Project Sparta (The Xander Whitt Series Book 1) (14 page)

Chapter 27

The Compound

December 12
th
2010

Xander shuffled awake up off the couch before the monitor setup on his coffee table His hair stood straight up on his left side from where it was sprawled out on the cushions throughout the night. The stitching of the fabric had imprinted on the side of his face. Xander lumbered off the couch and into the kitchen and began brewing coffee. His mind recalled the previous night and the conversation he had with Fiona.

She can’t be a double agent. She’s just too…human.

As on most Saturday mornings, he spent some time in the seat next to his bookshelf. Having never studied philosophy, his analysis of
The
Republic
was fresh, well-reasoned and thorough. He found the text generally intriguing and captivating to his inquisitive nature. It was a mental exercise for him, something that was difficult to find for someone of his intelligence. It was a different species of intelligence—it was wisdom.

The coffee pot exhaled the last breaths of its brew into a mug for his enjoyment. Xander walked out on his covered porch with his coffee mug. He saw Ezra coming out of his house and sidling in the other direction. There was no interest in his friend’s eyes; he looked exhausted. Xander narrowed in on Ezra and realized something had gotten to him. Whatever it could be, it wasn’t only on his mind, it was on his sleeve, as well.

For better or worse, Ezra usually opened his mouth first and was the last to close it. But he remained tightlipped, refusing to participate in the deliberations about the following day’s battle.

Xander was the only one to notice, as he was the most observant. He knew that there wasn’t enough evidence to form any plausible explanation for Ezra’s erratic behavior. His friend looked depressed, weak, and downtrodden—Xander knew as a friend he would have to talk to him.

Later that day, the Spartans finished lunch. Some went to the Fitness Center to work out, others tried the new assault rifles in the Armory. Xander jogged ahead to catch up with Ezra before he made it back to his house.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Oh hey, Xander…” Ezra was despondent, an unusual characteristic for a recruit of his charm.

“I was just wondering if you wanted to hang out and do something today.” Ezra paused a moment and saw Xander’s sincerity and concern.

“I’m fine, Xander.” Ezra’s sour response indicated that he knew what Xander was implying.

“I know you are, but I want to hang out.”

Ezra began to shake his head and then he stopped and looked at his friend. He sighed his reluctance away and caved. “Okay, let’s go shooting tonight. After dinner? I’m feeling a little tired today. In fact, I’m going to go take a nap right now.” He forced a long yawn and stretched out his arms all the way.

“See ya then, Ezra.”

Ezra nodded and closed his front door with as much apathy as he had started the conversation. Xander felt uneasy and was left to his own speculations.

«————————»

Darkness fell that evening. Xander whipped up a quick dinner and headed toward the Armory where he grabbed a Remington 700 VLS hunting rifle. Xander proceeded to the Thicket where the Nest was perched. The Nest was a hunting fort built high in a tree on the south side of the Thicket. On Saturdays, small game would be released into the area; any animals that did not survive the night would be collected and discarded. There was a large window in the Nest looking out over a clearing where wildlife convened.

Xander climbed the shoddy ladder to the Nest to find Ezra already in position, searching for game.

“Hey, Ezra,” Xander whispered. Ezra continued his aim through his scope and fired a round off.

“Got ’em.” He brought his rifle down. He handed Xander a pair of night vision goggles that were hung up in the Nest. Xander hunted with Ezra for an hour or two, shooting down a handful of rabbits.

“Easy pickin’,” Xander said, bringing down his rifle and taking off the night vision goggles.

“Remember that first class when you shot better than Duke? Never had shot a gun and it just came naturally to you.” Ezra became nostalgic fast.

“Thanks, but I’m not as good a shot as Ashton.” Xander, as usual, was humbled the compliment.

“Everything comes naturally to you, Xander. You are going to be the best one of us you know.”

Xander nodded a thank-you. “You know, I’m going to ask,” he led.

“Ask what?”

They started to unload and break down their equipment.

“What’s been going on, man?” Xander put it out in the open. To him, that was the only option left because theorizing only rendered more absurd conclusions.

“Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about things.” Ezra’s face slowed and fell to a sullen grimace.

“About what?” His back against the wall, Ezra took a moment, cocked his head, and looked Xander in the eye.

“You know what’s going on here that no one will say? Xander, we are being lied to. They are using us and manipulating us. They are telling us that we don’t exist!” Xander almost grinned, realizing that Ezra was finally dropping his guard. Ezra wasn’t the first among them to have a meltdown and he wouldn’t be the last.

“We live in a dome buried in the ground, for God’s sakes!”

