“I think you must have some sort of weapon on you, or you wouldn’t be arguing so much. Take them off.”
He huffed and slipped out of his shiny black shoes. “He’s stalling, probably because they are in the process of surrounding the building. We will have to make an unexpected move, and quick. We’ll have to go through the floor.”
As he removed his pants, I grabbed him by his shirt and tie and lifted him off the floor with my left hand. “Tell me your name! Now!” I roared.
He coughed and wheezed. “Okay, you can call me Jim.”
“Okay, Jim, get ready, because we’re taking the fast way down.”
37
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
MEETING WITH SVC, JR
122052 22:19
-Come on, (JR). You know we have to track down (WK); we’ve been through all this and you even helped us plan his capture. It didn’t work, but that doesn’t mean we stop trying. We just need to keep him under wraps for a year or so; after that, he can do whatever he wants, because we’ll be gone.
-(JR) Yes, of course, I know all the reasons, Director. You must understand, though, that Hassim is his own man. He is my son, but he is also an adult. Not just an adult, either; he is MI-6. Have you considered that he may be there on an official mission for them? I’m not saying he is; if he was, he would not tell me and I would not ask. Nevertheless, that he is not communicating with me leads me to believe that this might be true.
-What would the British be doing snooping around this situation?
-(JR) I can only surmise that they too would have an interest in the technology used to build Lucas. There are only a handful of countries that still possess the scientific infrastructure to duplicate his tech, and they are on that list.
Hm. It would be like them to try that kind of quick, stealthy approach, wouldn’t it?
-(JR) I don’t feel comfortable conjecturing any further, but you should not underestimate the British. That they are not on the verge of implosion like so many other countries are should be evidence enough.
-So, getting back to my original question, you’re telling me you have no idea where Hassim is or where he’s going?
-(JR) I apologize, director, but I cannot help you there.
-What does that mean? That sounds like a non-answer.
-(JR) What are you suggesting?
-I’m not suggesting anything. I’m telling you it sounds to me like you are intentionally withholding information crucial to the mission of the LFP.
-(JR) That’s quite an accusation, director. I have been a trusted source of information and access from the beginning of the LFP. Many of the Bright Hand agents are in their positions because I cleared the way for them through my inside contacts, are they not? I would urge you to be careful with your words. I don’t think it would be in your best interest to alienate me.
-Okay, you’re right, but you have to admit it seems more than coincidental that your son just happens to be in a vehicle on his way to a destination that we desperately need to know, and you can’t contact him.
-(JR) Doesn’t it seem equally coincidental that Mr. Oakes is also in the vehicle, and you cannot contact him?
-Touché. Sorry, (JR), I’m just intensely frustrated and afraid that the entire thing will fall apart. Will you at least keep trying to contact your son?
-(JR) Of course, Director. I understand your frustration; you must know that, although he is his own man as I said, that does not ease the worry that a father feels for his son. I will contact you immediately when I hear from him.
-Okay, thanks (JR). Sorry for… well, for everything. Talk to you soon.
-(SVC) He’s offline now.
-He knows. He knows something, I’m sure of it. Why would he lie to us?
-(SVC) If he is lying, I would say it is to protect his son. He may be in a compromising position.
-All right, let me think… come on, think… that road heading north, where does it go?
-(SVC) Stand by… oh, my. There is a fork, but if they continue north, it heads almost directly to the Tonopah Test Range. Otherwise known as Area 52.
-Wait… wait a minute… we had the wrong area all along?! We had the wrong area all along! He’s at Area 52; send the VTOLs, you idiot! How far is it?
-(SVC) Stand by… roughly seventy miles.
-So the VTOLs can get there in about thirty minutes?
-(SVC) If they don’t get shot out of the sky in the meantime.
-We’ll just have to chance it. Plus, they have the… what, the cloaking stuff on them, right?
-(SVC) Light-bending coating. It renders them invisible to radar and even difficult to see with the naked eye.
-Do they have any offensive capabilities?
-(SVC) Not during flight, but their pilots are highly capable. They can handle themselves after setting down. And they can pilot the VTOLs remotely, so in an emergency situation…
-They could pilot one of them to crash into something if they had to. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that, (SVC). I sure hope this is all worth it. And sorry for the idiot crack. And pass those cookies.
****
I was holding Jim in the air with one hand, and it was weird; he was choking and gasping a little, but he didn’t seem scared. It actually seemed more like we interested him, like he was looking at a science experiment or something. He looked funny, though, half a meter off the ground, in just his socks, underwear, suit coat, shirt, and tie, and I almost laughed.
“Cheri, do you think you could hold Jim up like this while I make a way for us to go down?” I asked.
“My pleasure. I might have to use both hands, but it won’t be a problem. First, though, let me lob a couple of spider grenades over all these soldiers frozen over here, just in case they manage to get themselves free.”
A moment later there were two more satisfying pops, and Cheri took Jim from me. He gasped again, and said, “That prosthetic arm is amazing. No problems with it glitching, moving slow, anything like that?”
