CHOSEN: A Paranormal, Sci-Fi, Dystopian Novel (25 page)

“I
see,” Admiral General Mylar said, looking around at the others standing and
waiting in front of a door. He chose to ignore Johan’s question. “Would that be
a problem? The team staying? You all working on a solution to the rate and
timing of bonding?” he then asked Johan.

Johan
was taken back by the question. This Admiral General was the reason they had
missed the chance to leave Antarctica nearly sixteen years ago when the twins
were born. He’d pressured them into staying because of how important it was to
complete everything by a certain time. Nothing had changed.

“Stay?
In Antarctica, over Winter, with my kids?” Johan asked with surprise.

“Well,
you have some family and Zura does too. Can’t they stay with her grandparents
or your sister?” he asked with no concern. 

Johan
couldn’t deal with his complete lack of sensitivity right now. He looked at
Admiral General Mylar in the eyes and mustered up a tight light lipped smile. He
was furious that Mylar had the nerve to ask him to leave his kids somewhere for
six months so he could make a timeline that hadn’t been discussed before that moment.
 

“We’ll
have to see. I’m not an island and don’t make those decisions by myself. Let’s
continue walking. It’s getting late.” Johan turned and kept moving before he
said or did something he might regret.

A
year was really pushing it whether they stayed through the Winter or not. What
Mylar was asking would turn their twelve to fourteen hour days into sixteen hour
days and even that might not be enough. They would need more staff than what
was on the ARC. They would even miss Stephen and Stella’s sixteenth birthday
celebration, unless they didn’t send them back until afterwards, which wouldn’t
be fair.

Johan
broke the uncomfortable silence. “We still have a lot more to discuss and the
rest of my team will be looking for us. Besides, we have a tele-transmission
with the Science Institute very soon. I don’t think we have time to stop long
in the next section.” 

“Well,
let me go in and check it out,” Admiral General Mylar said.

Johan
opened the door for him and he stepped in. This project was a UniCorps funded
initiative and they had given Mylar oversight, as a proxy for the World
Consensus. The only people with clearance to go into those sections were Chief
Scientist Phillips from UniCorps and Admiral General Mylar. Phillips followed
Mylar through the door and Mylar held the door and waved his hand for Johan to
come in.

“No
thanks,” Johan said with a sickening look on his face. “I don’t need to see it
today,” he added. 

“You
don’t really have a choice. If we have questions, you’re the man to answer
them. Come on, Johan. We need to get on with this.” Mylar pushed the door open
wider as Johan walked in.

In
the hallway leading back to the door where the others waited, Admiral General
Mylar stopped walking and faced Johan with a frown. “I’m concerned about the
age of our specimens. I want to talk to you about that very soon. Not today.
There’s enough other business today. That could be an issue for our timeline and
will likely be the cause of having to stay through the winter,” he said as they
turned to walk back the way they came. 

Mylar
stopped again before leaving through the door to join those who didn’t have the
clearance. He turned to speak to Johan and Phillips, but the message was
intended for Johan’s benefit. “Before we go back up to the main room, I need
something to be clearly understood. The World Consensus and UniCorps have recently
developed a new and very detailed plan and part of its success relies on those specimens
being ready in time.”

“I
don’t understand Admiral General. We’ve always been working to get them ready
in time. I wasn’t aware that the timeline had changed until just a few minutes
ago,” Johan responded with irritation.

“Yes,
I know,” Mylar said as he glanced back. “We cannot have a repeat of past
failures with similar efforts. UniCorps has been around, under other names and
has had to operate in secret for longer than I’d like to discuss before we were
finally able to birth the government and world we and our predecessors
envisioned. You understand this, Johan. Things have changed, and I’ll need you
to adjust as well.”

“We’ve
been doing everything according to the plan that was outlined. I’ve been
operating from those orders. We haven’t missed any deadlines,” Johan said as he
began to feel defensive about his work.

“Yeah.
Well, now it’s time for the next step. We must be able to move on to the next
phase, and rest assured, if for any reason we,” Mylar said moving his hand to
point to Johan and Phillips before continuing, “can’t do it, they will find
people who can. This is our duty. It’s for our survival.” Mylar finished
speaking and turned to walk back towards the exit.

