The Lucid - Season One: The Beginning Read online

  This made no sense.

  None of this made any sense at all.

  The police were clearly under the same influence as everyone else. They weren’t thinking clearly. They were acting on some sort of program, instead of their own free will and training. Otherwise, they would have turned this place over and sent out a search party to find him. Adam would be in that car right now, right alongside his family. Or he’d be shot.

  He went to the bedroom and rummaged through his things. The cooler was still there, unopened. He unzipped it, peeked inside, and verified that the vials were still there. There was no sign in the cabin that the police had actually even searched for them.

  They had just come to retrieve Adam’s family.

  It was the only thing that made any sense, though “made sense” was a bit of a stretch. Nothing about this made any sense from day one. Everything that Adam knew was slowly being turned upside-down, twisted until it was unrecognizable. Something … something huge was happening. It was bigger than he’d first thought. It ran deep, possibly part of some sort of conspiracy or plot.

  Adam grabbed the cooler and his backpack, tucking his laptop inside as he went, and sprinted to the truck. The keys were still hanging from the cup hook by the door—another odd sign that the police weren’t operating on all cylinders.

  The truck’s engine seemed unnaturally loud as it roared to life. And as Adam sped long the road, he expected at any moment to run into a police barricade. He watched the darkness just behind the cone of light from his headlights, expecting to see a police cruiser emerge any second. But there was nothing. Nothing but the jostling of the road and the sound of the truck creaking its way through the darkness.

  David wanted to shoot someone. Or everyone. Couldn’t he count on one single person these days?

  He breathed, calming himself. The MCU was already taking measures to keep his heart rate and breathing steady, to calm him down. It wouldn’t do to lose his head at the moment. This was, after all, to be expected. As the element become more embedded and its replication continued, human will was something that could be relied upon less and less. The police, as highly trained s they may be, were still subject to their own biology.

  Remember the mission, David reminded himself.

  Still … they hadn’t even looked for Adam!

  Which meant that things had progressed enough that without direct supervision and command, the men and women at David’s disposal would lack the initiative and will to do anything beyond what they were strictly ordered to do. This was to be expected. This was exactly what the research had indicated would happen. There were no surprises here.

  Except, of course, Adam himself.

  The man was a surprise. Oh yes. He was a treat, actually. He was the key. Finding him was the most important task on David’s agenda now.

  “He’s still in those mountains,” David said aloud. “Use the satellites to start tracking his location. Go back to his last known coordinates, just after the police left his property.”

  The AI complied, bringing footage from one of the satellites into focus on the main screen, and jumping to the moment when the police cruisers left the clearing.

  The image was difficult to see, even with enhancements. The NOAA birds were meant for atmospheric scanning, and contained little in the way of infrared. David’s personal algorithms for image enhancement were doing a fair job of bringing out detail from the nighttime images, but they were far from perfect. There simply wasn’t enough visual data to work with.

  Still, when the headlights came on, David smiled. Those he could see just fine.

  Curiously, Adam was not pursuing the police vehicle in which his family was being transported. Instead, at one point the Tundra veered from the main right-of-way and started to move through a series of switchbacks and old dirt roads. David had to switch satellites to continue following his progress. Eventually, though, the truck stopped near the banks of a stream that ran through the area. The headlights went off, and all activity ceased.

  Assuming Adam would stay with his vehicle at least through the night, David started to arrange for an interception.

  As the element made its progression, it was actually becoming much easier to find personnel to take on these remote tasks. True, they wouldn’t be much for autonomous work. But if David could keep an open communication channel with them, he could easily track and guide their progress. As the suppression took a greater hold, David’s grip on them could increase.

  Ironic. David had lost the use of his body just as humanity was losing its free will. It was good, then, that his will remained free. He could become the mind of humanity now. Or at least this small part of it. His very own sector.

  Adam, though, was a potential wildcard. He would be very valuable to David’s employers. They wanted him alive. He was, in fact, the whole reason David had been stationed in this place, though his identity hadn’t been ascertained until the very end.

  The AI indicated that David’s troops were ready. David smiled as the watched through multiple lenses, troops boarding helicopters, men and machines responding to his will.

  EIGHT

  Adam woke to the feel of warmth on his face, and opened his eyes only to quickly turn his head and blink away the glare of sunlight that was slanting through his truck window. He was reclined in the driver’s seat, stretched out as much as possible with his arms folded across his chest. He sat up, ratcheting the lever on the side of the seat to bring it upright again. He had parked here last night, hiding the truck among the trees as best he could, and had decided he needed to get as much sleep as he could. He checked the time and saw that it was just after six. The sun was just peeking over the trees.

  His neck and back were stiff, and moving made him wince. It would be a while before he loosened up. Coffee would be nice, but at this spot he was miles from the nearest Keurig, and even farther from the closest Starbucks.

  This was the prearranged spot he and Ethan had agreed to. It was pretty well isolated—far enough off the beaten path that it wouldn’t be on any maps. Ethan and Adam had come here on fishing trips a few times, discovering it through a series of “we should turn here” and “where does GPS say we are again?” They’d come across this spot by complete accident, and marked it for return trips, which they made a couple of times each year.

