Chapter Thirty-five

Night at the Lake

Wednesday, March 21. 10:25PM. 125 S.A.

Lemac Lake, Lugrin. France

The night in and around the camp was illuminated by the lights set up by the military teams on site. That brightness hid the stars in the sky and also the brightness of the Orbital Belt, which at that moment was rotating to the west, almost disappearing on the horizon.

Lee walked through the grass and looked at the soldiers guarding the place, and at the others of the search groups, who were going here and there looking for new pieces.

Oxy had really gotten the most out of his and Jim Stuart's collaboration. Lee had been working for hours helping with the scanning of parts that kept coming in non-stop. It was repetitive and tiring work, but he couldn't deny that it was much better than being cooped up in his apartment with not much to do, other than remember past and trying to make sense of things that were out of his control. Still, being at the lake brought back memories of the old days at the orphanage. He would have liked to ask permission to go to the place on the Swiss side of the lake, but it was impossible in the current state of affairs.

Still, what he had been doing in the last few hours was also more than enough, although it had not helped much.

That work was far removed from his job as an academician, but not from the particle analysis that the scanners carried out with each reading. Any variable that was out of place would have jumped out in the analysis. Lee knew the ins and outs of the prohibitions on unregulated time research, because certain discoveries from other decades, such as time crystals, were part of that regulation. The intervention was due to the fact that Dark Events could arise even from experiments such as those. What happened in Tokyo, more than a century ago, should not have happened because the cooling systems should not have failed but, they did. A deviation in the experiment that should not have happened.

He put a hand to his neck and crunched his vertebrae. Although he was somewhat tired, he could not deny that the talk with those two had been most entertaining. Theoretical physics, hyperdimensional geometry, the occasional anecdote. It was refreshing to share points of view with someone who spoke the same mathematical language. However, the approach to the case had not borne fruit. They had not discovered any anomalies

On the other hand he was worried about something else as well.

He dodged a couple of spider droids, which protested as he got in their way, and Lee headed toward the tent with the red cross at the entrance. "Excuse me," he said, poking his head in. "May I come in?"

Inside were several stretchers and bunks and a doctor in military uniform. Shin, Mai and Lizbeth were also there and turned to look at him. They had arrived just a few minutes before Lee in the tent to check on Van.

"Professor Reubens, please," invited Mai.

Lee entered and there, before the gurney where they were gathered, was Van. She appeared to be sleeping, but the faces of the others were somewhat serious.

"How is she?" Lee asked.

"She's stable, but sedated," Shin replied.

"Did you find out what happened to her?"

"It took a while, but yes. Hyp-nite," this time it was the army doctor who answered.

"Hyp-nite?" The term didn't suggest anything to Lee.

"Hyp-nite. Hypno neuro-nanite. It's a type of nanoneuron of artificial origin, it was a military project derived from where GoldenShock came from. It has its use banned, because it can cling to Neurowire's systems and influence decision making in a slow process, so as not to generate anomalies in the user, who believes is acting of his own free will."

"GoldenShock? Like that dangerous drug?"

Lizbeth nodded. "Yes, but it's something different."

"Someone infected her with it?"

"Hypno neuro-nanite has an input system similar to Neurowire, it's possible she breathed it in," the doctor replied.

"Who would do something like that?"

"From what I checked it could have been a few hours ago."

Mai folded her arms, as she looked at Van on the gurney. "Van was in those tunnels at the Vatican. Who knows if whoever stole that suitcase didn't leave something in the air. Just in case we've already alerted Rome to check everyone who went down the tunnels."

"Is it possible to remove it?" Shin asked.

"Yes, no problem with that. I'll turn off the Neurowire completely and give her a shot of anti-hyp-nite antibodies to remove it. Then I just need to reset the Neurowire's main interface and, when she wakes up, reset her own custom operating system."

"That's good to hear," Lee sighed in relief.

Lizbeth turned to look at him. "And you Professor, are you feeling all right? You were close too."

"Yes I feel perfect. On the other hand I have no Neurowire in my brain."

"One of mine," Shin said, also turning to him. "You don't have Neurowire either?"

"No, I use an interactive contact lens type. You too?"

"No, when they tried to put one on me my body destroyed it. Why don't you have one?"

