Project Hyperion

by Jeremy Robinson

  We lift off and ascend vertically, moving slow and steady. Woodstock keeps the front end facing the two circling MiGs, keeping them in view as we rise up toward the altitude they’re maintaining.

  “Well, they definitely knew something was up,” he says. “That’s for damn sure.”

  “But how?” I ask, lifting Maigo into a seat and strapping her in. She’s just starting to regain consciousness. She still looks a little out of it.

  “Maybe waking that thing up sent some kind of detectable signal?” Collins asks, sitting across from Maigo and strapping in.

  “You woke something up?” Woodstock asks. “Something small and furry this time, I hope.”

  I sit down beside Maigo. “No idea, but we—”

  “Shit.” Woodstock brings the circling Future Betty to a stop. As the two MiGs continue their loop around the island, four specks appear on the horizon. “Four more birds, incoming from the west.”

  I move to the cockpit, sit beside Woodstock and look through the front windshield, which isn’t glass at all. Like the rest of the vehicle, it’s simply projecting the outside view on the inside hull. The four craft are nearly on top of us already. “How did we miss them?”

  “No radar signal,” he says, pointing at the display that shows the two circling jets, but not the incoming visitors. “But they’re coming from the west, and our two friends outside aren’t freaking out. I think it’s safe to say they’re Ruskies, too, and that we should get gone.”

  Maigo gasps. When I look back, she’s sitting up straight, eyes wide. Her head snaps toward the cockpit. “Look out!”

  A cloud of black dots drop from the bellies of the four approaching aircraft and then cruise toward us at hypersonic speed.

  “Strap in!” Woodstock yells at me.

  The buckle clicks just as Woodstock launches us vertically, crushing me into the seat. Even if I hadn’t been buckled in, I wouldn’t have been able to leave the seat. We stop hard and the belt pulls on my gut. Then we’re spinning and turning downward, watching the missiles pepper the island where we had just been. Fireballs erupt across the rocky surface. I see the now tiny figure of Ivan sit up. He raises his hands before being consumed in flame.

  “They knew we were here,” I say. “They were hoping to catch us on the island.”

  “Like I said, it’s time to get gone.” But instead of taking us up and away, Woodstock quickly descends. I realize why a moment later when four fighter jets rush past, the roar of their engines blocked by Future Betty’s sound dampeners. The bi-wing design and stealth approach help me identify the craft as Russian Mikoyan LMFS. They’re fifth generation multirole aircraft capable of attacking land and air targets with an array of weapons concealed in their oversized weapons bays. Until this moment, myself and everyone else in the U.S. government, at least officially, believed they were still in development.

  “Up, up and away,” Woodstock says, and I’m crushed into my seat again as we rocket straight up to forty thousand feet, far above the fighters, and cross into U.S. airspace just seconds later.

  7

  We’re back over the East Coast fast enough that Russia could never claim I was anywhere near Big Diomede without looking like buffoons. Of course, for that to really be true, I have to be seen, my presence here a matter of public knowledge. So as we descend over Beverly, Massachusetts, I ask Woodstock to let Collins and me off at Lynch Park.

  Maigo hasn’t said much about her encounter with the mysterious thing beneath the island, and I don’t think she’s going to. Not until it starts making sense to her. But we’ve confirmed that something is buried there. Something big. Something that requires a pilot. What it called a Vixnoctus. A voice. The same way Maigo had been for Nemesis, and Endo was now. That alone tells me that I want whatever is buried there to stay that way. I’m sure a lot of paleontologists and archeologists might disagree, but some secrets are better left buried.

  “You sure you don’t want me to stay with you?” I ask Maigo, while standing by the still-closed hatch with Collins. “We don’t have to do this.”

  “I’m fine,” she says, sounding drowsy. “I’m going to sleep.”

  “With Lilly at the house?” Collins says, sounding skeptical. Lilly is a bundle of mischievous energy. She’s more level-headed than she used to be, especially when on mission, but locked up in the Crow’s Nest, she can be trouble. We’ve negated this somewhat by purchasing every game system imaginable, but she beats and grows bored with games nearly as fast as we can buy them.

