“You have a copy of Wexler’s work in the cloud,” replied Knight One. “I want you to open it.”
After an exchange in which Jenna Morrison made it clear she would never cooperate, Knight One had two additional prisoners brought into the room, both bound and gagged. One of the prisoners was Jenna Morrison from a different frame of her life. The other, a duplicate Nathan Wexler, another version of the fiancé she had seen die in her arms.
An interesting development, but not one that the Knight watching hadn’t expected.
Knight One went on to explain how he had come to possess multiple copies of Nathan Wexler, each of whom he forced to try to recreate the breakthrough the deceased version had made. None had succeeded in finding the random insight that had led this other Wexler to his eureka moment.
“I’m sure Cargill told you all about human duplication,” Knight One was now saying on the screen. “The difference is, Cargill is too weak to actually do it. Another idiot who blathers on about slippery slopes while our ship is hitting an iceberg. So what do you say, Jenna? I need that file. But I’m willing to make this easy on all of us. I’ll offer you the deal of a lifetime. Get me that file, and I’ll reunite you with the man you love.”
“This is all so . . . wrong,” said Jenna.
Knight One turned toward the duplicate version of Jenna Morrison in the room, drew a gun, and shot her twice in the chest.
“That’s better,” he said calmly.
On the screen, blood erupted from one version of Jenna while the other filled the room with a horrified shriek.
“No one wants to share their man, after all,” continued Knight calmly when Jenna’s scream subsided. “Even if the person they’re sharing with is themselves. So now that he’s all yours, Jenna, how about it?”
“You’re the sickest bastard who ever lived!” she screamed.
“I’m just a man willing to do what’s necessary to save the species.”
Exactly right, thought Knight as he watched.
On the screen, Jenna’s face was taking on a new resolve, and she proceeded to offer Knight One a deal of her own. She would willingly provide the passwords he so desperately wanted if he would let Aaron Blake and Nathan Wexler go, giving them a head start before alerting his security they were loose. She would make this deal, she told him, because she was confident that his entire security apparatus wouldn’t be able to stop an unarmed Aaron Blake and an egghead physicist from escaping.
Knight One had agreed, of course. The idea that these men could really escape—head start or no head start—was ludicrous. The Knight watching couldn’t fault his predecessor for taking this bargain, even though it was now clear he should have refused.
Somehow, this decision had marked the beginning of the end for his predecessor.
Yet as he watched, Knight still couldn’t imagine how Aaron Blake could have possibly prevailed.
6
“I advise advancing the footage by twenty-six minutes,” said Lazlo, interrupting the video.
“What would I be missing if you did?” asked Knight.
“After Knight One had Blake and Wexler deposited outside of the high-rise and cut loose from their bonds, Jenna Morrison directed him to where her fiancé’s work was stored in the cloud, and gave him the appropriate passwords. While this was happening, Blake and Wexler reentered the building, blinded video monitors, and proved more elusive to Knight One’s security than he had anticipated.”
“Why am I not surprised?” mumbled Knight. “So what’s happening at the twenty-six-minute mark?”
“Knight One has downloaded Wexler’s file and is about to review it.”
Knight considered. Surely, based on what had happened, this file couldn’t have been the genuine article. But either way, Lazlo was correct in assuming this was footage he didn’t want to miss.
“Okay,” said Knight. “Skip ahead.”
There was static on the screen for just an instant, and then the scene in Knight’s Lake Las Vegas penthouse continued to unfold, twenty-six minutes later. On the screen, his predecessor was studying a tablet computer in silence, his head looming over it as he held it at chest height, inadvertently blocking out the various cameras taking the footage that the Knight in Wyoming was now watching.
As hard as it was for Knight to believe his predecessor was really viewing Wexler’s work, Knight One’s body language left no doubt. His eyes were large and his growing excitement clear. He was more than excited. He was amazed. Euphoric.
Knight continued to study his predecessor on the screen with great interest.
A violent earthquake shook the home theater, accompanied by a deafening explosion. Knight nearly dived to the theater floor in a reflexive act of self-preservation.
A moment later he realized that the theater wasn’t under attack, after all. The shaking and exploding had all happened at the Lake Las Vegas high-rise. The 3D scene had shaken on the screen, not the screen itself.
The footage continued, showing a stunned Knight One, still alive, shouting for Lazlo to tell him what was going on. But Jenna Morrison answered, instead. “What’s going on is that Cargill just played you for a chump,” she said triumphantly. “He orchestrated all of this. We wanted to be captured.”
“Why?” responded Knight One. “How has this helped you?”
Remarkably, the Knight watching still found this to be a valid question. He knew a train wreck was coming, yet he still couldn’t see the train.
On the screen, his alter ego continued. “If Cargill was the puppet master here,” he said, “he didn’t do a very good job of it. Because I know for certain he’s dead, along with a number of his key people.”
“Come on, Edgar,” said Jenna in disdain. “You’re so much smarter than that.”
“Are you suggesting Cargill was a duplicate?” said Knight One incredulously. “He would never allow it.”
