Immune (40 page)

The response from everyone present almost brought a smile to McKinney’s lips. It sounded like a basic training unit’s response to their drill sergeant. That was good. Even the new people had been taught who to fear.

Union Station sat at the nexus of D.C., the restored Beaux-Arts architectural majesty of the metro and rail transportation hub giving bold testament to the thesis that not all government money is wasted. Since the completion of the remodeling in 1988, it stood as Washington’s most visited symbol of rebirth, a Phoenix risen from the ashes of decay. Even the busy shops and restaurants fitted flawlessly into the elegant architecture. It reminded Kromly of a beating heart, pumping humanity through the veins and arteries of the nation’s capital.

Garfield chewed slowly as he leaned against the wall, letting the freshly baked, buttery warmth of the soft pretzel dissolve on his tongue. The line at Auntie Anne’s Pretzels was even longer than usual, especially for midafternoon Friday, people trying to get an early start to their weekends.

A woman in a navy-blue pantsuit stumbled as she stepped away from the counter, spilling her soda and dropping her handbag on the ground.

Garfield stepped forward, bending down to help her gather her things.

“That was so clumsy of me,” she mumbled as he handed her purse back to her. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Then she was gone, disappearing into the throng of humanity headed toward the train platforms.

Garfield finished the pretzel, licking the salt from his fingers as he paused to throw the wrapper into the waste receptacle. Then he turned and headed toward the multilevel parking garage, the computer disk he had retrieved from the open handbag tucked safely in the inside pocket of his sports jacket.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” Heather’s anger leaped from her lips.

“I’m sorry. I…” Mark paused, his tongue searching for the words. “I was just so excited to know something you and Jennifer didn’t. It was stupid.”

“Damn right.” Heather knew she was hurting him, but she couldn’t stop herself. “As hard as I’ve been working to figure things out, I can’t believe that all this time you knew how speed reading could help, and you kept it from me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You know what? I can’t talk to you right now. Just give me some space.”

Mark stepped back, her words slapping him in the face as effectively as if she had used her open hand. For a second he stood there, his deep brown eyes shining with moisture. Then he turned and strode from her room, leaving Heather alone.

The void that settled into the room with his departure put a lump in her throat. Heather was angry with Mark, but now that she thought about it, the speed-reading revelation had only been one more brick on the pile of frustration that weighed her down. Since she had come to terms with her latest savant gift, she had been working her ass off trying to master it, but that goal drifted beyond her reach, as elusive as the end of the rainbow. Not that she hadn’t made huge strides in understanding how it worked.

Chess. Heather could play entire games in her mind. She could beat any computer chess opponent with ease, and she suspected the legendary Deep Blue computer opponent would present no more of a challenge than any of the others. How could it when her mind could run through an endless number of game variations with a thought? But compared to the complexity the real world presented, chess might as well have been tic-tac-toe.

Her brain gathered every bit of data available to it, including some subtle details well below the level of her conscious thought, constructing most-likely scenarios and doling them out as visions so vivid that she often found it difficult to remember that she needed to come back to reality. Thank God Mark had taught her the meditation trick that kept her in the present until she made a conscious choice to let the hallucinations take her.

Heather had made a number of important discoveries. First, she could control the subject of the visions, at least partially, by concentrating on a particular thing as she let herself go. And the answers she got from her waking dreams were incredibly accurate in the short term.

But the longer-term probabilities got weaker and weaker, their likelihood depending on the quality and quantity of her present information. Just as in chess, the possible outcomes shifted based on what the other players might do, their possible actions opening up whole new universes of nonlinear fractal mathematics. But in chess, humans and computers played the game completely differently. A human master could sense the correct move without consciously having to play out all possibilities the way a computer would. Heather had acquired an enhanced combination of both abilities, her mind picking only the most worthy choices to be played out in each step.

Every attempt to go further into the future left Heather so exhausted she could barely summon the energy to bring herself back. Despite the terror of the thought that she might lose herself in a land of permanent hallucination, Heather drove herself deeper. And with each attempt, each venture further out onto that ledge, she could feel herself grow stronger.

Heather glanced down at the digital photograph Mark had taken of her during one of her visions. There she stood in her own kitchen, silhouetted against the stainless steel backdrop of the GE refrigerator. Something about her expression made it appear that she was staring straight ahead, despite her wide-open eyes having rolled so far up in her head that only the whites were visible. Not a particularly good look on her. No wonder she’d scared her mom and dad to death. Christ. Staring into those white eyes was enough to make you want to crawl under the bed.

But that fear was nothing compared to the force that drove her to the limits of her enhanced endurance. No matter how many scenarios she examined, the waking dreams had left her convinced of one thing. If they didn’t find Jennifer, horrors beyond anything she had ever imagined would sweep them all away.

Heather had seen her mom and dad die horribly so many times that she couldn’t bear to think about it. Mark died. Jennifer died. But each time Heather was left behind, wanting to die but unable to do so. Depending on what she and Mark did in her visions, the hallucinations changed, but in every one where they failed to go after Jennifer she lived out the stuff of nightmare. Although Heather couldn’t see the face of her enemy, she knew with a cold certainty that something was coming for them, and if she and Mark didn’t leave soon, it would kill everyone she loved, before turning its attention toward her.

