Pulse

EPILOGUE

King slid through the darkness, viewing the cave in a haze of green, night vision light. He'd been told to watch out for a maze of strings and small flags marking the areas where Neanderthal artifacts lay, but the floor was not only clear of strings and flags; he didn't see anything to indicate that anything had ever been dug up. He moved forward, leading with his Sig Sauer, wary of the shadow's dark recesses. What Rook and Queen had described encountering in Pierce's office and in this cave didn't sound human, and he'd had just about enough of inhuman, fast-healing monsters. If a pair of reflective eyes opened at the back of the cave, he'd put a bullet between them.

But there were no eyes. No sounds other than the distant crashing waves of the Mediterranean high tide. He found the hidden cave entrance at the back of Gorham's Cave, exactly where it was supposed to be. He held his palm up and open, stopping the others. "Let me check it out."

He rounded the corner and descended a rugged slope… not stairs. A jagged entrance at the bottom of the slope opened where there should have been a door. King passed through and saw exactly what he expected: absolutely nothing. The place had been cleared out. All that remained was a stalactite-filled cavern. He backtracked up the slope and joined the others.

"Lights up," he said, removing the night vision goggles. A moment later several blazing bright flashlights clicked on and scoured the cave.

"This is horse shit," Rook said, looking around the cave. He and Queen had joined King on this little expedition, determined to return to the cave and uncover the mysteries they'd left behind. Knight had passed, preferring to visit Grandma Dae-jung. Something about the old folks he'd seen experimented on had struck a cord with him. Having seen their surreal youth, he knew that growing old, and eventually death, was the way things should be. Death was life. Without it the journey was meaningless.

Bishop, on the other hand, had stayed behind under orders. They tried using the serum to undo the regenerative curse given to Bishop by Ridley, but, being designed to interact with Hydra's genes, it had no effect on the early, pre-Hydra, genetic tinkering. He was being evaluated to make sure he was fit for active duty and not a danger to anyone. Scheduled meditation and a regimen of mood stabilizers had proven effective enough that he felt like his old, quiet self, but no one knew what would happen if he was injured again. A bullet wound might send him over the edge. Then again, so might a paper cut. Until they knew for sure, or until his services were in dire need, he was benched.

"I think it's safe to say that there were never any Neanderthal artifacts here," King said. "What's your take, George?"

George Pierce, healed and fully human, searched the cavern with his eyes. His reaction to the serum had been as quick as the Hydra's, and so far, the change had been permanent. Several of the nonhuman genes bonded to his body had been located and all appeared blocked. He had been declared fit and healthy two days after first being injected with the serum. "I think you're right. The whole dig must have been a front for the Herculean Society."

"It's only been a week," Rook protested. "How could they have cleared out that fast?"

Gallo, who had been found innocent in the University of Athens incident, stepped farther into the cave. George had insisted she join them, to reward her for her part in saving his life. King suspected there was more, but that was a ribbing he'd reserve for another day.

"They've been around for thousands of years," she said. "They have a lot of experience staying off the radar."

"Then why help us?" Queen asked as she inspected the floor, finding no evidence of any kind that would suggest someone had even entered the cave before them. Not even a single footprint.

"You said the man, Alexander, knew about the Hydra being buried in Nazca?"

Queen nodded.

"Then he knew how dangerous it was."

"Or how dangerous the secret of regeneration… of eternal life… could be," King added. "In a way, he was protecting the human race."

Pierce walked to the back wall, running his hand across the surface. "So he's a good guy, then? They nearly killed me to get the Argo crew manifest."

"Some secrets are worth killing for," King said.

Pierce looked at him, trying to gauge whether or not his old friend was speaking from experience. He decided he didn't want to know and turned back to the wall. "That was the first time I saw the Herculean Society symbol. On the Manifest. When I saw it again, later, on the shipwreck, and then on the map, I knew what I had found."