  It was the isolation that Adam liked, though Ethan wasn’t all that keen on it. Getting here was something of a chore, driving in via rough right-of-ways and narrow switchbacks that sometimes took them on inclines that seemed purely vertical. But the isolation of the place was exactly what they needed right now.

  It was an illusion, of course. This spot felt isolated, but it was actually only a few miles from Colorado Springs. A brisk hike could get you to the city within a day, if you were in shape for it. But in all the years they’d come here, Adam had never seen another soul at this spot. There were signs of hikers and campers from time to time, but human traffic through here was infrequent enough that it made the perfect spot to meet and go unnoticed.

  Which sounded pretty good right around now.

  Adam got out of the truck and stretched, feeling his muscles resist. There were pops—new ones, not just the old familiar ones—coming from every joint and vertebrae. In the past couple of years he had noticed new pains and new stiffness. All part of the “growing older” experience.

  He heard a noise coming from around the bend of the road leading into this clearing, and tensed. Not wanting to take any chances, Adam took the cooler out of the truck, along with his backpack and the Winchester. He shrugged into his bag, and put the strap of the cooler over his neck, letting the cooler itself hang down to his side. The Winchester—still unloaded and useless—he gripped with a finger on the trigger, leaning it against his shoulder. As the sound grew closer he ducked away from the truck and stood just down the slope to the stream that ran through here, hiding himself from obvious view, but keeping the clearing in sight. If this turned out to be the police, he
’d be screwed, forced to leave the truck behind. There was no chance of getting it out of this clearing with the cops blocking that road.

  If it was anyone else, he’d play it by ear.

  He watched as an SUV bounced into the clearing and pulled up beside the truck. Ethan Greer opened the door and stepped out, looking around cautiously. He was dressed in khakis and a button-down, still tucked in. He’d come here straight from his office, then. Must have pulled an all-nighter.

  “Ethan!” Adam said, waving as he climbed back up the slope.

  Ethan glanced his way and smiled, walking to meet him halfway.

  The two shook hands and clasped shoulders. “Adam. You look like warmed-over crap.”

  “At least I’m warmed over.”

  “I was being generous,” Ethan said. “You mostly just look like crap.”

  “It’s been a long night.”

  Ethan nodded, and pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I heard.” He flicked his fingers across the screen a few times, then turned it to show Adam some video footage from a local station.

  “Police are still looking for Adam Bolland, a suspect in the investigation of the explosion at the Colorado Springs Water Treatment Facility. Bolland and his family led police UVFs and manned units on a chase through their suburban neighborhood before Bolland rammed a UVF and made his escape. Police have recovered Bolland’s family, who were being held captive at the family’s vacation home in the mountains.”

  Adam shot Ethan a look. “Captive? They think I kidnapped my family?”

  “Keep watching,” Ethan said.

  The broadcast continued. “Authorities are holding the Bolland family in protective custody at the Newman Government Health Facility, recently constructed as part of the new US health research initiative. There has been no comment as to why the family would need to be placed in what seems to be a medical quarantine.”

  Images of Adam’s family, looking exhausted and disheveled, ran across the screen as people in hazmat suits ushered them through glass doors.

  Adam looked away and Ethan turned off the footage.

  “The web is lighting up with stories of a virus or some sort of bio-chemical attack. You’ve been labeled as a potential terrorist.”

  “I was taking something out of that facility, not bringing it in!”

  Ethan nodded.

  Adam took a deep breath. “Fine,” he said. “This doesn’t change anything. We still need to get the vials to Professor Milton.”

  “He’s waiting,” Ethan nodded. “I think it would be best if we left your truck here and took my car.”

  Adam agreed. “Once we get these tested and matched with what Milton has in his lab, we’ll figure out how to get my family out of there.”

  “And clear your name,” Ethan said.

  Adam said nothing. He was pretty sure that clearing his name was going to be impossible at this point. Being labeled as a “suspected terrorist” was tantamount to actually being a terrorist, in the eyes of the public. His career was over, at the very least. It was pretty likely he’d spend time in prison. This had all gone sideways so fast.

  Or had it? What had he actually expected to happen here? All the “planning” he’d done, and it seemed to amount to well-organized improvising in the end.

  Too late. Too much. He’d have to keep playing this hand until he could figure something else out.

  “There’s more, actually,” Ethan said. He flicked through more video on his phone, and showed Adam a bizarre scene.

  Downtown Colorado Springs. The streets were filled with people shuffling along, as if they were half asleep.

  “Suppressed,” Adam said.

  “What?” Ethan asked.

  “That’s what I’ve been calling them. Suppressed. People in a sort of half sleep. Like UVFs on a Lost/Return program. This is what I was telling you about.”

  “Seems more extreme than what you described,” Ethan said.

