The Prometheus Project: Stranded Part 18

"And when you were standing or kneeling over them, did the crystal counteract their higher gravity?"

Ryan frowned. Carl had a point. He would have made a great scientist. "Maybe you have to be holding it when the wave hits," said Ryan. Or else have had your mind opened to the possibilities of the fourth dimension, thought Ryan.

"I'm sorry, Ryan," said Carl earnestly. "More sorry than you'll ever know. But I can't risk Nathaniel getting away on the hope that the crystal will work. On an untested theory."

Ryan pursed his lips together in frustration and shook his head sadly. There was nothing to say. He hated what Carl was doing. Carl hated what Carl was doing. But Ryan knew the security chief had no other choice. And while Carl would have to face Alyssa and Kelsey, so would he. Ryan had promised them their mom would be okay. While Carl had given them nothing but the truth, Ryan had given them false hope; a fantasy.

The phone rang. Carl took a deep breath and picked it up.

Ryan's eyes widened!

At just that instant he realized what he had been missing. What his sister had broadcast that had made him uneasy. It was just before he left Isis to rejoin Alyssa and Kelsey at the zoo building.

Regan had told him she was glad being on Earth had brought him back to his senses.

That was it! Returning to Earth had cured him. Almost instantly.

But returning to Earth hadn't cured Carl.

It had taken Ryan's mom about twenty minutes to find a Med-Pen. Yet Carl's emotional state had not improved during that time.

What did this mean? Had Carl's emotional state been worse even than Ryan's? Was it somehow of a different quality? And if so, why?

And if a Med-Pen had never been used on Carl, would the negative emotional effects of Isis have ever worn off?

Ryan's every instinct told him the answers to these questions were vitally important. As Carl discussed strategy and tactics with the pilot of a jet fighter flying many miles above Nathaniel Smith-and Mich.e.l.le Cooper-Ryan's mind raced.

His mouth dropped open as he came to a startling conclusion. Could it really be true? He needed to think it through. Be absolutely sure he was right.

"Alright, Captain McGann," said Carl. "Arm the missiles. Wait until he's clear of cars and farmhouses and then commence firing. I repeat, you have a green light to engage. Do you copy?"

"Copy that, sir," said the captain.

"Stop!" screamed Ryan. "Call it off."

"Ryan, we've been through this," said Carl irritably, his ear still pressed against the phone. "My decision has been made."

"No. You don't understand. Nathaniel isn't the one behind this."

Ryan leaned forward intently. "You're about to bomb the wrong person."

CHAPTER 30.

Decoy

"Have you lost your mind?" said Carl.

Ryan stared at the security chief with a blazing intensity. "Carl, if you've ever trusted me before," he said evenly, "trust me now. You're about to make a terrible mistake."

Colonel Carl Sharp looked deep into Ryan's green eyes and saw nothing but certainty. Ryan and his sister had shown themselves to possess excellent instincts time and again. He made up his mind in an instant.

"Abort, abort, abort!" Carl barked into the receiver. "Stand down, Captain McGann. I repeat, stand down. Do you copy?"

"Copy that, sir. Standing down."

"Hold position and await further instructions," said Carl. He reached over and hit the mute b.u.t.ton on the phone so the captain couldn't hear their conversation. "Only because it's you, Ryan. Only because it's you. You had better make your points quickly."

"Nathaniel is a decoy," said Ryan breathlessly. "Mich.e.l.le Cooper isn't his hostage. Nathaniel is her hostage."

Carl tilted his head in confusion. "What?"

"I told you the wildlife of Isis was relentlessly hostile to our expedition. You and I discussed why that might have happened. Well I figured it out. They can receive and transmit a kind of telepathic energy that hits the emotional centers of human brains. It drives us into a rage. Our emotional energy does the same to them."

"Ryan, get to the point. This has nothing to do with your theory that Nathaniel is a decoy," said Carl.

