“The only way to have a reliable signal in the tunnels under present technological conditions would be to utilize the Aerial Internet Ranger,” he suggests, and I look up at the late-afternoon dusky sky as if I might spot our prototype AIR in the neighborhood.
But Ranger is ghosting us exactly as instructed, and I tell ART that sending in a PONG is a bad idea.
“For one thing,” I explain, climbing back into my truck, “it could be dangerous. I don’t want Lex panicking and hurting himself down there. And besides, how would Ranger get in and out of hatches and airlocks?”
“He can use his gripper to access doors,” ART replies as if lobbying on behalf of another artificial helper.
“He might not be able to lift the in-ground hatches,” I consider. “But airlocks he can manage for sure. Although we’ve not tested him out on opening any types of utility doors, and I guess we should have.”
I tell ART to give Ranger a shot as long as he isn’t seen or heard, drawing absolutely no attention to himself. Lex can’t be aware he’s being bird-dogged by a flying orb, I’m emphatic about it. I know he’ll panic.
“Let’s do what we can to intercept him. But in the process, we can’t end up with a loss of signal again,” I remind ART of recent mistakes.
“Copy.”
“Not aboveground or below . . . ,” I start to add when interrupted by the loud blast of a steam ejector at the scramjet test facility in the heart of the campus.
Punctuated by flames and gases suddenly erupting from stacks and vacuum spheres as emergency sirens begin to hammer, wail and whistle. While red lights flash as recordings of sonic booms and aircraft thundering overhead blare from giant voice speakers throughout the campus.
Alarms sound their earsplitting emergency tones as if we’re in the middle of an invasion, and I can see in my lenses other trouble Lex is causing. At least I assume he’s behind the cyber mayhem, starting up robots and other machines, waking up drones throughout our 200 facilities as I just as quickly tell ART to shut them down.
I’m back on Langley Boulevard when Fran’s badge number surfaces in the Advanced Concepts Lab for virtual reality and other simulations. I drive in that direction, and before I can get there, the ID number pops up like a whack-a-mole in another building. This time it’s the Acoustics Research Laboratory, where a reverberation chamber is broadcasting bone-rattling aircraft sounds over intercoms I yell at ART to silence.
Then Atmospheric Sciences, the thermal vacuum chambers going to town, and I tell him please to make them stop. Obviously, he’s to patch whatever the vulnerability is that’s allowed Lex access.
“And change the passwords. Do what it takes to shut him out,” I instruct when Carme appears in one of my truck’s displays, as if I don’t have trouble enough.
I watch my sister in the medical examiner’s live feed as she walks briskly through the morgue’s back parking lot.
She makes her way with purpose past windowless black vans, a mobile command center truck, a Zodiac boat for body recovery, and it’s as if I’m seeing myself in another dimension.
Dressed in my same tactical clothing, she must have raided my closet at home, my office at police headquarters. Or maybe Mom did. All I know for sure is anybody looking would think Carme is me right down to the CUFF on her right wrist, and the sporty-looking glasses tinted medium gray as the sun settles lower.
18
CARME heads toward the delivery bay, its massive door retracted, the Cadillac hearse idling inside and no sign of anyone as Neva Rong lifts off in her chartered helicopter on another display inside my truck.
All this while I’m driving through the most remote part of the NASA Langley campus where it would seem Lex is headed based on ART’s reports. Ranger is underground and has pinged on Fran’s ID badge several times, most recently in a utility tunnel that follows a steam pipe cutting through the woods in the direction of the Gantry.
I follow West Bush Road at a decent clip as the late afternoon thaws and is cast deeper in shadows, and I’m getting more concerned by the moment. There’s nothing much back here, mostly woods, test ranges and old rust-stained hangars where all sorts of unusual vehicles might be stashed. Empty fields host mysterious antennas, and you never know what you might find in the sheds and storage units.
Everything is snowy and quiet, the Gantry towering ahead like a giant candy cane–striped swing set against the darkening partly cloudy sky. I keep an eye on the sitemap while monitoring Carme on the OCME live video feed, alone inside the bay. She strides up to the idling Cadillac hearse, late model with a Landau top, no sign of a driver because there isn’t one.
Popping open the hood like she did at the Point Comfort Inn, she pulls out components and wires, the engine shutting off, lights out, loss of signal. As this is going on, security cameras inside the morgue show Dylan emerging from a cooler, steering a steel gurney carrying a pouched body covered by a maroon velour throw.
He pushes his morbid cargo through the intake area, one of the wheels sticking like a bad grocery cart. Rolling it past the floor scale, out the door, he freezes on the ramp at the sight of the hearse, hood up and stone still.
“Looks like my sister might have taken care of one problem,” I say to ART. “But where is Lex? He’s been underground for a while now, and there’s really no way to know where he might be or if he’s okay. And the sun will be going down soon.”
ART has no new data as I park next to a fenced-in scrapyard of crashed aircraft chassis near the steam plant that stinks to high heaven. I count 13 vans and trucks parked on the roadside, a lot of them nose in with their headlights on, illuminating the full-scale gumdrop-shaped spacecraft test model suspended from the Gantry.
Off to the left is the million-gallon Hydro Impact Basin, a swimming pool where the water’s never fine. Unheated, unfiltered, and routinely shocked with chemicals, it’s where we simulate splashdowns and crashes. I suspect the point of this afternoon’s test is to see how astronauts would hold up when they return to Earth, landing in the ocean at certain velocities and angles.
Done with good ole-fashioned geometry, and I’m always reminded of the game Mouse Trap that Carme and I used to play as kids, never tiring of the boot kicking over the bucket . . . sending the marble bouncing down rickety stairs . . . into a chute . . . falling through a hole . . . triggering the mouse cage to slide down a pole . . .