by Nick Thacker
They would fight for him.
As each of these thoughts entered his mind, the answers and solutions to problems he hadn’t even considered made themselves clear — how he would rule over the earth; how he would conquer each enemy that would stand in his way.
All he needed to do was return to the world and begin his succession to the throne.
But the source of power at his feet continued to grow and burn its great knowledge into his mind. The neurons and pathways of his brain were lit up and were downloading incredible streams of data every second, and his mind was completely entranced by the emission of light, and yet the rest of his body seemed asleep.
Or paralyzed, to be more precise.
He couldn’t move. His feet were locked in place, and the vial he had held in his hand had apparently fallen to the ground at some point. He tried to blink — to will himself to move — but to avail.
He suddenly wished there was a way to turn off the pyramid’s light. He had only been in its presence for five seconds, but the overwhelming amount of information and knowledge he possessed had overtaken his mind’s ability to function as a command center for his body.
Tanning was trapped in the gaze of this power source, and nothing he could do would release him.
His face burned, and the tickling sensation on his body returned, slowly at first, then built to a crescendo of fire underneath his skin. He wanted to scream — to respond physically in some way, but he no longer had the space in his brain to give his muscles orders. The power source was throbbing now — or maybe his eyes were. His vision blurred and sharpened intermittently, pulsating with the beating of his heart. A pressure began to build from the back of his neck, growing larger and encompassing more and more of his head with each passing moment.
The fiery feeling underneath his skin sent signals to his brain that he could do nothing about. He wanted to drop to his stomach and roll around, to attempt to put out the fires that he was standing in. He could feel the hair on his arms; on the back of his neck, heating and smoking. The blood coursing through his now-defunct body reached a boiling heat, and although he couldn’t move his head down to see, the skin on his body bubbled and even burst in spots, the internal pressure and heat building to an uncontrollable level. The throbbing in his eyes become too much, and his vision turned into a fading blur.
It had taken him all of half a second to create every possible scenario and outcome in the limitless computational power of his brain, but each led him to the same result: this wealth of knowledge would consume him. More and more information and knowledge entered his brain, and by now his body was a living hell — most of his internal structure had been heated to a point just below combustion, and some of his organs — spleen, appendix — had burst. The pain was unreal and unbelievable, but somehow it still registered in his mind.
The more the knowledge poured into him — transmitted from the ancient power source — the slower his world became, and the more agonizingly drawn-out his destruction became. His clothes finally caught fire and his eyes, no longer able to provide sight, finally burst outward. The remainder of his skin, bleeding and cauterized, melted and oozed from him like an oily clay.
His last realization was also immediate and complete: he understood that this device, one created by man, had been created imperfectly. As man was created from His perfect image, so too will be this device, from the image of perfect power and knowledge. Man was created; beautiful, and yet flawed from their own falling. This power source was merely an image of power, an image of what the ancients believed to be God’s omnipotence. But it was created by man.
It was imperfect.
And so was he.
Chapter 72
1:32 pm
The earthquakes and tremors caused by the unstable breakdown of the crystal had subsided. Throughout the trip back up the passageway, through the city, and out of the underground cavern, Bryce, Wayne, Cole, and Corinne could feel the island slowly breaking apart. It was as if enormous hands, deep below them, were stretching the island and tearing it apart. The groans and creaks of the cavern system, desperately trying to remain sturdy, called out to each other during the team’s ascent. The hollow-sounding cries of twisting and popping rock, rising from below them in the dark, hurried them along through the passageways and rock-cut tunnels.
Finally they saw sunlight peeking from around a corner in the cave. They picked up their pace, eager to leave the haunting caves and ancient city.
Three hours had passed since they’d entered the cave. Another fifteen minutes of jogging and they’d reach the island’s airstrip and their ride home.
About ten minutes later, Bryce halted.
