Dream Sky

by Brett Battles

Several more seconds passed before the hatch lifted soundlessly, revealing the forty-foot vertical tunnel that led to Project Eden’s most secret base.

  To home, as Omega Three had come to think of it.

  To Dream Sky.

  January 7th

  World Population

  786,910,553

  20

  EASTERN NEVADA

  1:22 AM PST

  THE CLOSEST AIRPORT to Ward Mountain large enough to accommodate the Boeing 757 carrying the survivors from Isabella Island was in Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, with no one working maintenance, the runways at SLC were buried under several feet of snow, rendering them unusable. The next closest airport was in Las Vegas.

  The plane was met there an hour after it landed by three tour buses driven by Resistance members. The first stop was a restaurant on the edge of town, where other Resistance members had been dropped off earlier to prepare dinner for everyone.

  There was little talk as the island’s survivors ate and then climbed back on the buses. Within a few miles after hitting the road again, most were asleep.

  Pax wasn’t one of them. As the bus headed north, he rose from his seat and moved to the front. There, he took a spot on the exit stairs, leaned against the wide dash, and stared at the road ahead.

  His was the first of the three buses, so the headlights lit up only asphalt and dirt and brush. He wasn’t looking at any of it, though. No longer needing to worry about keeping Robert and his people alive, he was finally facing something he’d been trying hard to ignore.

  Matt was dead.

  That didn’t seem possible. He desperately wanted someone to tell him Matt’s death had been a trick, that when he reached Ward Mountain, Matt would limp out to the bus to greet Pax, a stupid grin on his face.

  Pax couldn’t picture how they would move forward now. Matt had not only been the brains of the Resistance, but also the soul. How could that void ever be filled?

  And then there was Billy, too, the Ranch’s former doctor. It had been less than three weeks since he’d died in the explosion in Cleveland.

  Pax’s two best friends in the world—gone. Both died because of the Sage Flu, but neither from it.

  Memories of conversations and trips and projects they had all been a part of spun through his mind, until he forced himself to stop. He started to think about the future, about what they were going to do, but that just circled him back to the loss of Matt and Billy and so many others.

  What finally saved him was focusing on what Captain Ash had asked him about.

  What about the letters DS together? They sound familiar?

  Pax had never heard the phrase Augustine dream sky before, but the letters DS? Definitely. From Matt himself, years ago.

  Could what Matt had thought they represented be true?

  As the bus suddenly came to a stop, Pax blinked and looked around. They appeared to be in a town.

  He turned to the driver—Juliana Herbert—and said, “Is something wrong?”

  “We’re here,” she told him.

  “Here where?” This wasn’t Ward Mountain.

  “Ely,” she said. “We cleared out a couple of hotels. There’s a La Quinta right over there.” She pointed to her left and then gestured to the right. “And a Motel 6 half a block that way. There’ll be some sharing, but there are more than enough beds.”

  Of course.

  If he’d been thinking clearly, he’d have realized there wasn’t enough room for everyone at Ward Mountain. The facility could accommodate less than half the personnel the Ranch had been able to house.

  “We’re not leaving them alone, are we?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “We’ve got people to help with logistics, and a couple of medical folks to tend to the sick and anyone who needs attention. Ward Mountain will also be in constant touch, so if need be, we can get people over here in a hurry.”

  Pax could hear some of the people stirring behind him. He was about to go back and wake Robert when a van pulled to a stop next to the bus. The two occupants jumped out, opened the side cargo door, and started pulling out armfuls of what looked like cloth bags.

  After each man was loaded up, the newcomers approached the bus door.

  “You’re going to want to get back,” Juliana said.

  Pax moved into the central aisle but stayed near the front.

  When the doors opened, a blast of frigid air rushed inside. The two men from the van hurried in, and Juliana quickly closed the door again. The damage was already done, though. The temperature—at least at the front of the van—had dropped a good fifteen degrees.

