Chapter 96 – Beyond the Compound

  The full Babel debrief wouldn’t be until after the rest of the climbing teams and the hornet team made it back to Earth—only about half of which had returned so far. Babel excursions could consume weeks of active otherworld deployment time, and it was only their immediate urgency and external threat that shoved Cole and his team through two floors in less than a week. With the otherworld dagger in tow, Cole had Sophie book tickets for himself and Howie to visit the lab side of the house in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and co-opted Roxy to drive them to Dulles International.

  “I get that Roxy is giving you a ride,” said Howie, “But why am I going?”

  Cole looked over his shoulder into the back of Roxy’s pickup. “Because I’m going to be talking to smart people, and I’m going to need someone to translate. Besides, I figured you’d want to go.”

  Howie shrugged. “I mean, yeah, I do want to go. Oak Ridge was a big part of the Manhattan project, you know? First nuclear bombs, cold fusion, alien autopsies in the basement. It’s probably pretty cool.”

  “It’s probably a bunch of boring guys in white coats with clipboards,” said Roxy. “If that sounded cool, I’d have just been a nurse.”

  Howie leaned forward, grinning. “Your mental image of scientists comes entirely from cartoons, doesn’t it? Admit it, when you picture a scientist in your head, they’re either animated or in black and white throwing huge switches, aren’t they?”

  Roxy said nothing, but the tips of her ears started to turn red.

  Cole couldn’t help chuckling. The old black and white Frankenstein playing on his grandfather’s TV was exactly what he’d been picturing.

  Howie leaned back, satisfied.

  “Well, while you two idiots are slack-jawed at science, I’m going to Virginia Beach. With Nona,” said Roxy. She stuck out her tongue.

  “No way,” said Howie. “I don’t believe it.”

  “That is a sentence I didn’t ever expect to hear,” said Cole. He shook his head. “I can’t even picture her in a bathing suit.”

  “You better not be trying to,” said Roxy, shooting him a death glare.

  “Fair,” said Cole. “Still.”

  Roxy’s expression softened. “I know what you mean. I think it took everything she had just to ask me to show her the ocean. She’s never seen it, and if we’re going to Hexighast, she wants to get used to water.”

  “So what’s in it for you?” asked Howie.

  “Sun, stores, girl-time, and no monsters for a few days,” said Roxy. “I love being a Kicker, but I don’t live to work. I want some five-star treatment, and after the last two missions, my bank account can more than handle it. You two need some time off too, so your brains don’t fry.” She paused, then grinned. “Actually I think it’s already too late for that.”

  Cole huffed a laugh. “You ain’t lying.” He turned back to Howie. “We’ll check out Knoxville, have some fun.”

  “Hell yeah!” said Howie.

  Roxy dropped the pair of them at the airport, and being in DOR meant all the perks of traveling in the military. Beyond that, Sophie had booked them first-class tickets, which Cole didn’t learn until they’d already waited through the normal check-in line. It certainly beat getting crammed into the back of a C-130 and sitting sideways with earplugs in. Cole ordered himself a complimentary Jack and Coke, passed out before takeoff, and slept through the entire flight.

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  After picking up the rental car at Knoxville, the pair made the short drive to Oak Ridge. Surrounded by the tall trees of Eastern Tennessee, Cole felt much more at home than he did in Virginia. Hell, just a couple hours drive south would see him in Georgia. There was a certain something to the genuine South that even states like Virginia lacked.

  Pulling up to the guard station at the national laboratory. They handed over their CACs. “Here for the Combat Network Integration Program,” said Cole, giving the cover name for DOR’s Oak Ridge presence.

  The gate guard was contractor, rather than military, armed with a vest and sidearm. Three STANAG magazines in his vest also spoke to an M4 or M16 somewhere out of sight. He scanned both IDs with a portable scanner and then compared them to a list on a clipboard. “More CNI boys, eh? You’ll need to swing by the security office to get your badges. Combat Network Integration is inside a secondary security area. Take the main road, turn left after the Cobalt Reactor sign. They’ll verify your clearances and issue your proximity cards and give you directions from there.”

  “Thanks,” said Cole.

  Getting the badges was a simple—if tedious—process. Despite the fantastic, otherworldly secrets lurking in the secondary secured area, you could always count on a government badging office to be in no rush and impressed by nothing with at least three people out for their second two-hour lunch and the computer system to randomly collapse under the weight of its own inefficiencies at least twice before you were helped. Some truths were just universal. But glacially, they processed through and got their proximity badges to access the secondary area, only to find that the ECP was also manned and the guard swiped his own badge to open the automated rolling gate anyway.

  “Sometimes I hate the government,” grumbled Howie.

  Cole just chuckled. “You don’t have hurry up and wait in the Marines?”

  Howie sucked at his teeth and sighed. “Fair point. Not sure why I thought joining DOR meant never having to sit in a DEERS office again.”

  The secondary security area for the DOR labs was much less built-up than the rest of the well-maintained laboratory campus. Spots of wild Tennessee undergrowth pressed in on the road. Past a one-lane section of contractors with reflective vests and paving equipment, the asphalt quickly transitioned to gravel. Another half-klick beyond that, the path opened up to a massive permanent structure and a dozen portable trailers inside a fenced area. Cole parked the rental in a gravel lot that was already too small for the vehicles it accommodated by driving up onto a berm. He retrieved the secure Pelican case with the dagger, and with Howie in tow, they walked through gate for the fenced area.

  The first portable on their left had an Admin sign bolted above the door, so Cole took them through and moved up to the receptionist.

  “Where can we find Dr. Sukesh?” he asked.

  The receptionist looked them up and down. “Names?”

  Both their names were clearly visible on their badges, but Cole had been through this song and dance a thousand times.

  “Amos Colton and Howard Hoyle. He’s expecting us.”

  The receptionist tapped a few keystrokes into her computer. “I don’t have any mention of you in the daily visitor roster.”

  “Do you need one?”

  She looked at him over the rim of her glasses as though he’d suggested she eat her own head. How dare. But Cole had seen a lot worse than middle-aged Karens in his Army tenure. In his threat metric, she was somewhere between a legless fungal zombie and a teenaged Syrian loyalist with a jammed AKM.

  “You’ll have to contact your security office and have them send over your visitor requests, clearances, and itinerary.”

  “No we won’t,” said Cole. “Call Dr. Sukesh.”

  The woman pursed her lips.

  “Please,” added Cole, managing to not roll his eyes.

  With the reluctance of a hibernating bear, she spun the phone towards her and dialed an extension. She exchanged a few words and then hung up. “He’ll be here shortly.”

  Shortly apparently meant imminently, because the man appeared not thirty seconds later. He was short, balding, and had round glasses pushed up onto his forehead. He wore slacks and a checkered button-down with no white coat in sight. A bristly mustache with as much white as black wiggled as he grinned and took Cole’s hand. It was the first smile he’d seen since landing in Knoxville. He might have been the only person in Oak Ridge happy to be there, as far as Cole had seen.

  “Ah, Mr. Colton, Mr. Hoyle, welcome to Oak Ridge!”

  Cole couldn’t quite place his accent. It didn’t sound quite like any he’d heard on his deployments. Indian or Pakistani, maybe.

  “Cole’s fine, Doc,” said Cole, shaking his hand. He gave Howie’s a quick pump as well, then put his hand on Cole’s shoulder and held his other palm toward the door.

  “I’m glad you could make it. Come, we’ll speak in my office.”

  “Lead the way.”