Iris Rising

by Charles Hubbard

  ‘Sorry for the bit of turbulence,’ the pilot says toggling switches and taking off his headphones.

  ‘You kidding, I loved it,’ Bozeman bellows. ‘Free roller coaster ride. Why else would I be congratulating you?’

  No plane also means Mooney could have arrived earlier, the plane taken off.

  Outside, Bozeman finds the team milling about. A large Buick emerges from behind a hangar with blackened windows, the rising sun reflecting off its shimmering black skin.

  ‘Welcome to the United States, Kim,’ Masen says. ‘Welcome home Jessica.’ The three hold each other. Masen thinks of Sparks. He wonders if he thinks they all died. ‘We wouldn’t be here without Travis’ help.’

  A somber moment before Pak speaks. ‘Can I drive?’ And points as the SUV stops and the driver gets out. Having only seen rusted military and farm vehicles, this monster is completely alien to him, some futuristic metal beast.

  ‘Should have seen my Porsche…that was a beautiful ride,’ Masen sadly reflects on his car that can’t ever get fixed.

  ‘Can attest to that,’ Bozeman says walking over to the car with Tagan on one shoulder helping him walk. ‘But I think I should be the one to drive us out of here.’

  ‘No, I’ll drive,’ Tagan says and sits in the driver’s seat.

  Back on the plane, Bozeman and Masen discussed a scratching of a plan, the details left like plasticine, to be molded as circumstances change and the unknown becomes known.

  They don’t know where Mooney is. Maybe the Chinese have the data and Mooney is long gone with the money. Bradbury and Pak are in no fit state to help, so it was decided to keep them out of any planning. Bozeman offered his house for a few hours until the job was done; Masen’s apartment building would no doubt be under heavy surveillance.

  They pass through a gate are and are soon on the freeway. Traffic is as expected early morning, light with an occasional trailer passing, hauling goods into the city. Masen looks over at Bradbury who is eagerly taking in the view. She moves her head and follows something outside until it fades from sight.

  ‘John, tell me again about this place where you’re living,’ she asks looking out the window. ‘I never got to see where you stayed while we were studying. Me on the other hand.’ Contorts her hands extolling sophistication and turns to face him, ‘have travelled extensively.’

  Pak chuckles.

  ‘Home,’ Masen intones. He finds it hard to place that label on the building. It sounds too permanent. ‘I used the sale of my parent’s house to pay rent while I studied. It’s an old building. If I clear my name I’ll give you the personal tour.’

  It feels strange after all they’ve been through together to leave Bradbury and Pak at Bozeman’s, but there’s no other choice.

  She smiles. ‘Your landlord left it to you.’ Unsure if this is a question or accusation, he responds with the same degree of emotional detachment. ‘I have no idea why she did.’

  Bozeman cranes his head to the back. ‘She loved you.’

  ‘No,’ Masen mouths and shakes his head. He sees her smile reflected in the window.

  The car lurches into a turnoff. Traffic has been building for the last ten miles as workers spill into the arterials that feed the main routes to the city.

  Pak looks at a car stopped at traffic lights. A man is stuffing a donut in his mouth and washes it down with a bucket like container of coffee. ‘I’m hungry,’ Pak says. His stomach growls.

  ‘Good idea,’ Bozeman says. ‘There’s a drive-thru on the next block.’

  ‘We haven’t got time,’ Masen says. ‘Your place is already an hour detour from where we need to go.’

  The truth is Bozeman needs time to think of a plan. ‘I couldn’t see Mooney’s plane. Maybe he hasn’t arrived yet.’

  ‘This isn’t you stalling?’ Masen asks. If Bozeman was pretending to be helping but secretly still working for Mooney, it would be what Masen would do.

  ‘Now you’re starting to sound like Sparks,’ Bozeman says. ‘We’ve got time.’

  It isn’t long before Pak is emulating the scene he saw only a few minutes earlier as his second donut washes down with a can of soft drink. Back on the road, trees replace buildings, bushes, cars, and the road quietens as they turn down a street where Bozeman lives. The car slows and pulls over. Bozeman holds out the keys for Masen, but maintains a strong grip as Bradbury and Pak get out of the car and move beside Masen.

