EXOSKELETON II: Tympanum by Shane Stadler

way into the floor,” McHenry gasped. “That’s another 2,000 meters.”
    “Twenty-five hundred, sir,” Finley corrected, and looked at him wide-eyed.
    “How in the hell was that constructed?” McHenry asked, again knowing there wasn’t an explanation. “We have the images?”
    Finley nodded.
    “Go silent and pull up the array,” McHenry instructed. “Then get the data ready for transmission. We’re getting the hell out of here.”
    They’d again have to risk detection by taking the North Dakota to transmission depth to send the image files. He wondered if his superiors in Washington were expecting what they were about to get.
     

 
    3
    Saturday, 9 May (12:03 p.m. CST – Southern Illinois)
     
    Will shuddered as he passed the Marion maximum-security prison. The cold blue structures of the complex were unimpressive from the highway, but the razor wire glittering in the sunlight like strings of tiny mirrors reminded him of what was inside. At the time, it was the closest he’d ever come to hell. Marion Prison was as close to being a corrections facility as a slaughterhouse was to being veterinary clinic. He was convinced a well-behaved person might emerge criminally insane from such a place. He’d started along that track during his short stint there.
    Twenty minutes later he passed the exit for Cordova, Illinois, where he’d spent six years of his life as a university physics professor. His thoughts turned to his ex-fiancé, Pam. They’d been engaged and living together for a year when he’d been arrested. The anger of her betrayal still burned in his chest. She’d turned on him the instant she learned of the allegations that he’d raped and tried to murder a teenage girl. It was the most cutting, irreversible insult that could be leveed upon a person. And her betrayal had affected the trial: it probably put the jury over the edge to convict him.
    He took a sip of soda and chewed ice to get his thoughts to dissipate.
    A few minutes south of the Cordova exit, the billboards and trees thinned out. To the west, a mile off the highway, the light poles of the football stadium he’d visited the night of the arrest loomed above a dense grove of pine trees. It was the crime scene. It was strange how different everything seemed in the sunlight. During the past two years his mind had made it out to be a much darker place. But there was darkness in everything, from the most beautiful tropical beach where a mother’s child had drowned, to the magnificent house where a man comes home to find his family murdered. The sunlight couldn’t hide such things. Each place was different for everyone.
    He steered his thoughts to something more positive. Baton Rouge would be a welcomed change. The night before he’d dreamt of crawfish and gumbo – a stark difference from his usual nightmares. Escaping the unseasonably cool Chicago spring would also be a plus, and his new abode was touted as a vacation resort.
    He shifted in his seat, gripped the steering wheel tightly, and tilted his head sharply to the left and right, stretching his neck muscles. His new arrangement was not sustainable: how long did the FBI plan to keep him there? He had no legal or operational knowledge of how to engage in an investigation. He’d only been trained to keep himself safe.
    He suspected the FBI had given him the mobile phone more to track him than to contact him. He’d play along for the time being. After the Israeli’s warning, it was best he went off the grid for a while. But the isolation would serve a purpose other than keeping him safe. A feeling of urgency was building in him to explore his new abilities and the hidden world to which they’d given him access. The current situation would give him the opportunity to do this.
    A road sign indicated that Memphis was 245 miles south. He’d stop there for the night.
     

 
    4
    Saturday, 9 May (1:10 p.m. CST – Baton Rouge)
     
    Zhichao Cho trembled as he stared at the package on his