by Matt Betts
“They’re diving down to the Cudgel again. They think they can get some supplies to help you from down there,” Ben said.
It was crazy to Martin. Anyone going to those lengths to help him, hell, he didn’t need saving, he’d be fine. Just fine. “That’s stupid. I’m going be okay.” He felt his throat rebel with each word.
The light got red and brighter and he closed his eyes until it passed.
31
Inside the Sacramento Bay Prison visiting area, Linden and Lou sat and stared at the white walls and hard-formed plastic tables and chairs. It smelled like bleach or some similar cleaning fluid. Linden noted that the place seemed clean enough. The walls were bare except for signs admonishing visitors to not touch the prisoners, and that all packages had to go through the guards and pass inspection.
He reflected on the call with Cass’s team and wondered if he’d done the right thing. Was the life of one man worth it? What secrets would they find, what would they see that they shouldn’t? Hell, he didn’t even know if the code was going to work. It was in a training file that Linden had gone over and over in his quest to find the Cudgel. It was a note made by one of the pilot/operators on her tablet.
“You really think Tsui is going to tell us anything valuable?” Lou asked
“Long shot,” Linden said. “We don’t even know if he or the Alliance had anything to do with it.” It seemed a good bet to Linden that the Alliance knew something, even rumor. The Cudgel goes down near their territory during the war, it was likely they at least caught wind of it.
There was a buzz and an electronic lock clicked open on the other side of the room. Two guards walked in through the slowly opening door, followed by Tsui and two other guards. Tsui smiled as he walked, either thrilled to be out of his cell, or happy to see two Americans in suits.
“Hello,” Tsui said. “I wondered who my guests were. The guards were… vague… to say the least.” He looked around at the empty room. “You’re also the men who pissed off a lot of inmates who were expecting to see their families today.”
“We’ll make it up to them. Maybe we’ll bring them all ice cream later,” Lou said.
The guards helped Tsui sit down, and then coupled his cuffs to the electromagnet on the table. Linden nodded so they’d step away, enabling as private a conversation as they could have.
“I cannot imagine what you would have to speak with me about.” Tsui leaned down the table and ran his hands through his short, dark hair, as his cuffs would only allow him to raise his hands so high. “I’ve been in this place for so long, I can’t possibly have any more secrets to reveal. I complied with every accord in the Alliance’s surrender.”
“Yeah, that was the accord that required you to disclose all you and your science ministry did for the Alliance in exchange for life in prison, rather than the death sentences your superiors received.” Linden began to dig in his coat pocket for the papers he’d slid in just after the guards okayed it.
“That’s right, and I’ve given my knowledge freely. I’ve answered all the questions.” Tsui held out his hands as best he could and waved them around. “I’ve complied.”
“Yeah.” Linden dropped the folded papers on the table, but didn’t mention them. “True, but I think you may have left something out.”
The smile didn’t fade from Tsui’s face. “What’s that? I think I was very thorough.”
Linden was faced with the need to lie, and in that lie he’d have to reveal information about the monster attack. “These papers are a transfer order. We’re moving you to Oregon State Prison; it’s a newer facility up on the northern Oregon coast. Beautiful, actually.”
“It’s a military facility near the Tillamook Western Grid Operations, where most of the military command centers are located for the region,” Lou said. “There’s also a pretty large power facility in the area, that stores and provides energy for the region,” Lou added. “It’s a very important area for the country.”
His smile was as wide as ever when Tsui spoke. “You are very informative. You should be tour guides. Problem is, I made a deal for this prison.”
Linden agreed. “Yeah. We know. It’s got a beautiful view. You can see the California coastline right out your cell, I bet.”
“It is calming.”
“I’m sure it is. All those rocks out there that used to be the western part of the state, used to be buildings and houses,” Linden said. “Remind me, was that a natural disaster, or did the Circle of Liberated Territories have something to do with it?”
Tsui didn’t blink or hesitate. “I guess it was a natural disaster.”
“Right in the middle of the war?” Linden asked. He took a deep breath. He wasn’t here to debate the points of the war, it was over. “Back to Umatilla. It was also considered a high-value target during the war,” Linden said. “The coastal defenses repelled about a dozen attacks over the course of open conflict.”
“I wouldn’t know. I only worked on the science of war, not the execution.”
Linden laughed and stood up. “Right. Well, we’ll have you on a transport within the hour and you’ll be in Umatilla by the afternoon.”
Lou and Linden headed for the door and the guards started toward Tsui.
“Oh…” Linden said, turning slightly. “I forgot why I was here in the first place. We found the Cudgel A-9. It’s a combat machine that went missing during the war near Alliance territory.”
Tsui’s smile faded but he didn’t speak.
Lou stepped back. “We also found something else. They described it as…” Lou looked to Linden with a questioning expression. “Black, with some sort of tusks and tentacles, and huge.”
“Massive.” Lou decided to add. “And it seems to be moving in a relatively straight line toward… Oh, where did they say?”
“Oregon,” Tsui whispered.
Linden and Lou walked back and stood by the table again, towering over Tsui. “So, you’ve heard of it?”
