2041 Sanctuary (Genesis)

by Robert Storey

  ‘Where’s Stevens?’

  ‘The general? Isn’t he at the SED with you, sir?’

  Joiner scowled in realisation at his mistake. ‘Have you arranged my escort to the tower?’

  ‘Yes, sir, everything’s standing by.’

  Joiner nodded, switched off the transmission and then depressed another button on the desk.

  ‘Yes, Commander – I mean, Director,’ said Dresden Locke’s personal assistant.

  ‘Find me General Stevens and get him here, right now.’

  ‘The general, sir? I’m afraid he’s busy down in the shuttle bay, if you can—’

  Joiner released the button and looked at Myers.

  The CIA agent stormed from the room and as the doors slid closed behind him, Joiner could hear his raised voice barking out orders.

  Joiner paced over to the opaque window and turned it transparent. He looked down into the shuttle bay below and it took a moment before he saw what he sought: the cigar-toting U.S. Army General, waddling around like an oversized blimp. He studied the man until a civilian rushed over to him and gestured back the way he’d come.

  Stevens turned to look up at Locke’s office and visibly stiffened when he saw Joiner staring back at him.

  The general held Joiner’s distant gaze for a moment and then puffed out a cloud of smoke before ambling into the building.

  Five minutes later the oaf had finally made his way to the office.

  Joiner closed the folder on his desk and minimised Myers’ on-screen files, before giving his agent the go ahead to let the military man enter.

  The doors to the room swished open and General Stevens wandered in, looking wary.

  ‘You called?’ Stevens said, glancing behind as Myers followed him in.

  ‘Take a seat, General,’ Joiner said.

  Stevens held up the palm of his bandaged hand. ‘I think I’ll stand, if it’s all the same with you.’

  Joiner held the man’s gaze and then turned away to look back out of the window. ‘I hear we have a mutual friend, General.’

  ‘I didn’t think men like you had any friends,’ Stevens said, his tone guarded.

  Joiner chuckled. ‘Come, General. Shall we not let bygones be bygones? We’re all on the same side, aren’t we?’

  The general didn’t reply.

  ‘Dagmar Sørensen,’ Joiner said, turning back round to pin Stevens under his icy glare, ‘you two have been working on something I’m interested in: Project Ares.’

  Stevens paled at the name and glanced in Myers’ direction.

  ‘Don’t look at Agent Myers,’ Joiner said, ‘he won’t help you. Tell me what you know and we can all get on with our day.’

  ‘I’ve never heard of Ares,’ Stevens said, ‘and if you know what’s good for you, neither have you.’

  Joiner’s eyes glittered with danger. ‘Are you warning me, General?’

  ‘Call it good advice,’ Stevens said.

  Joiner fixed the general with a stare, his expression unreadable, before he broke the silent impasse by strolling out from behind his desk.

  Stevens followed his movement with suspicious eyes as Joiner reached Myers, who remained looking at the general with an uncompromising air of hostility.

  Joiner walked behind the CIA operative and slid the agent’s silenced sidearm from his holster.

  ‘You’re going to shoot me this time?’ Stevens said, taking a step back. ‘We both know there are people just as powerful as you that consider me a valuable asset.’

  ‘Is that so?’ Joiner pointed the weapon at the general.

  Stevens stood up straighter in defiance. ‘Shoot me and—’

  Joiner whirled round to point the gun at Myers and fired.

  The CIA agent’s eyes widened and he looked down in shock at the blood that had begun to seep through his white shirt, before crumpling to the floor.

  Joiner walked over and stared down at him as he bled out from a gunshot wound to the stomach. He crouched down and placed the gun to Myers’ forehead. ‘Tell me, Agent,’ he said, ‘are you my leak?’

  Myers stared into Joiner’s eyes and opened his mouth, but no words came.

  ‘Think it over,’ Joiner said, looking down at the wound, ‘you have a few minutes.’

  ‘Are you out your mind?!’ Stevens said, staring in shock at Myers on the floor.

  ‘Quite possibly,’ Joiner said. ‘It seems some people can be too helpful. Now, General,’ – Joiner raised his gun – ‘tell me about Ares.’

