Cynthia and Chris stumbled onto the platform as they gathered their whereabouts. Anne was just earlier noticing the wild readings at the console as the two was ascending, they were due another cycle, but the machine was suspended in its current part, what gives? Anne thought.
A decent shower was needed as they were getting adjusted back in their own home world.
Both were dirty and both were glad to back home. Cynthia was grateful for alone time. She had been through a lot, and she was still without Dan, though. She was prepared now to accept that she might not get her husband back, her stomach rumbled, she had gone so long without food, she had dropped a pants size.
“Pizza” Came the response from both as they were asked from Anne. She sighed and ordered the pizza, but Chris was already shoveling the bland oatmeal in his face. Anne watched as the two shoveled whole pizzas, they were four boxes in when they called it quits, she was lucky to order sixteen. After they were done eating, she helped herself to a slice. Something cheesy and greasy and different then the endless government slop she had been eating for the last years that she was on the experiment and more recently.
But the topic came back to her husband. Cnythia told her about her encounters but then she ended that she is now ready to face the fact that she will not get back her husband.
“Why give up?” Chris asked her.
She shrugged her shoulder. A knocking came from somewhere, Chris and Cynthia looked around and a bright flash came the engine room, it was Gabe dressed down as if he was some part of a roman military, he took off his helmet, all three of them looked confused and surprised.
“I smell pizza, where is it?” Gabe asked.
Anne just pointed at the break from. Gabe took off his helmet.
“Yeah, I got a long one for you, I am a need of food” he said walking passed the surprised trio and into the break room after decimating the pizza, he got changed and went into the engine room, he joined up with the trio.
“Why would you give up on your husband?” Gabe talked to Cynthia. Cynthia sat down and asked herself what she was there for. She felt that she wasted her time, here and everything was for not. But then she remembered Derek and what she did for him.
Anne returned to the console and was about to initiate self-destruct sequence when her sensor bank was telling her something. She quired the bank and found the organism was giving on human DNA signatures, it was coming towards the port. Anne got up and alerted Chris and Cynthia, all three of them bounded up the stairs towards the port.
Chris and Cynthai pried off the lid, a man in an army uniform grabbed the lip and the two of them pulled him up. They spilled in a pile; she helped the mystery man up and she looked at him. The jawline was familiar the eyes, the body shape everything, she reached and touched his face. He stared at her for a bit, she came into focus on the man.
“Danny?” She asked him. Quietly, she backed up in case this wasn’t her man.
“Cynthia?” He responded. Both their brains clicked, she screamed and ran to him. She cried and laughed mixture of relief and tears; it had been long three years she held her hubby. He was real and not a figment of her imagination, she did not care, that she was hugging a man that hadn’t showered in days, she wanted to hold him tight.
“Danny Eric Matterson” she cried out. He rocked her calming and soothing her. she stopped after a bit and let go. She let Danny shower and find some pizza.
“Where were you, and how did you survive?” she asked him when he was finished eating.
“Long story” He replied. he gave her a summary of where he was. Chris introduced himself to Danny and they talk a bit about things and especially about Luke.
“Luke was involved with this whole thing?” Chris asked Danny.
“Well, not a much, he only designed the experiment data acquisition controller, he did not know much beyond that” Dan said. Chris shook his head in disbelief, Anne texted Colton to tell him to stay where he was.
“Well, I got two options, we keep this thing going or we self-detonate this thing” Anne questioned the small group.
“I say we denotate this thing” Dan retorted.
“I second that notion, it’s going to do us more harm if we let this thing go on” Gabe came forward.
Anne thought for a bit. She looked over at the console and then at the group.
“I propose we keep this thing going, but sooner or later we are going to have to detonate this thing” she said.
“How much is it going to take?” Chris asked.
“Well, the experiment has its own self destruction protocol that enables the controlling computer to initiate ways that the experiment cannot stop to overload itself, basically, take an amplifier and cut out the speaker and full throttle the feedback loop and ramp up the throttle to unstable levels and boom explosion, plus extra energy given by laser will speed up the process but shut off before things go boom” she said.
