by S Breaker
“Orders?” Laney wanted to know. “Orders from whom?”
“From you.”
Laney winced again. Jeez. “That Laney’s pretty bossy, isn’t she?” she had to comment.
Berry laughed again, meeting Noah’s gaze, but he rolled his eyes. “Hey, I didn’t say it. You did.” He raised his arms in defeat. “Couldn’t blame her though. She’s a genius. She was Captain Blood and we were all her slaves.”
Then he placed the device onto his workbench and began to tinker with it. “I need to see if I can reuse the transistors from this…ah,” he muttered, fishing something out with a little pincer.
Laney looked around the lab again, distracted.
For the first time, she noticed a handful of what looked like strange little machines that were moving around on the floor. They were bare metal, with gears and spokes poking out of places, running on little treads or wheels. In wonder, she watched one little “robot” move along the floor, run into Noah’s boot, pause for a second, back up, and then move away in the other direction. Noah didn’t even seem to notice.
Almost instinctively, she looked up at him again. He was reading something out from one of the machines in the back and fiddling with his HUD as always. Noah met her gaze with a flicker but said nothing, before instantly looking back down at his HUD.
“So,” Berry started loudly, almost casually, not looking up from his work. “You two kissed yet?”
Laney’s jaw dropped in shock and she shot Noah a look again. “You told him?” she asked in a panicked, accusatory tone, belatedly remembering that Noah had just himself woken up from unconsciousness.
Berry smirked at her reaction.
Noah shot her a seriously flat look. “No…but you just did.”
Laney flushed scarlet with embarrassment. “What?” How the hell could Berry have found out about that? Could he read minds?
Berry chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry,” he assured. “I’m pretty good with secrets. I mean, if you want that one kept.”
Laney took a deep breath, feeling nauseous. “Is…is there a ladies’ room?” she croaked out.
“Sure, P.T. will show you the way,” Berry replied, waving his hand.
One of the little machines on the floor rolled up toward Laney’s feet, chirped twice, and headed off, presumably a signal for her to follow it.
Laney blinked, almost in disbelief, and smiled weakly. “Of course.”
Secrets
Alright, Carter…get a grip, Laney ordered herself in the mirror in the somewhat rusty small lavatory.
Who cared if Berry had somehow—somehow—found out that she and Noah had kissed in London? The kiss had meant absolutely nothing. And more importantly, it was never going to happen again anyway, she thought, decisively. She didn’t even like him. And judging by the way Noah treated her, the feeling was obviously mutual. That kiss had been one massive fluke.
Everything’s going to be okay. Everything’s going to be fine, she assured herself. She took another deep breath, taking stock in an attempt to support her own claim.
She was trapped in a giant underwater tin can with a bunch of strangers in a dystopian alternate world. The other version of herself had been captured by the enemy for being such a bloody prodigy. She herself was being hunted by the government for the pure fact that she shared the same face, on the ridiculous off-chance that she might have some stupid device that the other “her” had created. And in eleven hours, the entire universe, or multiverse, or whatever it was called, was probably going to end.
Great. Just great. Then she shook her head resolutely. “No,” she said softly, looking up at her reflection again. “No,” she said out loud. “These crazy geniuses are going to fix this whole mess. And you are going to go home.” She nodded firmly. “And then get therapy,” she added in exasperation. “Lots of therapy.”
She glanced up upon hearing some chirping at the door. The little robot from before, P.T. poked its “head”, the front section of its mechanism, above the knee knocker.
Laney gave it an expectant look. “What are you, a robotic spy?” she prompted, shooing it away with her hand. “Better not have sneaky cameras on that thing.” She sighed out loud as she started back toward the main lab area, sidestepping a little “Roomba” rolling on the floor.
The two guys were huddled over Berry’s soldering table, and Laney stopped short at the doorway upon overhearing their conversation.
“You didn’t find it?” Berry was prompting Noah with a slightly hushed tone of voice.
