Tay turned to spot an exit from the room leading to another section, a larger one that extended away and downward. And part of the area he had managed to navigate previously in the dark.
Tay hobbled closer to one of the strange egg-shaped stands and touched it. Its entire color matched the walls and floor. The longer, more even outside surface felt just as firm. But inside the curvature, it was different. Softer, with a gentle rise and fall in the middle.
A chair.
96
The more he studied, the more certain he became.
The wall must be some kind of control panel. But what also struck Tay was how the rest of the room had been arranged. The strange chairs and walls were positioned in a way that left only limited space between them. At least for anyone, or anything, sitting in them. But the rest of the room was left completely empty.
The remaining area of perhaps eight by ten feet appeared oddly unused, or even purposely left vacant. He frowned curiously before moving on through one of the other doorways. He immediately found two large smooth beams erected vertically on either side. Higher up, there appeared to be something resembling shafts. Long, round tubes snaked below them, both running the length of a much longer room. Unlike the last, the walls in this room were not covered by diagrams or controls. Alternatively, the space conveyed a more mechanical feel. Especially given what appeared to be top halves of rounded objects, each one reminding him of an airplane nacelle but without any openings. Twelve in total were aligned evenly down the length of the room. Beyond that was the wide ramp he had seen from the previous room, angling downward.
Both sides of the room housed ample walkways, the left of which Tay was sure he had traversed in the dark.
It was then that he remembered his small camera and retrieved it from inside his waistband. He snapped several photos, including a smaller section of wall he found along the right side, also covered in etchings.
He moved back to the first room and took dozens of additional pictures before continuing through to the other door. Another large, open area presented something at the far end that Tay recognized immediately. A window. A massive window, covering the entire forward wall. And extending up and over part of the ceiling.
Near the bottom, he saw a line of water along the outside, briefly sparkling from the beam on Tay’s headlamp. In the middle of the room were five more egg-shaped chairs, these tilted further back and surrounding what appeared to be…nothing.
Again, the chairs were positioned in a curved shape around another strange and seemingly empty space. Even larger than in the last room.
If Tay didn’t know better, he would have sworn things were missing.
***
Thirty minutes later, Tay stood quietly, examining part of a wall that appeared to run the length of the ship. If there was any convention at all, and the giant window signified the front of the ship, then the large ramp he was staring at would surely have to be the back, or its stern.
From his position, he could not see how or if the ramp moved. And assuming it did, he couldn’t tell whether there was anything located beneath it. But the large open area, extending out and below to a lower level, clearly resembled some kind of cargo hold. Dozens of thick round beams ran from floor to ceiling. Some kind of dark fabric was strung between them in a crisscross fashion.
Yet if that’s where freight was kept, there was nothing left. Nothing at all. Only the support structures remained, beams that looked to be as much part of the ship as anything else. There were no seams. No grooves. Nothing that resembled welds or bolts. Nothing. The metal was all smooth and unblemished, even in tight ninety-degree angles.
Tay stood transfixed, staring down at the crisscrossing structures, wondering what they may have held. He took more pictures and continued scanning the walls. Then he noticed something.
Another narrow section of wall with more diagrams. Or controls. Similar to the other rooms.
Tay was scouring the etchings when something occurred to him. If there was cargo stored below, how did they load it?
He scanned the area again. He could not find anything resembling an outside exit. Instead, the walls remained seamless everywhere he looked. But there had to be others. There couldn’t be just one door.
His eyes searched the metal flooring, looking for patterns that might indicate an opening. Another hallway perhaps, still closed and invisible. But there was nothing.
There had to be more doors leading inside. And certainly to other areas within the ship. Somewhere. But even if there were, if they were anything like the one he’d found, they wouldn’t be wide enough to get anything sizable through. It didn’t make any sense.
He suddenly remembered his father. Something he had often repeated to Tay when discussing philosophy. One of his favorite examples was Occam’s Razor. If there were two explanations, the simplest was usually best.
Leading him to yet another principle. The path of least resistance. It wasn’t just energy or objects that followed the path of least resistance. It was nature itself. Which extended to industry. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
In other words, unless a working concept or invention could be radically changed, newer versions or improvements to something would always tend to be smaller and more incremental.
Most progress was comprised of small and steady improvements over time. Cars, computers, buildings, everything. Which also meant each new version would almost always have fundamental things in common with those that preceded it. Even ships.
Ships themselves would always have fundamental components. Propulsion, navigation, hulls, fuel, cargo.
Cargo. Tay thought to himself. Virtually all ships had either cargo or supplies. And those contents had to be loaded. Somehow.
If small doors could not do it, a larger door would have to. Which brought him back to Occam’s Razor.
Leaning heavily on his makeshift driftwood crutch, Tay scanned the cargo hold once again. This time more carefully.