  “We’ve got Titanfall,” Maigo says. “Will take her at least a few hours to beat. That’s all I need.”

  For Maigo, four hours is a good night’s sleep. She doesn’t seem to need much more, and this is really the first time I’ve actually seen her sleepy.

  “Okay,” I say. “But if she keeps you awake—”

  “I’ll tell Hawkins,” she says.

  “Tell Joliet,” Collins says. “She’s small, but I’ve seen her crack the whip.”

  “Nice,” I say and chuckle. “Try not to use that phrase with Lilly.”

  Collins looks befuddled.

  “Crack the whip,” Maigo says. “It’s an allusion to lion taming.”

  “Geez,” Collins says. “Shit. Please don’t repeat it.”

  “Just go,” Maigo says, smiling and shooing us toward the ramp, which has started to descend. “Have fun being spotted in public.”

  I turn toward the exit and stop. The view ahead is leafy green. “Uhh, Woodstock...”

  “You said you didn’t want to be spotted,” the old pilot gripes. “Too many people in the park to set down in the grass, so this is the only way. You can either make like monkeys and climb down, or we can let the world know we have an invisible stealth plane.”

  I look back out. We’re just fifteen feet from the ground, backed up to a tree on the backside of the park, overlooking the rocky coast of Beverly Harbor. Then we’re inside the tree, pushing slowly into the branches.

  “Better?” Woodstock asks.

  I lift a branch and see a clear path down through a maze of sturdy limbs. I motion toward the hole I’ve just made and turn to Collins with a grin. “After you, madam.”

  Collins shakes her head, but offers no complaint. She slides down onto a branch and climbs toward the ground.

  Maigo takes the branch from me so I can follow Collins, but I pause for a moment. “If you think of anything—”

  “I’ll call you,” she says.

  I hold out a pinkie. “Pinkie swear?’

  She raises a single eyebrow.

  “They grow up so fast,” I say, and I climb down onto the branch. I cling in place, watching the hatch close. Maigo maintains eye contact with me, until the hatch is closed. Then they could be gone, or they could be laughing at me while I climb down. It’s impossible to tell with the X-35.

  I drop down from the tree next to Collins and scan the area. I can hear people in the distance, but there’s no one around. The park was destroyed three years ago. Its two beaches, open grassy area, half-shell theater and ice cream stand were reduced to char. Only the brick walls of the old rose garden survived the moment Nemesis’s orange membrane was punctured by an overzealous Air Force pilot. The resulting explosion destroyed a good portion of the harbor in both Beverly and Salem, crushing homes, businesses and parks alike. While many homes are still being rebuilt, the park looks like new. It became a symbol of the city’s resilience. The grass grew green. The melted playground was replaced by a megalith of primary colors. And the rose garden blooms with an array of roses from around the world, including an orange variety at the center, symbolizing the containment of the blast that claimed thousands of lives. That blast nearly destroyed the Crow’s Nest, which is just a mile away atop Powder Hill.

  We head down the sloping grass toward the red brick walls of the rose garden. It’s become one of our favorite places to get away. To think. And other things. The smell of roses reaches us before we even enter. I pause at the main entran
ce. Two lion statues face inward, just beyond the entrance, looking at a columned atrium on the far side of the sunken garden. There used to be a fountain inside it, but it hasn’t worked in decades. I read the saying carved into the walls on either side of the entrance. “Whosoever enters here let him beware. For he shall nevermore escape nor be free of my spell.”

  Collins steps past the entryway and into the garden. “I, for one, wouldn’t mind staying here for a lifetime.”

  We meander along the paths for a moment, the warm sun on our faces, surrounded by the buzzing of bees and the scent of roses. Then voices. Loud ones. We walk to the open side of the park, facing the Atlantic Ocean. Just beyond the marble statue of The Falconer, standing guard between it and the garden is the seawall, which drops down to the park’s beach that wasn’t melted into a sheet of glass three years ago. But standing between the statue and the ocean is a group of people arranged in a circle, throwing a ball back and forth, chatting loudly. The few people outside the circle snap photos with their phones, no doubt updating Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr or whatever it is hip people use these days. I still have a MySpace account.

