Joe had just an instant to feel a flush of confused alarm before the first shot blew through the center of his chest, exiting beside his spine and carrying a fist-sized chunk of meat with it.
He took one more faltering step forward and his knee unlocked, sending him crashing onto his face on the hard, cool, rough asphalt, forcing a sudden, deep groan from his lungs.
The bald man took two swift steps to where the body lay crumpled, aimed the gun and fired five more shots into it, deliberately piercing both lungs and, probably, stabbing one straight through the heart. For the final shot he took a moment to lean slightly down, holding the barrel of the gun no more than two feet from the back of Joe’s head, before he squeezed the trigger.
Without hesitation he dropped to one knee and quickly searched the corpse, extracting the set of keys, the wallet, even pausing to remove the watch. He had already searched the man’s car and stripped it of anything that might cause the least connection to be made to his employer.
This would look like nothing more than another random robbery gone terribly wrong.
He straightened, took a moment to scan the body, verified that it was now little more than a large slab of meat, then moved away across the parking lot toward where his own vehicle was waiting.
Mentally he noted that another source of potential security weakness had been closed off. This link in the chain had been broken. Only a very few more, and any possibility of tracking any bit of the project back to his employer would be utterly impossible.
The remaining steps until the experiment was ready to be activated, at least as far as he understood the security aspects of it, now rested mostly in the hands of whatever counterparts to himself his employer had established at the other end of the transit line, somewhere inside Russia. Most likely former Spetsnaz, he thought once again, former Red Army Special Forces soldiers. There were certainly enough of those available for private hire, he knew. In fact, that entire country had become little more than a nation of mercenaries, available to anyone at the right price.
Then he centered his thoughts back on what remained for him to do. Not too many steps left now, he realized. It had mostly been accomplished, at least on this end. After that, his main task would be to supply personal security to his employer until the event had been accomplished, and after that…. Well, that was in other hands than his.
Just as he settled into his own vehicle he did a quick calculation. One hour to reach the engineer’s workshop, a few minutes to gather the plans, then off to the other airport where his chartered plane was awaiting him, ready to take off at a minute’s notice. He would be able to touch down by midnight and be back at the bunker by the small hours of the morning.
He pulled out of the space and maneuvered his way around the lot. As he cruised toward the exit he caught sight of the body, laying sprawled just behind the man’s car. He heard a faint voice, and his eyes snapped up to the rear-view mirror. A pair of dark shadows were wavering in the dim glow of the overhead lamps. Men, running this way. Good, he thought.
He snapped on his turn signal, paused to allow himself to look both ways down the long, utterly deserted stretch of open highway, then eased onto it. Just like any other good, law abiding citizen, he told himself.
He allowed himself a half smile at the thought, and pushed on the gas pedal.
At that same moment, on the other side of the planet, the foreman watched as the last section of thick, heavy plastic sheets was dropped into place atop the wide metal framing that had been sunk and anchored deep into the marshy, sodden ground, creating a totally flat, smooth surface that stretched out, encompassing an area slightly larger than a soccer field. At the very center was a circular section where the swamp beneath remained open to the air above.
It would take another hour or so for the teams of laborers to sweep, mop and clean the entire sprawling surface. Then they could begin unloading the sections of light, but remarkably strong, silver material that would be placed around the edges of the newly available flat surface and then connected carefully, each section zipped to the next. By the end of the day they would begin installing the pumps and hooking them to the thick power cables that ran just below the surface of the marsh, all the way from the underground nuclear generating station a hundred yards away.
The foreman had briefly wondered, when he’d first been told about this hidden source of limitless energy, what it was doing out here in the middle of nowhere in the first place, but as a former non-commissioned officer with the Red Army, he knew better than to ask for explanations.
There was a special small team already working to get the radioactive monstrosity up and running, and he’d overheard them complaining to one another about the sheer age of the thing. It had to be thirty years old, left in the ground and abandoned for some unknown reason, though the presence of the vast expanse of blackened trees for miles in every direction was clearly not making them feel at all comfortable with this job. Still, the foreman knew they would bite back any uneasiness and complete their work without complaint. After all, they were being paid a stunning amount of money for this project, enough to seal their mouths and let them soothe any pangs of conscience with thoughts of what they would do with this sudden wealth.
By tomorrow the dome would be inflated and shortly thereafter they could expect the delivery of the central device, which would have to be mounted and raised to the top of the enclosed space. Once it was hooked to the power source and a good supply of energy was confirmed, it would be more or less done. After that the almost one hundred workers, pulled from villages and small towns hundreds of miles away, would be loaded back into the tracked vehicles which had served as both transport and rough living accommodations during the construction, and carried back to the distant railroad tracks where the special train would be waiting.
They would board it with a sense of accomplishment and visions of new wealth awaiting them as it pulled away toward the west, leaving this forgotten place behind.
