War of the Spheres Read online

  “You… how did you…?” She stared at me for a moment before taking the stylus and making a note on her document. “Okay, okay—I get it Chief Gray. You’re quick with your hands. But…” Her eyes narrowed as she regarded me. “How did the Ministry learn we’ve had internal problems and send someone so fast? Without any official warning?”

  I shrugged. “I guess the people in charge decided you and I don’t need to know that particular information.”

  She didn’t answer me for a second, but then she heaved a sigh. “All right,” she said. “I’ll try to work with you. But how do I know you’re not an assassin yourself?”

  She finally had my attention. She’d asked a good question—the one she should have asked herself the moment I’d arrived.

  “Because I haven’t killed you yet,” I said calmly. “I’ve had ample time and opportunity—but it hasn’t happened.”

  Her eyes widened with a flash of worry. My expression and voice remained deadpan—I meant what I’d said, and she knew it instantly.

  Flustered, she dropped her eyes and stared at her desk.

  “It’s just what I feared,” she said. “Already my workday has been disrupted. Already, you’ve devolved into physical intimidation—”

  “I’m sorry, Colonel Hughes. I don’t mean to be any more menacing than is necessary to convince you that I’m qualified.”

  I stood up, and her eyes were drawn to me instantly.

  “Let’s go meet your staff,” I said.

  Heaving another small sigh, she stood up and led me out the door again. She moved to the main entrance to the lab complex. This development pleased me. All along, she’d been trying to get rid of me, to find a reason to send me back to wherever I’d come from. Somehow, I’d managed to convince her she wasn’t going to ditch me that easily.

  “This is the primary security system,” she said. “It’s fully automated. You place your—”

  She broke off as I approached the daunting door. It was a vault, actually, with a negative air-pressure airlock behind it. Round and three meters in diameter, the door was at least a half-meter thick. The metal was surrounded by countless computerized checking systems, as well as automated weapons that tracked various kill-points on any human body that came close.

  As I approached the door, black stubby tubes swiveled silently to track me rather than Colonel Hughes. My hand reached up, and I caressed the primary identity plate. My motion was slow and deliberate. My touch was almost gentle, like the stroke of a horseman calming an excited mount. You couldn’t be too careful when robots had you in their sights.

  Immediately, the door snapped and clanked. The locks slid their bolts free. The heavy vault door began to swing open. Lace-like streamers of what looked like mercury tried to keep the seal, but soon the shimmering tendrils splashed back into the door and the surrounding walls of the vault.

  “Impressive,” I said. “You have a living nanite colony just to keep the seal on the vault door?”

  “You might be impressed, but I’m alarmed,” Hughes said. “The door skipped several mandated security steps. No one should be able to get it to open so quickly—especially not a stranger.”

  “Perhaps, to this door, I’m not a stranger.”

  She gave me an odd look as she led the way into the vault. Air ruffled our hair as we moved through the lock.

  “You must have radioactives contained here, correct?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said, “the lower internal air pressure is used to keep contaminates from escaping.”

  I nodded, feeling slightly more alert. Experimental labs at the Arlington complex were inherently dangerous—especially the ones that dealt with radiation.

  “What would you like to see first, Gray?” Hughes asked me.

  At least she seemed resigned to my involvement. I put on a smile as an effort of good faith.

  “I’d love to see the device itself—the center of this whole project.”

  She eyed me for a moment, then nodded. “This way.”

  We went downstairs, deeper into the lab’s underbelly. At some point, we passed below ground level—and we kept going into what had to be a basement.

  When you’re underground, you can generally feel the difference. There’s a coolness to the walls, which tend to lack windows. On top of that, a deep stillness set in. It was like descending into a tomb.

  At last, we reached another vault. More cameras, auto-turrets and even an actual human guard with a wand accosted us. We got through that, and entered a large chamber.

  We were met with a strange mixture of powerful scents when we entered the chamber. As expected, there were chemical and metallic odors—but these were laced with an odd infusion of musk and vanilla.

