by JK Franks
Heart pounding, Kissa forced himself to take long, normal breaths. Hyperventilating would only make his mind foggy, and he needed to be sharp. He knew this was likely his only chance to get answers, possibly to find his Thera. The surrounding water seemed to literally be vibrating. He felt more than heard a near-constant hum. Another thought occurred to him. Absolutely no other fish of any kind could be seen. The rich biodiversity they had seen earlier was completely absent now.
Both had known the telltale signs of large ocean predators. As a trained oceanographer, he could identify nearly every known creature they encountered. Thera could do that one better by also being an expert in most extinct ones as well, yet here was something neither would be able to get a handle on. Perhaps it was a monster, something new and dangerous that rose up from the cold, deep ocean to feed upon the unwary inhabitants of the warm shallows. A cryptid, something new, something ancient and thought extinct. It had happened before, many times.
The discovery of the coelacanth fish off the coast of Brazil, something they now called the living fossil, was an example. Not to mention the giant, ribbon-like oar fish or the almost mythological giant squid which had only been captured on film about a decade earlier. With over seventy percent of the earth covered in water, with an average depth of two miles, he knew less than five percent had ever been explored. The truth was, Kissa and the experts had little idea what actually lived in the deep ocean.
Still, something like this…or any large predators that came up to shallow waters, even occasionally, couldn’t easily stay hidden. Fishermen would have caught them, carcasses would have been found. He dismissed the idea. Even beasts of the pelagic realm of the deep ocean that were capable of something like this were few. Those known species that would knowingly attack an adult human were incredibly rare. Despite numerous movies and television shows, sharks were not the biggest ocean threat to man. He knew, in fact, that if you looked up the top ten most dangerous sea creatures, only one shark, the Great White, would likely even make the list.
Something months ago had triggered Thera’s near obsession in solving a puzzle. He and Thera had been following a pod of whale sharks which were acting strangely. Around that time, a series of seemingly random events across the enormous Caribbean had piqued her interest, and she’d easily convinced him to help. The whale sharks, the largest fish in the sea, were being hunted it seemed; other large sea life was as well, creatures that would rarely be considered prey. It had been a curiosity at first, for him at least. Mainly, it was an excuse to spend more time with her. Lately, though, it had become something more…something serious.
They’d been hunting for months now. What had begun as a casual interest had blossomed into a full-blown obsession. Something was lurking in the normally tranquil waters of his homeland. Something that now may have claimed the love of his life.
Kissa’s head slipped silently beneath the surface. Kicking the oversize swim fins, he propelled himself down and toward the spot they’d seen the mysterious creature. Carefully, he followed the bottom structure. From above, his dive suit would blend with the coral below, rendering him nearly invisible. Despite the incredible water clarity, the sun was in the wrong position for him to make out anything but a blurry shadow above. After years of looking up at dive boats above, he could make a reasonably accurate guess on the size though. It was big, not enormous, but big. The shape couldn’t have been mistaken for any species of shark, and some were pretty common in these waters. It lacked the normal fin profile; the body proportions were all wrong, and frankly, it only vaguely looked alive. He adjusted his buoyancy compensator and ascended about three meters. The mysterious subject, which he was increasingly thinking of as a creature, seemed to silently drift away, maintaining its distance. It was just too smooth, too perfect to be natural.
His time in the Honduran special forces, called TESON, had provided excellent training and grueling discipline. While he’d left all that behind years earlier, once again, he felt the adrenaline pumping and the training kicking in. He quietly descended back down to the coral bed. The reef here was immense and here, at least, teaming with life. Hand over hand, he slowly crawled along the rock in the direction of the shadow above. Thoughts of Thera were overwhelming him, and he was convinced this thing had something to do with her disappearance. Was it connected to everything else as well? He paused briefly to get his heart rate under control. While not deep, he still had to maintain regular breathing. The object was nearly directly overhead now. Focusing hard on the blurry shadow, he made a mental outline. Rounded and larger in front, tapering toward the rear. Several protrusions, but not symmetrical, no tail fin or any propulsion device he could see. This was not the same thing he’d seen on the prior dive.
Deciding to be bold, Kissa planted both feet on the rocky surface and crouched down. He checked his arm sheath to make sure the dive knife was still there. He sprang from the seafloor like a gymnast uncoiling from a somersault, his taut muscles unleashing all their energy in one move, propelling him straight toward the surface. In seconds, he had covered half the distance. The object was much clearer now. He could even see the bottom half was a lighter color than the top. Then he heard a high-pitched sound unlike anything he could recall. The surrounding sea erupted in a brilliant light. Not a yellow light of spotlights, but a pulsing, blue-white light.
Abruptly, he ceased rising, eyes clinched shut while his hands uselessly were covering his ears. The headache was back along with the persistent vibration in the water. After a minute at most, the sound and light began diminishing. Slowly opening his eyes, he saw the object was already a hundred meters away and picking up speed. Suddenly, it began speeding up at a phenomenal rate, so fast Kissa wanted to rub his eyes to make sure it wasn’t just an illusion. Perhaps the light had blinded him or something, but no…the object or creature was gone. Something else, he realized he was trailing blood. Touching fingers to his ears, they came away reddened. Looking back, he saw a swirling, red drifting lazily behind him. He’d seen enough. It was time to go.
