Travis Starnes
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No Good Deed (Destiny Saga #5) - Chapter 21
🕑 Added 2018-06-20 20:43:56 +0000 UTCI was up and off to the office Wednesday before the girls were up, not that there was much for me to do at this point. We’d done several test runs of our presentation, and everything was in Douglas's hands.
“You're here early,” I said when I walked into the cleared area of one of the factory floors which we’d set up for the presentation.
“We notice a slight fluctuation on the last trial run yesterday. It wasn’t that noticeable, but I wanted to run some tests before we showed it off.”
“Did we do too many runs through?”
“No. We’ve run this up to full power dozens of times so far, one more wouldn’t matter. It could have been an error in our analytics and not the battery itself for all we know, but I thought it would be best to check it over anyway.”
I left him to it and headed off to find Ted and Marcus. We more or less made ourselves look busy since we’d already done everything that needed to be done. About an hour later, a rep from MilTech and four people I assumed were from NASA showed up.
We made the requisite small talk and then headed off to the presentation. We had a row of chairs about fifty feet back from a small platform we’d set up, flanked by large screens showing performance data from the battery. Two of the NASA guys were administrators, and I wasn’t sure if the data would mean much to them. While I guess you had to send some of the guys who could sign off on purchases, this wasn’t going to be much to see except data output, and I was pretty sure they were going to be fairly bored.
The other two, however, were engineers. One was a team lead on power systems, and the other was the head engineer on the probe they were considering using the battery on.
“Good morning,” Douglas said, stepping in front of the group. “I know you’ve seen our proposal papers and the basic technical details of the new battery. In short, this is a solid-state battery that isn’t as volatile as those currently in use, thanks to the synthetic perovskite we have developed. This helps make them lightweight and should cut the weight you allot for batteries on launches by sixty percent. In addition to weight, the new material takes a charge at nearly seven times the speed of your current batteries, allowing them to more reliably recharge as needed. Finally, they should give you almost four times as much storage capacity as the current batteries you use, allowing you to either use that additional power storage or cut down the number of batteries needed, further lowering your launch weight.”
He turned and pointed at the screens, which had come to life and were starting to show data input from the batteries.
“Here you can see we are loading the batteries with the same energy output as the current solar panels you are using now. As you see, the batteries are taking in a higher percentage of the power, removing it, or at least limiting it, as a bottleneck in your power systems chain.”
As he spoke, numbers for current storage of the battery climbed displayed alongside power being outputted to the batteries. He waited a few minutes while the numbers on the screen continued to climb.
“While it will still be a little while for the battery to pass the load level of your current batteries, you’ll see it is getting there much quicker.”
One of the admin guys started whispering to the engineers, who whispered answers back. From their body language, I’d have to say their report to him was fairly positive. I was allowing myself to relax when I heard the first sound of something out of place.
I’m not sure when I first noticed it since it started so gradually, but at some point I definitely noticed a buzzing sound coming from the area of the battery. As I started to walk to Douglass, so I could quietly ask him about it, I noticed the screens showed a sudden, substantial decrease in the power consumption of the batteries.
Douglass clearly noticed it and had started to turn, and head towards the battery when I started smelling a sharp ozone smell. After he had taken one step, I noticed the buzzing sound grow significantly louder, a few sharp pops emanated from the battery, and the ozone smell was joined by a charred smell.
I’m not sure why, but something made me reach out and grab Douglass’s arm, and pull him backward. I must have pulled with too much power, because I managed to slightly lift him off his feet, and he stumbled back towards the spectators, who had started to get to their feet as they saw Douglass get manhandled.
As I turned to follow after him, both to make sure he was okay as he hit the floor in front of the chairs, and to give myself distance from the battery, all hell broke loose. The battery let out a whoomp sound, there was a sharp flash of light, and heat radiated out as it exploded.
A piece of something snaked past my neck, leaving a burning feeling, accompanied by the smell of burning flesh. The blast wasn’t strong enough to make me stumble, but my hand shot up to my neck, and I could feel wetness when I pressed my hand to my skin.
Technicians ran past with foam extinguishers and started dousing the smoking ruin of the battery and shattered screens. I reached down and pulled Douglass up while looking at the people in suits, whose mouths were hanging open.
“Are you all ok?”
They didn’t reply, so I repeated the questions.
“Yeah,” the guy from MilTech, said after a beat, “you’re bleeding!”
“Move your hand,” Emily said, who’d rushed over as soon as she got over her own shock.
