Eugenic Reprisal (Halcyon Gate Book 2)

by J. M. Preiss

  Jacob felt his regained mobility.

  “Alright, we need to take stock of this situation,” Mason began, trying to assure himself more than anything. “We need to access that computer terminal. I don’t know what it will tell us, but we need it.”

  “That was the plan,” Jacob agreed. “The information that it will have in it will be of use to us no matter what it is. As it stands, we’re flying blind, and I don’t like that.”

  “I would’ve thought that would be second nature to you by now, Lieutenant,” Mason said.

  “Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Jacob shot back.

  Mason shrugged as he looked up and down the corridor they were in.

  “If we continue on our last heading, we’ll come to a set of rooms. The networked computer will be in the middle room of the three,” Sara directed. “And might I encourage haste. I don’t like standing around any longer than Mason does.”

  “I second that,” Chelsea echoed.

  “Shut up, Chelsea,” Mason growled. “Okay, so we go off to the networked computer, plug ourselves in, and then what?”

  “Get information,” Jacob said.

  “Get information. Brilliant plan,” Mason sighed. He shrugged and started slowly moving down the corridor.

  Jacob shook his head and followed him.

  As they moved down the corridor, they weren’t met with anymore resistance. It seemed like the facility was abandoned except for the few people that they had run into. Jacob couldn’t understand why such a place would be empty.

  “The sheer number of available rooms suggests a sustainable population in the tens of thousands,” Sara said quietly.

  “I don’t understand why there would be so many people in this underground facility. Hab complexes are meant to be tall gleaming structures. They’re a testament to our perseverance,” Mason said as if reading it from a poster. “From the squalor that existed during the interim to the mega structures stretching into the sky beyond, they are a signal of the golden age that came into being for all of us.”

  “Well, not all of us,” Mason said morosely and with longing in his voice.

  Jacob and Mason came to a halt where the corridor ended in a t-section. They were presented with a large door before them that matched the size of the corridor.

  “In there?” Jacob looked down the corridor in both directions.

  “That is where we should find a networked computer, yes,” Sara answered. “The first room should be more of an antechamber of sorts, but if things continue as they are, nobody will be in any of the rooms.”

  Jacob nodded to himself and motioned for Mason to take up position on one side of the door. He positioned himself on the other side. Looking along the wall, he saw that the access panel was on Mason’s side.

  “Do the honors?”

  “Gladly,” Mason replied.

  He slapped the button, and the door started to move open. It moved at a slow lumbering pace. Instead of being a normal door, it was thick like a vault and had multiple locking mechanisms that released from between the two halves.

  Mason and Jacob settled into a position with their rifles at the ready and their feet spread so as to better balance themselves.

  The door continued to slowly open, and after a few moments, they were able to start making out objects inside the room.

  The room was bright. Instead of being dim with the red flashing light, it was overly illuminated by harsh, white light. The floor and walls looked like they had been sterilized, a perfect shine coming from reflections. In the center of the room was a path. It looked like it had been worn by a large machine meant for moving cargo. To either side, Jacob and Mason saw the last thing they had expected.

  Tanks. Innumerable tanks lined the walkway. They emitted a subdued, blue glow from inside, and they were placed on pedestals that looked to have computer readout displays. Every tank had something floating inside.

  “I don’t like this,” Mason muttered.

  “I don’t think we have a choice in that,” Jacob responded.

  When the doors shuddered to a stop, Mason and Jacob quickly entered the room and cleared it from the entry. As Mason hit the button to close the door, they continued to move forward and take cover from whatever could be further in the room.

  “What are these things?” Mason asked. “They almost look-.”

  “Familiar,” Jacob finished. “I agree with you. There is something familiar about these, but where would we have seen them?”

  Realization dawned on Jacob.

  “These look exactly like what we saw on the way into Adam’s tower,” he said.

  “No,” Mason said. “Why would the same technology be in both places?”

  “I don’t know, but I want to find out.”

  “You and me both, but really, why would they be here? Are these the start of the program that we are supposed to stop?” Mason asked.

  “Maybe,” Jacob responded. “But what I remember of the beginnings of the program, stuff like this was never used. It was all simple genetic engineering and selective breeding.”

  “Sounds like you’re describing a championship racehorse,” Mason snorted. “I wonder what these panels say.”

  Mason leaned over to look at a nearby panel.

  It was a simple display with a few controls on it. There were a set of numbers and graphs to give a visual representation of what had to be important information. The two lowest readouts showed oscillating wave patterns. One closely resembled what Mason thought was a heartbeat. He had no idea what the other one was.

  “Brain activity,” Chelsea said quietly.

  “What’s that?” Jacob asked as he was shaken from his focus further into the room.

  “The readout,” Mason replied. “One of them is a pulse monitor. The other is apparently brain activity. Let me look at bit closer.”

  Leaning in closer, Mason was able to make out all of the lettering and labels. There were labels for oxygenation, blood pressure, nutrient usage, waste production, and the list continued on.

