ganymede rising
by Jonathan Shepherd
TO OUR READERS: Episode 12 originally ran in the January
issue of Movement and due to our oversight it was not uploaded to the
web with the rest of the magazine. We would like to offer our most
sincerest apologies to its author Jonathan for our oversight.
EPISODE 12
The silo pointed to the sky, jutting out of fields of cotton like a
shiny finger accusing the sky. People climbed up and down the sides of
it, and a helicopter circled the area. Chaplain crouched down among the
brown sharpness of the crops and felt the sweat inching down the side of
his neck. After two hours of observation, he hadn’t gained any further
information about the silo’s contents. All that was left was to try and
get further inside, but the iron ball of fear in his intestines warned
against it.
Sans his coat, and with hair tied back tightly, he was prepared for
stealth. Best to wait until nightfall, though. It would be cooler, and
easer to keep hidden. Their security might be tighter then, but that
was a necessary risk. He eased back onto the cool earth and tried to
sift through the thoughts cluttering his mind.
This silo was apparently a government secret. There were protective
roadblocks and gates ten miles out in every direction, but the real
security was obviously closer. Chaplain had slipped inside the
perimeter effortlessly and decided to find out more. His sources showed
that the silo was being built originally during a project authorized by
senator Sinclair. There was a network of them all over the earth and
their purpose had something to do with clearing the air and supporting
the natural atmosphere with some kind of electro-static field. That
project had died years ago when it was agreed that the science was
unsound and that it would be a waste of money.
His connections told him the new environmental senator, James, had
authorized the revival of the project. Apparently new technology had
been discovered and it was believed that the silos would support the air
cleaning systems that were now getting old. Earth needed something new,
and apparently senator James was going to fix it. The problem was that
none of this was made public knowledge. The counsel had decided to go
about this without any fanfare, and authorizing the work was one of the
first things the new senator did.
Chaplain had dug around until he discovered that this silo in the
heart of Georgia was one of five primary points across the globe. If
his suspicions were correct, this was no project to help the
environment. He had learned early in the game, however, never to jump
to conclusions. The ETH were still around. He was convinced. But hard
evidence had never been something they were in the habit of providing.
So here he would wait; and soon he needed to check in with the others.
The death of Sinclair was the most overt thing to have happened in
years, which meant to Chaplain that it would not be long before
something terrible was going to happen. He only hoped there was still
time left.
***
“So now what do we do?” Jenna stared up at the others, face stained
with grief. “This is all my fault… all of it…”
Edward put an arm around her and let out a deep breath. “Jenna,
there’s no way you could have known this was going to happen. What
we’re looking for here entails a certain amount of risk. We all accept
that, and Tanya was no exception, okay?”
“You’re sweet, Eddie,” Jenna said, “but the whole point of us
staying here together was to help protect each other, and I stayed out
all night when I was supposed to be back…” She began to sob again, and
Edward held her tight.
“Don’t blame yourself.” Alex said softly. “Getting that
information was important- you were just doing what you thought was
necessary. We all know that. And now we know that the crash Tanya was
seeing has already happened. That might be the information that wins
this for us, and it sheds some light on that security network. They
must have something up there…”
Across the room, Jonas turned from the window and spoke firmly.
“Alex is right, and we probably ought to get out of this apartment.
It’s been two days since Tanya disappeared, and we’re none of us
positive where Chaplain is. Is there somewhere we can all go where
he’ll know to look for us?”
“I’ll get us a room.” Said Edward. “We can keep moving. Chaplain
can get us on a secure line when he’s ready.”
“Yeah, if he’s not gone, too…” Alex said, quietly.
They all fell silent. Jonas walked softly over to the group and
looked at them all seriously.
“Obviously,” Jonas said, “none of you know Chaplain as well as you
think.”
