Bridgebuilders

by Marlene Dotterer

  “Don’t tell them about me.” Moira blinked back sudden tears. She was so bloody tired. “You can try to hint about the rebels, but don’t let on anything about me. Please.”

  “I agree. I told him nothing about you other than that you needed a doctor and a safe place to stay.” He moved to her side and patted her shoulder. “They don’t need details about anything. Pete will talk to his leaders and get back to me tomorrow.”

  Relief warred with Moira’s worry, but she managed a small smile. “That’s good. If you trust him, then I’m sure he’ll be careful.” She handed him her cup. “I’ll eat more in a little while. I think I’ll take some meds now.”

  He traded her soup for a patch from the medkit. “Do you feel up to some more work?”

  “Yes. What did you learn?”

  He sat on the bed and reached for her Pad. “May I? I’ll have to recreate it from memory.”

  She nodded and he took the Pad, calling up a blank screen. “I had to sign several confidentiality statements, and I couldn’t bring anything out with me. So if you’re ever questioned, you don’t know anything about this, right?”

  “Ignorance is my middle name.”

  He chuckled. “You wish. As it turns out, Sun has been tracking neutrino behavior world-wide. The only unusual activity has been right here, but there’s been more of it than you and I saw. They’ve been suppressing it, just as we suspected.”

  “You mean there have been more wormholes?”

  “Yes.” He worked while he talked, writing with urgent strokes. “Several, in fact, over the last three months. The origin seems to be outside our own universe.” He stopped and glanced up at her, his face solemn. “I know how farfetched that sounds. But the woman I worked with today, Dr. Warner, assures me it’s true. They aren’t giving me all the details, of course. But starting tomorrow, I’m going to work with someone who knows all about it. I’m supposed to assist him with part of the project.”

  Moira realized she was holding her breath. “To do what?”

  “Don’t know.” He flipped the Pad, holding it out to her. “Have a look at it. While you’re doing that, I’ll work on recreating the rest of what I saw today. It’s amazing stuff.”

  It was amazing, and Moira lost herself as she analyzed it, forgetting about her pain, and even the combined awkwardness and forbidden thrill of being in a hotel room with Andy Green. He described more of what he’d seen, and all that Dr. Warner had told him. Moira stroked the data further with each new piece of information, watching the patterns.

  After two hours, Andy stopped her. “You need to try and eat more, then rest. You can look at this tomorrow, while I’m at work.”

  She nodded, but didn’t relinquish the Pad. “I will. But this is really weird, Andy.”

  “You mean, besides the obvious weird?”

  She heard the teasing lilt, but didn’t respond to it. She could hardly get enough breath to say what she thought the data revealed. “There’s no doubt it’s an Einstein Bridge. But ... I think something came through it.”

  Andy stared at her in silent astonishment. She shook her head. “No, wait. I don’t mean something came through. I mean, someone. Two human beings crossed between universes. And they are here in Belfast. Somewhere.”

  ~~~

  After leaving Andy, Pete drove a lazy route to a warehouse on a dark street. The warehouse was the home of a legitimate delivery business, which Pete was not interested in. In the cavernous central room, he settled in front of an isolated computer and scanned the chip Dinnie Warner had given him the night before.

  Hours later, he was joined by a skinny Irish-Chinese fellow, who took one look at the holographic data, raised both eyebrows, and began pacing behind Pete’s chair.

  A short time later, Pete sighed, and turned to face him. “Hell of a thing.”

  “Is it legit?”

  “I suspect so.”

  “Can your friend help us?”

  “This is his bloody field, Ned.” Pete rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He told me as much as he knew about what he would be doing at Sun. It’s definitely this project, but he didn’t seem to know anything about travelers.”

  “What did you tell him to do?” Ned pulled a chair over to Pete’s desk and straddled it.

  “His job, but to keep his eyes and ears open. To tell me everything he learns and anything he suspects.”

  Ned nodded. “Good.”

  “Should I tell him about Warner? They can work together.”

  “No feckin’ way.” Ned pounded a fist on the table. “They’re both amateurs. They’d just get each other killed.” He stood to leave. “Make arrangements to pick up your friend’s girl tomorrow. You’re sure he’ll cooperate?”

  “Andy keeps his word. You’ll see.”

  “He’d better. That girl’s his collateral.”

