The Deep Beneath (18 page)

“It’s over, 9. Get in the chopper.”

“You say you have need of me. If that’s true, then you will not be able to sedate me forever. And when you dry me out to do your bidding, my first action will be to terminate you.”

Commander Sturgis’ smirk disappeared and she swallowed.

“If you spare them, I will come with you. Willingly. And I will spare your life.”

Commander Sturgis glared at Tex. Finally she sighed and said, “You win. They will not be terminated. But I cannot let them go free as yet. They have to be debriefed. We’ll take them back to A.H.D.N.A., brief them on a cover story, and they’ll be home in time for dinner.”

“Don’t listen to her, Tex,” Erika shouted. “She’s lying. She’ll kill us and you’ll end up her prisoner again.”

A few soldiers moved in closer, and a rifle barrel poked Erika in the back. Ian’s arm quivered against her though he continued to hold his head high. Erika straightened herself and thrust her chin high too. Jack squeezed her hand again, and he, too, stood taller.

“Tex? How charming. She named you like a pet.” Don’t try to manipulate him. He’s far too advanced for your mental games. Besides, he’s outgunned. After the dousing I gave him, he lacks the strength to fight this large a group of armed men and he knows it.”

“I would rather die than go back with you,” Tex said quietly.

“Be careful what you wish for,” Commander Sturgis said. “Come, we cannot delay here any longer. We already have too many eyes that have seen too much. Round them all up and make sure this area is clean.”

“Promise me you will not harm them or I will not come willingly with you,” Tex said to her back.

Commander Sturgis walked back to Tex and stood mere inches from him. They were about the same height, so she could look him in the eyes. She reached out her hand and brushed her fingers gently down Tex’s mud-stained cheek. “My dear emotional 9. Or do you prefer the pet name that the humans gave you?”

He did not answer.

“Apparently you are quick to make friends. But also enemies.” She withdrew her hand from his face but continued to stare into his bottomless eyes. “You tug at me. Perhaps like Dr. Randall I have a soft spot for you, a victim of my human frailty. It will likely be my undoing.” She paused, then said, “You win. I promise. Now it’s time for you to go home.”

Commander Sturgis put her hand out, but Tex did not take it. Sturgis withdrew her hand, her face etched with anger. “Are you coming or not?”

Don’t do it. Don’t go with her.
Erika lived by observation and action, not feeling. But her stomach was tied in a knot of nerves, and tears played at the corner of her swollen eye. She had to admit to herself a feeling that she would not be home in time for dinner.

Tex walked to the copter without looking in Erika’s direction, still naked as the day he was born. Commander Sturgis followed after him. When Tex stepped inside the chopper, a soldier threw a dark blanket around his shoulders. A few soldiers filed into the helicopter behind them, and it lifted off. He stared out of the still-open door at Erika before it was slammed shut.

The Black Hawk whisked Tex away. The chopper’s blades whipped the air as it rose and turned south. Erika pulled Jack and Ian closer, huddling against them in an effort to stop her shivering.

Tex was on his way back to his underground prison. Commander Sturgis could call it his home, but Erika knew it wasn’t. A home is made by choice. Tex had no choice.

A rifle poked her in the ribs. “Down the hill,” a soldier said.

Erika didn’t think about her own fate as she was marched at gunpoint with Jack and Ian down the hill. She couldn’t let her mind go there. If she allowed herself to think about what was to come, she may start screaming and crying and never stop. Instead she focused on trying not to trip over her own feet as they trudged back down the hill.

They were forced into a windowless white van that was waiting at the bottom. Jack sat to her right and Ian to her left. She was glad she couldn’t look into their faces. If she did, she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep herself from crying.

The driver pulled out of the parking lot and onto the road away from Sedona and the beautiful rocks. Away from the place where Tex had almost made it to his freedom.

Back on a road again to the unknown.

“The question is not ‘Can they reason?’ nor ‘Can they talk? but ‘Can they Suffer?”