“To stop you he would,” snapped Jenna. “He’d still never allow two copies of the same person to coexist. But he knew you’d kill everyone but me and Aaron.”
“Okay,” said Knight One slowly, considering her words. “I believe you. But I still don’t see his end game,” he admitted.
“Aaron and I knew we would never be safe as long as you were alive. More importantly, the world would never be safe. So I agreed to be the bait. To sacrifice myself to get to you. Aaron volunteered as well. All I asked was that before we completed the mission, we be allowed to do everything humanly possible to try to save Nathan.”
“Blake may be good, but he’s not that good.”
Jenna smiled. “Isn’t he? That explosion means he did it. It means that Nathan is safe.”
“Pause the footage!” the Knight watching in Wyoming commanded. “I need to think.”
The pieces were finally falling into place. The only way Wexler could be safe is if Blake had fought his way to the time machine on the first floor and had altered it, making use of Wexler’s discovery to teleport many miles away. Knight now knew precisely what the rest of the footage would reveal. Still, he needed to watch it unfold.
“Resume,” he barked to his PDA.
On the screen, at least part of the truth was now dawning on Knight One. “Cargill found a way to extend time travel beyond forty-five microseconds,” he said. “Didn’t he?”
“That’s right,” said Jenna. “The explosion was Blake’s signal. It could only be triggered if the teleportation was a success. He used a little explosive that you actually brought to our attention: octa-nitro-cubane. Ring a bell? The most explosive non-nuclear substance known to science, but impossible to make without a time machine.”
Knight One glared at Jenna in contempt, still having no idea what was coming. “Cargill’s plan may have been flawless,” he said, “and it will set me back, but he still can’t win.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” said Jenna scathingly. “You poor psychopathic asshole.” She shook her head. “Here’s the thing, genius, Aaron and I are duplicates also. The g
oal was to get Nathan out, if possible, and destroy you. We signed on for a one-way mission. Aaron sent Nathan to safety and stayed behind, knowing he would die in the explosion.”
Knight One’s eyes widened in horror, and the Knight watching these events unfold knew that he finally—finally—understood. But too late.
“It’s finally dawning on you, isn’t it?” said Jenna. “You think the explosion Aaron triggered was epic? Well, I’m carrying a hundred times as much explosive.”
She glanced down at a diamond ring on her finger, one she had been fiddling with throughout. “I push down hard on this diamond and enough octa-nitro-cubane is triggered to flatten this building and at least the three key buildings around it.”
“But you’ll die also,” said Knight One. “Horribly. Your body torn to shreds. Are you really prepared for that? Another Jenna may get to live, but it’s you who takes the full brunt of the explosion. You who gets vaporized. It won’t hurt any less because there’s another of you inside Cheyenne Mountain.”
Tears began streaming down Jenna’s face. “I know,” she said. “And I am terrified. I don’t want to die.”
“So don’t do it,” pleaded Knight One. “The world is a fucked up place. The inmates have taken over the asylum. You know it’s true. I’m the only person who can save humanity from itself.”
“You might be right,” whispered Jenna, now sobbing. “But let’s hope like hell you aren’t.”
And with that she pushed down hard on her diamond, and the footage abruptly ended, leaving a backup Edgar Knight with his fists clenched, staring at a blank screen.
7
“Lazlo,” said Knight, blowing out a long breath, “how long has it been since this explosion?”
“Exactly fifty-seven minutes, fifteen seconds,” the PDA replied.
“Did any structure at headquarters, or any people, survive?”
“Yes,” replied Lazlo. “But only buildings and people on the periphery. Your central high-rise and the three buildings surrounding it were obliterated, with no possibility of survivors. Some of the outlying structures survived, along with the members of your group housed there.”
Knight scowled. The central high-rise and three buildings that had ringed it were the nerve center of his operation, and while many of the people in these buildings were relatively unimportant workers, all of the key members of his organization were housed there, also, including every last member of his vaunted Brain Trust.
Most of his team had never been duplicated and were now gone forever. One copy of each famous scientist from his Brain Trust still lived, going about their normal lives throughout the world, but this setback was absolutely devastating. Duplicating these scientists one at a time without their knowledge had been a daunting task, impossible to repeat until he could rebuild his strength and his organization.
“Swarms of helicopters are descending on the island now,” continued Lazlo. “They aren’t painted black, but their serial numbers and registry are untraceable, indicating a high likelihood of being part of a Black Operations group.”
No shit, thought Knight miserably. It had to be Cargill. He knew in advance what was likely to happen and had a team waiting to go in and mop up the moment it had.
Knight struggled to remain calm. He closed his eyes in supplication. “Please tell me that we still have the copy of Nathan Wexler’s work my predecessor was reading,” he said, his voice taking on a pleading quality.
“I’m sorry, Edgar, but it was destroyed in the blast. And the former Knight One hadn’t yet saved it to the cloud.”
Knight grimaced as though he had been stabbed in the neck. “Why can’t you retrieve it from the cloud the way he did? Don’t you still have footage of the instructions and passwords Jenna Morrison provided?”
