Xenotech Queen's Gambit: A Novel of the Galactic Free Trade Association (Xenotech Support Book 2)

by Schroeder, Dave

  * * * * *

  I’d made it all the way to the interstate before everything turned upside down.

  “You’ve got a call,” said my phone.

  “Who’s it from?” I asked.

  “CiCi, the security guard from WT&F.”

  “I know who she is. Mike has a date with her on Friday. I hope she’s not asking me out. I’m taken.”

  “I don’t think so,” said my phone. “Voice stress analysis indicates she’s really worried about something.”

  “Then put her through,” I said.

  My phone complied. It was right about her being worried.

  “Jack! Please! Come help. There’s been an explosion and they’ve evacuated the building.”

  “Is Mike okay?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” said CiCi, “but I don’t think he was anywhere near the executive offices.”

  “Is that where the explosion was?” I said.

  “I think so. That’s where the smoke is coming from. I’m outside now. I was here covering a second shift so that I could get Friday night off.”

  She was sounding slightly more calm now.

  “I pulled the fire alarm and called 911,” said CiCi. “Then I watched the security monitors to confirm everyone got out. Everyone had—except Mike. I thought he must have gone out the back.”

  She must have covered her phone’s microphone with her hand because I could barely make out her voice. She was saying something like “Have you seen him?”

  Then she was back on with me. The stress in her voice had returned.

  “Mike’s not here. He must be still inside.”

  “On my way,” I said.

  But I already was. My phone and van were both quick on the uptake and were shifting to the off ramp for the next exit so we could turn around and get to WT&F fast. I just hoped we’d get there soon enough to be useful.

  “Step on it, please,” I told my van.

  There was a lot of stress in my voice, too. CiCi might be overly optimistic about Mike not being affected by the explosion. The production floor was directly below the executive offices.

  My van made great time. It was going so fast that there were moments when I thought it was a hovercar. I could see smoke rising as I approached WT&F’s exit on I-285.

  When I pulled into the parking lot, three fire trucks and two ambulances were already on the scene. Clumps of employees were standing near the ambulances, being treated for minor injuries, mostly cuts and bruises from flying debris. Steel and glass shards had peppered the paint jobs of cars parked near the explosion, but luckily no one was in the parking lot when the bomb—if it was a bomb—went off.

  A fancy red Porsche 9099 Sterne-Kämpfer in a reserved spot near the front entrance was a total loss, crushed under the executive floor’s copier. The heavy office machine must have been blown into the air by the force of the blast, then landed on the sports car’s roof, crushing it before embedding itself in the expensive vehicle’s aluminum and magnesium-composite hood. I wondered if it was J-J’s car. If so, I hope he was insured.

  CiCi, in uniform, was talking to one of the firefighters.

  “He’s still in there,” I heard her say. “But he’s not answering his phone.”

  CiCi’s face was a mass of emotions, more than half of them fear.

  “We’ll have to wait for the heavy-lift jack,” said the firefighter, adjusting her broad-brimmed hat.

  “No we won’t,” I said, inserting myself into the conversation.

  “Who are you?” said the firefighter.

  “I’m Jack,” I said. “What needs to be lifted?”

  “This is no joke,” said the firefighter. “Part of the second floor slab has broken off and fallen on the first floor.”

  “On the production room?” I asked. My phone made unexpected dialing noises. I’d worry about it later.

  The firefighter looked at CiCi for confirmation.

  “Yes,” she said, trying to hold it together. “My friend is trapped there.”

  If Mike could have seen CiCi’s face at that moment he wouldn’t doubt that she cared about him.

  “Did everyone else from that side get out safely?” I asked.

  “My understanding is that no one else was in that side of the building,” said the firefighter, looking at CiCi again.

  “That’s right,” said CiCi. “When the cat’s away…”

  “The mice will play,” I said. “Golf?”

  “That’s what the CFO told me on his way out,” said CiCi. “I’m not sure I believe him. The VP of Sales and Marketing was off playing golf. I saw him leave wearing a purple and orange striped polo shirt, a white belt, and lime green pants.”

  I nodded. He wasn’t likely to be doing anything else wearing that outfit.

  “What about the support staff?”

  “Early lunch,” said CiCi. “From what I overheard, I don’t think any of them planned to come back.”

  She held up one hand as if it was wrapped around a glass and brought it to her mouth.

  Oh, that kind of lunch, I thought.

  “So Mike was the only person working on that side when it happened.”

  “Uh huh,” said CiCi. “The rest are all accounted for.”

  I gave CiCi a supportive, reassuring look and decided to examine the bomb-damaged side of WT&F’s headquarters more closely. I walked to the left until the worst of the destruction was visible. A large wedge of concrete was tipped down. One end of it was still attached to the remaining second floor slab with steel reinforcing rods and the other was resting on a pile of rubble at ground level. The broken slab was blocking all access to the production room.

  I walked back.

  “How long until the heavy-lift jack gets here?” I asked the firefighter.

  “More than an hour,” she said. “They’re using it on an overturned bus downtown.”

  “The department only has one heavy-lift jack?”