The
three men joined the small group waiting in the hall. As they began to walk,
their hard shoes clacking on the solid floors on the left side of the lower
level, they didn’t hear the quiet footsteps of Stephen and Stella on the right
side. The twins headed back through the winding twists and turns to the main
level and through the door marked on the other side with ‘No Entry’.

As
they quietly walked towards their living quarters they heard a voice that
seemed to come from nowhere. “There you two are. I was looking for you. We are
taking a lunch break and I just wanted to check in on you,” said Mave with a
curious look on her face. “Have you two enjoyed your morning away from all of
this boring grown up stuff?” she smiled and Stella wondered if she knew.

Stella
and Stephen didn’t know how to answer her. They weren’t sure if she’d noticed
anything or heard anything.

“Yes,
thanks.” Stella jumped in. 

Stephen
looked down for a moment before Mave asked him, “Have you enjoyed your morning
Stephen? You get to be away from these intense meetings. It’s pretty tough in
there right now.”

Stephen
looked up at Mave, guilt clouding his eyes as it twitched ever so slightly.
“Yes. It’s been nice hanging out with Stella,” he answered. 

Stephen
wanted to get back to his room to check what Marco had sent. He wanted to find
out if it was a clue, a new map, or something else helpful. “I hope the rest of
the meeting goes better than the morning, Mave,” he added. 

“Yeah,
if you see mom and dad, let them know we’re fine. We’ll probably be in
Stephen’s room for a while or in the lounge area,” Stella said, sounding calm
and relaxed.

“Okay.
I guess I’ll talk to you later. I’m just avoiding going back in there a minute
before I have to,” Mave smiled. “I guess I better head back. The big heads will
be back from their tour soon and we will have yet another
important
meeting,” she said with a slight eye roll. 

Mave
had a way of being ridiculously smart and calming and real all at the same
time. Something both Stella and Stephen usually liked about her, but right now they
were in too much of a hurry to appreciate.

“We’ll
see you soon. We’re trying to catch up with a friend so we’re gonna head to
Stephen’s room,” Stella said as they began to scurry off. Mave looked after
them. She could only wonder, and hope.

They
could feel Mave watching them but willed themselves not to turn back around and
look. Instead they walked quickly away from her gaze. When they turned the
corner to their hallway, they each took a deep breath. Until that moment, they
hadn’t even realized they’d been holding it.

Stephen
opened his door and they both scurried inside and closed it behind them. Stephen
immediately sat down at his desk to pull up the message he’d gotten notice of
while they were still on the lower level. Now, he was back at his system where
he could retrieve it safely and without risk of exposing it to the ARC’s
general system. From down there he couldn’t tell anything about what the
message might have said or whether it had a file. He logged in and accessed
their secure system.

Flashing
at the top of his screen was the message from Marco. A file was also sitting
there. Stella watched from her cozy spot on the bed behind Stephen and smiled
to see something there. 

“Hurry
up and tap it, Stephen,” she urged impatiently.

Stephen’s
finger tapped on the file first to see what else Marco and Alexis might have
been able to crack. It was just what he’d been hoping for, the detailed
blueprints. He started looking through the different layers and noticed some
areas were unmarked. It was as if they had been left unmarked from the
beginning. Stephen couldn’t find a rationale for why someone would do that.

Stephen
looked at the section of the blueprints where he and Stella had heard the
noises. The door was there but there wasn’t any drawing of what was behind that
door. No size or measurements or shape to go by. No name, just the same door
number RS11 with a second notation N3 on it.

“What
do you think it means?” Stella asked Stephen looking at the blueprint’s layers
near his wall.

“I
don’t know. It’s not complete and that room where we heard the unusual noises
shows here as just a door with another notation of N3 on it,” Stephen said
rubbing his head. 

“It
would definitely help if we knew what N1 and N2 were.” Stella said smartly.
“Can we look for other Ns?”

