The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

  Flinching he said, “All we’ve been told is that ‘the project’ is down there. Some government-run thing tucked way, way in the back where we’re not allowed to go. I can’t tell you more than they told me, which is nothing. Our job up here is to make sure only authorized people get in.”

  The project, Laura thought. Did it have anything to with the nadaný or had they been brought here simply because it was secure and convenient?

  “You’ll take us down there?” she said.

  A series of quick nods. “Yeah-yeah. Just make him take his hand off my neck.”

  “I can’t make him do anything, but I can ask. Cy?”

  He released Harv’s nape. “Sure. But I’m sticking close, got it?”

  Harv swallowed hard and nodded again. “Got it.”

  It occurred to Laura that Harv was a pretty poor excuse for a government agent. Granted, Cyrus’s demonstrations were pretty unnerving, especially if you feared you were about to be on the receiving end. But she hadn’t expected him to cave so quickly.

  “Are you DIA?”

  He shook his head. “Only Agent Greve.”

  Whoever that was.

  “Who are you with, then?”

  “Private contractor. Septimus Security.”

  That explained it, she guessed. Hired gun with no particular loyalty.

  “Who owns the bunker then?”

  He looked at her as if she were daft. “The Department of Defense. They hired us but it’s a government facility. You’re messing with the Pentagon here, sister.”

  Pretty much what she’d suspected, but she couldn’t show a hint of intimidation. She gave him a fierce look.

  “No, my man, the Pentagon’s dealing with me. It’s broken dozens of laws by abducting and imprisoning U.S. citizens without due process, and you’re an accomplice.” That seemed to cow him, but she wasn’t through. She hardened her tone to let him know she wasn’t asking. “You’re going to take us down to this bunker.”

  “Okay. Yeah.”

  Maybe my hard-ass act isn’t so bad either.

  “Where’s the elevator?”

  He pointed to the huge PARTS cabinet. “In there.”

  “How many security people down there?” Laura said.

  “My partner Jon, and maybe two more.”

  “ ‘Maybe’?”

  “When we caught the invisible girl she had things that belonged to the other two guys and—”

  “Wait,” said Tanisha. “Invisible girl?” She glanced at Laura. “Annie?”

  “Yeah, invisible,” Harv said. “As in perfectly transparent. Normally I wouldn’t expect anyone to believe me, but after seeing what you can do, I figure you know all about it.”

  “And you caught her?”

  “Yeah. We saw her heat signature on the thermal imager. Jon brought her back down.”

  Heat signature … Luis hadn’t got into checking Annie’s infrared yet.

  No question Rick and the nadaný were here.

  “How much firepower down below?” Cyrus said.

  Harv shook his head. “No guns allowed.”

  Cyrus grinned. “Excellent! What are we waiting for?”

  Despite his previous agreement, Harv held back. “I’ll be in a shitload of trouble.”

  Even though he’d pulled a gun on them, Laura felt a little sorry for Harv. He was only doing his job.

  Cyrus said, “You’re already in a shitload of trouble—with me. You just tell them we threatened your life.” He placed his hand on Harv’s neck again. “Which I’m doing right—”

  A loud buzzer sounded as a red light on the console began to flash.

  “What’s that?” Marie cried.

  “The alarm!” Harv said, pulling away from Cyrus and rushing to the console.

  “What did you do?” Laura said, following close behind.

  “Nothing! You saw me. I was standing right next to you.” He looked frantic, freaked. “I’ve been here for years and we’ve never had an alarm. I—oh, shit! The bunker’s in lockdown!”

  “Locked down how?”

  “No one in or out.”

  “Well, isn’t that convenient for you,” she said.

  Cyrus approached, his expression fierce. “You did something. What did you—?”

  Harv cringed away and nodded to one of the screens. “Look! There’s been a breach!”

  Sure enough, the word BREACH was blinking on the center screen.

  “Breach?” Laura said. “What’s that mean?”

  His expression showed genuine panic. “I don’t know, but it can’t be good!”

