The Artifact

By Patrick Astre

Brookhaven National Laboratory sprawls in the serene natural surroundings of Eastern Long Island, New York. Deep within a heavily guarded compound on the grounds of the Laboratory, a forbidding compound houses the nation's most protected secret: An active alien Artifact. Estimated at several millions of years of age, impervious to all efforts of modern science to penetrate its secrets, the Artifact taunts researchers with burst of mysterious radiation that may be efforts at communication. Now the two top researchers have conducted unauthorized experiments using new technology, and something has awakened inside, something as old as time, wielding incalculable power and an agenda that would spell doom for humanity. As horrifying mutations and destruction descends on Long Island, it is only a mere portend of the true horror yet to come. While America's military struggles against an impossible power, only a 12-year-old crippled computer hacker and an aging police detective hold the key to the Artifact. But first they must overcome disbelieving authorities in a desperate race against time, with the very survival of humanity in the balance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Salvo Press
• Release date: Jul 1, 2005
• ISBN: 9781627934381

Book preview

PROLOGUE

The intruder burst into the solar system from unimaginable reaches of space, bending the fabric of time as it jumped from hyperspace. It appeared at the edges of the chosen star system, a minor sun still in its infancy, bearing just nine planets, and existing on the edge of a great galaxy.

The jump drained most of the intruder’s energy, but still enough power remained to reach a suitable target. Once there, it would need to recharge in order to accomplish its mission. The directive comprised everything in the intruder’s existence and the mission goals brooked no failure. The directive comprised its only reason for living, and it would carry out that mission, no matter what.

It expanded more energy with beams reaching the core of the solar system, probing each of the nine planets, finding only one suitable; the third one from the sun.

It accelerated to near light speed, devouring most of its precious remaining energy until the gravitational pull of the planet took over, and its sensors felt the friction of the atmosphere. It trailed a fiery tail as it passed through the air, burning off the space debris coating its surface. Sonic booms resounded, washing to the ground below, and now the very air burned from the heat of its entry. Its surface shell had been made indestructible, capable of plunging into the heart of a star without damage, but a star was not its target. The imperative of the mission demanded Earth.

It impacted into what would someday become the Negev Desert, blasting a crater several miles deep. Great spires of fiery material bloomed hundreds of miles into the atmosphere, and the energy of the crash set off earthquakes and volcanic actions, burying it deep within the planet. It would be millions of years before it saw the surface again.

But time had no meaning for the intruder. Depleted of energy, it entered a dormant state where it could only sense, observe and record. It kept a sufficient store of energy so when the moment arrived; it could fulfill its mission. The planet changed, matured and settled. Life appeared, mutated and disappeared. From deep within its rocky prison, it sensed the huge reptilian creatures that evolved, populating the planet in countless numbers. It sensed the asteroid crashing into what would become the Gulf of Mexico. The resulting cataclysm wiped out the huge reptiles. It took million of years for the planet to settle again as mountains rose and fell, oceans came and went, and continents formed and re-formed.

It continued to observe with ultimate patience as myriad life forms appeared, and one in particular evolved, standing upright, and evolving opposing thumbs that allowed them to use tools. After thousands of years, the new life forms created sophisticated technologies that they used in their conflicts, and for a brief half-century or so, it seemed the new life forms might destroy themselves with the power of their weapons. But now it knew that it’s time would soon come, because within those weapons and technology, lay the power to complete its mission.

Over time, tectonic action had driven it from deep within the earth, bringing it to the surface within a cave that arose at the base of a mountain. Finally it happened. During one of their conflicts, a group of humans took shelter inside the cave and discovered it. They brought more humans and extricated it from the rock, placed it inside a vehicle, and transported it to one of their research facilities.

It had no emotions, didn’t know joy, relief or happiness, but it did know one thing-the time to fulfill the imperative of its mission, had arrived.

