Final Solstice (14 page)

Chapter 16

Bolting awake in his seat at the same instant the landing gear touched pavement, Mason found himself staring into Gabriel’s smiling face.

“Welcome back.” Gabriel glanced over to Lauren in the next seat. “Does he always sleep this much?”

“Only after near death experiences,” she responded and reached across the aisle to grasp Mason’s hand. “Must’ve been some dream. You kept twitching.”

“I was … walking,” he said, frowning as he looked out the window at the landscape rushing by. The palm trees and sunlight, so starkly different from New York.

Gabriel gave him a sideways look. “See anything interesting on your walk?”

“I’m not sure.” Mason rubbed his eyes. “Can’t quite recall.”
Nothing, except the house in the mist, and the body in the lake, and someone blowing cremation-smoke in my face. But I’m not speaking of that.…
“So, where’s Solomon? Anyone hear from him?”

Gabriel unbuckled his belt as the plane slowed and turned toward the hangar. “He stayed on to meet with the authorities and to schedule a session with the World Meteorological Organization.”

“And he didn’t need us?”

“No, they don’t meet in New York anyway. It will probably be a teleconference, unless we go to Zurich or something, but Solomon thinks we can handle it from our offices.”

“He thinks what happened will be enough to get us their cooperation?”

Gabriel smiled. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

“So what’s next?” Lauren asked. “I mean, besides some more rest for you both.”

“We’re fine,” Gabriel and Mason said at the same time, with the same intensity. Mason let a smile break free. “At least we agree on one thing. I’m feeling much better after that respite, and I need to keep busy. I want to work and help out. I feel like I’ve done nothing so far except try out your firm’s medical coverage.”

Gabriel laughed. “Well I know you got the start of a tour. We can continue that and get you set up and prepared for the conference call I expect is coming.”

“That sounds good. Will what’s her name—Hespera—be there?”

Gabriel blinked. “I am not sure. She may be helping out other divisions for the next few weeks. Her status is to go where she’s needed.”

“Okay,” Mason said, standing up and stretching. “Let’s get our bags and get to work.”

O O O

Back inside Solstice headquarters, it was business as usual. The main grove was filled with the typical number of attractive people sipping tea or meditating before starting the day. The calming waterfall and the flapping butterflies, buzzing insects and chirping sparrows all set Mason to ease as he walked through the trees and under the canopy of leaves. He felt rejuvenated, cured from his pains, ready to get to work and do some good.

It felt strangely surreal. For so many years he woke to weather reports, to alerts of meteorological conditions over the Pacific. Now it felt like he was swimming in possibilities to occupy his time. Surely that would all change once he set out to work.

And change came fast. As soon as the elevator doors opened and let him out into the weather research chamber, Victor Nunion was there to meet him. A bandage on his nose and his eyes were bruised.

“Welcome back from the big city. We were concerned to hear of your crash.”

“Could have been worse,” Mason replied, staring up at the giant of a man. Something not right about the guy’s features, like they were molded inappropriately after a failed shape-shifting attempt. Mason shuddered too with the hint of Victor’s breath, which was far from minty. “I could have been inside the U.N. with Mr. Solomon and all the others who weren’t so lucky.”

“Luck comes in strange forms. Or so they say.” His lips moved, mouthing the words, but Mason had the impression Victor was just lip-syncing. Even his eyes were out of focus. Maybe there was a transmitter in his ear and he couldn’t act or speak without taking remote directions.

Victor turned his large back, and led him to the farther exit. “I’ll show you to your office.”

“Oh, I thought I’d be here.…” Mason looked around the great room, his eyes dazzled by all the screens and the wealth of data, the onslaught of visuals. “The Star Chamber” they called it, he found out on this pass, and would have enjoyed staying a little longer, but Victor turned and waved a folder at him.

“No, you can visit here for research any time you want, but really all you need is at your fingertips in your office.”

Through the door, reluctantly leaving the Star Chamber, Mason followed Victor through the black-walled hall and around a corner he hadn’t noticed before. His office was the first door.

