The Pandora Chronicles - Book 1 (A Scifi Adventure Thriller)

by Attard, Ryan

  “Hold your horses, Mr. Director,” Nick interrupted. “I’m going to tell you the same thing I told Astrid: no one gets the book until I get some answers.”

  The director’s eyes darkened, but he otherwise showed no behavioral changes. “That book is property of the United States of-”

  “Bullshit.”

  “What you are doing can be considered treason,” Briggs said in a warning tone, like a parent berating a child.

  “You can try coming after me,” Nick replied. “And I can disappear. You know what I’m capable of, and you know that I know it. And even if you do catch me, I doubt you could fully understand the contents of the book. Face it, Stan, you need me.”

  Excalibur watched as Briggs let out a steady breath. Nick was right, of course. They needed him, at least until he provided them with a location.

  “What do you propose, then, Professor?” Briggs asked, his voice calm and deliberate.

  “I’ll only deal with Excalibur,” Nick said. “No offense, but I don’t trust any of you. So, if I’m going to play spy, I might as well do it with the hot blonde.”

  “Where would you like to meet?” she asked.

  “Tomorrow, ten AM. Meet me exactly at this location, the one you’re currently tracing the phone call to. And I meant it when I said I’ll only deal with you. Only you,” Nick insisted.

  A second later the line went dead.

  Briggs turned to look at her. “Could be a trap.”

  Excalibur shook her head. “He’s not the type. And he has no reason to harm anyone. We sent him out to spy on and sabotage a known crime lord, only to reward him with a helicopter assault. No wonder he’s jumpy.”

  Briggs gave her a look. “Going soft, agent?”

  Excalibur’s icy eyes seemed to harden as if made out of crystal. “I understand how his mind works, Director,” she said. “I know what he’s going to do, just as I know that we have to play this by his rules, or risk losing the package.”

  She exited to the office and went next door, where an operator fiddled with a tracking program. “Where am I going?” she asked.

  The operator frowned and zoomed several times on the triangulated location, a small cluster of islands.

  “Call came from this island,” he said, indicating the largest of the islands. “Location: Valletta, Malta.”

  Chapter 28

  Triton’s Fountain was a second grade tourist spot on the tiny island of Malta, located at the entrance of the capital city, Valletta.

  It was not the largest of fountains, nor the nicest-looking, generally filled with less-than-sanitary water, and the only attraction being a greened, bronze statue of Triton holding a pigeon-poop-covered trident. The entire thing was about thirty feet across, and tourists sat around it, some eating, others showing pictures, and most simply waiting for the bus to arrive. The main bus terminus of the island was situated around the fountain’s perimeter, permanently covering the area with car exhaust and the drone of machinery.

  Between the crowds, open stalls and vendors, horse-drawn carriages and incessant noises of civilization, Valletta felt as if it had never advanced from the time it was built by the Knights of St. John, somewhere around the seventeenth century. Parts of it even retained the authentic smell of horse waste and moldy stone.

  Nick sat on the fountain’s edge, eating a local pastry covered in oil and grease stuffed with ricotta, which he found surprisingly delicious. He had been sitting there for the past thirty minutes, patiently preparing for Excalibur’s arrival. He should have felt exhausted, but surprisingly, he found himself strangely refreshed.

  Sticking one to the NSA seemed to agree with him.

  Twenty four hours had passed since he had managed to sneak on the island, taking advantage of the steep cliffs and torrential waters. Once he had dried himself enough to blend in, he made it to the heart of the city, where he pick-pocketed a guy wearing a suit, riding a Mercedes, and yelling on the phone with a nasty attitude. Nick had found five different credit cards in the guy’s wallet, and something told him that the owner wouldn’t miss them for a while. The guy had even written the PIN numbers down on a folded piece of paper which was tucked into the folds of the wallet.

