Command Performance
Dan put his bike in gear, made a tight U-turn, then a right onto Ruffin Road and looked over the situation. Driveways were blocked by traffic barriers and wide yellow tape, backed up by men in black suits. A few black SUVs, sedans in dark colors, and a big yellow rental truck sat in the large blocked-off parking lot. A few more figures in dark suits stood around the vehicles.
He turned left into the first driveway and rolled up to where it was taped off. The Man In Black stuck his left hand out in a STOP gesture. "This area is off limits. National Security. Turn around and go home."
He returned a sardonic grin. "Oh, I think you want to let me in. I guarantee your boss does. You see, I was here yesterday. When this happened. You really want to talk to me."
They faced off for several long seconds, until Dan fancied he could see infinite reflections forming between their respective mirrored sunglasses. The G-man might have blinked, or not, but he put a hand on his left lapel and said, "Sir? I have a situation."
There was a short pause as he listened to an earpiece, left side. "A civilian. Says he witnessed the Event yesterday." You could hear the capitalization.
Another pause. "Is your name Daniel Evans?"
"That's me."
"He says he is." He plainly didn't like what he heard next, but gave a sturdy, "Yes, sir."
He opened a gap in the barricade. "Go straight down the parking lot and stop when you reach the vehicles. Agents will meet you. Don't go anywhere else."
Dan grinned again. "Right, Agent K."
He didn't reply, but didn't seem entirely displeased either. Tommy Lee Jones had played Agent K as dry and impersonal, but also competent and efficient. Dan followed his directions and parked one space away from the first SUV. By the time he got off the bike and set his helmet down there were three men in dark suits standing a few steps away, two a few years younger than Dan, the nearest one a few years older, with gray in his hair.
"Mister Evans." He did not offer a hand. He was cool, authoritative and a bit intimidating, deliberately putting Dan off balance.
He decided to push back, a little. "Who are you?"
"I'm in charge here," he countered, unfazed. The other two stood watching impassively.
Agent I'm-in-charge-here gestured, and they started walking between the vehicles, toward the Crater. He got straight to the point. "What do you know about the Event?"
"Probably not much more than you. Maybe less, if you've found out anything here. I do have some guesses about what might have caused it."
"So do we. Where is the Outsider?"
"Not far away."
They stopped at the edge. The two parts of Officer Morales's police car were gone, leaving only some scrape marks and an oily stain on the pavement. Most likely brake fluid, Dan thought.
Several figures in white biohazard suits poked and puttered around inside the circle. Others, more casually dressed, stood around the rim, pointing various instruments into it. A distant sound like a kicked beehive reached them from a drone hovering near where he had first arrived on the scene yesterday.
"Think you're real clever, don't you?" The agent raised his voice. "Locate the Outsider. Start here."
People gathered round carrying devices, some with lenses, others with antennas. They swept the area, and the sky, slowly spreading out.
The agent-in-charge watched critically, then turned to Dan. "Will they find the Outsider?"
"I don't know. My best guess is, they won't. She didn't show up on our infrared camera."
"You've got nothing like our cameras. Or our other equipment. If there's anything to find, they will."
Dan's smile was benign. "It will be interesting to see what happens."
They watched the agents search.
"Why did you come back here?" the agent wanted to know.
"Because you're here. I can't hide from you, so I figured it would be a good idea to get our talks started now. While it's still voluntary."
"Are you so sure it will remain voluntary?"
"I hope so. That would be best, for everybody." Dan waved a hand at the people scanning. "They haven't found her. I don't think they will, and what would they do if they did? Neither one of us knows if any of our weapons would be effective against her. I'm certain they wouldn't. And what about her weapons? We've already seen what one of them can do. What else has she got?"
He didn't pursue that angle. "What exactly are you volunteering?"
The agent still hadn't identified himself. So, I guess you're Agent X, at least for now.
"We both want to cooperate with you, but there would have to be a few conditions."
One of the younger agents, still standing nearby, started menacingly, "You don't make conditions. You do what we—"
Agent X silenced him with a raised hand. "What conditions?"
Dan started ticking off points on his fingers. "Nobody tries to arrest either one of us, or threaten us. Nobody tries to take her anywhere against her will. Nobody tries to stop us from leaving when we're done here. Nobody follows us when we go. In return, we'll do our best to answer your questions — but I have to warn you, most of those answers will be 'I don't know.' She can't remember anything about herself, or how she got here, or wherever it was she came from."
"That's unacceptable!" The other agent snapped, not to be outdone.
Agent X shot him a sharp look, and he didn't continue. He turned the same look on Daniel. "We want answers, and we want to see these…phenomena demonstrated. Take readings and measurements. Determine what the limits are. Do that, and you can have your conditions, at least for now."
He nodded. "That's reasonable. I think she'll agree. Are you ready?"
Agent X looked around at his subordinates. "Progress?"
He got head-shakes, grumbles and reluctant admissions of 'No' and 'Nothing' from them.
His expression was more calculating than displeased. "Show us the Outsider."
Dan looked up. "Tovala? I think it's okay. Let's talk to them."
She appeared a few feet to his right, far enough above their heads to be out of reach, still wearing her wedding dress. The searchers made surprised noises and pointed their various gadgets at her.
She smiled, and used her Minor Thunder Goddess voice. "Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Tovala. I will try to answer your questions, but I can't make any promises. I'm still trying to find my own answers. Maybe talking to you will help."
She landed beside Dan and took his hand. She appeared calm, but her grip was fierce.
"How did you do that? With your voice?" one of the younger agents asked impulsively.
Agent X narrowed his eyes slightly, but let it pass.
Tovala laid out her limited understanding. "I think in a certain way about how I want to talk. I don't know how it works. The first time, it just happened, because I was pissed off. Since then, I've learned to control it. The same way I've learned to control flying, and turning Cloak Mode on and off."
"You mean your stealth capability?" Agent X asked.
"Stealth…yes. Daniel calls it Cloak Mode. Something about Star Trek."
One of the technicians chuckled with approval. Agent X glanced his way, and he busied himself adjusting the camera he was holding.
"You do all of those things just by thinking about them?"
"Yes, in very specific ways. Daniel is sure there must be many other things I could do, but I don't know how to activate any of them. I don't have…the proper control protocols, you might say." She gave her husband a look. "And I'd prefer not to try ideas at random, just to see what happens. I've caused enough destruction already, without meaning to."
The tech looked up from his work and gazed at her, eyes alight with wild speculation.
Agent X had his calculating look back. "Some experiments might be informative. But not in the city."
Tovala got a speculative look of her own. "You're right, going to some empty, isolated place should be safer. I just don't know if it would be safe enough."
"We don't have time for that today, anyway," Dan said, then quickly answered Agent X's baleful look with, "But we can make time. Later. I took the week off work."
"Unacceptable!" the second agent repeated.
