The Carrier (The Carrier Series Book 1)

by Diana Ryan

  “Thank you, sir.” I followed the large man up the ramp, taking advantage of the extra-slow-Hayward-pace to scan the area as I waited. No obvious meteors.

  The office was outdated, but cozy. Hayward shuffled behind his wooden desk and offered me a seat in a 1970s green velour high-armed swivel chair. He poured two mugs of black coffee and took a long sip before offering me one.

  “What can I do for ya, Mr. Nolan?” Hayward’s chin had stubbly, grey hairs and his eyes were a calm, pale green.

  “I’m a local scientist and...”

  “Science?” he interrupted, thumping his hand down on the desk. “What sort of science?” He leaned forward with big eyes, looking slightly like an overexcited bear.

  “Well I’m a student of all sciences, actually, but I’m most interested in astronomy these days.”

  “Astronomy,” Hayward repeated dreamily. “Like outer space and junk?”

  I chuckled a little. “Yes, exactly.”

  “Oh, I love space. If I hadn’t inherited this place from my parents forty-five years ago, I would have gone off to college and learned about them alien life forms.”

  “So you’ve lived here all your life, Hayward?”

  “Oh yes, quite so. My family tree goes way back to the times when the Ho-Chunk walked through these forests.”

  “Amazing. Look, I’m searching for places around the area that may have been hit by recent meteor showers. Have you heard of any such instances while you or your family have been around here?”

  Hayward scrunched up his forehead and itched the back of his head. “Well, nothing out of the ordinary, I don’t suppose.”

  “I see,” I said, disappointed.

  Hayward stuck his pointer finger up in the air. “Well, unless you count the great meteor shower of 1913!”

  Good grief.

  “Yes, that’s exactly the sort of thing I’m looking for! What can you tell me about it?” I took out my tablet and opened a new document, ready to take notes.

  “My grandfather used to tell stories of the night when bright blue rocks radiating tall flames of purple fire fell from the sky.”

  “Blue rocks? Purple fire?” Perhaps Hayward was as crazy as they came. I wrote down a note and then closed my tablet’s screen.

  “Yes sir. Sure as the moon itself. Blue rocks licked with purple fire fell from the night sky.”

  “Very interesting. Did you grandfather keep one of these blueish purple fire rocks?”

  “No, sir, Mr. Nolan, he did not. Scared to death of it, you know. Thought it was from the devil himself. The blue devil, of course.”

  “Right...” I took a sip from the mug in front of me and just about choked. It tasted like something that dripped from the underside of my car. I set the mug back down quickly. “How about recently, Hayward. Have you noticed any blue or other colored rocks falling from the sky anytime since you’ve been here?”

  “Naw. I haven’t been lucky enough to witness that kinda miracle.” He took a long sip of his coffee and then muttered, “Shoulda gone to college.”

  A loud knock rapped on the door of the office.

  “Come in,” Hayward yelled.

  A very short woman, probably about five feet tall, entered the room. “Hay, the bus of girl scouts has arrived. Come on out to greet ’em!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he called back. Then he leaned across the desk and held out his hand for a shake. “Well, I’ve gotta go, Mr. Nolan. It’s been a pleasure.”

  “Same here, Hayward. Say, would you mind if I took a look around? Your grounds are beautiful.”

  “Be my guest, son!” Then he lifted one eyebrow. “But watch out for them devilish blue rocks.”

  I snickered and he responded with a very loud belly laugh. I followed Hayward out of the building and took a sharp left at the bottom of the ramp, heading towards the RV camping sites. I retrieved my phone from my pocket and checked the time. I had one hour before my shift began at Lower Two. I turned on the Geiger counter app and strolled through the campgrounds, watching the numbers. They were highest at the very back of the campground and soon I found myself standing at a high chain-link fence staring into a hazardous waste dump site.

  “Well, there’s the source of radiation. Nothing cosmic about this junk.”

