"But why would they look in a database of people who aren't living?"
"That's what I was wondering." Jamie frowned. "Seems like kind of a leap of logic." She paused. "Unless they knew something about my story. About dying on this world."
A few moments passed before Zach made an awkward clearing-throat noise.
"Uh, well," he said. "I just remembered something. One of the things I told Nathan, my new friend, was that in this world you had died a few years ago in a car accident."
Damn. Jamie felt like slapping herself – or someone – upside the head.
"That information about parallel worlds and her dying in a car accident would've made a search a lot easier," said Tildie.
"I can see that - now," said Zachary. He added with a groan, "Damn, I'm sorry, J – " He cut himself off.
"I think they already know my name, Zachary." Muscles and other forces quivered up and down Jamie's body, itching for some form of action. "In fact, they're probably listening to us as we speak, given the way they do things here."
Zachary fell silent. Talk about a damper on a conversation, Jamie thought. A plan was coalescing in the maelstrom of her thoughts.
"Thanks for being honest with me," she said. "I'll check back with you later, Zach."
Jamie ended the connection and turned to Tildie. Anxiety was written in every contour of her friend's face.
"If they know about you and your family and Zach..."
"Yeah," said Jamie softly. "Chances are, they know about you, too. I'm sorry, Tildie."
"Is it time for me to start freaking out?"
"I doubt they'd do anything to you. They have my family. That would be enough if they decided to use them against me."
Tildie gulped. "Use them against you? How?"
"I'm not sure. That PLED business sounds suspicious." Jamie's eyes narrowed as she gazed past her friend toward the east. "Maybe I should ask Zach's new friend a few questions."
"SHE KNOWS who you are. So does your new friend."
Jack Brickman's words followed Nathan down Interstate 25 toward his now-vacant rental in Colorado Springs. Though his boss had spoken the words quietly, his mellow baritone had deepened into a demonic growl as it repeated in Nathan's head. Those words and an off-handed mention that the TADI (Track Anomalous Data Incursions) system had detected a possible "ping" on a search for his name through Darknet, which even the combined intelligence services of the world had failed to fully penetrate. That was all the convincing Nathan needed to drive in the opposite direction of his home in Denver.
He and Adrianna would officially be on leave for the next two to three days or until the situation with Jamie Shepherd had been "successfully resolved." His employers had no indication that Jamie knew anything about Adrianna, or that Jamie posed an actual physical threat, but had decided to err on the side of caution. Nate thought that was wise.
Driving south, the traffic thinned into mostly an afterthought. Nathan cranked up the Honda's stereo, playing a secret favorite: David Bowie's rock opera, 1984 In Springtime, based on the UK's headlong embrace of George Orwell's dystopian government. At first, he'd enjoyed the catchy tunes – some of Bowie's best, despite his self-proclaimed "senile dotage" – but lately he'd begun to appreciate the seditious edge to the lyrics and the whole satirical concept. Even as someone who'd made a career of spying on people, Nate couldn't escape the sense of spiraling so far down a rabbit hole that Orwell's 1984 might actually be regarded as quaint. He and very few people he knew were enthusiastic about fulfilling the dictates of the brave new surveillance state. They mostly saw it as a duty, as the least of several evils. A national disaster like Doomsday could never be permitted to repeat itself, regardless of how many compromises with individual privacy and freedom had to be made.
A thunder storm rolled in from the west, one of those sudden cataclysmic changes of weather that frequented central Colorado. Daylight dimmed to a grey twilight. Lightning snapped down on either side of the highway with orgiastic abandon. Some malevolent weather god started tossing buckets of water on his windshield.
He didn't see the semi-truck parked in his lane until the last instant – an ancient grey metal mammoth rising out of the mist. Nothing better to do than to whip his steering wheel to the right and pound the brakes – but all that accomplished was to throw his small car into a seventy MPH spin straight toward the truck. It didn't look good for continuing his career as a field operative and answering the mysteries that had just been thrust into his life.
