A Time to Die (13 page)

“What does it do?”

“Talk to another quantum program. It’s only a few thousand lines of code. It takes all the other signals we’ve recorded, extrapolates patterns, and sends back a reply. It won’t help if it takes a unique pre-programmed response, but you’d have to assume it would take a predictable response. At least that’s the direction we’re taking with this.”

Jeremiah shrugged. “Okay, you’re the computer expert. How soon?”

“We’ve been trying for about an hour.”

Jeremiah nodded again and watched them work. They were moving the transceiver along the hull recording, transmitting, sensing, and moving on. It seemed an agonizingly slow process.

“That’s interesting,” one of the programmers said.

“What?” the professor said and moved over to them.

“The program just got its first reply.”

“Reply?” Jeremiah asked. They dropped into deep technobabble and ignored him. Normally he didn’t tolerate that, but he was enough of an expert to realize when he was in over his head, and the people he paid a lot of money were almost in over their own heads as well. So they kept working while he quietly grumbled and waited.

The team got increasingly excited and frustrated in what appeared to Jeremiah in equal parts. Finally, they stopped for a minute and the programming whiz did some of his magic. Then they tried again, with very different results. They put the transceiver back where they first started hours ago, just behind the cockpit and activated the program. Even back where Jeremiah was standing he heard a distinctive “PING!”

“Nobody fucking move,” the engineering head spoke in a clear tone. Everyone did as instructed, especially Jeremiah, who was afraid for a second he’d shit his pants.

After a moment, a somewhat shaky tech ever so slowly placed the transceiver against the hull again. “Well that’s different,” the man at the computer said.

“What?” Jeremiah squeaked.

“No signal now,” someone said. The unit was moved and another signal found. The man running the program lifted an eyebrow and the professor looked at Jeremiah.

“Try another,” Jeremiah suggested. The professor nodded and they moved to another point. The computer chewed on the code for a moment and suddenly, “PING!” Another transmission point was gone. “I think you’ve figured it out.”

“Yes, but figured what out?” the professor wondered. At Jeremiah’s prompting they continued working in an expanding square pattern behind the cockpit opening. Until after releasing yet another rivet, a section of hull suddenly detached. The tech who’d been operating the transceiver almost messed his pants in surprise.

“Slight increase in radiation,” a technician announced. “Non-ionizing, no danger.”

The tech operating the transceiver retreated and a small robot was moved it. The dislodged plate was still in its place, raised above its surroundings by maybe a millimeter. The robot used a delicate arm to touch the plate that bobbed gracefully from the touch. “It’s levitating,” Jeremiah said quietly. The robot arm took ahold of the plate and after a little bit of force was applied, it came away without fanfare.

Another robot arm moved a camera into place and revealed the inside of the craft. There was a space going down roughly half the thickness of the vessel and about a foot on a side. Several metallic looking cylinders were visible, all glowing a slight bluish color and arranged in a triangular formation, pointing toward the front of the craft. High resolution images were taken and experts began to examine them. Along the forward part was revealed lines of what had to be text, though not in any written language he’d ever seen.

“Bingo,” Jeremiah said.

The mechanical people were feeling bold and with Jeremiah’s encouragement used the robot arm to reach inside and probe at the trio of glowing cylinders. There was no response or readings indicating they contained electrical chargers. “See if you can remove them,” he suggested. The room was filled with all manner of OOE experts now. If he’d bothered to take note he’d have realized that just about every employee was either in the room or watching via remote video. Every eye in the room was wide as the robot arm grasped the cylinders and ever so gently… pulled. Click, and it came free. It instantly stopped glowing.

“That radiation level dropped,” the tech told them.

A moment later the robot trundled over on rubber tracks and sat the cylinders on a plastic tray. Jeremiah was waiting, leaning in close to examine them.

“What do you think they do?” someone asked, he didn’t know who.

“I have no idea,” Jeremiah said. “But I intend to find out.”