"I was twelve years old, the procedure is expensive to put a Neurowire in an adult and where I grew up they didn't have the resources. Not to mention that it has to be done when you are a child because of neuroplasticity, from the age of eight is almost the limit. After that you have to go through other procedures."

Lizbeth nodded. "The age at which Neurowire is grafted allows the device to naturally take root in the brain. Being of age this costs more. In a fey that's different, due to the tissue's ability to regenerate."

Shin stared at her. "So, it's okay to put something in the brain of a young child, but not in an adult responsible for their decisions?"

"Yeah, that's kind of the idea," the doctor admitted.

Shin turned and looked sideways at Mai and Lizbeth. "If we have children I don't think I'd like them playing with their brains." Mai and Lizbeth looked at him dumbfounded at that statement and blushed. "I'm talking ahead... and why are you blushing? I'm serious."

"I hope so," Mai said as the blush reached her ears. Was it necessary to bring up the subject of children now?

Lee felt the sound of a bunk bed far away from where they were and looked over. Sleeping there was Ryuuji and, strangely enough, on the empty bunk next to him, Lee could see a slight depression in the mattress. Was it an old mattress? It almost looked like there was someone sleeping there too.

He couldn't see it, but it was Natuski. Both, she and Ryuuji had been working long before Mai's team arrived and exhaustion had worn them out. They could have rested in the tents that had been set up exclusively for the SID, but they wanted to be close to Van in case there was any news about her condition. On being informed that her condition was stable they had taken Mai's recommendation that they take a rest.

Lee looked away from the beds and looked at the three SID agents. They made him feel a little strange talking to them. How old were they? If Mai was indeed that war heroine, she had to be over a century old. Or maybe more? On the other hand he couldn't shake the strange feeling when he looked at the tall man, he couldn't remember him but he had a strange feeling when he looked at him.

Did he just say children? What kind of relationship those three have? Well, it wasn't as I he could ask. Lee simply looked at the three of them and decided to ask something else related to the mystery at hand.

"Have you discovered anything new?"

Mai shook her head. "Nothing yet. We've finished checking the background of all the passengers and found nothing suspicious. What about you guys, Oxy's parts log hasn't turned up anything, right?" Mai knew that, she was attentive to the reports coming in instantly, but she decided to be polite. Lee was a civilian after all, he must not have had much idea of how the logging chains worked in such an investigation.

"Nothing. We've been checking and haven't found anything. I know how those scanning machines work, so fortunately I didn't bother Professor Ishijima with a basic tutorial. But we ran various types of scans to analyze possible samples of anomalous radiation, but nothing has come up. I had ideas that there might have been some decay in the area, or even some change in the atmospheric composition. But analyzing the atmospheric data we have found nothing. Whatever happened either happened too fast or any residual radiation evaporated instantly."

"How do you explain what happened to the avionics and electronics on board?" Lizbeth asked.

"Well whatever happened on board also drained the power. We have a couple of theories but they don't match. If the plane is from 2012 the draining and absorption technology wasn't available almost a century later."

"We're on tenterhooks then," Lizbeth said, letting out a sigh.

"On the victims everything is still the same?" Lee asked shyly to Shin.

Shin nodded. "Nothing. I haven't discovered anything new. I've been going over the bodies, I've done five autopsies on the most complete bodies, but I only found the same result. Patterns consistent with burns, depressurization, blood nitrogen levels from depressurization. When I examined the brain I found a little abnormal color, so to be sure I did an extra analysis on the muscle tissue, whatever the victims were seeing was triggering epinephrine levels. Which is normal if they were conscious when the depressurization occurred."

"The adrenal glands? Were they metabolizing adrenaline from fear?" asked Lee.

Shin nodded. "Do you have training in biology as well?"

"No, I'm just a little interested," Lee admitted. "And in bodies that exhibit anomalies?"

"I have no idea what might have caused that. The fractus didn't appear until much later, but there are fractium in the bodies, so it's obvious we're missing something. I just still have no idea what. On the other hand something else strikes me."

"The what?" Mai asked.

"Well considering the pattern of where the victims have been found, we already have over 114 bodies. At this rate we would have found children by now."

"Children?" Lee asked.

"There was a passel of minors traveling with their families, ranging from three years old to fifteen years old. We haven't found any yet. Statistically we would have found the bodies by now."

"I'm not so sure," the doctor interjected. "Considering the muscle mass of a child and the explosion... you know."

