Linkage: The Narrows of Time (16 page)

They’d considered every conceivable
possibility, no matter how irrational or preposterous. They’d
discussed cascading reactions, antimatter annihilation, subspace
fractures, micro singularities, quantum rifts, subatomic spacetime
turbulence, and even the possibility of third-party sabotage. They
developed multiple theory paths and mapped them to an elaborate
decision tree, which they could implement depending on how future
events unfolded. It was an ingenious, well-conceived plan that the
brothers hoped would impress Kleezebee. Despite their prowess for
lateral scientific thinking, neither of them was able to explain
the energy spike that they believed triggered the E-121
incident.

“Would you mind if I ran through some of
these theories with you, Trevor?” Lucas said, turning to the third
page. “We need a fresh pair of eyes to help us check their accuracy
and make sure our assumptions are valid. You can be our sounding
board.”

“Go ahead. I help.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Mary’s digital pager
began to beep. She reached for the unit and disabled its alarm.
Lucas wondered why she was using such an antiquated device. Perhaps
a dampening field was in place—to block cell phone reception for
security reasons. On the other hand, it may have been due to heavy
terrestrial interference. A digital signal would degrade
significantly having to penetrate twenty floors of thick cement and
rebar. Lucas heard at least two other pagers going off, though they
sounded distant, possibly down the hall.

“Are they ready for us?” Lucas asked her.

She shook her head with a concerned look on
her face. “That wasn’t them.”

“Is something wrong?”

“NASA just ordered everyone to evacuate the
building.”

“Do we need to leave?” Lucas put his hands on
the chair’s armrests.

“I’m not sure. Let me check,” she replied
before standing up, adjusting her blouse, and walking to the
conference room door. She knocked twice, then leaned through the
doorframe, as if she were waiting for permission to enter. She
stepped inside, and was gone less than a minute before returning
with a folded piece of white paper. She handed it to Trevor. “This
is from Dr. Kleezebee. He says it’s for your eyes only.”

Trevor stood up and moved away before
unfolding the paper and reading the note.

Mary told Lucas, “They’re almost ready for
you. Should only be a few minutes.”

“Then I take it we’re not evacuating with
everyone else?”

“No, you’re to remain here until they call
for you.”

Trevor walked back and whispered something
into Mary’s ear, after which the two of them hurried down the hall
and disappeared around the corner.

“What was that all about?” Drew asked.

“Who knows? This just keeps getting stranger
by the minute. All we need now is for your friend Griffith to show
up with one of his toxic chemical experiments,” Lucas said, sitting
back in his chair, thinking about the energy dome that chased them
on campus. He was happy to be deep inside a hardened military-style
shelter with thick, reinforced walls, far below ground where it
couldn’t reach them.

Drew clutched his leather pouch again, and
resumed rocking.

Lucas expected the next hour of his life to
be one he would always remember. It was either going to be a
career-making meeting—if one of their notebook theories proved to
be the solution to the energy fields—or an hour filled with
gut-wrenching stress; the kind that might destroy his
self-confidence for life.

Kleezebee poked his head out of the
conference room door. “Guys, we’re ready for you.”

Chapter
13

Repercussions

The windowless conference room was encased
with gray, padded fabric along the interior of its walls. Lucas
presumed it was some form of soundproof material, which was
understandable given NASA’s secret activities. More than likely,
NASA was employing several layers of security countermeasures to
safeguard today’s meeting.

He recognized many of the people seated at
the table. Directly across from him was Dr. Kai Suki, an undersized
Korean fellow. Suki was the chairman of the university’s Advisory
Committee and Kleezebee’s immediate boss. Two years earlier, Lucas
had dropped Dr. Suki’s advanced calculus class when he discovered
that Suki barely spoke English. The man was brilliant, but good
luck understanding what he said. Lucas has made that mistake his
first year in college when he struggled to pass a physics class
taught by a chubby Italian professor whose lectures were littered
with broken syllables and misused pronouns—not a good start to his
college career.

