circuit allowed it to be used as an encryption device in a dedicated communication system. It could also be tracked via the same satellites, allowing it to be used as a backup locator. The system would also recognize if it was removed from his body, or if his pulse stopped; while it could still be tracked in that case, it would no longer function as an active ID.
“Basically, we’ll know where you are at all times,” said Breanna. “There’s no escape.”
She meant it as a joke, but already Danny was feeling as if he’d gotten into a little more than he’d expected. They drove past the main CIA building, continuing around to a nondescript office building at the far corner of the complex. The building looked as if it dated from the 1950s or perhaps early 1960s, but in fact was only three years old. A single story structure, it had no external markings or any other identification. This was not unique at Langley; anyone who didn’t know where he or she was going didn’t belong there.
After Breanna and Danny passed through an automated security system in the lobby, Breanna led him to an office diagonally across from the reception area. The guard standing at the door nodded but didn’t step aside until the door, operated by its own sensor, swung open behind him.
Danny was expecting to find a standard office inside — his office, he thought. But instead he found an empty room with a narrow staircase to one side. Breanna led him to the staircase, gesturing that he should descend. He did, and found himself staring at a steel door.
“State your name,” said a mechanical voice from somewhere behind the door.
“Danny Freah.”
“Rank?”
“Colonel.”
“What is your favorite color?”
Danny thought of answering that he didn’t have a favorite color, but decided he had better play it straight.
“Blue,” he said, and the door opened.
“Are you going to ask my favorite color?” Breanna asked, following him inside.
“Just thought I’d lighten things up for the colonel,” said a short woman dressed in a black pantsuit as she stepped out from behind the security station opposite the door. It was her voice that Danny had heard. “I watched
“This is Sergeant Mercer,” said Breanna. “She’s going to do a weapons check on you, even though that door wouldn’t have opened if you’d had a gun.”
“Procedure,” said Mercer. “Lighten up, Colonel. I promise not to hurt.”
Mercer took what looked like a lipstick holder from her pants pocket and waved it around Danny.
“He’s clean. Likes the Yankees, though. Might be a problem.”
“Your little wand told you that?” said Danny.
“We have our ways, Colonel. Welcome aboard.”
The room they had entered was a long, rectangular space that held a security station and an elevator to a lower level. The elevator had no visible controls, nor did it work by voice command. You simply entered and were whisked downward. Danny found that mildly annoying.
“What if I changed my mind?” he asked Breanna.
“Then you get out at the bottom and get back in,” she said as the door opened on the lower level. “But I don’t believe anyone has ever changed their mind. Come on.”
Danny had expected a hallway similar to the laboratory areas at Dreamland, most of which were also located in underground bunkers. Instead the door opened on a wide, open space that looked more like a parking garage than a science lab. Thick steel girders ran overhead, supporting a network of beams and pipes. The floor was cement. Girders punctuated the space at regular intervals.
Cabinets were clustered around the girders at the far end. These were computers, most working as massively parallel units in so-called “cloud” arrangements. Thick cables snaked across the floor, connecting them to different peripherals and in some cases to each other.
Overhead lights came on as Breanna and Danny walked, then faded behind them. Finally a set of spots came up on a black wall. There were no doors or windows in it; no visible opening of any kind. Breanna strode toward it. Danny followed, expecting at any second that the panel would move upward or back, that some hidden opening would appear to allow them to enter. But it didn’t.
He stopped a foot from the wall.
Breanna passed through it.
Danny had seen many incredible things at Dreamland — aircraft that flew themselves, blimps that could disappear, controllers that could be manipulated by thought. But disappearing walls was beyond anything there.
He put his hand forward, touching the surface of the wall. It felt solid, as solid as any of the walls in his house. He tapped his fingernails against it, made a drumming sound.
I’m losing my mind, he thought.
“Danny?”
Convinced he was about to wake up from the most involved dream he’d ever had, he took a short step to his left, aligning himself with the exact spot Breanna had used to go through the wall. Then he took a short breath and stepped forward.
Into a well-furnished reception area.
He turned back around. The wall was a solid, a darkish beige color on this side.
“It’s nanotechnology,” said Breanna. She was standing near him. “It
“Is it really there?”
“Absolutely. Touch it.”
“I did,” said Danny. He did again, drumming his knuckles this time.
“But you can move through it, if you move deliberately,” she said. “And if it recognizes you. Like this.”
Breanna put her entire arm through, then turned and smiled at Danny, half in, half out.
“Parlor games are difficult to resist,” said a familiar voice.
Danny turned and found Ray Rubeo frowning at him.
“Doc!” said Danny. “You’re here?”
“Apparently,” said Rubeo. There was a slight bit of gray around the temples, but otherwise very little about him had changed in the past fifteen years, including his frown. “Though in this place you never really know.”
Rubeo was no longer a government employee. But several of his companies were under contract to the Office of Technology, and when Breanna had offered him the opportunity to brief Danny Freah on Whiplash, he had decided to take her up on it. Rubeo had always liked Freah and the Whiplash people personally, though he found many of their security procedures annoying. The pinkie rings had been his idea, an easy way of eliminating many of the delays imposed by the security checks and constant surveillance. Like everyone admitted to Room 4—the code name for the basement facility on the CIA campus — he, too, wore one.
“I suppose you want an explanation about the nano wall,” said Rubeo.
“Well, yeah.”
“Very well. It’s a parlor trick.”
The wall worked by arranging energy within certain frequencies; to put it crudely, it was as if molecules were iron shavings in a child’s Etch A Sketch game, and used to draw a wall. The field could be broken by movement at certain speeds, but not others; the wall could not be penetrated by bullets, for example.
“So it could protect against a missile?” asked Danny.
“Concrete is just as effective.” Rubeo waved his hand. “There are perhaps some uses for camouflage, that sort of thing. Or very expensive walls.”
It also made a high-quality projection screen.
“Have a seat,” said Breanna, gesturing to one of the nearby club chairs. “And I’ll show you what it can do.”
The wall morphed into a crisp video display, the sharpest Danny had ever seen, demonstrating its prowess