Chapter 15

Saturday, April 21

Afternoon

Andrew’s hands were bloody and his knees were in extreme pain from crawling through the underbelly of the A380. It only took him a couple minutes to work his way through the engineering section adjacent to the galley. A hatch opened off of it forward and led into the main central cargo hold. It was slightly better lit with lines of white low power LED clusters every few meters. But it was also completely jammed full of contoured ULD, specialized containers custom made to fit the cargo hold of an A380. There was a little space along both sides, though not very damned much.

“Good lord,” he grunted as he pulled himself between the ULD and the wall of the cargo hold. The rear third was full of the ULD, all packed in for maximum use of space. He squeezed past the last one and came next to a huge fiber net stretched from floor to ceiling and side to side. The other side was stacks upon stacks of luggage. And there was no way around them. “Fuck.”

He managed to get one of the hooks to release on the net and wiggled through into the luggage netting and started to worm his way through the sea of bags. It was like trying to swim in a pool full of logs. The bags looked like they were just loosely dropped in the hold but they were actually a fairly tight matrix of sorts. The loaders played a huge game of Tetris and did it pretty well, since they did it every day. Andrew found it nearly impossible to make progress and quickly cursed whoever designed those bags with the collapsible handles and wheeled coasters. Every one of them gave him a poke in the head, jab in the ribs, or raked painfully along a shin as he moved through the hold. “This is fun,” he mumbled half way through the hold when he was pinned between a pink Hello Kitty bag and a suitcase large enough to hold a family of five and their SUV.

He pushed through another pair of bags and came to another cargo net. “Finally,” he said and began working towards an edge just as the entire plane shook. “Oh…shit.” A moment later he felt the gut-wrenching drop of heavy turbulence. He actually laughed in relief, until another hit. He’d been afraid the turbines had just run dry. The plane shimmied and climbed, then fell. The feelings were they were flying into heavy turbulence. He grabbed at the connectors on the cargo net and pulled on them hard. His hands searched until they found a retaining clip, then as the ship shuddered again he worked at it twice as hard.

The clip released and dumped him, and several dozen bags, into a huge heap on the floor. Another Hello Kitty bag landed painfully on his kidneys. He sat up and looked around. The forward hold area had a pair of unusual trucks strapped down on pallets. They were obviously expensive to afford being shipped in that manner.

Andrew slipped between the trucks and reached the forward bulkhead of the cargo hold. The turbulence was almost constant now and he could barely keep to his feet. The access door out of the hold was easier than getting into it had been. There was a slight resistance from pressure differences as he pulled the hatch open and he found himself in a mechanical space similar to the one aft of the hold. He moved through it quickly and was at the opposite access hatch in just moments. As he was working the hatch, the plane was hit with such an intense gust that he was levitated off his feet and slammed back down with enough force to make him see stars. The engines raced and the plane’s very superstructure groaned.

“Feels like we’re flying into a hurricane,” Andrew said as he rolled to his feet and shouldered the access hatch open. It took two hard bangs against the door before it flew open and dumped him on the floor of a dimly compartment. Andrew got his hands under him just as someone screeched and leaped on his back.

“Agh!” he yelled as he felt nails clawing at his pilot uniform. Then he felt hot breath against his neck and knew he was about to get bitten, so he threw his left elbow back as hard as he could and tried to flip.

There was a grunt and the weight on his back shifted, so he threw the elbow again and pushed sideways with all his might. He managed to make them both roll and as they did he used his combat training to accentuate the move and spin in the crazy person’s arms. His adversary struggled to hold but wasn’t fighting with any forethought. In a flash he was on top of the person, straddling their chest and his legs pinning their arms.

Andrew gawked at the flight attendant he had pinned. She was a lithe Arabic women no more than thirty years old with long black hair in disarray and eyes as crazy as any he’d seen. She was screaming, hissing, and spitting as she tried to reach far enough to bite at him. “Jesus, woman,” he said to no logical response.