Agent X was not quite as unyielding, but still firm. "It does strike me as unreasonable, expecting the government to wait on your schedule."
Dan admitted, "Yeah, you're right, but, we've had a real busy day already. We've been to the County Clerk, and the District Attorney, and we haven't even had lunch yet! And after that, we've got a lot more to do. She needs…well, everything. She doesn't have so much as a hair brush!"
"She's got a wedding dress," the first agent pointed out. "And jewelry."
"These are temporary. She created them, from some sort of programmable material. When she takes them off and stops thinking about them, they get unmade. She needs real, permanent clothes, and shoes, and, all sorts of other stuff. Besides, you'd need time to set it up, right? You can't just take over the Nevada Test Range without giving them some notice, can you?"
Agent Two had been about to say something, but stopped. Agent X grimaced. "Okay, you've got a point. We're not ready to run a full set of tests right this minute."
Tovala smiled at them again. "Then can we have just a few questions and simple tests now, and leave the more elaborate ones for later? I would like to get lunch soon."
A woman spoke up. "You really don't remember anything?"
She gave a little shake of her head. "I'm afraid not. The very first thing I remember is standing right there," she pointed to the center, "with a big cloud of dust around me."
"But only your cerebral memories are gone." A puzzled look prompted her to add, "You didn't have to re-learn how to stand, and walk. and talk."
Tovala was still puzzled. "I didn't know how to talk, not until Daniel started talking to me."
"But you were able to say those words after you heard them."
"Yes…"
She grinned. "If you had children, you'd know what I mean. Babies spend months just trying to form the right sounds. You sound like you've been speaking English all your life."
"Oh." She couldn't think of anything else to say.
The first tech looked up from fiddling with his camera. "I'd like to take another shot at cracking her stealth."
Agent X gave him a dubious look. "Can you?"
"Umm…maybe?"
"Then by all means, let's find out." He looked at Tovala expectantly. "Will you cooperate?"
She looked at Dan; he looked at the agents, then at her again. "Up to you."
"Okay." She let go of his hand, took two steps, lifted up about two feet and disappeared.
The tech consulted his camera, and within seconds five men and another woman formed a ragged line pointing various devices at the spot.
After a minute the initial tech said accusingly, "Are you still there?"
"I'm right here." Her voice emanated from the right direction, but didn't seem to be in any specific place. Almost like it was coming from much farther away, while still being right in front of them. An effect quite unfamiliar to their ears.
The techs looked at each other's instruments, exchanging results and short, cryptic comments that soon came at longer and longer intervals.
Agent X interrupted a long silence. "Results?"
They let the young technician speak for all of them. "Not so much. Nothing very useful, anyway. She barely shows up in any part of the spectrum we can detect. Knowing exactly where she is, we can sort of make out some traces, but we had to turn the gain up way too high just to pick up that much."
"If you didn't know where she was, could you find her? More important, could you keep her out of a secure facility?"
He shook his head. "I don't think so. The the traces we can pick up look almost identical to natural electromagnetic and thermal noise, which is everywhere. I'm sure that's by design. If we tried to detect her, not knowing where, or when, or if she was around, I'd give us maybe a five percent chance. And with the gain cranked up high enough to see any trace of her at all, we'd be jumping at false alarms every few minutes."
"I see." He didn't seem disappointed. More like…interested. Very interested.
"Is that enough?" Tovala's voice asked.
"Yes, we've learned quite a bit. Thank you for your cooperation."
She reappeared and landed beside her husband. "I'm glad I could help."
"You could help us again by showing us that sword I've heard about."
She inclined her head in assent, took one step away, and put her right hand to her left hip. "Sandalphon." She pulled the sword out of nowhere, carefully keeping it away from everybody.
"That's the device you used to cut the police car in half?" The new speaker was a man in his fifties, watching from a short distance away.
"Yes," she admitted. She still felt guilty about doing that.
"Do you mind if I examine it?" he asked, approaching cautiously, avoiding where the sword pointed.
"No, go ahead."
He had an instrument, too. He made several passes along the blade, watching a small display panel. He looked up and reported to Agent X, "Nothing."
"What are you looking for?" Dan wanted to know.
"Radiation."
Tovala's expression got distant. "Radiation…that means unstable atoms break down, and emit energy and subatomic particles. Too much radiation can kill people."
The man nodded. "Couldn't have put it better myself. This whole crater is radioactive." Dan regarded the crater uneasily, and he chuckled. "It's low level, about twice normal background for this area. Limited exposure is not hazardous."
Dan had an idea. "Churning up the ground a few hundred feet deep would stir up a lot of radon, wouldn't it?"
"I've accounted for that. There must have been some radon, but that blew away and dissipated before we got here. What I'm seeing now is not radon, and it's already tapering off. Which means…?" he looked at Dan almost like a professor at a questionable student.
He got it. "Short half-life isotopes."
The man fairly beamed at him. "That's right, and a very small quantity. Less than a millicurie in the whole crater. What's more interesting is the residual radiation on your cut through the police car. I was sure it didn't come directly from your sword, and I just confirmed that it's not a radiation source, so how did it get there?" This question was directed at Tovala.
"I do not know."
"I thought as much. I do have a hypothesis. Will you help me test it, and maybe promote it to a theory?"
"What do you need, Mister…?"
His smile was benign. "Oh, just call me Doc. I do have a doctorate, so it fits. What I'd like you to do is cut something, like you did the police car, while I take some measurements."
That troubled her. "I don't think I should. Haven't I caused enough damage already?"
"Don't worry about it. Come with me," he said breezily.
They followed him into the crater and stopped beside a large chunk of concrete that bulked up about waist-high.
He slapped it. "Can you cut a piece off of this?"
She still looked uncertain. Dan reassured her. "It's all right. That used to be part of a building, but now it's just rubble. They'll have to bust it up anyway."
That helped, a little. "Okay…"
"Give me a minute to set up, and we'll be ready to go." 'Doc' pushed buttons on his instrument, laid it on a fairly level spot on the top and aligned it carefully. He traced his finger down the side a few inches away. "Cut about here, and make sure you don't hit my radiation counter. That would ruin the experiment."
"And your budget!" the younger tech taunted him from the crater rim. They both chuckled.
"Stay back." Tovala pointed her sword at the spot he'd indicated, raised it to shoulder height and swung it down in one quick smooth motion, about a foot away from the target. She didn't seem to encounter any resistance.
A big chunk of concrete cleaved off and hit the ground with a heavy THUD. The cut surfaces were light gray, mirror-shiny, packed with small irregular bits in various grayish and brownish colors. It only took Dan a few seconds to recognize matching rows of elongated silver shapes near one side of each piece as rebar, about half an inch thick, cut through at an oblique angle. A sharp, tangy whiff of ozone reached them at about the same time.
Most of Agent X's crew had been watching the demonstration, pointing their devices at the scene. They now consulted them, and each other, comparing readings and exchanging quiet comments. Doc fetched his radiation counter and stepped back, holding it out at arm's length, still aimed at the spot. He thumbed a couple of buttons, watching the display.
