Project Apollo

by B. B. Gallagher

  We must once again declare our independence.

  They froze at this line. A long silence paused over the air – as if allowing each family and citizen to think to themselves about their place within their nation.

  “They are offering a hand to those who have felt deceived…” Cusick reflected aloud before the television screen.

  Today has reminded us of our own fragility. We must become strong once again and rise against those who keep our voices at bay.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  The members of the PEOC were watching intently, horrified by what was being shown across the country. Questioning whether they did in fact have the cure, as the joint task force was still in damage control mode.

  This is a call to arms against the US government, a revolution must occur to correct the wrongs of this nation.

  We ask that anyone who distrusts their government and wants to restore the democracy our founding fathers envisioned, join the revolution

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Lukas Zucker, CEO of BNA news, stood in his lofted office above the bullpen, next to his computer watching the television screen.

  He was smiling a nefarious grin.

  He spoke over the last line of the video, knowing what would come.

  “We are the Collective. Are you?”

  He then navigated to two files populating his desktop – Henry Bosco and Caroline Keener. He received a message from his cell phone and then quickly navigated to the recent call log. He redialed a number and awaited the person on the other end to pick up.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well hello, Mr. President…” the phone distorted his voice for him.

  “Where is the cure?” Johnson’s bark came through the receiver.

  “We have verified the files and can tell you that the cure is located in a storage unit at 1520 U St NW. Storage Unit A7. Enjoy it…” Zucker hissed and ended the phone call. He closed Bosco and Keener’s files and pulled the same flash drive he had given Porter Nash at Theodore Roosevelt Island out of his computer and pocketed it.

  Chapter 55

  The PEOC

  10:30 PM

  Janet Powers stood in silence with the others in the Presidential Bunker before a live surveillance feed, showing a SWAT team’s approach to the storage unit.

  “Where did we get this intel from?” Powers muttered the question to Director Hunterson.

  “The President himself…”

  He’s been quarantined upstairs all day, how does he know?

  “You think Project Sparta could have found it?”

  “I assume so, they had the clue…” he shrugged, exhausted from the day and hopeful that it would be over soon.

  Janet’s gut twisted into an eerie knot. A flash blinded the feed as the SWAT team breached the storage unit. As soon as the light dimmed, the contents of the storage unit came into view. The small eight by eight space was filled to the brim with containers. On the front-most container was a note taped to it. It read: The Truth Is the Cure.

  “Ezra said that in the Compound to Xander. That’s it.” Hardy spoke up over the room upon reading the words on the feed. A glimmer of hope shot through Powers as she watched a SWAT member unfold the note, revealing the formula for the antibiotic, complete with a diagram of the chemical make-up of the pills. A snapshot was taken from the feed and pulled over to another monitor. Michelle Fernandez approached it and focused on the diagram, studying it and vetting it for reasonableness.

  There was a second sheet of notes explaining the dosage levels to administer. They then opened the container to reveal to the live feed a cooler, filled to the brim with large plastic bags of red pills. There was a sigh of relief in the room, but Powers was not joining.

  “What do you see, Michelle?”

  “At first glance, it makes sense…” Fernandez noted to the room upon processing the diagram. “It’s actually brilliant.”

  Janet Powers leaned into the speaker phone on the conference table and delivered the only words of good news anyone had head that day.

  “Mr. President, we believe that we have recovered the cure.”

  The President responded. “Test it on those who need it most first. Make sure it works before mass dissemination! Good work ladies and gentlemen!”

  The Presidential Bunker roared in applause, but Powers turned to the bunker with her arms in the air, calling for a point of order.

  “Alright! Alright! We need to set up systems at the quarantine zones. Get the CDC on the phone!”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Xander walked alongside the lane, encompassing Number One Observatory Circle as a casual stroller through the pouring rain. With a sopping wet hoodie over his head, his earpiece was concealed. Mac on the other end of it directed him.

  “You are going to want to hop the wall in twenty paces, the alarm system is hacked and offline. I can keep them off for thirty minutes, so get in and get out. You’re all clear.” Xander did not respond but checked his six momentarily – no cars. He seized the moment to ramp up a couple steps before scaling the wall and flipping over it. He immediately sought the cover of the elms and magnolias crowded together on the northeast grounds of the US Naval Observatory. Off in the distance he could see a large black helicopter with an American flag logo on it.

  Hmmm… that could be helpful.

  Upon making his way from tree to tree, the back of the Vice President’s residence came into view. It was a white 3-story Queen Anne house with a turret at its corner, giving it the regal air fit for a Vice President. Large verandas wrapped around to the residence’s backyard and opened at a swimming pool behind the house. Its coral glow rippled onto Xander’s face as he crept by the water and toward the house.

  His footsteps were muted by the heavy droplets of rain, so he was able to easily sweep his way across the veranda to a door with white blinds undetected. Peering through the blinds, he could see an ornate office inside.

