The Gift of the Dragon (41 page)

The single test tube faded to a scene showing medical equipment in a lab. Alice gasped. “Jacob, I was there! Moore’s office in Tampa!”

“I did think Sam was going crazy. I talked with him many times. Things were getting stranger at Apple Creek. McAlister and Northwin kept asking what I was doing. They made me paranoid as all hell. Asking about my daughter, Sara. I sent her away with Sam’s oldest, Alice. Into hiding.”
 

Jacob groaned. Alice realized she was squeezing his arm with all her strength. His arm was covered with scratches and purple bruises. “Sorry!” She let go.

His eyes fixed on the screen, he waved at her as though to say it did not matter. She softly stroked his arm where she had been squeezing.
 

The scene changed to show a starship flying in space. “One time, Sam sent me a set of DVDs. A TV show. I never liked talkies. They make me nervous. TV was even worse. I didn’t have one. I told him that, and he sent me a TV. The show was called Star Trek.”

“I watched a few of them. Pretty wild stuff. Creative. I asked him what it was all about. He left me a voice-mail, yelling about how there was a whole universe out there. I told him the show was a fantasy. It would take a hundred years to get to the nearest star. He sent back a text,
‘What is a hundred years?’
That was the last I heard from him. Maybe his last words to anyone. McAlister told me he had been killed that same day with his entire family. Freak accident.”

The video showed more headlines, “Billionaire CEO Dead in Mystery Accident,” “Mystery Plane Crash with Billionaire’s Entire Family”…
 

“The plane burned up. Sam didn’t come back from that one.” The old man wiped his eyes.

“With Sam dead, I worried. I was the next oldest. I separated myself from the remaining three. Went underground. Turns out
Andracia
does make you change your mind some after three hundred years. It has its own agenda. It is not a bad agenda, though—just a very much larger one than people tend to think about. Malthus had a problem with perspective.” Another face appeared onscreen, gray-haired, thin, with a severe expression. “That’s Franklin McAlister,” Jacob said.
 

Moore went on, “Franklin’s going mad in the other direction. He is convinced
Andracia
will make him crazy, like it did Sam. Like it did me. Franklin is trying to find a way to stop that happening to him. He came to me, asking for help making a clone. Talking about a brain transplant.” McAlister’s face faded out, and Moore came back on screen. “Franklin thinks
Andracia
can’t cross the blood-brain barrier. That barrier stops most things.” Moore raised his bushy, gray eyebrows. “I think
he
is the crazy one. I told him to get lost.”
 

Moore stopped and rubbed his face with both hands, and then he looked abashed. “Sorry, shouldn’t do that when I’m on camera. McAlister found someone else who would do the deed. I found evidence. A little baby. A clone of a man named Mishari, a man nearly as old as Franklin,” Moore wiped his eye with his palm. “That is why I’ve made these videos. I need to tell the whole story.” Moore paused, looking intently from the small screen.
 

“When you listen to the rest of these, they will sound like the rant of an old nutcase. A drunk on the street corner with a sign. Hell, they sound crazy to me. But this is a true story. Once, smart people believed the world was flat. Columbus sailed because someone told him a different tale. You might have learned in school that our thumbs are what make us different from the animals. That’s not it. Plenty of animals hold things. What makes us different is our ability to tell stories and pass them on. The story of what roots to eat. How to hide from a lion. How to build a house. What happens when a king gets too much power. That sort of thing. We spread stories like we spread disease. It makes us human. It makes humans different.” Moore’s face faded out, this time replaced by a scene showing the YouTube website.

“I’m in hiding now. Soon I’ll put the videos I mentioned up on the web. This one is the first. Even Apple Creek can’t kill the Internet. I hope. Now that you have seen this, I’ve infected you with my story. Don’t let it die.”
 

Moore stopped talking then and looked at the screen with a grumpy smile. The lights on him faded until only his smile remained visible. Then that also faded away, as the last light went dark.
 

“Wow,” Alice took a breath. It felt like the first one in days. “He’s
nuts.
”

“Yeah. Stark raving. But there may be some truth lurking in there, with Apple Creek trying to get your dragon key back so badly. No one would go to all that trouble just to keep an old man from posting crazy rants on YouTube.” Jacob took her hand. “Alice, a missile blew up Northwin’s boat. I recognize the sound from when I was in combat. They call it a Hellfire. It is carried on US Army helicopters.”

“Someone with an Army helicopter wants us dead?”

Jacob looked at her for a moment. “I don’t know if they were shooting at
us
. But yeah, someone had it in for Northwin and Grant. Someone with serious pull.”
 

“So maybe what he said about my father—being murdered—maybe that part was true?”

“Yeah, there may be a few true things that the McAlisters don’t want anyone looking into. Your father dead, Moore dead, Brandon dead. Northwin dead. That leaves only the McAlisters. Now they own all of Apple Creek. There was a case where a baby went missing, the child of an Arab diplomat. I
think
he was named Mishari. Or maybe Moore just got that name from a newspaper.” Jacob’s shoulders slumped. “If I was still in the FBI and this video showed up on the web, I would look into it. I’m not the only curious person out there.”

Jacob poked the next folder on the tablet’s screen. Another window came up, requesting a password. The hint read, πανσπερμία.
 

“What language is that?” Alice said.
 

“Looks like Greek to me.”

Jacob touched another folder. Another password prompt popped up. It also had a hint above the place to type the password. This one read, “Horizon 47.3.”

“Dammit, did Moore
really
want anyone to watch his crazy videos? Why put these weird passwords on them?”

“Who knows? In an action movie, this is when we would run into a hacker in an Apple store or coffee shop with godlike computer skills and a room full of technology at his disposal. In his mother’s basement. Weighing four hundred pounds. I’m afraid I don’t have any of that.”

“And only half the belly,” Alice poked at him.

“If I were back at the agency, there are techs there who could crack this in seconds. But I don’t think we want to go there.”

“Well, let’s take a shot at answering the questions with what we do have. My phone, Ami, and our brains.”

“Okay, but how about some lunch first? There are some good restaurants here on the Key. I’m pretty tired of mac and cheese with ketchup. How about you?”

Alice needed to check her phone.
Alone.
“Do any of them have takeout? I’m sorry, Jacob, but my hands are killing me when I move, and the thought of going anywhere…”

“I understand. There is a sushi place with takeout. Pretty good. Any preferences?”

Alice thought about it. She could remember liking sushi. That surprised her. Maybe Grant’s death helped her memory? Maybe her brain was just healing on its own. “A spider roll? Something with tuna? None of that fake crab, though.”

“Gotcha.” Jacob gave her a half smile. He started for the door.

“Jacob, wait. Are you walking? Your ankle—you shouldn’t walk on it. Let me get you the car keys.” She reached for her pants.

“Don’t worry about it. The Golden Shores isn’t so bad. They have a few bikes for guests to use. It will help to stretch it out.”

“Are you sure?” She hoped so.
It might be good to have the car.

“Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”
 

As the door closed, Alice reached for her phone.

The End

Thank you very much for reading The Gift of the Dragon!

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Michael Murray.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my my lovely and brilliant daughter and first beta reader Alana.
 

Thank you also to my dad and second beta reader, Murray, for his constant encouragement, and to my wonderful mother, Sherry for enlarging the scope of the possible, by publishing several books of her own and living to tell about it.

THE GIFT OF THE DRAGON. Copyright
©
2013 by Michael Murray

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living, dead, or undead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

First edition: June 2013.