Eugenic Reprisal (Halcyon Gate Book 2)

by J. M. Preiss

  Taking the stairs slowly and one at a time, he made his way onto the control deck. There were papers and coffee cups still sitting at the stations. Some clipboards had been knocked to the floor, and Mason saw where a coffee pot had been dropped, its glass and now dried contents littering a corner of the room.

  Shaking his head in disbelief, he walked over to the radar display. Cycling through the various modes, he looked for air traffic of any kind. The skies were completely clear.

  "What are you finding?" Jacob asked over their communication channel.

  "Nothing good," Mason replied. "Whoever was here left in a hurry. Cups and papers are still where they left them. Coffee pot is broken in the corner."

  "That lines up with what we're seeing out here on the tarmac. These crates look like they had been waiting to be loaded into transports and were simply left behind. I checked the fueling stations, and they are dry. Either they used it all up, or the valves were left open and everything escaped into the atmosphere."

  Mason worked his lips back and forth as he looked over more consoles.

  "I'm not getting any kind of returns up here. I'd say that the system was offline or faulty, but all of the diagnostics showed green," he explained.

  "I didn't know you were a trained operator," Jacob said.

  "When you've been in it for as long as I have, you get sent to all kinds of schools. I only had my basics on this stuff, but I did complete them. It's all mostly automated anyways," Mason said with a flip of his hand to the air.

  "Are there any flight plans logged?" Jacob asked.

  Mason went over to the controller station and flipped through the most recent documents.

  "Nothing beyond the ordinary supply runs and personnel transports," he said. "It all looks routine from here."

  "Jacob," Mason said as he flipped through a few more screens. "The last entry was twelve hours ago."

  "Twelve hours? Now I wonder what would make these scientists leave in such a hurry. Did the automated ATC log their paths as they left?"

  "Let me look," Mason said as he went back to the radar screen.

  After hitting a few buttons, he managed to pull up the flight history for the last day. Inbound flights were marked green. Outbound flights were marked red. They red lines covered the screen in a tangled web centered on Einstein.

  "The question should be more along the lines of where didn't they go," he said.

  "General evacuation," Jacob mused. "I can't think of any reason for them to do such a thing. Nothing here at Einstein is that dangerous. The reactor can be quenched and the reaction killed. The accelerator can be dumped. The only other thing that could pose a threat is-"

  "Halcyon," Mason finished.

  "I can't really guess at what would have happened with Halcyon to cause an evacuation like this. The papers we read said it wasn't an immediate threat, I thought."

  "That's what they thought at first," Sara chimed in. "But the information was incomplete at best. They have to know something more now."

  "Something that scared them enough, they dropped everything and ran as fast as they could," Mason said. "Let me guess, we're going to go in and see what that was."

  "Got a better idea?" Jacob asked.

  Mason grumbled as he turned and went down the stairs out onto the tarmac.

  It looked like a storm was off in the distance to the southwest. Jacob could see angry clouds that were lit up by frequent lightning.

  "I don't remember seeing that when we were on our way down," Jacob said to Sara.

  "Well, our path didn't take us over that part of the sky, but we should've seen something from it with how big it is looking," Sara replied. "Take me back over to the transport and let me interface with the computer. We might have picked up some data regarding it as we came in for landing."

  Jacob shrugged and went back into the transport. He placed his hand over the console and watched as readouts changed and a picture of Sara's avatar sprang to life on the screen before him.

  "I didn't even think to have the sensors set to track storms on our way in. Why would I? Storms are the least of our concerns right now," she prattled off quickly.

  A projection of the local area coalesced into being on the windscreen, and overlays of atmospheric data began to fill in details.

  "We didn't get a very good image from when we were above the storm, but what we did get doesn't look promising. We had maybe a few minutes of time when we were coming down from apoapsis that we were able to get a good image."

  "Act like I didn't take meteorology courses," Jacob said.

  "Easy enough," Sara said. "The short of it is that the storm that you are seeing out there is very bad. I'm a bit hesitant to say it, but it's hurricane bad."

  "Why are you hesitant to say that?"

  "We're in the United Kingdom," Sara explained.

  "Okay, and?"

  "You know what, it doesn't matter," she said with a flustered tone. "That storm is big. The wind speed on it is dangerous in itself. The other thing that has me concerned is that I am reading a large amount of electric activity located within it."

  "That's not normal?" Jacob asked.

  Sara sighed.

  "I don't actually know. I'm just reading the information that the computer is giving me and trying to come up with an explanation for it. Meteorology isn't actually in my repertoire."

  "Granted. So the gist of it is that this storm is bad news?"

  Sara's image nodded.

  "Is this what they were running from?"

  "What were they running from?" Mason asked as he entered the transport and joined the local channel.

  "Major storm off to the southwest. Hurricane level," Chelsea explained as she conferred silently with Sara.

  "No," Mason said. "That's has to be a false reading. You don't get hurricanes up this far."

  "The reading isn't false," Sara said. "I'm taking current readings with the sensors available to me on this transport. Everything the computer models point to say it is hurricane-like."

