Tripple Chronicles 1: Eternity Rising (29 page)

“And I will
dive in head first if Luke is still alive and needs my help. We’ve been
partners for eight years. He is my best friend.”

“Then I may
not be willing to help you, Charisa. Don’t get me wrong, I like you…more than I
care to admit right now, but I cannot become involved with this. But I won’t
say anything either. I’ll keep your secret.”

“That’s not
good enough,” she said.

Her response
surprised Andreas.

“I need your
help. I need you to keep being my hero; I can’t do this alone. Please, I’m
begging you.” Charisa knelt down on the floor in front of his chair and grabbed
his hands in hers. She looked up at him with pained eyes.

“Oh…damn…”
he said, clearly unable to tell her ‘no’. “You are going to ruin my life, I can
feel it.”

“Does that
mean you’ll help me?” she asked.

“I’ll think
about it. That’s the best I can do.”

“Thank you,”
she said kissing his hands. “Thank you. Thank you.” She got herself to her feet
and sat in his lap throwing her arms around him.

“So, what do
you plan to do first?” Andreas asked with a combination of defeat and
propensity in his voice.

“First, I
need to find that nurse,” Charisa said. “Surely she will remember Luke not
being dead during the chaos. He was helping her take care of you.”

“I guess I
can ask about her when I go back to the unit hospital to get my leg checked on
Wednesday.”

“Perfect.
I’ll try to send Luke a coded message through the Major. I will tell him that
the work he gave me from his ‘outside programmer’ needs a revision, so he’ll
have to take it back to Luke. I’m also working on hacking into his personal
files.”

“Charisa, it
really sounds like a long shot and I don’t feel comfortable with any of this.”

“And you
think I do? What if that biomachine had shot you higher up than your leg? You
might be dead right now. I might be dead right now. You asked me that day if I
could fix this…well, this is me fixing it.”

Andreas
could feel Charisa’s hands quivering and he held her close, resting his chin on
the top of her head as she leaned against his chest. He felt like he needed to
be alone and think.

“It’s
getting late. I should go,” Andreas said to her.

“Please
stay,” she said with a wavering voice.

Andreas sat
up and lifted her face in his hands to look at her. He was caught way off guard
with her request and she could see his confusion.

“I don’t
know if that’s appropriate, especially with you going through such an emotional
time right now,” he said.

“I know,
Andreas, you want to be a gentlemen and I want you to be, too. I think you
misunderstood. I’m not ready to be intimate with you…it’s just that…” She
looked embarrassed all of a sudden. “I’m afraid to be here alone.”

The look on
her face and the change of tone in her voice grabbed his sympathy and suddenly
two things clicked in his mind; one, how close the major had been standing next
to her in her office that morning, and two, Charisa’s insistence that the major
had threatened her before he’d walked in and she had broken down.

“What
exactly did Major Magner threaten you with?”

Charisa
folded her arms protectively around herself, bit her bottom lip, and shook her
head. She looked like she might start crying again.

“Okay, okay,
you don’t have to tell me. I’ll stay…on the couch if you’d like.”

“Thank you,”
she whispered.

They stared
at each other in silence hoping that the awkwardness of the moment would pass.
Then, Andreas said, “I’ve gotta be honest here, I’ve wanted to know you like
this for a long time, and I’ve imagined what our first date might be like. I
knew you were complicated, but this…this is just beyond absurd. I don’t even
know what to think about all this. This is not how I …”

Charisa
pressed her finger against his lips, then leaned in and kissed him.

Early the
next morning, Camden and Aldretti made their way up to the thirteenth floor to
make another attempt at soliciting Rhys’s help. Camden had his folder of
drawings under his arm and smiled with a self-concocted optimism.
 
Even Aldretti seemed mildly interested
in what the outcome of today’s meeting might be. They walked down the stone
corridor to Rhys’s room and peered in the window. Camden’s optimism was fueled
by what he saw. Rhys was sitting loosely strapped to a table, and drawing.
Every few seconds, he would lift his head up, look around, and make odd motions
with his hands, like he was explaining something. He was talking nonstop. Terry
was sitting on the floor in the corner of the room reading a book and Rita was
sitting cross-legged on the bed looking at a computer. Rhys was clearly talking
to himself.

