‘How long do we have?’ And drags a hand across his face. He is exhausted and in a lot of pain himself.
‘I don’t know the exact extent of any internal injuries. Only doctors and specialized equipment at a hospital can diagnose and make any difference.’ Places the Stethoscope back around his neck, then takes out a small plastic bottle from his pocket and throws it to Bozeman looking at his leg. ‘For the infection. Two now, then two every four hours.’
Bozeman nods and eagerly fiddles with the tricky bottle top. He knows the clarity of the response and stoic look on Tagan’s face he gave it to him straight.
‘To the hospital then,’ Bozeman says chewing what he guesses are two pills and pockets the bottle in his pants, leans forward and grabs the radio strapped to Tagan’s right collar and rips it off. The woman screams as he smashes the handset with the heel of his shoe then sticks his head through the divide and asks the driver to turn off the sirens and lights and to pull over to the side of the road up ahead.
‘Yeah, next to the sign.’
The ambulance turns into the soft shoulder of the road, all lights and sirens quite as it comes to a slow stop in a suburban street. Bozeman makes his way to the back and opens the door. ‘Thank you darling, you did real good back there.’
Her face contorts, her mouth moving as if to speak but nothing comes out. Hesitantly inches off the bench and emerges into morning light. Background noises of muffled cars passing displace some of the tense silence. She walks a few paces back from the ambulance and turns. Her stare transfixed on the gun, now in Bozeman’s hand, as it wobbles as he too stumbles out.
‘Do what you can for him, understand?’ he says turning to Tagan. ‘I’ll be driving.’
Bozeman closes the door, walks to the driver’s door and orders the driver out. Takes his radio and throws it under a passing school bus. Bozeman winces striding the gap to the driver’s seat, waits a few seconds to compose himself and watches the driver and woman walk back from the Ambulance in the side mirror.
‘Might as well make this a party,’ he says turning on sirens and lights. Enters traffic and turns on the radio, flicking through channels and stops on the police frequency. Opens the window and cranes his head and yells into the open divide to the back compartment. ‘We’ll soon have you sorted, Coffey.’ But he isn’t going to the hospital. A different idea comes to mind.
34
U.S. Naval Base, Sasebo, Japan
Mooney handed out the folders and suggested an early night after studying the contents. It was lights out at 9 P.M. Masen and Sparks went to the room next door where there were two canvas stretcher beds made ready. Bradbury and Pak stayed put, while Robertson, Mooney and Nash disappeared to another section.
Morning arrives.
It feels to Masen like it’s the same day only with an intermission. Walks out the room for his morning ablutions.
Pak wakes early to finish his food from yesterday. Gulps then burps, feeling bubbles of soft drink fizz up his nose. He doesn’t cower, just lets that baby sing as a wake up call. And liberating the other half of the ham sandwich from its plastic housing takes a bite, closes his eyes to savor the experience. Real food is a wonderful thing. Soft bread plays in his fingers. Sweet, dissolving and forming a paste in his mouth. And the taste of salt, flooding his mouth with saliva as teeth pinch juicy, tender meat.
He finishes studying a diagram from last night that no matter the angle he turns the folder, struggles to understand. Most of what he’s reading remains a mystery. He might not understand how it all fits together, but he knows what operating tolerances mean and can get his head around the computer systems used to monitor and control the incredibly low temperatures. He doesn’t care for all this talk about technology. Locked away in the hermit kingdom his entire life, his worldview perspective distorted as if viewed through a kaleidoscope. Turn it one way and the DPRK is readying for the great final showdown with the evil US and treacherous South. Turn it the opposite direction and colors shift and the North and South reunite, yet another turn and there’s a giant marching spectacular of how wonderful the great nation is, another, and the so called Great Leader is killing off parts of his own family, like they were gangrenous limbs.
Freedom, donuts and a soft warm bed are all the politics that fills his horizon. Swallowing a mouthful, he smiles. Only the wealthy can afford to think beyond the immediacy of today.
Sparks wakes, head shoots forward, feels his heart quicken as the seriousness of the situation begins to sink in, though no one notices. Everyone is waking in their own time, trying to understand what’s ahead of them.