Flanked by soldiers on each side of the copter’s bench seat, Tex clutched the blanket close to his naked body and stared down at his lap. In that moment, he hated the human part of himself. It was the human in him that thrust pesky emotions up to his consciousness. Emotions like fear followed quickly by anger. And above all the feeling of defeat. He had failed himself and put the humans that had helped him in danger. He had not intended that. And he loathed that he felt remorse for it.

Dr. Randall was the only human he had ever held positive thoughts about. But now he felt something new. It was strange and uncomfortable. Tex had a vision in his mind of Erika Holt with guns pointed toward her. The thought made a bit of bile rise in Tex’s gullet and he was nauseous. But he managed to keep the contents of his stomach within him and not embarrass himself further than he already had.

As he sat and stewed, the sun rose and flooded the copter with warmth. While on Bell Rock, he’d taken off the sunglasses that Erika had bought for him. His eyes were exposed to the bright sun for the first time. He had longed to see the sun and feel its warmth on his body. It was the photographs of the Earth during the day that had most made him ache to escape the confines of A.H.D.N.A. But as the sun shone in the copter, it hurt his eyes, so he closed them.
I do not belong in the light.
At least with his eyes shut he could not see Commander Sturgis’ accusing glare.

They had wrapped him in an already damp wool blanket that had sopped up the water they’d doused him in. The cold wetness made him shiver. As the moisture seeped into him through his pores, it was as if his lungs and brain were drowning. Tex was almost impressed with Commander Sturgis’ strategy to keep him in check. If only Ian had driven faster or he’d thrown himself into the portal sooner.

The soaking had dampened his senses, and the wet blanket had put his abilities into near total lockdown. But the arid air counteracted some of the effects of the moisture. At least he had the ability to reach out with his senses to the world immediately around him. He could sense a change in the air as Sergeant Freeman shifted in the seat across from him. And as he concentrated, he could hear Commander Sturgis’ thoughts.

It was not like a voice speaking in his head as it had been with the greys and Alecto. It was more like seeing a slide show of photographs that he had to piece together. He saw a vision of Erika, Ian and Jack. It was how Sturgis saw them. They were huddled together, crying and looking afraid. Then an image of the three lying lifeless on the ground.
She will kill my new friends.

His sacrifice on their behalf had been in vain. They would die, and he would be a prisoner at A.H.D.N.A. once again. It would be as though the events of the night had never happened.

How could I have been so misguided?
The only explanation was that between the heady experience of freedom coupled with the dousing, he’d misjudged it all.
I should have listened to Erika.
But as he recalled the scene and played it back in his mind, he knew that defying Sturgis had not been an option. The water had worked exactly as Sturgis had intended. He had been powerless.

If she does not intend to keep up her end of the deal, then I do not need to keep mine.
Tex imagined the copter’s engine seizing up, its blades faltering. Though he could picture in his mind the result he intended, he remained too weak to maintain the concentration needed to project his thought to manipulate such a large and complex machine. He had no means of escape.

Tex tried his best to shut himself off from the sensations coming to him from the world around him – the hum of the copter engine, the odor of human sweat and jet fuel, the acrid taste of the air.
Best to forget the entire evening
. Remembering his night of freedom – the exhilaration, the power, and the emotion of it all – would only make his captivity more painful to endure.

Tex’s head slumped down almost touching his chest. His arms were pulled in tight to his body. He did not speak to anyone nor did anyone in the copter start a conversation with him. He tried to sleep, but his head ached and hummed.

The feeling was familiar. He had experienced the throbbing pain and buzzing the night before. Tex concentrated on closing himself off further. If he could focus on it …

The humming pounded in his skull. He wanted to cradle his head in his hands, but he dared not draw attention to himself. Tex had a thought that he tried to give voice to in his mind.
One at a time!
They must have heard him because instantaneously the cacophony of voices stopped and was replaced with a singular voice.
“Retrieval,”
the voice said.

Retrieval? I do not understand.

There was no response. Tex attempted to channel his thoughts again. It was difficult to think only one thought, as he typically had many swirling through his mind.

“What do you mean by retrieval?”

There was a symphony of voices in his mind’s ear as if a thousand people spoke to him at once. Little by little, the voices retreated until it was a small chorus that spoke as one. “
Retrieve the half human,”
the voice said.

