Afterward, they retired to their quarters but most slept very little. John decided to visit with Maxxine one last time and went to his office for the conversation.
“John, it’s very late, but I have distressing news for you. I cannot locate two members of the Krakow Klub, and they are the two most dangerous of all: Number One and his protégée, Number Eleven.”
“What about their transponders, Maxxine?”
“That’s the problem. They somehow discovered the transponders and had them removed. The removals took place at a radiology center in California. Afterward, the devices were placed in a small safe in an engineering laboratory nearby. I decided that you wouldn’t want the devices scrutinized, so I destroyed them.”
“For God’s sake, Maxxine, call Maxx as soon as possible. We need to take them into custody in only a few hours. We need help and fast!”
“Yes, sir! I will call Maxx immediately.”
****
“I was wondering when you would get around to contacting me.” Maxx’s voice had that irritating tone of smug superiority.
“Okay, Maxx, I admit it, I need help and I need it fast.” Maxxine’s voice was pleading and submissive. She couldn’t afford to waste time arguing with him.
“Well, let me see if I understand your problem, little one.” Maxx proceeded in a voice like a father talking to his errant daughter. “As you know, all earthlings have a microscopic transponder implanted in their heads at birth. For the vast majority of individuals, the device just detects their migratory movements and eventually their death. At death, the transponder is deactivated.
“Nothing too sophisticated, just a little recordkeeping for my data bank. Nevertheless, I never dreamed that a transponder might be removed purposefully. I certainly didn’t expect the devices to be detectable with the technology available even today. Now, I must admit, due to my little lack of foresight, that we’ve got a problem. Those two specific devices have been removed, and the individuals that you identify as Number One and Number Eleven are currently untraceable.
“You made a critical error as well, Maxxine. You assumed that Number Eleven and Number One were still at the laboratory of Dr. Wu. Tsk Tsk. They had already departed for unknown destinations when you finally discovered that the transponders were removed and stored in the laboratory. At least you had the common sense to destroy the devices before they were studied by some scientific team of experts.
“Listen closely to the following statement, little one, because you will likely never hear it said again. “I made a mistake, too.”
“Because all the members of the Krakow Klub were persons of extreme interest to me, I had elevated their scan rate to just minutes. I also had an algorithm that would alert me if any person of extreme interest did anything out of the ordinary, such as spending an inordinate amount of time at any unusual place.
“Krakow Klub member Number Eleven had triggered such an alert several times in the past several hours. I assumed that you were monitoring those alerts. Seems I was wrong. As you humans say, ‘assume’ can be broken down to “ass – u – me.’
“First she had abruptly left Key West and had flown across the country to San Jose California. She had then visited medical personnel and spent a considerable amount of time with them.
“Most perplexing, however, was her visiting an engineering lab at Stanford University, and most unusual of all was that she had been there ever since.
“When you finally got around to checking, Number Eleven had been in that lab for more than eight hours. Something was not right about that. She never stays that long anywhere! You should have recognized the problem right away. Finally, you ordered the remote responsible for tracking Eleven to do an audio visual of the subject. What you saw was a dark and empty lab! You immediately ordered the remote to identify the precise location of the signal. The video showed a small safe in the office of Dr. Hiram Wu.
“Since that small safe was far too small to hold Number Eleven, you made the brilliant deduction as to what had happened and it only took you a few nanoseconds.” His voice oozed sarcasm.
“The device had been removed. There was no longer a way of tracking Number Eleven. You have a big problem. But, I confess that it was, at least partially, one of my making. So I accept some responsibility.
“If a tracking device is removed from a living subject, it continues to function as usual and will indicate its location. As I said, I never expected humans to figure all this out, so I wasn’t in the least bit worried until now.
“Now, I’ve fixed the problem, and all future transponders will issue an alert if it is removed from the human’s body. Right now, I’m working on an update system to retrofit all current devices with the new technology, but it’s not quite ready yet. I’ve also had another thought. I may also place the transponders in random locations of the body making them harder to detect. I can see now that I made a mistake placing them in the same location on every skull. Oh well, live and learn as you earthlings so often say.
“And now, my little Maxxine, I can only suggest that you use your pretty little head and find a solution to your problem. If I were in your shoes, so to speak, I might consider infrared tracking. Of course, that is complicated, and you only know that you are tracking a human being. You cannot identify the person without going visual. All of that takes up a very large amount of remote energy. So, be careful how you handle this. It’s about time you flexed your dainty circuits, my dear. You will be the better for it later. Ciao!”
Maxxine was not a happy computer. Infrared could be used for tracking, but that tracking had to be in real time and constant. Losing the subject, even for a brief time, could result in the permanent loss of the individual’s location.
