Professor Fries kindly let me take my microwave circuits final early, so I could take off for GammaCon on Thursday. I had the truck packed and was ready to head up to Chattanooga when I got the text from Amit.
“Coffee with cream at the Varsity?”
Oh, no. “On my way,” I texted back.
Amit knows I always drink my coffee black. Early on, we’d realized we might need a way to warn each other over open channels. “Coffee with cream” was Amit’s way of telling me it was an absolute emergency. I ran to my truck and made sure my go-bag was accessible. The black backpack had basic tools, a couple of burner phones, change of clothes, cash, food, water bottle, first aid, survival gear – enough to get by for a couple of days nearly anywhere. I drove to the Varsity and was there in just under fifteen minutes.
Amit was in the Varsity’s glass-walled seating area over the parking lot with a beautiful view of the sun setting behind the Tech campus across the Interstate highway. The directional Wi-Fi antenna was artfully concealed in a backpack on the table beside him. “What is it?”
He pushed a frosted orange across the table. “You’ll need it. You remember Agent Wilson?” Of course I remembered the bastard – the Civic Circle’s direct action expert. The troubleshooter they sent in to figure out who to kill and how to do it. The man who killed my parents. “He was on a job in Austin, Texas, last night when he got the message,” Amit continued. “His team is on the way to Atlanta. They’re after Professor Chen and Professor Graf.”
I took a sip from the frosted orange. “They found out about the radiation maps?”
“I don’t think that’s it. Apparently, Professor Chen emailed an encrypted file to a contact in San Francisco. They couldn’t read the file, but the contact is a member of a ‘known terrorist group.’”
Known terrorist group? “But they’re not sending in the police or the FBI…”
“Exactly. I think your professor’s tied in with some kind of anti-Civic Circle group. Remember the tattoo you told me about? The one that matched the diagram in the MacGuffin manuscript?”
I hadn’t thought about it in months. “We have to get to him first. Why are they roping in Professor Graf?”
“They figure she’s working with him, somehow, after the way she stood up for him. After the ‘shirt storm,’ they’re both listed as subversive persons.”
Amit showed me the note he’d already sent to Uncle Rob. “URGENT! Technology Containment Team on way to detain Pete’s professors. Pete and I will attempt exfiltration of the professors to Robber Dell. Can you assist? Come here, soonest.”
Then, I read Uncle Rob’s answer: “Negative. Stand down. Exfiltrate yourselves on up here, soonest. Do not attempt rescue of those professors.”
“Maybe we can persuade him…” I began.
“There’s no time,” Amit insisted. “They’re on the way now. We have a couple of hours tops. Rob couldn’t get here, anyway, even if he wanted to. And he’s demanding we pull out, run home, and hide.”
Damn. It was Robb LeChevalier all over again. Uncle Rob insisting we step back and let the Circle have their way with someone. Except I knew these two someones, and really cared about…
Amit looked up from his laptop. “Pete...” he began.
“What is it?” I said softly.
“There’s something else you should know. It happened last week, apparently.” Amit spun his laptop around. On his screen was an obituary: “Local Engineer, Inventor, Succumbs to Cancer.”
Robb LeChevalier was dead.
Another life extinguished. Another creator destroyed. Another destiny altered. Another bright and shining future smothered at birth by the Circle’s quest for power. Next on their list was Professor Chen. They’d probably kill Professor Graf, too. How widely would the Circle’s devastation fall this time? The professors’ other colleagues? Their graduate students? Sarah? Professor Graf’s freshman lab assistant?
Can you perceive a Nexus directly? Sense first-hand the tipping points in the course of human events as you stand at the crossroads and weigh the alternatives? I may have been imagining things. Somehow, though, deep down, I felt the same way I did that awful night in the hotel room after my parents’ funeral. My thoughts raced. The possibilities and options swirled wildly around in my head and converged to a singular point.
No.
