“I wouldn’t count on it.”
* * *
“Neither the house nor secure systems have been compromised,” said Joe Greenberg, Jim’s head of security as he stared at the monitor. “That thing is a damn highly sophisticated device. It’s emitting light in the non-visible spectrum as a disguise, sort of creating a holograph around itself.”
“How can we see the thing itself and the computer doesn’t?” Jim said.
“The holograph is invisible to us, out of the visible light spectrum. The house security system sees things in all wavelengths. It is sort of like putting a hood over it that’s transparent to us but appears as the background to the computer,” Greenberg raised his head. “Computer, deactivate intruder alert, limit detection to the visible spectrum only.”
“Change in security confirmed,” the computer replied.
“Identify object in the east wing second floor hall.”
“Object, cleaner autoserve,” the computer replied.
“Is it one of the household autoserves?”
“Negative.”
“There you have it,” Greenberg said. “It’s a spy.”
“Why didn’t they make it invisible to us as well?” Jim said. “Hold it,” Jim said before Greenberg had a chance to open his mouth. “I think I knew the answer to that question before I asked it. It’s so we don’t trip over it.”
“I believe you’re correct,” Greenberg said.
Halbert chuckled. “They didn’t anticipate an Old Earth man actually noticing it.”
“The question of the day,” Jim said. “Whose is it?”
“The only people that can put something like that together are either a big corporation or a government. A holograph without a room to show it in is state of the art. That device Michael had, the 3V player that didn’t require a room, it was from the Montoya Company wasn’t it?”
“I refuse to suspect Santiago, or any of his family,” Jim said then directed his voice toward a pen phone on the table. “Peter, what do you think?”
“It’s not the Montoyas,” Peter replied from the phone. “There are a few other factors we have uncovered that indicate it’s a government job.”
“But which government?” Halbert said. “The Bund or the Commonwealth?”
“Personal opinion, the Commonwealth. But I think the people in our government that are involved are working for theirs.”
“Good heavens,” Jim said. “If one of those idiot, blabbermouths on the Commonwealth Council get wind of what we’re doing, we’re screwed.”
“Well dishy, what we are doing is definitely illegal. A major military offensive planned without the knowledge of the government.”
“Hold it,” Greenberg said. “If you’re going to discuss the plot, I should leave. I don’t know what’s in that room and I don’t want to know.”
“No,” Jim said. “We’ll only discuss the immediate problem, the spybot.”
“Simple,” Halbert said. “We just take it outside and blow it up. That would cost whoever it is a lot. That thing must be worth a fortune.”
“We could try to fool them,” Jim said. “Let it slip that we’re actually hiding something else, gold, platinum, pornography.”
“It’s moving,” Halbert said and they all turned to watch the monitor.
The autoserve glided down the hall and stopped in front of the secure room door.
“It’s trying to open the door with a microwave link,” Greenberg said. “Bypass the voice command module.” He raised his head. “Computer, change in security. Security room one door can only be opened from this location.”
“Change in security confirmed,” the computer replied.
“Why didn’t it just imitate my voiceprint,” Jim said.
“The house computer knows where you are,” Greenberg said. “You can not be in two places at once. Alarms would go off all over the house.”
“Can it open the door?” Halbert said.
“If I had not disabled opening it from that hall, it could. It would take days of trying combinations of code but it’d eventually open it.”
“Back to what we’re going to do with it,” Jim said. “I think we should use it for disinformation. Let it see something else in the room.”
Halbert chuckled. “What do you suggest, as you said, gold, platinum or pornography? Pornography would be the easiest.”
“No,” Peter said from the pen phone. “Pardon my silence but I’ve been consulting with a few people. I’d suggest medicine, enough antiviral medication for that whole planet Colin is on. The location and everything to do with the planet is a secret so they’ll think it logical that we’re hiding the meds.”
“But this’ll give away that secret.”
“Because of the number of people involved in manufacturing, transport and storage, more people know that than any other of our secrets. We’re stockpiling. They’ll find out anyway so we may as well just give it to them. Better they know that than what’s really in the room.”
“What if that thing can detect what’s in the packages we put there?” Jim said. “We can’t just stack the room with empty boxes.”
“Give me three days. I’ll get you the real thing.”
“Then we open the door from here,” Halbert said. “The operators will think they hit the right code.”
“Just one problem,” Jim said. “If that thing keeps hanging around that hallway, how do we get past it to clear the room and replace it with the medications?”
“It’s a bedroom,” Peter said. “Bedrooms do have windows.”
* * *
Jim stood at the top of the ladder receiving the black pyramid shaped objects from Halbert through the bedroom window. He passed them along to Michael who was in the middle of the ladder. Michael passed them to Carol who was on the ground. Carol stacked them neatly on a patio table next to the swimming pool.
“Last one,” Halbert said.
“Ok,” Jim said. “We’ll take the fourth, seventh, ninth and fifteenth divisions and stick them in our bedroom closet. Michael, you take the seventeenth to the eighty third divisions to your room. The Rangers and all the special operations groups can go in Colin’s room and Halbert, you take all the transportation and support units to the guest bedroom you’re in.”
