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

by Attard, Ryan

  “Calculating: Eleven seconds.”

  Astrid went in for a lunge, propelling his body weight forwards. Nick side-stepped, drove his fist into the man’s ribs, and intercepted a horizontal strike. He twisted, throwing Astrid off balance, and in one swift motion, disarmed him and smashed the pommel of Finnegan’s cutlass into the Spaniard’s jaw. Astrid swaggered, threw a sluggish punch, and was flipped over Nick’s shoulder. The momentum carried him towards Excalibur’s direction, face down and unconscious.

  She looked at Nick with a quizzical frown.

  “Page forty-seven,” he replied with a cocky smirk.

  “Calculating: Ten seconds.”

  Director Briggs instructed his men to arrest Astrid and turned to Nick. “Solomon, can you shut it down?”

  Nick was already at the console. “It may be too late.”

  “Then, we get out of here.”

  “It’s no use,” Nick replied. “If this thing blows up it’ll be like ten nukes going off at once.” He placed both hands on the console and concentrated. He had to rectify his mistake and somehow shut down the machine without blowing up the entire island.

  “There must be a way,” Excalibur insisted, as she made her way next to him. “Nick?”

  He stood there leaning over the console with his eyes closed, unresponsive to her words.

  “Nick? Nick!”

  But Nick Solomon’s mind was now solely focused on only one task, and his body shut down all of his other senses. His entire consciousness was now diving into the machine, hoping to avoid a nuclear catastrophe.

  Excalibur stopped Briggs when he went to shake him awake.

  “Trust him,” she said, trying to convince herself as much as her superior. A nervous breath escaped her lips. “Just trust him.”

  Chapter 37

  Select DNA recognized. Authorization granted.

  Neural Synchronization in three, two, one—Neural Synchronization complete.

  Welcome: Solomon, Nicholas—generation four Select.

  Nick felt the connection take place. It was the strangest feeling in the world, as if he had been living in a shell his entire life, and only now he was finally whole. He felt the machine as an extension of himself, like an appendage he never noticed or used before.

  When it moved and executed actions, Nick felt them as natural as breathing.

  Status Update: Self-Destruct Protocol in place.

  Abort, he ordered.

  Cause?

  Destruction of humans, he replied.

  Cause invalid.

  The void inside his mind was suddenly flooded with images as the machine stimulated his visual cortex and transmitted information directly into his brain. Nick struggled to make sense of what he was seeing, before he stopped trying to apply reason, and just accepted what he saw at face value, without any interpretation.

  Nick saw Them landing—terrifying monsters whose gaze drove people insane—and implanting their DNA strand onto creatures that would eventually evolve into humans. He saw the progress of evolution, the countless species that died until we came to be.

  But he saw all this from the point of view of the machine and was, thus, unbiased and emotionless. Like a casual observer, unable to take sides, he saw the bloodshed by mankind as they fought over the orb. He saw the havoc that Select members created throughout the ages—generals at war, politicians, priests, writers, concubines, lawyers, and businessmen.

  And he was no different, a messiah of destruction.

  Mankind’s destruction.

  That was the sole reason why the orb existed. It was only a pawn in an epic game of chess going on since the dawn of the planet Earth, with checkmate being total and utter armageddon. Nick now understood why the orb had initiated the Self-Destruct Protocol, rather than simply shut down, when he tampered with it earlier. The machine realized he was a Select, not one if its alien masters, and followed its original programming: destruction.

  Nick struggled to divorce himself from the machine’s influence. He could feel it pulling at his Select nature, and slowly encroach on all that made him human—his compassion, his drive, his lust for life. He racked his brain to try and find a way to trick the machine into stopping the countdown, but all he could think about were those images of violence and death.

  That’s it, he thought.

  He focused on the connection between himself and the orb. Abortion criteria: prolonged existence of the artifact will ensure usage by humans.

  Nick felt the machine working to make sense of his answer. Causality?

  Meeting of original parameters, Nick replied.

  Tapping into his own memories, Nick conjured up images of skyscrapers and illuminated cities. He showed the machine landscapes of people communicating, all blissfully unaware of just how vulnerable they are, and how precious little they appreciate their lives—the same lives engineered by the machine’s creators all those eons ago.

  Nick showed how mankind became dependent on its inventions, how it became drunk on its own power and success, and how it played right into the aliens’ hands, in lusting for greater highest at all costs. He pushed his reasoning onto the machine, trying to telepathically convince it that, given enough time, mankind will become dependent on the technology provided by the aliens.

  And once that happened, They would return to our planet, to reap the seeds sown eons ago, and plunge the Earth into total destruction, rather than the partial annihilation brought on by the orb’s explosion.

  He waited for the orb’s advanced artificial intelligence to analyze the data he provided, and waited for the verdict. Then after a very long minute…

  Causality accepted. Awaiting new commands.

  Nick felt himself sighing in relief, despite being back in that mental void, just him and a piece of alien hardware. Terminate Self-Destruct protocol.

