Eve saw the events from the
past several days flash forward in her mind. This was the life review that came
just before death that she'd heard about so many times, but the only part of
her life she was seeing was the dark part, the time when all the lights went
out forever.
Terror she had never known
before, even when being beaten and held prisoner by Ali's minions, filled her
heart. Jared was gone. Hope was gone. The man standing just feet away from her
was going to put a bullet in her little girl’s head, and there was nothing she
could do about it.
A half-baked plan with no
good ending flew through her head. She was out of options and out of time, and
she was definitely no hero; but doing something was better than just giving up
without a fight.
“Fine. You want the key?
Take the key!” Eve reached down to the floorboard of the SUV, intending to grab
it and throw it out the window into the weeds, but her fingers refused to close
around the heavy metal object.
“Stop stalling,” Ali said,
sighing.
“I’m not. I can’t grab it.”
Eve frowned, unable to figure out why her fingers weren’t cooperating. Yes, the
plan sucked, but it was a plan. It could buy them a few precious seconds, maybe
even a minute. And just one more minute with her baby was worth trying for.
“Mom, just give her the key.
It’s over.”
“I know it’s over, Cassie,
I’m trying.” The harder Eve stretched, the more it seemed the key
moved just out of her reach.
“Moommm!” Cassie called. It
wasn’t a whine, or a complaint. It was as if she were far away and
not there in the SUV next to Eve anymore.
Eve looked up to tell her
daughter that it would all be over soon, to try and capture the look in her
baby's eye and hold it, to one last time see the girl who she
loved more than life itself … but she couldn’t. Because suddenly Cassie wasn’t
there.
“Cassie!” she shouted, straining
her eyes to try and see through the dust-covered windshield. “Cassie!
Where are you?!”
Eve forgot about the key and
Ali. She forgot about the ogre with the gun trained in her direction. All she
could think about was getting to her daughter. She fought the seatbelt that
held her in place, that was keeping her from saving Cassie’s life.
“Eve! Eve! Jesus, would you
calm down?”
Eve ceased her
struggles. The dark night and dusty windshield faded out to be
replaced by light. Burning light, so bright she had to close her eyes to it.
It was coming from a lamp.
“Jared?” she finally said,
not sure she could trust her own eyes or ears.
“Of course it’s Jared. Who
else would it be?” He sighed. "Could you stop thrashing around, sweetie?
You're going to wake Cassie up and she just got to
the half-sleep stage after tossing and turning all night. She's already called
out for you once."
Tears rolled out of Eve’s
eyes and filled her ears,as the reality of where she was slowly came to
her. The salty flow slid through her hair and landed on the pillow next to her
head.
Eve opened her eyes and saw
the familiar ceiling fan that had hung over her head for years, turning softly,
sending a slight breeze down to cool her tear-stained face. She blinked several
times, praying silently that she wasn't sleeping.
“Man, that was one hell of a
dream you were having.” Jared was sitting up in bed next to her, a book open
and his reading glasses on. Eve had always said he looked sexy wearing those
things, but today, he looked like an angel sent straight from heaven.
“You’re alive,” she
said, staring at him with wonder, her voice barely registering as a
croak.
Jared closed his book and
pushed the glasses to top of his head. “Babe, what’s
going on?”
Eve pushed her hands under
her and sat up, trying to put everything together in her mind. Her chest felt
like it was ready to explode with pent-up energy. Resting her back against the
headboard, she let her mind wander to the place it had just been. Slowly the
tension eased a bit, enough to make it possible to speak again.
“I think I had some sort of
out-of-body experience.” Eve's throat was dry. It felt like she hadn't had
anything to drink in days. Had she? She wasn't even sure what day it was.
Jared leaned over and kissed
her neck. “Feel like having another one?”
Eve elbowed him in the ribs,
turning her head to share her fearful expression with her husband. “I’m not
kidding. I seriously experienced something big. Something …” She shook her
head. “I don’t know. Like, a premonition.”
She couldn’t sit still any
longer. Jumping out of bed, she began pacing back and forth.
“I can see the alarm clock
is working now,” she said, gesturing to the small black box on Jared’s bedside
table. She almost cackled with happiness, but stopped herself. She didn't want
to sound as crazy as she felt.
Jared followed the direction
of her pointing finger and nodded slowly. “Any reason why it shouldn’t be?”
Eve ran her fingers through
her hair. “Secrets. Secrets are the problem here.” She stopped pacing and
stared pointedly at Jared. “I have a lot of secrets.”