She giggled. “The Bright Hand made it. What do you think?” Then she switched to holding him up with her prosthetic arm only.
“Nice. Have you been wearing that dragon skin vest this whole time?”
“Yeah, we had them totally fooled. They were so stupid they didn’t even check.”
“Heads will roll for that, I assure you.”
Cheri chuckled. “You mean, if you get out of this alive, and right now it’s not looking too good for you.”
Ava, where should I cut a hole?
“Move past the soldiers and down the hall until you reach the end and cut it there.”
Will there be people to deal with where we’re going down?
“We might run into a few soldiers the first floor down, but the bulk will be on the second. That’s where your dad is. Things will close in on us quickly, so let’s move, sonny boy.”
The mass of frozen soldiers was right in the middle of a tee in the hallway, so I motioned to Cheri to put Jim down as I pushed the soldiers, now covered in the spider grenade material, aside enough for us to scoot by. I hadn’t stopped to count, but there were probably twenty soldiers in the group, and it seemed like all of them were talking as we hustled by, although I didn’t stop to listen to what they were saying. Ava, how many soldiers are around the building?
“Well, they’re not all soldiers, but at least several hundred. This will be a challenge, sonny boy. Okay, cut the hole here.”
I motioned for Cheri and Jim to stand back and pointed my right fist at the floor; with my left thumb, I pressed the raised mole on my forearm and drew a fiery hole big enough for each of us to drop through. “Wait, you have a cutting torch in your hand too?” asked Jim, looking ridiculous in his shirt, tie, jacket, underwear and socks.
“No, it’s a laser. Stand back.” I leaned forward, pushed on the center of the hole, and it fell through to the floor below; at the same moment, there was a massive Whoom! from somewhere outside the building; everything shook for several
seconds, a lot like a major earthquake, and then came the sounds of shouts and people running outside.
Okay, I don’t know what that was, but it’s probably good for us… maybe it’ll keep the troops outside busy for a while…
“You’re right, yay for the good team… now, there are three soldiers coming this way in the floor below. You can probably hear them. Let’s save the rest of our flechettes and spider grenades. Just wait ‘til they get to the hole and show them we have Big Jim over there as a hostage. Tell them to get into a room and then break off the doorknob. That should work.”
Both Cheri and Jim were staring back toward the tee in the hallway; I looked back as well, and saw the shadows of flickering light, as if something big was burning outside. “What was that?” Cheri said.
“I don’t know, but we don’t have time to check, we have to keep going.” I motioned for Cheri to get Jim down on his knees, and I put his face directly over the hole. “If they shoot, they’re hitting you, so you better play this right,” said Cheri, getting the situation immediately. Just to make sure, I took hold of both of Jim’s hands and squeezed almost hard enough to break bones, but not quite. He squealed, and said, “That’s not really necessary, you know.”
Cheri put her face right next to Jim’s, and in her most intimidating voice, said, “You tell them to drop their weapons and get into the nearest room or you’re all dead, got it?”
“Ooow! Yes, of course, I know how to play along. Oww!”
The emergency lights were still on in the floor below, so we saw the soldiers as they approached the hole in the ceiling; Jim put his face through the still smoking gap and said, “Stop! Put down your weapons, that’s a direct order!”
These soldiers were in regular uniforms instead of exosuits, and the tallest of the three said, “But, General, sir, we can’t…”
“Just do it!” Jim roared, and the soldiers immediately dropped their rifles.
“Hey, you didn’t tell us you are a general, Jim. That makes you a pretty valuable hostage. Tell them sidearms too, or we’re killing all of you,” whispered Cheri, and I squeezed his hands just a little harder.
“Aah! Sidearms too, or they’ll kill us all!”
The soldiers looked at one another, and slowly unstrapped their handguns, tossing them on the ground. “Now, into that room, just to their left. Quick, before you really get hurt,” said Cheri, and I was getting the feeling she was kind of enjoying herself.
The soldiers shuffled into the room and shut the door; I yanked General Jim back and dropped through the hole, dashed to the door of the soldiers’ room and snapped off the doorknob. I turned to find him already dangling through the hole, Cheri hanging on to his battered hands. I caught him as she dropped him through, and as Cheri swung down, I said, “Sorry about squeezing your hands, I just had to make sure you did what we were asking you to do.”
Rubbing his fingers vigorously, he said, “How much of your strength were you using to do that?”
“Oh, hardly any.”
“Impressive.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“I suppose I should be, but no, not really.”
“Why not? I told you I would come for you when all of this is done.”
“You’re not a killer, Lucas. We both know that.”
“He’s got you there, sonny boy. There are more soldiers coming from the right, so we go left, quickly.”
I pointed left down the wide hallway, and said, “This way, let’s go!”
We had only taken a step when another massive Boom! rocked the building; even one floor underground, the concussion threw Cheri and General Jim off of their feet, and made me wobble. Cracks appeared in the walls and ceiling, and the sounds of things crashing to the ground were everywhere. “Jim, what the hell is going on out there?” said Cheri as they regained their footing.