Stephen
did a search for N1 and it only showed up as a part of the file name of the
first blueprint they’d followed. “That’s interesting,” he said to himself. He
then searched for N2. The current file he and Stella were looking at had N2
embedded as part of the file name in the same place. 

“This
isn’t random or coincidental,” Stella said, “is it?”

Stephen
had already moved to searching for N3 in the filenames of the other files they
hadn’t been able to access yet. 

“There
it is, Stella. No this is not random or a coincidence. These files are all
blueprints. If I would guess, I would think each provides another level of
detail,” Stephen said.

“What
I don’t get is why they need to have so many files of just the blueprint. What
is so important that it needs to be kept under such tight security? It’s
blueprints of a place that does research on Antarctic sea life, emissions and
environment,” Stella questioned. 

“I’m
going to message Marco to have him try to open this file next. I want to see
what is in the N3 file.”

“What
about tomorrow? Do you think what he sent today will help us find any other
cool discoveries or what’s behind that door RS11? If not, I suggest we take a
day to sleep in and then ask Dad about getting a real tour, when they are done
with their meetings. After all he should know, right?” Stella reasoned.

“I’ll
look at the blueprints more carefully and see what I find. I want to go down to
the next level tomorrow and hopefully these blueprints have information on that
level,” Stephen said before looking around nervously as if someone might
suddenly appear. “I’d rather not ask Dad before it’s necessary. Don’t you want
to explore some first, Stella?”

Antarctic Research Center

The pacing was
beginning to wear on Stephen’s senses. Stella had walked back and forth between
the bed and the window more than twenty times already as he synced, moved, and
organized files. 

“If
we are going to do it, we should go back today,” Stella said, surprising Stephen. 

He
couldn’t tell if she was being serious or messing with him. “What do you mean?”
he asked. 

“Stephen,
we should go back out when they go back into their meeting. They’ll be in there
for hours and tomorrow who knows what will happen. They may shut this whole
place down and then we won’t be able to get back in. I just have a feeling - a
knowing that I can’t shake.”

Stephen
looked at Stella. “I want to go down to the next level. We can do that with
what we have, but we don’t have any more information on what anything is. So
all we will be able to do is look at closed doors.”

“Maybe
all the doors won’t be closed. Maybe we’ll have some good luck and something
will be open for us,” Stella said optimistically.

“I’d
like to grab lunch like we discussed before coming up here. I am starving. Not
literally starving, but I am very hungry,” Stephen said.

“Good
idea. I’m starving too,” echoed Stella.

As
the two were about to leave for the kitchen, a message came through from Marco.
“It'll be tomorrow before I can get to N3. Have full day of training and can’t
get away.” 

“Does
that mean that he won’t even be able to look until tomorrow or that he’ll send
it tomorrow?” Stella asked with concern. 

“I
don’t know. It sounds like he won’t be able to look at it until tomorrow and
then who knows how long it will take. They’ve done two so I guess they are
getting the hang of what is required. If that is the case it probably won’t
take them very long to do N3 for us. We just don’t know if we can get down
there tomorrow. They won’t be in their meetings so we won’t be able to move so
freely,” Stephen answered Stella trying to borrow some of her optimism but
regressing.

“I
would really rather not ask dad, so I agree with you. We should take the chance
today, when they return to their meeting.” He didn’t want to risk that Stella’s
intuition was right and they couldn’t do anymore exploring after today.

“I’m
going to record it this time, Stephen. In case there is anything strange, maybe
we can capture it and figure it out later.”

“Good
idea. But first, we need to get lunch,” Stephen reminded her.

They
snuck back out of Stephen’s room and walked silently towards the kitchen,
checking for anyone from the ARC team or any of the visitors. Seeing it was all
clear, they scurried like mice into the kitchen and made sandwiches as fast as
they could. 

“We
should put this away,” Stephen said pointing to the mess they’d made. 

“Put
the mayonnaise and turkey away. The rest will be fine,” Stella said heading out
of the kitchen. 

Stella
checked the living area and waved Stephen to hurry up. They snuck back the way
they’d come after the prior expedition and soon arrived at the door marked ‘No
Entry’.

