PROJECT ARCHIMEDES
A "Way of the Gun" Sequel

8. A NEW PURPOSE

Exact day unknown
Somewhere in the Federal Republic of Germany

It took a significant amount of willpower for Grant to keep from diving into a blathering array of questions once the nameless escort had seen him and Beverly Barlowe to the waiting vehicle. Another Mercedes, this one a slightly older model, modified in similar fashion to "detective" Bach's. It was a morosely common dark gray, appearing somehow both commonplace and boring, and therefore meriting little attention on its own.

The interior was decorated to a higher standard than the exterior, however. The leg room was spacious, to say the least, and instead of being fit for three adults in the back seat, the center console had been removed in favor of what looked to be a wine chiller. He was placed on the left side of the car, partly in the escort's peripheral vision. The location would allow Barlowe and her escort to react with maximum efficiency if Grant turned out to have plans other than "cooperate fully".

Both his rescuers remained silent as the escort started the car and drove them away from the secret prison. Grant afforded himself a time of silence to adapt to the new situation. He hadn't seen sunlight in far too long. Granted it certainly wasn't the longest incarceration in history, but the complete lack of any natural world rhythms is disturbing to humans on a very deep psychological level. He felt like laughing morbidly, reflecting that it was one thing to know this intellectually, and quite another to experience it firsthand.

The drive took them through the countryside, but he wasn't even sure which part of the country they were in. The time of his initial travel could put him anywhere within the country's borders. The area around them was rural, to be sure. It had the feel of old leftovers that had never really been reclaimed after the Second World War, either due to bad memories or perhaps even something as superstitious as "old ghosts". As one such old ghost himself, and after this experience, he was somewhat less ready than before to immediately dismiss such claims.

The afternoon sun broke through the clouds at one point, bathing him in its radiance and suffusing him with its glow. An image occurred to him as he basked, and for just a moment compared himself to one of his favorite fantasy heroes. He'd secretly been a fan of some of the more fantastical stories that were being written back in the day, namely of the Superman. It had been a private treat of his own to see what the people of the future had done with that little bit of fantasy, and he'd found the growth and changes of the character perhaps a fair reflection of the culture at large, or at least how the American people at a popular level saw themselves throughout the decades. If ever there was a superhero that more epitomized the character of American spirit, he felt, it had to be that one.

"I'm glad to see you enjoying yourself, Trevor." Beverly's voice was soft and sultry. He sighed inwardly because he'd known that his private reflection wouldn't be allowed to drag on forever. Two parts of him reacted to her voice on entirely different levels. The first was, inevitably, his libido. The way she talked, moved, presented herself; all of it was keyed on unbalancing the male psyche and using sex as a weapon. It was obvious she wasn't a young woman anymore, but that simply was part of the appeal. What did they call it these days, a cougar? Or was that only when she was preying on younger men? In his rational mind, the other part of him that responded, she was a black widow. What was most relevant at this point was whether he was the mate, or the predator.

"Always, Ms. Raines, always," He replied, a smirk firmly in place. Whatever her game was, it wouldn't do for her to see if he was rattled or not. At the same time, the game had changed. The playing pieces were different now and therefore the stakes and the board had changed as well. Who were the players now? He turned and looked at her, taking in the image. If he'd learned anything in his short acquaintance with her, it was that the surface was never the truth.

Beverly Barlowe looked as intriguing as ever. Being the daughter of his ally Adam Barlowe, she had to be probably 45 or 50 years old, but if he was at his most critical she didn't look over her early thirties. Her wavy brunette hair, always with hints of a scarlet that teased at his particular weaknesses, was lush and luxurious, piled over one shoulder. Her intelligent and perceptive chocolate eyes were returning the favor, slowly dancing up and down, and he felt a mild flush at that. She challenged his senses in ways that he was still getting used to. While he'd certainly been attracted to and amazed by Allison Blake, he had to admit that this woman excited him in ways he wasn't remotely prepared for. Even the way she was sitting was part of it. She turned riding passenger in a car into what could be an act of seduction, and yet she could easily deny that if she wished, declaring him far too forward.

