๐ The Ghost of Emily - Chapter 4
In which Marcus Hamlin is blindfolded and flown off the grid.
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The limousine dropped Marcus Hamlin at the Teterboro private airport in New Jersey. He farewelled Richard and clutched the key around his neck as he stepped into the small leather-lined aeroplane cabin. As Marcus took his seat, the pilot acknowledged him with a nod.
โIโm sorry for the last minute change of plans, it seems a terrible waste of fuel to make this trip just for two of us," Marcus observed aloud. The plane had room for eight or so passengers.
The pilot chuckled. โMakes no difference, sir. Youโre the last transfer.โ He shut the cockpit door.
Marcus raised his eyebrow.
โAnd besides,โ the pilot added, his voice now emerging from the cabin speakers, โthis plane doesnโt burn fuelโ.
Marcus felt the cabin start to shake and rattle slightly, then stop. When he looked out of the cabin window his stomach dropped into his groin for a fraction of a second, as he realised they were already in the air. He had heard no engine, no turbines, and felt no vibrations, nor any G-forces in the take-off. It was disconcerting to be moving so high and so fast without any sense to confirm it but his vision.
The plane eventually landed at a private airfield outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. Marcus was ushered by the pilot to a helipad where he was asked to sit on a bench and wait. The plane silently rolled up the runway and disappeared, almost unnoticed but for the darting shadow it cast.
He pulled his tablet from his suitcase and opened up his GPS app. He had been recording his trajectory whilst in flight. The screen showed a direct path from New Jersey to Lincoln, and given the fact that he was waiting for a helicopter to arrive, he deduced he would continue west, somewhere into the Rockies.
Without warning, a fierce wind kicked up, blowing the collar of Marcusโs overcoat into his face. It wasnโt until it was landing on the pad in front of him that he realised the helicopter had arrived. It was as impossibly stealthy as the plane had been.
When beckoned by the pilot, he stepped aboard, fastened his safety harness and donned his radio headset, keeping the tablet in his lap and watching the course that the chopper took.
The pilot was silent as he steered the vehicle at great speed into a straight line towards the centre point between Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Denver, Colorado. Marcus watched intently, gesturing with his fingers on the glass of his device, trying to zoom ahead and ascertain the likeliest destination given the trajectory they were on. The pilot glanced over his shoulder and saw what Marcus was doing.
He spoke in a firm voice, to make sure he was heard through the headset transmitter over the hum of the blades not one meter above their heads. โThat wonโt work for much longer.โ
Marcus looked at him quizzically.
The pilot grinned. โYouโll see!โ
A few moments later, the pilot reached above his head and flicked a switch under a black lid. Marcus detected a slight change in the pitch of the hum of dashboard instruments, and he looked down at his tablet to see it had turned blank. He fumbled for a moment with the buttons around its edges, but to no avail. It was dead.
โDonโt worry,โ laughed the pilot, โitโll work again when you get there. Well, most of it will.โ
In another moment, the helicopter began to ascend and make a series of seemingly random and erratic turns. Marcus wondered if the pilot might be lost, before it occurred to him that Marcus himself was lost, not the pilot.
Half an hour later, after circling peaks, zig-zagging low over gullies and taking scenic passes over randomly selected gulches, the pilot finally set the craft down on a small clearing.
Marcus stepped one foot down onto the flattened grass beneath the textured steel stepladder that had been unfolded for him. He felt the air above him tearing about his dark hair and his ears, like wave after crashing wave, trying to take him under. He reached up and held the frames of his glasses firmly against his nose with one hand, while a porter stepped forward, half-crouching, and took the suitcase from his other.
It was strange to see a hotel porter in full traditional costume, out here in a small clearing of the woods. The porter had emerged from the large black vehicle that was waiting when the helicopter landed. It was a strange vehicle that looked half military all-terrain, half luxury limousine. Its wheels were large enough for a truck, but its bonnet was minute compared to the sheer haulage of the stretched cabin behind it. Its body looked as though it was dressed in sheets of solid steel, sharp angular contours all polished and buffed into a perfectly blackened reflection of the sky and treetops above.
The porter smiled warmly and took his suitcase, and Marcus followed him across the clearing, watching the grass around him desperately try to resist the violent gales from above. As he climbed into the cabin of the armoured ground vehicle, followed by the porter, he looked out at the aircraft once more as it rose smoothly into the air. Every vehicle on Marcusโs journey had been a new design, unlike anything he had seen before, all of them silent, built for war, but also strangely stylish, in a quirky futurist sort of way.
These vehicles belong in a military installation, thought Marcus, but they have no armaments. What am I getting into here?
Marcus observed the porterโs uniform more closely. On his head was a stumpy cylindrical hat of burgundy, with a small gold crest stitched onto its front in the distinct shape of a fountain with liquid gold erupting from its top.
Marcus suddenly felt displeasure at the conditioned air of the closed cabin, after the fresh mountain air he had just been enjoying on the landing pad. He looked for a window roller, to no avail.
