Isle of Man
Page 24
“I have no idea.”
But the second I say it, I do have an idea. A terrible idea. An idea that makes me leap to my feet and race for the hatch. I rush down the ladder, run along the passageway, and throw open the torpedo room door—
It’s gone. The antimatter is gone.
Before I know what I’m even doing, I’ve got ahold of the professor’s hair with both hands and I’m slamming his head against the submarine controls as Jimmy tries to pull me away.
“What have you done!” I shout, slamming his head again. “What have you done, you sick bastard! Tell me!”
Jimmy successfully tears me away from the professor and pushes me against the wall and holds me there.
“Hey, now,” he says. “Settle down. What’s goin’ on here?”
“The antimatter’s gone.”
“The what?”
“Ask him,” I say, pointing.
Jimmy turns to the professor.
“What’s he talkin’ ‘bout?”
“I should never have let you go up,” the professor says, almost mumbling to himself. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
“Tell him what you did, you bastard. Tell him!”
I scream it so loud the professor startles and looks up at us again. He’s never seemed more pathetic than now, with his hair a mess and a bruise already purpling on his forehead.
Jimmy releases me and turns to the professor, his curiosity overcoming his desire to restrain me.
“What’d ya do?”
“It doesn’t even matter now,” the professor says, turning to face the controls again. “Let’s just get back.”
“I’ll tell you what he did,” I say. “He left that antimatter back there in the water. Just offshore. At the Isle of Man. Then he set it to detonate when we were safe away.”
“Detonate?” Jimmy asks. “Like a bomb?”
“Like much more than a bomb. The energy released by that much antimatter? I can’t—I mean—poof! I’m guessing the island isn’t even there any longer. Is it, Professor?”
Jimmy looks confused.
“Not even there?”
“Tell him, Professor.”
“We thought it was an intelligent thing to do,” he answers, finally. “The containment device was failing. It couldn’t be kept any longer at the Foundation. So why not use it?”
He flinches as I step toward him.
“You said we.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just a second ago,” I say. “You said: ‘We thought it was an intelligent thing to do.’”
“Yes,” he says. “We did.”
“Who’s we?”
“Myself and Hannah, of course.”
“You mean you and Hannah planned this?”
He laughs nervously, shifting in his chair.
“I’m just an old man. I don’t make those kinds of decisions.”
“But there was people there,” Jimmy says. “Lots of ’em.”
“I know,” the professor replies. “That’s why the island had to be destroyed. Don’t you see?”
“You bastard!”
I grab him by the neck and lift him off his chair and squeeze with everything I have. I’m going to kill him, and it’s surprisingly easy. His face turns red, then blue. His eyes bulge, panic in his stare, his quivering lips turning pale.
Jimmy lays a hand on my shoulder.
“That’s enough now,” he says. “We ain’t like him.”
I drop the professor, and he falls to the floor, clutching his neck and gasping for air.
When he’s recovered enough to speak, he looks up at me with tears in his eyes and says: “You didn’t really think we would abandon the cause just because a couple of teenagers decided that they like humans after all, did you?”
I shake my head, disgusted.
“You knew before we even left what we’d find on that island, didn’t you?”
The professor smirks, showing a side of himself I haven’t seen before. Something evil.
“Of course I did. Every one of us knew what a philandering fool Radcliffe was. And his guilty conscience put the entire mission at risk. Protect the island. Ha! Love made Robert soft. He never should have let those people live. And to breed like they did? You saw yourself how they’d multiplied already. Imagine what they’d do if they made it to the mainland. Ever seen a goldfish get a bigger bowl? Well, of course you haven’t, but you get the idea. We had no choice. They were far too numerous already to take out with drones.” When he finishes his speech, he stares up at us from the floor.
“So why even bring Jimmy and me along if you planned to blow the island up anyway?” I demand.
“To get the encryption key,” he says. “And you did it. Just like we knew you would.”
“How do you even know the key’s in there?”
“David’s hand is in there, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. So?”
“The key is sequenced from his DNA. Silly old Radcliffe was even sentimental in his safeguards.”
