7th Son: Deceit (Book Two in the 7th Son Trilogy)

By J.C. Hutchins

Deceit is the second novel in J.C. Hutchins' acclaimed 7th Son thriller trilogy.

Two days ago, seven human clones were torn away from their normal lives to stop a ruthless plot created by their progenitor, a man code-named John Alpha. Their quest was a descent into conspiracy, violence and death.

To prevent the next phase of Alpha’s plan, Kilroy2.0, John and the other Beta clones must unearth dark secrets about the government project from which they were spawned. They will experience the horrors of betrayal, and race cross-country to track John Alpha.

And they will finally discover the scope of the villain’s wrath. The bloodshed they’ve witnessed is merely a prelude to the world-rending destruction to come. Unless they can stop it first...

(For a limited time, readers who purchase 7th Son: Deceit can receive a free personalized and autographed print copy of Descent, the first novel in the 7th Son Trilogy, shipped to them at no cost. See the "A Special Offer" section inside the ebook for more information.)

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.C. Hutchins
• Release date: Dec 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9780988772038

Book preview

7th Son: Deceit

Book Two in the 7th Son Trilogy

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 by J.C. Hutchins

www.jchutchins.net

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First Ebook Edition: November 2012

Table of Contents

The Story So Far

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

A preview of 7th Son: Destruction

Also by J.C. Hutchins:

7th Son: 7 Days

7th Son: Descent

7th Son: Destruction

7th Son: Obsidian (edited by)

Personal Effects: Sword of Blood

Personal Effects: Dark Art (with Jordan Weisman)

THE STORY SO FAR

A Recap of 7th Son: Descent

The year is 2007.

Three weeks ago, President Hank Gator Griffin was assassinated at a political rally by a four year old boy. The child, Jesse Fowler, said only one sentence during his week-long confinement in a psychiatric facility. It was an obscenity no four-year-old should know.

Jesse Fowler’s abrupt death while in custody was equally inexplicable. A nosebleed—and eyes so bloodshot the whites were completely red—were the only clues to the boy’s demise.

Two days ago, seven men living in different regions of the United States were kidnapped and brought to a beyond Top Secret government facility in rural Virginia. What they saw there was unbelievable, yet undeniable.

Despite slight physical differences, these seven strangers appeared to be the same man, the same age. Each man remembered growing up as an only child in Indiana, and each recalled a tragedy from their past: The death of their parents in a car accident sixteen years ago.

It was clear these seven John Michael Smiths had identical childhood memories.

Unwitting participants in an experiment called Project 7th Son, the men learned from two project staffers—Dr. Kleinman and Gen. Hill—that they were assembled to stop the man behind the president’s murder. Their target: A man code-named John Alpha. He was the man they were cloned from; the man whose childhood memories they shared.

While the clones were genetically and—to a degree—emotionally identical, their personalities and professions were very different.

John: College dropout and no-nonsense musician and carpenter. Michael: A captain in the U.S. Marine Corps’ elite Force Recon division. Jack: A pudgy, bespectacled, genetics expert, and father of twin daughters. Thomas: A devout Catholic priest. Jay: A timid U.N. employee. Dr. Mike: A cocky criminal profiler. Kilroy2.0: An infamous computer hacker with a messiah complex who claims the walls speak to him.

The next morning, Dr. Kleinman and Gen. Hill gave the clones a tour of the 7th Son facility. The clones stared in horror at their birthplace, a monstrously-shaped cloning machine. They also learned about MemR/I (Memory Retrieval/Installation) technology, which allowed the 7th Son scientists to record John Alpha’s childhood memories, store those memories as digital data, and download them into the clones’ vacant brains.

Kleinman told John, Kilroy2.0, Dr. Mike and the others that the 7th Son project began six decades ago as a grand nature versus nurture experiment. The men’s most vivid childhood memory—the car accident in which their parents were killed—was a ruse. Hugh and Dania Sheridan, the people the clones remember as their father and mother, were actually still alive.

Kleinman then revealed that the Sheridans were actually scientists working for Project 7th Son, paid to raise and observe John Alpha.

