It was all linked, and he could feel the connections without being quite sure how it fit together. Nevertheless, the feeling was electrifying—almost worth dying for.
Almost.
“When do you launch the vesicle?” Sanjay said to Zhao.
“Within hours,” Zhao said.
“I need to be on it.”
Day Eight
FRIDAY, APRIL 20, 2040
No word now from Colin. It’s three hours past the time when he should have reached his destination.
Anyone? Anywhere?
I’m getting a bad feeling. . . .
POSTED ON KETTERING GROUP,
APRIL 20, 2040
XAVIER
The transition from free flight and nervous optimism to airborne captivity and depression took, Xavier Toutant guessed, about five seconds.
That was for him, and he was, as his momma and numerous employers used to say, slow on the uptake. He suspected that for Rachel and Pav, Yahvi, Chang, and Edgely, it was more or less instantaneous.
As for Zeds—
“What is happening?” the Sentry said. He had been in a quiet state akin to hibernation for several hours. It was, Xavier knew, a way of conserving his suit’s resources. And no doubt a means of coping with the tedium. He had been able to offer Xavier little assistance beyond holding large items, and the need for that had passed quickly. Xavier’s job soon became monitoring the proteus as it prepared the two biological packages.
And with their capture, to finish at least one of them before they landed.
“Okay, you probably saw, we’re being escorted,” Jo Zhang said. She finally opened the cockpit door ten minutes after the destruction of the decoy plane and the turn toward the coast.
“By whom?” Chang said. He seemed the most shocked of the group.
“Those are U.S. Air Force planes,” Jo said.
“Old ones, too,” Pav said. “F-22s. They were flying those when I was a kid.”
Rachel was slumped in her seat, rubbing her temples. Xavier knew that look; he had seen it frequently in the endless, contentious planning meetings for the Adventure flight. “What about Benvides and Quentin?” she said.
Jo hesitated. “I could tell you I don’t know, but you don’t need bullshit right now. Their plane was destroyed.”
“Thank you for your honesty,” Edgely said.
Even from the rear of the cabin, dividing his gaze between the proteus next to him and the backs of everyone’s heads, Xavier could see that Jo’s blunt statement had not made Rachel happy. Her eyes filling with tears, she was shaking her head with great agitation. “Did we have any warning?” she said.
“Nothing,” Jo said. “One moment we were doing just fine, preparing to break off, the next . . .”
The only thing keeping Rachel from getting out of her seat and confronting Jo was Yahvi’s condition. The girl was sitting next to Rachel, hunched, probably hugging a pillow to keep from screaming. Rachel put her arm around Yahvi and leaned in to her.
Questions were still flying around the cockpit, from Chang and Edgely and Pav to Jo. None of the answers provided any information to Xavier . . . nothing he didn’t already know, that is.
They were screwed.
Jo finally said, “I’ll let you know the moment we learn anything. Right now, we’re just following our escorts.”
Leaving his machine to its final assembly, Xavier had started moving forward. “Any idea where?” he said.
“We’re flying north over the Los Angeles basin,” Jo said. “Steve thinks we’re headed for Edwards, since that’s the nearest military base.”
Xavier sat down next to Rachel. He’d always wanted to see Edwards. Living in Houston on the fringes of the space program and its culture of aviation, Xavier had grown quite familiar with the famous California base and its history of exotic aircraft and space shuttle landings.
But not like this.
“Will you be able to get anything finished?” Rachel was asking him.
“One of the packages. Maybe.”
“It should be—”
“The second one.”
Rachel nodded, as if to say, Thank God someone is doing what I need. “Should you be—?” Up here with me, she was going to say.
“It’s on auto. I’m going right back. I just wanted to”—he shrugged—“see how you’re doing.” He inclined his head toward Yahvi, who had herself bent pretzel-like, head bowed, eyes closed, hugging a pillow to her chest.
Rachel didn’t bother to fake a smile. “We’ll just see, won’t we?”
Colin Edgely had been peering out the right-side windows. “Those are F-22s, for sure,” he said.
“That’s what I said,” Pav told him.
“Sorry, mate.” The Aussie smiled. “A bit nervous, I guess. Trying to find the silver lining.”
“How’s that going for you?” Xavier said. He couldn’t help it.
“Those planes got close enough to show that the pilots were human. How about that?”
“That’s good how?” Pav was taking up the argument.
Edgely was game, however. Xavier was fascinated by the way people responded to stress—including himself. He knew that he tended to wind down, to feel sleepy, like a small animal in the jaws of a larger, hungrier one. This couldn’t be true, of course; such a trait would have evolved out of existence due to the early deaths of its holders. So, fine, then, call it calm in the face of danger.
Others, like Rachel and Pav, got tense and couldn’t hide it.
Some, like Chang and Yahvi, became tense and quiet.
Then there were those, like Edgely, who just got stupid. “It means we’re not dealing with Aggregates.” Not until we land, Xavier thought. As did everyone who heard this.
“It’s Edwards,” Jo told them, popping her head out of the cockpit for a moment. “On the ground in ten minutes.”
“Then what?” Pav said. He stood up and stretched. To Xavier, he seemed spring-loaded, ready to fight . . . someone.
“Well,” Rachel said, “if they wanted us dead, they would have just blown us out of the sky like the other plane. So I’m guessing it’s prison and interrogation.”
“Probably some kind of show, too,” Edgely said.
“Colin, please stop speaking,” Rachel said.
Chang finally spoke. “I’m guessing we should all belt in.”
“Thank you for that,” Pav said, not hiding the sarcasm.
“Who speaks for us?” Chang said.
“Why would it matter?” Rachel said.
Chang turned toward her. Xavier could see genuine fear on the man’s face. “Let me rephrase that: How are we to act? Do you plan to cooperate, or resist?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” Rachel said. “Are you in a hurry?”
“We might have different agendas,” Chang said.
“Meaning you’ll, what? Surrender? Rat us out?” Hearing this, Xavier remembered that Chang knew something of their plans. His lassitude vanished, replaced by fear: Even in 2019, it was possible to drug a prisoner and get him to say every secret he knew. He couldn’t imagine that the Aggregates were less capable.
He glanced back at the proteus, still laboring away. The second package wasn’t going to be done, anyway, but Xavier hated the idea that the Aggregates would know all about it the moment they shot his brain full of truth serum or the Reiver equivalent.
“I can try to bargain,” Chang was saying. “My government might have some leverage. The question is . . . do you want to be included? Or is it everyone for himself?”
“Given that we have no weapons,” Rachel said, “no idea where we are, and no cavalry to ride to the rescue, I am eager to tell you, sure, do what you can.”