“You knew it was him, and you didn’t tell us?”
The professor shrugs a shoulder. “We didn’t know he’d be calling himself Finn. Or that the David was there to confuse things. But Hannah said you’d get it. And she was right.”
“And Hannah knew all this then?” I ask.
“I think I’ve said enough.”
“If she knew, she’s just as evil as you are.”
“I’m proud of Hannah,” he says.
“For what?” I ask. “Sending us in blind to nearly get killed? For murdering her own brother?”
“That’s one way to put it,” he says. “But I’d say for having the courage to rise above sentimentality and do what’s right.”
“Right for who?”
“For the planet, of course.”
“You make me sick.”
“Believe me,” he says, half sitting up, “I make me sick too. I am human after all, you know?”
The entire time we’re talking, Jimmy stands looking down at the professor with his head cocked to the side and a strange look in his eyes. As if he’s still trying to process something said a long time ago. I can almost see the questions running through his mind. When he finally speaks, he asks the professor:
“What about Bree? What about Junior?”
“They’re gone,” the professor says.
“Whataya mean they’re gone?”
I reach for Jimmy’s shoulder to console him, but he pulls away and steps closer to the professor, glaring down at him.
“I asked you somethin’,” he says.
“And I answered,” the professor replies. “They’re gone. Got it? Incinerated. Vaporized. Dead. As if they’d never been. But don’t worry yourself, kid—they didn’t feel a thing.”
Jimmy steps up and kicks the professor’s teeth in with the heel of his bare foot. The professor’s eyes go cross with pain, and he falls back and lies on his side, moaning with his mangled mouth open and blood gushing out. Jimmy raises his foot to stomp him again, but I grab his arms and hold him back.
“You were right, Jimmy,” I say, my voice feeble now that the initial anger is subsiding. “We’re nothing like them. Besides, we need his help to get us back. We’ll deal with him later.”
“What about Hannah?” Jimmy asks.
“Her too.”
CHAPTER 24
Over My Head
The sun rises, just like any other day.
The cloud of debris in the eastern sky paints the sunrise in beautiful shades of purple and orange. It looks as though we’ve sailed straight out from heaven. It feels as though we’ve sailed straight into hell. I try to imagine what it looks like now, back there, with the island gone. You could probably sail right over it and never even know there’d been an island there. It turns me ill to think of all those people dead. Just like that. It makes me so sick that my mind won’t even let me quite believe it yet.
We couldn’t get another word out of the professor last night after his confe
ssion, and I have no idea how much of this was Hannah’s idea and how much of it was his. But I plan to make damn sure they both answer for it when we return.
I can’t imagine feeling more betrayed. I guess I never knew Hannah at all. Not the real Hannah anyway. The manipulation, the lies, the outright evil of sending Jimmy and me onto that island to possibly lose our lives. And all for what? They never really planned on stopping the drones—they just want control of them again. And they don’t want to free my people from Holocene II—they used this trip to deliver a bomb that wiped out the few people who were living peacefully on the surface.
It’s clear to see what happened now, looking back. I think about all those hours Hannah spent alone with the professor—in the command center and in the scientists’ apartments. The whole time she must have been planning this with him right behind our backs. Then the last minute show she acted out on the dock the day we left. The fake emotions.
“Someone needs to be here for the people,” she said. And the professor rushing us off like he did. What lies! Nothing has prepared me to accept what I now know Hannah is: a lying murderer who used me.
I feel hatred.
I feel rage.
I feel sad.
But mostly, I just feel over my head.
A dark speck catches my eye, black against the sun on the eastern horizon. I squint to get a better view through the glare. I could almost swear I see the silhouette of a warship plying the waters on its silent hunt for humans to slaughter.
When I return inside to the submarine control room, I find Jimmy right where I left him—guarding the professor with his knife. His eyes are focused like a laser beam on the back of the professor’s head, and I see so much rage twitching beneath his determined features that I’m nervous to even rouse him from his vigil. I set aside my fear and lay a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder.
