“What about making sure no one comes looking for us?” Parkowski asked. “I’ve got a week of work before the plant shuts down for the holidays. Plus, if my parents don’t hear from me in the next few days they’re going to start to worry.”
“I’ll get a VOIP line set up via my Brazilian pirate satellite,” he said. “You can make all of your calls through that. It’s completely untraceable unless someone wants to pay a visit to a Sao Paulo ISP.”
“Got it.”
They changed Parkowski’s bandage again, this time a little less painfully, and went to bed.
Parkowski slept well next to DePresti in the guest room downstairs.
The next morning she called in to work. “Rachel, I don’t think I can come in today,” she said when she finally got a hold of her friend. “I heard about Dr. Pham and I just can’t do it. I’ve been a wreck since I heard the news.”
And then some, she thought.
“It’s ok, I’m one of the only people here,” Kim responded. “Dr. Rosen told those of us who came in about it. There’s tape and plastic over everything, Grace, it’s almost like they’re going to shut us down for good.”
“Did he say anything about that?” Parkowski asked.
“No, other than he said that the ACHILLES units were safe and he wasn’t sure when we’d be on the sticks again.”
“Copy. I don’t know when I’m going to be coming back in, probably not before the Christmas shutdown.”
“Got it. I’ll let the leadership team here know. Is everything ok?”
“As good as it can be.”
She then called her mother and told her she wouldn’t be home for Thanksgiving. Her mom was surprised, and a little disappointed.
DePresti did the same with his commander and his parents.
They were now free of any external commitments.
The next morning, they slept in, and then had a quiet brunch.
At noon, Chang brought them the Chevy’s keys and a small bag, which had the flash drive and a pair of burner phones that he had been saving, as well a laptop bag and DePresti’s map that he had bought at the gas station. “Keep them off the internet if you can,” he explained. “They’ve never been connected to anything. The OuterTek network is fine, but don’t do Starbucks or anything like that. They’ll need to be wiped if they’re connected to any public nets.”
“Got it, thanks,” Parkowski said.
He handed her a large, old-looking cell phone as well. “This is a satellite phone. Please try to use it as little as possible, I have to pay an arm and a leg every time a call is made.”
“Got that too.”
Chang nodded and went back inside the house.Parkowski smiled and handed the keys to DePresti. “You drive.”
The drive from Barstow back into the city was uneventful.
They didn’t speak much. DePresti focused on the drive while she kept her head on a swivel. She was high alert for a tailing vehicle.
The two of them grabbed fast food for lunch and drove back through Los Angeles County towards El Segundo.
The OuterTek plant was just a few exits east on the 105 freeway from the area around the airport that contained both Los Angeles Space Force Base as well as the Aering plant.
Parkowski had never been to the huge, sprawling facility, but could easily tell where it was from the interstate. A giant, two-hundred-foot-plus rocket, looking more like a smokestack than a launch vehicle, loomed over the complex from its stand just outside the main building. It was the first Shrike 9 that OuterTek had launched and recovered on an autonomous barge off the coast of Florida. Rather than reuse it like they did their other rockets, their founder and CEO, an eccentric South African-born billionaire, had put it on display.
She couldn’t figure out why it looked more like a smokestack than a rocket, but then it dawned on her — there was nothing on top! No capsule, no fairing, not even a nosecone. Nevertheless, it was an impressive feat of engineering. It had taken NASA and the might of the U.S. government years and billions of dollars to design, test, fly, land, and reuse the Space Shuttle orbiter; OuterTek had managed to do it in a fraction of the time and with a significantly smaller budget.
DePresti pulled off of the freeway onto Crenshaw Avenue, and Parkowski finally saw just how big the OuterTek facility was. On the left side of the road was a giant, ten-story parking garage, on the right side was the main OuterTek building, a former Southron Aerospace building that had been built and expanded until it was the size of a city block.
Sprawling out from the main building were a number of smaller ones, with tiny roads and paths between them. She knew from DePresti’s description that those were mostly test facilities for things that couldn’t be done in the main, office-like building, but others were administrative buildings that OuterTek had absorbed as it went from a startup to a ten-thousand-employee corporation.
There was no guard at the entrance to the parking garage. DePresti turned into it and started looking for a spot.
To both of their surprise, there were none to be found. The entire garage was full.
