The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

“The edge of the Pine Barrens!” Ruthie cried as she limped from the stairwell. She wore shorts and a T-shirt and was holding a paper towel against her thigh.

  Laura wanted to cheer at the sight of her. “Back so soon? Good work! You found Iggy?”

  “Yeah. What the fuck are Pine Barrens?”

  “Fancy name for big pine woods. She told you that’s where they were?”

  She was dying to ask about Rick. But was that where he was? Could it be? The Long Island Pine Barrens preserve was just a few miles from her home. It seemed too good to be true.

  “Not quite. I was hiding and she got the lady to say where they were.”

  “Lady? What lady?”

  Ruthie shrugged. “Some lady. I didn’t see her, just heard her. ‘Edge of the Pine Barrens.’ That’s what she said.”

  “Did you see anybody else? You know, like Rick?” Hope-hope-hope.

  “Didn’t see nobody but Iggy, and she was good, except she had this weird collar around her neck.”

  Damn.

  Okay, if Iggy was all right, could she assume the same for Rick? Yeah, she had to. And right now Ruthie’s leg needed tending. Laura had been set up to remove the GPS recorder but that was moot now. The thigh incision was oozing slowly but steadily.

  “Hop up on the table and let me see that leg.”

  “What about Ellis and Anulka?” Stahlman said. He’d come out of the office. “Any sign of them?”

  They’d drawn a small crowd. Marie was there, of course, but so were Luis, Cyrus, Kevin, and Tanisha.

  “Told you,” she said as she scooched up onto the pool table. “Just saw Iggy. And this is starting to hurt.”

  Right. The lidocaine would be wearing off about now.

  “It’ll be sore for a while,” Laura said. “I’m going to put a pressure dressing on it to stop the bleeding.”

  “What about pain?”

  “Take some Tylenol.”

  “Tylenol? Shit, I need Vicodins at least.”

  “Sorry. Fresh out.”

  Her tone grew annoyed. “You know, you scientists think you so smart but you really kinda dumb.”

  “Oh?” Laura said as she tore off three strips of adhesive tape. She wasn’t looking for an argument. “Got a for-instance?”

  “Yeah. Like we coulda done a test run. You know, me jump to my place upstairs and see if the GPS thing came along.”

  Laura stopped and shook her head. “Now why didn’t we think of that?”

  She glanced at Stahlman who looked embarrassed as he gave a helpless shrug.

  Ruthie said, “Yeah, why didn’t you?”

  “Because we all have dumb moments and that was one of mine. Sorry.”

  Ruthie seemed mollified, even a bit disarmed by Laura’s admission. “Yeah, well, I didn’t think of it either.”

  Laura finished taping the gauze down tight, then turned to the others.

  “Ruthie heard someone there say they were on ‘the edge of the Pine Barrens.’ That’s out on Long Island, right near the Moriches. We can ride out there—”

  “Wait,” said Marie. “Long Island? That’s east of here.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, I’m sensing our nadaný to the south, remember? I don’t know where or how far, but I do know they’re not east.”

  “Jersey’s got some pine barrens,” Luis said, “and that’s south.”

  “Yeah, but the Jersey barrens are huge,” Stahlman said. “ ‘On the edge’ … does that mean northern edge, western edge, eastern edge?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Laura said. “Marie and I will start driving south. Marie will act as a divining rod and we’ll adjust our course accordingly as we go.”

  “Just you two?” Stahlman said, shaking his head. “Two women driving though the Jersey Pine Barrens at night? Uh-uh. Bad idea. I’ll go with you.”

  Laura did not want Stahlman along. He’d think he should do the driving and call the shots. No way. This was Laura’s mission.

  “Count me in too,” Luis said.

  Oh, great.

  “It’s not like we’re leading a commando raid,” she said. “Marie’s going to help me locate them and then we’ll call it in—you know, report it to the state police.”

  But Stahlman and Luis were adamant. Kevin wanted to ride along too but everyone put the kibosh on that. They needed him here to keep the computers up and coordinate communications.