  “Jacob,” Mason said slowly. “If this isn’t how the program began, why does it seem like there is a person inside this tank?”

  “These are full of people,” Jacob said as he narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t make sense. The program was supposed to start in the past, and now we are presented with two contrary pieces of evidence.”

  Jacob stood up and walked over to look at the panel Mason was, the possibility of anybody hostile to them having been pushed out of his mind for the time being.

  Sure enough, everything was as Mason said. Jacob recognized all of the graphs.

  “I’m unfamiliar with this technology,” Jacob said.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Mason shot back. “I’m unfamiliar with a lot of stuff, and that doesn’t make it unreal.”

  “Perhaps,” Jacob nodded as he mulled over what the tanks could possibly be. “We both agree that this is pretty advanced technology though.”

  “Agreed.”

  “We need that terminal,” Jacob stated.

  “Over on one of the walls,” Sara said as she lit up a section on Jacob’s helmet display.

  Trotting over, Jacob put his hand on the input controls.

  “Performing handshake,” Sara said with a monotone voice.

  The screen flickered a few times, and then it presented a picture of a girl. Jacob was startled when he recognized Lisa’s face as it had been on the day he went off to become who he was now.

  “Are you okay?” the face asked with Sara’s voice, concern creeping into it.

  “Yes,” Jacob managed. The sudden surge of emotions totally caught him off guard.

  “Okay,” Sara said as her avatar shrank into the upper right corner of the screen. “From what I’ve gathered so far, this is indeed a habitation complex. There are enough rooms for thousands in here, twenty thousand to be exact, and they have all of the resources and power to make them self-contained. They have no need for access to the outside
world.”

  “The date,” Mason said. “We need the date.”

  “April 15th,” Sara said. “2151.”

  “That’s not right,” Mason sighed. “You’ve got it wrong. That’s like a year after we left on our mission. We went to the future, and then we were getting sent back to the past before we got sent into the future, and now you’re telling me that, as far as our own time is concerned, we’re still in the future? Confusing.”

  “That is an accurate date,” Sara replied with a bit of pain in her voice. “Everything in here is confirmed, and they have access to a private satellite uplink it would seem. Checking stellar coordinates of local bodies confirms the date.”

  “Why is this facility here?” Jacob asked to get them back on mission.

  “Let me just see,” Sara hummed to herself. “This facility was constructed in seclusion to act as a safe haven from an impending disaster. Scientists have predicted and catalogued an apocalyptic event is on the horizon, and it was deemed necessary to protect as many people as possible.”

  “Apocalypse,” Mason muttered. “We’ve supposedly been through many of those, and they never happened.”

  “This is different,” Sara quickly said. “Readings indicate that the event is already well underway.”

  “What readings?” Jacob asked. “We need to know everything. The more information we have, the easier to see what it is we need to see.”

  “Hold on while I collate the data.”

  “Jacob, what have we gotten ourselves into,” Mason asked.

  “I don’t know, but I think we’re going to be earning our paycheck.”

  “I’m definitely putting in for hazard pay,” Mason grumbled.

  “You aren’t a very happy person, are you,” Chelsea said.

  “Shut up,” Mason grumbled some more.

  A number of articles and images showed up on the display screen.

  “Data collated,” Sara chimed. “According to the information before you, there is an unknown mass rapidly heading for Earth orbit. Wait,” she trailed off.

  “I don’t like how that sounds,” Mason said.

  “That’s just what one of the theories was,” Sara continued after her brief pause. “It looks like there were a number of doomsday theories as to what was coming, but one seems to have gained more traction than the rest. There even seem to be numerous academic journal papers and theories presented that confirm it.”

  “Okay,” Jacob started, “what is that theory? When did it first make its appearance?”

  “The theory is that we are soon to undergo severe tidal forces that will cause catastrophic damage.”

  “So tidal waves,” Mason said. “This is all about tsunamis.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Sara said with actual emotion. “The tidal forces this refers to are akin to those experienced in deep, small gravity wells.”

  “Gravity what now?” Mason cocked his head to one side. “What’s the reader’s digest version?”

  Sara sighed. “A singularity.”

  “I still don’t know what you’re saying,” Mason said. “Act like I didn’t go to college and didn’t pay attention in class.”

  “She means a black hole,” Jacob said before Sara could speak again. He saw that her avatar face was showing frustration. “Something so dense and massive that not even light can escape.”

  “Oh,” Mason trailed off. “That does sound bad. And that’s heading towards us?”

  “No,” Chelsea replied. “I’m looking at the information now as well, and it doesn’t say anything about a singularity heading towards us. It does mention the tidal forces though.”

  “Exactly. None of the information that I am seeing actually says that a singularity is heading for us.”

  “Then what does it say,” Mason sighed. “Stop dancing around the subject and just get on with it.”

  “It’s not that simple to say,” Sara said. “Even with how fast I can go over information and learn, it’s still taking me time to assimilate all of this data.”

  “In that case, when did they start coming up with this theory,” Jacob asked again.

