Xn

by Clint Townsend

  “Man, that was close!” Titan declared with a sigh, falling back against the wall.

  “I told ya. Just act normal like you’re supposed to be doin’ what you’re doin’ and people will leave you alone. Okay, twenty-two minutes left. Where to?”

  “I don’t care. I don’t even know what’s here.”

  “Well, if they’re setup is anything like ours on fifteen, then they’ll have education, cafeteria, living quarters, R&D….”

  Before Armada could finish his statement, the elevator suddenly came to life and quickly ascended.

  “What’d you do? Where are we going?”

  “I didn’t do a thing! How am I supposed to know where we’re going when I never touched a button?”

  The twin brothers continued their bickering until they felt the elevator slow down then come to a complete stop. Armada and Titan stood frozen, temporarily unable to move or speak as they waited for the doors to part.

  A bell lightly chimed and a female voice pleasantly stated, “Sixteen J, Research and Development.”

  The stainless steel doors parted and the two men were shocked to be standing face to face with their female counterpart. Like scared children on the first day of school, the trio gawked at each other, waiting for somebody else to take the initiative and begin the communication process. The elevator doors, sensing no movement in the cab, automatically began to close. Armada and Titan stood in total silence and moved only their eyes as the stranger disappeared from view. The bell lightly chimed once more and again the voice pleasantly stated, “Sixteen J, Research and Development,” and the doors parted.

  The woman, unmoved, shifted her gaze back and forth, looking over both of the twins. She slowly stepped in the elevator, just far enough inside so as to allow the doors to close behind her and turned away. Armada and Titan remained statuesque, focusing on the physical attributes of the beautiful passenger. Her face was mere inches away from the elevator wall when she sheepishly said, “Sixteen X, please.” Armada ever so slowly reached out his right hand and pressed the buttons as she requested.

  “You know you’re not supposed to be here,” the woman delicately commented.

  Titan slapped Armada on his left arm. Armada slapped him back.

  After another uncomfortable moment of silence passed, she said, “My name is Chloe. Chloe Rover Seven.”

  CHAPTER 8

  BIG BROTHER

  “What are you doing?” Chloe nervously asked.

  “That’s exactly what I asked not ten minutes ago,” Titan complained. “He started messing with our time stamps, zone authorizations and access codes, and now were talking to you. C’mon, Armada, quit clownin’ around. Someone’s gonna catch us.”

  Armada acted as if he hadn’t heard a word as he diligently typed away on the tilt-out keyboard.

  “What’s on Sixteen X?” Armada casually asked.

  “Advanced Genetics. Why?” Chloe replied.

  “Who issued your pass and who are you scheduled to meet?”

  “Albright issued and White is expecting me.”

  “How old are you?” Titan shyly inquired.

  “I’m one year, two months, and ten days, thank you, and I’m getting the results of my final tests today.”

  “I’m two years and eleven months,” Titan proudly declared.

  “What kind of tests?” Armada pressed.

  “Tests to determine if I qualify for a third application.”

  “I already began my third application program,” Armada volunteered, pushing the keyboard into the control panel. “What are your primary and secondary applications?”

  “What’s yours?”

  “I asked first.”

  “Mine are communications and sanitation,” Titan awkwardly boasted.

  “Satellite telemetry and digital security and encryption,” Armada stated, crossing his arms.

  “Subterranean excavation and structural engineering,” Chloe replied, crossing her arms as well.

  “Why don’t we drop her off and we can all get to our designated appointments on time. Okay?” Titan jovially suggested.

  “Not okay. And the third application?” Armada probed.

  “I told you I don’t know yet. That’s what I’m to be discussing with Dr. White in a manner of minutes.”

  “My third application program is propulsion systems.”

  “I want a third,” Titan mumbled.

  Chloe and Armada quietly held each other in their gaze an extra second or two.

  “All right, enough is enough. What are you doing to us?” Titan exclaimed, raising his voice.

  “Well, for starters, our schedules got pushed back,” Armada flatly stated.

