Dinnie hurried toward Sarah’s lab, her attention on the numbers her Pad displayed. A door opened just in front of her and she stopped with an inch to spare for her nose. “Bollocks!” She couldn’t stop the startled exclamation, but she swallowed any further retort as Albert Feldman stepped through the doorway. She backed away, hands and Pad raised in apology.
He glanced up. “Dr. Warner, good. How is our special team proceeding?”
She wondered if he’d even noticed that he’d almost brained her. But then, when was the last time she’d noticed stepping on a bug?
“Altair and Green are making good progress on the neutrino manipulation,” she said. “Mr. Green is working on the substrate, and Dr. Altair estimates he’ll have enough neutrinos within the next few hours. Miss Andrews has a completed diagram for a container, but she did say she needs to know the mass before she can finalize it.”
“We won’t have exact numbers until we’re ready to transmit,” Feldman said. “I don’t believe we need to know until then. The container just needs to hold about two thousand pounds. Say enough for ten men with light equipment.”
Feldman’s army. Dinnie’s fingers shook as they skimmed over her Pad. “I’m on my way to her lab now. I’ll give her the message.”
“I want to meet with all of them at two o’clock. I’ll come to the lab in 3B. Bring Miss Andrews there at that time.” He turned toward the lifts without waiting for an acknowledgement. Dinnie kept walking, thinking of bugs.
~~~
Andy turned from the microscope, with a chip held in tweezers. He slid a Petri dish toward him, letting it stop just at the top corner of his Pad, on the side facing away from O’Brien, the young guard who had just come on duty. He dropped the chip into the dish, adjusting it with delicate pokes of the tweezers. It fell into two pieces, and without changing his rhythm, he picked up one and brushed the edge of his Pad just enough to send the chip into the assimilation slot.
It disappeared into his Pad.
He gave the chip in the Petri dish a last poke and a satisfied nod, then moved the dish back to the center of the table. Noting that Sam was engrossed in a pattern on his computer screen, Andy turned to peer once again in the microscope, silently counting the seconds.
Three minutes later, a strangled cry from Sam made him look up. Sam had stiffened on his stool, his left arm jerking in rapid spasms. The blood had drained from his face, leaving a mask of agony as he grabbed at the arm. He fell from the stool just as Andy reached him.
O’Brien was two steps behind, his gun drawn and shifting from Sam to Andy, and back again. “Get away from him,”
“He’s got chip shock.” Andy eased the jerking body onto the ground and backed away with his hands up. “I’ve seen it before.”
“I know what it is,” O’ Brien said. “I’ve alerted Medical that we have an emergency, they’ll be here in a minute.”
“He could die in a minute!” Andy stepped forward, but stopped as O’Brien ‘s gun snapped back to him. “Turn it off. I know you have the control for it.”
“It’s not allowed.”
“He’s not going anywhere, damn it!” Andy had to shout over Sam’s sudden screech. He sank to his knees, oblivious of the gun, and put a hand under Sam’s head to cushion its repeated bangs against the floor. Sam’s eyes rolled up into his head.
“Shit!” O’Brien grabbed his Pad and pressed a short series of buttons. An alarm began to ring at the security desk. Sam’s body stopped jerking, except for a slight tremor in his left arm.
“It’s off,” O’Brien said. “Check him. Is he breathing?”
Andy could hardly hear over the alarm and the panicked roaring in his ears, but he could feel Sam’s heart pounding under his hand, and as he bent over Sam’s head, he felt the brush of air past his cheek. He nodded. “Yeah, he’s breathing.”
“All right, get away from him.” The gun gestured. “Over there.”
Andy slid away until he reached the table behind him, watching Sam for any more signs of distress. O’Brien silenced the alarm and over the silence they heard steps running down the hall. A few seconds later, the door burst open to admit another guard and two women wearing medical scrubs, one of them pushing a crash cart.
“I shut the chip down,” O’Brien said as the women knelt on either side of Sam.
Andy stood and sank onto a stool, relieved to see O’Brien holster his gun. He rubbed his hand where it had hit the floor under Sam’s head, certain there would be a bruise starting. He glanced up as another man entered the room, and both guards came to stiff attention. Andy started to stand, but he noticed the nervous fear in O’Brien’s face, and decided it would be best if he didn’t move at all. The women ignored everyone, one of them giving Sam an injection, the other one watching a blood pressure monitor.
Rage reddened the man’s face as his gaze touched everyone in the room. “What happened here?”
Andy blinked in surprise. Whoever he was, the man sounded truly upset.