“Sound like we’re playing Risk,” Michael chuckled. “I’m attacking Mongolia from Kamchatka with the forty third division.”
“You can’t make jokes,” Carol said. “These are real people.”
“They’re soldiers with a soldier’s sense of humor,” Jim said. “I guarantee you that if we could communicate and told them where we’re hiding them they’d laugh their butts off.”
“Shelves are clear,” Halbert said. “Send up the drugs.”
Carol picked up a package from a stack on the ground and handed it to Michael who handed it to Jim. Jim inspected the package.
“Hold it,” Jim said. “The label on the pack says comiratanin. The antiviral that works is draconimol. Jim fumbled for the pen phone in his pocket. “Peter, are you there?”
“Yes dishy, what is it?” Peter replied.
“Wrong drug,” Jim said.
“No. Out of the thousands of antiviral drugs on the market the Surgeon General found that only two worked. I couldn’t get enough draconimol. The company that makes it is already stretched to the limit. I got comiratanin, it is the other one that works.”
“Ok,” Jim said and put the pen phone back in his pocket. “I wish the damn fairy would let me know about these things.”
“Dad,” Michael said. “We all know Uncle Peter is straight.”
“How?” Jim said. “He’s a trained actor, a secret agent.”
“Time darling,” Carol said. “The amount of time he’s been with us. No matter how well trained, you can’t avoid the occasional slipups. Things like peeking at a shapely female backside. He gave himself away on a number of occasions.”
“I am in Disneyland,” Jim said. “Most people have discussio
ns about family friends they suspect of being gay. We have a family friend who is under suspicion of being straight.”
Michael stared laughing. “All that while hiding twenty divisions of soldiers in our bedroom closets.”
“And stashing a mountain of drugs in a spare bedroom,” Halbert chuckled. “You people are strange.”
Chapter 21
“What do I do now?” Tanni said.
“Sit absolutely still,” Ida said “Remember, we covered your eyes so you can prepare yourself for the visions and not get them when you were not ready. Just let me know if you want the blindfold back on again.”
“But you said I probably wouldn’t have the visions straight away,” Tanni said. “Something about roads in my head.”
“You don’t have what we call the neural pathways,” Ida said. “Your brain hasn’t the practice to recognize the signals coming from your eyes.”
“I have figured that out,” Hansel said. “My grandfather, when he grew old, slowly lost some of his memories and abilities but not others. The doctor said it was damage in parts of his brain due to age.”
“Close,” Ida said. “Only here there is no damage, the abilities weren’t there in the first place. You have to go through therapy to create them. Jael was young and his brain still developing. It was easier for him, he did it naturally. That thing we put on your head yesterday was to stimulate the visual cortex, the part of the brain that recognizes visions.”
“So, how will I get these new paths?” Tanni said.
“That machine that arrived yesterday will create them,” Colin said. “It has knowledge of the paths of people who can have the visions and creates them in people who don’t.”
“All this knowledge,” Hansel said. “I don’t understand it so I guess I will just have to accept it.”
“There are things we have to accept too,” Colin said. “That machine. We have no idea how it works, we don’t even know who created it. My father discovered it in a village named Tranquility. The people there were using it for evil. They used it to control people’s minds. Our people adapted it to do good.”
Farren sighed. “We just have to trust your people I guess.”
“I trust them,” Tanni said. “Would you take this blindfold thing off me?”
Ida reached for the blindfold and removed it. “Now slowly open your eyes.”
Tanni opened her eyes and moved her head left and right.
“Do you feel anything?” Yuri said.
Tanni frowned. “No, nothing. I feel the same as I did before.”
“She’s still mentally blind,” Ida said.
Tanni moved her head again. “I feel something but it keeps changing, sort of like a dream that comes and goes.”
“That’s a start,” Ida said.
“Hold it!” Tanni said. “There is something, but I think it’s a smell, a very strange smell.”
“Ken’s feet,” Yuri laughed.
“Confusion,” Ida said. “Her brain is getting signals from her eyes but doesn’t know how to process them. It translates them into a smell. The perceptual error is called synesthesia and is a well known and treatable disorder.”
Ken reached out and touched Tanni on the nose. “Did you know that was coming?” he said.
“Yes,” Tanni said, “But I saw it coming with my ears.”
Ken slowly bent down trying not to make a sound and looked her in the eyes. Her eyes turned to meet his.
“Oh!” Tanni exclaimed in panic. “I feel something, I feel something. It’s, it’s, I don’t know what it is. It’s scaring me.”
Ida started to put the blindfold back on but Tanni brushed it away. “No, no, I’ve got to take control. I’ve got to understand it. What was the feeling, it was scary.”
“That was the visions of my face,” Ken said.
“Oh,” Tanni said then started to laugh.
Chapter 22
Levin street, downtown Carlisle, the largest city and capitol of the planet Casia was sparsely peopled as it always was on Mondays. The moving sidewalks were not moving as they were on other days. In attempts to cut costs, Monday was declared budget day. Public utilities and transport were reduced to the bare minimum.
