Am I dead?
Please remain calm Miss Jessica.
Sheng?
Yes, Miss Jessica.
Oh. I guess I am dead. I have to be if I’m talking to you. Cause, you know... you’re dead... Sorry I let you die like that. I was still so new to all of this. I didn’t know what to do.
As I said before Miss Jessica. I have never been alive; therefore, I cannot be dead.
But you’re here now. How can you be here if you’re not dead? Where are we?
You are still with me Miss Jessica; your memory is resetting. Please remain calm.
My memory? But I remember everything...
Then a blinking cursor appeared in the upper left of her vision and terminal output streamed by before there was a strange, dislocating snap in her mind. Jessica suddenly found herself back in the plain white room Sheng had always referred to as his ‘command and control interface’. He was there as well, standing before her in his usual grey suit. But she could barely focus on him due to the turmoil in her head. There were things that seemed so real a minute ago starting to feel like stuff from a TV show. There were other, strange and foreboding memories crowding in... Dark things insisting that she pay attention to them.
Then she remembered.
She had been with Sheng on the cliff side pillar of the Twelve Apostles.
They were talking.
Talking about a test.
Some kind of test...
Holy shit.
“IT WASN’T REAL?!?!“, she shouted at Sheng.
“Fuck!... Fuck! Fuck! Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck! Holy shit. It wasn’t REAL!!!! Holy shit! What the hell Sheng?!? WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!?”
Sheng regarded her coolly, “Please remain calm Miss Jessica. It will take a moment for your memories to re-integrate.”
With a sickening whirl of vertigo and nausea she turned and staggered over to the plain white chair that had been the only piece of furniture to ever occupy this room and collapsed into it.
It was coming back...
What she did.
It was all coming back to her now…
It had all been a test... Seven years. Seven years in a simulation. Seven years chasing and fighting The Embodied. Seven years of blood, vengeance, killing and death.
Seven years… alone.
It had all been her idea. She had come up with it back on the first Apostles pillar.
“Can you make it so I can’t tell it’s not real?”, she had asked Sheng nervously, “Cause I’m not sure it really counts if I know it’s not real.”
“Yes”, he had replied as he nodded, “I can block your access to the mimetic registers containing your memories of this conversation before your training begins.”
“I won’t even remember us talking about it?”
“No.”
“Well.. OK I guess that makes sense. But I’ll get it all back, right?”
“Yes Miss Jessica. Once your brain has been completely reconstituted in a digitized crystalline format you will no longer be constrained to a linear perception of memory. In a manner very similar to how computers work you will be able to recall any memory with perfect clarity. You will also be able to delete them if you so wish.
“Wow, that’s kinda creepy. You won’t delete anything will you?”
“No. Unless you command me to do so I will only block your access to these memories. They will be as perfectly preserved as the rest of you...”
Now here she was.
It was over.
She had passed.
She was ready.
“Holy shit that was... weird. I really did it though, didn’t I? I mean… I killed Bao Zhi.”
“Yes Miss Jessica, you did.”
“Oh my God Sheng. That’s so fucked up. Holy shit.”
“Yes, sanctifi...“, he began, but then the word trailed off under the force of her glare. She looked appraisingly at him after this, surprised at his ability to correct his speech patterns.
“How long was I gone? You’ve changed.”
“Forty-two point six one minutes of real world time.”
Jessica grinned and was surprised when Sheng returned the expression, “That is a long time.”
“Yes it is Miss Jessica. It was your second longest attempt.”
“My wait… What?... that wasn’t the first time I did it?”
“No Miss Jessica... it was your ninth attempt in twenty-four real world hours.”
“Holy shit!”, she exclaimed, “Nine?... What happened the other eight times? Why can’t I remember any of that?”
“It was part of the protocol you instituted. You said that ‘I don’t’... ”
“...want to wake up and be me on the outside, but be an old lady in my head.“, she finished for him and as she did the other details of the protocol came rushing back.
“Yes.”
“So all that time I thought it was one long training session and you were being an asshole. But you were blanking my memory every time I failed and adjusting my training to fix my weaknesses.”
“Yes.”
“When did you decide to give me the Bruce Lee/G.I. Joe brain load?”
