Chapter 31 Aiden #2
Aiden felt his jaw go a bit slack. He blinked at the screen, then at Kristen, and then he trained his gaze on Leonard.
Bea whistled over the speakers before any of them had managed to collect their thoughts. “That’s… quite the discovery your folks made, Darren.”
“On top of human evolution, and the most advanced AI in existence,” Nyle frowned at them through the screen. “This is crazy. No wonder Marcus went after your family…”
Aiden squeezed Darren’s hand, hoping that the contact would ground the other man before his mind had the chance to plunge into that dark and lonely place he still carried with him. “Tiverich, do you understand the schematics?” he asked.
Kristen shook his head, his mouth slanting downwards. “I’m afraid that’s beyond me.” He pointed at the video, which was still playing on the holoboard. The timestamp had changed, and Dr. Batbayar was in the middle of debriefing a group of people about a successful ‘jump’ test.
“Holy shit! They did a successful test, too!” Nyle shouted in disbelief.
Kristen nodded, running his fingers along the edge of his tablet.
“Small scale, but yeah. It looks like it… works. We haven’t really studied this part of the video yet, but Dr. Batbayar goes over some of the synch device components.
Even with her explanations though, it’s really complex stuff. Sorry.”
“It’s actually not that complex,” Leonard piped up, his green eyes sparkling. “For a physicist, I mean.” He grinned. “Which I am.”
As Leonard went on to explain some of the principles behind it, a surge of worry speared through Aiden.
The second part of the Valrais Legacy wasn’t a weapon like a part of him had hoped.
His mind still struggled to come to terms with the world-changing discovery, but the pragmatic in him felt a little lost. They couldn’t really use this to fight Marcus.
They still had the evolution sequence, true, but they were already a step behind.
Could they sell the technology? To a competitor in exchange for men and firepower? Was the risk worth it, considering the kinds of possibilities Dr. Batbayar’s discovery opened?
George sat up, clapping his hands for attention.
“This is quite unexpected. Science has been scrambling for decades to solve the mystery of the universe all the while we had the answer already…” He looked around the lab and hummed.
“Darren, this might not seem like a win at first, but it changes the rules of the game. It doesn’t give us a direct way to take Marcus down, but… winning comes in many forms.”
Aiden narrowed his eyes, his brain half following what George was saying. He opened his mouth to speak, but George lifted his hand.
“We will discuss this. But I think we all need some time to process it first. Leonard, get whatever equipment you can’t leave behind.
I’ve arranged for a ship. Now that we have what we came here for, I think it’s best that we don’t linger.
” He turned to Darren and smiled. “We should head back to the Maine. I’ll give you the coordinates for my safehouse. That’s where the lab we’ll use is.”
Aiden’s hackles rose. George was right. It would be easy for Marcus to find them here. Nyle was monitoring the surveillance from the Maine, but there were just too many people and too many ships.
Darren squeezed Aiden’s hand back. “I agree with George. We can talk and figure out what we are going to do when we are somewhere safer. Let’s head back.”
Within an hour, Leonard’s team had collected what they needed. While they loaded it onto the ship George had arranged, Aiden, Darren and Kristen purged the lab logs and erased any traces they’d been here.
“Ready to go?” George asked from the door. “Leonard just commed me—they are lifting off. They have the clear.”
Darren glanced at Kristen. The engineer keyed in a command and all the computers in the lab shut down. A few seconds later, the lights went off, too. “Ready.”
They left the darkness of the lab and headed back to the docks. The streets of the entertainment zone were even more crowded now, and when Aiden glanced at the time, he realized it was just past six, which meant that most of the station had just finished work for the day.
“Should we pick some food?” Darren said, pointing at a barbeque joint nestled between a supermarket and an alcohol store.
Aiden picked out the smell of grilled meat as if on cue. His stomach rumbled, very onboard with the idea. “Yeah. Barbeque sounds good,” he said, looking for the menu sign.
He found it to the left of the queue at the takeaway kiosk.
Most of the people were smiling and chatting with each other in groups of threes and fours, or if not, were staring at their tablets or phones.
They wore lab coats and uniforms apart from four men in suits who were smoking near a garbage can.
They didn’t seem to be interested in the food, and one of them pulled out a phone as he looked in Aiden’s direction.
For a moment, their gazes clashed. Unease spread through Aiden, concentrating in his stomach and chasing his appetite away.
“Actually, maybe we can get something else,” he said, suddenly wanting to be off the station and as far away from it as he could. “I don’t feel like queuing. I’m sure Bea and Nyle will—”
Another man joined the four. He came out of the supermarket along with three bodyguards and stared right at Aiden with blue eyes ready to murder.
Aiden knew those eyes, he could never mistake them even if they were nothing like the warm amber that Claudia’s had been.
No, this couldn’t be happening!
“Darren, run!” he gasped, breaking into a sprint.
He grabbed Darren’s wrist and yanked so Darren would follow, his heart hammering against his chest as his lungs fought to get air. His ears rang and his legs burned, but he kept going, shouting through the earpiece for Bea to get the Maine ready.
“What’s going on, Kesley?” she said back, her voice worried.
“He’s here! Get the ship ready! Marcus and his men are on this station!”