Isonation

by In Churl Yo

  Dr. Lightsea’s shoulders dropped, and he sat down next to his wife. “Well, I suppose we can at least be thankful she took Heelo with her. He’ll protect her,” he said.

  “Good,” said Madeline. She leaned her head over and pressed it against her husband’s. “Still, keep an eye on her. You know, just in case.” He nodded, rubbing his forehead with hers, and she laughed.

  “She left an active video file in the queue.”

  “She did? Oh, play it, Charles.”

  Dr. Lightsea accessed his daughter’s computer and activated the file. A window expanded into wide view, encompassing their field of vision. Zoah’s face took up most of it, her demeanor already apologetic, but Madeline could tell she was excited.

  “Hi, Mom, Dad. As you probably know by now, I’m not home,” Zoah said, looking directly into camera. “If you would’ve asked me whether being outside of the Ceres system was even a remote possibility, I would’ve said you were crazy. After all, the world’s no place for anyone. Not anymore.

  “But there’s something I have to do, and it’s important. I can’t go into the details, but there are people out there who need my help. Without it they might fail, and failure means some really bad things could happen. How could I possibly walk away from that?

  “I know all of this is vague and sudden—for that, I’m sorry. But I’m doing something for all the reasons you taught me were important and worth fighting for. Maybe I can help. Maybe I can make a difference. I hope I’ve explained it well enough for you to understand why I had to do this. I love you, Mom. I love you, Dad. And I even love Thomas, but he doesn’t have to know that.” She smiled, a tear rolling down her cheek. “I’ll be home soon. I swear.”

  Zoah kissed two fingers, then pressed them against the camera lens before the screen went dark and the window fell back into the virtual desktop.

  “Thomas isn’t going to understand,” Dr. Lightsea said, thinking that her little brother would want to head out on his own to find Zoah. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “Then we’ll explain it to him,” said Madeline, “as much as we can anyway, and maybe then it’ll make sense to us all.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Milton couldn’t shake this feeling of still being confined even though he was free, and it was affecting him, inside his brain, like some bothersome gnat buzzing around always just far enough out of reach he could not swat it away. But that wasn’t the worst of it. He couldn’t decide whether the white noise or Katherine’s constant chatter wore on him more. It felt as if they’d been wandering for hours in a maze without end.

  “So, Jack, you never told me why you’re in here,” she said.

  “Me? They got the wrong guy. I’m innocent.”

  Katherine snorted. “Yeah, well they kept calling my ex a Kiter. Is that what you are, too? Maybe you can explain what that even means.”

  Milton stopped and leaned against a wall. The leg was bothering him again. “You understand the concept of a prison break, right? We should keep quiet.”

  “Why?” she asked. “We haven’t seen anyone else. This place is totally empty.”

  “A little weird, don’t you think?”

  She nodded. Milton checked his cufflink as the map refreshed to show their current position and noticed something new. Katherine caught his changed expression. “What is it?” she said.

  “More weirdness. Come on.”

  Fluorescent lights flickered on when they stepped inside a nearby room, revealing a desk at its center with a shiny black disc on it. Milton hobbled over and sat down, a look of wonder on his face.

  “Whoa,” he said. “This couldn’t be what I think it is...” He pressed his palms together over the disc then opened his arms wide. Virtual displays came to life in the air around him as the system woke. Diagnostics began running to confirm the computer was working. Milton sat with his mouth wide open.

  Katherine stepped behind him. “This is a good thing?” she asked, as Milton began selecting folders and opening files using his hands. He threw her an annoyed look.

  “This is a quantum desktop. It’s like walking in here and finding a leprechaun eating a triple-scoop ice cream cone while riding backward on a unicorn.”

  She offered him another blank look, and he fought the urge to roll his eyes.

  “Inside this small disc are hyper-cooled qubits that react to superposition, tunneling and entanglement to process data faster than even the most powerful conventional supercomputers,” he said, “mostly because they operate on a different set of physics principles. This thing has 3D-VD displays, virtual haptic interface and a blind global interlink. Yes, it’s a good thing, and it shouldn’t exist. It’s completely theoretical.”

  “You sound just like my ex, too,” she replied. “Can you work this thing and get us out of here?”

  Finding this computer did a lot to lighten Milton’s mood. He always felt at home sitting behind a desktop programming. It was like an escape for him, more intimate and meaningful than anything he’d ever experienced in the Virt. If coding was a drug, Milton would be mainlining it like a junkie lost in its high. “Hello, gorgeous,” he said while accessing a directory.

  “Is that the way out?”

  “No, possibly something better,” Milton responded. “Looks like a classified database of Ceres Intelligence files. We just hit the lottery. Imagine that.”

  “Isn’t that protected?” Katherine asked. “How would you even get in? Write a program?”

  Milton dropped his hands causing the displays to go to sleep and turned to look at her. “You know, you ask a lot of questions. I wonder why that is.”

  “Fine. Whatever. I’ll stop as long as you hurry up and get the file already.”

  “Why do you care whether I get the file or not?” He stood up from the desk and backed away a few steps.

  “It seemed important to you? I just want to get out of here.”

