by Bob Mayer
Steven was to her right rear as they entered the tunnel and the flashlight on his rifle shot a powerful beam of light directly ahead.
“Why no lights down here?” Steven asked as they walked.
“In a little bit even the best night vision goggles won’t have enough ambient light to function. So an intruder would need some kind of illumination, whether it’s a flashlight or infrared. I’ve got sensors all along here to pick any up any electromagnetic emission. Also motion sensors. This is the only way in or out.”
They came to a three-way intersection and Leahy turned right. Ten meters and a two-way intersection. She turned left. Every ten meters there was another split in the tunnel, with either two or three choices. This continued for almost two hundred meters.
“Is this a maze?” Steven asked. “We’ve been through some of the same tunnels twice.”
“Yes,” Leahy said. “Initially, as you saw, we had a choice of eight. Then the choices continue. If you take a wrong turn you go into a dead end tunnel, but somewhere along in every dead end, the floor is only one layer of brick with a thirty foot drop onto upright stakes.”
“Did someone learn that the easy way or the hard way?” Steven asked.
“It’s the way my grandfather designed the place.”
An old wooden door appeared in Steven’s beam. Leahy held up a hand. She tapped a code into her wristpad. “I just deactivated poison gas canisters.”
She used a different skeleton key on the lock. This one made some noise as it turned. The door grudgingly opened. Leahy reached inside and flipped a switch. There was a crackling noise, then tubular phosphorescent lights flickered with a green tinted glow.
“This was Tesla’s secret lab,” Leahy said. “You’re the only other person to see it since it was sealed in 1935, other than Mister and Mrs. Parrish, and me.”
They walked in. The lab was twenty meters long by ten wide. Several work benches crowded with instruments, pieces and parts, crowded the space. The lights were placed randomly about the lab, some lying on the floor, others leaning against the wall.
“These are original Tesla bulbs?” Steven asked.
“Of course,” Leahy said.
“Amazing. No wires.”
“The power is all around us,” Leahy said.
“That was your grandfather’s dream,” Steven said. “Wireless transmission of power.”
“One of his dreams,” Leahy said. “You saw the end result of another of his dreams in the control center. He made that weapon. Fired it in 1908.”
“It was impressive,” Steven allowed.
“What’s interesting to me,” Leahy said as she walked around one table, “is that people often don’t think to ask the obvious questions.”
“Such as?” Steven asked.
Leahy stopped in front of a two-foot high equilateral pyramid resting on a table. The surface was smooth black. “My grandfather shot down a Swarm scout ship in 1908 using the tower above us. Just as we just destroyed the talon. Yet—“ she waited.
“How did he know the scout ship was coming and how did he target it?” Steven asked.
This earned him a smile from Leahy. “Exactly.” She pointed at the pyramid.
“Is that an Airlia computer?” Steven asked. “A guardian?”
“It’s based on one.”
Steven was surprised. “But aren’t they all linked? If it was here, then didn’t the Airlia know about it? Was Tesla a Guide?” He was referring to humans who’d been mentally corrupted by touching a guardian computer, the way members of Majestic-12 had been.
“No,” Leahy said. “He was a Watcher. Like Mister and Mrs. Parrish. From the line of Merlin. This—“ she indicated the pyramid—“was built by my grandfather. After he saw the master guardian.”
Steven’s weapon was hanging by the sling as he looked at the pyramid. “Where did he see the master guardian? How?”
“He went to Mount Ararat,” Leahy said. “Into the mothership.”
“But how could he make a copy? Wouldn’t he have had to make contact with the guardian? And doesn’t that corrupt you?”
“I don’t know how he did it,” Leahy said. “But he wasn’t corrupted and he made this.”
Steven stepped up to the table, staring at the artifact. “Is it inactive? I thought they were golden?”
“The Airlia ones are,” Leahy said. “Except the master. It was red.” She indicated the pyramid. “You can touch it. It’s shut down.”