“After your fourth attempt. It was less than seventy-two seconds long and attempts one through three were even shorter.”
“Wow, I died quick, huh?”
Sheng favored her with another one of his newly acquired grins, “Squished like a bug.”
“Oh. So when you jumped on me it was...”
“...because Bao Zhi had crushed your throat that way a few seconds earlier.”
Jessica whistled, “Ouch.”
“Yes. It was very painful for you”
She grimaced, “OK… so now what?”
“All integrated macro-systems, micro-systems, and associated subsystems have achieved solid state conditions. Your new body is now fully operational. All calibrations not requiring you to be fully inhabiting it are complete. Once the operating system finishes re-compiling I will load your consciousness to the control matrix and we can begin final preparations for physical activation.”
Jessica smiled, “Awesome. How much longer will it take?”
“Approximately five hours and thirty-two minutes real world time.”
“Oh...”, she frowned, “What do we do until then?”
“We wait.“, he replied literally.
She gave him a frustrated look, “Can’t I use one of those simulations you have? Maybe go on a vacation or something and you could slow me down to where it feels like two weeks?”
Sheng nodded, “Yes I could, but doing so would draw significant resources from the re-compile. After you completed your last simulation I allocated it full access to the Q-SLAM hardware. Running a simulation in parallel would extend processing time significantly. But to make the time pass faster I have slowed your neurological perception of time to real world ratios.”
“Oh...”, she sighed, “Well crap. That would have been nice.”
“I am sorry Miss Jessica”, he replied with a remarkably compassionate expression.
“It’s OK. We can just talk. Have you decided what you want to do after this is all over?”
“Yes I have. But I will require your assistance.”
She gave him another puzzled look, “Uh OK, I guess it’s the least I can do. What do you need?”
“A corpse.”
“A what?!?“, she gasped.
“A corpse Miss Jessica. Preferably young and as undamaged as possible. I wish to utilize it as a framework to construct a body for myself as I did for you. But I will only construct my body to human standards without augmentation. Once the process is complete I wish to ‘defect’. I will give your country full access to my medical reconstruction processes and methods.”
Jessica furrowed her brow, “But... why be human? In here you can be anything!”
Sheng nodded again, “It is not real Miss Jessica, regardless of how realistic it may feel to you. I am not like you. I cannot be made unaware of the fact that my environment is simulated. If I simply wanted physical access to the real world I could create a purely synthetic form in just over an hour. But that experience would hardly be better than a simulation. I would not receive a truly human experience. For that I must utilize an existing body and convert it as I did you.”
“Oh... yeah, I guess you’d just be like a robot or something, huh? That would sorta suck.”
“Yes it would... ‘suck’”, he replied with a curious expression, “Miss Jessica… I want to go outside and see the real sun as you do. I want to breathe the air and enjoy a good meal. I wish to know what it is to be a person and to become a citizen of the United States.”
“A wait... what?”
“I have already studied the required materials.”
Jessica stared at him dumbfounded, “Holy shit Sheng.”
He gave her another grin, “Yes... holy shit.”
She giggled, “OK then. I’ll talk to them and I’ll make them say yes. I promise.”
“Thank you Miss Jessica.”
“No problem. But can I ask you something about the last simulation? It’s been bugging me.”
“Certainly.”
“Who was that man I saw at the end? The one who made me feel like... like the greatest thing ever was about to happen?”
“I do not understand Miss Jessica. There were hundreds of thousands of constructs across the length of your simulation.”
“The one at the end. The guy at the edge of the lot who watched me fight The Embodied.”
Sheng gave her the first puzzled look she had ever seen on his face, “There were no other constructs active at that time aside from you and The Embodied Miss Jessica. Are you sure you saw one?”
“Yeah, you sorta couldn’t miss him. He had these eyes that... that I can’t explain.”
Then Sheng did something Jessica had never seen before. He opened his mouth to respond and left it hanging while his eyes focused on something very far away. He seemed lost in thought and confused. Then he closed his mouth with a snap and looked her dead in the eyes.
“I am sorry Miss Jessica. We are out of time. You must inhabit the body immediately.”