As he braced himself for impact, speculating on how effective his side airbags would be, his spinning Honda seemed to achieve liftoff velocity. He no longer heard the squeal of tires or the roar of wind or the machine-gun staccato of rain. Nathan was sailing, dream-like, out over the fields adjacent to the freeway in a gentle, quiet bubble. Maybe he'd died from the impact and was on his way to the afterlife, despite being an agnostic. More likely he was unconscious, caught in some reverie state, his body horribly mangled, merely imagining the car's calm flight.
The car settled down in a field by an old, disintegrating shed. Nathan unbuckled his belt and turned slowly in his seat, hardly believing his eyes. The freeway was over a mile away. A long line of cars had slowed to a stop behind and around the stalled semi-truck – a few parked askew in the grassy meridian – emergency lights flashing.
The logic of what had just happened filtered slowly through Nate's dazed brain. He was close to arriving at what seemed to be the only answer when he noticed the blond woman – the logical conclusion to his jumbled thoughts – standing in the nearby crumbling shack's doorway, her arms folded across her chest and a cold smile on her face.
Nathan looked into her frosty blue eyes and saw no point in delaying the inevitable. It wasn't as if staying in his car would offer any protection. He popped the locks and eased his door open. He expected a blast of wind and rain, but weirdly, the air around him was dry and still. He noted another miracle when he stepped out: his precious Honda was untouched.
The woman uncrossed her arms and walked down to him. Nothing about her suggested "superwoman" to Nathan. She was a few inches shy of his six-one, moderate build, and a classic pretty-next-door face. Just a regular girl standing out in a field generating some form of force field that had transported his car a mile or two through the air.
"Thank you," he said. "I think you saved my life."
Her smile grew a little less cool. "I was planning to just follow you home. Then that truck suddenly stopped."
"Yeah. I completely missed it." He extended his hand. "I'm Nathan, by the way, though I'm guessing you know that."
"Jamie. Also guessing you know that."
"Yeah." Her hand felt a little like she was wearing a padded steel glove. "Though I'm not sure I thought you were real until now."
"It was that drone? Plus what Zachary told you?"
"Uh, right." He frowned. "Ah, Jamie, I'm sorry about the subterfuge. I hope you'll understand. I hope Zach does, too. He's a good guy."
"I can't speak for Zachary, but of course I understand. I'm a monstrous threat to your security. I would've been even if this country hadn't gone into its present national security state craze."
"Thank you for understanding that."
"But I'm a little concerned about the government involving my family and friends. I'd like to know exactly what was done with their PLEDs."
Nate blinked at her. "I'm not sure I follow. What happened with their PLEDs?"
"My father, husband, daughter, and Zachary were approached by TSA police telling them their PLEDs weren't working and they had to go to a clinic or whatever to get them replaced."
Nathan stood staring at her while the implications grudgingly sorted themselves out in his head. He'd heard rumor of devices being installed in detainees and certain criminals on probation that could incapacitate or even kill someone when triggered remotely. He hated to think that was the case here, but his government was understandably a bit paranoid in dealing with an indivi
dual possessing unknown powers. But why go to such an extreme? Merely knowing where her friends and family were would be enough, wouldn't it?
"You're awfully quiet." Jamie's voice had assumed an ominous edge.
"I had no knowledge of that, please believe me. Someone else made that decision and implemented it."
"I believe you. Do you know what was placed in their bodies?"
"No. Perhaps a device with amplified tracking."
"Or?" Jamie's eyes had grown cold again.
"Or..." Nathan coughed into one hand. "I could only guess. Medical implants isn't my field."
"Could they be devices that might hurt them?"
"Ah...well, I wouldn't want to assume that. I wouldn't want to believe they'd place devices in innocent people that could harm them."
"But it's possible they did that?"
Nathan took a long, painful swallow. "Uh, yes. It is possible."
"I would need those devices removed, whatever they are, before I enter into any form of negotiation with the U.S. Government."
"I can tell them that. And for what it's worth, I agree with you. But that decision isn't mine."
