The Spatial Shard
Chapter One: Finding McEmbree

He could hear his heartbeat over everything else; over the clamor of his footfalls and the cursing of those whose papers and bodies he left spilled in his wake. His inclination to focus on the sound of the organ in his chest came from fright and fatigue. But Avery Brewer had a job he had to do. Failure to complete his task might well mean the stopping of his heart; a gambit he was not willing to take. He brushed his long gray hair out of his face and pushed himself to continue running. He could breathe easier later… he could get over the pain later… but he had to make sure he had the option of a ‘later’ in his near future. Suddenly, the company plan to give all division heads a StairMaster made sense. It was too bad Avery had yet to take his out of storage.

“This is Brewer,” he gasped into his wireless headset as he tore through another doorway. “Put me-” he started, but another collision in the corridor cut his speech short. Balkin... Baskins... Rat Face... Avery could not be bothered to remember his name at the moment. He simply nodded, softened the glare coming off his blue eyes and waved as he panted, scrambling up to his feet.

“Yes, Mr. Brewer,” the automated operator responded. Lifeless heap of bolts and wire! Only for a moment was Avery proud of the design and implementation of the software necessary to get the mechanism to act and react correctly. Pride meant big chests and big chests only made for an easier target to be struck. He shook his head clear of the distraction and placed his hand to his headset to keep it from falling off the side of his head.

“Put me through to Vey. Tell her we’ve got a lock! A lock on the Shard!”

There was an awkward silence in the conference room; the product of very tough negotiations that had been anything but decisive. There was no clear winner, no one held an advantage. But the last raised point of contention was one Samantha Vey had not been expecting.

“It’s a very simple question,” Mark said with a slight grin on his face. “When are we going to see something new? It’s not as if you didn’t promise us new designs six months ago, and I think we’ve been more than patient. You’ve been given this much time based on your past accomplishments, but this is starting to give us all a bad feeling.”

Samantha jerked her head to the side, moving her dark brown curls out of her brown eyes. Perhaps it had been a mistake for her to wear her hair down over her shoulders; its length gave her few options. She leaned back in her chair and smiled. Looking nervous would just be blood in the water and the sharks in the room were always hungry. How many meetings had she witnessed go sour because of the reaction to implications of failure? It was an easy trap to fall into for those who wore their hearts on their sleeves.

Mark Greenwald was the one who had come forward with the statement. It meant he was escalating his assault on Optimum Horizons, and he thought he could find a way into the inner sanctum through Samantha’s heart. He was definitely a good looking man, but she could find better in any ‘meat market,’ and those choices would come without the migraine aftermath. She hated the delusion that wearing a skirt somehow meant she was not able to handle her business. But she had seen men make enough mistakes to know what not to do.

“First things first, Mr. Greenwald,” she replied in a very calm tone, the first step in avoiding his trap: act as if the implication has no actual merit. “I think we need to address your group’s inability to shore up the marketing and distribution of the projects Optimum Horizons has already delivered. What sort of a fool would I look like, unveiling a new design when you have yet to meet your contractual obligations with the three projects we’ve already built and delivered?” Her eyes drifted to her phone. Brewer’s line was flashing white. It seemed she was going to receive some good news after all.

“Maybe you came here today to tell me that the government contracts that were submarined by Congress are now set to close in a positive manner,” she said, standing up, a sure sign the meeting was drawing to a close. She was taller than most women, standing at nearly one and three-quarter meters tall; more muscle than fat and quite shapely at sixty-six and a half kilograms.

Makeen came from his position near the wall just behind her seat. It was something of a small wonder how a man of his girth could move so quickly and quietly. He took hold of her chair as she stood and pulled it back, allowing for a clear path to the doors.

The eyelids over her soft brown eyes drew tighter together, drawing more emphasis to what she was about to say. “No? Then perhaps before I give you more of my developer’s hard work, you can prove to Optimum Horizons you are worthy of consideration of any new material. Good day, gentlemen. Mark.” She quickly turned and donned her small headset. Samantha Vey was drawn to small things. The smaller technicians could make things, the more she loved using them. This particular headset fit into a special compartment sewn into the outside pocket of all of her executive suit jackets. As soon as it was secure in her ear, she tapped the small control button and the tone told her she was connected to her communications hub. She waited for Makeen to close the conference room doors behind them before she spoke.

