by Gene P. Abel
“The floor of the elevator car also has a grid floor just like this one to hold you down, but just remember about the straps and handholds should things get a little too intense, and have a safe and enjoyable trip down.”
They piled into the chamber, which looked like a normal elevator car save that it was surrounded by a lot of extra armored metal inside and out, and had padded walls, and a single window behind them to catch the view from space. Claire wasn’t the only one fascinated by the view as the heavy doors closed behind them. Outside was a dark well of infinity; far below them a gigantic blue marble.
“Drop in five, four, three . . .”
As the mechanical voice rang out, a counter appeared in the air before the inner door. At “two” everyone grabbed on to the available handrails and straps and braced themselves.
“. . . one. Drop.”
It felt like the world fell away through the pits of their stomachs. A jerk at first, then confusion as their weightless environment fought against the momentum of their downward flight. A glance out through the window showed no movement of the distant stars, though it did seem as if that large blue marble was very gradually increasing in size.
“I feel weird!” Claire screamed out. “I’m not sure I like this part of the trip.”
“It should feel better at about the midway point, once we start feeling Earth’s gravity,” Samantha called back. “We’re probably already going faster than the speed of sound.”
“Hopefully, this thing’s got good brakes,” Captain Beck remarked. “But what happens once this thing drops us off wherever it’s going?”
“We’re not waiting that long,” Agent Hessman announced. “If it was me, I’d just have a very large security detail waiting for us at the bottom.”
“Then how . . . ,” Claire began.
“Beacons out everyone,” Agent Hessman ordered. “The instant we’re in range, activate them!”
Down through infinity they fell, the view somewhere between thrilling and stomach churning. Beacons were taken out and constantly checked, everyone waiting for the red warning light to stop flashing and inform them they were back in range. Once they passed through the upper atmosphere, everyone began desperately thumbing buttons as the view outside expanded to show them now dropping down in a fall their minds could grasp as lands far below came into view. Claire was shaking and holding on to her rail with a death grip, but through it all, Ben’s arm lent a reassuring hug around her waist.
“It’s a pity I already asked you to marry me,” he said, “because this would have been the perfect place to pop the question.”
“You could ask me again,” she said with a more relaxed smile. “I might even give you the same answer.”
Suddenly red lights turned green on their beacons, and Agent Hessman quickly wrapped an arm around Samantha and drew her in tight.
When the space elevator came to a gentle stop on Earth, the dozen armed time cops waiting in the reception area before the landing station doors saw them finally open to reveal the inside of the elevator car. It was completely empty.
21
Back in the Present
The lids on all the pods popped open as the large propeller-like arms slowed to a stop. The team members lay in their pods just as they had been before, but now a previously empty extra pod produced a new passenger. While the rest saw the helping hands of technicians assisting them out of their pods, Samantha Weiss saw the face of her uncle ready to assault her with a bear hug the second the technician tending her stepped away.
“Samantha! You’re safe!”
He was dressed in the same clothes he’d had on when the team had left, but now looking as if he had been sleeping in them, lines earned from long hours of worrying tracing deeply through his features.
“Uncle!”
Agent Harris was there as well, still in her hospital gown and slippers, greeting Claire and Ben with a grin and sporting a cane.
“So, what’d I miss?”
“Wow!” Claire remarked as they both got to their feet. “Now that was a ride.”
“I think my stomach’s still back up in orbit,” Captain Beck remarked as he climbed out of his pod. “Though on the plus side, I don’t think I have to worry about my motion sickness anymore.”
“And the shuttle ride up, all the fantastic things we saw, those holographic park statues,” Claire excitedly listed off. “I can hardly wait to write my next article!”
“One which a certain Jeffery Nezsmith will apparently not get to read before we encounter him,” Ben added. Then to Agent Harris: “We have quite the story to tell.”
“Well, the general wants a briefing as soon as everyone’s able,” she replied. “Now, about this wedding I seem to remember someone mentioning when I was regaining consciousness. Because I’ve been having cane races with Dr. Weiss trying to get back into shape for the thing.”
Claire grinned. “Sue, we all really missed having you along.”
As Claire was giving Agent Harris a heartfelt hug, a tearful Dr. Sam Weiss was just pulling back from his niece to look her over.
“I was worried every second you were gone, my dear.”
“You can thank Lou here that I’m back at all. How long was I gone? Or for that matter, when is it anyway?”
“Friday, about ten minutes to three in the morning.”
“That means . . . tomorrow’s Saturday.”
Samantha raised her right hand to the side of her head, massaging gently while Agent Hessman came up beside her, though refraining from anything but a respectful distance in the presence of watching official eyes.
“Sam, my dear, what is it?” Dr. Weiss asked.
“I . . . Nothing. Just a little tired, I guess.”
“After all you’ve been through,” Agent Hessman said, “including coming down off those pills, you just need some rest. I’ll escort you to your room.”
“Of course,” Dr. Weiss said with a sigh of relief. “But be sure to fill me in on everything later.”
“Sure . . . Of course, Uncle.”