Kleezebee was seated to Suki’s right, dressed
in a shiny blue suit with a matching tie that was partially
obscured by his thick gray beard. Lucas had never seen his boss
dressed in formal attire before. In fact, he could not remember a
time when he had not seen Kleezebee in his customary flannel shirt
and blue coveralls. He thought Kleezebee’s closet might only
contain a dozen copies of the same outfit.

“DL cleans up well,” he mused.

On the opposite side of Dr. Suki, was Randol
Larson, the abhorrent Legal Counsel for the Advisory Committee. The
man’s right eye was watering and blinking rapidly as if something
were stuck in his eye. Larson pulled at his eyelid using his
fingers. Lucas held back a chuckle by covering his mouth with his
hand and coughing once.

Next to Larson was Dr. Judith Rosenbaum,
chief scientific advisor to the President of the United States.
Lucas recognized her from a recent magazine article on the effects
of greenhouse gases on the planet’s atmosphere. The article
mentioned that her winter home was in Green Valley, Arizona, a
retirement community thirty miles south of Tucson. He had never
been there, but had heard all the jokes about the golf-cart driving
old-folks clogging up the city’s streets.

Rosenbaum’s wrinkled cheeks sagged down to
her jaw line like a deflated balloon. Her face was riddled with
liver spots, as were her tiny forearms. Her most prominent feature
was the two-foot beehive hairdo, much like the animated character
Marge Simpson wore, except it was gray instead of royal blue.

To Rosenbaum’s left was Hudson Rapp, a famous
African-American astronaut who’d just been named by the U.S.
President as the Director of NASA. He was an Arizona native. He’d
been dominating the local news lately with claims of having
discovered extrasolar life. His team had found traces of
silicon-based microbial life hidden inside a porous meteorite that
had recently crashed in northern Oregon. Rapp was scheduled to be
the university’s keynote speaker at next week’s mid-year graduation
ceremonies.

A four-sided television platform was built
into the center of the oval mahogany table. NASA’s logo was
floating around on each screen, spinning in 3D.

Lucas knew the stakes had been raised when he
recognized each of the famous political leaders on the three
jumbo-sized teleconference screens attached to the left wall. Each
one contained a different Washington official who appeared to be
transmitting from a separate location.

Dennis M. Hubbs, President of the United
States looked out from the center screen. The trim,
forty-five-year-old was seated behind his desk in the oval office.
He was flanked on the left screen by William Myers, Director of
Homeland Security who appeared to be in a heated conversation with
a slender, blond woman in a wilderness location. The elderly
General Phillip Seymour Wright, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, stood tall in his uniform on the right screen, though his
eyes were painted heavy with dark bags under them, making him look
half-asleep.

Given the attendees, Lucas assumed Kleezebee
chose the meeting’s new location to take advantage of NASA’s
superior communication network and security systems. Microphones
and video cameras circled the meeting area, allowing for real-time,
transmission to all interested parties. A lengthy electronic
whiteboard hung on the opposite wall from the teleconference
screens. The university used the same technology, which was capable
of digitally transcribing anything written on it, and then
transmitting the contents to remote locations.

Lucas took his seat opposite Dr. Suki, with
Drew on his left. When his hand brushed across the tabletop, he
could feel its silky smooth surface. Someone had taken great care
to buff and polish its shine until every blemish had been removed.
The mahogany wood was a deep, reddish color, and its individual
planks were edge-glued, using a book-match technique, much like
that of a butterfly’s wings. It was a stunning piece of
workmanship. There were stacks of reports in front of him along
with yellow markers, pencils, legal pads, and several unlabeled
bottles of water. He could also smell a hint of ammonia in the
air.

Lucas looked at Kleezebee, searching for
guidance and support, but Kleezebee’s face went stiff after he
whispered, “Sorry.” Lucas felt like a defenseless rabbit who’d just
hopped into a clearing, only to find the meadow was surrounded by a
pack of hungry wolves. Suddenly, the room’s temperature seemed a
bit high, and the walls were much too close for comfort.

