Linkage: The Narrows of Time

Chapter 23

Revelation





“Are you two readyfor a road trip?” Kleezebee asked.

“More than ready,Professor,” Drew answered, sliding the theory notebook into thezippered pouch of his knapsack. “Can we check on Mom before weleave?”

“Sure,” Kleezebeereplied, before telling his techs, “Inform the security team we’llbe up in ten. Make sure they bring the climbing gear.”

Lucas turned to askKleezebee, “Uh, how are we going to get past the soldiers guardingthe hole to the QED lab?”

Kleezebee stared at thevideo screens for a few seconds, then turned to face his lead tech.“Twins ought to do it.”

The tech picked up oneof the three phones sitting on his console desk. “Who do you wantme to send?”

“Seven and Eight. Butmake it clear—stunners only.”

“You got it, boss,”the tech replied with the phone’s receiver plastered against hisright ear.

“Twins?” Lucasasked.

Kleezebee smiled. “Apair of young, beautiful women should be hard to resist, wouldn’tyou agree?”

Lucas figured Kleezebeewas going to use the twins as some form of distraction, but he wasn’tsure how. Kleezebee’s matter-of-fact tone gave him the impressionthat the professor expected him to put the pieces together on hisown, and he certainly didn’t want to disappoint his boss. “Greatidea, Professor.”

Kleezebee opened ayellow travel bag sitting on an unoccupied section of the videocontrol desk. “Did you remember the boosters?” Kleezebee askedthe tech.

“They’re in there,sir.”

“Excellent.”Kleezebee flung the tote bag over his shoulder. “We should pick upsome bottled water on the way up.”

* * *

Forty-fiveminutes later, Lucas followed behind Kleezebee as the professorinched his way along the outside of the Math Building toward itssouthwest corner. Kleezebee gave his crutches to Lucas, then pressedhis back against the building’s red-bricked wall to peek around thecorner. Ten seconds later, Kleezebee whispered to Lucas, “Seven andeight are pulling up now. Let’s hope this works.”

Lucas looked back atDrew who was sitting in rear passenger seat of the Humvee that hadbrought them to campus from the silo. One of Kleezebee’s armedsecurity guards was standing near the Humvee’s bumper-mountedwinch, looking directly at Lucas. The silo’s senior lab tech—areplica who had introduced himself as Billy Ray—was sitting in thedriver’s seat with his hands wrapped around the steering wheel.Lucas gave his brother and the other men a thumbs-up signal.

Lucas crouched behindthe professor and leaned slowly to his left. He could see foursoldiers in combat uniforms only a few hundred feet away from him.They were clustered together just to the left of the open shaft thatled down to NASA’s underground bunker. One of the soldiers wasdoing all the talking, when suddenly, the entire squad erupted into acollective laugh.

That figures, Lucasthought. Leave it to the military to waste resources guarding an openpit, especially when the rest of campus and most of Tucson had beendeserted. If he were in charge, he would have boarded up the hole andcalled it a day.

A blue mini-vansquealed around the corner and approached the soldiers from the westwith country music blaring from its open windows. Two blond-hairedwomen sat in the front seat. The vehicle swerved across the centerstripe and rammed its front tires into the sidewalk about fifty feetfrom the soldiers’ position. The stiff, southerly breeze riffledthrough the van, sending strands of blond hair flapping across theirfaces.

The two girls—exactcopies of Mary Stinger—stumbled out of the van, wearing faded bluejean cutoffs and skin-tight white tops that accentuated theiridentical figures. They wandered together near the driver’s doorand giggled loudly, before they each took a swig from a liter-sizedbottle the driver was holding in her left hand.

Kleezebee winked atLucas and said, “Wild Turkey. Bruno’s favorite.”

The four soldiers, nowstanding side-by-side and facing the girls, had been struck dumb. Nota one of them moved or said anything.

“At least I’m notthe only one to fall for that one,” Lucas mumbled under his breath.

Mary1, the driver,leaned her butt against the driver’s door and waved at thesoldiers. “Hi, boys,” she called out as her twin walkederratically toward the men, swinging her hips almost as wildly as herarms. Ten feet into her journey, Mary2’s ankle rolled over and shefell to the ground, laughing. All four soldiers sprinted to herlocation, showering her with attention.

