Equilibrium (19 page)

“I don’t know,” Rupert said. “How did she end up at your place? How did David find her? Where?”

“It’s a long story,” Inez said. “As you know, David took Kellan back to see Arizona. She was still at her house in Princeton when they got there. While David had been gone, someone had dropped Harry and Ella off at the house as well. They had been dropped off sedated. Kevin arrived at the house while they were all there and they were trying to figure out what to do when they were seized again. David has no idea who by. They were forced into a black van, by men he’d never seen before. Kevin asked David to transport Ella back to us safely. So, they’re at my house. Ella is fine, unharmed, but probably very confused. I haven’t spoken to her. She’s had a long journey and fell asleep not long ago. I left some of the Elders to watch over them.”

“Elders?” Olivia asked.

“Wanderer leaders,” Larry replied. “You both obviously have to go and see Ella, question is how to get you there unnoticed. We also have to figure out how to explain Ella’s reappearance to the FBI.”

Olivia nodded. She took Rupert’s hand and leaned into him. Her baby was back, but she was still missing two of her kids and Kellan. Missing them in another dimension, another time. She may never see them again. She shuddered.

“Ollie, it’s going to be okay,” Rupert whispered into her ear, stroking her head gently. “Let’s find a way to get to Inez’s house.”

Larry’s phone rang, startling the four of them. What now? Larry listened intently as Agent Adams explained that they had extracted the microchip and she had emailed him the file that it contained. She was on her way over.

“That was Agent Adams,” Larry said, as he brought up the email on his phone and handed it over to Olivia and Rupert. The note was short and to the point.

I want the blueprints. Email them to me. I will release the kids as soon as I get them. Raj Sen

The blueprints. Why hadn’t she guessed? Olivia had been so sick with worry that the obvious had eluded her. She would never have guessed that Raj Sen was behind this, though. Erica’s husband, that was so strange. “Blueprints, what does he want those for?” Olivia whispered, looking at Larry.

“They could be worth a small fortune. Olivia, the technology you’ve created has such huge implications. The portal could be used for so many purposes.”

She knew all that, of course. What she had meant, was what did
he
, Raj, need them for. I guess the obvious reason would be that he had a buyer. If so, he had already shared the existence of the portal with others.

“Well, let’s head to Ames and email the blueprints over right away,” said Rupert. “No time to waste.”

Olivia nodded. “It will also be easier to make our way to Inez’s house from Ames without being detected. So, you email the prints, Larry, and I’ll go over to Inez’s house with Rupert.”

“Okay, I’ll call Agent Adams and tell her to meet me at Ames instead,” said Larry, as they dove into his car and headed off. It was decided that Inez would meet Olivia and Rupert at the far fire exit, so they could leave with her.

Olivia’s thoughts were crashing around in her head as they made their way to Ames. They knew that Raj didn’t have all the kids anymore. Ella was free. He had Arizona, Harry and Kellan. And Kevin. But Raj wasn’t even
here
. They were in a different dimension.

“Larry, the whole email thing isn’t going to work,” she mumbled.

“I know,” Larry replied. “Unless he is working with someone at this end who has a way of communicating with him. I doubt that though. It’s more likely that something went wrong and he was forced to head through the portal.”

“Yes, and Ella is back. And I’m sure he wasn’t planning to have Kevin in his custody. I’m sure his plans went wrong somewhere,” Olivia replied.

“Rupert, you still good at hacking into systems?” Larry asked.

“As good as ever,” Rupert replied. “What do you need me to do?”

“Rup, you didn’t tell me about this particular gift,” Olivia asked bemused.

“I have many talents,” he said, and kissed her gently.

“I need you to stay with me, Rupert,” Larry interrupted. “Ollie, you’ll be ok heading off on your own, won’t you?”

“Yes, of course. Remember not to call me. Our phones are bugged. I’ll have Inez make contact with you somehow to give you an update,” Olivia added.

