Supersymmetry

by David Walton

  Ryan leaped up in a rage and attacked. He didn’t have his eyejack interface, but he had always known this confrontation was possible. He had prepared a panic button, a literal button on his personal Higgs projector that would blow everything near him into constituent atoms and teleport him to a safe, predetermined location. He reached into his pocket and pressed the button five times in quick succession and then held it down.

  Nothing happened.

  Jean shook her head and gave him a patronizing smile. “I’m sorry. I took the liberty of toasting your projector the moment I stepped into the room.”

  Then the worst thing of all happened. The varcolac left him.

  “Goodbye, Ryan. Next time you make a deal, keep your end of the bargain.”

  Ryan started to panic. It was slipping away. It was leaving with her, choosing her instead of him. He couldn’t feel the energy and clarity of its mind anymore. He felt clumsy and slow, barely able to hold a coherent thought. It was as if his neurons were firing through molasses. At first he thought he was dying, but then he realized: this is what it’s like to be human. It was his normal state. He had always thought of himself as brilliant, but now, having tasted what it was like to be a varcolac . . . it was like the crash after an amphetamine. All he could think about was how to get it back.

  “Don’t . . . go,” he managed.

  Jean laughed and shook her head. “Oh, Ryan,” she said. “It was never about you at all.” She saluted him with his projectors and then disappeared.

  Alex teleported into the High Energy Lab to see Ryan staring off into space with a grief-stricken expression on his face.

  “I need two more Higgs projectors,” she said.

  Ryan’s eyes wandered slowly over to her. Then he started to giggle.

  “What’s so funny?”

  Ryan waved his hands helplessly, his giggle turning into a manic laugh, though his lips were turned down, making it look more like he was crying.

  Alex grabbed his arm and shook him. “Hey! Stop it. What’s wrong with you?”

  He got himself under control, wiping tears from his eyes. “You want Higgs projectors,” he said bitterly. “Everyone wants Higgs projectors.”

  Alex studied his face. “Who else was here?” she asked.

  “Well, let me see,” Ryan said. He ticked off on chubby fingers. “First off was Babington and some military guy. A colonel, I think they said. Lots of colors right here.” He patted his chest. “They wanted all my projectors. All of them! Saw the demo and said they were needed for the war effort in Europe; no time to waste.”

  With a pang, Alex thought of Tequila Williams and the team at Lockheed Martin. Some of them were probably heading to Europe right now with those projectors, to train the troops on how to use them. She thought of her brother Sean as well, on some secret mission somewhere. If war was starting, would he be on the front lines? Would he live to come home?

  Ryan touched his second finger. “Next, Jean Massey was here, and guess what she wanted? All my Higgs projectors. I had no choice—”

  “Wait, you saw Jean Massey? She came here?” Alex asked. She looked around as if Jean might jump out from behind the furniture.

  “She took all the projectors I’d kept back from the military,” Ryan said. “I don’t have any left.”

  “Why did she take them? She already had Sandra’s,” Alex said.

  “She wants to sell them.”

  “What, on auction?”

  “To the Turks.”

  Alex stared at him. “How did she even know to come here?”

  “She’s a smart woman. She figured it out.”

  “But she got here before I did. It must have been the first place she came from the prison. Even if she knew who you were from reading the news, this building is classified. How did she find you?” Alex crossed her arms. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Ryan looked up at her with haunted eyes. “I don’t have any more projectors. Go away.”

  “That can’t be true,” Alex said. “You’re all about safety. Redundancy. You wouldn’t have put them all in one place.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s all over now. It chose her. It left me for her.”

  “What did?” Alex said. She didn’t understand what he was talking about. He looked like he was overcome by grief. Had he been abandoned by some lover? Though she had a hard time imagining Ryan Oronzi having a lover in the first place. A crazy thought occurred to her. She remembered some of the odd comments Ryan had made in the past. “Are you talking about . . . the varcolac?”

