Alternative Reality: some elements have been changed from canonical tradition. For example, Lucas Wolenczak graduated from Stanford with an M.S. in Artificial Intelligence, as well as a subject concentration in physics/mathematics. Some dates may appear suspiciously outside canon. In addition, because of the Non-Allied Powers (situated in a place called "Dominia," another element outside the seaQuest canon), this work can be seen as an Alternative Universe piece.
Sequel: "Entangled Alliances" is a sequel to--yeah, you guessed correctly--"Entanglements with the Enemy." Let me know what you think of the new title (it used to be "More Entanglements with the Enemy"! I'd love to hear them!
Rating:PG-13, rated as such because of some adult themes and language.
Summary: Lucas plays boom-boom once again with his vortex. The only real question is . . .who is his enemy? :-)
Copyright 1999 by SheriAnn
Entangled Alliances
Part Two
A General Confusion
It was raining in Washington, D.C. From all reports, it had been raining for a good four days now. The reports suggested that another four days of rain was likely, with a strong probability of high winds and possible hail.
From inside the helicopter, Lucas peered outside. The air force runways were empty, with the exception of a few stragglers who simply looked right past them as they headed towards their jets. Fog wrapped around the large dark blobs Lucas assumed to be aircraft hangars, blanketing the runways until everything seemed almost . . . hazy or unnatural, as if a shroud lay over it. The few sounds drifting towards them were dim, more like echoes of sound than anything.
Bridger eyed their surroundings, then sighed. He looked back at his two companions with a shrug. "Well, it seems our ride's not here. Guess we'll just walk a little bit over to the main terminal."
Lucas followed the Captain's gaze, but for the life of him couldn't see anything but mist. He assumed there was a main terminal lurking somewhere out there, though.
Silently, they set out for the terminal. Lucas thought it was the most silent he'd heard the two in more than a month. Usually, when they were anywhere near him, they felt it was their solemn duty to lecture him. But today, they seemed very . . . preoccupied.
Hmmm. He wondered what could be on their minds.
Was there something he hadn't been told about this little sojourn in Washington?
Lucas quietly pondered the possibilities. As he trudged behind Captain Bridger and Doctor Westphalen, his soaked feet swashing through several puddles of water, he noticed that Doctor Westphalen was frowning. There was always the possibility that she was frowning because of the rain racing down her face, but he doubted it. This didn't look like a merely "I'm uncomfortable, wish I were inside" frown. It looked more like an angry frown.
Again, Lucas wondered what could be wrong. His not knowing bothered him, particularly since it suggested that he didn't know the whole truth behind what was happening.
Lucas suddenly snorted. There were relatively few things Lucas considered sources of stability in his life. In fact, he could name exactly five of them.
First, he could reasonably count on Bridger to make him laugh, eat his dinner, clean his room, or chew him out for his latest pranks . . . depending on the situation, of course. If he were in trouble, Bridger knew about it. If he were causing trouble, Bridger knew about it. If he were even thinking of something that might potentially get him into trouble, he swore Bridger knew about it.
Second, he could pretty well expect Doctor Westphalen to be on his side--unless he was late. If he were late to the lab, as he'd been lately, she sought all available opportunities to express her displeasure. Barring that, though, she was a pretty good ally. He'd often discovered her sympathy earned him a softened prison sentence from the Bridger Court of Teenage Misbehavior.
Hmmm . . . third, he could always expect Krieg to get both of them into deep trouble. If Lucas had been the slightest bit superstitious, he would have long ago decided the Lieutenant had been born under the wrong star, had walked on a crack in the pavement, or had shattered a mirror: something like that to place him straight in Trouble's pathway.
Fourth, he could well expect that, when he least needed it, his cursed bad luck would hunt him down anywhere and any time. And it was doing so with relish right now. He hadn't been allowed off the seaQuest for weeks now. After the Ulysses disaster, Bridger and crew had essentially kept an eagle's eye on him if he so much as thought about leaving the relative safety of the ship. As luck would have it--or, more specifically, as his luck would have it--the one time he did manage to escape up-world, it was pouring rain. It didn't help that he was being hauled off to the Pentagon, either.
Well, that said about everything, with one minor exception: that would be the Fifth Golden Rule of Lucas Luck. And that fifth rule was simple. He could rely on his parents not to care if he were alive or dead, while he could count on the crew of seaQuest to care more than seemed naturally possible. They were more of a family than he'd ever imagined, especially given his "family relations."
There were some negative sides to this fifth rule, though. By trying to protect him, by trying to be that family he had never had, his crewmates tended to shield him from anything they thought might upset him. This trend was no more obvious than in Captain Bridger and Doctor Westphalen, who sometimes forgot he was also a computer scientist and physicist, and that he could handle a few minor upsets now and then. To them, he was fifteen yeas old. To Lucas himself, he was stranded somewhere between fifteen and a hundred: fifteen in age, but a hundred in the dark, haunting experiences his family life had given him.
