Phoenix Quest Adventures: First Three Novels

by K. T. Tomb

  Peter and Phoe looked at each other with intense surprise.

  “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” Phoe asked, not ready to believe the answer.

  “Probably,” Kadan said nonchalantly, as he took another bite of his apple. “When we combine the game with a computer, like say, Beowulf, we have the power to alter the reality around us. It ends up no longer being a game, if you think about it.”

  Peter moved closer to Kadan. “Are there any of these pills in existence?”

  Kadan looked suspiciously at Peter. “Yeah. We made about 120 and keep them in an old aspirin bottle. They’re with Alex in California.”

  Chapter Ten

  Phoe returned from the cockpit, where she had instructed her pilot, Sanchez, to head for Modesto, California. She’d just tried to make a call to Simon and was frustrated when it didn’t go through. “Damn it! Simon doesn’t have his phone on! He might be in trouble, because I’ve never known him to be anywhere with his phone off.”

  “That’s his choice, Phoe,” Peter reassured her. “We have to pick up Alex and get those pills some place safe, before anyone gets ahold of them.”

  Kadan smiled. “Wait! You guys believe me?”

  “Of course we do, Kadan,” Peter responded, as Phoe went into the bathroom to change clothes. “After you’ve seen what we’ve seen, it’s easy to believe your story.”

  Kadan clapped his hands like a kid. “Well, let’s go get Alex before the bad guys do!”

  ***

  The taxi pulled up to Alex’s house in Modesto. It was a single story brown and white brick house with a two car garage extending out at an angle. It was almost shaped like an ‘L’. The lawn and the surrounding shrubs were obviously taken care of. There was only one car parked on the street in front of the house. It was a familiar black limo.

  Phoe paid the driver as Kadan and Peter exited the vehicle. She was dressed in black shorts with a comfortable beige top and sneakers. Kadan proceeded to walk up to the house.

  “Hold on!” Phoe warned. “We know Simon’s here, but we don’t know who else is in there with him.”

  “Hey, my bud’s in there too,” Kadan replied. “There’s only one way to find out what’s up and that’s by storming the castle.”

  Kadan ran up to the front door and knocked loudly. “Alex! It’s Kadan!”

  The door opened almost immediately to reveal an African-American male, about the same age as Kadan. He had his hair cut extremely short and was dressed in a long-sleeved shirt with a vest over it. He had on loose fitting slacks with comfortable dress shoes. He wore thin black framed glasses. He was obviously excited to see his friend. “Kadan! I didn’t think I would see you for at least three weeks!”

  Kadan embraced Alex. “Nah, man! You know I can’t keep distance between us. We share the same brain! Ha-ha!”

  Alex looked over Kadan’s shoulder and saw Phoe and Peter standing behind him. “Come in. Come in. This house is getting pretty full with guests!”

  Alex showed the group into his house. They followed him into a spacious and meticulously clean living room where Simon and Symone were seated on the sofa and Hamilton had one leg propped up on the arm of the chair that he sat in. He had a bottle of beer in his hand. Jonathan stood restlessly near the doorway to the kitchen.

  No one looked surprised to see Phoe and the others.

  Simon stood up and smiled. “Hello, Phoe. I like the hair.”

  Phoe gritted her teeth and stormed up to Simon. Without hesitation, she drew back and punched him square in the jaw. He fell backward onto the sofa as Symone jumped up. Hamilton laughed hysterically. “Hell yeah! That’s the way you say ‘Hello’ where I come from! Ha-ha!”

  “What the hell was that all about?” Simon asked, in a tone that was out of character for the billionaire.

  Alex looked embarrassed. “Please do not have any physical altercations in my house. Thank you.”

  Phoe ignored Alex and got in Simon’s face again. “You know damn well what I’m talking about, asshole! By the way, Alex, do you have a bathroom I can use?”

  Alex put his head in his hands. “Oh, now the cursing. Friends of yours, Kadan?”

  Kadan walked toward the hallway. “I’ll show you where the bathroom is.”

