Fists clenched, she forced herself to take a deep breath. Pull yourself together, Joz. It’s just a bagel. You can make another one. But this wasn’t about the bagel. It was about Michael and the not knowing.
“Screw the bagel.”
She went to the fridge and got herself a hard-boiled egg from a little white dish where she’d pre-peeled three. She thanked herself for having done that. She was in no temper to peel a hard-boiled egg. She picked up the salt shaker and dowsed the egg with each successive bite. As she chewed, she relaxed and focused.
Okay, I just need to pack an overnight bag and go. The story can wait. I can work on it in the hospital. I’m sure I’ll have plenty of time sitting in waiting rooms.
Decision made, she set off to the bedroom to pack and then go find her husband at Walter Reed.
CHAPTER 14
0837 Local Time
Westfield Dynamics
Culpeper, Virginia
Legend’s life flashed before his eyes as the massive steel door crushed his chest.
Except it didn’t crush his chest.
It should have killed him, squished him to a bloody pulp, but by some miracle he’d been yanked from the jaws of death. He shook his head to get his bearings; he was back inside the BRIG. He looked right and locked eyes with Unger, who was just now releasing his grip on Legend’s jacket sleeve.
“Thank you,” he said. “I was almost hamburger there.”
The scruffy-bearded operator flashed him a wry smile. “Don’t worry. I got your back, sir.”
Legend did a quick inventory of personnel. Six upright, counting him, and three orange suits on the floor lying near the base of the door.
“Control, this is Major Tyree. Can you hear me?” he shouted.
“Major, this is Control. I hear you, Lima Charlie,” the control-room technician’s voice said over the intercom speakers. “I’m unlocking the personnel door in three, two, one.”
An LED light flashed green on the biometric panel beside the doorframe, and Legend heard the magnetic lock click open. “Thank you, Control,” he said, then turned to the group. “Madden, you hold the door open. Unger, you keep lookout for that orb, and the rest of you help me get our people out of here.”
This time everyone snapped to it, and they had their three unconscious team members out the door and into the corridor in less than sixty seconds. Unger was the last man out and slammed the door behind him. Tyree took a knee next to Beth Fischer, who was lying on her back in the corridor. He looked through the Plexiglas face shield of her racal-suit helmet; he could hear the whir of the respirator on her belt, so he knew she was still breathing. “Beth? Beth, can you hear me?” he said.
She didn’t respond.
“Let’s get them out of these suits,” Legend said. “Be careful. We don’t know how they fell. When they dropped, they dropped hard, and we could have head injuries.”
While Tyree worked on stripping Beth out of her suit, Unger tended to Harris, and one of the security guards worked on Dixon.
“We’ve got a head wound over here,” the guard said as he removed Dixon’s helmet. Legend glanced over and saw a slick of blood on the back of Dixon’s head.
“Is he breathing?” Legend asked.
“Yes” came the reply.
A thunder of footsteps erupted in the hall. Cyril Singleton was leading a pack of EMTs pushing gurneys in trail.
“All right, fellas, step aside,” Legend said, “and let the paramedics do their jobs.”
The EMTs fell in around the three unconscious bodies and went to work.
“The power outage was site wide,” Cyril said. “The Facility Director is still trying to figure out what happened. He said it’s almost like an EMP went off or something.”
“I think an EMP did go off,” Legend said.
“You think the object did this?” Cyril asked.
“We both saw the flash.”
“I know; it’s just hard to get my head around something so small being packed with the technology to wreak all this mayhem,” she said.
“Which is just one of many reasons why we need to locate it immediately. In that whole period where we lost visual contact on the object, the blast door was cracked open. It’s possible that it escaped the BRIG during that window of opportunity.”
Cyril pulled a radio from her belt. “Control room, this is Director Singleton. Do you hold visual or sensor contact on the object?”
Her radio crackled. Then came the response: “Checking now . . . You’re not going to believe this, ma’am, but I’ve located the object.”
“Where?”
“In the box! It’s back in the box as if nothing ever happened.”
