The Phoenix Project Series: Books 1-3: The Phoenix Project, The Reformation, and Revelation

by Pritchard, M. R.

  “One day when he was at school, his Aunt Edith came to pick him up. It was strange because he only saw his Aunt Edith once a year at Christmas time. Well his Aunt Edith wore a look upon her face, one that can only be construed as the bearer of bad news. Aunt Edith lead that boy away and told him that his mother and new step-father were dead, both of them, in an apparent murder-suicide. Now, there was no indication that this boy’s parents were troubled, just that they had a troubled son. Either way, oh how a child’s life can change.

  “The family riches were placed in a trust and the boy was sent to live with distant relatives, the only ones who would take a child with such a reputation. They were backwoods-country-poor. They had two teeth between them and the same number of brain cells. But that boy lived with them. And they held onto him good because they got a paycheck each week to go towards the boys expenses. But you know what happens with that money. It goes to beer, pizza, cigarettes. So when that boy was old enough, he tested out of school and he went to college. The scholarships kept him afloat until he got the trust fund money. And that was the history of the poor boy from Rochester.”

  He stops, finally, looking at me expectantly.

  “That’s a sad story,” I tell him.

  “Not sad. Poignant maybe. You see, Colonel Waters, you can tell a lot about a person by the choices they make when it comes to the ones they love, their children. And when a loved one dies sometimes people do things that they wouldn’t normally do. But it’s like flipping a coin. They become stronger or they become weak. They hold onto the ones that remain or they shun everyone because they cannot bear to be reminded of that long lost person they loved so much. So I wonder who will you become if she dies?”

  “In case you forgot I already lost my family. They died in a car accident.”

  “Ah, Colonel Waters, but this is so much different. You loved them but it was a different love. No one ever gets over losing a child or the love of their life, their soul-mate.”

  “You think she is my soul-mate?” The idea gnaws at me.

  “She is something special to you.”

  “You’re wrong. I’m just doing my job. We ended it on the way home from the tour. We both agreed. It’s over.”

  I had to end it. I remember what I did to her. The bruises on her arm from Tonopah. I am not good for her, the things they trained me to do. I was hoping something could change, that I could have a normal life. But it was too easy for me to be that person again. It was too easy for me to kill that bastard in Galena. It was too easy to remember everything as soon as I saw that Chinook.

  “So you chose the unborn child then?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.” I can’t choose either of them. I can do this one last thing, get the medicine for Andie. “Maybe you should get some rest. We will be to Independence by morning.”

  “Perhaps that is a good idea. Wake me up when you need a break.”

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Hmm, why’s that?”

  “I’ll sleep when I get the medication back to Andie.”

  Crane smiles.

  --

  Seeing the signs for Independence, I slow the train.

  Crane is passing out rations to the Volker. Bottles of water and bread.

  He offers me some. I shake my head. He returns the leftovers to the bin we brought containing the food. He goes to a bag near his seat and takes out a bottle of water and crackers. He takes a separate bottle of water out and holds it out to me. This time I take it from him.

  “How far to the hospital?” I ask him.

  “It’s not far from here, a few miles. But I suggest we wait for Hanford to show up.” He pulls the phone out of his pocket and types something. “Backup might be needed here.”

  I can’t stand in this train car with him any longer and listen to his banter. “Let’s just get this done. Tell them to meet us there.”

  “I strongly recommend backup,” Crane tells me.

  “Are you in charge of this mission, Crane? You put me in charge for a reason. I am tired of wasting time.”

  “If you insist.”

  --

  The hospital pharmacy is intact. The door still locked. I kick it open. The movement stirring the thick layer of dust on the countertops. The shelves are still as stocked as the day the bombs dropped.

  “How is it, Crane,” I ask, “that you bring us to the only pharmacy in the country that hasn’t been ravaged by the Survivors?”

  “Luck, I guess,” he replies.

  I don’t believe it.

