Activated, p.5
Activated, page 5
I peer up through my telescope. The stars are so dense and bright, it looks like milk poured out across the sky. The recent solar flares have triggered the most intense displays of auroras scientists have seen in years, which has helped speed my research.
Noble’s communication code is beyond complex. It’s like a new form of Morse code using the wavelengths and frequencies of these high-energy stellar events. Once I gather tonight’s activity and coordinates, I’ll use an alphabet affiliation sequence to transmute the measurements into letters.
My research has given me 87% of the coordinates I need to discover where Noble is hiding. Tonight, I’ll have the rest.
As the earth rotates, the data appears painfully slowly, dripping one number at a time like a broken faucet. I write each one down, cross-examining it with other data. As I turn the dials on the telescope and meticulously check my notes, finally X marks the spot. The data has a match—in the polar auroras.
My heart speeds up. I now have latitude and longitude coordinates for a spot on the opposite side of the world. Noble is holed up in the region around the North Pole.
I should have guessed. The well-known Arctic Space Lab run by Scale Tech is in that area. Their satellites and data centers have made ripples through scientific communities across the world. Not to mention the ISC headquarters is in Helsinki, Finland. He must be tapping into their satellites for his own research. Everyone is looking for him, and he’s right under their noses.
My stomach explodes into jitters. After the PSS job in Brazil is finished, I could hop on a plane and find him. The location isn’t exact, but there’s enough data to decipher the general area.
My fingers tremble so much I can hardly hold the pen as I decipher the equations that tumble in like shooting stars. Ninety-eight nights of searching in the dark for this message, and finally a candle has been lit. My smile is so wide it hurts.
One by one numbers recalibrate in my head. I decode the final layer of data and breathe. Equations become letters and a message appears. When I read it, my smile fades.
It can’t be right. A racing in my chest starts again. I double, then triple check to see if I’ve decoded the equations incorrectly. But I haven’t.
Hope vanishes as a black hole opens in my chest, tearing down the last defenses of my heart.
The message is clear:
DON’T FIND ME.
Chapter 5
THERE ARE NO frequencies in this dream, but light, like particles, floats between layers of darkness, and rolls into the room like thin sets of waves, like the auroras or the supernova from earlier in the night.
I didn’t want to dream tonight. I wanted to retreat into a world where numbers didn’t rule me, a place where I could rest with the unknown. My dreams aren’t like that anymore. Not since my gift returned.
In front of me Red is coughing so hard even my chest hurts listening to him. The memory is clear. This is the night Red died.
I flit my head right and left, looking for a way out, a way to wake up because I’m not sure I can relive this night. At the same time, I can’t walk away from him. That night I cried until I was numb, begging to have just one more hour with him, to look at him once more before the light in his eyes went out.
“Granddaughter…What have I taught you?”
His voice is hoarse and echoing like it’s not in the room but coming from down the hall. I want to respond, to say the right things this time but I just stand there, staring. There’s a flame burning in his eyes. I can’t concentrate because he’s dying. The light should be growing dimmer. Instead, it’s getting brighter, blinding, almost tangible—just like a supernova after it dies. I’ll go blind if I keep looking. But I can’t look away.
His words in the background are like a script I know well. He’s telling me that I’ll be kidnapped; then he gives me my new name. I hold eye contact like it’s a tether.
“Phoenix.”
“Red.”
I want Red to know I’m there. That he is everything to me. That I’d be dead if it weren’t for him. He pulled my soul out of the darkest of nights and transformed me into who I am.
Now he’s dying all over again in front of me. Tears I can’t feel stream down my face, but I can’t concentrate on that because of the light coming from his face. I need to get closer to him.
I inch forward until my fingers touch his metal cot. I rest my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat slow down. His chest rises and falls until it’s so faint, I don’t know if the dream is over. I hold on to him, mourning for myself, for the world that couldn’t meet him.
My eyes squint open. The light is warm like a fire. Even in my dream, my cold body heats up. I want to sit next to him as long as I can, but even more I want to look at him one last time. I’m terrified the dream will end too soon.
I lean in closer. As the light goes out in his eyes, I feel colder. I start shaking. I’m close enough to turn his dying face to mine just as his last breath leaves his mouth, and the light fades. When I meet his eyes, I drop my hands and gasp—Red is not the one on the cot.
It’s Kai.
I jolt awake as the phantom frequency races past me heading eastward. The coolness of the dawn tears in on me like a traitor as I sit up, limbs shaking. My first thought is that I am back in Geneva. There are two frequencies in the air that are hauntingly familiar, but the elusive light filtering over the dunes confirms I’m still in Namibia.
I follow the phantom frequency toward a faint rumble in the east…a vehicle and at least two people. We’re so far out and off road it’d be hard for anyone to randomly bump into us. I close my eyes and focus.
I’m still on the lawn chair twelve feet from the PSS van, still cocooned in my heat-activated sleeping bag—but it’s far below the temperature it should be. It must have malfunctioned in the night. Which would explain why I’m shaking. Apparently, we still have more bugs to fix on this tech, but what I fumble for is the BFG. It didn’t alert me to the people nearby. I tap K2 to see it’s working. It’s offline too. Another blackout must have caused it.
