The Phoenix Egg

by Richard Bamberg

  He closed the knife and pulled the door open. Just inside the entrance, on the seat of a riding lawn mower was a box with UPS Red markings.

  “It’s all right,” he said.

  Caitlin pushed against him to peer inside.

  “Were you expecting a package?”

  “No, I wasn’t planning to come up here again until Mom and Dad got home.”

  “Well then, let’s see who it’s from.”

  The yellow copy of the invoice was folded and shoved under the edge of the box. He slipped it out and passed it to Caitlin.

  She unfolded the paper and read it silently for a moment. “It’s from Scott.”

  “Oh? To you?”

  “Yes.”

  “If he sent it UPS Red, then he must have sent it recently. What’s the date on it?”

  “Four days ago. The day I left for San Francisco.”

  “Uh oh,” He said.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “He sent it to you here, the day before he was killed. I’d say that what’s in this box is the little item that got him killed.”

  “Of course, what else could it be? Open it.”

  John looked from the box to Caitlin. “Are you sure you want to do that? Sometimes it’s better to remain ignorant. We could give it back and convince them that you never saw the contents.”

  “Screw that! They’ve already tried to kill me, and they did kill Scott. I want to know what’s so damn important that they’re willing to kill for it.”

  “All right, but you probably ought to wait until we’re back in the house.” John picked the box up, it wasn’t very heavy, maybe ten pounds, and held it out to Caitlin.

  She took it from him, hefted it a couple of times as if she was estimating its weight, and then stuck in under her left arm. “Okay, let’s go.”

  “First things first. I still want to look around the property. Did you say there was another path out of here besides the driveway?”

  “Not much of a path, it’s for people on foot not for cars. Although, I suppose the Jeep could make it.”

  “Show me.”

  She led him toward the southeast corner of the property. The trees thinned in that direction and John watched carefully to judge whether the Jeep would be able to get between them. A hundred yards into the forest, the land dropped sharply for about twenty feet. It descended about the same distance giving a nearly smooth forty-five-degree slope, and then the path opened onto a clearing that continued downslope for at least a quarter mile. A four-strand, barbed wired fence bisected the field.

  “That’s Abe Jackson’s property. You can just make out his stable at the far end of the clearing.”

  “Yes, I see it.”

  “There’s a drive leading away from it that will take you down to the road.”

  “Which road is it?”

  “The last one we passed before turning onto ours. You can either turn left there and come out on highway 24 near Falcon, or you can turn right, and you’ll meet back up with Black Forest Road in a couple of miles.”

  “All right, this looks good. The Jeep shouldn’t have any problems fitting between these trees and this slope certainly won’t bother it.”

  “Well, there is something else. You see those lumps in the snow?”

  John gazed out across the white expanse. It was difficult to see any contrast in the bright sunlight.

  “Yeah, I think I see what you’re talking about. What are they?”

  “Rocks, the field’s littered with them. Some are big enough to rip the oil pan out from under the Jeep.”

  “That wouldn’t be good. Maybe I had better brush the snow away from them.”

  “That would take hours,” Caitlin said.

  “Yeah, but it beats having a busted oil pan.”

  “Later then, if you really want to I’ll come out and help you later.”

  “You in a hurry to get back to the house?”

  She held up the box. “What do you think?”

  “I think you need to learn patience,” he said and then broke into a grin.

  “Patience my Aunt Betsy. Let’s go.”

  They walked side by side through the deep snow back to the house.

  Caitlin set the package on a table beneath a tall mirror in the foyer while she shrugged out of her coat.

  John eased out of his, removing the coat didn’t hurt his shoulder as much as putting it on. He hung both of their coats in the closet while she picked up the package and carried it into the great room.

  When he caught up with her, she was sitting on the sofa, the torn wrapping of the package at her feet, the box to one side of her, and a letter in her hands.

  He sat down on the other side of the box and watched her face as she read. After a few seconds, he grew uncomfortable watching the emotion that darkened her eyes and looked away. Whatever she was reading was personal, and she deserved her privacy.

  John lifted the box from between them and set it in his lap. Foam had been sprayed into the box to form a custom fitted, shock-absorbing package. He worked the top of the foam out and stared inside. There were four objects in the box. One was another DVD, and two of the objects appeared identical. They were oblong like pointy eggs, about the size of hen eggs, and gold in color. His memory dredged up a Disney movie from his childhood about a goose and golden eggs, and he almost laughed at the connection. Rather than shiny like the goose’s eggs, these had a mat finish. Clear jewels (diamonds?) encrusted the surface, and a small eyehook protruded from the blunt end. A gold chain ran through the hook. It was a necklace.

  The fourth object looked like a bicycle helmet. It was head sized and vented like most bicycle helmets, but it was made of metal. There was a hole in one side of the helmet that appeared to be the size of the little gold eggs.

