Patrick Lee - The Breach

It looked like what he'd expected. It looked like a computer lab. Workstations. Wiring schematics spread out on desks. Swivel chairs everywhere. Some kind of makeshift conference table: a line of smaller tables shoved together, surrounded by more chairs.

But no quantum computer.

Nothing even close. There were laptops on some of the desks. The Tangent operators turned each one on and saw the familiar onscreen brand logos before the password prompts came up.

Otherwise, the place was empty of equipment.

Travis felt as lost as he had at any time since his hike in the Brooks Range had been interrupted. How could it not be there? Why had the Whisper killed all of those people if they didn't have anything that could affect it?

Keene's viewpoint made a last sweep of the room, as he turned to follow his men back up the ladder.

"Wait," Travis said.

The viewpoint halted.

"What is it?" Keene said.

"On the wall above the conference table. What is that?"

Keene looked at it. Moved closer. It was a huge oil painting, abstract, scratches of dark green on a white surface.

"It's nothing," Keene said.

"It's everything," Travis said.

He looked at the phone's onscreen menu buttons. One was labeled CAPTURE.

"Do me a favor," Travis said. He directed Keene to go closer, until the painting more than filled the phone's screen, and he captured freeze-frames of its four quadrants. At that resolution it became legible.

A message from the Whisper. Written in the scratch language. Travis switched back and forth through the screen captures, and read it:

HELLO, TRAVIS. RIGHT NOW YOU MUST BE SITTING NEAR THE OPEN ELEVATOR SHAFT ABOVE BORDER TOWN, ABOUT NINETY SECONDS BEFORE SUNRISE. I'VE SEEN TO IT THAT AARON PILGRIM DOES NOT REMEMBER PAINTING THIS PIECE, NOR DOES HE REMEMBER SELLING IT TO THE GALLERY THAT ELLIS COOK WOULD ONE DAY VISIT WHILE ON VACATION IN ZURICH WITH HIS DAUGHTER. I'M SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT THERE IS NO PLUS-TEN-QUBIT QUANTUM COMPUTER INSIDE THIS HOUSE, OR ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, IN JUNE OF 2009. THE ORDER OF THE QUBIT WAS NEVER EVEN CLOSE TO REACHING ITS GOAL. YOU MAY FIND IT GROSSLY INEFFICIENT TO MURDER THIRTY-SEVEN PEOPLE OVER A DECADE AND A HALF, JUST TO GIVE YOU A REASON TO KEEP THE PRESIDENT FROM NUKING BORDER TOWN TWENTY MINUTES AGO, BUT REALLY, IT WAS A PRETTY SIMPLE MOVE FROM MY POINT OF VIEW. AS OF THE MOMENT YOU REACH THE PERIOD AT THE END OF THIS SENTENCE, BORDER TOWN'S SURFACE-TO-AIR DEFENSES WILL COME BACK ONLINE, ELIMINATING THE NUCLEAR OPTION. YOU NOW HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO FOLLOW YOUR FIRST INSTINCT: PUT ON THE TRANSPARENCY SUIT AND MAKE YOUR MOVE AGAINST PILGRIM AND HIS PEOPLE. I'LL MAKE YOU A PROMISE: IF YOU DO IT (YOU WILL) THEN PAIGE CAMPBELL WILL SURVIVE. IN ALL OTHER POSSIBLE FUTURES, SHE DIES JUST OVER ELEVEN MINUTES FROM NOW. I'LL SEE YOU SOON, OLD FRIEND, AND WHEN I DO, YOU'LL FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL REALLY ABOUT. HAVE FUN.

Climbing down the shaft ladder with the suit on was tricky. There was a difficulty to grabbing rungs with hands he couldn't see. He only had to go down two stories. From there he used an override switch to open the B2 elevator doors, and stepped out of the shaft into the hallway. He'd asked Keene for the locations of Defense Control, Security Control, and the Primary Lab. The places where Pilgrim and his men were clustered. Defense Control was on B4. He entered the stairwell and made his way down. Through the window in the door he saw four men, all in their twenties, watching a bank of high-definition monitors as if each were showing the last play of the Super Bowl. In fact they were showing the empty desert around the facility. It appeared to be a single large room. No internal hallways leading off out of sight. No blind corners. There was a bathroom, but its door hung open and Travis could see that it was empty. No one else in the room except the head-shot bodies of its original occupants: the woman Travis had heard over the speakerphone earlier, and five men.

Along the wall opposite the monitors, the drywall had been blown out by an explosion, and even the structural steel columns were warped and charred. Between two of the uprights, a spiderweb of delicate wiring and various computer cables-hundreds of each kind-had been attached to the damaged wiring with clamps and adapters. This was the half hour's work that'd brought Border Town's defenses back online.

Travis had the rifle slung on his shoulder. The only visible thing about him. He could go in and shoot these four guys in a matter of seconds, even without the suit; not one of them had a weapon within reach. But directly below this room was Security Control, where more of Pilgrim's people were probably stationed. The sound of shooting would carry at least that far, so these four kills would have to be quiet. Pretty quiet, anyway.

He unslung the rifle and leaned it against the wall next to the door. Then, keeping his eyes on the men through the glass, he turned the knob slowly and eased the door open. A moment later he eased it shut again, from the inside. All heads were still aimed at the monitors.

How to do this? There were options. Strewn across the floor below the repaired wiring were various tools, some with blades on them, though not especially large ones. There were screwdrivers that might serve as decent stabbing weapons, including an eight-inch Phillips head. Last, but not even close to least, was a tool that appealed to Travis's lack of subtlety. A two-foot-long crowbar. Travis picked it up with both hands, to prevent it from scraping on the tile and giving him away. He turned to the four men, their backs to him, and gripped the weapon like a baseball bat. He looked at the executed bodies on the floor, their open eyes still registering the panic in which they'd died.

He didn't feel at all bad for what he was about to do.

The four men were seated only feet apart from one another. A nice easy row of targets. Travis decided to start on the right end and work his way left, to give his swing plenty of room.

The first impact sounded like a wet branch breaking. Travis caught the man just above the ear and crushed the sidewall of his skull inward by at least an inch. The body pitched sideways into the second man, who turned his head just in time to take his own hit straight to the forehead. His eyes snapped shut and he fell from his chair also. The third man had another second to react. He had no idea what the hell was happening, but his arms had enough sense to cross in front of his face as he screamed. Not a useful strategy. Travis stepped toward him and brought the crowbar down on top of his scalp the way he would sink an axe into a log. The result was much the same.

Only the fourth man fully grasped what was happening. He threw himself from his chair, landed on his ass and skittered backward, ending up with his back in the corner and his arms up defensively. He watched the crowbar bob toward him.

"Wait, wait!" the guy said. He looked about twenty-five. Still had some acne left over from his teens. Had to be wondering who the fuck was wearing his boss's old transparency suit. He seemed to be working out what he might say, here and now, to save his ass. In a way, it was fun to watch. Because nothing in the English language would suffice.

"You can just tie me up," he said at last.

Travis thought that sounded like an especially lame effort. He kept the crowbar up high, commanding the guy's attention, and kicked him just below the ribs as hard as he could. The guy's lungs collapsed from the blow and he caved into a sitting fetal position, crying. Travis brought the crowbar down on the back of his head, full force, and the crying stopped.

Silence in the room. These four were definitely dead. Travis gave each man another two solid bashes to be sure. Then he took a pair of wire cutters from the floor, pocketed them, and returned to the corridor.