A Despair of Demons (Travelers, Book 1) (7 page)

Liv snapped
her sat comm shut.

“General
Mace gave us access to the Hangar. How long has it been?”

“About two
minutes,” Ben answered mildly, especially considering he was currently driving
his Jeep along a twisting mountain road at around a hundred miles per hour.

“This time I
have to find out what he did to me.”

“Don’t
worry. You’ll figure it out.”

“Can’t you
go faster?”

“Yes,
ma’am.”

They reached
the base in minutes—Ben having exercised all his pilot reflexes to get
them there in one piece. They passed four security checkpoints on the way in.
Liv’s impatience ate holes in her stomach at every stop.

Still, it
was a heap faster than parking at the Ranch like usual and taking the
underground tram to the DEPOT base. She didn’t have time for that tonight.

At the last
security post, Ben cut his headlights, slowing his speed until his eyes
adjusted to the dark. Liv stared into the blackness, straining to see any hint
of the Ranch in the distance. All she saw were the black serrated edges of the
mountains against a midnight-blue sky strewn with countless stars. She wasn’t surprised;
the Ranch at Groom Lake was almost a mile away, and the base was a blackout
zone.

The Ranch
was where the Air Force developed and tested new aircraft technology. Its
experimental aircraft fueled Groom Lake’s reputation for harboring UFOs. Of
course, UFO conspiracy theorists were wrong about the government incorporating
alien technology into aircraft, but they did get the other-World technology
part right.

The Ranch
was the only “legitimate” facility out here—in other words, the only one
the public knew about. It was connected to the DEPOT via underground tunnels
and tram lines, and all DEPOT traffic was routed through the Ranch. The only
direct DEPOT entrance was through the Hangar, and only the invisible SM’s used
that concealed entrance.

Except tonight.

Ben drove
his Jeep at top speed through the giant door and into the massive underground
Hangar, skidding to a stop near the base doors.

The instant
it stopped, Liv leapt from the Jeep and ran for the doors. She ran straight
through all the key-coded and palm-scanned doors to her lab, Ben at her side.

The second
they stepped through the door, she said, “Get me that machine in the corner,
turn on the computer, and grab the package marked ‘sample’ in the fridge.”

Ben silently
obeyed, a shocking turn of events. It told Liv his concern ran as deep as hers,
and she would have been touched if there’d been time.

Thank God
she’d prepared for this eventuality. She already had tubes in her lab, and now
that she had her own PET scanner, she could entirely avoid Medical.

Ben helped
her draw blood samples and inject the PET scan marker. She handed him the five
tubes, each capped with a different color stopper. “Can you get these to
Medical right away? Tell them I need everything they did on me the last time.”

“Aye aye,
cap’n,” he said with a mocking salute.

“Weak.” She
shook her head.

He grinned
and disappeared out the door.

Liv grabbed
the portable PET scanner, set it up, hooked herself into it, and ran the scan.

Her stomach
clenched as she called up the computer screen to look at the results. What if
she couldn’t fix this? What if she was unfit for active duty?

What if
there was nothing wrong?

She nearly
collapsed with relief when the monitor loaded the images.

Ben was
suddenly at her shoulder, although she hadn’t heard him come in. “What do you
see?”

“Changes in
activity. Here in the hippocampus, the temporal lobe, and the frontal lobe.”

“Which
means?”

“Which means
I know what he did to me. I’ll have to wait for the bloodwork results to
confirm it. I’m getting to test over an hour earlier than last time. I plan to
scan myself then too, to make sure it goes back to normal the way it did
before.”

“So you know
what he did. Can you stop him?”

“I don’t
know.”

“Well, you
can’t do it now. It’s after midnight.”

Liv glanced
at her clock. “Yeah, you’re right. Want to keep me company until I can retest?”

Ben laughed.
“Sure, what else have I got to do?”

“I don’t
want to fall asleep and miss the window.”

Ben sighed. “I
know.” He took a seat on her couch while she unhooked all the electrodes of the
PET scanner and set it aside.

He said
casually, “So you were really touchy about the whole
relationship-with-someone-at-work thing.”