“
I know you tried. I am sorry. I failed.”

“The half human will be retrieved.”

Tex paused to consider the words he heard in his head. Were they going to try to retrieve him or Alecto? And were they speaking of now or the future? And were they aware that Commander Sturgis was once again the agent of his destiny?

Though he no longer felt as though an ice pick had been thrust into his skull, his head still buzzed unpleasantly. Sturgis had her eyes on her tablet, but if she looked up and over at him, she may notice something amiss. Tex worried that his face revealed his pain. He pulled the blanket around himself more tightly, sheltering himself from prying eyes.

“I am not able to return to the red rock. I am being held again by Commander Sturgis. I am being returned underground to A.H.D.N.A.”

It was a long and complex thought for him to convey. He hoped they understood him. Tex waited several minutes for a response.

“The half human will be retrieved at A.H.D.N.A.”

“At A.H.D.N.A.? But when I am there, they will have me heavily –”

“This communication is terminated. The half human will await further instruction.”

“But wait …”

The voice was gone as was the buzzing. He was a bit dizzy but breathed slowly and deeply to keep himself from passing out.

After a few minutes, the dizziness subsided but was replaced with a fatigue like he had never known. The concentration he had to maintain to communicate with the greys had sapped his last bit of energy. Now that he knew they had not given up on him, he could afford to let his mind relax. He allowed himself to fall asleep with hope that perhaps he would not remain a captive after all.

The helicopter landed and jerked Tex awake. Sergeant Freeman picked Tex up in his beefy arms and carried him to the elevator and down to the bowels of A.H.D.N.A. The elevator doors opened and his senses were assaulted with the warm moisture that was typical for the underground lab. He could feel the heightened sensation he’d achieved in the desert above dissipate quickly. There would be no ability to free himself.
I hope the greys understand that their ‘retrieval’ is a rescue mission.

“Take the runaway to Aphthartos, Freeman. To the pool room,” Commander Sturgis said.

Aphthartos?
Tex had never been to a section of A.H.D.N.A. with such a designation. And he cared not for the idea of being in a room with a giant hole filled with water.

Tex could have walked on his own two feet. He was strong enough for that at least. But he did not offer to carry himself to their destination.
Best to let them think I am weaker than I am.

Tex peered from inside the cocoon of his blanket and saw that they were in Alpha quadrant. All of the doors were closed, and no one walked the halls.
Sturgis must have put them on partial lockdown before we arrived.
Tex had been in this quadrant only briefly when he had mounted his escape the night before. He had been warned by Dr. Dolan to wait until after six o’clock when the daytime workers – administrative types and scientists – in Alpha quadrant would be gone for the evening.

When they arrived at the center of A.H.D.N.A., instead of going right and taking the first hallway that would lead back to H quadrant and the H.A.L.F. program, they took the second hall to the right. Tex had never been down that hallway.

Freeman walked briskly despite carrying Tex. They walked down the corridor for about a hundred yards when they met a set of double metal doors without windows. A guard slid an ID card with a magnetic strip through the card reader beside the door. The card reader buzzed once, and the guard held his thumb to a small plate on the reader. The unit buzzed, this time twice, the large metal doors slid open, and Freeman carried Tex into what looked like a small 1950s town that had been plucked from up top and planted in the cavernous underground space. Tex looked up, and his sensitive eyes hurt as he was blinded by artificial sunlight. He quickly closed his eyes and blinked a few times.

They walked past what looked like a central courtyard complete with a stone fountain trickling water. Red and white flowers and green shrubs surrounded the fountain. Tex could not tell if the plants were artificial or real. A brass plaque that read ‘Aphthartos’ was affixed to the base of the large concrete fountain. And above the plaque was a strange symbol. Tex squinted and tried to make it out. It looked like two snakes intertwined, each eating the other’s tail, emblazoned on a pyramid in the background. Or was it a depiction of DNA? It looked like there were rungs like a ladder strung between the snakes. Above the symbol another inscription. ‘The Makers.’ Tex had no idea what it meant.