Disclaimer, etc., with the prologue.
Wow, I didn't expect so many reviews for a chapter with no actual NUMB3RS characters in it. Hope you like this one even better!
ooooooooooooooooooooo
Chapter 1
June 2, 2006
10:45 A.M.
Road to the Desert
Studies Center, Zzyzx, CA
"California rest in peace, simultaneous release, California show your teeth, she's my priestess, I'm your priest…"
Larry's voice cut through the chorus. "Charles, your driving would be more effective if you closed at least one of your hands around the steering wheel. And I find myself having to agree with Amita's assessment of your singing."
Charlie glanced over at his physicist friend, but he laid down his imaginary drumsticks and obediently placed his hands at ten and four on the wheel. "Larry, we're going less than twenty miles an hour. There's no one else for at least two miles in any direction, and I would be hard put to tell the difference if we actually went off the road." The gravel-topped track they were following ever since turning off the interstate had been described as a "washboard" surface by the Desert Studies Center's website. Boy, did they have that right. "And what's Amita's assessment of my singing, anyway?"
"I believe the phrase 'Don't quit your day job' is more than apropos." Larry winced as the Honda Accord struck a particularly rough pothole. "I'm also wondering if a more rugged rental vehicle would have served us better here. Harold was right to insist I not take my own pride and joy out here."
The thought of Larry's valuable car bouncing along the rutted gravel was enough to make Charlie wince. Or maybe it was because his head had nearly hit the roof of the car with another sudden jolt. "How much farther is it, anyway?"
On the CD player, the Red Hot Chili Peppers burst into a cacophony of guitar music, and Charlie hurriedly reached over to adjust the volume. They'd been operating under the rule of "driver picks" when it came to the music on their three-hour journey, and although Larry had been more than tolerant of his selections, he didn't want to push his luck. Besides, the last time he'd listened to this particular song, the rhythm of the guitar solo had led to a small breakthrough on his cognitive emergence theory, and he didn't want to get distracted by mathematical formulae while driving. Not that anyone was likely to revoke his license out here in the middle of the Mojave Desert, but still, better safe than sorry.
"According to the directions, and at our current pace, approximately another fifteen minutes. And not a moment too soon." Larry shifted in his seat. "Next time, I will heed your advice about using the facilities when the opportunity presents itself."
Charlie bit back a smile. "Guess you never took road trips as a kid, huh?"
"Only to visit relatives, and then only within a relatively short radius of home." He grabbed the dashboard as Charlie swerved to avoid a rock the size of a football. "I'm also beginning to understand why you refrained from the second cup of coffee at breakfast."
"We'll be there in a minute, Larry," he said reassuringly. Then, "Hey, do you see something on the horizon?" If he squinted against the sunlight, he thought he could make out some white shapes off in the distance, probably the buildings of the research center they were headed towards. Either that, or a mirage. He'd have to ask one of the scientists out here if such things really existed, or if they were just plot devices in the movies.
"I'm also gaining an appreciation of the difficulty of the task before us." The car jolted over another dip in the road, and Larry went on, "If our vehicle is having such difficulties maneuvering when there is a sentient being behind the wheel, it's not surprising our friend is experiencing significant trouble."
"Our friend, as you put it, is also going a lot slower than twenty miles an hour." He twisted the wheel to avoid another piece of rock too big to drive over. "Although even an Accord has better clearance than she does."
He looked off into the distance again. Definitely not a mirage. There was a small cluster of white buildings, and a series of dark vertical lines in front of them that would probably resolve themselves into palm trees as they drew closer. "Someone's supposed to be meeting us here, right?"
"Yes, my colleague, Harold Zorbin, from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He's the one who requested my assistance and agreed that you would be a valuable addition to the team as well."
Charlie slowed to a crawl to go over a series of bumps. "I'm still not sure if I can really help the Mars rover, but I'm honored to have the opportunity." He hit the accelerator again, and they lurched forward the last several yards, pulling to a halt in front of a long, low, white mission-style building with palm trees across the front.
