Deviation (14 page)

She was almost proud that her adrenaline had gotten her this far. Kate could have gone further of course, she was just made of sturdier stuff, but that didn't make Reesa's victory any less significant.

The thought of her friend made Reesa look to the sky.

A thin silver line cut vertically against the horizon some three or five miles off shore. Reesa had never been good with distances. The line was far enough away that it was almost blurred in her vision, but she knew what it was; a space elevator.

Literally, it was a massive and thick cable that ran from a dock hovering in atmosphere and attached to a similar floating dock in the ocean. Ships would hook into the cable and ride up, out of Earth's atmosphere, saving a significant amount of fuel. There were dangers to it, of course. But nearly everything about the futuristic world she'd written had risks.

She knew the Lothogy had summoned the elevator. Which meant Kate was about to come face to face with the reality of their predicament. Space travel was just plain hard to fake. As the cable began its slow journey upward, coiling back into the space dock, Reesa felt her breath catch in her chest.

There was no reaching Kate now. There was nowhere for Reesa to go in search of help. There was only the patter of drizzling rain on an otherwise vacant island.

It was no more than she deserved, she thought.

***

A loud clank and resounding shudder through the ship told Kate that the robotic arm had attached to the steel cable just outside the view screen. The sound and quake repeated three more times, her heart picking up speed with the noise. Or it wasn't so much the noise as the knowledge of what it represented. To be honest, she'd always skipped over the technical details of Reesa's novels. Kate focused on the drama between the people, so the "hows" of getting the Lothogy into space had been mostly ignored. In her defense, Reesa's technical jargon was always a peripheral part of the book, something said in passing so that the rest of the story could shine through.

What she did remember, and what was hounding into her consciousness, was that the Lothogy was a space ship. Which meant it had to go into outer space; out of the atmosphere, away from Earth, into the starry vacuum of death. And it was going to get there by way of the space elevator it had just hooked into.

Her husband's voice slammed into her memory; "
If one of those cables snapped or was broken or hit, it would wrap itself around the Earth. Tidal waves, destruction of unfathomable magnitude
!"

Or his rant went something like that.

There was lots of death, she knew that for sure.

Kate closed her eyes and tried to pray. But she wasn't certain what she wanted to pray for anymore. One part of her continued to deny everything she saw, explaining all of the bizarre sights as mere tricks meant to distract her. But another part of her was overwhelmed with the increasing sense that it was real. So she prayed for the only thing that made any sense anymore; she prayed that she would see her son again soon.

The ascent was remarkably smooth and irritatingly long. She opened her eyes several times to peek and promptly closed them again when she spotted the cable still in view. And then, finally, she heard the clunk of gears and felt a stomach-dropping release, and knew they had detached from the cable. When she opened her eyes again, there was an overwhelming vista of many, many stars and her breath caught in her throat. It was the most spectacular thing she had ever seen in her life, and it was accompanied by the queer realization that she was, in fact, in space.

She watched in dumb shock as Myron piloted the Lothogy over a short span of distance, admiring his focus and his form in a very distant part of her brain. She heard them speaking to each other, but was still too focused on the stars and the view to catch all of what they said. She did manage to spot the lone satellite blinking at them, and knew by proximity that it was their goal. Beside it was a strange, swirling smudge of black against the already black vacuum of space. Her immediate thought that they were heading toward one of those famed Black Holes, but then she knew better at the same time.

Reesa had written wormhole travel into her books.

The swirl of smudgy-dust just beside the satellite could be nothing less than a wormhole.

Myron's nimble fingers flicked through several commands and she heard the Lothogy's mechanics respond. A large metallic ring detached from the satellite and moved to surround the wormhole entrance. A moment later it began spinning, blinking lights smearing into a blur of quick movement. Kate frowned and searched her head frantically for how Reesa had explained wormhole travel.

If she had it right, then the ring was currently sucking away any nearby particles. Space dust, Reesa had said, because the wormhole would close if so much as one fleck of dust entered it. And then there were the Anti-Matter discs.

