by Mark Wandrey
“I know that, you twit,” Volant grumbled. As they came around, Volant got his first look at the reason for his visit. The Greek-like structure didn’t seem like much.
He slid the door open and climbed out as the chopper settled on its skids. A senior FBI field officer ran up to them through the cordon of NYPD officers acting as crowd control at the edge of the meadow where his helicopter had landed.
“Just who the hell do you think you are?” the man demanded.
“Mark Volant, NSA Section Director for the North Eastern United States. But you know that from the pilot and the code he sent. Who are you?”
“Senior Field Officer Chris Benson, and I’m in charge of this site.”
“Not anymore, Benson.” The FBI man’s veins stood out on his neck as he took in Volant’s calm assurance. “NSA takes precedence on any matter that has national security implications. Call your bureau chief, he will confirm the order from POTUS.”
“I damn well will do just that,” Benson snapped.
“Fine. In the meantime, can you have some of your men push back the cordon to the park edge? And please take me to see this portal thing.” In one swift motion, Volant had taken control of the site, given orders, and relegated the FBI to traffic duty and tour guiding. If he hadn’t assumed control, the FBI would have walked all over him. It was their gung-ho nature.
“Laramie, take Director Volant to the object while I make a call.” A young agent came up and shook Volant’s hand then gestured toward the concrete barriers blocking the public’s view of the portal, as everyone was calling it. Volant nodded to Benson who had an, ‘I’m gonna fix this shit’ look on his face. He knew the FBI man would make that call and would be even more pissed afterward.
They passed through two more levels of security before reaching the concrete barriers. Volant made mental notes of what worked and what didn’t. The FBI had done a passable job; the NYPD was the usual cluster fuck. On all four sides, the concrete barriers were staggered to make a pass through while still blocking the line of sight. He moved through and saw the portal for the first time.
“Well shit,” he said. “Will you look at that?”
“Impressive, right?” the FBI agent asked.
“Looks like the foundation of a fucking Greek restaurant,” Volant said. He’d dumped everything and flown here for this? His boss had to be out of his fucking mind.
“Step on the bottom step,” the agent said and made a sweeping gesture.
Volant looked at him with suspicion, but had little choice. Dozens of FBI guys were looking at him. No doubt word had spread like wildfire that the NSA had arrived and was pushing the FBI out. He walked over and, with no fanfare, stepped up.
Instantly the circular portal appeared, floating over the dais. Strange symbols slid along its surface, morphed, and randomly combined. At times they reminded him of Egyptian Arabic, at times Chinese, and at still other times Hebrew.
Around the perimeter were what looked like clear gems embedded in the dais. The portal ring seemed to be made of a glowing, milky-white material that reminded him of the glass blocks used to make walls in basements. But what was most fascinating was the other side. Through the portal was a vision of a distant virgin wilderness.
The trees were tall and strange. They weren’t quite evergreens; their leaves were wrong. The light was also different—it was like the lighting at a rave party. He realized the spectrum was different. The fucking report was right. It looked like another world. He noticed some people in space suits standing nearby.
“What are they doing?” he asked the agent who’d been escorting him.
“They’re NASA techs,” the man said. “They’ve been going over every square inch of this thing for hours.” Volant looked at them, and they stared back, eyes wide in surprise. “I think they were waiting to activate it until they were sure it was safe.”
Volant didn’t have to be an egghead to know he’d been played by the FBI. Asshole. The NASA people recovered from their surprise and did the ghostbuster thing, waving all kinds of apparatus at the portal, sniffing the air, taking samples, and babbling in their nearly foreign tongue. A couple of NASA guys without suits rolled up a big cart full of drawers with a pair of computers sitting on top. A balding man, older than the others, seemed to be orchestrating the show.
Volant cleared his throat. No one took notice of him, so he climbed to the top step and walked between the technicians and the portal. “Excuse me,” he said.
“Who are you?” asked the man in charge.
“NSA. Who are you?”
