if I need you. Would you tell the office I might be away for a few days?’
‘Yup. Just call me if you need me.’
He turned and headed off towards the roof access. Amy rotated the security cameras so that they focused on the roof again giving eyes back to the security team based within the building. She was impressed that they had let her angle them away. That was the benefit of having such good contacts. Checking that everything was in order she followed after Larry with only a quick glance back in the direction in which Sam had disappeared.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
London
Present day
Sam sat in a darkened room and looked into an empty space, confused. He had been sure that there had been a line here. After the disappointment of Downing Street he had thought he might use the line to move away from London for a while. Plus, he was ever conscious of the possibility of being followed by the Riven and he wanted to move around as much as possible. Paranoid, the voice in his head told him. He ignored it.
He sat and thought about what he had just learned. The leaders of the world knew that the planet was living on borrowed time. That something was coming to wipe them out. They knew that Mu would rise from the ashes and that the Riven King would draw those with presence to him. So what was left for Sam to do other than try to stay alive? He had hoped that by convincing the Prime Minister of the truth things would somehow be different. He had imagined walking into his office, performing some tricks using presence and then suddenly things would start happening. Someone would take charge and make it all okay. That wasn’t going to happen. No-one was going to help. They had abandoned the earth to its fate. The world truly was doomed and only Mu would survive.
He should have suspected that the world leaders would know and would have their own spies with presence. The men in black in America, they were a thing weren’t they? Or was that just the Riven? Perhaps they were the American version of whatever Amy was. And the experiment at Montauk, of course, that had been full of lines. He had been stupid to think that he was special in knowing what he knew. Amy had even known his name. What else did they know about him? He shivered.
So, what was he going to do now? He stretched his legs out ahead of him, making patterns on the dusty floor of the vacant building. If the authorities couldn’t or wouldn’t help he had one option. Weewalk and the resistance. He needed to pass on the information he had been given by Aleksy in the future. That might be important. The King was looking for something called the Blood Line. But perhaps first Sam could do some of his own research. Amy had said something about the Philadelphia Experiment. She had told him to read between the lines. Well, maybe he should take a look around the internet. To the best of his knowledge his grandfather hadn’t used it much.
Sam pulled his rucksack closer and took out the paper and pen he had bought earlier. It was a relief to have money to buy such things again. The solicitor had put the money into the account as Sam had asked. Sam had eaten well for the first time in ages and had paid for a few things to make life a little better. He didn't dare, however, to use his money to pay for accommodation. He couldn't say exactly why but he certainly felt more comfortable on his own for now. He considered what to write on the paper and then began a letter to Valerie, the kindly friend of his grandfather who had looked after him what seemed like an age ago. She had even been caught up in the fire that had razed Sam's home to the ground. Although she did not know it she had also been struck by one of the Riven as she had stood watching the flames. Sam remembered all too clearly those horrific moments as he saw everything he had owned go up in an inferno. His life had changed for ever.
He finished the letter, which wasn’t much more than a few bland reassurances without specifics, and added
a stamp to the envelope. He looked at the next page on the blank pad. Enough light came in from the window to make the page glow. He pressed the tip of the pen against the clean sheet, unsure what to write. Eventually, he wrote 'Dear Kya' but he could not work out what to write next and, he wondered, how would he give it to her anyway? He sat like that for some time, unmoving, before he fell asleep.
She came to him in that dream. A hazy jumble of ideas in which he knew that he was dreaming but didn't want to let go of the idea that they were together. They were in the woods near where he had used to live. They sat in the meadow, hidden in the long grass. It was sunny and warm. He touched her cheek. She looked into his eyes.
Then Sam's dream changed and fire swept through the field heading towards them. Sam turned from Kya and saw behind them, amongst the flames, a black-cloaked man with a large mangy black bird, just as he had seen after his grandfather’s funeral. In the dream, Sam and Kya ran. At first Sam felt heroic. He pulled Kya along, saving her from the fire but at some point he realised that he was alone and that he wasn’t holding her hand anymore. He was running and he felt as though he should be able to run really fast but he moved slowly, unable to pump his arms and legs as he knew he should be able to. He wanted to sprint and knew he could but all he could do was move as if he waded through treacle. In the slow motion world of his dream the flames overtook him leaving a burnt, charred world and now he moved across crisped grass which turned to powder beneath his too slow feet. He looked up towards the horizon. There was another man there, surrounded by smoke, his pale skin like a beacon in the smoky darkness. He had a shaved head and was bare-chested, clad from the waist down in a tattered robe. As Sam neared him he saw that the man was terribly scarred, as though a thousand knives had ripped through him. A network of puckered pink lines ran all across his body. He was even missing an eye. The man opened his mouth to say something. It came out as barely a whisper. Sam felt as though what he was saying was important but he couldn’t hear it and then suddenly he was awake and the dream was fading.
*
The next day, Sam felt he was following firmly in his grandfather’s footsteps as he entered the library although rather than moving to the reference books he sat down at one of the computers, selecting one which was not overlooked. The first thing he searched for was the Philadelphia Experiment. That had been the particular thing that Amy had mentioned on the roof of Number 10. It came as a surprise to be directed to an article about the Montauk Project, the place where Sam had fought Jak, lost Hadan and pulled power into himself before releasing a wave of presence which had all but destroyed the room. Was this how Amy had known about him? He read, fascinated.
