“Oil and water,” Eerie murmured, staring down at the Ether with her wide and disconcerting eyes.
“What is that, my dear?”
“Something I told a friend once, about the Ether. How it keeps things separate...”
Dr. Graaf was immediately intrigued.
“You are referring to the Universal Superfluid Theory, yes? A captivating idea, certainly, and one that has gained a certain amount of traction among the physicists of Central of late. An interest of yours, I presume?”
The Changeling just shrugged, seemingly entranced by the endless motion of the conflicting currents within the Ether.
“As I was saying,” Dr. Graaf said, clearing his throat to hide his frustration, “the rods are the only material known that can make physical contact with the Ether. At the point of contact, a very strange reaction occurs, one that measuring devices insist is simultaneously unprecedentedly high temperature and absolute zero. We have yet to rectify the inherent contradiction, but we have learned how to take advantage. The massive temperature differential radiates tremendous thermal and electromagnetic radiation, which we harness to create electricity, both directly through a nanite relay, and indirectly, using it to heat large amounts of water into steam. As a result, less than a centimeter worth of contact creates enough energy in a fraction of a second to power the whole of Central, and more. Only storage and transmission challenges have kept us from realizing the plant’s full potential, and this is only the beginning. As our understanding of the process improves, we will discover further applications.”
He beamed at the Changeling, but she ignored him, in favor of the view of the Ether below. Her reaction insulted him slightly, but it also made his path all the clearer.
“This brings us to your own role in the project, my dear...”
That got her attention. Eerie studied him with unreadable eyes and an expressionless face. He led her down the hallway, through the nearby Life Science adjunct, and then gestured for her to turn her attention to the next room, where the tanks waited on the other side of a pane of bulletproof glass, and Dr. Tsu and his staff rushed about in a frenetic orgy of preparation.
“Even apport technicians do not directly interact with the Ether. By means that are still poorly understood, they pass through it – or perhaps it passes through them – without ever truly making contact. You, Eerie, are the first living thing,” Dr. Graaf explained, with a genuine and enthusiastic smile, “known to have done so. You remember, don’t you? At the beach? You retrieved a hat belonging to Alexander Warner.”
Eerie evidenced her first reaction – she looked puzzled. Dr. Graaf took it as a positive development.
“At first, we weren’t certain, but high-definition recordings and laser measurement confirmed what our eyes saw – you walked on top of the Ether. As you can see in this image,” Dr. Graaf explained, directing her attention to a nearby monitor displaying a still of the Changeling standing atop the sea of Ether, “the soles of your feet actually displaced the Ether by a few millimeters – indicating direct physical contact! You should be pleased – the moment was a revelation and inspiration for all of us here, at the Ether.”
Eerie backed away from him slowly, until her back pressed against the immobile door.
“I – I want to...to go home,” she stammered. “Stay away from me.”
“Now, now, my dear. No need to be frightened. No one here intends you harm. Rather, we intend to place you into one of these tanks,” he said, pointing at the three-meter capsules on the other side of the glass, “and then fill it with Ether. They are constructed from the same material we use for the power rods – it is entirely transparent, did I mention that? A most useful property for recording results. The overwhelming consensus is that you will survive the process, creating the potential for a dizzying array of discoveries. Isn’t that wonderful?”
Eerie glanced around at the room, desperate for an exit.
“I don’t want to,” Eerie declared, pressing the button beside the door repeatedly. “You stay away. Don’t touch me.”
“Take heart, child. You will serve the society that has adopted and raised you more through this action than anything else you might do with the sum of the rest of your life,” Dr. Graaf assured her, over the rising white noise of the powerful fan system pushing the air out of the room, to be replaced with a continuous flow of outside air. “And if we are right, this is only the beginning!”
“Stay away,” Eerie shouted, trembling. “I am warning you...”
“There is nothing to fear. We are well aware of your ability to volatize toxic substances, and as a result, the air in the testing center is constantly cycled out for fresh air, a complete transfer effected every few seconds. Your biological defense system will do you no good. In any case, we have given you an injection that will likely inhibit such actions for the near future – just long enough to begin our tests. I urge you to be brave, and to share your subjective observations with us! The more information we can gather from this test, the greater the contribution you will make to society.”
Dr. Graaf motioned to the orderlies who waited outside the chamber, dressed in full-body Kevlar suits with Plexiglas panels to prevent skin-to-skin contact. The door slid open just as a group of laboratory assistants emerged from the adjoining biology laboratory, accompanied by a tremendous cacophony of canine barking and snarling. The orderlies raised their hands and shouted objections through their masks, but they were barreled aside and knocked to the ground, helpless in their armor as turtles on their backs, while the lab assistants watched in dismay, one still holding the snapped remainder of a leash.
Dr. Graaf barely managed to get out of the way of fifty kilos worth of charging rottweiler, the dog brushing against his pant leg as it bolted past him and leapt into the arms of the Changeling, very nearly carrying her to the ground.
“Derrida!” Eerie cried out. “Good dog!”
The disembodied image of Haley’s face appeared as a reflection in the dog’s pupils, blurred by the Far Shores psychic countermeasures.
