The Vigilante Book 1

Chapter 4

So this is where things get interesting. You say that this information is too delicate to release to the public...yet it isn't a case file. Do your superiors think you're crazy for your pet project?

Nonetheless this is intriguing.

Dale pulled a small remote from his coat and pressed a button on it. The wall screen lit up and displayed a map of the world. Cities were dotted and labeled as well as other locations with different symbols. There was no key to the map to help others understand it.

"The labeled dots are modern cities. The stars with dates are sites that have been investigated. And these marks-," he began, pointing to several exes on the map that also were dated, "These are attack sites,"

"Attack sites? From what?"

"Most governments have written them off as unrelated terrorist attacks or natural disasters," he informed me.

"Who would attack the middle of Siberia?" I asked, inspecting a mark over the center of the Russian tundra.

"Have you heard of the Tunguska event of 1908?" he asked.

"No," I replied.

"That is my earliest piece of evidence in this case. The Tunguska blast has been researched for over a century. It was a massive explosion equivalent to a fifteen megaton nuclear bomb. Some two thousand square kilometers were effected by the blast. The world has yet to be able to figure out what it was caused by. The world has written it off as the largest asteroid or meteor impact event in human history,"

"But you don't think it was?" I asked, fascinated by what he was telling me.

"No. What doesn't make piece together is there was no impact crater. People think the object detonated in the air. That doesn't make any sense though. I went with a research team to the impact site and we found no meteoritic debris. What we did find was strange though,"

"What was there?"

"The remains of what appeared to be a massive and unstable weapon test of unknown origin. I have compared it to the other explosions on this map and it seems to be a much less refined form of the detonations and other attacks I've investigated. I believe it was their first test,"

I waited for Dale to tell me more.

"I know we don't get along too well. But would you be willing to help me on this investigation?"

"Because you can't have me working under normal circumstances?"

"Yes,"

"What do I get for helping you? I doubt I will be much help with your resources. Don't you have people that go with you?"

"A few, but I think you'll be surprised when you learn some of the things we've found in these sites," Dale told me almost solemnly as he approached the wall.

He grasped a packet of photographs in a wall-mounted folder and handed them to me. The pictures depicted soldiers from various nations who where seen dead and hewn on the floor. Other men had been killed by explosions and bullets. On the walls of the sites read the words 'dawn is breaking' or other similar phrases.

"The New Dawn," Dale muttered, "Their agents have been at sites, and their experimental weapons are not only based in explosives. They can kill soldiers with armed modern equipment if they aren't careful,"

"Alright, so you want me as a meat shield?" I said as more of a statement than a question.

"I want you to learn to survive," Dale told me, "If you help me, then I teach you how to fight and to control your powers,"