Stranded (A stand-alone SF thriller) (The Prometheus Project Book 3) (27 page)

“What about me and Carl?”

“Are you really
that
stupid?” she said in disdain. “You can’t possibly think I’m just going to let you go. No, I’ll be using the Enigma Cube on such a high setting that you and Carl will be turned into
paste
. Later, I’m going to tell everyone how Nathaniel Smith tortured and killed you, probably becoming teary-eyed when I do. People will wonder why he went to the trouble of capturing you and Carl from the decoy building, but this will remain a mystery. After all,” she said with a sneer, “who can possibly guess the motives of a psychopath like Nathaniel?”

Ryan knew she wasn’t bluffing. Once she was finished interrogating him he was dead. He had a vision of a large cockroach being crushed by a hard shoe—of the insect’s repulsive guts exploding through its shell accompanied by a sharp crunching sound. He shuddered, knowing this exact fate was in his immediate future. He forced himself not to think about it. When he did he
couldn’t breathe and his mind became paralyzed with fear.

While he was alive there was always a chance, always hope, as Carl had said. But he had mere minutes to come up with a plan and nothing was coming to mind.

“Look,” said Ryan. “You’re not yourself. Let me explain what—”

“Don’t try to change the subject!” thundered Michelle. Then, calmly, as if her outburst had never happened, she added, “I think you were about to tell me how you knew Nathaniel was a decoy.”

Ryan took a deep breath. “I figured it out because I realized you weren’t yourself. Not since you returned from your visit to Isis three months ago.”

“What are you talking about?” she spat. “How am I not myself?”

“Would the old Michelle Cooper shoot Dr. Harris? Strand innocent people on another planet?” He leaned forward intently. “You bound and gagged your own daughters!”

“There is nothing wrong with me!” she yelled. “There is something wrong with the pathetic species called
Homo sapiens
. I’ve grown. I realized now how much I
loathe
humanity. And my daughters are no different. I despise
them
just as much!”

“Think about it. This wasn’t true before three months ago. Something terrible happened to you on Isis.”

“Enough!” shouted Michelle Cooper, picking up
the Enigma Cube and pointing it at Ryan. “Answer my question! How did you know Nathaniel was a decoy? Tell me now or I’ll use a gravity setting that will make the one I used before seem like a
picnic
.”

“I’m trying to tell you. The Isis animals give off some kind of emotional energy that—”

“Time’s up!” hissed Michelle hatefully, touching an indentation on the Cube.

Ryan felt as if he was hit by a falling wall of two-foot thick concrete.

With a sickening crunch he crashed through the chair, which splintered around him, driving a dagger-sized piece of wood two-inches into his thigh. The moment he landed his increased weight flattened him against his back on the floor. Gravity was so strong that blood refused to pour from his wound. Ryan’s heart couldn’t beat and one of his ribs fractured. He didn’t scream or even grunt because he couldn’t draw a breath to do so.

He was an instant away from blacking out when his gravity returned to normal.

“That was five seconds,” said Michelle calmly. “I’ll bet it seemed like a lot longer.”

Ryan remained on his back and said nothing. Blood began pouring from his leg and onto the floor. And he couldn’t think! Not through the agonizing pain that flooded his brain from his broken rib and gashed leg. His entire body felt as if it had been through a blender. Maybe it was finally time to give up: to face the fact that
he would die here in this isolated cabin. He had finally come to a situation he couldn’t trick or bluff his way out of. If only the pain would go away. But that wouldn’t happen. If anything, it would get worse.

“I’m going to ask you one last time,” said Michelle. “How did you know Nathaniel was a decoy? And I don’t want to hear a single word about Isis.”

Ryan’s eyes were dead and defeated. But as he stared into the depths of Michelle Cooper’s pitiless blue eyes, they suddenly sparked back to life.

Ryan laughed. He laughed as if he had heard a very funny joke.

“What are you laughing about?” she demanded.

“I’m laughing at
you
. I’m laughing because you’re just as dead as I am. You just don’t know it yet.”

“How do you figure?”

