“Yeah, you?”
“Not a chance,” Leo replied, though not as though it was an obstacle, simply a temporary state. “You a tech-head?”
Now on more comfortable ground, Sam replied simply, “I am.”
Leo took this to mean that the ice was officially broken. “Sweet!” He then yelled over his shoulder, “Hey Sharsky! Fassbinder! How we doing in there?” At this, two students poked their heads into view. Sam sighed and looked at the floor. These two represented the Platonic ideal of “Geek.”
“Servers almost online, Leo,” came Sharsky’s enthusiastic reply.
“Got your network up and running,” added Fassbinder.
“Uh . . . what is all...” began Sam.
“Welcome to my empire. ‘The Real-Effing-Deal- dot-com.’ You’ve heard of it, right?” Leo had the confidence of a true bloghead, daring Sam to claim ignorance.
Sam took the bait. “Uh, no.”
Set atop the desk near Leo’s bed, a recently installed computer suddenly beeped for attention. Leo spun to his computer, his active fingers on alert. Tentatively moving nearer, Sam peered over the other youth’s shoulder.
The source of the viral video that was looping onscreen could be identified by the Chinese ideographs that ran down the right-hand side of the monitor. A stream of English subtitles supplied translations that were punctuated by an excess of exclamation points.
“What’s that?!,” a voice on the video was saying. “Are you seeing this!?!!. . . It’s HUGE!!!!”
Striving for a better look, Sam leaned closer. What he was able to make out caused him to stiffen. The hand-held pickup, probably a camera phone, that had been used to record the video was tracking a wild car chase, the object of which was enormous, metallic, and composed of several wheels that were rotating end over end. While he had never before glimpsed its like, Sam had a pretty good and equally unsettling idea of what he was looking at.
His attention focused on the monitor, Leo failed to notice his roommate’s reaction. “See,” Leo continued unabashed, “I’m more than a website, Sam. I’m a brand. ”
“The real deal,” added Sharsky.
“Uncovering the truth,” offered Fassbinder.
“Whoa,” Leo reacted to what he was seeing onscreen. “Lotta traffic today. Half of Shanghai gets wrecked and China says ‘gas leak.’ Yeah, right.
“This is just like that tech snow job two years ago. You remember that, right? That top-secret ‘corporate robotics’ program that was supposed to have something to do with national defense? The one that went Rambo all over Mission City?”
“Um, I—just heard the rumors. Didn’t pay much attention to it.” Sam smiled wanly. “Pretty much buried in schoolwork, y’know? Tryin’ to get into a decent college, family. Girlfriend ...” His voice trailed away.
Staring hard at the screen, Leo hardly heard him. “Where’s there’s smoke, there’s fire, man. ‘Gas leak’ my ass—so to speak. Those were aliens on that street!”
“I wasn’t there, officially,” Sam mumbled, “so I can’t really speculate or comment on tha ...”
“ ‘Speculate or comment’—what’re you, the frig- gin’ White House press secretary? Don’t be suckin’ the sack of mainstream media. You’ve seen all the allied pabulum for the public that’s been put out there? ‘Massive Dynamics’? It’s a shell, man! A front! Three years ago it didn’t even exist. I know; I checked every issue of The Economist for the past ten years, Ain’t no mention of a Massive Dynamics. Massive scam, that’s what it is. That ‘CEO’ they threw in front of Congress? Bay watch! Same guy got saved from drowning by Hasselhoff. Old show, old episode; the guy was a lot younger but you put the stills side by side and there’s no mistaking it. Pam gave him mouth-to- mouth so hard her boobies almost popped!” He glanced briefly back over his shoulder. “Look it up— he’s an actor. ”
Fassbinder broke in, the look on his face betraying frustrated disappointment. “Leo, bad news: we got scooped. The video’s already up on G.F.R.!” “Dammit, Fassbinder!” bellowed Leo.
Sharsky leaned in toward Sam, conspiratorially, and said, “G.F.R. Giant-Effing-Robots-dot-com.” “Guy’s our main competition on conspiracy stuff. ‘Effing’ was my effing idea, he stole it!” Leo said, more to himself than to anyone else in the room.
