Leviathan

Collins had just left the infirmary where Dr. Denise Gilliam had given him a complete physical and pronounced Jack officially alive and back from the dead. He tried to explain to her everything he remembered, even down to the strange dreams he had had, even the small creature in the bottle, the tentacled arms and clear body floating in a solution. Denise accepted all of this with raised brows but no comment on his sanity was forthcoming.

"Well, Colonel, I would say you have a combination of memory versus nightmare. The little octopus thing says nightmare, but voices in the dark says you weren't sleeping the whole time. I would say give it more time. Meanwhile I'll get your exams to Dr. Haskins when he returns from leave; we're shorthanded until then."

A knock sounded on the infirmary door. Mendenhall poked his head inside and held up a file folder. Jack excused himself and exited the clinic.

"We found this in the cafeteria," Will said as he handed Jack a blue-bordered folder with the single word and numbers on it.

"Vault 298907," he said aloud, and opened it as he walked.

"It was found at the table the chef remembers the senator and Alice were working from. It was the only folder there, found on a chair. The other files faxed out from Arlington for levels seventy-three and seventy-four were missing. The closed-circuit recording in the hallway verified they were in the possession of the assault element."

"Maybe it just fell off the table when--" Jack's words trailed off and he slowed his pace. He closed the file and thought a moment, and then started walking. Instead of going toward the comp center, he turned at the bank of elevators.

"Colonel?" Mendenhall said, standing at the elevator as Jack went inside.

"Go to the clean level and get Captain Everett. Then you and he meet me on level seventy-three, vault 298907."

Mendenhall was left standing there as the doors slid closed.

Jack could smell the burned plastic and carpeting before the elevator even came to a stop. The doors opened and he stepped out into the long, curving hallway. Europa had restored all of the electrical systems, and Collins could see fifty men combing through the wreckage of the vaults.

He shook his head and started forward, passing one of his security men who was armed with an M-16. He stepped through the now-dead security portal and into the vault area.

Professor Charles Hindershot Ellenshaw III, head of the cryptozoology department, had volunteered for cleanup on the level, and so he had been placed in charge of documenting, cleaning, and restoring the artifacts that had been damaged. Collins saw the professor was still very upset at the wanton destruction of the vaults. Jack watched the professor run a hand through his wild white hair.

"Colonel Collins, it is so very good to see you. I and my crypto department were very pleased to hear--"

"Thanks, Professor," Jack said, knowing he couldn't take one more pleasurable greeting at how happy they were he had returned from beyond the river Styx. "Vault 298907?"

"Oh, uh ... there's not much left, I'm afraid. It's right here." He gestured to the large vault three enclosures down from where they stood. "It seems that vault and the two nearest it received the brunt of the damage, possibly because of its size, and its fragile and dangerous content."

"Dangerous?"

Ellenshaw looked at his clipboard. "Oh yes, it seems there were five hundred batteries inside the artifact--old, but with enough dried acid to have reacted with the fire, causing a considerable explosion."

"Thanks, Professor," Jack said, patting him on the shoulder and making his way to the large vault with the scorched steel door standing ajar. "And Charlie, it's good to see you, too."

Ellenshaw smiled, nodded, and then went back to work, with a last look back at Collins.

Jack had to use the strength of both arms to push the door open. The vault was filled with temporary lighting that cast shadows on the burned and broken remains of the submarine recovered in 1967. Jack remembered it had been one of the first artifacts shown him upon being assigned to the Event Group. It was also one of the more intriguing items he had ever seen during his time here.

Jack opened the file, standing next to one of the temporary light stands, and read the vault synopsis. Carbon-14 dating had placed the submarine's age at 150 years, plus or minus ten years. He lowered the file and looked at what remained of the skeletal shape of her hull. The iron had melted away during the intense heat of the fire, and her battery system, one that had even shocked the few engineers brought in from General Dynamics' Electric Boat Division, was a melted lump at the bottom of the artifact. At one time, you could clearly see that this was once a miracle of technology.