Xander remained silent, waiting for Ezra to clarify.

“Nothing here is real, Xander. This place has fake walls, ceiling, weather, everything is fake! I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid anymore, Xander. You might think this is just another meltdown, but this is different.” He aimed a look at Xander that conveyed the gravity of what he was saying. Xander presented the counter to his outcry.

“It’s not Kool-Aid. It’s patriotism. All this around us? Of course it’s not all real, but it’s a real simulation. Would I call that a real sky?” he questioned, pointing up. “No, but I will call it a real screen that is showing the images of a sky. Your senses can be deceived, but you can be sure that what you are looking at looks the way it does.”

“That means what we see is a lie, and we are letting it deceive us,” Ezra came back defiantly.

“You are focusing on the wrong part, Ezra. You need to look more broadly at things. If you focus too closely on every ridge of the puzzle you will never see it come together to form a picture,” Xander offered.

“How do you know how to solve the puzzle unless you focus on the ridges?” Ezra exclaimed, highlighting the differences in their personalities.

“It’s a balancing act, Ezra. You have to be aware of both the small and the big. The zoomed in and the zoomed out perspectives. That’s pretty much everything in life in my opinion,” Xander said.

“Well not everyone’s brain can do that, Xander.”

Ezra remained shaking his head. Xander remained calm and empathetic, pressing a consoling hand on Ezra’s shoulder.

“They are brainwashing us, Xander! This place is a scam and I’m tired of being a pawn in their war games with the Russians, North Koreans, or whoever they can’t get along with!” Ezra looked up with saddened eyes, almost as if he was going to cry.

“You know they killed Bronson…”

“I don’t take much stock in those conspiracy theories. There’s nine of us and we are living in an underground dome, of course we are going to use our imagination. I’m sure it was an equipment malfunction or… he killed himself.”

“Who could blame him?!” Ezra yelled, losing control. “They’ve taken our lives away from us!” Xander offered a comforting hand to Ezra whose hand was trembling along with his bottom lip. After a few reflective moments, Ezra’s expression relaxed.

“You’ll be okay… Let’s just go home and sleep it off,” Xander suggested to which Ezra agreed.

They slung their guns over their shoulders and climbed down from the Nest. They walked home without a word, shoulder to shoulder, reflecting on their conversation. They soon reached Ezra’s silver house. Ezra appeared drained as if he had already checked out for the night.

“Goodnight, Xander.” Xander turned back to Ezra, who was still an image of despair.

“Hang in there. We will get through this together,” Xander assured him.

Ezra feigned a grin and nodded before he entered his house.

«————————»

Xander laid in his bed and replayed the conversation in his head. It must have been 3:00 a.m. when he looked over at his clock; he still hadn’t slept. Staring up at the ceiling fan, Xander’s mind once again rotated around and around along with it.

Ezra, what are you thinking? What am I going to say to him tomorrow? Will I say anything? He’s in a rut… he’ll get out of it. He doesn’t understand the reality of what we are doing, trapped in this dome. He can’t see the bigger cause at play here. Nothing can change his mind. He’s stubborn. Once he decides he is going to do something, he does it—no turning back. He sounded like he was going somewh—

At that thought, a deafening blast sounded outside his window, shaking the pictures off Xander’s wall. He shot up out of bed, adrenaline pumping through his veins and confusion running through his mind. Another blast. It was coming from down the street. Xander darted down the stairs and ran outside. His eyes ignited and his legs collapsed at the sight before him. Ezra’s house was decimated to rubble. There, consumed in an explosion, were only remnants of the interior frame.

A roaring fire.

Burning rubble.

Inferno ablaze.

Debris littered the street and a foggy ash hovered overhead, coating the Spartans who were all gathering outside Ezra’s house, struck in disbelief.

None of the instructors were there, just the horrified Spartans watching their fellow recruit burn.

Xander knew it was too late, though, as his eyes found something through the rubble in the blaze.

A body charred to a crisp.

Xander’s world went dark; face down in his hands, collapsing in the middle of the street. Ezra was gone. There was no surviving that explosion. And then he turned and something caught his eye in the distance. At the second floor window looking out over the Compound was a silhouette. Someone was standing by, watching the scene below.

Chapter 28

The Compound

March 12
th
2011

Xander collapsed in the street, screaming into his hands as the fire blazed over Ezra’s house. He smelled the rotting of the house and the burning of flesh. His eyes met the torched corpse and he heard the cries from the others.