“How much force will the resulting energy release” Chris asked Anne.
“Well, for starters, Mount Amherst will absorb bulk of the energy which will cause it to explode and dissolve into dust, Mount Herst and Fort Mountain will be unstable and slide into the area, causing them to level into the resulting crater this will leave behind, with the help of mount Bedford, that’s been fortified to dissipate energy without anything around or behind it getting blown up”
Silence dotted the air. It was a minute later when an alarm went off, Anne turned to the console, and she began typing into the computer and pressed enter.
“My biological sensor data banks were telling me we got company” she said hurrying out of the control room and heading towards the generating room. The group followed, Danny and Chris pulled a riffle from the small armory, just they entered the doorway of the power room, there was a roar coming from one of the energy translation units, something clawed its way out if, it was hideous in its form, it was black and slimy, it stood up on its hind legs towering like a menacing tower above them, it unfurled it wings and its snout opened exposing white teeth, it screeched at them
Danny looked at it and recognized it. He pulled up his rifle, he and Chris killed it, it fell back and crashed into the electrical grid, the group fled the room as things snapped, and the creature was cooked.
“What was that thing?” Chris asked Anne. Danny sat down and explained that what they saw was a juvenile creature of the thing that he had to hide from for three years.
“Those things don’t eat human beings, we are like Walmart popcorn chicken in their world, no, what they feast on its smallest thing is an elephant and they would be the appetizer” Danny said looking at them,
“And momma is going to be soon behind it if we don’t close this thing, you don’t want mamma angry” he said.
Chris turned to Anne.
“There seems to be a problem, and that was my doing” she said to them. She carefully told them that she must override the hardware that she added two years ago to trigger the self-destruction, she had no clue that it would get this far.
“What do you mean, my key isn’t going to do that good in this place” Danny was about to raise his voice at her, Cynthia stayed her husband.
“Just bear with me, I’m going to need Gabe, Gabe I need you to come with me to the auxiliary computer room, that is where I need you to patch the operating software for this this place, don’t worry you just have to write a few lines of assembly code” she said to him.
“Uh” Gabe said. They looked at him again, he just shrugged his shoulder and went with Anne, she initiated the self-containment program, and they rushed out of the engine room as alarms rang and doors lowered and locked.
They turned a corner and opened a door; the room was dark and flooded.
“This was the central main computing room once upon a time” she said stepping onto the planks, she took out a flashlight and clicked it on.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“How deep is this room” he asked?
“Well, its deep enough for things who want to hide itself, hide itself” she said as they walked into the room, but the eerie glow of the some of the power supplies and solo units that were still functioning, she waved her light passed a functioning panel labeled, remote interface as they walked about the maze of panels and racks, something stirred the water, a shadow flashed in the background of their light as they headed for large gated door, three feet off the water.
“What is that?” Gabe asked.
“It’s the door to the auxiliary control system and emergency backup systems and houses the self-detonation system and trigger”
Anne took out her card and keyed in a pass code followed by another three-digit code.
“Self-detonation system armed” said the PA system.
They both walked into the room. The room was smaller than the one they had been in, and it was clean and looked like it been not touched. Anne turned on the light and Gabe saw the computers more clearly.
“Programmers were so efficient in their work that the entire operating system runs on 100Mb of data any other sub programs that are required to run other things around here, have their central computer the network data bus is a byte wide” she said looking around. Gabe noticed a red panel.
It had a keypad a few lights on it, it looked like one of those alarm panels when he was in school.
He asked her what that panel was for.
“That’s the thing I just armed. Inside are two thyratrons, both must latch on before the system can go into its self-destruct countdown”
She said opening a cabinet and looked around for the user manual. She could hear some banging, roaring, screeching. She wondered why the decontamination system for the room had not activated, she walked over to the computer and logged in, with a few keystrokes she forced the system to start the system, they had an hour until the creature was delt with.
*******
Chris lugged his Joker Poker Pinball machine from the back of his car and into the dolly his small collection of arcade machines was break from the fray and his usual stuff. Colton was sitting on the couch thumbing through a magazine.