But as Agent Hessman started leading her away, she suddenly stopped short as a thought popped into her head.
“Of course. Tomorrow’s Saturday. I have a think tank at Caltech to attend tomorrow. Lou, do you think that you could arrange for a flight?”
“I can arrange for some bed time. You don’t look like you’re ready to go anywhere.”
“Please? This is very important.”
He looked her in the eye and saw the fatigue written therein but also the need and concern behind it.
“Devotion to duty. I can understand that. Okay. I can get a flight straight from this base, but only if you stop by the mess hall to grab something to eat and some vitamins or something.”
“I can pick up something from the infirmary and eat on the plane. Thank you, Lou.”
Dr. Weiss watched as Agent Hessman escorted his niece away, a frown crossing his features as he saw the preoccupied look on Samantha’s face.
* * *
It was later in one of the conference rooms. Dr. Weiss was sitting alone thinking to himself when Agent Harris walked in.
“Sam, you up for another cane race? I’ll even spot you five feet.”
“What? Er . . . no. Not right now.”
Agent Harris paused for a more careful look at Dr. Weiss, particularly at the way he was steepling his fingers and the worried look on his face.
“Okay, something’s wrong,” she stated. “What is it?”
“What?” he said, looking up. “Oh, nothing really. Just a little paranoid probably.”
He tried replying with a smile, but Agent Harris maintained her fixed glare.
“Okay,” he confessed, “so there’s just something a little off about Samantha.”
That’s when Agent Hessman walked in, his attention
immediately fixed on the exchange.
“Off how?” Agent Harris asked.
“Well, she’s . . . usually more vivacious. I realize how much she must have been through, but I’ve seen her pull an all-nighter studying and still have enough left in her for a smile and a joke. I didn’t see that tonight. She seemed . . . unusually preoccupied. Unfocused.”
“She might still be recovering,” Agent Hessman told them. “We found her strapped to an operating table, being prepped for some procedure.”
“Yes,” Dr. Weiss said with a tired nod, “I suppose that could be it.”
“And she did still have enough left in her to hop on that plane a little bit ago,” Agent Hessman added.
Agent Harris, however, was still maintaining her focused glare, only now she directed it at Agent Hessman as she turned around to face him.
“A procedure? Lou . . . what makes you think that they didn’t already do to her whatever they were going to do? How do you know they didn’t want you to take her when you did?”
Both Agent Hessman and Dr. Weiss were silent for a moment as the import of her question sank in. Then it was Agent Hessman’s turn to ask a question.
“Sam, this think tank of Samantha’s—do you know what it’s about and who’s in it?”
“Well, near as I can get,” came the reply, “they consider any number of subjects, though I don’t know what it is currently. As far as who’s on it, there’s . . . let’s see, a Dr. Greg Stevens, Dr. Amanda Beckett, a corporate suit from one of the big biomedical companies, Dr. Dillon Marshal, and I think—”
“Wait! Did you say Dillon Marshal?”
“Why yes. Young kid, got some ideas about—”
“A plastic-eating bug that gets out of control,” Agent Hessman said quietly, cutting in.
“A what?” Agent Harris asked.
“I think Sam did mention something about Dr. Marshal coming up with a pollution solution,” Dr. Weiss remarked, “but I don’t think that—”
“It’s the Manchurian candidate,” Agent Hessman muttered.
He nearly leaped over to grab Dr. Weiss, pulling him to his feet and quickly telling him, “We’ve got a plane to catch. I’ll explain on the way.” As Dr. Weiss stood looking confused, Agent Hessman planted a quick kiss on Agent Harris’s cheek on his way toward the door.
“Sue, how I’ve missed that lovely paranoia of yours.”
He hurried out into the hall, Dr. Weiss in a fast hobble behind him, and tapped a finger to the com device in his right ear.
“This is Hessman. I need a military jet ready to fly by the time I get up to the surface. Urgent! And notify Chief Duke and Professor Stein. Samantha Weiss is in trouble.”
Hearing that was enough to make Dr. Weiss dare breaking into a run to keep up with Agent Hessman.
22
Caltech Tragedy
It was nearly nine in the morning that Saturday by the time they found themselves racing across the Caltech campus. The jet had been prepped by the time Agent Hessman was able to drag Dr. Weiss along with him, with Chief Duke already there waiting for him and Ben and Claire running up to join them. After that it was a ride in the fastest jet available, though Claire seemed amazingly relaxed through the entire trip. Something about “After flying up into space, then falling back down to Earth, this seems kinda slow and mundane.”
As they all sat in the large jet’s cargo section on the flight over, with the radio linked up to General Karlson back at the base, Agent Hessman explained his suspicions to both the general and those with him.
“After what Agent Harris suggested, I realized there’s only one reason they would have let Samantha go. Somehow they’ve mentally programmed her to carry out a mission back in our time. That’s the only way they’ve found to really change their past—to get us to do it for them.”
“But why Samantha?” a worried Dr. Weiss asked.
“Because of who’s a member of this think tank and the reason why the Russians are so interested in her—Dillon Marshal.”
