Rocket! An Ell Donsaii story #4) (21 page)

“I want to look at our first moon rock!”

“The port on top of that jar is connected to the moon dummy. The jar’s full of vacuum. That’s why you can’t pull the lid off. If it wasn’t for the vacuum we could just let the specimens fall on the table.”

Roger colored, “Oops! That was dumb.”

Everyone shared a little laugh at his expense. Though a number of the others had forgotten about the vacuum themselves, none of them volunteered that embarrassing information.

Armstrong continued scooting around the Moonscape picking up pebbles and sending them through the port into the jar.

Several interesting pebbles it picked up proved to be too large for the port. Ben exclaimed, “Next time Armstrong needs to take a hammer!”

“Are you going to post this video on the net?” Fred asked.

“Yeah!” A couple of the team shouted excitedly.

Feeling like a wet blanket, Ell said, “Let’s hold off a little while until we’ve done a few more of the things we want to do. I’m worried that once this goes public we’ll be completely swamped with publicity and attention. We won’t get much done once that happens.”

The group groaned in disappointment but finally agreed that it would be better to hold off until they were ready for the notice the video would bring.

Chapter Four

Dennison unjacked his AI and slid into the booth at the rear of the IHOP. The taciturn Sonny Jones was already there. Dennison wondered momentarily, as he had in the past, if “Sonny Jones” was an alias. Sonny, as usual wasn’t wearing an AI so Dennison didn’t need to ask him to unjack. In the odd accent he had cultivated for these meetings Dennison said, “We’ve got a problem suited to your unique skills.”

Sonny lifted his chin questioningly without saying anything.

“There’s a facility called D5R in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina that supposedly is launching rockets to orbit with some new kind of technology.”

Sonny shrugged disinterestedly.

“They need to have a ‘setback.’ We need samples of the ‘tech.’”

Sonny’s eyes narrowed but
still
he said nothing.

Dennison waited a moment, then said, “How much?”

Sonny said, “Ten grand to look it over and price it.”

Dennison rolled his eyes but agreed. Sonny’d been worth his high prices on previous jobs.

***

Fred Marsden sat down next to Ell on one of the bleachers outside the main racquetball court at his club. That court had been converted to a “wallyball” court for D5R and a number of the researchers were enthusiastically playing that racquetball court version of volleyball. He nudged her, “How come you’re not playing?”

“Oh! I don’t think I should. I used to play volleyball in High School and I’m afraid my competitive spirit might get me in trouble in a ‘fun’ game like this one.”

He frowned, “What do you mean.”

“Well, having played volleyball competitively I’m afraid I might not ‘tone it down’ enough for a friendly game. Don’t want to spike the ball into someone’s face.”

He tilted his head. “Want to try racquetball instead?”

Ell leaned back, shaking her head.

“What, are you ‘too competitive’ at that sport too?”

Horrified that he seemed to have plucked the thought from her mind, Ell said the first thing that came to mind, “Oh, no! I just don’t know much about it.”

Marsden almost stopped chiding her because he hated playing with beginners, on the other hand he did want to put her in her place after her comment implying that she was too good for a friendly game of wallyball. “Come on. It won’t hurt you to lose a game or two.” He got up and started off to the club desk as if he expected her to follow.

Ell looked at his retreating back, then back at the wallyballers, then back toward Marsden who waved her on impatiently. With an imperceptible sigh she got up to follow him, resolving to lose quickly and graciously.

Marsden checked out a rental racquet and protective eyewear handing them to Ell. He removed his AI headband to put his own goggles on.

Ell removed her AI too, feeling naked without it. Normally she even slept in her headband. She put on the racquetball goggles and they stepped into the court next to the wallyball court.

