Surveillance (The Directorate Book 5)

  Surveillance

  Pam Uphoff

  Genetic engineering lifted psychic powers above the random background of coincidence. Backlash and prejudice against 'Magic' and 'Satanism' resulted in the exile of all genetically engineered people to dangerous worlds; not-quite-parallel earths they weren't expected to survive.

  Fourteen centuries of turbulent Earth history later the exiled magicians have been forgotten, rediscovered, clashed with . . .

  The Empire of the One grew from the accidental stranding of an early cross dimensional exploration party of the genetically engineered, two years before the Exile. They arrived in the middle of a war, where the three great powers, China, the Islamic Union, and Greater Argentina vied for possession of the no-longer-radioactive ruins of Europe and North America. The marooned explorers used their special talents, and a lot of flimflam and fast talk to place themselves on the top of the Islamic Union as the New Prophets of the One True God.

  Fourteen hundred years later, their descendants are still the elite of a united world with twelve cross-dimensional colonies.

  After several deadly clashes between Dimension Age civilizations, the newly fledged Department of Interdimensional Security and Cooperation is attempting, with fair success, to keep the peace among the growing number of worlds exploring the Multiverse.

  But there are always problems for an Intel Team to keep a wary eye on.

  Copyright © 2016 Pamela Uphoff

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN

  978-1-939746-24-5

  This is a work of fiction.

  All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional.

  Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Art Credits:

  © Melkor3d | Dreamstime.com - Destroyed Tenement House Photo

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  What I'm Reading

  About the Author

  Other Books by Pam Uphoff

  Chapter One

  29 Emre 1405 yp

  Gate City, North America

  "All right, add your luggage to the pile, including all comms, computers, or recording equipment, and check in so we know who is or isn't here . . ." The man at the desk finally glanced up and trailed off with his mouth open.

  "Paer. Medic." Paer smiled hopefully. She'd deliberately dressed in field khakis, trying to look serious, and hopefully wouldn't be too underdressed for the occasion.

  An organizational meeting for a camp across. Across, as through a trans-dimensional gate to a world on the other side. The young man got his mouth shut and looked down at his list. "Right." A bit breathless. Swallow. "I didn't realize they meant the Paer."

  Paer winced. "Don't worry, I'm just a medic, now. Nothing special." Please just pretend I'm not the daughter of the President of the Empire of the One.

  "Right. Well, we're budgeted for two doctors and some yet-to-be-determined number of assistants, but right now, you’re the entirety of the medical staff assigned to us. Umm, so, well, go on in and take a seat." He checked her name off the actually printed-on-paper list. She eyed the box behind him. Molecular disintegrator. Holy One! Just how secret is this meeting?

  She pulled all her electronics out of her pockets and shoved them in her suitcase. Included the watch that had had some special capabilities added to it.

  She walked in and stepped to the side of the entrance to take a good look at the room. Or more to the point, the distribution of people already here.

  Three military officers, front and center. Older men in suits beyond them to the right. Behind them, a double clump, eight men in each, with the edgy auras of Action Teamers, took up the right side of the seating area. Back several rows behind the military contingent, three men and two women, all young, all in nice business attire. Drat, should have worn a suit. I'd have fit right in.

  To the left, in front, a gray-haired man in civilian business casual, with four other, younger, men.

  Paer shrugged and strolled down to the third row, and sat behind Business Casual, half a dozen seats from a very professional looking young blonde woman.

  The woman looked over, looked her over, and curled a lip at the khakis . . . then her eyes widened, and she nudged the woman beside her and said something.

  No guess necessary to know what she just said. The young suited group all turned and gawped at Paer. Paer tried to study the empty stage, blank screen. Gave up and let her gaze sweep up the room and settle on the youngsters. She gave them a friendly nod.

  Glanced over her shoulder at the clatter of footsteps, the thump of the door closing, the snick of the lock. A green light lit over the door. The door man was feeding his paper into the disintegrator . . . and then she recognized the three people trotting down to the front.

  Ajha, Fean, and Hob. Three-fourths of the best Exploration Team in the Multiverse.

  She couldn't help but grin. Yes! This is going to be an awesome assignment!

  Ajha glanced at the older men in suits. "Omsi, would you like to start?"

  Subdirector of Intel!

  "No point in a pretty intro. Icti? Get up there."

  The other older man rose and stepped onto the stage. "And there's no way to make the information pretty. Our physicists, the Earth's, and the Disco people are all tracking Helios, the Cannibal World, that whole little miniature Universe. Unfortunately the last encounter spun them off in this direction. But we do have some idea of which worlds they will come close to, and on our updated list of twenty some possible worlds they may hit, the One World is the third most likely."

  Business casual, in front of her, jerked upright and hissed.

  Paer looked around. The uniformed backs, the subdirector, Ajha and Fean were relatively unmoved. They already knew.

  The others . . . curses from the Action types, a couple of them on their feet now. The young suits clearly and variously stunned and upset. The fluffy blonde girl was breathing into her cupped hands, as if trying to not hyperventilate.

