Trifariam, The Lost Codex (2012) (60 page)

“Don’t tell him anything! Carry on!” shouted the Director of Area 51 just as James was apologizing to him.

Justin got to his feet without saying a word, shot him an intimidating look and continued on his way. Meanwhile, James wondered if the scientist was involved in this or whether he had simply followed his boss’ instructions. He knew that Justin was going to Charly’s office, but… did he actually know the true identity of his boss or was he just a puppet to be manipulated? He didn’t have time to find out more. When he looked for the scientist, he had already disappeared around the corner.

The elevator was at the end of the corridor. The doors were open, clearly Justin had just used it. He looked at his watch, it was 12:15; he had exactly forty-five minutes.

He entered, feeling strange and ridiculous at being there alone. The inside seemed even larger in size than the last time he had used it.

He put the key into the lock and eagerly turned it. The control panel he had seen that morning immediately reappeared before him. It wasn’t long before he heard Charly’s voice whispering in his ear, as if he was standing right next to him.

“Type in this code - 5LY8D0NP.” James punched in the characters as he read them out. He repeated them by way of confirmation.

The verification of the code was accompanied by that worrying sound of hinges that made the inner compartment turn in order to carry out the next test - the fingerprint.

“Bring your index finger up to the reader,” ordered Charly.

Although he didn’t know quite what to expect, he was astonished when the rotor made the compartment turn again after he had satisfactorily passed the test.

That’s odd!

When the retinal scanner made an appearance, James brought his eye close to it before Charly could even tell him to do so over the intercom. A beam of light swept the whole surface of his eye until it had created an intricate map of his retina. It was the precursor to the final identity test and, of course, he passed again.

Amazing! How the hell am I getting through these checks?!

With a renewed sense of confidence, James brought his index finger up to the kind of lancet he had seen that morning. He couldn’t help but jump when the tiny needle pierced his skin and extracted a drop of blood which dripped straight onto the glass swab. Although he had no idea how or why, he had the feeling that he had been satisfactorily identified, something that Agatha confirmed when she spoke through the speakers.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Oldrich. How can I help you?”

James was hardly surprised to see that Agatha had recognized him; the most shocking thing had been how Charly had managed to get him to pass the identity checks. He must have gotten some programmer to change the internal code of the application in order for him to have access at that particular moment, but that would mean that he had accomplices working in the Area 51 complex. He couldn’t think how else it could have happened, but… he suddenly remembered that he had been unconscious in hospital for several days. He had probably taken advantage of that to take a blood sample and his fingerprints. But… what about the retinal analysis? How did he get that? He tried to remember everything he had done from the moment he woke up in the room to when he came back from Stonehenge, even his visit to the scientific laboratories, the meeting with the Secretary of State, his visit to the Director’s office… He remained thoughtful for a few seconds. He tried to recreate an image in his mind of the office, the desk, the digital gallery, the sofas, the table in the middle… and he eventually realized what it was.

Shit! The helmet! That was probably a fucking retinal scanner!

He had forty minutes left.

“Mr. Oldrich, are you okay?” asked Agatha, her voice showing concern which was befitting of the situation. She had obviously been designed to be as human as possible.

“Yes, yes,” replied James, trying not to think about the fact that he was having a conversation with a computer, a form of artificial intelligence, but deep down a machine. “Can you take me to the scientific laboratories?”

“Of course.”

The movement was similar to last time; a prolonged yet very brisk descent, traveling along like a train, and finally an ascent which culminated in a much gentler stop than his first journey. They had fixed it.

When the doors opened he found himself again looking at the long corridor that he had seen in the morning, although this time all the laboratories were empty and there wasn’t a soul in the corridor.

Fuck! He’s made sure that nobody is in the laboratories. What is he playing at?

He walked along the corridor without wasting a second to look at the scientific experiments that he had had the privilege of seeing earlier that day. When he reached the end, he looked at his watch - thirty four minutes. The door to the last laboratory required a retinal scan in order to unlock, just like last time. He brought himself closer and put his eye up to the reader before Charly could even tell him to do so over the intercom. The door eventually swung open.

Everything was just like before, except for the object which was levitating in the middle of the room and was somewhat different.

The scientists had managed to fuse the two crystals along one of their faces, so that the two pieces of writing, the engraving and the relief, fitted together perfectly. The result was a rectangular prism with both ends completely square. As they were joined together, a kind of cylinder slid out from one of the ends and this was fitted with astounding precision into the inner circle of the triangle.

Feeling fearless and following the same steps as he had this morning, he put his hand into the magnetic field keeping the object afloat and brought it outside, but this time it was different. An incredibly powerful heat scorched the palm of his hand while the force field made all the muscles in his arm seize up, preventing him from letting go. Just as he was about to cry out in pain, the heat subsided and he dropped the
Trifariam
on the ground.

James could hear several unintelligible voices coming from the earpiece, accompanied by a blunt metallic sound. He had the distinct impression that Charly was not alone. Somebody was there with him.

“Be careful!” he reminded the professor via the earpiece, but James didn’t pay any attention to him and looked at the burn on his hand in bewilderment. It was strange. It wasn’t a normal burn, it didn’t even have the blister which typically surfaces when skin comes into contact with something hot. His hand wasn’t swollen but there was something that surprised him, something which made his blood run cold. On the palm of his hand was a scar in the form of a symbol, a really strange symbol, and he had no idea what it meant.

