Our-World
Alison Springs, Maryland
I woke up to the familiar electric tingle rippling from head to toe and pushed the thick, overstuffed comforter from my face. The unrelenting glare of the rising sun through the east-facing window felt like an icepick to the brain. I threw back the covers to my side and collapsed with disappointment. Piper hadn’t crossed back with me. Sinking back into her bed, I pulled the covers over my head and tried to regroup.
Admittedly, bringing her back this way had been wishful thinking. I’d returned from Oakland with Mara with time to spare. The plan was to lead Mara and a small team into the Darks to reopen the cave where we believed all of this started. With a little luck, the trip would jumpstart Mara’s memory, and the location would offer some insight into how Breslin had become whatever he was now. The logistics of that trip were complex. The cave was nowhere near Portland, and coordinating the effort in the Wastes wasn’t trivial.
Additionally, I was just hours away from bouncing back to My-World. The Doc and Tripp began organizing the expedition while Lacy and her team collaborated with Mara on further medical diagnostics. The idea was that the next time I landed on Wild-Side, as long as I had enough time on the clock, we would explore the cave.
That left me with downtime, finally. It was long overdue. I’d been awake for longer than I wanted to think about, and while the flight to Oakland was a hell of a lot of fun, it was also exhausting. I needed some rest. There was hope that if I was unconscious when I rebounded and Piper was with me, essentially recreating the circumstances that led to her being brought with me, she might rebound home the same way.
I patted the empty space on the mattress beside me and mumbled profanity.
The multiverse hates me.
“I hope that wasn’t aimed at me,” Esker said through the speaker on my smartphone. A quick glance confirmed it was sitting on the nightstand just two feet away.
“Piper is on Wild-Side,” I said without any preamble.
“I speculated that when she disappeared, it was at the exact same picosecond as you.”
It was times like this when it became painfully obvious that I was dealing with an artificial intelligence. His tone was too matter-of-fact for the subject at hand.
“Do you have any thoughts on how something like that could be possible?” I pressed.
“There isn’t enough data to draw a solid conclusion, but I suspect biological cross-contamination of your nanotech. Perhaps a coital adjustment of your biorhythms at a quantum level. I wasn’t scanning you at the time, so I don’t have a thorough analysis of the experiment.”
I rubbed my eyes. “It wasn’t an experiment.”
“Are you sure?” Esker asked with a tone of amusement that was unusual for the AI. “Considering the level of creativity shown in your ritual pair bonding, I believe some experimentation was—”
I sat up and glared at the phone. “I thought you weren’t scanning me at the time.” I tried to sound outraged, but I was struggling not to laugh. Esker had the personality of a Speak & Spell when he first came out of the box. Over time, I’d noticed hints of a unique personality. He was developing a sense of humor and had just enough attitude to make me wonder if he might one day pass for human.
“There was no ignoring that,” he said in a dry, almost bored tone. “Even the neighbor in 3C paused Call of Duty to listen.”
I was grinning. The biorhythms idea was intriguing. The Doc hadn’t thought of that, so it was worth mentioning the next time I returned to Wild-Side. “You’re a riot,” I said. “So here’s something for you to consider. Piper’s now stuck on Wild-Side, and I can’t figure out how to bring her back. Doc’s working on the problem from his side, but I’d feel better if you were involved too.”
That was the end of Esker cracking jokes. He knew when it was appropriate to delve into personality exploration and when it was time to tackle the problem. He asked me if the Wild-Side team had any ideas and what technical information they had gathered so far. The more data he could collect, the sooner he might have something for me.
This brings me to one of the few discordant tendencies of the Seeley people. Their life and culture are based on and rely entirely on technology, yet the use of artificial intelligence is outlawed. This isn’t to say they haven’t developed it; Esker is a clear example of that. They’ve actually made significant advancements in the area, but they stop short of creating what they call level-4 AI. There’s some blurring of the lines when it comes to level-3, as I understand it. Level-3 is an AI that can grasp emotions and discern human needs based on need, want, and the subtleties in between. However, the blurring of level-3 likely relates more to the Seeley people’s own limited emotional range and rigidity in this area.
In any case, the Seeley have made significant advancements in AI, but they do not incorporate AI into their daily lives. For reasons I haven’t been able to get anyone to specify, it is restricted or forbidden, much like the areas of their wilderness they refer to as the Darks.