“Works every time,”Kleezebee whispered to Lucas.

Mary1 reached into thedriver’s seat, pulled out a stunner, then snuck up behind thesolders. She fired the weapon several times, striking each of the menin succession, sending them limp to the ground. One of the blasts hitMary2, but she seemed unaffected. Lucas figured BioTex replicas wereimmune to electrocution, probably due to their latex substructure.

Mary1 turned back toKleezebee and blew out a shrieking whistle with two fingers insertedinto the corners of her mouth.

“That’s our cue,”Kleezebee said, grabbing his crutches from Lucas, while both Marysmorphed their appearance into Bruno’s likeness. “Why don’t yougo see if Seven and Eight need any help getting the soldiers into thevan? Drew and I will meet you there in a minute.”

* * *

Fifteenminutes later, Lucas unclipped the rigging harness from his chest,after being lowered by rope into the open pit that used to be NASA’selevator shaft. Billy Ray, the lab tech who had preceded him into theshaft, took hold of the harness and rope after Lucas slid out of thegear.

Lucas looked up througha swirling column of dust particles and gave Kleezebee a thumbs-upsignal. “All clear,” he shouted up to the professor. Soon heheard the motorized grind of the bumper-mounted, electric winchhoisting the gear back to the surface.

Now it was Drew’sturn. First, his folded wheelchair was sent down to Lucas, then Drewmade the trip, carrying the professor’s crutches and yellow travelbag. Lucas gave Kleezebee’s items to Billy Ray, before helping Drewinto the wheelchair.

After the harness madethe steady climb to the surface, Kleezebee slipped on the gear, thenstarted his descent. Lucas decided to take a step back to allow moreroom for the professor to land, but his heel caught the edge of acement chunk behind him. He grabbed onto Drew’s shoulder to keepfrom falling backward into the debris.

“Shit, that wasclose,” Lucas said, flexing his ankle to check its condition. “Theycould’ve done a better job with the cleanup down here.” He feltfortunate, though, not to have been injured more seriously, just theslight tenderness, especially since he’d have to carry Drew downthe stairs to the 20th Sublevel. His legs were still sore fromcarrying Drew up those same stairs, and the last thing he needed wasa bum ankle.

“How’s your legdoing?” Lucas asked Drew after seeing a bloodstain on the floor. Heassumed it was from the gash in his leg that Drew got while slidingdown the debris pile during their escape.

“I don’t know.Can’t feel a thing.”

“That’s good . . .I guess,” Lucas said, making a mental note to change Drew’sbandage when they returned to the silo.

Lucas unclippedKleezebee’s safety harness once the professor’s feet were firmlyplanted on the stairwell’s landing. Drew handed the crutches toKleezebee, which the professor promptly handed to Lucas. “You’llneed to carry these down for me.”

More shit to carry?Lucas thought. What was he, Superman? “Sure, Professor, not aproblem.” He held them aside while Drew climbed on his back,piggyback-style. Drew had the knapsack strapped to his back, whichcontained several bottles of water, plus the theory notebook andwriting supplies.

Kleezebee picked up hisyellow tote bag and put his arms through the two straps, hoisting itacross his back. At least Lucas didn’t have to carry it, too. Anymore weight and he’d never make it down in once piece.

When Billy Ray starteddown the stairs empty-handed, Lucas said, “Dude, a little helphere?” Lucas pointed to Drew’s wheelchair, which was leaningagainst the cement wall.

“Oops, sorry aboutthat,” Billy Ray answered.

Lucas held the crutchesin his right hand and waited for Kleezebee, who was holding onto thehandrail as he hobbled his way down each step. Unless the professorwas in better shape than he looked, Lucas knew the journey was goingto be slow and painful—for everyone. He was right—it took justshort of an hour to reach Sublevel 20.

Kleezebee unhitched theyellow bag and sat down on the bottom step.

Lucas’s lower backwas screaming for a break, so he leaned the crutches against the walland bent down to let Drew slide off. Drew sat on the step next to theprofessor until Billy Ray unfolded the wheelchair and helped him intothe seat.