Marsden quickly explained the rules and objectives then said, “We’ll hit a few balls to warm up.” He hit a nice soft shot up the middle of the court to Ell. Beginners, even fairly athletic ones, usually had a hard time placing the ball or knowing where it would be after it bounced so he was pleasantly surprised when she returned it right back down the center of the court. Her shot was too soft and barely reached the front wall. He scooped it up and hit it to her again. This time she hit it a little harder and it struck the front wall about where his had. They took turns hitting and he was happy to see that she seemed to be able to control the ball pretty well for someone who hadn’t played before.

For her part Ell was desperately wondering how she was doing. Once she had a feel for how hard to hit it the ball, the game seemed surprisingly easy. She wondered how points were to be won when the ball always went where you expected it to go.

Marsden hit one up and off the ceiling, it came down struck the back wall. He expected her to “whiff” it like most beginners would when they encountered their first ceiling shot. In fact she
was
pretty far out of position when the ball came down to hit the floor. But, with the startling quickness he’d seen when she was in the Olympics, she leapt to position and hit it, exclaiming, “Wow,
that
one wasn’t where I expected it to be!”

With amazement Marsden realized that, out of position and leaping to the ball late, she had nonetheless replicated his own ceiling shot almost perfectly. “You ready to try a game?” he said, wonderingly.
How good
will
she be able to play? Sure she was the world’s greatest gymnast, but that’s a
completely
different sport isn’t it?

“Sure, go easy on me OK?”

Fred demonstrated a serve for her, suggesting she attempt to land the ball close to the corners. He motioned to her to serve first.

Determined not to overplay, Ell thought about what she’d learned so far hitting the ball around. It seemed surprisingly easy to control the ball’s position and she was sure it could be hit a lot harder than Fred had been hitting it so far, so she suspected that he was going easy on her as a beginner. Therefore she should probably be hitting it even softer than he had been hitting it and probably shouldn’t put it too close to the corner on the serve.

She bounced the ball then served it softly aiming it to land about eight inches from the corner. She winced, it was going to miss her aim point and land about four inches from the corner instead.

Fred watched her bounce the ball too high and hit it softly, typical beginner’s moves but realized that it was going to land tight in the corner. He leapt over and hit it before it landed, a little harder than he wanted against a beginner, sending it up along the side wall. She gracefully stepped over to it, as if she never had any doubt where to go to meet it and again hit it easily, this time to his backhand corner.

Fred strode to the left back corner, caught the ball after it landed, about eight inches from the wall, and lofted a ceiling shot from there.

As he stepped out of the back left corner, Ell stepped unhurriedly into that corner as if she already knew that that was exactly where his shot would end up. When it did, she carefully hit it to the other corner, this time about twelve inches out.

Fred strode over to that corner, astonished that a beginner was keeping a rally going beyond one or two hits. This time he stroked the ball down the right wall, pretty hard and pretty low. Still, without seeming to hurry, Ell appeared at the right wall to plonk the ball back to the left corner, again about twelve inches out! He had to put some significant effort in to get back to the left corner and stroke a backhand down the left wall, this time quite a bit harder.

Ell was thinking that the game was pretty fun. The ball was moving fairly fast and it was enjoyable to figure out where it was going to be and move to that spot to return it. She returned it to the right corner.

Fred was amazed. She’d just returned a hard, low shot, with her
backhand
and placed it about 10 inches from the right corner. The way she was hitting it from one corner to the other reminded him of watching an instructor challenging a pupil. Was she
playing
with him?! He hustled to the right back corner and slammed a drive up the right side, only a few inches off the floor and rocketing off the sidewall about half way up the court. It was the kind of shot he’d used to win the club championship shortly after moving to the area. To his astonishment, Ell was there, racquet stretched out to return the shot. He could swear that at the last moment she slowed in her reach for the ball to let it go by. Later he would review the video from his AI and continue to have the eerie feeling that she’d intentionally missed the shot.

For her part, Ell had realized as she excitedly stretched to return the shot, that Fred had hit it really hard and might be freaked out if she returned it. She turned to see his eyes narrowed on her.

“You’ve never played before?!”