"Hmmm…"
"Did you find out anything?" Tovala asked after a minute.
"Hm?" He looked at her as if just waking up — or returning from a long ways away. "Oh. Ahhh…yes. I did get a few answers. And some more questions. All in all, quite a lot to think about."
"About your hypothesis?"
"What, that? Oh, yes, it's confirmed. Provisionally, at least, but it's not important."
"It's not?"
"No, it just means I was partially right about something. You can't learn anything new just by being right. The unexpected is what you're looking for." He beamed again, at Tovala. "You've provided me with a veritable trove of unexpected. Thank you."
"You're…welcome? But what were you right about?"
"The radiation. There was an extremely short, fairly strong burst when you cut through that chunk of cement, and the remaining radiation is decaying fast. I have readings on the police car as of about twenty-two hours after you cut it, so now I have a good idea of both the short-term and long-term decay profiles, allowing me to deduce something about the isotopes that must be present. Most of which do not exist in nature."
She stretched her left arm out, her palm facing the newly cut concrete. "So, that is radiation? I wondered what it was."
He looked back and forth between his radiation counter and her hand, his eyes widening. "Are you saying you can detect the radiation? How?"
"I feel…something. I felt it here yesterday, too, but this is stronger. A little like heat, but not the same. I didn't know what it meant, until you started talking about it."
"You just never run out of surprises, do you?"
She sighed and lowered her hand. "It's all a surprise to me, too. I'm trying to figure it out, but there's just so much I don't understand, and it's not…none of the pieces connect to each other. It's all these unrelated bits surrounded by a whole lot of nothing!"
"And here I was going to ask you what it meant."
"Maybe I could tell you more, if you explained some of it to me. Things like, oh, what was your hypothesis, and how did you confirm it?"
He turned and gestured to the crater edge. "Fair enough, but let's get out of this hole first. The radiation is low level, but it's still not good for us."
"Really? Okay, then." She stowed her sword away and they returned to the rim. Dan stepped up first and held out his hand, she took it and followed, and Doc got out beside them. They all turned around and faced the crater.
Doc said reflectively, "We came here initially to investigate some geological anomaly, a sinkhole unlike any ever found before. When I examined the police car, though, I knew there was much, much more to it than a hole in the ground. What could slice completely through a car, passing through metal, glass and plastic leaving nothing but a perfect cut without a trace of heat, stress or deformation around it? Without so much as chipping the paint, or tearing the upholstery? Nothing known to modern science could have done that, even in theory. And then I found residual radioactivity on the cut edges, and nowhere else."
"It broke the windows," Dan pointed out. Somebody had swept up all the little glass crumbs, but he'd seen them around the car yesterday.
"That was just the inherent tension in tempered glass being released. The slightest scratch will do that, much less dividing it into two pieces. Whatever it was cut through a car made of multiple dissimilar materials without affecting them in any other way except for leaving the edges mildly radioactive. It was the most fascinating conundrum I've ever encountered."
"I tried to think of what it would take to make that cut, considering the few facts I knew, and made a guess. Us scientists call that a hypothesis, because we adore fancy words. My guess was that whatever unknown thing we were looking for cut fine enough to split atoms. At least, the one in a billion that happened to be in juuust the right position for the cut to actually pass through its nucleus. The readings I got just now confirm that guess."
"The only way we know to split atoms is to bombard them with high-energy subatomic particles. You didn't do that. There is no evidence your sword emitted any energy we can detect, so, what did it do? How did it cut through a car, and a big piece of cement, and some of the atoms in both objects?"
Dan leaned towards his wife, without taking his eyes off Doc. "I think he's about to tell us."
He beamed at both of them, again. "Soon, I promise. The readings I just took confirm something I suspected; your sword, or, the projection it puts out, not only splits atoms, it does so completely arbitrarily. It's not limited by binding energy constraints."
He beamed again at their puzzled expressions. "Let me give you an example. There are twenty-four unique ways to split a carbon atom in two, but only about half of those will ever actually take place. You'll never see it split off, say, four protons, leaving two protons and six neutrons. The binding energies just won't divide up that way. No matter how much additional energy you impart, it will always manifest in specific patterns, and that doesn't only apply to carbon. You must have split oxygen, magnesium, silicon, calcium, iron, a dozen other elements in ways just as impossible. There are certain balances and symmetries that simply can't be violated."
"Except, you did it."
He regarded Tovala almost accusingly. "You're not splitting atoms by dumping energy into them and then letting quantum effects play out naturally. Your sword does something else. Something that's theoretically impossible, at least by all of our theories. It has to interrupt the strong force."
Agent X looked a bit boggled. "This is the surprise you were saving for us."
"Part of it. I barely believed it myself until I saw these readings." The scientist waggled his radiation counter.
"What's the rest?" Not demanding, exactly, more…eager.
Doc braced himself. "I think her sword cuts through space itself. The car, and the piece of cement, just happened to be occupying that space. If I'm right, there's nothing she can't cut through. A tank, a building…a battleship. Hardened bunkers, buried under mountains. A planet, if the range extends far enough. Any prison cell we could try to put her in, for certain."
"Do we have any idea how she could do something like that?" Agent X wanted to know.
"We know there is more to space than what we can see. Some aspects of quantum theory just don't work out unless we assume additional dimensions. Most of our current theories propose eleven dimensions, although the other eight are not in any way similar to the three we're familiar with. If Miss Tovala — or, at least, the people who built her sword, knew how to manipulate some of those other dimensions, who knows what might be possible?"
"Could that be where her sword goes when it's not here?"
"Maybe? I just don't know. We have only proposed those other dimensions as mathematical abstractions. That doesn't mean we have a clue about what their physical characteristics might be."
"Do you know of anything she might not be able to cut through?"
Doc shook his head. "Not even in theory. She might have a way to block the cut, but we don't have the least idea where to begin."
Agent X addressed Tovala. "We need to see that sword again, and take more readings."
"Okay. Sandalphon." She produced the sword and held it out cautiously.
Several people gathered around, pointing their devices at the blade, and especially the purple light making up its edges. The young guy they had talked to earlier fiddled with his camera, looking discouraged, then let it hang from its shoulder strap.
He held out a hand. "Could I see it for a minute?"
Tovala was learning fast. She saw past the literal meaning of his words to the actual intent, lowered her sword and held out the grip. "All right, Mister…?"
"Uhhh…you can call me Kamijo," he got out, suddenly bashful before the appraising look in her purple eyes. As before, the sword's glowing edges switched off the instant her hand broke contact. The others watched their readings as it switched to an inactive state.
'Kamijo' raised the blade to about level so they could inspect the grooves revealed where the light had been. The inner surfaces glittered with a precise array of miniscule facets, like perfect slabs of tiny metallic jewels barely big enough to see. "It's not as heavy as it looks. Wonder what it's made out of?"
