by Matt Betts
“Did you get the messages from General Thornburg and the quartermaster’s office?” Braun’s secretary asked.
“I did, Jerry. Ignored ‘em. I’ll check them out after lunch.”
“Understood,” Jerry said. He picked up a small briefcase and handed it to the Major. “You’re not here?”
Braun took the case and kept walking. “No, I am not.”
It was always interesting to Linden to watch Braun interact with his staff in a casual way. If that were the type of experience Linden had had, he might have stayed with the ordinance division. When he was put in charge of the Cudgel task force, he tried to make the environment as open and loose as he could, but it didn’t work. Many of his staff had just come from the military and the war, and needed structure, even if it was saluting and tight creases on their uniforms. The NIA was a tough transition, though. A federal agency reporting to a military agency confused a lot of them. They saluted when they didn’t have to, they ‘yes, sir’d’ a little too emphatically, for what was essentially a civilian job. In the end, many transferred back to the army, or whatever branch they’d left, which started the downsizing of his staff.
They stopped at the double doors on the west side of the building. Here, the Major did salute, and he showed the two guards his identification. They saluted back, nodded, and pressed the button that unlocked the door. They proceeded through, and then out onto the garden terrace outside. There was no one out among the gorgeous trees and flowers that were waving gently in the breeze. They continued to their traditional spot and sat at one of the small tables there.
The terrace offered an amazing view of the city and the bay from seventy-six stories up, with glass walls on all sides except the building itself. Linden never asked who built the terrace or what its purpose was, but it was a wonderful place to have a quiet lunch without being interrupted, or overheard.
“Let’s see.” Braun opened up the briefcase and pulled out the contents. “I think you’ll like this.” He placed two large containers on the table and opened one. “This is a peanut butter and… wait…” The major paused. “You’re not allergic to peanut butter are you? Have I asked you that?”
He had, at least a dozen times in the last five years. “No sir, I’m not.”
“Great. It’s a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with raspberry jelly and a thin layer of chocolate on thin-sliced Italian bread. It’s one of my favorites.” Braun pushed the container over to Linden and opened the other for himself. “Now, what’s this news you have?”
As he unwrapped his peanut butter sandwich, Linden made sure to word his answer carefully. It seemed like a slam-dunk, but the treasure hunters could be wrong. “It looks like a crew may have located the Cudgel.”
Braun looked up, mid-bite. “What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Just unfolding. I’m waiting on confirmation that the intel is good, but it sounds good.” It felt nice for Linden to be able to tell Braun the news in person, after all that time. However, he was not so happy that he was proceeding on unverified information from an unknown source.
“Where?”
“A good deal south of the Aleutian Islands.”
The general swallowed a bite and looked up as he thought. “Remind me. That’s the group Palmer is imbedded in?”
“That’s right sir, Cassandra Palmer is our plant with this team. She’s overseeing the site at this time,” Linden said. He took a bite of the sandwich, thinking of what else to say. He had so little to go on, and didn’t want to mislead Braun, but it was the first big possibility they’d had in years.
It was silent as the two ate, and Braun appeared to contemplate the possibilities. His eyes grew wide and he flipped open the case again. “Damn. I forgot to offer you a bag of chips. You like sour cream and onion? Honey mustard?” He held up two small bags of snacks.
It wasn’t like Linden expected him to get weepy or shout with joy, but he’d expected more of a reaction. “I’ve never had honey mustard. I’ll give them a try.”
Braun handed the bag to Linden and opened his own. “That’s good news about the Cudgel. Let’s hope it’s true. Good news.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Think about what you’ll do when it’s over?”
“Excuse me?” Linden asked.
The major put his crusts back in the container. “Once we find the Cudgel. What will you do then? This has been your job for years. Do you have a career plan for what you’ll do next?”
He didn’t. He’d been the lead on this for so long, that he assumed he’d be doing it for the foreseeable future. “I figured since I knew more about this thing than anyone, I’d still be needed to get it back into fighting shape.”
“Fighting what? Fighting who? We’re not at war with anyone. Did you think they’d deploy it to the cities to stop shoplifters and jaywalkers? Besides, it’s a military vehicle, you’re not military anymore.” Braun dug his hands into the chip bag, crinkling and crunching. “Besides–I understand it’ll be a museum piece anyway. Would you want to travel the country, giving a speech at every stop about how much it weighs, how tall it is and what it did for the war effort five times a week?”
“Museum?”
Braun nodded and opened the briefcase again. “Shit. I forgot the sodas. Aw, damn it.”
The idea of going through all of this searching just to mothball the Cudgel stuck in Linden’s mind. What good was it then? Why bother finding it? He swallowed another bite of peanut butter and vowed not to be a tour guide for anyone.
18
Martin stood at one end of the table and waved for everyone to sit down. “Look. Great work. This is a momentous occasion. We’ve been chasing the thing for years, the government has been chasing it for years, the world has been after it for years. And WE found it. We did.” He decided he wouldn’t get all mushy on the crew just now. Not while they were stuck out in the middle of the ocean with no navigational capabilities, no communications and no computers. Everything was dead, even the engines, though he figured they’d only gone out because of a computer glitch. They should be easy to get back on line, computers or not. “Jakob is looking at the power problem, I’m concerned that it was some kind of electromagnetic pulse that knocked everything out, but I don’t know where one would’ve come from, unless there’s another ship relatively close by.”