The train wouldn’t blow itself to pieces until it was well away, having changed trackage at least twice so the line could not be traced back to anywhere near this place. Another tragic accident on the admittedly poorly maintained railroad system of the sprawling, economically struggling country. There would be no survivors, of that the foreman was certain. His skill with explosives was almost as good as his expertise with an AK-47.
And after that, he considered, he would join the dozen other former Special Forces soldiers to form the security detail for the site, until…. well, he told himself, whatever it was supposed to do, happened. And once that was accomplished, their own task would be finished. Of course he was well aware that he himself might be facing the same fate as the nameless, expendable groups of laborers whose deaths where already programmed into his own private work schedule, but he was a professional at what he did. He would have his own means of blocking and repelling any potential attack, should his mysterious employer attempt to guarantee his ultimate silence through his untimely death. He wasn’t enough of a fool to think that he, of all those pulled secretly into this project, would be thought worthy to survive. If the scientists even now working hurriedly to get the reactor running were already marked down for death, he had no reason to think he would receive greater consideration.
But he had his own transportation standing by, hidden out of sight not far from this place, a small, single-man tracked vehicle with an impressive range. And he had insisted he receive his payment up front. The moment it had arrived in his foreign bank account, he’d had it transferred. And then transferred again. And again. It was now so deeply buried in the network of electronic records of cash that truly ran the world’s economies, that only he would ever be able to locate and access it.
He had, he told himself, thought of everything. Whatever this project was, he would definitely survive it as a very wealthy man. Vaguely, he considered once again if there might be some way to access the initial payments made to all these workers and the scientists, and somehow route it
to his own account. But he dismissed the thought. That would make him nothing more than greedy, and he wasn’t that. He was a patriot, at least in his own way, he assured himself. But then, he thought idly, there was no reason that patriotism couldn’t be well rewarded.
He saw the dozens of workers standing idly around at various places on the thick, suspended plastic surface, and reached to raise the whistle to his lips. No time to waste gawking at their work, he thought. Still a lot to do.
9
Gravity
Crawford closed the door and crossed the office to the plush leather chair facing the desk behind which Senator Marcos currently stood.
“Sit down, bring me up to speed,” Marcos said.
At least he didn’t waste a lot of time with glad-handing, Crawford thought. But he was still a politician and they were always a problem.
Crawford settled into the seat and opened the leather folder to regard the first page of notes inside, as Marcos took his own chair and leaned back, propping his elbow on the arm, his chin on his delicately placed fingers and his expression of what he thought resembled sage wisdom.
Crawford sighed, glanced at his notes and began.
“We’ve begun developing the intel on that meteor trajectory alteration.”
“The what?” Marcos interrupted, his expression turning suddenly confused.
Crawford hesitated, inwardly doing a quick count to ten, then looked up at the other man.
“The bumping of the little space rocks?” he said, flatly.
Marcos’ eyes flared a moment, but slid quickly back to cool attention.
“Right. Go on,” he said briskly.
Crawford glanced back down to his notes.
“Well,” he said with a faint sigh, “We’ve determined the following. Thirty-five years ago, in the Bilyarsk region of Russia, there was a detonation of unknown origin. That released an unknown stream of energy that happened to be directed at the asteroid belt, where it altered the gravitational field and caused the displacement of a number of pieces of debris, putting them on new courses.
“That detonation was the result of a secret Russian experiment headed by one Alexander Karillan, something to do with multidimensional phasing.”
“What’s that?” Marcos cut in sharply.
“I have no idea, Senator, I do not possess a PhD in Physics. However, whatever it was intended to do, it resulted in the complete destruction of the facility and the death of everyone at the site, Dr. Karillan included.”
He flipped a page of notes.
“Now someone, we believe a Dr. Walter Montgomery, is attempting to recreate those original experiments. We believe he intends to conduct them as soon as he can construct- “
“Wait a second,” Marcos interrupted, “Some other egghead is going to try whatever it is again?”
Crawford nodded.
“Yes sir. In the near future.”
Marcos swung his legs to the floor and leaned over the desk.
“You mean to tell me,” he said in his best stern-teacher-to-unruly-student tone, “That some idiot brainiac is going to try and do again what knocked a bunch of asteroids out of orbit before? Is he stupid? Or just crazy?”
Crawford paused a moment before responding.
“I have no data about his mental condition, sir. In fact, I have no data on a Dr. Walter Montgomery at all.”
Marcos stared at him.
“Nothing?”
Crawford shook his head.
“Credit card receipts?” Marcos goaded, “Birth certificate? Something?”
Crawford regarded him expressionlessly.
“Sir, it’s obviously an alias. We’re currently running whereabouts checks on every individual in the world known to be doing this kind of research, cross-matching it against known incident locations, washing all of their phone records. It will take some time.”
“Well, pick up the pace,” Marcos snapped, annoyed. “We can’t have some idiot mad scientist out there firing off whatever the Hell this thing is supposed to be without proper clearance. My God, there’s an election coming up soon.”
