“Hm,” Jones observed. “I’ll print this out to my classified printer so you can keep a copy with the rest of your documentation.” He dumped it to the printer, then put it into a manila folder marked Confidential and handed it to Holmes. “That goes in your safe,” he noted, logging the transaction. “As to how it translates, our bogey is David Thompson, E-5—that’s a Staff Sergeant—specialty, mechanics. According to this, he was passed over for promotion to E-6 in the last round. That’s not unusual, though. Tech Sergeant is one of the hardest ranks to achieve in recent years—although, if we dig deeper, we might find something more interesting regarding the rationale for it. This is one for my boys, though. His superiors might get their noses bent out of shape if you came poking around in an RAF uniform. I’ll let you know if we find out anything more.”
“Excellent plan, Colonel. What else is in here?”
“Well, it looks like Thompson’s skills go way the hell beyond auto mechanics,” Jones studied the personnel record. “Ahh, this is definitely worth looking into—he was an F-16 mechanic for several years before he started in the auto shop. Wonder what went wrong there? If you’re good with an F-16, they don’t let you go easily.” Jones remembered Holmes would be unfamiliar with aircraft, and added, “An F-16 is one of our top fighter jet aircraft—a plum assignment for a pilot, and equally plum for the ground crew. You don’t just walk away from something like that.” The colonel looked back at the record. “He’s also good with computers, especially hardware, but not bad with software, as well.” Jones stared at the file. “Yes, I think our Sergeant Thompson is worth digging into a little deeper, don’t you?”
“I wholeheartedly agree, Colonel. And might I add, it is a pleasure to work with so astute an investigator.”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, Holmes, but I probably wouldn’t notice half this shit if you weren’t the man sitting across the desk from me. You’re something of an inspiration. I want to keep on my toes so I don’t disappoint.” Jones grinned, sheepish.
“Yes, well, do keep me informed, Colonel, on whatever you discover regarding our man.” Holmes’ cheeks flushed lightly, and his eyes shone with pride.
“I’ll do that. Now let’s see about this other email.”
It turned out to be a reply from one of Jones’ more clandestine cohorts, arranging an opportunity to meet Holmes and discuss his document.
“Looks like he wants to see it. Ten A.M. tomorrow good for you?”
“It is,” Holmes agreed promptly.
“Ten it is, then,” Jones noted, sending the confirmation reply. “I’ll bring ‘im by the office you’re sharing with Dr. Chadwick about ten-fifteen. No need for you to come all the way up here.”
“I will be waiting.”
* * *
Holmes went back to the office and studied Thompson’s service record before putting it and his reproduced document in his safe. Then he went to the window and stood staring out over the base for nearly an hour, deep in thought.
“It may not be quite London’s milieu,” he murmured to himself, “but it seems there is quite the fullness of evils here, as well.”
Holmes drew his desk chair to the window, sitting down and propping his feet on the low bookcase beneath the window ledge.
He spent the rest of the afternoon in rumination.
* * *
The next morning as promised, Jones brought down his contact.
“Holmes, I’d like for you to meet FBI Special Agent Adrian Smith,” he introduced the two men. “Adrian is functioning in a liaison capacity himself, between the FBI and DSS, on this…situation. Agent Smith, this is ‘Wing Commander’ Sherlock Holmes. He only recently…arrived…from London, via Switzerland.”
“I’ve read Dr. Chadwick’s report,” Smith murmured, shaking Holmes’ hand. “An honor to meet you, sir. Welcome to the twenty-first century.”
“For classified information, my identity certainly seems bruited about a great deal,” Holmes observed dryly.
“Need to know,” Smith tossed off. “Not to worry. It won’t get into the hands of anyone who doesn’t need the information. I was only read onto the report yesterday myself. That’s why I asked to have the meeting this morning, to give myself time to come up to speed on your involvement.” He gave the detective a stern look. “Your liaison hasn’t yet shown you the movie, ‘The Matrix,’ has she?”
“No,” Holmes said in bemusement.
