Earthweb

by Marc Stiegler

  Lou's old skills came back as sharp as ever. His hands were not so steady as they had once been, though. He hoped that, just this once, Viktor had sent him a dummy, not a live one. Fat chance.

  The wrapping was not wired. He removed it easily. Penetrating the cardboard box was a bit trickier, but this too yielded to his careful vivisection. Eventually, he had the entire structure laid out, exposed. Sure enough, Viktor had sent a live bomb, and had used the newest technology. The charge was a small chunk of duodec, in the shape of a Hershey's kiss. Viktor's sense of humor remained as sharp as ever. And Lou appreciated the thoughtfulness shown in the size the charge; even with duodec, the charge was only enough to blow up his office. His family would have been perfectly safe in the kitchen. It told him that Viktor cared about his family. It also told him that even Viktor was just a little concerned that this time, just maybe, Lou wouldn't be quite up to the challenge.

  Lou spent half an hour working his way around the traps and dummies. Finally he made the ticking stop. No explosion accompanied the sudden silence. Lou sighed.

  The bomb had been attached to a small touchscreen, which now lit up of its own accord. "Lou!" the broad Russian face smiled at him from the screen, "Pozdravlyayu s dnyem rozhdyeniya! And many more. Though you'd better practice more for my presents, comrade. Otherwise, next year will be your last!"

  * * *

  Jessica's confidence that she had done a good deed by inviting her grandmother to come down from Montana for a couple of days was ebbing fast. "Granma, I just can't believe it! You can't even walk through a simple supermarket without ranting about the government." Jessica reached into the freezer and brought out a package. "I for one want a T-bone steak tonight."

  Granma rapped her cane against the tiled floor several times, then swept the steaks out of her granddaughter's cart, and threw them back into the meat case. She stooped over it, tossing packages this way and that with a speed and forcefulness that belied her rumpled appearance. Her search proceeded relentlessly, as she dug down deeper into the stacks of meat, until a crowd started to gather.

  Jessica whispered, "Granma, you're making a scene!"

  A whoop of triumph echoed from the depths of the freezer. A wrinkled hand triumphantly held up a package of T-bone steak very much like the one Granma had originally thrown back in disgust. Granma stood up saying forcefully, "Now this is a label you can trust."

  Jessica sighed as Granma tossed the steaks into the cart. Only the most miniscule difference separated Jessica's original steaks from her grandmother's: Jessica's steaks had been certified by the FDA, whereas Granma's had been certified by Underwriters' Laboratory.

  Jessica pushed her cart through the gathering of people, trying to escape the scene of the crime, but Granma wasn't quite done yet. Granma looked each of the half-dozen people in the eye and said, "Never trust the FDA! They'll kill ya." With that, Granma strode with dignified haste down the aisle to catch up with her granddaughter, who was thoughtfully eyeing the different brands of dishwashing detergent, trying to become invisible.

  As usual, Granma had an opinion. "Get the detergent from P&E, girl. Consumer Reports says it really does cut the grease better, and leaves fewer stains."

  "Really?" Jessica asked with some amusement.

  "Really." Granma whipped her palmtop out of her purse and performed a quick Web search. She held the computer out so Jessica could view the screen. "See?"

  Jessica looked at the Consumer Reports analysis, just three months old. Sure enough, it said that the P&E brand of detergent was worth the extra cost. "Well, you sure saved me that time," Jessica said as she picked up a box of the expensive detergent.

  "No, I saved you when I got you the good T-bones," Granma sniffed. "You know the FDA killed your great-grandfather."

  Jessica checked off the dishwasher detergent from her shopping list, and saw she was done. She pointed her cart toward the exit. "I know, Granma, I know." Granma's father had died of sudden heart failure during the time when the Food and Drug Administration was still refusing to allow beta-blockers on the market. Tens of thousands of people had died. "But Granma, that was back in the 1970s, for God's sake. The FDA isn't even a part of the government any more. They're a respectable company, just like Consumer Reports or Underwriter's."

