CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT #2
‘It’s OK,’ Jules tells him, hugging Lachlan.
Jules is taller than Lachlan now, just a fraction of an inch but it doesn’t matter because he’s taller and stronger and better in every way possible.
Lachlan’s one fucking use in this world was to be a stone-cold killer, but he’s nothing but a lukewarm failure with blood on his hands that’ll never wash off. ‘It’ll pass if you let it.’
It’s a lie. Lachlan loves him for trying.
?
Shark dreams begin to plague him. Each one is terrifying, drawn in shades of inevitability and primal terror.
The Estate floods, sharks in every room.
Mimi’s pool has sharks in it.
Lachlan takes the kids out on a boat that sinks, sharks waiting beneath.
All ways, all places, always fucking sharks.
It gets so bad that three weeks after Roman died, Blaire asks Lachlan outright why he’s not sleeping.
‘Bad dreams,’ he answers moodily while they share breakfast and organise their day. Vasily is playing outside with Mimi. Jules is with Savannah.
‘Such as?’
‘Doesn’t matter.’ He pushes away his plate, can’t eat. She’s staring at him, eyebrow cocked. Lachlan rolls his eyes. ‘Sharks.’
‘Sharks signify—’
‘I don’t care what they fucking signify. It’s not some bullshit metaphor. There was a…’ Oh God, now he’s sweating and his eyes are stinging and his mouth is flooding with saliva.
Fuck.
Lachlan turns sideways in his chair, drops his head low so he doesn’t pass out. This kind of thing cannot be tempered by the Neiguan pressure point. He knows because he’s tried. It just has to pass.
It’ll pass if you let it.
Head between the knees will do for now.
Blaire kneels in front of him.
‘I’m fine,’ he tells her, closing his eyes and seeing sunrise on red water back when he still had time to save Roman Sorrenko and didn’t know it.
‘Lachlan,’ she says seriously. ‘I’m worried about you.’
‘I’m OK, really.’
‘Have you ever had nightmares before?’
‘Not like this.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘It’s more’n one. Every single night.’
‘Tell me?’
‘Just.’ He swallows bile. ‘Sharks.’
‘Something similar happened on the island?’
‘I saw it.’
‘What did you see?’
‘Death.’
‘What did it look like?’
‘How God must look to men,’ he croaks, dizzy. ‘Terrible and fair.’
‘God is fair?’
‘Death is fair and God is water, isn’t that right?’
‘You’re not well. You need to sleep.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Lachlan—’
‘I don’t want to keep seeing them.’
‘Sharks signify hidden danger and betrayal,’ she tells him, smoothing his hair back where it escapes the tie. ‘Betrayal is a shadow underwater that we can’t see coming. It frightens us beyond reason. The monsters lurking unseen.’
‘It took the other and left me.’
‘Lachlan, listen—’
‘If I got eaten, Danya would have come and saved everyone. Fenwick wouldn’t have burned the island. Sorrenko wouldn’t have had the chance to do what he did. Roman would still be alive.’
‘And those children we love,’ she whispers, lifting his face, ‘would never have a chance to be free.’
‘I let him die.’
‘You’re not God, darling. You’re not water. You’re just a man.’
‘It wasn’t good enough.’
‘It was the best you could do.’
‘Sorrenko told me that… that love puts us on the losing side,’ he utters. ‘Do you think that’s true?’
Blaire’s green eyes roam across his face. ‘Do you?’
‘You’re right. I can’t detach from them. I love them too much and if love puts us on the losing side—’
‘Love puts us on the decent side. The human side.’
Lachlan looks at her. Really looks.
She’s the one constant Lachlan has never doubted.
Blaire Montbelliard is the person he trusts the most.
‘You know I love you, right?’
‘I know you do,’ Blaire says, nodding. ‘I love you, too.’
Lachlan wipes his eyes, exhales roughly. ‘God, I’m sorry.’
‘For what?’
‘Everything.’
‘Don’t be. I was out of line.’
‘No, you were honest. You’re the one person I can take it from.’
She sits beside him now that he’s upright again. ‘Danya too.’
‘Yeah, maybe.’
‘You need to sleep. Tell me about these dreams. It might help.’
‘It’s all just sharks. I never even had nightmares before, not since I was a…’
Ever since I swallowed his come, the nightmares won’t stop.
‘What?’ Blaire asks, when he trails off. ‘What is it?’
‘Nothing. Um. I don’t know.’ He shakes himself. ‘We should probably get back to the schedule,’ Lachlan says, signing to her very subtly, their backs blocking the cameras in the room.
Ask you something?
She pulls her tablet across the table, sets it down on her lap. ‘You’re right.’
Beneath it, she signs, Ask me.
It’s been a long time since Lachlan had to spell out a word.
Do you really think Jules is a B-R-I-G-H-T-L-I-N-G?
?
