The Cydonia Objective (Morpheus Initiative 03)

by David Sakmyster

  Wiping his hands on the front of his shirt, then on his pant legs, The Dove reached down under the right armrest. His fingers moved around, searching, searching. All the while, his attention didn't leave Orlando.

  Under the chair's arm, he finally found it—a section of duct tape securing a .357 Magnum.

  #

  Inside the mountain.

  The viewpoint magnifies, roars through crystalline tunnels. Gleaming walls of quartz and topaz, pillars of emerald, into a vast a chamber where the other colored orbs settle into alcoves, sparkle, fizzle, then fade into the surrounding shadows, revealing singular riders—robed, bald men and women who, heads bowed, retreat into tunnel-like structures.

  Viewpoint shifts.

  This orb's parking space. After the light fades, a robed man (or woman?) exits. His/her bald head from behind is indeterminate, and the shadowy quartz walls do little to illuminate any features.

  Follow.

  In darkness, a long corridor, finally emerging into a chamber, plain walled…

  Empty, but for a single machine. A reclining seat not unlike the one Orlando has just left, except more elaborate. More… comfortable. It's on a track, a track leading forward into another glittering tunnel.

  The figure moves to a wall, touches it and presses her (it's definitely a her) forehead against the smooth quartz surface. As if activated by her mind, an image appears. It's the Stargate complex interior. Phoebe and Temple are talking quietly in the main room.

  Viewpoint changes: back to that lone chair. Moving in, closer.

  Closer

  Something out of place.

  Something… left on the floor.

  A piece of crumpled plastic. Lettering on the outside.

  A wrapper.

  With an unmistakable imprint.

  #

  "Twinkies!" Orlando shouted, his eyes flying open.

  He leapt out of the chair—then froze, staring at the hefty gun gripped in the Dove's unwavering hand, and pointed right at his heart.

  The huge head shook slowly back and forth as beads of sweat fell unnoticed off the chin. The Dove made a clucking sound with his tongue.

  "They said you were good, so I didn't really have any choice."

  "You're working with them?" Orlando was still trying to process everything. "They've taken you beyond the wall."

  "What can I say? Apparently I'm the chosen one."

  "Or the fool." Orlando cleared his throat while inching ahead. "Or maybe the tool is more like it. What do they want you for?"

  The head continued to shake. "Uh-huh. No, don't think I'll blab about it, not while others could snoop. Sorry, but you'll die without answers."

  Orlando lunged just as the gun fired.

  3.

  Grand Princess Cruise Liner

  "Room 2311," Nina whispered, looking up from the terminal. They were in the business office, and Caleb stood by the door, nodding to passing guests, keeping an eye out for security—or suspicious parties.

  "You sure?" he called back.

  "Sure. Easy to hack into their reservation system. A lot of unsold rooms, bad economy and all, but this one's the most out of the way, yet convenient to stairwells for an easy getaway."

  Caleb looked back and met her stone-cold eyes. "If there's an abundance of rooms, we can each get one." He smiled. "On different floors."

  Nina smiled back, a catlike grin. She picked up a card, swiped it on a nearby imprinter and held it up. "Sorry, darling. Only one key. And we've got to keep up appearances." In a flash she was up, slipping her arm in his and leaning her head against his shoulder.

  "Bring me back to our honeymoon suite, darling."

  Caleb rolled his eyes. "Honeymoon? Seriously?" His free hand tapped the object strapped to his ribs. "I've got the most powerful object, potentially, in the world under my shirt, and you want to–"

  "I want to live," Nina whispered. "Long enough for us to use that thing and save the damn world." She tugged him toward the elevators. "Now, let's move."

  #

  In their suite, spacious as far as cruise accommodations went, Nina sprawled out on the bed, kicked off her shoes and pulled up a map on her smartphone.

  "Okay, the next stop is at Juneau. We can charter a plane from there and–"

  "No more planes," Caleb said, groaning. He was at the desk, bent over the spear point. Two lamps trained their lights on its surface, and Caleb reverently lifted it, one side up at a time, studying the markings. Every nick and scratch, every line of etched markings.

