Our helicopter set down on the Treasury Department lawn and a team of Uniformed Division police met us as we hustled away from the giant Cuisinart blades of death spinning above us. I’ve ridden in a lot of helicopters, roped out of them, jumped into and out of all kinds, but I still don’t like those big blades above me as I leave a copter’s blood bubble.
The police, armed and Kevlar armored, hustled us to the same vault we had visited before, under high-powered lights that turned Washington night into artificial day.
The room was even more crowded than before and its occupants wore all manner of dress, from full military uniform to several young staff assistants in business casual. SAC Jay and I were not the only ones in what I call
agent field clothes, either.
Once inside, we were once again placed behind Director Tyson, who immediately focused on us. He waved us over to him with a couple of hard hand gestures.
“What do you know?” he asked me without any preamble.
“Declan O’Carroll and Stacia Reynolds were likely onboard the drone that dove into the ocean above the epicenter of the earthquake. The only thing that any of my sources knows is that he thought a very large, powerful Earth elemental lived in the Aleutian Trench under the ocean off Alaska.”
“You think he pissed it off somehow?” he demanded.
“What? Why would I think that?” I asked.
The front of the room got really active and Tyson’s head snapped around. “Sit down. We’re out of time.”
President Polner came into the room and everyone stood up.
“Please be seated,” Polner said, sitting down himself before turning to a blonde woman whose nameplate said Giametti, USGS. “Sarah, what’s the latest?”
“Mr. President, at nineteen-forty-five hundred hours Eastern time, a nine-point-seven-magnitude submarine earthquake was recorded in the Aleutian Subduction Zone, forty-seven miles southeast of Adak Island at a depth of twenty-one miles.”
“That would be the largest quake ever recorded,” he stated.
“Yes Mr.President,” she said.
“What’s the damage, and where?”
“There hasn’t been any, Mr. President. At least, not yet.”
“What? Shouldn’t there be tsunamis?”
“Yes sir. There should be many, many tsunamis. But we’ve recorded nothing… except an odd series of much smaller quakes radiating outward from the epicenter for several hundred miles in almost every direction.”
“Aftershocks?” he asked.
“No sir. They all happened all at once, right after the big quake. They were smaller, each really only a bit bigger than a tremor.”
“Is this a normal event—the earthquake, I mean, not the tremors?”
“The Pacific Rim is the most earthquake-prone area on Earth. That’s actually why the research vessel was on site. It’s one of ours sir.”
“They’re the ones who witnessed an Omega drone enter the ocean?” he asked.
“Yes sir. They even captured photos of it,” she said, handing the president a blown-up photo.
He studied it for a moment. “That’s not one of the Battle Drones, is it?”
“No sir,” an Air Force general said.
“Where’s Agent Jensen?” President Polner asked without raising his head from the photo.
Jay nudged me while Tyson turned and gave me a look. I popped up out of my chair. “Here, sir.”
He turned a serious face in my direction, then held up the photo. “Do you recognize this craft?”
“It’s an Omega drone, sir. Transport for personnel.”
“Transport for who?”
“Mostly Declan O’Carroll and Stacia Reynolds. A handful of others, sir.”
“And was Mr. O’Carroll on it tonight?”
“That’s my understanding, sir. He was looking for a powerful Earth Elemental under the Pacific Ocean, sir.”
“Looks like he found it,” Polner said. “Have you asked the Omega about this?”
“We lost contact with Omega in mid-conversation, sir. At approximately the time of the quake.”
“That happens?”
“Rarely, sir. Just when he needs to direct a major part of his resources at a major problem.”
“Like, say, an undersea mega quake?” he asked.
“Yes sir.”
“Thank you, Agent.”
I sat down.
“So what does this mean?” he asked the room.
“It might be an opportunity to seize back control of our nukes, sir,” another general said. “While the machine is distracted.”
“It might mean that the O’Carroll boy caused the earthquake by attempting contact,” Tucker Tyson said.
“But why no tsunamis? We don’t even know if O’Carroll lived through the quake. And no, Roger, I don’t want to tempt fate by wrestling with a mega quantum computer when the only real human it relates to may be in danger or dead,” Polner said.
“That may be exactly why we should take the risk, sir. If the boy died, it might go ballistic—literally,” the general, who wore five stars on each shoulder, urged.
The president opened his mouth to speak, but the main door to the vault opened and a man in a suit hustled in, capturing everyone’s attention.
“What is it, Sergei?” Polner asked the intruder, who went right to his side.
“Mr. President, NORAD is tracking a high-speed object that originated from the vicinity of the earthquake. It is traveling directly through Canadian airspace at an estimated speed in excess of thirty thousand miles per hour.”
“What is it?”
“We have no idea, sir,” the man said.
I found myself back on my feet. “It’s likely the drone, sir,” I said, swallowing my nerves.
“Omega’s drones can fly that fast?”
“Omega has never told me how fast they can fly, but he did say it exceeded any other Earth-based technology, sir.”
“Where is it going, then, Agent Jensen?”
“Is it in line for northern Vermont?” I asked the Sergei guy.
He glanced at his notes for a moment, then nodded. “Yes, that would be on the same vector.”
“He’s transporting O’Carroll to his aunt,” Nathan Stewart said, looking at me.
“That would be my guess as well, sir,” I said.
“Impossible!” the Air Force general said. “The G-forces would be astronomical. The kid would be paste.”