  These are the people I need to see me, I think, and I head toward them.

  They don’t spot me right away, but one of them misses the ball and it rolls to a stop at my feet. I bend and pick it up, only it’s not a ball. It’s an orange. The hell? What kind of people stand in a circle and play catch with an orange? “Are you guys like a rehab support group or something?”

  One of them shouts something, and I swear it’s ‘Argh,’ like a pirate. Okay...maybe not the best group of people to approach.

  “Toss the orange!” a girl with a pink streak in her hair shouts. While there’s a wide range of ages represented here, she’s by far the youngest.

  “Throw it, ya wanker.” And an Aussie? I try to come up with something funny to say, but then I spot another woman holding up two fingers in some kind of reverse peace sign. These people are a little nuts.

  “You all come on the short bus?” I ask. Probably not best to instigate them, but I really can’t help myself. To my surprise, they all start laughing. Then one of them, who I swear is something close to my twin, steps from the circle. “You’re Jon Hudson.”

  Perfect. That’s all I really wanted. Recognition and an alibi. The man, who I dare say is quite handsome, shakes my hand. A real fan boy. The others start snapping pictures, and I think someone else shouts, ‘Argh’ again. The hell are these people smoking?

  “Thanks,” the man says, “for everything you’ve done.” And that’s when I notice a lot of them are wearing Nemesis T-shirts.

  Wait... I know who this is... “You’re the guy who fictionalized Nemesis. Wrote the novels.”

  “And the comic book,” he says, and then he turns to the group of people, who I now realize are just fans being goofy, visiting one of the locations featured in those books. “These guys are—”

  “Holy shit!” the young girl shouts, pointing up at the sky.

  A flickering beam of bright white light cuts through the atmosphere high above, filling the air with a sharp crackling. It’s bright enough to make me squint, but I keep watching. Then, moving within the light, something huge strobes into the view, shooting straight down at the open ocean. The massive beam of light arcs over the horizon, carrying the object toward the water and out of view. While the group of people start backing away, Collins and I head for the ocean wall.

  A sonic boom slams into the park, sparking screams and the sound of fleeing people. But Collins and I watch it pass the horizon, waiting for it to hit. While we wait, I make a quick call. “Coop. I need Woodstock in Future Betty. Lynch Park. Now.”

  “Got it,” she says without question.

  The crackling beam of light disappears, its radiance replaced by a blooming glow on the horizon. Touchdown.

  “Wait...” I say, “Get everyone on board.”

  “Everyone?” Cooper asks.

  A warm breeze tickles my cheeks.

  “Just a precaution. Now! Hurry!”

  I pocket the phone just before a shockwave reaches us with a cacophonous boom. Collins and I are lifted off our feet and sent sprawling to the ground while a hot wind scours our skin. Then it’s past us, lashing through the still recovering city.

  I’m on my feet first, hobbling back to the sea wall and looking down. “Shitty, shit, shit.”

  Collins arrives next to me and looks down at the receding ocean. “Shit.”

  “I covered that already,” I say.

  My phone rings and I answer it. “Hudson.”

  “Woodstock is on his way in Betty,” Cooper says, a trace of panic in her voice. The shock wave would have just hit the Crow’s Nest, too.

  “Wait, what do you mean, Woodstock?” I ask. “I said you all—”

  “Helicopter Betty,” she says, and I can hear her continued disdain for the name. Before I can protest, she adds, “Future Betty is gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Along with Lilly and Maigo.”

  I feel about ready to explode in anger, but that’s not going to save Collins and me. “Tell him to meet us in the quad!”