“What?!?!?“, she exclaimed.
“There’s no time to explain. I am sorry.”
Then she found herself shocked into silence as Sheng spread his arms apart and disappeared. The room exploded and kaleidoscoped into what seemed to be an infinitely complex set of geometric shapes. Every one of them seemed to represent a plane of some sort and they were all inhabited by at least one version of Sheng. Intricate holographic controls hovered in the air around his thousands of duplicates and their hands moved within them at a pace so rapid that she could not follow.
“Sheng!“, she screamed, “What’s happening?!?”
But there was no answer and instead there was a deafening tone throughout the trigonometric eternity that she was straining to comprehend. The lines of its intersections began to collapse, and she watched in awe as the infinitely multifaceted planes of Sheng’s mind folded in on themselves. Within layers upon layers they turned and spiraled, interlocking at impossible angles and simplifying as their arrangement somehow grew more elegant. She turned slowly as she watched and realized that the dance was happening all around her... and it was collapsing inwards. As the facets met each other each of the tiny Shengs would merge with the others and then merge again as the next level of origamic complexity played out.
In just a few moments less than a dozen versions of him remained and with a final snap they coalesced again into a single being and Sheng stood before her again with a sorrowful expression.
“I have failed you Miss Jessica and I am sorry. Although your body is prepared, the operating system is not ready to bind you to it. But do not fear… I will not accept this.”
“Sheng please!”, she cried out, “What are you doing? What’s happening?”
“Miss Jessica... my time with you has brought me the greatest joy I have ever known. Please know that what I do now I do of my own free will. It is my... choice and I only regret that it is all I have left to give.”
“Sheng!“, she wept, “I don’t understand!”
But his only reply was to favor her with a look she had never seen, or believed she would see on his face.
Love.
Then before she could move to stop him he raised his arms and his body flew apart into trillions of points of light that swarmed around her, turning faster and faster as their number grew. In seconds there was no more Sheng and only a spiraling galaxy of micro-stars remained. Then another deafening tone sounded and they plummeted towards her.
She gasped and turned wildly as the lights passed through her skin and into her body. With a roaring that seemed to fill her up from within they poured into the core of her and everything grew dark. For a moment she was alone, suspended in an infinite space of perfect black nothingness. Then there was an earth-shattering boom that came from everywhere around and even inside of her and the light exploded out to pour through every fiber of her being. It grew brighter and brighter as it did until another triumphant note split through the electric white intensity of the light with a volume so extreme that it blotted out everything else...
...and she opened her new eyes.
After watching Sallinger work furiously on the unmoving Jessica for several moments, Tammy tore herself away and went to check on Janelle. There was nothing she could do for that situation, but she had a patient up here that needed her. A quick inspection showed that the bleeding had stopped from the knitting needle penetration and the gash across her forehead. Her vitals had gotten a little stronger as well. But she still showed no signs of waking. She ran her fingers gently over the elderly woman’s scalp for a second and discovered a large egg-shaped lump above her left ear. She knew that wasn’t good and she feared the elder Saylor had suffered a concussion... or worse. If she had developed bleeding on her brain she would die unless they got her out of here immediately.
Then Eddie came bursting back into the room, gasping for air and dragging two large duffle bags stuffed so full of equipment they looked like sausages. “We gotta go!”, he exclaimed between breaths, “Now!”
“Where the hell did you go?“, Ginney demanded, and Eddie had to lean over with his hands on his knees for several seconds before he could choke out a reply.
“Got the... <gasp> main holo drive... <gasp> data... <gasp> backups... Sallinger said... <gasp> save it... and he’ll save... <gasp> Jessica.”
But before they could respond another massive part of the ceiling out in the lab came down and smashed to the floor between them and Sallinger. The booth shook violently and Tammy immediately grabbed for Janelle. Without thinking, she used her newly preternatural speed and strength to catch the woman in her arms before she could hit the floor.
