Tripple Chronicles 1: Eternity Rising (22 page)

Bearden met
Dana in the main lab to get her weekly shopping list and left feeling a little
lighter than when he arrived. He returned an hour later and Dana followed him
back to the lab’s kitchen on a pair of homemade crutches that she put together
from bits and pieces of old furniture and metal that she found in the storage
rooms.

“Still can’t
walk on your own?” Bearden asked.

“Not yet, my
knee twisted pretty badly and there was a crack in my kneecap. Did you know
that Lee has a scanning machine and a surgical room?”

“Really? I
guess you never know what you’re going to find when you open the locked doors
in here.”

“If he
wanted us to know then they wouldn’t be locked,” Dana said and Bearden made a
face at her.

“Are you
ever gonna tell me how you got hurt?”

“Don’t think
so,” Dana said.

“You know, I
think Lee is starting to trust me,” Bearden said as he unpacked some fruit.

“Well that
seems foolish,” Dana said. “What makes you think that?”

“Oh, no.
You’ll get no more information out of me, Little Miss Nosey.”

“We’ll see,”
she grinned.

Dana
unpacked a sack of groceries and pulled out a small box of brown hair dye.

“What’s
this?” she asked.

“Yeah, that.
I know it’s not on your list, but I thought since you’re still pretty banged up
from the thing that you won’t tell me about, and since I don’t believe that you
willingly cut and dyed your hair blond, that you’d start to feel more like your
old self if you could look like your old self.”

“You did?”
Dana asked. She looked like she might cry for a second and Bearden smiled.
                 

“Hey, wait a
minute. Are you trying to get on my good side, so I’ll tell you things that are
not your business?” she asked.

“What? No. I
just thought it would cheer you up. It’s gotta be lonely in here.”

“But…you
don’t even like me. And I don’t like you.”

Bearden
grinned.

“That’s
true, but we do work together and Lee has just asked me for my help on another
project so chances are, I’ll be here more often. Maybe we should try to at
least be civil.”

“What’s the
project?” Dana asked.

“Tell me
what’s behind those dividers in the main lab,” Bearden replied.

“Not a
chance.”

“Well, then
have a nice week, Miss Hanks,” Bearden said and left.

Dana smiled
to herself, holding her hair dye. When Bearden was out of sight, she finished
putting things away, then rushed back into the main lab to check on the embryos
in their little tubes.

At the
government housing section of the TRU Building, Camden got out of the shower
and dragged a towel over his ruffled, wet hair when there was a knock at his
door. Ignoring whomever it was, he rolled his eyes and longed for his lost
privacy. They knocked again.

“Give me a
moment,” Camden called out and slipped into his robe; one of the comfort items
he had requested be brought into his new government home. He took his time
finishing his after shower grooming rituals, got dressed and went to the door.
Ganesh and his lapdog, Quinn, stood there with eager expressions on their
faces, though Ganesh looked tired.

“Gentlemen,
what can I do for you this evening?” Camden asked. His manners had slowly begun
to return as he adjusted little by little to his predicament.

“Camden,
mind if we come in?” Ganesh asked. Camden made an inviting motion with his hand
and the two walked in.

“I like what
you’ve done with the place, Professor,” Quinn said. “You’ve really brought some
class.”

Camden gave
him a fake smile and offered them chairs around the small dining table.

“Samuel, I
was just about to pour myself a nightcap. Can I offer you one?”

“No, no. We
won’t be here long,” Ganesh replied.

“I’d love
one, Professor,” Quinn said with a grin. Ganesh immediately smacked him in the
back of the head.

“We’re both
just fine,” Ganesh said. Camden seemed a little amused by this and poured the
young sergeant a drink. Ganesh threw his hands up and made a disapproving clicking
sound with his tongue.

“Don’t be so
uptight, Ganesh. This boy does have to put up with you all day, every day.”

Quinn smiled
at Camden and raised his glass.

“Hmph.
Unbelievable,” Ganesh said. Camden was now smiling; obviously enjoying the
small grief he caused his old friend. Any punishment he could inflict, no
matter how small, was worth it.

“The general
is pleased with your simplified space travel proposal, Cam,” Ganesh started.

“I assumed
he would be.”

“He wants to
know how long before your theories will be ready for practical testing.”