6
The Cove
“Captain Rearden, are you okay?”
“Huh? Oh, ummmm…” Shit, what was her name? “Uh, Doris, I don’t know.” He fell into a table, chairs skidding away in various directions. Even the furniture seemed afraid of him.
The bodiless voice came again. “Clearly, you are in distress, Cade.”
He stood more or less upright, looking around the home’s tasteful interior. Muted grays and blue accents detailed a kitchen any chef would be proud to own. Countertops that looked and felt like Italian marble, but were a composite material molecularly more similar to the polysteel used in the tactical armor his Talon Teams used.
“I think I just had too much to drink.” It sounded stupid, but he was used to being stupid.
“Cade, the CommDot’s bio-sensors detect no alcohol in your system. It does show highly elevated levels of stress hormones, respiratory, and heart rate. You are not drunk, you are frightened.”
Cade hated how literal the super-advanced AI was sometimes. Having her voice words that he refused to acknowledge even to himself was unnerving. “I’m fine, Doris. Really, I am. Just leave me alone, okay?”
Doris would not leave it. “You are part of my senior staff, Cade. You are also what I would call a friend. Should I take it that the sessions are no longer helping?”
For months, Doris had been working with him to possibly reintegrate his multiple personalities back together. Clearly, the other ‘travelers’ inside his skull didn’t appreciate that potential loss of autonomy. The bio-feedback technique Doris had devised relied, in part, on the ReLoad instant learning process she’d invented. Early on in the sessions, it had allowed him to communicate more freely with the internal entities, but the more Doris tried to merge them into a single version of Cade Rearden, the more they resisted, or maybe it was just him.
“Sorry, Doris, I don’t know what is going on in here.” He tapped at his head.
&n
bsp; “The visions again?” she asked with a perfect tone of sympathy. “The memories, the panic?”
He nodded reluctantly. He hated admitting weakness. Being broken was an embarrassment, one he’d decided to try to remedy with the super-computer’s help. Right now, though, it seemed to be making things worse. She’d suggested he try again to sleep inside his own home. It had been an enormous step for him. Something most people would view as routine, yet for him it took Herculean effort.
“Awful things happen in houses. Bad people…bad stuff.” The memory surfaced again. He’d been about twelve when he was talking to yet another caseworker. He couldn’t recall if she’d been from foster care or child welfare. It never mattered, they were all well-meaning but overworked, over- regulated, and operating in an under-funded system that was well beyond its capacity to offer hope, much less real care.
“What happened with them? The Thompsons?” the woman had asked. “Cade?” He’d ignored the question. The mental picture of blood sprayed along the wall, vividly painting the interior of his shared childhood bedroom. He remained quiet; he’d never shared what happened on that day so long ago, not even to the doctors who’d poked around his head after he’d been freed from a terrorist prison camp earlier in his military career.
Inside his head an internal battle raged. “They’re fighting back,” he said to the empty room. “I think I’ll do better sleeping outside again.” A flash of lightning and a roll of thunder sounded in the distance. Rain began pelting the windows.
“I don’t think that would be very restful tonight,” Doris said, a touch of sadness in her voice. They’d made some progress early on. The barbarian personality, the one Cade called Brutus, seemed to be totally dormant now, maybe reintegrated. And Gus—his voice of reason ̶ ̶ was now speaking to him in his own voice, something Doris indicated was a positive sign. The analyst, though, he was another story. He went by Ace now, and if anything, seemed to grow stronger and more dominant. “None of them have a problem having a home or sleeping all night in an actual bed, Cade. This is all you.”
He filled and drank a glass of water from the tap before nodding his agreement. “I know. I just can’t.”
“It’s okay, we will keep working through it,” Doris answered.
“No, Doris, I think we should stop. At least for now. Something about all this seems to be making me different, weaker….you know, somehow less of what made me good.” He knew he was doing a lousy job describing how he felt but hoped she’d get the message. The anxiety and night terrors were just two of the manifestations. Lately, there’d been other, more tangible problems as well. Interference with the ReLoad knowledge packets. Information that should have been there when he needed it not being available to him. It was in there; he could sense it in there, but it seemed to be walled off to him, existing just out of reach of his conscious mind.
The soldier part of Cade knew he had to stay sharp. Maybe it was nothing critical. What happened if…or when…that changed? He had people who depended on his being sharp, being the best. What happened when he wasn’t? While he’d not spoken openly to Doris about it, he felt sure she knew. Through her network of sensors, layer upon layer of pattern recognition, and a uniquely insightful intellect, she didn’t miss much.
As if expecting some of his fears, she said, “I will not mention this to the director. I have to rely on you to make the call on how mission-capable you are, Captain. We both know your other personalities are probably more of an asset in your professional life. It is here in your private one that concerns me. How long do you think you can keep everything balanced on this knife edge of reason?”