The prisoner nodded.
“Would you rather talk here?” Lou pulled his own chair back out and sat down.
The prisoner nodded again.
“A representative of the Justice Department is right outside to discuss a new deal with you in exchange for your information, but we need to know everything about this beast and we need to know now,” Linden said. “This thing has destroyed a number of ships and military vehicles already.”
“And it will continue to, until it reaches that base.”
“What do you mean?”
Tsui swallowed noisily. “May I have a glass of water?”
Lou nodded to a guard, who spoke to another through the bars.
“We code named it the Lusca. The generals loved their code names,” Tsui said. “Do you have code names?”
The agents both shook their heads no. Though Linden had a number of them for different projects, he didn’t feel the war criminal needed to know that.
“Ah, well. We called it Lusca. It was the product of experimentations we’d been assigned to do. We used an old Russian submarine pen as our laboratory. It had been decommissioned and left off the maps in the last century, and I have to say they were horrible conditions. They cleaned up the storage closets and control rooms for us to sleep in, so we wouldn’t be detected entering and leaving the facility. Filthy, just…”
“What kind of experiments? Where is the old sub pen?” Lou asked.
The prisoner ignored him. “We spliced the genes of several creatures until we got something that survived. Once one lived, we spliced its gene with something else. We just kept going. We were able to genetically enhance this experiment with the Circle’s technology, to get it to follow our commands… simple commands…”
“Like where to attack,” Linden said.
“Yes. Very simple, basic stuff.”
Lou shook his head. “I don’t understand how this worked. Just splicing genes and you…”
“I don’t CARE how it worked. I want to know how to kill it.” Linde
n looked into Tsui’s eyes, and found the man was not nearly as calm as he’d been earlier.
“And we were not so concerned how to kill it, as we were making sure it did NOT get killed,” Tsui said. “The tech that our people put into it is amazing. You know how you can lay your electronics on a certain charging pads and it just charges? How there are buildings with that tech built in, so your tablet or phone automatically charges, even if you’re not trying to charge it? The Circle’s electronics people implanted a device in the center of the Lusca that does the reverse, and pulls in stored energy from a radius of five miles. It uses that energy to move, to grow, and to power a sort of disrupter in its body that cloaks the beast and anything around it.”
“That’s impossible.” Linden looked at Lou. As crazy as it was, it explained much of what they’d seen so far. The radar and sonar’s difficulty in picking the thing up, the size, and the frequent reported outages from anything that gets near it. “So what was the endgame for this thing in the war? Was it supposed to destroy the military base, and the power facility to disrupt the conflict? It certainly wouldn’t have stopped the United States completely.”
“No. The end was not so simple. Once the Lusca absorbed so much energy, these electronics would have overloaded its heart, its command center. We installed a nuclear device in the center of all of the command parts. Once the heart overloaded, it would trigger the bomb.” He looked to the side at the walls. “It would have destroyed the area for miles, including the base, the power storage, the town, the ocean front. Everything. We were more concerned with the toll it would take on the people of the country, on their resolve to fight. The destruction of military targets was a bonus for us.”
One of the guards gasped on the other side of the room.
“And this thing is loose again. It’s on its way to Oregon now; will it try to fulfill that mission?”
“It knows nothing else. When it failed all those years ago, we assumed your missing machine had triggered the monster prematurely and it wasn’t yet powerful enough to trigger the bomb.”
“And you don’t know how to stop it? All that equipment you say the tech people put in its core and it can’t be shut down?”
“No. It was shielded so the cloaking wouldn’t disrupt any functions. Eventually, the creature grew larger around it. It has to be buried pretty deep within by now,” Tsui said.
Lou and Linden stood again and walked to the other corner. They weren’t concerned with anyone overhearing them, but Linden had to walk around-his legs were suddenly tight and he felt a little nauseous with the news they’d just received. “We’ll call command and let them know the end plan. They were setting up defenses on the Oregon coast, expecting the thing to make landfall, but this changes all that.”
“Ideas on how much time we have?” Lou asked. “Can they evacuate the area?”
“It was moving pretty quickly, and nothing was slowing it down for more than a few minutes,” Linden said.
“If they’re attacking it, they’re probably just feeding it energy,” Tsui said. “Making it stronger, larger and faster.”
“You know a lot about this monster, don’t you?” Linden asked.
“I was a student, learning the applications they were using. I know what I saw, I know what I heard. That’s it.”
The agent moved to the guards, making sure to stand near the one who was openly shocked a few moments ago. “Look, you know the transfer was a rouse a few minutes ago. We don’t have the authorization to do that. But this guy knows everything about this threat. He might be useful.”
“What are you asking?”
“We need to take him with us.”
The captain of the guards shook his head vehemently. “No. I can’t authorize that. You can’t just take a prisoner out of here.”
“We might be able to avert a nuclear explosion on American soil with his help.”
“No,” the captain said. His men looked at each other in concern.
“I promise that if you let me take him now, we’ll take full responsibility. And if he can’t help us, I assure you, I will make sure that he is in the blast radius when that thing explodes.”