"Well, I'm sure Harold will explain everything. If he's here, that is."
Charlie squinted out across the small compound, the buildings shimmering in the late morning heat. Behind the main building, a flat expanse of white stretched away, a dried-up lakebed covered with encrusted salts. Two cars were parked at the main building, a beat-up yellow Mustang and a black pickup, but there was no sign of anyone. Then again, considering how warm it was outside, there was no reason for anyone to be hanging around outside awaiting their arrival. He turned off the ignition and they sat there for a moment, letting the car engine cool. "Shall we go in?"
Inside the building, it was blessedly cool. A short, white-haired man sat behind a counter just inside the door, leafing through what Charlie recognized from the photo on the front as yesterday's L.A. Times. He looked up as they entered, then folded the paper on the desk and stood up. "You must be the CalSci folks," he said, extending a hand. "Name's Wilson Terrell. I'm the manager of this place."
Charlie shook his proffered hand, noticing the man's strong grip. "I'm Charlie Eppes, and this is Larry Fleinhardt. We're supposed to be meeting Harold Zorbin?"
Wilson shook his head. "The JPL folks have been out in the field since dawn, but they should be coming in soon. The sun just gets too hot, so they tend to work Spanish-style, taking a siesta in the middle of the day. I can show you around in the meantime, though."
"That would be great." Charlie cast a glance at Larry, who had a distinctly uncomfortable look on his face. "Would you mind starting with the location of the washroom?"
Ten minutes later, Wilson was leading them across the dusty ground to the building across the open square. "So, boys, welcome to the Hotel California." When Charlie and Larry exchanged a look, the other man chuckled. "I just love sayin' that. But seriously, welcome to the Desert Studies Center at Zzyzx."
"Where did that crazy name come from, anyway?" Charlie asked. "I'm not a linguist, but it doesn't sound like any language I've ever heard of."
"Well, it's not like any language, because it's completely made up," Wilson explained as they trudged across the dirt parking lot. "We're here because a man named Curtis Howe Springer decided to build a health spa around a series of mineral springs he found out here." He gestured towards the lake bed and went on, "He wanted a catchy name for the place, so he made up a name that he figured would be the last one alphabetically, and thus Zzyzx was born."
"Is it?" Larry inquired as he wiped his brow. "The last name, I mean."
"It's the last place name in the U.S.'s official list, yeah. 'Course, there's not exactly much here in terms of a 'place,' as you can see. After Springer cheated one too many people with his 'miracle cures' from the spring water he bottled and sold, the IRS got on his tail and forced him to sell his property to the government. Some years later, a bunch of universities got together and decided to turn it into the Desert Research Center, and that's where we are today."
Charlie squinted at the whitewashed building ahead of them. "What kind of research goes on here?"
"A little bit of everything. A fair bit of geology, some ecology and biology, even a bit of archaeology. Then there's you and your JPL folks; they told me the terrain is so similar to the surface of Mars, they decided to test the rovers here before sending them up." Wilson paused and looked at them. "And you're out here to troubleshoot them, is that right?"
Larry nodded. "Unfortunately, the Spirit rover appears to have run into an obstacle which she is unable to maneuver around, so my colleagues are using the prototype rover to model the situation. Charles here is our finest applied mathematician on campus, and it was thought he could provide some additional insight in terms of the equations and modeling necessary to surmount the obstacle in question."
"I just hope I'm able to help," Charlie said modestly, though inside he was still amazed that he was consulting for NASA. As a child, even though he had never really harbored the desire to go into space himself, he had been fascinated with the Space Shuttle program. The Challenger disaster had devastated him, and he remembered his ten-year-old self trying to get his private tutor to explain how such a thing could happen. Not in terms of cosmic meaning or significance, but in mathematical terms. It had been one of the first events that pointed him towards applied mathematics, towards the idea of using the mental gifts he'd been given not just to make the world a better place, but to save people's lives. So it gave him a thrill now to be working for the agency that had been part of his childhood dream.
