Imagine (Fuzed Trilogy Book 2) Page 19

  “In Shanghai with Tim and Greg. Will explain later, but MSS has taken an interest in us. Near your Shanghai office. Could we catch our breath in your flat?”

  After a few seconds, he heard, “Go to the main elevator in the lobby. Hit and hold the penthouse floor button. At the same time, push floor 42. When you get to the suite door, type in 612 on the pad. After you’re inside, let me know. Have some new hardware you’ll find entertaining.”

  They ran inside the building and found a large open lobby with marble floors and a reception desk in the middle. There were only about a dozen people in the lobby as they walked quickly toward the bank of elevators at the back of the building. Waiting for the next elevator, they saw police spill into the lobby’s main entrance.

  An elevator door opened, but five people had to exit before they could jump in. Peering out, they saw one man at the building’s entrance, pointing at them. Greg repeatedly smashed the “close door” button.

  29

  PURSUIT

  As the elevator doors closed, they saw several men in black jackets running toward them.

  Greg said, “Busted!”

  Josh pushed the elevator floor buttons as Musk directed.

  As the elevator climbed, Tim hit five random floor buttons and stepped to the back of the elevator.

  Greg looked at him as if he were insane. “My mom used to slap me when I did that.”

  Tim said, “They saw us get into the elevator. They can watch the lights and see where we stop.”

  “Oh.”

  As they stopped on each floor, Greg dutifully smashed the “close door” button. Listening to the elevator music, Greg looked at Josh. “Hey, that’s the muzaked version of Mission: Impossible.”

  Greg started bobbing his head in time to the beat, and Josh matched him. They both started humming the repetitive base melody, “dun dun ... dun-dun, dun dun ... dun-dun ...”

  Josh glanced back to see Tim shaking his head, but by the time they reached the top, all three were humming it.

  As the doors opened on the penthouse floor, Josh rushed out to the only door and typed in the “sentinel” code. As it opened, he voice-texted Musk. “We’re in, but may have company soon.”

  They closed the door and turned on the lights. It was comfortable and classy with beautiful, contemporary furnishings. What caught their attention was the view. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, was a giant balcony and the brilliantly illuminated Shanghai cityscape

  Musk’s reply came back. “Two options. To the right side of my desk is a bookshelf. Behind the book, Resurrect, is a button that opens a secret door. Can hide in there for a while. That’s also where option two is.”

  Josh ran to the bookshelf, as Tim said, “Not sure we want to stay here.”

  Finding the right book, Josh pushed the button behind it and a portion of the bookshelf swung open revealing a hidden room.

  Tim said, “On the other hand ....”

  As they went inside, the lights came on automatically. Looking around, they found themselves in a Spartan efficiency apartment with no windows. A refrigerator, sink, small stove and futon were on one side, a small desk with a computer and communication setup on the other. There were two doors. One opened to a small bathroom. The other was closed and unusually wide.

  Josh opened it and turned on the light inside. It was a large closet. To the left were food supplies, on the right was a rack with several guns, but at the back was what looked like ... it couldn’t be. Josh crossed the small room and examined it.

  Tim and Greg crowded in behind him.

  Greg said, “What is it?”

  Josh voice-texted Musk. “Looks like a JB-11 Jetpack, but bigger. What’s up?”

  Josh examined it while Tim checked out the weapons.

  Musk’s reply came back, “It is made by Jetpack Aviation, but it’s a new prototype. It’s faster, more maneuverable and has longer range due to small deployable wings.”

  Resting on spindly-looking tripod legs, Josh turned around and backed into the jetpack’s harness. He voice-texted, “What’ll she do?”

  “With the wings deployed, she’ll do 120 knots.”

  He put his arms on the small padded armrests. Each ended in a control. Josh voice-texted, “How do the controls work?”

  “Don’t know. Haven’t flown it yet, but they say most people can learn to fly it after a few hours in a simulator.”

