The Infinite Evolution - Conversion (39 page)

“
Why.”

“
Because he is my father,” replied Melissa as
she boarded the plane.

Spencer followed Melissa up the ramp, while
attempting to remove his foot from his mouth.

Karl chose to operate the plane.
After he received clearance he simply said a few commands, gave the
destination, and the plane responded. The interior was nothing
short of spectacular. Fine leather seats, personal sleeping areas,
food and beverage options, and, of course, state of the art
electronics. As soon as everyone settled in Oliver informed
Melissa, Karl, and Spencer that they were stopping in New York in
order to pick up a fifth passenger. Oliver added that once this
passenger was aboard, he would give his briefing.

The flight took approximately one
hour and everyone slept except for Oliver who reviewed the
operational goals of the mission. As they approached JFK
International, the plane received clearance to land and did so
smoothly. During the final descent, Spencer woke up, and noticed
there was no one in the cockpit. This made him feel even more
uncomfortable. While Oliver explained the plane was quite capable
of landing itself, Spencer started feeling a little queasy. Once
they safely landed, everyone stayed onboard except Oliver who
headed directly to the loading terminal where he looked for their
fifth passenger.

As Oliver impatiently waited and
continued to review their assignment on a standard paper notepad,
he heard a woman’s voice, “Old man are you going to move into the
future or what?”

“
I’ll move into the future when I’m dead, but
as long as I’m on this planet I’ll continue my quest to boycott
technology to the best of my ability.”

“
You mean the technology you so
love to defend?” asked Serafina.

“
I’m not defending the
technology, I’m defending a social way of life. And why is it that
every time I see you, Serafina, we have to get into some
philosophical discussion?”

“
That is because I so love arguing with you,”
smiled Serafina as she gave Oliver a hug.

“
It’s good to finally work with someone who
knows what they’re doing,” replied Oliver.

“
What are you talking about? Melissa is a very
bright young lady.”

“
I know that, I’m not talking about her, I’m
talking about the two Cro-Magnons who are waiting with my lovely
daughter.”

“
Oh, well, we are not looking for
any more brains on this mission. We will just use them for their
physical prowess.”

“
I strongly agree,” replied Oliver.

“
Well, are you ready to get out of here?”
asked Serafina.

“
Most certainly.”

As Oliver and Serafina finished boarding the PAV
Karl announced to everyone, “Departure is in five minutes.”

“
You know Karl, there’s no need
to play pilot. The computer informs us when it is time to leave,”
said Melissa.

Karl showed a disappointed look
on his face and replied, “I know, I just thought I was
helping.”

“
Ah, that’s so cute, now take a seat!” ordered
Melissa.

As Karl walked over to the nearest chair Oliver
asked, “Where’s Spencer?”

“
He’s in the bathroom, I guess
the flight worked up his stomach. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine,”
replied Melissa.

“
I’m not worried, but...”

Melissa interrupted her father and ran over to
Serafina for a hug, “It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, how
have you been?”

“
Great and you?” asked Serafina.

“
Oh, you know, same old stuff just a different
day.”

“
This little reunion is great and all, but
we’re about to take off so let’s get settled, shall we?” said
Oliver impatiently.

As everyone sat down, Melissa
asked, “What about Spencer? Shouldn’t we wait until he gets out of
the bathroom?”

“
No, he’ll be fine, there’s a
seat in there,” said Oliver.

“
I’ll never miss that caring and loving
attitude Dad,” laughed Melissa.

“
I’m sure,” grinned Oliver for the second time
that day, the first time being when he heard Serafina’s voice at
the airport.

While the plane was taking off
everyone heard Spencer in the bathroom ridding himself of his
stomach contents. Roughly twenty minutes into the flight, Spencer
emerged from the bathroom and took the first seat he saw, closed
his eyes, and fell asleep, failing to notice Serafina who was
sitting only a few seats up.

“
So where in Australia are we heading?” asked
Melissa.

“
We are going to ground zero,
Darwin, Australia,” reported Oliver.

“
How far is that from New York?” asked
Serafina.

“
It’s about 13,800 miles, give or take,”
replied Karl who had just walked out of the cockpit for the ninth
time.

“
Really?” asked Melissa who seemed surprised
that Karl knew this.

“
Yes, really, there’s a lot more
to this man than just good looks you know.”

“
Ok, Karl, whatever you say,” replied
Melissa.

“
Will you kids stop your bickering? One would
think you two were married,” bellowed Oliver.

Ignoring this comment Serafina asked, “So how much
flight time do we have?”

“
Approximately fifteen hours, this doesn’t
include the stops for refueling,” said Karl.

Serafina turned to Oliver and asked, “When are you
giving your briefing?”

“
Well, I guess I should wait until our
nonsensical comrade decides to join the living,” said Oliver.
“Let’s say in about eight hours, how’s that sound?”

“
Works for me. I am going to get some rest,”
replied Serafina.

“
Me too,” said Melissa.

“
Me three, goodnight,” called out
Karl.

“
Fine, everyone sleep. Damn
young-uns, you think nowadays you all would have tons of energy.
I’ll be up in the cockpit, catching up on some reading, the old
fashion way. You know, with an actual tangible book,” replied
Oliver as he walked off.

“
Ok, you have fun with that,” laughed Melissa
as she and everyone else closed their eyes.

