"How was that for navigation?" Kevin said. "Right down at your feet. Let's see you match that."
"Huh. Doesn't look too difficult."
"Wait till you try it."
"A good slingshotter is what it takes—to send you up right in the first place."
Kevin and Avril reached the area by the water where the trees opened out, in front of the boat dock. Corfe had already repacked the chute and was securing it to the mec with a new rubber band.
Ray shook his head in amazement. "Well, I don't know. If that ain't the darnedest thing I've seen in years. And did it seem like you were really there inside that thing?" he asked Avril.
"It was unbelievable," she told him. "It's just like you are it. And that was only receiving the visual. I can't wait to try driving one."
"One thing at a time," Kevin said.
"Gotta have a try at this myself," Ray said.
"You will," Corfe promised him. A beep sounded in his shirt pocket. He fished out his phone. "Yuh? . . . We are, just about." He looked over at Kevin. "They're ready up at the house. Do you want to shoot it this time?"
"Sure." Kevin took the compressed pack of mec and chute, and held it up in front of his face.
"Taki and Janna are coupled through," Corfe announced, looking away from the phone.
Kevin leered at the mec. "Aha, I've got you in my clutches now, Taki. About that two dollars you still owe me, eh?" He tossed the mec up in the air, spinning it deliberately, and caught it again. A squeal that could only be Janna's floated down from an open window in the house.
"Here." Ray held out the slingshot. Kevin took it, placed the mec in the sling, and aimed high.
"Get set, guys," Corfe said into the phone. "Hold onto your hats. Three. . . . Two. . . . One. . . . Fire!"
It might have been some perspiration on the grip that caused it to twist in Kevin's hand; or maybe his concentration just slipped a little. . . . But he could feel the slingshot slew to the side as he let go. Sunlight glinted off metal climbing high above the trees—but it was wide of where he had meant it to go. The wait was excruciating. . . . Finally the puff of white blossomed high above and began drifting serenely back to earth. Once again, it had opened perfectly—but this time out over the water.
"Dang, I don't reckon he's gonna be able to do much about it," Ray muttered. "The wind's the wrong way."
"Taki doesn't sound too appreciative, Kev," Corfe said, looking up from the phone.
They watched helplessly as the chute descended. Then it caught on the end of a pine branch hanging out over the water. And there, it hung.
"Decidedly niftless," Kevin opined glumly.
Eric, Taki, and Janna came down from the house a few minutes later to survey the situation.
Taki talked about climbing the tree, but it was obvious that the branch would never support him all the way out to its extremity. Kevin wondered what there was that they could maybe lash together to make a long enough pole. Corfe suggested that they take the boys' boat out underneath the branch, where they could use a shorter pole. And then Eric had one of his brainwaves. "We don't need to mess around making poles at all," he said. "Taki might not be able to climb out to it. But Ironside could."
Corfe, Kevin, and Taki looked at each other. "Of course," Kevin said.
"It just might work, at that," Corfe agreed.
"I still get to do the climbing," Taki told them, getting his claim in right away.
"Who the hell is Ironside?" Ray asked everybody.
Eric answered. "One of the early Neurodyne prototypes. More of a DNC test-bed—before we started miniaturizing them. It would be big enough to carry the other mec that's stuck up there and bring it down."
Corfe, standing fists on hips, squinting against the sun, looked up at the tree limb again, then down at the water below. "You know, it mightn't be a bad idea to have the boat underneath, anyway," he said to Eric. "That branch is going to sag more. If Ironside comes adrift from it, we'd stand to lose both of them."
"Good thinking, Doug. Let's do that," Eric agreed.
Eric went back up to the house to find Ironside and bring him down to the tree; Taki went with him to direct it from the lab. The girls went too, no doubt in the hope of getting another ride. So much for feminine loyalty and attachment, Kevin thought to himself. He stayed to take the boat out with Doug and Ray.
