Legacy of a Mad Scientist (27 page)

“So we drop in under the cover of darkness, at
two-forty, while their blind for a minute?” Croswell surmised.

“That’s about the size of it,” Ross said.

“Without vehicles, and jamming the frequencies during
a fight, what’s their endgame?”

“Most likely; kill the hostage, fight to the death,
and a ballistic enema.”

“That cleansing fire.”

“No more than a hundred-eighty seconds after
hostilities erupt.”

“We can’t go in numbers. Even invisible and airborne,
this is a very dangerous op. They’re waiting for us. Likely they’re
all wearing custom lenses. Stanwood knows what he’s up against,”
Croswell said.

“He has no idea what he’s up against,” Ross
countered.

“I figure three of us could drop in during that
sixty-second window.”

“We’ll only get to the ground,” Croswell said.

“I’ve got an idea about that too,” Ross answered.

“Well, let’s hear it then?”

“We hack their jammer, lock it in the on position. By
the time they figure it out, well be in and out. If we can get
airborne in less than ninety seconds, we’ll have thirty to escape
the blast radius.”

“That is tight,” Croswell said. “It would get wet and
hot. It would have to get wet.”

“What’s the worst that can happen?” Ross asked.

Ross and Croswell laughed together.

Monday, July 13, 2308

After a full ten days of near motionless meditation,
Fox had a very curious experience.

He’d been listening, and he’d heard a rattlesnake out
hunting lizards, as the sun set.

One of the guards was approaching the shallow wash
where the rattlesnake was hiding. Fox, in his excitement,
whispered, “Look out,” fearing for the guard, who was about to step
on the snake.

The soldier paused and readied his weapon.

The snake reacted; its rattle blasting into the
otherwise tranquil evening. The soldier stepped back.

The snake soon fell silent again.

“What the hell?” the soldier said.

In his cell, Fox smiled.

Later, Fox heard the man recount the affair to his
comrades.

“I swear to you, I heard someone say
‘Look
Out!’
but there was no one there.”

Naturally, this was met with much laughter and
ridicule.

Then a hush went through the men.

Fox suspected someone had gestured toward his plastic
cell. After all, he hadn’t been given a name.

None of them had seen him. No one spoke to him, nor
he to them.

His meals were passed through a chambered
compartment.

For all they knew, he was a terrorist of the worst
order.

Confirming his suspicions, the initial soldier spoke.
“I seriously doubt a terrorist is projecting his voice, warning me
about rattlesnakes.”

“More like Jesus or a guardian angel.”

“You ain’t got no guardian angel, fuck-tard. All you
got is that rifle, and you should have used it. I heard rattler is
good eating.”

“I ain’t eating no goddamn snake!”

They laughed.

Fox laughed along with the soldiers, but quietly, so
as not to be overheard.

Ashley’s Journal, Monday, July 13, 2308

This week we have classes on grappling. They’re
teaching us how submission fights work and the rules about tapping
out.

Two days of wrestling, then jiu-jitsu, judo and krav
maga.

It was gross. The boys were all sweaty, and I had to
wrestle them.

Luckily though, it’s all separated into weight class,
so I didn’t have to fight anyone too much bigger than me.

I was fine with the practical instruction, the
fundamentals, but when it came to the practice matches, I did not
want to be rolling around with them. I’m still mad about that.

And for the second and third rounds of the wrestling
matches, you have to start down!

In my final match, I punched the kid, Thomas,
hard.

He was bleeding, and he didn’t get up.

I got disqualified. You’re not supposed to punch in
wrestling.

I elbowed him too, right before that, but it was
totally his fault.

He tried to put his hand between my legs.

Then Lopez told me… “You have to follow the
rules.”

“Or what?” I asked.

“Or you get disqualified,” he said.

I laughed in his face.

After dinner, I heard they have a nickname for
me.

Everest.

Well it started as Pinyin, which is Chinese for Mount
Everest.

