Not With A Whisper...

By Rodney Mountain

Catherine Remordis was a simple student when Anoki 10.1, an ancient android, showed up at her door. A set of immortals, Bolantine and Nikki, who had been frozen for two centuries have been released and Anoki needs her to help deal with them.

Funded by her uncle Baltimore, Catherine and Anoki take a trip to the island of Mozandondo to find the fabled immortal, Mason Stone.

This starts a world wide adventure that sends her to all corners of the earth to find Mason Stone and deal with a threat to the planet much bigger than Bolantine alone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rodney Mountain
• Release date: Jul 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466046917

Rodney Mountain

Born in 1977, Rodney Mountain has been writing books for 14 years. Starting with 1998's "The Healy Murders" he has continued writing various novels since then. He is married with two children that have so far failed to drive him completely insane.

Book preview

Chapter 1 – The Chamber

Terrence Strader IV stood outside the old concrete slab excavation and stretched a bit. He didn't like these excavations, but the sheer amount of archeological information they had found made them worth it despite the long hours and the heat of the long abandoned bunker.

The bunker had once been part of the fabled Area 51 group, once the home to the United States Government's extraterrestrial research and later several corporate incarnations of a strike team founded by Terrence's great-great-great-great grandfather, Adam Strader, over two hundred years before.

Time had taken its toll on what had once been Nellis Air Force base. The concrete bunker had been buried deep so they had to clean off over a century and a half's worth of blown sand to get to the contents of the long abandoned vault.

Think we'll find anything this time, Terry? a younger assistant asked him, We've been digging up various parts of Nellis for two years now.

The secrets are still here, Terrence told him, My ancestors were inveterate file keepers. In the last three years I finally got access to the journals of Sam Remordis and his son Cliff Remordis. They don't spell out what they did, but the last recorded appearance of any immortals was during a raid here at Nellis over two centuries ago.

You have good access, the assistant said, I thought most of the records on it were lost when the company that bought Nellis and Area 51 went belly up in the depression of 2152.

The freedom of information revision act is a good thing, Terrence smiled, The feds can't bottle up anything more than two centuries anymore. Cliff and Sam's journals became public domain in 2249 and 2250, two hundred years after their respective deaths.

Anything good in them? the assistant wondered.

Plenty, Terrence said, Especially if we make a breakthrough sometime tonight.

Right, the assistant said, The concrete is too thick for our finders. We've spent two days with a jackhammer on this. I hope it is worth it.

You're being paid well, Terrence reminded him, Let's go watch while it's still hospitable to do so.

Terry Strader watched them hammer through the aged concrete and whistled at how strong it was. Time had taken its toll on some of it, but most of it would have lasted for a further torrent of centuries had his team not chosen to search the slabs for the remains of past projects.

Breakthrough came through after fourteen hours of digging and pounding. They used conventional digging methods to avoid destroying the artifacts inside the old bunker, finally resorting to electrical concrete saws and physical labor to create an entrance large enough for a man to drop down to the floor some twenty feet below.

There's something down there, Terry said, If nothing else there may be things we can sell off to keep the project in the black and keep our sponsors happy.

Who goes first? the assistant asked.

I do, Terrence proclaimed, If this is what I think it is, it is fitting that I am the first one back inside a building no one has used since my ancestors.

Careful, Terry, someone advised while handing him a light, Don't get too deep in there. We don't know what condition this place is in.

I'll be on the subnet radio, Terrence promised, If I lose contact follow my beacons.

Terrence Strader climbed down a rope artfully, still in decent shape despite his forty-one years. One of the assistants tossed him a spot lamp and let their boss take the first look around the room. The air was stale from lack of use, but the room was well preserved.

The fabled work room, Terrence said, looking around. He couldn't believe that it was in as good of shape as it was. The dry heat of the underground facility made for perfect storage.

He pulled out a small handheld computer and pressed a button to reveal exacting scans of Cliff Remordis' journal. His ancestor had not been a particularly great artist, but he had sketched some basic diagrams of the facility in his journal entries.

It was humbling for Terrence Strader to walk in places last walked by his ancestors. He couldn't believe that they had done the jobs that they had done with the old fashioned tools that he saw in that room. His modern day pocket calculator was more powerful than every piece of equipment in this room put together.

The place had been left in a hurry as Cliff and Sam Remordis decided to cover up a program that had been responsible for several deaths. Neither Cliff nor Sam said exactly what the project was, but they both indicated that it was something that The Immortals wanted to stop.

Terrence was not watching where he was going as much as he should have been and finally tripped over an object that gave him quite a fright when he shined his light on it.