Corfe untied from the dock, and Ray took the oars to row them the short distance along the water's edge. Kevin began unfolding a tarp to provide a soft landing if needed.
"Did I hear you say this is the boys' boat?" Ray asked Corfe as he pulled.
"That's right. Eric picked it up a while ago, somewhere along the Sound. We only fitted the outboard last week. It runs just fine."
"So I'll be running into you out on the water, then, eh?" Ray said to Kevin.
"Not for a while yet, I'd say," Kevin answered.
"Hah! More interested in those sleek young hulls up in the house there. I was watchin'. Can't say I blame you much, either." Kevin just grinned. Eric came back out of the house, carrying Ironside and accompanied by Janna—Avril had evidently won the battle for riding with Taki. They started on their way back down to the water.
"A few feet more," Corfe told Ray, looking up at the tree. "That's it. . . . Right about here."
Ray gauged the distance to the shore and rested easy, dipping a blade occasionally to hold them steady. Kevin spread out the tarp and bundled it into a cushion.
"Do you remember the guy, used to run a sloop up at that yard we worked at?" Ray said to Corfe. "Had a funny, foreign-sounding name. Ellipse? Epileptic? . . . Something like that."
Corfe thought for a moment. "Mike Ellipulos."
"Yeah, that's him. Had a big black mustache."
"I think his name was really Michaelis or something," Corfe said. "Greek, wasn't he?"
"I thought it was Cypriot."
"Somewhere around that part of the world, anyhow."
"What happened to him? I still see his face from time to time—you know, places here and there, so I know he's still around. But he disappeared from the old circuit."
Eric and Janna drew up at the base of the tree opposite. "Okay, Avril's riding shotgun again," Eric called across the few yards of water separating them. "Taki should be on line now."
Corfe used the phone to check. "Yes, they're waiting," he confirmed. Eric placed Ironside as high as he could reach, in a secure-looking niche on the trunk. The mec was roughly Coke-bottle size, with an inverted conical head, and a pinch-waisted body that swiveled along the center joint. It gripped the bark and began ascending in short, smooth movements, apparently with little effort. Corfe said something into the phone. "Taki says it's a piece of cake," he told the others.
"Is that your boat, Kevin?" Janna called across.
"Right. We'll take you and Avril out in it later if you like."
"Great."
They watched the mec progress higher up the trunk, then slow as it searched for a route out from under the projecting limb. Corfe looked back at Ray. "It's funny you should ask about Mike. What made you think of him?"
"Hell, I dunno. Talking to you again, I guess. Why's it funny?"
"He ended up at the same place I did."
"You're kidding!"
"Well, not exactly at the same place. But working for the same people. He took the skipper's job on the boat that belongs to the president of the company that Kevin's dad and I used to be with—a guy called Martin Payne."
"Well, you don't say! What outfit was that?"
"Over toward Redmond—it's called Microbotics Inc."
Above them, Ironside had made it to the top of the limb and was starting to crawl outward. "Here he comes now," Kevin said.
"Okay, I've got him." Ray checked to the shore and looked up over his shoulder. "So what kind of a tub is Epileptic running?" he asked Corfe.
"Oh . . ." Corfe shook his head. "Some tub. I worked on it a couple of times when Mike needed help with the electronics. Payne's
a multimillionaire already, not yet turned forty. It's a Delta Marine hundred-thirty footer." Ray whistled. "Twin twelve-hundred-horse diesels, satellite communications, computerized nav and weather system. The works, Ray."
Above, the branch began to dip under the weight as Ironside came nearer to the entangled chute. The mec was head down now, spreading and clutching the fronds like a wary squirrel in descent mode. "Oh, I can't watch!" Janna cried, covering her eyes, then peeking.
"Go for it, Taki," Corfe said into the phone. "We're right here underneath you." He listened to a response, then finished what he was saying to Ray before the action overhead absorbed everyone's attention. "You might have seen it about. Payne throws big parties and likes to impress his friends with days out along the coast. It's called the Princess Dolores."
