by Bob Blink
"Do you think the doctors are right?" Steph asked.
"About what?" Jessie asked, her thoughts being dragged back from where they'd been drifting.
"That we were repaired or perhaps even replaced each time we went to one of those sessions?"
Jessie wanted to shudder at the thought. The speculation among the three doctors was that each time they'd visited the building, the clone that went in, never was seen again. Whatever job it had performed in the preceding months was somehow wrung from the memory, while a new clone version of themselves was prepared for release with new instructions, and a copy of all relevant recent memories now programmed into it. The idea might explain Mark's comments about entering one of the rooms on one side of the floor and coming out on the other. When they'd explored the fourth floor rooms that day, they'd found no connection between the two areas. Jessie didn't like thinking that she was a disposable entity, and that this version of herself was less than a month old. The idea would explain a lot, however. For example, she was certain she caught the flu periodically, but when pressed by Dr. Thompson, she couldn't recall just when that might have been. In the end, she had to admit maybe it was simply one of those vague impression memories, that when examined proved to be false. Apparently they were cloned to be immune to normal human disease.
"Actually, I'm trying not to think about that," Jessie replied honestly. "It gives me the willies to think that we were only recently created."
Steph seemed to be in a talkative mood, or perhaps it was just the engineer in her playing with some of the strange ideas that were being tossed around down here.
"The doctors are also surprised that whoever designed the clones and the nodes did it the way they did. They claim it wouldn't have been difficult to design the modification so that the nodes were internal and wouldn't have been detectable."
"Maybe they don't know that much about human brains, or they didn't care. Given that we are apparently healthy specimens that don't ever need to go to doctors, they assumed that there would be no chance they would be spotted. I guess we are lucky they did it this way, or we wouldn't have a tool to sort out who is safe and who isn't."
"What about accidents?" Steph asked. "If we were in a car wreck, we might end up being scanned."
"I suspect it's more likely that when something like that happens, we'd go the route the original Bud Johnson did," Jessie replied.
Steph shrugged.
"Maybe," she admitted.
Then, changing the subject, she added, "At least this is the last of these medical tests, until they figure out something else they've overlooked."
"For you maybe," Jessie said. "I have the surgery tomorrow."
"Oh, that's right," Steph said.
Jessie wasn't certain why, but she'd volunteered to undergo a more invasive kind of test. The doctors were going to put her under, then insert a small probe into her brain, taking small samples and making internal measurements of the node. Their brain patterns were unique compared to other humans, and the doctors wanted to see if the origins of some of the anomalous signals originated in the node.
They had mapped the node in detail. Both the various scans that were being performed on them, and the fact they'd been able to slice and dice the remains of the Pam clone brain, had provided a lot of information. Unfortunately, the node in the Pam clone had been damaged by both hydrostatic pressure from the .357 bullet fired into her brain, and the decay caused by several days of casual storage before they'd gotten the remains. There was a nerve bundle that connected the new node to the main brain stem, and that was of particular interest to them. They hoped to connect a sensor to that part of the node, which would allow them to monitor Jessie even after the operation. They had expressed a wish to test some of the audio files Mark had gotten from Fred and see what activity they induced, but Jessie had flatly refused that idea. She'd seen what happen to Johnson, and was certain that trigger was somewhere in the batch of files.
"You're really brave to allow them to go into your brain," Steph said.
"Pretty stupid, you mean," Jessie countered.
She wasn't certain why she'd agreed, but after hearing the theory about being only a few weeks old, she'd decided what could it matter. The thought she'd been periodically reprogrammed had been uncomfortable enough, but the idea that she'd been completely recreated every six months had been very disturbing.
Their thoughts and conversation were interrupted when Glen stepped out of the testing area.
"Done," he said with a wide smile. "I hope never to see a medical lab again."
Jessie and Steph stood together.
"Want to go get something to eat?" Glen asked. "After all that nonsense, I'm famished."
The Pentagon kitchens provided a wide variety of items they could order. Their requests were packaged up, and sent into the secure area by some means they hadn't yet figured out, arriving in their cafeteria in a surprisingly short time.
Jessie shook her head, knowing the two would probably like to be alone.
"I think I'll wander down to the firing range, and see if they have learned anything new."
"Hi Jessie, what brings you down here?" Sandy Ross asked, when she wandered into the lab.
"Hi Sandy. Learn anything new?"
There was no real reason she or any of the others needed to come to the firing range that had been created to test the alien weapon. It was now inert, and essentially useless. They had fired more than forty shots through the device, but then it had stopped functioning. Most likely whatever powered it, had run out of oomph.
