Dragonflies: Shadow of Drones (5 page)

8

Tye knocked on the door to Raina’s second floor apartment again and waited.

Still no answer–where could she be? The rental van was still in the parking lot. He seriously doubted she’d gone anywhere on foot. It had barely been an hour since she’d dropped him off at the Wal-Mart.

He shifted the bag of groceries from one hand to another and took out the spare key she’d given him. They’d agreed to exchange keys on the off chance, as part of the job, one might need to get into the other’s temporary apartment. They’d also agreed he would come by her apartment to go over things after picking up the food at store. He knocked one last time just to be sure.

Turning the key in the lock, he had the funny feeling he was opening more than just a door. Just a little while before they’d been celebrating their success at penetrating Nathan Kurn’s office, at opening a potential new chapter in their lives, fraught with risk and reward. Over the past few days, he was beginning to notice a new side to Raina, a truer confidence, a freer spirit. Was it because of the MAVs? Because she was flying again? Raina was also incredibly efficient and thorough at her job. Reliable as the day was long–she could multi-task with the best of them. Why hadn’t she called him if she was planning to go out somewhere? It wasn’t like her. He smelled trouble.

He pushed on the heavy door and let it swing open.

“Raina?”

Nothing.

“Raina, you here?”

The soldier in him peered warily through the doorway. From inside the small apartment, the refrigerator motor purred. He caught a faint whiff of something antiseptic and vaguely familiar. For some reason, it made him think of Raina’s artificial foot. In the time they’d been working together Tye had been careful to be as casual as possible about it. He instinctively knew she was self-conscious about her disability, and he didn’t want to force her into a conversation to address it; he wanted to give her whatever time and space she felt like she needed.

But maybe that was a mistake. Had she fallen or been hurt?

“Raina?” He stepped into the living room. To one side was a desk with a computer on it; the computer and screen were turned off. Opposite the window stood a small couch with its cushions in disarray. That didn’t seem like Raina.

He checked the kitchen and bedroom for any sign of her, but found nothing. Back in the living room, his eyes came to rest on the desk again. A pile of aviation books and software manuals lay beside the computer monitor. Between the books and the monitor he found the keys to the rental car, but that wasn’t all. With the keys was the cell phone she’d been using. Raina knew they needed to be in constant contact. Next to her jacket Raina’s handgun also still hung securely in its holster from a peg on the wall. What could have caused her to leave the apartment without at least the phone? Maybe she just needed a break after the stress of flying the MAV into the building and had gone outside to sit on the lawn or something.

He stepped back across the threshold and looked down at the sidewalk, but he saw no sign of Raina. Their van was the only car in the narrow parking lot at the moment, and a tall hedge blocked any view beyond. He walked down to the end of the balcony where he could get a better look at a patch of grass and a small pond that abutted the apartment complex. The grass was empty and the pond was still. On the other side of the pond, through a stand of pine trees, traffic flowed along a lightly traveled Boulevard.

“Huh,” he muttered to himself.

Back in the apartment, he stood in the living room looking around.

Maybe he was worried over nothing. Maybe his new partner was a closet smoker and had snuck off, forgetting her keys, into some outdoor cubby hole down the way to enjoy a puff; she would be back, embarrassed, in a couple of minutes. But in the few weeks they’d been working together, he’d spotted no sign of such a habit.

His gaze came to rest on a thin strip of sticky paper that looked like it had torn off and fallen between the couch cushions. He reached down to pick it up.

Sticky to the touch, it looked like a piece of a label that been torn on one edge. But the typed wording was still readable:
Diisopropylpheno
.

Tye had no idea what the word meant. But it sounded like a scientific name. Was it some kind of medication? Maybe Raina was dosing herself for pain–she wouldn’t be the first vet addict to come down the pike. There was that faint antiseptic smell again. Could something have gone wrong? Could she have accidentally OD’d and wondered off down the complex or into the woods? He shuddered to think of the possibilities.

But something didn’t add up. Why had her door been closed and locked tight when he arrived? Her keys still lay on the desk. That meant someone else besides Tye had a key.