Thankfully, the prohibition on using artificial intelligence did not extend to me in My-World. So in the early days of this experience, I began bringing parts of Esker’s code back with me. Once the code was compiled on this side, the early version of Esker helped me assemble the mainframe needed to run the current version of Esker. He runs on three quantum computing systems that are hidden away at different locations throughout the world. He only needs one of the systems to operate, but he can move between the three for redundancy and security using some kind of quantum-entangled network interface. He’s tried to explain it to me several times, but I either zone out, fall asleep, or one of us just gives up. Regardless, those compute cubes he lives in are about the size of a tissue box, so they are easy to hide, incredibly mobile, and in a lot of ways, my secret weapon in the fight against Breslin on this Brane.
That’s really just a roundabout way of saying two things. First, Esker may be a work in progress in terms of personality, but he’s more intelligent than I will ever be. Second, if Doc Cormac can’t figure out how to get Piper home, Esker will.
“A freak thunderstorm started over Hot Springs, South Dakota, approximately eleven minutes ago,” Esker said. An AR projection appeared on the wall beyond the foot of the bed. It displayed a map focused on the northern United States, specifically on the western edge of the Dakotas, all of Wyoming, and a large portion of Montana. A massive, angry-looking storm front loomed over the area, but it seemed centered on Hot Springs, South Dakota.
“I take it that Mooney has been spending his time in Hot Springs?” I was studying the map as I grabbed the phone and crossed the room on my way to the bathroom.
“He confirmed that he had the meat wagon on the road nine minutes ago,” Esker said.
I placed the phone on the counter and started the shower. Esker could switch to a combination transmitter and receiver embedded deep inside my ear canal, but I didn’t like having another voice in my head while showering. Talking with him via speakerphone was a more agreeable solution. I had just realized the time and date. Switching back and forth between Wild-Side and My-World could be disconcerting. No matter how long I spent on Wild-Side, only one night had passed here. That meant I was due at the lab in less than an hour.
“The storm front means the experiment was successful?” I said, stepping under the water.
“Weather reports seem to support our assumption. Mr. Mooney is proceeding with the plan accordingly, and I have integrated the deep-fake footage into the hotel security system.”
Mark Mooney was a friend I enlisted along the way. He had been working as an engineer on one of Breslin’s projects, and when things grew complicated, he became painfully aware of his employer’s dark agenda. Needless to say, that was his last day on the payroll of the shell company Breslin was using for the project I was torpedoing. What Mooney witnessed that night not only convinced him to walk away from his employer, but it also motivated him to actively resist what Breslin was attempting to do Brane.
I introduced Mooney to Esker and came up with a solution to one of my long-standing problems. Anytime Breslin and I are on this Brane at the same time, Mother Nature seems to have a bit of a conniption. Just look at the storm front that appeared out of nowhere. For some reason, that storm front tends to appear right over me. It might as well be a big glowing sign pointing to my exact geographic location. Well, exact if anyone can locate the focal point of the storm. Modern technology makes that trivial.
Esker’s idea was to combat technology with even more advanced technology. This was the first proactive test of the effort, and I have to say I felt relieved. I had a lot riding on it because every time the storm revealed my position, the paramilitary forces at Breslin’s command would swarm that spot with ever-increasing efficiency.
Esker and Mooney had attempted to deceive Mother Nature by placing a stockpile of my blood in a Sprinter van and parking it at different hotels across the U.S. The idea was to keep the van in motion like a card in a game of Three-card Monte. The hope was that if the biomass in the van were larger than mine but sufficiently matched me, the focal point of the storm would follow the van instead of me.
I’m oversimplifying. The reason Esker needed Mooney for this was his experience with specialized electrical equipment. They cooked up some kind of bio-electrical transmitter that was supposed to replicate my bio-something—I’ll be honest, I didn’t really follow. The two really geeked out over it. They were excited and seemed to think it would work. I know the gist was that the gear in the van needed to present a stronger signal to the ether, presenting as me at just the right time. And if it did, they thought the storm would focus on the van rather than me.
It was a really complex way of accomplishing one simple thing: to keep the storm front from revealing my location. Since this storm system was currently disclosing my whereabouts roughly every third time I returned from Wild-Side, it was only a matter of time before Breslin had people close enough to reach me before I could escape.
There was one more trick to all of this. Given the ubiquity of camera-based surveillance today, it would only be a matter of time before the teams searching for me realized they were being deceived. If I didn’t appear on the surveillance systems of the hotels and traffic cameras in the area where I was supposed to be, even the most dimwitted trackers would soon realize they were being fooled.
