I spoke. “Pin down his location, and I bet we find her within five hundred meters of him. Probably chained to a wall or something.”
Several minutes passed before Frig spoke. “I am detecting broadcasts on the channels that you and the others had identified while on the Duke’s cruiser before his capture. If he is the one using those channels, it would appear that I have his exact location.”
I placed my hand on Frig’s shoulder as I looked over the scan results on his monitor. “Scan the floors above and below his location. I’m betting we find Ashley there.”
On the first successive scan, we had a hit: a Human with a prosthetic leg from just below the calf down. We had our girl!
I spoke in excitement. “OK, so how do we get her out of there without setting off an alert?”
Frig replied, “We don’t, Sir. We stick to the original plan. We must gather what information we can, and derive a course of action from that information.”
I pursed my lips in frustration. “Well… is she moving around? Can we open a microportal next to her ear and whisper into it or something?”
Frig turned. “Now see, Sir. That was a brilliant suggestion all of your own.”
I replied, “Look, I know you are probably just trying to lift my spirits right now; if you are, then great, if not, well, just don’t be jacking me around right now, because I am too strung out for it.”
Frig nodded. “Noted, Sir. She appears to be in a stationary position.”
I stripped off my arm pad and made my way into the portal jump room. The room was sealed after me and a microportal opened. “Ashley. This is Don. Can you hear me?”
The room was silent.
I repeated my question. “Ashley, can you hear me?”
I then heard a sigh. “Listen, Ferdete. This is the third time you have tried to get me with the phony call. I know it is you. Stop wasting your time. I do not know where Don is.”
It was the first time I had heard her voice in months. In my excitement I banged my fist on the rail, forgetting that my new prosthetics were much more powerful than my natural hands.
I spoke again. “Frig opened this portal for me. Can you talk?”
Ashley’s voice then came through the portal. “Don? Is that really you? That sounded like you said Frig, and the Duke would not know of him.”
I replied, “Yes, thank goodness we found you. We need to know what plans we need to put in place to get you and the others, as well as the Grid, back safely.”
Ashley spoke. “Well, I don’t have the kind of information you would need for that. And I will be honest. I am still a little suspicious. Tell me something that the Duke would not know, that you would.”
I thought for a moment. “OK, what was my father’s first name?”
Ashley again replied, “Come on, Don. You will have to do better than that. The Duke could get that information from the archives.”
I gave a half smile as I continued to think. “OK, then where was it that you and I first met? What was the name of the restaurant?”
Ashley sighed. “Still too easy. The Duke has access to all the recordings on the Grid. With his abilities, he would have that answer in an instant. Give me something that is just you and I.”
I looked down at the floor in thought. “OK, when you first followed the Swift in your ship, what were Frig and I smuggling for the Admiral?”
Ashley thought for a moment. “There is obviously too much information in our lives being recorded. I would have entered that information in my ship’s logs as well as my action report when I returned to the Grid. Tell me something only I would know!”
I shook my head in frustration. “I want to say you are just being ridiculous, but I know you are just being thorough. OK, how about this, I once told you of a dream I had about you and me walking atop a high ridge on Jarhead. A cool mountain breeze was gently blowing back your hair and—”
Ashley interrupted, “OK, that will do. And for future reference, you have repeated that dream to me about a dozen times… and I of course love you for it. So, where are you now?”
I replied, “I don’t want to give away anything that might be listened in on, so, let’s stick with information coming from you. And hey, I really am glad to hear your voice.”
Ashley spoke. “The Duke took control of the Grid through the airwaves. We are not sure how, as we had him in an isolated room and were unable to detect anything that came from outside of the Grid. Other than communications with the Granger, there were no other off-Grid comms. That virus definitely started in the comm circuits, so if it didn’t come from the Granger, then it had to have come from someone on the Grid.”
I replied, “The Granger didn’t get an infection until we talked with the Grid, so it must have originated there. Could it have been from one of those androids we brought back?”
Ashley replied, “That is highly unlikely as well. Those androids were in the strictest of isolation as well. We are good at keeping things silent if needed; we always have been. There must be something we are not seeing. Bandwidths beyond our range or another form of communication altogether.”
I stood and began to pace the room. “How about a spy? We certainly have had enough of those on the Grid. Maybe the Duke was able to turn someone.”
After a moment of thought, Ashley replied, “Again, even if there was a spy, there were no signals emanating from the Grid while the Duke was in our custody.”
I stopped my pacing. “What if… what if the Duke has the same technology that we are using here today? We have a wormhole opened to his palace. What if we assume he had one open to the Grid? Maybe even to himself?”
I pressed the button to the jump room door, and the portal closed. I raced back around to Frig’s lab.
I spoke. “The wormhole. What if the Duke has the wormhole? He could have kept a comm channel open to himself all the while we had him in our grasp!”
Frig turned and looked at me. “Sir, that is a brilliant assumption!”
I replied, “OK, you are going to have to stop calling me brilliant. It’s going to give me a complex.”
I spoke. “Would that be possible? Could the Duke have known our location and opened a wormhole right there on the Grid? Would we have detected a signal coming from within?”