“Feels a bit like I’m in a bunker,” he observed before the door opened and he was ushered into what he could only call a magnificent suite. Again, faux windows were displaying projections—set to the Pacific coast seaway, it appeared.

“Scratch that thought,” he added. “Wow.”

“Coffee, refreshments … there’s a room two doors down, or go back up to the grove if you must take the time.”

Lazy white gulls flew in and between the frames of the connected visuals, as the sun rose past the uppermost frame. Mason could actually smell the sea salt, and guessed there was a diffuser somewhere in the room—which on second viewing, wasn’t as big as he first guessed. A lot of play with the features, the angles and the lighting. The desk was sparse and modern, and just a thin-framed but ergonomic chair in front of it. Two wireless speakers and a virtual keyboard/mouse built into the desk in front of a pop-up narrow monitor was all he had to work with. And a bookshelf, with just a few of the classics—Mason guessed, for inspiration. Herodotus, Aristotle, Bacon …

Victor set the folder down on the desk as Mason went to the “windows” and gazed out over the sea. He closed his eyes and imagined himself there. How much did Solomon know? Did Gabriel share this too, that he loved these drives along the coast, and recalled the picnics with the family not far from this very spot?

“It’s all there,” Victor said monotonously, pointing to a file folder. “First page has your passwords and credentials. All self-explanatory, but if you need anything, communication link through the desktop. Dial zero.”

“And ask for room service, I got it.” Mason turned, and his smile faded again as he saw Victor’s unyielding expression.

“The rest,” the big man added, “you’ll figure out. Just get up to speed. There’s a teleconference meeting at eleven. Be ready.”

“Where is it?”

“I’ll come get you.”

With that, and the unspoken command that he wasn’t expected to leave this office until then, Victor was gone.

Leaving Mason to think for a moment and consider his surroundings, his new gig. It felt suddenly lonely, and he almost called out to have him stay another moment. Ask some more mindless questions, but the door slammed and he was left with the gulls and the sea.

And his folder.

After a sigh, he sat down and got to work.

O O O

Two hours and two cups of some sort of proprietary Black Forest coffee later, his head spun with caffeine, Advil and more figures and readings about the Midwest barometric conditions for a time period over forty years ago than he could ever care about. But it was about that time—thirty minutes to go until Victor came for him—that Mason started feeling like he was either being used, or punished. Or maybe he had been given the wrong folder.

There had been a piece of paper in there, different from the others. A blue sheet with a single name on it and a date. Almost as if it had been casually slipped in at the end, as if someone wanted him to read it and look into it, but wanted no one to know where it came from. Mason thought to ask Victor about it, if it was perhaps his first assignment or something, but then he thought maybe that was all part of the informal way they did things around here. A bit like a game, a scavenger hunt.

Or his first test.

In any case, he looked again at the scrolling data on his screen, at all the meteorological data collected from the regional and local weather offices from the time. Cross-referenced, with forecasts overlaid onto each other versus the actual results.

Feeling like an intern, he scrolled through other reports, flipped on satellite imagery, watched the time-stamped Doppler readings from a variety of sources.
Rookie league stuff
, he thought, not having any clue what they expected of him right now, other than maybe boredom. A lull before the storm?

But then he saw it. Or rather, the map showed it once he took leaned back and saw the larger picture. All the anomalous readings superimposed, regardless of the time …

“Holy shit.”

O O O

In two minutes he entered the Star Chamber, and gave a quick look around, making sure Victor wasn’t lurking anywhere, then he went right for the first empty station on the left side of the great sphere. Beside a blonde with straight hair down her back, Mason took a seat.

“May I—?”

The girl smiled broadly at him. “Mr. Grier! Sure, have a seat, how are you?”

“Annabelle, so good to find you here.” Mason set his folder down beside the keyboard, then nervously crossed his arms. “Um, how’s everything? Did you go on that trip with Gabriel?”

She blushed, turning even redder. “Yes,” but she quickly added: “A bunch of us went.”

“The Caribbean, right?”

“Yeah, just sailing. It was nice.”

