Reversion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 3)

by Jay J. Falconer

  Alvarez took Larson’s phone and studied the image on its display. A look of surprise dominated his face. “Is this some kind of joke?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This man’s your target?”

  Larson nodded, taking the phone back. He slipped it into his pocket, hoping Alvarez didn’t notice the tiny icon at the top that indicated the voice recorder was active. “He’s always with his disabled brother. Just look for the geek in a wheelchair. Lucas will be at his side. They’re inseparable.”

  The general put a hand inside his uniform and pulled out three photos. “You might want to take a look at these. You tell me, anything look familiar?”

  Larson took the photos and studied them. Each snapshot showed a young, red-haired man lying on the ground wearing a black suit with gold lines. Parts of each man’s lifeless body had been blown apart and were covered in blood. Larson compared their faces—they all looked like Lucas Ramsay—a man he knew was still alive and working on campus.

  “What the hell? How can this be?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  Larson couldn’t reconcile what his eyes were reporting. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “Did you notice what each man is wearing?”

  “The same gold-laced material. Some kind of uniform?”

  “Or advanced tech. Now you understand why I need to have it analyzed.”

  Larson nodded, trying to put the facts together. “These are the terrorists?”

  Alvarez didn’t answer.

  Larson was getting tired of the cryptic nature of this meeting. “I think at this point, General, showing me the photos puts us well past classified. You need to trust me if you want my help. I need to know what the hell is going on.”

  Alvarez paused before answering. “We received a tip about an imminent threat to the university. The target was your underground NASA lab.”

  Larson’s throat ran dry, making it hard to swallow. “You know about that?”

  “The governor just laid it all out for me. I had no idea.”

  “You have to understand, if the university hadn’t needed the money, President Lathrop never would have let them build the facility.”

  “I figured as much. It’s always about the money.”

  “So what happened with the terrorists?”

  “We mobilized and stopped them cold. The intel was spot-on. There were almost two hundred of them. They were all versions of the same man. Your Lucas Ramsay.”

  “When you say versions, you mean clones—”

  “Some were older, and a few had slightly different physical characteristics, but my gut is telling me they were all the same man. Copies of him.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  “What about a DNA analysis to confirm?”

  “Already in the works, but I doubt I’ll hear anything back from CID. If this is some type of advanced Russian or Chinese cloning technology, they’re sure to swoop in and assume control, cutting me out of the loop entirely. I need to get ahead of this thing while I still can.”

  “Do you think someone is trying to replace Ramsay with an enemy clone?”

  “Anything is possible. But why send so many? It’s easier to slip one by the goalie undetected, not a couple hundred.”

  “That’s true. Must be something else,” Larson said.

  “Without a complete understanding of the material’s composition and purpose, I’m afraid we’re working in the dark.”

  “I’m sure my man can help. He’s come through for me before. But I’ll have to give him some baseline information. He’s going to ask.”

  “Keep it minimal. The less he knows, the better. For all of us. Understood?”

  Larson nodded. “Were there any survivors?”

  “A few. We’re in the process of tracking them down.”

  “Then the university is still at risk.”

  “I can post a squad if need be.”

  Larson’s mind flashed through the ramifications of a strong military presence on campus. He shook his head. “Let me handle it. If your men show up and take over, all hell will break loose with the students, the faculty, and the media. Everyone would start asking questions and we’d lose containment.”

  “Agreed,” Alvarez said, sliding the photos into his pocket. “I prefer to handle this quietly, at least until we know more. We don’t have enough information, yet. Your man better come through, and do so quickly. Once the feds get their hands on this—”

  “How long do we have?”

  “It’ll take them some time to get the analysis done and coordinate the various agencies. But when they come, they’ll come in force. I’d say, no more than seventy-two hours.”

  “That shouldn’t be a problem. But I need Ramsay out of the way tonight.”

  “Not going to happen. A clean snatch and grab takes planning. Otherwise, there are too many loose ends.”

  “Then I guess you can kiss the fabric analysis goodbye.”

  “You really are a prick, aren’t you?” Alvarez said. “I don’t know what my sister sees in you.”

  “Yes, I’m an asshole, but that doesn’t change the urgency of the situation. It’s simple as far as I see it. You handle your end, and I’ll handle mine. If we pull together, we can make this happen.”

  “All right, fine. Now, get the hell out of my sight.”

  10

  Dr. Griffith Davies opened the flaps on the back of his white lab coat, sat on the leather stool, then slid his body to the right until he was in front of the brand-new Mach 2 Spectrometer—his favorite machine in the lab. He took a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses from his coat pocket and slipped them on, wondering how much time remained before the results would be ready. He looked at the machine’s LED display—ninety-four seconds remained—damn, an eternity. He wished the university had purchased the bigger, more expensive Mach 3, then the results would have been completed by now and in Dr. Kleezebee’s hands. He’d already kept his longtime friend waiting and didn’t want to disappoint the professor any further.

