Phantom Frost

by Alfred Wurr

  “My apologies, Sentinel,” Hue said. “I do not have a complete visage of my own. I am not really here at all—at least not physically.” He gestured theatrically at his body, looking down at himself. “This is just a phantasm created by sophisticated manipulation of light and matter.”

  “You’re kidding.” I moved closer to Hue and reached out to poke his shoulder. My hand passed through unhindered. “So, you’re a ghost.” I smiled wryly. “A ghost in the Allfrost machine.”

  “An apt description, but technically I am an artificial intelligence with a holographic corporeal form and limited telepathic interface.”

  “Wait, did you say telepathic?” I made a face. “You can read my mind?”

  Hue held up his hands. “Just surface thoughts and images, when you are standing on the Allfrost Transporter pad. It is invaluable in communicating where you wish to travel with maximum accuracy.”

  I nodded imperceptibly, looking at him where his face should be. “I get it, I think.” I winced again and looked away, blinking.

  “I believe I have a solution,” Hue said. He covered his face with his hands, then pulled them away and looked at me with Brad’s face. “Is this better?” he asked. “This is one of the faces at the forefront of your thoughts.”

  My jaw dropped and I stared.

  “Not to your liking, I see,” Hue said after a pause. He covered his face again. Brad’s short hair lengthened, growing long and wavy. When he took his hands away, Lucy stood before me. “Would you prefer this one?”

  “Whoa, you’re freaking me out, Hue. I’m not going snow-blind anymore, but I’m getting a bit creeped out; it’s like my friends are haunting me.”

  “Oh, are these friends dead?”

  “No, they aren’t dead,” I said, too loudly. Taking a breath, I continued in a softer voice. “They are not dead.”

  “These friends—they are those you are intending to rescue,” Hue said. It wasn’t a question. He looked thoughtful. “Oh, I see. I understand now. Your memories…stolen…outrageous. How dare they? Thank you, Sentinel. I believe I understand your mission parameters now. Thoughts are so much faster than words.”

  I scowled and took a step back. “Get out of my head, Hue.”

  The AI, still wearing Lucy’s face, looked affronted. “Forgive me if I have intruded, Sentinel. These thoughts are very palpable. I could not help but perceive them while you are standing on the departure platform.”

  “All right,” I said. “Just forget about it. Please go back to looking like a ghost or something. You’re still weirding me out.” A moment later, the ghostly apparition reappeared. I took a step forward to stand in front of the fountain. “So how does this thing work?”

  “To begin, think about what you would like to see. Just visualize it in your mind.”

  I thought back to my time in the Allfrost Chamber in Nevada, watching the scientists conducting their reckless experiments, when the fire elementals had appeared out of thin air. Moments later, an image of that chamber appeared before me on an oval viewscreen three feet wide and six feet tall, suspended a few feet off the ground. The vision was so clear, it was as if I were looking at it through a doorway to another room. The Nevada Chamber was mostly dark, with a few figures moving around within.

  Thinking of my flight from the chamber, the exterior camp appeared as if viewed from a distance, then zoomed to a closer vantage point. It teemed with people. Many more than before. Trucks moved in and out and soldiers moved about, armed and alert.

  “Unbelievable,” I said. “How is it I can see outside when the node is inside the cavern?”

  “The Oculi permit viewing within a limited range; the vantage point can be moved within a sphere surrounding it to a range of several thousand feet for a fully-activated node.”

  “It looks kind of busy there,” I said. “Not the best place to arrive.”

  I thought of the Schmidts’ home, but the screen faded to black.

  “That location is beyond the reach of the closest Allfrost node,” Hue said, answering my unspoken question.

  “Got it,” I said, frowning. “How many nodes are associated with the Nevada Chamber?”

  “One thousand and twenty-eight, minimum, but often more depending on location. They are typically arranged in loosely concentric circles, radiating outward.”

  “Is that required, technically?”