Steven shook his head. “No thanks.”
“You know we have to relocate,” Leahy said.
“Yes. The government will be here soon. They must have tracked the Tesla cannon firing. Not just the US, either.”
“I’m sure there are police surrounding the grounds,” Leahy said. She pointed to the far end of the lab. “There’s a tunnel. It leads off the grounds where I have a van waiting. We take that to the airport where there will be a plane. But you know all that, correct?”
Steven nodded. “What about the people upstairs?”
“You’re asking me? Isn’t that your department?”
“I apologize,” Steven said. “That was rude. Yes, it’s my responsibility. I was concerned you might try to stop me.”
“Could I?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I know Mrs. Parrish. The Strategy. The people in the lab are dead, one way or the other, aren’t they? If you don’t do it, someone else will.”
“Yes.” He pulled up the sleeve on his black shirt, revealing a wristpad. “The Strategy determined they are collateral damage. As in North Carolina, their bodies will make people believe the trail ends here.”
“And the Tesla cannon?”
Steven frowned. “Collateral damage. It’s not needed any more according to my instructions.
“Remember what I said about people not asking the obvious questions?”
Steven turned toward her, belatedly lifting his rifle. He didn’t finish the move as current surged up from floor, arcing into a receptor on the ceiling, completing the circuit.
Leahy removed her foot from the trigger.
He was dead before he hit the floor.
Leahy knelt next to the body. “The question you should have asked was why I was showing you this most sacred of places and telling you things you didn’t have a need to know. I believe your order was to also kill me. If not now, soon. Mrs. Parrish allows no one to know too much. Her pride won’t allow her to accept others might not only know as much as she does, but more. Her goals are noble but misguided.” Leahy frowned, realizing she was talking to a smoking corpse. She peeled open his body armor and reached under his shirt. She grabbed the Myrddin medallion and pocketed it.
She rolled his body out of the way. Then pushed the table the Tesla computer was on into the same position. Hit the switch and current flowed into it. The dark surface glimmered and turned silver. Leahy put her hands on the surface and closed her eyes.
She entered Ethos, but in a manner in which the system wasn’t aware. That was relatively easy to do for the person who’d programmed this Myrddin version of the World Wide Web. She checked the latest actions, noting Mrs. Parrish’s orders to kill Under-Secretary Kaong and Kelly Reynolds. The seizure of Area 51. The progress on the Danse project to get into Vampyr’s vault. The Chosen in the Facility.
The order to Steven was to destroy Wardenclyffe and all personnel except herself and to kill her if her capture was imminent. Leahy had half-expected the order to be to kill regardless. So Mrs. Parrish still felt a need to keep her around. Leahy shifted from Mrs. Parrish’s orders to other pertinent data.
Leahy made a few adjustments, entering data. Then moved on.
Turcotte and the Fynbar were leaving the mothership, heading toward Colorado. That was a high probability in the Strategy. Nosferatu? Leahy shook her head at the order to the cell in Paris to kill both Nosferatu and Nekhbet. A mistake, even though the Strategy gave it a 56% advocacy rating.
Leahy believed Mrs. Parrish relied too much on data. I
f she ever told her boss that, Leahy knew Mrs. Parrish would be surprised since Leahy had helped design the Strategy.
Systems engineering. One of three PhDs Leahy had earned over the years in addition to material physics and computing. All three quite analytical. Science based. Logical.
Just like the Strategy.
Up to speed on what was developing, Leahy directed Ethos to tap into something that no one else was aware it was capable of doing: up-linking to an Airlia msat. The reason no one else could be aware was because her subroutine in Ethos was untouchable and no part was capable of doing it via any other mechanism than this Tesla computer.
Since the master guardian was gone, the uplink was of limited value, reaching only the net of small msats around the planet. They revealed nothing of interest and Leahy cut the connection.