  “What?” Titan exclaimed.

  “Okay, you two. I want off this elevator now!” Chloe demanded.

  “Calm down … just relax and don’t get yourselves worked up. I’ve got it all planned out.”

  “What’d you do now?” Titan asked.

  “We … us three … have an extra hour to explore. The arrival time for our interviews and evaluations has changed to three o’clock instead of two. All three of our zone authorizations and access codes have been expanded. And the video monitor in the elevator is running on a sixty-second loop from over one hour ago when this cab was empty.”

  Chloe and Titan glared at Armada with incredulity.

  “You guys should be thanking me right about now,” Armada pointed out.

  Titan and Chloe remained transfixed on Armada, unable to overcome the shock and amazement at his actions.

  “Okay, where to now?” Armada asked nonchalantly, running his fingers over the buttons on the control panel.

  “I don’t care. What does it matter? I’ve been kidnapped,” Chloe complained.

  “Not to change the subject and detract from our little jaunt, but what’s that?” Titan quizzed Chloe, pointing to a device hanging from her right hip in what looked like a large, modified holster.

  “What? This thing?”

  “Yeah, that thing. Looks like a tablet.”

  “All right, we’re going to … Fifteen G. I’ve yet to see the medical facilities,” Armada blurted, pressing the buttons.

  “Oh, goody. Well, since you asked—this, boys, is the L-Gen,” Chloe confidently stated as she removed the device from its cradle and handed it to Armada. The heavy tablet-shaped device was just over twelve inches in length, around six inches wide, and no more than two inches thick.

  “L-Gen, meaning…,” Titan prodded.

  “Laser Resonance Frequency Generator.”

  “Like Tesla?” Armada asked.

  “Better than Tesla. He designed and built a steam-powered oscillating generator. This uses waves focused in a laser beam, pulsing at a rate of 32,000 cycles per second with a penetration depth of 40 feet.”

  “Fascinating!” Armada commented.

  Titan had the look of a fazed deer staring at a pair of headlights.

  “Will you please explain to my friend, in English, what this device does?” Armada requested and backhanded Titan’s chest.

  Chloe chuckled softly as she reached out to take the L-Gen from Armada. As she did, her fingers lightly brushed the back of his hand.

  “If I were at a location, say a quarry or a mine, I could walk all over the place, aim this lens on the end and push … this button here on the corner, and wherever I am, whatever direction the L-Gen is pointing, the laser shoots out and penetrates what I’m aiming at … up to forty feet deep.”

  Chloe directed her attention to Armada as she spoke and watched him as he looked her up and down. Titan, oblivious of the immediate connection between Chloe and Armada, was lost in the details and design of the fabulous toy he held in his hands.

  “And in about thirty seconds, the laser will detect the minerals that are in that location. Tesla theorized that everything vibrated when a certain sound wave was produced and amplified. So gold ore vibrates at a specific frequency, coal, copper—you name it—everything has a resonate frequ
ency. This goes through a very broad and expansive range of frequencies and wave forms and can successfully identify no less than seventy compounds.

  “So just push this button right here?” Titan asked Chloe while pressing down.

  “Yes, but don’t….”

  A bright green beam of light flashed out of the L-Gen lens and struck Armada on his left shoulder.

  “What’re you doing? Ya idiot!” Armada snarled.

  “What? I’m sorry! That was an accident!”

  “Hey! Hey! It’s all right. It’s completely harmless, just so long as you don’t aim it at anyone’s eyes.”

  Chloe took possession of the L-Gen while the brothers perpetuated their argument.

  “Way to go! You could have blinded me!”

  “Well, I didn’t so don’t be such a big….”

  The confrontation was ended by a sudden ping of Chloe’s device.

  “Ah-ha!” she exclaimed. “Let’s see what Armada’s made of!”

  “Oh, now you’re the funny one?”

  “I like her,” Titan sneered as the men stood on either side of Chloe, trying to interpret the information on the display screen of the L-Gen.

