The Andromeda Project (The Cluster Chronicles Book 1)

by Jason Michael Primrose

  Scrunching his wide nose, Rabia paused the auto transfer of the new data into Allister's file and stepped closer to the singular strand of DNA taking up the entire monitor. “We finish later.”

  RUSSELL ASHUR

  Washington, DC, April 2026

  “You're late,” Rabia said when Russell stepped inside.

  “We had a security breach,” Russell replied, cleaning his glasses with his tie, “excuse me, have, the entire team is working on it now.” The only thing Rabia hated more than tardiness were excuses. “Forgive me, I thought I had some extra time since you were with Private Adams.”

  “Had to stop,” Rabia said. The glass wall projected Allister's results; he and Neight shared similar DNA makeup. Allister was the blueprint for the compatibility between the Uragonians and humanity Rabia had been looking for. The specific gene sequence zoomed to encompass the whole wall. Cells in Allister’s body should've supported 50 percent access to the Zosma energy source, but a modifier gene took it down to 25 percent. Other foreign genetics caused the expression of regeneration, enhanced strength, speed, and potential for invulnerability and energy projection. Neight had similar modifier genes that gave him 75 percent access and reality-altering spell casting. Rabia wasn't surprised it was possible, overall, Uragonian and Human DNA was 97 percent similar. But having a physical blueprint of how to make the DNA work in the same genome was the most important discovery since his time there. Rabia fluttered like an excited bird, then returned to a more professional stance and briefly explained the inability to complete the dampening procedure.

  “Easy fix.” Russell keyed in the same algorithm as he'd done for Neight's dampening. Source = No Match appeared on the screen. If they weren’t able to program the dampeners, Allister’s powers would be at full capacity at all times. He’d be the strongest person in the building.

  “Different set of genes means different expression,” Rabia said in much clearer tongue. Besides the genetic magnificence, he'd never seen the energy successfully enhance or empower a human or superhuman in the way it worked for Allister.

  “What's wrong with his left arm?” Russell wondered aloud.

  An image of Allister's body occupied the responsive wall mechanism and the computer identified a different cellular structure in his left arm, something Rabia overlooked among other unfolding mysteries. Technically, it wasn’t a human body part, it was a pure manifestation of the energy.

  Rabia flipped on the light in the secret area of the lab, the containment center Neight built shone the signature blue of the Zosma energy it protected. He retrieved a tiny bag of the dead alien’s purple blood from the freezer near the entrance. “Hide somewhere cold.” Rabia handed Russell the bag.

  PATRICK ADAMS

  Cumberland Falls, Kentucky April 19, 2014

  They were the kind of poor that deserved welfare and Medicaid, hand-me-downs from family and during really hard times, meals from a shelter. But Dolores was too proud for any of it. During Allister’s early childhood a grimy motel-room-turned-apartment near the middle of town served as their American dream. Dolores didn’t work at the time because of Allister’s age and Patrick’s long shifts out of town on construction gigs. Most nights Dolores and Allister shared a double bed, basic cable television and frozen dinners, while waiting for Patrick to get home.

  Now their house was one of the nicest in the area, a beautiful front yard with a small orchard of apple trees and a garden of fresh vegetables. Their once seedy parking lot had transformed into a narrow private driveway, Patrick’s 1980 dirt orange vintage Mustang was parked behind Dolores’s old Ford F-150. The ball landed in the grass of their front lawn, feet from Patrick’s waiting glove. Allister sulked.

  “Focus, kid,” Patrick said in a serious fatherly voice and threw it underhand to him. “One more.”

  Gears cranked in the young boy’s head, dumping all of his knowledge of pro baseball into a virtual sifting pan. The most important tactics stayed at the top. Allister placed his index and middle fingers across the horseshoe of the seams, then used his hips to drive the force. The ball whizzed forward. His father caught it and looked suspiciously at the eight-year-old who learned how to throw a fastball in an afternoon.

