The Scarab

by Rhine, Scott

  “How long?” I asked Mare.

  “Twelve or thirteen. I can’t see you in the dead zone. Wait for me at the rendezvous spot, and I’ll be able to tell you better.”

  Nigel drove to the designate location on the railroad, and we waited impatiently, charging our batteries the last few percent.

  Steve told us there was more activity on the radio. “Fire. Down at the docks. The enforcer had freed a flame thrower. The whole dock is in flames. They drove blind through a couple buildings, but they’ve cleared away most of the foam. They’re coming after you like a bat out of Hell!”

  I hit the spin-up key for Nigel. Batteries were at 95 percent. That was good enough. GEDM couldn’t risk the MASER if it were still clogged with foam. That had been my main objective, really. I had hoped that they wouldn’t bounce back so fast, though.

  “I need you to position yourself right here,” I told Nigel. “When he comes into the rail yard, charge him like a bull. Steve, get me the orange book on top, the train schedules. Josie, get me the CD labeled Coyote’s greatest hits. Whitaker, tell the Feds we’re going to have sudden death syndrome here any minute.”

  Steve tossed the book over, and I flipped through it frantically for this city’s Sunday schedule. “It’s all written in German. Blast! Nigel, find it. I’ll steer while you look.” I traded the book for his joystick. When I pushed the next function key, the words THE BLUE BUTTON appeared at the bottom in ornate lettering. The view shifted to a tactical overhead.

  “What’s the blue button for?” asked Steve. I winced.

  “Not the blue button!” Mare said. “I thought we agreed.”

  “It’s only a game,” I told her, hitting the cloak.

  Steve, Josie, and Whitaker all stared at each other in puzzlement.

  Josie switched CDs for me after I played blaring Spanish trumpets over my loud speakers.

  “Found it! What do you need?” asked Nigel as the GEDM blip passed through the front gates.

  I waited till my opponent was beside a warehouse, and then I threw a satellite shadow at him. He swerved and smashed into the wall, barely slowing. “What track is the next south-bound train coming in on? They get here about every ten minutes. I haven’t seen one in a while, so we’re about due.”

  I threw a second shadow at the enforcer, and his collision avoidance system rode him over a brick wall and several parked cars. It slowed him even more. My third try just annoyed him, and he turned his avoidance system off. When we passed like jousters, the enforcer used his weight to try to ram me. Luckily, I was spinning the proper direction and bounced harmlessly off. “Nigel!” I shouted. “I’m dying out here. No more rabbits in my hat.”

  “Track number nine. The last one on the right,” Nigel said.

  “Which right? Here, you drive.” My arm was killing me even from that brief use.

  He traded the book to me again. Steve traded me the book for a fresh ice pack. Then he noticed, “This book is from last year.”

  “It’s okay,” said Nigel. “If the trains were on time, there was no need to change the schedule.”

  “Warp speed,” I told him.

  “Aye, Captain,” he echoed as he made the wide turn through the yard and onto track nine. Flames erupted in the empty rail cars behind us.

  “Blue button him again,” I ordered. “Just to make sure.” No crash followed. Excellent, the avoidance system was still off. “Up the track as fast as she’ll go. How are you doing, Mare?” I asked.

  “Ten minutes three seconds to the old spot, nine and change to the new. I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said, intent on her own problems.

  Soon, we were racing down the tracks, with GEDM hot on our tails. “See that blip? Slow to about 50.” The GEDM gained. “Stay just out of his flame thrower range.”

  “How far is that?” Nigel asked. The tank behind us answered by removing most of our remaining paint. He goosed it a little more.

  “Hold it steady. Aim straight for the tunnel,” I coached. Only when we were about to hit the oncoming bullet train ourselves did I say, “Hard left! Brake, brake.” We stopped spinning quickly in the gravel.

