Now & Again (10 page)

The voice interrupted with a caustic laugh. “Not to mention your potential bonus, and yaddi-yaddi – got it Jonathan. You can stop with the rah-rah.” Jonathan wore a sour look. “Okay. I feel like I have to do the meetings then. But if I get concerned with something I hear, I’ll be hightailing it out of here as fast as this jet can go, no matter how that affects the bottom line.”

There was another interruption at the other end with hushed voices and some laughter. “Gotta go. There’s a meet-and-greet starting here. I’m depending on you, Quyron. Give it your best.”

Quyron remained a bit baffled by the conversation. “Thank you, I will. Have a good trip.” She turned to Jonathan, wondering if he had anything more to say. Jonathan ignored her and pouted.

“Oh, and Jonathan?” The voice sounded almost jovial now.

After a moment, Jonathan begrudgingly answered, “Yes?”

“Even though I can’t see you, I’m sure you’re wearing your hurt look. Am I right?” Jonathan’s face immediately switched to a neutral expression. The voice continued, “Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I’m depending on you, too. Okay? Bye for now.”

Dr. Hahn slid between two man-sized carbon ceramic cradles and ran an affectionate hand across one of the smooth surfaces. Contrived from the marriage of silicon carbide fibers with the high temperature resistant properties of ceramics, the glasslike composite material glistened in a deceptive display of beauty that belied its toughness. The advanced technologies that Hahn had gleaned from the timelines provided her materials engineering team with a polymer route to near stoichiometric silicon carbides and resulted in a matrix composite shell that made her scientific heart glow.

The lower sides and bases of both cradles sprouted thick cables and multi-colored connectors that snaked toward packed equipment racks standing in the aisles between them. Tired teams of technicians moved erratically through the ordered chaos, troubleshooting routers and verifying readouts. While there seemed to be an overall logic to the arrangement of the complex gear and the movements of the staff, the scene was clearly a
work in progress
.

Fargo, a tough looking young female, settled into the fitted seat inside one of the cradles and reached for a sleek pair of virtual reality glasses. Her body glistened in form-fitting cyber fabric and her head was encased in a wire-laden, flexible helmet. In the other cradle, a lean and scarred male slid gracefully into his own cockpit. Salazar pulled on cyber-gloves and adjusted his VR shades with an icy efficiency and then peeked over at Fargo and, unexpectedly, winked.

Large transparent covers, crowned with antennae, hung on cables waiting to seal the riders inside. A senior technician signaled for the lid above Fargo to begin its descent and hopped up the rungs of a small stepstool in preparation for snapping the cockpit locks. He tapped his ear bud communicator as he watched the smooth downward motion of the cover. “Radio check. Go”

Fargo heard the call, glanced up at the tech, and then touched a point next to her ear. “Point net, this is Fargo. Reading you five-by-five.”

The cockpit cover settled easily into place and the tech snapped the locks to secure it. “Affirmative. Point net confirms Cradle Alpha is live and wide.”

Fargo made a funny face at him, “…and ready to ride!”

On a level above the cradle floor, Hahn entered her glass-walled control room flanked by technicians. At Fargo’s quip she twisted to glare back through the windows toward the lower level. She swiftly stepped to one of the consoles and punched a lit button. “This is Point net master control – cut it, Fargo!” Her harsh voice dripped with bitterness. “This is not one of your
ops
, is that clear? This test will remain professional from beginning to end. You hear me?”

Over the speakers came the unfazed, breezy reply. “Yes, Ma’am, clear as clear. Outsy-daisy.”

* * *

Vandermark walked quickly down a secure hallway in one of the key buildings of
the Point
, a covert research facility hidden beneath the Reivers corporate umbrella. He was talking rapidly into the phone clip on his lapel. “I’m sorry for that but it’s the best we can do. Call me when you’re groundside. And don’t use that paperwork unless you absolutely have to.”

The small, highly secure campus of buildings that made up
the Point
was only five miles north of the Reivers headquarters, on the other side of the South River Bridge in Anne Arundel County, but virtually unknown to the employees of the mother company. A recent addition to
the Reive’s
holdings through a third party proxy,
the Point
had been quietly carved from the heavy woods just east of the town of Parole, Maryland, and a few hundred yards below the Harry S. Truman Parkway. The nearby sleepy town had earned its name from its history as the Civil War site where Union and Confederate POWs were exchanged.

