A cornish legacy, p.2
What Legends Become, page 2
With his curiosity piqued, Seth found himself walking faster toward the far side of the compound where their quarters were. If Huey and his mom worked on it, then it was important. And he had a good suspicion it dealt with his father.
“By the way, our son has been ignoring my calls for the last two days.”
Seth sighed. He shook his head. “He’s twenty-five, Tam. There’s not much we can do at this moment. We can only pray he will come to his senses.”
She huffed. “And when will that be? Dad had called him a moody monkey, and I’m beginning to believe it. He’s chomping at the bit about something.”
“Chomping at the bit?” Seth smiled and gently poked his wife in the ribs. “Have you been reading some of those classics lately?”
Tamara started laughing as they exited the main building and veered toward the seaside area. “The ancient books. Something that was called Westerns. Really strange reading something so old.”
He slid his arm around her waist as she chatted about the titles and authors that were discovered in an abandoned building buried miles away. The excavation team had delivered loads and loads of books and tomes to the school and library. So far, he had made it through a quarter of the books. Some were boring as sterile dirt. Others invoked feelings and desires that left him wanting more to devour.
Tamara’s soft voice floated along the air, drowning out his negative emotions, burying his fears and indecisions. Only she and her voice existed as they walked home.
Stephen stood at the window. The fused glass heated the sun’s rays as it shone through and hit his bare chest. He curled his toes into the plush carpet and crossed his arms.
His visits with Danica were getting old. She had begun to demand more of his time and more of his attention. Time to move on. But not just yet. She still fulfilled a need.
Guilt at his actions tried to rear its head, but he shoved it down. He was tired of feeling guilty, of feeling shame. Tired of being the good man, the rule-abiding man. That man was boring. That man didn’t live.
Slender arms snaked around his waist and up his chest. Danica purred into his ear. “What are you thinking? Why not come back to bed?”
He turned in her arms and leaned back against the window. His hands rested on her hips, keeping her close yet still away from him. Her long, black hair hung in soft waves to her waist. Dark eyes regarded him. “Have you ever ventured beyond our borders? That was what I was thinking.”
She frowned and leaned back with her hands clasped around him. “Beyond our borders? Once. On a supply run. We went into Canadian Province. To Vancouver. Why?”
“What was it like?”
She shrugged. “Nothing special really. Even though Vancouver was a decent-sized city, it never recouped from the last war.” She pulled away from him and settled down on the chaise lounge in her living room. Her plush robe fell open as she pulled her feet upon it. “Are you thinking of signing up for a shipment run?”
“No.” He sat on the edge of the chaise and leaned over her. “I’m thinking of traveling.”
Danica frowned up at him. “Why? You know we aren’t to leave our borders—especially you and your kind.”
“My kind?” Stephen snarled and straightened up.
She shook her head and gripped his arm. “I don’t mean it that way. I just mean that you and the others are supposed to stay within our borders to keep you safe.”
Stephen regarded the older woman. She worked as his father’s understudy in the medlab. At fifteen years his senior, he had found her enticing and seductive. And from the first time they were together, he had discovered he could learn more about what his father was doing in medlab. Even though he could hack just about any system out there, his father had one advantage. He had used the GHOST, his grandmother’s old program, to protect his research, effectively preventing any hacking into the system.
Stephen had not been able to get his hands on the program or its codes. He was never a part of the security detail or privy to the elders’ meetings. In fact, he was shuttered from just about any meeting unless it was the general meetings.
Danica ran a finger over his brow. “Why are you so upset?”
He shook his head. “I feel . . . stifled.”
“How so? You are the top hunter and guide. You range across all of Alaska. You teach the highest self-defense class, and the school calls you in to help with the higher mathematics. You are valued here, Stephen. You can do just about anything you want—even join your father’s medlab study.”
“No. Not that. He would allow me to train in medlab but not be a part of his research.” Stephen twisted around so that he could stretch out beside her on the chaise. “Besides, I don’t want to do those things anymore.”
“What do you want?”
He smiled and began to show her what he wanted. A part of his mind was screaming at him for using her. When she fell asleep, like she normally would do, he would swipe her card to medlab. He would have his father’s research, finally, and he would discover why he was subjected to medscans and bloodwork every three months. Then he would find a way to leave this hated place once and for all.
Seth inserted the antiquated data disk. From the looks of it, the recording on this one was decades old. He turned the data crystal that he held in his other hand around and around between his fingers.
“Are you going to activate it?” Tamara settled down beside him on the bench in front of the family console.
“Soon.” He stared at the holographic hub. “I’m pretty sure about what is on this.”
If he knew his mother well, then this data disk contained a recording by his father. But why wait for so many years to show him?
Tamara reached forward and pressed the button. “There.”
His wife always knew when he needed the nudge. He wanted to activate it, needed to see it. Yet everything in him cried out in fear with the uncertainty of it all.