  I headed back through the campground with my eyes pasted to my cell app. The numbers continued to decline as I reached Hayward’s office. I dejectedly opened my car door and slid into the driver’s seat. I had secretly wished this was the answer. That Hayward had a meteor sitting on a pedestal at the entrance gates for all to see as they entered the campgrounds.

  Oh well. One dead end wasn’t going to stop me. I had two more areas of high radiation to check out. If only I could investigate them immediately instead of heading off to my fake job. But I smiled as I pulled back onto Stand Rock road—I’d be seeing my Ava within a few minutes.

  * * * *

  I had full shifts at DBT for the next few days and spent any free time I had with Ava. I didn’t get back to my investigation for the CBB until three days later when I had my next day off. Ava was scheduled to work, so I took advantage of my time alone.

  The campground had been a bust, and I was hoping one of the last two areas would be what the CBB was looking for. I began with the subdivision east of town called Oak Lawn. I turned down Webber Avenue into the middle of the subdivision. I passed many newer houses, many of them much larger than the ones in Ava’s neighborhood. I took Webber all the way until it met Pleasant View Drive, which ran along the back of the subdivision. There I parked my Audi on the quiet street and took out my tablet. I ran the Geiger counter app and got to work. It took a while, but I continued to scan until the numbers began to rise, just like at the campground.

  I found myself at a new construction site on the far north side of the neighborhood. Crews were busy pouring a foundation for a house and excavating the land with backhoes. I parked and took a scan with my app.

  It had the highest reading I had taken that day.

  I spotted the site foreman and approached him.

  “This is a hard hat area only, buddy,” he yelled over the machines’ noise. “You’ve got to go.”

  “I’m Stan from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigating a high radiation scan of this area.”

  “The NRC?” he said, guiding me out to the street and away from the machinery. “The high radiation must be the radon. Almost every house in this neighborhood has to install a mitigation system to get the radon out of their houses.” He waved a hand behind him. “This place is loaded with it!”

  “High radon levels in the soil, huh?”

  Dammit. This can’t be the source.

  “Yep.”

  “Well, thank you. I will report back to my office with this information.” I began to walk away towards my car and the foreman yelled across the street to me, “The NRC already knows! I’m not sure why they sent you!”

  I shut the car door and nodded politely while I drove off.

  Last stop—Ava’s neighborhood.

  Scanning the area around Animal Island was not as easy as the campground or subdivision. I could tell the numbers were higher, but it was hard to pinpoint a specific location of any kind. When I wasn’t with Ava I had knocked on a few doors, asking local residents questions that might lead me to the source, but no one seemed to know much about radiation in the area. I had spent much of my free time wandering through the streets surrounding Animal Island, but there was nothing out of the ordinary that could indicate a reason for higher radiation. Nothing I could see, anyway.

  My lite little app wasn’t doing the trick. I needed the CBB to bring in the heavy equipment. But the reality of what I was doing began to set in—I would be moved to another location once I located the exact source of harmful radiation and the CBB apprehended the Carrier. By fulfilling all my job requirements I was essentially ending my relationship with Ava. So what if I bought myself some time by not reporting my findings to Agent Harper immediately
after I’d uncovered them?

  I had told Ava I loved her on the Fourth of July, but I was sure she didn’t hear me over the fireworks’ booms. I hadn’t found the guts to tell Ava again that I loved her. I couldn’t ever find the right time, and quite frankly I was scared. I knew we had both invested nearly the entire summer—and, at least for me, almost all of my heart—to each other. As much as I tried, I couldn’t think of a scenario where our relationship would end happily. Every time thoughts of what was going to happen to us jumped into my head, I pushed them out. A gutless way to deal with life, I knew, but it was too painful to confront reality—the end of summer probably meant the end of our relationship.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Soon August was in full swing and one day came the worst day of my life. I woke up that morning and realized that in less than a week, Ava would have to return to college, and I needed to make something happen regarding our relationship. Either I cut her loose or find a way that we could be together.