Vandermark turned a corner in the windowless hall and approached a security guard blocking access to a metal door. He spoke quietly into his phone, “Taylor, hold on. I’m at a checkpoint.”

The young guard looked up as Vandermark irritably waved a lanyard with his photo ID. The officer smiled in recognition, “Good morning, Dr. Vandermark.”

Vandermark ignored the greeting and simply stepped up to slots in the wall beside the door. He slipped a hand into the fingerprint reader and stared into the eye level retinal scanner as he clearly vocalized the words, “Neville Vandermark.”

The door buzzed as the lock released. The guard started to wish him a good day but Vandermark had already rushed through. In fact, he was already talking into his communicator again. “Okay, back. I’m about to view the trials now but the truck’s already in final phase. If everything checks out, we’ll be mobile by the time you get back.”

He listened for a brief moment and then spat back, “Deal with it! Just make sure you get both of them. Call me when it’s done.”

He tapped the phone clip, cutting the connection, and entered a small elevator.

* * *

Hahn sat at the center of her master console and studied multiple screens that showed two bored security guards standing outside a door: one was tall and thin, the other overweight and short. Hahn spoke to Fargo and Salazar using a nearly invisible, fiber-thin headset. “These are Echo’s suggested targets within our range. They stand just outside the wall to this building, but fifteen timelines away.”

Behind her, exiting the elevator, Vandermark moved into her line of sight and nodded. Hahn gave him the slightest of reactions, and continued her briefing. “You will test targeting and jump entry; you will execute the full set of control parameters we talked about, and finally jump exit and jump re-entry.”

Inside Cradle Alpha, Fargo studied the two guards in her VR glasses. She blinked through multiple screens and settled on the heads-up-display, swinging her cross-haired targeting reticle from one guard’s head to the other. “Damn! I know these guys. And here I thought Echo was gonna find me a girl for this test. I know I’m gonna hate jumpin’ into guys.”

Hahn scowled at the comment over the open mike but plowed on with a little heightened intensity. “Of course you know them, what did you expect? Pay attention. In this test, the start of the jump is triggered by you, but the end of the jump…”

Salazar’s voice on the line interrupted her. “Admit it Fargo, it’s not the guys you hate, it’s their male organized minds.”

Fargo shot back, “Oh yeah? Let’s just see who gets mind control first then, smart guy.”

Hahn erupted with a blistering voice. “Enough! Both of you!” She slashed a quick, menacing look at Vandermark and continued in a harsh tone. “Listen to me! I said the start of the jump is yours, but I can stop it at any time. Understand?
Any time!
”

Fargo smiled to herself as she watched the targeted guards slouching around their door. She ignored Hahn’s comments and goaded Salazar. “Tell you what, Mr. Organized. I’ll let you pick your target first and I’ll still beat ya.”

Leaping up from her chair, Hahn’s face flushed with splotches of anger. Her English language suddenly defaulted to a more basic form. “You not listening! This is test, not stupid game!”

Hahn was ready to pull the plug on the whole process. She stared defiantly at Vandermark, ready to do battle, when Salazar’s unruffled voice floated out of the speakers.

“Look Doc, don’t get your undies in a twist, okay? We got ya covered. You do your thing up there in the fancy lab, and let us do ours down here in the…
multi-caves
. No worries.”

Hahn swallowed hard and took a sharp breath. She stiffly sat back down in her control chair and tightened her jaw. “I am not in twist, you…shit. I am trying to give instructions to imbeciles.” Her console techs turned, surprised at her language.

In her cradle, Fargo grinned, knowing they’d gotten Hahn’s goat. “We’re cool, doc. Been called worse. You go ahead.”

Hahn ignored the looks around her and steeled herself. “Okay. Remember, after you jump, we can see and hear you in the archive monitors, but we’re five seconds behind. And once you’re riding, you can’t hear us.”

Salazar gave a thumbs-up to Fargo. “We got it, doc. We did read the material. Let’s get it on.” Fargo smiled back in his direction and flipped him off.

Hahn was unrelenting. “And don’t expect to read their minds. That is not possible. Don’t even try. Your job is just to take control.”

Fargo’s exasperated voice came back over the speaker. “Doc, throw the switch, will ya?”

Vandermark reached over Hahn’s shoulder and depressed the talkback button. “This is Vandermark. Cut the bullshit. Focus on the goal. This needs to go well. Don’t disappoint me.”

