As in a dream he saw the man’s arm fall down and how a hand grenade rolled out. Before he could think a thought there was a blinding flash and his body was lifted up and then nothing. Only darkness.
*
Tabula Rasa, Madagascar.
2048-12-30
They were obsessed with her story. In the living room Malin and Denver sat and listened to Elisabeth. She had told how she and her father had come to Tabula Rasa a couple of years ago to build a new life. She had explained about her work in the research department, her desire to make a name for herself in the world of research and how happy she had been in the beginning but also how it had dawned on her that John Vendrick III had wanted to keep one of the greatest discoveries in human history hidden and use it for his own personal gain.
Malin had not believed her ears and had at first wondered if Elisabeth had imagined it all but as Elisabeth spoke, Malin believed her more and more. Malin studied Elisabeth carefully while she spoke. Elisabeth's eyes were firm and clear and nothing in her body language indicated that she was lying.
“In recent days, the contact with the sphere has increased. What the communication has contained I don’t know but it looks like there seems to be communication with other spheres that seems to be on earth. For some reason, they have now somehow become activated. How or why they have been activated, I have no idea.”
Elizabeth paused and carefully looked at Malin and Denver to see how they reacted. They were both silent for a couple of moments. It was Denver who spoke first.
“That sounds completely unimaginable. That there would be living spheres around in the planetary system" Denver's thoughts raced," Why right now? What is it that is so special right now? Why not a hundred years ago, or a thousand?”
Malin tried to gather her thoughts.
“And what is equally important, what are they? Are they really alive? Alive as us?” Her voice was doubtful. Elisabeth shook her shoulders.
“There are a million things we do not know about them. But if this is correct and is true, it's the biggest discovery in our history. It would prove that we are not alone in the universe once and for all.”
Denver thought out loud.
“Yes, it’s nice all of this. But it doesn’t answer the question what has happened with you two? You still haven’t said what have happened to you and your dad.”
Elisabeth sat down in the couch.
“Vendrick. John Vendrick III wants to keep the discovery of the sphere to himself as long as possible and without involvement of others to get as much communication with it as possible. That is why he sent his assassins after me and my father. When I realized what was happening, I downloaded as much as I could on a holocube. But the download was interrupted, and then I knew that I had been discovered.”
“And your father? How does he get into the picture?”
“I sent a lot of data to him at work via a com link. And dad copied all the data into a cube so he has the only complete copy of the data I had access to.”
“Which you had access to? Do you mean there is more data somewhere?”
Elisabeth nodded.
“Yes, there are at least two other labs that is working on this. Vendrick has an obsession with the number three. Most things in Tabula Rasa is based on three. He’s got it from the ancient Mayan empire, they also had a craze for the number three. Three pyramids, three labs and so on.”
Malin looked at Denver who shook his head.
“But just before I was discovered, I got in contact with a friend who promised to help me. He promised he was going to help me.” Elisabeth pulled her hand over her face. Her fatigue began to show.
“Why did Backmann contact you?”
Elisabeth thought for a couple of seconds.
“What I have understood, Backmann`s organization is working to retrieve different archaeological objects around the world. Exactly how many or who they are, I do not know exactly.” She paused, “Backmann contacted me because he thought Vendrick had stolen the Skydisc from Nebra.”
Denver cut in.
“I think I've read about it. It was found during the nineties by a couple of private treasure hunters in Germany. They found it and then sold it on the black market or something like that.”
Elisabeth nodded.
“Yes, that's the same story I heard. But Vendrick is convinced it's genuine. And he is convinced that it has a hidden functionality that is unknown. Somehow it would have something to do with all of these objects.”
Denver frowned.
“How?”
Elisabeth shrugged.
“I don’t know, but he thinks that the Skydisc has some influence or is some kind of key to these objects. That's at least what I’ve heard through the grapevine.”
“How does Backmann come in the picture?”
“A couple of years ago, the Skydisc was stolen and some time ago they tracked it down. Backmann thought it was Vendrick who had stolen it and sent someone who took it back from Vendricks men.”
Malin looked curiously at Elisabeth.
“And why are you doing all this? Now when they know you've stolen their discovery, you're done here, they will not stop chasing you.”
Elisabeth shook her shoulders.
“I know. But it was the right thing to do. The spheres belong to the whole world, not just John Vendrick III. It may be that my career is over but if that's the price, I'll be happy to pay it.”
*
Tabula Rasa, Madagascar
2048-12-30
The darkness that surrounded him lost intensity and Jonathan slowly regained consciousness. He was somewhere where nothing existed but in some way he woke up and rose up from the mists.
The light increased and he opened his eyes, blinked several times and looked around in the room where he was. It looked like a hospital room. A faint smell of disinfectant danced in the air. He was in a bed in the middle of the room and a small holoscreen hung on the wall in front of him. A number of different machines stood around him and he heard the weak beeping from the different instruments. A grinding headache gnawed in the back of his head and his body was heavy.
