by Jay Falconer
Lucas shook his head. “No, they weren’t. But trust me, my brother ran the calculations and he’s never wrong.”
“Even if there was a massive energy spike, as you claim, does that in any way mitigate your responsibility for running the experiment without permission?”
He wished he could answer yes to her question, but couldn’t. “No, ma’am, it doesn’t.”
The woman was relentless. Lucas suddenly felt like the chair he was sitting in was six sizes too large for him. His blood pressure skyrocketed. He checked to see if the door behind him was open. It wasn’t.
Rosenbaum closed the folder with added force, then made eye contact with each of her constituents seated at the table. “Dr. Ramsay, this council has spent the entire morning reviewing the available video and scientific evidence with the President and his advisors. It is our conclusion, as well as that of the President, that your experiment indeed triggered the energy vortexes, which are, at this very moment, spreading across our planet. You were correct earlier when you stated that the facts in evidence are not merely coincidence. We agree. They’re much too specific to be random, unrelated events. Your unauthorized E-121 test caused these tragedies.”
Lucas had intended to present the council with their notebook of theories. But he changed his mind when it became clear that the old bag’s sole intent was to crucify him. He decided it would be best if he waited until after the meeting when he could discuss the notebook privately with Kleezebee. Maybe DL could reason with her.
Rosenbaum continued with a stern voice. “Based on our projections, if this phenomenon continues at its current pace, the entire surface of our planet will be leveled in a little over two weeks. Thanks to you two, the human race is on the verge of extinction.” She took a sip from a half-empty water bottle. “The press is all over this with their doomsday predictions. We’re hearing reports of riots, looting, religious hysteria, and mass suicide in every major city around the world. As this phenomenon spreads, power grids are beginning to fail, along with key transportation and communication systems. We have foreign heads of state promising retaliation for what they believe is a biological attack. Our society is on the brink of social and spiritual anarchy . . .”
Jesus, lady, dial back the drama a bit, Lucas thought.
There was a knock at the door. The door opened partway and Mary Stinger stuck her head inside. “Excuse me. I have an urgent report to deliver to Dr. Kleezebee.”
“Come in,” Rosenbaum said, “but make it quick.”
Mary walked around the far side of the table and handed the report to Dr. Kleezebee. Her hair swayed from side to side, as she walked quickly back to the door. She smiled and winked at Lucas.
Now she notices me? he thought.
Kleezebee spent half a minute reading the contents of the folder before addressing Rosenbaum. “Dr. Rosenbaum, this is a preliminary DNA report for the human remains left behind on Campbell Avenue. Thus far, we have positively identified a hundred and five victims. There appears to be twenty-two additional DNA samples, which we have yet to identify.”
Kleezebee handed the folder to her. “I caution you, there are some rather graphic photos attached to the back of the report.”
Rosenbaum opened the folder and spent a few minutes reviewing it. She seemed to be unaffected by its contents. She turned the folder sideways to look at the photos attached in the back.
“Dr. Rosenbaum, if you don’t mind, I would like to see that report next,” Larson said, leaning forward in his chair.
She closed the folder and slid it across the table to Larson, right into his outstretched hand. “Dr. Kleezebee, may I have a word with you in private?” she asked.
Kleezebee stood up and the two of them moved to the far corner of the room. Lucas could not hear what they were saying to each other.
Meanwhile, Larson was slowly scanning the report with his right index finger. When Larson’s finger stopped moving, he pulled out his cell phone and tried to use it.
“It’s not going to work down here, you dumb ass,” Lucas mumbled quietly.
Larson closed his cell and reached for the house phone sitting in front of Dr. Suki. He dragged it closer to him by the wall cord before picking up the receiver. “Do I need to dial nine first to get an outside line?” he asked Suki. Suki nodded. Larson dialed the phone, and a few moments later, he began a conversation. “I need to speak to Rafael, is he available? . . . This is his brother-in-law, Randy . . . I need to get a message to him . . . Tell him I’m sorry to report that he was correct all along. He’ll know what it means.”