“Where’s thatwater?” Lucas asked. Drew opened his backpack and gave him abottle. Lucas twisted off the plastic cap and chugged it down, barelystopping to swallow. “Hand me another,” he said, tossing theempty bottle into the corner. Neither bottle was chilled, but hedidn’t care. All that mattered was that it contained something wetand soothing. He took his time with the second bottle, savoring everysip while sweat continued to trickle from his scalp. Ten minuteslater, the bottle was almost empty.

“You about ready?”Kleezebee asked after standing up and sliding the crutches under hisarmpits.

Lucas tipped the bottomof the bottle above his head to drain the last few drops into hismouth. He tapped the end of the bottle twice, then answered, “Yep,I’m good.”

“Lead the way,”Kleezebee told Drew.

“It’s the fifthdoor on the right,” Drew said, rolling his wheelchair forward.Kleezebee followed him, but without his yellow bag, which was stillsitting on the floor. Lucas assumed the professor had left it behindon purpose, perhaps because Kleezebee was pissed at him for makingthe group wait while he enjoyed his water break. Lucas slung the bagover his shoulder and followed behind the rest of the group. He keptturning around to check behind him, feeling like he was forgettingsomething, but he couldn’t figure out what. He figured it must havebeen his imagination; it had already been a long day.

The professor’s bagweighed about five pounds and was end-weighted, making it awkward tocarry. As Lucas walked, something inside the bag, possibly metal,clanked with each step. He was even more impressed with Kleezebee’sstrength and agility for having carried the tote bag down the stairs,broken ankle and all.

Drew counted out thelab doors they passed. “Three . . . four . . . five. This is it—theQED Lab.”

Drew pulled at theclosed lab door, but it didn’t open. There was a security keypadnext to the door with a horizontal card slot along the top of it.

Kleezebee stepped infront of Drew, then took the tote bag from Lucas. He opened it andremoved a handheld electronic device with a credit-card-sized keycardtethered to it by a ribbon-style communication cable. He inserted thecard into the slot and began entering commands into the device. Theprofessor tried multiple times to breach the door’s securitysystem, but this way wasn’t working.

Eventually, Lucas grewimpatient with his boss’s futility. “How about if I give it try,Professor?” Kleezebee held out the device, but Lucas didn’t takeit from him. “No, thanks, I have a better idea. I need you to stepback.” He took a running leap with his feet aimed at the door justto the left of its handle. His feet made contact, bending the metalframe inward about an inch, but the door remained shut. When he hitthe floor, he landed on his right hip, sending shooting pains fromhis waistline down to his ankles. “F*ck, that hurt,” he said,squirming on the ground.

Billy Ray extended hishand to Lucas. “Need a hand, Dr. Ramsay?” he said in a thick,Southern drawl.

Lucas gripped thetech’s hand, allowing Billy Ray to pull him up off the floor.

“Maybe we should tryit together?” Billy Ray asked.

”Fine,” Lucasreplied with discomfort in his voice. He rubbed his hand over hissore hip before taking two steps back from the door. “Go on three?”

“Sure. You count itout.”

Lucas counted to threeand they coordinated the assault on the door. A section of the metaldoorframe broke loose and flew across the lab as the door flung open,smashing its handle into the wall on the far side.

“Sometimes, bruteforce is only way to fly,” Lucas said with pride, walking into theQED Lab with a noticeable limp.

Three free-standinggrease boards were stacked along the right wall. Their clear surfaceswere covered in mathematical equations written in both red and bluemarker ink.

“Are those theequations you saw?” Kleezebee asked.

“Yes,” Drew said,pushing his wheelchair toward them.

“Looks like they’reout of sequence,” Lucas said, bringing the mobile boards together,end to end. He stood back to garner a better view of the mathematics.

“I think you shouldput the last one first and then swap the middle one to the end,”Drew said.

“Yeah, you’reright,” Lucas said, rearranging the boards as his brothersuggested.

“Definitely some formof energy extraction from subspace,” Drew said.

“Looks to me likethey’re incomplete,” Kleezebee said, looking around the room.

“Not only that, theircascade variants are all wrong,” Drew said, shaking his head. “I’msurprised this worked at all."

“Just more of ourhard-earned tax dollars being flushed down the sinkhole,” Kleezebeesaid.

“They should havehired us to do it. We’re probably a shitload cheaper than theseguys,” Lucas said.

