Ark-13: An Odyssey by B.B. Gallagher Read Free Book Online Page A

is in the Vault of the Archives. She seemed eager to joining the cause, but a little too eager…” Danny punched one last command on the computer to bring up the surveillance footage from the previous day of the Archives. It showed Meredith sneaking through the aisles of the server farm until she reached the glass room in the back of the chamber. A door with a keycard slot stood between Meredith and the one server behind it.
    Meredith pulled a homemade hacking keycard out of her back pocket. A series of flat wires streamed out the back end of the keycard and small monitor connected to the end of the wires. With a few commands punched in, the device attempted to hack the lock.
    “Yeah, she swiped that from me. I didn’t know that she had. It took me awhile to build that, too.”
    After a few moments, the door to the Vault opened. Meredith walked in and plugged into the server with her holographic. She swiped through the different directories and then stopped.
    Her hands came over her mouth.
    Her mouth dropped in shock. And then sirens sounded and the lights on the feed flashed red.
    “As you can see, Meredith saw something that she was not supposed to...”
    “She said that very thing,” Jake spoke, eyes still fixated on the feed.
    “What did she see, though?” Danny asked, through his befuddlement.
    “The truth…she saw the truth, which means that what Cyrus Holder told us… was a lie…”
     

Chapter 13
Requiem for Earth
    Log Entry # 5
     
    I remember performing my morning ritual. I grabbed a coffee from Earl at the corner cafe, popped my headphones in and walked along the boardwalk listening to an old crooner from the 50’s. The sun peered onto the bay and the seagulls gathered. I sat on the lone bench on the boardwalk, looking out over the harbor. Being a creature of habit, this morning ritual was repeated before each and every work day.
    I always found it to be a peaceful way to begin my day.
    I arrived to my office at 9. My secretary was on edge by the time I walked in.
    “What is it, Doris?” I placed the blueberry muffin I had bought her on her desk.
    “There’s a man in ya’ office. I sure tried to get him to wait out ere’ but he said you’d been ‘xpecting him.” She shook her head in a tizzy.
    “It’s okay. Just enjoy your muffin and hold all my calls,” I tried to offer a comforting smile but she was an old Southern woman who would think what she thought regardless.
    I entered my office and found Cyrus Holder, inspecting the pictures on my wall. He turned and smiled a toothy grin at me.
    Cyrus Holder did not look like your typical CEO. He had a feeble, skinny frame, large outdated glasses and thinning hair atop a receding hairline. He wore a navy blue cardigan with elbow patches and a plaid button-down underneath it, atop a pair of wrinkled khakis.
    It was the appearance of an older man with no woman in his life.
    I was slightly star struck as the man before me was in fact one of the most powerful men in the world. GENESIS Enterprises was the world’s leader in all things technology. They had the best selling gadgets, phones, tablets, cars and solar panels. GENESIS was a private firm, so was able to maintain a level of discretion that most public companies could not. Most of their research was kept under wraps and the company was at the center of every conspiracy theory from Bilderberg to the Illuminati.
    The news had been reporting over the last six months on his progressing cancer, as questions circled about.
    With no children or spouse, what would happen to the company in the event of his death?
    I wondered if he was going to use me to plan his last will and testament. I am an estate lawyer after all, but why would he give such a small town lawyer that responsibility when he has a cohort of lawyers, including my father, on payroll.
    As I looked at the man at the center of every tabloid in America, I could see that he had a much different purpose. And his will was the last thing on his