“No.”
“Noah, why is she here? You know what Kyle is going to do to her?”
Noah huffed. “I had no choice,” he replied. “We have to save Laney.”
Laney frowned in irritable disbelief before clearing her throat from the doorway.
Berry turned with a start. Noah glanced back at her.
Laney stomped out of the doorway. “Okay, out with it. What are you guys not telling me?” she demanded. “What’s really going on? And who the hell is Kyle?”
Berry blinked. “Sorry, Laney,” he started, but Laney went off.
“What is it?” she prompted him, before turning to Noah angrily. “You said you needed my help,” she said. “You said I had to come with you into that swirling vortex of doom because ‘there was no other choice’,” she said, mimicking air quotes with her fingers. “You said that it wasn’t safe for me to stay in my world, because they had found me and that they were going to kill me. What did you lie about?”
Noah pursed his lips. “Nothing.”
“You asked me to trust you. You said I was going to be safe with you—”
“You are!” Noah cut in so brusquely that Laney winced.
“Time out, guys!” Berry called out.
Laney blew out a breath in annoyance. Noah simply folded his arms across his chest, looking to one side.
“Laney,” Berry started again, calmly. “Please let me explain. For the record, I was going to tell you about General Blakely.”
Laney made a face. “Seriously? Kyle Blakely? He’s that loner in my French Lit class.”
“Well, be that as it may,” Berry relayed. “In this world, he’s the military general in charge of the division that campaigned for the militarization of the Quantum Jump Project,” he went on. “He’d read some of our preliminary data and submitted a proposal up the ranks. His report contained a list of at least ten other worlds that we had studied so far. Worlds he deemed would likely be less resistant to an all-out invasion. Then, somehow, he convinced everyone that this was a great idea—the Magis, congress, even the President—they’re all in consensus. And Blakely’s going to do everything in his power to complete his mission, no matter what it takes. All he needs now is the Zeta device. And if he thinks you have it, you can bet your bottom dollar, he’ll stop at nothing to get it.”
Laney blinked at the reference. “Wait, you guys had ‘Annie’ here?”
Berry didn’t even blink. “Of course. It’s a classic.”
Okay… Laney blinked again to snap out of it and refocused. “I don’t understand.” She shook her head. “Why even chase me? Why don’t they just build themselves a brand new Zeta device? I mean, if you managed to make that thing work,” she said, gesturing to Berry.
“Oh, we think they are,” Berry replied with a nod. “We think that the General and his people have been trying to replicate our work for months, back at GNR—that’s Global Nuclear Research—our main lab in Geneva,” he relayed. “Along with the rest of the original team, you know, the ones who didn’t uh…get killed.”
He cleared his throat, a shadow crossing his face for a second. “But uh…without the prototype and all our test data, it would take them months, if not years, to orchestrate a stable jump. They’re not going to make it in time for the cosmic window, and the next window doesn’t come around for another what—” He glanced up at Noah as if to query. “Sixty-five years?” And he went on, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Most importantly, wi
thout Laney, I reckon it would be damn near impossible. Laney’s that kind of genius, you know. She, like, sees things seven steps ahead of everyone else.”
“Well,” Laney prompted wryly. “She didn’t see all this coming, did she?”
Berry gave her a weak shrug, and he glanced up at Noah again, who met his gaze dully without a word.
“But you said they already have her, right?” Laney said.
Berry nodded again. “We think so. We think she’s being held at GNR with the rest of the team. But the way we figure, if they’re still looking for you, they must be getting desperate, which means if they do have Laney, she might not be cooperating with them. Or more to the point, she’s still resistant to their particular sodium pentothal cocktail, so they haven’t been able to make her cooperate.” He paused before adding, “So far.”
“So far?”
“It might only be a matter of time now. Everyone breaks…eventually,” Berry trailed off, glancing up at Noah tentatively.