"And when you saw the same symbol on the geoglyph in Nazca—"

"It blew my mind. I had to see it for myself despite the exciting discoveries I was making in Greece. Of course, when I saw the Hydra sample reanimate on the lab table, I knew there was even more to the story of Hercules and Hydra than had been passed down through history. I should have told you sooner, though."

King stood next to Pierce and put his hand on his shoulder. "You told me just in time. Saved a lot of lives."

Pierce smiled. "Don't give me too much credit. I was just trying to save my green, scaly skin." His hand paused on the wall. "What's this?"

Rook and Queen shined their lights on the stone wall where Pierce's hand had been. The symbol for the Herculean Society was still etched in the stone.

"Maybe they missed it," Rook said.

Pierce shook his head. "It's not an oversight."

"It's a warning," King said.

"For who?" Queen asked.

Pierce turned to her. "For us. You've seen what they're capable of.

They want to be left alone, but they want us to know you two didn't conjure the story."

"You think it's safe to let them stay in hiding?" Queen asked.

"I think I'm alive today because of it," Pierce said. "And I'll be glad to leave them alone from now on."

Queen mulled it over and shrugged. "Then my only remaining question is, who is Alexander Diotrephes?"

Pierce smiled. "You mean you haven't figured it out?"

The three of them waited for the answer.

"First, he knew about Hydra's resting place. That's a secret of the top order. You've seen the kind of danger that knowledge could bring to the world. I doubt anyone beyond the leader of the Herculean Society was privy to that bit of trivia. Then there is his choice of name. Diotrephes. It means, 'nourished by Jupiter.' Jupiter is the Roman name for Zeus." Pierce drew a small blade from his pocket and began scratching away at the Herculean Society symbol. When he stood back, the alteration drove home what he'd been insinuating. The Pillars of Hercules were now joined at the center by a horizontal line, turning the symbol into an encircled H.

Queen gasped and whispered the name. "Hercules."

King had seen enough over the past months to believe anything was true. The idea of the mythical Hercules still living among them would have been ridiculous two months previous. But so would the Hydra. He'd never experienced anything so primal. It really had been a force of nature. At times he felt remorse for destroying it. He wondered if that had been why Hercules, or Diotrephes, if they really were one and the same, had buried Hydra to begin with. He decided he would never know, and having had enough mythology for a lifetime, exited the cave while the others finished searching for clues of the Herculean Society's passage.

Standing at the edge of the azure sea, King thought about his sister. He hadn't had a chance to reflect since Pierce's abduction. The world had become a messy place since her death. A worse place. But that only made her passing that much more difficult to bear. She'd made the world, his world at least, a better place. Pierce's, too. Before the calm surroundings allowed him to slip deeper into thought, his cell phone rang. He checked the caller ID and answered it. "What's up?"

Deep Blue's voice came on the line. "We found McCabe."

King caught his breath. The last time anyone had seen the woman she was a psychotic regen on a killing spree. "Is she—"

"Alive," Deep Blue confirmed. "But barely. Severely dehydrated. Starving. Barely put up a fight."

Without meaning to, Deep Blue confirmed King's fear. She'd put up a fight. She was still a regen. "She'll be cared for?"

"We've got some brilliant people working on her. Bishop, too. We'll figure out how to reverse the effects. For now we're keeping her sedated."

King heard an unusual tension in Deep Blue's voice. "There's something else?"

"You know me too well, King." "I don't know you at all."

"Better than most. Listen, they just finished sweeping the forest around the campground." They'd been finding scientists hiding in the woods and Gen-Y soldiers on the lam for the past week. King doubted Deep Blue had called him to tell him about them. There was something more important.

"You found Ridley."

"Pieces of him. An arm. Bits of organs. A lot of blood. The man fell through the trees, apparently tore himself open and hit the ground at terminal velocity."

"But no body?"

"They say there were a lot of coyote tracks. That the arm had been gnawed on." "But no body."

King listened as Deep Blue let out an uncharacteristic sigh. He knew as well as King what the answer meant. "No. No body." Richard Ridley was alive. He always would be.