Heather’s laugh brought a flush to his face.
Reaching the hallway, she called back over her shoulder, “A shower might be a good idea too. I’ll have Yachay warm up some leftovers.”
Heather paused in the hallway to catch her breath. As familiar as she had been with Mark’s body, this was the first time she’d seen him naked. There were probably millions of women who would kill to be with a man like that. Hell, she would. Feeling a thin sheen of sweat dampen her brow, Heather shook her head to clear it. Christ, if she didn’t get hold of her thoughts she was going to need a cold shower.
After stopping in the kitchen to relay instructions to Yachay, Heather stepped out onto the porch, where Jennifer sat relaxing in the afternoon sun.
“Mark’s awake.”
As Jen started to rise, Heather held out a hand. “In the shower.”
A wave of relief softened the worry lines around Jennifer’s eyes. “Does he remember anything?”
Heather shrugged, settling into a wicker chair beside her friend. “Don’t know yet. Thought I’d let him wake up and get dressed first. Yachay’s fixing him something to eat.”
Heather paused. “Where’re Jack and Janet?”
“Janet took Robby for a walk. Jack went into San Javier to get some supplies.”
“Good. That’ll give us a chance to talk with Mark privately.”
“Jack wants to debrief us.”
“I figured.”
Just then a rising dust cloud in the distance caught Heather’s attention, presaging the arrival of Jack’s Ford Explorer. Heather shaded her eyes with one hand, gazing down the dirt road. “Sometimes that man’s just plain spooky.”
Jen followed Heather’s gaze. “So much for our private chat.”
By the time Mark finished eating, Janet had made her way back to the house and put Robby down for a nap, and she sat waiting with Jack in the living room. Heather wasn’t quite sure, but from their faces as she led Mark and Jen into the room, it seemed that Jack and Janet had been arguing.
“Are we interrupting something?” Heather asked.
Jack’s head turned toward her. “Have a seat. Something’s happened.”
As Mark, Jen, and Heather complied, he continued. “President Jackson has granted Dr. Stephenson a full pardon and restored him to his position as deputy director of LANL.”
“What?” The startled question simultaneously erupted from all three of them.
“Not only that,” Jack said, “Stephenson’s also been selected to represent the United States as a special advisor to CERN. The Associated Press reported that he left for Europe almost immediately upon being released from prison.”
Heather felt as though she’d been kicked in the stomach. As a swarm of visions threatened to pull her away from the conversation, she fought to regain her focus.
Mark rose to his feet. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Jackson can’t be that stupid.”
“The president claimed to have proof that I framed Stephenson. He also ordered that nanite serum production and distribution be restarted.”
“Something else is going on,” Heather said.
“And why CERN?” asked Jennifer. “Stephenson would want to get back to Rho Project research.”
“We need to get on the Internet and figure out what’s really happening.”
“And you will,” said Jack. “But first, Janet and I want a complete rundown of everything you encountered during your link to the Bandolier Ship.”
Although Mark, Jen, and Heather argued the point, Jack refused to be swayed. Thus, with Mark taking the lead, they passed the afternoon taking turns describing their experiences.
As Mark’s story unfolded, the pieces clicked into place in Heather’s mind. She’d been analyzing the possibility that the alien artificial intelligence was an integral part of the starship’s computational system. In response to Mark’s counterattack, it had sought to shed computational resources in an attempt to hide itself. That meant the AI existed within the starship’s computers, not tightly coupled to those systems. It no doubt required an advanced parallel processing system to operate, but that was likely the extent of its bond to the ship. Somehow the AI had managed to isolate itself, severing the link to the systems linked to Mark’s mind. One second the thing was there, trying to counter Mark’s attack on its logic systems, and the next it was gone.
The real question was whether or not the thing would be able to restore its access to the starship’s central computing systems. Since it had transited to a subsystem and then cut the link, it could probably reconnect.
Mark’s mental battle had kept the AI occupied, enabling Heather and Jennifer deep access into the computer data banks. The alien race that had constructed those systems had apparently placed the AI there to guide the crew through the data. It was the starship’s Google, a self-aware search engine navigating search trees of such fractal complexity that unguided users got lost.
Ironically, if it hadn’t been for Heather’s special talent, Mark’s victory in dispelling the AI would have made comprehensive data access impossible. Instead, they had penetrated well beyond where they’d previously delved. Still, they had barely scratched the surface. It would take more attempts to find their way through enough of the data banks to develop an index of what lay within. Only in that way would they find the answers they were seeking.
As Mark concluded his narrative, Heather and Jennifer set forth a detailed description of their progress in exploring the starship’s previously inaccessible data banks. When they reached the point at which they had dropped their links, Janet leaned forward.
“Did any of you feel Robby link in?”
“I did,” said Heather. “But just for an instant.”
“No,” Jennifer said.
Janet’s eyes moved to Mark, who only shook his head.
“I don’t understand it. Don’t you always share the link?”
“Not all the time,” said Heather. “Unless we actively communicate with each other, we’re doing our own thing in there.”
“Damn it.” Janet rose and walked to the edge of the porch.
