Section 9

The first chapter in a hopefully long and successful series

Chapter 1:

Stanford, CA. Stanford University, 7:00

I sat down at my usual table in my usual breakfast café and raised a finger. Michael, the waiter, seeing me, weaved his way over to the counter and picked up my usual, a coffee with one cream and banana-nut muffin, and delivered them to my table. I smiled at Michael and thanked him warmly, not letting on that I had noticed something was wrong. Michael was usually a very chatty individual, and he had not said a single word.

As Michael moved to wait on other customers, I scanned the rest of the room, looking for anyone suspicious. After a short game of ‘I spy the anomaly’, I spotted two men in dark suits sitting close together at another table. One sipped at a coffee while looking over the rim at his meal, trying to avoid eye contact; the other, whose demeanor indicated him to be the superior of the two-man team, ate a croissant with one hand and with the other, reached into his coat pocket. As he moved the duster from his shirt, I noticed a red glow from emanating from his pocket. What could it be? I wondered. My mind jumped to the most probable, and worst-case scenario.

“Power suppressor,” I muttered, swearing under my breath. How did they find me here? Who gave them that kind of tech? I stopped thinking and instead took action. “Evasive maneuvers”, as James used to say. I pulled a $10 from my pocket and left it on the table. The sound of my chair scooting back was a little too loud for my preferences as I made haste for the front door to the café. As I turned the corner to the left, I did some quick calculations in my head.

If these thugs are experienced, I’ll have about six seconds before they catch up to me, but if they’re more amateur, about twelve seconds. In this business, paranoia is not something to disregard, so I assumed they were good and acted accordingly. I closed my eyes to concentrate, and left a sticky note on the front door to my classroom explaining that I would be late. I hope my students would not be too upset. I walked briskly towards the alley between the art building and science classrooms, I didn’t want to make a scene.

As I walked, I expanded my visual awareness behind me and made an unfortunate discovery; the two dark-suited men had already caught up. I had unfortunately not given them enough credit, they were really good.” They didn’t stand out terribly from the crowd of students and faculty, so if I hadn’t noticed them at the café, I wouldn’t have recognized them now. ‘Maybe, I should have given Michael a bigger tip.’ I mused to myself, ‘well, let’s see how well they’re trained, I thought. I darted into the alley.

Lowering my specific gravity, I leaped between the buildings going up to the top. The two men turned into the alley. The more superior one cursed, “S**t, where’d he go now?” For the purposes of keeping a conversation, I actively changed the superior’s name to Butch and the inferior’s to Bruce. As I continued my path upwards, I guessed that the area of effect for the power suppressor had about a 10-foot radius. Betting my whole existence on it, I ‘jumped’ to the point exactly eleven feet above their heads.

“Sweet, I’m not dead.” At this, both Butch and Bruce looked up. “Death from above!” I announced, landing feet first onto Bruce’s face. Landing in a crouch, I spun up and kicked low, smashing the suppressor. I heard Bruce crash to the dirty alley floor, unconscious. “Wow, I need to work on my catch-phrases…” I shook my head “Anywho, Butch, you have five seconds to tell me why you and your friend were stalking me, or” nodding my head in Bruce’s direction, “I won’t hesitate make you just as conscious as he is.”

“We were only hired to give you a message, honest!” He almost spat it out rather than saying it.

 “Who hired you?”

“We don’t know! We were just told to give you this!” His shaking hand reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a metal disk, which he promptly pushed into my hand. “We were given that, a location, and a warning: extremely dangerous.”

“At least they got that part right,” I said as I examined the disk. I debated whether it was worth giving myself psychic abilities in order to check the man’s story. Though the reality-based repercussions would be minimal, the change would weaken me to the point of defenselessness.’ I frowned, and decided to rely on my intuition. ‘He has no clue what the bounds of my powers are, so he probably thinks lying is pointless…’

“So, Butch, what’s your real name?” The man relaxed almost immediately at the less hostile question.

“Alex sir, Alex Dasher.”

“Don’t call me sir. Show me that device in your pocket, won’t you?” He reached again into his coat and pulled out a PDA. Noticing how old-tech it was, and the red glow on the back, I didn’t ask to hold it, for fear that it somehow concealed a ‘touch type’ power suppressor.

“Before you go,” I snapped my fingers, a noticeable amount of energy drained from me. “You might want to carry Bruce home. He shouldn’t be that hard to carry now. He will return to his normal weight when he wakes up.” Butch walked over to his unconscious friend, warily hoisted him onto his back, and hurried away, making a point not to look back.

