Jake nodded. “I hadn’t taken any of this as seriously as I should have, I guess. But too late to play Clark Kent, now. The cat’s out of the bag.”
He reached into his belt and produced a device smaller than the palm of her hand.
“What is that?” she asked.
“A signaling device. One of Scott’s many inventions. You know, Egghead Man?”
She smiled and nodded.
Jake flipped it open. “Works like a cell phone, but with a lot more range. You just flip it open and it automatically connects with the comm-link in my wristband. You get in trouble, Scott and I can be there mighty quick. You can talk directly, or you can text.” He handed it to her.
“What if I just want to say hi?”
“All things considered,” Jake said, “I’d rather you didn’t.”
She nodded. “I guess I understand. I am sorry.”
“Me too.”
Jake’s wristband beeped, and Scott’s voice came through the audio field developing around him. “Captain. You there?”
“Yes, I’m here.” The wrist band had been damaged, but was now once again working. Scott had said there were nanobots implanted in it which could repair damage, and do so fairly quickly.
“I have secured the package,” Scott said. “Meet me at the designated location.”
“Understood.”
“Is everything okay at your end?”
Jake nodded, looking into Mandy’s eyes, wishing he saw something there that he did not. “As good as it’s going to get.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tompkins and Kincaid led the way onto the campus. They had discarded their suit jackets in favor of flack vests, and each gripped a pistol with both hands, safety off. They were followed by ten men dressed in full SWAT regalia. Flack vests, helmets, and carrying M16’s.
They passed college students walking with book bags strapped to their backs, some of the kids with ear buds in place. Some were walking alone, others in groups, but all jumped out of their way with expressions ranging from shock to outrage as Tompkins and his group of agents charged by.
“Remember,” he called back to them. “If you see Calder, shoot to kill. No warnings. Simply fire.”
Kincaid added, “Don’t give him time to power-up. If he gets that time, and all he needs is a couple of seconds, we’re all dead.”
At the door to the science building, Tompkins and Kincaid each took the opposite side of the door, then with his gun ready, Tompkins pushed through the door, Kincaid behind him, followed by the rest of the agents.
They decided to forgo the elevator and took the stairs. Tompkins waved his ID badge in front of the hidden sensor and the door unlocked. Then, he leaped into the room to stand feet wide apart, gun gripped tightly in both hands, aiming at..,
Nothing. The room was empty. The tables were gone. The chairs. The various cabinets containing equipment Tempest used in his experiments. The dry erase board he sometimes used to scribble out equations. Even the coffee maker.
Kincaid came in behind him, followed by the SWAT team.
“They’re gone,” Kincaid said.
“Search the grounds,” Tompkins barked at the SWAT men. “Search their quarters. And the girl. Search her dorm. Question anyone who knows her.”
The men began dispersing, to carry out their orders.
Tompkins lowered his pistol and looked around the room in awe. “How could they move that much equipment so quickly?”
“Calder is very strong when he powers-up, sir, and can move quickly.”
“But where could they have put it all?”
“We’ll find it.”
Tompkins strolled to an open door and looked into the tiny room that had served as Tempest’s office. It was as deserted as the lab. Only bare tiles where the desk and chairs had been. Even the poster of the pointy-eared guy on the wall was gone. It was probably the first thing that freak removed.
“We’ll find it, sir,” Kincaid said. “We’ll find it all.”
Tompkins holstered his gun and said with resignation, “No, Kincaid, I somehow don’t think we will.”
Jake had folded up his blue and aqua battle suit and stashed it in a suit case, in favor of a t-shirt and jeans. And a new jean jacket to replace the one the D.T.D. agents had torn up with bullets. He was behind the wheel of a black Jeep Liberty, cruising along Highway Twenty-four. Beside him was Scott, no longer in his battle suit, either. Instead, he was wearing a white turtleneck shirt and khakis. However, they still each wore a wristband.
Sitting in the back seat was April. She was kneeling on the transmission hump on the floor and leaning forward, resting an elbow on each front seat, sharing the view out the wind shield. Her hair was tied back in its ever-present ponytail, and she wore a comfy U of M sweatshirt and jeans. She also now wore a wristband.
They had left Kansas behind miles ago, and were now in the foothills of Colorado. They had passed through a day of flat grasslands that opened up for miles on either side of the road. The grasslands had been replaced by low green hills, and those were now giving way to higher, forested mountains. Pine trees, standing tall and straight as arrows, covered ridges and mountainsides,.
Ahead, on the right, was a mountain taller than the others. Behind it was one with a snowy peak.
“There,” Scott said, indicating the one before the snowy peak. “That’s going to be our new home.”
“Up there?” April asked.
“Jake, how long do you think it would take to hollow out a space toward the top that was, say, the size of the lab we had back in Boston, with maybe some room for quarters for each of us? And a large hangar deck?”
Jake shrugged. “If I powered up enough, not too long. Minutes, maybe.”
Scott nodded. “That’s what I thought. I’ve been scouting out this area for months, hacking into various surveillance satellites. I’ve charted out exactly where to strike when hollowing out the mountain, so you won’t bring it down on top of us.”