"I know. Just make it clear to them that's non-negotiable."
"I will."
Outside their bubble of tranquility, the storm was clearing and so was the traffic on the freeway as the semi-truck was hauled away.
"You're really here to save us from aliens?" Nate asked.
"That's the plan."
"Are you sure they're a threat here? This is a different world, after all."
"After talking with Brian Loving, I'm pretty sure. His experiences communicating with a higher power are identical to my world. I haven't physically confirmed the presence of an alien craft, yet. I'm still working on the right angle of approach."
"How did you approach it in your world?"
"We went through a teleportation portal in one of the Last Days' churches into a virtual reality world created within an alien ship. Eventually, we found a way to wake up. With the help of a sympathetic Elemental – one of a group of sympathetic Elementals – we were able to travel to the place where the aliens intending to harm our world lived. After some fighting, we managed to convince them to commute the death sentence."
Jamie noted Nathan's increasingly puzzled expression with a smile.
"In a nutshell," she added with a soft laugh.
"Some nutshell. Anyway, I'm just a grunt. You'll be talking to people a lot further up the totem pole from now on. But I appreciate you satisfying my curiosity. Once they take over, I'm sure I'll be out of the loop."
"Not if you're my official liaison with your government."
Nathan laughed, though nothing in her face suggested she was joking. "Thanks, Jamie, but I don't think my security clearance is quite up to that."
"Then they'll have to raise it. Unless you don't want to assume that role."
Nathan's smile grew uneasy. "To be honest, I'd like that. But I'm not sure the higher-ups will."
"I don't see them having much choice." She noted Nathan's shaking head. "I know, they won't like ceding authority. But I'm not really asking that much."
"True, but you'll have to sell them on an alliance against the Elementals. Without that, all you are to them is a threat they need to manage." Nathan winced. Did I just say too much? Whose side am I on, anyway?
"You see," said Jamie with a small grin, "that's why I want you. You're a decent person."
Nathan's first impulse was to say something self-deprecating, but her words filled a small void in him he wasn't aware he'd had.
"Thank you," he said.
Jamie let the force field around them deflate. A cool, moist breeze ruffled their clothes.
"What if they don't agree to your terms?" he asked. "What if they refuse to undo whatever they did with your people's PLEDs?"
Jamie stood beside him gazing at the highway and the parting clouds sprouting rays of orange-gold light. Shadows spread across her face, just as the thunder clouds had spread across the sky minutes before.
"I would be very unhappy," she said.
IF NATHAN had thought Adrianna was out of his league, the gentlemen and two not-so gentlewomen in the Situation Room were not even a part of his universe: Defense Secretary Burt Sanders, Chief of Staff Lance Allen, Doug Roberts, Director of National Intelligence, Vice President Molly Winters, DHS Secretary Jeb Keller, United States Space Command leader General William Akron, Secret Service Director, Angela Lincoln, and famous physicist and astronomer Jerome Whitehead, the administration's chief science advisor.
And then there was the President herself: barely five feet, her once slim body and face well into late middle-aged spread, her thinning grey-blond hair artfully arranged in wavelets over her head. From a distance she looked like someone's doughty grandmother. Or perhaps a female Julius Caesar. From seven feet away her blue eyes shone from her pasty white face an intense and unsettling light. At least Nathan felt unsettled – more by her than anyone else in the room. Those were the eyes who had tracked the ICBMs en route to North Korea and Iran – and the small, pudgy hands had signed executive orders imprisoning millions and launched the nation's security apparatus into hyperdrive. She was the crazy grandmother, Nate thought, who might gut you if you came too close and got on her bad side.
"In your opinion, Agent Andrews," Defense Secretary Burt Sanders addressed him, "is Jamie Shepherd someone who would commit violence against this government?"
Nathan attempted to gather his wits. "I don't think so, Secretary Sanders. She seems calm but determined. But if you harmed her family..."
"We have no intention of harming her family," said President Tomlinson. "As long she cooperates with our government."