  “How many you have in here?” one of the men asked Juliana.

  “Forty-eight,” she replied.

  “Here,” the man closest to Pax handed him the items in his arms. “We need to get a few more.”

  Coats, Pax realized. The subzero type skiers used.

  The second man set his pile at Pax’s feet, then he and his partner headed back out. As more cold air rushed in, Pax started passing out the jackets.

  “I’m going to wish I stayed on the island, aren’t I?” Robert said when Pax reached his seat.

  “Don’t worry,” Pax said. “It’ll probably hit thirty degrees here in a day or two.”

  “Celsius or Fahrenheit?”

  Pax tossed him a coat and moved on.

  After he passed everything out, he returned to Robert and said, “Can I borrow you for a second?”

  “Sure.” Robert looked over at his seatmate, Estella. “Be right back.”

  Pax led him outside and explained the lowdown on the living situation.

  When he was through, Robert asked, “What about the ones with the flu?”

  “Medical team on site.”

  “Are you staying?”

  “Wish I could, but I’ve got work to do. Our facility is just over the hill, not more than twenty minutes away. If you need to talk to me, grab one of our people and they’ll get me on the line.”

  Robert seemed disappointed, but said, “Okay.”

  “I realize this isn’t the perfect situation, but—”

  “No, it’s all right. Really. We’re all just glad we’re still alive. Someday it would be nice to go somewhere warm again, but for now this will do fine.”

  “Glad to hear that.”

  From down the street came the rumble of a powerful engine. Pax turned toward the noise and saw it belonged to a dark-colored Mustang. As it neared the buses, the vehicle slowed to a crawl.

  The window rolled down.

  “I thought you might need a ride.”

  Pax smiled and rushed over to the car, giving Chloe a hug through the opening.

  “I do, indeed,” he said. As he stood back up, he looked over at Robert. “I’d like to introduce you to Chloe White. She’s, uh, one of our frontline people.”

  Robert walked over and held out his hand.

  “Chloe, this is Robert Adams.”

  Her eyebrow shot up as she grabbed his palm. “The savior of Isabella Island. Nice to meet you.”

  “Uh, I’m not…no…there was a lot of…”

  Chloe laughed. “Hold on to that modesty. It’s attractive.”

  Robert’s mouth opened a couple of times, but nothing came out.

  Pax slapped him on the back. “I gotta go. But I’ll see you again soon. I promise.”

  “Okay,” Robert managed. “Be safe.”

  WARD MOUNTAIN NORTH, NEVADA

  ASH HAD INTENTIONALLY fallen asleep on top of his covers, fully clothed.

  He had argued a bit with Chloe about who should pick up Pax, but in the end she won. Thankfully.

  He’d stretched out after dinner, thinking he’d sleep for only an hour or two, but when he looked over at his clock again, it was nearly two a.m.

  A jolt of adrenaline shot him out of bed and into the public corridor outside his family’s rooms. He made a beeline for the comm center, where he found three women he didn’t know by name manning the stations.

&nbs
p; “Does anyone know if Chloe or Pax is back?” he asked.

  The closest comm tech turned toward the door, her eyes widening when she saw who he was. “Captain Ash,” she said. “Um, no. They’re on their way. Should be here any minute.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  He hurried to the main entrance, grabbed a coat off one of the pegs, and stepped outside.

  The moon was low on the western horizon, the stars packing the rest of the sky, leaving only small pockets of black unfilled. At first there didn’t appear to be anyone on the road leading to the highway, then twin beams of light popped up from a dip about two miles out.

  Ash stomped around, trying to keep warm. He knew he should go back inside but he was too keyed up. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of urgency about figuring out the meaning of Matt’s message. Add to that the potential of striking another blow at the Project Eden directorate and it was a wonder he wasn’t running down the road to meet the car halfway.

  Finally, the dark Mustang pulled under the camouflage netting that covered the base’s parking area, and stopped. As Ash jogged over, the doors opened and Chloe and Pax climbed out.