"It does," insisted Ryan. "Just let me explain. You told me you were in an insane rage on Isis when you shot those creatures. Well everyone on our expedition experienced a similar rage." Ryan spoke as quickly as he could, racing to finish before Carl ran out of patience. "And after you shot the animals, when you were retreating in the tram that day, Mom was in a rage too. She told me. One she couldn't understand. And Bob Zubrin told me the same thing."

His mother and Bob had never really said this but Ryan knew from experience that this almost had to be true.

Carl nodded. "Now that I think of it, you're right. Everyone was screaming at everyone else. We all acted out of character, even for an emergency. Not just me."

"What about Mich.e.l.le Cooper?"

Carl paused, searching his memory. A few seconds later he frowned deeply. "Your mom was yelling that I shouldn't have shot the last few animals. Mich.e.l.le leaned over and hissed in my ear that she wished she had shot them. Or ripped the things apart with her bare hands."

"Is that something you would expect Mich.e.l.le to say?" said Ryan. "No matter what was happening?"

"No," said Carl, a troubled look coming over his face. "I wouldn't." He paused. "I've tried to put that day out of my mind. Until you jogged my memory just now, I had forgotten she had even said this."

"When I was on Isis," said Ryan, "I couldn't have been angrier. But this stopped when I got back to Earth. Very quickly. As soon as I removed myself from the field being generated by the Isis animals. It must have been the same for my mother and Bob Zubrin. But it was different for you." He paused. "How long were you back on Earth before Mom could find a Med-Pen?" asked Ryan, already knowing the answer.

"Fifteen or twenty minutes."

"You told me your emotional state didn't improve during that time. And it wasn't because of the pain. The Med-Pen relieves pain instantly. But you said you didn't feel emotionally normal until five minutes after the device had been used. That's because the changes in your brain were like an infection, and the Med-Pen took five minutes to cure you."

Carl considered this. He had to admit Ryan was making some good points. But Nathaniel would be entering a populated area again in eight minutes. Carl's window of opportunity was closing fast. "Ryan, I need to order the strike."

"Just a little longer," said Ryan, and then he hastily continued. "The way I figure it there are two levels of crazy you can get from the animals of Isis. The first level is just from the energy traveling through the air and hitting your brain. The second level is far more intense. It's when you are actually touching one of them when their hatred explodes. Like both you and Mich.e.l.le were doing. You stepped on one of the creatures. Mich.e.l.le was resting her feet on one of them. When their hate-filled, poisonous emotional energy surged, you two received it full blast through your legs. You both got ma.s.sive doses through this point of contact. Far more potent than if it had traveled through the air."

"Hold on," said Carl. He un-muted the phone. "Captain McGann, are you still in position?"

"Affirmative, sir."

"Good. Continue to circle and maintain your position," he said and then muted the phone once again. He nodded at Ryan to continue.

"It's easier to think of this energy as an infection," said Ryan. "The rest of your expedition received a small dose that went away when they got back to Earth. You and Mich.e.l.le Cooper received an enormous dose that seared your brains. Changed your wiring so much that the infection became permanent. So just leaving Isis alone wasn't enough to cure the two of you like it was for the rest of your group. But you were treated with a Med-Pen. Mich.e.l.le Cooper never was."

"So you're saying she was infected on Isis but never cured." Carl thought about this for a few seconds and then shook his head. "It doesn't fly. I've been around her since. She's not in a constant rage."

Ryan paused in thought. "Her mind probably couldn't take the constant anger and hatred," he said. "It drove her insane. Insane enough to experiment with the Enigma Cube. Insane enough to plot to steal it. The insanity took the place of the pure hatred. But not entirely. Have you ever seen her smile, even once, since you returned from Isis?"

Carl shook his head. "Never," he admitted. "And before that she smiled and laughed often."

"And don't forget, what she said into your ear on Isis is proof she had turned totally savage. That's because she had been severely infected with this incompatible emotional energy. From then on she became a much different person."

Carl's eyes narrowed as he considered what Ryan had said. "It's an interesting theory Ryan. But you could still be wrong."