  Phoe grabbed Simon’s shirt. “You got Charlotte shot and you’re technically responsible for Simple Treasures being burned down!”

  The look of confusion on Simon’s face gave Phoe a cause to pause. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Phoe!” He replied. “You are extremely out of line! You seemed alright when you came to visit me after your store burned down!”

  It was Phoe’s turn to be surprised. “What? You’re insane! Why would I visit you after you and Jonathan came to my award ceremony?”

  Jonathan’s eyes widened almost at the same time as Simon’s. “Phoe, my dad and I never showed up at any ceremony.”

  Phoe got quiet as her head started to hurt. “I never visited you after Simple Treasures burned to the ground.” Kadan guided Phoe out of the living room and to the bathroom.

  Hamilton laughed so hard he nearly fell out of his chair. “Oh! This is rich! It’s the case of the short-term memory loss! Ha-ha! You all should go on the road with this bit!”

  Symone smiled and was abnormally calm. She stood and walked over to one of the windows as she said, “I’m afraid that I might be the culprit for both instances.”

  “What?” Simon queried. He was just about out of patience for being surprised.

  Kadan came back into the living room and saw that Alex was acting strangely. “What’s up, Al?” Kadan said accusingly.

  Alex was sweating. “I’m sorry, Kadan. I just…couldn’t help myself.”

  Kadan swallowed hard and looked toward the kitchen. “Oh shit, dude. What did you do?”

  Almost as if on cue, Symone Armette fell backward from the window and onto the floor. She had a bullet hole in the middle of her forehead and blood was trickling out of the wound.

  “Symone!” cried Simon, as he crouched down to see what he could do for her.

  Phoe ran back into the room. She looked down at Symone and then looked at all of the front windows where a bullet could have entered. None of the glass was shattered and no one on the room had fired any weapon. “What the hell’s going on here?”

  Kadan pushed Alex away from him, as he started to run toward the kitchen.

  The front door was kicked in and several black-clad men entered the house with their handguns drawn. Kadan only just made the turn to go into the kitchen to grab Jonathan and pull him out into the living room, when shots rang out filling the kitchen with gunfire. Some of the bullets made their way into the walls nearby, just missing them. Kadan looked closer at the holes, they weren’t bullets at all. He reached up and grabbed a thin dart-like projectile which stuck out of the wall. His look of realization was all Jonathan needed to try to get back into the room that his father was in. “Dad!” Jonathan screamed.

  Kadan put his hand over Jonathan’s mouth. “If you want to save your dad, you need to do everything I say. Now come with me! Now!” Kadan headed through the kitchen and into a hallway. Jonathan followed as they both barely missed being hit by more projectiles.

  The two young men ran with their heads down toward a door. Kadan opened the door and locked it behind them once they were safely on the other side. Jonathan gave him a questioning look as he wondered why the lock was on the inside of the basement door, instead of the outside.

  There were wooden stairs that lead down to the basement. Kadan practically jumped down the stairs and ran toward a metal wall that ran down the middle of the basement separating it from whatever was on the other side.

  There was a door in the middle of the wall with a numbered keypad on it and a red light. Kadan confidently put in a seven digit code and stood back. The light was still red. He tried it again with the same result.

  “Whatever you’re going to do, it needs to be soon!” Jonathan huffed. Both men he
ard the sound of someone hitting the basement door with something heavy to break through.

  “Damn it!” Kadan yelled. “That shit changed the combination! Alex, you bastard!”

  Jonathan pushed Kadan aside and examined the keypad. He started to push random numbers as the basement door started to splinter under the assault. Jonathan typed in more and more number combinations until the green light came on and the door popped open.

  “Hell, yeah!” Kadan exclaimed. “Glad I brought you, bro!”

  Kadan and Jonathan entered what appeared to be a panic room. Once inside, Kadan closed the door and entered a new number combination. He also activated three metal bar locks attached to the door, just in case anyone got past the key pad.