“Nope, but it
is
kinda fun chasing that ball down. I got in a lucky series of returns didn’t I?” She smiled disarmingly.

The rest of the game Ell continued to hit the ball with the same velocity but placed it at least two feet from the corner. She continued to chase the balls down because it was fun, but if Fred had hit it hard, she hit hers into the floor or lofted it to his forehand to lose the point. When she realized that he was going to win 15-0, she returned a couple of his shots so that they hit the front wall only an inch or so up to pick up a couple of “lucky” points. The final score was 15-2.

“Wow! You’re really good.” Ell said.

“Wow! You’re really fast! I hope you don’t keep playing or you’ll be beating me pretty soon.”

Ell widened her eyes and gave him an innocent look, “Oh no, that’d
never
happen.” They went back to watch the wallyballers.

After a bit Roger came and sat next to Ell. In a low voice he said, “I watched a little of your game with Fred.”

Ell looked at him questioningly.

“Why’d you let him win?”

She thought about denying it but he’d been there for her foosball faux pas when she’d demonstrated what she could really do when she played “full on.” “Don’t want too much attention Roger. Please help me keep my little secret?”

He snorted. “What, that you can kick
anyone’s
ass, at
any
sport?”

“I can not!”

Roger rolled his eyes, “Did you know he’s the club champion?”

Ell’s eyes widened. “Damn!” she whispered.

***

Sonny climbed slowly down from the tree overlooking the parking lot of the D5R facility.
I’m getting too old for this shit,
he thought as he stretched his sore muscles.

Back in his motel room, he used a one time website to send an encrypted message to Dennison that said only, “125.” Since he worked in increments of a thousand dollars, Dennison would know it meant $125,000.

An hour later, he checked the single use offshore account he’d set up for this project and it had the 125 grand in it. He transferred the money to his own account. He stretched.
No time like the present
, he supposed.
Get this done and I can retire.

Sonny cursed as he humped his heavy backpack back through the woods to D5R in the dark. The night-vision attachment on his AI showed him general details but it was so dark this moonless night that its cameras didn’t have enough light to work with. He kept tripping over roots and underbrush that the cameras hadn’t shown him.

Once he’d reached the back wall of the building he opened the backpack and got out a tarp. He pulled off a sticky strip and stuck one edge of the tarp to the wall. He draped the rest of it over himself. He pulled out the business end of his torch and sparked it up by feel,
Ah, finally, I can see!
He began a horizontal cut about two feet up and cut until he hit a metal stud. Then he cut the other way to the next stud and down on both sides. He lifted the sixteen by twenty-four inch metal segment out and thumped on the inner wall. Sheet rock. He reached into his backpack and pulled out his Sawzall, pulling the trigger to activate the little light. A few minutes later he’d cut out the sheetrock. He pulled his stocking mask down and crawled into the building. He was in some kind of machine shop.
Nothing in here looks proprietary.
He moved into the next room which was huge. He wandered around it using a dim light and his night vision attachment, looking for something that looked like it might be important tech. Big stainless tables, fancy research machines, various electronics fabrication equipment but nothing that looked like rocket technology. He found a pile of disks that were wired to what looked like epoxy bound electronic packages. They were all plugged into a power source. They didn’t look like things that had been purchased, but they didn’t look like rocket technology either. He shrugged and slipped two of them into one of the pockets of his cargo pants.
Ah, a model of a rocket!
It was sitting on one of the benches. About 3 inches in diameter and about 3 feet long, with big fins on the back like the rockets in the old sci-fi pulp stories. When he picked it up he nearly dropped it. He’d been expecting an empty shell of lightweight plastic but it was made of metal and must be more than an empty shell from its weight.

Sonny didn’t see anything else and trying to break into encrypted AIs wasn’t his strong suite. He headed for hole he’d made in the wall, rocket in hand. Hopefully there would be a hose on one of the chemical tanks out back that he could drag in here and start a fire with. That should provide the “setback” that Dennison had asked for.