"Well, like I said, Harold and the rest should be back within the hour," Wilson said. "These are the two cars they came in with, but they're out using a Jeep for the fieldwork. Now, this is the dormitory for the Center," he said, pointing to the low-slung white building they were approaching. "There aren't a lot of people working here this week, so you'll have most of the place to yourselves. I've put you in a room down the hall from the rest of your team." He handed each of them a single key and said, "We don't have a lock on the building itself, and we usually don't lock the rooms, either, but if you'd like to, here you go. We try to keep the AC as low as possible to save energy, and we usually open the windows at night once it cools off. It's not like there's a lot of traffic noise to disturb your sleep."
"Indeed," Larry said, accepting the key. "Thank you for your assistance, Mr. Terrell."
"Please, it's Wilson. Just pop on over if you need anything. I do a run into town a couple of times a week, so just let me know if there's any kind of supplies you need. How long you boys here for, anyway?"
"As long as it takes," Charlie responded. When Wilson's eyebrows went up, he continued, "Well, inside of three weeks, that is. Any longer than that, and they're planning on rerouting Spirit a different way."
"Well, then, I wish you luck!" And with a wave, the older man headed back across the dusty courtyard to his air-conditioned comfort.
Charlie and Larry grabbed their packs from the rental car and went inside the dormitory building, following the numbers tacked on the doors inside. "Room Ten, right?" Charlie put a hand on the doorknob and swung it open. He took a step inside, Larry behind him, and then stopped in his tracks.
Inside, it looked like a standard dormitory room: four twin beds, one in each corner of the room, along with two slightly battered chests of drawers, two scratched-up desks, and the navy plaid curtains on the windows drawn tightly against the desert sun. That much, he had expected.
What he hadn't expected was the young man lying on one of those beds, curled on his side to face them. His eyes were closed, but when Charlie entered the room, he gave a start and bolted upright, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He was dressed oddly for their surroundings, in a pair of black pants and a long-sleeved maroon shirt in some sort of shiny material that would have been more in place at a nightclub than here in the middle of the desert.
But it wasn't the man's clothing that caught Charlie's attention so much as the black eye he sported and the series of small cuts he could see on the backs of his hands. That, and the initial look of sheer terror on his face that faded into something more wary as he watched them in the doorway.
"I'm sorry," Charlie started, looking down at the key in his hand. No, the tiny piece of paper taped to the key did say "10," and that was the room he had entered. He thought Wilson said they would have the room to themselves, however. "I didn't think anyone was in here."
"I didn't know anyone would be here, either." The guy couldn't have been older than most of Charlie's students, maybe twenty-one if he was lucky. His voice was slightly accented, something Eastern European, Charlie thought. "I'm sorry," he said, rising to his feet a bit unsteadily. "I will go and find another room."
Charlie exchanged a curious glance with Larry, who had pushed his way into the room behind him. "Didn't Mr. Terrell assign you a room when you arrived?" he asked slowly.
"I just…" He hesitated for a moment, the dark fringe of his bangs nearly hiding his eyes and making it hard to read his expression. "I think I should go."
"Where?" Larry spoke up for the first time. "If you didn't drive here, then how did you arrive, and where would you go?"
"I walked," came the hesitant reply. His eyes were shifting back and forth between the two of them, and Charlie thought he looked like a trapped animal trying to find a way out. "From the highway."
Charlie looked at him in disbelief. "That's four miles away. In this heat?"
The man shook his head. "Early this morning. It was before the sun came up."
Charlie's initial concern about who this guy was and what he might be doing there had been replaced by a concern for the guy himself. He didn't look very steady on his feet, and the look on his face made it clear that he was more worried about harm to himself than harming them. He let his bag slide to the floor and took a slow step forward. "What's your name?" he asked quietly. "What happened to you?"
