Traces of Infinity: The Prime Trace Series, Book Five

By Dennis E. Smirl

Jate Goldmet thought he was doing the right thing when he and his team of inter-dimensional operatives destroyed a lab built to produce the deadliest virus known to man. But when a superior complains about Jate's insolence and insistence in getting his team back to Prime Trace safely, the roof caves in on him.

Put on what may turn out to be permanent suspension, Jate sets aside some time to pursue his fascination with Egypt. There, he encounters a mysterious female interest and then into an old friend who has a job for him. When he learns his new gal-pal is an operative of Prime Trace's iteration of Interpol and that he's her target, he barely gets away with his freedom—and his life.

When his old friend tells him the job he’s offering is breaking an even older friend out of a heavily-guarded jail in another Trace—or iteration of existence—he wonders if he isn't in over his head. Then, when he starts getting recruitment feelers from a potential employer who is definitely not human, Jate wonders if he's lost his mind.

Solving his problems with his Minoan employers has never been easy, but Jate have taken on more than any one man—or superman—can bear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dennis E. Smirl
• Release date: Mar 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311952202

Dennis E. Smirl

Dennis E. Smirl has been an Air Force officer, a salesman for a Fortune 500 company, a school psychologist, a computer science instructor at several colleges and universities, and a business owner. Married to his college sweetheart for more than half a century, he has spent time in Mexico, Japan, and South Vietnam, but prefers to take family vacations in the USA and Canada. A writer for as long as he can remember—he attempted a first novel at age ten—his first taste of national publication was a race report written and published in 1965. A science fiction fan for almost the same length of time, Mr. Smirl joined the Science Fiction Book Club when member numbers were much shorter. Beyond his interest in Science Fiction, he has had a lifetime interest in horseback riding, auto racing (as a driver), golf, photography, computers and information processing, and mystery novels. He has written thirteen novels and more than seventy short stories and novellas.

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Traces of Infinity

Volume V: The Prime Trace Series

A Science Fiction Novel

BY DENNIS E. SMIRL

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without author’s permission, except for minor passages used for the purpose of review. Your respect of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Copyright © Dennis E. Smirl. Lost Aardvarks Press. Smashwords Edition.

Published by Dennis E. Smirl at Smashwords

Lost Aardvarks Press

Topeka, KS 66614

[e-mail]

— Chapter 1 —

Crawling over rocks, gravel and hard ground is not my idea of fun. Doing it in the dark when there’s no moon and what little starlight that might be available is blocked by thick clouds, is even less fun. Doing it while other beings are trying to kill me borders on the insane. My infrared visor was tongued all the way to maximum. I was seeing everything around me in flickering yellow-green images that were hard on the eyes. Still, it made it possible for my team and me to scuttle from one boulder to another and minimize the amount of time we were exposed to the guns of the beings guarding our objective. At least, that’s how it was supposed to work.

Suddenly, Anatanya Dobryneen shouted, I am hit!

Dammit! Where and how bad? I asked into my helmet microphone. I tried to speak calmly as bullets the size of grasshoppers snapped over our heads at supersonic velocities.

Just below the right knee, she groaned; the pain evident in her voice. I think my leg is broken.

Is there penetration through your armor?

I am checking now. The pain hadn’t eradicated her Eastern European accent. I waited through her pause. No, she continued. My armor is intact.

Then tell your nanocomps you need help.

In what way can they help?

If I hadn’t been wearing a helmet and face mask, I would have slapped my forehead. Dobryneen was new to my unit and, in the typical manner of Minoan ubersecrecy, nobody had bothered to tell her all the things she needed to know. Unfortunately, ‘nobody’ included me.

Tell them to take command of your armor and stiffen it into a splint that will hold the bone in place, I said. After that, we’ll see if you can stay in the fight.

Hopefully, I will not be so helpless that I cannot fight, she grumbled. Even with a broken leg. Then I heard a low, Unhhh, knew that the artificial intelligence of her armor was directing its servos to immobilize the broken bone—and that she was feeling it.

Did you ask for painkiller? I inquired, marveling at how much she didn’t know.

