“Oh,” said Calm, “so that’s why you want me in the front.”
“Right.”
He recalled Cheshire’s comment, “You’re going to arrive safely in the inner solar system in a matter of days, and you will learn many things that surprise you.”
“Why not just slow down?”
“We can’t.” Only the tightness of his voice showed just how scared that made Andrews.
That reply brought Calm up short. “Why not?”
“We are using the slowest method of spatial distortion that the Doppler-Bubble Drive allows for,” explained Captain Smithston.
“He should stand here, sir.”
“Calm, please stand over there.”
Calm stood in the specified spot. “Okay, now back to this slowest method.”
“Yes?”
“I’m a certified pilot. Are you telling me that unless fully disengaged the Doppler-Bubble Drive on this ship is going dangerously fast?”
“Yes.”
“What’s it doing to the distortion bubble?”
Andrews looked impressed. “You came to that question faster than we did, sir. The distortion bubble seems to be unaffected.”
Of course Calm had thought of that faster. He spent a lot of time thinking about energy distortion. “How are you making sure that we don’t crash right now?” he asked.
Andrews answered in a lecturing tone reminiscent of the classroom. “Well, theoretically we can’t crash. The drive creates a localized distortion in space-time that the ship sits within, and we ride within the bow wake of the distortion. If we cross paths with something, it should be swept aside by the bow wake. In addition, the ship’s computer sees obstacles ahead of us in the far distance, and through minute course adjustments it’s set to avoid collisions. But it wasn’t designed for reactions at these speeds. We’re almost flying blind. The same theory that says we won’t hit anything also says that we can’t go as fast as we’re currently going.”
“We’re going to make it,” Calm replied, remembering Cheshire’s statement.
Andrews shook his head. “You don’t understand. At our current speed, if we’re hit by something as small as a grain of sand, the entire ship will be obliterated.”
“I’d like some meals and a mattress.”
Smithston looked confused by the segue.
“I have to stay here for several days, right?”
“Right.”
Calm ticked items off on his fingers. “Food, mattress, clothing, something that I can use to take care of my basic needs.” He considered asking for entertainment, but he had his Uplink. Besides, what else could they give him?
“Done.”
Odd Discovery
Jonny sat at his desk, still wincing from his last session with Derek. Aches and pains invaded his concentration. One spot on his lower left side was tender and made itself known whenever he bent, stretched, or inhaled. He rubbed his temples. There was a dull ache behind his eyes, not enough to stop him from working but just enough to make everything a little bit harder. Between his workload and those tests, a feeling of profound weariness had settled over him.
News reports of extraordinary Keystones served as a tempting distraction from his designated work. One kid had turned into a living bolt of lightning. Jonny was thankful that the kid lived on Terra Ring One. There also had been a slight increase in crime, but given the proliferation of cameras on artificial habitats, new criminals were expected to take a longer time to emerge as they learned how to game the system. Jonny’s rat video had gone viral, but reaction to it on the Rings had been less panicky than on Earth.
From time to time vermin made extensive nests on the Rings. The invaders’ origins were tricky to track down, but the most popular theory was that they were escaped pets. Whatever their source, a simple protocol had been developed to take care of them. Affected areas were hermetically sealed after all humans had been evacuated, then pumped full of carbon monoxide for an hour.
Neither Jonny’s exhaustion nor the distraction of local news prevented him from noticing something odd on his computer screens. Jonny had approached his task by casting his net more widely than usual, launching a Ring-wide search to assess how many gravity-capable ships were available in any capacity. The available quantity was negligible compared to what would be required. This discovery forced Jonny down a second avenue of approach, a complete analysis of the utilization of all infrastructure throughout the three Rings.
The Terra Rings were huge. Each was twenty kilometers wide with a circumference of approximately two hundred and sixty-five thousand kilometers, amounting to a combined surface area of sixteen million kilometers or about eleven percent of the dry land on Earth. Such large amounts of space meant that the usage of different areas was in constant flux and that records were not always up-to-date.
Jonny needed to determine which manufacturing facilities could be repurposed to construct gravity-capable spacecraft in a matter of hours or days. Most spacecraft were never intended to reach an atmosphere and, as such, were made with different design considerations. Aerodynamics were not important in space; therefore, most spaceships could not be modified for use in a planetary evacuation. Because the Doppler-Bubble Drive could be dangerous to use within an atmosphere, Jonny’s goal was to find, salvage, or construct hundreds of thousands of fusion drives and fuselages capable of landing and launching a ship.
Every ship in space had fusion drives for fine maneuvering, as did habitats, satellites, and the Terra Rings, in order to maintain stability in orbit. Even so, producing hundreds of thousands on command was a tall order.
Jonny called up a hologram on his display that showed Ring One in its entirety. Then he called up data on the different sections of the Ring and color-coded them according to their usage and function. One by one colors lit up on the display. Green indicated parkland spaces and residential areas, useless for his purposes. Black indicated industrial facilities that could not be converted speedily for his present needs, also useless. Blue indicated commercial zones, warehousing, recycling, scientific labs, corporate offices, entertainment, life support, law enforcement, emergency services, and transportation. He couldn’t make use of them either.