  The heavy door boomed as it swung automatically shut behind us. An elegant mass of machinery at least three meters in diameter sat in the center of the chamber. The yawning compartment resembled an aircraft hangar overall. Surrounding the large, complicated device were broken, concentric rings of unusual equipment. Auto-welders, smart-lifts and a variety of other robotic assembly machines surrounded the vessel, but they were all dormant now.

  Halfway between us and this bulls-eye was a skinny youth wearing a striped t-shirt and a baseball cap. He was perched on top of an automated loading machine, slouching up there and messing with something on top of the control unit. I frowned immediately to see a young teen up that high—he had to be six meters above the floor. It couldn’t be safe.

  “Hey,” I called out. “Who let that kid climb up there?”

  Hughes looked at me in alarm. “Don’t call him a kid. Toby hates that.”

  “What…?”

  “I’m Dr. Tobias Jonah,” the teen shouted back at me, still perching on top of the loader. “This is a restricted area. Someone should remove this moron.”

  My eyes blinked a few times in surprise. I wasn’t used to getting this kind of attitude—especially from someone so young-looking.

  Walking closer, I saw that Toby had a general haze of fuzz over his body. It was the sort of thing that one usually saw on older men. His features and the bone structure of his face were… odd. He had an elongated look through the nose and cheekbones. Could he be some kind of mutant? I wasn’t sure, so I decided to play it straight.

  Whatever else he was, Toby was clearly intelligent. He had tools in his hand, and he was working on the loader’s CPU box.

  “Maybe we should start again,” I said. “I’m Chief Gray, Internal Security. It’s nice to meet you, Toby.”

  Col. Hughes cleared her throat and Toby straightened his spine.

  “That nickname is reserved for people who I consider friends,” he said. “You don’t qualify.”

  At that moment a woman walked around from the far side of the loading machine. She was tall, disheveled and dark-haired. She was wearing a bright orange coverall, but I could still tell she had a nice shape to her—especially for a scientist.

  “Are you his keeper?” I demanded, indicating the deformed youth.

  Toby’s lips curled slightly at this. He had longer teeth than a normal human, I was sure of that much.

  “Chief Gray,” Col. Hughes said. “This is Dr. Jillian Brandt. As there doesn’t seem to be an emergency here, we’ve got to get back to operations.”

  I considered that for a moment, then shook my head. “No, I think I’ll stay and get acquainted. This machine in the center of the chamber—that’s the actual device, isn’t it?”

  “Classified!” shouted Toby from his perch up above us all. “That’s classified! Don’t tell him a thing!”

  Both women glanced up, but then ignored him. I decided to follow their example.

  “All right,” Col. Hughes told me. “Stay if you want to—but I’m not sure what you might be investigating here.”

  Something in her tone indicated disapproval. My eyes traveled to Hughes, then back to the younger, more attractive Dr. Brandt. Could there be a hint of jealousy there?

  Col. Hughes
left, and Dr. Brandt faced me. “What can I help you with, Chief?” she asked.

  Filling her in on my security job, I noticed that Toby was listening intently while pretending to work on the CPU module on the loader. I didn’t object, he was a weirdo, I knew that already. Weird people working in labs were best left alone.

  She then showed me what they were working on.

  “It’s the heart of the project,” she explained. “This device… it’s sort of an engine, really.”

  “A misnomer!” Toby called down from his perch.

  Brandt shrugged. “It’s supposed to move us from point A to point B, and I’d call anything that moves mass artificially an engine. Toby disagrees.”

  “It’s a field-translation device. No actual movement occurs.”

  “Whatever…” she said, rolling her eyes.

  I could tell Toby quickly got on people’s nerves. He wasn’t your normal teen.

  “How old is he, exactly?” I asked quietly.

  “Old enough to hear your whispering!” he called down.

  That startled me. Toby had ears like an owl.