“Why don’t you go rest,” I suggest. “I’ll watch him.”
I expect Jimmy to protest, but he rises and hands me the knife and heads off toward the bunkroom without a word.
A long time passes as I stand watch over the professor. He consults his charts and works the controls, easy and calm, as if nothing had transpired between us at all. I look at his head of wild, white hair and wonder what disease infects a brain that could do what he and Hannah have done. What genetic trait or youthful trauma turns a man or woman’s self-righteous desire to do good into the megalomania of a mass murderer?
Maybe humans are the problem. Some humans, anyway. At least a person can see a shark’s teeth. They don’t hide their intentions. And they don’t kill because they can kill, they kill because they need to survive. And what’s a drone except an extension of the human brain? A mechanical hand of sorts. I’m reminded of something Finn said to us about the hand being indifferent as it does the bidding of the mind. I was once afraid of drones. A few days ago, I was afraid of sharks. But the only thing that I’m afraid of now is the 1,400 grams of gray matter firing inside two human skulls. The professor’s. And Hannah’s.
I have no idea what we’ll discover when we finally get back to the Foundation, but it worries me more than a little that the professor seems happy to take us there. Their scheme to send Jimmy and me blind onto the Isle of Man was so well thought out that I can’t imagine they planned nothing for our return.
As if reading my thoughts, the professor turns and flashes me a bloody, toothless grin. He doesn’t say anything, but when he turns away again, I tighten my grip on Jimmy’s knife.
THE END of BOOK TWO
State of Nature
Book Three of The Park Service Trilogy
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About the Author
Ryan Winfield is a novelist, poet, and screenwriter writer living in Seattle. His debut novel South of Bixby Bridge quickly became a viral success story, selling over 100,000 copies in the first year. Isle of Man is the second book in The Park Service Trilogy and his third novel. If you would like to get in touch with Ryan, he would love to hear from you at www.RyanWinfield.com.
Copyright
Isle of Man
Book Two of The Park Service Trilogy
By Ryan Winfield
Copyright © 2013 Ryan Winfield
All rights reserved.
Please visit www.RyanWinfield.com
Kindle Edition
Cover art by Adam Mager
Cover art and design © 2013 Ryan Winfield
Cover image: laverrue / Flickr / Getty Images
The Licensed Material is being used for illustrative purposes only; and any person depicted in the Licensed Material, if any, is a model.
Author photo: Sarah T. Skinner www.sarahtskinner.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used here fictitiously. Any resemblance to any real persons or events is entirely coincidental.
Summary: After learning the horrific truth behind the Park Service and overthrowing its leader, fifteen-year-old Aubrey Van Houten sets out with his best friend Jimmy and his girlfriend Hannah on a quest to take control of the drones and free his people from Holocene II.
BIRCH PAPER PRESS
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Seattle, Washington 98194
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Part One
CHAPTER 1
Picking up the Pieces
CHAPTER 2
A Flood of Surprises
CHAPTER 3
Sorry, Jimmy, I’m with Hannah
CHAPTER 4
Returning to Holocene II
CHAPTER 5
Where Man Rises from the Sea
CHAPTER 6
It’s Okay to be Afraid
Part Two
CHAPTER 7
Whales, Sharks, and Great Apes
CHAPTER 8
Discovering ‘Merica
CHAPTER 9
Meteors and Antimatter
CHAPTER 10
The Isle of Man
CHAPTER 11
Waiting on Death
CHAPTER 12
The Funeral
CHAPTER 13
The Hunt
CHAPTER 14
The Feast
CHAPTER 15
The Guests Arrive
CHAPTER 16
The Games Begin
CHAPTER 17
Bad News, Worse News
CHAPTER 18
Outside Looking In
CHAPTER 19
The Champion and the Truth
Part Three
CHAPTER 20
My Sacrifice
CHAPTER 21
A Message from the Gods
CHAPTER 22
No Turning Back
CHAPTER 23
What Have You Done?
CHAPTER 24
Over My Head
State of Nature
Book Three of The Park Service Trilogy
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About the Author
Copyright