Black Sapphire: Ghost

By James Gluz

Ghost is the story of Buddy Noble and his sister, Tara Noble, who lost their parents in a terrorist attack. They are soon torn apart and, in finding themselves, realize that they have mutant genes and developed superpowers. The Black Sapphire Corporation will stop at nothing to control all the mutants while the Trillion Company will do whatever it takes to give mutants their freedom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 24, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796042399

James Gluz

James Gluz is 39 years old and new to the authoring world. he has traveled the world and worked in a variety of professions but found nothing as satisfying as writing. Born to Russian immigrants, James came from a strict background which didnt leave room for creativity. In his adult hood, James found his new found freedom he realized that writing is his passion.

Book preview

PART I

CHAPTER 1

Enter at Your Own Risk (July 15, 2039)

Mom, I got to go. There’s nothing worse than your incessant nagging in the heat of all this road rage and rush-hour traffic. Oh my god, my car just stalled. Love you, bye! The sound of the cell phone’s click was followed by the dramatic plunge it took from her hand into her purse. C’mon, c’mon, c’mon. She turned her key as she flooded the engine and got her 1962 Volkswagen Beetle up and barely running. Yeah! Woo-hoo!

Emily turned up the beat to her music. Her choice in music was a nuisance to most. It just added to the ever-growing collection of pollution in the spittoon known as the freeway. While the heat, soot, and twenty-one car pileups were enough to deal with, Emily’s noise pollution just added to the chaos, if not completely orchestrating the mess in its entirety. As the traffic crept forward, Emily’s internal conflict between the stresses of gridlock traffic and the curiosity of the tragedy lying ahead remained tireless. It was a conflict weakened only by the details observed by her keen eye. These details, like breadcrumbs, would lead her to a silent mystery that would forever change her life, just not today.

A police barricade directed the traffic off the freeway. Emily darted her head forward and squinted her eyes as she got a better view of the accident. The sight seemed all too normal. Six black and white highway patrol cars were lined up end to end, with two uniformed officers in traffic control gear. They gestured the cars off the road onto the nearest exit ramp. While the accident itself lay in the distant horizon, the police used the harlequin patterns of red and blue lights to mask the details of most highway catastrophes. At the last moment, Emily saw an overturned chemical transport truck, which was painted all black, with an emblem being its only distinct marker. The emblem’s outline was etched onto the matte black on either side of the vehicle. Emily only caught it out of the corner of her eye, yet she still committed the shape of a black gemstone into memory. Luckily, the police detour didn’t force Emily too far offtrack from her destination.

Emily was a star student in a medical school and had finished up her final year at the university. Emily was accepted into a residency at Foster’s Landing Asylum in the foothills of the mountains. More than half a century ago, Foster’s Landing Asylum was an isolated hospital designed to house terminally-ill patients. Tuberculosis patients were housed in its three main wards, while the fourth-floor ward was used to sneak in the mentally ill, criminally insane, and the most dangerous patients with horrific unknown illnesses.

During its time of operation, the hospital, horrifically known as the Black Mountain Terminal Care Hospital, was the end point for thousands of hopeless people’s lives. As the years went by, the hospital grew old, and it was repurposed as Foster’s Landing. It primarily became a mental health facility, which was a pretty way of saying insane asylum. Regardless, a combination of delusions, experimental treatments, and secrets were held captive there, seemingly forever.

Emily followed the flow of traffic exiting the off-ramp. This detour would run her through a small town. Originally, this town was known for intricately designed estates, mansions, and chateaus of the unbelievably wealthy. Most were built by the nouveau riche blessed by developments in computer technologies. Although the town was highly respected, it was not uncommon for star athletes, mobsters, and drug dealers to settle in during the times.

Thirty years ago, in 2009, the government was being torn apart by their domestic snooping of the general public. The funny part was that the companies who were participating in the public invasion of privacy and their backers were the ones who put all the leaders into office at the time. The good news was that an elite group was busy working on privately-funded secret projects underground that could one day change the world for the better.

The participating bright minds of the elite gathered together, pushing technology and knowledge to its limits. Overnight, though, the residents of the town just disappeared, vanishing into thin air. Nobody knows what really happened. People only know the rumors passed down from student to student at the local pub, which were as creative as a genius would allow. Some say that the elite were working on a machine that scattered them across time. Others say they were in a race to enlightenment, and their collective efforts led to a tear between the worlds of heaven and hell and were forced to exist in a sort of limbo of their own creation.

For Emily, the drive down the billionaire road was just a quiet, pleasant trip down a historical gallery in honor of the aristocracy of the archaic times—both a tribute and a warning to the pinnacle peaks of modern society. What made this ghost town so different was the immaculate preservation of the structures and landscapes. There was not a person in sight, yet the grass never grew tall and was always perfectly green. The white stucco walls and stained-glass windows were untouched, not even by grave robbers. The whole town was frozen in a moment of time, and no one dared test its authority. Emily’s ten minutes of wonder came to a close as she turned onto the dirt and gravel road that would lead her into the foothills preceding Foster’s Landing Asylum. The sound of the dirt and gravel being flung from the tires was something Emily was going to have to get used to. Emily turned off the music and dropped her driver’s side window to take in the crispness of the mountainside air.

