by Gene P. Abel
As he was reciting, Jeffery bent forward for a quiet word with Claire.
“He really doesn’t have any personality, does he?”
“Not really,” Claire agreed.
“It’s a pity that Agent Harris couldn’t come with you on this trip. I’d have loved to meet her.”
“You’d have liked her.”
“She’s a fan favorite in certain circles. Why, they even made a couple of vid-flicks about her. ‘Agent Harris versus the Cyberdinos of 2424’ was one of my favorites. Of course a lot of people may have gotten an exaggerated impression of her abilities, but I tend to stick right with the original source materials.”
“My articles.”
“Exactly!”
“The point is,” Agent Hessman continued, “whoever we leave down on the ground will have to activate their beacons and return to our native time.”
Agent Stevens again spoke up: “Then the choice is obvious: Miss Hill is not really a mission specialist, and Professor Stein’s specialty lies in the past, not the future.”
“What?” Claire instantly objected. “But it was my idea to—”
“I don’t think you could have picked a worse choice,” Captain Beck said with a shake of his head. “I’d volunteer myself before either of those two.”
“No volunteering will be needed,” Agent Hessman said. “I’ve already decided. Stevens and Chief Duke. Everyone else has mission-critical status.”
“Understood, sir,” Chief Duke said with a slight nod.
“You will be without your backup,” Agent Stevens pointed out.
“The other option would be to be without some of our core mission personnel,” Agent Hessman replied. “Captain Beck’s duty is to make sure this mission sees success no matter what, and Miss Hill has proven her skills in the past.”
“Way in the past,” Claire said with a slight grin. “Sorry, couldn’t resist.”
“What we need now is a convenient alley,” Agent Hessman stated. “Mr. Nezsmith, after your lead.”
Jeffery looked once around at the sea of zombielike faces, shrugged, and then replied, “Here would be as good a place as any. Everyone’s too involved with their GOW games, and the orders are taken and delivered by robotic means, so who’s going to notice?”
Indeed, besides the customers, there was not a living worker that anyone could see. Orders were spoken at the tables and then delivered by wheeled carts that traveled from kitchen to table, and while the place must have had close to fifty customers in it, every one of them was fully engrossed in whatever scene lay at the other end of their chip implant.
“You would appear to be correct, Mr. Nezsmith. Chief Duke, Agent Stevens, please activate your beacons. When you arrive home update the general on the situation.”
“Yes, sir,” Chief Duke replied.
“Immediately, sir,” Agent Stevens echoed.
Jeffery’s attention was riveted as the pair took out their discs from within their jackets; then, standing up and stepping away from the table, each pressed the button at the center of his disc. A man-sized tornado of rainbow colors spun around the pair, and a moment later both had vanished.
“That is just so . . . ,” Claire began. “Ben, what’s a good modern word for that?”
“You could try ‘cool,’” he suggested.
“Then that is just so cool to watch. Is that what we looked like when we vanished?”
“Okay, to business.” Agent Hessman stood up, those remaining following his lead. He simply glanced at Jeffery, who took his cue.
Chief Duke Stephens
“Arranging passes out of Heathrow as we speak. Everything should be ready by the time we arrive.”
“Good.”
They walked out of the café, passing around oblivious diners. As they left through one of the front doors a voice came at them in a mock Persian accent wishing them a good day. Once outside and heading down the walkway, Agent Hessman pulled the college student up beside him for a few words.
“While I appreciate your friends’ helping us out, I am concerned about the growing circle of people that know of our activity.”
“Don’t worry. I gave my friend a good cover story, and she knows enough to give each of her friends a completely different cover story. It’ll be slick as ice.”
“I’m still not sure,” Agent Hessman told him.
“I’m with Lou,” Captain Beck said, coming up behind them. “I can only imagine what sort of security measures they have around here.”
“Just the usual,” Jeffery said. “Video, audio, infrared, facial recognition hooked up to a global database, chemical detection—all in your standard thumbnail camera.”
If Agent Hessman had any increased doubts from that litany, he was not showing them. The greater worry on his mind was the same as it was before: rescuing Samantha Weiss.
15
Heathrow Spaceport
The trip to Heathrow Spaceport involved a trip on the Underground, which at this point in time had been replaced with something just a little faster. A fact they first noticed when they were suddenly slammed back in their seats after briefly wondering why train seats now looked more like miniature acceleration couches. Claire had barely gotten her seatbelt buckled in time, while beside her Ben had barely caught his breath in time. Once the acceleration eased up and the pressure against them lifted, Captain Beck was the first to offer a comment on the experience.
“What in the name of . . . ? If I had a heart condition, I don’t think I’d have survived that.”
“Never ridden on a bullet train before?” Jeffery asked.
“Is that what this is?”
“I rode the Underground when I was in London that one time,” Ben put in, “and it wasn’t a bullet train back then.”
