The Primus Labyrinth

by Scott Overton

  Hunter felt compelled to speak. “There is another possibility.” The faces turned toward him. “The possibility that there’s someone against us on the inside. Someone with access. Someone in her security detail, or. . . within the project itself.”

  Their leader gave him a piercing look.

  “A traitor? A mole? Is that what you’re suggesting, Mr. Hunter?”

  The discomfort on the pilot’s face showed he had nothing more to say. Neither did anyone else.

  # # #

  Hunter pushed himself hard for the rest of the day. In three missions he covered nearly eighty per cent of the spleen. It was phenomenal, considering how many dead-end channels he encountered. He found only one more bomb, and destroyed it without incident. Then he gave in to the need for a longer break. His head was reeling, and his body reacted as if he had the flu. Getting some food into his stomach helped with the weakness and the shakes, but he finally had to escape from the confining walls and get some fresh air.

  The night had an uncharacteristic chill. He looked up into the dark sky and realized the stars were no match for the bright lights of the air force base. Slowly, he wandered toward the north side of the building, where the worst of the excess light was blocked by walls. His neck quickly grew stiff as he sat on the cold pavement with his back against rough bricks, gazing up at twinkling pinpoints of white. Lately, he spent so much of his time obsessed with the world of the incomprehensibly small that he felt a powerful need to contemplate the infinite grandeur of the universe for a while.

  His heart nearly leapt from his chest when a man’s voice came from the shadows.

  “I hoped I could find you alone.”

  39

  Hunter scrambled to his feet.

  “There’s no need for that. You have nothing to fear from me.” The voice was deep and measured—not the voice of anyone he knew. There was no obvious attempt to disguise it, yet its pitch and volume spoke of a desire for confidentiality.

  Hunter could see no more than an outline near the corner of the building. All he could tell was that the man was of medium height and build.

  “Who are you, and what do you want from me?”

  “The classic question, straight from a movie script.” There was a low chuckle. “I can’t tell you who I am. I don’t think that is a good idea yet. But I work for the president.”

  “You expect me to take your word for that? Why didn’t you come to see me in the open? Why this cloak and dagger routine in the middle of the night?”

  “It's not that late. By the middle of the night I hope to be in my bed, back in Washington. Although catching a few hours of shuteye at my desk is more likely.” He stepped closer. “I arrived with the president on Marine One this morning, but it’s not my habit to be seen with him. I prefer to work out of the spotlight.”

  “And out of any other light, it seems. I don’t have anything to say to you. I think maybe the military police would like to know you’re here.” Hunter made to step around the man, who stopped him with an upraised palm. Then the other hand followed it into the air.

  “I’m not armed. I’m not a threat to you. Or anyone else working on the project.” There was a small movement of his head, as if to make sure they were alone. “Yes, I know about it. I know that you are the pilot of a nano-sized submarine that prowls around inside a very important person. I know your name, Mr. Hunter, and your background, as well as the backgrounds of everyone working in this complex, plus everything you have done on the project to this point. In fact I am the one who recommended it to the president as the only way to solve his. . . unique problem.”

  Darkness hid the astonishment on Hunter’s face and he made an effort to hide it in his voice.

  “I have no reason to believe anything you’re saying. And you still haven’t said what you want with me.”

  “Just trying to establish my credentials, Mr. Hunter. If you’re having trouble trusting me because I don’t want to be seen by the others, consider that maybe it’s because I don’t know whom I can trust among them.”

  The man leaned against the wall with hands in pockets, a deliberately casual stance designed to set his companion at ease. “You can go if you must, Mr. Hunter. I won’t stop you. But I would ask you to stay for a few minutes. Let me have my say. You can’t give away any secrets just by listening, can you?”

  “What if I don’t know any secrets and don’t want to?”

  “Everyone has secrets. And everyone wants to know more than they do.”

  They stood for a moment without speaking, but Hunter didn’t leave. Gerard Mannis took that as a cue to proceed.

  “You can keep to yourself both what you know, and anything else you suspect. Just let me say that I’m convinced our enemies know as much about what’s going on as you do.” He turned toward the submariner. There was enough spilled light to show the outline of a strong face, clean-shaven with a full head of hair. A soft sheen as he moved suggested a conservative tie matched to a decent suit. “I can’t tell you my reasons for believing that secrecy has been compromised. Besides, you don’t want to know.” A slight smirk could be heard in his voice.

  “Needless to say, anybody who is willing and able to plant micro-miniature bombs into the body of a human being isn’t going to spare any effort or expense to ensure that their plan is not thwarted. Or to keep their own identities from being discovered.

  “There has already been one attempt on my life for trying to learn who we’re dealing with.” He turned toward Hunter again. “Hundreds of our country’s best intelligence people are working on this case in one way or another, but the enemy tried to kill me. That could only be because I got close, and someone knew it. There is no way they should have been able to know that, Mr. Hunter.”

  The pilot kept his voice flat. “Whatever story you tell, I still don’t see what it has to do with me.”

