***
The United States of America had originally used White Sands for the testing of nuclear weapons, so the ground was hot enough anyway. After the bomb bans in the mid twenty-first century, they used the area to store their now illegal arsenal, figuring the place was already glowing, and an extra ten thousand tons or so of live warheads wouldn't make it any worse. The weapons would remain untouched and safe for centuries.
Then, as happens in a world that went through periodic upheavals, things got forgotten. History, art, culture, names, places. And when the United States of North America officially dissolved in 2388, even stockpiles of atomic weapons were forgotten.
It was the most innocent of mistakes. A couple of kids were ground surfing out west of the Rio Grande. Ground surfing was a popular sport among people who had a great deal of brain cavity to let and were always looking for a quick thrill. Using the Earth's gravity and mass variances, they would scoot in and out of the planet's crust, riding nothing but unstable phase boards. As they hit different rock densities, their hypersensitive grav gyros would overreact, shooting them either deep underground or airborne. The ride was apparently even more thrilling if the dirt was slightly radioactive. I didn't know; my IQ was above room temperature, so I'd never tried it.
They had apparently souped up their phase boards and were able to take them very deep, nearly ten kilometers. Too deep, it turned out. Uranium has such a high atomic weight that it reacts when phased through. If it's enriched uranium, or plutonium, it's a violent reaction. One of the boards must have phased through the core of a missile, causing sympathetic detonation of the firing mechanisms which in turn detonated the warheads. The horrors of the Terran/Martian wars were revisited. Like the New York glasslands, that section of the world was now closed off to human habitation. Preliminary studies placed the date of safe resettlement around the year 46,500 AD.
If it was possible that good could come from such a ravaging of our home, then there was one benefit: the shock waves reverberated for thousands of kilometers through the crust, the mantle and even the molten core of the Earth. And for three minutes, the entire interior of the planet could be captured on seismic film, so perfect and focused a picture that if the proper equipment existed, every nook and cranny would be laid bare Only the proper equipment didn't exist. On Earth. Kiki had registered the explosion, known what it was and what it could do, and had taken that seismic picture from the puterverse. I was looking at a small slice of it now.
"Here?" I moved a hand up to the dark pocket located 181 kilometers below the surface of the Arizona desert. It was incredible that Aaron and I had spent our honeymoon in almost the same location only a day earlier.
"Uh-huh." Jody acknowledged. "After Kiki took the picture, we asked her if she could run an anomaly study and locate any potential hiding places."
"You'd need to be more precise than that, Jody. I'll bet Kiki found maybe five or six thousand in the first ten minutes."
"I found 8,687!" Kiki said indignantly. I turned toward her and smiled. Mike was sitting beside her, feet up on Jody's desk, green eyes burning bright. We were running total access, having duplicated Jody's quarters perfectly and providing UTC shielding for everyone. Moss, Raul, and Takari were standing loosely around us, trying not to stare at my two puterverse friends. Susie was sitting very close to Raul, clicking her teeth with her fingernails, thinking.
"Sorry, Kiki. No offense." I'd have to get her away from Mike every now and then; he was beginning to have a bad influence.
"That's okay, Abby." Quick to forgive, was Kiki. "Jody gave me a better idea of what to look for, and this place popped up after an hour. I noticed it for three reasons: its size, its energy signature, and the seismic warp that it caused. Jody was suspicious, so she sent Mike to take a look."
"She didn't send me. I went because I was curious."
"Uh-huh," Kiki said with such a straight voice I had to turn away to keep Mike from seeing my smile. I almost made it, too.
"Oh sure! Laugh it up! Anyway, getting in was a real bear. I had a blast." He took his feet from Jody's desk and projected a gorgeous image of the cavern.
"The cavern's natural, but there've been people doing work in there since the mid twenty-second century. Maybe earlier."
"How, Mike?" Raul asked quietly. "Phasing is a relatively new technology, less than a hundred years old. And the location is far too deep to burrow to."
"I don't know, sir." Such was Raul's presence and character that he was the only person Mike called sir. I'd have been shocked if I didn't know Raul so well. And Mike, too. He really was a good kid. Just headstrong and overconfident. When he recognized quiet power and relaxed self-confidence in someone, he respected it.
