Infinity Rises (11 page)

Brent sneers at Ryan’s back as he hunches over and gets to work. In less than a minute, there’s an audible click and a blue glow shines up from the floor, illuminating Otto’s face. “Nice one, Ryan,” she says, and begins tapping the code into the pad. With the code entered, every single one of us scans the room in expectation.

“It didn’t work!” Margaux shouts at the door.

“Give it a second!” replies the man, and sure enough, a moment later, the whole white ceiling in the empty triangular space flickers, flashes . . . then goes as black as night. All of us turn our heads upward as pinpoints of light begin appearing across the darkened ceiling, speckling it in ever-widening swaths until soon there are thousands of twinkling stars peppering the entire triangular area right to its edges. It looks just like the sky of a crisp and cloudless winter night, right above our heads. I’m marveling at the clarity and depth of the ceiling display when a thin blue line suddenly streaks across the stars. There’s another and another, then ten more, then fifty more, then too many to count at a glance, streaking and crisscrossing all over the ceiling. Pulsing blue dots tagged with numbers begin appearing on the lines, and I recognize it all for what it really is. It’s a tracking map: one blue dot and a trajectory line for each of the hundreds of satellites orbiting the planet.

The computer slates behind the desk suddenly boot up in unison, each one blinking on with white lines of text and numbers emblazoned across it as multiple blue-rimmed holographic screens of varying sizes shimmer into view, floating in midair, five screens deep and four screens high around the entire curve of the desk. Most of the screens are blank, some are snowy with silent static, and some are showing images from cameras in places that we’ve been. I recognize the crystal tunnels on one screen and the jungle from Dome One on another. Otto jumps to her feet and immediately begins studying the computer slates as Brody twitches beside me, startled by the huge, red, computer-wire schematic of Blackstone Technologies flickering onto the long wall behind us.

Across the room, a second wall comes to life, and soon it’s covered with technical readouts and pictures of individual building structures, many of which I recognize from the courtyard outside. The third wall flickers and flashes on with a huge map of the continents of Earth. It’s speckled with glowing red dots, lines of aircraft and transport flight paths, sections of statistics, names of cities, countries, population counts, currency conversions, market reports, and all sorts of cryptic algorithms.

A darkening patch on the floor catches the corner of my eye, and I look down to see the shiny white beneath my feet give way to a spreading bluey green as the whole floor suddenly becomes a huge, triangular map of what appears to be all the oceans on Earth. Faintly glowing computer wires flicker into view and connect, tracing the peaks and valleys of the global underwater landscape as trails of arrows representing ocean currents curve around dozens of tiny, yellow-numbered shapes scattered across the floor: one for every freight ship, oil tanker, military vessel, and submarine in every sunken corner and watery depth of the planet.

Every part of the room is alive and bristling with information. I scan the displays, and my eyes narrow with suspicion. They may call this a “Security Station,” but to me, it looks much more like a military monitoring facility. Or what civilians might call a “spy base.”

With a soft ping, the elevator door slides open, and the owner of the voice finally steps out into the room. He’s a skinny man dressed in beige coveralls. He looks to be in his late forties or early fifties and has neatly side-parted salt-and-pepper hair, thick tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses, and a gray goatee frizzing from his chin. The handle of a hard-shell briefcase is clutched in one hand, and a screwdriver is grasped in the other. The man shuffles sideways, holding the screwdriver out in front of him like a weapon, and everyone backs away. His gaze flits across our faces, and after a couple of seconds, he visibly relaxes, slides the screwdriver into one of his pockets, and gently sets the case on the floor.

“You really are just a bunch of schoolkids,” he says. “I never thought I’d see the day when they’d let children wander around Blackstone Technologies, especially on a Saturday. This place isn’t exactly a chocolate factory, y’know.”

“No kidding,” whispers Margaux.

“Thanks for getting me out,” says the man. “I was starting to worry that I’d be stuck in there until Monday morning.” He looks around the room, perplexed. “Where are the security personnel?”

“We haven’t seen anyone,” I say. “Who are you?”

