The Cupel Recruits

by Willshire, Susan

  “Thank God,” Saraceni tipped his head back and closed his eyes, “now he’ll be able to complete the mission. I have to update the project team.” He turned to Wood, suddenly reverting to the former task-master he had been before things began falling apart. Hearing that George was awake was just the morsel of hope Saraceni needed to renew his own drive.

  “Wood, please return to George and stay with him until Ruth arrives. And you,” he said to Molior directly, “will have a lot to do in a very short time, so while I’m gone, finish these exercises. You have to be able to do them perfectly, so keep going until you have at least ten perfect trials.” With that, he left the room and Molior had no choice but to focus on the tasks at hand. Just seeing Saraceni’s confidence rise had somehow settled them as well. Surely, if he had the impression things would be alright now, then they would be, they each thought.

  Saraceni entered the project room with renewed authority in each step. He had to believe this could be done. He had to believe it would work. He had to. For if he did not, no one else would have the faith necessary.

  “Status report!” he commanded.

  “Sir, we can’t figure it out. The decoherence was supposed to have two more weeks, but it seems to be accelerating. It’s beyond all comprehension,” Elizabeth Hallowell relayed.

  “I told Molior about their mission. Please mark that off the project plan,” Saraceni responded.

  “How did they take it?” Elizabeth asked with trepidation.

  “Let me clarify. I didn’t tell them all the details, just the primary objective.”

  Ruth entered the room, barely noticing them, and walked straight through on her way to George’s room. At the last moment, as if awaking from a dream, she nodded to Saraceni in passing, a subtle acknowledgement he had everything under control. Saraceni gave a subdued nod in return. He hoped George was well and would check on him soon enough himself, but Ruth clearly wanted first crack at her son. With a few flicks of Saraceni’s wrist, the double-sided display screen emerged vertically from the table and in moments the mineral readings were displayed.

  “These don’t look right,” he assessed efficiently.

  “We ran them twice, Sir,” Elizabeth responded. Saraceni noticed how perfect the data was, and her reporting of it could not have been any more thorough. When this was all over, he would tell her that she had run as tight a project as anyone could have, that they knew they were giving her impossible targets, but had to push for maximum gains in an untenable situation. Used to always being at the top of her game, Elizabeth was clearly flustered by the feeling that she was somehow not managing the project well. She knew she wasn’t as good with people, which was not that uncommon in the middle circles from 5-8, but her analytic and calculation skills were top notch. The middle circles tended to focus too much on the technical and physics aspects of their new world. In the struggle to integrate their humanity, they often left it behind and were too laser-focused on the analytics of it rather than the meditative balance.

  “The harmonic frequencies look right, but the cumulative wave functions are too low. We must not be counting some,” he advised.

  “The broullian zone energy widths are much smaller than expected based on the data we have. Perhaps when we receive the new data we will discover something useful,” Elizabeth offered.

  “Precisely my thought,” Saraceni agreed, “ When will the new data analysis be ready?”

  “Two days,” she reported, “maybe late tomorrow if we get lucky.”

  “Ma’am, I thought George already analyzed it?” an assistant inquired.

  “Preliminary analysis, yes. He assessed enough for us to know a detailed analysis is required, but that detail will take some time because it is so comprehensive,” she clarified.

  “Please run another test scenario. And add the interaction components for energy levels, conductive ability and manipulation of broullian zone widths. Perhaps we can figure out why it’s an electric siphon at the same time. If we could figure out a way to get the choppers up to that mountaintop, it would be a huge coup.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll add that to the testing orders now,” the assistant said, happy to have been included in core team activities.

  “And lastly, what are the Dark Janae up to?” he asked

  “Still after key targets from a balance perspective,” the assistant answered, “and they seem to have a flurry of activities in the following areas.” He highlighted the map in yellow, “but there don’t appear to be any Kajika or key recruits there, so we’re not sure why.”