“What are we going to use to reinforce the ceilings?” Jake drove with one hand on the wheel, his gaze drifting from the road to the mountain beyond.
“Construction companies are always discarding steel beams and such. It shouldn’t take long for us to find what we need.”
Jake nodded. “And a power source for all of your crap?”
“I have that worked out, too.”
April said, “So, where is all of that stuff?”
“Safely tucked away.” Scott looked over to Jake, who grinned.
She said, “Come on, guys. I’m part of the team now, you said. No more secrets.”
“That’s right,” Jake said. “Tompkins proved just knowing us puts you in as much danger as knowing everything we’re up to.”
Scott said, “It’s all in a cave, in a neighboring alternate universe. The one immediately neighboring us, actually.”
She said, “An alternate universe? Really? How did you get it there?”
“You can thank Kimberly Stratton for that, and her idea for an interdimensional teleporter. Of course, no one but Jake and I knew my teleporter was more than merely theoretical, but was up and fully functioning. I had already discovered the existence of the alternate universe. And a few others, in fact. All I had to do was tweak the existing teleporter a bit, and voila.”
Jake said, “It’s all tucked away in a cave in what would be Arizona on our world.”
She said, “Aren’t you afraid someone living there will find it?”
Scott shook his head. “Humans in that world are still in a very primitive state. I’m not sure just exactly what happened over there, but it appears their world had another ice age, and the glaciers are only now receding. Asians are just beginning to cross the land mass of the Bering Straight into Alaska. It’ll be some time before they make their way south to Arizona.
“It does bear studying, however. Why two Earths, in bordering parallel universes, should be so similar and yet so different. But it can wait until we’re fully s
et up for business.”
“This is going to be so cool,” April said. “We’re really going to explore the universe, aren’t we?”
Scott nodded. “There are thousands, maybe millions of discoveries out there waiting for us to stumble onto them. And we’re going to seek them out.”
“How about money? How are we going to pay for materials?”
“I’m filthy rich. Something else the good Secretary in Washington knew nothing about.”
“I didn’t either,” Jake said. “The nutty professor, here, has been selling patents under a false name. Been doing it for years. As well as banking most of the cash the D.T.D. sent him.”
“I have nearly half a billion in off-shore accounts. It should be enough, combined with discarded materials we can pirate, to furnish all we need. I was playing dumb to the guys in Washington, accepting their funding while I was stockpiling a private fortune. I knew this day would come and I wanted to make sure we were fully prepared.”
“You know what we need,” April said, “is a name for our organization.”
“Well,” Scott glanced at Jake, who couldn’t help but smile. Jake found April’s leaps of whimsy amusing. “I don’t know that I would call it an organization. There are only three of us.”
“Then, how about the Meta Three? No, even better...the Genesis Three. Sounds kind of cool, doesn’t it?”
Jake said, “Sounds like the title of a bad movie.”
She punched him in the shoulder.
There was a sudden beeping from Jake’s jacket pocket. He glanced to Scott, suddenly serious. “The signaling device I gave Mandy.”
He pulled it from his pocket and flipped it open. There was text message on the small screen. CAPTAIN. I’M PREGNANT. ITS YOURS. AS IF I HAD TIME FOR THIS NOW. CALL ME.
Jake drew a long breath. “Gang,” he said. “I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.”
PART THREE
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
A jetliner pushed its way through the sky. It had left LaGuardia behind, and was bound for Logan.
One of the passengers was a man like any other. His name was Rick Wilson. Not the kind of name that would stand alone in a phone book. His hair was sort of a light brown, almost sandy but not quite, and his face was plain. Not unattractive, but not one that would make a girl look twice. He was of average height, and average build. All in all, quite average.
He wore a blue collared cotton shirt and jeans, and sat in Row 12, Seat C, of Delta flight 324, headed for Boston. In his hands was a magazine. Newsweek. Full of ordinary things an ordinary man would read about. Politics, news events, sports.
One of the passengers was a man like no other. His hair was jet black, and fell to his shoulders. A long, Roman nose decorated his face. He wore jeans, as did Rick Wilson, but on his feet were sandals. His shirt was of a Chinese design, held together with braided toggles, its tails hanging loose, and which rose to a Mandarin collar about his neck. He answered to the name Quentin Jeffries, not a name that would ever fail to stand out on the page of a phone book. He sat in Row 12, seat D. In his hands was a book on Buddhist meditative breathing.
The seat immediately to his right, Seat E, was empty at the moment. Thirty minutes earlier, Quentin had been required to get to his feet to let the holder of that seat, Chuck Burroughs, slide past him and Rick on his way to the restroom.
The three were traveling together, seeking the same destination in Boston.
And the three of them were unlike most humans, in that each of them had an unusual ability, something setting them apart. For instance, Chuck Burroughs had the ability to generate coldness, but he was vulnerable to his own cold. In other words, he could drop the room into a deep freeze with little more than a thought, but he would freeze himself in the process. And Rick and Quentin had similar problems.
They hoped to find help in Boston. Or rather, they hoped to find someone who could steer them to the one person who could help them.
Quentin glanced at his watch, and said, in a gentle British accent, “Chuck has been gone a while. How long does it take a man to do his business?”