“If we start
with modifications to existing shuttles, it will go much faster than starting
with a new build,” Cam replied.

“But, what
are the drawbacks with that plan?”

“Adaptability,
of course, and since you are running active shuttle missions, I assume we will
have to use the retired shuttles. That means you run the usual risks of dealing
with an older machine.”

“The general
is not one for doing things half-assed, Camden, and you know that. I also know
why this is your first choice,” Ganesh said. Camden didn’t say anything for a
moment.

Quinn, who
was taking his usual notes, took advantage of the pause in conversation to sip
Camden’s fine scotch.

“It’s no
secret that I want to go home, Ganesh, but there are upsides to working with
this plan, too,” Camden finally said.

“Which are?”

“If we start
by making the technology adaptable, not only will you be able to build larger,
newer ships that can be lived upon in a few years, but your entire fleet can be
converted, making mining and exploring missions more efficient…ten fold.”

“Hmmm.”

“If you
build from scratch, you will lose time and resource in the long run, as
conversions will double as trials for the technology.”

“I see your
argument, Cam, but can you give me a reasonable time frame that I can to take
to the general?”

Camden let
out a slightly crazed laugh.

“No…these
are theories, I’m not even sure where to begin in building a functional
space-bending flight mechanism,” he said. Ganesh threw his arms up again,
looking a little defeated.

“You’ve got
to at least try, Camden.”

Camden took
a long drink from his glass, then ran his fingers through his damp hair.

“Do you know
of the engineer, Krell?” Camden asked.

“You mean
Rhys Krell? The murderer? Isn’t he crazy?”

“Well, now,
that depends on your definition of crazy. If you think being an
obsessive-compulsive psychopath who sometimes goes on killing sprees is crazy,
then yes, he’s crazy. But if you take into consideration that he might be the
only man on the planet with the ability to come up with a design to turn my
ridiculous theories into reality, then no…he’s not crazy at all.”

“Dammit,
Cam! This is not going to be easy, getting a man like that out of lock-up, if
it’s even possible at all. If we bring Rhys Krell here,
I’m
going to end up responsible for the loony. Is he even lucid?”

“I hear he
has his moments,” Camden replied. “If he’s unstrapped from his table more
often, I’m sure he’d do great.” Camden quickly brought his glass to his lips
and raised his eyebrows. Quinn laughed out loud, not being able to help
himself. Ganesh reached over and grabbed Quinn’s glass and took a gulp.

“I will see
what I can do about this Rhys Krell, but you’d better keep working on a back up
plan,” Ganesh said and stood up. Quinn followed his lead and the two men left.

“See you
tomorrow, old friend,” Camden called after them with a vengeful grin on his
face. Rhys Krell would make Ganesh’s life a living hell, but Camden had not
lied about him. If anyone could build a physics-defying machine, it was Rhys.

A few
minutes after Ganesh and Quinn left, Camden pulled out some paper and started
making sketches. He drew a prototype, made notes, then scratched over it and
crumpled the paper. He repeated this drawing, scratching, and crumpling for the
next three hours, so that wads of paper surrounded his chair. His eyes grew red
and strained, but he kept working, all for the sake of his freedom. Finally, he
managed to produce an idea that he felt worthy of avoiding his scribbles and
crumpling. “Maybe…” he said to himself. Camden put the single sketch in a
folder that he left on the table and went to bed.

Since the
morning Maeve Daire met Ganesh in his kitchen, she decided to make herself
unavailable for any new assignments, in case he needed her. He was the closest
thing she had to a family and he came first. Anyway, she had been in the
assassin spy game long enough that she could call her own shots. The respect
she owned hadn’t come easily.
 
She’d been a puppet for a lot of men for a long time, but once it was
clear that she was the top requested agent in her line of work, she decided to
stop taking other people’s shit. Maeve did only the jobs she wanted to and
charged a fortune. She got away with it probably, mostly out of fear. The last
man who tried to push her around ended up missing, with his bank accounts
drained. Not a shred of evidence pointed to Maeve, but no one pursued the case
either. Lately, she had taken a series of assignments to discover and eliminate
Tyrinian spies who had infiltrated the government.