Next were two colors, yellow and grey, that signified areas of promise. Jonny highlighted the Ring with yellow where manufacturing facilities existed that could be used to produce viable spacecraft. It was a paltry amount, not nearly enough to fill the contracts that they wanted to accept, but Jonny handed the information off to his junior staffers for follow-up. The miniscule areas of Ring One that remained were highlighted in grey, denoting those that had poor documentation or left him unsure of what their present function was.
Analysis of Ring Two revealed an identical pattern, with a minimal number of suitable facilities.
With low expectations Jonny repeated this plotting for Ring Three. Colors splashed onto the hologram but in low quantities. There was roughly the same amount of residential space yet less blue and black. Jonny felt like a hound near the end of his hunt. He called up the yellow industrial zones on Ring Three and stared at it dumbfounded.
Almost nothing appeared on his screen. He had expected a massive swath of yellow to fill the gaps, but it wasn’t there. Ring Three had no zones that were suitable for his project. That couldn’t be correct.
Jonny then searched the grey areas. Over ten percent of Ring Three was given over to undocumented worksites. With that much space, anything could be built.
He programmed the software to look for correlations. More than a minute ticked by, long for a simple information request. The grey areas had been organized and incorporated in a fashion that was intended to make them look unrelated, but under his scrutiny the masks came off. They were connected. Someone had taken control of over ten percent of Ring Three.
Jonny spent hours digging through further data requests and research, but he was unable to find the ultimate architect of what he had witnessed on the computer screens. It was time for
a drastic course of action. It was time to talk to his supervisor, Lacey Lyndley.
“What do you mean that you don’t know what’s being done there?” asked Lacey with fire in her eyes.
Jonny flicked his fingers toward the holographic display hanging over her desk. It was his data. “I mean that I don’t have visual feeds, and I can’t find any specific documentation. I don’t know what the spaces are being used for. I don’t know who’s using them, and I don’t know what materials, if any, are there.”
“Well, who owns them?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Jonny called up another display that showed a chain of linked legal documents. “They’re all shell corporations. I can’t trace them back to the original owners. Many sites are linked to the same corporations.”
“You’ve marked about half of the areas as high priority. Why?”
“Those represent areas that I think are ideal for manufacturing gravity-capable spaceships.”
Lacey’s fingers flew over her keyboard, executing the same commands that Jonny had used to identify the shell corporations’ owners. Jonny could see her hitting the same walls that had thwarted him. Lacey remained silent before saying, “This could be what we’ve been looking for. We need an on-site inspection.”
“What?”
“An on-site inspection. They can hide whatever they want with deceptive paper trails, but if we just go over there we can find some answers. The area involved is huge, so we’re going to need help.”
The Imperial Grand
The party of four walked into the main entrance of the Imperial Grand Hotel in Boa Vista. The lobby was huge, its architecture fully validating the establishment’s pretensions.
Brice Tobin craned his head, looking in all directions. “This is much nicer than I expected.”
“In America,” harped his wife, “check-in would be simpler. You’d just swipe your Uplink and get your keycard. Here we still have to deal with staff. When will they ever catch up?”
“Mom,” responded Deklan, “do you remember how when I was a child you taught to be polite?”
“Yes, you were a difficult child.”
Deklan let the comment roll off him. “Shouldn’t that lesson apply to all of us?”
“And just what is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re on a paid vacation. I know that things aren’t going perfectly, but couldn’t you at least be nicer about it? We haven’t yet reached our final destination. This is nothing more than a stopover.”
“I don’t appreciate being lectured,” declared his combative mother. “Brice, tell him to be more polite to me.”
“Deklan,” interjected his father, “I can’t say this strongly enough. Please don’t start any fights with your mother that I get drawn into. I get into enough fights with her on my own.”
Tricia’s stare changed targets, locking onto Brice with a laser-like focus. Deklan eyed the confrontation, impressed as always that his father’s skin failed to blister. “Brice!” added Tricia. “You are not helping.”
“Sorry dear.” Brice failed to sound repentant.
“You just wait until we get to our room.”
With his mother distracted, Deklan dashed over to a check-in desk.
The clerk addressed him in impeccable English. “Hello, sir. How may I help you?”
“Hi. I’ve got a reservation for three rooms under the name of Tobin.”
“May I see some ID, please?”
“Certainly.”
Susan drifted over while Deklan waited to be processed. “What’s your plan for the night?” she asked.
“Eat. Find out how to get to the Elevator from here.”
The check-in clerk popped into the conversation. “Oh, I hope you’re not here to use the Elevator.”
Deklan focused on her like a hawk. “Why not?”
“It’s the gangs. They’ve been taking control of the entire area surrounding the terminal. It’s all unofficial, but I’d hate to try to get there right now.”