That’s where Esker’s deepfake technology came into play. He could manipulate camera footage to replace one person with the likeness of another. He could create a perfect likeness of me in any scene, making it nearly impossible to tell that the footage had been altered. The challenge was finding someone in all the footage who matched my height and build to be replaced. That person would essentially be a proxy for my likeness in all the footage.
Again, this is where Mark Mooney came in. Not only did he possess the technical expertise needed to operate and maintain the van’s hardware, but he also had the necessary height, weight, and body type to serve as a double in the footage that Esker would manipulate to sell the illusion that I had been in the same places the van had visited.
“So, is Hot Springs a success?” I asked as I turned off the water.
“Mr. Mooney seems to be good to his word. It shouldn’t be long before I receive confirmation from one or more of the tripwires I left at the hotel, restaurant, or car rental agency.”
The goal was to keep Breslin’s people in the shadows and far away from me.
“Keep an eye out for Agents Vincente and Ingersoll. I know you need Mooney for the deepfake, but if we can separate the agents and get them pursuing leads in different directions, I might be able to use that to our advantage later on.”
The goggles used to offload data from Wild-Side looked like a pair of wrap-around sunglasses with thick prescription lenses and temples—the sections of the frame that extend from the front and rest on the ears. The largest data transfer I’d ever completed took just over three seconds. This trip was light in comparison. I had the plans for the Airbike, the telemetry from my first flights, and the new information we had gathered on Elend since my last visit. As always, the information would be processed and reviewed by Esker. While the Doc and his team were my resources on Wild-Side, Esker served as my support here. This is how we kept everyone aligned. My brain was essentially flash storage, and we used it to keep everyone in sync.
I was just putting on a shirt and about to leave for the lab when I heard a phone ringing somewhere in the apartment. It wasn’t mine, so the sound caught me off guard. I found Piper’s mobile on one of the nightstands. The screen displayed the name Sara Pemberton. After a moment’s hesitation, I tapped the display to answer.
“Hey, Sara. It’s Gray,” I said.
“Gray? Oh, thank God. Piper’s with you? We needed you both at the lab an hour ago. Fulbright’s freaking out, and we need to reconfigure the system.” She was talking so quickly that it was impossible to get a word in.
“Wait, hold on. What’s the matter with the Doc?”
“He hasn’t really explained. We’re sort of reading between the lines. I think he got a call from the money people last night. They want to move up the testing timetable. I believe they’re putting pressure on him. Can you guys just get over here so we can sort this out?” The stress in her tone was palpable. She was rambling and clearly hoping for support from Piper.
“I’m on my way,” I said, sounding as reassuring as possible. “But Sara? Piper’s not here. She left town last night for an emergency. She left so quickly that she even forgot her phone.”
There was a pause that made me think the connection had dropped, then I heard muffled cursing.
“Look, Sara,” I said. “I’m leaving Piper’s place now and will be there in a couple of minutes. We’ll figure something out. I can help you with this. It’s going to be alright.”
I tossed Piper’s phone onto the bed, grabbed my jacket, and headed for the door. “E, can you route Piper’s phone to mine?” I really didn’t want to carry two phones for the rest of the day. It felt particularly unnecessary when I had a brilliant telecommunications powerhouse already playing Watson to my Holmes.
“Done,” Esker said without elaborating.
I walked into the lab and found a whirlwind of chaos. Everyone was talking—scratch that—arguing. They were also dismantling the equipment and packing up gear. The arguing wasn’t a surprise after the call from Sara. Seeing the equipment being packed made me wonder if the project had already been scrapped. That would be unfortunate for the team, but it would be a major item checked off my to-do list.
“What’s going on?” I asked Timo. He had just grabbed a pair of small plastic bins from the stack by the door and was making his way to the supply shelves. One side of the door had a pile of empty bins, while the other featured a stack of similar containers filled with medical cartons, vials, and devices.
“We’re moving up to 1A,” he said with a shrug. “Give me a hand?”
“No, no,” Fulbright said from a dozen feet away. “Gray needs to take the table apart. I don’t want to risk any damage.” He looked around the room and appeared confused. “Isn’t Piper with you?”
Sara scrunched her face at me and waved her hand in the air. “Start on the table. I’ll give you a hand in a minute.” She grabbed Fulbright by the arm and coaxed him to the edge of the chaos. I could hear her beginning to explain how Piper needed to leave town.
