Chapter Four
The afternoon sun's rays shafted clearly through the French windows of the uppermost office of the Administration Building. Arthur was its sole occupant, watching the bustling campus below and the green, wild vista beyond for any sign of Jeanette.
His Jeanette.
His heart and mind welcomed the quiet. Too much was happening beyond his control and that both angered him and put him on edge. He couldn't let his father think that he was ineffectual as a Field Executive. Through determination and craft, he attained that position. He would retain it that selfsame way. Security would find them soon enough and if it needed some extra help to get the job done, he would be happy to oblige. Especially where Simon was involved. His demise, Jeanette's devotion and the recovery of The Archive was all that mattered.
He wished he knew where they were.
The bank was a godsend. The thick canopy kept the campsite hidden and access to fresh water was easily within reach. Tents were erected and a makeshift lounge was set up with a small collapsible table and two rolled-up sleeping bags for seats.
At the moment, the lounge doubled as a hospital with clean bandages and gauze interspersed among the ointments and creams on the tabletop.
Simon held up a small mirror while Jeanette tended to the bruises on his face."Look at my face. What am I going to tell Dave and the others?"
Jeanette looked at him maternally."Well, just say that the mosquitoes are so tough here, they don't just drink your blood, they mug you first."
"Ho, ho,"he said dryly, then he jumped at her touch."Ouch."
"Here."Jeanette said, kissing a bruise on his chin.
"My mouth...was pretty sore when he beat me up."
She didn't say anything, but her eyes told him enough. He couldn't remember when he held her hands. Before? During? Or after the kiss that lasted minutes. All he could think of during all three moments was how beautiful she was, how lucky he was and how glad he was that they reconciled at long last. Everything he went through was a bitter lesson, but the message was received.
And not a moment too soon, he'd admit. "I-I should get beat up more often,"he quipped while he recovered his love-struck wits.
"Don't joke. You're lucky. I'm glad you told him what he wanted,"she said more seriously."Now let me finish putting this ointment on you."
"Yes, doctor,"he said, releasing her hands reluctantly.
A short time later after sitting through Jeanette's ministrations, Simon sat by the bank. His bare feet in the brisk pool felt heavenly. He heard her approach and then heard her gasp sharply as the water cooled her feet, as well. Then she laid back, also and stared at Heaven with him.
"A dollar for your thoughts,"he said.
She glanced lazily at him and smiled."I thought it was a penny."
"Yours are worth more."
She suddenly felt a warm glow from that and blushed."Well...I don't know. I'm just glad we got away. Counting our blessings. You?"
"Nothing at all, to be honest. It feels pretty good not to think sometimes."
"Mmm-hmm,"she agreed, stretching out on the jungle grass. A motion Simon caught out of the corner of his eye."Come to think of it, I do remember something,"he intimated.
"What?"
"You dancing. I didn't know you could slow dance."
"I can't. Well, not really...I mean...I could...now, but..."she babbled in explanation to the unexpected words he said.
She heard him chuckle and realized that bringing up such a moment when she seemed more in control intimately, made her trip on her modesty when it surfaced."Oooh, Simon!"she chided, more miffed at herself than at him for her fumbling."You like seeing me like this, don't you?"
"Not really,"he snickered lightly.
"Suure,"she said dryly."Having fun?"
"It does feel good to laugh again."
He turned over to face her."Thanks."
The look on his face told her he was sincere about that. She softened and turned over on her non-bandaged side to face him."You're welcome."
"I really like the way you danced that night at the party."
Jeanette started to pink."Stop that,"she said self-consciously."I wish I could stop blushing."
"I like it when you blush, Jeanette. I only wish I was smart enough to have noticed that then."
"And I wish I could have slow danced with you that night."
"I wish I could slow dance without crushing my own feet,"he admitted.
They gazed at each other, lost in thought. Yet something was wrong with the feelings they were trying to share. They weren't becoming comforting, nurturing or even loving completely. And they soon knew why. The Past. Regrets of things missed and time lost to foolish pride and heartache flavored the moment with a bittersweet tang. A fresh start was needed.
"I could teach you."Jeanette tentatively offered."If you want me.
"Now it was Simon's turn to chatter nervously."Oh, uh, well, you don't have to go to the trouble, Jeanette! I-I mean, uh, you're probably tired and I don't want to, um, impose-"
"Come on, Simon,"she coaxed as she stood up and then helped him stand."You're afraid someone'll sees you? Like Alvin?"she joshed slyly.