“Well, just offhand, I’d say a lot of Jet-A went up, along with a couple of jets, most likely.”
“Jet A is the fuel they use in the US for jets.”
Are we under attack or something?
“It would appear so. Keep moving, shorty, time’s running out for us to get this done.”
“Aren’t you concerned?” asked Cheri.
General Jim chuckled. “I would be, but at the moment I have more personal problems. I’m standing here in my socks and underwear, and I’m the hostage of two teenage mutants who are liable to get us all killed if they don’t listen to reason.”
“Jim’s still stalling, and those soldiers are likely to catch us. Toss a spider grenade back there, that’ll keep them occupied.”
I felt around in the pocket of the scrubs I was still wearing and found four of the little glue bombs left. “Cheri, how many spider grenades do you have?”
“I have one. We put all that we had in your leg, remember?”
Oh, boy. I hope we have enough.
I tossed one back from where we had just been, and a few moments later heard the frustrated roars of an unknown number of soldiers.
After a minute of scuttling down the twisting hall, Ava said, “Hold it, this is it. Your dad is below us, twenty meters ahead.”
Then why are we stopping here?
“We don’t want to go down right on top of his head. They might have weapons triggered on motion. We’ll have to fight our way in from here.”
Oh, boy.
38
DIRECTOR’S NOTES
MEETING WITH SVC
122052 23:03
-Stand by, Director… the VTOLs have set down about four miles west of Tonopah Test Range, and… there have been a at least two jets explode on the tarmac. The VTOLs stayed low and mostly followed a range of hills to the west of the base and as far as we are aware, they have thus far been unnoticed… there are hundreds of people outside what appears to be one of the main structures of the air base… they are working on getting all their jets into hangars… oh, one of our pilots reports that another jet just went up in an explosion they felt from where they are…
-We were right! That has to be the boy, and his dad must be there. I’ll bet he’s in that principal building. Are the pilots getting some drones in the air so we can see what’s happening?
-I haven’t directed them to do so yet… stand by… message sent. The military will not take kindly to drones flying nearby, so we’ll have to have them approach with caution, but we should get at least some sense of the scene before they’re taken down.
-So, they somehow blew up the jets as a distraction? That has to be it. Man, the military will be pissed… It’s a version of the same tactic we were using at Area 51, although obviously they had to improvise. Five minutes ago I was depressed and planning a personal exit strategy, and now… this is getting exciting again. That has to be where Oakes and his group are heading, right? When Oakes shows up at the gate, that could cause some distraction. Who do we think is with him?
-He likely has the four soldiers that the boy got released from the Bright Hand cavern… I don’t have their names handy. He also probably has (WK), (JR)’s son, Hassim, and I would guess that he also has the boy’s group: the aboriginal and the rest. Oh, and probably the prison guard from Brazil… his name is also escaping me at the moment.
-You’re slipping, (SVC). It’s not like you to forget names, unless you’re doing it on purpose, like always calling Dr. Benji Walker ‘the aboriginal’. That sounds kind of racist, you know.
-Stand by… they’ve already got a couple of drones in the air… you should see video coming up on your screen now.
-Whoa, look at that! I wonder how they set off those jets? Those fires are huge, and that jet fuel burns hot. As distractions go, that’s a doozy. Let’s see… there’s still a good-sized group surrounding that primary building right in the center of the hangars… they have to be in there, and for some reason the troops have orders to wait outside… that must be it. Why would they have them wait? Do you think… were they expecting the boy to show up there? But how could they? In case you’re
keeping track, I’ve now gone from excitement to frustration, (SVC).
-The further this all goes, the more I think somehow the Americans knew almost everything. My suspicion is that we have a leak somewhere in our little group.
-If that’s true, it could only be one of five people, right? You, me, (JR), (LPJ) or (BG). We’re the only ones who know the complete plan.
-There is one other: (WK).
-No… no, you don’t think he’d really go through all this to set the boy up, do you?
-I’ll admit is seems unlikely, but we’ve seen quite a few strange things happen since the boy has come along.
-You can say that again. He’s almost single-handedly destroyed our organization, and totally without knowing or meaning to. That’s quite a trick. Pass me that bottle, (SVC), and let’s talk some more about who might have leaked to the Americans. And do we have any of those little tiny pickled onions? That would go down good right about now.
****
“ Jim, is there any kind of trap down there?” I asked, as I prepared to cut a hole in the floor, now closer than ever to my dad.
“We didn’t even know you were coming, Lucas. I just got lucky to come across you upstairs. Well, lucky isn’t really the right word, considering my current situation. There were general orders for me to be notified of anything out of the ordinary tonight, and when I received notice of two teen hiker girls being brought in with a medical emergency, I knew if someone wanted to get as close as they could without being stopped along the way, that’s the best possible cover. We just got your dad here yesterday, so what kind of trap could I have set that would hold you?”
Reassemble (Singular Book 4) Page 24