Mackey matched the codes of the sandwich packages with the appropriate controls on the cooker console and watched with something like awe and endless curiosity as the digits showed him exactly how much time was still required. With a steady, high-voltage hum the cavity magnetron milled electrons off its cathode, oscillating electromagnetic energy inside the range, stimulating the water molecules of the food in a dancing heat. Perhaps Mackey would have to acquire a microwave range for his kitchen—the process seemed so efficient, so clean.
Preparing and delivering the sandwiches took no time at all, so Mackey quickly returned to his seat after dropping off lunch at the Assistant Secretary's desk and the cockpit. During the flight, Hopper continued scanning the files they had taken from Mount Weather, while Mackey mostly looked out the window as he ate, lost in thought. He couldn't help but continue to review the history of Transportation's feud with Commerce in his head, now that he was drafted into it. He had no idea what the ARPNET hacking and the files they had taken had to do with this ideological split, but his knowledge of the Departments' history was all he had to go on.
Moffett Field was an apt destination. The research center there had been built as Roosevelt's victory lap, after stealing the Air Commerce Service and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics away from the Commerce Department. The state-of-the-art research center had been technically built by the new National Aeronautics Research Administration, the renamed and supposedly independent NACA. But it was financed with the Postal Administration's bankroll.
With the massive amount of money that the Postal Administration was making from the expanding Pierstorff car system, combined with their growing popular remit to define the technological direction for the nation, the Postmaster could effectively guide every aspect of Administration activities with the funding provided via Postal Technology Grants.
Roosevelt hand-picked the Administrations' executive staffing, site selection, and even research topics. Sites like Moffett Field were as much part of the Postmaster's expanding political control as they were part of expanding technology. Many of the scientists working with the Committee were backed by the Smithsonian, and had histories with both that Institution and Commerce in general. But only two years after becoming the head of the Postal Administration, Roosevelt had them completely under his personal influence. It was part of what proponents of Commercialism called Roosevelt's "technological dictatorship."
Roosevelt's Postal Administration pulled on long strings: or more literally, the wires, printing presses, broadcast towers, and tracks. The Postal Administration controlled not only the mail but the telephone systems, radio broadcasting, newspapers, and newly invented television. They controlled ground transportation, air mail, and the train systems, nearly the entirety of freight and passenger transportation for the entire continent. From there, they began controlling secondary systems: international shipping, housing development, banking, industrial production and resource management, and even the military, via weapons development. And at the top of all of these infrastructural systems was the Postmaster, wielding this control as if he was directing an orchestra. Roosevelt, the former Naval administrator, sailed the Administrations into the future like an admiral with a fleet.
Mackey had no real part in this feud, and yet he was in the middle of it: both thrust into this episode, that was no doubt one in a series of encounters, and caught between the ideas that the split represented. Both ways of thinking had their merits, and he didn't see why the Departments couldn't pursue their goals simultaneously. Why must things be "Orthogonal," and not simply "Parallel?"
But Mackey kept returning to the fact that he did work for the Electromagnetic Bureau. Whether because of politics, history, or simple personal rivalry, if forces within Commerce were trying to interfere with the Department of Transportation's projects, as an engineer in the Department he was bound to protect it against that interference. It might not be a duty he was bound to on an ideological basis, but it was still important. Transportation affected the public safety and the political and economic stability of the nation. Hopper had a strong argument there. Without Transportation, the United States would come to a screeching halt.
It was ironic that Mackey worked in the Domestic Interference Section of the Electromagnetic Bureau. By analogy, his engineering responsibilities weren't too different from the current situation. His job at the Bureau was to discover unpredicted conflicts between otherwise compatible technologies. And then to diagnose the issue and engineer a solution around the interference. If there was a conflict between Commerce and Transportation, perhaps he and the Assistant Secretary could engineer a similar, political solution before some sort of harmful interference damaged both Departments.
Additionally, he reasoned, he worked in Domestic Interference, not in the Interference Defense Section. That was weapons-grade work—defending against aggressive interference and electronic attacks, as well as creating sources of jamming and interference for use in offensive action. It was the sort of technology that made headline news as it was deployed in electronic conflicts around the world, pushing belligerent governments off of broadcast pathways and cable routes when they were encroaching upon the Postal Bureau's international data interests. But that was not Mackey's job. He didn't want to attack the Commerce Department. It seemed the wrong sort of strategy, given that they were all supposed to be on the same team. Mackey thought about the gun he had seen in Hopper's briefcase, and wondered about why she carried it. If they hadn't escaped the man inside Mount Weather, what would Hopper have done?
Mackey looked at Hopper now, who was herself intently looking at something out of the window below them. He couldn't see what she was seeing, but checked his window to see if he could get a hint. They were over a span of arid mountains, with nothing much to see below. Nothing to see at all, except another aircraft heading towards them from a short distance. Getting closer. And closer. As it approached, it angled to come alongside them.
Hopper quickly picked up the receiver for the intercom to the cockpit. "Fish and Wildlife Service Interdiction Aircraft, Major Briggs. A pair of them, flanking us."
