Veiled Designs: Age of Expansion - A Kurtherian Gambit Series (Uprise Saga Book 3)

by Amy DuBoff

  The waiting platform for the train was almost empty, with workers already at their destinations for the day. After a two-minute wait, the maglev train arrived, and they got on board.

  “We’re headed to Dome 5,” Fiona revealed.

  “Ah, I should have guessed.”

  The domes hadn’t been planned to have any distinction among social strata, but like any society, people had sorted themselves into classes. Dome 1 was fair game for anyone to visit, being the commercial center, but only the wealthiest could afford apartments in the high-rise towers overlooking the parks. The other domes were ranked in preference roughly according to their numeric value. That put Dome 5 at the bottom.

  Karen had spent most of her previous time on Nezar in Dome 3, which housed the university where she and Luke had attended school. Once she began working for the government, she’d found a small apartment at a reasonable rent rate and commuted to the remote capitol building for work. In her years living there, she’d made a point of avoiding Dome 5.

  While not dangerous or dirty, per se, it attracted the kind of people who didn’t want to integrate with the rest of society in a productive way. With drugs being an issue for some members of the district’s population, the hospital offered a necessary service—more of a clinic, really, compared to the main hospital in Dome 1. Anyone with ongoing issues would be admitted as a resident in the clinic, which made for the perfect place to hide a witness to activities the authorities would prefer didn’t get out.

  After all, no one took the ramblings of former drug addicts too seriously. Placing someone in with them would make that person all but invisible.

  Karen stared out the window, as the train wove around the outskirts of Dome 1 and took the tunnel to Dome 5. As she anticipated, there was a distinct shift in the train’s passengers the closer they got to their destination.

  At the fourth stop after the tunnel, Fiona motioned Karen toward the exit door.

  “Do you come here often?” Karen asked as they stepped off the train onto the platform.

  “I’ve only visited him twice,” Fiona replied, looking straight ahead. “That was enough.”

  Fiona’s path took them five blocks to the west, past modest shops and restaurants that would have been considered a hole-in-the-wall in other districts.

  The destination was a five-story concrete building with slit windows. To Karen’s eye, it looked more like a prison than a medical clinic.

  Maybe it is.

  They checked in at a reception desk inside the front door, and a nurse wearing white scrubs came out to meet them.

  “Edgar hasn’t had any visitors for a while. Are you friends of his?” the middle-aged woman asked.

  “Yes, from back in school,” Fiona replied.

  Karen permitted the lie. There was no need to draw connections between Edgar’s present state and his former employment. The new government wouldn’t treat its people as disposable tools, so dwelling on past wrongdoings was a waste of energy.

  “I’ll take you to him.” The nurse led them to an elevator, which they took to the third floor.

  The elevator opened into a lobby with a security gate around the perimeter.

  Karen’s skin crawled. Yeah, this is definitely not a place where people voluntarily reside.

  The nurse opened a gate to the right by placing her palm on a biometric scanner. It swung open, accompanied by a harsh buzz.

  A short hallway beyond was lined with numbered doors, which eventually opened into a common room filled with seating and entertainment screens. Half a dozen patients were situated around the room, most absorbed in their own activities.

  “There he is,” the nurse said, pointing to a man in his late-thirties.

  Karen and Fiona thanked the nurse and approached him.

  Edgar was seated by one of the narrow windows, rocking back and forth in his chair. One hand was formed into a fist pressed over his mouth. Dark circles ringed his blood-shot eyes, as though he hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in months.

  “What happened to him?” Karen whispered.

  “We’ve never been able to get a full story,” Fiona replied. “As part of my responsibilities, I was tasked with getting him set up in a place where people wouldn’t ask too many questions. It’s such a small world, we don’t have any options outside this hospital.”

  Karen watched the man continue to rock. “Will he talk to me?” she asked Fiona.

  “You can try.”

  Karen grabbed a chair from an unoccupied table nearby and stepped up to Edgar. “Hi, Edgar, my name is Karen. Do you mind if I sit with you?”

  His eyes darted over to glance at her, but he made no other indication.

  She decided to take it that he didn’t oppose. She set down the chair adjacent to him and sat. “I’m here as a government consultant. I heard you spent some time at a facility in a valley outside the city.”

  Edgar stopped rocking and removed his hand from over his mouth. He turned toward her, his eyes so wide she could see the whites almost all the way around. “Don’t ever go there. It’s evil.”

  “I don’t want to, but I’m worried that the badness there might try to get out.”

  “No, they stay in the pit.” He took a series of sharp, rapid breaths. “They always stay in the pit.”

  “Did you ever see them?”

  He brought his knees up to his chest with his feet resting on the seat of the chair, arms wrapped around his shins. “The whispers. So many voices.”

  “Anything more you can tell me would help,” Karen pressed. She felt for the man, but cryptic answers didn’t get her what she needed.

  Edgar began rocking again. “We’ll take them—take them all. They’ll bleed and suffer. Pain and long for death that won’t come. We’ll feed. First Alucia and then the rest.”

  Karen’s heart skipped a beat. “Is that what the voices said?”

