The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

  “I’m too wound up to sleep.”

  “All right, then. I’ll use the time to tell you what we’re planning—what we started planning as soon as we heard about your results with the maze rats. I’m talking about big, intricate plans, and the need to keep everything secret—funding, personnel, locations—only complicates the process.”

  Secret … in her years at Detrick she’d heard whispers of rogue operations financed by so-called black funds. This was probably one of those, or maybe a mix of black and legit. How could it be anything but rogue if they were messing with the brains of unborn babies?

  “The operation has been dubbed ‘Synapse,’ ” Greve said.

  “Synapse—as in the connection between neurons?”

  “Exactly.”

  It made a weird sort of sense, especially since melis had improved rat brains, and what were brains but networks of synapses? But that made it a lousy name for a covert operation.

  “ ‘Synapse’ gives away the farm, don’t you think? Anyone who hears it is immediately going to think nervous system or brain.”

  “You and I think alike, LaVelle.”

  Well, at least he wasn’t using her first name. She did not want to be on a first-name basis with this man. And, truth be told, she wanted even less to think like him.

  “Oh?”

  “I had the same objection, but those above me are locked into the name. Apparently the more dramatic the name, the easier the funding.”

  “ ‘Operation Synapse’ ” she said, not holding back on the sarcasm. “Someone’s been reading too many spy novels.”

  “So it would seem. The project, along with most of its funding and personnel, is buried within another bigger, older project. But nothing is untraceable. With ARPANET and DDN growing by leaps and bounds, the name can’t help but get out there. If the wrong somebody gets wind of ‘Synapse’ and decides to investigate, some sensitive information might come to light.”

  “Like this mysterious source I’m going to see?”

  “Exactly.”

  What the hell was the source? The anticipation was killing her.

  “Plus other experiments down the road,” he added.

  “Like what?”

  “We’re taking it all step by step. But I came up with a solution.”

  Something that felt like a business card was shoved into her hand.

  “What’s this?”

  “Lift the lower edge of your mask and take a brief look.”

  Maureen did as she was bid and saw …

  “I get it,” she said, readjusting the mask into place. “A graphic for a synapse.”

  “Precisely. But would you have guessed ‘synapse’ had we not been discussing the term?”

  “Doubt it.” It looked like a spoon.

  “Neither would anyone else. After talking myself blue in the face, I managed to convince the higher-ups to limit all communications about Synapse to paper—absolutely no Internet—and even on paper to use only the symbol, never the word. Therefore, in the future, when you receive a file or any sort of communication marked with that symbol, you’ll know what it references.”

  These spooks … they loved their games.

  “No worry,” she told him. “I’m not going to be involved in Synapse.”

  They fell into silence and time dragged. Maureen tried to figure if they were heading north, south, east, or west, but the car had made too many turns. Then she had an idea.

  “If I can’t watch the scenery, can we at least have some music?”

  “No.”

  “Hey, I’m the one in the mask.”

  “First, I’ve experienced your top-forty taste on visits to your lab and don’t share it. Second, the call letters of the stations will let you know our route.”

  Damn. Greve was no dummy.

  The trip seemed to last a lot longer than three hours in subjective time. But finally the car stopped and the engine turned off.

  “Not yet,” Greve said as she reached for the mask.

  She was helped from the car—by the driver, she assumed—and told to walk ten feet straight ahead and stop. She felt a breeze and heard rustling tree branches all around. She smelled pines. She was in the woods somewhere. Not a terribly specific locator, but something. After the ten steps she heard doors latch closed behind her.

  Greve said, “Okay, you can remove the mask.”

  Even though the overhead fluorescents weren’t all that bright, she blinked in the unaccustomed light. She found herself in some sort of Quonset hut, maybe twenty by forty. Greve, the driver, and two burly men in grease-stained coveralls stood watching her. The new guys were trying to look like mechanics but had security written all over them. A huge cabinet labeled PARTS dominated the center of the hut that was otherwise littered with fenders, engines, transmissions, and such.