  Bingo…

  He attempted to turn the knob but it stopped after a slight revolution. Xander was prepared, though, as he brandished a lock-picking kit from his back pocket. He unzipped it and knelt before the door and pulled out the hooks and picks and started surgically dissecting the lock. His hand adjustments were quick, controlled jerks. Using his ear, he heard the four clicks in sequential order, followed by a louder click, as the lock released itself.

  The door creaked ajar.

  A soaking wet Xander Whitt stepped into the office of the Vice Presidential residence and surveyed his surroundings immediately. He admired the formal décor and the patriotic artwork on the wall. Behind the central desk was a large painting of Huckleberry Finn sailing on the raft down the river with Jim. Xander pivoted on the red, white and blue carpet, searching for the final answer of the clues.

  The cure is here somewhere, somewhere in this room. The Vice President wouldn’t put a cure to deadly disease in his family’s space. It would be here in his office… but where?

  His eyes resettled on the desk. On it was a folder, marked: The Ivory Tower Sessions: Classified.

  Stricken curious by the sight, Xander gently peeled the folder back and let it softly land open on the desk.

  Attached to the folder was a square headshot - a picture of a young child, no older than eight years old. A blonde-haired boy with thin lips. Xander looked over his features – the rounded chin, the blue eyes and high cheekbones, still smoothed over by the pudge of youth. But then Xander’s gut turned on itself as he recognized the boy in the picture.

  The face belonged to him.

  His hands quickly flipped back the head shot and his feverish eyes scanned the contents of the file, it was a classified DARPA file.

  DARPA? The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency? What the hell does it have to do with me. They just develop emerging military tech.

  In large capital letters at the top it read: The Ivory Tower Sessions. Congressional Sponsor: Senator Tom Johnson.

  Xander wondered for a moment how the Vice President was involved
with his childhood and how a picture of him as a young boy was appended to a classified DARPA file. He knew all he could do was read to find out.

  As Xander began reading the file, the words took shape and the memory of what happened before the crash finally materialized before him through a series of flashes.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  “Xander…” The voice spoke to the young boy at the desk. Xander found himself in a small square room with six desks, all of which had a series of strangely shaped blocks scattered on the desktop and a young child sitting at it. The blue-eyed boy looked up at the kind man in the lab coat before him holding a clipboard.

  “Yes?” Xander’s high-pitched voice responded, as he glanced over at the other five children in the room at similar desks. A one-way observation mirror lined one of the walls, giving Xander the feeling that he was being watched.

  “Can you do the puzzle?” Xander’s smooth-skinned hands grazed over the fifty pieces before him. Each wooden block had a different set of grooves, angles and shapes. There was no single plausible relation between the pieces based on their appearance.

  Xander looked up at the elderly man before him. His nose rounded out at its tip, his hair was a curling flop of unkemptness and his dark skin had sagged into deep crevasses. Although his eyes were serious, his smile did not seem genuine. He had asked the question with a forced expression, as if trying to will the answer he wanted.

  “No, Dr. Cohen… I can’t… It’s too hard.” Xander’s elbows hit the desk and his face fell into his open palms.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Experiencing the memory, Xander re-read the last line of the file in the Vice President’s office. Another fragment of memory clicked into place as he remembered the last clue.

  I called him Dr. Cohen… The Charged Mind by Dr. John Cohen… Cohen worked for DARPA.

  And then it dawned on him.

  The DARPA develops military tech. The boys and girls of the Ivory Tower Sessions were that tech…

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Xander laid awake in his small white bed in another small square room – this one entirely white. The clothes they had been given him were completely white as well. There was nothing in the room except the one small bed. Only his lonely face was distinguishable in the room from the scene of white around him. The single fluorescent light beamed down on him adding a gleaming sheen to the walls.

  Xander sat up and untwisted a piece of the iron bed frame. After a few revolutions it came out and he rotated to the wall next to his bed. He located his tally marks and used the iron rod to carve into the drywall a diagonal line crossing four vertical lines. He looked over the wall and counted up the tally marks – one for each day. He had reached his 15th day.

  He heard a noise from outside his door and darted to twist the iron rod back into the foot board of the bed frame. After it tightened snug, the door opened, and Dr. Cohen dressed in a scientist’s lab coat walked into the room. This time he did not have his clipboard, rather a tray with a glass of water and a medicine cup.

  “Good evening Xander, how are you?” he said with the same smile plastered over his face.

  “I miss my mom… when can I go home?” Dr. Cohen flashed an embellished frown.

  “Soon, Xander… soon… are you ready for your medicine?”

  “It tastes yucky and it makes my head hurt…” he pouted back.

  “I know but this will make you super smart. Don’t you want to solve the puzzle?” Cohen jingled the two pills in the medicine cup before him. The boy in the white room reluctantly placed the blue pills on his tongue and gulped them down with a swig of water from Dr. Cohen’s glass. The scientist before him waited a beat and arched his eyebrows.

  Xander shook his head and opened his mouth wide to display his empty mouth.