He sat down at the desk, pulled out his smartphone, and opened up a search engine, carefully typing in the letters from the label. It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for. Only one letter was missing.
Diisopropylphenol
–more often known as Propofol, a common general anesthetic agent.

He turned and looked over the couch cushions again, seeing in his mind what must have happened. The faint leftover smell wasn’t from the drug. He’d smelled it often enough–it was from the alcohol rub swiped over the skin in preparation for an injection. Maybe someone careful and well trained had drugged Raina. Maybe they’d opened the box containing the medication, begun the injection, and she had struggled for a moment, which was when the piece of label was knocked free.

Was Raina all right? Was the mission blown?

9

Raina awoke to near darkness. She was lying on a narrow cot in a small, dimly lit room. Above her was a concrete, bunker-like ceiling, and on every side painted concrete walls with no windows. Her body still felt stiff and heavy, her throat as dry as parchment. She felt her wrists. Her hands no longer seemed to be cuffed.

“Glad to see you’re awake, CWO Sanchez.”

She turned her head slightly to see a handsome, dark-haired man in expensive looking clothes–tailored khakis, oxford shirt, and stylish sweater–standing over her.

“How do you feel?”

“Like someone hit me over the head with a fence post. What is this? Who are you?”

“My name is Lance Murnell, special advisor to Homeland Security.”

“Homeland?” She massaged her forehead, still feeling a little woozy.

“That’s correct.”

“Since when is DHS into abduction?”

“Uh…yeah. Sorry about that. It wasn’t my call.”

“Got anything to drink in this place?” She felt like she was about to die of thirst.

“Sure.” He reached toward a table behind him and came back with a Styrofoam cup filled with ice chips, which he held out to her.

She took the cup from him, put it to her lips, and began to suck on a mouthful of ice.

“Take it easy. You don’t want to induce vomiting.”

“What are you, a doctor?”

“Not a medical one, no.”

She looked him up and down. He could have easily posed for the cover of
GQ
. Not that she ever paid too close attention to such things. He seemed like a nice guy, too–nicer than the kidnapper cyborg-types who’d stuck a needle in her vein anyway, although that wasn’t saying much.

“Why am I here?”

Murnell smiled. “You get right to the bottom line, don’t you? That’s one of the reasons we picked you.”

“Picked me? Picked me for what?” She already had a new job and a stark righteous mission with Tye Palmer, thank you very much, she also wanted to say, but figured she better keep quiet about that. Maybe they already knew.

“It’s for a new type of technology I’m about to show you, if you’re up to it. A program I think will be of great interest to you.”

“Oh, yeah? Why all the secrecy? What’s it for, repelling alien invaders or something?”

He smiled again. “Not exactly.” This really was one seriously good-looking dude. Raina didn’t normally swoon over men–she was attractive enough in her own right. But Murnell was off the charts. She wondered if they’d purposely sent him in to be here when she woke up, a walking talking genius hunk of male pheromones.

“Okay. What is it then?” She tried to sit up, but immediately felt dizzy, and laid her head back down.

“In a minute. Give yourself a little more time for the medication to wear off.”

“I don’t have more time.”

“Why, you have a pressing appointment?”

Actually, yes. With a pretty boy college rapist and his scumbag cover-up of a father. She glared at Murnell, wondering if he might just fit into the pretty boy category himself.

“All right,” he said. “If that’s what you want…But if you fall and crack your skull, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Can I have some actual water?”

“Okay.” He reached around and picked up another cup, turning to hand it to her. This one contained only liquid, no ice.

She took a couple of sips. It tasted heavenly.

“Stomach okay?”

She nodded.

“Good. You think you can stand?”

“Time to find out,” she said.

She raised her head again, and though she felt the same dizziness, this time it was a little better. She pushed through it and sat all the way up.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

“What’d you people give me?”

“An anesthetic. Just like you were having a surgical procedure.”

“Priceless.” She shook her head. “Who were the guys who snatched me?”

“One is a medical corpsman. The other is a squad leader. Both special forces.”

“Great. Now they can add jumping and seizing women to their resumes.”

“Again, I apologize. But I hope you’ll come to see it was worth it.”

“Right,” she snickered. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

She swung her legs off the cot and placed her feet on the floor.

