She paused and he allowed himself a hesitant smile. She was giving him good news, wasn’t she? Then why was he afraid? But the moment he opened his mouth to reply, she spoke again, leaning forward to look at him more intensely.
“But not yet, Shinobu. We need some more time. Not to develop the tool. We had hoped to string that out longer, but the efficiency of your project manager has put pay to that. You see, Matsuoka-san, you cannot have the machine yet.” Ayala saw Shinobu move to speak again and pressed on, making sure she dominated the conversation. It was a delicate art, and though she had done this many times before, coercion was different with every person. She carried on, playing the man as she worked to slowly break him down. Choosing her moments. When to relent, when to hit home.
“Shinobu, we thank you for your support to date. But unfortunately we cannot have you running off half-cocked. In fact, soon you will see why a premature release of this technology can absolutely
not
be tolerated. Matsuoka-san, we think it is time you knew exactly what it is you have helped us develop.”
Mr. Matsuoka sat motionless, stunned. He felt a wave of heat emanating from his core. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead, and he had an overwhelming desire to open windows that the small room did not have. He was starting to feel like he had signed away his soul to the devil. And apparently she was cashing in on the contract.
“You see, Shinobu, manufacturing chips is a very complex and detailed science, but it is child’s play compared to what resonance manipulation is capable of. While your project manager ponders the implications of cheap, high-powered circuitry, we are going to be building something altogether more important, in secret. And you are going to leave us alone while we do it.”
“I am?” managed the executive, tapping his considerable indignation as a source of bravery, “You forget yourself, young lady. You cannot make me, or my company, do anything.”
But his heart was not behind his posturing, and Ayala knew it. He rose sharply, wanting to get out of the room and regroup. He needed to find out what this machine was really capable of. Was it some weapon? Had he unwittingly helped some terrorist organization build some kind of doomsday device? He shivered and turned to leave the room.
“Sit down, Shinobu.” said Ayala quietly, but with an authority that welled up from her very core. He froze. He was angry, and maybe even a little afraid, and his emotions were starting to become overwhelming. For reasons that he could not quite explain, he turned back to her and saw that she had stood as well and they both faced each other, in silence, for a moment. It was a moment that passed like an age.
To the man’s surprise, it was Madeline who eventually spoke up. As the Japanese businessman stood face to face with Ayala, Madeline had seen the moment Ayala had told her to look for, and so she began.
“I suggest you take a seat, Matsuoka-san. While I may be the harmless scientist you have been told I am, I am afraid my friend here is definitely no mathematician. Perhaps more importantly she is far from harmless either, by any stretch of the imagination.”
The man looked at the Israeli woman as if for the first time. While she had seemed so pleasant in all their previous dealings, he suddenly saw the violence she kept caged inside her. Her supremely confident eyes locked with his, and she smiled a cold, merciless smile, her face hard as ice, her brows set, her body tensed and ready.
He maintained his poise for a moment longer, not out of bravado, but paralyzed by this woman’s stare. In it he saw an unyielding desire and capability to hurt him, hurt him in ways he struggled not to envision, and for a moment he was frozen by a wave of fear he had not felt since he was a child. He waited for her stare to relent, for some sign of civility in her eyes, but there would be none. He sat down.
Madeline went on, softly, even as Ayala came and stood over the seated man, “You see, Shinobu, you don’t mind if I call you Shinobu, do you? Well, Shinobu, I do not work for the US government, nor did I steal this technology from some research institute, in fact I don’t work for anyone except myself right now. My colleague and I have decided it is time you found out exactly where your new technology came from, and why you are going to do exactly what we are going to tell you, or suffer a quick and ignominious death.”
His eyes widened, darting from the ex-Mossad agent standing over him to the calm, seated lady who had just threatened his life. But Madeline was just getting started and over the next half an hour his reality slowly caved in around him. He listened intensely as Madeline began to explain the depth of the conspiracy they had drawn him into.
Carefully, slowly, and deliberately, she laid it all out for him. All of it. The eight capsules, the conspiracy, the discovery in the Indian Ocean and the subsequent death of the crew of the
King’s Transom
. He shook his head occasionally, he dismissed the photographs of the capsule they produced from Ayala’s case, and though he was fascinated by some of the design schematics John had given them, he still seemed to maintain some small grasp on his previous world. But the design of the nano-machine, if it could be called a machine at all, that they wanted to start manufacturing with the resonance manipulator was beyond anything he could have imagined.
It was impossibly complex, and its minuscule dimensions were even harder to grasp. It was not a machine at all. It was a cellular construct. They weren’t using metal, or silicate, they were using proteins and polysaccharides and fatty acids. They wanted to use his wonderful machine to make what could only be described as a creature. A tiny, vicious-looking cellular weapon that shook him to the very core.
It was the explanation of this terrible device and its purpose that finally broke his resistance, allowing the full extent of their story to wash over him. It was like he had been staring at the truth through glass, unreal and distorted. But this final piece, this cracked that shield like a shattering aquarium, the liquid realization his mind had held at bay suddenly flooding over him. He sat there, bewildered, fear and lack of hope soaking his psyche as he gave in to the truth.
After a moment’s more explanation from Madeline, Ayala saw that it was done and raised her hand slightly. Madeline fell silent. Her role was done; she had played her part excellently. Ayala waited a moment more and then said softly, “You see, Shinobu, we do not need your money. We never did. We needed something that we could not buy. We needed access to complex research facilities and expensive materials. And now we need to use the product of our work to move on the next stage: fabricating, testing, and then manufacturing the smallest, most advanced machine man has ever created.”