Agent Adams was already waiting for them when they arrived at Ames. Olivia was going to have to give her the slip somehow and head off with Inez. She had to get to Ella.

“Agent Adams,” Larry acknowledged, and led them through the entrance toward his office.

“I’m going to use the restroom, I’ll meet you at your office, Larry,” Olivia said, and squeezed Rupert’s hand before letting it go.

“Right,” Larry replied casually, as he kept walking.

Olivia could barely contain her excitement as she ran along the corridor, down the steps, through several other corridors and finally through the exit, and into Inez’s waiting car.

“Inez, I don’t know how to even begin to thank you,” she said gratefully, looking over at Inez’s serene face.

“There is no need,” Inez said. “Anyway, all this is partly my fault.”

“Your fault? How?” Olivia asked puzzled.

“I’m partly responsible for this whole mess with Raj,” Inez replied. “Erica is a Wanderer.”

Olivia was dumbstruck. She had skeptically listened this whole
Wanderer
phenomenon, but had not given it much serious thought. So far, she’d been briefly told that Inez and her son, David were Wanderers–beings who could traverse dimensions and time. It was too mind boggling to accept or even to begin to understand. One would have to believe in the supernatural, in paranormal phenomena. That was totally beyond Olivia’s level of acceptance. She held her tongue, though. Inez was a wonderful lady, she was not about to anger her with her skepticism. So, she simply nodded and listened.

Inez continued. “A Wanderer’s purpose is to learn. To that end, Wanderers are often assigned to human subjects, to learn from them. Erica was assigned to you. She’s been observing you for many, many years.”

Olivia could barely contain herself. She clenched her jaws down to stop herself from exploding. She wasn’t sure what would come out of her mouth–peals of laughter, most likely.

Inez, unaware of Olivia’s doubt, went on. “As you know, Erica is married to Raj. We were very unhappy when Erica came to us to ask for permission to marry him. He is a non-Wanderer; these unions seldom last. Even mine didn’t. Raj learned about your portal from Erica. Over the years, he has grown more and more obsessed with time travel, especially watching Erica do it so effortlessly. He’s developed a compulsion to be able to travel on his own. This and the need for wealth have become huge issues for Raj that have now culminated in this mess.”

If she could somehow bend her mind enough to accept this mind-blowing version of reality, it would all make sense. It would all be so very simple then, Olivia thought to herself. But could she accept this explanation? How else could Ella’s reappearance be explained? One possibility was that Inez was somehow involved with the disappearance in the first place. Perhaps Ella had been at her place all this time. Maybe the rest of the kids were there as well. Or maybe none of the kids were there and this was a trap to get Olivia alone. Maybe she was being abducted. Olivia squirmed in her chair uneasily. They were at Inez’s house. No going back now, she would find out what was going on sooner rather than later.

She followed Inez in, looking around for signs of trouble. Everything appeared calm. It was deadly quiet on this isolated road. She stepped into the house behind Inez hesitantly.

“Mom!” Ella shrieked, and threw herself at Olivia.

“Ella,” Olivia whispered, as she squeezed Ella to herself as tightly as she could. Tears were streaming down her face. “Ella, let me look at you. Are you okay?”

“Why are you crying, Mom? It’s ruining your makeup!” Ella admonished, wiping the tears off Olivia’s face.

“Oh, Ella. I love you so. You’ve no idea how worried I’ve been,” Olivia whispered.

“I know, Mom. I’m your ray of sunshine, you always say so.”

Olivia smiled and pulled her ray of sunshine in for a long huggle, a hug and a cuddle. Then she scooped her up and sat down on the couch with her. “Ella, how did you get here?”

“Oh, David brought me. He’s awesome,” Ella replied, looking over at David fondly.

“David, thank you so much,” Olivia said gratefully.

Ella continued excitedly, “David swooshed me out of the van and we landed in a field, with cows! We had to run out of the field so they didn’t eat us. Then we walked for ages. Well, David carried me. Then David got a car and we drove here. I tried to keep awake by telling David stories and singing show tunes.” A sad expression came over Ella’ face and a tear trickled down her face.