Once again his fingers thundered over the keyboard. A site came to life: a treasure trove of amateur videos and conspiracy message boards spilling over with appropriately apocalyptic warnings and imagined scenarios. Eyeing it all, Sam wondered how many similar sites had sprung up on the Web over the past couple of years.
“Site’s run by someone who calls himself “Robo- Warrior,” Fassbinder added for Sam’s benefit.
Leo was in a state. “Crafty bastard’s always linking to our site and thieving hits—the guy’s taking food outta my future babies’ momma’s mouths!” Leo turned back to Sam. “By the way, I read your file— I’m poor, you’re poor. We’re gonna fix that. Tell you what: you work for me now. ”
“Uh-huh, sounds awesome,” replied Sam. “Whole reason I came to college, so I can work for some dinky Internet firm ...”
“You mocking my life’s work? That’s your one warning for ‘trolling,’ dude. Don’t make me have Fassbinder hack your financial aid.”
“Leo, I don’t know how to do that,” offered Fassbinder.
An exasperated Leo shot back, “Come ON! It’s about perception! Nine-tenths of the law! What the eff am I paying you for?”
“You’re not paying me,” Fassbinder reminded Leo. Sam slowly backed toward the open door. A fresh- faced dorm monitor was passing with tour in tow. Paying no heed to protocol, Sam intercepted her.
“Excuse me? R.A.? Are there maybe any other rooms available?”
Her retort was far too perky for the situation. “Oh, sad face! Sorry, Three-twelve. No switching, no trading. Let’s turn that frown upside down!”
“Well, hello-hello.” The voice that called out to him was more than familiar. “And here’s Sam, and . .. oh . .. um .. .”
His mother’s voice sank as she and his father arrived at the doorway, hauling boxes. Their expressions contorted as they took note of the condition of their son’s room. An uneasy Judy Witwicky fingered the brownie she was holding.
“Uh, Mom, Dad.” Sam summoned a smile. “This is Leo . . . and these guys—my roommates. For the moment.” He fully intended to continue and, if possible, explain, but the brownie caught his attention. “Mom? Where’d you get that?”
She held up the dark brown square. “Oh, down the hall,” she explained breezily. “These extremely conscientious boys are having a bake sale for their environmental group. They said their brownies were pure Hawaiian green.”
Father and son reacted simultaneously.
“Uh, Mom—don’t eat that,” Sam mumbled.
“Judy, drop the brownie.” Ron Witwicky reached for the chocolaty square.
His wife pulled it away from him. “Oh, c’mon, it’s my cheat day.” She turned back to her son. Her college student son, she reminded herself proudly. Her Ivy League student son. “You just relax here. We’ll get the rest of your stuff. Make friends, make friends.” Before husband or son could intervene further she gobbled down the remnants of the brownie, licked her fingers, and headed back down the hallway. Ron hurried after her, his expression conflicted.
Having moved up to stand beside Sam, Leo was now ogling the girl who was moving in directly across the hall: a fresh-faced clone of numerous television blondes. Mega-cute. In spite of himself, Sam could not keep from staring.
Leo whacked his arm. “£s la casa del chicas en fuego. Sharsky hacked campus housing and we stacked the dorm with pretty bettys . . . you’re welcome. She’s tied for number five on my to-do list. So do not bird- dog my quail. You hear me?”
Sufficiently loud to penetrate the general noise and confusion, Leo’s voice caused the subject of his observation to turn and regard them curiously.
“Uh—hi.” She was careful to keep close to her room and not step across the hall. Conversation would be conducted at a safe distance.
Leo straightened to his full height. “Leo Ponce de Leon Spitz, The-Real-Effing-Deal-dot-com.”
Her return smile was understandably guarded. “Alice.”
“I’m Sam.” No harm, he told himself, in being polite. Especially to a new neighbor. Especially to a new neighbor who looked ... who looked .. .
She was staring directly at him, interdicting his thoughts. Blocking memories with sparks. Spitz picked up on the instant rapport between the two like a hound scenting blood from a stuck javelina. His voice deliberately rose and deepened.
“Leo," Leo felt the need to remind her.
“Hi, Sam.” Her gaze and her tone suggested that Senor Spitz had ceased to exist as a physical reality in the current quadrant of the known cosmos.