Pulling my hand away, she looked at the wound and giving me a once over to make sure I was in one piece.
“I got nicked by something, I’ll be ok,” I told her.
“I thought you said this thing was more stable?” One of the engineers said.
“It is. We’ve put it through this test dozens of times.”
“Folks, I think clearly this is the end of our presentation. Our friend from MilTech will get you back to Houston while we figure out what’s going on.”
Emily finally decided I wasn’t going to die immediately, and headed to one side of the factory. I could see she was going for a first aid box.
They all headed towards the exit, some turning their heads back to look at the smoking prototype. I grabbed the MilTech guy and slowed him up.
“Once they are over their surprise, start sounding them out about letting us get another shot at this, once we determine the cause of the failure. Tell them we’d be happy to share a report of what happened with them, regardless if it shows a problem with our base design, some technical flaw, or something else. Tell Aaron I’ll call him later today and we’ll see what we have to do to salvage this.”
He nodded once and headed after the retreating officials.
“Are you ok?” I asked Douglass
“Yeah. I ... I don’t know what could have happened.”
“You said there was some kind of fluctuation, do you think that’s part of it?”
“Probably, but I have no idea what caused the fluctuation. We’re going to have to put all the pieces of that thing back together and try and find out what happened.”
Emily had returned with some gauze and medical tape and had started tending my wound when Jawarski burst through the door at a jog. Since the facility had controlled access and widespread video surveillance, she usually just hung out near the security offices and let me have more space when I was here.
“What the hell?” she said as she ran up.
“Don’t worry, it looks to be some kind of malfunction. The prototype failed, and since it’s a battery, that means it exploded. It wasn’t nefarious or anything.”
“Are we sure about that,” she said to Douglass.
“Fairly, but like I told Caspian here, we’ll do a full diagnostics on everything until we figure out what happened. If there’s a systemic problem, we don’t want to power up the other two prototypes until we’re sure they won't fail catastrophically also.”
“See, nothing happened.”
“And yet here you stand bleeding.”
“It’s practically stopped.”
I pulled my hand away, and the blood had already turned thick and sticky. I knew she was mostly giving me grief since she was well aware I’d heal a wound like that quickly. We, however, couldn’t discuss that in front of Douglass or the technicians. It occurred to me that, if I came out to the facilities over the next month, I’d probably have to wear a bandage over that area to hide the fact that it healed so quickly.
“I probably need to go see a doctor about this, just to be sure. I’ll get out of your hair so you guys can figure out what happened.”
“I just can’t believe it failed on the presentation. A perfect chance to show all those jerks I was right about this.”
“Don’t worry,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll get with Ted and Jonathan. I’m sure we can talk our way into another presentation. This can’t be the first time new tech crashed and burned, so to speak.”
He just grunted and went to join the technicians around the blackened prototype.
“You don’t actually want to see a doctor, do you?” Emily said quietly as we walked out.
“No, but if I were anyone else, I’d probably need to, so it’s best if we make them all think that’s what we’re doing.”
“So then where are we going?”
“Back to the hotel. That way I’m off site, and I can start making calls, and see if we can fix this mess.”
As we left, I looked back at Douglass, who had his hands on the top of his head, and looked as exasperated as a person could.
I spent the rest of the day, and most of the next making phone calls to everyone involved, trying to salvage the disaster and somehow swing another test. By Friday, it was out of my hands and mostly up to Ted and Aaron from MilTech.
Jawarski had some stuff to do with the security company, since they were starting to take on outside contracts to hopefully offset the gigantic bill I was racking up. They left me in the care of their people.
That worked out, as I was pretty much tired of being on the phone. I had something to do, anyway. Instead of going to work, I went with the girls to the center and helped out there. It was long and tiring, but rewarding in a way not even working at the company was.
When we went back to the hotel to pack up, I got us all together in Charlie and Sandy’s room, minus the security people.
“So how did this week go?”
“It was amazing,” Sandy said enthusiastically. “You guys have done so much. Seeing it in person makes me want to spread these places even more now.”
“So you’re still determined about that then?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “I know it might be a long while and there are a lot of hurdles, but if we could bring one of these to our town, I know it will make a difference. I’ve done volunteer work at a clinic and at a food shelter, and while both of those were great, what you guys are doing is the next step past that.”
“If you can’t manage it though-” Sandy said, her head hanging slightly and her voice at just above a whisper.
