Those who attended the wedding left with a far different opinion of the relationship of the newlyweds than what they would have expected after reading such articles and hearing such commentary. Will’s associates were amazing by Hope’s enchanting personality, describing her as possessing a maturity far beyond her limited years. Those who’d known Hope, who had felt genuine concern that she might be marrying too young, that she was perhaps too enthralled at the idea of the wealth and influence that would come with marrying the billionaire bachelor, left convinced that the pair was destined to be together.
Not a single attendee left doubting the genuine love the couple shared.
The reception was one of simple elegance, with quiet music performed by local musicians. The meal was prepared and served by a local caterer named Emily Adams. As enthralled as the guests were with the food, they were far more entranced by Emily’s eleven-year-old daughter. Gena, a raven-haired, green-eyed beauty, flitted between tables, taking orders, refilling non-alcoholic drinks, and chatting up the guests. Her smile and laugh were infectious; there was never a doubt as to which table enjoyed Gena’s presence at any given time.
“You’d think she was far older than eleven,” one guest remarked.
“She’s just an old soul,” another commented.
Cain Freeman smiled at those words.
After Will Stark had purchased Nanoscience, he’d asked Cain Freeman to review the security at Stark’s other enterprises. Cain had done just that, and in the process had given Will a set of core philosophies in designing security for any building or technical system. Those lessons had guided Will in the design of his new home and security for the surrounding neighborhood. Cain’s work had earned him an invitation to the Starks’ wedding and reception.
Cain glanced at Gena once more, relieved that she wouldn’t be able to recognize him in his disguise, pleased that she’d grown into the healthy and happy young lady charming the crowds this night. He could only hope that she’d live a long and fulfilling life, and he’d do his best to ensure she did just that. The only thing he could conceive of that would prevent him from protecting her would be a conflict with his work with the Project 2030 team. The complete alteration of all of human history took priority even over his promise to Will Stark to protect the sister he’d never known existed.
Thankfully, there was no indication in any of their materials and guidance from the future that Gena Adams would be involved in those events in any way.
●●●
2022 A.D.
Hope used her sleeve to mop the sweat from her brow. A stray bead trickled down her neck, and she swatted it away as if it were a fly crawling on her skin. The warmth in the underground cavern she’d excavated seemed more intense this day. She looked at the expanse, breathing deeply of the air pouring into her through the scuba equipment strapped to her back. There was limited air here, trickling in through several small tunnels she’d bored through the ground at angles designed to terminate in the woods, passages which brought the occasional small woodland creature along with the faint oxygen. The bunker was still thirty yards beneath the foundation of her house, though, and the air was pungent at best and inadequate at worst, and she took no chances.
The battery powered floodlights showed the rough edges of the rock she’d blasted away, using her hands and human excavation equipment. Though she’d routinely coated the ever-growing space with the scutarium-laced nanoparticles delivered by her Alliance peers, she was leery of using more Energy in this space than necessary. There was a risk of Energy leakage and detection with each teleportation hop back and forth between the bunker and the house. That Energy expenditure couldn’t be avoided, though.
She swung the ax, and a chunk of stone and root and soil fell free from the patch of earth before her. Her Energy surrounded the debris, transporting it neatly into a burlap sack lying at her feet. Hope moved to the center of the cleared space, where a pair of measuring devices showed the dimensions of the artificial cavern. The nanokit sitting off to the side needed minimum clearances to unwrap itself into the room she’d live in for months just a few years into the future, and she wanted to ensure she’d cleared enough debris.
Based upon the readings, she’d achieved that goal.
With a smile of triumph upon her dirt-covered face, she seized the burlap sack and teleported back to the house, a common routine for her since the house became home. After seeing Will off to work, she’d spend time clearing space for the underground bunker. She had nowhere to stand for the first week, needing instead to extend her senses to the darkened space and teleport raw material into her home until she had the room needed to maneuver. She’d added the scuba gear after the first visit underground, and continued to wear it even after excavating the air tunnels. She’d brought the battery-powered floodlights with her as soon as she had room to stand in her underground lair. The lights freed her from using Energy to see where she needed to remove the dirt. The lights also revealed a great number of wriggly life forms she’d just as soon not see, and she’d taken to wearing thick layers of clothing to cover every inch of her body. The disgusted shivers didn’t end, though, even now, when the creepers had learned to stay away.
Hope threw the sack over her shoulder and marched out her back door, veering to her right. She headed into the forest, moving about fifty yards in before she stopped. After spilling the contents of the sack on the ground, she dropped to her hands and knees and spread the below-ground dirt over the above-ground soil. She suspected the new soil was more nutrient-rich than that which she covered, and as such her transplantation efforts were beneficial to the surrounding ecosystems. Her absentminded Energy sharing with the surrounding flora and fauna, even at very low levels, would help as well.
With the new topsoil spread in the forest surrounding her home, Hope moved back inside the Energy-shielded walls and teleported back into the underground bunker. The measurements made it clear: she had the space to activate the nanokit, and she was eager to watch it operate.
