by Attard, Ryan
Briggs offered him a tissue. “What happened?”
“His mind went into hyperdrive,” Excalibur said. “Basically, his brain acted like a supercomputer, in terms of filtering, processing, and analysis of data. Something must have triggered that state. The question is, what?”
Nick gulped down water, desperate to drown his headache.
“You,” he gasped. “I know you.”
Her eyebrows shot up.
“Yeah, we grew up together,” Nick continued. His heart was pounding at a painful rate. “You’re… you’re Maddie. Maddie Scriivenn.”
The gun appeared so fast in Briggs’s hand that Nick felt the whiplash of air on his eyes. The director hold the pistol inches from Nick’s eyebrow.
“How the hell do you know that?” he growled.
“I-”
“Did you hack into our mainframe?” Briggs asked loudly.
Excalibur—Maddie—checked her phone. “All systems are intact, Director. He didn’t do anything. It was all in his head.”
Briggs slowly pulled the gun away. “How is that even possible?”
“I guessed.” Nick’s voice was shaky.
“That was one hell of a guess,” Briggs said. “Care to explain how you came to know a classified government secret?”
Nick closed his eyes and tried to calm his raging heartbeat. “Her voice,” he said. “The way she pronounces her a’s is Scandinavian, but when we were in the cab, her accent was slightly British. Not the kind that you fake, but rather the kind you try to hide when you don’t wanna reveal your true identity.”
Briggs looked towards the blonde sitting next to him. The way she was scowling reminded Nick of a wild cat.
“Her cheekbones,” Nick continued. “That would be an insignificant feature had I not met her when we were kids. It’s a common facial structure amongst Scandinavians, and one she can’t do anything about—at least not without some major surgery. Finally, the way she purses her lips.”
Maddie, whose lips were, indeed, pursed, became aware of her action and relaxed her facial muscles.
“At first, I thought it was a sign of impatience, but she did it far too often, especially when looking at me. That makes it a sign of distress. Meaning, she was expecting something to happen and that indicated she knew me beforehand.”
Excalibur lightly touched her lips and said nothing.
“Hot damn,” Briggs said. “All that from thirty seconds in the same room? I’m starting to think there ain’t nothin’ mythological here at all.”
“Where the hell do you get off, acting so bloody casual?” Excalibur snapped. Her question was directed at Nick, and there was no attempt to mask the contempt and anger in her voice.
“Do you have any idea what happened to the rest of us after you ran away?”
Both men were now staring at her.
“We were lost,” Excalibur went on. “Our precious Select was gone. We all looked up to you, even when you screwed up for a laugh. ‘Look at Nick,’ they would say. ‘Do what Nick does. Follow the Select’s example. He will lead us in our time of need.’”
She snorted. “So, you can imagine how crazy they went when they found out you ran away. All the leaders started acting out on their own. Most of them jumped off the nearest tall building. Others tried to go on, pushing us to become Select. They figured that if all humans had a trace of the gene, then we could awaken it, too. They put us through torture—actual torture—in an attempt to make one of us their new savior. Almost everyone I knew was dead one way or the other.”
“Then, the authorities stepped in. The NSA integrated what was left of us into this agency, and we spent all this time looking for a solution and a new Select.”
She turned her icy blue eyes at him and Nick visibly recoiled. “And about six years ago, your name pops up again. Nick Solomon, archaeologist extraordinaire. Mr. Tomb Raider himself. Why, Nick? Why leave?”
It took him a second to find his voice. “It was insane,” he answered. “I mean, come on, alien gods? A ragtag group of kids training to fight them? A few predestined individuals? Sounded like the plot of a bad sci-fi movie.”
He looked her in the eyes. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Maddie. If it’s any consolation, you were the one that made it the most difficult to leave.”
“Wasn’t enough to stop you,” she shot back.
“I was going insane,” he continued. “The pressure on me was too much, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. That’s why I chose archaeology. I wanted to desperately find answers, to scientifically prove that none of those stories ever existed.” He shook his head. “We deserved a normal life. We never asked to be part of their stupid war. So, when I realized that they would never let us be normal, I ran.”
“Did you manage?” she asked. “Did you get a normal life?”
“No, not really.” Nick swallowed down the growing lump in his throat. “So, what now? I go back to that crazy-ass place?”
Briggs cleared his throat. “No. This time you work for us. As a Select.” He sighed, letting his broad shoulders sag. “But in order for that to work, we need to see what you can do and convince you that you are, indeed, special.” He nodded at Excalibur.
She rose and walked over to Nick. He winced slightly, thinking she was going to attack him.
Instead, she extracted a key and bent over to release the cuffs around his wrists. He could smell her hair, jasmine.
Holy crap, she’s hot. Nick shook the thought from his head, trying to maintain his focus.
She retreated far too quickly for his taste, and exited the room.
Briggs rose from his seat. “Follow me.”
Nick got up with the same enthusiasm as a prisoner headed for an execution parade. He was supposed to be enjoying a post-concert binge, perhaps in the company of some wild party chick. Instead, there he was, stuck in some black-ops facility, where he was expected to fight off imaginary aliens, and find lost fictional cities.