This will not stand. This will not happen. The Circle will not win. Not here. Not today. I will not stand by, do nothing, and let the Circle have their way. Again. I have the power to shape my own destiny, I realized. I can impose my will on events. I can save Professor Chen and – I could admit it to myself now – the woman I loved, Professor Graf.
Amit was looking at me, a puzzled expression on his face.
“I… I am going to save Professor Graf and Professor Chen,” I said, slowly.
“Your uncle?” Amit asked.
“I don’t care,” I said flatly. “He made his decision. Now, I’m making mine. Are you with me?”
A smile slowly formed on Amit’s face. “Hell, yes! Let screw those Circle bastards over so hard they turn inside out.”
I started to envision that gruesome topology applied to Agent Wilson before getting my thoughts back on track. “She’s already in Chattanooga at GammaCon. I’ll go there,” I explained. “I’ll find Professor Graf. I’ll have to persuade her to go into hiding… Dr. Krueger. He’d be willing to help us out. You’ll have to go to the physics building, find Professor Chen, and get him up to Chattanooga. Then, we’ll take them both on up to Dr. Krueger’s place in Knoxville.”
“Hello, Professor Chen,” Amit play-acted without dropping a beat. “You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of your freshman lab assistant. An evil conspiracy bent on your destruction follows in my wake, so will you please drop everything you’re doing, abandon your life, your career, and everything you own, and come with me into a new life as a fugitive?”
“Your persuasion needs some work,” I acknowledged, thoughtfully.
“I’m slick, Pete,” Amit asserted confidently, “but there’s no dialectic nor rhetoric possible that would let me persuade your professor. Not in the time we have left to us.”
“Chen is the key,” I noted. “If we can persuade Chen, he can persuade Graf.” I really wanted to go after Graf myself, but the logic was clear. “I’ll save Chen. I have the best chance with him. He’s their first target. They’ll have acted, and it will be obvious to him my warning was correct. He’ll help us persuade Graf. Then, I’ll help you save Graf.”
“You could use help,” Amit observed, “a lookout, a diversion, someone to help you hide the bodies.”
“I know,” I agreed. “But it’s just you and me, and Chattanooga is a long way away. You need to head up there now, so once I secure Chen, you’ll be ready to save Graf, without delay.” Why was it Amit always ended up with the girl? It wasn’t fair. “Improvise, adapt, overcome, drive on.”
Amit slowly nodded his agreement. “For once it would be nice not to have so much improvisation, though.”
We packed up and headed back to the dorm. “I’ll take your phone,” he offered. “I’ll leave both our phones in our room safe and snug in case anyone’s checking, and I’ll be sure to make a good alibi for us. We’ll be sleeping off our finals.”
We double checked burner phone numbers. “I’ll turn mine on once I have Chen secure,” I offered. “You turn yours on once you get to Chattanooga.” There wasn’t much more to say. Amit was right. We were both really winging it.
He pointed at my Firefly T-shirt with Adam Baldwin as the mercenary, Jayne, saying: “Time for some thrilling heroics!” Amit smiled. “I see you managed to dress for the occasion!”
“One more thing,” I said to Amit as we prepared to go our separate ways. “Thanks for being my friend.”
“It’s been a wild ride,” Amit acknowledged. “Whatever happens though, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” We shook hands deliberately, and parted.
Chapter 10: The Enem
y of My Enemy
The physics building seemed deserted, but I found Professor Chen in his office. “They’re after you,” I explained. “They’re on their way now to arrest you, or worse.” I was expecting him to ask me who “they” were. Instead, he surprised me.
“I see,” he said matter-of-factly as he shut down his laptop and began packing his bag. “I’ve been expecting this, but I thought I had more time. How do you know?”
“It’s a long story, and there’s no time to explain. I can take you somewhere safe,” I offered.
“Yes,” Dr. Chen agreed. “They will be looking for my car. Yours is safer. However, I already have a place I can go. Can you take me there?”
“Where?”
“Somewhere nearby,” he explained, vaguely.
