EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum (44 page)

7

Friday, 12 June (8:17 p.m. EST)

Will had been used to crowded classrooms as a physics professor, but it seemed like a lifetime since he’d last spoken to a group. Packed into the small room was Captain Grimes, a handful of officers, Denise and Jonathan, Daniel and Sylvia, and an ancient languages expert who had recently arrived to assist in deciphering the White Stone. Their eyes were all on Will.

“I don’t know the best way to start this conversation, so I’ll just spill it.” Will said, “We have –
I
have – initiated a chain of events when I pulled the switch in the beacon.”

“What do you mean by
chain
?” Daniel said. “The only thing that has happened so far is that the beacon retracted into the seabed.”

“I don’t know,” Will responded. He struggled for words.

“Just tell them, Will,” Denise blurted and then addressed the others. “He spoke with the thing connected to the urn.”

They all looked to Will.

“Hitler’s urn,” Daniel said.

Will nodded.

“And this … thing … told you what’s coming next?” Captain Grimes asked in a tone that was rife with skepticism.

“Not exactly
what
is going to happen,” Will replied, “but that something
will
happen, and that it’s going to be bad.”

“What was this thing, and how does it know what’s going to happen?” Grimes prodded.

“The better question is
who
was it,” Denise said.

“Okay then,” Grimes said, “
who
was it?”

“It was Adolf Hitler,” Will replied.

Gasps filled the air.

“That’s preposterous,” Grimes said.

Will had had about enough of the skepticism. “Do you believe that separation is possible?” he asked Grimes.

Grimes’s face went blank and he cleared his throat. “Well, to be honest – ”

“Then how did he flip the switch inside the beacon?” Sylvia asked.

“I don’t know,” Grimes replied. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going for all of this hocus pocus stuff. It was a coincidence, or we had disturbed it enough to trigger some reaction.”

Even though Will was used to people not believing him, it was becoming increasingly insulting. It implied that he was crazy, or lying. The government had taken him through hell to get him to transform, and now no one even believed he possessed the abilities they’d set out to give him. Denise believed him, but she had seen it with her own eyes. None of the others had, except perhaps on video. But videos could be altered, faked.

Denise looked at him with desperation. “Just show them,” she pleaded. “We need to get past this.”

The room was silent. He didn’t want to do it, but Denise had put him on the spot. If he didn’t do something now it would cast doubt into their minds, and that might complicate things when the time came to respond to something in the future.

“What do I have to do to prove it?” Will asked, looking first to Captain Grimes and then to the others.

“What
can
you do?” Grimes asked.

“I can pass through matter, manipulate objects, among other things.”

“Okay,” Grimes said as he pushed a large plastic mug into the center of the table. “Move this cup.”

Grimes’ request conjured a flashback in Will’s mind. It was a test that the head of the Red Wraith program had tried to force him to do: he’d commanded Will to tip over a bottle while he was confined to the Exoskeleton. He’d had to kill that man in the end. Remnants of that same rage now welled up inside him.

He closed his eyes and separated. He went to a position just above the mug and smashed it down with a powerful strike. Coffee and plastic exploded on the people around the table. He went back to his body just in time to catch some of the backsplash.

When he opened his eyes, everyone was wiping their faces and clothes, and it was clear that Grimes had taken the brunt of it. He regretted splashing Denise and Jonathan, but he was going for effect. Denise had a smile on her face. Everyone else looked confused and frightened.

One of the officers made a run for the closed door. Will instinctively separated and met the man just as he pulled it open it, and slammed it closed so hard that it cracked like the report of a firearm, inducing many of the observers to jump.

“Will, let him go!” Denise yelled.

He released the door and the officer, now frantic, opened it and ran out.

He recombined with his body and opened his eyes to see pale, wide-eyed faces, including Denise’s. The wooden table was cracked and splintered in the area where the cup had been destroyed.

“Sorry,” he said. “I wanted the demonstration to be convincing.” He looked to Grimes. “Was that enough?” The question was not intended to be sarcastic.

Grimes nodded, his face still dripping with coffee.

“Now,” Will continued, “with that behind us, let me explain what I know. Hitler was attached to his ashes. It was him.”

He looked around at the severely attentive eyes, especially those of Grimes. The others seemed to be in mild shock, but were listening intently.