  Feeling slightly guilty, Nick found the first ATM machine and pulled out enough money to stay at a discrete hotel and survive until the next day. Less than two hours later, the stolen wallet was sitting inside a mailbox, and Nick lounged in a café with a much-deserved burger and a pot of coffee.

  Agent Excalibur is a hard woman to miss, with her small, lithe figure, and clad in a blue business suit. She made eye contact with Nick, who was sitting on his own by the fountain and made a bee-line towards him. Nick admired her stride—neither too fast, nor too slow, with just enough power to show confidence but not greed.

  “You actually showed up,” Nick said, once she was within earshot.

  Excalibur ascended the three wide steps leading to the edge of the fountain and took a seat next to him. “There are only so many courses of action we can take when someone threatens the NSA.”

  Nick took one look at her ice-cold stare and burst out laughing. “Geez, come on,” he said. “You make it sound as if I’m a terrorist or something.”

  “That’s pretty much your current label right now,” she replied. “We already have wanted posters of you.”

  He snorted. “I hope it’s not a yearbook picture.”

  “Facebook.”

  “I’m mostly drunk there.”

  “I hope so, otherwise you’re giving Charlie Sheen a run for his money,” she shot back. “Where is the book?”

  “Does that ever work?” he asked. “Do the bad guys really tell you what you need to know if you ask nicely?”

  “Are you suggesting we torture you?”

  Nick winked. “Only if you’re into that stuff.”

  He saw a vein pop in her neck and resisted the urge to laugh. He did, however, grin very widely.

  “Let’s go about this differently,” she suggested. “On behalf of the Unites States, the NSA sends its apologies.”

  “Too little, too late,” Nick said. “Besides, I kinda wanted Briggs to apologize face to face.”

  Excalibur’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “It’s the most you’re going to get, Solomon.”

  “Okay, then. How about you and I do this in yet another different way?” He took off his sunglasses, so as to look her directly in the eye. “All is forgiven if you drop the ice queen act and we go back to being two people who grew up together. No more codenames, no more titles. From now on, I only deal with Maddie.”

  He extended his hand, and after leaving him hanging for a second, she shook it.

  “A Maddie that still works for the NSA,” she said.

  Nick smiled. “Sure. And Excalibur is kinda sexy.”

  “Only to a history nut.”

  “I am a history nut.”

  They let go of each other’s hands, and Maddie went back on point. “The issue still remains,” she said. “The NSA wants that book.”

  “Correction. The NSA wants the energy source,” Nick said. “The book is only a map.”

  Nick kept his poker face steady, hoping she wouldn’t see through it. He wasn’t telling the whole truth. There wasn’t just one source of energy—the book contained possible locations to many more. But Nick decided to keep that little fact under wraps until he was sure the NSA wasn’t abusing that power. There was a reason why the Order had gone to such lengths to keep these artifacts hidden, and Nick wasn’t comfortable with just handing a source of unimaginable power over to a manipulative government.

  “The book can only be understood by Select,” he explained. “The indications aren’t exact compass points. More like a hand pointing at a general direction. It’s a sea of metaphors and double meanings.”

  “So, how do we get the energy source?” she asked.

  “We go to the one person who was there himself,” Nick said. “Captain Jack Finnegan.”

  “Finnega
n?” she echoed. “You mean the pirate who died four hundred years ago?”

  “Yes,” Nick replied with a straight face.

  “Nick, you’re evolved, not a wizard.”

  “Just hear me out.”

  Despite her cynicism, Excalibur remained quiet and listened as Nick explained.

  “I’m not saying we find him,” Nick said. “He’s a pound of dust by now. I’m saying we find the logbook of the Belladonna.”

  “The Belladonna was later named the Golden Hind and given to Sir Francis Drake,” Excalibur said. “No one has ever found it.”

  “We don’t need the ship,” Nick insisted. “Just the logbook. Think about it. Finnegan’s son was the one who funded the militia, the new Order we grew up in. But he could only do so if dear old daddy shared his stories. And if he had been trained by a Select, just like himself. Now, records say that Finnegan died at sea on his way back from Baja California, somewhere in the Caribbean, but if that were true how is it possible he raised a kid?”