“What’s up?” Corinne asked. She was holding Cole’s arm as they ran; though he was almost back to normal after being freed from the grasp of the crystal’s glow, he still had clammy hands and seemed cold. His voice had returned to normal, and most of the color had returned to his face.
They peered over the small rise where Bryce had stopped. Looking down to the city, they could just make out the airstrip and the small hangars that dotted the beach leading to the ocean.
“See that?” he said. “Looks like smoke.”
“Coming from that hangar,” Wayne added.
They knew what it meant.
“Shit — let’s go.” Bryce sighed and unstrapped his rifle from his back. He tightened his pack and started to run toward the city.
1:47 pm.
Bryce reached the hangar and knew immediately that there was something wrong. The smoke was wrong — it smelled of explosives. They stopped around the corner when they saw a large black helicopter parked directly in their path.
The helicopter was out of place on the overgrown airfield — a perfectly shined, freshly painted mechanical vehicle, its rotor still spinning.
“Whittenfield!” Wayne yelled. A man appeared at the door of the helicopter and stepped out onto the tarmac. Behind him, the black smoke billowed out and up into the air, mixing with the pouring smoke of the volcano to the north. A second man stepped out of the helicopter behind Whittenfield.
“Captain Reynolds, it’s good to see you again! You know, we haven’t been able to get a feed from your shoulder cam for quite awhile,” he said as the team approached.
Bryce kept his grip on his rifle tight and prepared. Something didn’t seem right.
“There’s not much reception under volcanos,” he answered.
“Not a problem. I’m sure you’ve made the anticipation worthwhile,” Whittenfield said. He glanced at Bryce’s pack, then to the rest of the group. “Are you — the only ones?”
“Yes — Vilocek, his team, everyone — they didn’t make it.”
His eyes sabotaged his frown and feigned concern. “That’s unfortunate. I was hoping he’d be an asset to our team. No matter.“ He quickly changed the subject, “Bryce — do you have it?”
Bryce looked at his benefactor. He thought of the previous day; of his conversations with this man.
“What happened to the plane?” Wayne asked from Bryce’s right side.
Whittenfield seemed confused at first, then annoyed. “What? Oh, that one?” He pointed behind him to the hangar. “You know, we just got here — must have been Vilocek’s men.” And then, looking back to Bryce, his impatience grew. “Bryce? Well? Do you have it?”
“No.”
Whittenfield’s jaw tightened. His teeth clenched as he continued. “Well, I see — that’s interesting. Did you at least get a good look at it?”
“No.”
Whittenfield inhaled a sharp breath and looked toward Cole, then Corinne. “That’s fine. That’s just fine.” He smiled. “Thankfully, Vilocek has left us with one more piece of this puzzle.”
Now it was Bryce’s turn to be confused.
A gentle earthquake rumbled. The helicopter lurched on the runway, and Wayne almost fell to the ground. Cole helped Corinne regain her balance.
“Whittenfield, we need to go. The crystal
— it’s — “
“Breaking down, yes — I know.”
He stepped closer to the helicopter. The second man still hadn’t spoken, standing at attention by Whittenfield’s side.
He was dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, but Bryce could see the taught lines of a hardened body beneath the street clothes — this man came ready for business.
“Stop. Cole, Corinne — get in. Captain Reynolds and I have some business to take care of.”
Bryce nodded. The two civilians walked toward the chopper and the second man jumped down to grab them. The helicopter’s rotor began to spin faster, and the noise of the aircraft grew to a low roar.
As Corinne walked by Whittenfield he reached out and grabbed her shoulder. “I don’t believe we’ve met, young lady,” he said to the girl. As he spoke, he reached into his belt behind his back and withdrew a pistol.
Still keeping his eyes on Bryce and Wayne, he backed toward the chopper with the gun placed close to Corinne’s head. “Mr. Reed! Get in. Don’t make me tell you twice!” Cole hesitantly obliged, turning and jumping into the helicopter. The other man drew a machine pistol from behind his back.
“Whittenfield, what’s this about?” Bryce asked. “I told you — we don’t have the crystal!”