Mackey could see them easily out of both windows now, only a few hundred feet away on either side. They were short jets, with lower stabilizers descending from the fuselage to rival the upper vertical stabilizers. With short, truncated delta wings and a massive intake under the cockpit, the aircraft looked like an exotic shark species. Both craft were painted with the blue and gold livery of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
Looking down at the landscape, Mackey tried to figure out where they were. His best guess was that they were over Nevada. He tried to suggest a reasonable explanation for the sudden presence of fighter aircraft from one of the divisions of the Department of Commerce, more for his own peace of mind than any actual idea. This couldn't be an intra-Departmental response to their theft at the Weather Service site, could it? Had Alfred Gregory, the man in the hallway, recognized Mackey?
"Maybe we are over National Forest right now, and they just want to—" Mackey was cut off by bright spears of tracer cannon fire darting across the flightpath of the sub-orbital.
Briggs maneuvered quickly, pulling up and to the left. Hopper watched as the jets gave chase, and Mackey dug his fingers into the armrest.
"Rear and to your right, Briggs, four o'clock, coming around!" she barked into the intercom.
"I see them!" Briggs' voice came over the cabin speaker.
Mackey gripped his safety belt with both hands, then grabbed onto the seat, then the belt again. The pilot increased speed, dodging down through the atmosphere towards the desert ground below as Mackey's stomach crawled up his throat. Certainly no maneuvers like this ever happened on one of his business flights.
"Can you outrun or outfly them, Major?" Hopper was gripping her briefcase tightly in one hand, the intercom in the other.
"Can't outrun them—those jets have additional
rocket engines, with a top speed over Mach 2. I might be able to outmaneuver them at low altitude."
It wasn't the answer that Mackey was hoping to hear, as his internal organs experienced freefall along with the aircraft. They dropped into a steep dive, rolling left to give Mackey a full, unobscured view of the earth coming up quickly to meet them. The Major pulled up quickly as they arrived on the deck, rising to miss a ridge, and diving again into a winding valley. The terrain pulled quickly to the left, around a mountain peak, and the sub-orbital followed, mere yards from the scrub brush and jagged rocks. Hopper was glued to the window.
"Crossing your six! Mackey, keep them in sight out your side!"
Mackey turned, craning his neck to try and spot the jets, mere glints of blue light against the sun.
"At—seven! Make that eight, now nine o'clock!"
Mackey saw nothing but hillside as Briggs vectored upwards to hop another ridge, and then golden sky, as he came back down to meet the twisted evergreens of the mountains, their gnarled wood and bare snags looking ever so much like wreckage to Mackey's wide eyes.
Despite the Major's breakneck flying, the jets moved closer again, and tracer fire once again arced outward from their noses, passing underneath the thin aluminum fuselage, the thinnest of eggshells protecting them from the bullets zipping past them and the sharp rocks below.
The sub-orbital rolled right, descending into a downhill valley as the pilot looked for some sort of escape route. They hopped a ridge, and then a saddle between two peaks, but still the jets were right behind.
Major Briggs shouted, seemingly unaware that the intercom was still open, "Where's a good box canyon when you need one?"
The valley they were descending opened up to a looping dry river bed flanked by oaks and cottonwoods. In the open terrain, one of the jets overtook them and came down in front, engine wash visible out Mackey's window as it burst past the aircraft, distorting the airflow like the heat of the sun on a rock. The other jet was right behind.
"I think they want you to land, Major Briggs," Hopper calmly suggested into the receiver. "If there is a landing strip you believe they have in mind, we might as well do it, and we'll deal with this on the ground."
He spoke over the intercom. "There's an old strip ahead, which is no doubt the one they mean. Must be a wildfire fighting strip maintained by the Forest Service. I'll make the approach." The Major slowed their speed and lost altitude.
The co-pilot came on. "There's a security compartment, Assistant Secretary, inside the storage locker in the back. Push down to release the panel." Hopper unclipped and took her briefcase towards the rear of the cabin to stash it. Whatever was going to happen, Mackey was glad that the plastic pistol would not be making an appearance.
The Fish and Wildlife jets overflew them as they touched down on the dusty, unoccupied landing strip. Then they each circled in an opposite direction, keeping an eye on the sub-orbital as it came to a halt. The pilot entered the cabin.
"We won't be able to take off again without them shooting us out of the sky," Briggs said.
"What now?" Mackey asked.
The co-pilot, Drecker, came back into the cabin and opened the door, letting the lingering evening sunshine enter the aircraft, along with the dry, fragrant desert air. Amid the noise of the jets keeping station, a dull thumping grew louder. Mackey watched as two large black helicopters came up the valley.
"We wait for the Smokies." Drecker gestured at the approaching aircraft, straightened his jacket, and stepped out onto the hard packed soil. Hopper followed him, as did Briggs. Mackey, suddenly feeling quite alone, unbuckled, rose from his seat, and exited as well.
☆
The squad of Land Service Officers had landed with weapons drawn, handcuffed them, and searched both them and the jet. They did not find Hopper's briefcase, it seemed—although they did find the main control circuit from the power distribution panel, ripping it out and taking it with them, dangling black and red wires. They placed the four on board one of the helicopters and swooped away, leaving the sub-orbital where it was.