  ♦

  General Stevens eyed the man before him in shocked disbelief. He’s insane, he thought, I have to tell him what I know and be damned with the consequences. Sørensen can deal with him, I have no choice.

  The door to the office opened and Locke’s P.A. stood in the doorway. ‘I thought I heard—’

  ‘Get out!’ Joiner said, turning the gun on her.

  The woman screamed and fled.

  ♦

  ‘You’ve been keeping secrets, General,’ – Joiner cocked the pistol – ‘it’s time to share them.’

  Stevens glanced at Myers, who moved weakly on the floor, and then turned frightened eyes back on the gun. He held up his hands in supplication. ‘Fine, on your head be it, but you didn’t hear it from me, understand?’

  Stevens moved to the wallscreen and looked to Joiner. ‘I need to access some secure files.’

  Joiner sat down on the edge of the desk. ‘Go ahead.’

  The general entered some military codes while Joiner reflected on how well his plan was going. Myers had sidestepped the leak issue when he’d arrived, diverting Joiner’s attention elsewhere. The man had learned too much, too quickly. It might be that he was as faithful as he appeared to be, but Joiner had taken the opportunity to find out for sure. He looked over at the dying agent, hoping he would live long enough to either confirm he was the leak or prove his innocence. Either way, Joiner would have to decide whether to keep him alive.

  Apart from exposing Myers’ potential duplicity, the act of violence had also served a far more important service: convincing Stevens to fess up. Two birds with one stone was a phrase made for this moment and while Joiner tried to suppress a feeling of superiority, it was hard not to revel in his own magnificence. It must be a rare man who could utilise such a situation to his advantage, he thought, it’s a shame I can’t share this moment; how my reputation would soar.

  ‘Are you watching?’ Stevens said.

  Joiner looked back to the wallscreen where the general had loaded three separate video recordings of Sarah Morgan conducting her illicit incursion into the military’s vaults and laboratory complex; uncensored videos that Joiner wasn’t supposed to have seen.

  ‘I think you know as well as I,’ Stevens said, ‘that the pendant and the orb this woman stole are much more than just artefacts.’

  Joiner watched the footage unfold as he had many times before. One showed Morgan activating the massive Anakim shield. In another she became incapacitated by the palm-sized orb. And in the final and perhaps most tantalising of the videos, she approached a fifty foot high pentagonal prism, which towered above her. Joiner couldn’t help but be immersed in the scene once more as Morgan reached the front of the monolith to activate a large, rectangular vessel housed within. A blue glow blossomed into existence inside the transparent container until the liquid inside sparkled like a distant star.

  Joiner refocused on the general. ‘The pendant activates Anakim technology.’

  ‘It does,’ Stevens said, ‘and Morgan is the key to everything those R&D geeks have been working on for decades.’

  ‘What is Ares?’ Joiner leaned forward. ‘What is the God Device?’

  ‘Ah, so you know more than you’ve let on.’ Stevens’ surprise turned into a knowing smile. ‘Very well; we’ve gained many useful technologies from Ares. The camouflage suits that our elite troops possess, we reverse engineered those from Anakim tech. They tell me they combined it with what we already had and then made it ten times bet
ter. Other advanced materials have been found and used to great effect. We’ve already advanced our weapons programmes by nearly fifty years. Even NASA’s been utilising the tech to improve their systems and spacecraft. It’s a new dawn of advance and we’re right on the cusp. Add to that Morgan’s little trinket and we can expect to take even bigger strides forward. The sky’s the limit.

  ‘The orb is supposed to be connected to some … thing,’ the general continued. ‘They call it the God Device; to me it just looks like the abomination it is. They think it’s some kind of A.I., and the orbs contain readouts much like our brainwaves.’

  ‘But you’re not so sure?’

  ‘I don’t know want to think, I leave that to the science nerds and their labs.’

  ‘What’s inside the monolith?’ Joiner said, returning his gaze to the video as it repeated on the wallscreen. ‘What does the liquid do? What is it for? What is its purpose?’

