Ramses left New York, and came back to Kansas City. The best way to help
Leona is to get himself down to the bottom of the ocean, where he can
recover the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Mateo had the idea to just go to the
surface of the Bermuda Triangle, and utilize the temporal energy there to
teleport down, but that’s too risky. They don’t know exactly where it is,
and they don’t know if the interior is habitable. It may have all been
crushed under the pressure of the ocean, for all they know. The best and
safest way to do it would be to take a submarine down there, and enter
manually. He is procuring temporal energy injections to be used in an
emergency, but hopefully it won’t come to that. The only problem is that
they do not have access to a submarine capable of reaching such depths.
“Okay, I’ve secured you a submarine capable of reaching those depths,”
Winona says as she’s entering the team’s new laboratory, not looking up from
her tablet.
“Really?” Alyssa asks. She stayed in the area, and has been handling the
transition for Ramses. No one asked her to do that, but she didn’t want them
to have to worry about that. He’s on the roof right now, upgrading the
satellite dish, so they can communicate with the AOC once it’s up there.
“Oh,” I thought you were him. “Where is he?”
“Roof satellite,” Alyssa answers.
“Ah.” Winona nods awkwardly. “I’m Winona Honeycutt.”
“I know that. We’ve met. Many times.”
“Right, but we were never really introduced; not formally.”
Alyssa smirks in a confused-but-whatever sort of way. “Alyssa McIver.”
Winona nods awkwardly again.
“Do you want me to go get him, errr...?”
“Yeah, if you could, I think that would be okay.”
Alyssa could just ping his handheld, but Winona is clearly uncomfortable
being alone with her. She must have her reasons, which may be as simple as
the fact that she mainly deals with the core team, instead of ancillary
members like her. So she leaves.
She comes back quickly with Ramses. “I hear you got a sub for me?”
“My superiors are very interested in the prospect of activating a ship
designed to travel the stars. The Marine Corps has a deep sea sub capable of
reaching the bottom of the ocean. It’s obviously usually busy with other
things, but as luck would have it, the majority of the crew is being given
shore leave in Bermuda. The skeleton crew remaining has agreed to take a
detour to the coordinates that you provided, but we gotta go now if we want
to rendezvous with them. They won’t wait for us forever.”
“Us” Ramses questions.
“I’m the liaison. I’m going.”
Ramses looks in the general direction of New York, where most of the rest of
the team is. They don’t all have to join them on this mission, but one of
them certainly does. “We have to pick up Leona first.”
Winona checks her watch. “We don’t have time for that.”
“The whole point of getting the AOC back is to heal her.”
“It is only one reason,” Winona contends.
“It’s the only one that matters. I don’t know what you’ve sold your
superiors on, but your scientists aren’t getting their hands on my ship, and
neither is your military.”
Winona sighs, and looks at her watch again. It’s been fifteen seconds. “Some
of your magic water is in the Bermuda Triangle, right?” She goes on without
waiting for a response, “let’s take your new vehicle there, fill up on
whatever you need, quickly jump up to New York, and finally jump back. You
did say that the engine you built for it can store enough power for two or
more jumps?”
“Yes,” Ramses confirms. “The concentrator filters regular water, so that
only—”
“Great, let’s go,” Winona says, urging them on with a wave of her hand.
“I want to go too,” Alyssa announces.
“Fine, whatever.” Winona waves more. “Let’s all go. But we gotta do it now.”
Ramses and Alyssa grab their go-bags, and head for the garage. “Constance,”
Ramses speaks into his watch, “run a pre-flight check on The Bridgette.”
“Acknowledged,” the AI replies.
“Working title,” Ramses explains when Alyssa gives him a look.
“I mean the name of your AI,” Alyssa clarifies her expression.
“I got it from the Constant,” he says with a shrug.
“By the time they board the craft, the pre-flight check is complete.”
“Constance,” Ramses speaks into aether this time. “Please fly us to Site
W-5.”
“Proceeding to the center of the Bermuda Triangle,” Constance responds.
During the flight, Ramses contacts Mateo to ask him to pick a secluded area
upstate where the Bridgette can teleport to. He should transport Leona
there, so they can get her all the way to the Triangle, down to the bottom
of the ocean, and up into orbit. It’s nearly midnight central when Ramses,
Aylssa, and Winona reach the very center of the Triangle. He lands the
vehicle in ship mode, and collects enough water to fill his special engine’s
storage tanks. Once it’s ready to go, he teleports the whole thing to
Harriman State Park. It’s off-season, so there shouldn’t be anyone in the
area to witness their arrival and departure. To be honest, he was afraid
that it wouldn’t work at all, but they make it to the clearing, and land on
the ground to wait for their friends.
Mateo and Leona are nowhere to be found, so Ramses tries to call them, but
they don’t answer. Winona keeps urging them to get back to the Triangle. The
sub is on a very tight schedule, and there is only a short window to make
this detour dive happen. If they miss this window, the sub will move on to
its next mission, and she can’t guarantee when they’ll ever have such an
opportunity again.
“They’ll be here,” Ramses promises for the upteenth time.
“We can find a way to get her into it later, but right now, we just need to
recover it,” Winona insists.
“It doesn’t work like that. Leona is in a fragile state. I can’t just
teleport her up there naked. She needs to be in the vessel when it
launches.”
“I’m sorry, we can’t wait any longer.”
“Well, there’s not really anything you can do about it, so...” Ramses
claims.
“Yes, there is.” Winona pulls a key from inside her shirt as she’s stepping
down into the bridge. She removes a hidden panel compartment under the
controls, which reveals the keyhole. She sticks her key in, and turns the
light from red to green.
“What the hell is that?” Ramses questions.
“My failsafe,” Winona answers. “Constance, jump to W-5.” They jump.
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