  "Fine," Nina said. "Although parachuting out over HAARP would be a hell of a lot easier than the driving close and then having to ditch the vehicle and hoof it through the ice and snow."

  "Stealthy approach is what we need."

  "But we've got that. Surely-"

  "Surely it can't stop the whole arsenal available to such a heavily guarded installation."

  Nina shrugged. Turned over and arched her back in a long stretch. "Have it your way. I'm starting to think you just want to spend more time with me."

  Caleb gave her an acid stare.

  "Come on," Nina chided. "Now that you know we've created life? Brought not one, but two children into the world?"

  Caleb stared at the spear, shaking his head.

  "Come on," Nina repeated. "I know that's what did it for you and Lydia."

  Caleb's eyes closed.

  "She backstabbed you just as good and hard as I did, yet you took her back with open arms once she showed you pictures of little Alexander, the son you never knew you had."

  "That was different."

  "Was it?" She rolled onto her stomach now, then pivoted on the bed so she was facing him, chin cradled in her hands. "She was following orders from her Keeper father, following the rules. Playing you to get what they wanted. How was I any different?"

  Caleb's right hand settled on the lower edge of the spear; his fingers curled around it in a tight grasp and his lips trembled. He was about to turn when—

  KNOCK.

  They both froze, met each others' eyes, then looked to the door. Another knock.

  Nina was up in a flash, digging into her purse and retrieving her silver-plated Beretta. Finger to her lips, she approached the door. Caleb followed at a distance, the spear still in his shaking hand.

  I don't feel anything, he thought, imagining there should have been a magnetic sensation, a vibrational interface. Something like Frodo's dagger glowing in the presence of goblins.

  "What is it?" Nina called out, while eying the viewing hole.

  From the other side of the door came a gruff young voice. "Delivery."

  Nina frowned, glancing back to Caleb, who was shaking his head. He whispered: "No one knew we were here, and this room was vacant. Don't open it."

  But Nina was already unlocking the door. She slid the gun into her waistband behind her back and opened the door partway. Caleb saw the young man outside, dressed as a ship's bellhop, holding a square box, which Nina promptly snatched out of his hands.

  She dug into her pockets, but the bellhop backed away. "No need for a tip, just doing my job. And frankly, we're all a little relieved down in the mail room."

  "What for?" she asked.

  The bellhop looked around nervously. "Well, strange thing about this delivery…"

  Caleb noticed now that the box was wrapped up tight with non-descript brown delivery paper, but covered excessively with yellow wrapping tape.

  "…it was dropped off at our cruise director's office three years ago. Addressed to this here room number, but—and here's where it got really weird—instructions were that it wasn't to be delivered until this date, which was, as I said—"

  "Three years later," Nina robotically answered. She gently shook the box, eyeing it from different angles.

  "Yup," said the bellhop, edging out of sight. "Apparently paid quite a sum for the instructions to be followed directly, and claimed he'd know if we didn't do as he said. And he'd know if we opened the box."

&n
bsp; Nina looked at him. And the bellhop shifted back into view, eyeing the box, then Nina. "I uh, well… some of us, we wondered what's in there. And well, the fact that this room only today got sold was weird enough, and well…"

  Nina slammed the door on him. Locked it and turned around, facing Caleb. She hefted the box.

  Caleb raised the spear. "Need a box cutter?"

  They sat on the bed, the box between them.

  "Is this smart?" Caleb asked, spear point poised over a seam.

  "What, using a priceless ancient artifact to open a delivery box, or just the fact that we're even considering opening it at all?

  "Yes," Caleb said, trying to be confidently humorless. "And you know as well as I, that we're far too curious as to who sent this, and what it is."

  "Go ahead," Nina said, nodding. "Although I think we can already guess as to who sent it."

  Caleb started sawing, gently slicing through tape and cardboard, freeing one side, then the next. "You're thinking it's from Montross."

  Nina smiled. "And if so, it can only mean that he saw something. Saw that-"

  "We'd be here at this time."