“Carl rigged a boobie trap. In case he was captured. After I convinced him to call off the air strike on Nathaniel, he told me all about it—luckily in his office where you couldn’t listen in. It’s a high powered spray hidden in a shirt button. As powerful as a sneeze. While I had you distracted he was able to move just enough to activate it.”

Michelle sneered at him. “Don’t try one of your famous bluffs on
me
,” she said scornfully. “I’m not a fool. And your bluff is insultingly poor. Maybe the great Ryan Resnick has lost his touch.”

“It’s not a bluff,” said Ryan. “He got the spray from
the bioweapons people at Fort Dix. It’s the most deadly virus ever designed, and the virus particles are so light they’ll stay afloat even if their gravity is increased. Some of them have already reached us. We have about ten minutes to live.”

She shook her head. “The U.S. doesn’t do bioweapons research anymore. We’ve signed several treaties that prevent it.”

“If you say so. Just do me a favor, kill me now before the virus starts eating away all my skin.”

“You’re making this up. You’re acting too bravely for it to be true. You would never act like your own death meant so little to you. Why?” she demanded. “This bluff gains you
nothing
.”

“I’m not making it up. You’ll see.”

Ryan was hit once again by a gravity wave. Just as intense as the last one. While it lasted the same five seconds, this time Ryan blacked out just before the effect ended, and at least one more of his ribs cracked under the strain.

Michelle Cooper waited patiently for Ryan to regain consciousness. When he did, thirty seconds later, she rose from the chair and held the Enigma Cube over him menacingly. “I’m only going to try this one more time,” she said through clenched teeth. “Why are you bluffing?”

Ryan fought through pain that threatened to completely overwhelm him. “Do what you want to me,” he
croaked weakly. “It doesn’t matter. We’re both already dead.”

“Yeah,” hissed Michelle, touching another indentation on the Cube.
“Well you first!”

Ryan felt bone crushing weight return. It wasn’t as high a setting as the last time, but it was higher than she had used when she had captured them in the decoy building. He fought to stay conscious. If he blacked out he would be unable to fight for breath and he would die within a minute or two.

“You’re helping me conduct a little experiment right now, Ryan,” said Michelle calmly. “Once a scientist, always a scientist, I guess.” She glanced at her watch. “You see I’ve never used this exact setting before. As a biologist, I’m making an educated guess that you can survive for about fifteen minutes.” She sneered at him. “But do try to hold out for as long as you can. I want my data to be accurate.”

Ryan fought through the enormous pain for what seemed like an eternity.

Finally, he could struggle no longer, and he collapsed into unconsciousness.

C
HAPTER
32
The Return

U
nconscious, Ryan was unable to draw even a shallow breath for his already oxygen depleted body. Starved for air, his body and brain began shutting down.

Suddenly, gravity returned to normal.

Although still unconscious, Ryan’s breathing resumed. His heart—no longer struggling under a crushing weight—sped to pump oxygen to the trillions of cells in his body.

Two minutes later, Ryan returned to consciousness and forced his eyes open. An image slowly came into focus. Michelle Cooper. Kneeling over him and wrapping his thigh with bandages and gauze.

“Ryan,” she said in surprise and profound relief. “You’re awake.”

Ryan nodded weakly.

“I’m so sorry for what I did to you,” she said, looking a little dazed.

Ryan smiled thinly. “You used the Med-Pen on yourself after all,” he rasped, barely above a whisper. Given that he no longer felt any pain, he knew she had used it on him as well.

“Yes,” she replied. For some reason she was having trouble remembering further back than ten or fifteen minutes earlier. She wasn’t even sure how she had gotten here. Or why she had been so intent on hurting Ryan Resnick.

“But you were sure I was bluffing,” said Ryan.

She thought about this. “I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “I remember you telling me we would both die from a deadly virus. And thinking you were bluffing. But I also remember thinking that since I had a Med-Pen, I might as well use it—just in case you weren’t. That it would only take a second.”

Michelle Cooper shook her head in confusion. “But what’s going on, Ryan? I
hated
you. I wanted to kill you so badly I could taste it. Then all of a sudden I would have given anything for you to be okay.”

