The Prometheus Project (3 page)

Ryan listened as he fought to hold on, very near the limit of his endurance. His muscles were aching and he was certain his arms would pop out of their sockets at any moment.

Just as his hands finally slipped from around the branch the man turned and began racing off at a full sprint in the other direction. Ryan landed as quietly as possible and held his breath.
They were safe
. At least for now.

Ryan froze in a crouch for several minutes until the man was out of sight and then motioned to his sister. Moments later she joined him on the ground. He would never tell her so, but he was impressed. The height from which he had dropped had seemed awfully scary, yet Regan—because she was smaller—had plunged an even greater distance, and without hesitation. He didn’t know any other girl her age who would have had the nerve to do the same.

“Did you hear that guy mention Prometheus?” whispered Ryan.

“Yeah,” his sister whispered back. “I wonder who those kids are that they’re after.”

Ryan scratched his head. “I don’t have any idea. I guess just a few kids who wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time. Lucky for me they did, or that guard would have caught me for sure.” He breathed a sigh of relief as he reflected on just how helpless he had been hanging from a tree, a mere ten feet from both an “intruders will be shot on sight” sign and a heavily armed guard moving steadily toward him.

Ryan pulled the bag of talcum powder from his pocket once again. He scooped out a handful of the fine, white powder and tossed it out in front of him. As expected, two bright red laser beams magically became visible where they sliced through the billowing white cloud that he had created. Lowering his head and right shoulder, Ryan carefully threw his body forward, hands extended, and rolled between the two beams onto his shoulder, making sure to lift his legs high enough to easily clear the lower beam. Regan repeated this maneuver and quickly joined him on the other side of the hidden laser perimeter.

So far, so good.

Crouching low, they headed toward the main building, alert for security guards. They chose an indirect path to their destination, avoiding being out in the open at all costs, staying in the cover of trees and high weeds. Soon they passed a bunker-like gray building constructed of huge slabs of thick concrete. It was about the size of a very large house, and almost entirely hidden by trees and thick growth. There were no windows or openings of any kind to mar the plain, ugly, rectangular structure, except for a huge steel door, so big it encompassed almost an entire side of the building. A large metal sign hung above the door.

DANGER! RADIOACTIVE WASTE STORAGE. LETHAL RADIATION LEVELS INSIDE. DO NOT ENTER!

Ryan shook his head. What was with this place? Every sign warned of impending death. Why couldn’t the sign have said,
Free Chocolate Inside
?

Ryan began moving toward the Proact building again when his sister touched his arm. She pointed at the concrete building. “I think we should go in there and check it out.”

“Go in
there
?” repeated Ryan as if he had heard wrong. “I don’t think so. The lethal radiation in there isn’t going to wait before harming us because you’re little and cute.”

“You really think I’m cute?” said Regan with an impish grin.

“No, of course not,” insisted Ryan, trying to cover for having accidentally done the unthinkable, giving his sister a compliment. “You know that wasn’t my point.”

“Look,” said Regan. “Let’s think about this for a second. The Proact building isn’t finished yet and it’s totally out in the open. This building
is
finished and also well hidden. You wouldn’t see it unless you almost walked into it like we did. Then, to top it off, they put a giant radiation warning sign on it. They
really, really
don’t want people to enter this building. Which is why I think they must be hiding something important inside. The sign is just a fake to scare people away.”

“And what if there really is deadly radiation inside? What if you’re wrong?”

She thought for a moment and then smiled. “If I’m wrong, then I guess we’ll be the only kids in Pennsylvania who will glow in the dark.”

Ryan smiled despite himself. She had certainly made some good points. But even if the radiation warning was a bluff, it was too big a risk to take. As much as the little brat could drive him crazy, he was the older brother. It was still his job to protect her. It had been his idea to break onto the grounds and he had endangered her enough just letting her come with him. No, he would not be the one responsible for her getting hurt. “There’s no way we’re going inside,” he said firmly, but then after a brief pause added, “but I guess it can’t hurt to take a closer look at the building.”