Slipping out of the bag, I bolt up over to my bodyguard, who flies up the moment he hears movement. “Tank, wake up. People are nearby and the BFG’s not working.”
He’s up in a flash.
By the time Tank returns, I have the BFG back online and working.
“Not to worry,” he says. “They were tourists. Came here to see the Spencer Bay wreck. I think I scared them. They got in their van and left pretty quickly.”
My throat goes dry. Tourists to see the wreck before dawn? Or is someone still looking for whatever they didn’t find in Geneva?
“Thanks.” Shivering, I slink over to the van to get warm, assessing the situation. It’s not like anyone attacked us. But what if I hadn’t woken up? Thanks to the phantom frequency, I did.
Everyone is sleeping as I step inside the warm camper. The telescope, which I packed away last night, is on the table. The moment I see it, my eyes sting.
A shift in the van draws my attention. Eddie’s eyes blink open at me from the bunk in the camper. “You get his message? Planning your romantic getaway?”
I shake my head, my jaw tightening to hide the emotion rising in my throat.
“Not quite.”
Chapter 6
INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE MATEMÁTICA PURA E APLICADA, RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL
Two days later…
TODAY I AM a decoy. I’m undercover. Taking a hit for the team. That is what I tell myself as I stand in this foreign lecture hall.
Out of 481 students, 94 are half-sleeping, 139 are playing with their phones, 98 are taking notes or doodling, 144 are genuinely paying attention, and 6 boys are attempting to flirt with me—while I’m lecturing. One is actually winking. In addition to all this, each person in this room has a frequency. And one of these frequencies shouldn’t be here.
In an effort to concentrate and finish the lecture, I close my eyes and give in to my gift, which is like a waterfall in spring, cascading buckets of information. There is no way to stop what is happening, so I let it rush over me—every equation in the room, while I focus on the words coming out of my mouth.
“Light,” I continue, “has a noteworthy history. Over the centuries, humanity has had new revelations and breakthroughs about what light actually is. We’re still far from being truly able to define it. Light can function in more ways than one—waves, particles, photons, and rays.”
I take a deep breath and point to the screen. “Generally speaking, light is a scientific troublemaker that continues to break our rules of the universe. It moves at its own speed—we can never catch up to it and nothing can slow it down in free space. Newton was the first to claim that the colors of the rainbow were from the same light that arrives from the sun. With a prism, he proved that we could bend, or refract, light to see its color, as through water.” I point to the next slide.
“William Herschel then discovered each color in the rainbow had a different temperature, or energy level. After this, we discovered that outside of these visible colors are more invisible rays of light, all with different wavelengths and frequencies, all around us. You’ve come to know them as X-ray, infrared, ultraviolet, gamma ray, and even radio and microwaves, which you may relate to household items but are actually light waves on the electromagnetic spectrum. The good news is the universe is not as dark as it appears. We’ve finally learned that what and how we see depends on the lens through which we see it.”
My eyes move over the crowd looking for one face. When you can count and record every person and their frequency in the room, you notice when a new one walks in.
I lock eyes instantly with the older man, dressed in a sports jacket and loafers. He glances from me to his smart watch—a gift from PSS—giving me a slight head nod.
Agent Ramos. PSS’s overseer from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the head of the Special Cases Unit, and Ms. Taylor’s good friend. Wow. He’s always proposing new jobs to PSS, which I turn down. I wonder if he thinks my answer will be different if he meets me somewhere other than Seattle.
I drone on as the clock ticks by. “Why do they say light operates in 5-D? Why does most marine life emit blue and green light? Can humans produce light? In fact, we can. Our bodies produce infrared light waves just like the sun.”
My voice bounces off the walls of the room as I speak and is either ignored or received. Once my lecture finishes, I’ll join the team who is spearheading a new economic project with some of the top economists in South America aimed at regulating crypto currencies in their region.
Since PSS only operates covertly, it’s vital we make a good show of these alibi-lectures while we’re on a job. In Tunisia, we were technically exchange students until the coup got worse, and we were caught on camera going into the National Guard’s office instead of visiting Carthage. It’s becoming more apparent that we have to cover our tracks if we want to continue doing what we do.
“In conclusion,” I say, “there’s nothing on this earth or in our universe that can function without the full spectrum of light. Each time humanity has a breakthrough with light, we literally change the world. Just think: space travel, medicine, communications. How we perceive math, science, new dimensions. Even our own reality. Do your research this weekend. Press in deep. If you have any questions for me, direct them to the University of Washington. Obrigado a todos.”
Mr. Ramos waits patiently for 784 footsteps to march past him before he stands and walks over to me. Students thank me as they pass. The boys, who were winking earlier, step in my direction, but reconsider when Tank hovers around me. That’s one perk of the bodyguards, I suppose.
“Professor Rivers.” Mr. Ramos gives me a head nod. He is super fit, with broad shoulders and a solid physique. He is also much older than he looks. His brown hair has very few grays, and his brown eyes shine with strength.