"Yes, Madame President." Nate thought he probably should leave it at that, but the natural question felt irresistible. "What would she need to do to be cooperative? You're not saying you'd punish her friends and family for her actions...are you?"
"I have not said that, Agent Andrews." Her eyes drilled into him. "By cooperation, I mean the obvious: follow our laws. We are a society of laws, and no one is above them – even a superwoman who allegedly hailed from another universe."
The other occupants of the room examined the walls or their cufflinks in the brief silence that followed.
"Did you have anything further to add, Agent Andrews?"
"I'm, uh, wondering about the implants, Madame President." He shifted his eyes away from her sharp gaze. "She did make removing them from her friends and family a condition of, well, cooperating with us."
"And I could reply that her cooperating with us is a condition of them continuing to breathe." The President smiled at Nathan's expression. "But I won't. You can tell her that we will discuss that issue along with many others in our face-to-face meeting. You might also mention that any attempt to remove the implants will trigger the activation of their, shall we say, special features. Tell her that a deactivation code beamed into the implant's computer chip is required for safe removal. Also, any attempt to block our connection will result in activation of aforesaid special features."
Nathan rubbed his throat, feeling suddenly sickly.
"It's conceivable that she could remove or destroy them with her telekinetic abilities," said Professor Whitehead, sounding hopeful.
"I believe that if she was capable of that she would've already done it." President Tomlinson returned her chilly gaze to Nathan. "Any further thoughts, Agent Andrews?"
"No, Ma'am."
"Then I want to thank you for coming. We appreciate your input. We'll contact you when we're ready to meet with Ms. Shepherd. And Agent Andrews?"
Nathan paused in rising. "Yes, Ma'am?"
"To reiterate: anything discussed in this room is top secret. You are not to speak to anyone about anything that is said here without strict authorization. That includes your immediate superiors at DHS and most especially your new friend, Ms. Shepherd."
"I understand, President Tomlinson."
"Good."
Nathan stood up with a slight bow and walked out with a Secret Service agent with the firm sense things weren't headed in an amicable direction in the Situation Room.
When the door closed behind Nathan, the officials straightened up in their chairs and adjusted their sleeves, the intensity in the room rising a level. Now that Jamie Shepherd's designated eyes and ears was gone, it was time to go to work.
"Jerry," said the President to her chief science advisor, "do you have any theoretical explanation for her psychokinetic abilities, or any sense of just how powerful they are?"
Professor Jerome Whitehead stretched his folded hands out onto the table, smiling and nodding as if he relished contemplating those questions. With his mane of wavy white hair, cherubic features, and lips pursed in evident eternal amusement, the Professor precisely matched his television image from his longstanding and critically praised documentary series, The Restless Universe. As he'd said so often, "Science is the pure joy of a child playing in a sandlot."
"We're in uncharted waters here," said the scientist, his smile spreading as though that pleased him. "First of all, the evidence to this point – and the basic logic of physics – precludes the possibility of telekinesis. That is to say that it is not compatible with the laws of physics as we know them."
"What about the laws of physics as we don't know them?" asked Chief of Staff Lance Allen, a slight burr of impatience if not disdain in his voice.
Professor Whitehead chuckled. "A clever way of asking that question, General Allen. If I were to speculate, I would say that Jamie Shepherd's source of power is drawn from other dimensions. A multitude of them, perhaps. That's assuming she's organic. If she's an android, then force at a distance could be generated through far more conventional means – electrical fields, anti-gravity, or nanites, for example. Her power source could be nuclear, zero point, or other."
"Which would represent the greater threat, in your opinion?" asked Defense Secretary Sanders. "Android or natural?"
"That's purely speculative, of course. A sufficiently advanced android could be armored, from my admittedly limited knowledge of robot technology, to withstand conventional weapons or explosives. You'll need to talk to my esteemed colleague from DARPA." He nodded to the slim, coolly smiling man sitting a few seats down from the President. "My gut instinct is that a natural being might present a greater threat."
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