Herculanium (19 page)

Preston shielded his eyes from the spotlight by extending his palms forward like a shield. Something was whipping the ocean around him into a tempest, pummeling him mercilessly with froth and water. He could hear a mechanized voice mumbling in the shadows, just beyond what he could see of the undulating surf. Without warning, heavy objects then fell around him in deep swallows, causing him to bob helplessly in place. But before he could react, hands and arms grasped him from all sides, their owners begging for him to stay still and calm.

Preston couldn’t help but stare at his rescuers, frog-men in scuba suits he had never seen before. A floatation device was quickly strapped around him, and he was spirited off into a water craft waiting just beyond the light. He breathed a sigh of relief when he was laid down on the solid floor, bundled in thick blankets and made to breathe into a respirator.

In the open, he could feel the sharp sting of the night air upon his face, the only part of his body exposed to the elements. But just as he lost consciousness, he glanced at his rescuers’ vessels hovering above him.

Who or what the hell
were
these people?

With a gentle current of numbness washing over his body, Preston Jones smiled, then fell unconscious.

* * *

“Doctor,” said a nurse with concern, “the patient is conscious.”

Preston’s first breath was an excruciating scream. With his arms and legs shackled to the bed, he arched his back and twisted in place, writhing uncontrollably from pain. Looking at his own reflection on a nearby metal cabinet, he saw that he was a human pin cushion, sutured with tubes that wove beneath his skin and radiated out to his extremities, passing through bone, muscle, and fluid. Ocular calipers kept his eyelids stretched open nearly to the point of ripping, with each teardrop shed feeling like iodine drops on a fresh wound.

“For heaven’s sake,” screamed a man in a lab coat, “this patient is going into shock!”

Preston turned his head left and right, trying to find anyone who could relieve him of his agony.

“Restrain him,” screamed the doctor to his nurses, who were now huddled around Preston’s bed. “If he rips those sutures...!”

He stepped between the nurses and stared directly into Preston’s face. “Don’t worry, son,” he said, reassuringly. “We won’t let you go that easily. This should put you at ease.”

Pulling a gun from his coat pocket, the doctor aimed at Preston’s face, and fired pointblank.

* * *

The room was silent when Preston woke up. He assumed he was in a hospital, but with the dead calm of silence and the muted colors of the room, he was might as well have been inside a morgue.

“Nurse, where am I?” He turned his head to a figure moving to the right of his peripheral vision. All the colors of the room, from the walls to the instruments to the workers themselves, seemed to blend together as one. Had it not been for the person’s movement, there would not have been any depth differentiation at all.

“What time is it?” he said with a groan.

The figure kept its back towards him, seemingly oblivious to his request.

“Damn it, I’m talking to you. Where the hell am I?” Preston took a deep swallow and slowly raised his arms above his head. There were no wires piercing his skin, nor insects crawling on his bones, or fluids seeping from his body.

He slowly rubbed his arms and legs up and down, making doubly sure it wasn’t an illusion. He then palmed his face for scarring, and smiled when there weren’t any.

“Thank God; it was just a nightmare. It wasn’t real.”

Still failing to get the figure’s attention, Preston sat up on his reclining bed and looked around. The room was as empty as it was compact, and seemingly without corners.

“Nurse, can you get the doctor, please?” he asked again, trying one last time to get her attention. “I’m awake now. I need to speak to someone in charge.”

The nurse continued to go coldly about her duties.

“Hey, bitch!” he screamed, gaining recuperating energy from his anger. “Where the fuck is the mother-fucking doctor? I’m talking to your fat ass, so you’d better fucking turn around and answer me.”

The nurse turned her head and glanced at Preston, then quickly proceeded through an open door. As soon as she entered and disappeared, a bespectacled, silver-haired black man immediately emerged from the same room.

“You’re finally awake,” the doctor said with a smile. “Very good. We weren’t quite sure how long you were going to be unconscious.”

“I’ve been trying to tell that nurse of yours that, but she kept ignoring me. What the hell is her problem?”

“Please don’t be so harsh with her. She’s actually been instructed not to speak with you.”

