The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

  “No. Just stating a fact. But I’m well aware of them.”

  Rick wished he’d had time to study what was on the thumb drive Pickens had given him.

  “I’ve been told a lot of their suicide notes mentioned a void in their lives. You’ve been here the longest. Any idea what they were talking about?”

  He laughed. “Not a void—the void. The void beyond existence. If certain people stay around that thing and stare at that blackness long enough, they start to realize this is all we’ve got and all that awaits beyond is formless chaos. Some of them feel compelled to embrace that void.”

  Embracing the void … Rick tried to imagine that but failed.

  “But not you?”

  He shook his head. “I’m a different sort. I’m of the tribe that wants to avoid the void as long as possible.” He chuckled. “ ‘Avoid the void.’ I kind of like that. Anyway, I’ve always been aware that life is a shit show from the git-go, so the Anomaly doesn’t bother me one tiny bit. We’re like old friends.”

  “Stoney,” Moe said, looking at him with wonder, “I’ve never heard you talk like this.”

  “Neither have I. Don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

  She turned and stared at Iggy. “I think I do.”

  Iggy looked puzzled. “What?”

  “I believe I’ve just had an epiphany.”

  “What’s a piffanny?”

  Rick was more interested in the Anomaly and what Stoney had to say.

  “Mind introducing me to your friend?” he said, pointing to the chamber.

  “Friend? Hardly.” Stoney squinted at him. “I didn’t know better I’d say you had a personal interest in this.”

  Rick was tempted to say that he and the Anomaly had met before but held back. No sense opening that can of worms.

  Stoney led him to within a couple of feet of the front wall where Rick stared at the … thing hovering beyond the glass, expanding and contracting, flattening and bulging, its shimmering purple Mandelbrotish border writhing like a tentacle around the black void at its center. If it radiated simple wrongness from a distance, close up it became the essence of madness.

  Hey. Remember me?

  No reaction.

  Up close like this, the blackness of that void called to him, invited him in …

  He forced his gaze away and said, “After all this time nobody knows what it is?”

  Stoney gave his head a quick, frustrated shake. “Nope. The Lange-Tür worked for an eyeblink, and in that eyeblink something came through. The passage to wherever it came from closed after it arrived and we’ve been unable to reopen it. We’re not sure if the Anomaly is aware or sentient or even alive in any sense we can imagine. Parts of it appear to be pure energy and parts seem to be pure entropy.”

  “What about that blackness in the middle?” he said without looking.

  “We’ve got an elaborate system of airlocks over there on the side. We used those to shoot it with lasers, lightning bolts, and to toss objects at it. Any object that hit the black disappeared.”

  “Gone?”

  “Yep. Passed into the black and kept going. Never seen again.”

  “Didn’t show up in some Tibetan monastery or anything?”

  “Now that would have been interesting as all get-out, but no. Gone. Swallowed. Somewhere Out There.”

  “So it’s like a hole in reality.”

  “That’s a colorful way of putting it, but yes, part of it could be called that. But what’s around that hole seems different. More like a form of energy. But the bottom line is we can’t communicate with it, we can’t send it back, and we sure as hell can’t set it free.”

  “So you’re stuck with it,” Rick said.

  “Right. Lange-Tür was eventually shut down as an experimental project but they couldn’t abandon the Anomaly—no telling what would happen. So a skeleton crew’s been posted to keep watch. I volunteered to be a member of that crew and continue working on it. Come hell or high water, I’m gonna figure out what it is before I die.”

  Rick had a pretty good idea what it was—or at least where it came from.

  “I’m amazed they’ve been able to keep it secret.”

  “Not like they have a choice,” Stoney said. “First off, you’ve got to pass heavy screening before you’re allowed back here. And as for keeping your lip zipped, I suppose all those suicides didn’t hurt. Cuts down the number of folks in the know, if you get my drift. And as for the ones who don’t off themselves, you hear about all those suicides and you wonder if they’re really suicides or if that’s what happens to people who decide to talk about Lange-Tür. So you keep quiet. Maybe some of them were homicides. I don’t know. I do know the Pentagon sure as hell can’t have the truth about Lange-Tür get out.”

