Ocean in the Sea Page 31

  A grumpy female voice shouted from across the hanger. “HEY!” Perillia stomped toward them escorted by two guards on either side of her. “Arsus. You wanna tell these idiots back off already?”

  As they got closer, Arsus returned the salutes of the soldiers and ordered them to return to their posts. Perillia gave Lewis and Jenny the stink-eye and walked around the outside of the X-423, curling her lip. “Hadda be somethin BIG didn’t it?” she bitched to Arsus. “You ‘spect me to send this all the way to China?”

  “You’ve ported more mass than this before,” said Arsus.

  “Yeah, well I ain’t never been to China,” she snapped. “And what about the rest of us? Randuu says it’s spreadin. Ain’t noplace gonna be safe. Shanzea and Valruun still in Portland. Valruun in surgery. How you gonna get’em out, Arsus?”

  “Randuu will make the arrangements. We’ll meet you on Freedom-3.”

  At mention of the space station, Perillia sputtered and threw her hands in the air. “Orbit ain’t FAR enough, ARSUS! You think recal ain’t visible from frickin ORBIT? Ain’t nowhere safe. We gotta jump or die.”

  Arsus pinched his lips. “We have time. We’ll jump when we have him.”

  “The conduits,” snarled Perillia, “is on callback to this simulation. And Valruun is sedated. Figure it out, Arsus. This ain’t our trap, it’s Tanandor’s. He’s playin you cause you a greedy fuck. We all locked in this simulation, and this sim’s goin recal cause you brung that fuckwad, Heticus.”

  Arsus pointed his finger and spoke in the icy tone he usually reserved for trained agents. “Control yourself, Perillia. Don’t think with your emotions. We have five days before recalibration spreads to orbit. That’s plenty of time, and there’s a rocket waiting for you in Houston. We’ll bring Tanandor with us for interrogation. Valruun will be awake by then, and we’ll have him delete the callbacks.”

  “You planned this!” she accused, suddenly realizing the truth. “You was gonna do this all along!”

  Arsus sighed. “Tanandor can shorten his jump-timer. He’s done it before. Recalibration is the only way I know to keep him from jumping.”

  “You honkey sack of shit.” Her eyes flared. “You ain’t never said nothin ‘bout risking deletion.”

  “No I didn’t. You wouldn’t have agreed to it, and for the record, this plan was Valruun’s.”

  Perillia blinked. Her mouth dropped open. Valruun was her friend. At least, moreso than the others. She looked at the ground and her shoulder’s drooped. “Who else knew?”

  “He didn’t tell me,” said Jenny.

  “Is first time I know this,” rumbled Beloris. “Is not surprising though.”

  Lewis rolled his eyes. “Well don’t look at me. I’m like a mushroom.” He held up his hands. “You people feed me shit and keep me in the dark. Can we leave now, or are you gonna argue some more? The tantrum’s educational, but now that we’ve identified a deadline, it seems prudent to get our asses in gear.”

  “Da.” Beloris shuffled up the ramp. “Weapons already loaded.”

  Jenny waited for Lewis who looked back and forth between Arsus and Perillia. Arsus folded his arms and stared her down. The volatile woman took a deep breath and spun on her heel, tromping to the hanger’s elevator cage. Clenching his jaw, Arsus joined Jenny and Lewis.

  “She’ll do it,” he told them.

  “You’re sure?” asked Jenny. “It seems like she’s leaving.”

  “No. She’d have given me the finger.”

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Sixty meters from wingtip to wingtip, the huge black jet hummed with power as the roof clattered open above. The opening wouldn’t be necessary, but the simulants didn’t know that. The crew followed takeoff protocol while Perillia held her ground by the window in the control booth. What the simulants were about to see would twist their little minds, but they wouldn’t guess she was responsible. Behind the thick safety glass, she kept her eyes on the target and thought of China.

  Fricking China. Practically straight through the planet.

  “You might want to back away from that window a little, Miss,” suggested one of the technicians behind her. “We’re going to shutter it.”

  “No,” she shouted. “You keep it open, hear?”

