Text copyright ©2014 by the Author.
This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Blake Crouch. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements of Wayward Pines remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Blake Crouch, or their affiliates or licensors.
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Wayward Pines
GENESIS
Parts I, II, and III of The Genesis Series Collection
by Steven Konkoly
Kindle Worlds
Contents
Foreword by Blake Crouch
Part I “First Contact”
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
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part II “Last Betrayal”
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Part III “Sanctuary”
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
About the Author
Foreword by Blake Crouch
Welcome to the world of Wayward Pines. One of the most frequently asked questions I get with regards to my Wayward Pines series is, “But how exactly did David Pilcher secure the valley and rebuild the town?” It’s a great question. When Pilcher and his crew emerge from suspended animation after their almost two thousand year sleep, they find a world not only reclaimed by nature, but overrun with aberrations, the horrifying creatures that humanity has evolved into. These things are fast, bloodthirsty, and absolutely lethal. Even worse, they number in the hundreds of millions in what used to be North America, and the valley where Pilcher wants to rebuild the town of Wayward Pines is crawling with them.
So…how exactly did David Pilcher secure the valley and rebuild the town?
This question has been on my mind since the inception of the Wayward Pines series but I never really addressed it in the trilogy (Pines, Wayward and The Last Town).
One of the beautiful things about Kindle Worlds is that it allows anyone to come and play in the universe of Wayward Pines, and to explore aspects of the story that not only interest them, but which perhaps I never wrote about.
Enter Steve Konkoly and his prequel to Wayward Pines, the Genesis series. I was over the moon when I heard that Steve was going to dip a toe into Wayward Pines. I admire his writing very much. No one on the planet writes action with more authority and nobody knows weapons like Steve. Prior to becoming a writer, Steve was in various specialized Navy and Marine Corps units that worked with all manner of regular and elite teams. He knows his stuff. So can you imagine how much fun it is to read Steve’s take on Adam Hassler, my Wayward Pines Delta Force-trained Nomad trying to help Pilcher on a veritable suicide mission to clear the valley of abbies? I’ll answer that for you. You can’t imagine it. It’s exhilarating. You just have to read this book and trust me—you are going to lose your mind over this story.
I never imagined when I opened Wayward Pines to Kindle Worlds that something like Genesis would come along. As the creator of this universe it is such a thrill when a work comes along that not only adds to it, but makes it better. Whether you’re a fan of the Wayward series, or are exploring it for the first time, I can’t recommend Genesis highly enough.
Blake Crouch
Part I
“First Contact”
Chapter 1
He remembered everything. The broad mosaic of memories crystalized behind stark details of his last sentient moments in the suspension unit: the artificially pleasing lavender rose scent; the soft, monaural broadcast of “Dream Weaver”; the inexplicably thick needle. He squeezed his eyelids tighter. Had it happened yet? Fuck me if it hasn’t. He didn’t want to be awake for the needle. The terror accelerated with his first conscious breath, the pleasant floral imprint replaced by a chokingly pungent, sulfuric stench. I have to get out of here!
He tried to stand up, but found his body locked in place. It was more than the restraints. His back and abdominal muscles fired, straining to move his torso, but nothing shifted. Full compression. Labored breathing. Cold air flowed over his face. He felt like he had been buried alive with his head above the ground. Fucking Pilcher. He should have known better than to trust that lunatic.
He envisioned Pilcher’s little blond sociopath pouring a jar of honey over his head and kicking him in the face before leaving him to be eaten alive in the forest. She was a piece of work. They all were—which is why he had been out of his fucking skull to get in this machine. A hollow, low-grade static sound reached his ears, followed by muffled voices. He kept his head perfectly still, afraid to open his eyes and discover the truth. An intense light penetrated his eyelids, forcing him to turn his head.
“You can open your eyes now, Adam. You’ve made it,” said a synthesized voice.
He turned his head and lifted his eyelids, recognizing Pilcher’s shiny, bald head through the two-inch-wide, vertical window. Maybe I was wrong. Fluorescent lights above his head illuminated the capsule, and he looked down to see the last of a black substance disappear through the sievelike floor. The straps holding his wrists and ankles to the molded chair retracted before he could look up.
“Adam, what is the last thing you remember before falling asleep?” said the voice.
Falling asleep? That’s a nice euphemism for being gassed.
“Flowers and ‘Dream Weaver.’”
The capsule door hissed and retracted several inches, helped the rest of the way by human hands. David Pilcher leaned in and extended a hand. “Welcome to the future.”
Adam Hassler reached for the edges of the hatch. “Can you be a little more specific?”