Given the way Captain Bridger and Doctor Westphalen were acting, Lucas suspected something was happening beyond the obvious ceremony and congratulations the Captain had discussed. However, he also suspected that Captain Bridger wouldn't tell him what this was unless all hell broke loose.
*****
Their ride to the Pentagon came screeching before them in a black limousine. Apparently, traffic had been backed up for miles: some sort of demonstration going on in front of the Pentagon. As the man apologized profusely to them, Lucas simply wished he'd shut up and let them into the car. He couldn't believe how long a walk it was from the runway to the air terminal. What, was the air force making sure its personnel got their exercise? Even now, he was dripping from head to toe. He felt like he'd been tossed through several cycles of a washing machine. Finally, the man tired of his apologies and unlocked the doors for them.
"About time," a very soggy and ill-humored Lucas griped as he was squished in between Bridger and Westphalen in the back seat of the car. Bridger and Westphalen glared at him, but Lucas felt vindicated. Doctor Westphalen had sighed in relief, too, when she'd slid into the car. "All I want right now is a nice, hot shower. The Big Brass at the Pentagon can wait."
Bridger frowned at him, though Lucas noticed he didn't seem overly excited to go to the Pentagon, either.
"I, for one," Doctor Westphalen started, again sighing, "will be glad to get something warm to eat. And, preferably, it should be something that hasn't been sitting on the seaQuest's shelves for a good year or two."
Bridger rolled his eyes. "You're worse than Krieg. You heard the Lieutenant's latest beef about the oranges, didn't you?"
Lucas snickered at this, silently remembering Krieg's attempts at procuring genuine beef for a cheeseburger. The smell alone had made Lucas ill, but Krieg kept insisting it was a "classic meal." Of course, Krieg had later told him that "classic meal" went the way of all such classic Krieg ideas: straight into the trash can.
"Oh, you mean his 'perfect orange spiel'?" Doctor Westphalen asked, shaking her head. "What does the Lieutenant want, anyway? Bruised oranges?"
"Umm. Probably. Sounds like a Krieg idea to me." Bridger stared outside, watching the rain as it drizzled against the pavement. He frowned, but stayed quiet.
The silence dragged on. Lucas played with the wet hem of his shirt, cautiously looking from Bridger to Westphalen and back again. The two were drearily staring out the windows.
Tick, tick, tick. Lucas could have sworn he heard his own watch in the hush of the car. He tapped his foot against the floor, then rolled his eyes as Bridger glared his way. Lucas stealthily began tapping his toes instead.
Several minutes later, they sped right past what Lucas thought was their hotel. They didn't slow down or stop, but, instead, simply continued to move. Blinking, Lucas stared at their driver, then looked curiously over at Captain Bridger. Maybe he had had a change of plans?
But Bridger, too, looked surprised by the sudden change in their destination. His eyes narrowed before he leaned forward. "Excuse me, but I think . . ."
The Captain froze mid-sentence, amazed, as the window separating them from their driver effortlessly rose between them.
Click. The doors suddenly locked.
Lucas swallowed hard. He looked over at Bridger.
Captain Bridger, too, was staring around him. His eyes were wide, aghast.
Again, Lucas swallowed hard, fighting down the urge to shake uncontrollably. A knot clamped around his stomach, tightly squeezing until it was almost hard to breathe.
Somehow, he knew that whatever Captain Bridger had been expecting, it hadn't been this.
*****
Bridger pounded his fist against the window. The driver simply ignored him, eyes refusing to acknowledge their anger as they were whisked off to God alone knew where. Bridger's fingers tapped momentarily on the door rest. Something jabbed into his knuckles. Hmmm . . . what was that? He stopped, staring: buttons were on the door. With any luck, they might just work . . .
The Captain started pushing buttons on the door at random. Unfortunately, as he'd suspected, nothing happened. No doors opened. No windows went down. Nothing.
Damn.
He leaned back, exchanging worried glances with Kristin Westphalen. She glanced at Lucas. Bridger's gaze then slid to Lucas, whose hands were absolutely white, seeming drained of blood, as the boy clutched his fingers tightly together. He was almost hyperventilating, his eyes locked on the driver's head.
After a second's concerned thought, Bridger patted Lucas's shoulder comfortingly, only to be rewarded with a scowl. Lucas, obviously, wasn't in the mood to be falsely comforted. Bridger couldn't really blame him. They were clearly in trouble; a pat on the back just didn't change that. He wished it could.
A quarter of an hour, then thirty minutes, slowly ticked by. The back of the limousine was silent, tense.
Lucas abruptly looked over at Bridger, opened his mouth to speak . . . before shutting it with a snap. The teenager made a strange sound in his throat, shuffling his feet a few times, as he simply stared straight ahead.
Nathan followed his gaze. His stomach lurched.
They had just stopped beside a large black fence, its thick bars rising well over two body lengths into the sky. Armed guards dressed in slate gray uniforms stood tensely at the entrance, fully alert and stiffly holding rifles in their hands. Their faces were cold, unemotional--smooth as slabs of marble.