  Rick felt a nausea welling up in him. Proximity to the Anomaly …

  “I can see why,” he said, backing toward Moe and Iggy. “They’d have to admit they let an unidentified and unknowable object or entity into our world—no, even worse: into our country. And then they’d have to admit that the government and its scientists and its military are impotent against it. Your all-powerful, all-knowing government, the font of solutions to everything, hasn’t got a clue how to handle this thing.”

  “Well, all that’s just fine,” Iggy said to Moe as he stopped beside her. “But what’s this got to do with those Motherhood clinics you ran? I thought you brought me in here to show me.”

  “That’s right,” Rick said, stepping up to Moe. “You were Emily Jacobi.”

  Iggy folded her arms across her chest. “And she injected our moms with melis.”

  “What’s melis?”

  Moe pointed to the Anomaly. “It comes from that.”

  “Eeeuw!” Iggy made a face. “Really?”

  Moe nodded. “Really. I wasn’t involved in any of this yet—I’m talking about when melis was discovered—but the story goes—”

  “What Moe is about to tell you is hearsay,” Stoney said. “I can give you an eyewitness account because I was here back in the eighties when it happened.”

  “Now who’s got logorrhea?” Moe said.

  “Touché,” said the old guy. “But if he’s going to hear the story, he might as well get it from a firsthand source.” He turned to Rick. “Doctor Max was in his seventies back then and pretty much retired on a government pension, but he lived nearby and still visited the bunker regularly. On one of those visits he noticed some kind of residue on the floor of the Anomaly’s chamber. He drove us crazy until we came up with a way to siphon off a bit. Using strict anti-contamination protocols, we succeeded. DoD took charge of it after that. They kept coming back for more, but never told us what they were doing with it.”

  “Okay, my turn,” Moe said, picking up the story without lag. “I was working at Fort Detrick at the time. Agent Greve showed up with a sample of the weirdest substance I’d ever seen or heard of and charged me with finding out what it was. I named it ‘melis,’ experimented on it every which way imaginable, and eventually it found its way into the Modern Motherhood Clinics in an attempt to create brainier kids.”

  A blithe way to gloss over experimenting on the brains of unborn children. He didn’t know if he liked her so much now.

  “But I gather the ‘brainier kids’ part failed?”

  “They turned out no smarter than their peers. We didn’t know it at the time, but we wound up creating Iggy and her friends—what you call nadaný.”

  “In other words,” he said, pointing at the Anomaly, “they come from that?”

  A nod. “Yes.”

  Rick was having a hard time wrapping his brain around this. “Modern Motherhood was a DoD project? Why on Earth—?”

  Cold steel pressed against his nape. He didn’t need eyes in the back of his head to know it was a gun barrel.

  “You’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Mister Hayden?” said a male voice he hadn’t heard before.

  How had he let him sneak up behind him? And then he knew: th
e Anomaly. It had a hold on him. And this had to be the guy Moe had mentioned before.

  “Greve!” she said. “No guns in the bunker!”

  “I know. My rule, remember. And I made an exception for myself.”

  “Is this really necessary?” she said.

  “Very necessary. I know this man’s capabilities.”

  Did he now? Time to say something.

  “DIA Agent Greve, I assume?”

  “Why, yes.” He sounded just a bit taken aback. “How did you know?”

  “Your reputation has preceded you.”

  “Running your mouth again, LaVelle?”

  “I seem to have become an endless font of information,” she said.

  “Well, put a sock in it. The kaffeeklatsch is over. As for you …” The muzzle dug deeper into his neck as a hand extended over his shoulder. It held a set of long-chain shackles. “Put these on.”

  Rick gave them one look, then shook his head. “No.”