"You're enjoying this aren't you?"
"Maybe,"she said, smiling. She placed his hand on her waist and her hand on his shoulder. Then she grasped his free hand with the other."Do you want to lead, Simon?"she leaned close with sultry smugness."Or should I?"
"U-under the circumstances, perhaps you'd better,"he flustered with a smile. Jeanette noticed a red tinge along his cheek pouches.
"Why, Simon, are you blushing?"
"Sorry,"he confessed, thoroughly embarrassed.
"Don't be. I like it when you blush, too."She rested her head on his shoulder and luxuriated in Simon's clumsy, comforting sway."See, Simon? You're a natural."
The moment was so real for him, so perfect. Just Jeanette in his arms and the sound of the little waterfall as their music."I...have a good teacher,"he said in her brunette hair.
They snuggled closer in the dance, not wanting to be separated ever again by anything or anybody.
"They did the impossible. They escaped me."Arthur said to the officer in charge of the search.
"They won't escape us, sir,"said the captain stiffly and somewhat haughtily."Patrols are searching the bay and harbor now and other detachments are searching throughout this side of the island."
"What about the west?"
The captain seemed to hesitate."It's slow going, sir. We've been sending scouts to survey the area recently, but without a complete map of the western side to coordinate our searches, we'll simply run into ourselves."
"Why were we so lackadaisical in our surveys?"Arthur asked himself in frustration.
"Sir?"
"Never mind. Any word yet from the trail boss?"
"No word yet on whether he captured them or not, sir, and the tracker on his TeleChip didn't activate automatically every two hours as programmed."
Already Arthur was assuming the worst. If Simon and Jeanette put up a fight and somehow incapacitated the trail boss, that would explain the absence. If the trail boss did capture them and in the course of returning them, was forced to kill, then that, too, would explain away his absence in two ways.
One: if he was forced to kill Simon, the trail boss might be reluctant to report that he essentially deprived Arthur of the opportunity of doing that deed himself.
Two: if he was forced to kill Jeanette, then the trail boss would be much safer in the wild unknowns of the western jungles than he would getting summarily lobotomized with a dirty spoon without the benefit of anesthesia by Arthur. And that was if he was forgiving. None of those thoughts made him particularly sanguine.
"Assume that the trail boss was killed and find the body if you can,"he said finally.
"Sir. Yes, sir."
Arthur was about to dismiss her when the captain's own TeleChip began beeping where it was clipped to her sleeve. She read the tiny message that scrolled along the built-in miniature monitor. A moment later, she made her report."Patrol Four has just found the trail boss, sir. His body was discovered near the edge of the western territory. They must have went there."
During that time, Arthur was deep in thought."Captain, how are you in armored maneuvers?"She was puzzled by the seeming non-sequitor."Sir?"
"I think I have an idea and a way to test our little toys."He turned on his 'com and spoke."Testing facility Two, how long will it take to prep and shield the PACs? Perfect."He couldn't hide his grin at all as the captain wondered about all of this.
Another Granola bar wrapper floated to the ground alongside the other spent and crumpled containers of rations that Simon tore into. Jeanette, silent and slightly awed, watched her normally conservative boyfriend devour trail mix, Granolas and packaged fruits with an energy that rivaled Theodore. 'He must have been starving in that prison,' she mused.
Simon was rushing more food in than his cheek pouches could store. He stopped long enough to swallow what he had and then quickly recover when he saw Jeanette watching him."Sorry, Jeanette. I was just so hungry I couldn't-"
Jeanette waved it off."Don't worry, Simon. I know you were hungry. Don't let me stop you. Just try not to choke, okay?"
"I promise."
Jeanette opened her own bag of trail mix and relaxingly ate with him in their lounge area. A question nagged at her, begging to be answered and now was as good a time as any to ask."You didn't finish answering my question in the prison,"she goaded quietly.
"Hmm?"
"I asked you how did you get here? Last night, remember?"
"Oh,"he recalled."Well, I heard Duval tell you that he was going on that so-called island vacation. If you managed to go with him there, then I figured that it really was over between us since I couldn't think of a single way to follow you there."
Jeanette simply nodded in agreement and silently thanked God that everything turned out the way it did so that, in the end, it wasn't over between them.
"Then a miracle happened, or so I thought,"he continued."The day after the party, I received a small package in the mail. I was too depressed to find out what it was at the time, but Dave later told me that it was a videotape about this place, Science Island, and that I had won a complimentary vacation there.