After the car accident sixteen years ago—and after John Alpha’s memories were recorded—the boy became a willing participant in the 7th Son project. He learned all he could about the experiment. Four years ago, John Alpha mysteriously vanished from the 7th Son facility. He turned up dead not long after.

But evidence found during the recent autopsy of Jesse Fowler, the child presidential assassin, indicated that John Alpha was alive, and apparently armed with a dangerous technology that was accidentally created at the 7th Son facility. Called NEPTH-charge, this technology erases a person’s memories completely. When combined with MemR/I technology, another recorded psyche can be downloaded into the damaged brain. This explained the four-year-old’s murderous behavior; a killer’s mind lurked behind the child’s eyes.

Worse still, John Alpha kidnapped a former 7th Son staffer two weeks ago: Dania Sheridan, the clones’mother. Hugh Sheridan, their father, was brought to the 7th Son facility for his protection.

John Alpha left a clue for the clones to decipher at the scene of Dania Sheridan’s kidnapping. With their combined expertise, Father Thomas, Jay, Michael and the others decrypted the Morse Code clue, and deduced that Alpha was probably laying low at an abandoned night club in Los Angeles.

Michael, Dr. Mike and John volunteered to lead a cadre of 7th Son security personnel on a mission to rescue Dania Sheridan. Father Thomas, Jack, Kilroy2.0 and Jay chose to remain at the 7th Son complex, vowing to learn more about Alpha’s conspiracy.

During this, each clone coped with the recent revelations in his own way. While Jack the geneticist raged against the experiment’s ethical violations, a terrified Thomas became convinced that he was a manufactured thing, a soulless being. Jay wondered about the childhood he never had, and realized he never actually experienced the awkward courtship of his high school sweetheart Patricia (who would, many years later, become his wife).

Meanwhile, it became clear that John Alpha’s conspiracy was much larger than the clones knew. The U.S. vice president fell victim to the villainous plot when he unwittingly received a download of Alpha’s psyche into his mind. Alpha was now riding shotgun in the VP’s brain.

John Alpha also contacted billionaire oil tycoon A.U. Rookman, whose reputation for political prowess, ruthlessness and greed was legendary. While no clear details of their relationship were revealed, Alpha promised the elderly Rookman that he would soon be cured of his cancer and Alzheimer’s.

Additionally, more than forty men at a Russian military post were recently NEPTH-charged. The psyche that was downloaded into these victims’ minds was that of Doug Devlin, a remorseless government-trained contract killer, now in the employ of John Alpha. The Devlins controlled nine intercontinental nuclear missiles, and would soon prep them for launch.

Back at the 7th Son facility, Father Thomas, Jack, Jay and Kilroy2.0 recalled the peculiar physical side-effects of the NEPTH-charge procedure, as seen in the four-year-old assassin’s autopsy. Convinced John Alpha may have created more NEPTH-charge killers, they hacked into the Centers for Disease Control’s website. Surely the CDC would have recorded such strange deaths, they reasoned.

In Los Angeles, Michael, Dr. Mike, John and the other 7th Son soldiers infiltrated the abandoned night club—only to discover that it wasn’t abandoned at all. Enemy soldiers wearing ultra-high tech Vaporwear invisibility camouflage began to slaughter the team.

Meanwhile at the 7th Son facility, Father Thomas searched for his father, Hugh Sheridan. As he chatted with the bitter man, the priest learned the true purpose of the cloning project. It was not a nature versus nurture experiment, as Dr. Kleinman had said. 7th Son was created to grow special teams of experts, all linked by common childhood and biology. These well-oiled teams of clones would be brought together to apply their respective, yet complementary, expertise in times of crises. Thomas and his fellow clones were the dry run, the first steps toward the this new breed of team creation.

Hugh Sheridan also revealed that Project 7th Son’s roots could be traced back to World War II, and the horrific experiments perpetrated by Nazi doctors. One of these doctors, a geneticist named Klaus Bregner, was brought to the U.S. after the war, and—in exchange for his life—was ordered to head the then-new 7th Son project.