“Have we detected anything?” Cass asked.
“Not the last time I checked.” He looked at the creatures in the glass case on the table, and then at the people assembled. “Rina? You’re our computer and electronic maven, do you want to go down with Jakob and see if you can help in any way?”
“I’m on it, Ogre.” There were chuckles from the group.
Martin looked at his watch to see how much daylight they had left. It appeared to have stopped when everything else did. He raised it and shook it and tried to wind it again, but it wouldn’t start moving. The others in the room checked their watches, cell phones, music players and other personal devices, but they’d all stopped or wouldn’t power on. That made Martin even more concerned that it was a pulse of some kind. “Once we restore power, it looks like our main concerns are getting a call out for the government to come claim their missing giant action figure, get our bearings again.” He looked over at the things in the aquarium. “And get those ugly-ass things off the table. That’s why we have a lab, right?”
Caroline nodded affirmative at Martin.
“So we’re just going to turn this thing over to the feds? Not cool. I wanted to really explore it before that happened…” Takis said.
“We’ll contact them, it’ll take a couple of days to reach us, and we can look all around the outside all we want while we’re waiting.”
Cass raised an eyebrow. “A couple of days? You really think it’ll take them that long to get here? This is a big deal, a major weapon.”
“They’re all the way back on mainland America. They’ll send a ship or two out here, probably full speed, but that’s still a good d
istance,” Martin said.
“Don’t forget, the military actually has up-to-date equipment. They use hover ships, and manned drones. Those things move a bit faster than, say, an old refitted cargo ship from the last century.” Ben patted the wall of the room. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the Adamant, wouldn’t say a bad word about her.”
“And you never know, the government could be closer than you think, Martin.” Cass gave him a concerned look and continued. “I’d just hate to break the government’s regulations regarding this sort of thing.”
“Without power, it doesn’t matter,” Caroline said. “We can’t contact anyone anyway.”
Lewis nodded and spoke low. “And without lights, I can’t look at those things down in our wonderful lab.”
Martin nodded. “Well, we’ve got a couple of hours of daylight left. I suggest you hang out on deck and enjoy it. The cooler out there is pretty well stocked and at least you can see up there.” He looked around at the crowd and nodded. “Thanks again. I didn’t think we’d do this. Not in a million years.” Martin picked up his scotch and took a drink. “Well, maybe a half million.”
19
As everyone filed up to the deck for food and alcohol, Cass made her way to her cabin and found her phone’s hiding place, this time in the closet of her quarters, and pushed the startup button, which didn’t react in the least. The phone didn’t power on, the battery icon didn’t flash, nothing. She dug the power chord out of the closet and plugged the phone in. She stared at it, waiting for something to happen, but it was futile. She left the phone plugged in and put it on the bed, covered with a pillow. It was risky to leave it out, but she wanted it to start charging as soon as the Adamant’s power came back on. She closed the portal behind her and headed up to the deck.
On the stairway, Cass saw Rina headed up from the lower decks. “Any luck getting things going?”
“Yeah, it’s strange, it’s like something just drained all of our power. The solar cells up on deck had charged the batteries, but all of that energy is gone-wiped clean. It looks like they’re charging just fine now, but it’ll take time to get them back up to a usable level,” Rina said. She wiped dirt and grease from her brow and shoved the cloth into her back pocket.
It took a second, but Cass realized it was the first time she’d seen Rina without her headphones. “What about the diesel engines and generator? Shouldn’t they give us some power while we wait for the main batteries to charge?”
“You’d think, but all of our electronics were knocked out. Jakob is trying to manually get those engines going, but without the computers right now, we can’t bring anything on line.”
“That sucks.”
Rina nodded. “Big time.” She nodded and continued on toward her own quarters.
On deck, the rest of the team leaned against the railing and stared off the port side at the marker buoys they’d set to indicate the location of the Cudgel, far below the surface. “Beer me,” Cass said as she found her own spot to stand.
Takis reached into the cooler and passed one down to her. “We’re bored, Cass.”
It was understandable. The crew was used to being excited and celebrating when they found something, and here everything had been truncated. They couldn’t explore the find any further, there wasn’t any power to the ship, they couldn’t let the world know what they’d achieved. “Me too. Guess we’ll have to drink.”
Ozzie nodded and tapped his bottle of beer against hers in agreement.
“We could still go down and look at the thing. I mean the air tanks work, right? We’ve got glow sticks. And we could tie some kinetic flashlights to our legs and charge them on the way down. That is how they did it in the old days, isn’t it?” Takis was serious suddenly. Cass guessed the alcohol was an influence.
“That’s true.” His brother agreed.
