Demigods Page 2

  "Mirage!" he shouted along the way as he glanced about, as though he might be able to see her, but she did not answer.

  Stepping into the front lobby, Ryan directed the lieutenant to the sofa, and then stepped up to the security station, where the two guards monitored the cameras.

  "Where is Mirage?" he asked with a direct tone. Sure, she could make people see things that were not there, but the cameras never lied, and he hoped that she did not reach their minds in time to fool them.

  "She went back to the firing range," one of them told him, without looking up from his monitor.

  "She tucked herself into a blind spot there," the other one said, also keeping his eyes on his task. "She won't be able to move out of it, without showing herself."

  "Let me know if she does," Captain Pierce ordered, feeling a little more relieved. It would seem that she was only a little frightened, and needed some comforting, but before he could go to her, one of the corporals stopped him.

  "Sir?" the one to his left interrupted, without explaining what he needed to tell him. Instead, he simply looked intently at the front door.

  Turning, the captain saw the one thing that he really did not want to see at this moment. It was the colonel, and he did not seem at all pleased to be locked out of his own building.

  "Would you care to tell me why I am still standing out here?" he asked calmly, though with a very stern expression on his face, as he pressed the button on the outer speaker system.

  Stepping around the large security desk, Ryan pushed the button on the inside.

  "Mirage got upset when I introduced her to Viper," he explained. "She is in a corner on the firing range right now."

  "Then I ask you again," he stated, sounding a little less patient this time. "Why am I still standing out here?"

  "Open the door, just long enough to let him through," he told one of the guards, "then lock it back down immediately."

  "I would prefer not to be the one to break protocol," the young man stated, with a bit of nervousness in his voice, and the captain admired his resolve.

  "Very well," he told him, before hitting the button that opened the doors himself, and then he hit it again, the moment that the colonel had stepped through.

  Moving back around the security desk, he walked up to meet his CO face to face, yet the colonel's expression puzzled him. He was smiling, and that was unusual. He never smiled at work, and considering the circumstances, it was especially odd at this moment. What he would say next would make even less sense, until moments after the real security guards stepped into the room from the corridor.

  "We went to your office, just as you requested," one of them said, "but when you were not there, we thought it best to return to our post."

  Ryan turned to look at the ones that stood behind the desk, only to watch them fade away. Then he turned back to the colonel, who was still smiling at him.

  "If you truly want me to," he said with Mirage's voice, "I will help you escape these men." Then he too faded away.

  "Something tells me that you have a bit of explaining to do," Lieutenant Lamb stated from his seated position on the sofa, and Captain Pierce considered that to be the universal understatement of the year.

  How much so depended on the footage, and he quickly rounded the counter to view the security tapes. Rewinding them, he took it back to a moment just before the call for a lock down.

  Choosing the multiple view option, he began to see what happened. He saw Mirage as she caressed his face, and chose to pause it. This was where it started, and he could not get the feeling out of his head when she had done so. Then his mind went blank for a moment.

  "Sir?" one of the corporals interrupted, which quickly pulled him back to his senses.

  "I've got this," he stated in a stern, though calm matter, making sure that his subordinate knew where the ranks fell, and then proceeded with what he was doing.

  Pushing the play option, he watched as Mirage suddenly released her hands from his face, and ran out the door. More graceful than any human should be allowed to move at such a speed, she ran down the hallway until she reached the door that was just outside of the front desk.

  Knowing which camera to watch next, he saw one of the corporals answer the phone, before turning to the other to tell him what he had been told. Surely, this was where she tricked them into believing that he was summoning them to his office.

  "You opened Pandora's box, didn't you?" Lieutenant Lamb laughed, still seated on the sofa.

  "Not now!" he barked at the gentleman, yet that elderly man did not take it offensively. He simply sat there smiling, as the security detail simply looked stunned by the captain's demeanor.

  Continuing with the footage, he watched as the two corporals began their way to his office, with Mirage trailing right behind them, but then something quite odd occurred.

  Just when the footage reached the point where he and the lieutenant were to pass them by, he watched as he saw himself veer to one side as if to allow them to pass by. Besides the obvious, the other problem was that the lieutenant was not actually there with him, as he had first believed.

  Then he watched as Mirage began to follow behind him back to the entrance, and enter the outer lobby. From any angle, Ryan could see that it was only himself and her, and he began to realize just how well he had been played.

  Looking up from the monitor, he stared straight at the lieutenant, who sat there smiling back at him.

  "Why are you doing this to me?" he shouted as he rounded the counter, and walked up to what appeared to be an empty sofa to the two corporals.

  Just then, the lieutenant faded away, but what appeared on the other side of the window that was behind where he had been sitting, shook the captain down to his soul.

  "Because I love you," Mirage told him, as she appeared to him alone, from the other side of the glass, with her hands pressed against it. Then she pressed her beautiful lips to that same glass, before she too faded away.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Awakening

  Smoke rose steadily from the green cigar that sat ignored in the tinted glass ashtray. The aged, yet hardened man that sat in the chair next to it, had too much on his mind to perceive his own surroundings. The wall filled with books that rarely ever moved, the wall filled with medals and awards, and the extravagantly decorated knight in shining armor that stood in the corner between the two, did not exist to him at this moment.

