“I’m listening.” The voice of the man in the apartment was deep, but flat, its edges dulled by years of secrets.
“I have a message for you, Mr. . . .?”
“Call me Kellogg.”
“Mr. Kellogg. I don’t know how much you’ve been informed about our . . . plans . . . .”
“You don’t need to know.”
The telephone voice didn’t react. He’d been warned to expect a conversation that would be all business, curt to the point of rudeness. “I’ve been instructed to tell you that your services will be required after all. How do I send you full details?”
“Initialize a new web server, well isolated.” Kellogg gave a web address. “This site will be open for precisely two minutes at midnight on the tenth of the month. You will post your message on it. Then you will dismantle the server and re-format its memory. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly.”
“Arrangements for payment will then be given to you, and my services will begin the moment I receive the money. You will have one opportunity to cancel the operation up to three days before execution. Once cancelled, it will not be revived. In any event, my fee is not refundable.”
“I understand.”
The phone line went dead. There was nothing more to say, and further words only meant further risk.
The speakers returned to life with a thunder of tympani and brass. The man in green grasped the iron weights again and pulled them to his chest, well satisfied.
He would have done this assignment for nothing.
# # #
“Why pick an Air Force base?” Hunter asked, increasing his stride across the tarmac to keep up with Kierkegaard. “And why this one? Because the CIA is nearby?”
They entered a plain grey office building, and Kierkegaard didn’t answer as they waited for yet another guard to check their identification, although it had already been checked the moment they’d disembarked. That first check gave Hunter the chance to enjoy a few moments of sunshine, shielding his eyes to try to see the water he knew surrounded the three sides of the peninsula. His view to the south was blocked by buildings, but he could see the line of blue toward the east. After they climbed into the car waiting for them on the runway, he’d tried to get his bearings. Judging from the position of the sun they’d driven north and northeast. He was impressed when they passed through what seemed to be a pretty decent golf course along the way.
“You’re confusing the Langleys—most people do. This is Langley Air Force Base, but the headquarters of the CIA is nearly two hundred miles from here in a suburb to the northwest of Washington.” Kierkegaard set a brisk pace down a linoleum hallway. The scuff of their shoes bounced back sibilantly from the block walls, which reminded Hunter of a school. He followed through a door held open by yet another uniformed guard.
The space they entered was a cross between a classroom and a corporate boardroom—more luxurious than the first; less expensive than the second. The table that ran down the middle was wood finished to look like oak. The chairs were upholstered in a dark burgundy cloth that went well with the cream-colored walls. The chair springs creaked from years of frequent use. Four people were seated around the table.
Hunter was directed to a seat midway down the near side, and noticed a man at the far end watching a projection screen descend from the ceiling. Kierkegaard sat at the opposite end of the table from the screen. Hunter had the feeling it was his regular place.
“Are we having a briefing when the rest of your team arrives?”
“This is our team Mr. Hunter. The briefing is for you.”
There were only five other people in the room: three men and two women. He recognized two of the men from the lab the day before: the white-haired man scowled at him from directly across the table and his balding, more genial companion was the one standing beside the screen.
“Yes, you’ve already met Dr. Skylar Tyson, at the screen, and Dr. Kenneth Gage. Dr. Tyson is our engineering expert, most involved in the construction of our submersible. Dr. Gage specializes in the instrumentation and sensing, as well as the virtual reality setup. On your left is Dr. Lucy Tamiko. She’s our circulatory specialist, which in our case also means chief navigator. Beside her is Dr. Truman Bridges, psychologist, but he trained as a physician first so he’s also able to advise us on other medical matters. And Dr. Lorelei Mallory is a molecular biologist. You’ll meet the support staff as we go.”
Hunter reaffirmed his earlier opinion that Gage was rather full of himself—a handsome man with the head of well-tended white hair giving him what he probably considered a distinguished look. Tyson, in contrast, stood slumped and rumpled near the blank screen. His mind was elsewhere. It was hard to picture him in anything but the creased laboratory smock he wore.
Lorelei Mallory—not the siren of German legend that her name suggested, but attractive enough—had reddish brown hair that fell just past her shoulders. She looked at Hunter, but quickly broke the eye contact. Lucy Tamiko, on the other hand, stared back at him boldly and swiveled around to give him a firm handshake, full of confidence that he sensed was a product of her intellect rather than her looks, though she had the face and figure of a model. Her jet black bobbed hair and Asian features reminded him of Filipino women he’d known.
Last of all, he exchanged a quick look with Dr. Bridges, the shrink. He felt his jaw tighten, but he had to admit the man had a pleasant face: square, but not severe, with deep brown skin and short-cropped curly salt-and-pepper hair. Bridges fought a battle with his waistline, and was beginning to lose.
“I’ve asked Dr. Tyson to begin,” Kierkegaard resumed. “Try to keep explanations at the comprehension level of we ordinary mortals, please, Doctor.”
The scientist looked like a monk as he gave a little bow in acknowledgement of the warning. Clearly he’d heard it often.
“We call it the Primus,” he said. “The submersible. Actually I christened it that only about a week ago.”