“Apparently another future upgrade,” Agent Hessman calmly remarked. “How long before we arrive, Mr. Nezsmith?”
“Not long. Then there’s the shuttle through the airport to where the flight takes off from. You should be up in orbit in about an hour. Then you can— Wait a sec; priority all-points coming through.”
This time when Jeffery briefly went into his trance, Claire cast a concerned look to Ben, who glanced to Lou, who in turn replied with a noncommittal look as he awaited what Jeffery had to say.
“Local police have a bulletin out for a group that sounds pretty much like you guys,” Jeffery quietly stated a moment later.
“Another upgrade?” Ben asked with concern on his face. “They can not only track us but upload a wanted poster to everyone with a chip in their head?”
“Yes and no,” Jeffery said after another briefer faraway look. “They have pictures, but they’re only of the big guy and Mr. Robot Glasses.”
“Duke and Stevens,” Agent Hessman stated, “the ones we sent home.”
“A close call,” Captain Beck agreed. “But we’ll have to be a lot more careful.”
“It also means that their tech isn’t perfect,” Agent Hessman noted. “Beyond our understanding as to how it works, but still fallible.”
“It might not be the technology that’s fallible but the people operating it,” Claire amended. “That’s got to be true in any century.”
“Miss Hill is right,” Jeffery agreed. “For at least a good century, computer hackers have gotten into supposedly secure systems by hacking not just the tech but the people using them. My hacker friend’s always going on about how social engineering plays a good role in a hacker’s toolkit.”
“Then that’s what we go for from now on,” Agent Hessman decided. “We can’t beat their tech, so we beat them.”
Jeffery looked thoughtful for a moment, then perked up in recognition. “Wait a sec, I know that line! War of the Worlds,” he said.
“And would it surprise you to know that I was a child once and quite enjoyed that old mov
ie?” Agent Hessman supplied. “Concentrate on the problem at hand.”
“Then I suggest everyone look casual,” Captain Beck said. “Look.”
The rest followed the direction of his gaze to see a two-inch silvery ball moving along a fixed track down the length of the train car along the middle of its ceiling. They were seated at the back, but the device was already halfway to them.
“Camera,” Jeffery told them quietly. “Same type I mentioned earlier.”
Ben saw the camera coming this way, looked at Claire beside him with her large white hat and long dress, and did the first thing he could think of. He bent over to give her a kiss, using his entire body to block her from view and keeping the back of his head over her face. Agent Hessman took the cue and turned to face Captain Beck as if in conversation, a move which partially blocked both their faces. The ball came to the end of its track, paused for a moment, and then started sliding back toward the front.
Once it was far enough away Ben released his lip-lock of Claire, who gasped for air.
“I know we’re going to be married,” she said, “but I’d not think this an appropriate situation to get passionate.”
“Not that I don’t mind the excuse, mind you,” Ben replied, “but from what we’ve learned from Jeffery here, your face is well known in certain circles. Circles which might—”
“Be hooked up to what that thing can see,” Claire finished for him. “I got it. But if I’m known, then your face might also be.”
“Hence my expedient solution.”
“Congratulations on the quick thinking,” Agent Hessman blandly remarked, “but I think our stop is coming up. Buckle up.”
The train underwent a spine-crushing deceleration, and soon they were walking out of the train for their first view of Heathrow, though making sure to keep their faces down in the event that the device which had earlier tried to pick them out was still active. They came out into a terminal that let out directly below the Heathrow concourse, up a flight of steps, and into the main lobby.
The concourse was a vast circle sprouting nearly a hundred different exits around its circumference, each leading to a dozen different possibilities. Thousands of people were coming and going, some going up any of the dozens of escalators or elevators to higher levels of the concourse. Around the center of the huge area was a ring of reception desks and public computer terminals a hundred feet across, each with a line of people, while around the far-flung periphery of the concourse, in between the hundred exits, was a broken ring of shops, cafés, and other airport necessities. A glance up showed that the ceiling stretched away into glassy heights at least a dozen stories up, and from there out to unknown regions of the spaceport.
“I used ‘wow’ before, right?” Claire asked. “Anyone got anything better?”
“Working on it,” Ben replied, he as struck with disbelief as she was. “It looks like they added to it a bit the last hundred years.”
“I should say so,” Captain Beck put in with a slow, amazed nod.
Jeffery led the way over to one of many sections of couches tossed around the place, one not yet occupied.
“Just wait here while I get the travel cards from one of the terminals. It shouldn’t take long.”
They watched as he ran off to stand in line for one of the computer terminals. Then they resumed their amazed visual perusal of their surroundings, though in Agent Hessman’s case it may have been more for possible threat assessments.
“We stay strictly together,” he finally said. “While there is no doubt several automated means are available for those separated from their party to find one another, that would involve means that others could use to find us.”
“Agreed,” Ben said once he had stifled his amazement. “I wonder what the airport itself is like.”
