Mark was contemplating her words when another thought occurred to him, “Why didn’t they just start over with someone else?”
“I’m sorry, what do you mean?”
“Why didn’t they just find someone who would work as an assassin and program their brain with the DM… whatever you said?”
“DMDT”—she filled in the blank—“Direct Mind Data Transfer is DNA specific. It takes years, even with gene mapping to find someone who is compatible and will not reject the imprint proteins. It was easier to grow a clone at an accelerated rate than find another compatible person.”
He hesitated before he asked, “So, I’m guessing you weren’t the only one they adopted?”
She shook her head sadly. “I don’t know how many others because we were restricted from interacting with each other, but I once saw some kind of a control room that I wasn’t supposed to see. They had monitors on at least fifty others, and I don’t know how many of those rooms there might have been. I suspect I was one of the only ones who lived there my whole life. Apparently, compatibility is very rare. At least that’s what Jonas seemed to think.”
“Who is Jonas?”
Her eyes misted, but she smiled from the memory. “He was the janitor at the lab. He used to talk to me every day, the only one who treated me like a real person. He is the one I lived on the boat with.”
She was quiet for a moment, but he just waited.
“He just took me one day. We hid on his boat for that year, and he showed me so many beautiful things, sea shells, and waterfalls—” she peered into the past “—and he taught me how to scuba dive. He was old, maybe fifty, I don’t know. He had gray hair and a beard. When you’re twelve, everyone looks old.”
“That’s true—” Mark put his arm around her “—so what happened to him?”
She didn’t answer for a long time.
“Ashlyn?” he prompted.
“I’m sorry—” her eyes revealed pain “—they killed him, and then took me back. He was the only person that I was ever close to.”
He put his other arm around her and pulled her close to him.
“I’m really okay, Mark. I didn’t know any other life—” she shrugged “—so I didn’t know what I was missing.”
He was somber for a moment, and then said softly, “I’m so sorry.”
She choked on her next words a bit, “Now they are trying to kill you.”
He didn’t say anything at first, and then the parallel nature of the situation hit him. “I won’t let that happen.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment. Suddenly, she ruffled his hair and it lightened the mood considerably. He laughed, and then he kissed her.
“Ouch!” she pulled back and touched her lip, smiling at the same time.
“I’m sorry, I forgot,” he said, and then kissed her again. This time he was more careful.
“Okay, now you said they accelerated her growth, and I don’t think I care about the science of it for the moment. How long ago did they clone you?”
“Well, Dierdra is the last one and—”
“Wait, last one, there were more?”
“—there were three, in alphabetical order. I suppose someone thought that was funny, or maybe was just compulsively organized. It was about five years ago.”
He mouthed a silent—wow—but didn’t ask any more.
She clenched her jaw, and then watched him as she continued. “There was a B, for Belinda, and a C, for Ciara, and of course a D, for Dierdra, who you know intimately.”
She paused, and he could tell that she hadn’t liked her choice of words, but he didn’t say anything. There had been nothing remotely intimate with, or about Dierdra. I should have known she wasn’t Ashlyn.
“They probably would have kept on going all the way up to ‘z’ if I hadn’t managed to blow up their facility.”
“What happened to the others?”
She took in a deep breath and didn’t say anything at first, clearly afraid of his reaction. “I killed them.”
Chapter 8
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them. — Albert Einstein
~
When Stewart finally woke up and wandered up the stairs, it was fully dark. He was feeling almost human again, and he was hungry. He smelled food cooking in the galley. It was that scent, which had roused him.
Ashlyn was there when he entered, and Mark was out on the deck preparing for a dive.
“Are you feeling any better?”
“Much, much better, thank you; hey, what was in that stuff you made me drink?”
She tossed him a smile, and then turned back to her cooking. “Sorry, family secret.”
“Oh, come on?” he pled in vain; she wouldn’t budge.
“Where’s Mark?”
“He’s getting ready for a dive.”
“Why, it’s dark?”
She didn’t look away from the stir-fry she was making because it was at a critical stage.
“He seems to think that this place has something to do with the reason Dierdra wanted to kill him and doesn’t want to risk leaving until he figures it out.”
“Why doesn’t he wait until morning at least?”
Ashlyn faced him with a serious expression. “Dierdra’s last words to him were that she would be back.”
That was a sobering thought. He was glad he hadn’t heard it before his nap; he might not have been able to sleep. He had so many questions to ask her, but he felt too tired, and while the dive might not be able to wait, he felt that his questions could. She had confirmed that she had met Mark intentionally, which he had already known. Diving into rough seas to save Mark had scored her some trust points as well. Overall, he trusted her much more now than he had previously.
***
Mark was on the aft deck checking his gear. His conversation with Ashlyn had convinced him that the dive couldn’t wait.
The thing that puzzled him the most was that he was studying mysteries that dated back at least as far as fourteen-ninety-two. What possible reason could anyone have for trying to kill me?