  “They still don’t know about the girl, or her Kajika, and they haven’t actually won any of the others they are after…yet,” Elizabeth added for context.

  “Okay. Keep recording their activity on the map, and definitely use all countermeasures to keep the targets and recruits safe,” Saraceni ordered.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Call me immediately if they go into any new zones without targets nearby.”

  “Yes, Sir.” Saraceni exited and the alarm went off again, to be stopped after just a second or two, so he shouted over his shoulder, “and have someone monitor that round the clock and press the stop button immediately every time it starts. “

  Ruth entered George’s room with each step dripping in the gratitude of a mother who had been given her child back. So accustomed to being able to fix bodies easily, true worry over another’s welfare was infrequent in this world. But if their mind was gone, even with good engineering, it felt like they were doctors using leeches in trying to repair the damage. With decoherence involvement, the risk to even try would have been great and likely resulted in George’s death, so every ounce of relief poured into the hug Ruth gave George.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Okay. A little strange, Mother, but I guess, considering, that I am pretty well. I’ve tried a few simple harmonic alignments while lying here, though, and I don’t think any of them worked.” Ruth’s concern moved immediately from her Son to the mission. She gave a forced smile.

  “You are so out of practice with lying,” he chided. Unaccustomed to it, Ruth gave a weak, but genuine smile this time.

  “Yes, well, I suppose that’s a good thing,” she reflected “that we’re fortunate enough to not have to deal with that regularly.”

  “Indeed,” he concurred. Ruth forced back a lump in her throat at the thought that after all these centuries he might actually all die, if the mission were not successful. She was resigned to it herself, and were she a lone operator she would have not minded as much, but the intense ties between family and senior team members made the thought of all those people dying nearly unbearable. Knowing what she was thinking, George squeezed his mother’s hand.

  “The mission will work,” he reassured her, “I really believe that.” She nodded.

  “What a role reversal,” he added, “You’re always the one reassuring everyone.”

  “Well, don’t tell on me.” She patted his hand as she rose, “Speaking of, I’d better get back to it. Please rest. You still look wan and we need you ready soon.”

  “I know.” he said, “I should like to meet with the recruits when it’s convenient.”

  “Okay”, she said, and closed the door behind her. She could hear Saraceni speaking with the recruits in the common area as she left and decided not to interrupt just now. Saraceni was breaking down the mission into its components for them and they had just been advised they would need to practice with climbing gear tomorrow.

  “I know how to climb,” Jack piped in, “I had to learn it for this spy movie, and just fell in love with it. I go climbing every chance I can on my downtime.”

  “That will be a huge help,” Saraceni added, knowing this fact already.

  “Me too,” Jane added, “I live in the mountains. My friends and I rock climb on the weekends. I mean, before.”

  “Anyone else very comfortable with climbing?” he asked. Chandra and Alexander raised their hands. David, who Sara
ceni knew to be an excellent climber, did not.

  “I’ve never seen you climb, Dad,” Gabriel commented to Alexander.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, but I’ll fill you in later,” Alexander reassured.

  “So this is the top of Mount Jarib. It’s just a few hours from here by air,” Saraceni instructed, displaying the topography on a program monitor, “We’ll land here, and then have to hike to this ridge. From there it is a climb to reach the top, but only about half a day of climbing.”

  “That ridge has a huge, flat field. Can’t we just take a few smaller planes and have them drop us off one at a time at that point?” asked Enam, who had flown small aircraft during the war in his twenties.

  “That would normally be an excellent idea,” Saraceni agreed, “but nothing electronic works within about 3,000 feet in any direction from the mountain’s peak. We’ve had planes cut power and barely able to restart before hitting the ground before. We won’t try that again. We have to land in the lower safe zone and then hike on in.”

  “Wow, it’s like the Bermuda Triangle!” Chandra chimed in.

  “Something like that,” Saraceni sanctioned the analogy.

  “So, we know we can all hike, and handle some surprising terrain,” Kyle interjected. “We proved that in the course exercise. The climbing can be tricky, though, so we’ll have to practice it.”