Heather glanced down at the speed-reading course materials Mark had left on her bed. As angry as she had been at him for keeping the information from her, she could have kissed him for finally bringing it to her. There was so much she needed to know, but this had to come first.

Piling pillows high against her headboard and sliding back against them, Heather grabbed the books and began scanning them into her memory. Whatever it took, she wasn’t going to leave this room until she had mastered the contents. As she leafed through the materials, a chill of anticipation worked its magic on her attitude. No matter how badly life seemed to have stacked the odds against her, she was not without talents, and this new skill would only make her stronger.

And with Mark, she was not alone. For the first time, she felt that new strength bubbling up within her, pushing back the darkness that lurked at the edges of her soul.

“Hang in there, Jen. We love you. Wherever you are, we’re coming.”

Mark swallowed hard, steadying his hand under the microscope for the last circuit board connection. This one had to be perfect. The last time he had done this there had been no pressure, just the joy of being able to impress Heather and Jennifer with his complete mastery of every nerve ending and muscle in his body. And they had been duly impressed with the results of his modifications to the miniaturized subspace transmitter.

But that had been before Jennifer had taken that laptop and run away. This time, he and Heather had been forced to apply the same modifications to the other laptop, the one that had been connected to the larger power supply, the one reserved for Jack and Janet’s access. Even though it meant taking that system off-line, there was no help for it. He and Heather needed it worse than Jack and Janet did, at least Heather was convinced of it.

Mark completed the connection and glanced up, his eyes locking with Heather’s. God he hoped she was right. What the hell? Heather was always right. So why was the doubt shining so brightly in her beautiful eyes?

“Ready,” Mark said as he tightened the screws that secured the board to the laptop casing, a few quick motions restoring the outer cover to its normal state.

“Power it up.” Heather took a deep breath. “The program worked for the other laptop so, if the circuit holds up, this should work too.”

“It’ll hold up,” said Mark. He sure as hell hoped he was right. This was the last thing they had to have working before they could go after Jen. As crazy as his twin had been acting, he was still desperate to find her. The other pissant stuff didn’t mean anything. Getting Jen back safe was what mattered.

As the laptop finished booting, Heather slid it over in front of her. She might not be as fast as Jennifer on the keyboard, but she was no slouch. Activating the subspace transmitter, she set the signal location, watching the readouts as she adjusted the wave packet synchronization.

“The Rho Project?” Mark asked, glancing at the coordinate she had entered.

“I won’t be in long enough to be noticed.”

Mark nodded. “Okay. Just so it’s a quick in and out.”

“Almost done.” Heather pressed the transmit button. “That’s it. We have confirmation of packet insertion.”

Before he could say it, she shut down the transmission and brought up a second software control panel, this one of her own design.

“Now to find out if my math’s as good as advertised.” Heather’s lips moved in a nervous tick that may have been intended as a smile.

As much as he wanted to, Mark found that he was having difficulty watching. So much depended on this next test. Heather had come up with the idea that the alien headsets remained in contact with the Second Ship, even when it was powered down, so that they could send commands that would bring its systems back online. And if they did, that meant those subspace signals could be detected.

Of course, it wasn’t that easy. First, you had to have a subspace receiver capable of detecting them. Second, you had to know the precise location where the signals were directed. Third, you had to know the wave packet characteristics of the headsets in order to separate the signals from the background noise. They had the first two answers. Now they would find out if her theory about the headbands transmitting a periodic ping to mother held any water.

Heather reached down into her backpack and pulled out her alien headband, setting it on the workbench beside her. She held out a hand and Mark gave her his own headband, which she placed beside the other. Although she could have performed the test with just one band, Heather wanted both so she could analyze the Fourier transforms of the subspace signals. Even if everything else worked, if those signals were too different she might not be able to get a trace on the two headbands in Jennifer’s possession.

Mark leaned in close, his head almost even with Heather’s right shoulder. The data scrolled along the left side of the display, a jumble of digits forming a cascade of numbers. Shit. For the first time in his life, he wished he’d paid a little more attention in math class. He was stuck, helplessly waiting for Heather to say something.

Instead, she leaped up, catching him around the neck in a hug that threatened to leave bruises.

Her breath stirred the hairs in his ear as she spoke. “Look’s like tonight’s the night. Let’s get packed.”

~ ~ ~

Raul raised his head until he seemed to be staring directly at the circuit panels that covered the room’s ceiling. The anomaly had been so brief that he had almost missed it. He certainly wouldn’t have noticed it without his new linkage, but now, as he analyzed the data on his neural net, there could be no doubt.

Another subspace probe had penetrated the Rho Ship.

Pauly Farentino moved through the mass of humanity toward the Union Station exit to the parking garage, his right hand hidden inside his jacket pocket as he screwed the linear inertial decoupler (LID) and silencer onto the nose of the Glock 9mm. Unlike the Beretta, the Glock used a Browning action, which tilted the barrel down after about a quarter inch of recoil, letting the slide move freely backward to eject the spent round. Without the recoil assistance provided by the LID, the inertia of the suppressor prevented this tilt. It was an added complication that just didn’t matter. Pauly had done this so often it came as natural as shaving.

He increased his pace slightly, making sure to keep his target in sight. The transfer had been so smooth that Pauly would have missed it if he hadn’t recognized the man helping Natalie Simpson recover her bag. Garfield Kromly. That meant that Kromly had the disk. It also meant Pauly had a new target.