  “Budget cuts,” said the firefighter. “I’m Clarisse, by the way. Clarisse Beatty. CiCi says you’re resourceful.”

  I skipped my usual attempt at false modesty.

  “I try,” I said. “Jack Buckston, Clarisse. I may have something that can lift that slab, or at least help us get under it.”

  “The City of Atlanta and the Fire Department take no responsibility,” Clarisse said with smile.

  “Disclaimer noted,” I said.

  “Give it your best shot,” said Clarisse.

  CiCi followed me as I walked back to my van.

  “Can you get Mike out, Jack?” she said.

  “Count on it,” I said. I hoped I was right.

  I opened the back of my van, lifted out one octovac, and handed it to CiCi.

  “You take this one,” I said. “I’ll take the other.”

  Octovacs weren’t light. They weighed between ten and fifteen kilos, twenty or thirty pounds, but CiCi carried hers like it was a bag of packing peanuts. She must work out. I put my octovac down on the ground near the tilted slab. I could have activated them at the van and had them walk themselves, but I didn’t want to scare the bystanders any more than they were already.

  The smell of smoke filled the air, but CiCi told me the firefighters had launched a vacuum congruency bomb at the second floor that had sucked all the air away and put out the flames. We didn’t have fire or water or air to worry about, just earth, or rather, concrete.

  I spoke to my phone. “Please activate the octovacs. See if they can lift the slab.”

  “Will do.”

  Both octovacs extended their tentacles and used them to stand and flex. They crossed to the broken slab and positioned themselves on either side of it. With four arms and legs apiece they got under the slab and
tried to raise it. It didn’t move. They just weren’t strong enough. Octovacs are fast and agile, not super strong—they’re like Hermes, not Hercules.

  “That’s not working,” I said. “See if they can find a way into the production room.”

  “Okay,” said my phone, “but I…”

  “Not right now,” I said. “I need to see what happens.”

  “But, Jack,” said my phone.

  “Just a second,” I said. Couldn’t it see that I was focusing on something important? Mike’s life was at stake.

  While I watched the octovacs clamber around and beside the slab, looking for holes large enough for them to crawl through, I felt something crawling up my back. Before I could move my arm to slap at whatever it was, something pinched my earlobe. Hard.

  “Jack,” said my phone, standing on my shoulder with its speaker half an inch from my ear. It had my attention.

  “Yes?” I said, none too happy.

  “Put me down by the slab. There should be holes large enough for me to fit through and I can send back videos of what I see.”

  Why hadn’t I thought of that? I guess I still wasn’t used to my phone being self-mobile.

  “Great idea,” I said. “CiCi, may I please have your phone?”

  “Sure,” she said, pulling it from her pocket.

  I touched it to my phone and CiCi gave her okay for my phone to send audio and video to hers. I put my phone down next to the tilted slab and it promptly extruded two dozen centipede-like legs from each side of its case and scuttled its way through a hole into the darkness.

  Signals began streaming to CiCi’s phone. Clarisse came over to watch with us, so CiCi unfolded her phone a few times to make the screen larger. My phone was picking its way over chunks of rubble like it was crossing a lunar landscape. Then things leveled out. My phone had reached a largely undamaged section of the production room floor, partially protected by the slab. We watched it shine its light around in circles, searching for Mike. It went forward a few feet and repeated its scan. After its third advance, its light flashed across Mike’s face.

  “Hey,” said Mike. “Not in the eyes. It’s too bright.”

  He was okay. CiCi cheered and gave me a joyful hug that I’d never mention to Mike. Clarisse looked pleased as well, but no hug. Professionalism, and all that.

  “How are you doing?” I said. My phone knew the drill and relayed my voice.

  “I’m okay,” said Mike, “but my foot is caught under a feedstock tower that fell over and knocked me down. In other words, ‘help, I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.’”

  He must be doing well if he can crack jokes, I thought.

  My phone’s camera pulled back to show us a wider view of Mike’s vicinity. He was trapped, but it didn’t look like the tower was crushing his foot or his leg. A protrusion from the feedstock tower had gone through the cuff of his pants and was holding him to the floor as if he’d been nailed there. A heavy service door from the Model-43 had snapped off from the feedstock tower’s impact and was restricting the movement of Mike’s arms and upper torso. Black feedstock powder was piled all around him, like drifts of negative snow. He looked like a coal miner after a cave in. A small trickle of blood from a cut on his forehead ran red in contrast to the dark powder. Thankfully, the angle between the feedstock tower and the far end of the Model-43 had protected Mike from falling debris when the slab descended.

  “Can you snip the fabric and free him?” I asked my phone.

  “No pro-blé-mo.”

  My phone must have picked that phrase up from an old movie—or from Chit. Crap. I’d forgotten about Chit completely. She wasn’t going to be happy about being left out, since she could have buzzed in and spotted Mike in seconds.

  “Got it,” said my phone.

  “Thanks,” said Mike. “Now I can move my leg, not that I’m going anywhere.”

  “The fire department says the heavy-left jack will be available in an hour or so,” I said.