For a moment Kevin just sat open-mouthed.
Ironside got to the chute and released it without falling off. But by then it was easier for it to just drop down into the boat rather than have to climb all the way back to the ground.
Kevin wedged Ironside in a space under one of the seats and put the smaller mec in his shirt pocket. But he was so taken aback by what he had heard that he left Ironside there when they tied up at the dock and all went back up to the house.
Later, he, Taki, and Corfe did take the girls out in the boat as promised. And when they came back from their jaunt across the inlet, he forgot all about Ironside once again.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next day, Monday, during the midmorning break at school, Kevin called Michelle's office in Seattle from a pay phone in the entrance hall outside the general office.
"Good morning, this is Prettis and Lang law offices. How may I help?"
"Oh, hi. I'd like to talk to Michelle Lang, please. Is she available right now?"
"I'll have to check. Can I say who's calling?"
"This is Kevin Heber."
"One moment."
"Thanks."
A grotesque face, eyes distended and fingers stretching the sides of its mouth, appeared in Kevin's field of view, groaning and grimacing. Behind and to one side, another of the class morons was waving and poking a tongue in an effort to distract Kevin's attention. Kevin ignored them and turned the other way. He felt hesitant about getting involved in these adult-world complications. However, if Vanessa was on those kinds of terms with the president of the company that Neurodyne's success threatened the most, Michelle needed to know. Or perhaps Neurodyne's own legal representative would be the better person to take it to, but Kevin wasn't even sure who that was. He didn't want to go through Eric because of the personal aspect of the situation. Garsten was the family lawyer, but not somebody that Kevin knew very well or normally dealt with. At least he felt he could approach Michelle. The attorneys could sort out between them who needed to do what or talk to whom.
"Hello, Mr. Heber?"
"Yes."
"Putting you through to Ms. Lang now."
Michelle's voice came on the line. "Kevin?"
"Oh, er . . . hi. I hope you don't mind me calling you at your office like this."
"That's okay if it's important. But if it weren't I guess you wouldn't be calling. So what's up?"
Kevin had rehearsed in his head what he was going to say; now he found he couldn't find two words to string together coherently. The clamor in the background didn't help. The best he could manage was, "This is kind of difficult, knowing where to start. . . ."
"That's okay. Relax and take your time."
He collected his thoughts and tried again. "It's to do with this thing that seems to be going on—all these stories and stuff about DNC."
"What about it?"
Kevin ran the fingers of his free hand through his hair. "Doug thinks that some of the people at Microbotics might be behind it—or at least, mixed up in it somehow, right?"
"Doug does, but be careful," Michelle cautioned. "We don't have enough at this stage to start throwing accusations around."
"But suppose it was true. Wouldn't we be suspicious of any of our people that we found were involved with them—really closely, know what I mean?"
"What do you mean by 'our people,' Kevin?"
"Oh, say, somebody from Neurodyne, maybe really high up in the company. Or very close to my dad. . . . Maybe both."
There was a short silence. Three girls were standing a short distance away, giving him dirty looks. One of them held up a quarter and jabbed a finger at her watch, telling him that they wanted to use the phone before classes restarted. Then Michelle's voice said, "Are we talking about Vanessa?"
Kevin nodded, looking away from the girls. "Yes," he said, getting the word out with difficulty.
"But Kevin, she did work at Microbotics for a long time. I'm sure she still knows people there. That doesn't really say a lot."
"This is different. We're talking about the president—I think his name is Martin Payne. And it isn't just to do with DNC and technology and that kind of thing. It gets more . . . kinda personal, you know. I wasn't sure what to do." He didn't want to get into a protracted question-and-answer session just then. Before Michelle could interrogate him further, he went on, "Don't ask me how right now, because it would take longer than I've got. But I can show you it all on tape." The video input to the monitor on which Taki had followed the events aboard Payne's yacht had also been recorded automatically. Kevin shrugged. "Or maybe getting involved in that side of it wouldn't be your business. I don't know."
