Rachel the Warrior

Rachel the Warrior

Part Seven

by G. Lawrence

Captured by terrorists

Recap: Rachel has prevented Nomad from launching the nuclear missiles, but the orbital platform broke up, leaving her stranded in Colonel McKay's space capsule as it was spinning down through the atmosphere out of control.

* * * * * *

Chapter Thirteen

NOMAD

Rachel woke up in a hospital. It was a private room. Empty. She was hooked up to machines, getting blood supports, and probably a morphine drip. Her space suit was gone, replaced by a thin white gown. A red wool blanket lay across her legs.

"Good morning," a strongly accented voice said.

It was a tall nurse with black hair and a sloping nose, looking down at her with a curious expression. Her deep brown eyes were searching. Her features Eastern European. She held an extra pillow.

"O800?" Rachel asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Military people call morning 0800. It's sort of necessary, but kind of dumb."

The nurse looked at her watch. "7:45. You were close."

"Where am I?"

"That is not for me to say. How do you feel?"

"I'm okay. How's my baby?"

"Are you pregnant?"

"I might be."

"We have not run a test for that."

Rachel sat back, feeling tired.

"Will you admit that you are Rachel Montgomery?" the nurse pressed. "There are those here who will torture you to make you confess."

"I don't like that as much as I once did," Rachel answered with a sigh.

The woman laughed, her expression amused.

"So, you are Rachel Montgomery?"

Rachel gave the question some thought. As far as she knew, no public announcement of her marriage had been made, and she never used Rachel Marbury in public. That was for family.

"That's the name my parents gave me," Rachel replied.

She looked toward the door, seeing a bulky man in a brown uniform holding a machine gun. There were bars on the windows.

"I have a feeling I'm not in Kansas anymore," Rachel said.

"Nor are you Dorothy Gale. Do not expect the Wizard to rescue you."

"He wasn't the most reliable wizard."

The nurse laughed again. She seemed surprised by her patient's sense of humor.

"My name is Natasha Russo. There is a button next to your bed. Press it if you need anything."

Natasha put the pillow on a chair and left, closing the door.

Rachel wanted to get out of bed, but her whole body felt stiff. Her hands were swathed with white cream. She looked under the blankets, seeing her elbows and knees wrapped in bandages. Her skin was covered in thick ointments. From the smell, she was being treated for burns. She didn't sense any broken bones. Her hair was singed. Somehow, the capsule made it down without any help from her. She didn't dwell on the details. It didn't matter.

There is no point in getting scared or upset, she thought. She did have questions, but they could wait. She wasn't dead.

Early in the afternoon, Natasha returned with a food tray. Broth and French bread. Her blue nurse's uniform looked freshly pressed.

"Feeling better?" she asked.

"I was feeling fine before. Sort of," Rachel replied.

"Are you ready to answer questions?"

"What kind of questions?"

"Whatever Colonel Joković wants to know."

"Do you have chocolate ice cream?" Rachel asked.

Natasha sat in a chair next to the bed, trying to make sense of her patient. She was a tiny thing. Soft-spoken. With big brown eyes a person could get lost in.

"Yes, I can get chocolate ice cream for you."

"Then I will answer questions," Rachel said with a happy smile.

Fifteen minutes later, Natasha returned with a bowl of ice cream. Rachel ate slowly, like she didn't have a care in the world.

"You will be having visitors soon," Natasha warned.

"Do you have a mirror?" Rachel asked.

"A mirror?"

"I must look awful. Can I borrow some makeup?"

"Miss Montgomery, I don't think you realize the situation you are in."

"It appears I was in a burning space capsule about to die, and now I'm in a nice warm bed speaking with a new friend. If things get worse, at least they got better for a while."

Natasha found a mirror. As Rachel suspected, her cheeks and the tip of her nose were red, which explained the ointments. The burnt ends of her hair needed trimming. Her eyebrows were scraggily. She used a little lipstick, but there was no point in adding blush.

"I don't feel so self-conscious now," Rachel said, giving the mirror back.

"Let me know if you need anything."

"I'll just take a nap. Thank you so much."

That afternoon, two middle-aged men and a younger woman entered. They were professionally dressed. The taller man, with closely cropped black hair and a thin beard, wore a gray military uniform. The shorter man was wearing a sharply tailored blue suit. Possibly made in Italy. The woman preferred a long white lab coat with red leather shoes.

"Do you know who I am?" the bearded man asked.

"No, sir," Rachel said.

