They walked out of the elevator into yet another hallway. Several hundred feel down, they stopped at a door with a plain sign: 432.
"Your quarters, Dr. Seven," the Commander said, nodding to the door. "Your door lock combination is the last six digits of your social security number and can be changed at your terminal online anytime you like."
Then Blake looked back at Seven with a tight lipped smile. "Have a nice evening," he said in his deep monotone.
Seven looked embarrassed, then replied, "Yeah, you too," as Blake walked away down the long hall. He paused at the doorway and considered the combination lock before him. He squinted his eyes trying to separate the last six digits of his Social Security Number from the longer string, then hammered them in. "A six digit door combination, eh? Who are they expecting - the CIA?"
The latch sprung with a loud click and Seven turned the handle, swinging his door open wide. He entered the darkened apartment and felt along the wall for a switch. Finding a flat toggle, he pressed it and a dim hall light came on. He peered into the apartment before him and saw that it had all the appearances of a spacious suite, with the far wall apparently totally glass, covered by a sheer curtain. There was an open dining room - kitchen separated by a half-wall as well as a large living room. He walked through the rooms to the windows and pulled back the curtains with a sweep of his hand. The view below him drew his breath away.
Seven’s apartment was perched on the high wall of the immense cavern. His view commanded the whole of the expanse that ended hundreds of feet below in the great swirling lake and its awesome whirlpool at the convergence of the seven subterranean rivers. His residence appeared to hang from the cavern's curved ceiling which was still over a hundred feet above him. Below were more rows of dwellings, then the buildings constructed on the floor of the great cavern. The lights hanging suspended from the caverns great arched dome were apparently actively muted as artificial sunlight and would dim in the evening. He had seen this view from the center of the cavern, now he saw it from above and it was equally astonishing.
Seven opened the glass door and stepped out onto a small balcony. Walking slowly to the edge, he gripped its rail and peered over the side into the gaping, empty abyss that dropped away hundreds of feet below him. Turning, he looked up and saw the base of more structures attached to the ceiling of the great cave. The lights of the structures hanging from, and encircling, the ceiling were blended with the mist from the converging rivers as it rose in the air and created a sense of muted, glowing starlight in the distance, circling the vast ceiling. It was as though he were suspended in a city constructed and hung in space, surrounded overhead by a great whirlpool galaxy of lights.
Seven breathed in deeply, saturating his mind indelibly with the incredible image. He turned, leaving the door open, and pulled the sheer curtains so that he could see this view even from inside his apartment. He found another door, turned the handle, and stepped inside flipping the light switch.
The bedroom was only half as large as his living room, but still quite spacious. On the far wall was a wide window that apparently led outside to another balcony looking over the view. On the bed lay his battered, but dry, suitcase that had apparently been retrieved from the wreckage of his Suzuki, and beside it laid his clothes, laundered and neatly folded.
As was his practice each day after work, Seven slid out of his clothes and lay naked on his bed to stretch his body and relax. This was his daily meditative rite of passage - from a life owned by someone else into the life he commanded. It lasted but a few minutes, but it was a vital part of maintaining his psyche.
Seven lay there and stretched each leg and arm muscle individually, then worked his abdominals, back and glutes. His body was trim and lean, very low in body fat, and muscular. While he did not have the shape of a competition bodybuilder, he did have well defined sets of muscles from his legs, to his six-pack stomach and hunky shoulders. He was well built, athletic and worked very hard to ward off the encroachments of age and the silent ravages of inactivity.
Seven rose out of bed, found his well worn onionskin running shorts and slid into them. He then walked over to his balcony, opened the curtains and slid back the door, walking out to savor the view once more. He stood at the side of the railing, and as he looked over the side, a voice came from behind him.
"Incredible, isn't it?"
Seven turned his head around to see Serea standing just behind him, smiling, her arms folded as though she were cold.
Startled, he turned around fully to face her.
"So, the last six digits combination is no secret, I see," he said with no trace of a smile.
"Well, I can leave, if that would make you happy."
Then he smiled in spite of himself. "No, please don't," he said truthfully.
"I have something for you," she said, ducking back inside for a few seconds. When she reappeared she held two small shot glasses in her hands, extending one to him. "I thought you might need this after today."
"What is it?"
"Drambuie, silly."
"I don't drink," he replied, not taking the glass.
"Liar," she replied, still offering the glass. "If I'm not mistaken, your personal contribution to this industry keeps the Scottish economy afloat."
He smiled, took the glass from her hand and upended it.
"Showoff," she replied, taking a small sip from hers. "That’s not the way you usually drink Drambuie."
"How do you know that?" he asked sincerely.
"Two reasons. One: the way you squinted your eyes after swallowing, and two: your liquor bill is much too modest for that style of drinking."
"…another, please," he responded in a raspy voice, holding his glass out to her with a smile.
She reached back inside the apartment and pulled out a large bottle.
"Sit," he said, pointing to a chair on the balcony. With embedded and practiced manners, he waited until she was seated, then sat in another chair beside her.