"I know how," I volunteered. All eyes turned to me.
"There was an incident in the late twentieth century near that same area that caught NATech's attention. The NATech of then, not NATech Supreme," I added quickly. "It happened in the summer of 1992. We weren't sure what it was, but speculated it was a temporal warp."
"That's science fiction!" Moss laughed, not meaning to be rude, but unable to help himself. "How in the world did you come up with such a notion?"
"I would not dismiss Sergeant Marks' comments so quickly, Sergeant Moss." Raul said quietly, nailing poor Len with a look that skewered him to the wall he leaned against. "She was one of the brightest minds of the twenty-first century. And is now in the twenty-seventh."
"I - I'm sorry, sir." He bowed to me. "My apologies, Sergeant."
"That's okay, Len." I returned his bow. "No offense taken. We didn't believe it ourselves. I mean we as in NATech. I wasn't even born yet.
"We came to that admittedly wild conclusion partly because of the never before seen atmospheric readings that pervaded the area from that point on. They still existed when I joined NATech in 2018, twenty-six years later.
"Another piece of evidence was the disappearance of one of our founding members, a brilliant scientist and inventor named Carl Woldheim. He and a lady friend of his vanished the same night the anomalies began. We speculated that Woldheim had constructed a temporal device and had used it.
"But the biggest reason we reached that conclusion was that by using his early work, NATech had created a temporal shifting device of its own." Nobody said anything; they just stared. Even Mike was leaning forward, considering me through steepled fingers.
"NATech has time traveling ability?" Jody's voice sounded like she was in phase, the ERF full on.
"No, they don't. Not anymore. The devices had a quickly drained power source, and a person could jump for only four seconds, absolute time. Worse, Woldheim had apparently solved the spacial relationship puzzle, but we hadn't. Without the ability to make a coordinated spacial-temporal jump, the traveler stayed in her precise location during the jump while the universe continued moving."
"Ouch!" Mike winced. "You'd pop out of your temporal field buried inside the ground, hanging thousands of feet in the air, or just sucking vacuum while the planet continued on without you. NOT the way I'd like to end a day."
"That just about sums it up, Mike," I nodded. "We were still trying to solve that problem when I was there in the 2020's, and had gotten no closer."
"So how does this answer the question of how people ..." Jody slapped her head. "Oops. Brain boot. Sorry. Young just pops some people into that temporal field and has them appear inside the cavern."
"That does not make any sense, Lieutenant," Takari objected. "Where could you find someone foolish enough to make such a dangerous journey?"
"And what about getting out?" Mike pointed out. "Getting stuck a couple hundred k's inside solid rock would not be a good career move."
"That all depends on your mind set, Mike," I said softly.
"On my mind set?"
"Dear God." Susie spoke for the first time. "He used ripes."
"That's what he did," I nodded grimly. "Young had already come up with the technology to ripe the human mind. I know that firsthand. Satisfied that he c
ould do it, he continued refining that skill, riping criminals, derelicts, and the mentally unstable into loyal drones, all eager to make that suicidal time jump and be entombed forever in the earth, all to build his little home. And when his own body started to fail in old age, he used all that skill to transfer himself into the puterverse.
"But he couldn't transfer himself entirely into such a hostile dimension. He had to remain anchored here, in our reality. Since a human body is too fragile and lived a relatively short time, he chose the route he'd used on me; settle into a computer and let your program be your guide."
"And he picked this cavern as the best possible location to keep his frame," Len said, nodding. "Now that we have the ability to phase, that place is probably manned and fortified to the eyeteeth." He frowned. "I do have one question, though."
"Yes?" I asked.
"Whatever became of all this time travel technology? Both Woldheim's and NATech's?"
"I'd wondered that myself, so I tried looking it up." I shrugged my shoulders. "The answer is, I don't know. Woldheim and his companion were never heard from again. Perhaps they died during the time trip. Maybe he ran into an anomaly or quirk we can't even begin to fathom. Your guess is as good as mine.