Meanwhile, Kilroy2.0, Jay and Jonathan’s hacking into the Center for Disease Control’s website revealed successful ... and terrifying ... results. Dozens of deaths were recorded in the CDC database, all matching the symptoms of NEPTH-charge. One such report chronicled the deaths of ten men in Arkansas. These men had left behind more mysterious encrypted messages for the clones.

In Los Angeles, the battle against John Alpha’s invisible soldiers became a bloodbath. Nearly all of the 7th Son soldiers were killed in the firefight, and Dr. Mike and John were captured. As they were held at gunpoint, the Vaporwear soldiers taunted Michael and the surviving soldiers. Finally, John Alpha emerged from the shadows, clearly taking pleasure in the clones’ misery and recent revelations.

John was able to create a distraction, with explosively successful results. The tide turned, and Alpha fled to the basement level of the night club. Michael pursued the villain while John rescued Dania Sheridan. She had been severely beaten. Alpha had cut off two of her fingers.

Although John, Dr. Mike and Dania Sheridan escaped the nightclub, Michael was killed when John Alpha activated a large bomb beneath the building. Alpha also died in the explosion.

As the battered rescue team traveled back to Virginia—and as the clones at the 7th Son facility mourned Michael’s death—Hugh Sheridan revealed to Father Thomas one final, critical piece of 7th Son history. It involved the dangerous brain-erasing NEPTH-charge technology. It had connections to the Department of Defense. It explained why John Alpha kidnapped Dania Sheridan three weeks ago.

It was a mysterious technology called Psyjack.

PROLOGUE

Click. Double-click.

The flaming helicopter rotor blade swirled across the computer screen, a pixelated blur of amber and crimson, a boomerang gone bad. Its eventual destination: a flaming palm tree on Sunset Boulevard, more than a half-block away. It was a very TV news-friendly visual for the wicked, wonderful moment that had occurred less than an hour ago: the annihilation of the Folie à Deux nightclub in West Hollywood.

But this palm tree punchline wasn’t what interested Special(k). Oh, no. It was the digital clip he was watching now, culled fresh from the Web: the slow-mo, frame-by-frame, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it slaughter of a vidcam-toting tourist who’d been standing too close to the club’s explosion. The ensuing helicopter crash had done him in.

Special(k)’s red-rimmed eyes glimmered in the monitor’s glow. He clicked his mouse again. The video froze.

There it was. One grainy frame. And in it, one very round, very surprised man, his aloha shirt bisected by a flaming hunk of Black Hawk whirligig. The footage from the victim’s HandyCam was already on the P2P networks. Gotta love L.A.’s tech-savvy snuff subculture. Paparazzi and propellerheads. Heartless opportunists.

The young man cackled at his monstrously large screen, chugged the last of the Red Bull in his free hand, and told the video app to export this frame as an email-friendly image. Right-click, double-click, boom. Out it went, an anonymous message to three hundred of his closest friends, some of whom adminned blogs that dug this sort of stuff.

Spread the meme, the hacker said. His voice bounced back, echoing from the curved walls. Special(k)’s eyes flitted from the monitor to his surroundings in this dark, domed room. Spooky. Like sitting in an empty planetarium.

The computer made a chirping noise. Special(k) looked back to the screen, and to the glowing icon on the desktop. Incoming call. Scrambled line.

There were few scramblers indeed that could confound Special(k)’s telephony software. The garbled Caller ID number was a good sign. Special(k) tapped a button on the tiny receiver in his ear.

He immediately recognized the slight Tennessee drawl on the phone line. He’d heard it on television for the past three years. Hell, he’d heard it today on CNN.

I feel right as rain, and ready to help President Hale and this great nation in any way I can.

So tell me, hacker and zealot extraordinaire, Vice President Charles Caine said, I assume you’ve seen the breaking headlines.

Headlines? Special(k) scoffed. He turned to the image again. A cartoon would’ve likely evoked more emotion from him. You’re too slow. The best stuff’s already spreading online. Goodbye, Folie à Deux. And goodbye, John Alpha.

That was the plan, Caine—or more appropriately, Caine-Alpha—said. I’ve made the rounds. You’re the last call. Tell me what you know.

He came online today.

