Free Equilibrium by Imogen Rose Page A

head over to the hospital.”
    The ride to the hospital was silent. Olivia sat between Rupert and Larry in the back of the patrol car with her eyes closed, resting her head on Rupert’s shoulder. She felt as though her head would explode from the jumble of thoughts racing through her mind at such a speed that she could concentrate on none of them. Olivia concentrated on her breathing instead and tried to focus. They had found Kellan. That was fantastic, wonderful. What state was he in, though? They had said that he was unconscious, but that his pulse was strong and his breathing was regular. What did that mean? She would have to wait to find out, but at least he’d been found.
    Her children were still missing. Olivia’s mind reverted back into a mess of thoughts. Why would anyone take them? For what? They were well off, but to take all three? It was more likely that this had something to do with the portal. Someone had tampered with it. That someone was trying to gain access to the portal.  But, who? The October Project had been kept a secret from the public. It had to be someone at Ames. Did someone take the kids for leverage? Why had they not contacted her? Or taken her? She checked her phone again. No messages, voice or text.
    “Larry, can you check your phone?”
    “Did you hear it beep?” he asked surprised. He hadn’t heard a thing.
    “No, but check anyway.”
    He did, there were no messages. “Ollie, what’s going through your mind?”
    “Larry, I can’t help thinking that this may be connected to the October Project. The portal was tampered with and now the kids are missing. It’s just too much of a coincidence.”
    “You’re right, I was thinking the same thing. Who though? It’s got to be an inside job, someone at Ames. Any potential candidates?”
    “You guys really think so?” Rupert asked surprised. “I assumed we would get a ransom demand soon.”
    “You could be right, Rup. I just think it’s too much of a coincidence. Arizona’s changes, the portal is tampered with and now this.”
    “Who?” Rupert mumbled looking at Larry.
    “There are so few of us directly involved with the project. There is myself and Olivia, of course. There is Kevin at the other end. I have worked with him for years and trust him implicitly. I need to contact him to find out what’s going on at his end, but have no way of doing that at the moment as the portal is closed.”
    “There are people who are not directly involved, but also knew about the project or could have known about it,” added Olivia.
    “Let’s go through them,” suggested Larry and Rupert simultaneously.
    “Let’s see, there are all the spouses of those directly involved in the project. You, Rup and Kevin’s ex,” Olivia started.
    Larry continued. “Kevin and Inez have two kids, Lena and David. I can vouch for them, really nice people and Inez is not connected with Ames in any way. Inez and the kids live in Mountain View. I assume Kevin sent them through to live here for whatever reason. He asked me to look out for them if they needed anything. Lena is actually at Brown University now and David is at Mountain View High. Inez works at the library, part time. Nice lady.”
    “What about the peripheral staff? Could anyone else have known about the project?” Rupert asked.
    “The two who have been working on the data crunching the longest are Erica Sen and Grayson Weeks,” replied Olivia thoughtfully. “And Glenda joined us recently. I’ve known them for years. They were never told about the October Project directly, but probably figured it out.”
    “Why didn’t you tell them, if you trusted them?” Rupert wondered.
    “I guess we wanted to avoid any inadvertent slips. However, they probably figured it out anyway. I know Glenda has in the short time she’s been here,” Olivia mused.
    “Okay, let’s go through them individually,” Larry suggested. “Let’s start with Grayson. He keeps to himself, I believe he lost his wife