Revolution (44 page)

    They pushed open the glass front doors and walked across the courtyard to the street. A black anti-grav limousine hovered by the sidewalk. A black-suited driver stood by the limousine awaiting the passengers. The driver opened the back door and held it for them. Burke embarked first. The driver opened the second back door. Nicole got into the limo and Peter followed. They sat down on a comfortable leather seat opposite Burke in a spacious cabin in the rear of the limo.

    “Would you like a drink?” Tom asked, gesturing to the fully equipped wet bar.

    “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Peter said, forcing a grin on his pale face.

    “Malcom, they have your favorite. Captain Morgan’s,” Nicole said, smiling as she pointed to a bottle on the bar.

    “Oh, that’s great,” Peter said. “Would you like anything, Nicole?”

    “No thanks.”

    “And you, Tom? Would you like anything?” Rayne asked.

    “No thanks, Malcom.” Burke said, leaning forward until his elbows were resting on his knees.

    Burke had his hands pressed against each other in front of his face in a simulation of prayer. He was studying Peter’s face intently. Peter ignored him and poured himself a drink. He saw a bottle of Coke on the end of the bar, but he declined to pour it. He preferred to drink his rum straight at the moment. Pausing, Rayne smiled at the other limo guests.

    “To the Underworld,” Peter said, feigning a light tone as he lifted his glass in a toast.  

    The other passengers smiled back as he took a sip of his drink. He wanted to swallow the entire thing in one draught, but he thought restraint was a better option at this time. Burke continued to scrutinize him as if he was studying an enigma.

    “Forgive me for staring, Malcom,” Burke spoke through his folded hands. “It’s just that you look so familiar. I’m still trying to put together where I met you before.”

    “Maybe it was at one of Frump’s boring meetings,” Nicole offered, laughing.

    “Yeah, it could have been,” Tom agreed.

    It was as if Brenton’s comment had broken a spell because Burke then turned his attention to her and smiled charmingly.

    “Nicole, are you enjoying your stay in the city?”

    “Most definitely,” Nicole said, winking at Peter.   

    “Am I missing something?” Burke asked.

    “No, it’s just an inside joke,” Nicole said, smiling.

    “Tell, me, Tom, how’s your wife?” she asked, trying to change the subject.

    “She’s doing great. She’s down at our place in West Palm Beach. I don’t know how she can stand the heat this time of year, but she’s crazy about the place year round.”

    “I’m sure she’s relaxing in an air-conditioned bar,” Nicole said, laughing.

    “You’re probably right.”

    Rayne was so worried that Burke would recognize him that he didn’t notice the limousine speeding down the street. Glancing out the window to his left, Peter saw the buildings race by his vision in a blur. Burke and Brenton began talking about the West Palm Beach Yacht Club and Rayne found he had an instant’s reprieve. He used the free, unobserved moment to gulp down the rest of the rum and pour in some Coke as a chaser. He had never been a big drinker, so the straight rum was burning his throat.

    Scooping up some ice from the wet bar’s ice bucket, Rayne poured himself a full glass of Coke. He drank it quickly and enjoyed the feel of the cold liquid drowning out the heat in his throat.

    “Malcom, have you ever been to the Yacht Club in Palm Beach?” Nicole asked.

    “No, I’ve never been there,” Peter answered, truthfully. “I hear it’s great, though,” he added, lying.

    Rayne was beginning to feel more relaxed. His head felt lighter, at least. When his throat had cooled off, he poured a shot of rum into his Coke and sipped it. Rayne pretended he was listening to a story Brenton and Burke were talking about involving the “old days” when they worked together at Cryotech. Rayne just hoped his luck would hold out a little longer.

   
If Tom Burke recognizes me an hour from now, after I’ve raided the computer down in the bunker, that would be bad. But if he recognizes me now, that would be much, much worse. 

Chapter 32

   
By the time he finished his second rum and Coke, Rayne felt relaxed enough to join the conversation. Burke and Brenton were telling amusing stories from their college days, so Rayne had no problem adding a few of his own.

    Burke seems to have at least temporarily put aside his obsession to find out where he remembers me. If my luck can hold out a little longer, everything might be all right.

    The limousine parked in front of a nondescript building. The driver exited the front and walked around to the back to open the door for them. Tom Burke led the way across the sidewalk toward the building. The sign above the glass doors seemed innocuous enough; BUREAU OF STATISTICS. They entered the building and walked through a large body scanner; it was similar to the one Rayne had walked through when he arrived at Virtual-world.

    Something in Burke’s possession set off the scanner because a pair of guards met him as he left the machine. They recognized him right away and nodded at him. Burke nodded back and continued to walk briskly across the lobby floor.

     The unlikely group crossed the spartanly furnished front lobby and approached a pair of elevators. Burke veered toward the elevator on the left and Rayne and Brenton followed. The Security Director swiped his wrist across a scanner and punched a numeric code into a panel. The doors opened and they stepped in.

     When the doors closed, Burke punched another numeric code into a second panel below the main panel listing the floors. When he finished punching in the seemingly long and complex code, he pressed the button on the bottom of the main panel, reading “B,” which Rayne assumed meant basement. The elevator dropped rapidly. He could only assume they were dropping toward the Underworld.

    The elevator continued its rapid descent for an agonizing three minutes. Rayne thought they must have traveled fifty floors underground by the time the doors finally opened to a bright steel corridor.