The other guards stared at the captain, and Linden was afraid that maybe he’d incited a mutiny, which wasn’t his intention. A mutiny could lead to more difficulties, possibly even he and his partner’s arrest and inability to get out of the prison facility. All of which would certainly slow down their progress and doom their efforts to help stop the creature.
“Gather the prisoner,” the captain said.
“What? No!” Tsui said. “I thought if I told you what I knew, you’d leave me. You lied. We had a deal.”
“The government had a deal with you, and you lied to them.” Lou helped unchain Tsui. “We’re even now.”
“Help me,” Tsui said as the doors opened. He saw guards outside the door and he tried to grab them, only to be stopped by the ones from inside. “They’re going to kill me.”
The captain looked at the outside guards and Linden saw the man roll his eyes. The other men nodded and allowed them to continue, despite Tsui’s continuing cries.
They all proceeded to the stairs and walked up to the prison’s upper deck where the VTOL was waiting. The captain stopped Linden as the others proceeded. He raised his finger and pointed it in the agent’s face, just an inch away.
“I know,” Linden said before the captain spoke. “I will do whatever it takes.” He couldn’t think of anything more meaningful to tell the man who had just committed several felonies to help chase a slight possibility.
“See that you do,” the captain turned and started back down the stairs.
32
The keypad lit up and showed that the hatch was starting its cycle to open. “It’s working,” Cass said to the others. “Now to see if it can open after all this time.” She watched the hatch, and checked their airtime out of the corner of her eye. It was dwindling past the seven minute mark.
The keypad lit up, and flashed a warning that the hatch was opening. Just a few yards away, it creaked and hissed until it finally flew open violently as it expelled trapped oxygen from the airlock beyond it. “It’s open. I’m headed in.”
“I’ll join you,” Ozzie said. “These two can handle the rest out here.”
“Fine, but I’m not waiting. We’re closing in on the five-minute mark to start our ascent.” Cass entered the open supply portal easily and moved to the next keypad, where she’d have to enter the code and the room would drain so they could move about freely. She began the sequence just as Ozzie entered the portal. “Seal that hatch behind you.”
“Got it,” Ozzie said. He cranked the lock shut by hand and gave a thumbs up.
Cass hit the last key in the sequence and the water began to drain.
Slowly.
“Keep your helmet on, we don’t know what the air quality is like in here.”
Ozzie nodded.
Both of them pulled off their swim fins as they waited. “We need to get out quick. This hatch is taking too long.” Cass checked her gauge. “We’ll have maybe a couple of minutes to get this stuff and get out.”
“It’ll take us that long to find the medical bay, let alone grab the supplies and get back,” Ozzie said.
“No, I picked this particular hatch because it opens practically next to the infirmary. We should be able to get to it in seconds.” Cass pointed to the right. “That way.”
When the green light flickered on, Cass opened the door manually, not waiting to see if the automatic functions would work, or if there was enough power to make them do their jobs. Cass and Ozzie moved into the corridor and stopped to take in the sight. The inside of the Cudgel was clean, sterile, and white. It was as if it were brand new and untouched. Cass understood that it was true to a point, it had been untouched for a decade, but this surprised her. She wished she could take her helmet off to see if the air smelled of antiseptic and bleach.
Ozzie moved on the medical bay to the righ
t and they quickly found that not everything was as polished as the halls. They both looked through the clear doors to see the inside. On one of the four beds, a skeleton rested with a tight layer of wrinkled skin wrapped tight around the skull and hands. It was wearing shorts and a t-shirt with a United States Navy logo over the chest. The bed, floor and shirt were covered in large rust-colored spots, blood faded from time and the dry air of the ship.
They didn’t have time to mourn the man, not at that moment, but Cass knew the government would give them a proper burial when they recovered the Cudgel. Or else she’d find a way to remind them.
“Cass, over here.” Ozzie was already opening cabinets and lockers, looking for the supplies. She joined him, pulling a large bag to put things in as they went. She tossed in rolls of gauze and bandages from one container, and pain killers from another. She gently set a box of injectors and medicine on top of her haul. Ozzie did much the same. He seemed to grab whatever looked important to him, and she decided to let him, since his background was in medicine, not hers.
“Here it is,” Ozzie said. He turned so he could see her through his helmet and held up three small, gray, boxes. “Even better…” He held up another, longer gray box. “This is everything we need to apply InstaSkin wraps. We stitch Martin up, apply these, and they start intermingling with his skin. It’ll keep him closed up and start him healing quicker.”
Her watch beeped. “It’s time to go,” Cass said. “We need to hit that airlock.”
“I can’t find the reaction agent for the blood. This stuff is useless without it.”
Cass sealed up her bag of supplies and came over to help.
“I’ve checked all of the upper cabinets, check the lower ones and I’ll check this locker.” Ozzie pried open the locker and started rummaging around noisily within, and Cass went to the lowest shelves, looking for the material. “Did you check this clear plastic cabinet?” Her back was to him, but she didn’t turn to ask again.