"I'm not. Our Isis expedition returned to a sabotaged tram and Mich.e.l.le Cooper and Nathaniel Smith were gone. One of them left a note. A typed note. Mich.e.l.le could have written it just as easily as Nathaniel could have. She could have easily forged his signature at the end. None of us would know any better. She wrote the note to throw us off the trail."

Carl glanced anxiously at his watch but said nothing.

"Mich.e.l.le joined the team four months ago. Regan and I met her and she seemed to really like us. She treated us like heroes for having defeated Tezoc. She knew every last detail about what had happened. Exactly what Tezoc had tried to do, and how he had done it. I told you the letter writer also knew a lot about Tezoc. Wanted to copy his strategies."

"Nathaniel could have known just as much about Tezoc as she did," pointed out Carl.

"Maybe," said Ryan. "But the strategy Tezoc is best known for is using exactly this kind of decoy."

Ryan could tell that Carl was almost convinced. He quickly pressed ahead. "Then she went from really liking me and Regan to really hating us. Just like that. We didn't know it, but it was just after she had returned from Isis! Exactly three months ago. She had changed! Ask Alyssa and Kelsey. They said the same thing. As of three months ago-exactly-they almost never saw her. And when they did she was a nightmare."

Ryan leaned forward. "They never saw her because she spent every night experimenting with the Enigma Cube. She was a nightmare because Isis had turned her into a monster." Ryan shook his head adamantly. "The timing isn't just a coincidence."

Carl considered everything Ryan had said. It did seem to fit together perfectly, like a tight jigsaw puzzle. And Nathaniel had never added up. He aced the lie-detector test, and when Carl had checked his background, people said he was a saint. Kind to animals. Opposed to guns and any kind of violence. Donated his time to charitable causes. No psychopath could mask their true nature that effectively for that long. The same was true of Mich.e.l.le Cooper. By all accounts she was a wonderful human being. But if Isis had truly made her insane, this would explain it.

Still, as good a case as Ryan made, he didn't have a single shred of hard evidence.

But as Carl thought about it further, he realized Ryan had all the hard evidence he needed. The evidence was Carl himself. Carl had been on Isis, and he remembered with horrible clarity how he had felt before being treated with the Med-Pen. As if all the hatred and fear in the world had been bottled up and concentrated inside of him. He knew from firsthand experience what Isis could do to someone. These memories alone didn't necessarily mean that Ryan was right. There could be other possible explanations for his temporary insanity. But when combined with the brilliant circ.u.mstantial evidence Ryan had presented, Carl was now convinced of the truth of Ryan's arguments to the very depths of his soul.

Carl un-muted the phone. "Captain McGann," he said. "Return to base. I repeat, return to base. We are scrubbing the mission."

"Roger that," said the captain. "Turning around and heading for home."

Ryan let out a huge sigh of relief as Carl hung up the phone. "Thanks Carl. I swear you're doing the right thing."

"I know I am," said Carl, "and it's you I should be thanking-for stopping me from doing the wrong thing."

The head of security spent a few minutes reviewing information he thought might be useful to Ryan and then asked him to continue his a.n.a.lysis.

"Here's what I think happened," said Ryan. "Mich.e.l.le didn't count on Dr. Harris being there when she tried to steal the Enigma Cube. Shooting him wasn't part of her plan. But stealing the Cube and traveling with it to Isis was. She must have had it in her backpack, along with the letter she had written beforehand."

Ryan stood and tilted his head toward the ceiling as he tried to recreate her plan in his mind.

"So the trams stop and she tosses the tape-recorder into the forest. When we go after it she takes Nathaniel hostage, sabotages one of the trams, and leaves the note. Then, either because they picked up on her hostile emotional state and attacked her, or just for fun, she shoots four Isis animals. We found their bodies when we were making our way back to the tram."

Carl rose from his chair. "We need to go topside," he said. "Let's continue this as we walk."