Jared put his book on his
side table and stood next to the bed. “We all have secrets. Some secrets we can
share and some we can’t. I get that. I knew that was the deal when we got
married.”
“Yeah, but I think it’s a
mistake now. A mistake.” She started pacing again. Then she stopped
all of a sudden as pain sliced through her heart. “Cassie?”
Jared threw his arms up and
let them drop. “She’s in bed! Asleep! It’s six in the morning, Eve. And you
know she has a fever. She finally fell asleep after moaning all night." He
switched to pleading. "Please don't wake her."
Jared came around the other side
of the bed and took Eve’s hands in his. “Is that what this is about? Did you
have a bad dream about Cassie?” He looked over his shoulder. “Did it have
something to do with the alarm clock?”
“No. Not the alarm clock. Or
maybe the alarm clock, I don’t know.” Eve was too agitated to think straight.
Could it all have been a dream? But it felt so real!
Jared’s finger came up under
her chin, forcing her to look up at him. “Eve, I want you to close your eyes
and take a deep breath … and then tell me about this dream you had.”
Eve did as he asked, mainly
because she couldn’t think of anything else to do, but
also because she wanted to tell him. No more secrets. She
wanted to not be the only one in the room experiencing this horror. She knew
that was selfish, but something inside her told her it was okay this time. It
was okay to burden Jared with her truth.
The deep breathing helped
clear her mind a bit and made it easier for her to decide what needed to be
done.
“Okay,” Eve said, stepping
back from her husband. “I'm ready to talk. But I need you to sit down.”
“Sit down," Jared said
in a joking tone. "Whoa, this must be good."
“It’s not good. It’s
horrifically awful. And the worst part is, I think it’s really about to
happen.”
“Do I want to hear this?”
Jared said, slowly lowering himself to the mattress. He wasn't joking around
anymore.
“No. But I’m going to tell
you anyway. And I’m going to tell you all my secrets while I'm at it.”
“Your secrets? Like what
you’re doing at the institute?”
“Exactly.”
“Babe, I …”
Eve held up a hand to stop
him. “Don’t try to talk me out of it. It’s too important. Just hear me out.”
***
“Do you have everything you
need?” Jared asked Eve for the tenth time.
“Yes, I’m all set. I’ll be
fine.” She wasn't sure she was being completely honest, but it didn't matter.
She had to do what she had to do; there would be no second-guessing or
chickening out. The future of the world and mankind were at stake.
“Are you sure you want to do
this?” Jared rubbed her back, a sure sign he was in panic mode. “Maybe I should
come with you.”
“No, you stay here with
Cassie.”
Cassie. Their daughter, their
beautiful angel, not the freakish science experiment that rose up in Eve's
nightmares to haunt her forever. “You promised you’d take her to the doctor as
soon as his office opens.”
Jared pulled Eve into a hug.
“Yes, I know I promised, okay? I’m sure it’s nothing; you know these kid germs
are all over the place. But I’ll take her, I swear it. We’ll be leaving right
after you.” He pushed Eve away from him a little so he could look into her
eyes. “I don’t like this at all. I want to go on record saying that.”
“I know you don’t. But do
you like the alternative better? Me doing nothing and hoping my nightmare was
just too many beans in my burrito last night?”
"Babe, you're preaching
to the choir, alright? I've been predicting something like this is going to
happen for years. The fact that you could be involved in bringing the end of
light in our world is a little more than freaky, I'll give you that, but hey … I'm
a believer. You had me at Friar's Lantern."
Eve nodded, tempted to smile
at her husband's charm but way too stressed about her mission to give in to the
impulse. "I'll meet you at the airport after I leave for lunch. I have to
hang around and act like it's just any other day. If they suspect something's
up, I could have big problems."
"And if you don't show
up at lunchtime, I'm going to ride in there with the cavalry behind me. I'm not kidding."
Jared stroked her cheek.
"I know you're not. And
that's why I love you so much."
Eve and Jared shared a
passionate kiss, Eve lingering just a little longer than normal because she was
so glad to be awake and alive. The fact that Jared had not died in a gun battle
trying to save their daughter's life felt like a miracle, like the universe had
handed her a second chance that she could not mess up, no matter what.
"I won't screw this
up," she whispered.
Jared kissed her nose.
"I know you won't."
"How do you know?"
she asked, needing to hear his words of comfort.