“And you would havegotten it done right,” Kleezebee said, smiling at Drew. Theprofessor placed his hand on Drew’s shoulder, and said, “What doyou think? Between the two of us, we should be able to finish theseequations.”

“Yeah, it might takea while, but it’s doable,” Drew said, pulling out a yellow padand pencil from his backpack.

Kleezebee told Lucasand Billy Ray, “Why don’t you two look around to see if there’sany paperwork or notes, something that may shed some light on themissing calculations.”

Lucas and Billy Raybegan searching the lab, starting with the tallest storage cabinetsbuilt into the wall to the right of the entrance door. Lucas openedthe double doors and found five shelves crammed full of manila filefolders. Each folder had a date written on its index tab and thefiles were sorted in chronological order, starting five years ago. Hepeeked inside a few of them, but only found hand-scribbled notes onlegal-sized sheets of paper. He didn’t see any calculations. Hetried to read the notes, but the penmanship was horrible. “This guymust have been an ER doc in a former life. And I thought my writingwas bad.” He checked a dozen more folders, but still didn’t findany calculations. He moved on to the next cabinet.

He was sifting throughthe disorganized stack of equipment stored in the next cabinet whenhe heard footsteps coming from outside the lab’s open door.“Shhhh,” he told Billy Ray, who was humming an old country tune.Lucas pointed at his right ear, then at the open door. Billy Raynodded.

Lucas was a good twentyfeet from Kleezebee and Drew, who were working together in front ofthe grease boards. Kleezebee was closest to him standing to Drew’sleft, sucking on one of his unlit cigars. Lucas used a short,low-pitched whistle to get their attention. Kleezebee turned first,then Drew. Lucas pointed at the door then held up a finger to hislips. Both men nodded.

Lucas initially thoughtthe footsteps might belong to Kleezebee’s security guard on thesurface, but dismissed that idea when he heard the distant sound of agun being cocked. When he heard a couple of door handles beingjiggled, he realized the person in the hall was still a few doorsaway. He figured he had enough time to close and lock the lab doorbefore the stranger arrived.

Lucas inched theentrance door closed, trying not to make a sound. Before it closed,he turned the handle to retract the latch, hoping it would quietlyslide back into place when he released pressure on the mechanism. Hewas able to silently close the door and let go of the handle, but thedoor latch wouldn’t engage because of the damage caused during thebreak-in.

Lucas backed away fromthe door and crouched down with his back against the storage cabinet.He opened the left cabinet door for additional cover and leaned in,using one eye to peer through the gap in the doorjamb. Next to thelab door was a fire extinguisher, which he intended to use as ablunt-force weapon once the stranger entered the room and had movedpast him. He just needed to time his attack properly.

Billy Ray wrapped hiscallused fingers around Lucas’ left bicep, and then suddenly, thetwo of them were inside a pitch-black space.

“Damn it, take meback!” Lucas yelled into the darkness.

“Sorry, can’t dothat until it’s safe to return,” Billy Ray said.

“When the hell willthat be?”

“When my proximitysensor tells us the coast is clear,” Billy Ray answered, holdinghis glowing watch face out in front of Lucas where he could see it.The watch face contained a wire frame floor plan of the QED Lab witha pair of red blips in the top left corner and two more blips in themiddle. A slow-moving single dot was approaching from the right.

“Look, there’s onlyone. I can still take him,” Lucas said, pointing to the movingblip.

“Sorry, we’re notgoing back until its safe.”

“F*ck that,” Lucassaid, trying to tear the watch from Billy Ray’s wrist. He failed.

“I’m the only onewho can operate it,” Billy Ray said, keeping the watch out ofLucas’ reach. “If you remove it from my wrist, the subspace riftwill collapse, killing us both.”

* * *

Kleezebeelooked around for his yellow bag, and saw it sitting on the floornext to the wall, too far away to be of any use. When the lab dooropened, Randol Larson from the Advisory Committee walked in with arevolver pointed at him. Kleezebee, still leaning on crutches, raisedhis hands partway above his head—any higher and he would fall over.

Drew quickly followedsuit.

“You really shouldhave stationed more than one guard by your winch,” Larson said,pointing the gun initially at Kleezebee’s chest, then at Drew. “Iwas told you were dead.”

Drew shrugged, pushinghis hands even higher over his head.

