Log 1 Matter | Antimatter (38 page)

He saw the boathouse ahead and slowed to
drive into the woods and bush. After shutting down the engine, he
packed up a small bag and stepped out to change in dark,
tight-fitting clothes. Jones tried to sneak up on him but he turned
at the last moment holding up a dagger.

“Shit, boss. I had a bet!”

“Then be quieter.” Actually, Jones was a
freak of nature, he was large but mouse quiet. Jamie almost laughed
at Ara’s attempts to be mouse quiet over the years. She had never
succeeded; the desire to open her mouth and talk was too great.
Plus she was usually stomping around forgetting to use her energy
to “lighten” up. Mostly it was because her mind was on some
project, tangled with complicated multi-leveled algorithms,
transequations and transceptions that made Jamie’s head ache. She
was developing an interest in GEL technology now and was looking
into courses.

As Jones changed clothes, they waited for the
signal. They both received a frontal node buzz and headed silently
to the boat shed. Jamie went in first, annoyed he could hear his
footsteps but not Jones’s. It had been luck that Jamie heard the
rustle of leaves. He had a reputation to maintain and while it
wasn’t getting harder—he kept himself fit and trained—it was
becoming challenging as those he employed worked hard to win their
bets. He opened a trapdoor and headed down the narrow ladder into
the network of tunnels they discovered. They were too similar to
Saratoga’s to be a coincidence and scans proved they were not
natural.

Jones closed the trapdoor and Jamie rubbed
his eye to slide his night vision lens over his eyeball. He
preferred the dual lens but needed his normal vision for the mole.
They moved down several tunnels and saw the mole overhead. It was a
long carriage where they’d lie in position and Peter would drive
them over the roof of the tunnel. It was a special liquid metal
Jamie hated using, but there was nowhere to hide in the tunnels so
being stuck to the roof seemed like the best plan.

Jamie reached his part of the carriage and
lifted his arms, jumping up to touch the base. The dark liquid
metal, already looking like the same material as the tunnel, slid
over him, sliding and lifting, hardening to lever Jamie into
position. Soon enough he was in a horizontal position, with a small
display blinking in front of him. Technically, they could separate
and walk around, melding into the walls, but the tunnels were
smooth and completely round. Peter had put some devices and lights
on the bottom of the carriages so that they looked like some
security device for the tunnel. It was a ploy to give them time to
get away, or disengage from the roof to fight. Jamie preferred not
to think of all the practice sessions, where they had all looked
foolish trying to recover from being ejected from the mole.

As they moved, he felt a slight rumble around
him, while the display blinked and revealed their route. He
groaned.

“Problem, boss?”

“Just watch where you’re going.”

“Sure, just follow the tunnel.”

Jamie grumbled, feeling sick already.
“There’s a junction ahead, take the left.”

“Tablets are in a small pouch, boss.”

Jamie thanked him and used his right hand to
open the small compartment and pull out the medic pouch. Peter
usually made sure there were tablets to avoid mole sickness. Never
had he been sick from any kind of travel. Peter had even taken him
up in several aircraft over the years making aerobatic moves and
Jamie had just laughed with the sheer joy of it. But this, this was
boring and annoying.

A half hour later, the rumbling stopped and
he heard voices beneath them. His little monitor showed they didn’t
even look up but Peter usually tried to stop around corners rather
than in the straight sections after their scans picked up movement.
Their orbital and planet scans couldn’t penetrate the bedrock, and
Jamie thought Maya had that same problem, except she should be able
to send out teeny tiny robots. This was just another reason why
Jamie thought it more likely Ara was here as bait. But then Maya
could just have sentries sitting deactivated, and activating only
when movement was detected. That led to the argument that someone
else was using Maya, and therefore Ara, in an altogether different
way. Something that had to do with the Chaos Beings, the Snakes,
Function Tests, Natal, Amatal, Trickster, and the Consociation of
Eight.

“Pure-Gens, boss. Follow or stay on
mission?”

Jamie debated with himself. “Break the mole.
You and Jones carry on; I’ll follow the PuGs.”

“Roger that.”