Laney narrowed her eyes slightly as she had caught that, and wondered if there was something more to that look.
But Noah spoke up then, his tone firm. “The point is we have to get her out. Now.”
“So, we’re going to Geneva to rescue Laney,” Berry concluded.
“We?” Laney echoed in ridicule. “No, no, no, no, I’m not going anywhere except back home to my world.”
“Look, it’s too late to back out now. You’ve got to help us,” Noah pointed out. “You’re already here.”
“Well, you didn’t exactly give me much of a choice, now did you?” She gave him a suffering look. “Besides, what on this freaking alternate Earth makes you think I can help you with that? I’m not a genius. I’m not a spy. I was barely a girl scout.”
“Actually,” Berry spoke up amicably. “It might interest you to know that aside from fun scientific discoveries, our team also worked on highly-classified military projects, so our entire lab facility is equipped with biometric security—retinal scan, fingerprints, voice locks…” He gestured in the air as he went through the list. “They’re fool-proof, totally secure, untamperable, damn near impenetrable—the place is Fort Knox on steroids,” he told her, almost proudly. Then he paused to meet her gaze. “But guess whose biometrics has the highest-level security access?”
Laney’s expression faded. “Oh, crap.”
Adaptation
“Am I…what am I wearing right now?” Laney made a face as she looked down at a convoluted belt she couldn’t figure out how to put on, which was part of the set of clothes that Berry had given her to change into, since her own clothes were starting to get itchy, having gone through rain, mud, the river, the running, the collapsing bridges, the flash bomb—everything.
For some reason, P.T. was perched on top of a table, as though watching her with a curious tilt of its head. It chirped twice as if to communicate something, but of course, Laney didn’t understand.
Laney regarded it with a narrow-eyed look. “What are you looking at?” she muttered.
“It’s Laney’s stuff,” Berry replied, not looking up. He was wearing some type of contraption over his eyes that looked like brass magnifying goggles, still focused on his soldering-table-tinkering. “Do they fit?” he prompted.
“Yes, but,” Laney said, fidgeting. “I don’t exactly understand how to—”
Just then, Noah came up through a hatch behind her, having washed up himself, even though he had put the same sort of clothes on. He stopped short upon seeing what she was wearing, visibly doing a double-take before he cleared his throat and walked up to help her.
“They’re suspenders,” he said, taking one end of the belt to loop over her shoulders.
Laney had to blink several times to keep herself in check. She caught the freshly-showered-soap smell as he leaned closer to her. Get a grip! She told herself off, trying to keep absolutely still as he put the belt around her.
Noah stepped back as he finished, then he turned to Berry. “What time is it?”
“Twelve-hundred thereabouts,” Berry replied.
Laney blinked to drag her thoughts back to the present. “Hey,” she started after a moment. “Not that I’m a geography person, but I’m not entirely sure this giant sub can sail straight to Geneva. Isn’t it landlocked?”
Berry pulled up his goggles, looking up to grin at her. “Good catch,” he commented. “Actually, we’re making berth in Saint-Malo. We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes. Then you’ll be taking the Chubby south-east to Geneva.”
Laney’s eyes lit up. “The Chubby…?”
Noah was across the room, checking on some of the machines in the back again, and as always referring to his HUD. “It’s a low-altitude helicopter,” he supplied.
“Awesome.” Laney grinned, turning to Berry. “You can fly a helicopter too?”
Berry met her gaze again with a smirk. “No, but he can,” he said, jerking his thumb in Noah’s direction.
Laney’s smile faded. “Wow,” she said anyway before she remarked almost to herself. “Must be lucky you guys escaped with all this—a sub, and a helicopter too.”
Then something else occurred to her. “Hey, I had another thought, your lab facility—GNR. How are you so sure that we’ll be able to get into it? I mean, with all this high-tech high-security Fort Knox business, wouldn’t they have known to change the locks or something by now?”