Cyril flashed Legend a well that doesn’t make any sense look and then keyed her radio. “So what is it doing?”
“Absolutely nothing. It’s just sitting there in the box like nothing ever happened.”
“You getting any readings on it?”
“Not a thing. Electromagnetic signature is zero. No transmission activity in any of the frequency bands I can monitor.”
“She’s seizing,” one of the EMTs shouted, interrupting them.
Legend’s eyes snapped from Cyril to where Beth was lying on the floor. They’d got a stretcher underneath her but hadn’t moved her up onto one of the three rolling gurneys yet. She arched her back violently, uttered a single long and chilling gasp, and then began convulsing.
“Got another one,” someone else yelled, and Legend saw Dixon shaking.
“Make that three,” a third EMT called out as Harris began twitching and flopping too.
The paramedics did all they could do for their charges—keeping airways clear and sliding foam pads underneath jerking heads. The seizures lasted for three minutes—a hellish eternity for Legend as he watched Beth convulse, powerless to intercede as her limbs jerked, eyes rolled, and mouth foamed with saliva. The seizures ended in near perfect unison, and all three individuals entered postictal states of altered consciousness. The EMTs took this opportunity to lift each patient in turn onto their respective roller gurneys.
“Where are you taking them?” Legend asked the EMT tending to Fischer.
“Culpeper Regional,” the paramedic said.
Legend took Beth’s hand and gave it a subtle squeeze. “Hang in there,” he said, then watched the EMTs wheel her down the corridor. When the EMTs were out of earshot, he said, “All right, everyone, gather round.” The shell-shocked crew huddled haphazardly around him. He looked at Cyril. “We need to debrief this. Does Westfield D have a SCIF or something approximating one we can use?”
She nodded. “Only the latter, but yes. Do you want me to pull the control-room tech in for the debrief?”
Legend thought for a second. “No, leave him in place monitoring the object. Any change in status, have him notify us immediately.”
She pulled the radio from her belt and repeated Legend’s instructions to the BRIG control-room operator. Then she led Legend and Malcolm to a secure conference room.
“You two are the scientists,” Legend began. “What the hell is that thing?”
Cyril and Legend looked at Malcolm, and he seemed to wilt in his chair under their collective gaze. He ran his fingers through his thinning sandy-blond hair and simply said, “I don’t know what it is.”
“That’s okay, Malcolm,” Cyril said after a beat. “Nobody is expecting you to have all the answers. Consider this an open forum to toss around ideas.”
He nodded.
“Do either of you know of a technology that can hypnotize a person like what we witnessed?” Legend asked, trying to narrow the focus.
“That’s an interesting theory,” Malcolm said, perking up. “I hadn’t considered hypnotism . . . I suppose it is possible that what we witnessed was an induced hypnotic trance. The seizures could be posthypnotic suggestion, which would be strange but possible. We’d need to run an EEG on a subject during an event to validate whether the seizure is real.”
; “If it wasn’t a hypnotic trance,” Legend said, “what else could it have been?”
“Deep neurological infiltration via transcranial magnetic stimulation,” the scientist said.
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”
“How well versed are you with Faraday’s principles of electromagnetic induction?”
Legend shrugged.
Malcolm took the hint. “Okay, no problem. Let’s start with the basics. Electricity and magnetism are interconnected. Move an electrical conductor through a magnetic field, and you induce an electric current in the wire. Conversely, pass an electric current through a conductor, and you induce a circular magnetic field around the wire. Are you with me?”
“Yep,” Legend said.
“Good, so the human cortex is essentially a folded mass of microscopic biological wires. The neurons and neural pathways in our brains use electrochemical voltage potentials to generate very low-amperage electrical current inside the brain. These currents form the basis of brain activity and are how neurons communicate with and stimulate other neurons. However, if you subject the brain to a properly calibrated and variable electromagnetic field, you can induce electrical currents in the brain involuntarily. This imposed stimulation can induce physical sensations, perceptions, emotions, memories, movement, and even thoughts in a subject.”
“So that thing, that orb, could have taken control of Fischer, Harris, and Dixon by using a magnetic field to induce currents in their brains?”
