Tripple Chronicles 1: Eternity Rising (27 page)

Mace was
right about Charisa. It had been almost a week and she had not spoken a word to
anyone about Luke. People walking by her office often heard sobs and nose
blowing through the door. She was working extra long hours to try to make up
for the loss of her partner and had managed to make enough signal amplifiers
for about half of the Phase One biomachine controls. She hoped they would solve
the defiant behavior, demonstrated by the biomachines, long enough for her to
take on Luke’s project of creating a self-destruct feature in the Phase Three
and above weapons.

Meanwhile, a
careful operation had been arranged for the Phase Two biomachines. A programmer
would activate the unit, then a handler would take over, guiding it to the
newly built tunnel leading to the outer facility that had been hastily
constructed under Colonel Cline’s guidance. It was a primitive structure, just
a large pit surrounded by giant
stone walls
around the
ground level perimeter. Once a biomachine was a quarter of the way through the
tunnel and completely out of sight, the next one would be activated. It was an
isolated assembly line all the way to their individual stone stalls. Soldiers
armed with smaller biomer guns were placed at each turn to ensure that the
weapons kept a certain distance from one another, and more soldiers waited by
the stalls to apply the restraints and clear the handler to return for another
unit. The walk back through the tunnel was nerve-wracking for the handlers as
they would pass at least three biomachines head on in their parade to be locked
up. And even though the biomachines had never acted alone in an attack, the
handlers did not trust them, and feared the work they had to do.

Mace Magner,
who had since been present
for every activation
, was
scarcely seen during this process and it raised suspicion with the entire team.
Colonels Talper and Cline, however, were a constant presence in the process and
even though they ranked higher than Major Magner, they did not instill the same
level of urgency and fear into the soldiers and handlers. Still, the
biomachines were being activated and secured at an impeccable rate and while the
team wondered about Major Magner, no one missed his fowl attitude.

In his
office, Mace Magner woke up from a quick nap at his desk when his phone rang.

“
ello
?” he answered.

“Mace, check
on the programmer, Luke’s partner. Rumor has it, she hasn’t turned in anything
productive since last week…when you dealt with her.”

Click.
 
Mace sat up and stretched his arms over
his head.

“So now,
Pike is keeping up with the gossip on the training floor…great,” he said to
himself. Little did he know, Charisa had been extremely productive in spite of
losing Luke, just not with her ‘official’
assignment.
She was doing everything in her power to prevent further death on her watch.

Mace took
the elevator down to the atrium and passed through the secure doors to the
weaponry unit. The blinds were drawn on the windows of Charisa and Luke’s
office. Charisa had put a sign on the door that said ‘available only for
emergencies’. Mace let out a short guffaw and reached for the doorknob. It was
locked. Mace leaned his head against the door and in a singsong voice said,

 
“Charisa…Sweetheart…let me in.”

Inside,
Charisa’s body clenched at the sound of his voice. She opened the blinds before
unlocking the door. This made Mace laugh as he barged in.

“What’s
this? All of a sudden you don’t want your privacy?” he asked with a beastly
tone in his voice. Charisa grabbed all of the courage she had, stood up tall
and looked him in the eye.

“What do you
want,
Major
?” she asked through pursed lips and
clenched teeth.

She braced
herself with one hand on her desk because the sight of him made her knees
shake.

Mace moved
in closer and put his hand on top of hers, drawing circles on her wrist with
his finger.

“It seems,”
he said, “That the general feels you aren’t performing your job at a
satisfactory level.”

Charisa’s
body stiffened.

“It has been
a difficult week, sir. I will work on it,” she said with a weak, shaky voice.

“Of course,
I can come and check on your progress as often as…oh…two or three times a day
if I need to.”

“That won’t
be necessary, Major,” she answered and moved her hand to her side. “I can
handle my job. Please tell the general that the Phase Three programming will
happen on schedule…even without Luke’s help.”

“So you must
be planning on spending long hours here, and less time at home?” Mace was just
taunting her now.

“I don’t
know where I’ll be working, could be home, could be here, could be somewhere
else,” Charisa said, in a weak attempt at making herself enigmatic.

