Dedication (The Medicean Stars Saga Book 1) (14 page)

“Anyway, the point is that nothing happened with the sphere until Angelina brought you back here. I have been told that almost exactly as you entered the compound, the orb turned on, spiking its emissions all across the electromagnetic spectrum, and it began humming like an old car engine... which is odd. Some are arguing that it is just a coincidence. Personally, I don’t believe in coincidences, but what has really tipped my hand is the way she seems to have taken to you. Quite frankly, I would never have thought she would go for you like she has.”

Gavitte’s heart skips two beats; first out of fear and embarrassment that someone noticed how he and Angelina had been looking at each other. The second beat is missed on account of his excitement that someone with an unbiased perspective thinks she is interested in him. He resolves to go and find her after this meeting ends and confront her about the way his heart beats madly whenever he sees her.

“One odd thing surrounding you is coincidence, but two is starting to smell a bit fishy. That’s why I decided to see what your input is on all this. In a few hours the scientists who’ve been studying the sphere are making a presentation about their findings. Maybe you can give a different perspective and draw some different conclusions.”

“You’re saying I triggered this thing?” Gavitte asks, still trying to wrap his mind around everything he has just heard.

“Far from it,” Lampard replies. “I’m just saying that you are a piece of the strange circumstances surrounding its activation, and while I’ve never been superstitious, I’m also not particularly dumb. I’ve noticed that things usually happen for a reason. But, most importantly, you bring a different kind of perspective to the table, and you’ve earned the trust—and a bit more from what I can tell—of Angelina, which in itself is enough for me to gamble on involving you in this side of our operation.”

The rest of the committee around the table nods in agreement and turns back from the projections covering the walls to focus on Gavitte, all seemingly well briefed on the entire situation and in agreement with the general. The last part of the general’s statement and being the focus of everyone’s gaze are enough to bring a flush of embarrassment to Gavitte’s cheeks, as he wonders how much the general and his committee really know... and how much they just learned from his reaction.

“As to your earlier question of why I would abandon my career to join some underground movement, let’s just say I’d made it high enough in the system to taste the corruption, but I didn’t have the connections to make it work for me. After giving them most of my life and losing three wives to divorce, which at least the government paid for, the best posting I could get was either watching paper mold or dying honorably while slaughtering civilians. I decided that I might as well take a risk and see if I could actually do something worthwhile by discovering what this strange object was.”

Gavitte is still too preoccupied with his embarrassment to really process the general’s story, or notice that his eyes give away the fact that the story was not complete. There is some deeply personal reason that is actually responsible for his choice, but Gavitte does not see the signs. They sit opposite each other and look inward at their own turmoil as the lights turn on and the rest of the committee prepare to return to their other duties.

Western Mountains

Underground Training Facility

It is about an hour after dinner. William and David sit on opposite sides of their room, wondering what tomorrow will bring. If either of them were willing to bet, they’d put their money on it being another day of the same monotonous equipment and survival training that has filled their past month together. At first William found the equipment drills exciting, the first time you put on a spacesuit tends to fill you with a little trepidation and excitement, but by the time you’ve put it on and taken it off one hundred times, even doing it in the dark is boring. Their days have been filled with twelve hours of drills to start off followed by six hours of lecture covering everything from the basics of survival skills to a repair and maintenance of their future ship’s critical systems. William’s head is swimming with the amount of information that has been crammed into it. Tonight, in this strange hour of free time before the lights are shut off, he begins to think about the life he left behind. Every day that he has been in this place, he’s pushed himself as hard as he could, not because he wanted to or because the instructors or the overseers ever inspired him to it; no, it has simply been that he’d had no choice and really nothing better to do. Before, in his quiet suburban home, there had been a million “important” things he could waste his time on, but here under this mountain, his life has been stripped down to the essentials: eating, sleeping, and working. True the food isn’t very good, every time he wakes up his body aches and he wishes he could roll back over, and the work that he does isn’t by his own choice, but he is beginning to feel a sense of satisfaction that he is capable of handling this challenge. While he may not like where he is and what he is doing, it certainly beats the boredom he faced every day before. Before his mind can wander too far, it is brought back with a jerk by a pounding at the door.

“At attention boys!” a guard shouts from the hall.

Both are startled off their beds and are already up and standing next to each other, facing the door, when it opens, admitting one of the overseers and a guard.

“William Marin?” the overseer asks, looking directly at him.

“Yes?” William says.

“You’ve been selected to lead the exploration team E-2.” Then, handing him a packet of papers: “These are your team members’ files and an overview of the work you’ll be performing. Also included is your new name tag and an information sheet regarding your more… homogenized name.”