  A few heartbeats of what he imagined was shocked silence, then, “Put them on or I’ll shoot.”

  Rick shook his head again. “Not gonna happen.”

  Moe’s comment about Greve bringing him here for some unknown reason had led him to conclude—accurately, he hoped—that Greve had a personal interest in him. He wasn’t going to pull that trigger. At least not yet.

  Rick read frustration in Greve’s grunt.

  “Very well then,” he said. “LaVelle, take the girl back to her room. I want a word alone with Mister Hayden”

  “I don’t wanna go,” Iggy said.

  Moe gave him a look. “Hear that? She doesn’t want to go. She can stay here with me.”

  “She has no clearance to be here, LaVelle.”

  “She’s a nadaný.” Moe pointed to the Anomaly. “That gives her every clearance she’ll ever need, Greve. She stays as long as she wants to.”

  Trouble in paradise? Rick wondered.

  These two were definitely not a team. Or if they were, they weren’t receiving the same signals. An exploitable situation, perhaps?

  Greve tossed the shackles to her. “Well, at least make her wear these.”

  Moe caught them but said, “I don’t think that’s necessary …”

  “No, hey, they’re cool,” Iggy said. “I like the chain.”

  She took them and snapped the cuffs around her wrists, then started twirling the chain like a jump rope between them.

  “Now you,” Greve said as the gun barrel was replaced by a hand tugging on the back of Rick’s collar. “We’ll have to have our talk somewhere else. You’re coming with me.”

  “What if I say no?”

  “I shoot you in the ankles and you can crawl out of here.”

  Rick wished Greve had left the barrel against his neck. Always good to know the location of your enemy’s weapon. But now it could be anywhere behind him. A good move on Greve’s part. Showed he was well trained, and had taken his training to heart. To make a move on the pistol, Rick had to know its exact location. Even an instant of fumbling could result in a slug in his gut.

  Wounded and ruined ankles would put a definite crimp in Rick’s future plans, so he shrugged and said, “Let’s go.”

  He allowed Greve to march him away from Iggy and the Anomaly.

  20

  EXIT 100B—GARDEN STATE PARKWAY

  The sign read Monmouth Service Area.

  “Anyone need a pit stop?” Laura said. “Speak up now if you think you might. I’ve no idea how far to the next one.”

  She checked her two passengers in the rear seats. Both had earbuds plugged in and were playing with their phones. Neither said anything.

  “You okay?” she said to Marie in the passenger seat.

  She nodded. “Fine.”

  “Are we still on target?” Laura said as she sped past the exit ramp.

  Another nod. “I think we made the right choice. They feel straight ahead, although I can’t say how far.”

  Still straight ahead … a good indicator that the “edge of the pine barrens” Ruthie heard mentioned had meant the eastern edge. The trouble was, if Laura remembered correctly, the Jersey pines ran almost to Cape May.

  “But I’m assuming if we pass them you’ll feel them off to the side?”

  “I hope so,” she said. “I haven’t been at this very long.”

  “And I’m also assuming that if you can sense them they’re still alive?”

  “I think that’s safe. Although …” She touched Laura’s shoulder. “I know that doesn’t give you much comfort where Rick is concerned.”

  “I …” She felt her throat thicken. “Yeah, I guess not.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. You’re doing all you can. He can take care of himself.”

  “Oh, no doubt,” Marie said. “It’s just …”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re thinking the same thing I’ve been thinking, right? Awake and on his feet, he can handle pretty much anything. But the last time you saw him he was out cold.” Her voice broke. “God knows why they took him or what they’re doing to him!” She slammed her hand against the steering wheel. “Damn it!”

  They drove in silence for a while, then Marie said, “What is it between you two, anyway?”

  Oh, hell … this was not a subject she wanted to discuss, especially now. Best to put the kibosh on it.

  “Nothing.”

  Marie laughed softly and shook her head.