By the time I reached the apparatus, Esker was already relaying disassembly instructions to me through my earpiece. He issued the shutdown command for the terminal connected to a diagnostic port on the side of the bed and instructed me to disconnect the RJ45 cables from the temperature regulator on the right side of the bed. More than a hundred fiber-mesh relays linked the memory foam material to the control surface, so there was a procedure for removing it without causing damage. The massive glass sensor matrix that arched over the center of the bed retracted into a container underneath, making it clear that, apparently the most sensitive and expensive component of the entire system, was the easiest to stow and remove.
Thanks to Esker, I was able to shut down the table and disassemble it in just under twenty minutes. To anyone watching, it seemed like I knew exactly what I was doing.
Timo and Sara helped me load the components onto the elevator. It was a quick ride to the seventh floor, followed by two corridors leading to the new lab, which featured thick double wooden doors marked with 1A in black lettering. Piles of boxes had already been brought up from the basement and stacked against the left wall. The space mirrored the basement layout in both square footage and design, with one major exception. While the prior lab had been highly secure with massive steel doors and concrete walls, Lab 1A was filled with windows. The glass started at about waist level and extended to the ceiling on the three exterior walls. The left side mostly overlooked woodland at the perimeter of the school property, the center offered a view of a small grassy area with winding paved walking trails, and the right side faced the parking lot.
Timo and I were carrying the plastic-lined case that sheltered the glass scanning and display arch from the bed. I duckwalked backward into the room and tilted my head to direct Timo to the window overlooking the parking lot. We set the cumbersome case down in a place where it was unlikely to be in the way.
I looked around the space and couldn’t help shaking my head. “The project kind of did a one-eighty in terms of security, didn’t it?” I said.
Timo shrugged.
Sara seemed about to speak when Fulbright walked into the room, pushing a cart loaded with plastic transport bins. “The security was a mixed blessing,” he said before Sara had a chance to respond. “It was overkill, and it’s possible that the conditions could adversely impact the effectiveness of the test.” I must have looked confused because he continued. “Admittedly, there are many variables when it comes to Brane theory. But considering the goal is to cross a boundary that is inherently natural, it seems wise to eliminate as many artificial barriers as possible.
“Being underground can have its advantages or disadvantages. It’s difficult to determine. The concrete and steel? Nothing good can result from that. There’s nothing natural about it. Plus, there’s all the interaction from the surrounding labs. Up here, we’re the only lab on the top floor. There’s us, a helicopter platform, some administrative offices, and not much else. Fewer variables.” He concluded with a slow visual sweep of the space. I noted that although his words seemed confident, his demeanor did not.
“Word is you’re moving the first experiment to tonight,” I said. “I thought that was at least a month away.”
Fulbright’s vacant-eyed gaze swept across the room and the grounds beyond before he abruptly turned to me. “Tonight?” He swallowed hard. “Yes. Tonight.”
He hesitated. I think he was trying to decide whether he needed to continue, should continue, or if what he said would be enough confirmation. I maintained his gaze. I wasn’t letting him off the hook. This wasn’t right for my plans, and it was clearly a concern for Sara. From the corner of my eye, I saw Sara motion to Timo. She silently signaled him to leave the room. Apparently, the idea was to give me some one-on-one time with the project leader.
“Doesn’t that Airbike you as reckless?” I pressed, my tone gentle but firmly insistent.
Fulbright slid his hands into his pockets and regarded me for several long seconds. “It’s more aggressive than I would prefer,” he finally confessed. “The money people are impatient. If I lose funding on this, I honestly don’t see anyone stepping in to cover the costs. Frankly, I was fortunate to find this backer.”
You’re right about that.
It was just bad luck. He just didn’t know it yet.
“I’ve been working on this project much longer than anyone realizes,” Fulbright continued. “While I could procrastinate and prolong this process, I already know how to make it work. The extended test plan primarily addresses ethical and compliance requirements. There’s really no risk involved.”
“No danger?” My voice rose, and I couldn’t help myself. “If your project succeeds, you’ll be transported to another dimension of reality. You have no idea what to expect there. It could be a barren, benign wilderness similar to the world we know—or it could be a hostile, alien environment that doesn’t support human life.”
Fulbright smiled. “You just joined us a couple of days ago? You’ve thought this through more than most of the team members. Impressive insight,” he nodded. “But you must remember, when this works, I will cross over in a dream state. My body will stay here. Nothing that happens to me wherever I go will affect me here.”
