Aaron Edward Rahn, A.K.A. “Fast Eddie,” ordered his crew to search the farmhouse and garage. Having taken over as warlord following his predecessor’s conviction on RICO charges, Fast Eddie had moved the gang’s business from meth to Murder, Inc. The “contracts” were provided by a former Vice Admiral who Rahn’s father had served under, the victims considered enemies of the state who needed to “disappear.” The bikers had proved to be fast, reliable, and extremely ruthless, their only shortcoming — an affinity for the killers to wear the teeth of their victims on a necklace.
This job was a bit different. Adam Shariak’s body would be found in a hotel room. The woman hired to do the hit would get whacked herself, their naked corpses arranged in what was supposed to look like a lover’s tiff.
“Eddie, there’s two bodies in the farm house — the girl and Big Tommy. We found Snowman and Sasha in the garage… both dead. There’s no sign of Shariak.”
They turned as two bikers waved at the warlord from the barn door, one holding up Adam’s night glasses. “Over here!”
Adam tried rephrasing the thought command a dozen different ways. He searched the vessel for some kind of hydraulic controller. Desperate, he even tried all three pilot seats… only nothing would raise the barn roof.
Mull said the headset wouldn’t work for me…
A warning light flashed as the forward panel went translucent. He could now see through the ship and the barn door into the night where one of the bikers was removing something large from the van’s hidden compartment.
The weapon illuminated and enlarged on the screen.
“Christ… that’s an RPG.”
Open barn roof! Prepare to activate Omicron configuration.
Still nothing.
Adam’s eye tracked the biker as he stood before the barn door and hoisted the rocket-propelled grenade launcher upon his right shoulder.
Screw it. Activate Delta configuration!
Select destination.
I don’t know… how about Jupiter.
Adam opened his eyes… which, in retrospect, indicated he had closed them. Strangely, he hadn’t remembered closing them… or leaving the barn, or for that matter, experiencing any hint of a passage of time. And yet here he was, looking out a 360-degree view of space dominated by the monstrous planet whose southern hemisphere loomed over him like the epitome of creation.
Adam stared at the goliath… how could one not? The island of hydrogen, helium, and churning bands of sulfurous clouds was more than three hundred times the size of Earth, its volatile winds whipping three times faster than a Category-5 hurricane. And yet the behemoth was beautiful, its atmosphere colored in blues, browns, reds and whites; its ice rings sparkling like diamonds.
Gazing at him from the belly of the beast was the leviathan’s crimson eye — the Great Red Spot — large enough to engulf two Earths. And then there were Jupiter’s moons; four immense gravity-affecting toddlers and sixty-plus smaller tykes, all of which appeared to be trolling above the planet’s exotic seas like tiny orbs… each a world unto itself.
As he watched, a dark speck came into view, rotating counterclockwise with the planet. Too oddly shaped to be a moon, Adam realized it was following a geosynchronous orbit and would pass directly between his craft and the planet.
And now he could see it… an immense triangular Interstellar mothership that dwarfed his tiny vessel in the same manner Jupiter dwarfed Earth.
Filled with wonderment, he reached out telepathically with a greeting.
I am Adam.
Greetings, Adam. You are the first to venture this far.
I come in peace.
There are no boundaries in peace. Safe travels, friend Adam.
In that moment, in the emptiness of space, he was at one with the universe and the universe was at one with him… his soul a spark of the single creation that had given birth to the Big Bang and every atom in the physical universe.
Adam was overcome by such a feeling of brotherhood and unconditional love that he wept.
Having strapped in, he had not realized the cabin was experiencing zero gravity until the object ejected from the main console. He reached out for it as it floated by — the device an island of energy, a buoy to a future denied to humans by those who had sought only to erect boundaries.
Engage Delta configuration…
Take me back to Earth.
40
Dr. Joyce Lacombe topped her cup of coffee off with a second shot of whiskey. “Do you know who I admire?”
Jessica passed on the offering. “Who do you admire, Joyce?”
“The blissfully ignorant.”
“You mean the ones who define technology as an iPhone-7, but believe it’s impossible to run a car off of anything but gasoline?”
“Exactly. I’d love to just wake up one morning and have a blissfully ignorant life with a husband who drove a truck, or a son who could play sports instead of reside in a bunker four months out of the year.”
“Know what I think? I think you’re jealous of the ignorant, but I don’t think you admire them… that’s what I think.”
Joyce took another swig of her drink. “You know me that well, do you?”
“I know me that well. I wouldn’t want to not know the truth… the truth is beautiful. It’s the lies that are ugly.”
“And have you decided on whether you’ll be helping us to spread the truth?”
“Tell me what I have to do.”
Joyce leaned in to whisper, even though she had rigged her private office with white noise dampeners. “Getting hold of a zero-point unit was never on our radar, you sort of walked that option home. Far more important than a working device are its schematics. We’ve been able to copy the plans for three different zero-point-energy generators onto several USB flash drives. The challenge is getting them out of this facility — not an easy task given the ultra-high security present in these lower levels.”
“But you came up with an option?”
“Not an option but a real solution. The option is whether you are willing to accept a small amount of temporary discomfort in order to make the world a safer, better place for your unborn child.”
Dr. Lara ushered the two women into Transdimensional Surgical Suite-4. “Everything is set. The entire procedure should take less than four minutes.”
“Well, I’ve got about eight minutes worth of questions,” Jessica replied quickly. “Just so I understand this, you want to amputate one of my fingers and grow back a replacement finger with the flash drive grown under my skin?”
“Correct. The flash drive will be placed beneath the tendon and bone where any skilled surgeon will be able to slide it out.”
“Without removing my new finger?”
“Correct. Again Dr. Marulli, there should be no lasting effects other than a small scar.”
“Which finger?”
“That is a legitimate question; let us take a look.”
Reaching into his lab coat pocket, Dr. Lara removed a small flat flash drive sealed in white rubber latex. Holding up the object to each finger, the TDS surgeon measured the width.
“You said you were right-handed?”
“Yes.”
“Then I would say the best results should come by replacing the fourth digit of your left hand.”
“Hello? That’s where I’m wearing my engagement ring.”