New Title 1 (30 page)

“Of course,” Calvin said. “Where else would she be?”

“I’m going to go get her out.”

“Maria,
no
. Leave her there. She’s
fine
there. Just wait for her to get home after school.”

“When are you coming home, Cal?”

Calvin looked about and shrugged to himself. “I don’t know. Soon, hopefully.”

“Please come home soon, Cal. I want my family together if something happens.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, honey. Stay cool. I’ll be home as soon as I can. I’ll call you if something holds me up. All right?”

“…”

“Love you, honey. See you soon!”

“I love you, baby. Hurry home!”

Calvin closed the circuit, and increased his pace for Dr. Silver’s office. He thought it was a good idea to see if any other offices needed further assistance from him, or if there were any other questions he could answer for Silver. Then, perhaps, he could go home to calm his excitable wife…

~

“I love you baby. Hurry home!” Maria closed the circuit, put down the com, and wrung her hands nervously.
How can he be so calm… I can’t find my daughter!
Of course she knew Erin was supposed to be in school… but the school so often took the students out, on field trips to various offices and parks and other parts of Verdant… she could not get in touch with her now… which meant that she could be anywhere. And if she were caught in the middle of a gang of crazies that managed to secretly board Verdant, hell-bent on taking it over…

She felt a double-bump in her chest, and her eyes popped in alarm. She knew what that meant: Her excitement was aggravating her heart, and it had a tendency to race when that happened. It was something she’d had since childhood, and had never been able to fix (not that the doctors couldn’t, but it would require invasive methods and pacemakers that she wanted nothing to do with), and usually had no recourse but to lie down for anything from thirty minutes to a few hours, waiting until her heart remembered how to beat normally again.

But she waited, and it did not double-pump again. It seemed to be behaving itself.
Thank God
, she thought,
I have enough to worry about with Erin and Cal, if I had to worry about me, too!
Making an effort to move unhurriedly, she retrieved a light jacket, and headed for the door. She would just go and collect Erin from school, or find out where she was, and bring her home. She’d certainly be back before Cal, who was likely to be gone all day, knowing him. At least, she’d have her daughter home where it was safe!

~

When Calvin reached Dr. Silver’s office, he started to announce himself, when the automated voice in the inner chamber said:
“Doctor Silver is not in her office. Would you care to leave a message?”

Calvin was taken aback, and stopped in his tracks. “Where is she now? Can you contact her?”

“She is elsewhere in the sciences section,”
the voice replied.
“If you care to leave a message, I will forward it to her.”

“Well… yes. Tell her Dr. Rios asked her to call me if I can provide any further assistance with the new project.”

“Message received. Thank you, Dr. Rios.”

And that was it. Calvin paused another moment, before remembering Maria, and finally turned to go. He said, “Thank you,” over his shoulder.

“You’re welcome, Dr. Rios.”

Once he was out in the hallway, however, he had a change of heart, and decided it made more sense to see if he could find out her whereabouts from someone else on staff. So he turned and headed back into the sciences section, occasionally asking someone he passed if they knew where he could find Dr. Silver. Always the exchange was the same: “Have you tried her office?” “Yes, she’s not there.” “Did you leave a message?” “Yes.” “Then she should get back to you directly. She always does.” Occasionally, the response was a more rude variation of the theme, but essentially the same… in fact, he only received one “No!” from an engineer who blustered past him, almost striking him in the shoulder as he passed (and Calvin was sure he’d swerved at the last moment, trying to hit him).

Finally, Calvin rounded a corner, and saw Lin Sen Chiu approaching from the other direction. Chiu saw him at the same moment, and nodded a greeting. “Hello, Dr. Rios.”

“Hi, uh… Mr. Chiu. Or is it doctor?”

“No, it’s mister, all right,” Chiu smiled. “I’m just an administrator. You can call me Lin.”

“Ah,” Calvin nodded, realizing he probably hadn’t heard his first name before. “I was looking for Dr. Silver, in case anyone else needed my help.”