The two circling jets also departed, headed for points unknown. Handcuffed, crouched in the back of the helicopter, Mackey couldn't help but feel a sense that his confidence in Hopper had been misplaced. He supposed that they would be taken to some sort of debriefing now, and then a jail cell for some indeterminate stretch of time.
Looking at Hopper's face, he couldn't see any realization of that fact. She appeared just as thoughtfully impassive as when she had been reading the files on board the sub-orbital. Her eyes continued to peer out through her thick glasses, analyzing the passing desert terrain, seeing each individual scrub brush and dry dusty wash, noting the passage of boulders and small hills, considering the occasional barbed wire fence delineating some sort of property boundary. Was she looking for something, he wondered. Or was she just looking?
After a short flight, the helicopters landed at the bottom of a foothill, ascending upwards into sparse pine trees, with snow-capped mountains beyond. Must be just inside California, Mackey thought. Mountains like those could only be the Sierras.
They were left with a group of four Land Service Officers, who marched them up the hill at gunpoint. The helicopters, the rest of the armed Officers, and the Fish and Wildlife aircraft had all departed, leaving them in silence on the hillside.
Looking around them, all Mackey could see were the drab hills, with thin clusters of trees set apart from each other, scattered loosely over the bleached white rock. The hill on which they walked was low, set within a ring of mountains, completely blocking any urban landmark from view. There were no tracks, no air strip. They might have been hundreds of miles from any town. The only thing Mackey could recognize was the bright orange sun, now beginning to set behind the snow-capped mountains, in what must have been the west.
He was breathing hard as he climbed the hill. Handcuffs or not, his morning swimming routine made his heart stronger than this. They must be at a fairly high elevation.
Hopper, Briggs, and Drecker were silent, following the orders of the uniformed officers, and so Mackey followed suit. But his mind raced. What was this? Some sort of scare tactics? Did they know about the breaking and entering at the Weather Service installation, or not? How could they have found them so quickly? Hopper had to know how to deal with this situation. Mackey hoped, with every fiber of his body, that she did know what she was doing.
Towards the crest of the hill, Mackey caught sight of a kind of stone pavilion. It appeared like a rough cabin at first, but as they surmounted the top of the hill, it became clear the structure was much larger, and had taken a great deal more work than a backpacker's shelter. There was a terrace paved in stone slabs, nearly a hundred yards square. The far end of the terrace, which by the sun Mackey figured to be the northern edge, was covered by a stone-built room with a small door. This he had mistaken for a cabin before he had been able to see that it was raised up nearly six feet off the terrace, at the top of a wide flight of stone steps the entire width of the small complex. A roof made with dry, dark timber, extended from the stone room out over the steps and the terrace floor.
It all looked old, weathered, covered in the light white dust that matched the surrounding landscape. There was a pale lichen growing on all the exposed stone surfaces, greenish, scaly, like the desert's replacement for swamp scum. At the base of the stairs, where one would descend from the room to the terrace, there was a large stone slab. The evening wind, sweeping up from below, whistled over the construction on the hilltop. Mackey shivered just a bit, in his suit. His hat, he suddenly realized, had been left aboard the jet. A fine time to worry about your hat, he thought.
The four officers moved them to the side of the terrace, allowing them a view of the stone slab some thirty feet away. Two men emerged from the stone room at the top of the steps. One of them wore a dark suit and appeared ancient, face covered in wr
inkles in the shadowy twilight. He moved to the side of the doorway as the second man exited. This character was far younger, dark in eyes and hair, wearing a long black robe and carrying a flaming torch that cast light over the darkening terrace. At the edge of the steps he leaned to the ground and used the torch to set alight two pools of oil contained in twin depressions carved in the stone.
Flames leapt up, casting black smoke up into the red and purple sky. The man descended the stairs and lit two similar spots on either side of the slab. As the light splayed outward, Mackey could see a round depression in the center of the slab, stained a dark black, running down the front of it to channels set into the terrace. It suddenly occurred to Mackey, inspired by the addition of oily flames and a man in a long black robe, that the slab looked like an altar.
Hopper was studying the Land Service Officers out of the corner of her eye. The two pilots were simultaneously keeping an eye on her, and on the situation around them. Fred Mackey stood as still as he could, deeply waiting for some indication of what was about to happen next.
"Behold, the rising of the sign of Enki!" the man in the robe boomed out, into the wind. "The time has come to renew the waters!"
He held the torch in one hand and a long dagger in the other. Mackey thought that he would gladly go back to a moment ago, when he still had no idea what might happen.
Two more figures appeared in the doorway of the stone house, at the top of the steps. The first appeared to be a Forest Service Ranger from his characteristic uniform, though he was quite disheveled and clearly beaten up, with his hands tied behind his back. He eyes were lowered, and there was a trickle of blood running down his dark face. Behind him, pushing him forward, was a woman, completely nude except for a horned headdress, carrying a heavy staff made from a luminous metal.
As she shoved the man forward, the ranger tripped and tumbled down the stairs, to collapse at the feet of the man in the robe, behind the altar.
Orthogonal Procedures Page 5
