Multiverse a technothril.., p.17
Multiverse: A Technothriller, page 17
Michael suddenly felt a chill as he imagined that admitting he’d had such a thing might be cause for him to lose his security clearance. Would these people still trust him if he was having nightmarish visions in the middle of the day?
He pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to loosen what felt like a tightening band of steel around his chest
Maybe a move to DC was exactly what he needed. Get away from everything in this state. It all reminded him of his family. There was one thing he knew that would get rid of these thoughts, and it was pouring himself into his work.
It might be the only way to keep him from going crazy.
Having only been in DC once before, Alicia stared at her surroundings as her father drove his rental past Lincoln Park, through the National Mall, past Foggy Bottom and finally she saw a sign saying they were entering old Georgetown. “Where exactly is it that we’re going?”
Levi glanced at her and shook his head. Pull your hoodie up. There’s cameras everywhere and the last thing we need is your face appearing on some computer’s pattern matcher.
Alicia pulled forward on her hoodie and adjusted the air vents for the air condition so that it blew directly into her face. The idea of wearing a hoodie in the summer wasn’t exactly Alicia’s idea of sensible attire, but even if her father didn’t realize it, she knew in her bones that there were people in the intelligence community looking for her. She was most definitely persona-non-grata in the future and she’d been caught illegally transmitting thoughts to unauthorized times and locations.
“As to where we’re going, I explained it before… this is where things started for me. And I suppose Mason thinks it’s a good idea that you be involved with this particular case—at least while we’re trying to figure out who is after you.”
Her father pulled into an open spot on the side of the road and they both hopped out of the car.
As she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt forward, he put coins in the parking meter and motioned for her to follow him.
An old man in dirty threadbare clothing yelled across the street, “Do you have any food I can have?”
They both continued walking south on 31st Street and she spotted a sign up ahead featuring a profile of a rooster on the left, the head of a longhorn bull on the right. The area wasn’t exactly upscale, to say the least. Her father paused underneath the sign, opened the door and motioned for her to enter.
Alicia walked into the dive bar and was hit with the smells of stale beer and wood polish.
The place was like any other dingy bar, not that she had that much experience in such things, but it fit the description of the few that she knew about. The place was dimly lit, had a few tables and booths, and there was a gray-haired man behind the counter toweling a glass dry who looked in their direction and nodded.
It was obviously a slow time of the day, as there was nobody else in this place but the one man sitting at the bar, wearing a suit. He turned and Alicia immediately recognized the pale eyes and short stature of Doug Mason.
He hopped off the stool and motioned for them to approach.
Mason offered her his hand and just as she was going to shake it, she noticed the glint of metal and grabbed the edge of the challenge coin.
It took only a second for the Eye of Providence to light up and Mason repeated the motion with her father, yielding the same results.
Mason shifted his attention to Alicia and grinned. “Welcome to our headquarters, young lady. What do you think?”
Alicia looked around at the less than impressive environment and grinned weakly. “Okay, I suppose. I guess I would have expected something a bit more…” She wiped her finger on the edge of the bar. “Oh, I don’t know—clean?”
He chuckled and motioned for her to follow. “Come with me, your father has already been through this, so this will be fun.”
Alicia glanced at her father who was wearing his practiced emotionless expression, but she could tell he was amused. His facial muscles were relaxed, except at the top of his cheeks, a sure sign that he was trying not to smile.
Mason opened the men’s bathroom door and motioned for her to enter.
With a confused expression, Alicia walked into a men’s bathroom for the first time in her life.
Three closed stalls and two urinals were lined up on one wall, with an “Out of Order” sign taped to the door of the farthest stall.
She stared at the urinals, never having seen one before and said, “So is that were you guys pee, instead of urinating in the toilet like a civilized person?”
Her father chuckled and shook his head.
Mason held an amused expression as he watched Alicia take in the details of the restroom.
She shifted her gaze to the sinks, where a white-haired man sat on a stool, dressed in tan slacks and a plaid button-down shirt. He nodded at Mason, then looked over his John Lennon-styled spectacles at Alicia.
“Is this the new girl, the one that’s replacing the Black Widow?”
Levi shook his head. “No, she’s just here for a temp assignment.”
“Temp assignment?” The old man snorted and shook his head. He muttered something about Molly Maids and gave her a withering stare.
“What is this?” Alicia asked. “Why are we gathered in a bathroom with an old guy giving me the stinkeye?”
“Who you calling old?” said the white-haired man, crossing his arms.
“I wouldn’t recommend pissing Harold off,” said Mason. “He might give you the wrong one.”
“The wrong what?” Alicia asked.
“The wrong towel. It’s only happened once or twice,” Mason said. He accepted the towel that Harold was holding out to him, then went into the stall marked “Out of Order.” “At least, that’s what I’ve heard,” he added as the door closed behind him.
From inside the stall came a loud metallic click followed by a long whooshing sound.
“Those rumors were never substantiated,” Harold said loudly over the din of the flushing toilet. He held out another towel.
Her father motioned for Alicia to take it, so she did. It was heavier than she expected, but otherwise it was soft and fluffy and… well, a towel.