  ‘Behind the TV in the lounge room is a loaded 12 gauge,’ Bozeman says looking between Bradbury and Pak. ‘Pump a few rounds if anyone comes through the back, or front door. There’s also a pistol in the fridge: butter compartment. And in the basement taped to the low ceiling behind the shower screen is a Saturday night special, which you’ll need a couple of shots to drive home the message…Oh, and I believe there’s one or two day old pizza in the fridge. Feel free.’

  Masen walks them both to the stairs. Silence amplifies the closer they get to the door. Masen fumbles the hefty set of keys searching for the right one.

  ‘Well, this is where…’ he starts to say, but is pulled in close by two hands that grip and tug at his T-shirt. Her lips travel the full distance.

  Stunned, he inches into her. Her hands frames his face. Their bodies come together. The kiss lingers. Passion not faltering as the seconds vanish. He doesn’t want it to end. For what feels like the briefest of encounters they press into each other, feeling the warmth of each other’s body.

  They ease off. Masen smiles seeing the back of Pak: he’d done the honorable thing and offered them at least some privacy.

  ‘Be careful,’ Bradbury says.

  ‘I will.’

  The traffic grinds slower. Masen inches forward and says, ‘I know where Black’s hiding.’ Bozeman leans back and listens. ‘He’s in a concealed room behind the Barn. I need to warn someone.’

  Tagan looks back at Masen. ‘I can get an ambulance, but that’s it. Leave me out of all of this stuff.’

  ‘Give me your cell, Amos.’ Masen holds out his hand in front of Bozeman’s face. ‘I have an idea.’

  ‘Okay, Jimbo, run it past me first.’

  ‘We don’t have time,’ his fingers summon, ‘I need to call someone.’

  Bozeman squirms and releases the cell wedged between his stomach and thigh.

  Thinking of the extension number, Masen’s finger hovers over the numbers. He dials. The phone rings.

  Struggling to remain coherent, Black looks forward as the Barn starts filling with Pascal’s depleted team. He watches the men and women sit down at their stations, turn on computers and wait for instructions. Their attention projected forward at Pascal’s office.

  ‘My office.’

  The Director walks through the door. ‘It should be me,’ Black says flaring his nostrils, fists clenched. Flanked by two guards complete with earpiece wire curled behind an ear, they scan the room as the Director speaks briefly to an attentive crowd of four.

  ‘I have to wait until there’s only one or two. Last person who blinks wins.’

  51

  38,000 Feet over The Pacific

  ‘I’m here, as you requested,’ Chuck Morgan says turning behind in his seat to face Mooney. ‘Now call that baboon of yours and tell him to leave my daughter alone.’ The unknown churns like acid in his stomach.

  Ignoring the fasten seat belt sign and the pilot’s warnings of intermittent turbulence, Mooney stands and propels himself forward.

  Morgan grips Mooney’s arm tightly. ‘If you hurt her,’ he adds looking up deadpan, locking onto his eyes.

  Mooney never had any kids, though you’d think the odds were high given his trajectory through two marriages. But travelling the world and spending months away at a time, well…the bull had to be in the same paddock every once in a while. Still, he can imagine the anguish his friend must be going through, but he has the mission to think of and Robertson’s deteriorating condition. His feet stumble under the shifting
floor as he rocks side-to-side.

  ‘Relax,’ he says prying fingers off, ‘she’s fine.’ And continues walking towards Robertson slumped in the seat as if he’s got a stomach ache, which he does.

  Robertson puts on a brave face. He’s cold and finds obtaining a comfortable position near impossible. Thinks, can’t believe she shot me.

  ‘She bites, that one,’ Mooney says sympathetically watching Robertson clutching his wound. Blood oozes through gaps between tight fingers, thick and dark.

  ‘Yep, never should have let her out of my sights,’ Robertson concedes with a regrettable expression. ‘Got her in the leg, though.’

  ‘Save your strength, son. She shot dead two guards. She isn’t getting off the base alive.’ Poor bastard. Lifts his fingers and looks at the wound. Small entry, large exit hole.