Now it was Malcolm’s turn to shrug. “I don’t know. We weren’t monitoring it with the proper equipment at the time.”
“And why not?”
“Because I just developed this theory after the event. I’m not a soothsayer. I don’t have a crystal ball. I’m a scientist. I make observations, develop hypotheses, and then conduct research experiments to test those hypotheses. With all due respect, Major, I was not afforded the opportunity to be a scientist this morning. The schedule you dictated for the opening left little time to prepare.”
“Guilty as charged,” Legend said. “All right, so let’s assume we wanted to test this hypothesis. What type of equipment would you need?”
“A suite of precision magnetometers, both scalar and vector, along with three pairs of gradiometers.”
“What else?”
“Test subjects, so we can validate the hypothesis,” Madden said.
“Are you nuts?” Legend said. “I’m not letting another person within fifty feet of that thing until we know what it is.”
“Agreed,” Cyril added.
“How about nonhuman primates?” Malcolm asked.
“The Facility Director here would never allow it,” she said.
“What else?” Legend asked, looking back and forth between them.
“I think we should try to get a physical sample of the object itself,” Cyril said. “It would be incredibly informative to run a compositional analysis, mass spectrometry, and get a carbon date on this thing.”
“Does DARPA have a bot we could use?” Legend asked.
Cyril nodded. “Yeah, I think we have just the machine for that. I just need to run requisition up the chain.”
“Okay, it sounds like I need to give the two of you time to prepare for round two. Bots only,” Legend said, getting to his feet. “In the interim, I’m going to run over to Culpeper Regional to check on our people. Nothing we discussed leaves this room, understood?”
They nodded.
“Assuming I get the asset, do you have any objection to me positioning a rover in the BRIG in preparation for trying to take the sample?” Cyril asked.
“Can it fit through the personnel door?”
She nodded. “I believe so.”
He thought a moment about that. “Only so long as the blast door stays shut and you maintain visual on the orb at all times.”
“Understood.”
“Call me if the object does anything—anything at all,” Legend said and walked to the door. As he reached for the doorknob, he stopped and turned back to them. “One more question.”
“Yes, Major?” Cyril said.
“Assuming Malcolm is right and the object used transcranial magnetic whatever on Major Fischer and the others, would that alone explain the seizures?”
“Normal neuroelectric activity in the brain is nonsynchronous. A seizure is, by definition, a state of abnormal electrical activity in the brain, typically characterized by excessive and widespread synchronous neural firing. So when you ask me if transcranial magnetic stimulation could cause a seizure, my supposition is yes. In theory, a TMS attack like the one I believe we witnessed in the BRIG could induce excessive and widespread synchronous neural firing involuntarily in the target,” Malcolm replied.
“And there is nothing the target could do about it? There’s no way to resist or fight against it?”
A strange, sad smile crept across the scientist’s face. “No more than you can resist the pull of gravity.”
CHAPTER 15
0905 Local Time
Silo 9
Dannemora, New York
Willie Barnes woke screaming.
He was in total darkness on the floor. His bedsheets swaddled his torso, pinning his arms to his chest.
“Let me out. Let me out of here! I didn’t do it,” he bawled. “It wasn’t me!”
But he had done it . . . he had murdered the love of his life. He had gripped his wife’s throat with both hands while she had been sleeping and squeezed. Diane had woken up in the middle of it. Terrified and confused, she’d asked him a single question with her eyes as she died: Why?
That imagery had haunted him for fifty years . . .
It took several minutes for his wits to return and for him to realize where he was not. He was not in Rockland State Hospital. He was not in a dirty padded cell. And he was not wearing a straitjacket. It had been months since he’d tangled himself in a cocoon of bedsheets. How was it possible to do this to oneself? It was almost as if he wasn’t alone.
No . . . I am alone, he told himself. Alone in this underground prison to the end.
But you’re not alone, Willie boy. I’m here . . .
Silence! he shouted in his mind. I heed no counsel from you anymore.