CHAPTER 1

DAY ONE

BELLPORT, LONG ISLAND, NEAR BROOKHAVEN NATIONAL LABORATORY

The darkness held no secrets for Little Willy as he walked toward the small decrepit house. Only a couple of street lamps were lit, their cone of lights dim and yellow, casting jaundiced beams barely lighting a few square feet. The Long Island Power Authority did not have this neighborhood on its priority list. Too many unpaid electric bills, too many squatters, drug dealers, and too many attacks on repairmen. In this area, shadows overruled the light both physically and in spirit. He could sense the people living in the shuttered houses. No ordinary citizen would be out in this neighborhood after dark. He passed by a parked car with four men dimly seen through the open windows. Rhythmic base notes punctuated a harsh rap song about murder in the hood. Pungent smells of marijuana drifted out as one man said something and the others laughed.

Little Willy ignored them. Once, before the changes, he might have feared them. He turned toward the house and walked up the stained dusty concrete walk. He stood for a moment at the entrance as if listening to distant instructions. He cocked his head to one side and his lips moved but no sound came. He brought his hands to either side of his head and held them around his ears. He felt pulses of energy coursing throughout his body. All his cells seemed on fire with the power growing since the treatments started. He felt his ability to control that power, fading fast. Alien songs pulsed through his mind, their origins unknown, and their muted suggestions frightened him as much as the physical changes that had taken place. Something grew inside him, something as alien as the mind of a praying mantis. Every hour that passed, he lost a little ground until he knew that a time would soon come when he would become a bystander in his own body, a spectator to whatever happened to him. That’s why he needed the drugs in his veins. Crack was the only thing with enough strength to keep those demons away.

He opened the frame of the screen door. The mesh had been ripped out long ago and never replaced, the twisted strands coated with rust like dried blood. He turned the knob on the wooden graffiti laden door, opened it and stepped inside.

A single bare bulb lit the hallway and washed out all color. The brightness did nothing to hide the dinginess. Thumb-size glass vials cracked under his feet as he walked toward the first room. A man sat on a chair opposite the door. When he saw him approaching, he stood up. Unfurled would be more like it, as the man rose to well over six feet. A pot belly stretched his black sleeveless tee shirt without diluting the murderous hardness exuding from the man. Arms the size of tree trunks held a Mac-10 machine pistol. Small eyes stared white from craters in a face like black compressed raisins.

Shit, you look bad even for a junkie. Best go inside. They’s waitin’ on you, said the man, pointing to the open door with the short muzzle of the Mac-10.

As Little Willy stepped inside, he felt his hands shaking and he realized it was not like the shakes he used to get all the time. This power throbbed through his body, anxious to get out like electricity in a fallen high-tension wire.

Three men waited for him in the room. The first man wore a pinstriped expensive suit with leather overcoat incongruous in the warm room until it fell away revealing the pistol grip shotgun it concealed. The second man didn’t bother to hide the nine-millimeter Glock automatic. The handle protruded from his waistband like a bee’s stinger. Both men were in their mid twenties and carried the look of people raised in desperate environments who never expected to reach old age. He knew them, knew that both had killed before their fifteenth birthday. The third man in the room looked as out of place as a snake in a library. It was Little Willy’s own brother. The man’s hands fidgeted and he toyed with a pen stuck in his breast pocket. He wore a tan shirt and checkered sport jacket with elbow patches. Thick glasses with old-fashioned black frames gave him the look of an academic. In fact, he was a scientist.

Well Bro, said the man in the leather coat, looks like we got us a little, how you say? Dilemma.

For heaven’s sake Chester, said the academic, you know I’m good for the rest. Give us the cocaine now and…

Don’t work that way Bro. This ain’t school or your lab. The rules here are simple. There’s only two. First you ain’t got the money, you don’t get the product. Second, you fuck with us and we kill yo ass. Like I said, simple. Except now, you fuckin’ with us.