  “It might be sooner than that,” said my phone.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Check the parking lot,” my phone replied. “I called as soon as I heard you needed heavy lift capability.”

  I turned to look. A flatbed eighteen-wheeler marked “Wide Load” and decorated with pink Dauushan planetary flags was just pulling in. Tomáso and another, even larger member of the consulate’s staff were aboard. With nine sub-trunks each to grab the slab and enough muscle to shift it easily, the two elephant-sized diplomats moved the slab out of the way without more debris falling from the floor above. Tomáso lifted the Model-43’s service door off Mike’s upper body and Mike got to his feet on his own. He spotted his phone blinking on the edge of a pile of dust a few feet away and put it in his pocket. Too bad it hadn’t been closer.

  Mike was covered in black feedstock powder, but was able to walk out under his own power. He thanked Tomáso and the larger Dauushan before turning and spotting CiCi. The two of them ran toward each other in a romantic, choreographed, slow motion dance. I could almost hear the schmaltzy theme music. When they intersected, a puff of black feedstock powder rose above them. I turned my head away when they started kissing. The paramedics were hovering, waiting to check out Mike, but CiCi seemed to be doing a thorough job of that herself.

  “Thanks,” I said to my phone, via the feed from CiCi’s phone. I also thanked Tomáso and his associate personally.

  Tomáso didn’t hug me—and I was grateful. He introduced me to the other, even larger Dauushan, whose name was Diágo. The three of us chatted for a few minutes. This was Diágo’s first time on Terra. He was the head of Queen Sherrhi’s security team and had worked with Tomáso for many years. The Queen had arrived on Monday evening, along with a sizable—no pun intended—entourage and Diágo had been up to his three huge elephant ears in logistical details. His top deputy was currently on duty, so Diágo was glad to take a break and see new Terran scenery away from the Ad Astra complex. I got the distinct impression that Tomáso may have worked for Diágo sometime in the past. If so, it wouldn’t be the first time someone being guarded had fallen in love with her bodyguard.

  When our conversation ended and I stepped away from the Dauushans, Clarisse approached.

  “CiCi was right,” she said, tipping her firefighter’s hat. “You are resourceful.”

  A voice by our feet spoke up.

  “He’s resourceful? Who do you think did all the work?”

  Clarisse laughed. I picked up my phone and hugged it as best I could with all its squirming legs.

  “Hey,” said my phone, concerned for its dignity. I snapped it onto its usual spot on my belt.

  Clarisse shook my hand, thanked me for my help—and my phone’s—and walked purposely toward her engine to arrange for the arson investigation. Her team was already taping off the building’s entrances. It would be unsafe to enter until the integrity of the remaining structure had been confirmed.

  Tomáso pulled me off to one side for a semi-private conversation, shielded, in part, by his own bulk.

  “Do you think this is the work of Columbia Brown?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “or one of her henchmen. I think it’s a payoff on the threats directed at Jean-Jacques.”

  Tomáso moved his huge head up and down slowly. “Odds are good,” he said.

  I nodded, too.

  “What about the inscription photos and translation details I sent you last night?”

  “The inscription is identical to the one my associates found on the capsule in the mud wallows at Willow Bay State Park,” he said, “though your translation was a little off from the one we received from a noted scholar on Nicós. The details on how to program the plague’s bio-cybernetic nanoparticles were different.”

  “I’d trust your scholar’s version ove
r Professor Murriym’s,” I said. “At least in this case. Niaowla thought the inscriptions were a practical joke, so she may have taken liberties when she made her translation.”

  “That makes sense,” said Tomáso, his large mouth smiling. “I wonder if Columbia Brown’s side got a second opinion.”

  “Let’s hope not,” I said. “Confusion to the enemy.”

  “Because they’ve done a good job confusing us and turnabout is fair play,” said Tomáso.

  “Right,” I said. “And by the way, thanks for the electronic picture frame.”

  “What electronic picture frame?”

  So much for that theory.

  Tomáso put three sub-trunks around my shoulders and gently guided me back toward my van. My phone directed the octovacs to follow, open my van’s back doors, hop in, close the doors, and deactivate. I climbed into the driver’s seat and caught my breath for a moment.

  I heard a knocking sound from my backpack tool bag so I unsnapped an outside pocket and removed Chit’s bottle. My little friend opened it, climbed out, and perched on the dashboard, wearing a design on her wing cases that looked like Hello Kitty. Was that her equivalent of pajamas?

  Chit rubbed her compound eyes with both forelegs. She shifted her thorax in a peculiar way and if she’d had lungs instead of spiracles I would have sworn she’d just yawned.

  My seat was feeling particularly comfortable and I hadn’t gotten much sleep last night. Yawns are contagious.

  “I stayed up too late watching Turner Classic Movies,” said Chit. “Some real good ones, from forty-five years ago.”

  “You mean back in the far off days of nineteen eighty-five?” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “The Breakfast Club is one weird movie.”

  “That it is,” I said.

  “But the dream I had last night was almost a nightmare.”

  “Do tell?” I put my hand over my mouth. I didn’t want Chit to think she was boring me.