  “It left me,” Ryan said. “It’s all over. I was going to be the One, but now it’s gone.”

  Alex shook her head, trying to understand. The varcolac had made several attempts to kill them. Ryan, though not terribly helpful, had given her advance warning of its attacks. She stared into the mesmerizing laser display of the wormhole, letting its shifting patterns calm her. This man was probably crazy, but she needed him. She took a deep breath and turned back to face him. He stared down at her shoes.

  “Look at me,” Alex said.

  His eyes flicked up to meet hers, but just as quickly wandered away.

  “You’re telling me that the varcolac is with Jean,” she said. “In Turkey.”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s—what—its ally? Its slave?”

  “It wants to refine the human race. To raise us to its level, maybe even incorporate us into itself. That means stripping away inefficiency.” He turned his head away. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “And Jean is going to help it . . . strip away inefficiency? By prompting armies to kill each other?”

  Ryan shrugged. “Is that so terrible? They want to kill each other, let them do it.”

  “My brother is there,” Alex said.

  Ryan made no response. He stared at the floor, morose or belligerent, she couldn’t tell which.

  “Look,” she said. “I intend to go find Jean and the varcolac and destroy them. To do that, I need at least two more projectors, which I know you have. I also need to know anything you know, or any ideas you might have, about how to kill it.”

  Ryan was quiet, staring at the floor. “I’ll help you, under one condition.”

  Alex crossed her arms. “And what condition is that?”

  “That you let me come with you.”

  Alex and Ryan teleported back to Jefferson Hospital to find Angel still sitting in the waiting room.

  “She’s sedated. They said she had a subdermal hematoma—bleeding inside her brain,” Angel said. “They actually drilled a hole in her skull to let out the blood. Some girls have all the luck.”

  “You call that luck?” Alex said.

  “Sure. Best I ever had was my tonsils taken out. For the rest of her life, Sandra gets to say, ‘Oh yeah, well I had a hole drilled in my skull.’ She wins, like, every conversation.”

  “You’re a weird guy, you know that?” Alex said. Then she glanced at Ryan, and added, “But in the best way.”

  Angel grinned. “Did you find any more Higgs projectors?”

  “Ryan had some stashed away. But we also found out that the varcolac is in Turkey.” She explained what Ryan had told her about Jean and the varcolac’s apparent goal.

  “So it’s going to facilitate a world war in order to eradicate humanity?” Angel asked.

  “Yeah. Let’s hear you joke about that.”

  “Well, it will make the lines shorter on Black Friday.”

  Alex shook her head. “Something’s not right with you.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “The rest of my team from Lockheed Martin is in Poland right now, training soldiers to use this technology. Ryan called a military contact, and they’ve cleared us to hitch a ride on a military jet, if we can get there in time. From there, we’ll try to get to Turkey and stop this thing.”

  “Not much of a plan.”

  “You have a better suggestion?” The banter suddenly seemed exhausting to Alex. She sat
down in one of the waiting room chairs, bone tired. “Look, I don’t have any ideas. I don’t know how to find an extra-dimensional creature. But nobody else even knows it’s there, or would believe me if I told them. We have at least some small means to fight it, so we’re going to do it. Would I rather be happy and oblivious? Sure. But we don’t get to pick. Are you coming with me?”

  “Can’t,” Angel said. “I have to stay with Sandra.”

  “Sandra’s being taken care of. We need you and your copter swarm.”

  Angel shook his head. “Nope. You’re welcome to take my copters with you, but I’m not leaving. She needs someone to be here when she wakes up.”

  “I called our mother. She’ll be here soon. She can take care of Sandra.”

  Angel’s face took on a set expression, and Alex realized this was not a man easily shifted. “I’m staying,” he said.

  She sighed. “Okay. But if we all die, I’m going to say I told you so.”

  His smile leaped back into place as if it were spring-loaded. “I would expect no less. Good luck.”

  She handed him one of the Higgs projectors. “You might need this,” she said. She turned to Ryan. “Let’s go. We have a plane to catch.”