“Dr. George Osgood, NASA Materials Science and fan of all things ET. Needless to say,” the man gestured at the portal, “today is a red-letter day!”
“What makes you so sure this thing is alien?” Volant asked.
“Let me show you something, Mr. NSA.”
“You can call me Volant.”
“Okay,” Dr. Osgood said. He opened a drawer, removed a power tool, then walked to the steps to where Volant waited. Some of the NASA techs started to hyperventilate, but he shooed them away. “Not even a blip. Stop your fussing. We need to get this man to understand, or they’ll try to take this away…or worse.” The techs relented, and he showed the tool to Volant.
“This drill bit is made of cobalt-blended carbide,” Dr. Osgood explained. “It’s the hardest drill bit on the planet. They’re about twelve thousand dollars each.” Dr. Osgood sat on the top step, despite more mumblings from his people, and activated the power tool.
It was a very high end, very high speed, cordless drill. NASA liked the best. The drill reached a formidable speed as Dr. Osgood guided it with both hands to the top step. When the drill contacted the step, sparks and smoke began to fly. The milky-white material around the drill’s contact point shimmered slightly. After a few moments of drilling, he stopped and stood to allow Volant to inspect the results.
“What do you think of that, Mr. Volant?” The drill bit was smoking, its tip ground off entirely. Volant bent to examine the surface. He swept away some residue with his hand, leaving no evidence of the drilling.
“Interesting,” Volant said.
“Indeed. Now, feel the surface.”
Volant complied, placing his hand palm down on the step. It was perfectly smooth, almost glass like. It defied explanation. At the same time, though, it had an unquantifiable resistance to it. Logically, it should have had some give to it, but it didn’t, and it was warm to the touch.
“Now look at it. Just stare.”
Volant figured it couldn’t hurt, so he did. There were patterns within the material, and he concluded he wasn’t looking at a solid surface. Rather, this was somehow transparent and full of something.
“What is inside this?” Volant asked.
“Yes!” Dr. Osgood crowed. “That is indeed the question. We don’t know, but it could be some form of pure energy.”
“Wouldn’t that be dangerous?”
“Oh, without a doubt,” the doctor agreed. “It would be enough to atomize the better part of the entire New York metro area, were it suddenly released.” Volant glanced at a technician drilling the dais, making sparks fly several yards. The drill bit broke with a pop, and the technician dropped it into a bin full of similarly broken bits. There didn’t appear to be a mark where he had been drilling.
“Okay,” Volant agreed finally, “I’m willing to concede that this is possibly an alien artifact. What’s the immediate danger?”
“Zero, I would say.”
“But isn’t this basically a huge bomb?” Volant asked. “You just said as much.” He pointed as the tech resumed drilling. “Is that wise?”
Osgood shrugged. “That this is a bomb is not completely outside the realm of possibility, but I doubt it. If it is a bomb, why didn’t they set it off? Considering what that much pure energy could do, you can’t just run from it. So, I say we study it and figure out what it’s here for.”
Volant had a hard time arguing against the logic. He’d disarmed enough bo
mbs that this one didn’t scare him. As it had no visible timer, it didn’t make him feel truly threatened, despite the NASA egghead’s assurance it was dangerous.
“Is it a radiation hazard? Should we evacuate the city?”
“No,” Dr. Osgood assured him. “The radiation reading is less than that of a microwave oven. There is definitely some, but it’s all non-ionizing.” Volant’s eyebrows moved together. “It’s not the really dangerous kind.”
“Oh, gotcha.”
“We’ll get a better read on the radiation when my analyzer comes in from Houston. It’s the newest model. Compact. They’re going to load it on a C-130 tonight. They say it should fit.”
“What’s that for?”
“Well, that thing you’re standing on, unless I miss my guess, is leaking bosons.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“It should, even to you.” Volant ignored the jibe. “Bosons are elementary particles.”
“Why is that a big deal?”
“Because the only time we’ve ever observed them was in the picoseconds after an explosion inside a positron collider. Oh, and every time someone steps on that thing.”