  Adam couldn’t help but agree. “Something’s changed. It’s accelerating,” he said. “I saw this happening with my family. They seemed to recover a little after I got them to stop drinking the water. Then Sammie went sleepwalking. And the next thing I know the police are at the cabin, loading my family into a vehicle with no resistance. It’s like they just dropped into some sort of default mode.”

  Ethan nodded. “Whatever it is, it’s happening all over. Not just in Colorado Springs. Social media is all over this, with video and photos of people walking around like zombies. Adam … this is freaking me out. This is bigger than what we talked about.”

  Adam nodded. “That’s why we need Professor Milton to look at these vials,” he said, tapping the cooler.

  “He’s already running tests on the water supply,” Ethan nodded. “He has samples from several sources. But he says it’s spread wider than we think.”

  “To other treatment facilities?”

  Ethan shook his head. “It’s in the natural supply, too. It’s everywhere.”

  Adam felt sick to his stomach. This … whatever it was. It was already in the natural water supply? How long before every source of water was contaminated? What was this, anyway? A virus? Something man-made? The government was putting it in the water, but why?

  “Ok, let’s get going,” Adam said. He was uneasy, and felt like throwing up. This was so much bigger than he had thought. There was more at stake than he’d even realized.

  They started toward Ethan’s SUV when suddenly two men stepped out of the woods to their right. Both were holding shot guns aimed at Adam and Ethan.

  “Whoa,” Ethan said, holding up his hands in surrender.

  “Drop the rifle,” one of the men said.

  Adam, fully aware that the rifle was worthless, did as he was told and held up his own hands.

  Two more men came out of the woods from their left now, followed by a couple of women and a child.

  “What’s going on?” Adam asked.

  One of the men, a rough and heavyset guy who looked a little too eager to shoot, stepped forward in a rush and hit Adam in the stomach with the butt of his rifle. Adam crumbled, hitting the ground as the air rushed from his lungs.

  “Hey!” Ethan said, and the guy turned on him next, hitting him square in the face with the rifle stock.

  “Get their keys!” the other armed man shouted. “And that gun!”

  Adam rolled and got to his feet, making a sudden sprint for the slope of the stream. If he could get out of sight, he might be able to circle around, find something to use as a weapon. He might be able to save Ethan and get them both out of this.

  He was blocked by more people—maybe four or five of them, both men and women. They were wielding weapons of all descriptions, including baseball bats and tree limbs. One of the women took a swing at Adam’s head with her bat, connecting with his temple and twirling him around as he collapsed to the ground.

  He struggled to crawl away, to get to his feet and run.

  “They don’t look like the others!” the woman yelled. “They’re awake!”

  “It doesn’t matter,” one of the men called back. “We need their vehicles. We have to get out of here, now!”

  “Hit him again,” Adam heard someone say. And with that, the woman took another swing at his head.

  The next thing he knew was blackness.

  PREVIEW - Episode 2

  The Lucid, Season One: The Beginning (Episode 2) - Preview

  REPUBLIC OF PANNA

  20 YEARS EARLIER

  “This is the site,” the guide said as the Jeep rumbled to a halt.

  Ollo had only been appointed Chief Aide to the Prime Minister a week earlier, but it had already been an eventful week. On his third day in office, Ollo had received a call from Teru, the head of the Panna water export. The company produced a primary export for Panna—the bottled water that was, at the moment, very popular with Europeans and Americans. Which meant that Teru was an important man to the Republic. As important as Ollo, in his way.

  �
��There has been a meteor strike near the aquifer,” Teru had said.

  That statement had set into motion a series of events that led to Ollo riding uncomfortably in the old Jeep, out into the dense jungle of Panna’s interior, where a large crater was ringed with hundreds of fallen trees, collapsed outward by the impact concussion.

  The guide was one of Teru’s men.

  “There,” he said, pointing up the ridge. “The aquifer has two chambers that are close enough to the surface for us to access without deep drilling technology. The first is where we have built our facility. This is the second. We call it ‘Site B.’”

  “What does it mean?”

  “Sir?” the guide asked.

  Ollo rolled his eyes. “What does it mean, that the meteor has struck here? I agreed to come to this site, but Teru would say only that this could be a national emergency. How does this constitute a national emergency?”

  The guide looked uncomfortable, and waved toward the crater. “There is contamination,” the guide said.

  Only then did Ollo see the men in contamination suits, moving around the edge of the crater, using instruments to prop the soil or take readings from the air. There was a piece of equipment in the center of the crater that Ollo did not recognize. “What is that?” he asked the guide.

  “A small drilling platform. It takes a sample of the water. Our team has found some sort of heavy metal at the impact site. We have removed all that we could find, but we fear some of it has seeped into the aquifer.”

  “Dangerous? Poison?”

  “We do not thinks o,” the guide said.

  Ollo rolled his eyes again. “I do not see the point of this. Remove the metal. If it is not poison, then I see no reason to worry.”

  “Sir,” the guide said. “We have been unable to determine what the heavy metal is. We do not know for certain that it will not be harmful. Regulations require us to shut down production until we can thoroughly test the water.”