Only, she couldn't remember what the hell Anti-Matter discs were.

The tension in the cockpit increased at the buzz of a large, red alarm just beside Kate's head. The ship was most of the way inside the wormhole now, creeping inexorably forward. Just outside the cockpit window, Kate could see a series of lights making a net around the ship, signifying the use of the Anti-Matter discs. Beyond it, she could see nothing, just an eerie sort of void that made her instinctively wary.

The buzz continued to intrude on the ship and Hedric swore.

"Something ..." Kate glanced at Myron. "Something is wrong?"

"Just a bit of weather," Myron answered, flicking several switches and keeping his attention on the console. "Be a dear and take a seat."

"You mean solar winds, right?" She frowned, taking the seat directly behind Myron.

Hedric pulled himself from his swearing to look at her again. "That's exactly what we mean."

"I did
read
Reesa's books." Fighting for nonchalance, she made herself busy with buckling into the seat. Somewhere in the back of her mind, however, she knew she was leaving something important out.

"Then you know that if the winds hit us while we are still half inside the wormhole," Hedric's hazel eyes glared down at her, "the Anti-Matter discs will shift and alert the wormhole to our presence."

"And I assume that would be bad."

"Oh, the hole will collapse and destroy the ship," Myron managed a cheerful tone that made her blink in response.

"Oh," she said in a small voice. "Is that all?"

Deciding it was prudent to stay quiet, Kate held her breath as the ship slipped further into the wormhole. She watched the console instead of the window because the blackness that stood between them and the wormhole itself made her nervous. What little she understood about physics had taught her that everything was matter; her breath, her dog, her blood, her car. Which made her imagination snag on the concept of just what consisted of Anti-Matter, and she shuddered. Anti-breath, anti-dog, anti-blood, anti-car; wasn't the opposite of matter nothing? When she got home, Kate promised herself that she'd go ask a professor or something, because not knowing was as terrifying as the prospect of being in space with a ship full of lunatics.

The inside of the wormhole proved to be just as nauseating as the idea of blowing up. At first it was like the sparks that peppered your vision when you stood up too fast, or took a solid whack to the head. And then the colors made a chaotic smear over the screen, green and blue and red, streaking past her vision so fast she felt her stomach drop. Bile burned the back of her throat, but she held it back. The acceleration slammed her against the back of the chair, so she knew if she did vomit that she'd likely choke and drown on it.

Kate spotted Myron as he calculated a set of commands into the console. His movements were partially hindered by the momentum of the ship, but he managed to do his job.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God
. It was a simple prayer, hardly articulate, but she imagined the Almighty could understand her fear.

The ship popped out of the wormhole with bone-jarring violence and Kate lost control of her nausea. She hurled all over her lap since the seat straps wouldn't allow her to lean forward. It always amused Kate that certain sounds could illicit particular reactions from people. Myron, for instance, tightened his control of the ship and stared straight ahead at the screen. Hedric, on the other hand, sent her a disgusted glare before barking orders into the intercom.

Kate decided she didn't care what the crazy man was doing, and was almost pleased that she'd annoyed him. Cold, uncomfortable wet seeped through robes and her underlying uniform, but at least the dizziness had worn off. When Keats arrived at the top of the ladder, she assumed the orders that had been given. The lanky engineer dropped into the cockpit and took infinite care in un-strapping her from the seat.

"Send Freeman to start cleaning this mess," Hedric muttered as she was lifted out of the seat.

Keats sent Hedric a mutinous and disapproving glare, but made no comment. He didn't speak as he led her down the meshed plank and back to her private room. He was ginger with her, caring, and Reesa's words came into focus.

Keats has a soft heart so you can appeal to his better nature
.

"Here we go, Mesa," he said as he directed her to the bed. "I'll find you some new robes."

"Kate."

"I'm sorry?"

"Kate. My name is Kate."

Kate fumbled in her robes, dragging out her wallet with shaking hands. She flipped to her family photographs and held it out to Keats, hoping he could sense her urgency. "Look, see, this is Ben. My husband. He's stubborn and thoughtless and has a bad habit of leaving DVD's out on the counter instead of putting them away." She shifted her finger to the left, "And this is Quinn, my son."