Volant nodded and stepped quickly off the dais. He knew what bosons were. He watched the Discovery Channel.
* * *
The New York City district lockups were often described as hell on Earth. All forms of filthy human miscreants from common pickpockets to child rapists to hardened murderers moved through them each day, often preying on each other. Correctional officers tried to insulate the occasional semi-innocent thrust into this purgatory, lest they be chewed up and spit out in juicy pieces.
Victor simply wanted to be left alone. He didn’t fit the profile of the white-collar criminal or well-off Manhattanite, booked for too many traffic tickets or a crime of convenience. So he was tossed into the shark tank, as the officers called it.
And, as he wished, he was being largely left alone. He found a place on one of the many filth-stained benches and sat meditatively. The predators assessed him and saw a man with an inner light or, maybe, a purpose. He didn’t fit the bill of predator or prey. He was an unknown factor, so they looked for easier pickings. Hours passed as Victor considered the day’s events. He dozed for a time, then awoke and thought some more.
“You all right there, son?” Victor glanced up into the eyes of an older man. He was black like Victor, and his hair had long ago gone snowy white. He stared at Victor through the bars with interest. “You need anything?”
“I’m fine, pops. How about youself?”
“Oh, couldn’t be better!” he said with a smile.
“You don’t look like a guard,” Victor said.
“Trustee from Ryker’s Island,” he explained. “I come out here most days to see to you and offer some help. Guess you could say I’m here because I want to be.”
“Then that makes two of us,” Victor said. The older man cocked his head and looked at him in bemusement. Victor noticed the man was pushing a cart full of books and magazines. “Say pops, you don’t have a Bible, do you?”
“I’d be half-crazy to be in here without the Good Book,” the man said.
“May I borrow one?”
“Son, you can have one.” He turned the cart around to reveal half a shelf of Bibles. They all had different covers and most had a golden symbol of a pot with a flame on it and the words Gideons International on the spine. “They’re worn, but the words are still true!” He picked one that was in pretty good shape, took it from the stack, and passed it through the bars.
Several people sitting next to Victor had been casually watching the exchange, and they chuckled when he took the book. A few openly scoffed, but a couple payed closer attention.
“I’m getting out tomorrow, you can have it back then,” Victor said and began leafing through it. The pages had a delicate feel and were edged in gold leaf. It felt heavy in his hands.
“You’ll do no such thing. A Bible is a personal thing, and that one is yours now. Praise the Lord, son, I hope you find truth inside.”
“I already have,” Victor said. He worked his hand through the bars and shook the old timer’s hand. It was warm and strong, and the skin was dry, like the pages of the book he held.
“Good luck to you,” the trustee said and moved on down the line of lockups.
Victor couldn’t remember the last time he’d read a Bible. Was he 12 years old? Or 10? He couldn’t recall. Most likely, he’d been in school back in the Bronx. His mother used to have to catch him on Sunday mornings, drag him indoors, and clean him up to go to church. He’d hated sitting still and quiet while the old, wild-eyed preacher went on and on about hellfire and damnation. Whatever.
With almost a feeling of destiny, he started reading. The lighting wasn’t the best, and for a time he struggled. Not only had it been years since he’d read the Bible, it had been years since he’d read anything more than a headline or a menu.
After a while, his eyes started to hurt from the poor light. He saw a seat on the other side, under a light fixture, and went over to it. He was so absorbed in his studies he didn’t really notice the man sitting there, taking up one-third of the bench. He just thought about how good the light was.
“Excuse me,” he said to the man, “can I sit here? The light is much better.”
“Yeah, it’s betta, muthafucka, because it’s the best seat in the slam.”
Victor focused on the man, who was not much more than a boy. He was the same kind of person Victor avoided every day as he prowled the darker alleys of the city. His arms bulged with well-sculpted muscles. His head was shaved, and he had a tattoo running down the side of his head and onto his cheek, reminiscent of Mike Tyson’s. The bandanna around his neck and the tats on his hands spoke of his affiliation. Victor stepped back, realizing his error.