“My name is George—George Parsons. I do general maintenance around here. I was on my way down from fixing a coolant circulator on the sixth floor when the power went out, and I got trapped in the elevator. What’s happened? Why are you all in here?” George asks, looking from side to side. “And where is your teacher?”

“One of our teachers is trapped inside Dome Two,” Otto says as she aggressively taps and swipes at one of the computer slates.

“And the other one . . . ,” Margaux whispers. “Miss Cole is . . . she’s . . .”

“She’s dead,” mutters Brody.

“Excuse me?” George says skeptically.

“There’s been a situation, George,” I say. “System-wide computer malfunctions have resulted in multiple deaths. We need to call for assistance.”

“Hold on; hold on! Tell me what’s happened,” he prompts.

“A mechanoid went berserk and killed our teacher, our classmates, and three soldiers,” says Ryan. “We broke in here to get our phones and call for help.”

George frowns and then smiles. “You’re joking. Please tell me that you’re pulling my leg.”

“No joke, George,” I say.

George very understandably looks a little stunned.

“Can’t we just call for help from in here?” asks Brent. “The computers are working now; let’s call for help.”

“We can’t,” says Otto. “Every computer in this room is iced up.”

“What does that mean in English?” asks Ryan.

“Look around . . . ,” Otto says, pointing at the walls. “The information is frozen. All the screens are showing data displayed at the time of the blackout. Satellites move fast,” Otto says, pointing at the ceiling, “but none of those blue tracking dots up there have moved at all. The computers in this room are closed off from the Hypernet, the mainframe, and the outside world. They’re useless to us.” Otto looks over at George. He’s just standing there frowning in silence, staring at the floor. “Mr. Parsons?” she asks. He doesn’t seem to hear her at all. “Hey, George!” shouts Otto, and he jumps in his skin. “We need to find our phones and computer slates. Can you help us?”

George slowly turns to Otto. “Your phones?”

“They were taken when we arrived. Do you know where they might be?”

“They’ll . . . they’ll be stored up on the eighth floor, in the data scanners.”

“I’ll go and get them,” says Otto.

“Wait,” says George. “You can’t. The elevator won’t accept your fingerprint.”

“Then take me up there,” Otto demands.

“I’m going, too,” I add.

“Absolutely not. Neither of you have security clearance. I’d lose my job!”

Otto’s expression hardens. “Mr. Parsons, innocent people have died, Blackstone employees are missing, the most classified research facility in the world has been compromised, we’ve been cut off from the outside world, and all you’re concerned about . . . is your job?”

George looks like a scolded child. “Yes?” he says sheepishly.

“Take us up there. Right now!” barks Otto, and George flinches. Otto pushes past the still visibly shaken George and disappears behind the elevator shaft. A moment later, her frowning face leans back out. “Anytime this year would be great.” George fumbles with the handle of his briefcase, then hops in step toward the door of the elevator.

A smile crawls onto my lips. I have to admit that I’m liking this headstrong Bettina Otto more and more as the day goes on. “We’ll get the phones and computers; you stay down here,” I say to the rest of the group.

“Fine with me,” says Ryan.

“Don’t take too long,” whines Margaux. “I feel safer when you’re around.”

Brent and Brody both look at her with surprised disbelief.

“What?” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “I just do!”

Margaux’s comment caught me off guard, as well. She wasn’t being sarcastic at all. I give her a nod and a quizzical smile, then turn and head around to the other side of the cylinder. I’m still not used to people putting their lives in my hands like this. My hands were trained to take life, and when Otto gets her slate and shuts down the Drones, and I finally get a chance to lay these hands on Richard Blackstone, that’s exactly what they’re gonna do. I walk into the elevator, where a determined-looking Otto and an anxious George are waiting. George leans over and reluctantly presses his thumb to a small, black glass plate on the wall. The door slides closed, he taps the top button in a line of eight, and a short ride of uncomfortable silence later, the elevator opens onto the uppermost level.

George shuffles into the room. We follow right behind him, and the first thing that hits me is the cold. It’s like walking into a meat locker. I can even see my breath puffing like mist as I step into the room. Not only is it chilly on level eight, but it’s bright, too. Unlike the tinted windows on the ground level, the glass walls up here are crystal clear. The sunlight streaming in illuminates the overall strangeness of the eighth floor.