“This is Vey. Go for network.”

“This is the network,” the synthesized voice of the main computer responded in her ear, and she looked back to insure that Makeen was linking up to the hub as well; his device was already in place. In many ways, looking back was overkill. Makeen had yet to fail her in any measure. But the stillness of his deep brown eyes and his ‘thumb up’ response reassured her. He towered over her by a little more than twenty-three centimeters. The cut of his tailored suits did little to mask his massive frame, and there were many who were surprised to know he weighed over one hundred twenty kilos. He kept his thick black hair pulled back in a ponytail so as to never chance it getting into his eyes, which were nearly as dark as his hair.

“Assumption is a foolish man’s mistake,” he had once told her. “I find no disservice if, when you do check in on me, I have done or am in the process of doing what I am supposed to do.”

“Open the administrative channel and activate both users,” Vey commanded and she could hear the expected clicking sounds. “Receive Brewer,” she directed as she continued down the corridor, her right thumb rubbing against the side of her index finger. It had been along time since Avery used the White Line… too long! A soft and low tone registered just before she could hear Brewer’s heavy breathing. She had no clear reason, but she was suddenly anxious and her stride betrayed her normal steadiness. She was almost jogging when she turned toward the elevator. Makeen beat her to it and hit the call button.

“Vey, we’ve got a positive sighting of McEmbree. He’s in Vallegrande.” Makeen quickly took out his Smartphone, linking it to the network to start making travel arrangements. He knew of the importance of the find and of Samantha’s confidence in the security teams that had been dispatched in the past. Too many times they had come back with foul explanations and poor results.

“Avery,” she replied, stepping into the elevator car. Makeen was quick to hit the button to take them to her office. Samantha hit the stop button on the elevator and changed her destination. The elevator car dropped into the onsite underground Research and Development facility. “… try to understand that I don’t have Google Earth running through my head twenty-four hours a day! You could be a little more forthcoming with the information.”

“It’s in Bolivia,” Brewer explained shortly before the sound of a collision. The link with Brewer went dead and Samantha quickly tapped her headset.

“The word is Spanish for ‘Big Valley’,” Makeen noted. “No doubt he is using the site due to its remote status and the possession of an airstrip.

“McEmbree’s come out of hiding,” the large man declared. “Probably to get his hands on more cash so he can disappear again. He won’t be there by the time we get there.”

“Then out-think him and predict where he will be,” Vey ordered.

“That is nearly impossible,” Makeen replied, still punching his Smartphone. “He knows how both you and I think, and has taken such matters well into account.

“But what I can do is to make the delivery of whatever parcel he is waiting for as difficult as possible. Are you in the market to sell one of our missile systems?”

“Do whatever is necessary,” she resolved and Makeen nodded with a pleasant smile. The elevator doors opened and Samantha walked directly toward Lab Seventeen. “I’m about to do the same!” There was a click in their ears.

“That would be Brewer again,” Makeen concluded.

“Coordinate efforts for me,” Samantha directed without breaking her stride. “I have to go back on an empty promise.”

“Then there will be little collateral damage,” Makeen added before the elevator doors closed. He was once again bound for Vey’s office to coordinate response and travel plans. The last time Brewer had been trusted to do either the response team had arrived at the site in question eight hours after McEmbree had been sighted.

It took nearly three minutes just to get into Laboratory Seventeen. It was a pain, especially since time was a major factor in the proper execution of her aims.

But Dr. Seth McEmbree had proven to be a better adversary than she had dared to imagine, and Samantha Vey was nothing if not the sort of person who learned from her mistakes. She had not expected McEmbree to betray her; he did. She had not expected him to make it off the property after the act of his greatest treachery; he was gone hours before she knew what he had done. She had not expected him to make it out of California, let alone the United States. By the time she had heard from her contacts in the FBI, Seth McEmbree was a ghost who had arranged to leave several false trails that exceeded the limits of her clandestine contacts. Lastly, she had not expected McEmbree to be able to survive as a homeless ‘ghost’ of a man for thirteen months. The culmination of missed opportunities and being outwitted time and time again had composed a profile of a man who had never revealed his true potential to her or anyone at Optimum Horizons. While he had been hired as a Mechanical Engineer, it was painfully obvious to her that he was also gifted in the fields of Electrical Engineering and Psychology.