“OK,” I agreed.
He yanked his hard drive out of his computer and finished packing his backpack. We headed out of his office.
“Bang!” I heard a crash and the tinkling of broken glass from the direction of the main entrance downstairs. It was too late. They were already here.
“The lab!” It was the only other secure room nearby I could open. I pulled Dr. Chen along the dark hall and he followed. “Quick!” I unlocked the door to the mirror lab and closed it behind us. Dr. Chen reached for the light switch. “No!” I said quietly, but insistently. I felt my way over to the vacuum chamber. “Come over here,” I said to him as I turned on the vacuum pump. I saw Dr. Chen groping his way over to me, illuminated by the glow of the LEDs on the instrumentation. The dome of the chamber stood four feet above the base. “Get in,” I ordered Dr. Chen.
“But the air…” he began to protest.
“It’s not actually sucking air out of the chamber,” I explained. “Get in quick, and make room, because I’m about to join you.”
Dr. Chen climbed in as I found the control for the hoist we used to lower the heavy dome into place. I saw the light in the hallway turn on through the crack under the door. I grabbed the control and climbed in after him, lowering the dome in place over the two of us and our backpacks. The sturdy cable for the hoist control made a narrow gap between the dome and the base. As I noted the air sucking in through the gap, I saw the light penetrate through the silvery film on the glass window. Someone was in the room! I could hear them even over the racket made by the vacuum pump.
“Clear!” shouted a hostile voice. I heard them moving around on the other side of a fraction of an inch of steel.
“Clank-clank!” I heard someone bang on the steel chamber.
“What’s this?” a voice asked.
“I don’t know,” another voice answered. “But there’s no way to get in.”
“Can you shut that damn noisy thing off?”
“Hell if I know. It might explode or something. Secure the computers, but never mess with the lab equipment. That’s the containment team’s job.”
The agents spent the better part of an hour rummaging through the lab while Dr. Chen and I crouched uncomfortably inside the chamber with our backpacks. What would have been… interesting… if only I’d been with Professor Graf was instead awkward and uncomfortable as hell. As usual, Amit gets the girl, and life isn’t fair. Finally, a voice said, “Chen’s gone.”
Someone else said something about “checkpoints,” “fugitive,” and “deadly force.” Within minutes, the room became quiet, except for the vacuum pump. Before long, the lights went out and I heard someone close the door. I wiped a tiny bit of the aluminum from the inside of the glass and peered out. The coast appeared clear. We waited another ten minutes before I used the control to make the hoist lift the dome.
We stumbled out and stretched our cramped muscles. We both had swaths of aluminum on our hands and clothes where we’d touched the inside of the vacuum chamber. We cleaned ourselves and our bags up as best we could, then donned rubber gloves from the lab supplies so we wouldn’t leave any additional fingerprints. I began to load an already coated mirror into the vacuum chamber. Dr. Chen gave me a puzzled look.
“We left marks and fingerprints all over the inside of the chamber,” I explained. If I re-run a mirror with extra aluminum, it should cover up the evidence. It will explain why the chamber was running, too. Would you wipe the aluminum off the cable to the hoist controls?” With Dr. Chen assisting, the work went quickly. The lab was pretty thoroughly ransacked, and we had to be careful to leave the mess the agents made alone, while cleaning ourselves up and leaving the chamber running for the Technology Containment Team to find.
Now, we needed to create a diversion. “Do you have a phone?” I asked Dr. Chen.
“Yes,” he replied, “but I turned it off. I think I will not be turning it on again.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” I advised, thoughtfully.
The Circle and their government and law enforcement allies could track and locate cell phones. At the very least, they knew which cell tower any given phone employed. That gave them a rough idea of the phone’s location. There’d been talk of a more precise location capability for 911 use, but that was a way off yet. I was betting their ability to locate Professor Chen’s phone wasn’t good enough yet for them to figure out what I was about to try.