He looked around at his surroundings, hoping desperately to find something to tie her up with. Anything at all! The plane jolted almost hard enough to dislodge him from where he had her pinned. When he looked down again his eyes had further adjusted to the darkness. Her face was stained dark red from blood and several teeth were broken. No sign of a sentient person was behind those eyes.

“Damn it,” he cursed, cocked his arm back, and clubbed her along the side of her head which rocked to one side, but instantly turned back with a snarl. He hit her again, and again, and again, with no apparent effect. Then he saw the blood running from the side of her head where he’d torn the flesh loose. His fist was now throbbing as well from the abuse. It would do no good to get to the cockpit and have one of his hands useless when he tried to fly the beast.

With a moan of desperation, he used both hands to grab her head, interlocking his fingers through that long black hair, he pulled her head towards him, and slammed it down against the floor as hard as he could. She grunted and stopped trying to bite him, but her eyes stayed open. “Go down, damn you,” he snarled and did it again. And that did the trick. She moaned and her eyes rolled up in her head, then closed.

Andrew got to his feet unsteadily, grabbing a table nearby to keep from falling as more turbulence hit. A counter against one bulkhead had various alcohol labels and locked racks of glasses. He realized he was in a bar or gift shop. He walked around a wall and found a spiral staircase going up. He started climbing.

The stairs made half turn and opened onto another deck. He carefully looked around the corner and into the deck. It was the front of a first class or business section. The curtain was partially torn from its moorings and a huge spray of blood stained it. He could see people fighting over the bulky pods in the partial light of the plane evening lighting.

Andrew was about to make a dash around the corner when fingers snatched his ankles and pulled. He just managed to get his hands out in time to keep from faceplanting into the metallic stairs as his feet came out from under him. Teeth bit into the small of his back and he screamed as the flight attendant renewed her attack.

He was past caring now as he threw his left elbow back and over with as much force as he could manage, slamming the flight attendant’s head against the stairwell wall with enough force to crack the plastic trim. She released his legs and the bite on his back, allowing him to spin and bring his hands into play. This time he cocked back and drove a forearm into her throat. The expression on her face changed from feral rage to surprise as cartilage was crushed under the strength of his blow. He pushed himself back a couple feet, brought a leg up, and with all the force he had drove it into her once beautiful face, slamming her head back into the wall.

There was a crunch transmitted through his foot and she went instantly limp. Andrew could see the look of surprise on her eyes as the trauma from the collapse of the back of her skull flipped the switch and shut off her life. She tumbled backwards like a marionette with its strings cut.

He turned around even before she’d fallen from view, afraid some other person crazed by this sickness was going to be coming at him. But compared to the sounds of chaos from the passenger areas, his own life and death struggle had been a quiet one. He reached back a hand to feel his back where she’d bitten him. To his surprise, considering the amount of pain from the bite, she hadn’t torn his flight suit. He was certain he’d find a chunk of skin missing, at the very least. Andrew closed his mind to what was going on nearby and quickly cut around the corner of the stairs and on upward.

They did another half turn and there was a landing. A small service area to one side held a bathroom, a sign on its door said “Crew Only – No Unauthorized Personnel”. There was also a small fridge and area to prepare meals and drinks. A long curtain covered four tiny sleeping bunks, the off duty crew sleep area. And to the other side an armored door stating “Flight Deck – No Unauthorized Personnel”. And it was slightly ajar. “That’s definitely not good,” he thought as he took ahold of the door and gently pulled it open.

The first thing he noticed was the head of the captain in his left hand seat, and right hand seat empty. He had a moment of excitement seeing the head of the captain there. The second was the dark, angry storm they were flying through. Lightning crisscrossed the sky in furious displays.

He looked at the captain’s chair. Maybe he’d just broken a hundred FAA regulations getting there for nothing. Leaning a bit forward he could see the four gold tabs on the pilot’s shoulder. He took a hesitant step into the cockpit before he spoke. “Captain?” There was no movement. The plane jerked and dipped and he almost lost footing and fell forward towards the flight seats.

