Chapter 6

ID: 1762291   (Rated: 13+) Artifact Man  A thriller, new age, sci-fi novel about a strange man found in the desert. by Hyperiongate

ID: 1762345   (Rated: E) Chapter 5  Dr. Marshall starts her experimental treatment. A night nurse...evolves. by Hyperiongate

March 16th, 2010
Nellis Air Force Base

As Lise was preparing to start the current through JD11 in his TIG tank, Jack and Sheriff Tucker were facing off with a man they would eventually come to know extremely well; if, in fact, anyone could claim to know the mysterious colonel well.

“Good afternoon Sheriff Tucker, Mr. Barton. I’m Colonel Lanier. Please sit down.”

Jack wasn’t sure he wanted to do anything this man told him to do. He and the Sheriff had essentially been abducted, presumably by their own government. And now this uniform wanted to play host. This didn’t sit well with Jack. In the end, he elected to remain standing. Sam, on the other hand, felt a little less animosity towards Lanier. After all, he was the one that had contacted the military to begin with. The colonel was just doing his job.

Sam started to take a seat and then, seeing that Jack was reluctant, put his hand on jack’s arm and nodded. The men both sat.

Colonel Lanier watched this small interchange with interest. Little escaped his observation, every.

“I understand that you may have a few questions with regard to your current situation. I will get to those soon enough. For right now, I need to know what you know. Let’s start with the body.”

With a shrug, Sheriff Tucker took a why-fight-it attitude. “Jack here found the body. Jack, why don’t you tell your story first?”

“Fuck you, Colonel. Figure it out yourself.”

The colonel’s expression didn’t change as he pulled as sheet of paper out of a file and held it up for both men to see. Written on it were the words, “Fuck you – Jack Barton.”

The surprise on Jack’s face was obvious.

“How did you know…” Jack said, visibly surprised.

“Mr. Barton. I know everything there is to know about you; right up to how much you paid for your last tank of gas. Our psychological profile said there was an 88% chance of you responding as you did. Of course, there were smaller probabilities for other outcomes, but this seemed to be pretty accurate. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Jack never considered himself a violent man but this seemed an appropriate venue. He considered jumping over the desk and pounding a few high percentage punches into the colonel. Let him add that to the psych profile.

“And, Jack, in spite of your significant training, you would not fair well should you elect to become … aggressive.”

Jack didn’t move. Was there anything this guy didn’t know? He had the feeling his mind was being read.

“Right now you’re wondering how I know these things. The former I know because I ordered an assessment of you as soon as I had your name. As for the latter…I could see it in your eyes. Now, can we please move forward and put all of this petty sparing behind us?”

Jack could see he was clearly in over his head. Surprisingly, a part of him liked the idea of the military being so efficient. With a shrug, he tossed in a mental towel and spent the next few minutes detailing the events that led up to his discovery of JD11. When he mentioned that a Life-flight had taken the man to Renown Medical Center, Colonel Lanier held up his hand indicating Jack should stop for a moment.

The Colonel took out a cell phone and issued a long string of orders. While Jack and Sam couldn’t follow all of the military jargon, they understood the gist. The hospital, the doctors and the strange new patient, JD11 were all now under protective surveillance.

The colonel put his cell phone away with the casualness of one who had just ordered a pizza.

“Continue,” he said to Jack as if nothing had just happened.

Jack and Sam sat there with their mouths open. Who is this guy?

Sam was the first to regain his composure. “Before we say anything more, we want to know just what the hell is going on here!”

The colonel looked at them both for a moment before saying, “Gentlemen, this is how it is going to work. I will ask questions that you will then answer; Simple as that. Until I know more about what happened and what you were doing out there, I am going to proceed on the assumption that you are bad news. I understand that I may need to apologize later and I hope for your sakes that that is what I end up doing. You have complicated this situation immeasurably by tampering with the site. We know what you did and how much you have seen. Even if you are one of the good guys, you now pose a serious security liability that we will have to find a way to deal with. If you have any questions, keep them to yourselves until I ask for them.”

“Fuck you,” said Jack for the second time in ten minutes. He stood up and, without a well thought out plan, turned to leave. His gesture failed abruptly when he noticed the five-hundred pounds of uniforms with guns blocking his path. Turning back towards the colonel he said, “Is this how it’s going to be? Do we want to do this the hard way?”

Jack changed. The kindness in the eyes was gone. A hard, chiseled look replaced the open and gentle face from just a moment before. The arms hung relaxed at his side. The fingers clinched and released twice, ready for action. His legs bent slightly at the knees and his weight shifted to his back foot. He was loose, dangerous and ready to strike.

Nothing escaped the eyes of Colonel Lanier. He was impressed with Jack’s lack of concern with the odds presented to him. If this event out in the desert turned out to be what he thought it was, Jack’s life was likely to depend on his ability to take care of himself and those around him.

Sam also found himself re-evaluating Jack. Sure, he liked him right off the bat, but this was something new. Jack had something hard, deep down inside; something not to be trifled with. The sheriff could see that there was a dangerous Jack behind the kind eyes and quick smile. Maybe the guards should be a little concerned. After all, there were only two of them.

Wes had not moved from his desk. He had not reacted at all. From Sam’s observational perspective, he could see that the colonel was evaluating, not the situation, but the man. He was looking to see what Jack would do next.

The standoff lasted only a few moments before the door behind the guards opened up. Another large soldier walked over to Wes and delivered a folder before saluting, turning on his heals and leaving. Jesus, Sam thought, what do they feed these guys down here?

