“I discovered that Ceo Lenz has had his Science Advisor, Dr. Calvin Rios, researching a defensive screen of sorts,” she continued. “I’d actually spoken to Dr. Rios the other day, and knew he was working on something for CnC, but until this morning, I didn’t know what that was. The system they’re researching is designed to detect incoming craft or missiles, then use a particle beam to add enough energy to the detection field to actually disable or destroy the object.”
Lambert and Thompson’s faces screwed up, and they looked at each other. Thompson turned back to Kris and said, “Can that work? Doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard of.”
“It’s apparently experimental,” Kris explained. “They mentioned Tranquil, as well… it may be something they are also working on. At any rate, Dr. Rios has apparently made enough progress on it to convince Lenz to order all the sciences section facilities devoted to constructing the defensive system, asap.”
“So, they have a defensive screen,” Thompson nodded. “Or, they think they do.”
Kris nodded. “Exactly. But there’s more. There was significant push-back from Coo Hardy and the head of the sciences section, Dr. Jacqueline Silver. They have been working on an experimental project of their own, which they were apparently keeping hidden from Lenz and Eo Luis. This secret project was essentially a freight project. This part will no doubt sound silly,” Kris said apologetically, “but they seem to be working on a way to molecularly disassemble solid objects, send them to a location via a com beam or something, and reassemble them at the other location.”
“What?” Lambert said, clearly perplexed. Thompson gave her a similar look.
“Like a Brane-Boy transporter,” Kris said simply.
Lambert’s eyes fairly popped out of his head. Thompson coughed out a laugh. “No yeah!”
“Oh, yes,” Kris nodded, “and that’s not the best part. Not only have they actually pulled it off in limited tests—”
“Are you serious?” Thompson barked, his laugh instantly gone.
“—but they have realized that the system has another use: To transport bombs and missiles.”
“Merde,” Lambert uttered.
“At this point,” Kris went on, “Lenz ordered the project immediately shut down. He ordered all staff to be diverted onto developing the defensive screen. Including Silver and her transporter project.”
This seemed to bring a bit of calm to Lambert’s eye, but there was still a hint of concern there. Thompson voiced his concern. “They did that in front of you?”
“Yes.”
“Is there any chance that they waited until after you left, then ordered the project restarted?”
“Yes, there is always that possibility,” Kris said honestly. “However, one of the reasons I do my job so well is my ability to read people. I’ve spent enough time around CnC, and with Hardy and Lenz, to know that they do not have any interest in developing offensive weaponry, much less turning it on anyone. Ceo Lenz in particular wanted me to be aware of his desire to be open and above-board with your office. I believe he is being completely sincere.” Even as she said the last, she considered the trouble she’d had in reading Ceo Lenz. But she reassured herself that she had read him clearly on this, and did not need to couch her opinion.
Lambert considered Kris’ report silently for a moment, before turning to Thompson. “What do you think?”
“Mmm,” Thompson begun, scratching his chin in thought. “I think Lenz is as concerned with avoiding cutting off his lifeline with Earth as he is of protecting Verdant. That’s a good thing, and something we may be able to work with. On the other hand, if this transporter thing can actually work… it could be a formidable first-strike weapon. I don’t think that’s something we can ignore.” He looked at Kris. “This is all still experimental?”
“Apparently,” Kris replied.
“Then I think there’s no question,” Thompson said. “We have to act in the interest of national security.”
“Sir?” Kris said.
“You’re right,” Lambert nodded, a strange light in his eyes. “We can’t allow them to develop this potentially devastating weapon. It would violate their U.N. charter. We have to take action.”
“Action?” Kris repeated. “Mister President, they haven’t done anything to take action against.”
“And we’re going to make sure it stays that way,” Thompson said, reaching for the com in his pocket. “The Qing incident will be the perfect justification.”
