Echo

  By

  Michael C. Grumley

  Copyright © 2021 Michael C. Grumley

  All rights reserved.

  iib

  CONTENTS

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  86

  EPILOGUE

  I

  II

  III

  THE BREAKTHROUGH SERIES

  BREAKTHROUGH

  LEAP

  CATALYST

  RIPPLE

  MOSAIC

  ECHO

  1

  Hello Alison.

  Alison smiled behind her glass face mask and reached out to run her bare hand along Sally’s body as the dolphin glided past.

  “Good morning, Sally.”

  How you today?

  “Good, thank you.”

  It was fascinating. Sally had continued picking up on subtle human cues, integrating small bits into her own greetings. It made Alison grin every time she heard it.

  It amazed her how quickly the dolphins had adapted to them, leading Alison to wonder if it was something their IMIS translation system was doing as it grew smarter. But, if it were IMIS, it would be doing the same with all of the dolphins, not just Sally.

  But it wasn’t.

  Female dolphins appeared to have a keener ability when it came to communication. A certain unspoken relatability. Not entirely different from humans, and something she was now beginning to think might be universal.

  While the males, just as with humans, developed other skills faster. Particularly around tactile or physical functions. Things such as tracking objects, agility, and response times and physical endurance.

  “How are you today, Sally?”

  Me happy Alison. Sally replied, and after a short pause, added, You happy.

  It wasn’t a statement. Questions always sounded flat going through IMIS for translation, and Alison had grown increasingly adept at spotting them.

  “Yes. I am happy.”

  She studied Sally, now in the final stage of her pregnancy, larger in size due to the folding of her tail fluke and dorsal to accommodate an enlarged uterus. This gave Sally a larger overall girth rather than a ‘bump’ as it did in humans and humorously provided the only time in which Alison could recall Sally “out-eating” Dirk.

  It was an exciting time, leaving Alison feeling almost like a midwife as Sally progressed through her stages of pregnancy. Even more exciting was the thought of the outcome, not just witnessing a live birth in the wild but an opportunity to study Sally as she nursed her newborn son. Both physically and verbally. Using IMIS to observe real-time communication between mother and calf in an entirely different species would be unprecedented.

  She stroked Sally’s rubber-like skin affectionately and moved around so her camera could capture her entire length. “Shall we go for a swim?”

  Yes. Sally like. A simple reply that moments later IMIS repeated and corrected to, I like.

  Alison faded back to gently wrap a hand around Sally’s main dorsal fin.

  You man here.

  She grinned, this time with a slight blush, before nodding. Then looked down into the depths below to see several tiny dots of light moving around. The men. Scouring the bottom for remains of the Spanish Galleon shipwreck they had found.

  It was a discovery that would make even the most seasoned treasure hunters green with envy. A Spanish treasure ship from the 1700s which not only had been lost but was never supposed to have existed in the first place. At least not according to official records. Because The King’s Ghost had been carrying something far more valuable than even its loads of gold and silver.

  They still hadn’t surmised what caused the ship to sink, but they had located the priceless item which had brought them looking for it in the first place.

  A piece of a larger alien ship.

  Located at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. Intentionally disassembled and hidden for thousands of years. More than just a piece—it was the alien ship’s navigation system.

  Now the men were sifting through what remained of the wreckage laden with its trove of wealth from the Americas. Tens of thousands of gold and silver pieces, a giant golden cross adorned with precious jewels, hundreds of pounds of large emeralds, and a variety of important artifacts from the ship itself—the anchor, parts of the vessel’s wheel and wheelhouse, dishes, riggings, and what appeared to be a chest of personal items belonging to the ship’s captain, containing what may have been the ship’s final log if it had not disintegrated long ago within the waterlogged box.

  The whole endeavor fascinated Alison. Like many shipwrecks, there was no indication of why the Ghost had perished. Still, each new haul of recovered items served as pieces to help reconstruct her majesty’s story—providing glimpses into the ship as it once was—both during its voyage and the final moments of the ship and her crew’s tragic end.

  Alison relaxed and floated for a moment, staring down into the darkness, wondering which of the tiny moving dive lights was John Clay. Her man as Sally called him.

  We swim, Alison.

  She nodded and raised her head, this time wrapping both hands around the dolphin’s dorsal. “Yes,” she replied, “let’s swim.”

