The Crescent Stone

by E G McNally

  She weighed her options hastily, and then almost instinctively, popped the diamond into her mouth and swallowed, forcing the rough chiseled edges down her throat, nearly choking.

  “NO! Don’t do that,” the ranger belatedly pleaded. “Now, I’m going to have to,” he stopped, distracted by the green color rapidly flushing across Taylor’s face.

  Immediately after she felt the diamond enter her stomach, it felt like a wave of electricity jolted through her body. An undulating series of nauseous waves surged from her stomach to her mouth, and then a buzz rang in her ears, fluttering around in her head, blocking out all her sensations. Suddenly, in one long surge, a thick blanket of electricity rushed from her chest out into her fingertips and toes and rippled through the land around her, like an aftershock ripping across the lake and past the mountainside.

  Once the wave of electricity vanished beyond view, Taylor, with much effort, glanced around both embarrassed and confused, but no one appeared to notice what just happened. She started to say something, but instead was overcome by a severe wave of nausea, and then leaned over and vomited.

  Chapter II: Monitoring Station

  While Taylor and her friends were getting busted, Richter scale readings were pouring in from all over the country. Seismology labs had picked up a large spike in electromagnetic energy, flooding the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory with information that indicated a massive multi-continental earthquake had just ripped through the globe.

  The men at the lab were frantically recording information as they jumped from phone call to phone call, finally coming to the realization that something needed to be done.

  “Go get Major Bradshaw!” The director in the monitoring room said, sending a messenger for him.

  “Yes Sir,” the messenger replied, racing down the hallway until he had stopped just outside a conference room, waiting for a break in the speech in order to interrupt.

  “The PS injection 20-03 proved generally ineffective, inducing Tachycardia in some patients and in others, the complete breakdown of the cell walls causing the patient to exsanguinate. On the other hand, the PS injection 20-03 has had some very promising results. Some patients responded to the tests with a seventy-five percent increase in brain matter usage and their telepathic abilities have proven to be unparalleled,” informed one of the six men in Major Bradshaw’s meeting.

  “Are there any improvements with the side effects?” Major Bradshaw asked. “I can’t take results with a ten percent success rate back to the president. It’s too difficult to procure enough candidates.”

  “Well, we’ve only lost six in this batch so far, the rest are showing various degrees of disassociation and autism, or hyperactivity shortly followed by psychosis.” The man explained, rather excitably. “As you can see, it’s very promising.”

  “Yes, well…” the lights in the office flickered, interrupting, his thought process.

  The messenger interrupted. “Excuse me, Sir. You’re needed in the monitoring station.”

  “What’s this?” He asked, as the young man handed him a handful of files filled with data from the seismology labs. “There are calls coming in from all of the major Seismograph stations. Edmonton, Cerro Bola, Monterey Bay Ocean Bottom, you name it, they’ve all made calls, and more are coming in as we speak. The data is overwhelming.” The young man continued to explain, informing Major Bradshaw of all the details.

  Major Bradshaw, head of the Research and Development Sector of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, quickly reviewed the updated information of the massive energy disruption centered somewhere in his region.

  “And this just happened?” he asked.

  “Yes, not five minutes ago,” the messenger finished, as they entered the monitoring station.

  Major Bradshaw browsed over the large screen plastered on the far wall. He was surprised by the thousands of little red dots popping up all over the screen, on the advanced national seismic system, implying that each location, a national earthquake monitoring station, was greatly affected by the energy surge.

  “Figure out where the epicenter was, and I mean now. Find out the damage done, and what the reading was,” Major Bradshaw ordered. “Don’t spill anything to the press, and get the President on the line,” he shouted. “I can’t believe this happened in my region, and we didn’t see it coming. Someone is going to pay for this.”

  “I’ve got the President, Sir,” a worker hollered in the background. Major Bradshaw quickly hurried over.

  “I’m so sorry, Mr. President, there were no indications,” he began to explain.

  “It was a 9.2 on the Richter scale,” someone else shouted in the background.

  “What in the devil are you talking about, Major?” the President asked.

  “There’s been a major quake, we’re still assessing the damage, and data is flowing in as Far East as the Atlantic Ocean.” He continued.

  “Dear lord, what kind of damage is there?” the President asked.

  “Sir, you might want to hear this.” One of the men in the station interrupted the Major’s phone call.

  “One moment Mr. President,” the major said, and then turned his attention to the young man.

  “Sir, I’m not sure what to make of it, we’re getting calls in with reports of no damage, nothing. Some stations are admitting to the possibility of equipment malfunction, only most of the stations don’t know about the other stations. Our equipment shows all the activity cleared. What do you make of it?” the young man asked.

  “First off, there’s no way all the equipment from here to the Atlantic malfunctioned at the same time. That’s not coincidence, possibly an extremely well coordinated terrorist attack, but not coincidence. It’s possible we’re looking at some sort of EMP technology.” he said.

  “I would agree, Sir, except that an EMP always kills power, that, and we know of no one with the capability to strike out most of the western hemisphere,” the young man explained.

