Part 22 (2/2)
”Jan, I'm not doubting you . . . I just don't think I'm ready to think about those things being on this s.h.i.+p with me and . . .” Tara put both hands on her belly, rubbing it softly, and began to sob.
”Tara, it's okay,” said John. ”If they're onboard, at least we'll know. We're all armed despite what we thought might happen when we got here. Instead of disarming all of us, the military required we have weapons at all times...o...b..ard the s.h.i.+p; this plays to our advantage. The only thing left to do is prove that the undead are here with us.”
John stood up from his desk and pushed his gla.s.ses back up the bridge of his nose. ”I think I may just have the perfect undead detector, batteries not included.” He looked down at Annabelle as she chewed on her rope, tail curled and wagging.
”Those hackles saved Kil and me more than once.”
ZAAUZYUW RUEOMFC7685 1562255-TTTT-RHOVIQM ZNR TTTTT ZUI RUEOMCG340X 1562254.
Z 042253Z.
FM USS GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON.
TO RHOVNQN/COG MT W.
BT.
T O P S E C R E T N//002045U.
SUBJ:/SITREP CAUSEWAY-DOWNTOWN RMKS:/FINAL PHASE OF EXPERIMENTATION ON SPECIMENS CAUSEWAY AND DOWNTOWN WILL BIGIN IN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. IAW COG DIRECTIVES, PLANNED AREAS OF BRAIN WILL BE LOBOTOMIZED, ONE EYE REMOVED FOR TESTING OF SUSPECTED THERMAL SENSORY PERCEPTION. THIS STATION WILL SEND UPDATE SEPCOR.
BT.
AR.
NNNNN.
BEGIN TEXT TRANSMISSION.
KLIEGLIGHT SERIAL 209.
RTTUZYUW-RQHNQN-00000-RRRRR-Y.
T O P S E C R E T//SAP HORIZON.
SUBJ: NEW ORLEANS SPECIMEN RADIATION EFFECT FINDINGS.
RMKS: THIS STATION HAS COMPLETED INITIAL EXAMINATION ON SPECIMENS CAUSEWAY AND DOWNTOWN (LABELED IN REFERENCE TO NEW ORLEANS EXTRACTION AREAS). DURING THE INITIAL TESTING, BOTH SUBJECTS DISPLAYED CONGRUENCY WITH HAND EYE FUNCTION, SIMILAR TO A YOUNG CHILD IN ABILITY TO MANIPULATE SHAPED WOOD OBJECTS INTO SHAPED HOLES. DURING MORE ADVANCED COORDINATION TESTING, DOWNTOWN POSSESSED ABILITY TO MOVE AT TEN MPH BURSTS. CAUSEWAY COULD ATTAIN SIX MPH. DOWNTOWN ALSO POSSESSED SIMPLE PROBLEM SOLVING ABILITY AND WOULD CHOOSE CERTAIN TOOLS TO ATTEMPT TO BREAK GLa.s.s TO GAIN ENTRY TO WHAT IT PERCEIVED MIGHT BE LIVING PREY BEHIND BALLISTIC GLa.s.s. DOWNTOWN DISPLAYED ADVERSARIAL BEHAVIOR TOWARD CAUSEWAY WHEN FOOD WAS IN PLAY, AND WOULD SHOVE CAUSEWAY AWAY FROM FOOD SOURCES AT TIMES.
BEHAVIOR OF NOTE: DOWNTOWN WAS OBSERVED WATCHING RESEARCHERS ENTER AND LEAVE AND WOULD MIMIC THEIR HAND MOVEMENT WHEN THE RESEARCHERS WOULD THROW HATCH LEVERS TO THE OUTSIDE, SUGGESTING AT LEAST RUDIMENTARY LEARNING ABILITY. BOTH CAUSEWAY AND DOWNTOWN POSSESS SPEED AND AGILITY NOT YET OBSERVED IN CREATURES UNEXPOSED TO RADIATION BOMBARDMENT OF PREVIOUS NUCLEAR DETONATIONS.
