The Second Ship (38 page)

Chapter 86

In her dream, Heather walked along a lofty ledge, barely wide enough for her feet to maintain their purchase. Heavy clouds filled the sky overhead, offering so little light that she could barely see the path. To the left of the trail, the world dropped away into darkness. Ahead of her, the trail continued to narrow as it rounded the cliff face.

She turned so that her back pressed against the hard rock surface that rose up to meet the sky. Taking a deep breath to slow her racing heart, Heather had just decided to turn back when the tip of a sharp spear jabbed her left arm, prodding her forward once again. Looking along the back trail, she could dimly make out a cloaked figure motioning for her to keep moving. Not wanting to be poked again, Heather turned away from him, carefully placing one foot in front of the other.

Who was the man? Where was he taking her?

As if in answer to her question, a soft voice whispered from the darkness. Heather paused to listen. There it was again, that familiar voice.

“Heather? Please answer. I need you.”

Jennifer. But where was she? As Heather struggled to see her friend, the sharp point jabbed her arm again.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she yelled, swinging her arm out to knock the spear away.

Heather’s eyes fluttered as a blindingly bright light shown in her face. Her arm’s felt heavy, but she struck out again, this time connecting with the man’s torso.

A surprised cry accompanied a crash of metal and breaking glass. Suddenly memory came flooding back. She was on the metal bed in Dr. Rodriguez’s lab. A small trickle of blood leaked from her left arm where a needle had been torn out by the falling IV rack. Heather sat up, although a wave of dizziness threatened to leach away her consciousness.

Six feet away, Dr. Rodriguez regained his feet, his white lab coat splattered with a gray fluid, his face a mask of surprise. “How the hell are you awake already?”

Without waiting for a response, the man lunged toward her. But this time, the anger that bubbled up inside Heather produced an adrenaline surge that coursed through her veins, clearing away the grogginess that had chained her limbs. As the scientist’s hand closed on her left ankle, she lashed out with her other foot. A sizzle like an electric shock cascaded through her neurally enhanced musculature, the force of the kick launching the scientist off the floor, sending him spinning into the steel cabinets with another loud crash.

Dr. Rodriguez’s body went limp, sliding down onto the floor like a rag doll. Heather slid off the bed, once again assaulted by a wave of dizziness that forced her to clutch onto the railing. Behind her, she heard the sound of the trapdoor being raised.

“Shit,” she breathed, turning toward this new threat.

“Heather?” Jennifer’s voice called out. “Are you down there?”

A massive wave of relief flooded her body. “I’m here!”

The sound of footsteps on the stairs preceded Jennifer’s entrance into the room, but not by much. Her friend’s headlong flight came to a sliding stop as her eyes went wide with surprise.

“Jesus! What happened here?”

Heather rushed forward, throwing her arms around Jennifer’s body in a hug that was returned in full measure. As she released her bear hug, the abridged version of the story bubbled from Heather’s lips in a rush of words that left her breathless.

“Did he inject you with that goo in the IV?”

Heather shook her head. “I woke up before he turned it on. See? There’s no fluid in the IV tube.”

“Is he dead?” Jennifer asked, pointing at the motionless form of Dr. Rodriguez.

Heather’s chest constricted. “I don’t know. I guess we should check.”

Jennifer inhaled deeply, then strode forward to kneel down beside the scientist, her fingers sliding to his neck.

“Careful,” Heather warned. “He might be faking.”

“For his sake, he better not be. I’d love to kick the shit out of him myself.”

“Well?”

Jennifer rose to her feet again. “He’s just out cold.”

Looking around at the mess in the room, Jennifer turned toward Heather. “So what do we do now?”

Heather let the possible courses of action roll through her mind, each accompanied by its success probability. After several seconds, she turned to the computer desk, retrieving her PDA from where Dr. Rodriguez had laid it. A quick examination showed that he had not yet deleted the files from its memory stick. The final probability numbers clicked into place in her head.

“Slide on a pair of these latex gloves and help me wipe down every place we touched. I can play it back in my head so we won’t miss anything.”