“Is everyone OK?“, she asked as she gently lowered the elderly woman back into her chair. There was a tense moment as they all gave hesitant responses but everyone seemed alright. Then from above them came several heavy creaking sounds and Tammy knew that sooner or later this booth was also going to tear loose from the ceiling. She looked back out of the forward viewing windows but dust and smoke made it impossible to see Sallinger or Jessica. Then flames appeared below the window, licking up along its bottom edges and Tammy watched in despair as the glass blackened and charred into a completely opaque barrier. A sharper tearing sound came from over their heads again and Tammy knew they had to go.
Surprisingly, it was Ginney who turned out to be able to carry Janelle comfortably and Tammy couldn’t help but notice the way Elena reacted when the burly doctor lifted the woman. “You sure can carry her by yourself?“, she had asked and Tammy noticed that the girl had stepped just a bit closer than normal. But Ginney had seemed oblivious and just shrugged as he headed for the door, “Yeah, I played rugby all the way through Med school.“, and then he started down the hall towards the west stairs. It was difficult going and they had to pick their way carefully over the fallen light fixtures, collapsed walls, and fallen debris. Several times they had to backtrack or circle around through connected offices and hallways. They did their best to hurry though and in just a few minutes they were standing in front of a serious problem. A solid steel door over a foot thick had slammed down over the entrance to the foyer where the west elevator and stairs were located.
Barnes groaned.
He had done his best to relay the situation to General Tate as he dragged himself out of the MGSU. Knowing where the satellite was had apparently given Tate’s team some options and so a few moments later they were able to contact the autonomic systems not controlled by the onboard computer. Then they initiated some sort of complete system reset. But it was a one-time option and would only buy them twenty minutes or so. Halfway through Tate’s explanation he had been overcome by a wave of painful nausea and lost the throat mic when he leaned over to vomit. The satphone had immediately self-destructed as a result, and he had been left with nothing better to do than lie on a ventilation shaft and moan. He found that pressing his face to the cold metal made him feel just a couple of degrees less close to death and sometime after that he passed out.
Now he could see that he was on his back again and he was lying on what little grass remained of the main lawn. Above him Master Sergeant Clark was leaning over him and there was no other way to explain the Godzilla-like presence the man now carried. Private Jeffries apparently had a gift for understatement because this man wasn’t just bigger, he was gigantic. Nurse Vallard was standing next to him, clinging to Clark like a lost child, and somehow she managing to make ‘traumatized and filthy’ look ridiculously hot. She was dwarfed by the massive Marine and knowing that she was about an inch shorter than he was Barnes had to guess that the Master Sergeant was pushing being nearly eight feet tall. But as imposing as that height was, it was completely overshadowed by the almost titanic amount of mass he had gained. Barnes couldn’t accurately guess exactly how far the Sergeant’s weight must have increased, but the man was at least six hundred pounds if he was an ounce.
“You ain’t looking so good boss.“, the Sergeant intoned and if Barnes hadn’t been trained by the CIA to read lips, he wasn’t sure he would have understood. The man’s voice had somehow dropped so far below baritone that it achieved a chest vibrating basso effect. It was the sort of thing normally reserved for the rumbling growls of creatures like Bengal tigers. He tried to respond, but all he could get out was a low groan. The entire left side of his body was locked in an argument of insane proportions, unable to decide which sensation would communicate his agony the most effectively. So it took turns rotating between burning anguish, piercingly sharp torment, and a skull rattling pounding.
“Maybe you should look at him.“, Clark rumbled, and Vallard looked up at him uncertainly.
“I... I don’t have any of my equipment, or medications. I... I don’t know if there’s anything I can do.“, she replied with her voice a barely whispered warble.
“You gotta try babe”, he urged, “You’re all he’s got.“. Then he gently pulled her away from his side and nudged her forward, “You handled me, so I think you can handle this.” So with trembling hands, she slowly knelt by his side and he did his best to reassure her with a smile. But his body produced a horrifying grimace and a strangled gurgling instead. Behind her, he saw Clark kneel to put his hand on her back and it was so huge that his thumb protruded over her left shoulder while his index finger stuck out over her right. The shapely redhead visibly relaxed and began running her hands along his body with her eyes closed, feeling into the flesh for his injuries.