One hand grabbed the back of the copilots chair, the other found the high ‘in step’ the flight crew used to get into the seats over all the middle mounted controls, and it landed in wet stickiness. His face even with the seated pilot, he turned his head and looked into the man’s dead face. Most of the side of his face and part of his neck were completely gone revealing bone and muscles. Blood coated the white front of his Saudi Airlines uniform and it was splattered over many of the flat glass monitors. What remained of the face was frozen in a rector of horror.

“Fuck me,” Andrew said and fell back in disgust.

“Graaar!” came an animalistic snarl outside the cockpit. Andrew cursed and jumped to his feet, moving to the rear of the cockpit as fast as he could. There were two people, both men and both with blood all over their faces and arms, and both looking curiously into the cockpit. He didn’t hesitate. Andrew grabbed the handle on the door and slammed it closed. Unfortunately, he couldn’t immediately find the latch.

Something outside grabbed the door and pulled, almost jerking it out of Andrew’s hand. He temporarily grabbed the handle with both hands and pulled it back closed, then found the latch, switched to one hand, and jerked it into place. He let go and backed away, breathing hard as he heard fists pounding on the door. For a door armored against intrusion, the sound of their pounding was surprisingly loud. The door quivered with each impact.

The plane lurched again, and Andrew became aware of the alarms for the first time. He returned to between the control seats again and examined the control screens for the first time. “Holy shit,” he said as he took in the glass cockpit and relative sea of overhead mounted switches. “And I thought a fighter was bad.”

Maneuvering onto the step, trying to avoid the blood as much as possible, Andrew found the overhead handholds, took a grip, and chinned himself into the right hand seat. Compared to a fighter seat, it was more conforming and quite a bit wider. He’d heard from many ex-fighter jocks that part of the fun of commercial flying was letting your ass spread. It took him a minute to find the stowage for manuals, and another minute to find the basic checklists. It was a thick book. “All right,” he said as he started scanning, “let’s see what’s going on.” Outside lightning continued to race across the sky.

Tapping an icon on his main screen ordered the alarms. F20 was the highest priority alarm because it has not been acknowledged. He indexed it in the manual. Fuel below 20%. “Oh boy,” he said. Instantly he reprioritized his examination of the manuals. Grabbing a headset off the holder behind his head, he settled it on his head and started punching controls on the radio screen. He needed to find out where he was and call mayday. The other main alarm was AFF, Automated Flight Path Failure. Outside, the storm raged on.

* * *

Kathy lifted the binoculars and looked across the landscape for the fifth time, trying her best to make sense out of what she was seeing. According to her GPS this should have been Mexico. She didn’t even realize she’d crossed the border until she’d checked the device a few minutes ago, having just stopped to refuel the ATV. True to his word, the machine Tobey had sold her proved to be in great condition. What it wasn’t was good on gas. She’d left with five five-gallon cans after abandoning the road six hours ago. She was now down to two cans and a full tank. At least it was easier driving without pulling the trailer full of gas. There was more movement through the glasses so she watched.

A shallow valley snaked between hills covered in brown grass, a stream meandering back and forth. When she’d first gotten here she’d spotted a few dozen cars and trucks circled around a camp. It looked like a bunch of people had killed a cow and were cooking it. She’d initially pegged them as illegals until she checked her GPS. Correction, I’m the illegal, she thought as she’d stowed the empty can.

Kathy had been about to fire up the bike and ride down to use her limited Spanish for an interview when a pair of brown Humvees appeared at the other end of the valley and headed towards the campers at high speed. “This could be interesting,” she thought and hooked her digital recorder to the input on the binoculars. The Humvees skidded to a stop and disgorged a squad of troops. And that was when she realized they were American soldiers, not Mexican. The leader of the campers came over and began an animated conversation with the soldiers. She wished she were closer. The sonic microphone packed in a case was good, but not more than a mile good. After a few minutes the soldier gestured and all the men dismounted and joined the campers. They appeared to have decided to share the barbecue.