by David Yates
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ebooksonthe.net
www.ebooksonthe.net
Copyright ©2009 by David Yates
First published in ebook, 2009
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
About David Yates
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Traveler
David Yates
(C) 2009 . All Rights Reserved David Yates
First Electronic Edition, November, 2009
(C) 2009 cover art Shelley Rodgerson
Publishers Note: This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
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Chapter 1
"Your son's IQ is...well, it's immeasurable by any standards with which I am familiar. He's off the charts all across the board. Simply put, he's the most brilliant child I've ever seen, or even heard of. Tyler's really going to go places in his life."
Truer words were never spoken.
Tim and Mary Atcherson were pleasantly stunned as they drove home from the doctor's office. Dr. Fox was a well-known and much-respected child psychologist, so they trusted his testing procedures and results. According to Dr. Fox, their son was the brightest child he or any of his colleagues had ever seen, and was he possibly the smartest kid in the world, ever? Dr. Fox seemed to think it was possible.
"Well, what do you think?” Mary asked her husband as they rode along in their pleasant fog.
"I'm not sure what to think,” Tim replied. “I'm pretty sure our job as parents just got a lot more...interesting."
"What do you mean?"
"Well,” Tim said, “we are now responsible for raising a genius. He already has the necessary tools and is learning rapidly. We need to instill in him the more intangible qualities, like responsibility, integrity, honor, morals, ethics...and I think we'd better get started quickly, because he's learning things at a scary rate."
The subject of their conversation sat behind them in his safety seat, bright blue eyes moving from father to mother and back to father as if watching a particularly good tennis match. Although Tyler Atcherson was only two, he was bright enough to know that...well, that he was bright. Not only could he do things his peers wouldn't be able to do for several years, but his memory was like a well-honed razor. At six months of age he had been walking unaided and talking, although it was just individual words. But those words were sentences by age 1, and he was also solving simple addition and subtraction problems by then. His development continued at an amazing speed, and by the time he was blowing out the two candles on his next birthday cake, he was writing sentences, reading books and articles from the newspaper and from magazines. In fact, he knew how to operate his father's computer and how to access the Internet. He was reading articles and other Internet content, which greatly broadened the scope of his learning base. Oh, he was a regular kid in the sense that he liked playing and watching TV, but unlike other kids (even kids much older than him), he thirsted for knowledge as a vampire thirsts for blood. If given the choice between watching cartoons or reading an Internet article on the hunting instincts of the puma, he might choose TV, but it would be a close race.
And his retention capability was as good as his incredible talents. He remembered every tidbit of information that he read or heard. He was very good with numbers, and already had memorized the multiplication tables. He was particularly good with dates; he knew what was so important about 1492 and 1776 and 1861; he understood the significance of 1919 and 1947 (he liked baseball). He knew important dates in history, like October 29, 1929; December 7, 1941; November 22, 1963; and September 11, 2001.
Unlike most other kids on the planet, Tyler liked every subject he studied. Also unlike most other kids, he had no “weak” areas that gave him trouble. He was able to learn and retain things pertaining to virtually any subject. He had favorites, such as mathematics, sciences, the arts, and history, but his mind was like a sponge, soaking up all the water possible from any source. He was eager and able to learn; under ordinary circumstances this would be a very good thing. And, considering everything that happened later, maybe it still was a good thing. Or, at least, maybe there was still a silver lining around the dark cloud that followed.
After the Atchersons left his office with their little genius in tow, Dr. Fox again went through the young boy's test results, as if he couldn't believe what he had just seen. As a matter of fact, he still couldn't believe it. He was as excited as the boy's parents were, but for very different reasons. Where the Atchersons saw unlimited potential and opportunity for their son, Dr. Fox saw potential fame and wealth for himself. Tyler Atcherson was still his patient, and Dr. Fox had told Tyler's parents that he was going to schedule more comprehensive testing at the state university (supervised by him, of course). The Atchersons had given their consent to further testing, since they were just as interested as Dr. Fox in finding out exactly how intelligent their son was. Already, Dr. Fox could see himself being interviewed by David Letterman or Regis Philbin or even Howard Stern.