Normally I wouldn't have trusted such a thing, especially since I didn't see the video. But Dave and the guys did and so Dave decided to let me go there. I was so desperate to go, I thought I was extremely lucky, so I jumped at the chance."
He sagged slightly as he remembered what happened next."No sooner did the private plane taxi then I was drugged by the stewardess and the next thing I knew, I woke up in a dark room. I haven't even seen this science camp that we snuck through until today."
"It's very advanced. You'd like it."Jeanette said.
Simon shrugged."Obviously our families were programmed by those tapes to send us here, just as Duval said."
"No wonder I didn't see you for the rest of the week. I thought you were ignoring me,"she said."Okay, so how did you follow me to the party?"
"I was doing some stargazing from one of the upstairs windows at home when I saw you leave Miss Miller's house. I was concerned as to why you would leave so late at night, so I followed along with some sound equipment I built a while back."
Jeanette pondered all that he said and finally, after much deliberation and careful regard of all the fact given, said,"Oh...okay."
Simon took a chug of water from his canteen, then said,"Well, now that I answered your questions, how about you answering some for me."
"Okay."
"For starters, how powerful is my time machine computer matrix now?"
She could hear the pride in his voice over his machine, despite what he went through because of it. She figured he deserved to know."It's like everything you built it to do, but more. It has more power and can see into more timelines and can calculate more probabilities more accurately."
"Unbelievable,"he said wistfully."I wish I could see it."
"You might get the chance."
"What do you mean?"
"We..."she knew this would break his heart hearing it."We have to go back there."
"What?"he blurted."We just left! We can't! I can't!"
"Listen, Simon. I know how dangerous this is, believe me, but we've got to destroy The Predictor or-"
"Predictor?"
"That's what I.T.O. calls the computer. We have to destroy it because if we don't, I.T.O. will find The Archive and Humanity will be gone."
Simon began to pace the campsite."The Archive. Hmm, I do remember Duval talking about that while he interrogated me. Our people's history lost for centuries and having a deadly secret. Hard to believe we would possess something that could destroy Humanity but I suppose we can't ignore it. But what does this "Predictor" have to do with The Archive?"
"They're using it to scan all probable timelines to trace a historical travel path to find its most recent resting place."
Simon froze in astonishment."Of course! No wonder they needed a time machine's computer. It could be used to see into alternate Time as well as the local continuum."
Jeanette walked up to him, fretting."They only used its super probability to find The Archive's general location, but they're narrowing it down to an exact one. I think it could get real bad."
Simon stopped pacing and fixed a grim look towards her."Worse. It could do so much more,"he said, more to himself than to her."Imagine a general with the ability to select the best strategies years before any war and implementing it, becoming an unstoppable conqueror overnight. Now imagine a dictator, a species."
"I understand. It would tip the balance."
"Jeanette, with The Predictor, there is no more balance. It's too much power."Then suddenly he sagged in regret."And it's my fault for building the blasted thing."
She put her hand on his shoulder."Don't beat yourself up, Simon. You didn't know this would happen. Duval and his people are perverting what you invented. Don't let him take your love to invent away from you."
He straightened up but didn't change his mood."Thanks, but you're right. We have to destroy it. We can't let them find the location of The Archive and we can't let them keep the power to influence the future."
"Good,"she amended."Now all we have to do is sneak back into an enemy stronghold and tear its strategic heart out. Any questions?"
Although it sounded welcomingly flippant, her words were very sobering and put everything into sharp perspective. Simon tried to rationalize the fear away by considering the fact that he, Jeanette and their siblings faced death before with their dealings with The Fursteins. But the distance of the years only softened the memory and only brought home the fact that, that was then and this is now.
"We'll think of something, Jeanette."
A squad of I.T.O. SecuriMunks stood around in various states of alertness in a clearing several yards away from where the body of the trail boss was found. They talked at length about how he was killed and what they would do to the perpetrators when they were caught.
In the midst of their talking they could hear a low tremor approaching the clearing steadily. They paid no heed to it.
Only when the three mechanized brutes shoved their way through the weaker trees and underbrush, did the patrol give an interested look in their direction.
The three machines took positions along the wide glade, facing a different section of the jungle to search. One was parked near the squad.
Standing a towering(to them)seven feet high, the construct, an armored vehicle, was shaped expressly like a silver-iron plated chipmunk. Its posture was stooped, as if walking erect was something it was trying to come to grips with and its monocular sensor array visor scanned all. Among all the ports, panels and protuberances that covered its plated body, two conical devices were most easily the most noticeable as they sat atop its hunched back.
