Singularity Read online

  Singularity

  Joe Hart

  Singularity

  Text copyright © 2012 by Joe Hart

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission from the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and are not constructed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  For my mother and father, who dreamed for me before I could do it myself.

  Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Special Thanks

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Author’s Note

  Other Books by Joe Hart

  Special Thanks

  There are a few people who were indispensable in the birthing of this book I’d like to point out. First off, my sister, Ang. Thank you for providing great info on the specific inner workings of the BCA; your advice and input were invaluable. Special Agent Paul Gherardi with the BCA for walking me through the typical death investigation procedure. Thanks so much, Paul, for without your help, I would have missed the visceral feeling of being on a case and everything that goes with it. My family for their utmost support and patience over the months that I spent behind the desk; you all mean the world to me. And to you, Reader. Without you, I would merely be writing for my own enjoyment; and while that is great, it’s not nearly as fun to be scared by yourself.

  Prologue

  Summer 1958

  The man in the white T-shirt and black slacks breathed a prayer between a set of cracked lips and realized that the moment was finally here. The moment he’d dreamed of for nearly three years. Every hypothesis, plan, and drawing culminated in this last second, as he felt sweat run down the middle of his spine and his finger lit on the faded red button before him.

  His eyes searched out each member of his team. “Ready?” he yelled. Their faces looked toward him, his moment. They nodded in turn. Mallory, his second in command, began to call out questions above the humming massive piece of steel that sat before them, enshrouded with bundles of wires and electrical panels. His voice echoed against the walls of the cave.

  “Power control?”

  “Check!” a voice answered from behind a lead shield nearly a foot thick.

  “Cameras?”

  “Check!”

  “Override?”

  “Check!”

  “Radiation monitor?”

  “Check!”

  The man in the white T-shirt stepped closer to the machine and gazed through its plate-glass window, which made the view hazy and indistinguishable. He would have to amend the sighting plane with a different medium—something that could be seen through while withstanding short bursts of radiation. He felt the button beneath his fingers, rough and so real. He was here, at the edge of the rest of his life. He breathed again and stared through the glass at the boulder lying a hundred yards away. The cave walls and high ceiling dwarfed the rock, but he knew it was immense, weighing well over five tons.

  Not for long, he thought. “Firing on three!” he yelled. He watched his team slide behind their barriers, and he wondered if they were ready to die. Were they willing to give their lives like he was in the name of discovery, of science? Either way, after he pushed this button, he would never know for sure. “One, two, three!”

  The button snapped down beneath his fingers and there was a sound like an x-ray being triggered as the machine fell silent. The cave lit up in a white flare and then darkened once again except for the sparse string of incandescent lights hanging from the ceiling. For a moment he thought the machine had simply shut off, but then he realized that everything was silent. The sounds that normally rebounded off the underground walls were gone, along with all other noises. The world had died when he pressed the button, its breath cinched off by what he’d done. He blinked and looked through the glass for the boulder.

  It was gone.

  He leaned forward and pressed his face against the surface of the sighting chamber. The glass felt warm to the touch. Yes, the boulder was definitely gone, but something was wrong. There was a hole where the rock sat moments before. He squeezed his eyes shut and wondered if it was an afterimage of the beam. No. When he looked again, the hole was still there. The beam must have torn through the far wall some three hundred yards beyond the target point.

  He cursed, and for the first time looked to the control station on his left. As he stared at the bodies on the ground, their ears dribbling blood into wider pools on the dirt floor, he marveled at how perfect the silence was. It wasn’t the quiet of a library on a Sunday evening, and definitely not the same as being immersed underwater. It was perfect. Clean and pure. It was like he had never known sound.

  He glanced to his right, not surprised to see Mallory face-down in the dirt. One of the man’s arms stretched toward him, and it looked as if there was a crack running down the middle of his skull.

  He rubbed his eyes and ran his fingers through his hair, which had grown much too long in the last year. He stretched a shaking hand out and punched the emergency off button several times, then saw that the machine had indeed shut down. No, not shut down. He looked through the sighting window again and saw the barrel was gone, as was the firing chamber behind it. How had he missed that?

  Rubbing sweat from his eyes with claw-like fingers, he walked around the machine and stared at the areas where the rest of it should have been. Gone. He shook his head and looked down the length of the cave to the hole punched through the wall.

  His stomach fluttered.

  He had been mistaken. The hole wasn’t in the wall at the far end of the chamber. It was where the boulder used to be. It stood in the middle of the cave, like a black mirror, oval in shape and nearly ten yards across. He walked a few steps toward it and then stopped, taking in its perfection, its depth.

