Callsign: King (Jack Sigler) (Chesspocalypse #1)

She surfaced to find herself facing a wall of steel. The research ship, which had looked so small and insignificant in satellite imagery, appeared massive up close. Fulbright bobbed next to her, a red-lensed flashlight casting an eerie glow on the dark water and revealing an aluminum scaling ladder hanging from the side of the vessel. Following his lead, Sara scrambled up the ladder, clinging tightly to the rungs, lest her neoprene clad feet lose purchase on the slippery metal. Fulbright was waiting for her at the top, and offered a steadying hand as she clambered over the side rail.

“We’ve secured the ship,” he told her as she stripped off her gear and unzipped her thin wetsuit to allow some of the heat to dissipate. “No friendly casualties. The lab is just below.”

Sara hefted the water-tight bag that was her only piece of mission essential equipment. “Lead on.”

Guided by radioed instructions from the leader of the commando team, they descended a metal staircase and traversed a short companionway to what looked to Sara like a repurposed cargo hold. But as Sara entered, all sense of being on a marine vessel disappeared. The familiar equipment and computer workstations, illuminated by banks of fluorescent lights, would have looked right at home at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.

The assault team had found two men working in the lab, and per Sara’s request, had managed to take them alive. This was not a matter of mercy or squeamishness on her part; the computers would almost certainly be locked-out, and compelling the prisoners to give them access was critical to the success of the mission. The two scientists, both bearded men about Sara’s age, wearing jeans and t-shirts, were presently kneeling with their hands atop their heads, under the watchful eye of the commandos.

Fulbright advanced and introduced himself. “Gentleman, let me get right to the point. You’ve been doing some very bad things. Developing weapons of mass destruction—”

One of the men started to protest, but Fulbright shushed him as a mother might a wayward child, and kept talking without missing a beat. “It’s downright criminal. No, it’s worse than that; it’s terrorism. And my friends and I have a standing policy when it comes to terrorists: immediate execution.

“You are still alive for one reason, and one reason only. I am going to give you a chance to repent.”

Sara had little interest in Fulbright’s interrogation methods, and instead began searching the lab to locate the physical products of the ongoing research. Near the center of the compartment, in a sealed Lexan containment chamber, she found the ape skull that had been taken from Felice Carter.

“Now I’m not going to go all Jack Bauer on your ass,” Fulbright was saying. “This is simple really. We already have what we want. We’ll be taking your computers and all your research back with us, and our techies will be able to hack your passwords and break through your firewalls…whatever it is that they do…and then we’ll know everything you know. But see, that takes time, and I’m kind of in a hurry. So here’s what I’m offering.

“You’re smart guys, right? Educated? You’ve got special skills that could be very useful. It’s not your fault that you wound up working for the wrong side. But that’s all over now. You’re done working for Manifold. Period. But I’d like to help you find a new job.

“The thing is, I’ve only got one position available, so think of this as a job interv—”

“I’ll do it!” one of the men shouted suddenly. “Please don’t kill me.”

A murderous look flashed in the eyes of the second scientist. “Dave, you son of a bitch.”

Fulbright shushed again. “Dave, is it? You’ve made the right decision. Welcome to your probationary period. Now, if you’d be so kind, step over here and log on.”

Sara tore herself away from the skull and moved over to the workstation where Dave was tapping in his password. She leaned over his shoulder. “Bring up all the files related to your current research.”

Dave complied, and as he did, Sara took a portable flash-drive from her bag and plugged it into the USB port. There wasn’t time to be choosy about which files to copy, and she knew that workstation probably wouldn’t have the really important stuff, like the genome of whatever virus Manifold was monkeying with. Genetic mapping typically required a supercomputer with memory measured in terabytes. Sara was primarily interested in the synthesis of their research. She pushed Dave out of the way and started dragging and dropping files into the flash-drive directory.

“That looks interesting,” she said, clicking on a file icon that read “Summary Report (draft).”

A text document opened, and despite the fact that it was both a summary and a work in progress, Sara saw that it was more than eighty pages long. She skimmed through it, ignoring the more technical aspects, and tried to get a general overview of what the project was really all about. Words began to leap out at her: retrovirus; evolution; consciousness.

“My God,” she whispered. “I know what they’re trying to do.”

“Well done, Dave,” Fulbright said. “Looks like you’re hired.”

“Son of bitch!”