So would they have somebody installed in another room in the resort at Barrow's Pass? Or maybe they had developed a relay that could be operated remotely, like Taki's. Kevin thought of the killer mec being there right now in Eric's suitcase and Eric not even knowing, and somehow he virtually shuddered. . . .
No, that was unlikely he decided. The Microbotics mecs were still pretty crude, non-DNC types—the body suit was evidence enough of that. Although, given the kind of equipment that was sure to be available at a place like Microbotics, they would still have more-than-adequate capabilities when it came to communications. . . .
Wait a minute, Kevin told himself. Back up, back up. Like a man fallen overboard from a boat waving frantically before he went under, something in Kevin's already-fading train of thought was trying to get his attention. He tried to think back. . . . Why was it so difficult to track strings of thoughts and associations back in the reverse direction?
It was something to do with Eric's suitcase—suitcase in the car—maybe a mec in the suitcase. . . . So what was the significance of that? Mec in the suitcase, in the car. . . .
Mec in the car! Eric was using the Jaguar. Kevin had hidden two mecs in it—Tigger and Mr. Toad. If he couldn't get to the phone, maybe he could use one of the mecs in the car to warn Eric. But how could he, if he had already established that his communication with mecs wasn't working either? The answer was surely right there, if only he could find a way. . . .
He knew the hardware and software of Neurodyne's in-house system well enough to be aware how improbable this kind of failure mode was. The software channel drivers were modularized; for all of them to fail together was inconceivable. The only place where a malfunction could disable all channels simultaneously would be at the level above that where they all interfaced with the device control supervisor.
An anticipatory excitement bubbled up suddenly from somewhere in Kevin's subconscious, as even before he had fully followed the line through, an instinct told him that here was the solution.
The fault had to be in the device control supervisor. Specifically, that meant in the regular Neurodyne supervisor that handled the codes that all Neurodyne mecs operated on, because that was the supervisor they had been using. They had used the regular Neurodyne supervisor because the mecs they had sent into Garsten's office and the remaining ones in the van were regular Neurodyne production or research models. And, indeed, the others that Kevin had tried to activate in the lab where he was were all regular Neurodyne patterns too. But Toad and Tigger were special "battlemec" types that Kevin and Taki had modified, which used different codes and required a different version of the device control supervisor program. And Kevin kept a copy of that supervisor in the general Neurodyne system! He had put it there so that he could operate his own mecs in the firm's labs.
Maybe there was a way! If he could switch that version of the supervisor in place of the regular one that wasn't functioning, then maybe he would be able to access any of his own mecs that he could get a link to, even if he was shut off from the firm's. Praying that he wasn't building himself up with false hopes, he called down the Control menu and activated sysconf.
Kevin was standing before a yellow wall with a general system schematic showing as an organization chart of colored boxes with interconnections appearing as patch-cords. He expanded one of the boxes to reveal its inner structure, then zoomed in to locate the high-level control subsystem. He isolated the device control supervisor by unplugging its virtual connecting cords, and exchanged it for the box representing the modified program, which in his last expedition to this part of the system he had left hanging conveniently on a virtual nail sticking out of the virtual wall. He repatched the cords to install it, and the box for the Channel Assignment Table, which until now had been blank, activated to display available options. He knew then that this was going to work.
His excitement rising, he selected the code assigned to Taki's relay in the trunk of the Jaguar, and attempted a test link. The entry line in the box changed color, and an icon lit up, confirming a connection. He reset to operator mode, checked the two choices that were offered, and selected Mr. Toad. Moments later he found himself in a dark recess surrounded by plastic tatters and foam rubber. There was distant wind noise and the sound of tires humming on road.
Vanessa sat down before the console and dialed the number to interrogate the Jaguar's satellite-referenced positioning system. The response showed as a cursor on a map of central Washington state being presented on one of the screens. The door of the room opened, and Finnion came back in with Garsten.
"He's just coming to the winding part where the cliffs are," Vanessa announced. "Just a couple more minutes. . . ." The other two said nothing.