Another man reached out, and Kamijo handed it to him. This one proposed, "We should take samples. How can we get a piece off it?"
"That's not a good idea!" Dan put in hastily.
They all looked at him with various expressions of interest, dismissal and disdain. Who was this civilian, to be telling them what to do? The man raised the sword and demanded, "What do you mean?
Dan explained nervously, "We don't understand what it is or what it does. How can it cut through everything in its path? How does it confine light into a fixed shape? Is it just light? What is its power source? What else can it do?" He shook his head gravely. "We have no idea how it might react to being damaged. You'd be like a gang of cavemen trying to find out what's inside a land mine by bashing it open with rocks. And that's if you just set something off by accident. What if it's designed to keep people from cutting samples off it?"
Technicians and agents raised objections in a confused gabble. Agent X stilled them by saying, "Those are valid points."
Tovala gave him an uneasy look as the gabble died down. "Are you talking about another self-destruct? Isn't that a little, ummm…"
His rejoinder was comically demented. "Paranoid?"
She looked uncomfortable, but nodded.
More seriously, he said, "You're right, it's all sorts of paranoid. Thing is, you must have been armed for a reason. We've guessed that you might have been a soldier, or a spy, or maybe there's something else we haven't even thought of, but one thing's for sure. Whoever equipped you with those weapons, for whatever purpose, if they weren't paranoid, they weren't doing their jobs."
Agent X barely allowed him to finish. "What do you mean, another self-destruct? Explain."
Tovala answered before he could. "Daniel is afraid there could be a self-destruct, that might activate if I were to be imprisoned, and interrogated. We discussed it with the Mayor this morning, privately. I…I don't know if he's right. I don't know if he's wrong, either."
"I think it's a risk we should all avoid," Dan got in at last. He prepared himself to spend however long it took to convince yet another government official that trying to lock her up, or force answers out of her that she didn't have to begin with, would be a very bad idea.
"You could be right. It makes sense." He regarded them quizzically. "I'm a bit surprised you thought of it, though."
"Well, I've been reading military science fiction for a long time. And watching movies, and anime. Sometimes you have to keep your secrets from the enemy, at any cost."
"Anime, huh?" He shot an appraising look at the man who'd called himself Kamijo.
"I keep telling you there's more to anime than cat-girls and giant robots. Some shows explore a lot of serious themes," he said with an air of vindication, then grinned. "But, the cat-girls and giant robots are really cool."
They all got a chuckle out of that. Dan mused, "Kamijo…haven't I heard that somewhere?"
He nodded. "You might. It's from 'A Certain Magical Index' and 'A Certain Scientific Railgun'."
"Oh, yeah, that's right. Eaah, talk about some serious themes."
"Uh-huh. But there's another one that comes to mind right now." His gaze slid to Tovala, then back. "Level with me. She's Tohka, right? I mean, you have to see it."
"Yeah, I did, but…well, she sort of is, and then again, she isn't. We even watched a couple of scenes; the one where Tohka first appeared, and when she transformed after Origami shot Shido by mistake. They didn't mean anything to her, or bring back any lost memories. It's obvious there has to be some sort of connection, but neither one of us has any idea what it could be. It's something else we're going to have to find out. Somehow."
The others had been passing the sword around, taking measurements and images. One held it out, and, as the nearest person, Dan accepted it, intending to pass it on to Tovala. There was a crackle that sounded like static, the first sound he had ever heard from the sword. Its edges flickered, lit up and quickly stabilized.
Agent X didn't miss a thing. "How did you do that?"
Dan was staring warily at the sword. "I don't know. I don't think I did anything. Other than just take hold of it, I mean."
"Hmmm. Hand it to Technician Kamijo."
"Okay." The second his hand left the grip, the edges blinked off.
"Interesting. Pass it around."
They did. The sword remained inert to all of them. Soon it was Dan's turn again. This time, the edges lit up as instantly and cleanly as they did for Tovala.
"Interesting." Agent X repeated.
"Can you cut something with it?" Doc asked eagerly.
"Don't know."
"Try. Cut another piece off that." He pointed at the concrete chunk.
Dan looked at Tovala uncertainly. "You think it would be okay?"
"I do not know. I…I don't get any feeling that it wouldn't, but I have no way to be sure. I'm sorry, but I can't be of any help."
"Try it," Agent X not-quite-ordered him. The others were all gazing at him expectantly. Tovala wasn't providing him with any guidance. Agent I'm-in-charge-and-don't-you-forget-it looked impatient.
This is the government, or one twisty tentacle of it anyway. I told them we'd cooperate. If they decide we're not cooperating, they could without a doubt make our lives unpleasant in any number of ways.
"Right, then," he said, resigned, and hopped down into the crater, followed by Doc. They made the short walk, and he squared up to it. Doc set his radiation counter farther back this time.
Dan imitated Tovala's performance, pointing the sword at his target, raising it and sweeping it down without actually hitting the cement.
Nothing happened.
He tried again, getting the same lack of results, and looked over his shoulder at Tovala. "Okay, what am I doing wrong? Is there a button I have to push? How do you make this work?"
"I just…do. I think of what I want, and the sword does it. It's…a feeling. I don't know how I can put it into words."
The woman technician elaborated for her, "I think she must control all of her, um, gadgets, through some sort of direct neural interface. We would lack any referents for using such mental controls, and so does our language. I suspect it would be like trying to describe walking to a man born without legs."
Dan couldn't come up with any response beyond, "Oh."
"Then try using it like a sword. Just chop," Doc suggested.
"I don't know. I don't want to break it."
"You won't." Tovala's voice held an odd certainty.
"Try it," Agent X urged him.
"Uh, okay, here goes." He took a step forward and obeyed.
The sword struck with a flash of purple light, a plume of dust, and a dull CHUFF! He pulled it back without thinking and waited for the dust to blow away. There was a cut in the solid concrete about eight inches deep and half an inch wide with a sharply tapered bottom. The edges were smooth, but not shiny.
Doc picked up his meter and checked it. "Hmm. No radiation. What did it feel like?"
"Sort of like whacking a mattress with a baseball bat."
"I wonder how that works…" Doc mused.
"Neither one of us has a clue."
"I suppose not." Doc reached out, and Daniel handed him the sword. The edges blinked off, and Doc inspected it carefully. "No scratches or marks of any kind. It didn't make actual physical contact, so, what stopped your swing? What happened to the kinetic energy? It had to go somewhere, but where? And, how was it transferred?"
Dan shook his head. "Dunno."
Doc sighed. "Another mystery. I don't think we're going to solve it right now."
Still holding the sword carefully away from himself, he headed back to the crater's edge with Dan following, climbed out and joined the others. Dan stood beside Tovala. She put her arm around him, he held her, and the tension she had felt building up started to drain away. The techs passed the sword around and discussed what they had, and had not, found out.