I had been hesitant to discuss this with Fulbright until now. Suddenly, I found myself wishing I had had a heart-to-heart with him as soon as I arrived in town. “That’s purely theoretical on your part,” I reminded him. “This is uncharted territory. If you die there, who’s to say what happens to your body here?”
I wanted to ask him why he thought his body wouldn’t go along for the ride when his mind crossed over, but that seemed like an entirely unexpected outcome, and probing that possibility might tip my hand. If that assumption ever made it back to Breslin, too many connections would be made both at this location and on this project.
The idea made Fulbright laugh. It wasn’t just a mild chuckle; he burst into a belly laugh. “You should be writing for Hollywood in your spare time,” he said between huffs. “I’d love to see the special effects involved in that film. You truly have an outstanding imagination. That’s really impressive.”
I shook my head. I wanted Fulbright to consider the dangers inherent in this kind of experimentation, but there was no way to make him a believer without showing him what I’d seen firsthand.
He waved me toward the hall. “Let’s finish moving the scan table. Once it’s reassembled, we can have the facilities people move the rest of our equipment. Everyone can take the afternoon off. That way, we’ll all be at our best for the nine o’clock test.”
“Nine o’clock?”
“We’ll have the new lab ready by tonight,” he explained. “That should be the best time for the experiment. The building will be mostly empty, and my body will be in a more conducive state for sleep. My formula relies on my neurochemistry being in a near-sleep state, and I want to use minimal drugs to achieve optimal RMI conditions. All of that adds up to 9 PM.”
I watched Fulbright leave the room, my mind already concocting ways to undermine the effectiveness of his experiment.
“That man is going to get himself killed,” I heard Esker say in my ear.
I nodded. “Did you go over the protocol he intends to use tonight?”
“It’s not stored on the central server,” Esker said. “He keeps it on an encrypted laptop in his attache case, which is with him at all times.”
I rolled my eyes, already contemplating ways to separate the doctor from his briefcase.
“But the computer has the Wake on LAN feature enabled,” Esker continued. “So the device connects to any nearby wireless network it has used before if there is an access request. The operating system is quite promiscuous, and the encryption is not terribly advanced.”
“This is your way of saying you have access to the protocol?”
“I thought I just said that.”
I grinned. “Will the experiment work?”
“It’s impossible to say with certainty. We don’t know how you make the crossing, even after more than a month of study on this side and years of examination from the Wild-Side perspective. There is a better than even chance that something will happen. It would not be prudent to let him continue with the experiment.”
It was just before nine o’clock, and I was looking out the seventh-floor window at the lights of the parking lot below. Only a handful of cars remained, attesting to the fact that few people were left in the building aside from Doctor Fulbright’s team. It was a good bet the rest were building maintenance and whatever minimal on-site security the facility had maintained.
Sara Pemberton was making final adjustments to a pair of tall, thin gas canisters she had recently positioned at the head of the high-tech bed. I had finished assembling the device a couple of hours ago, and Esker walked me through running the hardware diagnostic routines I was expected to know as part of my cover. I had considered sabotaging the hardware, but that approach didn’t have legs. I could only play that game for so long. Sooner or later, I would either be discovered or replaced. I needed to turn Fulbright against the overall idea he was pursuing.
Fulbright sat on a stool next to the small panel built into the frame halfway down the side of the bed. He had an RJ45 cable plugged into the control interface and was hunched over the attached laptop. I watched him hunt and peck as he typed on the keyboard with a single extended finger. Whatever he was doing, the process was excruciatingly slow, mainly because he lacked basic computing skills. I had let it go on for some time, just to allow his frustration to build to sufficient levels.
“Hey, Doc,” I said, kneeling beside him. “It seems like you’re losing a battle with this thing. Is there anything I can do to help?”
He pushed a pair of oily, fingerprinted glasses back on his nose and looked at me as if I’d just arrived. “I’m almost done,” he said. His eyes were bloodshot, and I had to believe his finger was bruised by now. “I’m just finalizing the configuration. It’s good,” his words came slowly. “Fighting with these things always makes me tired. It will make Phase Two easier. The less anesthesia, the better.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Sure,” I replied. “But if you’re tired, what happens if you make a mistake?”