Larson hung up the phone and walked past Lucas on his way out of the conference room.
Drew leaned over and whispered into Lucas’ ear, “See if you can get a copy of that DNA report. I‘d like to know if Abby’s name is on the list.”
Before Lucas could respond, he heard a faint rumble above him that got progressively louder. Moments later, his fingertips felt an uneven vibration in the conference room table. At first, Lucas thought NASA was firing up one of their underground tests, but he soon realized he was wrong when the intensity of the quake increased dramatically. The tremor was far beyond anything he had ever experienced before.
Kleezebee and Rosenbaum, who were still engaged in a private conversation along the wall, both fell over and landed on the floor.
Lucas was shaken out of his seat and landed next to Drew’s wheelchair. He reached up for his brother’s arm, and pulled Drew down beside him. They crawled under the mahogany conference table together for safety.
One of the padded ceiling tiles came crashing down and landed on Drew’s wheelchair. The corner of the tile landed point first, tearing a penny-sized hole in the wheelchair’s seat. A teleconference screen broke free from the wall and smashed into the floor. Glass lenses from two of the video cameras shattered into pieces after the cameras shook loose from their ceiling mounts and hit the floor.
Lawnmower-sized chunks of cement rained down from the floor above, splintering into dozens of pieces when the hit, sending streams of cement dust into the air. It was getting hard to breathe.
The room suddenly went dark. Drew immediately latched onto Lucas’ right arm. Ten seconds later, the dim emergency lighting kicked in. Lucas looked behind him to see if everyone was okay. He saw Kleezebee and Rosenbaum kneeling together under the table. They were next to Hudson Rapp, who appeared to be unharmed, though his face was covered in a film of white dust, making him look like a mime.
Lucas didn’t see Dr. Suki, not at first. Then he spotted a bloody hand sticking out from under a pile of cement rubble. Since every one else was accounted for, the arm must have belonged to Suki. But Suki’s hand and fingers were not moving—he was either dead or unconscious.
Lucas could feel the cement floor moving beneath him as the tremor’s violence increased. As far as he knew, they were on the bottommost floor, with nothing but bedrock underneath them. However, if something manmade were down there, they could fall through.
Drew tapped him on the shoulder and tried to tell him something. But Lucas could not hear him due to an intense brain-splitting squeal that suddenly filled the room. A second later, Drew blacked out and fell on his side. Soon after, Kleezebee and Rosenbaum also lay unconscious. Director Rapp was awake, but his left ear was bleeding.
Another volley of debris fell onto the table above him. It sounded like it may have landed on one of the TV screens built into the tabletop, shattering its screen. The conference room doors swung open, allowing Lucas to see Larson lying on the ground outside.
The tremor stopped and so did the squeal.
Lucas poked his head out from under the table and looked around, hoping another piece of concrete wouldn’t shake loose above him. A heavy bundle of cables had fallen down through one of the gaps in the ceiling. There was cement and other debris spread over the conference table and across the floor.
Drew woke up slowly, as did Kleezebee and Rosenbaum. Larson was still lying motionless on the floor outsi
de the conference room.
Chapter 14
Ascension
Lucas helped Drew back into his wheelchair. The chair’s leather seat held Drew’s weight despite the puncture near the middle. They were lucky the falling debris didn’t cause more damage. “You in one piece, brother?”
“I’m fine. Was that another energy field attack?”
“I think so. It sounded like it was right above us.”
“Do you think it damaged the science lab?”
“Yep. You can kiss our experiment goodbye,” Lucas said, before coughing twice. The air was filled with dust. “I can’t believe it affected us twenty floors underground. I thought we would’ve been safe down here. Boy was I wrong.”
“Gives you an indication of its destructive power,” Kleezebee replied.
“Professor, your leg!” Lucas said, seeing his boss walking with a severe limp. Blood had soaked through the cuff on the same pant leg.
“The video screen landed on my ankle and I heard it snap. It hurts like hell, but I’ll live. Everyone else okay?”
“I’m not injured,” Rosenbaum said, dusting herself off with her wrinkled hands. Sprinkles of debris had been trapped in her beehive hairdo, much like in a spider’s web.