"Because. You're my
wife, and I don't marry slackers." He pinched her butt and turned her
around by the shoulders. "Hop to it, soldier. I have work to do here. Sick
kid and all that."
Eve left the house for the
institute, her heart a bit lighter but the entire rest of her body on edge.
***
Getting through security was
a no-brainer. She did the same thing this morning that she did every other
morning when she came to work, only this time she did it sweating bullets and
wondering if she were going to die of a heart attack before she even
got to her workstation.
"Hi, Eve!" said a
bright and cheery voice off to her right.
Eve was going to walk right
past, but then realized on a normal day, she'd never be rude like that. She
turned to respond to her greeter but stopped short, sheer terror freezing her
expression solid.
The young girl's face fell.
"You don't remember me, do you?"
The girl.
Darkness.
The soul of
darkness herself, standing before Eve.
The young girl's hair was
washed and carefully styled, she wore makeup that included sparkles on her
lids, and her lab coat said that she worked somewhere nearby. But still … she
was just standing there saying hello like it was no big deal that she was
Darkness personified.
Eve cleared her throat and
schooled her features to morph them into something much less horrified.
"Nooo, I'm sorry I don't remember you."
"I'm Ali. The intern?
Working in Lab Eight just next door to you? I started last week and I
introduced myself, but you were super busy." She shrugged and kind of smiled.
"I should have known you weren't really paying attention. Scientists and
engineers are always in their own worlds."
"Actually, I'm pretty
sure some part of my brain was paying attention." Eve
tried to laugh off the massive understatement. "Where do you work
again?"
"Lab Eight. I inject
the rats, clean their cages, dispose of the bodies." Ali did a fake
shiver. "They call my area the cremation station. Rude, right?" She
rolled her eyes, making her seem much younger than her nineteen or so years.
"Depressing," Eve
said, trying to commiserate in a way that seemed natural.
Ali shrugged. "Oh well.
It's dark business, but someone's got to do it, right?" She winked at Eve
and walked off.
Eve waited until the shiver
worked its way through her entire body before she moved on.
Just two more corridors and she'd be with the lantern and finishing up the
mission she'd created with Jared. No more thinking about college interns named
Ali who came to her in dreams as failed science experiements.
Dark business, indeed. Eve shuddered again,
goosepbumps rising up all over her body.
"Eve! Wait up!"
said a male voice behind her.
"Emerson. Hello."
Eve tried to act like it wasn't completely awful to be standing near the man
who played the devil incarnate in her dream last night.
"Hey, listen, I wanted
to talk to you about the … project we're working on. I was thinking that we
should do away with the key, make … the thing … less dependent on a single device
to operate. What do you think?" He rubbed his hands together, making him
seem way too much like a maniacal megalomaniac.
"I'll get right on
that," Eve said, thinking how ironic it was that
this was exactly what she'd planned to do. Not exactly as he was,
imagining but … "Today, in fact."
"Good, so you
agree." He patted her on the shoulder, letting his hand rest there a
little too long, or so it felt to Eve. "So great to have you on board,
Eve. The future's so bright, we're going to have to wear shades." His
thousand-watt, heavily-veneered smile made her cringe.
Eve's responsive laugh was
the polite kind. The awkward you-are-freaking-me-out-because-I-can't-tell-what's-real-anymore
kind.
"You have plans for
lunch?" he asked, oblivious to her discomfort as he split off towards a
new corridor that had opened up on their left. "Rourke and I were
going to grab a bite at Harvey's." He walked backwards, waiting for her answer.
"I have a date with
Jared. Actually, I was thinking of making it a long lunch."
"Fine, I'll catch you
next time. Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" he turned away chuckling,
leaving her standing at the end of the hallway that housed her workstation.
"No promises," she
muttered under her breath, using her keycard to start the process of unlocking
her door.
***
Eve made quick work of
destroying the lantern's key and making it appear as if she'd made
modifications to its former ignition. While she was in there, she also made
adjustments to the local magnetic field strength. Now any pulse emitted by the
lantern would be just strong enough to be detectable by the new device Eve had
already started designing in her head - the one she was bringing to the Pentagon
as soon as she left on her "long lunch" with Jared.
She ignored the doubts
creeping into her mind, the ones saying that she was sacrificing her entire
life's work, all because of a crazy dream.
***
Eve was almost out of the
building when Ali stopped her by putting a hand on her shoulder from behind at
the front door. When Eve turned around, she was facing not only Ali but Rourke,
his face an angry mask.
