by David Mack
This was his least favorite part of the procedure; the emerald-colored light always left him seeing spots for a few minutes afterward. He took a breath, stared into the circular retnal scanner for his requisite semi-blinding, and forced himself not to blink.
When it was over, the synthetic voice said, “State your name and clearance code for voiceprint authorization.”
“Ryland, Dennis. Authorization code Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot, three, one, six, seven, six.” He’d chosen his code himself. The words were a juvenile display of veiled contempt for his masters; the digits were the date of his daughter Nancy’s birth.
“Voiceprint and clearance code authorized.” The security panel went dark. A series of magnetic locks behind it released with dull thuds and clacks. Then the wall swung away from him, admitting him to a short passage that led to a tiny elevator.
As soon as he entered the climate-controlled corridor, his face became drenched with perspiration. Now that the air around him was pleasantly cool, he realized how overheated he felt. Dennis took a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and mopped the sheen of sweat from his face and the back of his neck.
He got into the elevator and pressed the button for the secure sublevel. The doors closed, and the lift descended with a soft hum and only the slightest vibration.
It took half a minute to complete the descent. The lab was three hundred feet underground and shielded by the latest defenses and counterintelligence technologies. Finally, the lift slowed and stopped with a gentle bump. The doors opened.
Dennis stepped out into a wide-open space. Brightly lit and immaculately clean, its work areas were partitioned behind four-inch-thick panels of AlON—aluminum oxynitride, a clear ceramic polymer optically equivalent to glass but strong enough to be used by the military as a form of transparent armor for windows on tanks and aircraft. Occupying much of the lab’s space were many of the most advanced automated research and fabrication devices ever invented. Haspelcorp had made a cottage industry of buying up promising patents from struggling inventors and then sequestering the fruits of those labors in places such as this.
Everywhere he looked, machines were hard at work. Flashes of blue-white light and showers of sparks danced on the edge of his vision. Motors whirred, hydraulics gasped, and generators purred, low and steady. Robotic arms moved parts from one space to another, milled tiny components to exacting specifications, and shaped the microscopic details of new microchips. Screens of data scrolled nonstop across huge computer monitors. Odors of ozone and hot metal filled the air.
And to think, Dennis mused behind a thin smile, three months ago this lab was empty.
Haspelcorp had been on the verge of dismantling the lab before Dennis had intervened. In the aftermath of the scandal that had erupted after Haspelcorp had been revealed as the original source of the promicin that Jordan Collier stole and distributed illegally around the world, the Department of Defense had revoked many of the company’s most lucrative defense research contracts. Without them, this lab had seemed to have no purpose; its maintenance had become just another liability on the company’s balance sheet.
Officially, the lab was still inactive. The only people who knew that it was back in business were Dennis and the trio of scientists who now had exclusive access to it. They had come to Dennis two months earlier with a proposal so stunning and so tantalizing that if he had refused to back them, he would never have forgiven himself.
They had said they could rid the world of promicin.
Forty-eight hours later, after a flurry of clandestine meetings and classified memoranda, Dennis had installed them here, in this lab, with all the resources of Haspelcorp secretly at their disposal. Today he intended to find out what, precisely, his generosity had bought.
At the center of the sprawling subterranean space, the three white-coated researchers were gathered around a large, ceramic work table, on which rested a cylindrical device. The top half of its casing had been removed, revealing a complex amalgam of wiring, circuit boards, and shielded components. Myriad tiny parts and precision tools littered the table.
The chief scientist looked up as Dennis approached. He intercepted Dennis and extended his hand. “Mister Ryland! Thank you for coming. Did you bring the samples from LHC?”
He shook the man’s hand. “Yes, Doctor Jakes. I did.”
Noting that Dennis had come empty-handed, Jakes arched an eyebrow and flashed a wry, mischievous smile. “Are you hiding them some place I don’t want to know about?”