Shit! he yelled, They left bodies down here!

Terrence considered running for a moment and then remembered that flesh covered androids had been commonly used in that time period, long before the global energy collapse in the previous century made them too extravagant to run. Most people in Terrence Strader's generation thought flesh droids were creatures of lore, just like dragons and pixies.

A true droid, Terrence said, poking it with a stick, That will make money on its own. Bonus.

He poked at the unit and wondered just what its function was and why it was sitting there in a guarding position, figuring it was a guard of some sort that had run out of power decades before. He was even more surprised that the machine had a feminine form, the dry heat mummifying the flesh outer covering of the droid.

I bet she was cute once, Terrence said, You aren't the prize though.

Terrence Strader continued walking around the facility, looking for any animals or equipment that was still live. The power had been cut over two centuries earlier, so nothing looked live and it had been sealed so tight that no animal, not even an insect, had penetrated the concrete barrier.

It wasn't long before he heard a strange humming sound coming from a staircase heading down, something looking like bomb shelter. It was an odd thing to find in a facility that was already under a pile of concrete, but it was even odder to find that it was locked up tighter than the rest of the facility.

Terrence checked out the lock on the door, a large one that was old but still strong. He pulled a portable plasma torch out of his pocket and cut through the aged metal. It took him longer than he wanted and the flickering light scared his crew up above, prompting them to call out to him.

You ok, Terry? someone shouted.

Fine! Terrence shouted and then mumbled, Better than that if this is what I think it is…

He finally broke the lock and made quick work of the electronic lock that backed it up. He was mildly surprised that it was still going after all these years, but that surprise was countered by complete and utter shock at what he saw when he went down the sixteen steps into the facility with walls thick enough to contain a nuclear weapon.

My God, Terrence said, The stories were true…

He pulled out his subnet phone and hit the button for his home base as he walked around the room, circling two dimly lit coffin shaped units, both still powered by a mini-reactor. Each unit had a window at the top and showed the still breathing bodies, submerged in an ever flowing and ever renewing source of liquid nitrogen.

You will not believe what I found… Terrence said as he looked at them, The stories are true.

Chapter 2 – Baltimore Remordis

Baltimore Remordis wheeled himself over to the computer table and did his normal morning run of the news wires. He ran his fingers through what was left of his hair and growled at the usual set of whining lunatics who ran what was left of the government.

Pain in the ass, Baltimore grumbled, I swear, listening to them you would never have thought we won a war two years ago. Damned politicians never change.

Baltimore Remordis had reason not to like the politicians. It was a spy mission that went wrong that caused the injuries that had put him into the wheelchair. He was pretty well used to it after nearly a year in the chair, but it still did not make him happy to see.

He shut off the computer and wheeled over to his kitchen and fixed himself a healthy smoothie mix, something to keep what was left of his body in decent shape. It was also one of the reasons he used a manual wheelchair instead of a self propelled. He figured that he might as well be able to move reasonably quickly in his confinement.

He had just taken his first sips when the doorbell rang. Old habits die hard, so his first reaction was to reach for the gun he rigged into an easy to get to position in his chair. He rolled himself over to the door and checked the video screens.

Hmm, Baltimore said, Tony. What the hell are you doing here?

He put the gun underneath the blanket that he used to cover his legs and opened the door with his left hand. Tony Holder smiled and bowed to his old friend. He looked inside and wondered what security systems Baltimore had rigged up in his spare time.

Enjoying your retirement, Baltimore? Tony asked him, Or are you still up to your old tricks?

Of course I am, Baltimore grinned, What brings you here, Tony?

Social call? Tony said.

Not a chance in hell, Baltimore grunted, You and I have known each other for nearly thirty years. Neither one of us ever made a social call in all that time.

True, Tony chuckled, I have some information and I figured that I should probably show it to you before I go higher up the line.

What is it? Baltimore said, The Euros up to no good again?

This is one closer to home, Tony told him, tossing him a handheld, Turn it on, the file should be already loaded.

Baltimore did so and saw that this was a classified satellite feed from the American Union. He watched the feed and saw several people making their way through a desert. It wasn't until he hit the button for the location finder that it made any sense at all.

Nellis, Baltimore said, Place has been a desert hell for over a century now. Nothing has lived in there for long since the plasma factory blew over a century ago.

Yep, Tony agreed, I wouldn't have thought it to be anything more than a bunch of treasure seekers if not for the alert message in the computer you left over twenty years ago.

I remember, Baltimore nodded, My family has been linked to that place since my ancestor Adam Strader worked there at the turn of the millennium. If there's anything left of those projects it is better left buried.