“Good,” was all Smith said. But his tone was both vehement and relieved.
“I told you, Adrian.” Jones guffawed.
“I know,” Smith replied ruefully, “but your cracks do get old fast, Hank.”
“If you’d ditch the tie bar, I might find it a little easier to ignore.”
“Aw, shut up, Hank,” Smith protested. “Mr. Holmes, Jones says you managed to reproduce a document you…happened…to encounter. May I see it?”
“Adrian isn’t asking how you got it, Holmes,” Jones noted. “But he’s most interested in its contents.”
“I certainly am,” Smith verified.
Holmes rose and unlocked his safe, extracting the document in question.
“Here it is,” Holmes said, bringing it to Jones, who immediately handed it to Smith. Smith perused it for a few minutes.
“Well, this is interesting. Very interesting indeed. You’d make a fine CIA operative, Mr. Holmes, with that kind of memory and eye for detail. Yeah, Hank, I agree with you; it looks like a saboteur’s list of options. I’d like to bring in your classified project leads and show them this list of components to tell us if it’s a match to their program or not. That way we should get some idea what they’re after.”
“All right,” Jones agreed. “Make a quick copy of just the components list, without the sabotage elements, and we’ll use that. It’ll be unclassified that way, too.”
“Right,” Smith said, moving to the table and quickly transcribing the list. “There.”
He handed the original back to Holmes, who replaced it in his safe and locked it. Smith folded his version and tucked it into his inside coat pocket.
“I’ve already got the base commandant’s permission for a survey like this,” Jones remarked. “Let’s get ‘em on the horn. We’re in her office, might as well start with the host project. Holmes, would you mind calling Dr. Chadwick?”
“Certainly,” Holmes acquiesced, moving to the telephone on the desk.
* * *
Down in the Chamber, the day started out well, and testing resumed where they’d left off the previous day. The Sequencing position, however, reported regularly to Skye all morning about a slight divergence in the Schrödinger induction element, and she and Caitlin became concerned. But in the last half-hour, the tesseract had started to act up seriously. After a discussion with Sequencing, the pair decided to press ahead with the testing, but slower.
“And keep an eye on that induction element,” Skye ordered.
“Roger that, ma’am,” Sequencing responded.
But as time progressed, it grew more and more apparent the induction element was corrupted in some fashion, and was slowly deteriorating; in the last thirty minutes, the deterioration accelerated. As this occurred, it grew increasingly difficult to maintain the stability of the closed-loop strings. Skye, Caitlin, and their entire team struggled to maintain nominal operation, as they strove frantically to troubleshoot the problem.
It was at this auspicious moment that the phone on the director’s console chose to ring.
Skye grabbed it, devoting only part of her attention to the communications instrument. The rest of her mind was on her troubled tesseract as she put the receiver to her ear and said, “Director console. Chadwick…”
* * *
The others watched Holmes’ face light up as Skye answered the phone.
“Good afternoon, my dear Skye,” he said blithely. “Colonel Jones, a colleague of his, and I would like to request your presence in your office as soon as may be.”
Jones and
Smith attended their end of the conversation from their seats across the desk, and noted immediately when Holmes’ cheerful expression morphed into a frown.
* * *
“Oh, Holmes, you have no idea how much I’d love to,” Skye grumbled, trying to pay attention to the urgent calls between team positions as troubleshooting continued. “But this is a really bad time for me to leave console at the moment, hon.”
Caitlin shot her a hard, annoyed look.
“You can’t be considering it,” she said flatly. “All hell is breaking loose here. I don’t care if the President needed you five minutes ago! You have to stay here!”
“Chill, Cait,” Skye tossed an aside to her friend, phone held absently to the side of her face with her shoulder as she tried to read the scribbled note Timelines handed her, around annotating her clipboard. “I’ve got more to do than I can shake a stick at now. I’m…what?” she said, staring at the note. “Software! Check the focus subroutine! Make sure it’s initiating at the correct point in the program! The last thing we need now is a software glitch causing a delay in timing. If that’s happening, no wonder the induction element’s hosed! Hardware, make sure the circuit’s clear! Holmes, I’m sorry, I can’t make it right now. I don’t have time to catch my breath down here.”