  The machine complied immediately and the pressure surrounding Nick suddenly lifted. He could stop there, having saved thousands of lives, but he knew that if the NSA got their hands on such a device, they would use it, and play right into the aliens’ hands. He had to render the orb into nothing more than a large paperweight, and there was only one way to do that.

  Access Master Control Matrix, he ordered.

  Access granted.

  Light filled every inch around him. Nick felt complete control over the orb, and was suddenly fully aware of just how powerful it was. There were so many possibilities: he could cure diseases, restore the ozone layer, stop earthquakes, provide free sustainable energy.

  But ultimately, all roads led to destruction, and death.

  Initiate Complete Shutdown.

  Proceeding.

  Outside, the consoles began frying their own hard drives and processors, rendering them utterly useless. The walls dried up and began flaking off, as a shower of minerals and metals cascaded all over the place. The electromagnetic field around the artifact died out, and the orb dropped pathetically on the lower pedestal before rolling down and coming to a rest against Nick’s arm.

  Nick felt his mind being affected by the shutdown as well. The neural link he had with the machine began erasing his memory of what he saw when connected to the orb: the aliens and their mission. He felt an intruder inside his brain and realized it was his own Select powers working against him.

  Reality seeped in again, assaulting his senses and Nick was aware of how still he had been the entire time he was communicating with the orb. He opened his eyes and felt something cold against his arm.

  The orb rested there lifelessly, and he picked it up. He still felt that connection, like a phantom limb, and was sure he could reactivate it in time.

  A sense of soreness and exhaustion covered him from head to toe, and he staggered. His head was pounding, as if someone had taken a drill to his skull. Try as he might, he just couldn’t remember how he had stopped the orb from blowing up—only that he did.

  Nick lifted the artifact and looked at Excalibur, who had been standing beside him, concerned and worri
ed, the entire time.

  “I did it,” he said, before bursting into a fit of laughter, and hoisting up the orb for all to see. “I did it!”

  Chapter 38

  Briggs gave a single nod.

  Soldiers immediately moved in on Nick like a swarm. One of them drove the butt of his rifle into Nick’s head, staggering him. At the same time, another SEAL grabbed the orb and wrenched it out of his arms. Nick barely had enough time to register what happened to him, when he felt a sharp pain at the back of one knee and fell down. Four assault rifle barrels hovered inches from his head as one of the soldiers yelled, “Stand down!”

  “Secure the package,” Briggs commanded.

  “What the hell, Briggs?” Nick yelled, as one of the soldiers drove him face first into the ground and pressed a knee against his back.

  Director Briggs nodded again, and the soldier retreated, allowing Nick to stand up. Excalibur gave him something that resembled an apologetic look and followed as they all retreated outside of the cavern. Two soldiers dragged Astrid out, and Nick followed them. He was still holding Finnegan’s sword. The way he saw it, that weapon was a family heirloom and rightfully belonged to him.

  “So, that’s it?”

  Nick watched as Briggs searched Astrid, until he found the Belladonna’s logbook inside the Spaniard’s suit pocket and pulled it out. Another soldier searched the truck in which the mercenaries had arrived in, as well as the few quad bikes. He found the red ledger in the truck’s glove compartment and delivered it to Briggs.

  Meanwhile, a separate team placed the orb inside a special container and magnetically sealed it. It was then promptly loaded into an armored car, which drove off seconds later.

  “What are you gonna do with that artifact?” Nick asked.

  Briggs handed the red ledger to a soldier who placed it in a briefcase and handcuffed it to himself.

  “What artifact?” Briggs asked, with a look that dared Nick to challenge that statement. “I see no artifacts here. And if you’re as smart as you say you are, you won’t either.”

  The two men glared at each other. “Nice of you to finally show your true colors,” Nick said.

  “This was our deal from the start, Solomon.”

  “That thing is dangerous,” Nick yelled. “There’s a reason it was locked up.”

  “We can handle it,” Briggs replied smugly. “We got the best tech and people on the planet.”

  “The first people who used it thought they could handle it as well,” Nick countered, pointing in the direction where the truck had driven off.

  “We can handle it,” Briggs repeated.

  Nick realized he was getting nowhere with the director. “I’m not opening it for you,” he said.

  That got Briggs’s attention. “What did you say?”

  Nick shrugged. “You heard me. Only a Select can reactivate the orb. And I’m not doing it.” He grinned. “Which means all you got is a fancy paperweight.”

  Briggs let out a bark of laughter. “Really, Professor, I thought you’d be a little smarter than that.” His jet-black eyes were empty, but his look still sent shivers down Nick’s spine. “If we want to get something out of you, we will get it. It’s that simple. Stop overestimating your importance to us, Solomon. Do you really think that we hadn’t taken this little game of yours into consideration?”

  Nick cocked his head. “The hell are you talking about?”

  “We have other means of opening the device, Solomon,” Briggs replied. “The rest is none of your business.”

  “You have another Select?”

  Panic now began to rise in Nick’s voice—did the NSA really have another Select in their clutches?

  That’s impossible, he thought. Why go through all the trouble of giving him this mission when they had someone with the exact same powers already in their roster?

  Maybe Briggs was just bluffing.