It was a very strange device. Only the three of them had been able to fire it, despite their being unaware that they were doing anything to trigger it. They simply grabbed it, pointed at a target, and pressed the activation pressure point. The weapon was oddly selective on what it would work on. The very first testing had been against standard paper pistol targets. The beam of light that the device produce flared and struck the paper, to no avail. Nothing was done to the paper, not even a small burn. It also wouldn't do anything to piles of clothing, or metallic devices, despite all of them having seen it vanish the clothes Jerry and Geller were wearing, long with their weapons.
At some point they'd had some animals brought in as subjects for the test. Here they obtained dramatic results. When targeted, the living animals disappeared just like the humans that had been targeted. Where they went, or just what happened to them remained a mystery. Even extremely high-speed cameras failed to capture their deaths. One moment they were there, and then they weren't. A test corpse that was brought in suffered the same fate.
Analysis of the material used in the device was an on-going effort, and they were now considering some kind of destructive analysis, which carefully peeled the device layer by layer, since all manner of imaging had shown them nothing. Sandy and others were hopeful that the on-going planning to use them as bait might yield additional weapons for testing.
"Nothing," he admitted. "I still believe the device can be caused to function in multiple modes, and you guys simply aren't programmed to operate it that way, but it's just a theory."
"When do you start sawing it up?" Jessie asked, causing the man to wince.
"Nothing so crude, but probably tomorrow. We need approval from the Senator to take a step like that. It is one of the only bits of proof we have, you know."
"And no idea what powers it?"
"I can't imagine anything that could provide the power our sensors are indicating is being released fitting into something that small. If we could learn how that's done we'd have a scientific breakthrough worth a small fortune."
Chapter 42
Are you certain that program got loaded properly?
Mark typed the message in the special link he'd hacked into the NSA system. It wasn't as convenient as talking directly, but they'd both become adept at using it.
Fred replied obviously a bit annoyed.
That's the rottenest thing you've ever said to me. Do you think I'd sc
rew something like this up?
Curbing his desire to snipe back, Mark wrote what he'd been thinking.
Well, it's been a couple of days since you said it was going operational, and you say there are no finds in the output. Maybe it isn't working. Maybe someone found it and extracted it from the upload.
Fred was quick to answer back.
If it had been found, there'd be a real shitstorm around here about now," Fred reminded him. "You should know that. You worked here, remember? You were my boss.
So could there be a problem with the code?
There you go again. How about the more likely, no one is using the triggering preamble at the moment.
How come you're so certain that it is working if you haven't gotten any hits?
Because I built an App.
An App?
Yeah. Something I put on my phone that has the code and all of the triggering audios I put on the thumb drive I gave you. You don't think that was the only copy do you? I made a phone call to another test phone I have, and yes, it showed up in the system like I hoped. So I know it's working. Satisfied? Unfortunately, there have been no other hits since it went operational.
Wow! Sorry to have had doubts. So I guess we just sit and wait?
I'll let you know when there's something to tell. We shouldn't overuse this link. Clever as it is, there are some pretty smart people here looking for just such penetrations.
Mark sat back from his screen. Fred was right. He'd just have to be patient.
Burrows looked across the small table at a visibly uncomfortable Sully. He'd gotten the message, relayed from the web site Jessica and Steph had set up to the cheap phone that Burrows had been given for just this purpose. Sully wouldn't have known about the phone or the clever manner in which his brief alert to Burrows on the site had been transferred.
"What exactly have you gotten me into?" Sully asked, glancing around the empty room of the same dingy cafe where they'd met before. There weren't any other customers at this hour, so the effort was wasted and unnecessary. He glanced at Mitch as well, as if the man might be responsible in some way for whatever was bothering him.
"Problems?" Burrows asked.
"I think I'm being followed," Sully replied. "Ever since I started this little job for you, something has been out of whack."
"Followed? Here?"
It was Mitch's turn to have a careful look around, while Burrows kept his focus on his fellow agent.
"Nah," Sully replied. "I ditched whoever it was. I made certain of that, but I know once I get back to the Bureau, I'll pick up my tail again."
"You don't know who it is?" Burrows asked. "How can you be certain you lost him?"
"I've gotten pretty good at giving tails a slip over the years," Sully bragged. "I have a couple of special maneuvers that always work."
Mitch wasn't as confident as the agent across the table, and shot a glance at Burrows. They'd take some special care themselves when this was over and they headed back to the camp.
Burrows nodded, but said, "Maybe you need to come with me when this discussion is over. This situation is unusual, and if you somehow inadvertently alerted these people to your interest, they may have targeted you. They would have no trouble eliminating you, just as they did Geller, and I believe Duke."
Sully was shaking his head even before Burrows finished speaking.