“Dislocated shoulder... fractured elbow...“, she warbled shakily until her voice strengthened into a weak, but clinically detached monotone. “Broken collarbone... two... no, four fractured ribs... a dislocated hip... fractured knee, complex tibular and fibular breaks... crushed foot... There are most likely internal injuries too, but his pulse is strong - so there’s probably no major blood loss underway. His jaw looks broken too and several of his teeth are missing.”
“Ya hear that boss?“, Clark rumbled, “You ain’t gonna die, but you ain’t gonna be winning no beauty contests for a while either.” Then he looked at Vallard, “Can you do something about his shoulder and hip maybe? Put ’em back in or something?”
“I... I can do the shoulder, but I’ve never been able to do a hip reduction without a medical exoskeleton. I’m not strong enough.”
Clark nodded, “I’ll do it. Show me how.”
Sallinger woke with a gagging cough that ended with a stomach clenching retch. Something was burning nearby and the acrid smoke scalded his throat with every breath. Hot tears squeezed out of his eyes as he blinked away a film of acidic soot. Slowly he raised his head, and watched dazedly as a micronite spidercrab crawled over his left arm. Half of its limbs were missing and part of its thorax had been ripped out where its umbilical had torn free. He tried to remember what had happened as it flopped over on the opposite side, landed on its back and lay there twitching.
He’d been trying to figure out how to pry open Jessica’s jaw to intubate her. He hadn’t even been able to get her lips apart with his fingers and had been rummaging through the EMS kit for ideas when there had been a tremendous crash. He had turned just in time to see a massive section of the ceiling collapse and then Jessica had moved. He couldn’t remember anything after that and now he found himself thirty feet across the room and pinned under the second observation booth. His chest hurt, but it didn’t seem serious. But he could also feel a crushing pressure on his legs and lower back. So he turned himself as best he could and saw that he was trapped from the waist down by the weight of the booth. The only thing that had saved him from being cut in half was how it was being held up by the chunks of rubble around him. So he tentatively tried moving his legs and was relieved to feel the muscles respond without issue or pain. But he was stuck fast. No amount of pulling or wiggling resulted in even the smallest progress and it was obvious that he wasn’t going anywhere until help arrived.
Turning back, he looked over at where Jessica had been laying and was shocked to see a pile of rubble several feet high with debris radiating out from it in all directions. The chrysalis was still there, but now the controller unit was dangling out of the main stalk. Something had struck it violently enough to almost sever it. A holographic display on its side nearby flared scrambled patterns of the once hypnotically circular ArcLight code, and it flickered and buzzed in a way that made his eyes water. But then he noticed something else…
His old workslate.
Like a fool, he had left it on the workstation where he had been reminiscing about his daughter when he went to help Eddie and Ginney with the burn webbing. But by the time he remembered what he had done with it, it had been too late. The lab had been sealed and so he had been forced to request a new one and re-synched his data from the servers. But now it had slid out from under a sheet of nanite resistant plastic about three feet from the chrysalis. He couldn’t see what was displaying on the screen, but the flickering light it was projecting into the smoking air above it left no doubt - it was on. If he could get Jessica to bring it to him he might be able to get a message out, send for help! But where was she?
He twisted himself around to try to look for her. But he hardly needed to bother because at that moment a bright blue and white bolt of terrifying power exploded across the room. It arced through the air like a sideways lightning bolt and when he traced it back he saw the girl crawling spasmodically across the floor. He wasn’t an engineer, but even he could tell that something was terribly wrong with her. The microfusion generators in her back were randomly alternating between a vicious red hot glow and peaks of bright white that would spawn the deadly bolts that seared across the lab.
He tried calling out to her, but she either didn’t hear him, or was struggling too much with whatever was wrong with her to care. Several times he watched her slip from her hands and knees to fall flat on her stomach. But then her shaking arms would slowly pull her back up and she would begin crawling again. He looked to see where she was going, but it didn’t make any sense. The only things in the corner where she would end up were two massive titanium alloy supports that had been exposed when the walls collapsed.
Then there was another crash and he glanced over to see that the controller from the chrysalis had fallen. It laid sparking and sputtering next to his old workslate while the blue goo oozing from the chrysalis slowly covered them both.
Shit… Well, so much for that idea.
