by Ellen Clary
“Camels, and you started it by calling me and talking about fake agility trials.”
“No, I think it was egrets.”
“Egrets don’t spit.”
“Stop it, I’ve spent the day with Harris. Have mercy.”
Yolanda walked over, put her arm around Amy’s shoulders, and, looking over at Harris, said, “Harris, what did you do to this poor woman?”
Harris said, “Nothing. Well, nothing that she didn’t want.”
Amy leaned into Yolanda and sobbed. “He tried to teach me container check-digit calculation.”
Squeezing her shoulders tighter and leaning over to look her in the eyes, Yolanda said, “Do you want to talk about it?”
“NO. And how was your day?”
“I’m sure you can guess. After Gimli being nearly run over twice at the container switching station, I leashed our dwarf doggy friend here and we just walked around the containers together. Next time someone has to waste a couple of hours doing nothing useful, I nominate you.”
“I owe you one on that score.”
Catherine walked in and asked, “Does anyone want to talk to a reporter about our work?”
Both Amy and Yolanda leapt up. “Yes!”
Indicating both of them, she gestured at the door and both Amy and Yolanda headed out.
Steve wandered up to Harris. “Our role in this container thing should be winding down, but you’re working pretty hard on something.”
“I painted a marker on both containers that is only visible to an electronic sensor, and I’m writing a program to help the computer scan for occurrences of that image in hopes that we can track it through the traffic cameras.”
“Want me to entertain Boomer for a bit?”
“He would love that. Boomer, go with Steve.”
“Pearl, Boomer, let’s go.”
Both dogs leapt up and charged out the door.
Left in the office to some peace, Harris took a sip of tea and thought about what he needed to do.
He diagrammed the structure of the program, part of which he stole from previous code. He hadn’t done a lot of image-recognition programs, but enough to be able to get some progress. He had written a test case to see if he could get the system to recognize the green pattern of the marking he’d created.
Looking out the window, he watched Steve throw balls and toys for Boomer and Pearl. Pearl the obsessed retriever always seemed to get the ball, but Steve threw something right after the ball that Boomer would then snag.
Looking back at the screen, he ran the program on his test image, which worked. Then he tried it on some traffic data; that didn’t work. His image was too large and it was getting confused by the garish green of a software company’s new logo that was showing up on some trucks.
Harris made his reference image smaller and included some of the surrounding maroon of the container’s base color. That seemed to work better, though he was still getting the occasional false positive; he decided he could live with that. After some testing, he decided that it would work well enough for his purposes tomorrow. He headed out with Boomer.
THE NEXT morning, Harris appeared dressed in a Chandra the Demon Hunter T-shirt with a couple of Danishes and a large “mega-caffeinated” Buzz drink. Steve looked up and said, “Looks like you’re ready to roll.”
“And I have the pizza place on speed dial,” he replied.
Steve made that “Va-room” engine revving sound that everyone still seemed to understand, even though engines that made that sound were usually only seen at vintage car shows.
Harris brought up a view of the shipping yard on his screen and things seemed to be proceeding much as you’d expect a shipping yard to work. Containers on trucks were lined up at the exit gate for a final check to make sure all the i’s were dotted. His containers weren’t quite scheduled to leave yet, so he stood up and stretched.
He asked Steve, “How is that Nadine case going?”
Looking over at Pearl the lab, Steve said, “We found the kid, but people are arguing over where she should end up.”
“I hate it when that happens.”
“Yeah, it kind of takes the joy out of it. I wish I could fix it all for her. She’s only four years old.”
Harris sat back down; he saw his marked containers in line ready to go. “Show time,” he said.
“Good hunting,” Steve said.
Taking a drink, Harris watched his containers preparing to leave. They were both attached to one truck. He hoped this would make tracking them easier. He raised his drink in salute as the truck pulled out of the yard and turned north.
He tracked the containers through the highway cams, changing which ones he was looking for depending on the last one he saw. He had written a program to update the onscreen map each time it saw one, and if it didn’t see it within a certain amount of time on the next cam, it would beep and start scanning other possible cams. The truck moved steadily north and slightly east. He realized that they could have easily come this far using the robo-truck routes, and decided to call Beth to let her know about this circuitous alternate route. Beth considered putting the truck under surveillance, but decided that would be too hard over such distances with a lot of agencies to coordinate with. After some hours, the truck headed onto secondary highways. It began wandering through the rolling foothills, and Harris was concerned that he might run out of cams.
The truck crossed into Choran on Highway 2217, moving past the foothills into a much flatter landscape. Harris called Beth again. “It’s crossing into Choran and I’m running out of ways to track them. I was going to have the Route Patrol folks follow them, but they’re still on the road.”
“Choran? What is it doing way up there, and why did they do this via a road truck? Are the container numbers the same?”
“Yes, as far as I can tell.”
“I’ll call their Route Patrol and see if I can get a couple of unmarked tag vehicles, but traffic is lighter up there and a tag might get spotted. I don’t really want to get the Feds involved yet, as they tend to take over, but they are the experts at this.”