“The drone was copied from Vorsook technology, General Coffer, and they travel in them,” Nathan said. “Our own people tell me they found systems that seem to be some type of protective buffer system.”
“Why?” Polner asked. “Why would O’Carroll be headed to Vermont?”
“Ashling O’Carroll is a gifted healer, a powerful witch. She has healed her nephew before,” Stewart said.
“But why not a trauma center on the West Coast?” the president asked.
“Tanya’s staff carry vials of her and Chris Gordon’s blood for emergency healing. Those are, to my knowledge, the best trauma medicine anywhere. Declan’s aunt can’t heal faster than that, at least not physical wounds,” I said.
“Not physical? What wounds could she handle better?” Polner asked.
“Magical, sir.”
The room went silent for a few seconds, then people started talking all at once. Polner tapped the tabletop with one hand, not really hard, just enough to generate a sound. The room quieted instantly.
“What do you think happened, Agent Jensen?” he asked me.
“I can only speculate, sir.”
“Please, speculate away,” he said with a wave of one hand.
“If Declan was nearby when the quake happened, he would likely try to intercede. He may have hurt himself trying.”
“Intercede?” The USGS woman asked, completely incredulous. “In a nine-point-seven quake? That’s more power than every nuclear weapon on Earth!”
“Actually, that sounds very like what he would do,” Nathan Stewart said. “His family line specializes in moving energy from one form into others.”
“Impossible,” the woman said.
“Yet, there have been no tsunamis. And you had that huge ring of unexplained tremors. How much energy was in those? How far out did it extend?” Nathan asked her.
She stared at him, eyes wide, then looked down at her notes, rifling through them slowly, then faster. Her head came back up and she looked terrified.
“Well, Sarah, don’t keep us in suspense,” Polner said.
“It’s roughly the same, sir. But that’s impossible,” she said.
“I don’t really use that word much anymore,” Nathan said.
“Agent Jensen, could Declan do this?” Polner asked me.
“I don’t know, sir. If a single living witch could do it, then that would be Declan. But I know there are limits to the power that even a full Circle can handle. At this point, the drone should be in Vermont,” I said, looking at my watch. “It would only take about six minutes to traverse that distance at that speed.”
“That’s accurate, sir. If that’s where it was headed,” the aide, Sergei, said.
“Step out and check. Miss Jensen, would you also step out and touch base with your contacts?” President Polner requested.
I left at almost a sprint, catching up to Sergei even though he was on the other side of the room and much, much closer to the door.
We exited almost together and I headed to a wall-mounted phone while Sergei was met by a bunch of tablet-wielding people exhibiting a high level of excitement.
I called a number I had never called before, one I had glimpsed on Declan’s phone—his step-aunt Darci’s cell.
She picked up on the sixth ring. “Who is this?”
“Darci, it’s Caeco. Is he all right?”
“How did you even—never mind. I don’t know. He’s alive. Catatonic but alive. Ashling has him. This number says Treasury Department,” she said.
“I work for the FBI.”
“And I imagine a great number of people are interested in his fate. Tell them that there are ten of the war drones here, so keep their damned distance. Omega is in a state,” she said. In the background, I could hear growling, like a werewolf kind of growl.
“A state?”
“Worried, anxious, kind of hair-trigger, if you know what I mean. I gotta go. Ash needs me,” she said, hanging up before I could say a word.
I went back inside the vault and the Secret Service closed the massive door behind me. Sergei the aide was already there, next to Polner, and everyone looked my way.
“He’s alive. His aunt is treating him. I think it is very much as Director Stewart surmised.”
“Any prognosis?”
“Too soon, sir.”
“We should seize this opportunity,” General Warmonger said.
“Ah sir, it was mentioned that Omega is volatile right at this moment. Ten Battle Drones are hovering over the area. I would caution against anything that might be deemed hostile,” I said.
“What do you really know about it?” the general demanded.
“I know that Omega’s father figure is catatonic and that the AI just demonstrated previously unknown capabilities to get him to his aunt. Declan’s step-aunt specifically used the term hair-trigger. This would be a moment where some people might think he is vulnerable and might think he could be used as a hostage against Omega.”
“Omega has been cagey about the drone’s capabilities. She is correct that showing that level of speed within Earth’s atmosphere gives away a lot of information,” Nathan said. “It would take a dire situation to cause that.”
“Also, I would caution that he is on his aunt’s land. At least two elementals are with him now, not to mention all of those big battle drones,” I said.
“In other words, don’t prod the momma bear when it’s licking a wounded cub,” Polner said. “Roger. We will make no attempt at counterseizing the weapons. You’ve even admitted that the probable win rate is rather low,” Polner said to the general, who looked surly. The president ignored him and turned back to Nathan Stewart. “The fact that the kid is in a coma and no tsunamis have struck anywhere in the world seems to back up your hypothesis. How would that be possible? As Sarah said, that’s more power than the entire world’s nuclear arsenal.”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Agent Jensen? Any idea?”
“Sir, I’ve been told that Declan wields enormous power on Fairie through a connection to elementals who are loyal to him. But the only thing I can think of that could control that kind of power is the elemental that generated it.”
“Your assignment is to find out what happened, what the boy’s prognosis is, and what we can expect,” President Polner said to me. “Got it?”
“Yes sir!”
“Go to it, Agent Jensen. Right this moment. Contact my aide, Sergei, when you find something out. Sergei?”
“I’ll walk her out sir,” Sergei said, giving the president a nod before moving toward me and the vault door.