  “True, true…” Major Bradshaw said, rubbing his chin in thought. “Did you hear that, Mr. President?” he asked, over the phone.

  “Yes. Major, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” the President asked.

  There was a brief silence over the phone while both the Major and the President pondered over the same question.

  “Maybe,” responded Major Bradshaw. “You know, when Dr. Ambler worked for us back in the sixties, he did hypothesize that the stone fragment, found in the forties, was part of a greater whole. The freak energy wave could be some form of activation on the other half.”

  “This could be it, this could be my answer. After decades of Presidents before me, who’ve failed to accomplish anything, I could be the one to unite the stone and harness all of its power. Imagine the serums I could create with the entire stone. Imagine the armies I could build and the support I could give to our allies. It could be endless,” said the President. “Find it, and I mean now. I want this kept quiet and done swiftly, report back to me as soon as you’ve got something – this conversation never happened.” The line went dead.

  “What do I tell the stations, Sir?” One of the young men asked, as Major Bradshaw put down the receiver.

  “Tell them to run system checks, find the fault if there is one. Let all the labs think they’ve experienced some major equipment failure. Keep the other labs busy enough so that they don’t communicate with each other. We’ll locate the epicenter from this lab. Also, don’t allow this to slip to the press. If you have any pestering news reporters, tell them we performed a nationwide seismological equipment test, and no other comments.” He explained, leaving the room with the monitors.

  Someone shouted from the monitor room, “Sir, I think we’ve found the location.”

  Major Bradshaw hurried back through the doors, looked up at the large monitor, and pointed to the small undulating red circle, marking the epicenter. “I want to be there by this evening,” he said, pointing to the small town of Port Angeles.

  “W
e can have a caravan ready in an hour, Sir,” one of the men said.

  “Good, I’ll be waiting in my office,” he said, and walked off. He sat down in his desk chair, picked up the phone, and called his secretary. “Can you get the Director of the F.B.I. on the phone?” he asked.

  “Just one moment, Sir,” her mousy little voice responded, followed by silence. Within seconds, she returned to the line. “I have Director Paul Realer on the phone, Sir.”

  “Thank you, Lola,” said Major Bradshaw. There was a click and he knew he had been connected. “Hello Director, I need a nationwide APB put out for Dr. Jacque Ambler. It’s about time we locate him. I’ll fax you all the old files, see if you can come up with a picture of what he’ll look like.”

  “Sure thing, John, anything else I can do for you?” he asked.

  “No, that’s all for now . . . Actually, let me know if you get wind of anything, odd,” he replied.

  “I never know what you mean by that until I stumble upon it, but I’ll let you know . . . Hey, have you heard from your little girl? It’s been a long time since we’ve talked?” the director asked.

  Major Bradshaw fell silent for a moment, picking up a small picture of a little girl on his desk. A smile pulled across his face and his eyes became misty as he remembered the day his wife captured the photo.

  He was carrying Shyla on his shoulders at the Zoo. She was twelve and loved seeing the animals, especially the tiger. He held her over the rail near the fence, as close to the tiger as possible, and his wife snapped the photo, just as the tiger was passing the fencing. The smile on Shyla’s face, to this day, was so bright and amazing, that it made him feel like she was standing right next to him.

  He turned away from the photo, cleared his throat, and replied, “No, nothing, but I haven’t lost hope. I need to go, let me know if you find anything.”

  “Sorry, John – look, I know we had a falling apart, but if you ever need to talk to someone . . .” he was interrupted.

  “That’s fine; I need to go – Bye Paul,” Major Bradshaw said, and hung up the phone.

  Major Bradshaw put together a stack of papers on his desk and closed out of his computer for the day.

  Lola handed him his jacket on his way out of the office and asked, “Will there be anything else for the day, Sir?”

  “No, thank you Lola, but I’m going to be doing some traveling for the next couple of days, so please keep your pager on, in case something comes up. Take care,” he said, grabbing the jacket and joining the caravan outside, several hours away from arriving in Port Angeles.

  Chapter III: Goodbyes

  “When are my foster parents coming to pick me up?” Taylor asked, watching as Jake’s parents escorted him through the front doors of the police station, a solemn expression stretched across his face. I hope he doesn’t get into too much trouble, she thought.

  “They’re not,” a gruff voice responded.

  Taylor whipped her head around and noticed a tall, disheveled man with a sheriff’s badge pinned to his jacket.

  “Well then, what are you guys going to do with me?” she asked. “It’s not like you can keep me here overnight. I wasn’t drinking, I didn’t start the fire, and you can’t prove that I had anything illegal. Not that I did,” she said, confident that a little smirk attitude would buy her some answers. “So, what are you going to do with me?” she finished, glancing at the clock, noticing the small hand nearing the eleven and the large hand nearing the six.

  “One of the officers will be taking you over to the children’s correctional center when their shift ends at eleven. It’s my understanding that you will be staying there for a while. At least, until they schedule you a hearing,” he said.

  “Hearing for what?” Taylor asked.