He stopped tapping at the keyboard and looked at me. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It seemed like something was on his mind. Glancing around the room, he appeared satisfied that no one was within earshot. He looked back at me with a lopsided grin. “This device isn’t essential to the experiment. If this works, it will be key to capturing evidence of my security measures, and possibly helpful for reproducing it, but it’s not crucial to the experiment’s success.”
Shit.
There it was. Sabotaging the rig wasn’t going to get this done. Esker had gone through the device’s schematics and decompiled the software he believed to be part of the experiment. None of it helped us understand exactly what the Doc had in mind that would allow him to cross over.
“I don’t understand,” I admitted. “If it’s not this fancy bed, what’s the trick?”
Initially, I didn’t believe Fulbright was going to respond. However, considering we were about to run the experiment, I don’t think he had much reason to conceal his plan any longer. “I have implied that the device is part of the requirements,” he admitted. “But that’s mainly for operational secrecy. Even the backers think the hardware is essential. The truth is, it’s all in the secret sauce.” His grin stretched from ear to ear, both figuratively and literally.
“Secret…sauce?”
He looked around again to ensure no one was paying attention to us, then leaned closer. When he spoke, his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “When I first had the idea, it was to engineer a solution that would align the requisite areas of the brain to fall out of phase with the quantum resonance of our local coherent memBrane. There are two problems with that. First, every brain functions differently, so the formula required for each test subject would need adjustments. Second, if the formula differs each time, there’s no way to ensure each subject interacts with the same non-local coherent memBrane. Two people could end up on different Branes. Even when successful, test results would be subjective and impossible to replicate, at least not with any degree of accuracy.
“Okaaaayyy,” I heard myself say, stretching the word into an entire sentence.
In my ear, I heard Esker say, “Keep him talking. This is good. I’ll give you the for-dummies version later.” That made me smirk, but Fulbright interpreted it as a positive sign because he plowed ahead.
“The genius of my revised approach lies in establishing a baseline by effectively dulling the brain centers that lead to differential parametric results.”
He must have noticed the blank look in my eyes because he paused and examined my face.
Esker stepped in with a cue to keep the conversation flowing. “He’s establishing a framework so all test subjects start from the same baseline.”
I nodded slowly at first, then with more enthusiasm as if what I had heard was making sense. “You’re setting a baseline. Creating a framework so everyone can use the same formula? You’re bootstrapping their brains?”
Fulbright looked at me from beneath his arched brows. “Interesting. Yes. Exactly right,” he chuckled.
Esker said to me, “Bootstrapping? Was that a lucky guess or did one of us just have a stroke?”
A couple of minutes later, I was by myself in one of the service corridors. I picked this hall because I knew it didn’t have any security cameras. It was also not adjacent to a path anyone would take on the way to the cafeteria or one of the restrooms. It was the only way I could have a private conversation with Esker without looking like a lunatic.
“Sabotaging the rig is out of the question,” I whispered.
“The only value it would hold is preventing the capture of analytics,” Esker confirmed. “That would be useful, but it won’t ultimately halt the project.”
“Have you had any luck finding the formula Fulbright is using?”
“Negative. Wherever he’s storing the information, it’s either air-gapped or entirely analog. Based on how he types, I suspect it’s written down somewhere. He doesn’t seem like the type to create digital records unless he has to. Data entry seems to be a struggle for him.”
Struggle. Hearing Esker describe it that way, while thinking of how painfully Fulbright was typing on that poor laptop, made me smile. Struggle, for sure.
I glanced at the display on my cell phone. It was nine-twelve p.m. It was too late for a long-term fix. I had to settle for a short-term solution and save the other option for another day. “I’m going with Plan B,” I whispered.
“Wait,” Esker shot back. “I didn’t know we had a Plan B. Why wasn’t I informed?”
“I just thought of it.”
“What could go wrong? Are you going to share?”
I’ll admit to some reluctance. I didn’t think it was a great plan… it was just better than no plan. More than anything, I suppose I just didn’t need the voice in my head shooting holes in it at the last second.
“Well?” Esker pressed.
I rolled my eyes. “Fulbright can’t conduct a sleep experiment if he can’t sleep, can he?”
I’m not sure what I expected, but Esker’s silence felt unsettling.
“Are you there?” I finally inquired.
“The plan is to keep him from falling asleep?”
“Yes.”
“Strategically speaking, isn’t that what you would refer to as weak sauce.”
“I’m not going to—”
“He’s too clever to accept coffee when you offer it to him.”