I turned my attention to the metal disk. I recognized it as a holographic record disk, something I had only seen recently, used by government officials to pass messages. I could think of only one person outside the government who had the technology to play it, only one person that liked me anyway. I dropped the disk through a wormhole to Artemis Gagarin’s office with a personal note from me. As I dropped it, I noticed the time on my watch. “I should get going to class. I don’t want the freshmen running off again.” Noticing that I was right next to my classroom on the outside, I walked through the wall into the faculty bathroom through the science buildings wall and headed to class.

Los Angeles, CA. Artemis’s Apartment, 21:00

“Holo-packet. Rare, government material here.”

“Yes I know that, Artie, but can you read it?”

“Indeed I can, and don’t call me Artie.” He slid the disk into a machine I had never seen before and turned to face me. He hadn’t grown much since I last saw him, but I was sure his vision had gotten worse. His glasses had lenses thicker than the deans at the university, and his looked like coke bottle bottoms. A film of dust covered the apartment and its contents. Leftover take-out boxes littered the ground, what space wasn’t used for transit was stuffed full with high tech gear, most of which I didn’t recognize. “So, what have you been up to, Eric? I haven’t seen you in a long time, not since high school graduation.”

“Well, I’m a Stanford professor of theoretical physics now. I got my doctorate a while back, and I’m up for tenure soon. What about you?”

“Programmer for hire. I do all sorts of things for people, both legal and illegal.” Artemis swiveled in his chair and began tinkering with some spare parts, “Don’t you think it’s a little cheap that you can pretty much rewrite your whole curriculum if it doesn’t suit your wants?”

“Don’t you think it’s a little cheap that you can bypass almost anything just because you’re technologically fifty years ahead of everyone else?”

“Touché,” Artemis replied, turning back to the computer screen. “Whoa, I’ve been blackballed. This message really is only for you…”

“Can you put it on something I can view?” I asked.

“Sure, I can put it on your flash drive. I know I said this was rare, but it’s impossible to track.” He switched to another window. “My back-search ends in the Philippines. Some dummy company called Hydroplane Manufacturing, my best guess is that it’s a shell company for DARPA. Eric, I think your best lead is that video.”

“Well, thanks for your help.”

“Say, why didn’t you just use your mighty reality-bending powers to get all that information?”

“For one, the reality backlash would be potentially catastrophic. For some reason Fate doesn’t want me to access that information until I’m meant to. But mostly, I wanted to see you again, dude. I miss the team. Speaking of, have you heard from Jingles or Jack recently?”

“Jack? Nothing from him. As far as Jingles, I know he has his own team at Langley.”

“CIA?” I asked incredulously.

“America’s Great House of Spies. I don’t think they know of his powers, but if they do, that’s probably one of the best-kept secrets the Agency has ever taken on.”

“And nothing on Jack? At all?”

Artemis clacked at the keyboard, and a page printed off showing a large string of numbers. “Last know coordinates, and that was years ago. The man went ghost after college.”

“He sure knows how to disappear. Thanks again for the help Artemis, now if you’ll excuse me, I have a guest lecture at Harvard on wormholes, multidimensional theory and time travel, and I thought it best to prepare myself with a demonstration.” With that, I walked out the door and turned a corner into a wormhole that took me all the way to Boston, Massachusetts.

 

Boston, MA. Harvard University, 14:00 

                “And that concludes wormholes and what they have to do with time travel and multidimensional theory. Any questions?” A couple dozen students raised their hands, I answered their questions for a while before noticing a very familiar face in the crowd. “That’s enough questions for now. I will be on campus for the next week, so if you can catch me, feel free to ask me any other questions then.” I then began to ‘pack’ my stuff into a bag concealing a wormhole back to my office.

                A voice came from behind me, “That was an interesting lecture Eric; to bad it wasn’t on anything practical, or you know, useful.”

“It’s good to see you too Jingles, but I have to ask, how did you know I was here?”

“Artemis gave me a heads up, told me that you were looking for me and where you were. So I hopped on the next plane to Boston.”

“I’m surprised you weren’t too busy, don’t you have CIA work to do or something?” I turned to face him, he looked a very different from the last time I had seen him. He had lost some weight and had the light of keen determination behind his eyes, but overall he was still the short chubby engineer I knew and loved from high school. “So I heard you have your own squad in the CIA now, how’s that working out for you?”

