The Doomsday Box Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t know your men were familiar with psychotronic machinery, Colonel.”
    â€œThose aren’t my men, Mr. Carradine,” the colonel told him easily. “They’re yours. Turned up an hour after the crate, flashing their CIA IDs and throwing their weight around. Thought they’d be out of the way down here, and they seemed happy enough.”
    â€œDidn’t recognize them,” Carradine said sheepishly. “Excuse me, Colonel.” He walked over to the technicians and started a quiet conversation.
    Colonel Saltzman glanced toward Opal. “Suppose you know all about this gear, young lady?”
    Opal realized that in fact she did. What was taking shape out of the crate looked like a portable version of the Shadow Project’s own projection equipment, the psychotronic helmets that helped agents out of their physical bodies and dispatched them to specific, distant coordinates. She also realized she quite liked the colonel, with his laid-back attitude and his Southern drawl. “I think it may be something to help me do my job.” She smiled.
    Fifteen minutes later, she and Michael were seated side by side, wearing skeletal versions of the familiar Shadow Project headgear. The CIA technicians had been banished, and Mr. Carradine was making final adjustments on a laptop computer. “Interesting that they have this equipment at Langley,” Michael said quietly.
    â€œWhat’s Langley?” Opal asked him.
    â€œCIA headquarters in Virginia. Some of the gear we’re using here is more advanced than the psychotronics we have back in Britain, but the CIA has always claimed their remote viewing project has been closed down for years.”
    â€œYou don’t think the CIA would lie to us?” Opal asked him, poker-faced.
    Carradine glanced up from his laptop. “The coordinates are set. You two ready?”
    â€œAre you ready, Michael?” Opal asked.
    â€œYou’re the one who’s traveling,” Michael told her. “I’ll just sit here and wait for you to come back safely.”
    â€œWe’re ready, Mr. Carradine,” Opal called. She took a deep breath to try to settle herself.
    She expected Mr. Carradine to trigger the equipment, but instead he said, frowning, “One thing, Opal, and this is important.” He stared at her for emphasis, then went on, “Your job is to examine the chamber that houses the time tunnel, look around for anything that might have set off the alarm. But under no circumstances are you to enter the rift itself. That is positively, absolutely forbidden. Okay?”
    Opal had not the slightest intention of going near the time rift. “Perfectly clear, Mr. Carradine,” she said. Actually, the time tunnel was the last thing she was thinking about. She still couldn’t shake the feeling there might be something scary lurking in the chamber, maybe even something that had evolved enough to sense her energy body.
    â€œWe’ve no idea what effect a space-time distortion might have on your second body,” Carradine said. “It might even destroy it, so keep well clear.”
    â€œI will,” Opal promised.
    â€œDid he say ‘second body’?” Colonel Saltzman murmured, half to himself.
    â€œWe’re ready, Mr. Carradine,” Opal said again.
    Carradine reached for his laptop.
    Fuchsia jerked as if she’d just been stung. “Something’s wrong!”
    But it was too late. Mr. Carradine had pressed the ENTER key.

Chapter 6
Opal, Out-of-Body, Underground
    S omething was wrong. It was different from the way things happened in the Shadow Project. There you had a brief flash of scenery, then you were at your destination, feeling perfectly normal, perfectly solid, but actually occupying a second body that could walk through walls like a ghost. So she should be in the time-tunnel chamber now, but she wasn’t. She was floating in darkness. She could no longer tell