  “A plane? Why not just teleport?” Angel said.

  “It’s too far away. The error term is too high. There are military jets flying to Poland almost every day now, and we’re going to be on one tonight.”

  “Okay. Take care of yourself.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Alex said. “You take care of my sister.”

  The jet was a brand new Lockheed Martin C-130Q, fresh off the assembly line and heading to the European front. It was a behemoth, a tank carrier, its cargo hold a gaping cavern large enough to fly a 747 into, including the wings. When they arrived, it was already stacked with three decks worth of tanks, Humvees, and armored personnel carriers. There was no passenger compartment, per se; only long rows of clips for soldiers to attach to along the walls.

  Ryan’s face was white. “I can’t go on that,” he said.

  “It’s an airplane,” Alex said. “It’s this amazing new technology: they can fly.”

  “It’s a death trap.”

  “No, really. They do it all the time. Back and forth across the ocean. It’s like magic.”

  “Don’t mock me.”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “You want to stay? Fine. I’ll see you later.”

  “Are you looking at this thing?” Ryan said. “Never mind crashing; there are a thousand tons of metal in there, tied down with chains and cables. Do you want to bet your life that they checked every connection? Double-checked every connection? All it takes is one loose Abrams sliding around, and you’ll be crushed to jelly.”

  Alex looked at his pasty skin, his shaking hands. She didn’t understand him at all. He knew the stakes. This wasn’t a European vacation. He knew the probabilities were low that anything would happen to him on this flight, but he still couldn’t get past it. She was tempted to leave him behind, but he knew things she didn’t. Any hope they had of ultimately defeating the varcolac was going to have to include Ryan Oronzi.

  “Turkey is on the other side of the Atlantic,” she said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her tone. “The only way is to take a plane. It’s a risk, sure. But this risk is a lot smaller than the risk of teleporting there. And if what you told me is true, the risk of staying here is the worst one of all. So we’re getting on this plane.”

  His eyes were locked on the jet. She wasn’t even sure he was listening. After a moment, however, he took one hesitant step forward.

  “That’s right,” she said. “You can do it.”

  He took another step. Sweat stood out on his forehead. At this rate, the world would be destroyed before they got off the tarmac.

  “A little faster,” she said.

  Ryan stopped. He held out a trembling hand. She looked down, then back up at him. He couldn’t be serious, could he? She waited a moment, eyebrows raised, but he just shut his eyes and held out his hand. What was she, his mother?

  Sighing, Alex took his hand. He grabbed on like she was a life rope. His hand was fat and cold with sweat, like holding a dead fish. She swallowed. This was ridiculous.

  She took a step toward the plane, but still he wouldn’t come. His feet were planted. “Come on,” she said. “One foot forward.”

  It seemed like an eternity, but finally, an inch at a time, he lifted his foot and took a step. After the first, it was easier, and he stepped forward with her, eyes still clenched tight, following her lead. When they reached the ramp, he started to moan, but he kept walking. She led him to a station, tied him into a harness, and clipped him down. Then she walked clear across the plane to the other side and clipped herself in. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him for this trip.

  CHAPTER 22

  Sandra woke from a dream that she was riding a gigantic military plane. She felt disoriented, displaced. Where was Ryan? Gradually, she took in the fluorescent lights, the white walls and white machines, the sounds of curtains sliding on rings and distant people talking, the antiseptic smell. Where was she?

  “She’s only just regained consciousness,” the nurse said. “She needs her sleep.”

  A woman in nursing scrubs stood in the room, facing down three men in severe dark suits. Sandra recognized them as Agent Liddle and the two agents that seemed to follow him everywhere. Liddle’s face wore a scowl.

  “This woman was at the scene of an apparent terrorist attack that claimed the lives of hundreds of people,” Liddle said. “I’m going to have to ask you to step aside.”

