Haywire (18 page)

Alex shifted his eyes over Ritchie’s shoulder. Sitting inside Alicia’s glass-walled office was a young man with olive colored skin, short dark hair, and a suit that was nicely tailored without being too flashy. He pressed an ice pack against the back of his skull, and he leaned over in a chair like he was trying not to be sick. He seemed so small in the office, like it was swallowing him up.

Alex had been in the office only once before, but as he entered it for the second time he was glad to see it had changed since then. The first time he’d been there it had been a cold, sterile space, with few pictures or personal items to break up the perfectly positioned computer and office supplies. Now there were a couple of potted plants, a large framed photo of the two of them next to a recent picture of her son, and a toy Titan Alex had given her on their second date. The office seemed warmer now, more inviting.

Alicia had been much the same. When he’d met her soon after arriving on Callisto, she had come across as aloof – frankly, she’d been an icy bitch – but when they sat in her office and he asked about the picture of a young boy on the table behind her desk, her eyes had lit up and a glow warmed her face, turning her into an entirely different person. As she spoke about her son, all the walls she’d had up before went down, and the person he saw behind them was beautiful and amazing and caring. Never in his life had he gone from disliking someone to falling for them in so short a time. Now, months later, he was in love, and he hoped she felt the same way.

As strong as his love was, he knew it wouldn’t help him resolve the current situation. It could, in fact, easily work against him, so he took his feelings and put them in a box, which he then locked and pushed into the back of his mind where he couldn’t see it. He needed to be objective and rational if he wanted to have any hope of saving Alicia and her son.

“
Mr. Beddor, how are you?” he asked as he walked into the office.

“
I was attacked,” Beddor replied. “How do you I think I am?”

There weren’t any marks on the man’s tawny skin, and his suit barely looked ruffled. Were it not for the sheen of sweat glistening on his face, the ice pack, and a slight tremor in his hands, Beddor would have looked like any other office worker. Alex wondered just what definition of the word ‘attacked’ the assistant was using.

“
I imagine not well. What can you tell me, Mr. Beddor?”

Joseph grunted as he straightened up in his chair and put the icepack on the desk next to him in precise motions. “I’m not exactly sure. It… it doesn’t make any sense.”

Alex choked back a sigh. He hated having to drag information out of people. The fact that Alicia’s life might well be on the line only added to his impatience. Letting his anger get the better of him wouldn’t help, though, so he clamped down on it and said, “These sorts of things rarely do, at first. Just start from the beginning and we’ll see where we are when you’re done.”

The assistant nodded and began to talk. He told them about meeting Alicia at the dock when the delivery truck came in, and about being sent off to handle other things while she oversaw the unloading of the new acquisitions. He said that after an hour went by without hearing more, he called her but didn’t get a response, so he then went looking for her. Despite his stuffy demeanor, the concern on his face as he spoke was genuine, and Alex warmed up to him a bit.

“
And that’s when I saw them,” Beddor said.

Alex leaned forward. “Them who?”

“
Two… well, they looked more like vagrants than bonded delivery men. I recognized their uniforms from their cargo truck. I didn’t think anything of it at first. I mean, the lower level is where the items were supposed to be taken to be unboxed and scanned into inventory. But, they weren’t in the storage room. They were a couple of corridors away, and no one else was with them. I was attempting to find out what they were doing when Dr. Campbell appeared.”

The way Beddor said that last word made Alex think of a magician waving his hands in the air. “Appeared?”

“
Yes, appeared. One moment I’m questioning two men, and the next moment the wall behind them slides apart like… well, like the doors to a lift. I’ve been down to that area dozens of times, Agent, and I can tell you with all certainly that I’ve never seen any hint of a lift before. So far as I know, no one has.”

The hair on the back of Alex’s neck stood up. “Show me.”

Beddor nodded and rose from his chair, but then a nauseous expression turned his face green. He closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, then put the icepack back to his skull and walked out of the office without complaint. Alex warmed up to him a little more.