  ‘The clothes and congealed blood will slow the bleeding,’ Mooney lies. He knows a dead man when he sees one. He bends down and takes out a blanket from a storage compartment, unwraps the plastic cover, unfolds it to a thickness of a pillow and places it behind Robertson’s back. ‘Keep pressure on it. We’ll call ahead and drop you off when we land at Travis.’

  Robertson plays with his fingers, seeing what effect repositioning has on the rate of blood loss. ‘I took care of the two spooks as you ordered.’

  Mooney places a soft hand on Robertson’s shoulder. ‘Good work…now get some rest.’

  Robertson shifts and washes a hand over his face.

  Tired, Sparks looks listlessly past Mooney to Nash—slumped, his head resting on the side on the seat. The sun glows burnt orange over the Pacific and fills the cabin like a rising tide as the plane tilts into a slow turn. He hadn’t slept much. Between Robertson’s moaning—at one stage during the flight Robertson stopped moving and Sparks thought he’d died—and reservations about going back to the Barn; he was dead, drowned in the Charles River, left little room for sleep.

  The droning sound of the engines and vibration that was once a welcoming distraction at the start of the flight, now has the opposite affect of reminding him what happened back in the hanger and what plans Mooney has for him. And as he looks at his watch that still shows EST time, he has hope about the failed tests. However, with several thousand miles to go, he has to live with the fact that he is only now slowly coning to the realization his decision to betray Masen was not only wrong, but stupid.

  For the next several hours the cabin settles. Robertson’s condition a blanket that smothers all forms of communication, waiting for a last breath to signal the end. And as they cross over the mainland, the pilot wakes everyone updating their location.

  Nash gasps himself awake, wipes drool from his mouth and senses a presence. Gathers himself and looks behind and sees Mooney staring straight back at him. There is a slight cackle in the speaker above. ‘Twenty-eight minutes from Travis Airforce Base,’ The pilot announces. ‘We have priority refuel for an immediate turnaround and takeoff. Should be airborne fifteen minutes after we land. Flight time to Hanscom has been revised thirty minutes earlier due to a favorable tailwind. Adjust watches back sixteen hours.’

  ‘Is he?’ Nash mouths looking past Mooney to Sparks, yawns and pushes up in the seat.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Sparks replies shaking his head.

  Mooney twists the cap from the bottle and pops pills into his dry mouth, crunches and swallows and looks over at Robertson who is as white as the pills he’s chewing. Cracks his head and walks over and pries Robertson’s hand away. The blood loss has stopped. Robertson is alive, just; a finger on his jugular vain detects a faint pulse, although it’s as if life has one foot out the door keen for a quick departure.

  The plane shudders touching down, the engines actuators and bucket doors reconfigure to redirect the air forward, straining the airframe with the sudden and unnatural change in aerodynamic pressures, slows the plane quickly.

  Sparks springs to life. For a few seconds he doesn’t know where he is and what’s happening. Then watches outside as an ambulance comes within a few feet of the slowing aircraft, matching speed.

  Sparks leans up and looks down at the sparse acreage of the wheat-belt below, thickening into smaller plots and clumps of buildings; the outcrops of small towns. Nash had decided to sit next to Sparks at some stage when Sparks’ thoughts were elsewhere.

  ‘Recognize anything?’ Nash asks glancing over where Robertson was seated, where the doctor shook his head at Mooney when he asked if he was alive.

  ‘Nothing,’ Sparks says slinking back down amongst dark questions swirling in his head about his own fate. ‘What do you think will happen to us?’

  ‘Nothing good I would think,’ Nash says remembering the report Mooney handed him on the helicopter about what happened to his team. However, more than anything he wants to find out what went wrong. At least he can finish what the team started.

  ‘Thirty-minutes,’ Mooney notes and unscrews a bottle of water. ‘Ass way round, Boston then back to San Francisco.’

  ‘It would save time if you dropped Sparks and myself off,’ Nash says.

  He tries to come up with a valid reason why the technology failed. It had been bothering him because the computer simulations back at the facility showed repeatedly positive results. With the upgrades to the processors there was enough redundancy in the operating parameters to capture all data to teleport mass ten times that of Masen.