  He studied his own reflection in the chrome-plated accent plate that decorated the upper section of the purring machine. He counted two more wrinkles and a new skin tag on his right eyelid. Father Time was not being kind, plus his toupee was uneven, again. He tugged at the side of his hairline, leveling the vanity rug. His wife, Stacy, had told him that very morning, as she had done countless times before, that he didn’t need to wear the replacement hair—she loved his wrinkly, bald head. Despite her repeated assurances, he felt compelled to wear it—he had to—for his sake and hers.

  She was a young, stunning woman and a major catch for any man, let alone him. It was a stroke of pure luck that a twenty-five-year-old bombshell like her had fallen in love with him in the first place. She could have had any man on the planet, but she chose him. He still couldn’t believe it, even after years of blissful marriage.

  Stacy seemed genuine and committed, but the last thing he wanted to do was take the chance she’d get tired or embarrassed of him and move on to someone else; someone much closer to her own age and someone in far better shape.

  His daily risk assessment told him what he must do: keep her happy at all costs, never take a moment off. Never take her affection for granted, either.

  Those were the exact words he told himself every morning while standing alone in front of the bathroom mirror. Her grace and beauty were now part of every fiber of his being, committing his heart and soul to everything that was Stacy. He couldn’t imagine not having her in his life, and certainly didn’t want to start over. Not again. One divorce was enough.

  The chime on the spectrometer sounded a playful, three-note tune that reminded him of his Maytag Washer’s chime when he turned it on. He stood to review the report on the flat-screen display, hoping the analysis provided the answers he was looking for. It did. He opened his flip-style cell phone and brought up the contact l
ist. He skipped Stacy’s number and his mother’s, then pressed the third person on the list. Two electronic rings and a hello later, Dr. Kleezebee was on the other end and listening.

  Griffith slowed his words, wanting to hide his excitement. “I have the results, DL. Hot off the press.”

  “Is it what I thought?”

  “Yes and no. The material’s made from layered sheets of one-dimensional graphene all right, but it’s not pure carbon, like you’d expect. There’s another substance bonded to its nanostructure.”

  “What is it?”

  “Some form of applied polymer built from a synthetic bio-substance I can’t identify. The closest analogy would be exogenous XNA.”

  “Synthetic?”

  “Yes. I’m calling it X-graphite, for lack of a better term.”

  “Why would anyone fuse graphene with synthetic DNA?”

  “Possibly to control the angular momentum of exotic particles, which would come in handy if one were to supercharge the graphite. But that’s just a guess. It’s definitely a new type of exotic meta-material.”

  “There can’t be many uses for something like this.”

  “No. Its use would be extremely specific and limited in scope, except for its elastic properties. It stands to reason that the hybrid XNA is responsible for the material’s elastic quality, not just its containment properties. But beyond that, anything else is pure conjecture at this point. I would need several months and a suite of new equipment to run a more detailed analysis. I assume that’s not an option.”

  “Not without a massive injection of university funding. What about the gold lacing?”

  “It’s pure twenty-four-karat gold, but it’s not topically applied to the fabric as you would expect. It’s fused with it, acting like a casing around selected X-graphite molecules, forming some type of advanced nano-circuitry. Its unlike anything I’ve seen or even read about, for that matter. Its construction and symmetry suggests this fabric was built to channel and control an enormous electromagnetic field.”

  “How enormous?”

  “Massive. Probably beyond anything we can generate.”

  “In the USA?”

  “No, on this planet. I question its origin.”

  “Extraterrestrial?”

  “That would be my first guess. But without more study, I can’t be sure.”

  “What would something like this be used for?”

  “Unclear. It’s obviously part of a larger apparatus, but this technology is well beyond our capabilities. Several hundred years ahead, minimum, if one were to chart the geometric progression of technology advancement on this planet. Of course, that’s assuming anyone on this planet could ever understand it,” Griffith said, taking a moment to reflect. Then he remembered something.

  “However, I did attend a seminar last year hosted by a blonde physicist from one of the Midwest universities. Minnesota, I think. Or perhaps it was Michigan. Nice-looking gal. Her theories were loosely related to what we are seeing with this material. She believed that attaching a quadrillion strands of DNA onto a thin plate of gold would allow her to detect dark matter.”

  “How?”

  “When the gold plate was struck by a molecule of dark matter, a single atom of gold would be released, sending it hurling into the hanging strands of DNA. The angle and trajectory of the destruction trail would indicate the direction and speed of the dark matter, thereby allowing her to back-trace its origination point. Fascinating stuff. Granted, it’s not an exact replica of the composition and properties of the X-graphite material, but there are similarities worth investigating. X-graphite may be an offshoot of her research. I just wish I could recall her name. It was something like Karen Geese, but that’s not right. I’m sure I can look it up, if you want to bring her in on this discussion.”

  “No, we don’t have the time, nor the clearance.”

  “I understand,” Griffith said, hoping he hadn’t just upset his boss, the head of the department. “Can I ask . . . where did you get this sample?”

  “I can’t get into the specifics. But what I can tell you is that someone was wearing it.”

  “A uniform? Or a space suit? Or can’t you tell me?”

  Kleezebee hesitated. “You’ll need to ask me a different question.”

  “Okay. Maybe you can answer this. I’m going to assume that when you say ‘someone was wearing it,’ you mean a humanoid?”

