by Brandt Legg
“It would be nice to get it first,” Stellard mumbled to himself. “But as long as we get it . . . ”
—O—
Taz was still angry he couldn’t go to Fiji, but even if Stellard would authorize it, the plane didn’t have enough fuel. He’d have to go to Hawaii, as planned, and trust the police the Foundation crew who had just arrived in Fiji from the Philippines.
The Foundation team consisted of eighteen highly trained military-type men in their twenties who were not worried about breaking laws, life, or property. They were paid well, and the Foundation was very powerful. The agents did not know of the Foundation’s mission, but what did that matter? The team had the best weapons, lived on the edge, enjoyed adventure, and even had great benefits.
—O—
Harmer, having survived the second police sweep of the hospital, thought they were in the clear. The push and focus of the search for the Eysen-Sphere had moved to Hawaii after the flawless “crash” of the plane carrying Gale and Cira.
Then Harmer saw the team of mercenaries entering the building.
“Foundation?” she asked Booker through her INU.
“It’s not CIA, NSA, US military, or Mossad, so Foundation is the most likely,” Booker replied soberly as he ordered his AX team back into the air.
“Damn it, how much luck do we have left?” Harmer asked, reaching for a cigarette that she couldn’t light. “We may need some help from above on this one.”
“Help is scrambling now. The AX team will be above you in about twelve minutes,” Booker said, watching the Foundation men take positions at all the hospital entrances and exits.
Harmer watched too. She could tell the Foundation men were treating it as a hostile operation. They believed someone was hiding in the hospital. “They know,” she whispered to herself.
The orderly heard her. “What do they know?”
“Nothing,” Harmer said, not taking her eyes off the INU where she could now also see that the Foundation unit leader was talking to the head of the Fiji Police. They met in the main lobby, where a police command center had been set up when they first arrived. The Foundation unit leader looked directly into a hospital camera several times.
“They know we’re in here, don’t they?” the orderly asked. “Who are those guys? They aren’t police. They look dangerous.”
“Don’t worry. They aren’t going to find us.”
But the orderly could see the same thing Harmer could: the Foundation men were moving swiftly though the building, searching far more thoroughly than the police had.
Booker spoke into Harmer’s ear. “Seven minutes and we’ll be in striking distance.”
That hardly relaxed Harmer. She knew the team would be ordered in only to save Cira. Harmer would already be dead.
She looked back at the nurse and the orderly, who were both craning to see the images flashing from the INU. Even the nurse looked terrified now, and the orderly might be on the verge of tears.
“Can you reach Mr. Bradley?” she asked Booker, using the alias for Rip.
“Yes.”
“Then you better do it,” Harmer said. “This may go down bad. I think you want him involved with the decisions.”
Booker understood. Rip’s daughter could be made permanently blind or killed as a result of the Foundation raid. If either happened, Booker would be blamed. Getting Rip involved might not change that, but it could minimize the damage to their relationship.
Harmer always thought of the mission. She’d been around the Eysen-Sphere and Gaines long enough to know what was at stake. Her earliest AX training had taught her that emotions had no place in this line of work. Rip had not had that training, and the future of the world depended on Rip’s not disintegrating from whatever was about to happen in Fiji.
Booker connected to Rip through his INU and patched him in on the feed. El Perdido was a safe contact point. Booker quickly caught him up on the developments at the hospital.
“Oh no,” Rip groaned. “The Foundation will kill her. They don’t care about anything.” He looked around frantically, as if trying to find a way to get to his daughter, to get himself off the damned island.
“I’ve got an AX unit ready to drop in,” Booker said. “We can take them.”
“Can you guarantee me that Cira won’t get hurt?”
Booker hesitated. He looked at the clock . . . three minutes. “No.”
“No? No! No . . . no, you can’t.” Rip’s voice faded. He moved over to the floating Eysen-Sphere. “Crying Man,” he whispered, “what am I supposed to do?”
The only response was a strange silence, seemingly full of something he couldn’t quite detect, but nonetheless felt.
And then, all at once, from the confusion of fear, the tragic despair of a helpless father, and the malaise of misery, came clarity.
Rip knew just how to save his daughter.
Chapter 24
Kruse looked over at Gale. She’ll be waking up soon, angry as firecrackers, he thought.
Drugging her had been necessary. The risks were too great that she would have run, or at least caused a scene, once back in Fiji. And how could she argue with success? Rip was out of harm's way on El Perdido. Cira was protected by Harmer in the hidden hospital room. The police had bought the story that Cira had left and had not discovered them. Gale was safely on her way, via Hawaii, to be reunited with Rip. Booker, Kruse, and Harmer had navigated Gale’s entire family through a crisis that rightfully should have resulted in their imprisonment or death.
Still, Kruse was nervous. Being on a commercial airliner meant he had no weapons. Even though they were tucked into the crew’s quarters behind the cockpit, hidden from scrutiny, Kruse felt unable to suppress a welling tension.