Well, at least you got your adventure, Solomon, Nick thought, just as he remembered that old axiom about being careful what you wish for.
Chapter 20
“Pick a song.”
Director Briggs took Nick to a media room of sorts, a lounge with a couch and a couple of bean bags. Across from the couch was a coffee table with a laptop open. A jazz tune was playing on an antique jukebox standing against the wall.
Briggs invited him in and promptly dumped an electric guitar in Nick’s hands.
“Don’t look at it,” Briggs ordered, as Nick lowered his gaze to inspect the instrument in his hands.
Nick’s head immediately stood at attention.
“I only said pick a song,” Briggs instructed, pointing at the jukebox. “Then, plug in the guitar and play along.”
“Why?”
“I want to test your learning capacity,” Briggs explained. “According to Excalibur, your brain is capable of acquiring information at two hundred, even three hundred, percent. I want to test your recall and processing skills. Best way to do that is have you listen and play at the same time. Just think of it as a live version of Guitar Hero.”
“You do know I play the actual guitar,” Nick said.
“Oh, I know,” Briggs replied with a sly grin. “We share a hobby, it seems. Now, play. Without looking at the guitar.”
Nick slumped on a bean bag. He plucked the first string and winced at the sound. It was completely different from what he was expecting to hear.
“Whoever tuned this thing is tone deaf,” he muttered.
“That’s part of the test,” Briggs replied. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
Nick tried to follow the song, but the messed up strings and foul tuning made it nearly impossible to get a note right.
“This is dumb,” he said, on the verge of giving up.
But Briggs’s look of intimidation suggested he better play or suffer the consequences.
“Ah, screw it.” Nick went over to the jukebox. “If I’m gonna make a fool
of myself, might as well do it to a song I actually like.”
He pressed a button and heard the dull click of the record being swapped.
There were a few moments of silence before the blast of rock and roll came on, and Nick began strumming like a mad man to ACDC’s Back in Black. His mind went into a trance and focused on just the music and the strings under his fingers. After a while, he began singing, making his voice shrill to match the record.
Once the song was over, Briggs switched off the jukebox, and Nick was suddenly aware that he was sweating, out of breath, and euphoric. He looked around and saw that two uniformed officers were also in the room. Excalibur was there too, having arrived just as Nick reached the bridge and had begun dancing as he played.
“Thank you, NSA underground facility,” Nick hollered as he spread his hands and smiled at the audience he gathered. “I’ll be here until they release me.”
“Solomon,” Briggs called as the two soldiers exited the room. “Look at the guitar.”
Nick inspected the instrument and his eyebrows shot up. “This is a left-handed guitar,” he said with a frown. “No wonder it sounded so bad.”
“A left-handed guitar which you played with your right hand,” Briggs said with a look of delight.
“So, is this why you didn’t want me to look at the damn thing?” Nick asked.
Briggs nodded.
“Why?”
“You defied the learning curve,” Briggs explained. “Even if you were completely ambidextrous, it would take years to train your body. And yet, you managed to play an entire song flawlessly.”
“How is that even possible?” Nick asked, looking at his hands. They were red at the fingertips. He hadn’t touched his own guitar in years and the calluses had faded away.
“You listened, and your brain associated each sound with a string. Then, you simply adapted your hand movements to suit the song.” Briggs took the guitar and unplugged it. “That proves complete mental control over your body, not to mention real time adaptability of information. Do you believe me now?”
“This isn’t belief, Director,” Nick said pointing at his own face. “It’s confusion.”
“Then, we must do something about it,” Excalibur said. Nick noticed she was had ditched the suit and now wore a very tight pair of sweatpants and track suit jacket.
“I like the new outfit,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Just follow me.”
“You’re in for a treat,” Briggs muttered with a devious grin, as they followed Excalibur towards another part of the underground facility, and into a room with a boxing ring in the middle of it.
“I think I’m already getting it,” Nick whispered as he watched Excalibur hang sheets of paper on the walls.
“Not that,” Briggs said. “She designed this test herself.” He patted Nick on the shoulder. “Come to think of it, I am in for a treat.”
Nick did not like the sound of that, but before he could voice his concerns, Excalibur opened a tall suitcase and extracted a pair of fencing foils. She threw one of them at the archaeologist.
“We’re going to fence,” she explained simply.
“Yeah, I figured that,” Nick replied. “What’s with all the diagrams?”
“They’re instructions,” she replied. “Each page has a particular technique on it.”
“So, I’m supposed to look at the pages and instantly learn those moves?”
“Yes.”
Nick removed his jacket and threw it on a weight rack. He grabbed the foil and wriggled it.
“It’s not even sharp,” he said.
Excalibur snapped her foil at him, and he yelped in pain as a thin, red burn appeared on his forearm.
“Ouch.”
“Lucky for you, I guess,” she said smugly.
Nick’s eyes ran over the pages and flexed his hands. “Oh, it’s on now, Blondie.”
He swung his sword at her. She nimbly deflected his strike and elbowed him in the jaw. Nick staggered backwards and barely avoided her thrust. She kicked his legs from under him, and he fell hard on the ground, his shin on fire.