  It was a week ago to the day that his troubles began, when his most advanced unit had run off, leaving him with only the option of terminating it. If it were to get into the wrong hands, it could be devastating.

  Worse yet, it could go public, revealing the genetic engineering program that only a small number of people in the military, and intelligence community, kept secret from the rest of the world. The President would not be pleased if ever he found out.

  Pulling the cigar to his weathered lips, and chewing firmly on the bitter leaves, the Colonel stood, and began pacing the floor in his red and black, smoking jacket. A call was to be coming to confirm that his operative had completed the mission, and his impatience prevented him from sitting still any longer.

  Slipping a hand into his front pocket, he felt around for his secured line, cell phone, as if it could have found a way to leave on its own.

  "What is taking so long?" he growled under his breath, and as if to answer his question, it began to ring.

  Pulling it from his pocket, he took a deep breath before answering it.

  "Tell me some good news," he demanded, but a brief silence was followed by words that he had thought to be highly unlikely.

  "Sir . . . the mission has failed," came the reply from his trusty lieutenant, "and we have lost track of the target."

  Crushing the cigar violently in the ashtray, the Colonel barked angrily back at the phone.

  "And what the hell is our operative doing to resolve this problem?!"

  Hearing that he was comatose in a Venice hospital was bad enough, but
to find that his headgear was missing as well, was quite unsettling. The video on it would have shown them what had happened, and could have given them a clue as to where the target might be going. The fact that the tracking device had been rendered inoperative created some disturbing possibilities as well.

  "Put the triplets back on it," he said, trying to restrain his emotions, "and this time send two operatives to do the job."

  "The triplets are already on it, sir," the man on the other end assured him, "and all they keep seeing an island."

  The Colonel was not pleased!

  Truth is, they were not triplets at all. In fact, they were not even related. They were the three best remote viewers that the agency had at its disposal. It took them three weeks to find the target the first time, which was like an eternity when considering their talents, but tracking this target by other means was practically impossible. They would succeed again, but he wondered if it would be in time.

  Sitting in his chair once again, he relit the stub of a cigar that remained, and blew thick smoke into the air.

  "Damn you, Mirage," he muttered under his breath, as he began to contemplate the consequences of creating such a creature.

  * * *

  Slowly, a man began to regain consciousness, noticing first the throbbing pain originating from the back of his head. Reaching back to rub the spot, he found that he was not only resting on a rock, but that he was partially submerged in water as well.

  He tried to open his eyes, but his blurred vision, and the brightness of the hot sun in his face, forced him to blink his eyes closed again.

  "Where am I?" he thought, as he sat up off of the rock, onto what felt to be sand beneath him, yet then a more important question arose.

  "Who am I?" he spoke aloud as he tried to rub the vision back into his eyes.

  Pushing back his hair from his forehead, he stood to his feet, and began to allow his vision to clear, though it did not take much for him to see that he stared out over the open seas. Turning, he could make out what appeared to be a white, sandy beach, lined with palm trees and a jungle that lingered behind them.

  Slowly he began to make his way toward solid ground, as he struggled to remember who he was. Glancing down, he saw that he wore tan, khaki shorts, and a white T-shirt, though neither seemed to offer a clue. Somehow, he thought, if he had shoes on, it would not have helped either.

  As he staggered toward the dry sand, he began to scan the jungle line, not knowing if anything was out there watching him. If snakes and spiders were the worst of it, he would be slightly relieved.

  "Hello," he shouted to anyone that might be near by, but only the sounds of the jungle replied.

  Looking first to his right, and then to his left, he wondered which way to go. The beach in both directions looked much the same, and he did not seem to have a coin to flip, so he simply chose left, hoping to get a lucky guess. For all he knew, there could be nothing to find in either direction.

  Feeling the sand between his toes, he noticed that it was not too hot, which told him that the sun that sat just above the ocean to his left was on its way up. At least he had plenty of daylight to figure out what to do.

  "Hello," he called out once more, yet received no different response.

  For about two hours he walked, continuously glancing at the jungle to see if anything was lurking there. Gradually, the sun began to make itself know, and he found himself often wiping the sweat from his brow.

  Removing his shirt, he looked back to the palms, although this time to see if there might be a safe place to rest in the shade. The thought of what creatures might be watching him from the darkness quickly changed his mind. A rest in the cool, shallow water seemed like a much more logical choice.

  Stepping in, he wet his shirt, and wrung it out over his head, which caused his eyes to burn slightly from the salt. This did well to remind him of his thirst, and the fact that he was surrounded by water that he could not drink.

  He looked back to the palms, wondering about a coconut that he might find to crack open. A meal and a drink all wrapped up in one package sounded quite nice at the moment.

