Dream Sky

by Brett Battles

  He was almost there.

  Feeling excited again, he stepped onto the dirt path.

  “Stop right there!”

  __________

  TRACKING THE KID after having almost lost him had turned out to be relatively easy. The survivor was obviously trying not to be seen again, but he wasn’t adept at traveling quietly. Gabriel, on the other hand, had mastered the technique, so he’d been able to follow the kid without letting on he was there.

  Gabriel had another advantage, too. In the several days he’d been in the area, he’d scouted most of these streets so he had a good knowledge of the area. When he realized the kid was headed for the stairs that led to the ridge overlooking Elysian Park, he decided to take an easier way up a few blocks west.

  He cut down the road behind Elysian Heights Elementary School and turned up the street that would take him to the top. When he reached the end, he stopped behind several bushes and peered up the ridge toward where the stairs let out.

  Nearly a minute passed before the kid showed up. After walking about halfway to Gabriel’s position, the kid stopped and looked out over the park.

  Gabriel eased out from his hiding spot and maneuvered himself into position not far behind the kid.

  Raising his rifle, he said, “Stop right there!”

  __________

  BEN LOOKED OVER his shoulder.

  It was the man in the leather jacket, his rifle pointed at Ben’s chest.

  “All right,” the man said. “Here’s what I need you to do. Very slowly, turn toward me and set your bag on the ground.”

  Ben did as ordered. “All yours.”

  A brief moment of confusion passed over the man’s face. “You got me wrong. I don’t want your stuff.”

  A chill ran through Ben. If not his stuff then…?

  “I’m trying to help you,” the man said.

  “I don’t need any help, thank you.”

  “You do. You just don’t know it.”

  Was this guy a psychopath? If so, Ben could imagine what kind of “help” the man wanted to give him.

  He glanced at the gun. “You said before that you didn’t want to hurt me.”

  “I don’t.”

  With a nod at the weapon, Ben said, “But…”

  After a second of hesitation, the man lowered the barrel, aiming it now at the ground by Ben’s feet. “I’m sorry. I need to make sure you come with me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that’s my job.”

  Ben had heard enough crazy for the morning. If this guy was going to kill him, Ben would prefer that happened while he was trying to get to Martina than after he was taken back to whatever hovel the guy was now calling home.

  “Okay. Fine. I’ll…I’ll go with you,” he said, trying to sound defeated.

  “Good,” the man said. Then, as Ben had hoped, the guy dropped the barrel of the rifle so that it was pointing straight down.

  Knowing he might not get a second chance, Ben threw himself backward, hitting the top of the slope on his ass and shoulder, then rolled down the hill, bypassing the path altogether.

  __________

  GABRIEL WAS GLAD it was over. After he delivered the kid, he might take an hour or two off. Hell, he might even take the rest of the day.

  “Good,” he said, and lowered his weapon.

  He was about to step forward to give the kid a hand with the bag, when the kid leapt toward the slope like he was a wide receiver diving over the goal line.

  Gabriel rushed to the edge and watched him roll down the hill in a cloud of dust.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s wrong!” he yelled. “It’s safer here with me then where you’re headed!”

  He half considered running after the kid. The rolling would probably make the kid disoriented for a few seconds, possibly just enough time for Gabriel to grab him. But the ridgeline represented Gabriel’s boundary. If he ventured into the park, he would likely be seen and the mission could be blown.

  The kid was on his feet now, a bit off kilter as he jogged the rest of the way down the hill.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing!” Gabriel yelled. “There’s nothing but death in that direction! We can help you here! We can save you!”

  But the kid was having none of it. As Gabriel watched him head toward the center of the valley, he spotted a van with a nice big UN painted on the side heading down the road on the other side of the park.

  Goddammit.

  Gabriel pulled his radio out of his bag. “L-One, this is L-Four. L-One.”

  “Go for L-One,” Nyla responded.

  “Lost one. A runner. Caught me off guard.”

  A pause. “No chance for retrieval.”

  “He’s already in the park, and they’ve got a van headed to meet him.”

  “Copy, L-Four. One lost. Let’s make it the last.”

  “Well, duh,” he said, without pushing the talk button.

  “L-One out,” Nyla said.

  “L-Four out,” he responded.

  12

  WARD MOUNTAIN NORTH, NEVADA

  6:44AM PST

  ASH SENT HIS kids ahead to the cafeteria while he went through his new morning ritual of stretching his wounded muscles. Every day the pain receded more, but not quickly enough as far as he was concerned. He figured he was at about seventy-five percent of his pre-explosion self.

  Dr. Gardiner had told him he was unlikely to make it all the way back, which was the motivation Ash needed to push himself to prove otherwise.

  Once he was as limber as he would get that day, he took a quick shower, shooed Lucky the cat away from his clothes as he dressed, and went down to join his kids for breakfast.

  The mood in the cafeteria was lighter than it had been since Ash had arrived at the facility. Matt’s death had been hanging over everyone, but while the loss would be felt by all for years to come, the funeral had given people the opportunity to move forward.

