Cosega Sphere (The Cosega Sequence Book 4) (20 page)

Rip had trouble coping with what he saw, but he knew it was important to ignore his emotions—the detachment of a scientist—and figure it out. He’d seen countless things in the Sphere over the years, including the Earth in many stages of its long evolution, with and without humans, ancient Egyptians and South American civilizations using flying machines thousands of years before the Wright Brothers, but this time, when he saw it devoid of people, there was something else present. Ruins.

Even for a skilled archaeologist, it was difficult to ascertain just what the man-made remnants among the vast forested and open ranges of Earth were, but they were there. Metal and concrete, faded colors and patterns that did not belong in nature. As species of recognizable animals roamed, the traces of a past human civilization were still present, even abundant, but Rip’s trained mind estimated it had been perhaps ten thousand years since the end.

The end? What happened?
Rip tore his gaze from the air-tour of the human-less world and found Crying Man’s eyes. “Is this what happened to the Cosegans? Or…” he hesitated, not sure he wanted the answer, “is this what happens to
us
?”

Rip felt Crying Man’s wordless response and had to remind himself to breathe. “It is the same.” He voiced the words he sensed, looking to Crying Man for clarification or confirmation. “What does that mean?”

“It is the same . . . without help.”

“Help,” Rip repeated.

Crying Man nodded.

—O—

Rip sat alone in the skyroom, silently contemplating what Crying Man had said and what he’d seen in the Sphere.
What if it was us that ended?

He knew what lay ahead. Humans could easily destroy themselves in any number of ways. The Divinations had predicted three that were already visible on the horizon: a global pandemic, climate destabilization, World War III, or any combination thereof. Crying Man had disappeared again after conveying the word “help” into Rip’s mind one more time
.

Yes, please help me save Cira and stop the coming plague, the world-ending war, all of it,
Rip thought.
How did the Cosegans craft such an interface? How does it know what I’m thinking? The artificial intelligence is mindboggling. No wonder Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and others, have been warning against AI for so many years. It’s so far beyond our human mind’s capacity, or at least what we’ve been able to develop or tap into up until this point.

Gale believed they could do more. So did Booker and his whole Inner Movement, but to a scientist like Rip, that all seemed like pure fantasy. Yet the Cosegans . . . they had done something, something that combined it all.

How?

Just as he was going back to the Sphere to try to search for ways to help Cira, instead of those long-sought answers, he heard a plane. It was a foreign sound on El Perdido. Booker had used every modern and Cosegan trick and technology to cloak the island. It was virtually invisible to satellites, planes, and ships, so either Gale had made it, or he was about to be attacked.

From his vantage point, the highest on the island, he watched the Gulfstream descend and touch down on the paved runway. Even before the plane stopped, a message came into his INU.

“Aren’t you going to meet my plane?” Gale asked.

Rip raced downstairs and jumped into one of the many rugged golf carts they used for most of their jaunts around the island. By the time he reached her, she was already on her way in one of her own that was kept parked near the end of the runway.

Her driver, the AX agent who’d gotten her onto the Gulfstream, stopped. Rip parked and jumped out of his cart. Gale met him halfway and they melted into a long, desperate embrace.

“Cira,” Gale said as she smothered herself into him. “Cira.”

“I know,” Rip responded, shaking, the sudden reconnection to his family exposing the rawness of his helplessness and pain at Cira’s situation.

“I tried to stay with her. Booker wouldn’t let me.” She began to cry. “Kruse drugged me, They kidnapped me from our baby!”

Rip had suspected something like that, but never imagined they’d actually drugged her. Anger rose with his adrenaline.

“They said if I stayed, I might have been killed,” Gale said through sobs. “They don’t understand that I’d rather be dead than leave her alone.”

“We’ll get her,” Rip said, as if the words were a weapon. “I promise you that.”

The power of his conviction momentarily steadied her. Gale pulled back and looked at him. The tears in her eyes magnified the blue of them, like turquoise lagoons on a sunny day. “How?” she asked.

“Come on.” He took her hand and led her into his cart. Rip did a u-turn and sped back to the main house. While Gale showered and changed, he asked the chef to prepare Gale’s favorite macrobiotic dinner. Rip went to the skyroom to wait for Gale, and it was there, in that moment alone, that he realized what he must do.

Rathmore and Murik, surrounded by the hi-tech maps and real-time video monitors of the NSA situation room, were deep in discussion concerning the possible whereabouts of the Gulfstream and whether King’s unit could have played a role in the plane’s disappearance.