  He and Mallory used to theorize on this very thing over coffee and whiskey alike. The probability for it ever occurring was so low they hadn’t even brought it up to the council, hadn’t mentioned it in any of the briefs. It was nearly impossible. Nearly. Yet here it was, staring him full in the face. Something so much more exciting, brimming with possibilities, than the machine’s original purpose.

  He began to run, his hearing and dead team forgotten. He ran toward the hole and it seemed to grow, as its outer edges wavered like black-tongued flames in the deeper darkness. He skidded to a stop a few feet from it and his jaw slackened. He could see something in the center of the black. Dual shining points a few feet apart, like moonbeams glancing off a pond. Everything in his body told him to halt, not to go any closer. He would regret it if he didn’t stop, but he ignored the warnings; his innate curiosity was the epicenter to his creativity. It would not let him stop.

  He reached toward the oval and noticed its edges fluctuating faster. It’s dissipating, he thought. He and Mallory discussed this too. Only a brief tear had occurred. Already, the fabric of the world was trying to repair itself. He looked into the darkness at the two spots of light that were closer now, and he felt a sense of privilege wash over him. Was he seeing stars that were not of his own sky? Were they supernovas dying out in a dull shade after burning for hundreds of
millions of years? He was within reaching distance of the hole now, its diameter shrinking with each second. He leaned closer. He needed to see something of value. The machine was ruined. It would take years of appropriations and materials to restore it to working order. That is, if he could convince the council to try again after the decimation of his entire team during the initial test. He needed to be able to tell them he’d seen through a window into a place upon which no other human had laid eyes. He needed to make them understand what this was: the most significant discovery in all of human history. He squinted at the two points of light, trying to discern their details.

  The two lights blinked.

  Much too late, he realized that the eyes were only feet from the other side, and he glimpsed the rest of a body as it fell through the diminishing hole, onto the rough floor of the cave. A scream ripped out of his lungs, which he could only feel without his hearing, as he turned and raced away from it. His feet tripped on a ridge of the cave floor and he fell so hard he saw flashes of light sparkle across his vision. The image of what had come through the hole replayed in his mind as he struggled to his knees, his hands clawing at the floor to get away. He had to get away from it.

  A dagger of pain shot through his right thigh, and as he looked down to see the thing that jutted from his leg, he realized his auditory sense was back, because now he could hear as well as feel the scream that flew from his mouth and danced back to him from the earthen ceiling.

  Chapter 1

  Present

  He chased her again.

  The walls were blurry and surreal as they scrolled past, she in the lead, he just behind. She wore the dress that she’d had on when they’d met. White and long, it flowed out behind her like a pallid comet’s tail, rippling with each hurried step.

  He could hear his breath rasping in and out of his chest as if he were in the last five miles of a marathon, not fifteen feet from the front door of their one-bedroom apartment. He heard her name being called and he wondered who had yelled it with such panic and desperation. Then he felt his throat constrict again and knew it was him screaming her name. She glanced back over her shoulder, one violet eye searching him out, pinning him to the wall as he ran, teasing and accusing at the same time. He hated her then. He wanted nothing more than to hurt her, to make her cry out for him to stop, so he could gather her thin frame in his arms and hold her. Just hold her.

  He felt himself slow. He knew this part. She gained a bit of ground, and now he could see the balcony and its thin, black railing. The afternoon city lay beyond, ten stories below, cars winding their way between buildings on the streets like ants finding alternate ways to their hills. He could see his hand reach out and it looked so small and faint compared to the glaring white of her dress. How it ruffled and swayed as she ran.

  She reached the balcony and paused only a moment, perhaps to survey the view one last time. Her hands gripped the wrought iron and for a second her knuckles matched her dress. She looked back at him through the veil of dark hair and smiled sadly this time. There was so much in that smile. A lifetime of happiness waiting there that would never be realized. Children unborn and anniversaries that would linger only in his mind.

  He ran faster as she leaned out, more than the average curiosity would push a normal person over such a height. Her feet left the cement of the balcony and she tipped forward. She slid out of sight toward the ground in wisps of white fabric that flapped with a breeze he couldn’t feel as he said the only word he could that would make it all go away. No. No. No.

  ==

  “No!”

  The word rang out in the bedroom as Sullivan Shale sat up, chest heaving in lungfuls of air. He looked around at the darkened room. The wood floors. The dresser that held his clothes against the far wall. The black outline of the bathroom door that opened up in the corner. His breath shuddered and he ran his hand through a tangled nest of dark hair. His eyes found the curtained window, and out of habit he immediately guessed the time: 4:23, he was sure of it. He glanced at the clock on the bedside table: 4:44. He sighed and dropped his face into a sweat-slicked hand. He hated it when the time was all the same numerals. For some reason it felt wrong. As if time shouldn’t line up that way. It should always be changing, moving forward, moving away. Not the same. Not ever the same.