“Agreed,” Lambert said, triggering the com on his desk. “Albert?” Kris recognized the name of the head of security on the compound. “This is the President. Put us under code orange, effective immediately.” He cut off the connection, then opened another. “Open an encrypted channel to Denver,” he ordered.
“Fawkes,” Thompson said, standing up and bringing Kris to her feet. “You’re to go back to CnC. You’re going to be our direct liaison during the occupation.”
“Occupation?” Kris goggled.
“Yes, occupation,” Thompson nodded impatiently, taking Kris by the arm and starting her for the door. “We are going to annex Verdant under the U.S. flag—”
“But… we can’t do that!” Kris protested. “We don’t have authority! We can’t demonstrate a credible threat! The U.N. won’t allow it!”
“Let us worry about that,” Thompson said simply. “In the meantime, you have direct authority from the President’s office to act as you see fit to aid in the securing of Verdant CnC, including the assassination of its command officers and staff as needed.”
“What! I’m no—”
“Now, get going!”
The door slammed, almost before Kris realized she was already on the other side of it. She stopped and stared at the door, at the muted voices she could hear inside, and her mouth hung open as she tried to imagine what they were discussing.
“Miss Fawkes?”
Kris started at the sound of the aide’s voice. When Kris jumped, the aide jumped as well, then said, “What’s wrong?”
Kris started to answer, but her imagination was running away with her. “Oh, God,” was all she could finally manage to say, before she turned and rushed out of the Presidential offices. She extracted her com and tried to dial the number she’d been given to reach CnC. For the first time in her memory, she heard instead the tone that indicated a busy circuit. She stared at the com stupidly for a moment… then increased her pace across the office towards the landing, and the stairs to the first floor level.
She reached down and plucked the high heels from her feet, allowing her to take the stairs two at a time. Then she veered into the diplomatic offices, sliding comically on stocking feet, and arrowing to a wall of drawers. She found a drawer with her name on a small tag, and yanked it open, revealing various small personal items that included a pair of shoes that were much more sensible than her heels. Even as sensible as the shoes were, they were still styled and colored so as not to seriously clash with her immaculately-tailored suit. She slipped the sensible shoes on, deposited her heels in the drawer, then turned and bolted out of the offices.
She ran outside, crossed the compound, and waved at the security guard to open the gate as she approached. Fortunately, the guard recognized her from a distance, and no alarms had been spread from inside, so he had no reason not to start the gate open. Kris ran through when the gate was just wide enough to admit a person twice her size, and without a backward glance, she dashed for the tram terminal down the road from the park.
~
On the Presidential floor, Enu Thompson watched the video feed the security guard at the gate had sent him, showing Kris Fawkes dashing through the barely-open gate. “Thank you, Flagg,” he said, and closed the com connection. Then, after a moment, he opened a new connection.
“Lambert.”
“Enu. I don’t think Fawkes is on our side anymore.”
“Sorry to hear that. Inform the staff, then. Tell them that they are not to take any orders from
Fawkes if they encounter her. Her diplomatic credentials and immunity are hereby revoked.”
“Understood.”
20: Panicking
Calvin was glad to leave lab twenty, once he was sure that Dr. Fiennes had a satisfactory understanding of the field equations that would control the emitters. Fiennes had been easy to work with, in fact, being able to understand what Calvin, with his limited knowledge of the quantum-level states of the equations themselves, was trying to communicate to him. Between the two of them, they had managed to knock out the misunderstandings and come to a meeting of the minds. However, two of Fiennes’ staff had apparently been working very hard on their last project, and as it turned out, the interruption of that project meant a great deal of their extensive work would have to be redone from scratch. This left those two in a noticeably terse mood, and getting any assistance from them had been like pulling particularly sharp and venomous teeth. Fiennes promised to keep them both properly focused, however, so Calvin took his first opportunity to remove himself.
On his way towards Dr. Silver’s office, his com beeped with his wife’s code. “Hi, Maria,” he answered. “What’s up?”
“I’ve been listening to the news all day,” his wife replied. “Have you spoken to Erin?”