"Yes, I thought so," Shin admitted. "Being smaller and with a lighter mass than an adult, it's possible that their bodies are still out there, but their mass has been reduced considerably considering the magnitude of the explosion. We have found other victims badly consumed as well."

"It is possible that, considering the angle and momentum of the plane, the wreckage was sent hundreds of meters into the air. Considering winds and lighter mass, who knows if we wouldn't have to extend the search radius to a larger one," Lizbeth said.

"Still, I find it curious. I guess we'll have to wait. I'll continue the examination tomorrow when there are more bodies. Military forensics have brought in a replacement, so if anything new jumps out in the investigation they'll let me know."

At that moment someone entered the tent. Philip peeked out half the body. "Guys. Can you come here for a moment?" He said and gestured with his head to the outside.

"Doctor, Professor, if you'll excuse us," Mai said, "Please let us know of any new news when she wakes up."

"Yes, ma'am." said the doctor.

Mai, Shin and Lizbeth went outside, leaving Lee with the doctor in Van's care. Outside Zi was waiting for them as well.

Both Philip and Zi had returned several hours earlier, after supervising the interrogations and asking some extra questions to those who had seen the crash on site. The truth was that the witnesses were already tired of so many questions, but they did it in a good way. It was a small price to pay and some were afraid that if they did not cooperate, their memory might be erased. That would not be necessary and the two had tried to calm things down a bit. But certainly no new evidence had emerged from their testimony that had not already been corroborated by the radar signals that had detected the plane in the first place.

Although judging by the looks something new must have happened.

"What happened?" Mai asked.

"We're not quite sure. The FRT members and foot soldiers spotted something a couple of kilometers away. They say we'd better check it out before they start moving the pieces. Shall we?"

"I don't have much to do," Shin said with a shrug. "No rest for the wicked."

"Yeah, I could do with stretching my legs while we're at it," Mai said.

With Philip at the wheel, the five of them climbed into one of the armored-cars that had been brought compressed in the ship's luggage and headed off in an easterly direction. The point was only a couple of kilometers away and was rather far from the lake, deep in the lush forest.

"By the way, did you get the message from the Gévaudan base earlier?" Philip asked, while driving.

"I haven't seen it. What happened?" Mai asked.

Zi snorted and looked to the side with a nervous smile. "Apparently our new friend escaped surveillance."

"Excuse me?"

"The pug. The whole base is looking for him."

Mai sighed wearily. "That little guy is really restless. He should have been shipped to the island, at least he'll be safer there."

"Well, they should find him soon."

After a couple of minutes they arrived at the site. The entire perimeter was illuminated with lights set up by the military teams. Thanks to those lights it was easy to continue the work. The lights consisted of balloons the size of soccer balls, floating about three meters above the ground and emitting white light. They were separated from each other by several meters and could move along the ground at times. At the place where they had arrived, several had gathered and were moving through the trees.

The group got out of the vehicle and moved quickly to the place, which was deeper in the trees and where it was not possible to enter in a vehicle. There the coordinator of the FRT search team and the military leader of the team greeted the group and led them to the site.

There were pieces scattered all over the ground. Pieces of metal and parts of the fuselage. Lizbeth came to see that, a little farther away, there was even a door of the plane, although a little smaller. If what she thought was correct, that small door was a second access to the cargo compartment, closer to the tail of the plane. Shin saw some larger pieces and another door bent over the ground. That was the main door to the cargo hold. But what was mostly on the ground were metal containers shattered by the impact, as well as thick tree branches everywhere.

They could see smashed bottles, which from the smell must have been wine. Over there were hundreds of orange balls. No, rather, they were oranges, a whole load of fruit. There was another one that had scattered hundreds of smartphones in their boxes from the old era.

Shin stopped. "There's two more!" He said pointing to two dark lumps. They were two bodies.

"Yes, we've already marked them," the FRT member told him. "We'll send them later to the hangar."

Finally they arrived at the place where they had all gathered. On the ground Mai counted at least fifteen people gathered.

There were also hundreds of small and large parts, cargo containers of different sizes and more twisted metal.

But among them were some black, metallic-looking pieces. They were all destroyed and scattered, but certain shapes could be deduced. There were hands composed of metal parts, nanocarbon parts and other pieces that Shin could not recognize. There was something that could have been a bionic foot, an elongated piece that gave the impression of being some kind of mechanical spine, plates and other scattered pieces.