  2

  Twenty minutes later, Alison’s head broke the surface, and she reached up to move a mat of wet hair away from her facemask. She spotted the large stern of the USNS Pathfinder rolling heavily in the gentle swells. Its magnificent white hull stretched hundreds of feet past her before tapering and disappearing near the bow.

  An incredible ship both visually and operationally, she was one of the Navy’s finest science vessels, commanded by Captain Rudolph Emerson, whom Alison briefly spotted near the ship’s bridge before disappearing down a ladder.

  She blinked the water out of her eyes and turned her attention back to the ship’s lower stern, smiling when she spotted two people sitting near the edge.

  Neely Lawton, one of the ship’s science officers, stood up, followed by Li Na, a short and slight Chinese teenager. Together, they bent down to retrieve Alison’s fins, mask, and finally her weight belt, allowing her to reach the ladder and pull herself up.

  “Good morning,” she said cheerfully.

  “Have a nice swim?”

  “I did.”

  “How’s our mother-to-be?”

  “Great,” Alison said, removing her BCD vest and dropping it onto the deck before reaching up to squeeze out her ponytail. “I think we’re getting close to the big day.” She smiled at Li Na, who was quietly listening. “How are you, Li Na?”

  “Good morning, Ms. Shaw. I am well, thank you.”

  She nodded, amused, convinced the girl would never call her by her first name. But it didn’t matter. Li Na had been through more than enough already.

  “You two waiting for Edwin?”

  Neely and Li Na shook their heads. “He was already here. You just missed him.”

  Edwin was the human name they had given to a very special dolphin in the pod whose actual name, at least as translated by IMIS, was Vize, from a Sanskrit word meaning special, though Lee had since manually programmed the human name Edwin into the system for easier translation, named after an extraordinary boy in the cancer ward at St. Jude’s.

  As far as dolphins went, Edwin was more than just particular. He was a truly rare occurrence within the entire infraorder of the Cetacea species, similar to what humans would call a savant. Edwin elicited extremely rare abilities never before seen in the species, not the least of which was an oddly unique connection to Li Na.

  “Anything new?” asked Alison.

  “I can’t hear words the way your computer can,” the teenager said, shaking her head. “Still just feelings. And every day the same. They want to know.”

  Alison made a long face.

  “They want to know more,” Li Na clarified. “About what’s happe ning with us.”

  Sally’s soft dark eyes peered intently at the female humans aboard the floating metal from the water, watching as they spoke to one another.

  She observed with some degree of amusement how humans preferred to communicate with so many words and signals. This was likely the reason they chose to communicate with the dolphins in the same manner, using the tiny metal on Alison’s torso despite how limited it was.

  Bobbing effortlessly in the water, Sally blinked and continued studying the three women. Alison said they were experiencing a great sickness but could not explain what it was or why it began. Or when it would be over.

  Questions the elders wanted to know more about. And whether it could reach them as well.

  ***

  Alone in her lab, Neely stared idly through a small window over the glimmering water reflecting brilliantly from the sun’s rays as it stretched forever until touching the distant, hazy horizon.

  The isolation was getting to her.

  It was getting to all of them.

  Like most people, she enjoyed a certain amount of solitude when it was convenient. And elective. But forced isolation had a very different feel and emotional effect even when it was for the greater good.

  The global pandemic was finally beginning to wane. Slowly, but steadily. And they could not have been in a better location to weather the storm—on the Pathfinder in the middle of the Caribbean, surrounded by a highly efficient crew and enough supplies to last several more months.

  And that was the problem. At least for Neely.

  That they had been fortunate enough to be on the Pathfinder when the pandemic swept the globe left her with a palpable feeling of shame, along with regret—both in her luck of circumstances and in her inability to do anything about it.

  “You okay?”

  Neely whirled around to find Alison studying her from the entryway.

  “Hey.”

  “Are you all right?” repeated Alison.

  Neely managed a grin and nodded.

  “Still feeling guilty?”

  “A little.”

  Alison moved forward and pulled a chair away from one of the metal tables. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”

  “Yes,” Neely frowned. “I do.”

  Alison glanced past her to another table holding a small lab refrigerator. The front door was made of clear glass and the fridge was nearly empty inside, except for a few flat Petri dishes. “You said yourself—it’s too dangerous.”

  “It is.”

  “But…?”

  “But,” Neely hesitated, “I still feel...”

  “Guilty.”

  “Yes.”

  “Biology is not easy. Or fast. Even I know that.”