  Paer rubbed goose-bumped arms, blinked back tears. Counted her breaths. The merge we saw . . . two dimensional membranes becoming one. The planet, the plants, the animals . . . the people. All merging together. At first attracted to similar things in the other world . . . in the end merging with anything, and dying. Billions of people, the one who wouldn't evacuate . . . just dead.

  "How much time?" She hadn't thought she'd spoken very loudly, but Intel Leader Icti glanced her direction.

  "We're not sure. It could be less than six months. Probably not much more than a year. Depends on which world 'catches' them. They've cruised past six on the original list, with a slight deflection each time."

  That silenced everyone.

  Oh. One. Dad must be frantic. Sick. Oh shit.

  Ajha stepped up beside Icti. "We have no certain way to detect what they will hit, and how directly they must hit it to 'catch.' We don't know if they have their forced merge equipment working yet.

  "Obviously, the Helios have the most experience with this phenomenon. So we are getting a large surveillance effort under way. If they have recovered enough tech to study their path, if they know enough about it to control it, or at least pick out which world they'll try to merge with . . . Hell, for all we know, they may understand the phenomenon well enough to know they can't merge with us."

  Ajha rubbed nervous hands along the front of the podium. "I would love for us to be wrong. But we have to find out. We will be mapping their ruins, finding and infiltrating their government and science esta
blishments. Finding and placing electronic pickups. We'll record everything, translate it and analyze the hell out of it."

  "We'll also, as we get more information, watch the world we think most likely. It's a sparsely inhabited primitive world. Second most likely is a Dinosaur World. But they'll be near Dino World in three months. I can only hope they damn well do merge with it. But no doubt they would find it unacceptable. The Primitive world will be the second world they encounter. It looks even more in line than the Dino World. And then it's our turn, and hopefully those two encounters will throw it off a straight line towards us."

  Ajha hunched his shoulders. "Our immediate goal is to infiltrate some of the government and science offices, bug them so we can keep up-to-date with how they're calculating the odds. And the timing. Assuming they're doing anything of the sort.

  "We're getting full cooperation from Disco, they've been transporting Action Teams around for months, assessing the state of their military. Now we need to get electronic intel in place for constant monitoring. They'll put up all the gates and corridors we could possibly need."

  Subdirector Omsi nodded. "If, One forbid, they are going to hit us, we need three months minimum to evacuate to the colonies. And other Empty worlds. This information is absolutely secure. Until we know we are safe, there will be no leaks. No panics. You will all be across on an Empty World and completely out of communication until we determine that they are not going to hit us. As of now, you are out of communication."

  There was a faint "But . . . " from the young suits.

  I was told to pack for two months, bring my luggage, and say goodbye before the meeting, because we'd be leaving immediately. Hope you guys followed orders.

  Chapter Two

  29 Emre 1405 yp

  Scrublands Base, World EH 2946

  "Paer, good to see you again." Ajha released her hand. "Did you have time to meet anyone? No? Well, these five youngsters are going to be running analyses on all our intercepts. In theory they can decipher the Helios language. Hob is running the instruments, Fean and I will be picking targets for our bugs and placing them."

  He waved toward the Action Teams. "They'll be continuing to scout out military activity, construction, trying to locate a gate mechanism if they have one."

  One Teamer glanced over his shoulder, turned to frown at Ajha. "Closer in now, than we've been doing. Heh. Someone neglected to tell us how high the stakes were. We could have been sabotaging . . . except that wouldn't have mattered, would it?"

  "No. What little intel we have—their own news—indicates that they can slow the merge to manageable speeds for their purposes, we are assuming that they also initiate it. That's one thing we need to learn. And we'll wait until the last minute for sabotage. We don't want to give them enough time to repair whatever the mechanism is or bring up a replacement."

  The gray-haired man in business casual clomped up.

  "And this is Wxxo. Camp Manager, and keeping an eye on the construction of our permanent facilities. Which right now consists of a concrete slab with a roof over it."

  "And a water well, and waste disposal. It was under construction for use as a quarantine facility and hub for permanent gates to unexplored worlds." Wxxo shrugged. "And now it's all ours."

  Ajha nodded. "One of the flats has vendos, fabs, and vats. The other has a water treatment and storage system. The last includes a hospital squishy."

  Paer brightened. "And I'll get that set up and ready . . . in case."

  "Yep. Probably after a week or two. We've got a standard labs and medical crawler that will probably be adequate for now. We'll get two doctors if we expand. And a lot more people. The military will be moving their stuff independently."

  "If we expand?"

  "Well, we could be wrong. Helios might just zip past us and miss anything in our region." The worry lines around his eyes didn't soften, though.

  "Right. So, let's go find out. Am I driving anything?"

  A faint choke from Wxxo.

  "Have you driven a gate since I made you do it?"

  Paer squirmed. "No . . . "

  "Then let Fean drive. Hob? Electronics. I'll drive the Info Team crawler. The Action Teams have drivers." Ajha glanced at his watch. Folded his arms and swept a look around. "In the field, crawlers, despite the fact that you sleep in them, are not domiciles under the law. None of them."

