Jaunt by Erik Kreffel Page A

the deck with an array of instruments. Gilmour and Mason watched the men with keen interest, remarking that they were probably searching for bugs, but not of the arthropod variety.
    After a pair of MPs arrived to lead the agents to a chemical de-radiation and debiological washroom, Gilmour and Mason were issued appropriate attire to wear, then handed decorum guidelines to be employed throughout the Ottawa facility. Their previous visit here was too brief to be a proper introduction, so the agents were isolated inside another meeting room for an hour before they were released.
    Dressed like blue-suited twins, the agents were accompanied by another pair of MPs downstairs to one of U5’s dark corridors, the jarheads saying nothing, per their reputation. The lead Marine soon found his pass key and slid it through the door panel to U5-29. The agents proceeded inside, this time met by de Lis, Waters, Valagua and several other personnel unknown to them, all seated at the conference table.
    “Agents Gilmour and Mason,” de Lis said, gesturing, “have a seat.”
    “Thank you, Doctor.”
    Gilmour and Mason rounded the table and sat down across from de Lis. To Gilmour’s right was Waters, and over one was a new staff member, a dark woman with slim features who appeared to be a staff scientist. A mustached Native American man in USNA officer’s uniform was next to her, and across from this man was a taller, bespectacled gentleman. A Latina woman with greying temples sat adjacent to de Lis, who surveyed the agents with a discerning stare.
    De Lis leaned forward, placing his hands on the table. “Let me introduce you to the rest of our senior staff. To Doctor Waters’ right is our chief anthropologist and sociologist, Doctor Carol Marlane. Next to her is our lead liaison with the North American Army, Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Dark Horse. Next to you, Agent Mason, is our quantum mechanics lead theorist, Doctor Lionel Roget.”
    Roget smiled and shook hands with Mason, lending the agent his first sign of cordiality since they arrived here.
    De Lis continued, “And last, our facility’s State Department liaison, foreign policy scholar and analyst, Professor Inez Quintanilla. All of my esteemed colleagues and I, as well as you, Agents Gilmour and Mason, will work closely to decode the mystery of the crash site, and the various artifacts we have found therein.”
    Once the briefing had adjourned for the day and the agents had read up on the latest mission reports, de Lis and his staff introduced Gilmour and Mason to U5’s theoretical studies laboratory, a set of contiguous offices spanning most of the floor space, located in its central square and bounded by an outer peri-meter corridor. Upon entry, the first room that met them was also the largest: U5-1, the main diagnostic and experimental laboratory, a hexagon-shaped room. Six smaller units branched off from it, creating a space reminiscent of a beehive. Around them, a dozen junior scientists outfitted with goggles, clear antiseptic exam suits and holobooks scurried about, relaying information to one another from an array of computer terminals situated throughout the lab. Gilmour imagined that each was performing a separate test on the jewels found in Nepal, quantifying and cataloguing the specifications of each object.
    Sterility permeated the lab, granting a scrubbed feel and smell to it, owing to the enormous quantity of North America’s finest quantum computers and diagnostic equipment spread amongst the complex and narrow rows of office tables and wheeled chairs. An ever present hum vibrated in the air, coupled with an electric crispness, like ozone from a spring thunderstorm.
    The lighting here was particularly bright, more than making up for the dim corridors. Each agent took note of the five-centimeter-thick fullerene glass separating the adjacent offices, a clear, ceiling-to-floor material, sufficient to observe any and all the smaller labs at once, and capable of