The armored plastron powered open and a female Chipmunk pilot leaned out a little from her contoured seat to address the group."Hey, how's the search coming along?"
The squad leader turned his attention to her when he finished giving his orders."The search continues, of course. However, I still don't see how these two-legged tanks are going to do anything except let them know that we're close."
"Exactly,"she said smugly."Hounds to the hunters. We can handle anything in that bush with this armor. We flush them out and into your loving arms, we call it a day and then you can tell me again why you married me for my brains."
He bristled under the surprised looks of his subordinates. So much for the mystique of a commander, having a loving spat with his wife while on-duty. She saw that that had the desired effect and closed the hatch with a flirty look to her husband.
The vehicle lurched forward and marched towards an obstructing grove. The squad wondered how the machine was going to break through, when the two conical devices on its back suddenly glowed green and quickly enveloped the machine in a verdant, translucent sphere of energy.
The squad's wonder turned into awe when the trees and grasses that came in contact with the sphere shriveled and turned into dead, papery husks and mulch. With the obstruction cleared, the Personal Armored Combatant continued into the jungle, its defoliant shields occasionally coming to life to clear a path. When it was no longer visible, the squad leader spoke up,"Let's move out."
It was a triumph of miniaturization and power. From its memory modules and computer controlled signal/frequency location matrix to its telecommunication software and monitor technology, the TeleChip was inspiring.
All of this Jeanette marveled at as she carefully probed and studied the exposed innards with the tip of her Swiss Army knife."It doesn't look like it was damaged when the electricity hit the trail boss. I might be able to call outside the island for help,"she said to no one while deep inside, she wished that they could have escaped without having death clear the way for them.
She only threw the canteen at him to throw off his aim so that she and Simon might run away. It was only after he fired that she knew the nature of the weapon, but by then it was too late. 'Not my fault,' she thought. 'It was self-defense. I didn't know it fired electricity. I just...moved...just reacted to the attack.'
"I hope he didn't have family,"she whispered to herself.
"I don't think it would have mattered, Jeanette."
Jeanette jumped with a squeak when she heard Simon's voice come from behind."Don't you have better things to do than sneak around?"she snapped bitterly.
"Sorry."
Coming down from the shock and relieved that it was only Simon and not I.T.O., she calmed, although he could still see her tremble a little."I'm sorry, Simon. I-I just can't help thinking about that trail boss that I...I..."
He put his hand on her shoulder comfortingly and walked around to face her. He had long since came to terms as best he could with what had happened. He needed to make sure that she did likewise."Listen to me,"he said slowly, pointedly."It's not your fault. You saved my life. He would have killed me. You and I didn't know what kind of weapon he had. If anything, he killed himself. I find it very hard to believe that he could use such a weapon and not know anything about the conductivity of water."
"I guess. But I feel so wrong about it, Simon. I wish he hadn't done what he did. I really do."
"So do I, Jeanette. So do I."
She noticed that he was carrying a walking stick he had fashioned."Where are you going?"
"We need to know as much about this area as we can. I'm going to follow this waterway and scout around. Maybe find a better location in case we have to move in a hurry."He turned to leave but Jeanette held him back fearfully.
"Simon, wait! Do you have to go? Now? I mean, we could both go together. I-"
"Jeanette, you have to stay and watch after the camp. It's too late in the day for both of us to break camp and find someplace more strategic. Besides, you have to figure out how to work or modify the TeleChip to send a call for help."
Jeanette sheepishly calmed down and reluctantly bowed to his logic, insufferable as it was at the moment."Alright, I'll stay here. Just hurry back, okay?"
He smiled at her and she could see the cocky, charming hint of Alvin in it. She had to accept that Simon had some of Alvin in him, at times. And it wasn't half bad. Sometimes. Jeanette smiled back as he said,"I will. I promise,"and marched away.
When he was far enough from her, he added to himself,"Besides, if I get caught, I'll be so far away from the camp, they'll have a difficult time finding you. I may have betrayed the world to Duval, but I won't betray you to him."
"Pac One to Pac Three."
The words startled the pilot of Pac Three momentarily. He lazily gazed at either the forward monitor, terrain mapping system or the Bio-Scan. None of their information gave a hint to the fugitives' whereabouts, especially the Bio-Scan. He simply drove the armored suit into a typical search pattern, going through the motions and going insane from the boredom.
He punched in the com unit."Pac Three, here."
"Any sign of them yet?"
