Edge of Dawn (24 page)

“Ah, yes, Dr. Chen, welcome.” Richard held out his hand.

“You have it? You have brought the object? We have theories and would love to start the next round of testing.”

“Yes, that's one of the reasons we're here.”

“Excellent. Excellent. Well, shall we begin?”

Richard glanced at his officers. It was clear from Kenzo and Gold's expressions that they wanted to have the fight. Richard was torn. His anger had faded, and now he had that aching, oily feeling in his gut that had always happened whenever his father had been about to lecture him. He decided on cowardice.

He nodded to Dr. Chen. “Lead on.”

“We will have this conversation,” Kenzo said in an undertone.

“Yes, but not right now.”

They went down hallways into another wing of the building and into an elevator and descended several floors. “We have a small accelerator here,” Eddie explained. “It's nothing compared to Fermilab, Berkeley, Oak Ridge, or Cern, but what we learn from this initial test will … might tell us what kinds of tests will give us the most bang once we get on one of the big machines so we're not wasting time.” Eddie's excitement had created a babble of word salad.

“So this test today won't tell us anything?” Richard asked.

Chen stepped in. “Probably not, but it will indicate the direction we should go. We'll then petition to run an experiment on one of the larger machines.”

“So what are you planning to do?” Richard asked.

They had entered a white-tiled control room. Wires snaked in all directions, some bound together with duct tape, and computer screens were festooned with sticky notes. The initial design might have suggested high-tech competence, but the scientists had turned it into controlled chaos. Richard's earlier feeling of cocky confidence had faded. All he could think about was the upcoming confrontation with his officers.

“First, I would very much like to see the object,” Dr. Chen said. “Its behavior has been described to me, but I find it rather fantastical. Perhaps a demonstration? That might affect the parameters of the experiment.” He sounded less like a Nobel Prize–winning physicist and more like an eager teenager. “And Eddie … Dr. Tanaka says you should inoculate me. I'm eager to experience that.”

“It's often painful,” Richard warned. “I don't want you incapacitated right now. We'll do it after the experiment.”

Eddie jumped in. “You've said yourself it's usually not as hard on us science types since we're a bunch of Commie pinko atheists.”

Dr. Chen flinched. Richard gave Eddie an exasperated look at the gauche reminder that Dr. Chen was from China. “What? Oh, shit, I was rude again, wasn't I?”

“Yes,” Richard said.

“I didn't mean because he was Chinese. I mean, some people think all of us scientists are like that.” Eddie paused and considered. “And I guess that's sort of true. At least about the atheist part.”

The three technicians in the room were laughing. Dr. Chen unbent and also chuckled. Richard pulled the hilt from its holster and drew the sword. The overtones from the sword blended rather unpleasantly with the room's hum. Chen moved from one side of the blade to the other, peered closely at the space-black metal, jumped a bit when the silver lights washed through like a retreating galaxy. He reached out a cautious finger.

Richard pulled the blade away. “Best let me do it, with someone close by to catch you.”

Alarmed by the implication of what he'd heard, Chen stepped back. “Well, perhaps we should postpone the inoculation.”

“So I ask again,” Richard said, “what is it that you're planning to do?”

From the corner of his eye, Richard noted that Kenzo and Gold were in a huddle on the far side of the sterile room. Pamela and Dagmar were talking. Richard caught Weber's eye and cocked his head toward the two men. Weber nodded and drifted that way. Richard brought himself back to the scientific discussion.

“I think the blade goes into a pocket universe when it's sheathed. I'm thinking a neutron-scattering experiment that would have an H
+
proton beam slam into a target to generate neutrons that would directly probe the nuclear structure of the sword,” Chen said.

“Will all of this make it possible for you to do what I want?” Richard asked.

“Which is…?” Dr. Chen asked.

Richard sheathed the sword and lightly bounced the hilt on his palm. “Make more of these. Well, not exactly this. I'd really love a more up-to-date shape. I'm sure this worked out great for Charlemagne, but I'd like something more appropriate to our era. A gun. A Taser. Something.”