He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been without at least one gun. He preferred his Glock-19, but owned a varied arsenal of weaponry, most of it scattered around the world. The latest repository had been the helicopter, which had flown them to the plane used in the crash. He knew several disciplines of martial arts, but it wasn’t his strong suit. Booker would make sure his collection caught up with Kruse.
Stop worrying, he told himself. Booker’s plane, picking us up in Hawaii, will have a fresh supply of weaponry. The rough part was making it through Nadi Airport. Hawaii will be a piece of cake.
The chemicals in Gale’s system would wear off in time for him to calm her down and prep her at least a couple of hours before landing in Honolulu. Kruse sat on the edge of the narrow, elevated bed, trying to reach Booker through his INU. All kinds of apocalyptic images were going through his head—two fighter jets escorting the commercial airliner to the airport so they could be arrested when they landed, a crazed Foundation member hijacking the plane, maybe the Israelis shooting them out of the sky, a dozen different scenarios, and all with Kruse powerless to defend against any of them.
No one knows where we are, he reminded himself. He looked around for anything he could make into a weapon. “Come on, Booker,” he whispered out loud, silently begging the INU to connect.
Finally, Booker’s voice came into his earpiece. “Bad news.”
Kruse’s first thought was that they’d found Cira and Harmer in the hospital. He stole a quick look at Gale. In the same instant, he suddenly realized it could be that Rip had somehow been captured or killed. Then, before even finishing his breath, he knew it was actually Gale and he who were in trouble. “Hawaii?”
“Yeah. The CIA, NSA, FBI, the Foundation . . . it’s a damn party.”
“And we’re the guests of honor?” Kruse asked, already thinking of how he could hijack the plane. Otherwise, they were trapped, and flying right into a hornets’ nest.
“But there is good news,” Booker said as he finished sucking down the last of a black raspberry and almond smoothie. “They don’t know you’re on this plane, or that Gale is even heading to Hawaii.”
“Not yet,” Kruse said, only partially relieved. “Then they’re there for the university?”
> “Right. They raided the school and are ripping through all the data right now.”
“But you have something in place that will screw the NSA. What did Rip call it? Eroders or something?”
“You don’t miss much, Kruse.”
“Anything that might make it easier to protect them.”
“I know, and yes, we have eroders built into all the INUs used in Eysen-Sphere research, but some of the data is so valuable that it will not be destroyed. It gets swallowed into a digital-cocoon that should be impossible for anyone to access without the encryption key.”
“The NSA is fairly good at that type of thing.”
“So were the Cosegans,” Booker said.
“Oh, you’re using their technology?”
“Yes. So the NSA can have at it, but unless they’ve got eleven million years to work on it, I’m not too worried. Still, I’d like to retrieve the digital-cocoons just to be sure.”
“Why weren’t they transmitted?”
“The data is simply too enormous. Even if we could move it in smaller packets, the NSA would have noticed.”
“Okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but that’s a problem for another day, or a BLAX crew to handle. I need to know what to expect when we land in Honolulu.”
“It might be nothing. They have agents at the airport, but they assume Rip is long gone. They aren’t looking for Gale. Private planes are still going out without hassle.”
“Uh-huh,” Kruse said. “But it might be something.”
“You know as well as I do that a lot can change in two hours and twenty-eight minutes.”
“A lot of people can die in that amount of time.”
“We do have a decent AX force in Hawaii. They’re getting in position at the airport now. If it does turn bad, you’ll have help.”
“Any way to use your influence and divert this plane somewhere else?”
“Even if I could, there’s nowhere to go.”
“Then I guess we’ll ride this thing through.”
“Tarks will meet you. He’ll have a suitcase full of guns.”
“A Glock?” Kruse asked hopefully.
“Of course.”
“Thanks. Hope I don’t need it today, but I’ll feel much better when my hands are wrapped around the handle,” Kruse said. “Is our escape plane ready?”
“Ready and waiting, but even if there is no welcoming committee, it’s going to be tricky. We obviously don’t want Gale in the terminal building. I’ve sent the airport maps, runway layouts, and building plans to your INU.”
“I see them,” Kruse confirmed, looking at the schematics and making them larger as they projected from his Eysen-INU.
“Good. You’ll be coming into the EWA Concourse, gate thirty-four. Our jet is at the next terminal over, but we’re lucky. Thirty-four is the last gate. As soon as you get inside, go into the men’s room, it will be immediately on the left. There is a locked door in there, the code will be sent to your INU as soon as we get it. That leads to a maintenance corridor, and from there you can get out to the next terminal. Our blue and white Gulfstream—tail number N72908—will be there waiting to taxi.”
“Okay. As long as Gale doesn’t kill me first, we might just make it.”
“Tell her Cira is doing well. They’re still safely tucked away.”
“Maybe we can get her a quick video connection inside the room,” Kruse suggested. “It would go a long way to calm her down.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Just make sure she knows our plan is working and she’ll be with Rip soon.” Booker made an exasperated sound while, unbeknownst to Kruse, he watched the hospital situation worsen. “I’ve got to jump off. I’ll talk to you when you’re on our plane. Good luck.”