The holographic projection fizzled a bit before focusing into a man at least fifteen years younger than Seth. Scars ran down his face and neck. One prominent scar disappeared into his short, dark beard. His jaw was sharp and nose angular. Dark hair glistened in the lights above him in what looked like one of the older living quarters. Yet it was his eyes that were startling—half-white, half-vivid green. They shone with an inner light; yet behind them, Seth could also see the multitude of nightmares and demons.
His father steepled his fingers against his mouth. Light bounced off the dull scars that created a hatch-work design on his hands.
“Go ahead, Jules.” His mother’s voice sounded so youthful.
His father dropped his hands and took a breath. “My son or daughter, I don’t know you yet, but I am praying for the day that we will be blessed by you and that I get to know you. You will be my legacy.
“I want you to know a few things about me. They will be hard to hear. They will be horrible to comprehend. Yet know that a few weeks ago, I accepted Christ; and He is making me new. My slate of blood and death has been wiped clean. I still battle the demons within me, but it is His strength that sees me through.
“I tell you this because what was done to me will pass along to you. And you will need to know the depth of what happened.”
He took a deep breath. His demeanor changed. He became like a soldier during a debriefing.
“GFT abducted me when I was only five, the day before my sixth birthday. Killed my parents in front of me. Five years later, I was made to kill my best friend, Stephen, designation Sierra 7-N. That was when they took me away to Medlab Twelve. For days, I underwent neural biofeedback and torture designed to erase who I was, what I believed and thought—my very essence. And for a long time, they succeeded. I was their elite assassin, the head of Juliet squad. I’m attaching the mission files your mother was able to GHOST. You can read for yourself how I killed without prejudice young and old alike—men, women, and . . . ” His voice faltered for a bit. “Even children.
“The last mission on record is the day I should have died. Instead, God kept me alive. And that began my journey to find your uncle JJ and to find my freedom from GFT. I was decommissioned, which in GFT terms meant to be killed, to be dispatched. I was no longer salvageable in their eyes. In other words, I was no longer their killing machine. And that was what I was—a machine with no emotions, no feelings, no memories.
“I escaped and met with Bishop Thomas, who helped me obtain my ship, Nightingale. You will see a lot of her in the houses and greenhouse. My one home was used to make another.
“And that is how my life truly began. Your mother and Huey plan to grab as much of the security feeds—those that survived—as they can and attach them to this video so that you can see a bit of my life.
“It was your grandfather and so many others—especially Evie, Danny, and CeeCee—that taught me what love truly is—what it means to have a family, what it means to follow Christ, no matter the cost. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know if I will survive because the GFT will always be looking for me—”
“You don’t have to put it that way, Jules.” His mother’s voice filtered through. Her hand reached out and brushed at a wayward strand of hair on his father’s forehead.
A long pause stretched through the video feed as his father regarded his mother. Then he gave her a slight smile. “It’s the truth, Abby. Let me tell it my way.” He turned back to the camera. “There were only two assassins on which Serum Seventy-four was successful. Juliet 7-A, which is—was—me. And it is believed, Juliet 2-Z, who is still hunting me.
“Our blood is valuable and holds the key into making men and women into a type of augmented soldier. Strength, speed, hearing, eyesight, healing, learning—I am far more advanced than anyone else. Yet I would gladly give it up for a normal life. I tell you this so that you will understand that if we—your mother and I and your family—ever put limitations on you, it is to keep you safe.
“It feels strange to say ‘I love you’ since you aren’t even here, yet I do love you. I love the thought of God granting us a child. I love the idea of you and pray that I will meet you soon. Know that when I was searching for freedom, I didn’t know the extent of what that meant. God has granted me more than I could have thought possible.
“These people I am with now, they are my family. You are my family. And I will love and protect you while I still draw breath.”
He looked offscreen. “How was that?”
“It was good. Heartfelt.” His mother came into view and sat down in his father’s lap. She leaned against him as his hand wrapped around her waist. “Hi, my little one. It took a long time to get your father to do this. He preferred his greenhouse to the recorder.”
“Really, Abby?” He half-rolled his eyes at her.
She laughed and kissed his temple before returning to the screen. “I want you to remember this: he was designed to kill . . . ”
“Yet God had another design for him.” Seth spoke the words along with her. She smiled and then leaned forward. The video ended, and the display dissolved.
Tamara brushed at her eyes and sniffed. “You look a lot like him.”
Throughout his life, he had been told that. And now, seeing his father and hearing him, he could believe it. From dark hair to white-green eyes, facial features, and body stature, his father’s genes had passed down to him—and from him to his own children.
Seth removed the data disk and inserted the crystal. The holographic display resolved into his mother’s image. Age lined her face. Her freckles were lighter. Beside her sat his stepfather. Gray hairs had replaced the curly, dark hair. His brown eyes were weaker yet still held a youthfulness to them.