  Was Greve going to tell her they’d found melis in a Ford crankcase?

  “This is it?” she said.

  “Hardly.”

  Greve signaled to one of the security men, who pulled opened the doors on the cabinet to reveal another set of doors. He pushed a button and they slid back to reveal …

  “An elevator?”

  Greve motioned her forward and followed her inside. The control panel had two unlabeled buttons. He hit the lower one. The doors closed and they began to descend.

  “Can I at least know what state I’m going to be under?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, how about how far under?”

  “Fifty feet.”

  The elevator cab stopped and they stepped out into a damp concrete corridor that seemed to go on a long, long way. A single row of solitary incandescent bulbs, one hung every twenty feet or so, trailed along the ceiling into the distance. The tunnel had an old feel, like it had been built during the Cold War or before. The ceiling was only eight feet high, lending it a cramped feel despite its length.

  Greve indicated one of the four golf carts parked to the side. They got in and he drove them a good half mile to a set of doors where more carts were parked.

  “Another elevator?”

  “No. This is the bunker for a project you will learn about on a need-to-know basis. Right now you don’t need to know.”

  He tapped a five-digit code into a keypad and the doors slid open with a low rumble. He ushered her through, then, after another tapped code to close the doors, he led the way down a well-lit, low-ceilinged hallway lined with rows of doors standing open on empty rooms.

  “This used to be quite a bustling project but much of the original research here ground to a halt when …” His voice trailed off.

  “When what?”

  “Since they discovered the source of your melis … Substance A.”

  At the far end of the hall they stopped before a heavy steel door with a small window of very thick glass. Black and yellow chevrons surrounded an ominous sign:

  WARNING

  RESTRICTED AREA

  NO ADMITTANCE

  Maureen couldn’t help a sense of foreboding. She pointed to the door. “And the source is in there?”

  “Yes. Prepare yourself. Whatever you’re expecting, you’re wrong.”

  Now her gut was crawling. “It’s something horrible?”

  “Depends on your frame of mind. It’s simply … different.”

  He pushed open the door and led her into a large rectangular space with a higher ceiling—fifteen feet at least. On her right, a bank of ancient, inert electronic equipment jutted into the room. Were those really vacuum tubes? The walls straight ahead and to her right were lined with banks of more modern equipment blinking various colors.

  Greve led her around the bank of antique electronics and pointed to a square, floor-to-ceiling, glass-walled chamber, maybe ten feet on a side. And within …

  Maureen didn’t know what she’d been expecting. Melis was the most confounding substance on this and perhaps any other world. She’d been expecting the unexpected and the inexplicable, but she hadn’t foreseen thi
s. She’d thought she was prepared for just about anything, but she couldn’t help the scream that escaped her.

  NOW

  Thursday

  1

  QUEENS

  Rick had picked up Marie at her place, part of a multifamily row house faced with Hudson brick. All the houses in the neighborhood had pretty much the same design.

  Laura had dominated his thoughts on the drive down from Westchester. She’d all but slammed the door on him yesterday afternoon and then reopened it last night. At least he wasn’t the only bewildered party. She’d admitted to her own confusion.

  Time to put all that aside and focus on the mission with Marie—who, by the way, looked … different. Rick realized she’d added eye shadow and mascara. Her jeans were tighter than yesterday and the scoop neck of her jersey dipped lower.

  Not for me, I hope.

  Rick had dressed down, wearing worn jeans and a long-sleeved collared shirt open over a Taggart Railroad T. They drove the easily walkable distance back to their previous parking spot under the trestle. The dashboard clock read 9:42 when he turned off the engine. The store opened at ten.

  “My shift at Boston Market starts at two,” she said, “so we have until then.”

  “Isn’t Stahlman paying you?”

  She nodded. “He’s very generous.”