  Josh put his left hand around the control stick. It didn’t move but twisted like a motorcycle throttle. He guessed it controlled engine power or maybe altitude. He grabbed the right control stick and felt it move like a joystick — backwards, forwards and side-to-side. It must control attitude like an aircraft’s stick, but he noticed it also twisted. The twist could be throttle or yaw. Only one way to find out. “Payload?”

  Musk replied, “Rated for 150 kilos.”

  He voice-texted back, “Quiet?”

  “As quiet as having jet engines strapped to your back.”

  Tim pulled a nine-millimeter pistol off the wall.

  Greg, impatient with hearing only half of Josh’s conversation, said, “So?”

  “It’s a prototype jetpack powered by cruise missile engines.”

  Greg nodded appreciatively. “Pretty cool, but it ain’t no Iron Man suit.”

  As Tim loaded a magazine into the pistol, he said, “They’ll figure out where we are and be up here soon.”

  Josh nodded and exhaled sharply. “We can hide, but they’ll probably find us eventually or wait us out.” He patted the jetpack’s armrest. “This thing can probably lift two of us.”

  Tim tilted his head. “Probably?”

  Greg stopped smiling and said, earnestly, “I would really love to go with you Commander, but I don’t want to die.”

  Tim added, “And someone’s got to look after Greg.”

  Josh finished strapping in and carefully stood up, lifting the jetpack off its tripod legs. Grunting, he estimated it weighed almost as much as Greg. He took a deep breath. “OK, here’s the plan. I’m going to fly this thing off the balcony. They won’t be able to miss that. Hide in here, and they’ll assume there was more than one jetpack or that we split up. We can rendezvous later at the safe house.”

  Tim nodded. “Might work.”

  Grunting, Josh said, “Help me get this thing to the balcony. Greg, grab the helmet.”

  As they maneuvered it across the floor, Tim looked skeptical. “You’ve flown one of these things?”

  Josh shook his head.

  “Good. Maybe you’ll be more careful than you are with fighters.”

  Greg opened the balcony doors, and after they got it outside, handed Josh the helmet.

  There was a small LCD screen on a stalk in front of him and he noticed it had a Bluetooth button on it. That should allow him to have a simple Heads-Up-Display piped to his cyber glasses. Facing the city, Josh saw a beautiful and spectacularly colorful, night cityscape. Peering over the railing and down fifty stories, it lost some of its beauty. Josh looked at Tim and Greg and said, “OK, if I crash and die in this thing — whatever you do — do not tell Elizabeth I was killed trying to fly a jetpack.”

  Tim and Greg just looked at each other with puzzled frowns.

  They heard noise coming from the hall outside the suite.

  Josh whispered, “Hide!” Tim and Greg ran back to the secret bookcase door as Josh hit the start button. He heard knocking on the door, but the growing whine of the turbine quickly drowned out all sound.

  He quickly pulled the helmet on and then his cyber glasses. Then plugged the helmet’s audio cable into his phone and stuffed the phone in his pocket.

  As the little jet engine’s whine became a roar, Josh gingerly twisted what he thought was the throttle. It was very sensitive. He tried to get it to hover, but as his feet left the ground, he wobbled. He caught the wobble with the right hand joystick, but slid backwards, crashing the jetpack against the balcony doors and shattering the glass. With the impact, he accidentally
twisted the joystick, which rotated him. By the time he got the hang of the rotation, he’d turned 180 degrees and was now looking back into the suite through the broken balcony doors.

  He saw the secret door swing shut just as the door to the suite blew open. Concentrating on controlling the hover, he carefully pulled the right joystick back, moving him away from the doors and the side of the building. As he reached the edge of the balcony, half a dozen Chinese MSS agents spilled into the room with automatic weapons. Seeing him floating there with the turbines roaring, they froze.

  Josh twisted the throttle wide open. Accelerating straight up in a roar of wind and jet fumes, he thought he heard gunshots over the racket of the turbine. The MSS agents’ surprise probably saved his life, but his problems were just beginning.