It was possible that the impact against the ground had destroyed them, or that some of the containers had crushed them and produced the large craters that were seen around. By the number of pieces that could have been two types of robots. Given the destruction of the place it was surprising that there were pieces that were discernible in all that disaster.

Shin didn't know why, but the others were watching with frowns on their faces.

The leader of the FRT team spoke. "We didn't know what we were looking at. We had to run a quick analysis to be sure."

"Are these what, 3T-DS?" Mai asked, stepping closer and crouching down to get a closer look.

"Tetrahedroids?" Lizbeth followed.

Shin approached as well and took a closer look. "What are tetrahedroids?"

"They're tactical droids for military use," Philip informed him.

"...And I guess it's not normal for them to be here. What year are they from?"

"They are modern, state of the art military technology for military operations in space," Zi added.

Shin looked at the shattered and crushed pieces among the various cargo containers of the plane. "If they're modern, what are they doing on a plane from 2012?"

"Exactly," admitted the FRT leader. "Put the plane aside. It's forbidden to use these droids here. They're technology developed exclusively for space combat, in case someone shows up in the neighborhood."

"They've been manufactured a few years ago to replace early model soldier droids, but they're in the space army."

"One day you have to explain to me what the hell is going on with the militarization of space in this era," sighed Shin.

"Is there any chance belongs to the army?" Mai asked the military coordinator. "It wouldn't be unusual that by asking for a permit to train with space units they could have brought them in."

"No, that would violate the code. It's impossible for them to belong to the military. In the rare cases that space-use models are brought in they are engraved with a code, and in the parts here we didn't find there was nothing like that."

"Something maybe black market?" Lizbeth suggested, crossing her arms.

"I was thinking the same thing," Zi seconded. "It wouldn't be weird if there were models on the black market."

"And leave them lying around here? The origamiun on those droids are worth a fortune. What's the point of doing something like that?" Philip interjected.

"Beyond that... the question is the same," said the FRT leader.

"What the are they doing here?" sighed Mai and then looked at the FRT leader, "By any chance you haven't found a container on the cargo side marked with the code AKN-8-31416 HP?"

The leader shook his head. "No ma'am. Why do you ask?"

"It's a container that was marked on the cargo manifest as carrying fruit from the Maldives," Mai explained and straightened up. That container is still missing, and these droids... she glanced sideways at the others in her group and they understood.

Those droids could be a clue. Maybe someone was really looking for something on the ship after all. But at what point? Before it crashed? If so, did they know what was going to happen there?

***

11:00PM

The parts were quickly moved to the tent where Oxy, Stuart and Lee Reubens had continued to work. Analysis of the parts revealed that, as they had assumed, they belonged to a type of military tactical droid but, unfortunately, like other electronics on the plane, there was no power left in the droids' power cells.

Providing them with external power didn't work, because all the circuits and parts that functioned as the droid's memory were just as fried as those on the plane. That had made Oxy angry, it was impossible for something like that to happen. Maybe it could justify the plane because it was a model from two centuries ago, as well as what it was carrying. But for the latest generation droids it was not the same.

Those 3T-DS models were built for space. That the parts were destroyed by collision, explosion, combat was understandable. But that the fractium cells and quantum state memories were drained of energy and destroyed did not make sense. The droids were made to withstand the temperatures and harmful radiation of space.

On the other hand, a quick examination of the two new victims found yielded nothing new, other than the fact that their nervous systems were partly solidified like the other victims. The theory that something related to the fractium had been involved was growing stronger. Shin came to think that maybe those droids could be to blame for the fractium being present. But it was countered by the analysis of the droids. They had pieces that were fractium alloys and it did not appear that the mineral had reacted to anything unusual. If they had been exposed to fractium aboard the ship they should have noticed some reaction in the parts. Unless it was something new, there would be no way to check until something more concrete could be found.

Lizbeth had returned with Shin to the hangar to work, but nothing new there either. She had found two other young victims in their early twenties. Curiously, as Shin had said, the remains of the children on board had not been found.