“As I promised, you are standing on the planet Earth, 1,800 years later,” said Pilcher, hand still pushed into the capsule.
Hassler took his hand and shook it quickly, still wary of a possible trick. Pilcher had every reason to dispose of him in 2013 and little reason to keep him around for 3813. He’d known that showing up at the superstructure on New Year’s Eve, but the reward at the other end had been worth the risk. Could this all be possible?
“Do you mind? I need to get the fuck out of this coffin,” said Hassler, pulling
his naked body out of the seat.
“Let the reanimation team help you out. Your muscles and senses haven’t degraded in the slightest, but nearly everyone experiences a degree of vertigo during the first several minutes. Blurred vision, disorientation and a general feeling of lightheadedness will continue for several hours, I’m afraid. We’ll keep a good eye on you,” said Pilcher.
Hassler eased himself back into the cold molded seat and shivered. He noticed that the skin on his arms had a sickly, gray pallor.
“Your color will return by tonight. The post-suspension transfusion was done directly inside the machine,” said Pilcher, pricking the thick-gauge needle attached to the wall. “You really should have read the memo.”
“I’m not big on reading direction manuals. So, is anyone going to help me out of here, or did I miss the magic word too?”
With both feet planted on the steel floor, he felt stable pulling on the grey, fleece-lined, knee-length robe provided by the reanimation team. Once the robe was in place, the two men flanking him resumed their grip. Almost a little too tight in his opinion.
“Did she make it?” said Hassler.
Pilcher’s normally dour expression softened. “She’s still in suspension.”
“But she’s fine?”
“Unfortunately, we never know until the reanimation process starts. We’ve lost three out of one hundred and twenty-one. Odds are strongly in your—her favor.”
“What happened to the others?” said Hassler.
“One never reanimated. As for the other two, there’s a reason we ask what you remember before opening the hatch. Recall of the final moments before falling asleep should be crystal clear when you wake. If not— early research indicated irreversible problems.”
“What would have happened if I had answered incorrectly?”
“We would have terminated you inside the capsule,” said Pilcher.
“Wonderful.”
“Cheer up, Adam. You’ve travelled through time. Statistically, you have a 98.3% chance of spending the rest of your life with the woman of your dreams,” said Pilcher, turning for the exit.
Just the thought of it lifted him out of the post-suspension funk momentarily. He wasn’t fully convinced that he was alive, but if he could be together with Theresa Burke, it really didn’t matter. They walked for several moments before Pilcher stopped and turned.
“You haven’t asked.”
“Asked what?” said Hassler, wondering if he failed some final bizarre test that determined his mental state.
“Everyone asks about the outside world.”
Hassler shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t think it mattered, but since you brought it up—were you right?”
“Of course I was. The world as we know it is gone.”
Chapter 2
The promised vertigo struck him a few steps into the vast storage facility, dispelling any notion that his escorts were a specially arranged security detail. Without their firm grip on his arms, he would have tumbled hard to the concrete floor or wandered in front of a speeding forklift. Sounds of heavy industry echoed off the rough-cut stone walls, reaching his ears from multiple directions as they approached the doors leading out of the cavern. He turned his head when the doors slid apart, catching a quick glimpse of the work through the maze of storage cylinders and forty-foot-high industrial shelving units.
He saw a dozen men and women in white hard hats hoist a massive section of metallic fence upright, using a pulley system attached to the ceiling by cables. It looked like something suitable for Jurassic Park, with thick concertina wire coiled along the top. Either Pilcher was hell-bent on keeping his subjects inside Wayward Pines, or he was worried about keeping something out. Neither scenario gave him a warm and fuzzy feeling about his upcoming stay.
One level up, Pilcher departed, and Hassler was led to a sterile, surgical room, where he sat on a shiny, metal table waiting for Dr. Miter—another key player in Pilcher’s “land of misfit toys.” Dr. Eugene Miter’s brilliant career as an orthopedic surgeon had been cut short in 2009 by a felony DUI in Denver, involving a mid-day accident that left a thirty-three-year-old mother and her five-year-old son in serious condition. Beyond the .17 blood alcohol concentration suggested by Breathalyzer tests, toxicology reports indicated a therapeutic level of oxycodone in his system at the time of the accident. If this hadn’t been enough to end his career, the fact that the accident occurred on the way back to his office, for a full afternoon of surgery, sealed his fate.