* * *
Holmes listened closely, not only to Skye’s direct comments, but also to her asides and commands, and to what he could hear of the remarks made to her. He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and informed Jones and Smith.
“It appears matters are not going well in the Chamber.” He punched the speaker button on the phone so the other men could hear. Then he returned his attention to the sounds coming from the phone. “Skye, what is happening?”
* * *
Skye watched as her teammates fought with the recalcitrant apparatus. One of the Hardware console members, Chad Swann by name and a longstanding friend of Skye’s, moved into the center of the room to check the circuitry of the monoliths. Skye grabbed her clipboard, flipping to the malfunction shutdown checklist, where she scanned the list, trying to determine the seriousness of their situation.
Vaguely she heard Holmes’ query, but didn’t have time to devote to it. Still, she managed to find two spare brain cells to rub together, and replied abstractedly, “We’re having a malfunction in the induction element system. We can’t keep it focused…”
“Skye, we need you to make a call! Shut down, or put it in a holding pattern and troubleshoot?” Caitlin interrupted. Skye juggled phone and clipboard, trying to assess the checklist for priority red malfunction modes.
“Holmes, I’ve gotta go,” she said into the phone. “I need to figure out how serious this is—”
“DR. CHADWICK! We’ve got a GRAVITON SPIKE!” Sequencing shouted.
* * *
Smith and Jones watched as Holmes’ expression grew more and more grave as he listened to the sounds on the other end of the line. They heard Skye’s attempt to break the conversation, and Holmes was about to answer in the affirmative when they overheard the exclamation from Sequencing.
Holmes paled as they heard Skye shout, “Chad!! Get out of there! NO! EMERGENCY SHUTDO—”
The line went dead.
Instantly the entire building shuddered hard enough to knock books off shelves and send Skye’s chalk tumbling from its rack on the blackboard, smashing into dusty white shards on the tile. The three men grabbed for heavy furniture to avoid being flung to the floor.
* * *
When the quake subsided, the three men sat staring at each other, shaken. Holmes felt almost lightheaded, his grey eyes wide.
“What happened?” Jones demanded. “Did that earthquake have anything to do with Project: Tesser—”
“Emergency shutdown,” Holmes snapped out, leaping to his feet. “Graviton spike.” He didn’t fully understand the significance of the graviton spike, but from his reading of Skye’s quantum mechanics text, which perforce contained a significant amount of particle physics, he knew what a graviton was, and strongly suspected it was connected to the quake. “I am going down to the Chamber,” he declared in a tone brooking no argument. “The two of you may come, or stay.”
* * *
“Is your authorization in?” Jones turned to Smith.
“Your duty officer entered it into the system when I arrived this morning,” Smith observed.
“Good. We’re coming, Holmes,” Jones declared.
But Holmes was already out the door and down the hall, headed for the elevators at a dead run.
Jones and Smith sprinted behind.
Chapter 6—Disruptions
THE MAIN ROOM OF THE CHAMBER was in chaos when the three investigators arrived. Chairs and tables were overturned, and several computer monitors lay smashed on the polished pink granite floor. All of the Project: Tesseract team members were in various states of shock; one was throwing up into a handy trash receptacle. And no wonder: The monoliths and several of the consoles were splattered abundantly with blood, running down over everything. In the midst of the chaos, Skye stood, deathly pale but composed, barking orders.
“Sequencing! Lock down your computer logs immediately! Timelines, get me a playback of the last five minutes downloaded to DVD. Software, freeze the run state; I want a full analysis of that subroutine. Laurie, can you see to Jimmy? Take him into one of the back rooms and get him settled down if you can. If you can’t, call Peter and take him up to Medical. Yes, by all means, take the trash can with you. Better that than barf everywhere. Caitlin, call Security—oh, belay that. Colonel Jones is here. Call General Morris. He’ll have to notify next of kin.”
