Stranded (A stand-alone SF thriller) (The Prometheus Project Book 3) (21 page)

“How will we do that?”

Carl paused in thought. “We can take a small, two-man chopper through the portal in pieces,” he said finally. “Once we put it back together we can use a red crystal to get it through the shield. Then all we have to do is airlift the Isis team over the lava one at a time.”

Ryan was relieved. This sounded like an excellent plan.

“There’s a lot going on, but we can probably have
the chopper ready to go on Isis by Sunday night,” finished Carl.

“Thanks, Carl. I’ll tell Regan to have everyone waiting.”

“Tell her how?”

“Oh yeah. I don’t know what I was thinking. Never mind.”

“So let’s get back to Nathaniel,” said Carl. “In his letter he boasted about running the world. So we know his end game. But did the letter give you any insight as to what his specific plans might be?”

“None.”

“Well, he’s very, very smart. Everyone on the team is. You can bet he’s in one of those six SUVs. He knows the satellites can’t track them through the woods. Even so, he was careful enough to send six of them in six different directions, just to be sure.”

“Any way you can find them after they leave the woods?” asked Ryan.

“Very unlikely. He’s being far too smart and cautious. You can bet he and his people will park the SUVs at the edge of the woods and exit on foot, jumping into cars that are waiting for them. We’d have to be extremely lucky to spot him. But we have one advantage he didn’t count on.”

“What’s that?”

“You,” said Carl simply. “He thought he stranded everyone who knew he was behind this. But you made it
back from Isis to tell us who to look for. His SUV trick still might work and he still might disappear without a trace, but at least now we have
some
chance.”

“It doesn’t seem like his plan is to capture Prometheus,” noted Ryan. “At least not right now. Which doesn’t make sense to me. In his letter he said that capturing Prometheus would be the first thing he did, and he planned to hold it to make sure we were stranded on Isis forever.”

“I don’t know. Maybe he just liked the idea of you thinking you’d never get home. A cruel mind game. You said you were supposed to be gone until Sunday night. So maybe he planned to come back and control the city before anyone realized you were stranded. Given that he has the Enigma Cube, we’d be hard pressed to stop him even now that we know who to look for.”

“But he already
had
Prometheus,” said Ryan. “Why didn’t he keep it?”

There was a long pause. “Again, because he’s smart,” said Carl. “Holding Prometheus would have been a dumb move. The ideal situation for him would have been to sneak the Enigma Cube out of the city without anyone knowing. But he couldn’t. Because our sensors would have detected its alien energy signature. And the second it was missing the city would have been locked down.

“So he knew he would have to
use
the weapon to be able to get it out,” continued Carl. “And yes, he could have held Prometheus, but if he did, we’d know where
he was. Even with his weapon that would give us a big advantage. We could sneak in and mine the entire area without him knowing. We could plant bombs that we could activate with a remote. He’d have a great prize, but he’d trap himself at the same time.”

Ryan’s heart sped up as he thought he detected movement on one of the monitors, but it was only some leaves blowing in the wind.

“So his plan is brilliant,” continued Carl. “He gets out of the city with the Enigma Cube and loses himself. We get Proact and Prometheus back, but now he has all the time in the world to plan how he wants to use the weapon. And we have no idea where he is. He can come at us at any time, from anywhere.” Carl paused. “If I were in his situation, I’d have played it the same way,” he finished, almost with a hint of admiration.

“I know you screen everyone very carefully before they join the team,” said Ryan. “To make sure they’re stable and … well, not like Nathaniel. How did he pass?”

“I wish I knew. We quizzed him hooked up to the best lie detector equipment we have. Like everyone. I supervised the test myself. We asked him what he would do in different situations designed to test his morals and ethics. He passed with flying colors.”

“Well, lie detectors aren’t perfect,” noted Ryan.