  “Like I said, it’s all classified,” Briggs said dismissively. “The United States thanks you for your services, which you will be compensated for. Go back to your teaching and partying, Solomon. Forget about all of this.”

  He climbed into the last armored car that had been patiently waiting for him to finish his conversation with Nick.

  “Wait!” Nick yelled as he pointed Finnegan’s sword towards Briggs. When the director turned to look at him, he said, “The books, I want them.”

  “The red one is US property,” Briggs replied. He picked up the Belladonna’s logbook, the one that Nick had dug from his ancestor’s coffin, and turned it around in his hands. “I’m still trying to decide whether this one is, too.”

  Excalibur spoke for the first time since exiting the cave. “That one’s not relevant anymore,” she said. “I verified its contents myself—just a diary of a dead pirate. The only data of any value was the location of this place, which we don’t need anymore since we secured the artifact.” She looked at Nick and for a moment he caught the tiniest glimpse of compassion. “Solomon only wants it because he’s related to the owner.”

  Briggs frowned at the book, then at Nick. “What, like some long lost great uncle, or something?”

  “Or something,” Nick replied, all the while glaring at Briggs. “It belongs with me, just like this sword. It’s all I have left of my family. The way I see it, this might just make up for sending an armed chopper after me.”

  Briggs’s eyebrow shot up, before tossing Nick the logbook. “Don’t cause me any more trouble, Solomon. I’d hate to shoot you.” He turned to Excalibur. “Coming, Agent?”

  She nodded and gave Nick the same look she had given him earlier, making it clear that this wouldn’t be the last he’d see of her.

  But Nick was too pissed off to care.

  “Go screw yourself, Briggs,” he yelled as the armored car drove off, leaving him standing there alone in a cloud of dust with his middle finger high in the air.

  Nick looked around and saw the quad bikes where Astrid’s men had left them. Resigning himself to having to ride one of them down to civilization again, he fastened the cutlass to the side of the most comfortable looking quad bike and put the logbook in his jacket pocket. Then with a final groan, he straddled the vehicle and pushed the accelerator.

  Chapter 39

  One week later. South beach, Miami, Florida.

  Nick Solomon glanced at his watch for the second time.

  He wasn’t the type to get nervous before a date but the woman he was supposed to be meeting had that effect on him. Some would go as far as to say she terrified him.

  After the events on Cedros Island, Nick made it back on US soil only to find out someone had requested a leave of absence on his behalf at the college. He figured it was most likely the NSA, allowing time for him to infiltrate Astrid’s inner circle and obtain the red ledger.

  Which the NSA then took, he reminded himself, together with an alien artifact of immense power without even so much as a pat on the back for putting his neck on the line, not once, but twice, for a mission they forced him into.

  So, in order to recover from his ordeal, Nick had decided that an extended vacation at a luxury hotel in South Beach was in order—he had money to spend and loads of free time to do it.

  And besides, he was still peeved about wasting those concert tickets.

  On his second night there, he had received a text message from Agent Excalibur. Maddie, he reminded himself. Screw the code names—she was the girl he grew up with, and no amount of ass kicking and super sleuthing could change the way he saw her.

  After what happened the last time they had seen each other, Nick was genuinely surprised she wanted to meet outside of business hours.

  As usual, heads turned when she walked in, a perfect physique with just the right curves that would make the goddess Aphrodite jealous. Excalibur had chosen a simple, sapphire dress, loose enough to inspire fantasies—something which Nick was more than happy to indulge in. Her golden-blonde hair was tied in a loose plait with two strands hanging smoothly on eith
er side of her face, and her icy-blue eyes glittered like fireflies.

  She walked up to Nick and gave him a light embrace. Surprised, he returned it, and pulled out her chair.

  “Is this how you treat all women?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “Usually. Although, for some reason, you make me nervous,” he admitted.

  She smiled. “How so?”

  “You nearly killed me. Twice.”

  Her smile turned into a grin. “Then you better make sure your hands don’t wonder.”

  Nick was suddenly very conscious of his palm pressed against the small of her back and quickly retreated. They both sat down at their dinner table, in what was probably one of the most expensive restaurants on the planet.

  Excalibur looked around and took in the suit that Nick was wearing. “You clean up nice,” she remarked. “Although, only you could pull off the rebel look in a tux.”

  Nick had his shirt collar open and no neckwear whatsoever. His blazer hugged his frame, but the man made no effort to look smart. “Thank you,” he said with his usual smirk.

  She rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  “Yes, it was.” he shot back. Nick motioned for the waiter, signaling for him to pour a few sips of red wine in Excalibur’s glass. She twirled it and took a tentative sip.

  “Impressive choice,” she said.

  The waiter topped their wineglasses and placed the bottle in an ice bucket.

  “So,” Nick began, once they were alone again. “Why am I sitting here with you?”

  “Because you can’t say ‘no’ to a beautiful woman?”

  He cocked his head. “Fair enough. Okay, then, let me rephrase that. Why is Agent Excalibur seeing me again?”

  She grabbed her purse and opened it. “She’s not. I went off-duty for a bit after we were done with our assignment. My only official business this evening is to hand you this.” She passed Nick an envelope.