Raksha Dressman – Rebel Genius

Leo sat in his study, waiting. He checked his clock for the eighth time that afternoon; just under a minute to go. He had been e-mailing and ‘net-chatting’ – as he thought of it – with Raksha for a little over two years now. Raksha Dressman was a physicist living in Chennai, India. He had come to think of the slim, dark-haired beauty on his screens as the ‘Chennai Charmer’. He counted off the last few seconds impatiently on his fingers. Four, three, two, one… there was a sudden ‘ping’ from his Cybernet connection and a familiar face gleamed into life on the main screen. Although he had never met her, Raksha was the woman Leo loved. Not that he could ever bring himself to tell her; he had always felt that she would never entertain the thought of a relationship – even a merely electronic one – outside of her own national or religious circles.

Raksha never spoke openly about her work, but Leo knew she was part of a team developing something big and secretive. Maybe one day she’d tell him about it, but he refused to let himself push her on the subject. She and Leo would talk about practically anything and everything else; from international politics to the meaning of life to the words of the latest song to break onto the music scene. Raksha was quite flustered today though – and Leo didn’t know quite how to take that. ‘It’s big, really big’ she had said, with an air of disquiet. ‘And I don’t have much time. I’ve got to go off-line for a few moments; don’t go away, just stay where you are and I’ll see you again soon.’ With that, her face faded away and Leo’s screen went grey. He started to ponder on what she might be thinking, what was wrong – and he found himself worrying without even knowing what he was actually worrying about.

After about three minutes, Leo decided he wouldn’t be straying too far if he fetched himself a cup of tea. He had only just left his study when his doorbell rang. ‘Control’ he shouted – and the voice-activated computer which was built into his home responded with a sharp ‘active’. The voice recognition system was ready for more commands. ‘Door. Main. Open.’ Leo stood about a metre back from the door as it opened – and his jaw dropped so sharply it looked like it might hit the floor. ‘Well,’ said the woman standing before him, ‘can I come in?’ Although Leo had recognised his caller instantly, it took him several seconds to gather his wits about him and regain his composure. Standing before him was the woman he loved; the Chennai Charmer. Raksha Dressman was on his doorstep in London only minutes after speaking to him from India.

Leo pulled himself together. ‘How the hell did you get here? I thought you were in India!’ He soon found that he couldn’t help returning Raksha’s infectious smile. ‘I was,’ she told him. ‘A laboratory on the southern outskirts of Chennai, on the road to Alandur.’ Now Leo lost that smile and simply looked confused. ‘Leo,’ Raksha’s tone was becoming less light-hearted and far more serious. ‘You’re a fair and honest kind of guy, and I think you’ve got a good sense of adventure. Am I right? Please tell me I’m right.’ There was no way Leo was going to argue; he could sense something really ‘big’ in the air, and this was Raksha. And, apart from everything else, she was absolutely right. ‘Ok’ he said, ‘I’ll bite. What’s the deal here?’ ‘Come with me’ she replied. ‘I’ll explain on the way.’ Somewhat bemused, yet delighted to be with the ‘Chennai Charmer’ at long last, Leo simply grabbed a travel bag – already packed & always ready for his frequent ‘impulse’ trips, and walked out. Indeed, he was so taken by the strangeness of the occasion that he nearly forgot to close his own front door.

Raksha was looking over her shoulder a little too frequently for Leo’s comfort as they walked – and Leo, much to his chagrin, found himself doing the same. ‘The first thing we need is transport’ said Raksha, as she started to jog. ‘And that’s all been lined up already.’ Leo was just reckoning that he knew where they were going, the old disused railway station, when Raksha took a side turning and headed towards the park. ‘Don’t tell me; let me guess’ he said sardonically. ‘You’ve landed an all-terrain craft on Broomfield Lake. When do I get to find out what’s the big secret?’ All he got for a reply was ‘C’mon, almost there – we just need some breathing space and I’ll tell you all about it.’ Even with his deep feelings, Leo was seriously thinking about turning round and leaving Raksha to it – whatever ‘it’ was. Curiosity had him in its grip though – and he pressed on.