“
What happened after that?” Alex asked as they walked.

“
After that it’s… a bit of a blur. I saw Dr. Campbell and her son standing in the elevator opening. In front of them was a man in a delivery uniform. Behind them was a... tall woman. Very tall. She had on some kind of… silver spacesuit. It looked like it was made of metal, almost like armor.”

Alex hadn’t expected that word to enter the conversation. “Armor? Like what soldiers wear?”

“
Somewhat, yes. And… No, that’s... that wouldn’t be right.”

“
What’s not right?” Alex asked.

“
It sounds insane.”

“
This whole thing is insane, so just say it.”

“
I… As I said, it’s all a blur, but… the woman with Dr. Campbell looked like a Titan.”

Alex’s feet stumbled as his mental gears slipped. “A Titan? As in created-a-hundred-years-ago-and-were-never-heard-from-again Titan?”

Alicia’s assistant nodded, but he didn’t seem any more convinced than Alex was. “I can’t believe I’m saying that either, Agent. Perhaps I’ve worked in this museum too long and they’re embedded in my psyche.”

Beddor lapsed into silence, but Alex needed to keep the assistant’s memory active, no matter how strange things were. “That’s fine. Go on, please.”

As the three of them entered a freight elevator, Beddor hit a button for the lower levels. “Well, as soon as the doors opened, the man in the lift lunged toward me and put a gun to my head. There was a lot of shouting, a lot of threatening, and I was dragged backward like some sort of human shield. I… I thought my life was forfeit, so I did the only thing I could think of – I pulled away and dove for an alarm.”

Alex looked at Beddor with new found admiration. The guy didn’t look like much, but he had more steel in his backbone than most people. Making a move like that took guts. If only it had been enough to save the situation and get Alicia out of danger.

“
What happened after that?”

The elevator doors opened, and Alex led them down a corridor. “I don’t really know. All I remember is that strange tall woman coming at me as shots rang out. She was like a… a spear hurtling through the air, so fast I barely saw her move. After that I think the excitement got to be too much for me, and I’m embarrassed to say I passed out. Where my attackers or Dr. Campbell went after that... I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

As much as Alex wanted to be angry, he couldn’t. From the sound of it, Beddor had done all he could. “Is this hidden elevator you talked about close?”

“
It’s right around here,” Alex replied, pointing toward a hallway that turned to the left.

As they rounded the corner, Alex didn’t see anything unusual. The corridor was long and industrial gray. But, as they drew toward the end he saw burn marks and gouges in the walls and ceiling. To his eye they looked like weapon impacts. A small war had been waged here. The idea that Alicia had been standing in the middle of it sent shivers up his spine.

“
This is it,” Beddor said as they stopped, gesturing at a blank wall. There was a door on the wall back the way they’d come, and another door further down, but the area where they stood was featureless. He then pointed at a large red button embedded in the opposing wall a few meters down. “That’s the alarm I hit.”

Alex turned toward Lieutenant Ritchie, who stared at the wall with him. “Do you see something I’m not, Lieutenant?”

Ritchie leaned forward, his black face centimeters from the wall as he looked it over from top to bottom. He rapped his knuckles against it, but the knocking sounded solid. When he rose back up it was with a shaking head. “Nope. It looks like a wall and sounds like a wall. Without scanning equipment I don’t think we’ll get much out of it.”

“
Then it’s a good thing I come prepared.” Alex reached into a pocket of his biosuit and withdrew a device about the size of his hand. After activating it, he held it toward the wall and said, “Isabel, you getting anything?”

“
Unfortunately not, Alex.” The digital assistant’s voice was small and tinny as it came through a speaker on the device. “I’m not registering anything at all. And that… is odd. I should be able to sense the wall at the very least. It’s as though you’re not standing in front of anything.”

“
And what does that mean?”