The scent in the air was a melody of pines, juniper, and eucalyptus that could never be duplicated in any man-made setting. It was nature’s way of commanding peace and serenity. For the staff of Foster’s Landing, a quick cigarette outside the locked facility was the only five minutes of peace that they could achieve, and if you had the chance to watch one of them closely, you would see their momentary deep breaths taking advantage of nature’s perfume before lighting up their cigarettes. The asylum itself was a towering concrete structure of five stories in all and a demoralizing shade of gray. If it weren’t for the endless forest in the background, the asylum would blend anonymously with the overcast and fog. Untouched by the surrounding trees, the power of Foster’s Landing Asylum was not limitless, and nature would patiently wait. The trees stood watching and waiting for the day that the asylum would weaken. At that distant moment, they would have a chance to strike and pulverize the asylum’s concrete manifestation of all the things wrong in the world.

CHAPTER 2

All in a Day’s Work

There’s just something that’s not right about this place. She wrinkled her brow and gazed at the automatic doors that invited her into the lobby. Looking for something out of place, the itch of suspicion was left without a scratch, and the coinciding gut feeling faded away. She juggled her phone, keys, and clutch as she put the car in park. Getting out, she slammed the door of her car with a flick of the hip and stormed through the madness of incoming visitors, patients, EMTs, and hospital staff. In the madness evolving in the hospital lobby, Emily rammed full force into a man wearing a lab coat, and her prized possessions went flying in the air. Her purse broke wide open as it hit the ground, exposing her personal items for the world to see.

I’m sorry. Let me help you with that. The man knelt, exposing his navy blue suit. His collared white shirt was decorated by a yellow tie embossed with red pinstripes.

Hi. My name is Emily, Dr. Emily White. I’m looking for Dr. Allen Shields. She quickly scooped up her lip gloss, eyeliner, gum, and car keys, missing the only one item that could make the interaction any more awkward.

The man in the navy suit extended his fingers and picked the old expired condom off the lobby floor. He casually pointed it toward her as he looked her dead in the eye. Haven’t been to the local pub in a while, eh? She looked up and focused on the weathered condom wrapper, noticing the keycard dangling from the man’s lab coat.

As she read the name, he announced himself, Dr. Allen Shields. I’m guessing you are one of my new residents?

Yes, she replied.

Report to Head Nurse Bell. You will assist her in prepping the medication cart for the psych ward on the fourth floor. This will be a great way to meet the patients and for them to get comfortable having you around—that is, if you don’t end up being a screwup like most of the imbeciles they send my way.

Very well. Anything else, Dr. Shields?

Dr. Shields replied, "Are you still here, or am I suffering from a case of delusional tardive incompetancyitis?"

I don’t have a keycard.

Ah, grab a temporary from the front desk. As I see it, you won’t be here for very long. Regardless, welcome to Foster’s Landing Asylum.

Dr. Emily White found Dr. Shields to be quite rude and self-absorbed. Since being the boss meant keeping your staff focused and in line, who was she to question his authority? Without saying goodbye, she darted for the front desk, grabbed a temporary keycard, and made her way to the main elevator.

The doors of the elevator opened on the fourth floor. A low-profile teal carpet lined the lobby. The walls were white and had been painted over and over without ever stripping the old coats away with a paint stripper. The nurses’ station with giant steel doors on either side leading to the ward greeted Dr. Emily White. She approached, unbothered by the deafening silence caused by the solid concrete walls.

Could you please direct me to Nurse Bell? I’m supposed to help her prep the med carts, Dr. Emily White asked.

The nurse at the front desk directed her through one of the steel doors. Please enter the Rose Ward through the door to your right. I’ll buzz you in. Then make an immediate left into the nurses’ station, and you will see a door marked Medication Closet.

With all the locked doors, keycards, and other high-security measures, Dr. Emily White was surprised that the medicine cabinet was so skimpily secured. It was just a small room filled with shelves weighed down only by the little orange prescription bottles prescribed to the individual patients of the ward. The door itself was wooden and not painted white like the rest. It had the color and smell of old varnish—brown, cheap, and seemingly unimportant. There was a little glass window reinforced with metal mesh for seeing inside. The door was secured by nothing more than an old-fashioned keyed privacy lock to hold back intruders and pharmacy raiders.

Dr. Emily White just assumed that if anyone were stealing medications, they would just be caught on camera, and gauging by the age of the door, she could determine that it had been there a long time, meaning patients were uninterested in stealing meds, and most likely, anyone who was going to go after them would have access to the key. The medicine closet seemed a little bit bigger on the inside than from the exterior.

In the back, Emily could see Nurse Bell handling the medications, prepping all the afternoon doses for the eighty or so patients in the ward. Hello, Nurse Bell. I’m Dr. Emily—

White, Nurse Bell finished Emily’s sentence. I know who you are. The odd rooms are on the right, even on the left. Here is the patient list for all the odd patients. Their medications are all here on the right side of the medicine closet. Read the prescriptions and put the pills in these cups here. Two cups to a room number, two patients to a room. Get it?

Dr. Emily White replied, Yes, Nurse Bell.

She paid close attention to every prescription—Zyprexa, Abilify, Risperdal, Haldol, lithium, Depakote, and Seroquel to name a few. Generically, all these medications were engineered with the intention of managing irrational behavior found to be dangerous to the patient or those around them. If the patients were at the asylum, it meant they were too dangerous to be allowed to roam free in the world. In most cases, patients were given multiple chances through mental health programs and psych evaluations to progress and recover. In reality, some end up in long-term facilities like