Of Broken Things

Chapter 4 - scene 5.

Aiden punched the address into his computer and pulled p the satellite image of the area. McDermott's cabin was located in a state park in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and seemed uninhabited. At least, there was no gravicar anywhere near it and no visible heat signature from the house itself. That could mean McDermott wasn't there at all, or that he wasn't home at this precise moment. The open access satellite imaging program came with very limited features - there was no way to rewind the feed. Ricky would have access to the full version, of course, but he would have to justify its use, because it was an invasion of privacy. And he wouldn't have a valid reason for it. McDermott wasn't part of the investigation into Fortworth's murder, and that case was closed anyway.

Besides, after his little trip down the memory lane, Aiden was feeling rather claustrophobic in his house, so silent yet so full of memories, so a field trip sounded like an excellent idea. If he took the sub-atmospheric speedway, he would make the trip in three hours. Assuming McDermott was indeed there and willing to talk, he doubted that the conversation would take more than two hours. He would have plenty of time to get back for his meeting with Hikaru at the Safe Haven tonight.

He drove to the regional access point and followed the on screen instructions guiding his gravicar into its allocated slot alongside about a dozen other cars making the journey upwards. After a while, he felt the tell-tale gravity pull and watched the town square grow smaller and smaller as the elevator soared into the sky.

Aiden loved the sub-atmospheric speedway, even though the accession always put his artificial lung to the test and left his gasping for air all the way to the top. But being up here, at the very edge of the Earth's atmosphere, was the closest he would ever get to his beloved stars again.

Most people gape at the scenery flying by at supersonic speed thousands of feet below, but Aiden looked at the infinite dark above and counted the stars, so tiny and yet so familiar. He also tried to review what little information he had gathered about the two missing professors.

John Dietrich had taken off on April 20, and nobody had heard from him since. There had been no activity on his accounts and his transmitter was either turned off or destroyed. Aiden had a sinking feeling that the cryogenist had been one of the eight unidentified bodies found in the lab fire.

Jerry McDermoth, on the other hand, had still been alive and well until about three weeks ago when he suddenly dropped off the face of the Earth. Ricky had taken a look at his communications and discovered that the geneticist, Juan Garcia, had called him on the day of his disappearance. The conversation had lasted less than two minutes, but whatever was said must have scared McDermoth because he bolted. Aiden really hoped that he wasn't doing this whole trip for nothing and that he would find the professor at his mountain retreat, because he needed answers and people who had them seemed to be dying like flies.

He checked his transmitter, but there were no messages from either Ricky or Hikaru, so he used the remaining two and a half hours of the trip to catch up on some sleep. He woke up gasping for air and feeling like an elephant was sitting on his chest, and saw that the gravicar was on the elevator descending towards Fresno.

He left Fresno and followed the winding road into the mountains. The traffic was surprisingly dense, as if all the city dwellers had suddenly decided to uproot and head for the hills. Even when he turned off the main road onto the narrow trail leading into the state park where McDermoth's cabin was, several cars followed. That made him glance nervously in the rear-view mirrors.

Come on, paranoid much? You haven't sensed anyone shadowing you since you left home. Besides, it's doubtful they would cross the entire continent just to see what you are up to.

Nevertheless, Aiden relaxed only when most of the gravicarss left the trail at different turn-offs, and he made the rest of the way to the cabin in solitude.

It looked dark and uninhabited, with an overgrown yard and no recent gravicar tracks apart from his own. He decided to snoop around anyway, and was rewarded with several encouraging discoveries. While at first glance it had seemed like nobody had been here for a while, a more careful examination uncovered recent signs of habitation. The log pile at the back was well stocked and there were fresh wood chips by the cutting block. The small vegetable garden had been watered and weeded recently. And somebody had used the trash incinerator today because the ashes were still warm. Somebody had definitely been living here, but he was gone now. Did he just go to town to stock up on provisions, or did something scare him off? And was it McDermott.

Aiden waited on the porch swing for about an hour, hoping that McDermoth would come back, but time ticked by and nothing disturbed the solitude of the place. He needed to start heading back to Fresno if he wanted to get back to the East Cost in time for his meeting with Hikaru. But he felt that just getting in his car and leaving was like giving up, and he hated giving up. So he fished one of his old business cards out of the glove box and scribbled a note on the back:

I know about Project Cassandra. Call me.

He slid the card under the front door. There, if McDermoth came back, he couldn't fail to see it. He just hoped that the professor would call him. After one last glance at the cabin, he got back into his gravicar and headed down the trail towards the park exit and the road to Fresno.

He had stayed at the cabin longer than he had planned and was running behind schedule, so he drove his car a bit faster than the speed limit, trying to make up for lost time. On this narrow mountain road that meant that he had to pay a lot more attention to what was in front of him than to what was happening behind. Who would have thought that this was the day his famous sense of self-preservation, the one that had yanked him out of the trajectory of laser beams before, chose to take a vacation. He had seen the gravicar pull out on the road behind him, but it had hung ways back and had seemed inconspicuous enough. Aiden had assumed that it was just one of the cabin owners on his way back to civilization, and didn't spare the car a second glance. When he noticed the gravicar accelerating suddenly behind him, it was too late to do anything.

He was crossing a narrow bridge when a flicker of sunlight in his rear view mirror made him glance back. His instincts screamed DANGER as he saw the muzzle of a blaster poke out of the gravicar's passenger window, pointing right at him. He tried to swerve to get out of its trajectory, but he was stuck between two guardrails with an impressive drop into the river on both sides.

With a sense of impending doom, he saw the muzzle flash. His gravicar dropped to the ground as the gravitational drive went out. He tried to keep it straight, to make it slide to the other side of the bridge, but the car hit a loose stone and went into a barrel roll. Aiden's head smacked the side window and hot liquid started dripping into his eyes, painting the world red. The gravicar hit the guardrail with a tortured screech of tearing metal. The momentum carried it right through. Aiden felt his body get lighter - he was falling. He had time to think, Was this the last thing Mary Ann and Jasmine had felt? Then the car hit the water, his head bounced of the steering wheel, and everything went dark.