Regan nodded. At least it was a step in the right direction, and she could make another attempt to convince him later.

They carefully approached the large steel door. The steel looked to be just as thick as the concrete, but there was no door handle or knob of any kind. Why have a warning sign when there was no way to enter anyway? As far as they could tell, the building was completely sealed. Ryan stepped closer to touch the door. He reached out with his right hand and—

Ryan jumped back as if he had been shocked! When he touched the door a panel near his hand had slid open to reveal a steel keypad, with numbers zero through nine. It had startled him nearly to death.

“Please enter a ten-digit password,”
said a computer voice from a small speaker at the bottom of the keypad.
“Please note that an alarm will sound immediately if an incorrect digit is entered.”

Regan raised her eyebrows. “Radioactive waste storage facility, huh?” she said. “Very interesting, don’t you think?”

Ryan nodded. “You were right,” he said, now convinced. “Something very important must be going on inside this building.” He took a determined step closer to the door. “Let’s find out what it is.”

Chapter 5

Breaking the Code

“I’m glad we now agree that we need to get inside,” said Regan. “Now all we have to do is find a way to, um . . . get inside.”

Ryan ignored her attempted humor. His expression was one of total concentration. “I’ll bet the numeric password we heard Mom and Dad talk about will do the trick.”

“You may be right. But we never actually heard what it was.”

“No, but we should be able to figure it out from Dad’s clue.”

Regan considered. Her brother was right. Their dad loved riddles and brainteasers and word puzzles, and since they were old enough to talk he was always challenging them to solve a wide variety of them. “Dad said the number is in alphabetical order,” she offered.

“Right. So what does that mean?”

Regan shrugged. “0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9?” she said.

Ryan shook his head. “Can’t be. Mom wouldn’t have needed Dad’s help to make sense of a number
that o
bvious. Besides, that’s in numerical order. He said alphabetical.”

“True. But the keypad only has numbers on it, not letters. How can you put
numbers
in alphabetical order?”

Ryan scratched his head.
Good question
. “What if you spelled out each of the numbers zero through nine,” he said, thinking aloud.
Could it really be that easy
?

“Regan,” he said excitedly. “Recite the alphabet for me very slowly.”

Regan didn’t hesitate. Maybe Ryan was on to something. “A,” she began.

Ryan mumbled the numbers zero through nine to himself, deep in concentration. He nodded for her to continue. “B,” she said. Regan made it to the letter E before her brother stopped her.

“Okay,” he said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. None of the numbers zero through nine begin with A,B,C or D. But Eight starts with an E. I’m betting this is the first digit. The problem is we can’t make even a single mistake. What do you think?”

Regan was pleased that he had asked for her opinion. “I think we should risk it.”

Ryan nodded. “Here goes nothing.”

Mentally bracing himself for the earsplitting sound of an alarm, which would be followed quickly by heavily armed guards, he reached out and pushed the 8 button on the key-pad. Regan cringed beside him as she waited to see—or hear—the outcome.

Nothing happened. No sirens, no blaring alarms.

“Fantastic!” said Regan. “You did it. Let’s keep going. F,” she recited excitedly.

Her brother mumbled to himself again as he counted. When he reached Four he nodded and reached out for the keypad. His finger found the number 4 and pushed . . .

“Stop!” shouted Regan beside him.

He had been an instant away from pressing the button and was just able to jerk his hand away in time.
“What?”
he snapped. “What is it?”

Regan raised her eyebrows. “Five,” she said simply.

“Five?” he repeated, and then her meaning began to register. His eyes went wide. Whoops. She was right! He had nearly been too hasty and blown it. F-O-U-R and F-I-V-E both began with F, but Five came before Four alphabetically.