No, replied the academic, eyes twitching under the thick glasses, no, we’ll pay you. I know where to get the money. Just give us time. With the drugs he’ll be able to…

This time it was the other man’s partner who cut him off. Tall and thin with rangy muscles like burnt steel ropes imprinted with prison tattoos, he reeked of violence.

Look at him man, he said, you take us for fools? Look at him. Mother fucker ain’t even getting out of his own way.

A part of Little Willy’s brain thought it seemed true. Not that he cared very much, but he looked the worst he had in his life. He felt the shaking in his hands increase as the power rode through him, howling in his mind and pulsing to every corner of his changing body with each heartbeat. He felt what little control he had slip away like blowing dust.

They were wrong. When he moved, it was faster, and with more power then any of them could ever have imagined.

CHAPTER 2

DAY TWO, MORNING

PRESIDENTS STREET, BELLPORT, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

In Francis Gullota’s opinion, the only thing worse than getting up with a raging Jack Daniels hangover was examining mutilated bodies before your second cup of coffee. This morning he was doing both.

He turned off exit 68 of the Long Island Expressway taking Horse Block Road to Bellport. It was early morning and a few exits further west, the Expressway would be jammed with commuter traffic heading toward Manhattan.

He popped another aspirin and took a swig of bottled of water. His nerves jangled, and he lit one of the small, plastic tipped cigars from a pack lying on the passenger seat of the county car. As Suffolk County’s detective sergeant of the homicide division, Francis rated the car. Plain-Jane Crown Vic, brown and stripped down. Every street person would recognize it in a New York second. That’s why he mostly used his own car during investigations, unless he didn’t mind people knowing who he was, like this morning.

Francis had gotten the call before dawn. It was so serious the county was risking overtime by getting him into the case this early. In fact, Suffolk County’s first quadruple murder rated the overtime. But that’s not the main reason it got so much attention. It had more to do with the manner of the killings and one particular victim.

Francis turned off Horseblock Road into Roland Street then made the first left into Presidents Street. That marked an eight block stretch the sixth precinct cops called The War Zone and newspapers called Long Island’s worst slum.

The sun rose and weak light glinted off the roofs as Francis parked the car down the block. The street in front of the house had been blocked by two patrol cars and another obvious detective unit. On the other side of the street they had parked a crime scene tech van. Yellow tape had been strung around the house, and two uniformed cops stood around chewing the fat and looking bored. There wasn’t much for them to do at this point. Early morning streets were deserted areas in neighborhoods like this and a couple of squad cars in front of a house didn’t attract all that much attention.

He clipped the badge on its chain and placed it around his neck while ducking under the yellow tape strung around a dirt patch that used to be a lawn. He stood tall but not overly so, topping out at exactly six feet. His face was pleasant with perhaps more wrinkles than there should have been for his fifty five years. The lines ran like canyons toward eyes bordering between gray and green. He wore jeans and a dark sport shirt over a light windbreaker covering an old Army .45 in a rear holster. Some habits die hard, some don’t die at all.

Francis took a pull from the cigar like an experienced smoker and released a dark puff without inhaling it. He moved like a man who knew exactly where he was going as he nodded to the two uniforms and walked up to the house. Detective Donny Callahan stood just outside the doorway, leaning on a frame that looked like it would collapse in a breeze. He grinned and cracked his gum with an annoying clacking noise.

Hey Francis. What took you so long?

Stopped at the blood bank to get my eyes drained, he replied, You know I’m supposed to be off today. What’s in there that Suffolk’s finest investigative team can’t figure out?

Donny leaned to the side and spat out his gum. When he raised his head the grin was gone.

Some weird shit boss. It’s got me spooked, said Donny.

Donny was in his late twenties with less fat on his body than an oak tree, an ex Marine Recon who worked out every day, and polished hisShorin-Ryu karate black belt four nights a week. When Donny was spooked, it got Francis’ attention.