“And you don’t need to! I realized after poking around at Vilocorp that Tanning was on to something. You see, the crystal’s materials exist only in that stone. There’s nothing on Earth that can replace it — but we can get close!”
“What do you mean, get close?” Wayne asked. He stood next to Bryce with his eyes on Whittenfield.
“Whatever was injected into Cole’s bloodstream has almost the same makeup as the crystal, right? It means we can work backwards — using Cole as the crystal — to see just what it is that makes that rock tick. Since you’ve failed to deliver the stone to me, you’ve left me no choice but to continue the laboratory work at a much slower rate — but we will succeed.”
“It’s inevitable, really. Scientific advances continue to uncover the real mysteries of the world around us.” He chuckled. “Wasn’t it only within the last five-hundred years that we’ve come to understand that the earth was round?”
Bryce stared at the man. He knew Whittenfield had been blinded by greed — this treasure hunt had even blinded Bryce to the his benefactor’s true goal.
“I believe that with the combined efforts of my team and Mr. Reed, we can expect to release an analysis of the material’s composition within a year.” He looked back to Cole. “All we’ll need, of course, is the test subject.”
Bryce’s mind flashed back to the video feed he’d seen of the room, back at Vilocorp.
The young boy, no more than twelve years old, strapped to the table.
He knew what Whittenfield intended to do with Cole Reed.
1:52 pm.
Corinne was watching the exchange with a troubled expression. She hadn’t seen the result of the experimentations in the New Mexico lab, but she still remembered the screams and horrifying sounds coming from the upstairs labs while she was at Vilocorp.
Whatever Whittenfield was intending to do with Cole, she knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. She decided to act.
She threw her elbow into Whittenfield’s side and simultaneously stepped with the heel of her right foot onto the top of his left. He moaned in pain, and dropped the gun.
He fired a wide shot, clipping Bryce’s shoulder. Bryce fell to his knees, grabbing at his wound while aiming his rifle at Whittenfield with his injured arm.
Wayne jumped into action as well. He swiveled his gun around but noticed that Corinne was still in his shot — Whittenfield had his hand tightly gripped around her arm.
The second man, however, was not being blocked by anyone else. He was busy trying to help Whittenfield — Wayne lifted the gun and fired two quick rounds. The man fell to the ground outside the helicopter.
Wayne tossed the gun aside and dove toward the chopper.
Whittenfield backed toward the helicopter, hobbling on one foot as he tried to maneuver both himself and Corinne into the open bay door.
Cole was there to meet them — he kicked Whittenfield just below the chin, launching the man backwards. Corinne broke free and ran to give Bryce a hand.
Wayne moved toward the front of the chopper and grabbed the pilot by his collar.
“You work for me now! Get this thing off the ground!” he shouted to the overwhelmed old pilot. The man, unarmed, put up no fight.
Bryce and Corinne entered the hovering helicopter and Bryce turned to close the door. Before the door closed, he saw Whittenfield scrambling for his gun. He picked it up, stood, and faced the helicopter, only ten feet away.
He lifted the pistol at arm’s length with both hands, aiming directly at the open door.
And fired.
Bryce felt the impact of the bullet before he felt the excruciating pain of tearing flesh. His leg gave out, punctured on the inside of his left thigh, and he fell out of the hovering chopper.
Wayne lunged forward, but his fingers grasped only air.
Bryce landed in a dusty heap on the tarmac. He groaned.
Whittenfield walked menacingly over to him. “Well, Captain Reynolds,” he said as Bryce looked up at him from the ground. “I don’t think this is going to end well for you, my friend.”
Wayne looked through the cabin for a gun, but Whittenfield yelled at him from the ground. “Stop! Pick anything up and I put a bullet right between his eyes.” He kept his eyes on the three in the chopper, but aimed the gun at Bryce’s head.
“Your mission was a complete failure — I had to finish it myself! Even Jabari couldn’t get the crystal into my hands!”