"Maybe I can even get a TV show of my own, like Dr. Phil,” Fox mused under his breath. “Yeah, a show like Dr. Phil, but catering exclusively to children with problems.” His eyes gleamed at the prospect, and his excitement began to grow. No other show like it on TV yet, he thought. There would have to be a network interested in it, right
"Right!” he agreed, and spun around in his swivel office chair to his computer. He brought up his email program and clicked “Compose Mail". When the screen came up, he wrote an email to Mike Reynolds, his colleague, college roommate, and longtime friend. In his excited state, Fox's ethics went right out the window. Although Fox was a college graduate and a psychologist, he wasn't exactly the brightest bulb in the chandelier; as he composed the email, he was blissfully unaware that he was about to be in direct violation of the doctor-patient privilege by sending the email. He told Reynolds in the email everything that had just occurred in his office with young Tyler, including testing procedures and the content of conversations he had had with Tyler. He also mentioned his excitement about what would surely be his upcoming wealth and fame. He even included the boy's full name in the email.
To his credit, Reynolds (whose bulb shone brighter than Fox's ever would) sent a reply email saying that he was happy for Fox, but that he shouldn't hav
e revealed so much information. Unfortunately, Fox never saw Reynolds’ reply; in fact, after 11:07 p.m. that very night, Fox never saw anything again. And, by sending the email (although neither of them knew it), Fox signed the death warrant of his friend Mike Reynolds as well.
At The Orchard, Bemis lounged in his office with his stockinged feet up on the desk, half-asleep. Although he was the Director and therefore responsible for all of the activities at The Orchard, there was currently nothing for him to direct. His people knew their jobs and were doing them well. Every staff member under him at The Orchard was a professional, all 21 of them. And they were all...well, they were all family. They had to be family, since they were all cut off from the rest of the world. None of them were married, none of them had children, none of them had any surviving relatives outside in the real world.
Real world, Bemis thought. We've all been here so long, this is the real world. The one out there is fake
Of the 22 people inside the compound, all of them were volunteers. They had all voluntarily entered the compound knowing that they were to live there until the Project was over, and knowing that the end of the Project might be years away. They were like-minded people, very selectively and quietly recruited by The Five Stooges to undertake this one task. They were all told the same thing that Bemis himself had been told; they were being recruited by some silent, smoky, covert unit for the Federal government for a vitally important, highly covert operation which would take years to complete. They had all agreed.
Bemis was a man of intelligence, a retired U.S. Army colonel, a West Point graduate. After retiring, he and his wife moved to Silverville, Utah, a small mountain town about 90 miles south of Salt Lake City. The local newspaper did a story on Bemis after he moved there. Bemis was amused that anyone would want to do a story on him, but the town was so small the newspaper was a weekly instead of a daily. He supposed it was big news in this small of a town when a highly-decorated command-rank officer, who had distinguished himself in Operation Desert Storm in ‘91, moved in. They had barely settled in Silverville when his wife died quietly in her sleep. The official cause of death was never determined.
About 3 months after the death of his wife, Bemis was eating lunch at the Coffee Pot in Silverville when he had been quietly solicited by The Five Stooges. Bemis smiled. Of course, he never called them “The Five Stooges” where they could hear it. Everyone knows that you never bite the hand of the man that feeds you.
It had been Anson who had approached Bemis. Anson explained to Bemis that he represented a “coalition” of five wealthy financiers who had entered into an agreement with an unnamed Federal agency to finance a highly covert operation. They were looking for a small hand-picked group of like-minded people to staff this operation. Anson explained that they were currently looking for a candidate to run their facility which he called “The Orchard", and that they had decided that Bemis was an excellent candidate. Anson stressed that the position would be very lucrative. Bemis was interested, but Anson wouldn't explain further that night. He requested that Bemis meet him and his four partners at a hotel in Portland, Oregon the following week. Bemis had agreed to be there.
At the meeting a week later, Bemis arrived at the hotel and went to the room that Anson had told him they would be in. He knocked on the door, and it was almost immediately opened by Anson.
"Hello, Colonel Bemis, please come in,” Anson said with a warm smile. “Please, make yourself comfortable."
"Thank you, Mr. Anson,” Bemis replied. As he entered the room, he saw that it was actually a large suite with a number of comfortable-looking sofas and high-back chairs in the living area. He also saw that some of the seating was occupied by four distinguished-looking gentlemen. They were all about the same age as Bemis, except for one who could have been as old as Bemis’ father (if Bemis’ father had still been alive, that was). They were all wearing expensive suits and expensive jewelry on their fingers. Bemis was amused to see the old fella even had a diamond stud in his earlobe.
"Colonel, I'd like to introduce you to our little coalition,” Anson said. “Gesturing with his hand, he indicated each of the four men in turn, ending with the codger wearing the diamond. “Mr. Alexander, Mr. Miller, Mr. Morrison, Mr. Kobriger, this is Colonel Bemis."