“I talked to the girls about this, and there are challenges we’ll have to get past, but I do think it’s doable. Maybe not immediately, but we can start working towards it now. Like I said, the first hurdle is for you guys to still do good in school, and have time to focus on getting past the other hurdles.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but it’s going to require a little ... trust on your part.”
“How so,” Sandy asked, suddenly sounding skeptical.
“Because, while I can explain to you what we can do and what to expect, there’s going to be stuff I can’t explain to you. There will also be parts that will be difficult to believe. I’ll understand if you guys want to pass, we just wanted to give you the option.”
“What would we have to do,” Sandy asked, a glance shooting towards Charlie in concern.
“We have a doctor friend who will give you both a once over to make sure there aren’t going to be negative reactions, although right now I can say I’m pretty sure you won’t have any. After that, you take a single shot. I will warn you, there will be a twenty-four hour period where you get very sick, sort of like extreme food poisoning or the flu. It’s what happens as your body adjusts to the injection. I won’t lie, that part is particularly nasty and why we’ll have to do this by early tomorrow to give you time to bounce back and head back to school on Sunday. The good news is, after twenty-four hours, you’ll feel better than you’ve ever felt in your life.”
“What do you mean ‘better,’” Charlie asked.
“Healthier. As time goes on, you’ll find your health getting steadily better. Allergies will disappear, your metabolism will speed up, it’ll be easier to put on muscle, and you’ll also find it easier to retain and process information in school. The retention of information and increased ability to learn is the main reason I thought about offering this to you since that’ll help you do better in school with less study. Besides that, you won’t get the cold any more, won’t get the flu anymore ... basically, you won’t get sick again. There are a few side effects, however.”
“Like what?”
“For one, you won’t be able to get drunk or high ever again.”
“What happens if we drink?”
“Nothing. You can drink alcohol, it just won’t have an effect on you. You won’t even get a buzz off it anymore.”
“And that’s it?”
“No. The other major side effect is kind of hard to explain, mostly because we’re not sure exactly how it happens. You’ll find yourselves drawn towards me more, being almost loyal towards me. It has to do with something in the biochemistry of the process.”
“So like, what? Brainwashed?” Sandy asked, involuntarily stepping back, putting separation between us.
“Not ... exactly. Like I said, it’s really hard to explain. It’s not like you’ll do what I say or anything. As you’ve seen already, they all have no problem disagreeing with me, doing the exact opposite I asked, and calling me an idiot. You’ll still be yourselves. There will just be this innate caring of what I think. Not an agreement or anything, just a feeling that you have to take it into consideration.”
“It’s not as bad as he’s making it sound,” Vicki said. “He has a real problem with this, and it’s one of the reasons he’s pretty firm about not giving it to anyone until he’s had a chance to explain the side effects, which is too bad when you consider all the benefits it gives you. Trust me though, it’s not brainwashing. People who already like Cas and are loyal to him actually don’t see a difference, since it basically makes you want to do what you’re doing already. The only people who really notice a change are those who were hostile or ambivalent to him.”
“You were right, this all sounds pretty hard to believe,” Charlie said. “What is it exactly?”
“That is what I can’t tell you. It’s not that we don’t trust you guys, because we totally do, but if this were to get out, it could make some serious problems for us. Think of all the benefits we listed. Who wouldn’t want that? More importantly, can you imagine what some people, or groups, or governments, would do to get their hands on something like that?”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Sandy said.
“That’s the other thing. You can’t tell anyone. At all. Ever.”
“Can we have a minute?”
“Sure, we’ll be in our room. Take as much time as you need.”
The girls and I headed back to our room and very conspicuously didn’t speculate on what their decision was going to be. After a little while, there was a knock on our door, and Zoe went to let in. They looked nervous but determined as they stepped into the room and closed the door behind them.
“We’ve talked about it, and we’ve decided. We’ll do it.”
“Ok,” Zoe said, hopping up. “We should do this here since you guys will need some time to get over the adjustment period and still have time to drive back to school.”
“You don’t think we should go back and let Alex do it?”
“No. Vicki and I spent some time with her .... before and learned how to do everything. We don’t have everything we need, but I can make a quick run to the clinic and get a few things, and we should be good. You guys hang out, and I’ll be back in a bit.”
I knew by ‘before’ she meant when they’d changed a lot of people without telling me. Zoe headed out, and we sat around chatting. Charlie kept trying to get a little more information on what it was we were going to do, which was natural I guess. I know if I’d heard what he heard and agreed to take some unknown shot, I’d have a lot of questions.