  He must have been greeted over a dozen times with “morning, Captain” and “how you doing today, Captain?” and “good to see you, sir.” He patted a few backs, shared a few words, and then went up to the counter to get his eggs and bacon and cup of coffee.

  His kids had chosen a table at the far end of the room. Ginny Thorton was sitting with them, though her cousin Rick didn’t seem to be anywhere around. That wasn’t surprising. The kid had pretty much stayed to himself since Ash and his group had arrived in Nevada.

  “Hey, Dad,” Brandon said as Ash set his plate and mug on the table.

  “How are you feeling?” Josie asked.

  “I’m fine, sweetie,” he said.

  “How’s the pain?”

  “Better.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Ash,” Ginny said as he sat.

  “Good morning, Ginny. How’s the food?”

  “It’s okay.”

  Ash smiled and took a sip of his coffee. Some sort of dark roast today, he realized. Word around the base was that one of the resupply crews had found a whole truck full of premium coffee beans, all vacuum-packed and ready for sale. Someone had said the same type of coffee had not been served twice since they’d been at Ward Mountain.

  Ash was almost done with his eggs when he saw Chloe enter the cafeteria, holding one of Matt’s journals. She stopped near the doorway and scanned the room. When her gaze landed on Ash, she began weaving through the tables toward him.

  “Hi, Chloe,” Brandon said as she walked up.

  “Good morning, Brandon,” she said, then glanced at the girls. “Josie, Ginny, good morning.” She then leaned down and whispered in Ash’s ear, “I think I found something.”

  “Your room,” he whispered back.

  With a nod, she was up and gone.

  “What was that all about?” Brandon asked.

  Ash set his mug and utensils on his plate. “She needs my help with something.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing that important.”

  “A secret?”

  Ash p
ushed out of his chair. “That would probably be why she whispered to me.” He smiled. “I promise, if it’s something you should know, I will tell you.”

  __________

  “SO?” ASH SAID as he entered her room and closed the door.

  “Over here,” she told him.

  She stepped over to the pile of journals on her bed. As Ash sat down beside her, she picked up a journal that had been sitting by itself and began rifling through the pages.

  “I missed it the first time,” she said, speaking rapidly. “I don’t know why. I should have seen it. When I finished everything, I decided to go through them all again. I guess that’s why I caught it the second time. I could see the—”

  Ash put a hand on the journal, stopping her. “Have you been up all night?”

  “What time is it?” she said.

  “It’s after seven thirty.”

  “I guess I have been.”

  “You didn’t realize everyone was eating breakfast when you found me?”

  “I wasn’t paying attention. I went to your room, but you weren’t there, then I heard voices coming from the cafeteria so I checked there. If you hadn’t been there, I would have—”

  “Chloe, take a breath.”

  So this is how you get the stoic Chloe White to babble—just deprive her of sleep, he realized.

  She took a couple of deep, long breaths. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine. You’re kind of fun this way.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He removed his hand from the book. “What did you find?”

  At a more deliberate pace, she flipped through the pages until she arrived at one marked with a piece of string.

  “This is from seven years ago.”

  She turned the journal so it was facing Ash, and pointed at what she wanted him to read.

  March 19th

  Recruitment: 14 NA, 23 EUR, 33 AFR, 17 ASIA, 2 AUS

  Check-ins today: C2, C7, and C8. Sched unchanged. Inq re: ds has come up zero. C8 starting to express ser. doubt. Order: contin invest until prove one way or another.

  General notes: Structural add at the Bluff should be complete 8 days. GA fac. still a mess. May have to visit. Billy req add med equip should arrive Fri.

  Like many of the other entries, it ended in a series of numbers.

  00091 56 1226 0783 21274 5 1008

  Ash had barely finished reading it when Chloe twisted the journal back around and tapped her finger in the middle of the page.

  “It’s right there. See?” She began to read, “‘Inquiry re: ds has come up zero.’ DS. Dream sky.”

  “Maybe,” Ash said. He had noted the initials when he read it. “Could also be a million other things. Like, I don’t know, deadlines? Or maybe it’s someone’s initials. Could be the d stands for doctor and the s stands for a last name.”

  “Then how do you explain these?” She pulled two more journals forward and opened to pages also marked by strings. “‘The ds loc still unknown,’” she read from one, and picked up the other. “This says ‘7 potential locs ruled out. C8 thinks goose chase, no ds.’ And here.” She turned to another page in the same book. “‘C7 thinks knows where to find info ds.’ And this from two days later. ‘C7 missed con twice.’” She flipped several pages again. “And finally, ‘C8 confirm C7 term.’” She looked at Ash. “Do you see now? The ds location still unknown. You don’t write the Dr. Smith or the Daniel Stone. It’s not a person. It’s a place. A place important enough that Matt was having his inside contacts search for it. According to this, C7 was on to something, but must have been killed trying to access it.”

  “Yes, apparently something was going on,” he said. “But it’s a weak connection at best. What about an A for Augustine? That’s not there. And besides, it might not be a place at all.”

