Project Apollo

by B. B. Gallagher

  She yanked it out of the cabinet and opened it. Checking a wall clock in Hardy’s office, she reminded herself of the three minutes left until the new clue would be released by their prisoner. Her eyes devoured her file, stopping abruptly at one minuscule detail after another. Every question she had asked in class was recorded. She located a weekly assessment of her abilities in each field of tradecraft. Then she found a series of memos, entitled “Observation Memos”. She read the one on top of the stack.

  Week 1: Fiona is shy and unsure of herself. She did not introduce herself to anyone independently, rather when she arrived she cowered. She clung to a group of people, finding her voice through others. First impression is a Type-B personality that will follow a leader. The program must be that leader for her. Our first initiative with this subject is to challenge her to build confidence by giving her leadership roles, while promoting Project Sparta and service to country on an emotional level for her.

  She flipped to one in the middle of the stack.

  Week 14: Fiona placed fourth in the battle this week yet did not tag any Spartan during the battle. She fired 72 rounds of ammunition from her assault rifle and missed every shot. She was reckless in her tactical execution. Her primary focus this week needs to be on developing her dexterity and her mental conviction behind a firearm. Form her psyche so that every bullet fired is calculated and accurate.

  “They recorded everything on me…” She flipped through the pages until she found a familiar name on a file. She read one line at the bottom of the memo: Fiona has taken an interest in Xander, we must not let them get too close during training.

  Her eyes zeroed in on the wedding band encircling her finger. A thought came to her, one she always knew but had refused to entertain.

  “They even tried to stop Xander and me… That’s why they gave us conflicting assignments,” she observed aloud.

  She had just received Xander’s text message and now knew that the White House had a traitor. It didn’t shock her at all. After a moment of self-reflection, she realized all of it.

  I’ve been a puppet the whole time. I have been contrived. I have been formed by people who do not have my best interests at heart.

  It had become her reality. She knew that she was now in her own head and she hoped that she wouldn’t tear herself apart from the inside. The intel cast a shadow on the entire program – they were tragic heroes not super heroes.

  Then her eyes found another file in her section. It’s label struck her curious – Project Prospects. There were a number of papers crammed into it. Her hand started to reach out to it, but her eyes ascended and found a wall clock which ticked to the 4PM position. At the sight, she slammed the cabinet door closed, leaving her curiosity for another time.

  She passed through the control room and out into the Compound, descending a flight of stairs and walking across the grounds to the glass cube standing under the Compound’s oculus. The afternoon sun shone straight down into the cell, illuminating Ezra who was now sitting with his back up against the cell wall. His legs stretched out before him on the cell floor.

  “Would you like the next clue?” Ezra’s tone had elevated to a jest.

  “What has got you so excited?” Fiona asked in an effort to coax information from him.

  “Oh… I’m just excited for the ending… it’s approaching quickly,” he said through a wild smile.

  “What ending?”

  “The end of the game. The resolution. The truth…It’ll astonish you.” He held a certain amount of admiration for it all.

  “So, you know how this is going to end?”

  “But of course…” his voice trailed.

  “So, this is how you see yourself… a mastermind, a prophet. Well, let me tell you something, you are a just common terrorist with no cause other than yourself,” she gnashed back.

  “I’m a patriot and the only reason you can’t see that is because you were as brainwashed as I was. But I got out early and I wasn’t completely lost in this Compound yet. Why can’t you see that your government uses its citizens and especially uses people like you and me?”

  “We made the sacrifice.”

  “We were too young to know what real sacrifice was. There was no way to know what Project Sparta would ask of us!” Ezra’s voice raised. Fiona responded with a mute nod, accepting his point.

  “But you know now… being little miss housewife. Civilian life has altered how you remember this place hasn’t it? See, now that you are free from the program and government service you can evaluate it all more objectively. But I bet every time Xander is gone on a mission, you stay at home, wondering if you could be any help. If you still had what it takes to be an operative. But you stay home and try to make soufflés rise, while he runs off and plays James Bond. You don’t fit in with your friends. They’re housewives who use book club as an excuse to drink a bottle of wine and spread neighborhood gossip. You don’t fit in there, you don’t fit in here. You’re lost.”

  Fiona did not respond but rather adjusted herself, deeply affected by his accuracy.

  “Have you ever wondered why? Because of Project Sparta. They molded you into a killing machine. They established habits that stay with you to this day. Like to always keep your eyes on your enemy…” he nodded and stared further into her glacier blue eyes. She shuddered away from his gaze. “You can take the recruit out of Sparta, but you can’t take Sparta out of the recruit… They recorded your every move, manipulated you, and brainwashed you. But the reason you don’t fit in anywhere, the reason you’re so lost is because of the gravest injustice of all.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s one simple and undeniable fact. Sparta took your youth from you…”

  She held her elbows and battled a chill that ran up her spine.

  “Why do you think I asked to speak with you?” Ezra asked. “Because you are now in a position to ask the key question at the heart of all of this… And that is just how far can a government go before you have to do something about it?”

  The words stuck.

  The meaning settled in.

