PANTHEON: Escape

By D K Gaston

Michael Quaid is not your average teenager—he has spent his entire life in captivity under the scrutiny of the PANTHEON Foundation. Now he has escaped into a world he doesn't know or understand. To survive he must depend on the help of a stranger and use his special abilities to fend off those trying to capture him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D K Gaston
• Release date: Jun 12, 2013

Book preview

Chapter One

Fifteen years ago

The electrical storm did little to divert the tension in the emergency room. Tonight, the highly guarded, highly secret facility would be the birthplace of a miracle--one not born of religious origins, but of pure science. Six months prior, Dr. Edward Quaid had been confident of the success of the medical procedure so he’d enlisted his wife, Amber, to be an active participant of the program. Although Amber was initially reluctant to endanger their unborn child, being a geneticist herself, she assisted her husband in much of the work and knew his theories were sound. But more than that, she trusted him completely and agreed to let him experiment on her.

At three in the morning, Amber cried out to her husband for help. When he could not, she cursed him for jeopardizing their child’s life and causing her so much pain. Edward stood next to her along with a medical team helping to hold her trembling body down on the bed. Amber struggled desperately to break free of her restrainers and her pain. Edward kept telling her that she was going to be all right. She knew he was lying. Amber could always tell when he was lying, but more than that, being a doctor herself, she knew the threshold of pain a human body could endure.

Edward sobbed. Why did I do this to you? Why?

They both knew why. However, the validity of the answer was no longer relevant. Dr. Edward Quaid wanted to take humankind to the next evolutionary stage by tapping into the unexplored portion of the brain. His intentions were to increase human intelligence. Every examination performed on Amber indicated that she was in perfect health. Until a month ago when her bleeding began, everything had been on target.

While their unborn son grew within Amber’s womb, his brain activity increased substantially over the weeks. This somehow resulted in internal hemorrhaging within her body as if the child’s mental energies were leaking out and putting a strain on her organs. One day she would have a nosebleed, on another it would be blood flowing from her ears. At first, Amber kept this information from her husband, fearing that he might suggest inducing birth early. As time passed, it was clear she could no longer hide the truth from him.

Edward joined in his wife’s profanities, cursing himself. His arrogance would cost him the life of his wife and their child. Is this the price for playing God? he yelled, shaking his fist at the ceiling.

A nursed shouted, I can see the head!

Amber’s eyes widened and hope drove away some of the pain. She never believed in a God, never prayed before. But tonight, she needed Him. She needed a miracle that defied the logic of science. For the first time in her life, she prayed, not for her own life but for her baby boy.

For twenty minutes, she struggled to do this last thing before her body gave out. Edward encouraged her the entire time.

Push, honey, push. Our boy is almost here. Keep pushing. His voice was filled with joy as well as pain.

Finally, Amber could push no longer. She went limp. Her head, heavy with exhaustion, tumbled back onto the pillow.

Amber’s child was out of her body, yet he made no sounds. Her agonized gaze went to her child’s still body. As her eyes flashed toward her husband’s, they burned with rage. He had murdered their boy with his experimenting, and she’d let him talk her into it.

A moment later, a baby’s cries filled the operating room. Her expression softened. Amber’s eyes searched the room for her son, spotting him in the arms of a nurse. Her prayers had been answered, their son lived.

She no longer struggled for escape. The medical team released their hold on her frail body. She reached weakly toward Edward. He gently grasped her outstretched hand and put it to his cheek. I forgive you, she whispered and with those final words of absolution, Amber was gone.

Edward felt the warmth fading from her hand. Her fight was over. A scream of intense sorrow roared from his throat. Earlier, he had heard his wife’s prayers as she’d struggled to give birth and for a short time he’d hoped he was wrong about His existence—hoped that Amber was in a better place. Edward called out to be punished for his arrogance.

Startled by his father’s outbursts, his son stopped crying.

Edward looked at the newborn and reached out for him. A nurse handed over the bundled infant. He cradled his son next to his chest. When the boy opened his small eyes, Edward realized that color had already formed in them. The boy’s eyes matched his mother’s. He turned the baby upright and pointed him toward his mother.

That’s your mother… She’s gone because of me, he told his son. Edward pulled the baby to his chest, fell to his knees and cried again.

Nurse Caroline Price made her way to the once powerful man. She knelt beside him, and placed her arm over his shoulders. She drew him in close.

Edward did not resist.

Another nurse approached, reached out and asked for the baby.

He brushed her hands aside. Nurse Price whispered into his ear. His grip loosened, and he finally relented, handing his son over to the waiting nurse.

Price stood, slowly stroking her soft hand across Edward’s wet face, wiping away his tears. She held out a hand for him. Eddy, will you please come with me? she asked.