“That’s
okay,” Mace said, “Wherever you are, I’m gonna keep a close eye on you.
Besides, we have hired a new programmer to take over Luke’s work. He will work
remotely, but you’ll get the code on a daily basis. In fact…” Mace pulled a
small storage device from his pants pocket. “Here is the first code for you to
adapt.”

Charisa
didn’t move for the device so Mace moved closer to her and slid it into the
back pocket of her pants. She held her breath, frozen with fear when there was
a knock at her open door.

Mace
immediately jumped back from Charisa and she let out a small sigh of relief
when she saw Andreas, the wounded soldier that had saved her life.

“Hi…oh…
Major
.” He saluted when he saw Mace. “If I’m interrupting I
can come back.”

“No!”
Charisa almost shouted. “Please come in, I’ve been meaning to contact you…to
see how you were healing.”

Mace gave
her an evil smirk then turned to Andreas.

“Are you on
duty today, Soldier?” Mace asked.

“No, sir. I
am not cleared for duty until tomorrow. Sir.”

“Then what
are you doing here?” Mace asked.

“I just came
to tell you that I am cleared for duty tomorrow. Sir,” he said with a
redundancy that made Mace roll his eyes. “And to check on this young lady.”
Andreas added with a smile for Charisa.

“Well, make
it quick…the young lady is very busy,” Mace said and walked out of Charisa’s office
bumping Andreas in the shoulder as he left.

“Oh, thank
God!” she said and grabbed her desk as she fell into her chair.

“Are you
okay?” Andreas asked.

“No…I am
anything but okay,” Charisa said and started to cry, wishing Andreas was not
seeing her in such a state. He knelt in front of her with such a concern in his
eyes that she threw her arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder.
Andreas, being a gentleman, kicked the door shut with his foot and reached up
to the window with his right arm to close the blinds and let Charisa finish her
meltdown while maintaining some dignity.

“Thank you
for the shoulder. You are kind of my hero, you know? That’s the second time
you’ve rescued me in a week,” Charisa said to Andreas after her eyes had dried.

“I don’t
know about that, I know the major can be tough to work for, but I hardly think
you need rescuing from him,” Andreas said with modesty.

“You have no
idea,” Charisa answered. “How is your leg? I wanted to come see you, but this
week has been about as much as I can bear. I was trying to pull it together
before I saw you again. I guess that didn’t happen.”

“My leg is
fine. And I’d gladly risk another bullet if it meant keeping you safe,” he
gushed, making Charisa turn a little pink in the face.

“Hey,
where’s Luke?” Andreas asked.

“Oh, you
haven’t heard,” she said with a quiver in her voice. “Luke is dead.”

“No, that
can’t be right,” Andreas answered right back. “I mean, I saw his name on the
soldier’s list of casualties from the chaos last week, but he was up here with
you and me, and that nurse…who, by the way, I never saw again in the hospital
wing. I just assumed it was a mistake, unless something happened down here
after you two came back.”

“It happened
at his home,” she said. “The major said it was a
suici
…
.wait
…are you sure his name was on that list?”

“Yeah, I
just saw it.”

“That
doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Does anyone know that you were up here with
us during the chaos?”

“I doubt it.
You remember how crazy that day was.”

Charisa sat
quietly for a couple of minutes staring at the code on her computer. Then she
looked back over to her calm and heroic soldier.

“Andreas,”
she said, “I don’t want to sound forward, but would you like to come to my
house for dinner tonight?”

Now, it was
Andreas who turned color in the face.

“I would
very much like that,” he said.

Charisa
scribbled her address on a small piece of paper and handed it to him.

“Is 7:00
okay?”

“Perfect,”
he said. They smiled at each other until an awkward silence seemed to creep in
the room.

“I,
um…should go now and let you get back to your work,” he said. “I’ll see you
tonight.”

“Bye,”
Charisa said.

Charisa
turned back to her computer and plugged in the storage device that Mace Magner
had given her earlier. She studied the programming code, line by line, until
she found what she was looking for. She gasped and clapped both hands over her
mouth. This was Luke’s work. She knew it without a doubt.

Upstairs, in
the new simplified space travel division of the TRU Building, Camden and Ganesh
sat staring at a drawing board that was filled with equations and drawings.