"Not so fast," Ali
said.
"What's up?" Eve
asked, fumbling around in her purse, pretending to tuck her ID badge away when
really she was just looking for a way to hide her trembling fingers.
"Do you have a
moment?" Rourke asked. "We noticed something a little unusual on the
surveillance tapes."
Eve frowned, looking up and
hoping she appeared to be concerned but not out of guilt. "Surveillance
tapes? What surveillance tapes?"
"The ones aimed at your
workstation," Ali said, smiling smugly.
Visions of Ali with a
dirtied face and knotted, greasy hair came to mind, making Eve's heart stop for
a few precious seconds.
Relax, Eve! She's not a
failed science experiment! She’s just a teenager for God's sake! A teenager
with a bug up her butt to get some kind of messed up brownie points with the
boss.
All the common sense in the
world was not making Eve feel any better. She had to get out of there before
she lost her mind and started yelling about Ali being the leader of the dark
forces taking over the world.
"You know what, I'd
love to, but Jared's waiting for me. How about after lunch?" Eve smiled
broadly, giving everything she had to her performance. It was make or break
time; she was going to walk out a wanted woman with her conscience free or get stuck
there explaining how she just destroyed a ten-million-dollar piece of
equipment she was now almost one hundred percent sure was meant to destroy the
world as she knew it.
"I was told you'd
planned a long one."
Eve waved Rourke's concerns
away with a careless gesture. "Oh, it's no big deal. I can cut it short if
you need me to." She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "Come
over for dinner this weekend?"
She tried not to cringe at
the smell of his cologne. It used to smell woodsy to her. Now it only reminded
her of her desperate run to the light, to hope, through the trees and into the
arms of Ali the queen of darkness. Eve refused to even look at the girl,
certain her distrust would show.
"We'll chat. When you
get back." Rourke turned to Ali and gestured for her to precede him.
"After you, young lady."
"But … I saw her
…"
Eve didn't stick around to
hear the rest. She walked as fast as she dared to her car and sped out of the
lot going ten miles over the speed limit.
***
"Are you absolutely
sure you want to do this?" Jared asked, walking with Eve behind two armed
guards in United States Marines uniforms. He leaned in closer.
"All because of a dream?"
Eve stared straight ahead as
she answered in a whisper. "It wasn't just a regular dream. Like I said, I
was picking up on subliminal things, things my subconscious had been seeing all
along. Maybe some of it was a little fantastical, but not all of it. A lot of
it was totally real. Totally possible."
"I'm just glad my
buddies' contacts still existed at the Pentagon and we could get a flight over
here so quickly."
Eve shuddered, thinking of
all the things that could have gone wrong, keeping her from giving this
presentation. Thank goodness her name had some weight behind it too, or for
sure her audience would have been some lackey on the bottom of the totem pole
and not the assistant to the Deputy Director of Homeland Security.
The Marines in front of them
stopped at a set of double doors, each taking up a post on either side.
"She's supposed to just
go in?" Jared asked, placing a hand on Eve's lower back.
Eve stood as straight as she
could, mimicking the bearing of the men wearing battle dress uniforms and
carrying machine guns.
"Knock first," one
of them said, staring straight ahead.
"Well …," Eve
said, looking up at her husband, "here goes nothing."
"Knock 'em dead,
babe." Jared kissed the top of her head before rapping on
the door twice firmly for her. "I believe in you. You're the smartest
woman I've ever known, and I trust your instincts."
"Thanks, babe. Wait out
here for me?"
"You bet. I wouldn't be
anywhere else."
Eve pushed the door open and
stepped inside, her briefcase carrying the presentation detailing the work
she'd done at the institute, the ramifications of that work, and the design she
came up with for The Beacon of Light.
Eve stood at the end of a
conference table filled with people, some in uniform and some in suits that
looked like they cost as much money as she made in a month. Maybe someone more
sophisticated or used to talking to people like this would know the proper way
to start a conversation about weaponized science, but Eve wasn't that person.
She took a deep breath and
let it out in a huff, just before she began to speak.
"Mr.
Richmond, ladies and gentlemen, I'm Dr. Eve Mansfield, and as I said in my
email, I'm the engineer who built what's called the Friar's Lantern, the
electromagnetic pulse weapon that could destroy our world. I'm here today to
not only describe to you how I've disabled this weapon but also to share the
design I've come up with that will one day identify and locate that machine or
one like it, should it ever be used against us."