Bradbury grabs for the half full glass of water on the side table, but pulls up short as her IV line tensions. ‘Damn thing,’ she says tugging at the tubes. ‘I’m sick of this.’ And pulls them free. The metal pole crashes against the bed and falls to the floor and smiles that it’s fine and rubs her arm, careful not to rake over the catheter still imbedded in her wrist. Flexes her arm.
Mooney walks in the room with Nash and Robertson following close behind. Has a word in Robertson’s ear. ‘It’s time we finished this,’ he whispers. ‘Get ‘em ready.’
Masen and Sparks walk in holding their folders. Masen walks over and stands next to the window. Sparks takes a seat at the desk and turns on his laptop.
Masen went over the data several times last night by moonlight. ‘It’s amazing,’ he intoned several times. ‘And terrifying.’
Robertson looks at the team then back to Mooney.
‘Clean everything up.’ Mooney says.
‘Got it,’ Robertson says. ‘Leave nothing but bubbles, take nothing but photos.’ And walks out.
Sitting alone at a table, Dr Carlton is reading a magazine and fidgeting with the hem of her skirt. Fingernails make a tapping noise against the plastic top and her foot gently flops like a dog’s tail, legs eloquently crossed. Her face is ghostly, highlighted by the off white glow of the vending machine, accompanied by its hum. Robertson looks to the cupboard door. He can’t clean things up, not with her only a few yards away and walks back in the room.
‘I collaborated the machines last night,’ Nash says in a distant tone. He is standing by the wall with formulas scrawled on it, biting a nail not quite knowing what to do with his hands as if his center of gravity has shifted off its axis. ‘After reading the material you should be able to understand how the parameters work. Any questions?’ His demeanor has soured since Masen criticized the potential threat the technology poses.
No one speaks. Heads shake.
‘Ms Bradbury, Mr Pak,’ Mooney announces with a vigor of a game show host. ‘Time to thank Uncle Sam and help the good professor finish the test.’
Jessica and Kim ready themselves as if they’re still programmed to do as they’re told, reacting robotic like, void of a second thought.
‘One of the agents is dead,’ Sparks suddenly announces. ‘I don’t have a name. The building is still in lockdown. There’s report a guard was murdered outside the building.’
Everyone shoots a look of shock to Mooney for a hint of what they’re expected to do. Mooney hesitates, stops himself from asking for further details, and finally says after a few long seconds, ‘Well, we don’t know.’ Turns and walks into Dr Carlton as she steps into the room.
‘General,’ she gasps. Her hands spring up just in time to stop heads banging together. The shock instinctively throws her back to addressing rank. She pauses. Composes herself then attends to Bradbury, eyes skipping over Nash walking past to pull out the needle embedded in her wrist.
‘I insist we move to a colder and less hospitable environment,’ Mooney says.
‘Leave the folders behind,’ Nash says. ‘From what I’ve been told how you escaped, I’m confident you can both monitor and make small corrections when needed.’
They all walk out, Sparks looking back to the computer monitor, and Masen wondering why the hairs on the back his neck are standing proud.
&n
bsp; ‘I’m told it gets cold,’ a guard notes. He’s guarding the door which leads out to the hanger where Nash setup the test. And points to a rack of large coats you’d expect to see people wearing in Antarctica, over by a wall next to a glass cabinet with a ‘FOD’ sign: foreign object danger—object hazards to planes; plastic bags; tools; takeaway containers. Anything that can get sucked up or spat out of an engine.
The coats look cumbersome with thick fur-lined collars and attached hood, with a pair of pants folded underneath.
Pak laughs lifting a jacket from the rack. ‘You call this cold? Try wearing next to nothing in the middle of a Korean winter.’ The bulk catches him by surprise. Dressed, the jacket hangs below his knees, pants loose and concertina to boots that flop as he walks.
Masen having put on his pants rushes to help Bradbury who struggles. ‘Sorry,’ he says squeezing past Sparks. ‘Let me give you a hand.’ Stumbles, finishing looping a suspender over a shoulder.