The package she’d received was about the size of a large lunch box. She’d been quite skeptical about so small a box becoming such a large room, but her Alliance friends assured her the kit would indeed turn into a prefabricated bunker she’d be living in for two months in less than a decade. Hope located the trigger device from the top, which included a fingerprint scanner—paper thin—and a microphone used to give the verbal activation order to the kit. Hope slid her finger across the thin surface and spoke into the microphone.
“Activate.”
The box disintegrated in her hands.
Hope jumped back, startled. Had she broken it? She sighed. If the kit was ruined, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to get another. Still, she’d excavated this space; she could bring building materials and tools down here in the same manner. What type of materials would work? Pressure treated lumber? Stone? Concrete? Would she need to hang drywall atop her base material, and if so, what would she do with the dust?
She was still thinking about building the bunker’s interior by hand when she felt herself lift several inches off the ground. Frowning, she looked down at her feet… and gasped.
Her feet were no longer resting upon the dirt and rock, but upon a clean, manufactured surface. As Hope watched, the panel she stood upon stretched out, reaching for the moist, earthen walls of the excavated space. The nanoparticle surface crawled up the walls she’d cleared, hiding from view the dirt and rock and crawling insects and furry rodents she’d seen during her clearing efforts. The particles finished climbing up the walls, then raced across the “ceiling” until they met in the middle, above the spot where she now stood, leaving her in total darkness.
The entire process had taken less than ten minutes.
Hope glanced around. She’d been so mesmerized while watching the nanoparticle room form around her, she’d paid scant attention to the fact that her spotlights had been pushed along by the swarm and left outside the walls. A quick bit of clairvoyant work located
both lights, and she teleported them back inside the room. The new lighting revealed a Spartan surface, clean and white, with a handful of markings on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room. The markings proved to be notations identifying entry and egress points for ventilation, air filtration, electrical and telecommunication feeds, water and sewage pipes, and even a slot for a satellite or cable television feed. The team had recognized that this was a temporary solution; her longest stay here would occur only after the house above was destroyed, after she’d be presumed dead, and after all utility feeds would be shut down. Reports had reached her of an Alliance research project to use a remote control and a viewscreen to tunnel through underground deposits of dirt and rock. They’d be able to use the technology within the next few years to hook her bunker into a disguised Alliance couple’s utility systems, ensuring the livability of the bunker when her need—and her son’s need—was at its peak.
The specialized mobile phone she carried buzzed. That surprised her; typically, the phone didn’t work this far underground. The phone was set to receive calls through Alliance satellite signals in addition to the standard human cell towers. Routing both signals to the same device meant she could take a call in public from someone in the Cavern without raising suspicion. Such calls would only ring, connect, and remain connected if Hope held the phone. They’d tied the activation of those features to her Energy signal, with sensors so powerful it took only a trickle of Energy—comparable to what she might leak even when Shielded—to activate the features.
The phone had a self-destruct feature as well. Efforts to access the call logs or reverse engineer the phone’s design by opening the case would trigger a small amount of acid that would destroy the custom circuitry and render the phone, in the words of the engineers who’d designed the feature, “human.” The phone would continue to send and receive calls and Internet signals using her public carrier, but she’d feel isolated nonetheless.
Hope read the text message from Michael. He’d be there in the next twenty minutes with additional equipment for the bunker. She’d need to let him into the house to ensure no alarms were set off, for he wanted to avoid teleporting inside unless absolutely necessary.
He didn’t need help bypassing the neighborhood security, however.
Hope teleported back into the basement, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, went into her bathroom to take a quick shower. Though she knew Michael wouldn’t care, she didn’t want a guest in her home while she was covered in dirt and grime, wearing filthy clothes, and undoubtedly emitting curious odors supplied by the underground terrain. She used Energy to instantly dry her hair and skin, donned a pair of jeans and a simple blouse, and then walked outside. She could feel the warmth of the single-person aircraft before Michael deactivated the invisibility feature, revealing a sleek sphere hovering a few feet above her lawn. An instant later, Michael stood before her.
Michael grinned. “Hello, Shadow.”
Hope chuckled at his use of her Cavern pseudonym, one adopted to minimize the population who knew her current name. “It’s good to see you, Michael.” She leaned over to look at the craft behind him. “You mentioned you would come bearing gifts?”
Michael nodded. He moved to the craft and maneuvered his hands, and Hope watched as he detached invisibility-enabled tarps from the side of the craft. The tarps had been used to cover several pieces of equipment affixed to the walls with a bonding agent that released moments later. “These will keep the bunker livable for as long as you require, outside consumables. They won’t produce food out of the ground surrounding you.” He paused, and then grinned. “Well, not yet. We do have another seven years to work on that.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Hope replied. “I’m happy to stock the bunker with supplies, furniture, …”
“Actually…” Michael paused. “There are a few self-assembling kits in the batch of equipment I’ve brought with me. Sofas, beds, chairs, tables, desks… They’re all labeled, so you can generate the room layout you want.”
