Ground Zero

by Kevin J. Anderson

  The fishermen began shouting, their calls barely discernible in the ripping gale. Beyond the winds, the eerie voicelike chorus echoed, rising to a bone-jarring crescendo within the fabric of the air itself.

  The rain and the gloom and the stinging sand made it difficult to see anything. Mulder couldn’t locate the reinforced fishing boat where they had left it anchored. For a moment he was terrified that their only chance at escape had been swept away from the lagoon, that they were all stranded and doomed on Enika Atoll without even the uncertain protection of Bear Dooley’s control blockhouse.

  But a moment later he realized why the fishermen were shouting. Two of them waded out into the churning lagoon to where the winds had dragged the Lucky Dragon into deeper water.

  The lead fisherman swung himself aboard, grabbing handholds and climbing the wet rocking hull to reach the deck. He helped his companions get aboard, and they gestured for the others to wade out to them.

  Scully hesitated at the shore. “Mulder—”

  “Come on in, the water’s fine,” he yelled and pulled her forward into the lagoon without a thought to their waterlogged shoes. “Don’t be afraid to get wet! Remember, this is our vacation!”

  The rain had already drenched them to the skin, and there was no sense in delaying now. Whether or not Scully believed in the supernatural danger of ghosts from the Sawtooth blast, the Bright Anvil warhead was due to detonate on the far side of the atoll. They certainly didn’t have much time.

  Miriel, still silent, waded beside them until they all reached the fishing boat. She scrambled onto the deck of the Lucky Dragon ahead of them, like a cat climbing a tree.

  One fisherman ran to the deckhouse and started the engines; Mulder felt the vibrations through the boat’s hull, more than he actually heard the sound. While the second fisherman ran to disengage the anchor and free the Lucky Dragon from its perilous mooring, the third man helped haul Mulder and Scully to safety aboard.

  Before Mulder could make sure that his partner had gotten her balance, the fishing boat’s powerful engines spun it about, churning up a waterspout of spray as the Lucky Dragon headed directly into the heart of the hurricane. Mulder grabbed the deck rail next to Scully and Miriel and held on for dear life.

  Turning back to look toward the island, Mulder shouted, “Up there, Scully!” He gestured toward the crackling sky. “That’s no ordinary storm!”

  The clouds glowed and hissed and boiled with weird energy that made all the hairs on his arms and neck stand up. He glanced at his watch. Any moment now for Bright Anvil. Any moment now—and it would all be over, one way or another.

  The boat crashed away from the atoll, threading through the rabid whitecaps that foamed around the treacherous reefs near the surface. The fisherman at the controls guided the vessel, swerving from side to side, searching for a safe passage.

  Finally, the waters opened up, deeper and bluer even in the storm’s gloom. The engine roared with renewed power, and the Lucky Dragon lurched ahead.

  Mulder looked out to sea, but could find no trace of the huge Navy destroyer, the Dallas. He saw only a roiling froth that could have been a secondary maelstrom caused by the hurricane itself…or it might have been the sinking remnants of a massive shipwreck.

  Then, with a searing flash, a small sun came up on the far side of the island. It rose hot and yellow, blasting back the hurricane for just a moment….

  “It’s Bright Anvil,” Scully said. “Cover your eyes!”

  “So, the thing worked,” Miriel Bremen said in a stunned voice, just loud enough to be heard. She didn’t bother to avert her gaze.

  Strangely, the Bright Anvil blast seemed to act as a catalyst for that other force lurking within the hurricane clouds. With the test detonation, the eerie brightness increased a thousandfold, dropping out of the mass of thunderheads.

  A brilliant ball of supernova fire plunged like a spectral blast, knotting itself into the chillingly familiar yet horrifying shape of a mushroom cloud. But the image was distorted and surreal, a seething soup of skulls and faces, screaming mouths, burned eye sockets—an unstoppable molten battering ram that swooped down on the rising blaze from Bright Anvil.