‘Thanks,’ she says tipping her head allowing Masen to fit the coat around her delicate frame. ‘I suppose one size fits all.’
Masen holds the coat awkwardly as she extends her arm and twists into a sleeve.
‘Despite what Kim says, it’ll be cold inside the hanger,’ he says worried her body will offer next to no insulation. The loose hospital gown glows in the diffused light from the window, catching the outline of a breast through the thin white cotton blouse. He looks down and gulps, cheeks redden. ‘You’ll need every bit of protection…’ He clears his throat. ‘You’ll be fine.’ And turns bending down, helping one leg at a time into the woolen legs, and feels a hand pressing gently on the top of his head, pushing through his hair.
Finished, she thanks him with a friendly kiss on the cheek.
Masen picks up his jacket, adjusting fingers in their furry housing and looks outside. He wants to know where the live subject will be transported to. Wants to know more than what he read in the technical folder. Despite the apprehensions about the use of the technology, his scientific mind bundles and stacks all doubt and concerns neatly off to one side, just clear of thought. Thinks, probably an adjoining room. A short distance for quick verification.
He is sparked with an enthusiasm to witness machines created from formulas he placed almost as an afterthought—in a footnote of his thesis in size 8 font. Formulas shrouded on blackboards in Nash’s office which Nash was muddling through when he dropped off his thesis. But it’s wrong. A technology dreamed about in science fiction books and movies. The technology too dangerous for one nation to possess. A destabilizing force threatening the precarious and shifting nature of world power. With China flexing its military muscle in the South China Sea and a resurgent Russia, this kind of game-shifting technology is a threat even if word gets out it’s even possible.
He knows what happened to Nash’s team, how they were all killed, their deaths made to look like accidents. Car accident. Sounds familiar. But can’t imagine being anywhere else. In the shower he wanted nothing more than to lay some serious mileage in his car. To take that Route 66 drive he and his Dad had talked about for so many years, but never did. Now so close to a real life teleportation device, it can wait.
‘Everyone ready?’ Mooney announces not waiting for a reply. The guard opens the door inviting in a cold breeze, rustling papers, tickling the napes of necks and chilling backs of hands.
Outside the hanger, Nash designates himself the person to hand out white plastic protective suits. The gusting wind occasionally catches and has to be restrained from flying away. ‘Remember, it’s just for show,’ he says handing the last suit to Sparks. ‘So don’t worry if you get a tear in it, or it doesn’t zip all the way up.’
Mooney moves to the front of the group, stands at the door of the hanger, his hands moving quickly as he cranes his head opening the door looking behind the group back to the building, like he’s expecting another person. Then after a pause gestures everyone inside.
Masen hops towards the door inserting his foot into the plastic suit as he grabs Pak’s shoulder for support. Bradbury uses a lull in the wind to glide over between Masen and Pak. Sparks is last to put on his suit. He had trouble bending over and grasping the zipper.
Inside they huddle and shiver into themselves and rub hands in a frenzied attempt to build heat and flinch as super cooled air enters their mouths that stings as if they’d sucked on the world’s strongest mint.
‘Careful through the door,’ Nash says moving ahead of Mooney who stands by the door. Mooney then closes the door once everyone is inside. A thin slice of light carves through the darkness.
‘Give your eyes a bit of time to adjust,’ Nash says.
This is a signal for Mooney to close the door proper, however, more light floods in as he sticks his head out and looks out. Once shut, darkness descends, bringing a hushed silence. A faint red pulsating glow grows as eyes adjust to the darkness. Senses heighten and they focus on sounds of their own breathing.
Masen peels the plastic suit, the surplus tied around his waste and looks behind to Mooney.
Another guarded door.
The others glance at each other and follow Nash who walks ahead.
Apart from a faint humming sound and rustling plastic, the building is quiet, eerily so. A place where secrets are kept. No place for witnesses.
Masen thinks about what happened at the last test. And looks past Nash to the large cylinders of cooling liquid that reflects a silver-reddish color. For the computers and dark room. They produce a wispy smoke of a similar color that oozes from the top at a junction where a large flexible pipe is connected, drizzling down and forming a frothing fog that blankets a few inches off the ground.