  This was the first time the two men had seen each other since the hunt to find Bluebird to stop the Project from releasing the virus, so they threw their arms around each other in a bear hug.

  “So good to see you, Captain,” Pax said.

  “Likewise,” Ash told him.

  As soon as they parted, they started walking toward the base entrance.

  “Chloe filled me in on what’s going on in Mumbai,” Pax said. “She also said Rachel’s basically removed herself from things.”

  “Only temporarily, I’m sure,” Ash said. “You might be able to bring her out of it better than any of us.”

  “I don’t know about that, but I’ll give it a try when I get a moment.” Pax glanced at Chloe then back at Ash. “So the one thing Chloe and I didn’t discuss is this issue you asked me about on the phone.”

  “DS,” Ash said.

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think the letters mean?”

  Pax grimaced. “There’s no easy answer.”

  “So we’ve gathered.”

  Pax rubbed the arms of his coat. “Do you mind if we get inside first? I’ve been down in the tropics for a few days. Think my blood’s gone thin.”

  They entered the base and went straight to Chloe’s room. It had been crowded when it contained only Ash and Chloe. With Pax there, they barely had enough room to breathe. Ash let the other two have the bed, and he took the chair by the door.

  Pax spoke first. “Augustine dream sky. You’re sure that’s what he said?”

  “One hundred percent,” Ash said.

  Pax frowned, thinking for a moment before shaking his head. “Like I told you on the phone, I’d never heard that phrase until you said it to me.”

  “But DS means something to you,” Chloe said.

  “It does.”

  When he didn’t go on, Ash said, “Are you going to make us drag it out of you?”

  “Sorry. Was just…remembering,” Pax said. “The truth is, I don’t know what the letters specifically stand for, and as far as I know, Matt didn’t, either. What I do know is that Matt was obsessed with those two letters for several years, and was sure they referred to a secret Project Eden program.”

  “What kind of program?” Chloe asked.

  “I wish I could tell you, but I don’t know. There were times when it seemed Matt thought finding out about DS was almost as important as figuring out how to stop Implementation Day. He told me once if the Project was able to release the virus, DS might be the key to their ultimate success.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Ash asked.

  Pax shrugged. “He kept this one pretty tight. I think Billy and I might have been the only ones he ever talked to about it. I knew he grew frustrated when his contacts couldn’t come up with anything more solid. After a while, he seemed to give it up, or maybe he just stopped talking about it, I don’t know. Felt to me like he was chasing a ghost.”

  “Do you think DS stands for Dream Sky?”

  Pax grunted a humorless laugh. “Who knows? Seems kind of a stretch to me. But it was the last thing he said, so I guess you have to give that theory some weight.”

  “Maybe even more than you think,” Ash said. “Right before he said those words, he’d been with one of his inside contacts. That’s how he got into the Las Cruces base.”

  Pax’s eyebrows furrowed. “I didn’t know that. Do you know which one?”

  “C8.”

  “C8? Are you sure?”

  “That’s what he told us,” Ash said.

  Pax blew out a breath.

  “Why?” Chloe asked. “What’s the significance?”

  “C8 was one of Matt’s oldest contacts, one of his deepest. He was someone Matt had been close to when he was still in the Project.” He paused and looked at Ash and Chloe. “And he was the one Matt got the original info from about DS.”

  No one said anything for a moment.

  “That’s a pretty strong connection,” Chloe said.

  “Still might be nothing,” Pax cautioned.

  More silence.

  “What about Augustine?” Ash asked.

  “Doesn’t mean anything specific to me,” Pax said.

  “There was an Emperor Augustine, wasn’t there?”

  “Augustus,” Chloe corrected.

  “Right. Augustus,” Ash said. “Another form of the same name, though. Let me see, there was a St. Augustine. A city in Florida named after him. Isn’t it the oldest European-founded city in the US? Maybe that’s important.”

