Ocean in the Sea Read online

  “Sorry.” Her voice was muffled through the mask. “Does this look okay?”

  He opened the door to the hall. “Sure. And if anyone asks, you’ve got TB and HIV.”

  “I’ve never heard of HIV.”

  “Don’t mention it then. Stay close behind me and avoid eye contact.”

  She nodded her agreement and they departed the room.

  Passing a man in a wheelchair, they moved across the nurse’s administration area in plain view of everyone. The nurses kept their heads down, busy on phones, a computer, writing charts. A maintenance worker whistled some half remembered old song as he walked by with his ladder. A distracted radiologist stared at his watch. A stubby waist-high robot rolled past them on tracks following lines on the floor. Three military officers laughed at a joke around a water cooler, far too interested in the punchline to pay Jenny or Lewis even a cursory glance.

  As they reached the elevator lobby, one of the doors slid open, revealing a crowded interior. Stepping inside, Lewis crossed his hands behind his back and said nothing, letting the lift take them up. Odds were one it would take them “out.” That was good enough. Unfortunately, there were a lot of stops ahead. Arsus hadn’t been kidding. They really were a mile underground.

  After the last of the other passengers departed, one light remained lit on the elevator console – the one that took them to the ground floor. Normally it required a security code, but someone had already entered it. Conveniently, they’d forgotten their car keys and had got off on a different floor to go back for them.

  “Does Saiben-D make you hot?” She fanned her face with her hand.

  “No. It’s probably all the stings.”

  “At least they aren’t burning anymore.”

  The elevator chimed and the doors slid open onto an upper level lobby. Lewis felt immediate mortification as he saw who waited directly across from them. He’d done his best to be stealthy, but he’d forgotten the lesson he’d learned from trying to kill Beloris. His interface didn’t work directly on other jumpers.

  Arsus stood leaning causally against the wall. “Right on time.” He smiled and gestured with his head. “Airfield’s this way. Perillia should be arriving in a few minutes.”

  Lewis kept his face neutral and stepped out. “And what then?”

  “Follow me.” Spinning on his heel, Arsus strode away as if expecting their obedience. His confidence was irritating, but Lewis played along. He was still learning to use to his interface. Arsus had probably mastered his a long time ago. It wouldn’t be a fair fight. With an irritated glance to Jenny, Lewis marched after the ‘Deputy Director,’ wondering if Jenny had tipped off Arsus. It was possible. Garibaldi thoughts so. Old Lewis did not. New Lewis wanted to trust Jenny, but she’d been with Arsus for a long time. According to Garibaldi’s beliefs, loyalties were earned, and the longer they were held, the stronger they became. That made Jenny suspect until proven otherwise.

  Without turning, Arsus spoke as he walked. His words were obviously meant for Lewis. “You don’t want my help with your memory problems. You’ve gone back to your previous addictions. You’ve given a dangerous drug to our most inexperienced member. And you’ve attempted to leave with the one ability I really need. I’m willing to ignore all of that, Lewis. You can do what you want. I just need you to do one thing for me. After that, I won’t bother you again.”

  “And what is it you want me to do?”

  “Purge the Attistar’s conduit buffer.”

  “Why? Is it backed-up or something?”

  Arsus laughed. “Yes. There’s something in there we’d like flushed out.”

  “I can imagine.” Lewis snorted. “And you think I’m your plumber?”

  “I do.”

  Lewis shrugged. “Alright. I’ll try.”

  Arsus nodded. “I believe you.”

  Lewis narrowed his eyes.

  Chicken with a Train

  On approach to Area 88, the white teardrop scramjet dropped out of the atmosphere miles away, visible long before its sonic boom reached the airfield. Switching from scram to standard jets, its intake manifold lowered slightly, allowing more air into the engines. Still moving at Mach 3 it shrieked across the valley between two mountains, shaking the scrubby pines and kicking up dust.

  Inside the glass-enclosed causeway leading to the hanger deck, Arsus raised his chin toward to the scramjet. Their elevated position near the peak of the base gave them an excellent view. With his hands behind his back, Arsus continued walking as he spoke. “Perillia will meet us at the ship. You’ll need to change into flight suits, and you may want some weapons where we’re going.”