Christopher Columbus had been the first to report abnormal occurrences in that area of the sea. Mark was studying centuries-old seismic and electromagnetic anomalies, nothing more. However, Dierdra had looked at his notes and implied that he was an idiot for not figuring it out. He had to solve the puzzle now, and he didn’t have much time.
Mark and Ashlyn had disagreed on the dangers of his going alone, especially at night, but he wouldn’t budge. He told her that Stewart needed her more right then than he did. He would skip dinner entirely; it was dangerous to dive right after a meal.
Mark walked into the galley to tell her that he was ready to go and saw Stewart there.
“How are you, buddy?”
All pretense of employer-employee relationship was gone. Stewart was his friend, and Mark would not forget that again.
“Much better”—Stewart answered—“except that Ashlyn won’t tell me what was in the green goo she made me drink.”
Mark turned to Stewart. “You should know better than to argue with a woman who knows how to fight. I would let this one go.”
Stewart smiled at that.
“I’m really sorry about what you’ve gone through, and for leaving you on Bimini. I’m also sorry for not trusting you.” Mark swallowed hard and then said, “I won’t ever doubt you again. You’re like a brother to me.”
Ashlyn cut in, “Stewart, Mark left a note for you, but I destroyed it.”
An awkward silence followed.
“Why?” Mark demanded.
She cleared her throat, and then answered solemnly, “I was afraid Dierdra would use the information to find you—” she directed her statement at Mark, but then she looked over at Stewart’s battered face “—Stewart, I honestly didn’t think she would hurt you if you didn’t know where he was.”
Stewart let out the breath he had been holding, “It’
s alright. That was a good reason.”
Mark looked surprised by Stewart’s reaction and felt betrayed by her lies. He had grieved so much over the whole thing, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. His expression said as much.
“I’m really sorry Mark—” her eyes misted “—if you want me to leave I’ll—”
“No”—he cut her off—“I don’t want you to leave. I just wish …I wish that you had just trusted me enough by then to tell me the truth.”
She looked away, and closed her eyes tightly. She was fighting tears. When she finally faced him again, her chin was quivering slightly. In a voice barely above a whisper, she said, “I wish I had too.”
“Wait, I’m missing something.” Stewart interjected.
Ashlyn answered before Mark had the chance, “I didn’t tell him when we first found you missing. He was hurting badly and—” she hesitated “—when we got the note from you knew it had to have been coerced. I should have told him then, but …I just …I didn’t know what to say.”
“I think you did the right thing,” Stewart stated emphatically.
“What?—” Mark was confused “—I don’t understand why you’re not angry about this.”
“She didn’t tell you because she came to get me. Honestly, if she had taken the time to explain then I would be dead.”
“Why”—Mark asked—“what happened? I know you were beaten, but …” He didn’t finish, not knowing what to say.
“She killed Justin and rescued me. Unfortunately, Dierdra had already headed out to sea with you, so Ashlyn had to find a boat for us to find you.”
“I guess that GPS address came in handy after all.” she commented contritely.
Mark was quiet again, and then decided to let it go. “Wait, who is Justin?—” He shook his head “—never mind for now. There isn’t time. I just came to let you guys know I’m going to dive now. I can’t wait any longer. We can talk about this later”
“Mark”—Stewart protested—“you know this isn’t the safest time to dive.”
Mark raised an eyebrow and said nonchalantly, “I’ll take a flashlight.”
“You know sharks are night feeders,” Stewart argued.
“Well”—Mark grinned—“I think I would rather be eaten by a shark than face Dierdra again, you guys are the ones in danger.”
He didn’t honestly believe that. He was nervous about the dive too, but he didn’t want them to know that. Besides, he was sure that Stewart would have protested more forcefully had he known about the freakish things that he and Ashlyn had experienced there.
Ashlyn turned the burner off. “The food is ready. You can go ahead and eat; I’m going to watch Mark go under.”
Stewart eyed her strangely, “You know that won’t make it any safer, right?”
She rolled her eyes at him and followed Mark. Stewart went too.
As Mark was putting on his final gear she said, “I want to put in one last vote of protest before you do this.”
“Duly noted,” he said.
She scowled at him, “You know it is Friday …the thirteenth. If you get hurt, I’m going to kill you.”
“Are you superstitious?”
“I didn’t use to be, but after the other night …well you know what I mean.”
He laughed softly and gave her an overly passionate good-bye kiss. It was mostly because he wanted to, but he couldn’t resist eliciting surprise from Stewart.
Mark got the desired response when Stewart raised his eyebrows, and said, “I guess I missed more than I thought while I was on Bimini.”
“Want a kiss too, Stewart?”
Ashlyn glared at Mark. “You really need to grow up and stop teasing him so much.”
“Thank you, Ashlyn,” Stewart said.
Mark was wearing his CCUBA rebreather gear. It had a full-face mask with a voice communication system, so they would be able to talk with him while he was under the water.
Mark climbed down the lower landing ladder into the water. His rebreather gear didn’t weigh nearly as much as normal air tanks, so it wasn’t necessary to fall backwards. They watched until Mark entirely submerged. Stewart noticed how scared she looked.