***
Two workers turned the corner at the front of the silo, pushing a
metal cart with various tools and pieces of machinery on it toward a
garage in the back. Neither of them noticed the man crouched next to
the Jeep parked by the main entrance. Cloaked in shadow, he waited
there, poised like a cat hunting for dinner. Cool Georgia night had
fallen and provided a deep cover where several military-style vehicles
were parked just out of range of the security floodlights.
When a couple of people in lab-coats slid their security cards
through the reader at the front and entered, they didn’t feel the
movement in the air behind them. Chaplain slipped through just as the
door slid shut.
He had been casing the entrance for sixty-two minutes, and knew
which side to fall to after getting in so that he wouldn’t be noticed by
the cameras. Once inside he leapt to the right and down a small
corridor, hoping to find a way deeper into the silo. It was bigger
inside than it seemed from a mile away, so he was going to have to work
fast. Finally he came to a door marked “stairs” and went in. The
stairs were metal latticework, and there was room under them on this
ground floor for Chaplain to hide for a moment and catch his breath
before proceeding.
Carefully he climbed the staircase, stopping at each landing to make
sure he couldn’t hear any other footsteps. Apparently nighttime was
break-time around here. Hopefully his good luck wouldn’t run out.
Once at the topmost landing he listened until the coast was clear
and slipped back into the silo. Here the metal lattice continued out as
a catwalk that circled the silo. There were windows every few feet that
looked out into the open center area. What he saw there stole his
breath. The entire inside of the silo was one big object. There were
no environmental resuscitators here, only a great black cylinder with
tiny ridges all over it like a network of webs. There were scaffolds
all around it, and what appeared to be technicians working with green
and blue glowing laser torches.
After a few moments, the entire obelisk illuminated from within, a
sick pale yellow light wrapping around the ridges and swirling like some
kind of trapped tornado of energy. It didn’t make a sound, and it
happened every fifteen seconds or so, like some kind of pulsing
heartbeat.
Distracted by this spectacle, Chaplain didn’t see the guard coming
around the catwalk toward him. He only became aware when he heard
footsteps, and by then it was too late.
“Hey!” The guard picked up his pace. “What are you doing up here?
Hold it right there!”
Chaplain fell back toward the stairwell, but the guard was fast and
was raising a weapon. Instead of running, Chaplain fell to the ground
rolling right toward the guard. It was like a human parody of bowling,
the one man tumbling on the floor right at the uniformed man’s feet.
The guard toppled, but not before a shot rang out. Chaplain didn’t
see it fire, but he swore that sounded like a buzzing instead of the
usual explosion of a conventional firearm. Immediately the ringing
sound of an alarm went off all around them. Apparently their security
was quicker and more alert than he thought. Sometimes getting in isn’t
the hard part, getting out is.
He ran back to the stairwell, leaving the fallen guard to regain his
bearings. He leapt over the railing and down through the center of the
stairs, taking a landing at a time, swinging from the floor above down
to the floor below. He heard steps this time, and they were running up.
Reaching down to his thighs, Chaplain unsheathed a pair of razor
sharp blades and jumped to the next landing, waiting to have the
advantage of height over his attackers.
They barreled upward, never expecting that they were severely
outmatched. A blur of black and silver swept across them. Three of the
guards fell back, blood spraying out, and toppled the other three guards
behind them. Before any of them could get up, the door at the bottom of
the stairwell was closing as Chaplain ran through it…
The security team searched the compound for the rest of the night,
and all of their checkpoint security was doubled. They never did find
the infiltrator. When the first pink rays of dawn spread out over the
cotton fields, the last search party turned their Jeep from the eastern
checkpoint and headed back to the silo. None of them noticed the man
falling from underneath them to the ground as they drove away.
Chaplain’s hands were burned from holding onto the hot underside of
the vehicle, and he was shaking from exhaustion, but he remained prone
for several minutes before turning over and beginning the long crawl
toward safety. He had to get out of here and contact the others. There
was no more doubt. Those weapons, that strange machine, it could only
mean that the ETH had been here all along. They had been patient for
decades… but their time was clearly at hand.