Before we get to the strange stuff, said Donny, as he handed Francis a clear plastic evidence bag, Check this out. This guy didn’t belong in this place. He shouldn’t have been here, getting killed with these other three mutts. Shit’s going to hit the fan if this preliminary ID is correct.

Francis held the bag and looked at the contents, a Federal ID card on a chain. Blood splatters blended with the colorful Government seal like Nouveau Art. There was also a Mont Blanc pen, and another ID with the Atomic Energy Commission logo on its front. Francis recognized the face and name. It had made first and second pages of Newsday and channel twelve several times this year. If this proved correct, then Francis was holding the possession of the prominent Doctor Michael Overton, Deputy Director of the Combined Sciences Department at Brookhaven National Laboratory, privy to all the nation’s top scientific secrets.

Did you check with Brookhaven Lab? Somebody might have stolen this stuff from him. It might be someone else’s body in there.

Maybe, he replied, but we chased it down by phone. Nothing’s been reported. He didn’t work yesterday and didn’t show up this morning. He lives alone and there’s no answer at his house. He only has two relatives in the area, his mother and his brother. The mother hasn’t seen him in a week, and we don’t know where the brother is. We’ll be tracking him down.

C’mon, I’ll show you the spooky stuff, said Donny, as Francis followed him in the house.

The smells hits you first, Francis thought. One upon the other like a putrid wafer, you need a stainless-steel sink of a stomach not to be affected. The killings had occurred less then twelve hours ago, so it wasn’t the sweet cloying putrefaction like when you find a week old corpse. This was the smell of recently torn open bodies, dried blood and noxious fluids. The crime scene technicians had set up halogen lights that chased away any shadow and washed out the colors in stark white.

Francis had quit smoking years ago and unlike most ex-smokers, didn’t feel a craving when others smoked around him. The occasional cigar seemed to be enough. But in the first stage of these investigations, when you smell what you were never meant to smell, when the scenes of recent violent death invades your psyche, and imagination fires up the visions of someone’s last moments, that’s when you want something to burn and deaden your senses.

He popped a stick of peppermint gum. He hated the spicy flavor but the sharpness of it on his tongue allowed him to breathe through the mouth without tasting the foul air of the house.

The first body was at the end of the hallway against the far wall. Not so much against the wall as into the wall. The corpse looked like he had been fired out of a cannon, and smashed halfway into the sheetrock. Even cheap plaster had to have two by four studs holding it up. The back of the skull had been driven halfway into the wooden stud. The pressure bulged out the eyes, the mouth was wide open and a cockroach strolled on the lolling purple tongue. Blood and grayish brain matter created a round explosive pattern on the graffitied wall. A hole the size of a softball gaped at the sternum. Blood had made a sash around the midsection as capillary action had spread it out. A folding evidence tray sat waist high on telescoping legs. A Mac-10 lay on it along with wallet, keys and jewelry removed from the corpse. White chalk circles marked where the machine pistol had been found.

That hole in his chest, said Donny, it goes clear trough to his spinal cord. No sign of any powder burns. It looks like somebody rammed him with a pile driver, the kind of shit you’d only see in an industrial accident I guess. You wanna look?

No thanks Donny. I’ll read the Medical Examiner’s report. Got an ID yet? asked Francis.

Yeah, you know this mutt. You busted him twice. That’s Ty Logan.

From Chester the Molester’s crew?

The one and only.

No shit. There’s justice in the world after all.

Francis thought Chester Deagan and Ty Logan were the kind of people that made vigilante action sound good. Chester was slicker then a greased eel in addition to being a total psychopath. He earned his nickname by supplying underage boys to a particularly scummy section of society. Rapidly graduating to the more lucrative world of wholesale crack, he once beat a woman so hard he blinded her. Ty Logan, his main enforcer, was another psychopath, and suspect in half a dozen murders. They found each other and now something had found them.