  “Good throw,” Patrick said, shaking his gloved hand from the impact. He caught his wife peeking from the house and threw her an impish grin, “That’s your son.” Dolores and Patrick were one of few mixed race couples in their hometown. Her skin color derived from a perfect mixture of Native American and African American on her father’s side with Portuguese on her mother’s. The setting sun caught the hazel in her eyes as she moved a curly strand of hair out of her face, so golden it looked spun from straw. She was curvy, the way he liked it, with the gall and wit of a true Southern woman.

  Patrick’s fair skin tanned well and his crisp dark eyes and dark hair made the constant stubble of his ginger beard more enhancing. He was born with the broad shoulders, but years of working construction gave him calloused hands and a solid build. The other laborers teased him about eating more at home because he was one of the smallest on site. Those jokes ended when Patrick proved to be the strongest.

  Dolores believed her husband was meant to change the future with his genius, although she wasn’t entirely convinced the Andromeda Project was the best way for him to do it. But something Dolores’ father told them on their wedding day stuck: “Loyalty and support are the uhm…the keys to a successful marriage,” he slurred, sipping his favorite drink, a bourbon served straight-up.

  “Dinner’s almost on the table. You boys, come in and wash up.” Dolores wiped her hands gently on the dishtowel. Her smile disappeared faster than the sun behind the Appalachian mountains. Patrick staggered back without realizing who was in front of him. None other than the 6’10 alien at the edge of their driveway, dressed in a navy, fitted suit. Neight was close enough to Allister to snatch him off the ground with a three-fingered hand.

  “Allister, come inside.” Dolores motioned with the screen door pressed open. Allister stared at Neight instead of listening to his mother, waiting for fear and uncertainty to sink in. It didn’t. He stepped toward Neight with an open hand.

  “Help your mom with the biscuits,” Patrick said, guiding distance between the two with arms around his son. Patrick was the patient one but when he meant business, he meant it. “Go,” he pointed at the door. Allister ran to the steps.

  “Next time you listen to me…” Dolores snapped, grabbing him by the shirt. “He’s dangerous.” She closed and locked the door behind them.

  “What’re you doing here?” Patrick said aggressively.

  Three hundred pounds of muscle was distributed proportionately throughout Neight’s entire body. His emotionless obsidian eyes were softened by whimsical, hippie length hair. “We have a problem.” Neight’s brittle black locks weren’t the same captivating violet Patrick remembered.

  “No shit. You’re on my fucking lawn.” Patrick loosened the tuck of his plaid shirt.

  “I am not happy to be back here. I know it means I have to take care of my responsibilities, and in turn you must take care of yours,” Neight walked toward Patrick with his hands uncomfortably in his pockets. He’d picked up so many human mannerisms in his nineteen years on Earth.

  “Listening,” Patrick said, the suit’s ridiculous fit was enough to take the edge off of his voice. The alien was trying to fit in, even if “temporarily.”

  “You were briefed on the details of the plant we built, in addition to the fixtures and machines within and what those were designed to accomplish. We have a small window to complete the final phase with the materials that arrived this week. Out of fear, they want me to return to Fort Lauderdale now, even if it means missing the arrival.” If Neight had any feelings about the situation he was in, real emotional feelings, Patrick wouldn’t have known it. Logic governed the creature’s thought process. “That is unwise for reasons they can not comprehend.”

  “Are you a prisoner?” Patrick asked.
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br />   “I needed resources from your planet to complete a task and in exchange for those resources I sacrificed something I find to be overrated and inconsequential, what you refer to here as freedom. I am bound by both obligation and debt to your government for the money I have used, which I can only repay by the terms we agreed upon. I can not let my pride or power stand in the way.”

  Neight had explained in their first few meetings that Patrick’s intellect surpassed the average for the human race. His capacity for understanding all forms of physics, the laws of natural process and the ways Neight could bend them, was alarmingly high.