  “Convenient, you know, my finding you,” Milton said. “A nurse and a clinic to tend to my wounds. Tally that with the map, key, a miracle computer and a top-secret database. I’ve never been that lucky in my life.”

  “What do you want me to say, Jack? That is exactly how it all happened. What’s the alternative? I’m conspiring against you? That I somehow got Taan to stab you just so I could fix you up? That’s crazy. I think you’ve been in this place too long.”

  “Taan? I never said who stabbed me,” said Milton. “Now you’re getting sloppy. No more games. Tell me what all of this is.” He reached beneath his shirt for something he had hidden under his elastic waistband but instead his fingers came up empty.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, did I take your knife?” she asked holding up the object he had somehow misplaced. “I’ll give it to you if we can please get back to escaping.”

  “Yeah, that boat’s long gone.”

  “Pity. I was hoping I’d be able to get more information out of you than that,” she said, her voice losing all its warmth.

  “Who are you?”

  “Don’t you know? I’m Katherine.” Her body began to vibrate and cut out of focus like a low-res streamed video that jumps and freezes, until in a snap it realigned revealing a different image altogether. “Or maybe my name is Captain Taan.”

  Indeed, Milton had just seen the would-be nurse change into his military captor right before his eyes. Were there drugs in his system causing him to hallucinate? Projectors throwing holograms around? It was hard for him to think through the dull droning in his head.

  “Wait. Didn’t I tie you up?” Milton asked. “Honestly, I was kind of hoping you were dead.”

  “Allow me this opportunity to educate you, Jack. Did you know that Mark Twain never said, ‘The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated’? The poor fellow’s been misquoted for more than a hundred years,” said Taan.

  Milton backed his way to the door and found it locked. He tried to access the controls using his cufflink, but the device would no longer function.

  “
Thanks for the useless trivia. I had no idea,” Milton said, trying to buy time. “I’ve got a fun fact for you too, Taan: My name ain’t Jack.”

  Taan responded by flipping the chair out of his way and tossing the desk across the room as if it were a tiny piece of dollhouse furniture. The man closed the gap between them impossibly fast, then held Milton up by the neck in a chokehold with only one hand.

  “You’ve… adjusted the… physics…” Milton gasped, eyes darting from left to right in sudden realization. “We’re… in the Virt!”

  # # #

  The drone made a steep bank through the clouds, then dropped—its angle of descent vertical and impossible to maneuver out of at the dangerous speed it had now managed to achieve.

  From the ground, the ship registered as nothing but a fast blip on a screen. The Taiwan military had seen it coming from several kilometers away on radar but still had no visual confirmation. Regardless, they scrambled into a high-alert status. Six armed military drones were being prepped for an intercept; guards were tripled at each checkpoint; every gate, window and door was secured. Well, almost every door.

  Fifteen meters below the facility, deep in the mechanical bowels of sub-basement D, Section 10, Caleb was watching the telemetry of the drone and relaying updates to both of his friends as they listened.

  Ahead Neema had taken point, accessing the closed network to clear a path as they travelled through the various security systems the Taiwanese had in place. But oh, was it hot—large pipes circulated water to cool a vast grid of computing, energy and environmental controls. As the water travelled, it rose in temperature until making its way here before leaving to be cooled down once again. The access way was dark and humid. No one was having any fun.

  “Sixty seconds,” Caleb called out. They were nearing a critical phase—the first of several. But if this one failed they’d have to turn tail and abort the mission before it even started. “Switching from the amplifier to the dampener in 20 seconds…”

  Above them all hell was breaking loose—the command center was a frenzied mess, voices yelling over one another. A general evacuation had been called for the building. Something was falling out of the sky on a collision course with their position, something they couldn’t identify. In a few seconds, they’d all have their answer. Except…

  “Sir, it’s gone! It’s gone!” yelled a disturbed corporal. The Officer-In-Charge stepped behind the man’s console and verified the bogey’s disappearance. “Confirmed,” he announced. “Inbound has aborted.” The room erupted in cheers, but the mood changed when urgent alarms activated throughout the building. The OIC knew that warning. “CBRN defense alarms have sounded. Quarantine protocols are now in place. Lock it down, gentlemen. This is not a drill.”

  What soldiers remained mustered into safe rooms before hidden hydraulic pistons engaged, dropping airtight metal doors into place and sealing them in. The Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear defense alarm then ceased its wailing, leaving the hallways empty and quiet.

  “Did it work?” Zoah asked.

  “The evacuation cleared more than half the people from the building,” said Neema. “The rest are all sheltering in place, locked up in designated clean-air quarters. I’m rerouting security controls now so that we’re the only ones who can open any doors.”

  Zoah turned to Caleb. “What about Heelo?”

  He checked the telemetry feed. “The little guy just soft-landed on the roof. Everything worked. The amplifier dispersed the radar, fooling them into thinking it was a much larger object headed for them, and then the dampener cloaked the signal so the toy drone could land without being detected. Heelo should be moving on to phase two now.” Caleb gave Zoah a thumbs-up.

  “Sorry I doubted you.”

  “I’ll try not be offended,” he answered her, smiling.