"As for NATech's time travel capabilities, it's also a mystery what happened. I found a vague reference to an incident in May of 2259 that seemed to coincide with the appearance of a spontaneous hyperidor near the moon. Mahlon Stewart, a third class stellar drive engineer on the Horizon was proven to be in two locations at the same instant: on the Horizon and on Station Gamma, orbiting the Earth. That's the last time travel incident that can be proven or inferred from all available data. There's no actual connection, but I have a feeling." I sat on the edge of the desk and Jody took over.
"It doesn't really matter now, I suppose. What matters is this." She pointed to Mike's holo image of the cavern. "As valuable as this information is, it will ultimately be useless unless we act on it, and act quickly."
"Why? Wouldn't it be better to take our time, carefully plan ..."
"Sorry, Takari, but the answer's no." Jody shook her head. "There are eight people in this room now." I saw Mike and Kiki sit up a little straighter, having been counted. "And while I find it inconceivable that any of you would ever share this information without good reason, eight people sharing a secret will ultimately spread that secret.
"No, I think it's better that we plan carefully but quickly, then hit the cavern from both realities. We've already received TAU's approval and support for the mission."
"Why not just have Mike and Kiki take out the power sources? Or sabotage the hov computers? Or poison the air, or even shut it off?" Takari offered.
"Because I don't kill, Yashimoto," Mike stated coolly. "And neither does Kiki. You flesh might see killing as the best solution to most scenarios, but we don't."
"I meant no disrespect, Mike. It's just that ..."
"It's just that since we're soulless constructs, it would be easier if we did your dirty work," Kiki broke in, her flaring anger causing her aura to glow an intense gold.
"Calm down, Kiki," I said sharply. "Takari not only meant no disrespect, he was doing you an honor. This is war, kid. The best assets are used as often as possible in the most critical conditions. As UTC beings, both you and Mike can move freely about both dimensions through the common interface. I can, too, and you can just bet your bottom dollar Takari was going to bring that up next." I glanced at him, and he nodded. "See? He's doing what he's trained to do. So am I. I don't want you two going into combat here because you and I have to take on Chris in the puterverse after we engage him in this dimension."
"Fine!" Mike exclaimed with mock irritation. "Make a liar out of me. I say I don't kill, and then name the one guy I'd love to kill. Oh, well. My reputation's wrecked, I may as well off the jerk."
Nobody took Mike up on his comment, so Jody cleared her throat.
"So there it is, gang. We'll take the next twenty-four hours to plan our attack and continue training. Then twelve hours for on-base R&R. Then twelve more to lock and load. We roll out in forty-eight hours. Computer!" she snapped.
"Yo!" a friendly female voice responded. Mike's ears perked up, but Kiki jabbed him in the ribs. "What can I do for you, Lieutenant?"
"Seal the base. No outside access for any personnel with the exception of those present. Let anyone in, no-one out."
"You got it, Lieutenant. Uhhh ... I've identified two anomalies--"
"Yeah, I know. Please log their presence, but don't worry about them. You don't have any control over them anyway."
"Fine by me, ma'am." The computer toned off and Jody dismissed the meeting. We would see the end of this.
Chapter Eight
"Hey! Get up, Marks! Move that lazy butt! GO! GO! GO!"
I jerked my head up and spun around in the darkness. Where ... where was ...
"Faster! What an 8088! Faster! Gimme twenty!" he laughed.
I was halfway out of bed, ready to do twenty pushups, when I realized it was Mike laughing and I knew he'd suckered me again. I sagged back down onto Aaron's bare chest, moaning.
"Don't do that, Mike! Why can't you just give me some music or something. Maybe a little Sons of the Pioneers, or Beatles, or ..."
"Yeah, right. I tried that once, remember? You were so late, Thawell even yelled at Susie. I'd be tempted to try it again, but you're the Sergeant now, and nobody on this base has the guts to yell at Aaron. Now move it!"
"Okay, already! Geez! What a grouch." I started to get up.
Aaron moaned and I felt his arm come across my shoulders, pulling me back.
"Abby? Is it time to get up already?" He groaned again. "I just went to sleep."