The rural landscape continued to pass and she chuckled quietly, taking a long look out the window, one arm rested on the ledge by the window, the knuckle of that hand pressed to her lips. In profile she was easily as seductive as if she were directly coming on to him.

"Yes, Trevor," she said with amusement, "Raines is an alias. Mister Larsen is with me and aware of my allegiances."

He laughed aloud at that, his cynicism evident. "That would be quite the achievement, Ms. Barlowe. Are you even aware of your allegiances?"

"Now, Trevor," she admonished him, "Is that any way to talk to the people that just rescued you from rendition?" her own sarcastic smirk in place.

"Rendition?" he asked.

"Yes."

"What's that?" he asked.

"It's a practice of the allied governments in these later years, where a suspect they feel is especially important, such as one accused of terrorism, is detained secretly, and usually denied due process. It's not supposed to happen to citizens of said nations, but..." she trailed off, smirking a little.

He thought for a moment to be outraged at this, but never mustered the fire. He looked out his window and murmured quietly, "It's not like my own past is free of this hypocrisy. I approved of internment after all." He was quiet for a while and then turned his regard back to her. "So did your father."

Grant wasn't sure if it was to her credit or detriment, but she didn't flinch or react to that last in any appreciable fashion.

"Regardless, it's due to our work that you're out of there. I would have figured you to be more grateful," she mused.

"Don't mistake my meanings, Beverly. I am very grateful that you and Mister Larsen there saw fit to drag me free from that hellhole, but I trust you'll count me a touch leery, considering how our last meeting turned out." A seed of bitterness and guilt grew within him, and in a considerably hotter tone he said, "And considering what you were willing to conscience then, I don't think I was freed because you have any great care about social injustices."

She laughed at him, merrily. "Oh, Trevor! How eager we are to assign our faults to others. I seem to recall you agreeing enthusiastically to the promise of godlike power." She was obviously enjoying this. Had probably been preparing for it for weeks. "I've worked far harder in years past to get moles into Global Dynamics, and believe me there's nothing easier to work with than a collaborator."

Grant huffed out a breath in anger and disgust. He had sold this future down the river quite readily; hadn't even patted it on the ass to wish it a fond farewell. Jack Carter had changed all that, especially when Grant learned what the choice to brave the wormhole had wrought...

"I'll not so casually work against those people again, Ms. Barlowe. Judas Iscariot I very well may be, but I'll not take my thirty pieces of silver twice!" he declared. Part of him did, at any rate. Another part of him lusted after that promise of months past, that chance to set the record straight and affect the change he wanted to. Those he'd hitched a ride to the future with had not only tried to make him largely welcome, but also forgave him his sins after the revelation of his misdeed. Though, in truth, he'd never admitted to anyone just exactly why he'd returned to the past.

"What do you want?" he asked. His tone was quiet, reserved.

"Why should I want anything?" she answered.

"Please, don't insult my intelligence!" He turned toward her in his seat. She was looking at him with a sultry gaze, her eyes smoldering at him from beneath lowered lashes. She projected the air of a satisfied predator, a cat stalking a mouse.

"Alright," she said. She paused for a time; the car continued its drive. Larsen remained as silent as ever. They were moving into more urbanized areas now, signs of habitation growing ever more frequent. At length she said, "There is something that I want, and I think you'll want it too."

He waited for her to continue, but she stopped talking and gazed once more out the window. At length she continued. "What was in your mind when you and my father set about on your mission?"

He thought about that for a second. It wasn't an unexpected question from her. Doubtless she'd been raised on a steady diet of her father's idealism, and Adam had been nothing if not idealistic. There was no telling what further changes he and Carter had made on their last trip through the wormhole, and certainly Grant had managed to better himself out of the deal. Was Beverly herself a different person than he'd met before stepping through that wormhole?