  He pulled his wet shirt back his head, and began his way back to the jungle line. Sure, there could be things out there... even dangerous things, but what choice did he have? The sun did not care about his thirst, and was intent on dehydrating him as quickly as it could.

  Reaching the jungle's edge, he began to search around the ground for any coconut that might have conveniently fallen for him, keeping one eye on the darkness within. He saw nothing either way.

  Now he looked upward, and there he saw them as large as they could be, taunting him from their lofty perch. His first thought was to throw something at them, but as he searched around on the ground, he could not find anything to use. There were no stones. There was only sand, and the vibrant vegetation. Not a good, dead stick was anywhere to be found.

  "Oh, well," he mumbled as he looked back up at them, knowing that there was only one option left. It was not an appealing option, but seemed far better than dying of thirst.

  Reaching forward with both hands, he sized up the diameter of the trunk. The roughness of the bark made it easy to get a good grip, but it also posed a problem. With shorts on, there was nothing to protect the inside of his legs as he shimmed up the palm. Nonetheless, it had to be done.

  Slowly he began his ascent. Inch by inch, he carefully made his way to the top, and the rough bark was as uncomfortable as he thought it would be. Despite that, he eventually reached the top.

  Smiling at his own success, he firmly grabbed the closest coconut, and pulled it free before dropping it to the ground. The two that remained quickly followed, and he was soon on his way back down. His descent however, was a bit more eventful than the trip up.

  Half the way down, without warning, something hit him in the side of the head, and startled, he lost his grip. Quickly his life flashed before his eyes as he fell backwards toward the ground below, only to find that the sand broke much of the fall.

  For a brief moment, he laid there before springing to his feet to look in the direction that the object had come from. At first, he saw nothing, but then there was movement up in the trees, but he could not see it well enough to determine what it was.

  Keeping his eyes fixed in that direction, he soon saw another object heading straight for him, though he easily leaned out of the way. He picked it up, saw that it was some kind of small, hard fruit, or perhaps a large nut, and then sent it back in the direction from which it came.

  Now he saw his attacker, and the small, black, long-tailed monkey seemed unwilling to deal with any sort of retaliation. In an instant, it leaped from tree to tree, until it vanished into the darkness of the dense jungle.

  "Damn pest," he mumbled with a half grin, now feeling a little less alone. Certainly not his first choice for company, but sometimes you just take what you can get.

  Speaking of taking what you can get, he picked up one of the coconuts from the sand, and examined it carefully. How was he going to remove the thick, green casing that surrounded it, yet then an idea came to him.

  Walking up to a small tree closest to the beach, he set the coconut on the ground, and dropped to one knee. Sizing it up, he grabbed it about two feet up, and bent it in half. Back and forth, he bent it until it broke off, and he was pleased at his accomplishment. It would please him more if it worked as well as he had hoped.

  Grabbing the coconut with both hands, he raised it above his head, and brought it down with determined force. Much to his surprise, the thin, jagged stump ripped into the green husk better than he had expected, and he quickly began pealing it away from the brown shell inside.

  Happy with the way that things had been going, he tossed the coconut in one hand, pondering the next step. There had been large rocks in the water where he had awakened, so it seemed the best place to start. His success in this phase, however, did not go as well.

  Casually, he began to wade along the water's edge
, glancing from side to side, ever searching for that one tool to help him quench his growing thirst.

  "Where are you?" he shouted out in bitter frustration, but never did a rock reply.

  Dropping the coconut to float in the water, he removed his shirt, and wet it once more before wringing it over his head again. This would keep him cool, but he needed more than that to survive.

  Then he saw them; three human forms off in the distance.

  Leaving his prize in the water, he began to hastily make his way back to the shore, and then up the beach in their direction.

  "Hey," he yelled out, waving his hands in an attempt to get their attention, though he was not close enough for them to hear.

  Now he began to jog quickly through the sand, getting closer and closer to what he thought would be the end to what was the unfortunate situation that he had found himself in. As he reached a point where he could see them better, he began to sense that something was not quite right.

  What kind of men wore black masks over their heads, while dressed like island savages from the neck down? Loincloths, along with crude necklaces and full body tattoos only made the primitive spears they wielded seem a bit more intimidating.

  "What the hell?" he mumbled as he slowed to a stop.

  Just then, they saw him, and stared for a moment as if to be as puzzled as he was. Their intentions became quite clear when they suddenly burst into a sprint toward him, with their spears waving frantically in front.

  He turned, and began to run back down the beach, though it quickly occurred to him that they would eventually run him down if he stayed in the sand. Now was the time to face his fears. Now was the time to meet the darkness of the jungle head on, and hope that it was not as dangerous as the strange men that were chasing him.

  Seeing what appeared to be a good opening, he sharply turned inland, and slightly slouched his posture for better balance. Swiftly he passed one large leafed plant after another, occasionally hurdling a downed tree that attempted to slow his pace.

  After a short while, he glanced back to see if he was still being followed, yet saw no one. He did not feel safe enough to stop, though a slower pace was welcomed indeed. Exhaustion now sat beside his ever-growing thirst.