Then they were calling me Chomolungma, and I heard
someone say Holy Mother too
.

I asked what he meant by that, and he explained.

“We used to call you Mt. Everest, then for a while it
was Pinyin, which is Chinese for Mount Everest, but now it’s mostly
Everest.”

I asked “Why Everest?”

“Cause it’s the highest mountain in the world,” he
answered.

That was when someone else yelled out,
“Chomolungma!”

At least they smile and nod to me now, even if we
don’t talk a lot.

And I like having a nickname.

Everest. That’s kind of cool.

Like how Mom used to call me Towanjica.


Monday Evening, July 13, 2308

Bravo Team’s Lieutenant, Chad Welter, dropped into
the camp facility a little after midnight. Disguised as a member of
the maintenance staff, no one questioned him or even noticed him as
he moved about the campground. He quickly located the dorm assigned
to the martial arts program and just as quickly discovered that no
girls were quartered there.

He set up three cameras and withdrew, retracting his
line as he went. In the martial arts hall, he placed a few more
cameras, as well a few in the outdoor areas.

On his way to the gymnastics hall, a loitering
security patrol forced him to take an alternate route. He hid a
dozen more cameras there. Finally, he placed another dozen in the
science labs and hallways.

He spent three hours on the facility and wasn’t seen
or spoken to.

Tuesday, July 14, 2308

Von Kalt’s team remained glued to the monitors, the
footage was analyzed, and notes were made for camera
adjustments.

The cameras in the cafeterias, science lab, computer
labs and martial arts hall clearly showed Ashley and Geoff
interacting with the other kids. Several of the hallway cameras
caught them too, but not enough of them to determine where their
rooms were, if they absolutely had to be picked up.

That evening, Von Kalt sent in all of Alpha Team,
four agents disguised as janitors. They adjusted seventeen of the
original thirty-six cameras and installed another thirty-six. In
and out in ninety minutes.

Ashley’s Journal, Wednesday, July 15, 2308

Second day of wrestling, I was up against Brandon.
This time, right in the beginning, he tried to take me down, and I
kneed him in the face.

That was way more blood than Tom, but not as much as
Scott, on that first day. Ever since then, it’s almost like they’re
just hurting themselves on me. I’m not even really doing anything.
I’m not hitting them hard; I’m just accurate.

Lopez and Shou had an argument right there in front
of all of us. They went off to the side, but I could still hear
them good enough. Lopez said I was an embarrassment to them as
instructors;
that the entire class was getting their Asses
handed to them by a wafe
.

I have to look that up when I get home. I have no
idea what a wafe is.

Shou defended me though. He said I was great. The
students were getting a powerful dose of lesson number one.

Clearly said that they were lucky. He said that me
beating up the boys was easier to explain than letting twenty boys
beat up a girl. He said that, for over a week, the boys had been
trading deserts and chores for the chance to fight me. He said I
was the
Holy Grail
of the program.

I like
Everest
better. Aside from all that, I
am Not Getting Hit.

I’m practicing Lesson Number Two, Don’t Get Hit.
In fact, I’m pretty sure it should be moved up to
Number One.

Wednesday Evening, July 15, 2308

After examining two days worth of footage, Von Kalt
sent two three-man teams in. They located the rooms they believed
to belong to the children and found them to be electronically
locked.

They could be breached, shorted out, or possibly
hacked, but not without attracting some attention.

The teams were ordered to return to base.

Thursday, July 16, 2308

Some time after midnight, Fox rose from meditation
and walked through the front door of his cell. All that remaining
night, that day, and the next, Fox walked the surrounding sands and
creek beds. He explored the empty space between earth and sky. Fox
felt himself go into the air and then into the sand. He spoke to
it, and a moment later, he was there, standing.

Up till this point, his explorations had been as an
insubstantial being. But now he was standing. His sandals now left
imprints in the sand.