  “That would be a logical assumption.”

  “Then it’s possible the synthetic XNA may have been genetically engineered to match a specific person’s DNA.”

  “Why?”

  “To create a molecular containment field. Think of it as a DNA-specific bio-suit, built for a single person. If I’m correct, it could be used to protect the subject at a cellular level from intense exposure to certain fundamental forces.”

  “Atomic?”

  “That, or gravimetric, assuming it was tuned and energized properly. What happened to the rest of it?”

  “Trust me, you don’t want to know. If this material is from another world, then the owners probably won’t be back for a while. The leaders of our military aren’t the most gracious of hosts when it comes to uninvited visitors.”

  A vision of a downed spacecraft near Roswell, New Mexico, flashed in Griffith’s mind. “I understand. Do you want me to e-mail the full report? I can send it to you now.”

  “No, a hard copy would be better. I’ll send Bruno down to collect it when he stops in to retrieve the sample.”

  “I’ll have them both ready for pickup. What about the electronic version of my analysis?”

  “It needs to be deleted. I’d prefer to keep the analysis and its results just between you and me. No one else can know about this. Not even your lovely wife.”

  “Not an issue. I’ll destroy all copies. Local and in the cloud. You have my word as a gentleman and a scholar.”

  “I knew I could count on you. You’ve never let me down and I appreciate that. You’re a good friend, Griffith, and a broken-down old man like me can never have enough of those. I’ve gotta run to a meeting, but say hello to Stacy for me.”

  “I will,” Griffith said, hanging up the phone. He took the micro-sample plate from the machine and carried it to the work desk. He found the padded, letter-size envelope in which Bruno had delivered the sample. He opened it, then slid the plate next to the original piece of X-graphite material waiting inside, never bothering to uncouple the micro-sample from its mounting plate. He wanted Dr. Kleezebee to know he was thorough and dedicated to secrecy by returning the entire sampling mechanism intact. It may have been overkill, but he didn’t want any doubt to remain.

  He walked to his flat screen monitor and used the touch screen interface to delete the analysis folder stored locally on the machine. Then he changed screens, allowing him to access and remove the remote backup copy that had been autosaved to the university’s server network.

  “Just like it never happened.”

  He walked to the job board and reviewed the log book. Next up was a fluid analysis—sample number L-212. He looked inside the cold storage unit for a sample with the matching number. He found it—a sealed jar from the genetics department. He held the clear glass container in front of his eyes and shook it gently, making the yellow-colored liquid swirl around inside the glass. It looked unusually thick.

  “This better not be monkey pee,” he mumbled.

  He returned to the log book, then took the red perma-marker from his coat pocket and stuck the end of the pen with the cap in his mouth. He bit down on the cap, pulled the pen apart, and put a checkmark next to the sample number on the log sheet. Then he brought the tip of the pen back to his mouth. He was about to put the two pieces back together when a sneeze rose up out of nowhere. His back arched and his stomach tightened as a glob of snot flew out of his nose. The jerky body motion caused him to miss the cap in his mouth with the pen. Instead, the tip of the red marker hit his chin and traveled up to his eye.

 
; “Damn it. Not again,” he said, thinking about the last time this had happened. It was a month ago when Lucas Ramsay just happened to stop by for a visit from across the hall. He turned and looked at the lab door. He waited for it, but a knock never came.

  “Whew,” he said. “Once was embarrassing enough.”

  He put the sample jar on his desk and was about to head to the bathroom to try to scrub the ink off of his face when his cell phone chimed. Inside the flip phone was a text message from his wife. His heart danced as he read Stacy’s note.

  Hi sweetie! Just wanted to tell you that I love you. I have dinner waiting. Plus some tasty dessert. It’s date night, honey! Don’t be late, otherwise I’ll have to start without you! Wink. Wink.

  He typed his response into the phone pad.

  Love you, too. I hope you’re going to wear the red outfit I bought you last week. I’ve been dreaming about seeing you in it all day.

  His finger hit the send button. A few seconds later, the phone chimed again, this time a smiley face appeared on the message line. He looked down at his zipper, watching a bulge grow in his pants.

  “Houston, we have liftoff.”

  Just then, a double knock rang out from the lab door.

  “Not now,” he said, trying to push down on his erection, but it wasn’t getting any smaller. In fact, his penis seemed to react to the added pressure, making it grow thicker and stronger. He panicked, grabbing the two closest items on his desk—a soldering gun and resin. He scrambled to the door, planning to tell whoever was on the other side of it that he was in the middle of an important experiment and they needed to come back later. If nothing else, he hoped to stall the visitor long enough to allow his hard-on to dissipate.

  He took a deep breath and opened the door. It was Kleezebee’s lead research assistant, Dr. Lucas Ramsay, from the lab across the hall.

  “Hey, Lucas!” Griffith said as his brain sent a torrent of words streaming to his mouth. “It’s wonderful to see you. Do you need my help with something? Wow, you look especially handsome today. How is your project coming along? I hear you’re getting a new lab tech tonight. How’s your mother feeling? What were those marines delivering? They sure looked impressive in their uniforms, didn’t—”