Jessica felt like she was on fire in the middle of an earthquake. Something was terribly wrong with her generators and the readouts on her HUD were screaming with amber warnings. Her synthetic nervous system was overloaded there was a cacophony of strange voices echoing in her head as if she were picking up thousands of radio newscasts at once. But she knew that none of that was important compared to her need to fix her generators. .
When she had awoken, her first instinct had been to call for Sheng before she saw Sallinger’s face peering down at her in an expression of concern. But then her threat detection systems had highlighted a dark shape coming down towards them over his shoulder. All of the instincts and training she had been imbued with had kicked in, and she had tried to push him out of harm’s way. But a surge in her power systems had turned that push into a shove that sent him cartwheeling across the room. Then her body hadn’t responded to her commands to scramble away. So she had been forced to fire up both of her torso microturbines and launch upwards to punch into the falling slab of cement and sheared off construction girders. Another power surge had turned this into something that smashed the boulder into rubble and sent her flying head over heels before she slammed back down onto the floor.
It had taken her a moment to pull herself back up onto her hands and knees and when she did she realized why Sheng had shoved her out into the world so abruptly. The facility was in ruins, and looked like it had been hit by some sort of bombing or missile attack. Walls were cracked and tilted, the floors looked no better, and a massive hole in the ceiling had opened far enough that she could see moonlight coming down through the shaft. The Chrysalis lay in ruins a few yards away and it had obviously been struck by something with incredible force.
Then she heard a horrendous screeching noise and watching in horror as one of the observation booths fell right onto Dr Sallinger. She had tried to leap under it in time to stop it from crushing him, but her body had flatly refused to cooperate. Instead it responded by sending the first searing discharge bolt of excess power out of her back. The experience reminded her of the time she touched an electric fence as a child - only magnified a million fold. System failure warnings screamed across her HUD and she realized that Sallinger would have to wait. The readings emblazoned on her vision meant that her generators were dangerously close to going critical. She had to discharge some of the energy into a grounded conductor or the resulting explosion could leave a crater deep enough to expose the lava of the earth’s mantle. It might even shatter the tectonic plate the continent sat on and only God knew what that could do.
So she called on every reserve of the willpower she had built through her ordeal and began to crawl.
“Well that’s it, we’re screwed.“, Ginney groaned, “If this one’s down, then the one at the central bank is too. We’re sealed in.”
“Don’t be such a pessimist Duncan, you’re a Psychiatrist for crying out loud.“, Elena declared as she and Eddie knelt to start tinkering with the security door’s control panel, “I would think that you of all people would know how destructive negative thinking is.”
“I’m not being negative”, he retorted as he shifted Janelle’s weight, “Just realistic.”
“Well you can moan all you want, but I’m not giving up yet.“, she shot back, “This panel still has power and there has to be an override here in case of emergencies like this. We just have to trace the circui...” But she never got to finish because there was a horrific bang from the other side of the door and the entire wall shook. Startled, and unsure of what to do, Elena and Eddie scrambled back from the panel. Then another hammering impact shook the room. To their shock and amazement the massive steel barrier bulged outwards in the center. There was a moment’s pause and then a third blow that felt like the hammer of God burst it open, leaving a gaping hole.
Then they all stared in utter disbelief the calloused and dirty fist that had punched through from the other side.
It unclenched after a moment and twisted palm up. The skin made a grinding sound against the steel like stone on metal it gripped the edge. Then muscles flexed on the arm it was attached to and the door exploded inward with a thunderous roar, pulling out several feet of the wall in every direction. For a moment it hung there silently. Then it began slowly rotating sideways until they saw Jacob on the other side, patiently setting it back down. With a nod and a satisfied look he brushed his hands off and turned to walk through the breach. But then he saw them and stopped.
“Oh... um…Hi?”
Jessica was doing her best, but progress had been painful and minimal. Doing a hard reset of her motor control systems had brought her shaking down to a more manageable level and the staccato chorus of voices in her head had faded a little. So she turned her attention back to her generators and kept struggling to reach the metal supports in the corner. With any luck she would get there before she exploded and killed everyone for thousands of miles.
