The Infinite Evolution - Conversion (40 page)

“
Not funny,” replied Reece.

Within three minutes, Scott had downloaded the
monitoring software, and reassured Reece that if anything bad were
to happen at least they would know where to look.

“
At your current rate of speed
you should be there in about forty five minutes. I’ll get back in
communication with you in a half hour, I need to report my
discovery to my commander. Scott out.” The hologram disappeared and
in an attempt to pass the time, Reece started contemplating
conspiracy theories.

“
Sir, it appears we don’t need to go looking
for Dr. Reece Fields,” stated a monitoring agent.”

“
Why, what is going on?” asked
Izri.

“
According to our instruments,
Reece is thirty four minutes out and closing on our
location.”

“
How is that possible?”

“
It appears Serafina’s little
escapade brought some attention to this area.”

Izri gave a concerned look and asked, “Does civil or
military intelligence reveal anything?”

“
Yes sir, Reece received his intelligence from
an American agency, I speculate it to be the NSA.”

“
What made you come to this
conclusion?”

“
According to a satellite tracking log a
government satellite was passing this region earlier, before
Serafina arrived, and scanned the grounds above our facility. Three
and a half hours later, this same satellite was accessed from an
unregistered building in Langley, Virginia.

“
Who cares about the above ground scans, it is
not as if they can detect anything,” advised Izri.

“
Sir, that would be incorrect,” said the
monitoring agent.

Izri looked at the agent as if he was ready to
deliver a punch, “What do you mean?”

“
We were venting our stale
atmosphere.”

“
What!”

“
Sorry sir, according to the orbital satellite
tracking logs we weren’t scheduled for a pass until 2100
hours.”

Izri yelled, “According to
procedure we are supposed to do a scan for satellites prior to
venting to avoid this very issue. What fool decided not to follow
protocol?”

“
That would be me, sir, but I
assure you it was an accident.”

“
You are relieved from your post.
Report to detention center seven, I will deal with you
later.”

“
Sir, yes, sir,” replied the monitoring
agent.

Izri ran to the nearest control
panel and called out, “Code black, I repeat code black. I want all
non-essential systems shut down, no incoming or outgoing
transmissions of any kind and retract those vents now!”

As the facility started to go
into a mode of isolation, even one the NSA would not be able to
detect, Izri headed back to his office where he found Jade watching
a movie on her holoscreen.

“
What’s going on?” asked Jade.

“
We are preventing our facility from being
detected further by your government,” said Izri.

“
What do you mean?”

“
It appears Reece has some very talented
friends who have tried to assist him in locating you.”

“
That doesn’t surprise me,” smiled
Jade.

“
Well it may not surprise you, but it
certainly puts us into a difficult situation.”

“
Why?”

“
Because now we cannot transport Reece to our
underground facility until the attention fades.”

“
Just send me to the surface,
I’ll tell him that I ran away.”

“
The only way to the surface is by streaming
and we cannot do that with all this attention on us.”

“
What’s streaming?”

“
It is when we break down your molecules into
pure energy and send them to another destination.”

“
Sounds fun.”

Ignoring Jade’s interest, Izri
said, “Right now we will have to wait until it is
resolved.”

“
How long will that take?”

“
It depends on how fast our people within your
government can cover this up.”

Surprisingly, Jade stood up and
said, “Cover up! It sounds like this has happened
before.”

“
Well certainly. Do you think
this was the first time Earth humanoids detected this
facility?”

“
How would I know?” asked Jade.

Ignoring Jade’s reply Izri
continued to scan all the confirmations regarding the lock down
procedures, which had been implemented by his staff.

Spencer was just opening his eyes
when he realized they were still in flight. He slowly pulled
himself out of his chair and stretched as soon as he got back onto
his feet. He proceeded down the aisle where he walked by Serafina,
without even noticing her, and into the cockpit where he found
Oliver reading.

“
I see you’re up and mobile again, I hope this
isn’t going to be a recurring issue with you,” said
Oliver.

“
No, sir, I think I’m getting acclimated to
flying.”

“
Here take these,” said Oliver as
he handed Spencer a few pills.

“
What are they?”

“
Do you always have to ask so
many questions? Just take them. They’re ginger tablets. They’ll
help you with your stomach.”

“
Thanks. So where are we?”

“
On the way to LAX for fuel and
then onto Australia. We already stopped and picked up the last
member of our team.”

“
We did?”

“
Yes, we did. You were either
puking or sleeping when she came aboard.”

“
Oh, so where is this person?” asked
Spencer.

“
Wow, your observation skills are
astonishing. You walked right by her on the way up
here.”

“
I did?” replied Spencer ignoring Oliver’s
insult.

“
Yes, you did. Are you sure they didn’t forget
to download the cognitive part of your consciousness?”

Again ignoring Oliver, Spencer
turned around, looked outside the cockpit, and could not believe
his eyes. It was Serafina, asleep.

“
Why do you look so surprised?” asked
Oliver.

“
I just wasn’t expecting to see
her, that’s all.”

“
Well, surprise, surprise, now get over it,
and read this.”

After accepting the realization
regarding Serafina, Spencer asked, “What’s this?”

“
Read it and find out!”

Spencer grasped a three ring
binder of documents and was shocked to see information presented in
such an old fashioned format. Spencer concluded that compared to
Oliver, he was a techno geek. As Spencer opened the binder the
first thing he read out load was, “
Know your factions.
”

Spencer looked at Oliver and
asked, “What are Herders?” To which Oliver responded, “For God’s
sake, will you just read it!”