“What do you want,Larson?” Kleezebee asked.

“Where’s the otherone?”

“Who?”

“Don’t try to playme. Unlike my idiot brother-in-law, I didn’t buy that whole campusescape to Green Valley, not for one goddamn second. I’m sure youswitched cars in the tunnel.” Larson pointed the gun back atKleezebee. “Tell me where he is, or so help me God, I’ll put abullet in you.”

“He’s not here,”Drew replied before Kleezebee could stop him from answering.

“Bullshit.”

“I’m telling youthe truth.”

“I doubt that. Youtwo never go anywhere alone.”

“Go ahead and searchif you like, you’ll never find him,” Drew said.

“We’ll see aboutthat,” Larson said, pulling out his cell phone.

“You won’t get asignal down here,” Kleezebee said.

“Then I’ll justcall Rafael from the surface. I’m sure it won’t take his men longto find Lucas,” Larson said, jerking the gun toward the door.“Let’s go.”

Kleezebee followed Drewout the door with Larson trailing behind.

* * *

“Okay,it’s safe to return,” Billy Ray said, pressing a series of orangebuttons on his watch.

A split second laterthe two of them were back in the QED lab, standing beside the opencabinet door. Lucas motioned to Billy Ray to follow him to the labdoor, where he leaned around the corner to spy down the hallway; Drewand Kleezebee were about thirty feet away, walking and rolling withtheir backs to him, followed by a man with blond hair; Lucas assumedhe had a gun. When they turned the corner at the end of the hall,Lucas recognized the gunman.

“Larson?!” hewhispered. “How the hell—?” He turned to Billy Ray and said,“We have to rescue them.”

“How?”

“We’ll have toimprovise,” Lucas replied, unhooking the three-foot-long fireextinguisher from the wall.

“Sorry, but I’m nottrained for this,” Billy Ray said, touching the buttons on hiswatch. The tech slipped back into the subspace rift.

“Yeah, thanks for thehelp,” Lucas whispered to the heavens, as if Billy Ray couldsomehow hear him.

Lucas lugged the fireextinguisher on his right hip as he jogged down the hallway. Once hecaught up to his brother, he slowed his pace and crept along thewalls to keep out of sight until he was ready to strike.

He wondered whatLarson’s plan was once they reached the stairwell. There was no wayDrew was going to be able to climb the stairs by himself. Did Larsonexpect Kleezebee to carry him? Or was Larson going to? It didn’tmake much sense, but then maybe Larson hadn’t thought that farahead.

He was only ten feetbehind Larson as they neared the seating lounge next to the mangledelevator, when he saw his opportunity. Just to the right of Larsonwas a four-foot-wide cement column, where he could get the drop onLarson.

While Larson focused onhis captives, Lucas sneaked around to the right and hid behind thecolumn. He waited three seconds, then stepped out and swung the fireextinguisher with all his might. The canister caught the right sideof Larson’s head, sending the attorney flying across the hallway.The gun jettisoned out of Larson’s hand, landing several feet awayfrom him. It didn’t fire.

“Take that, youa*shole,” Lucas yelled, standing over Larson’s motionless body.

“Damn it, Lucas, Ididn’t want anyone hurt,” Kleezebee yelled.

“Sorry, Professor,but I couldn’t just let him haul you away to God-knows-where.”Lucas put the dented fire extinguisher on the ground. “I had to dosomething.”

“But not this.Especially since I had the situation under control.”

“It didn’t lookthat way to me,” Lucas replied, wondering what his boss meant.

Just then, Bruno andtwo other men came running out of the stairwell door.

“What did we miss?”Bruno asked.

“You’re late,”Kleezebee said. “I needed you here thirty seconds ago.”

“Sorry, boss. We cameas quickly as we could.”

“How the hell didLarson get past your guy on the surface?” Lucas asked.

“He used to be aMarine, remember? I’m sure it wasn’t difficult for him to takeour man out,” Kleezebee said, kneeling down next to Larson. Herubbed his hand through his frazzled gray hair. “This is all myfault. I should have had more men guarding the elevator shaft.”

Lucas looked at Brunoand the other two security guards and suddenly understood whatKleezebee meant. “You knew Bruno would be watching the video feedand would send reinforcements the minute Larson took your guy out.”