  Under orders from the Deputy Director to treat the black woman as an NSA operative, the young officer shook his head and returned his attention to his computer console. It was SOP to shutter the windows, but it wasn’t necessarily unsafe. The jet wash wouldn’t reach this far. “Captain?” he asked.

  Standing at parade rest, Captain Snyder, the Flight Director for Hanger 9’s MMC, gave the tech a nod. “Keep it open.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Out the window, the plane began to move. Tilted downward, the four internal power plants engaged their lift, washing the ground in a haze of exhaust. As the X-423 came to a hover, Perillia focused on her sense of distance.

  In life, Latrisha Bronson knew almost nothing of her world’s geography. She had a third grade minority education from an underfunded public school with a sixty five percent dropout rate. She was lucky to be literate. But Perillia needed geography like a fish needed water. Fortunately, this version of Earth wasn’t much different than the last seven jumps through the human partitions of the ring. Outside of major changes in planetary development and early bombardment by asteroids, all earths in these sectors of the ring looked much the same. Even so, reaching her mind so far across a planet was fraught with problems. She couldn’t “see” the destination point, only the vector. The straight line had to pass through the crust and out the other side. Too short and she’d embed the aircraft in the mantle. Too far, and she’d put them in orbit. She usually called this “shaving the toroid,” although on this world, “scraping the doughnut” was a better description. The change of metaphor made her hungry.

  Randuu had given her the distance she needed, and she’d long become adept at sensing them accurately. Enveloping the outline of the hovering aircraft with her mind, she engaged her interface and sent a tendril of thought spearing into the void until it reached the appropriate distance. Holding it fast, she pinned it to a point between herself and the plane, a static ray with two perfect ends. Taking a breath, she opened her eyes and pushed.

  In the space of a Planck second – a variable amount according to the system’s clock rate – the black ship collapsed into data. Unrendered by the simulation’s geometric actualization routines, light ceased to interact with it. Gravity and all other aspects of the physics routines disengaged as its location coordinates were updated. For Perillia and the simulants in Area 88, the ship simply ceased to exist. But for the Attistar, its existence flashed between one rendering of the universe and the next. This was the smallest possible movement allowed in the simulation, and one entirely undetectable to anything within it because they did not exist between them.

  The ship vanished.

  An alarm blared. Several of the officers jumped to their feet. Captain Snyder screamed for information. “Where is it?” He pointed at the radar technician. “What just happened?”

  “I don’t know, Sir.”

  “Did they take off? Where are they?”

  Lieutenant Reynolds shook his head. “She’s gone, Sir. I saw the same thing you did. I’m bringing up the recordings now, but she just… vanished.”

  Captain Synder rushed over, watching the recording. They replayed it four times before the Captain called to Yeoman Bronson. “Get me General Lorenzo.”

  Corporal Stevens at the ST Comms bench raised his hand. “Sir! I’ve got them. GeoSat R80 picked up their nav beacon.”

  “Well where ARE they?” bellowed the Captain.

  “They’re, uh… over Pancuncun China.”

  “How close is that to Xinghuazhen?” asked Perillia.

  The Corporal gave her a curious look. “About 9 klicks.”

  Perillia looked away and smiled. Damn but she was good!

  The radio crackled. “Backd
raft this is Wolf, over. Come in Backdraft.”

  Corporal Stevens keyed his mic. “Wolf, this is Backdraft. What’s your situation?”

  “A-OK, Backdraft. It worked! But you might have picked a better destination for the test. There’s enough PESA out here to change our color. Japs are gonna… hold on.” After a brief pause, Captain Q’s voice returned. “Never mind the paint, Backdraft, we’ll proceed as planned.”

  “Give me the mic,” snapped Captain Snyder. He held it up. “Jim, what the Hell is going on? What plan? I’ve got zero intel on this. You just vanished.”

  “I’d stick to codes’n shit if I were you,” Perillia warned the Captain. Encryption was all fine and good, but it would be broken eventually. “They there on purpose, and it outside your clearance t’know.”

  “Sorry Backdraft,” said Captain Q. “We’ll check in on the Bravo Mike schedule. I’m on silent running from here on out.”

  Captain Snyder set the mic down and glared at Perillia. “What is this about? What test? How did they end up in China!?”