“
It means there’s some sort of suppression effect in place,” Isabel replied.

“
Suppression?” Alex could feel his brow furrowing above his eyes.

“
Yes. It seems there is a military grade sensor suppresser embedded in the wall in front of you. It’s a subtle one, too. Were we not actively scanning it I wouldn’t have known the field was even there.”

“
Are we talking about a generated field?” Alex asked. “It’s powered?”

“
No, this is a physical system, part of the building materials themselves. Alliance and Union governments use it to passively block out remote scans of safe houses and other covert locations.”

“
Is she saying the military put this here?” Lieutenant Ritchie asked.

“
No, Lieutenant,” Isabel replied. “There isn’t enough data to know who put it there. I’ve found no records of it in any of the historical archives I have access to.”

“
Typical governmental secrecy BS,” Ritchie grumbled as he settled back on his heels and hooked his thumbs on his belt.

Alex ignored him and said, “This doesn’t make any sense. How do you build a museum and not know something like this is here?”

“
This isn’t part of the museum construction,” Beddor replied. “Most of that work was done on the surface. These lower areas were part of the original facilities Dr. Groesbeck oversaw construction of over a century ago. There was a bit of damage that had to be repaired back the way we came, but this section was sound and left relatively as is.”

“
So, let me get this straight,” Alex said. “Are you two suggesting Dr. Groesbeck put it here without anyone knowing?”

Beddor opened his mouth, but then closed it and shrugged his shoulders in the universal ‘I have no idea so don’t ask’ gesture.

“
I’m not suggesting anything, Alex,” Isabel replied. “I’m only saying that suppression fields like these are meant to keep sensors away from something in such a way that the sensors don’t know they’re being blocked. From what we know of Dr. Groesbeck, putting such a thing in place would certainly be in keeping with his paranoid personality. He also had access to the funds it would require, as well as the suppliers.”

She had a point, and Alex knew he was wasting time standing around debating a point that – at the moment – was irrelevant. “Okay. So, there’s a doorway here we can’t see or detect, but that we have to open and find out where it goes. More importantly, we need to know if someone is down there. How do we do that?”

“
Alex,” Isabel said, “if you will place the scanner closer to the wall, I’ll attempt to do a more intensive scan.”

Alex took a step forward and did as he was asked. The scanner beeped and buzzed in his hand for nearly a minute before a light along the top of it turned green.

“
Find something?” he asked.

“
Yes. I’ve found a faint trace of nanites.”

Feeling like he was falling further and further down the rabbit hole, Alex said, “What sort of nanites? Are we talking… Titan nanites?”

“
Without bringing them to a lab it’s impossible to tell,” Isabel replied.

“
Okay, but what does that tell us?”

“
It tells us that the elevator most likely responds only to commands delivered via a physical connection. If you would put the scanner against the wall I might be able to use them.”

Alex did as he was told, and a moment later everyone gasped as the wall parted to reveal an empty elevator car.

“
Nicely done, Isabel,” Alex said.

“
All I had to do was pass a current through them. The lift functions normally from the inside.”

“
Can you tell us what’s going on at the bottom?”

“
No. The suppression field blocks everything beyond where you’re standing.”

Alex turned to face Joseph and Lieutenant Ritchie. “I need you two to head back topside. Mr. Beddor, I need you to fill out a written statement of everything you’ve told me, plus whatever else comes to you. Lieutenant, the witnesses we’ve got on-site need to be interviewed quickly. I’ve got to know who or what they saw, and I need it now. While you’re doing that, I’m going to see what’s down below. We’ll probably lose contact once I drop down. Isabel, send a message to the Assistant Director’s office letting them know where we are in the investigation. If I’m not back in twenty minutes, call for the cavalry.”

“
Agent, it isn’t my place to say it,” Ritchie said, squaring his shoulders, “but that’s crazy. You shouldn’t go down there alone. God only knows who or what might be down there waiting. I should go with you.”