Vanessa attached the interface lead to the body suit, donned the helmet, and activated the system. She flexed muscles and moved her head, and after a few seconds of adjustment "became" the assassin bug in the box that she had left in the car.
She was looking up out of a deep, rectangular pit. Far above was the foreshortened shape of a car window, streaked by raindrops driven in the slipstream. "It looks as if it's raining there," she remarked. "This is perfect. Accidents happen on wet days in places like that all the time."
For several seconds Kevin lay motionless, soaking up the feeling of relief as if it were sunshine. Then he extricated himself from the hiding place at the back of the trunk and crawled through the gap in the rubber sealing to the space behind the rear seat. He climbed out of the canyon of fuzzy vine-mesh walls onto the seat, and waded through grass toward the smoother expanse of leather lining the front edge. The vault of the car's interior curved high above like a sky within the sky. The one outside looked gray and stormy, with streaks of rain running down and back across the windows. The sound system was playing an aria that sounded like Mozart. A briefcase lay on the back seat, and two open cardboard boxes containing a variety of objects were wedged below on the floor.
Before him, the leather back of the driver's seat towered like a Himalayan wall, the blond waves of Eric's hair above the headrest forming a distant, lofty summit.
Then something moved below, right at the edge of Toad's broad-angle cone of vision. Kevin looked down. Something was coming up out of one of the cardboard boxes.
Kevin moved forward onto the rounded bulge at the edge of the seat. It was a mec unlike any that he had seen before—black and insectlike, with six legs articulating from a horizontal body, and a low, tapered head flanked by short pincers. Everything about the way it came up out of hiding and seemed to creep with slow, purposeful menace triggered an instinct that sensed evil. The beetle-like creature crawled over the edge of the box and fell out of sight to the floor; seconds later, it came into view again, climbing up the back of the plinth below the armrests of the two front seats. It got to the top of the plinth, crossed the gap to the fabric-covered side of the driver's seatback, and began ascending, inches below and behind Eric's elbow.
That was when Kevin realized he'd been wrong. The plan had never been to repeat Jack Anastole's hotel-room mishap at all. This time it was going to be a car accident. "They"—his stepmother; her lover; whoever—were doing it right now!
From that point, Kevin was not really in control. Pure reflex took over. He flung himself off the seat, arms and legs spread like a freefall parachutist, and landed sprawled along a cardboard ridge formed by a lid flap bent down inside the box. For a moment he clung precariously, a drop to the floor on one side, a compartmented plastic tray containing paints and craft materials on the other. Then he got his grip and scurried along the ridge to the corner. Trusting to the feel that hours of playing battle games had given him for mec-world physics, he leaped across to the plinth, avoiding the detour of going down to the floor and back up again as the killer beetle had done.
Although the beetle had the superior grasping ability of six legs, whoever was operating it was moving more carefully. Even so, it still had a lead. It seemed to be heading for the top of the driver's
seatback. Kevin could either rely on his speed advantage to try and overhaul it, or go forward over the utility top between the two front armrests and hope he could alert Eric. If he opted for the latter and failed, there would be nothing to stop the beetle; and in any case, even if he did manage to get Eric's attention, there would still be the problem of trying to communicate the situation. He crossed the gap from the plinth to the seatback and began climbing after the black shape moving high above, clinging to the russet, fur-covered Eiger.
By the time the beetle reached the top, Kevin had halved the distance between them. When Kevin finally scrambled over the edge, the beetle was a matter of inches away—at mec scale, a couple of car lengths. He could see clearly now that it was of a pattern unlike anything that had ever come out of Neurodyne. It had more external linkages and piezoelectric fiber attachments, and the leg design and jointing arrangement was a different concept. Close-up, the purpose of the sting-like protrusion at the front of the turret head was chillingly plain. It was moving across the top of the seatback, in the space below the headrest. Through the gap, Kevin could see part of Eric's collar and neck, and an ear, his head swaying to the music as he drove. The road ahead plunged into a tight, leftward curve, wet rock rising on one side, a drop disappearing into mists on the other.