No. I feared it might affect my ability to continue. I heard her try to conceal one more groan of pain, and then she said, My leg, it is solid now. I believe I can advance with the team.

Dammit, Dobryneen, if you need the painkiller, ask for it. It won’t affect your ability to stay alert. I shook my head. ‘Advance with the team’ she’d offered. And what a team! Critically short on people, we were recruiting everywhere and putting people in the field before they were ready.

First, there was Emmanuel Malkin, fresh from a medieval Europe in a nearby alternate universe who was so new to the job he squeaked. Add Wen Ju Khan, a 5’ 9" Asian from Trace Plus 11 who would have preferred to pitch in baseball’s major leagues—and who almost had the talent. Then there was Anatanya Dobryneen, from yet another alternate universe, one in which Russia was even more primitive and truculent than the Russia I knew. She was almost as green as Malkin, and was probably going to be a lot less mobile than she thought, no matter how much she wanted to keep fighting. Finally, there was me; Jate Goldmet, team leader, all around wise guy, drug-enhanced thug, and joyful bone-breaker with persistent anger-management issues. And, I almost forgot, a machine gun equipped enemy force that just happened to be stunner-resistant, who had us pinned down.

I looked to my left. Wen Ju was curled up behind a good-sized boulder, trying not to expose any part of his being to the bullets flying about our heads in close formation. Dammit, it wasn’t supposed to be this tough, he griped over another rattle of machine-gun fire.

Sure it was, I replied. You just weren’t paying attention during the briefings.

So what do we do about our stunners not being effective? Dobryneen asked. Her outcrop was smaller than Wen Ju’s and that may have been why she had a broken leg.

Malkin wasn’t saying anything. He was curled up behind a ridge larger than any of the rest of us had appropriated, and even from a distance and in the darkness of a moonless night, I thought I could see him shaking. Maybe it was because they didn’t have machine guns in the Middle Ages and he hadn’t had time to get used to the difference.

I’m going to try one more stunner grenade, I said, pulling one out of the voluminous pockets in my portal cloth oversuit.

You’re wasting your time, Wen Ju said. You already put one right in the nest with them, and nothing happened.

Could have been a dud, I muttered. Of course, I’d seen the bright blue flash and knew the thing had gone off. Make some noise, Wen Ju. Draw their fire off me.

He slipped his stunner up over the top of his boulder and held the firing stud down, while waving the beam back and forth in the general direction of the machine gun. That got their attention and they shot at him for a while. As they did, I came up on my knees and threw the stunner grenade like a strike from left field. Then I dropped to my right so I could see the result, and watched as the grenade landed in the middle of the nest. It detonated with yet another bright blue flash, and any sentient in close proximity should have gone to sleep immediately.

That didn’t happen.

They just kept shooting.

But now, they were shooting at me.

I told you so, Wen Ju chided. How about letting me up the ante?

I considered his offer. What he wanted to do was uncivilized. Our stunner devices are supposed to work on any warm-blooded creature with a well-defined central nervous system, and because of that, our bosses insist that we avoid killing anyone on the other side.

It’s a Minoan thing. I don’t like it, but I can live with it, because when the grenades go off, they deliver a close-range electromagnetic pulse at frequencies that should disrupt any high-level neural activity and keep it suppressed for at least eight hours. It’s considered by our bosses to be an effective, non-lethal way of dealing with our enemies.

What Wen Ju was offering wasn’t civilized—but it would be effective.

How good are you at throwing blind? I asked.

Probably incredible, he said with a nervous chuckle. But then, I’ve never tried something like this.

No doubt.

I motioned that he, Dobryneen, and Malkin should disable the pickups on their mission recorders. Malkin didn’t respond. Too scared, I guess, but that was okay. I’d fix the problem later. Then I disabled mine.

So what’s in store for the guys on the other side? I asked, once I was sure that no record of our activities would be kept. About that time, a flurry of bullets knocked several chunks of rock from way too close, bouncing them off my facemask and helmet.

That pissed me off.

Four hundred grams of super fast propellant. Gonna’ make a heckuva’ bang.

That could kill somebody—or some being. You didn’t bring anything less obnoxious?

No room in my pockets, Jate. Sorry.

