Location Unknown

VALERY KONINGSBRUGGE

"Jenny and I were the only clones from the ones I've mentioned that were trained by the Fifty-One," Early said. "I was conditioned to be a devout operative. Jenny was trained for a different purpose. There are many other clones from past instances of research that have been trained. Two percent of Fifty-One agents globally, are clones taken from the Bermuda Triangle. That means, there is at least one clone in each country who is a Fifty-One agent acting as a civilian."

"Anyways, scientists have observed each human subject using the fish, including you. We watched you meet Earl, and then prevent him from intercepting Ben and Jennifer. We watched you when you went underwater, to the station with Jennifer, and Ben chasing you down like a madman. When everyone gathered into the pharmacy, we watched from below and behind the glass. You killed Ben's father, and in turn, Ben killed your human counterpart and destroyed the station."

"Now the next part of this, we had to do quickly. An old clone who was a Floater and trained by the Fifty-One was sent back into the fold and took up the role of a mild-mannered doctor, or snice if we're speaking their language. While you were in a coma from the headcrash, the snice treated Molleigh and Jennifer until they were back to health and Ben could come to collect them. During this, the snice presented Ben with the opportunity to return to the mainland of the United States. Underwater volcanoes."

"By now, you must realise that we wanted to extract you from the Triangle. Not because you were causing too much trouble, which you were, but because the scientists wanted to observe Compellers who were restored to human life. How would they change, would they still have their powers, stuff like that."

"So the lava from the underwater volcano below that station was replaced with harmless heated sludge with a touch of sleeping gas, that we had percolated for a long time mind you because it needed to have some weight to sink to the bottom of the sea as it did. The mechanical marine life sucked all that lava up and dispensed it elsewhere in the sea. And then you miraculously woke up in the hospice, or flabjow if you will, and we told the snice through an earpiece that we wanted you added to the mix as well. So he led you right into the others and you all jumped in, thinking it was lava and that it was burning, but all it did was sedate you for the artificial octopuses to bring you back to us. And trust me, the human body is not carryall, so new and improved octopuses had to be designed specifically for this operation."

"Carrying on, the scientists did a full body checkup on you and the others before whacking your group into cryosleep. And there you go - you're in cryosleep! For a whole 34 years before we woke you up. Yeah, we kinda forgot about you guys. We just left you in storage because the world was going crazy during that time. There was an increase in paranoia and conspiracy theories about aliens and UFOs, so we had to calm the world's expectations down. Like way down. And then there was a growing suspicion towards us and our home base in Nevada which we just had to let it resolve itself. I mean, there were only two big discoveries that the Fifty-One had made and they weren't even extraterrestrial. The Bermuda Triangle and its properties, and Mr. Xyler Daschund, the lucid dreamer."

"So we thought it would be worthwhile to have the subjects from the Triangle interact with the dragon in his lair. And we wanted your group out and about so we let you think that you were free from the Fifty-One. But in fact you were not. You had a spy in the middle. Jenny, posing as Jennifer."

"No," I gasped.

"Yes," Early said, nodding his head. "We replaced Jennifer with Jenny in cryosleep. In preparation, she watched recorded footage from the fishes in the Bermuda Triangle in 1986, on repeat. Over and over and over again. Just to capture Jennifer's attitude. She's a good girl, very diligent. I just wonder where she is right now. She's got a wire on her, but wires don't work in this place for some reason. Trackers are non-functional as well."

"Back to it... Jenny's been with you since waking up from the lava in that cave, which is also synthetic to make you feel like you woke up where you last left off, even though we pried you out of an extensive cold sleep. It is also the reason why we had Ben transported to his old condo. So he wouldn't be able to tell the difference between his Jennifer and this practised doppelganger. We asked the temp at the apartment business down in LA that owned Briar's condo if we could buy it, which had been repainted and redone, regardless that Ben was now a historical figure for his findings so it should have been left untouched, but we worked with what we had. And the apartment company did have to move with the times."

"Nonetheless, we had another older Fifty-One agent placed there to keep an eye on Ben, and Victor brought his grandson along as a sort of vacation. You should've seen it, we built this whole fireplace contraption for Ben to come out of to make him believe he was birthed from the flames. How gullible the human species are."

"And so, I guess you're all caught up now. We followed you to Redding and then Xyler created this imaginarium monstrosity. He drew it from his mind during the night, so we sent operatives into the massive wall while he was still sleeping. None have returned, unfortunately. Say, you wouldn't have spotted people wearing suits like me in here, would you?"

"No," I said.

"Huh. Wonder what happened to them. Anyways, do you have any questions?"

"Yes... one... what happened to Benny?"

"Alas, poor Benny. God bless him. The Fifty-One killed him, stuck him back into the ice and had someone defrost him. The world thought it was Ben's corpse. They had closure on a legend."

"Despicable. Why are you telling me all of this?"

"I just had to get that off my chest. And to tell you the truth. That your life has been a lie. The Triangle, a government secret to the world. The sky, filled with the droning of flying eyes. My voice, the only power I really hold and the only resistance I have against becoming a bee in the beehive. Now, what do you say to killing the scaly blight of your existence that lurks in those waters? Unless you have jettisoned the idea of killing an alligator from your mind."

He pointed to the river. He held his hand out. His hand was the same as mine. We were brothers and sisters of the water, the sea, the ocean. Siblings of the waves and the ripples. Clones of the humans who compelled the water which we walked on or swam under.

"I say yes." I slapped his hand and gripped it, but I had no legs to bring myself up.