  "Ha! I suppose you'd say that about the Post Office, too." Granma was still unconvinced.

  As they reached the exit, all the packages in the cart talked to the store computer, which then beeped Jessica's palmtop. Hardly slowing down, she glanced at the tallied-up cost of her purchases and authorized payment.

  Granma was peering over her shoulder. "Federal dollars?!" she wailed. "You're keeping your money in Federal dollars?"

  Jessica groaned. Now she would get a lecture about government-backed financial instruments, and the merits of using Masterbucks instead. "I keep some of my money in Swiss francs, too," she said helpfully, just for the perverse joy of watching her Granma splutter in rage.

  * * *

  The Dealer stared once again at the disaster upon his screen. An American, he believed, would have screamed in pain looking at the shattered results of his careful planning. But he was tougher than Americans. He really couldn't understand how those whiners succeeded so often, with all the crying and moaning they did.

  Still, his loss hurt. The plan had seemed surefire. Somehow, though, he'd gotten himself taken to the cleaners on the 'castpoint, again. He forced himself to sit back in his chair and close his eyes, to review what he'd done, find the mistake.

  That pattern of anonymous identities he had followed, he was sure it was the Predictor. He'd followed them on half a dozen forecasts, all winners. The Dealer's confidence in his scam had grown as he proceeded, encouraging him to plunk down bigger chunks of cash—he was reinvesting all his profits from the forecasts and then some. But then the Predictor's anonymous little cluster of buyers had forecast that the new generation of solar mirrors would be able to do some damage to Shiva, vaporizing at least one hundred tons of Shiva armor, before Shiva destroyed them. The odds, at five to one against, were terrific. With this 'cast, the Dealer would make a profit to party on!

  But the mirror arrays had barely gotten focused on Shiva before the blasted planet-wrecker had started spinning, and whatever that alabaster white armor was, it could throw off a lot of energy before yielding. The Dealer had glanced at the post-attack analysis, and now they thought the damn stuff might be laced with capillary tubes pumped with liquid sodium, a huge cooling system. True or not, Shiva counterfired on the mirror control stations with a series of particle beam strikes. A salvo of those incredible high-speed Selk missiles followed the particle beams, and that was that.

  And once again the Dealer was left holding the wrong 'cast.

  Well, if things went well on the skytruck proposal, he'd recoup his losses. The sims had shown, pretty clearly, that his design would work. He'd have to tinker with the end result a bit, he was sure–the sims weren't perfect–but his underlying concepts were sound. He went out to the Silicon Intercepts RFP and clicked across the links till he found the webform to submit his proposal. He was immediately faced with the most difficult decision he had to make on this effort: which brand should he use?

  The Dealer held two longstanding brands on the Web. One was his "reputable criminal" brand, the one he'd used when negotiating with the kid who'd nabbed the motherboards. That was the brand he used most often. But he had another pretty well-known signature, the one he used to market his services as an antique automobile restorer. That one was scrupulously clean.

  The Dealer's preference on the bid would have been to use an anonymous identity. Then, if he won the bid, he could stash the cash and get on with his life, leaving the poor sucker who'd given him the job well-stiffed. That would have been a Deal. But the RFP clearly stated that only a brand with an extensive, positive reputation would win. An anonymous identity was out.

  And after staring at his screen for a while, the Dealer had to confess that his repu
table criminal brand wasn't any good for this task either. All the contracts that he'd ever undertaken with that brand contained vague, slippery wording that law enforcers couldn't use against him in court. Anyone with a brain would quickly recognize such a brand, maintained specifically for shady, if not necessarily illegal, deals. The Dealer shook his head. If he used that identity, and if the customer understood what it meant, he'd lose right there. He couldn't accept such a big risk of losing based on the brand, when he had such a good shot at winning otherwise.