Frig sat silently in his chair for several seconds. “Let’s assume the Duke has the technology as we do. Let us also assume that he has had such technology for much longer than our very short time. It would not be impossible for him to open a portal from within his own brain structure to elsewhere. Ashley, in our prior discussions, had said that Dr. Touchstone wasn’t able to locate the Duke’s power source. I wonder if it would be possible for him to have a power cell that would provide enough energy to—”
Frig typed away on his console as he continued to shake his head. “No, it is just not physically possible for him to power a wormhole with an antenna structure that would have to be equally small. The physics just do not support that theory. Unless—”
Frig typed away at his console for several seconds.
I spoke. “Uh, how about cluing me in on your train of thought there, hoss. Maybe I can help.”
Frig replied, “I apologize. The Duke could not possibly be opening a wormhole from within that small structure that we termed as his brain. But, it may be possible for him to have a portal from elsewhere with an endpoint inside that structure, where a feedback loop was used to reposition its location as he moved around.”
I nodded my head. “The guy is always a step ahead. That would explain his smugness when we had him captured. We didn’t have the comm with his home base cut off. It was going out through a portal the whole time. I keep saying to myself that this android is just playing us. If he has a constantly on portal linked in, he can send and receive all the data he wants without anyone else knowing the difference.”
Frig spoke. “Return and get Ashley to give you an analysis of the situation. We may have a way to detect if a portal is open if we can ge
t in close proximity to its endpoint. If I locate the Duke, and scan for a portal, is it worth the risk that the Duke would detect our portal as well?”
I returned to the jump room, the portal was opened, and I whispered Frig’s question.
Ashley thought and then replied, “If the Duke has that ability, then he may be listening to us right now. I say we go for it. He obviously has plans for us, or he wouldn’t be keeping us alive and so close to him. If you can pinpoint his location, I would open a hole right next to him and see if you can pick up whatever it is that you think shows a portal.”
I spoke. “I’m with you. If we nail this, it will explain a lot.”
After returning to the lab, I pressed the comm button on my arm pad. “York, grab Frost and get your ass to Frig’s lab immediately. We might have to make a jump.”
York replied, “Yes, Sir. Will be there pronto. Frost! Get your suit on; we are going to have some fun!”
Frig turned towards me. “What did you have in mind, Sir?”
I stood looking at an image of the Duke’s location on a console screen. “You know that freezer unit we have on the Swift?”
Frig replied, “Yes, the cryo unit.”
I continued, “Yeah, that one. How long would it take you to rig one of those to a power pack so we could send it through a portal?”
Frig turned and began to punch the keys on his console. “What is it that you are planning, Sir? How will you be making use of a cryo?”
I nodded my head. “How many guards on the Duke’s floor and the floor that Ashley is on?”
Frig looked at his console. “There are two guards on Ashley’s level and none on the floor with the Duke himself. Again, the cryo unit, Sir?”
I smiled. “The three of us, York, Frost, and me, are going to bulldoze our way into the Duke’s quarters, smack his android ass down, pull out his brain, and then dump it in that cryo freezer. I figure it will take, what, three minutes for that brain to reach absolute zero? If it’s at zero, he is not communicating with anyone, including a portal.”
Frig frowned.
I spoke. “What? What is it?”
Frig spoke. “I am just baffled at these continued ideas that you are spewing forth today, Sir. There is only one word for them, and you will not allow me to say it.”
I half smiled as I looked up at the door as York stepped into the lab. “Just tell me if you think it will work, Frig. If you detect that the Duke has a portal, I want to jump through the hoop and freeze the jackass before he has a chance to react. When he hits zero, I’ll send the cryo back through and then work on getting Ashley and the doc out.”
Frig replied, “And if the portal check comes back as not detected?”
I looked back at Frig. “Well, then I guess it doesn’t matter either way. York, get a blaster and a couple days’ supply in a pack, then you and Frost meet me in the jump room. It’s time we rode the rail again.”
York nodded and turned back to the hall.
“Frig, tell me we can get a cryo powered up and mobile.”
Frig replied, “Gy is working on that now. He has placed an ETA of seven minutes on its delivery to the portal room.”
I hustled back to my quarters, grabbed my AK and a small satchel of ammo, and threw them over my shoulder. A sprint back to the portal chamber had me meeting Frost and York with their supplies.
Frost spoke. “Fill us in, Sir. What’s the scoop?”
I replied, “We are paying the Duke a visit. I want you to be very unkind to him when we get there. I need his little brain cube cleaned off so I can stick it in a cryo unit that we are taking with us.”
Frost tilted her head. “What are we doing with the cryo again, Sir?”
I smiled. “We are going to take his smug ass down to absolute zero and bring him back. Then we are grabbing Ashley and Dr. Touchstone. First the Duke, and there are no guards on his floor, so it should be quick and easy, and then Ashley and the doc, one guard each, from what we can tell.”
Gy came through the door wheeling a cryo unit on a handcart. “You three go through, and we send this in on the rail right behind you. We put this together a little hastily, so try to be gentle with her if you can. Oh, and she has to be vertical to give a full freeze. Power cell I added should give you about ten minutes of use.”
