Mykl examined the plane more carefully. The windows were intact and crystal clear. And he noticed a slight shimmer where the outline of the fuselage met the sky. Without taking his eyes off the plane, Mykl asked, “What color will it be when we land?”
“Whatever color it needs to be,” Jack replied.
The plane’s interior was a clean modern cabin. Mykl had never been in a plane before but thought it odd that handholds should be mounted on every seat and along the full length of the ceiling. Thick padding insulated the walls against the whistling winds outside. He could actually hear his footsteps compressing the dense carpet.
An attendant offered to stow his duffel. He reluctantly relinquished it, figuring it wouldn’t be too terribly hard to make an excuse to reacquire it if he needed to. But when she asked if he would like to stow the bear, he gave her a look that let her know not to ask again.
“We don’t have your seat configured yet, Mykl, but they have accommodations for you in the cockpit,” said the attendant.
Configured? Mykl examined the seats. Each had a multipoint harness with a connecting hub, but they were clearly designed for adult bodies. The hub would rest right over his face. Evidently, non-frozen children were a rarity on this flight. But with luck, perhaps they would at least have ice cream.
In the cockpit, Jack patted a jump seat beside him, behind the pilot. A lap belt served as the seat’s lone safety measure.
“Is this enough?” Mykl asked. “The other seats have a lot more belts.”
“We aren’t going to be setting any speed records today,” Jack said. “Make sure to hang on to Stinker if things get bumpy.”
“Where are we going?” Mykl asked. He doubted Jack would tell him anything, but it didn’t hurt to try.
“A safe place with a view,” Jack said.
Above ground. Possibly a remote mountaintop. Those were the first things that came to Mykl’s mind.
“How long is it going to take to get there?” he asked.
“Two days.”
Two days? Mykl deflated; he was tempted to initiate a toddler meltdown. The fastest plane on the planet, and it was going to take two days to get to their destination? If it were up to him, he would vote for setting a new speed record. But it wasn’t up to him, and he would have to be patient. Too bad he didn’t have any of James’s knots to untie.
A pressure on his eardrums coincided with a thump from the outside cabin area. “Doors secure,” the attendant reported.
The pilot flipped a few switches, and the plane’s front wheel slowly crunched and bumped along the brittle asphalt to the end of the runway. Mykl sensed an ever-increasing rumbling vibration through his seat. Then another problem occurred to him.
“If the satellites can see this area, won’t they notice a plane missing? Or flying?”
“We control the satellite feeds. All the satellite feeds. And radar, laser, and nonvisible wave frequencies. The only means of detecting us right now is from high-powered optics using visible wavelengths. As it is, we’re just a plain old plane,” Jack said.
Mykl narrowed his eyes at Jack. “For how long?”
“A few minutes after takeoff. Then we’ll start color-morphing to blend in with the sky.”
Mykl nodded. That was a much better answer than he’d expected.
The plane made a turn and suddenly thrust forward. Stinker was pressed into Mykl’s chest. The roar of the engines, combined with the muffled sound of air shrieking past them, brought a smile to Mykl’s face. He watched in amazement as the ground blurred and sped away.
Then the nose of the plane lifted, and blue sky filled the windshield. One final bump, and they leapt from the earth. Mykl’s heart pounded in his chest. I want to do that again!
Instead of changing course away from the boneyard as he’d expected, the plane kept flying in a tight spiral, ever upward. He couldn’t see anything but a darkening sky and an occasional flash of sunlight through the cockpit windows. How much altitude did they need before they could safely depart to this mystery place?
Up. Up. Up. The sky turned inky black. The pilot killed the engines and flipped other switches. Still they rose. Mykl craned his neck to see out the windows better. Stars began to appear. His weight gradually disappeared. Then it dawned on him: they weren’t climbing for safety; they were climbing with a purpose—to reach space.
“Are we going to a space station?” Mykl asked in awe.
“You could call it that,” Jack said. “Show him,” he said to the pilot.
The plane leveled out, putting them into full weightlessness. Mykl swallowed, glad to not have eaten anything in the last few hours. The pilot slowly rolled the plane and pivoted it so the Earth filled the windshield.
Mykl experienced a sense of déjà vu. I’ve seen this view before. Only it was a toy globe. This is real.
He tore his eyes away from the view. “I still don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t see any space station. Is it color-morphed too?”
“That’s beyond even our technology at the moment,” Jack said. He nodded to the pilot, and the plane swiveled once again. A much less colorful spectacle reflected light through the windshield. In his surprise, Mykl’s mouth formed a circle, like the heavily cratered celestial body framed before them.
“That’s no space station!” he exclaimed. “Wait—why are you laughing?”
CHAPTER 52
A deadly-looking black helicopter, bristling with turrets and missile pods, greeted Jessica as she stepped into the sunlight. Two men in full battle gear jumped out and landed lightly on their feet. Feeling unsure, Jessica held her ground as the armed men jogged toward her. When they got close enough, she recognized these men: they were the same ones who had arrested her at the accelerator facility.
Outwardly, she wore a cool blank expression. Inside, her panicked thoughts ran wild. They’re going to recognize me. How do I explain my reappearance?