“They’re still on the plane,” Dennis said, releasing the younger man’s hand. “Before I turn them over, I think we need to talk a bit more about this project of yours. Starting with how you were able to tell the team at the Large Hadron Collider how to make an element that before yesterday was only a theory.”
“That theory has been the basis of my entire career, Mister Ryland,” Jakes said. He walked back to the work table and nodded for Dennis to follow him. “And a generation of scientists before me devoted their lives to unraveling its secrets. Most of the work had been done before I got involved. Metaphorically speaking, I’m just lucky to be standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Standing at the table with the three scientists, Dennis eyed with suspicion the humming, high-tech gadget they were building. “Fine,” he said. “But I don’t think you appreciate the position you’ve put me in. A discovery like this can’t be swept under the rug. The folks at CERN are going apeshit over this, and it’s already on the radar at Homeland Security. Getting that sample and the antimatter out of Switzerland cost Haspelcorp nearly a billion dollars. Keeping it quiet cost another billion. So before I give it to you, I need to know why you want it.”
Waving his hand over the half-finished invention on the table, Jakes said, “To make this functional.”
“Explain it to me. In simple words.”
Jakes nodded to his blond female colleague, Doctor Kuroda. Dennis assumed that “Kuroda” was her married name, even though he had never seen her wear a wedding ring, which wasn’t unusual for people working in precision fabrication labs such as this.
Kuroda rested her hands on the device. “We need that element because, when bombarded with baryogenic radiation, it emits high-energy alpha particles. Because it’s a superdense and stable element with both closed-proton and closed-neutron shells, it can serve this function for up to several months. The radiation it emits will break down the monoaminic bonds in promicin without affecting other organic tissues.”
Dennis massaged his forehead to stave off his impending headache. “I asked for small words,” he said.
The third scientist, an African-American man named Wells, replied, “This is a neutron bomb for promicin. It takes away the powers but leaves the people unharmed.”
“That I understood,” Dennis said. “What are its range and area of effect?”
Wells exchanged looks with Jakes and Kuroda, then said, “From an airborne platform at twenty miles’ range, you could zap a major city with two bursts in about five minutes.”
“Good,” Dennis said. “That’s very good. Will the people on the ground feel anything?”
“Not a thing,” Jakes said, rejoining the conversation. “They won’t know what’s happened till they go to use their promicin powers—and find out they don’t exist anymore.”
Dennis imagined Jordan Collier’s smug little smirk turning into a look of horror. The thought put a smile on Dennis’s face. “How long until we have a working prototype?”
Jakes shrugged. “Once you give us the sample? Maybe two or three days, barring any mishaps or interference.”
“Excellent,” Dennis said. He picked up a phone. “I’ll tell my crew to bring it down.” He punched in a Haspelcorp number that would connect him directly to the crew in the jet. As the line rang, he told the scientists, “Work quickly. We might need this sooner than we thought.”
“Don’t worry, Mister Ryland,” Jakes said with a beatific smile. “Soon the world will be completely ba
ck to normal.”
SEVEN
“I DON’T CARE if they were made with a 4400 ability or not,” Tom Baldwin said as he entered the office he shared with Diana at NTAC. “These are the best fat-free doughnuts I’ve ever had.”
He set two napkin-wrapped chocolate doughnuts and a paper cup of office-brewed coffee on his desk, then opened a drawer and took out a small plastic container of ubiquinone pills. The “U-pills,” as they were commonly known, were a natural dietary supplement that could ward off the airborne version of the promicin virus. Though there hadn’t been any reported cases of fifty/fifty since the Danny Farrell incident the previous year, Tom was taking no chances, especially since the now deceased NTAC scientist Abigail Hunnicut had tried to replicate the virus months earlier, as a prelude to a new pandemic. He popped one pill into his mouth and washed it down with a swig of coffee.
At the facing partner desk, Diana sat slouched in her chair—something she had rarely ever done in the years she and Tom had worked together. She stared at the room’s back wall, her mien dour. Tom knew what was bothering her, but he hoped he might be able to change the subject. “Want a doughnut?”