Sarah had left a few of her high altitude balloons in the mirror lab. One, her backup rig, was already equipped with an insulated foam gondola – perfect! “Dr. Chen, your phone is going for a ride,” I explained. I gathered the supplies we needed into a spare garbage can. I saw she’d left her climbing bag, too – perfect! We had to hope no one would notice the missing cylinder or duffle bag.
We carefully opened the door to the lab, and stepped under the “Crime Scene – Do Not Cross” tape, and carried our load up the stairs. Dr. Chen used his master key to get us onto the roof. “Hey! Mind if I keep your master key?” He passed it over with a smile. We got the balloon inflated, turned on Dr. Chen’s phone, and watched it soar into the sky as the winds carried it in the general direction of the BellSouth tower just east of campus. They’d get some good tracks on his phone as it drifted east across Atlanta before rising out of range.
Then, I opened Sarah’s climbing bag and showed Professor Chen the ropes. His eyes got big. I assured him it was perfectly safe, or at least safer than trying to go out the front door. “We need to move fast, before someone notices us up here.” I got the professor and myself in harnesses. Then, I doubled up the rope, looping it around a railing that seemed secure. The figure-eight rappelling devices were designed to work off a single rope, so they’d be particularly slow with the double-rope configuration I was using. Slow was fine for a novice at rappelling like Professor Chen. I coached him, clipped him in, and then went down first, so I could belay him from the ground. By pulling on the rope, putting tension on it from the ground, I could slow or stop him from sliding down. Once he scrambled over the edge, though, he did fine without needing my help. We ended up nicely concealed behind some shrubs along the side of the building. With the rope looped around the anchor point on the roof, all I had to do was pull one end to retrieve the rope. It made a satisfying thump on the ground as the loose end fell beside us.
Dr. Chen eyed me suspiciously as I packed up the harnesses and coiled up the rope. “You’re no baizuo. Who are you? Albert Shun?”
Albert Shun? “What do you mean?” I asked. “I’m Peter Burdell.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Dr. Chen insisted. “You hide us in the vacuum chamber, you send my phone flying off by balloon, and now you get me down from the roof. You are too good at this to be just a student.
“The rappelling? I picked that up in Boy Scouts. The rest? Let’s just say this isn’t my first rodeo,” I replied. He looked confused. “I’ve run into these people before,” I explained.
Dr. Chen looked at me. “I have some friends you need to meet,” he said, pulling out a pen and a card from his pocket. “If we get separated for any reason, go to the restaurant at this street number – note I transposed those digits in case this card is found. It’s on Peacht
ree Road. You will need to ask for my uncle, Mr. Hung.”
I took his card and agreed. “I’ll be back in a few minutes with my truck,” I assured him.
I left Dr. Chen in his hiding place with my go-bag while I jogged back to the Varsity for my truck. My truck was packed. It was going to be tricky to make room for Professor Chen. I might have to dump out some stuff and abandon it at the Varsity. There was no time to mourn my lost possessions, though. Campus police were everywhere. I passed a couple of cops guarding the entrance to the physics building. Good thing we didn’t try to go out that way! I saw even more officers entering the physics building as they continued their search, but at least Dr. Chen was outside their initial search perimeter. For now. I had to hurry before they discovered the helium cylinder on the roof or decided to take a closer look around the outside perimeter of the building.
I was jogging along Atlantic Avenue when I saw a Chevy sedan parked just off the street with a familiar face. Marcus? What was he doing here? He looked the other way as I approached, studiously ignoring me. I knocked on his window. He looked and rolled it down. “What brings you here?” I asked him.
“I got nothing to say to you,” he insisted. “Why don’t you…” I caught him staring at T-shirt. His eyes got big. This had to be Amit’s doing – calling out the Friends of George to lend a hand.
“Can a Friend of George P. get some help?” I asked.
He looked skeptical. “A friend of who?” He was still inspecting my T-shirt.
A Rambling Wreck: Book 2 of The Hidden Truth Page 24