“Count me in.” Jakob stepped onto the deck and joined them. “I’ve got the engines back on line, but the ship’s power won’t kick in for a while. Even then, it’ll be low power all night. The solar panels won’t charge as late as it is, the sun won’t be around enough.”
“Guys? Seriously?” Cass looked around at the group. “We’ve all been drinking, we have no modern equipment, no lighting; it’s got disaster written all over it.”
“You don’t have to come with us,” Ozzie said. “We’re just anxious and ready for some kind of action. Stay here. Hang out with Rina.”
Takis ripped the Velcro apart on his vest and tightened it around an air tank. “Seriously. It’s just a deep night dive. No big deal. Back in half an hour, maybe.”
Once Jakob extricated his wetsuit from the locker and pulled it over his nearly six and a half foot frame, everyone was getting giddy.
“Look, let’s wait until morning,” Cass said. “We can leave at first light.” She was beginning to wonder how far she should go to discourage them. It wasn’t like she’d notified her team leader that they’d actually found the thing.
“Let’s go,” Ozzie was already headed down the stairs toward the dive ladder. His brother chugged the rest of his beer and followed.
It wasn’t really what Cass wanted to do, she’d rather rest and wait for her phone to charge and get on with calling in her backup. But she also needed to keep an eye on the divers, and since the communications didn’t seem to be up, the only way to do that was to go with them. And a chance to see the Cudgel close up was something she couldn’t pass up. Just to positively confirm its identity, she told herself.
As they pulled on their swim fins and checked their tanks, Caroline approached them, already set for a dive. “Hope you don’t mind if I tag along. I’d love to see where that weird-ass anemone came from.”
“More the merrier,” Ozzie said.
In a matter of minutes, the five of them were in the ocean and descending. Cass followed at the rear, a feeling of dread weighing on her.
20
Martin entered the kitchen to find Rina eating an apple and listening to her music. “Where is everyone?” he asked.
“Diving,” Rina said. “Left about ten minutes ago. They all wanted to try to get one more look at the thing before nightfall.”
It sounded like trouble to Martin. The sun was going down soon and they’d have trouble finding their way back if the ship didn’t have any running lights. “What about the Adamant?”
“Jakob got the engines online; the ship should have low power overnight. Could come on any time now.”
That was good news, at least. “Ideas on what happened? Some sort of EMP attack?”
“No ideas yet. When the computers are up, we’ll see what we can figure out,” Rina said. She spoke with one earbud in and the other out, and Martin wondered if she was still listening to the music while she talked.
There was a crash from below decks and a shout of anger from Lewis.
“What the hell?” Martin said. He wondered if the man had managed to injure himself in the darkness. Martin headed toward the stairs with Rina close behind. They rounded the corner and stopped at the lab entrance. “What’s going on?” Martin asked. The lab wasn’t in disarray, no fires, no blood that Martin could see. The only thing he noticed out of place was the metal tray on the floor with its contents spilled near it. There were scalpels, a needle and gauze, the rest of the stuff was covered by a small towel.
“Who the hell has been fucking around in here?” Lewis demanded. “Who in the hell has been fucking around?”
Rina stepped in the room. “I don’t see a problem.”
With his right hand, Lewis pointed at the aquarium on the table at the center of the room. He continued to jab at the air with the finger until both Rina and Martin were looking at the sample inside.
“What?” Martin asked.
“Where’s the other one? There were two. Now one is gone. I want to know who moved it or took it.” Lewis was pissed and Martin quickly got angry as well.
He didn’t mind the horseplay, the joking, the comradery, but when his crew messe
d with artifacts, treasure or samples from a dig, or a find, he drew the line. He wanted to keep each site in as pristine condition as possible. And this was worse-absconding with an unknown variety of sea life would be a potentially terrible idea for his ship. “What makes you think someone took it?”
Lewis’s disbelief was evident. “With all due respect, Martin.” He pointed at the aquarium that held one creature, half submerged in seawater. “But do you SEE the other one? This one hasn’t moved, so what makes you think the other just got up and wandered off?”
“Just take it easy. I see the same things you do,” Martin said. “Did you look around? Maybe Caroline moved it somewhere to experiment or some shit.”
“I could check her quarters,” Rina said. “Could she have moved it in there?”
“They’re too heavy for her to move on her own. Plus there aren’t any smaller containers missing.” Lewis gestured toward the row of small aquariums and tubs that were secured against the wall by metal bands that kept them from falling off the counter in a storm.
“Wait.” Rina pulled the other earbud out and held up her hand to get everyone to stop talking. “Listen.”
At first, there was nothing. Martin heard only the common ship sounds—the engine turning over, the sea hitting the hull, the wind—but then there was another, more ominous sound. He thought it was tapping at first, like Lewis was clicking out a code with his finger nail, but both of Lewis’s hands were in full view. “What the hell is it?” They all stayed quiet for another moment and the pattern of the clicking slowed.
With a whir and click, the generator on the Adamant kicked in and the lights buzzed on, but not fully, leaving the room in a half-light that provided just enough illumination to show the thing in the aquarium was wobbling.
“Shit,” Rina said. “Is it just the movement of the ship making it do that?”