Emma Holly (34 page)

Given that this was the Great Inscrutable B.G., his expression would have passed for mildly concerned on anyone else.

"He's made himself invisible," Charity deduced. "Programmed the system not to announce his presence. I bet there are no cameras down here. He can creep around all he wants without being seen."

B.G. raised a brow but didn't deny her guess.

Eric pulled her closer to his side, his arm warm and protective around her back. "Is it much farther?"

"No," B.G. said. They had reached an open archway under which stood a small marquetry table. A bronze statuette of a Grecian woman with an urn sat on its patterned wood. Even when the lights were on, this hall was murky. Whatever lay behind the arch was hidden by the dark.

Charity watched while B.G. touched something on the statue to release a hidden drawer in the table.

"Night vision goggles," he said, handing over a pair.

They looked small to Charity. The lenses were the size of swim goggles, set into a flexible metal band—perhaps an improvement on previous technology that B.G. had given his two cents to. When she put them on, the world turned ghostly green. However they worked, they gave off a barely audible, high-pitched hum.

"Isn't this a bit cloak and dagger?" Eric asked as he settled his goggles on his nose.

"Apparently not," B.G. said drolly.

Charity assumed his answer had to do with whatever "trouble" had led him to shut down his secret project. She hadn't been listening closely at the time, but now she wondered what Eric's uptight sister had to do with it.

"This way," B.G. said, gesturing them into the glowing dark. "Stay close to me, please. As long as you're within three feet of me, you won't set off the detectors."

They bunched together like kids creeping through a haunted house. The comparison amused her, but her humor faded as soon as the first suit of armor clued her in on where they were going. She sighed loudly enough for Eric to squeeze her shoulder. It figured this would involve revisiting her last scene of terror.

The glassy-eyed staghead didn't look any better in the goggles' unearthly light.

"Sorry," B.G. said as she gritted her teeth against complaining. When he pulled aside a tapestry, however, with a distinctive swishing noise, her tolerance gave out.

"You were the ghost I heard! Why didn't you tell me? You could have saved me from being afraid."

"I was hoping you'd believe the story about the squirrel."

She was muttering a curse when Eric wrapped her in his arms from behind. "We can argue about this later. Let B.G. open the door so we can move where we aren't in danger of being heard."

The door had a hidden panel that scanned B.G.'s hand and retina prints. That checked, the steel-backed, pressure-sealed wood swung inward to reveal a descending concrete corridor. The air inside was cool and still. It smelled familiar, but the scent wasn't one she could pin down. When the door closed behind them, the overhead lights went on. They pulled off their goggles.

"Wow," Eric said, taking in the nuclear bunker view. "When did you build all this?"

"Construction finished the year before you came. Getting permits for the equipment was a challenge, but I managed to keep as few people as possible in the loop."

B.G. tipped his head to indicate they should walk. They continued for what felt like a quarter-mile, all of it sloping down. On the way they passed two fire extinguishers and three riveted metal doors, one labeled

"Emergency Shelter" that was striped in eye-catching slants of yellow and black. Charity's nerves weren't comforted by the suggestion that emergencies might occur. A hundred feet farther, the next door was similarly striped. To Charity's relief, it only said "Observation Deck."

B.G. unlocked it, and they went in.

The room was crammed with equipment Charity wouldn't have known how to recognize. Electrical cords tangled into nests on the floor, and a half-dozen white lab coats hung from pegs on the wall. A double-thick, wire-reinforced square of glass overlooked a void as black and featureless as a cave. B.G.

picked between the cords, stepped around a worn-looking rolling chair, and threw a large wall switch.

With a hollow clanking noise, the lights beyond the window went on.

"Holy shit," Charity breathed.

The observation deck overlooked a concrete pit the size of a pleasure yacht. Sitting down inside it was a huge machine. It resembled sewer pipes connected at their joints by brightly colored boxes, forming a ring that encircled more rows of equipment. Computers, she suspected, though they weren't the kind she was used to seeing—more like tall metal cabinets. Another, smaller circle of piping made a loop above the one beneath.

Too amazed to be afraid, she stepped closer to the window for a better look. "What the hell is that?"

Eric came up beside her. "Unless I wasted my time leafing through all those issues of
Discover
, that is Benjamin Grantham's personal synchrotron."

Despite knowing the answer, he sounded as stupefied as she felt. Charity rubbed the tip of her nose.

"Can I ask what's a synchrotron?"

"It's a particle accelerator," B.G. supplied. "We use it to speed up streams of subatomic particles with powerful electromagnetic pulses. When the streams of particles go fast enough, we extract a few and smash them together. Most scientists study the smaller particles that are produced, but I'm more interested in side effects."

"Like time loops."

"Yes," he said, "most of the induced phenomena involve the warping of ordinary time. That's because the radiations emitted by the collisions are traveling at the speed of light. As Einstein predicted in his theory of relativity, this means that—from our perspective—those waves of released energy have infinite mass, infinite energy, and no size whatsoever. They're also free from the limits of linear time. In essence, we're yanking a bit of pure, undigested quantum stuff into our dimension."

He had joined her and Eric as he spoke. Now he curled his palm around her nape where her robe's silk collar folded down. At the sweep of his thumb beneath her hair, Charity shivered—but not from fear.

This was the sort of shiver she thought she might have experienced if Einstein himself had shaken her hand. Naturally, she had no way of judging if B.G. was as smart as that, but to her he was. For the first time, she felt privileged for having been able to see what she had. Scary or not, she'd been admitted into an elite circle. She'd witnessed what other people only wondered about.

