Migration: Beginnings (Migration Series Book 1) Read online

  Adjusting the glasses on the bridge of his nose as he ponders the question, Rhys sighs. “I guess we would eventually both read them. But since you’re more familiar with them than I am, I think it’d be best if you read them over first.”

  Jason just nods, and goes back to reading.

  Chapter 8

  Friday comes quicker than they anticipated, and they leave Donna at home with the neighborhood kids, while Leslie drives them to the train station. While many people get off the first train they see, which is heading north, there are very few who are actually boarding their southbound train when it shows up a few minutes later. Rhys and Jason are lucky enough to have snagged a sleeping compartment again, so they store their single suitcase in the closet and sit in silence at the window until the train pulls out of the station.

  Their train was already leaving late in the day, so it doesn’t take long for the sun to begin to set soon after they pull out of Portland’s Union Station.

  “C’mon,” Rhys says, holding his hand out to his husband, who seems to be lost in his thoughts. “Let’s go get some dinner.”

  Jason reaches out and takes Rhys’ hand, and the two make their way to the dining car, where they find a small table off to the side. They manage to have a good dinner, Jason’s eyes spotting a nearby youngster who can’t be more than three years old, trying to charm everyone around him, and neither man can resist his smile.

  “You miss having kids around, don’t you?” Rhys quietly asks.

  Jason manages to give him a sardonic smile. And even though his eyes crinkle at the sides with the supposedly happy look, Rhys can almost feel the unease emanating off his husband. When they go to bed that night, Rhys pulls Jason close to him and doesn’t let him go.

  Chapter 9

  Rhys’ watch beeps an alarm at 5:50 a.m. as a reminder that they would be in Sacramento by 7:00 a.m. He kills the alarm, and slumps against Jason, who groans a “Morning, boo,” out through a yawn.

  Leaning over for a quick kiss, Rhys asks, “You want the bathroom first, or should I?”

  “I’m closer, so I guess me,” Jason manages. He sits up and stretches as Rhys once again tries to get comfortable on his pillow. “Here you go,” Jason says, handing over Rhys’ glasses and phone. “That way you can properly ogle me when I get undressed.” In an instant, any thought Rhys had of going back to sleep escapes his mind. He smiles, looking at his phone as Jason goes to the closet for their carry-on bag, and puts it on the small table, pulling out a change of clothes.

  Jason makes quick use of the facilities and is back out of the combination toilet and shower before Rhys is even finished checking his email. “Shower,” Jason commands, pulling the phone from Rhys’ grasp. At Rhys’ questioning look, he adds, “I can’t have my husband caffeine deprived and grumpy on his big scientific discovery day; that would be bad.”

  “Yes, dear,” Rhys says as he steals a kiss, and heads into the bathroom for a quick shower.

  A uniformed member of the Air Force meets them at the Sacramento train station, confirming Rhys’ previous suspicions about military involvement. “Lieutenant,” Rhys says as he nods to the sign that simply states, “TAMBOR” and “FROST-TAMBOR” in block letters. “I’m Doctor Rhys Tambor, and this is my husband, Jason Frost-Tambor.”

  The officer, a medium-framed woman with dark, wavy hair and a professional air about her, the name ‘Franks’ embroidered on the patch on her chest, first gives them a crisp nod, and then takes each man’s hand, shaking it. “Doctor Tambor. Mister Frost-Tambor,” she says with a curt nod, “I’m Lieutenant Clarice Franks. Welcome to Sacramento.” She turns and begins leading them to a row of cars, tossing a “This way, gentlemen,” over her shoulder as they continue.

  “Where are we going?” Jason asks.

  They approach what looks like a military-issue sedan. “McClellan Airfield, sir,” Franks announces, a formality to her tone. It figures they would take the newly discovered device to a former military base; close enough that they could secure the area without too many odd looks, but also allowing them to allow civilians, like Jason, in without too much hassle.