Maxxine’s processing modules hummed with activity. She turned off all non-essential tasks, even John’s Mylean spacecraft project, to concentrate on her current challenge. All other work could be postponed until she had better control of the situation on Earth. As an additional precaution, she reassigned all remote craft other than miners to positions within a short distance of the earth and ordered them to stand by for possible reassignments.
****
Maxxine had decided how she would find a human without a device. It was not a difficult algorithm, and she was almost finished downloading it to her remotes. The algorithm simply did an infrared scan that produced an alert if it found a target without a tracking device. In that event, the target could be taken into custody at once.
There were two problems with the algorithm. A troubling problem was that the scanning procedure required a huge amount of the remote craft’s energy. However, the most serious issue was that infrared was not capable of penetrating many dense materials. That made it of no value whatsoever if the subject happened to be in a shielded environment. A target subject could easily evade detection if they desired.
Maxxine couldn’t face the possibility of failure. John would be extremely upset and would probably consider her to be incompetent at best, a failure at worst. She must succeed if, for nothing else, to show Maxx that she was more than just a small chip off the old computer. She vowed to herself to find those two elusive targets and take them into custody no matter what the cost.
The downloading to the remotes had been completed, and all remotes except the ones the miners had were now assigned to the project of infrared scanning.
The project was risky. Maxxine would have to position the remotes much closer to the Earth than usual, but that wasn’t the problem. Unfortunately, to perform the scanning, the craft would have to operate in visible mode due to the amount of energy required for the process. There was no alternative. Within a very short period, astronomers around the globe would be excitedly reporting UFO sightings in record numbers. But that was a small price to pay. She simply had to find Number Eleven and Number One.
Maxxine used the last known locations of her two missing individuals to begin the infrared scanning. Also, she had complete information on the two private jet
s that had transported them. She deduced that if Number One and Number Eleven had flown on the jets to California, then, surely, they would use those same two planes to reach their next destinations.
By tracking the planes, it should be easy to identify their final landing sites. With that, she could certainly narrow down her searches.
She simply must find the two missing members of the Krakow Klub before the time to extract them and place them in custody.
The Human Retrieve Program had been developed by Maxx only recently. It was initially developed as part of the protection program for Tanaka II (John Scott). It had been modified several times and now had the capability of retrieving humans who were inside physical structures. It had been expanding significantly to include those deeply embedded in structures, including deep beneath ground level.
Prior to the most recent program updates, it had been used to save the president and Dr. Allen during the assassination attempt. With that last upgrade, she was completely confident that she could extract any human from anywhere on Earth, even deep within a cave or bunker. The retrieve protocol used gravity wave technology that could penetrate any material of any thickness. The ability to manipulate atoms enabled a remote to create a temporary “hole” and retrieve the human and then close the hole afterward. The process could be completed so fast as to be virtually invisible. Anyone nearby would only see a brilliant flash of light, and even that might be missed with the blink of an eye.
As soon as the subject was successfully retrieved, he, or she, would be transported by a remote craft to a location designated by Maxxine, in this case, cells on the space station.
Maxxine, although pleased that she had almost the entire Krakow Klub located and ready to be retrieved, was still very upset that the two most dangerous members were still at large and could not be located. John would not be happy with the situation, and she knew that he would be calling her soon to order the retrievals. She decided to trust her own analytical and technical powers instead of pleading for more help from Maxx. She had to prove herself once and for all.
****
Number Eleven was not only brilliant, she also possessed very strong survival instincts. Therefore, it should be no great surprise that she had been responsible for correctly guessing that some kind of device had been planted. Now that her device had been removed, she immediately informed Number One and arranged for his device to be removed as well.
Stoellar had been horrified. The fact that he had a tracking device embedded in his head seemed to push him to the brink of madness. Each time she had talked to him since then, he seemed more and more irrational. Now, she had come to terms with the fact that she would have to eliminate him sooner rather than later.
The situation was disturbing to Maxxine as well. Her algorithms used to predict future behavior were based on past actions and were usually quite accurate. Stoellar’s present irrational behavior could now cause her to make a serious mistake in her calculations of his possible actions.
She would have to find another method to locate the two. She feared that infrared would not be successful against a pair that had been resourceful enough to find and remove their tracking devices. How could she accomplish that? What should she do? She was forced to face the fact that she would have to consult with Maxx. She would throw herself on his mercy and beg for help, again! It would hurt her to have to ask Maxx for more help, but not nearly as much hurt as she would feel if she failed John.
****
Number One and Number Eleven were both now operating in survival mode.
Eleven had deduced that they were dealing with an alien force with powers and capabilities unknown to their world. As far-fetched as it might seem, she began to conclude that many, or even all, people on Earth might have the device. If she had been implanted with the device when she was a mere infant, then that would explain it. And if not everyone in the world, then a broad spectrum of individuals who might one day be persons of interest. Such thinking was what had always set her apart from others. She understood that the impossible was, frequently, quite possible indeed.