  Launching into the night was profoundly disorienting. Unlike an airplane, there was no nose or wings to orient him, and at night, there was no horizon. The small LCD screen had an attitude display but wasn’t backlit, and he hadn’t had time to sync the display to his glasses. He was flying blind with no attitude instruments.

  Taking his hand off the throttle, he reached for the sync button on the display, but the jet immediately went to idle and his stomach told him he was falling. He grabbed the throttle again and pulled back on the joystick as he might in a jet. Bad idea. He was not only falling, now he was falling blindly backwards.

  He rotated the joystick, which rotated him 180 degrees. At least now, he could see how he was going to die — a bone-shattering impact into the side of a pretty glass building.

  He twisted the throttle wide open, which stopped his descent, but accelerated him toward the glass tower. Pulling the stick back slowed him, but not fast enough. He put his feet out in front of him just in time to absorb the impact. Bouncing hard off a large window, he created spider-web cracks in the glass. He now understood how birds felt about windows.

  The impact jarred his control stick causing him to change vectors. He rose rapidly but bounced off the glass again, seeing several startled faces on the other side of the windows.

  He finally cleared the top of the building, but the combination of darkness, impacts and no visual references created massive vertigo. Spiraling out of control, he had to get the jetpack climbing. He pushed the sync button again and was rewarded with an attitude display in his glasses. It allowed him to get the jetpack pointed toward the sky instead of the ground. In the center of the virtual display, he saw a large blinking “EMERGENCY MANUAL OVERRIDE.” He glanced down. Bolted next to the right controller was a small switch marked “MANUAL OVERRIDE” and “AUTO.” He flipped it to “AUTO” and let go of the controls.

  The jetpack immediately stabilized in a hover. Musk told him it was a prototype. Of course, it would have an emergency override! The manual mode cut out the computer stabilization in case of a software glitch. The switch was probably flipped while he was moving the jetpack to the balcony. On the positive side, the manual mode created a faster more erratic departure, making him harder to shoot.

  Now in a stable hover, he realized he’d be an easy target for an MSS agent with a night vision scope, and opened the throttle up. He carefully pushed the joystick forward and picked up speed. As he did, the stubby wings on the side of the jetpack deployed, giving him added lift and shifting him into more of a superman flight attitude. With a few flicks of his wrist, he made gently curving turns and watched the display in his glasses. He quickly got the hang of it. Even with the MSS after him, he was having fun.

  Scanning the brilliant cityscape around him, he quickly identified Shanghai’s iconic trio of super skyscrapers. He headed between the beautifully illuminated Shanghai and Jin Mao Towers. The Shanghai World Financial Center, capped by a trapezoidal hole, dared him to fly the jetpack through it ... maybe next time.

  He headed north as he climbed. Two-thousand feet above the city, the view was breathtaking. It was like moving around in Google Earth, but instead of using a mouse, he had a joystick. Instead of the joystick moving a picture, it moved him. He flew over the city in 3-D, horizon-to-horizon, ultra-high definition with wind in his face. If he lived through this, a jetpack was going on his Christmas list.

  He had the address for the safe house. It wasn’t far, but there was no way he could land anywhere near there without drawing a lot of attention. Looking down at the illuminated, ever-expanding net of streets reminded him of the prescient visions he had before the comet.

  For a second, one of those visions reappeared. It was as if he were receiving a download, a spider-web of possible futures. In a flash, he knew exactly where he had to go. He still didn’t know if these visions were attached to his amazing genetics or something supplied by Jesse, but he could now see that Lee was the key.

  He needed help to find her parents’ house. Hoping the mic in his cyber glasses could pick up his voice over the noise of the jetpack, he shouted, “Hal, can you hear me?”

  There was an immediate “Yes,” in his helmet’s headset.

  This was a long shot. “Hal, use my current location and altitude, and display a Google map overlay.”

  Within seconds, he was looking at a digital map of the city through his glasses. Superimposed over the streets below it lined up perfectly. Using his photographic memory, he said, “Give me flight directions to the following address ...”