  "And," Nina continued as Caleb set down the spear, parted the cardboard and paper folds and reached inside with both hands, "that we'd need whatever it is that's inside there."

  With some effort, Caleb lifted the object, just about the size of a bowling ball, and held it up to the light. Held it up so both he and Nina could admire its intricate gold and silver inlays, its detailed carved symbols unlike any language they'd ever seen.

  He turned it around and around, open-mouthed until finally, he set it on the bed.

  "Apparently it's a wedding gift," Nina said. "Otherwise, I have no idea."

  "I was wrong before," Caleb whispered. "About the Spear being the most ancient, priceless artifact in the world. Hell, it doesn't even fit that description for this room."

  "So you're saying…?"

  "Whatever this is, I glimpsed two things while I was holding it."

  Nina met his eyes, then suddenly reached forward and grasped his hand. Caleb moaned, fell forward towards her and suddenly her lips were there, pressing fiercely against his. His mind was rocked, his senses flattened. Something passed quickly from his mind to hers, and just as quick–the kiss, the connection–was severed.

  She was on her feet, holding her head, shaking it.

  "A ranch in Montana. A beat up old tractor hauling up the fossilized bones of a triceratops…" She rubbed her eyes, even as Caleb, through his reddened ones, watched her with begrudging admiration. "Men in suits taking away that… thing… that had been inside the dinosaur's ribcage. Took it… to the Smithsonian…"

  "Where," Caleb said, continuing the vision, "it languished in the forbidden archives until one Xavier Montross conned a beautiful employee to grant him access."

  "He stole it," Nina whispered. "And the girl… I've seen her before. Xavier's never quite forgotten her." A smile formed. "He still… loves her. This… Diana. Diana Montgomery."

  Caleb picked up the globe. "Yes, well that may be. But he's done us one solid favor here. No one will find us now, no matter how hard they look."

  "Why? What does that thing do?"

  Caleb looked up at her. "The Morpheus Initiative spent years searching for Montross after he disappeared from Alexandria, but could never find him. Not even a trace, despite having the best psychics in the world."

  Nina just gave him a blank stare until Caleb palmed the globe in his hand like a basketball.

  "He's given us a shield."

  4.

  HAARP Facility - Gacona, Alaska

  Alexander waited until his eyes adjusted to the darker interior of the control room before he allowed himself to take a breath. Whatever he was expecting, their entrance to the HAARP facility hadn't been at all as he thought. It was rushed, just a quick ride down a descending ramp, past barbed wire fences beyond which the storming clouds obscured the sky and the mountains, leaving only glimpses of the sentinel-like radar arrays massed upon a field of unyielding ice.

  The storm erupted just as they neared the facility, and Alexander had the impression that the station was alive, brimming with its own weather system, occluding itself with a mantle of impenetrable snow and ice. The winds swirled cyclonically, and the snowflakes seemed to be the size of baby rabbits, racing hell-bent around in a maelstrom.

  And as much as the exterior was obscured, the interior was excessively bright. White walls, stainless steel doors and railings. Powerful lamps at every turn and glaring overhead bulbs seared at his eyes, eliciting smirks from his half-brothers, gliding ahead on their skateboards.

  Isaac circled around and glided up on the other side of Alexander. "Don't worry yourself about the tour," he said in almost a gleeful whisper. "We won't be here long enough to enjoy it, not us. Not you. Right, brother?"

  Jacob's skateboard slowed to a crawl, letting Alexander catch up. "Leave him be," Jacob said. "Had a hard day, he has."

  "A hard couple of days, I'd say," Isaac said. "Wandering in lost mausoleums and catacombs, getting shot at, avoiding deadly traps. Oh, and nearly buried alive under the ruins of the twice ruined Library of Alexandria!"

  Alexander winced, looked down at his feet and clenched his fists.

  "How tired you must be!" Isaac taunted, now from the other side, still riding circles around him. And even Jacob broke down, joining his twin in a little chuckle.

  "Boys!" Calderon's voice cut through the laughter. "Knock it off, we're almost at the control room."

  "Just having a little fun, righto?"