“Dr. Suki’s in pretty rough shape,” Rapp said, removing hunks of the cement that had buried Suki. A two-foot section of rebar was sticking out of the upper right quadrant of Suki’s chest. He checked Suki’s pulse. “He’s alive, barely. He’s going to need medical attention, and soon.”
Kleezebee picked up the receiver to the house phone and listened. “No dial tone. Switch must be down. Someone’s going to have to go get help.”
“I’ll go,” Lucas said, looking up and seeing an open gap in the ceiling tiles. Dust was trickling down through it in a swirling pattern.
Larson walked gingerly into the conference room. “How? The power’s out and I doubt the elevator is working.”
NASA Director Rapp pulled out an ultra-thin computer from a leather bag he had sitting underneath the table. He powered up the unit. “This facility is self-contained and has its own nuclear power plant and air-filtration system. We shouldn’t be on emergency lighting right now. Something’s wrong.”
“Did you say nuclear?” Larson asked.
“Yes. Something must have caused the reactor to go offline.”
“There wasn’t a meltdown, was there?” Larson asked.
“If there was, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now,” Rapp snapped.
“Do you know the location of the reactor?” Kleezebee asked, hopping closer to the NASA director.
“I should have the building’s schematics on my iPad. Let me see if I can locate it,” Rapp said, using the device’s touch screen. “What was that horrible sound earlier? It made my ear bleed.”
“I’ve heard it a few times now,” Lucas said. “At first, I thought it was being generated by the dome’s energy matrix and only extended out in front of the dome. Now I’m starting to think its more like ground-penetrating sonar. Like the anomaly is searching for something.”
“Searching for what?” Larson asked.
“Probably you,” Kleezebee said with an annoyed look on his face.
Lucas laughed. Drew didn’t.
“It looks like the reactor’s two floors up,” Rapp said.
“Do you have the plans for it, too?” Kleezebee replied.
“Yeah, it’s all right here.”
“Then I might be able to get it working again.”
“Excuse me, Professor,” Lucas said, “but if the science lab was destroyed, then I doubt the elevator’s going to work, even if it has power. There’s nothing at the top of the elevator shaft.”
“Are there stairs we could take?” Drew asked.
“Yes, they’re just on the other side of the elevator,” Rapp said.
“Are you nuts? It’s twenty floors up,” Larson whined.
“The rest of you should go. I’ll never make it with this ankle,” Kleezebee said. “I’ll stay behind and see if I can get the reactor going. We’re going to need it for the ventilation system. We could be here for a while.”
“I agree. We don’t want to suffocate before we’re rescued,” Larson said.
“I’ll assist you. I can’t climb all those steps, either,” the elderly Rosenbaum said to Kleezebee.
“I’m staying, too. Someone has to look after Dr. Suki,” Rapp said, staring at Kleezebee’s injured leg. “We should see about getting your ankle into a splint. You really need to sit down.”
“Then I guess it’s just the three of us,” Lucas said to Drew and Larson, picking up the theory notebook from the table. He blew off several layers of dust from its cover, in the direction of Larson—unintentionally, sort of.
Larson coughed and waved his hands in front of his face. “If there’s this much damage down here, do you really think the stairwell is clear all the way to the top? I think not. It’s nothing but a goddamn waste of time and energy.” He folded his arms and wrinkled his nose and lips together. “No, I’m going to wait right here until help arrives.”
Lucas was more than happy that Larson was staying behind. He held up the notebook in Kleezebee’s direction. “Professor, this contains a few theories that Drew and I have put together regarding the energy fields. You might want to review them while we’re gone?”
“Why don’t you keep them for now? I can’t do anything with ‘em down here.”
Lucas slipped the notebook into the zippered section of his brother’s backpack. “Do you remember the way back to the elevator, brother?”
Drew shook his head. “You should go alone.”
“No chance. I’m not leaving you behind,” Lucas said, looking at the others in the room. He knew with Rosenbaum and Rapp staying behind to help Kleezebee and Dr. Suki, that would leave only Larson to look out for Drew’s safety. Larson was the last person he would choose to watch his brother.