Hahn flipped a switch and pushed a couple of buttons. Beside her, the techs monitored their individual readouts and nodded assent. Hahn looked down at the sealed-in jumpers, a level below her. “Echo, activate the cradles.”

“Initiated, Dr. Hahn,” the familiar female voice immediately replied over the speakers.

A low pitched tone thrummed from the walls and rose in strength as the console readouts went active.

“Power nominal,” Echo continued. “Targeting active. Transfer potential online.”

In the jumper lab, the technicians stepped back from the sealed cradles as the thrumming climbed the scale. Inside the cockpits, Fargo and Salazar tensed as they waited for the go-ahead. Around them, the composite skin of their cradles glowed and began to change hue.

* * *

Two tired guards stood watch near a closed exterior door. The thin one swirled dirt with his foot. “What time is it?”

The heavier guard leaned against a wall, rocking his torso back and forth in a repetitive motion, and scowled. “What difference does it make?”

“Just wonderin’.”

“Well stop wonderin’. You already asked me that anyway.”

“I know.” He kept working the dirt with the toe of his shoe. “I was just wonderin’ how much time passed since the last time I asked.”

“Shut-up. It won’t make it go any faster.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Hey?”

“What?”

“Cover for me, will ya? I’m dyin’ here.” The fat guard hoisted his bulk from the wall and took a step away. “I gotta go see a man about a horse.”

“A horse?” The thin guard looked queerly at his partner.

The heavy guard turned back. “That’s what my Dad used to say whenever – aw, forget it. Look, I gotta take a leak, okay? ‘Sides, all they can do is fire me.”

“You can’t. What’ll I say if they call?”

The fat guard shook his head as he walked off a short distance. “Tell ’em I’m…takin’ a whiz! I don’t care.” There was the distinctive sound of urinating. “C’mon, they’re not gonna call anyway, and besides…WHOAH!”

Both guards abruptly jerked upright into stiff, unnatural poses. They staggered with awkward steps and twisted at the hips. Suddenly, the guard who was urinating, charged his partner.

“Sal! You creep! You knew he was peein’ and you forced me to jump him anyway! I’m gonna kill ya!”

Under Fargo’s control, the fat guard viciously kicked the legs out from under his still flailing partner. The thin guard fell heavily to the sidewalk and howled, grabbing a knee.

Fargo looked down at the wet stain on the fat guard’s pants and made a face. “Disgusting!”

Salazar, inside the skinny guard, finally gained control and forced him painfully back to his feet. “You said it was my pick. What a whiner!”

“Pretty clear who got control first, huh? Loser!” Fargo threw a wild roundhouse punch that should have dropped the skinny guard, except that Salazar ducked, just in time. Unbalanced, the fat guard’s follow through almost spun him to the ground.

“Really? I’m not so sure you’re in control.” Salazar danced around Fargo, taunting and poking her ride. “Hey fat girl, your zipper’s down.”

Livid, Fargo vainly tried to swiftly rotate the fat guard in opposite directions to catch Salazar, but the skinny guard was always ahead of her.

All of a sudden, Salazar slapped Fargo viciously in the face and then ran off, laughing and leaping. “Catch me if you can, little Miss! Hoo-hoo! Look at me!”

“Dammit! This body’s such a tub-a-lard! C’mon! Step on it, fatso!” Fargo pushed the out-of-shape guard to the max but she was helpless to grab Salazar. “Wait’ll I get his hands on you!”

“Dream on, lard-butt, all you can do is sweat. You’re too late anyway.” The thin guard easily dodged the fat guard’s feeble attempts to corner him. “Time’s up. Remember? Hahn said we gotta practice doin’ the old switcheroo. So…see ya around!”

The thin guard abruptly stopped moving. Slack jawed, he shook his head and swayed on his feet.

Awake inside his cradle again, Salazar studied his HUD and swung the cross-hairs off the skinny guard and locked onto the fat guard’s head. His finger touched the trigger as he broke into a nasty grin. “Target, lock, and jump!”

Both guards once again jerked and twitched but they were soon back under the control of the jumpers. Unfortunately for Salazar, once again, even with his lead, he wasn’t first. Fargo, now inside the thinner, quicker body, immediately seized the heavy guard by the shoulders and jerked him brutally toward her as she head-butted him in the face. “Welcome back, slow poke! Who’s in control now? Hoo-hoo yourself, fat boy!”