“It can be frustrating, but I have a good team and we get the job done. But from what I’ve heard from Artemis, I’m probably not going to see them again for a while.” I nodded gravely, “Look, I got this holo-packet from some hired thugs.” I pulled the device out of my pocket and tossed it to him, “Both Artemis and I suspect it’s government related, what do you think?”

Jingles turned the device over in his hands, inspecting it closely. “I agree, this is almost certainly from the government, although from which part I’m not sure. Have you watched it yet?”

“No, I was going to watch it tonight. According to Artemis I have to watch it alone or else it won’t work, apparently the thing has isomorphic bio scanners.” 

Jingles let out a low whistle, “That is impressive, which pretty much clinches it for me. Either this is from DARPA or from some top-secret section of the government I’ve never heard of.”  He handed the projector back to me along with a card. “My number is on there, call me when you need me.”

“Actually I do need one favor right now.” Jingles turned back to face me, “Yes?”

“I’m trying to track down Jack but wherever he is it likely has a power suppression field or is nowhere near where he was last seen. Either way he’s not showing up on my radar, which is pretty frigging impressive.” I handed Jingles a copy of Jack’s last known coordinates, “This is where he was last seen, maybe you can dig up some leads for me?”

Jingles agreed to my request and then left in what seemed suspiciously like a hurry, I shook my head. “I guess I should go watch that video now.”

 

 

                I leaned back in my chair and hit the play button on my remote. I had spent most of the night thinking of every conceivable anti spying precaution before realizing I could just make a radio and hard wire block field and then EMP anything not mine, although I would probably end up having to sleep through the next day. I mentally moved my class to the day after tomorrow.

                After some scenes saying how top secret the information on the disk was a face appeared. It was an Asian man around his late 30’s, he had spiked up hair and wore thin rimmed glasses.  But although he was young, his eyes betrayed a wisdom of many more years.

                “My name is Su, I know you have many questions, but I will only answer a few of them over the course of this video.” He pushed up his glasses.

                “I represent Section 9, a discrepancy in the federal budget used to track down humans like yourself.  I speak for the whole of the group that pays me when I say that your services are vital. Of course, you are not required to join us, but as I already understand, Eric, you ‘miss the team’.” I paused the video, confused; how could he possibly know that I had said that? I had been with Artemis, and no bug gets past him, ever. “So either this guy is a clairvoyant or… “ I hit play.

                “Are you done thinking? Good, then I’ll continue.” I laughed, this guy was a seer! And a pretty good one at that, I wonder how long ago this message was actually made before it even gotten to me.

                Su continued, he had apparently paused because of my laughter, “Now that you understand my power, we are more acquainted. But to business: your first mission, if you choose to accept it,” at this he turned from the camera and chuckled a bit, probably from that being the first time he had ever said the phrase “is to locate your former teammate and friend, Jack Ellis. This is less of an actual mission and more of a test.  When you find him, you will receive another message like this one. One last thing, your friend John Bell should be ringing your doorbell in 8 seconds with some new intel on your friend Jack. Goodbye Eric Walker and good luck.” As soon as the video shut off my doorbell rang.

Chicago, IL. Warehouse District, 18:00     

It was drizzling now, unsurprising considering how much it had smelt like rain that morning. I ‘replaced’ my jacket with a similarly styled rain-coat as I walked towards my destination, Jingles was following his own lead, to where I was not sure. He was an early riser and I often did not see him again until much later in the day, I wonder what he is up to now... I was snapped out of my reverie by the squeaking of my shoes on the wet sidewalk. I was in the warehouse district now, and as the name implied, there were warehouses everywhere. There were few homes and even fewer residents, the streets were bare except for the occasional hobo. A great hiding place for someone who didn’t want to be found. I had received this particular tidbit from Jingles, apparently the CIA had been tracking all known superheroes ever since Palladium Zero had gained a ‘level E notoriety rating’, whatever the hell that meant.  My head buzzed, a useful trick I had learned as a college student to keep myself from walking past my destination while lost in thought. I scanned the road for witnesses before phasing through the door, although it technically wasn’t ‘breaking and entering’, the police probably wouldn’t care how I got in. Even if I had ‘made’ myself a key.

I flipped the light switch next to the door and a solitary lamp in the center of the empty warehouse flickered on. It illuminated a walnut desk in the center of room on top of which a piece of paper had been placed. Knowing how paranoid Jack used to be, I walked cautiously over to the desk and picked up the sheet of paper. Printed at the very top was a single sentence, ‘it multiplies with water’. Jack always had loved a good riddle, back in high school we would exchange riddles until one of us was stumped. I never could pass up on a challenge.