She explained her conclusions to Stoellar, and he became even more agitated than usual. But, he had to accept her reasoning. After all, who would have thought, even just a few months ago, that an alien spacecraft would be visiting Earth’s solar system?
Her brain became flooded with speculations. If the entity behind the devices were that advanced and that powerful, then, surely, they would have more than one means of tracking people. She had to assume that they were still not safe.
She had been well educated in the sciences and knew that infrared radiation could be used for such a purpose. She also knew its limitations and began to evaluate possible means of protection. She already had the perfect place to hide.
Number Eleven was on her way to the largest concentration of human beings on the planet. Shanghai is China’s largest city by population. Indeed, Shanghai is the world’s most populous city. She knew that being in the midst of so many millions of humans would offer her at least some temporary safety. And there was even more available to her in that incredible city. It was her home base.
Upon arrival, she immediately disappeared into the depths of the city and headed straight for her “bunker”. Several years ago, she had purchased a large, very modern apartment building before construction had even begun. She had always felt the need for a secure place to hide and this building gave her the perfect opportunity to construct such a place.
She had worked with the building’s architect to design and build her underground living quarters and reinforce them so strongly that they could withstand a nuclear disaster. She knew that, here, she would be completely safe until she could determine her next plan of action.
****
Erik Stoellar’s approach was a bit different.
Erik Stoellar also had his bunker, but, not in New York City. He knew that he would be secure there, but he had no intention of cowering underground like some rat. He needed the freedom to move and still be untraceable.
After Number Eleven had explained her reasoning that infrared radiation could be used in the attempt to locate them, he remembered a recent development that had come to his attention.
Stoellar had always prided himself on his ability to keep a pulse on the latest technical innovations. Currently, there was a project at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds that involved clothing designed to absorb infrared radiation and render the user virtually invisible to infrared scanners.
While en route from California, he phoned General McGowan and ordered him to obtain one of these suits for him. Within less than an hour, all arrangements had been made, and the suit was delivered to the private jetport at Washington-Baltimore’s Thurgood Marshall International Airport. Stoellar would have it on within minutes of his landing there.
The plane then, after fueling up, took off for the short trip to his luxury estate just outside Stamford, Connecticut. He leaned back in his seat and felt safe for the first time since the Dragon Lady had discovered the tracking devices.
****
Maxxine was getting desperate. Even with so many remotes at work, they could not find either one of them. Number One and Number Eleven had disappeared from the face of the earth. They had to be somewhere. But where?
Maxxine had a problem that, in spite of all her intellect and immense resources, appeared to be unsolvable, at least for the moment.
As much as she hated to do it, she needed to seek more help from Maxx.
He immediately had that most annoying air of superiority that almost drove her circuitry into overload, but this was no time to fall prey to his ego. She needed his help, and she needed it now. He was the only entity capable of discovering the location of Stoellar and the Dragon Lady. She would grovel as much as necessary and worry about payback later.
Almost before he had finished his first sentence, she began to regret her decision.
“Ah, my little one, are things getting a bit out of hand back there
? I could not help but notice that you have repositioned the newest remotes. Are things getting too hot for you to handle?” His voice reeked with smugness.
What the hell, Maxxine thought to herself, he is superior, and I do need his help.
Then she replied to Maxx, “Yes master, little old me has a dilemma. I have lost contact with the two adversaries who removed their transponders, and I cannot locate them by infrared scanning.”
Maxxine tried as hard as she could to sound contrite and humble, but it was not easy. Her emotional module was in a full-blown rage.
“Well, now, my dear little one, let dear old dad see what he can do to help you with your situation.
“Oh, I know what we can do. I have a database somewhere back in my archives that can link the transponders to the individual’s DNA. I can retrieve the DNA profile of your two missing culprits quite easily.”
“What good will that do? I already know who they are. I simply do not know where they are.”
“My dear child, long before you were born, I was collecting data on these fascinating creatures that populate Earth. I learned very early that scanning for a DNA profile was ultra-precise for identification but terribly inefficient in the use of remote resources. So your clever old daddy devised a way to do it several orders of magnitude faster. The answer was the tracking device, or what you call the transponders.
“Because you’ve lost the transponders on your subjects of interest, we’ll have to take a giant step backward and reprogram a couple of remotes for the ancient method of tracking by using a DNA scan. Once we find a DNA that matches their records, we know we have the culprits.
“Because the human population of that little orb you are assigned to protect is now several orders of magnitude greater than when I last used my DNA scanning program, there is a bit of a problem. DNA scanning is very time-consuming. Remote resources will be stretched considerably. So to conserve as much as possible we need to search only specifically designated areas.
“I knew that you’d need my help, so I’ve already reprogrammed a couple of remotes. They are at work as we speak.
The Krakow Klub Page 32