  I was getting ready for work when I heard a knock on the cabin door. My heart skipped a beat—maybe Ava came to say good morning to me before she had to head off to work. When I opened the door, my heart fell right out of my chest. Standing in the doorway, dressed in his perfectly ironed, black Armani suit, was Agent Harper. His blonde hair was cropped perfectly, and he was wearing black Versace sunglasses. “Agent Hill, the day has come. The CBB is in desperate need of your help.”

  He plowed right through the door into the cabin before I could say anything in response. I noticed a few Upper Dells guides peering out of their cabins across the way with strange looks on their faces. I shut the door quickly and then pulled the blinds down over the front window. When I turned around, Agent Harper looked bothered.

  “Sorry, kid, this place is disgusting. I guess you’ll be happy when the day is done. We’ll soon apprehend the Carrier, and you’ll get to move back into your apartment in Chicago.” He picked up a dirty sock from the couch and threw it on the floor. Then he carefully took a seat.

  My knees lost their hold, and I involuntarily slid onto the bed.

  Today? No. No!

  My insides were twisting. I had been pushing this out of my mind for the last few weeks. I was not ready for this. Poor Ava. I hadn’t prepared her at all for the end of our relationship. What was I thinking by avoiding the topic?

  “Agent Hill, are you feeling alright? You look pale. Do you need to grab a bite to eat before I give you the protocol?”

  My gaze moved up from the floor to Agent Harper’s face. Eating was the last thing I should be doing. I managed to reply, “No, sir. I’ll be alright. Please continue.”

  “Fine. Today’s mission is two-fold. Part one is to locate and destroy the space object that is emitting dangerous radiation. Your work has narrowed it down considerably.”

  What? But I haven’t shared that info with the CBB.

  “We’ve just about locked in our coordinates. Our techs have discovered that we must carry out this mission before the sun sets at nine o’clock tonight.

  “Our scientists have been building computer models to project the nuclear decay in similar parent isotopes, considering physical and chemical conditions that may have occurred at different time periods—I know, next generation stuff, right?—and they have come to the conclusion with much certainty that the item is at risk to blow up. What’s more, our research has finally pointed to today’s date, indicating that the meteor will likely detonate not unlike a nuclear bomb. If we allow this to happen, not only all of Wisconsin but much of the Midwest will be destroyed. Mass panic and chaos will likely ensue. Blackouts, fires, raids, and terror of all kinds will strike the people of this area who were not blasted to char.”

  If this dangerous object was somewhere in the neighborhood, as I suspected, and I didn’t assist in destroying this object, there would be little chance that Ava and I would survive anyway. “Sounds like an important mission. What is part two?” I asked, trying to hide my nerves.

  “Part two involves us bringing down the citizen who has harbored this object and willingly endangered the citizens of Wisconsin and of the United States. The Carrier has been exposed to this object for possibly the past twenty years. As I’m sure you’ve read in the reports, our geneticists have determined that the specific type of radiation from this rock negatively affects human DNA and brain activity. It slowly mutates the neurons that control brain activity, specifically in the hypothalamus and amygdala. As I am sure you know, Agent Hill, these areas control emotions, memory, and fear. Intense aggressive and fierce violent tendencies increase two-fold through each generation of genes exposed to the radiation. If the object has been passed down as an heirloom, as we suspect, then the current Carrier is now the fourth generation vulnerable to this dangerous object.

  “It has taken CBB ten years to learn enough about this type of radiation, as it is very rare. What’s more, our scientists and research team have discovered that the radiation enters the body and then lays dormant for almost twenty years. The victims don’t even know that their DNA is under attack. After those twenty years, the mutated genes become actively aggressive and quickly take over the brain. At that point, there will be no stopping this monster. The Carrier must be destroyed upon discovery.”

  This was all very odd. I couldn’t believe he was actually telling me the truth, but suddenly my mind raced back to that first night I was inside Ava’s house, and I followed her up to her bedroom. I had noticed something strange sitting on the bookshelf by the door. An odd, bluish rock sat under a glass dome and was obviously on display.