He was Kilroy2.0. Years ago, Special(k) had come into the good graces of the messianic mad hacker, and had scored membership in the cyberprophet’s instant messaging broadcasts. He later became a very trusted ally, a priceless thing in conspiracy theorist circles. Special(k) had been spying on the mad prophet—and scoping his system—ever since.

So Kleinman let him out of his cage, let him go online to play, John Alpha’s new voice said. Tick-tock perfect. Tell me what happened.

He winks up out of nowhere on the ’net, Special(k) replied. He leaned away from the monitor, grimacing at his tension in his neck. He brought a palm to his chin, pressing his head upward and sideways, pop-pop-popping vertebrae. He repeated this gesture in the other direction before saying, The loon then gives the battle cry to round up the troops.

Kilroy2.0 is here, Kilroy2.0 is everywhere, Alpha said.

Right, the younger man said. Most of his cyberflock answered the call. Kilroy says he’s declaring war on a site, needs our help. Warns that only the truly dedicated should join the cause.

Finally, time to walk the walk.

Right, Special(k) said. But, again, what you expected.

And the target was the CDC website, Alpha said. He asked them to slam it while he searched for a backdoor.

Right again.

Looking for more NEPTH-charge victims, Alpha said. Special(k) could hear the face of Alpha’s Psyjacked host grinning. So did he shout out to his Twelve? Did you give him that beautiful hack that you’d built?

No, Special(k) replied, nervous. This was the sole wrinkle in their plan. Alpha, ever the mastermind, did not like wrinkles; he liked his schemes well-pressed, seamless, creaseless. He gave instructions to block the pipelines of the site. He never sent his inner circle a message.

John Alpha’s voice went cold. Are you sure?

Never happened, the hacker said, then added quickly: But the tale has a happy ending, don’t worry. Two hours later, Kilroy sends out another broadcast: ‘Mission accomplished. My undying gratitude. Logoff.’ That was about forty-five minutes ago. I don’t know how he did it. I just know he did it.

So he found the files at the CDC after all, Alpha said.

It would appear so.

Which means they’ll discover the marching orders.

If they haven’t already, Special(k) said. They’re wily. Cracked the Folie à Deux code faster than expected.

That’s because it was kindergarten code, Alpha growled. Something to get them moving. Alpha was silent for a moment. This ... is acceptable. Notify me if Kilroy2.0 sends another broadcast.

The line went dead. Special(k) clicked off his earphone and leaned toward the screen again. If the other Beta clones were like Kilroy, then they were harmless. Docile. Sheep.

Cloned sheep. Ha.

But Kilroy2.0 hadn’t asked for help when he was supposed to—when he was expected to. Special(k) rubbed his temples. We planned for that. Deliver the code that would’ve given him access ... and would’ve allowed me to track his moves. So how did he get in?

Special(k) shook his head. He didn’t know, and he supposed it really didn’t matter. For two days now, the seven wily clones of his collaborator—unholy creations with the same flesh and childhood memories as Alpha—had been dutifully playing their wicked game. So far, John, Jack, Dr. Mike, Father Thomas, Kilroy2.0, Jay, and Michael had been very obedient chess pieces. Very obedient indeed.

But the clones had to pay to play this game. And one of them had paid in blood, just forty-five minutes ago.

The plan was chugging along, tick-tock perfect, just like Alpha said. Nothing could stop it now—especially not six subhuman fleshsacks with borrowed pasts.

Special(k) smirked and clicked the rewind button on the monitor’s video player. He hit play, and watched the very round, very surprised man die again.

Click. Double-click.

And again.

Click. Double-click.

And again.

ONE

Dr. Mike’s stomach somersaulted as the modified V-22 Bucky Lastard rose from the runway at Edwards Air Force Base, into the night sky. The Los Angeles rescue team was heading back to Virginia. Somewhere behind him, beneath him, the lights of L.A. were becoming smaller and smaller on the horizon, disappearing into the smog.

Good fucking riddance.

I’m never going back, he thought. It doesn’t matter if I live to be a hundred, I’m never going back. That was just too much. Bullets, blood, fire. Had my fill. Tending my resignation ASAP. Take my gun and badge. Check, please.