He moved his arms and legs and noted that he was not paralyzed. It spun in his head and he closed his eyes. Small fragments of memories flashed before his eyes. He remembered the long passage and how he had moved forward towards Tabula Rasa and he remembered how the whole world had exploded in a chaos of explosions and gun shots when the terrorists had attacked.
A few minutes passed, he slowly recovered his orientation. Slowly, he pulled himself up using his hands and managed to get up to a half-sitting position in the bed. A feeling of uneasiness spread slowly through his body. With the vague hope that his jar of Oxycodone would stand on the side table, he turned around and looked, but was immediately disappointed. The grinding pain inside him grew.
The door clicked and opened, a man dressed in a white coat came in. The man looked serious. He was tall and had an elongated, thin face and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. In his hand he held something looking like a diagnostic plate. With a concerned face he typed on it while he read what it said.
Jonathan was silent and tried to get the headache to let go of him. The doctor looked at him, winked with one eye.
“How does this gentleman feel then?”
Jonathan opened the mouth to answer but no sound came from his throat. His mouth was full of sand. He hid the uneasiness in his body, swallowed hard and nodded.
“I think I feel fine. A little tired.”
The doctor laughed so that his glasses jumped on his nose.
“Yes, I can believe that. It was something of a beating you got down there. I'm surprised you're not more hurt. There were many others who were not as lucky as you.”
Jonathan blinked.
“Many others?”
The doctor nodded.
“Yes, there are four dead and fourteen injured, seven of them seriously.” He was silent, let the words sink in. “Both the terrorists died f
rom their injuries.”
Jonathan moaned quietly.
“My god.” his brain was racing, “Who were they?”
The doctor walked around the bed, checked a couple of instruments and the drip that went into Jonathan's arm, nodded with satisfaction to himself before answering.
“Madmen. Madmen who tries to destroy”, he paused, “never mind that now. You have had an incredible luck to survive without any serious injuries. We’ll do like this, you remain here for now and try to rest as much as possible. It’s important that after a violent experience like this you have to give the body a chance to recover.”
Jonathan nodded and noted that the headache had finally started to pass. His taste also seemed to come back and reminded him that he needed to brush his teeth. The doctor went around to the other side where a machine had started with a soft beeping and he pressed a few buttons so it fell silent. He turned to Jonathan.
“What’s your business in Tabula Rasa by the way?”
Jonathan looked blankly at the doctor. The doctor was not smiling, but stared rigidly at him and the discomfort grew within him. A few seconds later, the doctor's facial expression changed when he realized that he was staring. The doctor's stiff mouth opened up in a big smile and exposed a perfect white line of teeth that dazzled Jonathan. Jonathan mumbled.
“I was on my way to visit Tabula Rasa as a tourist. I had gotten permission to spend two nights here in the related festivities of the moon landing.”
The doctor seemed to tower over Jonathan who was wondering if the he would believe a word of what he said. The doctor's smile did not change a millimeter.
“Yes, of course. We will have many guests and visitors the next 24 hours who will join and celebrate this wonderful, global event.”
The doctor stood a few seconds too long by the bed and without a word checked a couple more things on his diagnostic pad before he winked at Jonathan and walked away to the door and opened it. Just before he disappeared through it, he turned to Jonathan.
“Make sure that you get some rest. There is somebody who really wants to meet you.”
Before Jonathan could answer the doctor disappeared through the door and closed it behind him. Did they know that he had come to Tabula Rasa to save Paco and the woman who was called Elisabeth and her father? He did not know that and had no way to determine if they knew.
Slowly he sat up and tried to control his racing pulse. The blood in his veins seemed to be made of acid when he made an effort and his body ached. The headache increased and he saw stars before his eyes as he swung his legs out and over the bedside. He took a hold with his arms and was about to carefully stand up on the floor when the darkness came rushing like a train. It reached after him again. He fainted and fell back down on the bed.
Slowly, Jonathan woke up again. An infinite darkness held him down under the surface and his own mind in a dreamlike state. Shadows slipped in and out in his vision and he glided through the abyss. Up to the bright surface that he wanted so much up to. He opened his eyes and stared up to the ceiling in the hospital room that he was in before. He had not got out of there, he was still there. His eyes were hurting and he tried to focus. It did not go fast but eventually he regained control of his body. He sat up, looked down at the floor and smiled to himself. Had he fainted and fallen forward, it could have been bad. Jonathan leaned on his hands and pushed off.
He swung his legs over the edge and stood up and walked over to the chair and his clothes that were folded there. While holding his breath he put his hand into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulled out his phone and opened the localization program and blinked.
The program was the Amber groups own and could track through a variety of ways. He went over his mission, it was to save both the captured Paco and Elisabeth and her father, but he could not clone himself, he had to choose. He thought for a short second, Paco had a greater chance of surviving without assistance than Elisabeth and her father had so the choice was in fact quite simple.