  Dr. Brandt ushered me to the work site and she showed me the device. It didn’t look like anything I could make sense of. If I had to guess, I’d say it was a power generator. It was about four meters long, built with lots of fiber cable and shiny, alloy tubing. There was a vent on top and several touch screens along the oblong body that were updating with packets of data in real time.

  “This is it,” Dr. Brandt explained. “But don’t try to take a picture or transmit anything from this chamber. No wireless transmissions are allowed. It’s a security precaution.”

  “A wise rule,” Toby called down to us. “We have an out of control spy problem around here.”

  We both looked up, and he peered back down at us.

  “Spy problem?” I asked.

  “Toby has certain paranoid theories, I’m afraid,” Dr. Brandt explained apologetically.

  “They might not be paranoid delusions,” I said, thinking of the lieutenant I’d met on the way here. “Do you have any evidence of spying to share with me, Toby—ah, Dr. Tobias?”

  He squinted at me. “Not yet. But I will. I will… Dr. Brandt, could you come up here and take a look at this?”

  She walked back to the loader and began to climb. I watched her go up to the top of the machine. Her charms were difficult to ignore, but I played the gentleman and did so anyway. There was no question about where the scent of musk and vanilla was coming from.

  Dr. Brandt had long hair, and it hung in her face. She slapped a smart hair-gathering device onto her temple. Like a headband with a mind of its own, it gathered her loose tresses back up on her head. When she was at the top with Toby, she flashed me a smile with white teeth and clear, green eyes. Then she put on safety goggles and ruined the effect.

  Toby began to show her what I gathered was some kind of wiring mix-up.

  “Did you rewire this machine?” she demanded. “That’s why it’s not working right, isn’t it?”

  “Nonsense,” he said. “I improved it by eliminating several redundancies.”

  Dr. Brandt turned back to the youth who was hunched beside her. “You improved it—so now it doesn’t work at all. Do you see a coincidence here, rat-boy?”

  Pouting insolently, the youth let his chin jut out in defiance.

  “I will no longer tolerate this abusive language and behavior, Dr. Brandt,” Toby said. “Frankly, your spurious and juvenile references to my cognitive and perceptual enhancements seem to imply envy.”

  “That’s right,” Brandt said, sighing. “I’m filled with envy.”

  Many questions had begun to fill my mind while I listened to them. “Dr. Brandt, what enhancements is he referring to?”

  “We’re told that Toby is an experiment,” she told me. “He’s an unprecedented success in the field of manipulative genetics. Evidently, they intended to make him like this.”

  As Toby spluttered and began to defend himself, Brandt pointed a warning finger. “Shush—save it,” she warned him.

  “What exactly did they do to him?” I asked.

  “They tinkered with his DNA in vitro—like a lab animal.”

  Toby folded his arms and began a muted tirade, muttering under his breath.

  “Isn’t that illegal?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “The Ministry of Control approved it. That makes it legal.”

  I filed that detail away under the heading of “cultural changes” and decided not to argue the point.

  “Who did the work, then?” I asked. “This lab facility? Do you do things like that here?”

  “Are we to discuss even more classified information?” Toby demanded loudly. “What secret shall remain sacred after this reckless conversation?”

  Again, Dr. Brandt ignored Toby. I was getting the feeling that everyone tolerated him, and they didn’t take his dramatic statements seriously.

  “Well, funny you should ask, Chief. The specifics aren’t known—other than the scientists responsible were probably foreign and bank-rolled by secret funds.”

  “Really… and how did he end up here?”

  “They hushed things up, and we sort of inherited the boy when he was four. He basically grew up in a lab without traditional parenting,” Brandt explained.

  “Humiliating. Simply humiliating…” Toby complained.

  “I see,” I said.

  “Please fill me in on your state of readiness, Dr. Brandt,” I said, changing the subject while I still stared at the teen. “When will this thing fly?”