  “Okay, okay,” Laura finally said. “The four of us will go. We’ll meet at the car in five minutes. Okay?”

  All three nodded. As Stahlman and Luis hurried off in their respective directions, Laura motioned to Marie.

  “You come with me.”

  Marie fell into step beside her as they headed for Laura’s car. “I thought you said five minutes.”

  “You and me—we’re leaving right now.”

  “But what about—?”

  “We don’t want them. They’ll only get in the way.” Laura looked at her. “You okay with that? Because if you’re not, we’ll wait for them.”

  “No-no. I’m in but … you don’t think this will be dangerous, do you?”

  “If I did, I don’t know if I’d be going. I don’t like adrenaline and I have a daughter who needs her mommy. And those two—Luis and Stahlman? Think about it: If there was any danger—and we’ll stay far away from any chance of that—we’d have to defend them.”

  They were laughing as they reached her SUV. As Laura opened the driver’s door she heard, “Wait for us!”

  Cyrus and Tanisha came running up.

  “Whoa! Nobody said anything about—”

  “We know y’all duckin’ out,” Cyrus said, his voice dripping New Orleans, “and we’re going with you.”

  Laura was about to blow them off when Tanisha said, “They’re our friends—at least two of them are.”

  “Which one isn’t?” As if she needed to ask.

  “Ellis is kind of a dick,” Tanisha said.

  Cyrus snorted. “ ‘Kinda’?”

  She shrugged. “But he’s one of us, so … what do you say? Who knows? We might come in handy.”

  Maybe. She didn’t know about Cyrus’s magic disappearing grip, but Tanisha’s telekinesis, weak as it was, might prove useful.

  “Hop in the back.”

  Seconds later she was out on the streets of Long Island City.

  Heading south …

  15

  LANGE-TÜR BUNKER

  Annie watched the heavy steel doors squeeze closed behind her, then turned to the golf carts. She’d never played golf but every president seemed to be crazy for it. The carts they used always had tops on them. These didn’t. She noticed the electrical wires attaching them to the wall. She unhooked one and slid behind the wheel.

  A simple lever projected from a vertical slot in the dashboard labeled with F—N—R. Brake and gas pedal on the floor.

  Simple enough. She turned the key, levered up to F, stepped on the gas pedal—electric pedal?—and the cart took off. Not exactly raceway speed but just fine. Hell of a lot better than walking. And quiet as could be.

  Now she just prayed Rick was right about no security cameras, because this driverless cart was going to look pretty fucking weird to anyone watching.

  But weird was the rule for her life, right? Pretty fucking weird for some time now. First finding out she could turn invisible. Then, before she could adjust to that, her mom discovering she had stage-four liver cancer and not lasting a year. Leaving her an orphan. Well, not exactly an orphan, because her father was probably still alive, but nobody knew where he was. Went back to Africa, some said. Anyway, she stayed with her mom’s older sister, Aunt Zinne, but she turned out just plain mean so Annie ghosted and began living by her wits.

  Yeah, she was homeless, but she’d never had to beg or live on the street. The invisibility trick let her crash all over town and jack food and cash whenever she was hungry or short. Kinda fun at first, but living like a leech got old real quick. She’d been thinking of try
ing the straight life, even if it meant continuing with the minimum-wage scut work, when Rick and Marie dropped from heaven with an offer she couldn’t refuse.

  Couldn’t believe it: two grand a week plus an apartment just to let someone study her invisibility. Seemed too good to be true.

  Well, she had that right. On her second fucking day she’s kidnapped by the U.S. government and tucked away in Fort Knox or wherever this was.

  Shit.

  When she reached the far end, she parked the cart with the others and approached the elevator doors.

  Okay. Hairball time. Her dear departed cat, Prince—named after the singer who she’d had the major hots for as a teen—had been a great mouser, but every time he got nervous he’d cough up a huge hairball. Looking at those doors made Annie’s belly feel like it was full of hair. Maybe coughing up a hairball of her own would make her feel better.

  She looked around for cameras. Rick had said there were none, but she checked anyway.