  Lewis turned away from the view of the incoming scram jet and stared at the back of Arsus’s head. “And where’s that?”

  “China.”

  “China?” Jenny pinched her lips. “Why are we going to that Hell-hole?”

  “Senjiita is there.”

  She crossed her arms. “Oh.”

  That didn’t explain anything to Lewis. “You want me to play plumber, Arsus, I’ll change the odds for you, but I can do that from anywhere. What’s so important about Senjiita that you need me in China?”

  “Senjiita can see a simulant’s validity – their importance to the plot,” explained Arsus. “Randuu can sense when a jumper uses their interface. When the two of them work together, they can usually locate any active jumper in a simulation. We need them both before you force Tanandor into a host. As for why you should be there, it may take several attempts to flush the conduit buffer, and it’s safer to give you those instructions in person. Besides, we may need your talents to get Senjiita out of China.”

  Lewis curled his upper lip. “You said you wanted me to do one thing for you. This is more than one.”

  “You’re right.” Arsus straightened his back. “I owe you something for the additional assistance. I offer you the right to ask Tanandor a question once we have him. We all have questions, but you can go first.”

  Lewis considered this as they left the causeway onto a catwalk overlooking a huge partially underground hanger. Men and women in USAF uniforms worked around the periphery, plugging fueling ports, moving pallets of gear, checking clipboards. The focus of their efforts was a large black plane crouched in the center. It didn’t exist in Garibaldi’s extensive memories of allied and enemy aircraft. It looked like a hybrid between a stealth bomber and a variable wing VTOL fighter.

  Arsus led them to a caged elevator descending to the lower flight deck. It clanked and clattered, then hummed as it began lowering.

  “I’d agree to your offer,” said Lewis, “if I thought you had a chance. But even if I can force Valon into a host, and if your people can locate him, how do you intended to get him? You’re just going to, what? Fly down and kidnap his host from whichever country he happens to jump into?”

  “Correct. I’ve been planning this for years. I’d hoped to catch Tanandor in a host without much trouble, but I anticipated that wouldn’t be possible, so I’ve prepared for many different contingencies.” Arsus pointed to the aircraft. “That’s the X-423 Infiltrator, a one-of-a-kind suborbital stealth bomber modified for atmospheric reentry and hedgehopping. I had it flown here while you were sleeping. Once we’ve extracted Senjiita, we’ll head for orbit and you’ll engage your interface. After they’ve located Tanandor, we’ll infiltrate his position. Hopefully it will be in an allied location, but if not, we’ll leverage Xanatos and Evaeros to help us get in and out.”

  Lewis folded his arms. “If Valon picks a different interface each time he jumps, then you won’t know what he can do. What makes you think you can take him?”

  “That’s a risk.” Arsus met Lewis’s eyes. “There’s always risk. Nothing’s ever free, Lewis. We earn everything we get. Your host knows that. Do you think Garibaldi would back out of an engagement with the enemy because the odds were against him?”

  “I’m not Garibaldi,” snapped Lewis. “But if I were, I’d tell you that there are acceptable and u
nacceptable risks to every operation. Risk number one: you don’t know the battlefield. Risk number two: you don’t know what your enemy will be armed with. Risk number three: you don’t know what your enemy is going to look like. Risk number four: you don’t know what allies your enemy may have. Risk number five: your enemy knows everything about you and what you’re capable of. Shall I go on?”

  The elevator cage rattled open and the three of them stepped out. Arsus led them to an interior door. “Don’t bother,” he told Lewis. “Risk number six: recalibration has already begun and we don’t know if it’s localized.”

  Jenny gasped and turned her head.

  “Risk number seven,” continued Arsus, “the Attistar may have dispatched a Kron to oversee the recalibration.”

  Jenny halted, confronting the Deputy Director with an expression of anger Lewis found somewhat cute. He wondered how angry she really was. The Saiben-D enhanced rage, but Jenny was far from apoplectic.

  “You never mentioned recalibration,” she accused Arsus.