Reece was about an hour and a half north of
Manhattan following the satellite track, which Scott had downloaded
to his car. According to the navigation system, he had another two
hours to go and was becoming extremely impatient. Reece tried to
overtake the posted speed limit twice, but was unable to, due to
the roadway, which was transmitting the top speed to his vehicle
preventing it from exceeding the limit. As Reece drove, he tried to
figure out how the Mustang literally disappeared off the road in
the middle of nowhere. Just as Reece was about to call Scott for an
update, a digital interpretation of Scott appeared on his
dashboard.

“
Where have you been?” asked Reece.

“
Sorry, but unfortunately I have
other matters to attend to. You know, like International
Security.”

“
Oh, well, excuse me, Mr. Big
Shot.”

“
That’s right, I’m glad you are finally seeing
where I stand in the great scheme of things.”

“
Do you think with all that infinite power you
have, you could help me exceed the posted speed limit?”

“
Most certainly, give me a second.” Scott’s
holographic image turned around, entered some keystrokes, and then
turned back to Reece and said, “There you go.” As soon as Scott
finished, his last sentence Reece saw the digital speedometer
increase by 25 mph.

“
How did you do that?”

“
I simply changed the digital
signature on your car to an emergency vehicle. Now the speed
monitors built into the roadway will think you’re law enforcement.
This will also help prevent you from getting pulled over by law
enforcement.”

“
Wow, it’s so nice to have
friends in high places. I owe you yet another one.”

“
I don’t know, I may owe you one
as well.”

“
Why?”

“
Well first, don’t get paranoid,
but after I traced your renegade Mustang to its last known
coordinates, I decided to do a standard scan of the area and found
enormous energy spikes.”

“
What’s producing them?”

“
At first I thought it was just a
natural phenomenon, but ruled that out after determining the energy
signatures were made by humans. I decided to do a thermal scan of
the natural terrain and noticed an unnatural heat source coming
from underneath the ground. I ended up isolating them in to two
separate locations within a mile of each other.”

“
And what were they?” asked Reece.

“
Vents.”

“
Vents?”

“
Yes vents, which are expelling hot air,”
explained Scott.

“
So what does that mean?”

“
That would mean there’s some
type of underground complex.”

“
Is it a government installation?”

“
No, I checked with every agency
and no one reportedly has a facility located at these
coordinates.”

“
Who owns the land?”

“
It comes back to a wildlife
preserve named, Life Preservation, also known as the LP. According
to Intel, they have been around for decades and own millions and
millions of acres all across the world. They’ve done a great deal
in helping to preserve our natural resources. They’re considered
one of the most beloved non-profit organizations ever. They have
contributed large amounts of campaign funding to some of the most
powerful people within the world government.”

“
So what does all this mean?” asked Reece with
a confused look on his face.

“
I don’t know. As far as I can tell they have
never been zoned for any underground facility.”

“
Well is there an entrance to this
facility?”

“
Excluding the vents I don’t see any other way
in and I wouldn’t recommend using them.”

“
Why?”

“
Well for one you don’t know how
to rappel and secondly, the steam coming out of those vents is
around a thousand degrees.”

“
What about when they’re not active?” asked
Reece.

“
There’s a valve that closes,
preventing anything from coming in or going out. It looks like
you’re not getting in, sorry.”

“
Can’t you send out a specialized
unit?” pleaded Reece.

“
We could, after I report it to my
superiors.

“
How long would that take?”

“
We should be able to have a team there within
eight hours or so,” explained Scott.

“
Eight hours, are you serious? I thought the
government could deploy teams within minutes. Doesn’t someone have
a team that can deal with these matters on standby?”

“
Yes, we do, but this certainly
hasn’t been identified as an International Emergency. Currently,
all I have are two vents expelling heat.”

“
I’m still going to continue,” said
Reece.

“
I hoped you were going to say
that. Just do me a favor, will you?” asked Scott.

“
Sure, whatever you
want.”

“
Allow me to download some special tracking
and monitoring software to your PIC.”

“
What’s so special about it?”

“
It will allow me to monitor your movements
even if your PIC is disabled.”

“
How’s that possible?” asked Reece.

Showing signs of pride in his
software, Scott explained, “It creates a false single that makes
your PIC appear disabled. It will then transmit the data regarding
your surroundings to me, even if the people we are spying on
created a dampening field.”

“
How does it transmit through a dampening
field?”

“
It transmits the data into
pulses of infrared light which can easily penetrate any dampening
field we know of. Once through, the pulses of light travel along
any interior surface until they break out into the
atmosphere.”

“
Light source? Are you serious?”

“
Yes, I’m serious,” said Scott with
confidence.

After Reece learned about this
new method of eavesdropping, he decided to change the subject and
asked, “Are you sure it wasn’t your organization who hacked
Adam?”

“
Trust me, that wasn’t us and even if it was,
we couldn’t have used this software.”

“
Why not?”

“
Because it only communicates one way. It can
send us data, but we can’t send the carrier data.”

“
What’s the range?”

“
Twenty five miles in any
direction, after that the pulses of infrared light get too
dissipated and our receivers are unable to decipher
anything.”

“
You really think this is
necessary?”

“
Reece, I wish I could answer that, but I just
don’t know.”

“
Fine, go ahead and download.”

“
Alright. By the way, if we did
hack Adam, I wouldn’t be able to admit to it,” said Scott while
laughing.