He choose the DNA profile that was in the database for Elisabeth Snow. The program began to search and after seven seconds it vibrated in his hand. He smiled. According to it, Elisabeth was only a few hundred meters from him. That was fabulously lucky he thought, he threw a quick glance at the clock, quarter past three.
He had to go all in now, he was already several hours late for his meeting with Elisabeth, and if they were unlucky, she would not be there when he got there and he had no way to contact her. He pulled off the electrical electrodes attached to his body, gently pulled out the needle that went into his arm and quickly put on his clothes and disappeared out through the door.
* * *
He moved fast through the hospital area. He was careful to try to stay in the dark when he met someone in the corridors he passed. The review he had with Marie about the layout inside the Tabula Rasa helped and he remembered Elizabeth's apartment on the map. He knew he was in the hospital area and it was actually quite close to her apartment.
It was in the afternoon and quite a lot of people were in motion. He was grateful for that; it would make his escape so much easier. He reached the exit in the hospital area and looked around for an elevator that he could take up to the floor indicated by the tracking program. There. Further away. There seemed to be some sort of elevators, for the murmuring crowd in that direction became bigger and louder, the closer he came. Slowly, he followed the human mass into one of the elevators, looking furtively down at his phone. He was going up three floors and then fifty meters to the west, he tried to move as normal as he could but he wobbled a few times and had to focus not to fall.
Inside the elevator a holoscreen was showing an extraordinary news story telling about the discovery of what appeared to be an unknown object in orbit around the moon. The news host was excited and spoke quickly with several space experts from ESA and NASA.
Jonathan listened curiously along with the rest of the people in the elevator. He smiled weakly to himself. Now the discovery was out in the open anyway, with all what that meant.
When he came out of the elevator he came out into something that seemed to be a long aisle that bent away from the main area. Carefully he opened the phone and checked that he was on right track towards Elisabeth’s location. After a couple of minutes, he stood in front of a door. He hesitated, knocked gently. Silence. No answer. He waited a couple of seconds and knocked again. Behind the door came a faint answer.
“Yes?”
Jonathan’s heart skipped a beat.
“Backmann sent me from the Amber group to help.”
A few seconds passed. The door opened. A young woman stood inside the door and looked at him. Jonathan did not hesitate but went straight in and closed the door behind him. He looked around the room, a weak, confined smell of sweat and something else was noticeable.
A heavily built man stood to the left, tense like a steel spring. The woman who opened took a few steps backwards to put some distance between herself and the man who entered the room. Jonathan glanced to the right and could see what appeared to be another young woman in the bedroom and he saw something that looked like a man on the bed. Before he could say anything the woman who was sitting on the bed jumped up, rushed to the bedroom door and slammed it shut.
Jonathan cleared his throat.
“I'm Jonathan, from the Amber Group.” He made an effort to seem calm despite his pounding head and the nausea that grew in his stomach. He smiled against the woman who had opened the door.
“But it seems that you have other plans?”
The woman had not said anything yet, but now she took a step forward and smiled.
“There have probably been some misunderstanding. I have not called for any help. Me and my colleague are journalists and are here for a report.”
Jonathan took in what the woman said and cocked his head to the side.
“Ah, it's not you that I shall help. It must be the woman in the bedroom?”
The woman who opened the door too
k another step forward, but did not reach out her hand. She looked with suspicious eyes against Jonathan.
“Who are you?”
Her scrutinizing gaze analyzed Jonathan.
“Backmann has sent me.”
Malin looked doubtfully at him.
“Are you alone? How can you help us if you are alone?”
Jonathan smiled at Malin.
“I suppose Backmann could’ve sent more but it would’ve been harder to keep it secret and would increase the risk of detection” he paused, “considering the short planning time, this was the best solution.”
Malin did not seem convinced. She stood silent for several seconds while she finally decided.
“Malin Person.”
Jonathan automatically reached out his hand.
“Jonathan Jarl.” He turned to the heavily built man and repeated his name.
Denver relaxed and after shaking hands with Jonathan, Denver pointed at an armchair and sat down on the bed. Malin stood beside Denver and looked exploring at Jonathan. Jonathan sat down in the armchair. The atmosphere in the room was tense, so thick that you could cut it with a knife. Malin smiled at him and then nodded toward the closed bedroom door.
*
Tabula Rasa, Madagascar.
2048-12-30
The group consisted of Jonathan, the two journalists Malin and Denver, Elisabeth and her father. They had left Malin and Denver’s apartment and were now heading down to the lower freight levels in Cibus. They could not use the access card that Jonathan had brought with him because it would not allow passage for all of them.
Not many people were out and about at this hour, and the aisles were relatively empty. A slight scent of greenery surrounded them. It was at the lower levels of Cibus that all shipments and deliveries took place. Normally hundreds of deliveries were done each day of a variety of products, goods and merchandise, and Jonathan hoped they would be able to find a less guarded transport of some sort that they could steal. He looked at Malin who walked next to him.
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