Her voice was barely more than a mumble. “Not hungry.”
“How ‘bout a cup of coffee? You caffeinated yet?”
She kicked her plastic trash can across the empty space beneath their desks. It bumped to a halt against his leg. He looked down and saw four empty, coffee-stained paper cups. A strong aroma of slightly scorched java wafted up from the can.
“Guess so,” Tom said. Figuring that maybe not talking would be the wisest course of action, Tom settled into his chair, powered up his computer, and took a bite of his doughnut. He chewed all of three times before Diana spoke.
“Dammit, Tom, how could Maia do that to me?”
He forced himself to swallow his partially masticated mouthful, washed it down with a swig of too-hot coffee, and sighed. “I don’t—”
“I mean, she was always such a good kid, y’know? Sweet, polite, thoughtful, trustworthy.” Diana shook her head in confusion, so Tom nodded his in sympathy. “And mature! There were times she seemed more grown-up than my sister April.”
He had to roll his eyes. “Most people are more grownup than April.”
She conceded the point with a sideways tilt of her head. “True. But I expected better things from Maia. And all of a sudden she was angry and withdrawn all the time. She wouldn’t talk to me. She got stubborn, too. Willful. Defiant. Now this? Siding with Jordan against me? Running away to Promise City? I just don’t get it, Tom. What the hell happened?”
It all felt so familiar to him that he had to grin. “It’s called becoming a teenager, Diana. You’re now the proud parent of a thirteen-year-old. My condolences.” He handed one of his pastries between their monitors, over the divide between their adjoining desks. “Have a doughnut.”
The simple but heartfelt gesture struck a humorous chord in Diana, and a crooked smile of amusement brightened her face as she accepted the doughnut. “Thanks,” she said.
“All part of the service,” Tom replied.
He took another bite of his doughnut, determined to enjoy it this time.
An alert flashed on his computer screen. A loud, guttural alarm noise crackle-squawked from his speakers. It was a warning that high-priority signals relevant to national security had just been intercepted by NTAC’s new Internet data filters. Across from him, similar noises and flashes of light indicated that Diana was seeing the same thing. Outside their office, echoes of the alarm filled the junior agents’ cubicle farm.
Goddammit, Tom brooded, choking down another un-savored bite of his breakfast. He and Diana scrambled into action, trying to call up the flagged signals for hands-on analysis.
There was nothing there.
“Diana, do you have any intercepts on your screen?”
“No, nothing.” With each peck on the keyboard and click of the mouse, her forehead creased a little bit deeper with concern. “I thought I had something on the internal channels, but when I tried to follow it, it came up ‘Not Found.’”
“Same thing just happened to me,” Tom said. His frustration mounted as he chased digital ghosts through NTAC’s high-tech signals surveillance system.
One of the Jeds leaned in through their office door, his blue tie swinging like a pendulum beneath his head. “Did you guys just get that intercept alert?”
“The alert, yes,” Tom said, his fingers flying over his computer keyboard. “The intercept, not so much.”
“Same thing out here,” J.B. said.
Meghan shouldered past J.B. and wedged herself into the doorway beside him. “Sorry,” she said, and he nodded his acceptance of her curt apology. To Tom and Diana she said, “What the hell’s going on?”
Eyes wide with frustration, Diana looked away from her screen to answer Meghan. “Something tripped a bunch of red flags on Homeland Security’s servers, but there’s nothing in the logs. It’s either the biggest glitch the system’s ever had, or something weird just happened.”
“What about our automatic backups?” Meghan asked.
Tom shook his head. “Nothing ever got that far. Whatever set off the bells, it got wiped before our system had a look at it.”
Looking in over Meghan’s shoulder, J.B. asked, “Now what?”