Vanessa crouched on the seatback, checking the scene ahead through the windshield. The road was treacherous, no other traffic in the vicinity. She bunched, preparing to spring.
There was no time to form any strategy. Kevin launched himself as the beetle arched itself to leap onto Eric's shoulder. They collided like metal wasps, Kevin trying to use surprise and his momentum to tear the beetle off and hurl it away. But momentum was of limited value at that scale, more than offset by the gripping power of six legs. The assassin bug held on, turned and parried him, and they rolled over and over along the top of the seat in a tangle of interlocked limbs and appendages.
It was like wrestling with a lobster. Not knowing the situation, Kevin had picked the wrong mec from the two in the trunk. Toad had been built more as a testbed for variable vision than as a fighter. If only he'd brought out Tigger instead, with its gigantic chainsaw, things would have been very different. But it was no use wishing now.
He grasped one of the assassin's legs to try dislocating it at a joint, but each of his arms was countered by another leg, both of them stronger. Another leg seized his head and started to twist. He turned his body, kicking one of the beetle's supporting legs away, and it fell to one side, partly releasing its hold to right itself. He feinted, ducked, and went again for a foreleg, locking close with the assassin for an instant, head to head like boxers in a clinch, and found himself staring into the monster's black, impenetrable eyes. He loosened an arm and tried to dislodge a leg that was forcing him over . . . but he was four limbs trying to fight six; and then he saw the pincers coming in from the side, ducked away . . .
But not quickly enough. An instant later his vision dimmed and lost depth, and he realized that one of Toad's eyes had gone. The other pincers struck; Kevin tried to ward them off, but his thumb had been snipped off before he realized that he could no longer judge distance. Seconds more, and he would be reduced to helplessness. Desperately crooking an arm around the black, angulated carapace, he heaved, straightened his legs, and hurled himself off the edge, taking the killer with him. To the sounds of a contralto singing Mozart filling the air, they tumbled together and landed in the craftworking box behind the seat.
Kevin was on his back in the plastic tray that he had looked down over from the top of the box. Around him were paint tins the size of oil storage tanks, and reels of embroidery thread that looked like drums of marine cable. He righted himself and began clambering over a pile of shiny, hexagonal pencil-logs that rolled and fell, making him lose his footing. The beetle was nowhere in sight, but he could hear scraping sounds coming from the adjacent compartment in the tray.
A pair of steel scissors resting on an edge of the tray offered a convenient ramp. Steadying himself against the dividing partition, Kevin moved cautiously up and peered over. Most of the space beyond the dividing wall was taken up by massive, pipelike pens and brushes. At the far end were several truck-size squeeze-tubes lying on their sides, their ends tapering into cones and capped. The beetle had wrested the cap off one of them, and even as Kevin watched, was maneuvering a gigantic brush—in reality probably about as big as a nail-polish applicator—under the blob of clear goo that was beginning to ooze from the opening. Chemical warfare.
The beetle looked and obviously saw him. Kevin was half blind and had no defense. Yet instead of retreating, he scaled the partition wall and advanced. The beetle turned, brandishing the glue-filled brush, and for a second or two hesitated as if suspecting a trick. Then it came forward and lunged.
Kevin's left arm was pinned by the first swab, powerless to move against the thick, sticky bond. The next blow caught the right side of his head, and in seconds his neck and shoulder joints were stiffening. The beetle circled at a distance, assessing the effect. Then, evidently reassured, it moved in again and plastered his hips and legs. Kevin felt himself wading slower and slower through congealing molasses, then halting completely. The beetle came closer, and Kevin's last impression was of almost sensing its operator gloating. . . .
All just as Kevin had intended. It was a diversionary tactic to keep the beetle occupied for just a little longer.
For it was obvious that Toad was done for. But that had ceased to be of relevance, since by the time the beetle closed in to complete its work, Toad was no longer registering anything.
Kevin had switched channels.
Tigger was already on its way.
