Heather had gone next. Despite what she had observed with Mark, she had found herself completely unprepared for the sensations that stormed through her body and brain as the millions of needle points made their connections. Beyond exhilarating, it was as if she had awakened from a dimly remembered dream.
Unlike any other meditation she had ever tried, she had found herself simultaneously conscious of every nerve, every cell within her body. Slowing her breathing and heart rate, as she had observed Mark do when he had first tried the couch in the medical lab, was trivial. Speeding up her metabolism was just as easy, requiring no significant level of concentration. She merely thought about what she wanted and it happened.
Heather had looked through Jennifer's pictures of brain activity, memorizing each with a glance before handing them back to Jennifer. With a slight shift of her thoughts, she had pulled up a mental image of her brain, shifting it to match the orientation in the photos. While this took more concentration than the earlier exercise, she had quickly gotten the hang of slowing the neural activity in each part of her brain, memorizing the feel of what she was doing as it happened. Even this had felt good, almost like letting a part of yourself drift off to sleep.
By the time she had arisen from the couch, Heather had felt sure that she could duplicate the effects at will. The amazing part had come after she had relinquished the tentacle couch to Jennifer. The feelings of total connection to her body and brain had remained, unabated.
Last night's sleeplessness troubled her, but not in the way a sleepless night should. It was as if she no longer needed sleep. The effect might not be permanent, but it was certainly odd. Combined with the oddities of yesterday's trip to the ship, it left her feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
Jennifer's reaction was what bothered her most. Heather had expected Jen to put up some resistance when Mark and then Heather had slid onto the couch. Instead, she had seemed almost eager to watch them try it. And when Jennifer had climbed onto the couch, it struck Heather that she was already familiar with the thing.
Another thing that bothered her was just how good she now felt. Heather didn't know why that bothered her, but if this was how people on drugs felt, she could understand how you could get hooked. There it was. The thought of what she might feel like when she came back down off this mental high was what scared her.
A sequence of brilliant mental images flashed through her mind. It just didn't seem likely that this was a temporary effect. From the second she had climbed onto that couch, she had known that the ship was doing something to her, something that went well beyond what she had experienced on previous visits.
Heather slid out of bed and into her robe and slippers, wondering if her mom and dad were up yet. No, they weren't.
Heather froze. The answer had just come into her head. There was nothing particularly odd about that. Everyone had inner dialog. But the feeling she got thinking about that answer sent shivers up her spine. This was no guess. Somehow, she just knew.
One thing was certain: standing here in her bedroom wasn't going to rid her of the strangeness. Perhaps a cup of tea wouldn't either, but it sure couldn't hurt.
By the time Heather seated herself in the lawn chair on her back porch, her knees drawn up almost to her chest, hands cradling the steaming mug, the first hint of dawn had softened the darkness in the east. Cool and crisp, with just a hint of pine scent on the smallest of breezes, the air that tickled her nostrils smelled different this morning. Even the chamomile tea seemed filled with subtle new flavors.
A rustling in the grass at the far edge of her yard attracted her attention. Sensing her gaze, a bunny lifted its ears momentarily before returning to its nibbling.
The sound of footsteps on the stairs interrupted her reverie.
"Good morning, Dad," Heather called toward the kitchen.
Gil McFarland stuck his smiling face out the door. "How did you know it was me and not your mother?"
"Dad, you're always the first one down."
"After you, that is. By the way, it's good to see you up early again. It's been a while since you played the early bird."
Heather laughed, something that sounded good, even to her own ears. "I guess I've finally caught up on my rest."
Her dad's eyes studied her for a moment and then he smiled once again. "You're sounding better. Let me get some coffee going. Your mom and I will come out and join you in a little bit."
"Sounds nice."
A movement to her left snapped Heather's head around. There in the bushes just beyond the tree line.
"Heather, what is it?"
The concern in her father's voice brought her back to reality. Somehow, she had gotten to her feet, so that she now stood among the shattered pieces of her teacup. Barely audible in the distance, the Rag Man's maniacal laughter drifted up to her on the gentle breeze.
49
Janet Price stared across the small central room of their hogan at Jack, his eyes locked on the laptop computer that sat on the wooden table, which alternately served as dining table, workbench, and desk. As she studied his lithe form, she could almost feel the tension that rippled the muscles beneath his skin. Like a coiled cobra, Jack was ready to strike.
As Janet looked at him, a lump rose in her throat. She had always been independent, someone who lived on the ragged edge, a full rush of adrenaline her only addiction. Now she had acquired another. She had always thought of love as a myth, an illusion adopted by people who needed a crutch to help them through their boring little lives.
Janet knew the precise instant when she had tumbled over that mythical cliff. It had been that terrible moment when Jack had come for her, when she had stared up into those eyes as he told her to stay awake, the moment on that wooded ridgeline when he had turned back to hunt her pursuers. Perhaps she had allowed herself to fall because she had known she was going to die.