A devious look played across Meghan’s face. “Maybe we don’t have a record of that data, but I’ll bet the NSA does. I’ll call in a favor with an old pal, see if we can get our hands on the original intel.” She knocked on the wooden doorjamb for luck, then slipped away to her office.
Tom, Diana, and J.B. traded wary glances in the moments after Meghan’s departure.
Diana broke the silence. “Isn’t it illegal for the NSA to share internal surveillance with us?”
“Back to work,” J.B. said, too smart to try to answer that question. He stepped away and walked back to his own office.
Still awaiting an answer, Diana looked across the adjoining desks at Tom, who picked up his doughnut and coffee. “Don’t look at me,” he said. He bit into his doughnut and added through a mouthful of chocolate, “I just work here.”
EIGHT
MAIA SKOURIS FOUND it hard to concentrate on what her tutor was saying, because she kept finding herself distracted by visions of the woman bloodied and dying in someone’s arms.
“I’m sorry,” Maia said. “What was the question?”
The tutor, Heather Tobey, frowned in mild reproof, then repeated her query. “What is the Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution?”
A teacher by profession, Heather was one of the original 4400. She had been gifted with the ability to nurture others’ innate talents to their full potential. It was sometimes a slow process.
As Maia looked at the score she had just received on her humanities test, however, she had to conclude that she had no hidden talent for understanding U.S. history.
“The Ninth Amendment,” Maia began, then let her voice trail off to buy herself time to think. “It … uh … outlaws alcohol?”
Heather’s frown became a scowl. “No,” she said. “That was the Eighteenth Amendment. We’re still on the Bill of Rights.” Softening her countenance, she said in a coaching manner, “Even the framers of the Constitution knew they couldn’t think of everything. And they didn’t want that to be held against other people. So how did they safeguard against that?”
Searching her memory, Maia found the first half of the answer, which she blurted out in the hope of shaking loose the rest of the answer. Quoting the text, she said, “‘The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to …’” As she paused to dredge up the end of the sentence, another horrific vision momentarily filled her sight.
Shadows dance in a darkened room lit by scarlet flames. The floor sparkles with shattered glass and is sticky with blood. Smoke lingers, thick and sharp. A dull roar muffles distant voices full of fear and sorrow. Then comes a heartbreaking sound: a y
oung man weeps. Heather is cradled in his arms; the light in her eyes fades, blood pours from her mouth and seeps from ragged wounds in her chest and stomach …
“Go on,” Heather said. “You can finish it.”
It was eerie, the sensation of talking to someone she had just seen at death’s threshold, but Maia had experienced this too many times before to let it show. Fixing her mask of calm, she said simply, “… ‘shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.’”
“Excellent,” Heather said. She started gathering up her books and papers. “We’re out of time today, but if you’d gotten that question right on your test, you’d have earned a B-minus instead of a C-plus.” Loading her things into a satchel, she continued. “But I’ll tell you what. If you can write me a two-hundred-word paper on why the Ninth Amendment is important, and give it to me tomorrow, I’ll raise your grade on the test to a B.” Heather stood and slung the satchel at her side. “Deal?”
Maia nodded. “Deal.”
“Great,” Heather said. She walked to the door of Maia’s suite, and Maia stayed a few paces behind her. The tutor opened the door, and as she stepped out she smiled and said, “See you tomorrow!” With a friendly wave, she made her exit.
Waving back, Maia forced out a smile of her own, then closed the door behind Heather and locked it.
Pressing her back to the door, she heaved a sigh of relief. It was never easy foreseeing the death of someone she liked, and she had witnessed far too many—more than she had ever said, and more than she ever would admit. She was only thirteen years old, and already she felt as if she had a lifetime of secrets.
She trudged in heavy steps across the residential suite that Jordan had made available for her private use. Located on an upper floor of the Collier building, her apartment was much larger than the one in which she had lived with Diana, and it was more expensively furnished. There were lots of glass tables and pale leather upholstery and stainless steel and polished granite. Everything was gleaming and perfect. She even had a king bed to herself.