SUMMARY: USS GEORGE WAs.h.i.+NGTON WILL CONTINUE TO OBSERVE THE SPECIMENS. WILL ADVISE COG ON ANY DESTRUCTION INTENT. FIVE SUBJECTS IN VARIOUS CONDITIONS FROM DIFFERENT GEOGRAPHICAL SECTORS REMAIN ONBOARD. THIS STATION IS SKEPTICAL AT THE POSSIBILITY OF EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN POPULATION OF UNDEAD. RADIATED UNDEAD ARE AT THIS TIME SHOWING NO INDICATIONS OF DECAY. HIROs.h.i.+MA AND NAGASAKI ARCHIVE DATA INDICATES SOME PRESERVATION OF THE DEAD BY RADIATION BUT NOT TO THIS ORDER OF MAGNITUDE. WE SPECULATE THAT HIGH ORDER RADIATION HAS FORMED A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONs.h.i.+P WITH THE ANOMALY ON A LEVEL WE ARE UNABLE TO VERIFY OR MEASURE AT THIS TIME. GOOD LUCK.
GW CHIEF SCIENTIST SENDS . . .
BT.
AR.
Tunnel in the Sky . . . I was so caught up with the mission, I had no clue what John meant. He's been including extra codes with his chess moves for well over a week now. I wrote them down without thinking, as they were basically gibberish to me at the time. John sent the encrypted messages using our twin copies of Tunnel in the Sky. He'd sent page, paragraph, and sentence cipher codes referring to specific words and letters that matched my copy of the text, forming short sentences. I discovered this after Crusow's last transmission relay from John. Although I informed John that I finished the book a while back, he still asked again after the most recent set of codes. ”Read Tunnel in the Sky yet?”
I sat confused in my rack for a while, flipping through the pages, waiting to hear an update from the team coming back from Kunia. I looked for something that John may have written inside the book, something I may have missed.
I finally pieced together the message. The gibberish code hidden in plain sight with the chess moves referred to specific sequences that could only be deciphered if the recipient had the exact same key as the sender. In this case an uncommon and out of print book. It took a few minutes, but his message was clear.
”1947 NEVADA CRASH SPECIMEN JUST EXPOSED TO ANOMALY . . . VERY STRONG . . . GUNS INEFFECTIVE, FIRE NEUTRALIZED . . . MEAN ANYTHING?”
I am of course surprised and confused as to how John came across this information, but it is starting to make more sense, considering he's the acting communications officer onboard the carrier. The navy always seems to operate on two primary working principles. One of them is the f.u.c.k up move up rule, wherein the more f.u.c.ked up you are, the higher chance of your promotion. The other principle that has held true in my time in service is curse of the competent. John falls into the latter. The more competent you are, the more uncompensated responsibility you are given, and the more work is expected of you.
Without fail, the ones that ruled the competent typically fell into the first category. I suspect John has been given full access to the s.h.i.+p's communication networks because he's the only one that can do the job. Either way, I won't be revealing this message to the captain until I'm very sure what side he's on. I'll tell Rex and company when the time is right; they are the operators, and deserve to know. China will be problematic at best.
This encoded message from John would have sounded pretty d.a.m.n strange if I had not been briefed on what our government had been hiding all these years in the mountains out west.
43.
USS Virginia-Hawaiian waters ”Kil, when will they be back?” Saien asked.
”They're leaving the cave an hour after sundown. The creatures seem to be a little calmer then. Why do you ask?”
”I just wanted to see if we had some time to chat before you went back to work.”
”Yeah, I guess. Whatcha got on your mind?” Kil said as he slid off the top rack and sat down in front of Saien.
”I don't think I believe in what we were told on the way over here. I've thought about it for many days. At first I thought some of it might be true, but after going over it again in my head it seems ridiculous. I wanted to know how you felt about this, this wild story?”
Kil took a deep breath and sat back in his chair for a moment, pondering the question. After some time, he spoke. ”Well, I think I'm with you on this one. Someone close to me used to say: 'Don't believe anything you hear and only half of what you see.' ”
They shared a laugh even though Kil wasn't sure that Saien understood the intended meaning.
”Now that we're on the same page I think I need to tell you something,” Kil said with a conspiratorial whisper. He stood up and walked over to his rack, reaching under the pillow. Out from underneath he pulled a worn paperback novel. ”Remember this book John gave me before we left?”
Saien nodded.
”Well, I just found out that John has been pa.s.sing a message to me using the pages of this book, embedded in his chess moves. You know, with the normal message traffic and such.”
”Are you going to tell me what it says?”
”The basic message was that the Roswell specimen had been exposed to whatever this s.h.i.+t is.”
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