Preston looked at the doctor with confusion. “Why not?”

“All your questions will be answered in due time. Despite your injuries, you seem to be in tremendous shape. Are you a soldier?”

“You’re joking, right? You know who I am, right?” Preston hunched his shoulders and flexed his biceps.

“Quite frankly, no,” the doctor apologized. “Should I know you? What’s your name?”

“No,” Preston said in disagreement. “Let
me
ask the questions first. Nothing I’ve seen here is helping. What is your name, doc?”

“Julius Bentley, at your service. I’m your physician.” He extended his arm and firmly shook Preston’s hand.

“Nice name. I’m Preston Jones.”

Dr. Bentley stared at him and smiled with amusement.

“Now do you recognize me? Preston Jones? Does that name ring anything?”

Dr. Bentley just continued to smile in place.

“You’ve never heard of me? I thought everyone in the whole wide world knew me.”

“Perhaps a glass of water will help. You were quite dehydrated when we took you in.”

Dr. Bentley reached for a mobile tray and poured clear water into a plastic cup. He leaned on Preston’s bed and handed it like a peace-offering.

“This might help,” he said, again with a smile.

Preston sipped the water, drinking deep from the cup. Smacking his lips to savor the flavor, he suddenly dropped the container before quickly going into convulsions. His hands and toes became curled claws as his body collapsed into a painful fetal position.

“He’s going into shock,” said Dr. Bentley with a sigh. A squad of nurses stormed into the room and quickly initiated life-saving procedures.

* * *

Thunder shook the window pane next to Preston’s bed, followed by the splatter of rain whipped about by the wind. Preston stared at the water swirling on the glass, streaming down like the tears he had shed throughout the night. Time had seemingly stood still in his room, and what memories he had retained of his past were tempered by flashes of pain and delusion. He just went from one nightmare to another, and he doubted he could cheat death again. The storm kept his room dark for over a day, and with all the night-terrors he had seen, he was afraid to touch anything. In all his confusion, he continued to wonder why death hadn’t claimed him.

“Mr. Jones,” whispered Dr. Bentley as he pushed the door a quarter open. “May we come in?”

Preston laid motionless in his bed, not even bothering to turn in the direction of the door. In his mind, he was already in limbo, hapless no matter what he did.

Dr. Bentley and another figure quietly entered the room and stood in a corner. They paused for a few moments before moving closer to the bed, unsure of Preston’s reaction to their presence. Preston remained limp and unmoving, a man-shaped contour of a wrinkled blanket.

“I understand how you must feel,” said the doctor with an empathetic tone. “I want to thank you for being patient with us. We didn’t foresee certain… contingencies in dealing with your recovery.”

Preston stared blankly into the walls, seemingly seeing something beyond its shadows.

“It’s too damn dark in here,” said the second figure. “I’m turning on the lights.”

With Dr. Bentley’s protests falling on deaf ears, his guest turned on the lights in the room with a deafening click. What had once been a cool sea of gray had suddenly exploded into a nova, with Preston squinting as if caught in the heart of a sun. He quickly buried his head deeper under the blankets.

“General, he is my patient,” said Dr. Bentley in staunch protest. “As long as he is under my care, and as long as you are visiting him in my hospital, you will follow my advice.” Dr. Bentley rushed to stand in-between Preston and his guest. “I will not have you countermanding my authority here. Is that clear?”

The general stood his ground in seeming defiance, but then abdicated authority to the doctor with a very subtle nod of his eyes.

By stature, Dr. Bentley was not a physically intimidating man. He was short and thin, but he had a quiet strength about him, a demeanor of confidence and subtle conceit that could only be seen when he wanted to assert his point. His white hair and moustache made him look older than he actually was, and the hospital lab coat he wore didn’t help dispel this image.

“Mr. Jones…
Preston
,” said the doctor as he approached the foot of the bed, “we would like to ask you a few questions about your…misadventure.”

“My what?” said Preston.

“Your mission,” said the general. “Where were you coming from when you entered our airspace? Where was your point of departure, and where was your destination?”