You won't like who is actually running the project then, Tony said, I had the horizon sats take some new images of the work crew and their leaders. I got a nice little surprise when I saw this face. I'm sure you'll recognize him too.

Terry Strader, Baltimore said, not surprised at all, I told him not to go searching for the old projects.

FOI requests have him getting out some of your ancestor's journals, Tony said, Seems Sam and Cliff Remordis both hit the 200 year mark.

Great, Baltimore said as he looked at the feed, Has he broken any laws yet?

Not that anyone alive cares about, Tony said, The union is taking a watch only stand. I figured you would want to know.

Let me know if anything out of the ordinary happens, Baltimore told him, He may just be searching for the past. Let's just hope it doesn't bite him in the ass.

I'll keep the sat trained on him, Tony promised, Anything to be found out there?

Your guess is as good as mine, Baltimore lied, Can I keep the data?

Sure, Tony agreed, The rebels don't even operate out of there. Too easy to detect via the new Horizon Satellites. They prefer the jungle areas in Central America now.

Whatever Terry IV is up to, Baltimore grunted, I doubt it has anything to do with the rebel groups.

Why did you put in that request anyway? Tony asked, That's been in the system for way longer than normal.

Family history, Baltimore told him, My father and Terry III sat me down when I was a rookie agent and told me a bit of family history and asked me to keep an eye on events in Nellis. I guess both of them got the same thing from the previous generation. Seems to be tradition.

Every family has its quirks, Tony chuckled, My family has a twentieth century lava lamp that has been passed down for nearly three hundred years now.

I think I'll take my family tradition, Baltimore chuckled, Granted it may be ending unless Terry IV settles down. There are only three of us left now that Eric Jr and Sakura are gone.

What happened? Tony said, This must be recent.

Car accident, Baltimore said, Hit and run driver ran into them outside Taos back in March. Probably a drunk, but they haven't found the bastard yet.

How did Catherine take it? Tony wondered, She stay in school?

Just about to finish, Baltimore said, I got it worked out so that she could finish the classes she left incomplete during the first summer session. She should have her degree soon. Last I heard she's working on her last paper.

Good, Tony nodded, Your brother may have been a flake, but he and Sakura have a good kid.

Don't try to recruit her, Baltimore said, She'll spit in your eye. Her father poisoned her against government service.

Nah, Tony said, We've had enough of your family. You were bad enough.

True, Baltimore laughed, Maybe Terry IV will get his shit together.

I'm due at the white house in an hour, Tony said, I get the fun briefing job of the vice-president.

Fun, Baltimore grinned, Be careful he doesn't drool on the handheld.

I'll be back if Terry does something dumb, Tony said as he stood up, Enjoy your retirement, Baltimore.

Right, Baltimore scowled as Tony left, They could have kept me to do that.

Baltimore Remordis had an idea about what Terry had found, but he took a few minutes to go through the data he'd transferred to his own computer. He shook his head and browsed through some of the journals, but lost interest quickly. He went to his safe and pulled out an aged packet that his father had given him when he was a young agent.

He looked at the packet again and memories came back. Baltimore was a late life child for Eric Remordis, but a lucky one for him. Baltimore's brother, Eric Junior, who was ten years older, showed no interest at all in the conspiratorial life that Baltimore took to like a fish in water.

He put the packet aside and went back to the computer, looking through the data and wondering if he'd finally need to use the contents of the packet. Unfortunately, he knew Terrence Strader IV too well. It was why Terry III had never trusted his own son and instead joined with his cousin Eric in putting the packet with him. He just read as he waited for the other shoe to fall.

Chapter 3 – Catherine Remordis

Catherine Remordis looked at the screen of her computer and found herself completely at a loss for words. She had been working on this paper for nearly three months and it was still a complete load of garbage. The sad part for her was that she really did not care.

She finally stood up and pushed her sandy blonde hair back, retying her pony tail so that it wouldn't fall into her face anymore. She looked at herself in the mirror and just shook her head. Because of the multiethnic mix that was her background, she pretty well defined the term exotic.

Her mother was half-Chinese, yet her father was a purebred mongrel, part Caucasian, part Mexican and several parts unidentified. This led her to have a petite frame inherited from her mother, along with the vaguely Asian eye, which was oddly combined with naturally blonde hair and a bit of Latin coloring that gave her a perpetual tan.

This had not made things easy on her, though. She often caught people's eyes, but she sometimes had a hard time getting them to take her seriously. Granted, she had been having a lot of trouble taking herself seriously as of late. Even before the crash that had killed her parents she had second thoughts about the engineering degree that she was finishing.

This is crap, Catherine grumbled, I don't even like doing this.