Liv spun in
her chair to face him, but remained silent.

“You even
called me Benjamin
Bartholomew
.”

Her lips
quirked, but she still said nothing.

Ben stared
at her for a full minute. “Fine, you don’t have to tell me.” He gave her a
stern look. “Just be happy.”

“I am.”

He kept his
stern look for a few more seconds, then smiled. “Good.” He leaned forward, reached
into a drawer of her desk, and pulled out a deck of cards. “Rummy?”

“Where the
hell did those come from?”

He put on an
innocent expression.

“Seriously,
Ben, when did you put those in there?”

Now he grinned.
“A true magician refuses to give away his secrets. Come on. Rummy?”

“You and
your stupid tricks. How many times do I have to tell you you’re not a
magician?” But Liv had to wonder, because she’d opened that drawer just before
she’d left work today, and she would swear on a stack of Bibles there hadn’t
been a deck of cards in there.

Ben waggled
the deck of cards. “Want to play or not?”

“’Kay.”

An hour
later, she glanced at the clock. “It’s time. We can take the next scan.”

Ben helped
her set up the equipment and run the scan. Liv looked at the computer screen.
“It’s normal.”

Ben nodded.
“Good. Then you’re clear, right?”

“Maybe. I’ve
got to get my blood retested, make sure my levels go back to normal.”

“You don’t
even have the first results back yet.”

“I know, but
I want to wait, make sure it’s the same as last time.”

“Liv, it’s
almost 0200,” Ben said. “Let’s get some sleep.”

She suddenly
realized how grainy her eyes were, and couldn’t resist rubbing them. “I guess
you’re right. We’ll crash for a few hours and then analyze the data. You need a
couch?”

“Hell
no—it’s the weekend. I’m going home. Call me if you need a ride.”

“Thanks. I’m
sure I can catch a ride home. If not, I’ll let you know.”

“See you
tomorrow for Trent’s barbeque.” Ben held up a hand.

“Oh right.” Liv
waved him out the door. “Tomorrow.”

*
         
*
         
*

Saturday
morning, Liv sat at her desk, studying last night’s bloodwork results. As
before, her neurotransmitters and some enzymes were abnormal while her tox
screen and other values were fine. A few neuropeptides had fluctuated from the
first to the second test as well, but not enough to be out of normal range. She
knew that the human brain was incredibly dynamic, so the fluctuations could be
normal activity. But she also knew that every tiny clue might help her figure
out what had happened to her brain. Or more accurately, what Elachai had done
to it.

A message
popped up on her computer. She opened it, reading over her newest bloodwork
readings from this morning. As before, all back to normal. At least whatever
he’d done seemed to be short acting. Her PET scan from this morning had been
normal as well.

She looked
everything over, trying to find the key that she’d missed. There had to be
something here.

Suddenly, an
idea hit and she pulled up her scans from the Travel test at the beginning of
the week.

“Ah ha!” she
said.

“Jinkies!”
said a voice from the doorway, making her jump.

She whipped
her head around to find Jordan leaning on the doorjamb with his hands in his
pockets as if he’d been there all day.

“Jinkies?”
she asked as he walked over to her chair.

“Velma was
my favorite. Scooby Doo?”

She shrugged
and shook her head. “Sorry, I didn’t watch that one.”

“Never mind.
What did you find?”

“I think I
know how Elachai did it. Or, not specifically how he did it, but how I could
duplicate the effect.”

“Did what?”

“Made me
forget.”

“And you
suddenly figured this out after a week?”

“No, my scan
from last night gave me the final information I needed.”

“I think I’m
out of the loop. What are you talking about?”

“What are
you doing here?” she asked, realizing that it was Saturday and she’d expected
to be alone for the weekend.

“I was doing
some research and needed the library. I happened to wander by and saw that you
were here too. So what did you mean, ‘last night’s scan?’”

“Elachai put
the whammy on me again.”

Jordan’s
eyes flashed electric blue. “Explain.”

She told him
what had happened as briefly as possible, which turned out to be less briefly
than she wanted, since Jordan grilled her on every point.