  ~~~

  Dinnie Warner slouched in her favorite chair, shivering in the cold air of her flat. It was possible that some of the shivering was a result of the computer chip she held. Another fecking chip. She turned the thing over and over with her fingers, as if keeping it in motion absolved her of any crime of possession.

  It was from her brother, delivered all unwittingly by their mum, who was waiting with tea and sandwiches when Dinnie got home. “He stopped by for just twenty minutes,” her mum said in answer to Dinnie’s surprised questions. Dinnie stood by her tiny fridge in quiet resignation, as her mother finished scrubbing the cutting board with bicarbonate of soda. Her mum always cleaned the cutting board, no matter how often Dinnie insisted she never used it. “Said one of his unit mates was killed in a training accident, and he’d been assigned to pay the army’s respects to the lad’s family. He’s already left to go back.”

  Mrs. Warner gave the cutting board a violent shove with the scrubbing wool, gouging a strip of wood off as she muttered something about “the almighty Sun army couldn’t even let a boy have dinner with his mum once they’d sent him to town.” Dinnie thought it wise to stay silent, and after a frustrated “pfft!” her mum continued. “He said to give you that wee box.” She jerked her chin at an old Tupperware container on the kitchen table. “Said you’d know what to do with it.”

  An interminable hour later, her mum had finally gone home, and Dinnie sat with the box’s contents on her lap. A deck of cards, three old American coins, and a wee plastic decoder ring like they used to play with when they were kids. The chip had been in the ring’s secret compartment.

  Dinnie turned it over and over, and tried to understand. To her knowledge, Billy Warner was a loyal minion in Sun’s occupational army, deployed to assist in operations at the Galway spaceport. The chip hinted at subterfuge. Dinnie admitted the thought frightened her.

  No, she wasn’t shivering from the cold.

  Moving quickly in case she might change her mind, she grabbed her Pad and shoved the chip into the port. For two slow seconds, nothing happened, then the screen lit up to display a document. Brows knitting together in confusion, Dinnie thumbed through the file. Cargo manifests. Page after page of them. What the hell?

  But soon she began to see the pattern. The cargo was for the space station, delivered over a period of several months. This kind of thing conceivably fell within Billy’s job description. But each manifest was altered, and the original work order was displayed alongside it.

  Dinnie no longer shivered, having passed into terrified numbness. Each manifest showed a small amount of explosive material, hidden among innocuous cargo, and deleted from the official record. Each original order carried the approval signature of Albert Feldman. The official record was revised to show the signature of Ned O’M ..., something that ended in a scribble.

  Ned O’Malley, the infamous rebel leader? Why would Mr. Feldman smuggle explosives up to NISS using O’Malley’s name? It looked like a setup.

  Did it have anything to do with Sam Altair?

  Don’t be daft, she told herself. Why would it?

  Perhaps the explosives were part o
f Sun’s planned defense in case of interdimensional invasion. But in that case, why smuggle them aboard? Albert Feldman did not need to explain himself. If he wanted explosives stored on the station, he had only to say so.

  Yet here he was, smuggling, and framing someone else for the deed. And her own dear brother had evidently not been recruited heart and soul into Sun’s paradigm. He wanted her to do what he had no opportunity to do: give the information to the rebels.

  Bloody hell.

  She wasn’t excited about another conversation with Phil and Pitcher Bloke. She couldn’t tell them what the explosives meant, only that it was happening. Billy didn’t know about the complication of time travelers, of course, but she couldn’t shake the idea that the two things were related.