  “It has only recently begun.” He stopped and raised his key-card. The door hissed open on a flight-prep room filled with uniforms reminiscent of space suits, but thinner and less bulky. Arsus waved them in and sealed the door behind them.

  “Recalibration?” Lewis shook his head. “What is that?”

  Jenny moved to the rack of flight suits, discarding the surgical mask. “It’s like big fat eraser. We should jump! We could all be killed. Permanently.”

  “The Attistar is resetting the simulation,” said Arsus. “It happens when too many people who are required or pertinent to the purpose of a simulation have been altered or terminated. If the changes can’t be resolved to restore the plot or goal, then the Attistar recalibrates.”

  Lewis raised his eyebrows. “Can it bring the dead back to life?”

  “Yes,” answered Arsus, taking down one of the suits. Handing it to Jenny, he found one for himself. “It also erases or alters the memories of all those involved in the goal or plot. This is why we keep our interference to a minimum. This is also why Senjiita is necessary. He can detect Reqs and Perts. It’s important to avoid killing them, or even influencing them.”

  “So what started it?” asked Lewis. “You kill the president or something?”

  “No. The current recalibration is due to Heticus. He jumped into a host in Riom France not long after you arrived. He’s obliterated most of the city.”

  The mention of Heticus meant nothing to Lewis, but he thought of Brenda and Scotty and his own world. If recalibration could bring back the dead, maybe it could bring them back as well. But how could he do it? He’d have to return to his reality in the past and find some Reqs and Perts to kill. He shook his head. It wouldn’t work. According to history, Brenda and Scotty were meant to die, so recalibration wouldn’t restore them.

  “Who is Heticus?” he asked.

  “Heticus is an idiot,” spat Jenny. She gave Lewis a look of intense disapproval. “He used to be Nastarii – a lost jumper. Beloris found him twenty jumps back on a world where he thought he was God. He’s been a pain in the ass ever since. He just… kills people whenever he wants.”

  “A loose cannon.” Lewis reflected on Garibaldi’s memories of putting down his own men when they went psycho and started wasting their fellow soldiers. Lost jumpers thinking they were Gods amounted to the same. Unhampered by the ability to tell right and wrong, all others became subject to justice meted out at whim. A simple disagreement could lead to armed conflict. “But you used him anyway,” observed Lewis. “Why?”

  “There aren’t many of us,” replied Arsus. Taking off his jacket, he pulled the turtleneck over his head. “We’re scattered over millions of simulations. It’s a long story. Suffice it to say that Heticus was willing to remain in your simulation to drive Tanandor to jump. No one else wanted that task, but Heticus views Tanandor as another God, and himself worthy of confronting him. He does not fear Tanandor.”

  “Do you?”

  “I am not a fool.”

  Lewis began taking off Doctor Sanchez’s uniform, folding it neatly on the bench as the fastidious nature of the old Lewis demanded. “So what happens when the recalibration reaches us?”

  Jenny stuffed her legs into the attached boots of the suit and pulled the pants to her waist. “If we’re caught in it, the Attistar will resolve our host bodies to the state they should be in – dead. For us, that means a force-jump, but, during a full recalibration, there may be no hosts to jump into, which means deletion.” She clamped the pressure ring on her boots.

  “Resolving us to the afterlife parameters of the simulation,” finished Arsus. “But even if that doesn’t occur and there are hosts to jump into, our jump-timers will be reset, and we’ll have to find each other again, which is why we usually jump to a different simulation at the first sign of recalibration. Unfortunately, Tanandor is here. If we jump, we lose him. I’m fairly certain that’s what he wants.” Arsus looked at Lewis and sealed the suit from hip to shoulder. The rapid zipping sound seemed to punctuate his statement. “Quite simply, the world is collapsing around us. We are playing chicken with a train.” He clapped his hands twice and grabbed a helmet from the rack. “Risk assessment completed. I’ll meet you outside. Chop-chop.”

  After he shut the door, Lewis zipped himself up and blocked the exit as Jenny approached. “I need to know. Did you warn Arsus we were leaving the facility? Did you tip him off?”