“Yes, I know,” Chiu said. “I was with her when she got your message. She wanted me to tell you that everything is well in-hand for now. We’ll give you a call if we need anything, but for now, if you have other business to tend to, feel free.”

“Well…”

“You look flustered, Doctor,” Chiu confided in him. “What’s bothering you?”

“Well,” Calvin repeated. “It’s just my wife, the news outside has got her a bit stressed…”

“Oh, Doctor,” Chiu said quickly, raising open hands and giving him that
is this a question?
look. “Go ahead. See to your wife. We have things under control here. Go ahead!”

Calvin finally nodded. “Okay. Remember, if you need anything—”

“We know who to call,” Chiu smiled, waving him off amiably. “Good afternoon, Doctor.”

“See you later.”

Calvin headed out of the sciences section, glad that Silver and Chiu were on top of things for the moment. Hopefully he could make sure Maria and Erin were okay, then keep tabs on Silver’s department as long as they might need him—”

“Cal?”

Calvin turned to see Valeria coming out of a nearby break room. She had a small platter of fruit and a cup of some steaming liquid on it. “Hi, Val,” he said. At that moment, it occurred to him for the very first time how odd it would have been if they had become a couple; people might have referred to them as “Cal and Val” everywhere they went.
CalVal?

“Didn’t know you were still here,” Valeria said, stopping to look at him.

“Yeah,” Calvin replied, “I just came out of assisting in one lab, but it sounds like no one else needs me right now…”

“Actually,” Valeria said at once, “I could use you. Do you have a few minutes?”

“Uh… sure,” Calvin replied, shrugging. “What do you need?”

“Well, I need help with an equation Jacqueline gave me,” Valeria said as Calvin approached, and they started off in the direction of her lab. “There are some tricky variables she needs solved—well, I guess I should say, you need solved,” she amended. “And they’re giving me problems.”

“Okay,” Calvin nodded. “Which equations were these?”

“They’re the power-balancing equations,” Valeria replied. “Actually, I don’t know exactly where they fit into all this. But they were originally power balancing equations, that Jacqueline has me adapting for this defensive system.”

Calvin shook his head as they walked. “Yeah, I’m not sure which equations you’re referring to. Was this one of the original equations we worked on the other day, with Leon?”

“No, not one of those.”

“Well, it’ll wait ‘til we get to the lab. Speaking of Leon, I actually didn’t ask: Are you two an item?”

Valeria smiled, but she didn’t blush. “Well, maybe not yet. Mostly, we’re just bed buddies. And oh,
God
, what a buddy! Get him to solve a ninth-level quantum equation for you, and he’ll go all night long.” Then she shrugged. “Not much of a conversationalist, though… he’s kind of boring. But there’s potential. Remember when you first met Maria? You told me that you were worried you two wouldn’t be able to communicate, because she wasn’t a scientist.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Calvin grinned.

“Well, obviously you two got through that,” Valeria said. “Unless it’s just the sex!”

“No, it’s not just the sex,” Calvin laughed. “Not that that hurt! But no, we found plenty to talk about. And even more after Erin was born. She’s beginning to worry me, though.”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“Well, she’s just gotten very uptight about the state of Earth lately. She talks about going down there to see things… but mostly things that don’t really exist anymore. I mean, I’d like to take her on a trip, but not to a place of her choosing that turns out to be submerged, or trashed, or whatever. I was actually thinking about taking her to the Grand Canyon, before Yosemite went off.”

Valeria nodded sadly. “Hopefully you’ll be able to go, when this is all over.”

“God, I hope we get the chance,” Calvin replied as they reached Valeria’s lab and went inside. Valeria put her tray down on an empty corner of the workstation, and removed a pear from it, taking a bite and immediately hunching forward to avoid pear juice dripping onto her blouse. “So,” Calvin was saying, “show me this equation.”

“Right here,” Valeria pointed at her workstation screen. “See, it’s a variation on another equation that I was already working on… the one Jacqueline said would apply to this project? Here, you can see I’ve got a working range going for the R-Phi variable, but then I can’t get the range to fit to the H-sub-Y variable. What am I missing here?”