  Okay. Here goes.

  She pressed the only button and the doors slid open right away. Taking a deep breath she stepped inside and hit the up button. The cab jerked into motion—slow motion. The ascent seemed to take forever, but finally the cab stopped. Annie pressed her back against the rear wall as the doors slid open.

  A middle-aged man stood a few feet away, staring straight at her. He wore an oil-stained mechanic’s coverall, blue like Rick’s, with an embroidered patch that read Al.

  “What the hell?” he said. “Hey, Harv, it’s empty.”

  “I can see that, Jon,” said a voice from somewhere out of sight. “I saw it before you.”

  See? See how?

  She glanced up and saw a silvery bubble embedded in the ceiling. That had to be the camera. So they could see who was on the way up.

  “Then what—?” After a few heartbeats, Jon—she guessed that was his name despite what his coverall said—stuck his head inside and looked around.

  “Somebody’s playing games downstairs,” said Harv.

  “Gotta be Woolley. Thinks he’s a comedian.”

  Okay, Jonny Boy, Annie thought. You’ve had your look. Now move along. Nothing to see.

  But he continued to stand there, blocking her way. Then the doors timed out and started to close. Impulsively, Annie reached out and jabbed the up button.

  “Hey, now that’s weird,” Jon said as the doors reopened.

  “Well, if you’d get outta the fucking way,” Harv called, “maybe they could close.”

  “I wasn’t in the way.”

  Jon backed up a step and Annie saw her chance. She slipped past and took a couple of slow, careful steps that put her behind him. She looked around to get her bearings.

  The elevator opened into a big cabinet inside some sort of shed with a curved ceiling. She saw a heavyset black guy in coveralls who she assumed was Harv—despite the Chet on his coverall—standing at a console half a dozen feet away, staring at a bank of screens. Straight ahead, maybe twenty feet away, a pair of doors beckoned. Careful to make no sound, she began to take slow, measured steps in that direction.

  “Holy shit!” Harv shouted. “We’ve got company!”

  Jon whirled. “Out front?”

  “No! Right here! Three feet in front of you!”

  Panicked, Annie froze. They could see her? But how? The way the light shimmered around her, she knew she was still invisible. How—?

  “Are you crazy?” Jon said.

  “I shit you not!” Harv’s head was swiveling back and forth between his console and right where Annie was standing. “Grab him!”

  “Where, goddammit!”

  “Right in front of you!”

  Abandoning all caution, Annie turned to run, but a hand landed on her shoulder before her first step.

  “Shit, there really is someone—!”

  The fingers tightened on her shirt, yanking her back as an arm wrapped around her throat. The hand released her shirt as a second arm encircled her torso and she was tackled to the ground. They landed hard on the concrete floor.

  “I don’t believe this!” Jon was saying as he held her facedown. “I don’t fucking believe this!”

  “An invisible man!” Harv’s voice said, rushing up.

  Jon was patting her down, probably looking for a weapon when his hand closed on one of her breasts.

  “Whoa!” He gave the breast a squeeze, then said, “Not a man! Invisible woman!”

  “Wo—? Hold her. I’ll get cuffs.”

  Cuffs? No!

  She redoubled her efforts to squirm free but he was too big for her.

  “Easy, easy,” he said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  When she felt the cuffs snap closed around her wrists, a sob escaped her. She’d never make that call. She’d failed them all.

  “Hey, don’t cry, girl,” said Jon. “We’re not gonna hurt you. But we’re not gonna let you go, either.”

  “An invisible woman,” Harv said. “She must be one of the ones they brought in on stretchers. Y’know, you hear there’s weirdness down there, but who’da thought … I mean, invisible?”

  With her hands cuffed behind her back, Jon pulled her—not ungently—to her feet, but kept a firm grip on the links between the cuffs.

  “What they do to you?” he said. “Are you stuck this way or can you turn visible?”

  Annie didn’t know what to say or do. When she didn’t answer, Jon began to pat her down. He pulled the phone and the pass card from her back pockets.

  “Hey, this is Watts’s swipe. Where’d you get it?”