She let that information sink in a moment like she was spooning medicine into him, and then she gave him his final dose:
“So, Shinobu, I am afraid we have used you. I am sorry to say that but it is true. And now I am telling you that you are going to help us to build what we need. You can do it because we are trying to save the world. Or because your competitors would be more than happy to help us in return for the detailed designs of the resonance manipulator.
“Or you can do it because if you don’t … you will die. Either at the hands of the alien force already here, or the far more powerful Armada that is hot on their heels.” Then Ayala leaned in close, saying her next words right into his face in a barely audible whisper, “Though if I am honest, if you do not do as we say, your death will far more likely be at my hands, and trust me, you have as much chance of escaping me as you do the satellites that watch us even now.” Ayala straightened slowly once more, with lean menace.
Madeline felt for the poor man. But she played along, acting out her part as Ayala had planned it, “So, Shinobu, are you with us?” Madeline said, like she was his advocate, his protector from the assassin standing between him and the door.
It … they … shinjirarenai … the old executive’s mind spun. He thought of the threat to his life and shuddered, but in truth his mind was racing with the thought of the greater threat above. The end of everything he knew. All his work building up his father’s company, all for nothing. He thought of his arrogance, and how pleasantly ignorant he had been before he came into this room today.
He mourned his broken innocence, and as he contemplated it all he found he hated these women for bringing him to their circle. They were damned: damned by their knowledge, damned by their complicity in the earth’s defense, and now he was too. But underneath that layer of resentment he knew they were all damned, everyone of them, unless he did what these women asked.
A part of him could not help but lament the wonderful device he would be giving away as well: the greatest invention of all time, a panacea for every communicable disease known to man. He sagged into his chair at the thought and Ayala saw that he was theirs. She saw that he was no longer thinking of how to resist, or whether to believe, he was thinking of the consequences of what he knew he must do and that meant they had succeeded. And as the final touch, she would cauterize the wounds they had given him just a little by giving him one small spark of hope to light the way through his despair.
“Of course, these machines that you will so kindly be giving away, these cells that will cure AIDS, and Malaria, and Polio, you should know that they have a shelf life. And if one man were to help us give humanity this first mass release of them to protect us from the coming viral attack, then I see no reason why that man wouldn’t be able to sell the next release … for profit … if you like.”
A patent on the greatest medicine in history, and on the only way to manufacture it. He swelled with the very concept of it and with that Ayala saw that she had pulled him through to the other side. Like threading the eye of a needle, she had pushed and prodded him through that impossibly small hole. But now she had a hold of him on the other side and he was hooked. Now they could truly use him and his vast resources to help defend humanity.
She had known that he would never have been a willing ally. They had needed to break him of that which he valued most, his personal power, and then they had needed to show him a route back to it, a route back to that by which he had always defined himself.
The fear of losing what he had now would make him theirs today. The promise of wealth and prestige beyond measure would keep him true tomorrow. Months from now, when their purpose was served, he would eventually discover that the machines they were going to release were self-replicating. But by then it would be too late for him to take them back. His purpose would be served, and they would cut him loose.
Madeline glanced at Ayala. She had doubted the older woman’s strategy when they had discussed it earlier, but there was no doubt in her mind now that this lady had broken men far stronger and far more capable than this poor specimen.
She thought about the fact that this woman had been Barrett’s wife and found that she had to admire the man that had captured the heart of such a force. For now, though, Madeline was simply grateful that Ayala was on her side. She was a good friend to have. And they needed the very best.
The colonel pulled up the collar of his pea coat as he strolled across a large quad. He was well inside the confines of Hanscom Base. The October wind was not strong but it carried the first chill of winter. It was the kind of chill that folks still warm from the Indian summer might call invigorating. In a few weeks those same people would no doubt be complaining about how long the winter already was, but the colonel was not one to talk about the weather, good or bad. As he approached the entrance to the hangar where Dr. Martin had set up their equipment he saw Captain Toranssen standing outside, looking pensive.
“Good evening, Captain.” he said as he walked up, slowing as he approached, but not stopping until he was fully covered by the large metal awning that sheltered the hangar’s double doors. He came to a halt next to the captain who was also well covered from prying eyes above by the metal sheeting that made up the wide awning.
“Good evening, sir.” said Jack Toranssen, his hand coming to his forehead in a quick and informal salute as the older man approached. The small group of people that was now privy to the alien presence on Earth was very diverse, spanning different backgrounds and areas of expertise, but they had several key things in common. Firstly there was the knowledge of the threat, a knowledge that bound them together. That burden also drove a shared dedication in all of them to fight their common enemy to the end. And while they came from diverse parts of the country, even the world, and each contributed very different things to the team, they had also all taken on several notably similar habits in their various locations.
The families and friends of all six had seen a sudden and marked increase in the numbers of letters and postcards they received, an increase that was matched by a proportionate decrease in phone calls and e-mails as well. All six of them had also given in to some luxuries that they would previously have denied themselves. A new Omega watch for Colonel Milton, a vintage Corvette for Jack, and two pairs of Prada shoes for Madeline. For Neal it had not been a single purchase. Instead he had taken to drinking through his local wine store’s collection of vintage ports. At around $400 a bottle, these weren’t the most expensive splurge of the group, but they were by far the tastiest.
Another key trait they now all shared was that they no longer lingered under open skies a moment longer than they had too. Though there was little that would protect them in case of an attack by one of the satellites, their instinct to stay under cover still had grounding in common sense: as long as they were under any kind of shelter, the chances of their conversation being viewable from space was significantly reduced. So this spot under the big metal awning was among the closest places that either of the two men came to getting some fresh air each day.
“Taking a break, Jack?” asked the colonel, standing next to Jack and looking out at the twilight sky.