"What I wanted," he began, "was to better the world. You've lived with the results of the world I helped make, and I wonder if it was the right world or the right choices now. Things seem different only superficially. I now know that trying to undo the past is a… imperfect solution. But how can anyone know the answer to that?" He heaved a sigh and looked at the chiller between them, then gestured at it and opened it at her nod. Within was a bottle of the same wine she'd used to attract his attention several months past, a 1947 vintage again.

He skillfully cracked open the bottle and calmly poured a glass for each of them. He clinked rims with her and took a savoring sip of the crisp, dry wine. Perfect. The flavors danced across his palette, igniting a host of memories. Better and worse times, old friends now long gone, hopes and dreams that seemed so bright and pure once.

"What if," Beverly began, intruding on his reflection, "there was a way to achieve that?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry; the wormhole device won't work again. Even if you could get the math aligned correctly there are too many signatures in the same space-time. I'd run into myself far too easily, and that intersection of space-time has to be getting weak. Any more intrusions-"

She laughed. It was a bright tinkling thing that nonetheless conveyed derision and amusement both. "I'm not talking about rebuilding the bridge device, Trevor."

"Then what?" he countered. "Some other method of time travel?"

"No." Her smile was so confident it was beginning to piss him off.

"Enough riddles, God dammit, woman! Out with it!" He took a less contemplative pull from his drink, instantly regretting it. This vintage was to be savored, not quaffed indiscriminately!

"Did your old mentor ever explain to you why Camp Eureka was located where it was in the first place?" she asked.

That was an odd question, to say the least. "Dr. Einstein? When we asked it was fairly obvious. The place was secluded. Oregon wasn't as settled back then, none of the west coast states except California really were. With as much press as the desert AFBs were getting, we assumed it was to keep the whole of the place secret and safe."

"Have you ever heard of a project codenamed Apollo?" she asked.

"Sure" he answered, "It was one of the early nuclear reaction methods were looking at. I never worked on the damn thing, refused to actually. Nuclear weapons were the last thing I wanted to be involved with!"

"It wasn't a nuclear weapon, Trevor." She paused as he blinked at her, words struggling to find their way out of his throat. "It was the first stage of manifestation of a terrestrial artifact of immense power."

He stared at her, mutely considering her statement. She continued. "The artifact, as near as anyone has been able to determine, has direct ties to the Akashic Field. It has been theorized to be the last remnant of the universe that existed before the creation singularity."

"You mean the Big Bang," he said flatly. He still wasn't sure how he felt about that whole theory, especially regarding some of the recent models he'd been studying, though Doctor Einstein was quite behind it. "Look, Beverly, I don't need fairy tales. I am a man of science and I deal in hard fact, not superstition. Your so-called-"

"It's real, Trevor." she said, breaking in. "Trust me, we know. My father found out the initial parts of it before his accusation and arrest. We've been pursuing it ever since, and it's always been at the heart of these projects."

He took another sip from his wine glass, draining it. He took a refill and offered the same to her. She accepted. He mulled over his thoughts with yet another sip of the wine; a truly excellent vintage.

"We came extremely close to accessing it a few years back, but an overzealous action on the part of Global's director at the time caused the item to physically discorporate." She stopped, a quick glance at her face showed her to be staring in contemplation at the wine glass in her hand. Personal memories perhaps? Recriminations?

"After that we are at a loss to explain what happened to it, it's connection to the field, everything. Somehow it tried to latch on to one of the town's residents, and it nearly killed him. What I didn't know then is precisely how its connection functioned, or why that person was the recipient, but he-"

"Oh please, don't dance around particulars now!" he snapped. As interesting as this show and tell was… well…

"Kevin Blake," she said simply, then sipped at her wine again.

"Allison's son?"

"Yes."

"What did you people do to him?" he demanded, anger surging into his voice. He'd come to admire the kid as his months in Eureka had passed, and the thought of these people...