  Toby weighed in again. He couldn’t seem to help it. “It doesn’t fly. It does not create lift, or apply thrust. It transposes a local zone of mass over a given distance without traversing the intervening space. That’s why—”

  “Shut up,” Dr. Brandt warned, pointing her finger at him. “…and don’t be trying to blow smoke on the fact that you dug into this CPU without permission and screwed it up. You’d better stick to the plan from here on out, Toby. We’re almost done with this project.”

  “It’s not screwed up—I’m not finished yet,” he muttered and went back to tinkering with loader.

  “This little hacker has gotten into engine protocols all over the lab. He’s had me running all over chasing phantom glitches.”

  “I’ll admit I’m naturally curious, but my gift for innovation is being undersold,” the teen said. “I’m not guilty of introducing any defects into the project. My improvements are certain to be beneficial if I’m given time to complete them.”

  Dr. Brandt muttered and brushed off her hands. “Just stay out of it. We’re almost done. We don’t need you to fool with things at this point.”

  “Is there any way you could demonstrate what this device does?” I asked them, trying to get them back on track.

  They looked up at me, startled. “Not really,” Dr. Brandt said. “We have to put it into a spacecraft to truly test it out.”

  “When is that step being taken?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not sure. It’s really up to Dr. Adams—with consent from Gevan and Fillmore. You’ll meet them all soon enough.”

  “A bunch of boring old farts,” Toby said. “Boring… but gifted.”

  “All right then,” I said, contacting Colonel Hughes. “I think I’ve seen enough here. It’s time to meet the primary scientists.”

  Toby laughed and shook his head. “They’re going to love you.”

  Chapter 4

  A short time later I met a group of scientists in crinkling clean-suits. They eyed Colonel Hughes and me curiously.

  “Colleagues,” Hughes said. “We’re having a meeting of the key staff—immediately.”

  “It’s not on the schedule, Emily,” said one man with a frown. He had an overlarge forehead encircled by a tuft of hair like a Christmas wreath.

  “No, Sean, it isn’t,” Hughes said, giving him a disapproving glance.

  He eyed me curiously, then shrugged. “No proble
m. I’ll call them together.”

  “Do that. We’ll be in the conference room.”

  I followed Hughes again, although I’d rather have talked to the staff in person right away. The longer management kept me engaged and away from the average lab-worker—well, in my book that was time wasted.

  Soon, a group of eleven met in the conference room. It was a small space and was almost cramped.

  “Chief Gray, meet my key staff,” Hughes said. “Gray is our new internal security leader. If you have any—”

  “Internal security?” the man known to me only as “Sean” asked. “Is he armed? Why do we need a gunman in here?”

  He turned to me and made a face like a man who needed a good beating. I returned his gaze levelly.

  “I’m always armed,” I said, despite the fact I had no weapon on me.

  “This seems like an unnecessary distraction. Have you checked with—?”

  “I have,” Colonel Hughes said, cutting him off. “And for the record, I share your concerns. By the way, where is Dr. Adams?”

  Sean spread his hands. He looked around the group. They all shook their heads as well.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “Perhaps we should do introductions first. Exactly who are you…? Sean, is it?”

  “Yes, I’m Dr. Sean Fillmore,” he said watching me suspiciously. “Do you even know what we’re doing here at this facility, Chief?”

  “I’ve seen the field generator,” I said.

  This statement caused a buzzing to rise among the group. They were clearly disapproving.

  “But I’m not here to interfere with any technical issues,” I told them. “My job is to make sure this project isn’t impeded in any way. The device will be completed, and it will be deployed—”

  “I’m a propulsion expert by trade,” Fillmore interrupted me. I could tell already he was going to be a serial interrupter. “But here my specialty is almost useless. I function as a project leader for Colonel Hughes, our Principal Investigator.”

  I nodded. “And you—” I said, pointing to another bespectacled scientist. “Who might you—?”

  “Adams should be here for this,” Dr. Fillmore interrupted again.