The two detectives stepped into the living room which was a misnomer in this case. Lillian Donovan examined a cast iron lamppost planted in the center of the room.

Hey Lil, said Francis, furniture shopping?

She was short, built like an oak casket and looked equally strong. Her black face shone like Kentucky coal. Her eyes, surprisingly soft in such a hard looking body, brimmed with intelligence. She smiled when she saw him and it was like turning on a spotlight in a closet.

S’up pop, she replied.

She waved him over with a slight hand motion. As Francis approached, he saw how the lamppost she examined had been fixed. Someone drove it through the chest of a tall black man. Only now, he wasn’t black anymore, just that particular sickly gray look that all corpses get after a few hours. Oh yea, death, the great equalizer, Francis thought. He looked at the spot on the lamppost Lillian had been examining then knelt down by the body. Another bloody starburst explosion from the cavity. Definitely ruined what looked like a thousand dollar suit. He had been skewered like a collector would pin a butterfly in a case. The corpse’s hands gripped the thick shaft protruding from his chest as if he tried at the last minute to pull it out. Not a likely effort. An iron shaft five inches in diameter ramming into the chest with enough force to penetrate through the breast bone, the spinal column and all the organs in between, doesn’t leave much wiggle room. The eyes were open wide but there was no fear in them, just surprise. Francis didn’t need any research to ID him as Chester the Molester.

Three technicians worked quietly around the room. Two were digging bullets from holes that had been circled and photographed and would soon be studied for angle of entry. Another technician dusted for fingerprints around the third body crumpled by the far wall.

Francis stood up. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and grabbed the lamppost with two fingers. He pushed, and it gave slightly, but the base didn’t move at all. Lillian looked up and their eyes met.

That thing is all the way through him, she said, I went down in the basement and looked. This house is built like shit, but it has oak floors-cheap, knotty, low grade stuff, but still half-inch oak. You know what kind of power it takes to drive something as thick as this through a human body, and solid oak until it comes eight inches out the other side? You’d need a couple of steelworkers pounding on it with sledgehammers for an hour. And here, look at this.

She held her left arm low on the post and her right higher while keeping her hands a few inches from the post.

This is how that thing was held. Crime Scene got clear finger and palm prints. Look and tell me what you see, she said and nodded toward her hands.

The part where her hands pointed had been compressed, the cast iron crushed, leaving clear hand marks. It was like the post had been made of clay and someone had grabbed the soft material squeezing and kneading it with bare hands, leaving their impression.

A regiment of steel workers couldn’t do that. This is scary shit Francis. This guy must be Superman.

"And he ain’t fighting for truth, justice

Reviews for The Artifact

[snukes-1 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Possibly the most predictable book I've ever read. As my husband said (we listened to it on a car trip): this is the first book I've read where I actually know what the character is going to do and say as soon as they are introduced. Every character was a caricature, the plot was perfectly predictable, and the only question I have left is: did the "artifact-phone-home" light zap into deep space mean there's going to be a sequel? Yikes!

[crazybatcow · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Well... this book is hard to rate because it's like a B movie. If you like B movies, you'd probably think this story deserves a 4, and if you don't like B movies, you'd probably give it a 2.It's not science fiction as I'd normally think of science fiction - it's more like an alien invasion type thing (think Independence Day but very low budget). The "reality" of the book is current day, not future, so, if the "alien" was from another country instead of another planet, this would be military fiction, not science fiction.For example, the author describes, in detail, the type of ammunition used, the weight capacities of helicopters, the nature of nuclear fusion, etc... which is good if you like that stuff, but it's not really science fiction, more like science fact (and no I have no idea how accurate the info is because I don't really do much research into how many rounds a specific weapon can hold - so it may not even be science fact).Lots of stereotypes: genius boy in a wheelchair, cop with dysfunctional relationship, spinster librarian... you name it, the stereotype is in here.Given all that... the story is definitely finish-able and, while a bit predictable, it has a nice pace.