“I didn’t mean to bother you, brother, I was just doing some reading—” he said, gesturing with the Bible.
Quick as a snake, the kid snatched the book from Victor’s hands and stood in front of him. He was only an inch taller than Victor’s six feet, but he was much younger and had a body well-toned from hours in the gym. “Read? You stupid fuck, I’ll fuck your shit up so bad you won’t be able to read the toilet paper.”
Victor’s face screwed up as he tried to understand what the kid meant by that. His brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders. “Please, I need that book,” he said and reached for it. The kid checked the reach with a vicious cross body chop to Victor’s forearm that almost broke the bone.
“Ow,” Victor yipped, pulling his arm back and stepping away. “I’m sorry,” he said, massaging the arm and blinking back tears.
“You bet you sorry, fuckin’ punk,” the tough kid said and advanced.
“Please, I just want my book.”
“More than you want to breathe?” And with the same speed, steel strong fingers clamped around Victor’s throat.
Victor gasped and tried to grab the hand. The kid backed him against the bars, and Victor’s head banged against the steel, making lights pop behind his eyelids. One-handed, the punk pushed him up off the floor. Victor gasped for breath, his eyes bugging out of his head. The man’s strength was unbelievable.
“I saw an angel,” Victor gurgled several times.
“Angel?” the tough asked, then laughed before tightening his grip. “Youz about to see an angel, you punk bitch.”
“Yo, put the man down,” someone said. Victor heard it clearly. His oxygen-deprived brain was running on adrenalin, knowing he might be in his last seconds of life.
“Fuck you,” the tough said without looking.
“I ain’t gonna say it again,” the other voice said, carefully enunciating each word. “Put…the…man…down.”
“I said fuck your cunt ass, you is next.”
The room was going dark, when Victor suddenly found himself crumpled on the floor, gasping for breath. He felt his neck and found it tender, but otherwise undamaged. As his vision returned, he
could see his tormentor, feet dangling in the air, an arm around his throat supported by another hand locking it in place. Now it was the tough kid’s turn to have his eyes bug out and gasp for breath. Unlike the simple hold the kid used on Victor, the man holding him was using an expert choke hold. In a second he was unconscious. Instead of dropping him, the man tightened his grip, arm muscles bulging.
“Don’t kill him,” Victor croaked.
“Why not?” the other man asked. He turned sideways, and Victor saw him for the first time. He was, amazingly, less than six feet tall. He was black, like almost everyone in this lockup, and didn’t appear nearly as well-muscled as the man he was choking the life out of. His hair was cut with military precision, and a neatly trimmed Vandyke beard fit his face perfectly. His clothes could best be described as working class.
“Not on my account, don’t,” Victor said.
“Then I’ll do it for the rest of humanity.” He looked at the unconscious form, his heels dangling. “This is a maggot on the rotting corpse of society.”
“I’m a new prophet of God, and I don’t want you to kill that kid.”
The man snorted. “If you’re a prophet, why didn’t God save you?”
“He did,” Victor said, getting clumsily to his feet. “He sent you to save me!”
The man’s head jerked around, and he looked at Victor. Intelligent eyes searched Victor’s for meaning and seemed to find it. With a grunt, he released the tough who fell to the floor in a heap. Victor stumbled over and checked him. There was a pulse and, after a moment, the punk choked and started breathing again. Victor sighed and nodded.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t thank me, thank God,” the man said.
“Why did you help me?” Victor asked.
“I…I…” the man looked confused. “I don’t know.” Victor nodded. “But it wasn’t your God.”
“Wasn’t it?” Victor asked and looked for the Bible that had caused all the drama. Someone handed it to him. The man looked at Victor with reverence and gave him a little bow. Victor nodded and opened the book to where he’d been reading when the disturbance began. “Give justice to the weak and fatherless,” he read. “Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”