Waves of fog convulse, cloud-like around their feet. Masen looks down and watches as the mist all but disappear around his ankle. To the left and in front of Nash is a large enclosure shrouded in darkness.
A space completely devoid of light. It’s required for the object to collapse into a wave function, a space to shield the observation effect.
‘Where the magic happens,’ Masen mumbles.
Sparks struggles with a zip caught half way down his chest.
‘How does the room absorb all light?’ Masen asks.
‘Perfectly aligned carbon nano tubes,’ Nash replies. ‘The magnets and extremely cold temperature complete the conditions necessary to nullify the observation effect.’
Masen crosses his arms.
Mooney pushes past. ‘Lets move it. I hate the damn cold.’
The rest of the team follow closely in his wake. Tables and the rest of the equipment soon appear. Masen can’t see the test subjects anywhere.
Did Nash tell me?
The reddish glow grows more intense the closer they get and the more their eyes adjust. Sparks holds out his hands and stops at a bench to his right and wonders at technology hundreds of years in the future. Each processor is the size of a domestic microwave oven. A substantial metal skeletal frame boxing a cylindrical metal object, suspended with tubes of varying diameter snaking over the frame with a large tube extending from the bottom, and disappearing into the fog toward the room.
‘Ain’t exactly an Atari now is it?’ Mooney says moving next to Sparks. Sparks is too enthralled by the technology to answer.
Masen recognizes his own enthusiasm in Sparks and grows more apprehensive about the test, about Mooney, and about Nash.
‘Not much into computers, Sir?’ Sparks says. The briefing notes he read on the plane didn’t describe the physical beauty of it, just how to keep within tolerances using the computer algorithm.
‘Been over twenty years since I’ve touched a computer,’ Mooney says. ‘My assistants do all that…stuff.’
Four feet to the left of the dark room and twenty feet back, a wooden desk with five chairs face the room. ‘Be careful of the cables that cross the floor,’ Nash says after instructing Bradbury and Pak to join Sparks. They comply and soon the three technicians huddle ar
ound the monitors and computers comparing the pictures in the folders to the real thing. Masen notices his position. I’m over here and they’re over there. Divide and conquer. Masen feels a cold sensation, not of the room running through his body. He wants to get out, and right about now would be great. Trusting Nash might not be the smart move, not if the pitting in his gut can be trusted.
‘Welcome to the new world,’ Nash says.
‘Where are the test subjects?’ Masen asks.
35
Bradbury watches mist part around her ankles only to dissolve in her wake, like walking through clouds. She struggles to understand how any of this relates to her abduction; her work had nothing to do with teleportation, it was a nuclear and ballistic missile program. But she can’t shake the coincidences. Nash’s CIA supervisor is someone called Mr Black, and Mr Black had John’s landlord killed by the same woman that abducted her—the name written on the napkin he gave her: Amanda Lane. Maybe Nash is right, she thinks. After the test, life can go back to normal. Back to family.
Pak thinks the whole show is more theatre than science as his eyes puzzle at the two powerful magnets that pulse two red eyes at him. He reaches out for one of two keyboards that lay in front of an array of monitors and the two quantum computers, ready to get this over with.
Nash walks over and interrupts Masen’s stare resting an arm on his shoulder. ‘I know you have concerns, but from a purely scientific point-of-view, you have to admit this is truly man’s greatest triumph.’
Masen feels the aftermath of the conflict he thought had been resolved. The technology won’t be used to advance mankind. He had wanted to peel the layers of this conspiracy back, and not stop until he found answers. Only now is he beginning to comprehend the seriousness of the situation he is in. And that the further he gets to any answers, the more serious the consequences become.
‘Maybe our greatest leap forward in technological advancement,’ Masen says. ‘Maybe we’re standing on top of a precipice and simply looking down into the darkness of a great moral hole that has no bottom to judge how far we’ve already fallen. No problem can be solved from the same thinking that created it.’
Iris Rising Page 20