Rising to his full height, he took the offered hand and allowed her to direct him out of the emergency room. Before exiting, Dr. Edward Quaid took a final glance at his wife’s lifeless body. Carol, what about the others?

Nurse Caroline Price lowered her head forlornly and said nothing. Her silence spoke volumes.

The others’ fates were the same as Amber’s, yet more blood stained his hands.

Chapter Two

Michael Quaid’s legs were suspended over the edge of the small bed. He held them in place in the air as though a foot pedestal lay underneath. His personal best record for doing this had been two minutes, thirty-eight seconds. Today, he was determined to beat it. When Michael’s legs began to buckle he looked up at the clock mounted over the door. He clenched his teeth and made his muscles taut. He’d reached two minutes, twenty-six seconds.

Sensing the clock had become a distraction, he turned away searching for something else in his room to take his mind off the strain on his muscles. The only items in the room outside of his bed were a large gray desk and a black leather chair with four wheels that squeaked whenever he sat in it. The sound drove Michael absolutely crazy. He complained often about it to Dr. Roberts. Her response would be that she would look for another chair. She had been telling him this for the past four months.

With nothing to focus on, Michael’s eyes returned to the clock. The minute hand was at two minutes, thirty seconds and counting. His entire body shook now and his legs were gradually slipping downward. Michael feared he wouldn’t make it to thirty-six seconds. His attention was taken away from the clock when sweat dripped from his forehead into his eyes, distorting his vision. Instead of two legs suspended in air, he now saw four blurry ones.

No longer able to endure the strain, Michael’s legs dropped like a sack of potatoes. Quickly wiping the sweat from one eye, he glanced at the time: two minutes, thirty-six seconds on the dot. Feeling defeated, he let himself fall backwards on the bed. His head caught the waiting pillow he had previously positioned.

I am so bored, he called out.

For the past several months, ever since Dr. Roberts had him transferred to the Kentucky facility, boredom had become Michael’s greatest enemy. At least at the previous location he had a computer to occupy him. He did not have internet access, but it had a couple of games on the PC, his favorite being, solitaire. He saw the irony behind it, his being alone and all.

In his fifteen years of life, everyday, everything was the same; he would receive his lessons from his instructors, be given a two hour period for exercise in the gym, have a psychological assessment by Dr. Roberts or someone on her staff and have his gift tested.

Gift.

The word everyone liked to use when they talked to him about his talents. When he first began exhibiting his abilities at the age of five, he thought nothing of it. For Michael, it was as natural as breathing air. When he was older, he realized how everyone had been treating him differently because of it. The staff started calling him, Dreamer. They were amazed at what Michael could do, but he could sense that underneath their admiration hid an undeniable fear of him.

His gift was the ability to make any image come to life; be it a cartoon stick figure drawn on a piece of paper or something he watched on television. For ten years, Michael’s so called gift had kept him confined in different facilities across the country like a common criminal.

Dr. Roberts had repeatedly told him it was for his own protection. She’d warned him there were individuals or countries that would kidnap him and use his abilities as a tool of destruction. For years Michael accepted her explanation, but now he doubted Dr. Robert’s true intentions for keeping him hidden away.

He sat up and took another look at his all but bare quarters. There were no pictures hanging on the wall, no windows to see out of, no material to read, and the room had been void of pens and paper to doodle with outside of his daily lessons. Dr. Roberts felt his room should be this way to eliminate any possibility of his powers inadvertently manifesting one of his dream-life creations.

Dream-life, the word Dr. Roberts used to describe what Michael’s mind constructed. She even went so far as to start giving Michael drugs to induce unconsciousness rather than sleep in order to keep him from dreaming.

The real reason behind his empty room, Michael suspected, was that she was aware of his growing boredom. Dr. Roberts feared he would use his abilities to try to escape the facility. His attitude in their recent sessions together revealed as much. However, rather than try to ease the dullness of his existence, Dr. Roberts instead cut more and more of his recreational activities.

But Michael had kept a few secrets from the doctor. Two months ago when he turned fifteen, he had changed. He no longer needed to look at an image to create a dream-life. All he needed to do was visualize something in his head and it became real. More than a month ago, he’d also stopped taking the medications used to suppress his dreams during sleep. He stuck the pills under his tongue and later spat them down the drain. His last and most important secret, he’d been seriously considering escape.

The only thing stopping him had been fear of the unknown. He’d never been on his own and knew nothing of the outside world beyond the walls of the facility. He shied away at the thought of just how much Dr. Roberts had been a part of his life. She was more of a parent to him than even his mother who only visited once or twice a month.