She looked around slowly, marveling at her changed surroundings. The hangar was gone. In its place was a much smaller, tighter environment. The walls were angled in geometric patterns. Every surface seemed to be constructed of triangles of white metal. The triangles fit together in a pattern, making an undulating, arching roof over the team.

  There were no artificial lights in the chamber. The entire space was lit from below by a soft bluish light. Looking for the source of the illumination, she gazed downward. What she saw beyond the edge of the disk made her gasp and take an involuntary step back.

  The bluish glow in the room came through what appeared to be a transparent surface underneath the platform they stood upon. She knew in an instant what she was seeing down there. Her home planet was spread out below, enshrouded in drifts of dark clouds and the inky darkness of night. The landmasses were black, limned by yellow-white patches where the cities dotted the world. In between the cities were chains of fainter light—highways. The bluish glow came primarily from the west, where the sun had yet to vanish completely out over the Pacific.

  She gave her head a marveling shake. A single wisp of vapor came up from platform’s edge as she studied the scene at her feet. The clarity of the view was incredible. Since she was still breathing and wore no mask, she assumed there was some kind of glass barrier between herself and a very long fall to the surface of the world.

  With a pounding heart, she took another step back. She bumped into Tanner, who was standing close. He put a gloved hand on her shoulder.

  “Yeah, I should have warned you about that,” he said. “Don’t step off the disk. That would be bad. We’re not ready yet.”

  Malena looked over her shoulder at him in amazement. “You mean there’s nothing there—nothing between me and space?”

  “Not exactly nothing,” he said. “The techs call it a field... It feels like a soap bubble when you go through it. You’ll see.”

  She shook her head emphatically. “No…I don’t think so. You and your team are crazy.”

  “I should have explained all this. There just wasn’t time. Your profile listed a fair number of amateur parachute jumps. I didn’t think—”

  “I’m not wearing a parachute,” she pointed out. “What about oxygen? We’re miles high—what’s our altitude?”

  “We’re over thirty miles up. At the upper edge of the stratosphere.”

  Malena stared down in fascination. “A hundred and fifty thousand feet? No one’s ever jumped that far before.”

  “Wrong,” Tanner chuckled.

  She realized then that his gloved hand was still resting on her shoulder. She hadn’t really noticed at first. She was too upset about being faced with certain death, which was only two steps away. She thought briefly about brushing his hand off, but decided not to. In fact, the thought of going go over that edge made her want to grab onto him.

  Malena opened her mouth to make a fresh objection to this suicidal turn of events, but a crinkling sound like vinyl unfolding came from above her. She turned to look up, and what she saw made her forget whatever she’d been about to say.

  The ceiling of triangular metal planes had opened in a dozen places. The roof had looked solid before, but now smooth, ovoid objects were emerging from above the team. These things looked like elongated eggs that had been stood up vertically.

  “Ah, here they are,” Tanner said. “Team, let’s load one at a time. I want three people working on each capsule, no accidents. When we’re down to the last group, I’ll take the tail position.”

  “Yes sir!” went up from several throats.

  Malena glanced around at the others. Their faces were shadowy, lit only by the blue-white glow from Earth below. Everyone was very serious. They were professionals, and they looked determined. She counted nine men and two women. Two of the men were heavily-armed, one with a .30 caliber SAW and the other with what appeared to be an RPG unit. A few had packs with special-looking equipment bulging out. Most carried heavy pistols that resembled sub-machine guns. Malena was unfamiliar with these weapons. They were black and ugly-looking with short, stubby barrels but only a single grip.

  “Do I get a weapon?” Malena asked.

  Tanner looked at her and nodded. “I don’t want to give you one of the accelerators,” he said, indicating the heavy pistol-like weapons. “They take special training to handle correctly. How about this?”

  He unstrapped a holster from his waist and handed her a 9mm pistol. She hefted it. The gun was a little heavier than what she was used to, but she knew she could handle it. She checked the safety and ejected the magazine. It was fully loaded with seventeen rounds. She slapped it back into place and strapped on the holster.

  “That will work,” she said, feeling slightly more confident now that she was armed.

  “Here’s a belly-pack with more ammo, and some survival gear. And here’s your chute.”

  She took a small, heavy pack from him and strapped it tightly across her mid-section. The pack was waterproof, so she stuffed the one personal item she’d brought along from home into it: a small, ringed sketchbook and a few charcoal pencils. Then she slid the parachute onto her back. Tanner checked her harness and made sure everything was cinched tightly.

  Malena looked down in surprise at one point during the proceedings. She saw that her foil-like suit appeared to be adhering to the parachute and the harness. She frowned at this.

  “What’s happening? My suit is interacting with the harness.”

  “Yeah, pretty cool, huh?” asked Tanner. “That’s smart-fabric for you. Time to mount-up. You’ll go into the first capsule, Marin.”

  “Whoa, hold on,” she said. “I don’t want to lead this insane jump.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re all going at once. But when you’re locked into a capsule, I can worry about the rest of the team instead of watching over you.”

  She looked at Tanner and saw he was serious. She took in a tiny, nervous breath. She still couldn’t quite believe any of this was really happening.