"Hey, Heber, tell your life story some other time," one of the girls called over. "We need to find out what's on at the movies."
"Where are you calling from?" Michelle's voice asked.
"I'm at the school. We're on break, but I have to go real soon."
"Leave it with me for a while. I have to think about this and look into a few things. Have you told Doug Corfe or anyone else?"
"No."
"So nobody else knows right now except you?"
"Only Taki. He was with me when the tape got made. It's a transmission from a mec that ended up in the wrong place. I only found out yesterday who the guy on it is."
"Where is this tape at the moment?" Michelle asked.
"At the house. I've got it in my room. It'll be okay there."
"Will you be there this evening?"
"Either there or at Taki's."
"Leave it with me. I'm not sure at this point what would be the best way to play this. But I'll get back to you, either by this evening somehow, or tomorrow."
Michelle was hired to look after the business affairs of Theme Worlds Inc., not to go getting involved in the personal lives of Mr. and Mrs. Heber. Although the situation contained what could have been considered simply an unavoidable element of overlap, she knew from experience how easily this kind of terrain could turn into quicksand for the unwary. She decided that she needed to consult with Ohira. It turned out that he had left that morning on an overnight business trip to Los Angeles. Michelle's secretary managed to raise him on his personal phone, in the departure lounge at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
"If it were just a case of her involvement in an operation to discredit the technology, it would be straightforward," Michelle said when she had outlined what she had learned from Kevin. "But this other side to it makes it messy. I didn't want to start figuring out an angle till I'd talked to you."
There was no pause for deliberating. One of the qualities that made Ohira a good businessman was a knack for cutting straight through to the essentials. "Why should she want to sabotage her own company?" he said. "Selling Neurodyne's secrets for money? That makes no sense. She's got money already."
"Then it has to be for the guy," Michelle answered. "See my problem now? This is starting to turn into a seven-figure divorce case already. That's getting away from what you pay me to do. I'm going to need your thoughts on it."
"If DNC dies, then we don't have any deal, anyway," Ohira said. "This woman could do it more damage than anybody. How can you find out what she's capable of if we
don't follow up on the information we've got?"
"If it's getting this personal, I thought maybe you might want us to approach it through Garsten," Michelle said. "He is the family lawyer, after all."
"You've already talked to Garsten. He says he doesn't know anything. . . ." Ohira's voice trailed away while a distant loudspeaker announcement echoed tinnily in the background.
"Not about whatever Jack might have known, no—" Michelle agreed. She realized that Ohira had been thinking aloud more than inviting comment, dropped what she had been about to add, and waited.
"This man Garsten sounds very strange to me," Ohira said finally. "For years he worked with Mrs. Heber's previous husband as a business partner. And she brought Garsten in as her family's lawyer, yes?"
"So Doug Corfe says."
"So she and Garsten are good friends, presumably. But he tells you that he knows nothing about what this man Jack Anastole knew, who was his partner and her husband? That seems a very unlikely situation to me, Michelle. Not believable at all. I don't think I trust him, this Mr. Garsten."
Michelle was not inclined to argue. She'd had a feeling of something not being right ever since her conversation with Garsten, but it had refused to take on concrete form. Now Ohira had crystallized it for her. "What do you want me to do?" she asked.
This time there was a pause. Michelle knew how Ohira worked. He had already made his mind up what he wanted to do. She could sense him searching for an angle.
"Taki's best friend, Kevin, is also affected by this. I'm really an uncle to both of them. So we have to look after the family, eh? So what I want you to do is, follow up on this Mrs. Heber wherever it leads, and keep information to yourself. If you get into any kind of trouble, then as long as everything's legal, you'll be okay. I'll say you were working for me."
It was what Michelle had wanted: a clear directive and indication that they agreed. She nodded into the phone. "Okay, I guess that's it from me. Is there anything else?"
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