  “And that’s Woolley’s phone,” Harv said. “I recognize it.”

  What could she say? She didn’t want to mention Rick.

  “I-I stole them. I’m invisible, after all.”

  She guessed her voice coming out of thin air surprised them because they both jumped.

  Harv said, “She talks! How about that?”

  Jon added, “I’m taking you back below—the boss man’s down there now so he’ll decide what to do to you, but it’ll make it easier all around if I can see you.”

  “But you already can see me,” she said.

  “We can see your heat signature on the screen over there,” Harv said, jerking a finger over his shoulder. “Maybe you can trick our eyes, but your body still gives off heat, and the thermal imager picked you up.”

  Well, that was something to tell Dr. Montero—if she ever saw him again.

  She dropped the invisible thought and everything around her zipped into brighter, sharper focus.

  Jon blinked at her. “Damn, you’re young.”

  “Please,” she said, holding back the tears. “They kidnapped me and knocked me out and brought me here.”

  Harv was nodding. “We know that.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly.

  “But that’s against the law! They can’t do that!”

  Harv shrugged. “But they did. Rules are different where the project’s concerned.”

  “What project?”

  They glanced at each other, then Jon said, “The project. That’s all we know.” He tugged on her cuffs, toward the elevator. “Come on. Taking you back.”

  She tried to pull away but got nowhere. “Please! Let me go. Please?”

  Jon shook his head. “Sorry. No can do.”

  She screamed “Help!” with everything she had, then screamed again.

  Jon and Harv didn’t move, didn’t even try to shut her up. That was when she realized …

  “No one can hear me, can they.”

  They both shook their heads, then Jon tugged again.

  “Let’s go.”

  16

  EXIT 11—NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE

  “Okay,” Laura said. “We’re coming to a decision point: Switch to the parkway or stay on the turnpike?”

  Laura’s trip guide had taken her through the Midtown Tunnel, across Manhattan to the Lincoln Tunnel, and down the New Jersey Turnpike. But now they were approaching a major fork in th
e road.

  “I don’t know,” Marie said. “What’s the difference?”

  “Well, check out the map,” she said, pointing to the dashboard display. “The turnpike takes us along a more southwest route while the Garden State Parkway is pretty much due south. Both flank the Pine Barrens—turnpike runs along the western edge while the GSP stays to the east. If we make the wrong choice it could mean slow going making the correction through the pines.”

  She glanced at Marie and saw her chewing her upper lip.

  “I don’t know these roads,” she said. “I don’t know New Jersey at all.”

  Cyrus chimed in from the backseat. “Nobody does. I hear people only come to Jersey when they have to and they get on out as quick as possible.”

  Marie leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes. After a moment she straightened again and pointed through the windshield.

  “That way.”

  Her point was about thirty degrees left of their present direction—around ten o’clock or so. Pretty much due south.

  “Parkway it is,” Laura said.

  She hit the blinker and eased right toward Exit 11 and the Jersey Shore Points.

  17

  LANGE-TÜR BUNKER

  Rick waited until he heard the big doors grind open and then close again, then waited some more.

  Okay. Annie was on her way toward the elevator and freedom. Time for some serious exploration. He pulled open the door but stayed in the doorway, reorienting himself. All the doors looked pretty much the same. He’d have to remember the numbers.

  So … he’d checked the little office at the end of the hall, then the empty room next to it, then this one—room eighteen. Annie’s. He’d been chained up in seventeen, which meant he’d check sixteen next—might as well have a system.

  He was just setting a foot into the hall when he heard a rattle and voices down to his right. He ducked back, eased the door closed, and pressed his ear against the wood. Wished to hell these doors had peepholes.

  Listening, he heard two female voices, talking low. He couldn’t make out the words. He eased the door back open enough to poke his head into the hall. Iggy, looking perfectly relaxed, like she didn’t have a care in the world, was strolling along with an older woman—white-coated, gray-haired, old enough to be her grandmother. They were headed toward the heavy doors with the little window, the ones that had rejected his swipe card.