  He stared at the Action Teams until he received nods. Looked at the young analysts. Got stiffened backs and outraged expressions.

  Paer snorted. "I'll be generous and assume you are offended that anyone would think you were rapists. But you'd better be paying attention. Do you understand that the domicile rule doesn't exist in the field?"

  Scowl from the short dark fellow. "Of course we understand."

  "Good. Let's load 'em up!" Ajha walked around to a back door. Unlocked it manually, and then with a retinal scan.

  "I wonder what sorts of secret meetings they hold here regularly enough to warrant a whole setup . . . " The tall boy with the light brown hair gawked at the stairs down, the long concrete hallway.

  Paer snickered. "Too secret to be any of our business, I suspect." She glanced back. The military people were headed out the front door. Everyone else was following them out the back.

  The brown-haired boy followed her down the stairs. "I'm Offe Withione."

  Snobby enough to make sure I knew his rank. At least he followed Directorate preferences and didn't add his Clan.

  The dark man was on their heels. "Amsi Withione."

  Paer nodded. "I don't think we ever met, but I remember you from the seminars."

  He looked surprised.

  "Well, you always did have something to say." The fluffy blonde shrugged. "I was a year ahead of you, and two ahead of Paer, so I never actually met her."

  The tall blonde boy grinned. "And Paer kicked my ass in the Newcomer sorting."

  "Did I? I don't remember you from classes."

  "Well, I was heavy on the language track. Did you know the Helios language has its roots in ancient Greek?"

  "Really? Does that make their name for themselves the Sun People?"

  "Erm . . . we think that's what they call their world, but it could be the Sun, the Solar System, or their runaway microverse."

  Ajha looked over his shoulder. "We've got copies of all the books Xen Wolfson brought back from there. He ripped language from one of them, and Q retained fluency after she merged with one of them."

  "She merged!" The professional woman looked appalled. "But, how can we trust her now?"

  "Same as we always have. She created a spell web to reinforce and restore her genetics, her personality, and her memories. It worked. She's personalized it for me, and if she's the one who comes to put up gates for us, I'll ask her to do the same for you guys. I've memorized a general one, but she doesn't know how well it will work."

  "Eww." The fluffy blonde shivered.

  Paer nodded agreement. "Sorry, I didn't catch your names?"

  Fluffy grinned. "Maybe because we didn't give 'em? I'm Hioz and that's Tayc."

  "Hi Oz?"

  "Yeah, one of the bad ones. And no attempt at a nickname ever seems to stick." She shrugged as they climbed stairs and stopped at the end of the tunnel while Ajha opened another doubly locked door.

  It let out into a small garage full of large vehicles. Six crawlers, three flats, and four smaller utility vehicles. Ajha and Wxxo gave them all a quick look over and started telling off the drivers. Paer followed Fean into the closest crawler.

  Twelve meters long, three meters diameter. A basic cylinder with six wheels on three evenly spaced axles. Inside, this one had the basic med clinic equipment, with an upgraded fab, a docbox life support system, and the usual tools and instruments of a medical clinic all neatly stowed. A larger bathroom with a shower that could double as a decontamination booth. The only thing unusual was the two tiny cubbies of bedrooms, rather than the usual fold-down bunks.

  "Ooo lala! Doctors do get their
privileges, don't they?" Fean looked them over then walked back to the front, where the driving deck was raised four steps above the main floor.

  "I . . . suspect I might as well bunk with the analysts. As soon as the doctors arrive, I'll be there anyway." Paer eyed the cubby wistfully. But there's not enough room for Ebsa and me both. Drat. And he won't be there anyway. Double drat.

  "Yeah, that's where I'm stuck. Ajha said, just in case the boys need to get their asses kicked."

  Paer giggled. "Don't look so hopeful. Do you know them?"

  "We've met. They're pretty typical High Oners, all five of them. Good enough analysts. Give them ten years of hard work and they'll probably be very good. I think Ikti is hoping Ajha can rub off on them."

  Paer blinked and looked around. "Ikti isn't coming with us?"

  "Ha! Ajha says he always hated field work. Felt it was beneath him. So while Ajha's officially only the Head of Electronic Intel, the analysts and the teams will all report to him." Fean sniffed. "They should just make Ajha the Intel leader."

  Paer eyed her. "However much he deserves the recognition, I suspect he'd prefer to be out in the field."

  Fean grinned. "Yep. But dammit . . . he's getting old, and I need to spend more time with the twins. I just can't do the long-term projects anymore. And he needs someone to watch his back, dammit. They still give him all the most dangerous assignments."

  Paer shut up while Fean backed the crawler up and followed the rest of the caravan up a ramp and into the gate field.

  "Wait . . . did you say twins?"

  Fean rolled her eyes, but a smile leaked out. "We had a close encounter with Rior's criminal gang. And yes it involved that wine you've heard so much about, and, well, Eldon. Oh. My. Ahem. That was just three months after your internship. So I really do try to get home as often as possible. For as long as possible. My mother loves having the babies—and me when we're home—staying at her house, but that doesn't stop her from getting sarcastic about my lack of motherly attributes."