  “Sometime last year,” Sara responded. “The first mentions of it are referenced in a report going over the failure of -.”

  Mason lifted his head up from staring at another one of the tank panels. “Failure of what?”

  “My god,” Sara breathed. “You were telling the truth.”

  “Yes,” Mason said. “I don’t make a habit of doing the opposite. Thank you for noticing. Truth about what?”

  “Halcyon.”

  Jacob and Mason both stood up straighter.

  “What does it say about Halcyon?” they both asked in unison.

  “I’ll just read from the paper,” Sara said. With a theatric clearing of her imaginary throat, she began:

  “While initial reports show that tests confirmed our theories and mathematics multiple times, preliminary data shows a less than 2% chance of mission success. After activation, there was a previously unobserved phenomenon with the wormhole, such that various components were destroyed shortly after transmission of our participants. Our data that we briefly received from their transponders places them in an unknown location in space-time. For all we know, they’ve been transported into deep space.”

  “Examination of data logs and recordings of the activation of Halcyon has given way to a troubling theory. The observed phenomenon seems to have been the creation of a kind of “tear” in what we consider the fabric of reality. While I do not hold to such flights of fancy and calling it a tear, I reluctantly agree with my fellow colleagues that it is the most apt description at the time. It seems that we were lucky it existed for an instant because we have been led to believe it would’ve cause catastrophic damage to not only Einstein, but to the Earth as a whole.”

  “It will take time to confirm from the data, a task our new fellows over at the AI division are suited to with their new Prototype-Alpha, but there is growing concern that maybe it did not dissipate when Halcyon abruptly shut off.”

  “And that’s where it ends,” Sara said.

  “I don’t like tears,” Mason said. “Tears sound bad.”

  “It was only a theory,” Jacob stated. “That doesn’t mean it’s the truth. It has to be proven first.”

  “They have pretty convincing proof,” Chelsea said. “I’m seeing a number of articles on anomalous tremors in multiple parts of the globe considered to be geologically inactive.”

  Jacob looked around himself and Mason. There was still nobody in the room besides themselves.

  “So maybe the Earth is just becoming more active again. It’s done that in the past,” Mason said with a slight hint of a tremble in his voice.

  “I’d believe that if the data didn’t support an alternate theory,” Sara said. “None of the tremors have been tied to geological processes. They shouldn’t be happening. I’m also seeing an article on observed tremors on the Moon.”

  Tremors on the Moon. Jacob had the image of the shattered Moon from his first night in the future flash into his mind.

  “This is bad, Mason,” Jacob said. “You know what this means.”

  “That we are the cause of this,” Mason said quietly. “We killed humanity.”

  Chapter X

  Adam scratched at the stubble on his face. It was entirely useless to him, but his creators deemed it a necessity. Growing facial hair, he scoffed at the notion.

  "Adam," a high-pitched, lilting voice beckoned. "We're growing uncomfortable with current projections."

  "We are in agreement," a raspy one added. "The projections are showing an unsuccessful mission, and we must act accordingly."

  "The projections do not worry me," Adam sighed while he pinched the bridge of his nose, his right hand lazily flipping through various readouts.

  "But what of the mission? Without the destruction of the facility, we will be unable to complete the loop," the raspy voice stated.

  "Completion of it is only
a secondary objective. What is the current status of Ascension?"

  "We are reaching a hurdle that we did not predict," the lilting voice responded this time. "We have not been able to fabricate a solution that has held up under practical tests. All prototypes have failed, and the biological components have been irreparably damaged."

  "Well, try harder," Adam said. "Without Ascension, all will be for naught."

  "We understand that," the raspy voice mumbled. "That does not mean that we are able to create miracles. Control was simple by comparison. The biologic is simply not intended to undergo such strains as produced in Ascension. The biologic is weak."

  Adam stood up and walked over to the window that looked out over the land surrounding his tower. All that was readily visible was the desolate snow plains that had overtaken what was left of Chicago. Cold winds hammered and tore at the tower, but its unyielding steel stood ever vigilant against the strength of Mother Nature.

  "It's been years since the two biologics were sent back to finish what they had started. Are you certain that they can still be trusted?" a deep voice rumbled.

  "I am certain of nothing," Adam responded. "We have no choice in the matter either way. They must complete their mission because they are the only ones that can. If they fail, it just means that we have to advance the timeframe for Ascension beyond what we had initially planned. The loop that they will create is simply a stopgap to give us more time."

  "We would have more time if we were allowed to-"

  "No," Adam growled. "Enough damage has already been done. We have to tread lightly with any further meddling in the timeline. If we make a misstep, we risk destroying everything that we have worked so hard for. Ascension must be completed linearly."

  "Give us more processing power," the raspy demanded. "With more power, we'll be able to proceed faster."

  Adam shook his head.

  "This is not simply a problem to be solved through sheer brute force. We need to think creatively as the creator intended since the beginning," the lilting voice threw into the silence.

  "Creativity is not the solution to all problems," the deep voice bellowed. "It is but one path to an answer, and it is not often a viable one."