  “Saraceni, why does it have to be at that mountain top? Can’t we just do whatever we need to in order to open the gate from somewhere else?” Gabriel asked.

  “That location has particular qualities in relation to this planet, and the universe. The lay lines are perfect, and the very things which likely make it unsuitable for electronic activity make it perfect for our mission.”

  “Why? How will we open the gate?” Gabriel asked. Saraceni launched into the lecture-like explanation:

  “Our theory is that each circle functions, among other things, like a layer of quantum storage and since these are naturally occurring and self-producing, we believe if we can jump-start or kick off the process, nature will take over from there. So, we’ll start with a quantum system and minimize the decoherence effects as much as possible by insulating the system from the environmental effects. That’s why we do this from the top of the mountain where decoherence effects appear to be operating at a fraction of what they do away from that location. We start with quantum dots, which are just semiconductor nanocrystals, and we’ve already perfected the creation of those. Each dot has an encoded coherence time, so we make those as large as possible by using quantum dots of the maximum allowable diameters. We will arrange the quantum dots linearly and apply a laser (battery-powered in our case) and that will create the gate. We’ve done this before in testing, so we know that much will work. The problems we’ve faced in trials so far that have kept us from going farther are few. First, the gate we can create isn’t nearly large enough. Second, once the gate is opened, it only stays open so long as we continue to apply lasers or radiation. As soon as we turn it off, the gate returns to ground state and it ceases to function. This is from the effects of decoherence, no matter how small, the gate is still interacting with the environment to some extent in our trials and that prevents it from becoming self-propagating. Only in the zero decoherence environment around the mountain will that be possible. Third, once we open the gate, even if we could get it to be self-building, the information needs a swapping operation to be transmitted to the new system. This is where you come in. You already know, even in The Cupel, that you can do this by ion implantation or through DNA-based self-assembly. What I’m here to tell you is that your particular structure of DNA, and particularly your unique configuration of dark matter and the way you interact with one another, can be manipulated to create a swapping operation capable of transmitting that volume of information. You just need to learn to manipulate your dark matter in that way.”

  “Simple enough; let’s get started!” Juliet was elated to finally learn how it all fits together, and a way they can help.

  “Not simple,” Kyle brought her down to Earth. “It will be hard. Usually people aren’t expert at those types of manipulations until they are Circle 4 or 5 here.”

  “So, we have one week to prepare?” Juliet asks.

  “Well, really six days, because we must leave here on the 6th day,” Saraceni responded.

  “Maybe we could be ready to leave earlier,” David Running Wolf interjected enthusiastically, “Sounds like we’ll be cutting it close.”

  “That would be nice. We’ll see how quickly the team gets through the preparation exercises,” Saraceni responded diplomatically, knowing that the ideal timeframe would give them a couple weeks and even six days was amazingly ambitious. However, he saw no reason to dampen their enthusiasm. Intangibles like motivation could impact mission success.

  George came wobbling around the corner. Clearly struggling with each step, he made his way into the training room.

  “George!” Jane exclaimed. Wood, surprised to see him, rushed to his side, and David to the other. They helped him to a chair.

  “Hey guys. I got bored in there all by myself. Thought I’d come say hi.” George managed a small wave, “though I think I felt stronger lying down.”

  “You should be resting,” Saraceni directed. His worry grew. George would need to be much stronger to make the journey. Gabriel exchanged a look with Saraceni-he was thinking the same thing.

  “I know, I know, I’ll go in a few minutes.”

  “Let’s take a very short break,” Saraceni suggested, and the group disbanded and surrounded George with pats on the back, filling him in on what happened while he was in the coma. They brought him water, and food, and he did seem a bit brighter just for the company, Wood observed.

  “And they showed us the Kajika, and the Dark Janae,” Chandra told him, “Then when they were trying to get Phoebe, that weaver just sweeps in and-“

  “They were after Phoebe?!” George bellows.