"This is way beyond our technology," a technician reported to Agent X after a few minutes.
"Yeah, we got some readings and measurements, but we don't know what they mean," Kamijo elaborated.
Doc's expression was about equal parts mystified and fascinated. "We have a few facts and observations, but no theoretical framework to fit them into. I'm still trying to figure out where to start. Clearly, somebody knows more theories than we do."
Agent X held a hand out, they passed him the sword and he examined it thoughtfully. "Quite a weapon you've got here. Much more destructive than any assault rifle, and potentially a serious threat to public safety. I could make an excellent case that it should be impounded for study, in the interest of national security."
Both of them froze, and Tovala lost her recaptured equanimity. Neither of them could think of any reply before the G-man went on, "If we did confiscate this artifact, what could you do about it? Could you take it back?"
She nodded nervously. "Yes."
"Show me," he challenged her.
There was a short delay, then the sword vanished, right out of his hand. His fist closed on empty space where the grip had been, but he didn't seem particularly surprised. He opened his hand, and examined it. "What's your range? How far away can you do that?"
"I don't know. Farther than that. A lot farther, I think."
"Do you have to see it? What if it's locked up, in a secure room, or a vault?" one of the other agents wanted to know.
"I can…feel, where it is, any time I think about it. I'm pretty sure I could recover it from anywhere you can put it."
In the meantime, one of the other agents had stepped down into the crater and now sent an inquiring look at Agent X. Getting a firm nod in response, he picked up a fist-sized chunk of broken concrete and threw it at Tovala, hard.
It didn't quite reach her. Instead, it bounced back just as hard and hit his chest, on the left side. Tovala whipped around and faced him with her feet shoulder-width apart, knees flexed, both hands ready to defend — or attack.
"Ow!" he exclaimed, rubbing the spot ruefully.
She regarded him sourly for a second, then relaxed and lowered her hands.
"Why?" she asked, irate.
"What the fuck?" Dan demanded at almost the same time.
The agent tried to be placating. "It was just an experiment."
Her little smile was not nice. "Looks like you learned something."
"That was your force shield, wasn't it?" Agent X asked.
She held her nettled look on the other agent for a few more seconds, then transferred it to him. "Yes."
"Did you have it active? Before he threw a rock at you, I mean."
"No. I didn't think I needed it," she added, still a little grumpy.
"Did you activate it? Did you notice the rock, before it hit?"
She shook her head. "No."
"So, it was some kind of automated defense? It fired up on its own, without any input from you?"
"Yes."
"I see. I think, we did learn something important."
"Hmp." she grunted.
"It was sort of a dirty trick," Dan observed.
"Why did it bounce back like that, though?" Kamijo wanted to know. "The bullets didn't bounce back yesterday. The cops would have had something to say about that!"
"I don't know," was the only answer Tovala could give.
"Might be because they were a lot smaller, or they hit at a much higher velocity," Doc mused.
"It might," she said doubtfully.
The other agent, still standing in the crater, pulled an automatic pistol from a shoulder holster. "We could find out."
"We could indeed." Agent X regarded her speculatively. "Will you agree to another experiment?"
"Oh, now you ask."
"Asking you beforehand would have invalidated that experiment. This time it won't."
Her sour look had nearly faded away. She sighed in resignation. "All right. What do you want me to do?"
"Just stand there, and keep your shield on."
"You don't have to do this," Dan said quietly.
She gave him a little smile. "It's fine. It's not like I've never been shot at before. You should get back, though."
"I'll just stand here. It feels wrong, though, hiding behind you."
"It's only sensible. You don't have a shield."
"I guess."
"Ready?" The agent had moved, and was now crouched down behind the same chunk of concrete, away from the radioactive end, peering over the top.
Tovala glanced around, checking that everybody else was clear. "Ready."
It all seemed to happen in the same instant. A shot, a dim purple flicker in the air, and a puff of dust from the cement a couple of inches below and to the left of the gun from their perspective.
"Ow!" the agent yelled again.
"That's not what happened yesterday," Dan informed them.
Kamijo guessed, "Her shield must have different settings. So far, we've found one that disintegrates things, and one that makes them bounce back. How many more?"
Tovala just shook her head helplessly. The agent had put his gun away and now stepped up out of the crater. His hand was adorned with beads of blood raised by sharp little flakes of concrete spalled off by the bullet.
There was a lull, then the woman who'd spoken earlier asked Tovala, "Did you mean what you said to the Mayor, about providing DNA samples?"
She turned, relieved by the change of subject. "Yes. Daniel suggested it yesterday, and explained, and I agreed. You're welcome to learn anything you can from my DNA. Of course, I would also like to know what you find out."
"I can take the samples right now, if that's okay."
"It's fine with me. Am I done being a target?"
Agent X looked like he almost cracked a smile. "Go ahead."
"This way." She led them to the rental truck, pulled out a security card and held it against the roll-up door, just above the lock handle. There was a clack, she pulled the handle around and pushed the door up about two feet. Lights switched on inside. She pulled out a long set of metal steps. The runners locked just inside the door, she lowered the end, climbed them and pushed the door all the way up. Dan and Tovala followed.
Both sides of the truck's interior were packed. Barstool-like seats faced computers, monitors and other equipment. Dan was impressed. "Wow. Where can I rent a truck like this?"
She favored them with a sly smile. "This is a government vehicle. It's just painted to look like a rental truck, to be less conspicuous."
She stopped halfway to the front, opened a white locker full of…medical stuff, compactly arranged. and took out a few items.
"Let's start with some cheek swabs." She started to nudge Daniel aside.
He didn't move. "I'll go first."
She stopped and looked at him blankly. "We don't need your DNA."
"I promised her I'd go first. Show her what to expect. That's not a problem, is it?"
"Uhhh…no, I guess not." She opened a paper package and pulled out what looked like a long, one-ended Q-tip. "Open up."
She took two samples from each cheek and sealed them in a plastic tube. "Your name is Daniel Evans?"
He nodded. She wrote DE on the label with a Sharpie, then did the same with Tovala, and labeled hers TE.
She picked up the next items. "Now for a blood sample."
Dan grimaced, but removed his suit coat, hung it on the nearest stool and sat down. His shirt had short sleeves, so no further preparation was necessary. She tied a rubber tube above his left elbow and gave him a small reassuring smile. "This won't hurt a bit."
He rolled his eyes and looked up at Tovala. "Why do they always say that? It does hurt. It always hurts. A lot of things hurt worse, but that don't make having a needle stuck in your arm hurt any less." He reached out and squeezed her hand. "Have I mentioned, I don't like needles?" For the tech, he added, "Just get it over with."
The tech did, filling two small tubes and marking each one DE. She put a cotton ball dampened with alcohol over the needle, pulled it out and folded his arm up. "Keep that in place for five minutes or so. Are you ready?" The question was directed at Tovala.