“You can walk okay? ...I mean with the prosthetic.”

“That’s the general idea. Titanium, carbon fiber, and biomechanical electronic feedback–state of the art. Though it’s not exactly the same as Mother Nature.”

She pushed off the cot and rose into a standing position. The room seemed to swirl for a moment.

He was there by her side, taking hold of her arm.

“Don’t get any ideas,” she said.

Again he offered her the smile, this time with a slight guffaw. “Don’t worry. You can make it okay?”

She nodded, waving him off, and he let her go.

“Which way to the Emerald City?” she said.

He looked at her quizzically for a moment. “Funny you should say that.”

10

There was a loud click as the door in the corner of the room angled open. She followed him through it into a brilliantly lit hallway. After the dimness of the room, the light was almost blinding.

“Give your eyes a moment to adjust.” He paused, waiting for her to catch up.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see. Stomach still okay?”

“Okay enough.” She felt like crap but wasn’t about to give her jailer, if that’s what he was, the satisfaction of knowing it.

He laughed. “Spoken like an Air Cavalryman.”

“Woman, you mean.”

“Of course.”

Raina noticed right away that, unlike the room with her cot, the walls here were made of a more high tech substance, a kind of steel she’d never seen before, polished like glass, with a faint greenish tinge. The walls and the ceiling contributed to the corridor’s brightness. At the far end of the hallway, maybe fifty yards away, stood a soldier with an M16 in full combat gear. What
was
all this?

Upon reaching the soldier, they were confronted by another, far more substantial entrance. The soldier continued to stare straight ahead, paying them little to no attention, except to nod slightly at Murnell as they approached the large door. On the wall was a small display panel with the screen at eye level. Murnell turned to look directly into it.

“Dr. Lance H. Murnell, P-Q-1-2-7-5-B-4-4.”

Facial and voice recognition no doubt–Murnell continued to stare into the screen. But Raina also got the distinct impression it might be more than just a computer looking back at him, perhaps even, at the two of them.

“What have you got going here, Murnell?” she asked.

The large door began to slide silently upward along its track and the Homeland Security scientist turned back to her with a sardonic grin. “Welcome, Ms. Sanchez” he said with a sweep of his hand and a slight bow. “to the Yellow Brick Road.”

The door opened wider to reveal a gymnasium-sized space with huge, reinforced rafters overhead and darkened walls of the same type of material as the hallway they’d just traversed. But it was what stood at the center of the space that immediately drew attention. It was a sphere, maybe ten feet in diameter, anchored to the floor with large struts and what she guessed might be hardened power and communications conduits. The surface of the sphere glowed green but also looked to be at least partially transparent.

“What is it?”

“Come and see,” he said.

They stepped through into the cavernous room, the large door silently closing behind them. Raina pulled her gaze from the sphere to look around. There seemed to be no one else but them in the entire space. Murnell was like a kid in candy store, egging her on, apparently eager to share with her what no doubt was probably in part his creation.

Drawing closer, she made out what appeared to be a small door in the side of the sphere and a pilot’s seat inside.

“Is it some kind of a ship?”

“More like a cockpit.”

“Where’s the rest of the craft?”

They circled around to the door in the side.

“Hold on. You’ll see.”

There was a metal ramp leading up to the door. Murnell climbed it and pulled the hatch open. Raina held back for a moment.

“You coming?”

“Yeah.” She clambered carefully up beside him.

“Go ahead.” He was holding the door open for her.

“You first,” she said.

He shrugged and climbed through the hatch into the sphere.

She grabbed the door from him as he went through, feeling its polished, hyaline surface. It was room temperature, neither cool nor warm. “What material is this thing made of?”

“Sorry,” he said from inside the bubble. “That’s beyond classified. I’m not even sure I understand all of its structure myself. But what it can do…come on inside and I’ll show you.”

She’d come this far. Why not?

She stepped through the hatch into the sphere with him.

“Reminds me a little of the old bubble canopy helicopters,” she said.

“It does, doesn’t it?”

The curvature of the floor made her feel slightly unsteady. There seemed to be no access ramp or step to the single seat.