“He has a girlfriend.” More than a hint of desperation was beginning to creep into Leo’s voice.
“Lucky guy,” smiled Alice.
Leo persisted. “Plus he’s got some gastrointestinal issues, this guy. It’s like a butt died in his pants.”
“Leo’s in a boy band,” Sam countered.
Flashing a smile only a few watts short of melting glass, she picked up one of her move-in boxes and turned toward her room. “Nice to meet you guys . . . Sam.” All golden-blond hair and curves that had no place in a trigonometry text, Alice took her box and vanished into her room.
Leo turned to Sam with a scowl. “It’s o«.”
“I have a girlfriend . ..,” protested Sam.
Leo pointed a finger at Sam’s chest. “I’ll cut you.”
Sam swallowed hard, but not in reaction to Leo’s threat.
Sam was intent on following when he noticed something out a hallway window. Down on the quad, Judy Witwicky was hugging a man who was not her husband. To his credit, the man looked startled rather than engaged. Releasing him, she moved on to a middle-aged woman and embraced her with equal enthusiasm. A wide-eyed student was next, followed by . . .
Uh-oh. Grasping that his mother was deep in the throes of brownie-inspired sociability, Sam bolted for the stairs.
He arrived in the vicinity of his highly exuberant parent approximately the same time as did his father. Spinning gaily away from her husband, she pirouetted across the lawn. As she did so, she drew amused stares from arriving students and the occasional look of horror from their parents.
“Welcome to the dorm!” She was shouting at no one in particular, with the possible exception of the clouds scudding past overhead. “My son is Sam Witwicky—W-i-t-w-i-c-k-y. He’s a student here, too. He’s a nice boy. These are his baby booties.”
Sprinting out of the main ground-floor entryway, a horrified Sam located his mother just in time to see her dancing with the mini-shoes in question as if they were a pair of pale blue castanets.
“Mom! What’re you doing ... ?”
“Oh, hi, Sammy.” Following this brief acknowledgment of his presence she resumed speaking to the crowd. Those adults nearest to her picked up their pace, while the other new students she was addressing smirked or giggled according to their gender. “He’ll be homesick, so please be nice to him; don’t tease him, he’s very sensitive ...”
“Mom, you need to stop right now” Short of lasso and gag, the increasingly desperate Sam could envision no way to put an end to the continuing embarrassment his mother had become. He looked frantically toward his father, who was likewise standing nearby looking alternately mortified and helpless. “Dad, do something, this is not okay.”
“Fm trying,” Ron Witwicky protested. He strove to gently but firmly get a grip on his wife’s arm as she continued to boogie energetically out of his grasp. “Help me get her outta here.”
His more-than-happy wife proceeded to intercept a well-dressed couple who were on their way toward the residence hall entrance. This precipitated a little jig as they tried to go around her and she kept moving to block their path. While the man only looked irritated, his wife was growing increasingly nervous.
“Did you know,” Judy Witwicky murmured with the air of one imparting a mystery of great gravity, “that his car is a talking robot?”
“OnStar!” Having managed to secure a grip on his mother’s right arm, a frantic ,Sam was trying to guide her in the direction of the curb and the car waiting there. “She means I have OnStar! And I have no idea who this woman is!”
His mother exploded in hysterical laughter. “On- star, on-star—don’t know which star they’re on, on- star!” Lapsing into a moment of sudden silence, her lips parted as she gasped in delighted surprise at something across the lawn. “Frisbee!”
Breaking free of husband and son, she raced across the grass to intercept a game of Frisbee. As one of the participating students bent to pick the disc off the lawn, she got to it before him. A tug-of-war ensued: young student trying to politely but forcefully retrieve his toy, middle-aged homemaker growing increasingly bellicose as she clung to it with both hands. “Leggo! It’s mine!”
“Look, Miss, I don’t know where you came from or what you think you’re do . .
Father and son arrived before the confrontation could turn serious. Putting an arm around his addled spouse, Ron managed to break her death grip on the disc as he aimed her in the direction of the street.
“Whoa-kay, that’s enough fun for one day. Let’s go, Grace Slick.”