Approaching
footsteps echoed through the corridor drawing Camden’s attention away from the
window. He sighed and his good feeling waned when he saw Ganesh and Quinn walking
toward him followed by Mace Magner.

“Good
morning Camden, Aldretti,” Ganesh said.

“Good
morning, Gentlemen,” Camden answered. He only glared at Mace who returned an
evil smile, knowing that his presence made Camden’s skin crawl.

“What’s he
doing here?” Camden asked Ganesh.

“I thought
I’d come see how things with the lunatic are progressing. So I can give a
thorough update to General Pike,” Mace answered before Ganesh could speak.

“I thought
that Quinn was reporting to the general.”

“Okay, you
caught me. I just came to watch your utter failure at trying to reason with a
madman. Thought it might brighten my day.”

“So glad you
made it,” Camden snapped.

Aldretti
stood at attention next to Camden, hoping that the major would acknowledge him,
but he did not. Camden returned his focus to the window and Rhys. He tapped it
with his finger to get Rita’s attention. She looked up, smiled when she saw him
and came to the door to let him in.

“What’s he
doing?” Camden asked her.

She walked
out of the room and closed the door behind her.

“It started
very early this morning. I was shocked when he asked for paper. It’s been three
years since he wanted to draw. But he’s been at it for almost six hours now.”

“Interesting,”
Quinn said. “Don’t you think that is more than a coincidence, Professor Riles?”

“Let’s hope
so,” Camden said.

“Ha! You are
all idiots. A crazy person draws a picture with crayons and you are ready to
break out the champagne,” Mace said.

“Hold your
tongue, Mace,” Ganesh said and held up his hand to his face.

“Can I go
in?” Camden asked Rita.

“Um, yes,
but, just you today. He’s sensitive to crowds and with this new
task,
I don’t want to upset him. Poor thing has been sedated
enough lately.”

“Understood.
I will be as brief as I can,” Camden said and walked in the room with her. Mace
pushed himself to the window until Ganesh calmly tapped his shoulder and asked
him to step back. Mace grudgingly obliged to his superior.

Camden
approached the babbling madman with cautious respect. He pulled his drawing out
of the folder and squatted down beside Rhys’s chair. Before he spoke, he tried
to get a good look at the drawings Rhys had been working on for six hours.
Camden’s hopeful expression sank into disappointment, as he saw nothing but
random scribbling on his pages.

“Damn. It’s
nothing,” he said, then held his picture up to Rhys’s line of sight. “Good
morning, Rhys, it’s me again, Camden Riles. I really would like you to look at
this drawing. Can you tell me anything about it? Yesterday you said it was ‘all
wrong’. Do you remember?”

Rhys
continued his self-indulgent drawing and rambling but acted like he did not see
Camden. Maybe he didn’t. Camden continued to try and get his attention, but it
was useless. Rhys was in his own world and obviously did not want to be disturbed.

“The angle
is thirty-seven degrees, rotate it over forty-two, then the monsters can have
it. They will come at night and want blood, obviously the forty-five is
useless…” Rhys rambled.

After a half
hour of wasted effort, Camden stood up and put his sketch away. Rita shrugged
and mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ as he let himself out.

“I’ll come
back tomorrow,” Camden said. Rita nodded and Terry looked up from his book and
waved. In the hall, the other four men that had been waiting were engaged in a
forced conversation led by Quinn, of course. The hatred in the air was thick
enough to feel, but they all remained civil.

“Let’s go,”
Camden said. “I got nothing.”

“What was he
drawing?” Ganesh asked.

“Childish
scribbles.
Nothing coherent or recognizable.
If he
decided to draw after I showed him my blueprint yesterday, it’s probably
because of suggested mimicry.