  It was really a shame. The Dealer had lined up some low-ball pricing vendors for several of the components. He could have just about doubled his profit if he'd been able to use the criminal brand and cut some corners (after all, how much would his fencing customers care about how he'd stiffed a non-criminal firm? Not in the least). No, he was stuck. If he was going to win, he'd have to use his best signature, and that meant he'd have to use the right components. He told himself it was still all right. After all, even with top-quality materials, he'd still make a handsome profit, considering that his design innovation allowed him to build a substantially less expensive machine anyway. He could, and would, skim a substantial part of that cost savings as his take. Not quite a Deal, but certainly a big win.

  Choosing his car-mechanic brand, the Dealer filled out the form, submitted his truck plans, and included the sims he'd run: the sims weren't required, but he was pretty sure they'd clinch the deal if anything did.

  * * *

  "You are a devil, Viktor Gudonov," Lou told his old friend on the screen.

  "So you liked my present," Viktor replied, beaming in delight.

  "You have to stop sending things like that. Someone is going to get hurt. Probably me."

  Viktor waved the objection aside. "I haven't sent you a proper birthday present in four years, and now you complain. Old man, you are getting to be an old man."

  "And you are getting to be an actuarial nightmare. Last I heard, Russians were supposed to die in their seventies." Viktor was ninety-eight. Lou continued, "I hope your insurance company appreciates the dividends they're making on your carcass."

  "I pity your children, having to pay for your carcass." Viktor laughed. "Did you like the explosive?"

  "The duodec? Cool stuff, no doubt about it. I have this feeling we still haven't really tapped its potential, though. Despite the money we've won." Viktor and Lou had designed a duodec pattern that could bring down a chunk of ceiling in that Shiva, which had been quite valuable for Angel One. The prize had been a handsome reward.

  "My feelings exactly. I think we ought to get together and work with it more seriously, to see if there's some fun we've been missing."

  Lou stared at him in astonishment. "Get together? Like physically get in the same room together?"

  "Not a room, an open field. A large open field. No sense knocking down a building if we can help it."

  Lou looked out the window. Spring had come to most of America, but here in Rochester, New York there was still the odd spot of snow on the ground. "Viktor, even the fields just around here are too cold for me right now, and I know what the temperatures are like around your house. I wouldn't survive it. My teeth would freeze together."

  Viktor clucked his tongue. "Tsk, Lou, maybe you really are getting too old. I'll have to find a younger partner." He looked wistfully into the distance. "A young woman, perhaps, no older than seventy, with a—"

  "With a background in explosives. Sure, Viktor. I'm sure there are some around, but let's face it, the art of explosives isn't what it used to be. The Cold War has been over for a very long time. Today's terrorists just aren't up to snuff. Thank God."

  "Too true, too true. I suppose I shall be cursed with you as my partner for the rest of my days." Viktor's broad face took on a mournful look.

  Lou snapped his fingers. "I know where we could go. Let's buzz on over to Vegas."

  Lou had the satisfaction of seeing his comrade's face twist in surprise. Lou didn't get to surprise Viktor as nearly as often as Viktor surprised him.

  Viktor said, "Lou, when I said there might be some fun we're missing, I didn't mean gambling, games, and dames. Or are you thinking we could check out practice charges on the Luxor Hotel? I confess the idea intrigues me. Certainly, if we could bring down a beautifully stable structure like that pyramid, we'd have something."

  "Viktor, no!" Lou chided him. "I agree it would be a great test, but we'd have terrible trouble getting the building cleared first. Forget that. We'll meet at the Vegas drop port. And then . . ." Lou enjoyed watching Viktor lean forward just a smidgen, in eager anticipation. The old KGB agent still didn't know what he'd planned. Score one for the CIA. "We'll tool on over to Fort Powell. Trust me, there are plenty of open fields around the base where we can blast to our heart's content. Shucks, there are whole mountains in the neighborhood that have no purpose except to serve as testbeds. Plus, there's an added bonus."