With a nod of his head, Rick indicated the other side of the aisle, three rows ahead. “See that empty seat there? Remember the girl who was sitting there?”
Quentin raised a brow at him. He had little patience for clever jumps in the topic of conversation.
Rick continued anyway. “She got up and headed to the restroom just a minute after Chuck did. And I don’t see her down the aisle, waiting.”
Quentin let out a long sigh. “Just what are you getting at?”
“She and Chuck were flirting back at the airport, and were tossing smiles back and forth ever since we took to the air.”
“The poor girl can’t be held accountable for her taste.”
“Well, I think Chuck is busy joining the mile-high club.”
Quentin rolled his eyes. “My God. The ice man cometh.”
“Hey, at least one of us is having a good day.”
With a disbelieving shake of his head, Quentin returned to his book.
A man in the seat ahead of Rick suddenly stood, pulling an automatic pistol, and holding it in the air for all to see. “Don’t anybody move!”
“Good God,” Quentin said with annoyance, looking up from his book. “What now?”
The man aimed the pistol directly at him. “Don’t move, longhair! Don’t say a word!”
A stewardess hurried down the aisle at the sound of commotion, but then stopped suddenly when she saw the gun. “Who are you?” she said. “How’d you get that on board?”
“We’re going to turn this plane around,” the man said, ignoring her question.
Rick rose to his feet, and the man aimed the gun directly at him, the end of the barrel not three feet from Rick’s face.
“Don’t try to be a hero!” the man shouted at him, “Or you’ll be a dead one!”
Quentin said, bored, “Will you just take the gun from him and get it over with?”
The man glanced to him questioningly. “What are you..?”
Rick’s hand suddenly darted forward, a blur of motion, and the gun was snatched from the man’s hand. Rick said, “I don’t think you’re going to be hurting anybody.”
The man stood, stunned, his empty hand held before him. “How did...how did you..?”
“I’ve always had fast hands. Now, sit down.”
Another man shouted from behind them, near the back of the plane. “Don’t anybody move!”
Rick turned to see him also holding a gun. The man he had just disarmed said, “You didn’t think I was alone, did you?”
Quentin said, “I’m not going to get any reading done at all, am I?”
He flicked one finger upward by a mere inch. The man holding the gun found his gunhand suddenly arcing upward, and the gun smacking him in the face. He was knocked into the wall at the back of the plane.
The first gunman was standing, staring.
“Telekinesis,” Quentin said. “Fun thing to have at parties. Now, why don’t you turn around and sit down?”
He made a spinning motion with his finger, and the man found himself twirling around, and was slammed down into his seat.
Rick charged down the aisle, moving with speed the fastest Olympic sprinter could only dream about, creating a breeze that ruffled the hair of passengers, and he pulled the pistol from the second gunman’s hand. He then handed both pistols to the stewardess, and the passengers of Flight 324 to Boston began applauding.
“Call ahead,” he said, “and have the police waiting for these two. My friend and I will keep them under wraps until we land.”
Rick returned to his seat. Quentin had pulled a handkerchief, and was dabbing blood at one nostril.
“An annoying side-effect of my ability,” Quentin said. “I am hoping the man we seek can find an answer to it.”
Motion caught Rick’s eye, and he looked up to see Chuck making his way back along the aisle. His face was beaming in a broad s
mile. “Hi, guys. Did I miss anything exciting?”
Quentin said, “Comparatively, probably not.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Agent Tompkins stepped outside for a cigarette. He wore a dark blue suit jacket and matching pants, and a red power tie. His hair was in its usual slicked back fashion, accentuating his widow’s peak. He wore wrap-around sun glasses, and in one hand was a smoldering cigarette.
He was standing in a small alley between the FBI building and the one next to it. The official smoking area. At one time you could smoke at your desk, but now he and others like him had been relegated to the alley ways.
A door opened, and a man stepped out. A little younger than Tomkins, in a charcoal gray pinstriped suit. His jaw was square and his hair was a chestnut color, parted on one side and swept aside. He wore no sunglasses.
Great jaw, great hair. He was squinting in the sunlight, but the squint gave him a sort of rugged, outdoorsey sort of look. Like maybe a cross between Nathan Fillion and Clint Eastwood. God, Tompkins hated him.
“Hey, Tompkins,” the man said, reaching into a shirt pocket and pulling out a pack of cigarettes.
“Davenport,” Tompkins said, rolling his eyes at the man, knowing the gesture was hidden behind his sunglasses.
“I just talked to your flunkie, Kirkpatrick.”
“Kincaid.”
“Yeah. That guy. Whatever his name is. He said you were out here.”
“So, you came all the way out here just to talk to little old me?”
Davenport pulled out a Bic lighter and flicked his cigarette to life. “Well, that, and I want to indulge my old habit. You know?”
Tompkins nodded. How well he knew. He had tried to quit more than once, but somehow had been unable to. Probably the stress of the job. So many agents in here smoked. It couldn’t be coincidence.
“Hey, listen,” Davenport said. “I was just wondering how things were going in your pursuit of those two freaks. Tempest and Calder.”
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