Labyrinth

by Mark T Sullivan

  But every time she got a handhold on the ledge, the corpse bumped her and knocked her hand free. Whitney plunged under the water for a second, then surfaced, sputtering and crying. She looked at her best friend’s body in the dim light and, furious, began to strike out at it again and again and again…

  “Can’t go back in the cave again!” Whitney sobbed as she flailed her arms. “I can’t! I can’t!”

  Then Whitney felt her wrists caught and taken in a strong grip. A voice, a steady, sure voice that reminded her of Tom’s, said, “Mrs. Burke! Please, stop!”

  Whitney struggled against the grip, which only became tighter and tighter until she relented and let the energy go out of her muscles. Then she hung her head, blinked several times, and breathed slower; and the waking nightmare faded and the redheaded Irishman who’d said he was a U.S. marshal, who’d told her what had happened to Tom and Cricket, came into focus.

  Finnerty was on his knees, holding her by her forearms, a look of concern and understanding on his face. Whitney looked around and saw that she was sitting in a canvas-backed chair inside a tent. There were people she didn’t recognize and then she saw Angelis, the mission commander, standing behind the marshal; and she knew it wasn’t a dream. That it was real and terrible. Finnerty was talking again and she turned her head in his direction. “That’s better,” he was saying. “Much better. Would you like some water?”

  Whitney shook her head, then she felt tears streaming down her face. “They’re gone,” she mumbled. “Tom. Cricket. Gone just like Jeannie. Just like I said. I told him. And he didn’t listen. I told him.”

  “No,” Finnerty soothed. “They’re not gone, Mrs. Burke. We’re getting a strong signal from the locators they’re carrying. We know where they are and that they’re alive, but as I said before, we need your help to rescue them. We need you to take us into that cave.”

  “I can’t,” she blubbered. “When I go in caves, people die.”

  “Mrs. Burke … uh, Whitney,” Finnerty said. “If you don’t help us, your husband and daughter may die. You don’t want Tom and Cricket to die, do you?”

  Whitney stared at the marshal for the longest time, struggling to understand exactly what he was saying. Then she rubbed her sleeve across her nose and shook her head. “No. I want them to live. I want them to come home.”

  Finnerty smiled. “’Course, you do. We all want them to come home. We all want them—”

  “Boss,” another voice said. Whitney turned and saw a shaved-headed Latino with a badge hanging on a lanyard around his neck.

  “I’m sorry,” Sanchez said. “But two guys with Justice Department clearance just came through security. It’s about that sealed testimony.”

  Finnerty closed his eyes for a second, then let go of Whitney’s wrists. “Can you wait here for me, Whitney, while I go talk with these men. What they have to say could be very important.”

  Whitney sniffed and nodded, then said, “Important to Tom and Cricket?”

  The marshal frowned. “Could be.”

  Whitney flashed on the image of Tom and Cricket standing in her bedroom two nights before, all of them upset in the wake of her nightmare. “I want to be there. I want to talk to them.”

  “That’s not a good idea,” the marshal said. “You’re upset and—”

  Whitney stuck her chin up at him. “If you want my help, I want to be there.”

  For a long moment the marshal said nothing, but studied her with his hands clasped prayerlike in front of his face. Whitney felt a part of herself she thought she had lost a long time ago surface, and she met his gaze and did not let it waver. Finally, he let a smile creep onto his face and nodded. “Okay, Whitney. We’ll play it your way.”

  Finnerty patted her on the leg, then stood and turned to Sanchez. “Call the gate. Have them send the Justice guys up.”

  Sanchez did not reply, but went straight out through the tent flaps.

  The marshal nodded toward Two-Elk. “Get her something to drink and eat. She’s gonna need it.”

  Then Finnerty motioned to Angelis. Together the two men walked outside the tent and toward the tree line. The sun was high overhead. The air was as thick and misty as a steambath. In the distance, the marshal saw the klieg lights of reporters covering the events. He thought of Natalie scowling at him the morning before, thought of all that it meant, then shook it off, stopped, and turned to the mission commander. “You want to tell me what the hell was going on in there?”