"The letter makes it clear Nathaniel is responsible," said Ryan as they exited Carl's office and the security building and began walking the short distance to the Prometheus entrance. "If this happened under normal circ.u.mstances everyone would question why Nathaniel would write it and give himself away-give the nature of the Enigma Cube away. But no one does in this case because the letter also makes it clear he plans to strand the expedition on Isis forever. So it won't matter if he reveals his plans in every detail, no one can do anything about it."

"But Mich.e.l.le never intended to capture Prometheus," noted Carl. "Meaning she always knew that the expedition would eventually be rescued, after all."

"Right. Mich.e.l.le needed everyone to think Nathaniel had wanted to capture Prometheus but had changed his plans. That he had made a mistake. That the expedition was very lucky to get rescued. But it wouldn't have been luck. Mich.e.l.le was counting on them coming back. She needed them to return."

Carl rubbed his chin once again. "Right," he said slowly, as the full extent of Mich.e.l.le Cooper's deception began to sink in. "So they could identify Nathaniel as the villain." He shook his head at the sheer audacity of her plan. "And her as the poor hostage."

Ryan nodded. "Exactly. She didn't count on the animals becoming savage or the river of lava. She thought it was a harmless planet. So she was sure that once Prometheus was back online, sooner or later someone would realize the Isis group was missing and bring them back."

They stepped through the Prometheus entrance and into the manmade cavern.

"So she uses the returned Isis group to frame Nathaniel," said Ryan, "and now she has her decoy. Everyone is hunting for the wrong person. Which is brilliant enough. But if I'm guessing the rest correctly, her strategy was more than brilliant. It was genius. A strategy Tezoc himself would have been proud of. All she has to do is have a merc continue to hold Nathaniel hostage. Then she can pretend to escape. Or tell us Nathaniel let her go. In either case, she could come up with some clever insight that would lead us to where he was hiding."

"You're right," said Carl, almost in awe. "That would be genius. Then we bomb Nathaniel out of existence." A frown came over his face and he shook his head in disgust. "Which we would have already done if not for you," he added, gesturing toward Ryan. He paused for a moment, his jaw tightening, as he reflected on just how close he had come to killing an innocent man and playing right into Mich.e.l.le Cooper's hands. "When we searched the wreckage afterwards," he continued, "we'd be unable to find the Enigma Cube. We'd a.s.sume, incorrectly, that it was caught in the blast. After that we would think the crisis was over. No more villain. No more weapon." He shook his head in wonder. "And she ends up being the hero."

"And then she can return to the team," said Ryan. "Take her time. Make her plans. Continue building her mercenary army. And catch us completely off guard."

"I wouldn't be surprised if you're right," said Carl. "I'll bet this is exactly what she had planned."

They entered the Prometheus elevator and began the long ascent to the surface. "So what are you going to do now?" asked Ryan.

"With respect to Nathaniel, I have to call off the dogs. And I have to get a ma.s.sive manhunt started for Mich.e.l.le Cooper." He sighed. "But before I do I want to speak with her daughters. I think it's only right that I tell them before I tell anyone else."

"Tell them what? That their mother isn't a hostage. That she's really behind the whole thing?"

Carl nodded. "I'm afraid so."

"But why even bother? Aren't you just going to give them the amnesia compound anyway?"

Carl sighed. "It turns out the amnesia inhalant isn't fully perfected," he said. "A few of the mercenaries we used it on after the Tezoc incident ended up eventually losing several years of memory. We aren't sure why. I refuse to take that risk with these two innocent girls."

Ryan's eyes widened. Did that mean Carl might let them join the team. More importantly, might let Alyssa join the team.

Carl was frowning deeply as they stepped off the elevator and it closed behind them. "I'm afraid once we find Mich.e.l.le we'll have to mount the same attack we had planned for Nathaniel. Which is a tragedy. Because even though she's responsible, it isn't her fault. It's the fault of Isis. She'll be every bit as much the innocent victim as she would have been had she really been Nathaniel's hostage."

They opened the door to the decoy building and stepped through. Chris Malcolm was sitting in a chair while the two Cooper sisters were pacing anxiously. Carl walked briskly toward the two girls while Ryan followed close behind.

Ryan buckled and collapsed to the floor!