  “Okay,” she heard herself say.

  He gave her an encouraging smile and waved to a nearby capsule. The team members reached out, grabbed it by some flaring straps on the sides and hauled it closer. They hammered their fists on each side of the unit and it yawned open. Inside, she could see blinking lights and a screen that glowed with shifting images. It looked like a tiny undersea submersible.

  They waved her forward and she climbed into the unit. The interior smelled like hot plastic.

  She realized when she got inside she’d made a mistake by going in head first. She had to wriggle and twist to get her body around so she could see out the front window. For a fraction of a second, her ankle was caught on something, and she struggled, feeling a rising sensation of panic.

  I’m not going to scream inside this thing in front of these pros, she thought to herself, willing herself to calm down.

  With a final jerking twist, she freed her ankle and got herself into position. She felt a stinging pain and a tiny trickle of blood ran down her leg, but she forced a smile when she saw Tanner was watching her.

  “It works better when you climb in backward,” he said.

  “Yeah, I figured that out.”

  “You okay?”

  “Ready for anything,” she lied.

  Tanner’s frown vanished and he nodded. “I knew you’d work out.”

  He slapped the top leaf of the open capsule, and it closed down over her face and formed a shell around her. She could see out of the small window, but felt like she’d been placed inside a brightly-lit coffin. The air pressure changed then and a loud click sounded. Instantly, all external noises cut out, and she could only hear her own breathing and chatter via an intercom system.

  “All right team,” Tanner said. “Commander Lee is out of contact and presumed dead. I’m leading this one.”

  Malena looked around for a speaker, but didn’t see one. She ran her eyes over the controls, bewildered by them. There were about thirty buttons, and a couple of screens displaying data. Her heart rate was one hundred and fourteen. No wonder she felt lightheaded. She tried to take deep slow breaths and calm herself. The oxygen mixture might be running high, which could cause problems for a nearly panicked jumper.

  Tanner was making some kind of speech about how they had all been the B-team until now, when they’d been promoted to the A-team and had to live up to it. Malena tried to listen, but she caught sight of the altimeter, and her eyes widened. He’d said they were over thirty miles up, but she hadn’t really believed him. She couldn’t deny or doubt the reading on the gauges, however.

  “I don’t have a go light from all of you,” Tanner said. “Marin? Hit the acknowledge button, will you?”

  “Right,” she said, uncertain if he could hear her or not. “Found it.”

  She pushed a large button with her right kneecap. A rectangular green light came on at the base of her capsule window.

  “Any questions, crew?” Tanner asked.

  “How do I steer this thing?” Malena asked.

  He chuckled. “You don’t,” he said. “It’s all automatic. Just enjoy the ride until the ejection point. After that, it will be just like a regular jump.”

  Malena frowned. She now knew he could hear her without depressing a transmission button, but she was filled with the sickening suspicion she’d missed something during his briefing.

  “Uh,” she said, “Give me that part one more time.”

  Someone groaned. Malena felt herself blush.

  “At four thousand meters,” Tanner said patiently, “the capsule will eject you. Deploy your chute at one thousand meters. The chute is a ram-air parafoil type. Guide it down to the landing spot. There’s a directional meter on the front of your belly-pack to lead you to it.”

  “Got it,” she said.

  “Everyone good to go?” Tanner asked.

  After a moment of relative quiet, during which they all heard someone mumbling prayers, Tanner came back on again.

  “We drop on my mark. I’ll trigger the release, just sit tight. Ten, nine, eight…”

  Malena’s heart was pounding faster than ever. Her arms felt cold, her chest felt hot, and her leg stung a bit where she’d cut herself while climbing into the capsule. Cold air hissed on her right check and she felt droplets of her own blood cooling on her ankle.

  “…three, two, one…Release!”

  A loud bang sounded, followed by a warning beeper that reminded her of her cheap alarm clock back home. She closed her eyes, but it didn’t really help.

  I should be climbing into bed about now, she thought. I should be watching a bad free movie on my tablet and sipping a glass of St. Germain.

  Then the hateful beeping finally stopped, and they all dropped down into nothingness.

  -6-

  The ride down into Earth’s atmosphere was unlike anything in Malena’s experience. She’d never been in love with rollercoasters, but she’d enjoyed them. She liked fast cars but had never gone absolutely crazy for them.

  Riding down through the thinnest upper atmosphere to Earth’s surface was a terrifying experience. She could hear the wind screaming outside her capsule, and as they fell farther, wind currents began to buffet the capsule harshly. The temperature outside was just about freezing, which surprised her. To keep herself sane, she asked a question.

  “Tanner? Aren’t we supposed to be heating up on this reentry?”

  “No,” he said. “Check your speedometer. We’re only doing about twelve hundred kilometers an hour. That’s not fast enough to cause severe friction heating. We aren’t falling all the way down from orbit, remember.”

  Malena blinked rapidly and checked her gauges. She’d been skydiving before, but nothing like this. The instruments were becoming familiar to her very rapidly. She was wide awake, and the human mind had a way of tracking events closely when it sensed the nearness of death. She was sure this experience would be permanently burned into her brain.