  “No, it is more to maximize coverage with the minimum number of nodes, by distributing them evenly. This is frequently not possible for reasons of practicality and security, in which case the nodes are moved to the nearest feasible location.”

  “Is there a way to go through all the locations in sequence?” Hue’s glowing amorphous head bobbed affirmatively. “Great. Please cycle through them, Hue. Show me every area for one second each.”

  For the next minute, desert scenes lit by the night sky materialized on the screen before me. There was little to distinguish one from the other in the dim light. Bushes, rocks and hills changed position but otherwise the locations looked nearly identical. Then a streak of reddish-orange fire appeared, distant but unmistakable, before the view switched to another poorly lit visual.

  “Wait, go back!” I said, leaning forward, resting my hands on the stone basin. The viewscreen flickered, and the fire returned. “Can we get closer to that? To the fire,” I said, pointing a finger.

  A gang of fire elementals jumped into view, perhaps twenty feet from the camera’s viewpoint. They were moving across the desert in loose formation, travelling a straight line to somewhere, leaving a trail of scorched and burning earth in their wake. “Looks like they’re on the march,” I muttered. “But to where?”

  “Unknown,” Hue answered, now coloured deep purple. “They are heading southwest. Would you like to see a top-down view of the region?” Before I could answer, another viewscreen appeared to the left of the first one. It looked like a star map at first, with numerous white dots distributed in roughly concentric rings with a larger dot of light at the centre. The Allfrost power nodes, I realized. A dot of red light moved near the lower left. “The red dot represents the fire entities.”

  “Thanks, but without landmarks, I’m not sure that helps,” I said. A moment later, additional icons with lettering next to them appeared. One in the southeast read “Las Vegas.” To the upper-left, Tonopah was marked; on the right, Lunar Crater; and above it, the damaged Allfrost Chamber. Seconds later, another icon appeared along the fire elementals’ path of travel. Then more text appeared, identifying it as the Bodhi Institute.

  “More mind reading,” I said, glancing at Hue sidelong. He said nothing, shrugging. I returned to studying the map. I pointed a finger, dragging it from the fire elementals to the Bodhi Institute. “It’s almost as if they’re heading straight there.”

  “They are still a few miles away. It is possible that the facility merely lies along their path.”

  “Yeah, maybe. At least we’ve found a node that’s reasonably close to where I need to go. Though I don’t want to tangle with those things again, if I can help it.” I studied the image of the fire elementals, still blazing a trail toward the Institute. “Please continue to cycle through the locations. I want to see if there’s a better option. Maybe something closer.”

  The slideshow restarted, showing more nondescript locations. Then the screen went entirely black. “Wait, hold it there,” I commanded. I leaned in and squinted, studying the view intently. “Is there something wrong with the view? Why is it black? I should be able to see something. It’s not that dark.”

  Hue sounded puzzled. “The node’s location must be enclosed within something that lacks a light source.”

  “Can you move the viewpoint? Try to find a lighted area within range of it?”

  “Of course,” Hue said. “One moment.” The view remained black. Several minutes passed.

  “Are you doing it? It’s still dark.”

  “Indeed, the region to cover is quite large, and moving the Oculus through the
entire area is taking some time,” Hue said in a patient voice. “The node must be located deep underground.”

  “Well, keep—” A flash of light appeared on the screen, then disappeared. “Did you see that? Go back.” The view brightened again as the camera reverted, displaying a lab room. Beakers and flasks sat on long tables next to Bunsen burners. Counters and sinks lined the walls. The room’s overhead lights were off, presumably due to the late hour, but illumination entering through large windows that lined one wall cast enough light by which to see.

  “Move the view to the hallway, Hue. Let’s walk around and try to figure out where this is.”

  “Just envision where you’d like the view to go and it will follow your desires,” Hue suggested.

  “Neat,” I replied, moving it a few feet. “How does that work?”

  “I’m acting as an interface between you and the Oculus,” Hue explained, “passing your wishes along in real time.”