Hope looked impressed. “Really?”
He nodded. “We’re constantly setting up new safe houses around the world, and don’t want to generate attention from something even as basic as buying a sofa and hauling it away from a store. It’s best that we float in unseen with inconspicuous boxes that could fit in a coat pocket, and allow those boxes to become the furnishings we require.”
Small enough to fit in a coat pocket? Of course, she’d just seen a room the size of an apartment generated from a box with the apparent mass of a lunch box. Furniture kits the size of a deck of cards suddenly seemed a perfectly reasonable concept. “Thanks, Michael.”
He nodded his head once in acknowledgement.
It took them three trips to carry everything indoors. Once they finished, Michael gave her a quick fraternal hug, and then set off toward Pleasanton in his invisible flying craft, back to monitoring Young Will in a manner he’d never suspected in his human life.
The nanoparticle room now guaranteed complete Energy shielding, and Hope wasted no time transporting the supplies to the bunker. The machinery had small, robotic wheels attached to the bottom, and moved without any guidance to the correct spots in the floor and walls, leaving the majority of the living space unoccupied.
Over the upcoming months and years, she’d spend time reinforcing the center section, which would serve as an elevator to lift her and her yet-to-be-born son back out into the world following the fire that would destroy the building above her. There would be time to install the hydraulics that would generate the force needed to raise that portion of the bunker to the surface. She’d have time to excavate and reinforce the elevator tower between bunker and house; she wasn’t certain they could push the concrete car through nearly one hundred feet of dirt and rock without a tunnel of some sort. She’d also have time to install the explosive device that would incinerate the future contents of the room and trigger the nanoparticles comprising the room’s walls, floor, and ceiling to disassemble, erasing all evidence that this space ever existed. There would be time to spend connecting the machines Michael had delivered to the relevant utility services, and time to stock the supplies required to live in comfort during the time she and her son would spend here in the winter months of early 2030.
At the moment, though, she had to prepare for the board meeting for the charitable foundation she led.
Hope teleported back to her home and spent fifteen minutes ensuring there was no sign she’d been spending the morning engaged in hard labor. She fixed her hair, changed into a business suit, and finally settled into her private office on the first floor of the house. The office enabled her to participate in video conference calls with board members for the Stark Foundation, which she and Will had established to teach business and entrepreneurship skills in communities throughout the world. The board meeting was largely a formality. There weren’t many critical decisions to make, save for which cities they’d visit next with their low-cost, high value workshops. Given the lead times for appropriate venues, they needed to give their event coordinators at least one year’s notice to ensure facility availability, book advertising, and contract with vendors needed to provide support and produce supplies for the workshops. The calls served another purpose. One of the board members was Ashley Farmer, a woman forty years her senior, and the woman who had sold Nanoscience to Will several years earlier. Through their work with the Foundation, Hope and Ashley became friends in the eyes of the general public. When the Starks announced that they were taking applications from those who might be interested in purchasing one of the four available lots inside De Gray Estates, the relationship the two women developed ensured that the Farmers were among the first to apply for residence.
With the conference call completed, Hope terminated the connection, waited five minutes, and then activated the Alliance-supplied computer tablet used for the ongoing Project 2030 status calls. They’d all performed well in their human roles, and despite the visible aging and publi
c crankiness, Hope saw the exhilaration in their faces during these brief conversations. They were truly enjoying the public work they were doing, not just playing their parts, but fully living them. In performing those roles, they’d built businesses in the human world that provided thousands of jobs, immeasurably improving the lives of those they employed.
Adam reported that he’d continued to build trust with Young Will, who’d proved to be an excellent pupil as well as a supportive employer. Will needed to be comfortable enough with Adam—or Cain, as Will knew him—to give Adam access to the family’s Trust operations after the fire and their supposed deaths. With that access, Adam would be positioned to transfer the money into accounts that could be used by Hope personally and the Alliance collectively. Ashley, who provided day-to-day management of Nanoscience even after selling ownership control to Will, reported that her human researchers had made impressive strides in nanotechnology, surpassing the advances made by the Alliance researchers over a comparable time frame. Those discoveries had been shared with Alliance researchers, who had used the advances made by David Richardson and his team to produce the self-assembling kits Hope had seen in operation just hours earlier. Judith reported that she’d received a phone call from Hope Stark the day before, informing her that her application to move into De Gray Estates had been accepted. Everyone applauded, and Hope chuckled, joking that Will had needed to talk her into accepting “that crazy motivational speaker guy,” a comment which drew loud laughter from Peter. As the laughter subsided, Judith added that that she and Peter would be meeting with an architect soon to develop house plans. They’d return to the Cavern first to refresh the mental images of their home as shown in Will’s memories to ensure their estate matched the historical record.
Preserving Will Page 15
