The Mayflower Project: Deconstruction Book Two (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller) Read online

  THE MAYFLOWER PROJECT

  DECONSTRUCTION

  BOOK TWO

  By Rashad Freeman

  Copyright © 2016 by Rashad Freeman

  www.rashadfreeman.com

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  Twitter: @RashadFreeman

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  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without the expressed written consent of the author.

  Well, it took a while, but I’ve finally completed the second part of this epic journey. Writing this installment was a wild ride so I hope reading it is just as exciting. The mind can be a scary place, but through literature we get to explore the far reaches of this complex landscape. When it’s all said and done I hope that I may have played a part in your life long adventure.

  ~Safe travels~

  “Set the sails, I feel the winds a stirring. Toward the bright horizon, set the way. Cast your reckless dreams upon our Mayflower. Haven from the world and her decay.” – Charlie Darwin

  CHAPTER 1

  THE COUNTDOWN CLOCK

  "Max, are you gonna finish that," Suzanne asked me.

  I looked up at her and sighed. Of course I was gonna finish that. There were maybe three bites left of my ham and cheese sandwich and I was holding the damn thing in my hand. But the way she was staring at me, I feared she might snatch it and run off.

  "Where does all of the food you eat even go?" I asked and narrowed my eyes.

  Suzanne was a tall, light-skinned lady from some island in the Caribbean. She apparently worked out like a track athlete, although I had no proof, other than her physique and the fact that she ate like a linebacker, but managed to never gain a pound.

  She smiled at me and grabbed the remainder of my sandwich. "Thanks Max. You're a keeper."

  "I was gonna eat that," I screamed after her.

  Sighing, I got up and cleaned off the table then left the break room. I walked down the hall and back into the work area at the National Weather Service Center in Georgia. You had to say it that way or no one would understand you. People didn't understand what we did anyway, but avoiding acronyms or any shortening of the name, made me feel like I'd chosen the right path in school.

  Around the office we spoke in a short code on just about everything. NOAA, EPA, SAB, E3, E&C, NAI,SCAN, SDR...the list went on. It was enough to give anyone a headache. So when I had the opportunity, I spoke like a normal person.

  Lately, the list of names in the office had become much more ominous and terms like CIA, NSA, DIA and NORAD were getting thrown around. All of our work had become compartmentalized and guys with dark suits and strong, jaw bones lurked in every corner.

  All of this additional security made me nervous and as far as anyone outside of work was concerned, all I did was track hurricanes and send alerts to the surrounding Emergency Operations Centers. But that couldn't be further from the truth.

  I was a climatologist, a damn good one. Science had always been my thing and luckily it worked out. At the ripe young age of twenty-seven I'd managed to snag a senior position working with the government. A position that I still couldn't believe I had.

  It all started with a paper I'd written back in school. It was a soapbox moment, but after getting passed around a few times the paper garnered some serious attention.

  It was about thermodynamics and climate change and a theory I proposed, called the "Neilman Effect"...my last name. Basically, the Earth was dying. I suggested we'd be faced with cataclysmic disaster on a global scale in this lifetime. The report was interlaced with a healthy bit of speculative fiction, but someone important read it and decided it sounded a little too probable to ignore.

  So, here I was, heading up a secret team in an inconspicuous building. Plotting charts, making graphs and giving predictions that set the ground floor for policy. All because someone had read my dissertation and concluded that Max Neilman could save the world.

  "Max, you get the reports over to the DOD? They need the update before the last mailing goes out," Bruce asked.

  He was an older man with silvery hair and thick, eyebrows. He needed glasses, but he seldom wore them and he liked to part his hair right down the middle and chew the end of any pen he could get his hands on.

  "Yeah Bruce, I sent them." I stopped and looked up at the giant, digital clock that took up the wall.

  The idea that you needed a clock the size of a movie screen was a clear indication of how serious things were, but if the message still wasn't received, the bright, red numbers that ticked away slowly, would've hammered home the sense of peril. It read 987 Days: 14 Hours: 17:26. An arbitrary time frame, but people needed something to shoot for.

  As the numbers vanished I cringed and ground my teeth. Time, man's greatest invention. It was the only way we could comprehend our place in the universe and it was the only way we could even attempt to acknowledge our mortality. But it was an invention nonetheless, a nonsensical representation that made us feel better. A way that we could convince ourselves that things didn’t just happen.

  "Staring at it is not gonna make it go back up," Bruce snapped.

  "Yeah, I know. It's just...maybe, maybe we got it wrong."

  "Err on the side of caution Max. You did good here."

  I took a deep breath and held it. That was just it, maybe I hadn't been cautious enough. Everything had been extrapolated from my research. Everything had been built around something I'd written while intoxicated and under insane stress.

  Sure, my work had been second guessed and scrutinized by probably hundreds of other scientists. Sure, experts had weighed in and tried to tear my research apart, but no one knew the data like me. If the estimates were wrong, that was my fault.