  A smothering blanket of caustic fire engulfed the far-smaller test blast, crushed it, subsuming the new light in its blinding supernatural fire…and drew on the power. It became stronger, more animated.

  “Look,” Scully said, pointing toward the rapidly receding Enika shore. Terrified, the fishermen increased the power of their engines, roaring through the high whitecaps, away from the vengeful atomic ghosts…and into the typhoon.

  Even from that distance, Mulder could make out the small form of a lone figure high up on the beach.

  “That’s Ryan,” Miriel said in dismay.

  The blind man was standing on top of a metal drum—the barrel of ashes that had been removed from the Lucky Dragon—waving his hands toward the skies in a summoning gesture. Mulder had seen similar movements before—they reminded him of a traffic controller.

  Ryan Kamida was guiding the blinding apparition.

  Like a living thing with a purpose, the crackling, blazing swarm of atomic victims swept over the surface of Enika Atoll. The radioactive backwash incinerated the jungle that had regrown in forty years and vaulted the high coral mound that had shielded the control blockhouse.

  “Do you see it, Scully?” Mulder said in absolute awe and astonishment. “Do you see it?”

  Growing brighter in the blaze of a chain reaction of unleashed nuclear fire, the echo mushroom cloud rushed across the island, plunging down on the sheltered side with enough force to make Mulder shield his eyes and back away. The fury increased, vaporizing coral, turning rock into lava….

  As the Lucky Dragon continued its race into the hurricane, the vengeful blaze on the atoll reached a fever pitch—and the bone-chilling screams became more distinct in the wind. The skeletal, phantom faces blurred, swirled together, a mixture of light and shadow. Then another voice joined theirs.

  Mulder thought he could recognize the voice of Ryan Kamida, his own triumphant shout joining with those of his family and his people, bound together in one primal, coalescent force—a force whose mission had now been accomplished.

  The glow died away on Enika Atoll, leaving it sterile and barren, simmering with residual heat and scoured clean of all life. The Lucky Dragon shot onward into the fury of the storm.

  FORTY-ONE

  Western Pacific Ocean, Exact Location Unknown

  Saturday, Late Morning

  Mulder’s watch had stopped, but he suspected it had more to do with the harsh treatment and drenching it had received than with any sort of paranormal phenomena. He couldn’t tell what time of the day it was, other than late morning. Already the tropical heat in the typhoon’s aftermath felt oppressive, pounding down on the Lucky Dragon.

  The fishing boat looked as if it had been vandalized by a street gang. Every visible surface was scored or scraped, two front windows were smashed, a few deck rails bent, the hull scarred from scraping debris—but somehow the vessel had survived the pummeling. They had fought against the wall of the typhoon for several hellish hours, struggling farther and farther from the aftermath of Bright Anvil, until they had somehow skirted the edge of the wind wall and escaped into the blessedly clear seas beyond.

  The Lucky Dragon had taken on a good deal of water, and the three fishermen took turns bailing out the cargo hold, though Mulder thought they worked more out of a need for something to do than because the sturdy boat was actually in danger.

  At the rear of the vessel, Miriel Bremen kept to herself, brooding, like a broken doll. She had lost her eyeglasses sometime in the frantic push toward the boat, or during the whipping storm, and she blinked into the sun, unable to focus. She didn’t talk much. Scully tried to comfort her, attempting to strike up a conversation, but the protester was obviously in shock, overwhelmed by what she had seen.

  Sitting out on the deck in the sun, Mulder wore his rumple
d suit jacket as protection against the baking rays, though the heat was nearly intolerable. He wished he had unpacked at least one of his Hawaiian shirts, his swimsuit, or—at the very least—his suntan lotion. Now they were all lost. Water still trickled off the deck and stood in briny pools reflecting the sunshine.

  In a morbid moment, he considered the grim possibility that the six of them might never be rescued, that someone would eventually find a ghost ship bearing their skeletons drifting alone in the Pacific, rather like the Mary Celeste. The scenario had a certain creepy irony to it. It would be a fitting end to this bizarre adventure.