  Angelis got a pained expression on his face. “Whitney Burke’s suffering from post-traumatic stress,” he replied. “She was involved in a horrible caving accident last year. Her best friend died. She was trapped with the body for nearly seventeen hours in a flooded cave before she was rescued.”

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Finnerty moaned. “There’s no one else who can do this?”

  “No one with her level of experience,” Angelis said. “I think if you just keep her focused on her husband and daughter, she’ll be okay.”

  “Damian!” Boulter called from back near the tent. “They’re here. The guys from Justice.”

  12:30 P.M.

  JENKINS RIDGE

  LABYRINTH CAVE

  “Daddy!” Cricket cried, rushing to Tom’s side. He writhed on the cave floor, his eyes rolled back in his head. His tongue arched backward and sought his throat.

  “Do something!” she screamed at the men standing around her. “He’s dying.”

  “Don’t worry, kid, he ain’t dying,” Lyons said, squatting down next to her. “He just took a shock. Last a minute or so. He’ll come around. Be weak awhile, but okay.”

  Cricket looked down at her dad, whose spasming had already ebbed. “I hate you,” she told Lyons. Then she looked up at Gregor, Mann, and Kelly, who held the belly belt transmitter. “I hate all of you.”

  Mann smiled smugly down at her. “I don’t hate you, Cricket. In fact, I think we can be real good friends.”

  Lyons stood and got right in Mann’s face. “Leave the kid alone,” he growled.

  “I don’t think so,” Mann replied. “I haven’t had a whiff of it in two years and she smells so … ripe for the picking.”

  Lyons stuck the muzzle of his shotgun into Mann’s belly. “I said leave her alone.”

  Mann hesitated, then batted his soft blue eyes at the guard. “Sure, Lyons. Suit yourself.”

  “Crick?” Tom said in a thick slur.

  Cricket looked down at her dad and started to cry. His eyes were focusing, but there was a trickle of blood coming out the corner of his mouth.

  “Don’t talk, Dad,” Cricket said. “You bit your tongue, bad.”

  Kelly got down next to them and tapped Tom on the shoulder with the antennae of the belly belt transmitter. “Control that temper a’ yours, hear? Or next time I’ll buzz you so hard, you’ll bite that tongue a’ yours clean off.”

  “I want my daughter with me,” Tom managed to say.

  “Can’t do that,” Kelly replied. “Separation keeps you compliant”

  Tom tried to sit up and groaned at the effort.

  “Lay down, Daddy,” Cricket said. “Just stay there a minute.”

  Gregor stepped forward, shone his light into Tom’s eyes, then snarled at Kelly, “Shit, I been hit twice that hard. Get him up. Now. We’re losing time.”

  Kelly got his arm under her father’s armpit and yanked him roughly to his feet. He almost collapsed, but Cricket grabbed him and held him upright. She’d never seen her dad like this, so helpless, and it scared her worse than anything that had happened so far. “I’ll be okay,” he said to her. “Just give me a minute.”

  “Daddy,” Cricket said, then began to cry.

  “Shhh. I’ll be okay.”

  Then Tom looked from Kelly to Gregor to Lyons. “Keep that fucking pervert away from my daughter,” he said. “Or I won’t lead you another step.”

  Kelly said, “We’ll keep Mann away from her and the belly belt away from you if you keep doing what we want.�
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  He glared at Kelly, then said, “And Cricket gets to sit with me when we rest.”

  “No way,” Kelly said.

  “Deal,” Lyons said.

  “What are you, out of your mind?” Kelly demanded. “That’s against the protocol of handling dangerous prisoners, Lyons. You know that.”

  “Fuck you, Kelly,” Lyons said. “I said, deal.”

  “Gregor?” Kelly asked.

  Cricket saw Gregor study Kelly and Lyons. Then he nodded and stared straight at her and her father with the coldest eyes she’d ever seen. “Sure, long as he takes us to the stone, she can sit with her daddy. But one more stunt like that and I’ll kill the girl. Understand?”

  12:40 P.M.

  NASA ENCAMPMENT

  JENKINS RIDGE

  LABYRINTH CAVE

  Whitney drank from the tumbler of ice water Two-Elk had given her. “Do you have children?” she asked.