“Good afternoon, Miss Stafford,” the first man said, shaking her hand while flashing a shy smile. The other one took her still-outstretched hand and greeted her the same.
Jessica stared, only then realizing that they were identical twins. She hadn’t made the connection before because of the duress they put her under.
“You two are…”
The first one helped her out by saying, “We’re with Jack.” The second one added, “Have been for quite some time.”
“I’m Robert,” the first one said.
“And I’m William. Jack affectionately calls us Billybob.”
Jessica blinked in acknowledgement, still too flabbergasted to speak. These two had terrified her when they first met, and now here they were, babbling on like old friends reunited.
“Normally we make bets between ourselves as to who will pass the test or not,” Robert said.
“But in your case, neither of us wanted to bet against you,” said William.
“We knew you would make it,” said Billybob admiringly.
They had just paid her one of the highest compliments she had ever been given. “Thank you,” she said meekly.
“It is now our honor to accompany you on your first mission,” said Robert.
“If you will please join us in the helicopter, Miss Stafford?” asked William.
These two men were acting as her protectors. She blamed the dust whipped up by the rotor blades for the moisture in her eyes.
When they were airborne, she asked them how they had come to know Jack. Robert said Jack rescued them ages ago when they were very young. She asked how long ago that was, and William responded by tapping a finger along the side of his nose in the age-old gesture meaning: “Don’t ask what you already know.” She left it at that.
They circled in for a landing in a spot that had nothing but stunted bushes and drab sand for miles. Robert and William hopped out the moment they touched down.
“This is your next pickup point, Miss Stafford,” said Robert as they helped her out.
“Jessica,” she said. “Ca
ll me Jessica.”
They both flashed bright smiles.
When her feet touched the ground, she knew it wasn’t desert soil underneath her but rather a high-resolution camouflage pad, hard as concrete. Even this close, its edges blended seamlessly with the natural landscape.
They moved her to the outer boundary of the pad.
“Your ride is ten minutes out,” said William. “And I guarantee that no one on that helicopter is an agent. They’re private contractors who cater to high-end clientele in need of discreet transportation. We have agents at the hotel, but you are not to seek them out. They will initiate contact with you, if needed, or if things change. The stage is yours.”
“Good luck,” they both said in unison, and they gave her a sharp salute before reboarding their helicopter.
With an arm outstretched in farewell, she wanted to yell, “Wait,” but could think of nothing to justify it except a visceral fear of not wanting to be left alone in the middle of nowhere.
The thumping sound of the rotating blades faded away, and the helicopter became a barely discernable speck. She waited in silence. A silence so profound that she heard nothing but her heartbeat.
She turned in a circle, taking in her surroundings. The scent of sage weighed heavy in the air from rotor-washed bushes nearby. On a rock, a jittery lizard with a black-and-white-striped tail executed pushups in a territorial display. Jessica smiled, seeing that she wasn’t alone after all.
She kept a constant scan of the southern horizon, expecting her ride to come from the direction of Las Vegas. Instead, a glint of reflected sunlight appeared in the west. The growing helicopter generated more of a refined humming sound than the aggressive thumping of the military version. Its elegant lines and smooth white finish looked more suited to the shape of a limousine. It landed lightly as far from her as the pad allowed, probably so as not to blast her with rotor wash.
A door on the side slid open, then a short section of steps was lowered and a bolt of red carpet unrolled from the bottom step. Two men and a woman in formal attire approached her at a fast walk. The woman looked like she should be modeling on a catwalk, and her flouncing strides hinted that she might have once done so. The men, a step behind and working to keep pace, carried trays.
The three of them stopped a short distance from Jessica and made respectful bows.
“I hope we haven’t kept you waiting, Miss Stafford?” The woman had a foreign accent that Jessica couldn’t identify.
The man to her left offered her a warm moist towel from his tray. “To wipe the dust kicked up from our landing, ma’am,” he said.
The other man served her a tall glass of cold water. “We also have champagne on board if you would prefer?”
Jessica had never experienced such deferential treatment before. But Jack had advised her to play her role, and it was about time she started.
She dabbed her face with the towel and tossed it back into the man’s chest. “Water will be fine,” she said, accepting the glass. After a tiny sip, she commanded, “Take me to my hotel,” and left them all to follow in her wake to the red carpet. While he hadn’t said so in such crude terms, Jack had suggested she act like a haughty bitch. That attitude had never appealed to her in the past, but it was proving entertaining nevertheless.
The interior of the helicopter had been partitioned like a limousine, affording her a peaceful space all to herself, where she was reminded of the sobering reality of her mission. She still harbored anger at being used to start a global war—and she decided to channel those feelings into her role. Had Jack planned that as well? Could he orchestrate and manipulate people so precisely?
She hoped he could. The alternative was a world on fire.
Cool twilight had fallen before their westward arcing flight path brought them to the glittering treasure box of the Las Vegas valley. A straight course would have been appreciably faster, but that would have taken them over restricted airspace, and following interstate freeways would have put them in constant view of Joe Public. This company apparently took its promise of discretion and privacy very seriously.