  John eased one of the eggs from the foam. It was heavy, but not as heavy as solid gold would be. He held it up and watched the light reflect off the gems.

  Pretty, but certainly not diamonds. Diamonds wouldn’t reflect rainbow patterns that way.

  “It’s a telephone.”

  John looked at Caitlin. Her eyes were misty like she’d been near the point of crying.

  “A telephone?” he asked and raised the egg to his ear.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Listening for a dial tone.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “You’re the one who said it was a telephone.”

  “It’s not that kind of phone,” she said.

  “So I gather. You want to tell me what’s in the letter?”

  She wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist and nodded. “It’s from Scott. He gives a very brief description of this thing and talks about what it does.”

  “Did he say anything about how he got involved or who these people are who want it?”

  She shook her head. Reaching into the box, she took out the other oval and turned it over in her hand.

  “He says the file he sent me contains a full schematic and manufacturing details necessary to build the helmet. The disk in the box contains the details on the eggs themselves.”

  “So it is a helmet. If the eggs are telephones, then what’s the helmet, a switchboard?”

  Caitlin lifted the helmet out of the box and turned it over. The underside had a smooth transparent layer covering an intricate circuit layout.

  “It’s the encoder,” she said.

  “You’re going to have to expand on that. What does it encode?”

  “He didn’t go into much detail. He expected me to get everything from the files, but he said that you just load one of the eggs into the helmet.” She turned it over and indicated the slot John had noticed. “Then you put the helmet over your head. It encodes the egg to your particular brain waves.”

  “Brain waves? What does that have to do with a telephone?”

  “It’s a little more than a telephone, that’s just the way he describes it. In fact, he calls it an ultraphone.”

  “Ultrap
hone?”

  “He said the inventor came up with the name. It’s a translating interneural transceiver.”

  “That’s a mouthful, but wouldn’t that be a tit-phone?”

  She almost smiled, then nodded, and wiped at her eyes. “We are not calling it a titphone. The egg can translate brain waves into intelligent signals, and then a source inside the egg transmits those signals to another unit.”

  “What? Are you kidding me? This thing can transmit thoughts?”

  “Something like that. Scott says it transmits thoughts from the speech center, not just anything you happen to be thinking. It only picks up thoughts that would become verbal after being processed and sent to the vocal cords. It really is more like a telephone than a thought transmitter.”

  John stared at the egg in his hand. “Caitlin, is this some kind of flimflam?”

  “What? I don’t understand.”

  “You know, flimflam, as in deception, a ruse. Could this be some kind of scheme to rip off investors?”

  Her voice was both angry and hurt. “How could you say something like that? Scott may have had faults, but he wasn’t a crook.”

  “I’m sorry, but I find it hard to believe that they could put that sort of technology into this small a package. Hell, it’s hard enough to believe that anyone has come up with the technology at all. They’ve been studying brain waves for generations, and I’ve never seen any reports that they might be able to translate brain waves into speech without using the brain to do it.”

  “So? Just because you haven’t read about it doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible. A lot of research goes on without the intermediate results winding up in open literature.”

  “Granted, but this ... It hardly seems likely that someone could develop both the technology and the packaging simultaneously. Usually, the technology is around for years before the package is ready to market. Hell, look at HDTV. That technology was around forever before they finally settled on a standard and started manufacturing the things.”

  “Every company had their own standard they wanted to be used until the government got them together to decide on a particular one. Maybe this time someone wanted to avoid letting other companies have access to the standard. This way they can bring the product to market without any competitors. By the time someone else can develop the technology; they’ll have the patent and have a lock on the system.”

  Her eyes widened, as she seemed to realize the importance of something. “My God, it’ll be just like the telephone system in the early days. One company will control the entire market. This could make telephones obsolete; the market value of this product is beyond comprehension.”

  He put a hand on her arm. “Whoa now. Don’t you think you're a little over reactive? So it could replace phones, there will still be the need for the infrastructure that’s already set up. Even if they work, you’ll still need switchboards, satellite relays, and even operators. It’ll be like when cellular phones were introduced. Sure there was a tremendous market, but it didn’t affect the existing market.”

  “But this time there won’t be a hundred different companies trying to set up local service. There’ll only be one with the patent, with the technology.”

  “All right, I can see that. But I can’t see why you make it sound like the company that brings it out will have some kind of ultimate power. It’s still just a phone system.”

  Her face was so pallid, so ashen that he thought she might faint.

  “I don’t think you see the whole picture, John. I think this will obsolete every phone on the planet almost overnight.”

  “Come on, aren’t you being melodramatic?”

  “No. Scott’s letter mentioned one other item about this thing.”

  “And that was?”

  “Because of where it interacts with the brain, it bypasses the language center. When you talk with someone else, it doesn’t matter whether they’re speaking English or Russian or Swahili. That’s where the ultra part comes in. It stands for universal language translator.”