  Neely sighed and twisted her chair to stare at the same small refrigerator and the samples inside, the last remaining samples of what they had retrieved from the plants near the alien ship. Samples the Russians had attacked the Pathfinder over the previous year, forcing Neely to abruptly hide them in the only place she could think of, and where she hoped the Russians would not look—just above their heads, behind the grating to the lab’s air-conditioning duct.

  Besides the refrigerator, it was the only place cold enough to keep the bacteria in a suspended state.

  These samples contained traces of the mysterious green liquid from the alien ship after being leached through the marine plants’ root systems. A liquid able to repair not only plant cells but human cells. Dolphin cells. Damn near anything, biological or mechanical, just as it was now trying to do to Li Na, injected by a father desperate to save his dying child.

  “Look on the bright side,” Alison finally said with a sigh. “You found a way to keep this from killing her.”

  Neely frowned. “Only temporarily. Her body is still changing and absorbs any animal DNA she consumes with violent consequences. Why it happens with meat and not dairy, I don’t know. But it’s only a bandage for now. Each reaction is worse than the last, so it can still kill her, eventually.”

  “You know I’m trying to keep the glass half full, right?”

  A hint of amusement crept across Neely’s face. “Sorry. You’re right.” She glanced back at the fridge. “It’s just that this pandemic has killed a lot of people. If only we’d had enough time to find a way–”

  “There wasn’t enough time,” Alison said, cutting her off. “It happened too fast. And like you said, all these changes in Li Na are just as dangerous, if not more so. We’re not talking about a vaccine. We’re talking about changes to a person’s DNA itself. Unpredictable changes.”

  Neely nodded.

  “Changes that could be different in every single person.”

  “I know.”

  “Li Na is young, and you’re still afraid her next episode could be fatal. Can you imagine if the rest of the population had to go through what she has?”

  Neely stared at Alison.

  “You did the right thing, Neely. Whatever this compound is, it’s just too dangerous.”

  “And now the CIA has a version of it.”

  Alison shrugged. “Maybe they do, maybe they don’t.”

  “Believe me—they have it.”

  Alison’s grin faded and peered through the same narrow window at the endless expanse of blue ocean. “Then what do you want to do now?”

  3

  Returning to the bridge, Captain Emerson peered pensively out and over the very same stretch of ocean, wearing a look of skepticism. His steely gray eyes searched the endless horizon for problems. And contemplating—first on weather and ocean conditions, and then around the security involved.

  Almost the entire world had gone into shutdown and was only now fully emerging from it, in fits, to a state of resumed aviation traffic, both civilian and military. What they were about to attempt would have been impossible during the depths of the pandemic.

  Which also made their endeavor much riskier.

  And of all times to have perfect weather.

  In these conditions, anyone watching from a satellite would see it when it happened. It was something that could not be hidden, not entirely, even at night. And it could, at the very least, raise questions from those who might be watching.

  Because the day after their arrival, Emerson would not be able to hide what would be sitting in plain view upon the Pathfinder’s large and completely unobstructed deck.

  4

  Located in the northwestern corner of Washington, DC, Spring Valley was a small but upscale neighborhood, home to many of the nation’s governing elites. Well-known men and women from the highest public service levels, assuming politics could still be considered such.

  Streets were lined with expensive homes and lush, perfectly manicured yards, radiating, even in complete darkness, a sense of power and prestige.

  A late-night stillness was interrupted by the sound of a single car engine approaching and turning onto Warren Street NW, eventually slowing when it reached the end of a broad cul-de-sac.

  Now, with noise only from its tires, the silver Mercedes turned and eased up a long driveway, where the wide door of a detached garage silently rose to accept it. Smoothly, the automobile continued forward until it slipped noiselessly into the garage, illuminated only by the car’s headlights, and eased to a complete stop.

  A slight creak of metal followed as the large garage door rolled back down, section by section, shuddering when it once again touched the cool concrete floor.

  Defense Secretary Merl Miller placed the car into park and glanced momentarily through the window at the wall in front of him lined with cabinets, a workbench, and dozens of tools all neatly arranged in the intense glare of the vehicle’s headlights.

  An exhausted Miller sighed, grasped a small white paper sack from the passenger’s seat and opened the car door. He climbed out and carefully used the still illuminated headlights to navigate around the hood of his car. Reaching the garage’s side door, he wrapped a hand around the metal knob before suddenly jumping violently at something nearby.

  It was a dark silhouette.

  Someone else was in the garage with him, standing quietly in the far corner watching him.

 

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