  Bruce stepped closer to me and leaned in. "Mayflower is your baby. No one might ever tell you and only a handful of people will even know what you did, but all of this is because of you."

  "Thanks Bruce," I said and patted him on the shoulder.

  Mayflower, that name was seldom spoken. As far as code names went, it was probably the most secretive of all. Only a few even knew of its existence and an even smaller group understood the details in their entirety. I was part of that group.

  "Look sharp, we have visitors today." With that Bruce headed back to his desk.

  Rubbing my face, I walked back to my office and closed the door. I plopped into my chair and let my head fall forward onto the solid oak. I counted to twenty then sat up and stared at the wall.

  There was a map taped to the cream painted brick. It was zoomed in on the mid-western United States and had pins stuck in places all over Wyoming. I'd recommended Colorado, but decisions like that weren't really left up to me.

  So, somewhere up in the Rocky Mountains there was a secret. The government had its tentacles at work and had set the many segments of this powerful nation to task, without one arm knowing what the other one was doing.

  That was the Mayflower. That was the secret that many had already taken to their grave. That was why I was under constant surveillance, like everyone else that worked down th
ere and that was why every night, I went home and lied to my girlfriend.

  "I just need more time," I mumbled to myself.

  I picked up a picture frame, looked at it and smiled. Cindy smiled back at me and I thought about life before all of this. I thought about my life when I was just Max and no one expected anything else from me.

  Mediocrity has it’s pluses and being in this place made you miss them. What I missed most though was being invisible. It wasn’t like I was famous or anything, but within a small circle everyone knew who I was and watched everything I did. The guy in that photo never had to worry about things like that.

  We'd taken the picture during a trip to North Carolina. We'd visited a place called slippery rock and spent the rest of the week hiking through the mountains. It was one of the best times of my life and the first time I looked at Cindy as someone I could get old with.

  Now, we never had time for anything. Cindy lived with her nose in a book, studying to take the bar. And I was always here, doing things I couldn't even tell her about. Most days we hardly saw each other and when we did it was for a few minutes before we both fell asleep.

  "Max," I heard Bruce call as he tapped on the door.

  "Come on in," I replied.

  The door swung open and Bruce was standing outside with two more men. They both were wearing navy blue suits and were probably in their late sixties. I recognized one of the men and felt my throat tighten just a bit.

  "Hello Secretary Morris," I said with a smile.

  "Max," he replied and stepped inside. "This is Timothy Garner, Secretary of Defense. Why don't you go ahead and tell us about the Mayflower."

  CHAPTER 2

  PARTY AT THE END OF THE WORLD

  I got home around seven and headed up the elevator to my Atlanta apartment. The commute from Peachtree was about an hour and I usually spent that time second guessing everything I'd done earlier. We lived right in the heart of the financial district, which was good for Cindy since she worked there, but meant crappy traffic for me just about every day.

  "You home?" I asked as I walked inside and dropped my bags.

  "In the bedroom," Cindy replied.

  I made my way through the living room and she walked out. Cindy was a tall, athletically built former track star at Georgia Tech. She could still outrun my ass in her sleep and since she was nearly my height I tried to ban heels whenever I could.

  Her father was from South Africa and her mother Honduras. The combination was what I thought every woman should look like. Perfect skin, perfect hair and a full command of five languages while I struggled with two. I knew it, so it didn't bother me when people would say how lucky I was. I'd rather be lucky than good looking any day of the week.

  "How was work?” she asked.

  I collapsed onto our sofa and tapped the spot to my right. She joined me and leaned into my shoulder while I stroked her hair.

  "It was long," I finally replied. "But you know...just another day at the office."

  Cindy smiled. "I know the feeling. We need a vacation."

  "Now you're talking."

  "I'm serious, I have another month before I take the bar. We should go somewhere. I'm sure I can get away from the office for a week...and a break from studying would probably be good for me."

  "It would be nice to do something different. I'm just not sure if I can get time off right now."

  "Max!" someone yelled as the doorbell rang.

  Cindy groaned and I let out a laugh.

  "You asked for something different," I said and headed to the door.

  I opened it and Brent and Jake stormed inside. They rushed past me and made a beeline for the couch. Cindy barely had time to slide over as they dove onto it and made themselves at home.

  "We got a plan guys," Jake said in excitement.

  "No...no, we are not going out," I replied and held my hands up in a pleading manner.

  Brent and Jake lived next door. We'd known them for about five years and they were still living like we were freshmen in college. Only difference was they had the money of a blossoming start-up to fund their alcohol-driven weekends.

  "Just listen to me Max," Jake said. He was the salesman of the two. Tall, dark-skinned and baldheaded, he looked like a wanna be Michael Jordan. He was a pretty funny guy and had absolutely no athletic ability whatsoever, but his charisma went a long way. He could talk himself out of just about anything.

  "Yeah," Brent added. "Listen to him."