  23

  LANGE-TÜR BUNKER

  What was that noise?

  “What the—?”

  Someone was banging on the restricted door. Maureen hurried over and peeked through the thick glass of the window to see a distorted version of Rick Hayden’s grim face. Greve stood a half dozen feet behind him and still had that gun in his hand.

  Greve nodded to her, which she took to mean she was clear to open the door.

  “Welcome back,” she said as Hayden stepped inside. “Wasn’t sure I’d see you again.”

  “Maybe I’m an asset,” he said with a sardonic grin.

  She didn’t know what to make of Hayden. He was smart and glib and big and good-looking and seemed utterly fearless—except when he’d got his first look inside the tank. The sight of the Anomaly had rocked him back on his heels. He’d recovered quickly, but didn’t seem able to take his eyes off it. As if he didn’t trust it.

  She recalled her own reaction when she’d stepped through the restricted door for the first time. God, when had that been? Could it have been 1986? That long ago? It seemed like yesterday when she’d stood outside listening to Greve tell her that whatever her expectations about what waited behind the door, they were wrong. She remembered the foreboding, her crawling gut, and how she hadn’t been reassured one bit when he’d told her that the source of melis wasn’t horrible, simply … different.

  Different, hell. Greve’s warnings or reassurances or whatever he thought they were had not prepared her the slightest for the fucking off-the-wall apparition that waited within.

  What she’d seen floating in the glass chamber had struck her as so other, so completely wrong, she’d screamed. Just once, but loud and long. Then she’d turned and hammered on the door to be released from this place. But Greve was having none of it. When she finally calmed down, he’d led her—dragged was more like it—over to the chamber and “introduced” her to the twitching, pulsing, vacillating thing they called the Anomaly.

  She’d never accepted the Anomaly. The techs who worked with Stoney didn’t seem to mind its presence—at least not on the surface. After years of working here they’d quit or transfer out and eventually kill themselves. Not all, of course, but an uncomfortably high percentage.

  Ever since that first day, Maureen couldn’t wait to escape its presence. She’d never become inured to its alienness, its otherness, and the black despair that beckoned from its core. Greve didn’t mind, Stoney seemed almost drawn to it, but it made her want to run.

  She wanted to run now but was hanging on for Iggy’s sake.

  Over the years her melis research had required occasional on-site visits. She didn’t mind the enclosed, buried feeling of the bunker, just so long as she didn’t have to spend too much time back here in the restricted area.

  She imagined Hayden felt the same. After all, he’d exhibited such a visceral reaction to the Anomaly. Almost as if he recognized it.

  Greve followed Hayden with his pistol aimed at his back.

  “And what, Doctor LaVelle, have you accomplished during my absence?”

  “I’ve been attempting to discover Iggy’s gift.”

  “You’re assuming she has one? Have you succeeded?”

  “I believe so.”

  “What is it?”

  “Come over and I’ll show you.”

  Actually, she’d thought she had it sussed out before Greve had mar
ched Hayden away, but in his absence she’d pretty much confirmed it to her satisfaction.

  Hayden was standing beside Iggy, staring at the Anomaly. Stoney stood on her other side, talking to her.

  When she and Greve arrived behind the trio, she turned to him and said, “Tell me a lie.”

  “What?”

  “Just try to fabricate something untrue and tell it to me.”

  Greve made a face. “This is ridiculous.”

  “You won’t do it?”

  “I’m not at all in the mood for games, LaVelle.”

  Okay, if he was going to play it like that, she’d just repeat the Ghost Story question.

  “So tell me, Agent Greve, what was the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

  Without hesitation he said, “I fucked my younger sister half a dozen times when she was fourteen and threatened the life of her cat if she ever told anyone.”

  Maureen felt her mouth fall open. The Iggy-Stoney conversation stopped dead and the two of them did a slow turn along with Hayden to stare at Greve.

  And Greve … Greve had gone dead white with his eyes bugging and his dropped jaw working spasmodically.