  Rick hadn’t discussed the boss’s arrangements with the nadaný.

  “Can I ask how much?”

  “Two thousand a week—one hundred thousand for a year.”

  Rick gave an appreciative whistle. “Just for letting Montero test you. Nice. So why are you bothering with Boston Market?”

  “Work is a good thing. I’m late-shift manager and I like the job. It’s not demanding—except when workers don’t show up—but it has paid my bills and gives structure to my days.”

  Rick hadn’t had any feelings one way or another about Marie before, but found himself warming to her now. Not in a man-woman sense, more in a person-person way. She had a work ethic—probably absorbed from her immigrant parents—and he liked that. Didn’t see enough of it these days.

  “Anyway,” she said, “I’ve been thinking about how to handle this. On the camera, the invisible nadaný got up early and made his bed. But he can’t leave without setting off an alarm. So he either has to slip out the back past whoever opens up, or go out as the first customer comes in.”

  Rick nodded. She’d pretty much nailed it. “Which do you think—front or rear?”

  “Rear, as the first employee comes in. Otherwise he has to wait for a customer, and that might take hours. I know just the spot where I can watch.”

  “You?” He wasn’t sure he liked that. They knew nothing about this nadaný. The guy could be dangerous. “I’m not sure—”

  “It has to be me. I’m the only one who can tell you if he’s left the store and which way he’s going. You can do the following. After all, he’s seen me. If he recognizes me, he may run or hop a train.”

  As if on cue, the 7 train rattled by overhead.

  “Fair enough,” he said after it had passed. “You’ve got my number. Call me when he’s out and moving.”

  They both hopped out. Rick leaned against the front grill of the truck and admired her slim figure as she dashed across Queens Boulevard and disappeared around the end of Slumber Party’s strip mall. An attractive young woman. But he wasn’t on the hunt.

  He watched the dash clock advance toward ten. At five to ten his phone rang.

  “The same salesman as yesterday just went in,” Marie said, “and I’d swear I saw the door make a second move on its own before it closed. Okay, yeah, he’s out and moving away behind the stores. He should be appearing at the corner to your left.”

  “Appearing?”

  “Sorry. He’s staying invisible.”

  Keeping the phone against his ear, Rick started moving. He hurried across the street and timed his arrival at the west end of the strip mall to coincide with the estimated pace of the nadaný.

  “He’s still moving west.”

  Rick crossed to the next block and kept an even pace along the sidewalk, watching ahead, searching for some ripple in the air, some odd refraction of the sunlight that would tip off the invisible man’s location, even a hint that one of his fellow pedestrians had bumped into something they hadn’t seen. Nothing. Not a clue, until …

  Just ahead, the door to the Starbucks opened—seemingly by itself, because no one entered or exited.

  Gotcha.

  Wait. This didn’t make any sense. How was an invisible man going to buy coffee?

  Rick stepped inside and looked around. The morning rush-hour crush was over and the laptop crowd had commandeered the tables. Rick pretended to study the coffee presses. Was the nadaný using the men’s room? If so, why here? Slumber Party had to have an employee bathroom.

  “Damn!”

  A laptopper had splashed some coffee on his table. Rick watched him cross the shop to grab some extra napkins. When he returned he stopped dead and stared at his table.

  “My coffee! Who took my stuff?”

  He looked at Rick who shrugged and held out the flaps of his shirt.

  To his right, the door opened by itself.

  Rick stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked both ways. The victim joined him. No likely suspects in sight.

  “You see anything?”

  Rick shrugged. “To tell you the truth, I wasn’t watching.”

  “This ain’t the first time this has happened. But nobody sees anything. Shit!”

  “Could be an invisible man,” Rick said.

  The laptopper didn’t seem to think this was funny. His tone dripped acid. “Well, then we’d see the cup and the sandwich floating out the door, wouldn’t we.”

  Grumbling, he went back inside just as Marie showed up.