Serea poured another drink and handed it to Seven. He was suddenly arrested again by her surprising beauty. She was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and white jogging shoes and a white silk blouse flowed sensuously over her well defined breasts and shoulders. Her hair fell in a neat, slightly curled row over her delicate, laughing eyes that pierced right through him. As he sat there, he realized he was staring, and looked away. When he looked back, she winked at him and smiled that knowing smile that only beautiful women can deliver with such devastating effectiveness.
Slightly embarrassed, he shook his head and admitted truthfully, "Sorry for being distracted, but I’m always quite taken by your uncommon beauty."
"What a line," she responded flatly and immediately. "But it’s a good line and I confess I actually like to hear it coming from you."
Seven sat back in his chair and looked out over the view before him. "Tell me something, Serea,” he began, slowly taking a sip from his glass. Then he looked at her with stern determination and pointedly asked, "How do you know so much about my liquor bill?"
Serea smiled broadly. "In point of fact, I'm happy you asked me that. I’ve been feeling very guilty lately."
"Oh yeah? How so?"
"You see, I could either be called your favorite fan or your most dedicated voyeur."
"Oh?"
"You were actually going to toss her through the window today, weren't you?" she asked frankly.
"Who? Karen?" Seven responded with fake innocence. Then he laughed under his breath and looked at her intently. "How did you know what I was thinking?"
"It didn't take a genius, really," she responded. "I saw your eyes flash back and forth between her and the window. And, you do have some level of expertise at that specific solution to life's problems."
"Ouch," he responded, with only a trace of a smile.
"But the question that just hung in the air this morning was whether you would really do it. I mean, abusing another man who truly deserves a thrashing is one thing, but violen
ce against a woman doesn’t seem to be one of your major character flaws. So it was a mystery that I can tell we savored together for that single, dangerous moment."
"How do you know so much about my character?" he asked with an edge to his voice, leaning forward on his elbow in the chair and turning to face her.
"You’re one of the… no, you are …the most interesting individual I have ever known," Serea confessed, staring back at him with the same level of intensity that he directed toward her.
"But you don't know me," he responded with a hidden angst mixed with puzzlement.
"Maybe,” Serea said softly. “If that were so, then it would make you the most interesting individual I have ever studied. But, you see, Aaron, I do know you. I’ve studied you although I haven’t interacted with you directly."
"Why did you study me? How?" Seven inquired with a building curiosity tinged with defensiveness.
"Because our boss directed me to. He needed to find out whether you were the appropriate candidate for this assignment. It is, after all, one of the most important in all of history."
"And what did you find as you studied me from afar? Did you sift through my garbage?" Seven snapped at the intrusion into his privacy.
Ignoring his anger, Serea replied almost in a whisper, "I found a man of unusual intelligence, a very sincere man of deeply held values and one of many contradictions."
"Such as?"
"Such as struggling with the deepest desire to toss your ex-fiancée through a window, even though you were battling with the memories of what you once felt for her and even though you would never actually touch a woman in anger."
Seven just stared back at her with surprise.
"But, even if you had actually started across the table to toss her, it wouldn't have worked."
"Why not?"
"For one thing, the windows are made of bullet proof polycarbonate. She would’ve bounced off it like a rag doll. Second: I was ready to make the intercept.” With that confession, Serea turned to face him directly. "You would’ve had to go through me."
"Let me guess," Seven responded sarcastically, biting his bottom lip in imaginative thought. "About this time the Commander would’ve somehow gotten involved in the fracas."
"Exactly," she agreed with an impish smirk. "Imagine it, the four of us wrestling about on the table top. Not exactly a world class introduction to the top minds of the century."
"Speaking of the Commander, what's up with you and him?" Seven asked.
Serea smiled broadly. "Long story. He’s been around for a very long time. Since forever, actually. He watches over me and the boss."
"Does he know you’re here, right now?" Seven asked honestly.
"Are you still alive?"
Seven laughed again. "It seems Dr. Bossman watches over you like a daughter."
"An appropriate task, I'd say, under the circumstances," Serea replied cryptically, obviously looking directly at Seven to carefully gauge his response.
" You are? I had absolutely no idea Raylond had a daughter…"
"I was conceived in a laboratory, to be most honest," she confessed with a straight face.
Seven stared back at her incredulously.
"Well, aren't you going to ask, ‘REALLY?’" she said, obviously enjoying his reactions.
"Really?" he complied, looking back at her, amazed.
"Yes, really," she responded with a mischievous smile and sparkle in her eyes. "You see my father's academic advisor for his second PhD carried the dreaded double X chromosome. Well, long story short - he was struggling in the laboratory late at night and making no headway on his thesis. So she agreed to come in to help him get over the hump. Well, one thing led to another and…."
"You were conceived in a laboratory…" Seven finished.
"Yes," she giggled. "Apparently under the mass spectrometer."
"And Raylond told you this?"
"No, actually my mother did," Serea responded, obviously enjoying Seven's reaction. “She confessed to helping Father over the hump, and, well, here I am!”