She took the next seat and held out her arm. "Yes, Miss, uh…"
"Call me…Helena." She repeated the procedure without incident, but Tovala's grip on his hand tightened for a few seconds when the needle went in. Two tubes of blood marked TE joined the first two, and she held her own arm bent around a cotton ball.
"I'd like a sample of your hair, too. And a fingernail, if that's all right," Helena requested.
"Okay…"
She snipped off a small swatch of purple hair, sealed it in another plastic tube and labeled it TE. She applied a pair of pliers-like clippers to Tovala's left pinkie nail and it was a long several seconds before they snapped shut.
"That is the toughest fingernail I've ever seen." She examined her prize closely. "That's not nail polish, either. It's purple all the way through." Another tube marked TE soon lay beside the rest.
"Might as well get your height, weight and BP while we're at it," she decided, pulling out a foot-square glass digital scale. "Would you take off your shoes?"
A measuring strip ran up one edge of the locker. "A hundred and seventy-three point seven, or five foot eight and just under a half. Now stand on the scale. Hmmm…something's off here. Step off."
Helena stood on the scale herself. "Well, that's about right. Mr. Evans, take your boots off and stand on the scale."
She watched as he took her place. "Okay…a hundred and eighty-one, minus the clothes, makes you about one-seventy-eight."
He gave them both a sheepish look. "Yeah, I need to drop a few."
The agent chuckled. "That's up to you, but at least your weight is reasonable. Now you try it again."
Tovala got back on the scale. Helena frowned at it. "Still the same. You should not weigh a hundred and eighty-eight pounds! Or even one-eighty-four, without the dress. Given your height and build your weight should be around one-fifty. Maybe one-sixty, tops. You've got no place to put an extra twenty-five or thirty pounds!"
Dan remembered the night before, and chuckled. "That's for sure." She didn't have an excess pound on her anywhere.
Helena had him stand in front of the locker and took the measurement. "A hundred and seventy-three point two centimeters, or just over five foot eight. Hmp. She's about a quarter of an inch taller than you."
"That's just the hair."
She grinned. "You go on telling yourself that."
She wrote down all the numbers, underlining Tovala's anomalous weight and adding a long note at the bottom of the page. She took their blood pressure next, getting 140/90 for Dan and 130/85 for Tovala. His temperature came in at 36.8º C, and hers at 37.4º.
"Everything's normal, except for the weight," she summarized. "We'll want to do a CAT scan, too, and an MRI. Let's go talk to the boss."
"Where's the trash?" Dan straightened his arm and picked off the cotton ball, now showing a red stain.
She pointed. "Beside the door."
"Got it." He dropped it in, and informed Tovala while putting his suit coat on, "You can toss yours, too."
She nodded. Her cotton ball bore a much smaller red dot. Under it — was nothing but flawless skin. There was not the slightest trace of a mark where a needle had been stuck in her arm less than ten minutes ago.
Dan touched the spot with one finger, then checked on Helena and was relieved to see her halfway down the stairs. For Tovala's ears alone he said, "Let's not mention this. No telling what experiments they might want to try."
She was puzzled, but agreed. "All right. By the way, what is CAT scan? Somehow, it don't think it has anything to do with cats. And, M-R-I?"
He explained as they put their footwear back on, and followed her down the stairs. "They're acronyms, formed from the first letters of the words they stand for. C-A-T stands for Computerized Axial Tomography and it's basically a three-dimensional X-ray, that is, they use narrow beams of high-energy electromagnetic signals called X-rays to make an image. M-R-I is, well, it used to be called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, but the word 'nuclear' scares some people so they renamed it to Magnetic Resonance Imaging. It's a machine built around a huge magnet, that generates an intense magnetic field to align water molecules so they emit signals when stimulated with microwaves. Both processes make three-dimensional images in different ways, and they show different details. They're both noninvasive, that is, they don't involve sticking us with anything."
When the couple approached, Helena was already talking. Agent X nodded to her, then turned and addressed Tovala. "Will you consent to an MRI and CAT scan? Do you know what that means?"
"Yes, Daniel explained them to me. It sounds interesting."
"Good. Give me a few minutes to set it up." He pulled out a phone and moved away.
Several of the other technicians joined them, and they all started talking about what they had found out. Kamijo stood beside Tovala, listening.
"Who are these Men In Black? How did you get here so fast?" Dan asked him.
"We were told about this sinkhole yesterday, and sent to check it out because it was weird and unimportant, just like us. Most of us got here early this morning, and the rest have been trickling in all day. As for who we are…"
They had gotten Doc's attention. "Misfits, outcasts, and assorted oddballs, for the most part. Assigned here, because nobody knew what else to do with us. We stayed, for our own reasons, or because we had no place else to go." He grinned at Tovala. "Even the ones who most believed in our mission weren't expecting you."
That piqued her curiosity. "What were you expecting?"
Kamijo chuckled. "Flying saucers. Some sort of ships, anyway. Little green men. Or gray ones. Lizard people. Definitely not a hole in the ground and a — an almost normal-looking humanoid. Then you got married to a U.S. citizen before we even found you. This is not how it was supposed to be."
"The universe is not bounded by the limits of our imaginations," Doc said with a teasing smile.
"Yeah, I know. 'Fiction must be plausible; reality just has to happen.' Doesn't make it any easier."
"You still haven't told us who you are," Tovala reminded them. "You're part of the government, yes?"
"They're the Men In Black," Dan repeated, grinning.
"Oh, please. Those movies were absurd," Doc protested.
"Didn't stop you from watchin' 'em!" was Kamijo's snarky comeback.
"I didn't say they weren't entertaining."
"Movies?" Tovala asked blankly.
Kamijo explained, "The Men In Black movies are about a secret government organization that deals with aliens living on Earth."
"But…I thought there weren't any aliens. Isn't that why my presence here is such a big deal?"
"There aren't, and we should know, because it's our job to find 'em. Today is just the first time we've ever been able to do our job. O'course, the circus you put on this morning makes our job both easier and harder. We were supposed to keep it a secret."
Doc said derisively, "That's why those movies were absurd. There's no way a secret that big could be kept from billions of people with cameras in their cell phones. Hundreds of them would see things, and the videos would wind up on YouTube. A few guys with memory-erase gadgets could never keep up."
Dan asked him, "So how did you all wind up searching for aliens nobody believes in?"
"Have you heard of Project Blue Book?"
"Oh, yeah. You're with them? I thought they shut that down a long time ago."
Doc settled into a lecturing tone. "They did. The Air Force wound down Project Blue Book back in 1970 because they never found any real evidence of aliens and spaceships. Lots of witnesses with weird sightings and stories, but most of them were kooks and crazies. The others…didn't see what they thought they saw. When you see something you don't recognize, something you're not expecting, your brain tries to fit it into what you've seen before, often by filling in details that just aren't there. A couple of shadows can look like a gateway, or some random junk can look like a robot. Light making shapes on clouds or rocks can look like a spaceship. It was the middle of the Cold War, the Air Force had real enemies to worry about, and no time to waste on imaginary aliens."