“It’s a long story,” rasped Ryan weakly. “The short version is that you were infected on Isis. Your first trip there made you temporarily insane.”

Michelle’s eyes narrowed. Could this be true? She thought back to her first visit to Isis, and as she did so a dam burst open, freeing all of her memories of the past
three months. They all came rushing back to her, crashing into her like a tidal wave. Ryan was right! She had behaved
horribly
. She had done vile, despicable things. She gasped, feeling sick to the very core of her soul.

“I feel like I just woke from some terrible nightmare,” she said in horror.

“You did,” whispered Ryan. “You weren’t yourself. The Med-Pen cured you.”

Michelle Cooper knew in her heart that this is exactly what had happened. The alien device had restored her mind to its normal state.

As she thought about the past fifteen minutes, her eyes widened. “So
that’s
what your bluff was all about,” she said in wonder. “You needed to trick me into
curing
myself.” She stared at him in admiration. “Incredible.” There was a pause. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

Ryan had never come so close to giving up. It had been hopeless. The pain made it almost impossible for him to think clearly. But the pain had been the key to finding an answer because he had realized that the only way it would go away is if he had a Med-Pen. And then he remembered that Michelle had stolen one. That she had one with her. In a flash he realized what he had to do. If he could trick her into using it on herself, it might cure her. Ryan hadn’t been sure it would still work since her mind had been in an altered state for such a long
time, but he knew this was his only chance. And it had worked perfectly.

Maybe he
was
the luckiest person who ever lived.

Carl managed a grunt from his position on the floor. Michelle jumped up as if she had been electrocuted. “Sorry, Carl,” she said as she trained the Enigma Cube on him. “Didn’t mean to forget about you.”

Carl’s gravity returned to normal and he rose slowly from the floor. He knelt beside Michelle and inspected Ryan carefully. “Are you okay?” he said protectively, although he was far from fully recovered himself.

“Yeah,” whispered Ryan. He managed a faint smile. “Although I’ve probably been better.”

Michelle laughed, and instead of the chilling quality her laugh had had before there was now a cheerful, contagious quality to it.

Carl remembered this laugh and realized how much he had missed it. He caught Michelle’s eye and nodded. “Welcome back, Michelle,” he said warmly.

She returned the nod. Tears slowly formed in the corners of her eyes as she once again thought about the waking nightmare that had been the last three months of her life. About the unspeakable things she had said and done.

The Isis infection had somehow altered her brain chemistry in despicable ways, but even so, how could she ever forgive herself for not fighting harder to retain
her sanity? For not fighting harder to stop the madness from consuming her? How could she ever forgive herself for the way she had treated those closest to her? She was ashamed and horrified and disgusted at herself for allowing the infection to so easily turn her into a psychopath.

At the same time she was overjoyed that she was now herself again and would be able to make amends. A kaleidoscope of emotions spun inside her. Extreme joy and extreme sorrow. Profound regret and profound hope for the future.

“I’ll help you round up the mercs who were working with me and rescue poor Nathaniel,” she said finally. “But can it wait fifteen minutes or so?”

Carl nodded.

Michelle Cooper smiled through tear filled eyes. “Thanks,” she said, walking to the door.

Just before she left the room she turned back to face Ryan and Carl. “My daughters are in the next room,” she explained. “Girls that I love more than anything in the world.”

Tears now left her eyes and began streaming down her face. “It’s time they got their mother back.”

C
HAPTER
33
Friends

I
t was Monday night and the four members of the Resnick family were seated at their dinner table in front of a large window. The window provided an excellent view of the thick woods just beyond their backyard, but this was the last thing any of them wanted to see just then. Everyone had had more than their fill of woods—both earthly and alien—during the weekend that had just passed.

Three of the four family members had spent the entire weekend off-planet. Once the portable generator died, the Isis team had set up the self-inflatable dwellings they had brought and enlarged their camp. They made sure to stay very calm and positive and they had no further encounters with any of the wildlife.