He shook his head now, wishing he’d reached for something stronger than water. “I have no fucking idea, Doris. I’m screwed in the head, have been since I was a kid. Maybe it’s just who I am.” He put the glass down on the white counter with a bit more force than was needed.
“Lack of sleep can make you crazy,” she said, “…and irritable.”
“I go to sleep that way, lady. Too late to worry about any of that.” He walked through the French doors to the covered patio, the night sounds of crickets chiming in the night breeze, rain pattering, and tree frogs singing their ancient song. Thunder rumbled again, echoing down the river valley. The house Doris had given him was one of about two dozen in the neighborhood. All very upscale with luxury touches in all the right places. It was a dream home, yet, out here was where he spent most of his down time.
Looking at another house about fifty yards away, he noticed an upstairs light on. It was often on at this time of night. The occupant of that house was having trouble sleeping, too. “How is she doing?” he asked the darkness.
The darkness answered him with a steadfast reassurance, “She is coping, Cade. Jasmine still feels a lot of guilt over her fiancé. She feels like she failed her mission commander on Snowbird as well.”
Jasmine Kiline was a brilliant scientist who Cade had brought to The Cove a year earlier for her own safety. Since then, she had become a valued member of the command staff. Cade knew Jasmine felt responsible for the apparent disease aboard the Air Force space plane, even though she’d been relieved of her position and escorted out of mission control before it had happened. He felt responsible for her. Not just because her fiancé, Tim, had been his commander on his last special operations mission. The one where he’d been the lone survivor. No…it was more than that. Cade had dragged Jaz here to Georgia without telling her anything. He just wanted to keep her safe, and this had seemed like the best plan.
“Cade, is it possible you are developing feelings for Jasmine?”
He ignored the question. He refused to answer it, even to consider it. Not just to Doris, but to himself as well. She was his dead friend's love. He owed the man at least that much respect, that level of basic human decency. That was what people outside the military never seemed to get. We don’t go into battle because we feel vindicated in our belief. We don’t go to try and vanquish evil. We go because it is our duty, and we stand our ground and possibly die to protect that soldier beside us, not for any idealistic, bullshit speech, or even orders from the back lines. We do it for our brothers; we fight, we laugh, and fuck, yeah, sometimes we die.
Possibly sensing his inner thoughts again, Doris broke in, “What about what she might want, Cade? Do her needs not rise to the same level of care?”
Cade had never really known love and never really missed it. Most of his life he’d viewed it in the same vein as he did having a home. It was an attachment…a failure point, a weakness. “She can do a lot better than me. I’m BSC, remember?”
Doris chuckled, “Oh, yes, ‘Bat-Shit Crazy.’ Remind me again, is that more severe than Bug-Fucked Nuts, or is it less?”
Lightning arched across the sky, striking at a bit of high ground on the ring of tree lined hills nearby. Cade laughed, “Doris, you are getting quite the sense of humor.” She really was amazing, not just for a computer, she was an amazing creature. He watched as the light in Jasmine’s bedroom went off. Lying back on one of the cushioned lounge chairs, he sighed. “Put me back to work, Doris. Somewhere with open spaces.”
7
South Texas – U.S.
“We’ve got a problem, Boss.”
Captain Cade Rearden, watching from the low roof, shook his head; problems were not on his agenda for today. He tapped at the nearly invisible, yet complex, communication system on his cheek. “What?” he growled.
“Sorry, Nomad,” the man said, using Cade’s official combat call sign. “Greg says the Tangos are not alone, and they are coming from the opposite direction.”
Greg was one of the five genius kids he’d been working with at The Cove for much of the last year. They’d met as a super AI, known as Janus, was wreaking havoc all over the U.S. Cade, with the help of Greg and the others, had finally managed to defeat it. If Greg said it, you could count on it being true. What Cade had just been told meant that all of his team was deployed in the wrong direction and….Well, shi
t.
Cade stood, arranged the tactical goggles back down, and looked directly behind him, down a short tree-lined street to the two-lane highway beyond. He followed a trail of dust being kicked up on the seldom used road by something moving fast. The goggles instantly offered up the speed and alternate views from the closest drone. None of that helped; they had positioned the drones to the south, toward the border—that was the direction you would expect a Mexican drug cartel to come from. Near his leg, Cochise was on full alert. The dog understood fully what was going on.
All it seemed they had been doing since the Janus events, something now colloquially referred to as The Troubles, was putting out criminal brush fires like this. In America’s weakened state, corruption was rampant, inflation was out of control, and most police forces had their ranks decimated. The vermin had moved in almost overnight like a bunch of cockroaches snatching crumbs. Unfortunately, these cockroaches had the money and the manpower. They’d been declaring war on border towns across three states.
“Greg, get those drones repositioned. Hammer, shift your position, please.” Cade missed his friend, Charlie; they worked well together. But his friend and former XO, call sign Deuce, was training a new team, WarHawk. McTee was now his new second, and Everett ‘Hammer’ Harrison was now the man on overwatch.