  He swung his feet out from beneath the light sheets and put them on the floor. The boards felt warm. It hadn’t cooled off overnight and he wasn’t surprised. The heat wave was slated to last through today and into the following evening. Then the rain would begin again, or so the weatherman said.

  Thoughts of using the bathroom and then trying to return to a few more hours of sleep crossed his mind, but the memory of the dream resurfaced and he tried to swallow the dryness that crept into his throat. He’d never been able to sleep after having the dream. Not in two years. There was no reason this morning would be an exception. The chirping of his cell phone as it vibrated across his nightstand put any other thoughts of sleep to rest. He knew the number on the screen and answered without hesitation.

  “I thought I had a few days off,” he said, his words thick with sleep.

  “You did. That was yesterday and this is today,” the gruff voice said.

  “I’m assuming that I’m back on?”

  A long sigh issued from the earpiece. “Yes, I need you here in the next half-hour. There was a death over at Singleton Penitentiary last night, the local sheriff called it in. Asked for help.”

  Sullivan leaned forward, his eyes narrowing at a spot on the floor. “Singleton? Inmate kill an inmate?”

  “No.”

  “Inmate kill a guard?”

  “I’m not sure, but it’s …” Hacking paused on the other end of the phone. “Strange,” he finished.

  Sullivan sat back on the bed and scrubbed a few granules of stubborn sleep from his right eye. “‘Strange.’ Okay. What do you mean by that, boss?”

  “I mean, you need to get your ass into the office and get briefed before you get to the crime scene.”

  Sullivan’s eyebrows shot up at his superior’s tone. Cameron Hacking had never before sounded like this on the phone.

  “I thought my mandatory leave lasted until next week.”

  “You’ve been fully reinstated as of now,” Hacking said.

  Sullivan scanned the dresser for his necessities: ID, keys, and gun. They were all there. “Okay. Anything else I need to know?”

  The silence in the phone sounded almost like that of a dead line. He wondered for a moment if his SAIC had hung up without further comment, but then he heard the familiar intake of breath before Hacking spoke.

  “The victim was killed in solitary confinement.”

  ==

  The leaden sky hung just above the reaching tips of the pine trees surrounding the North Central Bureau of Criminal Apprehension building. Sullivan studied it as he stepped from his black Trailblazer. His left eyebrow hung irritatingly low and he scrunched his forehead up in frustration at seeing it enter his field of vision. He needed to do the exercises the doctor suggested to perform on a daily basis. He’d start on them again tonight, when he was alone. He rubbed the pale scar line above his eyebrow, which snaked off his face and ended in the middle of his temple. He couldn’t be seen in public working his brow up and down like a confused drunk. The air felt just as heavy and oppressive as the clouds above, and already sweat started beading on his skin. The air conditioning of the car seemed like a dream from another life.

  He strode to the side entrance of the building and swiped his magnetic keycard through the slot beside the heavy door. The interior of the building was cold and he welcomed the crisp, cool air on his face. He had lived in Minnesota his entire life and had never seen weather like this. It was too hot. And when it got too hot, people did weird things. Steal, cheat, murder. It was always this way in the summer, but a feeling of apprehension settled over him as he made his way down the corridors, past darkened offices, toward the back of the building. It felt like
he wasn’t prepared. Like he’d forgotten some essential piece of equipment at home.

  He could see Hacking’s office now, behind the other cubicles in the main area of the building. Hazy light shone through the window and outlined the man who sat behind the desk. Cameron Hacking was almost fifty, but he looked a decade younger. Only a faint hint of gray near the temples tainted the man’s full head of black hair. He had a high forehead and a thick-lipped mouth, without a line in his face to mar the persona of the collected senior agent that he was. Hacking’s cobalt eyes were trained on the computer screen before him, and when Sullivan knocked on the ajar door, they locked on to him and pulled him inside the room. Without a word, Hacking motioned to an empty chair on the far side of the desk. Sullivan sat and unbuttoned the top of his black dress shirt, letting the cool air of the office circulate around him. He stared across the room at his superior, and waited. Hacking tapped momentarily on his keyboard, and then sat back from the desk to study the younger man.

  “This one’s gonna be a bastard,” Hacking said.

  Sullivan raised his eyebrows and adjusted himself in the chair. “Why do you say that?” Sullivan asked.

  “Number one, we have a dead inmate, which means the warden and senior officers over there are going to be watching your every move. They’re going to want to help or provide support in every possible way.”

  Sullivan licked his lips. “If what you told me is accurate, they have to realize we’ll be looking at their staff as possible suspects.”

  Hacking nodded and pointed a finger at Sullivan’s chest. “Exactly. So it’s imperative that they be kept at arm’s length. Until we know more, we can’t rule anyone out.”