Not as sorry as the geeks on the other side will be. But maybe that’s what they deserve for defending a lab designed to produce the most lethal virus in history.

Okay. I’ll draw fire for you. I glanced around the boulder, squeezed off a half-second of stunner fire, and then pulled back quickly as one of the shooters spotted me and adjusted his aim.

On the way, Wen Ju said, grunting with effort as he threw the grenade from an almost prone position.

I glanced just after the explosion. Even from forty meters, the noise had made my ears ring, and the flash nearly had blinded me. Unfortunately, he’d missed, and all that he’d done was get the other side shooting faster.

You were a little short and right of target. I had to yell that bit of info as the other side was now shooting at us with everything they had. Then I asked, What’s your fuse delay?

Five seconds.

Throw late. Try for an air burst right over the nest.

That might work. One… two… He grunted again as he threw the second grenade. I peeked around the boulder, saw the grenade in flight, and then ducked before it detonated above its target. The explosion seemed even louder and then things got quiet.

Do you think they are dead? Dobryneen asked after a few seconds had passed.

Probably just unconscious, I said, hoping I was right. Wen Ju’s grenades were contraband, but they’d saved our lives—by jeopardizing others. And that was a major Minoan prohibition. We had stunners, armor, and because we usually worked at night, stealth. We were supposed to be able to immobilize the guys on the other side, do whatever we were told would make still another alternate universe ‘safe for Minoan theocracy’, or some such, and come home victorious. Instead, because our stunners hadn’t worked as advertised, we’d used explosives and shrapnel against residents of a Trace in which we were unwelcome visitors.

It was not a pretty picture.

But, we were at war—and no one seemed interested in taking prisoners. I chanced another look and saw nothing, except for low-hanging smoke—residual from the explosion of the grenade. In a half-crouch, I ran the forty meters to the machine gun nest and peered inside. The occupants definitely weren’t human, but they were certainly unconscious. A couple of them were leaking precious bodily fluids from various orifices, but because they looked more reptilian than mammalian—and my ever-present xenophobia—I wasn’t feeling that much guilt and revulsion at what we’d done. The question still unanswered was, why hadn’t our stunners, or our stunner grenades worked?

Motioning the rest of the team forward, I watched as Wen Ju ran in a crouch, Dobryneen crawled, and Malkin just stood up and walked straight toward my position. Malkin, get down! I warned, but he fell backward at the same time that I heard the crack of a rifle shot.

Sniper! I yelled, although I could have saved my breath. Wen Ju and Anatanya were already flat on their bellies, being one with the Earth. Malkin was lying on his back, his arms spread wide—and he wasn’t moving.

Where had the shot come from? I’d heard it without seeing a muzzle flash, and there had been several echoes. I couldn’t find the geek unless he fired again.

Malkin groaned and tried to get up, and as he did, the sniper fired another round. I heard it smack against the kid’s armor, and hoped it hadn’t gotten through. I’d also seen the muzzle flash and knew where the geek was.

Wen Ju, Anatanya, get to cover when I throw. I had another stunner grenade, and although I knew it wouldn’t stop the shooter, it might distract him long enough for my still-mobile team members to get to safety.

Throwing now. I activated the grenade and sent it right at the spot where I had seen the muzzle flash. It hit the ground, bounced once, and went off with yet another bright, blue flash. As it did, Wen Ju and Anatanya hurried toward me, Wen Ju making it to the front of the machine gun nest—where I was waiting—while Anatanya found still another boulder to hide behind.

Want me to take him out? Wen Ju offered.

Easy decision.

Yeah. Do you know where he is?

I saw his muzzle flash. He pulled a dark, cylindrical object from his pocket and broke its seal. Here goes.

That explosion seemed even louder, but only because Wen Ju’s target was no more than twenty-five meters distant. I waited a moment, and then took a look. The shooter was half in, half out of his fighting hole, and obviously out of the battle. I could see dark liquid flowing from his eyes and ears that I figured hadn’t been there earlier, and he wasn’t twitching.

Did I get him? Wen Ju asked.

Yeah. He’s taking a nap for the rest of the night. I figured it would be eternally longer than that.

