The Alpha Choice (57 page)

The impressiveness of it all worried him. Going to this much trouble for a commercial transit, how far would they go to influence the decision about to affect all their lives?
The President can’t help but be swept away by a technology capable of producing this, and who knows what else
.

He caught Emily looking at him, and when she spoke it was clear she thought the same. ‘Imagine, if I had a sister and she found a new boyfriend, handsome, clever and charming with a great job, but it’s all top show. I can see it, but can my sister? She smiled.

Returning her smile, he nodded. Not only was she a wiz with computers, she had learned to become a diplomat. He was thankful he was the only one who could activate the Artefact, otherwise he would be redundant.

The bodiless voice spoke again, telling him they would be departing in one minute, with a journey time of thirty minutes.There were two attractive young women sitting at the front of the craft dressed in designer, navy blue suits. They could not have been more than twenty-one, yet they exuded an air of quiet confidence belying their apparent age,
human backup…if they are human?
he thought.
 

When the announcement came that the craft was taking off, he waved his hand over the blue square and, sure enough an image appeared, an arm’s length in front of his eyes. This was a wide screen view of how he imagined things would look from the cockpit, if it had windows. The ground moved away from them at an astonishing rate, yet there was no sense of movement within the cabin.
 

In a matter of seconds, they had passed through the clouds, without the usual destabilising effect it would have on an airplane dependent on, and subject to, air currents. Once they were high above the clouds, the ship began to hurtle forwards. Despite everything he knew of these beings, he was mesmerised by a visual experience telling him he was travelling at phenomenal speeds, while his body felt they had not moved at all.

He turned to look at Emily, and saw she was also captivated. ‘Impressive?’ She returned an uncomfortable look. ‘Yeah, I suppose.’

During the uneventful journey, the cabin crew never left their seats, and no further communications were directed at him. After several minutes, he tired of looking at the view screen, and turned his attention to his fellow passengers, retrieving items from their hand luggage, and helping themselves to drinks - which appeared to be non-alcoholic - and snacks. He was fascinated by the way in which discarded items, and hand luggage seemed to just disappear, when their owners had no further use for them. The half hour passed very quickly, even without conversation - the two of them had agreed in the hotel that it would be unwise to speak, while on board.

The hitch free disembarkation was a mirror image of the embarkation procedure, and they soon found themselves standing in an open air plaza, outside the AGP serving TeCorp headquarters.

Δ

They found an area where they could not be overheard and, while keeping their backs to the nearest security cameras, pointed and gesticulated as if they were little more than excited tourists.

It was blindingly obvious, even from where they stood, that TeCorp was courting the goodwill of the world. Keen to show anyone who was interested, basically anyone with a pulse, just how much easier and enjoyable, life was under Te’Corp’s benevolent, all encompassing care.

During the flight, they had been told, by their ‘personal’ information service, that low level anti-grav shuttles to and from the port were frequent, and free. While not as plush as their larger cousins, they were a quick and simple way to demonstrate the A to Z mindset embraced by TeCorp. Several covered concourses each housed waiting transports, and one of those would soon be taking them to the site of the forthcoming signing ceremony, the TeCorp headquarters building, itself.
 

The President would be arriving in six hours and after a tour of the facility, lasting a little over forty-five minutes, the ‘signing,’ with the added virtual presence of the other three nominated leaders, would take place. Gerry Wye, was scheduled to arrive ahead of the main party to ensure that everything ran smoothly, which meant he was already there.
 

Emily told Jon of her background check on Mr. Wye. ‘A very unsavoury character, we need to avoid him, at all costs.’

Her plans were meticulous. Accessing blueprints of the facility - lodged with the authorities - together with the records of several safety and compliance visits, she was able to interlace all the data with the ‘top secret’ itinerary of the President, and come up with a thorough breakdown of where they needed to be, and when.
 