O’Brien answered without moving, his gaze steadfastly forward, looking at nothing. “He went into chip shock, sir. I made the decision to turn his chip off, based on his apparent condition.”
Andy shifted his gaze back to the man, who was regarding Sam with an odd expression of regret and amusement. “No doubt that was the correct decision, Mr. O’Brien. He wasn’t going to escape during chip shock.”
O’Brien remained stiff, but his eyes flickered once in Andy’s direction as he nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
Sam stirred, lifting his right arm to touch his left. “Bloody hell.” His voice was just a whisper.
One of the doctors tucked a pillow under his head. “Stay still for a few minutes. You had a bad shock, but you should recover in a bit.”
Sam gazed at her, his expression bewildered. Then his face cleared and his glare turned to the man. “What the hell was that, Feldman?”
Andy watched with increased wariness as Feldman knelt next to the doctor. So this was Sun’s mysterious executive. One of the most powerful men on the planet, if you believed the rumors. Andy suspected there was a lot of truth to rumors.
“We call it chip shock,” Feldman said. “It’s not very common, but it happens often enough that we can treat it quickly. Essentially, the host has an incompatibility with the security chip, which degrades and delivers a shock. O’Brien disconnected your chip to stop the shock, and Dr. Russell has given you a shot of adrenaline. How is he, doctor?”
The woman next to Feldman sat back on her heels, regarding Sam with tight lips. She kept watching him as she answered Feldman. “He’s fine. No burns beyond the local injury surrounding the chip. His heartbeat was erratic, but has settled into a normal rate. He has a bump on the back of his head, from his fall.”
“He was banging his head pretty hard on the floor,” O’Brien said. “Mr. Green used his hand to cushion it best he could.”
Feldman’s glance flickered to Andy, then back to Dr. Russell, who turned toward Feldman.
“I need to remove his chip,” she said. “It’s fried, for one thing. But I don’t recommend implanting another one, sir. We don’t know enough about his universe. There could be differences at an elementary level that we haven’t seen yet. The next chip might kill him.”
“All right.” Feldman stood, gazing at Sam before turning to Russell. “Take it out. I want a full analysis on it, and your report this evening. Make it your priority. Can he return to work?”
“I want him to rest for at least fifteen minutes, but after that, yes.” Russell was already pulling supplies from her kit while her assistant swabbed Sam’s arm with alcohol and an anesthetic.
“Fine.” Feldman turned to go, but Sam reached out his free hand.
“Wait. What about Sarah?”
Feldman turned back. “What about her?”
“Take her chip out too. I don’t want this to happen to her.”
“We don’t know what caused ....”
“You’re damn right.” Sam said. “You don’t know, and you have no right to take chances with her life. Take it out.”
Feldman’s eyes narrowed, but he said, “See to it, Dr. Russell. Miss Andrews is in Lab 4D. I’ll tell her guard to expect you.”
He walked out, and Andy felt as if the tension in the room went with him. He was pretty sure everyone else felt it, too.
Russell made a tiny incision in Sam’s arm and plucked the chip out with tweezers. Andy could see a blackened edge of it before she dropped it into a vial and snapped the lid closed. Her assistant wiped away a small dot of blood and placed a bandage over the incision. They were finished in thirty seconds.
“The anesthetic will wear off in about five minutes,” Dr. Russell told Sam as she helped him into a chair. “Drink some hot tea and rest for fifteen minutes, longer if you feel the need. Have your guard call me if you feel any nausea, dizziness, or pain. All right?”
Sam nodded. “Will you let me know once Sarah’s chip is removed?”
Russell hesitated, then nodded. “I’ll notify your guard.”
“Thank you.”
Russell turned to Andy and held out her hand. “Is your hand all right? Let me see it.”
Andy lifted it, then shrugged. “I’m fine. Bit of a bruise is all.”
She prodded it with gentle fingers. “I’ll leave you a cold pack. Hold it for a few minutes. That should reduce the bruising.”
Andy took the pack the assistant offered and sat next to Sam. O’Brien went to fetch Sam’s tea, leaving his partner to guard them.
Sam leaned back, letting his head rest against the wall behind him. “What a nightmare.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Andy said in a soft voice. He stared ahead, toward the floor, but kept an eye on the guard at the other end of the room. “But your chip is out and Sarah’s is coming out. And we now know where she is.”
Sam didn’t answer right away and Andy dared a glance, to find his colleague staring at him in suspicion. Under cover of O’Brien’s return with four cups of tea, he said, “Get your bridge ready. Move Sarah out first, then us. I’ll get you the coordinates for Lab 4D.”