“True, but the people who can fool them are really, really bad. People with no conscience, no sense of good
and evil, right and wrong. Since we know the lie detector won’t weed out this type of psychopath, we look into everyone’s life history very carefully before we ask them to join Prometheus. A true psychopath always has something in their background that is suspicious. But not Nathaniel. Anyone psychotic enough to completely fool our lie detector
and
smart enough to hide any sign of this behavior in his past is doubly dangerous.”

Alyssa and Kelsey continued to listen to every word. They were able to hear Carl’s booming voice almost as well as Ryan could.

“Ryan, I need to go. I have a lot to do before I reach you.”

“One last thing before you do,” said Ryan. “When you went to Isis the animals ignored people completely. Now every last one of them wants us dead. Any idea why that is?”

“I thought about that when you were briefing us,” said Carl. “Did your mom tell you what happened on our last trip?”

“Yes. About the animals that look just like lava rocks.”

“Right. There were five of them in all. They only noticed us because I crushed one by accident. So the only thing that I could think of is that they alerted the other animals about us. But they couldn’t have. They were all dead. And even if they were
alive
they couldn’t have. After
all, none of the species on Isis are intelligent. It’s the same for all zoo planets. The Qwervy would never let us visit if this weren’t true.”

“I agree,” said Ryan. “It’s impossible. Even if they were alive. Even if they were intelligent. Even if
all
species were intelligent, they couldn’t have spread the word that well. So it has to be something else that triggered it.”

Ryan shook his head in frustration. He would probably never solve this mystery. But as long as they could get the Isis expedition back home, he decided he didn’t care.

“It doesn’t make sense,” agreed Carl.

Ryan took a deep breath. There was one other point he needed to address. “How are things between you and, ah … my mom?” he asked hesitantly.

Carl sighed. “Not great, Ryan. She lost of a lot of respect for me after what happened on Isis.”

“I know,” said Ryan. “She thinks you killed two of the animals out of revenge. I told her she was wrong. That you would never do that. That you had saved her life.”

There was a long pause. “No, Ryan. The truth is that your mom is right.”

“What! How could that be?”

“I don’t know,” said Carl miserably. “After the injury I just lost it. I hated those animals for what they did to me. More than I’ve ever hated anything. And the thing is … well, the thing is that it was my own fault. They were minding their own business and I killed one
of them. Who could blame them for what they did after that? Not that I still didn’t have a right to defend myself—and the others—but those last two animals were backing away. They couldn’t have hurt us.”

Ryan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had been so sure his mom was wrong about Carl.

“I lost my mind for a while,” said Carl. “I wanted those animals dead,” he admitted. “I’m not proud of that.”

Ryan still refused to believe Carl could have acted in this way. “The pain must have been responsible,” he said. “From what my mom said, your calf was nearly ripped from your leg. I can’t even imagine how painful that must have been. When I stub my toe on the couch, I even hate the couch for a while. And that’s because of a stubbed toe.”

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Ryan, but I’ve seen a lot of combat in my time and I’ve been in a lot of pain, and I’ve never lost control like this. But who knows? You could be right. I have to admit, once your mom hit me with the Med-Pen and the pain went away, I realized within five minutes that I had been out of control.” He paused. “But I won’t make excuses. I don’t blame your mother for being disappointed in me.”

“Ryan, look!” said Alyssa Cooper urgently, pointing to the monitors.

Ryan was so caught up in his conversation with Carl he had forgotten to look at the monitors for some time
now. Good thing Alyssa had stayed alert. All six mercs were converging on the door to the lobby, their automatic weapons drawn.

“Gotta go, Carl,” said Ryan anxiously. “We’ve got company.”

C
HAPTER
26
Inspiration

“I
’m going to enter Prometheus,” said Ryan. “The mercs can’t follow us there.”

“Hurry!” said Carl. “My men will be at Proact in eight minutes for the ground assault. Call me when you resurface. Your cell phone should have recorded my number.”

Ryan was already moving to the door leading into the Prometheus bunker with the Cooper sisters as Carl spoke.

“Got it,” said Ryan, closing the phone.

Ryan wondered how the mercenaries had found them. He guessed they had finally thought to check for cell phone activity in the area and had zeroed in on his signal.