With that, the two men turn on their heels and head across the hall to repeat the process with Maria and her roommate. As her door opens, William and David’s closes, leaving them alone once more. Now, however, there is a new weight on William. Suddenly he is filled with dread, doubting his earlier cavalier desire to make a difference. They’re taking him and fitting him into the hole they made; if he doesn’t fit, they’ll just put someone else there instead. After all, they have spares. William does not want to become surplus, but he is unsure how well and for how long he can play the game he dreads being required to play. Slumping to the bed, he opens the clasp on the packet and pulls out his future.

The first page has a mugshot-like photo of him at the top. Next to the photo, his stats are listed. Height, weight, eye color, the usual information is all there, with only one small change above the picture. Where there should be listed just one name, there are two.

STANDARD NAME: Bob E2-05-X0-00

ARCHIVE NAME: William Marin

The second name is printed in a much smaller font. His new homogenized name is clearly emblazoned across the top.

“So, you’re a Bob,” David intrudes, having come around beside William to look over his shoulder. “Cool, I’m a Joe, officially… Nice to meet you. Well, I’m actually Joe M1-02, because I’m on Mechanical team one, and, I guess, the second person.”

“So what is the next part of the number?” William asks, pointing to the X0-00.

“You would go right for that one wouldn’t you?” David muses. “Only one thing on your mind since I’ve met you.” He pauses just long enough to give William a knowing look. “I don’t think we’re supposed to know this yet, but that’s for your mate. A girl over in agricultural managed to get herself knocked up. How they pulled that off, I don’t really know. But she and the lucky fellow now have each other’s numbers instead of those place holders. Or so the rumor goes.”

“So what, they’re planning on breeding us or something?”

“Yeah, something like that, I bet. Either that or they’re just planning for the inevitable. I can guess whose numbers you want to take.”

David’s ability to make this assertion so boldly after only seeing him and Maria interact a few times is enough to make William blush, and he wonders if his feelings are as obvious to her as they are to his roommate. Half hoping that this is the case and half hoping that it’s not, he moves deeper into the stack of papers.

After the small packet detailing his life, William comes to a dossier on each of his team members. There are four total, with himself making the fifth. Each dossier follows the same format as his own: a brief physical description, a page on background education and culture, and, finally, two to three pages detailing aptitudes and skills developed while taking part in the Junior Space Corps.

The first file that he begins to examine more closely contains a picture of a mousy, brown-haired girl with an impish grin on her face, seeming to be laughing at the guards behind the camera. Before he has a chance to turn to the other side of the page to see her name, the lights turn off, throwing the entire complex into darkness. After a few seconds, a light in the hall slowly flickers to life, providing just enough glow to illuminate David’s face as he sits down on his bed.

“I guess they’ve decided to give us an early bed time tonight,” David says. “Must be a big day tomorrow. I’d recommend putting that stuff away and at least acting like you’re asleep until the guards come and check on us.”

Recognizing good advice when he hears it, William stashes the papers under his bed and slides under the one thin sheet, closing his eyes and letting his body relax, fully intending to get back to the folder as soon as possible.

Foothills of the Western Mountains

A University Campus

Jon shuts the door from the main hall, and the visibility in the tunnel, previously illuminated by the light spilling through the portal, decreases significantly, leaving only a few pools of light where the hanging maintenance lights provide a faint glow. The tunnel seems to slope up and then disappear, as both the forces of darkness and perspective act together to overcome the lights strung along its length. Ryan, who has led them down here, is looking intently at a diagram posted on the wall.

“It looks like if we head down this tunnel and turn left at the third junction, we should be able to get to the stadium,” he says. “From there, we should be able to get out to the edge of campus.”

“I hope you’re right,” Jon says, seriously doubting their likelihood of surviving. With the apparent abandon the soldiers have been showing in the use of their firearms, it would only make sense that they don’t plan to let anyone simply walk away from this. Despite his awareness of the gravity of the situation, however, Jon still feels in the dark about what could possibly have led to gunfire, especially gunfire directed at him and his rather normal friends, and especially in the halls of that stuffy institution above them. Trying to understand their predicament, he asks Ryan the simplest of academic questions: “Why?”

“Honestly dude, I have no clue,” Ryan replies as they jog lightly down the corridor. “I guess it must have something to do with those protests that have been going on here and at other schools. I thought they were just a great excuse to get out and vent some anger at being cooped up in this place so much. Some of their arguments made a bit of sense, but, I mean, come on. Did anyone really expect the government to just hand out money without getting anything back for it?