  Excalibur cocked her head pensively. “He faked his own death.”

  “He faked his own death,” Nick repeated, with a nod. “He even went as far as to put a coffin in the water. And if I were privy to a secret so big it can change the course of mankind, I wouldn’t destroy all the evidence. I’d keep something as proof, even if it’s just to make sure I’m still sane.”

  “You don’t think-” she began.

  “He put the logbook in the coffin,” Nick finished. “Think about it—it makes perfect sense. He had to put it somewhere where no one, dead or alive, would be able to get their hands on it.”

  Excalibur shook her head. “Amazing. He had us fooled all this time,” she said. “But it’s been hundreds of years. The currents would have carried that coffin from one side of the Caribbean to the other.”

  Nick grinned mischievously. “I may have a solution to that.”

  Chapter 29

  Nick pulled up his sleeve and dunked his arm into the fountain water, all the way up to his elbow.

  “It’s true,” Nick said as he felt around the ledge, “that in most cases finding a container that is that deep underwater, after such a long time, would be close to impossible. But Finnegan was a Select, and I’m starting to think like one. Ah-ha!”

  He found what he was probing for, a bulging package taped to the edge of the fountain, and peeled the duct tape off.

  Excalibur frowned at his actions and peered closely into the water. “What are you—no way.”

  Nick pulled out the red ledger from the water. It was sealed in a waterproof bag, painted sky blue to match the interior of the fountain. He wiped water off the plastic covering before removing the bag, and exposing the red leather of the cover to the Mediterranean sun.

  “Admit it,” he said with a grin, “you wouldn’t have guessed where I put this in a million years. No one looks for a book in water.”

  “Hidden in plain sight,” she mused. “And how is that going to help us find Finnegan’s coffin?”

  “As I was saying before,” Nick said, “I’m starting to think like a Select. For us, it’s not so much the object, but the meaning behind it.”

  He opened the book and flipped through it until he found the page he was looking for. Having the book open and scanning through the symbols, he felt something buzz inside his head—not quite slipping into full Select mode, but rather, he felt his mind resting on a precipice, as if living a lucid dream.

  Nick scanned the page in front of him. It looked newer compared to the rest of the yellowed pages, and most of the writing was still legible. There were even some sentences in Latin alphabet, and others in old english, like something out of a literary novel. A blob of wax at the end of the page caught his eye. These had become more common in the latter entries of the ledger, probably signifying when official decrees were issued, or perhaps for counterfeiting purposes.

  But Nick’s interest in this particular one was not its purpose, but the object hidden within it. He pried off the wax, breaking it. Before Excalibur could comment on what he was doing, Nick held up a tiny shard of wood.

  “As I said, Select don’t think in terms of objects, but connections,” he explained. “This little thing right here is the key. Probably came from the Belladonna’s furniture or something. This is the only piece of that ship that’s not at the bottom of the ocean.”

  Excalibur peered closer at the tiny piece of wood. “And you’re telling me that you can pinpoint the coffin using this?”

  “Something tells me Finnegan didn’t burn everything,” Nick explained. “I mean, think about it. You’ve lived your whole life on a boat—you’re not gonna just set it on fire. You’ll take mementoes, little trinkets. And if I’m right, this little bit right here can lead us to the real jackpot.”

  She stared at him. “Is this how all Select think?”

  “Well, given that I’m the only one I know, then, yes, this is how we think,” Nick replied.

  “So, where are we going?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Haven’t figured it out.”

  “But I thought you said-”

  “I said it can lead us there, not that I actually found out where the coffin is,” Nick said, cutting her off. “I need some time to tap into the connection. I was too tired until now, but I feel the buzzing coming back.”

  There was a glint in her eyes, questioning him. “Are you sure you weren’t just waiting for me?” she asked.

