Jenna knew that was no small undertaking. There was a lot of ground to cover, half a dozen buildings, and if the array itself was included, twenty-seven antenna dishes sprawled out on nearly forty miles of railroad track.
Noah nodded then turned to Jenna. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing we brought you along after all.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when one of the other men called out. “Dr. Miller? Something is happening to the array.”
“What the hell?” Miller looked at the spreadsheet again. “There aren’t any adjustments scheduled.”
“Shut it down,” Cort ordered.
Miller and the other two men crowded around a different terminal and began tapping in commands, but after a few seconds, it was apparent that the array was not responding to their efforts. Jenna looked past them and out the large window, gazing out across the array. Even from a distance, she could see the inverted domes moving, swinging around and tilting toward a different part of the sky. It was beautiful to watch: a perfectly synchronized dance that ended only when all twenty-seven dishes were aimed at a group of stars known as Chi Sagittarii.
58
Jenna felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to find Noah, standing close. Protective. “You were right,” he whispered. “Is there anything you can do?”
She looked back, uncertain. A sense of satisfaction filled her. Everything was playing out according to the plan that had been written in her DNA. She didn’t need to do anything. Yet her rational mind knew that the feeling was a lie. It was wrong. She didn’t want the message to be sent. Didn’t want the world and everyone she loved to be swept away in a global apocalypse.
Cort was still trying to get a grasp on what was happening. “Can this be done remotely? Is there an alternate control room?”
Miller shook his head. “The computer controls the array, but we’re locked out.”
“It’s Chu,” Jenna whispered. “He’s taken over the network.”
Cort stared at her a moment, processing this, then turned to Miller. “Is that possible?”
Miller raised his hands in a gesture that indicated he was out of his depth. “I wouldn’t have thought any of this was possible, but yes. If somebody broke into our network, they could take control of the array.”
“So he could be anywhere. Timbuktu, for all we know.”
“He’s here,” Jenna said, still whispering, though she didn’t know why. “He’s with Sophia. They’re here somewhere. They have to be.”
One of the other technicians spoke up. “If you wanted to take over the network on site, the best way to do it would be to splice into one of the fiber optic lines.”
“Where are those?”
“Everywhere. But the antennas would be the ideal place. Or the pads. There are nodes at each one.”
Cort breathed a curse. “Can you pull the plug? Shut down everything?”
“We’re locked out,” Miller repeated.
“Then cut the damn cord with an axe!” The scientist looked aghast at the suggestion, so Cort continued, “I’ll do it. Show me where.”
“Too late,” Jenna murmured. She wasn’t sure how she knew this. It didn’t feel like an implanted memory. It might have been nothing more than a sense of imminent defeat, but she was certain that the message was already being transmitted. If it was as simple as the Wow! Signal, it might already be done. If it was something more complex, like the DNA transmission, it would take longer, but certainly no more than a few minutes. And then…?
Then Jarrod Chu would signal the rest of the clones scattered around the world to start tipping the dominos.
This is the way it’s supposed to happen.
This time, there was no mistaking the source of the thought. Her voice — the teacher’s voice — still with her.
No! I won’t do this. I won’t stand by and let everything be destroyed. I didn’t get this far by giving up.
She closed her eyes and tried to reach out with her mind. She had always heard that twins shared a strange, almost psychic bond. Maybe clones did, too. She envisioned Jarrod Chu, bent over a computer, watching as the message was uploaded. Was it a vision — was she seeing it through his eyes because of some psychic bond — or just her imagination? Either way, it didn’t help. She tried to picture Sophia Gallo, someone she had never even heard of until sixty seconds before, yet with whom she shared a unique blueprint. What was she doing right now?
Track maintenance.
After the antennas, the most critical component of the Very Large Array was the rail line, which made it possible to move the massive dishes to different positions along the legs of the Y. Ensuring that the two hundred ton dishes could be moved without incident required the forty miles of steel rail and over sixty thousand wooden railroad ties. Maintaining all that required specialized equipment and unique vehicles.
Cort dug into his pocket and pulled out a phone. He tapped a contact name and strolled a few feet away, his back to them, his voice hushed, but urgent.
With Cort distracted, Jenna whirled to face Noah. “I can find them. Give me the keys.”
She said it so forcefully that Noah dug into his pocket for the keys, but the gravity of her demand hit him before he could hand them over. He gave her a crooked smile. “Sorry. The rental agreement doesn’t allow that. But I’ll drive you.”
For just an instant, Jenna was grateful for his support. Then a chill, like a premonition of death, shot down her spine.
Just you.
She shook her head. “I can’t explain why, but I have to do this alone. You asked if there was anything I can do. This is it. Please trust me.”
His smile fell, replaced by an intense stare that cut right to her core. “Jenna…”
“Trust me,” she repeated, then added a word that seemed strange in her mouth. “Dad.”
“I trust you,” he said, barely louder than a whisper. He held out the keys, but as she took them, he said, “Remember, Jenna. Nurture is more powerful than nature. I raised you well.”
As she bolted from the room, she heard Cort shouting, “Where the hell is she going? In ten minutes, this place will be—” The door shut, cutting off his voice.
In ten minutes, what?
Doesn’t matter, she decided, and she ran faster.
59
Noah’s words haunted her as she sprinted toward the parked Jeep. He had seen through her. He had seen something that even she couldn’t see. She was being summoned — drawn by a siren song that rang out from every cell in her body — to a reckoning where she would discover whether he was right.
Stop it? Why?
She slid behind the wheel and started the SUV. The track maintenance yard was just three hundred feet away, easily identifiable by the collection of strange looking vehicles, many of which sat on rail sidings. Two men in hard hats and work clothes stood near one of the vehicles and she steered toward them, rolling down the window as she skidded to a stop.
“Where’s Sophia?”
One of the men glanced up, a perturbed expression on his face. “You shouldn’t be driving in here.”
“Sophia,” she repeated, more forcefully. “It’s an emergency.”
“She went to check the west track. But you shouldn’t—”
Jenna didn’t hear the rest. She angled the Jeep toward the rails directly ahead and punched the accelerator. She bounced over the rails without slowing and then steered onto the access road that ran parallel to the tracks. A cloud of dust rose behind her like some kind of biblical pillar of smoke, marking her presence. Cort would have no trouble tracking her. The speedometer ticked up — fifty miles per hour…sixty…seventy. It didn’t seem fast enough.