Xander turned and squinted through the floating soot up to the windows looking out over the Compound and spotted a silhouette. An ominous feeling that came over him at the sight; a knot twisted in his gut. A pair of hands grabbed him and pulled him away from the perimeter—they belonged to Seamus. Xander snapped. He threw an elbow and caught Seamus in the windpipe. Seamus released and he hit the ground hard. He turned again to the window but the silhouette was gone.

Xander found his feet and started running toward the house. He was within twenty yards when the gas line exploded, sending one more violent blast through the Compound. Xander flew through the air.

Xander woke up in a sweat. He bolted up in bed and looked around in hopes of finding his way back to reality.

It had been three months, the new year had dawned, and nothing had gotten better.

Xander’s speculation grew wild despite Hardy’s announcement that Ezra had committed suicide. Hardy’s words during the memorial service echoed through his head.

“Ezra was troubled. The pressure—that you all face—got to him. Ezra took C-4 from the Armory. Judging by the wreckage, he planted the explosives next to the gas main in an effort to take out his whole house and him along with it. You all should consider yourselves strong for making it through where another has faltered. We have to be there for each other in this dark time in Project Sparta. This loss will help us grow closer. This loss…will make comrades out of us,” his voice trembled. Xander sat despondent, numb to everything around him. He remembered his initial thought upon hearing the news.

Did he really kill himself? Or did they dispose of him, knowing that he had mentally and emotionally checked out from the Project? They wouldn’t kill a dissenter, would they? But then who was that silhouette? And why did they seem calm and not alarmed or surprised by the explosion? Was that Ezra’s murderer?

Xander’s trust in his surroundings and the program had dwindled to a faint apathy. He mostly kept to himself, attending mandatory trainings and immediately retreating to his house afterward. The memory of Ezra’s death had replayed over and over like the hard drive of his brain had a glitch. The image of the charred corpse through the rubble of the house surfaced again and again, haunting him. His anger toward the instructors and the program itself was growing. He found himself adopting Ezra’s sentiments of the Project before his death.

They are completely manipulating us.

Over the three months since Ezra’s death, Duke had seized the opportunity to climb the leaderboard as Xander’s name descended like a bird with a clipped wing. Xander merely went through the motions of each subsequent battle. He acted with a poised detachment, engaged just enough to fly under the radar. There had been battles in a rail yard, a church, the mountains, and a schoolhouse, all abandoned locations within the region. During the battles, when he had a moment, he would look out to the edges of the landscape and consider making a run for it. He wanted to abandon the program, leave everyone behind. But he couldn’t leave Fiona.

Xander watched her from afar, avoiding as much personal contact with her or anyone else as possible. He continued to watch the surveillance monitors as Fiona carried on with her mornings and evenings. Throughout the months of surveillance, he had seen no indication that she could have questionable loyalties. The only coping mechanism he had was running. Xander ran long distances around the Compound every day, alone and apart from the other Spartans exercising in the Fitness Center. It was the only way he could find the space and time to process his thoughts. He put every ounce of anger he had into his physique, chiseling it into a built frame.

One day, as Xander lapped around the Compound, Hardy approached, condemnation spread over his face.

“Xander!” Hardy barked. Xander stumbled to a stop near the colonel.

“Yes, sir?” It was hard to make eye contact with the intimidating instructor.

“Follow me.” He spun on his heel and headed south to the clanking steel stairs that led up to the one-way windows overlooking the Compound floor. Unsure of himself, Xander stopped at the bottom of the stairs, knowing that the room he was being led to was off limits to the Spartans. Hardy turned at the door and eyed Xander at the bottom of the stairwell.

“Xander, get your ass up here now.” He spoke through clenched teeth and with a deep tone. Xander shuffled up the stairs as if being kicked in the rear end. He followed Hardy through the door, but they did not come to room. They were in a long hallway with unmarked doors on either side, all of which were closed. It looked like a series of offices. Xander kept up with Hardy’s brisk pace as they walked to the other end of the hallway and passed a stairwell leading into the gallows of the Compound. They came to a door where an exit sign hung.

Without a word, Hardy pushed open the exit door. They emerged from the control room into a long arched, concrete passageway.

Tunnels within tunnels.

There, parked right outside, was Hardy’s Suburban. Xander followed Hardy’s lead and climbed up into the front passenger seat.

“Where are we going?” He buckled his seat belt.

“Shut the hell up, Xander.”

Xander sealed his lips. The scathing words humbled him, as Hardy had always been patient and kind, despite being more distant since the beginning of the Project. It was almost as if the world had stopped turning for the moment, and they drove through a suspended stillness toward the daylight. As they sped off down the tunnel toward the light, Xander could slowly feel the warmth creep over his skin again. They emerged from the tunnel fully consumed in the daylight.