A technician suddenly interrupted them. “We’ve picked up some chatter,” the woman said. “The little girl, Gaines’ daughter, may still be at the hospital in Fiji.”

“How close is a team?” Rathmore asked.

“Close.”

“Let’s go! Move on that hospital. Own it, own it!” Rathmore chanted. “I don’t give a damn if we blind or maim that girl so long as we have a breathing, talking little angel to use to flush out her God-forsaken, loving parents.”

The noise in the room grew. A SEAL team with CIA and NSA operatives was prepped to go. Intelligence came flooding in as partial focus was shifted to Fiji. They learned of the Foundation’s armed occupation of the hospital and quickly discovered what floor Cira was on based upon the number of soldiers concentrated there. The operation would be complicated by the presence of the Foundation’s people and local police, but they were no match for a SEAL team and a surprise attack. The bigger issue was collateral damage to the hundreds of patients in the hospital, in addition to doctors, nurses, and other staff.

“The order is this,” Rathmore said, raising his voice to be heard across the room. “Get the girl, alive. Everything, and everyone else, is second.”

A few technicians and operatives gave him questioning looks.

“Everyone be reminded this is a Scorch and Burn operation!” Rathmore yelled. “Eat them up!”

“Sir,” another technician interrupted him. “We just got word. The Chinese and Russians have engaged each other on the border near North Korea.”

Rathmore looked at Murik, stunned. “How in the hell is
this
possible?” Rathmore asked, switching one of the big screens to satellite coverage of the region around the apparent Chinese and Russian conflict.

“I’ll be a son of . . . ” Rathmore stared at the images disbelievingly. “Those crazies are shooting at each other.”

“Looks like a real war,” Murik said, dumbfounded. “CIA didn’t see this coming.”

“Neither did the NSA, or the Pentagon,” Rathmore said. “But somebody did . . . Yamane! Where is that dammed nutty professor?” he asked Murik before turning back to the subordinate who gave him the news. “What started it?”

“Apparently a flare-up over disputed territory amounting to 580,000 square miles of land that Russia’s snatched from China over the past hundred and fifty years.”

“And
today
, this comes up?
Today
!” Rathmore was dizzy with the scenarios crisscrossing his brain. The vanishing Gulfstream, Gaines’ daughter still in Fiji, held by the Aylantik Foundation, a war between major powers in Asia predicted by . . .  “Get that damned professor on the screen
now
!”

“I’ve been trying to track down Yamane since the plane disappeared,” Murik admitted. “It’s as if he’s vanished.”

“People. Don’t.
Vanish
,” Rathmore said in a controlled rage, emphasizing each syllable. “Planes and people
don’t
vanish. They’re out there somewhere, and we have the resources of the Untied States of America at our disposal. Bring it to bear! Do it!”

—O—

While they were waiting for agents in Hawaii to track down the sniffling professor and get him back in front of a camera link, they continued to prepare for the retrieval mission in Fiji. Even if the sniffling professor hadn’t predicted the outbreak of war between the two powerful nations, the situation would have been a major distraction.

“World stability is a far more fragile conundrum than people care to admit,” Murik said, feeling confused and overwhelmed and failing to see the humor in the situation. “On any given day, the final war can begin.”

Even Rathmore, stressed, frustrated, and barking commands like a crazed fan in a sports stadium, willing his team back on top, was concerned by the Russia-China drama. Any political science major could tell them this was not like a skirmish in the Middle East. A war between these mighty giants would shake the Earth like nothing had since the fall of the Nazis. More than that, Rathmore was stunned and awed by the prospect that someone had seen this coming
in the Sphere
. 

Rathmore, one of the NSA’s top pitbulls, had rarely felt true fear in his life. The first was when he watched his father beat his mother, the second when his wife was destroyed by cancer, and now, this. All he could think of was a mirror smashing into his face, reflecting the fear, showing him his weakness, destroying his power.
Damn that Sphere!

The giant screens circling the room switched from satellite scenes of the crisis in Asia to views of Fiji, and still others swept across views of the vast Pacific where the Gulfstream had vanished. Steady streams of data came across the twenty-six mid-sized monitors, which hung under the giant ones. Hundreds of conceivable scenarios rolled through the massive computer programs designed to anticipate every possible outcome. A new Korean war, hostilities bleeding over to include Taiwan, Japan, satellites targeted in space, even nuclear war.