Crawford gave a slow nod.
“I understand that, sir. But there’s more.”
Marcos leaned back in his chair, seeming to deflate slightly.
“What else?”
“Dr. Marvin Henry, of the Deep Look project, the one who originally discovered the orbital anomalies, recently got in touch with a Dr. Vernon Jenkins who is working on similar research. Dr. Jenkins told Dr. Henry, who made the connection between the asteroid deflection and the Russian experiment thirty-five years ago. But he also reported that he’d been working, through long distance communications, with Montgomery and assisting on the recreation of the original experiment.”
“Fine,” Marcos snapped, “Pick him up. Grill his ass. Find out what’s going on.”
“We would do that, sir, but it seems Dr. Jenkins has disappeared.”
“He’s what?”
“He told Dr. Henry he was going to get in touch with Montgomery and recommend they suspend any further work until they could check out that everything was correct. Apparently he did that. The following day he caught a plane to Montana.”
Marcos’ eyes closed down to predatory slits.
“Montana? What’s in Montana?”
“We don’t know, sir. Presumably, Dr. Montgomery.”
“So can you pick him up?”
Crawford shook his head.
“Montana is quite large, Senator. It’ll take some time to locate him.”
“And in the meanwhile?”
“We continue to develop the data.”
Marcos stared back at him, then seemed to sag in his chair.
“You never bring me anything but bad news, Crawford, you know that?”
Crawford favored him with a tight smile as he closed the folder and rose from the seat.
“That’s the job, Senator. That’s why we’re here. Good day, sir.”
He turned and moved briskly to the door.
He had been on the verge of flipping the page in the folder to reveal and discuss what was written on the final sheet, but after the other man had made that mad-scientist crack, he decided this moron would never know about what had been uncovered in Los Angeles. That there was a genuine Class Five anomaly living in that city. Perhaps the first in human history. In a way, the culmination of everything science had been working towards for thousands of years, before there ever was such a thing as serious science.
He had even been prepared to finally enlighten the dumb bastard politician on the broad strokes of what he was slowly assembling, using the massive appropriations this very same bonehead had approved the last time Crawford had sat in that chair.
A single unified facility to control and, hopefully, exploit as many of the new radical circumstances beginning to crop up as a result of man's bounding progress as possible.
There would be all kinds of new dangers to face in the time ahead, he knew, all falling into five basic categories.
The Class Ones would be all those immediate threats brought on by the cutting edge of current scientific capability. New man-made diseases, new toxic materials that could be weaponized. New electronic capacities that could be perverted. All those things that mankind, in its endless race to overreach its own grasp, might accidentally or deliberately turn up and want to play with before it understood them. The new particle accelerator at CERN had a file here, along with a considerable number of other highly sensitive scientific researches. It was this class where the most resources would be focused, as these represented the most viable possibilities of something nasty to be dealt with some time in the future.
The Class Twos took that same attitude toward the environment and nature. Not only was global warming rooted firmly in Class Two, so were the famines in Africa, the increase in tropical storms, and even the recent rash of tectonic plate movements. Also in this class were those little return slaps by Mother Nature herself, the West Nile virus, the v
arious Bird Flus, even HIV. While some resources would be directed at these problems, the focus would be more on coordination of effort to solve them rather than protect against them. Humanity had already screwed up sufficiently for that opportunity to no longer be viable.
Class Three began to become a bit esoteric. Here were all the wilder speculations, culled from the furthest reaches of man’s most disturbing imagination. Homicidal intelligent computers, invasion by space aliens, that sort of thing. It was here that the current asteroid problem was making its home, the first open case of the class.
Class Four reached even further afield, and was what he had been referring to during his last visit to the Senator as the Kiss Your Ass Goodbye file. This was everything that might happen so far beyond mankind’s ability to cope with, let alone solve, that the best he could hope to do is recognize them before they blotted him into extinction. A black hole streaking through the solar system, a supernova erupting within the “you’re dead” radius of the Sun, spewing enough radiation to cook the planet to a cinder. All the Doomsday scenarios rested in this Class.
And then there was Class Five.
This was the class reserved for humans themselves. This was the repository for that both longed-for and dreaded outside possibility – the next evolutionary step in mankind itself. Sudden abilities popping up out of nowhere. Their origins wouldn’t matter. Whether they were the byproduct of something in Class One, or Class Two, even Class Three, they would represent nothing less than a leap forward for the entire species. Whether cobbled together in some laboratory, or accidentally bitten by a radioactive insect, what mattered was the human. What it caused him to be able to do, however fantastic. It would be Crawford’s job to find the cause, assess the danger and decide on next steps. And for the very first time, he now had a case for Class Five.
But there was no way in Hell he would tell this political asshole about it now. Let him stay ignorant and blissful. It was no more than he deserved.
Crawford grasped the knob and turned back to favor Marcos with a smug smile as he opened the door, passed through and shut it behind him.
Class Fives: Origins Page 21