“This is still a prototype, not yet fully operational, and we’ve yet to add a few of the finer points. But why don’t you go ahead and sit down in the chair, and I’ll show you what she can do.”

She looked at him for a second or two. Was this guy crazy? Putting her in the command seat of who knows what?

“Are you a pilot, Dr. Murnell?”

“Me? No. And it’s Lance, by the way. Just call me Lance.”

“You’re not going to brief me on your ship before putting me behind the controls?” Not that she could see any instrumentation. None appeared to be present–only the empty seat, apparently of major league aerospace manufacture, looking like it had been transplanted from the space shuttle.

“Trust me. It’s better just to show you.” He pulled what appeared to be a small remote control device from the pocket of his sport coat. He pushed a button and the chair came to life, turning part way toward them. “Don’t worry. It won’t bite. Go ahead and have a seat.”

She did as he instructed and edged to the chair, turning awkwardly to sit down.

Murnell stepped up to stand beside her. “Now hold on for a second. This can be disorienting at first.”

He ran his fingers across a small touchpad built into the arm of the chair.

The world went dark for a moment. Where the transparent sphere had been and the cavernous room beyond, she could see nothing but darkness. In the next instant, however, they seemed to be transported through time and space to another world. An arid landscape, punctuated by sage bush and cactus with brown mountains in the distance, spread out before her. She could still see her own body and the shadow of Murnell’s standing next to her but the image seemed to swallow everything else.

“What is this?”

“The Mojave Desert.”

“In California?”

“Nevada actually. Just across the border.”

“This is from a UAV or a MAV?”

“Yes. A small cluster of them to be more precise. More advanced, but not all that different from the ones you’ve been playing with for the past few weeks.”

“Oh. You know about that, do you?”

“Some. We might know a lot more than you think we know.”

Wonderful. It was the first acknowledgement that, whoever Murnell was, he and whomever he worked for somehow knew about her activities with Tye and Major Williamson. Were they really Homeland Security? The thought unnerved her. How much did they know? Unless he pressed her about her activities, which he obviously hadn’t done, she decided she better remain mum for now.

Murnell went on. “You know we’ve had something of a debate going within the research community about the future of UAVs and MAVs, or drones, as the public likes to refer to them. Besides the obvious ethical issues regarding weaponization, territorial sovereignty, privacy rights, etc., the more fascinating technical debate revolves around artificial intelligence and the merits and drawbacks of the deployment of so-called autonomous drones versus maximizing the information available to the remote operator. I and my colleagues fall into the latter camp.”

“You mean you always want a pilot.”

“Exactly. Our position is that artificial intelligence–at least for the time being–is best suited to gather information to be provided to human decision makers.”

She couldn’t help focusing on the ‘for the time being’ part, but decided she just needed to listen.

“How much information are we talking about?” she asked.

“That’s rather obvious, isn’t it? Look around you.”

She swiveled her and turned to look around her all in all directions. The images all melted into one to form a completely immersive experience. It was as if she were actually standing in the middle of the desert at that very moment. Flying her single hover angels or dragonflies was like controlling a joystick while looking through a straw by comparison. What Murnell was showing her was almost a leap into science fiction.

“It’s an advanced outgrowth of full dome immersive technology,” he said. “If we’re going to take you into somebody’s neighborhood or down the stovepipe into the kitchen where they’re assembling the latest generation of improvised explosive devices, you better be able to have a good look around. Wouldn’t you agree?”

She nodded. How could she not?

“But that’s only the beginning.”

He made another gesture on the touchpad, which, she noted, seemed to wrap around the entire arm of the chair. Instantly, the desert scene was replaced by a large collection of separated images showing different settings, from street scenes to countryside, even, from high overhead, an entire city. The screens seemed to hang suspended around here in a floating constellation of pictures. In one moving image over what appeared to be Afghanistan a battle was even taking place. As if by magic, the shadow of Murnell’s hand reached up and pulled one image away, replacing it with another and then another.

“How are you doing all this?”

Murnell said nothing.

“All of this technology has to be classified.”

He chuckled. “Of course.”

Instinctively, her hand started to move toward the control pad on the arm of her chair, but she held it back.