It was a terrifying development. Rathmore paced, waiting for Professor Yamane, waiting for the SEAL team to get the kid, waiting for some sign of the Gulfstream, waiting for contact from King, who had suddenly gone silent. He didn’t know exactly how, but his gut told him that the little girl wasn’t just the key to finding the Sphere, but the Sphere was the key to containing the war in Asia.

“Everything depends on our getting that kid!” he said, tasting the bitter residue of tension on his lips. “Where the hell is Professor Yamane?”

“Sir,” a young analysis began, “Honolulu PD has just confirmed . . . The professor you’re looking for, Professor Yamane, is dead.”

Taz’s Foundation superiors were waiting for an update. Stellard had been clear—get Dabnowski back on board. Already having Gaines’ daughter in hand, and adding one of the top UQP/Sphere scientists would put the Foundation in the lead in the race for the future.

Tugging nervously at the gold ring on his thumb, Taz didn’t know what to do. He knew he was sitting on the greatest discovery in human history.
What can it do? What are the implications to the future? The past? Do they know? The NSA? The Foundation?
He also knew that Dabnowski’s life was in danger, as was his.

“Wow,” Taz breathed. “I’m sorry I was such a jerk earlier. I didn’t know . . . I’m not the brightest guy in the world.”

The admission amused and impressed Dabnowski. “Maybe at least you finally get it. You may not grasp it, obviously you’ll never be capable of that, but you
get
it
.” Dabnowski looked over his shoulder, scanned the trees, then cast a quick look up at the sky.

“Who else knows?” Taz asked, now fully on board with Dabnowski’s nervousness and unable to deny the assessment of his ability to comprehend scientific knowledge.

“There are five of us who authored the paper, two more have an idea. And then there’s the NSA.”

“The NSA knows?”

“They know everything,” Dabnowski said, his tone suggesting it would be silly to imagine otherwise. “How come no one wants to believe we live in an Orwellian world? In fact, it’s way beyond
1984
. They have technology that even Orwell couldn’t dream of, and if they get the Sphere, they’ll be able to know what you’re going to think
before
you even think it.”

Taz nodded and clenched his fists, the heavy rings pressing painfully into his fingers, the largest, a gold broken heart he’d had made after the only woman he really ever loved walked out on him. Taz knew better than Dabnowski that privacy had choked its last few tortured breaths in the years following the September 11th terrorist attacks. Ever since, it had been an ever increasingly fast nosedive down the slippery slope.

“What about Gaines?”

“Gaines is an interesting man,” Dabnowski said. “He’s not a physicist, he’s an archaeologist. It’s odd the Sphere found him because it’s not an artifact, it’s a universe. As brilliant as he is though, he’s not really equipped to study it.”

“You said the Sphere found him. Don’t you mean the other way around?”

“If you ever get to see the Sphere, you’ll realize that Gaines was chosen to find it.”

“What does that even mean?” Taz asked. Caught up in Dabnowski’s paranoia, he never stopped watching the shadows. “He found it sealed in a cliff. Solid rock. The Sphere is eleven million years old, right?”

“Close enough.”

“So who decided Gaines should find it?”

“The ones who built it. The Cosegans.”

Taz didn’t want to question Dabnowski further. He knew this nerd had ten times the smarts he did, but it wasn’t for fear of looking stupid again.

Taz did not
want
the answer. He couldn’t handle Dabnowski saying that somebody eleven
million
years ago knew all of this was going to happen, knew about Gaines, and had left the Sphere for him encased in stone. Taz couldn’t even handle the possibility of time travel. He’d read a few novels about the subject, seen the movie
Back to the Future
, so he could play along with that, but advanced civilizations, millions of years earlier, dabbling in the current world? He couldn’t go there.

“What are you going to do?” Dabnowski asked after a long minute of silence.

“Where are the other four authors of the report?”

“I’m not sure. Two of them are likely at the Observatories. The other ones might be at the university.”

“Has the NSA detained any of the UQP scientists?”

“There are over a thousand of us,” Dabnowski said, as if that number protected them from arrest. “We’re talking about the brightest scientists in the world.”

“We’re talking about the NSA,” Taz countered.

Dabnowski nodded knowingly as he looked up the beach at a man heading in their direction.

“It’s only a matter of time before they get Gale Asher and then Gaines,” Taz said. “And then they’ll want a lid on this. Everyone with knowledge of the Sphere will be arrested. The NSA won’t care if there are ten thousand of you. Count on it.” Taz stared directly at the physicist. “But that’s more than I can worry about at the moment. Let’s concentrate on getting you and the other four authors away from here.”

“Here?”

“Off the island.”