  “What?” Laura said.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it, fine. Just say so. I’ll respect your privacy. But don’t hand me that ‘nothing’ line because anyone who’s seen you two within a hundred feet of each other knows that’s pure bullshit.”

  Laura’s turn to shake her head. “It’s that obvious?”

  “Trust me. You two keep veering away from each other.”

  “We have issues.”

  “Issues? Don’t tell me he has issues with you, because I’m not buying. He’s crazy about you. Even a blind person could see that. He’s Mister Tough Guy until you show up, then he’s Mister Lapdog. So you must be the one with the issues.”

  “Well, okay. Yes, I do I have issues with him.”

  “So you say.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Look at you. You’re so worried about him you’re banging the steering wheel. And look at him: totally hot and totally crazy about you. What kind of issues can you have with that?”

  “I can’t get into it.”

  “Somebody do something bad?”

  Laura could see Marie wasn’t going to let this go.

  “Nothing recent. Something in the past, before we met, and let’s put the brakes on right here, because it’s something he told me in confidence and I cannot-not-not get into it.”

  “Wait. It’s something bad and he told you about it?”

  Laura nodded. “Right.”

  “He told you. You didn’t just happen to find out on your own or hear it from someone else. He came out and told you?”

  “Right.”

  “Are you insane? That shows he’s being straight with you. Isn’t that what you want from a man? Honesty? I mean, how bad could it be?”

  How about mass murder—twenty-six lives? Laura thought, saying nothing. That bad enough for you?

  Marie said, “All right. You’re not talking. I can respect that. But whatever it is—or rather, was—it’s in the past. The Rick I know is a rock-solid guy. Not too many of those around.”

  “No argument there.”

  “So what else is it? Values? Beliefs? Does he belong to some weird cult that worships toads or something?”

  Laura shook her head. She was pretty sure their core values were in line, although they might vary in the way they expressed them. And as for beliefs … in the past few months everything she’d believed about the world and the way it worked had been turned on its head.

  “So why don’t you be honest with y
ourself ?” Marie said.

  The question took Laura by surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “This trip isn’t to rescue the nadaný.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “Okay, maybe a little bit. But the big reason you’re here and don’t want anyone else calling the shots is you’re worried about Rick—worried sick about him.”

  Laura had to admit she was right.

  “Yes. I am. Whoever they are, they have him, and he’s helpless, and God knows what they’re doing to him. And thank you.”

  Marie looked confused. “For what?”

  “For putting things in perspective and helping me realize something.”

  The huge gaps she’d imagined between them really weren’t huge at all.

  “Which is …?”

  “If we get out of this in one piece, and if he’ll forgive me for making things so difficult—”

  “Have no fear, Laura.”

  “Well, I’m never letting him go again.”

  She could see it now. They’d start over—go back to square one, the way things were between them after they returned from Orkney. She’d invite him over for dinner, he’d bring Champagne and hang out with Marissa while Laura cooked. They’d take it easy and see if everything developed the same as before. Just let things take their course, slow and natural.

  “Damn!” Marie said.

  “What?”

  “The good ones are always taken.”

  21

  LANGE-TÜR BUNKER

  Agent Greve ushered/prodded Rick down the hallway and into the smaller, officelike room he’d briefly visited before. He closed the door behind them and pushed him toward the desk chair.

  Rick turned and finally got a look at his captor. Thin, balding, older than he’d expected—older looking than Moe, anyway. Old enough to be retired. Why was he still on the job? And his pistol …

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Is that a Luger?”

  “A Stoeger copy.”

  “It’s a beauty.”

  A sour smile from Greve. “If you’re hoping for some adolescent-level bonding over weaponry, save your breath. I have no fetishes, least of all guns. I saw it for sale and made an impulse buy. That is all there is to it. It may look like a showpiece but the magazine is stacked with nine-millimeter hollow points. It has a hair trigger when the hammer is back—which it is—and I will not hesitate to squeeze that trigger should you make the slightest threatening move.”