Kleezebee nodded,touching the tips of his fingers to Larson’s neck. “He’s stillalive. Barely. We need to get him to medical right away. Where’sBilly Ray?”

“The chicken-shit’shiding in a rift,” Lucas answered.

“Bruno, see if canyou raise him.”

Bruno pressed a fewbuttons on his watch, “Billy Ray, come in. Do you read me?” Brunomotioned to his two guards to fan out and check the area.

Lucas walked over andpicked up Larson’s gun.

Bruno spoke into hiswatch again. “DL needs you down here on the double. We’re by theelevator.” Bruno told Kleezebee, “He’s on his way, boss.”

“When he gets here,you two take Larson back to the silo and get him to sick bay. Leavethe other two down here to guard the stairwell.” Kleezebee pulledout a slightly used handkerchief from his back pocket and handed itto Bruno. “And triple the guard up top. I don’t want any moresurprises.”

“Already done,Chief.”

“Do you think that’swise? Larson knows we’re alive,” Lucas said, wondering whyKleezebee felt compelled to help a man who, if given another chance,would sell them out in a heartbeat. “I say we let the prick bleedto death. Serves him right.”

“Hey, I can’t standhim, either, but we can’t leave him here to die.”

Billy Ray arrived in afull sprint from down the hall. He and Bruno each grabbed an end ofLarson and carried him into the stairway on their way to the surface.

“So what’s theplan, Professor?” Drew asked.

“First, you and Ineed to finish those equations. Then we should find the equipmentNASA used that caused the power surge.”

“I have an idea wheretheir equipment might be,” Drew said.

“Okay, explain.”

Drew sat up slightlyin his chair. “We felt the ground shake in our E-121 lab every nowand then, which we assumed was NASA running one of their experiments.It’s not much of a leap to figure they were testing a massive powersource. I’d bet it’s somewhere close to our corner of thebuilding, possibly directly under our lab.”

“There’re twentyfloors. Where do you suggest we start looking?” Lucas asked.

“Since theirequations are on this floor, we should start here.”

“Agreed,” Kleezebeesaid.

“If I remembercorrectly, our lab should be directly above the far end of thishallway, down by the conference room,” Drew said.

“Lucas, you searchthat section of the floor and report back anything you find. Drew andI will return to the QED lab to complete the equations.”

“Aye-aye, Captain.”Lucas slid Larson’s gun inside the waistline of his pants. Ten feetdown the hallway, he turned around. “Uh, what exactly am I lookingfor?”

“A Quantum FoamGenerator,” Drew said. “It’s probably huge, like a power plantor reactor. There should also be high-tech equipment connected to it,like in our lab.”

“Got it,” Lucassaid, jogging down the hallway, sidestepping the debris littering thecorridors.

Lucas decided to checkthe lab closest to NASA’s high-tech conference room first, but itsdoor was locked. As before, he used a flying, double-leg kick to tryto force open the door. It flew open on the very first attempt, butagain, he fell to the floor, hurting his already bruised hip. Hewinced in pain.

When he sat up, hefound that Larson’s gun had fallen out of his pants and landed onthe floor with its barrel pointing directly at his crotch. Lucaspicked up the gun with two fingers, being careful to avoid thetrigger. He apologized to his genitals. “Sorry, boys. You twoalmost became extinct.”

He stood up, rubbed hissore hip, and walked off the soreness. “Damn it. There’s got tobe a better way than this.”

The first lab containedvery little equipment. It looked more like a chemistry lab withseveral rows of tables, gas burners, beakers, and measuringinstruments. Certainly, nothing in the room could generate anysignificant level of power. He wasn’t sure what a Quantum FoamGenerator looked like, but it clearly wasn’t in this room.

On his way out to thehallway, he saw a wad of keys hanging next to a white, melaminecabinet by the door. He inspected the ring and found that most of thekeys looked the same, except one. The odd key was red withshallow-cut ridges. Written on it were the letters MAST inindelible ink.

“A master key?”Lucas mumbled. The lab doors were protected by keycards and digitalcodes, meaning a master key would be useless for them. Then heremembered passing a utility room a few doors back. “Worth a try,”he said, thinking his chances of finding something to help him, likea crowbar, were slim. Nevertheless, it was worth a look. If nothingelse, it would give his sore hip a chance to recover.

