David Sakmyster - The Pharos Objective

Caleb smiled. “Yes, I’ll keep an eye on him there, too. And, you’ll be happy to know, we might be heading that way again very soon. Me, Phoebe…” then, in a whisper, “… the Morpheus Initiative.”

He stood, stretched and watched the scene behind him, where Alexander chased after a Frisbee. “I’m reforming the group. Recruiting psychics, screening them myself this time. Waxman had the right idea, just the wrong motives. It’ll be a good team, dedicated, professional. Going after the biggest stakes. Important relics, things that will benefit mankind.”

Hands on her hips, gasping for breath, Phoebe laughed, saw Caleb and waved. Alexander shouted and Caleb thought he heard the words “Old Rusty.”

“Dad,” Caleb scolded, “he got that from you. Loves that damn rust bucket. Every chance he gets he’s chucking stones at it, climbing through it, pretending to be Captain Nemo.”

Dropping his voice a notch, Caleb leaned in toward his parents’ stones. Carefully, keeping the words from the jealous wind, he whispered, “Alexander will be ready sooner than I thought.” Caleb looked through the trees, across the narrowest part of the bay, to their little white lighthouse glittering in the sun. “It’s waiting for him, down in our basement, beyond the root cellar door. Locked away behind what, I must say, are some ingenious puzzles of my own. Alexander will figure them out in time. But before that, I’ll teach him what he needs to know.”

Bowing his head, Caleb walked back to his sister and his son, back to the sunlight and the warmth. He paused at the rise and glanced back to the monuments.

“I promise, Alexander will make an excellent Keeper.”

The patient’s door opens with a sound like the hiss of an uncoiling python. The man outside wears a long overcoat, and a matching black hat all but covers the tangles of crimson hair matted in sweat beneath the fabric.

He takes off his gloves, slips them into a pocket. Before his next step, he glances over his shoulder at a heavyset man on the hallway floor, his neck broken. Outside, the Virginia sun has gone down for the day, and the quiet winds sweep across the sycamores, rolling over the Potomac — and three more bodies face-down in the water. Mercenaries, all of them, members of Waxman’s old crew, still guarding the last vestige of a program long-since officially cancelled, following orders from distant bureaucrats interested only in keeping certain secrets in the dark. It wasn’t a fair fight, but he has no interest in fairness.

Still hearing the echoes of the guard’s snapping vertebrae, he enters the room. Despite what he’s just done, he doesn’t like death, not the look of it, not the smell, not the way it sounds. Just being in its vicinity brings too many unwanted memories.

Too many visions that just won’t go away.

He turns his attention to the interior of the darkened chamber. The light from outside spills around him, seeking out the patient lying on the cot. IVs feed nutrients into her blood stream to keep her alive. How much longer could they keep her here? he wonders. Drugged up so she can’t remember, so her powers can’t surface? Forever? The men safeguarding this site on a skeleton crew, half-heartedly, had little idea of what or who she was.

A breath escapes her parched lips. Her head turns toward the light. Eyes flicker open.

Does she recognize me?

He thought she was an amnesiac, that her injuries beneath the Pharos stole her memories. But his visions-those he had started having back in Alexandria, before he deserted the Morpheus Initiative on the night of their ill-fated descent-showed him something else. Visions of the two of them together, glimpses even of this very moment, in this very room, doing what he is about to do.

He kneels beside her, takes her hand in his.

She blinks as her eyes focus. “You?”

Xavier Montross smiles, a twisted smile born of fiery visions and epic, exalted dreams. Relentless dreams, all his life showing him his purpose, what he was meant to find, what he was meant to be. So close now, almost within his grasp.

“Hello, Nina. Come, we have work to do.”