I’m standing in a narrow gap between dozens of rows of what appear to be dark-gray, chest-high termite mounds. There must be at least a couple hundred covering the floor space, and each one is grooved and pitted all over with lines of tiny, honeycomb-shaped holes. Beneath the holes, blue rivulets of light lazily course up and down the length of each mound. They seem to fill the entire level, and are not only sticking up out of the floor, but hanging down from the ceiling, too, like artificial stalactites. There are a couple of meters’ clearance between the mounds on the floor and the ones overhead, providing a 360-degree view out the windows. To the left, I can see the neighboring buildings, and, in the distance, curving high into the bright-blue sky, is the majestic black cap of Dome One.

“This way,” George says, shuffling ahead between the mounds. “And, please, don’t touch the hard drives.”

“Is that what they are?” I whisper.

“Yes,” replies Otto. “They’re data hives—look,” she says, pointing to the closest one. “They process information on coded protein strands. Just one of those little holes has the capacity to store a million full-length holographic movies.” A goofy smile lights up her face. “Imagine how much information is kept in just this
one
room
alone.”

“It boggles the mind,” I murmur sarcastically.

“It
really
does,” Otto insists with wide-eyed, nerdy joy.

George leads the way down the narrow path, and when we reach the wall of windows, the pathway splits. George heads to the right, and we follow him all the way along the edge of the hives and around the far corner of the triangle. There, in a clearing among the hives, is a single seat positioned behind a small, semicircular desk. George sits down, and a moment later, four eye-level holographic screens shimmer into view around the curved perimeter of the desk. Three of them are showing meaningless frozen lines of code, but the fourth screen displays a list of serial numbers with pictures of phones and computer slates beside each line.

“They’re here,” George says. “Scanned and cataloged.”

“Where are they kept?” Otto asks impatiently, peering at the screen with concern.

George swivels in the chair and looks at the floor just behind us. “There,” he says. “Step on that foot pedal by the window.”

I look down to see a white rectangular tile with a pulsing green light set into the floor by the glass wall. Otto hurries over and plants her shoe on it. There’s a click and then a quiet whirring sound as a long, thin section, almost as long as the entire glass wall itself, begins rising from the floor. As it elevates, I can see that it’s actually a set of shelves, and row upon row of phones and slates have been propped along them. The two-meter-high section jolts to a stop, and at a glance I guess there must be over a hundred phones and slates, each one resting in its own spot on one of the ledges.

Otto lunges with both arms extended, snatching a computer slate and a phone and hugging them to her chest like long-lost friends. She gently slides them into her bag and begins gathering others. Apart from the different-colored covers, they all look the same to me, but Otto seems to recognize each and every one she picks up, muttering the owners’ names as she puts them into the two satchels slung over her shoulder. I can tell by the way she handles some of them and by the hushed tones she uses when she whispers the owners’ names that some of them belong to people who have died. One by one, she takes devices from the shelves until she’s collected nearly twenty of them, and as the satchels bulge to capacity, she begins stacking more in the crook of her elbow. “Here,” she says, plucking a phone from a shelf and holding it out to me.

“I don’t want it,” I say.

“But . . . it’s yours.”

I shake my head. “No, it’s not,” I reply.

Otto smiles timidly. “What I meant is . . . it’s Finn’s.”

I push her hand away. “Well, she’s not coming back,” I say coldly. “So she’s never going to need it again.”

Otto looks at me and blinks. Her head drops, and she looks down at the phone, cradling it in her palm. She gently traces her thumb across the screen, then slowly slips it into the breast pocket of her blouse. “No . . . I guess not,” she murmurs.

“Mission accomplished. Let’s get outta here,” I say as I step on the now red-blinking tile. The long shelving begins lowering into the floor as George stands up, automatically deactivating the desk. Suddenly a clever idea springs to mind. George could be my chance to get those four teenage anchors off my heels and safely tucked away somewhere while Otto and I hunt down dear old Dr. Blackstone. I slap a hand on George’s shoulder and fake an honest smile. “Thank you for your assistance, George. Are you willing to help us further?”