  Nick smiled in response. “Maybe. I don’t know if you noticed this, but we both have some trust issues to work through. Here, hold this,” he said, passing her the ledger.

  Nick took a deep breath and closed his eyes. His hands squeezed the shard until it dug into the flesh of his palms. He relinquished all mental control, letting his instincts take over. The experience felt amazing—evolution, he thought. There were so many possibilities with the powers he had, and he was only just scratching the surface. How long before he went beyond data analysis and into more less-scientifically-proven areas?

  How long before fact and fiction became one?

  Pushing his thoughts aside, Nick forced himself to focus on the task at hand, on the shard of wood—the singular link to a sunken ship where his entire legacy had begun. Knowledge began trickling into his mind, slowly at first, before becoming more powerful, like the rush of a stream. Nick knew instantly what type of wood the shard was, tools used to make it, the furniture where it once belonged to—but it was all irrelevant. He needed to go deeper.

  Suddenly, he felt as if he was part of the ship, rugged and rough from years of seafaring. The well-trained crew was never scattered, each one of them with a specific role. The atmosphere on this boat was one of family, and it all began from a single source: Finnegan. Nick felt himself connect with the captain and suddenly he was thinking like Finnegan, breathing like him, existing like him. Memories flooded his brain as he relived Finnegan’s entire life in a long flashback: the defiance of his orders, the journey, the pirate attack, discovering that Elizabeth Tier was a Select, the tribe on the island, and the subsequent duel.

  The memories showed him the interior of the cave on that island, and the strange machines within. Nick felt the pirate’s terror and rage at the loss of his men. He felt the sadness of burning the ship, his home for years, followed by the joy of becoming a father.

  The location of the coffin was an easy find. Nick felt himself looking through Finnegan’s eyes when he buried the logbook of the Belladonna inside an empty coffin.

  But there was something else to this bond. Even with all his abilities, it impossible for one Select could tap into the memories of another and certainly not someone who was long dead.

  No, this bond went much deeper, almost as if Nick was threading down his own family tree, and finding a common ancestor. A mixture of emotions threatened to disrupt Nick’s concentration.

  Hello, great, great, something, grandpa, he thought.

  He felt the connection recede, having acquired the pr
ecise location of where Finnegan buried the coffin and calculated to the nearest factor where the coffin might have ended up today. Nick let go of the connect between them. There was no reason to remain stuck in the past, not when he had a future to attend to.

  “Are you all right?”

  Her voice was so real, so physical. Excalibur had her hand resting gently on his shoulder, watching as Nick clutched the tiny, wooden shard.

  He blinked twice, his mind back to the present, and felt something warm and wet on his cheek. He realized he had been crying, and tears fell from his tilted head onto the back of Excalibur’s hand.

  “Yes,” he murmured, before clearing his throat and wiping his eyes.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said in a more steady tone.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “I got it,” he replied, taking the ledger from her and putting the shard back in its place. Having no wax to hold it in place, he used a piece of tape to attach it to the page until he could better secure it. “The location of the coffin, the island, the artifact, everything. I know everything. I know what Finnegan found there.”

  “Is it bad?”

  “It’s not exactly a picnic,” Nick said. “But I think it’s safe for us to enter. Provided we can actually get the proper coordinates to the location of the artifact. I tried finding out the precise route the Belladonna took but Finnegan wiped it from his own head.”

  Excalibur’s face remained impassive, but Nick could feel the irritation and frustration building up inside her. “So, why go through all that trouble?”

  “I got the location of the coffin,” he replied with a grin. “And the map to the artifact is in there for sure.”

  “Oh.”

  He extended a hand. “Your phone, please. Mine got destroyed.”

  She obliged and handed him her smartphone. Nick closed his eyes and numbers flashed in his mind. He felt the phone in his hands—the moment it had touched his skin, he had acquired all the information about the make, model, software, applications, and encryption. With his eyes closed, he accessed the GPS application and entered the coordinates.