They heard the click of their driver's window rolling down. Two voices murmured something they couldn't decipher before the guard extended his hand towards their driver. A pass exchanged hands, then the driver's hand was held against a small pad. Light glowed underneath the hand, apparently taking some sort of identification reading.
They waited, nervous, as the seconds ticked by.
The gate suddenly snapped open. One of the guards swung its ponderous form to the right before they drove straight through.
The road they now traveled was long; black fences similar to the one they'd just passed through outlined the entire road. Bridger had the suspicion that the fence also coursed with electricity. From what he was seeing around him, the security of this place was heavy . . . whatever the hell this place was.
Minutes later, their destination arose before their sight. Black walls blended with the stormy skies; slashes of faded sunlight dully lingered over the building's harsh slabs of obsidian-colored granite, then gleamed against the black fences surrounding the compound. Light traced the oblong shapes of a few tiny windows, each window screened by iron bars. Dark hued curtains drew across the windows and hauntingly stifled any light from inside.
The building squatted down by the earth, a short two-stories high, its brooding form hunched over, stooped, like a vicious animal raging to attack. The huge black double doors at the front of the complex were impassively shut, guarded by three men dressed in the same gray as before. Silence hung over the building and its surroundings: intimidating silence.
Black. Darkness.
Bars.
Bridger swallowed hard. They were in serious trouble.
*****
Minutes later, they were wrestled out of the car by six guards, all dressed in the same slate gray uniforms they'd seen at the gates. They were then herded inside the building, hustled through a blur of bleakly gray halls and doors and stairways.
Somewhere within the building, a door was finally reached. A set of numbers was punched into the keypad, and they were bodily flung inside.
The door closed behind them with a final, resounding thump.
Bridger caught his balance, holding his right elbow against the nearest wall. Lucas and Westphalen crashed to the floor. Even as he heard Lucas mumble something about bastards and guillotines, Bridger could hear their guards' footsteps retreating down the hall.
Then he heard only silence.
"Where are we, Nathan?" Kristin stood, agitatedly rubbing her hands through her hair. She glared around them. "And who were those . . . monsters?"
Lucas looked at him, clearly wondering the same thing. Bridger watched for a moment as Lucas roamed around their room.
"I'm not sure." He paused, sighing, before he added, "I don't recall ever having heard of this place. Whoever's behind it, though . . . they're organized. I'll say that for the bastards."
Lucas was still prowling the room when he asked, his voice tight, "What about the ceremony we were coming here for, Captain? Is it related?"
That was the very question Nathan had puzzled over for the past hour or so. He didn't like his conclusions, either.
As he looked at Westphalen, whose mouth was set in a grim, almost bloodless line, Bridger again considered what--or who--could be behind this. Who would want to do this? It wasn't as if anyone would want to get their hands on him--or Lucas and the doctor, for that matter. At least, that wasn't something he would have considered likely.
However, this was certainly making him reconsider the possibility. The question was, though, who would want to capture any of them? What would their motives be? Was it simply convenience, or was there more to it than that? And if their . . . captors . . . had wanted only one of them, who had they wanted?
Was it himself? Bridger knew he had access to enormous amounts of classified material. That alone would make him a suitable target for any enterprising criminals. He also knew Kristin had her hands into several extremely critical research projects. One of her competitors could be interested in gaining her information . . . though he thought it rather unlikely, given the amount of money this entire site must have cost.
And then there was the matter of Lucas. This worried him the most. Lucas had access to classified material, but most information bandits would seek Bridger instead. However, as the first and only scientist to produce a vortex, Lucas was a primary target for terrorists interested in getting their hands on a thoroughly dangerous weapon.
Hell.
Nathan started tapping his fingers against his leg, then rubbed at his jaw. He didn't like any of this. The whole scenario spooked him, for it seemed to suggest an inside job. In fact, an inside job was the most obvious explanation for this entire mess.
He silently considered the facts.
First, there was the matter of his sidearm. Whoever had them must have known he didn't usually travel with a sidearm. Otherwise, they would have frisked him for a weapon before they climbed into the limousine. Even after they'd reached this . . . place, Bridger hadn't once been searched. An intelligent captor would have placed that first on the list of priorities . . . unless it was generally known that he didn't carry a weapon. The only ones with that type of information would have been his own government: UEO command, the Pentagon, his crew.
Second, there was the call from General Thomas. This was the most disturbing element of all. Either their captors had a tap on Thomas's line--which was damn near impossible, considering the General's security--or the General was himself involved in their detention.
Bridger clenched his jaw, then forced himself to relax. If this were true, anger wouldn't change the facts.
Finally, third, was the existence of this building in the first place. The site almost reeked of political corruption. It wasn't as if satellite photos of the area could easily miss a complex like this, particularly in Washington, D.C., the most highly secured city in the nation. That no one had wondered of it was alarming. Rumors should have been flying for months over something like this, but not a peep had been uttered.
Not good. Not good at all.
If, though, it were an inside job . . . what would be the purpose? What could they possibly hope . . .
Bridger's thoughts suddenly froze as the door swung open.
His heart skipped a beat as he saw who it was.