  “And… raise your tongue please…” Xander complied and only after the scientist had inspected every nook and cranny of his mouth did he exit the room, leaving Xander to himself.

  Xander fell on his bed and curled into the fetal position. He knew what was coming and feared for the pain to return. After five minutes of crying in fear, he began wincing as the headaches began.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Xander was in the same test room, before the same blocks. He had been able to attach thirteen of the pieces before him. They branched off in many different directions and formed an incomplete structure. Dr. Cohen passed by again and peered over his reading glasses settled on his nose. He stopped dead in his tracks and almost dropped the clipboard. His eyes looked over the puzzle’s progress and then rose to the boy, showing the progress, he had sought for so long.

  The doctor surveyed the rest of the room and saw that the other five children in the room had no pieces connected still. The boys and girls at the tables were stumped and frustrated, growing impatient as ever with the exercise.

  “Day 27… progress has been made… great job Xander!” Dr. Cohen tried to conceal his excitement. He jotted down a paragraph of notes and exited through the door next to the observation mirror.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Xander lounged on a red sofa in a cozy room of ornate stature. His eyes were closed – his body calm. Sitting across from him was Dr. Cohen, cross-legged with his clipboard propped up on his knee.

  “You are in the back of a station wagon…” he spoke calmly to the hypnotized boy before him. “You see your mom’s brown hair fall behind the passenger seat. You reach out and graze her locks…your mom calls back to you. She says, ‘Isn’t that right, Xander?’” Dr. Cohen awaited a response from his patient.

  “I love you Mom and Dad,” Xander responded from his deep trance.

  “And we love you, Xander. You are so sweet,” the doctor responded, speaking the part of his mother. He waited another moment, hoping the script would be developed.

  “I miss you so much…” Xander trembled in his hypnosis.

  “We’re right here, Xander,” the doctor spoke soft and then in the deeper, rougher voice of the dad continued. “Yeah, son we’re not going anywh—” Then Xander’s tremble began to shake more violently. His teeth grimaced in pain. “Xander, tell me what you see…” Dr. Cohen returned to his instructional tone. Xander spoke with difficulty over the fear that seized his body.

  “I see… a truck… it hits the car, hard… my mom flies out the windshield… and my dad’s neck breaks… The car thumps as it runs over mom…No… No! Mommy! Mommy!” The doctor realized he was losing his patient.

  “You are going to wake up on the count of three…” He rushed. “1,2,3…” Immediately, Xander’s blue eyes opened and began to gather his surroundings. He slowly sat up off the couch and looked over to the doctor, oblivious of the hypnosis he had awaken from. He noticed his hand was clenched on the pillow he was holding and wondered why.

  “Is naptime over?” Xander asked through the fog of his mind, releasing the pillow and any concern of his surroundings.

  The doctor responded. “Yes, Xander… naptime is over for today…but you need to take your medicine.” He jingled the blue pills in the cup toward him, which Xander swallowed down obediently.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Xander was in the test room at his desk. He was extremely focused on the structure forming at his instruction. His eyes searched the shapes wildly. He turned it on all sides and analyzed its three dimensions. Then a groove came to his eye that his vision zoomed in on as its target. Still unaware of the other five children still with no progress on the puzzle, all he saw was the groove. Without taking his eyes off it, his hand reached for the last remaining piece.

  He placed it to the rigid groove and fed it through. It clicked into place, revealing the structure before him. It had waving channels and rounded edges that formed into an egg shape.

  It was a brain.

  A short smile came across the boy’s face.

  “Very good, Xander!” Dr. Cohen looked over his most successful test subject.

  “Can I go home now?” He asked innocently.

  “Yes… you can go home now�
��” The doctor smiled down at him. Xander turned to see the other children quiver in fear.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Xander’s back rested on the same red sofa he used for nap time. His eyes were shut but his body had already begun to tremble. Dr. Cohen watched as Xander went over the crash again.

  “There is a truck that crashes into us… mom flies out of the window… dad’s neck… breaks… The car is spinning and runs over mom on the road… Glass is flying by in slow-motion… Then my head hits the window really hard… everything is black now…” Xander recited the memory, planting it deep into his subconscious.

  “Good… Xander you were in a car crash… are your parents alive?” Dr. Cohen asked as he continued to inculcate his test subject.

  “No…” Xander responded.

  “Do you remember anything before the crash?” The doctor stood out of his chair and found the syringe he was looking for on the back counter of the room.

  “No…”

  “When you wake up you won’t remember anything except the crash?” He flicked the end of the needle, which oozed a couple of drops of the serum in the syringe.

  “Okay…” he shifted as if some deep impulse resisted.

  “Good…” The needle lowered into his arm and the sedative was released in him.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  A young nurse stood outside in the hallway of the hospital with a man in military formals. She held the patient’s file out for the man’s eyes. Xander could only barely hear them outside the door as he came to.

  “His brain activity is like something I have never seen before… See the levels here…” The man inspected the readings and raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “And these are correct readings?”

  “I tripled checked them.”