The Search for Artemis (The Chronicles of Landon Wicker) (42 page)

“The Pallas Corporation, in particular, deals in the acquisition and study of military secrets, industrial intelligence, scientific developments and technological advances. And their client list is extensive; not only being hired by wealthy citizens and families, but also corporations and governments.

“This is where you come in Celia.” Ainsley placed her arms on the back of her chair and leaned forward, looking at Celia determinedly. “We need your help. The Triumvirate is growing stronger every day, and the United States has asked that we somehow help in dismantling my former husband’s empire.

“You see, like the Academy, Drake Harper has created a facility to train psychokinetics. He calls it the Gymnasium, but through that facility, he’s manipulating teenagers like you to become his personal army of supreme soldiers.

“As far as we know, only the highest operatives of the company know what the Pallas Corporation truly is. They tell everyone else that they are under the employ of the United States government, in the business of acquiring and understanding intelligence from around the world to ensure the continued safety and superiority of the nation. The majority of the students, however, think of the place as nothing more than a school.

Ainsley came around her chair and sat back down at her desk. Clasping her hands and setting them on the tabletop, she continued, “Celia, there is something else I must tell you. . . . something about your—”

The memory randomly faded into black for a moment, but then resurfaced.

“Celia,” Ainsley said as if nothing had happened. “We would like you to go to the Gymnasium, undercover, and help us determine how deep this pit of deceit goes. We also need you to find something—anything—that will show us how to destroy them.” Ainsley’s voice was now impassioned. “We need you to find the chink in their iron-clad armor.”

White light absorbed the memory, and Celia began to speak to him telepathically.

So that’s how it all happened. That day I became Artemis. That day I found a purpose greater than myself. As my apocratusis occurred in the Academy, we were able to stage a false one publicly and wait until the Gymnasium found me. Just like you, they brought me here, and ever since I’ve been working to find a way to take them down, all the while posing as a normal student.

How could this be the truth?
Landon thought. What scared him the most was that he saw the logic in her argument. Ainsley Ross-Harper had used almost the identical words that Dr. Brighton had used when Landon was told about the Pantheon and what it did for the country.
Was everything a lie?
Were they really deceiving everyone? How far down did the deception go? Dr. Brighton can’t know this is going on.
No, he couldn’t believe it—he couldn’t
allow
himself to believe it. The Gymnasium was his home, and the Pantheon members . . . his brothers. No matter what, this was where he belonged.

Unable to see anymore, Landon fought to reject Celia’s hold on his mind. He painfully yanked his consciousness back into his body, straining to sever their connection. Then, with a peculiar feeling in his gut, Landon felt his mind clear of Celia’s memories, and he opened his eyes.

They were still in the Secret Garden, sitting on the cool stone floor of the arbor. Celia had opened her eyes too, and was now looking at Landon with a needy expression. She needed him to understand.

“Landon, what you just saw—it’s the truth!” she said.

“But why?” Landon asked loudly. Landon rose from his feet and began to pace in a small circle. He ran his fingers through his hair as he continued to process everything Celia had showed him. “Celia, why? Why does the Gymnasium have to be the liars? What’s not to say that Metis Labs is the one who’s lying? How can you be sure that they aren’t deceiving you? That everything you know and believe isn’t just half-truths they’ve spun up to trick you rather than the other way around?” Landon questioned.

“Because I know when people are lying,” she said in a calm, resolute tone as she stood up and walked toward Landon. “It’s for the same reason I can pass through things. When someone lies, the atoms in their body act differently than when they’re telling the truth. It’s like wavelengths. Tell the truth, your signal is flat.” Celia went over to Landon to make sure he was paying attention, and put her hand up for him to see. She then drew an imaginary straight line in the air with her pointer finger. “But if you lie—” Celia retraced that same line but started to erratically move her hand up and down as she drew it through the air, forming what Landon imagined would resemble the spikes of a Richter scale readout during a massive earthquake “—not so flat, huh? . . . I can feel that.”

“This is all insane!” Landon blurted out, turning from Celia in an attempt to get a moment to think. “
You’re
insane!”