  Dinnie’s neck itched with her jumpy nerves. She ejected the chip and hid it back in its ring, her mind chewing on the clues and questions she had. She would wait. Keep her eyes and ears open for a hint of whatever Feldman was up to. Tomorrow, Andy Green was supposed to start working with Sam Altair. She’d read up on Andy Green and was impressed. After meeting him, she was even more so. He could make neutrinos dance and sing if he wanted to.

  Although she was sure that whatever Albert Feldman wanted from Sam Altair and Andy Green, dancing neutrinos were not part of it.

  Chapter 22

  During the night, a late storm off the Atlantic met up with a high-pressure area moving down from Scotland, drenching Northern Ireland in a powerful rainfall. Andy, wrapped in a blanket on the floor, woke to darkness punctuated by near-constant flashes of lightening, and howling winds throwing rain against the window above him. A distant moaning alarm told him that the Irish Sea had once again breached the levees built inland against it. The sound was low in the register, indicating that for now, it was just a leak.

  A fainter signal brought his attention into the room, and he scooped his Pad from the floor where he’d dropped it when he fell asleep. The message alert showed a text from Pete, and he tapped it open, hopeful and anxious about what it would say. Whatever it was, it would be in a code of some sort. Pete would never send real information over the web.

  Good to see you again, mate. Congrats on the job at Sun. You’ll have to tell me everything you’re learning. You know I’m jealous. Karen says she’d be happy to show your friend around uni. She’ll meet her at two in front of the Lanyon Building.

  Andy had been holding his breath, but now he let it out in quiet relief. The rebels would take Moira. The fact that Pete expected to hear everything Andy learned at Sun was a small price to pay.

  He glanced over at Moira, still asleep on the bed. She was little more than a dark shape on the bed, but he could see that she faced him, curled on her side, the blankets pulled to her chin. Her hair fell over her face, and he had to resist the urge to go over and smooth it back.

  They had talked long into the night, after her discovery that humans had entered their world from another universe, trying to fathom the meaning of it. He still felt a thread of disbelief. How could such a thing be true? Moira was inexperienced. Surely, she was misinterpreting the data. True, her explanation seemed fool-proof, and he could see the logic of her path. But he was inexperienced, as well. They had to be wrong.

  He shivered, thinking about the neutrinos. They were altered from their usual state, proving a multi-state ability. He didn’t know if that was a result of the bridge-building, or if they had somehow been altered first, to make them useable for the bridge.

