Bard Constantine
The Blurred Man
The Prometheus Saga Introduction
What’s past is prologue…
The individual keeps watch on other individuals. Societies keep watch on other societies. Civilizations keep watch on other civilizations. It has always been so. Keeping watch is sometimes benevolent, sometimes malevolent. It is most certainly prudent.
It is not a trait exclusive to the human species.
Out of such prudence an advanced intelligence, far across the vastness of space, delivered to Earth a probe 40,000 years ago, to observe and report the progress of the human species. This probe was “born” here fully formed, a human being, engineered from the DNA of Homo sapiens. It possessed our skin, our organs, our skeleton, our muscles.
And it still lives among us.
The probe keeps watch.
The probe is one of us. Almost. It possesses a nuclear quantum computer brain, emitting a low-level electromagnetic field. It manipulates DNA and stem cells, healing itself as needed. It dies, but remains immortal. It enters human societies, adopting any guise, any race, any gender, any age it wishes, following a three-month metamorphosis. It witnesses the events, great and small, good and bad, that shape our destiny.
The probe keeps watch.
Everything it sees, hears, feels, experiences, and thinks, it flashes instantaneously across a thousand light-years, in real-time quantum-entangled communication with the intelligence that sent it here.
The probe keeps watch.
And sometimes it acts.
Acknowledgements
To be a part of a project like this requires a great deal of maneuvering, haggling, and all around hustling to get it accomplished. Special thanks go out to Charles A. Cornell and Ken Pelham for coming up with this groundbreaking idea to take anthology publishing and flip it on its head. And another thanks to Charles for his gorgeous cover work. His enthusiasm and expertise is displayed on every cover of this series and we’re very fortunate to have him put in the time and effort to create such attractive cover and promo work.
Lastly, thanks to all the members of the Alvarium Experiment. Through trial and error we’ve come to this point, learning along the way what it takes to get a lumbering beast like this to operate. I’ve enjoyed my interactions with all of you, and can only hope to look forward to further collaboration as we look to the future of this project.
Epigraph
For feral things
like she and he
were never meant to dance,
to be that close, for fallen souls
aren’t meant to be entranced;
never meant to magnify each
dirty word and deed,
nor see the hungry
children
careless gods were
meant to feed.
I
The area was a complete disaster. Smoke billowed and smothered the air, casting a shadow across a sky that should have been glowing with morning light. Rubble lay everywhere, the ruins strewn across the landscape more like the remnants of some ancient civilization than a modernized milling facility.
Agent Dylan Plumm strode across the chaotic landscape, her oversized rubber boots sucking in the thick mud with every step. The boots were loaners from one of the many firefighters that swarmed the scene. Ambulances, police cars and other emergency vehicles were present as well, creating a pulsing lightshow that would have been visible for miles had it not been for the blanket of choking smoke.
The local force was a small, bewildered group obviously out of their comfort zone in a situation of such destructive magnitude. She imagined the small town of Adamsville, Alabama didn’t see anything remotely like the eruption that destroyed the flour mill. Small wonder they appeared so discomforted. The man in charge was Captain Forrester, who appeared a bit more experienced than the men who worked under him. Dylan studied him briefly, assessing his facial features, build, age, posture and mannerisms.
Ex-military, more than likely the US Army. Served well, but lacked ambition. Most likely topped out at lieutenant before retiring and entering law enforcement. Modest means, but proud of his accomplishments. Still married to first wife with multiple children and grandchildren. Alabama fan.
Agent Chen Lee debriefed the Captain, leaving Dylan free to survey the scene. While it would take days or weeks for the survey and investigation teams to come to a conclusion, her eyes saw past the damage. The quantum computer in her brain analyzed the pattern of debris, the totality of the damage, the effect on the surrounding area. She concluded a powerful explosive was purposely triggered from the top of the building, causing enough damage to the core of the structure that it basically imploded on itself. The initial explosion triggered secondary ones on account of the compressed air, dust, and enclosed spaces, furthering an already catastrophic eruption.
“What do we got, Plumm?”
She brushed a stray strand of her pulled-back blond hair from her face as Agent Lee approached. Like Dylan, he was dressed in dark slacks and an FBI jacket over his rumpled dress shirt. He wore his customary deadpan expression, scrubbing his hand across his bristly, short-cropped hair.
She paused from recording the imagery with her tablet computer. “Massive explosion. The entire building is history. Don’t see these very often anymore.”
“Anyone got a theory on the cause?”
“Not yet. With dust and enclosed spaces there’s always a risk of explosions in mills like this, though all the modern ones are constructed to reduce that chance as much as possible.”
She slid some pages over on the tablet, looking at the data projections. “Still, something like an overheated bearing in an elevator leg might ignite the dust and cause an explosion. That could cause a chain reaction, but—”
“But that wouldn’t bring down the entire building, would it?”
Dylan shook her head. She briefly considered offering her full analysis, but realized it wouldn’t matter. Agent Lee didn’t think much of working with women, and it showed in his attitude. In their short time working together he proved to be a chauvinistic dinosaur of an agent, cutting off her sentences, claiming credit for her finds and ignoring her every chance he could. He would pretend to listen, then dismiss everything she told him unless it agreed with his own assessment. In view of that, she gave him the response he expected.
“All estimates indicate negative. Best guess is an explosive was detonated. No evidence to support that yet, but—”
Lee grunted. “Yeah, well it’s a hell of a mess. How many dead?”
Dylan continued to scan the intel from the dossier on her tablet. She had no need, but reciting everything from memory only attracted unwanted attention. “Six unaccounted for. There’s a crew trying to salvage any body parts for identification. Not going to be easy, with the exception of one.”
“How’s that?”
“You’re going to have to see it.”
He sighed and followed her. As they picked their way past debris and salvage teams, he slipped and just managed not to embarrass himself. “Dammit! Muddy as hell.”
Dylan nodded. “The fire department had a time stopping the fire from spreading.”
“What did they do, drop a few loads by helicopter? This place is saturated.”
“I noticed. It’s possible the explosion could have ruptured the main water line.” She omitted that only a massive storm could have dropped so much water at once. It was too bizarre for Agent Lee to believe because all weather reports in the area claimed fair skies. She couldn’t properly explain the phenomenon without more data, so she filed it in her mental database as a quandary to examine in full detail later.