  ‘I don’t know, even I don’t have clearance for that. I was just responsible for its retrieval. Since Morgan circumvented our security it’s been guarded round the clock by black ops.’

  ‘And that’s it?’ Joiner said. ‘That’s all you know?’

  ‘There is one other thing,’ Stevens said. ‘There’s something your friends in the tower didn’t tell you.’

  Joiner’s heart beat faster. Of course Stevens knows about the Committee, how could he not? ‘And what’s that?’ Joiner said, staying calm.

  Stevens activated another feed on-screen and a view from a Special Forces visor appeared. The soldier was accompanied by a number of heavily armed commandos and the lights from their helmets lit up a scene of bloody carnage.

  ‘Where is that?’ Joiner said.

  ‘That was recorded a number of years back by a Terra Force unit who went searching for a missing Deep Reach team. It was east of the USSB. Ever since they found this place back in the early eighteen hundreds there’s been reports of strange lights and people disappearing. Sometimes whole teams of explorers never came back. They thought it was down to climbing accidents, earthquakes and Sanctuary’s general instability.’

  Joiner looked at the dismembered bodies on the screen.

  ‘But when they found this,’ Stevens said, ‘it changed everything.’

  ‘What did it?’

  ‘They don’t know what it is. Only that it doesn’t like company. The team of marines you’re looking at never made it back alive, there were over sixty, heavily armed. It tore them apart like they weren’t even there.’

  ‘They didn’t get off any shots?’

  ‘Oh, they shot at it alright,’ Stevens said, ‘bullet casings were everywhere. They unloaded everything they had and it still didn’t stop it. And since it takes so long to get to that area we decided to leave well enough alone, although that was after we lost another two teams. After that we sent down a tethered robot which brought back the helmet that recorded these images … amongst other things.’

  Joiner saw a shimmering light appear on the soldier’s visor screen. ‘What is that?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘There’s no audio?’ Joiner said.

  Stevens touched the screen.

  Sounds of gunfire erupted from the speakers and the screams of dying men filled the air. The battle, if that’s what you could call it, carried on and on until the visor image suddenly ended.

  ‘That’s all the footage you have?’

  ‘Not all.’ Stevens played another file. ‘The robot captured this.’

  Joiner saw the same shimmering light gliding across the ground of a rock-strewn chamber. The vision slowed and then stopped before a strange, indistinct form emerged from the ether. The creature’s transparent skin, if that’s what it was, bulged and distorted. It looked like it might have legs, but each time a coherent shape appeared it melded back into the writhing mass. At times a protuberance, much like a head, searched this way and that, like a snake tasting the air. Moments passed until the light glowed forth once more before vanishing from view

  The footage ended and Joiner considered what he’d seen.

  ‘The scientists call it the Pharos,’ Stevens said. ‘Have you noticed how they always have to give something a name?’

  ‘Like the Roman lighthouse,’ Joiner murmured, ‘a beacon.’

  ‘Yeah, but rather than guide you to safety it rips you in two.’

  ‘Perhaps Siren would be more appropriate.’

  ‘Whatever it’s called,’ – Stevens sparked up his cigar, the end crackling orange as he sucked in its noxious fumes – ‘when I knew it stayed in its part of Sanctuary I could sleep at night.’

  Agent Myers gave a groan of pain and Joiner looked in his direction, his thoughts troubled. ‘What did you just say?’ he said, turning back to Stevens. ‘When it stayed in its part of Sanctuary?’

  Stevens chuckled amidst his pall of smoke, his face turning sinister. ‘You caught that, did you? Let’s just say it won’t be long until you’re not the only spawn of the Devil calling this base home.’

  Joiner stared at him. ‘They’re bringing it here?’

  Stevens laughed. ‘You didn’t think they called in all of S.I.L.V.E.R. for just one woman, did you? They’re out there to trap this Pharos and bring it back for study.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘They’re confident they can neutralise it. If they can’t, they’ll monitor and release. Personally, I’d rather see the beast dead ten times over before they even considered bringing it back, but that’s Sørensen for you. The man’s nothing if not determined.’