Calvin blinked hard to get past the non-sequitur. “Uh, no. Why?”
“Because I can’t get in touch with her! She left for school this morning, but I’ve been trying to reach her, and I keep getting full circuit messages! It took me forever to reach you!”
“Well…” Calvin had to stop and think about the strangeness of what he was hearing. “She went to school?” Of course she did… no one had declared an emergency on Verdant… “Then why are you trying to call her?”
“Honey, you haven’t been listening to the news, have you?”
“No, I’ve been pretty busy.”
“There are riots breaking out everywhere on Earth,” Maria explained. “Wherever that ash cloud goes, people are panicking. And now—” (There was a break in the signal, causing Calvin to look at his com in alarm. That almost never happened. The entire satellite must be trying to call each other at once. Then the signal came back.) “—say U.S. armed forces are ‘initiating routine training exercises!’ You know what they mean when they say that! They all want to come up to the satellites, Cal! They want to come, whether they’re welcome or not!”
“Yeah, I know that,” Calvin replied. “That’s what I’m in sciences working on…”
“I don’t think it’s safe here,” Maria stated. “I think we’re going to be invaded.”
“Don’t worry, honey,” Calvin soothed her. “If we know they’re coming, we can take steps to—”
“How can we stop them?” Maria snapped. “We can’t keep them out! Cal, if there’s fighting, I don’t want to die in space!”
“Honey! No one’s going to die!”
“I want to see Earth again. I want to see the Earth I remember, before it’s all gone! Honey, can we go home?”
“We are—” Calvin paused, to collect his thoughts. Maria had a penchant for panicking unnecessarily about the smallest issue… and this one, to her credit, was hardly small. Moreover, she had a mild heart condition, a congenital flaw, which could be exacerbated if she got too excited. “Maria, I want you to calm down. Verdant is not under attack. Erin’s safe at school. The circuits are busy because of too many people panicking over the newsfeeds and stuffing the lines… they’ll open up, probably soon.”
A long pause at the other end of the line. Just when Calvin thought they’d been cut off, he heard, “—Are you sure Erin’s at school?”
“Of course,” Calvin said. “Where else would she be?”
“I’m going to go get her out.”
“Maria, no. Leave her there. She’s fine there. Just wait for her to get home after school.”
“When are you coming home, Cal?”
Calvin looked about and shrugged to himself. “I don’t know. Soon, hopefully.”
“Please come home soon, Cal. I want my family together if something happens.”
“Nothing’s going to happen, honey. Stay cool. I’ll be home as soon as I can. I’ll call you if something holds me up. All right?”
“…”
“Love you, honey. See you soon!”
“I love you, baby. Hurry home!”
Calvin closed the circuit, and increased his pace for Dr. Silver’s office. He thought it was a good idea to see if any other offices needed further assistance from him, or if there were any other questions he could answer for Silver. Then, perhaps, he could go home to calm his excitable wife…
~
“I love you baby. Hurry home!” Maria closed the circuit, put down the com, and wrung her hands nervously. How can he be so calm… I can’t find my daughter! Of course she knew Erin was supposed to be in school… but the school so often took the students out, on field trips to various offices and parks and other parts of Verdant… she could not get in touch with her now… which meant that she could be anywhere. And if she were caught in the middle of a gang of crazies that managed to secretly board Verdant, hell-bent on taking it over…
She felt a double-bump in her chest, and her eyes popped in alarm. She knew what that meant: Her excitement was aggravating her heart, and it had a tendency to race when that happened. It was something she’d had since childhood, and had never been able to fix (not that the doctors couldn’t, but it would require invasive methods and pacemakers that she wanted nothing to do with), and usually had no recourse but to lie down for anything from thirty minutes to a few hours, waiting until her heart remembered how to beat normally again.