Maeve always
prided herself on her ability to not develop personal feelings about her
targets or their causes, but her last assignment had changed her…or maybe it
was just Naja. After seventeen years of working in her field, she was surprised
by her feelings, which came out of nowhere. It happened one night over dinner
about three weeks into the assignment. Maeve had been playing the part of
adoring girlfriend to Naja Pinure, a high-ranking government official, so she
could hack his personal files while he slept. The sex was better than with most
of her targets and she didn’t get the disgusted shiver that usually ran through
her body afterward. Normally, very hot showers and very hard liquor drowned the
feeling and calmed the shiver, but with Naja, she felt fine, contented even. It
frightened her, because the peacefulness she was experiencing in his gentle
arms was brand new. But that night at dinner, he opened up to her in a way no
target ever had. He was honest with her about who he was, and for the first
time in her life, she wanted to be honest with him too. That would have to wait
though, until she was finished with her investigation and his time came for
elimination, when all of her targets learned her truth. She usually struck when
they were naked, drunk, and vulnerable. It proved to be the method that
required the least exertion from Maeve, although she’d had her share of hand to
hand combat. She preferred not being hit, cut, or shot at if she could help it,
because her appearance was her best weapon and scars were disarming. They led
to questions that made her less desirable and efficient.

From that
night until the end of the assignment, the topics of their conversations had
turned to Tyrine and the uprising. Maeve listened with sincerity as he spoke
with a passion about the repression of his people and the damage to the
region’s infrastructure that Maeve’s
sgovernment
had
caused for years on end. Now, with a few strong leaders in place and the
strategic infiltration almost complete, the Tyrinians were ready to make their
move. Maeve began to sympathize with Tyrine and tried as hard as she could to
put all of it out of her mind. She had always been above the politics, living
off the grid and forming no opinions of the government’s policies and actions.
It was easier to do her job that way. She didn’t care about what was right or
wrong…until Naja.

Naja was
like no one she had ever known. He loved her with a pureness that held no
judgment. He was dedicated to a point of foolishness about helping the people
of Tyrine escape their oppression, no matter the cost. She found that beautiful
about him, even letting herself get caught up in it at times. But it was always
in her mind, knowing that his pure love would turn to disgust if he knew
who
she really was, what she had done, and what she was
meant to do to him.
 
Sure, shame
and even guilt, were a part of the job, but she had never before truly hated
herself for
who
she was. Now, with him, she
experienced self-loathing for the first time ever. It started one night after
an exquisitely passionate session of lovemaking. Naja was sleeping soundly with
a smile on his face. Maeve sat beside him curled up in his soft cream-colored
sheets staring at his sweet face. She noticed the teardrops on the pillow
before she even realized she was crying. The date had been set for his life to
be over. She had been with him now for four months and he only had a week left,
longer than originally intended. She had been dragging out the assignment and
her employer was getting impatient. The longer he was alive, the more
information was being delivered to the leaders of the Tyrinian uprising.

Naja had
trusted Maeve so completely that she even crossed the border with him to do his
informant duties to the Tyrinians. She was impressed with the information he
was able to gather undetected and without the training she had. He told them
that the immediate threat to Tyrine was some sort of new weapon made from a
type of indestructible rock from Myris.
 
This small piece of intelligence led the Tyrinians to move their date of
attack up sooner than six months, ready or not. They had no choice and would
stand no chance if the new weapons were deployed against them. After that
meeting, Maeve did some digging of her own, which is when she found Ganesh on
the government watch lists. She, too, became frightened of these machines. The
more she learned, the more she understood that they had the potential to
completely alter the known way of life for everyone on the planet. She had been
able to learn, in just a few days, more about the weapons than Naja had
discovered in months. She wished she could share it with him, but as she sat
there on his bed with her long blond hair falling over her shoulders and
stroking his hair, she was glad she didn’t. His life would be over soon and she
was not willing to reveal herself and jeopardize the last couple of days of
being with him in pure bliss. It was her most selfish act.
 
She made up her mind that after her
assignment was over, she would deliver the information she had collected to
Naja’s contact herself. She was a much better spy than he was anyway. Maeve got
out of bed and forfeiting sleep, spent the remainder of the night wrapping up
the information retrieval on Naja’s traitorous activities. This gave her a
clear mind and one week of loving him as honestly as she was able to. It was
the best week of her life.