“My mistake was the Shard,” Samantha thought as her eyes were scanned for the last time. “Why did I trust him with the Shard?” Another interior door opened and Samantha quickly donned the body suit necessary for passage through the last portal. It was obvious the equipment personnel had received her memo regarding the suits and had changed the ensemble to one that could be put on without the need to consult a manual. “Because of his intuition!” she remembered. “It was as if he was clairvoyant!

“The way he came into the middle of the Poseidon Probe Project and corrected the problems we were having with it,” she thought. “My best minds made zero progress on those issues in over 200 work hours. He made the probe more efficient and cheaper to make and maintain; our profit-margin shot through the roof!

“Somehow I knew he would be able to reproduce what I had seen Seaver do with the Shard… and he did!” Samantha closed her eyes to the memory. It was too painful to complete the reflection. Seth McEmbree had liberated more than simple property from her possession. His veiled genius had cost her an opportunity she could not fully measure.

She was inches from the door when her personal cell phone rang inside her purse. With the limited number of people who knew the number, Samantha had reason to answer it quickly.

“Speak of the devil,” she whispered, looking at the call’s originating number and corresponding name.

“Hello, Hiram,” she said into the phone.

“Hey there, Samantha,” a very sure and steady voice responded. She could see the smile on his face through the tone of his voice. “I take it you’re at DefCon 3 and ready to scramble your fighters.

“Leave him alone, Samantha,” Hiram suggested with a sigh. “You’re only making matters worse.”

“Sounds like someone slipped a little extra sugar into your Jell-O there, Hiram. Are they making more of a profit at the Elderly Arms Living Residence?”

“I spotted the worm too, Samantha,” Hiram said in a calm tone. “I know you’ve got eyes headed toward South America as we speak.”

“Now why would I want to go and do something like that?” she asked, keying in the command to have her security hub locate the origin of the call.

“Because you want it back!” he answered. “That thing is like a drug, and take it from a former junkie, you’re better off without it!”

“You give yourself too much credit, Hiram,” Samantha argued, knocking on the glass before she remembered there was no way anyone inside the lab would hear her through the extra thick transparent material. “You’re still a junkie! Why else would you be keeping tabs on McEmbree?”

“How do you think he designed the particular worm that keeps feeding him money?” Hiram Seaver asked. Samantha Vey was relieved that the conversation was voice only. Hiram could not see the look of shock on her face.

Samantha Vey had been the Administrative Assistant to Hiram Seaver when he was trying to get his software design company off the ground. Both of them had so little direction back then. He had been nearly out of money and she had just kicked her boyfriend out, along with his latest lover who tragically resembled Samantha’s best friend. She was in an apartment she could not afford, and home for her (Gwinnett County, Georgia) was on the opposite coast. But Samantha had always been a survivor, so she was not averse to taking two jobs just to keep afloat. But two jobs meant dropping out of school and getting a lot less sleep than she had become used to receiving.

Seaver had planned to let go of employee after employee in an effort to cut back on his costs. Samantha took a look at his so-called group of friends and started making broad cuts across the board. There was no room for feeding already-fat friends who could not have produced a usable product if they had step-by-step instructions. At first, he resented her, but there was little arguing with what her initiative had afforded him. She had given him at least another two quarters of operating capital and Hiram went to work, not to be outdone by his secretary. Just before the bough had broken, Hiram had managed to secure a client, but he had to fly from Oregon to Texas to get the particulars and secure the deal. Seaver owned a plane and he had insisted on Vey going with him. She had refused to call the contraption a plane; it was a mechanical device that often traveled above the ground. To make matters worse, the weather, as it often was in Oregon, had been miserable and it had made the trip even more troubling.

They never made it to the meeting, and the contract eventually went to another developer. The plane did not crash. Hiram had actually managed a pretty smooth landing, even with the addition of a most unexpected passenger. But the landing strip was not in the United States. In fact, they had not even landed on the planet Earth! Hiram was right: she was a junkie! They had both become addicted to that wonderful place called Five Pointes and all it had offered. Hiram sampled their computer technology and took all that he could understand.