  “Let me draw you a picture,” the other replied dryly. “I’m a discreet man. A very discreet man. There is no way anyone should know what I am doing unless they are very well placed indeed. Inside the administration.” He rested his head back on the cold brick and looked up at the night sky. “Your patient is one of the best-guarded people in the entire country right now, yet someone got to her sometime in the past two days.”

  Hunter couldn’t suppress a sharp intake of breath, then mentally kicked himself for it. The man in the shadows did not fail to notice.

  “Yes, I know about that. More bombs have been planted, and I’m damned if I know how, but I’m going to find out. I’m hoping you’ll keep your eyes and ears open, too. I think you’re in a better position than anyone to figure out how that could have been done. I also think you’ll be the first to know if there’s any more. . . interference, for want of a better word.”

  Hunter’s mind reeled. He was totally out of his element, unused to subterfuge of any kind. He struggled to find words that wouldn’t give anything away.

  “You tell quite a tale. If any scrap of it were true, I figure I’d be the last person anyone would tell it to. Why are you talking to me?”

  The other gave a chuckle. “Very well phrased. You have a talent for this—I’m glad to see it.” He shifted his position and took a breath. “The fact is, almost everyone else I know who is working on this problem considers you the least trustworthy of the team, the greatest unknown. You can’t be surprised at that, with your history. They can’t see past that.

  “I’ve looked deeper, yet with all of my digging I can’t turn up a single personal, business, or political connection of yours that might have any possible bearing on what’s happening. They say no man is an island, but you’re as close to it as I’ve seen, Mr. Hunter. Even your drinking buddies don’t really know you. You’ve shut everyone out of your life in the past year, and there weren’t all that many in it to begin with. You remind me of me.” He shook his head. “Don’t be insulted. I’m one of the good guys, and I’m taking a big gamble trusting you. It could c
ost me my career, if I’m wrong.”

  A sudden glow in the dark showed that he was consulting his watch.

  “I can’t take much more time. You’ll be missed soon. First, let me remind you again where we are. It should be obvious that not just anyone could walk in here and talk to you. We’re being observed right now—though not recorded. I took care of that. I’ve told you a lot of things no one outside the project should know. You’ll have to judge for yourself what that’s worth. All I want from you is for you to be extremely careful and extremely vigilant.

  "I’m convinced that someone very highly placed in our government is out to stop me, and they sure as hell will want to stop you. Watch for anything suspicious whatsoever. If it’s something you can deal with on your own, do the best you can. If not, be very, very careful whom you trust. Pick the wrong person, and the game is over.

  “If you decide you can trust me, you can reach me with this.” He passed across a small white object. It felt like an ordinary business card. “It’s not some kind of James Bond gadget. Just a phone number for a travel agency. The answering service will say that the number is no longer connected, but I’ll know you called and I’ll find a way to contact you. And,” he added, “be more careful of your own safety from now on. No more wandering outside by yourself at night. I’m convinced that steps are being taken—have already been taken—to stop what your team is doing, so you are all in danger.”

  “Why should I believe that?” Hunter asked.

  The other man didn’t answer right away. When he spoke again it was in a softer voice.

  “Do you remember a couple of technicians here named Stanton and Brown? Low-level security clearance—little more than repairmen. Stanton was allowed to go to visit his family last weekend, about a two-hour drive from here. He didn’t make it. A car crash. Then Brown was called away because of a family emergency. The emergency was real—his father’d had a stroke. But now Brown is missing.”

  “You’re saying this isn’t a coincidence?”

  “Coincidence? Hardly. And they were only very minor players. Fortunately others were available to take over their work. The key members of your team—and especially you—are not replaceable.” His voice took on a harder edge. “There has already been one attempt to deprive us of your services.”

  “Me? What are you talking about?”

  “You were supposed to travel here by commercial flight to Norfolk. It was delayed, if you remember, so Devon Kierkegaard brought you by military jet instead. Your original flight did not make it to Norfolk, Virginia. It seems someone made a serious miscalculation about the amount of fuel on board.”

  A chill ran through Hunter’s body. “Do you mean it crashed?”

  The other man pushed away from the wall. “As a matter of fact, it didn’t. The pilot was a genius and managed to glide it onto a runway in Philadelphia with a dead stick. A one-in-a-thousand shot. I don’t think that was what others had in mind.” He raised an arm to point at the card in Hunter’s hand. “Call me if you need to.”

  Then he walked softly into the night.

  40

  Hunter made straight for the control room. Halfway there, he turned a corner and walked a dozen steps toward Devon Kierkegaard’s office. Then he stopped, leaned against a wall and tried desperately to think. After a long moment he pushed away and ambled in the direction of his own quarters. His mind raced, but got nowhere. His body ended up face down on his bed.

  No flash of insight came to him, so he got up and removed all of his clothes, carefully going through every pocket and over every seam, paying special attention to his shoes. He found nothing. It felt like the worst kind of spy-movie-induced paranoia, but he couldn’t ignore the risk that some kind of monitoring device had been planted on him, even though he was sure the man he had met had never come close enough.