After thirty minutes, Zoe got back, and we ducked out of the room to take a couple of small draws of my blood, making sure to keep the injection points in places where my clothing would cover it. I trusted them, and would so even more once they went through the change, but the fewer people that knew all the details of everything, the better.
“Why is it dark?” Charlie asked. “Aren’t shots normally clear?”
“Yes, but that’s the way it is. It’s ok if you want to back out, we’d totally get it. You’re taking a lot on faith.”
“No, we’ll do it,” Sandy said.
Charlie looked less sure but put his arm out, and Zoe gave him the shot, followed by Sandy. Sure enough, in just over an hour they both started feeling queasy, and after two the real sickness kicked in. We took turns watching over the very happy pair and taking care of them through the night.
Multiple times Charlie commented that, had he known it would get that bad, he wouldn’t have agreed; but I knew once this was all over, they’d be fine, and would forget about how sick they were. Megan was just as pissed at me when she got sick. On the plus side, this would be the very last time, at least as far as we could tell, they’d ever be sick like this again. I didn’t point that out, at least at the moment. No one wants that guy around when they're hugging a toilet.
We were packing up the next morning to head back home, with Tami next door helping Charlie and Sandy. They were on the back half of the sickness now, but both were dragging. In a perfect world, we would have given them another day to rest and recover before spending a few hours in the car, but we needed to have them home in time for them to turn around, and drive back to school.
It wasn’t an ideal solution, but by the first day back from Spring Break, they’d be better than ever, in a very literal sense. I’d been kicked out of the room for helping poorly and was standing at the railing in front of the rooms when, much to my surprise, I saw Jonathan pull into the motel parking lot. I hadn’t been expecting him, but I headed down the stairs and out into the lot to meet him at his car.
“Hey,” I said, pulling his door open and stepping back so he could get out. “This is unexpected. Is everything ok?”
“Everything’s fine. I knew you were headed out this morning, and I wanted to catch you before you did. I heard back from my friend in the Bureau and, while this is very unofficial, he gave me some updates on their investigation.”
“Really? I'm surprised. Aren’t they usually pretty tight-lipped about this kind of thing?”
“They are, but he owes me some favors, and made me swear on my first born that I wouldn’t let this get out.”
“Why’d you rush over here? You could have just called me.”
“Because I wanted to keep this as secret as possible. Not that I think phones would be bugged or anything, but if we talked in person, there was less of a chance someone could overhear. He went out on a limb for me, and I’m going out on a limb telling you, so we need to keep this between us. For now, you shouldn’t even tell the girls, just to be safe.”
“Ok, I swear I won’t tell anyone. So what’s going on?”
“They’ve started assigning more agents to the case. He wouldn’t say what, but apparently, they’ve found something big enough for the southern district US Attorney to start getting updates on the case. I’m reading between the lines, but I think this goes higher than bought off police officers.”
“Really? Have they tied it back to, what was that guy's name, the one who sent goons for me at the beginning of the year?”
“Joe Richards.”
“Yeah, him.”
“He wouldn’t give me specific names, so I don’t know. We did give his name to them when they took everything else, so they know who he is, at least.”
“That’s something. So what happens next, and when does it happen?”
“I don’t know. Soon, I think, considering the rush of new agents heading down to help with the investigation. As far as what happens, we wait. They’ll make their move when they’re ready. There still isn’t much we can do before then.”
“What about that journalist we called? I’m tired of being trailed everywhere by bodyguards. If we talk to him, do you think it’d put more pressure on them to move sooner?”
“Maybe. We have to be careful about it though. My friend went out on a ledge, I don’t want to burn him.”
“Then you make the call. It’s probably better if the same person doesn’t keep talking to him about this every time, lowers our exposure. Make sure you do it in a way he can’t just look up your phone number.”
“I’ll figure something else,” he said in a voice of suffering patience.
“I know you know what you’re doing. It just made me feel better to say it out loud, ok?”
He gave me a smile and patted my shoulder, “You probably need to get going, if your friends are going to leave on time. I’ll let you know what happens.”
I stood back as he got back in his car and drove off, waving to him as he left the parking lot. This was actually pretty good news. Hopefully, it meant that the threat we’d been under all year would soon be over.
My relief at the FBI investigation making progress came crashing down when I walked back into the room to find Vicki holding the phone, her face stricken.
“Beth shot someone,” she said when she saw me, holding the phone out towards me. “Someone tried to grab your sister, and she shot him.”