There was something very unique about the design of this ship. A design that favored efficiency. Simplicity. The simpler the system, the fewer components there were to break. It was another lesson from his father. The man who would never buy a car with electric windows. “It was one more thing to break.”
Tay ended his scan with his eyes fixed back on the narrow wall, covered in diagrams. He shuffled forward, wincing with each step.
When he reached it, Tay re-examined the etchings. Dozens of symbols, or probably words, next to half a dozen circles. Were they buttons?
His eyes stopped on one of the largest of the round shapes. Larger, in fact, than his entire hand.
He held his palm up, hesitantly, before finally pressing against the circle. Like the others, it flashed and faded without a sound.
Tay pursed his lips thoughtfully. Lowering his hand to the next one, he pressed again. And jumped when something sounded overhead.
It was a deep mechanical sound that echoed and faded. He touched the same circle a couple more times. Nothing. Once more. Still nothing.
Tay brought his hand down to the next one. This circle, when pressed, lit up and stayed on. Followed by a subtle vibration throughout the entire room.
It was soft, but strong enough that Tay could feel the rumbling. His surprise left him reeling backward, painfully trying to catch his footing, moments before something sounded at the rear of the ship. He watched in anticipation as the huge back wall beyond the ramp began to change.
Vertically down the middle, a black line appeared and instantly began to grow thicker. Until a gap appeared.
Without a sound, the two sides began to move away from each other, illuminated first in a familiar green glow, followed by intense white light.
Tay covered his eyes and continued watching between parted fingers as the wall spread further and further apart, eventually stopping with an opening that appeared to be twenty to thirty feet wide.
It was through that opening that Tay could see the area beyond, and the f
amiliar shelves in the distance evenly covering the interior of the shield wall.
What was infinitely more shocking was another, much larger line appearing in the wall of the giant shield itself, where it too began to thicken and eventually split.
Tay gasped, instinctively bracing himself, when a soft, glimmering blue light materialized amid the sudden separation.
It was the ocean.
97
“This is Tay. Is anyone there?!”
Ackerman picked up the radio immediately. “Go ahead, Tay. It’s Ackerman.”
There was no reply.
“Tay?”
Still nothing.
“TAY?”
After a moment, his voice returned. “I’m here.”
“What’s going on? You all right?”
Tay didn’t answer. When he did speak, there was a strange flatness in his reply. “What are you guys doing?”
Ackerman frowned at the question, giving a look first to Smitty then Odonnell before coming back to the radio. All three were standing on the lower deck of the Pathfinder, working in a light drizzle and trying to repair the drill.
“What are we doing? We’re trying to fix the stupid drill again. Unless you want to stay down there.” The chief lowered the radio then lifted it up again as an afterthought. “What are you doing?”
Tay’s voice was slow and deliberate, speaking into the radio just inches from his mouth. In front of him, he was staring—dumbfounded—at a wide opening in the alien ship’s shield, exposing a huge dark blue wall of ocean. An incredible amount of water mysteriously held itself back, just like the smaller door he had come through.
“I’m…inside the ship.”
“Inside?” came Ackerman’s voice. “You okay?”
“Uh huh.”
“What are you seeing?”
“It’s hard to explain,” Tay said, raising his eyebrows. “For starters, I don’t think you’re going to need to fix that drill.”
98
No one would have believed it. Even Will Borger himself, currently sitting in a quiet room at the research center, glued to his laptop and wearing a small headset over his right ear.
“I’m afraid it’s not good news.”
On the other end of the call, Steve Caesare glowered. “We weren’t exactly expecting cheerful.”
Across from Caesare sat Clay, quiet but equally sullen. The rays from a waning sun shone through the small airplane window, lighting only the bottom half of his face.
Their Gulfstream jet bounced briefly from a burst of turbulence, although neither reacted.
“Right,” Borger’s voice replied. “Well, I can at least confirm they’ve landed. In Utah.”
“Where in Utah?”
“Just outside of Salt Lake City. At a base called Dugway.”
“Dugway? What the hell is that?”
An expressionless Clay answered. “Used to be an Army base but is now under the control of the CIA. Highly classified. Used for weapons development.”
“That’s right,” Borger said. “Nasty stuff. Including chemical weapons and nerve agents.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s been around since the 40s.” Clay peered absently at the phone in front of him. “A lot of bad things have come out of there.”
“Why the hell would they take them there?”
“My guess,” said Borger, “is because it’s secure. Really secure. I’m looking at the overhead pictures now, and it looks more like a prison than a base.”
“It’s the equivalent of the Army’s Area 51.”
“Great,” Caesare replied sarcastically. “Just fantastic. Couldn’t have been a normal base. Or some transfer location. No. It had to be some Dugby fortress.”
“Dugway.”
“Whatever.”
“Geez,” Borger whistled. “Fortified is right. I’ve never seen so many towers. And I’m betting they’re all manned.”
“And armed.”
“Not a huge base though. A couple dozen smallish buildings. Fair number of vehicles. And one entrance, on the south side.”