  “Alright you two, get ready,” Neema said. “I’m opening the hatch.”

  The air in the adjacent chamber was much cooler and there seemed to be a monitoring station within—low priority, unmanned and rarely visited. They crossed the room, gathered together and paused.

  “Stairway’s across the hall to the left, about 20 meters,” said Neema. “I’m guessing Milton is being held on the fifth floor. It’s the only level with an independent power supply and closed network, plus I can’t find him anywhere else in the whole facility, including the brig.”

  Caleb nodded. “We’re going in blind,” he said. “So, expect to encounter some resistance when we get there.” He turned the knob until the bolt slid away, then pushed the door out hard, his handgun up and at the ready. A fast pivot in the other direction, and he announced the hallway was clear. The group entered the stairwell, then ascended several flights, careful to make sure there was no one ahead of them as they climbed. So far, so good.

  Level five was designated restricted access, which proved only a little more difficult for Neema to break into. She examined the network to see if it revealed anything about the nature of the work happening there but found nothing. In fact, it was almost as if this entire floor didn’t exist. Her interest was piqued.

  Caleb led them into the corridor. He was getting an uneasy feeling—the voice inside him started to mutter. “Which room?” he whispered. Neema shrugged her shoulders. He went to the first door and threw it open, scanning the space with his weapon. Empty. They cleared two more areas this way, finding nothing and no one.

  “Where is he?” Zoah whispered.

  Neema put a finger to her lips then pointed at the next door. Despite all their careful planning and execution, what they saw next upon entering was something that couldn’t have possibly been anticipated.

  CHAPTER 11

  Something was wrong. The Officer in Charge let the thought steep for a moment as he stared at a nearby monitor that hadn’t changed. This quiet lull was a typhoon’s eye—deceptive in its peacefulness, an eerie calm in the usual chaos that was his life’s working routine. He felt tension biding its time somewhere deep in the background, like a barometer hinting at a storm that’s rebuilding, preparing to return.

  Of course, a lot had happened in the last hour, but it all began two days ago—when they brought the mysterious prisoner into the building yet wouldn’t allow him to be held in their prison facilities. Instead they choose to house him on level five and commandeered the entire floor for this purpose. Restricted, they had ordered—even from the OIC.

  Then the Ceres company man showed this morning, credentialed and loaded for bear. He entered the command center and went to work doubling shifts, approving overtime pay and cancelling leave. When the Officer in Charge had asked what was going on, the white-haired corporate operative informed him it was classified, high above his pay grade and none of his damn business, all before disappearing to the now-privileged fifth floor. That hadn’t sat well with him, and well, it still didn’t. Then there was the strange missile attack that wasn’t and the biological attack that still was.

  But his mind crossed the tipping point when the officer realized nothing on his monitor had changed—not a single status report, power utilization level or com chatter message. Nothing. If a thing could be qualified as too quiet, this was it. In fact, considering the situation they were dealing with right now, he expected it all to be a little more FUBAR than this static readout was showing him. It was damn peculiar.

  “Corporal,” the OIC called out.

  “Sir.”

  “Do we have men sheltering in the level seven lab?”

  “Yes, sir. At last report, we have 13 men confirmed in level seven laboratory Beta.”

  The Officer in Charge made up his mind then. “Get them on the hardwire. I want to talk to the ranking officer there.” In minutes the corporal handed him a telephone handset. “Sergeant, this is the command center OIC. You and your men are ordered to requisition the CBRN defense suits housed there in the laboratory secure locker and put them on. Your force will then head to the level five restricted area, break in and tell me what the hell is going
on down there. I want you ready to go in 10 minutes, and I want you well-armed. Something is wrong.”

  # # #

  Zoah recognized what she was seeing, but it confused her all the same. She was relieved to see Milton of course—only Zoah had expected him to be locked behind the bars of a cell or guarded door. Instead he was in the air suspended in an active Virt chamber, and he wasn’t alone.

  Neema sat at the control station and began a system’s check. “I’ve never seen a configuration like this before,” she said. “It’s a closed environment, which means the scenario is running independent of the global network. And this is odd—Milton’s haptic interface has been reconfigured. I don’t know why.”

  She pointed to an adjacent screen. “The entire floor runs autonomously from the rest of the building. No wonder I couldn’t access anything.” Her cufflink began buzzing, and Neema studied the information scrolling across her arm. “Someone on the seventh floor has broken the lock to a laboratory door. I’m reading 13 soldiers there. It’s a good bet we’ll be getting visitors soon.” She looked at Caleb, and he nodded back.

  “I’ll go form a welcome wagon for our new friends,” he said and went into the corridor.

  “Milton’s bio readouts look like they’re outside of nominal,” Neema continued, “which makes me think he believes he’s seriously hurt. He might not even realize he’s in the Virt. That’s going to make things a little harder for us.”

  “Maybe cut the power?” Zoah suggested.

  “Until we know more about this interface, we have no idea how that would affect Milton. During a normal power outage, safety systems would engage and bring the user back by starting the wake cycle. I’m not even seeing any safety protocols here. It’s possible shutting down would cause more harm.”

  “We’ll send him a message. Tell him to tap out.”