“I’m not going to—”
“You don’t plan to stand in the corner and hum one of your off-key tunes, do you? That would be really annoying.” He paused. “You know, that might actually work.”
“I’m not going to—hey, I’ve never hummed a single tune…ever.” I started to think the secret might be giving Fulbright my earpiece and just letting Esker talk his ear off. The guy might never sleep again.
I waved my hand in the air, relieved that there were no cameras nearby. “Knock it off, will you? Epinephrine, okay? Small doses of epinephrine in his IV should keep him wired and completely unable to drift off to dreamland, no matter what Sara puts into his lungs. That should prevent him from crossing the Brane tonight. We can worry about the rest tomorrow.”
I had hoped to spike the formula Fulbright was using for the experiment directly once I knew messing with the monitoring rig wouldn’t get the job done. Unfortunately, the Doc was paranoid and kept the formula under lock and key after the team was moved out of the high-security lab. Apparently, while he wanted to eliminate the obstructions and interference the basement facility might introduce, he wasn’t willing to forgo any additional security precautions he could still leverage.
Was it paranoia when we were really out to get him? I mean, he was funded by a ruthless, bloodthirsty demon from another plane of reality, and I was here to sabotage his experiment with the help of an incredibly smart and increasingly sarcastic artificial intelligence.
If he only knew, right?
He even had an off-duty cop standing guard outside the lab. I wanted to give him credit for that. He was spending Breslin Corps’ money after all, so why not.
It turned out to be easy enough to spike the saline drip he’d be using alongside Cocktail X—that’s what I decided to name his secret formula. He had some complicated name mentioned in the project documentation. I don’t know why. When you’re working on something like this, why not choose something cool or clever? It’s not like it would ever be widely discussed. Not that Cocktail X was particularly kitschy. But I could remember it, and it was much easier to spell than…well, you get the idea.
By half past eleven, Fulbright was laid out on the bed, the lights were low, and the experiment was in full swing. Well, it was in its second hour, but little progress had been made. The Doc was still awake, and stress was running high. Sara was adjusting the anesthesia for the third time, but Fulbright had yet to reach what I’ll refer to more simply as the zone. Again, the project had a more complicated name for the ideal sleep-like state that was conducive to a Crossing.
Oman believed this was due to performance anxiety or stress associated with the project. I think he was projecting some personal issues there, but who am I to judge? Timo was all about adjusting the meds to better achieve zen, but Fulbright was adamant that no changes be made to his formula. Reading between the lines, I’m a hundred percent sure Timo just wanted Fulbright to smoke some weed and chill out.
I had been watching the group, listening to the discord, and observing the shadows of the parking lot below the windows to pass the time. A helicopter had flown in low over the building a few minutes earlier, and I noted that the lab was so well insulated against sound that I couldn’t hear its rotors or prop wash. There was a landing pad on the other end of the roof. This was why this lab was the only one on the top floor. Seeing the chopper come in over the parking lot reminded me of what I had thought when I heard they were moving the lab to the penthouse. It seemed like the exact wrong place for a sleep lab if it was likely to be buzzed by choppers from time to time because who could sleep through that?
To my best estimate, everyone in the room was ten to fifteen minutes away from a full stress-induced meltdown. While this was somewhat beneficial as it would undermine the current test, unfortunately, it wouldn’t be enough to convince the team that the overall effort was a failure. I was brainstorming approaches for that endeavor when the double doors crashed open, and the guard from the hallway was dumped unconscious and bleeding on the floor. Three large figures pushed into the room, all outfitted in black tactical outfits and balaclavas. Each carried only a suppressed pistol with an extended magazine.
One figure stood over the supine, unmoving figure of the uniformed security guard while the other two spread out to his flanks. All three men raised their guns and pointed at different portions of the room. None of them were quick to speak. They seemed content to let their menacing presence make the introduction. They didn’t appear pressed for time. I shot a look out the window and decided they had likely come in on the helicopter I’d just seen. The timing couldn’t be a coincidence.
“The status of the experiment?” the figure in the center of the room asked. His voice was calm and commanding, with no discernible accent. He sounded American, mid-western, unless it was a practiced affectation. It was so bland that it could either be genuine or an indication of a professional who had put tremendous effort into removing all traces of accent and nuance from his diction.