  “I … I …” His voice was a raspy whisper. “I … didn’t mean to say that. It just came out!”

  “You mean it’s true?” Hayden said, looking almost as shocked as when he’d first laid eyes on the Anomaly.

  Greve nodded. “Yes … yes, but—” His voice rose to a scream. “Why am I saying this?”

  “But-but-but,” Maureen said, “that wasn’t how you answered before!” She ran out of words and saliva.

  It must have all come together for Greve right then because the gun slipped from nerveless fingers and clattered to the floor as his gaze snapped to Iggy.

  “You!” he shouted, pointing a trembling finger at her. “It’s you!”

  He backed away and kept backing away until he was around the corner. Maureen heard the security door slam.

  The others stared after him.

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Stoney said.

  Hayden rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Double for me.” He looked at Maureen. “What just happened here?”

  She noticed Hayden’s gaze drifting toward the pistol so she quickly stooped and picked it up and slipped it into the pocket of her lab coat.

  “I think it best if this stays with me.”

  “You’re sure about that?” he said, his gaze boring into her.

  “Pretty much.”

  She knew he could overpower her and take it anytime he wished, but she’d feel better with it out of sight.

  He gave her a curt nod. “Okay, then.”

  Relief. She couldn’t help liking this man. She wondered what Greve had wanted with him.

  He added, “But I reserve the right to change my mind should the need arise.”

  “Understood.”

  She sensed they both hoped it wouldn’t.

  I fucked my younger sister half a dozen times … She couldn’t get the words out of her head.

  “Okay now, Moe. What just happened?”

  She snapped alert. What had just happened? She’d been monumentally stupid.

  I fucked my younger sister half a dozen times … God!

  “It’s Iggy.”

  “Me?” Iggy said. The chain between the shackles gave a faint rattle as she pointed to herself. “How—?”

  “No one can lie around you.”

  “What?”

  Maureen nodded. “That’s your gift, your power.”

  “It is?” Iggy looked dubious.

  “What the hell are you two talking about?” Stoney said.

  Obviously Greve hadn’t explained the nadaný to him. But then, why would he? Maureen didn’t want to get into all of that now, so she made it as plain and simple as she could.

  “You can’t tell a lie in front of Iggy.”

  He chuckled. “Aw, that’s crazy.”

  “Agent Greve doesn’t think so.”

  Stoney’s grin did a slow fade. “Holy shit. You’re not kidding, are you.”

  Right now I wish I were, she thought.

  “Go ahead. Try to tell me a lie. I’ll ask you your name and you try to give me someone else’s. What’s your name?”

  His lips worked as if he were trying to move them against their will, and then he said, “Gerald Kevin Stonington, Junior.” He slapped a hand against his forehead. “I was trying to say ‘Richard Nixon.’ Holy shit!”

  She turned to Rick who was looking a little sick.

  “Don’t ask me that ‘worst thing’ question or I’ll punch you in the mouth before you get it out.” He had a stricken look as he shook his head. “I didn’t mean for that to come out.”

  God, would he really punch her to stop her? Yes, he would. He’d spoken the truth because Iggy stood just a few feet away.

  “Okay, okay.” Maureen took a step back. “I won’t.”

  “Can’t be worse than Greve’s,” Stoney said.

  “I’ve got blood on my hands.” His expression told her he hadn’t wanted to say that, either.

  Why am I not surprised? Maureen thought.

  “The thing is,” she said, “you don’t have to answer. If you’d rather not, you can simply say so. As long as that’s how you really feel, then you’ve spoken the truth.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I was experimenting on Stoney while you and Greve were gone.”

  Stoney looked scandalized. “Like hell you were!”

  “Remember all those classified questions I was asking you?”

  The light dawned in his eyes. “You were testing me?”

  She pointed to Iggy. “No, I was testing her. Sometimes you’d answer truthfully, and sometimes you’d say you weren’t allowed to comment on this or that—also the truth.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” He frowned. “But then why didn’t Agent Greve just hold his tongue?”