  “I’ve looked over these damn blueprints a hundred times, I decoded the ancient manuscripts you gave me, and I know those little assholes’ll betray you. Why do you think it took so long to get funding?” Patrick looked back at the house and moved closer to the edge of the lawn. His head reached on Neight only slightly above where Allister’s head reached on him. A humbling moment.

  “The energy cannot stay here. It is…destructive. I must continue my journey, perhaps back to the place I left to patch things.”

  Patrick thought back over the last twenty years with Dolores and placed his hand on Neight’s shoulder. “You made our dreams come true when you gave us a child.”

  The alien stared at Dolores through the window and nodded. She closed the curtains. “I should hope so. I am not sure I have recovered from the task of properly constructing a new genome.”

  Patrick laughed without knowing if it was a joke. “Don’t worry, I’ll talk to her. What do you need?”

  Neight’s small mouth curled into the same smirk a friend would have who asked his hitched buddy out to a karaoke bar for a boy’s night. Of course they would promise not to get smashed but inevitably come home at three in the morning, having nearly killed themselves in a fight or through alcohol poisoning. There were no such promises of safety nor skirting over the danger of what they were about to do. It was treason. “I require your presence at the plant to carry out your purpose and then you will be free of your duty to this program and me, and may live out the rest of your days with your family, well compensated for your discretion. You have three hours while I prepare some things alone; do not be late as seconds mean life or death for your civilization.” They shook hands.

  Dolores’s mission to reach the stove was interrupted by Patrick entering the house. The screen door seemed to close slower than usual and he made sure to lock the main door. Dolores eyed him angrily with her hand, protected by an oven-mitt, halfway in the oven.

  “Is everything alright?” she asked.

  Patrick nodded without opening his mouth. The phone rang.

  “Get the phone, please.” She pulled the biscuits out and set them on the stovetop. “And tell whoever it is your dinner’s on the table and you’ll have to call them back.”

  “Yes, sweetheart.” Patrick answered the phone, “Hello, Adams residence.”

  “Is he there?” Nicolas asked.

  “No, Captain.”

  “Was he there?”

  Patrick swallowed. “No, Captain.”

  Dolores set three plates on the table each dressed with a traditional southern meal of a meat, a vegetable and a starch. Alongside the hearty dishes were tall glasses of orange juice and water for each of them. The biscuits she placed in the center of the feast and avoided looking at her fear-stricken husband for their son’s sake. Allister kicked his legs underneath the table and counted backwards from one thousand in his head.

  “I expect your cooperation with this, Mr. Adams. I trust you want to keep your family out of this,” Nicolas said in a whisper.

  “Are you threatening me?” Patrick asked under his breath.

  “Of course not, you’re one of our top performers,” Nicolas’s smile came through his tone. “Notify us if he contacts you.”

  Patrick stood paralyzed with his hand trembling against the receiver. Dolores made her way to him and a visible shine of sweat escaped his pores. She squeezed Patrick’s muscular arms in hopes of reassuring whatever decision he needed support with making, then took her place at the table.

  Allister was a darker complexion than his father but didn’t seem to carry any of Dolores’s other African-American genes, save for a Lenny Kravitz jaw and astonishing muscle density for a child his age. Allister kept one eye open during grace, wondering why his father hadn’t joined them yet. He closed it in time for the “amen” then impatiently took a bite of his sweet potatoes. “Dad, who was that?”

  “He...is in charge of the plant I run.” Patrick seated himself at the table smoothing the linen napkin over his knees. His hands positioned a stalk of broccoli above his mouth. Dolores gave her husband the, “use your fork” eye, and he put it down to cut it as a civilized person should.

  “Then why were you afraid of him? Did he do something bad?” Allister’s questions came out so fast, they knew the phenomenon of his brain rapidly processing the answers wasn’t far behind. “What do you make at the plant? Why was he so tall? Why did he only have three fingers? His face looked strange, was he an alien? The suit wasn’t real so what was it made of? It had no threading.”