“The Primus, Doctor?” Hunter interrupted, with a smile. “Not the Proteus like in the movie?”
Tyson looked stunned. “I never noticed the similarity!”
Gage laughed loudly. “Seriously, Skylar? I thought it was your idea of a sly hommage. I was proud of you.”
“Should we change it?”
“No, Dr. Tyson.” Kierkegaard’s voice was warm, but firm. “We have more important things to think about. Primus is a first. That deserves to be recognized.”
Tyson bobbed his head, his Adam’s apple copying the motion, and cleared his throat before speaking again. There was a residual touch of color to his face, though.
His modest voice and demeanor gained strength as he warmed to his subject. From his tablet computer, animations of engineering diagrams and artists’ renderings of the sub were projected onto the screen.
Apart from its size, the basic design wasn’t very different from other remotely guided submersible probes Hunter had worked with. An oblong main hull bore protrusions on either side, front and rear, reminiscent of diving planes, but with a difference. “They’re fans instead of diving planes,” Tyson explained. “So Primus can change its orientation in any direction, whether moving or staying still. During your test run, you quickly intuited how to flip the craft through several directional planes rather fluidly. Well-done. Some of us found that difficult to master.” His shy smile was genuine. Without looking, Hunter was sure that Gage would be frowning.
“What could you possibly use for motors at that scale?” the pilot asked. He’d tried to imagine various exotic processes, but the truth was much simpler.
“Electric motors, Mr. Hunter. Almost no different from the ones in a child’s toy: a drive shaft surrounded by a magnetic field that makes it rotate by the repulsion of opposite charges. One large motor drives the main propeller at the stern with separate motors for each of the directional fans, or thrusters—a more reliable solution than trying to manufacture a complex system of gears a
nd rods on a molecular scale. All of the motors were spun up soon after the completion of the craft and they will never stop until the sub wears out or is destroyed. Or if it were to be separated from the source of its power, of course.”
“Which is…?”
“I’m getting to that. We explored the piezoelectric properties of molybdenum sulfide, but it wasn’t a workable material for our purposes. Happily, Carbon 60 conducts electricity to an extraordinary degree, directed according to the way the nanotubes are wound, although at the nano scale electrons no longer flow like the current of a river, but express themselves more like a wave. The quantum mechanics of it . . . oh, but Devon is waving me off.” He gave a self-conscious grin that Hunter found immediately endearing.
“Let’s just say that most of Primus’ power needs are supplied from the surrounding fluids and tissues themselves. The concept isn’t new. Technology to strip blood glucose molecules of electrons has been in use for some time in equipment such as pacemakers. Our craft continually draws enough electricity from nearby cells to power its motors, sensing equipment, and transmitter. It can also store extra power for its weapons.”
“Weapons?” Hunter sat forward. “What could it possibly need weapons for?” He turned to Kierkegaard with a dark look.
“Not weapons in the traditional sense,” their leader replied. “All of that will be explained.”
The submersible’s hull was hollow, not to house operating gear, but to carry a cargo of chemicals. The cargo bay door just under the stern retracted like a folding oriental fan. The superstructure itself acted as an antenna for an integrated radio transmitter and receiver. Two manipulator arms extended from near the nose. Multi-segmented like worms, they could fold back into a compact V along the bow when not in use. The arm on the port side included an additional double-pronged tip.
“A pretty complex little machine,” Hunter said with a smile. “Just how small is it?”
Tyson’s pride was obvious. “As small as a medium-sized virus, Mr. Hunter. Primus is two hundred and sixty-four nanometers long and half that at its widest. Seventy-seven nanometers high, not counting the sensor array on top. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter, by the way.”
Hunter whistled. It was a scale he couldn’t truly comprehend.
“It looks like the manipulator arms are about a fifth as long as the ship itself.”
“That’s correct, and they’re very dexterous but strong, since they’re made from the same materials as the ship.”
The only design feature that was completely unfamiliar to Hunter was the T-shaped device that rose above the sub’s hull like a grossly elongated radar dish. Shaped like a tube cut in half along its length but with the bare minimum of a stalk, its head was nearly the width of the craft itself. Tyson called it the sensor array, but let Kenneth Gage take over to explain its function.
“You wouldn’t understand the science, Hunter, so I won’t go into detail.” Gage's voice was flat and dry. He ran his finger over the tablet computer and a red dot slid across the screen. “The problem of creating a sensing device the size of a large molecule, with any meaningful capability, challenged the top minds in this country. What you see is a crude sketch. The real thing is an exquisite lattice of paired atoms . . . more than two dozen different atomic elements that had to be arranged according to their size and their propensity to interact, all contained within a framework that is rigid and steerable. An impossible task, but we did it.
“The array can detect light frequencies from the ultraviolet to the infrared, as well as sound waves, magnetic energy, radioactivity . . . . The crucial part is how to interpret the reactions of these atomic pairings into comprehensible data, and then translate that data into a virtual reality program that offers sight, sound, and haptic feedback—the sense of touch. The computer processing required is staggering.” He swept his hand through the air. “And you felt the need to criticize the shitty visuals, as I think you called them.”