Seven sighed deeply and leaned far back in his chair. He thought for just a moment, and then burst into loud laughter. "The old dog!" he said through bouts of laughter. Wiping tears from his eyes, he looked back to Serea who smiled at him, enjoying his laughter. "Oh, I'm sorry. Not at your expense, of course," he said, calming himself. He apparently got control, looked back into her beautiful eyes then burst into laughter once more. This time, she joined him.
After the mirth subsided, they became quiet.
"So tell me, Serea, how did you manage to study me so closely?" Seven suddenly asked. "How could you get to know me so well from a distance?"
"Have you ever heard of Echelon and Carnivore?" she asked.
"Of course. Secret government and international Internet spy programs."
"They’re very advanced," she responded. "More so than you can guess and covering far more than just the Internet. These systems keep records on every electronic transaction and even telephone calls made in the world today."
"But that's not legal," Seven replied sternly.
"Not in the United States . But it’s quite legal elsewhere. U.S. dollars sent abroad pay for the system we can’t legally run in the US . In the end, it’s an insatiable world market. Dollars for data. Simple."
"And you tracked me through Echelon and Carnivore?"
"Yes. Your every electronic deed, voice, message, mail and transaction ended up on my desk every day within minutes of the act."
"How did you get authorized for that task?" Seven asked, his voice betraying a significant, growing impatience.
"Bossman gets anything he wants instantly. He’s become the most powerful man in the world. Under the circumstances, I think you can see why."
"What did you find out?" Seven asked with some anger seeping into his voice.
Serea responded evenly, pointing to his waist. "Those onionskin running shorts - International Male online catalogue. $19.97 on sale. You paid for it with your Visa - last four digits 9797. Delivered by FEDEX Ground to your apartment. Want a run down on your liquor bill, your food bill or your prescription medications? I tracked your car with GPS - I know every mile you traveled, where you went, how long you visited and when you returned. I have transcripts on every word of every telephone conversation."
Seven stood in anger. "Why?" he demanded.
"I already told you," she replied, remaining in her seat. "The world and everybody in it had to know. Some answers must be greater than the questions ever were."
"And just who else was in on this little snoop job?" Seven demanded, now visibly angry.
"Just me, Aaron," she said softly. "Please sit down."
Seven sat down, but still looked at her with resentment lining his face.
"It was only me, just me, Aaron. No one else saw them. Someone had to do it, and I wouldn’t allow anyone else in on the task. Not even the snoops that delivered the records to me. I wouldn’t even allow my father to see them. And he respected that. The moment I determined the outcome, I told him that we needed to call you in without delay. He trusted me to make that judgment on my own. It was totally my decision and none of his own."
"What outcome?" Seven demanded. "What outcome did you judge from tracing my every private heartbeat? Which shred of personal information drew for you the final conclusion in your mind?"
Serea reached over and took his hand in hers. He softened and allowed her to hold his fingers. Long minutes of silence followed her touch as he calmed visibly. Then she looked him in the eyes and said softly, “I discovered the most intelligent man I have ever known. I discovered a man of delightful, mysterious complexities, emotions and contradictions. I discovered a tangled web of insecurities, confidences, pride, anger and compassion that should never go together in one man, but they do. In truth, after awhile, the more I looked at them the more I struggled with myself. Then one day, I awoke and discovered that my fascination with Aaron Seven was deeper and far mo
re complicated than I had ever imagined or intended."
8
Luci awoke in the darkness with a muffled cry. A nightmare had stirred her from sleep again, as they had for so many recent nights. She lay very still in the darkness, her heart pounding with a dread she did not fully understand. If she made too much noise, she might give away her secret hiding place. After one recent nightmare, she awoke to hear her own scream echoing off the dark walls of her concrete cocoon. As she lay still, she could hear nothing except the drip, drip, drip of a leaking sewer pipe.
Cautiously she touched the end of a small LED flashlight hung around her neck and pointed it to her Cinderella watch. Soon it would be time to go back out onto the streets and search for another meal. Maybe she would be lucky today, her stomach ached with hunger and she could feel herself growing weaker.
This evening, as on many other evenings, Luci wanted to remain in her little cocoon, wrapped in her dirty blankets and just sleep some more. She was growing so tired that if she wanted to, she could sleep forever. As she considered this option, of trying to ignore the pain of her hunger and just sleep on forever, she sat up with a start.
She could not stay here. As secure as it was, this place was too frightening. She could not close her eyes and bear another nightmare. But for reasons she could not fully understand, she feared most the sleep that never ends. There was a tiny fire that remained lit deep inside her. Almost like life's pilot light, it would not let her give up.
Luci rose and slid her torn and ragged tennis shoes onto her bare feet. They were still cold and wet from the day before. She stood up to leave her concrete cocoon, and then remembered the magazine photo she had found. It was the picture of a woman that looked much like the image she carried in her mind of her mother. She swung the beam of her little flashlight back into her hideout, snatched the remnant of the photo and shoved it deep into her pocket. Then, almost as an afterthought, she withdrew it again, slowly, and looked at the woman's smiling face. As she did so, she remembered waking from her bed on days quite unlike this one – mornings of warmth, of light, of food, of hugs and of much love.
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 6