“So how is Sandra?” Chris asked Colton as he wheeled the machine, he was allowed to take as many machines as possible from the lounge, he chooses the Gottlieb’s and left the dilapidated Williams and Bally machines behind.
“She’s wonderful, Christian, delightful and knows how to scratch every itch.” He said.
“that’s a u turn for you, you were reading Das capital when you came into this mission” Chris said.
“So, what, its hatred 101” Came the reply.
Chris chuckled and returned to his work.
*****
Gabe scribbled a small program patch into the system and gave it to Anne who looked over it and gave the approval. Gabe spent the time writing out the patch and debugging it, calculating the new memory indexes he then rewrote the code, finishing his code, he debugged it, it took him a couple of passes then he finished his code and copied the new code onto some spare floppy disks. He then updating the code.
“So, I just patched the main program, I bypassed the safety interlock unit and with your credentials you will be able to trigger the countdown.” Gabe said getting out of the chair and grabbing as much documentation.
“Don’t worry about that, I have copies at my home” she said. He put the binder back in the locker. She triggered the countdown
“Self-destruct sequence triggered, please evacuate the building and complex” A voice came over the PA system. They both fled the room. Navigating to the safety complex, the place was eerie with the flashing lights and alarm in the empty rooms.
They both fled into the escape bay and launched themselves out of the complex, as they were two football fields away from the base of the mountain when a big boom rocked the ground, a mushroom cloud formed and as what Anne predicted the mountain caved in the newly formed crater, one of the mountains she named dissolved into nothing.
*****
Cynthia slid into a nice red dress and Dan was dapper in a suit just looking like a spy.
“You look scrumptious tonight” Dan said taking his wife from behind. Their reservation to the luxurious Silver Pond was more than enough on Dan efforts. She was jealous now, of her husband’s love, her cut and cleaned hair flow down like a waterfall over her shoulders.
She allowed herself to feel feminine now and Dan soaked up every minuet just standing them with her.
“Don’t we have somewhere we have to be?” He asked her to lead her out of the room, she smiled, and he helped her in the car.
The dinning area was velvet red and solid oak furnishing, Dan doated and treated her, she was then whisked out into the portico, where they dined on chocolate ice cream bread and finished with European chocolate dipped nut and raisin clusters.
It made up for the missed anniversaries, for three years she was denied love that was rightfully hers and now she was given in just reward.
******
Chris looked bellow at the area that was once an object of trial, he was reading his bible regularly now and making a concerted effort into being a better man. in between meeting and debriefings, he was working with Anne to convert the dorms into a hotel space. The complex was marked with a historical marker.
Chris retuned home and was playing a game when Colton came into the room.
“Hey Colton, what is going on?” Chris asked him.
A few minuets later he was standing in the kitchen trying to ingest the news Colton gave him while driving to mom’s house.
“Moms not going to believe things” he said looking down at the kitchen sink. She walked into the room and sat down at the kitchen.
“I believe you have some news for me” she said to them.
“I am your son” Colton said looking down at her. at first things did not register with her. But she slowly began to understand the situation. She stood up and reached and felt his face and traced it. She smiled and tears ran down her face.
After all these years of being denied a son, she had him back, if only she could have had the time that she had lost. She was a devout woman, but her faith was affirmed.
“You take more after your father then your brother Christopher, you still have the name I gave you” she said
“Who was dad?” He asked her. she took him to his office and turned on the light, the place was neat and clean.
“Harold was a brilliant military man at the same time an utter, utter goof ball” she said handing him a picture, he took it and look over it.
“His knowledge of electronics and technical prowess your brother Chris inherited but you seem to take after his military side” she said.
“Is he gone” he asked?
“He now at rose nursing home, I would like to take you their” she said.
Harrold walked down the hallway, he was the prankster of the bunch of the nursing home, but time had not been too kind to him, but it never held back his sense of happiness and humor.
“Hey sweetie” Harrold embraced his wife.
“Harrold, I want you to meet someone” she said, she turned and pulled Colton closer. Harrold looked at his son.
“Now what a miracle” he said to him.