Moving quickly, Heather and Jennifer rapidly removed all traces of their presence, including the IV needle that had been inserted in her arm. Then, with one last look around, Heather picked up the telephone that sat beside Dr. Rodriguez’s computer and dialed 9-1-1. Covering the receiver with a wadded rag and gravelling her voice, she spoke only two words: “Police emergency.”

Leaving the receiver off the hook, Heather turned and led Jennifer from the room and up the stairs.

“Now what?” asked Jennifer as they climbed on their bikes and pedaled away.

“The police will find enough evidence to stop the Rho Project.”

“What if they don’t? What if Stephenson manages to cover it up? Dr. Rodriguez knows you copied the data.”

“Doesn’t matter. As soon as we get back to the house, we’ll uplink the data on my memory stick to the NSA. Too many people will know about this to cover the thing up.”

As they pedaled toward home, the sound of distant sirens echoed through the streets.

Chapter 87

The darkness within Dr. Donald Stephenson’s windowless office pressed in upon the light of the small desk lamp. The light was so scant, it was almost like an old gas street lamp, doused by fog in London, circa 1880. The deep-grained textures of the hardwood furniture that filled the chamber added to the illusion, so that the room’s mood took on the nature of the man who had created it.

But the room felt radiant compared to the look on Dr. Stephenson’s face as he listened to the frantic voice at the other end of the phone.

Dr. Stephenson hung up and then dialed a single digit. He only had to wait for one ring. When Dr. Stephenson finally spoke, his voice carried an edge as sharp as cracking ice.

“This is Dr. Stephenson. We have a potential national security breach involving a Rho Laboratory employee. I want Dr. Ernesto Rodriguez’s house and property secured and sealed off and the good doctor placed under arrest. Get the military response team moving right now. If the civilian authorities are already on site, I want them removed. Any items they may have picked up as evidence must be confiscated. I will be arriving on site within the hour.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dr. Stephenson hung up, then, picking up his pen, he returned his attention to the differential equations that filled page after page of his notebooks, the solution to which had been so rudely interrupted.

He was close now. So close to the solution that he could taste it. And then the real work could begin.

Chapter 88

Heather sat on her back porch, looking out across the canyons as the sunset painted the sky orange. Sensing her mood, her parents had wisely left her to her own reflections.

Looking back on the last week’s events, it was no wonder she felt like a wrung-out sponge. The press replayed the story until it was impossible to get away from it. The police had arrived at the Rodriguez house to find Dr. Rodriguez dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, a suicide note lying near his body.

Unfortunately, the military had taken control of the site shortly after the police had secured the area, confiscating all materials in the name of national security. Only the suicide note had been released to the public, a rambling apology for the unauthorized nanite testing that Dr. Rodriguez had conducted in his private laboratory. Luckily, the note contained no mention of Heather.

If Heather and Jennifer hadn’t successfully uplinked the data from Dr. Rodriguez’s lab to the NSA site, the military cover-up would have been complete.

Mark was freed of tabloid attention, which now focused squarely upon the secret basement laboratory beneath the Rodriguez house. One lucky thing had happened. In all the commotion, Jack and Janet had failed to discover the QT microchip Mark had placed in Janet’s laptop.

And the quantum twin of that device had yielded a wealth of encrypted information since then. While the encryption of the data was first-rate, Heather’s unique ability with numbers was better. The decryption of secure message traffic between that computer, the NSA, and some other remote systems had finally given Mark, Jennifer, and Heather an understanding of at least a part of what the NSA knew about the situation.

It had been in one of these communications that Heather had discovered the link between Raul, the water bottle, and Mark’s grogginess at the State Championship game. More importantly, they had learned that the killer who had attacked Janet and then Mark was a man named Priest Williams, and that Jack had killed him.

As Mark had already told them, the man had displayed incredible healing abilities. The lab tests on Priest's blood had revealed that it was permeated by millions of nanites, microscopic machines that read information from their host’s DNA and used that information to repair bodily damage. The data confirmed the information from Dr. Rodriguez’s computer that she and Jennifer had uplinked to the NSA.