Preston stared at this hulking figure with distrust. At first glance, he was hardcore military, a poster boy for the Armed Forces. His chiseled profile looked like it was carved from Roman marble, with his muscular frame testing every pleat, button and seam on his uniform to its limit. It was amazing his posture was as good as it was, considering the number of medals dangling from both his bosoms.

“Mr. Jones, this is my colleague, General Mason Cube. He is overseeing the investigation into your crash.” Dr. Bentley calmly wiped his spectacles as he made this announcement, a casual hint of who was in charge in the room. General Cube firmly shook Preston’s hand, then immediately pulled his hand back.

“I wasn’t on a mission. I was flying home on the space shuttle from Olympus.”

“‘Olympus’?” asked General Cube, glancing at the doctor in bewilderment.

“We were told to evacuate the space station about an emergency that was never explained to us. Flying back to earth, we crashed. I think were shot down.”

“Shot down?” General Cube couldn’t hide his amusement. “Nobody was shot down, Mr. Jones. There were no airships above you when we detected your descent.”

“Check the wreckage,” said Preston in rebuttal. “We must’ve left a jet-stream a few miles long, right above the crash site. I know because I saw it. I bet the debris radius alone would tell you everything you need to know. For heaven’s sake, check the bodies.”

Preston slowly sat up, again finding strength in anger. His senses had finally detected a sense of normalcy in speaking with the two men, and he wasn’t about to let go.

“Calm yourself, Mr. Jones,” said Dr. Bentley. “Please. We are trying to get to the bottom of all this. How many people were onboard your plane when you returned to earth?”

“There were several dozen people in the plane. I’m asking again, did you find any other survivors?”

“You’re telling me that there were several dozen crew members aboard your plane, besides yourself?”

“Of course there were, General. I wasn’t the damn pilot, so who the hell was flying the fucking plane? You guys must’ve seen the rows of chairs floating in the water.”

Preston closed his eyes and caught his breath, trying to calm himself. “Look, I saw a lot of bodies before you guys picked me up. There was also a lot of wreckage around me.”

Preston switched his gaze alternately from General Cube to Doctor Bentley, trying to read their reactions to his facts. They seemed to be consciously restraining themselves from reacting, as if holding back judgment—and information.

“I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing,” he said with a frustrated grin. “General, why don’t you tell me what your men saw when they picked me up?”

General Cube stood in straight attention, posing as if giving a lecture in front of a microphone. “We tracked a plane that came out of nowhere, that nearly collided with a loaded civilian airbus. It crashed in the ocean, and when we searched through the wreckage, we found you.”

“Then you haven’t told me anything,” said Preston, shaking his head.

“That’s all I’m prepared to say,” said the general with a smile.

“What hospital is this? Have you gotten a hold of my agent? His name is Maxwell Lee. I need to call my wife; she must be worried out of her skull by now.”

“All in good time, Mr. Jones,” said Dr. Bentley. “What matters is that you’re alive and fit.”

“I need to talk to my people, Dr. Bentley. I need to someone to make sense of all this for me. Can you help me?”

“We’ll do what we can, I promise. In the meantime, can you please tell me more about yourself?”

General Cube stood next to the doctor and pulled out a pad of paper and pen, ready to take notes.

“I’m Preston Jones, world’s greatest basketball player. What’s there left to say?”

“Is that all you can tell us? Where were you born? How many siblings do you have? What is your mother’s maiden name?” The general quickly took to the role of reporter, pushy and not unlike his friend Micky.

“My life has been public record for over a decade, starting from my high school days. What cave have you been living in?”

“We came across your name in an obscure library reference, deep in the archives. You have no I.D. number, credit history, birth certificate designation. I’m afraid we’re only going by what you’re telling us.”

Preston stared at the general in disbelief.

“Perhaps we should resume this talk some other time,” offered Dr. Bentley. “My patient needs time to recuperate.”

“Doctor, please tend to his wounds and have him recover as soon as possible.” General Cube stroked his silver hair back and replaced his hat on his head. “Soldier, it’s been a pleasure. I’m sure we’ll talk again. Good day to you both.”