“How’s the DEPOT treating you these days?” Jennifer asked. The existence of the DEPOT was highly classified, but Travelers were scarce and they all knew about it, either through stories told by other Travelers or the DEPOT’s own recruitment efforts.
“Well. You know I can’t really talk about it.”
“Right, all that nondisclosure stuff. You’re so loyal. Oh, that’s right, they put you through school, didn’t they?” Jennifer’s fake smile transformed into a real smirk. She had always harped on about how real scientists didn’t work for the government.
“Yes,” Liv snapped. “And what are you doing these days?”
“Oh, I work for a private company. Developing new technologies.”
“You mean stealing them.” Liv glared. She knew there was no way to regulate Travelers, but she still thought that they should be banned from forming corporations that only functioned by stealing who-knew-what kinds of technologies from other worlds.
“You say tomato. Besides, isn’t that exactly what you do for the government? For a lot less money?”
“We don’t steal. But I can see how you would need to. Private industry is all about results, isn’t it? And the DEPOT does only take the best. But I’m sure you’ve done the best you could.”
Liv smiled sweetly as outrage flashed in Jennifer’s eyes. Point to me, bitch.
Jennifer spluttered indignantly. “Real scientists… government… research….” She took a breath and puffed out her chest like an offended chicken. “At Innerstellar Technologies we work alongside scientists in other worlds to understand their discoveries!”
Liv’s stomach shriveled. Goddamn Nathan. It was like thinking about him earlier had conjured him closer. “Innerstellar Technologies? That’s Nathan Blank’s company, right?”
“Yes. What’s it to you?”
“Despite his shortcomings, I thought he was above coercive thievery. But then, I thought you were too. What are you doing here, Jennifer?”
Jennifer cut her eyes to the side and hunched her shoulders. “Oh, you know, enjoying the sunset.” She gestured vaguely to the absolute night beyond the black windows. “Say, you haven’t seen anyone else who doesn’t belong to this world, have you?”
“No.” Liv frowned at Jennifer and her two companions, and felt that tickle at the back of her mind again. She needed to talk to Ben. “Well, it’s been great running into you, but I’d better get back to my friends. See you around.”
“Okay, let’s catch up soon.”
Liv didn’t answer as Jennifer and her two companions turned away. She watched them scour the bar, check the bathrooms, converge in a huddle, and finally walk out the front door. Who were they looking for?
Again that tickle nagged her like she was forgetting something important. She wracked her brain, but finally shrugged and went back out to the patio.
Ben and Markle were engaged in a deep discussion of sports in their differing worlds.
Winnie asked Liv, “Who were you talking to, honey?”
“Oh, just an old classmate,” Liv said as she sat down. “Jennifer Ingers.”
“No, I meant that man.” Winnie waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
Liv froze in the act of reaching for her drink. “What man?”
Ben and Markle broke off at the tension in Liv’s voice and turned toward her.
“The man with the black and blue hair. I went in to grab another drink and I saw you two talking, but then he turned and went into the bathroom and you headed back into the bar.”
“Describe to me exactly what he looked like.”
Winnie looked alarmed by the expression on Liv’s face. “He was about our age, dark eyes, thin face, straight nose, black hair swept to the side with blue streaks at the front. Tall, about four or five inches taller than you, and slim.”
“Ben,” Liv said. The single word was both an entreaty and a command.
“Yeah.” He set his drink on the table as he turned to Winnie and Markle. “Sorry y’all, we need to go.”
Winnie looked even more alarmed. “What’s going on? Is that man important?”
“Very,” Liv said. “Sorry, that’s all I can say. This is classified. Please don’t tell anyone else about him, okay?”
“Sure, no problem,” Markle said. “But you know, if you need to find him, we could put it about quietly—”
“No,” Ben cut across him. “We can’t risk anyone knowing about him at all. Don’t tell anyone. It’s for your own safety as well as his. And ours,” he added as an afterthought.
“Okay,” Winnie said, sharing a worried glance with Markle. “Be safe, you two.”
“Always,” Liv said with a passable smile.
“We’ll get together again soon,” Ben promised.
Liv and Ben strode down to the beach where they could vanish into the darkness.
Chapter 7
Liv snapped her sat comm shut.
“General Mace gave us access to the Hangar. How long has it been?”
“About two minutes,” Ben answered mildly, especially considering he was currently driving his Jeep along a twisting mountain road at around a hundred miles per hour.
“This time I have to find out what he did to me.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out.”
“Can’t you go faster?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
They reached the base in minutes—Ben having exercised all his pilot reflexes to get them there in one piece. They passed four security checkpoints on the way in. Liv’s impatience ate holes in her stomach at every stop.
Still, it was a heap faster than parking at the Ranch like usual and taking the underground tram to the DEPOT base. She didn’t have time for that tonight.
At the last security post, Ben cut his headlights, slowing his speed until his eyes adjusted to the dark. Liv stared into the blackness, straining to see any hint of the Ranch in the distance. All she saw were the black serrated edges of the mountains against a midnight-blue sky strewn with countless stars. She wasn’t surprised; the Ranch at Groom Lake was almost a mile away, and the base was a blackout zone.