Harris said, “Hang on a minute. You know, we have an office in Orson—a town in Choran. Would you like me to contact them?”
“Sure, a local angle often helps. Just no lights and sirens.”
Harris hung up and contacted the Choran office.
“Hi, Markus, this is Harris in Evergreen.”
Markus answered, “Hey there, what new and exciting things are happening? They’re sure not happening here.”
“Well then, I have some good news for you.”
“You’re doing a TV show about our exciting lives? Why thank you.”
“There’s a container truck headed for you and I’m running out of traffic cams to keep an eye on it.”
“Not a TV truck?” Disappointment colored his voice.
“Sorry, this is a lab-in-a-box truck.”
“A what? Really? What kind of a lab?”
“That’s what we’re concerned about. If you could find a way to track it without giving us away, I’d really appreciate it.”
“In person? We’re on it. It will get me out of the building. Where is it?”
“It’s on 2217 North. I’m sending you photos, the container IDs, and the most recent location I’ve seen it. I’ll keep updating you until I run out.”
“We’ll head out and put a stake out by the next cam and see if we can coordinate.”
“Thanks, Markus, I appreciate it.”
“Thanks for the distraction.”
“Hope it’s not too boring. I can get you fairly close, so you’re not sitting around too much.”
“Don’t worry. Really.” He rang off.
HARRIS TOOK a break to stretch and move around, giving them time to get over to the location.
Steve looked up. “And how goes the quest?”
“Would you believe they drove the containers all the way to Choran using a road truck?”
Steve frowned
. “That’s weird, and indirect.”
Harris said, “I think it’s another smoke screen.”
Markus called in. “2217 is a funny road, I’m just verifying that I’m where I need to be.”
“You’re close, but keep heading north.”
After some more back and forth, Markus told him, “We have your quarry in sight.”
Harris said, “Oh, thank you so much. Let me know what you want on your pizza.”
“Oh, I will, but let me follow them for a bit,” Markus said.
About an hour later, Markus called. “Well, this is getting more curious.”
“Mmm?” Harris said inquiringly.
“They pulled off at a truck stop and then pulled into an unmarked warehouse building.”
Harris checked the map and the address information. It was just an average truck stop where you could get a meal, a bed, a movie, a restroom, and probably various social connections of varying intimacy. No mention of a warehousing business. He looked at the photos that Markus had sent. Nothing stood out. It was a basic beige metal building, the kind that your eye skips right over. The only curious thing was that its doors were closed and these types of buildings usually had open doors throughout the day. “Markus, were those doors open when the truck showed up?”
“Only when the truck arrived. The door rolled up and then appeared to swallow the truck.”
“Hang on while I contact Beth.”
Harris called Beth.
“Detective Hanscom?”
On the screen, Beth gave Harris that Do you have to be so formal? look and said, “Yes, Agent Consuelo’a. How may I help you?”
“I’ve had Markus from the Choran office tailing our containers, and they’ve pulled into an unmarked warehouse at a truck stop.”
“Any idea what’s going on in there?”
“None.”
Beth frowned. “Hmmm. I’m going to ask the Route Patrol if they know anything about it.”
“I just sent you the location information.”
“Good. Let me make a couple of calls and get right back to you.”
Beth rang off.
Markus said, “Okay, so I’ll grab a burger and watch my beige box. I’ll leave the camera on so you can watch with me.”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Harris said.
Harris brought his own handheld out and took a break to throw a ball for Boomer.
After a bit, Beth called back. “Route Patrol doesn’t know anything, but the local police are interested. They’re going to send a detective over and they promise to contact Markus first and not give us away.”
“What sort of ETA are we talking about? I already owe Markus big time.”
“About fifteen minutes.”
“Markus is calling, okay if I conference you in?”
“Sure,” Beth said.
Both of their images appeared on the screen.
“Markus, I’ve conferenced you in w—”
Markus looked alarmed. “The truck-tractor is rolling out of the warehouse, but it’s hauling a different trailer set.”
Harris almost repeated his introduction before realizing that Markus could easily see Beth, and it suddenly didn’t matter. “WHAT? Those, those—”
“Sneaky bastards,” Beth said.
“Yeah, that. It’s definitely the same truck-tractor?”
Markus said, “Most definitely, unless they switched the registration plates.”
Harris looked at Markus’s camera display. The trailers were now white. He said, “Beth tells me the local police are sending over a detective for a further look. Maybe he or she can come up with an excuse to look inside for our containers.”
“That might tip our hand.”
“Which is our concern,” Beth said.
Harris could see the truck pull out on the highway.
Markus said, “Maybe they could play the part of an inspector.”
“But there’s no record of a truck business there at all,” said Beth.
Harris watched the truck drive off. The white on the trailer shimmered oddly.
“Well, it’s not like they can hide the fact that trucks are going in and out of it in full view of a well populated truck stop,” Markus said.
“True.”
Harris saw a flash of a green on the back of one of the trailers, and nearly choked on his drink. “MARKUS, follow that truck.”
“Huh?”
“They just put a covering over the trailers—those are the containers.”