Spencer again ignored Oliver’s
ill-tempered attitude, sat back, and read on how Herders,
Guardians, and Floaters came to be. As Spencer was scanning page by
page, he stopped at one particular image that carried the following
title, “
The Jewel of a
Guardian
.” The image was of a silver
necklace with three oval shapes, each oval connected by a small
silver chain. Spencer paused, read again what a Guardian
represented, and visually recalled Serafina wearing that exact same
necklace when he first met her in the hallway of his
building.

Spencer thought, “What does this
mean?” At this point in Spencer’s interpretation of his newfound
reading material and the knowledge he obtained earlier from Telmar,
he came to the correct conclusion. Guardians and Floaters seem to
be rivals, and he was obviously with a group of Floaters. Spencer
asked himself, “Was Serafina some type of double agent? Was she
truly a Guardian pretending to be a Floater in order to sabotage or
retrieve sensitive information?” As he kept reading Spencer became
more uncomfortable with this situation, but was not sure how to
approach it, so he figured he might as well be straight with Oliver
and let the chips fall where they may.

“
Oliver, I’m finished reading your
material.”

“
Good, now you have an idea of
what we’re up against.”

“
Yes I do, but can I ask you a
question?”

“
What?”

“
The necklace the Guardians wear, is it
something anyone can obtain?”

“
No, it is placed on the wearer by the head
panjandrum of the Guardians and cannot be taken off by the
wearer.”

“
Does it have any specific
properties?”

“
Nothing of great importance. It
mostly tracks the wearer’s movements and activities,” said
Oliver.

“
Have you ever personally seen
one?”

“
I haven’t. Sometimes the wearer
has the necklace masked so their true faction isn’t apparent to the
general public. Somehow the necklace can bend light and blend into
its surroundings making it practically invisible to humanoid
vision.”

“
Can someone from, let’s say
Tureis, take it with them when they download to a body here on
Earth.”

“
Yes, the necklace is more energy
than solid material. If the wearer downloads their consciousness
into another humanoid body, the necklace will transform into pure
energy and piggyback on the data stream. It is the only known item,
which can travel with a humanoid’s consciousness.”

“
Is there a way of discovering it?” asked
Spencer.

“
Certainly, just go up to the
person you think is wearing it and grab at their chest. As soon as
a foreign human body part gets exposed to the necklace, it will
reveal itself. Why are you so curious about this?” inquired
Oliver.

Spencer paused for a moment and
thought about his loyalties. He certainly had feelings for
Serafina, but if the material Oliver gave him spoke the truth, he
certainly could not in good conscience allow the Guardians to
succeed in their quest.

Growing inpatient Oliver asked, “Well, are you going
to sit there, or give me an answer? Why are you so curious about
this?”

“
I saw Serafina wearing this
necklace,” said Spencer bluntly.

“
Excuse me?”

Spencer explained to Oliver in
detail what had happened in the hallway of his condominium when he
met Serafina for the first time. How he saw her again at Central
Circuit, and one more time right before his vehicular death.
Spencer continued to explain the upload to Tureis, the anomaly with
Prime 2, the download to his new body, and running into Serafina
again at the hospital. Spencer did not mention he was a rouge copy,
he thought certain things should be left private and questioned
himself if he should have even spoken about his
download.

Spencer was relieved when he
heard Oliver say, “Well, I knew about your download into your
current body. Izri had informed me. But what you speak of regarding
Serafina is outrageous. I have known that woman for years. She has
to be one of the most loyal members of our movement. Are you sure
you saw this necklace?”

“
I’m positive. I saw
Serafina wearing
The Jewel of
a Guardian
. I have no reason to make this
up.” Spencer continued and explained the personal feelings he had
for Serafina, which Oliver quickly dismissed as useless
information.

“
Wait here for one moment. I need
to contact headquarters,” said Oliver.

Oliver reached over typed in a couple of keystrokes,
confirmed he was on an encrypted frequency, and called the
underground facility in upstate New York.

“
This is Golden Sparrow, come in
command. I repeat, this is Golden Sparrow, do you copy?” Oliver
continued to call for another few minutes and came to the
conclusion command must be in a blackout, for they did not
respond.

“
What’s the matter?” asked Spencer.

“
Command appears to be offline.
No worries, we’ll just have to confront Serafina without their
guidance.”

Spencer stood up and said, “Are
you crazy?”

“
No, I’m not, Mr. Cade, but I’m
thinking you may be. You come to me and indirectly accuse one of
our top agents of being a spy and now you feel we shouldn’t
approach her on this matter. You need to sit down and silence your
hole. If I get another outburst from you, I’ll take your senseless
little program offline and don’t think I can’t do it,” threatened
Oliver.

Spencer sat back down, “Sorry, that was my emotions
speaking, not my brain.”

“
I don’t care what it was, now sit there and
be quiet! I’ll be right back.”

“
Can I please come with you?
Serafina may be a little bit more cooperative if I’m
there.”

Oliver paused for a moment and
said, “Fine, but keep your mouth shut, and I hope for all our sakes
you’re wrong.”

“
Me too.”

After Melissa and Karl woke up
they were informed of the unpleasant news, before Oliver walked
over to Serafina.