“I have a
plan,” Ganesh whispered to Camden. It was one of the rare moments of the day
when Quinn wasn’t closely shadowing him. Camden pursed his lips and listened.

“I am going
to contact someone who will take Mace Magner out of the equation and help us
bring down the weapons program.”

“You mean an
assassin?” Camden asked.

“She has
many titles. You know I don’t enjoy ending a life, no matter how useless, but
if it comes to it…”

“How will
that help me?”

“Always
thinking of yourself…”

“So then
your plan doesn’t really involve helping my situation.”

“Well, let
me tell you, if we don’t bring down the weapons program, we are all going to
die. And that definitely concerns you,” Ganesh said.

Camden
lifted his eyebrows to indicate he was paying attention and Ganesh continued.

“General
Pike and Major Magner seem to be on some sort of power high, but it’s not real.
I’ve seen the footage of those beasts they are trying to train. If they are
unleashed…not one of us stands a chance. So get over your pity party, Cam, and
work with me, dammit.” His face turned a shade of red when he spoke.

“Fine,
fine,” Camden said, hoping to calm Ganesh by submitting. “What do you need me
to do?”

“That’s um…a
little sensitive…but she, I mean, the operative, is a member of a very special
unit of the military. She doesn’t exist on paper. Best there is…and it was me
who first recognized her talent. Plucked her out on her first day of basic
recruitment training.” Ganesh was clearly bragging and wavering from his point.
“She’s like a daughter to me.”

Camden
sighed with frustration and returned to the equation he was working with.

“Are you
sure you want to bring in someone so close?” Camden asked.

“She’s the
best and I trust her,” Ganesh replied. “And we need the best.”

“Fine,”
Camden said again. “You contact…
er
”

“Maeve,
Maeve Daire,” Ganesh finished Camden’s sentence with awe in his voice.

“Ok, well
keep me updated on your progress, old friend,” Camden said dismissively. He had
clearly not yet forgiven Ganesh for his current situation.

“Eh-hem…of
course…as much as I am able to,” Ganesh said and scrunched his forehead.

“Is there
something else?” Camden asked when Ganesh didn’t excuse himself from the
conversation.

“Yes. There
is,” Ganesh answered awkwardly.

“Well, what
is it?
 
I’m busy trying to
rationally defy the laws of physics here.”

“It’s just
that a job like this presents a significant financial burden.”

“Ahh, I
see,” said Camden, putting down his pencil and looking up from his work again
as he understood Ganesh’s intention. “My financial transactions are being
monitored, as you well know. How significant are we talking here?”

“Three
million should cover it,” Ganesh said quickly, embarrassed by his own words.

“Three
million!” Camden said too loud, causing the two to look around and see if
Aldretti, Quinn, or anyone else in the room had heard.

“Three
million?” Camden whispered. “That’s one expensive prostitute, or assassin, or
whatever the hell she is.”

Just then,
Quinn came walking over with a goofy grin on his face.

“Later,”
Ganesh said with finality in his voice, and walked away.

Camden ran
his fingers through his hair and tried to shake the shocked expression from his
face before he returned to his light speed and human frailty equation. It was
not enough for him to have mastered the laws of physics, now his only official
task was to try and contradict them. And unofficially, he was being asked to
pay for a hit on a Major. It was Camden’s ultimate prison. Meanwhile, Ganesh
left the room with Quinn at his heels.

An hour
later, Ganesh returned with the news that Rhys Krell had arrived. He was
strapped to a bed in one of the thirteenth floor interrogation rooms and was
being weaned off his medication so he could meet with Camden, who smiled and
took a deep breath. He was looking forward to meeting with Rhys. He’d known him
several years ago, before he went nuts. Rhys was so normal back then that his
current condition sort of fascinated Camden. What could have possibly driven him
to such madness?
 
Part of his
fascination stemmed from his own battle with madness after Rosa died. Camden
felt on several occasions that he would just lose it, give in to the darkness
inside him and never come back. Of course, that’s when he started spending time
with Lee Tripple, who wasn’t exactly one for encouraging sanity. If he was able
to hold onto his rationality after that, what could have happened to Rhys, that
he did not?