The Ranch was where the Air Force developed and tested new aircraft technology. Its experimental aircraft fueled Groom Lake’s reputation for harboring UFOs. Of course, UFO conspiracy theorists were wrong about the government incorporating alien technology into aircraft, but they did get the other-World technology part right.
The Ranch was the only “legitimate” facility out here—in other words, the only one the public knew about. It was connected to the DEPOT via underground tunnels and tram lines, and all DEPOT traffic was routed through the Ranch. The only direct DEPOT entrance was through the Hangar, and only the invisible SM’s used that concealed entrance.
Except tonight.
Ben drove his Jeep at top speed through the giant door and into the massive underground Hangar, skidding to a stop near the base doors.
The instant it stopped, Liv leapt from the Jeep and ran for the doors. She ran straight through all the key-coded and palm-scanned doors to her lab, Ben at her side.
The second they stepped through the door, she said, “Get me that machine in the corner, turn on the computer, and grab the package marked ‘sample’ in the fridge.”
Ben silently obeyed, a shocking turn of events. It told Liv his concern ran as deep as hers, and she would have been touched if there’d been time.
Thank God she’d prepared for this eventuality. She already had tubes in her lab, and now that she had her own PET scanner, she could entirely avoid Medical.
Ben helped her draw blood samples and inject the PET scan marker. She handed him the five tubes, each capped with a different color stopper. “Can you get these to Medical right away? Tell them I need everything they did on me the last time.”
“Aye aye, cap’n,” he said with a mocking salute.
“Weak.” She shook her head.
He grinned and disappeared out the door.
Liv grabbed the portab
le PET scanner, set it up, hooked herself into it, and ran the scan.
Her stomach clenched as she called up the computer screen to look at the results. What if she couldn’t fix this? What if she was unfit for active duty?
What if there was nothing wrong?
She nearly collapsed with relief when the monitor loaded the images.
Ben was suddenly at her shoulder, although she hadn’t heard him come in. “What do you see?”
“Changes in activity. Here in the hippocampus, the temporal lobe, and the frontal lobe.”
“Which means?”
“Which means I know what he did to me. I’ll have to wait for the bloodwork results to confirm it. I’m getting to test over an hour earlier than last time. I plan to scan myself then too, to make sure it goes back to normal the way it did before.”
“So you know what he did. Can you stop him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, you can’t do it now. It’s after midnight.”
Liv glanced at her clock. “Yeah, you’re right. Want to keep me company until I can retest?”
Ben laughed. “Sure, what else have I got to do?”
“I don’t want to fall asleep and miss the window.”
Ben sighed. “I know.” He took a seat on her couch while she unhooked all the electrodes of the PET scanner and set it aside.
He said casually, “So you were really touchy about the whole relationship-with-someone-at-work thing.”
Liv spun in her chair to face him, but remained silent.
“You even called me Benjamin Bartholomew.”
Her lips quirked, but she still said nothing.
Ben stared at her for a full minute. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me.” He gave her a stern look. “Just be happy.”
“I am.”
He kept his stern look for a few more seconds, then smiled. “Good.” He leaned forward, reached into a drawer of her desk, and pulled out a deck of cards. “Rummy?”
“Where the hell did those come from?”
He put on an innocent expression.
“Seriously, Ben, when did you put those in there?”
Now he grinned. “A true magician refuses to give away his secrets. Come on. Rummy?”
“You and your stupid tricks. How many times do I have to tell you you’re not a magician?” But Liv had to wonder, because she’d opened that drawer just before she’d left work today, and she would swear on a stack of Bibles there hadn’t been a deck of cards in there.
Ben waggled the deck of cards. “Want to play or not?”
“’Kay.”
An hour later, she glanced at the clock. “It’s time. We can take the next scan.”
Ben helped her set up the equipment and run the scan. Liv looked at the computer screen. “It’s normal.”
Ben nodded. “Good. Then you’re clear, right?”
“Maybe. I’ve got to get my blood retested, make sure my levels go back to normal.”
“You don’t even have the first results back yet.”
“I know, but I want to wait, make sure it’s the same as last time.”
“Liv, it’s almost 0200,” Ben said. “Let’s get some sleep.”
She suddenly realized how grainy her eyes were, and couldn’t resist rubbing them. “I guess you’re right. We’ll crash for a few hours and then analyze the data. You need a couch?”
“Hell no—it’s the weekend. I’m going home. Call me if you need a ride.”
“Thanks. I’m sure I can catch a ride home. If not, I’ll let you know.”
“See you tomorrow for Trent’s barbeque.” Ben held up a hand.
“Oh right.” Liv waved him out the door. “Tomorrow.”