  “I realize that,” she said. “But how many other potential leads have we found?”

  He thought about it then shook his head.

  “Exactly,” she said. “At least this is something we can look into. Maybe it won’t lead us anywhere, but what else are we going to do?”

  “You’re right,” he admitted.

  “We should make contact with Matt’s people inside the Project. C7 is dead, and as far as we know, C8 is, too.” C8 had been the inside man at the New Mexico facility Matt had destroyed right before he died. “But C2 should be around. I also found references for a C9 and an H5. The only question is, how do we get ahold of them?”

  It was possible Matt had taken that answer with him to the grave, but if someone did know, Ash had a pretty good guess who it would be.

  “I’ll talk to Rachel,” he said.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “Absolutely not. You’ll stay here and sleep.”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I’ll sleep later.”

  As she started to stand, her hand caught the edge of a stack of journals, sending several of them toppling to the floor.

  “Oh, yeah. You’re fine,” he said. “Get some sleep. I need you sharp.”

  She frowned, but nodded in resignation. “Promise me if you find out anything, you won’t act on it until you talk to me.”

  “I promise.”

  __________

  IT TOOK FIVE knocks before Rachel answered her door.

  “May I come in?” Ash asked.

  She stared at him for a moment before moving out of the way.

  He was pretty sure she hadn’t left the room since he’d brought her there after the funeral, but he wasn’t about to ask her.

  “I won’t keep you. I just have a couple of questions I was hoping you could help me with.”

  “I’ll answer what I can,” she said with very little enthusiasm.

  “Do you know how to reach our contacts inside Project Eden?”

  Her brow furrowed. “Why?”

  “If we’re going to take advantage of the disruption Matt started, we need to get as much intel from the inside as possible.”

  “Of course,” she said, her nod ending with a shrug. “But I don’t know how he did it.”

  “You don’t?” he said. “I can’t believe he didn’t leave some kind of instructions.”

  “If he did, he didn’t leave them with me.”

  “Then who would he have left them with?”

  “If anyone, my guess would be Pax.”

  “I’ll ask him,” he said. “One more question. Have you ever heard the initials DS before?”

  Again she looked confused. “In what regards?”

  “I’m not really sure.”

  After a moment, she shook her head. “Nothing comes to mind.”

  __________

  THE COMMUNICATIONS ROOM was packed when Ash reached the door. He counted nine people inside a room designed to comfortably hold less than half that number. In addition to Crystal, Leon, and Paul at the comm stations, three others appeared to be dealing with some cables that ran out the room and down the length of the hallway. Two more people were hunched over the back of Leon’s station. And presiding over the whole mess was Caleb Matthews.

  The Mumbai survival station, Ash realized. He’d almost forgotten all about it.

  He squeezed inside and made his way over to Crystal’s desk. He nodded toward Caleb and asked Crystal in a low voice, “What’s the status?”

  “Caleb’s trying to get things wired so he can control things in Mumbai without the people there having to do anything,” she said. “He’s running everything out to one of the communication trailers we used on the trip down from the Ranch. Been a few glitches, but I think he’s got things mostly worked out now.”

  “Has anyone actually tried tapping into their equipment yet?”

  “Not yet. Caleb spent a lot of time having Arjun—that’s the main guy in Mumbai right now—describe everything in the room so Caleb could figure out what he was dealing with first. Since then, they’ve been working on this wiring thing. He wants it all in place before they flip any switches.”

  While it made sens
e, Ash would really like to know if they could actually listen in on Project Eden’s communications. Since there was nothing he could do about it, he moved on to the real reason for his visit. “I really need to talk to Pax. Can we try him again?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I had a quick talk with him about an hour ago. They’re pretty busy down there, but we can try.”

  As Ash pulled on the second pair of headsets, Crystal dialed the number. It took five rings before it was finally answered, but the voice did not belong to Pax.

  “Hello?” a woman said.

  Crystal and Ash exchanged a look.

  “We’re trying to reach Rich Paxton.”

  “Pax? Hold on. Let me see if I can find him.”

  They heard boards creaking and a bang followed by the woman cursing to herself.

  “It’s for you,” the woman said, her voice muffled.

  A couple seconds later, Pax was on the line. “Yes?”

  “It’s Ash. Do you have a moment?”

  “A moment’s about all I got. We’re trying to get off the island.”

  “I’ll make it fast.” For a second, Ash considered clearing the room, but there was so much activity going on, the only one who could probably hear him was Crystal. He put his hand over his mic and said to her, “I’m sorry. Do you mind if I—”

  Already pulling off her headset, she said, “No worries.”

  She popped out of her seat and moved over to one of the other stations.

  Ash said into his mic, “Rachel thought you might know how to get in touch with Matt’s contacts inside Project Eden.”

  Silence.

  “You still there?” Ash asked.

  “I’m here,” Pax said. “I assume there’s a good reason you need to know.”

  “There is.”

  “I don’t know the procedure myself, but I do know where to find the information. Unfortunately, you’re going to need to wait until I get back. It’s protected by a biometric lock.”