Dalton stepped between them. “Does Kirtley know?”
She shook her head. “No. What are you up to?”
“We’re looking for our teammates,” Dalton said.
Hammond ’s eyes shifted to the door where Kirtley had gone and then back. “And did you find anything?”
They all turned to Barnes. “No-” He paused. “But just before I jumped to come back, I also picked up a virtual presence, something-I don’t know what it was. Something happened-” He shook his head, confused.
“There’s more going on than we’re being told,” Dalton said.
“Or than anybody knows,” Jackson added.
“Kirtley asked me what happened to my predecessor,” Hammond said. “Why would he do that? Dr. Jenkins died in an accident.”
“No, he didn’t.” Dalton had everyone’s attention. “Raisor told me he killed Jenkins because he cut off the power to Raisor’s sister’s team. Do you know why Jenkins did that?” he asked Hammond.
“I never met the man. When I got here to replace him, I was told the cutoff occurred because there was a programming glitch in Sybyl that had been corrected. That it was just a tragic mistake.”
“I doubt that.” Dalton pulled on his fatigue shirt over the black suit. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”
“There’s something else-” Hammond began.
“What?” Dalton demanded.
“I think there was another Psychic Warrior team. One before the CIA team with Raisor’s sister.”
That announcement was greeted with a long silence.
“Why do you think that?” Dalton finally asked.
“I’m finding information in Sybyl’s data files that doesn’t fit the other two teams. Someone obviously tried to clear all records before a certain date, but some of those records are tied to programs that couldn’t be deleted without crashing the entire system.”
Dalton asked the question that was uppermost in his mind. “What happened to this team?”
“I haven’t been able to find that out.”
“Your predecessor, Dr. Jenkins, never mentioned a first team?” Dalton asked.
“That’s another thing,” Hammond said. “I don’t think Dr. Jenkins was the original scientist in charge of Bright Gate. I’m finding information from someone before him-this Professor Souris that you asked me about,” she said to Dalton.
Dalton turned to Jackson. “You mentioned something while we were out there. The Dropa or something like that?”
“The Droza,” Jackson corrected. “It’s a story my mother told me.”
“And?” Dalton prompted.
“I don’t want you laughing at me if I tell it.”
“There hasn’t been much to laugh at since we’ve been here,” Dalton noted.
“I’ve been thinking about it a long time,” Jackson said. “Ever since I was assigned to Grill Flame years ago.” She looked at Dalton and Barnes. “Even when I was just remote viewing, I could occasionally sense other presences on the virtual plane. I know now one of those was Chyort, but there were others. Ones I couldn’t identify. Then when I came here and was part of Psychic Warrior, I could still sense those presences but I could never see them. Like they were hiding from me.”
“Or they were in a place on the virtual plane that you couldn’t see,” Hammond said. “We don’t know exactly the dimensions or physics of the virtual world.”
Dalton couldn’t help but wish that Hammond had been more forthright about what she didn’t know when he had first arrived at Bright Gate with his team. Things might have turned out differently and some people might still be alive. He pulled a chair out and slid it over to Jackson. She sat down as Barnes and Dalton grabbed other seats and gathered round her. Hammond remained at her place behind the console. Kirtley and his team were in the prep room, running final checks on their fittings.
“There’s a legend among my people, among the Roma, the Gypsies, as they’re more commonly called,” she said. She briefly told Barnes and Hammond the same thing she had told Dalton, about her background and her mother, before continuing her story.
“I tried to get as far as possible from the Roma, but I think I went in a circle.” She waved her hand about the room. “My mother would have loved this-Psychic Warriors, remote viewing. Even Chyort. She would have found him fascinating. The devil that she insisted existed.” Jackson ’s eyes darkened as her mind went inward, into her memories. “She wasn’t so big on talking about heaven or angels, though-just the dark, scary stuff.”
Barnes opened his mouth as if to say something, but the confused look crossed his face once more and he snapped his mouth shut.
Jackson continued. “She told me many stories when I was a child. They were the tales her mother had told her when she was a child. And her mother’s mother on down the line through the ages. The Roma are not fond of writing things down. Everything passes by word of mouth. It is an integral part of our culture and one we do not share with the gadje.
“The stories were entertaining and interesting but I thought they were fiction.” She glanced over at Dalton. “But now we know the virtual world is real in its own way, right?”
Dalton didn’t say anything, not wanting to interrupt the thread her mind was unraveling.
“My mother told me the story of the Roma and of those the Roma came from. I promised her only to tell it to my own children, but I think it is important I tell you this now, given all that has happened. It might mean nothing, but-” She shrugged.
“What you tell us stays with us,” Dalton promised. He looked at Hammond and Barnes. “Right?”
Both nodded their agreement.
Jackson rubbed her palms over her eyes for a moment. “Mom-she said that the Roma were special. I told you earlier that the rest of the world calls us Gypsies because a long time ago it was believed we came from Egypt. But we actually came from India. Far northern India on the border with Tibet, in the foothills of the Himalayas. Even that place, though, wasn’t where we originated from. My mother told me that much at least, although where we came from before there, she could not-or would not-say. Other than to speak of a people called the Droza. I’ll get back to that in a moment, but let me work from what I know to what I’m guessing about.
“We-the Roma-were outsiders there, of different background from the others. Long before Hinduism swept through India and divided all the people into castes, my people were despised and threatened. We learned to survive by making ourselves useful. We made up a large part of the Ksnattriya-the warrior class. We fought and died for others, so much so that there were those among us who realized something had to be done.
“Some advocated rebellion. We were warriors after all. Others pointed out how terribly outnumbered we were and espoused escape. In the end, that was the decision that was made. The Roma left the lowlands and went into the mountains. They knew they had to find land no one else would want-someplace desolate and remote.
“They found the isolation they sought high in the Himalayas. They did such a good job finding what they were looking for that in just a few generations, there were few Roma left, given the harshness of the land. Then they met the Droza.
“Even my mother could not tell me if they were real. She told me about them as if it were only a story, a legend.” Jackson closed her eyes as she remembered. “In the high mountains of Kharta Changri the Droza came down from mountaintops. Our people ran and hid from them for a fortnight, but when it was clear that the strange ones meant no harm, our people came out of their caves.
“The Droza let my people know that they came from a special place they could not mention. And that they could not return from whence they came. They were trapped here. With my people, they built a new place to live. Their homes they hid underground, a great city called Agharti. The Roma were given a fertile valley hidden deep in the mountains near Kharta Changri called Shambhala.” Jackson opened her eyes, returning to the present. “I think this is where the modern legend of Shangri-la comes from.”