“Hold on,” Calvin said, examining the equation. “I don’t know what all this is even for, Val. You said Jac—Dr, Silver said this applied to the project?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

Valeria shrugged sheepishly. “Actually, she didn’t say. She just said it did, and asked me to get started on it.”

“I’m confused,” Calvin stated, staring at the equation some more. “You said you were working on this equation before?”

“Another variation on it, yes,” Valeria nodded.

“Related to what?”

“Our freight project.”

“Is that the project Aaron Hardy had Dr. Silver working on? The one everyone was being so quiet about?”

“Pretty sure,” Valeria said. “A lot of us have been working on bits and pieces of it, I think. Well, up until today.”

“Then why did she give you this?” Calvin rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he examined the screen. He didn’t see how the equation before him could be applied to the defensive project at all… so why did Silver give it to Valeria? Was she planning to secretly keep working on the freight project?

“We have to find Silver,” Calvin abruptly said, as his mind kept racing ahead. He remembered the unvoiced suggestion in the conference room… about the possibility that Aaron and Silver’s transporter system could
deliver bombs
—

“And we’d better hurry,” he added, grabbing Valeria’s arm and towing her out of the lab.

~

Kris tried again to get a message through to CnC, but again, her com gave her a busy circuit signal. “Damn!” she snapped, causing a number of the people on the tram to snap their heads in her direction.

But she was only one of many. Quite a number of people on the tram were grumbling because their com calls were not going through, either. Kris had heard people mention the incidents at the other satellites, and a general concern by everyone for the safety of their loved ones, and she could only guess all of those people were trying to talk at once on the com lines, checking up on each other, trying to get together in case something happened around them.

Kris noticed, but paid them no mind. She was too upset to be concerned about them right now. She had a sick feeling that there was about to be a war… and even worse, that she would be caught on the wrong side. Thompson’s orders to her had been the last straw: She was content to use her talents to ferret out information, but she was not about to act as a government assassin, just so the United States could ruin her home.

Angrily she tried her com again, trying to get a clear line to CnC. Again, she got the busy circuit tone. “
Shit!
” she spat out, causing even more people to look up in annoyance or concern.

Almost as she reached the end of the tramline, she finally heard the tones that indicated her call was going through.
“CnC.”

“This is Kristine Fawkes, diplomatic representative for the United States government!” Kris snapped out, her voice loud due to stress. Quite a number of people looked up when they heard her yelling across the tram, and especially when she announced her title. “I have an urgent message for Ceo Lenz or Eo Luis, get me either of them right now!”

“Stand by, Miss Fawkes, I’m—”
There was a perceptible break in the line, followed by a return of the same voice.
“—lease hold on whi—”
The line broke again, and after a moment, the busy circuit signal cut in again.

“God-dammit!”
Kris belted out, and threw her com angrily at the far wall of the tram. The com shattered when it hit the window, scattering pieces over half the car. Other passengers immediately started either ducking from carbon shrapnel or shouting at her: “Jeezus, lady! What’s your problem!” “Are you crazy?” “Knock that shit off!”

But before Kris could respond to any of them, the tram came to a stop, and the doors opened. From here, a lift-ride would take her up to the CnC floor, and she could run the rest of the way. Kris was out of her seat like a shot, bolting past other passengers and fading up the corridor towards the lifts.

~

“Sir, I’m pretty sure it was Diplomat Fawkes,” one of the CnC technicians was telling Julian. “But I lost her signal. All this com traffic—”

“I know,” Julian nodded. “See if you can get her back.”

“We have other issues,” Reya called from across CnC. Julian joined her at the main workstation. “Flight activity from the ground. These look like fighters, not passenger aircraft. And see that one?” She pointed at a slightly different set of ident numbers. “Troop carrier.”

Julian examined the main display, which showed indicators in a number of locations bordering the southern edges of the United States. “Have they—”

“Look there,” Reya said, pointing at one set of indicators. “They’ve launched from south Texas. They’re gonna take a beating going through the ash layer from there, even with a southerly course. Only one reason you do that.”

Julian nodded. “Alert all Wasps. Go to code red standby, repeat, code red standby.”