by S. A. Beck
Judging from what Yuhle had said, Dr. Yamazaki had been just as bad.
The bleeping of Vivian’s phone snapped him out of his thoughts.
She and Otto traded looks. No one was supposed to call except for Grunt or Edward back at base. That ring meant something had gone wrong.
Yuhle had heard it too. He pulled the car off to the side of the road.
“What’s going on?” Dr. Yamazaki asked.
“Got to take this call, honey,” Vivian said.
Dr. Yamazaki’s brow furrowed. “How are you even getting coverage out here?”
“Satellite uplink,” Vivian said. Otto noticed she left out the fact that Edward had hacked into a communications satellite so he couldn’t be traced. At least that was what Otto presumed he had done. Maybe he was using a different trick. Otto had given up trying to predict what Edward would do.
Once the car came to a stop, Vivian opened the door and stepped out onto the gravel shoulder. Her long blond hair flashed brilliantly in the desert sun, and Otto couldn’t help admiring her athletic body as she stepped away from the car. Reminding himself he had a girlfriend, he looked away.
“Otto, come with me,” Vivian called.
Curious, Otto followed.
Vivian walked several yards into the desert, well out of earshot of the car. Otto looked back and saw Yuhle had turned around in his seat and was talking with Dr. Yamazaki. From their expressions, it looked like an argument. The hot desert sun pounded on Otto and made him feel even more tired. Once he caught up with Vivian, she answered the phone.
“What is it, honey?” she asked.
Otto leaned in close to hear the answer. Edward’s voice came over the phone. He was a computer hacker and conspiracy theorist who served as the Atlantis Allegiance’s eyes and ears. He was also the nerdiest, most paranoid person Otto had ever met.
“Big trouble. Are either of the two scientists there?”
“No, I figured it would be best to do this out of earshot,” Vivian replied.
Otto remembered how Dr. Yuhle was insistent before the mission that Dr. Yamazaki would never set up a trap for them, that she was totally dedicated to stopping General Meade and the rest of the secret government project that wanted to enslave the Atlanteans. If Edward didn’t want Yuhle to hear what he had to say, then it really was bad news.
Edward went on. “I’ve picked up some chatter on a military channel in your area. Looks like General Meade’s goon squad is closing in on you.”
Otto looked all around him, squinting against the harsh southwestern light, hoping to catch a glimpse of a faraway helicopter or vehicle. He saw nothing.
“We got clear of the city without being tailed, I’m sure of it,” Vivian said.
“Did you check her for a tracking device?” Edward asked.
“Of course.”
Vivian had run a device that looked like an airport security wand up and down Dr. Yamazaki after she had gotten into the car back in Albuquerque.
“Check her again. Visually. General Meade’s Poseidon Project has access to all the latest technology. He might have something that resists the detector.”
“All right,” Vivian said, nervously looking around as Otto had. “How much time do we have?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been able to break their code yet. I only know that they’re in your area and active.”
Vivian sprinted back to the car. Otto hurried to follow.
She yanked open the back door and hauled Dr. Yamazaki out.
“Hey!” the female scientist protested.
“You have a tracking device on you. Know anything about that?” Vivian demanded.
Dr. Yuhle got out of the car. “A tracking device? Nonsense.”
“Stay out of this,” Vivian snapped. Otto was taken aback. Normally she was all sugar and spice. Right then, though, she looked as if she wanted to tear someone’s head off. He had to remind himself that the woman was a mercenary, and from the hints she’d dropped, she had once been an assassin.
Dr. Yamazaki was wearing a man’s trench coat over a cheap old dress and even cheaper shoes. She had claimed that she had taken the wallet from one of her dying saviors and bought some clothes at Goodwill to replace her hospital robe. That part of her story certainly appeared to be true.
Vivian tore off the trench coat and handed it to Otto.
“Take a good look at this, inside and out. I’m going to take her over behind that mesquite tree and check out the rest of her. No peeking, boys.”
“I’m not trying to trap you,” Dr. Yamazaki protested.
“She’d never do that,” Yuhle said, trying to get between them.
“Hey, Yuhle,” Otto said. “We got company coming soon. Take the binoculars in the glove compartment, get on top of the car, and take a look around.”
Yuhle turned pale. He looked at his old boss as Vivian hustled her away, he hesitated, and then he ran for the car.
Otto nodded. Yuhle didn’t always think straight, but he seemed to appreciate how much danger they were all in. He’d been part of General Meade’s Poseidon Project and knew better than any of them how determined and ruthless that man could be.
Otto turned his attention to the trench coat, not really sure what he was searching for. What did a tracking device look like, anyway? First he rummaged through the pockets and found them all empty. He felt along the lining of the coat as he’d once seen in a gangster movie but didn’t find any suspicious lumps.
Yuhle clambered up onto the roof of the car, the thin metal groaning in protest, and scanned the horizon.
“See anything?” Otto asked.
“Not yet,” Yuhle said, slowly turning a full one hundred eighty degrees. When he moved to face Vivian, who was giving a loudly protesting Dr. Yamazaki a strip search behind the mesquite tree, Yuhle practically jumped in the air and turned away.
“No, I didn’t see anything. Nothing at all, got that?” Yuhle said, turning red from something other than the desert heat.
“Ah…right,” Otto said and went back to searching the trench coat.
He patted it, turned it inside out, then inside in, and still didn’t find anything.
A minute later, he found it by pure chance. As he was turning the trench coat over, his hand passed over something that didn’t feel like fabric. A small circular area the size of his thumbnail felt smooth, like plastic. He held it up to the light and squinted.
He saw a patch of clear plastic that contained a tiny spiderweb of circuits and wires. Even staring straight at it, he could barely make it out. If he hadn’t accidentally touched it, he wouldn’t have spotted it in a million years.
“I found it!” he called out.
Vivian came running. A moment later, Dr. Yamazaki emerged from behind the tree, buttoning up her dress.
Vivian studied the little patch, then peeled it off, dropped it in the gritty soil, and ground it back and forth with her shoe.
“That ought to wreck it,” she said.
Everyone turned to Dr. Yamazaki, who stood uncertainly in the road.
“Care to explain this?” Vivian demanded.
Dr. Yamazaki’s eyes went wide.
“I-I didn’t know! They must have put it on me.”
“When?”
“How should I know? Maybe in the motel last night, maybe in the diner this morning.”
Yuhle cut in. “It was on the back of her coat. That’s where I’d put it if I was planting one on her. If I was planting it on myself, I’d hide it inside a sleeve or something.”
Otto looked back and forth between them, not sure who to believe.
Vivian pulled the automatic pistol from the holster at her belt and pointed it at Dr. Yamazaki.
“Whoa, wait a minute!” Otto shouted.
Vivian ignored him. “Care to tell us who sent you to trap us?”
Dr. Yamazaki stood there, trembling, unable to speak.
Otto put himself between the two women.
“Look, everyone. Calm down. Vi
vian, please point that somewhere else. If they were going to attack us, they would have done so already.”
Vivian shook her head. “They would hang back and follow us to our base to get the entire Atlantis Allegiance.”
Otto thought for a moment. “Okay, that makes sense, but now that you’ve broken that thing…”
Yuhle put his binoculars back up to his eyes and scanned the horizon.
“Dust cloud on the road behind us!”
He spun forward and paused a moment.
“And ahead!”
Vivian sprinted to the car, popped the trunk, and grabbed a large duffel bag that Otto knew was filled with guns.
“Everyone in the car!” Otto shouted. “We can have this argument later. We need to survive the next ten minutes first!”
The Atlantis Gene is now available everywhere