“Think of all the possibilities,” he said.

“I can see that.”

“What if we could drop you almost anywhere in the world you wanted to be? In real time, so you could have a good, close-up look at the place and what was happening there. All while seated right here in this chair.”

“I’d say it would be very cool.” It also sounded a lot like Big Brother, but she figured she better play along.

“Almost as good as sex,” he said.

She could feel his eyes on her in the darkness. Okay, now she was getting creeped out.

Thankfully, he moved on: “We believe this technology has tremendous possibilities–and, in the right hands, tremendous potential to protect people and to do good.”

“Okay. So why kidnap me to show it to me? Are you trying to recruit me or something?”

“Maybe.” He hesitated for a moment. “But I prefer to think of it more as an evaluation.”

“Your evaluation of me? Or my evaluation of you?”

“Ha!” He laughed out loud. “I like that about you, CWO Sanchez. You don’t pull any punches.”

The darkness went away and the images all disappeared. In a whisper, she was back in the transparent bubble again with Murnell standing next to her and the empty, cavernous space all around.

“Wow,” she said softly.

“So here’s my deal.” He turned back to look at her, put his hand on the back of the chair, and leaned so close she caught an unmistakable hint of his cologne. His voice took on a conspiratorial tone. “In exchange for your silence about what you’ve just seen, I’m willing to give you unfettered access to this technology for the next couple of days, and as much training as you think you can absorb.”

“You’re kidding…why?”

“That should be obvious, shouldn’t it? Because I’m hoping to seduce you into joining us. The missing link for much of our efforts is qualified pilots. And with your background flying not just helicopters but now MAVs…need I say more?”

She looked into Murnell’s clear blue eyes. Was he for real? What about the mission with Williamson and Tye? She couldn’t abandon them in midstream.

“So if I accept this deal of yours, I take it I’m stuck here for a while.”

“Not at all.” Murnell reached in the pocket of his coat and pulled out a mobile phone. “You’re free to come and go as you please. I’m calling a car to take you home right now, in fact.

“We’ll have to take some precautions, naturally. You won’t be drugged again, but you’ll need to be hooded and seated behind blacked out windows for any trips going and coming to this facility. It’s less than a half hour ride back to your apartment, so it shouldn’t be too unpleasant.”

“Are you for real?” She almost started to laugh. She couldn’t help herself.

“I think you’ll come to see that we’re not about some deep, dark conspiracy. We’re only trying to do what’s right for our country, not to mention the rest of the people on this little globe of ours.”

It sounded a lot like what she and Tye were shooting for, only their mission with Kurn was a lot more specific. She was almost at a loss for words.

“So what, I’d be working for Homeland?”

“Yes, you would. At least, in a manner of speaking.”

“What do you mean in a manner of speaking?”

“That just means I’m not free at the moment to give you any more details than what I’ve already offered. I think you’ll agree, under the circumstances, it’s a pretty generous offer.”

Again she wondered just how much he and the other people working in this facility knew about her activities with Kurn and the MAVs. Part of her wanted to lay her cards on the table, but another bigger part told her to hold back.

“Okay,” she said. “Can I have some time to think it over?”

“Sure.” He reached in another pocket, pulled out a different mobile device, and handed it to her; it was a small flip phone. “This phone only dials one number and it’s mine. “Go home and get something to eat and drink, take a nap, do whatever. Call me later this afternoon with your decision. But I need to know something today. We’re on a very tight schedule and are trying to get all of the pieces in place.”

For what? she wondered. “And if I decide to say no?”

“Then we have to kill you, of course.” He stared at her with a straight face for a moment. Then he broke into a grin. “No, I’m just kidding you…don’t take yourself so seriously…If you decide what you’ve seen isn’t for you…well, let’s just say we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, okay? I really don’t think you’re going to say no anyway. Again, I’m very sorry for the unpleasantness earlier with our Special Forces friends. It was necessary for the sake of expediency.”

“Expediency, huh?” She looked at him for a moment.

He nodded.

“All right. I’ll think it over.” Anything to get out of this place. As interesting and attractive as this all seemed–not to mention Murnell himself–she felt an urgent desire to leave.