  Giving him a peeved look, she grabbed a helmet. “No.”

  “Then how did he find us?”

  “There are cameras all over the place, Lewis. Did you short them all?”

  Lowering his eyes he moved his jaw in thought. “No.”

  “Then Randuu probably told him. The cameras are her eyes. I didn’t betray you. I don’t even care if we get Tanandor.” She searched his eyes. “I’m sick of fighting and running and plotting. The others think Tanandor is going to give them some truth they need, but we aren’t Paradisian. There’s no truth Tanandor can give us that will change us from what we are.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Simulants, like anyone else. Just because we know this is a simulation and we can jump doesn’t make us different. We’re products of this system, part of it. There’s no ‘outside,’ not for us. This is what’s real.”

  “Then nothing is real.”

  “Real enough for me,” she whispered. “Real enough to keep living.”

  He lowered his eyes and grasped the handle. She put her hand on his. “Wait, Lewis. You should know that if we jump while Valruun is alive, he’ll keep us together. If we jump after Valruun has left this simulation, then the Attistar will determine where we go. The odds we’ll end up together are astronomical.”

  Lewis smiled in the corner of his mouth. “Odds are something I can deal with.”

  Jenny raised her eyebrows. “I hadn’t… thought of that. You think that might work?”

  “I don’t know. But if my interface can force Valon out of the conduit buffer, then it may work on the jump.” He clenched his jaw. “The thing is, Valon wouldn’t have given me this power without considering what I might do with it, and he used it to pick me. You people may think you’re free to make your own choices, but you’re still predictable, and Valon seems damn good at it. Arsus may be making a big mistake in using me. It may be what Valon wants.”

  “Maybe you should tell him that.”

  Lewis pulled the door open. “I don’t think Arsus is interested in what I think.”

  Outside, Arsus was on the phone near the X-423. Behind him, Beloris spoke with two men in matching flight suits. As Lewis and Jenny grew near, Beloris turned in their direction and waved with a smile.

  “Ah, Lewis! It is good to see you not trying to kill me. Meet our pilots. This is Major P and Captain Q. Actual names are above your clearance, sorry.” He turned to the pilots. “This is Lewis Herman, a murdering psychopath with the ability to manipulate chance. And this is Jennifer Kross, an Atlan
tean with the ability to detect and manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum.”

  The two pilots looked at Beloris and then turned to each other. Beloris laughed loudly and slapped Major P on the back. “Sorry, my friends. Was crazy joke Deputy Director put me up to. Lewis and Jenny are code names. Very secret, Da! Now we ALL have code names.”

  “Good to meet you,” said Major P. He exchanged handshakes with Lewis and Jenny.

  “We’d better start the pre-flight warmup,” said Captain Q.

  As the two pilots boarded the ship through the belly ramp, Lewis gave Jenny a quizzical look. “Atlantean?”

  “Atlantis was the name of my country,” she explained. “You’ve heard of it?”

  “Yeah. I don’t suppose it sank into the ocean?”

  “It was still there when I left it.”

  “And your name is Jennifer?”

  “No. That was the name of my first host. It’s a long story.”

  “Can’t wait to hear it.”

  She looked away distastefully, giving Lewis the impression that it wasn’t something she was all that interested in sharing. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be nearly as screwed up as his own past. Could it?

  Arsus grew closer, still holding the phone to his ear. “Yes, Mr. President,” he said. “You have my word that we have no ongoing operations in France. We have no knowledge of what’s happening, but we stand ready to deploy on your orders. Of course, Sir. I agree it’s strange. Alien? Is that what they’re saying? No, of course I don’t believe that.” He scoffed. “It’s probably a natural phenomenon. I’ll keep you advised. I have my men on top of it.” He disconnected the phone and shook his head. “The situation in Riom hasn’t gone unnoticed. World governments are aware.”

  “Very bad,” said Beloris. “If Attistar does not mask recalibration, it will spread to entire simulation. How long?”

  “It’s moved to the edge of Paris,” replied Arsus. “At its current rate, it will hit Africa within twelve hours and the entire world within five days. We need to get moving. Randuu already knows.”