  "How do you know they don't get hurricanes this far north," Jacob asked. He had never had to know much about weather beyond the proper maintenance of his equipment in it.

  "I've seen a number of deployments and stations," Mason explained. "You pick up some information whether you want to or not."

  "How is this going to affect us?" Jacob asked everyone.

  "It shouldn't be any real concern for us," Sara said. "It's far enough away and isn't moving all that fast. I figure we have a few hours."

  "That's it?" Mason asked. "You're plugged into the computer. Surely you can give a better estimate than that."

  "Not really," Sara answered. "These devices weren't designed with weather tracking in mind. I'm not able to get a firm enough signal to determine just how fast the storm is advancing. I don't even know if it is bearing down on us directly or if it will angle somewhere else before it hits here."

  "It's never easy is it?" Mason asked to the air. "Worst vacation ever, Jacob. Next time, I plan."

  Jacob let a bit of a chuckle escape before his conditioning clamped it down.

  "Those carts should be charged and operational, so let's take one of those and get into the facility fast. Looks like we're working against the clock more than we first anticipated," Jacob said.

  "That's a great one there," Mason said as he turned and walked out of the transport. "Time travelers that are working against the clock. I wonder what happens when the clock wins."

  Jacob simply shook his head as he followed Mason out of the transport.

  They grabbed the nearest cart and climbed onto it. It was a simple four-wheeled, lightweight electric vehicle that the scientists and workers used to travel around the facility when they weren't forced to use bicycles because of experiments. Some people even preferred to use the one-man electric scooters, but those were primarily personal devices as opposed to facility owned.

  Mason had sat in the driver's seat, so he flipped the switch to turn on the circu
itry of the cart. Pressing in the accelerator, they quietly rolled off towards the main facility.

  The facility was cloaked in darkness. Only a handful of lights could be seen through the windows. The exterior lighting was mostly off, only the red indicator lights on the top of the tallest buildings were on. It was all very ominous looking.

  As they went along the road to the heart of the complex, the automated lights flipped on in front of them to make sure that their way was lit. The small squat buildings that they passed were totally locked down and dark.

  "Looks like any of the small experiments that were running have been put into storage," Jacob said.

  Mason grunted as he paid attention to the road. Every now and then, he had to avoid a crate that had broken open and spewed its contents across the path.

  The connecting corridors to the two major complex branches that now flanked them were dark. A dull glow could be seen intermittently, light from the security doors.

  Mason slowed down as he neared the first security stop since the landing field. The security hut was in disarray with tablets and papers littering the floor. The security gate had been locked open.

  "Looks like they got tired of waiting for the gate to process each time," Mason said as he sped up again. The slight whine of the treaded wheels on the road was his response.

  There were a few more crates that Mason had to avoid before they made it to the inner security gate. He had to stop because the gate was closed and locked.

  "They didn't wedge this one open," Jacob said.

  "No, they didn't. Technically, they shouldn't have forced the other one to stay open. Whoever did that is going to be in trouble if the security manager finds out."

  "Assuming he isn't the one that did it," Jacob shot back.

  "Granted," Mason nodded as he walked over to the security hut. The outer door was sealed shut. "Great. They locked this door, too."

  "That is what they are supposed to do," Jacob said.

  "Yes, but we can't properly access the facility now. You don't have your security badge on you, do you?"

  "I," Jacob started and stopped. "Okay, you've got me there. Universal key?"

  "Sure," Mason said with a shrug.

  He pulled up his rifle, took a few steps back, and fired a shot into the door.

  The bolt impacted right on the actuator mechanism, and molten metal erupted from the heat. With a kick, Mason broke through what little bit was left of the latch that was holding the door shut.

  "I suppose they can bill me later," he said as he stepped into the small room.

  Chelsea sighed.

  Looking over the controls, Mason found the button to cycle the gate. Pressing it, he looked up to watch the gate rise.

  The gate didn't budge. There was a slight mechanical groan that lasted a few moments before the hut fell back into silence. Mason pressed the button again, and he got the same response.

  "Gate is jammed," Mason said.

  "Now, that doesn't make any sense," Jacob said. "I guess we're on foot from here. I for one don't think we should break their gate as well."

  "Probably not," Mason agreed.

  He walked over to the other end of the hut, stepping over broken glass from when he had shot and kicked in the door. He was able to open the inner door from inside the hut without having to break it.

  "How far is it to the actual entrance to the complex?" Sara asked.

  "Still a few hundred meters more," Jacob answered. "Supposedly, this is for the safety of anybody that enters here. Militarily, it also gives a very nice sightline to a fire team at the far end near the doorway."

  "Don't say that," Mason groaned.

  "What? It does," Jacob said. "That's probably why it is designed this way.

  Mason muttered as he stepped out the door and started walking down the road.

  There were a lot more crates that had been discarded on the sides of the road inside the security gate. Mason also saw some bicycles and an electric scooter or two amid the detritus.

  "We could use one of those scooters," Mason suggested.