  Naked, he decided he might as well take a shower. Maybe it would wash him clean of the taint of conspiracy. Yet, as the hot water massaged the back of his neck, he realized that he believed the stranger’s story. There was absolutely no proof that the visitor wasn’t a supremely skilled infiltrator himself, but Hunter had a powerful feeling that the man was on the level. Which meant that someone within the project was working against them.

  Hunter had made the same suggestion himself, only hours earlier, but he didn’t want to accept it. He found it easier to believe that someone much higher up the chain had gone bad. Politics at high levels was a breeding ground for corruption, as he saw it: a game of sleazy self-interest and lust for power.

  Either alternative was an unnerving prospect.

  When he returned to the control room he couldn’t look anyone in the eye.

  The world of the Primus was a welcome escape. The strange colors and bizarre shapes had actually become soothing.

  It was only much later that he noticed an itch at the back of his brain, a nagging feeling that he was being watched. Maybe someone was looking over his shoulder in the control room. Except he’d had an audience all along, hadn’t he?

  Paranoia. He forced himself to ignore it.

  Except he couldn’t.

  The feeling grew. He swept his view around and behind Primus every few seconds, nervously, like a man with a full wallet taking a shortcut down a dark alley. He tried to push the anxiety from his mind, but it wouldn’t go. He found himself no longer looking for bombs, but rather for creeping shadows, unexplained movements, clashing colors.

  He couldn’t go on. He pulled the plug and sullenly strode to his room to sleep.

  It was the sea. The sea knew he was there.

  And hated him for it.

  The dark, the pressure. . . it was all a part of the sea. He had penetrated her against her will, and she would have her revenge: blinding him, squeezing him, smothering him. He tried to hide, cowering in the dark in his metal shell, but she knew he was there. He had come this far on his own, an invader. She would take him the rest of the way, a prisoner.

  He needed to escape. Where were the others? The others knew he was here. They were safe in that other world, above the waves—safe while he did their will. They watched their screens, their clocks, their gauges. They must know he was in trouble. Where were they? Had they abandoned him? Did they, too, fear the sea, knowing she was all-powerful and unforgiving?

  The creak and groan of metal, the low hiss of air, the scrape of sand on steel. No, it was voices. . . words. One voice, the voice of his captor accused and threatened in words he could not quite comprehend. It rocked his fragile refuge. . . toying with him. Taunting. Teasing. Squeezing.

  Please! he begged. Let me go!

  Instead the darkness swirled suddenly like a noose around his throat, a cold breath froze his muscles, and his tiny world turned upside-down, ready to begin the final fall.

  The voice said, You have been betrayed.

  Hunter's next mission was a complete failure. The paranoia returned in full force, shredding his tenuous extra-sensory bond with the inner world. He was forced to fall back on the inferior senses of the computer alone, until he could relax a little, only to feel the unknown scrutiny begin again, compounded by a seemingly endless succession of dead-end passages. He simply couldn’t find his way.

  He stuck it out for the better part of an hour, then gave up in utter frustration.

  The rest of the team could sense that he was on the edge, ready to explode. They kept their distance. Kierkegaard called a meeting, but cancelled it when Hunter couldn’t be found. The sun was shining, and the pilot had gone for a walk in the scrubland bordering the creek to the north of the complex, heedless of his nighttime visitor’s counsel not to be alone. He needed space. . . air. . . sun on his face, and the trickle of running water. No one made any comment upon his return. Bridges had warned them.

  Hunter's link was still wildly erratic. He found no bombs, although it didn’t mean there were none to be found. He’d gone so far off the planned route, Tamiko left the control room in disgust.


  As he reached yet another blocked passage, his mind surrendered to blind fury. It screamed and raged at the grotesque world that entrapped him—an explosion of mental energy that seemed to send shock waves rippling through the surrounding fluid. He could swear he felt Primus vibrate with its force, then jitter as the waves bounced back from the nearby tissues, like a boat bobbing on a wake.

  The vibrations died out, leaving a stillness more profound than ever before. It lasted only seconds, and then he became aware of a growing swell of pent-up energy, like a powerful musical note, spreading, growing, spinning harmonic resonances that fed upon each other. It penetrated his craft, his mind, his soul. . . .

  WHO ARE YOU? it asked.

  He fled in utter terror.

  41

  “He’s suffered some kind of mental trauma, but I have no idea what caused it, or what to do about it.”

  Truman Bridges ran a hand through his graying hair and resumed pacing the floor of Kierkegaard’s office.

  “The man is transferring his psyche into a microscopic particle that travels around inside the body of a human being,” he continued. “How are we supposed to know what that’s like? How can we even guess? Now something has given him a terrible shock, and he’s not saying what it was.”

  Kierkegaard sat back wearily in his chair. “Like when Primus was attacked by the macrophage? He was practically catatonic for a while, then.”

  “No. This time there was no attack on Primus. It must have been some kind of purely mental shock. Nothing showed on the ship’s instruments or recorders at all. Hunter’s blood pressure was already very high, probably from frustration—he’d encountered a long series of dead-end passages. Then there was a spike in vital signs that was. . . almost off the scale. A major traumatic event.”