Once again she twirled out of his arms. “How ’bout you show me around the library, professor?” Bending forward, an inviting silly grin on her face, she crooked a finger at Ron. “I’ll do anything for an A.”
“Sounds good. You’re walking on the moon, Judy,” he murmured as he caught up to her. Resistance suddenly folded as confusion fogged her thoughts. Not to mention her stomach. He was finally able, with Sam’s aid, to guide her to the car. As she slid into the front passenger seat, suddenly docile, it was clear that she had sunk deep into thought. Neither man cared to know the subject of her meditating. All that mattered was that she was safely in the car, which her husband thoughtfully locked from outside using the key-chain remote. He turned to his son.
“Wish me luck getting her past the dogs at the airport.” With his spouse now safely secured, he felt able to bestow a last proud smile on his offspring. “You’re a free man now, kiddo. And I do mean ‘man.’ This is gonna be a great time for you. Just use your head and make us proud. I’m sure you’ll do great. We’ll call you from our trip.” He glanced back into the car, to where his wife had chosen to focus her full concentration on the palm of her left hand. She was tracing the lines there. Hopefully they would be of sufficient complexity to keep her occupied until they reached the airport.
“Love you, Dad,” Sam replied simply. There was no need for further elaboration.
“Love you too, Pal. You’re gonna do great things, I can feel it.” Ron nodded in the direction of the looming residence hall. “And no brownies. I mean it.”
Sam grinned back. “Not hungry, Dad. Gotta watch my figure anyway.”
They hugged as fathers and sons do: briefly, with a touch of embarrassment, but hard. Then Ron Wit- wicky hurried around the front of the car so that his son would not see the moisture that had begun to form at the corners of his eyes. As he climbed in behind the wheel, his wife rolled down the window on her side.
“Okay, good luck! Good grades!” Raising her right hand, she formed a “V” with the middle and index fingers. “Peace out!” As the car drove off, pulling away from the curb as fast as her husband could safely manage, Sam’s last glimpse of his mother was of her staring at her forked fingers as if she had never seen them before.
The smile stayed on his face all the way back to his room. Where Leo was waiting.
“I like your parents. They’re good people.”
As evening descended, something else besides the arc of the burning tropical sun set over the edge of the Indi
an Ocean and disappeared beneath the surface. No one saw it; no one recorded the rapidly dispersing cloud of steam that erupted briefly in its wake. Sinking through the clear, warm water, it began to change shape. Limbs of varying size and function sprouted from the skin of the cooling orb. Propelling itself through the water, it paused occasionally to inspect a variety of growths and other native life-forms as it advanced in the direction of the atoll that was its target.
Nothing if not agile, Ravage did not need to find a way through or under the metal fencing that barred his path: relying on his tightly wound strength, he simply leaped high over the barrier in a single bound. Keeping low to the ground, he made his way toward a line of concrete structures that featured sloping, windowless sides. Alongside signs warning of the presence of ambient radiation, others replete with garish color suggested the presence of far more deadly devices. The Decepticon, however, was interested in something far more important than mere nuclear weaponry.
The last bunker in line bore the simple, innocuous designation “E-7.” Ascending the inclined white wall, Ravage maintained his low profile as he examined the roof. It was as solid and featureless as the walls save for a couple of air vents. These were so slim and high- tech as to preclude entry by anything larger than a worm. Furthermore, they did not run directly into the interior of the bunker but instead deliberately twisted and turned to foil any attempt at entry by a probing tentacle or wire.
The intrusion Ravage had prepared was nowhere near so primitive.
Like miniature versions of himself, the cloud of tiny ball bearings the Decepticon fed into the vent sprouted minuscule limbs of their own. Little bigger than bird shot, they scrambled downward with a malign collective intelligence that was frightening to behold— except that there was no one to witness their incursion. They moved in total silence, communicating with one another on a wholly unique and completely secure frequency.
Pouring into the vault below they swirled about a common axis, gathering themselves together like a rising dust devil. The shape they collectively assumed was roughly bipedal and thin as a reed. Ignoring the explosive elements, radioactive materials, ignition devices, and other primitive weapons material stored within the vault, the newly arisen shape advanced without hesitation toward the far end of the chamber.
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