  “There’s got to be hundreds of things the names could point to,” Chloe said. “I’d kill for Google right now.”

  Pax tilted his head. “How many letters long is it? Nine?”

  Ash ran the word through his mind again. “Yeah. Nine.”

  “I need paper and something to write with,” Pax said in a burst of energy.

  Chloe pulled a pad and a pen from inside the top drawer of her dresser, and handed them to him. He created a square three-by-three grid and wrote letters in each space—A-U-G in the top row, U-S-T in the middle, and I-N-E along the bottom. He then made several more grids, using different combinations of the letters in each. When he was through, he stared down at the paper.

  “I’m not as good at this as Matt was,” he said.

  “Is that a code?” Ash asked.

  “A key. I think.” He patted the air above the pad with both hands. “It’s here somewhere. I’m just not seeing it.”

  “May I?” Chloe asked.

  Pax passed her the pad. “Have at it.”

  While she examined it, Ash asked, “How do you know it’s a code?”

  “Matt kept things with his Project Eden contacts to himself most of the time. I think he was afraid one of us might get captured with the info. Felt the best way to protect those inside was to share only when absolutely necessary. I can probably count on one hand the number of times he showed me a communication he received.”

  “You said you knew how to get ahold of them, though.”

  “No. I said I knew where the information was that would tell us how. Unfortunately, it’s at the Ranch, in the Bunker. I’m the only one who knows the combination to the safe, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to give it to you over the radio.”

  Ash couldn’t help but feel disappointed. Retrieving the information would mean a trip back to Montana, something none of them could afford to do right now.

  “Tell me about the messages you did see,” he said.

  Pax closed his eyes for a second. “On the surface, each seemed like a note or letter you might receive from an old aunt or someone like that. Nothing really there. But every single one of them would begin with a nine-letter word, a decoder. Once you figured it out, you could use the result to pull the real message from the note.”

  “So how do you decode the word?”r />
  Pax looked pained. “That’s the problem. I saw Matt do this once, and that was years ago. I’m not the dumbest guy around by any means, but when it comes to this kind of thing, I just might be. I remember the squares. I remember him putting the letters in. I don’t remember how he figured it out, though. Or how the code then unlocks the message. I missed something.”

  “But if we do figure it out, this…key will show us what dream sky really means, right?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Chloe looked up from the pad, frowning. “I got nothing.”

  Ash took the pad and gave it a quick examination. He didn’t expect anything to jump out at him, and he was right.

  “Is there anyone here who might be good at this kind of thing?” he asked.

  Chloe said, “Yeah. There is.”

  __________

  CALEB FINALLY ACKNOWLEDGED that he and his team were not superhuman and could not stay awake indefinitely. So a shift system was put in place that would allow each of them a generous six hours of sleep in the sectioned-off portion at the front of the trailer, always leaving three of them awake and working.

  Caleb was about as deep into the unconscious world as one could get when Mya shook his shoulder.

  “Hey, Caleb. Wake up.”

  Reluctantly, he opened his eyes. “What?”

  “Get up. We’ve got company.”

  He looked at his watch and realized it hadn’t been six hours yet. It had barely been two and a half.

  “Why did you wake me up?”

  “I told you. We’ve got company.”

  He angrily pushed himself up on an elbow. “What company?”

  “Higher-up type of company. They want to talk to you.”

  “Did you tell them I was asleep?”

  “I sure did.”

  He started to throw off his blanket, but halted and looked at Mya. “A little privacy?”

  She rolled her eyes as she walked back around the partition.

  Alone now, he hopped out of bed and pulled on his CAL TECH sweat pants and HAN SHOT FIRST T-shirt. He then headed into the main area like a bull entering the ring,, intending to give these higher-ups a piece of his mind. He figured it was probably someone from communications, or, more likely, the engineering department. The latter was ticked off at him for all the resources he’d been using since the India project had begun.