"I am Colonel Jakov Joković, head of security for this facility. This is Dr. Pierre Fournier, designer of the Level 13 matrix, and Dr. Tchepikov, Deputy of Operations."

Rachel remained quiet. The names meant nothing to her, other than a list she'd turned over to the NSA.

"We know you are Rachel Montgomery," Joković said.

"That nice nurse of yours has already confirmed that," Rachel replied.

"Well? What do you have to say?" Joković asked.

"About what?" Rachel said.

"You are a criminal. You launched a nuclear missile at our Vos'stat complex."

"Don't be silly, Colonel Joković. I don't know anything about nuclear missiles."

"Scores of innocent men and women were killed," Joković insisted.

"I doubt they were innocent," Rachel replied, scrunching her eyebrows.

"How did you do it?" Fournier asked. The accent was French. He looked fifty, lean with thinning chestnut hair.

"Do what?"

"Defeat Level 13," he clarified.

"Level 13 defeated itself. It's a clusterfuck," Rachel answered.

"What does that mean?" Tchepikov asked. She was closer in age to Rachel, perhaps early thirties. Bleach blonde with streaks of brown, a long narrow face, and thick eyeglasses. Rachel couldn't quite place the accent. Maybe Russian.

"It means the matrix is fundamentally flawed. I warned my government for years, but they wouldn't listen. How many programmers have brain damage trying to balance the layering?"

They exchanged glances.

"Too many," Fournier admitted.

"Don't expect different results. Did you perform an MRI on me while I was unconscious?"

There were more glances. Joković seemed unhappy Rachel knew their concerns in advance.

"We did," Tchepikov confirmed.

"What did you find?" Rachel asked.

"We don't know. We're seeking a specialist who can explain them," Tchepikov said.

"Good luck with that. My mother hired the best doctors in the world, and they are clueless," Rachel explained. "So, what happens next? A firing squad?"

"You do not have a serious attitude," Joković admonished.

"Did my medication survive reentry? The pills from Dr. Keller at the Swiss Institute?"

"No, your suit was too badly damaged," Fournier said.

"Then don't expect me to get better," Rachel warned. "Without my medication, I'm only going to get crazier."

"We have heard rumors of your mental illness. We thought it a trick," Fournier said.

"That's not my problem," Rachel replied. "Are you sending me to a dungeon? My dead boyfriend, the billionaire Daniel Benson, had a dungeon. In the basement of an old barn on the hill behind his house. He would take off my clothes and hang me in chains. That got weird sometimes. Whips aren't as much fun as people think."

The visitors retreated to the door, whispering among themselves. The men left. Tchepikov returned, taking a chair next to the bed.

"Our questions are serious," she said, taking off her glasses and leaning forward.

"Have I refused to answer your questions?"

"I don't know. Can you describe how you were able to counterprogram Level 13 from a space station with a dying power source?"

"Of course."

Tchepikov waited. Rachel wasn't speaking.

"You may begin any time," Tchepikov urged.

"When's dinner? Do you have chicken fettucine? Or cheeseburgers? And I want to know your first name. Usually, I don't use first names with people who are older than me, out of respect, but you're not that much older. How old are you? Forty? Forty-five?"

"I am only thirty-four!" Tchepikov protested, her thin eyebrows going up in indignation. Rachel smiled. Mischievously. Tchepikov got up, closed the door, and found a pillow to help Rachel sit up better.

"My name is Maria. I was born in Kazakhstan. We do not have cheeseburgers, but we do have fettucine. And lasagna. And pizza. If you answer our questions honestly, I will see that you are well-treated."

"I'm not good at lying. Everyone says so," Rachel explained. "My sister, Rory, says I'm the worst liar ever. But I don't always tell the truth. I guess it will depend on the questions."

"Aren't you curious about where you are? And how you got here?" Maria asked.

"Oh, that wasn't hard to figure out," Rachel replied.

* * * * * *

Rachel was reading when Dr. Fournier knocked on her door and entered without invitation. He was casually dressed in a brown suit without a tie. She was wearing gray gym clothes with white wool socks.

"Am I disturbing you?" he asked.

"No, sir, not at all. Please make yourself comfortable," Rachel invited.

"Are the new quarters suitable?"

"Oh, yes. They're nice. I was getting tired of that hospital room."

Fournier looked around. A narrow bed. An old wooden table. Two wooden chairs. A nightstand with an old lamp. Sparse would have been an understatement. It didn't even have windows. Rachel got off the bed, taking one of the chairs. Fournier sat in the other.