  Shit, when she was right, she was right. It was more than just a telephone. What would something like that be worth to the company or government that had initial control of it? Billions certainly, trillions? Whatever the final value, there was no doubt that people would kill to acquire it. No doubt whatsoever.

  John felt a sudden wave of apprehension. He’d been underestimating the value of what Scott had acquired. He hadn’t taken all possible precautions. They’d already reached Louie, were Squeeze and Felipe in danger too? He had to warn them, and then they’d better get on the move. If the device could actually do what Caitlin said, no place would be safe for them until they disposed of it. No, not disposed of, they had to get it to someone with enough power to defend themselves against the others who wanted it. Who? The Japanese gentlemen from JETRO, the NCIX, somehow, he didn’t think the group Holdren represented would allow either of them to keep it.

  Without warning, Caitlin popped the egg she held into the helmet’s slot and set the helmet over her head.

  “Hey!” He said, too late to stop her. “My God, Caitlin, what do you think you’re doing?”

  She fastened the thin chinstrap and met his gaze. “I’m going to try it out. They killed Scott for this; I’m going to see if it really works.”

  “How do you know it’s ready to use? It may have to be prepped or something? What if it’s dangerous?”

  “More dangerous than not knowing? They’ve killed for this. I have to know if it’s real.”

  “Did Scott say anything about how to set it up? Where’s the on button?”

  “The rest of it was personal, something about our honeymoon. He just said that you put the egg in the helmet and put it on. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Then how will you know when it’s finished?”

  Her face showed her uncertainty, and she shrugged. “Christ, Caitlin. Wait, you said he talked about your honeymoon. Was there something in particular about it?”

  “That’s personal.”

  “I don’t mean that. I mean did he mention any places, things you saw, you know something that could be used as the password for the file.”

  “Yes, the town we went to in Mexico. That could be the password.”

  “Where’s your computer?”

  “In my case, upstairs in my room.”

  She started to get up, but John put a hand on her arm. “No, let me get it. You shouldn’t be walking around with that thing on your head. We don’t know what it’s doing. It might suddenly make you fall asleep or make you dizzy. Christ, they’re screwing around with your thoughts. Who knows what this thing could do to you?”

  “I don’t think it’s dangerous. Scott would have warned me if it were.”

  “Yeah? Well, maybe the warning is in the computer file.”

  “You really are the most paranoid person in the world.”

  He shrugged. “Just because you’re paranoid–”

  “Yeah, I know, it doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. Really John, don’t you think that sounds contrived?”

  Again, he shrugged. “I’ll be right back.”

  Her purse was on top of the dresser in her room. He took it and hurried back to her. She watched him walk down the stairs without comment. Stopping in front of her, he held out the case.

  “I’m not dead yet. I....”

  She convulsed and flopped limply back on the sofa.

  “Ah, shit!” He said and sat down beside her. He checked her throat for a pulse then pried back one eyelid.

  Her eye stared back at him.

  “Jesus H. Christ. What the hell’s wrong with you?” He snapped and jerked his hand back from her face.

  She sat upright, the grin on her face irritatingly coy. “Lighten up John. It was just a joke.”

  “How can you joke about it? A minute ago you were ... never mind.”

  “What? I was upset about Scott? Damned right and I still am, but you can’t run on just remorse. You h
ave to have humor, or you might as well be dead too.”

  He wanted to argue, but what was the use? He passed the computer case to her and waited for her to boot up the system.

  She loaded in the DVD and called up the protected program. When it asked for the password, Caitlin typed in something too quick for him to follow.

  The screen went from black to blue, and then text appeared.

  “All right, we’re in.” She paged down to the contents. There was an executive summary, a list of construction drawings, and chapters broken into different aspects of the techniques of design and theoretical operation of the device.

  “Well, that’s about everything you’d need to build it.”

  “See who the author is.”

  Caitlin paged back to the cover sheet, but instead of the usual document page that detailed the writer, inventor, and document reviewers, there was a single line of text that said: R.E. Curtis.

  “I suppose that could be the inventor,” she said.

  “Then why doesn’t it say so, besides anything with this level of sophistication will normally have an entire team of researchers. Where’s the background on the development? Did one man invent and then put his invention into these cute packages?” He asked as he rolled the other egg around in his hand.”

  “I don’t know? Perhaps the executive overview will go into it.”

  “All right, you read it. I’m going to set a few things up in case we get unexpected visitors.”

  “All right.”

  John set the egg back in its foam shell and went to the stairs. He turned back to look at Caitlin. She was leaning forward over the computer. Her gaze was intent, but the bicycle helmet spoiled the air of concentration. He shook his head. What the hell had Scott gotten her mixed up in? His gut told him to get rid of the devices and the disk and then have Felipe make them up permanent identities so they could disappear for awhile, like twenty or thirty years.

  He climbed the stairs and went into the guestroom. Taking his case from the corner, he opened it and started removing things.