But Jack had not let her die. Even the unbearable pain he had inflicted on her with the injection of the nanite-tainted blood vials only made her love him more. Jack had come back for her, using every means at his disposal, demanding that she stay with him. With those actions, Jack had robbed her of her independence, enslaving her as surely as if he bound her in chains. She should hate him for that, but she couldn’t.
Now Janet had another reason. She was pregnant. Leave it to those damn little nanomachines to fix everything. Even the relatively small dosage Jack had absorbed during his bloody fight with Priest Williams had apparently reversed his vasectomy. Since Janet now had her own nanite infection, she doubted that the pill would have worked either. Pretty soon the world would be left with condoms as the only viable means of birth control.
Jack didn’t know, and Janet wasn’t going to tell him until it became obvious. Her killer angel had enough on his to-do list without having that bombshell dropped on him.
Right now, the information on the laptop was at the top of that to-do list. That they had managed to charge the laptop batteries was a minor miracle of engineering. Despite the periodic assistance and supplies provided by Tall Bear, electric lines didn't run this far into the reservation's interior. And Jack hadn't wanted to attract the attention that the purchase of a generator might provide. So, using a variety of junk parts Tall Bear had scrounged up, and using the windmill to provide the rotary power, they had built one.
One thing about this high New Mexico country, wind was something available in abundance. A bank of a dozen car batteries provided enough storage to cover the brief periods of calm.
All of this had taken considerable time and effort, and only for the last two days had they been able to achieve a power signal clean enough to risk connection to the laptop's transformer. And even though they had power, an Internet connection was a bigger problem. There were no telephone lines, ditto for television cables or satellite equipment.
Still, Jack had been determined to get the computer operational. He wanted to review every bit of data on the system, on the off chance that there might be some clue as t
o who had betrayed Jonathan Riles and the rest of the team. Jack had always had a knack for disappearing from sight when he had to, sometimes for months at a time. But Janet could tell that this wasn't going to be one of those times.
Janet had been at the keyboard, having just started the computer up, when she saw it. There on her computer desktop sat a file that hadn't been there when she turned it off, a file with the ominous name, "Jack You Need to Read This."
Since they had not been connected to the Internet, and since the computer hadn't even been powered on, there was only one reasonable possibility for the creation of that file. Some sort of virus had been inserted on her system that had been triggered when the system had restarted.
But that didn’t check out. Janet had run a complete set of diagnostics, including state-of-the-art virus checks, all of which reported nothing unusual. More disconcerting was the creation date on the file. It had been created as the system was completing its initial boot-up sequence. That pointed back to a virus, something that she was convinced was not present on the system.
Jack finally shrugged. "Well I guess we should find out what it says."
"That's what I was thinking," Janet replied, sliding back into the chair in front of the keyboard.
She opened the file. It was simple text, short and sweet.
"Jack. I am the NSA's original source about the Rho Project. I assure you that this communication is completely untraceable by any technology, earth or alien. I have placed a chip on top of the CPU in this machine. It sends no signal and receives none. It works by means of what is called a quantum twin, a device for which there is only one counterpart. The quantum states of these two devices are always identical. If you apply a signal to one, it is applied to the other at the same instant. There is no intermediate signal to be detected. I tell you this so that you will know that this was originally an alien technology that I have mastered. No one besides myself is even aware that it exists, other than in theory.
"I tell you this so that you will not destroy this computer or remove the chip. I cannot trace you. I cannot tell where you are. All it offers is an instant means of secure communication.
"I also tell you this because I need you, and I believe you need the services that only I can provide. I am sure you are aware of my capabilities for penetrating secure networks, using other technologies at my disposal. You are, no doubt, cut off from your traditional lines of support and communication. Let me be that line. All you have to do to contact me is to replace the text in this file with your answer. I will be monitoring. Think it over."
"What do you make of that?" Jack said, turning toward Janet.
"I think we need to open up the back of the computer and take a look at that chip. For all we know it might give away our location."
"Oh, we're going to do that, but I don't think we're in much danger of them finding us. If they could do that we would have already had some unwelcome visitors."
Janet closed the screen and flipped the laptop upside down. Extracting a small tool from the case, she removed the cover. Sure enough, there it was, a small chip glued directly atop the CPU.
"Well, that much of the message is true."
Jack nodded. "I have a feeling that most of it is true, although we can bet that this source has its own agenda."
Janet bent closer to the laptop. "I can't see any direct connections to the circuitry. The chip just looks like it was attached with superglue. The connection must be some sort of induction circuit."
"That doesn't seem possible using a chip of that size."
"If we buy the quantum twin thing, then maybe it is possible."
"You've got a point there." Jack grinned.
Janet turned her attention back to the exposed circuit board. "So what do you want to do? Do we deep six the whole laptop? It may have been tampered with in ways that aren't this obvious."