"What are you reading?" he asked.

"Natasha found a copy of War and Peace for me. It's really long."

Fournier reached for the book.

"It's in Russian," he discovered.

"Yes."

"You read Russian?"

"Not very well, I'm afraid," Rachel confessed. "Maria gave me a French-Russian dictionary, so I'm learning. It's easier than Ancient Greek."

"How is your health?"

"The burns are still scratchy. Thank you for the ointment."

"Natasha says you are a good patient."

"I don't remember getting burned up before," Rachel mentioned. "I've been shot. And beat up. A lot. Almost drowned. And I had pneumonia. Being burned isn't fun."

"It's a miracle you survived that crash," Fournier said. "Level 13 didn't establish control of your capsule until the very end, and the parachutes caught fire. If Dr. Volker hadn't guided the fall to the lake, there would have been nothing but wreckage."

"Psalms 9:1," Rachel whispered.

"I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds," the Frenchman recited.

"You know the Bible?" Rachel asked in surprise.

"I was raised Catholic. In a small village outside Bordeaux."

"You're a long way from Bordeaux, sir."

"You are a long way from Palmdale."

"Have you been studying me?"

"Miss Montgomery, at the moment, you are the most famous woman in the world. There are tributes for you everywhere."

Rachel looked around the drab room with off-white walls and a cracked tile floor.

"I don't feel so famous," she said.

Fournier produced a bottle of red wine and two glasses. French wine, from Bergerac. He filled both glasses.

"I can only have a tiny taste, sir. I might be pregnant," Rachel said.

"Might be?"

"There weren't any obstetricians on the space platform."

"Think you will live long enough to have a baby?" he questioned.

"Three weeks ago, I didn't expect to live this long. Every day is a blessing."

"To every day," Fournier said, offering the toast. Rachel sipped.

"It's very good, not that I'm an expert," she complimented.

"Fortunately, I am. Do you know it was I who attempted to invade your WHD? I was very close to success, until you stopped me."

"WHD relies on doctor-patient confidentiality. Releasing those files would have compromised our mission statement. Not that it would have helped you very much."

"What do you mean?"

"The health database is just profiles, sir. DNA. Medical records. Family histories. Projections. It's all about individuals, not grand schemes to control populations. Unless you were hoping to create a pathogen directed at specific DNA. Was that your plan? Targeted genocide?"

"No, of course not. Why? Could such a terror be developed?"

"I don't know. I'm a mathematician, not a biologist."

"You did something to your Level 12. An adjustment. It's not even approachable anymore. How did you do that?"

"By phasing the algorithms."

"How?"

"That's not easy to explain, sir. I could show you, but it would take two years."

"I suspect that is true. Could you modify Level 13 to overcome outside interference?"

"I'm sure it can be done, but not by me."

"You refuse?"

"It's beyond my ability. A year ago, I accessed the U.S. government's Level 13 to find my kidnapped niece and nephew. It scrambled my brain so badly that I've never been the same since. I've been trying to stabilize a Level 14 matrix, but the execution keeps eluding me."

"Our spies have reported rumors of a Level 14. What would it do?"

"I was hoping it would cure the planet's environment. Find formulas to eradicate poisons from the air and water. Balance energy production with long-term sustainability. Deal with problems associated with overpopulation by maximizing crop yields."

"The whole planet?"

"Sir, half the planet would be inefficient," she responded.

Fournier paused, making a longer study of the quiet prisoner. He realized she was serious. She truly believed it might be possible to repair the entire world.

"What happened?" he inquired.

"The matrix couldn't cope with the variables," Rachel explained.

"Which variables?"

"The human variables."

"Human variables are reduced when you give people fewer options. Limit them to choices that enhance society rather than divide it. Level 13 can provide that guidance."

"Level 13 is command and control. It can't modulate. It still requires people for that," Rachel rejected.

"That is why coercion is necessary."

"I don't know. Maybe. I'm not good at that stuff. I only know math."

"We want you to consult on our matrix. Make it work the way it needs to. If you do, you will not be harmed. If you do not cooperate, I will not be responsible for the consequences."

"In time, perhaps. I'm finding it hard to concentrate. And I don't know anything about your equipment. Which computers you use. The structuring. The energy source for your control pod. It can get very complicated."

"We have everything for our Level 13 that your government has and more. Modifications have been implemented."

"What sort of modifications?"

"They are secret, and powerful."

"Yes? And how has that turned out?" Rachel asked, her eyes mocking.