Thirty minutes.

He flew out of the laboratory so fast that he forgot to close the door. When he reached the elevator, he found that it was still waiting for him and he couldn’t help but wonder if it was on Charly’s orders, so that he didn’t waste any time, or whether nobody had actually used it during that time.

“How can I help you now, Mr. Oldrich?”

“Take me to the Director’s office, Agatha!”

Three minutes later, the elevator stopped on the same floor where that fatal revelation had taken place. Agatha politely wished James goodbye but he didn’t even answer.

He looked at his watch and ripped it off his hand, smashing it into the wall when he reached the office door of the Director of Area 51. The impact was so violent that the back part of the watch, which normally contains the battery, fell open and revealed a green electronic card with a red light which wouldn’t stop flashing. It was most definitely a global positioning system.

James entered the office just as the digital clock on the wall was showing twenty-four minutes and thirty-two seconds, but what he saw before him was something that he couldn’t have possibly imagined in his worst nightmares.

T
he desk had been knocked over and the folders of classified documents were lying scattered all over the carpet. A letter opener in the shape of a dagger was lying out of its pouch around seven feet from the door; it looked as if somebody had used it for a reason which was totally different from that for which it was intended. Even the glass of the frame around his family photograph had been broken, as if somebody at hit it violently.

The sight of the living room was even more disturbing. Lying on the carpet and with one of his arms resting on the base of the table was Justin’s lifeless body. He had two bullet wounds, both of them in his head and which had stopped flowing with blood. The carpet was tinged with red from the pools of warm blood which hadn’t yet been absorbed into the pile.

James remained frozen in the doorway and didn’t even flinch when the door closed behind him, as if a draught of wind had slammed it shut. His eyes immediately flicked to the huge piece of glass which hid the entrance to the room where his ex-wife and daughter must have been, but it was closed. Obviously Charly had locked them back in so that Justin wouldn’t see them, and he had gotten rid of the scientist when he didn’t need him anymore. It was a clear warning of his future intentions.

He kept looking around the room but his eyes, full of hatred, settled on Charly who was sitting on one of the sofas with his legs crossed and the gun pointing straight at his heart. His gaze was fixed on the object James was carrying in his right hand. He wanted to ask him several questions but he could only manage an evil smile.

James stepped forward a couple of feet and placed the
Trifariam
on the table, just seven feet from Charly’s feet. He remained silent; he was carefully getting all his thoughts in order to express himself as best he could and not forget about anything he wanted to say. Before he spoke, he looked over at Justin’s lifeless corpse and saw something that chilled him to the bone. Some small feet were sticking out from behind the sofa; somebody was on the other side.

Praying to god that it wasn’t his daughter, he ran over to the body paying no attention to the professor’s warnings, and when he got there he saw that it was the dead body of his ex-wife.

He was overcome with anger. He screamed and clenched his fists tightly, his jaw tightening and causing him to grind his teeth. He had completely forgotten about the weapon Charly was toting in his right hand at waist-height and took a couple of steps forward. “You’re a monster! What did she do to you?! Answer me!” James took another couple of steps forward as Charly stepped back, lifting up his gun and aiming it straight at his head. “You fucking son of a bitch!”

“I’ve done you a favor,” he smiled back. Those words stopped James in his tracks.

“What do you mean?! You killed my ex-wife!”

Charly took the remote control from his pocket and pressed the gray button. The pane of glass immediately pulled back and revealed the body of James’ daughter, still tied to the chair. She was crying, most probably because she had witnessed the fatal fallout. He tried to get her to look at him to try and reassure her, he still needed her and couldn’t kill her. His plan worked because James managed to put a lid on his thirst for revenge.

The clock on the wall read twelve minutes and twenty-four seconds.

“From what I understand, your wife cheated on you with a police officer.” Charly smirked, he seemed to enjoy hurting him. “She was a bitch. You should be thanking me for taking her off your hands.”

James’ teeth began to grind again in hatred, as if he was suffering from a sudden and uncontrollable attack of bruxism. He knelt down next to the pale body of his ex-wife. Her eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. He slowly closed them with his hand and looked back over at her murderer, but instead he saw the contorted face of his daughter pressed up against the glass “cage”. The girl stared dumbfounded at her mother’s body lying on the floor, wiping away her tears and her breath on the glass with the sleeve of her top.

James could read her lips perfectly. “Are you okay Mommy?” Her eyes filled with tears. He didn’t reply but he nodded so as not to worry her. “You’re a son of a bitch! Take your fucking source and leave us alone!”

“That is what I intend to do, but I still need you.”

“I’ve given you what you asked for. You’ve killed your scientist, my ex-wife and you have my daughter locked up in a room with a bomb which is about to explode. Deactivate it for Christ’s sake! You’ve already got everything you wanted!”

“Justin was a patriot. He yearned to study the source, discover all its secrets and apply them to the real world in order to restore privilege to the United States and the hegemony that the most powerful nation in the world should have. I called him a couple of hours ago and ordered him to install the latest updates in the security system that our computer engineers had successfully designed. I knew that it would be looked upon favorably to tighten security now that the source would be resting here for an indefinite amount of time. Weren’t you surprised when you saw that nobody was in the scientific laboratories? As the surveillance system is inactive, all researchers are prohibited from entering until security has been reestablished. Anyway, Agatha is always active.”