Leahy then brought up the Strategy, not on a flexpad, but inside her head via the Tesla computer. While Edison had been an advocate of bench experimentation, trial and error, Leahy’s grandfather had worked out most of his inventions by thinking. Allowing his brain to study the problem, analyze options, and come up with the solution.
The Tesla computer required a human mind. A special one. One similar to the inventor’s.
What Leahy was ‘seeing’ in her mind’s view was the Strategy, but not the same as Mrs. Parrish’s. This was Leahy’s version, programmed slightly differently.
She examined nodes, paths, possibilities. All within a minute. Then shut down the Tesla computer. As the surface faded from silver to black, she removed her hands.
Leahy retrieved a hard plastic case mounted on wheels. Opening it revealed a pre-formed cushioned space designed to fit the pyramid. She put it in the case. Snapped it shut and then slid the case off the table and onto the floor.
She left the lab, leaving the lights on and smoke wafting from the corpse.
PRIVATE ISLAND, PUGET SOUND
“In 1935, after the German peace activist Carl von Ossietzky was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Hitler forbade any Germans from accepting, or having already been awarded, keeping, a Nobel Prize.” The Chemist spoke as he ran his hands over the door guarding the vault. His eyes were closed, as if he could feel into the metal.
“Interesting,” the lead Engineer replied, not really interested.
The Chemist looked at the attempt to drill through and tsk-tsked. “Crude.” He was tops in his field, chemistry, which didn’t necessarily mean he had much talent for human interaction. He stepped back from the vault door.
The Chemist continued. “As a physicist, there is an aspect of my story you will find interesting. When Germany invaded Denmark at the beginning of World War II, a chemist, De Hevsey, was worried about the Nobel Prizes that were stored in country for two German physicists who you must have studied: Max von Lau and James Franck.”
“Of course,” the Engineer replied, not bothering to explain that he’d learned his skills via a rough criminal enterprise ‘apprenticeship’, not in the classroom.
“De Hevsey,” the Chemist went on, “in order to protect the prizes from being taken by the Nazis came up with an ingenious way to hide them. He dissolved them in aqua regia, informally known as the royal water. A one to three ration of nitric and hydrochloric acid.”
That finally piqued the Engineer’s interest. “He dissolved them? What good did—“
“Bear with me,” the Chemist said. “De Hevsey stored the solution on a shelf in his lab, amongst many other flasks of acids. You can well imagine that soldiers searching the place would be loath to probe too deeply into containers of acid. The unschooled always fear the unknown.”
The unschooled Engineer didn’t think the schooled Chemist would last more than a minute or two on a bank job, but kept his thoughts to himself. His men were still bringing the equipment down through the mansion so listening to this guy babble, while irritating, wasn’t slowing things.
“After the war,” the Chemist continued, “De Hevsey precipitated the gold out of the acid.” He paused, glancing at the Engineer. “That means he reversed the dissolving process and extracted the exact same amount of gold. He sent it to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and they re-cast the statues. They were presented once more to the original winners, Laue and Franck. Amazing, isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“I know you think my story is boring,” the Chemist said, surprising the Engineer. “But there was a purpose to it.” He tapped the metal door. “This is very unusual, yes?”
The engineer nodded. “Harder than what I’m used to.”
“That’s because it’s not steel,” the Chemist said. “It’s platinum. Do you have any idea how much this door is worth?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Thieves steal catalytic convertors off cars for the tiny amount of platinum in them. Three to seven grams. Expensive jewelry is made from it. People invest in it.” He tapped the door. “Depending on how thick this is, we’re talking tens of millions of dollars. What could be beyond that’s worth more than the door?”
The very question the Engineer had been wondering since starting this job and seeing all the riches in the place on the way down to this vault. “When you get paid what we’re getting paid, part of the unspoken contract is you don’t ask that question.”
The Chemist shrugged. “Interesting.” The Chemist indicated for the engineer to follow him back down the short hall to the anteroom where the supplies where being staged. Large plastic drums marked with warning signs were the predominant material.