Dr. Miter effectively dropped off the face of the planet in 2010 while awaiting trial. Authorities found his court-ordered GPS ankle monitor on the kitchen counter next to a document bequeathing all of his belongings to the family involved in the accident. Pilcher liked to collect wounded souls, a trend Hassler uncovered long before Pilcher ever approached him about the Secret Service’s investigation into the missing agents. At first it raised alarm bells, but the more he learned about Pilcher’s plan, the more it made sense. Who the fuck else would volunteer for something like this?
A hunched-over man in a white lab coat entered the room. Dr. Miter.
“How do you feel?” said Miter, walking over to the stainless-steel sink next to the operating table.
“Dizzy. Disoriented. Cold. Can’t Pilcher afford to heat this place?”
“It’s a comfortable seventy degrees in the superstructure. Perfect humidity. You’re going to feel cold for about twenty-four hours until your body adjusts. Do you mind lying back?” he said, still washing his hands.
“Sure. So, there’s no muscle degradation?” said Hassler, lowering himself to the table.
The cold steel instantly penetrated his robe. Seventy degrees, my ass.
“None, but it will take you about thirty-six hours to regain one hundred percent musculoskeletal balance. You’ll stop bumping into walls within twelve,” he said, turning around with white rubber gloves.
After a cursory medical exam, Miter walked around the table to a wheeled instrument tray and picked up a small syringe.
“What’s that for?”
“Microchipping. Didn’t you read the memo?”
“How long was this damn memo?” said Hassler.
One of his escorts shrugged his shoulders while the other circled the table and stood next to his legs.
“Flip over for me?”
“Why am I being microchipped?”
“Safety reasons,” said Miter.
Hassler twisted onto his stomach, straightening the robe underneath him to prevent unnecessary skin on metal contact.
“I’m going to insert the chip in your left gastrocnemius muscle. Left calf. This is going to hurt—a lot,” said Miter.
At least he was an honest doctor.
Chapter 3
Hassler woke to fluorescent lights and a grating voice he had hoped to avoid during his stay in the superstructure.
“Rise and shine, lover boy. Mr. Pilcher would like to see you in the operations center at 1530 hours. Gives you two hours to unfuck yourself.”
“I was really hoping you were one of the three that didn’t wake up, Pam. When I didn’t see you on a leash at David’s side earlier, I got excited.”
“Happy to disappoint you. Level 2. Past the medical labs. Don’t be late,” she said and shut the door before he could respond.
He meant what he said. For a twenty-year-old girl whose life before Pilcher was framed by a long list of foster families and a string of dismissed underage prostitution bookings on Chicago’s north side, she exuded a maddening level of arrogance. He had no idea how their paths had crossed, but he suspected it occurred in October of 2006. Pamela Hanson’s fast-track to turning tricks in a south Chicago crack house ended after a failed attempt to collect blowjob money from a group of drunken students in a Northwestern University fraternity house. After sneaking out of Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston on October 10th, her trail went cold—and nobody appeared to care. Pilcher’s last public appearance was a paid speaking engageme
nt at Northwestern University, on October 12, 2006. Not hard to connect the dots, though he’d always pegged the billionaire scientist as more of an elite-call-girl type than a dumpster diver. It didn’t matter. Pam was here to stay.
Admittedly, she played the role of pit bull like a pro. Stunningly beautiful and physically imposing, she carried herself with a frightening, detached coolness. She’d undoubtedly seen his file, and he didn’t detect the slightest break in her confidence when he was present. Four years with 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment before recruitment into 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta—where he spent the next six years leading some of the most highly trained special operators in existence. He had yet to meet another man that didn’t take a few steps back upon learning his background. Pam never demonstrated the slightest bit of caution or interest—only a keen intensity for fucking with him.
Hassler rubbed his eyes and glanced at the digital clock imbedded into the wall. 13:22. He’d been asleep for nearly eighteen hours. It felt ten times longer than the two millennia that had passed in suspension. He glanced at his temporary home, thankful that he had signed on for a different deal. The black and white linoleum tiled floor was by far the most interesting feature in a room that brought pleasure to the drabbest memories of the U.S. Army’s sparsest quarters. The prospect of spending the rest of one’s life in this fluorescent hell would certainly drive the suicide rate through the roof. He hoped one of those stainless-steel silos was packed with antidepressants. If not, Pilcher would be lucky to have half of his crew alive by the time Wayward Pines was constructed.
He stepped on the cold floor and searched the closet for the clothing he had brought to the superstructure. He didn’t recognize any of the items folded neatly on the closet shelves. Khakis, greys…the clothing didn’t look any more exciting than the wall color. He checked the waist on one of the pairs of khakis. 34. At least they got the size right. Further inspection yielded underwear, socks, boots, running shoes, shower shoes, and a belt.
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