Within a few moments they were through the gate and into the park. Leo was already feeling more than just a bit peeved, despite having been on the road for little more than two minutes. ‘Over there’ said Raksha, pointing toward what appeared to be a small outbuilding.  Leo was distinctly unimpressed and stopped dead. ‘You’ve got to be jiving me! There’s no way you’ve got transport lined up in a public loo! What’re you going to do – flush us out of here?’ ‘Better than that, much better’ she answered as she stepped up to jab a finger at a few points on a touch-sensitive panel. ‘I hope you’re in the mood for a surprise.’ ‘You mean another one’ said Leo, with a heavy touch of sarcasm. ‘I wasn’t exactly expecting you to appear on my doorstep, remem…. what in Heaven’s name?’ The door of the ‘outbuilding’ had slid open – and inside was a whole mass of electronic gadgets and gizmos.

Leo was gobsmacked for the second time in the space of a few minutes. He stumbled through the doorway after Raksha and a brief whoosh from behind him told him the door had closed. ‘I don’t understand’ he said, his voice faltering. ‘What is all this? You said you’d explain ‘on the way’. Well, it looks to me like we’re already here. Don’t you think you should really start explaining something very soon?’ Raksha could almost feel the rising disquiet in Leo’s tome as she tapped away at a keyboard. ‘How much do you know about teleportation, Leo?’ ‘We…ell,’ he began hesitantly. ‘It’s all about the instantaneous transfer of matter from one place to another without it going through any points in between. ‘Apart from that, all I know is that Conrad Bergmann proved conclusively in 2124 that it was impossible.’ Raksha smiled at Leo. ‘Did he indeed?’ With the push of a button, the door opened again. Leo looked out and…. ‘What the hell’s happened? That is definitely not how Palmers Green was looking just a few moments ago. What is all this?’ He saw a river and an open plain, but Broomfield Park – indeed the whole of London – had simply disappeared. Raksha looked Leo in the eyes and held him by his shoulders. ‘Bergmann was wrong; teleportation is feasible, it works, and it’s real.’

‘We’re no longer in Palmers Green, or any other part of London’ she continued. ‘We’re not even in England. This is the United States of America. Welcome to Texas; we’re about 35 kilometres south west of Austin. The nearest town of any size is “Dripping Springs”. Ever heard of it?’ Leo had to admit that he hadn’t. ‘Ok, I’m here now – you’d best tell me all of it.’

Raksha set about telling Leo about the people she worked for – had worked for until earlier that day – and what it was they did. Doctor Samina Choudhry, her boss, had found the flaw in Conrad Bergmann’s ‘proof’ that teleportation was physically impossible. Whilst most countries had given up funding projects aimed in that direction, a few – including India – had continued their research ‘underground’. Dr Choudhry had taken command of a research group known as the ‘Railroad Project’ which succeeded in sending a clock from one chamber to another in 2127. The successful ‘transmission’ of a live cat the following year apparently marked the end of the first stage of the project.

Stage two had concerned the transmission from a chamber – apparently known as a ‘jump pod’ – to another place without the need for any special equipment at the receiving end. The Railroad Project had seen success in this area in 2131 and now, two years later, they were on the verge of reaching the third stage – the ability to transport the jump pod itself. ‘I think I’ve just seen the third stage in action’ said Leo, still rather dazed by his experience. ‘You’re testing the jump pod and you needed an independent witness, is that it?’ ‘Not quite’ Raksha said guardedly. ‘Ranger, the jump pod, isn’t on test. They don’t even know it’s fully functional yet. It’s stolen property!’

Leo swore under his breath; that was before he started screaming – he was only a shade shy of being totally hysterical. ‘You’re jiving me! You’ve nicked what has to be the biggest military secret of the century and you’ve gone and dragged me into the mire with you! They’ll want this thing back, I should reckon- and there’s a damn good chance they won’t look too kindly on you – on us – for all this! What the hell am I supposed to do now? Raksha held out her hands in a calming gesture and Leo fell quiet – although he was panting quite heavily following his big rant. ‘I need your help. There are so few people who I know I can trust, and even fewer with your kind of intelligence or computer expertise. I can’t do this alone, I need help. And the only person who can give me the help I need is Leo Edward Grange.