“Uh-oh,” Ben remarked with a frown. “That explains the Russians, alright.”
“Not to me it doesn’t,” Dr. Weiss said with a shake of his head.
“Or to me,” came General Karlson’s voice from the radio speaker overhead.
“Dillon Marshal creates a bug that eats all the waste plastic in the oceans,” Agent Hessman explained, “only it gets out of control, with Russia in particular getting the worst of it. They’ll do anything to prevent that from having happened. I figured that seeing her uncle might help, and Miss Hill seems to have a way with people, but once we hit the ground . . .”
“There will be a military escort waiting for you when you hit the ground. Take it anywhere you need and save Miss Weiss.”
The remainder of their trip mainly consisted of Dr. Weiss expressing his worries, while Claire couldn’t help but see the overly stern expression on Agent Hessman’s face and wonder what concerns lay behind it. Their ride later from the airport involved a lot of screaming sirens, from the landing strip straight into the city of Pasadena, followed by Agent Hessman leading the charge across the Caltech campus as he called back to Dr. Weiss hobbling along behind him.
“Do you have any idea where this think tank meets?”
“Uh . . . Dabney Hall, I think. Straight ahead.”
To their left was a long reflection pool; around it and before them, grassy landscaping and cement walkways on all sides, the whole like a glade in a forest of squat one- and two-story structures given over to intellectual pursuits. The far-left end of the pool marked entry into a distinctive tall white-and-gray building stabbing like a finger up to the sky. To their right were some gardens and small ponds, but directly ahead of them, through a series of arches decorating one of the walkways, was an old two-story building that, from its architecture, could have either been one of the original campus school buildings or an aging mausoleum.
Agent Hessman bolted straight across the gardened quad, pushing past a couple of students in the way, the only one keeping up with him being Chief Duke. Chief Duke leaped ahead of him as they came to the building, taking the four slight steps up in a single bound and nearly ripping the double doors open before Agent Hessman, who then charged in.
A hallway stretched on before them. The left side sported a scattered line of doors, each labeled with someone’s name. To their immediate right a short flight of stairs curved downward, past which only a single set of doors farther on marked the expanse of the remaining length of hall.
Agent Hessman went straight for the singular set of doors on the right.
Ben and Claire came in with Dr. Weiss just in time to see Agent Hessman run through the doors to the room beyond.
“Go on ahead,” Dr. Weiss told them. “And when you see Samantha . . .”
“Don’t worry, we’ll save her,” Ben replied.
The room was an auditorium of sorts, but one with a wall of glass doors along the left side opening out onto a patio, and a fireplace at the far end. A long table was set up in the middle, several figures already seated around it with their laptops. A large flat-screen monitor rigged up on its own small stand before the middle of the side facing the fireplace displayed the apparent object of their discussion.
“Excuse me,” one of the people there said, “but this is a private meeting. You can’t just . . .”
Agent Hessman had his picture ID out in a flash as he quickly approached.
“Special Agent Lou Hessman. We’re looking for Dr. Samantha Weiss.”
“She hasn’t arrived yet,” another answered, “though she’s a little overdue. Now what is . . . ?”
“I want you all to vacate this building immediately,” Agent Hessman ordered. “Which one of you is Dillon Marshal?”
One scruffy-looking young man with light-brown hair stood up uncertainly, but before he or anyone el
se could speak, Agent Hessman was already giving out another command while Chief Duke went about bodily yanking protesting people out of their seats and shoving them in the direction of the patio doors.
Dillon Marshal - Inventor Plastic Eating Bug
Plastic Eating Bug
“You especially,” he ordered the young man, “just run until you see the street or a bomb shelter.”
A quick visual survey of the room showed him nothing, so it was back out the door he went, where he bumped into Ben and Claire on their way in, with Dr. Weiss a few paces behind them.
“She’s not here. But this has to be— Sam, what’s directly below this room?”
“Basement,” he answered, pointing with his cane. “Those stairs over there.”
“Has to be it, then. Chief Duke with me. Ben, if you and Claire have to, lift Sam down those stairs,” Agent Hessman said, pushing past them. “I suspect he’s going to be needed. I’m hoping the face of a loved one will snap her out of it.”
“If I have to grow wings and fly,” Dr. Weiss swore, “I will. That’s my niece!”
Agent Hessman ran down the short flight they had seen coming in, a turn and down a similar flight, with Chief Duke right alongside. The stairs led them down into a short corridor ending at an open pair of doors beyond which was another large room. This one, though, was crowded with various storage shelves, crates, and equipment, at the center and off to the far right of which they could see a light and hear the sounds of something being moved across the floor.
Agent Hessman put a finger to his lips for Chief Duke, then, as Ben and Claire appeared at the top of the second flight of stairs, motioned them down and pointed in the direction of the sounds. Carefully he crept around a turn in the storage shelves and finally into view of the lit section. Several yards away he saw a table, on top of which rested an assemblage of wires and electronics, all based around a pair of foot-high ceramic cylinders wired to one another at the top.