“Agent Ramos. Flying to South America just to get a personal meeting with me? My answer hasn’t changed, if that’s why you’re here,” I say, collecting my notes.
As he is the DIA’s current director, I should be kind. He generously allows PSS to fly under his department’s banner. They also review PSS tech and approve it for public and private use, or send it to the blacklist. Everything we do goes through them.
“Nah, I came for the lecture. Fascinating by the way.” He motions to the black board where my scribbles depict solar radiation and the equation for the speed of light.
“Really?” I ask, narrowing my eyes on him. “I didn’t know you had an interest in Geometrical Optics.”
He laughs. “Oh, I do. More than you know.” He’s playing with me now. But he can’t hide anything at all. His body language and expressions practically scream his secrets. On one hand, it looks intentional. Maybe that’s why he’s not a field agent anymore.
I draw in a breath. “You know something. Do you want to tell me?”
He considers me for a moment. “Do you want to finally hear about a job we could use you on?”
I smirk. He’s tried this several times. I always give him the same answer. “I’ll listen at the right time.”
“That time may be sooner than you think.” He shakes his head. Whatever he knows, he’s working really hard to hold back. “You know, Marigold has given us lots of leads over the years. Together, we solved countless cases. We want to see PSS do it again.”
I pack my satchel, keeping my eyes on him. “PSS deactivated that department for a reason.”
“It was deactivated out of fear.”
“Or out of protection?” Our eyes meet in a three-second stare down. But I’ve got him read.
He clears his throat. “Marigold is a good leader but after she lost her prodigy, she shut it down, and in the process, missed out on countless opportunities to save lives. Somehow, she’s ready to open it again. I think it’s because of you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know your type.”
“What type is that?”
“It’s not just about feeding the hungry for you. It’s more than that. It’s shifting a balance. Tipping scales.” He looks me over. “You could stop wars, if you choose to.”
My lips tighten. A flood of heat rises within me like an itch I can’t reach. So I rein in my control, and let my numbers gauge his voice, and read his movements. The ten ways he flexes his muscles then relaxes them as he talks. The calming way he has control over his actions. 84% of me wants to ask what he’s up against. Reading his frequency tells me there’s something in it for him…and maybe something for me. But the other 16% of me stands down. Because for the past 48 hours Noble’s message keeps hitting me like a maglev train aimed at a brick wall.
“Wish I could.” The words spit out of me like sour milk. “After being kidnapped, I just want to lay low, help where I can, take care of my dad, and teach math.”
He gestures with his hand to my board still marked up with equations. “Teaching about photons. Like your student exchange in Tunisia?”
Hmm. So he knows about that. I swallow my pride. “Yeah. Photons. There’s still a lot we need to learn about light.” And we’re back to our game.
“Studying Newton’s law and prisms is ok, but I prefer Snell’s law.”
“Nice. Did your daughter teach you that? She’s studying material physics at Columbia, right?” I smile, all teeth.
He raises his eyebrows. He keeps his daughter very well hidden. Separate name. Unlisted phone number. “That’s why we’ll get along, Jo. We both like homework. So…Marigold and your father, huh?”
He’s baiting me. Showing me how much he knows in return.
“Perfect matches are made every day.”
“It’s not surprising,” he says. “He’s a great man. His health has never been better. Within months of getting back into the saddle, his high-risk investments have proved fruitful. He’s turning heads from the biggest ventures in the world. Doesn’t look like he needs much caring for.”
“All people need caring for. And his success is well deserved. He’s a visionary. Perhaps like you are.” I pause. “So how was your vacation in the Maldives? Surprising it was at the same time as a Scale Tech event. Or was that a coincidence? Funny, how I recommended Scale Tech to Private Global Forces, and a week later, your DIA team was all over it too.”
“You realize you’re proving my point?” he says, smiling.
And he’s caught me. There’s something there. Something I want to deny. Part of me wants to pick a fight. Dive in headfirst. Charge to the front of the line. But even now, I hold back.
He snorts. “Agent Bai is a good friend, but PGF doesn’t have all the intel we do.” He takes out his card, holds it out to me. I don’t take it. “Not that it’s our business, but we do get intel on your boyfriend—excuse me, ex-boyfriend—from time to time. Chan Dao Kai, right?”
A trigger of explosions goes off in my heart after hearing his full name. My dreams won’t be nice to me tonight.
My stomach knots and before I know it, I snatch the card out of his hand. Apparently, Mr. Ramos does know just how to bait me.
I shove it in my pocket. “You can tell me why you’re really here now.”
“I’m escorting you home.”
“Home? We just got here. Our job is a week long.”
“A replacement team has already arrived. You all need to be back in Seattle tonight.”
Harrison pushes the door open to the now empty lecture hall, followed by a harried team and the other bodyguards. They have my stuff. Must have been easy. I didn’t even have time to unpack.
“What’s going on?” I ask Harrison. “He said we need to leave?”
“It’s true. Ms. T called an hour ago. Our plane is ready to go.”
“Why?” I stare at them both. Mr. Ramos doesn’t respond, and this time I can’t yank the answers from his eyes.
Harrison cocks his head, and shrugs. “We’re not sure. She’s never done this before.”