President Hubbs spoke first. “Dr. Ramsay, I
wish to thank you and your brother for joining us here today.”

Lucas’ throat ran dry. He tried to utter a
response, but the words stuck in his throat. It felt like someone
had just dumped a mattress full of cotton into his mouth. He
stuttered like an idiot. “Happy”—cough—“to be . . . here . . . Mr.
President.” When he opened a bottle of water, the plastic bottle
cap squirted out of his fingers and shot across the table. He tried
to lunge for it as it bounced away from him, but missed. It rolled
across the floor and into the far corner. “Sorry,” he said, sitting
back in his chair. He drank a healthy swig of water, praying that
his throat would remember how to swallow properly. It did.

The President cleared his throat. “I had
planned to remain for the duration of this meeting, but
unfortunately, I have a press conference to give. Dr. Rosenbaum
will handle it from here,” the President said before standing up
and removing his lavalier microphone. All three teleconference
screens went dark.

Thank God. The last thing Lucas needed was to
face the President of the United States and admit his mistakes.
Hubbs was a former prosecuting attorney with a near perfect record
of convictions. He would have wilted under direct cross-examination
by the Commander-in-Chief.

Lucas kept his head down to avoid eye
contact. He opened his red-and-blue notebook and scanned through
the first few pages, pretending to be interested in the equations.
He felt like an unprepared student, hiding in the back of the
classroom, praying the teacher wouldn’t notice him. Maybe if he
kept quiet, everyone would forget he was in the room, too. Without
thinking, he began to chew on the middle of a #2 pencil. The soft
wood surface gave way as his teeth clenched around its
perimeter.

“Dr. Ramsay, we’re here to investigate the
tragedies that have occurred on campus. Dr. Kleezebee has assured
me we can expect your full cooperation as we address the cause of
these horrific events. Rest assured,
we
will
get to
the bottom of this,” Rosenbaum said in a gravely voice that sounded
older than she looked. She reached for a remote control sitting in
front of her. “There have been some new developments overnight, of
which you may not be aware. Please direct your attention to the TV
screen in front of you.”

She clicked a button on the remote while
pointing it at the table’s video carousel. The screens flickered
for a moment, just before the video playback started with the word
MUTE
in the upper left corner of the screen. “This first
report is from France and was filmed by one of their local news
agencies.”

The broadcast showed aerial footage of a
devastated gouge that cut through a crowded neighborhood in Paris.
Portions of a school and a playground were missing.

“As you can see, another energy field has
appeared and killed thousands of French citizens as they slept. Pay
close attention to the last segment of the report.”

The camera zoomed in on a mound of shredded
bodies left behind by the dome. The genetic material was seeping
out and percolating in the afternoon sun. The pile appeared to be
at least twice the size of the one Lucas had seen on the grassy
mall.

“This next report is from Sydney, Australia.
It was captured by an American tourist with a video camera.”

The recording showed a dome unleashing its
might along the city’s waterfront. The energy field wasted little
time consuming the city’s marina before leveling two restaurants
and a parking lot crowded with vehicles. Not much remained after it
passed.

The final report was from South Africa, where
a city security camera captured an energy field flattening downtown
Cape Town. It obliterated a dozen high-rise buildings and consumed
a city park, trees and all.

Rosenbaum clicked a button on the remote
control. The video playback paused. “In addition to last night’s
reports, we have just received word that subsequent energy fields
have reappeared in each of these areas, killing thousands more.
Beijing, Moscow, and Baghdad have also reported their first
incidents and the list of cities continues to grow. Each time a
dome appears, its size increases. So does the duration of the
event.”

Rosenbaum slipped on her reading glasses, and
then opened a thick manila folder sitting in front of her. She took
a few moments to scan through the paperwork before addressing
Lucas. “Dr. Kleezebee has given us a detailed briefing as to the
nature of your E-121 project. He also informed us that you believe
these energy fields are linked to the second test of your
experiment. Is that still your assessment, Dr Ramsay?”