2049-09-09

From:              NROTC Daart
To:                   Cdr. Ezra Stone

Subject:          Operation 52 Pickup After Action Report

Event Summary:

No one asked me to file a debriefing report, but since the rest of the team does it, I thought I should, too. I already told Cdr. Stone this, but I wanted to put it in writing. After all, Albert VII is always saying, “99 percent of Navy life is paperwork!” and I am in the Navy, even if I’m just a cadet. So I want to do my part!

Anyway, the mission began as planned. Once we were underwater, we went to look for the wreckage and El Ray went to find the black box. But when we radioed him to find out how it was going, there was no answer. At that point, we got scared. Even Albert VII stopped joking. Normally I’d be happy about that because his jokes are terrible. But this was serious. 

We returned to the USS Allen W. Dulles to wait for El Ray. The wreckage had been retrieved and it was time to go, before anyone spied us. But we couldn’t go without our mission’s first-in-command!

Cdr. Stone decided to send a search-and-rescue team after El Ray. I really wanted to be on that team. Ever since I joined the Generation Kymera program, El Ray has really been there for me. He’s almost been like a big brother. I was desperate to find him. I think Cdr. Stone knew that, too. He let me stick around the CVIC — that’s the ship’s intelligence center— so I would know what was happening, but he sent Quillroy and Albert VII on the rescue mission without me. 

The two took AKLUT Minisubs down to the El Ray’s last-known location. I stood in the CVIC watching the live VR feed from the AKLUT imaging cams. Immersive Room VR was maybe as close to real as you can get, but I still wished I were really down there.

As the ships closed in on where El Ray’s tracking beacon had stopped, we saw this weird road. It looked like . . . I don’t know how to describe it. Kind of like a bunch of rocks shaped like a Connect 4 game board, except flat on the ground instead of standing up. All around it were these tall, narrow pyramid things. Cdr. Stone called them obelisks. Etched on them were all sorts of weird writing.

That’s when Sham started acting weird. He did that thing where his eyes move independently when he’s looking for something. I watched him on the monitor for a minute, and then turned away. I hate it when he does that. It creeps me out. Of course, he’s a giant lizard, so that in and of itself is a bit creepy. But I’ve learned to look past that. Still, I know he moves his eyes that way when he’s got an idea.  He quickly funny-walked out of the room . . . made me wonder if he knew a way to help El Ray from right here on the ship.

Heading out of the CVIV, I peeked into Sham’s quarters. He was looking at picture books, but not the fun kind. These were old and dusty with pictures like . . . well, they were kind of like the pictures in my sixth grade history book—pharaohs and Romans and stuff. Ancient stuff, literally! 

Before I could ask him about it, he ran right past me and out of the room! He was in such a hurry he dropped the book he was looking at.

I had to check it out. I mean, can you blame me? The title was just a bunch of weird letters or characters or whatever. They kinda looked like the writing on the big obelisk thingies we saw in the water. 

The old, crusty book was falling apart in my hands, so I put it back on the ground carefully because I didn’t want to get in trouble for messing it up. Then I went back to the CVIC to watch the AKLUT Sub video. While I was gone, they had pulled up to some weird underwater building.

Quillroy and Sham docked their subs to look for El Ray inside. Meanwhile, Cdr. Stone asked me to go find Sham. He thought Sham might be able to figure what the building was. Based on the book I’d seen, I had to agree. The trouble was, I had no idea where to look for him.

I wandered the halls, calling Sham’s name. Finally, I spied him coming out of Dr. Mera’s office. That lady creeps me out even more than Sham’s crazy eyes. I mean, I’m not scared of her, but I can understand why people are. I guess I shouldn’t be so, like, mean about her. Some people probably think I’m creepy, too. But I’ve always thought there was something was fishy about her. (No offense to El Ray if you’re reading this.)

By the time I caught up to Sham, he was back in the security room. He had pulled up blueprints for the AKLUT Minisubs and was looking at popup windows with their stats: depth, range, all that stuff. As I watched, he started typing away like crazy. He had the eye stuff going again, but this time it didn’t seem creepy. I mean, it did, but it felt more like there was something going on! I walked in to check it out and saw that he was coding. 

I was thinking about asking for his help with an app I wanted to make for this old game called Roblox when I saw a line that said Redirect, then some numbers in parentheses. I tried to put two and two together.

“Sham, are you redirecting the subs?” I asked.

He must not have seen me come in, because he jumped like he was scared. Then he got mad. Like, really mad.