Leo’s temper had settled somewhat and his face had surrendered its purple hue of rage. ‘So what the… what is it we are up to?’ Raksha gave a wry, almost ironic smile. ‘We’re going to derail the Railroad Project’ she said quietly. ‘And I need someone who knows how to wreck computers and electronic equipment to the degree where the memory storage can’t be retrieved.’ Leo was by now remembering how to smile. ‘The processors – silicon-based or DNA format?’ ‘Both’ came the reply, ‘in a tandem operation.’ Leo laughed. ‘We’d best get to it then; there’s a lot to do.’

Leo realised he was letting the situation get the better of him; it was time to stop and take stock. ‘You’ve obviously got a plan’ he said, casting a very serious look in Raksha’s direction. ‘If we go in without one, well – if we’re lucky, they’ll simply kill us. But if we’re not… I’ really not even think about it. So, what’s your proposal for the running order then?’ Raksha returned his look with equal seriousness. ‘We take Ranger into Kavali centre, liberate a few items, jaunt into Railroad’s core area, wipe the slates clean and run like hell.’ ‘Raksha, a plan is like a book. You’ve just given me the contents page.’ If Raksha noticed the sarcasm, she dismissed it. ‘Kavali’s the only centre of its kind without the usual massive internal security presence. It gets so active there that they’ve only kept the external guard up. 2131 meant that too many people stationed inside would hamper operations. All the really big security is around the jump-pod ports these days.’ This set Leo wondering. ‘If all that’s so, then how comes only Kavali had its security cut down?’ ‘It’s the supply depot associated with Railroad. The physical link is by the old surface railroad too.’

‘So what’s in Kavali then, Raksha?’

‘Weapons. Not so much big and small, more like big, bigger and downright huge.’

‘Great. So not only are we going to break into a heavily guarded installation and blast it to kingdom come, we’ve got to break into an army camp and pinch the weaponry to do it with. So what are we stealing – apart from “Ranger”?’

‘You tell me; you know more than I do about computers, how they work, how to see to it that they don’t work, you’re the expert’.

‘This gets better. How’s Kavali laid out?’

‘No idea. Never been there, no plans on the systems. They don’t exactly advertise themselves, you know.’

‘Chuffin’ ‘Enry! So the way I see it, we’re supposed to fly blind into a weapons depot which is probably locked up tighter than Fort Knox by now. Then we just take what we want, once we’ve found it, gatecrash another heavily guarded post, blow it to hell and go. Are we going to whistle a happy tune as we walk past three hundred guards at the front gate?’ ‘Hardly. You’ll have to link Ranger’s computer with Kavali’s to get the layout, and we won’t be using the gates. What we should do is thank God that Railroad is so secret that the vast majority of Khan’s people don’t know what they’re guarding and won’t be expecting anyone to appear out of thin air.’

Leo had started by trying to take stock of the situation but was by now feeling like he was beginning to lose the plot. ‘Hang on a minute. How comes you seem to be the only person who knows that ‘Ranger’ actually works? I mean, surely they would have noticed if this great cabinet of yours – of theirs – had left the office.’ ‘They’ll know by now, that’s for sure’ Raksha replied. But when I took it through a few test runs, I only flew it a few centimetres at a time and nobody noticed.’ ‘All right’ said Leo, ‘let’s get this worked out. And when we’re done, could we come back this way? Those hills to the west are just calling out for me to climb them.’ ‘Yeah, if you like. It’ll be almost like home for you here – we’re about three hundred kilometres from the town of Sheffield and about ninety from Oxford. I thought you’d appreciate the geographic irony.’

‘Yeah, right’ said Leo, dismissively. ‘Got another question for you before we head for Kavali: Why did your lot put so much firepower in Kavali? Surely somewhere out of the way, maybe western Rajasthan, would have been safer. You obviously don’t need the rail connection or any other part of the transportation network. Stage two success has seen to that for you!’ ‘It doesn’t work that way. Without being sure we could send the subatomic power units without them exploding, that is to say achieving success in stage three, we couldn’t risk using a jump pod to send weapons. Do you know what a 730 megaton bomb can do?’ ‘Ok, point made.’ Leo was sounding agitated – perhaps he didn’t like the thought of being on top of such an explosion if something went wrong.