                I searched the desk for anything that might assist me. Within I found a round dome of darkened glass, an odd-looking Furby doll, and a small brass key. I didn’t know what the key was for: none of the drawers had key holes. I moved my examination to the doll, it was certainly odd looking. I could guess that the fur had been replaced because for some strange reason it was sticky. The ears also looked as if they had been recently repaired. I plucked off some of the fur and tasted it, “Well whadaya know, it’s sugar based!”

                The drizzle had turned to rain while I was turning over the odd furry creature in my hands. The tin roof of the warehouse made a rather distinct sound as the rain smacked against it. I walked up to the door open warehouse door and stuck the Furby into the rain. The fur began to dissolve, revealing a computer cart key that had been hidden within the doll. I plucked the key from the now furless metal shell.

“I wonder what this could be for…” It must have taken Jack hours to even plan this much out, and I still had more to do. The next puzzle was the dome, what to do with it was obvious compared to the previous doll conundrum. I had noticed that the dome’s rim was threaded when I first saw it. I reached up and screwed in on to the lamp. In the now dim light, my white socks began to glow.

“Okay, nothing on the desk or the paper is glowing, now what?” I made a mental note to congratulate Jack for this particular trick. I examined the entire desk closely, looking for a hidden latch or concealed keyhole. Nothing.

                 Sitting down on top of the desk, I began to think, I had two keys, neither of which served any apparent purpose, a desk, a piece of paper, and glowing socks. Then it clicked, I jumped off the desk and shoved it to the side, revealing a set of glowing shapes on the ground.

“Eureka!” I shivered, “Man I love saying that. Eur-e-ka.” On the floor was a glowing rectangle slightly smaller than the desk, and within that was a circle with a line through the center. Above the circle was a key hole that looked like… “It fits!” I turned the key and the circle fell into a recess with a sharp clang, exposing a handle. “Looks like I solved the puzzle, I win again Jack! I couldn’t wait to see his face when I told him that I had solved his puzzle in under 10 minutes.

                I grasped the handle and twisted it 90 degrees, the rectangle pulled apart, revealing a staircase with a steel door at the bottom.  The door had two key holes for what looked like the computer key from the Furby. “Well, no turning back now.” I inserted the keys and twisted them simultaneously.

Electricity jolted through my body, “Buggering!” Yanking my fingers away from the keys, I glared at the door. “Individual recognized: Eric Walker. Access granted.” The door opened with a hiss, revealing a laptop computer atop a desk next to a note scrawled on a post-it.

 

 

“It’s all in the numbers was all it said.” I handed the laptop to Jingles. This was our first big break, and seeing as how Jingles had always been good with computers, I had decided to let him handle this one.

“Riddles within riddles huh? That’s just like him.” Jingles clicked away at the laptop. “There’s nothing on here Eric. Do you think someone got to it first and then deleted the data?”

                “Not likely, why replace the computer at all if your intention was to muck up the trail.” I fell back into the couch and swung my feet up. “No, I think there’s another trick here…”

                “You know makes sense?” Jingles looked at me over the laptop’s screen “If this had nothing to do with programing at all. Jack knew you were awful with computers, why would he make you call in someone that he potentially didn’t trust?”

                I nodded my head in agreement, “But then what does it mean? Is the laptop just a trick?”

                John spun around in his chair, moving faster and faster before finally stopping, smiling, and then tapping the keyboard. The number keys shot up into the air and smacked against the ceiling, revealing a folded up sheet of paper stuck where the keys had been. “It’s all in the numbers, eh?”

Author's Note

I wrote this chapter, so critique away please!

Reviews

[Chris]

You've had a number of views and this has a version number - so I hope you had some sort of response prior to mine. Might I suggest you make the Chapters - into much smaller portions - for editorial or review comment processes and then combine the reviewed/corrected portions into REAL chapters under perhaps a differently titled (even unpublished) work.

This review mainly relates to your 7:00 portion:

"I noticed a red glow from emanating from his pocket. " - two froms?

To me - from the beginning the story seems to stagger - not flow. The english IS right but it FEELS wrong. Too many words in places and then too few. Description is hit-and-miss. Transistions feel off.

The concept so far was good. The plot is being constructed. The storyline is there. I am a sci-fi/detective/adventure genre fan and yet I really didn't want to read on to the next portion. The hook didn't hold me I guess.

Chris