"Dominic Koristet." He looked at Charlie for a moment, as if measuring him, and then went on, "I was in a car accident."
"Well, shouldn't we report that to the police?" Larry asked, also stepping forward.
"No!" The young man's voice took on a note of panic as he backed towards the wall. "Please, no. I don't want anyone to know where I am. They'll come after me again."
An uneasy feeling settled in Charlie's stomach. "What do you mean, 'they'?" he asked. "Who's after you?" When Dominic didn't instantly respond, he went on, "If you don't want to talk to the police, my brother's an FBI agent. I trust him completely, and I assure you he can keep you safe. I've worked with him on a lot of cases, and he's really great at his job. He can help you."
Dominic was shaking his head. "I don't trust anyone in law enforcement. When I was a child, my father told me stories about the police turning people in to the government, and now they work hand in hand with the, what do you call it, the mob. The Mafia." He shook his head more firmly. "I have to go," he said, his gaze flickering past Charlie to the open door at his back.
"You need help!" Larry insisted. "Medical attention for your injuries, and some kind of legal assistance for your predicament. I understand your hesitation, but I can assure you, the United States is not the Czech Republic."
Charlie turned to stare at his friend as Dominic asked in an astounded tone that nevertheless made it clear Larry was right, "What makes you think I come from the Czech Republic?"
Larry waved one hand. "I have some ancestry from that region myself, and your surname is familiar. What matters, Mr. Koristet, is that you can trust us, and you can trust Don, Charlie's brother, absolutely."
Dominic regarded Larry for a moment longer, and then sat back down on the small bed. "I was kidnapped," he said quietly, ignoring their hushed gasps. "Last night, or maybe it was this morning, they took me from my father's house near Las Vegas. There was an accident on the highway, and I got away from the person who had taken me. I got off the road as quickly as I could, and I was lucky to find this place."
"You're damn right you were lucky," Larry said, coming forward to look at Dominic more closely. "You could have ended up lost in the Mojave Desert in the middle of the summer. Well, early summer, at any rate. Nevertheless, will you let us assist you?"
Dominic's eyes flickered back and forth between the two of them, settling on Charlie. Finally he said, "All right. But only because it doesn't appear I have anywhere else to go."
"Okay." Charlie pulled his cell phone out of his jeans pocket and flipped it open. He groaned when he saw the "No Signal" announcement on the screen. "Why am I not surprised?" he muttered. The place with the last name in the alphabet was probably a little too remote to get the kind of cell coverage he was accustomed to.
Larry had dug his phone out of his pack, and in a moment he was shaking his head, too. "We'll have to ask Wilson to place a call from his office."
"You stay here, okay?" Charlie asked Dominic, although he was sure he wasn't going to get any argument on that front. "We'll be right back."
The young man laid back down on the bed, wincing as he did so. "I will wait," he said quietly.
Charlie hurried out the door, Larry close at his heels, eager to get hold of his brother and pass this strange situation off to him. "Do you suppose we should tell Wilson?" Charlie asked in a low tone as they hurried across the sun-baked dirt.
Larry had an unhappy expression on his face. "I don't want to withhold information from the caretaker of this place, and it's not like we can hide the boy for very long with no one noticing his existence. But should someone come here to inquire about him, it's probably for the best if no one else is aware of his presence."
"That's what I was thinking, too." Charlie gave a short sigh. "Hopefully Wilson won't mind if I ask for a little privacy on the phone."
In the end, it didn't matter, since the only connection Charlie was able to make was to Don's voice mail. He left the number of the Desert Studies Center and asked Wilson to be sure to notify him if there were any calls. Then he and Larry headed back to the dormitory, minds already racing to figure out how to explain their uninvited guest's presence at the Center.
Neither of them wanted to consider the possibility that the kidnapper Dominic had mentioned could prove to be another uninvited guest before too long.