  “I’m starting to see telepathy’s appeal.”

  I moved the view through the windows and raced it along the hallway, passing doorways labelled with numbers but no names. Doors and signs rushed past as I searched for clues, something, anything, that might help me figure out where I was. I turned a corner and gasped, stepping back from the viewscreen. A uniformed security guard, black baton hanging from his belt, turned a key, locking a door down the hall. He rotated to his right and walked down the hall away from me a moment later.

  “Can people on the other side see anything? See me?”

  “No, not at all,” Hue said. “The Oculus is undetectable without the proper equipment. Equipment that humans do not as yet possess.”

  Comforted by that knowledge, I jumped the camera ahead of the guard and turned to face him. Seeing his name tag and uniform up close, I realized where I was. I’d seen that same grey-and-black uniform on other guards too many times before.

  This was the Bodhi Institute.

  “This is the facility where I was held,” I said aloud. I looked at the left-most screen, still showing the icons identifying the Allfrost nodes. “There’s no node marker at the Institute, though. Is the Bodhi Institute marker covering it?”

  “One moment,” Hue replied, holding up a hand. The security guard walked through the camera, out of sight. After a pause, he continued. “That is Node Six. It is not where it is supposed to be.”

  “Node Six? Where is it supposed to be?” A light started blinking near the damaged Allfrost Chamber. “That’s pretty close to the chamber. The Bodhi Group must have found it and moved it to the Institute.”

  At my command, the view started moving again. I caught up with the guard as he stepped onto an elevator a short distance away. I moved the Oculus into the car and watched as he pressed a button on the control panel. The elevator rose fast. The doors dinged open on the top aboveground floor and the guard got out.

  I followed.

  He turned right and walked over to a nearby bank of vending machines. As he fumbled with his change, I slipped past him and roamed the halls of the floor, searching for my friends. I found a lot of offices and storage rooms and small kitchens with eating areas for the employees on that level but no sign of my friends, so I moved on to the lower level.

  I found more of the same until I moved the Oculus to the building’s entrance, a foyer that looked out on a mostly empty asphalt parking lot. The foyer ceiling towered twenty-five feet above, with one side lined by a balcony, next to which offices and conference rooms could be seen.

  I took the stairs that led up to it at one side of the cavernous room. Reaching the top, I saw that the balcony continued to my left as a two-sided hallway. As I turned in that direction, the same guard that I’d seen earlier leaned over to lock another door sixty feet in that direction, then strode toward the viewscreen.

  With a thought, the view drifted forward, heading for the door that the security guard had just locked. I moved it through the frosted glass that formed the room’s outer wall.

  Lucy and Brad sat at a table in the centre of a spacious conference room, snuggled against each other in rolling office chairs, looking tired and dishevelled, holding hands. Several plastic trays lay on the table, holding bottles of Coke and partially eaten sandwiches. Against the wall to the right, Lilith slept in Alan’s arms on a black leather sofa, both apparently asleep.

  I had found them. The Bodhi Group had them after all.

  Chapter 27

  Return of the Snowman

  It made sense keeping them in one of the conference rooms on the main aboveground floors; the facility wasn’t well-equipped to hold a group of young civilians anywhere else. Subfloor fifteen had holding facilities, but they were spartan to say the least. Plus, keeping them there would reveal more of the Institute to them than would be desirable to the secret organization. No, to the Bodhi Group, it made far more sense to keep them in the more public areas, keeping the existence of the much larger underground levels secret. It was a good omen, indicating that Dixon didn’t plan on making their stay permanent, at least not yet. If they were kept in the lower levels, it would be like a bank robber removing his mask—not a good sign.

  Everyone looked tired and tense but otherwise okay. Judging by the food on the long mahogany conference table, they’d been fed at some point, too. I couldn’t tell if they’d been interrogated yet or not. Maybe Dixon’s letting them sweat first, softening them up for questioning.