"Again with the self-righteous indignation!" she exclaimed, sounding exasperated. "Please, Trevor. As if your morals were pure as the driven snow! We both know what your research record looks like. Spare me! We're both adults here."

She continued in a calmer voice. "I'm not sure of everything that happened to Kevin. The beginnings of his involvement with the consortium precede my activation, and they are in the direct purview of another senior agent. We don't lightly share information with one another, the cell structure makes it easier to avoid turning over keystones of the organization under interrogation. Not that it makes the interrogators any less… tractable. I too have my own experiences with rendition, Trevor."

"But regardless, whatever it was, I was not permitted to know the full interference with Kevin Blake, but I seized on the oddity when my own project was taking a nosedive."

"You're getting to a point here, soon, right?" Grant interjected.

"Very well," She almost pouted, and Grant couldn't decide if it was a fake or not. "It has come to my attention that the artifact is preparing for another manifestation, only this time we in the consortium plan to be ready to receive it. Or, at least one branch of us is doing so. Not put too fine a point on the issue, but I simply do not trust that the consortium has its collective head in the game on this run. They've brought in someone you might refer to as an old adversary, and I have solid enough intelligence to suggest that the field agent in charge plans to do more than secure the object. I suggest that he plans to use it."

"Isn't that what you are planning to do?" asked Grant.

Beverly met his eyes, squarely. "Not hardly; it's too dangerous, too much power for any one man or person to control. If used incorrectly… Look, Trevor. If the controller were able to interface with the field directly, it is theoretically possible that he would be able to create the psychic equivalent of a nuclear bomb."

"You can't be-" he began.

"I'm dead serious! The last time it discorporated a host of people who were affected burst into spontaneous combustion induced by their own minds! A conscious will behind that could unleash the same effect, with perfect accuracy, on any single person or group of people he or she wished!" She fell silent after the tirade, sipped her wine once more, and looked out the window. By this time the rural countryside had given away to the beginnings of the urban sprawl. He hadn't been looking at road signs; he still had no idea where they were.

"What do you want, Beverly," he asked, quietly.

"The man in charge of this next operation has the ear of the Consortium's leading committee. If you think my methods leave a lot to be desired, this man's methods make me look like a saint! They believe in him, most especially the Chairman believes in him. The Consortium has grown self-satisfied and complacent, and it has forgotten what its mission is." He was watching out of the corner of his eye and caught as she nervously glanced at him.

"Are you asking me to try to convince them of something?" he ventured.

"No. I'm asking that you do what you set out to 64 years ago, I'm asking that you step up to the challenge and join me in taking them over."

He stared at her with a cool demeanor. Part of him had been wondering if this was her end game. She obviously admired him a great deal; subtle cues about her kept giving it away. Of course it was possible she was feeding him a cleverly constructed lie. She was, after all, the trained spy.

"Why me? Why not put yourself at the throne?" he asked. He longed at that moment for a cigarette, a good crisp pull of Virginia tobacco to calm the nerves and ease the stress.

She leaned in, projecting her earnestness, as well as giving him a distracting eyeful. "Because I am not the person that created this, I'm not the visionary that designed it. Quite simply I am an agent, and a damned good one, but I'm not the leader that you were, or that you are."

He was silent for a time, staring at her, weighing it. It was what he had intended to do once the nuclear weapon had been contained. The whole of it was the child of his mind, the great work of his age… In a moment of clarity he saw himself stepping away from the old ghosts still bemoaning their fates and haunting the monuments of empires past. It was what he was born to do!

He finished the last of his glass, and then poured a third refill for himself and Beverly, emptying the bottle. After putting away the empty bottle he raised his glass in a toast, and their glassed clinked.

"Where do we begin?"

Disclaimer:I don't own Eureka, it's characters, or its concepts, and I'm just playing for fun and an educational experience.

Author's Notes: Back to Beverly and Grant. More evil mustache twirling. And Debrah Farentino still rocks it ;-)