“But what about—”
Beth cut in, “Just go. The local police can cover this end, and I’ll fill them in.” The display where she had been went blank.
The world that was on Markus’s vehicle camera spun for a moment as the car tore out onto the highway. “I see ‘em, but they’re turning left on 7498. Good thing that truck is distinctive from a distance.”
Harris said, “I want to know what odd thing they’ve disguised it with. It’s white appearing, but see-through at very particular angles. I’ve seen this type of covering before. You can put it on very quickly—much faster than painting.”
They went for miles on 7498, turned on 27, and then on 984.
“Have you run out of road yet?” Harris asked.
“We will if they head into the mountains.”
“Oh gods, not an evil genius who works in the mountains.”
“That would be a little cliché, wouldn’t it?” Markus said.
“Yeah, if you’re such a genius, you could be a little more creative about it.”
The truck went right up to the mountains, skirted the edge, and then turned south again.
“What is going on?” they both asked at nearly the same time.
Markus said, “I haven’t spent this much time driving manually since I was chasing a drunk driver years ago.”
Digging the base of his palms into his eyes, Harris said, “This has to pay off. If they wind up back in that warehouse, I’m coming up there to shoot them myself.”
After what seemed like forever, the truck turned again, onto a very small road.
Markus said, “This is going to be hard to follow on. Stopping to watch for a bit. We’re back to the outskirts of town.”
Peering at the display, Harris asked, “What’s out there? Everything seems flat with the occasional set of trees or buildings.”
“Farms and the like. This is not a high-tech place at all.”
“Curious.”
“Following just a bit more, I can still see the truck. Wait, they’re turning in.” His voice was incredulous. “Oh, no way.”
“Talk to me, Markus.”
“Well, your little truckie is now at the Tomasian Farm and Retreat.”
“Where? What?”
“It’s a religious community that also creates woolen clothing that they call Tomasian Organicwear.”
“Right, sure. Are you serious? What the heck do they need a state-of-the-art lab for?”
“Well, they’re detaching the trailers. Sending photos. Maybe they’re making Super Organicwear.”
“Thanks, Markus. This is so weird,” Harris said, taking a last hit from his drink.
“I’m headed back. No anchovies on the pizza.”
“It will be waiting for you. This is going to become a Fed case. They thank you for the assist, and I’ll let our lead detective, Beth, know. And I have some research to do.”
CHAPTER 35:
Tomas’s Plan
TOMAS SAT by the fire, leaning back in his black leather overstuffed chair. He longed for a cigarette, but he had opted to quit to be an example to his followers. Trying not to miss inhaling the nicotine smoke’s reassurance, he contemplated and brooded. More than ten billion people crawled over his planet, devouring everything like locusts. The places where the darker-skinned people lived were facing starvation and were pressing outward. And yet modern science had been extending lives up to 150 years. Disaster was on the way for humanity, and while the Planet Aires terraforming was pro
gressing, there weren’t really enough people interested in living the ascetic life on the cold planet with air that you couldn’t breathe yet and sun that you would only be able to barely feel if you could have bare skin outside, which you couldn’t. The fire sparked, catching his attention. Ten billion people. The number kept ringing in his mind. It so needed to change, and soon, and permanently. He would rather the population be a hundred thousand, but one million would be okay, and ten million was more realistic. Ten million. That would be a good start-over sort of number. He decided to call it the one percent solution.
He rested his chin on his hand. The nanobot project was finally progressing. It had been so difficult to attract the right sort of smart people to help make it work. His preference was to recruit younger, more moldable people to his religious order and then train them. However, nanotech required a very high level of expertise, and most of the nano-experts weren’t who he was looking for. He wanted to start the human race over, and he wanted to be very picky about who got to come along. But in order to start over, he needed the technical expertise, and he wasn’t sure he had the luxury to wait around for the expertise to show up in the right package.
He took a sip of his Chardonnay and readjusted in the chair, stroking his chin. Previous attempts at reducing the size of humanity were born of barbarous, genocidal, racial hatred. While Tomas thought of himself as a New Christusian prophet, he was also a realist. While the Ohads were generally hated for their participation in the murder of Christus, the Ohads who had survived had proved to be some of the toughest, smartest people around and the inclusion of some of them in his New Earth was essentially a given.
His preference was for the lighter-skinned people, as he found darker skin distasteful, though again he was likely going to have to compromise on this. It mostly depended on what DNA types he could get the nanobots to distinguish. There just wasn’t a simple “look for the smart, fair skinned” criteria in DNA sequencing.
But Tomas was facing a much larger problem. No matter what method he chose for reducing the population, 9.99 billion was a very, very, very large number. Even if he was able to extract the information about the airborne method of nanobot distribution, which was still being researched, and even if it worked perfectly, which he knew there was no way it could, it would take years for nanobots to spread to all the Earth. Right now, with waterborne distribution, he would have to dope every water supply, and even with worldwide water treatment available, there were still many cultures that maintained a suspicion of public water and wouldn’t drink it. And to find every major water source would take years.
