Prime (Chess Team Adventure, #0.5)

“It can’t be. We haven’t come this far to be turned back now. Can’t we break in?” She looked around, belatedly checking to see if they were being observed.

Parker balked momentarily at the cavalier suggestion; it wasn’t just the illegality of the action—he did illegal things on a routine basis in the interest of a greater good—but rather the immorality of it. This was a sacred place; a treasure to be preserved, not desecrated.

Yet, what if the very reason it had been venerated by those ancient artists was because it contained the thing they now sought? What if those primitive cave painters had, perhaps even without really knowing it, intuitively recognized that this place was a source of life?

The source of life.

Sasha was right. They had come too far to turn back now.

He stared at the door a moment longer, trying to think of the best way to get past it. He hadn’t been able to bring along explosives for a breaching charge; he didn’t even have a Swiss Army knife.

“Something’s not right here.” He turned to Sasha. “The original entrance to this cave was sealed up by a landslide about twenty thousand years ago. That’s why it’s so well preserved.”

“So?”

“So, this entrance wasn’t discovered until just a few years ago. And I would be willing to bet money that Bacon and al-Tusi didn’t come this way.”

“Then there’s another entrance?”

“Maybe. But I think there’s another answer; an answer worthy of the men who wrote the Voynich manuscript.” He offered her an outstretched hand. “Do you trust me?”

He saw immediately that she did not, not unreservedly. His heart sank like a stone. After everything he had done for her, all the risks and sacrifice… She still couldn’t find it in her heart to give him the benefit of the doubt. She stared at his hand warily, but finally took it, clasping his fingers as if to indicate that she would comply, but only on her own terms. Parker struggled back from the event horizon of his emotions, and he gave her hand an awkward squeeze. Then, he led her back the way they’d come.

Parker set down the computer. In response to an unspoken question, he said: “What do we know about the Prime? It’s a place where harmonic frequencies can be used to radically alter the composition of matter, right?”

“You don’t mean…?”

“It’s what the alchemists were always looking for. They understood the connection, but they didn’t have the technological know-how. We already know that wave energy can have an effect on the states of matter; what do you think a microwave oven does? It causes water molecules to vibrate, which releases heat.”

Her eyes began darting back and forth, processing his suggestions, calculating. Then her expression changed.

Not just her expression.

He felt her hand shift in his, sliding up so that their palms were facing.

Then the moment passed. She let go and knelt at the computer, once more consumed by calculations that had nothing at all to do with him.

He heard the sound of her fingers tapping on the keyboard, but then he heard something else that drew his attention away. It wasn’t a distinctive sound, more of a change in atmosphere than anything else, but it chilled him nevertheless. He scanned the tree line and saw movement.

Then he saw people, and before he could utter even a word of warning, he recognized one of the men striding toward them.

Kevin Rainer.





FORTY-NINE


For just a few moments, Sasha felt the sublime satisfaction of a balanced equation. Order had come into her world at last. The Voynich manuscript had given up its secrets, and in so doing, had shown her the underlying arithmetic of the entire universe. She deftly entered information into the virtual urghan, instructing it to play a combination of notes—a specific low frequency sound—and then hit the key that would turn data into music.

The next sound she heard however was not a deep resonant bass tone, but a human voice; the voice of her former captor. “Hello again.”

Even before she could look up, a lighting bolt of pure chaos ripped through her. No. Not now. Not again.

Rainer and four other men stood in a semi-circle around her and Parker. She recognized two of the men—the two rogue Night Stalker crewmen—but the other two were not really men at all; short but massively muscled, they were the hideous science projects that the Chess Team had dubbed ‘frankensteins.’ The renegade soldiers were armed with compact machine pistols but the frankensteins needed no weapons.

Parker had gone rigid beside her, as if straining to hold back an eruption of fear or rage—probably rage—but when he spoke, his voice was flat, emotionless. “Kevin. How did you find us?”

“I took the liberty of tagging your little girlfriend when she was my guest.”