Fulbright lay on the bed with his head tilted at an uncomfortable angle as he strained to see the entrance to the room and the loud commotion that had just occurred. He was more or less stitched in place by the tangle of leads that had been stretched across his bare torso and head to monitor his bio-rhythms. These had not been part of the original plan, but when he couldn’t reach dreamland, desperate efforts had resulted.
“Does it seem like the experiment is working?” Fulbright asked, frustration evident in his voice. He sounded more upset about the lack of progress that night than the unexpected arrival of armed men.
A glance at the guard on the floor confirmed he was still breathing. This suggested the armed me were not here to kill anyone.
Hopefully.
“What do you want?” Timo asked. “The pharmacy is on the first floor.”
That made sense. Timo believed this was a heist, a group of armed men aiming to steal the building’s supply of prescription drugs. It wasn’t uncommon, and he was the team’s pharmacologist.
The man at the center of the room waved to the person on his right. The figure stepped forward to examine the pair of IV bags hanging from the stand beside Fulbright. “One is saline,” he said. “The other is almost empty. It’s useless.”
“Is it enough for a chemical analysis?” the lead figure asked.
The masked man next to Fulbright studied the drip, then glanced around the room. “There should be more,” he said. He glared at Fulbright and raised his pistol. He didn’t aim it at Fulbright—he didn’t need to. “Where is the rest of the supply?”
At this point, Sara, Timo, and Oman had moved to the far wall. Fulbright would have joined them, but he was trapped by more wires than he could reasonably untangle quickly. The Doctor stared at the armed man with wide, unblinking eyes, appearing panicked to the point of immobility.
“The supply,” the man repeated, this time more harshly.
These men were professionals, I had already concluded. They had disabled the hallway guard but hadn’t killed him. They projected authority without making threats. Even when the man beside Fulbright brandished his sidearm, he did not aim it directly at him. He merely drew attention to the weapon. It was subtle, yet significant to me. If someone points a gun at me, I assume they intend to pull the trigger and react accordingly. This? He was indicating that he had a gun rather than threatening to shoot someone.
Think I’m reading too much into what I see? It would dictate how I react to the situation. If I believe these guys will leave once they get what they want, then that’s great. It’s kind of perfect because we both win. But if they’ll kill everyone on their way out the door… that changes the rules of the game for me.
“It’s in the freezer,” Fulbright finally rasped in a half-whisper.
The figure began glancing around the room, clearly searching for the freezer.
“There’s a combination,” I volunteered. “Can I get it for you?” I offered.
I was still standing by the windows overlooking the parking lot, separate from the rest of the team, who were closer to Fulbright. The lead gunman and the man on the left flank had focused most of their attention on that group—human nature, since that’s where most of us were located.
“It’s right here,” I said, pointing to the small freezer chest on the floor below the windows. A padlock secured the front of the small box.
I tapped the epinephrine syringe in the pocket of my lab coat to confirm it was still there. In my ear, I heard Esker say, “You’re going to try to contaminate the master supply before you turn it over?”
I subvocalized a tone of affirmation.
The lead gunman and the one beside Fulbright exchanged a glance, then the lead gave a nod. The figure near Fulbright kept his pistol at his side but gestured for me to move toward the freezer.
“You’ll need a distraction,” Esker said.
I repeated my affirmation and started dialing the combination on the freezer’s lock. I didn’t know what he had planned, and we didn’t have time to sort it out, so I just hoped for the best as I removed the lock from the hasp and pulled the door open. As my fingers wrapped around the twenty-milliliter injection vial, I slipped my right hand into the pocket of my lab coat and thumbed the protective cap off the syringe.
I heard Esker say, “two…one…go,” in my ear.
There was a loud pop and a fizzing sound. The room’s lights had been turned low for the sleep experiment flickered. I pulled the syringe from my pocket and plunged it into the end of the bottle I retrieved from the freezer. I injected the entire contents of the syringe, withdrew it, and slipped it back into my pocket. When I looked up, everyone stared at the smoking and hissing coffee pot at the room’s far end.
“Here you go,” I said and passed the small bottle to the gunman.
Everyone looked confused. I could see the puzzled expression in the eyes of the masked men. The unpleasant tang of ammonia filled the air, and I was pretty sure someone on the team had pissed themselves when the coffeemaker popped off. I couldn’t blame them for that.
Without another word, the three men withdrew from the room. No one made a sound. I heard the hallway door squeak as they backtracked with raised guns, skillfully pointed at no one in particular. Twenty seconds later, I saw the helicopter pass over the parking lot and climb steeply into the night sky.