  “I wish he had. I asked him the same question yesterday and he gave me a different answer. If he’d just made up some stupid lie like I asked him, this never would have happened. I figured he’d give the same answer as yesterday.” She shook her head as revulsion welled in her. “I never dreamed …”

  “But why didn’t he just not say anything?”

  “With Iggy here, maybe the real answer—the truth—got dredged up from his subconscious and popped out before he could stop it.”

  Hayden grinned at Iggy. “Oh, how I’d love to sneak you into the front row of a congressional hearing … or a White House press conference.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a kick?” Stoney said.

  Maureen found Hayden staring at her. “You seem like a good person, Moe. As you said, you don’t have to answer, but what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

  The answer leaped into her mind. She could have held it back but she let it out. “It’s a tie between directing the Modern Motherhood Clinics or participating in this abduction scheme. They’re both wrong on so many levels.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “They are. But you’ve just been handed an opportunity here to undo one of them. With Greve out of commission, how about helping me get the nadaný out of here?”

  A chance of redemption?

  I fucked my younger sister half a dozen times … How was she ever going to work with Greve again, or even sit in the same room with him?

  Maybe she should grab a handful of redemption while she could.

  “Ruth is already gone,” she said.

  “I figured after I came across an empty set of woman’s clothing. I found Annie earlier. She tried to sneak out and go for help but they caught her and she’s back. I have no idea where Ellis is.”

  “I do.”

  Hayden pointed to her pocket with the gun. “I don’t need that now, but I may have use for it if someone or a number of someones tries to block our way out.”

  “Let’s hope not. No guns allowed down here, but up top is different.”

  “So I really have a gif
t?” Iggy said. She seemed lost in her own world. “I’m really a nadaný?”

  “The most powerful and frightening of all nadaný,” Hayden said.

  She gave him a puzzled look. “What?”

  “Truth! You make people speak the truth! You have any idea how freaking dangerous you are?”

  Her lower lip trembled. “You’re scaring me, Rick.”

  “Hey, lighten up,” Maureen said, putting an arm over her shoulders. “She’s only eighteen.”

  With a chagrined look, Rick backed off, raising his hands. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to. It’s just that it’s the most amazing ability. It touches everyone around you. Can you turn it off?”

  She was getting a deer-in-the-headlights look. “Turn it off ? I didn’t even know I’d turned it on!” A soft moan. “People are going to be afraid of me, aren’t they? I won’t have any friends.”

  Poor kid. Maureen’s heart went out to her.

  “You will, Iggy,” she said. “And the friends you do have will be true blue. When they tell you they’re your friend, they’ll really mean it.”

  “But sometimes lies are good, aren’t they?” She was rubbing her hands together as if they were cold. “You know, like white lies?”

  Maureen said, “You mean when you don’t necessarily want the truth? Like when you ask ‘Does this make me look fat?’ ”

  A hint of a smile. “Maybe not.”

  “Well, in your case you’re going to hear an honest opinion—maybe not the opinion you want to hear, but honest.”

  Iggy’s smile faded as she pointed at the Anomaly. “All because of …”

  “Yeah. Afraid so.”

  Her expression turned to disgust. “I still can’t believe I’m related to that.”

  She approached the chamber and raised a shackled hand to the glass.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t get too close,” Rick said.

  “Not to worry,” Stoney said. “We’ve banged on the glass, projected film at it, played music and every imaginable sound for it, bathed it in every available wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum, run electric current through it, and never a hint of reaction. So that little girl’s not going to—Holy shit!”

  As soon as Iggy touched the glass, the Anomaly reacted. It changed shape, expanding in a flash from a shapeshifting ten-foot glob to entirely filling the chamber, pressing against the glass on every side, and then abruptly shrinking to a compact sphere the size of a soccer ball—still with that purplish outer glow around a black core of empty chaos. It reminded her of a total solar eclipse, except it looked the same from every angle, and its corona was purple.