Then the realisation suddenly came to him. His train of thought – perhaps he saw it as his ‘Railroad train of thought’ – led him to Raksha’s concern. ‘With your second stage stuff’ he said slowly, ‘you could send soldiers and conventional weapons into a war zone, but only in very small numbers. Now you can send live nukes and the like – and nowhere in the world is safe. You’ve called this one right – it’s got to be stopped!’

‘Ok, I’ve got a rough idea of what we need from Kavali.’ Leo was finally speaking with the air of someone who had resigned himself to his fate – and to his chance, as he saw it, to save the Earth from a most terrifying threat. ‘This guy Khan you mentioned. What’s his part in all this?’ ‘He’s in command of the army unit attached to Railroad’ Raksha replied. ‘Commander Jagdesh Khan; you really wouldn’t want to meet him, even if he wasn’t already out to kill us. If happiness & joy were the things that can keep people afloat, this man would be a very large block of lead. Get the picture?’ ‘Er, yeah. And he’s presumably got a lot of people with him, all toting guns. Am I right?’ Raksha smiled wryly at Leo. ‘’Fraid so. And a few of those guns will be in north London by now, courtesy of Doctor Choudhry. It won’t be long before they find us here either.’

Leo had another question for Raksha. ‘When Ranger makes a jump, is it instantaneous? I didn’t notice anything when you brought us here – until you opened the door, of course.’ Raksha seemed to consider this, even though she already knew the answer. Perhaps she was trying to work out why Leo had asked her this. ‘There’s a delay, but you wouldn’t notice it yourself. Dematerialisation takes about three and a half seconds, reassembly about the same. Everything – even life itself – is completely suspended for about seven seconds on each trip. I had to keep resetting my watch every time I put Ranger through its paces, just in case anyone might have seen it was a few seconds slow.’ Leo wasn’t impressed. ‘So time’s going to be even tighter than I thought in Chennai. We’ll probably only have a few seconds in the core area before we get well and truly busted – and now I find out that half that time goes out of the window before we’re even there. What’s our safety margin?’ ‘We don’t have one. I reckon it’ll be about twenty three seconds between Ranger starting to appear at Railroad and the inner door of the core area being opened by about three dozen armed men. Bu that place has got to be destroyed – you’ve said as much yourself. ‘Leo nodded in agreement. ‘Well, I always did fancy going out with a bang. Never thought I’d be doing it quite this literally though.’

The computer console started buzzing; Raksha was clearly alarmed. ‘A Japanese low-orbit mapping satellite just sent pictures of southern Texas to an unidentified interrogator in south eastern India. It’s bound to be Choudhry; Khan’s thugs will be on their way. We can go to Australia’s Nullaboor Plain or, if you’re ready, we could hit Kavali. You choose – quickly.’ Leo felt as though this was one of the moments he’d been living for. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for running away later’ he said. ‘At least I hope there will. Get me into Kavali – let’s do this!’

Just seconds later, Ranger disappeared from view as the air nearby started to shimmer. Eight of Commander Khan’s men had arrived to find nothing but a big dent in the dust. They’d missed their quarry by moments, and they didn’t have an express route back to India. The odds were slowly getting better for Raksha and Leo; now success was only extremely unlikely rather than totally impossible.

Raksha had already put her hand over the door control as Ranger had taken off from Texas. By sheer luck, they re-formed in a contingency office – power sockets, Cybernet & intranet connections, but no staff. Leo managed to cobble together a link between Ranger and the Kavali Centre intranet, but he knew this would inevitably raise the alarm. There wouldn’t be much time. ‘Gotcha! Raksha, take us down seven metres and thirty four metres out on bearing two nine two. Can you do that?’ Raksha barked the figures back as confirmation while Leo pulled the plugs on the connections. This was always going to be close, but now it was starting to look achievable.

Seven seconds later, Ranger’s door opened to reveal an impressive weapons array. Thankfully, the security measures designed to prevent unauthorised access would make it a slow process for the guards to get in too. Leo ran past several racks & cabinets loaded with all kinds of weapons from plasma pistols to semi-intelligent land mines. He knew exactly what he wanted. All he was hoping for now was enough time to gather a few surprisingly small pieces of kit before the sheer hell of Khan, Choudhry & co descended upon himself and Raksha. The clock was well and truly ticking.