There’d been no questioning of his orders
because he’d made the right choice. The PuGs were mostly likely
going to one of the social rooms they’d mapped. He also realized he
was justifying his decision. Jamie hated to admit it but carrying
on to the target destination also meant entering the venting system
in the mole. He wasn’t claustrophobic but he found the experience
unbearable.

He took control over his carriage, tapping in
his code, as Peter separated the units. He used the control panel
and dropped to the ground as Jones’s part connected to Peter’s and
they moved off like some kind of worm. Jamie lay down and the mole
slid up the curved wall, back to the top, with Jamie being turned
inside like a roast on a spit. His stomach churned and he shoved
another tablet into his mouth. He headed out to follow the
PuGs.

After several turns and twists, they stopped
at a silver hatch with GEL pad tech. One of the PuGs touched it and
the hatch mechanism noisily ran a cycle to open into halves, with
each half sliding to either side. They stepped through and the
hatch closed. Jamie’s display showed the venting system just ahead
and above him. All he had to do was to use the mole’s burrowing and
steering system and slide in. There was room for only one mole
width-wise and, to ensure they didn’t activate alarms or block the
air flow, they had to allow the mole to open at either end. At
least in the mole Jamie knew he could free himself, or pretend not
to be in a tight tunnel. But once he could see the vent tunnel
ahead, he would freak out and no doubt all his effort would be to
listen to some useless gossip.

Swearing at himself, he backed up and made a
series of maneuvers to turn. After an hour of following the
tracking device, he found one mole out of a hatch, while his
indicators told him Peter was inside the vent. Crazy bastard. Jamie
had to wait with Jones, who was embarrassed. Jamie opened his
channel to Jones’s mole.

“Don’t be. I couldn’t do it either. We need
to ask for volunteers. It’s time to check out all the labs.”

Peter connected Jamie. “Ah, sorry boss. You
need to get in here. Code orange.”

“Shit. Right. I’ll head in.”

Jones dropped down and Jamie steered in, not
even hesitating. The mole had to burrow through the bedrock, and
then access the tunnel, liquefying the rock, after which the liquid
metal would bundle and slide it along the outer hull, and leave a
plug at the end. They had tried to break the grates to the vents
but couldn’t determine material, a dark red color, or codes with
strange symbols. Peter’s voice sounded panicked so Jamie shoved
down his fear and continued focusing on Peter and the mission. With
the airflow, and seeing the long, dark tunnel ahead, Jamie decided
to let his heart race, and body tense, trying to get used to the
experience. Ride it rather than resist. After ten minutes it was
working.

Jamie saw light ahead.

It was hard not to drive the mole faster to
the end, but rounding a bend he saw Peter’s mole, more of a tube,
with no Peter inside. Jamie stopped the mole and shoved up the
display unit. It barely made a noise as it was sucked into the
liquid metal. He began to crawl through the front of his mole, into
Peter’s and out the other end. He continued to crawl and saw a
grate ahead. That was odd. Jamie backed up until he saw a tunnel
veering off ahead. Peter must have made it with his mole, and then
backed it up. Jamie partially climbed and partially slid through
the hole and started crawling. He could see electrical tubes and
lights ahead. He had been expecting to find Peter’s feet.
Carefully, he crawled to the opening and peered down.

“Well, fuck me.”

No wonder Maya hadn’t been able to penetrate
this area, and now it opened the discussions back up to include
that Maya was being deceived. So perhaps someone was—he spotted
Peter who was well hidden on one of the many ramps above the
massive cavern. Jamie looked down and saw that he could drop to the
ledge and then jump to the ramp. With no easy holds, he struggled
to turn his long body but managed to slide out and down before he
released his hands and fell. He tried to keep his knees unlocked
and hit the ledge. Jamie crouched and then stood ready to jump
across to the metal-grated walkway to join Peter.

“Hey, boss. No need to be quiet. We’re up in
some kind of maintenance junction. The hatch—where Jones is—to this
cavern is actually a lift and it comes out down below us, well
below us, at least forty stories. It’s a good thing you didn’t
bring any of Ara’s Robotica units, they would have been
detected.”

Jamie stared at him. “How do you know?”