  The drive to McClellan only takes about twenty minutes, with Jason being uncharacteristically quiet along the way. When he’d signed the contract to come aboard as a civilian contractor (with good pay), he’d made the stipulation that neither he nor Rhys, would be put in harm’s way; “I think I’ve finally worn him down to wanting kids,” Jason had joked to Rhys’ boss Harvey, who—knowing just how important Jason was to the project—happily agreed.

  The sedan pulls up to a nondescript warehouse on the side of McClellan Airfield. Rhys watches as a Cessna takes off, noting a few military planes still stationed there, segregated from the private fleet. He helps Jason out of the car, and grabs their carry-on bag from the trunk before Franks calls to them, motioning for them to follow into a nearby building. “This way, gentlemen,” she follows up, so Rhys reaches out for Jason, taking his hand in his own, and the pair follows Franks into the darkened building.

  “So where is…” Rhys starts, but feels his husband urgently tug him toward a back office area. “Jason?”

  “It’s in there, isn’t it?” Jason asks, pointing and walking toward a secured door. Rhys feels the urgency that is almost pouring off of his husband like he’s being pulled by an invisible force toward some unseen destination.

  Lieutenant Franks just nods, and Rhys lets Jason take the lead. Rhys watches as his husband reaches for the handle, though Franks stops him.

  “You’ll need these, sir,” Franks says, handing over a pair of keycards. She makes sure each man clips the card to his belt. Examining it, Rhys has to wonder exactly how the government got images of them for the badges. The picture is pretty generic, and Rhys wonders if they are from some security camera feed.

  “Creepy…” Jason mutters, just barely loud enough for Rhys to hear, and Rhys has to agree, giving Jason a nod.

  Franks pulls at her own military issued security card. “They’re pretty easy to use,” she says, and waves her card in front of the nearby card reader; they watch as the red light changes to a flashing green. “Now you can go in, sir, Doctor.”

  “Aren’t you coming with?” Jason asks, but Franks just shakes her head.

  “Above my clearance, sir,” she replies, and steps to the right. Jason acknowledges her, and he and Rhys enter the room alone.

  Rhys pauses at the door, though Jason is already through and continuing on to a crate in the middle of the room. He glances around, finding that they are alone. “Nobody…So it’s just us?” he asks.

  “There was a team here earlier, sir, but they were just here to drop off equipment. You should find everything you need on the far table.” Franks points to a table off to the left of the crate, against a back wall. “Lunch will be delivered at approximately 1300 hours, and there is a cooler inside, with bottled water and snacks if you need them.” Pointing to a back corner, she adds, “There’s a lav back there.”

  The sheer amount of detail being paid to this project shocks Rhys just a bit, but at least it tells him that not only is his department taking it seriously, but so is the government. Even if there was only a small hope of the legend being true, any way they could move forward would be a boon to the entire world. “Thanks,” he manages, and then turns toward Jason as the door is pulled closed behind them.

  Jason wastes absolutely no time at all and is currently using a crowbar to pry the lid off of the crate. Rhys joins in, and it takes just a few minutes for them to remove enough of the nails for the top of the crate to come off, and they let it topple noisily to the concrete floor.

  “Jesus,” Jason manages, holding his hands over the straw. “Can you feel that?”

  Rhys reaches out and thinks he feels a whisper of an electrical charge to the air, though he has to be honest—if Jason wasn’t with him, he might not have noticed. Crinkling up his brow, he confesses, “A little, but not really that much, no.”

  “I wonder,
” Jason starts, and Rhys watches as his husband’s eyes dart around the room, and Rhys wonders if Jason is making sure the room is secure before continuing. He watches as Jason reaches up to the back of his neck and tugs at the clasp, pulling the necklace from around his neck and placing it on top of the straw.

  Free of the necklace, Jason reaches out. “Okay, that definitely makes a difference,” Jason says.

  Looking at Jason to the necklace, then back again, Rhys starts, “So…”

  “Here,” Jason says. He reaches down and grabs the necklace, handing it over to Rhys, who clasps it tightly in his hand.

