Read Online Opposing Force: Book 01 - The God Particle by Anthony Decosmo - Free Book Online
Authors: Anthony Decosmo
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a part of her—as much a part of her as her right arm.
No, he thought. No. She was right-handed. Without her right arm she could not do her crossword puzzles or write a shopping list or sketch wildflowers on the patio. Instead, he was her left arm—a good left arm, but still just the left arm. If he were gone, she would miss him. But would her life change? At all?
Thom remembered that a dark blue Chevrolet Suburban with an MP at the wheel waited for him at the curb. He had never made them wait so long before. His departures were always quick, efficient, and well planned; just like everything else Archangel did.
Why was this time different?
Because he had forgotten his case. He had come back inside and she was not crying or pounding her fists in frustration or opening the porch door for a lover to slip in. Perhaps any of those alternatives would have been preferable to what he did find: Jean going about her business because today was just another day in her life like any other day.
Major Thom Gant carried his briefcase out the front door. Jean continued tugging at a weed until she managed to pull it free of the soil, root and all.
7
Gant wound his wristwatch three hours into the future to make up the difference between California and Pennsylvania. In all, six hours had passed since he had left his home, yet he found himself in another Suburban, this one black and with a different soldier—a Corporal Sanchez—at the wheel who, like Thom, dressed in casual civilian clothes.
His day had begun with leaving Jean to her garden, then a ride on a DOD Learjet to a small commercial airport in Williamsport, Pennsylvania where Sanchez came to collect him. Next came a maze of rural roads until they finally settled on Route 118 East. Thirty minutes later they came to a crossroads at a village named Red Rock. At that point Sanchez swung onto another road slinking north through Ricketts Glen State Park and climbed Red Rock mountain.
Along the way they passed a trailer park, forests thinned by either logging or fire, and a sign marking an elevation of over 2,400 feet.
Eventually Sanchez abandoned this road for an even smaller one. Not long after that turn, Thom saw those first ominous yellow signs: "Posted and Patrolled," followed shortly thereafter by, "Property of the United States Federal Government—Armed Patrols." Then, of course, came the hurricane fencing with signs reading, "High Security Area—Sentries Authorized to Use Lethal Force."
Places like this, Thom thought, always had those signs. They always had the signs, the fences, the security cameras, the dogs, the infrared sensors, the checkpoints, and the key card locks—all to keep the outsiders out. Funny how the trouble that inevitably came to places like the Red Rock Mountain Research Facility came from within.
How many times had he heard this story? From White Sands to Bikini Atoll to Groom Lake, Major Thom Gant had visited many top-secret, hush-hush, need-to-know-access-restricted compounds. Each one with those fences and guard dogs; each one with legions of PhDs, high-tech laboratories, redundant containment systems, and tightly constructed emergency protocols.
And the head honcho scientist always said the same thing: "We took every foreseeable precaution," or, "no one could have anticipated this type of chain reaction," or even, "we never saw a retrogression such as this in the simulations."
Yet there they were, Mr. Clean Up and his team, ready to bail out the scientists who climbed that mountain because it was there, whether that mountain be insects genetically engineered for pest control that just happened to develop a taste for human flesh or a new biological weapon that —whoops— got loose down there in Sector C and turned the technicians rabid.
This is all very embarrassing, but would you and your men mind going down there and shooting them all dead?
Oh, Gant did not know his orders yet and he did not know what the Red Rock Mountain Research
No, he thought. No. She was right-handed. Without her right arm she could not do her crossword puzzles or write a shopping list or sketch wildflowers on the patio. Instead, he was her left arm—a good left arm, but still just the left arm. If he were gone, she would miss him. But would her life change? At all?
Thom remembered that a dark blue Chevrolet Suburban with an MP at the wheel waited for him at the curb. He had never made them wait so long before. His departures were always quick, efficient, and well planned; just like everything else Archangel did.
Why was this time different?
Because he had forgotten his case. He had come back inside and she was not crying or pounding her fists in frustration or opening the porch door for a lover to slip in. Perhaps any of those alternatives would have been preferable to what he did find: Jean going about her business because today was just another day in her life like any other day.
Major Thom Gant carried his briefcase out the front door. Jean continued tugging at a weed until she managed to pull it free of the soil, root and all.
7
Gant wound his wristwatch three hours into the future to make up the difference between California and Pennsylvania. In all, six hours had passed since he had left his home, yet he found himself in another Suburban, this one black and with a different soldier—a Corporal Sanchez—at the wheel who, like Thom, dressed in casual civilian clothes.
His day had begun with leaving Jean to her garden, then a ride on a DOD Learjet to a small commercial airport in Williamsport, Pennsylvania where Sanchez came to collect him. Next came a maze of rural roads until they finally settled on Route 118 East. Thirty minutes later they came to a crossroads at a village named Red Rock. At that point Sanchez swung onto another road slinking north through Ricketts Glen State Park and climbed Red Rock mountain.
Along the way they passed a trailer park, forests thinned by either logging or fire, and a sign marking an elevation of over 2,400 feet.
Eventually Sanchez abandoned this road for an even smaller one. Not long after that turn, Thom saw those first ominous yellow signs: "Posted and Patrolled," followed shortly thereafter by, "Property of the United States Federal Government—Armed Patrols." Then, of course, came the hurricane fencing with signs reading, "High Security Area—Sentries Authorized to Use Lethal Force."
Places like this, Thom thought, always had those signs. They always had the signs, the fences, the security cameras, the dogs, the infrared sensors, the checkpoints, and the key card locks—all to keep the outsiders out. Funny how the trouble that inevitably came to places like the Red Rock Mountain Research Facility came from within.
How many times had he heard this story? From White Sands to Bikini Atoll to Groom Lake, Major Thom Gant had visited many top-secret, hush-hush, need-to-know-access-restricted compounds. Each one with those fences and guard dogs; each one with legions of PhDs, high-tech laboratories, redundant containment systems, and tightly constructed emergency protocols.
And the head honcho scientist always said the same thing: "We took every foreseeable precaution," or, "no one could have anticipated this type of chain reaction," or even, "we never saw a retrogression such as this in the simulations."
Yet there they were, Mr. Clean Up and his team, ready to bail out the scientists who climbed that mountain because it was there, whether that mountain be insects genetically engineered for pest control that just happened to develop a taste for human flesh or a new biological weapon that —whoops— got loose down there in Sector C and turned the technicians rabid.
This is all very embarrassing, but would you and your men mind going down there and shooting them all dead?
Oh, Gant did not know his orders yet and he did not know what the Red Rock Mountain Research
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