EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum (43 page)

4

Friday, 12 June (4:43 p.m. EST)

Denise stood at the head of the table with Will seated at her right. His eyes revealed just a sliver of white between his eyelids. The crate, a foot in height and width, and two feet long, rested on the table a little more than arm’s length from him.

The crate spontaneously shifted a few inches, and then creaked in strain. One of the boards cracked in half, and another ripped out from the rest of the structure like a match being torn from a matchbook. Two more ripped away, bending the screws fastening them to the base.

Will turned and looked at her, and seemed to acknowledge something in her face.

“You look mortified,” he said, and smiled a little. “You wanted proof – ”

“Did you see him?”

He pulled the remaining splinters of wood from the lid of the crate with his hands. “No, but he’s here.”

The open crate revealed molded packing foam, which he pulled out, exposing a metal box. He extracted the box and put on the table. He cleared away the debris and what remained of the crate and returned to the metal box. He actuated two slide buttons, releasing the lid with a click. He flipped open the lid, revealing the top of the porcelain urn. The vessel was in a leather sheath that was secured by leather straps. The urn was suspended in the center of the box’s pillow-like interior.

She recognized the aged odor diffusing through the air, much like the smell of an old leather boot.

He removed the vessel and set in on the table.

“Look at the inscription,” she said, turning the urn so that he could see the etching. It read:
Adolf Hitler, 20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945.

5

Friday, 12 June (4:52 p.m. EST)

Will had known about the inscription, but still felt dazed seeing the words with his own eyes. If true, the remains of the world’s most infamous villain were contained inside. But they were just ashes – carbon, calcium, and other elements that had no significance. He was more interested in what came along with them.

Without removing the leather straps that secured the vessel, he unbuckled one of the four wire clips that held the lid of the urn to the body.

Denise grabbed his hand. “What are you doing?”

“Looking,” he said.

She released his hand and he unbuckled the other three clips and pulled on the lid. It was jammed with a hard crust that had formed over the tightly fitting piece, but he worked it free.

He and Denise bumped heads trying to look inside. Will won out and saw just what he’d expected. He moved to the side so that Denise could get a look. It was about two-thirds full – a little more than a pint of debris. He shook it gently, and tiny bits of bone surfaced.

He replaced the lid and clipped it. “There are remains in there, but it proves nothing,” he said. “Now, you should leave.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Can he hurt me?”

“I don’t think so,” he replied. He was fairly certain that that was the case, but there were a lot of things he didn’t know.

“Then I’m staying,” she said, which looked to be her final answer.

“If things start flying around, get the hell out.”

She nodded.

He’d felt something watching them ever since they’d entered room. He sat in a chair in front of the urn, closed his eyes, and separated.

The instant he left his body he spotted an imposing presence hovering over Denise. It was the dark, wraith-like entity he’d seen earlier, its filament-like tether connected to the urn. It seemed that it hadn’t noticed that Will had separated.

It turned towards Will’s body and mutated into something with human-like features. Its head got close to his chest and its appendages felt around – near Will’s head and chest area. Its hands formed into long, deformed claws, and grasped something on Will’s body and tugged hard.

Will sensed the tugging – a discomfort, but not pain. It was more like a tingling of nerves, like hitting the funny bone; only this sensation manifested itself in his chest, neck, and head. The thing struggled and yanked, and finally grunted in frustration before giving up and moving to Denise.

After searching her from top to bottom, it moved above the urn and looked around. It finally noticed Will perched in a corner of the ceiling.

The wraith formed into a hideous beast and rushed him. Will didn’t budge, confident that there was nothing that it could do to him. It slammed into him, but he felt nothing more than a slight bump, shifting his position almost unperceptively. The wraith backed up and charged again. Same result.

The enraged entity coiled up again, but before it could explode towards him, Will said, “Who are you?” His voice sounded odd – like how he sounded in recordings.

The wraith stopped, repositioned itself just above the urn, and straightened into a poorly resolved figure that Will recognized. It remained silent.

“Are you Adolf Hitler?” Will asked.

After a few seconds with no response, Will moved to a position above his body and faced the being.

“I command you to leave your body,” the wraith said in a thick German accent.

Will now understood what it was trying to do when it tugged at his chest: it was trying to pull out his soul.

“I have questions for you,” Will said, ignoring the command.

The thing responded with a screech and surged towards him.

Will didn’t flinch.

It returned to its position above the urn with an expression of rage frozen on its face.

“I will not answer your questions,” it said. “I command you to die.”

“You’re not getting my body,” Will said. “And if you don’t answer my questions, we will dump your ashes into the sea.”

The wraith looked down at the urn.

“We have the White Stone,” Will said.

It seemed to contemplate Will’s statement for a few seconds. “What is the time?” it asked.

“What do you mean?”

“The year. What is the year?”

Will told him.

“The years have passed like minutes and millennia,” the wraith said. “The orb will have disappeared by now. The White Stone is useless.”

“The orb – you mean the object on the seabed that was sending out a signal?”

“The drum,” Hitler said. “It will have retracted into the sea floor by now.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Its pulse rate was decreasing. When it finally stopped, it was to retract, not to resurface for a century. It should have been gone for a half a century by now.”

“It has reemerged,” Will said.

The wraith considered Will’s words for a few seconds, and then asked, “What is the beat frequency?” It seemed show excitement in its amorphous facial expression.