  The reaction is almost instantaneous, and suddenly Rhys understands the seemingly invisible force that pulled Jason into the room just minutes before. With the necklace in his hand, it’s almost like it has supercharged his senses, and there’s an unmistakable pull for him to focus on the object buried in the crate. “Wow,” he manages, glancing up at his husband. The sensations are nearly overwhelming.

  “I know, right?” Jason says. He reaches over and takes back the necklace. It takes a few seconds of him fumbling with the clasp for Rhys to stop him with a hand on his shoulder. He turns, taking the two ends of the necklace in his hands and nimbly works the ancient lock, securing it around Jason’s neck.

  “There,” he says with a nod.

  Jason reaches up and touches the metal that hangs around his neck. “It’s almost hypnotic, in a way,” he says. “I bet it could help us find the other pieces, too.”

  Smiling, Rhys understands the power of Jason’s words; though the words hang heavy between them, they have a duty to do what they can to help out, and to take whatever pathway this new intrigue leads them. He leans over and grabs a quick kiss before he moves to the other side of the crate.

  “Wanna help me lift it out?” he asks.

  After Jason gives him a quick nod, each man reaches down into the crate and brushes away the straw, then grabs a bit of the beam and pulls it out of the wooden crate, the packing material tumbling out to the floor in the wake. It’s surprisingly light, Rhys notes to himself as they move it to a table at the side of the room.

  Once the oversized beam is settled, Rhys finds some overhead fluorescents and turns them on, allowing him to scrutinize the beam much more closely. He runs a hand over the intricate carvings, considering the two sets of wings as well as the constellations, which he can almost make out without the help of the drawings he’d made earlier. He’s considering the amount of work that needs to be done to verify not only the details of what they think they know, but all of the hidden secrets that remain just under the dark, cool metal.

  As Rhys jots down a few notes of what he needs to do, Jason makes a noise next to him, and he looks over. “Jase?”

  Glancing down, Jason says, “Look at my phone,” which Rhys does, though he doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.

  “So?” Rhys says as he adjusts how his glasses sit on his nose.

  Pointing at the battery indicator, Jason says, “It’s charging.” He runs his free hand through his hair and smiles as his emerald eyes dance with mirth. Jason was much more of a ‘big picture’ type of guy, whereas Rhys was more apt to get lost in the details. The fact that Jason spotted the anomaly first brings his husband no end of glee.

  “It’s…wait, what?” Rhys says. He takes his own phone out of his pocket and glances at it, and it, too, seems to be charging, though it’s not plugged in.

  “So, I think it’s safe to say that this is some rare-Earth mineral that both acts as its own power source, as well as reacts to batteries or something,” Jason says. “Then again, what do I know, you’re the brainiac in this relationship—I’m just the pretty one,” he adds, a quick laugh escaping his lips. Rhys can’t help but smile at the look Jason gives him. “I wonder what would happen if we could tap into whatever is powering this.”

  Rhys considers it; whatever did seem to be powering this beam was doing it without any outside interference. If they could at least determine the power source, it may be just one of the answers to Earth’s draining resources.

  The pair spends the morning with Rhys manning the scientific equipment, taking readings with the different gauges they’d been supplied with, and Jason offering assistance where he can. He mostly takes notes for Rhys and helps him brainstorm, throwing out suggestions and questions as they come up. They break when lunchtime rolls around, and eat outside the room with Lieutenant Franks. Rhys knows that taking a break and focusing on something else for a little while often helps him clear his head, no matter what he’s working on.

  After lunch and a quick phone call home to see how Donna is doing (and to make sure she has enough of what she needs until they depart Sacramento the next afternoon), Rhys and Jason get back to work. Jason mostly watches as Rhys takes a few readings, and jots down some notes; there’s absolutely no power source at all that they can find, and the beam is one continual unit. Whatever is powering it is either coming from the beam itself or is at least embedded in the metal.

  The overwhelming quiet of the room is occasionally punctuated by the sound of aircraft landing on a nearby runway. Late in the afternoon, as Jason starts to get fidgety, the sound of a larger plane landing seems to fill the room, and Rhys looks to the door; it sounds as if the plane is parked right outside the building. He can hear Franks’ shoes clacking on the cement and the outside door opening, so he grabs Jason from his nearby chair and pulls him out to investigate.