  Crane and I walk to the shelves. It’s in alphabetical order. We scan the shelves.

  “Ah!” Crane exclaims reaching forward. “Jackpot!”

  He takes the bag off his shoulder and places the three full bottles of powdered magnesium sulfate into his pack.

  I start to feel that hopefulness that I feel only when a mission is almost complete. We’ve found the medication now we just have to get it to Hanford so they can prepare it. Then back to Phoenix.

  We exit the pharmacy. Medication secured, ready to leave this place. I notice the men ahead of me stop. I look down the hallway and see why.

  Survivors. An ambush. They have weapons. Guns. More than we have. I can easily see that we are outnumbered. They don’t give us a chance to say anything or to move. They raise their guns and fire.

  “Retreat!” I holler to the men closest to me.

  I grab Crane’s jacket and drag him down the hallway with me. As we round the corner the gunfire has stopped. Our backs are against the wall as we retreat down the empty hallway.

  “The roof,” Crane suggests.

  “No, we’ll just be trapped there.”

  “Hanford is almost here. They have a helicopter.”

  I look to the remaining men. We’ve lost twelve already. They’re injured. Panicked. I have to get them out of here.

  Crane pulls the phone out of his pocket. I hear it vibrate in his hand.

  “They’re less than ten minutes out,” he tells me.

  He’s calm, too calm for the situation we are in right now.

  “Where’s the stairwell?” I ask him.

  I look to the remaining men. They’re calm. Too calm.

  “Around the corner.”

  “Let’s go.” I signal the men.

  We rise and run. I push against the stairwell door and wait as the men run through.

  “To the roof.”

  We run up the stairs.

  “You still haven’t told me, Colonel Waters,” Crane starts, he’s barely out of breath, taking two steps at a time. “You haven’t told me what you will do if she dies.”

  “What does it matter to you?”

  “We have plans for her,” he tells me as though he’s telling a secret.

  “Seems you have a plan for everything,” I reply.

  My eyes are on the stairs and my men.

  “In time she will become something more, more important to the Districts.”

  “I don’t need to hear your bullshit stories right now, Crane.” I turn around, seeing the men panting behind us as we run up the stairs. I can hear the Survivors yelling from below us. The metal doors bang against the walls of the stairwell as they follow us. “I had to waste Volker to protect you,” I tell Crane. “We’ve lost twelve already. You shouldn't have come. I could done this myself.”

  “I know. I have every confidence in you.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  We reach the last flight.

  “We needed to talk. And this is the only way I could get out from under the golden thumb of the Entities.”

  “What do you want to talk about?” I shove the rooftop door open.

  The remaining eight men run through.

  “Secure the door,” I instruct them. “Hanford is on their way.”

  “We have plans for you, Colonel Waters,” Crane says from behind me.

  “Who’s we?” I walk to the ledge of the hospital roof and look down. There’s a swar
m of Survivors looking to the rooftop. They have trucks, guns. I turn back to Crane.

  “Me and them.”

  He points to the door. It bulges with the force of the Survivors trying to get through. I can hear the beating of the Hanford helicopter. It’s approaching fast.

  Crane adjusts the pack with the medication over his shoulder.

  “You were on a mission before. A mission for the President. To find out who the Entities are, to find out who’s involved.”

  “You knew about that?”

  “I know about a lot. Much more than you would expect.”

  The helicopter hovers to the side of the building, the door slides open and I see the familiar faces from Hanford. I point for the men to get in the helicopter. Without question they leap over the side of the hospital roof into the open helicopter door. When they are to safety I turn to Crane, expecting him to go. But he just stands next to me.

  “I would like to congratulate you.”

  “For what?”

  “For finding out the truth. Well, you’re about to find out. Just remember, you have Andromeda to thank for this. She was told not to tell anyone about the Funding Entities. You know too much. You can’t go back.”