"A few of the most dedicated guys argued, and took it all the way to the top, but you know how Nixon was. Never forgave Kennedy for the 1960 election, saw everything to do with space as Kennedy's legacy, and wanted it killed."
"They tried again a few years later, and managed to convince President Ford that eighteen years was insignificant compared to thirteen billion, and just because they hadn't found anything yet, it didn't mean they never would. That it's just not possible for the universe to be as vast and ancient as it is, and only have one planet with life on it. Have you ever heard of the Drake Equation?"
Dan nodded. "Yeah…"
"Then think it through. Our being here proves that none of Drake's coefficients can be zero. That being the case, what are the odds that the product of all those factors could reduce to exactly one?"
He got it immediately. "Practically nonexistent."
"Ford saw that too. He put them under an obscure item in the Defense Department's budget with a mission to investigate the strange and unusual, and report any evidence of aliens they found. They had already learned that interviewing flaky witnesses got them nothing but bad publicity, so they stuck to looking for physical evidence."
"They could see Carter wouldn't get it, and since there was nothing to report, they didn't. They took a chance on President Reagan, and he told them to keep at it, out of sight. Bush Junior found the budget entry in 2002, and moved us under Homeland Security."
"Where we're considered as useless as tits on a bull." Kamijo piped up. "But we'll show 'em now!"
Dan glanced at Tovala, who listened with an expression of interest, if limited understanding. "That you will." He turned back to Doc. "But how does somebody with a doctorate, I presume in nuclear physics, wind up hunting aliens? Aren't there a lot of other things you could be doing?"
"By which you mean more important, or at least better-paying, right?"
"Well…yeah."
Doc chuckled, with a decidedly resentful undertone. "Mine is a sad and cautionary tale, set in the 1990's. Once upon a time, at an academic institution which shall remain nameless, I got into a sort of a tiff with the early Global Warming movement when I pointed out some serious issues with their theories. They told me to stick to atoms, and were quite snotty about it. Well, I might not be a Certified Climate Scientist but I know fatally flawed methodology when I see it, and that was about the only kind they had."
"I aired my concerns to a few colleagues, and administrators, but nobody wanted to listen. Then somebody hinted to the trustees how much government grant money they'd never see if they kept me around, so out on my tookus I went. Word went out, too, so nobody else would have anything to do with me. Even though I was never a member of their sect, I was a heretic, so I had to be excommunicated from Science Itself."
"There were an uncertain few months, and then out of the blue I got an offer to join a secret group that investigated the strange and unusual, just in case there might be aliens behind some weird event. So here I am, still persona non grata in my own field, looking for aliens that either don't exist, or are not the least bit interested in being found."
"Meanwhile, the Global Warming cult has grown to near-absolute power and crushed all dissent, even though after twenty-five years their infallible computer models still can't simulate the climate we're having right now. Every doomsday prediction they've made has been proven false."
He concluded bitterly, "When reality doesn't conform to your theories, it's not the universe that's wrong. The proper scientific response is to scrap the failed theory and come up with a better one, not make up excuses and pretend you're right anyway. But they're still using those junk theories to justify government policies that will enrich certain special interests, and ruin millions of lives. It's infuriating."
"Power corrupts, huh?" Dan observed.
"It's not that simple. Say rather that power is given to the corrupt, or, at least, the corruptible. They're so much easier to control than someone with principles that might prove inconvenient. Such as scientists who won't say what they're paid to say, merely because it's not true. They tend to get replaced with more…tractable experts. And measures are taken to ensure no one listens to the 'crackpots'. Examples are made, to stifle any opposition. Like me."
"Politics perverts science. Scientists are rewarded not for finding and reporting the truth, but for telling those in charge of doling out the money whatever they want to hear. Play the approved tune and you get government grants, you get consulting fees, you get published. Make the wrong waves, and you don't. Such measures do not produce good science, or good scientists."
Dan made an ironic smile. "But they keep telling us The Science Is Settled."
Doc made a disgusted noise. "Real science is never settled. At best, a theory can be a close approximation of the truth. There is always more to learn, and we must always question what we think we know."
Dan made a positive sound, then inclined his head towards Agent X. "So then, what's his story?"
"Not mine to tell, but, not all that much different. He demonstrated a similar penchant for telling people what they didn't want to hear. And even worse, being right. There is no greater sin than to be right when those in power are wrong. This is exile, of a sort."
"At least it looks like you're both going to get the last laugh."
Kamijo did laugh. "We all are. Unless another agency boots us out and takes over, anyway."
Dan frowned. "That…would be a problem. I can't think of any way we'd be better off dealing with some other arm of the government. Especially if they're the type that would boot you out and take over. I can see a lot of ways it could be worse."
"You're probably right. Not much we can do about it, though."
"Maybe not, but…" he turned to Tovala, "…you can. You could insist on only working with the people we first talked to."
"Do you think that would work?" she asked dubiously.
"I think it might. If we can all reach some sort of agreement, maybe the boss there can convince them to accept it."
"It's worth a shot," said Kamijo.
Agent X pocketed his phone and returned. "The equipment and operators will be available at eight-thirty tonight. Report to the La Jolla Imaging Center by eight-twenty. That is, do you agree?"
Dan looked at Tovala. She nodded. He turned back to Agent X. "Okay. Where is it?"
He held out a card. "Here's the address. It's off Genesee, north of La Jolla Village Drive. Call me if you're going to be late."
Dan took it, and spent a few seconds reading it. "We'll find it, and we'll be on time."
"Excellent."
"There's something else."
That got him an inquisitive but wary look.
Dan tilted his head toward Doc and Kamijo. "According to these folks here, yours is not exactly the first group the government would send to check this out if they had any idea what you'd find."
The agent scowled at him, then at Doc, who answered it with a wry grimace. The scowl faded. "Most likely not."
"Think they'll replace you with somebody else, once they do find out?"
That got another scowl. "Almost certainly."
"Who do you think it would be?"
The scowl darkened. "I have a few ideas."
"Judging by your expression, our ideas must be a lot alike. Her advanced technology can be the key to ultimate power. That will bring the corrupt critters out from under every damp rock in Washington. They'll all want to grab it for themselves no matter what it costs her, us, America, even the whole world."
"You seem to know a few things about the government."
"Mostly what I see in the news. And what I don't see in the news."
He made an amused grunt. "That can be just as important, if not more so."
"Yeah. Thing is, I know we can't trust anybody they pick to take over from you. They'll be political hacks and toadies, in it to advance their careers, and those of their patrons. Mere facts and good sense will mean nothing to them."
He grunted again. "You do understand politics."
Dan shook his head. "Understand it, no. I've just seen too many bad examples to ever expect anything but the worst from most politicians and bureaucrats. Particularly the ones that would emerge from the swamp in the face of temptation like this."