“Landon, please.” Celia’s voice resounded through Landon’s head as she spoke to him telepathically. When he turned and looked at her, her expression was one of desperation. She needed him to understand. “You have to believe me. Since I’ve come here, I’ve only been able to do so much.

“That night when you found me in the Library—that was my first real mission inside.” Celia continued to speak, even though Landon didn’t seem to be paying complete attention to her. “I was told that they had started a new project, one that, like Project Prometheus, was going to change everything. I needed to get the files and get them out of the Pallas Corporation’s hands before they got too far.

“Landon, do you know what that project was called? You already know it, as it’s what I was trying to stop you from getting last night. It’s Project Herakles.”

Landon twitched with surprise at hearing the reference to his mission from last night. He still was trying to work through what he believed in his mind, but with every word Celia’s arguments became more and more convincing.

“And your mission,” Celia continued. “It wasn’t to stop Metis Labs from selling the project’s results. It was to regain the research I stole in the first place so they could continue their work. I don’t know what the project is even about, but if they would go through that much trouble to get it back, then it must be important.

“And that’s only the beginning, Landon. In the past year, I’ve learned that they will do anything to get what they want. They’ll steal, kill, and torture. . . . Those people you call teammates have done horrible things.”

Dr. Pullman
, Landon thought. The image of the dying doctor in the medical wing seemed to randomly surface in Landon’s mind.

“You know about Dr. Pullman?” Celia asked quizzically. Through their strange connection, she felt Landon’s mind shift to him after she mentioned torture. How had he kept that information hidden from her for that long? “Well, what you probably don’t know is that Dr. Pullman was just an old scientist, and that they abducted him while he was walking in the park with his
granddaughter
.”

“And what do you expect me to do with all of this?” Landon asked abruptly. His mind couldn’t take any more. His mind saw sense in Celia’s words, but his heart was tied to the Gymnasium and his mission for redemption. What was he going to do?

“Help me, Landon,” she said earnestly as she looked Landon dead in the eyes. “Join me. Become a double agent. You’re a member of the Pantheon. You have access to places I don’t even know about. You can be my eyes and ears and help me find a way to destroy this place.”

“You’re asking me to betray my team! Dr. Brighton! How do I know any of this is the truth in the first place?” Landon was fighting with himself. “I don’t have your abilities. I can’t tell who’s lying and who’s not.”

“Then maybe this will convince you.”

Without warning, Celia reached out her hand and touched Landon’s face. Instantly, Landon felt the same strange pull from the base of his spine and white light flashed through his brain. Before he knew it, he was standing in a different place.

It was an empty street lined with small boutiques and shops. Snow had coated the thatched roofs of the small buildings and was piled up along the cleared streets. Christmas decorations were displayed in the shop windows, portraying festive scenes for the upcoming holiday. It was the middle of the night; the street lamps that lined the sidewalk cast an orange glow on the wintery scene.

Passing a window, Landon saw his reflection in the glass. He was a little girl wearing a purple, down winter coat. He had long brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and olive skin. He was Celia. Looking to his left, he saw a man in a grey trench coat towering above him. In his hands he was carrying a few shopping bags. Next to him was a woman with blonde hair. She was shorter than the man and pear-shaped. She was wearing a black pea coat and was also carrying a few bags at her sides.

Without control of his body, Landon stopped at the window of a toy store. His eyes were fixed on a doll that stood on display. She had brown hair that fell around her face in tiny curls. Her eyes were bright blue, and she had long eyelashes and rosy cheeks. In a festive red and green plaid dress, she was the heart’s desire of every little girl in the town.

As he stood there staring at her, his fingers pressed against the window, the sound of three loud bangs rang through the empty street. Scared by the sudden loud noise, Landon let out a high-pitched scream and turned to see what had caused it.

What he saw was the man and woman lying on the sidewalk about ten yards from where he stood. A crimson pool spread out from under their motionless bodies, staining the white, powdery snow.