  The nurse stepped aside. Liddle and his cronies surrounded the bed and loomed over Sandra. “It’s time for some answers, Miss Kelley,” Liddle said.

  Sandra blinked. She felt strange. Her head was pounding with pain, but in a distant sort of way. She must be on some kind of medication. “Why don’t you start with the questions?” she said.

  Liddle raised an eyebrow, but the set of his mouth didn’t change. He spoke with a false cheerfulness. “Feeling feisty, then? Good. The questions. Let’s see. Where is your sister? Where is Jean Massey? And finally”—his voice grew dark—“what in seven hells did you do to Muncy Prison?”

  She thought, remembering. She had gone back inside to fetch Jean, but then . . . what had happened? “Where’s Angel?” she asked.

  “That, my dear, is a question, not an answer. I ask the questions; you provide the answers.”

  She was starting to feel irritated, despite the meds. “I don’t know where my sister is. I don’t know where Jean Massey is. Right now, I don’t even know where I am. And the prison was obliterated by a creature from another universe. Happy? Now where’s my friend?”

  Liddle scowled. “Angel is being debriefed by two of my colleagues. If he’s cooperative, he may only be arrested. If not, he may find himself disappearing down a deep, dark hole of the kind only the intelligence services of the United States can create. And nobody comes out of those.”

  “You don’t scare me,” Sandra said. In fact, at that moment, not even the varcolac would have scared her. She felt cushioned on a cloud of good will, and long-term consequences seemed like a distant curiosity.

  Liddle leaned down into her face. “There’s a conspiracy going on here. You, your sister, your father, your boyfriend—you’re all involved. Who are you working for? Is it Turkey? Japan? What’s your goal? What are you hiding?”

  He had one long hair growing out of his left nostril. Sandra could see it quite clearly, given how closely he was leaning over her. She felt a giggle rising to the surface, but she reluctantly tamped it down, realizing, at least in a distant way, that it was not appropriate for the situation. Instead, she just said, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  “I’m not fooling around here, Miss Kelley. Do you admit to being at Muncy Prison?”

  “I don’t think I have to talk to you.”

  “What sort of explosive did you use to destroy the prison?”<
br />
  “I didn’t use any explosive.”

  “What weapon, then?”

  “I didn’t destroy it.”

  “Did you break Jean Massey out of prison?”

  Sandra sighed. “I want to talk to Detective Messinger.”

  “You’re talking to me now.”

  “Not anymore. You don’t believe me. This is a waste of my time.”

  “And Messinger does believe you?”

  “Look, bring her in here. I’ll tell her everything. Then she can tell you.”

  “Is she part of your conspiracy, too?”

  The sound of a scuffle down the hall caught Liddle’s attention. “Let me in! She’s my daughter, not some criminal. Let me in, or I’ll call a lawyer. I’ll call the press. Get your hands off me!”

  Liddle stepped into the hall. “Let her through,” he said.

  A moment later, Sandra’s mother turned the corner, her face red and her curly hair askew. Sandra grinned. “Mom!”

  Her mother glared at Liddle. “You,” she said. “I might have known. Do you always conspire to keep mothers and daughters apart, or is it a special interest with my family?”

  “I could arrest you for interfering with an investigation,” Liddle said. “Do you have information relevant to this case? Or am I about to throw you out?”

  “Leave her,” Sandra said. “And send Messinger in. I’ll talk to her.”

  Liddle held her gaze for a moment. “This is your one chance. I’ll bring in Messinger, but I will also be here. If you talk, good. If not, I will have you relocated to a facility of my choosing, even with your injuries. Under the National Defense Authorization Act, I can hold terrorism suspects, without trial and without access to a lawyer, indefinitely. Do not cross me on this. I will do it.”

  He walked out. Sandra’s mother rushed over and wrapped her arms around her. Sandra threw an arm around her neck and held her close. Her mother’s thick dark hair spilled over her face, and Sandra inhaled her familiar scent. “I’m so sorry about Dad,” Sandra said.