“I thought it was work-related. Some research?”

Annabelle shrugged. “Always is with Gabriel, but I enjoyed myself. Not too much, mind you but … oh! Is that the first day folder?”

Mason followed her look to the folder. He frowned at her. “Yeah, you got one too?”

She nodded. “Remember it like yesterday.”

Tapping his fingers on the folder, he thought for a moment. “Tell me, did you get something … different in yours? Like a test?”

“Oh we all get a little something personal from Solomon, so I wouldn’t be surprised. Kind of like an individual welcome.”

“Okay. So—did you figure yours out?”

She slowly shook her head, frowning. “No, I don’t think it was that kind of thing. More like a bit of poetry and just some help with my totem.”

“Oh right, the totem. I think I need one.”

“No rush. It’ll come to you, I’m sure.”

“Yeah.” Mason turned and commandeered the station, finding the screen it controlled and calling up the historical meteorological database. “Going to check something. I want to see it on the larger screen, and with more resources.” He glanced around again. “Just making sure I have time.”

“All right then, let’s see what you can do,” said Annabelle, checking the series of clocks on the wall, showing various times around the world.

He moved fast, entering the data, separating the variables, isolating the conditions and the dates and setting the maps, superimposing, and then expanding the view. He stood up, hands on his hips, observing.

Annabelle coughed nervously. “So … this was in your folder?”

Mason nodded, beginning to wonder again if this was some kind of prank. “There … four tornadoes appeared in a single hour at this site in Kansas in 1980.” He thought for a moment. “Most cyclones, in the Midwest especially, travel in unpredictable paths, but afterwards, given the data on wind speed, pressure and other factors, you can at least verify their prior trajectories. But these … they each head steadily from different directions, toward a center location. And then they stop. They swirl and generate massive amounts of torque and energy, and then stand still and finally, after a dramatic pause … they fizzle out.…” He took a stylus and drew on the terminal screen, watching its counterpart appear on the larger screen.

By now, others were taking note. Stopping what they were doing, looking up at the demonstration.

“When I put them on the map all at once, using their last locations as markers …”

“They make a perfect circle,” Annabelle said, leaning back, arms crossed over her chest.

“And if that’s not enough,” Mason pointed out, “there are other anomalous readings all generated around or in this same city in northeast Kansas in the years before this event. I checked back in my office, just to gather some historical data for perspective.” He licked his lips as he projected these one-time forecast event misses in blue on the screen. “I checked, because the data wasn’t in the folder and not part of this research, but for the same period, for different cities in the state or neighboring states, the misses were either very minor, or were so random as to be meaningless.”

Annabelle led him with a question. “So what’s so special about that town?”

“Not the town,” Mason said, looking again at the map. “Montgomery, population thirteen thousand four hundred, isn’t the target. We can go further and narrow it down.”

“Really?”

“Really. If the events make up a perfect circle, then geographically, there’s a center point to that circle. Which in this case, logic would suggest, would be of interest to us if for no other reason than curiosity as to how something so random could create a nonrandom formation.”

Annabelle leaned in. “Let me help you there.” She clicked on her own terminal and called up the satellite Google Earth map of Montgomery, Kansas, then merged Mason’s data over it, enhanced the view and then bisected the circle two ways, finding the center of the crossing lines.

“What’s that?” Mason said, squinting. “Can you enlarge it?”

“Yeah. There you go.”

A forested region, a few power lines and a small lake, but zooming in again … And between the trees … a lone house.

“Why are we looking at a farm in the middle of nowhere? Why is that the center of all this meteorological mayhem?”

Annabelle shrugged. “When was all this data?”

“1980.”

“So there’s you’re next step,” Annabelle said. “I can’t help you anymore, but …” She pointed to the screen. “If it were me, I’d find out who lived there at that time. Find out if they’re still around, talk to them, and then you might have the beginning of an answer.”

Mason frowned, wondering for the moment if maybe she was in on the test—this prank or whatever this was that they wanted him to know about. “What would it matter who lived there? And what do you mean, the beginning of an answer?”