  The man made no response, but tears formed in his eyes. He took a shaky breath and released it as a whimper.

  “I doubt he’ll say any more,” Fiona said.

  Karen rose and put the chair back where she found it. “I need to talk with President Connors.”

  * * *

  Ava and Luke huddled around the holodisplay in one of the small briefing rooms. Doctor Dwyer had been a good sport, going down the wormhole of alien motivation theorizing, but the medical doctor needed to attend to his patients.

  At Ruby’s suggestion, Ava and Luke had adjourned to finish their discussion while the ideas were still fresh. Once they had their thoughts organized, they could bring the theory to Widmore and Kurtz.

  Getting to that theory, however, was proving difficult.

  “A planet-sized thing can’t possibly be for the purpose of controlling one person,” Ava insisted.

  Luke blinked slowly and took a deep breath. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. All I meant is that the signal must be able to differentiate. If there only happens to be one active receiver at a given moment, only that receiver will get the signal, but the whole structure will still light up. How far that can scale, though, to simultaneous signals being sent out is a huge unknown.”

  “How do we determine where the signal is going?” Ava asked. “Can we trace it, like we did with Jared?”

  “We can run a search for that specific frequency,” Ruby said over the room’s comm for Luke’s benefit. “I can look through the logs to see if it pops up anywhere else.”

  “Do it,” Ava told her.

  “I don’t like any of this,” Luke muttered.

  Ava crossed her arms. “Me either.”

  “You’re going to like this even less,” Ruby said after a minute.

  “You have a hit already?” Ava asked.

  “Didn’t have to look far. The gas giant on the other side of the sun pulsed at the same frequency.”

  Ava looked at the records Ruby displayed on the screen for her. “Yeah, it’s right at the same time that the dwarf planet sent out the signal.”

&n
bsp; “Actually, it’s delayed,” the AI pointed out. “Two point zero seven seconds, to be precise.”

  “Considering how far those two bodies are away from each other, that’s nothing.”

  “Negligible, I agree.”

  Ava rolled her eyes. “Anyway, what does it mean for us? A receiver?”

  “There’s nothing on that gas giant,” Luke observed. “Oh… that’s intriguing.”

  “Hmm?” Ava looked at what he was studying on the screen, but nothing jumped out at her.

  “The pulse from the gas giant is stronger than the one from the artificial planet.”

  “I believe it’s a bio-amplifier,” Ruby jumped in. “A signal booster, if you will. Upon re-analysis of the Raven’s scans in the system, I have detected that the gas giant emits an echo of signals bouncing around the system. It appears to contain trace amounts of the mineral compound found in the telepathic receptors. The scans indicate that it exists in an organism that feeds on hydrogen and methane.”

  Ava scratched her head. “My biology is really fuzzy.”

  Luke shrugged.

  “Such an organism would be self-replicating,” Ruby continued. “Over time, sending a signal of the same strength would produce a stronger and stronger resonance effect. If the dwarf planet is indeed a transmitter, the gas giant is a self-sustaining megaphone with ever-increasing volume.”

  Ava scowled. “I don’t like the sound of that. Who are they talking to?”

  “Or is it for them?” Luke countered. “We know they project themselves over great distances to exert telepathic control.”

  “Could this be what allowed them to link to Kurtz and Jared, all the way to FDG headquarters?” Ava wondered aloud.

  “Perhaps,” the AI confirmed. “Linking the signal to biological resonance for those with bonds to the Etheric would maximize the likelihood of success.”

  Ava paused. “Wait, say that again.”

  “Linking the—”

  “No, rephrase it another way,” Ava instructed.

  “One method to improve communication is by tapping into a naturally occurring Etheric connection,” Ruby said.

  “Etheric connection and biological resonance,” Ava mused. “That sounds an awful lot like Coraxa.”

  Luke’s eyes widened. “Yeah, it does.”

  “If the trace amounts in the gas giant are enough to produce this magnified effect, then using Coraxa in the same way would produce exponential results,” Ruby concluded.

  Ava’s pulse spiked. “We need to find out if there are any other worlds like this.”

  “I’ll get authorization from Colonel Kurtz to arrange a scan around the neighboring systems,” Ruby confirmed.

  Luke took a slow breath. “It might not be nearby.”

  That was an unfavorable possibility Ava couldn’t ignore. “Question is, what would they want to control from a distance?”

  * * *

  Kurtz sighed. I can’t wait to go back to the enemies with ships and bodies that we can shoot, like civilized warriors.

  He was about to read some recent mission briefs to distract himself from the Dyons when his desktop illuminated with an incoming call from Alucia.

  Connors is persistent, I’ll give him that.

  “President Connors, what can I do for you?” Kurtz greeted, plastering on a smile.

  “Colonel, thank you for taking my call. I know you have many more pressing issues than Alucia. However, I was hoping to get an update on where your investigation stands regarding Gidyon?”

  I’ve never told him that’s where we’re investigating. Kurtz’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you ask about that system?”

  “Karen has uncovered some information regarding Heizberg’s former activities, which point there. I have a hunch your leads indicated the same system.”