  The deputy marshal shook her head. “Never had the time.”

  “When they’re born it makes you feel like you’re connected to infinity, like you have all the time in the world,” Whitney said. “But you don’t. You have no time at all.”

  She started to feel herself reel toward the edge of the abyss, but she fought against it, closing her eyes, talking herself down. Then she heard the flaps of the tent rustle and the big Kentucky State Police captain, the U.S. marshal, and Angelis came in, followed by two men she didn’t recognize.

  The tall one wore shorts and a denim shirt and carried a battered leather satchel. He had a silver ponytail, and from the lines on his face appeared to be in his early fifties. Despite his age, he had the broad shoulders, pumped chest, and tapered waist of a competition swimmer. The second man was much younger, in his late teens, early twenties at best, Whitney thought. He was blond and blue-eyed and should have been quite handsome, but his features were obscured by a heavy layer of fat. The younger man wore baggy khaki pants and a white polo shirt stained with coffee. He was sweating so hard in the hot humid air that his eyeglasses were slightly fogged and Whitney immediately felt sorry for him.

  Finnerty pointed at her. “Professor Swain, Whitney Burke.”

  The pony-tailed man strode to her with confidence. “Jeffrey Swain,” he said. “Chairman of the Physics Department. University of Tennessee. This is my assistant Chester Norton.”

  The young man looked at his boss the way a slave might a demanding master, then smiled shyly and stuck out his hand. “Sorry we couldn’t have met under better circumstances, ma’am,” Norton said.

  Finnerty said, “I gather we set off alarms with our request to see Gregor’s trial record?”

  “Alarms we’ve been waiting almost three years to hear,” Norton said.

  Swain smiled in a way that reminded Whitney of other academics she’d known who did everything to put forth the air that they suffered fools lightly. “I’m afraid my assistant has a penchant for the dramatic,” he said.

  Whitney saw Finnerty react as if he’d gotten a whiff of something he didn’t like. “We’ve got hostages in that cave, Dr. Swain. Mrs. Burke’s husband and daughter. If you’ve got something to say, something that will help us, I suggest you get on with it. These men are vicious. Lives are at stake.”

  “Just so, Marshal,” the physicist replied. Then he took a deep breath and went on. “What I am about to describe is one of our nation’s most guarded secrets, and at the request of the attorney general of the United States I must ask you all to sign these forms before I continue with the briefing.”

  He reached into the leather satchel and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers. Whitney took one in confusion and perused it. It was a legal document, the equivalent of a gag order, drafted under the auspices of the attorney general’s office, demanding that she never reveal what Swain was about to tell her.

  Finnerty took his copy and said, “What the hell is this all about?”

  “Sign,” Swain replied. “Then you’ll hear it all.”

  “Does this concern my husband and daughter?” Whitney asked.

  “It does now,” Swain said.

  Whitney took a pen and signed the document immediately. She watched as Angelis, Boulter, Two-Elk, Sanchez, and then Finnerty did the same.

  “Very good,” Swain said, taking the documents and handing them to Norton, who tucked them back in the briefcase. “Now, what do you know about superconductors?”

  “Superconductors?” Finnerty said. “What does that have to do with this?”

  “Everything, I’m afraid,” Swain replied haughtily.

  Angelis shrugged. “Superconductors are materials that channel electricity with virtually no resistance,” he said. “Without resistance, electronic devices become infinitely more efficient and powerful. Scientists believe that superconductors may solve our energy problems and result in great economic gain for the nation. The most powerful superconductors, the ones we’re going back to the moon to mine, were discovered at …” He suddenly looked intently at the physicist.

  “The University of Tennessee,” Swain said, finishing the thought.

  Whitney gazed at Swain with newfound appreciation. She’d heard of him. Everyone had. “You were the one who figured out that certain materials in moon rocks superconduct at room temperature,” she said. “You’re responsible for all of this, the Artemis Project, everything. They say you’re going to get the Nobel.”

  “It is what they say,” Swain replied, grimacing. “Unfortunately, I was not the real discoverer, only the one who got the public credit.”