“And even if the protesters were starting to act like they might be getting violent,” Ryan continues, “I hardly think that it’s any reason for this kind of reaction. Seriously, we were just hanging out in the main quad, listening to one of school’s deans give a speech, when out of nowhere somebody throws something at the podium. The crowd wasn’t even upset. In fact, I thought people were actually listening to what he was saying. Sure, most of it was the usual lines they feed us about how important our education is going to be, how valued it will make us when we go out to find a job, but some of what he was saying made sense too. I actually think that if he’d been allowed to finish, he might have gotten some cheers. But the second that... whatever it was... hit the stage, all the security around the whole place moved in and started rounding people up.”

“Ok,” says Jon, “but that doesn’t explain why they were so eager to shoot at you, and me for that matter…”

“That’s because you didn’t let me finish. We were standing by the side of the crowd closest to the math building when it started. Somewhere on the far side, we heard someone yell, ‘Freedom or death!’ Then there was an explosion. Up to that point, the police and the security around the perimeter had just been using their clubs, knocking people down and tying them up. But, after a brief pause, they all reached for whatever firearm they were carrying and started shooting anyone who was in their way or still standing.” Having just reached the desired intersection in the tunnels, Ryan pauses to catch his breath before diving back into his story. “Once they started shooting, everyone panicked. I grabbed Sara, and we started running in the first clear direction. I didn’t really think where we were going until we made it into your building.”

Leaving it at that, Ryan starts off down the desired hallway, his long strides once more eating up the ground and forcing the others to nearly sprint to catch him. Occasionally, they pass under access hatches that lead to the surface, and, through each of them, they can hear a new sound of chaos. The first time they pass one, they hear gun shots and screams. Through the next, they hear the wail of a fire truck’s siren and more screams, and then, through the next, simply the pounding of running feet and a brief scream that echoes down the shaft. At each opening, the screams become gradually quieter, until, eventually, the hatches under which they pass are silent.

Their path has been more or less straight up to this point, but eventually they come to a spot where the tunnel slopes down before making an abrupt ninety degree turn to the left. Jon throws himself around the corner and almost runs directly into Ryan’s back, as he has suddenly stopped before a locked security door. Ryan is standing, scratching his head and staring at the keypad. All of his facial expression that is visible in the dim light of the tunnel is one of pure focus. Sensing that they should remain quiet, Jon and Sara simply look at each other and exchange a shrug as they wait for the big man to sort through the clutter in his mind and come up with the access code.

Waiting for what seems like an eternity, Jon keeps glancing nervously back down the tunnel in the direction from which they came. Each drip of condensation off of a pipe, each click of cooling metal sounds like the thunder of approaching feet, but it can’t be more than a minute before Ryan springs into action once more.

“Got it!”

With no more announcement than that, he pounces on the keypad and pounds in a long series of digits before hitting the enter key. A long three seconds pass while the door communicates with the stadium’s security system before they finally hear the bolt disengage. Resisting the urge to dash through the door and into the perceived safety of the secured stadium, they open the door slowly, scanning the other side for any sign of movement. Satisfied that they’ll be at least as safe on the other side of the door as they are currently, they slip through and close the door behind themselves.

“I think we should be safe enough for now if we can just find a place to lie low,” Ryan says, after peeking around the corner. “Any ideas where we can go?”

“Don’t look at me,” Jon says. “You know my knowledge of this campus is limited to the hallway outside my office and my tiny on-campus apartment. And I’m sure they’ll be searching through all the campus buildings anyway.”

Sara, who has been bent over retying her shoes and straightening her hair so it is no longer in her eyes, stands up and provides a viable solution.

“It might be tough to get there,” she begins, “but if we can get off campus, there is a place we should be able to lie low for a few days. I’ve been house-sitting for some friends of a friend while they are away on vacation, and they’re not due back for a couple of days yet. If we can get there, we can hide out in the basement while we figure out what to do next.

“The house is only a couple of blocks north from the edge of campus that we’re on,” she continues. “If we can get across the parking lots and into the neighborhoods, we should be able to hide, as long as we stay off the streets.”

“Ok, sounds good to me,” Ryan agrees, while Jon nods.

Beckoning them to follow, Ryan heads off down another long corridor. They pass a number of offices, storerooms, and mechanical spaces, each one behind a nearly identical door, until they reach another junction with a bigger and better-lit hallway. Taking the path to their right, they begin to feel the almost imperceptible sensation of a weight being lifted off of them, as they near the edge of the stadium complex. The hallway and the lighting do not change, except for the gradual approach of the doors at the end, but it is as if they can feel the slow reduction of concrete mass above them as they walk.

Emboldened by how deserted the stadium feels and by the feeling of openness and freedom that the doors symbolize, they walk normally up to them and start to push them open. Ryan is leading the group through on their way out to the parking lot. He makes it no more than half a step, however, before freezing in his tracks. He throws his arm back, knocking both Jon and Sara back into the hallway. Without taking his eyes off of whatever it was that scared him, he backs through the door and slowly closes it.