“What’s up, baby?” Olivia asked, taking her hands.

“Mom, I’m so scared for Harry, Arizona and Kellan. They’re still in the van,” Ella cried.

“We’re going to bring them back, too. I don’t want you to worry about that. Okay?” Olivia assured her.

“Okay, Mommy,” Ella said, and rested her head on her mom’s shoulder.

Olivia had a lot of questions, but she didn’t want to upset her little girl. So she distracted her by asking Ella if she had seen the new Joe Jonas doll. That kept Ella chattering while Olivia tried to focus her thoughts on what do next. Ella fell back asleep in no time. Olivia looked down at Ella, her face puffy with sleep. She looked so peaceful and cute. She draped the blanket Inez handed to her gently over Ella and stroked her hair.

“Olivia, let me get you a pillow as well. You should get some rest. I’m going to contact Larry and Rupert and find out what’s going on. I’ll wake you when I get back. David will watch over you both while I’m gone.”

Olivia nodded. She was beyond exhausted. Ella’s gentle snoring was sedative, and she fell right into a deep slumber.

~

Larry brought up the portal data on his computer and left Rupert to take a look at it while he talked to Agent Adams. Their talk didn’t last long.

“What did you tell her?” Rupert asked.

“Not much, I just answered her questions. I feel bad that we can’t give her more information. I did send her down to security, so she can have a look at the security tapes. So, hopefully we’ll know for sure when Raj Sen came in. He’s her main suspect. She wanted to know which blueprints he was talking about. I said that I wasn’t sure, that we were looking into it right now. She wants us to show them to her so she can get similar ones made up by her techs that we can email off to Raj.”

“Smart idea, Larry. We should definitely not let him have the real ones.”

“Did you find anything yet?” Larry asked.

“No. I’ve got Erica’s computer files open and I’m trying to hack into her email.”

“There’s no need. I’ll just call her, she’ll give me the pass code,” Larry replied.

“Ask her if we can have Raj’s password as well,” Rupert asked, as he continued working through the codes. This could take hours. He was anxious to see Ella, but he had to focus. He was desperately tired and the numbers in front of him made his eyes swim. Focus! He looked at the various code combinations, the times the portal had been opened and closed, working out the various permutations. He immersed himself in it totally, barely noticing the scrap of paper with the passwords that Larry silently put in front of him.

Larry sat down and quietly watched Rupert work. If there was anyone who could hack into the system, it was Rupert. He decided to head down to see Agent Adams, who was on her way out with the security tapes.

“I’ll let you know if we find anything,” she said, before she left.

When he came back up, Rupert was still immersed in his work. Larry sat down and didn’t move for the next four hours while Rupert tapped away at the keyboard.

Rupert finally looked up. “Let’s go down to the portal. I have control.”

I
woke feeling groggy and my mouth was paper dry. I was too tired to move so I just sat and listened to the others sleep. We were still in the van, the sound of the engine lulled me off to sleep again. When I woke again, I was totally stiff, I hurt everywhere, I felt like I had been asleep for days, though I had lost all concept of time. I was fairly sure I had been awaked at some point. I vaguely remember being dragged to a restroom and forced to use the toilet, and then drink more water. The others were stirring as well. None of us said anything for what seemed like hours.

“Let’s not drink any water they offer us again,” I suggested. There were three grunts of agreement, followed by more silence. We let the sedatives wear off completely.

Harry grunted and I looked over to him expectantly. He seemed to have something to say. I hoped he did. Someone had to think of a way to get us out of this van and back home.
Home
. Strangely enough, I meant Mountain View. Geez, I had to get a grip on myself. What we needed was to get Harry and Kellan to Mountain View. I needed to head home to
my
dad. I had to at least let him know what was going on. I was fairly certain that I wanted to head back to Mountain View eventually.