Keats frowned at the pictures, his long face scrunching up with indecision. Kate saw the opening and pressed her advantage. "If I'm Mesa, who died seven weeks ago, why do I remember meeting my son for the first time?"

"Maybe cloning misconstrues things," he said but his eyes fastened onto the picture of Ben.

"Cloning?" Kate groaned and grabbed him by his arms. The movement seemed to startle him because he glanced down at where she held him before looking back at her face. "I am not a clone, Alexander Keats. I'm just a mother trying to get home to her son. Please, help me."

"
In a series of tests meant to create self-sustaining life on Mars, Scientists have reached for the age-old technique of genetic alteration
." -A.P. October 28, 2298

Matt wasn't really the gun-toting type. He trained with the Fomorri, often accompanied them on random missions, and was a fairly good aim. But the weapon always felt foreign in his hands, heavy and almost startling, not like he'd expected. He'd heard how Field Arcs trained so often with their weaponry that it became an extension of their bodies, like they'd been born with it. Finnegan and Chamberlain seemed to have this trait. They moved with the terrifying grace of a predator, weapons swerving in unison with their bodies. Matthew envied them for that.

"Target sighted," Newbill's voice came quiet and clear through his earpiece. "Female. Blonde."

"Position?" Finnegan's voice came next.

"Waist deep in sludge. Something's got her spooked."

"It's not hard to get spooked here," Romberg muttered.

Taking several steps away from their ship the Io, Matt edged closer to the Hawaiian jungle. A long, thin screen stretched from his left wrist to his elbow, giving a real-time map of his men and their surroundings. A red dot began to form in the center of his map as the target was painted with laser-fine accuracy. According to the readout the woman was nearing the edge of the swamp, heading in his general direction with the Fomorri closing in.

"God Almighty," Chamberlain's voice. "I see her."

Matt eyed the swamp, hunting for signs of movement. He never reprimanded the men for their constant misuse of communication waves. If a sense of arrogance was needed for them to get the job done then he wasn't going to complain. Still, he wanted to know what had caused Chamberlain's remark. Lifting his weapon, he eased his way into the greenery and slowly started for the target.

"Weaponry?" He whispered the question, confident the circular boom-mike strapped around his throat would carry the question to his men.

There were some days when he took for granted all of the little gadgets his scientists threw into his arsenal. But there were other days, like today, where he appreciated every little advantage they gave him. The boom-mike and ear piece were excellent on their own, but the helmet and visor almost felt like cheating. He depressed the button at the collar of his suit and activated the helmet.

Metal shielding snapped out of the lightweight armored suit, unfolding and encapsulating his head with a smooth, whisper-quiet whoosh. The visor slid over his eyes, a thin span of greenish flexiglass that immediately adjusted to the lighting of the jungle. A breath later and the visor had locked onto her heat signature, thirteen feet away and making a labored move his direction.

"No weaponry," Finnegan reported.

"Depends on your definition of a weapon," Newbill said.

Someone chuckled but he couldn't pinpoint who.

"Clarify," Matt took a step into the swamp.

Ten feet away, moving closer.

"Goddamn," Chamberlain said. "Are those her real legs?"

"No weaponry," Finnegan repeated.

The heat signature suddenly stopped.

"Shit. I'm compromised." Newbill's voice again.

She moved, faster this time, running to the left and away from Matthew's position. He cursed and ran to intercept, ducking branches and leaping over a fallen bit of tree. He heard Finnegan relay orders to pursue, recognized the circular tactic his Fomorri were rounding up to do, but knew he would reach the woman first.

Her feet hit solid ground and she picked up speed, coming out of the swamp and making him redouble his pursuit. She was quick, he'd give her that much. But he was faster, aided by the Fom suit's general mechanics and his own stubborn pride. The visor automatically slid away when they reached an archaic paved road, the jungle clearing enough that he could see her.