  Joiner’s mind was racing. ‘Dresden Locke knows about this thing?’

  ‘Of course, that’s why he’s always banging on about safety all the time. He knows full well what’s down there. Did you see his face when you told him he’d be going? He nearly wet himself.’

  ‘He knows why S.I.L.V.E.R. are here?’

  ‘Locke is many things,’ Stevens said, ‘but stupid isn’t one of them; he knows.’

  The doors to the office opened and Joiner turned to see his primary aide enter the room.

  ‘Debden?’ Joiner said, frowning. ‘I didn’t call you here.’

  ‘Sir,’ – Debden glanced over at Myers – ‘your evaluation’s been brought forward.’

  Joiner’s grip loosened on the pistol. ‘What?’

  ‘He said it’s been brought forward, Director,’ Stevens said.

  Joiner looked back round and something exploded against his chin. Light flashed before his eyes and he slumped to the floor unconscious.

  ♦

  General Stevens shook out his fist and looked down at the comatose body of the intelligence director. ‘Damn, that felt good.’

  Debden felt for Joiner’s pulse. ‘You didn’t have to hit him so hard.’

  ‘He deserved it,’ Stevens said, flexing his bandaged hand.

  ‘The Committee may still require his services. Joiner is one man you don’t want bearing a grudge.’

  Stevens sniffed. ‘I’ll take my chances, as will you when he finds out you’re his leak.’

  ‘He won’t be seeing me again. I’ll be reassigned.’

  Stevens grunted and then looked over at Myers. ‘What about him?’

  Debden walked over to the stricken CIA agent and crouched down next to him. He pulled open his shirt. ‘Call for a medic; he hasn’t got long.’

  Stevens pressed a button on the wall console and while he spoke to SED emergency services, Debden stood up and returned to Joiner’s side to look down at his former boss. How many years have I had to put up with his shit? he wondered. Six years? It feels like twenty. He lent down and removed Joiner’s dislodged glasses, closed them and tucked them into his breast pocket. The man was a monster, but he’d been Debden’s monster; he almost felt a stirring of emotion at having to part ways with him, it had been a massive part of his life. Whether it was a good part he was still trying to figure that out.

  Half a minute later, two medics burst into the office to attend
to the gunshot victim, while nearby the man who’d inflicted the near mortal wound remained unmoving on the floor. Grant Debden took one last look at Joiner’s prone form before slipping unnoticed from the room.

  He touched the implant in his ear to activate his computer phone. ‘It’s done,’ he said.

  ‘Your transport is waiting for you,’ a woman said on the other end, ‘you’ll be on the first elevator out of Sanctuary. Have you decided where you’d like to be relocated?’

  Debden thought for a moment. ‘Somewhere hot, with lots of water, endless beaches and beautiful, sun-kissed women.’

  ‘USSB Pelagic it is. Thank you, Grant Debden, your service has been exemplary. We wish you well in your future endeavours.’

  The woman hung up and Debden continued on his way, out of the SED and into his new life, the trials and tribulations that surrounded Malcolm Joiner a rapidly fading reality, the joys of the unexpected a whole new future. He stepped out of the SED’s main entrance and onto the front concourse before a screech of brakes made him turn and cry out, ‘NO!’

  ♦

  The driver’s car bounced over the body of the man he’d just run down. He slid the back end out and then gunned the accelerator.

  As he sped back out into the base’s tunnel complex, he switched on the wiper blades to remove the blood that covered the cracked windscreen.

  His car’s computer bleeped and a woman’s face appeared on the head-up-display.

  ‘Is it done?’ she said.

  The man nodded.

  ‘The credits will be wired to your account when we have confirmation.’ The woman cut the transmission and the man continued on into the darkness, his job complete and the only thought on his mind, whether he should order out for Chinese or Indian.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Colonel Samson scanned the area with his visor and crouched down to touch the tracks on the ground. ‘How long?’

  ‘Half an hour, maybe forty minutes.’

  The Terra Force Colonel dug armoured fingers into the surface. ‘And no one saw them go?’