Ryan made sure there were no other F numbers in the digits zero through nine and then pressed the 5 button followed by the 4. Again, they heard nothing but the welcome sound of silence. “Nice work, Regs,” he said appreciatively. She had saved them.

Regan beamed and continued reciting the alphabet. After a short time they had entered 8-5-4-9-1-7-6-3 and 2. Nine digits. The number 0 would complete the password, the first digit numerically and the last alphabetically.

Ryan took a deep breath and reached toward the keypad one last time. He pushed the 0 key and quickly stepped back. What would happen?

An electric motor whirred as the giant door separated in the middle and the two sections slid smoothly apart.

They were in!

Ryan inched his way toward the opening in the door and cautiously peered inside the building. Other than a shiny, all steel structure at its center, it was completely empty. No rooms. No people. No equipment. And thankfully, no containers of radioactive waste.

They entered the building and inspected it carefully. It soon became clear that the rectangular steel structure Ryan had seen was an elevator, about the size of a large, three-car garage, but with a ceiling three times as high. It was by far the largest elevator they had ever seen. Was the entire purpose of the building to house and protect this elevator?

As they approached to within a foot of the elevator its massive doors slid open with barely a sound. They traded a quick glance and then carefully stepped inside. The doors slid shut behind them.

The elevator was empty except for a computer monitor that was set inside one of its walls and a metal keyboard that was attached to the wall underneath it. There were only two elevator buttons, labeled
up
and
down
, next to the keyboard.

Regan reached out toward the
down
button and looked back at her brother questioningly. He nodded. She took a deep breath and pushed. Where would the elevator lead?

A loud
thunk
came from the elevator doors, startling them. It sounded like a bank vault closing. “
Warning,”
said a computer voice from a speaker in the ceiling.
“You have attempted to activate the elevator without first keying in your twelve-letter password
.
The elevator doors have now been sealed
.
You have two minutes to enter a correct password or security will be alerted
.

“Repeat. You have two minutes to enter a correct password or security will be alerted.”

Chapter 6

Two Minutes From Capture

Regan rushed to the door and tried to pry it open. Not surprisingly, it wouldn’t budge. She banged angrily on the door with the sides of her fists. “We’re trapped!” she yelled anxiously. They were in big trouble now.

Ryan fought to remain calm. “We still have two minutes,” he said quickly. “Let’s not panic. We can get out of this. Mom and Dad said that one of the new passwords they created was for an elevator. I’m betting it was for
this
elevator. Do you remember?”

“That’s right! Mom said the password was
‘We are in the middle of nowhere’
. Good going, Ryan! Quick, let’s punch it in.”

Ryan shook his head. “The computer asked for a twelve-letter password, remember?”

“How many letters are there in ‘we are in the middle of nowhere’?”

“Too many. Let’s find out exactly. Count them while I start spelling.” He recited each letter in the phrase hastily and looked expectantly at Regan for a letter count.

“Twenty-five” she said, frowning. “You’re right. Far too many. As crazy as it seems, this must be the password for a different elevator.”

“I don’t think so. How many password protected elevators can there be? This has to be the right password. Somehow. There must be a trick to it. Dad wrote it down for Mom. If there wasn’t a trick to it he could have just told her what it was.”

“Right,” said Regan, encouraged. “And when Mom saw it she told him he was clever.”

Ryan rubbed his hand through his hair as if to stimulate his brain. “Is there any way to write this sentence using only twelve letters?”

Regan considered the question carefully. “Maybe there is!” she said, her eyes growing wide. “Last year Dad challenged me to write ‘I see you are a cutie’ using only seven letters.”

Ryan thought about this for only a second before he saw the answer. “I . . . C . . . U . . . R . . . A . . . Q . . . T” he said. Regan was on to something here. “Typical Dad puzzle. People do this sort of thing on their car’s license plates to shorten messages. I bet this is what Dad did with the password.”

“
You have . . . sixty seconds . . . to enter a correct password
,” announced the computer.