“Hello?” Haley’s voice was unsure, as if she were calling into a dark room. “Is something wrong? Derrida, I can’t see anything. What’s going on?”
Dr. Graaf gestured frantically at Dr. Tsu, who stared uncomprehending for a painful long moment, before finally nodding and closing his eyes. A second later, the image of Haley froze in place, then fractured in two.
“Haley?” Eerie called out, crouching with her fingers buried in the dog’s raised hackles. “Can you hear me? Please? I need help!”
“Now child, please do try and calm yourself,” Dr. Graaf suggested, approaching with his arms held wide. “There is nothing here for you to be afraid of.”
Derrida snarled as Dr. Graaf drew near. Out of the corner of his eye, Dr. Graaf watched as the laboratory assistant helped the armored orderlies stand back up.
“My dear, if you will simply comply,” Dr. Graaf suggested pleasantly, “I think you will find the world to be a more agreeable place.”
“No!”
The Changeling pushed him away with both hands as she shouted, and Dr. Graaf stumbled, catching himself on an empty server rack.
“Derrida, now!”
Eerie charged out of the room and through the blunt fingers of the orderlies’ armored gloves, the dog trailing behind her, lunging at anyone who drew close. Dr. Graaf hurried over, just in time to stop one of the laboratory assistants from attempting to stun the fleeing girl with a dart gun they used for sedating large animals.
“Let her go,” he ordered wearily. “Where is she going to run?”
Eighteen.
“Are we really going to trust a Witch?”
“You’re oversimplifying. It would be fairer to say we are working with the best information available, regardless of the source.”
Alice adjusted the binoculars, panning across the massive factory. On first glance it was dilapidated and in a similar state of abandonment as its crumbling neighbors –
including the building that provided the roof they were currently using as a vantage, about half a kilometer distant – but a closer inspection, even without magnification, subtly contradicted that conclusion.
“And that is a rationalization. My point stands.”
The fence around the perimeter had fallen, and weeds had thoroughly colonized the remains of the disintegrating parking lot. The foundation was clearly sinking in the northwest corner of the enormous building, probably as the result of subsiding soil, and the whole building was slightly skewed, and a large portion of the roof had caved in at the southwest. Most of the windows were broken and there was an ample supply of graffiti and illegally dumped garbage covering the exterior and most of the grounds. Which was enough to convince any casual observer that the place wasn’t in use.
To a determined observer, several discrepancies arose. The road approaching the factory was in suspiciously good shape for a road that supposedly hadn’t seen use since the area had been decimated by the Soviet withdrawal, or regular maintenance for the better part of a decade before. There were areas of patched asphalt that had been covered with a layer of sand to hide them, and the debris that covered the adjacent roads was cleared to allow a single lane of traffic, width enough for a semi-truck. Though most of the windows in the facility were nothing more than shards of broken glass, some of the boards behind them didn’t show the same aging and weather as others. Despite the collapse of the ceiling in several places, no view was afforded of the inside of the warehouse, probably the result of a dark-colored tarp or something similar being strung across the gap. But the occasional tire track around the perimeter of the building, particularly near the surprisingly rust-free loading dock on the less accessible southern side, was the most damning indication.
“She was right about Kiev, wasn’t she?” Alice glanced up briefly, making a face at him. “What do you want me to do, Mikey? Keep the team wandering around in circles, hoping that something bites them? The interrogation we conducted yesterday indicated this was the area. Thanks to that Witch, we know what the Anathema are doing, and what kind of timetable they are doing it under. That’s an advantage we need.”
“Maybe,” Michael grunted. “Do you believe that stuff about a ‘World Tree’?”
Alice glanced up at him, lips pursed in annoyance.
“Gaul didn’t call it that,” Alice said sourly. “But he did suggest that the Anathema were working on something similar, some sort of Etheric mass transport. When Vlad and the lab guys went over the machinery we brought back from the raid on the Anathema base in China, they said there were pieces of something else, a mirroring device that was separate from the interference generator.”
“Wait a minute,” Michael said, giving her a hard look. “You don’t sound surprised.”
“I’m not,” Alice admitted. “The Far Shores proposed something similar during budget discussions. They didn’t say anything about a tree, or roots in the Ether, or branches that extended to Central, but maybe that’s just a different way of understanding the same concept. Whatever Yaga was talking about, whatever the Anathema have built, that’s based on Workings and witchcraft, you know? It’s not gonna be the kind of thing you see every day. I’m not shocked by the idea, though, even if I don’t really understand the execution.”
“Still...”
Alice sighed loudly.
“That’s about enough questions, Mikey, don’t you think?”
Michael shook his head vehemently, his dreadlocks whipping from side to side.
“I’m not done. Why not pull the team back until we can do a full recon, and let the remote viewers complete their scan? For all we know, we are marching directly into a trap.”
Alice set the binoculars aside and rose to crouch beside him, concealed behind a rusting HVAC unit on the roof of the decrepit maintenance facility they currently occupied. Xia sat with his back to a vent a meter distant, on a sheet of plastic he had laid out in order to avoid contact with the filth that had accumulated on the unmaintained rooftop, eyes hidden behind goggles, equally unconcerned with the advance team’s progress and Michael and Alice’s ongoing debate.
