“What was that?” she gasped.
Pierce, looking as stunned as she felt, then managed to reply. “I think it was the helicopter.”
Father Justin stared at the explosion, a horrified expression on his face. He crossed himself. “We’re being attacked.” He shook himself out of his stunned stupor and turned to them. “Quickly. Follow me.”
TWENTY-TWO
As they looked through the open gates of Tomorrowland, Dourado could not help thinking of the haunted amusement park from a Scooby Doo cartoon. It wasn’t just the name, though that was part of it. Although it was still early, not even eight o’clock yet, the sprawling campus was dark. Not a single light burned in any of the windows in any of the buildings, and yet, there was a subtle energy in the air, an undercurrent of activity.
Machines lived here, clockwork ghosts haunting the shadows. Under any other circumstances, she would have found that cool, but tonight, it just felt creepy.
“Not good,” she muttered.
Lazarus parked the rental car just outside the already repaired gates and they disembarked, heading through on foot. The logic behind this move was straightforward. If things went pear-shaped inside the walls of Tomorrowland, it would be far easier to outmaneuver the robots on foot, and keeping the car outside the walls would ensure a quick getaway once they made it through the gate. And, as long as things didn’t go south, transportation inside the complex wouldn’t be a problem. There was an automated cart waiting for them just beyond the gateposts.
The transport-bot greeted them. “Welcome, Mr. Fallon.”
“We need another cart,” Fallon said. “Scan my guests in and give them full access, on my authorization.”
“Yes, Mr. Fallon. Another cart is on the way.”
Fallon flashed a triumphant smile at Lazarus. “See? Told you.”
Lazarus stared back, his expression impassive but unimpressed. He had advised shutting down all the robotic systems remotely before attempting to enter the compound, but Fallon had argued against that measure, reasoning that it would make little difference. If the hacker did attack the network again, turning the robots off wouldn’t slow him down in a meaningful way, while keeping the robots operational in the meantime would facilitate their mission. Dourado agreed with Fallon, but she did not share his confidence that they had seen the last of the hacker.
The one concession Fallon had allowed was to disable the network’s outside Internet connection. Once on site, they would be able to interact with the computer and the Space Tomorrow surveillance satellite shadowing the Black Knight, but no one outside the complex would be able to do so. Unless the hacker was on site, he would not be able to carry out another attack.
Of course, if the hacker was an insider, perhaps one of the very few human employees in Fallon’s operation, then it was possible that he was there, hiding in one of those dark buildings, waiting for them to step into the trap.
The second cart arrived less than a minute later, and the five of them climbed aboard — Fallon and Tanaka rode together in the first vehicle, while the trio from the Cerberus Group rode in the second. Dourado maintained a constant vigil, monitoring the network from her laptop. There was no indication that a second incursion was in progress, but if Lazarus was correct, the enemy would not make a move until they were right where he wanted them.
They made one stop in the heart of the complex, at a building Carter identified as ‘the Operations Center,’ just long enough to procure a second laptop computer. Then they continued on to the array site. The plan was for Fallon and Tanaka to restore the Roswell fragment to the transmitter and begin working to regain control of the Black Knight satellite, while Dourado stood ready to repel any cyber-attack.
As they made the drive to the outlying location, Dourado noted Carter staring at the surrounding terrain. The carts’ headlights revealed some of the damage caused during the latter’s earlier visit. There was no sign of the construction robots that had come after them, but the pavement was scarred and stained with oil, and the landscaping to either side of the road had been obliterated.
Dr. Carter probably feels like a veteran, visiting an old battlefield, Dourado thought. For the first time since leaving, she found herself wishing she had stayed in Rome.
The carts stopped in front of the concrete building that housed the transmitter. Fallon got out and came over to Carter. “I’m going to need that piece of meta-material now.”
Carter, unsurprised by the request, held out her hand. When she opened her fist, the crumpled fabric popped back to its original shape — a flat plane. Fallon took it and headed into the building, with Tanaka close on his heels. Lazarus and Carter remained outside with Dourado, sitting in the cart, watching the network status for any sign of trouble.
Carter checked her watch. “Seven forty-five,” she said. “Fifteen minutes. I don’t know whether that’s plenty of time, or if we’re cutting it close.”
“It is what it is,” Lazarus said. “Worrying about it isn’t going to change a thing.”
Dourado knew he was right, but the wait was excruciating. She checked the network status again — unchanged, as expected — and then opened the browser page Tanaka had used earlier to check the satellite’s status.
The orbital map showed the satellite moving above North America. It was almost six o’clock p.m. on the East Coast, midafternoon on the Pacific. She thought about the map showing the distribution of earthquakes during the earlier incident and wondered what it would look like if they failed. How many red dots would there be? Where would the tsunamis strike?
How many people would die?
She found a link to the video feed from the surveillance satellite and clicked on it. A small player window opened in one corner of the screen, and after a few seconds, the live image appeared. She saw the curve of the Earth — brown land and gray-green sea — and the light blue band of atmosphere transitioning into the void of space. Right in the middle of it all, like a misshapen black fly sitting on the screen, was the Black Knight satellite.
It looked like the pictures Dourado had seen of it on the Internet.
“Is this right?” she said aloud.
“Is what right?” Carter looked over her shoulder at the screen. “No. That’s what it looks like when it’s dormant. Fully deployed, it will look like a glowing sphere. That must be an old picture.”
Dourado checked the time stamp. “No. This is live.”
Behind them, a loud hum began to emanate from the transmitter building.
Carter hopped out of the cart and headed for the open door. “Fallon,” she called out. “Are you seeing this?”
The door slammed shut.
“What the—”
Before Carter could complete the rhetorical question, the electric cart closest to the door lurched forward, heading right toward her. She threw herself to the side, just barely getting out of the way. The cart continued forward, maneuvering as it moved, until its front end was kissing the door. The cart held it shut, blocking the entrance to the transmitter building.
Lazarus leapt from the cart, then spun around and pulled Dourado along. “It’s starting.”
She stumbled after him, her free hand still gripping the laptop, struggling to process what was happening.
He pulled her to the corner of the little concrete building. She couldn’t see the carts or the door. “Stay here,” he told her, then he ran out of her view. The concrete walls muted the hum of the transmitter, and she could hear Carter shouting Fallon’s name, demanding an explanation.
It’s starting, Lazarus had said.