  “Well?” Armada asked.

  “Uh … this is … strange.”

  “What does it say? What’s in Armada?”

  “This says you have platinum, silver, silicon, copper….”

  “That doesn’t sound right,” Armada commented.

  “Ha! You’re a cell phone,” Titan guffawed.

  “Shut up!”

  The trio were so consumed with the results of the impromptu scan of Armada that they failed to realize their destination was fast approaching. When the elevator stopped, a friendly female voice interrupted the threesome, saying, “Fifteen G, Emergency Medical Services.”

  The doors parted quietly and smoothly. Chloe and the twins dared not move a muscle for several seconds. When he realized no one was waiting to board the elevator, Armada ducked back against the wall with the control panel. Chloe and Titan leapt backwards to join him.

  “Are you having fun yet?” Armada whispered with a smirk.

  “See?! I told you not to mess around! Now Wyczthack will quarantine all three of us!”

  “I’m never gonna get my third application now! All because of you two morons!” Chloe hissed.

  “Me? What’d I do?”

  “How about you two shut up so I can think!” Armada demanded.

  Armada squatted low then gingerly crept to the threshold and poked his head around the open elevator door. He turned to his left and saw only a long corridor of office doors. To his right was a department directory with arrows pointing in different directions.

  “Follow me and keep low.”

  “Where are we going?” Titan whispered.

  “Just trust me and don’t say a word.”

  “If I don’t get my…,” Chloe threatened.

  “I know! Your application! I know, I know! I get it! Follow me.”

  Armada led the way with Chloe sandwiched in between the brothers. They stayed close to the wall and scurried down the right side of the corridor to a set of electric double doors marking the entrance to the radiology department. Armada swiped the identity card on his lanyard and was given immediate access.

  “Why did you take us to radiology?” Chloe hissed.

  “I don’t care where we go, but we can’t very well sit in an elevator and wait to be discovered.”

  Armada reached for the doorknob of the first office he came to and gave it a jiggle.

  Locked.

  Before Armada had the chance to release the knob, it suddenly twisted in his hand and the door to the office quickly swung open. Two Engenechem employees exited the room and marched purposefully down the hall, away from the cowering trio. Armada extended his arm to stop the door from closing. He turned to Chloe and Titan, jerked his head to the left, and cautiously entered the room.

  Once inside, Armada slowly rose from his crouched position and surveyed the area.

  “Keep quiet,” he said, motioning for them to follow.

  Armada determined they were in a waiting room for one of several radiologists. However, thankfully, at that particular moment there was no sign of a receptionist. They waddled to the doorway leading to the radiology lab and delicately pushed it open. Once it was established that they were truly alone, Chloe broke the silence.

  “I can’t believe this is happening to me!”

  “All right, scan me again,” Armada ordered as they erected themselves.

  “What? You’ve kidnapped me and derailed my confirmation and you want me to scan you?”

  “C’mon, Armada! Let’s make a plan, get her off our back, and….”

  “Whoa! Hold on! Get me off of YOUR back? What? Now I’m slowing you down?”

  “Look! Just scan me again and we’ll put you right back where we found you. Okay?” Armada sweetly suggested.

  Chloe looked over the inept twin assailants.

  “Just a scan?” she confirmed.

  “That’s it. All you have to do is aim and shoot.”

  “C’mon! Just scan him before we get caught. He’ll take you right back to … to…,” Titan impatiently begged.

  “Sixteen J.”

  “Sixteen J. We’ll put you right back where we found you on Sixteen J. Tell her, Armada, and let’s get outta here.”

  “Sixteen J, just like the man said,” Armada softly assured.

  Once again Chloe looked over the brothers, drew in a deep, cleansing breath, and released it with a sad shake of her head.

  “Okay,” she said, removing the L-Gen from its holster, “one scan coming right up.”

  Chloe moved a few feet away, took careful aim at Armada’s left shoulder, and gently pressed the button on the corner. The bright, fluorescent green laser beam flashed out onto Armada’s jumpsuit. In a matter of seconds, the L-Gen beeped and the LED screen lit up. The three runaways stared at the illuminated display as Chloe read the results.

