The Cupel Recruits (22 page)

“How long is this rope?” he shouted to the crewman.

“One hundred meters,” the crewman responded.

“Count to twenty and then start reeling me in.” he told his sister and Kye, and jumped off the right side of the boat, closest to the shore and the hippos. He swam toward them and started waving his arms and making noise as the boat moved lateral to him to reach the man in the water. The hippos, realizing he was slightly closer due to the angle of approach, turned instead toward Brian.

“Brian!” Rachel yelled. ‘Pull him back! Pull him back!” she yelled to Kye. It hadn’t been the full twenty seconds, but Kye and Mako, the closest to the rope, began pulling it as quickly as they could toward them. Others joined in and soon Brian was flying toward the boat, the hippos now fast on his heels. Simultaneously, the boat reached the downed scientist and several others pulled him in at the back of the boat as the central crew pulled Brian in at the side. The first hippo snapped into the air and let out a rumbling, guttural sound.

“That was stupid, you moron!” Brian’s sister yelled at him. He put his arm around her shoulder, seeing that she was shaking.

“Sorry, Rach, but it just came to me in a flash. All that swimming training, I guess,” he said. She was still mad and shoved his arm off her.

“Outswimming hippos? Moron. More-onnnn!” she said forcefully, and then hugged him. For the remainder of the trip, no one spoke, and no one went near the sides of the boat. In another hour they docked smoothly and deboarded. Once in town, Lela reached Pfister by phone and was told the entire project was put on hold until they could be sure the area had stabilized and no threat existed from the rebels.

“That’ll be a while,” Brett confirmed when he heard the news.

“I know,” Lela said. “Our flight is back in the morning. I can’t wait to get a shower and some food.” Brett looked at her long frame, caked in dirt and mud, the dirt on her face making her green eyes stand out even more brilliantly than normal. She pulled her hair off of her neck.

“Want some company?” Brett asked, and the implication was that for either the shower, the food, or both would be acceptable. Lela, who might have accepted just a few days earlier, now felt a renewed feeling of loyalty to James.

“Brett, I’d love to, but I’m just really tired. Long day, ya know?” she said. He looked slightly dejected for about half a second before resuming a stoic front.

“Of course. Yeah, long day. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he mumbled and then disappeared quickly. She felt bad for a moment. Lela liked Brett. Very much, but if there was any chance that she and James could finally be together, to get on the same page at the same time, she wanted nothing more. She hoped she wouldn’t regret the rebuff later. It wasn’t everyday a guy like Brett Davies came along, either.

Lela’s shower at the hotel was far from luxurious. The spigots had to be cajoled into balancing just right to keep a moderate blend of the cold and hot water flowing well enough to neither scald nor freeze her. The space was so tight, she banged her elbows repeatedly while shampooing her long hair twice to get all the river water out, and she had to use a local organic paste as there was no real shampoo or conditioner available, but as far as Lela was concerned, she felt as if she were in a 5 star hotel, surrounded in luxury.

She sat on her bed in some dry clothes she had gotten from Tina, who had thought to wrap her extra clothes in her pack in plastic. Lela used her only plastic bag to wrap her passport and documents tightly. Her wet hair dried quickly in the hot air that streamed in the open screened window and she ate a sandwich. She thought of Gabriel, all they’d been through in the last few days, her dream, the mineral test results, her parents and the decision of what to do about the Africa project. Without reaching any conclusions at all, she closed the window sleepily, turned off the light, drew the mosquito netting over her bed, and instantly fell asleep.

Wood slept also, in the chair in George’s room. He had fallen asleep monitoring George as instructed by Ruth and now had his lengthy body maneuvered sort of diagonally in the chair, his arms tucked tightly across his chest and his head rolling to one side. One foot was on the floor while one stood propped up on the bed. In the hallway, the screen, with no one watching at the time, silently rolled up one percent to read 94%. The alarm sounded yet again, filling all buildings with the screaming sirens they had dodged only a week ago.

Wood’s body straightened reflexively and he twisted in the chair, catching his foot into the edge of the bed frame as he attempted to rise. The result was a dramatic bellyflop on the cold, hard floor, his foot still hung upward behind him as he lay face down. For a moment, the wind was knocked out of him, but the continued alarm jostled him back to reality. Withdrawing his foot carefully, and with a slight groan as he pressed his weight off the ground, he rose to see George awake in the bed before him.

“You’re up!” Wood exclaimed over the alarm.

“So’re you,” George replied. Rubbing his head, he added, “Can’t they turn that off?” As if on command, the alarm ceased

“They reset it.” Wood stepped closer, “How do you feel?”George looked a little weak and displayed the faintest hint of disorientation, but answered.

“I’m okay, I think,” he said. Wood strode purposefully to the wall unit and pressed the indicator for Ruth. He was sure she was busy with the alarm, but George’s awakening was a huge plus for the mission.

“What percent are we up to?” George asked.