Malkin moaned. He was still alive, and needed help. But how many other shooters were out there? Then I knew I didn’t care. Malkin had stopped two rounds, and every moment counted. I told Wen Ju that he was team leader if anything happened, and went after my wounded team member. When I got to him, I grabbed an arm and started dragging him back toward the cover offered by the machine gun nest. The whole excursion took about seven seconds, and during that time, I didn’t get shot at.

— Chapter 2 —

When I got back to the machine gun nest, Dobryneen had already made her way there and was cursing softly to herself.

What’s your problem? I asked, checking on Malkin’s condition. No holes in his armor, but there were two deep impact craters, both on his chest. He wasn’t breathing that well, and his biosenders were going crazy, telling anyone who was paying attention that he was bleeding internally.

It is my leg, team leader. Even with help from the nanocomps and the painkiller, I am crippled. I do not think I can keep up.

No surprise there. Get Malkin back to the boats. If he doesn’t make it, at least we’ll have given it our best shot.

But with only the two of you to link up with… She stopped, apparently to think. You are right. I will get him to the boats. But should he expire…

Then guard his corpse. I reached down into the gun nest and recovered a weapon that looked enough like an assault rifle that I had no doubt about its purpose. After fumbling with it for a couple of seconds I found a release and pulled the magazine out of the rifle. It was heavy, loaded to capacity. I checked the action. Yup, a hot one up the pipe. I replaced the magazine and handed the rifle to Dobryneen. There should be about fifty rounds here. If it becomes necessary, use it to defend yourself. And from the size of the rounds, expect some recoil.

Understood, team leader.

Look, Dobryneen, you took a bullet and didn’t fold up on us. From now on, call me ‘Jate’.

As you wish, team… Jate. Now I must see to Malkin.

I started to leave and then remembered. Whoa! I almost forgot the package.

Oh yes, the package. She unhooked it, handed it to me, and I fastened it to a belt loop. At eighteen kilos, the micronuke was a load. With it on one side and the mind-wiper on the other, I felt like a pack mule. Doing my best to ignore the extra weight, I focused my attention on Wen Ju Khan. How many grenades do you have?

Ten, he said as he helped himself to another of the assault rifles that littered the nest.

Think that’ll be enough? I picked up a rifle for myself after grabbing three full magazines. Wen Ju had picked up twice that many, but he wasn’t carrying a micronuke. Then I pointed at a single building, sitting in the middle of the island that was our objective. As it was about five hundred meters from us, we still had a ways to go.

Staying low and using what little cover was available, we moved forward. I wondered if there were any more machine-gunners or sniper geeks, just waiting for us to get close enough that they could blast away at point-blank range.

After a hundred meters, we hadn’t encountered any more resistance, and the fact that things had gone from hectic to just tense gave me time to think.

&&&&

It started when my boss, Matthew Samaras, summoned me to his office.

Get in here, Jate, he said as he saw me approaching. I was surprised that his door was wide open. It was not his usual mode of office protocol.

I hate doing this so soon after your last mission, he said before I had a chance to sit. But we’re facing a serious problem—you could even say critical—and I’m getting two teams together immediately.

I nodded. Why was this so different? We were always rushing about, trying to put out some small fire before it erupted into conflagration, and we never had sufficient time, or people, to truly be ready for a mission.

Jate, he continued, I’m assigning Wen Ju Khan, Anatanya Dobryneen, and Emmanuel Malkin to your team.

That was unusual. Typically, he gave me some choice as to who would be on my team. Who, or what, is Emmanuel Malkin? I asked.

Matthew pointed at a young man sitting in a chair to his left. Looking to be no more than sixteen or seventeen years old—although I knew my bosses wouldn’t employ anyone less than twenty-one—Malkin was slim, pale, and sporting a shock of light brown hair that could have used a trim. He had chubby cheeks with a few scattered acne scars, brown eyes, and a pair of very large ears that stuck straight out from the sides of his head.

Okay. I knew Dobryneen and Khan and liked working with both of them. I nodded at each in turn and then walked over to where Malkin was sitting.

I’m Jate Goldmet, I said, extending a hand.