“What did he say?” Denise asked. “You were separated for almost twenty minutes in there.”

Will had no idea that that much time had passed. “First, he tried to break the tether that connects my soul and body – he wanted to take over.”

“Like a possession?” Grimes asked.

“I suppose so, yes,” Will answered. “When that failed, he ordered me to get out – to die. He became very frustrated. That’s when I talked to him. I told him he’d better answer my questions or we’d throw his ashes into the sea. That seemed to have some effect. I then asked him about the beacon. He said the purpose of his existence – every vile thing he’d done while on this planet – was to get inside the ‘orb,’ as he called it.”

“To do what?” Daniel asked.

“Flip the switch and start some chain of events,” Will answered.

“Which is what?” Grimes asked.

Will shook his head. “I don’t know,” he replied. “But it couldn’t be good considering that Hitler wanted it to happen. He said it no longer mattered if we decipher the remaining rings of the stone – it’s too late. He was elated.”

Grimes looked anxious. “We’ve been in the area for a long time, and Naval Command is on the verge of giving us new deployment orders,” he said and stood. He brushed a few shards of wet plastic from his shirt.

“It’s only been two days since the beacon disappeared,” Sylvia argued.

Grimes nodded. “After I get cleaned up, I’ll make a request to remain in the area. In the meantime, you should get back to deciphering the White Stone inscription. Maybe we can get an idea of what’s coming.”

“That’s another thing,” Will said, recalling the last thing Hitler said before disappearing. “The translations of the White Stone inscriptions are in the book by Schwinger. Sound familiar to any of you?”

No one responded.

“Maybe it’s in the books we took back from the base,” Daniel said. “But we could have left it behind – there were thousands.”

“How many did you bring back?” Will asked.

Daniel shrugged. “Maybe 100, but they were only the ones on the table in the library or in the vault – nothing stored on the shelves.

“If it’s important enough to go back, we will,” Captain Grimes said and then left the room. The other officers and the languages professor followed.

“That was quite a demonstration,” Jonathan said, and shook his head. “I wasn’t ready for that.”

Daniel looked at Will with wide eyes. “I was skeptical at a subconscious level,” he admitted. “No longer.”

“Me too,” Sylvia added.

Will sat forward with his elbows on the table. “When I said I felt something was coming, I meant it was imminent,” Will said and stood. “Where are the books?”

“Follow me,” Daniel said.

“I need to put on a clean shirt,” Jonathan said.

So did Sylvia.

They agreed to meet in the research room in 20 minutes, and Will walked to his quarters. His chest seemed to tighten more and more as time moved forward. He was wrong to say that something “was imminent.” He didn’t want to frighten everyone.
It was already here
.

8

Friday, 12 June (8:37 p.m. EST)

Will went to his quarters and donned a clean jumpsuit and a USS
Stennis
baseball cap. He was pleased with his treatment by the captain and crew; wearing a uniform devoid of rank seemed to command more respect than an officer.

It would be a hopeless task to translate the remaining rings of the White Stone in time to influence what was coming – if that were even possible. Their only hope was to find the translations in the book by Schwinger.

As much as he tried to put it out of his mind, the fact remained that Adolf Hitler himself had claimed his sole objective was to flip the switch in the beacon. Will’s nerves electrified with worry. Had he awakened everything that had been put to sleep in World War Two? So many people had died to thwart the Nazis’ quest to take over the world. But he now thought Hitler wanted something different. Was there more to it than ruling the world? Did he want to destroy it? If so, Will felt as though he’d carried on their work for them. Would he be ultimately responsible for finishing the job? Time would tell.

He sighed and shook his head. Again, if he hadn’t turned the lever, someone else would have. Separation research like that carried out in the Red Wraith project had already proliferated, as demonstrated by Cho. Destroying Syncorp, and anyone else attempting to emulate it, was a hopeless endeavor. It was like trying to stop the development of nuclear weapons. The difference was that Red Wraith research was easier than getting nukes; it didn’t require rare materials like weapons-grade uranium or plutonium. It didn’t take much to torture people. It might take a century, but eventually they’d create someone else with separation abilities. Someone would eventually enter the beacon and pull that switch.

He headed in the direction of the of the research room, but was cut off by Captain Grimes’s first officer just a few steps out of the mess hall.