“94%,” Wood answered.

“Hell,” George said quietly, still holding his head.

Kyle held his head also, back in the training room.

“You still seem off,” Saraceni said to him.

Kyle, knowing this was true, also knew he couldn’t afford to be pulled to go through medical screening. They were already down a person.

“I’m fine,” he lied.

“Why does that alarm keep going off?” Chandra asked

“It can’t be shut down above a certain threshold. It’s a failsafe so no one may shut it down and then allow progression to go unnoticed,” Saraceni responded.

“But what’s its purpose?” Enam asked.

“It’s warning of our state of decoherence. We’re at 94% and if we don’t prevent it, it will be 100% in about a week, give or take.”

“Decoherence, as in tied particles disentangling like we discussed in training?” Juliet jumped in.

“Yes.”

“And if this decoherence thing gets to 100%, then what?” Jack asked. Saraceni paused and Gabriel had a sinking feeling and reflexively took two steps backward, looking at his father. Alexander knew as well and sat swiftly, pressing his palms against his thighs. Jack cocked an eyebrow at the reactions of the others.

“What?” he said louder.

“It’s all destroyed,” Gabriel said quietly

“What-The Cupel? How can the whole thing be destroyed? What about my family, all the people?” Jack registered the gravity of the situation.

“Well,” Chandra began, vehement and forceful, “y’all are just gonna have to bring them here. Perfect society or not, you got them into this now you’re gonna get them -” Gabriel cut her off-

“Not The Cupel, Chandra. Everything. Here, there, everywhere-all decimated.” Juliet turned a quick heel toward Saraceni

“How on Earth could you let this happen? You, Ruth, the others, look what you’ve done.”

“We didn’t do it all,” Saraceni relayed. “A certain amount of decoherence is expected. The cost of doing business, so to speak, but as soon as Valswak saw the process had begun, he began aggravating it, assigning Dark Janae to hit critical juncture points so it would unravel all that faster. Not even our own project teams know this. They think it’s happening at a steady rate, a fully natural process.”

“Then why are you telling us?” David Running Wolf asked, “You must think we can help or we wouldn’t be here.” It dawned on Molior that though they were specifically recruited, they hadn’t since their arrival thought that there might be a reason why, other than to come here and be a member of this “advanced” society. Now they could see there had been signs along the way that their role was somehow bigger. They were cordoned off from even the rest of the recruits, all flooding over the hills that day, allowed to interact, all in different colored uniforms, none matching their own.

“You were recruited now,” Saraceni pulled up the screen as he spoke, “because you have a mission. We think you, and you alone, can open a gate to the next circle, relieving the pressure on the current system and providing us time to solve the problem of decoherence.”

“The circles that we move through-the ones that keep escalating?” Jane queried.

“Yes, as Ruth explained, after a full interval, a new gate opens and we ascend as all the gates below remain open as a ladder to that top circle,” Saraceni explained.

“If the gates open on their own, why do we have to open it?” Enam asked.

“Because we passed the data saturation point where a new gate should have opened, and it didn’t,” Saraceni continued, “so information is being gathered by those in The Cupel, and those here, to contribute to the Overall Purpose. Some of those particles, each element of matter holding some amount of data, are entangled with one another and some are not, but they are approaching the point of every particle being full.”

“And when that happens, there’s nowhere else for the data to go, so it starts acting completely as a free agent, decoupling links, decohering the very ties that preserve the boundaries. Think of collective dephasing. Observation equals decoherence, and because every particle is 100% full of data, all count as being observed, so when some room is freed up, the extra decoherence ceases.” At that moment Wood burst into the room.

“George is awake! He’s awake!” Wood shouted. The others cheered and clapped lightly, happy for the good news.

“Thank God,” Saraceni tipped his head back and closed his eyes, “now he’ll be able to complete the mission. I have to update the project team.” He turned to Wood, suddenly reverting to the former task-master he had been before things began falling apart. Hearing that George was awake was just the morsel of hope Saraceni needed to renew his own drive.

“Wood, please return to George and stay with him until Ruth arrives. And you,” he said to Molior directly, “will have a lot to do in a very short time, so while I’m gone, finish these exercises. You have to be able to do them perfectly, so keep going until you have at least ten perfect trials.” With that, he left the room and Molior had no choice but to focus on the tasks at hand. Just seeing Saraceni’s confidence rise had somehow settled them as well. Surely, if he had the impression things would be alright now, then they would be, they each thought.

Saraceni entered the project room with renewed authority in each step. He had to believe this could be done. He had to believe it would work. He had to. For if he did not, no one else would have the faith necessary.

“Status report!” he commanded.

“Sir, we can’t figure it out. The decoherence was supposed to have two more weeks, but it seems to be accelerating. It’s beyond all comprehension,” Elizabeth Hallowell relayed.

“I told Molior about their mission. Please mark that off the project plan,” Saraceni responded.

“How did they take it?” Elizabeth asked with trepidation.