‘Because while I was here Maya must have sent
a unit in, and it was destroyed.” He pointed to his left and Jamie
looked seeing a smoldering ruin well below them. People were moving
around to remove it. “Someone actually went into that tube and
dragged it out so it wouldn’t have transmitted any data, if it
could have through the bedrock. I’m guessing the mole Ara made is
undetectable because she got the idea from that chamber that
whisked her away on her hundredth. These giant dudes have to be the
Natal?”

Jamie nodded.

“I’ve also noted similar tech in the short
time I’ve been here to the mole. So, what’s happening here?”

Jamie scratched his chin, wondering if Ara
was actually more to do with the Natal than Maya. He rubbed above
his right eye and leaned on the barrier, staring down at the bustle
of activity. Giant, red machine men were working alongside smaller
beings. Most of the smaller beings looked like one of the many
Aryan races. “I believe we’ve stumbled on the Natal’s operation to
test Ara. The Function Test control room so to speak.”

It was Peter’s turn to stare hard at Jamie.
“How do you know that?”

Jamie grinned and pointed. “See that massive
display with Ara’s image on it? There’s writing next to it.”

Peter nodded, turned and squinted, his head
dropping to his arms, and then groaned. “You’ve activated your zoom
lens.” He stood up, rubbed over his eye and read the
information.

“Log 1, Event, Function Test number, Progress
column. Ah, tests one, three, and five have been assigned; they are
deliberating on function tests two and six. They are designing test
eight and it’s at phase one; four, seven, and nine are unassigned.
Shit, think of the time and resources!”

“It looks like test three is in two parts as
well. It looks like they’ve also assigned a year per function test
with a start date several hundred years from now.”

“So no rush then?”

Jamie shrugged. “Pure-Gens have a slow life
while we have to squeeze more things in. The function tests
evidently take a long time to set up.” Jamie thought back to when
he first heard Cobra, Viper, and Krait talking about them in Perza
Space Station.

“Alright. Who’s that other woman?”

Jamie stared down at the image of the light
brown-haired beauty. There was no data with her image. “Nyx I
presume. She may be there for another reason. We have to—”

“I know, set up a new team. Send them in here
to monitor.”

Jamie slapped him on the back. “Good
idea.”

Peter was studying the image of Nyx again.
“Hey, it says… I can only just make it out… Ah, location unknown.
And there’s a tracking notation with it.”

All attention was on Ara then.

“Hmmm, and there’s jewelry,” Peter said.

“What?”

“An image of a necklace. It looks weird.”

Jamie peered down, immediately thinking of
Ara’s strange necklace that Maya had the Cardinal Unit attach to
her neck and tried to adjust his vision. “That’s Ara’s.”

“Say what? She hasn’t worn that?”

“No, it’s in her body.” That seemed to
confirm something was going on between Maya and the Natal. Who had
priority over the Cardinal Unit? They had always assumed it was
Maya, but the Natal looked to be in charge.

‘Yuk.”

Jamie chuckled and pulled Peter down when a
Natal looked up towards them. They were motionless as could be and
the Natal looked back at his station. Jamie couldn’t make up the
symbols and data flowing across the screen. The Natal looked up and
again when Jamie adjusted his lens.

“Shit. Disconnect your lenses. I think they
are picking up the signals.” Jamie wondered if Maya was going to
try to nudge Ara to get down there. He had to stop that, thinking
of Ara in … but that was stupid. The Natal were going to a lot of
trouble to set up the Function Tests. They wouldn’t just kill her.
Whatever spurred the Snakes to use these tests, the care and
planning indicated that the tests were taken seriously. The Snakes
may have triggered the tests but they weren’t the architects.

“So, the Natal are blocking Maya, which might
suggest that the Maya is independent of the Natal but has equal say
or more, say in Iota?”

Jamie nodded and said, “Fair reasoning.” From
Ara’s fortified mental musings, which he’d realized over the years
he had access to, he knew that there were other test sites and
other Maya with Cardinal Units. Jamie smirked thinking about
Trickster who had, Jamie believed, bluffed. He was sure Trickster
had no option but to accept Ara’s mental connection to Jamie. It
was a relief because thus far Trickster was a powerful anomaly who
seemed to be able to come and go using special transportal
technology beyond their technology. “We better get back.”