The building was not only the headquarters of TeCorp, but also its major R&D site and had grown at an alarming rate. One day there was nothing in the area except farmland, and three weeks later construction was nearing completion. None of the official data recorded the constant Te’an activity, beneath the site, for several years.

The local town council acted with almost indecent haste in agreeing to the development. Why would they do otherwise? In their eyes they were going from a quiet rural area, hours from a major city, to the most important location on Earth. This was beyond their wildest imaginings and, to top it all, the changes were happening quicker than they thought was humanly possible, but as everyone now knew, Te’an involvement meant
humanly possible
was no longer a limiting factor.

During the flight Jon made a mental note of every fact and assertion flooding his senses; he had to admire the sheer technical wizardry of a race that could create projects of such functional elegance. What he witnessed, as the images and sounds cascaded past him, was science and nature in perfect harmony. In another time, in different circumstances, he could happily live in a Te’an engineered world. Part of him wished he was simply on a sightseeing tour, but he quickly buried that impulse, knowing how Emily would react. It was the frightened part of him that would have reality transformed, so that the things he saw were as they appeared, and not as they really were.
 

Briefly, the mental image of
Jane
was in front of him, cool and formidable, reminding him, without speaking, of the task ahead. Then the image was gone, but he felt more resolved than ever to get the job done. This was no memory,
Jane
had righted him when he was veering off course.
 

He must have given something away, as Emily was regarding him with a worried look on her elfin face. ‘I'm scared as well, but there’s only you and me, no cavalry, remember?’ She looked towards the vista in front of them, and the people converging on the transports. ‘These guys are sold, there’s no-one out there who’s going to help us.’

‘You’re wrong Emily, someone is watching us, helping us.’

‘You mean them?’ she said looking upwards. He nodded, and then told her what he had just experienced, adding, ‘I don't think she, or the others, can physically help us, but they know what’s happening, and I felt stronger, more resolved after she left. It isn’t just you and me, kid.’

Her worried look was instantly replaced by a grimace that suggested she had just tasted a sour lemon. ‘Kid?’
 

He laughed. ‘Sorry, Emily it is.’

The sour lemon look did not disappear immediately. ‘As we can't rely on our
friends
, to give us any practical help, we’ve only got one hope, Hugo Black. We convince him that Te equals bad, Artefact equals good.’

‘Why should he believe the Te are the baddies? Look around you, they’re not just promising a new world, they’re delivering on that promise. They’ve made him the most powerful man on the planet. In what reality would he believe us? Let’s say we do get to him, and tell him everything we know, he’s just as likely to say it’s the Custodians
who
are the dangerous ones, the Artefact a Pandora’s box, and it’s the Te who’ll protect us from the Custodians.’

There was no answer from his young friend.

After a few moments he said. ‘Maybe we don't have to convince him,’ her brow furrowed, but he continued, ‘perhaps we just have to sow a doubt, get him to persuade the President to postpone the signing, after all there must be the tiniest part of him that wonders if they are
Greeks bearing gifts
,’ he looked at her as if she might need an explanation.

She answered with an exasperated look. ‘I
do
know about the Trojan Horse!’ then added, ‘you might be right, and we don’t have any alternative.’

They agreed to take the next shuttle to the facility, and sign on for the standard tour. After fifteen minutes, the group of tourists would be escorted to a refreshment lounge on the ground floor. Before reaching the doorway to the lounge, they would pass a stairwell to the lower floors. Hanging back from the group, the two of them would take the stairs; access was no problem, as the entrance was unsecured. In fact, very little of the facility was secure, except for the research sections six floors below.

Emily had discovered that Hugo Black and the President’s advance entourage would be in a conference room on the research floor. To get to that room, they had to pass the ‘signing room,’ which would be guarded by Secret Service agents. If that was not enough of a problem, they needed to get Black alone, if they could get to him at all.
 