"Negative, Pac One. And I don't think we'll find them unless we hunt them down on foot."
"What do you mean?"
He quickly heeled over to avoid a copse of ancient trees. They would have been dead trees, but he discovered that using the defoliant shields too often drained power from the main energy banks and he was in no mood to be stranded out there when night fell.
"It's the Bio-Scan. It's good, but it's also too sensitive. With all the life readings in this jungle, the scanner's computer can't single them out. It's like looking for a needle in a metal factory."
"Well, do your best, Pac Three. We return with or without them come sunset."
"Understood, Pac One. I'm going over to a hill I saw earlier to get my bearings. Maybe I'll see them from there."
"Understood. Pac One, out."
He accelerated his PAC in the direction of the hill, a good quarter mile distant.
'I'd rather be with Simon.' That was the ninth time in as many minutes she thought that. And every time her wish didn't come true, she forced herself to study another component or function of her captured TeleChip. Her plan was to modify the device in such a way as to make a limited radio utilizing one of its open, unused channels to call for help beyond the range of the island. Hopefully, any low flying plane or close passing ship might receive the signal.
Hunched over the opened device while sitting at the table for so long was hurting her back, so she prepared to stand, when the tip of her knife exposed a wire nestled in between sandwiched microcircuits. Curiously, she pulled it further out with the tip and saw that a bit of its insulation was burned open, exposing the frayed, coppery threads of conductive wiring.
Guiding the knife, Jeanette began using the tip to align the broken ends of the wiring together to touch and close whatever circuit she could only guess it was connected to.
From where Simon stood, he could see the slim river formed from the cataract he left snaking into a distant bend that would eventually empty into the sea at the western edge of the atoll. Scanning the woods below and beyond the hilltop he was on, there was nothing of any regard to notice. The wind swayed the sea of tree canopies and the fauna went about the daily business of living.
Strategically, it was ideal. High elevation, low tree line and good proximity to a water source. He started down the side and was halfway through the tree line when he heard the sound of something faint reach his ears. A distant scraping sound followed by the groan and snap of young bark and heartwood surrendering to the irresistible force of a lethally strong machine breaking it into kindling.
Simon leaped behind a tree just as he saw an imposing robotic form stumble clear into view with a green flash, reducing two trees near it into lifeless paper. He marveled at the machine, but stayed hidden. It stopped a few yards from him and from his elevated position, he could see everything relatively.
The low-angled plastron hummed open and a male Chipmunk pilot quickly jumped out and jogged to a nearby tree. From Simon's vantage point, he couldn't see him behind the tree for several moments. Then Simon heard static and aloud female voice explode with a crackle from within the machine.
The pilot, looking more relaxed than before, sauntered back into the cockpit. A moment later, the PAC sped clumsily into the woods.
For a few minutes, Simon pondered about the machine. 'A Human-sized, exo-robotic suit of armor, shaped like a chipmunk with the strength of a forklift. Has to be Duval's handiwork.'
He was about to wonder about the tree-destroying weapon, too, when a detail nudged at him. Although he couldn't make out what the voice in the suit said, he did notice that the pilot took off towards...
"The river! Jeanette!"
Simon grabbed his gear and tore down the hillside, heading straight for the riverbank, his heart in his throat.
The jungle sounds ebbed and flowed, much like the waters that fed the pool from the lonely cataract. The afternoon sun, once filtered through a living screen of jungle growth, now lit the camp's remains fully. Simon wasn't spared a single sight of the area as his lungs, heart and sides throbbed in agony from the nearly non-stop run.
Trampled grass and torn tents littered the camp. Large, squarish foot-shaped gouges in the turf at right angles and close proximity were seen mingled with smaller footprints in the grass. 'She tried to run.' he thought, thinking of how she must have tried to outmaneuver the monsters and finally failed.
Among the scattered or broken personal effects and camping gear, Simon picked up Jeanette's Swiss Army knife and glanced at the smashed remains of the TeleChip. Something flickered and flapped in a breeze. He reached a small shrub and gently pulled his girlfriend's hair ribbon from the tangling branches. He rubbed the satiny band between his fingers, desperately wishing she was with him when he left for reconnaissance.
However Duval found her, Simon didn't care. He feared not seeing her again far more than he feared being done in by Duval at this point. He gathered as much light gear as he dared to bring and took a bearing from the PAC footprints as they led away from the campsite. Simon took one last look at their temporary refuge as the sun began its seemingly swift descent.
Jeanette just wasn't there. Only the wind remained.