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TYMPANUM Movie Synopsis (WARNING: Spoilers!)

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Tympanum picks up just after the final events of Exoskeleton, where WILLIAM THOMPSON (the protagonist in both books) was a victim of the Compressed Punishment program. The program was a part of a secret government project called Red Wraith, the objective of which was to “separate” the souls from the bodies of convicted felons through means of extreme physical and psychological torment carried out using a horrific biomechanical interface system called the Exoskeleton. After a long bout of unrelenting torture in the Red Box (the facility where the Compressed Punishment treatments took place), the program succeeded in forcing Will to separate his soul from his body, launching him into another plane of existence. As the researchers had suspected, his soul could interact with the physical world while in the separated state, giving Will abilities resembling telekinesis in the extreme, and much more. He eventually used his new powers to destroy the facility, leading to the termination of the entire program.

The original objective of the Red Wraith project had been to create super-soldiers or spies who could wreak havoc and destruction wherever they were deployed. That was the understanding set out in Exoskeleton, but there were also hints in the first book that pointed to deeper and more sinister reasons for the program. Where Exoskeleton had raised questions, Tympanum provides answers.

At the start of Tympanum, Will is released from the hospital and is nursed back to health by DENISE WALKER (the lawyer who had helped free him from the Red Box) and her mentor, JONATHAN McDOUGAL. Their plan is to use Will to help them track down everyone responsible for the Red Wraith program. Will’s involvement is cut short when the FBI relocates him to Baton Rouge, Louisiana as a precaution (he is being hunted by foreign intelligence services).

ZICHAO CHO, a high-level operative in Chinese Intelligence, plots the purchase of the biotech company, Syncorp (the government subcontractor that developed Exoskeleton technology), in order to acquire its intellectual properties to expedite his country’s own Red-Wraith-like program (called Red Dragon). Cho learns of the Americans’ only successful conversion, William Thompson, and makes it a central objective to acquire or kill him.

DANIEL PARSONS is a member of an elite group within the CIA called the Omniscients (or Omnis, named after their so-called “omniscient clearance”) that investigates defunct top-secret projects. His latest research assignment on the Red Wraith project is discontinued in order to study a mysterious, sound-emitting beacon discovered protruding from the seafloor off the coast of Antarctica. A submarine is sent to investigate the object, which resembles a tall, white water tower growing out of the seabed at a great depth, but the crew is unable to discern its function and cannot even scratch its super-hard surface to get a material sample: the beacon is impenetrable. Its enigmatic purpose and origin cause great concern – and geopolitical turmoil – and the Omnis focus on revealing its mystery (which includes the possibility that it is not of human making). Daniel finds a connection between the Red Wraith project and the beacon.  

In their search for additional objects like the beacon in the Weddell Sea off the western Antarctic coast, Captain CHUCK McHENRY and the crew of the American attack submarine, North Dakota, find an underwater tunnel that leads inland. After days of navigating the tunnel many miles into the continent, they discover an elaborate Nazi base the construction of which, they learn later, had started before World War Two and its purpose is connected to the beacon over 150 miles away. The North Dakota leaves the base and returns with a group of Omnis including Daniel Parsons, his colleague SYLVIA, and HORACE, an ancient man who has secretly directed the work of the Omniscients for over a half-century. After days of investigating the base and studying the materials and artifacts they find there, the trio unravels its purpose and, most disturbingly, the real reason for the Nazis’ Red Falcon project (the precursor and foundation of the American Red Wraith project). *SPOILER*: The Americans had it all wrong: the purpose of Red Falcon was not to create super-soldiers (although that was possible), but to create a person who could separate and get inside the beacon. The Nazis thought the beacon was a source of advanced technology (possibly extraterrestrial), or possessed some kind of supernatural power that would enable them to conquer the world.

Meanwhile, Will Thompson is captured by Mr. Cho and is transferred to a Chinese aircraft carrier in Antarctic waters. Will is ordered to separate and enter the beacon (China had discovered the secret of the beacon before the Americans). Will refuses, and Cho threatens to launch a nuclear missile strike on the American Carrier group protecting the waters near the beacon to get him to cooperate. Will’s Chinese captors make the mistake of locking him in a room by himself; he escapes and unleashes a fiery attack upon the aircraft carrier until an American helicopter carries out his harrowing rescue (Will nearly dies).

Will and the others (Denise, Jonathan, Daniel, Sylvia, and Horace) are brought to the American aircraft carrier (USS Stennis) and collectively decide that Will should enter the beacon (their reasoning: if he doesn’t, someone else eventually will … ).  The North Dakota takes Will to the beacon.

*SPOILERS* Will separates, enters the head of the beacon, and finds himself in an enormous, spherical void. At its center is a pedestal with a large switch – a lever – and nothing else. After some thought, he turns the switch and narrowly escapes as the beacon retracts into the seabed. The North Dakota takes him back to the Stennis where he discusses the events with the others. It seems his actions had no known effects. They remain on the Stennis (and the carrier group stays in the area) and investigate the materials they brought from the base (files, books, artifacts) to try to find out what happens next.