"Then go back to sleep, lover," I ordered, kissing him. "This is just noncom wake-up. You lowly dogs get another hour of much needed beauty sleep. Ouch!" I rubbed my fanny where he slapped me. He grabbed me and rolled over on top of me, smiling in the dim starlight of our room. I pushed against him in protest, but not very convincingly. He brought his mouth down and kissed me deeply. I felt myself warming and relaxing ...
"Nope!" Gathering my willpower, I broke off the kiss and pushed him off. "None of that! Try it again and I'll take Mike's tactic and have you do twenty pushups."
"That might be worth it," he said, considering. His face brightened. "Do I get to do them on you?"
I slugged him with a pillow and rolled out of bed, barely evading his grasp. Pulling on some nightclothes to simulate modesty, I hurried off to the showers before his hormones overwhelmed me completely. My shower would have to be cold this morning. Real cold.
By the time I gotten back to our room, Aaron had already showered and dressed. I smiled at him, envying his speed and appreciating his thoughtfulness of getting up with me. I tossed my clothes and towel into the hamper and started putting on my body sheathe.
"Hey, Mike!" Although Mike could project himself into any room with puterverse access, because I was married now he showed restraint and care by not doing so when Aaron and I were together in our quarters.
"Yeah?"
"Stop staring at me and wake up Sarah." I was only joking about the staring. He extended our privacy by not visually monitoring us. Again, very mature and very much appreciated. "I want her in the hanger in thirty minutes. Is the armory open yet?"
"Uh-huh. Lieutenant Sanchez has been there for three hours. I've been helping him and Susie perform final checks and calibrations on all weapons and armor. And Sarah's already in the hanger. She wants me to tell you, and I quote, 'Get your hands off each other!' and gave you thirty minutes."
"Did she? There's no respect for Sergeants these days. Okay. Tell her we'll be there in ten."
I finished dressing and started to comb out my hair while Aaron straightened up our room. The bed was a tousled mess from earlier that night. He was a lot neater than I was, while I was a lot slower getting ready, so it worked out fine. I tied off my hair into a ponytail and picked up my gun belt from th
e peg. I held it by my side and smiled at Aaron, shifting my hips out seductively.
"Last chance, lover," I invited him.
He wrapped his arms around me, crushed me to his chest and buried me in a deep, lasting kiss. I dropped the gun and kissed him back as hard as I could. Two hours from now one or both us might be dead. This could be our last moment of tenderness together. We lingered over it, knowing once I put on the gun, I'd be Sergeant Marks.
The moment had to pass, and though we held on to it as long as we could, pass it did. I picked up the belt, took a deep breath, and buckled it on. Far down inside me, my beast stirred, awoke, and began climbing slowly to the surface.
"Okay," I said, looking at my right wingman. "Let's go."
We walked to the hanger and cut across it to the armory, ignoring the yellow walkways. Every dock had a hov now, and nothing more was coming in. Though not as active as it would be in half an hour, the hanger was already coming to life as the hov crews armed and readied the two dozen PDQs.
Sarah was waiting for us at the armory. She'd already put on her heavy armor and was carefully loading the holoknife quiver in her left sleeve holder. She looked up from her work and smiled, a grim, self-assured smile. I nodded and started putting on my lightweight armor. Unlike my wingmen, I relied on my small size and quickness to provide most of my protection. It wouldn't help in a wide-open terrain, but this mission was going to be in tight quarters for the most part.
I slid on my leg armor, settling the form-fitting gel packs into the proper locations before izing them to my pants, leaving my booted feet and waist free. I used five layers of powered micro-armor around my waist and midsection, the dull material hardening and glistening whenever pressure was applied. More gel armor went for my upper chest, shoulders, and arms, again sacrificing maximum protection for increased maneuverability.
Setting the single-piece head armor aside, I stepped up to Raul to get issue.
"Good morning, Sergeant," he said, offering me a tabinal.
"Good morning, sir. Requesting mission issue." I pressed my thumb against the tabinal and inspected the weapons Susie laid out for me. One nullifier, one small caliber slug gun with ten clips of twenty slugs, four throwing knives, one arm quiver with ten holoknives, six magpucks and one sonic grenade. Anything else I might need I would acquire as I went. My own boot knife and energy gun I already carried. Quietly, I armed myself.
Final Book Page 17