“You get over here and let me chat with you for a bit” Harrold said, Colton strolled over, and Harrold took his son, and they talked in the courtyard.
*****
Gabe headed to an old worn-down neighborhood. it was many years ago he long since walked the worn sidewalks and seen the drab of the ailing houses. Some were still there, he walked briskly up the pathway, the porch groaned as he made his way towards the front door and rang the doorbell.
“Good gracious, haven’t seen you in a while, what was that big bang earlier?” The man asked him
“I cannot disclose at the moment, but do you know where Ricky Turney family is now?”
“Still in that same place, pity her not him” The man said.
Gabe thanked the man and Gabe navigated to where he needs to go. He knocked on the door and waited, a woman came to the door, it was Ricky’s widowed wife.
“Wounds, take the slowest to heal, don’t they” she said turning to him, she offered him a cup of coffee.
“I just shake off the guilt these days, but it seems to linger” he said sipping the coffee. Them was silence between them.
“I wouldn’t care to deeply, Rickey was good for nothing, that man’s days were numbered anyways even if you hadn’t tried to intervene, god had enough of him” she said looking at the toddler playing on the floor. Ricky Jr was on the floor playing with his toys. Ricky Sr would come home from the bar, after work and she would harden herself for the beatings that were to come, he blamed her for all his “woes.” Secret trips to Church and her father would help her keep it together.
Gabe sat his cup down and looked at the kid on the floor. A thought came into head, she was single mother, no father figure in Ricky Jr., he asked her if he could help raise the kid.
“Don’t sweat it, I must move out of this place in a few short days, I can’t handle this place, it’s too much” she said Gabe noticed the moving boxes in the corner of the room. He finished his coffee walked out.
Gabe let go of the grief and guilt as he walked down the sidewalk to his truck, he returned home and found his bible and continued to read.
******
Anne stepped before the orphanage, and she looked up at the dull, lifeless grey building. She was here before, but she was here on a mission and hurried in.
It was four days after the final debriefing when Chris was with his fiancé planning the wedding. She was mulling over the cakes when they both went with the white chocolate cake with raspberry filling, they were about go over the flower arrangements when Anne appeared.
“Anne what are you doing here?” he asked her.
Anne stepped inside and told him about her and Luke. Once she was finished, Chirs was upset with her.
“You used a guy, and then you didn’t tell him that you had his kid, make this make sense” he told her.
“I know what I did was wrong, I admit I messed up, sleeping with Luke that night, but I cant give the a father, he does not know, his father is dead and I cannot provide him a father, he needs one” She said to him.
He was taken aback, this was not going to be placed on him, no sir. He was about dismiss Anne from his house when his fiancé pulled him aside.
“Look I have fertility issues, what if this is the chance that we have a child if other options fail what then” she asked him. Chris looked down at the kid, he was playing with a firetruck.
Luke, why didn’t you know about this surely you knew sex would produce these outcomes.
He looked over at Anne and then at his fiancé.
Luke, why did you?
The question lingered as he began to think about it, it had seemed time had passed by so slowly. He looked down at the kid again.
Luke, I’ll do it, you rest in peace good buddy.
Chris knelt down in front of the kid and took hold of the fire truck.
“You want to go and get ice cream with me?” he asked the kid, the kid nodded. Chris took the paperwork, and they went down to the dinner.
***
I have to end it here, the story I have tried to follow the best I can, there is still some missing fragments in the story that I was not able to source, I have yet to track down Lukes biological son though Chris still his parent Chris has children of his own now last I was able to get in contact with him.
The letters the interviews and the tapes are what they are, and I have the feeling the truth is still out there I have that feeling in my bones, but the almighty knows the truth and him alone. I have just stumbled onto the story myself and for the last year releasing what I can. I have tried my best to weave together the threads of this story into a tapestry out of the threads that were given to me but there are some details that are left I guess to your imagination, maybe I will publish the whole shindig, tapes, letters and emails, Dan has yet to give me his story of his time between his entrance and exit.
I don’t know if I get any more information, if I do, I, will revise this story and publish it again if my sources get back to me but for now Ill end it here with what I have. – 73 –