Heather wanted to say that Robby was fine, just as they were. But were they really fine? And what would the link do to a baby? Worse, Robby had worn the fourth headset.
Jack inhaled deeply. “Robby seems fine. Let’s not borrow trouble until we find out different.”
Seeing Janet’s jaw set, Jack turned his attention back to Heather.
“OK. Even though you didn’t get what you went in for, you made an important breakthrough. Any idea how many more sessions it will take?”
“I’ll only know after I build a map of the fractal structure.”
“We’ll go back in tonight,” Jennifer said.
“No,” Jack said. “Mark needs more recovery time. Besides, I’ve got other things for you to do before you try again.”
“Like what Stephenson’s up to?”
“Something big’s about to happen. Time to use those special talents to find out just what it is.”
The soft scratching sound, amplified by the all-consuming darkness, seemed to grow louder with each occurrence, until it seemed to echo off the walls. Even the brief gaps between sounds acquired a loudness that beat at his ears.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Nothing.
Convinced that the sandpaper strip on the matchbook had by now removed all but the paper from the match end, Raul opened the paper packet and tore off the next candidate. This one sputtered to life at the first strike, the brilliance of the curling flame raping Raul’s dilated pupil like the thrust of a red-hot poker.
He squinted, forcing himself not to look away, guiding the flame to the wick of his makeshift candle. Although it acquired a dull red glow, the wick stubbornly resisted the flame’s caress, something Raul’s fingertip was unable to do.
“Shit!” Raul dropped the match, which hit the floor and went out, crushed by the darkness that rushed in to fill the
space vacated by the light. Raul almost expected to hear a thunderclap.
He had more luck with the next match, the wick sputtering into a smoky flame that remained lit when he pulled the match away. Setting it atop one of the abundant pieces of alien machinery that surrounded him, Raul paused to let his eyes adjust.
The generator sat there, casting shadows from its crudely fashioned components. And, crude though it was, Raul felt the warm glow of pride spread through his body as he looked at it. After all, it was his and it worked. Considering his circumstances, the thing was a miracle of engineering.
When he’d first begun building it, he’d intended to run the thing with steam. But that would have required him to also build a steam engine and to come up with enough heat to power the thing. It could have been done, but only if the generator was small. Raul had quickly concluded that he could shortcut the process and come up with a mechanism to use physical energy to drive the generator—his physical energy.
If he’d still had legs he would have set it up as a bicycle. Instead he’d fashioned a pair of padded handgrips, positioned at such a height that he could lie on his back beneath the apparatus and pump the handles with his hands and arms, his effort spinning the magnets within the surrounding wire windings, the moving magnetic field lines inducing the current he required.
As great as that accomplishment had been, it had brought him face-to-face with his next problem.
Working by the light of his improvised candle, Raul had opened the panel that allowed access to the bank of power cells that could provide seed energy to the matter conversion units. He had finished the cable that would link his rudimentary generator to the power cell, not knowing if it could provide sufficient amperage to kick-start the cell. It didn’t.
No matter how fast he cranked the handles, Raul couldn’t get the amperage high enough to make a difference. After several attempts, he lay back in a pool of sweat that spread out across the smooth alien floor, too exhausted to drag himself to a dry spot. As he lay there, tears of frustration dripping down his cheeks to mingle with the sweat, a memory wormed its way to the surface of his mind.
His father had always been a tinkerer. Even though he’d been a top scientist on the Rho project, specializing in cellular regeneration, his real love had been applied physics. Before Raul had gotten sick, he could remember his dad taking him to the garage to see the latest version of his thin film capacitor.
“This is what’s going to make us rich,” Ernesto had said, holding up the fist-sized device. “As soon as I solve the dielectric breakdown problem, you’ll have to go to the Smithsonian to find a battery.”
That had been a month before Raul was diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer, a month before Ernesto Rodriguez had set aside all his capacitance tinkering in favor of an obsessive effort to build a Rho Project cure.
After Raul had found himself tethered to the Rho Ship and its amazing neural net, he had noticed that among their many accomplishments, the builders had solved the perfect capacitor problem, producing a thin dielectric with nearly perfect permittivity and almost no leakage current.
What that meant was that they could store charge better than any battery ever made. If you completely charged one of those babies it could generate a lightning bolt. And the Rho Ship’s circuits had millions of them.
It was one of these that Raul had been putting so much work into recharging. He glanced down at his arms, the muscles so defined that their peaks and valleys cast little shadows across his skin. That’s what fourteen hours a day cranking generator handles did to you.
Raul grabbed the candle and pushed himself across the floor, tracing the path of the thick wire cables to the open wall panel where they connected to the capacitor leads. The capacitor scared the hell out of him. One wrong move, a stray touch, and it would turn him into a smoking pile of charcoal. His mighty nanites would be zapped to kingdom come in the dozen nanoseconds it took the electricity to surge through his surgically shortened body.
A low chuckle bubbled up to Raul’s lips. There was something hysterically funny about a guy who’d recently been doing his best to commit suicide finding himself scared shitless by the possibility of instant death. It just didn’t get funnier than that.