"You'd rather work with us?"
He attempted a disarming smile. "At least there's a chance we can trust you. That's more than we'd have with the swamp critters they'd send to replace you."
Tovala took his arm. "I think we can trust these people. At least, I trust the ones I've talked to. I have…a good feeling about them."
"But…how would you know?" Dan asked her, puzzled. "You, ahh…"
"I was, for all practical purposes, born yesterday? I have never experienced deception, betrayal or cruelty? Not directly, no. I've only heard about them. Perhaps I'm being naive. Even so, I have a feeling that we can trust the people we've met here. Trust them to be as fair with us as their superiors allow them to be, at least. I think they understand how important it is that we deal fairly with each other. Besides, it seems a few of them have endured first-hand the…disadvantages of an inflexible bureaucracy."
"And inflexible bureaucrats," Doc put in.
"Most of us, actually," Kamijo said at almost the same time.
She asked Agent X, "Do you think it's possible? Can you convince them that I will work with you, but nobody can force me to submit to their authority? That as far as I am concerned, they have neither a carrot, nor a stick? I believe that is the correct expression."
Dan reminded him, "And tell them about the self-destruct, and make them believe it. At least, ask them if they want to find out the hard way whether we're right about it."
His reply wasn't exactly an answer. "There are a couple more demonstrations I'd like to see. Do you know what handcuffs are?"
She nodded. "Yes, Officer Nelson had them. Daniel said he was going to put them on me, and arrest me. I flew away instead."
"Would they have worked?"
"At the time, they might have. I hardly knew anything then."
"And now?"
She shook her head. "No."
"Show me." He motioned with his hand. "My men are going to put handcuffs on both of you. Get out of them, if you can."
The other two agents pulled out handcuffs and advanced.
Dan eyed them nervously, then asked Tovala, "You okay with this?"
She smiled. "Yes. It's going to be fine."
Within seconds both of them had their hands cuffed behind their backs. Dan twisted his arms uncomfortably.
Tovala said, "Ready?"
Agent X gave her a tiny smile. "Riveted."
The handcuffs vanished. Dan rubbed his wrists, relieved. Tovala held her left hand out. The cuffs reappeared, dangling from her fingers.
"Impressive," Agent X said with an air of satisfaction.
The other two agents reclaimed their hardware and inspected them suspiciously, then looked at him and shook their heads. "Nothing wrong with 'em," the nearest one reported.
"We have stronger restraints, but those wouldn't hold you either, would they?"
"No. I can remove anything you could put on me."
"I believe it. In that case, there's only one test left for the time being. Can you demonstrate the field that nullifies electricity?"
"Yes. I've learned to control it."
"Good. Let's move over there."
He led her about thirty feet away from the nearest car. The technicians placed equipment around her, from electronic instruments to an old-school flashlight with a non-LED bulb. They all backed off, pointing still more devices at her.
Kamijo announced, "We're ready."
The flashlight winked out. All the other equipment died. The techs pushed buttons on their gadgets and muttered to themselves for a couple of minutes.
Kamijo delivered their report. "We can't detect any electrical activity at all. Everything's dead. Some of those machines are EMP shielded, a few are rad-hardened, and they're as dead as the rest. Nothing seems to make any difference."
"Any more measurements you need to make?" Agent X asked.
He shook his head. "Not— Wait! I know, lemme see…" He ran to the truck.
A minute later he came back and approached Tovala, holding something small. He stopped a few feet short and asked uncertainly, "Where's the edge of this, uh, field?"
Dan chuckled. "Don't worry, it's harmless. I was inside it for almost ten minutes yesterday and didn't even notice. All it did was stop my watch. Probably my phone too."
"Uh…okay." He reached out tentatively to one of the devices until there was a sharp clack. He pulled a shiny piece of metal away and repeated the action twice more, getting clacks each time.
"Magnets still stick to steel," he reported to Agent X, then got an intent look. "Field strength might be affected, though. I'd have to measure it. Oh, but I can't use anything electrical…"
"Are you ready to check that now?"
He looked up. "Uh, no, I'd have to figure out something completely non-electrical, non-magnetic, like…maybe, a plastic balance scale? That might work…"
"What else can you do now?"
"Ah, watch what happens when she turns the field off, I guess." He stepped back. "Okay, ready."
Nothing more exciting happened than the flashlight turning on. A few of the instruments powered up and started initializing.
Kamijo mused, "About what you'd expect if you took the batteries out, and then put 'em back in. Looks like it's all back to normal."
Agent X asked Tovala, "Don't demonstrate it here, but how wide an area can that field cover? Yesterday you extended it over this whole crater, and a ways beyond it."
She shook her head. "I wasn't aware of it at the time. It must have been activated before I arrived here. Like the force shield. I think…it can encompass a much bigger area. I'm not sure how big. Ten miles, maybe more?"
"Then you could shut down any of our military bases. Or black out most of a city. Render it uninhabitable, if you kept it up.
"I'd never do that!" she protested, shocked.
His smile was small, and grim. "You say that, but how do we know what you might do? Especially since we don't know of any way to stop you. If you blacked out a city for a few days, we'd have to evacuate the place. Without transport, or communications. It would be a nightmare."
"I wouldn't!" she insisted.
"But you could. That's enough. Some people will assume you'd do it, because they would. I think you've provided me with some effective arguments. I'll see what I can do."
"You'll try to keep them from replacing you?" Dan asked, relieved.
"We are the most qualified."
"I think you're right. We'll cooperate with other people, too, just not under threat."
"Not as a prisoner, or a slave, I believe you said? I think those are reasonable terms."
"I hope you can get them to agree," Dan said.
"I hope we're done here." Tovala grimaced and put a hand on her stomach. "I really want to get lunch. It's after two."
Agent X nodded. "It seems we all have a lot to do. I'll see you both tonight."
They moved away. Dan turned back. "What is your name, anyway?"
"You can call me…Agent Franklin."
Dan took another step, then stopped. "That's not really an answer."
"It will do, for now."
"I guess. See you tonight." This time he kept going.
Kamijo walked with them. Dan glanced back. "Hey, how big is that hole? You must have measured it."
He responded eagerly, "Eight hundred and twenty-three feet, seven and eleven-sixteenths inches in diameter, and almost eleven feet deep in the middle. Or, two hundred and fifty-one meters, forty-six millimeters if you like that better. It's a perfect circle, to the limits of our measuring equipment."
"All just to bring me here," Tovala remarked, feeling a little guilty.
"Maybe it has to be that big, to work at all," Kamijo speculated.
"I wouldn't know," she repeated for what seemed to her the hundredth time.
They reached the motorcycle. Dan stuck his hand out. "I'm sure we'll see you later."
Kamijo shook it. "I hope so."
They put their helmets on, the bike started easily, they rode back to the driveway and Agent K let them out.