“Most metals have a layer of oxide on the surface,” the Chemist explained. “First, we will use the hydrofluoric acid to burn through that.” He stopped, waiting until two men slid a heavy barrel off a cart and then headed out, leaving them momentarily alone. “HF is very toxic. It absorbs through the skin and will eat your bones. Even if your men are suited and masked, it’s very dangerous.”
“Your bonus to get the job done is twenty million dollars,” the Engineer said, “and no one will ever know you were here. You need not worry about—“ he paused, trying to figure out how to explain to the scholar the realities of the situation, but the Chemist beat him to it.
“Collateral damage. Yes. Yes. I understand. I was told that flying here. Really, it’s the only way given the time constraints. So, the HF will be used first.” He pointed. “We’ll set a camera with speaker up there. Will the men question the orders?”
“No.”
The Chemist indicated other equipment. “We’re going to do things no one else has ever attempted.” A light danced in his eyes.
The Engineer realized he’d under-estimated the Chemist. He’d have been very good on a bank job.
EXITING THE KUIPER BELT
Via new portals bored through the hull before the Core reached the end of the Kuiper Belt, arrays of sensors and antenna had begun rising out of the interior. They became active on the surface of the Battle Core.
Besides the usual ‘noise’ in a solar system across the spectrum, something artificial was quickly noted. Radio and television signals.
The first radio transmission left Earth in the 1890s. Basic clicks and Morse code, emitted during experiments, including some by Tesla. The first voice transmission occurred in 1900. The first transatlantic radio signal, much more powerful, was made by Marconi in 1901.
Thus, these first transmissions at the turn of the 20th Century are now 110 light-years from Earth, expanding in all directions and in interstellar space. However, it is the ‘expanding in all directions’ part that keeps other Scale from picking up those signals and deciphering them. The inverse square law means that every signal, just like the small wave that comes when a rock drops in smooth water, starts to lose power as it spreads.
Thus while the first television signals are 74 light years out, they are essentially unwatchable and mostly undetectable against the normal background radiation of the cosmos. A small ripple upon an ocean full of massive waves.
But inside our solar system, closer to the source, it is different.
The Battle Core was several light-hours from Earth. Thus the Swarm was picking up Earth radio and television broadcasts from earlier this same day.
The first anomaly based on the Sentinel discovery, was that the broadcasts indicated the source was not Airlia. This confirmed the information on the Voyager plaque as the species images were the same as those in the upper right. It appeared this species had battled the Airlia and defeated them only recently. Very recently.
The reports indicated the disruption noted on the fourth planet was the result of a mothership being crashed into an Airlia FTL transmission array. This had been done before the Airlia could send a signal.
Once before a Battle Core had encountered such a situation. A world where humans had overthrown Airlia who were subjugating them. The planet had been slim pickings for the Swarm with the environment so damaged by the revolt, that the surviving humans were dying off before the Swarm arrived.
The Battle Core had, nevertheless, reaped the humans and whatever else it could scavenge.
The intercepted broadcasts showed that this planet wasn’t in such dire straits, although there were ongoing conflicts amongst the humans and evidence of recent nuclear detonations and warfare.
That was of some tactical significance, particularly the level of weaponry that would be faced. Nuclear weapons are powerful, tapping into the elemental forces, but they could only be built so large. None could be large enough to seriously damage the Core, although they could pose a problem for warships and scouts.
But the Swarm had many, many of all of those.
The key, though, was the source, which backed up the invitation on the plaque: the third planet was the target.
The Core was traveling at a high rate of speed, a third the speed of light. It was still decelerating. Objects ranging in size from microscopic to a large asteroid two miles wide, were hitting the bow shield. The smaller ones were obliterated. However, others, such as the asteroid, survived enough to impact the surface. Craters blossomed as they impacted. The collisions barely registered in the interior.