  Her breath blew in her ears, a form of feedback from her microphone. The strange headset she wore still felt cold at the four points where it had adhered to her skull. She wondered if she tried to remove it, how difficult it would be. It felt as if it was glued there. She’d seen the smart-fabric, as Tanner had called it, grab onto the harness she was wearing. Was the headset working like that? Quietly sinking tendrils of metal, or whatever it was, into her head?

  She tried not to think about that, but she couldn’t help it. Somehow, it was beginning to bother her more and more. It felt like a spider clamped upon her skull. Her brain was throbbing. As she thought of it more now, it gave her stomach a playful squeeze. The headache grew. Without even thinking about it, breathing hard, she reached up and began to tug at the webbing.

  What she found there when her fingers touched the device froze her mind. It had sunken in somehow, into her flesh. It was attached to her skin—adhered there in such a way she might as well have tried to remove her own ears by yanking on them. She put down her hands, willing herself not to panic, and took gulping breaths. She closed her eyes and fought against nausea and fear.

  “Malena? Talk to me, what’s wrong over there?”

  It was Tanner’s voice again, but she kept her eyes closed.

  “I’m having trouble with my equipment,” she lied. “It’s bothering me.”

  “What do you mean, bothering you? Let’s all stay cool, people. This flight is only five quick minutes long. Our chutes will open soon. We’re half-way there.”

  “I’m—I’m getting sick again.”

  “Oh…” Tanner said. “Have you adjusted the gain down on your headset?”

  “You didn’t show me how.”

  “There’s a bead on top, you just push at it.”

  “Which way, what bead?” Malena asked, unable to open her eyes now.

  Tanner cursed. “I should have given you a full training on that before we left. There just wasn’t time.”

  “I tried to take it off, but it’s stuck.”

  “Don’t do that, Malena,” he said urgently. “You have to keep the headset on so I can talk to you. Also, it will protect you from the effects of the X if we get close.”

  “Okay,” she said, breathing hard. She knew she was hyperventilating, but she couldn’t help it.

  “Listen to me, we’re approaching an area with a high concentration of element-X. What’s probably happening is your gain is too high, and you’re feeling it too distinctly.”

  “One minute mark, sir,” interrupted a voice. It was one of the other team members. The voice sounded female and annoyed.

  “I can read, dammit,” Tanner said. “Malena, reach up to the top of the headset. Find a bead of metal that pokes up against your fingers. Adjust the gain on your unit by pressing it backward, away from your forehead.”

  Malena tried to do as he said. Her fingers fumbled in her hair, tracing the finger-like metal lines that gripped her head. She found something that felt like a hard round stone and pushed it back away from her face. It slid a fraction, and instantly the pressure in her mind eased.

  “Malena, can you hear me?” Tanner’s voice asked. “Are you okay?”

  She was so happy to have the pain relieved, she sighed and felt as if she were deflating.

  “I’m okay,” she said.

  “Team, agent Marin and I are going to unload early. We’ll come down last, but that will give us some time to recover before we hit the trees.”

  “Sir, you’ll be more visible hanging up there.”

  “I know that, Anderson. But the team can’t do much good if we can’t find what we’re looking for. It’s a big jungle down there. I’m setting our capsules to open—now!”

  Malena, who had been relaxing somewhat now that the headset wasn’t trying to cook her brain, lurched back into terror-mode.

  Before she knew what was happening, the capsule flew apart all around her. It unpeeled itself into a dozen twirling pieces of falling metal, each of which darted off to the sides. She was hit by a wall of warm, wet air. It felt like she’d been smashed hard with a soggy pillow. She went into a spin, which she fought to control by first going limp, then assuming a hard arch. When in free fall, going into an out-of-control tumble was a common problem. An early lesson for all jumpers was to force themselves into a spin by grabbing their right ankle with their left hand, then learning to get out of it by relaxing.

  Fortunately, Malena knew enough about drops to do this and had had a good teacher. She was under control by the time Tanner cruised near. She heard his voice in her headset.

  “I saw that, good recovery,” he said.

  She turned her attention downward to the landscape below. It was the middle of the night, but she could see the moon reflecting on the dark sea. They were definitely coming down over Cuba, landing in a large wilderness area known as the Zapata Swamp. It was the least inhabited corner of the island. She didn’t recall much about the place, other than it was very rugged terrain—and had a large population of alligators.

  “Can I open my chute yet?” she asked.

  “Yeah, let’s do it.”

  She pulled the ripcord and her harness wrenched her body painfully. It felt as if she’d been yanked out of the air by a cruel giant who had her tangled in a mass of strings.

  A moment later, the ride became relatively peaceful. The chute opened and she grabbed the guidelines. She steered northward. Vaguely, she wished she could ride the air currents all the way back to the Keys, but she knew she was going to be on the ground long before that.

  Below her, she could see small flashes. She puzzled over them for a second, then realized they were the rest of the capsules popping open. The other team members had ridden down much farther before ejecting.

  “Tanner?” she called. “You there?”

  She heard a burst of static.

  “What’s happening?” someone else said. It sounded like one of the women. “There’s something wrong sir. Anderson is—”