Jolene Mercer builds Lachlan a way to search the internet without his activity being observed or traced, especially by Carrigan.
They meet once in the weeks following Sable Key.
As always, the warehouse she operates from is packed wall to wall with technology, but for the first time, Lachlan finds himself unsettled by the fact that she still hasn’t changed locations.
Someone like Jolene should always be moving.
There never is much small talk between them, but she makes him a coffee, French Roast, while he looks around at the space. ‘Still the same blind spot?’
‘Don’t fix what isn’t broken.’ She hands him the cup. ‘You’re all healed?’
Lachlan looks down at his coffee. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Good. So—’
‘How did Danya know to contact you?’
Danya never explained how he knew Jolene existed, let alone how he contacted her for help locating the island.
‘He must have back-traced our contact,’ she tells Lachlan, offhand. When Lachlan stares, she gives a roguish, untouchable grin and says, ‘He is Russian.’
‘Yeah,’ he agrees eventually, although it nags for a while after.
He tells her what he needs and like always, she says to give her a week. When he leaves, he really looks this time. Some of her hardware is outdated now. Still excellent, of course, just slightly outdated.
Maybe she keeps this place just to meet him in.
Actually, that’s probably exactly what it is.
Jolene Mercer is too smart to stay in one location so long.
After a week, Lachlan collects a laptop from her with the software pre-installed.
It requires no external internet connection, has its own built-in access and is fully untraceable.
Now free to search what he likes, Lachlan has Belova hack into classified federal databases, among other sites, for intelligence about Brightlings.
She shows him how to use this specific device to access restricted networks too. He learns fast and thanks her. The first bunch of files are a hard read, but Lachlan is open to new intelligence at this point, he needs it.
Pseudo-scientific experiments have been running since the nineteen-sixties. Various strains of occult-adjacent phenomena have been studied thoroughly over the last sixty years.
He skim-reads the first set, titled Perception Programs, with a line between his eyes because a lot of it doesn’t make sense. Remote viewing accuracy trials, induced precognition states, sensory displacement testing, shared-dream testing, temporal perception dilation.
Lachlan has only the vaguest clue what any of that means.
Then he reads Biological Anomaly Mapping.
Tissue regeneration trials, induced metabolic stasis testing, subject-initiated neural suppression, directed genetic adaptation studies, programmable immunological response trials and amplification of endogenous bioelectrical output, which means literally nothing to Lachlan.
He moves on from the earliest tests and trials, skimming into more recent ones, although much of what he reads is word salad. He’s not even sure what he’s looking for until a note catches his eye.
Plasma & ejaculate contains compounds structurally analogous to human adrenergic transmitters. Confirmed in PN, RN & FM. (SUB.12.A)
Lachlan reads it three times but only a few words make sense.
He quickly looks up adrenergic transmitters, and it confirms what he thought. The chemicals that activate fight or flight and affect fear responses.
Scanning for other references like this, he comes to a page entitled Subsection 12A and reads about a study performed on harvested secretions.
Lachlan looks up from the screen and pinches between his eyes.
He’s getting a fucking migraine.
None of that means anything to him.
He moves on, finally finding something of interest in the next ten pages.
A photocopied incident debrief page in the files.
Project Spectrum.
ATTACHMENT C — FIELD INCIDENT DEbrIEF
CLEARANCE LEVEL: INTERNAL / EYES ONLY
OPERATION: SPECTRUM
LOCATION: MAWTHORNE FACILITY SITE B
DATE: 04/25/2012
PROGRAM SPONSOR: HELIXX BIOSCIENCES
CONTRACT REF: HX-09-SPECTRUM-M47CC5
PROJECT CLASSIFICATION: PN-CLASS CONTAINMENT TRIALS
OVERSIGHT AUTHORITY: JOINT DEFENSE RESEARCH DIRECTORATE
DISTRIBUTION: RESTRICTED
AUTHORIZED RECIPIENTS: JDRD COMMAND / HELIXX BIOSCIENCES / SPECTRUM LEAD PERSONNEL
SUMMARY:
Project Spectrum objective was containment and controlled stress-response assessment of multiple PN-class subjects.
Operation active fifty-nine days without major breach.
Incident occurred during advanced extraction trial involving Subject F-8 (female).
Intake records confirm Subject F-8 was the only detainee recovered directly from active military service while in a confirmed gravid state.
Subject had been undergoing classified stress-resilience conditioning at the time of PN-class manifestation.
Detection occurred during internal monitoring review of anomalous biometric output.
Subject was transferred to SPECTRUM containment under expedited authority.
No comparable cases recorded within program intake.
Pre-incident observations indicated measurable correlation between applied stress exposure and amplified PN-class output.
Those subjected to sustained stimulus conditions demonstrated progressive increases in electromagnetic discharge, atmospheric reactivity and physiological resilience.
Amplification effect cumulative. No plateau observed within testing window.