She had dug deep in her researches, and discovered that Black had a niece, Rachel, who was at college, studying economics. Rachel’s FBI file, disclosed that her boyfriend had been arrested once for drugs possession, and there was a concern his involvement went beyond possession. It was clear from everything she could find, that Hugo Black was very close to his niece. She was the daughter of his older sister and was only six when her father drowned, since then, he had treated her as his own child.
 

Jon had been unsure whether Emily could make her plan work, but it was obvious she had help, not only in gaining access to secure records, but changing them. The question was not whether the authorities would be fooled, but how Rachel’s uncle would react. Jon suggested it would be foolhardy to take the Artefact with them as they would, certainly, be stopped and searched, irrespective of whether they got through to Black. He also thought the Secret Service would keep the Artefact for fear it posed a danger, not only to the TeCorp CEO, but more importantly, the President.

All this made perfect sense, until Emily reminded him, as though speaking to a much younger brother, of what
Jane
had told them. ‘Remember, the Artefact won't be discovered unless it wants to be. The fact that you have it, means it isn’t looking for someone else. I guess that if anyone else held the thing, it wouldn’t register.’

‘Sorry, I forgot, but it doesn’t seem right that we just walk in there with it.’

‘What do you suggest, hiding it under the nearest tropical plant?’ she asked, with more than a hint of sarcasm. Then as if fearing he might take her up on the suggestion, hastily added. ‘Have you wondered what might happen if you hide it somewhere?’

Once again he was missing something his young companion thought obvious. He said nothing, but it was no good, she was forcing him to ask. ‘I've no idea what might happen, so you’d better enlighten me.’

She smiled, knowing she had triumphed, again. ‘Imagine you're the Artefact. You've appeared to one of the few people on Earth who can release your power. Thousands of years have gone by, and here he is. You allow yourself to be taken to a place where momentous events might unfold, then…he dumps you in a plant pot. What are you going to do, hang around until he decides to come back for you? Or, do you just disappear, and wait somewhere else for another few thousand years? Now, maybe it will just twiddle its thumbs, or whatever it uses for thumbs, until we go back, but are you prepared to take the risk?’

Jon had been thinking about it as she was spelling out how simple he was. By the time she had finished, his mind was made up. ‘You're right, we should keep it.’

Emily looked mildly surprised, and could only say. ‘Right move, dude.’

He could only shake his head, and grimace.

As planned, it was easy to separate from the group of sightseers, and get to the other side of the door. There were no security cameras to monitor them leaving their group, or exiting the floor. It seemed to Jon as though the Te viewed their technological mastery as imbuing them with a degree of invulnerability, and perhaps not without some justification, as there was nothing, and no one on this planet capable of doing them harm.

Ω

Gorn turned up at his friend’s cramped quarters, after retrieving a message at the end of a very long day. Ordinarily, he would have responded to the request the following morning, but he had not seen his friend since his return from the solo mission, and the tone of Genir’s voice, coupled with what he knew about the asteroid, left him with no choice. The summons could not have come at a worse time, when he was deeply involved with what was happening on Telluria, but this was his only friend.

A few minutes later he was sitting opposite Genir - in the short time he had been a bridge officer, he had forgotten how cramped and uncomfortable, junior officers’ quarters were -
 
and knew he was right to come down.

The eyes before him betrayed a haunted mind. ‘In less than an hour I’ll be called into action,’ Gorn shrugged, and his friend just smiled, ruefully. ‘Have you heard any of the rumours?’

‘Rumours?’

‘Yes, about what we’re going up against?’

Gorn shook his head. ‘I’ve not heard any rumours, but from your face, I don’t think you can say the same.’ He was not lying, but disingenuous? Definitely, because while it was true, no rumours had crossed his path, he knew the true nature of the mission and would keep that from Genir.

‘Do you want a drink?’ his host asked.

Again, Gorn shook his head.

‘I’ve heard something, and I’d like you to check it out.’ While this was not a plea, it was probably as close as Genir would get.

‘What have you heard?’