  He shook his head. Questions. He had nothing but questions. After a glance out the window into the darkness of the storm, he turned and quietly slipped into the loo to dress. He’d wake Moira before he left to make sure she understood how and where to meet Karen. Then he would go to work. If the answers existed at all, he’d find them at Sun.

  ~~~

  Sam woke to a dark room. As had happened every morning since his capture, his hand searched the empty spot beside him, looking for Sarah. Like every other morning, he drew his hand back, afraid.

  A low, continuous moaning forced itself into his awareness. It sounded like a fog horn. He wondered if the building was close to the harbor, and realized that here was a clue to where he was. He didn’t know how it would help, but knowing anything was better than knowing nothing.

  He was finishing his breakfast tea later, when his door opened and a guard came in, followed by a blonde woman. Her short, spiked hair and black leathers reminded him of biker chicks back home. She bounced on her toes with nervous energy, but dark circles under her eyes made him think she wasn’t sleeping much.

  She held out a stiff hand and spoke in a quick staccato. “Good morning. I’m Dinnie Warner. If you’ll come with me, I’ll escort you to your lab.”

  He took his time reaching to shake her hand, looking her over with cold disdain. “You don’t seem to see anything odd about my need for an escort?” he asked. “Do you people always keep your scientists locked up and under guard?”

  “You’d be surprised, Dr. Altair,” she said, turning to the door. He had to admit, he was surprised. He’d expected her to prevaricate.

  He followed her out, the guard a few steps behind him. “What is that moaning sound?” he asked as he caught up with her. “It’s been going on for an hour or more.”

  “Levee breech.” She walked as fast as she talked, her black boots tapping a refrain on the hallway floor. “Happens once in a while, but all the people have moved inland, so it’s just a matter of repair.”

  “Inland? Do you mean levees against the sea?”

  “Of course.” She glanced at him, puzzled, then her face cleared. “Your world is a hundred years behind ours, isn’t it? Climate change isn’t as advanced there.”

  He remembered the vids brought back by his probes. “We’d noticed the sea was further inland than in our time. I didn’t realize it was still rising.”

  “It is.” Warner ushered him into a lift, stepping in after the guard, who ignored their chatter. “The North Pole is completely thawed, but there’s still some ice at the South Pole that’s melting. The Gulf Stream has been effectively shut off for twenty-five years, which is why it’s so cold here. That cold reacts with hotter atmosphere flowing from the west and south, creating massive storms. The sea continues to rise, and all the storms drive it inland, too.”

  Sam shuddered. “The original Altair suggested this was possible. I’m sorry to see it’s come to pass.”

  She shrugged. “We’re living with it.”

  Sam looked away, struck by a sudden thought. Are they hoping to take over our world if their own becomes uninhabitable? Is that what’s behind Feldman’s actions?

  Not that Sam felt he could attribute any altruism to Feldman. His plan was probably to send over the elite of their population, and let everyone else die off.

  Warner seemed willing to let the conversation lag. When the lift stopped, she dashed out, leaving the guard to make sure Sam followed. They caught up with her outside double doors with a sign that declared this was “Lab 3B.” The sign was partially blocked by another guard, who seemed appropriately burly. At Dinnie’s gesture, he opened the door and stood aside to let them pass. Dinnie held out an arm, indicating that Sam should enter.

  The first thing he saw was his own portable CERBO, still in its case, on a nearby counter. He forced himself not to rush over to grab it. He’d never get anywhere with it, not with two guards behind him. So he directed his gaze around the room, a typical laboratory with a hood, sink, and cabinets on the far end, and long tables creating rows down the middle. The room boasted two scanning tunneling microscopes, one each on tables to his left and right.

  He turned to Warner, raising his eyebrows in question.

  She mirrored his look. “Mr. Feldman says that you already know your assignment. Everything you need should be here. If not, just let your guard know and I’ll take care of it.”

  “What I need,” Sam said, “is to be allowed to return home. With Miss Andrews, and with my equipment.” />
  Warner sighed, and Sam thought he detected a flicker of sympathy in her downturned mouth. “Just follow your instructions, Dr. Altair. You’ll have an assistant, who should be here soon. He doesn’t know who you are, by the way. He’s only seen a little of what happened when you came through. I’m sure you’ll appreciate the need to limit knowledge of your work.”

  Sam nodded. “I do, but if I’m going to accomplish anything, I’ll need an assistant who knows what we’re doing.”

  “It’s up to you, of course,” she said, turning to the door. “I’ll collect him shortly and let you have time to find your way around the lab.”

  ~~~

  The levee-breech sirens had shut off by the time Andy waved his new security badge at the entrance to Sun Consortium HQ. Dinnie Warner was waiting for him on the third floor. She made no effort to chat, and he glanced at her profile as he followed her down the hallway. Her tight jaw, and shadows under her eyes indicated a rough night. He wondered if it had anything to do with people from another universe, but he hadn’t figured out a way of broaching his suspicions.

  Dinnie stopped in front of a sealed door, an alert guard standing next to it. She turned to Andy, her expression empty of emotion. “You’ll be working in here. There’s a guard inside as well. Remember all those nondisclosure forms you signed?”

  He raised an eyebrow and nodded, more uneasy than ever.

  “The presence and identity of your coworker is top secret information. Once you enter this lab, there’s no turning back.”

  She had to see how nervous he was. This was one reason he never wanted to get too involved with the rebels. He didn’t have the stomach for it. But Moira was counting on him. He gestured to the door, inviting Dinnie to open it. She did, and he followed her in.