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Suddenly the map on my Devstick disappeared. I said, “Find Nineveh Hot Springs Resort,” but a glance confirmed that there were no hits for my current location. The tube was quite dark and a door opening about ten meters away cast a yellow glow through to where I was standing. A man came out and stood in the doorway. I looked at him, and taking a step towards him so that I could ask where the Nineveh was, I stopped.

“Hello Jonah,” said Gabriel, and holding his arms wide walked towards me haloed by a golden light. He reached me and smiled into my eyes, wrapping his arms around me in a tight hug that nearly squeezed the air out of me. Putting his arm around my shoulder and pulling me towards the open door, he said, “We have much to talk about, brother, but first you must eat and rest.”

At first glance the room inside the doorway was a storage unit for tube cleaners, and with a grin at the puzzled expression on my face, Gabriel walked to the far end of the small room and pulled a shelving rack out to reveal another smaller door set into the wall. We went through the door and inside was a hole in the floor about two meters in diameter with a spiral staircase going down. Gabriel led the way as we wound our way down the stairs.

“This was one of the early titanium mines,” he said over his shoulder, “but was abandoned and we took it over.” About five minutes later we reached the bottom and emerged into a larger chamber about fifty meters in diameter, lit by a single string of lights suspended from its ceiling and disappearing around what seemed like a downward curve. In the middle of the chamber was a golf cart. It looked incongruous in the setting but Gabriel climbed into the driver’s seat and I into the passenger seat. With a flip of the red switch between us, he pressed his foot on the accelerator and away we went down the tube.

Chapter 13

A Disturbed Sleep

The Marq V, Penthouse Env, Sir Thomas’s New Singapore Residence

Friday 13 December 2109, 1:21am +8 UTC

Three hundred and eighty-four thousand, four hundred and three kiloms away, Sir Thomas was awoken by the persistent but soft buzzing of the Dev’s speaker set into the headrest of his bed. Sir Thomas encouraged the perception that he never slept, and his image had already answered the call, recognized Agent Sharon Cochran, and deciphered enough keywords to initiate Sir Thomas’s wake up experience.

Already fully clothed in his uniform as Director of Operations of the Political and Corporate Security Unit of United Nation Police, and Head of UNPOL, Sir Thomas examined his image in the full length screen, zooming in on his face to check for the debris of sleep. None seen, he took over the conversation from his facs.

“Agent Cochran, no apology required. What do you have to report?”

“Jonah has gone missing on Far Side, sir.” Agent Cochran, like the Director, looked the same at 1:22am in the morning as she did at 8:30am in the morning, or indeed at any time of the day or night in public. Unwrinkled, neat, professional and calm, her blonde hair cut in an attractive but subtle bob, she looked directly into the Dev and waited patiently for the Director to issue his commands.

“Exactly when and where did he go missing?”

“Exiting the Lev port at Shackleton base is the last image we have of him, Sir, and that was at 9:05pm.”

Sir Thomas glanced at the time set in the lower right corner of his Devscreen, 1:23am, Friday 13 December 2109.

“Are you a suspicious person, Agent Cochran?” he asked without expression. “Do you believe in omens, good and bad luck?”

“No, sir, I believe we are the masters of our own circumstance,” replied Agent Cochran who seemed to straighten up as she said it.

“Ah the valor and ignorance of youth,” said Sir Thomas in a voice halfway between a whisper and a sigh.

Cochran’s face flushed slightly along the edges of her angular cheekbones and her jaw muscle tightened considerably. She did not like being played with like this, but knew better than to respond. Everything is a test and you either pass or you fail. She didn’t fail.

Sir Thomas, his face set again in an inscrutable shield that forbade discernment, smiled inwardly, the image of a puppet dancing on a string coming to mind. “You did well to interrupt me, Agent Cochran,” and he allowed the smile onto his face. “What actions have you taken over the past four hours?”

“Communications with Far Side have been cut off, Sir Thomas. Peary’s comms unit says that solar flare activity on the Far Side may have disrupted the Commsat network. Unable to contact Shackleton directly, I ordered a plainciv unit from Peary to Shackleton. They investigated the area outside of the Lev port and that was the last recorded position of Jonah’s Devstick. Other Devsticks in the area appeared to be in a similar situation and again the comms unit says this is probably connected to the network problem on Far Side. We dispatched a forensic team with sniffers to see if we could track, and so far they have tracked him to an area of approximately three square kiloms — but they cannot yet narrow that down further. All of Shackleton’s primary exit points have been manned, sir.”

“You have made an excellent contribution, Agent Cochran, thorough with rapid, accurate assessment of circumstances, and efficiently and beautifully executed.” the Director smiled again. “However, I am sure that there is nothing to worry about. As you say, Devs in the area are acting strangely and Jonah informed me he was taking self-time and traveling to the Moon. Even so, it is better to be cautious about these things, especially given the sensitivities of these times.”

Praise from Sir Thomas was as rare as rain in the desert and Cochran glowed inwardly, being careful not to show her pleasure.

“Keep me updated about the situation as and when you see fit. Thank you, Agent Cochran,” he said, and with a last very small, very quick twist upwards of the corners of this mouth — something that was communicated to Sharon Cochran as a very scary smile — Sir Thomas cut the feed.

Cochran took a deep breath in and out to release the tension she felt. She didn’t know why Sir Thomas made her feel so inadequate, and often wondered about that. With everyone else, including herself, she was supremely confident. She knew that she was in the top one percent of female humans her age in the known universe. Top in intelligence score, muscle to body fat, optimum height to weight ratio, and, as she’d been told by more than one person, in her looks, but Sir Thomas could take all that away with a word or a glance.

Shaking her head softly as if to rid it of the negative thoughts, she turned from her comms Dev and looked around her work area. There was nothing personal here that signified this was her workspace. Everything she needed to exist in this space was in her head. It was time to make her way back to her Env. A glance at the Dev showed her she was alone in the section complex.

“Turn off all the light between me and the Lev door,” Sharon told the Dev. The subdued optimum lights in her space shut off. She smiled in the total darkness, and turning ninety degrees to her right, took two long steps forward. She stopped, turned again ninety degrees to her left, and then taking six strides forward ordered the Dev to open the door. Without hesitating, she walked through for two strides, halting and again turning ninety degrees left, started striding towards the Lev door for her section.