  Calderon leaned heavily on his cane, stamping it hard on the floor with every new step. And in his shadow, proceeding the two armed guards, Xavier Montross followed, head down. His red hair was in tangles over his face, still with the dust from the Cheops' labyrinth trapped in the curls. He looked up once while Alexander glanced back, and they shared a mutual exchange: Hang in there, Montross seemed to say.

  But when Alexander turned, he saw the two twins gliding together, making figure eights down around each other, across a huge circular floor and toward the waiting guards at a set of double steel reinforced doors, and his hopes fled.

  This is it. And Alexandria was just the beginning. Montross is going to help them achieve his vision of the world's destruction, and Dad –

  He stopped, closed his eyes and focused. Drove his mind like a spike through time and space. Dad!

  An arm on his shoulder pulled his vision away from a swirling pool of turquoise, complete blue in all directions. Alexander turned, and the hooded, owl-like eyes of Mason Calderon bored into his brain, and for a heart-stopping moment, Alexander feared Calderon could slip inside his mind and see what he himself couldn't. That he could find Alexander's father, and then it would all be over. His one, last chance. The only hope.

  For all of us.

  "What'd you go looking for, boy?"

  Jacob and Isaac braked their skateboards, then kicked them up together, ending the ride. Alexander saw them out of the corner of his eye, but couldn't pull away from Calderon's gaze. "I…"

  "Oh, leave him alone," Montross' voice came from the side, soft as a welcome breeze on a humid day. "Of course he's looking for his father."

  Calderon blinked. "And? Did you see him?"

  Alexander shook his head slowly. "Nope. I felt… blocked, like a wall was in the way."

  Something grumbled in Calderon's throat. "Or a shield?" His eyes darted away, landing on Montross, who just shrugged.

  "Doesn't matter, does it?" Montross waved his hand toward the doors, and then pointed to the satchel over Calderon's shoulder. "You have what you need. Caleb and Nina are too far away to be of consequence, your enemies cower in their tunnels, realizing there are no safe havens. The prophecy's fulfillment is mere hours away." He smiled broadly, stretching out his arms. "And you've got me at your side."

  Calderon thought for a moment, then gave a slight bow of his head. "True." His grip loosened on Alexande
r's shoulder, and a gentle push turned him around and sent him toward the doors.

  "Inside, now. Time to see what this facility is truly capable of."

  Struggling to stay on his feet, still fighting the recurring splotches of blue walls in his mind's vision, Alexander stumbled on ahead after his laughing brothers. Never feeling more alone, or lost. In a daze, he looked up, past the blinding lights, to a railing where armed military personnel patrolled the hallways outside the offices.

  And for just a gleaming, hopeful moment, he thought he saw the afterimage of a woman, not unlike his mother, leaning over, smiling at him…

  And he clung to that hope with all his strength. That maybe he wasn't so alone after all.

  #

  Keeping an eye on Alexander, but feeling at least he was safe for now, Montross entered the control room and found it just as he had envisioned.

  "Been here before, I take it?" Calderon was watching Montross' reaction as the doors closed and the great chamber lit up.

  "Never in the flesh."

  Montross let his eyes roam about, following the thousands of wires, ventilation tubes and piping snaking around the corners, connecting to various refrigerator-sized servers and computer banks. A glass-walled office overlooked the main floor, reached by a platform elevator.

  "Of course," Calderon said. "I assumed as much. And we never had the luxury of the Afghans and their Shield. Or, I presume, our friends in the revived Stargate Program, with theirs."

  Montross gave him a quick look, then continued his visual tour of the chamber. He took in the apexed ceiling, a hundred feet above, the sheer metal walls inclining to a point, leaving a gap straight above a device on the floor–a massive throne-like contraption that looked like it could fit a person after they had ascended the nine steps into the machine's 'seat'. The arm rests were enormous, and the one on the right supported a pedestal–with a slot wide enough to insert something the size of the Emerald Tablet.

  "There it is," Calderon whispered, leaning forward with both hands on his cane. At his back, the twins had gathered, at last showing some reverence. They had left their skateboards outside and now stood, heads bowed as if in prayer.