"No thanks. I don't want any more participation in whatever it is you are involved in. Besides, the whole FBI is still looking for you and Geller, and those from that shootout who they believe are responsible for your disappearance. The prevailing theory is that both of you are dead. The last thing I need is for someone to learn I know you are alive, and not a kidnap victim. Holding back that information would be career limiting. I'm going to take a couple of days off, and let this whole thing blow over. I've done what you ask, so after we talk, you are obligated to forget all about what you know about the Barnes case, and stay away from me. Agreed?"
"Okay. What did you learn?"
"The phones are no big deal. It's a popular model, and both the Director and the Assistant Director have the same model. I can recognize it, because I use that one myself." Sully pulled out his own phone to show them what he meant. "I guess that isn't going to help you very much. Seems like an odd thing to be so interested in."
"What else?" Burrows asked.
"The Director takes the same vacation every year. He goes to Europe with his wife for two weeks. They have a timeshare in Italy where she is from. That's the only formal vacation he takes. But, he's gone a lot. He's always making one or two day trips for work, or off to the Hill to meet with one government official or another. Even those trips can use up a full day. For example, he's going somewhere today, and his office doesn't expect him back until tomorrow. So, I'm not certain how that helps you."
Burrows wasn't either, but he'd think about this later.
"What about the Assistant Director?" he asked.
"He's different. Apparently he hasn't taken a full vacation since he and his wife split a couple of years ago. He takes a lot of one or two day absences, frequently without much notice according to the secretary I talked to. There was no way to get more specifics. These guys offices aren't left unattended like yours or mine. There's always a secretary or two guarding the entrance, so I wasn't able to get a list of when he's been away. But apparently he's taken a couple of his mental health days or whatever he calls them of late."
Burrows found that interesting.
"Oh, and there is something odd about the autopsy of that woman you mentioned. I was talking to another agent, and found it odd that the M.E. had died shortly afterward, and the M.E. that performed a similar autopsy on the other one, that Monica woman, had also disappeared."
"You talked to someone about that?" Burrows asked, certain he knew how Sully had drawn attention to his interest.
"Yeah. I wanted to see if what you were telling me was true."
"There are people who would be very interested in your focus on that topic," Burrows told him. "That was supposed to be covered up so no one was aware there might be questions. I really think you need to come with us."
"No way!" Sully replied, a bit agitated. "I've done what you asked, now we are finished. You pay the bill, and I'm out of here."
He glared at Burrows and Mitch, pushed aside his plate which he'd barely touched, and stood.
"Stay away from me," he said, and hurried out the door.
"The Assistant Director is starting to look good for this," Mitch said.
Burrows nodded. He'd been thinking the same, although believing and proving were two different things. It suggested however, he needed to continue to lie low. He wondered if he'd ever see Sully again. If they were right about the Assistant Director, and Sully had gained the man's attention, he was in serious risk of being targeted. Maybe they should watch him. He might be better bait than their friends who were being sequestered at the Pentagon.
Something?
Mark asked the question over the link when he'd spotted the message from Fred later that same day. He'd immediately sent off his query, and almost as quickly gotten a reply from his former coworker. He wished they could speak directly.
Fred was quick to reply.
A burst of activity. Six different phones were accessed. Something clever is being done by the caller. I haven't been able to figure out where the calls are originating from, but I have the phones for those being contacted.
And?
Mark typed furiously, his eagerness lost in the typed message he sent.
One of those being called was in the Hoover Building," Fred replied. "I tracked down the owner of the phone.
That was something that NSA could do easily, with any cellphone registered in the United States.
Are you ready for this? It belongs to a Richard Baker. He's the Assistant Director of the FBI.
I knew it!
You suspected him.
Fred's disappointment was apparent that his big r
eveal wasn't as much of a surprise as he'd expected it to be.
Let's say we had reason to wonder about him.
He couldn't wait to tell Burrows what Fred had discovered. They finally had something to link the man to the events that had almost gotten Burrows killed.
What about the other numbers?
That's not going to be as much help. They were all off the same cell towers, but it involves a pretty big area. And all of the phones are the same model we've been seeing, but are unlocked versions. That means someone can put in any name they want, or none at all. None of those numbers are listed as being linked to any name I can trace. Sorry.
Don't be. You've already done more than I thought possible. Please keep monitoring, and send me a map of the area that would be within reach of the cell tower for those other phones. And try to see if you can search out where the messages originated.
Chapter 43
"When did this happen?" Ed asked, when Mark brought the news to him.
"A couple of hours ago. I didn't spot Fred's message right away."
"This pretty well condemns the FBI's Assistant Director. Mitch and Burrows are in town talking to that agent they forced to look into things. I think they need this information asap."
"Mitch is wearing his secure comm gear," Janet said. "We agreed that whenever one of us is away from the camp, we have communications in place. What do I tell him?"