“That’s a
damn shame, Camden. You’ll try again tomorrow,” Ganesh said. “Let’s go get some
work done, you’ll figure out this space travel thing without him.”

“Your
confidence in me is astounding. I hope you’re not too disappointed when I
fail.”

“You better
not fail!” Mace said, interrupting the two. “General Pike is counting on this
to happen.”

“Major. You
are dismissed,” Ganesh ordered. Mace gave a weak salute and walked away.

I have more important things to do anyway,
Mace thought as he headed to the lifts. It was time he paid his daily visit to
Luke to collect his work from the previous day to take to Charisa.
 
He smiled when he thought of how she
would squirm when he walked into her office.

Early the
next morning, before dawn, after another long and exhausting night of
transferring biomachines to their secret room in the empty wing of the TRU
Building, Mace, Luke, and General Pike all rested in their respective offices.
Their mission was going off without a hitch so far and Phase Two activations
were on schedule in the training area without further incident. General Pike
felt confident that the heads of government were not going to shut him down. In
fact, he was laying down the groundwork for an isolated test drop of two of the
Phase One
units on Tyrinian
territory…a town on the outskirts known for coordinating small attack missions.
He would keep his plan secret from the director and the regent until the mission
was complete and successful. For now, though, he would put his feet up and
catch an hour or two of sleep before the sun came up.

Mace was the
first of the three night workers to wake and he went directly to Luke’s room,
knowing he would make him a good cup of coffee. Mace slammed the door open and
turned the lights on, causing Luke to wake with a jump.

“What time
is it? Man, I feel like I’ve only been asleep for five minutes.”

“Get up,
Luke. Did you fix the programming Charisa sent back?”

“Not since I
last saw you. I’ll need some time to look it over. I’m not a machine, you
know.”

Luke walked
clumsily to his coffee machine and started a fresh pot. Mace sat down at his
desk and waited.

“So you
really have no idea why Charisa sent this work back to you? I thought you were
the smart one.”

“I am…I
mean, we both are, but everyone makes mistakes…especially in extreme
conditions.”

Mace raised
his eyebrows and Luke continued.

“You know,
like being forced out of your home without prior notice to be locked away from
everything and everyone…for a top secret project that you don’t know the
details about.”

“You are
such a crybaby, Luke. Just fix the damn thing.”

Luke
automatically brought the major a cup of coffee. It was his habit to make two
cups, since he’d been making Charisa’s coffee for years.

A little
later, Camden met with Rhys again. This time, Ganesh and Quinn came into the
room with him and stood by the door. Aldretti, as usual, waited in the hall
after exchanging a shy smile with Rita. She told them that Rhys had been quiet
so far today, but somewhat responsive. She encouraged Camden and seemed to have
not given up on Rhys’s chances to get better. Terry, on the other hand, clearly
saw himself as nothing more than a babysitter. He had been cordial to the daily
visitors so far, but showed no interest in what they were trying to
accomplish.
 
Rhys was sitting at
the table, staring blankly at the wall. When Camden walked toward him, Rhys’s
eyes shifted to look at him. Sheets of paper with colored scribbles covered the
tabletop and Camden, once again, examined them.
 

“Cam, show
him your picture again,” Ganesh offered.

“It’s wrong.
All wrong. It can’t work like this!” Rhys screamed at the drawing Camden held
and snatched it out of his hand. He then grabbed a pencil and started
scribbling over parts of the drawing.

“Wait! What
are you doing?” Camden reached for his drawing. Rhys held it over his head and
away from Camden.

“That
doesn’t go there!” he yelled, pointing at his scribble. “Do it again! Make it
look like mine. This is the one that works, only this one. See…thirty-seven
degrees rotates over forty-two. It needs the fluctuation…for the warp.” He held
up one of his own drawings that had looked like no more than scribbles moments
ago. But now, Camden tilted his head and looked a little closer. He recognized
a basic underlying structure to his art.

“You’re
right, Rhys,” Camden said. “Do you mind if I take yours with me, so I can do
mine over?”