“Well, let us see what it is and how it works.” Chen reached for the hilt.

Richard pulled it back. “I don't let it out of my hands. I'll take it wherever it needs to go.”

Eddie was suddenly frowning. He rubbed a hand on his head, causing the thick black hair to stand up like a rooster's comb. “Oh, shit. What we really need to bombard is the blade.”

“But there's no blade unless I'm holding it,” Richard said. “Can I stay inside the accelerator?”

“No, the beams are running in a vacuum, and there's a shit load of radiation generated. The hilt's going to need to cool down for at least twenty-four hours, and we'll still check with a Geiger counter just to be sure.” Eddie chewed at his lower lip. “If there was just some way—” He sighed. “But I guess there isn't.”

“No,” Pamela said firmly. “There's not.”

“I don't like this. Not having the sword available for a day,” Richard said. “Is there any other way?”

“Not if you want more of these.”

Chen and Eddie watched as Richard wrestled with the decision. He finally sighed and nodded. “Okay. Just be careful, all right?”

“We're always careful.” Eddie turned to Chen. “So let's start by bombarding the hilt. It might agitate something, cause something to happen.”

“That doesn't sound careful,” Richard said as Weber, who had just walked up, added, “Is this the throw-shit-against-the-wall-and-see-if-any-of-it-sticks method?”

“Well, we usually have a calculation that tells us how sticky the shit might be,” Eddie shot back.

The decision having been made, one of the technicians led Richard through a set of big metal doors, down stairs and catwalks, until they reached an access panel. There was an adjustable pedestal inside. Richard set the hilt in the center. The gray curves, beautiful and enigmatic, echoed the curving metal walls of the accelerator. The hilt looked like a piece of abstract art on display in a gallery of the distant future. The tech closed the panel, and Richard hesitated, staring at that blank metal. He had literally not been parted from the blade for years. It felt like he was not only naked but also skinless. Finally, he followed the waiting tech.

Back in the control room, a completely unintelligible conversation was taking place among the scientists and techs. Richard and his officers retreated to the back wall so they would be out of the way.

Weber sidled up to Richard. “They clammed up when they noticed me. What I did manage to hear was all about cash flow worries and that you aren't a businessman.”

“Well, they're not wrong if by that they mean that I don't put money over people,” Richard whispered back.

The techs and scientists were exchanging cryptic commands, buttons were pushed, commands were typed onto keyboards with a sound like robot chickens pecking. Richard had expected to hear something—a rising hum, the crackle of electricity,
something
—but it was just human voices and keyboards in the control room. The computer screens were filled with scrolling numbers and oscillating lines like a heart monitor for the universe.

One screen showed the hilt in its lonely isolation far below them. “Why do you have cameras on it?” Dagmar asked.

“Because it's in vacuum, things can get really hot, and we don't have a cooling line to bleed off the heat. We want to be able to monitor the target and make sure it hasn't shifted, or isn't getting degraded,” Chen explained.

“Could this damage the sword?” Richard asked. Anxiety coiled in his chest. “Maybe we should hold off—”

But things were happening. The screens with their lines of scrolling numbers and oscillating lines went wild. Richard's gaze flew to the camera screen. The hilt was surrounded by color, strange purples, orange, and a burning white center. There was a blinding flash that had everyone yelling. And then it was gone.

The colors.

The flash of light.

And the sword.

*   *   *

For several heartbeats, Richard's mind seemed empty of any and all thoughts. Horror gripped him. It felt like the world should have gone silent over this catastrophe, but instead the scientists were yammering about how the beam had vanished with the sword.

“Well, that ain't good,” Cross said.

Richard blinked as if that could bring back the sword. The pedestal remained empty. Then Richard frantically clawed at the holster at the small of his back though he knew the familiar weight of the hilt was not there, yet somehow hoping it would be.
Empty.
Like the pedestal. Like his heart. Guilt slammed down. Kenntnis had entrusted him with the sword. With Lumina. With the world. He had betrayed that trust. Richard met Kenzo's gaze and saw the bitter pleasure in the man's dark eyes. Resolve stiffened his spine and settled the sick pain in his gut. There was no time for guilt or despair. He had feared that this moment would come. What he had not anticipated was that the sword—or the loss of it—would be the precipitating event. But whatever the reason, it was time to act.