  In an instant I know what he’s telling me. “Fuck you. I’ll kill you,” I yell to him over the beating of the helicopter blades.

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  He steps onto the rooftop ledge, ready to leap into the open helicopter doors and raises his gun.

  He shoots. Point blank into my chest.

  The Phoenix Project Book III

  Revelation

  chapter one

  He was given back to me. I didn’t have to choose this time. My whole family was returned. We are back to being a complete unit. All it cost was Adam’s life.

  Now, he is down the hall in the small room I used for an office, sleeping in his bed. A single bed. Alone. Not where a married man usually sleeps. Not next to his wife as he should be.

  I stretch my hand out, feeling the cool sheets of the empty half of the bed. I can hear the steady, even breaths of Raven sleeping in the crib that’s pushed against the far wall. They’re interrupted by the grinding squeak of the old spring mattress Ian sleeps on. Pulling my arm back, clutching it close to my body, I know he’s not asleep. I know this for certain because these are the hours when he’s more ghost-like than ever. I pull the sheets tighter around myself and hold my breath.

  It is hard falling in love with a ghost.

  His mattress springs grind again, followed by the soft thudding of his feet on the hardwood floors. I know what comes next: the soft noise of his door opening further, his footsteps in the hallway. He stops outside my open door. Just like every night.

  I could close the door, but I like to be able to hear what’s going on in the house. I want to be ready, the first to hear if there is a problem so I can react. But nothing happens here at the Pasture. Except for Ian waking each night, walking the hall, and stopping at my door.

  If there were a light on, his shadow might stretch into the room where I sleep. But being the middle of the night, it is pitch black here. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face if I tried. I can hear him though. He stops and holds his breath, just like I hold mine. I could speak. I could tell him to come here and talk to me. But I’m not ready for him. Not yet. Not feeling this mixture of emotions bombarding me at every second. Not knowing that Adam died to save us and his son sleeps just feet from me.

  It’s all too fresh.

  Ian gives up, just like he has each night since he came back, his footsteps quiet as he walks down the hallway. What comes next is the same each night: he flicks on the kitchen light and shadows stretch down the hall, the dull light illuminating a portion of my room. He opens the refrigerator door. He closes the refrigerator door. He opens a cupboard. He closes the cupboard. He paces the kitchen, the floor creaking as he does. Then, he stops. And this is where he becomes a true ghost, slipping out of our lives each night almost as soundlessly as he did years ago when the Funding Entities took over. He walks across the kitchen to the hallway and out the front door. He’s been doing this since he arrived.

  Holding my breath, I wait to hear the soft click of the lock as he closes the door. Every night this is how it happens. This is the moment in which he leaves me just like I left him. The only difference is he comes back each morning. He doesn’t abandon me for years. I’m not sure where he goes or what he does. All I know is that I fall asleep and in the morning he walks down the hall and into the kitchen for breakfast as though he spent the night in his single bed, sleeping.

  Whatever he does, wherever he goes, he somehow gets enough sleep to continue on with his duty of running the nuclear reactor. Crane wouldn’t take kindly to his home life negatively impacting his work. After all, the reactor keeps the District safe, providing the fence with enough electricity to roast a chicken in thirty seconds. I’m sure if Crane caught wind of Ian functioning poorly he’d take him away again. He would hide Ian back in whatever hole he had him in before and we’d never see him again. And since I am not allowed to raise fatherless children, I’d have to choose someone else. These are the rules described in the District Manifesto. These are the demands of the Phoenix District Entities.

  Unsure of what keeps Ian awake at night, I do know that I can finally sleep. The nightmares stopped the day Crane told me Adam died. When his soul left the earth he must have taken them with him, all the dark, horrid images. I never had another one. I have never awoken in the still of the night covered in sweat, my heart racing, screaming things I can’t remember. That’s all done with. Now, I close my eyes at night and open them in the morning. There’s nothing in between. No nightmares, no dreams, nothing. Just sleep and rest and peace.