Rhys looked
at Camden and seemed to be considering giving him the paper. Then as sudden as
two days before, he started yanking at his restraints and convulsing.

“Then the
monsters come! You’re the killer! The killer. Get me out!”

Camden,
again, backed away quickly and Quinn ducked in from out of nowhere and quickly
grabbed the two drawings that Rhys had released. Rita and Terry ran over to
calm Rhys who continued to scream at Camden.

“It’s okay,”
Terry said to them. “Just go. We’ll get him calm.”

“If he says
anything else, we’ll call,” Rita added.

Ganesh
nodded to them as he closed the door. Camden was already comparing Rhys’s
scribbles to his schematic as they walked to the elevators.

“That was
quite the speedy recovery in there, Quinn,” Ganesh said.

“Oh, yeah.
Didn’t I tell you that I’m a runner?” Quinn answered with a grin.

“Hmph,”
Ganesh said.

“I’ve got to
take a closer look at these,” Camden said when they exited the elevator. He was
completely pre-occupied with the papers in his hands.

“Ganesh,
I’ll be in my room,” he added and left the group. Aldretti had to put a skip in
his step to catch up.

That night,
Andreas knocked on Charisa’s door just after dark. She answered, still in her
work clothes and looking a little tired. She smiled at her hero and reached out
for his hand as he came in. He kissed her on the cheek and sat down at her
kitchen table.

“So what did
you find out?” she started.

“Something
rather interesting,” he replied. “When I went in to the hospital today for my
follow up, I inquired about our mysterious nurse. I told the administrator that
I wanted to thank her in person for attending to me, but I didn’t know her
name.”

“Uh huh.”

“So, she let
me look through the directory and I couldn’t find her.”

“And you are
sure you remember what she looked like?”

“Yes. Don’t
you? Short black hair, blue eyes, tall, skinny.”

“Yes, I
remember. She was quite lovely,” Charisa said with a hint of jealousy in her
voice.

“Trust me,
she is not in the directory.”

“That
is
interesting. And with Luke on the
casualty list… What could it all mean?”

“I don’t
know. I’m wondering that myself. Were you able to access Major Magner’s
personal files?”

“Yes, most
of them, but there was nothing that stuck out. If he is hiding something, he is
keeping it somewhere else. But, I did find something today that I think you’ll
find interesting.” Charisa said, opening a small portable computer. Andreas
looked at the page full of programming language in front of him, and then
looked back at Charisa.

“What am I
looking at?” he asked.

“Here,”
Charisa said pointing at a section of the work. “It’s a message. In programming
language it means nothing, so I ran it through a pattern detection program, and
it is an encrypted message…from Luke.”

“Whoa! Are
you serious? What does it say?”

“It says.
‘Working. Top Secret. Magner. Sorry. Cannot Call’.”

“That’s
amazing! So, you were right about him,” Andreas said and grabbed her hand in
his. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before.”

“I forgive
you. But now that we know what we know, what do we do about it?”

“Well, his
message doesn’t sound like he is in any danger. Maybe we shouldn’t do
anything,” Andreas said.

“The world
thinks he’s dead. I doubt he volunteered for such a project. Luke enjoys his
social life too much to choose that kind of position. I think he’s in trouble,
even if he doesn’t know it.”

“So, what do
you want to do?” Andreas asked.

“I don’t
know. I guess we should just keep our eyes and ears open for anything out of
the ordinary, for now. I bet he is somewhere in TRU, if Major Magner sees him
everyday. I can hack the system for the building plans and see if we can narrow
down the places he might be. You should keep looking for that nurse. I bet she
knows something,” Charisa said. Andreas just smiled at her.

“Come
on.
 
Let’s go sit outside. It’s a
beautiful night,” he said, not wanting to talk anymore about conspiracies that
were probably nothing more than Charisa’s imagination. Maybe Luke did want to
be involved with a top-secret project, even if he could not convince Charisa of
that tonight, but he would stay with her again if she asked.