  “We’re practically on top of him,” she said. “Where—?”

  Just then a somewhat disheveled young woman with wild hair and very dark skin stepped out of the Chase ATM recess carrying an egg sandwich and a Starbucks cup.

  “Wait,” Rick said, stepping close to block her view of Marie as she passed. “Gotta be our nadaný.”

  Marie kept her face averted until it was safe to look.

  “You mean we’ve got an invisible woman?”

  “Sure looks that way. Let’s see where she goes.”

  She crossed westbound Queens Boulevard, cut under the tracks, then across the eastbound lanes to a tiny park where she settled herself on a bench. With her back to them, she chowed down on her purloined goodies.

  “Perfect time for you to approach her,” Rick said.

  “But what do I say?”

  “Maybe start off with, ‘Hi, remember me?’ as an icebreaker. That was why I had you stand outside the window last night. Talk, tell her she’s not alone, not the only one. She can join others like herself, hang out, have a place to live, and just be herself without any worries.”

  “What if she vanishes and takes off?”

  “Maybe tell her early on that you can ‘see’ her. Convince her woman to woman she’s got nothing to lose and lots to gain. You can do it. I’ll stay back here.”

  “Okay,” she said slowly. She didn’t sound too confident. “I’ll give it my best shot.”

  “Go for it.”

  He watched her cross the park, seat herself on the end of the bench, and start talking.

  2

  Laura found Ruthie and Iggy hanging out at the pool table, watching Ellis and a slim, Afroed young black woman Laura hadn’t seen before play pool—or try to. Ellis would hit the cue ball and send it rolling off at an impossible angle and then circle around to race toward another ball only to veer off in another direction. All four of the nadaný were laughing.

  After the cue ball finally ended up in a pocket, Laura stuck her hand out to the new girl. “Laura Fanning. We haven’t met.”

  “Tanisha Little,” she said, taking Laura’s hand. “I heard you’d joined the team.”

/>   Laura nodded. “Helping Doctor Montero. I’m assuming you’re another telekinetic?”

  “Yeah. I’ve never played with anyone else like me. It’s kind of a riot.”

  “Is one of you stronger than the other?”

  “That would be me,” Ellis said from the other side of the table.

  Laura noticed a swollen bruise on his left cheek but didn’t say anything.

  Tanisha rolled her eyes. “We’re pretty evenly matched.”

  Laura turned to Ellis. “Did you find out what I asked you?”

  Ellis frowned. “You mean my mom’s OB doc? Completely slipped my mind.”

  “Too busy running into a door,” Iggy said. Ruthie laughed.

  Ellis gave them a brief glare as he pulled out his phone. “I’ll call her now.”

  Ruthie said, “My moms went to some free clinic in Bed-Stuy but she don’t remember the name. Motherhood something.”

  Laura made a note of that.

  “My mom did too,” Iggy said. “At least that’s what my aunt says. But she couldn’t remember the name.”

  “Also in Bed-Stuy?”

  She nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  Both were born in Kings County Hospital, so a good possibility their mothers attended the same clinic. Way too early to read much into that.

  Marie was out with Rick, chasing their invisible man, so Laura would have to wait until they got back to gather her info.

  And then she’d have to talk to Rick too, explain her change of heart. But how was she going to do that when she couldn’t explain it to herself?

  She wandered over to Leo’s area and found him with both feet on the ground watching Law & Order on the same monitor that had run his EEG yesterday.

  “Hey, Leo. Got that info for me?”

  “Yes, ma’am. The Modern Motherhood Clinic.”

  Motherhood again. Laura kept the brakes on any hope of a possible connection. Motherhood would hardly be an unusual part of a name for a prenatal clinic.

  “Here in the city—in Bed-Stuy?”

  He made a face. “What? Told you I was born in Compton.”

  “And that’s where this clinic was?”

  “Well, ye-ah,” he said in a du-uh! tone.