“It has already retracted again.”

The wraith coiled and groaned in disappointment.

“What were we supposed to do?” Will asked.

“Get inside it.”

“Suppose we did,” Will said.

“Did you?”

Will remained silent.

“I
knew
it,” Hitler said. “You did. I felt it. Was it a button? A lever?”

“A lever – a switch,” Will replied.

“You activated it?”

“Yes.”

The expression of the wraith transformed from that of anxious interest to elation. “You fools!” The wraith spewed out a grating wail. He quelled his hideous cackle and added, “And you don’t even realize what you have done.”

Will felt as cold as ice. “Tell me!”

“The reason for my entire existence was to accomplish what you have done,” Hitler said. “All that I’ve done –
everything!
– was in preparation for the orb. To activate that switch.”

“What does it do?” Will pleaded. “Tell me!”

Hitler ignored the question and resumed cackling. “It is satisfying to know that my work carried on well after my physical existence in this world had ended. I should have known that I only had to plant the seed. Humanity is inherently greedy, power hungry, ruthless, and, most importantly, curious,” he said. “Curiosity killed the cat.” Hitler screeched in laughter.

“What’s going to happen?”

Hitler shook his head in defiance.

“We’ll dump your ashes – ”

“Do it!” Hitler said. “I am free now. No reason to remain in this ugly existence – this limbo. Do what you will with my ashes.” It cackled again and then seemed to stare at Will and study him. “You seem familiar to me. Who are you?”

Will remained silent for a few seconds – he didn’t know how to answer the question. “I’m what you were trying to create, but failed,” he finally replied.

“No, I have seen you before,” Hitler said.

“That’s impossible,” Will said, confused.

The wraith seemed to sever its tie to the ashes and looked upward, and then looked back to Will and spoke. “You have deciphered the stone?”

“The three outer rings.”

“You will find the deciphered inscriptions of the inner circles in the book by Schwinger. But it doesn’t matter – the next stage will come irrespective of what you do or do not know. You have no control,” it said, and then darted through the ceiling. Hitler was gone.

Will went back to his body and opened his eyes.

Denise looked at him expectantly. “Well?”

Will remained silent.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He stood, put the urn back in the metal box, and placed it in the foam-padded crate.

“Will?”

“We need to get everyone together,” he said, reaching for the door. “Right away.”

Denise pushed her hip against the door, keeping it closed.

“What happened?” she asked sternly and put her hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I think we’re in trouble,” he said.

“The ship?”

“No,” he said, closing his eyes slowly. “The world.”

6

Friday, 12 June (7:22 p.m. EST)

Captain McHenry sat in the mess room of the
North Dakota
and looked over an armament supplies request. The morale of his crew was high after their mission to the Nazi base, but the mood had been tempered after taking down the Chinese sub. After the beacon descended into the sea floor two days ago, the mood electrified again.

McHenry’s orders were to patrol the area for foreign subs and abnormalities. There was still potential for a Chinese counterattack, but it was waning. The
North Dakota
had been running quiet since the beacon had disappeared, except on two occasions where they’d sneaked up on Russian subs and pinged them – blasting them with active sonar to chase them away.

The Chinese had limped away from the area with their disabled carrier after they’d airlifted their task force from inland Antarctica. They hadn’t found the base. The weather was getting wicked as winter was setting in, forcing the Russians to give up their search as well, but their subs still probed near the mouth of the tunnel. Active sonar arrays had been deployed all around the tunnel entrance, making it impossible for anything to get near it without being detected, and two U.S. subs patrolled the area at all times.

He had a feeling that the peace and quiet would be short-lived, and his impression was soon substantiated.

His first officer, Diggs, walked in and scanned the area. McHenry waved him over.

“Sir, we’re hearing a signal,” Diggs said.

“A sub?”

“No,” Diggs replied. “Something more like the beacon, and in that same location.”

McHenry put his papers in a folder and stood. “Same type of signal?”

“Not quite,” Diggs explained, “broad frequency spectrum like the first, but it repeats at about 100 hertz – a much higher frequency than the first one.”

The question was whether to investigate, or surface and report to his superiors. He decided on the former; once they’d verified the location, they’d go to radio depth and transmit a full report.

McHenry instructed Diggs to get close enough to the new object to get images. There seemed to be no other subs in the area, but this would attract them again. It was likely that the fleet already knew it was there – they were listening intently 10 kilometers north. The
North Dakota
was closer – less than 2 kilometers away.

They moved in quietly. The object was identical to the first, but was positioned at a much shallower depth. At 200 meters, the
North Dakota
could get close enough to take pictures without a using a deep-sea vessel like the ill-fated
Little Dakota
.

The crew collected high-resolution images and video, as well as sonar images of the object and the surrounding seabed. They ascended to radio depth and transmitted the encoded data to the
Stennis
with a message that the
North Dakota
would return to communication depth in an hour.

McHenry gave the order to dive and move northwest. They’d wait quietly until it was time to get new orders.

He made his way back to the mess room with Diggs. The faces of the crew had changed: their eyes again showed excitement and fear.

McHenry surmised that the appearance of the new beacon had to be a
response
to their previous action: deactivating the first beacon set something into motion.
What did it mean?
The reactive behavior made him nervous. Perhaps they should have left first one alone. But he knew they couldn’t have done that – their adversaries wouldn’t let them. Someone would have fooled with it, eventually.