He stood, not waiting for Sam’s response. Thanking O’Brien for the tea, he went back to his Pad to set a search for a map of the building.
~~~
Sarah held a finger to the small bandage that Dr. Russell had just applied to her arm. Relief at having the hateful spy out of her arm made her dizzy. As Dr. Russell left, Sarah turned to Dinnie, who had watched the procedure without comment. Dinnie met her gaze with a serious face. No, Sarah thought. She’s sad.
Or regretful. Did that mean that Dinnie Warner might tell her the truth?
“Can I trust Dr. Russell?” Sarah asked. “Is Sam really all right?”
Dinnie raised both eyebrows, as if surprised at the question. “I don’t think she has a private agenda. Yes, I think you can trust her.” Sarah nodded, but Dinnie continued, “If you’d like, I can run down there and chat with him a minute. See for myself what’s happening there.”
“Yes, could you? It would make me feel better.” Sarah hesitated, but decided to speak further. She didn’t know why, but she felt more comfortable with Dinnie than anyone else she’d met here. “You have such a frightening world. Such tight control.”
Dinnie tilted her head, as if to regard Sarah from a different perspective. “I guess it looks that way to an outsider,” she said. “You may be right. But we’re fighting for survival, Miss Andrews. Species survival. The Earth has become a hostile environment for humans. In many places, it’s almost like living on another planet. You wouldn’t put people on Mars without tight control, would you?”
“No, but ... is it really that bad?”
“Do you know how many people have died in the last forty years?”
“No.”
“Over three billion. Two hundred thousand continue to die every day.”
“Because of climate change?” Sarah’s voice rose with her shock.
Dinnie shrugged. “It was a perfect storm. Climate change was the trigger. Overpopulation and world-wide travel contributed. Once the famines and diseases got started, we were like apples in a barrel. There are places where the dead never got buried at all.” She shrugged again, as if acknowledging there was no other outcome possible. “Our society may look totalitarian. I suppose it is. But martial law is the only reason there are still people in the UK at all.”
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said.
“Just wait,” Dinnie crossed her arms. “Your world is a hundred years behind ours. In 1980, there was barely a ripple of this kind of thing. It was easy to ignore the warning signs, even though many people tried to sound an alarm. No one believed it back then.”
Sarah nodded, not sure if she should mention the changes made by the first Sam Altair. Besides, she didn’t know the future. Just because they thought they were safe, it didn’t mean they were. “I understand what you mean about the control. But how can you trust anybody?”
“You can’t.” Dinnie leaned forward, her face just inches from Sarah’s. “Keeps things simple, don’t you think?”
“Why is Feldman using our bridge to send men to the space station?” Sarah asked the question in a rush.
Dinnie jerked back. Her mouth opened as if to speak, but then she snapped it closed, her eyes blinking rapidly, as if to hide from Sarah’s gaze. It seemed to take some effort for her to morph her expression to amusement. “Surely you realize that Mr. Feldman’s decisions are several ranks above my pay grade,” she said at last. “I have no idea what he wants to send to the space station. Why do you think it’s men?”
“When you asked him about mass for the container, his answer was to build it strong enough for ten men.” Sarah shrugged. “Ergo, he plans on sending men.”
“I doubt he would be so obvious. Nor,” Dinnie straightened, as if she wanted to try for arrogance, “is he in any way obligated to explain himself to you.”
“I don’t agree with that at all.” Sarah leaned against the table, arms crossed in casual pose. “Maybe in your totalitarian society no one ever questions him, but I didn’t grow up like that. In my world, I’m responsible for the things I do, and I cannot do something immoral just because someone higher up orders me to.”
“You’re not in your world, are you, Miss Andrews?” Dinnie asked the question softly, bringing her face close to look steadily into Sarah’s eyes. As Sarah watched, Dinnie moved her eyes to stare at something behind and to the left of Sarah. When her gaze returned, Sarah shivered at the warning displayed there. She’d known there was a camera in the room. Of course there would be a microphone, as well.
Dinnie arched an eyebrow, as if in question. Understand? Sarah nodded once and Dinnie moved away. “Perhaps you’d like to read a brief history of the Sun Consortium,” she said. “You’ll see how much Sun has done over the years to help people all over the world. I think it’s safe to say that far more than three billion would have died, if not for their expertise.”
“That would be interesting, yes.”
“I’ll go check on Dr. Altair,” Dinnie said. “And let you get back to work.”
“Thank you,” Sarah said. She glanced once at the camera, and went back to her prototype.