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Forty-Nine

Kevin's running the translation program," Annalise said, her eyes closed, her head tilted to one side, her right index finger pressed against her ear.

The tension was unbearable. Annalise's lips moved as though she was reciting lines in her head. The silence extending to twenty, thirty, forty seconds.

"Express the Etxamendi world now!" shouted Tamisha over her shoulder.

"Shhh!" said Gary and Howard in unison.

Ten more seconds. Annalise nodded, started to smile, the smile broadened into a grin.

"Break the link and the strength of the resonance wave is diminished," she said, the words coming out in a rush. "Break the link with enough energy and the resonance wave is destroyed. You can set off a shock wave that'll purge the twelfth dimension!"

Everyone spoke after that, bombarding Annalise with questions. Graham watched in awe as she relayed messages back and forth between the worlds. It was like watching someone speaking in tongues. The mathematical formulae, the strange unfathomable words that came out of her mouth. It wasn't her speaking and yet it was.

Then Tamisha broke in. They'd downloaded the Etxamendi file from the New York sphere. They had their own translation. And a new set of proofs. It confirmed Kevin's interpretation. If they could generate enough energy, they could break both the link and the resonance wave.

Howard was next. He'd pulled up Maria Totorikaguena's personnel files. She wasn't only Spanish, she was Basque.

"Etxamendi," said Gary, smiling to himself. "We should have noticed. Etxamendi is related to the Basque language."

"Which probably explains her interest in Schenck and twelve-dimensional models of the universe," added Howard. "She was accessing the knowledge of her counterparts in the Etxamendi Diaspora. Knowledge centuries ahead of her understanding. No wonder she made mistakes."

"Who said she made mistakes," said Tamisha. "I've been rereading her work. She published solidly for six years; then four years ago, she stopped. If you ask me, the girl took her work off-line. And she knew exactly how to break the link. How else would Sylvestrus know the significance of keeping Graham in a coma?"

"You don't think he could have been trying to stop the resonance wave?" asked Gary.

"By closing all the Resonance projects? Gee, I hadn't thought of that," said Tamisha.

Graham smiled. She'd lost none of her edge.

* * *

Thirty minutes later Graham had to leave the room. The flow of conversation had been interesting for a while—the excitement of a solution in sight, the optimism, the rush of ideas. Brilliant minds brainstorming in unison all the different ways to increase the charge of a flip, how to intensify the interaction, how to ensure the maximum impact.

But then it had become unsettling.

They were talking about the Grahams as objects—pawns to be moved and sacrificed. No more asking the Grahams to cooperate—that was too uncertain. They'd trick them, shock them. Every now and then someone would glance Graham's way and apologize. "We're only brainstorming," they'd say, "throwing ideas around, saying the first things that come into our heads. We don't mean any of this."

They'd smile, their consciences assuaged, and leave Graham wondering why so many first thoughts involved his death.

When the man from Kyoto suggested placing explosives on the Grahams and making them unwitting delivery devices in political assassinations, Graham decided he'd heard enough.

Annalise followed him into the corridor.

"They really don't mean it," she said, pulling the door closed. "It's the way they work. They think in abstracts. They throw ideas up in the air and sort them out later. No one's going to make the Grahams do anything they don't want to."

Graham nodded. He didn't want to talk. Not even to Annalise. He felt distanced by events as though the universe had been split into two camps—the Grahams and the not-Grahams, the expendable and the non-expendable. Why not kill all the Grahams? They'd never be missed.

"I'm only going to the bathroom," he lied, knowing that any other statement would give Annalise an excuse to tag along. Company was not something he wanted.

He paused by the cloakroom door and glanced back. Annalise was watching so he went inside. When he came out, she'd gone.

He pushed through the doors to the stairs before she had time to reappear. He needed to be alone, he needed time to think.

He trudged slowly down the concrete steps. He knew everyone meant well but he also knew that desperate people embraced desperate measures. If only he were cleverer. If only he didn't have to depend so much on others.

He reached the stair door to the ground floor and stopped. The stairs continued down. He peered over the metal handrail. There was a basement level? He'd never been shown a basement level on his tour of the building. And he was sure the buttons in the lift stopped at "Ground."

He followed the steps down. Why would they have a floor you could only access from the stairwell?

At the bottom, there was a sign above the doors—Lower Ground. He pushed through into a corridor, a mirror image of all the other corridors in the building. Doors dotted along its length, each door with an entry panel.

He walked along the empty corridor, wondering what each room contained. There was a low rumble in the distance, becoming louder the further he walked. Machinery of some sort? A generator?

A green light shone above one of the doors, two rooms ahead on the right. As he moved closer he could see that the door hadn't closed properly, it was resting against the lock. He walked over, placed a hand in the center of the door and pushed ever so slightly.

The door opened a crack and he peered in. There was a notice board on the side wall, four words written across the top: New Tech Weapons Research.

He blinked and read the words again. Gary had sworn he knew nothing about New Tech weapons on this world. He'd acted surprised at the newspaper headline. Had it all been an act?

He pushed the door wider, slid inside and peered around the edge of the door. The room looked empty. There was a row of head-height metal cabinets running left to right across the room. He couldn't see anyone on the other side and if he kept low they wouldn't be able to see him either.

He slipped silently inside, crouching low and moving cautiously. He had to read what it said on that board. If Gary couldn't be trusted, he needed to know. Now.

He reached the edge of the cabinets; the notice board was only a few feet away. There were brochures, memos, lists and timetables. He started to read. One memo indicated that weapons research had been running for fifteen months. There were . . .

The door behind him clicked shut.

Graham turned in surprise.

Adam Sylvestrus was standing by the door, his fingers tapping numbers on the entry console. The green light above the door flashed to red. He turned and smiled.

"Delighted to at last meet you, Mr. Smith. I have been following your progress with great interest."

 

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