Her father pushed open the door to the out-of-order stall. Mason wasn’t inside. The stall was empty.
“What in the world?” Alicia said. She glanced at her towel. Was this place some kind of bizarre entrance?
“Put the towel on the lever and flush,” her father said. “But make sure the towel is in contact with the lever when you press down.”
Alicia stepped into the stall and shut the door behind her. She inspected the toilet, looking behind the tank and around the underside of the bowl. It looked like an ordinary toilet. She felt the towel in both hands, running it through her fingers, feeling for anything out of the ordinary.
“Put the towel on the flushing lever,” her father said from outside the stall.
Alicia did as she was told. “And just flush like normal?”
“That’s the idea. I’ll join you as soon as you’re done.”
“She’s kind of slow, isn’t she, that daughter of yours?” said Harold.
Alicia shook her head and pushed down on the lever.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The instant the toilet flushed, the floor dropped—taking Alicia and the toilet with it. She put her hands on the tank to steady herself as she dropped down some kind of elevator shaft.
Her stomach lurched and her eyes widened as the brown walls of the toilet stall had been replaced by a blur of slate-gray concrete marked with alternating yellow and black stripes.
Then the walls fell away and the toilet-elevator slowed nearly to a stop, forcing Alicia to focus on her balance as she descended into a featureless room about as large as the restroom above. The entire rig settled into a recess in the floor, and stopped.
“Surprised?”
Alicia turned to see Mason smiling at her. “You could say that.”
“Step over here.”
As soon as Alicia’s feet cleared the platform, it launched itself upward, toilet and all, disappearing into the ceiling. A series of clicks echoed down the shaft as it locked into place above.
Alicia shook her head and looked around. She stood in an empty, featureless room. There was a wastebasket filled with hand towels, but that was it. The only exit—other than back up the shaft, if that was an option—was a plain steel door. A panel beside it featured a stenciled outline of a hand.
This entire place reminded Alicia of a fallout shelter one of the neighboring farms had built back during the 1950s. The air carried a musty scent and the aroma reminded her of an abandoned warehouse.
Hydraulic pistons hissed, and the toilet platform descended once again, bringing her father with it.
Alicia frowned. “Okay, I’m starting to get a definite top secret 007 vibe out of this place.” She gave her father a sidelong glance and smiled. “Kind of cool.”
“Young lady, you have an interesting reaction to challenging environments. It does remind me a bit of your father.” Mason looked over at Levi and grinned.
Her father shook his head. “She has a bit too much influence from Lucy, I’m afraid.”
Before Alicia could say anything in response, Mason motioned for her to follow as he walked toward the large steel door. “You’re about to see something that very few people have ever seen before. That would be the Outfit’s inner sanctum.”
“The Outfit?”
“That’s the name of the organization Director Mason and I work for.”
“Not a particularly snazzy name, if you ask me.” Alicia frowned, showing a bit of disapproval. “You need to hire some marketing people to come up with a better name.”
“Yes, well not everything can get a sexy name—”
“What about that Black Widow person Harold mentioned. That’s a sexy name. Is that like some kind of call sign?”
“Let’s keep the spiders out of this for now,” her father motioned in the direction of the steel door. “Let’s not stand around here with our thumbs up our butts.”
Alicia watched as Mason stepped up to the door and placed his palm on the smooth panel. A blue line passed back and forth underneath his hand, a green LED flashed, and a click echoed from inside the wall. The director stepped back, and three massive locking bolts slid out of their retaining blocks on the right side of the door.
“Stand clear,” a digitized voice warned, and the door slowly opened outward.
Alicia stared in awe at the immensity of the object moving, seemingly of its own accord.
Mason rapped his knuckles on the side of the door as it swung open. “Four feet thick, tungsten-steel alloy. This thing will stand up to a nuclear blast. Just don’t get your fingers caught in it while it’s closing. You’ll be using your toes to paint with for the rest of your life.”
Alicia looked past the door and saw a plain concrete corridor that seemed to run straight for at least one hundred feet.
“How in the world did you get this giant door down here? Alica asked.
Mason led them through the door and down a plain, concrete corridor lit by bright LED lights. “There’s another shaft dug solely for the purpose of heavy transport. Still, it was no simple task. And I know, because they had to replace the original door about ten years ago. The thing weighs eighteen tons.”
“How long has this place been down here?”
“It was all dug out of the bedrock in the late nineteen fifties.”
They turned the corner, and the hall ended at another door. Mason put his eye up to a box on the wall, and after a green light flashed, the door clicked.
Mason pushed it open. “Welcome to the Outfit’s US headquarters, Miss Yoder.”
Alicia stepped through.
She found herself standing on a metal walkway twenty feet above the floor of a room larger than most warehouses. Cubicles were arranged in a grid below her, stretching as far as she could see, with men and women working busily at computer screens or talking among themselves. Up here, at Alicia’s level, metal walkways led to offices positioned all around the edges of the room, looking down on the central work area. Through the office windows, Alicia saw more people working at computers.