The clerk glanced both ways and then leaned toward them, lowering her voice. “All of the new Keystones down here seem to be violent. When they’re not joining one gang, they’re starting a new one, fighting an old one, or attacking people in that general area. It’s dangerous. The police have been underwhelming. The news reports about their inefficiency are scathing.”
“You missed that, wonder boy, when you were doing your research?” said Susan acidly.
“You could have checked on too, and I don’t recall anyone’s forcing you to come along.”
The clerk returned to her former position, contrition writ large upon her face. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to cause a fight between you and your girlfriend.”
“We’re not together,” said Deklan and Susan simultaneously.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I just assumed. Still, there are many nice things to do in Boa Vista. We have a great nightlife, excellent restaurants, and beautiful natural scenery. If you’re interested in that sort of thing, the new zoo is immense and houses exotic creatures from around the world.”
“What kinds of exotic creatures?” asked Deklan dreading the answer.
“They have an Australian section with platypuses, poisonous snakes and spiders, and kangaroos. The African section is pretty impressive too. I went last month with my husband, and we had a great time. You should go.”
“I don’t know whether we’re zoo people, but I’ll think about your suggestion,” said Deklan. “In the meantime could we get those room keys? We were only a few hours on the plane, but I’m rather tired and would like to watch some of those news reports that you mentioned.”
Once in his room Deklan flipped through channels and stopped at an interesting news broadcast. He was joining the broadcast halfway through, but he caught the main gist.
The piece focused on a vigilante called Slate who was operating in the area around the Elevator. There were video clips of multiple violent assaults against gang members who were attempting to mug people. A disproportionate number of the people rescued appeared to be women, but that could have been because gang members preferred to prey on women. What was most striking was Slate’s appearance.
The figure looked terrifying—no eyes, ears, or hair, only the smallest suggestion of a nose, and no mouth. The entire face was an expanse of unblemished, pale white skin. In sharp contrast, he wore a black trench coat with dark pants and boots. He appeared to teleport into a fight, throw criminals around with vicious force, and then vanish again. Deklan didn’t know what he found more fascinating, the exotic appearance or the teleportation.
Deklan’s mind drifted to other things. So much had happened since his waking up at the morgue that he hadn’t given the experience the amount of personal reflection it deserved. Had he in fact died? Was The Sweep a second chance for him? “Try to do the right thing.” Helping people get to the Elevator seemed like the right thing, though now that he thought about it that wasn’t what he’d done. He’d set out on the most selfish course of action by saving only his parents, and Susan because she’d been nearby.
He still couldn’t imagine who his mysterious benefactor was or why said person was paying for their stay at the Imperial Grand, but he was alive when he had no right to be. He’d been in dozens of car crashes as a stuntman. He’d come to recognize what was safe and what was dangerous.
When his car had plummeted through the air, he hadn’t expected to escape the wreck.
Threading the Labyrinth
Cay was lost. He was in a building that he didn’t recognize. Nothing was familiar, and the more he tried to focus, the more things became indistinct. What was that pattern on the wall? Which floor was he on? Where were the windows? He couldn’t find an answer to any of these questions. Each unknown factor brought him closer and closer to panic.
He walked down long and meandering hallways that opened onto large rooms filled with overstuffed chairs and couches. There weren’t any p
eople. He yelled and yelled and yelled but received no response. He knew that, wherever he was, he was alone.
Alone in a room his voice echoed back to him as though from a distance. And his footsteps sounded muffled. The more he wandered, the more desperate he became to find anything that he could hold on to and call real.
Everything felt alien.
The light was wrong. It didn’t match that of the FAME station or Callisto or the ship he’d been on. It didn’t match the light from anywhere he’d ever been.
The smell, or lack thereof, was also wrong. There were no smells at all, not even the musty odor of a long-unused and confined space.
Then there was the matter of touch. None of the textures felt right; none felt real. Cay had first noticed that when he touched a metal door handle that felt somehow insubstantial. Everything felt the same way—the wooden doors, the walls, the furniture—as though it might dissolve at any moment without warning.
Things were becoming less and less clear to him.
Cay panicked and ran headlong, opening doors at random, sometimes running through them and sometimes not. It didn’t seem to matter. A hallway could open onto a room that had one door or three or ten. Each door always opened onto a new room that gave him no further clues about where he was. As he ran, he found doors that were already open, but he didn’t know whether he had opened them or not. How was he supposed to know when all the decorations, lights, and smells were the same?
Eventually slowing down in his pell-mell flight, Cay tried to retrace his steps, closing every door that he passed through, sometimes getting confused by rooms with multiple open doors but always trying to choose the right one. A mental fog began to overtake him. Utterly disoriented, he resumed walking about and opening doors. Bit by bit he felt the fog displaced by a steady breeze. The lights, sounds, and sensations were still wrong, but he felt better.
Keystones: Altered Destinies Page 11