  “New placement, I believe. You’ve basically used up all of your options out here, and now the state needs to figure out what to do with you,” he said.

  “Well that sucks,” she mumbled. “What’s wrong with the home I just moved into?” She fiddled with a pencil, trying desperately to act like she didn’t care.

  “They decided that teenagers are too much work,” he said, trying to keep the conversation impersonal.

  “Oh, I see,” Taylor responded, sinking back into her chair. “No one wants a teenage foster kid, especially not one that might have issues. What teenager doesn’t have issues?” She paused for a moment, silently venting the anger inside - “So CCC huh?”

  “Yup, afraid so kid – try and take it easy, alright. I’m sure something good will come of all this,” he said, and exited the conference room leaving Taylor alone for the remainder of the shift.

  Wow, this sucks, she thought. No one ever wants me, and the ones that do, usually beat me. Maybe the judge will throw me in jail and then I won’t have to worry about all this. “What now?” Taylor asked, as a young police officer interrupted her thoughts.

  “Just here to take you out to the children’s corrective center,” he responded.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, apologizing for the harshness in her voice. After the long day she’d had, she didn’t have the energy to sass anyone else. “I’m tired, can we just go now?”

  “Yeah, if you’ll just come with me out to the car, then we can get going,” he said, escorting Taylor out to his traditional black and white police car.

  He held the back door while Taylor slide into the seat and strapped in. Feeling awkward being escorted by a stranger to a place she didn’t want to go, Taylor said nothing to the man during the drive, and instead, she found her thoughts spiraling around the sharp pain in her stomach and the strange pinching in her chest.

  Oh, that was a bad call, she thought, considering the effects the stone was having on her stomach. If this pain gets any worse I’m going to have to see a doctor and then they’ll cut me open to remove the stone, and that would just make this week even better, she added to her thoughts, sarcastically.

  “We’re there – just follow me and I’ll get you set up for the night, okay,” the officer said, turning off the ignition. He helped Taylor out of the car, after getting out himself, and escorted her into a large set of double doors followed by another set of double doors, locked. He punched a code into the small numbered pad on the door-lock, waiting for it to open, and then nudged Taylor inside, quickly following her and replacing the door.

  “Can I help you?” An older woman asked, from behind a large desk, monitoring the activity on several screens that indicated different locations in the correction center.

  “Sure thing Ma’am,” the officer responded to her and then turned his attention to Taylor and said, “wait here – this might take a moment,” motioning for her to stay on one of the benches attached to the wall.

  Taylor sat for what seemed like an hour, until exhaustion finally took over and then she dozed off, using her hands as a pillow on the hard bench surface. Taylor awoke to the older woman nudging her.

  “Come on, let’s get you set up. Sounds like you’ll be here for about a week,” the woman said, helping Taylor up.

  “Mom, I had a really bad dream … Oh,” Taylor flushed with embarrassment, no sooner than the words escaped her mouth did she realize that she wasn’t a kid, nor was her mother around, and that in fact it wasn’t a dream and her bad day really did happen.

  The officer gave the old woman a sympathetic look and then commented, “See you in a week kid,” and left the center, punching in the locking code on his way out.

  “Sorry about that, sometimes I… um forget. Let’s just leave it at that,” Taylor said, trying to hide any signs of weakness she might have shown, in her sudden desire to seek out her mother’s reassurance.

  The old woman quickly shared a few words of encouragement, “there, there. You know dear, everything eventually gets better, it does.” And then paused, before escorting Taylor back into the barracks section of the facility where she would sleep for the week.

  The woman briefly disappeared into a closet, and returned with a pile of line
ns and a stack of several old gray institutional uniforms. “I’ll collect your things in the morning. Everyone wears these while they’re here. Breakfast will be brought to you in the mornings as well as lunch and dinner, later on. If you’ve any questions, someone will be around at all hours; otherwise, your room is that one.” She pointed Taylor toward one of six doors in the hexagonal shaped room. “I’m sure you’re very exhausted, so I’ll let you get to bed now. Goodnight,” the old woman said, and then left Taylor, locked in the darkened room.

  She dragged herself over to the bedroom and draped the linens over the old mattress that was carelessly placed on the top of a cement slab propping out of the ground. She kicked off her shoes and dropped her shorts beside the bed, before crawling under the scratchy wool blanket from the pile of linens, and quickly fell asleep.

  “KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!” An attendant was knocking on the door.

  “Breakfast is here,” she said, placing a small tray beside Taylor.

  “Thanks,” she responded.

  “I’ve brought you some clean clothes so that you can look refreshed for the hearing today,” she said, and then set a pile of folded clothes beside the tray.

  “Wow, the hearing’s today, already?” Taylor asked.

  “Yeah, it’s been a good week since you came here. It’s about time they had your hearing if you ask me,” she said.

  “With nothing to do, I guess I lost track of time in here,” Taylor responded.

  “Well that’s understandable, it can be boring. Anyhow, an officer is going to be here soon to escort you, so get ready.” And with that final note, she left the room, leaving Taylor some privacy.