    “Welcome to the Underworld,” Burke said with a dramatic flair, smiling as he led them out of the elevator.

    The Security Director walked ahead of them down the brightly lit, steel-walled hallway. Rayne and Brenton followed him, walking side-by-side. Nicole flashed Peter a nervous smile. He feigned a reassuring one back. She reached over and held his hand while they walked.

    As they approached a security checkpoint, the guards recognized Tom Burke and waved them through.

    “How’s it going, Peter?” Burke asked the guard on the left.

    “Fine. And you, Mr. Burke?”

    “Very good,” Burke said, walking past the guards without meeting their eyes.

    Rayne and Brenton followed him through the checkpoint. Peter nodded at the guard who Burke had addressed as “Peter.” They walked another fifty feet down the corridor until they reached a steel door. Burke swiped his wrist through the ubiquitous scanner and punched in his complex number code. Unlike all the other doors they had encountered so far, the thick metal door opened slowly. Rayne glanced at the door as they passed and realized it was more than a foot thick.

    They entered a short, narrow corridor with transparent walls. On the other side of the walls, blue-suited security technicians sat at control panels monitoring their progress.

     Rayne noticed a familiar row of blinking green lights lined up on a long steel beam running along the base of the transparent wall. It was a body scanner similar to the one in the corridor leading to the President’s conference room. They walked through an opening at the end of the transparent hallway into a completely different atmosphere.

    The tour group entered a spacious, intersecting hallway brimming with activity. The area reminded Rayne of an underground subway station. An anti-grav transport hovered above a deep groove in the floor beyond the large platform they stood on.

     The transport was about twenty-five feet long and looked as if it could seat ten people. It was completely automated and reminded Rayne of the floating platforms with seats, which served as public transportation in Virtual-world. Rayne watched two passengers board the empty transport. It waited several seconds and rushed out of sight down a tunnel.

    “This place must be huge if you need transports to cart people around,” Rayne observed, watching another transport arrive at the loading platform from the opposite tunnel. No one boarded this one, so it sat empty for several seconds and took off automatically.

    “It must be,” Nicole agreed.

    “It is,” Burke said, winking at them. “Why do you think they call it the Underworld? We’re going this way. Follow me.”

   Burke veered left down the corridor. They passed numerous fast-walking personnel wearing white technician uniforms, blue security uniforms, or the gleaming blue armor of the Federal Police. Occasionally, they passed a man or woman wearing a suit.

    The spacious corridor appeared to be endless. Rayne gazed ahead, watching the large hallway disappearing into a distant linear perspective. People walked the corridor for as far as he could see. They approached another transport platform on the left.

    Another floating box with seats emerged from a tunnel, moving in the opposite direction. Rayne glanced over his shoulder and saw the personnel corridor running endlessly behind them. Numerous branching corridors veered off to the left and right. Technicians and security personnel were continuously emerging from, or entering, these side corridors. Occasionally, the tour group would walk by a closed metal door. Rayne saw some of the closed doors rush open when people swiped their wrists across the scanners.

    “Tom, this place is incredible. It looks as if this hallway runs for miles,” Nicole commented.

    “1.4 miles to be exact,” Tom said, grinning proudly as if he had personally constructed the massive complex. “As you have probably realized, this is the main personnel tunnel. It is connected to every important area in the Underworld. If you follow the tunnel straight in the opposite direction,” Tom said, turning and pointing behind them. “You will eventually reach the underground nuclear power plant. From there, you can travel beneath Virtual-world. The plant supplies power to the capitol city, the underground complex, and Virtual-world. This island was built to be completely autonomous from the outside world in case of attack. There are enough fuel rods stored in underground vaults to keep this place running for a hundred years.”

   
This is all starting to make sense. The elite customers who have need of the Body Bank’s services can gain access to it from the capitol city, using this tunnel as a junction point.

    Approaching another transport platform on the right, they saw a group of technicians exit a car. The tour group continued for another fifty feet and encountered the transport’s counterpart on the left running in the opposite direction. An empty car waited several seconds and sped away. As they traveled further down the personnel tunnel, pedestrian traffic became sparser. Occasionally, a white-coated technician or blue-armored security guard passed them.

    “We’re approaching the National Defense Control Center,” Burke said.

    They took a right at an intersecting corridor and traveled a hundred feet until they reached a thick steel door.

    “This control center connects every major military base nationwide. From here, we can communicate instantaneously with any base in the country,” Burke explained, swiping his wrist across the door scanner.

    The two-foot thick steel door opened slowly and they stepped onto a balcony overlooking a colossal open area that reminded Rayne of the many-tiered control center in the Prehistoric World attraction. They were standing at the top tier looking down at descending tiers. Each tier was occupied by rows of technicians sitting in front of control panels.

     The towering wall opposite the tiers contained a movie theatre-sized viewing screen, which showed multiple split-screen depictions of various geographic areas in the country. Tom Burke surveyed the control room as if he owned all the hardware and personnel in the chamber.

    “The United States has reached an unprecedented era in its national defense,” Burke said, gesturing to the multiple-tiered control center. “For the first time in history, the U.S. must rely solely on itself for national defense. As you both know, our allies in NATO abandoned us during the Columbian War. Since then, we have broken off diplomatic relations with all European countries, with the exception of Great Britain. Since we can no longer rely on our allies, we must have the most sophisticated and integrated defense system on the planet. This is the control center.”