He looked down at the stained, sticky bandage wrapped around his right bicep. The morphine was doing a good job of beating away the pain, and that was saying something. Before today, Mike had never been shot at before, much less shot. The shock had been unbelievable. The pain, unimaginable. When he was a boy (okay, okay—when I remember being a boy, he thought, when John Alpha was a boy), Mike had played in plenty of creek beds and forest floors. He’d turn over rocks to see what dwelled beneath. The earthworms and pillbugs would scramble away from the sunlight, horrified, their security torn away by something large and inexplicable.

That’s what being shot felt like. The stuff under Mike’s skin had been happily doing whatever it did, and was then quite suddenly exposed to the inexplicable, dangerous elements. Dr. Mike grinned and grimaced at the discovery. Physical pain is the body’s way of screaming for normalcy.

Weekley, the 7th Son soldier who’d dressed his wound, told him the damage wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been. For a bullet wound, it was routine. It felt anything but.

But I’m one of the lucky ones, he thought, glancing up from his arm. He surveyed the cabin of the V-22. There was Lockwood, unconscious, the blood from his leg oozing through its bandages. Dania Sheridan lay nearby, also unconscious. Her face was covered in gashes and bruises. The bulky gauze around her right hand revealed only three fingertips; the others had been cut off by John Alpha. The remaining soldiers sat quietly, their shoulders slumped.

Fifteen of us went in. Seven came out. The rest are burning in the middle of Sunset Boulevard.

Michael’s out there, burning.

The droning of the Osprey’s modified twin engines had been unnerving on the way to California. Now Mike was grateful for it. The roaring pulses had a soothing quality, womblike. It was also so loud that it made speaking difficult, which was a plus.

This was impossible, all of it: Mike’s abduction from CNN’s Los Angeles studios two days ago, minutes—mere minutes—before his appearance on Larry King Live. The great unveiling in a conference room a quarter-mile underground, his shrieks of disbelief and horror as he was told that he was a clone, a fucking clone, a spit-shined Xerox copy birthed from a metal-and-plastic contraption. And then: The realization that memories from nearly half of his life were things he’d never experienced, but still shared between himself and six others like him. Memories of a boy who grew to be the man who’d masterminded the president’s murder.

And now here he was, mourning the death of his brethren. He hadn’t even known the man. Impossible. Possible.

Mike looked to his left, to where his fellow Beta clone, John, was sitting. The man’s eyes were closed, his body limp, unlit cigarette in hand. He was either asleep or praying. John hadn’t spoken since he’d gone to the cockpit and video-conferenced his report to the 7th Son compound before takeoff. In fact, no one had said much of anything since the explosion. The fighting was over. They were going home. Now was the time to think, to reflect. To mourn.

John, he said.

John opened his eyes.

Tell me something, Mike said. Tell me Michael’s in a better place.

John eyed the cigarette between his fingers, and extracted his Zippo from his pocket. He went to light the smoke, but scored only feeble sparks.

Shit, he muttered. He shook the Zippo, tried the wheel again. Nothing.

A nearby 7th Son security soldier tossed him a disposable Bic. John blew the smoke away from Mike as he tossed back the lighter.

I don’t think you care about that, John said.

Mike blinked. I do.

Are you sure? You know what I think? I think you’re looking for some emotional salve you’re scared shitless.

Why would you say that?

Because I am—and I’m not nearly as equipped to deal with this craziness as you are, John replied. He took a drag of his smoke, exhaled. "You see death all the time. You see it through the eyes of a profiler, a detective—as a tool to catch the bad guy. Death isn’t an end for someone like you. It’s a beginning. I bet you’re terrified to feel it this close."

Mike leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. Maybe, he said. Ya know, you’re pretty sharp for a bartender.

"Bartender and carpenter, John said. He smirked. This is blue collar psychology, homes. I write songs about this stuff all the time. We’re all in over our heads. We all get more than we bargained for."

"You’re right, though. I do see death every day. So why—"

Why does it hurt so much this time? John said. Why does it scare you so much?

Mike nodded.