“On it,” Caitlin, very pale but self-possessed, answered.
* * *
“For God’s sake, Skye, are you all right?” Holmes moved close to the scientist, grey eyes the only thing betraying the level of anxiety he felt for his liaison.
“Yeah, Holmes, I’m fine,” Skye replied, grim. “Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for my team.”
“I take it you lost someone?” Jones asked, looking around at the gore.
“My friend Chad was in the core, troubleshooting the hardware, when the Schrödinger induction element frazzed. We aren’t sure yet if it was the hardware itself, or the software subroutine governing it, that went. We had a graviton spike—I’m sure y’all felt that; there was a virtual mini-black-hole trying its damnedest to form in the core, and we fought it tooth and nail all the way.” Skye looked away, averting her face. “Chad…didn’t have time to get out of the core. Between the virtual singularity, and the emergency shutdown…”
Skye waved a meaningful hand at the copious blood spatters, speaking in a low voice. Caitlin, who had finished notifying General Morris via phone, moved close to discreetly finish Skye’s statement.
“He kind of…exploded. Or tidally disrupted. Or…whatever.”
* * *
“Where’s the rest of him, then?” Smith glanced around, seeing nothing but blood and a bit of loose tissue, certainly nowhere close to a complete body. Skye stared into the empty center of the apparatus with haunted blue eyes.
“If I had to guess, I’d say discorporated and scattered between strings.” The chief scientist, obviously much more disturbed than she was willing to admit, glanced down and noticed a bright crimson spray of blood across her light pink shirt. “Oh, dear Lord,” she whispered shakily. Hughes and Jones gave Skye worried, knowing looks.
“Do you need to sit down, Skye?” Caitlin asked softly.
“No, I’m fine,” Skye said brusquely, squaring her shoulders.
But nobody thought her face looked fine. It had transitioned from merely pale to a sickly grey, and even Smith, who had never met her before, decided she certainly did need to sit down, and preferably away from the scene of the casualty. Skye, however, flatly refused to either leave or sit down until General Morris arrived.
* * *
Meanwhile, Holmes and Smith watched, impressed, as she resumed issuing o
rders, coolly assuring all data was saved and recorded. Caitlin joined her, and together the two made a formidable team, tying up loose ends and locking down the facility. Jones stepped in to assist with the security lockdown, ensuring the scene was not tampered-with so a proper investigation could be conducted. Holmes moved to Jones’ side.
“This is your bailiwick, Colonel, and I shall not interfere, but I trust you will keep me informed, should anything germane to my case turn up.”
“You know it, Holmes. Not a problem,” the colonel remarked, sotto voce.
* * *
When Morris arrived, he took control of the situation, to the secret relief of Skye and Caitlin. Meantime, Jones called in his top investigator, Major Clark Roberts, and put him in charge of the scene, giving him authority to bring in as much backup as he deemed necessary; Smith offered to function as the DSS go-between. Then Jones, Holmes, and Smith brought Skye and Caitlin up to Skye’s office to interview them about the incident.
There was little to tell other than what the men had already seen, and what Holmes had already heard. Both women described the gradual degradation of the string focusing, and how—when a critical value had been reached—the whole thing had gone to hell in a hand basket, metaphorically and very nearly literally.
Smith pulled the paper he’d written up earlier from his pocket; it was the sanitized version of the Thompson document Holmes had reproduced, containing only the list of components that had been presumed to be part of a classified project on base.
“Would you ladies please look at this, and tell me if this is a shopping list of components of your apparatus?” he requested. Skye and Caitlin put their heads together over the sheet of paper and scanned through it.
“Yeah, we got one’a those,” Caitlin noted, “and that, and three o’ these…”
“The tesseract has all of these components,” Skye observed, “but this is certainly not a comprehensive list of tesseract components.”
“Meaning?” Holmes queried.
“Meaning we use a lot more components than this,” Skye said flatly. “This is just a subset of our total list of components.”
The Case of the Displaced Detective Page 18