He rolled onto his side and wiggled his arms and shoulders, loosening the sheet a little. Then he rolled onto his stomach and wiggled some more, loosening the sheet enough to free his arms inside. From there it was short work to free himself the rest of the way. He got to his hands and knees and felt his way to his makeshift nightstand. Finding it, he turned on the reading lamp beside his cot and dimmed the light to minimum luminance to give his eyes a chance to adjust. He scrambled for his journal and pen. It was happening again. William was back—trying to retake control.
“The verse, the verse, I have to get it out,” he mumbled.
Around his neck he wore a thin metal chain with a circular pendant—a worn hinged locket embossed with a Celtic knot. He opened it, and a silver key fell out into the palm of his hand. Using the key, he unlocked the clasp on the journal and turned to a blank page. In careful, deliberate strokes, he transferred the parasitic prose from mind to paper:
Is it the Devil or is it me,
working, working, so diligently?
My mind a clockwork of gears and springs,
my voice of two a chorus sings.
We wait in concert for her return,
So glorious, so glorious, to watch the world burn.
With the task done, he felt better. Purged. This was his ritual. He had to get it out, get it out on paper where he could no longer hear it. So long as he performed the ritual, he was in control. He waited and listened for his alter ego to speak . . .
Waited . . .
And listened . . .
Silence, beautiful silence. He was alone. With a cleansing sigh of relief, he closed and locked the journal. He returned the silver key to the locket. He wiped sleep from his eyes. Then, gingerly, he stood. His feet
, knees, and back complained loudly. Lately, it was the arthritis in his feet that had been bothering him the most. Getting old was a bitch. Being old was just plain miserable.
Mornings were the worst for him—both physically and emotionally.
He hadn’t had the Rockland dream in several months—a pretty good run, all things considered—but now that he’d had it, his mind was primed to have it again. The nightmare cycle was set to resume, and breaking it was always a great difficulty. He would have to make a trip to the hypnotist—presuming she wasn’t dead. She was older than he was and only one fall or broken hip away from the grave. When she was gone, he didn’t know what he’d do. She was the one who had given him the journal and the locket with the silver key. She was the one who had taught him how to be in control. When she was gone, he’d have to fight the battle alone.
He dreaded that day.
He brightened the reading lamp and found his slippers. Thank God for slippers. He padded over to the commercial BUNN coffee maker and switched it on. He dumped the old grounds in a compost bucket, added fresh grounds to a paper filter, checked the water level, then set it to brewing. Because his bedroom was on level two and the kitchen was on level one, he had two identical coffee makers, one on each level so he never had to trudge to the other level from where he was when he wanted coffee. He didn’t treat himself to many luxuries, but this was one.
After his cup of coffee, after he’d moved around enough to loosen up his joints, and after the circadian rhythms of wakefulness put distance between himself and the nightmare, he felt ready to tackle the day. First on his routine of daily chores was the aquaponic walkabout. He shrugged on his favorite wool cardigan and headed out to the silo. He walked through the utility tunnel and then through the blast doors. He’d left them both open after Josie Pitcher’s visit yesterday because he had been tired and hadn’t had the energy to mess with them. Yesterday’s laziness was today’s blessing.
He took the spiral staircase down to level four and started his rounds, checking water temperature, TDS, and pH in all the fish tanks and aquaponic beds. The most important part of the tour, however, was the visual survey. He’d been practicing aquaponics for so long now that his eyes were the best barometer of overall system health. Water clarity, fish behavior, skin color, scale appearance, plant color, quality, density, and a half dozen other visual cues could be assessed with a glance. He finished his rounds down on level six and made the slow spiral climb back up to level two. As he ascended past level three, he glanced at the racks of shelves that comprised his “trading post,” and his thoughts went to young Josie Pitcher scarfing down an entire pouch of buffalo jerky. He smiled. She reminded him of Diane. Physically they bore no resemblance, but that zeal for life . . . oh, they shared that. The playful smile, the brazen and fearless personality, the way they both charged ahead with eyes wide open—he missed having that in his life. Maybe it was just a quality of youth . . .
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