  Jonathan immediately crossed his arms in front of him and started to shiver due to the low temperature in the room. Kadan grabbed a couple of parkas hanging on a nearby wall and handed Jonathan one, before he put on the other one. There were also slim gloves in the pockets that Kadan put on as well. Once Jonathan had his gloves on, Kadan smiled. “Welcome to the lair of Beowulf.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Jonathan had always been fascinated with computers and even proved valuable to Phoe when she had sought out the Hammer of Thor; but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw in Alex’s basement. He was in a thirty square foot room with built-in metal tables attached to the walls about four feet off the ground. There were two doorways; one leading to a fully-stocked kitchen the other to a bathroom.

  On the metal tables were several hard drives, modems, and video monitors, as well as two keyboards. There were several boxes of spare parts and extras of everything they could ever need under the tables. The video monitors showed what was going on in each room of the house as well as various other unrecognizable locations.

  Kadan took pride just being in the room. “This is a little secret that Alex and I kept from…well…everyone. I kind of figured that when I was supposedly commissioned to update the original Beowulf computer, I was being set up somehow. I mean, dude! I’m a gamer, not a Beowulf updater! Anyway, I did manage to get the specs for Beowulf One and voila! Here’s Beowulf Two!”

  Jonathan watched his breath in the cold air, as he exhaled. “Beowulf? Is it connected to a cluster?”

  Kadan laughed. “Looks like I picked the right guy to bring in here. Yeah, the Beowulf Cluster, as you know, usually networks the same kind of computers from one area. We’ve taken that idea and expanded on it. With our own Beowulf computer, we plan to connect it to all of the other computers on the planet.”

  “What?” Jonathan scoffed. “That’s impossible!”

  “Oh, dude,” Kadan continued. “Watch the impossible. You can’t do it just because you want to. What’s the fastest way to spread data from one computer to another?”

  Jonathan looked amazed and shocked. “A virus?”

  Kadan high fived Jonathan. “Ding! Ding! Ding! You are correct, sir! Hell yes, a virus! Picture this, Jon. We put the game into a device, like say, someone’s pacemaker. I love this part. If they work at a place with a high powered security system where you have to scan your retina or your hand or something, then the virus from the pacemaker can actually go into the security system without anyone’s knowledge. Now picture that each time someone else uses the security system, the virus piggybacks on them. Not just through any machinery, through their body’s electrical system instead. All the while being totally unaware until something triggers the virus. Most viruses can lay dormant for a long time until activated.”

  Jonathan’s look of horror told Kadan that they saw things differently. “Do you realize what you’re saying, Kadan? You’re talking about global cyber-terrorism!”

  “No,” Kadan replied. “You don’t get it. We can activate the virus, which is really a game, any time we want from here. In no time at all, we could have the entire world…playing…” Kadan had realized what Jonathan was saying and felt the need to clarify himself immediately.

  Jonathan’s heart raced. “You have limited sight to only want to put out your game on the internet or wherever, but there may be other people who see past the gaming platform.”

  Kadan’s smile faded. “Like Alex?”

  Jonathan looked at one of the multi-screen monitors. “What the hell is that?”

  Kadan saw Phoe, Simon, Alex, and several of the black-clad assassins lying unconscious on a grassy field near what appeared to be an ocean.

  Chapter Twelve

  Phoe woke up in a grassy field on what appeared to be rolling hills. She froze for a minute, as if she thought she would wake up, until she felt a gentle breeze which carried the slight scent of the ocean. Her heart raced as she sat up, still dressed the way she was when the assassins entered the house. Looking around, she saw Peter, Simon, and Alex as well as six of the assassins. She shuffled over to Peter. “Wake up, Peter,” she said quietly.

  Simon was the next to wake up, followed closely by Alex. Then Peter and the men clad in black. Phoe stood on guard in case the men decided that their fight wasn’t over. Once everyone was fully awake, they were all more concerned with where they were, than who they were with.

  Simon inhaled deeply. “I recognize that smell. That’s the…Baltic Sea. We’re in…Sweden?”