“I already tried that, and failed. I knew this would be of vital interest to you. Cargill’s team must have rigged the site to delete the file the moment it was downloaded. I’ve analyzed all footage taken while the former Knight One was reading the file on his computer, to see if I could recover some of the content from glimpses of it on his tablet. This was also unsuccessful.”
Knight issued several sharp curses that echoed around the spacious home theater.
The loss of real estate and associates hurt, but nothing like the loss of this data.
Knight forced himself to calm down. He needed to look at the big picture, keep things in perspective. In his struggle with Cargill, he was now playing from behind.
But so what? An hour ago he was nothing but an expendable backup, facing certain death in three weeks’ time. Compared to that, his current situation was a blessing. Getting out from behind the eight ball and finding a way to get his mission back on track wouldn’t be easy, but it was certainly achievable.
This had been a blow to him, his organization, and his goals. He had lost hundreds of millions in real estate on Lake Las Vegas, his entire Brain Trust, and countless soldiers in his growing army.
But the Wyoming backup headquarters complex could be upgraded to serve his needs. He may have been confined to the main residence, but there were additional buildings and warehouses on-site. Now that he could reach these other structures without triggering his own death, he had access to working time machines and a storehouse of advanced technology created by members of his Brain Trust. He may have lost them, but he hadn’t lost the astonishing advances they had made in almost every field.
And while he had lost most of his lieutenants and mercenary soldiers, a handful of these were on assignment away from Lake Las Vegas. These men knew all about time travel, supported his goals, and could be pressed into service once again.
With respect to the hundreds of millions of dollars the loss of his primary headquarters had cost him, this didn’t matter in the least. He had billions more. It was easy to make money when you could, literally, make money.
Rebuilding human resources was the more difficult challenge, but in time he could recover the ground he had lost. Even so, he felt a rage within unlike any he had ever experienced. Cargill, Blake, and Morrison had outsmarted him. Had played him for a fool.
Well, had played Knight One for a fool. But this was a distinction without a difference. He would have fallen into their trap just as surely as his predecessor had. Even knowing the end result and watching it all unfold, he still hadn’t been able to figure it out in time.
Allowing himself to be deceived by the likes of Cargill stung like nothing ever had, like a splinter buried deep within his eyeball. It was a monumental blow to his pride. It was intolerable.
Cargill was a buffoon. The thought of being outplayed by this man was galling.
But not entirely outplayed, Knight reminded himself. After all, here he was, still standing.
And as savvy as Cargill was, there was no way he’d suspect another version of Knight was still alive. He’d have a blind spot about this, believing he knew Knight well enough to know he would never allow a double of himself to run around.
Which was true. Knight hadn’t allowed it. But Cargill would never guess that his rival had the intestinal fortitude to create, imprison, and kill a series of backups.
Even so, Cargill was a cautious bastard. So Knight would have to tread carefully. It was critical that the head of Q5 not get even a hint that he was still alive. Ideally until the prick was drowning in his own blood. But, at minimum, until Knight regained full strength and the noose had already tightened irreversibly around Cargill’s neck.
Knight was confident he could still take Cargill down. In fact, he was the only person who could. Only he had intimate knowledge of Q5, as well as access to working time machines and Brain Trust technology.
So he would stay in full stealth mode. Regroup. Rebuild his strength and bide his time.
But even as these thoughts came to him, the seed of a plan began to form in his mind. With any luck, perhaps he could get his revenge and also destroy Cargill and Q5 faster than he had first thought. And most importantly, finally get his
hands on Nathan Wexler’s work.
Cargill hadn’t won yet. He may have won this round, but there were more rounds to come.
Lee Cargill, Jenna Morrison, and Aaron Blake had managed to deliver a devastating blow.
But now it was his turn.
PART 2
“I don’t know what weapons will be used to fight World War III. But World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
—Albert Einstein
8
Lee Cargill sat in his office inside Q5’s temporary headquarters, deep in the bowels of Cheyenne Mountain, arguably the most famous underground facility in the world, although the word underground didn’t quite do it justice. Under-mountain might do. Or better yet, within-mountain, as it had been carved out under a ceiling of granite almost a half-mile thick, with an extensive array of three-story buildings constructed on a system of giant springs, protection against earthquakes and pesky nuclear attacks.
Q5 currently shared the surprisingly extensive space inside the impregnable Colorado Springs facility with a number of other Black Ops groups, although the organization had been allotted one entire wing out of four. Cargill worked out of a space that was more war room than office, with state-of-the art communications. His temporary office was surprisingly large, but its ceiling, while smoothed, had been left natural and uneven—not that he needed such an unsubtle reminder of the millions of tons of rock above his head.
Cargill rubbed a fifty-two-year-old hand through a still-thick head of salt-and-pepper hair and inhaled sharply. His anxiety was causing him to hold his breath for extended periods without his conscious knowledge, gasping in air only when his body’s involuntary demand for oxygen became too great for his troubled subconscious to ignore. And then his breath would become stuck in his throat once again—sleep apnea without the sleep.
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