“Listen, Michael – we don’t have anything else to go on. Bumbling around, kicking things over and waiting for a reaction, that’s fucking dangerous. It went bad yesterday. It will get worse the longer we continue to operate that way. And that Witch – Yaga – warned us that the Anathema are working on a timetable. According to her, we have hours, not days. And I don’t want to wait to find out what horrible shit they have planned this time.”
“You see? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re letting a Witch define the operational parameters. She’s rushing us into action before we have time for a proper reconnaissance. And that, Alice, is fucking dangerous.”
“I’m not running solely on her word,” Alice admitted, shaking her head at his stubbornness. “Gaul got into contact this morning, and he told me the same thing. Today or never.”
Michael studied her closely, taken aback by the revelation.
“Really? You didn’t tell me that...”
“No. I didn’t. I don’t tell you everything, Mikey,” Alice said tiredly, fixing her ponytail, “because this isn’t a partnership. Don’t get me wrong – I respect you, and I appreciate your advice. But you aren’t the Chief Auditor – I am. I make the decisions, I decide when we do what – and then I have to live with the results. That’s my responsibility, not yours. What’s going on between us,” Alice added, lowering her voice, “is personal. Private. That doesn’t make us equals on a professional level, okay? I don’t have to run shit by you first. You are an Auditor, Mikey. Which means you take orders from me when we are conducting an Audit. Okay?”
He nodded, chagrined. Not that it didn’t hurt to hear – part of him desperately wanted to object, to argue. But he knew that she was right. He had been in charge of his own affairs as a teacher, running his own department at the Academy, serving on the Board, and taking orders from Gaul exclusively, and had grown used to making his own decisions. On some level, it still bothered him, not being consulted – probably even more so when the orders were coming from the woman he frequently slept beside.
Then again, he had known that it would be difficult before he volunteered to become an Auditor.
“Yeah. I hear you. I don’t like it – but I hear you...boss.”
Alice punched him lightly in the shoulder.
“Don’t get gloomy. If I’m wrong, then Gaul will bust me down from Chief Auditor, and you and Mitzi can fight over who gets to run things. Until that happens, though, I want you to feel free to offer advice – but stow the objections. Clear?”
“Yes. I have to ask, though,” Michael said, ignoring Alice’s smirk and the roll of her eyes. “Why did you pick the personnel you sent? I understand putting Mitsuru on point, but otherwise, it’s all kids out there. Why hold back all your heavy hitters?”
“Former theory was that Chike could apport to any location he had seen. Turns out, if he’s provided with a telepathic survey of a site from a remote viewer, that works, too. I’ve got him with Karim, so he can move around freely to wherever he needs to be to provide fire support. You and Xia are with me, so we can be anywhere we need in no time at all. I’m keeping us flexible, Mikey. We have no idea what we are going to find in there.”
He nodded, seeing the wisdom in the arrangement.
“I’m worried about Alex and Haley, though. Alex is still shaken up from yesterday, and Haley has the least field experience of any of us...”
“I’m warning you,” Alice said, returning to her binoculars, “don’t underestimate either of those kids. Give them half a chance, and they’ll take your head off. Don’t worry, okay? I’ve got this under control.”
***
It wasn’t much of a hiding place. The utility room was hardly big enough for the both of them, and terribly dusty, but it was the only room she had found that locked from the inside. Anyway, Eerie couldn’t run anymore.
Actually, she wasn’t entirely sure that she could stand.
The raised blotch at the injection site was swollen and itched, and the skin all around it burned. As she had run from the Far Shores personnel, Derrida tagging loyally along behind her, she had started to experience a strange tingling in her fingers and toes, before they went entirely numb, interfering with her balance and slowing her pace. Her brow was soaked with sweat, and she had to brush it regularly from her eyes. Derrida pressed his solid head against her chest and whined, studying her with his big brown eyes. Eerie hugged the dog around the neck and wondered what would happen.
“I’m sorry, Derrida,” Eerie said mournfully. “I hope I didn’t get you in trouble.”
They would find her. It was just a matter of walking down the right hallway. She had no specific plan when she fled, other than finding an exit, and her sudden fit of illness had deprived her of the opportunity to find one. She had no means of contacting Central, no way to access the Etheric Network or call for help. Unless Haley had seen enough to send assistance, the shelter dog was the only resource she had.
Eerie hugged the dog closer, and he reciprocated by licking the sweat from her face.
They both froze at the sound of a nearby footstep, followed by another, gradually moving in their direction. Eerie sunk her shaking hands into Derrida’s coat, while the dog growled protectively, situating himself between the sickly Changeling and the door.
The footsteps came to a stop directly in front of the utility door. The doorknob rattled several times, followed by a long sigh. Derrida growled softly, vibrating beneath Eerie’s fingertips.
“Eerie, would you please come out of there?” Emily sounded bored, even put out. “I know you’re in that closet. Alistair told me.”
Eerie hesitated, while Derrida paced restlessly in front of the door.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are you here?”
Emily sighed, smacking the door with palm of her hand.
The Far Shores (The Central Series) Page 48