Hunter felt duly contrite. “I apologize, Dr. Gage. I simply had no idea what I was looking at. Just as you said.”
The other man’s tone was a little softer as he highlighted another part of the image.
“These twin pods at either end of the Primus are still experimental. We believe we can stimulate them to send out pulses of high frequency radio energy and eventually isolate those frequencies from the rest of the information.”
“Radar,” Hunter said in awe.
“Exactly.”
“But at that scale, the timing of the returning impulses would be . . . .” He couldn’t think of a suitable word. “How could you possibly do it?”
“We can’t. Yet.” Gage looked back at the screen and said quietly, “But we will. We will.”
He changed the slide on the screen. “As you can see, the sensor array is not only capable of rotating through three hundred and sixty degrees—better than we’d hoped—but is mounted on a track running down the back of the hull, chiefly to allow it to tuck behind the tail of the craft, just above the main propeller. Never forget that the sensor array is by far the most fragile component of the whole submersible. If you lose it you are blind, deaf, helpless. Mission over. It would likely be impossible to retrieve Primus at all. Goodbye to a billion dollars worth of research.”
“I get the message.” Hunter smiled ruefully. He wasn’t surprised at the implied cost, but scared stiff by the responsibility that was suddenly his.
“The loss of the patient would be even more tragic.” Kierkegaard sat forward. “Thank you, Dr. Gage. Unless you have questions, Mr. Hunter.”
“Dozens. But they all hinge on the mission. What are you asking me to do?”
“Fair enough.” The project leader nodded. “Your diving background includes some search and recovery experience, does it not?”
“Search and recovery? For what? Did somebody forget a micro-miniature scalpel somewhere?”
“Nothing so mundane, I can assure you. No, Mr. Hunter, for want of a better word, the things we need you to find would be considered bombs.
“Our patient’s body has been mined.”
4
Lucy Tamiko helped him get into the haptic suit: a thin quilted body suit of a stretchy fabric with dozens of pressure pads sewn throughout it—small quickly-inflatable air bladders linked to a complex plug and harness at his left hip. The term “sensory saltation” didn’t mean anything to him, but he understood that the suit’s tactors were to provide him with a haptic interface—a system simulating the sense of touch and giving him body awareness. It was an adaptation of the Air Force pressure suit that was designed to keep fighter pilots from becoming disoriented in the air.
He’d experienced only the demonstration model of the virtual reality control system. The real thing was more intimidating and alien, surrounded by its web of support systems. The chair was mounted on gimbals, with hydraulics like the motion simulation rigs of amusement rides. Together, the chair and suit would help him feel some of the forces Primus experienced in turbulence or sudden maneuvers. However, the system was heavily software-dependent. The sensor array would detect changes in direction and momentum as well as fluctuations in electrical charge from contact with other objects, but the interpretation of that data into sensations recognizable by the human mind was an incredibly complex computational problem. The system had produced bizarre results on occasion, and would be disabled if it proved to be more hindrance than help.
“Don’t expect too much this first time,” Tamiko said. “The schedule called for months of testing with lab animals before ever experimenting within the bloodstream of a human, but this . . . situation came up. One we couldn’t refuse.” She gave the barest trace of a nervous smile.
“You’re saying no-one’s ever driven this thing inside a living human being?” Hunter’s tongue felt thick.
“No. Only in a white rat. That pilot . . . well, let’s just say he’s not with the project anymore.”
“Jesu
s.”
The situation was bizarre, even reckless. Apparently the importance of the patient justified the risks. Tamiko and Mallory had been given extensive medical records of their subject, with names and other personal references carefully deleted. Only Kierkegaard and Bridges knew the patient’s identity.
“Dr. Bridges is standing by to insert Primus into a very small vein in the patient’s wrist as soon as we give the word. The ship’s in neutral, waiting for your commands. Just stay calm and try to get a feel for the environment. It’s a good bet you’re in for a rough ride.”
Nausea. Worse than before.
Jacked in with Primus already spinning. Unable to focus.
Getting a little better now. The world is settling down.
But what world? Shades of grey—nothing else.
Still inside the syringe.
Slight sense of motion, or is that just imagination? No visual references. Try to feel the pads of the suit. Nothing from them yet. Bridges should be performing the insertion soon. Take advantage of the wait to get used to the controls.
Give a kick to each of the directional fans—‘thrusters’ as Tyson calls them. Yeah, slight pressure from the suit pads. A gentle roll of the chair. Movement.
OK . Bring the main engine online—might need it in a hurry. Vibration in the back. Nice touch. Like a motor building up positive thrust.
Manipulator arms: good smooth control, rotate well, easy to handle. Cross the arms—show them some impatient body language!
Was that movement? Still nothing to see. Feels like . . . moving backward!
Fluctuating pressure on stomach and chest. Maybe the computer needs more visual cues to process. Still backward. Primus must be aimed the wrong way. Is there enough time to get turned around?
Whoa, yeah! Spins on a dime. Overspun a little. Now forward motion is definitely increasing. Surrounding fluid taking on a slight texture, like suspended particles in a flowing stream.
The Primus Labyrinth Page 3