  Collins and I sprint through the rose garden and into the large grassy field on the other side. Cars are screaming out of the parking lot, which is at the top of a tall hill, a good fifty feet higher above sea level, which is a lot better than being here. When I spot a large white van and the group of odd Nemesis fans climbing into it, I tug on Collins’s arm and run for it. “Hold up!”

  The author spots us and leaves the side door open. “Room for two more!” someone inside the van shouts, and I swear I think these loons are enjoying this. Collins and I dive in while the driver slams down the gas pedal and we lurch into a very slow acceleration, crawling up the hill.

  “Look!” someone shouts, and I turn back. A wall of water envelops the park, slides across the parking lot and starts rising up the slope behind us.

  As we crest the hilltop, a man in the back pumps his fist and shouts, “Woohoo!”

  What he doesn’t know is that while Lynch Park is at the bottom of a hill, several beaches in the area, some in front of us, some behind us, will do nothing to slow down the tsunami. And based on the speed of the water rushing over the park, we’ve got just seconds before it finds us. Happily, the driver seems to understand this as well.

  “We need to get to higher ground!” the man shouts.

  I lean between the front seats and point. “Straight ahead. Turn right when I tell you!”

  “Argh!” someone says.

  Good Lord in Heaven, don’t let us die with these crazy people. I open my eyes in time to see the open, wrought-iron gate of Central Cemetery. “Turn right, now!”

  8

  As we roar past the gravestones marking the dead, some of them still scorched from Nemesis’s passing three years ago, I wonder how many more will be dead by the end of the day. The area is still far less populated than it was pre-Nemesis, but that wave isn’t just striking Beverly. It’s going to smash into every seaside city in the Gulf of Maine. Millions of people are at risk. But my focus at the moment is saving the fifteen people crammed into this van.

  “Left!” I shout, a moment before being mashed hard to the right, face pressed against glass. I see rushing water churning through the gravestones beside us, a swell rising up the sloped lawn.

  The side of the van clips a gravestone and bounces hard, righting itself on the small, crumbling paved road. My head strikes the ceiling. Someone behind me cries out, but I can’t tell if they’re excited, afraid or in pain. The van shakes over the poorly maintained road.

  “Seriously,” a woman with an English accent shouts from the back. “Do you have to hit every pothole? I’m going to be sick!”

  You’re going to be dead if the driver worries about potholes, I think, but I keep it to myself.

  “Which way now?” the driver shouts, as we approach a four way intersection.

  “Straight through,�
� the author, whose name I can’t recall, yells back before I can answer. He glances back at me. “I grew up here.”

  I nod, seeing the pain in his eyes. He’s seen his home town destroyed more than once now.

  “We’ll fix this,” I tell him, but it feels hollow. I don’t even know what this is. The best I can do is put my recently acquired wealth to work. It’s not really a matter of public record, but Zoomb, the Internet giant I...inherited...paid for a lot of the rebuilding projects stretching from Portland, Maine to Boston. That includes the newly renovated, now deluged, Lynch Park. Nemesis wasn’t my fault, but I also didn’t figure out how to stop her rampage until the New England coast was in shambles. If today is related, I’m going to have to spend a lot more money to squelch my guilty conscience.

  The gate on the far side of the cemetery is closed, the wrought iron bars padlocked with a chain. The author turns back to me again, eyes widened at the wall of water filling the view through the back windows. “Crow’s Nest?”

  How the hell does he know...? Doesn’t matter. “Yes!”

  “Go through!” the author shouts.

  The driver guns the engine and ducks. “Everyone down!”

  The van shudders from an impact, filling with the sound of crunching metal and shattering safety glass. I feel squares of the stuff pepper my face. The van jolts again, and the engine growls as we head uphill, out of the cemetery. The wall of water behind us careens into the fence, shoving trees, home debris and a few bodies against the metal bars before rising above it and plowing into the residential neighborhood we’re tearing through.

  The chop of a helicopter turns me forward. I’m surprised to see the van’s windshield mostly missing, along with a portion of the roof. One of the metal gates is wedged in the van’s front end, where the windshield had been, just inches above the heads of the driver and author. Brave men.