“I can’t
remember!” she said for the third time. “But the point is, when we got back
here, I ran all the same tests we ran last time it happened to me. And this
time, they weren’t all normal.”

“Are you
okay?”

Liv waved
away his worried look. “Yes, I’m fine. Now. But last night, my first scan shows
decreased temporal lobe activity, specifically in the hippocampus, which is
important in encoding memory. The neurotransmitter abnormalities play into that
as well, since the levels indicate decreases in excitatory molecules and
increases in inhibitory molecules.

“But the
real key is this glucopeptide. See? Last time, I tested normal for this
protein, but I had a few unexplained enzyme elevations. This enzyme causes
formation of this neuropeptide.” She pointed to her results on screen. “When we
got back from Mai Tai last night, the enzyme was normal, but the neuropeptide
was higher than it’s been either before or since. And again, in the second
blood levels I ran, the enzyme level is higher.”

Jordan shook
his head. “And that means…?”

“It means
Elachai raised that neuropeptide level. I’ll bet cash money that if I had
tested myself immediately, it would have been higher still.”

“And that
means…?”

Jordan’s
grinned, and Liv realized how much he was humoring her. He didn’t know or care
a jot about neuropeptides or brain chemistry, except as it related to her
brain. In her excitement at figuring it out, she’d forgotten her audience. “Sorry.
Bottom line, Elachai changed my neurochemistry, changed the activity level of
my memory centers, and made me forget.”

“Ah. Okay. So?”

“So, I can
probably engineer something that will protect us from him. I may even be able
to duplicate the effect.”

“Oh. Cool. Why
didn’t you just say that?”

She laughed.
“Right. Sorry.” She looked at all the data spread out on her desk. “The only
thing I can’t figure out is how he affected such a narrow function of the
brain.”

“What do you
mean?”

“Well, it’s
so precise, it’s beyond surgical. Every part of the brain has multiple
functions. I mean, every cell is connected to every other, at least indirectly.
If you damage the temporal lobe, or even just the hippocampus, or even part of
the hippocampus, you don’t just get memory effects. You get slurred speech,
attention deficits, aggression, problems with word recognition, face
recognition, object categorization. I had none of that, even though my PET scan
clearly shows hippocampus inactivation.”

“So how did
he affect just your memory?”

“Exactly. And
even more significant, how did he do it without injecting me with something or
physically touching my brain?”

“Are you
going to sit here puzzling over it all weekend?”

She glanced
sideways at him and suddenly realized he wasn’t wearing his DEPOT uniform. He
was in khakis and a button-down, short-sleeved shirt that was pretty damn sexy,
now that she was aware. “Hey, why are you all dressed up?”

“Because
Trent’s having a barbecue at his house today, and I was planning to go straight
there from here.”

“Oh no! I
forgot.” She looked at her wrist, but she didn’t have a watch on. “What time is
it?”

“Two
o’clock. We’re already late.”

She looked
at the papers scattered all over her desk, considering sitting here and
puzzling through the problem, but thought of the rest of her team at Trent’s.
“I can think about it there too.” She stood and started straightening the
papers.

“Just leave
it. It’ll be ready for you to look at when you get back.”

“I can’t. It
will bother me too much to think about the mess here.”

Jordan
laughed, but waited patiently until she’d finished, then followed her to her
office door.

She was at
the door when she remembered. “I don’t have my car here.”

“I can give
you a ride.”

“Thanks.” Liv
reached into her pocket to keycard her door lock, but she had no pockets
because she was still wearing the dress she’d had on in Mai Tai last night. She
looked down at herself. Her long floaty dress was rumpled and wrinkled, and
over it she had thrown a shapeless old black sweater that she kept in her lab
in case she got cold. Paint spattered the sleeves and the right hip looked as
if a cat had thrown up on it due to a messy spackle incident.

She peeled
the sweater off, absurdly hoping Jordan hadn’t noticed it. She went back to her
workstation, grabbed her purse and dug for her keycard, and locked her office
on the way out.

When they
got to her house, Jordan jumped out of the car and followed her to the front
door.