  Looking around at how dark the facility was, Jacob narrowed his eyes. He flipped through the various visual modes of his helmet before he looked over at Mason.

  "We could, but I'm going to say we stay on foot. No telling what all will be in the path up ahead."

  Mason shrugged and continued walking down the road.

  Since they were moving at a decent walking pace, they were able to look into the windows of the small research rooms that lined the road on the other side of the security fences. Most of them had blast shields down over the windows, but a few had their windows open. Mason and Jacob were able to make out chaos from what they could see.

  "They really did leave in a hurry," Chelsea said. "Whatever they learned, they had to leave within a few minutes, easily."

  "I don't like the sound of that," Sara said. "I don't know if it has anything to do with the storm in that case."

  "Probably not," Chelsea responded. "The storm is just a further complication of matters that is distracting us from what is actually going on here."

  A bolt of lightning shot across the sky, and the resulting crack of thunder made Mason jump. Jacob simply looked back towards the storm.

  "That storm isn't taking its time to browse, is it," Mason muttered. "We need to get inside before whatever winds are associated with this thing really starts to pick up. Avoiding getting struck by lightning is kind of an incentive as well."

  "That's so rare as to-"

  "Shut up, Chelsea," Mason groaned. "Don't jinx us."

  "Fair enough," she said.

  They picked up their pace to a decent jog, ignoring the rest of the labs that flanked them.

  "So we've got a hurricane bearing down on us, the facility we're entering has been quickly abandoned and locked down, we almost got nuked, we were greeted to this time period by being knocked unconscious and detained," Mason was saying, "need I go on?"

  "And that's not going to be the last of it, I'm sure," Jacob replied. "Let's try not to think about that, though. Let's get into the complex, get to the mainframe, and get some real information on what is actually going on. This is our chance to get the first real information since Halcyon was activated and we were sent into the future."

  "I'm worried that the information that we find isn't going to be all that positive," Mason said.

  They made it to the doors into the facility right as the wind started to pick up to noticeable levels. Another bolt of lightning shot across the sky.

  Hitting the activator to open the door, Jacob stood back. Nothing happened. He slapped it again to no avail.

  "Okay, so they've got this thing locked down as well," he said.

  "Great," Mason grumbled.

  He leveled his rifle at one of the doors and fired a burst into it, blowing it open.

  "Now it's open," Mason said as he stepped through the still glowing metal of the doorframe.

  "That's one way to do it," Chelsea mused. "Universal key?"

  "Opens everything up," Mason responded.

  "What if it doesn't?" Sara asked.

  "Get a bigger key," Jacob answered before Mason could say anything. "A big enough blast will always open a door. As to whether or not what you're trying to get at on the inside survives is a whole other matter."

  Jacob followed Mason through the door and into the main chamber of Einstein. There was debris everywhere. Papers, tablets, bikes, just about everything that was in the complex could be found on the floor. The tram system looked to be wrecked with two cars wedge against each other in one of the platforms.

  "Messy," Mason said. "Where's the mainframe at?"

  "You never did pay attention when you were here, did you," Jacob said.

  "No. Not really," Mason replied. "This wasn't exactly what I wanted to be doing, but I didn't have very many other choices. Sit around all day and do nothing isn't as exciting as you would think."

  Jacob shrugged as he got himself orien
ted in the proper direction. He then started walking down one of the corridors. He leapt over the security stations that had their gates down.

  "I never did understand all of the different security checkpoints here," Mason said. "Look at all of them. There has to be at least ten in this room."

  "It's from all of the different projects taking place here," Jacob explained. "Each section had a different clearance, and clearances weren't always compatible. Some of the sections had an express lane of sorts on the tramway as well, so those need a separate security checkpoint."

  "Confusing," Mason said. "I'm glad that the path we went down was straightforward and not convoluted."

  "Our research that we were a part of was highest clearance, so they didn't have to do as much, no," Jacob replied.

  Jacob stopped in front of a door on the side of the corridor he had been walking down, checking his location by looking to either side; he nodded to himself and opened the door.

  "This is the mainframe?" Mason asked with a confused tone.

  "Almost," Jacob said.

  Inside the door was a simple room that looked more like a storage closet than anything. Jacob moved aside a few boxes to reveal a panel that slid out and had the outline of a handprint on it. Removing his glove, Jacob placed his hand down.

  A scanner light ran along the underside of the panel and a virtual image of his hand appeared on the screen in front of him. A bunch of data points appeared and numbers flashed across the screen before his file image appeared.

  There was a hiss and a pop as the panel slid back in place and the wall it was attached to swung up.

  "Okay, that's not crazy at all," Mason said as he followed after Jacob.

  The door sealed shut behind them.

  Lighting came on to full brightness as they walked down the small hallway they were in. The change in light levels was such that their helmets had to adjust so as not to impede their vision.

  Jacob stopped at the end of the hallway and stood in front of the door there.

  "I don't know if we're going to be able to easily get past this part," he said.

  "Why?" Mason asked, but he was answered immediately when a visible grid of light came to life and swept over them to let them know they were being scanned.