  Brent was the brains of the operation. An average sized guy with stringy, brown hair and glasses. He'd been a coder since he was like twelve and with Jake's inspiration had created some trading algorithm that helped brokers make more money, as if they needed that. When we first met him he was pretty uptight, but nowadays Jake's influence was starting to rub off.

  "Alright Jake, what is this plan you have?" I asked.

  "Prive is having a giant event tonight. It's DJ Cosmo's launch party. We have to go! We get in there, get some drinks and get crazy!"

  "This is your big plan?" Cindy sighed and rolled her eyes.

  "Brent got us VIP."

  "You know I hate clubs," I said with disdain and kicked my feet up onto the coffee table.

  "Dude come on. It's Friday, you guys never do shit anymore. Remember how it used to be? We were like the three musketeers."

  "There's four of us."

  "Yeah, but Cindy is a chick."

  "Hey!" Cindy objected.

  "He means, you're like the fair princess that we have to protect," Brent added.

  "Yeah, that's exactly what I meant. So come on Max. What do you say? It's VIP...open bar dude."

  Cindy nudged me with her elbow. I turned and she raised her eyebrows and gave me an encouraging shrug.

  "Really?" I asked in shock.

  "Really!" she replied.

  The next thing I knew I was in a noisy nightclub with blinding strobe lights, burning my retinas. I could feel the bass vibrating my chest cavity and the multiple shots of vodka were doing nothing to dull my senses.

  The place was packed and whoever this DJ was, he had a lot of friends. I was amazed so many people could fit in one building and if it wasn't for Brent getting VIP we wouldn't have had a place to sit.

  "Come on," Cindy said.

  She grabbed my arm and pulled me to the dance floor. For the next twenty minutes I reluctantly bobbed around with a crowd full of sweaty people, while Cindy pretended I was a stripper pole.

  It was hard to enjoy myself when I had so much on my mind. I really didn't like nightclubs to begin with and now with all that was going on at work, it just felt like more stress that I didn't need. But I was a good sport, so I danced and danced until Cindy told me her feet hurt and she wanted to sit down.

  After that it was back to our VIP booth and more shots until I couldn't see straight. Jake and Brent were doing their best to make me permanently stupid and on some level they certainly succeeded.

  "Enough of this vodka shit," I slurred. "Where's the Patron?"

  "Patron?" Jake echoed. "You sure about that?"

  "Don't you ask me stupid questions. I said Patron Goddamn it."

  Laughing, Jake flagged down our server and soon enough the fiery taste of death was burning its way through my digestive system. Like a toddler I slid off of the sofa and flopped onto the floor in a laughing fit. Everything was suddenly hilarious and I felt like dancing was the only cure.

  Pushing myself onto my knees, I grabbed Cindy around the waist. "Come on...more dancing," I grumbled.

  She stared at me with glossy eyes then mumbled something I couldn't make out. I started to protest, but then I felt the urge to empty my stomach and I threw my hand over my mouth.

  I quickly jumped to my feet and rushed off to the restroom. Bursting through the door, I dove into the first stall and lurched forward. A stream of vomit came spewing out as my knees buckled and I dropped to the floor.

  The toilet was filthy. Stains and puddles of piss were everywhere. But at that p
oint I didn't care. I wrapped my arms around the bowl and heaved forward.

  "Hey man, you okay in there?" Brent called from the door.

  "Argh! Okay!" I shouted back then collapsed face first onto the toilet seat.

  "Alright man...I'll leave you to it."

  He closed the door and left. It took me thirty minutes longer to puke out enough to regain some of my senses. I could barely stand afterward, but I was pretty sure I’d just survived alcohol poisoning.

  Feeling like shit, I shuffled to the sink and doused my head with water. I goggled and spit and washed my face over and over. The taste of vomit still lingered regardless. It was like my taste buds had been permanently damaged.

  I leaned my head back then felt the floor shift a bit under my feet and the mirror trembled. I shook my head from side to side and blinked wildly then slapped myself in the face. I definitely had too much to drink.

  "Get your shit together," I said as I stared into the mirror.

  I smacked myself a few more times and took some deep breaths. Clenching my fists, I screamed at the top of my lungs. My head was still spinning, but the sting on my cheek told me I was awake.

  Feeling a bit more like myself, I headed out of the bathroom. A cluster of women were standing in the hall and giggled as I stumbled by. Some loud trance music was playing and the bass was shaking the walls like a damn speaker grill.

  I staggered my way back to the VIP section. Cindy was slumped over on Jake's shoulder and Brent was twirling around with some blonde chick that was swigging Vodka from the bottle.

  "He's alive," Brent announced as I got closer. "We got bottles to kill before we leave here."

  He grabbed the bottle from his dance partner and held it out to me. I reached for it, but suddenly the floor jutted up and I fell into the wall. The bottle slipped from his hands and burst into millions of tiny glass missiles.

  I straightened up and looked around. Everyone else was glaring in confusion as well. A few people had fallen, others had spilled drinks or knocked over bottles on the bar. This time I wasn't imagining, something was going on.