  A blue arrow, pointing toward the horizon, appeared with a flashing flag symbol. He was impressed by the speed of the iMagine assistant. It recognized his commands and worked perfectly with the phone’s inertial and GPS system. It made sense now that he knew BOTIC was able to tap into the processors and memory of many phones. The massive increase in power and speed also explained Lee’s steadfast belief that the ends justified the means.

  Tim had shown him satellite pictures of Lee’s parents' home and the surrounding neighborhood. Josh’s first thought was to land a couple kilometers away and ditch the jetpack. Then he could approach on foot, but since Li was one of China’s top generals, his house would be protected with security measures. Tim might have gotten inside undetected; Josh didn’t have the skill or patience. He’d use a simpler approach. The satellite picture showed a courtyard right in the center of the house. That was his target.

  He adjusted his course and pushed the joystick all the way forward. He loved fighters, but this, this was more like being Superman. As he rocketed toward his destination, it occurred to him ... he had no idea how to land a jetpack.

  30

  SLEEPER

  Tim and Greg were standing quietly in Musk’s secret room.

  Tim leaned against the wall trying to hear what was happening on the other side.

  After a few minutes, he saw Greg get up and sit at the desk with the computer. As it started up, the computer gave the normal startup beeps.

  Tim gave him a stern look.

  Greg whispered back too loudly, “I didn’t touch it!”

  Tim put his finger to his lips.

  After a few minutes, Greg whispered, “Hey, check this out.”

  Tim shook his head.

  Greg came over to him and whispered, “Seriously, you gotta see this.”

  Tim reluctantly followed him back to the desk. On the monitor, he saw multiple video images. They were coming from cameras concealed throughout Musk’s suite, as well as a camera outside the suite looking at the elevators, and even in the building’s lobby.

  Tim patted Greg on the back.

  After a few minutes, they watched the MSS agents leave the suite. Tim pulled out his phone and sent an encrypted text. “It’s Tim Smith. Josh borrowed your toy. We’re still in your back study. After our guests leave, do you have a recommended exit path?”

  Within a minute, Musk texted an escape route.

  Tim showed the route to Greg and then studied the video feeds from the stairwells, elevator and lobby. “I think they bought it and believe we all escaped, but they did leave some people behind in the lobby.” He pointed out the plain-clothed agents on the video feed to Greg.
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  They took the stairs down a couple floors and then took the elevator all the way down to one of the basement levels below the lobby. Tim took them through a locked door, where they slipped out through a service entrance.

  Back on the street, Tim told Greg to stay close and look straight ahead. They walked five blocks and caught a cab that took them to another market area, where they caught another cab. From there, they walked five more blocks to the safe house. It was one of many identical-looking row houses. They walked up the stairs, and Tim knocked on the door.

  An older Chinese lady met them at the door and said something in Chinese.

  Tim gave her the coded access phrase, and she invited them inside.

  Once inside, in excellent English, she asked for additional identification. While she was looking at their passports, Tim said, “I need to use your encrypted communication line.”

  She nodded and said, “Follow me.”

  Tim stopped to take his shoes off and Greg followed his lead.

  She took them through what looked like a normal home to a closet door. Inside was a hidden door that led to a tiny room. It was less than two meters square with no windows and a single light fixture. It had a chair and a small desk. On it sat a phone attached to a black box — the encryption device.

  Tim told her he needed to talk to headquarters. She sat down at the desk, put on a small, wired headset and asked, “Who do you want to speak to?”

  “The Director.”

  She stopped and looked at him, then nodded her head.

  Tim knew she had no idea who they were or what their mission was. That’s how compartmentalization worked.

  After a couple minutes, they saw her eyebrows go up as she said into the mic, “Of course.”

  She took the headset off and offered it to Tim, saying, “Sir, they said they were getting the Director as fast as possible, but it would probably take a few minutes.”

  Tim nodded. “Thank you.”