  Actually, I take that back. There is no peace while Burton Crane is still alive. This I know for certain, just as I know it’s only a matter of time before he requests that I finish my tasks in Florida.

  --

  As the morning sun rises outside, I sit in a rocking chair feeding Raven. My eyes wander the room to the simple green bedspread, the whitewash walls, the thin white curtains hanging at each window, eventually stopping at the canvas bag at the foot of the bed. Even with all the sleep I still haven’t found the energy to unpack my suitcase from that trip. The tour, the moments when it became glaringly clear that Crane had bigger plans for me and much less for my daughter. I stare at the suitcase. Perhaps it has nothing to do with energy and more to do with my emotions. It sits at the foot of my bed nothing more than a canvas headstone.

  I look at Raven in my arms. My son. Adam’s son. The son he never met and will never meet. Adam’s dead.

  Setting down Raven would free my arms and I could finally unpack. He probably won’t even wake up and even if he does, he won’t make a sound. He hasn’t cried, he hasn’t cooed. He has never made a sound since the day he was born.

  Finally deciding to do something about the suitcase, I stand and set him in the bassinet. As I wrap his swaddling blanket a little tighter, he stirs but doesn’t open his eyes.

  Moving to the foot of the bed and kneeling down, I tip the suitcase on its side. My hands tremble. Taking a clear breath and steadying my fingers, I unzip the suitcase. There’s an assortment of clothes. Black slacks, dark colored blouses, a light sweater. My clothes. The same clothes I always wear. But there’s something else. Something I wasn’t prepared for. I can smell it before I see it. Lying on the top of my things is a T-shirt, a black T-shirt, Adam’s T-shirt.

  Never has a piece of cloth intimidated me so.

  I fearfully stare at it, knowing what’s going to happen if I touch it or smell it for more than just a slight whiff. I know how my brain will react, how it will remember. The olfactory receptors are part of the limbic system, and if I smell that shirt, that emotional part of my brain, the amygdala, it’s going to remember. It’s going to remember everything great and everything bad and every moment I ever had with him.

&
nbsp; The amygdala is not my friend.

  I’ve had to alter it in the Residents, shrink it down to the point where it can no longer think for itself, to the point where it will trust everyone and do what it’s told. I’ve engineered it to curtail their emotions, but that’s not what’s going to happen to me. I am Sovereign. My amygdala is intact, fully operational, fully capable of absorbing all of those neurotransmitters that are going to flood my brain as soon as I take a deep breath of that shirt that smells just like him.

  The amygdala is definitely not my friend. It is nothing more than a drug dealer and I am about to take my first addictive hit.

  In a desperate move, I reach for the shirt, moving faster than I have in weeks and I press it to my face, breathing in deep. The reaction is instantaneous. The breath pushes from my chest, my heart shudders, my head goes fuzzy. Oh God, they bombard me in one great wave: memories.

  The rational part of my brain knows this isn’t real, but when I open my eyes, it’s almost as if he’s standing in front of me. His image wavers. His hair is dark, his skin tanned, his eyes still the same pale blue. His hands are in his pockets and he seems to rock back on his heels. This is not real, just a wavering memory of him, his ghost. He’s dead. Even though I know this, I still want him to kneel down next to me and wrap his arms around me.

  “Adam?” I whisper. His image seems to flutter and fade. I press the shirt to my face and breathe in deep. When I open my eyes, he’s still there, his image a little brighter, a little stronger. “Adam?” I whisper again, wanting him to respond, wanting him to say something to me even though I know he’s not real. Even though I remember what he told me on that train.

  “This was a mistake. It’s over,” he says to me.

  Yes, it’s over. The memory before me seems to falter and fade and disappear. The hope that once filled my chest at seeing his memory is now replaced with an empty void. One cannot have an affair with a ghost. Yet, it seems I am married to a ghost most days.