Kruse studied the airport maps again. It should be easy, he thought, but he was consumed with worry. It’s just because I don’t have a gun. I’m on a commercial airliner and flying into the home field advantage of my enemy . . . otherwise, everything is fine.
Chapter 25
Savina breathlessly attempted to regain her bearings in the star-filled lab. She spun until her two assistants surfaced and then shouted at them, “I saw him!”
“Gaines?” one of the assistants called back in a voice that echoed across millions of miles.
Savina didn’t hear the response as she fought to get back to Gaines. “He’s in the ocean! Alive! His Sphere is so beautiful. Oh, I can’t imagine what he’s seen.”
Actually she could. Savina was one of the few people on the planet who had any idea of the things Gaines had witnessed in the depths of the Eysen-Sphere. But her all- consuming addiction to the object caused her physical pain, especially when she dreamed of the things he’d experienced with his Sphere that she had not.
What I could do with two, she thought. And linking them together . . . incredible. The power wouldn’t just be doubled, it would expand exponentially like two cubed to the hundredth power.
A rushing noise, sounding like what Savina expected stars forming would, pushed all her senses to the brink of uselessness. Only the sound remained, and then just the swirl of light. It created a sensation of dimension that she felt, but couldn’t understand, and it lasted f o r e v e r.
Then, she seemed to see time twisting. The slow melting of particles as if they were components of time, a blending of consciousness and immortal protons. Next, she could actually see gravitons, the building blocks of gravity. Everything went purple, blue, and then black, and in that spatial blur, Savina’s thoughts spilled from her mind and became completely visible across the view of endlessness before them.
She looked around, wondering if her assistants could see it all—everything she had ever thought— but they were lost in the dark edges somewhere. Like a million movies playing at once, a collage of images, each mental creation appeared as if it were independent of her, as if in its own lifetime.
Each is a single dimension of its own, she thought.
The assistants called again. Nothing. Then again, louder, their voices cascading a reverb across a tumbling sense of time and an expanding space. The lab, no longer physical, had become the ultimate virtual lab for all of life as something more like a concept. Everything had transformed. Their very existence was now just a sudden experiment.
“What?” Savina finally called back to them, annoyed at being brought out of the dream. She was so close to solving it . . . whatever it was. She wasn’t sure just then, but knew it was much more than finding Gaines. She felt an urgent need to know who built the Eysen-Spheres. Where were they from? Where had they gone? How had they done it? How? How? How? And, what did it mean?
To Savina, the Spheres contained all that could be known, and she craved to feel every bit of it. Her emptiness was a mystery to her. She’d always felt different. Maybe it was from knowing too much, seeing things that others couldn’t. The answer to the cause of that emptiness, in spite of her astronomical IQ scores, had always eluded her.
Gaines, his Sphere, and the ocean that surrounded them faded. In the place of their glowing presence, her assistants surfaced. Savina clawed at the air, trying to bring Gaines and his Sphere back. She tried to dive into the surrounding ocean. All at once, the lab slipped back into view, back into order, back, yet different. Everything is different now, Savina thought as she grappled with the frustration of loss and the fascination of discovery.
“What in the world was that?” one of the assistants asked.
“Proof,” Savina said as the colors and air in the room cooled.
They all stared at the floating Sphere, seeming so normal and quiet now, but terrifying just the same.
“Proof of what?”
“The Sphere is not subject to the laws of physics . . . It’s proof that there’s something beyond what we know, something beyond everything.” Savina’s voice carried the trembling awe of someone who had defied death while those around her had perished. “Did you see what it did, where it took us?”
“If I’d been alone, I would have th
ought it a dream,” one of them said.
“I saw the other Sphere,” the other added.
“You saw it, too?” Savina asked, delighted. “Did you see Gaines?”
“In an ocean.”
Savina squealed. “We’re going to get him. Wait until I tell the Judge.” She ran to her office. “Was any of it recorded?” she asked over her shoulder.
One of the assistants was already at the controls. “Nothing,” he said dejectedly.
“How could it have been?” she asked, stopping at the office door. “No matter. Log everything you can recall into the system. Don’t worry. We’ll just have to repeat the journey.” She closed the door.
“Repeat?” one of the assistants said to the other. “Does she really think we can control that?”
“I think Savina thinks she can.”
He looked over at the Sphere. “What the hell is this thing?”
—O—
The Judge sat in his penthouse office overlooking Manhattan and listened to Savina’s incredible story. “It’s hard to believe,” he said, tinkering with a new neuro-controlled robotic set of legs.
The Judge, in his mid-sixties, still had the look of the old college quarterback he had been, his slightly crooked, twice-broken nose a testament to his days in the gridiron trenches. He wore his gray hair a little long, bordering a chiseled cheek line and salt and pepper stubble, a handsome man, and there was that earring which always seemed out of place on his gruff, tough-guy appearance.
“No,” she said. “It’s so easy to believe. Humans have been living in a self-imposed closet for the past five thousand years.”
Seeing her face light up on the video call had made him think of a child on Christmas morning. “I don’t disagree with that statement, just the extent to which you now say we’re deficient in what’s actually occurring in the universe.”