“The captain needs you right away,” the officer said. “There’s been a development.”

Will followed the sailor to the ready room. Everyone was there, and all had concerned expressions. Denise seemed the most nervous, fidgeting with her hands.

“We picked up a signal an hour ago from a location near that of the first beacon,” Grimes said. “We got verification from the
North Dakota
, with images.”

Grimes opened a laptop and turned it toward the others. The images were identical to those of the first beacon. It seemed strange: he’d expected more than just another beacon.

“This one seems physically identical to the first,” Grimes explained, “but there are some differences.”

“Such as?” Denise asked.

“First, it’s not exactly in the same location, but close – within a kilometer,” Grimes said. “Second, it’s located closer to the surface – at a depth of 200 meters.”

“A sub can reach it?” Daniel asked.

Grimes nodded. “Finally, the frequency of the signal is about 100 beats per second.”

“A hundred hertz,” Will said. “The first one beat at just one beat per second?”

“Slightly more,” Daniel said.

“There’s something odd about this signal, however,” Grimes added. “The frequency decreases by about one cycle every 10 minutes,” Grimes replied. “It started at 101.7 beats per second when we first discovered it about an hour ago. It’s now down to 95.1 Hertz.”

“It’s a countdown,” Will blurted. “The wraith – Hitler – mentioned it. The Nazis knew that the first one was counting down. He said that it was supposed to retract into the seabed when the frequency reached one beat per second.”

“But they’d had years to work,” Denise said. “At this rate, we only have 950 minutes – less than 16 hours.”

“What happens after 16 hours?” Grimes asked.

“Maybe we lose an opportunity – it sinks back into the seabed not to reappear for a century,” Will speculated. “Or maybe something else …”

Recognition and urgency filled Daniel’s eyes, and he looked to Grimes.

Grimes seemed to understand. “What do you propose?” he asked.

Will knew what they needed to do. “Bring me to it,” he said.

Grimes nodded. “I’ll summon the
North Dakota
,” he said. “We’ll get you there. But I must ask, if there is another switch, what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Will replied.

“It won’t be the same as the first,” Daniel said.

Will agreed. What would be the point?

Will accepted the fact that, whatever he might find, it came down to him, and him alone, to make a decision on behalf of the rest of the world.

1

Saturday, 13 June (12:40 a.m. EST – Weddell Sea)

Will hadn’t noticed the locker room smell his first time aboard the
North Dakota
. Having fallen in the icy sea hours before had probably distracted him.

Sylvia and Daniel stayed aboard the
Stennis
and, with the help of their expert from Stanford, were attempting to decipher the White Stone, or find the book by Schwinger. Despite Will’s protests, Jonathan and Denise accompanied him on the
North Dakota
.

A sailor brought them to a ready room where Captain McHenry and his first officer, Diggs, were waiting. They went through some of the details of timing and positioning. Five minutes later, they were in the navigation room watching the distance close between them and the beacon.

As the
North Dakota
took position, Will was taken to an empty quarters. It was a small room with bunks on each side. He sat on one of the bottom bunks with his feet on the floor. He leaned forward, set his elbows on his knees, and put his hands over his face and rubbed his eyes. Denise sat on the bed directly across from him, her feet nearly touching his.

“I’m worried,” she said, and touched his forearm. “What do you think this is? Aliens? God? What?”

Will looked at her and could only shake his head. If extraterrestrials were the source of the beacons, then mankind may soon have proof of intelligent life beyond Earth. Such a discovery would have been mindboggling to him just a year ago. But the idea was no longer so astonishing, and he thought that the truth would be more profound. Even extraterrestrials were confined to the physical world – at least that’s how most people envisioned them. But
he
was evidence of existence outside of the physical world – an existence connected to humanity and, possibly, to something beyond it. Did it imply the existence of a superior being? Reincarnation? The possibilities were endless, and extraterrestrial life was insignificant in comparison.

“It’s deeper than extraterrestrials,” he said. “At least the way we think of them.”

Denise flinched at a knock on the door.

“Yes?” Will said.

“We’re in position,” a sailor said and poked his head in the small room. “Ms. Walker, please come with me.”

Denise stood, and then bent down and kissed Will on the cheek. “If I had to choose anyone to do this, it would be you,” she said, and then walked out and closed the door.