  “It’s the same as before. Platinum, silver, silicon, copper….”

  “Your gizmo is out of whack!”

  “It is not! This has been field tested by Phelps-Dodge at the copper mines in Morenci. They tried it out in Kentucky and Virginia at the coal mines. They….”

  “I don’t care who tested when with what in the big whatever where,” Armada snapped.

  “Okay, she scanned you and it’s jacked up. Big deal! C’mon, let’s go!” Titan anxiously urged.

  “The L-Gen isn’t wrong. I helped with its original design. Maybe you had some kind of surgery or broke a bone … I don’t know.”

  Armada, having passed beyond the point of frustration, unzipped his jumpsuit and began pulling his sleeves off his arms.

  “Geez, you two! Drop it already.”

  Chloe’s eyes grew as large as saucers watching Armada remove the torso of his jumpsuit and undershirt.

  “Do you two see any scars?” Armada gruffly asked. “Deformities? Abnormalities?”

  He stepped toward Chloe, grasped her left hand, and placed it on his shoulder as he turned away from her.

  “Now! Does anything feel strange to you?”

  Delicately running her index and middle finger across his left shoulder, Chloe softly rubbed from side to side. After a couple of swipes she stopped and repeated the process on his right shoulder.

  “What? What’s wrong? Why’d you stop?” Armada nervously asked, looking over his shoulder.

  “Titan, come here please. Do something for me.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Hey! What’re you doing?”

  “Shut up, you big baby,” Chloe said with a slight slap to the back of Armada’s head.

  “Rub your fingers right here and the same on the right,” Chloe directed.

  Titan did as he was instructed, going back and forth between the two shoulders.

  “You feel it?”

  “What? C’mon, feel what?” Armada asked.
>
  “Yeah. Yeah, I can feel the difference. She’s right, Armada. You got something in you.”

  “That’s impossible! I’ve never broken a bone, never had surgery … never been sick, for that matter!”

  “I’m telling you, we can feel it. There’s something in you.”

  Chloe resumed rubbing her fingers on his left shoulder.

  “I can’t tell if it’s in your trapezius or levator scapulae. It’s right in between. Maybe something happened when you were younger and just don’t remember it?”

  “I’d remember it if I had surgery,” Armada angrily stated, pulling his shirt over his head.

  Titan looked at the clock on the office wall.

  “Let’s worry about this later. Okay? We gotta be on Seventeen G and she’s gotta be on Sixteen J in forty minutes.”

  Armada briefly leaned against the counter.

  “Can I see that thing for a moment?” he pleasantly requested.

  Silently, Chloe again removed the L-Gen and handed it to Armada. He indiscriminately looked over the toy, then quickly aimed it at Chloe and fired the laser.

  “Hey! What’d you do that for?”

  “What’s wrong with you? It’s not her fault you have whatever in your shoulder!”

  The L-Gen pinged and the display screen began listing the results of the scan.

  “Read it and tell me what it says,” Armada demanded, handing the device back to Chloe.

  “Platinum, silver, silicon, copper….”

  Before she could finish her statement, Armada yanked the scanner from her hands, directed the lens at Titan, and fired the laser. Chloe stood in awkward silence as Armada slapped the resonance generator in her hands. Once again the scanner beeped and the machine displayed its results.

  “Read it!” Armada ordered.

  Chloe’s voice cracked as she started speaking “Platinum….”

  “Platinum, silver, silicon, copper, aluminum,” Armada loudly finished for Chloe. “All right, unzip your jumpsuits.”

  With expressions resembling those of chastised children, Chloe and Titan slowly peeled off their jumpsuit sleeves.

  “Show me where,” Armada demanded, grabbed Chloe’s hand, and placed it on Titan’s left shoulder.

  She slowly slid her fingers across the trapezius and levator scapulae muscles until she identified the exact location of the foreign object.