  “General Landingham,” Franks says as Rhys and Jason exit the secured room, shutting the door behind them just in time for a senior military official to walk in, with a small contingent of people following closely behind him. Rhys thinks the project just went up a notch with the amount of brass that just entered the hangar, and nods when Jason leans over and gives him a quiet, “Whoa…”

  Giving Franks a dismissive salute, the general strides up to where Jason and Rhys stand, taking off his aviator sunglasses as he approaches. Rhys can’t help but think of his own father, who, while he didn’t make the rank of general, looked strikingly similar in both outfit and demeanor as the general.

  “Mister Frost-Tambor,” General Landingham offers, shaking Jason’s hand, then turns to Rhys. “And Doctor Tambor,” he says, shaking his hand and nodding. “General John Landingham, United States Air Force.”

  “General,” Rhys acknowledges, then glances through the small group of people behind the man. He recognizes the rank of major that the female officer to Landingham’s right holds and a couple of lieutenants to the left.

  Nodding to the door, Landingham asks, “Shall we?” and then motions for the secured room. Rhys pulls off his badge and waves it at the security unit, the card reader switching from red to green. He reaches for the door, opening it, letting Jason enter first, and walks in with the rest of the military officers falling in behind them.

  “You, too, Franks,” Landingham calls, the first lieutenant quickly joining the group inside the secured room.

  With the door securely shut, Landingham wastes no time. Walking over to the beam, he runs his hand over the surface, and turns to the couple.

  “So what can you tell me, Doctor?”

  It takes a second for Rhys to gather his thoughts. Jason hands him his notebook and Rhys starts ticking off the facts he knows. No known power source, though the material is definitely giving off the vibrations of something that is powered. The indentations that indicate the stars, as well as the wings, appear to have been part of the casting mold the beam was made from, and not carved into it like he had originally thought. He couldn’t prove this point specifically, but he’d learned to trust his instincts well enough to know that this hunch was right.

  “Oh, and your phone,” Jason offers.

  “Yeah,” Rhys says, winking at his husband. “General, do you have a cell phone with you?” The general nods and stands up to retrieve the phone from his pocket. Rhys dismisses him when he tries to hand it over. Instead, he says, “Just take your phone and walk nea
r the beam. Pay close attention to your battery indicator.”

  Rhys can’t help but smile when the general screws up his face and cocks his head to the side, his voice incredulous when he says, “It looks like it’s charging.”

  “Indeed,” Rhys says. “Jason found that,” he adds, going to his husband’s side.

  “Yes, I understand you have the family history,” Landingham says as he considers Jason. Pointing to Jason’s neckline, he asks, “Is that the necklace?”

  “Yes, sir,” Jason replies, then walks to Landingham’s side, standing next to the general as he opens his collar slightly, the general nodding as he takes it in.

  “So, Mister Frost-Tambor, you are the one who knows the historical story of this artifact,” Landingham says, pointing to the beam. “Do you believe the story is real?”

  “Well, general,” Jason begins, his voice succinct and careful. “We’ve been going over my story, and comparing it with…”

  “Jason,” Landingham says interrupting, and it nearly startles both Jason and Rhys since it’s the first time either of them had been addressed by something as familiar as a first name. It’s always been extremely formal when dealing with the members of the military. “Gut feeling—is the story true?”

  Jason takes a deep breath, and then turns his attention to Rhys. The two share a slow nod, and Jason turns his attention back to the general.

  “Yes, sir. I think it is.” And as Jason nods, Rhys knows that he’d back his husband’s opinion up without question.

  “Well then,” the general says, “that settles it. There’s a lab in Auburn, about forty-five minutes away. They’ll be expecting you tomorrow morning.”

  Rhys shoots Jason a curious look, and it’s Jason who speaks up first. “Tomorrow morning?” he asks.

  Rhys tosses in, “Lab?”

  Landingham continues his way to the door, turning to the couple as one of the lieutenants holds the outer door open for him.