David Sakmyster - The Pharos Objective

“We were in the city, so I made them bring me to see you.” She rolled closer and pulled out a red gift-wrapped package from under her blanket. “I didn’t want another Christmas to pass without seeing my big brother.”

Caleb felt a pang of guilt and had to lower his eyes as he took the gift. “I don’t deserve this.”

“You do.”

“I didn’t get you anything.”

“Hey, I surprised you by showing up. What can I expect?”

She reached up and touched his hand. “I don’t have long,” she said. “We’re on our way to Philadelphia. George-Mr. Waxman-has some contacts he wants Mom to meet. Some friends in occult studies who might shed light on the symbols you found on that door under Qaitbey’s fortress.”

Waxman.

Caleb’s blood boiled. He thought about Nina and the others-those unfortunate pawns Waxman had brought down into that place to drown. “Still trying to figure out the Pharos code…” he said. “Have they made any progress?”

“Do you care?” Phoebe didn’t wait for Caleb to answer. “Actually, we’ve interviewed two dozen different psychics. Still trying to repopulate the Morpheus Initiative. And George wasted a lot of time trying to locate that other guy who went missing in Alexandria. Xavier-something.”

“Montross?” His skin broke out in a surprising chill. “With all of Waxman’s influence, he can’t find one guy?”

“Yeah, weird. It’s like Xavier just vanished off the face of the planet.”

Caleb thought for a moment, remembering the red hair and the haunted eyes peering at him through the crack in a hotel-room door. “Or, he really doesn’t want to be found.”

“Well, anyway, the search goes on. Some of the candidates are good, some not so much. We brought them in, set them to work, but they’ve found nothing, nothing but unrelated gibberish. Their drawings make no sense, they don’t correlate with anything we know.”

“Maybe you’re not asking them the right questions.”

“Or they’re just bad psychics.”

Caleb smiled. “What about you? What have you seen, assuming you’re helping them?”

“I am. But mostly… I don’t know, I guess I haven’t known what to look for, or what questions to ask, either.”

“How’s college?” he asked, changing the subject.

Her face lit up. “Great. U of R has a nice handicapped-friendly facility. I stay on campus and all my classes are in one building connected to my dorm. I’ve got a head start on my thesis already, and I’m interning with Professor Gillis, helping him translate a collection of cuneiform tablets from Babylon.”

“Sounds wonderful,” Caleb said. He hadn’t realized she had developed such similar interests. Suddenly he regretted the years they’d been apart.

“It’s not bad,” she said. “Except for when Mom basically kidnaps me and makes me help out with her research.” A couple underclassmen walked by, hand in hand with their girlfriends, and Phoebe wistfully watched them go.

“I’d hoped she’d give you a break,” Caleb said, looking out the window again at the figure in the passenger seat.

“She has, mostly, but I’ve asked to be kept in it.”

Caleb opened his mouth to ask a question, but when he saw her eyes, the hard lines around the edges, the lost years in her smile, he knew why she couldn’t let it rest. He urged her toward a seating area, where he pulled up a chair and leaned forward to be at her level. “I’m sorry, Phoebe. I really am. I think about you all the time.”

“Even though you never call?”

“Or write.”

“Or write,” she said. “You’ve read my letters?”

“Of course.” And it was true, he couldn’t set them aside. Even though she was the link to his past, the sole connection to his mother and to a life he desperately wanted to forget, he just couldn’t close himself off to her completely. And she wrote so well, so full of enthusiasm about everything, as if despite her disability she was thrilled to just be alive. She experienced life with the zeal of a heaven-bound spirit sent back to Earth for one last romp.

“So maybe you’ll write back sometime?” she asked hopefully, looking over her shoulder as a horn sounded. “Or visit?”

“I will,” Caleb promised.

She nodded and then backed up, first wrapping her scarf around her neck. Caleb followed her to the door. Outside in the cool wind Waxman stood, wearing a black trench coat. He opened the trunk for Phoebe’s wheelchair.

“Has he moved in?” Caleb asked.

“More or less,” Phoebe said. “I ask Mom about it every once in a while. She seems to really like him.”

“Did you ever…?” Caleb paused, unsure how to phrase the question.

“Remote view him?” She gave a little laugh. “Nah, too creepy. You?”

“Haven’t done it at all in a long time.”

“Too bad. But it’s not one of those ‘use it or lose it’ things. If you want to get back to it, I’m sure it’s waiting for you.”

“No thanks.”

“You sure? I bet you and I could figure this thing out in no time.”

Caleb opened the door for her and felt the suddenly bitter wind whip at his face. “Thanks for the present.”

With a speed that surprised him, Phoebe reached up, took him by the wrists and pulled him down for a big hug. “Take care of yourself, big brother.” She started to wheel away, then stopped. “One more thing, are you dating someone?”

Caleb blushed despite the cold. “Nope. No time. Studies and all.”

“Geek.”

“Why’d you ask?”

“Just curious. I thought of you once, and I went into a quick trance and saw you with a girl, someone with long blond hair and green eyes.”

“Blond? No, no one I know,” Caleb said, truthfully. He hadn’t thought too much about girls since he’d been back to the States. And he only had a few other teachers he could even call friends. He steered clear of parties, and Columbia was such a big campus one could easily escape notice. And he preferred it that way. “But I’ll keep an eye out for this mystery girl.”

“Do that,” Phoebe said. “Because I felt she was bad news. Some kind of threat to you. That’s all.” She rode down the walkway as frosted leaves blew across her path and great elm trees swayed toward her. The morning clouds hung pregnant and low, dark but complacent.

“Merry Christmas!” Caleb called out, and just then his mother’s head appeared from the other side of the car. He saw her face, her lips moving, mouthing an apology or an accusation, Caleb wasn’t sure. But suddenly he saw something he hadn’t seen in three years-a huddled figure, a man trembling in a tattered green coat, long stringy hair over his face. He was standing across the street, by the corner of the brick building. The shadows seemed deeper around him, as if he had enlisted them to his side. He stared at Caleb. With the door open, shivering against a renewed blast of cold air, Caleb stood motionless. He smelled gunpowder, or fireworks, and imagined hearing a band playing a somber dirge on the field. The figure in the green coat raised its hand. At first Caleb thought it was pointing to him, but then he realized the finger was directed toward the car.

Toward Waxman.

Caleb heard mumbled words and realized it was Phoebe saying goodbye. He blinked, opened the door all the way and was about to come out when the light shifted, the shadows scattered, and the man was gone, as if he had been inhaled into the earth.

Caleb retreated into the lobby and stared at the gift in his hands. When he looked up, the car had driven off, and only the swaying trees and the courtyard lawn and the eight guys playing touch football remained.

Back in his room, he peeled open the wrapping paper. He stared inside the box for a long time. Then he cursed them-cursed his mother, cursed Waxman, and even Phoebe, although he didn’t really mean it. She had framed the three photographs he had taken down there. The inside of the Pharos chamber-three panels of the great seal, cropped and edited so the entire wall appeared seamless, along with the symbols and the images that had stymied their advance and killed most of the team.