I pressed my comm button. “Frig, we are ready here.”
Frig replied, “I can see you on the external monitor, Sir. Take your positions on the rail, and I will have you in the palace momentarily.”
Frig continued, “And, Sir, the Duke does indeed have an internal portal. And he probably knows you are coming. As I did the scan beside him, he turned and smiled. Be careful, Sir. Troops are already beginning to move on several floors below.”
The portal opened, with York sliding through first, followed by me and then Frost. Frost was given the job of catching and standing up the cryo unit while York and I subdued the Duke.
I rolled off the rail to see the Duke standing ten meters away with a grin on his face. “Oh, yes! Hello, Don Grange! And York, I am delighted to see you as well! And oh, what a surprise! You have brought Miss Frost with you too!”
The Duke continued, “And a portal of your own! Ingenious! I knew there were too many events that went your way for being so behind in your technology. Wormholes! You must explain to me how you came to have them!”
I spoke. “We don’t have time for your games, Duke. Just stay still, and we will try to make this as painless as possible.”
As the Duke continued to grin, he pulled a small blaster from behind his back and sent a bolt into York’s torso. York flew backwards a dozen meters from the impact and then rolled up on her feet and charged forward. I sidestepped a second bolt that still caught my leg, spinning me around like a top before I crashed hard into an ornate table. A ceramic-type sculpture on top shattered into a thousand pieces.
York let out a yell as she jumped to within reach of the Duke in a single bound. The Duke quickly sidestepped her advance, and with an equally impressive leap, he was on the other side of the expansive room.
The Duke cried out in delight. “Oh, it has been years since I was awarded such entertainment as the three of you bring!”
He ducked behind a column as an angry York fired off a bolt from her blaster. The wall behind the Duke sparked in a dazzling display as the blue bolt was absorbed and spread out.
As I took aim to fire a blast from behind the table where I was kneeling, the Duke again leaped from his position. With a single bound he was again across the room, thirty meters’ distance away.
York again jumped in his direction, the Duke raising his blaster and firing at her while she was in midair. I then saw why George had rated York’s reaction times so much above my own. In anticipation of his gunplay, York had rolled into a ball; the ion blast struck her square center.
This time, however, York was not thrown backwards. The ion bolt exploded, stopping York in midair. She unfurled herself as she dropped to the ground, landing on her feet with her own blaster at the ready. A bolt of blue ion energy hit the Duke center chest, sending him hard into the wall behind him.
Before the Duke could regain his balance, York was again in the air. As she arrived at the Duke’s position, she swung her right arm and came down hard with a fist to his left shoulder. The metallic android frame buckled under the tremendous force York was able to exert with her prosthetic.
The Duke was knocked hard downward to a seated position. As he looked up with a smile, York fired off a blast from only centimeters away, tearing his right arm completely from its socket.
The Duke spoke. “Impressive, Miss York. Simply impressive!”
The sergeant dropped to her knees, placing her face to face with her enemy. “I’ve got impressive for you, you bag of robot trash!”
With the insult given, York shoved her blaster under the Duke’s chin and pulled the trigger. Blue sparks flew as the ion charge spread out from the point of contact. The remains of the Duke’s head s
hot upward, first slamming into the ceiling and then careening out into the middle of the room to a waiting Frost.
As Frost picked up the Duke’s remains in her right hand, she spoke. “Nighty-night, scumbag!”
The Duke’s small square brain was pulled from the debris and dropped into the cryo chamber. The lid was gently shut and the big green button on the front depressed.
Frost spoke. “OK, you’ve got three minutes while he cools down!”
Following a diagram Frig had sent to my arm pad, I raced out of the Duke’s abode and to the closest set of stairs. One of the guards was already reaching the top of the stairs as I arrived. I dropped to my knees to raise my blaster but refrained from pulling the trigger as a blurry shadow flew over my head from behind me. It was York, and the guard did not have a chance.
A forward punch caught him right between the eyes. York’s fist shattered the face shield of his helmet, proceeded to crush through his skull and his brain, and then exited through the back side of what used to be his head. When she came to a stop, the corpse of the dead guard now hung from her extended arm. It was a gruesome sight. With a single fast slam from her left fist, the carcass was discarded.
York turned. “Let’s go get your little lady, Sir.”
The second guard was caught in the center of the hallway and easily dispatched. I pressed the button on the door that had held Ashley captive and was rewarded with a glowing smile as it slid away.
Ashley spoke. “Hmm. Here to save a damsel in distress?”
I raised my face shield, pulled her close, and planted a kiss on the woman I had been longing to embrace for months.
When our lips parted, York smiled and spoke. “Hello, Miss Ashley, now let’s roll!”
We followed York to the next doorway, which held Jon Touchstone.
The door slid back. The doctor was standing, looking out a broad window at the city below.
I spoke. “Let’s go, Doc! Time to get out of here!”
The doctor spoke as he gently waved his hand across the window. “Such a beautiful world, don’t you think?”
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