  The maniacal man before her was actually making sense. A nefarious grin crossed Ezra’s face as he watched her process his words. She fell into a deep meditation, her gaze distant and lost. Her heart jumped off beat and her breaths ran short as she slipped deeper into the abyss of despair. Just as she felt herself falling, her cell phone rang, snapping her back to the moment. She shot Ezra a glance expecting the clue. He smiled as if he had her right where he wanted her and he then spoke the next clue.

  The Professor’s Text Unlocks the Charged Mind

  Tucked Between Six And Seven Where You’ll Find

  The Target Spelt In The Pages Defaced

  You Must Remember A Past Once Erased

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  A map slammed up against the dashboard of the speeding van. Seamus attempted to focus on the road, despite the images of anarchy zipping by. A duo of thugs ran down the sidewalks as they passed. Faces peered out of windows wearing protective germ guards over their mouths. Gunshots sounded in the distance. A mob of people scuffled over supplies from a raided convenient store.

  “The city is spiraling into chaos…” Seamus exhaled. Xander paid no attention as his eyes roamed the city map sprawled out on the dash.

  “The Professor’s text… We’re looking for a book.” Xander deciphered the first line.

  “Library of Congress?” Seamus asked.

  “No... that would be too obvious. He blocked off a search radius, here...” His two fingers traced sixth and seventh street north to south on the map. “Tucked between six and seven…”

  Xander reviewed the map and shut out all distractions. With extreme focus, the buildings materialized before his vision, populating the map from memory like an internet page loading. He surveyed the long chute running down on the city until his racing mind steadied to a halt on one small pocket.

  That’s it.

  His finger rested over a small
spot that had no marker, other than the mental one his mind had illustrated.

  “There’s a book store right here…” he reached for the name. “Capitol Hill Books…It’s on the other side of the city.”

  Seamus looked over at Xander and marveled.

  “Yeah… that’s exactly where I was going to suggest we look.” He pressed down the accelerator and spun the van into a 180 to head back the other way, immediately forming the best route in his head. After straightening up and driving twenty yards, they returned to the mob who was now engaged in a large scuffle. They were ganging up on one man on the street. They kicked his abdomen over and over. Seamus slammed on his brakes next to the crowd.

  “One second…” he explained to Xander, reaching for his handgun in his holster. He held the handgun out of the window and shot two rounds into the air. The men immediately scattered from the victim.

  “Get inside! Ya could catch a cold out there!” Seamus yelled out the window. He floored it and the van sped down the street, leaving a cloud of dust behind.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Fiona followed her curiosity back through the control room and into Hardy’s office once more. It ate away at her like a parasite, only growing stronger as it fed. Ezra’s words had left her unsettled, for she knew he was telling the truth. She was in many ways lost and she could see that he was too. She felt sympathy for him, just as she had pitied herself. They were kids once in this Compound and they were taught how to think, act, and feel. But they were never allowed to live.

  What is original to us? Did they just rip out our humanity?

  She rolled the drawer out again and located the file labeled Project Prospects. She snatched it out of the cabinet and laid it on Hardy’s old desk. She flipped it open to a picture of a little girl with freckles and red curly hair, paper clipped to the dossier. The ink on the file was faded from age and the papers had grown a yellowish tint in their corners.

  Name: Fiona Jenkins

  Date of Birth: April 2, 1988

  Age: 10

  Competencies: Reading Comprehension, Athletics

  Hobbies: The Illustrative Arts, Reading

  Recommendation: She has demonstrated selflessness and incredible maturity for her age throughout our observations. Her test scores are in the top 1% of the country and her physical abilities are advanced for her age. It is my recommendation that Fiona Jenkins be placed in Project Sparta, she is versatile and charming – both qualities of a good agent.

  Fiona scanned the rest of the file, searching for answers. Behind her cover page was observation notes on her friendships, recalling specific instances on the playground and through her softball season.

  What the hell? I was only 10 years old?

  She flipped to the next section and saw a young boy with thick glasses and a mushroom top haircut.

  Name: Tobias Greene

  Date of Birth: September 27, 1988

  Age: 9

  Competencies: Mathematics, Science

  Hobbies: Calculus, Chemistry

  Recommendation: Tobias exhibits social anxiety yet his intelligence more than compensates for this flaw. His brilliance is unparalleled. He tests at savant like levels in multiple areas of study. He yearns to help, but not to lead, as such it is my recommendation that he placed in Project Sparta and groomed to fulfill a support role for the others.

  She thumbed through the rest of files and saw a child’s photo of Duke, Ezra and then Jooles and the others.

  She fell back against the wall and slowly lowered to the floor with the file before her. A shock came over her that immediately drove a wedge between her and her blind trust in Project Sparta.

  They were following us from the beginning… they truly did steal our youth. They picked us and manipulated us into choosing the training program. They knew everything about us… and we knew nothing about them. Nothing is as it seems…

  She turned back to the folder and counted the files. There were only nine of them.

  Someone is missing.

  She scanned over them again and tallied off each Spartan and froze in consternation. There was one Spartan missing from the file – one whose past was a mystery even to himself – her husband, Xander’s.