  Viktor's eyes brightened with excitement. "Of course, the Angels!"

  Lou shook his head doubtfully. "Yeah, that's where the Angels train all right, though that's not exactly what I was driving at. Not only are the Angels there, but so is all their equipment. In particular, there's a complete set of gear available for inspection by specialists such as ourselves."

  "So we can see exactly what equipment we'll have to work with," Viktor said, finally up to speed.

  "Exactly."

  "I like it, old friend. In fact, it is such a good idea, why didn't you suggest it for Shiva IV?"

  Lou glared at him. "Don't you ever stop complaining, Viktor? I come up with a great idea, and now you're giving me a hard time because I didn't think of it five years ago?"

  "Someone has to keep you on your toes," came the huffy response.

  Lou heard the muffled whine of his grandson's van coming down in the back. "My great-great-granddaughter, Lanie, does that for me. I don't need you."

  Viktor raised his hands to his forehead. "Of course! Lanie! You're right, you don't need me. Well, you don't need me for that, anyway. Please tell me, how is the delightful bride-to-be?"

  "She grows more wonderful by the day," Lou said, and mist filled his eyes. "I wouldn't hold my breath on her marrying Illya, though. Indeed, I think she's forgotten the crush she had on him when she was five." Six years earlier, Lou had journeyed to Murmansk to visit his ex-nemesis, now his closest friend. Viktor's family, Lou had known, wasn't quite sure how to respond to a man Viktor claimed as a great friend, but of whom Viktor told many tales, most of which involved death by violence for Viktor's associates. To help break the ice (so to speak), Lou had taken Lanie with him. Ice-breaking was one of Lanie's talents. She was effervescent and had no trouble bringing smiles even to the face of Viktor's dour brother. And Lou had figured that the experience would be interesting for Lanie as well. Lanie had quite fallen for the fair-haired Illya, who was twelve at the time. And Illya hadn't minded having Lanie tagging around after him.

  Viktor shook his head sadly. "She has forgotten my Illya! Astounding! Incomprehensible! And also, a great loss for the CIA-KGB détente. She could have been Juliet for my Illya's Romeo. Maybe they'd even beat the classic ending and live happily every after—a couple of smart kids like that."

  Lou shook his head. CIA-KGB détente?! The CIA and KGB were both long dead, but still they lived on in Viktor's romantic heart.

  Viktor eyes widened, and he leaned toward the camera. "Well, perhaps they'll have another chance," he said in a secretive hush. "Illya is coming to America next month."

  Lou blinked. "Really? To do what?"

  "He's going to Colorado Springs, of course. To the Space Force Academy."

  Lou gave Viktor a big smile. "That's wonderful, Viktor. Space Force. So he's going to follow the family tradition of defending the rodina, hmmm?" Viktor's son had been in the Russian Navy, and his granddaughter had married a missile commander in the Earth Defense Space Force.

  "Illya most certainly is going to follow our proud tradition. If he can
not take down Shiva, no one can!" Viktor's nostrils flared, and his fist came down on the table, out of sight of the camera, but with a bang that Lou could not mistake.

  Back in Lou's own office, an eleven-year-old tornado charged through even as Lou heard an irritated mother cry out, "Lanie! Let Pops talk to his friend in peace!"

  Lanie wrapped her arms around Lou, and Lou smiled lopsidedly into the camera.

  Viktor gave him a wink and a small wave of his massive hand. "See you in Vegas," he said.

  "Check," Lou replied, and the screen went dark. Lou lifted his youngest descendant up and hauled her into the rec room.

  * * *

  The Earth Defense Ship South Hampton fired its engines one last time. It stopped dead adjacent to the supply ship. Missile Commander Vinogrado stood patiently at the docking bay, watching his younger comrades pace impatiently while eagerly awaiting the next load of goodies.