โAh, sorry Doctor Hamlin, the manual controls are in the front. But you can just tell the window to roll down if thatโs what you want.โ
โIโm sorry, what?โ
โTry it,โ the young porter said with a grin.
Marcus looked at the tinted glass, sceptically. โWindowโฆ down?โ he muttered, hardly believing it would be anything other than the punch line of a prank. Instantly the window slid down. Marcus looked at the porter, mouth agape, delighted. โFancy car youโve got here!โ
โOnly the best,โ said the porter with a smile that Marcus read as proud.
โSay, whereโs the driver?โ
With an even bigger beaming smile, the porter spoke to the vehicle. โTake us up, please.โ
Without so much as an ignition sound, or a beep, the enormous armoured vehicle began to roll across the grass and arc gracefully around until it reached a dirt road that led through the tree line and into the woods.
โDriverless, neat. Andโฆ battery powered?โ
โThatโs right!โ
โSomething similar in the plane and helicopter too, I presume. They were damn quiet vehicles.โ
โCouldnโt tell you, sir. Thatโs not my department.โ
โSo where are we going then?โ
โCouldnโt tell you that, either. Orders, sorry.โ
Marcus sighed, starting to tire of the relentless secrecy surrounding this project. He wanted answers. He took another moment to examine the attire of his burgundy-clad travel mate. Realising that he had only seen a porter and not a person thus far, he leaned forward and offered a hand.
โIโm Marcus,โ he smiled.
โI know who you are,โ the porter laughed, as he leaned forward to accept the handshake. โWeโre real excited to have you here Doctor Hamlin!โ
โWhy?โ
The porter smiled, but didnโt answer.
โAnd you areโฆ?โ Marcus was slightly perturbed by the social disadvantage he was at.
โHere to help with anything you need, Doctor Hamlin.โ
Marcus sniffed, amused by the skill of this young manโs deflections. โWhatโs your name, kid?โ
โPeter.โ
โPeterโฆ?โ Marcus waited for a surname, but Peter simply nodded. โPeter Porter, eh?โ
Peter chuckled quietly. โSure.โ
Marcus sighed again, frustrated by the obfuscation that seemed to surround everything about this Daedalus Project. He looked for something neutral to talk about. โThose toggles on your tunic,โ he began, lifting a finger to point at them, โtheyโre ivory, arenโt they?โ
The porter, seeming intrigued, glanced down at his own chest and took one in his fingers. โUhโฆ I donโt know. How would I tell?โ
โWell, it looks pearly. Does it feel like plastic to touch?โ
โNo.โ
โThen Iโd guess itโs ivory. See how it looks like bone?โ
โWhat is ivory anyway?โ
Marcus laughed. โHow old are you, kid?โ
โNineteen, sir.โ
โAh, well, your ignorance is excused then.โ
The porter cocked his head, now awaiting an explanation. Marcus took a moment to see if he could make Peter as uncomfortable with obfuscation as Peter had made him. Peter simply held his head cocked, waiting.
โOkay, well, ivory is the tusk of an elephant. It used to be pretty valuable stuff, still is really, but about ten years ago the US government, and a lot of other UN nations, placed a total ban on ivory. You couldnโt buy, sell, or own it. They got everyone to hand their ivory in and they made a big public show of destroying it โ crushing it down to powder. They even threw a few people in jail just for having it after the amnesty deadline.โ
โWhy?โ
โWell, it was all to try and stop people from hunting elephants in Africa. The main reason people did it was for the ivory, which they used to be able to get a lot of money for. Now people donโt hunt them so much, but the ivory is worth more than ever, on the black market. If we wereโฆ outside, you knowโฆ youโd probably be in a lot of trouble for wearing that tunic.โ
Peter raised his eyebrows, awed at the tale. โWell, all I know is that these uniforms belonged to the hotel about a hundred years ago when it was built. Mister Welโฆโ he caught the syllable in his mouth, and looked a little embarrassed at his near divulgence, โI mean, our employer, is a bit of a fan of history,โ Peter smiled, and Marcus thought his expression connoted reverence, โyou could call him old-fashioned.โ
โSo our employer is a man, then?โ Marcus probed, testing if he could break down the walls of secrecy further with this green young man.
โOhโฆ sorry Doctor Hamlin, Iโm really not supposed to tell you anything. Youโll find out everything soon enough. Tell me more about theseโฆ elephants.โ
โYouโve never seen one?โ
โNo.โ
โBut youโve surely read about them.โ
โNo.โ
โDidnโt you go to school, kid?โ
โNo.โ
Marcus was utterly confused. This young man was ignorant of one of the most well known mammals in Earthโs history. What the hell? Were you raised in some isolationist cult, kid? Marcus thought to ask, but stopped, thinking it unkind, and unlikely to help him garner any more of the information that he was seeking.
Resigning himself to the fact that he would get no useful information out of Peter, he leaned out the window and started gathering whatever empirical evidence he could in order to work out where he was.
He saw pinewood around him in all directions, and beyond the tips of the trees, randomly jagged spikes of cliff and crag, beyond which lay a bright blue sky. He knew he was in the Rockies, but he had no idea which state, or country.