He jumped out of the chair as if he’d been shot, and pumped my hand vigorously with a damp and clammy palm. Emmanuel Malkin, he said in oddly accented Modern Minoan. This is going to be my first real time out, he added with a goofy grin.

I spun to face Matthew. What did he just say?

My boss cleared his throat. It’s not that bad, Jate. He’s been out on a couple of practice excursions. You remember when Georgio Capaletti took you out the first time?

Of course I did. The bruises—and the memories of my mistakes—took a long time to go away. "And how… critical is this job supposed to be?"

It could prove… ah… extremely difficult, he replied. But, as usual, we’re getting far afield, aren’t we?

Right. Then, silently, I mouthed, "Not good."

Matthew nodded, and just as silently replied, Sorry. Then, so all could hear, he said, We have a joint briefing scheduled a few doors down the hall. Would you all please follow me?

He led, we followed, and as we walked, I did everything I could to size Malkin up. Three or four centimeters shorter and at least ten kilograms lighter than me, he looked a bit soft. He also had that head of mousy brown hair, complete with widow’s peak, a wispy mustache that I hadn’t noticed earlier, and an expression falling somewhere between that of a deer in the headlights and total eyes-wide-open mindlessness. Contrary to Matthew’s guarded recommendation, I didn’t think he’d be a lot of help, particularly if things got rough.

On the other hand, I had Anatanya Dobryneen. Tall, broad-shouldered, well-muscled, and cat-quick; she was a good-looking, blue-eyed, auburn-haired woman in her early thirties who could do her job as well as anybody.

Beside her was Wen Ju Khan, a bit on the short side, sleekly muscled, and as dangerous as a room full of enraged cobras. His northern Chinese heritage showed in the flatness of his face and the slant of his eyes, but he was seventh generation American from Trace Plus 11, my home trace. Along with a total love for baseball, knew more about his nation’s history than just about anyone I’d ever met.

Upon entering the briefing room, I noticed that the other team had already arrived and taken their seats. I didn’t recognize three of them, but their team leader, Akeeta Martensen, and I were old friends.

I thought you’d retired, I said as I sat beside her and gave her cheek a quick, friendly nuzzle.

Matthew made me an offer… She batted her jade-green eyes as she waited for me to finish. She wasn’t flirting—just playing a role that had somehow evolved from our mutual interests.

That you couldn’t refuse. Call it cross-cultural contamination, but somehow she’d seen Coppola’s The Godfather—along with several other movies from my Trace—and took pleasure in feeding me lines whenever she got a chance.

Does that mean you’re back in the rotation? I asked, whispering.

No. I just came on board for this one. After that, it’s back to my homey cabin in the hills.

Some cabin.

I’d been there, so I knew that it was actually an eight-bedroom chalet in the Alps that in other times and places would be considered a mansion. It came complete with heated swimming pool, sauna, an enormous hot tub, three balconies that faced the mountains, plus cooks, maids, and butlers–all of which were robotic.

That, or something even showier, was what I had planned for my retirement—assuming I lived that long.

Good morning, everyone, our first briefer began. A tall slim African, she wore her jet-black hair in tight beaded braids, and I noticed immediately that her brown leather shoes weren’t regulation Minoan, which were irritatingly uncomfortable, and… plastic, like the abominations I was wearing. The rest was standard uniform issue—so she obviously worked for us—and it fit her nicely, indeed.

As an overview, she began, I can tell you that your objective is a biological production and containment facility in Trace Plus 96. This facility is situated in a remote island in the big ocean. She used that term because all the portal adepts were from different Traces, or parallel universes, and each of us had a different term for what I called the Pacific.

Your assignment, she said, will be to overwhelm a small but effective non-human security force, destroy the facility and all its contents, and capture and mind-wipe the scientists and technicians who are working there.

My hand shot up. Mind-wipe? What does that mean? I’d asked the question of my nanocomps the instant she’d used the term, but all I got was, ACCESS DENIED.

She glanced at Matthew.

He shrugged and nodded.

This will be covered in detail in a subsequent briefing, she said, looking at me. But to explain superficially, you will subject the captured scientists and technicians to a procedure which will erase all their memories for the past several years."