  “I could tell you.” Perillia chuckled. “But then you gotta die.” She strutted toward the door and put her hands on her hips. “Don’t worry, everything cool. You get updated soon enough.” She licked her lips. “There someplace around here I can get a doughnut?”

  Trails of Death

  Lewis was still geeking out over the explanation Arsus had given the pilots. An “experimental wormhole device,” Arsus had told them. “A black project developing instantaneous teleportation,” he’d said. If the pilots were skeptical, they’d kept it to themselves while bringing the plane to a hover. After the hanger vanished around them and they’d appeared in Chinese airspace, the pilots had cheered like high school kids at a winning homecoming game, certain, of course, that this would give the Allies an extreme tactical advantage over the Axis. Telling them the truth would have been ludicrous, but the slick way Arsus had delivered the lie to them confirmed Lewis’s suspicions. Arsus was not someone to be trusted.

  From his position between the pilots, the Deputy Director pointed to the navigation display and gave his orders. “Take us to this point, due west. We’ll set down here.”

  “You want to land?” Major P asked in an incredulous tone. “We’ll be sitting ducks for the Japanese.”

  “Negative,” replied Arsus. “The area’s cleared of combatants.”

  “Cleared?”

  “Cleared. No aggressors. Nothing but the agent we’re extracting – code name Senjiita. He’ll be somewhere in that area.”

  “Copy that.” Major P punched the coordinates into the nav-comp. Digitized representations of radar installations appeared highlighted on the display. Unknown to the Major, Jenny had been bending the radar beams since their arrival. Arsus had explained this as “experimental stealth improvements” to the X-423. After the wormhole bit, the officers were willing to buy anything, and Major P had probed no further. Besides, arguing with the Deputy Director of the NSA wasn’t a good career move.

  In the confined space of the crew compartment behind the cockpit, Lewis took his helmet off. “You okay?” he asked Jenny. She sat perfectly still with her eyes closed.

  “Concentrating,” she whispered.

  Beloris tapped Lewis’s shoulder. “Best not to bother her, Lewis, or we take missile up butthole. Arsus, how long?”

  “We’re about eight minutes out.”

  “Anything from Randuu?”

  “No, which is not unexpected. Her orders are to decant from isolation and proceed to her launch point. The others will be on their way too. We’re out of contact until they reach orbit.”

  Beloris rolled his eyes. “So how we find Senjiita then?”

  “Can’t Jenny sense him?” Lewis asked Beloris. “You said she has the same interface as Randuu.”

  Beloris shook his head. “Same primary interface. Ability to sense other jumpers when they push is sub-interface only Randuu have, not Jenny. Without Randuu to look for us, finding Senjiita is like looking for haystack in pile of needles.”

  “We’ll find him,” insisted Arsus. “We know the last position he used his interface. From there, we follow the trail of death.”

  “Ah. Old canary in a coal mine trick.” Beloris nodded. “Has worked before.” Standing, he shuffled down the narrow aisle to the rear of the plane and grabbed a heavy metal briefcase. Flipping a side compartment open, he removed a couple of rifles that Lewis recognized as Russian designed Serenov II plasma casters. Handing one to Lewis and Arsus, Beloris said, “I will go down first and make certain area is safe for plane. Then I search for Senjiita.” Holding the case to his chest Beloris left the crew compartment through the rear hatch.

  Lewis raised an eyebrow. “How’s he getting down?”

  Arsus keyed his microphone and spoke to the pilots. “Open bomb bay doors.”

  “Cute.” Lewis smirked. “His interface will protect him from a fall?”

  “It had better. If he doesn’t make a big impact, he’ll make an exceptional splatter.”

  Lewis chuckled. “And what’s the ‘canary in a coal mine’ trick?”

  “It’s a way to locate Senjiita we’ve used before. Watch and see. Speaking of which, I’d better get ready myself. Stay here.” Leaving the rifle behind with Lewis, Arsus shuffled down the tight aisle back to the cockpit.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Moving through fields of barley, corn, wheat and hay, Senjiita continued his westward migration after a night of sleep. Twice now, he’d been forced to annihilate Japanese soldiers. The first, a simple two man guard outpost, and the second, a small collection of huts filled with warriors of the Matsuka bakufu. Since then he’d put fifteen kilometers behind him, and his host was weary once more. Zhang Lin was a tough old man, and his back was strong, but his feet weren’t used to the heel-to-toe impact of continuous walking. He was made for standing in place and bending over, the work of a rice farmer. His frayed sandals chaffed his feet.