  I sent GEDM a Wiley Coyote train encounter so they’d get it a second before we all heard the crunch in digitized stereo. They never saw it coming. Nigel Foxworthy, lawyer from Pittsburgh, had just scored on Detroit’s meanest machine. The room went wild. Style points and kill points racked up on our tote board. Nobody else saw the Charon program kick in. I could see it transmitting, but I couldn’t shut it down. “No!” I shouted. It happened too soon for the Feds to act. Kali was going to get away with it again unless I did something immediately.

  “Nigel, chase him down,” I said.

  “But he’s dead.”

  “Do it!”

  As we raced back along the track, he asked, “Any special piece you’re looking for?”

  We didn’t have far to go. In the time intervening, our spin continued to slow. “The flight recorder, there.” I lowered the landing gear, and parked beside the fragment, using the sled’s flaps to slow the spin even further. Now that we were parked, the joystick could be used to control the docking clamps. I activated the right waldo controls and told Nigel to pick the black box up in the small metal claws. He fumbled with the controls while I talked to Whitaker.

  “Did they get Kali?” I asked. He shook his head.

  The clamps were pretty strong. They had enough force to hold 200 kilos of machinery on a hull at maximum rotation with several factors of safety. As soon as Nigel had the box, I closed the claws hard. This crushed the box, and stopped the transmission instantly.

  “What did you do that for?” demanded GEDM and several judges over the next couple minutes.

  “Just making sure he doesn’t find me a third time, a stake through the heart generally works,” I improvised. I just didn’t want Kali to get another soul stronger, and I wanted to let her know it was my doing. “They can still get all the data at the end of the game. No harm done.”

  Mare rejoined us with no further crisis. Learning from our previous mistake, we switched over to the north-bound track and streaked toward Munich with no opposition.

  Whitaker interrupted to tell me that they had caught Holstein and GEDM collaborating. Conspiracy charges were already being filed. By the end of the hour, the last GEDM vehicle was disqualified on a sportsmanship violation. There were now eleven vehicles left in the race, and this leg was only half over.

  Chapter 26 – Lady Macbeth versus Frodo

  We got penalized another three minutes for taking shortcuts on the way to the hospital in the northern-most suburbs of Munich. Nigel read the map for us while Mare steered. In the city, having an ambulance driver along helped considerably, especially with the organ delivery protocol. While we idled on the medical center lawn, waiting for the judges to sign-off on our mission, I blew another minute of repair time to take the speed governors off the left sled as well. The right sled had been pulling a little ahead the whole time. For the rest of the race, we could go all out, risking permanent damage to the engines if we had to in order to rise a few more notches in the final standings. I left the Duratech vault at the hospital. We didn’t need the extra weight, and I didn’t know how to go about rinsing out a used organ carrier.

  After we got our bonus, ESPN posted the adjusted results through Munich. HEO was in the lead, having already reached Nuremberg by now. The Muramatsu team was losing ground at about seven minutes behind the leader. Porsche was climbing fast at an estimated three minutes behind the Japanese.

  Exotech was tied with the Andiron Express at about twenty minutes behind HEO. LAS was rated at twenty-nine minutes, and we were around thirty-five. North Ameri-Car and Bavarian Wagen were approximately four and five minutes behind us, respectively. Still technically in Munich, Thor’s Hammer had chosen a high vantage point and was trying to eliminate the North Ameri-Car Hyperion class tank. Their firefight was the current coverage of choice for most networks. The Hammer was toppling b
uildings to get to its quarry, or at least prevent the Hyperion’s escape. I was rooting for the Hyperion, not because he was my ally, but because any upset at this point would improve my standing. If Thor’s Hammer finished him too fast, the BW might have a higher aggregate score than ours. I shot an encouraging message to the Hyperion and hinted that he should go for the injured sides.

  The battle raged for over twelve minutes, a record for this year’s convention. The Hyperion had been grazed several times, but refused to die. Finally, Thor’s Hammer decided that it couldn’t risk the time it would take to finish the battle and fled the scene. Both units were worse for the wear, moving at a slower rate than before. BW would probably be the last vehicle to make the eleven o’clock news on the east coast. Without repairs, the Hyperion might cross the finish line, but it would be dead last. The Hyperion team briefly weighed the self-destruct option before following the BW. There was still hope, I suppose.