  He pulled out his notebook and a waterlogged pen that managed to produce a trail of spotty ink after he shook it several times and scribbled on a sheet of paper. Concisely, Mulder summarized the things he had seen and outlined his hypothesis. At least would-be rescuers would find that much information, if nothing else.

  If they ever managed to get back to Washington, D.C., he would type up his full report, create a detailed X-File—and in all likelihood, no one would believe him. He had gotten used to that. In this instance, however, he had numerous eyewitness accounts, pieces of evidence, radioactive bodies, not to mention a secret nuclear test. Once Brigadier General Bradoukis knew that the vengeful Enika ghosts were no longer a threat, he might be willing to stand up for Mulder’s work.

  Scully came up beside him in the bow and bent down to see what he was doing. She had tied her hair back, and her skin already showed the pinkish flush of sunburn. “You should keep to the shade, Scully,” he said. “That’s no way to get a good tan.”

  She squatted down next to him. “What are you writing?”

  “Oh, you know,” he said, “I neglected to buy a postcard on Enika for Assistant Director Skinner, and I thought this would be the next-best thing. I wouldn’t want him to think we forgot about him on our tropical vacation.”

  She frowned. “You’re still convinced this all was caused by a cluster of spectral phantoms seeking revenge for nuclear tests conducted forty years ago, aren’t you?”

  He looked at her curiously. “Scully, you saw what I saw.”

  “Mulder, I saw a bright flash in the sky. You heard Bear Dooley when all the power went out—he said that some other government must be attempting the same thing he was trying to do, only they did an air burst, using the same hurricane for cover.”

  “Sounds like quite a coincidence, don’t you think?” Mulder asked.

  “I’ll believe in coincidences before I go looking for supernatural answers to every unexplained occurrence.”

  Mulder just shook his head, wondering why, after all the adventures they’d had together and all the evidence she had seen, Scully couldn’t just accept it. But then, she didn’t want to believe, as he did.

  “Any luck with the radio yet?” he said, changing the subject.

  “No, it was damaged in the storm. We haven’t been able to raise anyone. The batteries are wet.”

  Mulder pulled out his cellular phone. “I think I’ll try nine one one again. The storm must be dissipating by now, wherever it is.”

  Scully looked at him, shaking her head at his optimism. She extended a sunburned hand to indicate the endless horizon of blue waters stretched out in all directions. “Who do you expect to reach way out here?”

  “Oh I don’t know,” he said, “maybe another atomic ghost, a Russian spy ship…maybe even the Love Boat. You never can tell.” He punched buttons over and over, sending signal after signal. Using all the access codes he carried in his excellent memory, adding a few Scully knew, he tried every general emergency number, federal operator, and military extension they could come up with.

  Finally, to his utter surprise, someone answered.

  “You have reached the United States Missile Tracking and Testing Station on Kwajalein Island.” The voice was gruff and robotic. “This is a restricted number. Please get off the line.”

  Mulder sat up quickly, almost dropping the phone overboard in his surprise. “Hello, hello?”

  “I repeat, this is a restricted number—”

  “This is United States Federal Agent Fox Mulder with an emergency distress call out in…out in the Western Pacific somewhere. I don’t know my exact position. I think we’re near the Marshall Islands—well, we were, anyway.”

  “Are you requesting assistance?” the deep voice came back. “You should not be on this channel. Please try the appropriate contact numbers.”

  In exasperation Mulder said, “Then send someone out here to arrest us for using your number! I’m with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and yes, we are definitely in need of rescue. Six of us barely survived the typhoon—there may be many people injured or missing at Enika Atoll. A group of scientists as well as a Navy destroyer, the USS Dallas, may have sustained severe damage. There’s a strong possibility of many deaths. We urgently need assistance. Please respond.” He glanced up at Scully. Her eyes were bright. “Can you home in on my signal, Kwajalein?”

  “We’re a tracking station, Agent Mulder. Of course we can find you,” came the answer. “We’ll send a cutter out as soon as possible.”