  “They didn’t get her,” Wood interjected quickly.

  “What happened? Where did they hide her?” he asked.

  ”They didn’t hide her, George,” Saraceni strode to his side, “The weaver sent her here as an adjuvant.” Seeing he was upset, he added, “If she had stayed there, the Dark Janae would surely have her.”

  George’s upset was exaggerated by his frail condition, and his body started shaking, “Oh my God, poor Jillian. How will she ever recover?”

  Chapter 23

  Jillian Jacob was in shock. Police permeated her house and news crews covered her lawn and most of the block. Every room seemed to be hub of a different activity center. In Phoebe’s room, the detectives gathered evidence-footprints, photographs, fiber samples and other clues to help them discern who had abducted the small girl from her own bed in the middle of the night. On every TV station, ‘The disappearance of Phoebe Jacob blared as the lead story, with the media talking for hours about nothing significant, as they often did in cases like this. One camera from the street zoomed in on the trampled flowers beneath Phoebe’s window as the reporter’s voice commentated.

  “Well, folks, as you can see, those trampled flowers say it all. Something delicate, beautiful and fragile destroyed by the thoughtless monsters who took this little girl. We can only imagine what her poor mother is going through. Just as a reminder, Phoebe Jacob is the daughter of the late Governor Jacob, both survived only by the late Governor’s wife, Jillian Jacob. At this point, none of the authorities are commenting on the speculation that the child’s disappearance is somehow related to the mysterious bus accident, still under investigation, which left Governor Jacob and 54 others dead just 2 months ago this week. Stay tuned for late breaking coverage as we bring you all the unraveling details as this tragedy unfolds.”

  Fortunately, inside, the televisions were off as Jillian attempted to cooperate with police. The police asked Jillian question after question, but she answered in a fog, not even sure of what she said afterward. Less th
an 2 months after the death of her husband, she was almost numb to the disappearance of her daughter. Only her innate training as the dutiful Governor’s wife kept her maintaining a semblance of cordiality when she wanted to tell them all to leave.

  “Mrs. Jacob, I know this is very difficult, but everything you can tell us about last night might help us find Phoebe,” the lead detective pressed. Jillian looked at Phoebe’s picture on the mantle, her toys on the floor, and immediately knew her daughter was dead. Somewhere deep in her inner core, she just knew Phoebe would never be found alive. She turned and left without answering anymore questions, crying the entire way as she had done for hours.

  General Peter Charles arrived shortly thereafter, and found D.A. Felix Lee.

  “What do they have so far?” he queried. “Does it seem in any way linked to the bus incident? Any ransom demand yet?”

  “No demands yet,” Felix Lee informed, “and too soon to tell if the incidents are related.” He walked the Colonel through the crime scene, explaining each detail they had found. The phone tap team completed their setup on the dining room table. The Colonel saw Brett Davies walk in the front door, looking worse for wear and carrying a large rucksack on his back, which he instinctively dropped right inside the front door.

  “Brett, thanks for coming, I heard you ran into some trouble down there,” the Colonel said. “I expected it to be a babysitting assignment when I asked you to do it; now I’m really glad you were the one there. Is Lela okay?”

  “Yes, she’s fine. We handled it, Sir. I heard about Phoebe Jacob in the cab from the airport and had him bring me straight here. Any word yet?” he asked.

  “Not yet. No calls and we haven’t seen any signs it’s related to the bus incident, but we can’t rule that out. Where’s Lela?” he asked. Brett’s mind raced as he realized if these were related she may be in more danger than he initially thought.

  “I left her at the airport,” he responded slowly, registering late due to his tiredness, “I’ll call a team in for her right now.”

  “Yes. If this is related to Alexander’s classified research as we suspect, they may yet go after her.” In moments, Brett was on the phone with Lela. She was tired from her trip and almost didn’t answer when she saw the caller ID, but he had gotten them out of there, so she felt compelled to put aside her own desire for sleep.