Because Michael was a leader, a fighter, probably the best of us, John said. And because he had the same dreams and memories as you. He was a reflection of you. A path not taken. John Alpha didn’t just kill Michael in that explosion. He killed a part of himself. A part of you, and me, and the others back in Virginia.

Mike nodded again. Makes sense. He smiled slightly, hopeful. So. Tell me he’s in a better place.

I can’t, John said. I hope he is, I’ll say that much. Michael deserves to be someplace better. But when you get down to brass tacks, I guess it’s all one big question mark, isn’t it? Isn’t that the thing we’ve learned since this whole thing started? That we have no idea how big this thing gets—or how dangerous it gets?

Mike looked across the hold, to the middle-aged woman on the makeshift cot. Yeah. Maybe she can provide answers to some of our bigger questions.

He nodded to Dania Sheridan, who was beginning to stir. Dania was Mike’s and the other clones’ mother. At least, that was their shared frame of reference for her. She and her (now ex-) husband Hugh Sheridan were John Alpha’s adoptive parents; they had groomed the boy to be a well-rounded, perfect child. He’d evolved into something far from that. Three weeks ago, Alpha had kidnapped Dania. The massacre in California had been a rescue mission to save her.

John looked at her, clearly happy to change the subject. Mom? Like what?

Like why Alpha kidnapped her in the first place.

Well, that we know. She was the bait, like Michael said back at the club. A part of some twisted test.

Mike looked down at his wounded arm, then shook his head. No, there’s something more to it. Using Mom as bait ... I mean, why her? Why not someone closer to us—us clones, I mean. You given that any thought?

I’ve been a little preoccupied.

Well, I have. We know some of the clones are married. So why didn’t Alpha snatch a wife, or a kid? I can think of better candidates for kidnapping, people whose disappearance would generate an even greater emotional reaction. Think about our wussy brother back at the base, the one who puked all over the floor.

The U.N. guy, John said. Jay.

Right, Mike said, nodding. He has a wife. What’s-her-name.

I don’t think he ever told us, John said.

Mike harrumphed. Doesn’t matter. Point is, if she were kidnapped by John Alpha, I’d bet wimpy, pasty Jay would’ve picked up a gun and made this trip. Same thing goes for Jack. Kidnap his twin girls? You’ve got one helluva motivator for him, and the rest of us, to go. But Mom. Why Mom?

John watched Dania Sheridan. She was sitting up in her cot now, waving away the canteen Rubenstein was offering her. We remember her as our mother, he said. That hit us in a common emotional place, Mike. Kidnapping her wasn’t as counterintuitive as you think. Alpha got us where we were hurting.

Mike stood up now, itching to move again. The man was a pacer, thought best on his feet. No, no. Maybe he got us—you and me—where we were hurting. But we don’t have family like the others do. I’m telling you: If that fucker slapped a photo of Jack’s twin girls on a milk carton and sent it to us, I bet all of us would’ve gone to L.A. Why? Because they’re innocents. No doubt, John Alpha wanted us to come to Folie à Deux. But I think he wanted something else.

You mean he wanted something from Mom, John said.

Exactly, Mike replied. He leaned toward John, compensating for the lurching floor. He lowered his voice. Look at her, bro. He. Cut. Off. Her. Fingers. He wanted information. Information only she could provide.

What kind of information? John asked.

They both looked at Dania Sheridan. She was now hobbling toward them, returning their gaze.

I’ll tell you, she said.

John stood. It can wait a minute, he said.

The three held each other, their whispers of reunion drowned out by the droning engines.

~ ~ ~

Dania Sheridan told them how she had left the 7th Son project in 2002, after her divorce with Hugh Sheridan. She’d received an insanely generous grant to study applications of NEPTH-charge technology for the Department of Defense. Her words were slow-coming at first. But after a few minutes, the story came quickly. John recognized what was happening: Dania Sheridan was offering her confession.

He was already in the house that day, she told them, as she stared at one of the cabin walls. "The day that he took me. He came out of nowhere; fast, like a predator. A panther. I remember coming out of the kitchen, seeing a shadow swoop across the wall. I didn’t even know it was him until I came to.