*SPOILERS* While Will and Denise study the materials from the base, Denise asks for a demonstration of his separation abilities (no one from their group had actually witnessed them directly). While Will is separated, he notices movement at the back of the room: it’s an entity that resembles something he’d seen before, while in the red box – a wraith, a soul. The Omnis had brought back an urn from the hidden base that supposedly contained the ashes of Adolf Hitler (whose body had evidently been smuggled out of Germany and cremated at the Vatican on its way to Antarctica), and Hitler’s soul was still attached to it. While separated, Will speaks with the wraith and learns that Hitler’s objective from the very beginning had been to flip that switch – Will had accomplished what Hitler could not. The wraith screeched with glee, detached from the urn, and disappeared. Will believes he’s made a grave mistake.

Three days after the beacon had submerged into the sea floor, another one emerges in the same area. The North Dakota takes Will to it, and he enters. *SPOILERS* (Climax of the book): At the center of the beacon are two naked, human-like beings sitting across from one another at a small table, motionless and silent. A wraith appears and instructs Will to “occupy one of the empty vessels” – to possess one of the bodies. Will enters one body, the wraith occupies the other body, and they talk. The other being identifies itself as “the Judge” and is here to try humanity. It comes down to one “revealing” question …

The ability to assume an “evanescent state” (what Will knows as separation) can come about in one of only two ways. The first is through enlightenment – through the nurturing of the intellect and evolution of the body and soul over many generations. The second is through excruciating torture where the soul would rather leave the body than suffer the pain, but cannot detach because the body is still alive. The question posed to Will by the Judge is, simply, “How did you get here?” Knowing that telling the truth will condemn the world, Will refuses to answer, and the Judge becomes furious and orders him to leave. When Will exits the body, the Judge enters it and is able to read the truth from Will’s imprint on the mind of body Will had just possessed. The Judge declares a negative judgment on humanity and screams at Will to exit the beacon. Will acts on an impulse and, instead of leaving, he enters the body the Judge had first occupied. A torrent of information overloads his mind until the wraith decapitates the humanoid body, stopping the transfer. (Will now possesses information that is beyond his understanding, but is there for the future).

Will exits the beacon and reenters his body on the North Dakota. The beacon rises, breaches the surface of the water, and ascends to over a mile into the sky. It then sends out a blast of electromagnetic radiation (radio wave and microwave communications) so intense that it damages the electronics on the North Dakota. Will goes back to the Stennis where he and the others wait it out (three days) until the beacon ends its transmission and recedes beneath the waves and disappears into the seabed. Based on the conversation with Judge, they decide that nothing more would happen in the Southern Seas and head back to the States.

Will and Denise return to Baton Rouge to close down Syncorp and collect all of the information the company has that might help them with what is to come.  One evening a few days later, Will gets a phone call from Daniel Parsons who requests that Will immediately fly to Washington, DC. Will arrives late in the evening in DC and is taken to the Omnis’ facility, where they meet with Sylvia, Horace, and the CIA Director. They explain to Will that, after almost two weeks since the beacon halted its transmission, something has finally happened. They are receiving continuous, encoded radio signals from multiple sources in deep space and one closer one, originating from Mars. A European Space Agency satellite orbiting Mars sent back an image: another beacon. Although it is not clear what needs to be done, it is agreed that they have to start preparing to send Will to Mars.
 

*** Notes and Twists ***

[1] The objective of Red Falcon (the Nazi project) was NOT to make super-soldiers (or spies), but to enter the beacon to harness its powers. The Americans did not discover this true objective, and their Red Wraith project was misguided and shortsighted.

[2] The beacon was not a source of power at all (the Nazis were also mistaken): its sole purpose was to initiate the judgment of humanity. As explained in the book, a developing race would have to overcome many barriers to achieve access to the beacon. First they’d have to find it. Next, they’d have to get to it (in a very inaccessible place – deep in the Antarctic seas). Finally, they’d have to achieve the “evanescent state” (separation) in order to flip the switch. Therefore, the beacon (or probe) was there to measure the degree of advancement of a race/civilization. Once access to the interior of the beacon was achieved, the time for the trial had arrived. The answer to just one question will suffice to make a final judgment.

[3] Hitler’s body was smuggled via the “rat path” out of Germany, through the Vatican (where it was cremated), and brought to the secret base in Antarctica. The Nazis thought they might be able to reincarnate their late Führer, but failed.

[4] The Nazis (including the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele) conducted their research at the base until the late 1950’s. It is not clear why it had stopped, but American military operations had been conducted in the area at that time (including nuclear detonations).

[5] The signals from space (and Mars): it’s not clear whether they are meant to signal Earth, or others …

[6] At the end, while separated and in a cemetery, Will sees the souls of those who have passed away. They are returning …