  Not one fail.

  ‘You’re not amongst the living, remember,’ Mooney says. ‘Have to keep your head down, professor. Same goes for you Sparks, plus I like a tight team.’

  He moves one seat up, discards the empty bottle in the seat where Robertson died and laments on the body count in his head. It’s a reasonable number. Completely acceptable given what’s at stake. Would accept a zero or two, three, on the end of that ledger entry. And looks over at Sparks and Nash. Thinks, what’s a couple more, just a rounding error. They’re both officially dead anyway. And takes the seat next to Morgan.

  ‘Are you sure everything was operating within parameters?’ Nash asks Sparks quietly.

  Sparks ignores the question, sighs and starts fidgeting with the elastic in the seat pocket in front.

  ‘Sparks,’ Nash whispers. ‘The parameters, they were all good?’

  ‘I was angry—’

  ‘What does that mean, angry?’ He doesn’t understand. ‘Did you do anything?’

  Now wide awake from the mixture of chemicals dissolved in his bloodstream, Mooney lets his head settle into the headrest as the pilot announces the remaining flight time. ‘Fifteen minutes out from final approach.’

  Content his daughter is out of harms way, General Chuck Morgan lays still in his seat, searching for clues in the back of the bulkhead that divides cockpit and passengers. Thinks, I’m not walking away from this.

  ‘So what’s the plan, Sloan?’

  ‘A graduate from West Point never devolves a plan when there’s no strategic reason to,’ Mooney says. ‘You of all people know never to show your hand prematurely.’

  ‘To the enemy, sure. You consider me your enemy?’

  ‘I consider you an essential part, that’s all you need to know.’

  ‘Well it wasn’t just to ensure your speedy departure from the base,’ Morgan says reflecting on his own thoughts about why he’s been brought along for the ride.

  ‘This isn’t Jeopardy.’

  ‘I should have worked out your MO by now.’

  ‘Yeah well, don’t feel too stupid, Chuck. Trust is a tricky lesson.’

  ‘So you slip away and I take the fall.’

  ‘Straight to the bonus round,’ Mooney says settling his head on the headrest.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Nash says, his chest constricts at the thought it was a deliberate act of sabotage. ‘Did you deliberately—’

  ‘No,’ Sparks says softly appalled at the suggestion. ‘The first test I tweaked something, made the temperature rise a fraction.’

  �
��Jesus.’

  ‘Not John, Kim, Jessica,’ Sparks rushes then pauses going through the mental checklist in his head to ensure he got it right. ‘Everything was as it should be. It should have worked…’

  ‘Awful quiet back there,’ Mooney says allowing his eyes to close momentarily. ‘Anything I need to know about?’

  The memory of the helicopter ride floods back to Nash. The rush of wind as Mooney opened the door and shoved his gun in his face, threatening to shoot and throw his body out. He had lied and lived, but he’s not as strong as he once was.

  ‘I was just familiarizing Sparks about the facility. He needs to get authorization to enter.’

  ‘I can override security,’ Mooney says. ‘It won’t be a problem.’

  ‘Greatest escape story in history,’ Sparks says turning to face the window.

  The ground accelerates underneath as the plane flares and glides to make contact with the runway, tires skidding to speed. Two black jeeps emerge from starboard and catch up with the slowing plane as it turns on the taxiway.

  Sparks and Nash are marched into waiting cars.

  Mooney notices a white Gulfstream being refueled a few hundred yards away. The engines are still hot as the surrounding air blurs in pockets of heated air. Thinks, Bozeman has the equipment here already. I suppose he’s not completely without use.

  Pointing to the driver and passengers in the other jeep, he orders the men to transfer the equipment to his plane before he gets into the jeep and orders the driver to take him to Technology Square. ‘ASAP.’

  ‘Don’t slow down,’ Mooney orders, ‘speed up.’ Waves at cars as if he has the power to part them telekinetically. ‘Get them to move out of the way. Bump them.’

  Morgan sees the growing back of a taxi and braces.

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ the driver replies and slams into the back of the taxi. Nash and Sparks jolt forward as the car suddenly and violently grinds the taxi against a concrete side barricade.