“The Montauk Project is believed by some conspiracy theorists to be the next stage of the Philadelphia Experiment which has also been known as Project Rainbow and allegedly took place in 1943. The original experiment was based around a theory proposed by Albert Einstein concerning gravity and electromagnetism. The US Navy, having studied Einstein's theory, thought that it might be possible to bend light around objects thus rendering them invisible. Clearly, this was of significant interest in the field of battle. Equipment was developed in complete secrecy and fitted to a ship sitting in the Philadelphia Naval Yard, the USS Eldridge. It is said that when the equipment was switched on there was some success. The entire ship seemed to disappear.
However, when the USS Eldridge reappeared it was obvious that something had gone horribly wrong. The crew were all terribly badly affected by the experiment, something about the event had affected their minds. Some complained of severe nausea and headaches. Some were so badly affected that they were eventually diagnosed with mental disorders and were never the same again.
But, the senior military men present had seen the ship disappear. And they would not give up. The crew, or at least those that could still speak, were hushed up. The machine was recalibrated and the experiment tried again. Again, the ship disappeared from view but this time the consequences were even more terrible.
It seemed that the ship hadn’t just become invisible. It had actually moved to another place entirely. Crew aboard another ship, the SS Andrew Furuseth, 200 miles away in Virginia saw the ship appear. After a short time it disappeared again. When the ship eventually reappeared in Philadelphia the crew were not just affected mentally but physically too. Some men were embedded into the very walls of the ship as though the reappearance had confused what was human and what was metal. Sailors had limbs trapped in and fused to the hull but these were the lucky ones. Some men seemed to have been turned completely inside out. Some were dead for no discernible reason. Some came back mad, psychotic. Some did not return at all.
The Navy now decided that it was such a disaster that it should not continue and the Philadelphia Experiment came to an end and was hushed up.
But men cannot resist power. Around ten years later some of the surviving researchers banded together. They had seen what the experiment had done to the minds of those men and they saw that this could be a weapon. Imagine what America could do by blasting a wave of that power at an advancing army. Manipulating minds to make men feel sick so that they could not carry on. Millions of lives could be saved. A war over before it even began. Imagine what could be done if you could fire a gun at a man to make him go insane.
The project began again, although this time it was not about making ships invisible. It was about making men go mad and it was even more secret than before. Funding allegedly came from ten billion dollars of gold seized from a Nazi train by US soldiers. Those soldiers were killed and the train destroyed. The secret project had its money.
It began in New York under the name the Phoenix Project but the scientists realised that they needed a large satellite dish so the project was moved to a decommissioned Air Force base called Camp Hero in Montauk and it was there, deep underground, that men began to build. The Montauk Project became a reality. By the 1970s work was really underway and the project had developed in unexpected directions. Originally a project about invisibility, then teleportation, then mental capacity no-one really knows what the work of these secret men and women became but some conspiracy theorists hold that many strange events occurred at the site.
It is said that mind control was practised on the homeless and young runaways who were abducted for tests. Some people had their psychic abilities developed exponentially to the point where they could move objects and even themselves using their minds. However, this caused madness in some and certainly emotional instability in many. These powers were developed through the use of a special chair which conferred the power to certain men who sat in it.
Some believe that a link was made with the original Philadelphia Experiment and the USS Eldridge which allowed the experiment which was occurring many years earlier to be stopped. The ship had not been rendered invisible but rather transported through some strange doorway to another place and time.
Experiments were conducted in teleportation and doorways were created which allowed the scientists to travel to another world where they met aliens and came across strange creatures. Apparently some metahuman or monster came through one of these doorways and destroyed the equipment effectively ending the experiment.
Other theories, not specific to the opening of these doorways, inevitably sprang up in the following years. It is said that strange animals were created there, that 'men in black' were developed there, that a hole to the centre of the hollow earth is hidden beneath the building and that the hangars were used for the creation and development of 'flying saucers' and strange secretive black helicopters.
Whatever the truth the area is now mostly open to the public as Camp Hero State Park. It attracts many visitors each year. Many simply go for the natural beauty of the place but some are undoubtedly looking for a clue, a doorway to another place or time or perhaps even the incredible chair which infuses some men with the power of telekinesis; a chair that creates gods.”
Sam sat back in his chair. He knew that no-one would find t
heir way into that room at Montauk, the ring-doughnut shaped laboratory where he had fought Jak and where Hadan had been knocked through a line to a time where he would become Sam’s grandfather. The room had had no natural doors. Unless you had presence you couldn’t get in. And now Sam had destroyed all but one of the doorways. He had, of course, talked to Weewalk and Hadan about Montauk and what happened there before they had actually ended up at the deserted project. Before they had arrived Weewalk had told Sam about the rumoured destruction of the equipment. By the time they had left that place they knew that Sam had been the one who had destroyed it. It was strange to read about it as part of some conspiracy theory. Well, if that aspect of the story was at least vaguely correct what else could be true? Sam read the article through again.
He noted that men who had been given some form of presence in the experiment had become mentally unstable. Was that what was happening to him? There could well be men still alive who had been affected by the presence that the experiment had generated. Or who had ended up in a different time because of the rough lines that the machine had torn in space time. Perhaps that was the basis for Amy's presence, the spy who had spoken to him on the roof of Downing Street.
But the article said that men had been driven mad and psychotic by the project. Some men had disappeared completely and had never returned. Sam had a sudden feeling like cold water had been poured down his back and he felt the hairs on his arms stand up as realisation dawned. A shadow seemed to pass across the window next to him. Just where had those men ended up?