Drew looked down at his wheelchair. “If the elevator’s disabled, how am I supposed to get up the stairs?”
“I’ll carry you on my back if I have to. But there’s no way in hell I leaving you here. We’re going together.”
“You two need to get moving. Once you let the emergency crews know where we’re at, find Trevor. He’ll get you someplace safe,” Kleezebee said.
“Sure, but what if we can’t find him?” Lucas replied.
“Then get as far away from Tucson as you can,” Kleezebee said, tossing a set of keys to Lucas. “My car’s in the rear parking lot of the apartment complex.”
Lucas didn’t know Kleezebee owned a car. The professor always seemed to travel around campus on foot. “How will I know which one it is?”
“It’s a yellow ’eighty-two Volvo. You can’t miss it. There’s a three-foot crack across the windshield. You can drive a stick, right?”
“Sure, Professor, no problem,” Lucas replied. He remembered seeing a faded, piss-yellow four-door sedan parked next to the dumpster whenever he took out the trash. It had numerous spider webs stretching from its undercarriage to the pavement, and a year’s worth of bird crap all over its hood. He doubted whether the Volvo would start—its battery was probably dead.
He slid a chunk of cement out of the way and pushed his brother out the conference room door. There was much less debris in the hallway as they made their way back to the elevator through the maze of connecting corridors. When they arrived, the elevator doors were compacted to half their normal height and bent outward into the hallway.
“Looks like the elevator is out. I guess that confirms there’s nothing up top,” Lucas said.
“I wonder if anyone was in it?”
“Let me check,” Lucas said, peeking into the partially separated elevator doors. He cupped his hands around his face to block out the hallway light. “It’s too dark in there to see.” He pressed his right ear against the crack in the doors and listened. “I don’t hear anything, either. We should keep moving. Got a long way to g
o.”
“Do you think Bruno was at his station when the energy field hit?”
“Jesus, I hope not,” Lucas answered, thinking about Kleezebee’s note to Trevor right before the meeting started. “I wonder where Kleezebee sent Trevor and Mary?”
“You don’t think they were in the science lab, do you?”
Lucas shrugged. “If they were, they’re sushi by now.” He opened the doorway to the stairs and walked inside. Above him was a seemingly endless series of switchback metal stairways that stretched as far as he could see. “Fuck me,” Lucas said, hearing his voice echo. Light in the stairwell came from emergency lights installed above each level’s entry door.
“Are you sure you wanna to do this?” Drew asked.
Lucas bent down with his back to Drew. “Hop on, like when we were kids. Just don’t squeeze my neck too tight.”
“Don’t forget my backpack,” Drew said, climbing up onto Lucas’ back, piggyback-style.
Lucas removed the knapsack from the wheelchair and handed it to Drew. “Can you put this on, or do I need to put you down first?”
Drew slung the pack over his right shoulder. “Nope, I got it.”
Lucas went up six flights of stairs before his leg muscles screamed at him to stop. He did. “Where’s Trevor when you need him?” he asked, gasping for air. Stenciled on the entry door in front of him was the number 14. “For a little guy, you weigh a shitload. It’s probably all those push-ups every morning. Or maybe it was all those fucking burritos.”
“You can put me down for a minute if you need to.”
“No, I wanna keep moving. Just give me a second.” Lucas took a few deep breaths before resuming the climb. He used the handrail to balance himself with his brother’s arms wrapped around his neck. He pressed on, floor-by-floor, ignoring the occasional twinge of pain in his lower back. When he needed to rest, he stopped for a few minutes before continuing the journey.
* * *
Kleezebee and Rosenbaum huddled in the control room on Sublevel 18, sitting in front of the twenty-foot-wide operator’s control panel for NASA’s underground power reactor. The front half of the room was crammed full of screens, gauges, switches, knobs, and instruments, surrounding Kleezebee on three sides. It reminded him of NASA’s launch control room in Houston, which he had seen in person several years before.