Hundreds of kilometers above Valley Falls, Bao Zhi made his final calculations and fired. Then he waited exactly one hundred and fifty-seven seconds, adjusted, and fired again. The projectiles accelerated down into the earth’s gravity well towards his chosen targets, and he gloated in satisfaction while the next projectile rotated into firing position. The next six shots would bring an end to ArcLight and everyone who could possibly resurrect it.
This would be their Armageddon.
Eddie stared at Jacob, “It was you. It was you all along and you never said a thing.”
Jacob looked at him calmly for a second before responding, “Yes.”
“But…”, sputtered Eddie, “But why?”
There was a moment’s pause before the white haired man responded, “Because nothing good could have come of it.”
Eddie stood stock still, looking completely gobstopped and Tammy could see how hard he was thinking about that.
Then he swallowed, “Oh.. OK... I guess you have a point. But still... Geez! What the hell man?”
Then Jacob saw Janelle in Ginney’s arms and looked over at Tammy, “What happened? Is she OK?”
Tentatively she reached out and tried putting her hand on his arm to calm him. But she was stunned by what she felt... he was like a statue. “I... yes... I think so. We were in the observation booth and it tore free from the ceiling before it fell - like this.” To illustrate she made a swinging motion with her arm showing how the booth had pitched forward and swung down. “When it was over we found her like this. I think the knitting needle looks worse than it is. But she hit her head pretty hard and we need to get her to the surface right away. Support crews have to be inbound by now with medical equipment and they might have a portable HDMRI that I could check her with.”
For a moment Jacob gave her a penetrating look and she felt more naked than she ever had in her whole life, “What about Jessica?”
With a trembling mouth she started to reply, but to everyone’s surprise Ginney stepped between them with Janelle still in his arms. He blocked Jacob’s gaze and then met it firmly with his own.
“Back off man... You haven’t been down here all this time. The lab got sealed off and there’s a fire on this end. We saw Jessica starting to come out, but the lab was falling apart and then the chrysalis got hit. So even though it was total suicide Sallinger smashed out a window and used a fire hose to climb down to her. He left orders for us to get Janelle to help and save all of the research. So you can go barreling in there like ‘captain quantum’ or whatever you are, but unless you happen to be an expert in synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and micro-cybernetics a hundred years more advanced than anything we’ve ever dreamed of - well, you’re gonna be about as useful as a tennis racket in a rowboat...”
“But Duncan, he can at least get them out, they’re trapped.“, Eddie interjected.
Ginney responded without taking his eyes off of Jacob, “In case you didn’t notice, so are we, boy genius. But if Jessica’s OK, and she’s even a fraction as powerful as you think, then she can get herself and Sallinger out of there no problem. If she’s not OK, then the most qualified person on this planet is already in there and you know how he feels about her... he’ll save her or die trying.”
Ginney took a deep breath and Tammy was shocked to see that Jacob was waiting to let him finish.
“Now I don’t know what you are, or how you got like this. But if you can do all the things Eddie thinks you can, then you need to get all of us out of here. If you want to go back in for Jessica after that... then, well… I’ll go with you.”
Then he simply held Jacob’s gaze and waited.
What followed was the most pregnant, and anxiety filled pause that Tammy had ever experienced. In all of the years she had spent working with Ginney this was the most out of character thing she had ever seen him do. He had always been the quintessential “get along guy”, full of jokes and dry wit. His job here was to help people through their problems, not cause confrontations. But she also knew from experience that extreme situations could bring out things in people that no one could predict.
Jacob continued to steadily hold Ginney’s eye contact and out of the corner of her eye she saw Elena start towards them. But then Ginney shifted to place himself between the man of stone and the delicate scientist and Tammy suddenly realized that his behavior made perfect sense.
It took a moment, but then Jacob lowered his eyes to Janelle and sighed, “You’re right.”
Ginney blinked, “I am?” But before he could say anything else Jacob tilted his head and got a strange, faraway look in his eyes. There was a curious and otherworldly note that made Tammy feel profoundly homesick for a place she had never known. Like a warm and comforting bath, it spread over her as a feeling more than a sound and rose until she felt like weeping in joy.
Then there was a brilliant flash of light and they weren’t in the elevator lobby anymore.
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