That’ll probably make it hard for them to recognize their children, Red-haired Akeeta said with a sly grin.

Unfazed except for a slight eye roll, the briefer replied, "It will make it impossible for them to recognize or remember any children born within the specified period. Or even a spouse, if they partnered within that time frame. More important, however, is the fact that they will not be able to remember a thing about the work they have been doing for those past few years. And, if you are successful in destroying everything, they will not have a starting point from which to try to recreate their project."

So what have they been making there? Specifically? I asked.

She looked at Matthew a second time. He shrugged again and said, Jate always manages to hear our briefings totally out of sequence. Why should this time be any different?

Turning her attention back to me, she said, Very well. The purpose of this facility is to manufacture an exceptionally potent and unusually contagious strain of the influenza virus—one that infects one hundred percent of humans exposed and is fatal in more than ninety-nine percent of those cases. This viral strain, which exists only in this facility, mutates with each generation without losing potency, making it impossible to develop immunization. It must be eradicated and all research leading to its creation and development must be destroyed.

I had to sit back to catch my breath. That was a weapon that, if properly employed, would make a thermonuke look like a wet firecracker. A single release of such a virus in the proper place could wipe out an entire population.

Question, Akeeta said. While we’re in the process of destroying this facility, what is our probability of exposure to the virus?

The briefer looked straight at her. The chances are low, as you will be wearing effective respiratory filtration. And, by using a low-yield micronuke, everything in the facility will be vaporized and/or irradiated. Nothing in the facility should survive. However, that depends on how carefully you follow our instructions. So, it would be in your best interest to pay strict attention to all subsequent briefings. Then she looked at me again. And, you might allow the briefers to follow their notes precisely, in order that something important isn’t left out or glossed over. Of course, you will also have full nanocomp downloads to help in case you don’t remember something, but you also know that in certain cases, nanocomps can fail to properly store and retrieve data.

Akeeta nodded. I hunkered down in my chair. I’d made a lot of jaunts into alternate universes, been shot at in most of them, and been shot up in several. Medicos had to order out new organs from some unimaginably icky nutrient tank where spare parts of me had been grown and stored. And through all that, I’d managed to survive.

But this job scared me.

— Chapter 3 –

The briefings went on and on… but at least, we got answers to most of our questions. For once, our bosses were trying to answer us truthfully and completely.

At least I hoped they were.

That evening we trooped aboard one of the ubiquitous, hybrid flying wing/helium-filled dirigible aircraft the Minoans favored and settled down for what promised to be a very long ride. We would be in the air for seventy to eighty hours, depending on how many storms we would have to avoid and whether we would be bucking headwinds. I planned on sleeping and eating and boning up on every detail of the mission—in no particular sequence, but as the spirit moved me—and getting to know the new member of the team. Once we were airborne, I spent a few moments with Akeeta, and between us, we tried to get caught up on any recent developments in our respective lives.

Seriously, I asked after some innocuous chatter. "How did Matthew get you back in harness?"

She laughed. "Seriously? I didn’t know you knew the word. Then she looked away for a moment as though lost in thought. As she did, I noticed that she had lost a few kilos. Her face was thinner, and she wasn’t as muscled up as she had been. It almost made her look feminine—a look she’d never bothered to cultivate. Chalk it up to boredom, Jate. I have all the money I could ever want or spend, but the problem is, I’ve been there, done that, and worn holes in the t-shirt that came with the trip. How many museums can you visit? How many mountains can you climb? How many rivers can you raft?"

So the world is not enough.

She only nodded, evidently having missed that flick. Interesting way of putting it, but, yes, I would say so. I’m jaded by all that’s gone before and the only thing that can get my juices running is stepping through a portal.

Even though you know that on every mission there’s a statistical probability you won’t make it back?

Of course, she said with a nervous laugh. But the only missions I plan to take are ones that you’re running because you always seem to have good luck. People who step through a portal with you have a much better chance of getting back alive.

She was wrong.

It was common knowledge that I’d lost people on various earlier missions, but usually had good luck with the ones closest to me. Then, seeing hot food waiting, I got up. Let’s hope it stays that way… For both of us.

I invited Malkin to