Standing over them both was a man in a dark hooded sweatshirt and jeans. He slid something large into his pocket before stepping over the man’s body and walking down the sidewalk toward him. His hood was up, concealing his face, but just as he passed Landon, the man turned and looked down at him. For a split second, Landon saw the man’s face clearly as the lights in the toyshop illuminated it.

The scene then faded to black and Landon found himself standing in the arbor of Dr. Brighton’s Secret Garden once more, looking at Celia as she withdrew her hand from his face.

“They killed my parents, Landon,” she said as tears fell from her eyes and streaked down her cheeks. “In cold blood. And I intend to make them pay for what they’ve done, especially the one who killed them.”

The look in her eyes was pitiful yet frightening at the same time. Landon, on the other hand, was frozen in a state of shock from what he had just discovered.

It couldn’t be. It was impossible. He could never do that. The hooded shooter had the same brown, wavy hair, the same strong jaw and the same green eyes. It was unmistakable. Dr. Brighton murdered Celia’s parents.

In seeing that memory, Landon’s world crashed in around him. Even with Celia’s memories and explanations about what caused her to become Artemis, it wasn’t enough to completely convince him that he wasn’t on the right side. Her evidence was circumstantial at best—no hard proof. He hadn’t been convinced that he was the one who had been lied to, but for some reason, in seeing Dr. Brighton on that street after killing Celia’s helpless parents, a light went off in his head.

By showing him that memory, Celia had expressed the dire nature of her situation. It’s hard to lie when the truth is the only way to keep you alive. He believed her. If Dr. Brighton was capable of murder, then everything else she showed him had to be true. The Pallas Corporation was evil, the Pantheon was a lie and the Gymnasium was nothing more than a clever ruse. They had to be stopped. There was only one thing to do.

“I’m in,” Landon said. “What do you need me to do?”

• • • • •

On the penthouse floor of an eighty-six-story high-rise in the middle of Boston’s city center, Dr. Wells stood outside the doors of an office, waiting to be granted an audience with the man inside.

In his hand he carried a pale blue file folder with an owl holding a branch embossed into the cover and “Project Herakles - Top Secret” was printed on it. He had taken off the moment the Pantheon had returned with the research and flown through the night to report.

When the large walnut doors opened, Dr. Wells headed inside. The office was an ode to minimalist design with only a small seating area composed of a collection of sleek Scandinavian furniture and a long streamlined desk. The floors were a dark hardwood and floor-to-ceiling windows lined the back wall.

Standing at one of the windows was a muscular man in a grey European suit. The white in his salt-and-pepper hair shined as the morning sun rose in the distance. He casually carried a crystal, lowball tumbler filled with a deep amber liquid in his hand as he looked pensively on the bustling city below.

“Good morning, Dr. Wells,” the man said in a strong, deep voice. He turned from the window and walked to his desk.

“Good morning to you, Mr. Harper,” Dr. Wells replied. Before continuing, he stood awkwardly on the hardwood, waiting for Drake Harper to sit in his chair and give a signal for him to commence with his report. “We were able to retrieve all the stolen materials for Project Herakles.” Dr. Wells handed Mr. Harper the file he held in his hands. “Samples and all. But there was another breach. Our operatives were ambushed when they entered the compound. They knew we were coming.”

“Who knew of the operation?” Mr. Harper asked.

“Just Verne, myself and the operatives,” he replied. “Given the recent incidents and the sensitivity of this project, I thought it wise to only involve the pertinent parties.”

“Yet still they know of our approach.” Mr. Harper drew a long draft of the amber liquid from his crystal glass. “It would appear, Dr. Wells, that we have a mole in the organization.”

“Yes, it would appear so.” Dr. Wells spoke with trepidation.

“Any idea who it might be?”

“Not at this time. But I’ve already alerted our best Sentry and we should know who the traitor is shortly.”

“Very good, Harold.” Drake Harper rose from his chair and strutted back to the window. As he walked along his desk, he slid the project file across the wood with his hand before picking it up. “And what of the Wicker boy? Have you gotten any closer to determining his limits? We need to know what kind of results we can expect if we are to proceed with Project Herakles.”