She turned to gaze at B.G.'s profile: the long nose, the soulful eyes, the wonderfully sensitive mouth.

I love him
, she thought, giving up her denial. She didn't know whether to swear or laugh, especially since this must mean she loved Eric, too. The knots both men put in her stomach were pretty darn similar.

"Someone must have noticed this weird stuff before," she said aloud. "You can't be the only one."

"Mostly civilians," B.G. acknowledged. "Unfortunately, if an ordinary citizen claims to have seen something from the future or the past, or if they're in a situation where their experience of time is anomalous, their stories are generally dismissed as quaint—no more real than a folk legend. Naturally, scientists who work in subatomic facilities prefer to pretend the phenomena don't exist. Reluctant as they are to admit their work might be interfering with the space-time continuum, they're hardly going to go in search of proof. They'd rather not, as you put it, step into
The Twilight Zone
."

"But nobody's gotten hurt working here?"

"We've only been able to elicit small occurrences—less dramatic than what you've seen yourself.

Changes in brain activity. Altered states that produce what may be no more than hallucinations. We document everything, of course, and try to repeat the effect, but thus far the process has been chaotic.

The smallest change in initial conditions, and we get no results at all." B.G. scratched his head in frustration. "We did have a lab tech win some money in the lottery when he fell asleep at his desk and dreamed the right number. I have to admit, though, we haven't validated that as a true precognitive event."

Charity put her hand to her breast. "You have a 'we.' That's nice."

"Of course I do. I can't run all this by myself."

"Speaking of which," Eric said. "Your employees… ?"

"Cleared," B.G. assured him.

"Cleared of what?" Charity asked.

B.G. looked at her, furrowed his brow, then appeared to make up his mind. "They've been cleared of security risks. According to Eric's sister, who works at the Treasury Department, someone at the CIA thinks we have a spy."

The conclusion Charity jumped to came quickly, but she hesitated before airing it. "Don't you think… I mean, unless you know some reason why it can't be true, don't you think the spy is probably Sylvia?"

B.G. sighed. "I expect you're correct, although I'm loathe to believe it. Being emotionally awkward and inept at getting close to people scarcely makes one a spy. In truth, it's hard to imagine the spymaster who'd hire her. On top of which, I approached
her
about coming here in the first place, under circumstances I don't believe could have been set up. Back then, I didn't ask for more than a cursory report on her because—ironic as it may turn out to be—I thought I could trust my judgment. She'd been at that spa for a year, a spa I'd only visited once before. I'd be willing to bet she's genuinely kinky. It's difficult to fake liking what she does."

He shook his head regretfully. "I suppose those arguments don't matter now. My security team is going over her background with a fine-toothed comb. So far they've come up empty, but rest assured if there's anything to find, they will. In the meantime, unless Sylvia does something overtly suspicious, I'm going to treat her as I normally would."

Charity worried her lower lip, suddenly pricked by guilt. "Would having an accomplice count as suspicious?"

"An accomplice?" This came from both Eric and B.G.

"I kind of found out by accident. That camera guy, Michael, is totally obsessed with her. He's been earning sexual favors by privately screening tapes for her."

She had to fight not to quail when B.G. turned stern. "Why didn't you tell me this right away?"

"For the same reason you didn't tell me you were looking for a spy. I didn't think you needed to know.

I'm no tattle-tale. Anyway, Michael promised he wouldn't do it again. I nabbed the key so I could double-check."

"God," said Eric to the ceiling, though he looked more exasperated than angry.

"You probably shouldn't be too mad at him," she added. "Sylvia has a knack for playing on people's sympathies. He thought he was giving her a treat to make up for being snubbed by, uh, you two."

"Mainly me, I suspect," B.G. said. "It seems Sylvia wasn't my only ill-considered hiring choice."

"He didn't—"

"I know." B.G.'s hand settled on her shoulder. "He didn't mean any harm."

Charity had a knee-jerk urge to plead for Michael not to get sacked. Instead, she asked the question she dreaded the answer to. "Could Sylvia have found out anything important?"

B.G. blew out a heavy breath. "I don't think so. We keep our data isolated on the servers here, and we haven't had any breaches. I'd be more concerned if she were gone. Because she's not, she may still be trying to discover how to locate and gain access to the lab."

This sounded reasonable to Charity. "She did seem like she was hoping to buddy up to me. Maybe she thought I could help her find it—which I would have said was a waste of time, except here I am."

"Here you are," B.G. agreed and, in spite of everything, he broke into a beatific smile.

"We have to look into this," Eric interrupted uncomfortably.

"I think we have to do more than look." B.G. dug a phone from one of the cluttered desks and pressed a two-button code. "Seal the estate," he said to whoever answered. "And call your local law enforcement contacts. We have a situation that precludes letting anyone leave the grounds."

When he hung up with no more words than that, Charity knew they were finished with playing games.

They
forgot to put on their goggles and bunch together on the way out, but it didn't matter. The tapestry that hid the tunnel door had been pulled aside, and the lights were already on. Like a nightmare called up by her fears, Sylvia stood outside in black leather pants and bustier. Despite her beauty and the fetishy vibe to her clothes, she came off as precisely the sort of female badass Charity hoped not to meet in a dark alley.

Shit
, she thought, freezing in her tracks. She wished she were wearing anything but this stupid ankle-length robe and jeans… and that was before she noticed the gun.

There wasn't a curseword big enough to express her dismay at that.

"Out," Sylvia barked, using the firearm to gesture. "Line up against the wall."

B.G. stepped forward instead, rubbing his temple like an absentminded professor. Not so absentminded, Charity didn't think. When he moved, the door to the lab automatically swung shut.