He ran back down thehallway to the utility room, and inserted the red master key into thedeadbolt lock. The key was bent slightly, probably from extensiveuse, but he managed to jiggle it all the way into the keyway. Heturned the cylinder and walked inside.

Directly in front ofhim were two stacks of blue paper towels, a roll of gray duct tape, awooden-handled push broom with bristles bent sharply to one side, ablack Shop-Vac covered in drywall dust, and a wall shelf neatlystocked with chemical bottles and a plethora of cleaning supplies. AChippendales male revue calendar from two years ago was hanging onthe back of the door behind him. Lucas tore off three connectedsheets of paper towel and draped it over the calendar to cover up themuscle-bound beefcake staring at him. He used the duct tape to securethe sheets to the door.

To his left was asix-foot-tall aluminum storage cabinet with a pair of side-by-sidedoors, which he unlatched and opened. Hiding on the bottom shelf wasa faded-red steel toolbox, covered in scratches, about the size of afour-slice toaster oven. He slid it out, nearly injuring his backwhen gravity pulled it hard to the floor. It almost crushed the toeson his left foot.

“A gorilla must haveused this damn thing.” Then he looked up at the blue paper towelshanging on the back of the door and said, “And the gorilla’s gay,or this belongs to one freakishly strong female.”

Lucas assumed the solidmetal toolbox was full of hand tools: wrenches, screwdrivers,sockets, pliers, and the like, which would account for its heaviness.Maybe there was a pry bar inside. He spun the toolbox around, findinga heavy padlock protecting its center latch.

“Damn it. Anotherlock,” he muttered, flipping through the mass of keys on the keyring. He tried a few of them, but they were all too big for thelock’s keyhole. None of them looked small enough to fit.

He straightened hisback and bent his knees before picking up the toolbox. When he jerkedthe box off the floor, he heard something pop, sending a twinge ofpain through his lower back. He tried to slide the toolbox back ontothe bottom shelf, but his aim was off by at least an inch. The frontedge rammed into the cabinet’s lower edge, making a noticeable dentin its metal frame. “I can fix that,” he said just in case anyonewas monitoring his activity. He checked the front edge of thetoolbox, but it wasn’t dented; at least not where it had hit theshelf. But it did give him an idea.

He picked up thetoolbox with both hands and waddled down the hallway with the boxhanging between his legs. His knees and thighs occasionally bangedinto its metal sides, making him wish his annoying lab neighborGriffith was on hand to help with his dolly.

When he arrived at thenext lab to search, he turned its door handle—it was locked—justas he expected. He turned sideways and swung the toolbox back as faras he could, then brought it forward, slamming it into the door. Avibrating pain shot through his hands and up his arms, making himdrop the toolbox, which scraped several layers of paint off thedoorframe on its way to the floor.

His choice to use thetoolbox as a battering ram wasn’t an elegant solution, but heaccomplished his goal—the door was open. He checked the conditionof the toolbox, including its welds. Everything appeared to beintact, meaning he should be able to use it several more times oruntil his hands or back gave out. He slid the box to one side andwalked inside.

The lab was at leasttriple the size of the previous room, with a few dozen empty cagesstacked up three-high down the center. He could smell the distinctodor of musty fur, making him believe he was in an animal trainingcenter, which seemed odd given he was twenty floors down in a securebunker. He assumed NASA must have been training monkeys for theirupcoming space mission to Mars. Fresh bananas were lying in two ofthe cages. “Hmmm. Must have been evacuated along with everyone elsewhen Mary’s pager went off,” he mumbled.

* * *

He returned to thedoorway, picked up the toolbox, and lugged it down the hallway to thenext lab door. Again, he forced open the door with a single, powerfulswing. This time, he didn’t lose his grip on the handle.

“Yahtzee!” he saidafter getting a glimpse of the lab’s contents. He almost threw thebox down before going inside.

The immense room was ahigh-tech laboratory with four active banks of equipment to his left,and an enormous test chamber straight in front of him. The chamberstretched all the way up to the room’s ceiling, which had to be atleast sixty feet high. He ran to its viewing window and lookedinside.