* * *
Saturday morning, Liv sat at her desk, studying last night’s bloodwork results. As before, her neurotransmitters and some enzymes were abnormal while her tox screen and other values were fine. A few neuropeptides had fluctuated from the first to the second test as well, but not enough to be out of normal range. She knew that the human brain was incredibly dynamic, so the fluctuations could be normal activity. But she also knew that every tiny clue might help her figure out what had happened to her brain. Or more accurately, what Elachai had done to it.
A message popped up on her computer. She opened it, reading over her newest bloodwork readings from this morning. As before, all back to normal. At least whatever he’d done seemed to be short acting. Her PET scan from this morning had been normal as well.
She looked everything over, trying to find the key that she’d missed. There had to be something here.
Suddenly, an idea hit and she pulled up her scans from the Travel test at the beginning of the week.
“Ah ha!” she said.
“Jinkies!” said a voice from the doorway, making her jump.
She whipped her head around to find Jordan leaning on the doorjamb with his hands in his pockets as if he’d been there all day.
“Jinkies?” she asked as he walked over to her chair.
“Velma was my favorite. Scooby Doo?”
She shrugged and shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t watch that one.”
“Never mind. What did you find?”
“I think I know how Elachai did it. Or, not specifically how he did it, but how I could duplicate the effect.”
“Did what?”
“Made me forget.”
“And you suddenly figured this out after a week?”
“No, my scan from last night gave me the final information I needed.”
“I think I’m out of the loop. What are you talking about?”
“What are you doing here?” she asked, realizing that it was Saturday and she’d expected to be alone for the weekend.
“I was doing some research and needed the library. I happened to wander by and saw that you were here too. So what did you mean, ‘last night’s scan?’”
“Elachai put the whammy on me again.”
Jordan’s eyes flashed electric blue. “Explain.”
She told him what had happened as briefly as possible, which turned out to be less briefly than she wanted, since Jordan grilled her on every point.
“I can’t remember!” she said for the third time. “But the point is, when we got back here, I ran all the same tests we ran last time it happened to me. And this time, they weren’t all normal.”
“Are you okay?”
Liv waved away his worried look. “Yes, I’m fine. Now. But last night, my first scan shows decreased temporal lobe activity, specifically in the hippocampus, which is important in encoding memory. The neurotransmitter abnormalities play into that as well, since the levels indicate decreases in excitatory molecules and increases in inhibitory molecules.
“But the real key is this glucopeptide. See? Last time, I tested normal for this protein, but I had a few unexplained enzyme elevations. This enzyme causes formation of this neuropeptide.” She pointed to her results on screen. “When we got back from Mai Tai last night, the enzyme was normal, but the neuropeptide was higher than it’s been either before or since. And again, in the second blood levels I ran, the enzyme level is higher.”
Jordan shook his head. “And that means…?”
“It means Elachai raised that neuropeptide level. I’ll bet cash money that if I had tested myself immediately, it would have been higher still.”
“And that means…?”
Jordan’s grinned, and Liv realized how much he was humoring her. He didn’t know or care a jot about neuropeptides or brain chemistry, except as it related to her brain. In her excitement at figuring it out, she’d forgotten her audience. “Sorry. Bottom line, Elachai changed my neurochemistry, changed the activity level of my memory centers, and made me forget.”
“Ah. Okay. So?”
“So, I can probably engineer something that will protect us from him. I may even be able to duplicate the effect.”
“Oh. Cool. Why didn’t you just say that?”
She laughed. “Right. Sor
ry.” She looked at all the data spread out on her desk. “The only thing I can’t figure out is how he affected such a narrow function of the brain.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, it’s so precise, it’s beyond surgical. Every part of the brain has multiple functions. I mean, every cell is connected to every other, at least indirectly. If you damage the temporal lobe, or even just the hippocampus, or even part of the hippocampus, you don’t just get memory effects. You get slurred speech, attention deficits, aggression, problems with word recognition, face recognition, object categorization. I had none of that, even though my PET scan clearly shows hippocampus inactivation.”
“So how did he affect just your memory?”
“Exactly. And even more significant, how did he do it without injecting me with something or physically touching my brain?”
“Are you going to sit here puzzling over it all weekend?”
She glanced sideways at him and suddenly realized he wasn’t wearing his DEPOT uniform. He was in khakis and a button-down, short-sleeved shirt that was pretty damn sexy, now that she was aware. “Hey, why are you all dressed up?”
“Because Trent’s having a barbecue at his house today, and I was planning to go straight there from here.”
“Oh no! I forgot.” She looked at her wrist, but she didn’t have a watch on. “What time is it?”
“Two o’clock. We’re already late.”
She looked at the papers scattered all over her desk, considering sitting here and puzzling through the problem, but thought of the rest of her team at Trent’s. “I can think about it there too.” She stood and started straightening the papers.
“Just leave it. It’ll be ready for you to look at when you get back.”
“I can’t. It will bother me too much to think about the mess here.”
Jordan laughed, but waited patiently until she’d finished, then followed her to her office door.
She was at the door when she remembered. “I don’t have my car here.”
“I can give you a ride.”
A Despair of Demons (Travelers, Book 1) Page 7