“Well, it seems your role as paladin is at an end. So perhaps it is time to discuss your other role.”

Richard ignored Kenzo and went over to Eddie, who was in a huddle with Dr. Chen and several other scientists. Richard pulled him out.

Eddie was babbling. “I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. We'll figure it out. We'll get it back. I promise—”

Richard cut off the agonized words. “Is there a room in this building, other than Kenntnis's quarters, that locks from the outside?”

Eddie blinked at the intensity of Richard's whisper, then said, “Huh?”

“Yes or no.” Richard's urgency seemed to penetrate.

“Uh … yes. But—”

“Take us there.
Now.
”

Richard turned back to his officers. Gold and Kenzo were again in a huddle. Dagmar looked devastated. Pamela just seemed stunned. “Let's let the scientists work, figure out what happened. We'll adjourn to another room,” he said.

Richard gave Eddie a shove to get him moving. They all trooped out. Dagmar fell into step with him. “Richard, this is a disaster. What are—”

“Not now.”

“If not now, when?”

Eddie led them upstairs and down several hallways. Kenzo walked directly behind the young scientist, with Gold at his side. The march order indicated their contempt for Richard. He was irrelevant. Forgotten. He didn't mind. He welcomed it.

Richard dropped even farther back to Weber's side. “Richard, what—” the ex-cop began.

In an undertone Richard said, “Be ready.”

Eddie had stopped in front of a door with a keypad lock. He typed in the code, pushed open the door. Richard realized it was a storeroom at the same time Gold and Kenzo reacted. Richard rushed them, grabbed Kenzo's arm up behind his back with one hand, slammed his other hand into the financial officer's back, and shoved. Weber, only a half step behind him, grabbed Gold in a wrestling lift and flung him into the small room. Richard pulled the Browning out of his shoulder rig and drew down on the goggling executives as they struggled to regain their balance and turn to face him.

“Get their cell phones,” he ordered Weber.

“Richard! Have you gone mad?” his sister demanded.

“This is false imprisonment!” Gold shrilled.

Kenzo glared at Richard. “You're finished.” The Japanese man grabbed Weber's wrist and turned it in a tricky maneuver that Richard recognized as jujitsu. “You will not take my phone. This is an outrage!”

Richard calmly fired a shot past Kenzo's ear. The man jumped, yelled out in Japanese, and inadvertently released Weber. The big cop quickly rammed Kenzo face-first into the wall and took the cell phone from his pocket. Gold clawed at his pocket and practically threw his phone at Weber. He alternated between looking nervously at Richard, at the gun, and at Weber. The former cop backed into the hall.

“Okay. What now?”

Richard pulled the door closed and heard the lock snap shut. “We get out of here.” He started walking.

“What? Who? Where? What do you mean?” Dagmar was almost wailing as she trotted after him.

“Kenzo and Gold think they're going to take control of the company. And they may, for a little while, but they've gotten in bed with Grenier, and he'll outplay them and then stab them. And I sure as hell don't want to place myself and Mosi in Grenier's power.”

Richard increased his fast walk to a jog. It was hard on the two women in their high heels, and they quickly shed their shoes, carrying them as they all ran downstairs to Kenntnis's quarters. At the door, Richard turned to the young scientist. “Eddie, who do you most need to
get the goddamn sword back?
”

“Uh…”

“Well, figure it out and get them! Meet us at the cars.” Richard checked his watch. “You've got fifteen minutes. Go!”

Richard keyed in the code on Kenntnis's door.

“Richard, would you have shot them?” Pamela asked, her tone low, hesitant. He glanced over at her and saw the deep discomfort and almost fear on her face.

“If necessary I would have made my point, but fortunately I didn't have to because Kenzo thought I would,” Richard said with a grim smile. “That's all that mattered.”