Jack paused. "The laptop doesn't have any external connections, so the technology being used to communicate matches what the message said. Before we do anything else, I want to find out just how useful our new friend can be."
"How so?"
"Slap the cover back on that thing. We're going to ask our source for a good faith deposit."
50
"How was the doctor visit?" Mark asked as Heather stepped through the door.
Heather frowned. "Nothing happened."
"What do you mean nothing happened?"
"I mean the doctor didn't even examine me. He talked to Mom and Dad for a bit and then asked me a few questions. Then he referred me to another doctor."
"Another doctor?"
"Yeah, a shrink. Can you believe it? I have an appointment with her tomorrow."
Mark looked at Heather. As much as she tried to make herself sound casual, she looked angry and embarrassed.
Before he could ask her another question, she turned away. "Where's Jen?"
"She went to the mall with Mom. They'll be gone all day. Dad's at work; that just leaves the two of us."
"Any response on the message we sent Jack?"
"I don't know. I just left the system running the automatic resend program that Jennifer wrote. If he or Janet turns the computer on, they'll get our message."
"Let's check. And no, I don't want to talk about the doctor."
"I wasn't asking."
"Good," Heather said, heading for the stairs. "Let's go see if we got a response."
As Mark followed Heather into his sister's room, he paused at the doorway. He couldn't quite place it, but something didn't feel right. As different as they had always been, Mark knew his twin like no non-twin could. And something about her room was different. However, a quick look over the room didn’t reveal what was off, and Heather was waiting. He'd figure it out later.
He followed Heather over to the small desk where Jennifer's laptop sat quietly running. Heather typed in the password and the security screen was replaced by a view of the computer desktop.
Two programs were running, both minimized and out of view. Heather brought up the communication program that linked the QT on Jennifer's laptop to the one on Janet's laptop.
Heather almost jumped out of her seat. "Oh my God! They got our message and sent a response."
Immediately, all thoughts about Jennifer vanished from Mark's mind as he leaned over Heather's shoulder to read the message.
"All right. You know who I am, but I need more than your word that I can trust you. Prove it to me. Get me the name of the person who led the attack on my team. Nothing less will be acceptable. I'll give you a week to get back to me with the answer before I destroy this computer. Any attempt at contact without that answer and I will destroy the computer. You have my terms."
Mark was stunned. A glance at Heather's face confirmed that he wasn't alone.
"So Jack is alive," Mark breathed.
"Maybe so, but we can't give him what he wants."
Mark raised an eyebrow. "Why not?"
Heather swiveled the chair to face him. "Well, for one thing, we don't know the answer. Second, we can't hack our way into any network that might have the answer because we don't have the cold fusion tank anymore. Even though we kept the subspace transmitter, we don't have any way of generating the gamma flux it needs."
"Well we're just going to have to come up with some other way of making the subspace transmitter work."
Heather shook her head. "Even if we could in that amount of time, where would we start looking? We have to have a coordinate to tap into a network, and we don't have any idea who might have that information or what network the answer might be on. Besides, I don't think we should give Jack the answer even if we had it."
"Why not?"
"Even if he’s working with us, Jack is a killer. We'd be murdering that person as surely as if we pulled the trigger ourselves."
Mark paced slowly across the room. "Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. After all, these people killed Jonathan Riles and most of Jack's team. They’re the ones working with Dr. Stephenson.
"
"We don't know that."
"What do your probabilities tell you?"
Heather pursed her lips. "I don't care. I'm not going to be part of killing someone."
Despite Mark's best efforts, she refused to consider it. Finally, he threw up his hands in frustration.
"Okay. At least think about it until we get a chance to discuss this with Jen."
After a brief hesitation, Heather shrugged. "I'll wait until we talk to Jennifer."
Heather saved the message and minimized the program monitoring Janet's computer. As she did, she accidentally tapped the button that displayed the other running program. It was Jennifer's Internet browser, which showed that she had been looking at a news story about the search for Jack and Janet.
"Wait! Leave that up!" The urgency in Mark's voice caused Heather to look around.
Mark's gaze read the page at a glance and he reached across Heather to click the mouse, scrolling rapidly downward until he reached the end. For once, she didn't object.
"We’re screwed," Mark said leaning back.
"What are you talking about?"
"That news story that Jennifer was reading. It says that the search for Jack has started focusing on the canyons farther west of town. I know the place they were describing. It's the canyon with our starship. With all those people, they're bound to stumble across our cave."
For once, Heather was too shocked to respond.
Mark's eyes settled on Jennifer's bed. Now he knew what had been bothering him. Something about the sheet was wrong. Jennifer had always been meticulous in the way she made her bed, but this morning she had left the sheet untucked, the end extending just below the end of the bedspread.
Drawn forward by his curiosity, Mark knelt down. Only the lower left corner of the sheet was un-tucked, as if the bed had been made and then the corner had been pulled out later.
Ignoring Heather's questioning gaze, Mark lifted the corner of the mattress.
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