“What’s around it?”
Borger paused. “Nothing. Nothing but desert. How on Earth are we going to get in there?”
“I’m sure a giant wooden horse is gonna stand out.”
A wry grin formed on Clay’s face in response to Caesare’s joke.
“Judging from what I’m seeing, there isn’t a lot going on up top. This looks like an underground facility.”
“You got a live feed?”
“I do. From the Argus satellite. I can see the plane with Neely and Li Na taxiing off the runway now. I should be able to track them to whichever building they enter, but where they go from there…” Borger’s voice trailed off while he zoomed in on the base entrance. “One thing is for sure though. This place is definitely not fond of visitors. And I’m sure they’ve got monitors up the wazoo.”
Borger zoomed in closer on the fence line. “I see a lot of cameras. Probably infrared and motion detecting. And it looks like…three rows of barbed-wire fence. I can’t tell how tall from this angle though.”
“So rushing them is out.”
“What about the terrain?” Clay asked.
Borger shook his head. “Flat. Which gives the towers a clear line of sight. Pretty much in every direction. Probably why most of their buildings aren’t very tall.”
On the plane, Caesare looked at Clay, who had fallen silent again.
“Any brilliant ideas?”
99
Li Na barely moved when the door to their airplane was opened and a rush of hot air filled the cabin. The desert dryness gave the breeze a distinctly unique smell, picked up immediately by Li Na’s nose. A very different scent from any she was used to. To her, it smelled empty and lifeless.
Her ears had even more trouble adjusting. In flight, the deafening roar from the engines obscured almost everything. But now with the powerful machines winding down, a rush of noises began to overwhelm the teenager in a barrage of tones and pitches.
She could hear just about everything inside the plane. The scuffing of feet on the carpeted floor. The scraping of bags, and the hissing of several air vents. Even the sudden change in air pressure.
It was all returning––the strange cacophony of noises and sensations she had before the coma. And what felt like subtle, almost indecipherable vibrations. Things that had originally convinced her she was growing sick…or worse, deranged.
Now they were returning. Not as bad as before. Not as strong. But they were there, requiring Li Na to focus her attention away from them just to think.
And the recent distraction was far worse.
The bad people had found her. Just as she feared. And just as her father had warned in his letter. The same people she tried to flee in China. There, she’d made it to the coast and escaped on a transport ship, by some miracle. Only to be pulled from the jaws of death at the last minute by her American protector.
These spoke English and sounded American, yet their intentions were the same. She could sense it. But how could that be? The Americans were the ones who saved her.
Li Na looked up with dark brown eyes to find her captor standing above her, the woman who pretended to be a doctor. But she had been lying, and Li Na felt it the moment she met the woman.
If only she’d been strong enough to escape sooner.
The teenager was jarred from her thoughts when Tricia Rhoades, or rather Debra Borssen, grasped the girl’s arm and started to pull her out of her seat.
“Hey!” Neely lunged from her own seat, pushing Borssen’s hand away. “Leave her alone!”
Borssen pulled her hand back and stared at Neely coldly. Anger showing in her voice, she stepped back. “Fine. You get her out.”
Neely remained defiant and looked down at Li Na. “I guess this is where we get off.” She held out a hand and found herself trying to hide the look of surprise when Li Na immediately took it.
Together
, the two rose and stepped out into the narrow aisle. There, they proceeded to move forward with Borssen in front and the massive Anvil several feet behind them.
They strode out and onto a set of metal steps, squinting as Neely took in the scene around her. Desert extended itself as far as she could see with a hot, blazing afternoon sun just minutes from reaching the horizon. Below Li Na and her, three military vehicles waited on the black tarmac. She could see a dozen or so short, military-style buildings scattered over the area behind them, spread out over a square mile.
It was all Neely was able to see before she was bumped from behind by Anvil, forcing her forward. She grabbed the two hot handrails as she stumbled downward.
The ride was short. A minute or two passed at most, winding between non-descript buildings until reaching one that looked exactly like the others. The two women were promptly escorted from their vehicle and through a set of double doors. They then were immediately received by a well-staffed security checkpoint.
Three men and two women instructed them through. Each hostage placed one palm, followed by the other, on a clear slate of glass. Simultaneously, a bright beam of light moved up and down, scanning their prints.
Next came a facial recognition system followed by the only device Neely actually recognized––a vertical, fat, cylindrical body scanner, like the kind seen at most major airports.
Watching them from the other side, a short and overweight bronze-skinned woman waited, with two guards standing on either side.
When the two were finally cleared and brought closer, Janice Talbot feigned a friendly smile. “Welcome. We’ve been waiting for you.”
100
Exhaustion was taking its toll on Neely. She could feel a slight numbing of her mind along with fleeting wisps of tunnel vision as she sat at an empty table.
Mosaic (Breakthrough Book 5) Page 28