“Jack, have a seat please.” Lanier said as if nothing untold had just taken place. He picked up the first folder and started scanning its contents.

When Jack didn’t move, Wes again said, “Jack, please. Sit down. I may have what I need right here. If that turns out to be the case, I will be glad to answer any questions you have before I return you to where we found you.”

Jack allowed himself a deep breath before mentally releasing the energy he was about to unleash on the guards. He didn’t know why, but he somehow trusted the Colonel. No, he didn’t appreciate the way he and Sam were treated but he had to admit he could see the rationale behind it. From the Colonel’s perspective, it was better to make a little mistake early and apologize later than to make a big mistake and not be able to recover later.

The room was quiet as Wes reviewed the information he had received. Sam and Jack sat and waited. Eventually he set aside the folders and said, “Gentlemen, what questions do you have for me?”

Jack and Sam looked at each other. With a nod, Sam relinquished the floor to Jack.

“Let’s start off with, who are you and why are we here?” said Jack wondering what could have been in the file that caused the Colonel to change his position so abruptly.

The colonel told them everything he thought they needed to know, starting with Deep Blue Operations and finishing with the Artifact that was buried in the desert. Both of these topics encompassed complexities that went well beyond what he would cover with these two men today. Everything was on a need to know basis. In the case of these two men in particular, the colonel stretched the boundaries. A sheriff and an ex-Navy Seal were two good men to have on his side should trouble start. If they were to be of any help, they needed to know what was going on.

Colonel Lanier talked for over an hour.

Deep Blue Operations (DBO) had been established in 1925. It was created by the president as a non-existent branch of United States Intelligence. Only three government officials knew about it: the President, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This did not imply that no one knew about Colonel Lanier; whenever he was around, everyone assumed he was working with someone else. The base commander at Nellis knew there were underground facilities out in the remote part of his base. He also knew better than to ask too many questions about what went on out there. He was only allowed to know that if Colonel Lanier asked for anything, it was to be given top priority. He was also told that Colonel Lanier was not in his chain of command which translated into “don’t be fooled by the fact that he is only a Colonel.”

The mission of DBO had changed with the times. The initial charge was to investigate strange lights that were being reported from time to time from every corner of the planet. Today, it had expanded its scope to include all unexplained phenomena such as the artifact buried in the desert. Sam and Jack were surprised to learn that mankind was not only not the only intelligent race in existence but that the universe was a much more mysterious place than even the most speculative physicists could have guessed.

As far as the artifact found in the desert, there were still a lot of unknowns. An area stretching out for ten miles in every direction was in the process of being secured by the military. The airspace had been restricted to military flights. By this time tomorrow, a small base will have been established to maintain security. Depending on what was found, a much larger facility was likely to be built. Ideally, they would be able to dig up whatever was there and bring it back to Nellis for analysis. No one knew for sure what was buried out there in the desert so for now, it was just The Artifact. In the meantime, it needed to be kept safe and secret.

Funding did not appear to be a problem.

Eventually, Jack asked about the surveillance of the hospital staff. He wanted to know if there was any danger. He had not forgotten about Lise Marshall. He realized that he had failed to show up this afternoon as promised. He wondered if she had noticed.

Colonel Lanier said that the hospital staff knew nothing other than a John Doe burn victim had been brought in the night before. They would be left in charge of the man’s recovery. It seems that their revolutionary recovery system was the best chance for JD11. The team was extremely capable. The fact that they had kept JD11 alive as long as they had was impressive.

The colonel would place a couple of men inside the hospital to protect both the patient and his medical team. It may prove necessary to let some of the staff in on what was going on. Wes took note of Jack’s attentiveness when Lise Marshall’s name was brought up. Not much escaped the colonel’s attention.

“Jack, I recall you having said that you met Dr. Marshall. What is your impression of her?”

Jack tried to be nonchalant about the question. “She seemed to be very competent and professional.”

“We will have to keep an eye on her. Because of her position, she can be a great deal of help to us. Unfortunately, her position also makes her extremely vulnerable should any outsider take an interest in the patient.” Wes watched Jack. If he had read Jack correctly, the ex-Navy SEAL was about to take a very protective interest in Doctor Marshall.

“What do you mean by vulnerable? Why would she be in any danger?” Jack could feel the inner warrior paying attention.

Wes sat back in his chair and said, “Throughout history, there has been only one thing that man has needed protection from; that one foe that is too clever for us to ever overcome. That is mankind itself. There are - beings that are superior to us, but they have never posed a threat. It seems that we are on the cusp. We are at the top of our own food chain, at least intellectually, but not quite far enough along the evolutionary scale to the point where we no longer need to fear each other. Nor do we appear to be advanced enough to be of much interest to anyone else out the in the unknown cosmos. The burned man and everyone associated with him are in danger; not from little green men, but from ourselves. There are bad people out there that either know about him or will soon enough. When that happens, they will come. They will come for him because they fear what they believe he represents. When they find him, they will give their lives in an attempt to kill him.”

Jack internalized this information for a few minutes. Wes watched Jack carefully. Jack looked up. His eyes were a little harder, his jaw a little tighter. Wes smiled. Jack had just become a little more dangerous.

Jack was onboard. “What can I do to help protect her?”

ID: 1762502   (Rated: E) Chapter 7  Jack goes home. Lise goes to work and Lanier visits the Artifact. by Hyperiongate