Despite the pain, Nick’s mind began absorbing facts: how she moved, her favored leg, and her expression before she went in for a proper strike rather than a feint.
His eyes fell on the closest pages, each showing a series of poses and strikes.
He got up and allowed his body to copy the movements; block, riposte, retreat, and thrust. Nick and Excalibur exchanged blows, but something felt off. The sequence was too unnatural, too deliberate.
She suddenly broke through his rhythm and thrust the hilt of her foil into his sternum. As he fell, she struck at his legs, sending bolts of sharp pain through his body and making him stagger away from her.
Something was wrong. Nick doubled his concentration, forcing his brain to work faster and more efficiently. Rather than read one page at a time, his senses jumped from one page to the next.
That’s it, he realized. He had assumed that the pages were in sequential order, each one leading to the next. But Excalibur had tricked him. She had put the pages up at random, forcing Nick to piece it all together once he scanned through every single page.
With the solution at hand, Nick moved on to the offensive. He rolled to avoid her kick and deflected her strike—page sixteen. She struck again, and he parried, just like on page two. He countered with a technique on page thirty, sending her in retreat. He feigned to one side and reduced the distance—page twenty-one. Suddenly, he struck her other flank by combining pages fifty and forty-five.
Excalibur was no amateur, and countered every move with efficiency and precision. She stepped and thrust—page nineteen. Nick countered with page twenty-seven, and they ended in a blade lock.
She kicked him away, but Nick expected that. Instead of avoiding the blow, he moved along with it and flicked his weapon. Her foil was sent flying, leaving her disarmed and fuming.
Even Nick was genuinely surprised that he had managed that.
“I won, right?” he said.
Excalibur snapped backwards, just out of reach of his weapon and glared at him. Her body shifted into a fighting stance, making it clear that the fight was still on.
“Oh, come on, Maddie,” Nick said. “Just admit I’ve won and let’s move on.”
“Don’t get cocky,” she replied. Her foot shifted cautiously. “And my name is Excalibur.”
Nick chuckled. “Give it up, Maddie. I’ve already gotten under your skin.” He threw his foil away with a smug smile. “Now, what will it take to get in your pants?”
She moved so fast that all Nick saw was a blur. She batted his hands away and drove her knee up into his groin with a grunt.
Nick’s body froze. His lungs wouldn’t work, and he toppled over in agony, clutching his genitals. A weak moan escaped his lips.
“How about a functioning manhood?” she said sadistically as she picked up the foils and walked out of the training area. Briggs let out a bellicose laugh and followed her out.
Nick was still lying on the mat area, barely able to breathe. He managed to face the direction where they left and had just enough energy to croak,
“I think that’s enough foreplay.”
Chapter 21
“Very impressive display, Solomon,” Briggs said. His voice echoed around the conference room.
They were back inside the first room Nick woke up in, although this time he noticed a few laptops and documents that hadn’t been there earlier.
“No one has managed to beat Excalibur for a long time. She’s considered Olympic-level good, you know,” Briggs continued. He tapped Excalibur, who was sitting next to him, on the shoulder as if she were his favorite child.
Excalibur winced, clearly uncomfortable with the sudden affection. It didn’t help that her pink-striped track suit jacket made her look more feminine than she was comfortable with.
“You managed to beat me, Sir,” she said.
Briggs waved her off. “Well, tha
t was a few years ago. I’m just an old warhorse now.”
“Can we please get to the subject at hand?” Nick Solomon sat on the opposite side of the table with an ice pack pressed against his groin. It made his inner thighs feel cold and wet, and he hated that sensation.
Excalibur smiled evilly. “How’s your… situation?”
“Painful. You wanna see?”
“No, thank you. I like my eggs sunny-side-up, not beaten.”
“Hilarious,” he shot back.
“I certainly thought so.”
They glared at each other in silence until Briggs chimed in.
“So,” he said. “You must have some questions after all that.”
Nick placed the ice pack on the table. “Where do I even start? You abducted me, turned my world upside down, and now you’re trying to convince me that all the scary fairy tales of my childhood are real.”
Excalibur let out an aggressive scoff. “Oh, for God’s sake.” She leaned forwards. “Will you stop acting like a scared victim? You’re Select, one of the few people in the world who actually have a fighting chance. You knew from day one that you were special.”
“What do you mean, ‘fighting chance’?” he asked.
His question suddenly sobered up the room.
Nick looked from Excalibur to Briggs. “I thought this was about finding treasure and getting some fancy imaginary artifact? So, why am I the only one with a fighting chance?”
Briggs sighed and extracted a tablet. “A few years ago we got a huge financial boost from the government, from the President himself actually, after we showed him this,” he said, handing Nick the device.
“What am I looking at?” asked Nick. It looked like an electromagnetic photograph of space.
“A chart of our friendly neighborhood galaxy, courtesy of NASA,” the director replied. “See that weird trail at the center?”
Nick nodded.
“That’s an electromagnetic signature, a stronger version of the field emitted by the artifacts.”
Nick frowned at the picture, trying to connect the dots together. “And?”
“We think this is a trail that the aliens followed.”