It wasn’t long before one of the guards came across
Fox’s footprints. However, as they started from nowhere and
evaporated into nowhere, the investigation yielded little in the
way of explanations.

And after all, it couldn’t be the prisoner.

The cameras showed him, clearly still seated in his
cell.

He ate at meal times and reclined after dark.

Sunday, July 19, 2308

On the third afternoon, after leaving his cell, Fox
sat on the small rise, feeling the warmth of the air and the
radiance of the sun, absorbed and reflected by the crystals of the
sand.

He pushed his attention into the sand, the silica
crystals of sodium-two hydrogen. Once superheated, it melts into
glass and then slowly evaporates into the atmosphere;
Exactly
like Terillium
.

Fox looked out at the watery haze of heat, rising
from the flat white plane. Terillium was not unique in its solid
structure. Most heavy metals, as well as crystals, evaporated into
the air.

Terillium was not unique.

It did not need to be mined
, Fox realized.

All Atoms were once Terillium Atoms
.

And that, as such, all atoms could be reverted back
to their original state, fully turned on - as Terillium.

Fox thrust his hand into the loose grains. If he
wanted, he could revert the atoms. And he understood; that was how
Epsilon had reduced itself to a single amplifier.

Fox scooped up a handful of grains and let them run
through his fingers. First they rained out as gold, then as silver
and finally as snowflakes, before evaporating completely in the
heat of the late afternoon.

As the sunlight reached Fox, on the eighth minute of
its journey from the surface the yellow dwarf star at the center of
the solar system, Fox saw how each particle’s life cycle was
forever repeated. It broke free from the sun, perfect. It heated
the atmosphere and then the particle struck the sand itself,
penetrating the silica, sinking and shedding disguises until
eventually merging with the planet’s terillium deposits.

The heat that was reflected back from the planet, or
say from the surface of the moon, would continue to cool until
settling somewhere.

Fox saw clearly; he did not need an amplifier.

Everything was Terillium.

Everything was him.

He was everything.

He laughed.

Ashley’s Journal, Monday, July 21, 2308

After getting disqualified two matches in a row, I
tried to restrain myself a bit. I’ve been practicing what they
teach us and I’m working with the boys on their level.

I am actually putting forth a genuine effort to
practice Mrs. Rabier's advice. I don’t know why. It just seems
easier than fighting.

This way, we’re all learning more than we could if we
were fighting.

With each other, the boys respond to everything with
violence. None of their petty arguments are personal. They don’t
even know each other. It’s all about ego and dominance.

When I stand up there in front of some kid and they
blow the whistle, I’m not facing his record, or his reputation.
It’s just him and me.

I treat him just like I would any of the boys in the
canyon back home.

But they treat each other like wild animals. They
stare each other in the chest and only look their opponent in the
face to taunt or insult each other. They lose focus looking each
other in the eye, and then wonder why their attacks fail.

This is more than just physical coordination and
ability. I go out of my way to make eye contact. Once I do, if they
continue to advance on me, I consider it an act of betrayal. The
friend I spoke to in that glance wouldn't attack me. Anyone who
does is no longer a friend.

I just wait for them. I watch and I wait, and when
they move, I move first. I always wait for the attack. I’m the
girl; I don’t have to attack. And from all my ballet practice, I am
soooo fast.

They are really no match for me. It’s not fair; I can
break any of them, anytime I want. It’s the isolation, away from
the ring, that bothers me most. It’s almost over now though, just a
few more days.

Friday morning we go home! I honestly can’t wait for
a whole day of sleep. That’s all I want, sleep. I’m going to sleep
for a week. Then I’m going to get up and take a nap.

Tuesday, July 21, 2308

"I met with Senator Miller this afternoon," Stanwood
told Fox, unseen, through the plastic door. "He doesn't like you.
And apparently someone ransacked his office, so it seems Miller
isn’t much liked either."

Fox laughed, sitting in his cell, legs crossed, eyes
closed.