Scrambling into the driver’s seat, churning through snow, and I’m not liking what I’m thinking. There’s no way Lex could have gotten from police headquarters to the full-scale wind tunnel this quickly unless he took a shortcut. If so, he knows our campus frighteningly well, and it suggests premeditation, possibly practice runs. Otherwise, he’d have no idea how to find his way.
“He might be going underground,” I explain to Fran as ART gives me that schematic next, and I can see every building, utility tunnel and trench on our 764-acre campus. “If so, I’m only going to pick him up when he surfaces inside facilities or through the outdoor hatches. Your smartcard can access all the locks same as mine,” and the massive wind tunnel looms up ahead.
Ten stories high, more than twice the length of a football field, at one time it was the biggest in the world. Built in the 1930s, it’s powered by a 12.1 meter (40 foot) wide 9-bladed wooden fan that moves more than a million cubic feet of air at speeds up to Mach 10. I know all the specs from Mom’s lesson plans.
Plus, Dad and I have conducted all sorts of tests in there, and lately Lex has accompanied him. The odd-looking construction reminds me of a monster Slinky soldered together into a rectangular hulking shape that’s eggshell white. Near the main gate, it’s the first thing you see when approaching NASA Langley on Commander Shepard Boulevard.
“. . . You got any suggestions? Because I’m slam out of them,” Fran vents in my ear as I pull into a slushy unpaved service road.
There are no tire or people tracks, and it doesn’t look like anybody’s been back here since the blizzard.
“. . . I’m not sending anybody down into the steam tunnels, and no way I’m doing it either,” she rants on, and of course she wouldn’t, not with all her phobias.
“We’re going to have to intercept him when he surfaces,” I leave my truck. “Get everybody you can patrolling access areas. That’s all I can suggest at the moment,” and I end the call.
00:00:00:00:0
I HURRY through melting snow toward the wind tunnel, which obviously isn’t running at the moment. When it is, you can hear its hurricane roar from one end of the campus to the other. The sitemap in my lenses shows that only 4 people are currently inside the facility. That’s if you don’t include whoever is in possession of Fran’s badge.
Lex, in other words, and I step around piles of wooden pallets amid metal struts supporting the colossal structure. I cut through an improvised break area of white plastic tables and chairs drifted with snow. Trudging around back to the west return passage, I discover a single set of footprints on the small side.
A little smaller than mine, and I recall the rubber snow boots Lex is wearing. The trail leads away from a green metal utility hatch in the ground, stopping at metal stairs leading up to the wind tunnel’s maintenance door that was accessed by Fran’s smartcard a few minutes ago. And this is really bad. Climbing the yellow-painted steps, I unlock the maintenance door with a swipe of my WAND finger.
“Lex,” I call out, entering a concrete passage big enough to drive a car through.
Empty, silent, and I don’t hear or see anyone.
“Hey Lex! Are you in here?” my voice echoes. “Lex! This isn’t a safe place to be!” I shout urgently, walking in deeper. “LEX, HELLO . . . ?” as the 12,000-horsepower electric motor cranks on with a thump and a rush.
The humongous wooden fan I can’t see from here begins to spin, picking up speed thunderously, and I feel the airflow, a gentle breeze that quickly gets stiffer and warmer. I have seconds to beat a hasty retreat before the wind blows me around the bend into the spinning blades. Or smashes me into a concrete wall, maybe dicing me up in airflow vanes, a diffuser grid, none of it a good way to go.
“Shut her down!” I shout at ART.
“I don’t understand . . .”
“SHUT THE ENGINE OFF!” and just like that it stops, and I run the length of the wind tunnel’s passage, squeezing through gigantic flow-straightening vanes.
I emerge into the open bay test area where flustered researchers are gathered around the full-size test model of a blue-fluorescing spacecraft wing mounted on a stinger. No doubt baffled by the fan suddenly starting and stopping, they stare at me with their mouths dropped open, and I keep going.
“Is everything all right . . . ? What’s happening . . . ?” they call out after me.
But I don’t answer, going full tilt down the stairs, taking the steps two and three at a time. Racing through the model prep area with its tugs for hauling the test sample transport carts. Dashing under the scale model of a Boeing 737 hanging from the ceiling. Sprinting along a hallway, past offices and labs, nobody home, my boots thudding loudly.
The empty lobby is plastered with photographs of vehicles tested over the decades including experimental hypersonic planes, submarines, dirigibles, dish antennas, race cars. Boiling out the door into the wind and cold, I stop, looking around, breathing hard, and I don’t see him.
Not a sign of Lex as I scan the area, and I could kick myself if he did what I suspect, creating quite the distraction, and while I’m running for my life, he doubles back. Leaving through the same access door, down the same stairs, and I’m also betting he went underground through the same maintenance hatch.
“Other than seeing footprints, how are we supposed to know if he goes through a hatch or one of the airlocks? Or if he might be in a tunnel right now?” I ask ART, slogging my way back to the trail I noticed in the snow a few moments ago. “How are we supposed to have a clue where he is?”
“Most airlocks, hatches and tunnels aren’t set up to be remotely monitored,” the reply in my earpiece as I near the maintenance stairs I climbed earlier, and I can see that my hunch is correct, unfortunately.
Lex did exactly what I thought. While I was dealing with the fan he turned on, he retraced his steps, exiting from the same maintenance door, going down the stairs, disappearing through the same hatch in the ground, returning to the same subterranean utility tunnel he’d emerged from earlier.
“There’s monitoring only in highly sensitive areas designated on the sitemap,” ART is saying. “For example, Buildings 1110 and 1111,” but even in those rare exceptions what we’re talking about is mainly motion sensors, not cameras.
“Well, I think we know where he is right now,” I reply, pointing out boot prints in snow leading directly to the green steel hatch with its smart lock and hydraulic-assisted opening mechanism. “And I’m not chasing him down there. I’m not sure I’d even pick up your signal or any signal,” I say to ART as he remotely starts my Tahoe.