The Gatekeeper. Michelle Gagnon
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for the lives of a few lab rats.
At the entrance to the facility Randall nodded to the guard and held his ID card up to the scanner. After a brief pause it buzzed, and he strode down a long fluorescent hallway. The security became progressively tighter—to get into the inner sanctum, as people jokingly referred to it, he’d have to pass palm and retinal scans. Rumor had it that one of the other departments was working on a blood analysis machine. Randall hoped he wouldn’t still be here when going to work involved a daily needle prick.
Once in his office he relaxed. Barry wasn’t there, but an identical travel mug on his desk issued steam. Which meant he was already taking bathroom break number one, of dozens to come. A guy with prostate problems should cut out the caffeine, Randall thought as he waited for his computer to boot up.
A stream of numbers flew on-screen, coordinates pinpointing the location of loose nuclear fissile material worldwide. He and Barry had spent months cataloging this data as the U.S. government belatedly dealt with the fallout from the collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as the mass amounts of radioactive waste produced by everything from medical equipment to offshore drilling. It was staggering that no one had recognized this potential threat until 9/11 jarred everyone’s consciousness. And now Randall was part of a team that tracked radioactive waste, ensuring that it ended up at the appropriate facility, either to be safely disposed of or reutilized. Which in reality made him a glorified administrator with a Ph.D. in radiation physics.
Randall shook his head, unscrewed the base of the coffee mug, and removed the flash drive. He hit a few buttons to call up the data.
Initially there had been a fuss over the mugs, too. A memo had gone out insisting that everyone consume company coffee from the canteen. Based on the outcry that followed, they might as well have suggested drinking tainted Kool-Aid. Getting between scientists and their espresso was a fatal error, and in the end the brass made a concession: as long as everyone brought in standardized, company-issued mugs, outside coffee was fine. Mugs that apparently had been all too easy for someone to manipulate.
Randall glanced over his shoulder before popping the flash drive in the port. The download would only take a minute, but he was antsy. There had been a close call yesterday, and he got the feeling Barry knew something was up. He’d been struggling to act normal, but it was just that, a struggle. He’d blamed it on lack of sleep due to residual stress from the divorce. A lifelong bachelor like Barry didn’t question that.
An icon popped up. Randall quickly slipped the flash drive out, inserting it into the mug’s base just as the door clicked open.
Barry squinted myopically at him. “Everything okay?” he asked hesitantly. His stringy hair was wet where he’d combed it over his bald spot, and his sweater had a mustard stain near the collar.
“Fine, Barry. Just didn’t sleep well again.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear it.” Barry shuffled to the desk beside his. In a space that small it was like being crammed in a cockpit together. “Did you see they moved up the date of the Texas shipment?”
Randall’s ears pricked up. “I didn’t have time to look at it yet. Any idea why?”
Barry shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe there’s another storm coming.”
“Hurricanes are usually in the late summer and fall, Barry. It’s June.”
“Right, right,” Barry mumbled, staring at his monitor.
Randall had to fight the urge to throttle him: an IQ of 165, and he was useless unless you were discussing primordial radionuclides. Sometimes Randall suspected they were both being punished for some transgression. Initially, he’d taken this assignment as a break from researching, to give himself time to recover from the divorce. They’d given him a big speech, too, about serving his country, blah, blah, blah…
Thankfully they had almost finished laying the groundwork, and once that was accomplished the day-today monitoring would be handled by computers. Of course, there was a good chance he’d be under arrest for high treason by then.
Randall tapped some keys and a map of the United States appeared, with different-colored dots identifying which materials were being stored where. He zeroed in on the spots off the Gulf Coast, offshore drilling rigs that used radiography cameras to analyze lengths of pipe. As newer cameras came online, older ones were retired, along with their low level radioactive source material. As he watched them blink, the ball in his stomach sunk an inch lower. This was just what the kidnappers were looking for, the right materials in the correct amount. And they were due to be transported imminently. Suddenly their timing made sense; they had known, somehow, that this shipment was coming. It was too much of a coincidence otherwise, and as a scientist he eschewed belief in chance.
Randall chewed his lip. Part of his job involved overseeing the transit of loose materials from one facility to another. He was in charge of constructing a safe route skirting all densely populated areas and providing the most defensible means of transportation. The kidnappers wanted him to change that route at the last minute to divert iridium-192 sources. Randall gritted his teeth as the dots flickered at him. He’d have to pray that Madison was found before the shipment was set in motion.
Madison struggled with the back of the console, prying it open as carefully as possible. She’d managed to work loose a metal coil from her cot, fashioning it into a makeshift screwdriver. But the tiny screws were proving tricky to undo, and she was panicked by the possibility of stripping one. For this to work, she needed the console more or less intact.
After repeated sessions of begging, she had finally convinced Lurch (as she’d christened the driver) to dig through her luggage for a fleece jacket, her face medication, and her Nintendo DS Lite. Madison now understood why prisoners went nuts in isolation. She almost looked forward to when Lurch cracked the door and slid in a tray of food, or came to empty her bucket. If she wasn’t mistaken he was lingering, too, and by her calculation there had been two straight days without a shot. When he opened the door she jabbered at him, a steady stream of information about her life, her old friends, her parents, anything to get him to stay an extra minute. Despite the fact he still hadn’t spoken to her, Madison was pretty sure he understood English. Maybe she was flattering herself, but if he was forced to kill her, now at least he might feel badly about it.
But Madison wasn’t counting on his generosity continuing. A few times she’d heard a low murmur outside the door, Lurch talking to at least one other person. He definitely wasn’t the brains behind this operation. And if whoever was in charge found out about the DS Lite, chances were it would be snatched back and the needle would return.
The final screw popped loose and rolled away. She scrambled after it, trapping it with her palm. There was a bang on the other side of the door, then the bolt scraped. Lurch jutted his head in, a frown marring his features.
Madison held the console in both palms, leaning back against the end of the cot. She cocked an eyebrow at him. “What? Did you miss me?”
He scanned the room, paying particular attention to the floor. After a minute, he grunted and closed the door. As the bolt slid back into place, Madison released a sigh. The screws were digging into her palms, and she tucked them in her jeans pocket. If she’d known she was going to be in the same clothes for days on end, she would’ve worn a sweatsuit on the plane. These were her nicest pair of jeans, but nice didn’t exactly equal comfort. She waited several beats, straining her ears. She knew Lurch was probably rethinking the decision to give her the console, and she needed to move quickly on the off chance he would take it back.
Unlike her father and Bree, she hadn’t gotten the physics gene. Every time she tried to wrap her head around certain theories, it felt like she was being sucked into a black hole. However, from a relatively early age it had been clear that she had exceptional mechanical skills. At six she’d been able to fix most of her friends’ electronic toys when they stopped working, and every year she’d been the runaway winner of the state science fair.
Madison and her father had even built a robot once. She’d been the youngest participant ever in Robot Wars,