“That’s got to beit,” he said, seeing a three-story, silver-colored reactor withfour high-voltage Tesla transformer coils surrounding it. Theswirling electrical coils were taller than the reactor and shapedlike giant mushroom stools. To his right was the missing grease boardfrom the QED lab, with half-erased equations written in red and bluemarker ink.

He sprinted out of thelab and ran full steam back to the QED Lab. “Guys, I found it,”he said, nearly stumbling through the doorway when the toe of hissneaker caught the corner of the doorjamb. Obviously, his body wasstill recovering from the hundred-meter dash, not to mention theround of toolbox hockey.

“Great timing,”Kleezebee said. “We just finished the equations.”

“How many labs didyou have to check?” Drew asked.

“I found it on thethird try. Good thing, too; each door seemed to hurt more than thelast one.” Lucas swayed his hips to flex the small of his back.

“What does thegenerator look like?” Kleezebee asked.

“The sucker’s huge.It has to be at least ten times the size of our E-121 reactor, andit’s surrounded by giant resonator coils. You should see the damnthing.”

“Let’s go check itout,” Drew said with excitement.

Minutes later, thethree of them were just outside the generator’s test chamber,looking through the viewing window.

“That thing’senormous,” Drew said.

“I told you,” Lucasreplied.

“What do you think itcost to build?”

“A lot more than thegrant money they gave us, that’s for sure.”

“I’ll bet it cancrank out a few terajoules,” Drew said, smiling. “Do you thinkit’ll work, Professor?”

Kleezebee noddedslowly. “With the new equations, we just might be able to stabilizethe reactor long enough to generate the power stream we need. Butwe’ll need to make sure your E-121 experiment is calibratedproperly.”

“Uh, that’s goingto be a little difficult since the science lab’s been turned intoSwiss cheese, Professor,” Lucas said. “And we certainly don’thave another eighteen months to build a new reactor.”

“You won’t needto.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been workingon something that’s not all that different from your E-121 reactor.We should be able to use it to run your experiment.”

“Not all thatdifferent?” Lucas asked, wondering why Kleezebee chose thosespecific words.

“Actually, it’s anear duplicate,” Kleezebee said. “You know the old saying . . .Why have the government pay for one, when you can have them foot thebill for two, at twice the price?”

Lucas understood therationale behind overstating project costs to obtain excess grantmoney, but he was concerned why Kleezebee thought it necessary tohave a duplicate reactor built. Was there something wrong with itsdesign? Maybe Kleezebee thought they needed a backup, just in casethe first reactor crashed. It certainly wasn’t needed forKleezebee’s BioTex, nor was it needed to power their ultra-coolcommunicator watches.

Perhaps the duplicatereactor existed solely for profit. It wasn’t a total stretch tothink Kleezebee’s men could have been sponging off Lucas and Drew’shard work, pilfering their revolutionary ideas to line theprofessor’s pockets. He didn’t want to believe it, but it waspossible. “Where is this near duplicate?”

“On the seventh floorof the silo,” Kleezebee replied without a hint of guilt.

“What about Trevor’scontrol system?” Drew asked Lucas.

“Shouldn’t be anissue,” Lucas answered. “I have his source code backed up to mycloud storage space. All we need is a cluster of Linux servers and weshould be able to recompile and run it.”

“But aren’t thisroom and the silo too far apart for the arc to take place?” Drewasked.

“Actually, we’reclose enough if you consider the vastness of space,” Kleezebeesaid. “Relative to the size of the universe, they’re virtuallyright on top of each other.”

“That’s true. Inever thought of that,” Drew replied. “What do you think, Lucas?”

Lucas heard his brothersay something, but he really wasn’t listening. His mind was stillchurning over the reason why Kleezebee needed a second reactor. Notknowing was eating away at his gut like a swarm of maggots devouringa corpse. “Sorry, but I have to ask, Professor. Why did you need tobuild a copy of our reactor?”

Kleezebee hesitated fora moment before answering, “We’re using it to power atrans-galactic communication system.”

“A what?” Lucassaid, scrunching his face until it hurt. The professor must beputting him on.

“It’s the powersource for our subspace transmitter.”

Lucas held out hishands, shaking his head slowly. “And you’re going to communicatewith . . .?”

“Our people—to tell them where we are. We’re ready to go home.”