His human eye moved twenty centimeters to the left, to where the power cell awaited the burst of energy that would bring it back to life and, with any luck at all, restart the matter converter, also known as the waste disposal system.
Now he just needed to make it happen without getting fried.
To make that happen, Raul had made the contraption that was wedged in place above the power cell. It looked like one of the old-style switches that the mad scientist pulled down to bring Frankenstein to life. In a way, that was exactly what he was attempting. Only he had no intention of pulling down this switch. Gravity would take care of that for him. All he needed to do was pull out the long plastic rod that prevented the switch from falling down and making contact with the super capacitor.
Raul took a deep breath, in through the nose, hold two seconds, out through the mouth. The kind of breath that drops your blood pressure five percent. Then, leaning so that he was certain to fall away from the panel, Raul pulled the plastic rod with all his might.
Someone grabbed every hair on his body, pulling so hard that it seemed about to come out by the roots. As lightning split the superheated air between the capacitor and the power cell, Raul felt his head strike the floor. Behind him, the lightning storm faded into nothing.
Dr. Elsa Wesley stared at the computer monitor without really seeing it. A long, slow shudder worked its way along her limbs and into her core. It began as a tingling on the skin of her arms and legs, the flesh tightening, crinkly little goose dimples raising the fine hairs erect, continuing to strengthen until she felt herself trembling on the verge of tears.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew she was suffering severe stress trauma. A psychiatrist would diagnose her condition as PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. Only he’d be wrong. This was ongoing traumatic stress disorder. Increasing traumatic stress disorder. A hair’s breadth from a complete nervous breakdown.
Forcing her eyes to focus, Elsa glanced out across the monstrous jumble of equipment around the ATLAS detector and the tiny embryo of destruction gestating in its belly. The unbelievable thing was that wasn’t what had her at her wit’s end. The monster behind her mental condition was named Stephenson.
The man didn’t seem to sleep. Nothing went unnoticed. No error went unrebuked. And she wasn’t the only one in this kind of trouble. Far from it. Stephenson had everyone at LHC jumping at shadows.
How was that even possible? The project overflowed with the world’s most brilliant minds, many of whom sneered at peers as if they were morons. Egos the size of planets. All that had changed in less than a week. Hell, it had changed at the introductory meeting in the main conference hall.
Dr. Stephenson had been introduced by Dr. Louis Dubois to the assemblage of project scientists as the new man in charge, an introduction met with audible murmurs of displeasure. Scientists, especially physicists, hated sudden change, even worse when that change involved an outsider being elevated above the true experts, people who had lived and breathed this project every day for years. Men and women who knew every weld in the tunnels, the magnetic field strength of every superconducting coil.
When Dr. Stephenson had stepped to the center of the stage and offered to take all questions, the hall had gone silent, like the Jurassic Park moment just before a cow was lowered into the raptor cage. Then the full wrath of the storm had assailed him, aggressive, detailed questions designed to show how little the famous Dr. Stephenson actually knew about the Large Hadron Collider, about its myriad of detectors and experiments. ATLAS. CMS. ALICE. LHCb.
For three and a half hours, Dr. Stephenson stood there, taking question after question. He hadn’t just answered them, he’d quoted directly from papers written by each questioner, often going to the whiteboard to point out previ
ously undetected errors in the papers themselves. As the meeting went on, the anger and outrage filling the conference hall gradually transmuted into grudging respect. Then awe. Then fear.
By the third hour only the project’s most renowned scientists dared ask another question, each desperate to find something the target couldn’t answer. And when, at last, they fell silent, Dr. Stephenson continued standing center stage, staring out at them like some Mafia don who’d just executed the godfather and all his top enforcers.
The message was clear. There was a new boss in town. And he was merciless.
Wind whistled through the rafters as Heather watched the first fat raindrops spatter the windows of the Frazier comm center. The outbuilding was laid out like a grid, simple rectangular tables formed into rows on the raised metal flooring. The tables themselves held computer workstations, laptops, and specialized communications gear, acquired by Jack over the last two years, but much of it now modified by Jennifer, Heather, and Mark’s electronic wizardry.
When they’d first arrived at the Frazier hacienda, reliable power had been a periodic problem, the power provided by a combination of wind and solar electrical generation. One of their first tasks had been to build a replica of their cold fusion device. What had taken them several months the first time, they’d managed to accomplish in a month, despite the vast majority of their time being devoted to Jack’s training regimen. And with this version of the cold fusion device, they’d made a number of improvements, providing it with the capacity to supply all the hacienda’s electrical needs.
More impressively, their breakthrough on miniaturizing the subspace receiver-transmitter had allowed them to rapidly upgrade several computers with that capability. It was a capability they’d already put to good use. After all, what good did it do you to have the ability to perform untraceable subspace hacks of protected, classified networks if you didn’t use it? No worries there. Jack had guided them through the creation of a number of identities. Official passports, bank accounts, medical records, service records, family histories, credit histories, all a piece of cake when you could control the official systems that created and tracked those records.
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