For six months, it was enough, but Samantha had seen so much more potential for the fruits that special place had offered, and she took the Shard the same day she tendered her resignation. Hiram had made an effort to take it back, but was once again surprised at the depths of plotting and planning Samantha’s mind could reach. The very agents he had hired were already in her employ and Optimum Horizons was already a fully functional business before she left his company; a business with many powerful friends. By the time Samantha was done with him, Hiram Seaver was happy he had secured finances she had not been privy to. Samantha had been happy to leave him with those finances; Hiram was no fool and he had learned his lesson. Besides, there was no way she could say she would not need a software developer for some of her weapon designs. As it turned out, Hiram was not too proud to be on her payroll from time to time.

But Seth McEmbree had done to her what she had done to Hiram Seaver. The difference was Seth was not looking to go into business for himself; it seemed he simply wanted to make sure Samantha did not do any more business on the other side of the portalway. Still, Samantha Vey was no Hiram Seaver, and she was not about to make Seth’s escape an easy one. In retrospect, it did not look as if her objectives were reached. He had calculated her every move and, as Makeen had already noted, he knew how both she and her security chief thought. He made his plans accordingly, and the result was perhaps the best orchestrated successful stratagem against her.

“That was your worm?” she asked in a softer voice.

“A variation of it, anyway,” Seaver answered. “I should have known you’d have backdoors in my database. But then again, you knew I’d be too lazy to look. So your weapons designer got onto your system, broke into mine, and copied my worm.

“He made a few changes, though,” Hiram added. It sounded as if he was getting up and walking.

“Another cup of coffee, Hiram?” Samantha asked. “Weren’t you told to cut back?”

“For what, Sam?” he returned. “Delaying the trip won’t keep me from winding up in hell. It’s not too late for you though, Vey.”

“Save the Ghost of Christmas Past banter, Seaver!” Samantha said sharply as the glare of her eyes returned. Nostalgia Hour was over and Seth McEmbree was just another man in need of an education on the limits of what a woman can do. “Forward everything you have on that worm of yours or I’ll be expediting your travel plans. And don’t think I’ll be so cold as to make you travel alone. I know how you hate that.”

“No need to be rude,” Seaver responded quickly. “I’ll send the files as soon as I am back in the office.”

“Thanks, Hiram,” Samantha smiled. “I’ll be in touch.”

Closing the phone, Seth put his forehead to his hand and closed his eyes as he rubbed his brow. He took a moment to go over his thoughts, confirming his lack of options and the ever increasing aggravation which was Samantha Margaret Vey. He briefly embraced solace, took in a deep breath and sighed as he reached for the small box held against his neck by the choker strap. With only a small amount of pressure, the strap gave and the vibrations stopped. He rubbed his neck to ease his muscles and cleared his throat. Seth McEmbree no longer needed to sound like Hiram Seaver; the trap had been set and Samantha Vey was on her way.

“I know, Samantha,” he sighed. “Sooner or later I know you’ll be in touch!”

“Are you sure you want to do this, Dr. McEmbree?” the young man asked as he lowered the binoculars from his face. His detail was arriving and in about thirty minutes they would be ready to bring the game of cat-and-mouse to an abrupt end.

“We have little choice, Mr. Weiss,” Seth replied as he placed the cell phone in his jacket pocket. “She is not capable of stopping herself.”

“Understood, sir,” Weiss answered as he keyed in the last set of directions to the incoming plane. “Perhaps you should head back to Santa Cruz. We’ll handle it from here.” Seth turned and walked away without saying anything. He knew any response to the contrary would fall on deaf ears. Despite who he worked for, Weiss was still a mercenary and one not far enough removed from his military experience to be open to the suggestions of a man who made his life in the realm of science.

He walked to his jeep, catching a glimpse of himself in the rear-view mirror. He had to admit he liked what he saw; the short and neat haircut worked for him. All the time he had spent in the sun had given him a good tan to go with his brown hair and blue eyes. But he quickly disengaged from his personal review and drove back to the hotel to await the report of the events to come. On the way to his room, however, he would remove the Shard from its hiding place and be ready to go on the move should the absolute worst befall his so-called allies. After all, in the best and worst of things, Seth McEmbree knew one thing to be sure... there were no accidents.

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