“You know, I wasn’t really serious about the sharks. Mark has been diving for a long time, and the lack of noise with his rebreather system makes him almost completely invisible to them.”
She hardly seemed to notice his comment and continued to stare at the place where he had gone under.
“It’s not the sharks that are worrying me,” she finally responded.
Puzzled, Stewart watched her as she walked over and turned the volume up all the way on the radio communicator.
“What is it then?” He was bothered by her odd behavior.
“I’ll tell you while we eat.”
She recounted the eerie story of the green mist and lost hours that had occurred there, describing it in vivid detail.
Stewart’s face went pale. “I can’t believe he is diving here at night after something like that.”
He went to the radio and asked Mark how he was doing. He responded that so far things had been uneventful except for an octopus that he had gotten to see close up.
“I wish I could have brought my camera with me,” he lamented, but he had too many measuring devices with him already.
Ashlyn and Stewart sat glued to the radio. Mark would not be diving more than one hundred feet. However, it was well past the depth for his flashlight to be visible. They both asked him so many times if he was all right that Mark had to request radio silence.
“If you guys ever want me to come back up, you are just going to have to let me think, so I can finish more quickly.”
Stewart turned off some of the lights on the aft deck. It would make it easier for them to see Mark’s flashlight when he eventually surfaced.
***
Bradley Sandstrom sat behind the desk in his office in Arlington, Virginia. He was on the phone with the Hawaii office of Neuronex Pathtronix. A fresh, steaming cup of coffee sat on his desk, filled nearly to the brim. He was listening intently to the person on the other end of the line when a low rumbling began below, and then all around him. Everything in the room began to shake. He let the phone drift away from his ear, forgetting the conversation as his attention was drawn to his coffee cup. It was vibrating so violently that the hot liquid began to spill over the edges onto his desktop. He put down the phone without saying good-bye and walked toward the window.
Deep below the Mississippi Valley, an even larger twisting swirl of molten iron had spit out an enormous electromagnetic expulsion of energy. It had traveled up through the channel between the charged magnetic, indigenous rock formations of the Reelfoot Rift in New Madrid, Missouri. The shock from the sudden magnetic repulsion triggered the earthquake zone. It was even larger than the magnitude eight quakes in eighteen-twelve, whose ferocity had shaken the solid bedrock all the way to the east coast. This one registered as a magnitude nine, releasing thirty times more energy than the one two centuries before.
Because the Reelfoot rift does not lie at the boundary of tectonic plates, but rather on an aulacogen seismic zone, the power unleashed shook the earth with more violence than a traditional quake. Thus, the mega quake tore through buildings and wreaked havoc in every city within nine hundred miles. Blasts of sand blew up in great out-gassings like mud volcanoes and created an instant dam of the Mississippi River, causing it to run backwards before overflowing its banks. The brutal shaking lasted for fifteen to twenty minutes, slowly taking out its vengeance on the United States.
The energy surge had not stopped at that, but pierced through the atmosphere, slamming into the magnetic field of an incoming X47 class coronal mass ejection. The resulting magnetic reconnection was so fierce that it caused a massive electromagnetic pulse to punch back against the magnetosphere pushing southward. The EMP spread out towards the equator, convulsing through land, air, and sea.
It was followed rapidly by the impact of the s
un’s ejected plasma against the magnetosphere to the west. The impact caused a second EMP, even more powerful than the first. Because of its higher elevation, it pulsed across the entire continent. The plasma burned brightly in the high atmosphere. Great undulating hues of light danced in the sky, easily visible even in the remaining daylight of the west coast.
***
The intense darkness of the deep water at night left Mark frustrated. His instruments had not picked up anything unusual as of yet, and he still felt a sense of urgency to find what Dierdra had been so ready to kill him for. It made no sense; there was nothing there. Then suddenly he began reading an anomaly on his small magnetometer. His pulse began to quicken as he followed the direction of the signal, which amplified with proximity.
He found the source of the anomalous readings and looked at it, trying to identify what it was. It seemed that the shape was too symmetrical to be naturally occurring, but it was mostly buried in the silt, washed down for centuries from the nearby Berry Islands. He began removing some of it with his hand, going slowly in an effort not to cloud the water and obscure his find. The more silt he removed, the more excited he got until he was sure that he knew what he was looking at. He called up to the boat over the comm. system.
“Ashlyn, Stewart, can you read me?” Mark’s voice crackled over the radio.
The two of them had been sitting there in the silence, worrying without speaking, since the last communication.
She rushed to the radio, “Yes, Mark, we read you.”
The radio was a little crackly from the depth, but they could understand him clearly and hear the excitement in his voice.
“I found something. I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure...did...Ash,” the signal began to break up, and then all they could hear was static.
There was an odd feeling in the air, almost electric. It was followed immediately by a sudden nearly imperceptible, yet indescribable sensation. Then there was a pop, and all the lights went out. Total blackness enveloped them. She pushed the light button on her watch to check how long Mark had been under, but it wasn’t working. For a moment she wondered how she had broken her watch, it was too new to be the battery, then abruptly a thought struck her.
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