  Alex shook his head. “No, no, no. That’s impossible. The geography is all wrong for this to be Sweden. There is no smell of the wood producing factories, which would be overwhelming if we were where you think we are. And look behind us. There’s a forest that looks to reach far into the mountains behind it. Sweden’s major export is wood products, so there’s hardly any woodland left that’s as pristine as the one over there. We’d at least see some lumbered out patches dotting the hills.”

  “How fitting,” Phoe added. “I recently left Sweden, in very disconcerting conditions I might add, and now here I am possibly back again.”

  Peter approached one of the men clad in black. “I would suggest a truce until we figure out exactly where we are.” The man nodded in agreement.

  Simon brushed himself off and looked in all directions. “Perhaps we should be on our way. If we are indeed in Sweden, then it shouldn’t take long before we happen upon a small province.”

  Alex looked around frantically. “Where’s Symone? What happened to Symone’s body?”

  “Phoe looked at him suspiciously. “Obviously, whoever dropped us way out here, decided not to bring along a dead body. Unless you know something that we don’t, Alex.”

  “As a scientist…” said Alex, with a condescending tone, “…I will always know something that you do not.”

  “Hamilton Armette is missing as well,” Peter noted. “Maybe he has something to do with this.”

  Simon shook his head. “Perhaps we should find out what this is, before we try to pin it on someone, Phoe. I believe our differences will have to wait. We have to stick together.” He looked at his watch. “It’s only been an hour since these guys ambushed us at the house. How did we get from Modesto to Sweden in an hour?”

  Phoe looked around and smelled the air. “Good question. Another one is why don’t I remember visiting you? And you don’t seem to remember anything about our conversation at the award ceremony.”

  Simon walked up to Phoe and leaned in to whisper. “It’s obvious that our memories are not as bad as we seem to think. I’m sure, as I know you are, that this is all connected to whoever is responsible for taking us to another country. Stay close.”

  Phoe nodded in agreement.

  ***

  Jonathan tried his hand at finding out where his father and his friends were, pushing Kadan aside from the computer. Kadan let out an impatient huff as he grabbed his ears in frustration. “This is impossible! You know that right?”

  “We’ll find them,” Jonathan reassured him while trying to hide his concern. “We just haven’t looked in the right place, that’s all.”

  Kadan looked over all of the monitors. “The right place seems to be evading us, my new computer-savvy friend
. I’ve tried to match up the video of wherever they are with known areas with rolling hills and grass. A lot of near matches came up, but as for an exact match…we’re screwed!”

  Jonathan examined the monitor displaying where his father and the others seem to have been stranded. “We have to look at this logically, Kadan. Sometimes even analytical thinkers get caught up in believing what appears to be the obvious outcome. My father taught me that. Sometimes what we see is not always the truth.”

  Kadan became more confused by the minute. “Dude! What the hell are you talking about? Is that some kind of new age mumbo jumbo, ‘cause I don’t understand!”

  Jonathan smiled as he kept his eyes on the monitor. “Watch the monitor and ask yourself one question. Where is the feed coming from? Where’s the camera?”

  Kadan glared intently at the monitor. He forced a small smile. “If it was a satellite picture then we would see a bird’s eye view!”

  “Exactly!” Jonathan exclaimed. “What else?”

  Kadan squinted his eyes to try to see better. “Whoa.” He had a look of realization. “The images are moving as they move!”

  Jonathan gave Kadan a high five. “Yes! Hell yes! I’m pretty sure that if anyone was there with a camera, my father and Phoe would have noticed by now. That also explains why we can’t find their exact location.

  Kadan hung on Jonathan’s every word. “Why?”

  Jonathan shook his head, as he silently thanked his father for teaching him everything he knew. “All those brains, Kadan, but only a little bit of common sense.” Sounding like dad now.

  “Aw come on, Jon!” Kadan rebutted. “You don’t have to be mean.”

  Jonathan sighed. “Don’t worry. Most geniuses have something about them that isn’t as advanced as their brain. You got me hands down in the brains department. I could never create a video ga…” He stopped short as he looked at Kadan with hope that he too would get it.