“Well,” Berry started. “I have a sneaking suspicion that Laney had built a back door only for herself that nobody else could access. Not even Noah or me. Oh, a back door is…” He began to try to explain.
“No, I get what you mean,” Laney nodded. “Like, to a house.”
Berry regarded her with an amused look. “You must be a quick study. I mean, you probably are, being Laney,” he rationalized. “Wouldn’t you think so, Noah?” He glanced up to ask.
Noah didn’t look over. “Aren’t you busy working on something important?”
Berry blinked. “Oh right.” He met Laney’s gaze and she gave him a pointed look and a grin. “Yeah, I really should know better, shouldn’t I?”
Laney walked over to Berry’s table. “What are you working on?”
“Ah,” he said, nodding toward a small square thing on the table. “This is the device that we shall use to bypass security at The Front Door at GNR.” He burned the last component onto the small square with his soldering iron, blowing away the smoke afterward.
Laney cocked her head. “I thought you said the security was all biometric.”
One of Berry’s little robots rolled over the table to take the soldering iron he was holding right out of his hand, while another moved closer to hand him a small detector wand of some type.
He nodded again. “Inside the facility it is. But Level 1 security utilizes a different verification system. We used to call it ‘The Front Door’.” He grinned. “And to get through the front door, you need an Ident card like this.” He held up the little square.
She nodded as she peered at the little square. “Hmm… Fascinating,” she murmured, intrigued.
“Hey, that’s funny,” Berry remarked, pointing at her, sounding highly entertained. “Captain Blood always used to say that too—exactly like that. Don’t you think so, Noah—” He stopped short at Noah’s dark gaze. “Uh, right. Never mind.”
Then he blew out a breath. “Alright, moment of truth,” he declared out loud, holding up the “wand” as if to mark a momentous event. “Please work, please work, please work,” he mumbled, holding the “wand” close to the square, but nothing happened.
He frowned and tried again. Still nothing. Again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.
Laney winced herself, watching his frustrated expression.
“Ah dammit!” Berry groaned. He sighed, pursing his lips. “That’s it.” He pushed his chair back, away from the table, and put his hands behind his head in defeat. “I’ve run out of copper ink and the transistors are all burned out. So much for your Ident card.”
; “Hey.” Noah walked over, an urgent look on his face. “You said there was no way we could get past security at The Front Door without an Ident card.”
“I know. I said that.” Berry sighed again. “And there isn’t. And you’re not gonna wanna trigger the first alarm, right from the get-go, but this stupid thing needs copper-nickel ink, not to mention a Q-type transistor.”
“What’s a transistor?” Laney asked.
“Oh, that’s what makes this thing work. See, the Ident card uses a passive radio transponder that gets activated upon contact with the front door access panel,” Berry answered.
“Sure, like RFID.” Laney nodded casually.
Berry narrowed his eyes. “Mm…I’m not familiar with that acronym.”
“Oh, I mean, it’s like my TAP,” she relayed, walking over to the chair where her jeans were folded up to fish out her Metro card, which was luckily always in the back pocket. “We use it to get into trains and buses and stuff, open doors. It goes ‘beep’.”
Berry looked astonished. “What? Wow,” he breathed. “It’s so thin. That’s—that’s…”
“Fascinating?” Laney guessed with a mischievous smile as she handed the card over to him.
He grinned. “Yeah, hey, if I can adapt your little ‘tap’ for this Ident card, maybe…”
“Maybe what?” Noah prompted expectantly.
“Well, I expect if the technology is similar enough, I might be able to replace the transistor component altogether. I mean—” He shrugged. “Theoretically.”
Noah gave him a look. “We don’t have time for theoretically, Berry.”
But Berry’s eyes were moving around furtively as if he was figuring something complex in his head. “But I’d still need some conductive ink, some copper or nickel, and I don’t—oh!” He stopped for a moment, his eyes lighting up.