Creeping slowly away from the door, he motions Sara and Jon to remain silent and to follow him. He jogs down the hall and around a corner, where they are no longer visible from the door.

“It looks like they posted guards all the way around campus,” he whispers, his voice shaken by the close call. “There is one right outside the door. Luckily, he was too busy smoking to notice the door opening behind him. I don’t think we’re going to be able to get across the parking lot. They had floodlights set up all around the perimeter, and I saw a few more soldiers with guns wandering around out there.”

“So what are we going to do?” Sara asks, glancing between the two guys. “We can’t go back into the steam tunnels, they’re bound to be searching them by now.”

Jon looks to Ryan for an answer as well. Ryan can begin to feel the stress of the past few hours catching up with him. He stifles a yawn and shrugs. Ryan is the obvious authority right now, as he is the one most familiar with stadium in which they are hiding, due to his short stint on the football team. Realizing this fact, he looks around for a solution. Each door in this hallway is locked by a key. There are no keypads where his old master code can be used. Thinking about the code, however, reminds him of the equipment manager who gave it to him. This memory, in turn, takes him to the reason why he got that code: the storage room down in the second basement, where he was sent to get supplies as a freshman. That seemingly trivial and degrading errand, intended to show him his place, was going to pay dividends yet again. This time, it might even save his life.

“I know a place they won’t be able to find us.” Jon and Sara exchange a look of relief. “Follow me. All we have to do is get down to the second basement, and we should be fine.”

Following Ryan, they head towards the elevator at the end of the hall. As they walk, they pass a series of display cases, each filled with the spoils of the university’s victories but all from long enough ago that they are no longer considered worthy enough of display in the higher traffic areas of the athletic department. The elevator dings to announce its arrival. The doors open, revealing the plain steel walls and a bulletin board announcing the most recent department social event. Fortunately, the elevator is otherwise empty.

As the elevator doors close, they catch a glimpse of the far end of the hall, where the door through which they had previously hoped to exit begins to open, revealing the dancing beams of a search party’s flashlights playing across the floor. The elevator doors seem to slowly creep, as the door at the other end of the hall opens wider and wider. The opening is almost big enough for a fully armed soldier to step through when the elevator doors finally sigh to a close, and the carriage begins its descent. This elevator, like any elevator ridden under a time constraint, is maddeningly slow. By the time they reach their floor, a bead of sweat has managed to make it from Ryan’s hairline and drip off the edge of his jaw.

The doors open, and light spills out into the otherwise dark hallway. Ryan herds the other two out and into the shadows. The doors close behind them, and the elevator hums as it heads back up to the main floor, presumably to collect part of the search party that is currently looking for them. As their eyes adjust, they realize that they are not in complete darkness. Spaced intermittently along the hall is a series of keypads, each of which is glowing slightly from its backlit keys. Ryan makes his way down the hall, carefully feeling his way around the stacked boxes and odd pieces of furniture that litter the hallway, until he comes upon the third such keypad from the elevator. Using the same code that got them out of the steam tunnels, he opens the door to a room filled with absolute darkness. It is tangibly a darker shade of black than the hallway from which they had just come.

Pulling a small light from his pocket, Ryan steps through the door to illuminate the clutter within. Other than a space in front of the door that is just big enough for the three of them to stand, there is no visible floor. There are shelves stacked with boxes of deflated balls, more boxes stacked haphazardly on the floor, and laundry hampers filled and overflowing with jerseys and practice gear. Where the larger items are not covering the floor, there are smaller piles of clothes, along with crates and boxes of nutritional supplements that are stacked precariously, some towering over Ryan.

Checking to ensure that the door has closed securely behind them, Ryan begins to pick his way towards the back of the room, stepping between piles and around stacks, while lighting the way for Sara and Jon to follow. Once they make it to the back of the room, they find one of the largest laundry hampers in the room. This one is overflowing with enough school logoed shirts to dress everyone on campus. Behind this mountain of cloth, and tucked between a set of shelves that are sagging under the weight of hundreds of boxes of protein bars, they find a niche filled with stacked gymnastic pads and a thick layer of overflow shirts.

Ryan jumps up and settles into the layers of foam and clothing, then slides over and beckons for Sara and Jon to join him. Sara springs lithely up onto the pads, but just as she is about to step towards Ryan, her foot gets caught on one of the many shirts, sending her toppling towards the shelves. If not for Ryan’s quick reaction to grab her thigh and spin her back and down next to him, the shelves that so conveniently hide them from the door would surely be sent tumbling. Instead, she flops most ungracefully next Ryan with an embarrassed look on her face, though it is barely visible in the beam of light from Ryan’s other hand. She doesn’t, however, try to move Ryan’s arm from where it rests around the small of her back.