She went over to the kitchen area of the school-owned efficiency apartment she'd been living in since she was a sophomore and pulled out one of the sugary cola drinks that she lived on. Her friends, what few of them still remained, were all jealous that she could eat or drink whatever she wanted and she'd never show it.

She took her drink and sat down next to her dorm room's only real window. She looked down at the bustling street some twelve stories below. She wondered why she was going the way she was, barely scraping through classes she no longer cared about.

Her parents had cared and pushed her towards a technical career, wanting to keep her away from the family business her uncle Baltimore had joined and that her grandfather had gotten killed in. She never really thought about joining that field, but she didn't want to join the one she was finishing up her degree in either.

She went over to the shelf and pulled out the family photo album, one of the things that she took from her parents' house before her uncle Baltimore had liquidated her parents' assets to give her the means to finish school.

She flipped through the pictures of happier times, mostly just her, her mother and father and occasionally Uncle Baltimore. There were a few of her second cousin Terry as well, someone she'd only seen a few times and had pretty well disappeared from her life.

Catherine loved her parents but couldn't force herself to be happy for the direction that they'd pushed her. She still missed them, but in a way she was glad that they weren't going to see her indecision. She just wished she had an idea on what to do with it.

Oh to hell with it, Catherine said and finished off her drink, tossing it into the trash can in the corner, I just have to get my degree in it. I don't have to work in it. Two more weeks.

She went back to her computer and continued on her paper, one that was not going to be anything more than mediocre. She was fine with that, however, as mediocrity meant that she'd at least pass. She no longer cared by how much. The rest would take care of itself later.

Chapter 4 – The Bodies

Terry Strader set up the camera in the darkened room. He wanted a permanent record of everything that transpired as he worked in that room. He didn't dare to have the cooling units moved as he didn't know whether they had deteriorated in the preceding two hundred years since they had been placed.

This is amazing, Terry said as he looked over, You could swear that those two were still breathing.

If they are they aren't human, Alain Monteux said as he checked out the equipment and the checklists, That's pure liquid nitrogen in there. A human would have frozen solid by now, probably would have broken apart from the sheer duration of cold.

Not these two, Terry said, I think we found the secret that the Strader/Remordis clan has been covering up for over two centuries.

There has to be a reason they covered this up, Alain suggested, Maybe we should leave well enough alone.

'We've come too far for that, Alain, Terry said, Especially if the Horizon Satellites pick us up out here. If the American Union figures out that we've found something they will come chase us out of here."

What do you expect to find? Alain wondered, Really?

Life, the universe, Terry said whimsically, Everything?

Or just how to reverse death, Alain said, Right?

I'll settle for preventing it, personally, Terry told him, I'm not that picky.

Right, Alain nodded, Fine. I'm going to take a look at the android. If its memory is still in working order it may be able to give us a firsthand account of what happened here.

Good idea, Terry agreed, I want to check out these bodies some more. Let me finish with the camera.

Take your time, Alain agreed, We should have some, after all.

Terrence Strader played around with his camera and examined the devices more carefully. He was amazed that they were still powered after all these years. Whoever had created the power source had planned carefully, as every bit of power was going to keeping those pods cold.

Alain went to the abandoned droid. He could tell that it had once been in the shape of a woman and that it had been a very advanced model. He picked her up and laid her out on a table to see whether there was any circuitry he recognized. Of course, since it was technology that had been obsolete since long before he was born he didn't recognize any of it.

So instead of mucking around with a piece of technology he didn't recognize he instead explored around the chamber, finding a room that had equipment that looked as though it matched the droid. He went and picked up the droid unit, taking her to the table that matched her size and hooked the ancient equipment up to her.

Looks like a perfect fit, Alain said, Too bad I don't have any power.

Alain knew that the pods that Terry had found were powered, so he began to look for the power source to see whether there was anything he could do with this droid. He knew that if it was operational he could use it as menial labor to get some of this stuff boxed up. Not to mention an operational droid this old would bring big bucks on the grey market.

Terrence Strader went over to the tanks and touched the glass of the outside, bringing his finger back because it was so cold. He was really beyond his depth with this. He was expecting some equipment and maybe some books.

He pulled a chair out of the pile and sat down in it for a few minutes. He pulled out his handheld and started to read Cliff Remordis' journal again. The last entry about his time at Area 51 was the most useful for him.

21 July 2035

My father is listening to Glen Strader again. Damn it, you’d think that a man who spent twenty years as a cop would have more backbone than that. Mason Stone is thousands of miles away and my dad and Strader are scared shitless of him. They’re trying to get MacManus to shut down the research program on the subjects. I wash my hands of the whole thing. Allie and I are going to leave the kids with dad and head off for an exploration trip into Laos.