  The stretch of road to Nuremberg was pretty boring, so Steve and Josie went on a pizza run for us. Nigel spelled me as navigator for a moment while I took the opportunity to check in with Whitaker. I asked him how the Kali investigation was going, keeping my voice low so that I wouldn’t disturb Mare.

  “Not well. Holstein isn’t talking. Our resources are too limited to track the whole list of suspects in time. Normally, this sort of probe takes weeks,” my shadow explained.

  “Nothing from the sling?” I asked.

  “Only that she’s probably left-handed,” said Whitaker.

  “That’s something. Anything else?”

  He cracked his professional shell for just a second. “I like the costume. But you’ve got to be careful wearing white robes in public down south. People get the wrong idea about you.” Just as quickly as it appeared, the smile was gone. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “We did find one thing about your old suite. We ran a quick check for snipers on the roof nearest your window and found a small fortune in listening equipment. They had parabolic microphones, lasers to pick up vibrations from your windows, the works. We’re checking the bathroom and bedroom walls for drill holes, just to be safe.”

  I felt violated. “Kali?”

  “No. One of the other teams. Waters admitted that they wanted him to plant a bug, but he refused. That’s why they went with the long-range equipment,” he said.

  I didn’t need to ask which team. Whitaker had just lit a slow, smoldering fuse. “How long have they been listening?”

  Whitaker hedged until I said, “I just want to know if they could have been recording when Kali was in the room. She talked to me on the phone. They’d have her voice on tape, unaltered.”

  He considered it. “It’s a long shot, but it could pay off. I don’t think they’d ever share the tapes with us, though.”

  “If I give you ten minutes notice of a death, can you track her?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “How accurate will your warning be?”

  “Within ten seconds. I’ll broadcast the time soon, so get your people ready. Just tell me one thing. Does Mare know about the surveillance?”

  He shook his head and went back outside to confer with his colleagues. I returned to my role as Mare’s navigator and to plot my revenge. ESPN already had projected times remaining for each racer. The HEO vehicle was slated to win. They’d finish this leg about forty km from Leipzig and an hour from the finish line in Berlin. The Porsche team would be second, finishing one hour and thirty-five minutes into the final leg. The Japanese were scheduled for fifteen minutes after that. We weren’t predicted until the two hour twenty minute mark. However, if they put their minds to it, Exotech could cross about ten minutes before us.

  Drawing Mare into conversation to distract her from the boredom on this leg, I asked, “Who do you think Kali is?”

  She didn’t answer this one immediately, chewing on it instead. “At best, we can narrow the field. The primary issue in this crime is one of access. To have the degree of free access she obviously enjoys, Kali must be a legitimate part of this race with a good cover story: a groupie, racer, consultant, reporter, hotel employee, or convention floor worker. Kali suspected Playfair or you enough to tap the phone lines. A groupie couldn’t have gotten that close.”

  In my best Watson voice, I said, “Indeed, Holmes. Since you are the only female racer left, and both TSM and GEDM are out of the race, the opportunities have been further limited. Given that someone from the convention floor could never have raided our room, evaded the police, and returned to her job without comment, we can eliminate that possibility as well. What are we left with? What’s Kali’s motive?”

  Nigel piped up unexpectedly. “I vaguely recall that Kali was married to a god of creation and preservation. Perhaps this woman was once married to a founder of SimCon or one of the designers present, a creator. Maybe this is a kind of revenge against an ex-husband.”

  “I don’t know, but Ethan, I want you to watch yourself at that press banquet. I told them to get you a flack jacket, and I want you to put it on without arguing,” my lady commanded.

  We cut short our discussion when the pizza arrived. Josie asked us to be careful not to stain the costumes. Most of us chatted about the trip in Italy, except Nigel, who was still talking shop. “That reminds me. Try to write up some details on that interchangeable, adjustable grid idea you had,” he told me. “Throw together a drawing if you can. I want to present it at the interview with Car and Driver today.”

