Overture (Earth Song) (50 page)

Billy
pulled their truck up outside the dome and jumped down. The first truck was almost unloaded and several men quickly trotted over to examine the load.

Mindy
was riding with the load and she was unlocking cargo straps. “This is going to be tricky.” she warned him. “I mean the weights have to be close, I just don’t see how we can get everyone through quickly enough not to get caught.”

“
We can’t take everything,” Billy said, “We just have to do the best we can. The adults can stagger through carrying as much as possible.”

Mindy
nodded. “The women will have to carry a case or two and have more thrown after them. Only the children will have to use the case relay we talked about.”

“
What about all the stuff piling up on the other side?” Billy asked.

“
First person through will shout to get the attention of the personnel in Ft. Eden and they will come to help.”

“
Just like that?”

“
Yep. It’s like walking into a top secret base and wandering around unchallenged. Once your inside, everyone figures you’re supposed to be there.”

Billy
nodded his head in understanding and agreement. “Just like the warehouse. We just showed up and loaded the trucks.”

“
I was surprised, too. I’d wanted to go with the first truck so I could flash my ID. Forgot all about it until they were already through.”

“
Our government in action,” Billy said with a shake of his head.

“
You take charge of getting this stuff offloaded and moved inside,” she said and headed toward the Portal Dome.

“
Where you going, wife?”

“
I’m going to go in and try to dial home, hubby.”

“
Aren’t they going to be suspicious?”

“
Look around you; they don’t have time for suspicion.”

Mindy
strode away from the wide concrete staging area and toward the dome. The guards had been watching them work but like the rest of those charged with protecting the area they were only casually interested in what was happening. They only perked up as Mindy walked toward them.

“
Can we help you, ma’am?” one of them asked.

“
I’m on the team,” she said and flashed the ID that Leo Skinner had given her. The men seemed surprised but stood aside to let her through. “I will be overseeing the first of the equipment transfers.”

“
Is it true we’re all going to another dimension?”

“
You could say that,” she said and stepped inside.

Nothing
was changed from the previous day with the exception that the dome was now deserted. All the technicians and scientists were nowhere in sight. “Better than I could have hoped for,” she laughed and headed straight for the glowing Portal dais. As she climbed to the top step, the holographic Portal sprang to life and she was back where she left off. “Okay, here we go.”

Mindy
didn’t know how long she had been working before she realized there was someone else in the dome with her. She turned and wiped sweat from her brow to see who it was. “We were afraid you had run away,” Leo Skinner said.

“
Where is there to run to?” She asked and turned back to her work.

“
That’s what I told Hipstitch to shut him up. I figured you had taken advantage of the lapse of security to go see your new husband and would then be back. And look at this, here you are.”

“
Here I am,” she said absentmindedly. He watched her work for several minutes. The translation for the ten new symbols was indelibly etched in her mind, but that didn’t mean she had the instructions to reprogram the Portal. How did the damn woman manage this?

“
How did you figure this out so fast?”

“
I didn’t, it was Harold. He had the translation in his laptop when they murdered him.”

“
If he had just told someone, things might have happened differently.”

“
I don’t believe that for a moment.”

“
You think you’re close?”

“
Hard to tell, it’s hit or miss at this stage,” she said, “and you’re making it harder.”

“
Sorry,” Leo apologized and fell silent.

Time
again became fluid as she worked; deeply submerged in the music of the new language she was learning. After a time, she again became aware of voices and turned her head. Her husband and Leo were engaged in an animated conversation that had become loud enough to interfere with her thought train. With effort, she tuned them out and got back to her task.

The
Portal only afforded a minute to look at the symbols before shutting down, forcing her to log in again. It was slow, frustrating work. She’d quickly decided against working off images in her computer to complete the sequence. She needed to be standing there with it in front of her, just like the woman did. That made it more real. After a time, it all seemed to fall into place like tumblers in a lock.

With
a certain amount of confidence, she reached out and tapped one of the symbols before they all disappeared. The entire Portal flashed and the same display that the old woman had used to sweep her hand across appeared. The conversation behind her suddenly ceased as Leo gasped in amazement. Taking a deep breath, she held contact against the holographic surface and swept her hand to another point, purple light trailing her fingers all the way. With a silent prayer, she removed her hand. The Portal flashed green and remained active. For the first time, it didn’t disappear after a minute.

“
My God, you bloody did it!”  Leo yelled and ran up the Portal steps to stand next to her. “Is it fixed?”

“
I can’t be sure. It looks like there are ten possible destinations. This is the only one that made sense in the translation.”

“
Do you think it might be the right location?” Leo asked.

“
Could be, I started at the point that translates as ‘beginning’ and finished where the woman originally started. It makes sense, I guess. I just dialed backwards.”

“
Well, we need another volunteer,” said Leo, rubbing his hands together.

“
I’ll volunteer,” a man said from the doorway. It was one of Mindy’s friends from the Portal Project and Leo recognized him right away. She held her breath as he looked at the man but he only nodded and said that would be fine.

The
man quickly moved to the Portal and Mindy pointed to a big stack of backpacks and equipment that Billy’s cops had moved in. “If you would take several of those with you; they all contain equipment that I’m sure we’ll need.” The man nodded his head and began picking up as many of the packs as he could and moving them in front of the still glowing Portal.