Bemis shook hands with each man, and each of them smiled and gave a pleasant “How do you do” or “Nice to meet you", except for the old guy, Kobriger. Mr. K. didn't say anything, didn't offer Bemis a handshake; he just sat there giving Bemis a scrutinizing stare. Bemis gave a small shrug and turned back to Anson, who said, “Please, have a seat, Colonel. Can I get you anything to drink?"
"No, thank you,” Bemis replied. “I'm not a drinking man."
"Yes, we were pretty positive you weren't,” said Miller. “We just wanted to be sure.” At this, Bemis glanced questioningly at Miller but didn't reply.
Anson, who seemed to be the youngest of the group, said, “Please forgive us, Colonel, but we had you checked out before we ever approached you. We've been watching you for quite some time now."
"Have you?” Bemis replied with a hint of wry amusement.
"Yes,” Anson replied. “You see, the position I told you about is of a very sensitive nature, and we needed to be sure of you before we made you an offer."
"Understandable,” said Bemis, although he was inwardly irritated at being “checked out” and surveilled without his knowledge.
Morrison said, “Colonel Bemis, it was necessary for us to have the utmost confidence in you before we approached you. That's why we ran every check on you that we could, including your background, childhood, military records, medical records, criminal history, credit history, and family history. We know that your wife passed away a few months ago, and that you have no children. By the way, please accept our condolences on your wife's passing.” At this, all of the men nodded somberly (except, of course, for old Mr. K., who just sat there with appraising eyes. If it wasn't for the flat shine in the guy's eyes, Bemis thought, he could be a corpse.)
"Thank you,” Bemis replied dutifully.
Alexander spoke up for the first time. “Colonel, as Mr. Anson has already explained to you, we have been looking for the perfect candidate to act as Director of our facility, which we simply call The Orchard. The Director's duties are to oversee all operations and activities of the staff at The Orchard and to make occasional electronic reports back to us. The facility has already been constructed and is waiting to be staffed. It is located on a large and private tract of land in the mountains of Washington State. Actually, that's how it got its name. It was constructed on land formerly occupied by apple orchards. There are no people for at least a 30-mile radius around the compound. There aren't even any roads; not so much as a dirt track. The only access to The Orchard is by helicopter, and even that will be on a need-only basis. Once the staffing has been completed, the entire staff, including you, will be living there with no outbound contact with the outer world until completion of the project. We anticipate completion could take as much as twenty years.” Alexander paused, then said, “We would like to offer you the position of Director."
"What is the purpose of this ‘Orchard'?” Bemis questioned. The five men looked at each other briefly (except, of course, for old Mr. K.; his eyes never left Bemis’ face).
Finally, Anson replied, “We are looking for someone. We don't know who this person is yet, but the staff at The Orchard will be tasked with finding them. This will be the only objective of the Project. Once the person is found, the Project will begin. Once the Project is complete, it will be terminated and The Orchard will be demolished."
"And the staff?” Bemis asked.
Another group glance, this one a bit uneasy. Alexander said quickly, “Upon completion of the Project, you and the entire staff will be released with generous pensions and retirement packages. For now, let us fill you in on the details of the Project.” Bemis nodded his assent.
Morrison said, “Basically, Colonel, the person we are lo
oking for is a small child. This child is yet to be born. Once The Orchard is up and running, its primary objective will be to search for this child. The Orchard is already set up with everything you and your staff will need to make your searches. You will have virtually unlimited access to any computer in the world. You will be able to access hospital birth records, pediatrician's records, emergency room records. You will be able to tap into any phone line in the world undetected; you will be able to intercept and read email sent from anywhere in the world. You will have undetectable access to all military computers, government computers, and law enforcement computers including NCIC, although I doubt that you will need to access that one for this Project. The Orchard's computers are already set up to continually scan for certain keywords in emails and on the Web. Voice recognition software has been installed to continually scan telephone lines looking for these same keywords. In addition, The Orchard's computers will continually scan hospital and physician computers. Everything is already in place, Colonel. All we need now is someone to put the key in the ignition and start it up. Any questions so far?"
"Just one,” said Bemis. “What government agency are you affiliated with?"
"Well, we're not at liberty to disclose that information,” Alexander replied, smiling.
"Okay, then,” Bemis replied, returning the smile. “Please continue."
Anson picked up the thread. “Colonel, the child we are looking for must be intellectually gifted. We are looking for the most intelligent child the world has seen in years. The child can be either male or female. In addition, the child must have no living relatives. When this child is found, it will be taken to our facility where you will oversee its development."
"And that's why you want a child with no living relatives. No family asking uncomfortable questions."
"Precisely,” Anson confirmed.
"But no matter how you slice it, it's still kidnapping,” Bemis said.