Klaxons and bells were going off like the Devil himself had landed in Kavali. Leo ran, his arms loaded, back to Ranger. ‘Get us out of here!’ he screamed. ‘Somewhere safe, assuming such a place still exists on Earth for us.’ Raksha hit the control panel so hard she looked like she was trying to kill it. The door to the storage area opened and a soldier fired a plasma pistol blast at the rapidly-dissolving form of Ranger. Thankfully for all concerned, the shot missed the assembled weapons; a hit on a caesium grenade pack would have told a very different story.

‘We can’t just go on riding our luck like this’ said Leo, trying desperately to get his breath back. ‘We’ve done it so far, but our lu8ck’s bound to run out sooner or later. Anyway, where are we?’ ‘Northern Sudan, not far from Egypt. Absolutely nothing as far as the eye can see.’ Leo wasn’t happy. ‘So we’ll stick out like a sore thumb – again. Keep an eye on those satellite transmissions – it didn’t take them long to spot us in Texas and they won’t lose too much time here either. I’ll need about eight minutes to set these things up; be ready to get us into Chennai or somewhere they won’t see us if they pick us up here before I’m finished.’

The next few minutes passed, quite surprisingly, without incident. Finally, Leo was ready to make his move. ‘Ok, we can only get one shot at this; let’s make sure we get it right. It’s time to head for Chennai – put us right into the core room or this has all been for nothing. Let’s go!’ Ranger faded out of existence in Sudan; there was definitely no going back now.

Ranger’s door swished open and Leo ran. He knew just where he was going; he also knew there would be armed guards flooding into the area in about nineteen seconds. Radiation flares were set to eradicate the organic areas of the system, and an EMP burster would take care of the silicon-based section. Seven seconds. He ran hell-for-leather for the relative safety of Ranger. Five seconds. ‘Go!’ he screamed as he dived through the doorway. What he didn’t know, what no-one but Raksha could have suspected, was the destination of this latest flight. Far from fleeing into hiding, Raksha had taken Ranger back into the laboratory.

Leo almost had a heart attack when the door opened again. Raksha pointed to a control, saying ‘If the lab door opens, hit that & leave me.’ With that, she dashed out to what appeared to be a copy of Ranger. This was ‘Explorer’, another third-stage jump-pod under construction – and nearing completion. With all that had already happened elsewhere, she knew it would be practically suicidal to try this tactic. She had also reckoned on the army unit realising the same; hoping that this would mean they’d leave the jump pod unguarded and head for the aftermath of Ranger’s visit in force. The gamble could have cost her and Leo the success of their attack – and their lives. It paid off. Moments later, she came tearing out of Explorer carrying what looked like the innards of a computer. ‘Hit it now’ she shouted as she reached Ranger. Leo jabbed at the button, and Ranger faded away once more.

‘I can’t believe you just did that!’ screamed an exasperated Leo. ‘And come to that, what exactly did you just do?’ He stared at the piece of kit Raksha was still holding. ‘This si a vital section of Explorer’s operational core; it’ll never work without it, and we could do with the spare parts.’ Leo was starting to calm down again, although he was still breathing quite rapidly. He was thankful for the fact that he was still breathing. ‘You must be mad. I must be mad! Ok, so where are we this time?’ Raksha gave that infectious smile again. ‘Would you believe Bagdad?’ It was doubtful there was anything left which would surprise Leo. ‘Yes’ he said sharply, ‘I think I would. After all that we’ve been through today, I think a trip to Iraq would probably be quite appropriate.’ ‘All right, I’ll set up the trip if that’s what you’d like. This, however, is Bagdad in Arizona. It’s about 170 kilometres from Phoenix.’

Leo laughed. ‘Iraq can wait, let’s stay here for a while. We’ve done more than enough running for now, it’s time to get our breath back while we can.’ Now Raksha laughed too. It was a laugh she could barely control; pent-up emotions were breaking free now the intensity of the day was dying down. ‘We’ll have to work out what to do next’ she said as she brought herself back under control. ‘We’ve already broken so many rules, and we’ll have to break a few more if we’re going to stay alive.’ ‘I guess you’re right’ Leo replied. ‘Let’s see if we can do some good while we’re at it.’