For
the first time, Leo noticed all the equipment and more being moved in every moment. His face registered his surprise at the same time he saw all the people outside unloading trucks. “Maybe we should get a soldier in here,” Leo said suddenly looking confused.

“
No time for that,” Mindy said, almost too quickly. “I mean, if this isn’t the destination we’ll need to keep trying until we get it right. You bring in that general and he’ll drive us crazy every time we’re wrong.”

“
You have a point. Okay, young man, go ahead.” The man turned his head and gave Mindy a covert wink before shouldering as many packs as he could and staggering through the Portal. It flashed purple and the man was suddenly standing in the twilight of Ft. Eden on Bellatrix.

“
Yes!” Leo said and pumped his fist in the air. “I’ll go call Hipstitch and get the show on the road!”

“
You do that,” Mindy said with a glint in her eye. On the other side of the Portal, the man dropped his bags and turned around. Seeing Mindy he gave her a huge smile and a thumbs up. Behind him she could see a pair of tired and dirty soldiers running toward him, waving and smiling. In the background was a wooden palisade, like they used to use in Old West frontier forts. Mindy tossed duffle bags until one bounced off the Portal, then she settled back to wait. She had a second to wonder why the men greeting her volunteer had several bloody bandages on their limbs before the Portal swirled and went blank. Mindy turned to her husband and smirked at the awed look on his face. “You act like you’ve never seen someone travel to another planet before.”

“
Right, I guess I do. What now?”

“
Now we get to work,” she said and headed for the doorway. “Hipstitch is in his command center, the old NYC disaster bunker. With the city in chaos, he’ll probably take several hours to get here.”

“
We won’t be done by then, will we?”

“
No, that’s why your men have to help hold him off.”

“
We can’t hold off an armored attack,” said Billy with authority.

“
You won’t have to. Hipstitch isn’t expecting to have to fight his way in. He’ll probably show up in cars or Humvees. By the way, what were you and Leo arguing about while I was working on the Portal?”

“
How much of an asshole he is.” She turned her head to give him a dark look. “I’ve been married to you a week and we’ve only slept in the same bed once, and he’s largely responsible for that.”

“
He was working under the same orders as the rest of us.”

“
If you really believe that, then I’m disappointed in you.” She gave him another dark look and opened her mouth to say something but they’d reached the staging area outside and everyone was crowding around them.

“
Did you do it?” asked one of her friends.

“
Bet your ass she did,” Billy said and gave her a squeeze. She was still upset at his attitude, but everyone was cheering and the men guarding the Portal Dome jumped in surprise.

“
Time to get to work,” Mindy said. ‘Let’s start moving all the crates highlighted with a green band.”

“
Hey, what are those kids doing in that truck?” yelled one of the soldiers standing guard next to the Portal Dome entrance. Mindy turned from the man to where he was pointing just in time to see a couple small heads duck out of sight.

“
Damn it,” she cursed, “I was hoping to get most of the first wave of gear in and the kids across before they figured out what we were up to.”

“
No problem,” the big black cop said and got the attention of two other officers. “We’ll find out!” he yelled to the soldiers who had just begun coming in their direction. The soldier stopped and nodded as the cops went to the truck and climbed up inside.

Mindy
was close enough to hear the loving words of the officers speaking to their children, encouraging them to keep their heads down. As they left the trucks, the kids stayed down while their parents headed for the guards.

“
What are they going to do?” Mindy asked, remembering how her husband dealt with the rape gang.

“
What has to be done,” her husband said and watched them go. “They’re all from SWAT; they’ll handle it okay.” Mindy held her breath as the three men casually strolled over to the two soldiers. They spoke in hushed tones for a second, then one of the soldiers yelled and clawed at the assault rifle slung over his shoulder. All three police officers pulled their guns with practiced moves. The soldiers froze before they could ready their weapons.

The
cops held their guns steadily and waited for the soldiers to make their move. First one, then the other let his rifle slide to the ground. The cops retrieved the weapons but never took their aim from the soldiers. In a minute, the soldiers were bound with plastic stripper cuffs hand and foot. They were carried to a nearby office and locked inside.

“
Okay,” Mindy said when the drama was over, “let’s get rolling. The green marked cases inside as fast as we can, please!”

The
work went quickly and soon the dome was home to piles of green marked boxes, crates and bags. When they were ready, she mounted the Portal and turned to the assembled people. The last crate was stacked and everyone was inside now. The dome was as crammed as she had ever seen it, with more than a hundred souls packed ear to ear. Once all eyes were looking at her she stepped backwards, up to the top of the dais. The Portal archway hologram popped into existence causing gasps of surprise.

Mindy
could see the full range of human emotions among the people. The fear and confusion of the police officers, the lack of comprehension by the children, and the sparkle of excitement from those who knew what the device was. She cleared her throat and began.

“
This is a portal to another world,” she said. There was a single strangled sound almost like a laugh that quickly ended. “It landed here many months ago and the government has been studying it ever since. The other side of that swirling portal is many light years away on a planet in the Bellatrix star system, Gamma Orionis. We know this because there are already a dozen people there, busy working to make a place for us to live.