Ryan hit a small button under the lip of the counter and a retina scanner slid out from a hidden compartment in the wall. He put his head against it and a tiny
laser light crossed his right eye. The massive vault door opened with a loud click.

“Hurry,” said Ryan, leading the girls inside and closing the door behind them.

They were safe. After a fingerprint scan and another retina scan they were standing in the massive Prometheus elevator. Ryan entered a password into a metal keypad in the elevator and it began its rapid descent.

The girls were horrified by the guards they encountered still pinned to the ground like insects in a bug collection. But when they stepped through the cavern and into the city their mouths dropped open and stayed there.

Ryan led them to one of the oversized golf-carts and had them slide in. He began driving as quickly as the cart would go.

“Ryan,” said Kelsey, her eyes still wide. “This is fantastic! That building over there,” she said pointing. “It looks like it’s floating.”

Ryan nodded. “That’s an optical illusion. It really isn’t. But if the builders of this city had wanted to have a floating building for real, I’m sure they could have pulled it off.”

Alyssa pointed to yet another building. “And that one seems to be …”

“Sorry Alyssa. Kelsey,” interrupted Ryan. “But I have this idea beginning to form in my head, and I think it’s important. You don’t know how much I’d love to
show you around and answer questions—but I really need to concentrate.”

“No problem,” said Alyssa, but she was unable to completely hide her disappointment.

Ryan frowned. Just perfect. Win a dream date with Ryan Resnick. He’ll have you running for your life and then he’ll ignore you.

Ryan forced himself to return to the train of thought he was pursuing. The more he reasoned things through, the more convinced he was that he had hit on something important.

He stopped the cart in front of the zoo building and jumped out. “Wait here,” he said excitedly and then rushed into the building.

He stepped through the Isis portal as quickly as he could.

“Regan!”
he called out telepathically.

Several long seconds passed.

“Ryan?”
came the surprised reply.
“You made it!”
Ryan could sense just how worried his sister had been about him.
“Are you okay? Did Nathaniel take over Prometheus?”

“I’m fine,”
answered Ryan.
“I’m in no danger at the moment. Nathaniel got through security and escaped aboveground pretty easily, but he made no move to capture the city.”

“Really?”
broadcast Regan, suddenly hopeful.
“That’s great news.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, Earth is still in a lot of trouble. He recruited a bunch of mercenaries just like he said he would, and he’s already used the Enigma Cube as a weapon. But at least he hasn’t killed anyone so far. And there’s more good news,”
added Ryan, brightening.
“I managed to contact Carl. He thinks we can be ready to pull you out of there by Sunday night.”

Ryan waited for his sister’s excited reaction but was greeted by nothing but silence.

“What’s wrong?”
he asked.

“There’s just one problem with that plan, Ryan.”

“What’s that?”

“The generator is failing,”
responded Regan simply.
“We’ll all be dead long before Sunday night.”

C
HAPTER
27
A Missing Device

“W
hat’s your exact situation?”
asked Ryan urgently.

“The shield is shrinking,”
replied Regan. She looked around.
“We have about half the area we had before. We’re setting up wood in a circle around us to light on fire in an hour or so.”

“Good, then there’s still time,”
broadcast Ryan.
“I asked Carl why all the animals went from ignoring humans to wanting us dead. He didn’t know, but I’ve figured it out. And it has nothing to do with the lava rock creatures.”

Ryan explained his theory as quickly as he could. In the beginning, Regan thought he was crazy, but the more he continued the more powerful his arguments became. By the end his conclusion was bizarre but inescapable.

And if he was right, he had saved all their lives.
If
he was right. But it was still just a hypothesis, and even the best theories sometimes failed when put to the test.
“Okay, Ryan. I’m going to end our connection and give this a shot. I know you’ll be trying to help Carl stop Nathaniel, so be careful.”
Regan paused.
“I guess if there’s anyone still alive here for you to rescue on Sunday,”
she added as bravely as she could,
“you’ll know that this worked.”