  No sense denying it now. Kurtz nodded. “We completed an evaluation and are in the process of determining the best way to eliminate the threat.”

  “May I ask what you found?” Connors pressed.

  “The details are being kept need-to-know through official channels,” Kurtz replied. “Given that your world is involved in this matter by proximity, I appreciate your concerns. I assure you, we’ll relay any critical information once we have a full understanding of the situation.”

  The president frowned. “If I may be candid, I recognize that this is a military matter. But as a member of the Federation, the FDG is our military, and I need to be aware of any threat my people may be facing.”

  World leaders have a way of trying to make themselves the center of the universe.

  Kurtz took a calming breath. “To be equally candid, we’re still gathering information. Unless you have something new to add to that investigation, I respectfully request that you let me do my job.”

  “Karen was able to find someone who’d been inside the valley facility on Nezar and had been down to the pit.”

  Kurtz froze. “What about it?”

  “They heard the voices,” Connors said. “I think you’ll be interested in what those voices had to say.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Following their brainstorming session, Ava and Luke took the opportunity to get in a workout. While not quite as much fun as the exercise earlier in the day, it was nice to be able to fall back into a routine that didn’t involve a quarantine chamber and shackles.

  Ava set down the weights after their third set. Next to her, Luke was flushed and sweating.

  “I could keep up with you before, but it’s not fair with your new upgrades,” he said through panting breaths.

  “You don’t need to match me move for move,” she replied.

  He stretched his arms and legs. “I have to push myself if I want to improve.”

  “And here you were worried about not being tough enough for the Force.” She smiled.

  They completed one more set and then headed to their respective quarters to shower.

  As she was stepping out of the shower in her washroom, Ava’s comm chirped with an incoming message. She wrapped a towel around herself and answered it, voice only.

  “We have new information from Karen Carter,” Widmore stated. “She made a discovery on Nezar that connects to our ongoing investigation.”

  “What kind of discovery, sir?”

  “We’ll discuss at 16:00. Luke and the colonel will meet us in the standard briefing room.”

  Ava checked the clock; that was in ten minutes. “Yes, sir. On my way.”

  She quickly dressed, and then sent Luke a message for them to meet up at the end of his residential hall, which was on the way from her location.

  He was waiting for her when she arrived. “Karen really knows how to insert herself into the middle of things, doesn’t she?” Ava commented.

  “Ugh, she does.” Luke sighed. “Did Widmore say any more about the new information she discovered?”

  “Just that she found something on Nezar that connected to our findings in Gidyon,” Ava replied while they headed for the briefing room. “If Kurtz and Widmore have called a meeting with us, it must be significant.”

  “Finally putting together a plan of action?” Luke questioned.

  “Let’s hope so.”

  They arrived at the conference room and found that Widmore and Kurtz hadn’t yet arrived. Ava and Luke took seats by the door and waited for the two officers.

  “It’s frustrating having most of the image but to still be missing key pieces of the plan,” Luke muttered. “Some of the motivation, some of the means, but it doesn’t connect.”

  “As one of those pieces, I can assure you it’s much more unsettling from where I’m sitting.”

  He reached over and took her hand. “Sorry. Out here, the objective part of me speaks before thinking.”

  “No offense taken.” Ava quickly extracted her hand when she heard the door open.

  Kurtz and Widmore entered.

  “It’s about time we take over this conference room and stick up a theory board with lines connecti
ng all the dots, eh?” Widmore jested.

  “Does that mean Karen didn’t offer up a unifying theory of everything?” questioned Ava.

  “No, but we did get another critical piece. There’s a pit on Nezar like the one you found on the planet in Gidyon.”

  Ava frowned. “Oh, that sounds bad.”

  “It is,” Widmore said with a heavy sigh that concerned Ava more than his words. “We just got the results of the scans for the resonance frequency. Aside from the gas giant, it’s also somehow resonating with Nezar and Coraxa.”

  Ava and Luke exchanged glances.

  “What was the timing?” Ava asked.

  “Too fast to be through normal space. There must be an Etheric component,” Kurtz replied.

  “Okay… What is this thing?” Ava looked at the faces around the table. “Just a giant transmitter? But for what?”

  “I suggest we go back to what we learned about Andrea’s research on Coraxa,” Luke jumped in. “They were trying to make soldiers.”

  “And I was supposed to be the template for that,” Ava said.

  “Right. Breaking that template down to its components,” he gave her an apologetic grimace, “there’s a telepathic receptor, enhanced physical strength and veracity, rapid healing, and super-speed.”

  “All things one would hope to have in a soldier,” Kurtz stated. “Well, except maybe the telepathic part.”

  “That’s the key,” Luke said, shaking his index finger. “They wanted a soldier they could control. And control remotely.”

  Ava folded her hands on the tabletop. “That’s an interesting point. Is the degree of control based on length of time with a host, or distance from the transmitter?”

  He nodded. “Exactly. Now, Colonel Kurtz, Nox was with you for three years. Even after that much time, you were still able to exert enough control to overpower the being for short bursts.”

  “Yes,” he acknowledged. “But perhaps it didn’t fully integrate with me in order to avoid raising flags in my medical exams.”