It was so bright, Xander couldn’t make out anything as the brightness consumed his vision. But he felt the sun’s rays embrace him through the open window from his head to his toes. In this moment, Xander felt a strange ecstasy, as if he’d been freed from the confines of Project Sparta, unhindered from any thought of a battle to come, just the mystery of the ensuing one-on-one field trip.

After a ten-minute drive, Hardy and Xander arrived at a busy city park in Northern Virginia. The spring flowers had begun to bloom as the fresh breezes swirled down the walking path. Xander watched several squirrels collect their bounty and bees pollinate flowers. Hardy’s pace had slowed to a stroll. Together they walked down a path, hands in pockets as Xander awaited Hardy’s first move.

“Xander, tell me what you see.” His voice was soft. Xander kept his slow pace and scanned his surroundings.

“I see colors, children playing, nature…” Just then, a five-year-old boy stumbled and fell, scraping his knee on the asphalt. A worried mother immediately ran to his aid and helped him up. The five-year-old’s eyes began to well up and his bottom lip pushed out and down like a wave crashing, but the comfort of his mother stalled the tears before they broke. She dusted him off, embraced him, and kissed him.

“I see justice,” Hardy said.

“But isn’t that just an abstract word that we use to define whatever we want to define? Does it even have a real meaning? Or is it just a plug value that helps our expression of ideas?”

“Just because we often use a word incorrectly, doesn’t mean that there is no real meaning behind it. Love exists. People use that word wrongly every day.
Justice
is one of those words. Justice does in fact have a real meaning that in many ways still needs to be discovered, but in every way needs to be protected.” Hardy countered his logic.

“So what is justice?” Xander asked.

“
Justice is inextricably connected to carrying out the Common Good, within oneself, as well as on behalf of society. Justice is doing what is right, no matter who opposes you,” Hardy explained.

Xander recognized the sentiment. “Sounds like Plato’s
Republic
.”

“Why do you think I planted that text for you?” Hardy asked with a smile. It was the first time the text hidden inside “The Fox and the Grapes” had been spoken of.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve memorized the whole book, but I can’t understand it all.”

“I thought it could offer you some perspective. And I knew you wouldn’t be able to fully understand it all. It is philosophy, not math. That’s why you have to always be asking yourself the highest questions,” Hardy added, reiterating his message to Xander from the title page of the book.

“Plato says that justice is about fulfilling one’s role. In that case, what is mine?” Xander asked.

“Your role will be revealed to you over time, but right now you are the one that must hold the others together. The Spartans are nothing without a leader, and a leader is only a tyrant if he doesn’t live the just life,” Hardy explained. Xander contemplated his words in silence.

Xander surveyed his surroundings but this time focused on more particular sights—the toothless smiles of the children playing in the flowerbed, the mothers gossiping behind their baby strollers, the ducks crossing the walkway ahead. He recognized nature at play in all forms. Xander’s walk slowed. His eyes lifted from the ground to the distance. Two hundred yards away on the far side of the park stood a flag pole with an American flag dancing in the same breeze that swept by him.

“We are not CIA, we are not FBI or NSA or American military. We are contractors and that allows us to do things the other agencies cannot do. It allows us a significant amount of freedom. A freedom that we must be careful to not misuse. We have to live the just life in order to self-govern in a way that promotes the Common Good of the country.”

Some of Hardy’s musings flew over Xander’s head but nevertheless Xander nodded, caught off guard by the depth of the retired Colonel, walking alongside him.

“Colonel Hardy, what happened to Ezra?” The question was posed with such depth that Hardy could tell he’d been speculating.

“Xander, he’s gone.”

“But how? How he died… it matters.”

Hardy stopped in his tracks and for the first time turned to face Xander straight on.

“You want the truth?” A nod followed. “The truth is that Ezra killed himself because he was fighting for himself and nothing else. He refused to believe that there was something out there bigger than himself worth fighting for. This unwillingness drove him crazy. To make it in Project Sparta you have to be all in. You can’t have one foot out.”

Xander noticed the emotional crack in Hardy’s voice and the sadness on his face. His heavy eyes returned to Xander as he continued.

“I didn’t train him well enough. And I will have to live with that,” Hardy explained through difficulty.

Xander could see the guilt, regret, sadness, and rage on his face, all encapsulated in one creased expression.

“Ezra must have realized he did not have his footing in reality and folded under the pressure. That is why I am asking you to not lose yourself like he did.” Hardy adopted the tone of a drill sergeant. “Now get your feet back on the ground and your ass back in gear.”

Xander looked up at him through intense eyes.

“Yes sir.”