Robert Doherty - Project Aura

Cesar was waiting once more as the Lear set down on the airstrip, the sun just over the ocean to the east. Valika was tired. Not just physically but emotionally. Gunning down unarmed scientists wasn’t what she had envisioned during her combat training years ago. Shooting a body suspended in solution didn’t add to her positive feelings. On top of that was the failure to bring anything back from Colorado because she had acted in haste.

“Where is Raisor?” Cesar asked.

“I believe he is dead. His body is at least.” Valika quickly summarized the action.

Cesar seemed satisfied. “So Psychic Warrior is no longer a potential threat, correct?”

“Yes, sir.” Valika noted the helicopters waiting on the edge of the airfield. “What is happening?”

“We’re getting ready to move.”

“Where is Souris?”

“She just returned from the ship. I’m sending her on the jet to the United States.”

“Why?”

“To get the unlock code for MILSTAR.” He quickly explained.

“How did she find this out?” Valika asked.

“She said there was a spy among the Americans. When I asked her for more about this spy, she wouldn’t say anything.”

“I don’t trust her,” Valika said.

“We need her. Especially since we don’t have Raisor.” “How long before we load the ship?” “It arrives this evening. I want everything prepared by then.”

“Do you have the code?” Boreas asked. He was seated at his desk, leaning back in his seat.

McFairn’s voice echoed out of the speaker phone as she replied. “Bright Gate was destroyed. We believe by the Ring.”

“Do you have the code?” Boreas got up and walked over to the outside window.

“No.”

“Time is running out for you.”

“I think time is running out for you,” McFairn said. “The Ring must be very confident to take the battle to the United States. I lost all my people there, including Kirtley. People here in Washington are asking questions.”

Boreas stood at the window staring out at the Wrangell Mountains, his hands clasped behind his back. “I know about Kirtley. I saw his transmission go off-line. But it’s not important since we don’t need Bright Gate anymore. What I do need is the unlock code.”

“What exactly do you have planned?” McFairn asked. “You’ve assured me that our goals would be in common, but I don’t see how getting you the unlock code for HAARP-MILSTAR is in my or my country’s interest.”

“Are you becoming patriotic now?”

“No, practical as always. What are we going to do about the Ring destroying Bright Gate?”

“The Ring won’t be a problem,” Boreas said. A vein throbbed in his temple and his hands twisted in fists behind his back.

“Why not?”

Boreas turned and stalked back to his desk. He leaned over the speakerphone. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. You’re nothing but a tool, do you understand? You’re so concerned about your country-your country? That’s been around for what? Two hundred and some years? A blink of an eye in the time my people have existed.

“We have been at war for millennia. Can you conceive of that? And soon, very soon, the war will be over. So don’t whine to me about your country. Get me the code!”

He slapped his hand down on the phone, cutting the connection.

McFairn stared at the now silent phone. There was only one possible way she could get the code, and that was to go to Cheyenne Mountain. She picked up the phone and ordered a jet to be ready at Andrews Air Force Base.

She tucked her dog-eared copy of Sun Tzu in her overnight bag and walked out of her office.

They’d done the best they could setting up Sybyl III and the rest of the equipment, but there were some things lacking. One was the crane they had used to lift and lower people into the tanks. Dalton, Jackson, and Barnes had to stack cartons of supplies next to their tanks and clamber up the makeshift platform. Then, making sure their lines weren’t tangled, Hammond sealed their TACPAD helmets on each, one by one. Then they blindly eased themselves down into the ooze.

Dalton resigned himself to the discomfort as the tube slithered down his throat and filled his lungs with liquid. His diaphragm fought and lost the battle as his body was slowly chilled. The white dot appeared and he focused on it. Soon he had assumed his basic avatar and was standing in the virtual world as Barnes and Jackson appeared.

Dalton was ready for action. “Jump,” he ordered and he visualized their next point. They were at the ambush site in Colombia. Their target was a compound twenty miles down the road. They proceeded there by the process of jumping along the road, staying in the virtual plane high above it, using it for guidance. The intelligence that Mentor had given them indicated the villa was home to one of the inner members of the Ring, a man named Naldo.

Dalton halted directly above the house in the center of the walled compound. Jackson and Barnes flanked him.

“ Dr. Hammond?” Dalton projected the message back to the Ranch. “ I’m here.” “ Were you able to do what I asked?” “ Yes. Sybyl’s programmed. You should be able to access it.”

Dalton checked the data stream. “ All right, I see it.”

He heard Jackson ’s voice. “ We’ll find him. You wait here”

Before Dalton had a chance to agree, both Barnes and Jackson were gone, jumping down inside the building. While they were gone, he accessed the new program he had asked Hammond to construct.

Jackson popped into the virtual plane next to him.

“ Geez. If you weren’t floating here, I wouldn’t know it was you.”

“ Looks good?” Dalton asked.

“ Spitting image.”

“ Did you find Naldo?”

“ This way. Barnes is waiting for us, keeping an eye on him. He’s in his office. Alone”

Dalton followed as Jackson swooped down on the building. He passed through the roof right behind her. They dropped through a room, through the floor, and into a room paneled with expensive wood. An old man sat behind a large desk-Naldo. Dalton saw Barnes’s avatar in the corner of the room.

“ I’ll come through the door,” Dalton said.

“ All right. I’ll wait here,” Jackson replied.

Dalton passed through the door to the office, then stopped on the other side. He was in an empty corridor. He began forming on the real plane, his avatar gaining substance, using the power from Sybyl.

When he was completely in the real plane, he turned around and opened the door and stepped through.

Naldo looked up and surprise raced across his face as he jumped to his feet. “Cesar! What are you doing here? When did you arrive? Why didn’t my guards let me know?”

The only thing Dalton wasn’t sure about was the voice, but they had accessed an NSA interception of Cesar on the radio and Hammond had programmed that into the avatar as well as the appearance.

“I wanted to talk to you alone,” Dalton said, impressed with the accent and flawless Spanish. He walked across the room and sat down on the other side of the desk. Through the link with Sybyl, he knew that Barnes and Jackson were still in the room, although now that he was completely on the real plane he could not see into the virtual.

Naldo slowly sat. “It has been a long time since you have honored me with a visit.”

“The situation is becoming critical,” Dalton said.

Naldo nodded. “Have you been thinking about what we talked about last?”

“I have,” Dalton said, having no clue what the old man was referring to.