  I heard Hayward’s voice in my head: “A blue rock fell from the sky.”

  Could she possibly be?

  Agent Harper knew I had realized the secret. “Yes, Agent Hill. Ava Gardner is the Carrier, and we believe her family is involved as well.”

  My mouth dropped open, but I had no voice. I bent over for my stomach to retch, but nothing came up. I fell to my knees and gasped for breath. This couldn’t be happening.

  My Ava. My sweet, sweet Ava. There was no way she was the Carrier.

  “But how?” I muttered.

  Agent Harper rose from the couch and pulled me up from the ground fiercely by the arm. “Get up!” he yelled, suddenly angry. “You’ve been bugged—your cabin, your car, your ticket booth, even your damn shoes! We know exactly where you’ve been and who you’ve talked to. We’ve downloaded every text, every call, and every app you’ve run on your phone. We’ve been following you all summer, Agent Hill. We know you have a relationship with this woman. You helped us into that house. You got the family history we needed. It was so perfect I couldn’t have planned it better.”

  I stared at him through raging eyes.

  “If you’d like to stay with the agency, it needs to be you who kills her. I told you that you would be very integral in carrying out the CBB’s objectives. You will get her alone and do the job quickly and quietly.”

  “NO!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. I was suddenly angry at myself. I had let my feelings get in the way of my work and now I was in a dreadful situation.

  “She doesn’t have to die!” There had to be a logical solution. “We can take her to CBB. The geniuses over there can fix her up.” I pleaded with Agent Harper. “She won’t be twenty for two more weeks...”

  Agent Harper cut me off. “No, Agent Hill, Miss Gardner is not a project to be fixed. We cannot put tens of thousands of people at risk just so your pretty little lover can become a genetic experiment. She is a federal criminal!”

  “Absolutely not!” I tried to control my breathing. “I am confident that Ava has no idea the implications of this rock. She just thinks it’s pretty.”

  Agent Harper laughed maniacally. “Oh, Agent Hill, you are so naive. Ava Gardner and her family know exactly what they are doing. She and her family need to be destroyed.”

  That couldn’t be true. I spent the entire summer with her. She gave me no reason to believe she was a hardened criminal. T
he thought was preposterous!

  “I won’t do it!” I screamed from deep within me. I turned to grab my keys off the side table. I was going to find Ava and then get the hell out of here, but Agent Harper slapped my cheek hard and then grabbed my neck, pushing me up against the wall. Everything on the table came crashing down.

  He got within inches of my nose and said in a threatening but steady voice, “You will go sell tour tickets today.” He paused and then continued. “You will act normal. You will convince Ms. Gardner to come to your cabin tonight. And as other agents are securing the meteor, you will destroy the Carrier. If you don’t, I will personally exterminate you and your disgusting little criminal girlfriend. Got it, kid?”

  I wanted to wipe his spit from my face, but my arms were pinned down. His eyes stared deeply into mine, and I felt a fire radiate from behind them. Then he shook his head, let go of my shirt, and, as I dropped to the floor, his voice changed to a lighter tone. “Oh, and I’m rooting for you to be successful tonight because I actually like you. Should you complete this mission, the head of the CBB has given me permission to shower you handsomely with expensive toys and promote you to be my successor in training. Good luck.”

  Then Agent Harper bolted out of the room and let the door slam on the way out. I heard his car’s engine fire to life, followed by the crunch of gravel as he left, and then I broke down and sobbed right there on the cabin floor.

  What the hell was I going to do? How could I get Ava out of this?

  I panicked for almost ten minutes before I told myself I had to get up, be a man, and figure out a plausible way to save Ava’s life. Harper had bugged the ticket booths, my cabin, my car, and even Ava’s boat. I’d be tailed to work and watched carefully. There was no way I could alert Ava to any of this.

  I finally drove downtown to the Dairy Queen booth, pretending I had business there. I had one thought, a shot in the dark that might be able to get Ava out of this mess, so I made a quick stop on the way to work to meet with my only chance to save us.