“You mean this isn’t it?” Claire asked.
“This is just the concourse, love—the place people go to find their way across to their flights. Everything else is somewhere outside.”
Claire just slowly shook her head and held on more tightly to Ben.
A few minutes later Jeffery returned with a handful of cards, passing one out to each person there. “These are your travel cards,” he explained.
“They look like credit cards,” Captain Beck remarked.
“They’re just small computerized cards that contain all your passage info. You can scan it across any public reader around here, and the screen will direct you to where you need to go if you’re lost. No chip implant needed at this point. Passage includes the suborbital and back, with an option for coming down in the space elevator if you want to return that way instead. I got the best credits that my university friends could pool together. Now, you start off at gate thirty-four, which is . . . over this way.”
As Jeffery led the way across the concourse with hurried steps, Agent Hessman asked a pertinent question, which he knew was on everyone’s mind: “Space elevator?”
“Oh, still experimental, but if you need to come straight down from orbit in a couple of minutes, then that’s the way. I didn’t sign you up for going up in it because the only terminal for it is way out in the Equator.”
“Got it. It’s our emergency evac. Now for my next question: About your pals?”
Jeffery grinned as they walked along, and said, “For the record, depending on which of them you ask, this is all either for some super-secret conspiracy bust or the best prank against a certain rival school ever pulled.”
Gate 34 was one of the multitude of passages leading off from the vast concourse; a wide tunnel that led out a hundred feet to a small terminal just large enough for the three gates arranged in a row, each of which held a waiting travel pod on a track leading down its own individual tube. Jeffery indicated the central one and the card reader before it.
“Each of you scan your cards as you climb on, then sit down and press the red button,” he explained. “The travel tube will race you across the spaceport to your shuttle, where you can get directly on board. If ever in doubt—”
“We use our travel cards and the nearest public data reader,” Agent Hessman finished for him. “Got it.”
“This is also where I have to leave you.” Jeffery sighed. “I need to stay behind, but you have everything you need now.”
“We understand,” Captain Beck replied.
He was the first one to step up and slide his card beneath the reader. Then, as the little gate swung open before him, Agent Hessman was next behind him.
“Oh, Jeffery,” Claire told him, “I’ll miss you. Thank you for helping us out. I know it was such a risk for you.”
“Risk? It’s been a blast! I got to help out Claire Hill, cross-temporal reporter. But if you don’t mind, could you do one little thing for me?”
“Anything.”
He turned his laptop over and produced a pen.
“Could you autograph my datapad before you leave, Miss Hill?”
“Why, of course.”
Taking the offered pen, she did just that, signing her name boldly across the back of the datapad, then handing back the pen. Ben was just about to urge her along when Jeffery flipped the laptop back over.
“Wait a sec.”
Slipping quickly in next to her, he held up his pad before them both. A quick flash of light from the top of the pad, then he stepped away. A second later a slender electronic card slid out of a port on the side of the laptop, which he handed to Claire.
“A memento to add to your collection. They say you were always collecting little keepsakes of whenever you went.”
As he laid it flat on her palm, an image projected above it of him and her together, looking as solid as the real thing but in miniature. Claire smiled with delight at it, then reached out to give him a quick peck on the cheek before pocketing it and slipping into the pod after Ben.
“I’ll never forget it
or you, Jeffery. And tell that hacker friend of yours thank you from me.”
“Oh, I’ll be seeing her later on this evening.” He grinned. “She’s actually my girlfriend.”
Her card flashed across beneath the reader, she sat down with the rest; then Captain Beck reached over to slap a hand onto a large red button on the inside of their pod. Immediately it sped off down the long tube, but this time everyone was well strapped in. It was the last Jeffery Nezsmith would see of any of them, but not the last he would hear of them: he would continue to read the many articles that were penned by her hand.
“Wow, Claire Hill! Jan’s never going to believe this. And she just might kill me for not telling her up front.”
The pod bore its four passengers along the tube, across the vast reach of the airport, and was quickly lost from sight.
16
Sedating the Prisoner
Samantha Weiss awoke to find herself stretched out on a cold, hard plastic slab.
She did not move at first, or even open her eyelids, but rather remained still and simply listened. She could hear voices talking around her, men speaking in what sounded like Russian. She listened for a bit to place the locations of the voices and, from their echo, get an approximate idea of the size of the room she was in. It didn’t feel like a big room, perhaps between twenty and thirty feet across, and it sounded like three men—no, four; another man with a different quality to his voice had just started speaking to the others.
From what she could tell, they were gathered at a distance past her feet, conversing in low tones. It didn’t feel like they had strapped her down, so depending on where the exit was, she might be able to make a run for it. She just had to be careful of those electrified bullets of theirs. She felt okay, no dizziness, drug aftereffects, or weakness of limb. Just a slight pinching feeling at the back of her neck.