"Do not be flippant, Miss Marbury. It could be the most important decision of your life."

"I'll need to study your schematics."

"I'll have Dr. Tchepikov bring them over," Fournier promised.

* * * * * *

"Walsh, what are you doing here? Aren't you going to the memorial?" General St. Claire asked. Mission Control was quiet, a skeleton staff watching the monitors.

"Just another few minutes, Darla," Walsh said, sitting at his workstation.

"They're expecting fifty thousand people at the park. The President has ordered flags flown at half-staff."

"I know, I know. I need to figure this out."

"Figure what out? Most of the debris is gone now. The alerts have been cancelled."

"It's this data."

"The data won't be changing."

"That's the problem."

St. Claire took a seat next to him. The screen was tracking debris from the breakup of HEO-6 three weeks before.

"Look here," Walsh said, pointing at red figures.

"All I see are fragments hitting the atmosphere. You don't think you'll find her body, do you?"

"Why would Nomad use their Level 13 to mask falling debris?"

"They did what?"

"Here. Whatever that fragment was, it was emitting electronic signatures. Level 13 blocked them before our ground tracking could initiate verification. Now it just looks like reflections."

"Cheetah #5? We know the booster broke up, but the warhead never detonated."

"That's possible. I'm working on another theory."

"Which is?"

"McKay's capsule."

"There's no evidence the pod detached while the platform was breaking up."

"What if there was evidence and we didn't detect it?"

"If it did, it burned up, like the command deck and the crew module."

"They weren't emitting signals. Darla, what if Nomad took control of the capsule? What if Rachel was in it?"

"Walsh, when was the last time you got any sleep?" she probed.

"I'm not sure. Tracking this anomaly has kept me occupied."

"My friend, I know you're grieving. You and Rachel started off poorly, and now she's gone. That's a lot of guilt to carry."

"That's not what this is about. Rachel and I made our peace. I need to know what happened up there in those final minutes."

"Let's go to the memorial. Your family will be there. We can pick this up later."

The San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site was crowded. Thousands of folding chairs were set in long rows. A stage had been erected before the USS Texas battleship. Loudspeakers surrounded the seating area. Walsh noticed a choir, ministers, soldiers, and politicians. Flags were everywhere.

"Over there," St. Claire said, indicating a special section set aside for family. "I'll catch up. We're coordinating the services with the National Cathedral in Washington."

Walsh approached a group of chairs surrounded by yellow ribbon, spotting his wife standing next to Pamela Benson. He hugged them both.

"Sorry I'm late," he apologized.

"You cut it close, dear," Virginia warned. "They're about to begin. Pam and Rory flew out to be with us."

"It's good to see you, Pam," Walsh greeted. "I know Tom appreciates it."

"Rachel always said it's important to say goodbye," Pamela responded, tearing up.

Walsh saw Rory and Ashley sitting with Eric and Kevin. Sheila Marbury had come with them, escorted by Bob McLane and his two daughters.

Tom was off at the edge of the crowd, and he had company. Walsh saw his estranged daughters, Meagan and Cynthia, providing comfort. He hadn't seen them in three years. Meagan was twenty-six now, tall like her mother, with long golden hair and an athletic build. She appeared animated in her conversation. Shyer, Cynthia had just turned twenty-four, with short platinum hair and a slim figure. She was holding Tom's arm.

Not wanting to create a scene, Walsh waited until Tom was alone.

"How are you holding up, son?" Walsh asked.

"It's tough, Dad. Having everyone here helps."

"Will you be speaking?"

"No, I can't. Pam is giving the eulogy."

"You were her husband."

"The world doesn't know that. We didn't get a chance to make the announcement."

"You should."

"I need more time."

Tom went to sit between Pamela and Rory, taking their hands. Walsh saw Colonel McKay arrive with the four rescued crew members of HEO-6, all in dress uniform.

"Jeremiah, can we talk?"

"What do you need, Walsh?" McKay said, sounding angry.

"Are you speaking today?"

"Why would I be speaking?"

"You were with her in those final hours. You were the last person to see her alive."

"I'm the one who killed her."

"No. No, you're wrong. It wasn't like that," Walsh protested.

"I should have known what she was doing. All the clues were there."

"Have you talked to Taylor about this?"

"Fuck Taylor. He wasn't responsible for her. I was."

"Why would Nomad mask debris coming down from HEO-6?"

"Do what?"

"After the platform broke up, something came down emitting electronic signatures. Nomad masked them."