  Ahead of him lay the city of Daging, still another forty kilometers and too far to reach before nightfall at this rate, but there were plenty of carts on the road. Most were pulled by oxen and a few by horses. When one approached from behind, he raised his hands and begged a ride. The driver, a middle aged farmer dressed in a cotton shirt and wool trousers, agreed to take Senjiita as far as Daging, but he would have to ride in back. Agreeing with a thankful bow, Senjiita hitched his old bones up and sat on the lip of the cart’s rear, letting his legs dangle. It felt good to be off his feet.

  It wasn’t long before the sound of helicopters drew Senjiita’s eyes north. Two twin rotor aircraft moved in their direction. Door gunners manned machine guns mounted to either side, scanning the terrain below. Zhang Lin’s memories showed no knowledge of the make or models of these helicopters, only visions of streets filled with blood and bodies riddled with large caliber bullets. The village of Wangkui, it had once been. It was there that Zhang Lin had witnessed the futility of rebellion and its cost. The people of Wangkui had not met their quota, and had refused to give more, needing the rest of their crop for winter. The Shogun had sent his gunships to make an example of them. Zhang Lin and many others from his village had been ordered to bury the corpses.

  Focusing his interface, Senjiita viewed the gunship’s crews. Their auras were clean and white, the purity of complete and total insignificance. To the simulation, they meant nothing – filler to be wiped clean by whatever justice he chose to dispense. Selecting them in his mind’s eye, he pushed and snuffed them out, pilots, crew, and gunners all.

  For a moment, nothing changed, and then the two copters tilted and spun like the seeds of the lacquer trees in autumn, dropping slowly to the fields below. Senjiita imagined the alarms ringing in the cockpits as the pilots slumped over their controls, pushing them in wild directions, dead feet depressing pedals, foreheads impacting dash controls. Due to the crazy spin of their rotation, one of the door gunners fell, hanging by a restraining strap. On impact, they we
re still miles away, but at the sound of the crash, his cart driver stopped along with all other traffic on the road. Curiosity and fear were a potent elixir, but the fear would be most prominent.

  “Look!” shouted the farmer from the front. Leaping from his seat, he tore his straw hat off and held it to his chest. “Did you see!? What has happened!?”

  “Justice,” called Senjiita, not bothering to leave his spot. It felt too good to sit. “Surely they are dead.”

  “But both helicopters fell,” shouted the man. “And at the same time. It cannot have been a malfunction.”

  So he wasn’t a moron, though Senjiita. Simulants ran the gambit of intellects, and here was one wasted on a life of subsistence. “Such craft have many components, my friend. Among them are men, and men are fallible. Come. Let us continue to Daging before the Japanese arrive. They will question us, and what will we say? Nothing they wish to hear, I am certain.”

  “Yes,” the man agreed quickly. “You are right.”

  With a snap of the reins, they began moving once more, but this time Senjiita continued his scans, wary of more air traffic. Sure enough, not fifteen minutes later he detected a collection of auras, but this time they were in pairs separated by wider distances and travelling at much higher speeds. He’d seen this before, many times in other simulations when jet aircraft were in use. It was best to eliminate them before they came any closer. Several minutes passed before the distant echoes of destruction reached them across the open fields.

  “Again!? What is happening!?” shouted the farmer. He snapped the reins and they sped up a little, though only a very little. Oxen weren’t exactly built for speed.

  “Perhaps we are at war,” suggested Senjiita.

  “With whom? Who would be so foolish as to attack the empire? And why start here? There is nothing of value!”

  Yes… this was the problem with intelligent labor. They asked questions of those managing them. This poor dirt-grubber was lucky to be alive. Or maybe it was that he was also smart enough not to ask questions when the asking would threaten his life. He had no reason to fear an old man such as Zhang Lin. So what answer to give him? Senjiita remained silent and continued his scans.