  Chapter 41

  The PEOC –

  4:25 PM

  President George Hooper lay in the quarantined office with two doctors in Hazmat gear treating his symptoms. Their efforts were largely futile as the infection progressed rapidly, nullifying any progress they may have made. His muscles convulsed sporadically, while his coughs brought up wads of bloody clots. Each time the clots ripped off the inner lining of his chest more violently than the last.

  “I need to talk to my wife and daughter now,” he spoke with great trouble.

  “Yes, Mr. President.”

  The doctor brought a video chat app on the one monitor in the office. He accessed the touch numeric pad and the doctors left the President to himself. With a moment alone, the President shook his head, allowing the walls of professionalism to crash. He retracted into himself and became a person yet again. He was now a father and husband, preparing for his end.

  He dialed her number on the numeric pad, wiped his eyes of weakness and focused straight on the monitor. The video chat app connected and his all-grown-up daughter Kalli’s smiling face projected onto the monitor.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. President.” Her voice was low, impersonating a Secret Service agent. Hooper burst out laughing.

  “Hey, honey…” The background moved as it became apparent Kalli was walking.

  “How are you?”

  “I’m fine. Just fine.” He smiled in wonder. “On your way to class?”

  “Yep! I have Woman Studies,” she responded.

  “Maybe I should have taken that, would have saved a lot of fights with your mother.” Kalli chuckled, reaching the high note that she used to when she was a child.

  “Yeah, I don’t think this would have saved you. I heard some stories.” She smiled into the phone camera.

  “Yeah, like what?”

  “I heard you gave her a wheel barrow for your anniversary. You gave it to her two days late and had forgotten the anniversary… sound familiar?” she accused. A smile grabbed Hooper’s face.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” The smile widened so much that he could almost feel a subtle pop in his nose.

  And then he felt the drip.

  “Dad… you got a nose bleed…” She squinted into the camera, focusing on her father’s grainy image. Hooper brought a hand up and wiped it from above his lip. His gut twisted in every direction, knowing the disease was quickly running its course. His voice rose above it to maintain a calm demeanor for his daughter.

  “That’s odd…” he responded, feigning surprise.

  “Well I have to get going Dad, I just reached Barus. Take care of yourself.” The President knew that Kalli had no idea how much meaning was conveyed behind the seemingly innocent remark. He paused to swallow down his emotions.

  “I will… Kalli?” She stopped and focused in on the screen.

  “Yeah?”

  “I love you…” She flashed one more smile and blushed as daddy’s little girl one last time.

  “I love you too, Dad. Now I gotta go and don’t forget next week!” she almost shouted.

  “What’s next week?” Hooper asked her.

  “Your anniversary!” she exclaimed.

  “Oh yeah… I knew that…” They laughed in unison.

  “Cya dad.”

  “Bye…” He gulped his farewell and broke immediately after the video chat ended. The blood continued to stream down his nose and drip on the floor as he huddled over himself.

  He fished his wallet out with fidgety fingers and pulled out a picture of his family. The photograph was creased and faded. Jeanne wore a short haircut and mom jeans while Kalli was in her softball uniform for Church league. They posed up against a chain link fence next to the dugout, arms folded across their chests. It was the way
he remembered life.

  It was his one totem that reminded him of his life before politics. Life had changed so much over the twelve years since the picture was taken.

  I was just a suburban dad.

  The President looked down at his suit and noted the American Flag pin he wore.

  And now I’m here… President of the United States dying from an unknown disease in a quarantined office hundreds of feet underground.

  He looked up to the ceiling, bloodied and tortured, imagining the tons of earth between him and his wife. He felt small and alone – like the end had already arrived. And then he realized.

  I’m already buried in my grave.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Marty Jacobs approached the two doctors that awaited outside the President’s door. They raised a gloved hand to stop him in his tracks at a safe distance from their contaminated suits. Jacobs spoke low in an attempt to keep a level of privacy between them.

  “How is he?” He nodded toward the door.

  “The disease is progressing, we are treating it with everything we have but his body is turning on itself. The disease just moves too fast,” the lead doctor explained.

  “Listen to me. That is the President of the United States in there. You have to figure out a way!” he ordered through gritted teeth.

  “I know who I’m treating, but without any specific antibiotic for this infection our treatments are merely superficial. The pathogen is running its course and there is nothing that anyone can do to stop it right now,” the doctor explained.

  “Are you saying the President is going to die?”

  “If the file we received, charting the effects of past victims is correct, then yes. The President will die…” Jacobs had no reaction, thinking immediately of the next question.

  “How much longer? Days? Weeks?”

  “Hours…” The doctor interrupted. Jacobs’s face fell.

  “If you have any way to find a cure, one that has already been manufactured, I would say that is our only chance for the President.” The doctor’s voice remained low trying to not raise alarm through the bunker. Jacobs lost his breath, punched in the gut by the news. His hand came up to his head, wiping the perspiration surfacing on his brow. He turned and hastened back to the main conference table. Taking a moment to process the news, he paced in the shadows lining the perimeter of the bunker.