Heather had read many articles on current nanotechnology research, some of which had speculated that in the future, humans would be able to inject swarms of tiny machines into their bloodstream to do things like clean arteries and attack infections. But what these nanites did was far beyond any nanotechnology currently envisioned.

There could be no doubt. The technology had come from the Rho Project. Apparently the report on the subject was being kept very classified, with only Jack’s team, one individual at the laboratory doing the testing, and two key people at NSA headquarters knowing anything about the report’s contents.

Just as it looked like the press furor would abate, today had brought more tragedy to the Rodriguez household. Raul had disappeared, apparently having run away from home. Police had arrived to find Mrs. Rodriguez lost to a hysteria that required hospitalization.

A cool breeze ruffled Heather’s hair. Brushing a strand from her face, she watched as the sky changed from red to purple.

Raul. The knowledge that he had tried to drug Mark had destroyed whatever feelings she had held for him. But he didn’t deserve this. Shaking her head, Heather rose from the lawn chair, turned her back on the gathering darkness, and stepped back into the light and warmth of her own home.

Chapter 89

Griffith Gym, the site of the Commencement Ceremony for the LAHS graduating class, was packed to near capacity. Heather didn’t particularly like graduation ceremonies of any type. Why Mark had been so keen on having their families attend this one was another of the mysteries that came together in the person of Marcus Aurelius Smythe.

As far as she knew, the only seniors Mark knew were the ones who had tormented him during the year. But when she and Jennifer had quizzed him, he merely laughed and shrugged off those antics as an age-old high school rite of passage. Perhaps he was growing up after all.

As the graduation speaker droned on endlessly, Heather smiled to herself. Considering all she had been through, all they had all been through, she was glad this year was coming to a close. Even the fact that she had missed the junior-senior prom could not dampen her mood.

Mark’s elbow brought her focus back to the stage. The top scholastic leaders of the senior class had just been recognized, and the senior athletes and cheerleaders were next. Heather recognized Colleen “All Cars” Johnson along with the obnoxious quarterback, Doug Brindal, and his buddies.

The group on stage raised their awards above their heads. As they did, Heather noticed Mark fiddling with something in his hand, a devilish grin on his face.

A sudden gasp from the crowd snapped Heather’s head back toward the stage.

“Oh my God!” Jennifer gasped.

The graduation gowns of Colleen Johnson, Doug Brindal, and two of the other athletes came apart at the seams, the separate pieces fluttering to the ground beside them, revealing that none of the four were wearing pants or underwear.

As they recovered from their stunned silence, the students in the crowd erupted into a wild fit of laughter. The objects of that laughter scrambled to cover themselves with the pieces of their robes before fleeing from the stage. Bedlam descended upon the graduation ceremony, lasting several minutes as the principal and teachers struggled to restore order.

In an effort to get things over with, the remaining seniors were called across stage in near record time, although they received their rolled diplomas without further incident.

As the ceremony concluded and the crowd made its way out of the gymnasium, there were some expressions of outrage, but the bulk of the audience thought it was the most entertaining graduation ceremony ever.

Once in the parking lot, Heather turned to stare at Mark. Jennifer joined her.

“How in the world did that just happen?”

“Well, let’s just say that a few weeks ago I happened to overhear those four planning to moon the crowd after graduation ceremony. Anyway, I thought to myself, why should they go half ass when I can help them achieve the full monty?”

“Happened to overhear? You planted a bug, didn’t you?”

“‘Planted’ is such an unpleasant word. I think I’ll stick with my original description.”

“But how did you get their gowns to come apart like that?”

“You know, it’s amazing how a remotely directed heat source can affect certain thread types. Combine that with just the right stitching modifications, and the sky’s the limit.”

It was Heather’s turn to gasp.

“The old ladies’ sewing club! So that’s what you were learning.”

Mark’s grin spread to epic proportions.

“Viva POOTNAS!”