  If they were okay, it didn’t matter to me what the kids told him; it would just waste his time. They didn’t even know the location of the arcade where Scott, Caleb and I had hidden out in Las Vegas when we’d fled the Schmidts’ place. Good luck finding me in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I thought, smirking.

  My friends located, I kept exploring the compound, visiting areas that I’d been barred from entering during my captivity. The hallways and rooms were mostly quiet. Some early risers were starting to move about in their quarters while security guards roamed the building checking doors, looking bored. I moved quickly; I didn’t have time to search the entire facility. I didn’t know how long I had before the gang would be questioned again or moved. Parts of it lay outside the Oculus’s range anyway.

  Thirty minutes later, I had worked out that the Institute lay mostly underground, beneath a two-storey aboveground office building. The latter contained several conferences rooms like the one holding my friends, a large cafeteria, vending machines, waiting areas and washrooms. The northwest corner of the ground-level building also contained an indoor parking lot, protecting employee vehicles from bleaching in the merciless Nevada sun. The parkade looked about a quarter full currently. The lot outside must be mainly reserved for visitors, I thought.

  Banks of elevators were positioned throughout each level to take personnel to the lower levels. There were stairs too, but they were locked from the stairwell side, requiring a key card to get through. Only the aboveground stairwell doors appeared to lack card readers, suggesting that they were unlocked by default. If you took the stairs on a lower level, you’d better have access, or you’d have to walk to the top to get out. The deepest, those eleven storeys and below, which included the archival vaults, were restricted access, requiring a key card to get to by elevator as well.

  Fifteen floors down lay the large cave-like room where I’d spent most of the past few years. It looked warm; the layer of ice that had covered its walls during my incarceration had melted away, but my entertainment devices, books, and paraphernalia remained.

  I guess they’re saving power, I thought, moving along.

  I could now see that it was one of several habitats on that level, apparently there to hold other experimental subjects.

  Most were empty, but one of those habitats housed a group of fire elementals like those that I had fought a number of times in recent days. They circled the room like fireflies trapped in a bottle, throwing the occasional incendiary at the concrete walls, leaving scorch marks but causing no meaningful damage. The image wavered slightly a
s I shifted the viewing perspective inside.

  “What’s with the image, Hue?” I asked as it continued to waver. “Am I going out of range?”

  “Negative, Sentinel. Thermal interference is degrading image quality.”

  “All right. Must be the heat those things are throwing.”

  I pulled the camera’s viewpoint out of the holding cell and continued exploring. Near the centre of the same level sat a large cavernous room, three storeys high, with stairs leading up to balconies that overlooked the floor in the middle. At the epicentre, within a large refrigerated box of transparent glass, sat the unmistakable bulk of an Allfrost node, standing on its side—Node Six, I presumed. Photographic and electronic equipment surrounded it. I’d seen some of the same items in the Nevada Allfrost Chamber, but many were completely unfamiliar to me. I did, however, recognize the tools of geology and archaeology that lay resting on and nearby the platform.

  Other levels contained kitchens, offices, auditoriums, washrooms, and supply closets. There were also sleeping quarters, both temporary and long-term. The former, I guessed, were for personnel working long hours, judging by the lack of personal items. The latter clearly belonged to those assigned full-time to protect the facility, as made clear by the nearby weapons lockers and the look of the occupants. There were even a few gymnasiums and an indoor pool that included attached showers and locker rooms.

  I found the archival vault—where Scott had snatched the memory vials that he had given to me at his house—on a lower level, near the end of my search. The vault lay inside a large cave carved out of the earth and sealed by a thick circular vault door eight feet across. A woman wearing a lab coat and carrying a clipboard was leaving as I arrived, passing through an outer gate that allowed passage through a wall of thick bars.

  “Will the transporter get me there?”

  Hue hesitated before answering. “The cave within the vault should be a large enough arrival zone, yes. However, arrival points fluctuate with a small error rate. This is increased when transporting to underground destinations. Given the location, the transport vessel may try to rematerialize a few feet off, in solid matter.”