  Mulder grinned broadly as Scully reached out to shake his hand in congratulation. He was already scanning the sun-bathed field of ocean, as if a rescue ship would appear any second.

  He looked down at the phone in his hands. “Think I should have made that a collect call?”

  FORTY-TWO

  FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

  Tuesday, 2:06 P.M.

  The FBI Headquarters building in Washington, D.C., was a concrete-and-glass monstrosity that someone had considered “modern architecture” in decades past. Because it housed the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the unattractive building had been dubbed “the Puzzle Palace.”

  Scratching at patches of dry skin from her peeling sunburn, Agent Dana Scully sat at her computer terminal in her small cubicle. She was relieved to be back in Washington, D.C.—for a few days, at least. She couldn’t count on staying home for any length of time, and so she spent whatever free hours she could scrape together assembling her notes for submittal to the assistant director.

  Going through the familiar motions, tidying up the details, usually helped her to resolve the case in her mind, to sift through the questions and line up explanations, putting any remaining uncertainties to rest.

  Scully sipped another cup of coffee—cream, no sugar—enjoying the taste of fresh-brewed, the first decent cup she’d had in a good many days. She rummaged through her notes, scanned another sheet of paper, double-checked a press release, and went back to her typing.

  The U.S. Navy has released information that the Spruance-class destroyer, the USS Dallas, sank due to the unexpectedly severe force of the typhoon that struck the Marshall Islands early Saturday morning. All hands on board were lost. According to the National Weather Service, this hurricane was one of the most unusual such storms on record, both for its odd and unpredictable motion, and for its unexpected intensity, particularly within the vicinity of Enika Atoll. Meteorologists who have analyzed satellite imagery of the storm system at the time it struck the atoll are still unable to explain its behavior.

  Rescue teams arriving at Enika in response to Agent Mulder’s distress call found no survivors among the members of the Bright Anvil team. The reinforced control blockhouse had been sheared from its foundations, as the attached photographs show. No bodies were recovered, which the Navy notes is not surprising, considering the incredible force of the storm.

  She paused to stare at the glowing screen, shaking her head.

  Morale at the Teller Nuclear Research Facility in Pleasanton, California, reportedly has been shaken by this disaster. The loss of so many employees is completely unprecedented. The only comparable incident in the facility’s history occurred when a small aircraft crashed en route to the Nevada Test Site in 1978.

  Curiously, DOE representative Rosabeth Carrera at the Teller Facility released an official report that the team of scien
tists on Enika was conducting a “hydrologic survey of ocean currents around the reef.” From my personal knowledge of these events, however, it is clear that the statement is blatantly false. I recommend that little credence be given to such explanations. I suspect more accurate details are available in certain classified files.

  After another long sip of coffee, Scully reread what she had written and was surprised at her open skepticism over the official story. That wasn’t what the oversight committee wanted to hear. But Scully knew about Bright Anvil and the test, no matter who wanted to cover it up. She could not report otherwise in her writeup.

  Scully paged through her notes again and continued with her report.

  Assistant Director Skinner held open the door of his office. “Come in, Agent Mulder,” he said. The lights in the office had been switched off, killing the garish fluorescent glare and letting the bright afternoon sunshine provide all the illumination he needed.

  “Thank you, sir,” Mulder said and entered the room, setting his briefcase down on the wooden desk. Framed portraits of the president and the attorney general hung on the wall, staring down at him.

  This place held unpleasant memories for him. Mulder had been called on the carpet many times before for insisting on explanations the Bureau didn’t want to consider, for prying the lid off details that other people wished to keep hidden. Skinner had often found himself in an uncomfortable position in the middle, between a persistent Mulder and the shadowy string-pullers who refused to be identified.

  Skinner closed the door behind him. He took off his glasses and polished the lenses on a handkerchief. Beads of sweat speckled his bald head. Mulder noticed that the office was quite warm.

  “Air-conditioning’s not working again,” Skinner said, by way of a cordial opening to the conversation. “You didn’t get much of a tan in your travels, Agent Mulder—first to California, then New Mexico, then out to the South Seas.”