In the very center of the room, four huge display screens, each easily fifty feet across, hung from the ceiling, displaying information, maps, photographs, satellite feeds, and more.
“Why do I feel like I’m in the movie Men in Black and I’m the Asian and female Will Smith looking down into the headquarters. Next, you’ll be telling me there really are aliens, and they work for you guys.”
Her father furrowed his brows, and said, “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Your father probably never saw the movie.” Mason laughed. “I totally see your point of view. Sadly, there’s no aliens that I know of working in the Outfit.”
Levi shrugged. “I don’t know about aliens, but my reaction to this place was that it looked like a bad guy’s lair out of a Bond film.”
“You would, Dad. That’s because you’re old.” Alicia said with a lop-sided grin. “If not MIB how about if Mission Impossible had a headquarters, this if what it would probably look like.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Her father stepped around Alicia, and motioned at the expanse of activity ahead of them. “Whether it’s aliens or bad guys, it might be a little weird at first, but you get used to it.”
Alicia’s eyes widened as she spotted a painted image of a giant eye on the ceiling. “What’s the deal with the big eyeball surrounded by words in Latin? It looks like the logo we have on our paper money.”
Mason nodded. “That’s the Eye of Providence. When our little organization was created, the founders created that logo since they felt it embodied who and what we are. Novus Ordo Seclorum means ‘New Order of the Ages,’ and Annuit Coeptis means ‘providence favors our undertaking.’”
“Hold on,” Alicia stared at the image and was certain she’d seen it all over DC in one form or another. “Are you saying the Outfit preceded the founding of this country?”
“Is that such a shock?” The director said with a note of amusement. “The original members of the Outfit were the Agents of the Revolution. It was actually the original name of our organization.”
“And what do the Agents of the Revolution do?” Alicia said it with as even a tone as she could muster despite her rising skepticism.
“Originally, the Outfit was formed around the time of the Revolutionary War,” Mason explained. “Hence the name. It started with a group of British officers that weren’t particularly loyal to the Crown, along with the members of the original Continental Congress. They saw the need for an organization that could do things that needed to be done… but which couldn’t be done in the view of the public.”
“Like what?” Alicia asked.
“Like assassinate the king of England.”
Alicia raised an eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure the king of England was never assassinated.”
Mason nodded. “The war ended before they got into position to pull it off. But it was in the works. At the time, it was believed that King George the Third was mentally ill. His son, George the Fourth, was old enough to take the throne, and he was a much gentler soul—a regular patron of the arts. Washington himself signed off on the operation.
“But that was just the beginning. After we’d won the war, the founding fathers knew they’d continue to need the Outfit. They’d seen how much arguing went on in Congress over even the simplest issues, and they realized that if they ever needed to act quickly, they’d have to be able to get around that bureaucratic nonsense.”
“So even back then, there was too much red tape.”
“Exactly,” Mason said. “The Outfit is a way to cut through all the nonsense for the betterment of all.
“But this is the US capitol. Everyone wants their hands in everything; they all want their say in decisions. So we have one mandate: if it’s actionable, we act. It’s as simple as that. We don’t need to build an airtight case for court, and we don’t need to convince politicians somewhere on some golf course that a particular target needs taking out. We just do it.”
A sense of curiosity welled up within Alicia. “That sounds dangerous. Like an anarchist’s wet dream. What about if you’re wrong, or one of your people goes rogue and abuses his power?”
“Do we really need to go into this with Alicia?” Her father’s furrowed eyebrows were an easy tell for anyone that he was getting annoyed.
Mason shrugged. “Alicia and I have talked. She understands the need for secrecy, and since she might be helping us with our problem with the professor, so I’d rather she be aware of what it is she’s temporarily involved in.”
“Dad.” Alicia turned to her father and felt a surge of emotion. “Please, I just want to understand. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to know what it is you do, and this is just so damned cool. Please, I’ll stop asking dumb questions, but let me soak it in.”
Her father lightly grabbed the back of her neck, and for a second, playfully roughhoused with her like he used to when she was little. “Fine, but remember… when this is all over—you have another life to live. This isn’t it.”
“Dad, I know…”
“You asked about a rogue agent?” Mason shook his head. “It’s never happened. As to whether we make the right call, of course we need to be positive that we’re on the side of the angels before any action takes place. The difference is we don’t need to convince layers and layers of bureaucrats. We just get clearance from within the group.”
Alicia stared wide-eyed at Mason. “It’s hard to imagine you never had a bad egg in the group.”
“Well, it’s true.” Mason motioned to the far end of the cavern-like interior. “On the far side we have conference rooms. I’ve reserved conference room C3, your father will take you over there and I’ll gather Brice so we can get this started. Any questions?”
Alicia shook her head.
Her father led her down the stairs as Mason walked off in another direction. He was talking to her, but Alicia barely acknowledged what he was saying as she felt a tingling sensation from head to toe. If there was a way to measure excitement, she knew hers was off the charts, and the idea that she was in this secret place with her father was so beyond anything she’d imagined, it took everything she had not to burst at the seams.