Years
earlier, Johan had told the twins that if there was ever a serious emergency on
the ARC that they were to go through that door and to the first room they saw. The
door would remain unlocked and they could close it from the inside.

The
large room had food, water, medical supplies, and beds. It was a small
self-sustaining apartment that would take a bomb or other detonation to break
into. The room was the only reason the ‘No Entry’ door was not locked and the
panic room looked just like all the other doors from the outside once closed. 

If
under attack the attackers couldn’t tell the difference. The twins had always
wondered who would want to attack a research center in Antarctica, but their
dad just said, “You never know. Better to be safe than to be sorry.”

“Let’s
get past this level and down to the next. Where is that staircase again? We saw
it on the blueprint and I think I remember seeing a strange marking earlier. It
didn’t say ‘Stairs’. It looked more like the face of a stepped pyramid. I
thought it meant Danger or something,” Stella said, looking at the tablet with
Stephen.

“There
it is,” he said. “Ahead on the right. Come on.” He walked while looking for the
symbol along the walls and doors.

“I
see it!” Stella said excitedly as they turned a corner and passed a dull
marking at the top of the hall with the pyramid symbol. The symbol appeared to
have been hand etched into the plastic sign that hung loosely by the door.

Stella
walked to the door under the symbol. It had a security panel on the side, but
the lights on the panel were out.

“If
it’s not locked, must mean we’re allowed in, right?” she said without waiting
for an answer.

She
gently pushed on it like she’d done with so many other doors, expecting it to
be locked. What neither twin could see was that the keypad had a short and
wasn’t communicating with the main security system for the lower levels.

Stella
pushed at the door and it clicked and opened. A faint white light flickered
unpredictably as the door swung in. They found themselves standing at the top
of a wide landing, on either side of which were steps. Both sets of steps lead
into darkness. 

Stephen
tapped on his tablet and recorded the location. It wasn’t a check but he wanted
to precisely identify where it was, given the lack of detail on the
blueprints. 

Stella
tapped several buttons on her watch. She could hear something coming from down
below. She wasn’t going any closer, but she could record the sounds. She
grabbed the hand rail and leaned her other hand over the center of the
stairwell to get it closer to the sound. What was under her hand felt odd,
scratchy.

It
should’ve been smooth metal but when Stella let her light shine on the rail,
she could see it was anything but smooth. Long scratches crossed the rail going
from right to left before fading. She shined the light along the rest of the
rail and could see the same type of scratches start again right where the
staircase began to wind down.

“Stephen,
shine your light on your side. Do you have long scratches there too?” Stella
asked. She traced the scratches with her fingertips. They could be fingernails
but that would require very sharp, strong nails. 

“Yes,
they’re on this side too. What do you think they are?” he asked, tracing his
fingers along the path, and taking a step down the stairs.

“Don’t
go down there. We don’t know what’s down there, Stephen!” Stella said grabbing
his shirt.

“It’s
a staircase on the ARC. It’s probably a boring science lab.”

“With
those sounds? I doubt it, Stephen,” she said, not letting go of his shirt until
he turned and stepped back up to the landing. 

“I’m
still recording, so be quiet for a minute.”

Stephen
stood quietly, his fingers still tracing the scratches in the rail. He ran his
fingernails across them. They weren’t evenly spaced or sized. They weren’t
always straight. They were at different angles, almost as if some metal had
been dragged along them for short bursts before lifting up.

***

The Science Institute
was wrapping up their time with the group. “We are confident that if we don’t
take action now, we will not have time to properly evacuate the at risk areas
and there will be significant loss of life. If we act immediately, there is
still the possibility of a high number of casualties given the amount of
activity and the magnitude of both earthquakes and volcanoes that will likely
be triggered. Ladies and gentlemen, we are literally sitting on a ticking time
bomb. We don’t know what the timer is set to, but sooner rather than later, it
is going to blow,” Dr. Hudson said to the group. 

“We
have sent you all the data we have been able to pull together and it is
conclusive. If I may, I would recommend,” Dr. Hudson began before being
abruptly interrupted by both Tomas and Phillips. 