“I knew it,” Bryce said. “You had Madu chasing us from the beginning, didn’t you?”
“Actually, it was Vilocek who put that into motion,” Whittenfield said. “It just happened to play out rather well for me.”
“So — the notebooks…” Bryce was confused at how this had all come together. “In Iraq…”
“I sent the notebook to that camp — eventually to get it into Madu’s hands.”
“You? But — “
“For you, Bryce. I needed you. It was all set up; to send your team in, then call off the mortar unit. The Iraqi Guards who took you down were waiting just out of radar distance, and were told to inflict as much nonlethal damage as possible on you.
“You executed the mission flawlessly. Retrieve the notebook and get compromised — but not killed. I needed someone with something to lose; something to fight for. You were already the perfect soldier, but I needed someone who was in your particular situation at home.”
“My mother?”
“Precisely. She was the missing piece. Without the promise of saving her — which, I must unfortunately disclose now, was all a lie — you would have been a loose cannon; jeopardizing the mission.”
Bryce closed his eyes, trying to calm his fury.
Bryce felt the chill of pure adrenaline wash over his broken body. He chuckled under his breath, his eyes closed.
“Are you laughing?” Whittenfield asked. “What in God’s name could be funny? You’re lying on the ground with a gun to your head. Your friends can’t help you, and you can’t help yourself! Your mother’s not going to be saved — it’s over!” Whittenfield began to yell as he grew more and more agitated.
Bryce opened his eyes.
“Whittenfield,” Bryce said. “You think you have this figured out, but you’re wrong. When we spoke on the phone on the way — you remember that?”
Whittenfield frowned, still pointing the gun at Bryce. “Of course. What of it?”
“I never mentioned to you who was chasing us — Madu Jabari. I simply told you his first name, and that there was an envelope with his initials on it.”
Whittenfield stiffened. “So what? You knew about his involvement then?”
“That’s when I suspected you were up to something. It’s all coming together for me now
— the crystal, Vilocek, Madu Jabari. It’s all played right into your hand. You hoped to pit all of us against each other, and then make off with the final prize. A good plan, actually, but one I think you’ve miscalculated.”
“And how might that be, Captain Reynolds?”
“My mother — you weren’t watching her — “
“And why would I! We had no intention — hell, no possible way to save her!” Whittenfield shouted.
“I know that, now. And obviously you have no idea that she’s already dead.” Bryce responded.
Whittenfield stopped. Wayne, listening to the conversation through his in-ear radio, was also stunned.
Whittenfield backed up a few steps. Bryce pushed painfully to his feet — leaning heavily to the right, trying to keep from putting too much weight on his leg. He stood and faced Whittenfield.
“I found out on the flight here. Linda told me. My mother’s gone. I — I guess I knew it was coming, I just wasn’t ready for it.” Bryce almost stumbled over his words — it was the first time he’d admitted, out loud, that his mother was gone, and the words stung harder than he’d hoped. “Either way, you don’t have anything on me now — you’re on your own now, Whittenfield.”
“That’s bullshit. And even if you are telling the truth, I own you. You think anyone’s going to listen to you? Who do you think you are?” Whittenfield sounded desperate, almost pleading.
“Your biggest bargaining chip is gone, Whittenfield.”
Whittenfield knew it was over. “But — the money…“ he stammered.
“I don’t want your money,” Bryce said. “You’ve transferred enough to me already; enough to last for a while. The rest, well, I’ll get it later if I need it.”
“Later? What the hell are you talking about, Bryce?” Whittenfield snapped back.
Bryce hobbled a step forward. He was staring down the barrel of the pistol now, still held in Whittenfield’s outstretched arm. He wasn’t afraid of being shot, but he sensed that Whittenfield wouldn’t — couldn’t — pull the trigger anyway. “I’m taking everything. The company, your research, the lab — you don’t deserve it. I’m taking it and opening it to the world.