The man who had come to the front door was small and balding, and wore a lightweight maroon jacket with white shirt and a dark tie. "No, sir, I'm afraid that Mr. Payne is away and not expected back until Monday," he informed the officers. There were four of them with Corfe now. The gray-and-blue Seattle cruiser had arrived at Payne's residence accompanied by a white-with-navy-stripe car of the Bellevue police. "Apart from myself and two other members of the domestic staff, the house is empty at present."
Corfe felt ill. Again there was no sign of the van outside, no beige Cadillac. The two Seattle officers glowered at him, while the one from the local force, who had put the question, looked back at the man in the maroon jacket. "And you are who, exactly, please?"
"My name is Vogl, sir. I'm the house steward."
"And there haven't been any callers in the last hour?" the Seattle officer who was called Des said. "We're looking for a woman in her late thirties, tall, slim, long fair hair, wearing a light blue coat."
"Nobody has been here I'm afraid. I know nothing of any person of such a description."
"I see."
"You are welcome to come inside and check the house for yourselves if you wish."
The four officers looked at each other. Des from Seattle shook his head. The Bellevue officer turned back to Vogl. "Thanks, but I don't think that'll be necessary. We appreciate your cooperation. Sorry to have taken up your time."
Five pairs of feet retraced their steps to the two police cars parked in the forecourt. Corfe knew he wasn't doing himself any favors, but there was no other way. "Then there's no other place," he remonstrated. "She must be at the firm. They've taken her to Microbotics."
"Mr. Corfe, why don't you give it a break?" Des advised.
"Look, I'm not crazy," Corfe said. "I know how this must sound, but it's only a couple of miles away. I'm telling you, a person's life is in danger. These people have killed before. If I'm wrong, okay, you can charge me with wasting your time or whatever. But what if I'm not wrong? Do you want that on your record?"
The senior man from the Bellevue car held up his hands. "Well, I guess you won't be needing us anymore. That's over our line. Good luck, guys." He motioned to his companion, and they got back into their car.
Des looked at Corfe long and balefully, as if making sure his face
would be permanently filed for future reference. "Get in," he said, and walked around to the other side of the car. "Okay, Greg, let's move out," he told the driver. "I'll call the Redmond dispatcher to have someone meet us there."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Garsten's voice rose, close-by yet at the same time in the background, dissociated from what Vanessa was seeing. Its note of alarm grated on her nerves, distracting her. "Vanessa, what is it? What's happening? What do you mean, someone else is there? How can there be?"
The surprise of encountering the intruder had been too great for her to stifle her reaction. It could only be Kevin. How he was doing it or where the other mec had come from, she had no time to think about now.
"Vanessa, will you please tell us what—"
"Shut up!"
"Phil, just cool it for a moment," she heard Finnion murmur. She concentrated on visual and tactile space, closing out reminders of her actual physical surroundings.
The intruder was permanently immobilized now. Its sudden appearance, just when she had been at her most keyed-up, had left Vanessa in a strangely obsessive shocked condition. She was conscious of one goal only: to complete the task that she had embarked on. Where the intruder had come from and how it had gotten there; how much Kevin knew; who else was a party to it—all of those things could wait. The obstacle represented by Eric symbolized everything. If she failed to eliminate that now, she would forfeit all.
She dropped down from the top of the cardboard box to the floor as before, and climbed the carpeted base of the plinth supporting the front-seat armrests. Finding holds in the seamwork and stitching, she scaled the leather upholstery to the level space at the top. From there, the sides of the two front seatbacks soared up on either side of her like the World Trade Center towers, while in front, the utility top with its sunken recesses for maps, cups, and change extended away like a city street between the walls of the two armrests. Vanessa moved left to the driver's seatback and stared up at the climb for the second time. Reflexes conditioned in a different realm still made it visually daunting, but she knew from experience that the actuality was effortless. She cast a last look back down into the cardboard box that she had come from, just to be certain. The odd, froglike mec with the enormous eyes, one of them gouged into an empty socket, was standing motionless as she had left it, the sticky, congealed, entrapping mass already setting hard. This time, then. She turned back to commence the climb. . . .
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