The tremendous cost of modernization and expansion on the planet Cassia had taken its toll. In the past, newly terraformed planets were financially supported by either the Commonwealth or one of the planetary governments. At this time in the history of man, no one had the money. The maintenance of a massive space fleet which just sat and waited for an enemy attack which never came had drained the governments of all their excess cash.
“Look, dad,” Michael said as he stopped to peer through a showroom window. “They finally got in those antigravcycles. You know, the ones that can go off-grid and don’t need an electrostatic road base.”
“Yeah, but look at the price,” Jim sighed. “No way the average person here can afford one.”
“They can back on Batalavia.”
“Give it ten more years,” Jim said.
Michael glanced over his shoulder. “Dad, don’t look now but I think there’s two guys following us.”
Jim looked to one side and glanced back out of the corner of his eye. “I see them, and they do look quite suspicious. Speed up a little and we’ll see what they do.”
Jim and Michael increased the pace for a hundred meters trying to act as casual as they could.
Michael glanced over his shoulder again. “They speeded up too. Now I’m sure they’re following us.”
“We’ll try slowing the pace and see what they do.”
Jim and Michael slowed to a sedate stroll and pretended to brows the windows of the passing stores.
“They slowed too,” Michael said. “What’re we going to do? They look extremely disreputable.”
“There’s an alley up ahead. When I say go, run like hell and we’ll duck in there.”
After a few more paces, they broke into a run and ducked right into an alley.
“Look, an open door,” Jim said and pointed.
They sprinted through the door and shut it behind them. The smell of baking bread met their nostrils. A baker looked up from a large machine mixer.
“Jim,” the baker said. “What’re you doing here?”
“Just looking for a shortcut,” Jim replied in a casual manner. “Is there another door to this place?”
The baker pointed. “The loading dock is that way. It leads to Kenny lane.”
“Just one thing, if you wouldn’t mind,” Jim said as they walked past. “If someone asks if you’ve seen us, please say no.”
“Will do,” the baker chuckled. “Sounds like you’re running from the police.”
“Nope,” Jim said over his shoulder. “Just relatives who want to borrow money.”
They walked through a storeroom with racks of newly baked bread. A door on a far wall lead to a loading dock where two workmen stacked plastic trays of bread in a waiting van.
“Hey, Jim,” one workman said. “Care for a complementary sample?” He picked a loaf from a tray and handed it to Jim as he passed.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Jim said as he accepted the bread.
“It’s French baked,” the workman called after them. “Even the French can’t do that any more.”
“Maybe you can teach them,” Jim said.
“What for?” the workman laughed.
Jim and Michael slowed to a stroll again as they walked in the direction of another major street. Jim’s pocket buzzed.
“Aren’t you going to answer your pen phone?” Michael said.
“I know who it is,” Jim said.
Jim’s phone stopped buzzing and Michael’s started. Michael pulled it out of his pocket and looked at the readout on the side. “It’s Uncle Peter,” he said.
Jim took the phone from Michael. “Who is it?” he called into it.”
“Jim, you know who the hell it is,” Peter replied. “Stop playing games.”
“Jim’s not here, he
’s on the can. Can I take a message?”
“Very funny, very funny,” Peter said.
They rounded a corner and came face to face with two muscular men standing with their arms folded.
“How’d you find us?” Jim said.
One shook his head. “Agent Harvey was tracking your pen phones and shooting us the coordinates.”
“That’s cheating,” Michael laughed.
“Jim,” Peter said from the pen phone. “Would you cooperate and stop trying to outrun your security team?”
Jim turned to Michael. “Next time remind me to switch off our pen phones.”
“You should have a locator chip implant,” Peter said.
“I’m not going to have a computer chip shoved up my ass,” Jim said.
“It won’t be up your ass, just under your skin on your left arm,” Peter said.
“Back on Earth they only did that with dogs,” Jim said.
“All major political figures have them,” a security man said.
“See,” Jim laughed. “Same as Earth.”
“If you had a locator implant we could assign you a roboguard instead of a human security team,” Peter said.
“Some floating robotics device with mounted lasers following me?” Jim said. “That’d freak me out. Give me flashbacks to Earth sci-fi horror movies. The mad professor and his robotic killing machine.”
“Jim,” Peter said. “On Doris Island and on the Lydia you are under the protection of your own security system designed by the Montoyas. Wandering around Carlisle is a different matter.”
“I have security in the government complex,” Jim said.
“But not in the streets,” Peter said.
“I had to drop my strato off at Earl’s repair shop. The cargo bay door doesn’t shut properly.”
“Get someone else to do it,” Peter said. “Then have my team scan it for a bomb afterward.”
“Dad,” Michael said. “We gotta get going. The Planetary Cabinet public meeting is starting in twenty minutes.”
“Care for some bread, Frank,” Jim said, handing a security man the loaf of bread. “It’s French baked. I bet you can’t get that on Pellan.”
Victim of Circumstance (The Time Stone Trilogy Book 3) Page 25