A minor congregation of hotel security and concierge staff formed a welcome line on the top of the hotel. Jessica was courteously passed off to the hotel’s finest and was safely inside the executive elevator before the helicopter took off again. Sharp-dressed hotel representatives advised her that this elevator served only the top two levels, and her encrypted key could override it even in emergency fire control mode. A perk for the wealthy with helicopters, who could afford their own means of rescue or escape. It would not, however, allow her access to the penthouse.
As the elevator began its brief descent, a bespectacled young man with a bean counter aura said, “A hotel account has been set up for you in advance of your arrival, and funds for your credit line were wired to us this morning.” He offered Jessica a tablet with her information. “If you will sign on the ‘X’ and initial for your room, it will activate your keys and debit your first month of tenancy.”
Jessica took the pad. One whole month. Maybe Jack received a government discount? She read the value of her credit line and had to keep recounting the zeros to be sure she was seeing things correctly. Eight zeros, not counting the decimal places. One hundred million dollars.
She forced herself to breathe normally as she signed. Her breath caught again at the cost of her room. Three million for the month. She initialed quickly and returned the tablet before anyone noticed her hands shaking.
“Thank you, Miss Stafford. Now for your key. Would you like card, ring, pin, or indelible?”
She suffered a long history of losing things and being a bit of a klutz. Trying to remember a pin number in an emergency was akin to flipping a light switch during a power failure. “Indelible, please?” she asked, and cringed inwardly for being so polite. She needed more practice at being a bitch.
She held out her left arm. The bean counter placed a portable indeliprinter on the inside of her wrist and triggered it. The cool spray of indelible electromagnetic ink pattered against her sensitive skin. He removed the device, and she examined the printed area. A perfect color match. Only the slight sheen of drying ink gave it away, and even that rapidly dissipated, leaving no visible trace of the key allowing her access to the casino, her room, and her millions.
She held out her other wrist.
“Both?” he asked.
“Don’t make me ask. Just do it!” she said irritably. “I wouldn’t want to spill my wine while trying to open a door, now would I?”
He printed her other wrist. “And what wine would you like brought to you, ma’am?”
“The best you’ve got!” she said, not knowing a thing about wine.
“As you wish. You are in Suite 9902, any of the four doors on your right. The second is the main entry. The suite comprising the other half of your floor is currently unoccupied, should you wish to procure that as well. Please don’t hesitate to ask if we may be of further assistance.”
She was hastening down the wide, opulent hallway before he’d even finished his spiel. A flick of her right hand over her shoulder was the only acknowledgement she gave him.
She fought the urge to escape into the first door she came across, proceeding to the main entry, which sported intricately carved ten-foot-high double doors of fine walnut. She presented her wrist to the scanner. It clicked from red to green. The door pushed open easily.
Lights came on automatically, flooding a living space larger than she had ever seen. Lacking the energy to explore her temporary home, she flopped face-first into the soft cushions of the closest oversized couch. Limbs carelessly sprawled out, she let out a sigh and closed her eyes to the panoramic city view streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows.
That first test had been easy compared to this. All she had to do before was be herself and do the right thing. Now she had to light a fuse—the consequences of which could extinguish every light in the city, and far beyond.
She buried her face
in her arms. The fuse can wait ten minutes. I need a nap.
CHAPTER 53
Tom slammed his foot on the brake, and his ambulance shuddered to a staccato stop as the antilock braking mechanism kicked in. A full cup of hot coffee clattered and splattered at his feet.
“That little turd goblin! I swear that’s the same kid from the other night!” he complained halfheartedly, then chuckled at the wet mess under his shoes.
“You know,” his partner said, “I’ve noticed that you don’t get nearly as bent out of shape as most others do. Why is that?”
“Well. It’s kinda like you’ve said before. Job security.”
“There’s more to it though, isn’t there?” his partner asked, prying for a deeper answer.
Tom tossed a large wad of napkins on the floor mat and began shifting them around with his feet. “Yes. There’s more.” He drove the ambulance out of the travel lane and popped out the air brake switch. “I used to think we were working against Darwin. We save people from their own stupidity, which enables them to keep breeding.”
“You don’t think that anymore?”
“Oh, we still save stupid people, always will, but by saving them, they educate others, through their escapades, what not to do. Take that drunk driver who killed a kid last week. It would have been so easy to claim I couldn’t establish an airway and let the man die in the back of my ambulance. An eye for an eye. He killed a kid, right? No one would care. But—if he lives… If he learns his lesson because of his experience, and influences one other person not to drive drunk—well, that may be one other kid I save by proxy.”
“What about the addicts?”
“What about ’em? We’ve saved more people from overdoses than I care to count. As far as I’m concerned, the addicts are volunteer test subjects for our medicines. The reason we save so many is because our antidotes work so well, thanks to their eagerness to test them. Don’t get me wrong: it’s not saving the addicts that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. It’s the person who mistakenly took too much medicine or the child who discovered a bottle of pills that the addicts benefit most. Without the addicts as test subjects, I don’t think our stuff would work near as well.
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