  “That’s today?” I whimpered, grabbing three slices for myself and two for Mare.

  “Yes. Our focus will be ideas for the future of transportation. I want to give you the image of a young Thomas Edison,” he said, returning the navigator duties to me.

  “Who have you been talking to?” I asked.

  “Miss Valencia’s publicist, Jacques. He’s been quite useful helping me to prepare for this press thing. I think we should hire him. You didn’t tell me about the recruiting that goes on during these conventions. All we need is a table for people to sign up at, and we’ll have our fill of qualified workers for the next three years,” he explained.

  The only test of note on this stretch of highway was the high-wind simulation. Because of its multiple computer corrections per second, the Ghedra was one of the stablest vehicles in the game. Fortunately, we were able to use this momentary advantage to close rapidly on our nearest competitors. Our team passed LAS inside Nuremberg. Using the wrong lane trick, we zipped by before he knew what hit him.

  “Rub it in, Scarab,” the pilot complained. Someone new had taken over for Antonio.

  “What’s wrong?” I said over Mare’s circuit. Everybody in our suite was getting their costumes ready for the banquet.

  “Grid troubles. The coolant levels we’re feeding it are insufficient for the North Korean lifter unit. It’s an older design, I guess. We have to either stop to cool down periodically, or lower our cruising speed,” the LAS pilot informed me.

  I shook my head. He couldn’t see me, so I said, “Our fluid flow was enough. Check your coolant levels. There may be a leak. One of the salvaged components we used to patch you probably has a fracture or your coolant mix is corroding it.”

  He grunted that it was possible. “What can I do for you this time?”

  I looked at Mare. She smiled and said, “This one’s on the house. Thanks for the honeymoon!”

  I added one more piece of information before breaking the link. “If it turns out to be irreparable, don’t give up. Both BW and North Ameri-Car are walking wounded. If you can find a good ambush spot and scrape up another rocket, you might come out of this smelling like a rose. You don’t have to kill them, just threaten. If you work it right, they’ll both give you what’s left of their repair budgets. But you’ll have to do it in the next twenty minutes, before this session ends.”

  “Thanks. Frankly, if I had seen you coming, I might have used the rocket threat on you,” the LAS pilot lamented. At least he was honest.

  Now it was time to settle an old
score with Exotech. I needed to wait this long so that we would be in range. We were about fifteen minutes from catching the Andiron Express. If I handled things wrong, the Exotech stealth craft would spook, move out of the slipstream, and I might not ever find them again. I wanted them out of the running before the press banquet. That way, they wouldn’t get a spot in the media’s Top Ten listing, or a seat at the table during the event.

  I phoned the Andiron Enterprises suite again, hanging up after the third ring. I was beginning to like this cloak and dagger stuff.

  Next, I told Mare, “Power up the Pensatronics device. The password is Pandora.”

  “What about the energy drain?” she asked.

  “We took the batteries from the North Korean tank. We’ll toss them overboard once we’ve drained them dry.”

  “But who are we going to use it against?” Mare wanted to know.

  “Exotech. We’re going to make it a called shot, that will be good for some extra points, and it will also give the Feds the chance they need to catch Kali.”

  Mare didn’t like the game plan. “Why so blood-thirsty all of a sudden, Ethan? You were never like this before, even against weaker opponents.”

  I practiced my stone-poker-face. “This is the endgame, the proper time for bloodletting. It’s no longer senseless; it’s necessary.”

  “Why Exotech?” she asked.

  “Who bought out our detective agency?” I demanded loudly enough to get the attention of everyone in the room.

  She softened. “You know who. But getting yourself all worked up won’t do any good. Revenge always leads to more grief. I won’t let you keep opening up these old wounds.”

  “What did they offer him?” I persisted.

  Steve seemed interested.

  “He’ll be an advisor for their alarm and security surveillance division, a real cushy job. He’s an expert with years of product experience, they claim. They were afraid we were using him to get more evidence for the Senate probe. Exotech didn’t steal him to ambush us; they were just paranoid,” she explained.