  Patrick remained silent as the child in front of him performed the Spanish Inquisition. Dolores hated when he fed into Allister’s imagination. Silence endured.

  “I just think if I were an alien,” Allister started.

  “That’s enough,” Dolores interrupted.

  “I’d pick a better color than navy for a fake suit,” he mumbled, while forking a piece of chicken in his mouth.

  “I said enough.” She stared intently at her husband for his support. Patrick took a drink from his orange juice to avoid succumbing to his son’s humor, he was about to make her angry anyway but decided not to laugh. A laugh might’ve lightened the mood but there were only so many strikes in one evening. “I’m at the plant tonight.” The energy shift in the room gave Patrick chills. He imagined an umpire screaming, “you’re out!”

  “I work the night shift, who’s watching him?” Dolores wanted to see if he had an answer, even if it wasn’t the one she was looking for.

  “I’ll take him with me,” he offered.

  Allister finished his dinner to secure his escape from the table. “May I be excused?”

  “Oh, yes, honey, of course,” Dolores said, watching Allister reach for his plate and glass. “I’ll take care of it today, your father and I need to talk.”

  Allister hugged his mother, “Love you, Mom, have a good night at work.” He skipped from the room as if an alien hadn’t shown up on their lawn during a game of catch.

  “You shouldn’t go,” she said, wiping her mouth and taking a sip of water she wished was a glass of white wine. Dolores discouraged drinking during meals because of the way her father drank during every meal.

  “Not an option, babe, he’s safer with me than home alone.” Patrick peered into the glass of water he wished was a cold beer. He drank using his imagination. “This is the most important day of this entire project and once it’s over, it’s over, he gave me his fucking word. It’s the whole reason we live here.”

  “There had to be another way to have all this?” she half asked, opening her hands to encompass the home.

  “Shit, none I could see.” Patrick spoke through chews. “I’m a man of my word.”

  “It don’t seem all the way right,” Dolores said.

  His mind was made up and he moved on. “Weren’t Mrs. Brandt and Colin supposed to come over for dinner?” Patrick leaned back away from his plate and rested his hands behind his head.

  “Yeah, but Jay came home unexpectedly, he’s in town on business. They needed family time. She wants us all to catch up later this week like old times. I told her we’d see. You spoken to him lately?”

  Jay and Patrick were old football buddies in high school. Patrick shook his head, not since Jay went to war.

  Dolores placed the dishes in the sink and leaned next to it with one hand on her hip while using the othe
r hand to turn on the water. She let it run without her supervision, the last thing on her mind was rinsing plates.

  “He’s coming with me,” Patrick said and finished his water. All he wanted was to love his wife and raise his son, but Patrick walked a fine line between enjoying his life while fulfilling obligations and destroying his life while fulfilling obligations.

  Dolores wouldn’t look up. Patrick pulled her into him from behind without hesitation. The white fabric of her loose knit top darkened with salted drops, they weren’t from the sink.

  “You don’t know these people...they don’t care about your safety or our safety.” she said partially facing him. “And if you die out there,” she continued, “then this will have been for nothing.”

  Patrick kissed her on the side of her head.

  “Don’t think about that.” He lifted Dolores’s chin and kissed her on the mouth. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  ANDROMEDA PROJECT MAIN HQ

  Washington, DC, April 2026

  Allister waited on the bench outside of the training room in the lower level of the facility. His new metallic grey boots were sleek, sturdy and matched his uniform; he stomped his foot to confirm the steel heel. He got his new Cynque watch a little early for good behavior, but the tech team needed to set up a secure wireless connection before it was used.

  Leesa arrived sporting a high, tight ponytail and a more practical version of her typical uniform. The capeless, charcoal-colored one-piece was infused with titanium threading. In place of buttons the zipper went all the way up to below her neck. Allister didn’t breathe, the suit left little to his imagination. Leesa’s hourglass figure stopped in front of him, he stood up immediately to salute her. Her face remained inexpressive. “At ease,” she said scanning them into the training room.