Lizbeth looked at Shin, in his secluded cubicle. Granger and Jade were with him. It was good that in the last few hours they had hit it off a little better, considering how Shin had known those two it was a good thing there were no hard feelings. Both members of the GSN, Global Security Network, were on rotation with the entire team that had intercepted Shin when he had arrived the previous year. The fight in the Gobi desert and the activation of the Marebito protocol was still fresh in Granger and Jade's minds. But Shin was quite calm and was explaining something to both of them at the time.

Lizbeth was pleased to see him working, but there was something bothering her and it couldn't be that Mai hadn't noticed. It was as if in the last few hours dark circles had appeared under Shin's eyes and he was paler. She had asked him, but he had always told her that he was fine, he didn't feel bad. Maybe he had eaten something bad? They had all eaten the same thing for lunch. Or had they overdone it the night before? The reunion had been somewhat touching for the three of them and in the morning he had woken up ready for another round, so she didn't think it very likely.

"Hey." Lizbeth gasped, behind her Mai had appeared. She had changed her hairstyle to a long braid and in her hands she carried a digital tablet. "I wanted to show you this."

Lizbeth looked at the hairstyle for a few seconds, she was often the one who had done that braid with her hands, even though Mai almost always used that spider-like instrument to comb it quickly. She quickly remembered Shin. "Wait," she said, stoping Mai.

"What's wrong?"

"Doesn't he look a little pale to you?" Lizbeth pointed out.

Mai looked at him. Shin hadn't noticed, his back was turned at the time, watching the screens with Granger and Jade. "Yes I noticed and asked him, but he says he doesn't feel bad," Mai pouted her lips. "Even if he did feel bad he probably wouldn't tell us."

"I don't think it's our fault, is it?"

"I don't think so..." mused Mai, but she looked worried. "Well, that's just why I was coming. To see if you guys are taking a break."

"What do you mean?"

"Look at this." Mai showed her the tablet and touched the touch surface before passing it to her.

"What's this?" Lizbeth looked at the item on the screen. It appeared to be from some kind of museum.

"That museum is in Noville, to the east of here."

"What's so special about it?"

"It turns out that in 111 some fishermen found something rare that they have in the museum."

Lizbeth scrolled through the article. There was a picture of what looked like two seats. "Aren't these...?" Lizbeth looked up.

"At the museum they have it as an oddity only, a curiosity to sell to tourists about the enigmas of the lake."

"Do you think they're the same ones from the plane?"

"I don't know, they're similar, but it's worth a look, don't you think?"

"Yeah... wait a minute. What does this have to do with Shin?"

"Well the museum opens to the public at six o'clock in the morning and you can see if those have anything to do with it. I contacted the owner. Maybe he knows something from that time. If you go there now you can be there in a few minutes. You can use that time to rest... both of you."

"We could rest here."

"Yeah... but I was thinking you might want to talk a little. Be alone, you know."

"Are you telling me you want me to have sex with him?"

Mai changed her face. "Really? Does this seem like the right place?"

Lizbeth looked at the bodies around. " Yeah. I'm sorry... it's not the place or the time."

"I just thought it would be, I don't know, a time for the two of you to be alone and talk... but mostly rest."

Lizbeth frowned. "What about you? Don't you plan to rest?"

"Don't worry, I'm going to take a break in the tent too."

"What about security?"

"Really? There are soldiers everywhere! There's Phil, Zi, Oxy, Ryuuji and Natsuki. I'll be fine."

"You promise?"

"Yes, Mommy."

They both turned and saw Shin. He was looking at both of them at that moment. "Now we just have to convince him, he won't like the idea of leaving you alone," Lizbeth said. From the point of view of both of them Shin was looking at them as if he was reading their lips. Granger and Jade, behind Shin, didn't seem quite sure what was going on but were also watching them.

"Let's do our best. Let's try to go in stealth mode to convince him."

"I think the sound of my knees creaking already alerted him."

Even though he had said that, it certainly gave Mai a strange feeling. After all they had been together as each other's shadow for months. But she also knew that Lizbeth was probably the one who had felt the loneliest during that time. Lizbeth was the one who had instigated Mai to be Shin's partner for the first few months, but she couldn't deny that she felt bad about it. Daily messages, chats, could be enough from a certain point of view.

But they had already waited too long.

It was time for the two of them to have a moment to talk that day. Maybe Lizbeth could talk about that other pending issue that awaited them on the island once the three of them got back together.

There was someone who was surely waiting for them on the island.

And, between the four of them, there was something that could no longer be postponed if they wanted to continue.