“Thank
you, Dr. Hudson,” The two said in unison.

“That’ll
be all for now,” Phillips nodded, ending Dr. Hudson’s attempts to persuade them. 

“Yes,”
the Admiral General chimed in, “If we need anything else we will be in touch.
Until then, just remember your confidentiality agreements and that on all
matters related to this project and the research associated with it, you are
sworn to withhold that confidentiality. Any breach of information, Dr. Hudson,
could be considered treasonous,” Mylar paused. “Do you understand, Dr. Hudson?
And I need to know that those people behind you also understand. You are all
held to that same standard.” 

“Yes,
sir. I understand.” She looked back at her team.

“We
understand,” they said in unison.

“Thank
you. That is all.” Mylar cut the transmission and clasped his hands in front of
him.

Mylar
sat forward in his chair and when he opened his mouth his words came out in a
whisper, forcing everyone to lean in towards him. “Just for the record, no one
outside of official World Consensus government leadership may inform the public
of any concerns regarding this matter. It becomes a matter of security and I am
second in command for that area. If we deem it is necessary to inform people of
any possible issues, we will do so; on the terms we decide are best for the
continuation of the World Consensus and what is in the best interest of the
majority.”

“Please
excuse me for just a moment,” Zura said, pushing back from the table.

“What
do you mean? This is a very important meeting and you need to be here,” Mylar
said to Zura. 

“I
will be back in just a moment. I need to use the restroom. While the rest of you
had a break and a tour, I remained in here to finish a few things and make sure
that transmission happened. Now, I will be back in five minutes,” she said,
giving Mylar a look that dared him to stop her as she left the room.

Zura’s
heart was beating so fast she thought they might see it thumping beneath her
uniform. She walked at a quick clip trying to keep her steps sure and confident
as she moved away from the table and towards the ROC room exit. When she got through
the doors to the lab she ran up the stairs to the decontamination chamber. She
anxiously waited for it to finish its process. 

The
moment the door on the other side opened, she took off her footies and began running.
Zura ran up the stairs to the work room and then right on through. In seconds
she was out the door into the corridors leading towards their living quarters,
proving why she’d deserved the track scholarship during her undergraduate years. 

She
ran into Stephen’s room. Empty. She then turned and left to check Stella’s
room. They were both empty. Then she stopped, turned, and ran back towards the
living areas and kitchen. Bread and knives were out on the counter but her kids
weren’t there. 

Zura
paused for a moment and closed her eyes.
Where are they?
She took off
running again. She was at a full on sprint now, only slowed by the angles of
the ARC. She ran down the same hall the twins had walked through not that long
before and only hesitated momentarily as she stood in front of the door marked
‘No Entry’. 

She
pushed through it and ran down the steps to the next level. Zura darted down
the hall, knowing which way to go. 

“Stella?!
Stephen?!” she said in a loud whisper. Yelling would trigger the sound decibel
alarm. There was no answer. “Stella!? Stephen!?” she said slightly louder. Then
she saw a faint glow coming from down the hall. There shouldn’t be any lights
on down there unless someone had triggered them.

Zura
took off again in a dash towards the light. She reached the place where the
pyramid front was above her and the doorway still had light coming from
underneath. She pushed the door gently, startling Stella and Stephen.

“Mom!”
Stella said dropping her camera. She fumbled to pick it up. “What are? I. We.
Um…” Stella stumbled over her words, stuttering nervously.

“Come
out of there. Now!” she yelled in a whisper. Her eyes becoming wide with fear.
A look they rarely saw except when they were about to be in trouble for almost
getting themselves hurt.

From
below they heard the faint sound of clanging. It was what Stella and Stephen
had heard earlier, but it was louder, as if trying to get their attention. “What’s
that sound?” Stephen asked leaning over the rail trying to get a glimpse into
the dark. 

“I
said now,” Zura repeated, ignoring the question and holding the door open for
Stella and Stephen. The twins knew they were in trouble and wondered how their
mother had found them. She was supposed to be in that meeting.

“Mom,
we were just bored and wanted to check out the ARC before we left,” Stephen
said.