“Seth, we finally were able to track down the last of the feeds. GFT had kept them buried deep within their mainframe. Some were salvaged from our own files. The others were stolen from our Antarctica base and kept by GFT. They never gave up their objective in capturing your father nor the others until you were about five years old. The feeds are slightly corrupted. There’s no audio, and some of them are only snippets of our time on the Nightingale, in Antarctica, and here in Alaska. The last bit . . . ” Tears flooded her eyes. Huey, his eyes suspiciously wet, slid an arm around her and pulled her into his side. “The last file . . . just know that your father sacrificed his life for all of us.”
She faded away, and in her place was a grainy feed of what looked like a hodge-podge of ships that were pieced together. Ice grew everywhere, and so many people walked around. There were children darting about and people working.
A man, his bearing and stature hinting at a soldier, came into view, holding a book—Seth’s father. He walked and read as he rounded the corner of the walkway and started descending the stairs. His hand lashed out and caught an object midair.
When he looked up, a grin stretched across his face as he threw the ball back into the area below him. He closed the book and slid it between his vest and shirt before signing to someone off screen. Not fast enough, my beautiful angel. Try again.
Three children ran up the stairs and started pulling at him, dragging him off screen.
The screen changed. It was blurry, yet Seth could make out his father and a group of men apparently exercising. He recognized them all, from Dan to Devon and James to Jackson—former assassins. The image faded as they sank cross-legged to the floor.
The next one was a feed in a makeshift library of sorts. His father was nestled in the curvature of a window. His mother was seated in a small chair next to him. Uncle JJ and Aunt Trisha were on a small, cushioned bench, with his aunt reclined against his uncle’s chest. They seemed content with each other’s company as they read from their books. Seth zoomed in on the book in his father’s hand and stifled a laugh. He was reading a psychology textbook. His father turned a page before reaching down and giving his mother an absentminded caress along her hair. A small smile flitted across his mother’s face.
Then it changed to another feed, this one of his father screaming and bucking on a medlab table. Six men tried to hold him down. His great-grandmother rushed in and dosed him with something. Then his mother was there, along with Uncle JJ.
His mother’s voice filtered through. “What you are seeing is when the serum repaired his neural pathways. All his memories came flooding back; and for five days, he was lost inside his own mind, reliving everything—from his parents’ and Stephen’s death to his torture to his missions. He told us that a voice told him that it was time to awaken. And that is exactly what happened. Your father woke up that day.”
The video went on for long minutes. Then it fizzled into another grainy output of his father sitting on the edge of the bed and talking to his great-grandmother.
Seth sat through video after video. Some seemed to be out of order until he realized that the first batch was what they had on file. The second batch was what GFT had gained. His father was shown fighting on a catwalk, his moves so fast that they seemed to blur. Then he was on a ship—just glimpses of him moving about or sitting in the observation lounge.
One video gave him a few seconds of his parents’ wedding. Then he was seeing his father at the compound—building the greenhouse; gardening and having a dirt fight with some boys; bringing in recent elk kills with Michael, Peter, and JJ, laughing at some of the children who played nearby as he watched.
There he was in the commons area talking and laughing with John. He was with Uncle JJ as they built the fishing pier. Seth smiled when he saw his father and mother in their quarters. They were setting up the recording, laughing. It had captured them playfully fighting with each other while setting it up. Then his father kissed her, pressing her back against the couch they sat on. His right hand held the back of her head as their kiss deepened; and with the other, he slapped the camera down to the floor.
Seth’s face heated. He was quite glad there was no audio with that one.
His mother’s voice filtered back through. “I wasn’t sure about letting you see that. It happened right before he recorded your message. But I wanted you to see and understand that Jules really loved me. He cared for me. And I loved him, too. These were the good times. The other crystal contains the missions and the fight—the fight that cost him his life.”
Her voice cracked. “I put them on a separate crystal so that you can look at them when you feel the time is right. Your father never did anything half-measure. He put his heart and mind into everything. And he really loved us all. Those few months he was with us—those were his happiest times.
“I’ve told you the stories growing up, Seth. You were named after him. And I waited until my death to let you see this because I wanted you to know the extent of why we kept you here behind our walls. We loved you so much, we wanted you safe—to be able to live and enjoy what your father had never had the chance to experience: life.”
Chapter Two
SIERRA
Sierra looked around what they dubbed The Groove, a circular depression with intricate designs created to channel melting snow and rain into the grate in the middle. It had been dug in the middle of the courtyard where a grove of pine trees grew—trees that both of her grandfathers had planted. Under those tall pines were a variety of ferns and benches carved from stones.
Her gaze fell on the bench nearest to her. Her father had created that one when he was a teenager. Granddad always told her and Stephen that it was during her father’s “restless days.” A lot of statues, monuments, benches, and even arches that peppered their massive compound were made by her father’s hands. They reminded her of the ancient days, when people mingled in what were called parks. But this one—the moss-covered bench—was her favorite. It was simple in design but elegant; a sunflower with its head full of seed stood over the three pine cones clustered together.
Her father had said the design had a specific message, but he never told her what it was. Maybe she should grab another of the old tomes from the library and learn about architecture. That was what her father had been studying way back then—that and art.