  “What?” Angelis said, stunned.

  Finnerty shook his head. “I’m not clear on any of this.”

  Swain began to pace up and down in the tent. “Yes, I can see that, Marshal, and it’s important that you be clear, very clear, to understand exactly what it is you’re dealing with here. So a bit of history first: Superconductors were first discovered in 1911 by a Dutch physicist named Onnes, who found that the electrical resistance of a frozen mercury rod and thousands of other materials suddenly disappeared when cooled to near zero Kelvin, or two hundred seventy-three degrees below zero Fahrenheit.

  “But for nearly seventy-five years, no scientist ever found a material that superconducted other than at those extreme temperatures,” Swain went on. “Then, in 1986, scientists at the IBM Research Laboratory in Switzerland found that a ceramic material made of various ores would superconduct at the unusually high temperature of thirty degrees above absolute zero, or negative two hundred forty degrees Fahrenheit. Soon scientists around the world, including me, began experimenting with ore mixtures, and by the early 1990s they had driven the temperature for superconductivity up to nearly one hundred forty degrees below zero Fahrenheit.”

  “Okay,” Whitney said. “But what does this have to do with—”

  “It will all become clear if you just listen,” Swain insisted. “During this same time, scientists at the University of Houston discovered another, more mysterious superconducting system that they called a Fullerene. The name came from the late designer-author Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, a structure roughly the shape of a soccer ball. The scientists did not understand why, but they found that when specific compounds were formed at the molecular level in the shape of soccer balls, they, too, acted as superconductors. Are you with me, Mrs. Burke?”

  Whitney saw from the expression on Swain’s face that these facts might be crucial to her family’s survival. For the past year, ever since the accident, she’d accepted life passively, mostly out of fear. Now, something deep inside her turned active. She was all scientist, listening intently to the nuances. “I’m with you,” she said, nodding.

  “Me too,” Angelis replied.

  But Finnerty and Boulter shook their heads in confusion.

  Chester Norton pulled off his glasses and wiped them on his sweaty polo shirt. “The point is that even up until a few years ago, the highest known superconducting temperature was still staggeringly cold. The grail—zero-resista
nce energy transmission at room temperature—was still a pipe dream.”

  Swain frowned at the young man. “Are you going to tell the story, or am I?”

  Norton cringed. “Sorry, Uncle Jeff.”

  “ ‘Uncle’?” Angelis said.

  Swain got a pained expression on his face. “Yes, uncle, and my impetuous nephew is quite right. After all, I chased the dream myself. Carson MacPherson, my late partner, did as well. We were materials researchers. We founded a laboratory at the University of Tennessee together. Like thou-sands of other scientists who tried to achieve room-temperature superconductivity, Carson and I spent most of our time experimenting with various exotic ceramic compounds.”

  Norton laughed. “He’s making it sound like rocket science. Like most researchers, their methods were haphazard in the extreme; they would take darts, throw them at the periodic table of elements taped to the wall of their lab, then mix the compound and measure its superconductive properties.”

  Swain’s face tightened in annoyance. “True. But by 2004, after nearly ten years of work, we were still having very little luck and our funding was being threatened. Enter Robert Gregor.”

  Whitney saw Finnerty become very alert and she leaned forward in her chair as the physics professor continued.

  “Carson and I had been following Gregor’s career for several years,” Swain said. “He got his Ph.D. in materials science from Tennessee, then went on to an assistantship at the Planetary Geo-Sciences Institute, another research laboratory at the university that specializes in the study of asteroids and moon rocks. In the spring of 2004, Gregor came to Carson looking for a job, said he was interested more in applied research than pure science and wanted to work in the superconductor field.”

  The physicist smiled sourly at the memory. “Carson balked. His impression was that Gregor was smart but not exceptionally brilliant. There was also the way he looked and took care of himself. His clothes. His personal hygiene. The stammer. But Carson had heard stories about Gregor’s childhood and knew what he’d overcome, so he gave him a break and hired him.”

  Whitney couldn’t take it anymore. She felt that this was all irrelevant. Tom and Cricket were being held hostage inside the cave. “What does this matter?” she cried.