But she waited, and it did not double-pump again. It seemed to be behaving itself. Thank God, she thought, I have enough to worry about with Erin and Cal, if I had to worry about me, too! Making an effort to move unhurriedly, she retrieved a light jacket, and headed for the door. She would just go and collect Erin from school, or find out where she was, and bring her home. She’d certainly be back before Cal, who was likely to be gone all day, knowing him. At least, she’d have her daughter home where it was safe!
~
When Calvin reached Dr. Silver’s office, he started to announce himself, when the automated voice in the inner chamber said: “Doctor Silver is not in her office. Would you care to leave a message?”
Calvin was taken aback, and stopped in his tracks. “Where is she now? Can you contact her?”
“She is elsewhere in the sciences section,” the voice replied. “If you care to leave a message, I will forward it to her.”
“Well… yes. Tell her Dr. Rios asked her to call me if I can provide any further assistance with the new project.”
“Message received. Thank you, Dr. Rios.”
And that was it. Calvin paused another moment, before remembering Maria, and finally turned to go. He said, “Thank you,” over his shoulder.
“You’re welcome, Dr. Rios.”
Once he was out in the hallway, however, he had a change of heart, and decided it made more sense to see if he could find out her whereabouts from someone else on staff. So he turned and headed back into the sciences section, occasionally asking someone he passed if they knew where he could find Dr. Silver. Always the exchange was the same: “Have you tried her office?” “Yes, she’s not there.” “Did you leave a message?” “Yes.” “Then she should get back to you directly. She always does.” Occasionally, the response was a more rude variation of the theme, but essentially the same… in fact, he only received one “No!” from an engineer who blustered past him, almost striking him in the shoulder as he passed (and Calvin was sure he’d swerved at the last moment, trying to hit him).
Finally, Calvin rounded a corner, and saw Lin Sen Chiu approaching from the other direction. Chiu saw him at the same moment, and nodded a greeting. “Hello, Dr. Rios.”
“Hi, uh… Mr. Chiu. Or is it doctor?”
“No, it’s mister, all right,” Chiu smiled. “I’m
just an administrator. You can call me Lin.”
“Ah,” Calvin nodded, realizing he probably hadn’t heard his first name before. “I was looking for Dr. Silver, in case anyone else needed my help.”
“Yes, I know,” Chiu said. “I was with her when she got your message. She wanted me to tell you that everything is well in-hand for now. We’ll give you a call if we need anything, but for now, if you have other business to tend to, feel free.”
“Well…”
“You look flustered, Doctor,” Chiu confided in him. “What’s bothering you?”
“Well,” Calvin repeated. “It’s just my wife, the news outside has got her a bit stressed…”
“Oh, Doctor,” Chiu said quickly, raising open hands and giving him that is this a question? look. “Go ahead. See to your wife. We have things under control here. Go ahead!”
Calvin finally nodded. “Okay. Remember, if you need anything—”
“We know who to call,” Chiu smiled, waving him off amiably. “Good afternoon, Doctor.”
“See you later.”
Calvin headed out of the sciences section, glad that Silver and Chiu were on top of things for the moment. Hopefully he could make sure Maria and Erin were okay, then keep tabs on Silver’s department as long as they might need him—”
“Cal?”
Calvin turned to see Valeria coming out of a nearby break room. She had a small platter of fruit and a cup of some steaming liquid on it. “Hi, Val,” he said. At that moment, it occurred to him for the very first time how odd it would have been if they had become a couple; people might have referred to them as “Cal and Val” everywhere they went. CalVal?
“Didn’t know you were still here,” Valeria said, stopping to look at him.
“Yeah,” Calvin replied, “I just came out of assisting in one lab, but it sounds like no one else needs me right now…”
“Actually,” Valeria said at once, “I could use you. Do you have a few minutes?”
“Uh… sure,” Calvin replied, shrugging. “What do you need?”
“Well, I need help with an equation Jacqueline gave me,” Valeria said as Calvin approached, and they started off in the direction of her lab. “There are some tricky variables she needs solved—well, I guess I should say, you need solved,” she amended. “And they’re giving me problems.”
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