This now made more sense to Terry. He now knew he had the test subjects that Cliff had been talking about. He didn’t know how they ended up here like this, but he did have more of an inkling what the research was. He pressed a few buttons and came to a much later journal entry from Sam Remordis.

30 October 2046

I swear, if Cliff doesn’t watch it he’s going to get himself killed. He’s left me with the kids again. I swear, I’m getting too old to take care of children like this. Glen and Kristen have been taking care of them, but this is a major hardship on them as well. Especially with Glen about to take my place running what is left of this facility. Luckily the kids get along well, especially the older ones. I just hope Glen has a plan for MacManus’s folly. That’s another thing that Cliff will have to answer for someday, but thankfully not on my watch. I’ll let Glen deal with that stupidity. I’m too close to Cliff, so I don’t want to know what he plans to do with the subjects. Glen will deal with it.

That’s why I don’t have more info, Terry mumbled, Glen Strader must have set this up after Sam Remordis retired. That puts this somewhere around two hundred years old.

You find anything yet, Terry? Alain asked him as he walked in, Any of this making sense?

I’m missing some pieces of the puzzle, Terry grumbled, I had enough to find the place, but this was set up by the one ancestor of that generation that I don’t have the journal for.

So where does that leave us? Alain wondered.

We have them, Terry said, And there’s probably more info in this place. What have you found out about the droid?

Advanced for her time, Alain told him, Looks like she was left here to protect the place, but her power supply drained years ago.

Her? Terry asked, It’s a droid.

She was a flesh covered droid, Alain said, Complete with flesh generator. The type that’s been illegal since the cybernetic ethics law of 2045. I’d say she’s been in here since the place was closed up.

Think you can start it up again? Terry wondered, It probably knows more about this than anyone.

I don’t know if I can control her, Alain said honestly, No one has dealt with a device like this in almost a hundred and fifty years.

Let’s see what we can find, Terry suggested, The droid is likely safer than the bodies. Do we have anyone who knows that technology?

Mary Vershaun, Alain told him, She’s been studying 21st century cybernetics for years. She’d love to take a crack at it. She’s up front studying the parts room.

Bring her back, Terry said, Keep her out of the body chamber. I don’t want anyone seeing that but us for now.

Right, Alain nodded, Have you figured out anything about the power yet?

I’m still trying to figure out where it’s coming from, Terry admitted, No sign of a generator. Most nuclear fuels would have fizzled out by now. I can’t even find the wires.

I’ll have Mary look at the droid, Alain told him, They have an energy tracker. It should be able to trace it.

I’ll go grab it, Terry nodded, See what you can do.

Chapter 5 – The Awakening

Alain and Mary worked on the droid, figuring out the connections with the aid of several old manuals while Terry worked on the power problem. None of them wanted to make this public yet, so Terry used the power tracking device on his own.

It didn't take long for the device to find where the power was coming from for the pods. Terry tried to open up the door to where the power was coming from, but it had jammed shut, most likely resulting from the slow shifting of the earth.

Terry kicked it a few times, and finally the door gave and creaked open. A few more pushes and the power supply was revealed, shooting a blast of heat at Terry. A geothermal system had been put in that had continued operating long after everything else had shut down. Terry was impressed that the technology from that far back was still working.

So that's how, Terry said, Impressive. That makes a bit of difference.

He looked around the power room and found several books on the facility. Evidently, it had been designed to protect against a nuclear attack. The equipment was simple and physical, over-engineered to last for a long time.

He touched a status panel and a monitor actually turned on. The last activity had been in the year 2114 when it had been switched from an active circuit set to a pod-only circuit support. Evidently, the droid out there had switched it over before she ran out of power.

Terry decided to tempt fate and flipped on the full blown power for the facility. Everyone inside jumped into the air as the lights began to turn on and Alain actually banged his head on a cabinet door as the power began whirling in one of the machines.

Jesus! Alain yelled, What the hell was that!

Terry left the body room and walked into the droid room, grinning at the pained expressions on Alain and Mary's faces. He sat down, looked at the droid and grinned.

I figured out how to turn the power on, Terry grinned, Think you can get this bitch working again?

We've gotten her hooked up to the unit, Alain said, Her innards are good, though I don't know whether the battery unit is going to hold after all this time.

Wake her up so we can get some information, Terry said, I don't care about anything but the information.

It will be a while, Mary said, This equipment is so old it isn't funny.

We may not have time, boss, a young man said when he came in, "Sorry for interrupting, but you told us to come in if anything