“Let me clarify. I didn’t tell them all the details, just the primary objective.”

Ruth entered the room, barely noticing them, and walked straight through on her way to George’s room. At the last moment, as if awaking from a dream, she nodded to Saraceni in passing, a subtle acknowledgement he had everything under control. Saraceni gave a subdued nod in return. He hoped George was well and would check on him soon enough himself, but Ruth clearly wanted first crack at her son. With a few flicks of Saraceni’s wrist, the double-sided display screen emerged vertically from the table and in moments the mineral readings were displayed.

“These don’t look right,” he assessed efficiently.

“We ran them twice, Sir,” Elizabeth responded. Saraceni noticed how perfect the data was, and her reporting of it could not have been any more thorough. When this was all over, he would tell her that she had run as tight a project as anyone could have, that they knew they were giving her impossible targets, but had to push for maximum gains in an untenable situation. Used to always being at the top of her game, Elizabeth was clearly flustered by the feeling that she was somehow not managing the project well. She knew she wasn’t as good with people, which was not that uncommon in the middle circles from 5-8, but her analytic and calculation skills were top notch. The middle circles tended to focus too much on the technical and physics aspects of their new world. In the struggle to integrate their humanity, they often left it behind and were too laser-focused on the analytics of it rather than the meditative balance.

“The harmonic frequencies look right, but the cumulative wave functions are too low. We must not be counting some,” he advised.

“The broullian zone energy widths are much smaller than expected based on the data we have. Perhaps when we receive the new data we will discover something useful,” Elizabeth offered.

“Precisely my thought,” Saraceni agreed, “ When will the new data analysis be ready?”

“Two days,” she reported, “maybe late tomorrow if we get lucky.”

“Ma’am, I thought George already analyzed it?” an assistant inquired.

“Preliminary analysis, yes. He assessed enough for us to know a detailed analysis is required, but that detail will take some time because it is so comprehensive,” she clarified.

“Please run another test scenario. And add the interaction components for energy levels, conductive ability and manipulation of broullian zone widths. Perhaps we can figure out why it’s an electric siphon at the same time. If we could figure out a way to get the choppers up to that mountaintop, it would be a huge coup.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll add that to the testing orders now,” the assistant said, happy to have been included in core team activities.

“And lastly, what are the Dark Janae up to?” he asked

“Still after key targets from a balance perspective,” the assistant answered, “and they seem to have a flurry of activities in the following areas.” He highlighted the map in yellow, “but there don’t appear to be any Kajika or key recruits there, so we’re not sure why.”

“They still don’t know about the girl, or her Kajika, and they haven’t actually won any of the others they are after…yet,” Elizabeth added for context.

“Okay. Keep recording their activity on the map, and definitely use all countermeasures to keep the targets and recruits safe,” Saraceni ordered.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Call me immediately if they go into any new zones without targets nearby.”

“Yes, Sir.” Saraceni exited and the alarm went off again, to be stopped after just a second or two, so he shouted over his shoulder, “and have someone monitor that round the clock and press the stop button immediately every time it starts. “

Ruth entered George’s room with each step dripping in the gratitude of a mother who had been given her child back. So accustomed to being able to fix bodies easily, true worry over another’s welfare was infrequent in this world. But if their mind was gone, even with good engineering, it felt like they were doctors using leeches in trying to repair the damage. With decoherence involvement, the risk to even try would have been great and likely resulted in George’s death, so every ounce of relief poured into the hug Ruth gave George.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Okay. A little strange, Mother, but I guess, considering, that I am pretty well. I’ve tried a few simple harmonic alignments while lying here, though, and I don’t think any of them worked.” Ruth’s concern moved immediately from her Son to the mission. She gave a forced smile.

“You are so out of practice with lying,” he chided. Unaccustomed to it, Ruth gave a weak, but genuine smile this time.

“Yes, well, I suppose that’s a good thing,” she reflected “that we’re fortunate enough to not have to deal with that regularly.”

“Indeed,” he concurred. Ruth forced back a lump in her throat at the thought that after all these centuries he might actually all die, if the mission were not successful. She was resigned to it herself, and were she a lone operator she would have not minded as much, but the intense ties between family and senior team members made the thought of all those people dying nearly unbearable. Knowing what she was thinking, George squeezed his mother’s hand.

“The mission will work,” he reassured her, “I really believe that.” She nodded.

“What a role reversal,” he added, “You’re always the one reassuring everyone.”

“Well, don’t tell on me.” She patted his hand as she rose, “Speaking of, I’d better get back to it. Please rest. You still look wan and we need you ready soon.”

“I know.” he said, “I should like to meet with the recruits when it’s convenient.”

“Okay”, she said, and closed the door behind her. She could hear Saraceni speaking with the recruits in the common area as she left and decided not to interrupt just now. Saraceni was breaking down the mission into its components for them and they had just been advised they would need to practice with climbing gear tomorrow.